Chapter 22 Vampires and Silence

Niff smelled him and Velin and I had methods to sense any approaching being, and Darvind, while he had his heightened senses, mainly relied on us to sense any far-away opponents.

“He doesn’t smell wrong,” Niff commented.

Good, that meant he wasn’t possessed, just another adventurer.

“But he’s dangerous, real dangerous,” she added.

“How so?” Velin asked.

“He’s coming after us, hunting us I think.”

Velin didn’t have a moment of confusion, he looked at me and I nodded, affirming his conclusion.

“Be ready then,” Velin stated.

Darvind grabbed his axe and Velin carried his bow in one hand and an arrow in another. Niff raised her oversized blade and I prepped my spells.

In a few seconds, the vampire appeared.

He was pale, which was to be expected of their species. He wore a thin black suit and we knew he was coming before we saw him.

“Do my senses deceive me?” He asked, looking at me in hunger.

The difference between biomancied flesh and the flesh of the formerly alive was important. It was practically the same when used for living reasons. Limb regrowth, limb replacement, and fleshcrafting are all the same.

But for magical purposes like necromancy, the amount of natural magic that had once filled the object mattered. It was like those skeletons back at the hotel. Sure they were technically undead since they were dead once living material reused in a necromancy spellform.

But that was far from the whole of it. A body once made of flesh and life was capable of holding far more magic than a freshly crafted bone. Living itself was a magical thing and by living in your own body, you bathed it in magic.

It was why the more magical or long-lived the species, the more valuable the corpse was. It was why the Graveyard Dungeon was still seeing traffic after all these years. The dead bodies here were marinated in mana for centuries. It made them stronger, and more resilient.

It was the difference between a steel wall and a loose stack of straws. One would last and the other would be blown away within the week.

The same was true for blood.

Vampires didn’t feed on anything particular to blood, the same way zombies didn’t feed on anything particular in the brain. There was magic in these parts of the body and that was what the undead sought. Sure mechanical undead would eat flesh to replace the missing bits, but sentient undead had entirely different reasons for seeking human flesh.

It was a part of the ritual they used to stay alive. They would not die so they would consume life. Zombies sought the brain the most, that would give them a lot of power, for vampires it was the blood, and the same could be said for any form of undead that wasn’t exceptionally magical.

This meant that there would be a certain group of undead who hated the biomancied stuff. Old vampires and zombies loathed not being able to take from humans as they pleased and sought to do that again.

And they did do this, through the Vampire Mafia. Blood trade, organ harvesting, trafficking, gambling, organized crime, and disorganized crime could all be found within the Vampire Mafia.

“No, they don’t,” The thin pale man mused. “A half-demon who’s still in control, what a rare thing that is. What rare blood too.”

“It’s not for sale,” I replied.

“But you haven’t even let me offer,” the vampire mused.

“It’s still not for sale.”

These were the type of people I never wanted to work for. People who viewed me as a specimen or a resource of some sort. I was a half-demon, and though my blood lacked magic density, it was still magical, still unique.

I remembered my slave days back in the Woven Forest. The only reason the man who had owned me hadn’t killed me then was because of my rarity. If I wasn’t a threat, I was a prize.

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A thing. And I refused to be a thing.

“What if I didn’t want to pay?” The vampire muttered.

“Then you would die,” Darvind said, stepping between me and the vampire. His axe glowed faintly with holy light.

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,” Velin muttered adjusting his glasses. “But I don’t believe you would do that now, would you? Not in front of a cleric of the Lord Of Wisdom, now?”

The vampire looked at me, then at the two holy men, then at Niff.

“Back up or get cut up!” She yelled, raising her oversized blade at the man.

He looked at her with amusement, and then she ran through his legs and stood ready behind him before he could even blink.

The vampire started to sweat. Not literally, vampires don’t actually sweat but the facial expressions on this one were changing from confidence to slow regret.

“I won’t kill you,” I said. “But I will fight you and then I’ll be forced to report everything that happens to the proper authorities, the Adventurer’s Guild for one and the Celestial Order Patrol for another. I wonder how your Don would feel about that?”

Then his face paled even further. It went from white to almost glowing.

“Alright alright, calm down now. I was just trying to do some business with you,” he replied.

Then he pulled out something and threw it at me.

Instantly my spell fired, I switched out the fire element for air, and the ball construct came into existence. The object he threw hovered in front of me.

It was a card.

I deconstructed the spell. It was the same principle as my makeshift fireball. I pushed harder on the multicasting and the calculations side of magic in return for a lesser mana drain.

I had to do that with my condition.

I grabbed the card as it fell.

Gnaeus Emporium

If you need it, we have it.

And if we don’t we can get it.

“If you’re ever low on blood, our contact information is on the back. We buy blood legally, you could get a thousand a pint for the stuff you got now I think.”

I frowned.

“I don’t deal--”

“It’s completely on the books, sanctioned by the mayor’s office and everything,” he cut in. “Just think about it.”

Then the vampire shifted into a group of bats and flew off.

“Well that was boring,” the dwarf grumbled.

He leaned against his axe and raised his wine sack to his lips.

“Better to be boring than getting involved with those people,” Velin replied.

“What’s he doing here anyway?” Niff asked. “He doesn’t look like an adventurer.”

“He’s not,” I replied. “Asrin’s fifty-three dungeons are connected to other realms. They’re subspaces that connect this realm to another one. This dungeon connects to the Land of the Dead, a lot of the old vampire families live there. Guys like him serve as transport and communication between the Asrin Vampire Mafia and the old families over there.”

“Yes,” Velin nodded. “Their kind are troublesome.”

“Almost as bad as centaurs I imagine,” the dwarf quipped.

“And nowhere near as bad as dwarves,” the centaur quipped back.

“We’re the greater people,” Darvind replied.

“You're the shortest people,” Velin said.

“Hey?” Niff cut in, “What’s wrong with being short?”

“Yeah,” Darvind added finally having someone take a side in their quarry. “Nothing wrong with being a little closer to the ground.”

“I apologize Niff, there is nothing wrong with being small. But this dirty alcoholic next to you pesters me.”

I listened as the blabbering continued.

Darvind kept trying to get Niff to side with him but she quickly backed out too, opting to stand with me while the two hateful men dragged behind us insulting one another.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. “How do they not run out of insults! They just keep going on and on!”

“It’s a game of wit for them,” I replied. “It’s less about insulting one another and more about having a better comeback.”

We kept walking, being careful to watch our steps. We weren’t too deep into the Graveyard dungeon, it was the size of a small country in here, but the deeper you went the more powerful the monsters got. As mere bronze ranks with one silver rank among us, we’d be idiots to go past the limits of our expeditions.

But even then, the area allocated to us was massive.

“Oracles are still up,” Velin muttered. “It’s like it’s purposely avoiding us, why?”

“What were those other adventurers doing when they got caught?” I asked.

“Nothing unique, just hunting for bodies and cutting down corpses. It was just a regular dungeon crawl for them.”

“Then maybe we should do the same,” I replied.

“Yes,” Velin nodded. “I suppose the enemy might be testing the adventurer’s strength through their battle with the undead.”

I nodded.

“That’d make a lot more sense. It studies how they fight and determines their strength before it attacks.”

“Yes, but how do we do that, exactly? It should know the rules about silver-rank adventurers stepping in here. The guild has already put a limit on this dungeon, no? And if it’s smart enough to attack only with ensured victory, then it’s smart enough to know we might be a problem for it.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “But I think we can do something about that.”