Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

The vampire continued with his horrid laugh for about another five seconds before he devolved into a coughing fit and went silent. Blood pooled out of his open wounds and his dead eyes stared into Arthur.

‘The captain's initial assessment of the situation was clearly incorrect. It appears this lord Darius has created other vampires and we only found one of their dumping grounds.’ Arthur’s train of thought was interrupted by several doors creaking open and just as many gasps of shock. Several people that were hiding in their rooms decided after the commotion had died down to take a look at what happened and saw blood all over the floor.

Soon several members of the city guard arrived led by the lieutenant. Their steel armor like a beacon of hope in the shroud of uncertainty. “Sir if you would, please come with us to a secure location. You are no longer safe here.” Lieutenant Aloysius spoke as he practically dragged Arthur away from the whispering crowd already spreading rumors.

“And where would I go so that this lord Darius would not be able to find me?” Arthur reluctantly followed the lieutenant's lead as cleaned the blood of his sword.

“For now the barracks will be the safest place, lots of sentries and too little space for an assassin to move freely.” Lieutenant Aloysius waved three guards over to his location.

“You three will be responsible for escorting Mr. Arthur here to the barracks where he will be staying until we can find a way to crush this vampire cult.” The three guards nodded and saluted.

“Don’t worry sir, we will keep Mr. Arthur here safe or die trying.” The one dwarf in the group spoke up.

“For your sake I certainly hope so.”

*******

The trip to the barracks was long but uneventful, at that time of night everyone was already long asleep except a handful of drunks and homeless beggars with no place to go. When they arrived at the barracks the trio directed Arthur to speak with Captain Pelagius about the situation that transpired.

“A vampire assassin attacked you?!” Captain Pelagius became pale.

“Yes, and he said his lord Darius would send another and I would disappear and be forgotten like those that came before.” Arthur fiddled around with his sword as he spoke.

“This is bad, very very bad.” Captain Pelagius paced around the room for several seconds before he came to a stop and sighed. “I was hoping to avoid this but it appears we have no choice. We need to inform the King and Queen of this matter.”

“And why do we need to do that?” Arthur looked up from his sword. This was the first time he had actually heard anything about the ruling class of the Rathen Kingdom.

“This is clearly out of my depth. We only expected one vampire to be involved but your near death experience has shown that we were clearly mistaken. That secret graveyard you found was likely only one of many corpse disposal spots that we found which leads me to believe that this vampire cult has been established here for far longer than we expected and definitely has higher numbers than we thought.” The captain punched the nearby wall in frustration. “And we have no way of smoking the vampires out on our own. We simply have no experience in this regard and the last of the vampire hunting clans have long disappeared into legend. Our only chance to end this threat is to ask the royals for help.”

“And why is that a bad thing?” Arthur asked. ‘From everything he just stated it should be a good move, yet he acts like it will doom us.’

“Because a good portion of the nobility will use it as evidence of my incompetence and try to have me replaced with someone more willing to follow their agendas. The most likely pick will be Ballio Vinicius, the man who would have been chosen instead of me.”

A long silence filled the room as the captain weighed his options and Arthur watched.

Soon a knock alerted Captain Pelagius to the task at hand. “You may enter.”

Lieutenant Aloysius entered the room and gave a salute before he spoke. “We inspected the scene of the crime and collected evidence, as well as conducted an autopsy on the assailant. The autopsy revealed a number of differences in his biology compared to a normal human that are commonly attributed with vampirism and the weapons he carried bore the same symbol as the one we received from the cultists yesterday.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No sir.”

“Then you are dismissed.”

Lieutenant Aloysius gave a quick salute before he left the room leaving Arthur and the captain alone once again. Captain Pelagius looked to the grey orb on his desk contemplating what to do for about a minute before he noticed Arthur was looking right at him.

“Just so you know I am expecting you to inform the royals of the situation here. I really don’t want to die, let alone to a vampire.” Arthur’s gaze felt like it was burning into his skull. Reluctantly Captain Pelagius picked up the grey orb and contacted the clerks for the royals. “We have a serious problem here in the city.”

**********

“How could this have happened!?”

“Whose oversight was this!?”

