Plans
I entered the big tent, the command center of the camp, with Kai and Carlito in tow. Saia remained outside, too big to get through the entrance. Not that it really mattered since she was always inside of me and aware of everything that I was aware of. Today, she also doubled as my shirt, so she was included either way.
Inside, I was greeted by visibly tired group of three people. Maximilian Dawson was siting at the table, his head leaned on his hand, the young man looked like he had aged a decade in the time since I’d seen him.
Catalina Flor looked a little bit better, her appearance a bit more put together. I didn’t know if that was because she had the time to rest or if her Mask of the Caretaker was helping her.
The last person was Diego Murillo, who was looking over reports with eyes that flashed around at rapid speed that even a Fledging Vampire would envy. Probably a skill gained from his Mask of the Supervisor.
At my entrance Catalina nudged Max and looked at me with a strange expression on her face.
“You’ve asked for us, Master?”
I frowned, I had spoken to them about this before.
“You don’t need to call me that,” I said.
Catalina looked uncomfortable. “Of course, lady.”
I narrowed my eyes, then looked at Max. I’ve spent most time with him. “What is this about?”
“Nothing,” he avoided my eyes. “We, uh, saw you yesterday.”
“And?”
They didn’t answer.
I guess that my form made a bigger impression than I realized. I should’ve seen it coming, especially with the way the rest of the people in the camp looked at me.
Once, I might’ve dealt with this differently, I might’ve talked and tried to appear more nonthreatening. But the challenge had opened my eyes to what we faced, so I let it be. I was not who I was before I entered the challenge. I knew who and what I was now. I was a vampire of the line of Asza.
“Well, let me first tell you what happened in the challenge.”
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I filled them in on everything. Well, most things. But more importantly what my sire said about the world. During our discussion Max called in a man named Sebastian, who drew a rough map of the world based on the things I told them.
We were all gathered around it, looking down. It didn’t have much detail, nor was it at all to scale. We knew that my sire reached the northern coast of the continent within a month, but not much detail aside from that.
“You want us to move to this coast?” Catalina asked, pointing at the map.
I nodded. “If I hadn’t arrived yesterday, you all would’ve been dead.”
They winced at that, but it was only the truth.
I looked her straight in the eye. “Staying here is equal to death.”
“The trip will kill us. We don’t know what we’ll encounter, and we know that the wild is dangerous. This place is defensible,” Diego added. “Now that you’re here we can fortify it. We can—”
“—No,” I interrupted him. “This place is a deathtrap. The city rifts have broken, and beasts spilled out. Yesterday was just the first wave. You are not staying here.”
Diego opened his mouth, clearly intent on arguing, but the look in my eyes made him stop. He remembered who and what I was.
I’ve been acting like a human would before I left, what came back had finally let go of who I once was.
“He has a point,” Max said, making me turn my head to glare at him, slowly. He raised his arms as if in surrender. “I mean about this being a defensible position. We are unlikely to find something like this out there, and there are hundreds of us—”
I interrupted him by placing a smooth wooden box on the table. They all frowned at it, then Max reached out and pulled it closer.
I waited until they read the notecard.
Their faces took on incredulous expressions. “This… what is this?”
“My reward for winning the challenge,” I answered. “I don’t mean to have you undefended. We will go north, and gather any survivors on the way. Then we’ll use this on the coast. I plan on gathering more people, and claiming the coast of the inland sea.”
They looked up at me, but didn’t say anything. There wasn’t really much that they could say, I wasn’t asking, and I knew that they understood that.
They were relieved, I could see it in their eyes, in the ways their muscles relaxed the more I spoke, the way their hearts beat and their lungs expanded. They had been at the end of the rope, struggling to keep people alive, struggling to make the right decisions. Now, they no longer needed to do that. They could finally rest, step back and let someone else make the decisions.
“The people I’ve made contact with in the challenge will be attempting the same thing. And we must be on the look out for other Exemplars, some will have sold out to the other factions.”
“Is that really such a concern?” Catalina asked. “We’re already barely surviving,”
“Realistically, no,” I said. “The world is too large for us to end up meeting any of the other Exemplars outside of challenges. But, in time, the portals will open, and then years from now the actions taken now will snowball into something more. We are not just surviving today, we are laying the foundations for future survival.”
Max nodded, agreeing, the other two looked unsure, but didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t much else to say. I had told them what I wanted, and that was that. Strength was an integral part of my school of being, and that extended beyond just the physical. I wanted to rule, I knew that I could do better than them, I believed that. And besides, my connection with these people had been forged the moment I returned from Ish Vimza and decided to help them the first time.
