Chapter 151 – Karl, The Last Vampire

Before Jack and the remainder of his team left the city entirely to find Nutt, they made a quick pit stop. For the most part, Sector Six had turned back into the rundown shithole, if not slightly worse than he had remembered it. The danger level had been at two when he first arrived in the city, now it had finally dropped back down all the way to one, and the surroundings reflected that.

The surrounding infrastructure was little more than dilapidated wooden shacks stacked haphazardly on top of each other with tattered tarps draped across them serving as roofing or makeshift walls. The cobblestone roads had returned to being little more than a dirt path with the occasional smattering of rocks. The zombies that surrounded the streets and milled about the buildings were slow, lethargic, and borderline docile unless he got directly in their face.

Jack had wanted to make a pit stop. Turtles were good at defense, after all, and he wanted to see if any of the tortugas had managed to survive. He felt somewhat responsible for them all.

“Should we kill him?” Devin asked, staring at a particularly large zombified tortuga.

They had returned to the graveyard, which served as one of the spawn points for the zombies and the field boss. All they found were hundreds of tortuga zombies. Kain had been turned into the new council member for the sector. Jack ground his teeth together as he watched the slow, plodding zombie mill about. It felt like the Tower had chosen Kain on purpose.

“No. Not yet.”

Jack wanted to put the turtle out of his misery, but he couldn’t deal with taking over a sector at this very moment. “Let’s go.”

Jack, Devin, and Gaiju found the nearest gate and left the city.

Things were so much worse on the outside.

Devin gasped. “What the hell happened?” Hundreds of corpses littered the ground outside of the gate. Not only that, but they had an odd appearance about them. There weren’t any obvious signs of death outside of a ripped off limb here and there. They all looked like raisins.

“Not a drop of blood,” Gaiju said, prodding at a very dead elf.

They got their answer soon enough. On the outskirts of the city, just outside the edge of battle, was a pile of corpses. A very pale elf sat atop them, lounging on the dead bodies as though it was a throne. The elf had a regal air to him. He was wrapped in a silk robe of deep crimson and was adorned from head to toe in jewelry. A golden scepter with a sun for its head sat across his lap. Next to him was a very tiny, violently shaking goblin. His eyes went wide as Jack approached, but he didn’t move. Instead, he turned to the elf and whispered something to him. The elf cocked an eyebrow in response, not budging from his relaxed, seated position.

What did you get me involved with now? Jack thought, leveling accusing eyes at Nutt.

If the elf was the one who managed to do this, Jack really wasn’t sure it was a fight he wanted to deal with at this very moment.

“Prepare our guest some drinks, little goblin.” The elf snapped his fingers, and Nutt hurriedly produced several cups, slitting the wrist of one of the corpses and filling them with blood.

“We’ll pass,” Devin said with a disgusted look at the cups.

“Hi,” Jack said with an unsure smile to the elf. “I seem to have lost my goblin, and you seem to have found him. Mind if I take him off your hands?”

“So you really are his master,” the elf mused.

Jack shrugged. “I like to think of myself as being a little more progressive than having master-slave relationships. He’s more like my idiot mascot.”

“More like second in command,” Nutt grumbled, earning him an amused snort from Gaiju.

“Well, as soon as he finishes with my drink, you can have him back,” the elf said. “In the meantime, take a seat, join me. You and I need to have a conversation.”

Jack took another look around at all the dead bodies. “I think I’ll stand, if it’s alright with you. What do you want?”

“Suit yourself.” The elf shrugged. “First, introductions. I am Karlisle Lingerlight, proud sun elf.” He gave a decidedly nod of his head, not bothering to even stand up.

“You mean summer elf?” Jack corrected.

“No. I do not,” he said, his tone slightly offended.

“Alright, Karl—”

“It’s Karlisle,” he interrupted.

“That’s what I said,” Jack mocked. “How can I help you?”

Karlisle’s eye twitched slightly, and Nutt gave the elf several panicked looks as he quickly finished filling up the cup with blood from the corpse and handed it to him. He drained the cup in one large gulp.

“Another,” he said, handing it back to Nutt, his pale lips tinged red.

“I’ll get straight to the point. A debt is owed. Your soldiers woke me from my slumber and failed to put me back to sleep. To further explain, I am a vampire. I was sleeping peacefully in my tomb when several tortugas rudely awoke me without following proper instructions.”

