Author's rant

Choo Choo, all aboard the “What the heck is going on”-train… oh and you can switch to the “Your tags didn’t include drama so what is this crap?”-train at platform 2

Alright, I promised you guys a chapter this week, I’ll bloody deliver. Blame Lamia for the delay. I had that chapter where our hero descended into madness all written up, checked through it several times, generally all prepared… But I hesitated posting it... And well, Lamia did her own thing all of a sudden, and I had to rewrite the entire chapter… Also I’m hesitant due to the nice little pitfalls I’ve placed for myself… I really hope this won’t be another chapter 8, but I can’t see why it would be… Though the style and feel of the story will take a turn.

Notice how there’s a delay before Lamia and Ryko rush after Mavros in the last chapter. This means they actively have to search for him, not just follow him.

I'm trying to up my game this time around... Well, this is me finally building my basic arsenal of writing skills. Congratulations on not quitting in this ark yet. It’s pretty much over. Yeah, you’ll see... speaking of which, we’re first-person-Mavros now. Also, I’ll get my story a lot more straight than it’s been thus far. Oh, and I promised a nice little bloodshed, sorry Potato. I hope this will suffice instead.

Actual Story:

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I leapt backwards, and my body was launched like a rocket, far away from my four attackers. Fearing an immediate follow-up by this duke Aequus, i started running with all my might. Even in my adrenaline induced state, i could feel my heart ache. For every step, my heart felt like it was about to burst. Ever since i had attacked that hydra, I had faced nothing but cruelty, treason and hatred - not a single person had been on my side in all the time i had been here.

My mind snapped out of it, suddenly. I had, in my absentmindedness, found my way into a small alley between two of the gray boulder houses. Why there was a wall connecting the two houses was beyond my comprehension. The wall was as tall as me - in other words, I had found my way into a dead end. Quickly, i turned around. Perhaps I still had the time to exit the alley.

To my surprise, I saw Adrian and a handful of guards.

I frowned. “How did yo-”

“Get here? Followed you through your ridiculously predictable path. Now quit the questions."

"I’m impressed, you show up once more, and wish to fight me, despite having already failed once."

“I wanted to show you something.” He said.

“Have a look at this.” Adrian rustled with a paper from his pocket. “See?” he held the paper up from afar showing it to me. The paper contained an exact drawing of me, unlike what had been on the bounty notice. “This was part of my orders. I was ordered to break you”

Adrian took a second to think. “I was supposed to leave you alive, or Poenica could use you in her war effort… Y’know, the civil war nobody told you about?”

I frowned.

“Well, no matter. She’s just a rebel queen with some rabble gathered around her. She will be dealt with soon...” He took a deep breath. “Queen Ruby and duke Aequus wished to incapacitate you, so you wouldn’t help her, or martyr for her... But I have a better idea. Say, if you went missing… and nobody found you, ever… Wouldn’t that be the best? I’ll chop you up and feed you to the dogs.”

I felt specks of cold rain drip down from above.

Adrian looked up. “How appropriate… Oh, and the bounty? there was never such a thing either, as you might have realized. It was deliberately placed by me in the very town you showed up in... and the pink hair? My doing. It was so easy tricking you... And the rest of the townsmen of that little village? went along with anything I said about you… The fools.”

I felt like ripping his head off. He was the man who had brought me misery... He was the man who was behind all this.

He grinned. “Your little friends…Or should I say fake friends? They thought we had their mother, they were so very, very easy to manipulate.” he said in a mocking pity-tone.

I glared at him.

“Oh yes, that face… A man who has lost everything. A man about to die… Now I just need to take the last thing away from you” he smiled widely

“Grrr! I’ll tear you apart!” I shouted.

"Ha! Your spirit is broken"

I didn’t fathom the weight of what he had just said. “Huh?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know… Drastic changes in the mind will often disconnect you from the god. You should have felt it too - his gaze has left you. Favour is from spirit to god… and when your spirit breaks, so does the link.”

A feeling of hopelessness fell over me, but with it my anger grew larger and larger. I clenched my fists “We will see about that.”

“Torpedo i̱lektrikí̱s Mortis!”

Bzz Bzz… Plop.

“Told ya.”

My mind went numb as despair washed over me. Not a speck of power would be let out. As if the entire world and all its gods had at once decided my punishment was due… As if I had died on that fateful day in the ice, and went straight into the core of the earth for an eternity in a personal nightmare.

If the world wished to hurt me… I wished to hurt the world. Badly. A single emotion was left in my mind - untarnished rage. I grit my teeth and reached for my sword and shield.

“I’ll rip out your souls!” I howled.

“We’re six fighters. You stand no chance. Farewell, Mavros.”

