Dawn- An age of Darkness

My companions were probably kind of broken too.

The girl was behind me while Alisa took the full brunt of the slam, so yeah, she was probably worse off than me. 

Meanwhile, I didn\'t see any pursuers coming our way. Wait, were we even being pursued in the first place?

The ice below was melting and in front of us was a wall of wood, meaning, we had to do something fast. 

Or back to the falling!

My freezing butt and bone-shattering pain were going a great job at keeping me awake. So yeah, I did not want to fall and die. 

"There." Alisa spat blood and pointed to a window just three meters below us. The other nearest window was roughly two stories down.. 

"Can you form another slide?" With my nose compromised, talking was hard and my words came out funny. I sure didn\'t have time to worry about that though. Viola was grabbing me from behind, shaking like crazy. I really hope she didn\'t start leaking. 

Alisa formed it without a word and passed out the very next second. 

Viola was grabbing onto me, so my hand was free but seriously? Now I had to grab on to Alisa?

With a sigh, we now slid down for the window, feet first. \'This is not going to end well.\' Yeah, no shit. 

I really wanted to punch myself right about now. 

We splashed into the glass. Fortunately, it was big enough and it was transparent wood, so we got in without getting too many cuts. I probably had another rib cracked, because I had two broken ones and I could tell exactly where. 

I did not want this kind of enlightenment, no. 

This room was actually empty. 

Some sort of storage room.

Breathing rapidly, I quickly brought out two high potions and a normal potion. 

Hard to imagine my heart didn\'t race till now. Just what the hell was in that drug?

I drank the high, fed the other one to Alisa, and gave the normal potion to the girl. She was the least hurt, so she didn\'t need one as badly as we did. 

Alisa could drink on her own, so I didn\'t have to mouth feed and I didn\'t want to either. 

Alisa breathed hard and got up. "To the dungeons, now!" This girl was such a slave driver. 

My bones were still broken but now they didn\'t hurt as much. Honestly, to me, potions were nothing more than just painkillers at this point. A very expensive painkiller. 

At least the taste was nice. 

My nose healed though. I guess this thing wasn\'t called a high potion for nothing. It could basically heal almost all kinds of superficial wounds and even burnt skin, but not severely broken bones.

Fractured bones were okay though. 

Viola also stood up, eyes leaking: she was behind me and didn\'t seem that hurt. "Why?" she glared. 

I was really glad she didn\'t wet herself. 

"Look, I told you I had my ideals and goals, remember? We\'re trying to prevent a war from happening. If both Destoa and Dwaram join hands and crush your nation, will you be happy? And as I mentioned I am a royal too. So-"

She looked at me, a bit puzzled for a second but then made up her mind. "Are you really on my side?" Her stare was very calculating. 

I took a deep breath. "You have my word."

She took a minute but eventually made up her mind. "I know the way." 

  Why was this kid so easy? Like why did she have to be so trusting of others?

Granted, I saved her and brought her back, but still, did she really have to be this gullible?

Sigh. 

Anyway, she led the way and we followed. 

***

The whole place was like a maze, so I had no idea where this girl was even taking us and whether she was taking us where we wanted to or not. 

But then there was the question, how come there weren\'t any soldiers around and how did these people prevent intruders from sneaking into this place?

I got that the duke\'s soldiers were vampires, but what about the king\'s?

\'Do they have some kind of techs like cameras and stuff?\' It wasn\'t implausible. After all, the dwarves had already invented the radio. It only worked in their small nation though. 

"Don\'t you think this is too easy?" I whispered.

Alisa nodded back. "I think there\'s a trap in the dungeons. And the vampires have a great advantage in this forest and the darkness." 

Yeah, that went without a saying. "But why are we going there then?"

"It\'s the most likely place he has them."

But wouldn\'t the guy expect us to think that and do the opposite?

I did trust Alisa\'s judgment but I knew she wasn\'t perfect. But for the time being, I just listened to her. 

***

But we eventually made it to the lift and though I didn\'t want to take it we still did. Wasn\'t this like basically giving them the chance to catch us?

  But both Alisa and Viola disagreed. Apparently, once started, this lift couldn\'t be stopped and it only stopped on the designated floors. 

Meaning, hell awaited at the dungeons for us. 

But, there wasn\'t anyone on the floor we stopped. The pyres were just about the only thing going. 

There just wasn\'t anybody around. Not a soldier nor a vampire. 

"What are vampires?"

I knew about them from my world and movies, but it didn\'t hurt to know more about them.

"Vampires are a type of undead that feed on blood rather than meat. And with enough blood, they can maintain their sanity and even immortal abilities. Most of the lower class ones are always thirsty but the ones like the duke can control that thirst and also command the rest."

