Cat and Mouse

As soon as the traps went off, Asher danced through the ranks of the undead slashing his longsword through the necks of his enemies. The familiar warm sensation poured through him and he felt his movements getting smoother with his blade. His sword became red hot and waves of heat flowed off of it through the air.

Asher threw out an outstretched palm and a fountain of flame erupted from it, incinerating a dozen draugr. As quickly as he had fought the creatures, he disappeared from view. The vampires showed up shortly after, checking the damage. One of them commented, "How could one intruder cause so much damage so quickly? It doesn't make sense."

Another one replied, "It doesn't matter. The draugr are expendable. Each one of us is worth a hundred of them."

Asher smiled to himself upon hearing that. If they were each that powerful, he would be finding himself growing tremendously before long. He had already decimated the forces of the draugr before the vampires could even react. There were maybe a dozen left of the hundred or more that there used to be.

Asher felt a newfound power in him. It was surging, trying to find an escape. As one of the vampires split off from the main group, Asher already knew which one to test it on. The vampire turned around just in time to see a man with bright green draconic eyes grabbing on by both sides of his head. The vampire felt a heat rising in it as Asher poured his own power into the attack and the vampire screamed in pain as the raw energy flowed into it.

Before the others could react, the vampire had been disentegrated. Asher was already gone, he had gained a new ability from the vampire. It was a flash step, allowing him to almost teleport a short distance. It was a movement so quick that the naked eye couldn't keep up with it.

The other vampires came across the pile of dust that used to be their companion and they huddled together in response. "Whoever did this is, they are extremely

powerful to deal with any of us like this. Nobody is to go anywhere alone. Take any of the lessers you can gather with you. Retrieve the strigoi to deal with this threat. They cannot get in the way of the master before he finishes the ritual to bring down the town."

Asher nodded upon hearing that, it confirmed his suspicions that the lich had been the one to bring a plague upon the town. Now that he had concrete evidence, he knew exactly who to go for. That was after he was done, however. He would need all the power he could get to deal with the lich. At the moment, that power was right in front of him.

Two of the vampires went off to gather the remaining draugr and the regular zombies began to pour into the huge entrance hall. Asher was knelt down in an alcove, watching everything. He couldn't move too soon or he would be done for. There were too many high level creatures that were actively searching for him.

He would whittle them down over time, days if he had to. His need for rest had decreased over time as he consumed the energy of monsters. It wasn't uncommon for him to go a week without sleep at this point. As the creatures went their own ways, Asher would move between them and kill any stragglers. They knew he was in the entrance hall and had the exits blocked.

The question was, where was he? Asher would constantly set traps for the undead to walk into. As quickly as he consumed his power to set traps, it was replenished by the traps killing the creatures.

He thought about his kill on the vampire. He had used every ounce of raw energy he had in his body to incinerate the vampire from the inside out. It had boosted his strength in the end, but it had been risky. Had he not killed the vampire with that move, he would have been ended then and there. It seemed like something that Asher would have to reserve for enemies that he knew for a fact would be destroyed by his power.

His senses for the strength of monsters had told him that the vampire he had targeted had been the weakest of the group. Each one of the others jumped in power compared to that one. He didn't feel confident that his power would be enough to destroy them in one shot. He would have to deal with them another way for now.

Fire continued to erupt around the room and Asher would catch stragglers as they went to investigate each time. The numbers of the undead kept dwindling. Where there used to be over a thousand zombies, there were only about a hundred left. The main issue for Asher was the half dozen vampires left. Two of them had left for creatures called strigoi, leaving four of them still in the room.

There were two pairs of vampires, each accompanied by a group of draugr and zombies. Asher didn't know how much better he would fare by waiting much longer. The zombies were too sluggish to be anything more than an annoyance to him in a fight. The draugr would have been a bit dangerous if it weren't for Asher recently killing a vampire.

Asher had a feeling he would gain more than one ability from the vampires if he could manage to catch any of them unaware. With every one of them on high alert, that was going to be next to impossible. Asher did the one thing he could think of and found the least guarded exit.

He called on the power of fire and burned a dozen zombies to dust before running through the doorway quickly and hiding away in a new area. The creatures all poured in behind him. Asher had set a trap in the doorway and as he had suspected, the vampires had come in first as a pair and got burnt horribly from his flame trap.

Asher smirked in satisfaction as the draugr and zombies tailing them were burnt to dust. The vampires were still alive, but were very obviously in pain. Asher began looking for a new escape route to continue his hit and run tactics. He found it quickly enough and set another trap.

As soon as the creatures caught sight of him, they began to chase him down before the vampires could order them not to. They activated his trap once again and another dozen were gone just like that. The vampires looked around at what used to be an army of undead, they now numbered only a little more than two dozen.

The other two vampires had returned with a group of feral, lesser vampires known as strigoi. They had a bestial appearance like a mix between a hairless dog and a bat. They had no eyes and huge ears. As opposed to the long canines of the higher vampires, they had rows of razor sharp teeth. Drool dripped from their mouths and they growled into the room.

Asher felt something in his chest and realized the strigoi could see him in a way. The moment that realization hit him, they took off to chase him down. He slashed his sword quickly and took one's head off. His ears began to hurt as a screeching noise entered the room. His hearing had vastly improved from killing the beast and he could hear something coming his way constantly. As he killed another, he could differentiate the different sounds in the room.

The strigoi were sending sound waves through the room to locate him. He attempted to send one back at them and the beasts were confused for several moments. Asher took the opportunity to kill two more of them and the creatures dropped to the ground in agony as Asher sent out a wave of sound that burst their eardrums. Even the higher vampires were holding their ears against the sheer pressure of the sound.

Asher left the room after dispatching several more strigoi. He had quickly gone into hiding again. He didn't know how long it would take for them to recover, but he didn't want to find out the hard way.

The higher vampires stumbled out of the room and Asher took advantage of the situation. He buried his blade in one of their chests and grabbed the other one, injecting his raw energy into it. The one with Asher's sword in it's chest shambled towards him, but it was too late. Asher had already incinerated the vampire's companion. Asher grabbed on and proceeded with the same process again.

There were only four of the higher vampires left and a handful of zombies. Asher finished off the strigoi after flash stepping to them. The four higher vampires that were left all had recovered and began to approach him.

"You're going to die for what you've done," one vampire said.

Asher laughed at it. "You'll regret coming to this town. I'll make sure I save you for last."

Asher let out the high pitched sound once again and all of the vampires dropped to the ground in pain. Blood began to run out of their eyes and ears. Asher dispatched each and every one of them other than the one who seemed to be the leader of the group.

Asher stared into the red orbs in the dark room for several moments. He was debating what to do for a long time. The vampire knew it was defeated and it threw it's weapon to the side. Asher smiled evilly at the action. "You'll come to regret that," Asher stated as he stomped on the vampire's leg, shattering it with a sickening crunch.