Author's Note: This was a close one, working down to the wire to get this down I hope you all appreciate this, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 14: Humiliation and Death
Khajit had done it, his plan that he had started since he was a child had finally bore fruit. One day, he had got home late after playing the field, and he was greeted by the sight of his mother's corpse on the ground. The priests said that she had died of fever, that had they been able to get to her sooner her illness could have been treated and her life spared, in other words as the one who left her alone in the house, the blame for his mother's death rested squarely on Khajit's shoulders. Naturally the young boy begged for the priests to revive his mother, but they would not, his family was quite poor and the raise dead spell was quite expensive. So he researched how to do it himself, studied every tome he could, but he discovered that he could not, her life force was not great enough to survive something like being brought back from the dead. But one day while searching through the deepest darkest archives, he found a dark relic one which granted he who wielded it immense necromantic power, and which taught him how to achieve his goals. Through the immortality of the undead, he could live long enough to develop the magic that he needed, if he could turn himself into a elder lich, he could obtain the power and knowledge he needed. The road to his goal was long and hard, lacking the power he needed, he had to rely on the spiral of death, of making as many undead as possible and then reaping their necromantic power for himself. Now that he had met Clementine and obtained one of the legendary artifacts of the Slane Theocracy, and acquired a pawn with the power to use it, Khajit could finally obtain his goals.
"Ah Khaji-tan, what is that?"
To Clementine's question, the pair looked over to the side to see a flaming wheel sailing through the air coming right at them. Before Khajit could react, the wheel of fire began tearing through their bone dragon mount, setting the whole thing on fire as it went, sending the trio plummeting towards the ground in the graveyard.
"DAMN IT!"
Khajit cast a fly spell that stopped him from hitting the ground, Clementine made use of a martial art to break her fall, and then caught Nifirea before he could hit the ground and most likely die, he was still their lynch pin after all, even if one of their two bone dragons had been taken out by that fire wheel. Speaking of said mass of fire came down in the middle of the Graveyard that Khajit had used that bone dragon to coat in poison. The blade ignited the highly flammable liquid and set the entire graveyard ablaze, and every thing trying to climb out of it found itself roasted in it's womb.
"Wow, wow, what terrifying aim, he took out both the bone dragon and the army at the same time." Clementine was smiling, but really she was panicking. She needed a strong ally to survive the Slane Theocracy hunting her, and Khajit was meant to be that, now his empire was destroyed and she was to be hunted. The puny adventurers she had been hunting up until now, she could take a whole army of them easy. But the wizard who threw that fire ball on the other hand, Dragons are immune to anything below the sixth tier. For a magic caster to take down a dragon in one shot... "Eh?" What was a sword doing in the middle of a graveyard? It wasn't like Khajit was arming his undead, nor were they buried with any weapons. Even if they were who would leave such a ornate looking weapon, in a graveyard. Clementine sense that it glowed with power, was it the legendary weapon of some famous hero? Thinking that she might be able to defend herself from that wizard using that legendary sword, Clementine immediately pulled it out of the ground. "HYAAAAHHHH!" Immediately Clementine fell to the ground rolling in pain, looking down at her arm she saw the flesh had been scorched off her arm leaving behind the bone. This was such a high level item that not even she, who had broken into the realm of heroes, couldn't even wield, more importantly then that, it was also a fire weapon. "Ah-ah-ah Sword! Someone... beat that dragon... by throwing a magic sword at it!?"
A loud boom echoed throughout the landscape as something within E-Rantle was shot through the air like a missile and landed in the graveyard with a loud crash. Kieran stepped on a random bit of garbage and produced a satisfying crunch beneath his boot, quickly reclaiming his other sword in the process and finding Nifirea as well.
"Alright now what to do with you." Kieran pulled out a message scroll and threw it up into the air, the scroll incinerated and produced a crystal mirror in the process through which Kieran made contact with Koriander. "Oi you said you wanted this right?" Kieran asked picking Nifirea up by the scruff of his neck and holding him in front of the mirror.
