Adam silently took out the bloodfiend that patrolled the second floor in the sa way as the previous two third-generations he’d killed.
[Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
As his body dropped to the floor, Adam harvested all of the materials from it and then put the remaining bones into an empty room after looting the fangs. There were two dozen lesser bloodfiends scattered across the rooms of the three floors, but they would stay put for now and as such weren’t of imdiate concern.
Their team had decided to just smash the windows to each of the rooms and flood them with light to kill the fiends inside, but since Adam had no idea what was happening with Luo and Sofia, his main focus was to quickly take out the last bloodfiend in the basent, find whatever clues he could, and then go after them.
He was still able to track Kat when he extended his perception, but the other two were a bit too far for him to easily pick up, though he knew the direction they’d been heading. Still, with the compass in his possession, he’d be able to find them without too much issue.
I just hope they’re okay.
Hopefully Kat will be able to find out what is happening and do sothing about it. If it’s a bloodfiend that hypnotised them, then it may cause issues though, since none of us are immune to that kind of magic.
Adam took the stairs down and went to the foyer. The two servants were still there, but both were staring out through the glass doors at the blue pavilion outside, facing away from the reception.
He quickly floated himself over the marble counter to avoid making noise and catching their attention, and then went into the back room, which held files and materials for him to go through. Inside he also found a narrow stairwell that led down into the basent. Given the layout of the brothel, it seed to be the only access point to the basent, which definitely gave off the stench of secrecy.
There was nothing seemingly useful inside the back room of the foyer, apart from more ntions of deliveries with the recipients and their addresses missing, but Adam was sure that the most important clues would be found in the basent.
He floated down the steps, once again trying to avoid making noise, only to imdiately spot the remaining third-generation bloodfiend across the open floor of what turned out to be a massive laboratory and distillation setup. Even though the vampire imdiately looked up from her work in surprise at his arrival, Adam floated himself across the floor towards her, feigning an unbothered attitude.
He remained floating slightly above the floor as he ca to a stop in front of the woman, who it seed was doing so kind of test on various samples of blood. She wore a tight-fitting white hooded robe and was shaved bald. Her face was angular and sharp, and although she was a third-generation vampire, she seed more dangerous than many of her cohort.
The laboratory was full of wine casks with taps, as well as empty and full wine bottles with labels. Copper pipes stretched between large barrels that apparently stored everything before it was siphoned off into the smaller containers, and these were supplied from the back half of the basent where all the lodies of dormant ghouls were clustered together. A brick wall and sturdy tal door kept that part of the basent separate though, and it seed to be more of a holding cell than anything.
It didn’t take a genius to put two-and-two together and realise they weren’t simply killing their clients and turning them into ghouls, but that they were in fact bleeding them dry to fill their barrels, which in turn filled casks and flasks with blood that were then shipped elsewhere in Moonport. Since the holding cell was full of ghouls and not bloodfiends, it clearly wasn’t vampires who were exsanguinating them directly, but perhaps so sort of device or other thod. The bloodfiends waiting in the various rooms above likely served more as a way to restrain potential victims, and it seed that the bloodfiends of Moonport were a bit conservative with how many lesser fiends they created, though Adam didn’t know why.
The instrunts that the female bloodfiend was using were of quite sophisticated design, featuring an actual microscope, various vials labelled with letters, test tubes, petri dishes, pipettes, and lots of other tools for investigating blood samples. The fact that they had such intricately-shaped glassware made Adam certain that there were a few craftsn in the Artisan district that were helping them out.
“The mistress wants to see you,” Adam told her, his eyes locked onto hers.
Based on the dark Mana that swirled around her feet, Adam guessed that she possessed shadow magic. He didn’t want to ss around with that kind of power too much, but he also didn’t want to strike until she let her guard down.
“Why? What does she want?” the bloodfiend asked. Her voice and lody indicated annoyance.
Given her posture and the work she was doing, she clearly had a lot of pride in herself, but from what Adam could tell, the entire operation was nothing more than a way to figure out the blood type of their harvested blood and then putting it into associated bottles and casks, based on the labels that those had.
They’re clearly selling the blood to other vampires, giving them a choice of blood type, for… what? Flavour?
But it should at least help us find the other hideouts they have, or even lead straight to the Patriarch’s lair, since I’m sure they all have unique preferences in… taste.
Adam looked at the samples and the letters used on the vials.
