We finally arrive in front of what seems to be the office building of the military facility.

“We’re here”, says Jack, “now go in there and get your OKs. Well, my part is done, so see you later”, he runs off before I've even answered.

(He totally forgot to wait until I’m actually IN the building. I can still run off, you moron!)

I enter the building and look around.

I see a middle-aged woman at the desk mulling over some papers, she seems ready to rip someone’s head off because they forgot to dot an i. At the other end of the room are two soldiers desperately looking for some documents in a couple of cabinets.

“Uh, excuse me, Jack told me you wanted to see an unaccounted for silver elf. Here I am?”

“What? Oh, right ...did Jack run off already?”, if looks could kill we’d have to hold a funeral for Jack now, “that’s typical of him. Do us all a favor and DON’T mingle with him. The world can’t handle two of that type. Now give me a minute I need to finish this.”

She fills in a few more fields on a sheet in front of her then starts shouting “ok, done. CARLA!”

One of the soldiers runs over, “here’s your corrected form, now off with you to the captain.”

“Sorry, haven’t found your other document”, she counters.

“Well, that is not your problem anymore but thanks for trying. Before you leave, can you quickly fetch the last truth crystal from the supplies and bring it to me?”

“Sure.”

The office lady addresses the remaining soldier, “Ted, you can leave as well”; he salutes and leaves.

(Life, there are more names than just ‘Ted’!)

(You’re just salty that ‘Ted 1’ died under your watch.)

(...maybe...)

Finally, she turns to me, “ok, follow me to the backroom, the needed equipment is there.”

She grabs a couple of papers from a drawer and we go to the appointed room. Yeah, this totally looks like a stereotypical interrogation room.

She sits down on one side of the table and points me towards the chair on this side, “I’m Therese and I’ll be handling this case. Well, case is a bit much. I just have to ask you a couple of routine questions and verify the answers with the truth gem I asked Carla to fetch. I mostly need to make sure you’re neither a criminal nor another kind of dangerous entity.”

“If there’s any chance of me being dangerous why are you alone in here with me? Shouldn’t you have some more people to take me down if needed?”

“Trust me, if there was someone I can’t take on my own none of the available soldiers in this fortress would matter either. With the commander out of commission, I’m the strongest fighter here right now.”

Name Therese Status none Age don’t ask if you value your life Classes Brawler 20, Bruiser 19, Pugilist 18, Secretary 16, Monk 18 Race Highlander 18 Extra none HP 4879/5005 MP 1066/1444 SP 2418/5920 STR 822+120 DEX 837 VIT 882+84 MAG 327 FTH 330 WIL 637 CHA 498 Equipment none Skills Unarmed Fighting 57+3, Unarmored Defense 39+3

Iron Fist 19+3, Stun Fist 20+3, Opportunity Attack 18+3, Reckless Attack 18+3 Vacuum Fist 18+3

Enlightenment 18, Meditation 18+3

Hard Worker 18+3, Stamina Boost 18+3, Tracking 18+3 Weakness poison

Phew, and here I was afraid she’s a dragon in disguise.

Her MP just dropped by 300… crap ...can I run now?

She continues, “and as I can see I vastly outlevel you, Jared. Wait level 1? And vampire as well… urgh, more paperwork. Stupid regulations.”

“Sorry, I’ve no idea what you mean.”

She sighs, “yeah, that is not really your fault but of the monster that turned you into what you are now.”

I mean, I asked for it so it kinda IS my fault. But if I tell her that… I don’t want to imagine; she looks pissed enough as is.

“To try and make a long story short there is a law that no ‘innocent’ is to be harmed. And ages ago one of the ‘Lost Children’ had the great idea to automate the enforcement of that particular law. Probably to limit the influence of some corrupt nobles. The intentions were good but the execution leaves a lot of things to be desired. Initially, it worked as intended, we could still get rid of monsters like you. But some time later around the time more and more skills started showing strange characters in their descriptions we found out the hard way that the condition was changed. Normal monsters are still excluded but the extra cases like vampires that build on top of a ‘human’ race are suddenly included in the ‘innocent until proven otherwise’ group. We lost hundreds in the confusion.”

She tips her fingers on the desk, “that’s at least what the records from a few thousand years ago say.”

(Lucky me. The glitches work for once in my favor.)

“What exactly is the punishment for ‘harming an innocent’?”

“The death penalty. And since no one knows how to switch the automatic system off we’re stuck with tolerating you. No sense wasting a well-trained soldier for a low-level monster.”

“Sorry. Can’t help you there either.”

“Don’t even try to build sympathy with me. I’ve had enough of your kind. Playing nice while anyone looks but attacking our people in the zones where the rules don’t apply.

I’m sick of it.

