Was Bodhi wearing ... ruffles? Demyan shook his head. He had to focus. The vampire, so-called sister of the evil Irenicus, had kidnapped his true love Aerie and turned her into a vampire as well!
Now he and his comrades had penetrated the depths of Bodhi's lair for the final battle. The vampire leapt at him with a curse and he lifted his sword. Her bloodied, dagger-sharp nails tore chunks out of him with every move.
Normally, Bodhi wore the minimum of clothing in black tatters. Her vampire skin didn't need protection from anything other than sunlight, and she was able to change herself into mist and flee underground as she desired. Now she was garbed in a fluttering white nightgown cut to showcase an expanse of cleavage with little structural support, and her hair was different. More fluffy and bigger, somehow ...
Focus! Demyan reminded himself. Upon the dais, his love Aerie stood ... her body and mind already taken and violated by the curse of undeath. He knew no way to end the curse and so all he could do was murder the vampire in revenge.
A fanged bat dived at his shoulder. Knowing that the vampire minions could shapeshift in an instant, Demyan stepped out of the way. But instead of changing, the bat crashed to the tomb's floor tiles. He glanced at it and saw that its wings were bound tight with a frilly black ribbon. He stepped on it, causing a satisfying splunch noise. He struck at Bodhi again.
"Demyan, your lover is mine now ... " Bodhi gloated. "She has made a willing and enthusiastic minion under me."
"Hello Demyan!" Aerie waved at him. Her fair hair was as beautiful as ever, falling loose down her back like honey under moonlight, her skin as pale as before. But Aerie's eyes were red instead of blue, her mouth flashed with white pointed teeth, and her lips were as crimson as a gash of blood. "Look! I redecorated the lair of my dark mistress for her. Uncle Quayle had a large collection of vampire scrolls that I read a lot, so I had all sorts of ideas they never thought of before."
Honestly, Demyan hadn't considered the decor. He breathed hard against a flurry of blows from Bodhi as he only vaguely caught notes of it in his peripheral vision. Lots of bats and wolf pictures were stencilled on the wall, the wolves mostly shown with large and cute puppy eyes, pretty lace curtains hid the coffins and blood pools from view, and prismatic glass chandeliers carpeted the ceiling, jingling surprisingly pleasantly together.
Wait ... prismatic glass ...
"Casters!" Demyan yelled. His sister Imoen and her girlfriend Nalia were dealing magic missiles from behind their shields, while the werewolf druid Cernd was focused on ripping throats out with his giant wolfman form. "Get some sunrays pointed upwards, yesterday!"
Suddenly, light flashed above and around them - sun that was deadly to vampires. The glass chandeliers reflected and magnified the light and many of the vampires dropped, trying to beat out the fires on themselves.
Bodhi was too strong for that, barely affected. She grunted as she drove forward at Demyan. But somehow she was slower than she was the last time Demyan fought her, her movements a little restricted ...
"And I also got to give my dark mistress a fashion makeover!" Aerie's high voice said from behind them. She was also unaffected by the sunlight spells, since she had drawn a lacy white parasol to shield herself. The parasol was perfectly coordinated with her pink and white dress. "In all the illustrations of Uncle Quayle's vampire scrolls, vampires are supposed to wear pretty clothes, with lots of ruffles and unsupportive cleavage! Doesn't Bodhi look ever so much nicer now?"
Bodhi's claws got caught in her frilly sleeve. Demyan smashed his shield against her to catch the advantage, then stepped on her hem to delay her. He gave a vicious strike to her off-balanced chest. It wasn't his imagination that the outfit slowed her down.
"Aerie," he said. "Just out of curiosity, were Uncle Quayle's vampire scrolls vampire romance novels?"
Demyan tripped Bodhi with a leg to the back of her knee. She scratched his face viciously, but he slammed the edge of his shield against her neck to keep her on the ground.
Aerie giggled in a sweet silvery sound. "Ever so romantic!" she said. "I was excited to try it for myself. And then Bodhi gave me the cutest wolf puppy pet ... vampires are good at shapeshifting, you know! This is Lassal, or Loveheartdarling for short."
She held a black leash, decorated with bats, going to a frilly magical collar. The vampiric wolf trapped in the collar, who had also been forced to wear a custom dog outfit with frills and love-heart polka dots, looked deeply embarrassed - too embarrassed to join the fight.
