Blood Shaper

The elongating vampyr spat out dozens of half-finished insults and derogatory remarks as Kay pursued it across the length of the room. It didn’t ever managed to finish one completely as Kay’s relentless chase and constant attacks continuously cut it off. The tendrils growing from it’s body looped around and tried to stab into Kay’s back but they melted on contact with his armor and didn’t have the force to punch through as they degraded. The vampyr made swirling barriers that matched the one covering the door to shield itself from an incessant barrage of ranged attacks and Kay charging up to it to slice into it’s twisted body as they both danced through the air just below the ceiling.

Below them dozens of elite level vampyr fighters squared off against a mixed group of Shatterplate Order hunters and Kay’s Blood Guard, ostensibly led by the Order’s Commander Edric Ravenhome. None of the fighters on Avalon’s side were elites, the Blood Guard were half-bodyguards half-personal soldiers, the hunters were Ravenhome’s personal team built around getting him to a target so he could assassinate them, and Ravenhome himself was an assassin, not a fighter. Looking at it with just those pieces of information, the non-vampyr were heavily outmatched with Kay focusing his efforts on the vampyr blocking the way forward. The other pieces of data that were just as important in determining the real balance of power between the two sides, if not more so, were based around the mere existence of vampyr.

It was and had been for many, many centuries, a well known and discussed point. Vampyr were mad. It was only fairly recently that the why of their madness had been discovered, or rediscovered if you believed in certain newer theories being bandied about, specifically in the Order, but the fact that all vampyr were different levels of insane was widely known. The elite vampyr serving as a final, or hopefully final, line of defense for the vampyr’s leader were all powerful fighters with deadly Skills and Classes that in most cases were made more deadly by the way the eldritch taint that they were infested with mutated their bodies, minds, and abilities, and all of them were dangerous opponents. They were also all insane and powerful and deadly or not insane people are automatically at a disadvantage against sane people in a fight. Some people might point toward certain types of madness making someone a better fighter as they had no fear of pain or death, but while those kinds of enemies might be very deadly on an individual level they’re also very easy to kill if you know what you’re doing, since they let injuries accumulate without paying them any attention. Self-preservation is one of the most important parts of wining a fight as opposed to a battle.

The only person that would decide to cram a bunch of insane monsters into a room as defenders is someone who is also insane, and the vampyr proved why immediately. Even with these specific vampyr being the most in control of themselves and the least delusional among the deadly combatants the vampyr had access to, they were still insane, delusional monsters. When the battle started less than half of the vampyr attacked the line of soldiers and hunters aiming to get past them. Some of them just stood still, not yet processing that the fight had started. Three of them turned and ran, two down different hallways and out of sight and one into the barrier supported by the vampyr Kay was fighting, where it started lashing out at the barrier and trying to break it. The rest started attacking everything around them, other vampyr and attackers included. The defenders side of the room immediately turned into carnage and chaos as vampyr fought vampyr to the death, all of them letting out shrieks, screams, expletives, and in two cases, monologues.

The most important factor that determined how the fight in the deserted palace of Nelam would go was that the defenders didn’t know who was going to attack them and had no way to prepare, even if they could have pierced the fog of madness each of them carrier in order to do so. The attackers however, didn’t need to know exactly who was going to be in their way. They were all going to be vampyr, and that was enough to prepare. As soon as the vampyr began to rip into each other two Blood Guard dropped the barrels they’d been carrying and with a flex of their will and mana sent the contents flying. A thick coat of Kay’s blood covered all of the vampyr and started burning at them like acid. These weren’t the weak fodder outside the palace that instantly died or were seriously injured by the purifying properties of Kay’s blood, but they were still hurt and their injuries continued to grow over time. A few of the vampyr attacking mindlessly at anything that moved managed to make a connection between their new pain and the people throwing things at them and started fighting the Blood Guard and hunters, but they weren’t enough to change anything. While Kay continued to chase the vampyr that was running from him the vampyr’s below were butchered by Blood Guard who tore them apart, destroyed by their own “allies”, or suddenly and unexpectedly died to a threat they never even processed was there.

