- [The Vampire Lord Inkume] -

She’s cute, but she breathes like a bulldog eating yogurt.

Inkume sits there on a rickety wooden chair that looks so old that it appears to have no right to exist anymore in this world.

[{Destroyed} The Dining Room]

{Item Spawning Zone} The castle’s once grand dining area, adjacent to its grand ballroom. Once a place where fantastical feasts and grim spectacles were held, it is now little more than an over-sized ruin full of broken furniture.

Room Effects if Reactivated:

• Defeated monsters and plundered treasure chests within your castle can occasionally drop [Food].

◦ May also hide roasted meat within various secret walls.

The room is inactive; the castle is destroyed. No monsters are currently spawning here.

He stares at the gremlin of a person. She is floating there — suspended in midair — and rubbing her hands together excitedly for some reason as she leers around the castle with a strangely frightening excitement visible on her face. “Yes… yes…” she mutters quietly to herself in her growly, back of the throat voice, breathing in part through her mouth because her nose doesn’t seem to get the job done. Her head snaps toward him. “Ah...!” she says with a grunt and then floats over toward the broken table, hovering down over it, her hand floating over something.

— An unnervingly big spider.

“SNATCH!” she yells as she yanks it toward herself by a long, skittery leg, holding it trapped in both of her hands, and then floats over toward Inkume, her excited, nasally breathing not just audible but visible as her shoulders and head bob with every inhalation. “It’s been too long — so long,” she explains, looking at him as she floats his way far too close for comfort. Not sure what else to do, Inkume stares and does his best to hold eye contact, assuming that she’s going to explain something to him at least. He hasn’t got a clue what’s going on.

“Spider. For the Master…” she mutters in meek excitement, holding out her hands to him. The spider dangles down from her fingers, dancing around in agitation with its remaining seven free legs.

…What?

Is she giving him a spider? What is he supposed to do here? Is he supposed to take it? He feels like he’s supposed to take it, right?

Well, he absolutely, positively does not want to take the spider. He doesn’t hate spiders, but he also doesn’t want one crawling on his hands. Especially this one. It’s one of those ones with the really long, thin, wispy, sharp legs. If it touches him, he’ll do the weird, shaky thing a person does when they touch something really gross and then inadvertently throw the spider away and look super awkward. He’s a Vampire Lord now; he can’t be seen as being afraid of spiders.

Shit.

She’s offering him something. It would be weird to not take it. In fact, it would be weird to sit here thinking about what he should be doing. How long has it been? Seconds are passing. She’s still staring. She’s looking into his eyes. Her expression is changing. It’s falling.

She just floats there, her panting getting louder, her hands cupped together as he just stares into her increasingly nervous eyes. Her panting gets even louder, and then her expression breaks, her sharkish malice fracturing like the old china that decorates the broken table. “DON’T LOOK AT ME!” screams the ghost abruptly. “I’m hideous! I’m sorry!” screams the thing, and then, before he can even get a word out, it vanishes, diving down into an empty wine glass.

The released spider drops onto the table.

“Run,” whispers Inkume.

The spider skitters down along its way, following his command and jumping off of the crooked table in free fall, a line of silk suspended behind it as it leaps for safety. He’s sure he can hear a tiny scream as it plummets.

What the hell was that about?

The Vampire Lord looks around himself, turning his head toward a suit of armor.

Seeing him looking, the empty suit of armor by the wall turns its head back straight, staring across the room as it should.

“Thank you… for the spider?” says Inkume vaguely to the room, but he gets no response, other than a passive, ambient wailing. Looking down at a dusty wine glass in front of him, he sees something swirling inside of it through the milky glass. It’s white, like misty vapors stirred into a poison cocktail, and spins around and around inside of the glass, stirring itself. The melted ghost howls and moans.

Leaning over, he bends down and looks through its exterior, wiping off some of the dust with a finger. The broken-apart features of a face swirl around inside of the glass. It looks like the ghost, but it’s devolved into a soup of sharp teeth and round eyes, and it just spins around on itself, wailing and crying in some sort of agony.

“Are you alright?” asks Inkume, feeling kind of bad now for what appears to be — as best as he can tell — some kind of maddened spirit.

The voice bubbles, talking to him as if underwater. “A thousand years I’ve had time to prepare for you, Master,” cries the ghost, the round eyes in the glass quivering. “And I’ve failed. I’ve failed!” she laments, letting out a long ‘woo’ with many changes in pitch in her gravely voice. “I should have prepared a feast for your arrival,” she explains, panting for breath. Her eyes drift apart, swirling over one another in a spiral inside the glass, bubbles rising to the surface. “Please, I- take my worthless life instead!” begs the spirit. “Consume me, but forgive me, Master,” she cries in many tones as she tries to catch her breath. Ghostly white broth runs over the sides of the ancient wine glass. “WoOoOo~” she howls.