"That's not shorter," Demyan said. He drew a wooden stake from his belt as quickly as he could.
Then he pierced Bodhi right in the middle of her impractical cleavage. She screamed and dissolved into dust. After that, the adventurers only had to kill the remaining wounded vampires and drain the blood pools to ensure there would be no regeneration.
"Phoo ... I think my soul's back now!" Imoen said. "Hey - group hug, everyone! I'm me again! We killed Bodhi and all her minions!"
" ... Except for one," the paladin Mazzy Fentan pointed out. "Demyan, your lover was forced to become a vampire. Surely you must slay her for the sake of her soul."
"Oh, please don't!" Aerie begged. She smiled on Demyan, bewitching him with vampiric captivation magic. She was beautiful, astoundingly beautiful, and Demyan felt his will dwindling as he looked at her. "My dark mistress is gone now, so I can do whatever I want. I know I can be of great use to you! Baervan Wildwanderer, heal my friends!"
Demyan flinched. Surely magic cast from an undead abomination would do the opposite of what was intended, harm instead of heal - and given Aerie's power, that was a lot of harm. Bbut to his surprise it felt like all the other times Aerie's healing warmth and kindness had rushed through his body. He felt energised and sure and content.
Aerie giggled a vampiric giggle again. "I'm ever so lucky! I haven't drunk innocent sapient blood yet, that was too icky and I was too busy redecorating and giving everyone fashion advice. So Baervan is still giving me his nice spells to help my friends. I only drink chicken blood!"
"Sounds good to me! Welcome back," Imoen said, bringing her into the group hug. "I love your cute puppy, Aerrers! And you've got to lend me some of those vampire scrolls! Are there any naughty ones?"
"Well ... I always loved the one about the vampire duke and the vampire dairymaid - yes, and there's one about the vampire bride and her handmaiden that's very ... " Aerie flushed a delicate pink and whispered extensively into Imoen's ear. Demyan wondered whether he should read those scrolls himself. Just for research purposes.
Demyan was walking down the humble Trademeet street when a pair of insistent hands grabbed him from behind, while another pair of hands shoved a bag over his head. He panicked and thrashed until he was forced into a chair and then the bag was removed from his head. He found himself inside a firelit cellar.
"Ssh! It's just us," his sister Imoen said in a stage whisper. Demyan looked around. This seemed to be the cellar of the inn opposite to the one in which they were staying. He looked at four serious faces: Imoen, Nalia, Cernd, and Mazzy. Next to Mazzy lay a chicken with ropes binding its legs and its beak. The chicken twisted and writhed in its bonds, glaring balefully up at the adventurers.
"This is an intervention," Imoen hissed. "Things have really gone too far. I mean with your undead girlfriend."
"You know, lots of people think vampires are romantic," Demyan said.
"I hate the way we're forced to travel at night!" Nalia burst out. "I know you and your girlfriend had elven infravision before the vampire thing, but we humans keep tripping over everything. I barked my shins tripping over three gravestones while searching for the Mantle of Waukeen underneath Trademeet. It's very inconvenient!" She lifted her mage's robes to reveal slight bruising.
"Not to mention the graveyard tea party Aerie convinced us into!" Imoen continued. "She said the atmosphere was so perfect for her new vampiric state, so we should pause our heroic quest and have a high class tea on top of the tombstones! Chicken blood sorbet for her, and herbal tea for the rest of us. Then - " Imoen shuddered, as if at the passing of some indescribable eldritch horror. "There were tiny macaroons shaped like little bats. With strawberry jam on top."
"Aerie got your favourite pink needle tea on purpose," Demyan said. "She talked the shop into a discount by using her vampire powers to command a flock of moths to pluck the delicate buds from the owner's plants with no damage."
"Not to mention that her vampire dog pet is not house trained," Cernd said. "To be fair, when we faced that lich I am also not so sure that my fears didn't puddle on the floor."
"Yeah, I don't have a good explanation for any of that," Imoen said. "Wasn't her dog, like, a person once ... ?"
"Vampires have shapeshifting abilities," Cernd said. "Most likely Lassal was once a simple wolf, then he was changed into a vampire, and now he can change between wolf, bat, and humanoid."