"The little alchemist boy with the rare talent right?" Koriander looked lopsidedly at the young man who had become a slave to the Crown of Wisdom. "What's that on his head?"
"Something that fries the brain and gives high magical ability in exchange." Kieran explained making little else than a educated guess.
"How do you figure that?" Koriander asked, unable to do an item assessment from the other side of a crystal mirror.
"For one thing as soon as they put this thing on him a huge army of undead appeared from the graveyard. For another I'm fairly certain I'm choking him and he's not complaining." Kieran explained dropping the brain dead child in question on the ground before he moved on. "What do yah want me to do with him?"
"Hmm. Send him my way and I'll see what can be salvaged." Koriander stated waving Kieran off.
"Good to know. Hamster!" To Kieran's call, the Hamster rushed through the flames to Kieran's side.
"Yes Milord?"
"Take this to the building of ruin." Kieran stated throwing Nifirea at the giant hamster who deftly caught him.
"Right away milord." At once the Hamster took Nifirea and bolted back through the forest, now Kieran could focus on hunting down Khajit, and as it so happened Kieran could spot his other dragon flying away from the graveyard.
"Hello misplaced aggression." Kieran stated smirking knowingly.
How had it all happened like this? Khajit was so close to achieving his goals, but it all fell apart. He lost his pawn, his army was on fire below him, at least he thought it was. Looking down, the raging inferno that had consumed the graveyard had been extinguished in a instant, not that it did him any good, his army was ash by now, not even the poison he had flooded the graveyard with could revive a giant pile of ashes.
"What happened?" A confused Khajit asked staring down in shock at the remnants of his army.
"That would be my fault." Khajit straightened out and turned around to face a black clad knight who was sitting on the base of the bone dragon's tail. "A huge amount of wind pressure tends to be created whenever I go rocketing off through the air, so that probably put out the fires."
"W-Who are you?" Khajit asked looking wide eyed and terrified.
"I'm the guy here to kill you." Saying that, Kieran slashed his sword again and chopped the wings off of the bone dragon in a wave of fire.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU'LL KILL US BOTH!" Khajit shrieked in mortal terror.
"You don't know me very well do you?" The giant mass of bone, warrior and Necromancer all fell out of the sky at the same time and the Bone Dragon shattered on the ground. Khajit was subsequently forced to crawl out of the pile of bones with several bones that didn't belong to him sticking out of his body and several more that did belong to him shattered into tiny pieces. "Wow you got hit hard eh?" Kieran stated in a joking voice, circling around the broken body of the necromancer and leveling his blade around his head. "Here, lemme get that for you." In one smooth motion, Kieran took the head of the Necromancer clean off of his shoulders and caught it with his other hand.
To summarize the night, Kieran had managed to exterminate a army of undead, killed the necromancer who raised them, and the serial killer who had been hunting adventurers throughout the city, on top of exterminating the Great Tree of Evil, the Giant of the East, and subduing the Wise King of the Forest, Kieran had wracked up a record breaking number and quality of achievements, to the point to the fact that he was being considered for the nigh legendary rank of Adamantite plate. This wasn't a adamantite plate Kieran had around his neck right now, but rather a mithril plate, for Mithril, by no means cheap, was by far more readily available then adamantite. Kieran accepted the fact and moved on with his plans, preparing to boast Balloma from the privacy of his magically warded campground inside of the forest of Tob.
"Oh sister dear, I believe you had a request for me earlier on." Kieran stated smirking as he looked at his mythril plate.
"It will have to wait. Something has come up." Balloma stated as she looked through one of her reports from the greens.
"Now what is so important that it takes precedence over my gloating?"
"Shalltear has gone missing." Balloma stated narrowing a glare at Kieran.
"The last time I saw her I sent her to chase after some thugs. These greens here were with her and are only just now reporting back to me on the matter." Balloma stated gesturing to one of the greens next to her.
Shalltear was riding through the forest on the back of a vampiric wolf, following behind her were several giant spiders glowing with the subtle hint of magical power, carrying on top of them vampire brides and dragging a dried log like object behind them. The group stopped behind a tree line on the other side they could see two men holding lanterns outside of a cavern entrance.
