Moving Forward
Jiyun’s thoughts that the group was slowing me down were true. And my reasoning for staying was true too, there was safety in numbers. And yet, there was a different reason as to why I wouldn’t leave them: Obligation and Debts. The sacrifice I had chosen to give, to promise, to the Way, the world itself, for my school of being. The Heart of Azure and Scarlet was my guiding star now, and I had an obligation to my team.
They alone had remained with me when we first arrived in this challenge, when many others had turned away. They had put their trust in a vampire, a dangerous thing, without knowing me before.
That deserved a consideration on my part. But there were still things that we could do to improve and get more out of this challenge.
The conversation about what we were going to do went better than I had expected. It seemed that I have underestimated my new friends. In my defense, I’ve often been disappointed by others, and trust did not come easily to me.
“Then it’s decided,” Khalil Abd al-Nur, my old friend from another life, from back before I was turned, spoke. It still surprised me to see just how much he had changed from the cheerful and pious man I had met at university. Though, perhaps, I simply didn’t know him that well back then. It was hard to tell, we both had kept secrets from one another. He was a Knight Priest of the Order of the Dragon, a member of one of the oldest and most powerful organizations in the world, the Knights of Constantinople, vampire hunters. It was his job to hunt my kind, which made our relationship complicated.
We were close once, friends definitely, perhaps would’ve been something more, but life had separated us. I was recalled to the cartel, and then turned. We had no contact between us for years until the world ended. Now, here we were, on a halo that served as a battleground for a challenge issued by an intelligent spell with the power of a god. Life was crazier than fiction it seemed.
“Good,” I added, looking over the rest of the group. The Korean twins, Kim Jiyun and Daehyun sat next to Khalil—the two had proven to be capable fighters and good friends, or at least something close to that. Aurora was snuggling up to Saia on the other side of them, with my now much larger cute-dragon-nightmare-nano-goo-murder-machine, with Saia attempting to extradite herself from Aurora’s embrace.
“I’ll take up first watch, and Saia and I’ll leave to search for trials once Daehyun takes over,” I said as I turned back to Khalil.
He nodded. “I don’t need to tell you to be careful, but please, try not to get pulled into any dangerous situations. If you encounter others, it would be best to avoid them altogether.”
I inclined my head in agreement. I had no desire to fight other challengers. My name was near the top of the points list, displayed to everyone up above us, which gave me a sinking feeling that some might try and force the issue. Greed was a powerful emotion, and everyone here wanted power. I hoped that the fact that I was a vampire and probably one of the most powerful challengers in here would deter them, but I had lost faith in the intelligence of other people the moment I saw them separate and decided to work for themselves instead of together.
Khalil held my eyes for a long moment, then seemingly satisfied that I would listen to his words he turned and started getting ready for sleep, the others following along.
I didn’t know what the two of us were now. The last few weeks spent fighting and surviving together had done a lot to bridge the chasm that the years had carved in between us. Though, there were still things that stood in the middle, more secrets. I was a vampire, he was a vampire hunter, if that was all, we might’ve been able to get over it. Except, every time I looked at him, I was reminded of my sire’s words and revelation. The Knights of Constantinople had attacked and sunk a ship carrying one of the original vampires, my… grandsire? grandmother? It was so strange to think of the fact that I was only one removed from one of the originators of the vampire race…
The attack by the Knights had inadvertently caused the sinking of Japan, the death of millions. How did I even start that conversation? “Hey Khalil, so, it turns out that I’m actually third generation vampire, and my sire’s sire is one of the three original vampires.”
I couldn’t even imagine having that talk, nor, I had to admit could I even consider it. Since then, every time I talked with him, I felt this thing between us, secrets. And he had noticed, though neither one of us was drawing any attention to it.
It was even more difficult to explain when my eyes were now completely emerald, the mark of the Elder Vampire. I had led them to believe that it was a side-effect of my Mask’s growth. I had reached the Second Investment at the same time my eyes had changed; it was a plausible explanation. Now I knew that my growth would be far faster than what everyone knew about vampires.