When the outcome of the fight below became evident some of the Order’s hunters stopped picking off the vampyr in the back and started helping Kay try to hem in the one running from him. It’s concentration was split between keeping Kay away from it, blocking the new projectiles coming its way from below, and dealing with the relentless waves of blood trying to engulf it. More and more vampyr bodies started piling up and more attacks started heading the way of the slippery jellyfish-like vampyr. Frustration mixed with hate in it’s eyes as it continued to try and lecture or insult Kay, it’s mouth moving almost independently of everything else that was happening. With the wall of vampyr blocking access to the lower section of it’s body gone people started hacking at the tendrils there but it had already anchored most of it’s weight to the ceiling and arches that divided the hallways from the room and it either retracted the tentacles still at ground level or let them be severed. Dozens of makeshift, bulky limbs fashioned from tentacles fusing themselves together started generating eyestrain inducing barriers to ward off arrows, javelins, blasts of magic, and of course, blood. Two bundles of hundreds of writhing tendrils started weaving themselves together behind the monster’s back as it was forced back toward one of the corners where the walls met the ceiling.

The masses of tendrils melded into two bulky arms with fingerless nubs at the end with just the barest hint of knuckles that all began to glow with the same painful colors as the rest of it’s barriers. A sphere of power sprung up around the vampyr that failed to budge against any attack, no matter how many were thrown at it. Kay hammered into it with swords, spears, hammers, fists, waves, and condensed beams of blood, to no effect and even Edric’s mysterious movement Skill he wouldn’t talk about failed to make it’s way inside the shield.

After several minutes of trying to break through, Kay gave up. “We’re wasting time. If it wants to be a coward and hide in it’s shell it won’t change anything. We’ll just break through one of the side passages to get past it’s barrier.” He gestured at the contingent of Blood Guard. “Set a few people here to keep hammering it’s barrier. We don’t want it coming up behind us.”

With three people left behind to keep launching attacks at the vampyr, they picked a hallway that was in generally the right direction and started hammering at the walls. They were in what had once been the palace of a powerful nation and the physical construction was impressive, not to mention the enchantments and other protections that were still functioning. Breaking through took time, but Edric insisted that Kay save as much mana and strength as possible. He could have torn through the walls in moments, but Edric refused to let him and everyone else agreed. There were over two dozen people available though and either the builders and architects for the palace hadn’t been that worried about sappers being inside the building or the enchantments to protect against that had been disabled or broken and they were through the wall in under ten minutes.

They actually broke into another servants passage before the actual hallway they were after, one that wasn’t accessible in other portions of the palace. They quickly found a door to squeeze through which dumped them into a dark hallway with oppressive shadows cast about by tiny fragments of light. Enchanted objects meant to illuminate the hallway had been taken from the alcoves built for them or smashed to pieces at some point, with only the occasional remaining one that worked giving bits of distant light as they passed it. The ceiling was high and vaulted, but the architecture meant to awe with grandeur was dark and sinister with the lack of light and all the decorations ripped away.

Something about the space tripped every warning in Kay’s brain and he wasn’t the only one. Instead of rushing ahead the invading group made their way forward cautiously, looking out for an ambush they all felt coming. The shadows cast by the light they brought with them and the distant, still working light sources were shaped into beasts and attackers that had people jumping and lashing out randomly. No one hit anything, including their companions thankfully, and tensions continued to rise as they progressed.

Kay felt himself getting more and more aggravated with every few feet they slowly plodded down, but it wasn’t until his own fangs stabbed into his bottom lip as he snarled in frustration that he realized something was wrong.

“Dammit, this isn’t real!” He barked and threw out a wall of blood in all directions. It swept up and around his allies, leaving them unmarked, but it quickly slammed into something else that struggled furiously against the blood before Kay formed dozens of spikes that he drove into it. As soon as the figure stopped thrashing the bleak darkness faded away, revealing a normal looking hallway that wasn’t anywhere near as dark as it had been and the party clumped up in a group a few steps away form the door they’d entered through. A few feet away was a twisted caricature of a person mixed with a crab that had been impaled all over it’s body.

There was a shriek of rage and the hall began to shake after the vampyr illusionist died. Kay whipped around to look in behind them, where the barrier separating them from the room they’d fought in vanished. Two bodies encased in red armor flew across the opening and slammed into the wall and then hundreds of tendrils invaded the hallway, completely choking every inch of space.