Just in the last year out of now eight vampires five were bad eggs, cost us several strong men. Then there’s you and the other two who aren’t exactly trustworthy either. But until any of you three commits a proper transgression my hands are tied. Count yourself lucky - for now!! Stupid selective auto-magical rule enforcement.”

I get where she is coming from, I’d probably want to do the same in her situation.

She seems to be lost in thought for a moment, “sorry, the current situation has been very stressful.

You deserve as much a chance as all the other sapient people.

Technically when people get turned into a vampire there will remain enough of the old personality, it is the new parts that are the problem.”

“What if I told you that I was completely still ‘me’?”

“No, that is impossible.”

“But what if it isn’t impossible?”

“Listen. I appreciate that you try to cling to your humanity. But you have to face reality – you are NOT who you were before.”

I disagree. But…

Elly offers me an out, (You COULD convince her if you revealed that you are a ‘Lost One’, think about it.)

(I… don’t trust her enough for that. Neither can I trust what Jeff said on the matter. He was way too confident despite the supposed lack of information. Too risky.)

Therese continues, “well, you’re in luck, this time I can check in advance via truth gem. All the last cases smuggled themselves in via other people that made the mistake to trust them. We can quickly check if you are as innocent as you pretend to be.”

(...not after the stunt with Ted’s group…)

(You can still -)

(NO!)

(I think you are too stubborn about this...)

“And I guess you don’t have the manpower to check every single refuge or immigrant.”

“Not even close. We don’t have many people that are good enough with [Appraise] and are not desperately needed elsewhere. Even if we had people for it the gem has limited charges left.”

We’ve nothing more to say to each other so we just wait in silence.

Carla finally enters the room and brings the gem. It is a clear colored thumb-sized diamond.

“Thank you. Now we can finally begin, you can leave. Remind your boss that he still owes me a coffee.”

And just as quickly Carla leaves again.

She takes a deep breath and starts explaining, “ok so, this crystal will shine green when you tell the truth, red when it detects a lie or grey when it can’t determine anything – it is not able to make predictions about the future or make judgment calls about someone not present. Be careful what you answer, if anything points to you being a risk I’m allowed to end you”, she grins maliciously.

“Ok, understood” – the gem shines green.

“Do you intend to kill any of the people of this fortress?”

That’s an easy one, “only if I have to, such as in self defense” – green.

“Ok, acceptable answer, next. Would you tell me how long you’ve been a vampire?”

“About three days” – still green.

I see Therese moving fingers as if she were doing some simple math.

“Just three days ago”, she mumbles, “ so the ‘Vampire Noble’ that turned you could still be around. Do you recall anything about them?”

“Nothing, sorry.” - the gem turns grey?

“Uh, that’s unexpected”, she's as confused as I am.

(So if the question works on the wrong premise the gem can’t verify the answer), I tell Elly.

“The first thing I remember as a vampire is waking up in a forest a short distance from the village of the people I came with, never learned the name” – gem turns green again.

“...I can work with that, I think. Ok, so we have a potentially powerful ‘Vampire Noble’ in the area and no lead. This day is getting even better.”

I never mentioned a ‘Vampire Noble’ but as long as I tell no one where I really came from that is a sufficient cover story.

She continues, “I don’t get it, why do these monsters continue to turn people into vampires if they inevitably lose control and let them run away…”

“Maybe that’s the plan? Sow distrust since ‘anyone’ could be a vampire, doesn't matter if good or bad, maybe have them whittle down more competent soldiers with sneak attacks and so over time destabilize the fortress until they can take it over? At a minimum they got you to waste a lot of time and resources on us ‘small fries’…”, I hate finding myself at the bottom of the power hierarchy but that is where I currently am...

She frowns, “a good a guess as any. But such guesses don’t help us to locate the one responsible.”

“Even if you had the location what can you do with the incoming monster flood? I doubt that you have the time or manpower to take care of them until then.”

“I guess…”, she clearly doesn’t like being told she’s got no choice.

She seems to think hard about something.

While she is distracted this might be a good opportunity to perform some intel gathering of my own, “hmm…. two plus two is five” – red.

“What are you doing?”

“I wanted to make sure this thing works. Ok, next: I’ll regain my memory.” - red again.

“Shit.”

Ok, there’s no point in asking if Gzeph told the truth, what else can I verify...

“No, that is… normal. Getting turned into a vampire does many things to you; it warps your personally, destroys a part of your memory and, well, the whole becoming a monster part” – green.

(So the devas lied to me? About what else?)

“I didn’t need to hear that. Not that I’ll never remember anything about the before, my family, anything...”

“Sorry.”

“You know a bit about vampires, do you know if I can regain the ability to cast ‘Cure’ magic? I tried when some acquaintances needed it the most… and now they are dead.”

“No, this is not possible.”