“This is unacceptable!”

Several voices of the present nobles voiced their opinions of the situation. A vampire cult had been operating within the capital city of the Rathen kingdom itself. A backwater village or a medium sized city would be understandable or at least forgiven but the capital itself!? Many heads were going to roll for this.

“We must send in the military to drive the beasts from the hole they are hiding in!”

“That would never work! They would simply wait until we give up and start all over again!”

“And just what solutions have you suggested so far!?”

“Silence!” King Gaius Caesar the third shouted as he slammed the bottom of his scepter onto the floor. “We are here to find a solution to the present issue, not argue amongst ourselves. Now does anyone else have any suggestions?”

“I do your majesty.” A human man in his mid forties wearing a luscious deep red robe with a well crafted long black stole that went around his neck like a scarf spoke as he walked into the center of the room onto one of the pedestals where he could be seen and heard by all in the room.

King Gaius looked at the man and his attire recognizing who he was. He was brother Ballio, a priest of the god of fire, justice, and light Solarius. “What do you have in mind brother Ballio?”

“I think the best thing that can be done is to request the assistance of the circle of fire, specifically a division of paladins to help keep order in the city and keep the vampires from claiming any more victims.” As brother Ballio spoke, a handful of paladins that were standing off to the side nodded and agreed with him.

“Of course, it is the only possible course of action.”

“It is our duty to protect the innocent from such terrors of the night.”

“In the name of our lord we will vanquish these vile creatures.”

“And how would we drive the vampires out of hiding? Out of the kindness of your hearts? I don’t think so, we need a more permanent solution.” A human man in his sixties walked down to a pedestal opposite of brother Ballio.

“And what are you suggesting, Claudius.” Brother Ballio sneered at the priest of Xardas.

“I am suggesting that we lay a trap from this self-proclaimed vampire lord. If I recall correctly there was a young man who caught the attention of the cult and was almost assassinated by a vampire spawn.” Claudius looked around the room as spoke. “I expect that most of you know of this. And if any of you have studied the behavior of vampires and their cults you will know that they do not like to leave loose ends. They will either try to kill him or recruit him into their ranks.”

Everyone present in the stands began talking amongst themselves about the revelation.

“This gives us an opportunity to have them lead us right to their hideout, we just need someone capable of following them who is skilled in illusion magic and either have them return with the location or give us a sigh as to where it is.”

The entire room erupted into a debate with everyone arguing with or against Claudius and his plan. Even the other priests were not left out of this, everyone from the priests of Aquanis to the devoted of Zephyrion got involved.

Soon the only people who were not a part of the debate were the king, the queen, and the king's secretary who was becoming visibly uncomfortable with the increasing arguments. “You should do something dear, or we may never come to a decision on this matter.” Queen Caesar whispered to her husband as she saw the secretary sneak a sip from his flask to calm his nerves.

“Yes I suppose you are right.” King Gaius sighed and stood up from his throne and shouted. “Silence! That is enough fighting, we need a solution and after hearing from both of you I have one.” The room quieted down considerably after hearing King Gaius’s statement and waited patiently for what he would propose.

“We need to keep the vampire cult from claiming anymore lives but we cannot stop them completely or else they will simply lay low and disappear until we have long forgotten them. But we also need to find the enemy and destroy them in one fell swoop, therefore I suggest that we combine both of the well thought out plans that we have heard today.”

The crowd began talking again, but this time they were far more civil and willing to listen. The idea of bringing paladins to the city didn’t sit all that well with some but it was a small price to pay to keep the vampires from simply waltzing around as they wish.

“Brother Ballio, how many paladins were you going to suggest that we ask for from the circle of fire?” King Gaius asked as the conversation started dying down giving him an opportunity to iron out the details and set the plan into motion.

“I was going to recommend at least 100 paladins, but with your present plan it may be better to lower that to only 50.” Brother Ballio did not look at the king as he spoke, instead he looked down at his hands in shame of not stopping the priest of Xardas from spreading their ideas.

“And you Claudius, do you have any suggestions for who could follow the young man into the vampire's base of operations?”

“As of right now I do not. But I do have some contacts within the mages guild that may be willing to give me a few names.”