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Old 10-05-2001, 08:06 PM   #28
Tancred
White Dragon
 

Join Date: April 1, 2001
Location: UK
Age: 43
Posts: 1,893
A thin beam of energy slices through the tower wall, carving a doorway. As the beam completes its' course, the stones of the makeshift door are blasted apart. The dust and ash billows into the tower basement, followed by a very, very dusty figure. His robes are just discernable as red through the dust cloud. His face is set in a grimace of determination.
"Hah."
Karnas strides into the dimly-lit basement.
"I... I don't like this place, Karnas. It... *feels* wrong."
Tancred the sword seems to glow brighter , as if desperate to ward off the darkness.
"Shut up, holy-boy. The flying silver thing was going in this direction, and I'm sure as hell not going to walk around for another hour looking for it. This will do."
"Something here doesn't want us here."
"Heh - makes two of us."
Karnas looked around at the place. Seemed like some old warehouse for furniture, he thought. Big, dusty and full of stuff. Hey ho.
Wonder if there's a bed in here?

***

She didn't fully understand. This tower was death to all who were not of the elvish folk, yet she could hear - she could SMELL - a human.
She watched him, this red-robed man cloaked in power. A typical, swaggering, over-confident mage, she saw - but there was something not right. A slight smell of... not the grave, no, but of time... time, and the halting of time. She was looking at a man who had been dead, perhaps - or a spirit possessing another body. That was all that seemed to fit.
Perhaps that was why the tower's magic remained untrue in his case?
She stayed there, watching the man wind his way deeper into the heart of her web, wondering. Eventually, she chided herself for even bothering to consider such things.
Oh well, she sighed. Human blood was something she had not tasted in centuries.

***

"Ssssh, stop walking for a moment! I can hear something!"
"I can't hear anything."
"Ssssh!" Tancred could see the signs. A dark tower, dusty, cobwebby furniture and creaky floorboards all spoke of uninhabited ruins - but little details betrayed the presence of at least one creature. The three stains on the winegoblet that gave the appearance of a drink that had been drunk. The settee that was cleaner than the rest. If Karnas couldn't see it, he was stupider than Tancred gave him credit for.
They both listened. Karnas settled his weight, cocked his ears, and strained against the oppressive silence.
There was a sound - a sound like someone trying not to be heard. The slight scuffle of a light foot against the wooden floors. Hair would have pricked on the back of Tancred's neck, had he a neck.
"HOI!" Yelled out Karnas. "I know you're there! Come out!"
Silence.
And then a shape tiptoed out from behind a pillar, a slight, white shape. Dark-haired she was, and with the angualr features and pointed ears of the Elf. Her dress reached down to the floor, an ancient robe cut in an archaic style that neither of the two travellers recognised. She looked at the mage, and suddenly flew to him, her arms wide. She flung herself around Karnas before he could stop her.
"Oh, thank the gods! Someone has come! Oh, thank you, thank you, you are a saviour to me!"
"Yes, yes, now if you could just let go of me I'd be ever so grateful - "
"Please accept my warmest thanks! Oh, powerful you must be to have come so far!"
"Look, can you just PLEASE -"
The woman moved back a little, and their eyes locked.
Karnas' heart didn't just skip a beat - he was sure that, for an hour or more, they just looked at each other, and his heart stopped. She was incredible, and the impact of her eyes was like a hammerblow to his will. Suddenly there was nothing he could refuse such a beauty.
"I am called Illandra, noble lord. I have been a prisoner here for centuries."
He was caught in the honeyed syllables of her voice, like a fly in treesap. He nodded his head. He would free her. He had freed her!
"I thank you for coming, sir, for you can fulfil a need of mine, a need that has driven me almost insane for so long."
So beautiful. His lower lip trembled. Now he knew how the holy-boy felt when rescuing a damsel, he thought. The blood in his ears whoooshed around, obscuring all but her voice in the rushing.
"I need to bite your neck and drain your worthless body of blood. Will you permit me, kind sir?"
Karnas nodded, his eyes glassy. For you, my dear, he thought, anything. He brought his hands up to his neck, working at the collar of his robes to allow her access to his neck. She smiled as he did so - gods, what a smile! - and leaned forward again, her tongue touching electrically to the spot hshe had chosen to bite. He smiled dreamily as her arms embraced him firmly but not roughly, and held his breath waiting for the moment she would reward him by drinking of his -
Suddenly another sound intruded into his consciousness.
"*KAAAARNAAAS!!!*"
The spell was broken. Tancred's voice yelled out into his brain. Karnas lurched back in horror and shock.
Vampire!
He barely had time to swear, let alone cast a spell, as the undead woman screeched and backhanded him with such force he spun away, almost lifted off the ground, landing in a heap on the floor. Before he could get up she was on him, hands clutching for his neck, legs pinning him down. He tried to gasp the words of a spell, but they would not come. He fought against her grip, but it was like trying to prise apart an oyster; her talons dug into his heck. Her face - still beautiful, even when twisted by anger - was scant inches from his.
Things began to go black.
In desperation, he fought his hands toward his belt, grabbing at something within his robes and dragging it forth...
In a sudden, welcome second, the pressure was gone. The sound of a sudden hiss and a screech of pain accompanied the vampire scrambling to get away from him, her hand scorched by the holy power of the sword Tancred resided in. She crawled away and scrambled to her feet in time to leap aside from a fireball from Karnas' outstretched hand.
And then she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness.
Karnas groaned, checked to make sure his head was still attached, and got up slowly, holding Tancred out in front of him to try and illuminate the darkness.
"That was a close one," confided the sword.
"Too close," agreed the mage, still feeling his bruised neck. "I... thank you back there."
"Can we go back out now?"
"Hah! Go back? There's a vampire in here, and a clever, attractive one at that."
Tancred sounded puzzled. "Um... what's your point? Like I say, things are suddenly quite dangerous."
Karnas couldn't help it. It was the Red Wizard in him. Always seeking new challenges. This vampire had almost bested him. No wizard worth his salt would back down from such a challenge.
"Oh no," he replied. "Things aren't getting dangerous. Things are getting *interesting*."
The sword in one hand, Karnas walked on, searching the darkness.
Above him, clinging to a rafter, a white, dark-haired shape watched him walk on... and followed.

OOC: I've been away for a while - sorry. Hope I wasn't needed for something, or anything.
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