Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 61

Someone knocked on the door of his office as Kay methodically worked through the morning’s paperwork.

“Come in,” He intoned monotonously, expecting another armful of papers carried by an assistant.

The harried-looking staffer who stepped inside was exactly what he’d anticipated, but the three people that followed her in were surprises. The first was a member of the military, a scout officer based on their uniform insignia. Kay had deferred to Crucius Mapsight as commander of his military to really sort out the nitty-gritty of making a military from scratch, and the Parliament had been called upon to vote on various insignia, banners, awards, and such.

The next person looked like a normal adventurer, armored up in whatever was best within their budget and with an obviously empty scabbard at their side. Unless you were on a very short list getting into Kay’s presence at this point meant being disarmed. They had a small badge adhered to their armor that marked them as a member of the Sentinels.

The last individual was visibly in distress, copious amounts of sweat dripping down the man’s face as he wrung the hem of his shirt with his hands. He was dressed in normal clothes that were sweat-stained and travel-worn with very new rips and gashes in them.

“My lord,” The staffer gave a small bow, her horse-like ears twitching atop her head, “Scout Captain Menzesh, Sentinel Audrey, and Edwin Turner, a representative for his village. I was told to bring them straight to you; they have some alarming news.”

“Thank you.” He nodded a dismissal at the staffer, who gently closed the door behind her as she left. Kay quickly looked over the three people in front of him and then nodded once. “Tell me.”

“Oh, well, sir- I mean! My lord!” The short, obviously worried, balding orcish man, Edwin Turner, started stuttering and stammering his way through a greeting, “I’m one of the people that’s part of going out and setting up new villages and towns an’ whatnot, ya know? I was supposed to be tha miller since that’s what I’m good at. Family’s been doing it for a long time, and-“He spent the next forty seconds laying out an entire backstory that didn’t directly pertain to whatever it was they needed to tell Kay.

“Stop.” Kay held up one hand, cutting off the nervous stammering. Edwin took one step back, his face going pale. “No, no. Mister Turner, it is easy to see that you’re tired, and whatever journey you’ve been on has been hard. It is just fine if these two give me a short summary of what’s happened, and you can give me the details once you’ve rested up and prepared yourself.”

The wide-eyed stare and near hyperventilating tapered off until Edwin looked closer to being calm. “Thank you, my lord.” He stepped back a pace to let the other two talk, but not before shooting them a desperate look that Kay clocked.

“My lord,” The military officer stepped forward and saluted, “Scout Captain Menzech. My command was deployed in the region where Mister Turner’s village was being built. We were using the need to scout out the area in more detail due to the village going up as a training exercise to whet some of our newer units. We started running into some…” The tanned human man paused for a moment, “…interesting anomalies while we were documenting local monsters. Around the same time, the village started having strange things happen as well.”

“So they sent for us,” The beastkin Sentinel stepped forward and nodded deeply, her golden canine ears that blended in with her multi-colored hair flopping forward and drawing Kay’s eyes like every beastkin’s ears did. “You probably already know that if anyone going out to found a village that wants government funding or supplies has to send for the Sentinels before they start posting Adventurer’s Guild contracts.”

Kay nodded and gestured for her to continue. That session of Parliament was one he’d actually had to intervene in, which was thankfully rare so far. Some members of Parliament did not like the Adventurers’ Guild for one reason or another, and they’d wanted much stricter stipulations on anyone wanting to set up a settlement in Avalon’s territory. Kay didn’t want to piss off the Adventurers’ Guild or drive off anyone that wanted to create a settlement without directly drawing from Avalon’s coffers. There was enough grumbling from the various merchant groups and wanna-be nobles about being forced to acknowledge Avalon’s laws, sovereignty, territorial claims, and Kay’s rule.

“Well, my party went out and started poking around. Skipping all of the steps that led to it, it’s a fucking vampyr.” The Sentinel scowled and shook her head, “Took us a hell of a time to punch through all the nonsense they kept throwing at us, but it’s definitely a vampyr. They started escalating from weird bullshit to actual attacks, so we pulled rank, grabbed the military for help, and evacuated the town.”

Edwin wedged his way between the two and started pleading, “My lord, those of us who went out to set up that village put most of our life savings into that! We had to leave everything behind in order to escape and- “

“Mister Turner, please don’t worry.” Kay stepped out from behind his desk and gently held the man’s hand. “Evacuating because of a threat does not count as you abandoning the village and breaking your contract. We will make sure everyone gets taken care of while we deal with the problem, and then once it’s safe, we’ll let you head back with no problems. If it turns out that it is not safe to return, we’ll still help you find another village somewhere else or even go down another path if that’s what you all want. Avalon and I not going to be that careless or callous about our people’s lives, property, or futures. Everything will work out one way or another.”