"If he tries to lick my face one more time I will ... " Imoen said darkly.
"And it's true a lot of my socks have been destroyed," Demyan said. "Why does the dog only eat left handed socks? You know what I mean, left footed socks. And why mine in particular?" His rhetorical questions were left to waft unanswered on the air, like a fart in church.
"I can stay silent no longer. We must vanquish the undead abomination in our midst," paladin Mazzy Fentan said. With her drawn sword, she pointed grimly to the chicken on the ground. "Look at the horror that our vampiric companion has inadvertently wreaked! I tell you all, this is no chicken ... it is evil manifest! Allow me to demonstrate."
With one swipe of her sharp blade, Mazzy sliced through the chicken's bindings. As the bird righted itself, Demyan noticed for the first time that its eyes were a very bright ruby red. Then it opened its mouth, revealing fangs of the sort that shouldn't belong anywhere in a just world. Teeth like the horrifying toothed tongue of a goose. It let out a squawk and launched itself at Demyan's throat.
"Aerie drank from it, but forgot to drain it fully," Nalia explained. "Now it has become infected with the cruel vampiric curse ... "
"I can see that!" Demyan shrieked as the vicious chicken's claws raked across his face. He reached out and grabbed the chicken by the neck. In his youth at Candlekeep, he'd often helped the innkeeper Winthrop prepare chicken dishes from the coops behind the keep. Keep the legs close to your body, seize the head behind the skull with your other hand, then stretch the neck downwards and pull the head upwards. His knuckles automatically popped through the vertebrae. The vampiric chicken instantly dissolved into dust. Demyan sighed. Aerie wasn't the only one in the party who liked eating chicken.
"I think I see your point," he said.
Also, come to think of it, Demyan was tired of having to bring five hot water bottles to bed these days so he wouldn't wake up with icy cold feet. He was too much of a gentleman to mention it in front of his and Aerie's mutual friends, of course. "I suppose you were all wondering what I was doing with all that hot water every night," Demyan said.
"We were not and la la la la I can't hear anything you say," his sister Imoen said. "Now, let's make plans for how to destroy and resurrect our vampiric friend."
So the adventurers put their heads together. By dusk they had come up with many plans.
Mazzy was first to act. Just after the adventurers defeated a nest of mimics in the Umar Hills wilderness and Aerie had used most of her magic spells, she cried out: "In the name of Arvoreen, god of war, I bend thee to my will, undead creature!" As a paladin, she wielded power over the undead in the name of her god.
"Baervan's blessings rest upon all of us!" Aerie returned, smiling cheerfully at her friend. An even stronger protection settled upon all of them, especially Aerie herself. "Mazzy, you've improved so much in turning undead, thank you for training me! It is just as well I only used up all my arcane spells against those nasty mimics, I have plenty of divine magic left."
Nalia broke off a piece of one of the mimics' bodies and muttered to herself, hiding it in her handkerchief. She'd wait and bide her time, be a bit sneakier than Mazzy's approach, wait until just before dusk when the vampire was at her sleepiest and most unguarded ...
Later on, Nalia de'Arnise raised the wooden stake above the sleeping vampire and grimly prepared to strike.
Lassal the dog leapt across Aerie, seized the stake in his teeth, and wagged his tail. This was a fun game of catch-the-stick! Would Nalia play it again with him, please, he was a good boy. This human had grown up with dogs and knew them well, he could tell. Nalia wrenched the stick from between his jaws and raised it again to challenge him, so Lassal changed into a bat to fly up for it and then straight into a dog while still in mid-air, knocking Nalia down to get the stick this time. He had such fun as Nalia chased him frantically around the woods until he finally let her have the stick back, then it was time for another game. Yes, Nalia was probably one of his favourite people travelling with his mistress, he loved playing the stick game! They played and played and played.
"Aerie, I'm going to try natural medicine to alleviate your condition," Cernd told her. "Have you ever considered ... the power of homeopathy?"
