After a bit of looking around, they had found a shaded garden behind a fancy bathhouse where they could talk about their strategy for dealing with the Blue Pavilion. Fortunately, everyone was on the sa page about a head-on attack being a terrible idea, which ant subterfuge would likely be the best way to take out the strongest bloodfiends before they had a chance to mount a counter-offensive.
Given that third- and second-generation bloodfiends possessed unique powers that they couldn’t just figure out by looking at them, it ant they would either need to lie in wait and spy on them for a while, or simply kill them before they had a chance to bring those powers to bear.
As with the previous encounters, Adam was in favour of the latter, while Luo seed to think that it was better if they took their ti gathering intel.
Although there wasn’t any clear-cut way to find the lair, both Beck and Elia had suggested that there would be so kind of trail to follow, once they found powerful bloodfiends blending in amongst the citizenry.
So far, they’d only fought solitary vampires, with none of them seeming to offer any hints about such a trail, but the Blue Pavilion was different. For starters, it had several third-generation bloodfiends inside, as well as a second-generation in the penthouse-like office on the top floor in the middle of the crescent-shaped building.
Adam was certain the second-generation bloodfiend was running the show, and given how many lesser fiends and ghouls were shoved into the place, there had to be so direct link to the lair of the Patriarch, with Adam betting on it being found within the penthouse.
After about ten minutes of talking it over, their plan had taken shape, though it relied almost entirely on Adam and Kat, with Sofia and Luo providing support once the leadership had been eliminated.
Adam finished sculpting the flesh he’d harvested from the bloodfiends earlier and hidden under his clothes and Relics, and he gave it to Kat who put it on without any fuss. It was like a hooded poncho made of pale vampire skin, which would obscure most of her features. Adam also gave her the Noble’s Mask to hide her face, taking her Chimaera Helt into his backpack for now, and she shifted her dark-grey hair forward to cover the rest of her face within the hood. With her Bloodfiend Claws, the poncho, and mask, she could easily pass as a poorly-disguised vampire at a glance, but there was one thing missing. Everyone looked at Adam in dismay as he spread his collected blood all over the inside of her poncho, turning it a pinkish-red in the process.
“All we need is to get past the security at the door and be led up to the penthouse,” he said as he made his ears longer and changed the shape of his hands to more resemble Kat’s weapons.
From what he could sense with his Mandate of Blood, there was a third-generation vampire just past the entrance, likely a concierge, who would probably be in charge of sending people to one of the many rooms where a lesser bloodfiend would be lying in wait.
Two guards stood by the entrance outside, and their presence alone made it clear that the Moonport authorities were involved with the vampires, just like they’d assud after Aeran’s failed attempt to alert their leadership about the bloodfiends.
They all agreed that the guard headquarters in Garrison would be their next target, after which they’d visit Gilded Gillian and figure out what connection he had to the vampires, unless they found the lair before then. It was clear he was involved sohow though, even if he wasn’t one of the vampires.
“I don’t like that we’ll be forced to wait outside,” Sofia comnted on their plan.
“I don’t have enough material to disguise you and Luo as well,” Adam said. “And the bloodfiends are often solitary during the day, so it would stand out a lot if four of them arrived sowhere together.”
The blood he’d used to coat Kat’s poncho was that of a lesser bloodfiend, while the blood he wore was mixed with that of a second-generation’s, which he hoped would make it less suspicious, since it could be perceived as a master-and-servant kind of thing.
Adam shaped his facial features slightly to emphasise the vampire-like traits, and then looked at the others. “Once we give the signal, you two will enter the building from the back through the empty room I told you about,” he said to Luo and Sofia. “We’ll then et you down there and sweep the building together.”
Sofia still wasn’t completely sold, and Luo seed worried about fighting indoors with his crossbow, but they trusted Adam enough to follow along. It also helped that Kat thought the strategy would work.
The pair would wait in a fancy park a few hundred tres from the Blue Pavilion, until Adam made a signal through the windows of the penthouse office on the third floor. Even as they split up and walked their separate ways, so as to not let anyone else catch on, all of them were able to get a clear view through the windows of the penthouse, where they saw a woman slashing at a large canvas using a paintbrush like it was a weapon. It was the second-generation bloodfiend.
