Chapter 11: Chapter-11: Puzzle

A.N- On time!!!

---

There is no doubt about it. This is it, Kaisel thought. As he stood in the ruins of Ulaspas manor, he compared the drawings of the Rose, the one drawn in his personal old leather-bound notebook didn't have any color, while the one made from tiles was full of color, despite their differences, there was no doubt about it, they were both identical. Seeing their resemblance he could help but smile, after all, he was nearly there, and soon Franc Ulaspas’s inheritance would be his.

He turned the pages of the notebook and read the quote once again. My inheritance, my magic, my life’s work, I have left it all in that place. My home, the only place where I was accepted. Underneath the Rose, I left it all. If someone can find it, they can have it all. Reading those lines again, he cannot help but shake with excitement. This was it.

He had the key, this land would be his in a matter of days, his babies had almost matured and soon the inheritance of the greatest Dark Mage in the world would be his. No one can stop him now.

“Can you stop drooling over that thing and help me.” Came a voice from behind. Hearing the familiar voice of Gloria, he turned around, she was bleeding. 

There was a big scratch mark on her left cheek consisting of 3 stripes, the scratch was deep and bleeding profusely. She had a bloody towel in her hands from which she was desperately trying to stop the blood flow.

“Where is your crystal?” he couldn't help but ask. It is weird that she didn't use it. Usually, she always carries one with her all the time

“I kind of use it, so could you please be a doll and help me.” Kaisel shook his head with disappointment. He couldn't believe her, she knows how valuable that crystal is, and they are currently on a very tight budget, yet still, she used it all, it was unacceptable.

“You used it all? Where? You know that we still haven't started farming the crystal yet, right? And yet you still used it all. That is just reckless Gloria.” A smile bloomed on Gloria’s face. In a second she covered the distance between them, she came closer to him and wrapped her hands around him. 

“So what… Are you gonna spank me now?” she said in a sensual voice. But Kaisel wasn't having it.

“This is serious, you are not going to weasel your way out of it by using your sexuality.” 

She sighed, she knew that there was no way out of this. “Alright, I will not weasel my way out of it.” she then took a deep breath and continued. “So why don't you cut to the chase and give me a little hit. Please just one hit, that is all I am asking.” The way she asked for a hit wasn't able to hide her desperation, which Kaisel frowned. “Show me your hand.”

Offended by his request, Gloria let him go, and she started glaring at him. “What? Why?” But Kaisel was not backing out, he asked again. “Show. Me. Your. Hand.”

“You know what, I don't have time to argue with you, I will just ask Sara for some.” Huffing with anger, she turned around. But before she could take any step, Kaisel grabbed her wrist and pulled it up. Her hand was shaking.

“Make a fist.” He ordered. “Let me go Kaisel!” she struggled to get her hand out of his grasp.

“Make a fist and I will let you go.”

“Let me go!” he had enough, he started applying pressure on her through her mana, and he was enraged. “Make. A. Fist. NOW!”

Gloria knew that there was no way out of it now. She complied, her fingers were very stiff, in front of Kaisel’s eyes she tried her best to curl her fingers. I have to only make a fist, she reminded herself, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn't do it, her fingers stopped curling after one point.

Seeing her fail at such a basic test made him very angry, and he let her wrist go. “How much crystal have you been using? And don't you dare lie to me Gloria, I want to know.”

“I am using just a little bit more than the prescribed amount…” she was about to apologize, but he was not having it. It was not easy to fool Kaisel, he didn't have the patience nor the time to interrogate her, so he did something to make her realize the severity of the situation.

SMACK

He hit on the cheek which had the cut. “Do not fool me, woman. Our Babies are not aggressive towards you, nor they are fast enough to scratch you like that. You deliberately got yourself scratched. You knew that I would hand over crystal as soon as I will see your state. You know me very well Gloria, but I know you as well. Now tell, me exactly how much crystal have you been using. NOW.”

Gloria was stunned to see Kaisel raise his hand against her, he hardly did that, but when he does, he usually means business. She could not fool him now, she knew it. “8 crystals a month.” She said in a low voice.

“EIGHT CRYSTALS! ARE YOU INSANE GLORIA? You do know that those crystals may give us power, but they are highly addictive. You were the one who was worried about its overuse, you were the one who made the rules about the quotas for the crystals. YOU! But you broke your rules yourself? How could you do that?”

“I am sorry.” Kaisel looked at the saddened and distraught state of Gloria, his heart pained to see the love of his life in this way. But he knew that he had to be strong, otherwise they would be destroyed.

The powers that they had, there were never theirs to begin with, they belonged to the Franc Ulaspas. When he got these powers, he knew that one day he would have to pay the price for them. And that day he had to be strong, unfortunately, today was that day. With a heavy heart, he took out as small sealed bottle from his spatial ring and handed it over to Gloria.

“Drink it.” He ordered. Seeing the bottle, Glorai became distraught. “No! No no no. I am fine, Kaisel. I truly am. You do not need to do that.”

You are reading story Bloodborn: The First Vampire at novel35.com

With tears in his eyes, he kept looking at her, he was not backing out. Gloria also started tearing up, but she didn't show any more resistance. She knew she had to do it. She had to cleanse her body

***

What the fuck did I do? Adui had never killed anyone before in his life, hell he hasn't even raised his hands against anyone. His identity as a Mage was enough to make people cower in fear, but today something snapped inside him, and he killed all those people. Not all of them were innocent, but still, he couldn't believe that he killed them, without showing any ounce of mercy.