The orcish man’s eyes teared up, and he bent over Kay’s hands while clutching them tight, “Thank you, my lord, thank you!”

Kay freed one hand and patted his shoulder. “Of course.” Still reassuring the man, he gestured with his chin at the door, and one of his detail opened it.

The same staffer from earlier peeked her head into view. “My lord?”

“Take Mister Turner to the Prime Minister. She’ll get all the specifics and get you set up with temporary lodgings and everything you need until we solve the problem, alright?” He gently shook Edwin’s shoulder.

“Of course, my lord, we all know how skilled the Prime Minister is.” Edwin started for the door, then turned back, “What are you going to do, my lord?”

Kay shared a grim look with the Captain and Sentinel, “Dealing with the problem.”

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“Kay, think about this!” Eleniah insisted.

“I am thinking about this,” He replied stonily, “Is anything I’ve brought up wrong or even improvable?”

Her face screwed up in distaste. “No. But I’m not happy about this. You shouldn’t be going yourself!”

“What else am I supposed to do? The entire reason I even thought about becoming a leader like this was that you told me and taught me about the responsibility that comes with power. The whole point of being a Class Line Progenitor that starts a nation is to be a beacon and a guardian to the people who join under my banner. I’m not going to be staying here and cowering when I could be taking the fight to the enemy and defending my people!”

“Hanging back and not heading into an obvious trap isn’t cowering!” She whirled away from him, spitting curses, “Vampyr are crazy and irrational, but they aren’t weak or cowardly! There’s no reason for them not to have struck when they were evacuating the village if there wasn’t something else going on!”

“I know.” He reached out and grabbed both her shoulders, pulling her around to face him, “It definitely could be a trap. If it’s a trap for whoever comes to spring it, I’ll have the entire Blood Guard and any Sentinels that can be spared with me. But it could be a trap that’s meant to draw out defenders away from Avalon itself, which is why I’m leaving the military here with you. Which is really what you’re mad about, isn’t it?”

She frowned at him, eyes flashing, “I can’t help you if we’re not together!”

“What needs a tier five on defense duty more, me or the city and all the people in it?”

She stared at him, her mouth working as she tried to come up with some justification before she eventually sighed. “The city and the people. You're a trained fighter with powerful Classes on the cups of tier five.”

“Exactly. This isn’t another nation trying to kill me or even a guild or a company. It’s an uncertain number of vampyr. According to the Shatterplate Order, they only know about the one in the area, and the evidence the Sentinels and the military have pointed to it being only one as well.”

“Vampyr are nuts, Kay. And I’m not talking about the insanity they all have, although that is a thing. They’re strong. They can usually be compared to people with Classes at the very pinnacle of their tier, and they have Classes of their own as well! The ones that have any brain left in them to plan with are even worse!”

Kay took a step back and looked Eleniah over. “Okay, what’s going on? I’m leaving you and the military behind because it’s the smart thing to do, but I’m not that worried about this. I’ve already set a runner to fetch Hunter Ravenhome to come with. With the Blood Guard, a group of literal vampyr hunters, and as many Sentinels as we can bring, I should be fine against one vampy, however strong they might be. Quantity had a quality all its own and all that, even ignoring the amount of quality we’re bringing with us.”

She walked off to the side and stared at the cliff. “I… I don’t know. I just have this really foreboding feeling.”

Kay wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “Well, I’m not going to discount that, as experienced as you are, but we’ve also taken every precaution we can.”

“I wish Cindy were here so we could see if she’s had any pertinent dreams.”

“That would be helpful, but she’s off scouting for an area to put training and manufacturing sites down. And we can’t rely on her dreams anyway.”

“Still, it would help ease some tension.”

Kay glanced over and saw a familiar face headed their way in a hurry. “Here comes Hunter Ravenhome. Maybe she can reassure you a bit. The Shatterplate Order has a lot more experience killing vampyr than we do.”

Hunter Ravenhome rushed up and skidded to a stop in front of them. “Lord Kay,” She greeted him with a slight bow.

“Hunter Ravenhome, good of you to join us. Did you lose the runner on the way here?”

“Runner?” She looked confused, “One of my hunters heard word spreading that a vampyr might have been spotted somewhere, so I came here to see if you’d heard anything concrete. Some of your staff pointed me here.” She gestured at the training area just outside the palace that they were going to be using as a mustering ground.

“Oh, the runner must have missed you on the way then. We have received a report of a vampyr attacking a village that we were putting up. The village was evacuated, and we’ve started gathering forces to go take out the threat. I was hoping the Shatterplate Order would be willing to join us.”

“Of course!” She straightened in place, a determined look in her eyes, “The Shatterplate Order exists to purge vampyr from existence!”

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