“Hold on.” Jack held up a staying hand. “Vampire? Like one of Mortimaxx’s annoying-ass arbiter vampires?”

The elf’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Little Morty is still alive? Oh, how’d I’d love to catch up with him! And to answer your question, no. I am not in service of Mortimaxx. I am a progenitor from the first. One of Lord Drakul’s very own thralls.”

Jack glanced at Devin, then Gaiju, but neither of them seemed to have any idea as to why any of this was their problem.

“Okay. So, you’re a vampire elf. The turtles woke you up or something. How does this translate to me owing you a debt?”

“Like I said, they failed to put me back to sleep. Now the responsibility falls to you. Alternatively, you could kill me.” He shrugged as though he would be fine with either option.

Jack squinted at the pile of corpses the elf was sitting upon. “What happened to the tortugas who woke you up? Where are they?”

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Last Jack had remembered, the tortugas weren’t supposed to be out and about in the desert, so he was having trouble accepting that they were part of his group. At the same time, though, he had a hard time believing there was another group of tortugas unrelated to him. Also they were all dead now, so it really didn’t seem like his problem anymore.

“Ah, about that. You see, I’ve come to learn that I have been asleep for a very long time. So long that I’m still not sure even I believe it. I was hungrier than I expected, and the journey back to civilization was taking so long. I apologize for any offense, but I had to consume them. I could hold off no longer.” This time, he gave an actual bow, looking embarrassed.

“Doesn’t look like you stopped there,” Devin accused, gesturing to the hundreds of dead bodies outside the city.

“Yes, I am ashamed. Unfortunately, the tortugas were both very tasteless and unfulfilling. However, they did an excellent job of rousing my long dormant hunger. When I reached the city proper, people were stumbling out of the gates by the dozens, desperate to escape from whatever catastrophes were happening inside. Danger level six, very scary stuff that. The fear and adrenaline in the air was all too much for me to resist, and I regrettably… lost control,” he finished with a shiver of delight.

“So, some people tangentially related to me wake you up from your slumber, and you kill them. How about we just call it even and go about our separate ways?”

“Sadly no, the weight of their mistake vastly outweighs the price of their heads.”

Jack was getting a little annoyed now. This elf seemed insistent on holding him liable for this, which felt forced.

“Why? Why are you insisting I help you with this?”

Karlisle stood up, his slender figure imposing. The air filled with the smell of iron and rot. His eyes bled with red tears.

“I am Karlisle Lingerlight. Prince of the solar elves. Son of the brightest star. The warm glow that lingers against your cheeks and burns at your skin belongs to me. If I say a debt is owed, then a debt is owed. Do not think I will allow you to simply abscond from your honor. If you refuse me, death does not await you. Lest you forget, I am of vampire and have alternative ways to make you serve,” he finished, flashing his teeth and licking at his fangs.

Jack couldn’t roll his eyes hard enough. That explained things. Royalty. Fucking assholes, all of them.

“But,” Karlisle continued, “I have no desire to force you into servitude, nor kill you. I even offer assistance in your quest to help me find peace. My knowledge is vast, and my pockets run deep.”

“Wait. You’re going to pay me to help pay you back?” Jack squinted at the elf, confused.

“My desires are very specific. Put me back to sleep. Cure me. Or kill me. Those are the things I want. If I can help you achieve any of the three, I will help however I can.”

“Kill you? That’s one of the options?” Devin asked. Jack looked over at him. At some point during the conversation, he had drawn his sword. As Gaiju had her axe.

“If you can manage.” The elf shrugged. “I should warn you, that is quite the difficult task. My vampirism is ranked at Legendary. I am one of Drakul’s thralls, after all.”

“Why would you want to die? In fact, if you want to die, why not just off yourself?” Jack asked.

“I don’t particularly enjoy being a vampire.” Karlisle’s head tilted, his tone going somber. “As for why I haven’t taken my own life, I can’t, really. Think of vampirism as a possession of sorts. No, there isn’t really another person in me, but the vampire inside does take control, in some sense. If you attack me, or if I attack myself, even, then my defense mechanism will kick in and take control.”

“Why don’t you enjoy being a vampire? How’d you even become a vampire?”

