After we finished talking we stepped out into the evening air and followed Bethy a ways away. We wanted to make sure we had some privacy for these wishes, so she sent the cats ahead to look around and found us a place. When we arrived, Bethy double checked our surroundings and then called for her Domain, surrounding us with blood red sky and black grass.

“This should be plenty secure.” I said, looking around. “I can understand not wanting the truth about what’s going on with your bloodlust to get out. So, before we begin, I need to know more about what happens to you. It might help with coming up with a proper method of controlling it.”

Callie nodded. “Tell us about how it feels. I mean, from what I’ve seen, it looks like you lose contact with your humanity. You seem withdrawn and cold. Like you don’t feel any emotions.”

Bethy laughed, a ragged, broken sound I’d never heard from her before. “I wish. No. That’s just the mindset I cultivated to keep myself under control. Bloodlust doesn’t make me stop feeling. It makes me feel so much more. Blood is…it’s amazing. And the way I feel when I give into the hunger. Like I want to dance, and sing, and laugh among the bodies of my enemies.”

She shuddered, taking a long, deep breath. Callie stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You alright? We can give you a bit.”

The Vampire just shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the thoughts. “No. Thanks, but no. I just need to focus. I get my bloodlust from both sides, the mix of my parents blood makes me decidedly unstable when I’m hungry. But I can’t… I don’t want that to define me. To be all I am. I could just bury myself in misery and act all dead inside, but that’s not the kind of person people want to be around. I want to have fun, to live my life, just…without murdering people for no reason.”

Callie stepped back once Bethy responded, acknowledging that she probably needed some space, and I decided to focus on what we COULD fix rather than what we couldn’t. I wasn’t benefiting from this directly, so I had a bit more leeway with suggestions. “Well, why don’t you identify exactly what happens when you’re hungry and we can figure out how to help from there. Not just your feelings, what is the process?”

“I smell blood.” She said simply. “If I’m full it just smells nice, soothing. I get sort of muddle headed in a happy way. But if I’m hungry…it’s like my heart is made of explosives. The scent of it climbs through my nostrils and into my veins, and when it hits…it’s like an explosion of joy. It sings to me, asking me to revel in the bloodshed, to engage.”

Callie made a contemplative sound. “Ok…well how about a scent dampener? Maybe if you can’t smell it you won’t have as much trouble.”

“Won’t work.” Said Bethy with a shake of her head. “It’s been tried. The blood isn’t…vampirism isn’t physical. That’s why we can siphon stats. It’s a spiritual condition, just like all racial traits. The scent isn’t a real smell, just a sort of spiritual radiation we pick up. Blocking your nose doesn’t do anything to mitigate that.”

“So…why don’t you just wish for something that does?” Asked Callie bluntly. At our confused glances, she just shrugged. “I’m just saying, wishes aren’t bound to traditional mechanics. You could wish for something that blocks soul scent or whatever.”

I paused, thinking that through. “Well, maybe. Wishes don’t work on souls too well, so we probably couldn’t directly dampen the smell.”

“We don’t need to.” She disagreed. “We just need to stop the radiation or whatever from getting to it. Something like a spiritual air freshener or some kind of scent shield would prevent that without actually needing to mess with the soul in question.”

Bethy was starting to look excited. “That’s…that’d be amazing! I mean, before that I want to try to affect the actual hunger itself, though based on what you said about wishes and souls it might be tough.”

“Maybe.” I said slowly. “But abilities are a grey area. They aren’t really part of your soul, just kind of attached to it. That’s what a Path is for, connecting the two. You should at least try.”

She nodded. “Alright, I wish that my bloodlust was gone.”

I confirmed, but winced as I got the cost. “That’s a no go. My ability says it’s out of reach. I’ve seen that before trying to give master level Skills to someone when I was just starting out. I might be able to do that eventually, but it’ll take a higher rank. Try something else.”

Biting her lip, she thought for a second. “I wish that my bloodlust was muted enough that I could think through it more easily.”

I confirmed, and then grinned at her. “Ok, the use of the term more easily apparently helped. I’m not sure how MUCH it’ll mute the effect, but it’ll do something. What can you pay for that?” I was hopeful that a few of these wishes would help, especially in conjunction with the possible sent defense artifact.

Bethy offered a few different things, eventually settling on a single D-ranked chit for all of her wishes, which was a pretty amazing deal considering the huge jump in relative value between E and D-rank for chits.

I accepted, and then granted the wish. I felt the electricity build until I finally unleashed the energy into her. Then she wishes again, and again. Five times, five attempts to mute her hunger. We weren’t sure how effective it was, but she informed us that she didn’t think it was going to have too big an impact. Just from her sense of herself she said she doubted the wishes dulled her hunger more than one percent each.

Still, five percent wasn’t nothing, and even if it got harder as it went like she thought, it meant once I was stronger I’d be able to do more. Until then, we still had two more wishes left, and we were all excited to check if the scent protection artifacts would work.

