- [On the Road to the Village] -

A dense, almost colorful smoke drifts through her hands that are sliding together over her laid-out metal gauntlets. She has set the gauntlets down on the ground. Their open palms face up toward her. Inside of them, the knight has filled a small thimble of incense, using the gauntlets as a bowl of sorts. It burns very slowly, but very pungently and obviously, as the smoke seems thicker than that of any normal fire, especially given its small size. The smoke almost looks sticky, like burning wax’s residue. It rises up between her fingers, almost appearing to hold and linger there.

He’s smelt this before, but he can’t remember where. Back in the east, maybe? It was a long, long time ago. But the smell, a very particular odor that is unforgettable if you’ve smelled it once before, tells him something.

“Weihrauch?” he asks cautiously.

The knight runs her scarred, calloused, and thick fingers through each other over the smoke as if carefully washing them from poisonous blood that had stained her. Kneeling over the incense, her helmet turns only slightly toward him as she looks out of the side of her slit visor that still blocks her visage even now as they’ve camped, before gazing back down at the rising incense. “You know it?” asks Agnis as she continues her ritual. She looks back down at the embers. “I’m surprised. It’s not found here for a year’s ride.” Her voice remains calmly complacent, despite his accurate guess.

The old merchant sits there with crossed legs by the campfire, looking at the burning incense and then at her, and then over down the road toward the other fires along the way. Many adventurers have made their camps here for the night alongside the road. Although some others have pushed on through the night, hoping to reach the castle first before anyone else. He considers them fools, drunk on youth. They don’t know what they’re playing with. “I’ve been that far away before, and even further than that too,” explains the old merchant. “Back when I was young.”

“That long ago?” she asks, and he laughs.

In a way, this night is almost nostalgic for him. If not for the urgency in his core, telling him to hurry back to his home and wife as fast as he can to make sure she’s still safe, it would be a rather nice night. But they can’t travel in the dark. Regardless of the vampire, there are other monsters out here in the world. It’s dangerous.

‘Weihrauch’ is the name that the creation from the east has, stemming from a dead language of the old Empire that once reigned there. It is a highly specific blend of incense that serves a purpose just as singular. There aren’t many people left who know about it, let alone how to make it. He can only assume the Holy-Church has kept records from back then.

His hands rest on his knees as he watches her cup her palms, catching the thick smoke inside of them. The gray-black vapors swirl there, not dissipating. They almost sit there in her open hands, trapped, like gray water she scooped out of a pond. The knight lifts her cupped hands to her helmet, tilting her head back. She lets the smoke run down through the steel helmet’s visor, over her concealed face.

“Should I be concerned?” asks the old merchant, knowing its purpose. “Aren’t you putting us in more danger?” he prods, not shying from the obvious question. A businessman doesn’t have consideration for feelings when it comes to a deal.

A long, slow, quiet exhalation comes from next to him. Excess smoke is blown out through the bottom gaps of the helmet, leaking out from her neck and running down her armor. It leaves residue there.

“Not for me,” she replies calmly, putting her hands back into the gauntlets despite the metal being hot. That wasn’t what he was asking about. She’s putting them in danger. She presses her palms together, clumping the burnt remnants of the incense into a tight wad, suffocating the ember. She holds it like that for a minute, until finally letting go. A half-burnt ball of waxy, green and black remains in her grasp. The knight puts those remnants back into the little, smeared glass bottle she took them from. “— The concern, I mean,” she adds. “Tell me about your wife.”

The merchant leans back. “My wife?” he asks, not sure why she’s bringing up his favorite topic.

“Yes,” she replies. “How did you meet?”

The old merchant studies the knight for a moment, watching her sit there on the other side of the campfire, still in her full suit of armor. His years of experience piece everything together, telling him what he needs to know in the single glance of a trained eye of her posture and behavior.

His shoulders drop in ease, and he looks up to the sky, wondering if there are fewer stars than usual — as odd as that sounds. “It all began well before you came to this world…” he begins, traveling back in his memory, and the knight sits there, almost captivated, as she listens to him regale his exaggerated tales of adventure and romance.

The strong smell lingers in the air around them. It was so little, but so strong in odor that it seems to have gotten stuck in the open night. Not even the midnight winds can remove it from their breath.

Weihrauch was used back a long, long time ago by people who were hunted and haunted by spirits and creatures that live within the darkest corners of the world’s nights. These are creatures found only in forests so deep and old that they still hold within them whispers from when the world was first made. There are things out there in the night, things that defy classification as person, animal, or monster. The men of the road like himself know the stories, or they know someone who knows someone who has seen such a thing — a terror — but they do not share this knowledge with others. They say that the great and horrific Demon-King of a forgotten era made them, and now they’re all that’s left after his total destruction those thousands of years ago.

It is not safe kept out of a desire to hoard knowledge; rather, it is held as a secret to protect those they love so that they might find sleep at night.

— Because if they knew what was really out there, in the darkest, creeping corners of the world, they might never close their eyes again.

The weihrauch doesn’t repel them — these ‘things’ — but it does hide the person using it from their stalker. Continued use will keep the user invisible and safe, but if they ever stop, then the thing that hunts them will smell them once more and come on legs too many to count, and with teeth too many to feel, as it bites and clamps down on anything in its way between it and its obsession.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

Rain rattles down the glass windows of the castle. The sound of its heavy pouring is muffled inside of the welcoming stone room. Fire crackles behind him in the hearth as Inkume stands there, gazing out of the thin, rattling window into the drowning world beyond.

“You really should get back home,” says the Vampire Lord, his voice not showing much emotion.

There is a rustling of fabric. “I would, but…” starts Azalea from behind him. She’s sitting in the corner of the room on an old chair. She has her legs pulled in and crossed, and is leaned back against the large chair’s shielded backrest. She’s covered herself in a thick blanket from the bed.

“Your brother was very worried about you,” explains Inkume, looking at her. “It was a bad situation.”

Azalea looks at him and then sighs. “That idiot…” she mutters to herself, shaking her head. She leans against the siderest. “He’s not a bad person. I’m really sorry he stabbed you,” says the priestess. “And then tried to do it again a second time.” She rubs the back of her head. “He really is just trying his best in the only way he knows how.” She looks at him. “But honestly, I don’t think I can go back at this point.” Inkume looks back from the window toward her. “Like I explained before,” starts Azalea, her hand holding her neck. “They think I’m, you know, under a spell or something because of you.” She sits there, thinking for a minute. “If I go back to the village, they’ll probably tie me up this time until they kill you for good,” explains the priestess.

The Vampire Lord rubs his face, thinking. “I’ve caused you a lot of trouble,” apologizes Inkume.

Azalea shakes her head. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you causing me trouble,” replies the priestess. “I’ll take it over being in a wolf’s stomach.”

“Do you think there’s any chance we can still talk this out?” asks the Vampire Lord. She opens her mouth to reply, but then just silently closes her lips again and shakes her head. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he explains. “But I’ll eventually have no choice if they keep coming here.”

“I know this will sound awful,” starts Azalea. “But can’t you just leave?” she asks. “I’ll help you. There are definitely other empty places far away from here.” He stands there with his hands behind his back, staring out through the window into the night. He can see perfectly in the darkness that shields the world beyond from the eyes of the living. The forest sways there in crystal clear clarity, holding against the rain. There’s no thunder tonight, but it’s streaming in torrents. This region seems to be very rainy. “It could be somewhere more peaceful.”

“He can’t!” yells a gravelly voice from nowhere at all, chiming in on the conversation. A pale, ghostly face pokes out from below the bed, glaring at her. A pale body crawls out, latching on to Inkume with both arms. “The Master wants to stay here forever!” she argues. “With me!”

The two of them — Azalea and Snatch — had been introduced to each other just before by him. Snatch doesn’t seem fond of Azalea, however. Immediately after he asked her to say hello, the ghost crawled under the bed and stayed there, making a series of growling and rumbling noises this entire time while shooting Azalea the meanest gaze he’s ever seen the odd ghost make.

“No,” replies Inkume. “Even if I wanted to, there are things here I’ve obligated myself to protect,” he explains. His hand drops down on Snatch’s head before he looks back at Azalea. The ghost chuckles and wheezes, rubbing her face on his side. “Besides, I’m bound to this castle forever at the end of the day.”

“…I see,” says the priestess with a quiet smile, turning back toward the burning fire for a time.

