Here's another update, if anyone's actually reading.

Gilbert appears to be rather annoyed as the webcam switches on. It is the second time in the day he is filming a video. "Are you filming again? Those two just left." Arthur asks with some amusement from behind Gilbert, still tied to the chair. "Of course," Gilbert turns around. "I said that I would make an update when you talked, and I don't go back on my word if I can avoid it." There is a pause. "I was lying about the chair, by the way." Arthur catches onto his meaning quickly. "Oh don't worry about me, I'm fine here while you idiotically take on Pater," he says with overly dramatic flippancy. "Besides, you never actually promised to let me out of this chair." He adds in his normal tone. "I guess," Gilbert replies uncertainly, but he turns back around. "Hello viewers," he begins. "As you may have figured out from the fact I'm updating, our resident vampire has given us some answers." "Captive vampire, did you mean?" Arthur butts in from behind him. Gilbert turns briefly. "You said it, not me." He says before facing the camera again. "We're planning what to do next tomorrow, but first I should probably fill you all in on the details." Gilbert pauses to glance at Arthur and he notices. "Sure, go ahead," he says in the same overly flippant tone as before. "Tell my terrible tale to the entire world, I don't mind at all." Gilbert bites his lip. "Look, I have to give them some context," He says softly. Arthur doesn't reply. Gilbert sighs and turns back to facing the webcam, giving his audience the same rundown he gave Erzsébet earlier. "And so, now we know we're facing the Dean of Students," he concludes. "If you're wondering what we're planning now; well we have no idea." Arthur snorts at this and Gilbert makes a face. "Your constant negativity about this isn't helpful, you know!" He calls behind him. "And I've told you many times already, that you don't have a chance." Arthur responds "And I told you just as many times, that I'm not going to give up! You know what? Never mind!" Gilbert whirls back around to face the camera. "This is what I have to deal with." He mutters angrily, before switching into a more pleasant tone. "Well, that's all I've got for now, if any of can think of anything that might help us, please leave me a comment. Apart from that, until next time!"

'Do you really think anyone out there who could help you?' Arthur asked as soon as Gilbert had finished recording.

There was no real mockery in his voice; more so curiosity, but Gilbert had had so many pointless arguments that day that he didn't care.

'I don't know.' He snapped with tired annoyance. 'But I'm starting to miss when you didn't talk.'

'Very well then,' Arthur replied, and then the room was silent.

'I didn't mean that,' Gilbert whispered to himself as he resigned to uploading the video, wishing he could take back what he said.

Pride prevented him from actually apologising but guilt ate away at him, causing him to forget to edit out the start of the video as he'd intended before he uploaded it.

'Well I'm going to sleep now,' he announced loudly when he was done.

Silence answered him, and with a regret filled sigh, Gilbert trudged into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into pyjamas.

Gilbert awoke hours later to the sound of voices. At first he thought he was still dreaming. Hadn't he been running from a group of ghostly people in his latest nightmare? Then what he heard made his blood run cold.

'Pater says it's time for you to stop messing around, Arthur,' a female voice, high and cold spoke, followed by the sound of moving rope. For a terrifying moment Gilbert thought it might be Erzsébet, before realising it sounded nothing like her. 'We're going to grab your pesky little roommate, then deal with his annoying friends.'

Gilbert's heart raced; he was doomed, and so were Erzsébet and Roderich. There was no way Arthur wouldn't just hand them all over. Not after being held hostage for a week, and especially not after Gilbert had just pissed him off. Stupidly, Gilbert reached over and turned on his lamp, he didn't know why he did it, but in his panic it was the first thing that had occurred to him.

Arthur was now freed from the chair, the ropes that had tied him down being held by a second figure in the room – the owner of the voice. They both turned as the light filled the room and Gilbert could see the intruder clearly. She was petite, with blonde hair a few shades lighter than Arthur's framing a heart shaped face in angelic curls. Standing next to Arthur, they could have been siblings. The porcelain doll-like innocence her smooth pale skin, red painted lips and wide light green eyes gave her only made her words and the cool malicious intent in her gaze more unsettling. As she stared through him, Gilbert knew she could only be one of the other vampires Arthur had mentioned.

'Oh he's awake,' she said with barely veiled menace, red lips curling into a cruel smile that reminded Gilbert of a time he'd seen a cat notice a wounded baby bird. 'Good, we'll get to do this the fun way.'

Gilbert ignored the shiver that ran down his spine.

