Planning a War

  I sat on the roof of the castle, looking out at the lake and the small town below me. Saia sat next to me, the size of her drone had grown significantly since Ish Vimza, as I had allowed her to consume a lot of biomass since then.

  I raised the gourd in my hands to my lips and took a long drink of blood as I watched the sun setting beyond the horizon. The people around me were getting ready for sleep, without electricity, most have returned to the rhythm of going to bed with the sun. No point in wasting resources like oil or wood for fire and light. The only people staying awake would be the guards patrolling the battlements and hallways of the castle.

  The people here had adapted fairly well to my presence. It wasn’t the first time they lived through a hostile takeover in the last few months, and mine was a lot less bloody. Cazimir had arrived only a bit over a month ago and taken over the Bled settlement. Apparently, the Sun Kingdom had been exploring aggressively, and when they found survivors here, they gave the choice of joining up with the kingdom.

  The previous leaders hadn’t been too keen on that, and the first Sun Kingdom group that arrived with the intent of taking over by force was repelled. Most in Bled were staff that worked in the resort town, some tourists, and a small police force which had been able to keep the rest safe. The town also had a rift, which had given them some investment and weapons.

  When the Sun Kingdom came knocking again, it was Cazimir who came. He slaughtered the settlement’s strongest fighters and intimidated the rest into surrendering.

  My arrival wasn’t any different. The few that had arrived later from the kingdom had been captured and imprisoned, and I still didn’t know what exactly to do with them. Cazimir had suggested killing them, but then he was a real Elder Vampire completely removed from humanity. To me it just seemed wasteful. I was still unsure about his loyalty to me, [Smell Lie] didn’t react but I wasn’t 100% certain how it worked yet. What my sire had said seemed to hold true, though I was still inexperienced in the ways of vampire politics.

  According to my sire I didn’t need to care about it at all, I should do whatever I wanted, I had the right to lead through strength and blood, by the right of my line, or rather the closeness to the source of all of my bloodline.

  I sighed.

  “Query: What is bothering you?”

  I glanced at Saia, then away. “I’m just trying to figure out what to do now.”

  “Statement: You’ve made a decision already.”

  “Oh, not in general,” I waved a hand in front of me. “More like, what to do about this Proximus fellow.”

  “Query: What do you mean?”

  “I just don’t have the time to fight a war with another Warlord. I want to unite as many people as I can, bolster us to defend against the other races. But uniting our entire continent is… unattainable. It is too large, we have less than four months left before they start arriving, which leaves me with the option that Shadow suggested. Securing a smaller area and making it strong enough to hold, have it allow us to retain some semblance of autonomy.”

  “Input: This was always the case.”

  “Hmm… You know, I think that I have an idea. But first, I need to talk with some people. Also, I need you to make something for me.”

  The next day I had Cazimir bring me the local leader of Bled community, an older gentleman by the name of Jaka Golob. His Mask of the Organizer was low investment, and tied to the job he had before everything went to crap. But I could see why Cazimir kept him around, he had a few skills, but the most useful allowed him to create ink and paper, which in a post Grand Spell world was scarce, or soon will be.

  “Well, this must be annoying for you, right?” I asked after the introductions were over.

  “Uh, Master? I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” the man said slowly, fearfully, his eyes glancing at Cazimir at my side. I didn’t fault him for that, the Elder Vampire had an established history with these people.

  “The world went to shit, you managed to survive, which you should be very proud of, then a Warlord sends his people to take over, and then I come along and do the same.”

  Jaka swallowed, not really knowing what to say.

  “What do you want out of life Jaka?” I asked.

  The man blinked, then slowly answered. “To keep my family safe, to survive the madness out there.”

  I nodded. “I want that for you too, I want you to grow strong, able to protect yourselves,” I tapped the table with my fingers, my nails biting in gently into the wood in a constant rhythm. “I want that for as many people in the world as possible. It’s why I’m here. I don’t trust others to do it, and… well if I am being honest, I want to be on top. I’ve spent too much of my life being ordered around, with no voice of my own. I don’t ever want to live like that, no one will ever tell me what to do again.”

  Jaka went pale, even Cazimir shifted next to me. I wasn’t really talking to the man, so I shook my head and focused my eyes on him.

  “You and yours are mine now,” I said in a firm tone. “The only thing I want from you is for you to survive, to advance your Masks, and to follow my orders and those from those I send. You, Jaka, will be put in charge of Bled, your job will be to keep this community alive and this castle secure. There is a danger coming, and I need people to be ready. I’ll be sending some people along, establish communication and trade with my other settlements. You’ll know that they are mine through this,” I pulled out a small rolled up scroll. I offered it to the man and he lurched to take it.

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  “That’s a writ giving you the power to rule in my—” as soon as the man’s hand touched the scroll something flashed inside my head.

  Ornament of the Leader — No Investment; 2nd Carving

  [Writ of Authority] skill gained.

  I narrowed my eyes. Yesterday, I had a long conversation with Cazimir, mostly about the Sun Kingdom and Proximus. How he came into power, and how he came to call himself King. How others started to follow him. The answer was simple really. He just started calling himself a king, others accepted, he was strong and there wasn’t anyone who could or who wanted to defy him.

  As it turned out, when there were no more governments, no more people in charge, you could just say shit and it became true. I figured, what the hell. I could do that too.

  The writ was something that I came up on a whim. I wrote it simply, naming Jaka as the head of Bled, ruling in my name. I had a plan to do it for every other place I came up on and manage to convince or bully into following me.

  It seemed like the Grand Spell was watching everything. At least I now know how to gain Leadership Investment.