He doesn’t notice it himself, but even with the fire and the blankets, it must be cold in here. This old castle is hardly meant to be a welcoming place for the living.

The elven priestess Azalea looks back at him. “In that case, please let me stay here,” she abruptly asks. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“No!” replies Snatch instantly, grabbing his cloak tighter.

The Vampire Lord looks at the priestess, shaking his head. “This old castle is dangerous. I can’t promise that you’ll be safe here either.” He looks at the room. “I sometimes think that it has a mind of its own.”

“She’s not! And it does! It’s very dangerous for humans!” barks Snatch. “That’s the idea.”

Azalea looks at them. “Actually,” she starts, letting a hand escape from under her blanket. She places her warm palm on the icy, frigid stone of the exterior wall near the hearth. Her fingers run along the edge of the wall, as if stroking an animal’s back. “I don’t know if this makes sense, but I’ve never felt in danger here,” she says. “Every time I leave the room and wander, it’s just…” She trails off, thinking for a moment and then shakes her head. “I feel like I’m just being led to places. It’s showing me things.”

“You’re not!” snaps Snatch. “Master! We can’t have a person living here!” argues the ghost. “She’ll distract you from your important work with her… human… ways…” says the ghost, not coming up with anything more coherent than that.

“She’s an elf, Snatch,” corrects Inkume.

“They’re all the same!” argues the ghost, tugging on his cloak. “She’s just a human with big ears!”

“Snatch,” says Inkume, rubbing the ghost’s head. “You used to be human too.”

“It’s different!” she argues, her nose running.

Azalea looks back at him. “I don’t want to be a burden.” Snatch starts to interrupt again, glaring at the priestess, but Inkume covers the ghost’s mouth with a hand. “If it makes it easier on you…” begins the priestess, turning her head away and scratching her cheek before she hides her arm back under the blanket. She leans her head back a little, showing him her neck, her face flushed as it catches the glow of the fire. “— Then you can drink my blood whenever you need it in return.”

Snatch’s head presses around his hand. “The Master doesn’t need your blood!”

“It’s better me than you going out to hunt some innocent person,” says Azalea. “N- Not that I think you would!” she adds quickly, still not having opened her eyes.

Inkume looks at the two of them. Snatch is snapping after Azalea like a territorial hound, but the well-mannered priestess is just dancing around her instead of engaging in a spat. It seems that it will be troublesome getting them to get along. But, one way or another, they’re all stuck here now. He and Snatch are stuck in the castle for obvious reasons, but Azalea is also right.

The priestess really can’t safely go back to the village anymore either, until they figure something else out. The superstitious villagers probably would keep her under lock and key, from what she’s told him. So, even if it is risky, what choice does he have but to let her stay at the castle? He can’t, in good faith, kick someone innocent out and into imprisonment. He’s the Vampire Lord, not a monster.

Besides, having access to regular elf blood on tap — if that doesn’t sound too crude — is a great luxury for him. Plus, there’s even consent for his biting her neck out, so he’s an ethical vampire too. That’ll help him sleep at night, uh, day.

But he’d better diffuse this other bomb first before Snatch shoves Azalea down a spike pit or something while he isn’t around. It’s Inkume-Cray-Anthony time.

“Snatch,” says Inkume. The ghost’s head immediately snaps his way, her eyes wide. “Azalea will be our guest for the time being,” he notes plainly. Snatch howls in a second flat, grabbing onto him as she starts to vibrate into an explosion. Inkume grabs the ghost’s shoulder, settling her down at first, at least until he starts looking down at her straight into her eyes. She starts to rattle again. His other hand falls below her chin, gently tilting her face to look back up to make her look at him. However, her stretchy neck gives way and instead her whole head starts to lift up closer and closer to his face, her eyes getting bigger every second as she looms in nearer. “But I’ll always need your help,” he says. “Will you please do your best for me here too?” asks the Vampire Lord

“Y… yes… Master,” agrees Snatch essentially without argument, her voice floating between her words and a consistently quiet humming jackal’s chuckle as he holds her face.

“I’m counting on you,” says Inkume, not able to explain in any more detail than that as the ghost begins to melt away and drip through the crevices in the stonework. A few seconds later, he finds himself standing there, his hand empty and a puddle draining past his feet through the crevices in the stonework. He looks back toward Azalea. “…She gets excited,” explains the Vampire Lord. “But she’s really very nice.”

Azalea laughs. “I guess we both have one of those people in our lives then,” says the priestess, but then her smile falls and she looks troubled again. “…It’s been a few days now. They’ll be here soon,” she explains. “— The others, from the church.” She tilts her head.

Inkume watches in fascination, staring at her long ears as they bounce from side to side. He loves elf-girls; they were always his thing back in his old life.

She tilts her head the other way. The ears bounce. Why are they so bouncy? He would have thought there is a lot of cartilage and stuff in them, but they’re… floppy, almost.

It’s oddly mesmerizing to watch.

Haha, bounce. Bounce.

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- [Azalea] -

Azalea thinks.

The farmers and hunters from the village are bad enough. But what is the dangerous man next to her going to do when the Holy-Church arrives with priests and paladins, sent to destroy him? She’s seen what they can do. It’ll be a disaster. Who knows how powerful he is? It must be beyond comparison, given everything she’s seen from him. It will be a blood bath.

— He’s staring at her. Azalea pretends not to notice.

“I don’t know what my brother is doing,” she goes on. “But you need to be ready,” she says, her hand playing with her hair as she goes on. The air here is freezing cold at night. But it’s okay below the blanket and by the fire. “People will start coming here soon, from the city.”

He’s still looking.

Embarrassed, she turns her head the other way, still pretending not to notice his eyes on her body. It’s like he’s transfixed. She’s never had someone look at her this way before. She won’t speak of it to him, but she won’t deny to herself that she doesn’t hate it. It makes her insecure, thinking he sees some flaw on her. But at the same time, it makes her feel…

Well, she isn’t sure, really.

Azalea turns her head the other way again. “But you need to promise me that you won’t hurt anyone innocent,” starts the priestess with a very shaky confidence in her tone. “Or… or I’ll need to stop you myself!” she warns, her eyes tightly closed as if making this threat wasn’t frightening for her at all.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

Inkume, zoned out, watches in fascination.

She turns her head again. The ears bounce.

God. He wants to pinch them and pull on their ends. He bets it would feel extremely satisfying.

“People will start coming here soon, from the city,” says Azalea. She turns her head. The ears bounce. Azalea turns her head the other way again. He’s not sure why she’s so fidgety. Maybe it’s actually too warm in here? Should he open the window for her and let some fresh air in?

No, that doesn’t make sense.

“But you need to promise me that you won’t hurt anyone innocent,” says the priestess. “Or… or I’ll need to stop you myself!”

Those words reach him, but he’s just kind of inside his own thoughts for a moment.

Maybe elf ears are filled with fat tissue? That makes sense. That would explain why they’re so jiggly.

Wait. Are those veins?

He can see little blue veins just below the pale skin of her ears. There’s blood rushing through them.

…Is it weird to want to bite them? He wants to bite them.

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- [Azalea] -

He’s just staring at her intensely, with a focus that is making her sweat even if her face is cold. Her threat has gone entirely unanswered and unresponded to, as if it hadn’t meant a thing to him because he knows it’s empty and that she can’t follow through even if she wanted to.

Azalea pulls on the blanket, shuffling around her legs below her again now for maybe the seventh time to sit just like they were before, only in the other direction now. Everything feels uncomfortable.

Why is he looking at her like that?

No.

She has to keep her composure. She’s a priestess. She’s the one who decided that she’s going to help him, no matter what. But she won’t be able to do that if she’s not keeping her head clear, especially of impurity. But she knows what her feelings are.

Sweat trickles down her face. Nervously, she finally glances back to the window, realizing that he hadn’t even responded to her warning yet.

— She doesn’t think she could stop him, honestly. But she felt obligated to say it anyway.

He’s standing right in front of her, his hands reaching down to take her.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

Seriously, how the hell do they work? Do they get sore? It feels to him that having an ear that just hangs off to the side like that will get sore all by itself? Do elf-ears get saggy when they age? Wait, how do elves age in this world anyway? Do they get older than humans? What actually makes them different?

He has to know.

Of course he doesn’t, really.