'I see you're out of the chair,' he said politely to Arthur, hoping to confuse the pair of vampires. 'I hope you don't mind but there's somewhere else I need to be right now.' With that he bolted towards the door.

The female vampire caught him before he even got near it, twisting his arm behind his back and causing Gilbert to hiss in pain.

'That's enough, Laura,' Arthur's voice came from the other side of the room.

Gilbert turned to face him, behind him, the female vampire – Laura – tutted.

'I always knew you were soft, Arthur,' she said disdainfully. 'I don't understand why you were ever Pater's favourite. Even after your disgrace he still held you in favour. It just makes no sense to me.' Gilbert saw Arthur's fists clench as Laura continued with a smile that bared all of her teeth. 'Why, I think I might just have a snack right now.'

It took Gilbert a moment to realise she meant him. He tried to struggle but Laura only laughed and pinned his other arm behind his back with ease.

'We're not supposed to kill the targets,' Arthur spoke with a dangerous quietness, staring Laura down.

Laura laughed again, her laughter cold and taunting.

'I never said I was going to kill him, but now I think I will. Just to mess with you.'

Feeling her lean closer to him, Gilbert gulped, clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. It seemed his luck had finally run out. Then suddenly he was released. Laura had staggered backwards as Arthur's fist connected with her face. Finding himself free, Gilbert darted away from Laura as clasped at her left cheek in shock. Slowly, Laura pulled her hand away from her face and strode towards the door.

'You're going to regret that, brother dear,' she hissed venomously as she opened it. 'Just wait until I tell Pater this, then I'll finally be his favourite child.' Then she whirled through the door and disappeared in a blur of motion.

Gilbert was left facing Arthur in the dimly lit room, still feeling somewhat stunned from the close encounter he'd just had.

'Uh, thanks for saving me just then, I'm—'

Gilbert's attempt to apologise what he'd said earlier that night was cut short as Arthur stepped towards him, expression unreadable. He cupped his hands around Gilbert's face, bringing them as close as they had been on that fateful night of the party. Then he shoved him backwards onto his bed. Gilbert gasped, winded by the fall. Then he felt pain. Arthur had bitten him. Before he even had a chance to struggle or protest, Arthur released him. Gilbert sat up, clutching at his neck, just in time to see Arthur vanish out of the door, running with the same superhuman speed in the direction Laura had gone.

'Oh my god,' Gilbert breathed in quick shallow breaths as he felt the wetness of blood beneath the hand at his neck. He slumped backwards towards the wall. 'He bit me.'

Gilbert was still hyperventilating by the time Erzsébet and Roderich entered the room, it could have been minutes or hours later, he couldn't tell.

'Looks like you were right about hearing something,'

He heard Erzsébet speaking to Roderich as if from very far away or underwater.

'Did you think I'd make something like that up? Roderich rebuked.

'Hey!'

Gilbert barely registered that that was addressed to him before stinging pain erupted across his face. He gasped sharply.

'Did you just slap me?' Gilbert asked Erzsébet as she withdrew her hand.

'He was in shock, it was the most effective way to snap him out of it,' Erzsébet defended to Roderich as he frowned at her.

'Oh, are you just going to ignore me then?' Gilbert asked as he rubbed at his cheek.

Erzsébet rounded on him with fearsome fury, an impressive feat for someone wearing cat covered pyjamas.

'I told you not to let him go,' she gestured at the now empty chair that Arthur had been held hostage in over the last week. 'But what did you do? Exactly that.' Her eyes caught on Gilbert's neck. 'And you got yourself bitten too. What did I tell you?'

'What makes you think I let him go?' Gilbert had recovered enough to recall his earlier annoyance with Erzsébet, and now she was blaming him for yet another thing that wasn't his fault.

'The fact you kept arguing for that last night!' Erzsébet retorted. 'I told you not to trust anything he said. But you went and bought every word of the sob story he fed you, didn't you? So you let him out of that chair and got bitten for your troubles.'

'I didn't let him go,' Gilbert maintained. 'Will you just listen for once?'

This only served to further aggravate Erzsébet.

'Save it for your 'fans' out there,' she threw Gilbert's laptop a scathing glance. 'There's no one else you can blame for this. I don't know what else I expected from you; I knew you were an attention seeker from the start.'

'What—?'

'Oh don't you play innocent with me now!' Erzsébet growled, she stepped closer towards Gilbert, towering over his sitting position. He could see the tangles in her hair and the dark circles underneath her eyes. 'You and your videos and—'

'If you don't think I started this because of my friend, just like you did for yours. Then you're wrong.' Gilbert shot back at her, standing up from his bed to face her stubbornly.