  “Master?” Jaka interrupted my thoughts.

  I cleared my throat, glancing at Cazimir who just looked at me with a blank expression on his face. “Open it,” I told the human.

  He blinked, then slowly unfurled the scroll. He read through my simple words, and then looked at the bottom.

  “That is my seal,” I said, indicating the red mark at the bottom. I made it with my blood as ink, and the seal that I had Saia make for me. The symbol was a dragon with its wings spread. I figured I should lean into something, and Saia was unlikely to ever not be part of my life, a dragon as an image wasn’t bad at all, even if it was a bit cliché.

  “As I said,” I continued. “When I send people, you’ll know they’re mine if they carry that mark.”

  I planned on giving the same to everyone else serving under me. It was time to make everything a bit more official.

  “If anyone comes without carrying that mark, you will not trust them. You will protect Bled and ensure that it stays under your control. I won’t be involved in your day to day lives, I won’t tax you—there isn’t anything to tax yet—though you will allow my people use of the rifts down in the city if they arrive.”

  “You—you don’t want anything from us?” Jaka asked, surprised.

  “I want you to be able to defend yourselves. Wanting will come after. For now, grow strong and survive, that is all. In return you will get protection, you’ll get trade—eventually as we set up routes. You’ll get some semblance of normalcy, as much as it can exist in this new world.”

  A few hours later I made my way to the lower part of the castle and a small courtyard where a group of people was training.

  Nadja, the other vampire was there, instructing the people from Bled on how to fight using melee weapons. That was one of the reasons why king Proximus sent her here. He had planned on using Bled as a staging point for expansion south. The castle and the town were meant to hold a few hundred of his forces as they explored, be used as a base of operations.

  From what Cazimir had told me, most of Proximus’ forces were split across his territory, spread out in the four settlements he held, with the Hohenwerfen Castle a bit north of Bled serving as his main base. He apparently had a bit over 500 square kilometers of territory under his “control”. Though, control was a bit of a misnomer. Vast majority of that territory was wild and still filled with beasts. They did have routes to all of the settlements, and were able to get people from one to the others fairly safely.

  On the grand scale, this kingdom was nothing, I could fly over it in no time at all. But, it is people, it is defensible positions, it is an infant infrastructure, all the things that I needed to accomplish my goals.

  I walked along the parapet, looking down at the people training. Both Kai and Carlito were there, not skipping the chance to learn from a vampire centuries their senior. And I had pushed them to make nice with the people they beat up a few days ago. It seemed to be going well.

  Nadja had noticed my arrival, of course, but she didn’t react to it. I didn’t know how old she was, I didn’t want to ask and reveal my ignorance, but I could tell that she was weakened under the sun’s gaze. As weakened as I used to get before. From the way our fight went, I would put her at a few centuries, an Adult, or perhaps a young Elder. She was obviously subordinate to Cazimir, was part of his coven if I had put things together right, despite being of a different bloodline.

  Finally, she called the end of the training session and sent everyone on their way. I kept in the shadow, hiding behind a wooden column as the courtyard emptied. Once the vampire was alone, I jumped down.

  “Great Master,” she greeted me with a whisper.

  I too settled in the customary vampire's tone of voice, speaking barely audibly. “You know that you don’t need to call me that.”

  “You are older, and stronger, it is proper.”

  Vampire politics, bah. But, it did seem like Cazimir hadn’t told her about who I was, which was good. Many had seen my transformation, so that part had probably spread, but she assumed that I was old, an Ancient Vampire, not someone that had advanced faster because she was basically the granddaughter of the originator of our bloodline.

  I studied the other woman. She looked young, like most vampires did. She had dark red hair, and was built like all vampires were, toned muscle covered her bones, making her look like someone who spent time in the gym and built muscle. Not overly so, no vampire was bulky, but we weren’t really lean either.

  Her golden eyes studied me in turn, now that I was closer I could see that her eyes had completed the change fully, there was no black in them, no pupil or iris, just two golden orbs surrounded by white. Eyes of an Elder Vampire.

  Her face had that same expressionless mask that all vampires did, but I could see through it. Perhaps it was the weakening of the sun, but her control wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t too happy about talking with me. Fair, I did chuck her off the mountain and into a lake.

  “It is proper,” I echoed. “So, I should just believe that you’ll be loyal to me now?”

  She frowned. “Cazimir has pledged himself to you, I’m in his coven. It is the way of things.”

  I detected no lie in her words, so I nodded. I had to be sure, even if I had probably aroused many questions in her mind. I didn’t know anything about how vampires ruled themselves, all I had to go on was what I remembered of the Master of my former cartel and the things my sire told me.

  “Good,” I said finally. “I’ve put a human, Jaka, in charge of this place. I’m going to need you to stay here, protect this place, keep training people how to fight.”

  “You want me to listen to a human?”

  “Not really, no,” I shook my head. “Offer advice maybe. He’ll probably be too terrified of you to gainsay you, and you are stronger.”

  She seemed to relax as I spoke, her attention growing.

  “But, I don’t want you to lead, I know that you probably have more experience, could do it well. But I need humans here to grow on their own, become strong on their own. Train them, and offer advice, have them explore the surrounding and hunt beasts. Besides, that will give you more investment.”

  I knew that Nadja’s Mask was related to teaching, she was a college professor before everything. Though I doubted that was all that she was, the most recent thing certainly. But, if she had gotten a mask like that, it meant that teaching resonated with her.

  She nodded, seemingly agreeing. “What will you do?” She asked me, and I could sense a tinge of fear. She meant about Proximus.

  “I guess I’m going to go and bully a king.”