The debt was tilted heavily in my favor, and I needed them to pay the price. Servitude is the only way I can get that from them without draining them all of blood.
“Start preparing for the trip,” I told them. “I’ll go scouting tomorrow morning. I should be able to fly ahead and find the coast relatively easy. And I’ll deal with any visible threat in our way. That should give us an idea of how far the coast is, and let you prepare appropriately.”
They nodded and I turned to Max.
“I want to talk to you and your team.”
He winced. “Leto and Joe died last night,” he told me.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told him, and I did mean it. “Anna?” I asked about the last member of his team.
“She’s good,” Max gave me a sad smile.
“Then get her and meet me in your tent in a little bit.”
He nodded and walked out. I looked at Catalina and Diego and waved my hand. “Get to work, organize the people and let them know what will be happening so that they can prepare.”
With that, I followed Max out, Kai and Carlito walking behind me.
Once we were out of the tent, Carlito whistled under his breath. “Damn boss lady.”
I glanced at him and saw his grin. “What?”
He didn’t respond, just kept his little gremlin grin on.
I sighed. Then gave both of them a good look. “You two have been following me around an awful lot. I gather that you understand what that will mean now?”
“What, with you going all big boss on everyone?” Carlito asked. “Of course we know. People will try stabbing you in the back and we’ll be right there to stab them first.”
I blinked, that wasn’t exactly what I meant, but I’d take it. “I meant more that it’ll be dangerous. I’m not going to sugarcoat this, any survivor group we find that is established, that has resources and means, I’m going to press into service. Whether they want to or not.”
Carlito glanced at the tall blond, then looked back at me. “The biggest dog on the street is the one in control, that’s the rules.”
I should’ve known, he was a criminal, a gang member. I turned my eyes on Kai.
She shrugged. “Whatever rules existed before, they’re gone now,” she said slowly. “I’d much rather follow a vampire that can kill a thousand monsters in an hour than someone like Catalina that can barely protect herself.”
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I nodded, satisfied.
“The two of you need to gain Investment, fast,” I told them. “The challenge had pushed me far ahead, and if I’m going to keep the two of you around you need to be stronger.”
“We’ve both reached the first Investment after last night,” Kai said.
“Good. Now you need to get to the second, and fast.”
“How do we do that?” Carlito asked.
“Earth’s win in the challenge gave us an additional increase in Investment gain, so we focus on the type of Investment the two of you need. What’re your Masks called now?”
Carlito answered first. “Mask of the Blood Butcher! I got two new skills since the last time we saw each other, Crimson Cleave, and Exsanguinate.”
Kai grimaced at him. “Mine is now the Mask of Ironclad Fighter. I got Shattering Blow and Iron Skin.”
Those were good upgrades, though it was almost expected. They had been through a lot, but then again everyone has.
“Okay, those both seem like combat related Masks, so fighting beasts will give you enough Investment to advance. We’ll see about getting you through rifts, and you’ll have enough chances of fighting as we move everyone north.”
“Whatever you say boss lady! Wait, can I still call you that, or? Maybe Dark Angel? Dark Lady? Master?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Boss is fine for now.”
His crooked grin returned, and I could tell that he was having fun with me. I was indulging him a bit, I was glad that I had someone who felt free enough to talk with me like that. After spending a month with Aurora and her insanity, coming back to worship and bowing had started to grate on me unusually fast.
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I flew through the air at speeds that I could once only dream of. It was an exhilarating experience, and something that I’d instantly fallen in love with. Already I couldn’t imagine my life without being able to fly, to feel the wind on my skin and watch the land disappear beneath me.
At my top speed, I was so fast that the ground blurred by me. It took me around half an hour to find the coast. I slowed and settled down on the sand, exhausted from the effort of flying that fast. The sea stretched before me, endless emerald waves.
It would appear that our part of the continent wasn’t shifted around too much. Medellín was between 200 and 250 km away from the coast. Assuming that the distance was around the same, and considering the time it took me to get here, I was probably moving at around 500 km/h. I had to estimate as Saia’s systems that could measure it relied on satellites that didn’t exist here. But I thought that we were right in our estimates.
That was a couple of hours long trip by car. But we didn’t have that. On foot, at human walking speed, that was a day or two day long trip. Assuming perfect conditions. We didn’t have that. What we had was supplies, old people and children. A wilderness in between us and the coast, one filled with beasts.