"Bring him over." At once one of the Vampire brides dragged over the object they had been dragging behind them, a dried, desiccated vaguely vampire like corpse. "Is this you guy's hideout." The head made a creaking noise as it turned to look at the cave before them, then that noise continued as it looked back at Shalltear, followed shortly thereafter by the former leader of the thugs nodding his head. "Excellent. Slash!" At once the green minion in question appeared at Shalltear's side. "Take your greens and scout them out, while you're at it seal off any means of escape that you find."
At once the green turned invisible again and made their way down to the entrance, a single blow to the back of the neck left the two men unconscious, followed shortly thereafter by a pair of spiders webbing the men and dragging them off, snacks for Shalltear to enjoy later. And while preserving leftovers for later on appealed to Shalltear greatly as a vampire she was still suppose to collect information.
"Let's see if we can have some fun with them." Turning around Shalltear picked up the newly turned vampire she made earlier in the evening. "Go and inform your subordinates that they have some guests."
The lesser vampire creaked as he bowed to Shalltear, before he walked inside of the cavern. Lesser vampires, as their names implied, were the weakest among the vampire ranks, several times weaker then regular humans, the total loss of all bodily fluids of a newly turned vampire makes them extremely fragile and does horrific things to their agility. But that changes once they manage to get something to eat, once they're started to feed they accumulate the life force of their victims, the more that they feed the stronger that they grow. Making up for their lack of physical strength near the beginning, they possessed stealth based martial arts that allow them to hide in shadows and easily jump unsuspecting prey. For instance.
"You've got any three's?" One individual asked the man sitting across a table from him.
"Hang on..." The other man had a much larger hand then his opponent so he had to take a minuet to check each individual card. "Go Fish." Looking up from his hand, the man saw that his opponent had suddenly disappeared. "Oi where did you go?" The man, headless of his opponent's fate, leaned over the table to discover that he had apparently left his shadow behind, he didn't even get the chance to ponder the strangeness of the situation, and after that the vampire was done hiding.
"Hey it's the captain!"
"Does he look funny to you guys?"
The enemy was at first ignorant to their leader's change in allegiance, then they saw him rip the throats from their comrades with his teeth. Naturally, their first instinct was to flee for safety, hidden passages built into their base of operations for just such case scenario.
"What!?" Every passage way, whether it was the tunnels they dug, the existing mines and natural caverns, even the cracks that were too small for them to fit through, had all been sealed off by barrier magic.
"Unglass!" One of the men made it all the way to the store room, where the group's secret weapon took his breaks.
"What's going on? Why are you trying to get through the secret passage way?" The most recent recruit to the 'Death Spreading Brigade' was a legendary warrior known as 'Brain' Unglass, named so for being a genius swords man who fought with the great Gazef Strongoff nearly on par and came that close to winning.
"A vampire has broken into the base and has slaughtered most of the men!"
"Oh really?" Brain smiled as he took out several potions which enhance strength, speed, stamina and rate of healing and drank them.
Yes Brain got paid as a mercenary, but coin was not his primary concern, if it was he would get work as a adventurer or a noble's bodyguard. No, this job was training, this particular job gave him the highest possible chance to fight against other humans, as the individual who had sacrificed everything for the path of the sword, to claim the title as the strongest sword's man in the world, he needed the chance to clash with opponents who are most likely to give him a challenge. Vampires normally weren't very high on his list of targets, but by the way he was reacting this seemed pretty serious. Brain went down to the tunnels where he saw his comrades had been systematically slaughtered, which was strange since a lesser vampire like this shouldn't have been able to do this much damage. Then he saw the monster in question disappear into the shadows.
"Stealth martial arts. That explains it!" Brain spread his feet and took on the Laido position. A circular field that was invisible to all but brain appeared around him, one of his three custom martial arts, field, which made him aware of everything within a three meter radius of himself, instantaneous flash, a high speed strike attack which made use of the Laido style, and the enhanced form of that god flash which cleaves through the enemy so fast that their blood doesn't even stick to the blade. The end result was natural.
