Arawn751
patreon
Arcane Apocalypse ~ 35
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 16:00:14 +0000 UTC********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yXbtS7OBwFxTB8dbEdqvdPnawM3T966HT-13g8WxDco/edit?usp=sharing
*****
Tensions were running high in the old house even as the sun reached its apex at noon and started its slow descent towards the horizon. There was nothing to be done for most of the group, the one time Brent stepped out onto the street he got screamed at and had to stare down half a dozen rifle barrels as he slowly backed away and stepped back into the house.
The soldiers were patrolling the streets in squads of five, armed to the teeth, and looked as if they were expecting the residents to attack them at any moment. Answers as for why it was so were non-forthcoming, and all they got in response was to ‘get back inside’ and that the city was now ‘under material law’ on the command of one Brigadier General Friedrich Eisenfaust.
The scowl Brent wore since he heard that name had been a thing to behold. Looking at it, Mia got the idea that the man probably didn’t have the best opinions of the good general. Not that she disagreed, especially after she got a rifle pointed at her just for peeking out a window.
Alas, while Brent stewed over the new stuff they learned, and Lina brainstormed about some harebrained idea of escaping the city and living as wandering monster hunters in the wilderness, the rest of them just sat back and made the most of their time.
Helene somehow managed to turn those atrocious meat jerkies Mark packed up for them into a meal Mia could actually eat without having the urge to vomit.
Meat. She could eat actual meat. Sure, it wasn’t a steak or chicken nuggies, but she could eat it. Which made her suspect her newfound dislike for the latter more likely stemmed from an inability to eat overly processed food.
Mark had been fiddling with his Elemental Manipulation skill, making little toy soldiers and making them fight with each other. It was fun to watch how the dwarf, with an overly serious scowl, glared down at two toy soldiers beating the shit out of each other with beads of sweat streaming down his temples.
Alas, Mia had training of her own to do. She decided to abandon her attempts at learning how to stabilize her mana for now once she read that the recommended Spirit Attribute for it was 20. Instead, she was now busying herself by nosing through the first part of her Rudimentary Conjuration Runic Lexicon.
The book was a bit different from the Summoning one, mostly in that it would actually teach her something instead of just dumping a bunch of runes on her head along with three spell circles.
True, the two spell circles she couldn’t use yet looked awesome, but the fact that she couldn’t use them yet always dampened her enthusiasm for them. Apparently, one of them would even be capable of instantly turning into a Subskill for arcane mages.
‘Summoning: Twin Spirits of Duality’ was the name of the spell, and it went together with the Ritual Magic circle that she similarly couldn’t use yet: ‘Ritual: Spirit Genesis’.
If everything went well, and she could fulfill all the requirements for the Ritual once she could actually cast it, she could bind two spectral knights to her spirit and have them pop out to fight for her at a moment’s notice. It’d be awesome … yet the requirements were even more brutal than the need for her to manually multiply her already incorporated runes.
I have no damned idea how I’m going to find a ‘place where a great hero died a virtuous death’ and a ‘location of absolute carnage’ for the Ritual. Anyway, for now I should focus on the Conjuration book … it at least gives me new spells now.
Though, Mia didn’t go for the two new spells first, which would have been Arcane Shackles and Spectral Blade. No, instead she focused on the other half of the book that detailed how to create variations of her simplest spell: Arcane Bolt.
Piercing, homing, blunted, swarming, turned into a beam. There were almost a dozen more or less useful variations, along with their spell circles and descriptions about how and why modifying the original circle ‘just so’ would result in the spell turning into one of the variations.
It was exactly what she needed. The theoretical knowledge was already implanted in her head by her Class, but it all had been nothing more than a jumbled mess before she had something to focus on.
She knew dozens of rules, laws of magic, guides for making spell circles, but without having examples and practise. It was like trying to build a car with only knowledge of the physical laws that would underline the process.
‘Aha! So that’s how that stupid thing works!’ Was a sentence playing almost on loop in Mia’s head as she examined the spell circles and the descriptions provided for them.
***
‘In this spell circle, the Blahrl rune had been switched out for a Svign&Hohl combination to change the shape from a vague blob into a spike.’
‘This throws off the runic weight balance-, as well as the overall symmetry of the circle, which destabilises the construct. We must change the octagonal spell boundary for a regular circle.’
‘Next, we add the central triangle and put in the trio of reinforcement runes to hold the construct tightly together.’
***
To anyone without her implanted knowledge, all that would read like a whole bunch of nonsense, but to her, it made sense.