Erzsébet was about to respond when she noticed Gilbert freeze. Turning, she followed his line of sight towards the fridge in the room and saw Arthur standing beside it, watching them with amusement, in the process of unwrapping a muesli bar.

'You,' she narrowed her eyes at him, reached for a stake she didn't have and faltered. Roderich backed into a corner of the room, looking sickly in his paisley pyjamas. 'Come back to finish the job?' Erzsébet continued, maintaining the bravado despite being at a complete loss for weapons.

Arthur scowled, displeased at having been seen, and set down the muesli bar.

'Don't get your panties in a twist,' he told her curtly, seeming satisfied as she spluttered, her hands curling into fists, but otherwise unable to act against him. 'I had to bite him for energy or else another vampire would have killed him.' He explained as if he was speaking to particularly stupid children. 'Because, some idiots here decided to starve me for a week.'

He gave them all a hard stare. Gilbert flinched and looked away. Roderich gulped. But Erzsébet held her ground.

'Because you wouldn't give us information,' she responded just as coldly.

Sensing an argument he really didn't want to hear about to break out, Gilbert spoke quickly.

'So did you catch up to her?' He asked, addressing Arthur.

Arthur considered him for a moment.

'I did,' he finally replied in a somewhat regretful tone. 'I dealt with her before she could spill everything to Pater.'

'You mean…' Gilbert's eyes widened at the response.

Erzsébet caught onto his meaning immediately.

'You killed somebody?' she asked, thunderstruck. Behind her, Roderich shrank further into the wall.

'Oh I'm sorry,' Arthur began with sarcasm. 'I supposed I should have left Snowflake here to die.' He jerked a thumb sharply towards Gilbert. 'And then let her come after the rest of you. Is that what you'd rather? If all of you were dead?'

A brief silence followed, with even Erzsébet unable to find a response to that.

'I didn't think so,' Arthur said with audible smugness.

'Hey, thanks for saving me,' Gilbert broke the stunned silence that still reigned over his half of the room.

Arthur's expression flickered then became more guarded.

'I was just saving myself,' he muttered, before snatching the muesli bar back up and striding from the room.

'Well, there's no need for you two to be in here anymore,' Gilbert said as he watched the door slam, sounding more upset than he wanted to.

Roderich exited the room gladly and hurriedly, but Erzsébet lingered.

'If I didn't know better, I'd say you have a crush on the vampire,' she accused, eyeing Gilbert carefully.

'What? I don't have a crush on Arthur!' Gilbert was taken aback. 'I just feel sorry for him, that's all! I mean, what with the way he's been treated by the Dean…'

Erzsébet raised an eyebrow at him, making a sceptical sound of acceptance.

'If you say so,' she told him, before she turned towards the door where Roderich was waiting for her. 'Coming, Roderich dear.'

Gilbert waited until their footsteps had faded before returning to his bed, trying to stop replaying that last exchange of words with Erzsébet from his mind.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep, for he woke again around dawn to find Arthur sitting at the windowsill, watching something outside was an amused grin.

'What's happening?' Gilbert called out blearily. He felt for the bite marks on his neck – they'd scabbed over, but he'd need to wear a scarf if his usual hoodie didn't cover them.

Arthur surveyed him coolly.

'Looks like the Alchemy Club's fungi experiment has taken root…' he replied. 'Literally.'

Gilbert dragged himself out of bed and over to the window, pretending not to notice Arthur inch slightly away from him as he approached.

'Am I really awake because I think I'm seeing giant mushrooms down there,' he said as he took in the baffling view.

'You're seeing them,' Arthur confirmed.

Gilbert continued peering out of the window and saw spores erupting from the toadstools and causing anyone they landed on spasm and then, as if they were drawn by a magnet, walk jerkily towards the theatre building where there was already a large congregation of zombie-like students.

'What the hell is happening?' Gilbert breathed.

'I don't know, but it's pretty funny,' Arthur said flippantly beside him. 'What are you doing?' He asked when Gilbert moved away from the window to throw his hoodie on over his pyjamas and a scarf around the bottom half of his face for good measure.

'I'm going outside,' Gilbert replied, voice muffled by the scarf. 'I'm going to help those people.'

He finished pulling on his shoes and ran out of the door before Arthur could respond. Arthur blinked as he left.

