We are making decent progress in our exploration of the inner keep. By the time we left our little base, every single little sound had begun to startle us. We reacted like there was a vampire in the next room, about to attack us all.
Any more time in that room, we would have begun to attack each other at the sound of our breathing. Things had gone that badly. I still don't know why we have not been attacked already.
The instant that I recovered enough that I would be able to move, we left on our search. Speaking about our exploration, we are making good time.
We had the good luck of ending up in one of the less important places in the inner keep. It is some kind of servant quarters. That means that the quality of the traps and alarms here is very bad. There should be better ones in the other parts of the fort, though. They also had to keep the alarms in the area less sensitive than they are usually kept. Otherwise, it would trigger when a servant walked next to it. Even the traps are less complex than they would usually be.
Not that I have needed to worry about traps, though. I have not yet needed to dismantle even a single trap in this entire time. Alarms, yes, but not traps. All the traps here have already been set off.
That is pretty weird if I am to be honest. Trevor thinks this is because the vampires must have set off all the traps. After they would have needed a point of entry, and this is about as good a place to infiltrate the place.
I just can't see how they could have done it, though. Any traps set off should have set off the alarms as well. All alarms are designed in such a way that they will react when they detect any trace of vital mana. They will set off when a certain amount of mana is flowing in the region. This is not something that I expect a vampire to be able to do. Precise mana control is not what pops into your head when you think of vampires.
If anything, they are the race that least needs to worry about using their mana. Well, if I am honest, vampires are creatures that always have a trick up their sleeve. I will figure out this trick of theirs soon enough. I am personally betting on some kind of infernal summoning. An imp would be capable of pulling this type of thing.
Well, I shouldn't waste too much time thinking about this. After all, we are in enemy territory right now. I had expected to be attacked on our first day here. Somehow our luck has held till now. Yet I can't stop the creeping suspicion that something is following us. It is like a ghost at the edge of my vision.
Well, vampires are capable of that kind of stealth. I just don't think they would be this willing to be stealthy now, though. They hold enough strength to kill all of us on the spot.
Fuck, I really should not have started recording right now. It affects my focus. I have to open this alarm without setting it off. Alarm spells are pesky little formations to deal with.
They are built in such a way that even the lightest contact with external mana will set the entire thing off. This could be a noise, a wave of mana. Anything to inform everybody that you are here? To dismantle it, you need to separate the sensitive part from the non-sensitive part. You have to do so gently. Otherwise, you risk setting off the alarm yourself.
The formations themselves tend to be pretty easy to break. It is just an exercise in my mana control.
If I failed, the vampires would attack us, regardless of whether they were following us or not. Right now, that is something that we cannot afford. To be honest we don't know who will come in reaction to the alarm being set off. It could be the mayfires or it could be the vampires.
If it is the Mayfires, we don't need to worry about being revealed because ultimately that is our goal. If we manage to meet up with them, then I can finally calm down a bit. It is the vampires that we don't want to stumble into.
The alarm formation that I am dealing with right now is the most sensitive formation I have seen here. This makes me think that this door leads into one of the more important areas of the inner keep.
That means that we have more chances of encountering the Bloodfire gang or the Mayfires. Thus, it would be wiser to be very cautious.
(After about ten minutes.)
Well, there it goes.
The minute that the spell gives away, I retreat at the same instant. I jump backward, keeping my sword ready. The instant after the alarm spell is shattered is the best time to ambush a person.
The chance of that happening is pretty low. I would have detected anybody if they were there. Still, the one thing that I have learned in my life is to be as careful as possible. You can never tell what vampires can be capable of.
I signal to the other people in my room to enter into a stance. Trevor takes a position to my right, and Andrew takes a position to my left. Jacob is just behind me.
Jacob is the fastest of us, wielding twin daggers. His job is to warn us in case of an ambush from the back.
Andrew, who is using a sword and shield and Trevor, who is using a sword, are the reserves. They will either follow me, stay put or retreat based on the enemy's action. Finally, I am the vanguard. I will be the first to enter the place, and based on the enemy's strength, give commands through Jacob.
