- [Sanftes] -
There’s some sort of wet crunching that fills the air. It sounds messy. Something slurps.
“Where… where am I?” asks the fairy, holding her head as she sits upright and looks around herself as her senses return to her from the deep delirium she was lost in — half dream state and half waking reality. Her eyes scan the shadows cast all around the room by the large fire burning in the hearth opposite the massive, human-sized bed she’s lying on.
“You’re awake,” says someone’s voice from the large chair near the fire. It sounds like a person, a woman. A long ear protrudes past the side of the large chair’s rest, betraying the fact that it is an elf sitting there. But the stranger doesn’t turn around. “How do you feel?”
Sanftes holds her head, the reality of everything that happened catching up with her. Quickly, she lifts her shirt and looks down at her flank, seeing the tooth mark in her side where the vampire had bitten her.
“Am I still in the castle?” she asks.
The fire crackles, a log popping and collapsing in on itself as it burns. “Where else would you be?” replies the voice after a moment, ominously.
“I…” Sanftes gets up, jumps off of the pillow, and walks across the mattress. Her wings start to buzz idly as she warms her body up. It’s cold in here. She holds herself, looking at the back of the chair. “Are… are you also a prisoner here?” asks the fairy, raising her voice so the other person can hear her better. Fairies are small, so their voices are very quiet for humans and their ilk.
“’Prisoner’?” asks the voice, followed by a soft laughter. “No, no,” replies the stranger. There’s a creaking sound as the elf leans over the side of the chair and looks back her way with wide, large eyes and a smile that Sanftes doesn’t like at all. There are visible, deeply red wet smears around her mouth and cheeks. She looks too happy and pure for the situation that they’re in. “We’re guests,” explains the bloodied priestess, judging by her robes.
Two partially healed bite marks are visible on her neck.
Sanftes gulps.
“You’re allowed to leave whenever you’d like,” says the priestess, looking at her. Her face is cast with dark shadows as she contrasts the fire in the mantle, making her features partially shrouded and indistinct on the hidden half of her face.
“R-really?” asks Sanftes, stepping closer, her shaking eyes looking at the blood around her mouth.
The priestess nods, her smile never leaving her face that leans back around the chair.
There’s clearly something wrong with her. There has to be for the strange elf to be so calm and cheerful. She must have gone crazy or become infected. The bite…
The fairy holds a hand on her neck.
Is she going to change too?
“…But I wouldn’t recommend it,” notes the priestess in a tone so chipper and calm that it’s clearly a warning, and then leans back into her chair, the back of which obscures her from sight again. “It’s nicer here,” she says in a quiet passivity that causes all of Sanftes’s blood to turn cold inside of her veins.
The fairy, standing there, listens as the wet sounds continue on the other side of the chair.
She doesn’t want to know.
Quietly, she rises into the air and slowly starts to drift to the door as silently as she can. It’s closed. She can’t open it. The handle is much too big for a fairy to operate.
“Would you like some?” asks the voice.
Sanftes shoots her head back around, thinking she’s been caught.
But the woman isn’t looking.
“N-No thank you,” stutters out the fairy, listening to the squelching, sloppy noises of something being devoured. Images of flesh, sinew, and broken bones fill her mind’s eye.
The fairy looks across the room. There, down on the floor beside the large cabinet in the wall, is a hole in the wall at floor level. It looks like the work of a mouse.
This might be her only chance.
Making sure she isn’t seen, Sanftes quickly darts over to it and then crawls down on all fours. She gets stuck in the hole at first at the waist, her legs kicking out behind her as she tries to force herself through. After a moment’s effort, she pops inside and then quickly, sparing only a glance back behind herself at the terrifying room she’s escaping, crawls into the darkness.
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- [Azalea] -
Azalea shrugs to herself, doing her best to stay huddled under her blanket. “Okay, your loss,” says the priestess as she takes another red berry-jam tartlet and takes another messy bite out of it. It’s absolutely delicious. She’s never eaten anything like this before. “But if you change your mind, there are plenty,” explains the elf, lifting a cup of tea with her other hand and taking a noisy sip. “I’m Azalea, by the way,” she says with a half-full mouth.
No reply.
Azalea leans back around again.
She’d get up to properly introduce herself, but she’s so comfortable and warm in the chair under her big blanket. And she has this tray laid over the armrests that Fi-Fi brought her, and it would be a real uncomfortable hassle to get up just for that. “Hello…?” asks Azalea, looking back behind herself.
But the bed is empty and the fairy is gone.
“Oh… must’ve left,” mutters the elf idly. Chewing with a half-mouthful, Azalea shrugs to herself and goes back to eating her food and reading a book Fi-Fi brought her as she relaxes, feeling pampered like she’s never felt before.
This must be how princesses live.
To the side, the door to the room clicks and lightly creaks, somewhat ajar. Azalea watches it, but it looks like there’s nobody there.
— It’s as if it had opened by itself.
Knowing when to accept a sign from Heaven, the comfortable priestess decides that maybe she should explore a little more of the castle. Something about it nags at her. It’s like an intriguing voice in the back of her head.