It reminded her of her time in college. She had that one professor that loved to give students a headache by overcomplicating the theoretical explanations in his math course.
Luckily, the instructor for the practical part of the course was a man that was the exact opposite, and had a knack for dumbing down those overly complex rules so everyone would understand them.
This book she was reading was reminding her of that instructor. Even though she hated the course with a passion, she liked the instructor.
There were some variations she wouldn’t be able to use until she got her hands on other Lexicons, like the freezing variation that used thermal runes or the Force Bolt which delivered direct kinetic energy to the target. Still, Mia was more than happy with the seven or eight variations she had all the runes for.
Just as the final rune needed for the second variation’s spell circle finished assimilating and Mia experimentally constructed the modified spell circle, something curious happened.
[Level Up!]
[Level: 7 -> 8]
[Free Attribute Points: 0 -> 3]
I levelled up from that? She thought with a grin spreading on her face. Maybe constantly putting herself in life and death situations with twisted monsters wasn’t a must after all for her to get stronger.
It made sense too. The Alchemist back in Jeff’s building had been levelling up like nothing else and he hadn’t fought a single time.
He levelled up from doing Alchemist stuff, so it made sense an Arcane Mage — which was a primarily combat focused mage class — would level up from both combat and doing ‘mage stuff’.
“What are you up to?” Carmilla asked, her voice sounding out from right next to Mia.
“Eeep,” Mia startled, her heart jumping as she scrambled to catch the little bit of mana she’d been playing with while she waited for the latest absorbed rune to settle into her runic-model.
She looked up, finding curious crimson eyes looking down on her. Mia stared for an embarrassing second before coughing, clearing her throat and pushing herself up into a sitting position.
The wind picked up for a moment, ruffling the leaves of the old willow tree above the two of them and blowing a tuft of pink hair right into her mouth. Mia spat out the lock of hair, coughing again under the amused gaze of the vampiress.
“Training,” Mia finally said, patting the little unassuming book in her lap. She glanced over at the house in the end of the garden where she could still see Lina pace up and down at the terrace. “Thought I’d busy myself by doing something useful.”
“And away from all that,” the redhead motioned towards the house. “I suppose?”
“Yep,” Mia said, smirking. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Carmilla asked, tilting her head.
“What are you doing?” Mia raised an eyebrow, laying back down into the soft grass. She’d always loved that spot under the willow. It was perfect for just lying down in the shade and enjoying the free suburban air. “I know Mark’s training, Brent’s brooding, Lina is fuming and Mom’s busy trying to keep the latter two from catching a sudden case of death by stupid. But what about you? Do you have something to do while we wait for those asshats to tell us what’s going on?”
“Not really,” Carmilla said, shrugging as she slowly lay down next to Mia. “But it’s fine. I’m just fine with sitting around.”
“Don’t you want to train your attributes or something?” Mia asked. “If I didn’t have these books, I’d be doing that right about now I think.”
“Which attributes?” Carmilla asked.
“Whichever I feel like.” Mia shrugged.
“I can’t train Body Attributes,” the girl said. “Those will only rise as I grow older or when I rank up. Which is technically the same thing from a vampiric evolutionary standpoint.”
“You have magic now though, I’m sure your Spirit could use the training.”
“Right, magic,” Carmilla said, sounding almost disinterested.
“What?” Mia asked, feeling a little offended.
“Sorry.” Carmilla said softly, then sighed. “It’s just … I can’t really rely on magic.”
“Why?” Mia frowned. “It never failed me before.”
“Because you’re not a vampire,” the redhead said. “I’m fine … for now, but as my lifeforce gets used up my magic will weaken and become entirely unusable before long, leaving me with only my body to fight with.”
“Can’t you just … drink more blood?” Mia asked, raising a dubious eyebrow at the vampire.
“I’ve seen how reluctant you’d been and how uncomfortable having your blood taken made you yesterday,” Carmilla said matter-of-factly. “Keeping me topped off would need you to repeat that every three or four days, but I can stay alive for a week or two without feeding. I just have to forgo magic. I can live off of only having a gulp of your blood every ten days.”
“Why does it have to be my blood?” Mia asked.
“A gulp of yours is worth two or three liters of blood from anyone else,” Carmilla said. “I don’t think others would survive having that much of it taken so regularly.”
Mia rolled to her side and squinted at the side of Carmilla’s face. She was getting two very different messages from the girl's words. Mia was sure a part of the vampire was aching to ask Mia to just serve as her blood bank every day, while another didn’t want to be too pushy.