My growth was linked to my heritage, and the quality of blood I consumed. And I was almost completely certain that the amount of Investment a being had made the blood richer. I didn’t know if my sire had made that link yet, but I had spent a month on Ish Vimza, drinking blood from beasts that were in their third or higher Investment. I could feel the difference in the blood.
A part of me was terrified of my growth, but another was excited, as I had seen the final destination that awaited me. My sire’s obsidian feathered wings were always at the forefront of my mind. I imagined what it must feel like to have that much freedom, to be able to fly away anywhere one wanted.
I pushed all those thoughts aside as I focused on the task at hand, keeping watch, or rather taking care of some things that I didn’t have the time to do before. Like dealing with my skills and talk with Shadow.
Saia trotted over to me and settled next to me on her haunches. She was growing just as fast as I was. She was now the size of a large dog, where before she was the size of a chihuahua, now she was the size of a greyhound. Her growth was fueled by the constant fighting they encountered, though most of it came from the Suul that my sire and I killed. I’ve allowed her to consume everything, and I was starting to get a bit worried about the future. I knew that she was created to serve as a combat platform and personal armor for Ke Erzi, who basically looked like dragons from Earth’s stories.
And from what I remembered encountering in my first rift where I found her, the remnant of the Ke Erzi homeworld, the dragons were the size of a school-bus at least.
But she was approaching the size where she would be able to cover me completely in armor. Though there was little need for that now, I was a vampire—and Elder one at that—and there were few things that could actually damage me enough to outright kill me. Having Saia as an independent drone, flying around and helping with both combat and scouting was much more effective.
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“You getting any closer to finishing the engram?” I asked as she settled in next to me. Saia had been built with hundreds of support, defensive, and offensive engrams—which were basically magic and technology combined systems. Most of those no longer functioned in the way that they were designed to as the result of the Grand Spell subsuming her reality into Kirios. The rules of magic had changed.
But Saia had started to slowly put those engrams back together, repairing them or altering them enough so that they could function again. So far, she’d been focusing on the ones that were more likely to work, and she was close to getting at least one of her engrams to work — [Manufacturing]. I was looking forward to that, even though it wouldn’t allow her to build anything that was magical, that contained Source-Weave components, mundane items would be within her capabilities. And seeing as one of my biggest issues right now was ammo, or rather the lack of it as I was down to my last four rounds, I was looking forward to turning the tiny dragon into my own personal ammo factory.
“Feedback: I’m getting close,” Saia responded, her manner of speaking betraying her personal interest in the topic. She tended to refer to herself as this Unit when she talked about things that she didn’t particularly care about.
“What does close mean exactly?” I asked.
“Feedback: Weeks.”
I grimaced, that meant after the challenge was over. I sighed, again I lamented my wasteful use of ammunition, but there wasn’t anything that I could do about it.
“Can you show me my full Mask details please?” I asked, one of the engrams that she possessed was [Mask Reader], gained when Shadow had gifted her an enchanted item called the Reader that could read and present the information about a person’s Mask. I’d asked Saia to change the name to just [Inspect].
Saia didn’t respond verbally, but she displayed my information over my vision, and I took a long look at it.
Marianna Rojas (The Star That Dances In Blood Beneath the Light of the Broken Moon)
Mask of the Blood Reaver (Physical, Weave, Esoteric):
2nd Investment; 1st Carving
Ornament of the Revelator (Weave, Esoteric)
No Investment; 8th Carving
Ornament of the Practical Student (Physical, Weave, Esoteric)
First Investment; No Carving
Attributes:
Physical: B
Weave: F
Esoteric: C
Skills:
P1-Beast bonus
[Mist Step]
[Lesser Strength]
[Lesser Constitution]
P2-Beast bonus
[Debilitating Wave]
[Sonic Screech]
[Dodge]
[Swap Profile]
[Overburn Skill]
[Blood Gout]
[Quick Swap Slot]
[One Truth Verified]
[A Lesson Remembered]
[Practical Learning]
|Potential Augmentation| trait
Wearing the Mask of the Blood Reaver grants a significant increase to all attributes. All cooldowns are greatly reduced, after the Mask is removed, all used skills are put on long cooldown.
