Ch. 21: The Leaders of the Resistance

"Satisfied now?"

After the 'battle' with Fabian, another leader of the resistance, a woman who seemed to know Rosy took them to a large tent with dozens of people inside of it. As it turned out, vampires were a pretty common race of people, and extensive research had been done on bloodlust. Unfortunately, it was impossible to transfer blood into another container to create a mobile blood container to satisfy a vampire's urges. Vampires didn't really need the blood from their victims, so much as a magic form of 'life energy,' which supported their enhanced strength and other powers. Without it, they would slowly go out of control, before an abrupt death once their energy ran out. 

Since animal life force wasn't compatible with the human-based vampires, it couldn't perfectly replace human blood. To solve these problems, the Resistance had a lot of their humans mandatorily donate blood to their vampires. Though these humans weren't exactly thrilled to give their blood to Rosy, they weren't given much of a choice in the matter, since she was so close to losing her mind to the bloodlust.

"I'll be okay for a while now." Rosy answered the woman.

"I'm glad that you finally took my advice, Rose." The woman said.

"You weren't exactly thrilled last time, Chloe." Rosy told her.

"Rosy, you know this person?" Adrian asked.

"Let's go somewhere a little more private. We shouldn't talk with all these people nearby." The woman, Chloe, told them. Adrian and Rosy agreed. 

They went to the biggest tent in camp. There were already three other people in the tent, waiting for us. When Rosy saw them, her eyes immediately met one of them, going wide in recognition.

"Teacher?" She half-whispered.

The man that Rosy called 'Teacher' was pretty old, and clearly not human. His body was covered in gray scales. He was wearing common-looking clothes, his eyes were gray, possibly blind, and his hair was white as snow. When he heard Rosy address him, he smiled.

"Hello, child. It's been a while."

"I'm not a child anymore, teacher."

"Yes. You're seventeen years of age right now, aren't you? How the years fly by..." He reminisced. 

"Adrian, this is my old swordcraft teacher, Doma Dayton. My father attempted to make me kill him once I'd learned everything that I could from him, but I ran away with him instead. It was about two days... then... Apparently, you survived." She trailed off, clearly forgetting what happened back then. Doma noticed this.

"It's been a long time from your perspective, Mary. After I taught you the Draken-Icraft technique, we did run away. You stabbed me in the chest once we realized that we had been caught, but that probably saved my life. I owe you my freedom, child."

"Draken-Icraft?" Adrian asked. Nobody answered him.

"I'm sorry, Teacher. I vaguely remember that, but my mind was rather hazy during the whole thing. I remember caring about you quite a bit, though. I'm glad to see you again, and I'm glad that you're alive." Rosy told her old teacher, being surprisingly polite to him. In fact, she was far more polite to that man than he'd ever heard her be before.

"Anyways, after I ran away, my father decided to send me to the front lines of some war in the north. That's where I met Chloe. She was one of the commanders of the Noctian armies before me, but she deserted shortly after I joined the army."

"I couldn't lead a seven-year-old girl into battle without it weighing on my consciousness. Even if she was way stronger than me. I asked her to come with me, but her bloodlust was really bad back then." Chloe explained. That made sense. Imagining a seven-year-old fighting in a war made Adrian shudder, but imagining a seven-year-old Rosy fighting in a war made him shudder for a far different reason.

"Anyways, I was in the army for about five years, then my dad pulled me back to begin working as an assassin. One of my first targets was Mana here." Rosy introduced the next person, a tall, serious looking man. "He's an accomplished mage who was doing work for the Resistance behind my father's back."

"She slaughtered my family, but let me go free." Mana said quietly. Adrian didn't press. He couldn't imagine how difficult it must have been for the man to simply be in the same room as Rosy with that sort of backstory.

"And you?" Adrian asked the last guy, a tall blonde man with a fair complexion.

"I'm the son of the Arch-gryphon. My name's Reese Chase. I've fought against Rosy a couple of times in the past, though I've never successfully managed to wound her before."

"Arch-gryphon?" Adrian asked. 

"Gryphons are chimeras that can transform into birdlike creatures at will. The arch-gryphon is their leader. Reese here's one of the strongest birds around, and he has access to an incredible information gathering network. We need him." Rosy explained for me.

"We need Fabian, too, Rosy." Reese remarked.

"Why? He seems totally useless to me." She asked.

"Fabian's a shady idiot, it's true, but he's also an ex-noble." Chloe explained.

"He disowned his parents after they uselessly died in service of your father. Since he joined up with us, our supply lines have more than tripled in quantity." Reese continued.

"But... He's a useless idiot." Rosy repeated.

"He's not great... but he's got a lot of contacts. Shady contacts, sure, but still useful people. His anger towards you was because you've killed twelve of those contacts in the last six months." Chloe told them.

Rosy cocked her head, "So... He's an idiot?" She repeated.

"A useful idiot, though." Chloe corrected her.

"I doubt he'll keep being useful in the future, though." Rosy predicted.

"Why's that?" Reese asked.

"My father doesn't consider you guys a threat, but a necessity. It's basic crowd control. He can do whatever he wants, as long as the people have an outlet to express their hatred of him."