'There's really no talking you out of these things, is there?' he muttered, shaking his head.

Minutes later and Gilbert was on the campus grounds, surrounded by six-foot-tall mushrooms that were billowing spores out towards him, and unsure what to do. In the distance he could see torches being lit within the crowd surrounding the theatre building.

'Need a hand?' a familiar voice called from behind Gilbert and he whirled around. Arthur stood behind him, frowning as he stepped sideways to avoid another gust of mind-altering spores. 'Because the greenhouses are that way, if you're looking for say, saws, machetes or fungicide.'

Gilbert almost grinned at him, but kept the current situation in mind.

'Right,' he said. 'That sounds like a great idea.'

They didn't speak for the duration of the run towards the greenhouses. Gilbert arrived out of breath and immediately made for the gardening tools. Deciding saws would be a waste of time on the soft-bodied mushrooms, Gilbert picked up an axe, nearly dropped it onto his foot, and swore.

'These things are heavier than they look,' he complained. 'They make chopping wood look so easy in movies.'

Arthur took the axe off him and handed him a wickedly sharp machete he'd taken from among many hanging from the wall. Gilbert recalled him mentioning machetes before.

'Why do we even have all of those?' he asked.

'There was a vine infestation back in '72,' Arthur replied with a shrug. 'The hippies in the Gardening Club back in the day took "flower power" a little too literally.' He explained when he saw Gilbert's quizzical expression, hefting the axe over his shoulder like it was weightless.

'Show-off,' Gilbert muttered.

Arthur smirked at him.

'Are you going to look at the fungicides, or are we ready to go?' he asked.

'I don't think bottles of fungicide are going to work that well on those giant mushrooms,' Gilbert replied after a moment of thought. 'Even if they're undiluted, there probably isn't enough.' Another thought occurred to him. 'Can't you set things on fire mentally? I mean, I saw you do it once.'

'No,' Arthur shook his head. 'That takes a lot of concentration and effort that I'm not willing waste on giant toadstools.'

'Fine,' Gilbert began to head back outside. 'We can do this the old fashioned way.'

An hour into hacking the overgrown fungi apart, and Gilbert was exhausted. Meanwhile Arthur hadn't even broken a sweat.

'That's ten down,' he called over, admiring his handiwork as yet another mushroom toppled onto the ground before him in small pieces. 'How many have you destroyed? Four?'

'When did we agree to make this into a competition?' Gilbert grumbled over the felled mushroom he was in the process of chopping into bits, pulling his scarf off to wipe sweat away from his eyes.

They'd been joined by Erzsébet and the Summer Society, who'd, procured large barrels of fungicide and were rolling them into the basements of all the nearby buildings. Erzsébet appeared to have a word with them, flanked by Angelique.

'The Alchemy Club has lost control of a large underground fungal network,' she explained in her best authoritative debriefing tone. 'The people who have breathed in the spores of those things are currently trying to burn down the theatre building and are attacking anyone who attempts to stop them.' Subconsciously she rubbed at her arm, where Gilbert could see a large bruise was beginning to form.

'Why the theatre building,' he pondered. 'That's the oldest building on campus and supposedly its subterranean amphitheatre is an almost exact replica of the Globe theatre in London.'

'Did you read that in the Handbook?' Erzsébet asked derisively. Gilbert had, but he didn't answer, and she continued. 'What I meant was – stay away from the theatre building; my people are handling it.' With that, she walked away with Angelique in tow.

Gilbert watched as Erzsébet stopped in her path towards the theatre building in order to quickly and brutally destroy a towering mushroom.

'And now I remember why I try not to disagree with her to her face,' he muttered.

Beside him Arthur snorted, then he noticed something coming towards them.

'Watch out!' he yelled, knocking Gilbert onto the ground to avoid a stream of spores.

Gilbert felt a blast of heat as the mushroom that had released the spores burst into flames.

'Thanks,' he gasped, out of breath.

'Eleven,' Arthur smiled aggravatingly from his position above Gilbert.

Gilbert groaned and pushed at him.

'Get off me so I can get my count to five,'

It was evening by the time the last mushroom was vanquished. The scope of the infestation had been so large, that most of the student body that had not been infected by the spores had had to help out with the effort. Gilbert trudged back up to his dorm with Arthur and immediately flopped down onto his bed once they were in the room.

'Well there goes half my weekend,' he said amid a yawn, pulling a pillow over his face. 'Good thing I didn't have anything due.'

