Heir of Virosa

I channeled magic into the Mocles Saber. Once its brilliant blue light appeared, I raised the broken blade high into the air like a jagged torch. Priscilla, standing to my right, raised her glowing wing in response.

"If Esther is his wife," I said, "Fraysser's not going to leave without her."

Priscilla clenched her jaw for a moment before relaxing.

"That's for him to decide," she said.

I noticed that Priscilla's wing was unusually dim, a sure sign that she was having difficulty channeling her magic. My mind began to race as I realized that she wouldn't be able to heal either of us if we got injured.

"Gordon," I said, "Do you have any elixirs handy?"

"We'll be fine," Priscilla snapped.

She shoved her way past me and stepped into the observatory alone.

"Two," Gordon replied. "Neither are quick-acting."

"Get them ready and hand them to me if I ask for them. My lord may be difficult to hurt, but I'm not."

"Understood."

I dashed through the doorway after Priscilla.

Once I was inside, I raised my sword as high as I could.

The light unveiled a massive, checkered hallway that extended well beyond the reach of my weapon's light. The tiles paneling the marble floor alternated between obsidian and mother-of-pearl like a chessboard. Laid on top of the floor was a long red carpet that stretched from the entrance into the darkness beyond like a thin red line.

The hallway wasn't entirely void of light. Pale moonlight poured in through tall, arched windows that lined the right wall, painting the ground from right to left. The windows reached from the very top of the wall down to the very bottom. I could see the storm raging outside, its large raindrops creating rivers on the glass walls. I was glad, however, that I could no longer hear the soul-grating roar of the maelstrom beneath our feet.

Above us hung dozens of crystal chandeliers underneath a pale arched ceiling. The moonlight struck them at such an angle that they glimmered like stars over a besieged city. The chains that held up the rusted frames were once plated with fine gold, but now they were chipped and faded with age.

Priscilla was waiting for us on the red carpet. She was examining the observatory uneasily. I, too, felt uneasy, as I jogged up to her side.

“Something’s off,” she said when I caught up with her.

After a moment, I realized that the observatory was spotless. The floor looked like it had been recently polished, and all the windows looked as if they had been professionally cleaned. Even the red carpet beneath our feet had that springiness that only new carpets had.

“Not a single drop of blood nor a single body in a vampire’s lair,” I said.

"And no trail of destruction Fraysser was bound to leave behind," Gordon added. “It’s like the Count was expecting us.”

Priscilla looked at the cat miserably.

“The Count's probably waiting for us downstairs with all of his servants instead of spreading them out like last time," she said. "He thinks he can overwhelm us if he has his servants attack all at once. What he doesn't know is that my ace is now with us."

She called me her ace, I thought in surprise.

Priscilla shifted her gaze to look at me.

"If a fight breaks out, go straight for the Count," she said. "He won't be able to stop you."

I gave her a thumbs-up. It felt great to have her full confidence.

We walked through the hallway in silence, our eyes and ears alert to the slightest change in our environment. Every shadow was a ghoul waiting in ambush, every sound a phantom ready to strike. I clenched my weapon so tightly I had to remind myself to relax.

Blue lightning illuminated the entire hallway every now and then, revealing Charybdis’s pale white teeth lurking beneath the observatory in the near distance. The storm was close enough to see lightning bolts as thick as ship masts. I was afraid one of them was going to strike through the building and punch a hole in the ground. Oddly enough, I didn’t hear a single thunderclap since I had entered the observatory. The deafening roar of the maelstrom outside was also inaudible.

"It's quiet," I whispered.

"Yes," Priscilla replied.

The entire building suddenly creaked like an old ship at sea when we reached the midpoint of the hallway. I stopped walking, but Priscilla continued to march forward, undaunted.

"What was that?" I said.

Priscilla reached back without looking and grabbed my right hand, dragging me forward with her.

We managed to reach the end of the hallway without incident. I was pleasantly surprised.

Then Gordon meowed as loud as I had ever heard a cat meow.

The entire room seemed to go dark as adrenaline pumped into my veins, temporarily obscuring my vision. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to immediately throw a kinetic barrier around our group. Even Priscilla held up her wing protectively around both of us.