It was not going to be two days. Still, it wasn’t going to be as bad as I had feared. Now that I had taken the quick way here, I was gong to take the slower route back, scouting out the terrain and any threats.
I’d left Saia’s drone behind, our range had increased with my gain in Investment level, and we wanted to test out the max range.
“Still in contact?” I asked as I sat on the beach, enjoying the breeze and resting.
My shirt vibrated, answering my question. “Feedback: Yes, though the signal is degraded and the lag is rising.”
That meant we were about close to max range. That was good, it meant that I could do more with Saia.
“So, any ideas about what the best location for a town would be?”
“Feedback: Access to fresh water is paramount.”
I nodded. “Right,” I said. Which meant looking for a clean spring, unless we wanted to boil river water all the time.
I took another half an hour rest, then I started flying along the coast looking for a good place to use my town item. I didn’t plan to do it now, I didn’t want to leave it without anyone present to hold it.
I still felt tired from my flight, despite resting, so I made sure to keep my eyes open for any threats. I had left my weapon back at the camp, I was new to flying, and carrying around a spear that was taller than I wasn’t smart. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t dangerous without it.
I was worried about rifts. Colombia’s northern coast didn’t have many big towns that would’ve generated them, as apparently rifts manifested more in places with high population. Which I had somewhat confirmed on my trip. I had slowed down over abandoned and ruined towns and saw very few rifts.
What I was worried about was Cartagena and Barranquilla. Though, I also didn’t know if I was north or south of Panama, which could be an issue too. But, if what my sire said was true, and our orientation was as I thought it was then if I headed east I should find the two coastal cities.
I didn’t want to get us away from Medellín just for us to get hit by a horde of monsters from another city. Though, on the other hand, the two cities would be the best places for me to find boats that were still serviceable.
I made my way along the coast, seeing little danger. There wasn’t much life, aside from birds but those didn’t seem to have been mutated in ways that made them any real danger.
I didn’t push to my top speed, rather I felt like I couldn’t. I had overextended myself without realizing it. After a few minutes of flying I was forced to land, and pull out a gourd with blood as I started feeling hungry.
It would appear that this form required more blood to sustain me. I sat alone, feeling a bit strange. I had spent a lot of time alone before all of this happened. But my recent time had been spent in the company of others. I found that I did miss people.
I missed my friends, Aurora, Khalil, Jiyun, and Daehyun. I looked at the sea, wondering where they were. I had promised to try and find Aurora, and I fully intended to focus on that once I got the survivors to the coast.
A part of me wanted to abandon everything and go look for her. But, I had a responsibility here, and I had to start making moves that would give me a foundation to stand against what was coming.
I knew that Aurora was strong enough to survive, I trusted her.
I got back into the air and continued along the coast. It took me around half an hour to reach the city. I saw it in the distance, and paused.
What I had seen of Earth since I returned so far had been nature slowly reclaiming civilization. Animals that had been changed by the Source into more dangerous versions, others that had changed their patterns and behaviors. The towns and villages I had seen on the way were abandoned, and while nature had reasserted itself, they were clearly recognizable.
What I saw ahead was not at all like what I had seen before. The entire city was covered in plants. Giant plants, a tree the size of a skyscraper grew in the middle and the other buildings were covered in green. Watching from the distance I saw no movement, no animals at all. There were also no signs of rifts.
“Input: I’m detecting an incredibly dense and powerful Source-Weave signature from ahead.”
Saia interjected, startling me.
“What kind?”
“Feedback: Nature based, similar in kind to a Masked, I estimate that it covers the entire city.”
I blinked. “Invested plants?”
Everything was invested to one degree or another. It just meant that it had Source within it. But plants…
“Feedback: The signature is coming from a singular source.”
I narrowed my eyes, then landed at the edge of the city, on the beach far away from the trees. I walked toward it, noting that there was a particularly odd scent in the air. I paused, detecting a hint of sweetness in it.
The thirst woke up, and I knew immediately that whatever I was smelling was hazardous. I didn’t retreat though, I was a vampire and the thirst was a jealous mistress, only silver based poisons would work on me.
I kept going, getting closer. I kept my attention on my surroundings, and noticed no signs of life, of anything moving at least. Which was weird, the city was supposed to have a lot of rifts, which should’ve broken open, spilling out beasts. I saw no signs of that.
