Tedet was driving us to Havelhill while I pondered on the situation I had found myself in. We were going out to storm a vampire stronghold of some kind. We were going in as prepared as we could, armed to the teeth, and I wished that phrase was literal because I still think that despite how prepared we are, we’re not prepared enough for the task.

I was holding a gun while in a car; this situation doesn’t seem all that different from how things would’ve been centuries ago. Some technologies just don’t change. The tried and true.

Despite how people saw the future flying cars, if possible, they aren’t as convenient as one might think. The energy required to fly or float, and traveling in three-dimensional roads might cause more problems than one might think. Humans -- and with them, raderas -- settled for keeping to the ground.

As for guns… what is there to say? Shooting projectiles at high velocity from a safe distance is just about as efficient as you can do. Killing something is just as easy and efficient as it goes for guns. Anything simpler would be to think your opponent dead and having it happen, but no such thing is possible. I have to admit that even comparing guns with magic, guns have that versatility and potential that even magic doesn’t have. Guns are better than magic in most cases.

The gun before me was quite bulky for what guns normally are. The length of my arm and just about thicker. It had a nice black dull finish, keeping it from shinning. It had simple mechanisms that constantly fed the chambers with steel projectiles. A battery installed in it used several sources of energy to keep its charge, including solar and kinetic.

The miniature railgun in my arms felt really heavy, as if I was holding the heavy burden of being capable of taking people’s lives. That is one of the most awful experiences I’ve had in a while. It felt really depressing and nauseating. Disgusting, even.

I can’t be angry at Tedet and his girlfriend for owning a gun, despite my loudly vocalized displeasure to the things. I don’t like people owning weapons like these. They hold so much power, and the power they hold is so easy to use people sometimes forget what they are and what they do, or even fully understand what they are for. The sole existence of a gun is to kill. Owning something that is created to kill does not sit right to me. That’s why I don’t own even a single gun. But people have the freedom to own them and if they do, who am I force them otherwise.

Al Patreck is a pretty leveled city. Built near a river – no, actually, it was built right next to a river that changed its course, so now the city is about ten kilometers from it -- the surrounding area is pretty flat, and thanks to engineering the city was leveled pretty well. There are their exceptions; Havelhill is one of them. And despite what you’d think, Havelhill district isn’t constructed over a hill; in fact, and quite ironically -- or should I say, done on purpose as a dumb joke -- it was constructed on a valley. Tedet began driving down to the valley as we approached the district.

Ah. What a marvelous place. If by marvelous you mean to say filled with greed and capable of sparking envy upon the non-inhabitant onlookers. You see, this place was made for the filthy rich, and the bastards made sure to make it more ostentatious. The houses were massive, and the gardens were even bigger. I’d say they are made to compensate for something, but not all the inhabitants are human, or anthropomorphic for that matter. I don’t know if there is something that a radera would compensate for… maybe for their low self-esteem and dignity.

Who am I kidding, that’s me, too. If you think I have a big wand (no innuendo intended) for no reason, then you’re wrong. I too have low self-esteem a small -- number of friends.

“Are you ready for this, sunshine?” I said to no one in particular.

Tedet croaked. “I’ve told you not to call me like that.”

“I didn’t mean you, I meant… the gun.”

“The gun?” He said and looked at me quickly before turning to the road. “Right. The gun.”

I sighed. “Okay, so. Plan.”

“What’s the plan,” said Tedet before pausing, “sunshine?”

I lifted an eyebrow and glanced at him for an instant. “Normally, you’re the one with a plan.”

“So, no plan?” Tedet hissed and said something in Gotkoga. “At least let’s scout it out. There’s no reason to pull up at their front door… if we can get to the front door by smashing through the gate.”

“I like that plan.”

“It’s a terrible plan.”

“I like it anyway,” I said glancing at the road ahead. The valley began level down again. “I wish we could just storm down the place by ourselves.”

“We could--”

“And save my nephew and live another day to tell the story of our great crusade,” I interrupted.

“--try,” Tedet finished and kept quiet while his face pimples turned blue. “Sounds fun.”

“See, I need you alive. Even if I were to die too, I bet your psycho girlfriend would raise me from the dead to torture me back to death. Or find a way to kill a dead person. I don’t want to find out what it means to be double-killed… double-dead. Redead. If that is even possible.”

“She’s fun like that.”

