Fates of Grenora: Return of the Night

"What do you want us to do?" Pierre asked as they trekked through the woods.

The cool breeze that drifted between the trees ruffled Aldrin's hair, the night encompassing him like an old lover he returned to. Relishing the feeling of his strength returning with the night, he let a smile slip across his face. Until he caught himself smiling, then scowled.

Quickly masking his scowl, "Well, do you guys want levels?" Aldrin asked, peering back at them over his shoulder.

"Who doesn't want levels?" Jared piped up, laughing at himself.

"Then just follow my lead," Aldrin said, refusing to admit he had no plan.

Jared and Pierre looked at each other briefly before shrugging their shoulders and following along.

"From here, we must be quiet. There are people ahead," Aldrin warned them, pointing to his vampiric ears.

The bandits gathered around the campfire, laughing and eating, unaware that a predator and his newly made minions were stalking these woods again. Identify labeled the group as having two Level 8 Tier 1 Fighters, one level 12 Apprentice Geomancer(T2 Mage), and one level 11 Tracker(T2 Rogue).

Aldrin took one look at Pierre and Jared, nodding his head towards the unsuspecting group. Jared readied his bow, nocking an arrow and taking a stance as a warm green glow surrounded his arrow tip. Pierre unsheathed his daggers, moving up with Aldrin, stalking towards the group. Aldrin gestured at Pierre to take out the Tracker(T2 Rogue).

Aldrin got out his Iron Spear and prepared to throw it at the Apprentice Geomancer. Taking a deep breath, which felt unnatural to do now, he waited for Pierre to strike.

The fire flickered once, nominating that as the signal, Pierre struck the Tracker in the kidneys, causing him to silently choke on his own blood. Jared and Aldrin released their attacks. ‌Aldrin's spear ripped through the Apprentice Geomancer while Jared's arrow struck the back of one of the Fighter's shoulder bones.

With their sneak attack done, Jared knocked another arrow and sent it flying while Aldrin moved up to be with Pierre as he weaved around a Fighter that was left unharmed in the initial attack. Bulldozing his way through the low bush of the forest, Aldrin let out a blood stopping roar, causing all the bandits, including Pierre, to freeze. Raising his blade, Aldrin activated Cleaving Strikes, his longsword taking on a sickly yellow color along the blade, striking through the Fighter that occupied Pierre and onto the next Fighter that stood next to him. The first Fighter was bisected at the waist and the second had his shield obliterated into pieces, leaving his arm a mangled mess of sinew and bone.

Without missing a beat, Aldrin rushed towards the Apprentice Geomancer when his hands glowed with a green mist that started flowing and spreading into the gaping hole in his stomach from where Aldrin's spear went clean through. Healing as much as he could, the Apprentice Geomancer looked up to see a monster trampling towards him.

Aldrin used Shapechange to turn into a swarm of bats when the Apprentice Geomancer started to cast and sling rock spikes at him. The new threat terrified the bandits, causing them to be in disarray as one bandit lay dead already and another two were crippled and slowly dying.

Pierre wasted no time as he rushed over to the Tracker that uncorked a red liquid potion and chug it down as quickly as he could. Tackling him back to the ground, Pierre and Tracker wrestled for dominance, each grunting in exertion, trying to gain the upper hand. Jared shot arrows from his cover of darkness, turning the Fighter with a mangled arm into a pincushion of arrows. Seeing Pierre in a struggle, he aimed at the two, turning his newest arrow into a brightly lit white arrow.

"Cover your eyes!" Jared shouted to his comrades. Pierre immediately disengaged the grappling match while Aldrin had flown upwards.

His Blinding Shot briefly bathed the surrounding darkness in searing white light, blinding the remaining bandits as they stumbled around. Pierre slit the neck of the Tracker while Aldrin pierced his sword through the heart of the Apprentice Geomancer.

