Jasper didn’t look too pleased to see them as they walked back into his tavern.
“We found the treasure on Garden Isle,” Adam told him.
He paused for a mont, clearly having expected sothing else to co out of Adam’s mouth.
“What was it?” he finally asked, his curiosity clearly winning over his apprehension.
Adam pulled out the wooden mask.
“Do you know what it is?” Kat asked, noticing the change in his expression.
“I’ve seen Lady Cassandra wear a mask just like this,” Jasper said.
“Where?” Adam asked.
“At the Wine District Ball. The, erm, my benefactor invited
there last year.”
“Are you participating this ti?”
“No. It takes place after dark and only the rich are foolish enough to brave the monsters to have a bit of fun,” Jasper said. “Maybe if tis were different, I would have attended. As it stands, only the wealthy of the Wine district seem to be participating.”
“We have killed most of the bloodfiends,” Kat inford him.
“Really?”
“We just killed the Maestro earlier,” Adam added.
“Maybe all hope isn’t lost for Moonport,” Jasper muttered.
“Mark my words, we’ll kill them all,” Adam said.
“I believe you,” Jasper replied.
After a bit of browsing, Adam and Kat found a vendor that sold the mask they were looking for, as well as two Relics they’d yet to see until now, since they were uncommon rarity.
< < Relics For Sale > >
< Ballroom Mask (Common) — Equip to conceal your true identity. The Relic breaks if the mask is unequipped or the wearer sustains or deals damage >
< Daylight Lamp (Uncommon) — When the shutter of the lamp is opened, the light of day will shine continuously for 10 minutes or until the shutter is closed. Relic breaks after 1 use >
< Wizard’s Stone Hand (Uncommon) — Turns your hand to stone and allows you to manipulate it up to 3 tres away from your arm. Relic disappears if destroyed >
“We have 7,300 Shillings, so I say we just get all three,” Adam said.
“Are you planning on using the stone hand?” Kat asked him.
“I have so ideas for it, yeah,” he replied.
Adam’s main reason for buying it was that, with the Shapeshifter’s Claw, he would still have two available slots in his Relic Saving Chest, and the stone hand would be perfect for the next loop he was thinking of.
I don’t know when this loop will co to an end, but I want to be prepared for the next, just in case. And since I know a lot more now than before, I think I can finally make the Fool work.
Adam was still thinking about an old hint that the To Keeper had given him about the Realm Traveller.
Only a fool would seek him out, and they would be lucky to even survive the encounter.
That’s what he said.
His current theory was that he needed to pick the Fool, and then amass as much Luck as possible before the Forbidden Altar. He did feel like there was sothing missing, unless it really was just that simple.
The stone hand breaking is obviously ant to be a huge derit, since it isn’t a glove but my actual hand that would break and disappear. Still, I think it’s worth using just for the slis in Stage One alone.
Since Stage Nine was sure to be a nightmare, given how both Elia and Beck had talked about it, Adam wanted to prepare his contingency plan the mont he got back to Interim Island.
They put the mask, lamp, and stone hand into Adam’s backpack, leaving the market with 4,800 Shillings remaining, but then Adam doubled back and bought two dium healing potions for 1,000, putting them in his Potion Belt after taking out a stamina potion.
“Good idea,” Kat told him. “We should have been carrying more potions earlier.”
Adam nodded. “Even if we’ve cleared out almost all of the threats, I would rather not die a preventable death.”
He downed the stamina potion instead of putting it in his backpack. As it coursed through his system, it cleared away a ntal fog he hadn’t even realised was there.
“Is that not a waste?” Kat asked.
“If you stay awake for three days in a row, you get hit with an affliction,” he told her. “A stamina potion is supposed to clear that up.”
She gave him a worried look but said nothing.
No way I’m going to sleep in this world, even after we’ve wiped out the bloodfiends completely.
As they ventured north into the Garrison district, Adam broadened his blood senses for any signs of vampires, getting a few hits inside the district, as well as so muddied distant ones sowhere in the Pleasure district.
He knew it was folly to assu that a place was clear, even if they had cleaned it up the day before, but for now his focus was on the remaining third- and second-generation fiends, since they were the only ones that had the ability to create more lesser fiends.