Demyan watched Aerie and Cernd, moving about in the forest hut, exchanging herbal tips and mixing a recipe in a cauldron. Fragments of arcane dialogue floated in his direction: "Uncle Quayle always taught me about the scientific method ... After all, if folk r-remedies worked we would call them remedies ... "
After the end of the three first trials, Mazzy was dispirited, Nalia exhausted with dirt and leaves covering her robes, and Cernd was conducting an experimental study on whether exposing plants to varying sizes of amethyst crystals was good, bad, or neutral for their growth. Demyan helped himself to a homeopathic beer, which tasted like water for some reason. Imoen hummed a cheerful tune to herself as she mixed a vial of clear liquid with some red substance.
"So all you buffleheads didn't do so good?" she said. "Just let Imoen the Sneaky get the job done!" Demyan's sister shook the shining vial. "Holy water from Helm's temple," she explained, "mixed with Aerie's favourite blend of chicken blood. When she drinks it, it'll get rid of the vampire thing for sure and done!"
The next day, Demyan lay on his back, bleeding heavily from an ogre bandit's last blow. His foe was dead and he was alive, but there really wasn't much left in him. His lover laid a cool hand on his brow. "Drink," Aerie said cheerfully, and dribbled a few drops of a healing potion into his mouth. "Not too much, though, there is only a little left! But I made this one extra potent." She tripped over to Imoen, who'd taken a crossbow bolt to the shoulder. Demyan rubbed his mouth with his sleeve. Already his flesh was knitting again of its own will. Aerie was truly a powerful wizard and priestess. He got to his feet without any pain. If only the potions didn't taste so foul; this current one was especially loathesome, not that he could complain about being healed so quickly.
Imoen straightened up and stumbled forward. "Never get used to the taste," she mumbled, "but thanks, Aerrers ... I guess that magic spell that put the bad guys' insides on their outsides was worth learning."
Much of the carnage that lay along the road was indeed the spellcasters' work. A few more had bite marks from Cernd and Lassal, or had been turned into pincushions by Mazzy Fentan's bow. Aerie proffered the last of the potion to Cernd. He drank it all then frowned. Apparently his enhanced werewolf sense of taste had kicked in.
"Was there ... chicken blood in this?" he asked. Imoen and Demyan began to gag.
"Oh dear!" Aerie said sorrowfully. "I used Imoen's special spell component ... I thought she meant it for the healing potion, since it increased the magical potency so wonderfully! I am sorry, my friends, but at least you are healed, so it is all right, isn't it? Isn't it, Imoen?"
The adventurers' next mission was to return to Nalia's Keep. As they approached, a messenger in de'Arnise livery ran out to urgently give them news. The trolls were back! In the past, Nalia's former fiance, the loathesome Isaea Roenall, had betrayed her estate to an invasion of powerful trolls. The battle had cost the family dear. Thankfully, Isaea was now cooling his heels in an Athkatlan jail after Demyan and his party had demonstrated his involvement with the slave trade. But that didn't mean that the disgraced nobleman didn't have unsavoury connections still, or that the trolls could have advised each other of a wounded keep still ripe for the taking ...
Nalia directed them through the old de'Arnise secret passages, penetrating down toward the cellar. The darkness was good for Aerie's elven and vampire infravision, so she moved confidently, though Imoen stuck close by Nalia's side.
"Yes - around here was where Joel said they heard the latest rumblings," Nalia said. "Ugh! It smells like troll, that's for sure. I expect they got in from the underground river. Now - this passage is especially tricky, Daddy always said that old General de'Arnise put in a lot of extra security a hundred years ago - "
Something bumped into Demyan in the dark and his foot scraped against a raised part of the floor. He jumped back, Nalia and Imoen jumping forward, as a heavy metal wall slammed down between the party.
"Everyone all right? Count heads!" Nalia called from behind the wall. "Imoen and me safe over here."
"Aerie, Mazzy, Cernd, and me," Demyan sang back. "One bruised toe, that's all." Aerie laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"All right - I know the specs of that trap, best we don't waste the time raising that wall," Nalia said. "Demyan, take three lefts, down both sets of staircases, right at the bottom, left again until you're at the waters. That's where the trolls most likely made their base. With Aerrers you'll have all the supporting fire you need to engage the enemy. Immy and I won't be far behind you, but we'll not mind if you don't wait up. If there were more than a few old trolls they would have already invaded the Keep itself, like as not it's just a remnant."