Slotting skills of the same type grants bonuses.
Current bonuses available:
Beast: Slotting in skills that all contain
Movement: Slotting in skills that all contain
Combat: Slotting in skills that contain
The information was extensive, though the actual [Inspect] engram didn’t provide all of that information, but Saia had displayed everything that I would think relevant as she had access to that information.
I’ve gained another carving since my fight with the Suul, but I’ve gained no skill. Not that I expected one. Getting more than two or three skills per Investment tier was incredibly rare. My two newest skills were incredibly powerful.
[Blood Gout] allowed me to siphon blood from any source near me. It served to both help me feed and heal during battle while also weakening my foes. I imagine having one’s wounds suddenly start drain of blood was not a good feeling.
[Quick Swap Slot] allowed me to switch any skill on my shelf with one that was already slotted in my [Empty Skill], allowing me to bypass the cooldown time that was required when changing skills. Useful, especially when I needed something in a pinch, and I didn’t want to waste the skill by using my [Overburn Skill] which consumed the skill from my shelf in the process.
My last boon was the improvement of my trait, and the combat type bonus. I haven’t had the time to experiment with that, but now was a good time for it, and I had some skills that had the tags required. Plus, I wanted to collect on the skills from the Suul. I had killed many in battle, but I had also drained blood from all the others that my sire killed. If my understanding of how my Mask worked, the skills I gained drinking from those I didn’t kill would be their weaker skills, and those from the ones I drained while personally killing would be their strongest.
I still didn’t have quite enough data to be absolutely certain about how it worked, but this would be a good opportunity, I should have around twenty new skills waiting for me from the Suul alone, not counting the beasts I fought and killed since then.
Sometimes, I couldn’t help but think how broken my Mask seemed to be. Though, there were many limitations, having to drink blood to gain Investment seemed perfect for a vampire, but eventually I might hit a plateau, and I didn’t know how I felt about always looking for more powerful blood to drink. If people figured out how it worked, it might give them ideas about stopping me before I turned into a blood crazed lunatic. The way I had to gain the skills was annoying sometimes too. Having to defeat the source of the blood I drained within my soul, or pass a test in cases where the blood was freely given, was an additional hurdle.
I understood the reasoning though. If I didn’t need to do any of that, it would almost seem too easy to gain new skills by conning someone powerful into giving me blood, assassinating someone, or even just procure blood after their death.
There was a lot of thought behind the Masks and how they worked.
Not for the first time, I wondered what exactly the Grand Spell was doing and why. Was it even thinking things through, or was all of this just instinct, or some ancient set of instructions given by its creator.
By now, it was obvious to me that the Grand Spell was learning and changing. Some of the things that Shadow, the powerful Tsu-gi and my adoptive family member, had taught me on Ish Vimza were no longer correct.
There had been no challenges in the previous Expansion Intervals, where the Grand Spell had added other worlds to its own. Nor had it ever added more than one world during an interval, and this time there were two.
It was obvious to me that the Grand Spell had learned from Earth. Challenges and rifts were both something new, and had a great resemblance to things present in the fiction and entertainment found on Earth. That suggested something more than a mindless intelligence, that most people of Kirios considered to be their God. Though, I knew better, I knew the truth, the reason why, and who had created it.
The message in a bottle I’ve found in the ruins on Ish Vimza, made by the original people of Kirios had made it clear that the Grand Spell was made to protect the world from a threat that they had encountered. I knew that the blight, the red haze and whispers that I had encountered before were somehow linked to it, even if I didn’t know exactly how.
I turned my thoughts back to the matter at hand.
“Can you keep watch over everyone for a while?” I asked Saia. “I want to go and speak with Shadow, change up my skills for tomorrow.”
“Feedback: Of course, Mari.”
I smiled and then focused inward. A moment later I was in my soul space.