At the edge of Tenebreimen, the core of Vampire territory that existed before the Empire became an empire, there sat a town much like any other.

 Its buildings were humble, multi-story structures—hardly comparable in height to the towering skyscrapers in the capital city of Ljosdeyja. Most weren’t even as tall as the dawn walls that surrounded the town, shielding it from the horizon during the most dangerous times of the day. Trees dotted the labyrinth of single-lane streets, through which passed the occasional trolley ferrying passengers from one end to the other.

 Walking along the paved stone sidewalks were the Empire’s citizens, though… In a town so far from the core of the empire, the citizens were more varied than somewhere like the capital.

 There was the usual assortment of pointy-eared, dark pastel-haired vampires; but also scattered among them were animal-eared and fluffy-tailed members of the Plainstriders: Fangchasers. All those living in the cities of the Empire “chose” to shave themselves, walking with bare skin beneath their clothing instead of maintaining their coats of brown, black, or grey fur.

 They were unique among the Plainstriders for integrating so wholly into the Empire, perhaps because they lived closest to—and in some cases inside of—the junkyard wastes that separated the vampires from the rolling hills and grassy plains that the Plainstriders called home. That proximity meant they naturally interacted more with vampires, and fell under their rule in order to escape life in the wastes of scrap, while their fellow dwellers of the plains remained free from the tyranny of the rulers of shadow.

 Aside from the relatively human-looking individuals, one could spot the occasional hulking Geolle, but they were a rarity above the surface. Nearly all of them were travelling merchants or salespersons on behalf of some underground business venture rather than permanent residents, but some chose to live above ground.

 They lacked the same weakness to sunlight that vampires possessed, but most still apparently felt uncomfortable living above the surface.

 The streets of Kranes were alive with the sound of song, even late into the night of High Moonsend. For the three days and nights of celebration at the turning of the year, everyone saw fit to party to their hearts’ content, and it was the perfect time for buskers to draw in crowds of couples and inebriated revelers.

 Stalls had been set up on the day prior, turning the town’s streets into brightly lit festival grounds where one was spoiled for choice, whether it be food or kitschy carnival games. The town may have been anything but quiet, but the atmosphere was peaceful.

 Until the ground shook from a massive earthquake.

 The crowds suddenly fell silent as the lights decorating the streets went out, and a massive, horizon-covering explosion reminiscent of a firework ripped through the skies far to the west…

 After a beat, the populace realized that they were staring at the night sky. The shimmering moon loomed high overhead, half-obscured by the fading cloud cover.

 A second beat passed, and murmurs quickly gave way to excited, anxious shouting.

 “W-Why are the clouds gone!?”

 “I didn’t know there’d be fireworks…”

 “Should’ve brought my camera.”

 “Is the ground still shaking for anyone else?”

 “You’re probably just drunk.”

 “This wasn’t in the forecast though…”

 Just as panic began to overtake confusion, the town guard sprung into action. They calmly instructed the civilians to return to their homes while simultaneously launching an investigation into the status of the cloud generator, and why the alarm never sounded.

 Before they could get everyone out of the streets, the situation increased in complexity as the ground began to shake once more.

 Over the din of the chattering crowd and the guards barking out instructions, a low rumbling filled the air, and then… a keening, metallic, electronic wail.

 ＊

 Beyond the dawn walls, a tide of steel surged toward the town.

 Gnashing gears forming rows of teeth, multiple limbs of iron digging up the ground as they charged forth, dangling cables like synthetic viscera, and a random assortment of accessories and extra appendages decorated the “hides” of the Whisper horde that advanced toward the nearest source of “noise” luring them in.

 Among the aberrant army, a towering figure wheeled through its compatriots and swung its massive artillery cannon to bear. It had no shells to eject, but it continued to follow its pre-programmed instruction set as it charged forward.

 Tearing the ground up as it leapfrogged up and down through the barren soil, a massive worm with a drill for a head snaked ahead of the pack.

