The Count

Li's boots sloshed through the sewers. As far as sewage systems went, Riviera's was quite advanced, consisting of a maze of sloping pathways engineered at specific angles so that when rainwater and muck fell in through the gutters, they created a current that washed away the sewage to a massive treatment center at the lowest part of the city, wherein dedicated workers and the occasional mage needing to fulfill his community service hours would purify the sewage or package it into fertilizer.

Because there had been recent rain, the sewage hadn't built up much, and as Li followed the spawn, the filthy water only reached up to his ankles.

The spawn took up a leisurely pace, its eight legs clicking across stone as it occasionally turned back to Li, making sure he was fine.

"Don't worry about me, little one," said Li. "Go ahead as you like, and do not be afraid. You can take care of yourself."

The spawn nodded the vampire's face it had stolen, and it rushed forwards, ploughing up splashes of brown water as it faded into the recesses of the sewers.

Li followed behind at a more leisurely pace. Due to the spawn being a unique familiar in that it only lasted a temporary amount of time, it did not have restrictions on the range of its control as the Myrmeke did, allowing Li to track its movements regardless of how far away it went.

So Li decided to allow the level 80 child of horror to explore for him.

As Li turned several corners, making his way through the winding corridors of sewage, he found several freshly mangled corpses floating atop the scum water. The spawn's victims.

Li inspected them. They were hunched-back creatures, a little smaller than a man and completely pale and hairless. Their skin was wrinkled in deformity rather than age, and their eyes were a squinty red while their ears roughly pointed up. Their mouths were lamprey-like, circular and lined with razor sharp teeth.

Lamashu – lesser vampires. Li appreciated the spawn in that it surgically eliminated these creatures, merely requiring a quick slash of its arachnid appendages to cleanly cleave them in two or disembowel them, their guts staining brown as they floated in the filthy sewage.

Of more interesting note, the corpses had packs on them filled with elixirs and herbs bound in preservative bagging. But these weren't for curing colds or giving a little kick of strength on the battlefield. These were for getting high.

All these Lamashu were drug mules, moving Black Vine's illegal products all throughout the entire city through the sewage system.

As Li traveled further through the passageways and found dozens upon dozens of the Lamashu corpses, he realized that the scope of Black Vine's operations was truly massive. It must have been supplying the entire city's criminal underground and far more, likely making drugs in bulk to ship out to other towns, villages, and perhaps even other cardinal cities.

Li eventually came upon the spawn again at an interesting junction in the sewers. The sewers were made of brick and concrete, but the spawn stood pointing eagerly with one of its legs to a gaping hole in one of the sewer walls, neatly circular and drilled straight through the concrete.

The hole was large enough to four or five men, and it was located at the farthest eastern end of the sewers, right below the residential district for all the nobles of Riviera, the counts and barons that ruled directly under lord Lys.

Li peered into the hole, and wherever it led, it led up. It was surprisingly clean, well-maintained and smelling sterile.

The spawn rattled, its breath a little labored.

Li knelt down, and the spawn flattened itself on the ground, pressing the stitched vampire face to Li's hand. Li took the face and tore it off, revealing an inky, starry blackness underneath, as if a part of the night sky had been cut off and transplanted.

"You should be wearing your own face when you return to your mother," said Li as he caressed the starred void, feeling an indescribable coldness that leeched into his hands like numbing poison. He knew that in lore, the spawn of Atlach Nacha, once their mortal hosts provided no more nutrition, would fade away, their essences returning to a higher dimension where their mother lay. "Your time is up. I'm sorry you had to spend it in the sewers."

The spawn purred as it fell into the comfort of Li's hand. Li waited, stroking the spawn's carapace as it slowly stiffened up, its physical shell starting to crack and decompose. Eventually, it broke apart entirely, scattering into countless particles of black that faded into the air, as if never having existed in the first place.

Li gave the spawn an acknowledging nod for its help and made his way through the pit. Eventually, the pit started to angle drastically upwards, until at a certain point, it was a straight vertical climb. When he looked up, he could see thin glimmers of moonlight at the top, perhaps a little shy of thirty meters away.