Huffing from the adrenaline, Pierre looked around at the carnage. Aldrin slowly walked up, the smell of different foods driving his desire for blood crazy as he wrestled for self control. Helpless gurgling replaced the usual musical melodies of the night as the Tracker struggled for life still. Unfortunately, he coughed up blood, and that broke the will Aldrin held himself with. Within seconds, he latched onto his neck, draining the dying bandit of the brief life he had left.

"I apologize for that," Aldrin sheepishly said, looking down at the dried husk while wiping his mouth with the remains of the Tracker's shirt.

Jared made himself known again when he came through the bushes with his bow slung over his back. His eyes shone with wonder as he stared at Aldrin.

"Oh my gods. . . THAT WAS INSANE! What are your stats, Mr. Vampire, Sir?" Jared excitedly pleaded, running up to Aldrin and Pierre.

"Pierre! Did you see how fast he was? AND how strong he was?" Jared continued, shaking his friend by the shoulders.

"No one is going to touch us!" He added in his excitement.

Pierre ignored Jared, shaking him, looking at the back of Aldrin, who still did not turn to face them as he listened for more.

"Whatever loot we find on them is yours to keep," Aldrin said, finally turning around to face them after cleaning himself.

Aldrin could have sworn he saw dollar signs glaze over Jared's eyes when he began unceremoniously looting the bodies of his once comrades in arms.

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"Sir, ‌don't you want some of the loot?" Pierre said, lightly kicking Jared to stop him from getting too greedy.

"If I like something, I'll take it, but there's nothing here for me," Aldrin said, unwilling to admit how easily the battle's heat swept him away and how disgusted he was with himself. Aldrin found it strange. He had thought that the spilling of blood would drive him mad, but apparently, the blood of the dead lacked the tantalizing scent of fresh, living blood.

"Something to think about more later," Aldrin mentally said.

Pierre and Jared looted the bodies as fast as they could while Aldrin listened for any patrols of bandits in the area with his hearing. With none in the vicinity, he allowed Pierre and Jared their moment of respite to catch their breath before moving on further towards the bandit camp.

"You must be someone who chose to focus on stats rather than skills?" Pierre inquired.

"No, my race and class just give me a lot of buffs and passives," Aldrin half lied.

"Look, you don't have to trust us, but if we are going to be working together, you can be assured that we will not betray you. Not after seeing you cut a man in half without any struggle," Pierre said, flinching at the memory of seeing the man cut in two right before his eyes.

"I suppose that's fair," Aldrin shrugged his shoulders.

Turning to them, "My name is Aldrin," He said, sticking his hand out.

Pierre and Jared glanced at the hand, then at each other, shrugging his shoulder, "I'm Pierre," shaking Aldrin's hand first, giving him a small smile.

"Jared," Shook Aldrin's hand next and quickly pulled away.

Pierre frowned at his friend when he broke off from the introductions.

"So, what is your goal for doing this?" Pierre asked.

"Doing what?" Aldrin answered.

"Killing the camp? You're a vampire, and an ancient one at that if you are the Vampire Progenitor? Not an adventurer, so we shouldn't matter to you," Pierre suggested.

"Unless. . ." Horror dawned on Pierre's face.

Jared perked up, as did Aldrin at the sudden pause,"Pierre? What is it?" Jared put a hand on his shoulder.

"We are food," Pierre whispered.

Aldrin wanted to guffaw at the thought as the truth of it all wasn't entirely for food but more so for him gaining an understanding of how his new abilities and body operate.

"Think about it Jared, we are on the outskirts of where an undead Dungeon is that has never been closed completely because the Holy Order uses it for training grounds on new recruits and supplies, right?" Pierre said, puzzling it out in his mind.

"Someone goes in that is not with the Holy Order, let alone either stupid enough or had another super organization backing them to go against the Holy Order since they have a claim on the Dungeon, clears it and in doing so, released what stands before us now," Pierre gestured to Aldrin.

"Which leads to the question of what organization would want to bring Vampires back that aren't feral because some ritual or potion for eternal life backfired," Pierre tried to piece together the budding mystery.