“Fun?” I scoffed. “You both are psychos.”

The plan was to drive past the house, park on the next road, and nonchalantly walk to the house. We would sneak in from a blind spot and storm the place from the inside. Get the kid, and get the flaming hell out of there. Sound plan? Yea, I thought so, too. The plan sucks, but we’ve got nothing else.

Our plans never work out how we want them to anyway. So, why plan too perfectly or so far ahead? Our plans never work. Sometimes they don’t even get to be used, at all.

“Change of plans?” said Tedet while driving past the vampire mansion.

No, let me correct myself. Tedet said that while driving past the ruins of the former vampire mansion.

“What happened?” asked Tedet to my dumbfounded self.

“It’s gone…” I said and Tedet began slowing down.

There were no people around despite the mansion being half-demolished. As if the structure had been smashed by several wrecking balls.

Tedet finally stopped in front of the entrance gate -- I’m sorry -- of what used to be the entrance gate.

I’m trying to be dramatic to myself, but I really need to stop doing that. It was amusing the first time, now I’m thinking it’s cringy. I’m not narrating to anyone, I’m just narrating to myself. I have no way to spoil myself a surprise because I’m living it at the moment.

Speaking of living.

“Jaser,” I said abruptly, and opened the door and lept to the street. I walked around the front of the car and ran straight to the teared-up gate.

“Ed! Wait!” called out Tedet. “Don’t go too--” He opened his door and stepped out. “Don’t go too far.”

No people. No figures. Nothing but rubble, broken walls, and shattered glass. It’s as if there was some kind of war in the area. And to be fair, there were bullets shells littered. I kept walking, quicker, across the gate and along the little road to the mansion. It didn’t take long for me to see the bodies. They were mostly covered in cloaks outside the mansion. Those that weren’t covered -- or at least, I assume they were creatures -- had turned to piles of ash.

My face twisted at the sight. Dead vampires everywhere. All of them had human faces. The more I looked the more I realized that this was purely a fight between vampires. No torvielas were found.

I kept walking closer and closer to the mansion. I began hearing the wood cracking and twisting, but not much of anything else. Especially, I couldn’t hear any voices; except for my friend.

“Do you think there’s anyone alive?” asked Tedet.

“I hope there’s at least one,” I answered.

“Your nephew.”

I grunted in affirmance. I came all the way here not because I wanted to find survivors or rescue people, not anyone, just my nephew. I couldn’t care about anyone else right now but my nephew. On the other hand, I knew that if there were anyone alive there would most likely be vampires than humans. And yet, even if the probability of my nephew being alive was small, I had to find him, dead or alive.

No, actually, I rather find him alive. Preferably alive.

I want him alive.

Climbing the from stair towards the blocked-off front door made the wood creak loudly. I was trying to walk slowly and quietly... not sure why, but I tried my best not to make a sound.

The place was in far worse condition as we tried circling it to find a way to walk inside the house. We found a broken window we could use to slip into a huge living room. Sudden flashes of the raid into the vampire mind appeared in my mind and I got goosebumps. I didn’t want that experience to repeat itself.

I hope for our lives no vampire is alive. If any one of them is, we’ll probably be in trouble.

And just as I was imagining out a problem I realized I hadn’t brought my gun with me. I looked at Tedet and he had his. At least he’s responsible, unlike me.

I touched my coat and fiddled with my pockets to find the stones in them. One of them could have zapped me had I placed my hand inside. I didn’t want to trigger anything, yet, so I decided to keep my hand isolated from them. Just like how I would be careful of an electrical wire connected to live current, I was careful not to trigger one of the stones with my energies.

Inside the mansion, we could start hearing noises, voices. People were alive inside. At first, all we could hear were grunts. People in pain or on the verge of dying. I felt a rush of blood and I almost rushed to find out who it was and help; I managed to control myself, I remembered we were inside the vampires’ den. Most likely these people were actually not people, but disgusting leeches.

I walked by a figure whose sight was not working perfectly because when he reached out to grab up he missed by ten centimeters. It begged for help but also hissed and bared its teeth. Tedet didn’t hesitate to smash the things head in. Its brain splashed but blood didn’t come out. It looked like a synthetic doll trying to mimic living tissue. It was uncanny and also nauseating. I heaved at the sight and the smell.