What?

He doesn’t have a single clue what’s going on here anymore. This place is a madhouse.

He needs an idea. He doesn’t know how to handle this.

Reaching down, he pulls the trashy vampire book out of his cloak down below the table and quickly skims a few pages, trying to find something fitting.

‘Enfangled: Chapter 13’

“I let you down, Johnathan-Jansen-Jerimiah,” says the extremely ripped man, flexing his pectoral muscles to the wolfman standing across from him, as is a custom of his clan. His eyes sparkling with the radiant tears of his failure.

The other man across from him holds a hand out onto his shoulder, another hand resting on his exposed, freshly flexing right pectoral muscle to stop the display of repentance before it goes on too far, and he says something in the language of their people that can’t be taken back.

“Enough!” he barks loudly. “I don’t need to forgive you,” says the large brute of a man, but with a saint’s kindness in his eyes that have seen bloodshed beyond countless lives. “Because you tried, and I will never ask you for anything more, Laniel-Lasania-Lucindra,” he explains firmly, nodding once and then ripping off his own flannel shirt with his other hand in a single pull, flexing his pecs to his clan brother.

And the two of them take turns flexing opposite muscles, as is the way of their people.

“…I might skip some of that one,” mutters Inkume, shoving the book back into his cloak.

A loud, bubbling, crying moan comes from the overflowing glass. “I’m so worthless,” weeps the ghost. “Master doesn’t even w-want to eat meee~” she howls.

“Enough!” barks Inkume, his hand reaching out to take hold of the glass, not by the stem but by its rounded cup. He lifts it up, holding it toward his face to look into the swirling, shaking eyes that have melted like all the rest of her. “I don’t need to forgive you,” he parrots, and the ghost cries even louder. He lifts his other hand, scooping out some of the liquid in his fingers. She dribbles through it, back into the glass. “Because you tried, and I will never ask you for anything more,” explains Inkume firmly, nodding once to the quivering eyes that stare his way in surprised uncertainty.

A pale collection of features slowly rises out of the edge of the glass, staring just over the brim of it with wide eyes. The heavy breathing returns to its normal pace, which he thinks is good at first, and then remembers to shake off his hands. An oddly clingy dribble drops down off of him, only tepidly. He doesn’t need to ask what he just touched. It would be too awkward.

The ghost continues to pant heavily, almost snorting as a pair of wide googly eyes look at him from the cup.

“Master…” she mutters.

“Who are you?” asks Inkume. “Why are you calling me that?” he asks, looking at the full glass.

The spirit begins to re-manifest into something more coherent, its wide face with its sharp teeth and all starting to piece itself together from the swirling jelly-mist inside of the cup. Her hands form together from the vague blobs holding the edge of the glass, and she starts to pull herself out — that look of maliciousness back in her eyes all of a sudden.

She points at herself. “The old master called me many things, yes,” she says excitedly, pulling her hands together as she scans the room, as if looking for something. He has no idea. “My first name was Trash. But then I was Rotten, yes…” she breathes, getting almost too excited again as she begins to list with her fingers a number of different names. “For a hundred years, I was Filth, and then for a dozen more, I was Worthless.” She slows her panting, her eyes scanning the room as something starts to distract her. He’s not sure what’s happening, but the ghost looks away from him and then begins to drift toward the side of the room, pulling entirely free from the glass.

She slowly skulks down toward the darkness and then lunges. “SNATCH!” she screams in her goblin’ish warcry. A loud squeaking fills the air, and she triumphantly lifts her hands, holding a rat in both of them that had been scurrying through the dining area. She drifts back to Inkume and presents it to him proudly, looking with expectant eyes as she offers a new and even better gift after the rejected spider. The rat squirms in her hands, squeaking in terror as she holds it out with both hands, staring into his eyes and smiling with her sharkish grin, her pupils almost glowing with excitement as she starts to breathily pant again, as if she had run a marathon.

“I, uh…” Inkume lifts a finger, not sure how to reject this one.

— Wait.

He reaches over to the side of his cloak, holding the fabric out and gesturing inside. “Thank… you,” says the Vampire Lord as she floats to him and puts the rat into the fabric that almost seems black and empty, like a hole.

[Rat {01}] has been added to the castle’s treasury!

