Runeguard 032

Congratulations, you have fulfilled secondary objective 1 of the task: bring the thieves to justice. Complete the primary objective to claim your reward. 

Silence filled the tent, only to be broken a moment later by delighted laughter from the Crow leader. “My, that was entertaining,” he said.

I turned slowly to face him. “You have no care for your men’s lives?”

Marcos shrugged. “There are plenty more like him, all simply dying to serve me.” He chuckled, amused by something in his own words.

I just stared at him.

The Crow leader yawned and rose to his feet. “I suppose, I will have to fight you now.”

Still saying nothing, I strode forward, battlehammer at the ready. Languidly, Marcos raised his arm as if to block my path. 

Fat chance he is going to stop me like that.

I accelerated into a charge. Three steps from my target, I leapt.

And crashed into… something.

My mouth dropped open in shock and I staggered back, slightly dazed. Shaking my head to clear it, I glanced up. A translucent wall of shimmering red hovered before Marcos.

Whatever the barrier was, it had to be magic. Yet I had heard no words, nothing to suggest the Crow leader had invoked a spell. 

“Impossible,” I couldn’t help but mumble.

Marcos laughed and my gaze jerked back to him. “Like I said, Dace, you have much to learn.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said, still chuckling. “Why should I tell you?”

I didn’t bother questioning him further but turned to my administrator instead for answers. “Adi, what the hell did he do?”

“I’m not entirely sure, Dace. It has to be a prepared spell of some sort,” she replied in a perplexed tone, “but they should not exist in the Creche.”

“Just like black dragons shouldn’t,” I snarled. “But forget that. Tell me what I need to know about prepared spells.”

“They are spells created in advance. They aren’t materialized at the time of casting, but are instead held in readiness by the mage. Invoking a prepared spell is simply a matter of performing the trigger gesture or action.”

“Like the wave of a hand,” I muttered.

“Exactly,” replied Adi.

Marcos, meanwhile, had finally become impatient with my silence. “What? Nothing to say? Oh well. I guess it was nice meeting you, Dace.” The Crow raised his other hand.

Not about to be caught out again by whatever spell Marcos was releasing, I dived to my right. But no magic poured forth from his hand. At least not instantly, like the first spell had.

As I rolled across the floor, I half-heard Marcos whisper soft words under his breath. 

Goddamn. I ground my teeth in frustration. 

I had been fooled again. This time, Marcos was casting a normal spell. I halted my tumble and rose to my feet. Hammer braced to attack, I charged anew.

But the delay cost me, and Marcos finished his spell before I could close with him. A split second later, a liquid bar of blood-red lanced through the space between us and struck me in the chest. Instantly, I jerked to a stop.

I’d been frozen.

The Crow leader dipped his hand, and the spelled-leash holding me lowered in response. Helpless to do otherwise, I crashed to my knees.

I kept my gaze fixed on my foe. I could see and hear, but I couldn’t so much as blink or move a finger. My mind, though, still worked, and frantically I sought a way out of my predicament.

“Adi, what’s he done to me now?”

“You’ve been paralyzed, Dace.”

“I know that. But how? And for how long?”

“I can’t say how,” Adi said. “I don’t recognize the spell. And as for how long, the System still hasn’t reported the spell’s duration.”

I bit down on rising panic. “Goddamn. Let me know the instant it does. And what do you mean, you don’t—” 

My words broke off as Marcos sauntered forward, a satisfied smirk pasted on his face. A foot from me, he dropped his hand altogether, causing the leash holding me to transform into glowing bands of red. Snaking around, they wound themselves tightly about me, pinning my arms to my size.

You have been paralyzed by Marcos. Duration: 60 seconds.

My heart sank. Sixty seconds. That was more than enough time for him to kill me. I will be dead before the paralysis expires, I thought bitterly.

The Crow leader reached out with one hand and cupped my face, then leaned down to put his own an inch from mine.

This close, I could see that his eyes had a reddish tinge to them. Inanely, I wondered if that was the effect of the spell or something else entirely.

“I have been searching for one like you,” Marcos whispered. “Strong, big. A literal meat shield.” He ran the fingers of his other hand down my face. “You’ll serve much better than Yannick. Did you know that before you he was my slave?” A second later he waved off the question with a laugh. “Of course, you don’t know that. How could you?”

A moment later his amusement cut off abruptly. “But I always thought Yannick lacked… something. Some special spark that you, my pet, have in droves.” He grinned. “It pleased me immensely that you killed him, you know.” 

Shivers of unease ran down my spine. What was Marcos going on about? And why had he not finished me off yet? 

Come on. Kill me already, you bastard. And when I come back, I promise I’ll rip your bloody head off before you know it.

“You will take Yannick’s place,” Marcos continued, still caressing my face. “You, Dace, will become my new blood slave.”