"Got it," Demyan said. Actually, he had trouble memorising directions - so many lefts, so many rights, Gorion had always had to give him socks marked 'L' and 'R' for his nameday! - but Aerie and Mazzy were good at it. He fell into line behind Aerie.
Down into the bowels of the de'Arnise keep went the adventurers; down to find trolls. They stepped carefully among the passages, trying not to trigger any more ancient de'Arnise defences. Aerie tripped as lightly as a bat. The area was quiet except for water dripping from the ceiling and making more old mould. The stairs were cold and damp as they walked down.
"I think 'tis a wild goose chase, the foolish talk of gossip," Mazzy Fentan said. "We have seen no real trolls all this time."
"The pitcher plant attracts its prey with fresh nectar and innocuous flowers," Cernd said. "We must clear every passage before we can be sure."
"I believe Nalia," Demyan said. "But I suppose it is just a few trolls to clear out; nothing very serious ... "
He laid a hand to the last door. It swung open with remarkable ease, as if someone had tended to its hinges. He blinked in the faint light of Mazzy's torch.
There, across from them by the river, was literally the biggest troll that Demyan had ever seen. It was the size of some ancient thing trapped in rock that formed around its bone, like the impossibly vast beasts that hadn't roamed Faerun since millennia ago. This troll's bog-green skin was heavily scarred and marked by magical energies, and it wielded a vast stone club. A master troll, dripping wet onto the ground around it, fixing piggy foul eyes on them as it raised its weapon at them.
"Scatter!" Demyan called. "Cernd, Mazzy, get its attention! Aerie, you know what to do."
The adventurers dashing around the troll seemed to confuse it. First the club hesitated above Cernd in his werewolf shape, then Mazzy, and then Demyan himself.
"You leave my sweetie alone, you horrible troll!" Aerie shouted. Powerful magic formed between her hands. She knew that fire spells killed trolls and she had a good one prepared. Demyan mentally encouraged her to use her best one - please, Aerie, bring the fire -
The blazing light swept through on a clear path toward the troll.
And then, as if from the powerful reflective source of a magical mirror, it reflected back on Aerie. Fire was deadly to both trolls and vampires.
Then, wielding an actual magical mirror, Nalia and Imoen dropped their joint illusion and watched as the vampire burnt like a Roman candle. It was painful. Aerie screamed as the fire ripped through her undead nature. She called to Baervan in her torment.
But she won. Demyan had faith in Aerie and he was right. She called on her god for regeneration and resurrection. Even as the fire burnt the vampire away, the living Aerie stepped out of the charred undead flesh. Her mage robes fell to the ground, blackened and destroyed with everything else. What was left was only Aerie herself, pure and living flesh and blood, stepping naked from the undead ruins about her with blue eyes and a pale mouth without fangs. Demyan wrapped his cloak around her and embraced her.
"Only Aerie was strong enough to defeat Aerie," Imoen said, satisfied at last. "Welcome back!"
Aerie smiled, shook her head, and buried her face in Demyan's chest. Her arms were warm again as she hugged him. He felt her take a deep breath, felt her heart flutter in her chest. He felt something else flutter around the cloak, beating its wings and struggling to escape from the thick material. He and Aerie let it go and it flew out, a small fuzzy thing with large eyes, stopping to nuzzle Aerie's cheek before orbiting excitedly about her head.
"Oh ... of c-course ... I end up with a magical familiar who can fly!" Aerie said ruefully. She looked up at what had once been her vampire dog, Lassal. It too was resurrected from the dead, a small leather-winged creature that smelt vaguely like apple jam. "So t-that's what he was - a fruit bat who was turned into a vampire." She skritched Lassal on the head as he briefly perched on a torch-holder; then her familiar cartwheeled away into a figure-eight around Mazzy and Cernd. Aerie reached up and kissed Demyan, first timidly, then more enthusiastically as she realised she no longer needed to compensate for enlarged incisors in her mouth.
"And that's the end of the troll and vampire incursion into de'Arnise keep," Nalia summed up. "How about a nice tea party in the sun to celebrate?"
Aerie broke the kiss to agree enthusiastically. There would, of course, be bat shaped macaroons with strawberry jam.
And Lassal the fruit bat stole Demyan's left sock for the ninth time, but nobody really minded.