She looks pleased, almost glowing. Her hands rise up to the sides of her very wide mouth, pulling on the corners of it with her three fingers as she continues to breathe very heavily, staring at him giddily. Then she straightens up, realizing something. “— And then,” she goes on, continuing her story as she snaps back onto track. “Then I was called Gross, Horrible, Blech, and Ugh-You-Again.”

He can’t help but notice that she’s somehow gotten more fingers than before. Ghosts seem to be very malleable.

“Those are all terrible,” he replies, taken aback, looking at her and starting to feel bad now. Who used to run this place? He must have been a real piece of work.

“Oh!” she says excitedly. “The Master has a new name for me?” she asks. “Terrible?! Yes! Very good!”

“No, no… no. What?” he interjects, waving his hands. “First of all, stop calling me that.”

“But… you are the master of the castle,” she explains, drifting forward toward him and coming unnervingly close. “— And everything in it, Master,” she finishes, her eyes wide, her breath reaching the tip of his nose.

[Lord of the Night] Passive Ability • Every monster within the castle is at your beck and call. Every spirit, ghost, or other undead follows your every whim and behest either as a servant to your desires or a defender of your castle. Some in particular are stronger than others and are here to act as your minions, dedicated to maintaining your seat of power.

Inkume lifts a hand, the tips of his fingers sinking into her malleable, soft forehead as he pushes her gently back a little ways. “I see,” he replies. “And the castle is?”

The ghost with many names — all bad — holds her arms out to her sides, gesturing to the relic as if it were some grand thing. “— Yours!” she replies, proudly, as if answering a trick question she had been trained to reply to in advance. She looks at him with wide eyes like a performing dog that was now expecting a scratch between its ears.

His raised finger falls flat, sliding through the inside of her face that lies somewhere confusingly between the intangible and the physical. “Ah.”

“Soon we will begin the ritual,” she explains, holding her hands against herself and starting to breathe heavily again. “And darkness will consume the world forever!” The ghost nods, looking at him. “This castle is your seat of power; it is what will keep you safe from them while you prepare the spell.”

“'Them'?” asks Inkume, leaning back on the old, crooked chair — dangerously far, given its state.

“The living,” she hisses, narrowing her eyes. “They fear you. They will come to stop you soon.”

“I mean… fair,” he replies. “Getting rid of the sun does seem like a big deal,” mutters the Vampire Lord. “We’ll talk it out, I guess.”

“No, Master,” she explains, coming closer again, despite his best attempt to lean back. His neck is almost crooked at this point. “They will kill you to stop you. Just like they did to the old master, all of those many years ago.”

Inkume nods, looking at her — well, through her. It’s sort of both, really. But then his eyes shift, and he scans the room. For a time, he had thought it was just the two of them here, but now he’s realizing that they aren’t as alone as he thought. The suits of armor are static, but moving ever so slightly now and then, as if possessed.

~ [Haunted Armor] ~

A Haunted Armor.

Haunted armors are possessed suits of plate armor worn by trapped spirits. Much like a ghost will possess a location, haunted armor is possessed by ghosts that are rather bound to their old metal trappings in which they spent their lives and deaths.

They are intelligent enough to follow basic orders and routines but are not particularly sharp on their own, as much of their intelligence has been numbed by an eternity of standing watch in the darkness. They serve as the most basic guards of the Vampire Lord’s castle.

When killed, Haunted Armors have a chance to automatically reassemble and reanimate themselves.

Type: Undead {Revanent} Rank: D Common Drop: Scrap Metal Rare Drop: Castle Door Key

The windy gusts he sees now and then, what he had assumed to be vapors and mist, are thin, wispy spirits that fly through the air.

~ [Lesser Spirit] ~

A Lesser Spirit.

Ghosts come in many shapes and sizes. Lesser Spirits are the least of both. Having no tangible form, their incorporeal presence is nearly just as unimpressive. When a ghost loses its will, malice, or reason to be bound to a location, it will eventually fade out and vanish into the ether. A lesser spirit is a ghost in the process of doing exactly this.

Having lost most of its power and ectoplasm, they will serve to mildly harass any unwanted intruders with simple status ailments and tricks.

Type: Undead {Ghost} Rank: F- Common Drop: Ecotoplasm Rare Drop: Bottle of Whispers

The chandelier above them, in the darkness…

He leans back further.

— That’s not a chandelier.

It’s a giant spider, its legs curled together and waiting for someone to walk by at the wrong moment. It watches him.

~ [Doorkeeper Giant Spider] ~

A Giant Spider.

Giant spiders come in many variants depending on their location. When augmented with magic, they are highly adaptable creatures that will readily take on many elements and powers depending on the environment their brood has nested in. They are remarkably cunning in matters of survival and can camouflage themselves in nearly any new environment.