“There aren’t a lot of ghouls around,” Adam noted. “But let’s do a sweep once we’re done with your patron quest and the Guard Captain, then we’ll hit up the Wine District Ball afterwards.”
Garrison district had quite a few lesser bloodfiends hiding inside its buildings and basents, along with so ghouls. Unlike the Pious and Cloth districts, none of them seed to wait outside in dark alleyways.
Perhaps they are aware they’re being hunted.
They were following the arrow of Adam’s compass to lead them towards Kat’s objective while Adam ran his blood sense along the various fortified buildings. Interestingly, there were no signs of the fiends near the Moonport gate, which Adam had assud would be one of the main places they would have infiltrated, since controlling what ca in and out of the city was strategically quite important, especially if they were allied with the Forlorn King.
But maybe they’re using boats.
Kat stopped to look at the gatehouse of a large compound before Adam could say that it was the destination indicated by the compass.
“I saw this place in my dream on the first night,” she said.
There were two human guards standing out in front of the gatehouse, but they continued around the side, where its long wall was mostly unguarded, except for a routine patrol of two guards every few minutes.
“I think it’s a prison,” Kat said.
Adam nodded. “There are quite a few lesser bloodfiends inside, as well as a third gen, but all of them are separated one by one, which would be consistent with solitary cells.”
“Do you think we are too late to save the little thief for my quest?”
“Let’s just see where the compass takes us,” Adam replied, since he couldn’t distinguish age and such based on blood lody alone.
There was also a single second-generation bloodfiend surrounded by humans towards the back of the compound, and Adam assud it was whoever was in charge.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
After hiding from the patrol, they went up onto the top of the square wall of the prison. Inside was a courtyard with a large channel in the middle that led out into the lagoon, no doubt serving as the egress and ingress of prisoners shipped to and from the place.
A few guards road the courtyard, watching a handful of prisoners, but most of the rest were inside cells that ran along the prison periter wall.
They dropped into the courtyard when no one was looking and then went into the hallway lined with cells through a tal gate that Adam pried open with his flesh magic.
The hallway was patrolled regularly, just like the outside of the wall, but thanks to Adam’s blood sense, they were able to avoid the guards easily.
As they passed the dark cells with lesser bloodfiends, Adam eliminated each of them in turn, opening the door for Kat to hurry inside to grab their fangs and heart. There was enough space between each cell that they got away with it for a while, but then a prisoner saw them and started yelling.
Adam unlocked his cell and Kat stord in, grabbing the guy in a chokehold, but the guards were already on their way, so Kat walked up the walls using her well-worn boots until she was upside down, holding the prisoner locked in her arms. anwhile Adam hastily prepared to neutralise them, finishing just in ti for the guards to enter the cell. Before they could raise the alarm, he dropped down from above, landing in the doorway behind them, and then rapidly moved his magic to bind, gag, and blind them. He did the sa with the prisoner and then locked the cell.
They hurried on, eliminating the last few lesser bloodfiend prisoners in this section before coming to the cell where the compass was pointing.
Inside sat a grumpy-looking teenage girl who was may fifteen or sixteen years old.
Adam frowned.
“She’s a third-generation bloodfiend,” he said.
“We are getting her out of here,” Kat replied, leaving no room for discussion.
Adam unlocked the cell, and as Kat entered, he equipped the Hobgoblin Pendant and pald a small ball of blood in his right hand.
“What do you want?” asked the girl. Her red irises stared at them in defiance.
“I am rescuing you on behalf of the All-Mother,” Kat told her, though that seed to only confuse her.
“Does that an I get to leave? Leave Moonport?” asked the girl.
“That’s right,” Adam said, walking into the cell. “But we’ve gotta deal with the bloodfiend running this place first.”
“The warden?” she asked. “He’s the one who put
here. He has a strange power. He’s controlling people in their dreams, so they just walk to their cells and wake up here. That’s how he got .”
“He must have tried to do that to ,” Kat remarked, recalling her strange dream.
That’s two second-generation bloodfiends with dream magic, Adam noted. He had assud there would only be one second gen for each type of magic, but neither Elia nor Beck had outright stated that, so it was clearly just an assumption he’d made for no good reason.
