Blood Shaper

“We believe we’ve found what the vampyr are planning.” Isla’s illusion of a man that served as her stand in told the assembled meeting solemnly. “Or at least, a major move they’re making that we cannot allow.”

The illusion gestured and aides started handing out documents to the assembled leaders of Avalon and the allies they had available. Zeia was obviously there, as was High Crusader Hearthbreaker, representing the two major vampyr hunting orders, who had finally sent missives back indicating that they were on their way to Avalon. Guildmaster Gemglass was present as she would be coordinating the Adventurers Guild’s assistance, which she had managed to secure. Murunel’s cousin and his wife were there as their own little pair, while they were subordinate to Kay in this endeavor their experience and insights could be useful, useful enough to let them attend the meeting.

“While we’ve managed to confirm that packs, and what we can only refer to as units or small armies, of vampyr continue to besiege the settlements that have managed to hold out and hunt down any stragglers or those fleeing falling settlements, that doesn’t appear to be their main goal.” Isla waited until everyone had a set of documents. “Long range reconnaissance through a variety of means has discovered that the vampyr are once again creating ritual sites.” She flipped to the second page of the report and pointed at the figures drawn there. “We only managed to document one site of the previous rituals that were carried out y vampyr, the one we presume allowed the eldritch incursion here at Avalon during the Shatterplate War, and the ones we’ve managed to document that are being created now are similar enough for me to confidently say they are for the same purpose, if perhaps a different target.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Intricate circles and designs were drawn on the paper, creating a pattern that seemed to oscillate and shift as Kay tried to look at it.

“Even reproductions seem to be affected by the nature of the ritual they’re meant to allow, as seen by the difficulty our people faced even trying to record them, which to me indicates the powerful nature of what the vampyr intend. It is my belief that we cannot allow them to complete whatever it is they seek from these rituals.”

Eleniah looked up form her perusal of the document. “How many sites do we know of?”

“We’ve confirmed the existence of five and believe there are more.” The illusion seemed to take a deep breath and slowly release it. “And each circle that they’re creating is significantly larger than the example we have from the previous ritual.”

Grim expressions passed around the room at that piece of news.

“It’s not always true,” Meten told everyone, “But larger circles usually mean more powerful rituals. It works that way with runic magic too.”

“So what we assume to be a summoning ritual for much larger or more powerful eldritch beings compared to the previous incursion is being prepared by a large group of seemingly in control vampyr all working toward a single goal.” Kay could see that Zeia was physically restraining herself from being much louder and aggressive as she looked at everyone around the table. “Is there any reason to not deal with this as soon as possible?”

“No, there isn’t.” Kay announced, shutting down even the thought of anyone having an objection. “No matter what their actual goal is, we cannot let the vampyr succeed. Even if we had no evidence of what their goal might be we would still have to intervene, because anything a coordinated group of intelligent monsters do on this scale is too much of a threat to leave alone.” He looked directly at the illusion, catching it’s nonexistent eyes with his own. “Anyone that can safely sabotage the vampyr so they don’t finish those circles needs to be doing so as soon as possible.”

The illusion bowed, and a tiny winged figure that Kay knew only he could see appeared off to the side and copied the motion before vanishing. “Of course, your majesty.”

“What can we expect in terms of resistance?”

Isla’s illusion flipped to the next page of the report. “Just to make sure you all know before I answer that question, the vampyr are using devices or objects similar to the one his majesty recovered as a piece in creating the ritual circles. The exact nature and use of them varies across the five sites we have eyes on, but there is one such object at each. That’s what we’ll have our agents target for the first wave of sabotage.” They all moved onto the next page at the illusion’s direction. “Each site has a different level of protection, and what seems to be an amount of effort put into completing each site that’s comparable to how much work they’re putting in to guarding it. Of the five we’ve identified, two of them are outside of Nelam’s former borders and have the elast amount of manpower working on them. We have no way to realistically try and figure out why that’s the case, since this is a plan being put together by vampyr, and I’m not going to make an attempt. The three other sites are inside of where Nelam was, and one is situated in the former capital.”

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There were murmurs and whispered questions across the meeting room. Isla’s illusion shrugged in response. “There’s no way to know if that’s important or a coincidence, but the capital site is the most heavily guarded of the five and they’ve been doing the most work there. A small portion of the vampyr also seem to be rebuilding Nelam’s palace as well, although our agents couldn’t get close enough to find out if there’s any important reason that they’re doing that.”