Doorkeepers are particularly passive, patient hunters. They will seclude themselves in dark, remote places and wait for exceptionally long periods of time for their prey to walk beneath them before they strike.

Type: Beast {Spider} Rank: D Common Drop: Venom Sac Rare Drop: Spiderfang Dagger

He hopes that it recognizes his mercy for its younger kin. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be a giant rat.

The paintings — colors long dulled — move and stir, and outside in the darkness beyond the windows, shadows shift and swirl in the night.

~ [Living Object] ~

A Living Object.

A living object, contrary to its name, is not actually an item that has come to life. Rather, they are a low-level sub-form of a standard [Mimic]. Whereas its progenitor will pretend to be more significant objects such as treasure chests, doors, and even furniture, Living Objects will placate themselves by pretending to be more mundane things such as vases, paintings, and other base household items.

They lack combat abilities and can, at best, drop themselves onto anyone walking past at the wrong moment.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Although, this is a risky strategy as they cannot pick themselves back up without help.

They are generally considered worthless, if not amusing, monsters.

Type: Mimic Rank: D- Common Drop: Miscellaneous Junk Rare Drop: Treasure Map

The empty room is alive, but just barely. There are things here, creatures, or maybe monsters, but they seem mostly dormant and inactive.

“He failed to fulfill the prophecy, to bring about the end of all living things,” explains the ghost, leaning in even closer toward him. Inkume’s head is pulled back now at an almost sharp right angle, the chair leaning back on, quite literally, its last legs and groaning audibly as it does so. “But you, Master…” she says, panting in an unnervingly sweaty manner, hovering over him, the ectoplasm of her makeup dripping down toward him like snot from a runny nose. “You seem… different,” she explains, a hand eagerly pulling on one side of her face and stretching it too far, as if the skin were loose rubber. Her wide mouth pulls open too far, her sharp rows of teeth spreading apart as she makes the gaps bigger. She laughs — not loudly — but in a quiet, back of the throat chuckle of a thing that never develops past the first stage as her hands reach out toward his face, her fingers twitching. Her eyes get larger as she looms and gets ready to scream something. He can see the spasm in her now-sagging brow.

“- SNATCH!” yells the Vampire Lord preemptively, having had the feeling he was about to be taken next by the excitable ghost like the spider and the rat before him.

Her face snaps back together into a single, coherent shape, like a taut rubber band being let go from all sides at once.

“M- Master?” she asks, confused.

“Your new name is… uh, Snatch. Yes,” he affirms, crossing his arms confidently. “It seems to be what you like to do,” he adds flippantly. The Vampire Lord nods to himself, lifting a hand and rubbing his obscenely perfect, diamond-cut chin. His unblemished, beautiful skin glistens in the dew of the night.

He thinks back to a page he skimmed over in the book before, while looking for his last answer.

‘Enfangled: Chapter 8’

“I’m just a poor small town girl from the backwaters,” says Sarah-Sarahbellum, turning away and covering her face with both of her hands. “You shouldn’t look at my ugly face, Matthew-Cray-Anthony,” she proclaims in her country droll, tears running down her cheeks as the words of the mean girls from before run through her blood like hot, dripping poison. “You should just call me filth like they do and move on with your life!”

He grabs her, a hand on her shoulder and one on her waist, as he spins her around with terrifying force to face him, his wide, angry eyes gazing deeply into hers. “You’re a great person, the best one in this entire school that I’ve been going to for seven hundred years,” he exclaims with a fire in his gaze. “The only thing I can call you is… perfect.”

Her heart crashes into itself, sending waves of her feelings out in all directions, all of them getting lost and filling her body with chaos as he lets her loose — but she wishes he wouldn’t. Instead, his hand rises to below her chin, lifting it up. His hand grabs her wrist. “What some cruel people call you doesn’t matter to me. Because you just got here, and I can see what you really are and what you really can do.” He lifts her hand, holding it against his chest. “You’re the only girl able to make my dead heart beat again. So if you ever say those things about yourself again, I won’t forgive you.”

“Oh, Matthew-Cray-Anthony!” she swoons.

Okay. He might need to dial that one down a little too. A lot of these are pretty out there, aren’t they? The ghost is too sweaty and excitable as is.

His firm, stern eyes stare at her as she looks around, confused as to his proclamation. “You… you don’t want to call me Puke?” she asks, pointing at herself. “Ugly? Vermin? I can do Vermin,” she explains, shaking her head in confusion. “The old Master said I was useless. So I need these names to remind me of who I am. Yes… What about -”

Inkume reaches out, tightly grabbing her wrist. The ghost stops, surprised. His other hand lifts a finger below her chin to turn it to look his way as he stares directly into her eyes.

