We struck camp that night right outside the door way to the Maze. I was honestly tired of reeking of Ron’s piss and when I voiced my concerns, he proceeded to lick me vigorously in what he called, “Cleaning”. In an effort to give ourselves some protection, we opted to sleep in holes under ground with tents above like the Folioran.

The Maze itself didn’t seem to move any more after Effie spoke that gross word, but still we didn’t want to take any chances. After Ron and Effie were all snug underground, I pushed mounds of dirt around to give us a bit of fortifications just in case. I settled in myself and was looking forward to the sleep I was going to get. I had just closed my eyes and drifted peacefully to…. Why is there dirt in my nose?

I sat up without panicking and took in what I already knew to be my surroundings. The familiar fungi walls rose up around me with the pictures of the cute kid and of course, the panting reject of a witch that it grew up to be.

“Hello Casidhe…”

“H-h-hello M-m-ast…Vampir. I am v-v-very hmmmm, s-s-orry ab-b-b-bout l-last time.”

I raised an eyebrow at her and she stopped what she was about to call me. Now that I knew I could get back if I needed to, I was a lot less threatened but not enough to not be on my toes. I wanted to see if I might be able to have a decent conversation if I coaxed her a little.

“Calm down and have a normal conversation with me.”

I layered my voice heavily with the Mesmer. I hoped the effect might actually make for some productive conversations. Her eyes glazed over momentarily but she resisted full loss of senses. Good for her.

“I’m sorry for summoning you, however I learned some rather critical information and thought you might want to know.”

“Oh..Well yes, good *cough* I had some questions for you anyways so this was serendipitous.”

“Questions? Start with those and I will follow up in case of any overlap. Can I offer you some tea?”

“Ugh yeah sure. I used Folioran magic and I stopped time again. Do you know anything about that?”

“Oh, yes! That IS related to what I had to tell you.”

She smiled contentedly as she took out the familiar tea set and poured a rather delicious smelling tea. She moved her finger in a whirling motion and the tea set animated and the set poured itself with sugar and tea. A Proper Cuppa!

“I was wrong about whose grave this was. It wasn’t your father’s grave but instead actually yours, well when you were a human.”

“How is that possible though when I am a vampire? It doesn’t look like I was ever actually buried does it?!”

“That isn’t how the magic works. This is your grave as it was at your headstone and was mourned by your loved ones. Your physical body means nothing.”

I accepted the cup as it floated off of the service tray and towards me. I sipped it enjoying its terrible…its ink. Fucking ink!

“What the shit Casidhe?! Things were going so well.”

This was the moment the Mesmer backfired on me. She resorted back to her creepy ways except the compulsion was still on her.

“Oh no. Please don’t punish me. Whatever you do don’t beat, or scratch or kick me. Whatever will I do with myself.”

Without the inflections and heavy breathing, the monotone drone she had was pretty funny, but the creepy things she said were still too much.

“That’s enough! I will do without the tea. Tell me what is so important about this being my grave!”

The walls shook a bit with power as I raised my voice. I was just about to burn this mother down. I had had it with this shit.

“Let’s try a different tact, shall we? How did you discover this information? Are you shaking down records clerks or what?”

“Oh no, Master, I simply…Got Close, to the grave digger.”

“You sold your body for this information?!”

“Not at all, I simply got close to him until he beat me with his shovel in a glorious exhibit of love and violence and I just summoned the graveyard records with a spell.”

“So why did you mess with the grave digger if it was that easy?”

“For the beating of course.”

“Ok, gross. Why are you helping me though? I get the first time, you got a random grave lot, but additional digging was strictly for my benefit and after last time with the hole in the house and what not…”

“The hole was nothing. It regrew in a few hours. I also did it because if you truly are one of the Great Sages from the legends, then you have already cracked the secrets of Magic in all its forms. You know about, The Source. That is an interest to anyone who uses magic, especially to scholars.”

“You’re a scholar?”

“Not exactly. I am from one of the Great Families though.”

That was not something I had ever heard of before, but luckily Vampir had. My eye twitched slightly as his memories flooded into my head like it had been waiting for the moment to unlock. Level Up!

“Of course! The Witherwrights are one of the top Magic Families renowned for not only their great magical abilities, but also, they are one of the ‘Purist’ families. The Purists had dedicated their family and resources to researching The Source and all of its intricacies.”

“That is exactly right. The term ‘Purist’, is not used any longer. It died out some 2,500 years ago. Vampir Darknaciel, or in the old tongue, Darkness. You belong to one of the four Ancestral lines whose knowledge of The Source was incomparable, but also died out shortly after due to families trying to hoard magic secrets.”

The familiar lightning bolt came back and wrecked my cranium. Holy FUUUCCKKKK! My vision flashed black and white with streaks of red until it eventually cleared to show me the memories of Vampir before his name became ironic and descriptive.

I grit my teeth as the pain started subsiding. Ever since I had been killed by the troll, I felt like Vampir was less a threat to me and more of an ally who let me have all of his memories, but didn’t really stick around to see how I used them.

While I was regaining my senses, the darnedest thing happened. The front door flew open and an arrow streaked right past my face and into the forehead of Casidhe. The light went out in her eyes right away.

“Hemiowgun.”

I pulled the arrow out and the wound healed right away. She blinked open her eyes in surprise.

