RSK chapter 15

Hey guys! In the middle of Dragoncon! Having an amazing time! I got this chapter done last Tuesday so throwing it up through my tablet. Enjoy!

Chapter 15 

Alessa POV~~~~

I had so much power! I have never felt so powerful in my life. I felt like I could run for hours, days even if I wanted to. Never before did I feel like I could so easily end another being’s life. But just tonight I killed six or seven people as easy as swatting a file. 

The power was enthralling, that was for sure, but the thrill of the hunt was an entirely different facet of my new form. The desire to play with my prey before I killed them was almost more than I could control. When I was chasing the fleeing adventurers, I would catch myself treating them like a mouse. 

Before I realized it, I was covered in blood from head to toe. If I walked into a town looking like this. I was sure I would be hunted even more than usual. Though, I would have the power to fight back. I was never able to try out as an adventurer due to my curse. I wasn’t sure how power the good ones were. I only knew stories of them.

My sense of touch was amplified as well. Just the water running over my skin felt more amazing than I thought something so mundane could feel. Because of that I ended up spending even longer in the bath than normal. I knew Oberon would be waiting for me, its about time for our magic practice to start, but the allure of the bath was just too much. 

~~

I wasn’t sure how long it was before I exited the bath. Unlike when I was a human, my skin didn’t prune. My snow-white skin reminded me of marble as the water droplets ran off it. If I wasn’t careful, I would be drawn into watching the droplets, as I could also feel every moment of it. 

Finally, I was able to get myself dressed and heading towards the throne room. The sun was up and well through its journey through the sky. I frowned at it then continued on my way. Thanks to being pureblood I mainly just found it annoying. It also makes me feel a bit tired. I could feel a yawn coming and couldn’t resist it. 

I jerked my head to the side while I yawned. I heard a crash from the wall and looked to see a small crater the size of a fist. Looking in the direction it came in, I saw Oberon on his throne with Zriq next to him. 

“How was your bath?” Oberon asked not looking at me. 

“A little too pleasant I suppose,” I replied, rubbing the back of my head. 

The words had barely left my mouth when I felt something streaking towards me. I jumped to the side only to feel yet another coming from the side. Bending over almost level with the floor, I managed to avoid it. I smacked my hand against the floor to spin my body then kicked the ground to gain some distance. 

“Hm~. Looks like I can up the pace a bit,” Oberon said. I glanced at him only to see he was still staring at something in front of him.

I felt a few more spikes of mana around me and grimaced. To make it worse was they were all at completely different points so I would have to dodge them all equally. I kicked down propelling myself into the air. That allowed me to dodge the first two. The angle of my jump put me next to the wall, which I used to kick off from traveling nearly twenty meters across the room. 

“Wait!” I cried as another two more missiles lanced towards me. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Oberon said. I could just hear a smirk in his voice. 

“What if you blow my arm off!?” I screamed. 

I twisted in the air managing to avoid the missile with about a centimeter to spare. I wasn’t sure, but I could tell these could easily kill a person if they hit. At this rate, Oberon could very well end up blasting one of my limbs off. 

“You’re a pure blood vampire now, right. You should be able to heal it in no time,” Oberon said. 

“That’s not the point!” I cried, as I fought off tears. 

Ten minutes later and I stood in the middle of the throne room. My clothes were ripped to shreds and I breathed deeply trying to catch my breath. Zriq stood to one side crying from the amount of destruction that Oberon had subjected to the throne room. Oberon had only looked up from what he was doing in the last two minutes or so. 

“Not bad. Some close calls but you avoided everything,” Oberon said as he clapped. 

“Thank… you… very… much,” I wheezed out. 

Oberon looked over to Zriq then around the room, “My apologies, Zriq,” he said then placed his hand on the throne. Mana flowed from him then down into the ground. I was surprised I could actually see the path the mana took through the ground. The path ended at the room down the hall where a large crystal absorbed the mana. A few moments later the room quickly repaired itself around us. 

Zriq stopped crying then bowed to Oberon, “Thank you Master.”

“Now that’s taken care of let’s summon the rest of Zriq’s family,” Oberon said then stood up from his throne. 

“Rest of Zriq’s family?” I asked confused.

“Zriq is an imp, well a fairy now, but a core imp. His family is sealed inside here,” Oberon tapped the green gem that was embedded in his chest. 

“I see,” I said.

 I really didn’t interact much with Zriq so I couldn’t tell if it was a good thing or not. At least there would be more people in this large ass castle. We made our way out to the castle courtyard. When I first saw it there was rumble and debris all over the place, but now it looked like a decent castle courtyard. 

The trees that would normally along the path leading to the entrance were bone white and had a sinister aura to them. The path itself looked to be made from some sort of black material. Undead wandered the courtyard cleaning and fixing places that the mana of the core hadn’t reached yet.