Although maybe she’ll postpone that exploration for just another few minutes. She’s been sitting here long enough for the big soft chair to save a vaguely her-shaped indentation in its material, and it’s more comfortable than ever.
The door slams open.
“Okay, okay,” says the priestess, lifting her hands. She sighs, setting the tray down and rising to her feet. But she takes the blanket with her, staying muffled in it as she walks out of the door and into the corridor, watching it bend and change before her eyes as if she were staring through a wet, hollow log being twisted into a different angle.
It wants to show her something again.
Azalea walks down the corridor, fading into the darkness.
Behind her in the room, the fire crackles. Its glinting light casts over the idle furniture and bounces off of the silver tray covered in crumbs.
The large chair — or at least the thing that pretends to be one — now empty looks around itself to see if the room is clear and then shakes itself out like a wet animal, throwing a collection of crumbs, lost hair, and the smell of homebody laziness off of itself before returning to its idle state of waiting.
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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Snatch. They’re having a hard time,” says the Vampire Lord. He’s standing up on a balcony, looking down out over the grounds as troops of adventurers absolutely pummel their way through his skeleton legions by the dozens. Some of the weaker-looking people have trouble, sure, especially with the skeletons’ large numbers. But the stronger amongst them make the simple undead look like jokes as they wreck dozens of them in seconds.
The only ones holding their ground are the rare skeleton mages. It seems that they have better and more powerful magic now than before, as they’re casting their spells using what appear to be books from the restored library.
He feels bad for the rest of them, though. The skeletons and hollow armors are really trying their best, but they’re just not cutting it against the more experienced invaders. They’re not even cannon fodder. They’re just filler content at best.
“Would you like me to have them destroyed for failing you, Master?” asks the ghost.
“What?” replies Inkume, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow. “No, no, no,” he notes, shaking his head. “I want to help them, Snatch,” explains the Vampire Lord, as if this were obvious.
The sweaty ghost pants and gasps for air, clenching her hands together by her face as she adores him, floating sideways next to Inkume. “We do not deserve you, Master,” says the ghost, staring at him with wide, orb-like eyes.
It’s quiet, apart from the sound of fighting down below.
The Vampire Lord had expected her to follow up with something more than that, but instead she’s just floating there, staring at him.
He opens his mouth, just about to ask in the same second as she explodes into motion, grabbing him. “SNATCH!” yells the ghost abruptly before the two of them pop out of existence.
An arrow flies by where they were, clattering against the stonework.
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A second later, the two of them reappear elsewhere inside of the castle. The dankness and the smell of the air tell him immediately that this is the castle basement, where the wine cellar and boiler room are, as well as the old, broken shaft that leads to the skeleton pit.
“The Master is so wise and precocious,” says the ghost, letting go of him and rubbing her hands together as she looks around the dark room they’re in. She wheezes excitedly, her fingers rubbing together so feverishly that they lose any distinction of shape and her hands start to melt into a ball. “May… May I-”
The Vampire Lord lifts a hand, stopping her. “You may, Snatch,” he replies, knowing that she’s asking for permission to give her input, despite the fact that he’s told her several times already that she doesn’t have to ask.
She pants, smiling. “An army needs armor,” explains the ghost, gesturing out to the dark room. She whistles.
A flame ignites at the end of the chamber, followed by another one, and then another.
One after the other, fires of tremendous size blast to life like ghosts rising from the underworld. The flames peak out of perfectly aligned and spaced holes in a long, metal pipe that runs around the room in many directions. The flames all intersect and cross one another. Something turns and begins to rotate — a large, metal wheel that water pours over, streaming in through a channel. It runs down into a grate, vanishing into the depths.
Then, the ground beneath him shakes.
A massive, iron hammer falls from the ceiling, smashing violently against a metal pedestal in the center of the room. Pulled by a series of silk ropes — as if all by itself — the auto-hammer begins to rise again to prepare for a new fall.
“But the Master knew this already,” says the ghost, looking at him eagerly. She floats toward him. “Did… Did I…” pants Snatch. “Did I pass your test, Master?” she asks.
Inkume stares at her, not sure what she’s talking about, as is the case maybe half of the time.
His eyes look around the room.
The metal pipes lead out through a shaft to the boiler room that he restored for the bath. The water wheel turns, running in motion from the water of the repaired gardens. The silk ropes around the auto-hammer are made from spider’s silk, from the attic.
His repairing these seemingly entirely unconnected rooms has activated the potential for this particular room to be restored.
A forge.
“Yes…” replies Inkume in his best, deep voice, as if he had the faintest clue of any of this.
He snaps a finger, and magic cascades out of him. All of the room’s elements burst with violently spewing flames as the castle’s energy floods through the chamber all at once.
[{Restored} The Blacksmith]
{Troll Spawning Zone}
Deep below the dark harrows of the Vampire Lord’s castle sits the blacksmith’s foundry. Here, in this large, almost factory-like chamber of production, masses of weapons and armor are produced for the legions of the dark master.
Loyal creatures from the depths will work here tirelessly to produce equipment in order to bolster the black tide that rolls against the world.
