- [Agnis, the Knight] -
The air pulses with malevolence, the fog acting as a sticky weight that clings to Agnis’ skin. Shadows undulate along the walls of the dining room, where grotesque remnants of forgotten feasts linger beneath the oppressive gloom – bones and the carcasses of animals lie strewn across the floor. Massive chandeliers hang like ominous specters, their crystalline shards glinting in the faint light of guttering candles. A heavy silence envelops the space, thick enough to choke on, only to be punctured by her determined footsteps as she charges. Agnis sprints forward, the polished wood of the long rectangular table beneath her feet as her armored boots trample over a series of plates and saucers, kicking half of it out of the way in a flash of a second. Her hand swinging out her silvered sword, she surges toward the imposing figure at the far end without a moment’s grace — the Vampire Lord, a parasite of the night draped in black, remorseless shadows.
He smirks, an arrogant flash of fangs, and before she can strike, he transforms, his form dissolving into a sleek black animal — like a wolf and a cat intermingling together to create an abomination. The beast darts aside—fluid and graceful—evading her lethal swing by a heartbeat.
His chair, however, rattles in half and falls apart in two directions as her sword cleaves through it from above.
“Stand your ground and fight me, coward!” yells the knight into the fog, watching the sleek silhouette vanish into the mist she can’t explain the presence of. Ruby eyes glint in the obscuration, turning back her way. Agnis points her weapon toward the shape. “My name is Agnis Van Der Osten,” she says, the tilted blade of the bastard sword catching a ray of moonlight from through a window. “I have come to put an end to your wicked reign, monster!” she declares.
Panting, she leaps off the table, feeling the power in her limbs as she lands near where the monster crouches low, its sharp eyes shining with predatory malice. Agnis grips her sword tighter, the chill of the metal grounding her as she prepares for the next strike. The blade crashes down into the stones but cuts nothing other than them.
The shape — the vampire — is gone.
“Face me with honor!” she calls, her voice steady despite the tremor of anxiety hidden beneath. Out of the side of her visor, she looks, watching as Cvet runs across the room and grabs the elven priestess, trying to drag her away. But she’s fighting against him.
— The ground beneath her boots trembles as an enormous shadow emerges from the swirling mist — a massive wolf, bigger than any beast she has ever seen, its massive eyes glimmering like a giant’s pupils. The air thickens, heat rolling off its muscular frame as it charges toward her out of the mist.
Agnis grips the hilt of her silver sword, its cool metal a comforting weight against her palm moments before she runs forward, letting it drop to the ground behind her.
Without hesitation, Agnis steps forward straight against the charging monster that towers over her, channeling every ounce of her training into the incoming blow. She bends low — her heart pounds with a fierce rhythm — as she captures the lunging snout of the beast in a vice-like grip. One of her metal gauntlets rests between teeth the size of her own torso, and the other grabs a tuft of fur from its neck and presses down through the fluff to the tense sinew. Agnis’ legs buckle somewhat, her boots scraping a groove into the stonework floors as it shoves her backward, but she maintains her uprightness.
Capturing that momentum, Agnis grips down and spins, muscles coiling, the massive wolf’s weight pulling her away before she deftly hurls the entire leviathan back over her shoulder. Time stretches as the beast sails through the air, trailing a howl that is abruptly silenced by a thunderous crash as it vanishes back into the fog. The castle wall shatters under its impact, stones flying in a deadly spray that rips through the fog like shooting stars.
Agnis picks up her sword again, readying herself as she stares around the mist.
Everything is quiet.
“It would be best if you left,” says a rough voice from all around her all at once. “Before you end up hurt.”
— Something cold touches her side.
A ghost.
“SNAT-” starts the demented spirit, having grabbed her. But Agnis’ silvered sword swipes through the air instinctively, faster than her helmet can turn to look. The spirit lets out a pained cry as the weapon cuts through its flank, immediately vanishing. Smoldering ectoplasm drips from the blade.
“I said let me go, Cvet!” shouts a voice, followed by a sharp slap. “Hey!” yells the elf as the possessed girl’s brother grabs her in an arm bar and begins dragging her away back through the door as she tries to fight him off. “Asshole! Stop!”
— A skeleton maid runs out of the fog, swiping out a mop down over Cvet’s head. The boy lets go of his sister, who runs off into the fog, and counters back with his dinky sword, fencing off the undead. His sword cuts through the mop, its head clattering to the ground. The skeleton looks at the end of the thing and then back at him. She unceremoniously throws the cut handle straight at him, the long side of the wooden rod striking the boy’s face. By the time he looks back up, clutching his head, she’s grabbed the edges of her frilly dress and ran back into the fog.
…Is this all the Vampire Lord’s castle has to offer?
Agnis rolls her shoulders, readying herself for the next attack.