On the bright side, I saw a lot of wooden boats on the beach, and they seemed to be in a good condition. Finally, I entered the city proper, walking down the streets.
All my questions were quickly answered. The scent intensified, but didn’t do anything against me, I saw flowers moving, twitching across the walls. Opening up and spraying more of the same pheromone, or whatever it was, into the air.
I noticed the bones immediately. The stench of blood was thick enough here that I could detect it over the scent that the plants were giving off. Bones of animals were everywhere, vines curled around them.
The entire city was a graveyard of filled with thousands. Not all of the bones were animals, I saw human skulls too, and many of the bones were unfamiliar to me. Strangely shaped skulls that I could only assume were from beasts not native to our world.
There were rifts here too, and they had broken open. And the plants had slaughtered everything that came out.
I grinned, this was perfect. This city was the reason why I saw few beasts around, it was the most dangerous thing around.
“Can you detect this thing in the air? I want to know how far it is spread.”
“Feedback: I’ve taken a sample, with it I will be able to detect it anywhere.”
I continued walking, now searching and looking for any supplies that might help my people. I would have to retrieve them for them, of course, but there could be a lot here that survived.
Saia would need to help me establish a perimeter, but I had decided that putting down a town close to the city would be the best course of action. Its presence would protect the people from anything dangerous coming in from the east.
It had probably already driven off anything smart enough to notice what was happening.
As I walked over a particularly grassy part of the road, I felt something rise up and wrap around my legs. I felt the thorns attempting to cut through my skin and failing. I looked down, saw the plants moving, trying to restrain me, vines climbing up my leg.
I tugged on my leg and ripped the vine apart. It was strong, I felt some resistance. If I was still a Fledgling, I probably wouldn’t have been able to escape it with ease. Now, I felt like a serious punch from me could bring down a building. That thought did remind me that I’ve never really tested the limits of my new strength. My speed was apparent. In bursts, I could move at speeds that eye couldn’t follow. Fast enough to displace air and cause shockwaves. I couldn’t keep it up for long, but prolonged exertion wasn’t a vampire strong suit. Though what I now considered prolonged period had changed. A full hour of fighting at top speed was something that I could do, but, as I had found out yesterday, it would wipe me out. And that hadn’t even been a particularly difficult fight, it had still sapped my stamina and made me very hungry.
My strength though, I hadn’t had a chance to test its limits yet. I glanced to the side of a building covered in vines. I walked over, pulled my fist back, then punched it.
My fist went clear through the concrete wall. I barely even felt it.
I grinned, and started punching.
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I sat on top of what was once a car of some kind. It had degraded to the point that it wasn’t even recognizable, as most things had in the city.
I drank the blood from my gourds as I rested from my little testing session. I took down two buildings, with relative ease if I was being honest. The materials they were made weren’t that strong, so in the end I didn’t learn much. Only that I was strong enough to do that, I haven’t found my upper limit.
The story my sire told me about his sire cracking a tectonic plate had sounded ridiculous before. Now though…
I shook my head, I couldn’t even imagine that I was that strong now. Realistically, I was probably not. Even if I had matured, my sire had said that I would only continue to grow in power. The other, older vampires at the same stage as I were probably stronger than me.
After about an hour of rest, I took to the skies again and flew around the city. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. I entered a hospital that was completely overgrown, and after tearing through a few vines attempting to restrain me, I entered and started rummaging through the floors.
Plants had penetrated deep into the building too, but not as much as they had outside. A lot of the hospital was ransacked, I had expected that obviously. Some people had obviously tried to hold out in here, as I found human bones wrapped in vines. But eventually I found locked cabinets and safes.
Breaking into them was easy for me, and I managed to find a lot of medicine. I didn’t know anything about it, but just confirming that it was there was enough. Someone at camp would know more. And eventually I would come back and bring everything that was still here back.
With that done I headed out in search of other resources.
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I’ve managed to find quite a lot, food, water, and a lot more than I had expected. Whatever happened to the city and the people living here happened fast.
If Saia was correct, all the plants around me were actually part of the same organism. I wondered what happened. Did some plant in the city just mutate in a strange way? Or was it something from one of the rifts?
Ultimately, it didn’t matter.
There were a lot of resources here that we could use. Though, only I would be able to enter. The plant had blanketed the entire city area with its pheromones, I was making an assumption that it helped it catch and kill, as I haven’t seen much else that was dangerous. It had to have a way to disable that would allow its vines to do their work.
I finished my exploration, and took to the sky. It was time for me to return back to the camp.