But he was so lost in his internal stream of questions that he hadn’t even noticed himself stepping closer and closer to her, narrowing his eyes a little more each time as he tried to catch the details of her big ears, and now finds himself somewhere very uncomfortable.

— Next to a person.

“In… Inkume?” asks the unnervingly close breath that touches his face.

Azalea sits down there below him, her throat visibly rising and falling as she gulps. He can see every motion in detail of the weak muscles around her jugular.

Oh God. He did the creepy thing again. He went full zombie mode for a second there.

His mind races through his possibilities of escape. Does he do the finger-guns and run out the door? No. Never again. Maybe he does what he did with Bookstore girl and makes up some cool line and then run away?

No, no. That went completely wrong last time.

His mind races at a thousand miles an hour, every alarm signal in his body screaming red alert. Fuck.

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- [Azalea] -

Azalea’s chest heaves, her heart thundering in her core as he hovers there over her so… overpoweringly dominant, yet restrained. Is he mad because she threatened him? She bets that he’s furious. A man like him isn’t used to being resisted, surely? Everything in her stomach flutters as the smell of his clothes and body return to her — the same complex mixture she had taken when he bit her those few nights ago. It resurfaces everything she had felt then in her body, her nerves tingling in anticipation.

His hands run toward her and then grab the edge of the blanket. She expects him, with baited breath, to rip it off of her before moving on to the rest of the fabric that shields her from his raging animal desires.

But, instead, he simply slides the heavy fabric back up higher around her shoulders and sets it in around her back so it won't slide away.

“Take care not to get sick,” is all the man says in a voice next to her ear in a tone so dry and calm that she’s sure he’s teasing her, before standing back up straight. A strand of his black hair tickles the side of her face that turns after him, almost ready to protest as he just walks away. His large hand opens the door, and he looks back over her shoulder toward her, an icy, cold gaze staring into her eyes, knowing well that he had broken her spirit and made her hope for something she shouldn’t. He knows that she knows, but he won’t say it, because this makes it all the harder for her. Azalea bites her lip, a slight taste of metal on her tongue repressing the words in her throat.

Even he can have a streak of cruelty.

“If you need anything, call for the help,” he says, gesturing to a bell by the door. “I have work to do,” explains the Vampire Lord, before stepping out and closing the door behind himself.

The thud of the door closing runs through the stones of the castle and shakes at the same time as her heartbeat. The flames of the hearth rise and burn passionately, the same of those in her soul.

He’s becoming defensive around her. She can tell. That means she’s getting close to moving past his barriers. A man like him with a past full of hurt is, of course, going to protect himself because being vulnerable and close had burned him once before.

Azalea, smugly confident that his coldness is proof of her chiseling away at his exterior walls, looks back to the fireplace.

The fire looks back at her. She’s sure for an oddly delirious second that there was a face inside of the flames.

— But it has nothing to say.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

‘He has work to do’? What the fuck? What the fuck kind of work does he have to do? That was such bullshit; he’s sure that Azalea saw right through his obvious lie. But what else was he supposed to say to get out of there? He’s a pale, undead zombie of a man in a damn fine suit, trapped in a haunted castle full of soggy ghosts. What ‘work’ is he supposed to be doing here? He’s not filing his taxes, that’s for sure.

Inkume holds his face.

What a blunder. God, why is he like this? The only saving grace for him is that smartphones don’t exist in this world. If anyone ever caught him on camera, he’d be put down faster than a sweaty pitbull pacing circles around a kindergarten.

“Master!” calls a voice from the side.

Inkume looks, distraught, at Snatch’s face that has popped out of a portrait. The painting looks rather offended, leaning to the side and trying to avoid being compressed against the frame. “Humans!”

“Snatch?” asks Inkume.

“Humans are coming to the castle!” she shouts.

The two of them stare at each other for a second. Inkume, not really shocked, vaguely shrugs. “The villagers again? So soon?” he asks, surprised.

“Other humans!” she amends.

“What?!” shouts Inkume.

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- [The Gaunt Courtyard, Entryway toward the Castle of the Vampire Lord] -

Rain hammers down around them in a violent cascade, the droplets hammering against the waxed fabric brim of her hat as the crown of her staff shines out alight ahead of herself. The orb suspended in its hooked end is pulsating with her magic that it’s amplifying. Water crackles and pours down her arm as sparks fly through the air, dancing from one droplet of rain to the next. “Chain lightning!” calls out a shrill, ear-biting voice into the storm that flashes alight from down below on the soggy graveyard ground, rather the empty sky above.

Sanftes has cast: [Chain Lightning]!

A flash of energy whips out like the lashing tail of a dragon, arcing forward in sharp, jagged lines like a manic scrawl through the air as a crackling bolt of electricity jumps from one shivering, blackening, wet corpse to the next. Zombies, rising out of the wet dirt, crackle and jitter. Their dead, rotting flesh blackens down to their waterlogged bones, the soaked fabric remnants over their bodies charring as their milky eyes cook within their skulls and explode. Heads pop and limp, twitching bodies fall down to the ground, smoldering.

— It’s good adventuring practice when using an area of effect spell to warn the others, hence the declaration of the spell as she casts it.

The forest around them howls, the dark castle looming not far now on the end of the long, rectangular zone they’re fighting their way through. The forest has closed in on all sides, creating a tight knitted wall of impassible trees that fill the night like black rows of a monster’s dead teeth. Gravestones wobble and fill the area of what was once a magnificent graveyard as more and more dead rise from the depths of their shallow burials. Ornamental fountains spill out of their edges, water from the storm flooding past the feet of stone cherubs and angels with broken wings and faces. The statues scream out and cry, frozen in stone, their faces warning away anyone heading down deeper through the gardens.

Thunder follows after the crack of her lightning spell, Sanftes's small, sharply angled face lighting up from the afterglow of the spell as she readies a second one. A constant, steady buzzing comes from behind her as she flies — with difficulty — in the pelting rain. She’s a fairy, hardly bigger than the length of a man’s hand from the span between his longest finger and the base of his palm. Fairies are extremely potent magical casters but delicately frail given their stature. Her insect-like wings buzz, rain pelting against her back as she shoots through the heavy droplets — each of which threatens to hammer her down to the waiting hands of the dead.

A silhouette in iron rushes past her, breaking through a wall of bodies with a hammer, sending half of them flying and the other half of them caving in on themselves as the heavy weapon breaks through disgustingly soft and wet flesh.

The man with the hammer looks back at them. “We’re the first ones here. Let’s get in there!” he calls, lifting his fist their way as the broken dead uselessly clamber around his legs, trying to bite through his partially rusted, iron-plated greaves and boots.

— A strike of water hammers against Sanfte’s head, and the fairy plummets, landing in a catching leather glove before she spirals to the ground. “Thanks,” she says, looking up at the thief-class specialized man, covering her lightly from the rain with his other hand as he runs, jumping from one ornamental decoration to the other to avoid the traps and mud. “Just don’t try to flog me off to the merchant.”

“He only takes valuables,” quips the man in reply.

He puts her on his shoulder, where she hides in the fabric of his hood. This kind of weather, just an inconvenience for a human or an elf, is impossible for a fairy to navigate. Sanftes squeezes her shoulder-length, straight green-blonde hair, pressing the water out of the bangs covering her eyes. She swipes them out back behind her ears, but the left one falls back down again and covers her left eye. Fairies, unlike humans, often have extremely vibrant hair because of their magical, rather than purely flesh and blood, composition. She rolls her eyes, blowing the strand out of her face. But it lands straight back where it was, sticking to her cheek. “Very funny,” she replies.

“I am a very funny man,” he explains, and then jumps toward the open arms of a statue atop a fountain.

The rather unfortunately named thief base class is specialized in being light and extremely mobile. They prefer not to get into direct fights, rather opting to dance around the issue at hand. With a flurry of mobility, recovery, and status manipulating abilities, they’ll outmaneuver and drain their opponents dry before finally entering in for a finishing move. There is one major catch to the class’ abilities though, making it a risky choice for someone to bet their life on.

Roots weave through the ground, lashing after them as corrupted plants try to take them down. A massive flower bursts open out of the mud, a vaguely hominid body pressing from the blossom. Spiked, thorned tendrils lash out from the mud, writhing through the air around the flower person who sees them and screams. The thief’s body twists in the air, with Sanftes screaming as she holds on to the fabric of his cloak as he spins. A flash of metal and a dozen short, handleless knives cut through the air. Severed roots fall down to the ground all around the Albrūn, who cries out and hides back into her protective flower just before a massive hammer swings over her head.