“Run!” Edric screamed, and everyone started sprinting down the hallway.

Kay ignored that and started lashing out and destroying tentacles. Pressurized streams and diced the wall of grasping biological threads that flooded into the hallway until familiar sickly magical barriers formed over all of them, encasing them like armor. Here and there some of them broke and the tendrils they protected died, but not enough of them to stem the tide. Kay cursed and turned to run, throwing attacks over his shoulder as he gained ground. He caught up with everyone else quickly while still pruning the tentacles that chased them.

“There’s the end of the hall!” Edric shouted, pointing in front of them. “There’s no way that vampyr can extend infinitely! Once we get into the open space we can turn-“

Dozens more tentacles burst out from inside the walls ahead of them and began shredding the walls and ceiling like maddened blenders. The ones behind them started ripping pieces of masonry away from cracked sections that formed and started throwing them in a furious rage. Somewhere behind the forest of elongated limbs the vampyr shrieked with rage as it started destroying the entire hallway.

“Never mind!” Edric shouted over the sudden din. He shoved Kay forward. “Go! With how pissed it is, that has to be where it’s ‘Great One’ is hiding! Go! We’ll hold it back!”

Kay only hesitated for half a second before throwing himself toward the end of the hall. Barriers sprung up to block his path and chunks of stone torn from the building rained down all around him as the vampyr intensified it’s assault against him specifically. Shielded tendrils tried to bash him into the floor and tangle around his limbs but he tore through them with savage attacks, literally using his teeth to rip one away from him several times. The building began to tremble and shake even harder as mroe and more pieces of it were ripepd away and used as weapons and tendrils began to burst through the floor and ceiling to try and grab Kay before he got away. He didn’t look back as he cut weathered the attacks against him, nor did he when he made it to the outermost shell of tendrils and cut through them into a small, lavishly decorated room with a single door. He only looked back when the hallway gave way and collapsed behind him, coasting him in a cloud of rock dust and fragments, and crushing the few remaining tendrils that had been trying to drag him backward.

“Fuck!” Kay slammed a fist angrily against the debris filling the hallway behind him. His people might still be back there fighting against the vampyr, or they might have all been crushed with it. He hated what he had to do next, but it was what he had to do. He turned and walked away from the pile of rubble. He quietly prayed inside his mind to whatever might be out there that they hadn’t died, but that was all he could do for them in that moment.

It was oddly quiet inside the little sitting room and he chalked that up to enchantments or some other magical means of making what had obviously been a place to retreat for privacy into a relaxing location. It was odd to be having this confrontation in what felt like completely silence, with a battle going on outside and the only hallway leading here destroyed just moments ago. Kay didn’t let that get to him and wrenched the single door open, his free hand already holding a sword he formed in his grasp.

He’d expected a bedroom or something similar based on the room he’d just passed through, but instead found himself stepping into a miniature throne room. There was a dais at the top of a few steps with a broken throne on top of it. The throne’s back was cracked and the top portion had been tossed in a corner and the seat of it looked like it had been cut in half but remained upright. There were massive curtains hanging from the ceiling that covered equally large windows behind the throne, but they were drawn making the room fairly dark. Dozens of bits of paper were strewn everywhere and the rugs and carpets that had once been here were torn up and ripped to shreds, with pieces of them sitting everywhere, on the ground, hanging from the broken throne, even some on the curtain rods. A once opulent area for Glowl to amuse himself with his importance, or at least Kay supposed, was destroyed and left in tatters.

A man was staring down at a single table that had obviously been dragged into the room, which dozens of papers were scattered across. As Kay walked in he turned to look. He was draped in a large flowing outfit that looked to be part cape and part cloak made of bright white fabric with golden trim. The pants and shirt beneath it were similarly fashioned but had slightly thinner golden trim at the edges. On his bald head was a thing cap that came up into an eye catching point right above his face, in the same color as the rest of his outfit. The man cocked his head at Kay, blinking his overly large and too-bright green eyes. He opened his mouth the speak, revealing long fangs that marked him as not a man, but a vampyr.

“I’m sorry,” The creature that had to be the “Great One” that the more talkative vampyr liked to go on about said in a calm, almost gentle voice. “Do you have an appointment?”