by Ugland, Eric
A woman rose from one of the chairs. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen her. She glared at me, so I assumed we hadn’t had great interactions in the past.
“I told my lover you would make it past those useless pawns outside,” she said. “But he felt it was worth letting you dispose of some of the worthless ones before coming in to meet me. Again.”
She slunk towards me, and I’ll admit that I took a moment to admire her curves. She had a fantastic body, highlighted by her sleek red dress. Her skin was, as all vampire’s, deathly pale, her lips a dark red, and her fangs were growing. That snapped me out of my leering real quick.
Well, sort of. There were like, tingling, invisible tendrils caressing my body and especially my brain. And given the complete lack of weapons, armor, or anything this woman had, she must have been trying to charm or beguile me.
“You, however,” she continued in her sultry, purring tone, “are a pinnacle of man. It is such a shame there was no way to bring you into the fold. You could have ruled with us.”
The woman moved closer and closer. The fact that still I couldn’t identify her was really bugging me. Her name was on the tip of my tongue, and, for the life of me, I just could not get my brain to give me the information I wanted.
“Alas,” she said from about a foot away, “you will merely be a snack.”
She smiled, and licked her lips.
“Humans,” she said softly. “They really are like cattle.”
My sword whistled as I pulled it across the air, and her eyes went wide in surprise right before I cut through her neck.
Her eyes were still surprised when her head bounced and rolled across the floor. It came to a stop in front of the fire just as her knees gave out and her body dropped to the floor.
GG! You’ve killed Lady Von Boeks (lvl 41 Vampire).
You’ve earned 2100 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
“Motherfucker,” I said, “The one who liked to bathe in children’s blood. Crazy.”
I heard a sigh from above.
“There is something so droll about having lived so long that I always know what will happen,” the Master said, leaning against the balustrade above. “And does anyone listen to me? A creature who has seen a thousand lifetimes come and go, just trying to offer advice, and does anyone listen?”
“I’m going to guess no,” I said.
He lifted his eyebrows and frowned a little as he nodded.
“Got any advice for me?”
“I don’t advice my dinner,” he said. “It’s poor manners.”
“You mind if I ask how long you’ve been alive?”
“You may ask.”
“Uh, how long have you been alive?”
“A thousand years.”
“Holy shit.”
He gave a perfunctory nod of his head, something that might be construed as a bow. “And yet, what does a millennium get me? A castle of idiots and a fool of a lover who is now dead for the second time.”
“I mean, that’s kind of cool, if you ask me.”
“I did not. No one cares about you.”
“Someone does. I don’t know where she is, or what’s she’s doing, but she cares.”
“Perhaps I should seek this Her out and kill her. Let you feel some of the pain going through my heart right now.”
“Do you even have a heart?”
“It is a metaphor, you clod.”
“Shitty metaphor.”
“There is little other means to describe love to you lower creatures,” he said, and stepped down a stair.
“Last I followed, Von Boeks was in prison.”
“She was,” the Master said with a slight smile. “It was that action of yours that made me decide that it was time to be active again. To finally take this sad little city as my own.”
“You liked her enough to do all this? Just to get her out of prison?”
“Though it seems you cannot quite understand the concept, yes. I did love her. Very much. And here you come along and kill her.”
“I mean, I kind of feel like I should have killed her the first time. Then I would have killed her twice, and that’d be—”
“Yes, goad me into anger, young one. Then I shall make you suffer instead of supper.”
“Clever,” I said, and snapped my fingers and pointed at him. Somehow, that stupid quip seemed to needle him deeper than anything else I’d said or done.
He growled, and I could see a change rippling through his body. He took on a much darker and more frightening form. His fingers extended out to claws, and muscle piled on out of nowhere, layering him in thick cords. His face elongated into something of a snout, and his mouth sprouted enough fangs that they were just a wall of really long teeth. His skin and hair didn’t change so much as just stretch out, so he kind of looked a bit like he was balding. His feet lengthened, and he took on a more hunched appearance. It was impressive, and if I had the capacity to feel fear, I’m sure I would have been terrified.
As it was, I just shrugged.
“Rick Baker did it better,” I said.
He roared, and launched himself off the staircase.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The bestial vampire flew through the air. I tried the whole throw-him-while-he’s-flying trick again, but it didn’t work. He crashed into me, and pushed me onto the floor. I managed to get him to roll off me, and hopped to my feet.
I scooped my sword off the ground and got a swing in, but he grabbed it in his taloned hand, and twisted. The iron blade just snapped. Which, fuck, it was a magical weapon he’d broken like it was no thing like a chicken wing. That was the moment I knew I’d fucked up coming in alone.
He made a gross sort of noise from his mouth. Maybe it was laughter?
I juked to the left, then sent a jab out with my right.
He smacked my arm away and lunged at me, his huge mouth open wide.
