- [Outside in the Castle Gardens] -
Do not pet the sheep. Do not feed the sheep. Do not approach the sheep.
VII.
— The gardener.
“I don’t know about this…” says the man, looking at the note that is hammered to a lantern post out in the castle gardens. A pathway leads through the beautifully tended fountains and flowers, leading through a small wooded grove. Inside of it is a fenced-in pen with a small three-sided stall on the far end of it. A single solitary sheep is grazing quietly on the grasses there, watching them lazily from the side of one eye. “This seems like a trap.”
“Bullshit. It’s just a sheep. What’s it gonna do? Bleat at us?” asks the other adventurer next to him, looking back behind them at the castle gardens that are filling with light as explosions rock the place.
— The sheep bleats.
Several adventuring parties have arrived in the region now, more than before, and many of them are starting to make their way around the castle’s exterior grounds.
He grabs his friend’s shoulder, pointing toward the little stall. “Look. Right there.”
His finger points out to a still-sealed treasure chest, sitting inside of it. Treasure chests are classic dungeon staples. Dungeon cores will, for whatever reason humanity has never come to understand, scatter treasures all around the dungeons held inside of such chests. Whereas monsters respawn — regenerate — constantly, treasure chests only respawn roughly once a day for most dungeons, as they are filled with significantly more valuable loot. Even rare one-of-a-kind items, possibly — especially in a brand new dungeon like this one where most of it is still untouched. “It’s right there. We’ll just grab it and then head into the castle,” explains the man, his hand shaking his unsure friend’s shoulder. “This could be a never-touched chest,” he explains. “Our retirement could be in that thing. Come on.”
His friend looks at him and then back over the fence, toward the treasure chest.
“But the note says -“
“Forget the note, dummy!” interrupts the other man, unlocking the paddock gate and stepping into the pen. “Fine. You stay there. I’m not sharing with you, though. This is all mine.”
“Fine! Wait, hold on,” says the nervous man, running in after them. He closes the gate behind him and runs after his friend into the paddock, his eyes looking over toward the chewing sheep that just stands exactly where it is, its mouth moving from side to side as it watches them come closer.
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“Is that a sheep?” asks the dwarf, scratching the back of his head.
“Looks like it,” mumbles an elf next to him, her hands on his shoulders as she turns her head and looks at a note pinned to a post there. “'Do not pet the sheep. Do not feed the sheep. Do not approach the sheep. I.X.',” she mutters, not really sure what that means in full context.
“Treasure chest there,” mutters the dwarf. He points back behind the sheep at a still-sealed treasure chest inside of a three-walled stall house.
The sheep stands there idly, chewing peacefully on its mouthful of whatever it is that sheep eat as it watches them from the side of its eye.
“Mama taught me to read for a reason,” says the elf in a quiet sigh. “This stinks of a trap.” She looks at the sheep and then at the chest, and then, after a moment of overthinking it a second time, nods her head back toward the garden area they had just come from. “Come on. I saw this little gatehouse that led to some water channels below the castle. I don’t think anyone’s been there yet. It looks like a sub-area.” Her hands slide from his shoulders, and she walks back down the path they came from, stopping a way’s down it to look back after him.
The dwarf stands there for a second, watching her go before his eyes dart back to the treasure chest and then slowly wander back toward the sheep.
It’s still chewing. It’s just… standing there, as a sheep probably would do normally, and watching him.
Something feels off. She’s right.
Quietly, he turns away and walks after his companion, not sure why there are so many footprints heading this way despite nobody being here.
In the distance behind them a minute later, a sheep bleats.
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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -
It’s time.
The castle has been collecting a lot of blood today. Just in one night, given the actual invasion of his home, the Vampire Lord has filled enough bottles with blood to sustain himself for weeks on end. This is quite the luxury indeed, not to mention the sheer wash of experience points available to him ‘on the shelf’ — if only he were gluttonous enough to want to guzzle it all at once. But even a vampire has drunk its fill at some point.
However, apart from the blood making him stronger, it also gives him power to use right now, and the use cases in and around the castle are never-ending, he’s starting to see. Every time he fixes one thing, there’s another thing that pops up. The great struggle of home ownership.
Flying as a bat, he soars down the road away from the castle, over a wash of bodies that make their way toward him.
For some reason, one would think that the humans would come during the day — it seems smarter. But they’re here now too, in the middle of the night, heading toward his dark fortress. If he had to guess, they’re in some sort of competition with each other. One group went ahead even if it was night and the group behind them got anxious they would take everything good for themselves, so they went too. Then the next group saw them, and the next group saw them, and soon enough, every tent had been packed together and every boot had been set back onto the road.
