Chapter Twenty-Three:

Into Darkness

Blazingwarri woke to a confusing world of chaos and moonlight. Blearily he recollected what had occurred before he had fallen asleep. They had arrived at Morytania... Cerrin had arrived... she had gone to help the priest hold the evil back. The scene articulated as sleep left him.

"Blazingwarri wake up!" Freak said urgently, shaking Blazingwarri's shoulder.

For the first time Blazingwarri sat up and had a good look at the scene. The full moon lit up almost everything, throwing light on an array of weaponry, armour, and... Teeth... claws. Blazingwarri was wide awake now. Darkness fled from the east, as if Morytania was slowly cursing the encampment with its evil shroud. And figures, creatures... bats of any size and shape, some of which morphed into pale humanoids. Vampires. Howls. Full moon. Wolfmen were in abundance. Somehow, Morytania had found a way to allow it's occupants to cross the holy river and invade.

The noobs had been totally unprepared for an attack. Yet they were still putting up a solid defence, for noobs - one that Blazingwarri judged would last about another fifteen minutes with serious reinforcements. Radune was screaming orders, his voice barely audible over the clamour of battle.

"Guys, run to Varrock and stay together!" Freak bellowed over the cacophony. Not waiting for an answer, he turned and followed the grey road west, grey now silver by moonlight. Wordlessly, the Black Guard and friends followed Freak. Freakoldman, Blazingwarri, Rane, Dunan, Cerrin Wyver, Calladus.

They were almost out of sight of the encampment before it happened. With a snarl a wolfman who had broken away from the main fray to follow them hurled itself at the slowest runner. Calladus yell stopped the others in their tracks. Cerrin quickly hurled a fire wave at the wolfman, who promptly burst into flames and, yelping, threw itself to the ground.

"Keep going." Said a slightly singed, but otherwise unhurt, Calladus.

Freak nodded and turned to continue the journey to Varrock. "Dunan, wha..."

Dunan was staring towards the fight, a definite look of abject terror on his face. One by one, the rest of the group followed his gaze - to a dozen or so small bats flying, not aimlessly as most bats do, but directly towards them.

"Vampires." Said Dunan, dispassionately as if fear had robbed him of all emotions. Even looking at these bat's swift, straight, sure course sent shivers racing along Rane's spine. Excalibur was in his hand and ready before Freak gave the command to fight.

The bats were mere inches from Rane's face before they dropped out of the sky, landing in a ghostly white form that vaguely resembled a human. Blocking everything else out of his mind, Rane attacked.

The vampires were quick, fast and effective. Their claws were like talons; their teeth were better daggers than could be made on any anvil. They ducked, dodged and manoeuvred around out of the way of the group's blows almost effortlessly. Their attacks were effective at finding places unprotected by armour of any kind. The group fought harder at dodging the vampire's attacks than attacking them. Almost before they knew it, they were surrounded.

Daylight erupted. Shading his eyes against the unfamiliar light, Rane turned towards its source. Cerrin was standing alone; her staff alight with fire that glowed white gold. The vampires hissed, retreated. Rane feverishly attacked those blocking their escape towards Varrock. Cerrin walked towards the vampires retreating slowly towards Morytania. The vampires hissed and spat, but would not approach the light.

They gave up. The vampires turned, and ran. But before they ran, they picked up something from the ground. Slinging it between two of them, the vampires ran east. Rane barely had time to register Calladus's face, his injured body, in the arms of the vampires.

"They got Calladus!" Rane shouted, sprinting at full length towards the receding vampires. Footsteps behind and around him indicated that his companions were giving chase.

The fight was almost over now. A pitiful handful of noobs were all that remained of Radune's command. Rane didn't look around to see how many noobs survived, if their leader was dead... Excalibur in hand, his sights locked on the vampires, Rane chased.

The vampires jumped, and jumped well. They jumped into the river, the holy river which had at one time held Morytania at bay. The vampires landed in the middle of the river, and swam the remaining distance swiftly. Weighed down by his armour, it was all Rane could do to keep them in sight.

Climbing out of the river, Rane was surprised at how the moon's light disappeared. Totally disappeared. He ran for another few minutes before he realised he could no longer see his quarry; rather he was following the sounds of their footsteps. Or were they the vampire's footsteps. Rune's foot splashed into a pool. Disturbed, he stepped back out of the water. He was certain he hadn't heard the vampires enter water. Speaking of vampires, he couldn't hear them at all. Couldn't hear anything at all. Could see even less. Pale white hands... reaching out of the swamp to drag him down... The horrifying image replayed itself unbidden in Rane's mind. An image heightened to the point of reality due to the fact he had nothing else to concentrate on. He could almost feel the swamp's hands reaching for him, from the water at his back. Wildly, he spun around, straining his eyes and ears for some definition of reality. Then he saw it. Lights. Pinpricks of clear light in the world of darkness. Forgetting everything Dunan had told him about willow -the-wisps, Rane stumbled towards the pinpricks of gold...