“A cruel joke, really. I’m sure you can see the twisted humor in a solar elf becoming a vampire.”

“So, sunlight actually hurts you?”

“Very much so, yes. But that isn’t even the butt of the joke. Ask me what my mana core is.”

“What’s your mana core?” Jack asked.

“Sunlight mana.” Karlisle sighed. “One pull of mana from my core, and it burns me from the inside out. Very painful. It’s doubly ironic, because I was once a very capable healer.” Karlisle turned to Nutt, an impatient look on his face. “You, goblin, hurry with my drink,” he snapped.

Jack squinted at Nutt, who poured a vial of clear liquid into the blood-red drink before handing it off to the elf. Karlisle took it but held it lazily, not yet taking a drink.

Jack glanced at the pile of corpses, then he thought back to all the dead bodies outside of the city gate. If Karlisle managed to do all that without access to mana, then Jack might actually have something to learn from the vampire.

“So, let’s say we try to kill you. Can we just drag you out into the sun and let you burn?”

“It would be incredibly painful, but not lethal. Technically, it would weaken me, but again, my vampiric defense mechanisms would kick in, and being burned alive sends the vampire into sort of a berserker frenzy. I become weakened but simultaneously more deadly.”

“What are my other options?”

“Stake to the heart. And before you ask, no, it can’t be any simple wood. The stake must be hand-carved from a tree at least a thousand years old. The stake also can’t be enchanted with any additional magics. No plus-one stake of piercing for you. You must then use the unenchanted piece of wood to pierce my heart, which is by no means static inside of my body. All of that is provided you can make it past the vampiric defense. If I see you walking towards me with a stake, all bets are off.”

“I’m starting to think vampires are a little overpowered,” Jack mused.

“These are more so specific rules for me because I was turned by the father of all vampires. Your average vampire is gutter trash who would die in the evening afterglow of the sun.”

“Alright. So we’ll table killing for you now. Curing you? How’s that work?”

“No clue. Lord Drakul could revert the changes, but he is very much dead.”

“I thought vampires died when the one who turned them died?” Devin asked.

“Clever vampire propaganda. Not actually true.”

“So, no leads, then.”

“Well, I was paying Andurian a considerable amount of money to develop a cure. That’s why I was in hibernation, actually. He promised it would be possible; it would just take time.”

Jack’s ears started burning. “You’ve met Andurian?”

“Of course. Brilliant man. I’ll admit, I was shocked to discover how much time had passed, but even more shocked to learn that Andurian hadn’t conquered the Tower. If there existed a person who could solve any problem, it was him.”

“So you know he’s dead.”

“Doubtful,” Karlisle scoffed. Then he took a sip from his cup and gave a slight cough before continuing. “I was actually going to investigate his laboratory. See if any clues still existed as to where he might be.” He took another sip from his drink, coughing more violently, which caused him to take more sips. Soon he was on his hands and knees, grasping at his throat, violently puking up gallons of black blood.

“Nutt, what the fuck did you put in his drink?”

“Holy water. Among other things,” he said menacingly.

“You really need to pick your moment,” Jack said, walking up to the vampire. He grabbed the heaving vampire by his shirt collar and shook him. “Where the hell is this laboratory?”

Karlisle didn’t respond. His eyes had gone blood-red once more, and he hissed in between his coughing fits.

God damn it. Jack groaned. He cut his palm and shoved it into the vampire’s mouth. Faster than Jack thought possible, his arm turned into a prune. Jack tried to pull his arm away, but the vampire refused to let go as it drained more and more blood from his body.

“Let go, you asshole.” Jack clocked Karlisle as hard as he could on the side of the head, breaking his jaw and knocking him off Jack’s arm. He looked at his withered arm with some disgust. It looked like one of those worms that got cooked on the sidewalk, and he couldn’t really feel anything when he tried to wiggle his fingers.

“Nutt, if a healing potion doesn’t fix this, I’m cutting off both your arms,” Jack complained, wrestling the elf into a sitting position with his one good arm.

Karlisle glanced at Nutt. “That was halfway clever,” he coughed, an almost approving nod towards the goblin as he worked his jaw.

“You said Andurian has a lab,” Jack asked more urgently.

Karlisle simply pointed upwards. Jack traced where his finger was pointing… at the giant cracked moon that loomed over the city.