 Buzzing fan blades spun as airborne creatures zipped erratically forward, iron needles and live wires swinging about like they were bizarre iron wasps or sky jellies.

 Countless smaller creatures trampled over each other as they swarmed to fill in the gaps. Whether they looked like bulls, spiders, apes, horses, or even freakish humans, mangled and cobbled-together creatures filled their ranks. The ones with vocal filters still intact repeatedly blathered lines from an age long past, advertising services that no longer existed, hyping up a future that had doomed itself to failure, or babbled incoherent phrases chained together in logical but meaningless patterns.

 The horde had no leader or sense of unity, but all of them followed a singular purpose that drove them to act according to each others’ central logic.

 Nobody in the town was prepared for such a massive horde to suddenly move at once, and the walls had lost power… meaning there were no automated defenses, no surveillance equipment, no proximity warnings.

 The guards had all been preoccupied escorting the civilians back to their homes or to shelter.

 The engineers were focused on the cloud generator—the walls would block the sun whether they were powered or not; their lack of power only meant the gates wouldn’t budge and nobody could enter or leave.

 The people… were naturally in no position to fight, as the vampiric citizens fled to their homes. The Geolle and Fangchasers had nothing to fear from the sun, and though dawn was still a long way off, the townsfolk were more afraid of their unassailable foe than the encroaching army.

 As the swarm reached the walls, only some of the populace had returned to their homes; stalls were closed up and left where they were parked, guards ran about arresting opportunists looking to pilfer whatever had been left unguarded.

 A resounding gong rang out as the massive wheeled artillery platform slammed cannon-first into the wall, unable to do anything other than use itself as a battering ram as it failed to break through.

 Instead, its cannon bent upward and came to rest against the wall, forming an impromptu ladder for the smaller creeps to crawl over it.

 The worm slammed its own face against the adamantine walls, sending sparks flying and filling the air with the keening cry of steel on steel as it slowly began boring a hole straight through.

 Unable to wait, smaller ones rushed into the molten gaps, immediately melting into slag as they became fodder for the drilling worm.

 By the time the town defenders mobilized in response, the Whispers had already breached the walls and flooded into the streets. Screams rang out as those closest to the edge, whether in their homes or on the streets, were caught by the hungering tide of metal.

 The larger monsters paid no mind to things like buildings, charging straight through the softer structures built out of treated darkwood or clambering over and surging around the ones made of sturdier stone or metal.

 The screams dragged the dazed townsfolk back into reality, the stragglers still outdoors finally fleeing as the situation dawned on them and the guard engaged with the horde. Enchanted glaive crossed with claw, and while the “natural” weapons of the horrors weren’t designed to puncture through the ceramic armor the guards wore, many were caught by unlucky strikes, or were otherwise crushed beneath the sheer mass of monsters pouring into the town.

 Simple fireballs exploded throughout the “ranks” of the Whispers as the rearguard of the defense force lobbed volleys from the tube-shaped end of their glaive poles, but it was barely even enough to give time to evacuate civilians to the underground shelters further in.

 As the Whispers surged through the town like a tsunami, many of them ripped scrap metal off of the abandoned stalls and welded it over their bodies, covering up injuries and rejuvenating their ranks.

 The massive worm swiftly slithered towards their ultimate objective, but the sacrifice of a group of soldiers leaping into the murderous drillbit brought it to a grinding halt, as their thermobaric charges melted the gears powering it.

 The creature limply slammed its head against the facility gates, but with no way to fulfill its purpose anymore, it gradually fell dormant, its eyeless “beak” dripping blood like a singular wicked fang on a serpent statue.

 In just over one hour, the entire town was overrun, fires spreading through the streets as Whispers roamed about. Some clawed at the doors to shelters or buildings that the citizens were hiding in, while others wove around the great worm and attempted to breach the facility housing the cloud generator—much to the dismay of the engineers working to repair it.

 With their access to the streets cut off, they had no way to actually get the supplies necessary to fix the machine.

