Ethan spent the better part of the hour wandering around the halls of this castle being completely lost. So much for his epic entrance... His plan to bust down the doors, sneak in, and then quickly sneak out were so so so ruined. He briefly considered texting the Duke to see if there was, perhaps, a map that he could peruse. Then again, he thought it would be a bit weird to double text him... Earlier, he had sent a text asking if the Duke was interested in hanging out sometime to chill out and watch something like The Office or Friends. He pulled out his phone again and noticed that the message was marked as read. Ethan just scoffed at the phone and put it in his back pocket to ignore the pain of rejection.
"I see that the people in this village have no respect for decent television OR music," Ethan thought, slightly bitter. He remembered how Heisenberg 'flamed' him for being an Ed Sheeran fan and sighed loudly. Now the Duke was judging him for being a fan of normal ass TV shows. He liked being a normie so why should he have to pander to the non-normies?
After a bit, he started shattering vases and glass cabinets by swatting his knife around. It was simultaneously entertaining and a pretty damn good way to de-stress. After breaking the fifth vase he saw, he heard a loud sigh and heavy footsteps. He whipped around and saw that beautiful giantess again... Lady Dimitrescu.
"God damn, it really is always the same with you men, isn't it?" she hissed. "I would have liked to assume that after all these years of social development, at least one of you would be somewhat manageable. Yet, here you are! Smashing up my vases and destroying my antique cabinets! Why, I am just simply trying to drink my wine and enjoy viewing my memes. I bet you have a home furnished with those ugly goods from IKEA. How about I come to your house and ruin those?" she continued.
Ethan just blinked. Although he knew she was probably much older, she radiated true boomer vibes... for once, Ethan was glad to be a millennial. He didn't even know what to say.
"I... Yeah, no, I can't even give an excuse for why I was smashing up the vases. I was a bit angry because I was thinking about Heisenberg again," Ethan replied despondently.
"...? Heisenberg? Why on Earth are you thinking about that degenerate?"
"Look, he's just been on my mind a lot recently because he seems annoying, right? But... listen, there's something mystifying about his energy. Like, he has both good vibes and evil energy emanating from him... He called me a 'local' and made fun of me for listening to dad music and Ed Sheeran though, so it really pissed me off," Ethan explained.
This time it was Lady Dimitrescu who just stared blankly at the other. Ethan was really bizarre and, frankly, a confusing individual. She had no idea how someone like him managed to escape Heisenberg's foolish 'obby' if he was like this. She cleared her throat to try and move past the subject.
"Well... Okay, I am honestly so unsure of what the hell to say to all that so I am just going to... ignore it. If you don't mind, I'm going to just steal a blood sample from you. No, you cannot say no," she said.
"Hey, come on lady, I've already had enough blood taken from me lately. I do NOT need someone to steal it from me," Ethan replied. He put his hands up like a stupid baka instead of doing literally anything to conceal them from soneone who was trying to steal blood.
Lady Dimitrescu rolled her eyes and just gripped his wrist with an iron grip. Before he could even reply, she cut his palm with a lovely ornate knife... Ethan didn't know why he was focusing on the visual aspect of the blade when some tall bitch was literally stealing his blood.
"WHOA! Damn, what the fuck?! Unbelievable... You and everyone else in this town are all so fucked up and twisted," Ethan yelled.
He tried to snatch his hand away from the woman but she was both faster and stronger than him. She slurped up his blood as if sipping from a pouch of Capri-Sun... After a moment, she pursed her lips and raised a brow at the man.
"Well... This doesn't taste right for two reasons. Number one, it tastes... bland. I assume you know who Gordon Ramsay is? Yeah, no... Your blood is just missing the prowess, the flair, the excitement that I am really looking for... and it just tastes old. You definitely hit your prime a bit ago; wish I could have been there for that. Number two, it just... doesn't taste the same as the blood of men I have enjoyed before. There is something about it that just feels a bit off," Lady Dimitrescu explained.
The Gordon Ramsay thing made Ethan feel like he was being roasted on fucking Hell's Kitchen. Being told that his blood tasted 'boring' and 'bland' and 'old' was not going to be good for his frail self-esteem... And what the fuck was with the remarks at the end?