— She expected more. But maybe that’s just because she’s used to a different caliber of lifestyle.
Reaching down to her belt, Agnis pulls off a small bottle from its holster and uncaps it, releasing a small tuft of wafting smoke from the nearly suffocated ball of weihrauch incense inside of it and letting it drift up her armor.
There’s a series of noises all around her, some kind of grotesque wailing.
“Maaaster~!” cries out a croaking, agonized voice as Agnis steps forward toward it, the fog breaking as she reaches a wall.
A black-cloaked figure is sitting there, hunched over with its back to her with the ghost from before in its grasp. The Vampire Lord. His head is bent down and over the creature’s side. It appears to be drinking from the wounded ghost, heartlessly reabsorbing its essence now that it has proven useless and become a burden by being wounded. The spirit is wailing, its face contorted as it howls in horrific agony.
How wretched.
This is a joke.
Agnis steps forward, ready to put an end to this strange mess of a situation in order to fulfill her end of the bargain that was made. She lifts her sword into the air.
The vampire stops, the ghost still howling as he turns his head, a streak of black blood leaking down the side of his face.
…Ghosts don’t have blood?
“Stop,” says a forceful voice, almost commanding her. The knight’s body shudders as it locks in a motion, just wanting to swing the sword down, but now it can’t. It’s as if something was freezing her in place, his word.
The ghost’s side is healed, the gash that was cut through it mending back together as the black blood streaked around it infuses it with magic. She was wrong. He wasn’t biting her to drink her ectoplasm; he bit himself.
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— He healed the ghost with his own blood.
Ruby eyes glare her way. “Inkume!” calls a desperate voice, the elven priestess running over to his side.
“Bark,” says the Vampire Lord, stepping toward Agnis. He lifts a hand into the air, toward her.
“On it!” replies the elf, running off in the other direction where the wolf had crashed prior.
“I was trying to have a nice dinner with my friends,” says the Vampire Lord, his strangely out of place words coiling inside of her brain like a tensing snake. Everything around her shakes, the ground rumbling beneath her boots. “I don’t mind you intruding my castle; I don’t mind you coming after me,” he says, his fingers an inch away from her helmet, his eyes as cold as death as he stares straight through the visor. She can feel his gaze touching her through the sheets of strong metal. “But I won’t tolerate you hurting them.”
He twists his hand sideways in the same second as Agnis manages to unfreeze, breaking from the spell.
Her sword cuts out, and it should by all rights cut straight through his arm from front to back, but instead it slices only the damp, moist air. She’s further away from him than she was a second ago, and then further away a second more as he twists his hand and the castle — the room — twists with it. Like a wet towel being wrung out and pulled on, the room is twisting in on itself and stretching out in elongation. The solid stone walls and floors bend and turn in deeply unnatural ways. Agnis holds her footing, her guts spilling around inside of herself as the ceiling ahead of her becomes the floor and the floor becomes the ceiling, only for the two to interweave and change back and forth in a long spiral at the end of which he stands.
Every window all around her opens inward, crashing in like doors being burst through. Skeletons and suits of armor, ghouls, and things that bite, claw, and scratch begin to climb through the opening as they flood the impossible space in a manner of seconds, creating a sea of screaming bodies between her and the pair of ruby eyes at the end of the chaos.
It’s impossible. There is no magic like this. There is no school of wizardry that can influence reality to this extent. What kind of horrific demon is this Vampire Lord?!
Agnis looks around herself, readying her sword again as a thousand bodies encroach her way.
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- [Vampire Lord Inkume] -
Inkume sighs in relief as the fog settles down and then vanishes. He lifts a hand, giving a thumbs-up to the witch, whom he’s just seeing for the first time. “Thanks for the cover!”
She beams up from her broomstick that she’s sitting on and holds out both of her arms, flexing them. “나는 주인을 섬긴다!” says the witch, smiling down his way.
Inkume stares blankly.
…What?
[Forbidden Tongues] Passive Ability • You now are able to fluently understand, speak, and read in any dead language of the world!
‘I serve the Master!’ said the witch, as his ability that he had unlocked a while back kicks in.
Why in the world is she speaking that language?
— A mystery for another day.
Shaking his head, he looks down at the mirror on the floor that had fallen down during the scuffle. He stares through the glass, looking into the portal on the other side and into the illusionary dimension.
Luckily enough, the knight wasn’t paying attention and stepped right into it. If not for that, he would’ve been done for. What kind of weirdo just storms into someone’s dinner party like that? He gets that he’s the Vampire Lord and all, but sheesh.
He watches her through the glass, fighting off mostly fake monsters.
He’ll let her tire herself out in there for a while, and then he’ll… shake her out like a caught bug or something to let her back into the world outside of his home. But only because everyone is fine.
