REDEEMED BLOOD
Chapter 1: The Cave
Djeski crept through the marshy underbrush of Blackwood's swampy forest slowly and surely, taking care to remain in the heaviest thickets and to make sure she didn't cause noise by disturbing the calve-deep swamp water. The onset of dusk had bathed the countryside in a dull orange glow, making the humid mist permeating the area plainly visible as it slinked around the trees in wispy coils. Despite the natural smokescreen, the huntress's restless cerulean eyes maintained their astute vigil from underneath her armored hood, and she could still hear the distant wails and howls of trolls and wolves searching for dinner. Knowing the approaching nightfall would only embolden the predators, she instinctively kept a hand on her longsword. Even though she was wearing her old night-eye necklace, she knew that seeing attacks coming was only half of the ordeal. Surviving them was the much harder and grittier second half.
As Djeski continued her easterly trek, the twilight steadily darkened and she grew increasingly frustrated. When she had left Leyawiin only two hours ago, she expected to arrive at her destination before evening. Now, she was silently cursing herself for believing too strongly in that hunter's estimate as to where the cave was, even if he did say it was due east of the well-known roadside Ayleid ruin of Veyond. He had been thoroughly drunk, and even then, he didn't come across as an overly bright person. Djeski couldn't help her zealotry, though. As soon as the man had said "vampire den", she immediately disregarded his condition. She hardly blamed him for it, however. She imagined most people would turn to getting soused after sighting a vampire, let alone actually being assaulted by one.
Slowly but surely, the twilight lessened into a new evening and Djeski knew that she would either need to find the cave soon or put up a quick shelter until morning. She stoically forged ahead for a little while longer, and just when she started to consider hunkering down for the night, she finally crested a large rock and found herself before a wide cave mouth partially hidden by a curtain of moss that hung from an adjacent tree.
She quickly knelt behind the rock's tip and intently scanned the area, her eyes registering every rustle of a grass blade and her ears noting every sound, no matter how mundane. She also drew her sword and primed a fireball in her off hand. Nighttime had not quite yet arrived, but she knew better than to take needless risks. She had once before made the mistake of assuming that a vampire could not be mad enough with hunger to pursue prey into sunlight. The resulting fight, although years old, was forever etched into her mind. The creature bore a special kind of ferocity, nigh insane from the combination of feral bloodlust and incessant agony from the sun. It was a constant reminder that there were some vampires who would persevere through anything - even having their skin incinerated by the sun's stinging rays – just to taste blood.
Djeski couldn't see or hear anything unordinary, but she knew better than to trust her mortal senses. She pulsed a purplish aura around her sword arm's fist and then released its pent up energy in the form of an undead detection spell. Using the temporary ability to detect necromantic creatures, she looked over the area again. To her relief, she still sensed nothing of restless death. Satisfied she was alone, she vaulted over the rock and remained cautious as she approached the cave mouth from a leftward angle. The faint gleam her silver-plated blade was sporting vanished as she eased into the cave's mouth, and her brown and green leathers nearly made her invisible against the mudcave walls.
She dearly hoped it was the right cave, since she detested the possibility that it was a wild animal's lair and would force her to retreat back into the wild to shelter for the night.
The darkness of the cave's maw fled from the power of her night-eye necklace as she advanced, and she could clearly see the long straightway descending down below the earth's surface. The passage's décor bespoke its age. Dull brown and green lichens painted it from floor to ceiling. Heavy clumps of dank, grayish moss drooped from above amid jagged stalactites. Various flora and fungi speckled the floor between equally rugged stalagmites. Crisscrossing the whole array were laminated layers of large, fibrous vines that managed to burrow through the rock via their turgor pressure. All this was congealed together inside an envelope of thick, musty air that smelled of ripe brine. These types of old, matured caves had always been unsettling to her, as if the earth was slowly swallowing her along with whatever other random debris was around her. The innate darkness did not help either, since it hid things and critters very well. In reality, her precious night-eye necklace was the only thing preventing her from bumbling around in the dark like a fool.
Navigating the tangle of plants and rock was a rigorous exercise in agility, stamina, and patience for the experienced warrior. When she wasn't parting moss clumps, she was ducking under vines. When she wasn't ducking under them, she was stepping over them. When she wasn't bypassing the vines, she was carefully pivoting around gnarled stalagmites whose faces had been eroded into thousands of tiny razors. She had to do it all while simultaneously not rustling the vines and moss too noisily and keeping her trusty sword from getting tangled or clanging against the stone, and all this while brushing off the insects and other pests that called the cave home. She also had to remain vigilant of any signs of habitation. Trickier still, every one of things had to be performed while trying to maintain her footing, which the floor's lichen carpet threatened to steal right out from under her, and while trying not to think about how hot and sweat-drenched she was inside her leathers. The whole affair was a delicately intricate dance, and a mistake potentially carried a heavy price.