 To make matters worse, the Whispers had already either consumed or otherwise destroyed Kranes’ aethermic generators, so even emergency teleportation in and out had become impossible, light fixtures and heating elements wouldn’t function, and they were left relying on battery backups to power their tools.

 Hospitals were overrun with the injured and frazzled staff tending to them, the entrances having been barricaded or collapsed to prevent the monsters from breaking in.

 Nobody believed that any had been lucky enough to escape in time, given the state of the walls and how suddenly the monsters struck. Further complicating things, the Whispers’ natural electromagnetic signals bled into every channel of communication, like a memetic virus infecting phone lines and radio signals, filling them with the vacuous cries of unliving, unthinking machines.

 The residents had no choice but to remain holed up, hoping and praying that their all-knowing Exaltare would somehow find out about their situation, and come for them.

 ＊　＊　＊

 “And his blood type?”

 “Uncertain, sir. He didn’t have any identifying information on him.”

 Inside a gloomy hospital filled with the cries and sobs of the injured, the humming of old clunky engines, and the distant rumble and grinding of the monsters beyond, the medical staff worked tirelessly to save every life they could, regardless of who it was or if there would even be a future waiting for them all.

 The man wearing a bloodstained white coat was Doctor Galahad Lynnvel. He’d been a recent hire, and would have cursed his luck if he wasn’t too busy to focus on his own misfortune at being sent out to the edge of the Empire.

 He and the nurse accompanying him were looming over either side of a sedated Fangchaser, bleeding from a nasty abdominal wound on his right flank.

 The poor man had been unlucky enough to catch some sort of serrated limb, but fortunately it didn’t appear poisoned or festering. They’d still have to give him a round of treatment for tetanus, regardless. Apparently he’d been standing in the way trying to stop the Whispers from hurting a mother and her child.

 Generally speaking, nobles didn’t look too kindly on the commoners, and that went doubly for the other races that’d integrated into their society. But Galahad was a man who eschewed the beliefs of men like Uncle Daren, fully committing to his oath by caring for whatever injured person is put before him.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

 “Run a sample over to the lab, then.”

 “Y-Yes sir!”

 Both he and this nurse knew that the results would probably arrive far too late. Still, the nurse carefully collected the man’s blood into a vial and rushed out of the room.

 In the meantime, Galahad busied himself by grabbing a sheet of surgical tape made from Deeprock Salamander hide and placed it over the wound.

 He had already ensured that the internal organs weren’t actively leaking blood, twisted, or otherwise out of position. After holding it down, he grasped a small mythril rod, capped at one end by a bright glowing cylindrical gemstone. Pressing the heating element down and cauterizing the skin graft over the wound, he quickly substituted the ruby-tipped wand for an emerald one, weaving the spell to promote healing using the ambient mana in the salamander hide and the patient’s body.

 “From breath it is born — Through life it is borne — Till death does it mourn — May my chalice never empty — May my candle never snuff out — Grace us with abundance, Kind Ancestors of Nourishment.”

 Finishing his incantation, Galahad opened his eyes and carefully examined the sigils wrapped around the emerald wand tip. It was important to control the flow of mana so as to not overload the patient while promoting healing effects.

 Treating someone would be pointless if the treatment itself exhausted what remained of their life force. While non-vampiric races possessed less mana on average, bruised more easily, and could be taken down by less severe illness or injury, medical treatment remained largely the same for civilians of all types… aside from the uniquely sedimentary geolles. And, obviously, there was a significant discrepancy from person to person, even setting aside matters of blood thickness, so doctors were trained with the lowest common denominator in mind.

 It was risky to go through the procedures without mana-enriched blood on hand for transfusion, so Galahad limited the man’s treatment to life-saving triage only.

 After stabilizing the nameless Fangchaser, Galahad pocketed the pair of wands and hurried out of the room toward the next critical patient. Not all of them were resting in private rooms, but the ones in most dire condition were.