I had to dive out of the way. Even then, I barely made it.
The vampbeast landed and pivoted, launching himself again into the air.
I rolled, then rolled again, and the vampbeast landed right where my head had been. Hopping to my feet, I pulled my axe from my belt as the vampbeast came at me. I chopped down in the middle of his long head, making his jaws shut with a snap right before he was going to bite down on me.
He growled, and grabbed at me with his clawed hands.
I chopped left and right, making quick work of a few finger-claws.
The vampbeast jumped back twice and shook out his hands. Almost immediately, new claws sprouted.
“Fuck,” I said quietly. I backpedaled as I tried to think of a plan. I was definitely outclassed here.
I couldn’t think of anything, so I threw the axe.
The vampbeast just swatted it to the side, disdainfully. He made his disgusting laughing sound again before launching at me.
I made like I was going to dive out of the way, but then held my hand out to catch the axe back. I had just enough time to snatch it from the air and bring it down in a brutal hit, right to the back of the creature’s head.
It sunk into the vampbeast, and he roared in disapproval, hitting me with an arm. I flew across the room, hitting one of the leather chairs and tumbling to the carpeted ground near the fire.
Fire.
Heedless of burning myself, I reached into the fire and grabbed a log. But my hand went right through. It was an illusion.
More laughter from the creature.
I had to come up with something quick. I was losing. Not terribly, but certainly. I had no idea how to pull out some miraculous win here. Eventually, I’d wind up a vampbeast feast.
I held out my hand, and the axe ripped free of the vampbeast’s head. It shot across the room to me, where I snagged it from the air and did a little spin with it.
The Master now seemed to understand that I had a way to hurt him. He moved around the room carefully.
I picked up the chair and threw it at him.
&nbs
p; With both sets of claws, he destroyed it, sending fluff, leather, and splinters into the air.
I charged right behind it, but he was prepared for the charge, opening his mouth wide to get a good bite at me. I dropped to my knees, and slid on the ground as the vampbeast’s great jaws slammed shut right above me.
Backhanding, I chopped at the beast, getting another good cut through his flesh.
I popped to my feet, and took a few sidesteps to the left. That gave me the perfect view of all the cuts I’d given the Master, healing up.
“Fuck!” I shouted in frustration.
He whirled around and lunged at me.
I tried to fake him out, but he got his jaw in just the right spot and clamped down on me. His teeth scraped against my chainmail, puncturing me in what felt like a hundred places. I screamed as the pain hit.
He had to turn his head sideways to get at me with his big ol’ mouth, and I realized that put his eye right at the perfect position for a Three Stooges homage. I jammed my finger into his eye, hooked it against his bone, and yanked.
He opened his mouth, roaring in protest as I ripped his eye, plus some bonus stuff, out of his head. He pushed me off of him, and I stumbled to the floor, leaking blood from plenty of holes in my torso.
I got to my feet, and he took a step away from me. One step forward, and he countered, keeping the space between us.
No matter what I did, he wasn’t letting me get close to him.
And while I watched, his eye regrew from the inside. He did the gross laughing thing again.
He was still blinking, so I decided to take a chance on finding an ally. I did a soft kick of the lady’s head over to her body, hoping that a feral vampire would be happy to attack anything, not just the lone non-vampire in the room.
With a shake of the head, he was repaired. He launched himself across the room.
I dove to the ground, rolled out of the way, and ran up the stairs.
He was right on my heels, bounding up the stairs on all fours. I could make out his tempo, and I knew he was going to launch at me. As soon as he did, I jumped the stair rail, and dropped to the ground. Then I ran to the other side of the room and reset myself, readying for his next attack.
The Master wasn’t far behind. He leapt off the stairway and seemed to soar all the way across the tower, slamming into me and destroying any sense I had that I was going to defend myself against him.
His jaws wide, he was about to bite the shit out of me again. With no recourse, I jammed the throwing axe in between his upper and lower jaw so he couldn’t close them.
He opened his mouth wider. I took a chance and pushed the axe farther back.
He wasn’t happy about this, so he wrapped his claws around my shoulder and tore my chainmail off, rings popping and flying off each and every way. I tried to push him off me, but he had more strength than I did. He had to work a little, but he managed to keep me still long enough to reach his other hand into his mouth and grab the axe. Then he swallowed it.
I was growing tired of the gross laughing. Then, I heard a different sound in the room.
An intake of breathe, and a sort of relaxing sigh.
His great twisted head turned around to seek out the noise. That was enough distraction for me to push his hold to the side and scramble away.
Lady Von Boeks slowly rose to a standing position in the middle of the room. It really looked like she was missing a good portion of her intellect. It was like she was looking around the room for the first time, taking a measure of delight in discovering the various things she saw.
The Master fluidly went from vampbeast to vamphuman, and reached a hand out to her.
“My love,” he said, his voice soft, melodious.
