"Why the bloody hell did they just look like they came out of the movie and book series Twilight?!" Was all that Avan said indignantly as he continued to stare as if out of his mind at the point where the last vampire had disappeared.
The fact that the others had been abducted somehow bothered him less than the ridiculous appearance of the creatures, and why the bloody hell they were shining.
"Whether there is a logical explanation for this? Please... Let there be a logical explanation for it!" He continued to plead, just too shocked at how ridiculous the whole thing was.
A few more seconds passed before he regained his composure, shaking his head, and wiped his forehead with his hand as he picked up his spell focus. Avan's sphere of influence had shrunk further and was now almost only 3 meters wide, which also meant that his floating forms, which had just popped into life twenty times over, could only act within that radius.
Letting out an inevitable and unavoidable sigh, Avan looked around more closely for the first time, since the situation had escalated so quickly before that he had not even come for a precise analysis of the level and the entrance cave.
The cave was medium-sized, perhaps ten meters in diameter, and round. In many places on the floor, the cold-damp walls and the ceiling grew the blood moss that gave off this unnatural red glow and was responsible for the sparse lighting.
Since Avan could no longer rely entirely on his sphere of influence, he needed a source of light. Holding a palm up in front of him, something green and red materialized out of nowhere, directly onto his hand, and soon he was holding a fist-sized clump of blood moss.
Another mental command and the fluorescent bacteria in it multiplied several times until he held an almost unbearable red glowing mass in his hands, which reminded him strongly of the red light districts he had never visited himself but had seen in movies and series.
"Well then, let's see..." Avan waved the moss once slowly around, while he carefully took one step after the other. The room had two branches, one tunnel directly opposite the stairs he had just come down with his group, and one to the right.
Shrugging his shoulders, and without having to think much about it, he headed straight for the opposite tunnel. He knew that it would be useless to examine both tunnels in detail and to weigh which one he should take, when both were simply tunnels and he could take less time for such nonsensical things when he was worried about the safety of the others.
The tunnel itself was even more sparsely covered with blood moss, and in some places he could swear to discover the green-gray remains of the underside of moss that had been deliberately removed. "I wonder if these vampires can see in the dark? I should not exclude that... If they are also night creatures as it was said in all those fantasy stories, then that would be more than conceivable. So, dark corridors, they know I'm here and something has prevented them from abducting me as well, probably they are also a lot more careful with me... So, ambushes, traps, everything in the dark down here. What a pleasure..." He mumbled down his observation and couldn't help the sarcasm at the end.

With careful steps, he approached the first cave at the end of the relatively short tunnel, peeking his head around the corner before entering. This room was just like the first cave, even if it seemed a bit smaller. A single other passageway led off to the right, and there was not much else to see except for the remains of harvested blood moss.
So it went on more tunnels, always leading slightly downwards, from tunnel to tunnel, and room to room.
"They definitely harvest this moss. This is now at least the twentieth time I've found only the remains of old or freshly removed blood moss... "Avan squatted on the balls of his feet and looked at the remains in front of him. So far, all the corridors and caves had been remarkably empty and uninhabited. Where he had expected to find vampires or at least monsters of some kind everywhere, he was greeted only by yawning void, except for all the moss.
No traps, no ambushes, and only vast quantities of this growth everywhere. Scratching his forehead lightly, he stood up from his crouch and looked back into the tunnel he had just entered, letting his gaze slide thoughtfully over the next corridor.
"I wonder if they're waiting for me somewhere. Or do they live in some kind of... underground village or city maybe? Possible, right?"
He chewed on the inside of his left cheek and stretched once, arching his back and loosening his shoulders.

After he was satisfied, he just shrugged his shoulders and continued down the next corridor, a crowd of 20 floating midnight-black spheres floating behind him.
It remained at the three meters of influence so far, and had not decreased further on the level, almost as if that was the minimum to which its radius could be restricted, dungeon or not.
He summoned some fresh nuts he had made from his mana and chewed on them while pondering another discovery.
The dungeon's mana had greatly reduced his own sphere of influence, but was so dense that Avan's own mana pool had shrunk from 7600 to a paltry 800. At the same time, however, his mana regeneration had grown so much that it definitely felt like more mana than before, since his mana pool had shrunk so much but he almost immediately and instantly regained any mana he had used.
Where before he could cast and summon as much as he liked and was in the mood, but still sometimes hit the lower limit, now it was not even remotely possible to drop below 90% of his mana, no matter how much or how fast he used it.

With these and other thoughts, he continued to walk along the current tunnel, still careful with his steps and sounds, when he suddenly squeezed into a small alcove on the right and stiffly made himself as thin as possible with his back to the wall.
A few moments later, he heard the sounds of two pairs of boots approaching, and much to his regret and confirmation of his suspicions, without any visible light. Two vampires, talking in low, scurrying, incomprehensible tones that sounded more like a hiss than a language, walked past him.
Avan was about to swallow his mouthful of saliva when he abruptly stopped himself and even held his breath as the two guards dressed in black metal passed him.
The vampire who had passed so close to him that Avan could have touched him or even breathed on him, fortunately looked at his colleague at that very moment and spoke quietly to him. The other guard, however, only had eyes for the tunnel and didn't look at his colleague, otherwise Avan would have been immediately exposed.

Anyway, what language these two spoke, he could not understand them, but their meaning very well guessed. Either they were after him, or they were normal patrols who were just passing through the tunnel again after a shift change. Why had he held back and disappeared so quickly into oblivion? Avan had instinctively known that these two were not to be trifled with, and as he walked past, his skill had immediately confirmed this to him.