With everybody taking a position, it is time for me to open the door. All of this preparation seems to be a bit over the top, but you never know who could be on the other side. (With my injuries, I am not quite strong enough to fight on my own.)
Finally, the door creaks open as I quickly case the room. It is some kind of an office. The room is bare except for a table and a bookshelf. More importantly, there is no enemy here.
I signal the soldiers to follow behind me.
They quickly make their way into the room. Already, I can see Trevor casing the room. The places in which potential enemies might be hiding. The possible places in which we can hide.
Well, I am supposed to be doing the same thing. Well, the room is pretty easily defensible. We can make use of the table to block the door. It is a good, solid table. Nothing will be able to break it easily.
Similarly, the bookshelf can be used, but moving it would make way more noise. The books present on the bookshelf can be used to light a fire. Out of curiosity, I open the books to see what is in them.
Well, it is some kind of an entry log for the servants, recording their time of entry and exit. I put the thing back quietly. I mean, it could be paranoia but I can't see beyond this room in my mana sense. I need to figure out why soon.
"Well, Andrew, would you close the door to the room behind us?" I whisper to Andrew, my voice echoing like drum beats.
The room has two doors, the one that we just came through and the one that leads to the outside. The formations on this door are even stronger than the one that I have just broken through. Thankfully, there is no alarm formation.
At a glance, there are three formations here. The first is the reason that my mana sense is not working beyond this room. The second records any noise in the room. The third records any mana signature in the room.
Well, if they have a person monitoring the formations, we have already been discovered. The chance of that happening is pretty low, though. The enemy is in a state of active combat. I have a sneaking suspicion that they don't have enough people to attack the Mayfires. They certainly don't have enough people to monitor all the defensive formations. At least that is what I am telling myself. They could be coming to get rid of me at this very moment.
So right now, I will focus on the first formation. The other two have already done all the damage they can. Give me five minutes, I don't need to be as gentle with this formation as I need to be with an alarm formation.
(After about five minutes.)
Well, it was good that I destroyed the formation. Right now, I can sense mana in the room beyond. There are mages on the other side of the room, and they are moving a lot of mana.
Well, we do not have the option to hide anymore. The destruction of the formation would have alerted the people there. With how much mana they are throwing around, they will notice this for certain. The only hope that I have is that the people on the other side are not vampires. (I can't tell if the mana on the other side is blood mana or not. If it is blood mana, they have a lot of blood bags in there to achieve that.)
Still, I keep my sword ready, not activating it though. I will do so based on the enemy we are facing. (It is still a sharp sword even without activating it.) The troop has taken position behind me already, the same as the previous time.
I open the door, ready to be ambushed. The scene beyond is about as shocking as one would expect it to be. Well, I was certainly not expecting to see a genocide like this. There are corpses strewn across the hall I find myself in.
The corpses are all wearing different clothes, so it must be the Bloodfire gang. That would mean that the man in front of us could be an ally.
"This is a surprise.", a voice speaks out from the other end of the hall.
The hall is massive with four or five doors spread across it. I make a note on every door in the place as I finally look at the man. To do this, I need to step over a few of the bodies. They have all been burnt black. My troop follows behind me in formation.
The man is hiding behind some kind of barrier. I rack my head trying to think if the man is an ally or not. Logically speaking, he should be an ally, but something feels wrong. It is the mana that he is using in the barrier. It is not fire mana. It is also not blood mana. I have never seen such a type of mana. All I can do to describe it is that it is creepy.
"Are you dumb, vampire?" the man speaks again, his voice more like a harsh whisper. The more he speaks, the clearer it is that we are enemies.
"I am wondering what kind of magic you are wielding. I have never seen magic like this", I reply, pretty much on an impulse.
"You don't know, do you, vampire?" the man speaks, his voice seriously creeping the fuck out of me. "Well, they did mention you. The vampire that is killing all the vampires."
I do not get to reply to this. Even as he speaks, I feel the mana that he begins to emit. There is too much mana flowing in the room, flowing like a tidal wave of ice. Yet the thing that caused me to shiver from my bones is not this wave of mana. I can see the corpses get up in the corners of my eyes.