Her boneless wrist compresses like jelly and sloshes over his fingers. His other hand under her chin pushes her mouth to the side because there’s nothing there to hold it in place. “What some cruel person calls you doesn’t matter to me,” explains the Vampire Lord in a stern, warning tone, making himself clear that he will not be defied. “Because even if I just met you, I see what you really are and what you really can do,” he recites loudly. “So if you ever say those terrible things about yourself again, I won’t forgive you,” he warns.

Her eyes widen as she listens. The ghost stares, confused, and then starts to wobble, flailing with her one free arm like pudding in a tremor as he still holds onto the other one. Her heavy breathing intensifies beyond measure, and she lets out a series of proceedingly awkward mutters, snorts, and grunts as she squirms and pulls on herself with her free hand, stretching her face and body out in all directions.

He’s not sure if he did this one right.

Maybe he should have toned it down even more than how he delivered it. It might have been a little too intense for this particular creature.

She’s panting way, way too much for his comfort, so Inkume lets her wrist go and wipes his damp hand off on his cloak. She wobbles and quivers, her fingers pulling through her exterior and hooking into herself. Wheezing for air, she rips at her eyes, stretching them wide as she closes in toward him. “I love you, Master,” she breathes frantically, stretching her eyes out as wide as dinner plates as she looks at him, ectoplasm running down her mouth and eyes as she garbles her thoughts out loud.

Inkume tilts his head, staring at her at an angle in severe confusion, his awkward expression perhaps not so well hidden this time.

…Did she just…?

The ghost, catching her own breath from being exhausted from breathing too much, looks at him and then around herself as she realizes what she just said and then screams loudly, filling the castle with a haunting shriek that shakes it to its very foundation and carries out into the dark forest outside of the castle, filling the hearts of many midnight hunters with terror. “SNATCH!” cries the sweaty ghost desperately, wrapping her arms around herself as she snatches herself and then simply vanishes into a single dot that pops out of existence in a single second, as if she never was.

He sits there in silence by himself.

Well…

Okay then.

Inkume sits there, the leaned back chair settling down again on all of its legs. He looks over to a suit of armor that was staring at him.

It looks away again.

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

So he’s the Vampire Lord of this era, reborn with an array of powers that, so far, are… marginally useful but not really mind-breaking.

— Okay. Got it.

He’s been tasked with bringing about an era of eternal, horrific terror onto the world by completing a powerful, ancient ritual that will get rid of the sun, of all things.

— Sure. Why not? He might even be on board with that, depending on a few details here and there. He was always more of a night owl anyway.

The haunted, ghost-filled castle that he has been resurrected in is the seat of his power, waiting for him to reactivate its ‘core’ and begin his… uh… adventure? He doesn’t have the right word for whatever this is shaping up to be.

— That makes sense, sort of.

A legion of spirits and undead are here to assist him in doing so. They’ll defend his castle, his dungeon, while the ritual is underway, because the living will try to stop him.

— Yup. That adds up.

But one question arises that he has yet to fully answer.

Why would he bother doing any of this?

Apparently, there was an old Vampire Lord a long time ago who began the process and dropped the ball, given that he was killed and all. Inkume can only assume that this particular monster had a personal vendetta against the living; he sounds like he was kind of a jerk from what he has pieced together. But he himself just got here to this other world, and he personally likes the living. He spent most of his last life being alive. It was his favorite thing.

The new Vampire Lord wanders down the castle corridor, lost in deep contemplation.

So, what possible motivation would he have to end everything that exists and bring all of this trouble onto himself? There’s just no benefit to it, is there?

Why wouldn’t he just enjoy his super cool vampire powers and magical castle — awkward ghosts aside — in peace for all eternity? He can drink the occasional sheep’s blood now and then so he doesn’t have to hurt any people, and, you know, just do decently cool shit like turning into a bat forever.

No trouble, no mess.

He walks past a mirror in his hurry, stopping to look at it for a moment. He was sure this one was broken before, when he passed it on his way the first time through here.

Whatever. Anyway. He was a recluse in his last life, and he can be a recluse in this one too, except even better! This time, he has his own entire castle to do nothing in instead of a shitty apartment! Plus, there are elves in this world. He was always an elf-guy. It’s all looking pretty good for him right here.

…A castle…

The thought hits him that the castle has many rooms, right? Maybe one of them is even…

Inkume goes through his new memories of this place.

It’s here! It’s real!