'Ah,' Gilbert heard Arthur say. 'I was about to say that you don't do anything on weekends anyway.'

Without bothering to sit up, Gilbert tossed the pillow he was holding limply in Arthur's general direction.

'Ha ha, really funny,' he muttered loudly.

'That didn't even land anywhere close to me,' Arthur spoke with evident amusement.

There was a creaking of the floorboards and Arthur must have picked up the pillow, for a moment later it was dropped back onto Gilbert. Gilbert grabbed the pillow and pulled it back around his head, yawning once more. The mattress shifted under additional weight as Arthur carefully sat down near Gilbert's feet.

'We need to talk,' was all he said.

Gilbert was instantly alert.

'About what?' he asked too quickly. He'd taken too many criticisms over the last few days and really didn't want to hear any more of them, but he was willing to apologise for anything if it meant making peace.

'That charm I gave you,' Arthur began. 'Where did you put it?'

Keeping back a sigh of relief, Gilbert threw off the pillow, stretched, and sheepishly made his to a corner of the room. There he retrieved the rabbit's foot from beneath a pile of unwashed laundry, free newspapers he'd never read, graded assignments and miscellaneous other items. He sat down beside Arthur and wordlessly handed the charm to him.

'Good, you still have it. I've told you this before but; you have to keep this on you for it to work.' Arthur said, giving the foot back to Gilbert.

Gilbert looked down at the small furry object for a moment, swallowed, then pocketed it.

'What does it actually do?' he asked curiously.

'Is a powerful luck charm, and it'll makes you feel...off…to the vampires,' Arthur explained to him. 'It's like you're surrounded by a layer of static or leaking radiation. Like; if I touched you, I might feel unwell.'

'That's, uh, good then, uh, probably,' Gilbert couldn't out why, but he had misgivings about what he'd just said.

If Arthur had noticed, he didn't mention it.

'In any case,' he continued. 'It should persuade the vampires to move on.'

To another target, Gilbert thought with a shiver down his spine. Even if he was out of immediate danger now, he still had to help the others and prevent more students from being taken.

'About that,' he began cautiously. 'Any news on the Dean?'

Arthur shook his head.

'The fact we're both still alive means he probably hasn't found out I killed Laura yet, but it's only a matter of time,' he spoke with resignation.

'Why didn't you run?' Gilbert asked as a thought struck him. 'You could have left us here to face the music alone and just run. You were angry enough at us to do that.'

'I threw in my lot with you idiots when I killed Laura,' Arthur said with a long sigh. 'Like it or not, I'm relying on the three of you coming up with some sort of plan.' He offered Gilbert a weary smile. 'Besides, I wasn't that angry at you.'

Those last words gave Gilbert a feeling of unexplainable relieved happiness, and he smiled back at Arthur.

'So you think we can come up with a plan?' he asked.

No,' admitted Arthur. 'But even if I had run, Pater would have found me. He's done it before, he'll do it again.'

'Well we have you on our side now, right?' Gilbert reasoned. 'And you have centuries of intel on the Dean, surely that counts for something.'

'You just don't get it,' Arthur spoke listlessly. 'You've never seen for yourself what he's capable of firsthand. My father is an immensely powerful being with a personal cabal of the undead; you have no hopes against him.'

His expression was hopeless, and in that moment Gilbert came to the realisation that Arthur was just as – if not even more – afraid of the Dean than he was. He tried to think of something to say, but before he could, the sound of arguing drifted in from outside. Moments later Erzsébet came into the room, followed by Roderich.

'This is just ridiculous,' Roderich was saying. 'First the Cooking Club's crazy mushroom prank—,'

'For the last time, Roderich,' Erzsébet cut him off in an impatient tone that was normally reserved for Gilbert. 'That was not a prank, and people were actually in danger.'

'There probably a perfectly normal explanation—,'

'Nothing around here is normal, Roderich!'

'Do you two have a reason to be here, or do you just want us to watch you argue?' Arthur asked with some irritation.

Gilbert hid a smirk – he might not be able to address Erzsébet like that, but he could enjoy it when someone else did. Erzsébet's cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment, but she pulled a USB stick from the back pocket of her jeans.

'I analysed the stains on Lili and Kiku's pillowcases,' she said in a quieter, almost sullen tone.

'What did you find?' Gilbert asked, excited to have found a new lead.

Erzsébet gestured for Gilbert's laptop, and he logged in and handed it to her. She pulled up one of the images from the memory stick. Gilbert stared at it, and behind him, Roderich looked like he was about to be sick.

