//Author Note: I would strongly urge you to read Rotten Æther | Scribble Hub alongside this story. Shared world and setting, with crossovers coming!//

 

The undead fall upon us in a great wave, no longer held back by whatever chains had tamed them moments ago. They bare their fangs like wild animals, interested only in blood and death. They are a cursed creation, as I was on that day when I fed upon my own house’s servants.

Without regret or hesitation, I thrust the wooden stake up into the belly of another ghoul and it bursts into flames, spreading ash out everywhere. I rub at the coarse grains that fill my eyes, pressing forward and slaying another of the beasts.

The lights dim, then fade away entirely, but I can still see clearly, and the others are already summoning new lights behind me. I must fight, and watch for the vampire.

They are terrible, but they are weak. They will not defeat us so easily. The others, even the merchants, struggle valiantly, tossing aside the undead and slaying them with whatever weapons they have at hand. The ghouls, weakened by the lights we’ve summoned around us, cannot beat us.

Lewark clobbers them with his cane and slashes at them with a simple wooden stake of his own. Belle draws her short sword from where it was sewn into her dress, her faith burns bright, weakening all the ghouls that are near to her, only making it easier to slay them.

The ghouls, while vicious, run right by me. They don’t care for me, I have no blood in me that would interest them. So, I freely push deeper into their ranks and kill them while they try to pass me by. Their ash scatters thick through the air blinding me in my work, but thankfully, it’s easy work to do.

“You are your own villains,” the whispers continue through the fight, bleeding into the air around us. I pay them no mind, casting away the ghouls that come for us. With the first wave of them scattered as parts, burned to ash, or removed from their limbs, we turn to the last that still stand.

They are stronger than the others, and much more coordinated. They must be under the direct control of the vampire here, but how?

I slash at the arm of the ghoul battling me, sending a chill through its flesh as I reach out with my other hand. I can feel nothing from it. It is cold dead flesh, nothing more. There is no vampiric magic that I could use, my instincts feel dead and empty.

The ghoul smacks at me, unarmed as it is, even guided with intelligent movement it can’t survive more than a few moments of battle against me. As its ash settles over the ground with the others, I prepare to face what few are left.

An undead man, his face pallid and cold, rushes up to me swinging a stick. I step by his attack and thrust my wooden stake into his belly. The simple enchantments, nearly burned through, flow with fire magics. It sparks inside of the man, but he’s slower to turn to ash. He doesn’t fall.

He opens his mouth wide, his fangs shining in the light as he tries to bite at me. I shove him away, blinking but my eyes still burn with the ash stuck in them.

What’s happening? Is it the vampire’s control? Could they be manipulated to act like this? But then why did it not die to fire?

The others are battling, but there are fewer of us than there should be. Could they have run away? Escaped? Kidnapped?

I don’t know, but the dead are fighting much more vigorously than even the last few that I fought against.

Something is wrong.

One of the walking corpses rushes to me, a familiar shortsword in its hands pressed out to me as it bares hungry fangs. I lift my stake and dagger in return, but shiver and back away.

Red glowing eyes. A monster stands over me as I shiver cold, alone, and powerless. His fangs sink into my neck, and then… Then I become a monster…

Flashes of images pass me by. The pleading servants, their screams. They try to run, but they are too slow. They try to trap me, but they cannot. They do not fight.

I lower my hands, still clutching my weapons tight.

“Tina!” Her shout is but a whisper in the darkness. Belle is calling out to me.

The ghoul that was rushing me before is now standing still, its sword waving between us threateningly. It seems constantly on the verge of murdering me, but it never does. This isn’t right. This is a lie.

The magical lights that the others summoned. They’re a lie. All that I see is a lie.

“Light!” I shout summoning some light over my palm, but… it doesn’t appear. There is nothing where the light should be, even though the æther is flowing as it should, and it should be working.

The ghoul with Belle’s sword raises a hand, reaching for me, I should fight. I should throw it back and slay it, but… no.

I will not be that monster again.

Her pale fingers are warm where they touch my face, rubbing at my eyes. It hurts. A grainy feeling that stings my eyes. She’s not gentle about it.

Ash.

I’m blinded by the ash.

