Before Arthur managed to reach the Territory of Blood, a contingent of vampires materialised out of the fog to meet them. A high-vampire led the group, a woman Iris had told him was named Elaina. A familiar rage washed over him as he beheld the creatures, but he firmly tamped it down. While he doubted he’d ever see the blood-suckers eye to eye, that didn’t mean he had to be their mortal enemy. He couldn't blame an entire species for the crimes of a few. Though he told himself that, the rage didn't just fade away.
By the time the two groups met outside the Territory, Arthur hoped he’d managed to adopt a halfway decent smile.
“Well met, Originator Ward. I've heard a lot about you." Elaina said, a taut smile on her face.
“I wish I could say the same, but I am woefully underprepared. Miss Elaina.”
The vampiress hadn’t extended an arm for a handshake, so Arthur refrained, too. Elaina’s gaze shifted to Iris, “I take it you're here to discuss negotiations with my people.”
“I wouldn’t put such diplomatic spin on it,” Iris replied. “Your elders have only made demands. They have negotiated nothing.”
Elaina’s strained smile became more brittle. “I work with what I have, Seer. You know this. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I do everything in my power to ensure our forces do not clash; I'm the grease stuck between the cogs of a giant machine, giving up parts of myself to ensure things continue to run smoothly. It’s a wonder I haven’t been assassinated yet.”
Iris’s expression softened. “I’ve never heard the role of a diplomat described like that, but it fits well. Let's pray today goes better than our predictions.”
“We’ve set up a meeting hall in the castle. My elders await you there,” Elaina said.
That immediately raised a bunch of red flags. “Is that wise?” he asked Iris. “Meeting on grounds where we’re so disadvantaged is a recipe for disaster.” Especially with Gaia along. He left that part unsaid.
Arthur was confident in his power, but these weren't normal circumstances. He had a thirty-minute lease on consciousness, his strongest trait was on cooldown, and his recovery rate was reduced by 93%. Meeting elder vampires on Territory that greatly favoured them while being so weakened was pure foolishness.
“I don’t think it’ll descend to fighting, will it?” Iris said, fixing Elaina with a glare. “Even if the vampires miraculously won, they’d be throwing away their lives. If my father didn’t kill them first, The Council would come knocking sooner or later. You owe them a service, now, and they don’t take kindly to others stealing from them.”
Elaina visibly paled at the indirect threat, though the vampires with her didn’t possess the intelligence to know when to shut up. A young vampire female barred her fangs, her muscles tensing for explosive movement. What happened next was so fast, it appeared blurry even to Arthur. Elaina’s arm tore through the air, and the next moment, she had the young vampire's detached head in her hands.
“I’m sorry you had to see such an unseemly sight,” Elaina said, tossing the girl's head to the side, where it bounced with a disconcerting sound of bone breaking. “Margaret is only freshly turned. She’s not used to controlling her impulses yet.”
“Is,” Arthur repeated, feeling faintly disgusted. “You just killed the poor girl.”
Elaina chuckled. “You don’t know much about our kind, do you. I merely detached her head from her shoulders. And I guess I broke her nose with that throw. It’ll take a lot more than that to kill a vampire, though, especially so close to our Territory. No, we’ll just be putting Margaret in time out for a while until she’s learned her lesson.”
Arthur whistled. “Remind me never to get in your bad books. If that's what discipline looks like, I hate to see what you do to your enemies."
Elaina flashed him a smile. “I sincerely doubt I could replicate this feat with you. I’d tear the muscles in my wrist much sooner than I could rip your head off, I would think.”
“Let's not put that to the test.”
“I would much rather not, Mr Ward, outside the boundaries of a friendly spar.”
Arthur knew it was rude, but he let his curiosity get the better of him and used the Homunculus' Eye on the vampiress.
If the vampiress didn’t like his intrusion, she didn’t say anything about it. Elaina was far from the highest level individual he’d faced in combat, but he knew how little those things actually mattered for the truly strong. Case in point, himself.
“Let's hurry things up,” Iris said. “We’re a little pressed for time, and I’m sure you have better things to do than entertain us.”
He might just be imagining things, but there was a slight edge to his girlfriend's voice he wasn’t used to hearing. Going by the slight smirk on Alyssia’s face, he wasn’t mistaken.
“Of course,” Elaina said. “I’ll take you to the hall right away.”
Following the vampires into their Territory went against every survival instinct he had, but he trusted that Iris wasn’t walking them to their deaths. The one benefit the Territory brought was the higher ether density, nearing the peak of tier 1. He now had a whole fourteen extra minutes to work with, enough time to... do nothing much. On second thoughts, it wasn’t so great.