The worst thing was the man that he killed with his cane, the memory of that man’s brain matter spilling all over the road was still fresh in his mind, he couldn't believe that he was capable of doing something like this. He didn't even know that he had it in him to pull something like this. 

“Adui, we are getting close to a small town, could you please clean yourself up.” He looked towards Ben, since the fight he had not turned around, he was avoiding him. He wanted to talk to him about this whole incident, it was clear that it had affected him, but the old man even refuse to see his face, he didn't know what else to do…

He first cleaned his hands, they were covered in blood from the man that he brutally killed, it is only after washing away excess blood did he realized that he was injured, there was small piece of wood from his cane that had made its home in its palm. He took out the piece and wrapped his bleeding hand with a clean handkerchief.

After undressing he took out a mirror. His face was also covered in blood, not his but the man that he killed, some of it had also made it to his hair as well. All the cleaning of blood emptied every single one of their canteen of water, but by the end, he looked daisy fresh. As Ben didn't face the heat, he was relatively clean, only his clothes were dirtied when he fell on the road.

That night, after renting the room, both Adui and Ben went their separate ways, none of them wanted to talk about what happened that day. Adui felt that he should talk to Ben about today, but in the end, he decided not to, he figured he should give him some space to process what had happened. So he retired in his room as well…

Adui stayed awake late that night, he still couldn't sleep. Since the incident he had been blaming himself, he was cursing himself, he shouldn't have been that cruel. As he thought more about it, he started to wonder whether all of this could have been avoided if he would have just shown them that he was a Mage. It was common knowledge that bandits like them were afraid of mana wielders, so he could have avoided this whole fiasco. 

He then looked at the beautiful flower kept by his bed, he clearly remembers the dream that he had, it was one of the main reasons why he was so angry in the first place. His dream showed the Rose had great power and it could fulfill every single one of his dreams, but he knew that in reality, this flower is just another carnivore plant, nothing special.

Wait this is supposed to be a plant that lives on blood right? So what would happen if I drop some of my blood in it? As he had nothing better to do, he thought about doing such an experiment.

He had cleaned his hand’s wound with alcohol and it had stopped bleeding as well. But the handkerchief that he used to stop the bleeding was still with him, and if he were to squeeze the cloth, he might be able to get one or two drops of his blood. Quickly he got on his feet and fished out his handkerchief from the trash can.

He then took the longest root of the plant, and squeezed some of his blood on it, he was only able to recover around three drops worth of blood from the cloth, but even with that amount he was able to witness those drops vanish as soon they made contact with the root. He couldn't help but smile a little, this flower was a very fascinating fauna, and he liked it.

But it was then his smile turned to a frown, the red flower was producing a red color haze out of a sudden. As a herbalist, he knew that it was very dangerous to inhale pollen from an alien plant, it could be poisonous. His worries only worsen when he saw that the iron cube had started glowing as well, every insignia of the Ulapas family was glowing, and the glow was only getting brighter and brighter.

Fuck it is going to explode. Immediately he jumped away from the cube, as he landed on the floor, he instantly covered his face and ears and waited for the explosion.

“Oi! Keep it down fucker! People are trying to sleep over here.” Someone yelled from the adjacent room, but Adui didn't hear, mentally he was preparing himself for the explosion.

After waiting for a minute, when the explosion didn't take place, he turned around to see what had happened. The box had stopped glowing. He sighed at his naivety and got up, the box was still on the nightstand, but the flower was missing. Alarmed by the sudden disappearance, he started inspecting the box, and it was then he found out that the cube had cracked open.

The top side of the cube has cracked open, revealing its content. The cube essentially contained two smaller cubes and what looked like a pretty old letter...

What do we have here? The note was written in a language that he couldn't understand, so he didn't know what was written in it. The two smaller cubes were a big mystery to him as well. The smallest of both the cubes was a red color cube with no marking whatsoever. While the bigger cube had a bulky body.

The bigger cube was a combination of 26 smaller cubes, all the visible sides of each individual cube had a symbol on them. These patterns included basic stuff like frogs, a herb, leaf, fish, etc. Upon counting, he found out that there are 6 different symbols on the cube. But the bizarre thing was smaller cubes looked like they were jumbled.

If they were arranged in the right way then I bet, fishes could take up one face of the bigger cube and I can assume every single one of these symbols could make up a single face. What Adui could not understand is the purpose of the cube, were these random patterns meant something, or was it some sort of puzzle?

He tried taking out one of the cubes, but they were all stick together somehow. But it was then a sudden thought came to his mind, he tried twisting one of the faces, and to his surprise, it moved. The face rotated. Upon further testing he found out that this cube was indeed a puzzle, every face and every axis of the cube could rotate.

Is this a toy? Based on how securely it was kept, I don't think it could a just a mere toy. Maybe this is an artifact of some sort. Or maybe this is a part of some artifact… I wonder what would happen if I manage to solve this.

That sleepless night, Adui spent hours turning the faces of the cube, he wanted to solve it. There was a chance that this is just a mere toy and nothing else, but curiosity got the better of him that night. A puzzle from ancient times had fallen right into his lap, no matter the reward, he decided that he would solve this no matter how much time it takes.

 

You can find story with these keywords: Bloodborn: The First Vampire, Read Bloodborn: The First Vampire, Bloodborn: The First Vampire novel, Bloodborn: The First Vampire book, Bloodborn: The First Vampire story, Bloodborn: The First Vampire full, Bloodborn: The First Vampire Latest Chapter