[Elite Red Guard - 251]

[Elite Red Guard - 250]

Both of them were even stronger than Linob, for whom Avan had some respect, even if he was sure that he would be the winner in a one-on-one fight. With two of these guards, who were also higher level? No chance, even if he would go all-out, that much he just knew on an instinctual level.

The two whispering guards soon disappeared around the next bend, and Avan released the held breath and swallowed audibly once, careful not to make any more unnecessary noises because he wasn't sure how supernaturally good their hearing would be.
If he had known beforehand of the coming of the two vampires, and had placed effective traps, and had also perhaps found out their weak points beforehand, the possibility of defeating both would have been quite present, if the surprise had been on his side. But as it was, with an encounter without warning, Avan knew that evasion had been his best option.
He ran his slightly trembling hands over his face and hair, and took a few deep breaths in and out, still careful to remain quiet.
Not being able to change anything about the situation, he continued down the corridor even more carefully and quietly, and a short time later he was standing at the exit of this tunnel, blinking a few times as he stared at the underground valley ahead of him.
He was a good ten meters above the ground in one of many tunnel openings, which made his side of the gigantic cavern look like swiss cheese. Everywhere, similar tunnels led into the rock at different heights, and Avan himself stood in one of these many tunnels and could only gaze in amazement at the picture opening up before him.
The valley, which actually seemed to be a massive underground cavern with its own small ecosystem, was several kilometers in diameter and blue mana crystals adorned the ceiling in various sizes, while a soft blue mist emanated from them and evaporated a few meters later, but therefore bathed the whole cavern in day-bright blue light.

Directly at his feet, a ladder carved into the stone led down to the floor, and all of these caves were connected by the same notches, almost as if this side of the cave were not only a swiss cheese, but also a giant climbing wall. At the bottom, a path of trampled earth and a kind of gray gravel led to a kind of fort at the other end of the cavern, which was built right into the cavern wall.
The fortress had a large square outer wall and, in addition to the huge double gate at the front, two small watchtowers to the left and right of it, and one each at the corners where the wall bent a ninety-degree angle to the back. The wall then led on both sides to the opposite cave wall and closed seamlessly with this. The whole fort was easily several hundred meters wide from the front, and had an equally large inner courtyard, which ended in a kind of square keep, which also led into the back wall.
The dirt and gravel path led from Avan's side directly to the fort's entrance, while around it was a green meadow, scattered deciduous trees and a few mounds of stone and earth. Between the trees and in the meadow itself grazed some oddly bred sheep and cows, both of which had characteristics of other animals that Avan had never seen before.
The sheep had different patterns in their wool, and in addition to black, brown, and white, there was actually also the predominant red wool color here in the dungeon, which caused a frown on Avan's forehead.
The cows looked at first glance like your normal cows from Earth, but had small stubby wings on their backs and a single horn on their foreheads, much like the white horned hares from which Horn also descended.
To the left of Avan went a ditch, where a few meters high steep scree wall offered the optimal visual protection for him to the fort, and led two-thirds of the way along the left side.

On the right side, however, the meadow and trees merged into a medium sized lake fed by a large waterfall with water flowing down from the ceiling directly above.
Even this lake and the water itself were not normal, and Avan had to look closely to figure out exactly what was going on. The water was not only reflective, not only unnaturally blue and clear, but shiny and sparkling. Almost exactly like some vampires Avan had seen.
"Like THAT's the fucking answer now?" He whispered to himself as he grabbed the back of his neck and looked blankly at it.

"The vampires drink and bathe in it, and their skin takes this... glitter? Is it really that stupid and simple? Huh..." It continued to come out of him stunned, and he almost didn't notice in his own stupidity how something to his right in one of the other tunnels moved and glittered momentarily.
With an abrupt step back into the shadows, he pressed himself against the inner wall and held very still. He waited a few seconds until he dared to move his head very carefully so that he could only peek around the corner with his eyes and look across to the other hole a few meters to his right on the cavern wall.
The two elite vampire guards stood there talking to each other, while one gestured with his hands and tried to communicate something to his companion, who just shook his head and visibly sighed. He turned around, and at that very moment, Avan jerked back quickly and pressed himself silently against the wall again. His heartbeat was unnaturally fast and he hoped that the guard had not seen him!
With a racing heart and adrenaline in his blood, he remained so still and tried to push his sphere of influence to the highest level so that he would be warned in good time when the two crossed over. Avan was ready to run at the slightest sign and come back later, while he waited and minutes passed.
Another minute passed, and Avan let out his breath shakily as he thought for the second time in quick succession that he was about to be caught.
Very, very slowly and with extreme caution, he peeked around the corner again, and let out his held breath when he couldn't spot the two of them anywhere in sight.
"Fuuuuuck... That was close! Avan you fucking stupid idiot..." He cursed silently, but quickly recollected himself and suppressed such useless emotions again, while his thoughts continued to race.
He had seen in the distance, in the courtyard of the fortress, some shapes scurrying around, some tents and buildings, wooden constructions and also something that looked like cages, if you took away the cages all over the top of the battlements, in which currently only rotten or already skeletonized remains were lingering.
His best bet was to take the trench around to the left and get as close as possible to the fort first, even though the short stretch at the end of the gorge running along the wall still had a few hundred meters of nearly open space before arriving at the fort.
Once again letting his gaze wander to make sure that no one else was around or watching him, he lowered himself backwards and crept sideways along the cave wall, down into the twenty meter deep gorge.