'The stains were from cerebral fluid – or brain fluid in layman's terms,' Erzsébet explained. 'About the amount you'd get from a spinal tap. And this is what I found in it.' She pointed at the screen.

'Some sort of parasites?' Gilbert questioned.

'Parasites,' Erzsébet confirmed. 'And plenty of them. Care to explain?' She asked, directing the question at Arthur.

'I don't know,' Arthur studied the screen and frowned. 'Whatever happens to the people we take happens after they're delivered to Pater.'

'You've been kidnapping people for centuries, and you don't know what happens to them?' Erzsébet asked incredulously.

'Look,' Arthur snapped. 'It wasn't like I could just ask my father what he was doing with the victims. I mean the last time I disobeyed him, I was buried alive.' He stared back into the screen. 'Parasites, huh? That would explain why their blood becomes undrinkable.'

'Brain parasites might explain the changes in behaviour,' Gilbert offered, then he faltered. The withering look Erzsébet gave him told him he was two steps behind her as usual.

'What did you do then?' Erzsébet demanded of Arthur. 'Did you inject the victims with something? Make then inhale something?'

'I already told you that I don't know,' Arthur said through gritted teeth. 'All this happens after Pater takes them.'

'Surely you know something,' Erzsébet pushed. 'Didn't you become very close to one of your would-be-victims?'

Gilbert's eyes widened at her tone.

'Erzsébet—,' he began warningly, but it was already too late.

Arthur clenched his fists and stood, facing Erzsébet stormily.

'I didn't fucking give you permission to dissect my past like some sort of science experience. There are some things I'd rather not be forced to remember. You leave Elle out of this.'

With that, he bumped Erzsébet roughly aside and stalked from the room. Gilbert rose to call after him, before thinking better of it and sitting back down glumly. Erzsébet was trying to pretend she hadn't been shaken.

'Alright,' she said, taking a long breath. 'We can find out how the vampires re-kidnap their victims another time. I'll just—,'

'Wait,' a thought had just occurred to Gilbert. 'What if that's not the vampires.' Erzsébet stared at him, but he continued. 'I know you're the Bio major, but I remember learning about parasite life cycles in high school. There was a parasite that made snails climb up onto grass stalks after infecting them so that they would be eaten by birds. What if that's what's happening? What if the second disappearance is just the second stage of the parasite life cycle?'

'No!' Roderich uttered before Erzsébet had time to process what Gilbert had said. 'These just aren't things that are supposed to happen. Not vampires. Not brain eating parasites. Not giant mushrooms.' He looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. 'Why can't all of you just be normal!'

Erzsébet looked startled at this outburst from her usually mild mannered boyfriend.

'Roderich dear,' she began in a consolatory tone. 'Surely you've noticed that normal just isn't a thing we can ask for around here.'

She reached for his arm, but Roderich flung her hand away, his voice rising into near hysterical tones.

'That doesn't mean you need to throw yourself right into the midst of it every time. That's simply unnecessary, Erzsébet. You're my girlfriend, maybe you should think of me instead of everyone else sometimes. I worry about you. You know what? I just need some time on my own.'

Gilbert and Erzsébet both watched in shocked silence as Roderich slammed the door on his way out. Erzsébet turned to Gilbert, composure barely intact.

'Don't,' Gilbert said flatly. 'Don't say anything. You're fighting with your boyfriend, and I… I've been marked for death by a vampire cabal. Let's just both called it a night and we can figure this out in the morning.

To his surprise, Erzsébet nodded, wordlessly leaving the room. Gilbert thought he heard a muffled sob as soon as she was outside of the door. It had been a strenuous few days and the tempers of everyone around him had been worn thin and through. Without bothering to change into fresh clothes, Gilbert crawled into his blankets and curled up, wondering when Arthur would be back.

Laura is the name I use for Belgium, I haven't tagged her as a character because she just appears in this chapter then dies. The role she fills in the original webseries is Will's, only he didn't die until later, but there's no JP in this AU so that wasn't necessary. I am aware of the irony in that Laura is also the name of the character whose role in the webseries is filled by Gilbert here.

Now that all the clues have been laid in place, I can finally tell you that the Dean is Rome. And that all of the vampires are former Roman colonies (the list of which, funnily enough, includes Romania). Yes, I know that parts of modern day Germany were once under Roman rule, but that didn't last very long and also didn't stretch as far north or east towards Prussia.