She is not doing either all that well. Or she is doing the first very well because Mia was pretty close to just offering to have her blood taken every day. If that was true, then Carmilla was a masterful manipulator and was playing Mia for a fool.
Why? Because magic was awesome, and the fact that the vampiress couldn’t enjoy it as much as Mia was quite pitiful. The solution was simple too, costing only some discomfort and a little bit of pain to Mia.
Also, why the hell was her blood so special?
“What’s so special about my blood?” Mia decided to just ask.
“No idea.” Carmilla shrugged nonchalantly. “I haven’t been doing this vampire-ing for all that long, nor did I drink any … one’s blood before yours.”
“How do you know other’s blood would be worse then?”
“I can smell the lifeforce in it, and the quality of it,” Carmilla said. “I’m pretty sure maybe only your mothers blood or Lina’s would work. Though both of them are a fair bit inferior to yours.”
“Huh.” Mia rolled onto her back and stared up at the clouds drifting through the sky between the branches. If she didn’t have me to give her my blood, she’d have to drain someone dry every few days. …. Shit.
Mia gulped, realising that keeping the vampire fed was probably just by itself saving lives. Or ‘a’ life, at the very least. Carmilla seemed like a nice girl. For all Mia knew, she’d refuse murdering someone in cold blood just to keep herself alive for a few more days.
What a fucked up situation. Mia thought, exhaling. “I can agree to having my blood taken, let’s say … every other day. On one condition.”
“Yes?” Cermilla asked, maybe a little too quickly.
“Okay, two,” Mia amended as she stared into the eyes of the vampire. Her pupils were dilated slightly and her face was a bit too eager for someone who didn’t seem to care about magic all that much. “How does drinking my blood make you feel? Answer me honestly, that’s condition one.”
“Okay, uhm,” Carmilla chewed on her lower lip, blushing slightly before she spoke. “Like I’m having a full body orgasm.”
“What?” Mia asked, face blank as she just stared at the blushing vampire for a few seconds. Then her own face flushed red up to the tips of her ears. “WHY?”
“I don’t know!” Carmilla said with a bit of indignation. “That’s how it feels! You asked me, what are you getting mad at me for?”
“I’m not mad!” Mia held back the urge to just run into the house and scream into a pillow. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. “Okay … okay, I’m good. Follow up question! If it’s like that … won’t you get addicted to it? I mean, I know some drugs do something similar and I really don’t want to make you addic-“
“I should be immune to mental influences like that,” Carmilla cut in, now hogging her knees as she rolled back and forth on the ground. “And my Will is at 12. 10 of that being Base. I’ll be fine.”
“This is so fucking weird,” Mia said, her voice taking on a higher pitch from the embarrassment. “And are you alright with … that?”
“What?”
“My blood making you feel like that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Carmilla blinked her big innocent eyes at Mia. “And what could I do? It’s not even like it hurts.”
“Okay,” Mia massaged the bridge of her nose, grumbling inwardly. “Second condition. This is very important!”
“Okay.” Carmilla nodded seriously as Mia sat up with her legs crossed.
“You’ve got to tell me more about yourself,” Mia said, leaning closer with her eyes narrowed. “If I’m to become your semi-permanent blood donor, I want to at least get to know you. So far, all I know about you is your name and that you are a vampire.”
“Eh?” Carmilla looked surprised, a frown crested her brows, then her face went placid before she gave a serious nod. “I … can do that. I’ll answer whatever question you might have.”
“Nope,” Mia said, leaning back with a smirk as she hid her trembling hands behind her body. “You tell me about yourself. The QnA comes after.”
“Uhhhhhh,” Carmilla frowned, starting to chew on her cheeks. “There isn’t much to tell, really. I grew up an orphan, having lost my mother when I was five and then jumped between foster families for a while. The family I ended up with raised me till I was … 13 I think? Then I got interred into a hospital for chemo. That lasted for the next five years or so … when I died.”
“What?” Mia stared at the girl blankly, looking her up and down with a raised eyebrow.
“I got better.” Carmilla said with a shrug and a slight smile. “Well, as much better as waking up, buried six feet under in a coffin is ‘getting better’. That was last week, by the way. I crawled my way out, escaped the undead in the cemetery and pretty much got harassed by monsters until I ran out of whatever lifeforce I had left. Then you found me.”
“Huh,” Mia said, just staring at Carmilla for a few seconds like she would say ‘sike, you fell for it’ any moment now.
She didn’t.