“Let’s not waste any ti,” Adam said, ushering the girl out of the room with Kat. As he gently pushed her, he shot the blood from his palm and into her body, sending it through her bloodstream to her heart, before breaking off half to send up into her head.
He ntally swapped back to his Blood Mage Choker before Kat could suspect anything, and then they continued towards the warden’s office.
They waited in a dark corner outside the office as the people who were with the warden wrapped up their eting. The girl they’d rescued used her shadowy magic to conceal them, which surprised both Kat and Adam. It wasn’t completely clear why she’d been put in jail, but they would find out once they’d escaped.
I will allow Kat to finish her quest before I eliminate the thief.
It’s doubtful that the Flayed Lady will let this one go, and it’s not worth risking my mories to check if she’s feeling magnanimous or not, even if this girl isn’t affiliated with the Patriarch and Matriarch directly.
If I ever worship the All-Mother, I will undoubtedly have to seek repentance for this act though. I don’t get the feeling that she’s soone to compromise her ideals.
None of the Absolutes seem very flexible and forgiving in that regard, though I would love to be proven wrong.
Once the humans had left the office and only one man remained alongside the warden, Adam wove a thin strand of magic blood out in front of him and gave the signal for Kat to open the door and enter.
The warden was yet another handso-looking pale figure, though from his guard uniform and hard expression, it seed he actually took his job here seriously, unlike the other fiends who had seed apathetic about their play-pretend existences.
The warden and human guard turned to face Kat, and in the brief mont they focused on her, Adam shot his thin blood thread forward, just in ti to lance it through the warden’s right eye as he was about to lift his hand and put Kat to sleep.
With a brutal series of movents, Adam zigzagged the blood down through the bloodfiend’s body, and then crystallised it, killing him in an instant.
[Second Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
Kat launched forward, knocking the other guard to the ground, and then Adam stripped the flesh from the warden to make bindings to neutralise the human.
They collected the bloodfiend’s teeth and then Kat ate his heart.
The way the little thief looked at her as she devoured the organ made Adam’s skin crawl.
The trio hurried through the last part of the prison, eliminating a few more lesser fiends and collecting their trophies. Then they went out into the courtyard, and Adam helped Kat and the girl onto the roof. They ran across it and over the edge of the wall, dropping back outside the compound.
All of it had gone off without any of the guards raising the alarm, but as they hurried away, it was clear the ones they’d neutralised were discovered, since a loud horn echoed through the air.
Fortunately, the way that Adam had harvested the eleven lesser bloodfiends had been without trace, which, along with the open cell doors, made it appear as though there had been a major prison break. Of course, the lesser fiends couldn’t survive in sunlight, but it was unlikely most of the guards knew that, plus they would be in disorder thanks to the warden being taken out.
Only one guard, the one who’d been with the warden, had seen Kat’s face. Adam hoped it wouldn’t lead to a manhunt for her and that the diversion with the missing bloodfiends would be the true focus.
They were moving towards the main office of the Moonport guard, and once they took out the Guard Captain, they would be truly leaderless, which should further obscure their tracks.
“Why did they put you in a cell?” Kat asked the thief.
“Because I stole sothing to turn myself into a vampire,” she said.
“You did this to yourself on purpose?” Adam asked her. “You weren’t bitten?”
“Yes. They created so strange artefact that they were sending to the mainland, but I took it and used it myself. It gave
the ability to control shadows. Isn’t that cool?”
Adam frowned. Maybe she won’t count towards the Flayed Lady’s quest then?
Ah… who am I kidding?
She won’t give a shit about the circumstances. And the fact that she stole her way to her power is likely a lot worse to the Flayed Lady, I would imagine.
“Where is this artefact?” Kat asked.
“It disappeared when I drank it,” the girl said.
“That was foolish,” Kat told her. “Your power is just a curse in disguise.”
“You wanted to leave Moonport, right?” Adam asked her as they neared the place that the compass was pointing towards.
“I wanted to find a boat and sail out past the breakwater,” the girl said. “But then I went to sleep and woke up in that cell.”
“We’ll find you a boat,” Adam told her. “We’ve just gotta make a quick stop here.”
Kat looked up at the building. “Is this it?” she asked.