My alarm grew. I wasn’t liking the sound of any of this. I wasn’t sure what the Crow leader was leading up to, but he certainly didn’t seem in any hurry to kill me.

And that gave me time—and hope.

“Night,” I called across the tether. “I need you.”

There was no response.

“Adi, can Night hear me?”

“She should be able to, Dace. But distance weakens your mindspeech, and if the black dragon is preoccupied with other things, your words may be lost to her.”

I just have to shout louder, then, I thought.

But just as I was about to do that, Marcos jerked my head upwards and bared my neck. Before I could make sense of what was going on, the Crow leader’s mouth opened wide and clamped down on me.

The bastard is biting me! 

Why is he biting me?

You have been drained of 5 health by Marcos’ vampiric bite. You have 292 HP remaining.

Marcos is attempting to forge a blood-pact and transform you into his blood-slave.

 Bloody hell, I swore. He’s a vampire! His cryptic words made sense now—a frightening amount of sense.

“Night!” I yelled, my voice reverberating across the spirit-link with my companion. “Come to me!”

No response was forthcoming.

Marcos sucked again, draining more of my lifeblood away. Even through my paralysis, I felt myself weaken. But I felt something else too. 

I don’t know how, but I sensed the vampire’s own blood entering me, seeking to take control. I fought it, with every fiber of my being, resisting the nearly overpowering urge to succumb to Marcos’ will.

“Night!” I yelled in desperation. I didn’t know how long I could hold out. Already, I felt my resistance crumbling. After all, how bad could being Marcos’ slave really be? 

Bad! Very bad! I shouted, but I was no longer so certain.

My thoughts were growing muddled. My will was weakening. “Night!” I screamed again. 

She was my only hope now.

“I am here, Dace,” the black dragon replied.

Relief coursed through me as I felt the cloud of her being form around me.

You have been buffed by Night’s lesser fear aura, 10% chance to terrify nearby hostiles.

The vampire stilled.

But that was all he did. 

Marcos had sensed Night’s aura, but sadly, wasn’t affected. Nonetheless, something—curiosity most likely—caused him to retract his fangs from my neck and straighten.

“My, my, what have we here?” the Crow leader asked, wiping away the blood dripping down his chin with the back of one hand and staring upward. He didn’t appear the least bit intimidated by the vague draconic shape hovering above me. 

Finally, he glanced at me, seemingly in search of answers.

“Adi, how much longer will I be paralyzed for?”

“Thirty-three seconds,” she replied.

“What is this abomination, Dace?” Night hissed angrily. “His magic stinks of something foul.”

“A vampire,” I answered. “Can you petrify him?”

“Gladly,” she snarled and condensed the swirling mists of her being into twin black orbs. 

Marcos’ gaze shifted upwards. “Are those… dragon eyes?” he asked. “You are even more special than I suspected, Dace. Why, with you at my side, we—”

He never got to finish.

Twin lines of churning chaos reached out from Night to the vampire, and mid-speech he was petrified.

It worked! 

I had half-feared Marcos would have another trick up his sleeve and that even the black dragon’s petrifying gaze would fail. “Thank you, Night,” I said fervently before turning to the other presence in my mind. “Adi, talk to me.”

“Your paralysis will wear off in twenty-five more seconds,” she said, “and Night’s petrifying gaze in thirty seconds.”

I would have five seconds then. Good. It would be tight, but I could work with that. “Night, can you flame him?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t have enough mana remaining.”

“Alright, keep watch outside then,” I said. “And let me know the moment anyone approaches.”

I readied myself and planned my next move once the paralysis wore off. I’d dropped my battlehammer, but it lay at my feet and within reach. 

Grab it and strike at Marcos? 

No, I decided. I wanted to be up close to the Crow in case I botched the first attack. But what if, like in all those vampire stories, Marcos couldn’t be killed by ordinary weapons? 

Urgh. I’ll saw his bloody head off. There was no way he could survive that. I’ll do this with my knives, I decided.

“Five seconds to go, Dace,” Adi said.

I cleared my mind and waited.

You are no longer paralyzed.

I surged upward and behind the Crow leader. With my left hand I wrenched his head back, and with my right, I drew one of my daggers and plunged it into the vampire’s heart.

I didn’t stop there. 

Leaving the first dagger buried in Marcos’ chest, I drew a second blade and began sawing through his neck. I wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Stop, Dace,” Adi said. “He is dead.”

I paused. 

“You sure?”

“I am,” Adi said, sending me the System’s own confirmation.

Congratulations, you have fulfilled secondary objective 2 of the task: bring the thieves to justice. Complete the primary objective to claim your reward. 

My shoulders sagged and some of the tension drained out from me. Releasing my grip, I let the corpse fall to the floor and cleaned my bloodied weapons. “Alright, let’s—”

“Dace, beware,” Night called, “men are approaching.”