I rub at my face with my sleeve, pressing against my eyes until it hurts, and finally, the scenes around me change. The lights aren’t gone but replaced with others, I can even see the light above my own palm.

“Tina! We need to stop them!” Belle pleads with me, tears shining in her eyes.

The ash from the ghouls blinded us, made us victim to a brand of illusion that I hadn’t known possible. This vampire that we face is more powerful than I expected. That they can freely command the ghouls that rise from death, and that they can use this strange magic to blind me even in the light…

It is dangerous.

Some of us are already fallen.

Drake lies still on the ground, with a burnt hole in his stomach and a stab wound through his head. There is no saving him. Others are still fighting, still battling on, and amidst them, there is a dancing shadow. A vampire who is using the chaos to kill those still standing. Reeve Lewark is battling against it, but he’s stumbling back with his cane.

Too many here are all caught up in delusions while everyone is spreading fear and confusion through the air. The light would dispel the illusions if the ash could be cleaned away.

Belle is already rushing back to the kids, protected by their parents. This is left to me.

I raise my weapons high and summon my telekinesis. It is difficult to get precise targets when everyone is moving, but it’s better to damage their eyes than to let the illusions go on. I swipe the ashes from the eyes of those still fighting while Belle shines the light around the room, to dispel what remains.

The vampire, seeing that the tide is about to turn against him, tries to deal with Lewark before he goes. A thick shadow reaches out behind the reeve, a mouth full of dark teeth as if pulled from some terrible nightmare. The vampire charges at the reeve shoving him over into the demonic shadow, but just as the dark teeth graze against him, the enchanted ring on his finger bursts into light.

The flash disperses all illusions, and even the vampire is stunned for half a moment. Long enough for us to move on him.

Jake, the lead gang member, is a step closer than me, catching the vampire and chanting the stone tiles up around the creature’s feet. Trapping it in place.

The vampire panics, his eyes burning with æther as he tries to scare us off with the most basic of vampiric magics. It is not nearly enough to stop us.

I thrust my dagger into his shoulder, spreading frost within, but it achieves barely anything against the villain. Jake’s dagger slips into the other joint, twisting around until the arm pops from its socket. I restrain a hiss of frustration at being shown up, pressing my fingers into the vampire’s joint and popping it out of place.

I press the stake against the vampire’s neck, just where I can be sure that there is no armour to save him. I do not yet press it down. I want answers, and I’m not alone in that.

We stand over the desiccated corpses of one of the many that he’d killed while we were blinded by the dust of the ghouls that we’d slain. I glare into his eyes with æther fuelled magic, resisting his own magic with ease. The villain’s eyes widen with surprise, for but a moment, before he sneers in frustration.

“This is supposed to be my hunt,” he growls. “It’s my chance to prove myself. Who are you, and why are you interfering? Why are you siding with the prey?!”

“That should be obvious, should it not?” I ask, thinking fast as I try to consider what to say. “I’m not like you.”

“Of course, it’s obvious. You’re one of hers,” he sneers. “Come to mess up my moment. We’re meant to be together, working together, but here you are ready to stab me in the back.”

“It is the creatures we are. We’re monsters,” I say. “Would you do any differently if you had the chance?”

“The creatures we are?” He asks, laughing in our faces. Jake is looking at me cautiously, but one of his henchmen is circling around behind me. Belle and the reeve are busy over with the children, discussing something. “You’re following orders, that’s all.”

“I’m not,” I whisper. “I’m acting of my own volition.”

“No,” he whispers, his own laughter fading as he looks at me in a new light. “You’re serious?”

One of the children has wandered over from the other group, I wave them away and focus on the dangerous vampire.

“I’m not like you. I tried to resist. I tried to fight back. I’m not a monster, I didn’t want to become this, but… you can’t fight your sire. From the moment we are reborn as mindless ghouls, we are slaves to our sires.

“Aldramodore will have your ash for this. He will tell you to die, and you will do the deed yourself.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “You commanded the ghouls… are you telling me that a vampire can command anyone that they’ve turned?”

“You didn’t know?” he asks, opening his eyes wider still. “You’re a stray… you…”

“Why are you here?” Jake asks him, pressing him for answers. “Why are you after us?”