As Djeski continued weaving her way through the blockage, the smell of rotting flesh began to reach her nose. She slowed her pace at the stench, not wishing to startle any potential feeders. Much to her delight, the relentless foliage and rock began to give way as the passage started veering to the right. She pressed on a bit more, but paused when she started to get a clear view beyond a final patch of moss and vines.
Through a small hole in all the clutter, Djeski could vaguely make out a small stack of wooden boxes to the left of a narrowing of the passage. The scent of decomposing bodies had gradually greatened as the moss and vines had thinned, and the huntress certainly had a guess as to what kind of boxes they were. She sheathed her sword and unstrapped her recurved bow from her back, drawing one of her special silver-tipped arrows along with it. She gingerly nocked the arrow and whispered a short prayer to Mara before emerging from the foliage.
Djeski kept to the left wall as she slowly inched toward the boxes. As she neared them, she could start to make out scraps of flesh and dried bloodstains on the wood. She also saw that the boxes were open with their lids stuffed behind them, and when she finally came upon them, she could plainly see they were shaped like coffins. It was a strong indication, but she still couldn't be sure if it was a vampire hole, a necromancer's den, or some old, obscure subterranean graveyard pillaged by adventurers turned graverobbers.
She warily edged around them and kept creeping down the narrowing passage. Her undead detection spell was still somewhat active, but it had started to fade. Nevertheless, after a few more steps, her body keyed on something deeper inside the cave. She slowed her pace further and tried to picture exactly what the signal was, but the spell had dissipated too much to offer a clear reading. She knew it was undead, though. She kept moving down the hall with soft and sober steps, wondering in what's presence she would exit. The scent of dead bodies did not diminish either.
The passage had several twists and turns, and Djeski had to slink through a couple more spots clotted with moss and vines. However, she eventually came to the passage's end, which ballooned into a small chamber lightly littered with the corpses of various wild animals in differing stages of decay, including that of a troll, and another hallway in the opposite wall.. A little, weatherworn table stood off to the right, and she could make out a few sundried limbs and flesh pieces matted with dried blood on it. There was also a bloody dagger lying next to the limbs. It was strong circumstance, but it was still a split between a vampire lair and just a necromancer den.
Djeski prudently checked the near corners before fully entering the room. Not spotting anything, she slowly came in and sneaked over to the body of a young wolf that seemed freshly slain. She put away her bow and arrow and redrew her sword before kneeling down to inspect the body. She ran her free hand through the mottled gray fur, checking for signs of damage. There were not any marks on the body's face up side or its back or stomach, and so she rolled it over as quietly as she could to look at the reverse side. The torso, legs, and feet once again looked to be unharmed, but as she fingered through the thick neck fur, she came across a pair of tiny, scabbed pinpricks right where the carotid was. Not yet totally convinced, Djeski momentarily laid her sword down and performed a quick test by lifting the wolf up by its legs. It was an easy hoist – much easier than it should have been. Years of hunting her own meat and skins had taught her the different weights animals had, and the wolf corpse was light. The lack of lacerations didn't lend to the theory that necromancers had eviscerated the body, but the absence of several pints of blood would also reduce the weight. She hardly thought the pinpricks to be a scare tactic, since a necromancer desiring a creature's blood would have found it a lot more expedient to just slice open several veins at once. The huntress's muscles tensed and senses keened as she stood and reswapped her sword for her bow. It appeared she did indeed have the right cave.
She could still sense whatever was lurking beyond, but the spell had mostly worn off and she couldn't accurately gauge distance or direction. She knew she couldn't keep renewing the spell, though. Her primarily Nordic heritage left her wanting in magicka, and she only had so much restorative potion. Consequently, magic usage was a very tricky business for her.
Djeski calmly renocked her arrow and advanced down the passage. It was thankfully shorter, albeit likewise choked by a little stretch of floral blockage through which she had to move. She eventually came to a final corner where the hall opened up into a relatively spacious circular chamber that was just as scruffy as its umbilical with a sporadic mane of moss and vines rooted in the ceiling and walls that hid parts of the room. She could feel the last inkling of her detection spell finally ebb away as she surveyed the underground jungle. However, she could barely make out what sounded like dragging footsteps from beyond the floral veil.
Djeski took a deep breath and tightened her grip on her bow. She knew that even feral vampires could be heinous in combat, and they did not have any social stigmas to counteract their predatory instincts.