"I really don't get the second point. What do you mean it tastes off? Like, forgive me but I don't go around slurping up my own blood for funsies... I would not know what it tastes like."
"Let me see. It tastes like there's just an excess of hormones for whatever reason. Maybe if you were a professional blood taster you would know what tastes to look for. It is no different than those guided wine tasting tours," she continued.
Ethan clicked his tongue disappointedly. He really didn't feel like sitting through another lecture so he decided to cut her off early. "Okay, I did my T shot like, two days ago. Your point? Not all of us are lucky enough to be cis."
Lady Dimitrescu was visibly surprised this time. "Wait... Ethan, you're trans?" she asked.
"Yeah yeah, I know. Look, before you start asking The Questions, I'm just gonna ask that you keep those to yourself. I've explained it for the past 10 years now, I really don't want to give the same stupid speech again," he replied angrily. He was so tired of cis people. Hang on, he just realized something that was a bit old at this point — how the hell did blood taste even out him as being trans in the first place? That didn't even make any sense. Then again, the whole idea of him going and running around to become cultured in memes wasn't much more comprehensible...
"Oh, no, I'm actually impressed. Believe it or not, I am also trans," she said with a vague hint of satisfaction. "I know how it feels to struggle with cis people asking the same foolish questions over and over again. I have had to deal with that for decades now."
If this was a sitcom, Ethan would have wanted something akin to the Seinfeld theme to start playing. He couldn't even think of how to reply beyond looking impressed and, admittedly, confused. Ethan had to wonder how vampire gender transitioning even worked... he did not want to pry, but the thought lingered in the back of his mind. He didn't openly reply to her nor did he ask anything in particular.
"I will offer you this proposition. Since you and I understand the trans struggle, I will just... ignore you for the time being to go do something far more entertaining," Lady Dimitrescu said. She began walking off and Ethan felt satisfied; for once, being trans worked out in his favor. "However, the second you start overstepping your boundaries, you are in for a world of madness."
Ethan nodded and waited until she was out of sight to start messing around on his phone again. When he wasn't busting up the vases that got him into trouble in the first place, he was recording videos of sections of the castle that had nice aesthetic views... Hopefully, he was going to become famous on gothtiktok and aesthetictok... Suddenly, an important thought flashed through his mind again. He remembered what the Duke had told him earlier about his actual mission here.
(Flashback moment)
"Mr. Winters, if you wish to find your daughter I believe that she is being held at Mother Miranda's 'estate', if you will. We refer to it as that to give it a nice air of posterity and maybe even some more swag, but in reality it's just a dingy underground bunker. I don't really remember how to get there from here but I don't know if you can even access it anyway. You need four keys to enter," the Duke explained.
"Okay... Where do I get those keys?"
"Right, those are definitely in the Four Lords' manors. You should probably go in this order: Dimitrescu, Beneviento, Moreau, and finally Heisenberg. You should probably not kill them, just snag the keys and get the hell out of there. From what I've heard from the poor saps who've tried this before, those keys are hidden in their bedrooms."
"Thanks man, let me just jot that down in my diary..." Ethan mumbled. He was furiously taking notes in his grubby little notepad. The Duke peeked over and noticed that the margins were almost completely full of random doodles such as the Stussy S, random drawings of eyes, and (what he assumed to be) drawings of Ethan himself... quite odd.
"...Good luck, Mr. Winters. I believe you're going to need it."
(flashback end)
After remembering that, Ethan nodded again. That task seemed pretty simple to be honest... He just had to get stupid keys and then go save Rose so he could go home and... do what, play Madden and watch The Office with his baby? Sigh. He tried to push those thoughts from his mind for the time being. His primary issue was this: how was he supposed to even find Lady Dimitrescu's bedroom? There were so many damn rooms in this horrific labyrinthine structure. Ethan wanted to hope that everything would go smoothly but remembered that his fortune was absolutely horrible and his horoscope for the day forecast only a day of twists and turns... Not good.
He sat in the corner scrolling through his phone for a bit to relax after getting so stressed out. As he was spacing out, he felt a random tap on his shoulder. He quickly shot a glance up and saw a lovely blonde girl staring at him with a faint smile. Ethan replied by flashing her the classic white-boy smile and pulled himself up off the ground... He had no idea who the hell this girl was, but she seemed pretty sus...