“After you?” The vampire asks, shaking his head. “You don’t understand us at all. Aldramodore wants more servants, he wants us stronger, so he feeds us blood. That’s all this is. Your little gang isn’t that important. You’re just a good meal, a good chance for us to grow.”

“You mentioned the name Aldramodore. Is he your leader?” Jake asks. “What’s his goal?”

“How should I know?” The vampire hisses. “I don’t get told anything important. I’m a nothing. Less than nothing now that you’ve caught me. Just kill me now. End this.”

“Why are vampires like this?” I ask. “Why are we like this? What are we?”

“What are we?” He repeats the question, staring up at the ceiling, and barking a short laugh. “We’re slaves. Hungry, murderous slaves, who will do anything that we are ordered to do.”

He pushes himself onto my stake, the flames crawl through his insides and he does not even fight it. The flames consume him, bursting apart into more ash.

“What happened?” the girl asks, leaning down over us. “Was he a bad man?”

“He was,” Belle says, walking up beside her and resting a hand on her shoulder.

The girl hisses a complaint, lifting a hand to pull away Belle’s hand, but she grips tight. She presses a wooden stake at the girl, whose other hand snaps up faster than I could see.

“You are much too young, girl,” she whispers, drawing upon the shadows to pull away the light.

The girl’s eyes glow a deep red, as she shows her fangs. She breathes in short and sharp about to say something, but flames burst out of her chest before she can find the words.

The darkness falls away with her ashen remains. She fights against the fire, but even powerful as she surely is she cannot survive the fires that rage through her.

Lewark stands there, his wooden cane still frozen in place where the vampire’s chest was just a second ago. He lowers the cane, standing straight on his unharmed leg, releasing a long, tired sigh as he shuffles about to stretch the limb.

“Been practising that limp for so long that it was starting to become real,” he chuckles to himself. “She saw me handing over the wooden stake and thought me unarmed.”

“Your limp is fake?” I ask blinking at him. “I thought… I thought it was an unhealable birth defect or something.”

“Is that it?” he asks. “I even gave myself a scar and made a point of it. I was more intending to seem like I’d been afflicted with a cursed weapon.”

“Well, I was convinced,” Jake says, staring down at the ashen piles. “I was meant to catch a prisoner.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” I say. “You don’t know enough about vampires to be able to capture one. It would escape your cages and tear out your throat in less than a day.”

“Vampires,” he tests the word. “That’s what it was? That’s what you are?”

“Well, I didn’t intend to admit as much…” I say with a frown. “For now, we’d best secure an exit. I want to escape from here as soon as possible, there is nothing more to be gained from staying.”

I can hear no more people in this house who are not in the room with us, and the wall of earth that still surrounds us is much too thick for me to hear through it.

“Let’s escape,” I say, pulling open the front doors and staring into the earthen wall, the shadow wall is now gone.

“Who wants to do the honours?” I ask, looking at the young man covered in æther veins. The fact that he has done nothing for us so far bothers me, he was even wounded during the brawling.

“Ah, let me,” Jake says, reaching out for the wall as I look closer at the young warrior.

The veins that cover him are certainly well visible, but he’s shown no magic that would convince me of his power yet. I still do not know what he can do. As I stare more closely, it looks too static. Too simple.

“It’s fake,” I say, crossing my arms and shaking my head. “Smart, I suppose.”

“Vael,” I turn to the one demon that hasn’t done much through all of this. I lost sight of her partway through the madness, and she’s essentially just disappeared.

I find her sitting on a chair that has been taken from the dining room while feasting on a plate full of cake. Where it’s come from, I don’t know, but she’s managed to move an entire cake onto the one plate and she’s still got plenty left to eat.

Her smile is a little too wide and she seems uninterested in moving.

“It’s not over yet?” I ask, finding an answer in her smile. She waves over to the large wall as it’s broken down by a massive push by Jake’s stone magic.

The cacophony of battle rushes in all at once. A war is being fought just outside, Merry and his band of followers battle an army of vampires.

On the far side of the yard, a small elf charges at a knight in metal plate, followed into battle by an army of ghouls.

“What fresh madness is this?” The words escape my lips at the sight.

 

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