Fernandier has used: [{Jack} of Knives]

The thief lands on the edge of a fountain in a slight kneel, bracing forward.

“Hold on,” he says.

Fernandier has used: [{Six} of Swiftness]

“I AM!” shouts Sanftes, barely managing as he, a literal second later, bolts forward faster than her own lightning. He runs, weaving through waves and waves of the undead — hundreds of them. Behind them comes a laughing and a hammering, as the group warrior just fights his way through these low-level zombies. They look scary, but at their level, they’re not a threat unless one is extremely careless.

A howling comes from nearby.

“WOLF!” shouts Sanftes into the thief’s ear as something barrels out of the darkness their way. He grabs a knife, ducking and throwing it at the same time toward the shadow.

Fernandier has used: [{Ace} of Knives]

A single, small knife flies out and scrapes past the lunging shadow’s side, leaving a cut, but not a kill.

The thief’s class weakness is that its abilities are randomized in strength. One can use the same ability ten times in a row and get ten wildly different results, depending on the luck of the roll.

She’s too much of a coward to risk her life on that. A sorceress’s spells always work exactly as she expects them to.

Sanftes is flung through the air, spiraling as the wolf and the thief collide. A crunch and a scream fill the night. She spins around and around, the momentum of her flying off of his shoulder needing some effort to counteract.

He’s on the ground, the wolf bearing down on him, tearing at his forearm that he’d shoved into its teeth. Yellow eyes glow in the darkness. More are coming.

“POTION!” yells Sanftes, lifting her staff.

“Wait! WAIT-WAIT-WAIT!” shouts the thief, barely fighting off the animal twice his weight that is bearing down on him.

The night illuminates, crackling with light as she holds her small staff out toward him. “CHAIN- !”

“I SAID WAIT!” yells the muddy elf, digging through his pockets with his free arm as the other rag dolls around, the wolf not able to get through his high-quality leather bracer. He uncorks a bottle just in time, splashing most of it over his face instead of drinking.

Fernandier has drunk: [Minor Electrical Warding Potion]

“- LIGHTING!” shouts Sanftes, the night crackling with fresh life within the total darkness around them.

The rage of lightning whips out like a serpent, sinking its fangs into the wolf and the man, and then bouncing off into the night, where the sea of yellow eyes howls and vanishes into ash.

A laughing man runs in, gore-covered hammer on his shoulder, as he yanks the ash-covered elf up to his feet and shoves him forward. The thief’s hair is electrified, standing out on all ends.

“The look suits you,” says the warrior, slapping him on the back. The thief stumbles forward.

“That makes us even now,” says Sanftes, pointing a tiny finger at the thief.

“It does not,” he protests with a dry look, leaning in down toward her. A crackle of errant electricity sparks off of his eyebrow.

She laughs. “Let’s go!” calls the fairy, flying forward into the night, weaving through the rain as best as she can toward the massive castle gates looming up the hill their way. Silhouettes move atop the wall.

— Skeletons.

And the gate itself, open, is full of movement as rattling suits of armor file out, holding pikes and tattered banners that have decayed ages ago in the bleak weather of countless harrowing nights.

“Archers!” yells a voice.

Sanftes turns her head, not recognizing it. Another man runs forward, holding a shield up. “Hey! Who the fuck are you?” she yells. “We got here first!”

The man projects forward a barrier ahead of himself, a volley of black arrows cascading from the castle walls into the magical, glassy shield that extends out from the buckler attached to his arm. He’s a shieldswain, a warrior side-class that specializes in preventing incoming enemy damage from hitting themselves and their group.

He looks her way, a trio of other adventurers running up behind him. “We got here better,” he replies, winking to her and then pushing forward at the same time as his group lets out a volley of spells fly toward the wall ahead of them. A section of it erupts, exploding as a cascade of spells hits it at once, sending skeletons and suits of armor flying in all directions.

Sanftes hisses below her breath, looking back at her two goobers. “Hey! Let’s get in there before they steal all of our treasure!” calls the fairy.

Competition amongst adventurers is fierce. A dungeon will produce treasure essentially endlessly, but that doesn’t mean there is enough to go around. A treasure chest can only be looted once a day at best, by one group. That doesn’t include extremely rare, one-item magical artifacts that a brand new dungeon like this one might still have inside of it.

Undead suits of hollow, possessed armor rattle their way, lumbering and twitching as they unsteadily hold their weapons out forward with determination but little strength. Her warrior and the shieldswain of the other group bash through the lines, breaking apart old, black, rusted pikes and spears with ease. Chunks of worthless, decayed armor fall in all directions.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

A young man in the other group, carrying a massive bag, scurries after them. He doesn’t have a role in the fight; instead, his primary job is to quickly dig through the destroyed bodies of the monsters they kill to find any valuables. Common drops aren’t worth much, but can add up nicely over time. But carrying these in such large amounts is cumbersome unless one has a cart or a dedicated system in place. But these are expensive for anything of good quality. So people instead opt to hire extremely weak adventurers, getting them to act as pack-mules in the back. Even with an added salary, the math works out in favor of the calculation.

But her group doesn’t have someone like that yet. Maybe one day. For now, their strategy is to prioritize high-value drops and loot.

A rush of bodies runs through the open castle gates, the raised portcullis at the top of the stonework seemingly lodged in place. Sanftes can’t help but feel like they’re entering into an open mouth, looking up at the broken, jagged metal spikes that point down their way like teeth.

But those thoughts are quickly disillusioned as the other group fights their way through the courtyard’s monsters toward the large, wooden doors of the castle dungeon. Rain runs down its red wooden surface like bloody tears, puddling around the ground.

Five bodies fight each other to be the first to press in through the castle doors. She flies over their heads, zooming in and then stopping to a slow as the storm behind them starts to fade in quietness. The sound of it is numbed and dampened by the heavy, thick walls around them.

It’s dark.

And all of the chaos and the anarchy, all of the fighting and shouting and mess… it all seems to be swallowed by the darkness of the castle.

The doors behind them slam shut.

Everyone falls quiet, listening. There’s a sound in the air around them. It smells in here of old dust, musty aged stone, and quiet decay. The air is frigid and cold, and bites at their wet and soaked bodies despite the heats in their guts. But that sound…

It’s like the sound of ten-thousand sharp, jittering legs all around them. From the left, from the right, it comes again and again. It sounds like the feet of an endlessly legged spider, hurrying their way with hunger. From the corners of her vividly green eyes, Sanftes can see movement in the darkness on the walls on either side of the grand, dark hall they’ve arrived in. Columns bigger than anything she’s ever seen before hold a ceiling aloft that looks heavy enough to flatten a mountain. And at the top of them rest gargoyles and statues, the eyes of which she can’t differentiate between those that are watching them and those that are fake.

Something is here with them.

She can feel it in her core. There’s a feeling that tells her of a presence nearby — a remarkable presence. It’s powerful. She feels like she’s in a tree at night and being watched by an owl.

The sound stops. Slowly, she turns her head to look at what the others have seen before her. Down at the end of the grand hall, above the stairwell of a grand staircase — one of which is broken — stands a single silhouette over them.

It watches them with ruby eyes.

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

- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

“Shit. I forgot to turn that off,” mutters Inkume to himself quietly.

You have deactivated: {Toggle}[Castle Hassle] Your portraits are no longer clapping for you.

The Vampire Lord looks down at the intruders in his castle. Is that a fairy? Woah. That’s a fairy. How cool is that? Fairies are real? That’s awesome! He wants to see her up close. She’s so small. She’s like, bottle-sized, maybe. He bets she could fit into a jar.

That might not be a culturally appropriate thought. He’d better not mention that idea, especially near Snatch. She’s sensitive about jars.

Maybe if he sells this right, he can get them to stay here for a minute and chit-chat? This is his big chance to finally normalize his reputation. He’s got his whole blood issue sorted now with Azalea and the wolf, so he won’t even have to creep these people out by asking for their blood like he did with the villagers!

He just has to take it nice and easy now.

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

- [Sanftes] -

It's watching her specifically. Why? She can feel it in her bones.

