‘Look like I’m taking lead on this,’ John thought to himself as he stepped into the murky water. It was fairly shallow. He didn’t know what was supposed to be in this dungeon, but he was sure he’d know whenever it did finally show up.
He felt a hand rest on his hide, so he looked back and saw that the woman wanted him to wait for her to get on. He huffed again and watched as she nimbly mounted him. She had an arrow knocked on her bow at the ready.
‘I imagine that the big castle is our destination,’ he thought as he sloshed through the water. The buffoon he’d dropped on his head followed behind, moaning and groaning as water soaked into his cheap garb and more than likely flooded his boots.
John felt strange. He didn’t feel nearly as anxious or vulnerable as he thought he would when stepping into a dungeon. Its sole purpose was literally to kill them, but his new body left him feeling empowered. Far more powerful than he’d ever felt as a human.
The castle in the distance looked European, standing at an impressive seven stories with several different coned towers. He hadn’t caught sight or sound of anything moving around them, though he knew something was here. It wasn’t until they were halfway to the castle that he realized something was very wrong.
A heavy fog had descended around them and obscured any semblance of vision that John previously had. It was brief, a not-so-nice surprise awaited them when it lifted.
They were surrounded.
Pale humanoid figures crouched on the branches of the trees far above. He hadn’t heard them move, but there were more than he could count.
“Vampires,” his Contractor whispered out. “This is bad. Without Essence, I can’t hurt them.”
The trees weren’t too thick, so he quickly lashed out at the closest one with his tail and watched as the pale humanoid leaped to another branch. His strikes did manage to fell the tree, though his effort had been for naught.
John looked back towards the brutish idiot and saw that he at least had the sense to pull his sword out. He stared at the sword for a moment, feeling a strange energy inside.
“An interesting situation you’ve found yourself in, variant,” one of the vampires hissed, but John understood what it said. “What kind of variant are you?”
John decided that talking with them would at least give him time to try and figure out what their options were. He cawed back, doubting if they would understand what he tried to say. “I’m not saying. Any idea where the exit is?”
The vampire’s eyes narrowed, “Why are you here, variant? You have these humans with you. Don’t tell me you wanted to come and kill us.”
John shook his head, “I would prefer if we didn’t have to fight. We sought refuge in the dead of night and wandered into this dungeon by mistake.”
“Well, looks like we’ll just have to show you what we do to trespassers.” It dropped down towards John and chaos broke loose.
His tails struck out and decapitated one of the creatures with each attack. He felt a strange energy flow into his body, though it quickly dissipated as his Contractor shot out with a bolt of the strange magic she used.
“Sorry, but this is all I can do to help.”
His tails were effective at keeping them at bay, but he could only attack with them so fast. His beak took chunks of their flesh away and his talons rent them into ribbons, but he quickly realized that these creatures must be vampires. They quickly healed when not decapitated and kept trying to bite his Contractor and the brutish idiot.
Surprisingly enough, John felt something growing inside the sword. They tried to attack the brute from behind, their weariness of the sword quite obvious, and he would clip them from time to time. A tiny cut would fester until the vampires exploded in chunks of gore.
John could feel a deep satisfaction from inside the sword. He shrieked in rage as he was caught off guard. The vampire he talked to had his hand elbow deep in his side. John quickly bit the vampire’s head off and spit it back out.
His Contractor looked back at the wound and spoke through grit teeth as though she could feel his intense pain. She put her bow on her back and reached down with both hands. “Keep us safe. I need to heal you.”
He redoubled his focus on defending them from the massive swarm that continued their assault. They glided through the air using some sort of levitation magic, though it limited just how fast they could move. When they were in the air, his tails rarely missed his target.
He felt more and more energy flow into him as his accuracy got better, though his Contractor quickly drained it. He felt the stitching of his open wound. Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to take a quick peek.
A dark webbing slowly extended across the wound and began stitching his wound closed. It looked like an intricate lattice that grew into flesh until it molded into his skin like he’d never been injured.
‘That’s useful,’ John thought to himself as he lashed out at two more vampires with his tails. ‘I feel like I’m imitating a scorpion. It’s pretty cool.’
The swarm of vampires slowly receded as they made short work with efficient strikes. The brute’s sword strikes were incredibly helpful, though it made John worry when he felt something awake from inside.
It felt like it wanted to devour him, and that made him wary of the sword. He didn’t want to find out what would happen if it cut him after he saw so many gorey chunks of vampire floating on the surface of the murky water.
It wasn’t long before the vampires decided that their casualties grew higher than the worth they’d get from killing John and company, retreating away towards the safety of the castle.
‘I guess that clears up the mystery of what we’ll be fighting, though, they didn’t seem all that impressive. Sure, there were a ton of them, but they died easily enough.’
He looked over at his Contractor for guidance on their next move. She bit her lip as she considered their options, looking around for any place for them to shelter themselves and recover.
He could feel a strange energy swirling about in his chest and it flowed through their bond into his Contractor. If he had to describe it, he’d call it a tank that was half full. Completely filling the tank would do…
‘Who knows what?’ he thought to himself, enjoying the warmth that the energy provided.
John also looked around idly, scouting out the area. The extent of the cave they entered really didn’t afford them many places to hide, so they would just have to be content with finding somewhere dry to recover and hope that they’d done enough to keep the vampires at bay.
His Contractor started when he walked forward towards a small strip of land. It was soft and mushy under his weight, but it got him out of the water.
‘Good enough,’ he thought as he lay down to rest. The fight had been the first true test of his ability and it left him exhausted. The wound had drained him and the healing had taken its toll. His stomach growled loudly and the brute jumped in fright.
“You did well,” his Contractor said softly, softly petting his head between his horns. It soothed John’s nerves and helped him sleep, his hunger taking second to the exhaustion he felt.
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