Arthur could feel the hostile gazes of hundreds of vampires as he walked through the cobbled streets. They’d multiplied in number since he’d last been here. Arthur wondered how many of them were part of Earth's native population. Vampires didn’t tend to procreate, after all. They propagated by infecting others with the curse of vampirism, with natural births making up less than a percent of their numbers. In that regard, Elaina Nightshade was a rare anomaly.
As much as he trusted Iris, Arthur kept a wary eye out for any ambushes. He had to reluctantly admit the vampires had a taste for design. Any single one of the elements that made up their construction, from the Gothic brickwork to the creepily stained glass, would have looked odd alone, but joined together, it created a work of art greater than the sum of its parts.
“Admiring the architecture, I see,” Elaina said, interrupting his musings. “I actually designed most of it, you know.”
Gaia, who’d been silent up till now, finally spoke up. She was still riding on his shoulders, and if the vampires thought anything strange of it, they at least had the common sense not to let it show. “So you’re like a builder then?” she asked excitedly. “Do you know how to use a crane?”
Elaina looked stumped for a second, but she recovered quickly. “We don’t use cranes for our buildings, little Miss. We use magic,” she said, sparks of red and blue fizzling from her fingertips. Gaia let go of his hair to clap her hands, and Arthur subconsciously adjusted his posture to ensure Gaia didn’t fall backwards.
“Not a fan of the design,” Alyssia said. “Too much stone and not enough wood. It feels suffocating.”
Arthur let the conversation wash over him as they walked through the streets. The women seemed to bond over a shared appreciation for proper house design, even Iris interjecting with some points on fae construction. Arthur wondered how much of the pleasantries were genuine.
Finally, they arrived at the castle, where the guards quickly waved them in. Elaina’s entourage was left behind. Arthur immediately gave up on memorising the route they took in the castle when he saw the walls moving like they were in some kind of magical labyrinth. Worst came to worst, he would just break out the old-fashioned way, by making a new exit.
The door to the meeting room was unassuming. Solid wood, just like every other door they’d passed through, with metal reinforcing it. The power he could feel coming from behind the door, however, was the real deal, comparable, perhaps, to what he’d felt coming from Shylo before the whole Haadran decided to supercharge him. Powerful, then, but nothing he hadn’t faced before. Just never when I’m so vulnerable, the wiser part of his brain reminded him.
There was a slight twist in one of the auras behind the door, a sign of some sort, going by Elaina’s reaction, and then the door was open, and they were walking through. This was all happening very fast. In his experience, powerful people liked to keep you waiting as some sort of posturing ritual. Arthur took everything in. There was a massive round table in the centre of the room, the kind that any meeting of legitimacy needed.
Around it were seated eight vampires, ranging from a boy who appeared to be eleven years old to an old crone who looked like she had both feet in the grave already. Arthur threw politeness to the wind and analysed all of these old monsters. They were very powerful, with the weakest amongst them being level 281. The young boy was surprisingly the strongest, and his aura had a qualitative difference from all those around him. The signs of beginner law mastery, Arthur mused. It was either that or something very similar.
The boy, Lestor, his eyes had told him, indicated to the four available chairs, three regular-sized ones and a tiny raised one for Gaia.
“Come, sit.” Lester's voice was high-pitched and youthful. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you all.”
The three of them sat down. Gaia remained perched on his shoulders. The old crone's eye twitched at the sight, but she held her tongue.
“The man of the hour has finally arrived. Mr Ward, we can finally proceed with negotiations. I take it Iris has already informed you of our desires.”
Arthur nodded. “You want complete sovereignty over this Territory and a hundred and fifty miles around it, space which you eventually plan to expand your Territory to cover. You also want my help bringing over your Blood Ancestor and want to sign a non-aggression pact that will last for the next century. Is that right?”
Lestor smiled. “You‘ve summarised it perfectly, Mr Ward. In return, we’ll supply you with our finest supply of refined vampire blood, 500 litres of Epic grade and above yearly. We'll also help you combat the lich queen and use our mastery over undeath to prevent her from tainting the planet too fast. We'll pay in System credits for any blood we need to consume on Earth, and will only turn humans who volunteer for the process. Any global threat that this world faces is one that we will support you in completely. This I swear upon my blood."
Going by the sharp intakes of breath from everyone in the room, most of them being creatures who didn't need to breathe, swearing on your blood was apparently a big thing. Arthur was silent for a while. Time was ticking. He had 19 minutes to wrap this up. Most would jump at the opportunity to make such a powerful ally, especially when their demands simply boiled down to his leaving them alone.
Arthur remembered the explosion that had destroyed his home, the wet squelch his body had made as he'd pulled himself off the corpse of his neighbour. It seemed he wasn't as forgiving as he claimed to be.
For the first time since he'd returned to Earth, Arthur allowed his aura to unfurl. It awoke like a slumbering beast and descended upon the room,
"I have a few amendments to make."
Links to the audiobooks.
Etherious: Originator
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