“Welcome to my home,” says the voice from up above, carrying over them with a strength of throat and chest, floating over them like an ominous warning. It — he — lifts a hand out from beneath his cloak and gestures to the side of the hall. “You may stay here to shelter from the rain,” it offers. “But I ask that you refrain from harming those who… live here,” it jokes, as if anything alive could stay in a place as desolate and filled with death as this.

There’s a screeching, and one of the other groups screams in tension-broken surprise. Next to them, where it had gestured, a flame lit alight. A blue, ghostly fire burns in a sconce, and old, creaky furniture slides into place. Broken chairs rattle as they walk on their own, frail legs. A table screams as it is dragged over the stonework by unseen hands like a still-living person bound in a corpse-wrap and fighting to get out before the burial.

“I suggest that you go no further,” it says, its black cloak dropping back around its frame. “You will find that this castle is… dangerous,” promises what may well be a demon, with a sick, twisted smile on its face that makes the hairs on her neck stand on end and her gut churn.

Death.

She’s looking at death itself.

There’s no other word for it. But Sanftes can see it and sense it. Those ruby-red eyes staring at her and her alone. The presence, the shape, the form of it towering over them like the reaper in his cloak. Even his pale, sharp face that, from distance — in its heavy shadowing — resembles the outlines of a skull.

"Well, if it’s like that, then just give us what we want and we’ll be out of here,” calls a voice from down below. It’s the shieldswain from the other group. He steps forward, walking past the offering table and toward the remaining staircase of two. He holds out an open palm and points at it. “Give us your treasure,” he demands, not afraid for some reason that she doesn’t understand.

She’s very afraid.

Laughter.

The fairy cowers down, hiding behind the thief’s hood as she barely manages to bring up the strength to look at the creature on the inner balcony.

“In my hands I have no treasure worth more than your lives,” it mocks. “Please take it and leave before… something bad happens.”

It turns and melds into the darkness, vanishing before their very eyes.

“Pfft,” starts the shieldswain, walking up the stairs. “As if.” He waves back to the others from his group to follow him. “I’m not falling for some prearranged monster monologue. Come on,” he orders. “It’s just the dungeon-core messing with us,” he explains, shrugging pretty confidently about that before taking another step toward the staircase landing and then promptly vanishing into the darkness.

His sharp scream trails off before being swallowed.

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

- [Vampire Lord Inkume] - One Minute Earlier

The man with the shield holds out an open palm and points at it. “Give us your treasure,” he demands.

Treasure?

He doesn’t have any damned treasure. If he did, he wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with because he could’ve just bribed the villagers from the start. He can give them some bath soap, maybe? Towels?

No, that seems unserious. They might get even more mad. Who the hell are these people? God, they’re adventurers, aren’t they? He can tell. The fairy has some crazy hair color.

It’s finally happening. They’ve really arrived, just like he was predicting. He didn’t even fulfill his plan with the new guild yet. He has to get on that right away.

Wait.

He needs to reply.

Inkume realizes that he’s just been standing in silence. Becoming increasingly sweaty with all eyes on him, the vampire blurts out the first thing that comes to mind in order to wave them off. He repeats, in essence, what Snatch told him when he asked her about the castle’s treasures.

“In my hands I have no treasure worth more than your lives,” he says, trying to sound charming and sweet so they’ll settle down. “Please take it and leave before… something bad happens.”

Okay, that last sentence sounded a little threatening. He caught himself in the middle of it and tried to make it sound less tense, but he thinks he made it worse because of the pause.

Fuck. He keeps putting his foot in his mouth.

Wait.

The Vampire Lord realizes something.

He’s the one who keeps doing things with the right intentions and then making the situation as a whole worse, not Snatch. If anything, his favorite ghost is a perfect copy of her master.

It’s him. He’s the problem.

Grabbing his face in shocked realization, Inkume quickly turns around and walks off, power-walking down the dark corridor he came through with fabulous posture and strides.

Somewhere from behind him comes a scream.

The Vampire Lord turns his head, his eye twitching.

“…I forgot about the trap door in the stairs,” he mutters to himself.

! [Adventurer Defeated] ! A random collection of their items has been automatically absorbed by the castle’s treasury. • {08} [Obols] have been added to the treasury!

• [Iron Shield] has been added to the treasury!

Is it worth going back?

No. No, he better not. He’ll make it worse. Fate is going to make him the evil Vampire Lord very quickly if he keeps giving it chances to make him lean into it. His best choice is to just go hands off, isn’t it?

Yeah.

That sounds smart.

He’s going to go read his book. These humans are cold, tired, and exhausted. They’ll go home by themselves soon enough if they’re smart, right?

What else can he do? He warned them that this place is dangerous and asked them to leave for their own sakes. If they choose to go in further and risk their lives, isn’t that on them?

He’s not that callous just yet to want to let people die here; this castle is dangerous. But his hands seem tied. If he tries to go in there himself and physically stop them, Inkume is sure that something will go very wrong and make his situation worse. Destiny has a way of forcing his hand, doesn’t it?

As much as he dislikes the thought of it, his best option for their safety is to leave it in their own hands. He has to keep out of it.

The Vampire Lord looks at the castle wall next to himself, staring at it for a time, before he keeps walking on down the dark corridor. “Go easy on them for me, would you?” he asks, almost jokingly, as he doesn’t think the castle itself can actually hear him.

Speaking of books, maybe he’ll finally restore his library next. Yeah. He got sidetracked with the bath last time and used up all of his juice. Maybe he’ll ask Azalea for her blood? Has she recovered from last time? She seems okay. But how does he even ask her that?

She did offer, sure. But… does he just go up to her and say, ‘Hey girl, let me have a sip of that tap?’ No, probably not. There’s some sort of decorum here, but what the hell is it? How do you ask someone to drink their blood?

Mumbling to himself about the vagueries of proper social people-drinking etiquette, he vanishes into the darkness.

A window appears behind him.

[Dungeon Modification]

The castle will reduce its lethality.

Defeated adventurers will be warped out beyond the castle gates.

— For a price.

[{Reactivated} The Wine Cellar]

{Blood Ooze Spawning Zone}

A large underground room that is filled with endless rows of thousands of unlabeled, currently empty glass cylinders stored in slanted wooden shelves down in the dark basement.

Your castle is a realm of terrible nightmares, many of which cannot be differentiated from reality.

Room Effect:

• {Toggle} [Fill Her Up]: Every time an adventurer is defeated by your dungeon’s traps or monsters, they will be able to pay with a bottle’s worth of their blood in exchange for being spared and warped outside of the dungeon.

The room is active. Monsters are actively spawning here!

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

- [Sanftes] -

“I wanna go!” says the fairy, yanking on the man’s head. The warrior, with his hammer, lightly shoves her away. Sanftes latches onto his fingers, looking over their edge at his bearded face with her terrified eyes. “This place is too scary!”

“Everything is fine,” says a voice from the side, one of the others. “It was just a trap door. The monsters here are nothing to worry about,” explains the wizard from the other adventuring party.

Her group’s thief lightly pinches Sanftes's backpack, pulling her off of the warrior’s fingers that she had latched on to. “He’s right,” he explains calmly. “The zombies outside were very low-level.” The thief looks around the entry hallway. “This place has a scary look, but I also think it’s all presentation.”

She glares at him, her legs kicking in the air as she flails around to get out of his grasp. “How about the damn vampire then?!” she yells, pointing back up at the now empty inner balcony.

The thief shrugs. “If the monsters are this weak, then it will be too.”

“Aye. You scared?” asks the warrior, leaning in toward her with a mocking, laughing look.

“YES!” screams Sanftes, swinging her tiny fists out his way as she flails, hitting his nose.

The warrior lifts a single finger, blocking her tiny hands from his face. “Feel free to fly back out then,” he says, pointing up to a broken window up above the closed castle doors they’re standing at. “We’re going to keep going, before - HEY!” His head snaps to the side, looking at the second adventuring party, who has already begun making their way up the staircase. They trigger the trap door by poking it with a long stick, and then hurry over to the other side and continue to the landing.

The wizard from the other party makes a rude gesture, before the second group vanishes down the long corridor.

“Damn it! Let’s go!” barks the warrior, running off after them, his gear rattling on his stout frame as he lumbers up the staircase. Sanftes looks at the thief, who lets her bag go. She hovers there instead of falling. He just shrugs and then nods his head. “Come on. It’ll be fine,” encourages the man before heading up the stairs too, climbing over the railing to avoid the trap.