It looks like an ABO test maybe, which would make those vials antibodies.
I should be able to use my hand to figure out sothing like that though, right?
He dipped a crimson glass finger into the blood in her petri dish. A flash of soone screaming as their neck was torn open by claws flashed through his mind, but as it quickly faded Adam discovered what he’d been seeking.
“O negative,” he said and licked his finger clean, inwardly cringing but letting nothing show on his face.
“How can you tell?” the woman asked in surprise.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to see the mistress? I don’t have ti for lessons,” he replied. “The Matriarch wants AB negative, but I am guessing you don’t have sothing that rare.”
“Do not insult . Of course I have a donor, but such a thing is not for her. Why has the Matriarch sent you outside her territory?” the woman asked, her lody growing suspicious.
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I bet she is sending the AB negative blood to the Patriarch’s lair.
The only thing rarer than that would be Rh-null, but I think that’s a bit too rare for them to possess, though I suppose any Player who cos here with that specific blood type would be considered quite the trophy.
Adam looked at the nails of his glass hand, feigning disinterest while he really just wanted to hurry this whole thing along. “The Patriarch is dead, didn’t you hear?” he responded.
She took a step back.
“Impossible.”
“Apparently not. If you know what’s good for you, you will dig up any drops of AB negative you can find and prepare it for her arrival,” he told her. “She may want to keep soone like you around.”
“My mistress will fight. She will fill the vacancy the Patriarch left,” she said, clearly convinced.
Adam imdiately seized her neck and pumped his blood into her body, while letting the second-generation blood coating him push to the front and waft over her with its powerful scent.
“Your mistress is dead,” he told her. The shock was enough for her to apparently lose the grip on the shadowy magic swirling about her feet. “Tell
where the blood is, and I will let you live.”
“I do not have it! We just ship it to the middleman in the Market district!”
“Who?” Adam asked, squeezing harder.
“Jasper!” she croaked. Based on her lody, she apparently didn’t even consider the prospect of fighting back.
The proprietor of Oiled Ollie’s Eater? That’s an odd connection.
Adam let go of her neck and she dropped to her knees.
“Where are you sending the other shipnts?” he asked.
“The Guard Captain in Garrison receives his share, as does the Maestro in Wine district. The others co here to buy directly.”
Adam nodded. “Thank you.”
The laboratory bloodfiend got back to her feet and rubbed her neck, clearly unaware of Adam’s blood inside her body.
She was about to say sothing when Adam activated Blood Crystal.
[You have been afflicted with Magical Disturbance. Your activated spell will undergo a wild transformation.]
Spikes of crystallised blood the length of Adam’s arm erged from the bloodfiend’s neck and he hopped back in surprise.
[Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
The description lied, he realised. It made it seem like I would get the affliction from my Skirt of the Elentalist and then it would apply to the next spell, but instead the spell that triggers it is the one affected. That’s really dangerous.
Other than the crystallisation effect being more pronounced, Adam didn’t see any obvious differences to be worried about.
That was until the pipes, flasks, vials, casks, and barrels all started to crackle, along with the rest of the vampire’s body. Even his crimson shirt began to make noise and he rapidly unequipped it and threw it aside, along with all the blood coating his body to give off the scent of a bloodfiend.
As Adam rapidly retreated to the stairwell, spikes of crystallised blood erged from every single container, exploding the reinforced casks and barrels, and shattering the flasks and vials. Fortunately, the blood in his own body was untouched, and it seed to only affect ‘dead’ blood.
The laboratory and connected chamber housing the ghouls were filled with the enormous shards, destroying everything in the process and killing most of the monsters while trapping the rest. Although he couldn’t see the ghouls, he sensed as their strange lodies vanished. Then the crystallisation continued from the dead ghouls, killing the survivors in a cascade.
It keeps spreading…
Once he was certain it had died down, and the sounds of fracturing and crashing glass echoed through the basent, Adam retrieved his shirt, breaking off the crystallised fragnts and putting it back on. It was miraculously still intact.
The entirety of the basent was clogged with long crystals piercing floor and ceiling as though he was inside a gem-filled cavern, and though he’d wanted to quickly inspect the holding cell, it would require a lot of effort to break his way through it all.
There’s no way this would’ve gone unnoticed.
