“When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I kind of wanted to be a vampire.”

- Angelina Jolie

The Space Between, the Astral Plane, the Crystallinum Sphere, the Road of ashen Dreams. There were many names for the grey waste she found herself in. The wind howled deafeningly over dunes of grey ash and dull metal trees, twisted like dark wires, stabbed upwards from the dead ground. Light came from pinpricks far above in the sky. And it was not a nice metaphor for a star, these were holes in the fabric of this space leading into other worlds. Psychedelic light, that was not light, was in fact the echo of dying worlds and strange dimensional anomalies, bled into this reality, and looking at it too long would scar and injure the soul.

Vanessa sat on the ash beneath such a tree. She scratched symbols inside a perfectly formed circle into the barren ground with a torn-off branch. With a sullen crackling sound walls of force encapsulated her and kept out the madness. If she still had needed to breathe she would have sighed. Her small hand rubbed her smarting head and green eyes glowed in the darkness of her own making.

‘Another night, another jaunt on the Road of ashen Dreams.’ She was forced to flee the merciless orb of Gesserachs only eye and this plane was – for her – well within her means to reach, and it led back to any imaginable location on the prime material plane.

But it was eroding even her sanity. In the beginning, she thought herself very smart to have found this solution to her problems. She could follow the beacon she had cast on the two girls and at the same time escape the rigors of the sun. But the strain was building. Hopefully, Alyssa and Mireille would soon reach the city of Kronenburg. In such a large population even a vampire would vanish like the proverbial needle in a haystack, but to be that needle, she needed the stack.

How long was it this time? Space twisted and time derailed in a world without its own sentient life to stabilize it. At least that was what the great philosopher wizards of old had postulated. But that there was no sentient life did not mean that it was completely lifeless. Not at all. Sadly. There were yards-long worms thin as threads burrowing through the ash, that ate the thoughts of intelligent beings, ephemeral moths drifted on the currents of the spiteful rifts, sucking the life force of those who were still alive. Houndlike entities that sensed emotions and tracked them unerringly hunted for sustenance. And sometimes there were visitors, who, before they dissolved into the ash, tried to prolong their suffering by eating other visitors, like her for example. Visitors were the primary source of food in this ecosystem of the damned.

And those were only the more well-known threats.

The moths at least she no longer had to fear. The hours passed, even the field of arcane force enclosing her like a black bubble became thin and thready after being exposed to the astral winds.

She nodded. It was time to go back. She spoke arcane words and drew a runic array- she had learned from the best. With her claws of black ice, she carved space itself, opening a rift to a sky full of stars.

Her sisters, her mother, even her distant father the Emperor, if only she could meet them again. She felt like a raft drifting in an endless ocean, unmoored and without harbor, the only home she had known dust and broken stone for hundreds of years now and her family with it.

She told the girls that she had slept because she wanted to preserve herself and as far as it went that was correct, but she also did it because she wanted to forget, to not be the undead monstrosity that the Heartstealer crafted from her dead body and soul. Long ago on that obsidian altar underneath the city of broken ivory.

The faces of her sisters. How she longed to see them one last time.

She stood up, dust and ash flowing from her too-big clothes, and strode through the rift, the walls of force were shredded by colors that had no name.

She had aimed for an empty space near where the girls would rest for the night. The process of dimensional translation was not smooth. The city in which she found herself was riddled with wards and countermeasures, if she had not been careful, even her resilient physique would be torn asunder by the conflicting forces. The rift was shunted aside and for a moment she knew the sensation of vertigo long since absent from her undead ‘life’.

The black vortex opened onto the roof of a tall building with a railed platform. The house seemed in disrepair and the yard was overgrown with weeds. It was a once-stately mansion but the windows were boarded shut or smashed, the roof sagged and was in places open to the elements, the wrought iron gates lay beside the entrance, bowed and twisted by some great force. The paved courtyard bore deep scars from some explosion or other. There were numerous signs of an old battle fought approximately decades ago. Residues of dark magic had seeped into the stones and even the gardens twisting what little plant life remained. It was no wonder that no one would want to live here, even if the estate was within sight of Kronenburg.

‘The magical residue guided me like a lighthouse to this place.’ She jumped from the roof spread her arms and called to the wind, silvery symbols sprang to life on her hands and she glided softly to the ground. With a running leap, she crested the walls and ran, swift as the wind she had summoned, towards the city walls.

Somewhere else.

An obese human smacked his lips as he swirled a dark liquid in a large chalice and laughed while holding his ample paunch. “What a fine vintage.” He drank another mouthful, slowly savoring the taste. “Some age” a lick, “medium body, some acidity.” a smack, “Notes of chocolate and pear. Somewhat dry.” His clothes were opulently decorated with golden thread on dark blue it called to mind the uniform of a cavalry officer but much too gaudy for even the worst dandy to ever grace a saddle, big jewels hung from chains made from rose-gold and electrum. Fat fingers, crusted with rings, drummed on the stem of the chalice as he leaned forward in his cushioned chair. Dark, oiled ringlets fell into his broad face which showed a sparse beard. He laughed again.

The room was dimly lit with iron braziers burning in the corners. The floor was strewn with expensive-looking rugs in the style of the south. Walls of rough-hewn stone blocks rose up to a ceiling veiled in darkness and before them hung large iron chains. A man with a mask of dark cloth and attired in dark red robes, forced a blonde, male elf into a kneeling position by twisting his right arm, with the other hand he had slit his throat, dark blood bubbled into the chalice which the fat man thrust under the gaping wound.

Suddenly the laughter stilled. “Poroskar, my dear. I sense another.”

The man with the mask stiffened then relaxed and said. “Another? Not of the brood of Whitecliff or the damned rats of Sur Kesh?”

“It is a strong presence I have not felt before. Please, take care of matters here. I will need to have this investigated.”

Ignoring the dying elf, the corpulent man stood up easily, and much lighter on his feet than he had any right to be he strode from the room.

“It has been too long, I feared to use the dust without the right solvent, and now, and now” his voice rose into a giggle. “There comes a little mouse into my kingdom.” He rubbed his hands together with glee. Small eyes sparkled with madness. “And I am the fattest cat there is” Manic laughter echoed down the deserted corridor.

Long canines elongated beneath fat, red lips.

Somewhere else.

On the road overlooking the city, four leather-clad riders paused. Their quarry had had competent guardians and thus they dared not stray too close. The leader an older man with heavily scarred hands looked at his companions. “We might need to enlist the help of the old families. They got to Kronenburg and the academy before us, so it stands to reason that they will be well protected. We will bide our time and have her evaluated before we commit to further actions.”

They continued their journey and as they say ‘All roads lead to Kronenburg.’