Sanftes hovers there, holding herself as she looks around the dark space she’s been left by herself in.

One of the figures set inside of the massive paintings on the wall turns its face, looking straight at her.

She screams, shooting forward after the thief.

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

Five minutes later.

They’ve arrived in a large, cylindrical tower of sorts and are fighting their way up a central, spiral staircase. This isn’t what she was expecting, honestly. But the castle’s layout is strange, very strange. Every time she looks, she’s sure that something somewhere has been altered from when she last peered over there seconds before.

Ghosts scream, flying all around them in a whirlpool’s drowning spiral. Tormented, haunting faces howl from all around them as spells fly in all directions.

“Fireball!” calls a voice from the side, the spell blasting through the dark, midnight air into a sea of faces. Fire arcs out in all directions, the castle corridor rumbling as flames lick the cold, damp stones, letting out a long hissing sound in the air as if the structure itself were spitting at them. Astral blue wisps launch out through the flames, some ghosts from the broken spiral flying their way.

Wind rushes through the air, a cyclone filling the small chamber from the movement of the spirits, carrying the fire all the way around them as if it had joined the ranks of the dead. The wall of fire from the spell spins and swirls. Sanftes flies out of the way over the side of the staircase as the group of burning ghosts latch on to the wizard from the other group and vanish with him into the darkness of the night, his scream trailing off as he’s torn away out through a tower window and into the starlit emptiness beyond.

“Run!” yells a man’s voice, the group of people hurrying up the staircase as fast as they can with spirits of the dead shooting past them in all directions, grabbing and reaching and trying to tear them off into a deadly drop. Spells, knives, and metal fly in all directions as the two groups make their way up toward the top of the tower. The ghosts howl after them, hundreds of them.

“Why are there so many monsters?!” yells the loot-boy from the other group, his heavy bag rattling on his back as he wobbles his way up the staircase in a sweaty panic.

Sanftes shoots to the top of the staircase, looking down at the others still running up the staircase after her. She lifts her staff toward the swirling sea of blue just below them — ghosts — spinning and rising below the staircase in pursuit of them as if the tower were flooding with water. It’s filling with ghosts. She doesn’t have enough magic to destroy this many. What the hell is this place?

Four bodies press up the end of the staircase. The thief dives past her, grabbing the edges of a hatch and slamming it shut below them. The heavy, iron-bound seal slams down, rattling the floors of the tower. People keel over, gasping for breath as they hold on to their knees or the castle walls to try and recover.

But there isn’t time.

Metal rattles to the side. The five of them look, watching as the black hallway that leads from their position shifts and moves. The corridor itself bends, like a boneless arm, and they watch as bricks and solid things give way as if they were soft tissue as the passageway reroutes itself before their eyes into a new direction. It connects to a door that immediately slams open from the other side.

Shaking, metal bodies stream out as hollow armors with swords and shields pour out of the corridor — the same that they fought in the courtyard outside, except for their changed equipment.

One in particular marches at their lead, looking much more steady and stable than its rattling, empty companions. As the empty bodies stream around it, it stands there by itself in the midst of the blacktide and unsheathes a long, thin, double-handed sword. A dark purple, nearly black cloak shimmers at its back, floating in the air as if suspended by the raw magic leaking from it like auroral heat.

“Champion!” calls a desperate voice from the side.

! {WARNING} ! ~ [⛦Skeleton Champion] ~

A Skeleton Champion.

Having come to understand the weaknesses of its fleshless body, a skeleton champion is an advanced-level skeleton fighter that has nested itself inside of a [Hollow Armor], sharing the metal armor together with the ghost that had originally inhabited it.

Like a soul and the body of a living man, the two have merged together into one whole and are now stronger than ever before because of it.

Type: Undead {Hybrid} Rank: ⛦D+ Common Drop: ??? Rare Drop: ??? [You must kill at least one of this monster type to discover its drops]

“Chain lightning!” warns Sanftes immediately, her staff crackling with energy as she points it toward the swarm heading their way. The electricity blasts out, illuminating the cracks and gaps in a thousand plates of broken metal as it bounces through the mob, straight toward the danger at the heart of it.

Champion mobs are rare-spawning, extremely dangerous monsters that surpass their counterparts. While still located in the same spawning zones as their lesser compatriots, champions are advanced versions of said monsters that field unique abilities but also treasures. In the popular, farmed dungeons of the world, adventurers love seeing them because it’s a promised payday. But in a place like this, it’s the last thing she wanted to see.

The metal of a dozen armors shatters, breaking and popping as limbs fall off of the destroyed, reanimated suits. The flash of lightning bounces from body to body in an instant, leading all the way to the primary threat in the heart of the mass.

The group warrior bashes in after the spell, his hammer breaking apart one weakened suit after the other. Its dull head smashes against blackened shields and shatters old, feeble swords, sending scrap metal flying in all directions. The walls are pelted with sharp fragmentations.

Sanftes eye’s go wide as she sees the mistake she just made. “GET BACK!” yells the fairy in the same second as a clap of thunder follows her spell, overpowering her words with a hellcry.

[Skeleton Champion] has activated: [Spell Absorption]

A movement — a streak of black in the center of the mass lunges forward. The undead champion’s long sword cuts through the air, through the lightning bolt with impossible speed, colliding straight against the metal hammer held by the warrior.

The lightning spell she cast, rather than working its way through the body of the monster like it did with all the others, has instead wrapped itself up and coiled around its sword. Electricity crackles around the long blade like an enchantment over the weapon and with the strikes, it whips her chain lightning back their way.

Everything at the end of the corridor explodes — a dozen suits of black armor and also her group’s warrior — as the chain lightning bounces around in immediate effect around the champion monster, who, in a second’s time flat, resumes a fighting stance as metal and gore rain down around it. Its cloak billows in a single flutter before it charges forward in a movement so fast it’s beyond the level of any other monster here as its blade lunges their way.

It never makes it though, instead locking in place halfway across the room. The skeleton champion looks down, confused.

Its metal boot is stuck in a glowing circle, one of eight that have randomly appeared over the floor in a spread-out pattern. They’re binding trap circles.

Fernandier has cast: [{Eight of} Entrapment]

“Now!” shouts the thief.

A second later, a massive bag of loot flies across the room. The trapped skeleton champion looks up, swinging its sword out and cutting the projectile in half. Scrap, ectoplasm, and miscellaneous junk flies out in all directions past its dramatic silhouette, its sword held up in the air at the end of its arc.

In that same second, as its sight was obscured, another figure had moved into place. The second caster of the other group.

“Fireball!” yells the other man, launching out an explosive blast of fire straight into the chest of the champion monster that was out of stance.

An explosion rocks the castle tower, metal and bones flying in all directions.

The champion skeleton explodes into a thousand pieces, the monsters next to it blasting away the same from the shockwave. The group runs, hurrying through the door. But the loot-boy comes back and picks up the dropped champion’s sword — the first real item drop from the castle so far.

{Unusual Quality} [Skeleton Champion’s Hand-and-a-Half Sword]

A black-bladed long sword wielded by a skeleton champion. It’s nocked and rusted edges are extremely sharp, but it looks rather fragile. A magical energy pulses through its blade.

Weapon Effect: Automatically applies [Spell Absorption] to any struck spells, at the cost of significant weapon durability. If the weapon breaks during this process, the spell will explode around the caster’s location.

Weight: 2.70kg Durability: 57/100 Value: 65 Obols

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

“That’s not bad, r-right?” asks the bagboy, holding out the sword to the others.

Sanftes looks at him. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure my life is worth sixty-five Obols,” she says. “Could get that in two days at the world-tree dungeon.”

The remaining of them, Sanftes, her thief, the loot-boy, and the other caster, find themselves in what looks like an old dining room of sorts and are patching themselves up with a few bandages and salves.

“Here. Found this on a skeleton,” says the thief, pulling out a red potion and handing it to the caster from the other party, who is a little scorched from his own spell that he was too close to when he cast it.

{Normal Quality} [Minor Health Potion]

A small bottle full of a syrupy red liquid. Health potions restore damaged parts of the body by greatly increasing the body’s natural ability to heal its own wounds for a few seconds. This one is only weakly effective.

They will stop bleeding and close burns, preventing infection and exsanguination, but will not stop scarring from occurring in wounded areas. Smaller doses will only apply weaker effects.

More grievous wounds will require more potent potions to mitigate.