Others are on the side of the road, fighting wild skeletons, wolves, and mischievous spirits and evil-spirited fae that have begun spawning outside of his castle walls within the cover of the looming trees.
Mortal fools. Their insatiable greed will be the death of them all.
…Wait, what?
The bat stops for a moment, fluttering there. What an odd thought. He’s been having a lot of those lately, these ‘vampire thoughts’.
Pondering for a moment, Inkume looks around the area and then spots the perfect location. There, off to the side of the main road between his castle and the village, near the edge of the forest atop a cresting hill surrounded by cliffs even higher than it, sits a small, nearly enclosed plateau of sorts within the grim forest.
Perfect.
Landing there, his shape changing back into that of a man, the Vampire Lord places a hand onto the damp soil, feeling its texture. He holds out a hand and begins the spell, the same as he would for any other part of his castle.
The forest shivers, billowing as the trees shake in the wind to come. It is as if they are, themselves, shuddering from the chill within it. On the road nearby, a thousand bodies stop and look toward the sky as the gale runs through the world. Lights flicker and dance — dark fairies flying up and out of the trees all around the forest, naturally attracted by the sudden outburst of magic he’s releasing like moths to flame. The roots of the trees in the circle around him, buried beneath the loam, quiver and recede as if pulling away in terror.
~ [Dark Fairy] ~
A Dark Fairy.
Whereas fairies in general belong to the civilised races of the world, their wild cousins are far less befitting of polite society.
Fairies, being composed entirely of magical essences, are shaped by the surroundings in which they are born in. Fairies born in extremely malicious, twisted, or dark environments will be composed of magic of exactly this grim nature. Whereas normal fairies tend towards excitability, playfulness, and eager personalities that give them a zest for life, dark fairies seem to live on only because of how much they hate everything. Their penchant for cruelty alone gives them all the joy they need in life.
Dark fairies are notorious tricksters and potent magical casters with access to a variety of combined [Dark] and [Nature] spells.
While not as 'aware' as their more evolved cousins, dark fae are nonetheless exceptionally cunning and mean and will go far out of their way to make any unwanted intruders into their domains as miserable as possible. Their hatred of others runs so deep that even if they will go so far as to risk their own lives just to act as a minor annoyance to said individual if they can’t harm them in any other way.
There are historical records of several dark fairies, unable to hurt the strong members of a hero party, instead using the last of their lives to achieve nothing more than making the summoned hero and his friends miserable. While the hero and his friends were camping, the dark fairies underwent a night of mischief. They extinguished the campfires, salted the water. They then stole and read the party priestess' personal diary up in the air, within earshot but out of reach, before putting on a dramatic, impromptu, four-act theatrical reenactment of her secret personal thoughts and wishes, including an — as the party assigned historical chronicler documented: "extremely lengthy, surprisingly insightful, and emotionally moving scene of passion."
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
After their limited life energies became depleted from sheer exertion, each of these dark fairies then died with a smile on its face, all of them knowing that they made the world just a little bit worse.
Type: Hominid {Fae} Rank: C+ Common Drop: Dark Fairy Dust Rare Drop: Red Thorn Dagger
Old, dead wood rises from the dirt that it had been buried in like the bones of the undead — reanimated.
But it does not form trees. Instead, black lumber rights itself into beds of stones that come tumbling over like loose, discarded teeth. Ancient ruins from a long forgotten age, swallowed by the woods, crumble and fall as their once warm materials betray them and come to him, carried in the arms of ghosts who stack them on top of another piece by piece. Stone and glass, wood and straw, and the vapors of the misty night all swirl together into a miasma around him as atop the little hidden plateau is erected a structure. It’s not a house, being much bigger, but it is not big enough to be a hall either. Nestled within the confines it is given, emerges a building that looks almost forgotten, vacant, and haunted.
He snaps a finger.
A single ghost flies in, carrying an old wooden sign from a decayed carriage deep in the forest by the river, and it hangs it on the chains by the door. Mud and silt run down it like makeup washed off by tears, revealing words on the aged wood that were never there to begin with.
‘The Banshee’s Blood — Adventurers’ Guild’.
The door creaks open slowly — very slowly — and the inside is filled with nothing but darkness and void. He steps toward the precipice, spirits rushing past him as they hurry to fill the building before he arrives just that one step further — all of them terrified of the wrath of their master should they fail.