The Vampire Lord jolts together in surprise, his cloak billowing behind him as he hurries with purposeful strides down the many twisting corridors to head to what he senses should be here, nestled deep within the heart of the old ruin.

— A library! And it’s giant, taking up an entire tower. They might be a little musty, but the old Vampire Lord collected copies of books from all around the world here back in his day.

Forget ending the world. Screw that noise. He’s just going to take it easy for the rest of eternity. This is it; he has it made! It’s a good thing he didn’t go to heaven when he died, or he’d have missed out on this!

Excitedly, he throws open the doors to the library.

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

- [In the Nearby Village, Down Below the Forest] -

“WE HAVE TO KILL IT!” shouts a woman, shaking her fist into the air. “It came for the priestess!” she shouts, looking around at the crowded town hall, packed to the brim with people. “How long before it comes for our babies next?”

“Are you sure it’s real?” asks a man from the side.

“Yes, you fool!” argues a different man from up on the raised stage. “We all saw it,” he explains, stepping forward. “Its eyes were as red as the devil. Its dead, rotting skin was as pale as the moon,” he explains. “All of us saw it!”

“A beast it was. As tall as two men and with teeth like a butcher’s knives,” explains the miller, shaking his head. “Heaven’s mercy is the only thing that saved Sister Azalea from being devoured whole.”

The town hall murmurs.

“No!” shouts a girl’s voice. The crowd of people turns to look at the priestess, still covered in grime and dried blood. “You’re all not listening to me!” she exclaims, clapping the back of her hand into her palm. “I don’t know anything about vampires, but he saved me from the wolves!” she exclaims for the third time now.

The people murmur, but not in understanding of her statement. She can see their eyes, their expressions. They’re wary of her, as if looking at someone with the plague.

Her brother grabs her shoulders, lightly sitting her back down onto her chair.

“Look!” exclaims the traveling merchant, gesturing to Azalea. “Even now, the monster’s mind-controlling magic has altered her memory of the horrific, terrible, deeply traumatic events she has experienced tonight,” he says, walking toward them, facing the crowd. “Vampires manipulate memories and feelings,” he explains, leaning in toward an older woman who covers her mouth in shock. “They’ll make you fall in love with them at the same second as they carve your heart out of an eviscerated chest,” he says, narrowing his eyes and raising his hand. The crowd murmurs. “Pray for Sister Azalea!” he proclaims. “May God heal her from this terrible curse.”

“— I’m not cursed!” she yells, trying to get up again. Her younger brother holds her shoulders.

The retired merchant shakes his head sadly, taking his cap off and holding it over his front.

“I’ve seen this before, back in the far, far east,” he says. “It will take time, but the spell over her will break — after we kill the vampire toying with her soul.”

The crowd speaks uneasily amongst itself.

“How?” asks a man. “We cannot fight a vampire, let alone if it has retreated to the old castle…” he says. The crowd falls deathly silent. They all know the stories. They were passed down from generation to generation. Nobody knows when they first came to be, but they are horrific tales terrible enough to have been worthy to be kept in memory for a thousand years at least. The old castle on the hill, down through the forest, is a place none of them will dare tread because of the nightmares passed on from the generations before them. “It is all we can do to keep the slimes and the goblins from our fields and doors.”

“Then we must ask for help,” explains the merchant. He walks over to Sister Azalea, kneeling down and holding her hand respectfully with both of his as he looks back to the crowd. “If the beast wishes for a priestess, then we shall oblige,” he explains, rising to his feet and setting his cap back onto his head. “I will ride to the city. I will inform the Holy-Church of what has happened here. Pray for me that they listen and send an army of righteousness to destroy this terrible blight on this land once and for all,” he says, walking through the murmuring crowd to the door.

His wife runs after him, pulling on his arm and trying to stop him from leaving. “No, you mustn't!” she protests. “It is too dangerous!”

The retired merchant looks back at the woman he hung up his boots for and kisses her on the head before flinging open the doors to the town hall wide with both hands. The crowd covers their faces as the first rays of morning sunlight streak in with blinding intensity. “It can’t come out during the day,” explains the old merchant with a freshly rekindling heat in his veins. “Build fires and walls, as many as you can, and never venture outside of your homes when it is dark,” he says to them all. “The vampire cannot harm you if you do not let it into your houses and if you stay inside at night.” He walks outside to the stall. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise,” swears the brave merchant, willing to leave his well-earned quiet life behind one last time if it means to protect it from such encroaching darkness as this.

“And no matter what,” he starts, all eyes on him as he clambers up onto his old, dusty anqa — a large, bipedal bird with a colorful plumage and a rounded beak. They are strong and very clever animals. “— do not listen to a single word it says,” warns the merchant. “Vampires are cunning masters of deception.”