Volume: 150mL Value: 15 Obols

“Thanks, I -”

The wizard stops, making an odd face, and then he screams, falling back and pointing with a shaking hand.

The thief spins around, looking at the massive, off-blue shimmer orb that hangs behind his head, having descended from the darkness. Eight long, sharp, thin legs wrap around his head and neck as the giant spider grabs hold of him from above, plunging its fangs into his chest. He doesn’t have time to react before it grabs him and tears him up toward the dark ceiling of the room.

Sanftes looks up, watching it crawl.

Hundreds of giant spiders skitter around from corner to corner, excited now. They hadn’t seen them before.

Horrified, she watches as the thief is wrapped up in a matter of seconds into a tight cocoon by them, stuck to the ceiling.

Another scream, and the loot-boy bolts off by himself, running straight toward a door on the side of the room. His foot sinks down further than it should, pressing down a pressure plate in the floor.

An audible mechanism clicks. A spew of deep, thick, green vapors breathes out of the mouths of stonework-embedded gargoyles next to the door. The boy flails, swaying and stumbling as he chokes on the poison from the trap. Clutching his throat, froth comes out of his mouth and eyes as he falls over, spasming.

“We gotta get out of he-!” starts Sanftes, shooting over toward the scrambling wizard, who, in his panic, bats her away. His hand strikes the fairy in midair, and she spirals, smashing against the wall and falling to the old, wooden floor.

Dazed, she crashlands and tumbles over herself several times, lifting her eyes just in time to watch the terrified wizard in his mindless panic dive under the large dining room table to hide.

That was a mistake.

The table is a mimic.

It crashes down to the floor, its wooden legs bowing and bending as it presses down over him like a closing jaw. His hands claw out, trying to pull himself free from its pressure, but the only thing that comes out is a spray of blood as he’s flattened. His hands, still sticking out, twitch. His fingers rattle against the floor. Then, a second later, there’s a slurping sound as the rest of him is pulled down into the darkness below the table.

Panting for breath, Sanftes looks around herself in terror.

There’s scurrying. Beady, yellow eyes pop out from the crevices and shadows around the room one after the other.

Rats.

She lifts a shaking finger, not sure where to aim it first, as a thousand little chirping, squeaking bodies see the hurt fairy lying there on the ground.

“Chain…” A long snout points out from below an old cupboard next to her. A big, fat rat twice her own size peaks out and looks at her from nearby. “- Lighting.”

The room illuminates, electricity and fire bouncing off of a thousand things at once.

In that same second, a wave of shadows and teeth lunges her way, the electricity not getting all of them. Her hurt wings buzz, barely taking off. Something swipes her arm, cutting her deeply — teeth. Sanftes shoots up somehow, weaving past lunging rats and through dropping spiders as she flies out through the door, crying and heaving as she tries to find a single window that can open.

But they’re all tightly shut, and the glass won’t break no matter what she does.

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

“I don’t wanna die…” sniffles the fairy to herself, clutching her bleeding arm as she flies through one dark corridor after the other. She’s not sure where she’s going. The castle is disorienting. She stops at a mirror, looking at herself.

She looks terrible.

She’s covered in blood, snot, and ash. The pain of her terror is evident on her face and features.

This was stupid. She should have never come here. She should have left while she had the chance. The vampire warned them. She should have listened, but she didn't, and now it’s over.

She could have spent her life farming the easy dungeon back home, but she got greedy and came here. It was a mistake. This was all a mistake. Everyone is fucking dead. Sanftes doesn’t want to die.

The fairy flies, closing her eyes and begging anyone that will listen to her in this empty, cold place as the desolate wind streaks through the corridors, pushing her this way and that way. “P-please,” begs the fairy. “Let me go home!” she cries, her face contorting in an ugly manner as she floats through a doorway.

And a voice comes in response to her.

“I am afraid I cannot allow that,” it says loudly, strongly, and remorselessly.

Her eyes shatter like glass, tears running from them as she lifts her horrified face and stares down a long chamber — a throne room. There, on the end of it, draped over the stone-wrought seat of power, surrounded by statues and gargoyles, sits a beast with ruby eyes almost leisurely. It’s reading a book and paying her no mind despite the wretchedness of her position.

The vampire.

Sanftes clasps her hands together. “Please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll never come back, I swear!” she pleads.

It flips a page, not looking her way as if her life wasn’t even worth its attention. “No. You made your choice; I told you what would happen.”

“I didn’t know!” she screams.

Quietly, indifferently, it reads and then flips a page.

“My blood…” she says, muttering perhaps to herself. “You want blood, right? Vampires drink blood.” Her eyes go wide as she comes up with a bargain out of pure desperation, her mind coming up with the scheme on the spot. “I’ll let you have my blood!” she explains. “As much as you want! Just let me go!”

“Once you belong to this place. You can never leave it again,” he says. “You’re damned here, just like I am.” It flips a page, not even glancing her way. “Death would be a blessing.”

Her eyes shake, her heart thundering in her chest.

No… that can’t be…

But… but what else can she do? It’s this or die forever.

She floats toward the throne, her wings failing her as she opens her mouth to accept the devil’s bargain, but fails to find the strength at first. Only a squeak comes out. “O… okay,” she says. “Okay. I agree.”

“No,” replies the beast with no heart. “An animal can’t consent. It would be cruel,” it mocks, laughing at her, clearly considering her to be nothing more than that. Her life is worthless to it. It’s playing with her.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] - One Minute Earlier

He really has to work on his oration skills. It seems like talking to people is going to be something he does here, so he can’t afford to be a stuttering mess. He has big boots to fill here.

How does Matthew do it?

Inkume flutters through Enfangled, resuming where he left off. He reads Matthew’s lines out loud to himself. It’s good practice. Matthew has never led him astray yet.

‘Enfangled: Chapter 11’

Matthew-Cray-Anthony looks at Sarah-Sarahbellum, clasping her hands together and pleading for him to understand her plight. “I am afraid I cannot allow that,” says the man to her, looking down her way with a tragic glistening in his eyes that reflects the shattering of her heart into a thousand pieces.

The horse race is today, and she wants more than anything to compete with her family steed, Eastwind-Butterchampion-Glitterpower. Her dad, being a humble farmer with ten thousand acres, had bought it for her when she was just a girl, and she loves the horse more than anything in this world, except for perhaps Matthew. Like all horse girls, she even loves it more than her own family.

“No. You made your choice; I told you what would happen,” explains Matthew, lifting a hand to the side of her neck, exposing the two bite marks he had left there at her request. But it came at a cost. She’s becoming sensitive to sunlight, like he is. She’s changing.

Matthew grabs her hands, holding them firmly. “Once you belong to this place. You can never leave it again,” he says. “You’re damned here, just like I am.” He turns his head away. His moussed, pompadour haircut blocks the wind like a stone wall. “Death would be a blessing.”

Her heart breaks in many ways, but Sarah-Sarahbellum laughs, swaying her head from side to side, her long, straight, glistening mane shimmering in the moonlight. “I don’t care, Matthew,” she replies. “As long as it’s with you, I’ll stay anywhere forever!” she promises.

But she doesn’t know how long forever really is.

“Do you think that you can bite my horse too?” asks Sarah-Sarahbellum, getting an idea.

“No,” replies Matthew-Cray-Anthony, looking back to her. “An animal can’t consent. It would be cruel.”

“I am afraid I cannot allow that,” mutters Inkume.

He’s not sure why, but there’s a squeaking sound from nearby. Must be the old castle. Rats or something. “No. You made your choice; I told you what would happen,” he reads off. The squeaking continues.

The hell is that noise?

He shrugs and returns to the chapter.

“Once you belong to this place. You can never leave it again,” he says. “You’re damned here, just like I am. Death would be a blessing,” reads Inkume out loud. He’s trying to copy Matthew’s candor and attitude. He’s coldly confident but always carries a tinge of remorse behind every word. He tilts his head from side to side, reading with bravado. “An animal can’t consent. It would be cruel.”

“P- please,” stutters a high-pitched voice from his side.

Inkume almost jumps out of his throne from the shock, nearly losing his composure. He slams the book shut, hiding it away and looking in surprise at the tiny person next to him. She’s hardly bigger than his hand.

The fairy from before.

What the hell?! What is she doing here?