“Maasster~” cries Snatch, still latching onto his leg like a cute, clingy leech with separation anxiety. “You saved my life!” she howls, crying, and then, apparently lost in her emotions, she bites his leg.
His hand reaches down and scratches her head as he walks with a limp across the room, the ghost preventing him from walking right. “It wouldn’t be worth it here without you,” replies the Vampire Lord, as the ghost ugly cries and bites him at the same time, her muffled voice shaking into his calf.
— She’s not really trained in emotional regulation skills.
But that knight is just one problem. There’s another, and it’s gone far enough. He’s putting an end to this now.
Inkume looks at the broken castle wall, and the giant wolf leans against it with a partially mended leg where Azalea had begun healing her. Bark looks okay otherwise, but she only spares a glance at him before looking back toward Azalea. She and her younger brother Cvet are still going at it, with the priestess essentially clawing at him at this point as he is still trying to capture her.
“I said I’m fine, you dumb jerk!” yells Azalea, her brother holding her wrists to stop her from clawing over his face again with her sharp nails. She’s dropped herself down to the ground to make herself harder to pull away. Her boots press against the furniture and wall to give her leverage. “Go home!”
“I’m never going to leave you here, Azalea!” argues Cvet, pushing her back.
Inkume, not stopping, lifts a hand to scratch behind Bark’s large ear and then stops, pondering for a moment — but he’s made up his mind.
It’s not weird.
He’s not going to make it weird.
This just has to be done, or this song and dance of Cvet attacking the castle is just going to repeat itself over and over until something happens that can’t be undone.
There’s no other way.
The Vampire Lord’s hands land on Cvet’s shoulders, who looks back at him in terrified surprise, and before a second passes, Inkume’s teeth have sunk into his neck.
A sharp cry fills the air that Inkume does his best to ignore as his prey’s legs give out and he falls to his knees, the vampire clutching him from behind. Cvet’s hands, still around Azalea’s wrists, lock down tightly as a spasm constricts his body and his head falls forward, resting against her.
— Not weird.
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- [Azalea] -
The priestess looks at Inkume and then back down to her brother as Cvet’s face presses into her robe, his hands holding onto her wrists as his breathless voice cries into her chest.
What a good idea!
Biting him — this will finally end all of this mess. Cvet can see this way that she’s fine and happy here. Maybe he’ll understand now what she’s been going through. He’s a dumb asshole, but he’s still her little brother, and she loves him. Inkume is so clever, thinking of this right off the cuff of his hand.
“Shh~,” shushes Azalea gently, her angry face now softening with a nurturing smile as these different emotions all run through her. She pulls a hand free from him and starts to stroke his golden hair, feeling him breathing in through the fabric of her robe. “…It’s okay, Cvet,” says the elf reassuringly, holding his hand with her other hand as she breaks that grip too. “Everything is going to be okay,” promises the priestess gently as Cvet falls forward against her, with Inkume drinking him from behind and pressing her brother between them.
“Hey, just, you know…? Is this weird?” asks Fi-Fi idly from the side, trying to put her broken mop back together to no avail. She looks over toward the sitting elf and then gestures vaguely toward them with both pieces of the mop. “You know, this,” she expands, nodding toward the body pile that Inkume, Cvet, and herself are. “He is your brother,” explains Fi-Fi, as Cvet lets out a muffled, wordless cry and quivers against her body. The maid looks over toward Bark and the witch. “Weird vibe, right?”
“Does seem a little weird,” remarks Bark dryly. “The Master’s bite feels like it, uh… it should be a private thing,” she notes quietly, and then turns her head away to the side. “— Because of the ceremonial value of it, of course,” adds on the wolf quickly. “No other reason.”
“저는 이런 책을 전에 읽은 적이 있습니다,” says the witch. “그것은 불법이고 음란했습니다.”
The two of them look at the witch on her broom. She stares between the two of them as they all stand there in silence for a time, staring at her as she smiles blankly, as if she hadn’t even noticed they didn’t understand a word she just said.
Annoyed, Azalea lifts her voice after a moment of awkward quiet, filled only with guttural noises. “It’s not weird!” she argues, frowning as she holds her shaking brother in her arms as the large man presses his weight down on him from behind. “You’re just making it weird. This is a very special moment right now!” She narrows her eyes, holding her brother’s shaking frame tightly against herself. “We’re reuniting in a way you couldn’t ever understand!”
From below the three of them comes a heavy, raspy breathing.
Snatch, squished beneath Inkume’s legs, dribbles out to the side, panting and heaving. Her goo bubbles as sharkish teeth float waywardly through the soup. “It’s like I’m a part of it too,” says the ghost, clutching herself.
“...Now it’s weird…” sighs Azalea quietly, as a series of different wet noises come from the ghost and the blooddrinking and nothing else.