“Shit. All for nothing.”, what a letdown. There goes all half the reason I chose this race.

“Last one: I’m still myself.” -green.

At least one positive thing.

Wait... shit, that tells me nothing. Does it go by memory, spirit, soul, personality? Too much philosophy...

Therese has to process what she just saw, “sorry, but I have to ask: have you killed anyone?”

I have to think for a moment. Start with ‘yes’ and I’m probably dead before I can explain...

“...they were bleeding to death anyway. I tried to heal them but couldn’t. One thing lead to another… then I ended them. At least partially to spare them even longer pain.”

The gem stays green.

She sighs, “you put me in a tough situation. Normally I should’ve killed you on the spot for admitting to murder ...but you said you tried to help them and the gem didn’t turn red, so I have to give you this one chance.

DON’T!

MAKE ME!

REGRET THIS!”

She’s visibly struggling with this prospect.

“Ok, now what?”

She hesitates, “I can’t afford to have a vampire run around unsupervised even if everything points to you not being a threat. As such, I’ll have you join the military here. This is not up for debate.”

“I guess this is the best way to get a bit stronger.”

“...I fear that is unavoidable. Well, you’re so far behind that I don’t have to be afraid you’ll become a credible threat to the whole fortress at least.”

“I guess.”

“Your class is wizard, we don’t have a trainer for that, or any magic class really. But regulations require that I put you under someone that can train you. Great, not only do we get a potential security risk but also need to waste a ‘Class Core’.”

“Jeez, drop it already. You don’t have to mention every 5 seconds that you hate me.”

“...sorry.”

She takes a moment to think, “given your low stats we’re also restricted on which class you can take. Ok, we’ll figure that out later. Jack, the guy that should have brought you in, will fetch you tomorrow, you’ll accompany him for the day. Either late tomorrow or early the day after we’ll talk again about who you’ll train under. I think most we can do is either Brawler, Fighter, Hunter, Ranger, Scout, Survivor or Warrior.”

“You know what”, she continues agitated, “until our next talk YOU figure out which of these you can even take with your low stats. Make sure you set in the classes tab that you’ll be trained, that would reduce the stat requirement by a large amount. Brawler, Fighter, Hunter, Ranger, Scout, Survivor or Warrior. Got it?”

“Uh, yes. Say, how come we’re limited to those options?”

“To train someone in a given class you need at least level 15 in it yourself. Not everyone is as lucky as you to be born a mage. God, how much did getting turned ruin your mind...”

I ignore the insult, “maybe, but it can’t be that rare. Like half the options I’ve seen in class tab look magic related to me.”

“That’s not how it works. We’re talking closer to 1 in 500000 to get any of the magic classes at birth here.”

So far I’ve not seen anything that would suggest a reason why this world is ‘balanced’ in such a way – balance by rarity is like the most braindead design method ever; and not in an acceptable way.

“Would it help if I trained some people in my class when I get to that level?”

“That… would actually be appreciated. Though we’d have to see how many could even take that class then. The stat requirements will be steep. We’ll get to that when we get to it.”

She adds some notes to the documents in front of her. I take the lull to check the possible classes.

(Elly, do I see that right that I could take none of them?)

(I’m afraid so. Most people your age should be at least level 10 which would bridge the stat gap.)

“So, ‘good’ news, I qualify for none of the classes.”

The truth gem lets out a final flash of green and then shatters.

She looks up, and moves her hand to her forehead, “Perfect... There goes the last one...

How many more levels would you need to qualify for any of that?”

“Eh, how should I know that?”

“No, I was just thinking. I guess survivor is the one you’ll unlock soonest, out of the options it has the lowest SP, STR and DEX, stats wizards aren’t exactly known for. So the requirements should be more up your alley.”

“And if I don’t want that class?”

She frowns, “don’t test my patience on this. If you don’t want it, go outside the gate and hug some wolves until you’re not my problem anymore.”

What a hag… who does she think she is to decide over people’s lives like that...

She continues talking to herself, “I’ll need one of them to get you up to par, organize one ‘class core’, file a ton of paperwork… yeah, we’ll do it like that.”

She finally snaps back and talks with me again, “as you’re a vampire you don’t need a bed to sleep right, so just stay in this room until morning. Someone will get you then and tell you how we'll proceed.”

She gets up and storms out of the room

“Hey, wait!”

slam

She has already closed the door.

(Hey, Elly, remind me to make her pay some time in the future.)

(I would have even if you didn’t ask.)

(What is with these people and always running away before the discussion is officially finished...)

I try to open the door but it doesn’t budge.

(First day in this fortress and already robbed of any freedom I might have had...)

(You really should’ve just shown her your ‘Lost One’ title.)

I frown, (should’ve, didn’t, too late now. FML)