Aggressive Diplomacy

The moment I left the rift there was a pressure in my head.

Mask of the Blood Reaver — Second Investment; Third Carving

The Investment gain from finishing the rift was enough to push me to the next carving, which either spoke to the Grand Spell’s perceived difficulty of the rift, or perhaps the fact that I finished it solo.

Either way, that tiny moment of distraction allowed the welcoming committee the opportunity to ambush me.

“Don’t move!” A voice yelled out, and four guns were pointed my way. Two were hunting rifles, small caliber. One was a glock of some kind or the other. The last one though, was a fully automatic rifle. I didn’t know that much about human guns to be able to tell their make at a glance, not beyond the more famous models. But I could recognize enough.

Immediately, I took in the situation. They were human, their sweat clung to them and their heartbeats betrayed them. I didn’t smell any silver, so their bullets wouldn’t be that effective. Sure, a bullet to the head was a bullet to the head, and I had four guns pointed my way. I had a helmet on, but there was only so much that it could do. True, I was likely to heal from such a head wound, but all it would take was for it to enter at a right enough angle to buy them some time.

These people were Masked, the guns wouldn’t be their only weapons, not if they had been picked to enter this challenge. For all I knew they had skills that would make their bullets more powerful.

On the other hand, I was now an Elder Vampire. They would need some powerful skills to slow me down.

All that combined meant two possibilities. They had seen me enter and decided to ambush me once I left, or they just stumbled on the rift by chance and decided to wait.

The more important question was whether they knew what I was, that would tell me a lot more about where this encounter was likely to go. If they knew and still decided to ambush me, I could expect some tricks. Only two vampires had entered the challenge, myself and my sire. The one hundred challengers had been close enough to see our eyes. My sire’s had been fully emerald, those of an Elder, and mine had been the cracked pupil and emerald spilled into my iris of an Adult. Both were not something anyone with any self-preservation would try to face.

And my eyes now mirrored those of my sire, no pupil or iris, just two emerald orbs surrounded by white.

I raised my head slowly, showing my eyes clearly.

The reaction was immediate.

“Fuck,” one of them said.

I had a moment to study them. The man directly in front of me was tall, with dirty blond hair that was cut short. He, like his friends, wore simple clothes, dark shirts and fatigues, they also had different types of protective gear. Most of it looked to be skateboarding pads on their knees and elbows. One of them had a biking helmet on, and another a kevlar vest. They had backpacks and utility belts on with different items slung through them.

To the blond man’s left was a woman, shorter than me by a full head, with long black hair, brown eyes, and the helmet on her head. Her cheek had a nasty red cut that was probably infected.

To the right of the blond guy were two men, looking like brothers, they had brown hair and wide blue eyes that stared at me in horror.

Their reaction shifted what my response to the situation was going to be.

I didn’t remember them, though I’d only really paid attention to the top ten challengers. Still, I didn’t underestimate them. They had advanced their Masks enough to be offered the chance to enter the challenge, and they’d probably advanced more while here. That they were still alive, spoke much about their capabilities.

Seeing how they clearly had no idea who they were ambushing, I was of a mind to just let them go, and yet… They’d threatened me, and the core of my school of being had to do with debt and obligation. All actions had a reaction, all decisions carried with them a weight, a debt. I’ve given no cause for them to threaten me, and they most certainly have—they could’ve lowered their weapons immediately, apologized, they have not. And now I had to balance the scales.

“That is some welcome,” I said slowly. I had to be careful with my words. I had realized just how little I’d paid attention to my promise to the Way.

The four barely reacted, shocked or frozen with fear.

“Would you be so kind to lower your weapons?” I asked slowly.

They exchanged looks, but the three of them looked to the blond man across from me for an answer—making him the leader of the bunch.

“If we lower them, you’ll kill us,” he said.

The corners of my mouth twitched upward. “It’s so cute that you think that’s the only reason why you aren’t dead yet.”

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Their fear spiked, hearts beating faster, their palms sweating and hands trembling. The more this went on, the greater the chance that one of them would do something dumb, on purpose or on accident.

“Jason,” one of the brothers whispered to the blond man—who was Jason apparently. “That’s her, the one that was at the top of the list.”

“I know that Mark,” Jason hissed back, his eyes never leaving mine.

They didn’t move for a few seconds, so I spoke again.

“I believe that I’ve demonstrated my intentions well enough, if I wanted you dead, you already would be. So, weapons. Now.”

The woman lowered hers first, followed by the two brothers, and finally the man in the middle—Jason.

“Ah,” I said slowly, finally allowing myself to move more freely. I took a step to the side, while keeping them in my sight. “That’s better, now we can talk like civilized… people.”

They grouped together; their weapons held tightly in their arms but not pointed in my direction.

“We didn’t know that you were the one in there,” Jason said.

I raised an arm and scratched the top of Saia’s head on my shoulder. That drew their attention to her, and they blinked, unsure what they were looking at.

“Fly Saia, keep watch,” I whispered too low for them to hear. I didn’t think that there were more of them, but for all I knew this was all just a play, and more were preparing the real ambush.