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

- [The Vampire Lord Inkume] -

Inkume stands there, his arms outstretched wide as he flings open the library doors.

— Sunlight blasts in directly toward him.

The library is missing. There might have been an entire tower here once, behind this door, but now there’s just a hole ten stories high and facing directly toward the sunrise on the horizon.

[{Destroyed} The Tower Library]

{Book Spawning Zone}

The castle library is currently out of order.

Taking up an entire tower and being once the grandest collection of obscure literature in the world, the Vampire Lord’s once infamous library is now nothing more than dust and stones. Its books are gone and missing.

Room Effects if Reactivated:

• Defeated monsters and plundered treasure chests within your castle can rarely drop [Books] and [Tomes].

• Allows access to: Student and Master [Witch]es, who come to study and teach their forbidden craft within the protection of your domain… for a price.

• If unlocked, [Skeleton Mages] will spawn {50}% more often.

Note from the librarian: "I am currently out. In the meantime, please deposit any overdue books as well as late fees into the mail slot on floor seventeen of the castle. Thank you." The room is inactive; the castle is destroyed. No monsters are currently spawning here.

Everything burns. Knives thrust through his body from head to toe, and his skin feels like its blistering and peeling off in the same second — it’s like he’s had boiling water poured over him. Inkume stumbles back, lurching into the shadows, hissing as he lifts the black cloak over his face. It hurts.

! [WARNING] ! You are extremely vulnerable to sunlight. Continued exposure will result in your immediate death.

The Vampire Lord stumbles back through the corridor, looking at it as it begins to brighten, even after he slams the library door back closed.

The windows. Sunlight is streaming in through the broken glass.

“WHY DOES MY EVIL VAMPIRE CASTLE HAVE WINDOWS?!” shouts the Vampire Lord in confused agony, his mind overtaking him and acting on his behalf. His body changes, transforming immediately into the shape of a very sizable black rat.

[Midnight Monster: Rat] Active Ability You have transformed into a rat!

Scampering as if being chased by a house cat, he weaves through rays of light and wind-torn openings as the stones of the dark castle illuminate brighter and brighter. He finds the stairwell where he first emerged from and dives down it as fast as he can, just as the carpeting behind him begins to glow with the first hints of morning glory.

The big fat rat that owns the place tumbles, flopping down the long, dramatic, gargoyle-featured staircase until he comes to a graceless stop, desperately wheezing, his eyes looking up to an open sarcophagus — the very one he had woken up inside of.

[{Destroyed} The Hidden Lair]

{Vampire Spawning Zone}

Deep below the castle at the bottom of a long and grand staircase lies the hidden lair of the most terrible beast of them all — you.

Here within the deep sanctuary of the castle, you may safely rest and recover after a long night of inflicting terror on the screaming innocents of the world.

Room Effects if Reactivated:

• Allows access to: [Lesser Vampires]

• Allows access to forbidden rituals.

The room is inactive; the castle is destroyed. No monsters are currently spawning here.

Next to its open lid is a mirror, and he’s sure it's facing a different way than when he had first seen it. But his mind pays no further attention to that before he propels himself into the stone container, turning back into a man and slamming the lid tightly shut behind him just in time.

It all becomes rather peaceful now that he’s somewhere dark and comfortable.

Inkume sighs in deep relief as the singeing hiss of his body comes to a stop. The last tufts of smoke fade away.

Okay. So. There’s no library and he can only enjoy being alive half of the time in this new life. That’s still not so bad. He’ll just… order his undead minions to fix the library? Can he do that?

A heavy wheezing comes from just outside of the stone container.

“Do… do you like books…?” asks Snatch’s gravely voice from the outside of the coffin. He can feel her pressing her hands against the lid. There is a noise as she rubs her palms over it, as if trying to find a way inside if he didn’t know better. “We can… we can rebuild the library,” she explains, catching his prior thought. “The castle — all of it. But… but we need power, Master. We need… we need…”

“What?” he asks. He likes the idea of rebuilding the castle. If he has to live here forever — again, creepy ghosts aside — it would be best if it wasn’t a shit heap. Home is where the heart is, after all, as his introverted heart needs a retreat to survive. “What do we need? Money?”

“Blood,” she replies, almost giddily as she does her weird jackal’s laugh again. “— Lots of it.”

He leans his head back, staring at the engravings in the sarcophagus’ lid, realizing he can clearly see all the details carved into the stonework, despite it being pitch black in here.