“They probably need a base.” Cindy commented absently, “Or whoever their leader is is a megalomaniac.” She looked a little startled when she noticed everyone staring at her. “What? They leveled most of the country right? The really crazy and animalistic vampyr won’t care about clothes or shelter, but the more together ones will. So they’ll need a base of some kind just to stay out of the weather in. And even if they’re more sane than the rest, that doesn’t mean they’re actually sane. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more ‘important’ vampyr think’s their a king, or a god, or something similarly egotistical.”

“That’s… surprisingly possible,” Isla admitted through her fake voice, “We can’t dismiss the idea that repairing the castle is more impactful than that, but there’s a very good chance that’s the case. Either way, we’ll have people try and make their way in undetected to find out for sure.”

“Are there any further questions at this time for our intelligence branch?” Kay asked. “Pertinent ones that might change what we’re doing, in particular. Less important questions can always be brought up later.”

If anyone had any questions they didn’t think it was right to bring them up at that moment.

“Very well. General Curcius, began making plans for the best way to gather our military back into a cohesive whole and march east. Meten, the same but for the Sentinels. A portion of each needs to be left behind for security, but we’re taking the majority of both with us. Coordinate as you need with Guildmaster Gemglass to include independent adventurers.” Kay nodded at her, “Guildmaster, I am most grateful for your assistance in this.”

“Of course your majesty, a threat this large is a threat to us all.”

“Ahthia, work with Zeia in researching these ritual circles, both in general and specifically these ones. Anything that can be used to mess them up can be given to our saboteurs to buy us more time. Zeia, I know you want to work more on your other projects but they can wait, literally. You’ve already given us a way to save people from turning into vampyr, we can figure out a vaccine for it later.”

“… Yes your majesty.” She agreed, with no small amount of contrition in her voice.

“Before you help Ahthia, though, I need you and the High Crusader to send more letters to both your organizations to move their asses. Based on what we’re hearing, Avalon isn’t going to be able to hit all of these sites on our own.” He glanced at Isla’s illusion, which nodded in agreement. “We need the manpower and the combined expertise of the two best vampyr hunting groups. They need to get here yesterday.”

Both of them nodded, and High Crusader Hearthbreaker saluted with one fist over her heart.

“Everyone else, keep our world turning as normal. We’re doing this to save Avalon, and by extension everything else around us, so I want our people to have a home to come back to.”

The meeting broke up after that, with the oncoming disaster that needed to be prevented dominating everyone’s minds there was no real desire to have tedious meetings about less important things. It was made worse in Kay’s mind by the uncertain nature of what they faced. They thought the threat was invasion by bigger and more powerful eldritch monstrosities, but they didn’t know that for sure. What if the ritual circles turned everyone into vampyr instead? The unknown was scary and a directly threatening unknown was worse.

“You don’t have an important job for me?” Eleniah asked teasingly as people vacillated between leaving or hanging around in small groups.

“I do,” Kay replied quietly, “I just didn’t want to blare it out for everyone to hear.”

“Oh?” The look in her eyes went from joking to deadly serious. “What do you need?”

“I want you to gather up every vampire we have now and see if any of them are worth giving some training, and then I want them turned into the best fighters we can make them in a short amount of time. Better we build as many failsafes for every potential problem as early as we can. Even if they’re just decent enough to not immediately die any fighting, having other vampire besides me, Lauren, and presumably Alice available could save lives.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Kay leaned in subtly and gave her a quick kiss. “Thank you. Grab Zeia if you need her to wrangle any of them, but keep it on the down low.”

“Still worried about some idiot from the Order or the Crusade throwing a fuss?”

“Better to cut any problems off at the pass then give them a chance to cause problems.”

Eleniah leaned in and kissed him back. “I knew I made a good choice.”

“Which time?”

She frowned at him. “Don’t be a jerk, you know I was feeling out of sorts then.”

“’Oh no, it’s not romantic, I just wanted to train a partner and traveling companion’,” Kay whispered in a sing song voice. “’Oh, but Kay, I-“

Eleniah smacked him in the shoulder with a scowl. “Stop that!”

Kay grinned back at her, luxuriating in the playful mood as a balm against the stress.

She rolled her eyes at him but didn’t say anything. “What are you doing to be doing during all this?”

“Besides answering any questions and metaphorically stomping on anyone that tries to cause problems? Jumping between giving training in my Class Line to any of the vampires you think are worth it and donating blood to Cindy’s weapons project. It should be fun, in between the moments of extended boredom as I fill barrels with my vital fluids and yell at idiots who think too highly of themselves.”