He took a tentative step towards her while she stared at him.
There was something birdlike and primitive about the way she stared at him. Like she wasn’t sure what he was about to do, but she was intrigued. There was no recognition in her eyes.
“I know you must be confused,” he said softly, reaching out for her. “But I will explain everything.”
I had a second to myself to plan something. Bonus: the gameworld decided I was out of combat, and all my wounds began closing back up. Though they were taking a fuck of a long time to do so, for my tastes.
“There is a meal right here,” the Master said. “Easy for you to drink, to gain yourself back. Let me help you.”
The ruined chair was nearby, and I noticed its wooden leg was sharp, pointing. It looked a hell of a lot like a stake.
“Are you ready?” the Master asked, still reaching for her.
I knelt down, scooped up the piece of wood, and I watched The Master crossing the last bit of distance to his lady lover.
She was not buying it, tilting her head and licking her lips.
The Master reached his hand out, caressed her cheek, and then ripped her head off and threw it to the side with just the hint of a sob. I was taken aback by the sudden display of violence, but I wasn’t going to miss him being distracted.
I lunged forward, and I used my new ability Surge of Strength to put double my normal strength into the quite literal backstab.
The wood pseudo-stake pierced his flesh, and there was an oomph sound from the Master. He stood stiff and straight for a second, and then started to fall over.
I grabbed him, and held him up straight, worried that he’d hit the floor and, somehow, wiggle the stake out.
Carefully, I laid him down on the floor, face down.
“This does not kill me,” came the slightly muffled voice. “And my blood will dissolve this wood faster than you can possibly imagine. You are dead. You just don’t know it yet.”
I reached my hand out for my axe, and... nothing.
“Shit,” I remembered he’d eaten my axe. Which, how the fuck had that happened? It was a magical weapon. Was that, I mean, I didn’t even realize that was a possibility. And now I had a busted sword and, uh, that was it at the moment. My eyes flicked over to the fire, and I wanted to swear at the fire just being a fucking illusion. If I could just make a fire by magic, or...
I darted over, and grabbed the sword. I ripped the carpet back to expose the stone below. A quick dash of the sword against the stone, and I got a few sparks.
A smile spread out across my face.
“It’s time for you to go, buddy,” I said.
“What—”
I ran over to the bookshelves, snagged an old leather-bound book off the shelf, and threw it to the floor. Flipping it open, I didn’t even bother to see what it was. I just started hitting the pages with sparks.
“What are you doing?” the Master called out. I could see a hint of movement in him.
Faster and faster, I struck the sword on the stone. Sparks were flying onto the paper and smoke started to curl up in a few spots.
I dropped the sword, and, oddly gently considering the circumstances, I blew on the tiny spots of glowing coals. Over and over again, I kept the air moving across, until finally, fwoop. A tiny flame. It spread across the open page. I set the book gently on the floor, and grabbed another, and I ripped a handful of pages from it.
“Those are priceless! How dare you destroy my books—” the master started to berate me, but then I think he got the whiff of smoke.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I took the flaming pages over, and tucked them around the vampire.
His gorgeous silk trousers, torn via his transformation, lit in a heartbeat, and his dry vampire flesh followed seconds later, erupting in what seemed like an explosion of fire. I had to leap back to get out of the way.
The vampfire conflagration spread onto the carpet. There were flames everywhere. An unholy horrific howling scream came from the vampfire as flames changed from yellow and orange to something more iridescent. The smoke smelled putrid.
A second conflagration flared up as the Lady vamp caught fire.
I knew there was probably a fortune in the tower. The books alone looked pretty valuabl
e, so I started grabbing them and trying to stack them near the door, where there wasn’t much in the way of carpet or flammables. Maybe I’d get a library out of this deal.
The flames went higher and higher, even though I couldn’t see the corpse of the Master any longer. He was fire now. The brilliant colors vanished in a horribly loud pop. The smoke went back to normal, and the fire started to die down.
* * *
GG! You’ve killed The Master (lvl 98 Vampire).
You’ve earned 15000 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
* * *
Congratulations! You’ve completed a QUEST!
Eradicate the Vampire Menace from Osterstadt
Destroy the growing nest of vampires within the city of Osterstadt.
Reward for success: 7000 XP, Vampire Slayer Indicium
* * *
BE AWARE: You have received the indicium Vampire Slayer. You are able to withstand the charms of the vampire. You are immune to being turned. You do bonus damage to vampires. Vampires are vulnerable to your fear effects. Some might look upon this indicium with joy, others with rage. A side has been chosen.
* * *
I leaned against the wall, dropping to my feet, watching the last of the carpet burn out before it reached the bookshelves. The illusory fire had disappeared, as had the rest of the illusory light in the place. The tower sunk into darkness. A quiet, almost peaceful darkness.
“Who’s the Master now, asshole,” I said to the empty space.