[Nocturnal] Passive Ability • You, being a creature of the night, have a perfect sense of vision within the darkness.

Yeah, that figures.

“The castle and you are one, Master,” she whispers. “Feed yourself, and the castle will grow strong again,” promises the ghost, her coarse voice drifting away as she leaves.

Okay.

So maybe he needs to play into the whole vampire thing a little, unless he wants to be bored out of his mind in an empty ruin for the rest of all eternity.

As long as he doesn’t kill anybody, what’s the harm in maybe just taking a few droplets of their blood now and then? He won’t even do it in a weird way. He has a treasury, right? This is an old haunted dungeon. So there’s got to be a treasury, and it’s bound to be full of ancient vampire gold or something of the sort. So maybe he can just buy blood from people down in the village?

He’ll go there and apologize tomorrow night for the misunderstanding and maybe bring them a peace offering of some kind too. That will save a lot of the mess around the ethics and optics of the matter of his needing a little blood. It’s a win for both him and for humanity.

As for the whole thing with the priestess tonight — that was just another huge awkward miscommunication. But Azalea seemed like a nice girl. Inkume is paranoid about people, given his bad experiences with them in his past life, but he’s sure that Azalea told the villagers the truth about what really happened in the forest and squared the whole mess right out. So it’ll be fine to show up there tomorrow and introduce himself properly. They’re neighbors now, so just because they got off on the wrong foot doesn’t mean he can’t make it right. He has to live with them for eternity, after all. So it would be best to stay amicable.

He nods to himself.

There is a lot about this new world he doesn’t understand yet. But all in all, it’s starting to come together, isn’t it?

The Vampire Lord closes his eyes, intent on resting in the darkness of his crypt until the sun vanishes again once more.

— Heavy breathing and scratching come from the outside of the casket. He does his best to ignore it.

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

- [Azalea] -

He shoves her into her room in the back of the church. “Stay here, Azalea,” says her younger brother, looking at her with stern eyes as he points at her. “Do not leave this room.”

“You’re not listening to me, Cvet!” protests the priestess, repeating her new mantra and stepping forward toward him. She’s older than him, but he’s stronger than she is anyway. He stops her from leaving past him. “It was the wolves. Inkume saved me.”

“Azalea,” says the boy in an even, cool tone, grabbing her shoulders and looking into her eyes. He has their mother’s eyes. She herself got their father’s. Mother always had a sharp, icy look to her, and he carries that inheritance in him even now. “You need to listen to me,” he explains. “You’ve been affected by dark magic. You’re not of your right mind,” consoles the boy plainly, but not in agitation. He has a hint of concern in his voice that she’s not used to hearing from him. He’s always been more of the frigid, distant type. Tonight had rattled something in him that she didn’t ever notice was loose.

“I wasn’t! That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she groans in agitation, pulling his hands off of her shoulders. “But you’re just ignoring me like always, you stupid boy!”

He sighs, lowering his head. “…I’m sorry,” he repents.

Azalea stops fighting him, hearing that. He’s never apologized to her before about anything. “…What?”

He shakes his head. “You’re right. I was a stupid boy. I shouldn’t have gone to get help. I should have run after you by myself, Azalea. It’s what father would have done. Maybe I could have found you sooner? Maybe I could have…” He stops himself and pulls her in, holding her in a tight hug. “— I’m so sorry, Sister.”

Very surprised and taken aback, she looks at him, nonetheless sighing as her posture falls slack, feeling his embrace. She lifts her hands, holding his back with one arm and patting the back of his head softly, because he seems to be in a worse state than she is. She presses the side of her cheek against his hair, squeezing his head between her head and her hand. He’s such a stubborn idiot, but he is still her little brother at the end of the day. “Will you please just hear me out?” she asks in a calm, placated voice. “Please.”

The boy lets go of her and steps back to the door, slipping out of her arms. “You’re not the one speaking to me, Sister. It’s the vampire’s power over you escaping your lips,” he explains, pointing back at her. He reaches over to the wall, pulling free an old, wobbly iron sword that has been hanging there for as long as the church has been standing. “You’re right. I was a boy for too long, and it finally came at the price of your safety,” he explains, looking at the old weapon and then back to her. “I’m going to hunt the beast and save you from his corruption. Today is the day I grow up. I need to start acting like a man.”

He turns and walks out of the door with the sword in hand, shutting it behind him.

“Wait! Stop!” she calls, grabbing the handle and rattling it, but he’s already locked it from the other side. “You’re making a mistake!” she calls out through after him. But the words don’t seem to reach.

Outside the windows, she can hear men at work felling trees and shouting amongst themselves as they begin to build large fires.