"It wouldn't be any organization that-" Pierre started.

"Demons." Aldrin summed it up, making Pierre and Jared look at him like he had grown two heads.

"What?" Jared asked in disbelief.

"Demons did this to me," Aldrin admitted.

"What do you mean they did what to you? How would they do it? Why would they do it?" Pierre asked.

Aldrin cleared his throat and explained his encounter in the dungeon with his group, meeting Kilinos, and then the ritual that he assumed turned him into what he currently is. Pierre and Jared stared in disbelief at the entire story.

"I can't imagine that," Jared empathized, warming up to him now that he understood that not too long ago, Aldrin was just a human like him.

"So what's his goal, then? Kilinos I mean," Pierre asked.

Aldrin frowned when he thought about what Kilinos meant about having big plans, "I honestly do not know but all I know is that I am looking for a cure and you guys were unlucky enough to be close enough for me to get a hang of this before I walk into a town and likely slaughter everyone there," Aldrin admitted.

"Wow," Jared breathed out.

"You guys don't seem like the typical bandits anyway," Aldrin said.

"Well, we weren't even trying to be bandits, they just assumed we were when we came upon them by accident and we have been looking for a way to escape them for a while," Pierre explained.

"They just assumed you were?" Aldrin questioned the plausibility of it.

"When we came here from Earth-" Jared said, Aldrin's eyes widening at the statement.

"You guys are from Earth?!" Aldrin tried his best not to scream so loud.

"Yeah, are you?" Pierre asked skeptically.

"Yeah, but I have been here since I was 8 years old so I guess I am more from here than Earth," Aldrin dimmed down.

"We were in college when it happened and it was terrifying to see chunks of the world vanish in flashes of white on the news suddenly so I can't imagine how it must have been for you to see and the Vitality stat does wonders for our skin," Jared rubbed his hands down his face.

"Where were you guys when your area vanished and reappeared here?" Aldrin asked them, feeling more comfortable now that he found some familiarity with them.

"Most of the city we were in reappeared on the island chains of Imawas? I think that is what it's called?" Jared looked to Pierre for confirmation.

"Yeah, in Imawas, the warring clans vying for control of all the island chains forcefully conscripted us into their civil war," Pierre added.

"At first it was fun because the world was like a game and we were gaining levels as they trained us on killing monsters," Jared excitedly said.

"Then they took us off of killing monsters and towards killing people and that's when we really got a taste for the life and the death that resides on this planet," He added quietly.

"So we smuggled ourselves off the island to here on the major continent of Dremetica," Pierre picked up as a haunted look formed over Jared.

"What about you? Where were you teleported to?" Pierre asked Aldrin.

"The major continent of Dremetica, but we were far from the cities and didn't know where we were," Aldrin started.

"It was my parents, my older brother and sister, and my grandparents," Aldrin said.

"Orcs found us and took us in, but the initial shock of it all gave my grandmother a heart attack, which shattered all of us even more. My grandfather and mom weren't themselves for a while after and the added stress of being under the care of the Orcs didn't help the situation," He continued.

"Eventually the Orcs led us to a human town and dropped us off there but by that time we had already spent two years with them and understood how the world worked and that the system wouldn't bloom for us until we were of age whatever that meant‌," He said, losing himself in the memory.

"My dad was a Tier 3 Hydromancer and my mom was a Tier 3 Pyromancer that were treated as nobles once we got into town and the populace had asked them to deal with local problems; which they did," Aldrin remembered as a prideful smile graced his face for once.

Jared and Pierre were so enthralled by the story that they failed to notice a shadow flit across the top of the trees. Aldrin immediately stopped, his sensitive ears picking up the swaying of the leaves, and a scent of a freshly baked chocolate cake drifted into his nose, rousing the hunger in his stomach. His fangs elongated again as he sniffed the air and the rest of his senses telling him that someone was here and left a second ago.