Long tables fill the space, with benches and chairs dotted to them. In the corners and recluses are smaller nooks and places to hide away. In the center of it is a roaring, circular hearth like a smith’s forge that blasts to light immediately. Flames rise up toward the central chimney, hissing as they lick the cold, dead, sleeping stonework. Above his head on the floor above, reachable by a staircase that leads to an inner balcony that overlooks the seating area, is scraping, as heavy furniture — beds — is pushed into place against the walls. Inkume steps forward past the tables and the hearth, a ghost setting a rug down behind him the moment he walks past and rests his hands on the counter. Water can be heard running through a metal pipe down toward the basement, where a bathing area is being carved out of the stonework by things with teeth and claws so dense that they’ll chew through root and rock with ease.
There’s a sound, an odd sound.
The Vampire Lord turns his head, listening to the wail. The wind, coming into the stone crevice and howling around the sheer cliff sides outside, makes a whistling sound, a moaning, that reminds of the mournful dead. It carries around from wall to wall, shifting this way and that way in tone and location, but the feeling that the noise carries with it remains always the same — somber. It’s like a banshee’s song. How fitting.
He nods his head. A ghost closes the door, muffling the noise that tries to get in through the thick, colored windows. “Thank you,” says Inkume, turning back to the counter. He stares around himself at the ghosts flying this way and that way. “Who wants a job?” asks the Vampire Lord, clapping his hands together.
The ghosts look at him, several of them drifting forward and raising their best equivalent of a hand.
“It’s in customer service and hospitality,” adds the Vampire Lord, knowing that even he, in all of his dark terror, wouldn’t deceive someone about something so horrific.
All of the ghosts exchange nervous glances and then quickly float back in line, leaving no obvious volunteers.
“I serve… the Master…” wheezes an ominous voice from behind him.
Inkume turns back around and looks at the hooded, fully shrouded silhouette of a person standing behind the counter already. Their frame is gaunt, bony, and sickly. Their face is obscured below an almost impossibly thickly shadowed grayed-purple hood that even the flames of the hearth can’t break through — the fire appears almost dull.
The Vampire Lord folds an arm over his chest, his other finger tapping his own chin. “Do you have any qualifications?” he asks.
The spirit places its hands on the counter, leaning over toward him. A single, dull eye shines below the hood and looks his way. “I’ve been told that I have… a persistent personality,” it says, leaning in closer and closer. Its chest starts rising and falling as it hacks out air from beneath its hood, laughing, as if had told a joke only it understood.
“Love it. You got the job,” remarks Inkume, dryly pointing at the undead with a finger. “You’re in charge of the new adventurers’ guild,” he explains. “Keep the living placated. I want them sleeping, fed, and drunk around the clock,” says the Vampire Lord.
“Yes, Master. But… why?” asks the creature, wringing its hands together almost greedily, as if plotting something wicked. “To fatten them for your belly?”
The Vampire Lord folds his hands together and points at his new employee. “Great energy. You really have the spirit for the job. But no,” he finishes pointedly. “I want you to keep me informed.” He takes a seat on a stool, his elbows on the counter as he rests his head behind his folded fingers. “If you see anybody that acts like a plucky hero, anybody with unusually spiky and colored hair, or anybody talking about the power of friendship — then you tell me,” orders the Vampire Lord. “You’re my vanguard, my front-line spy.”
“Yes, Master,” replies the ghost. It leans in closer too, the hooded face pressing toward his as it encroaches on his personal space by a very good measure. “…Should I slit their throats while they sleep before I come to you?” it whispers, almost delightedly.
Inkume, deeply uncomfortable by the closeness of the thing but not wanting to look uncool in front of all the ghosts, stays where he is. He was trying to be cool, but it's spookier than he is. “…Let’s put a pin on that idea and circle back to it later,” explains Inkume. “They’ll be here soon. Do your best, uh…?”
The undead thing — he’s not actually sure what it is, actually — lifts a hand and points at itself. “Miss. Schwester,” she says, leaning in close enough that he feels like his nose ought to be touching something now, but it never does.
“Excellent,” replies the Vampire Lord, rising up to his feet. He swishes his cloak behind himself. “I’ll leave you to it then,” he explains, heading toward the door.
— He stops halfway out and looks back behind himself.
Schwester is standing right behind him, a few inches away. He didn’t even hear her come after him. A long, tattered purple robe drapes down over her like a shroud.
Raising an eyebrow, Inkume watches her as he slowly steps back toward the door. She just stands there, staring as he slowly grabs the handle of the door, steps outside, and closes it.
As it’s almost closed, he opens it again, a gap to peek inside.
She’s right there on the other side of it.
Inkume slams the door shut.
[The Adventurers’ Guild]
{Adventurer Recovery Zone}
Outside of the Vampire Lord’s castle grounds sits this secluded adventurers’ guild, being so remote and small that even the world’s other guilds have never heard of it existing.