Sure enough, the servants on the first floor were going into the room above the stairwell, accompanied by the guards. Based on their lodies, it was clear they wouldn’t let him just walk out, so Adam rushed up the steps, making quick work of the four people and using their blood to mostly fill up his shirt again, as well as harvesting much of their flesh.
I didn’t want to kill the servants, he thought as he looked down at their bodies. But they were clearly not without sin.
Both of them held shortswords in their hands, and they had imdiately alerted the guards and known where to go, which to Adam proved they were complicit, even if they weren’t bloodfiends.
I found what I needed. Ti to go after the others.
As Adam ran out of the Blue Pavilion, he threw caution to the wind, since he couldn’t sense any strong bloodfiends in the vicinity, and took to the air while speaking into the compass, asking it to show him where to go.
The golden arrow snapped north-west, which surprised him, but he didn’t question it.
While he flew, he spread out his perceptions to try and pick up the lody of Kat, which he’d lost during the long-winded back-and-forth with the bloodfiend in the basent, and after ten minutes of following the compass’ direction, he found her lody next to that of Luo and Sofia.
Adam dropped out of the sky and landed in front of them in an abandoned plaza within the Cloth district. It looked like a bomb had gone off within the plaza, as the fa??ades of buildings that made up its ‘walls’ were full of holes, and the tiles on the ground were smashed, alongside a few ancient-looking fountains and statues.
Adam’s teammates were breathing quickly where they sat under the shade of a large tree that’d sohow survived the carnage, and Luo and Sofia were both injured. Sofia was missing a few fingers on her right hand, her left arm broken, and her right foot was twisted sideways and bent. Luo had a bleeding cut along his forehead that looked worse than it was, and his hands were pressed to his stomach that’d been punctured.
Nearby lay the culprit, which had clearly died to many powerful slashes and stabs from Kat, who must’ve arrived just in ti to save the pair.
It was a human mimic, and it wore Adam’s face.
What the fuck…
He quickly unfurled his flesh magic, starting with Luo, whose stomach wound he repaired by driving a thin string of sinewy flesh into his body to suture the internal damage. Once he’d stitched his internals back together and slowed the bleeding, Adam added thin fibrous sleeves around his intestines to completely stem the tide. Still, it was a close call and they would need to get a healing potion for him, since he had clearly lost a lot of blood.
I could resupply him with blood myself, but I don’t know if I would do more damage or not, since it could cause a haemolytic transfusion reaction as the blood I’ve got on
is completely mixed together. It’s probably safer to just get him a healing potion.
Adam couldn’t do much for Sofia, since he couldn’t nd broken bones, but he at least stopped the bleeding from her hand and made sturdy casts of hardened flesh around her arm and foot after setting the bones back in place. She accepted the pain with gritted teeth.
Lastly he fixed the wound on Luo’s forehead.
“Thanks, Adam,” he said.
Based on his and Sofia’s lodies, it seed they were surprised that Adam’s power could be used to heal, since he’d only shown them fucked-up applications of it so far.
“What the fuck happened?” Adam asked them.
“They were already fighting the mimic when I arrived,” Kat said.
Sofia frowned. “I really thought it was you.”
Luo nodded slowly. “ too. I didn’t even notice it didn’t have a cube until it was too late…”
“It ca back from the Blue Pavilion a few minutes after we got settled in the park,” Sofia started. “It told us that you had already found a clue and that the Patriarch’s lair would be in the Cloth district. When we asked where Kat was, it told us that she would et us there.”
“The mimics are becoming smarter,” Adam realised. “Normally they’re not that complex.”
“The one I t in the last Stage just talked to
as though nothing had happened, which gave it away,” Kat said.
“It was quiet when we followed it,” Luo explained. “But I just didn’t question it.”
“Perhaps a codeword we all agree to at the start could have been useful,” Sofia suggested.
Adam shook his head. “I don’t think so. They can mimic a lot of things, so there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t mimic that too. Not to ntion, we’d have to recognise the possibility of a mimic to even bring up the codeword, and it’s easy to grow complacent about that.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “I did think that we wouldn’t have to deal with it, since there was the mimic chest earlier.”
“Clearly that must’ve been a separate thing related to your quest,” Adam said.
“Did you deal with the vampires in the Blue Pavilion?” Kat asked him.
“I did,” he replied. “I also know where we should go next.”
“And where is that?” she asked.
“The Market district. The proprietor of Oiled Ollie’s Eatery is apparently connected to the Patriarch.”
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