My mind went blank. Like fire burning in my chest - the bottled up anger of a thousand betrayals, pains and regrets all flamed up at once in a fury. Suddenly, I could think of nothing but their deaths.

“RAARH!” I jumped at a guard, and lashed out with my sword. His face got slashed across, but he managed to back off enough that I didn’t split it in two.

“Get him!” Adrian shouted, as the guards charged at me.

I leapt at the guards to the left of me, shield first. I aimed for as high a point on their bodies as possible, while still holding my shield low enough they couldn’t swing their swords.

Slam

I tumbled to the ground on top of two guards, and rolled over them.

I swung my sword backwards, hoping one of the guards didn’t raise his sword yet.

Splosh

the scent of blood filled the air, as my sword met the soft tissue of the guard. He shrieked loudly, as I put weight on it, forcing it through him and pushing my forwards roll in the process. I barely dodged a slash-to-the-skull from the other guard on the ground. I rapidly jumped up, and had to step backwards several times, putting distance between me and the remaining three men charging at me.

I looked at the damage I had caused the guardsman.

He was a man with hair as brown as his eyes. His age must’ve been naught but two decades as his face still had the roundness and red cheeks of a baby… And now, his collar bone was severed in the middle, the white bone sticking visibly out of his left shoulder behind the blood.

The worst thing about it? I liked what I had done.

“He’s against the wall. Kill him now!”

Adrian fired an arrow, which I blocked by raising my shield. This caused the remaining four guardsmen to attack me, while the wounded man walked back to Adrian.

I charged forward, ramming my shield into the swords of two guardsmen, exposing my chest to the remaining two.

Splosh.

My shield arm felt every inch as the cold steel from a guardsman’s sword forcibly penetrated my skin and continued into my arm, cutting flesh and severing some of the bone.

He smirked, the fool. I smirked too. I kicked the guardsman to the right of me hard enough he stumbled backwards. My sword darted towards the throat of the guardsman who skewered my arm. My sword met resistance, and the guardsman gurgled, as the blood shot out of his throat with his every pulse, coloring his tabard blood red. My white shirt got filled with his warm red blood, and the metallic smell of the blood was so thick you could almost taste it.

I had no time to savour the moment, as the guards on my left counter-rammed me. I was slammed to the ground, with the deceased guardsman’s sword still sticking out of my arm.

In an adrenaline rush I raised my shield and pulled my legs up, blocking off the guardsmen on my left..

I threw my sword at the stumbling guardsman on my right. My sword flew into his upper chest, right under the throat. He too gurgled and spewed blood over me from his mouth.

Clack clack.

Two arrows hit me as the archers had free line of sight to me. My right shoulder and knee was struck and blood started seeping from them. Yet I only felt a faint biting sensation under the adrenaline. A guardsman outflanked my shield, and swung his sword down towards my chest.

Swoosh! Kling!

I had pulled the sword from my left arm, blocking his attack.

I proceeded to kick his legs away under him.

Slam

My sword danced across the air as it went straight in between the cracks in the guard's helmet with a grim squishy sound. His eye was cut open, and my sword had continued into his skull.

Clack clack.

A second pair of arrows struck my legs.

The last remaining guardsman rammed his sword into my stomach. I felt the embrace of death closing in. Then something drove it away. I couldn’t die yet, I had not taken my revenge yet. If nothing else, I had to massacre this Adrian - even if it was the last thing I do. My anger took over every fiber of my being.

“Die!” I howled in a fury as I rammed my sword from below, up through the guards hip. My sword forced its way through his intestines and struck his lower lung.

I let go of my embedded sword, and pulled the sword stuck in my stomach.

Another set of bow-shots was fired.

I forcibly raised my shield, fending them off.

An unmatched fury drove me to my feet. If I had the time, I would have consumed the entire world in my flames.

“He’s a demon!” the last guardsman said.

I raised my shield as protection and ran sword-first into the guardsman who had severed his collar bone. Apparently, with enough adrenaline this bone didn’t need to be intact to pull a bow. My sword rammed into the heart of the guardsman.

I slammed Adrian with my shield, he lost grip of his bow.

Adrian pulled his sword from the sheath.

“You are on death's door. I will finish you in one move.” he said.

“And I, you.” I said. My dark voice echoed in the entire vicinity.

He raised his sword and ran towards me. I dropped my shield on the ground and charged him with my sword held high.

Splosh-Splosh.

I felt my upper left chest get struck by the cold steel of Adrian’s sword. As I breathed out, I experienced a sensation of my own warm blood run down my mouth. I smelled and tasted nothing but blood.

He struck my lung. I let go of my sword and stumbled backwards. When I looked at him, my sword was firmly embedded in the center of his chest. He fell backwards, and I stumbled back into the wall behind me.

I leaned against the wall that had trapped me in the first place, then I fell to a complete sit.