"RAGGGHHH!" The Vampire's sneak attack was interrupted by a bisecting slash from the second greatest warrior on the continent which chopped him in two. Now that he had finished his opponent off Brain could launch a assessment of the situation.
"The captain?" Once the vampire was dead his appearance returned to his original human like form. "Looks like most of the others are dead too. I should just grab that other guy and see if another mercenary team will have us." Then Brain heard the click of shoes walking down the stone floor. "Show yourself!" Brain was greeted by the sight of Goblins, dozens upon dozens of goblins, many of them stacked upon one another, all of them appearing out of thin air. "Goblins... with stealth martial arts? Or is it magic?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Several of the goblins stepped aside to make room for a individual with a child like body. She was dressed fancily, like a noble woman, her clothing was blood red, which was appropriate, since thanks to the combination of her doll like features and malevolent aura she was clearly a vampire bride, low tier vampires created as the play things of other more powerful vampires. "This is the natural race skill of a Green Minion, invisibility."
"'Green Minion?'" Brain asked a questioning brow cocked.
"Ah, so that's what happened to the vampire I had created." Shalltear stated looking down at the pile of blood and body parts below her. Suddenly, all of the blood on the floor, and for that matter that which was still inside of Brains slain comrades, was drawn into the air and pooled into a sphere of blood.
"That sphere of blood there? Is that some kind of vampire ability?" Brain asked watching Shalltear's movements, waiting for her to enter his striking range.
"Oh it's close quarters combat eh? Alright I'll play along." Shalltear stated as she began walking forward, and stepped onto the rim of Brain's 'field.'
A single moment later a loud clang noise not unlike metal clashing against metal echoed throughout the hideout, Brain's single hit sure fire kill attack had been stopped not by a weapon but a well manicured pinky nail.
"What the...?" Shalltear used that pinky to shove Brain backwards several feet.
"Has it sunk it yet?" Shalltear asked with a smile on her face. "I hope you plan on taking this seriously now." To defeat Strongoff, who used powerful stat enhancing high stamina consuming techniques to augment his strikes with as much power as possible followed up by spitting out as many hits as possible, Brain had chosen the power of a rogue, to dodge those powerful strikes and then cut Gazef down when his stamina was exhausted. But that was useless here. Brain let loose with a flurry of strikes now that his sure fire kill had been blocked, while powerful that single strike technique was predictable and easy to block with a weapon of sufficient strength, what he needed was unpredictability, to strike as often and from as many different angles as possible. But it was no use, every blow was countered with minimal effort. "Ah, there it is."
"Monster..." Indeed, it had finally sunk in, Brain and his opponent were on completely different levels from one another. "HYAAAHAHA!" Brain immediately ran away, but to his horror the secret passage ways had been cut off.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! So it's a Game of Tag now eh?" Spinning around, Brain was greeted by a very different creature from before. Shalltear might even be considered as cute to most people. Not now, now she was best summarized as a lamprey with legs.
"A True Vampire?" Unlike the humans suffering from a disease Brain had fought with up until now, Shalltear is what's commonly known as a true ancestor, the descendants of the god of death who mated with other creatures of darkness to produce a horror the likes of which the world has never known. The only reason why Shalltear looked the way she did normally was because of Koriander's skill with glamour charms. Brain's train of thought was suddenly cut off as Shalltear bit into his neck.
"Take these back to Nazarick and give them to Demiurge." Shalltear instructed gesturing to the cocooned mass of body parts and newly turned vampires. Slash gave her a salute before having his spider take off.
"And that was the last we saw of her, she hasn't reported over here yet and she hasn't showed up at Nazarick yet." Balloma explained having just relayed Slash's story. "You're the adventurer, I assume that if she does show her head you'd be the first of the three of us to find her."
Kieran nodded his head in agreement.
"I'll head to the Guild and look for reports of a rampaging vampire."
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Pervy Sage Chuck: Yes and no, I plan on doing a lot the same way but I also plan on putting my own twist on it along the way. Khajit was flying over the graveyard at the time on the back of the bone dragon.