 Upon entering the room, he met with a bright-eyed, red-headed woman with an earnest but serious expression on her face.

 “Ah, Doctor… I’m sorry, but he was already gone when I came to check on him.”

 “I see.”

 He glanced over at the body—a soldier, from the looks of things—and saw no obvious signs of injury. The soldier had some pretty advanced techwear on; his jacket looked a far cry more advanced than the sort the townsguard were issued.

 A private bodyguard, maybe?

 “Your name, Miss?”

 “Emma Gansley, sir.”

 “Right, is there any identification on him?”

 “None, sir. I didn’t see anything on his chart when I came in, nor were there any family waiting nearby or in the ward that could identify him.”

 The dark green medical scrubs clearly identified her as a nurse, yet she seemed anything but fresh-faced. This must not have been her first gruesome sight… which meant she probably worked with the army before. Few civil nurses would be so calm during such a crisis.

 “I see, gather a DNA sample and send it to the lab for identification. Preserve the body and then move on. There’s still many lives we can still save.”

 “Yes sir.”

 Emma and Galahad exchanged a serious nod and turned away from each other.

 Something wasn’t adding up in his mind, but there wasn’t anything inherently suspicious about the nurse herself. He didn’t have time to inspect every single body himself, and felt he could trust that she had made an accurate assessment. It was obvious she hadn’t panicked and missed anything, at least.

 He pushed the vague feeling aside, writing it off as not worth wasting his time on, and moved on to the next patient.

 But as he left the room, he was far too lost in his own thoughts to notice the patient sitting up from the surgical table…

 ＊

 At the same time, within the Count’s office.

 “What is the meaning of this, Bart?”

 Count Eltash slammed his hands on the desk in the dimly lit office, staring daggers into the bald, rotund man with a sky-blue moustache sitting opposite him. The crude shaderat-oil lamp sitting on top of his desk flickered from the impact, causing the shadows of the two men to dance on the walls and shelves of his office.

 “Bart” naturally winced from the sudden noise, but quickly recovered and harumphed with his usual indignancy. He was stuttering quite a bit though—probably because of the army of monsters wandering around outside.

 “Why are you g-getting huffy with me!? I should be the one demanding answers, h-here! Why can’t I teleport out!? Why does your building have n-n-no power? And why in the world did your guards point their blades at me? Do they even know who I am!?”

 “You know full well why we can’t get anyone out of the town, Viscount. And just because the great Bartholomew Vanas is a personal friend of mine, doesn’t mean that my guards could tell at a glance that you’re the twice-removed second cousin to the Margrave, with third-generation blood that barely qualifies you as high nobility, and overseer of the city of Delskaad. At best, they would see a man of relatively little importance or power. And… wasn’t it you who told me he required use of a city in my territory for some insipid ‘plan?’ Presumably, the one that has currently knocked out all of the power.”

 “How… How d-dare you d-discredit me, you worthless— You w-wouldn’t even be living in Kranes County, much less ruling as its Count, were it not for the grace of the Vanas.”

 “As if this slice of land at the edge of the Empire, on the border of the Wastes, is something to be delighted over. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to raise the value of this land!? Or how irritating it is to have to accommodate those worthless werewolves!?”

 “That’s h-hardly my problem, now is it?”

 “The only reason I haven’t had you arrested is because it’d be more effective to simply throw you out the window at the horde of corroded machines!”

 “I didn’t realize that things w-would go like this either, I’ll have you know! I-I had no idea the Whispers would be here! Honest! M-M-My business is completely unrelated!”

 Count Eltash could tell that the Viscount was being truthful of that. But he was aghast at how stupid of a man Bartholomew could be; he had no idea what the Vanas were hoping to gain by drawing Whispers in to wreak havoc on his territory, or why he had to be here for it.

 But even though he technically outranked the rotund man sweating before him, he had to watch his words carefully. It was true that the Vanas was the reason why he’d gained this territory, and they could just as quickly take it away, or take him away, if he got too pushy with one of theirs.