Saia took to the sky and the four flinched but were smart enough not to react any other way.

I walked in a circle around them, each step measured and light, I was gliding across the ground. It unnerved them, I could tell.

“Perhaps introductions are in order? I’m sure that you know my name already, but propriety is important. You can call me Star,” I said, making a decision to use part of the name that Shadow had given me. It was a name that was supposed to be private, yet the Grand Spell had announced it to the world. It felt somehow fitting for me to use it, as if I had one name for friends and one for all others.

“My name is Jason,” their leader said after a moment. Then he looked to the woman and introduced her. “This is Diana, and these two are Mark and Matt.”

I didn’t outwardly acknowledge them, instead I kept my eyes on the leader.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked, my tone just low enough that they had to strain to catch my words.

“We meant no insult, we didn’t know,” Jason answered, his voice was barely even shaking. I was impressed with his composure. Few humans would be able to stand before an Elder Vampire and speak as if to an equal. There was a primal part of their brains that understood the reality, that they were prey and vampire the hunter.

“Yet, offense was given,” I responded. “And it must be made right.”

They exchanged looks, but it was the woman who mustered the enough courage to speak.

“What can we do to make it right?” Diana asked.

I smiled in her direction, and they recoiled. Fangs, right.

Her question had opened the floor for negotiation. She had admitted to a debt between us, and now I could extract the price.

“Well, that depends on what you have to offer,” I answered, one finger tapping against my lips as I pretended to consider it. “I guess that I shouldn’t be trying to take too much from you, we are all here for the same thing, and Earth will need as many of as possible if we are to keep what we have when the portals open.”

They blinked, obviously not expecting my words.

Jason was the one that spoke next. “This is about what you and the others spoke before, the other continents and races and all that stuff?”

I tilted my head. “None of you are exemplars?”

They exchanged looks then shook their heads.

I had expected as much. “What I said before was the truth. We are part of another world, and they will come to try and claim what is ours, land and resources.”

I looked them over, studying them more in depth. The state of their clothes spoke of some hardship, like mine theirs was filled with holes and covered in blood and dirt. They hadn’t been just surviving.

“Tell me, why did you decide to ambush whoever left this rift?” I pointed over my shoulder at the purple light of the rift.

“We just stumbled onto it,” Jason answered. “We were worried that some of those aliens were inside. We didn’t want to leave any of them behind our backs.”

“The Suul, you had encounters with them?”

“One,” he answered. “We met with a group of them in a trial. They… they killed one of us, and we gunned them down.”

Diana looked away at that, her lip trembling. The one that died was someone close to her perhaps. It seemed like these four, five counting the one that died, knew each-other before the challenge. They seemed somewhat prepared, the fact that they still hadn’t spent their ammo meant that they had a lot in reserve. The only way to get that was from rifts, perhaps some skills though I didn’t think that they would get skill that powerful just yet. To have been qualified for the challenge without being exemplars, these four had to have started pushing the moment the Grand Spell arrived, adapting to the new world. Clearing rifts and fighting to survive in a new world.

That spoke well of them.

I hummed to myself, again making a point of thinking. Then, I spoke. “As I said, we’ll need strong people, so it’s not in my or anyone’s interest to take from you and make you weak. So, I will consider the matter of you threatening me settled if you provide me with information.”

“Information?”

“Yes,” I grinned. “I am looking for trials, and you’ve obviously explored some of this place. So, tell me, do you know of a location of any?”

----------------------------------------

After a short conversation with the four I called back Saia and instructed her to send back her other drone to Khalil and the others. Then I made camp with my four new… friends. I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to be part of our group, but there was safety in numbers, and while I didn’t outright offer, I did imply it. Inviting them straight up might’ve carried with it an obligation from my side to keep them safe. I didn’t want to do that.

Saia’s smaller drone, the one that remained with me informed her of the others’ progress. It didn’t take her long to find them as they’d been moving in this direction since I left.

And it only took a few hours for them to catch up.

“Mari!” Aurora yelled when she noticed me and ran over to give me a hug. I sighed and patted her shoulder stiffly for a moment. “You’re back, and you have new friends!”

She leaned and glanced at the awkward group of four people behind me who rose to their feet.

“Not friends, now go pester them,” I shooed her in their direction, leaving her to handle the social parts that I hated, and I walked over to the others.

Daehyun had his sword out, ready for a fight, but sheathed it once he saw me, while Jiyun smiled at me hesitantly. Khalil walked over and gave me a quick hug.

“So, you found what we’re looking for?” He asked.

I nodded. “They have at least,” I gestured at the four being swarmed by Aurora.

He looked over at them with narrowed eyes. “Think we can trust them?” He whispered.

I shrugged. “Don’t know them well enough for that, but I don’t think that they are going to try anything. They wouldn’t live long after trying.”

Khalil turned his eyes from studying the group to look at me, before he nodded.

“When do we leave?”

“As soon as you can get ready. They know the locations of two trials, and I want to do them both. One opens in six days, and the other requires twenty-one people to join and some spots are already taken.”

Khalil’s expression turned determined, and he stood. “Very well then.”

With that, we got ready and started the way back.