Ugh, she’s an ‘artist’. I bet canvas isn’t the only thing she performs her craft on.
However, thanks to her display, Adam was able to figure out what power she wielded, because of the way her lody shifted around and left her body, only to return again. It was clear that the brush wasn’t doing all the work, and that the paint was in fact blood charged with her Mana.
“She wields blood magic,” Adam whispered to Kat. “Don’t let her get too close. Even a small drop can be devastating.”
Kat grunted in response, really playing up her role as a dumb bloodfiend.
As they approached the entrance of the crescent building, they walked around the actual blue pavilion the place was nad after, seeing a few people inside the restaurant enjoying so early lunch consisting of mostly drinks and light snacks.
A carefully-pruned garden surrounded the pavilion and covered the area in front of it, and flowers and low hedges lined the stone path they followed to reach the entrance of the large brothel.
The two guards in front of the door both wore the signature outfit of the Moonport guard, with white tabards depicting a golden crescent moon on the front, which draped over chainmail and plate armour below. Both had a spear in their hand and a shortsword on their hip.
Although they scrutinised Adam and Kat, they didn’t stop them from entering. It likely also helped that neither of them even glanced at the guards, as though they were nothing but insects. Such haughty attitudes seed exemplary of most bloodfiends they’d encountered so far at least.
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Two servants on the inside of the building pulled aside the glass panels that comprised the door, and Adam and Kat entered, walking along a blue carpet on the floor to a marble counter with a single pale-looking man behind it. His sharp ears were on full display, and his red eyes shone in the gloom of the foyer. He wore a white shirt with an expensive blue vest over it.
They aren’t even hiding themselves in here, Adam noted.
The concierge’s lody shifted into surprise and confusion when he saw them, before settling into caution and suspicion.
“What services can I offer you today?” he asked, saring on a fake smile and welcoming attitude.
“Take us to your mistress,” Adam replied in a clipped tone, staring right into his eyes.
“I am afraid that won’t be possi—”
Adam slamd his left hand down on the counter, making one of the servants by the door yelp in surprise. “I wasn’t asking,” he hissed.
The blood sigil on his hand was on full display, and he noted in satisfaction how the bloodfiend concierge looked down at it in horror. For creatures that relied so heavily on blood, those who could manipulate it were no doubt amongst the strongest. Even as the fiend looked at his hand, Adam shaped the fingers using his flesh magic, bulking them out and sharpening the nails even more.
The concierge swallowed audibly.
“Perhaps I could take a ssage to her on your behalf?” he asked, his confidence waning.
Adam leaned across the counter, letting the man get a good whiff of the second-generation blood that coated him. “Would you like to be the one to tell her that the Patriarch is dead?”
His lody skipped a beat before it filled with horror.
Then the concierge straightened up and walked around the counter. “Right this way, please.”
Kat cast Adam a look before both of them followed the bloodfiend up a flight of stairs that led to the third floor. As they went up the steps, Adam tried to figure out where the other third-generation bloodfiends were located in the building. One was down below in the basent, but the other two seed to roam around like guards on the second and third floors.
Before they made it to the third floor themselves, Adam equipped his Hobgoblin Pendant and snuck a bead of blood into the concierge’s nape without him noticing, driving it up into his head where it would lie in wait until Adam called upon it.
Kat’s lody filled with surprise and apprehension as she noticed Adam’s trick, but for now she stuck with their plan, though he was sure she would have questions later.
Adam kept the pendant equipped, because as they reached the third floor they passed by the female bloodfiend patrolling it, and he was able to fire a small glob of blood into her head as well. Although she cast them a quick gaze afterwards, she clearly hadn’t noticed, and it seed the concierge ranked above her, because she continued her patrol without questioning their presence.
When they reached the door to the penthouse office, Adam re-equipped his Blood Mage Choker.
The concierge knocked on the large set of wooden doors and then they waited for a couple of minutes until finally the person on the other side called for them to enter.
“What do you want, Dina?” a female voice asked from behind a large canvas that blocked her from their view.
“You have guests,” he replied.
“I am aware,” she said. “I want to know what they are doing here.”
When the concierge turned to look back at Adam and Kat, he saw that both of them had their arms lifted. On Adam’s right arm was a woven spell pattern for Heart Lance with three floating rings in front of his glass hand. Kat’s right arm had the crossbow with the explosive bolt ready to fire as well.