“Alright.” Bethy said slowly. “I need to be precise here. I wish that I had a piece of equipment that would prevent the spiritual signature of fresh blood from reaching the perception of my soul, or at least suppress the effect partially.”

This one was really Impact heavy, which was the stat used to balance it out when I didn’t have enough stats in other departments. That was actually a good sign because it pretty much confirmed this would be a powerful and effective item. I told Bethy and she watched, enraptured, as the purple electricity of my ability started to build.

And I confirmed with the others that they COULD see it. Apparently, much like the bindings on Weston, there were certain levels of power (i.e all of it) that would make my wishes visible at the current level, even to people who couldn’t normally see it.

The buildup continued until finally, there was an explosion of purple energy that coalesced into a thick black manacle with a pulsing blood red ruby on it. I passed it to Bethy, who slapped it on her wrist, admiring the oddly shiny black metal like a fashion accessory.

Flexing her fist, she stared at it in awe. I saw her eyes glow slightly, and a fractal scrollwork of miniscule red sigils lit up. Within moments, her eyes had dimmed again, and she was grinning ear to ear. “That…helps. Given the battles and all the wounded there’s been a pretty consistent undercurrent of blood around this place. It’s almost gone now.”

“Is that enough?” I asked cautiously. “Do you still need the other? You’re paid up for it, but if you’re good you can use the wish for something else.”

She just shook her head. “No.” She said firmly. “It’s working, but the scent of blood leftover is…miniscule. It’ll be way stronger when I’m around the stuff in person, and even moreso when I’m hungry. Donuts fed me earlier, so I’m not starving anymore but that will change eventually. I wish I could feed on Luggage, but his blood is toxic.”

She’d left her thralls behind before she came on this trip, and it occurred to me that she must really want a life away from all the bloodshed if she was willing to go to those lengths. Granted, I had promised to help, but still.

She made her last wish, and within a minute, an identical black shackle appeared and she clamped it on. She took a deep, excited breath and let it out with a giggle. Letting her head tip back she spread her arms, spinning happily.

“Seems like you’re happy with the results?” Asked Callie with a grin.

Bethy squealed and hurled herself at me, clinging to my neck like a spider monkey, she reached out and grabbed Callie and pulled her into the hug, cackling with excitable giddiness. “I feel AMAZING!” She gushed. “Five percent weaker bloodlust and these two bracelets together means unless i'm in a bloodbath or a tent like before I should be fine!”

I let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad. I can try to do more tomorrow if-”

She bopped me on the mask like a bad cat. “No. Stop giving away wishes. You’ve got a territory to develop and only a month to do it. It would take ninety five more wishes to suppress my hunger IF it stays at one percent, which it definitely won’t. I can feel my nature as a vampire shifting. It’s unsettled. Much more and it would start pushing back.”

Flinching, I nodded quickly. That sounded…horrible. If she had this much trouble with the bloodlust when it was just normal, what would her hunger be like if it was actively pushing her. I still didn’t know how Bethy’s nature even worked. Two supernatural Ascendants with racial traits having a kid clearly had some ramifications. How was that different than normal high rankers having children?

I knew that I’d been born with higher stats because of my parents, but neither of my parents were fucking S-rank. God bloods or not, they were both firmly in the As, and Bethy’s dad wasn’t just an S-ranker, he was a demigod.

More shit I didn’t understand, but I was more than pleased with the results. I’d done my part to help a friend, even if I’d taken a while.

“So about your feeding.” I said slowly. Her smile wilted and she looked at me, guard up. “Have you considered…going elsewhere for that?”

She cocked her head. “I mean…I don’t feed from anyone who hasn’t volunteered. Or during official duels sometimes if I’m peckish. But I consider accepting a challenge to be implicit permission to shed blood.”

“But is that something you need to do?” I asked. “Like could you feed on wild animals? Or for example…enemy soldiers?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know Shane. Feeding on anyone who isn’t a thrall is incredibly painful. Even during duels I usually only take a sip, which isn’t so bad. But a real feeding. That would be horrible.”

Callie saw where I was going with this, but she frowned when she heard Bethy’s response. “We won’t push. But if you’re willing, let us know. There’s some tactical possibilities there.”

Bethy’s feeding WAS painful, and scary. And Bethy herself was terrifying for many other reasons. If she started picking off lone soldiers from Spencer’s camp, chances were good word would spread. People would be too scared to sign up with him. It was an exciting plan, but I wouldn’t push my friend if the idea made her uncomfortable.

“Anyway.” I said, throwing an arm around Callie. “Bethy may not be hungry anymore, but my ass is starving. Let’s hit the mess hall.” Bethy giggled at that, her worry wiped away and we headed out of her domain. Tactics could wait, for now, I just wanted dinner.