The Vampire Lord looks around his dark castle and then back to the stranger as she flies there in front of him. Not that he isn’t fascinated to see a real fairy this close, but how did she get here and what does she want? Did she hear him reading to himself just now?

Oh God, please don’t let her have heard him reading this embarrassing junk just now. He was doing the voice out loud and everything. It’s over. He’s done for. The fairy is going to think he’s such a lame loser. Why didn’t he close the door?

She clenches her fists. “Please drink my blood!” cries the fairy, her eyes tightly shut.

…Huh?

Deeply perplexed, the Vampire Lord looks around himself, trying to understand the situation. How did this happen?

“Are you sure?” he asks, looking back down at the stranger, who vigorously nods. She wipes her face on her sleeve, cleaning herself up with the fabric of her tunic before her buzzing wings lift her up a little closer.

Well, free blood is free blood.

He’s not really sure why exactly she’s here or what she wants, but… if she’s offering, wouldn’t it be rude to say no? Besides, this solves his problem of needing to ask Azalea, the awkward process of which he still hasn’t managed to navigate in his mind. Although he’s not sure how much blood a fairy can really have. She’s tiny. The whole fairy is maybe about as long as the span between the tip of his finger and his wrist at best.

But… how does he…?

Inkume holds out a hand, the fairy landing on his open palm. She turns her head to the side and keeps her eyes tightly shut, showing him a neck that is probably as large as one of his teeth.

Nearby, outside of the thick walls of the throneroom, the castle clocktower rings out midnight. Its heavy chiming floats through the walls one strike after the other as it resounds out with slow reverberation. Particles float in, catching his eye, as the motes of dust hang in the rays of moonlight that push in through the colored glass of the castle windows. Their multifaceted hues paint the cold floor and red rug that lead toward him, the shimmers cascading like the shadows of dancing ghosts around and around. One after the other, on the sides of the dark throne room, ancient candles spring to life and burn with softly glowing flames that flicker over them.

Did the atmosphere just change in here, or is it just him?

Inkume looks up for a second.

[Set and Setting] Passive Ability In order to lessen the resistance of those submitting to your dark will, your castle will actively alter the environment around you to lessen their fears.

Of course. All that's missing now is a skeleton slowly playing a saxophone.

Inkume, not wanting to get annoyed, decides not to even think about it. He lifts the fairy up toward him.

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- [Sanftes] -

The air of his breath washes over her, the throbbing ache of her racing heartbeat threatening to break her ribs from the inside out as it hammers against them. Her chest heaves out further from the strike of it than it does from her own heavy breathing, increasing to a sprinter’s pace to keep up with her rushing blood.

Her body trembles in his hand, bringing her closer toward him. A finger presses against the kneeling fairy’s side, pushing her down flat along his hand that he adjusts, grabbing her in a pinch of sorts with his thumb running straight along the center of her chest, her face resting on it, and his index finger behind her and between her wings. One of her legs dangles over the webbing of his thumb, the other down below it as she’s trapped in his grasp. The fairy focuses on breathing, doing her best to calm herself before she faints, since she already feels delirious and lightheaded. She’s holding on by wrapping her arms around his thumb.

Her tunic rubs against him, the fabric pulling higher and exposing her side. Although she thinks that he’s the one who pulls it away, wanting to see more of her.

A tip of something hard touches her neck — a fang — the other one resting just a droplet’s distance past her hip.

What is she doing? How did she get here?

All of these thoughts run through Sanfte’s head as she’s held there by the man. The others died trying to survive, and she’s here. She can still do something, right?

Her arms wrap tighter around his digit.

This is for the others. They won’t have died in vain.

“Ch- chain -!” starts the fairy, her hands barely beginning to crackle with magic. But she never finishes the call out as the second word only just begins to form on her lips in the same second as they rip apart, a cry coming from her base core as she’s entered into. The vampire’s fangs press her neck and into her body at the same time, the fairy’s voice breaking from the invasion. Her body arches back, but her legs clamp down around his hand. Her nails dig into his skin as she fights to hold on as something rushes through her that she’s never felt before. A burning heat, too hot to stand, fills her body’s every nook and empty space. Every twitch of her muscles and every desperate exhalation, which she can only manage to barely force out through the embarrassing wordless vocality, comes from a source that she identifies as herself. Her body is moving and making sounds without her wanting it to.

The fairy feels like she’s sliding off of the world’s edge. She can feel herself becoming empty of blood at the same time as she’s becoming full of something else — pressure.

It feels like she’s falling. She feels like she’s falling.

Sweating, Sanftes, lost in delirium, bites down on him as hard as she can. Her limp and fighting body wrap themselves around him as tightly as is possible as the feeling of falling becomes more and more. She feels like she’s out of control, like she’s plummeting from the sky down to the world below, and every sense in her body is tingling and electrified to the edge of burning to a crisp. Something rises from her deepest insides, and she cries out, her voice muffled through her clamped-down teeth pressing into him, the same as his pressing into her.

Her eyes roll back, an electrified charge runs through her body, her wings buzzing hammer against him, and then she finally feels like she lands.

With a shaking frame, Sanftes the fairy falls limp, loosely dangling from his hand. Even her teeth unclench from him, leaving behind a string of spit.

Her heavy panting and shaking begin to slow down, and everything inside of her feels good, like she’s never felt before.

She feels alive; she feels…

— Everything goes dark, but not before her face is painted with a smile entirely foreign to her day.

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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -

She bit him! What the hell?

Inkume hisses through his teeth, pulling the tips of his fangs out of the fairy’s body. Setting the unconscious thing down on his leg, he shakes out his sore and oddly damp hand.

Glancing down, he watches the fairy, wondering if he drank too much. It’s hard to tell. But she seems okay. She’s still breathing, and occasionally, her wings flutter behind her back as she mumbles to herself in her sleep.

Inkume looks back to his finger. It’s absolutely full of tiny bites and scratch marks. It looks like he tried to give an angry badger a dental exam.

[Experience Points Gained] You have drank a (proportionally) large amount of blood of a delicate, gentle fairy! While not a lot in sheer volume, fairies are extremely magical entities, and their rich blood is highly potent, especially given that this one was filled with terror!

*★✧+- [LEVEL UP!] -+✧★* You are now level 107! You are now level 108! You have drank a minuscule amount of the blood of a desperately frightened fairy! It’s magical properties are significant but untapped as of the moment. However, you are able to extract the full potential from the essence, as fear has filled it with power.

NEW ABILITY [A Dignifight Man] Passive Ability • Adventurers wield many weapons, but some of them are less noble than others. In order to preserve your esteemed public image, you and especially your clothes are now immune to all damage from degrading weapons such as whips.

NEW ABILITY [Ink-You-They] Active Ability • Allows you to release a nebulous, black fog all around yourself at once that will obscure the sight of yourself from those around you. The fog is non-toxic but will deeply stain bright fabrics.

Cute.

But at least he has blood now. Feeling very energetic, Inkume gets up and makes his way to the old library. “Snatch,” says Inkume. The ghost appears immediately, dripping out from a statue’s nose. He holds the fairy out to her. “Please put her somewhere safe.”

“Yes, Master. I’ll add her to your collection,” says the ghost, smiling at him. “Would you like her together with the elf or the wolf?”

“I don’t have a collection, Snatch. That sounds really bad,” replies Inkume.

Snatch puzzles for a second, looking around and then back at him. “Trophies?” she asks. He shakes his head. “Herd? Possessions? Things?” guesses Snatch, trying to come up with different words. “— Harem?”

Inkume stands there with his hands behind his back, staring at her blankly. “You know what? I was mistaken, Snatch. You’re right,” says the Vampire Lord in a dry tone. “Please continue to use the word ‘collection’. It seems like the best one.”

“Yes, Master,” says Snatch, holding out both of her hands to take the sleeping fairy from him and then flying off down a corridor toward Azalea’s chamber. Inkume sighs to himself. A second later, she pops her head back around the corner. “Pets?” guesses Snatch, having come up with one more on the go.

Inkume opens his mouth to reply, but realizing he doesn’t have anything good to reply with, he instead just lifts a hand and ruffles through the ghost’s hair.

Snatch, thinking that either she or him are very clever, lets out a wheezing cackle as he pets her head. A moment later, she then quickly flies off down the dark corridors to deposit off the fairy somewhere else.

The Vampire Lord heads toward his long-awaited library.

It’s time to finally fix it and retire forever inside of his luxurious castle. He’s almost there.