Blood Shaper

Dozens of vampyr died in the first strike as arrows, blasts, blades, and a variety of other attacks all made of blood erupted from Kay’s forces. Kay himself sent two shaped harpoons at the two vampyr that seemed to be leading the rest, aiming to drag them to him for questioning. The lanky male vampire frantically grabbed at the unmoving unfortunate that it’d been repeatedly pressing against the strange object they’d all circled around and threw them in the path of the attack. It slammed into and then through the mutated vampyr, which flailed erratically, but the delay was enough for the elongated vampyr to jump out of the way. The female vampyr with the long gray hair whipped out a pair of large needles from somewhere on it’s person and held them crossed in front of it. The blood harpoon slammed into it’s block and held there. With a grunt of effort it directed the harpoon to the side where it slammed into the ground, throwing up a cloud of dirt.

When the impromptu smokescreen cleared the female was gone and the male was charging forward with his arms straight back behind itself, it’s torso held low toward the ground, and two elongated hooks in it’s hands. After seeing the harpoon punch right through the vampyr that’d been used as a shield Kay decided to use less immediately lethal means of capturing his prey, so he sent out cables to entangle the vampyr. They extruded out from his back and raced toward the approaching enemy, who dodged between them with inhumanly fluid movements. The ends turned around to chase after the vampyr while smaller cables branched off from the main strands to wrap around it.

The vampyr weaved and slipped through the forest of strands trying to tangle it up, getting closer to Kay with every move. When it was only a few feet away he planted his feet and threw itself forward as it pulled it’s arms close to it’s torso. Kay stood in place, unmoving as the vampyr approached him and watched as the strands and cables of blood he was controlling all congregated together to completely surround the vampyr. Right as the vampyr was completely enclosed it threw it’s arms outward, sending itself into a mid-air spin. It’s bladed meathooks glowed with metallic colored light as it rotated at high speeds and shredded the filaments surrounding it into red mist. The vampyr came out of the spin with both weapons swinging directly at Kay’s face in an impossible attack that defied gravity and momentum.

Kay solidified one of his gauntlets and backhanded the attack, sending the meathooks off to the side and leaving the vampyr’s head on a direct course for Kay. He reached forward to grab the vampyr around the neck but it kicked down on empty air and somehow threw itself to the side. It did a flip to orient itself with the ground and landed a few feet away. Staring at Kay with wide eyes it began to pace to the side, circling around Kay. It shook its shoulders and its arms as it working the kinks out of its muscles as it it’s steps curved it around Kay.

Taking the chance while the vampyr seemed to be studying him, Kay glanced around the rest of the battlefield. While a few were struggling here and there it wouldn’t be untrue to say that the Blood Guard were dominating the fight. Dead vampyr covered the ground and several more died as Kay watched, impaled, shot, or crushed by the Blood Guard who were systematically hunting down the enemy. One of the red-armored figures that was quaking as they held back a hulking, muscled vampyr that was practically foaming at the mouth while it shrieked and clawed at them was relieved when one of their comrades came up behind the vampyr and beheaded it in a single blow of their greataxe.

The tide did shift as more vampyr flooded in from the outskirts of the ruined village, but only enough for it to go from a rout to a winnable battle. Maddened vampyr threw themselves against experienced warriors capable of planning and positioning and promptly broke against them. Monstrosities made from twisted and mutated spawn attacked with numerous body parts altered into unnatural weapons but even those eldritch abominations didn’t do more than force some of the Blood Guard back a few steps before dying. Quantity has a quality all its own, but wave tactics only work when there’s enough bodies to trample over the enemy, and the vampyr didn’t have anywhere near the numbers for that.

The acrobatic vampyr leapt into the air when Kay wasn’t looking directly at it and brought its weapons back for what could have been a devastating overhead blow amplified by the height it was falling from. Kay wasn’t nearly as distracted as he let himself seem and pillars burst from bellow to intercept. The vampyr whipped its torso to the side to dodge and slammed its hooks into the side of of the closest pillar, spinning around it like it was doing a pole dancing performance while it descended. Once it was below all of the pillars of blood it launched itself off, once again raising its hooks to slam them deep into Kay.

Tired of its circus performance, Kay launched a much bigger attack. All of the pillars looming above detonated into waves that fell from the sky, all the blood in them changed from a solid state to a liquid one in an instant. Sheets of red liquid collapsed inward toward the both of them, and try as it might the vampyr couldn’t escape. It slammed one foot down onto the air, using whatever invisible platforms it could create to throw itself backward, but the blood chasing it was empowered by Kay’s mana pool and will. It swarmed around it and grabbed onto its limbs, tugging them in different directions and keeping it from running away. It thrashed and tried to slice the blood away with it’s hooks, but even with a Skill empowering them they did little more than swirl the blood around them, there was just too much of it. With a thought Kay forced the vampyr’s fingers away from the weapons and tossed the off to the side out of reach. The vampyr continued to struggle futilely, glaring at Kay while it tried to escape.