“This should be enough space for what we’re expecting,” Oberon said.

Oberon walked over to the center of the courtyard and tapped the gem. I felt a stream of mana exit the gem and arc to the  ground in front of him. A line of mana formed in the air that reached about three meters into the air. It expanded until it was about a meter wide. The interior just looked like a black nothingness. 

Zriq flew inside then return a few minutes later. Imps of shapes and sizes flew out of the portal and landed nearby. Many of them looked like they had ran over a field of rocks and left out to dry in the sun for several days. I looked from Zriq and backed to them and couldn’t understand how they could be so different. Maybe because he was getting mana from the stone.

After maybe ten minutes the stream of imps abated. Zriq was flying around talking to everyone. Many of the imps looked enthralled about the area. The younger ones would stare at the sun until an elder would smack them over the back of their head. The biggest the thing was they were pulling in deep breathes.

“What is the place they were at like?” I murmured.

“I once heard it’s like a prison,” Oberon said. I jumped having not realized that he had come up next to me.

“Why would they go into the core then?” I asked. 

“Safety. Cores are nearly indestructible. Back in my time they were being hunted. So they willing bound their souls to the cores. It’s what gave birth to the various types of cores, city, fortress, dungeon and so on. I’m not sure if that’s changed but…” Oberon shrugged.

“That’s horrible. Why must everyone continue to hurt each other,” I shook my head.

“Why Indeed? Though, I’ve moved past trying to get everyone to get along,” Oberon tightened his fist around the hilt of his sword.

I nodded to his statement. I was pass the point when I was a human. Now that I was a vampire there was even less chance for me to get along with the regular races. I was fully on the road to war and violence. Even now, just thinking about some fat noble laying his hands on my mother made me want to tear something apart.

“Now that they are here what do we do with them?” I asked. 

“Fairies are one of the easier races to deal with. For one they are bound by the core to follow me, but I can also offer something that will seal the deal,” Oberon smiled.

Oberon POV

“If everyone would listen!” I shouted to the assembled imps.

“As Zriq has explained to many of you, I can lift the curse that is causing you to wear your current forms. I will need you all to sign a magical contract, but it’s nothing much more than the core is already binding you to,” I said holding my hands up to get everyone’s attention.

“Of course we agree!” A voice shouted. 

I turned to see an elderly female imp that was being helped by a younger female imp. She wore robes that suggested a sage or something a spiritual leader for the family. She made her way over to me and grinned.

“I didn’t think I would see you again, your Majesty,” the old imp said with a bow.

“You know me, but it’s been a thousand years,” I said suspiciously.

“I haven’t left the core in eight hundred and ninety years. You of all people know that time moves different in other realms. I probably don’t have much longer to live even with that but I wanted to see the man that was once called the King fo the fairies,” the old imp said getting more energetic as she talked. 

“Without your people I probably wouldn’t have succeeded back then. A pity all that work was ruined,” I said reaching down to grab her gnarled hand. 

“Indeed,” She said then her face turned serious, “even if you have turned undead, the ancient pacts still hold as they were made through your soul. Just say the word and any fairy shall take up arms for your cause!”

“I won’t lie, my path is going to run red with blood in the future,” I said with a bony smile.

“As it did before. Nothing will have changed. Only the reason. The fairy… the imps have been treated as slaves for the last eight hundred years. If the other races refuse to respect us just because our form turned ugly we have no reason to help them in the coming days,” the old imp waved my warning off.

“Fair enough, what shall I call you?”

“ Kelri, the one who watches the hearth,” the old imp answered. 

“Very well Kelri. Would you like to have the honors of being the first?” I asked forming the magic contract in the air. 

“Very much so!” She smiled shoving her hand through the floating energy.

In much the same way with Zriq, the energy from the curse was pulled out of her and back into me. With a lot of cracking and creaking her body reformed before everyone. In a few blinks, a new Kelri stood in front of the crowd. 

She was still old, the magic wouldn’t reverse time after all, but as a fairy she possessed an ethereal component to her age. She was beauty again as I remembered the fairies, age couldn’t take that from them. She looked like an elder that you would come to and get all the secrets of life from. 

“How do you feel?” I asked once the transformation was complete.

“Like I’m two hundred years younger. I can’t believe I can fly again,” she said as she float into the air. That was when I realized that some of the imps didn’t have wings. 

The crowd around us was cheering or crying from the joy of seeing the oldest among them so renewed. The children were bouncing around while the elders looked excited to be able to fly again. The adults also showed excitement to claim something that they never knew they lost. 

“Once we return everyone back to their true forms I’ll take you to your new home. Of course you will be concentrating on the castle, but you will need a place to create a new nest,” I said as I prepared the next contract.