Apostles of Doom

Talarius turned a ghostly shade of pale white as Antefalken’s words, and his own experience on the other side of the story, sank in.

Citadel of Light, Dungeon: Late Fourth Period

Hilda and Stevos followed Aeris and a Shield member down into the Citadel’s dungeons. They were, as dungeons went, quite clean and well lit. Hilda suspected that if you were locking up Unlife, good lighting would be important. In particular, Light of Day devices should be installed to flash hallways to keep them from escaping. She shook her head. This was idle speculation; whatever they were doing here, it had been working for centuries.

“These first two rooms on each side contain the re-turned vampires; the third one on the right is Vladimir and the third on left is the dhampyr,” Aeris informed them.

They walked up to the large iron door with a small barred window at head height and a food slot at the bottom. Aeris waved her hand over the lock, mouthing a small unlocking chant; the guard then inserted a key and pulled on the handle.

“He is chained to his bench; the chain will only barely reach the door,” Aeris said.

“I should be fine,” Hilda said, moving into the room. She brought forth a small ball of light to illuminate the room as Stevos and Hilda followed her in.

The dhampyr lifted its head to look at his visitors, blinking at the sudden light in the room. It seemed to take a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, but once he recognized Hilda he gave a small, rather pathetic cry and cowered back on the bench.

Hilda frowned. Were those tear streaks running down the dhampyr’s face? His eyes were certainly red, as if he had been crying and rubbing them; not the blood you saw sometimes with vampires.

“Go ahead!” the dhampyr sniffled. “Just kill me already. My life could not possibly get any worse than it has been these last few months!” He began to cry.

Hilda blinked. This was not quite what she had been expecting. The dhampyr, who appeared to be an extremely thin young man of about sixteen or seventeen years, was a bit less imposing that she would have thought for a soldier of the Storm Lords.

“So, you are having a bad time of it?” Aeris asked. “Do not expect sympathy from us, dhampyr.”

The dhampyr glanced at the Diocate. “I expect none. I know what your church preaches about my kind. Go ahead and kill me. I could care less; I have nothing left to live for. Everyone I love has been taken from me. I could barely manage to survive by chasing chickens around my yard, even before the Storm Lords came and destroyed the entire town and captured me.”

“Everyone you love?” Aeris asked dispassionately. “What do dhampyrs know of love?”

The dhampyr looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Don’t confuse a dhampyr for a vampire. I am as mortal as you — more so, in fact. I’m but a human with a condition I never asked for. I’ve been a pariah ever since I started showing signs of my condition several years back. My family was forced to move to a farm away from town for fear of my safety. I’ve lived on nothing but the blood drained from chickens ever since. Do you know how unsatisfying that is? But I have no other recourse,” the dhampyr complained angrily. “My brother gave his life defending our town from the Storm Lords! My mother then died a few months later of the wasting sickness because it wasn’t safe to bring a priest to our farm to treat her for fear of them finding me!” He shook his head. “My mother, my brother — they taught me more about love, personal sacrifice and pain than you will ever comprehend, you emotionless alfar!”

Hilda frowned slightly. She had been watching the dhampyr throughout with her Truth Sight. There was no question that he was telling the truth as he saw it. She gestured to Aeris to let her do the questioning. “So how did you end up in Vladimir’s squad?” she asked the dhampyr.

“The Storm Lords finally overran the village. The ghouls must have smelled my chickens. I had a fairly large number, since that’s all I ate. They came, scaled my walls, and ate all my chickens.” The dhampyr pressed his fists to his eyes to suppress tears at the memory. “Then a ghast came and was surprised to find a dhampyr hiding on a human farm. He took me to his vampire lord, who asked for the name of my father — who I have never met, by the way. He then contacted my father, who sent Vladimir to enlist me against my will in the forces of the Storm Lords.” The dhampyr was half crying, half shouting in anger.

“So, it seems like things turned out well for you,” Aeris said.