Smashed-up vampires smelled like rotten candy. There was this aromatic scent that was pungent and sweet, but also rotten. If I were objective, they didn’t particularly smell bad, but after being processed, knowing where the smell came from, the result was a disgusting putrid sensation coming from a sweet aroma. It was the most nauseating smell I’ve ever smelled, and all because of the confusing signals.

I sneezed forcefully and walked away from the place.

“Are you okay?” asked Tedet. “I’ve never seen you make those sounds or those movements.”

“It was me about to vomit,” I answered. “Heaving, we call it.”

“When you throw up your stomach contents.”

“Exactly that.”

“That’s disgusting,” he said and I could see his pimples turn green -- a new color I had never seen. Then his body grumbled.

“It is,” I said and made my eyebrows furrow at the sight.

“Why do you do it then?”

“We don’t do it willingly. It’s something we can’t control. When we eat something rotten we throw it up because that’s our way to deal with something that can make us harm. But bad smells can make us heave and throw up.” I explained to the best of my abilities. “Also being dizzy and apparently heavy pain.”

“You don’t have the best quality body, it seems. Every time I hear about human physiology all I gather is how terrible your body is at doing things.”

“We’ve survived this long. Clearly, we’ve been doing better than you think.”

“Against all odds.”

“Despite all odds.”

We walked past several vampire corpses and some soon-to-be-dead ones. Every time I heard the crunch of their skulls I hurried to walk away.

I’m a non-confrontational person. I live avoiding violence as much as I can. That’s my excuse for not wanting to see the horrible scene of a very human-like figure turn into mashed brains and splintered cranium, even if they all looked like dolls by the end. It was disgusting and it made me feel sick to see it happen. Vampire or not, watching a human figure go through such a terrible transformation gives me shivers and it makes me sick. I hope it’s just part of my human nature due to evolution, and not just myself.

I might get used to it eventually. I don’t want that though. I’d find it hard to bear when I find out I can watch something like that without batting an eye. Hopefully, all this ends in about a week’s time and I can go back home to hold Martin in my arms and repair ships at my work. I bet Tedet is thinking about something similar.

But I also think the guy is kind of sick in the head. I don’t want to blame him too much, since he’s a radera, so smashing human heads would not look so bad to him. Maybe only a bit disgusting, like smashing a juicy bug inside your hand.

A door opened -- or rather, fell open -- and two vampires waddled towards us. They didn’t seem too dangerous but they were vampires, anything could happen with them.

They looked at us for a moment and in their confused and dizzy situation, they bared their teeth and canines and lifted their hands toward us to grab us, then lunged forward at a breakneck speed of two-ddler meters per hour.

Tedet raised his gun and shot twice. The two clapping sounds of the shooting gun were answered by two thumps of the vampire corpses hitting the floor.

Having Tedet with me made me feel secure. I probably don’t even need my gun if I have a master sharpshooter apprentice with me -- knowing the apprentice is just as good as the master.

“Having you with me, I don’t fear any evil,” I said.

I heard Tedet croak and click. His body shook. “Why do you always have to… curse us like that?”

“You’re pretty capable. And with a gun in hand, I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem dealing with these half-dead, half-drunk vamps.”

“Really?” asked a voice from beyond the doorway the other two guys had walked out of. “That’s a lot of trust you have in him.”

“Shit,” I whispered to myself.

“And a lot of underestimation you have on us, despite your vast knowledge, wizard,” the voice kept talking.

“Cursed. Again.” Tedet said and then pronounced those weird radera noises.

“I should learn to close my mouth,” I confirmed.

“Oh, no, please. Keep it open,” said the voice of the figure that was coming out of the door. “I’d like to hear you scream.”

Tedet readied himself to fire when two more figures swiftly jumped out of the same doorway and quickly tried to surround us.

“Uh oh,” I said, realizing the bad situation we were in.

The crumbling got louder and a vampire appeared through the way we came. Another pushed some rubble from a blocked-off doorway and squeezed itself in.

We were being surrounded by five very strong-looking, not-at-all-tired vampires. This was a bad situation.

“Uh oh,” repeated Tedet. “That describes our situation very accurately.”

I wanted to answer sarcastically to that sassy attitude of his, but given the situation we were in, I didn’t think of it prudent.

“Shut up,” I said.

It was at this time that I was starting to miss and regret not bringing the gun with me. Me and my big mouth. When am I going to learn?