“Was I dead for a second there?”

“Only a moment…maybe.”

She narrowed here eyes slightly as she rubbed where the arrow had just protruded from her skull. Without missing a beat, she began. The stars from my spell twinkled down on top of us.

“Warp.”

Casidhe appeared behind the black cloaked figures in the door way. Her hands already aglow with an arcane ass kicking.

“That was not very nice at all. I was having tea!”

“Wind Blade!”

That was new. The first two assassins were sliced cleanly in two and were still perplexed as they became eye level with their belts.

“For Vinitak!”

“Long live Vinitak! Die!”

A chorus of battle cries rang out as more assassins flooded in through the windows and from fresh holes in the walls. It unnerved me and I was over this day already. Did I mention how fucking tired I was?

“Stop.”

Eerie silence flooded the house. I walked over to Casidhe and nudged her playfully.

“Tag, your it.”

Thinking about what I wanted was enough to just unfreeze her. She stood there perplexed for a moment as I straightened things up.

“You froze time again!”

“Yes, I am pretty sure I have figured it out now.”

“That is literally amazing if only you were not such a brutish bore with your pretty hands and perfectly coifed hair.”

I grit my teeth in frustration, but instead of vaporizing this overly attractive piece of work, I smiled and beckoned her to the couch. A low growl rolled out of my chest as I spoke.

“Grrrrrr…Have a seat Casidhe, I have a proposition for you.”

“Alright then.”

The growl elicited shortness of breath from Casidhe. Her cheeks flushed. A rather disgusting smile was splayed across her face. I threw the rest of the tea on her to sober her up, which really had the opposite effect of what I was after. I continued for both of our sake.

“These are most likely Elves and they are most likely here to kill me for killing a chunk of their army. Now that they know this place, I am sure they will keep coming back and rather than have to deal with that all of the time, do you wanna come with us?”

I saw the gears as they turned behind her eyes. I knew I wasn’t asking an easy task of her, but I figured the alternative was worst and besides a creepy Tsundere around would keep things comical at the very least. And even though she’s a creep she has a rocking body! Ironically, makes me a creep. I’m fine with this.

“I doubt hanging out with a stuffy old vampire will delight you, but I do have a Dog and that’s something. Oh, and an Effie. I think she’s a hooker, but I avoid the subject with her.”

“Ok, I’ll go, but only under two conditions. One, I want to have exclusive access to you, your body and your magic.”

Her nostrils flared at the body part and her breathing grew more rapid for a brief moment. Fucking creep, ha!

“Two, I want you to keep me under the Mesmer at almost all times. My thoughts haven’t been this clear in ages.”

“I can agree to those easily with a couple caveats. Mainly, my body is my own and you will have no possession or scientific interest in it. Oh, and Leyara is my one and only, don’t go and try to make this no harem bullshit, got it?”

I pushed the Mesmer hard on those last two words to drive home my point and refreshed the effect. This was going to be a win for me someday, I knew it, but in the meanwhile I needed to deal with these silly assassins.

“You said earlier, the name of that spell, what was it..”

“Warp.”

I focused the spell onto the torso of the first Elven attacker. Time was still frozen as the black warp hole appeared then disappeared leaving a perfectly circle hole in the assassin’s chest. Casidhe’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Warp.”

I moved outside of the house to round up any other attackers, but they appeared to already be in the house.

“Warp.”

I moved back into the house. Casidhe and I dispatched the last of the assassins while time stood still before I snapped my fingers and resumed time.

“You are a real piece of shit for casually using incredible magic like that…”

She realized her personality had slipped for a moment, but it was too late. I threw her sofa at her and it caught her square in the head. I wasn’t really sorry, but at some point, it had to end. Now that we were going to be allies, she needed to observe the pecking order.

“Let’s get going, we have a Maze to travel through.”

Crumpled up in the corner under the sofa, Casidhe heavy breathed her ass off.

“Y-y-y-es M-m-master. I-i-if you c-c-could gather all of my spell books and store them in your Pocket...”

Now I gotta carry more shit. Sigh at this whole fucking existence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name: Vampir Darkness - (Shawn Mullins)

Date of Birth: Reign 23rd 3015

Race: Vampire (Human)

Hair: Black (Licked Clean)

Eyes: Red (Evil Glow)

Current Value: 239.9 million Gold Coins, Approx. 149 trillion Gold Coins worth of Invisibility Potion, Resurrection Token

Magic Pocket: Pretty much one of everything (semi-verified), Journal of a Lunatic, Bottomless Bottle of Ron’s Piss, Large collection of Magic Tomes and some childhood photos

Powers: Voice Mesmer, Animal Transmutation, Super Strength, Mach 3 Speed, Immunity, Kinesis (Psycho), Regeneration

Magic: Derbegun (Cleaning Spell), Hemiowgun (Healing Spell), Stop (Time Spell), Dauntlet (Shadow Armor), Raze (Sea of Fire), Folioran Magic

Weaknesses: The Sun, Holy Water, Dog, Cries Blood, Leyara, Grave Box at Witch’s, Blood Rage, Not very funny

Strengths: Barfights, takes arrows to the chest like a champ, Digging Holes, Fungus House Demolition, Blood Rage, Sword Fighting, Can Learn New Magic, Gravel Throwing, Casidhe