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“What are you doing here?” Kay asked as he slowly walked up to it. He was fairly certain he already knew the answer but seeing what the vampyr might spill could be worth it.

It spat at him. “Foul interloper, you know not what you’ve done! You have fouled plans most imperative! We, the true chosen ones, must act unopposed to combat the enemy most foul!”

Kay quietly stared up at the vampyr suspended by viscous tendrils of blood for a long moment, debating if questioning it actually was worth it. “What’s that thing?” He asked, pointing at the discarded object that had been infusing vampyr with eldritch energy. The foot tall obelisk looking thing was behind the vampyr and he wasn’t letting it move so he rotated it enough that it could see.

“That is the grand device entrusted to us by the Visionary, oh the grand Visionary! The one who sees the depredations the horrid enemy seeks to enact! Only through his grand plans will we be free of them!”

“Why are you repeating words?”

“What?”

“It’s probably impossible, but if we figure out how the corrupted infection that turns people into vampyr affects the brain and makes what’s left of people’s brains go insane we might learn more about stopping it, so I was wondering why you’re repeating words like that. You said ‘foul’ three times in the first answer you had for me and ‘grand’ in the second one, but you weren’t doing that when talking to that other vampyr with the needles earlier. So why are you doing it now?”

The vampyr’s face visibly distorted in reaction to tis emotions as it listened to Kay’s questions. It stopped with it’s brows deeply furrowed and its cheeks pulled back in aggravated confusion. “What is it that you speak…” It trailed off, the suddenly roared with rage. “You are of the enemy! You seek to understand the secrets of the Visionary’s blessing, which marks you as the enemy!”

“Does that count?” Kay wondered to himself, ignoring the angry vampyr. “You did say “you” three times, but-“

The vampyr’s arms stretched out like rubber bands being pulled on and forced their way out of the bloody restraints holding it. They grabbed the discarded hooks and swung at Kay’s neck.

The two limbs went slack and the weapons dropped to the ground again as Kay severed the vampyr’s arms where they were still held by his blood. The vampyr screamed in pain as its thrashing resumed with even more violence than before.

“Well, I guess that’s all I’m going to get out of you, but I think it confirms my suspicions.” A whip-fast line of blood cut into the vampyr’s neck and sliced off its head. The rest of the blood surged up around the vampyr’s unresisting corpse and began to dissolve it.

Glancing around again Kay saw the Blood Guard mopping up a decreasing stream of vampyr rushing into the fight. Lauren hadn’t returned from chasing after the gray haired female vampyr and there wasn’t much else to do, so he walked over to the rune covered obelisk looking object. It had fallen on it’s side after the now dead lanky vampyr had thrown it’s test subject up as a shield. It was two feet tall and made out of dark stone. It was shaped like a miniature obelisk but with the pointy top cut off, leaving a flat surface. There were twisted symbols carved into its sides that made Kay uncomfortable when he looked at them. The faint emotion of rage and a need to destroy that came with his new vampiric being urged Kay to take the obelisk and smash it to bits, and the closer he got the more that feeling intensified. He reached out with a wire made of blood and poked it, eliciting a spark of energy made of impossible colors that burnt away a bit of the blood.

Lauren returned about ten minutes later. She jogged into view around one of the piles of broken building to find Kay staring up at a sphere of blood floating above him.

Kay noticed her approach and smiled at her. “Ah, you’re back. How did it go?”

“It wasn’t too difficult,” She replied. “The fight itself was interesting, the vampyr had some Class that let it knit magical effects into being that was quite versatile, but it wasn’t too strong, just tricky. I think someone with a Class like that could be a real threat with some forethought and planning but…” She shrugged.

“But vampyr tend to lack both of those.” Kay agreed with a nod. “Mine was fairly maneuverable but didn’t have any way to get out once I surrounded it. Learn anything useful?”

“No, just a lot of screaming.”

“Mine said a few things when I stopped to ask it questions, which cements my belief that there’s some leader type with at least half a brain left in its head driving them.” He pointed up at the sphere held above them. “I got the thing they were using to make monsters with, I’ve got it wrapped in dirt to keep my blood from destroying it and then extra layers of blood to keep it from leaking its eldritch bullshit into the air around us. Let’s clean up, grab Zeia, and head home testing.”