“Also,” Carmilla added, as if an afterthought. “Apparently, I’ve been dead for two years. The last date I remember being in the hospital was somewhere in June of 2023.”
“You look pretty good for a corpse,” Mia said, her mouth once again flapping away before her brain caught up with it. She quickly blushed, realising how incredibly insensitive that had been. “Oh my god, sorry that was stupid-“
“It’s fine,” Carmilla said with an easygoing smile. “Like I said, I got better. Being a vampire has its perks.”
“Like getting off on drinking blood,” Mia muttered under her breath, her eyes taking in the vampire in her entirety. And being stupidly good looking, like damn. She could be a supermodel, she looks gorgeous even in my lame shorts and shirt.
“Yes,” Carmilla affirmed with a light blush. “I mean no! It’s … that’s only with blood that’s really special.”
My bloodline must be even more awesome than I thought if it makes my blood taste this good to vampires. Mia thought, considering that maybe a deeper dive into that Halvyr history book would be in order in the near future. Maybe while I’m waiting for a rune to get assimilated and get burned out from studying the runic theory behind the spell circles.
“O-kay,” Mia intoned with a playful lilt in her voice. Inwardly though, she was feeling a bit dreary. My blood’s the only thing special about me then, is that what she thinks? Is that why she stuck to me like a lamprey since she joined our party? Just because she was wanting to get high off of my blood?
Still, her tale didn’t feel fake to Mia. At least the girl telling it didn’t anyway, if anyone else said the same thing with a straight face Mia suspected she’d have laughed at them. The story sounded fake, but not when told by Carmilla.
Getting buried and waking up as a vampire.
“What’s wrong?” Carmilla asked, sniffing a little as she leaned closer to Mia. “You smell … miserable.”
“How does ‘miserable’ smell?” Mia asked dryly.
“I don’t know,” Carmilla said, her nose scrunching up. “But that’s what you smell like.”
“Didn’t know you could smell emotions.”
“Only extreme ones,” the vampire said. “Like terror, misery and … I don’t know. That’s the only two I caught a scent of till now.”
The silence between the two stretched further as Mia gazed up at the sky again, watching as a large cone shaped cloud swam before the sun.
Mia felt an arm snaking around her waist and pulling her in for an extremely awkward side-hug. Stiffening, she glanced up at the vampiress who was doing her best to appear nonchalant.
“What are you doing?” Mia found herself asking, even as she leaned into the hug subconsciously.
“I thought-“ Carmilla started, twitching away from Mia as if slapped.
Mia stopped her with an arm around the girl’s waist. She didn’t have the strength to do so if the redhead really wanted to move away, but instead of doing so, Carmilla just stiffened.
Opting to stay silent, afraid that whatever she’d say would cause her to die of cringe later on. Instead, she just leaned her head on Carmilla’s shoulder. If it was possible, the vampire stiffened even further, so much so that she might as well have been a statue.
A pretty soft statue. Mia mused, resisting the sudden urge to let her hand wander. She found herself highly enjoying how awkward and stiff Carmilla was, it somehow made her feel like the girl actually cared.
Slowly, Carmilla relaxed and the arm she still had around Mia’s waist started gently rubbing up and down her side as if to comfort her.
Maybe she really does care. Mia thought, a smile slipping onto her lips.
Comments
Nate Steadman
Then I would say the generator has outdone it self
Til Weisheit
The literal translation of Eisenfaust is iron fist. Turning to ice would be VEReisen and while the second part is shared with Dr Faust it means fist and as the name is written as a single word a relation to that seems far fetched, for that he would have to be named Eisen-Faust indicating there was a marriage where one partner was named Eisen and the other named Faust and they decided to keep both names.
Stephanie Washburn
Winding up with a name that includes both iron/turning to ice and Dr. Faust by accident is quite the thing. Seems very fitting for the good general.
Stephanie Washburn
Makes sense. I tend to imagine that whatever chapter I just read was shorter the more invested I was in it
P3t1
Ngl, I got his name out of a name generator and didn’t check for meaning. But you may believe whichever theory you like better.
P3t1
I aim for 3k words for chapters as a minimum, but sometimes overshoot and get as much as 4700. The last chapters were overshooting my minimum quite a bit.
ZephanyZephZeph
Absolutely adorable. I can't way for romantic blood drinking.
Til Weisheit
The General has a very fitting last name. Or is Eisenfaust his moniker/nickname? I'm from Germany and never met someone named that in my whole life, so it feels like a rare name fitting the job and situation suspiciously well.
Stephanie Washburn
This feels shorter but was probably not!