 The Viscount wiped his head down with a kerchief from his breast pocket, and took a seat in a plush leather office chair facing Count Eltash’s desk. He seemed to compose himself somewhat, turning his head to look around the room at the shadows cast by the oil lamp.

 “L-Listen, if I had known that it would be like this, do you think I would have risked my own hide coming out here?”

 “That’s— …a decent point, actually.”

 Verndil Eltash put a hand to his chin and let some of the tension visibly fall from his own shoulders. He didn’t let it completely go, given that there was still a very real crisis happening in his town, but at least the vein bulging in his forehead gradually faded.

 The silence hung in the air for a long moment, neither of them saying anything as they listened to the distant sound of grinding and moaning from the horrible twisted mistakes of the past outside.

 Eventually, the Count straightened out his slicked-back golden hair, looked down at his mug of now-cold coffee, and sighed,

 “Why are you here? Weren’t you just in the capital the other night?”

 “Hmph. If you m-must know, there’s an individual that I— that the Vanas have decided to… deal with… That’s why I brought these handymen with me.”

 With a snap of his finger, a pair of figures stepped out of thin air, flanking Bartholomew Vanas’ chair on either side. Both of them wore skintight black suits, padded techwear jackets and shorts, and had knee-high buckled combat boots. Their faces were obscured by hoods pulled over their heads, a magical shroud of darkness preventing their features from being exposed by lamplight.

 Neither one had any obvious weapons on hand, but they oozed an aura of danger.

 Count Eltash winced as his heart rate noticeably accelerated.

 He’d heard the rumors, of the Vanas Family assassins; but to actually meet with the boogeyman was far different than just hearing tall tales.

 Viscount Vanas stared at him, a slow smile curling on his lips as he gradually realized the pair of composed killers were having their intended effect, leaving Eltash to imagine just what exactly the stodgy and unpleasant man had gotten himself into that he had private wet workers at his disposal.

 “Well, if I was your target, you’d hardly have shown me your hand in advance. Even I know you’re not that foolhardy…”

 “V-Verndil, my friend. They lent me multiple, but I only truly need the assistance of one. Perhaps these two can help you handle your… C-Crisis.”

 “And the catch?”

 “I… I think it goes without saying, but none of us were ever here. And… you’ll owe me a personal favor.”

 “…Are you sure that you should just be loaning them out to me? For that matter, how do I even trust that you intend to actually help, when—”

 “O-Overwrite order seventy-three, transfer temporary authority to Verndil Eltash, the man standing before me.”

 Bartholomew cut him off, reciting something that sounded like it belonged in a spreadsheet or a piece of legal documentation.

 In the next instant, the menacing aura from both of the assassins vanished, and Verndil felt their hidden eyes stare at him in acknowledgement. He wasn’t sure what exactly just happened, but there was a sense that he could trust they wouldn’t suddenly teleport beside him and impale him now.

 “What did you just do?”

 “Trust, my dear Verndil. I want no part of this cah… catastrophe, and would like a quick resolution to it. I informed you because of what I heard through the grapevine, and because there was some business I thought would be easier to handle with commotion from the… what wording did she use… ‘Riotous New Years Bash?’ Something like that. I want out of this dump just as much as you do, you know!”

 He glared as severely as he could across the desk. “Don’t think that this lets you off the hook, Bart… We’ll pick this discussion back up later, but our first order of business is the restoration of power and communications, if even temporarily, to get word out about what happened. Can the two of them…” he turned to look at one of the hooded figures, “Can the two of you secure a source of emergency power and some transceivers? Ideally, we clear the roof of hazards and try to establish contact from there.”

 The pair of figures wordlessly nodded, and then immediately vanished from the room without a trace.

 A tremor reflexively ran up Count Eltash’s spine. He didn’t trust Bartholomew Vanas in the slightest, but for the moment, he had no choice but to use the man’s horrors to deal with the ones outside.

 “…I’ll take that as a yes, then.”