What had seemed ages was over in mere minutes.

The cold rain picked up. I felt my warm blood oozing from my wounds. My blood was thinned up by the water of the rain, leaving large pools of red water behind. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth wasn’t unfamiliar, but the uncanny cold feeling in my legs was something new. I knew I was bleeding out.

Cough cough.

“Blood, huh… Lots of it.”

I guess this isn’t a horrible place for my last moments. The rain was trickling down, and with it came the soothing smell it carried. It was peaceful, tranquil.

Then the adrenaline wore off, and an unbearable pain washed over me - yet I was too battered to do anything.

I noticed a silhouette approaching, but the white hair revealed the truth.

“So you..” cough, hack. “come to gloat.”

The familiar voice of Ryko talked. “I guess we are too late.”

I noticed Ryko sit down against the house on my right.

A second silhouette approached.

“Lamia… “

Lamia sat down in front of me, and I could see her face clearly. She was drenched by the rain, yet a sweet and alluring smell surrounded her. How I had not noticed earlier, I didn’t know. How this came through the smell of my own blood, I didn’t know either. “They don’t… have…”

“Shhhh” Lamia gently said, as she put her finger on my mouth, despite the blood. “I know...”

“Come to finish it?” My voice quivered and I gurgled blood.

She unbuttoned the button on the collar of her shirt... Then a button on the top of her shirt… And finally a second one on her shirt. I must truly be going mad on my deathbed.

She grabbed my right hand with her left, and put it on the upper part of her chest, right below her throat.

The warmth from her body seeped into my hand, and i felt her beating heart.

“My heart isn’t frozen.” she said, as she moved closer to my face, still holding my limp hand in place on her upper chest.

she put her right hand behind my neck, and put her forehead on mine. Her sweet scent almost covered up the taste of blood in my mouth.

“What are-” I gurgled blood onto her shirt.

“Shhhh.” she repeated gently, as her face slid down below my right ear. She approached my neck, and I felt a small poke. The unbearable pain was eased, if just a little bit.

She pushed her chest against my head. I could hear her every heartbeat and the warmth of her chest against my cheek and ear was strangely comforting.

Ryko spoke from where he was sitting against the wall. “For what it’s worth, Mavros… We have wronged you. For this I am truly sorry. I wanted to tell you this while you are still alive.” he sighed.

Lamia squeezed my head a bit closer, as I felt lightheaded. She started humming. The melody was melancholic, but I hadn’t ever heard it before.

The pool of blood around me grew, and I sat a bit listening and waiting.

Finally, I felt the real cold. Colder than the arctic winds in the lands far, far to the north, my limbs froze to what felt like ice, one by one. I couldn’t move them, and even the pain dissapeared completely. My vision became blurry. “L-Lamia…” I said with shivering voice.

“Shhh… Hush now. It will be okay.” she replied, tugging me tighter. I guess this wasn’t the worst way to go after all.

My vision tunneled, and I heard everything around me. For a brief moment, I could have sworn I heard a sob… Then reality became distorted, and black spots appeared in front of my eyes. It became a struggle for every breath I took. Lamia’s scent suddenly filled my entire being… and the breathing became too hard to bear. Then darkness and cold took over.

The End… Of Ark 1... [Yes, I totally didn’t dare leaving it at that.]

But Ark 2 continues the story, here and now⤵

I opened my eyes. I was laying in a bed, and to my right was Ryko.

“Slept like the dead, I trust?”

I squinted. “What?”

“Well…” He stood up. “I’ll let Lamia explain that joke… Hold on.” he said as he slowly walked out of the room.

I peered around curiously, If this was the afterlife, they sure had some crappy beds here… Not to mention the wooden furniture, walls and floor made it look like a shady inn.

I sniffed the air. The unmistakable scent of a leftover soup filled the air. Yep, definitely a crappy, shady inn.

If the afterlife places you based on how good you were, I guess fate couldn’t come to a conclusion in my case?

I looked down myself, and I noticed I was wrapped up better than a healer out of magic would wrap a wounded man. “What the…”

Lamia entered the room and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, good morning.”

I hesitated a moment, but as she didn’t say anything I spoke.

“Soooo. I’m dead, yeah?” I asked

“Yeah. I hope you had as pleasant a death as possible.” She said.

“Well, Uhmn… But I’m dead!”

“Uhmn… Yeah?”

“Like… You act like It’s not a big deal?”

“Uhuh?”

“Okay... So, I’m in the afterlife, correct? Why are you here?”

She frowned at me. “Uhmn… You seem a bit confused.”

“You don’t say.”

“Oh, right. So, uhmn… You are dead… Aaaaand, I bit you… So here you are. Welcome back to the land of the living… You do feel alive, right?” she looked at me and the front bit of her eyebrows lifted slightly in worry.