"Basically, they\'re half-dead on steroids?"

"Yes, but that power does come at a greater cost. As you\'ve noticed, there weren\'t many soldiers out and the forests were crawling with vampire monsters. The only reason they didn\'t attack us was because your blood smells awful to them."

\'Excuse me!? My blood smelled awful!?\'

Not coming last night might have been a great idea after all. Those things had a great advantage at night. 

But, really? My blood had a smell?

"I\'m not understanding this. My uncle is an undead? What even is an undead? And a vampire too?" 

I sighed. "Trust me, you don\'t want to know." If she really didn\'t know about the horrors of undead, I didn\'t want her to go through the pain of knowing. 

And was it me or was this lift taking too damn long to go down?

This lift moved almost like a typical lift. There weren\'t any mechanical sounds or music though. 

I was once stuck inside a lift for eighteen minutes and I didn\'t need music in here to remember more of that trauma. No thanks. 

Everything kind of irritated me. My shoulder was hurting a lot and I had broken bones. 

Wait, "My shoulder might be dis-" I stopped as Alisa grabbed my shoulder and slammed my bones together. 

Argh.

I shrieked like a girl. Probably worse than a girl. It hurt, like really!

"Not just a dislocated bone, no, you\'ve got some broken ones here too."

"You couldn\'t have been gentler?" I was on the verge of tears. A few drops might have leaked too. 

"What is the relationship of the two of you again?" Viola watched all this with a bit of concern. 

"Little sister?"

"Lover?"

I and Alisa spoke at the same time? 

"Wait, what?"

We again spoke at the same time and the same thing too, staring at each other. 

"You think of me as your sister?" Alisa said, clearly glaring. 

"You think of me as your lover?"

She grinded her teeth. Was this some sort of plan?

Eh?

I sure didn\'t get anything.

Viola sighed. "Let\'s talk later. We\'re almost here."

The pace slowed. We were here. 

And a minute later the door opened. 

It was like I was going into a cave. A very dark cave. 

There wasn\'t anyone here in particular and from the looks of it, it almost felt abandoned. 

Though I did hear loads and loads of groans. 

The smell was anything but pleasant. It was almost like a forest, just milder. 

I wrapped a cloth around my mouth while Alisa just used her mist. The princess used a handkerchief. 

Alisa was throwing me off though. Wasn\'t she the demigod of ice? How come she could use mist? Or was it a sub-category?

I\'d have to wring out all the details later. 

There were pyres in every corner so we strode carefully. 

"What\'s their weakness besides holy?" I whispered. 

"Nothing, not even fire. They do seem to be hurt by sunlight but even that isn\'t too effective."

"Wha-? What about garlic and mustard?" Fire was the natural enemy of all undead and garlic, the vampires. 

But sunlight only hurt them? It didn\'t turn them to ash? Well, that was a bummer. 

Actually, didn\'t this mean, Vampires of this world were really overpowered?

"No? What\'s a mustard? And keep your eyes ahead, moron!" Alisa hissed. 

Yeah, I guess I should have known.

Anyway, we carefully moved forward through all the cells. 

But there were no guards here. And there weren\'t any vampires around either. 

The people inside the cells were mostly dead. And I was glad they were, at least they weren\'t undead and coming after us. 

Dying was better than suffering in a place like this, at least in my book. I was a shut-in my previous life, but- after traveling the world, after all this, I still wanted to be a shut-in, but I didn\'t want to be robbed of my freedom. And I certainly didn\'t want to spend the time in a place like this. 

"This way!" Alisa whispered and I followed. 

Viola was following us quietly now. After this, I\'d be sure to give her a speech about how she shouldn\'t trust men so easily. 

But for now, we just kept ongoing. And at the end of all this, we found just one man, tied to a chair. He was a guy in his late fifties, his beard was short and most of his facial hair was white. He was kind of beaten and passed out: there were traces of blood on the floor, it wasn\'t fresh. He was also a fox demi-human. 

"That\'s the king?" I asked aloud. 

"Father!" Viola screamed. Didn\'t she realize we were being quiet for a reason?

I guess not. 

I didn\'t see any guards or keys, so I just slashed the cell with the mystic blade and I could cut through the iron bars easily. The bars fell on the floor and there was some smoke coming from the places I just cut.

"But that\'s Mithrin!" Viola gulped. 

So, apparently, this wasn\'t iron. 

"Just go get your father." I went inside too. "Alisa stay outside, in case something happens."

\'Was this a mistake?\'

I was on alert and I had a bad feeling about this, but we had to take this chance.