It offers food, bed, and drink to those who are too cold, weak, or frightened to carry on in the darkness outside of its safe walls. One may also sell any plundered treasure here, have their equipment repaired, or make use of any of the crafting stations on hand.
Chartered guild members may stay for free; otherwise, a nominal fee is charged. Those without money to pay may choose to do menial work for their keep.
Structure Effects:
• This is a safe zone. Wild monsters will never come here.
The area is active. No monsters will spawn in this region.
“Creepy,” he mutters.
Quickly, he turns into a bat and flies away.
One other person dies in the castle that second. A window appears.
[Adventurer Defeated!] A random collection of their items has been automatically absorbed by the castle’s treasury.
• Five [Obol]s have been added to the treasury!
• [Lucky Rabbit's Foot] has been added to the treasury!
From the sky, Inkume watches as they appear inside of a dug — but not filled — grave below an unmarked tombstone. Having chosen to donate a bottle of blood to his stockpile instead of dying, they’ve been warped outside of the castle grounds and straight to the guild, where they can take a while to rest and recover.
The pale, blood-drained person, terrified, gasps for air and then claws their way out of the hole and looks around themselves. Their eyes find the sign and then the door of the guild, which slowly starts to creak open all by itself.
This has many advantages for him. Of course, it’s good to know in advance if a real threat is coming. But it will serve him well to understand what the people are saying amongst themselves. They’ll prod and discover many things in his castle, and he’ll be better off if he knows what they’re scheming, how far in they are, and what weaknesses they’ve discovered. There’s no avoiding the people being here now, but at least this way, he can placate his conscience on one hand and, on the other, secure his immortal life.
Being the Vampire Lord sure does require a lot of scheming.
Nearby, the first rays of sunshine begin to peak through the distance. He’d better get to bed. The night is just about over.
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- [Outside of the Old Village] -
He can’t wait to get home. The night is just about over.
Seeing the first rays of daylight making their way over the horizon, the old merchant hastily throws everything together as quickly as he can. His anqa stirs and chirps, excited by its owners unusually quick and eager movements. “Come on, girl,” he says. “We’re going home,” explains the man, scratching the side of the large bird’s neck as he unties its reins. The sleepy, dust-colored bird clicks with its beak, stretching itself out.
His feet have been itching to run all night. But it simply wasn’t safe. He’s no good to his wife and people if he’s dead.
Next to him comes a rattling as the Knight, Agnis, strews sand over their dead fire, suffocating out the last of the embers.
The two of them ride down the road, looking around as other camps depart — having had the good sense to also wait until daybreak before sieging a vampire’s holdout.
Feet work their way down the old road, which isn’t used to seeing such traffic, and make their way to the little village. Seeing it in the distance, the man stops, looking at his home. Everything’s changed.
There are walls now. There certainly weren't any before. Also, the forest is… different. The trees are tighter together. There looks to have been some kind of scuffle at some point, given the destruction here and there that has been partially repaired.
Hurriedly, they ride forward the old merchant’s mount, speeding at his behest toward the remnants.
“Davor!” shouts a voice, a man by the gate. “You old dog, you actually did it,” says a farmer, recognizing the old merchant as he jumps off of the anqa. People walk past them in several groups, looking around at the old hidden village that hasn’t seen this much young blood since a very long time ago.
The old merchant grabs the man's hand with one hand, his other hand on his shoulder, as he looks around with urgency. “Mitko, what happened here?” he asks. “Where is my Jovana?” he asks desperately, looking around at the faces of the villagers who peer out excitedly, watching all the commotion.
A bustling comes as a woman fights her way through the crowd. The old merchant’s wife rushes out toward him, the man letting go as the two of them find each other again. “My heart!” she cries out, latching on to him as the old merchant takes her in his arms.
The knight, Agnis, sits there on her anqa, watching through the slits of her visor as her well-aged traveling companion, who had seemed rather tired this entire time, now laughs and spins his beloved around in his arms with the vigor of a much younger man. His face and hers are practically glowing.
She tilts her head, and then, without a word or a goodbye, simply pulls the reins of her anqa. She quietly guides her mount down the road and off to the bend that leads toward the misshapen castle on the distant horizon.
What a beautiful thing she had just gotten to see. It’s not for someone like her to have, but these little insights into what it could be are what she lives for. With this, the merchant has paid her in full. Now it’s her turn to do what is owed and slay the evil beast that has arisen here on this far corner of the world, so that this precious jewel might be protected until the end of its day.
Agnis rides toward the dark castle, her hand resting on her silvered blade. A young man with golden hair runs after her out of the village.