When my vision cleared, I kept my eyes moving around the entire room, half-expecting a hundred ghouls to come crawling out from beneath the carpet that very moment. Priscilla kept her right hand raised, ready to blast any foe that approached us with lethal levels of lightning.

But after a few seconds of sheer terror, nothing happened. We slowly lowered our guards.

Priscilla was the first to speak.

“What, Gordon?” she demanded.

Her voice echoed throughout the entire hallway like an air raid siren.

Gordon sheepishly pointed to a suit of armor standing on a granite pedestal. It stood proudly beside the stairwell at the end of the hall, a zweihander held between its gauntlets.

“That,” he said, “wasn’t there two weeks ago.”

We stood frozen in place, uncertain of what to do. The suit of armor stood beside the only stairwell in the hallway. According to Priscilla, downstairs was where we had to go.

"Do suits of armor attack on their own in this dream?" I asked.

"Occasionally," Gordon replied. "Vampires do love autonomous suits of armor."

I nodded. I had a bad feeling the suit of armor would take a swing at us the moment we walked past it.

"I'll deal with this one," I said. "You two can blast it if it tries anything funny."

"Be careful," Priscilla warned.

Gordon disappeared back into his pocket dimension. He probably sensed trouble.

I added a little bit more power to my barrier as I carefully approached the suit of armor.

My barrier was strong enough to block any strike that could be made with a conventional weapon. I knew for certain that it could defeat anything short a full-power rocket punch from one of Flo's titan-class androids, and those robots could level mountains given enough time. Still, I felt nervous every time I had to use my barrier to stop a potentially lethal threat because, in the unlikely event that I tried to stop something powerful enough to break my barrier, it would be like having a pressurized suit fail several miles under the sea. There would be nothing left of me to bury.

When I reached the front of the armor, I couldn't help but look up in awe at the suit's craftsmanship. The armor's plates were crafted from the finest of ethereal steel. Every piece fit together seamlessly, leaving no meaningful weak point to be exploited. The more complex pieces were masterfully rivetted together. A beautiful blue and white surcoat, made from fine linen, hung over the breastplate of the armor. The armor had clearly seen dozens of battles judging from the numerous dents and scratches obscuring its once polished frame, though someone had clearly put effort to restore the suit to its former glory.

The zweihander the armor carried was rusted with age, and its edge was too chipped to be used safely. There was nothing unusual about the mountain of a blade except for small four characters engraved onto the side of the blade: Z-289. Other than that, its crossguard, its lugs, and its length were typical for the two-handed sword.

The red dragon crest emblazoned on the blade's hilt told me that it belonged to none other than a Jairian Dragon Knight, one of the mage knights responsible for helping the vassal kingdom of Jair earn its independence from the Gideonite Empire.

Few had ever seen a full set of dragon knight armor, for the only times they were seen outside of Jair were on the battlefield. To see to a high-quality replica like this with my own eyes was a real treat.

I noticed a metal sign affixed to the front of the granite pedestal. I stepped forward to read it, keeping one eye on the suit of armor as I did:

Godfried Virosa, Scourge of the Empire

Godfried, I thought. Why does that name sound familiar?

“Titus!”

I looked up.

The suit of armor had begun to pull the zweihander out of the pedestal. Metal scratched violently against polished stone as the mighty weapon left its resting place. When the weapon was fully removed, intense flames erupted from its hilt, engulfing the blade completely.

The armor jumped down onto the marble floor in front of me with surprising grace.

When it landed, the entire building shook as if a portion of the ground had collapsed.

"Titus, move!" Priscilla cried.

"I got this!"

I held my kinetic barrier steady as the armor marched toward me with its blade pointed at my heart. It moved quickly, carefully, with all the control of a seasoned warrior.

My plan was to catch the blade with my barrier. If I timed my magic correctly, I would be able to take the force of the strike and redirect it back into the blade with the double force, disarming the suit of armor.

When the armor was close enough to strike, it swung the zweihander at my skull with surprising speed. But instead of stopping the moment it came into contact with my barrier, as it should have, the blade continued to sail toward me as if there was nothing there.

The brief moment of terror seemed to last an eternity.

I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing.

There was no way a measly sword would have broken through my barrier so effortlessly.

But the moment ended as soon as it began.

I didn't even have time to feel surprised as I felt the fiery blade bury itself into my forehead.

The last thing I heard was the sickening crunch of metal against bone.