Freak had halted at the bank of river, as he had not the slightest idea on how to swim. Turning away from the river, he sprinted towards the trapdoor leading to the priest, to the source of the holy water. As quickly as he could, he ran through the labyrinth of pathways, and finally made it through the holy water curtain and out into the cursed land of Morytania. Freak might as well have been locked in a barrel, no light source, fourteen feet under the swamps of Lumbridge for all his eyes knew. The place was dead black. No stars, no moon, no lights, no nothing. Straining his ears to pick out the sounds of the vampires, but hearing nothing, Freak cursed. He carefully walked down the muddy slope to the river bank, and stopped with one foot in the river. He then made his way south, calling out his friend's name in the hope that some may hear.

Blazingwarri's meticulous exploration of all Runescape grounds served him well that night. He forded the river, half a step behind Rane. Focusing his ears on the sounds of the vampire's feet, he followed them unerringly east. And then he saw lights, lights of a village. Still Blazingwarri ran, even though he knew the village was inhabited with werewolves. The vampires rose into full view once bathed in the village lights. Calladus's limp form was visible, slung over one's shoulder. Blazingwarri felt the searing force of a flame spell rush past his cheek. It exploded on a vampire, who hissed dangerously but kept moving. They were almost out of the village now, out east. Blazingwarri was passing the last group of houses when something snatched his feet from under him, and dragged him beneath the house. Another fire spell, a fanged jaw, claws holding stone... the stone collided with Blazingwarri's skull, rendering him senseless.

Cerrin Wyver went far better than any of her friends did. She had cast a reverse wind wave that had carried her safely across the river, and had trusted Blazingwarri's sense of direction from there. Before the fight, during the run to Varrock, she had whispered a quick locator spell on each of her companions in case they got lost or separated. Which consequently made Blazingwarri stand out like a beacon amid the inky atmosphere. Reaching the village, she had sighted the vampires and thrown a few quick fire blasts at their backs. After one such blast she noticed that Blazingwarri had disappeared, but she didn't think very much of it. Leaving the lights of the village behind, she raced after the vampires. Darkness enveloped her as surely as water. The instant she noticed the darkness, Cerrin stopped running. "Lumos Maxima" She whispered to her staff. She'd learnt a few things from Harry Potter books. The staff flared into light, light that was swallowed up into the shadows in a short distance. Cerrin could no longer hear the footsteps of the vampires. Instead, she turned around and headed back in the direction towards where she thought the village was.

Luthandros had been asleep in the temple when the creatures had crossed the river. He quickly awoke once the battle started though. Climbing quickly to the top of the temple, he watched the fight from a window with no thoughts of joining in. He had seen the vampires cross the river with Calladus's limp form earlier; he had seen the Black Guard cross also, one after another. Cross and get swallowed up in the deep shadows. With jealousy he watched Cerrin sail across the river on the force of her magic.

Dunan was almost the fastest runner of the group, second to Blazingwarri. In the run to Varrock, he'd been out in front; placing him farthest away from the vampires when they attacked. As he saw the vampires attack, saw they're numbers, strength, speed... Fear took over. Dunan had turned and fled north into the hills, scrambling up the ashy slopes as if he had the world's end chasing him. Dunan tired after a while, and looked around him. From what the moonlight revealed, he was in the middle of a long, low range of mountains covered with grey ash. And he was alone. No vampires, werewolves... or friends. Friends. They were like the first friends Dunan ever had. Carefully, poised to run at any moment, Dunan worked his way back to the Varrock/Morytania Road. Back to where he had left his friends. Back to the vampires.

About an hour later, Dunan arrived at the place where he had last seen his friends. Dunan cursed his fear as he discovered that they were missing. Furthermore, there were no footprints in the direction of Varrock. The soft grey ground would've preserved the footprints perfectly. Dunan didn't have the tracking skills of Blazingwarri: The fact he couldn't see his friend's footprints and his natural fear led him to believe his friends had been taken captive. If the vampires had eaten them... The bodies or something should still be there.

For another hour almost Dunan argued to himself, interrupted only once by the seemingly lone survivor of the noob outpost: Radune.

As soon as Dunan had seen Radune's figure walking in the direction of Varrock, he had run and hid amongst the boulders lining the road. Whatever choice Dunan made, he was convinced the noobs weren't going to love it. Radune was almost level with Dunan, when he called out:

"Lost my entire command first night. I'm in enough shit already without having to explain saving little kid like you." Radune said.

Feeling foolish, Dunan climbed out of hiding. Radune looked at him.

"You know what to do now? You should go help your friends if you can; you got a better chance in this war with them than alone. I reckon you know enough about Morytania and the monsters more than anyone else. If anyone's gonna be able to help your friends, or even bother about 'em, it's you." Radune said, before marching off in Varrock's direction.

"Dunan you are released from the noobs army. If asked you were never in, got it?" The noob commander called back. Dunan could only nod.

Always the same conclusion won out: His friends had been kidnapped. And he, Dunan0, was damned if he was going to leave his friends to the vampires. Slowly, Dunan forced himself to walk east, his forced movement and attitude enhanced by the dawning of the sun over shadow.