Before the concierge could say anything, Adam made a small gesture with his left hand, exploding the blood inside his head and then activating the Blood Crystal spell, imdiately sending him to the floor, dead in an instant.
[Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
Then Adam fired his spell, shooting it right through the canvas and into the second-generation bloodfiend. It went through her torso and neck, severing her into two pieces, and continued out through the glass window without breaking it. From where their other teammates were, they should’ve seen the spell and known it as their signal. Kat lowered her arm and pulled out her daggers, turning around to guard the door.
Adam approached the severed body of the Blue Pavilion’s mistress and quickly flung his magic down into her remains, tearing out her blood and harvesting her flesh as fast as he could, just in case she had the power to pull herself back together.
[Second Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
Adam pulled on the blood inside the head of the fiend patrolling the third floor outside the penthouse, exploding it and crystallising it in quick succession.
[Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
“Clear,” he told Kat, who opened the doors and quickly went out into the hallway to grab the corpse and drag it into the room.
“The other two are on the floor below us and in the basent,” Adam said. “Sofia and Luo should’ve seen my spell just now, so they will…”
Adam paused.
“What?” Kat asked.
“They’re leaving?”
“Who?”
“Sofia and Luo,” he said. “They’re going sowhere else.”
“Why?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
Both of them ran to the window and looked out, but they couldn’t see their friends, even though they saw the park they should’ve been waiting in.
“I will go after them,” Adam said.
“No, you stay here,” Kat said. “You can deal with the bloodfiends easily and know where they are.”
Adam frowned. “We can just co back afterwards.”
“They will find the bodies,” she told him. “You will stay and continue the plan. I will find Sofia and Luo. Tell
where they went.”
Adam quickly described the direction they were heading and gave her back the Chimaera Helt. Then Kat ran out of the penthouse and into a nearby room that was unoccupied, jumping out of its window and skating down the backside of the crescent building using her treasure hunter boots. Since most of the rooms she passed had their curtains drawn because of the bloodfiends inside, she was unlikely to be spotted.
He saw her through the penthouse window as she hurried across the street below, passing the park where Sofia and Luo should’ve been, and heading south-west.
What the fuck are they doing? Adam wondered.
He believed that Kat would be able to handle most things, but he was worried that a bloodfiend had snuck up on their friends and hypnotised them into going sowhere secluded where they could be eliminated or turned into bloodfiends themselves.
Even though the vampires were less active during the day, it was a mistake to believe they wouldn’t attack when given the chance. After all, the Patriarch had shown up after the sun had risen, catching them off-guard.
Adam harvested the two third-generation bloodfiends and collected their fangs. Then he went about searching the office for any clues about the lair. Although there were papers in binders and lots of hand-written notes, most of it were related to the business of the brothel. It seed that they had regular clientele that they squeezed for all that they were worth, but an order from above had made them change course and start to create bloodfiends and ghouls.
Although the order clearly ca from the Patriarch, as Adam found a neatly-written letter using blood instead of ink, he couldn’t find any clues about the lair. Even using his Mandate of Blood on the letter didn’t reveal much besides so fragnted mories of an old-looking man using his blood to write the missive.
There were several white canvasses scattered around on the walls that the mistress of the Blue Pavilion had clearly made using blood, but when he searched those with his glass hand, all he saw were the final brutal monts of the victims whose blood she’d used. Each image depicted the outline of a person in the middle of a dance, though each movent suggested they were different dances.
He searched a bit more, but besides a few stray clues about shipnts of blood being sent to other parts of Moonport, he found no actual addresses listed or even nas.
Maybe the basent will have sothing, or the reception, Adam thought.
The way that the ghouls in the basent are mostly located on the eastern side might suggest there’s sothing else taking up the unused space. Especially because the bloodfiend is down there, doing sothing that has them excited.
Adam frowned. He was worried about Sofia and Luo, and Kat too to so extent.
I’ve gotta hurry.
The lesser fiends and ghouls we can deal with later, but the ones that might raise the alarm need to be taken care of.
I may have to do sothing about the servants by the door and the guards…
Adam drew out a snare pattern on the floor in front of the penthouse door and closed it off.
Then he went down the stairs to clear out the two remaining third-generation bloodfiends.
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