Adam couldn’t fault her. It looked just like many of the other fortified buildings in the district, but he sensed the second-generation bloodfiend within. It had to be the Guard Captain.
“He’s in there,” Adam said.
“How do you want to do this?” Kat asked him.
“As quickly as possible,” he replied, lifting off the ground and flying up onto the roof while she waited below with the thief, finding an alley to hide out of view.
After locating the exact room that the bloodfiend was inside, Adam created a Push construct in the air using blood, flesh, and bone, and then he floated down in front of a window that gave him a view of the captain’s office.
After manipulating his left arm to open the shutter, he moved his body in through the opening, arriving just behind the fancy chair that the Guard Captain was sitting in, drinking from a familiar-looking bottle of ‘wine’.
Just as the man noticed Adam’s scent, Adam had finished empowering his Shapeshifter’s Claw and fired off his spell.
The blast sounded like a bomb when it went off, and the top-half of the bloodfiend was completely destroyed, though sohow his fangs were left behind, perfectly intact.
That was a lot more power than expected, Adam noted as he looked at the bookcase and wall that’d been behind the Guard Captain, and which had been totally shredded by the blast.
He quickly left the office as the human guards ca running to investigate the violent sound, landing down by Kat and the girl.
“I didn’t bring you a souvenir,” Adam told her. “Turns out my spell did a lot more damage than expected. I did get his fangs though.”
Although there were a few ghoul and bloodfiend lodies left in the Garrison district, they went west so that they could finish Kat’s quest. They’d agreed that it made the most sense for her to depart from the southern part of the Pious district if she was heading for the breakwater outside the lagoon. Especially since they’d left a rowboat there from their own arrival to Moonport.
“If we had done things differently, this part of the quest might have required us to run through the city while we were being chased by guards,” Kat remarked.
Adam just nodded, knowing what was to co.
Although there were lodies from lesser bloodfiends and ghouls in the Cloth district as they passed through, they didn’t stop to eliminate them, and made it to their rowboat in only about 30 minutes’ ti.
The thief girl hadn’t said much, though she had revealed that her na was Cienna.
Even though she was ostensibly going to sail out to the open seas, she didn’t seem that interested in preparing anything for her journey.
Realistically, she would probably die of starvation, but if I’m not the one to take her out, the Flayed Lady will likely consider my quest failed…
Adam didn’t like what he was about to do, and he was worried about how Kat would react. But the only thing he could think of in that mont was how completing the Flayed Lady’s quest was necessary for him to get to Stage Nine with his mind intact. He knew he could just end it at any ti to deny her the satisfaction, but he’d realised the folly of throwing his life away for short-sighted gains, and he needed to grow his knowledge to be able to get far once he actually found a universe to settle into and try to save everyone he cared about. Not to ntion, he was going to make a significant windfall from this Stage, but the Flayed Lady might punish him in such a way that it made it impossible for him to invest his Points. She was cruel-minded and there were dozens of ways she could punish Adam effectively. The prospect scared him more than Kat’s potential wrath.
They bid farewell to the young bloodfiend thief as she got into the rowboat and sailed out onto the lagoon.
Kat watched the boat as it moved away. Then she breathed a sigh of relief and her lody lost so of the tension it’d been holding onto.
“I completed my quest,” she said. “Thank you, Adam.”
Adam activated Blood Crystal, targeting the two tiny bits of blood he’d planted inside Cienna’s heart and brain. She was just about to leave the maximum range of his power as it went off.
[Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.]
Nothing about Kat’s lody changed, which surprised him.
She didn’t get credit for that, he realised, wondering if it was because she wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
Kat turned away from watching the boat, just as Cienna’s body collapsed into it, vanishing from sight. “Are you okay?” she asked, watching his face and noticing whatever odd expression of surprise he was wearing.
Adam gave her a reassuring smile, though on the inside he felt like a monster.
“I didn’t expect you to thank ,” he replied honestly. “Let’s continue killing so vampires, shall we?”
Kat nodded. “I would like to fight a bit more this ti.”
“Don’t worry, there will be plenty of opportunities for that,” Adam told her as they walked away from the edge of the Pious district.
He spared a single glance back out at the lagoon before they rounded a corner.
In the distance, the rowboat continued drifting towards the breakwater, but no one was holding the oars.
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