Here, it wasn't so much a pit as it was a deep hole in the ground leading to the surface, and there were claw marks scratched all across the length of the hole – evidence of how the vampires came up and down.

However, Li had a far simpler alternative. He angled himself properly and then jumped. He soared straight upwards. A little too far up, unfortunately, as he wasn't too used to judging his strength, and he found himself a dozen meters beyond the hole, high up in the air where he could see all around him.

He was right behind a massive mansion lit up entirely with torches and lanterns. A thick garden surrounded him, and surrounding the garden were high walls, concealing the hole from the outside world.

And right around the hole were ten figures clad in black armor, various weapons in their hands.

Li landed amid them, a shower of grass and leaves pushing up from his impact, and the armored men formed a ring around him, their armor clanking as they lowered crimson-infused spears and swords towards him. He patted some grass off from his knees and dragged his boots across the ground, wiping off some muck.

"Apologies for the smell," said Li. He scanned the ring of warriors around him. They were vampires, all of them, their pale faces and red eyes glowing in the dark, and their armor was the Bloodborn Set, forged with cursed obsidian and lined with bloodstone. A decent set – solid for the midgame and meant for level 50s. "But I do have to say you vampires were the ones that insisted on crawling around in the sewage."

"Stop this insanity!" rung a hoarse but powerful voice. The owner of the voice stepped forwards from the mansion. He was unnaturally tall, dressed in a slim-fitting black doublet and silken red breeches. He was obviously a vampire, his complexion pale and his eyes red as ever, but unlike the others, a third eye, completely red like a pearl of blood, lay on his forehead, the marker of a higher vampire who should be level 70.

He had the refined features of a noble. Sharp jaw, sharp cheekbones, sharp nose, sharp eyes – and a razor-sharp demeanor too, it seemed, from the precision of his steps and the strength of his stare.

"We do not treat fellow higher beings like this," he said as he walked down the steps of his back porch. He gave Li a half bow from quite a distance away, evidently still wary of him. "I apologize for the rudeness my associates have put you through. It sullies the Alarie name, and as a count, I promise to treat you with the dignity you deserve."

Li watched as the vampires around him moved away, their weapons withdrawing in synchronized, methodical and drilled precision.

"Was your idea of sending a vampire to my farm also just a little bit of 'rudeness'?" said Li.

Count Alarie shook his head, his fangs growing as displeasure made its presence known upon his face. "Not at all. He was but a messenger."

"A messenger knocking at midnight, armed with a knife and in his vampiric form? That doesn't sound suspicious to you?"

"Yes, he was a messenger meant to threaten, but all he was to do was urge you to stray away from pursuing a herbalist's license. He would not have attempted any bodily harm; the knife and vampiric appearance are all for intimidation's sake. True violence - that is not our way."

"Funny, because I recall four thugs trying to beat me away from a license, and later, two vampires that wanted to execute me for the same reason."

Alarie sighed. "Ah, it is difficult working with human street criminals, you must understand. Sometimes, they give in to their baser instincts of violence and discrimination. And the twins? I had no choice to send them when you killed our messenger. Blood must be repaid with blood when it comes to our kind, but you have more than shown you are not some mere human, and so let us say the dimensions of our contact have shifted rather drastically."

Li took a step forward, and one of the knights raised his spear, thrusting it dangerously close to Li's face.

Li grabbed the spearhead and crushed it in his fist. He opened his hand and the crumbled remains of the cursed obsidian scattered in the wind.

"I will say this only oncemore," said Alarie to the men. "Stand down."

The vampire warriors nodded and withdrew even further. The one with the destroyed spear visibly shook in his armor.

"The fact doesn't change that you still invaded my home and threatened my livelihood." Li took another step forwards, and the ground seemed to rumble beneath him, quaking at his focused killing intent. "You will have to give me an incredibly good reason as to why I shouldn't reduce you to so tiny a smear on the grass that you'll never regenerate."

Alarie trembled, but he still stood tall, maintaining his composure. "Indeed, I supposed you would not be placated so easily, but I do wish to tell you that I can more than give you recompense for the inconvenience I have brought upon you. I possess information that would be of great use to you."

"Such as?"

"Firstly, I know that you are an Outworlder."