Room Effects if Reactivated:
• [Troll] spawnrate has been increased by 100% below the castle’s bridges and walkways.
• All [Skeleton]’s and [Hollow-Armor]’s {Rusty} weapons are repaired and maintained, significantly increasing their lethality
• All [Skeleton Archer]’s arrows have been replaced with black-steel tips, greatly increasing penetration.
• All [Hollow-Armor]s have their joints repaired, allowing for stronger movement and defensive capabilities.
The room is active! Monsters are currently spawning here.
The grate below the waterwheel flips open, clattering against the stones in the channel as a large, gray-green hand pushes out from below, attached to an arm so thick that it takes up the entire grate opening all by itself. The soft, fatty flesh pushes and gives way as the bones below seem very thin in contrast as an oddly misshapen thing begins to pull itself out from below. He doesn’t think it’s possible at first for all of it to fit out, given the size difference between it and the hole, but like a rodent pressing itself through a gap, the rest of its massive body soon follows, as it almost looks like its shifting its own bones around to fit.
It clambers up from the water channel, coming fully out of the grate, and rises up into the smith.
“What is… that?” mutters the Vampire Lord.
“A troll, Master,” replies Snatch.
~ [Troll] ~
A Troll.
Said to live under bridges in common folklore, trolls are sour-tempered, greedy, yet surprisingly diligent monsters that will work very hard and honestly to achieve their financial goals.
While the matter of bridges is correct, trolls, in fact, have a penchant for living under anything. Trolls have been found living under houses, below rock slides, and one extremely industrious troll was even found living inside the world tree city’s capital, below the bed of a noble’s son. This particular example demanded payment every time the boy wanted to sleep, stealing large parts of his allowance. Given that nobody believed him at first, it took several years before the troll was discovered and finally removed by authorities.
What trolls do with their amassed money is unknown to this day, as no troll hoard has ever been recovered.
While potentially extremely dangerous and violent, trolls — despite their sour personalities — can often be bargained with and are known to keep their word.
Type: Goblinoid {Troll} Rank: C Common Drop: Troll Blubber Rare Drop: Bag of Mean Secrets
A large, golem-like mass of wobbling, partially scaled skin looks at him through two glowing slit eyes high on its smushed face. A pair of very short horns jut out from its hairless, nearly reptilian skull. “I will serve the Master,” growls the beast, looking at him with a hand over its heart as its fingers run down one over the other against itself.
“I’m happy to have you,” replies Inkume, sizing it up.
“— For twenty Obols an hour,” adds the troll in quick succession, coughing out the words.
The Vampire Lord raises an eyebrow. Snatch snarls, flying forward. “The Master will bring you to a thousand deaths for your insolence, troll!” warns the ghost sharply, narrowing her eyes in a tight glare. It lets out a loud noise that sounds somewhere between a belch and growl as it looks back at her. “Five. A day,” adds Snatch, crossing her arms. “More payment than you deserve, as you already get to live below the Master’s feet.”
“A day?!” it snarls angrily, and the two of them get into an argument.
What the hell is an ‘Obol’?
The Vampire Lord stands there to the side and watches them go at it as they debate the nature of a living wage in the underworld. Now that he thinks about it, he’s seen the word pop up a lot on the menu screens of defeated adventurers. His logical conclusion is that obols must be the currency of this world.
That makes sense.
He’s been amassing a lot of those, given that every time an adventurer ‘dies’ here, he gets a portion of what they’re carrying straight into his treasury. It turns out that the real secret to passive income is, surprisingly, a combination of booby traps and castle doctrine to kill and loot burglars.
Inkume doesn’t understand jackshit about the economics of this world, so he instead fulfills his role as a supervisor by simply standing there and looking extremely important, while his underling does all the work. In the business world, that’s called ‘delegation’.
Snatch and the troll work out an acceptable deal that he gives his approval to, and soon enough skeletons and hollow-armors start lining up down to the basement to have their battered equipment repaired and upgraded.
“Great job, Snatch,” praises the Vampire Lord, as the ghost flies over to him and runs her head below his hand.
“I’ll work for you for free forever, Master,” she explains.
Inkume leans over the edge, looking down past the waterwheel toward the hole that the water is running into past the open grate. “I’ll make sure to get you a bonus,” he explains, and she starts panting and wheezing in her jackal’s laughter. “What’s down there?”
Snatch, after a moment, pulls herself together and looks at the hole. “The old water channels, Master,” explains the ghost. “We don’t go there anymore,” she explains, her growling voice becoming quieter with every word as she latches on to him and slowly hides behind his cloak as she peers into the hole.
“Why not?” asks Inkume.
Snatch looks up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “…It’s haunted, Master,” explains the ghost with fear in her voice.
The Vampire Lord stares at the ghost, and Snatch stares back at him.
The two of them stay like that for a time, until her eye contact breaks from nervousness. She averts her eyes and looks around the room awkwardly, hiding deeper behind his cloak, before looking back again only to find him still staring her way.
“…Thank you, Snatch,” says the Vampire Lord dryly after that long moment of silence that he decided not to fill with any other questions, looking back toward the grate.
It slams shut, as if all by itself.