“Huh?”

Ryko sighed. “You should have slept more, Lamia. Just tell him what you did, and I’m sure he will understand.”

“Oh, uh… Right. You’re a vampire knight, now.”

“I’m a what?”

“Well, more precisely, you are my vampire knight.”

Ryko sighed and put his hand to his head. “She stayed awake all this time. Look, you are pretty much dead, but she bound your spirit to your mortal coil… Yeah, It does sound a lot worse than it is, when I say it like that.”

Ryko looked down at Lamia, who had laid down on the foot-end of my bed.

I blinked a few times in confusion. “So what does this mean for me?”

“Well, Uhmn… You probably should avoid sunbathing for too long at a time.” Ryko said.

“... That’s it?”

“And don’t slam your fist into tables too hard, they tend to break.”

“No, I mean… What does it do to me?”

“Oh… Well, you are… Just a ti~iny bit… a vampire now.”

“What?! I have to drink blood all the time now?”

“You don’t have to do that… Also, you pro~obably can only drink Lamia’s blood… I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, neither of us ever did this thing before.”

“And if I drink the blood of somebody else?”

“You’ll have the partnership of your life with the loo.” he smiled. “Or should I say partnership of your death?”

“Sounds like a crappy way to spend your time.”

“Bingo!” He pointed an index finger at me and winked.

I glanced over at Lamia, who had fallen asleep with her head on my bed.

“She spent the entire week caring for you, barely sleeping.” Ryko said.

“Why?” i asked

“Why she did that? I honestly can’t speak on her behalf… But for me, it’s that nagging feeling of guilt… Oh, and I was getting a bit afraid you’d haunt me in your death… Spirits of the dead freak me out.”

“Aren’t you dead too?”

“But they’re the creepy ones!.”

“Don’t they just float around, while you empty poor sobs for blood?”

“Hey! That was Lamia, not me!”

A slight smirk spread on my face, and I lifted my hair, showing the left side of my neck to Ryko.“Oh, so you aren’t tempted at all?”

“Ma~avros, that’s creepy. You wanna do it with a sibling pair.”

“Huh?”

He put his hand near his mouth and lowered his voice a bit, as if he was a little embarrassed.

“It would be my first time… And we’re both men.”

A slight hot sensation in my cheeks blossomed up. “Wait, you consider that equivalent to…?”

He started laughing. “Ha! I’m totally messing with you. No, we don’t.”

“Oh.”

“You should have seen your face!”

I looked at Ryko with a more serious expression.

“You don’t think it's odd, joking around like this, after all that's happened?” I asked.

His stare grew distant. “I think… It’s because of all this, that we can be together like now. I can genuinely get to like you, without that impending feeling of your doom hanging over my head...”

I nodded slowly “So let’s address the elephant in the room. I was betrayed.”

He gazed over at me, then down at the floor. “Yeah… Let’s.”

“I understand your motivation, I would probably have done the same thing if Viridis or Poenica was at stake.”

He nodded slowly.

“So I don’t feel much resentment… Though I did still die.”

“Yeah… I don’t know what to say… Sorry for accidentally killing you? Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

Lamia turned her head and faced me with half-open eyes.

This time, It was I who stared off into the distance.

“This goes for both of you, so pay attention. I had imagined my death to be a whole lot more… violent and brutal.. So it wasn’t the worst way to die. And considering I don’t feel very dead, I’m not really harbouring any real anger for either of you.”

I paused for a moment to think.

“In any case, I don’t want you to feel guilty. I hereby release you from your guilt.”

I focused my eyes on Ryko and Lamia… Both of them had their mouths a bit open, staring at me.

“Don’t give me that look. Just… Try not to get me killed again?”

They both gave a slight nod in agreement.

“Now let’s go find this new Poenica, I feel like toppling a queendom after this.” I said.

A strangely familiar voice resounded. “You’re not going anywhere in that condition”

I squinted at the lady in the doorway.

“Who are you, again?”

“Bah, you have the memory of a goldfish!” She said.

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Thanks for reading!

I hope I didn't disappoint too much.

And I'll just talk about a few fictions here. You should totally check them out, they're awesome and these guys definitely have more raw talent than I do.

Troll's Murphy's law - a story about an encounter in a dungeon, changing the fate of the protagonist, and possibly the fate of the entire game.

J0nn0's Genesis - a story about the first human transferred to a machine, and the VRMMO springing from this achievement.

Also, don't forget my mentor, Potato of darkness and his Lich, the depressed necromancer - it's the usual happy go lucky carnage we see from Potato - but with the fresh twist of a Loli necromancer being the mad protagonist - as well as discovering the powers associated with being a mad protagonist necromancer..