Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Never Again

Chapter 1: Never Again

The sun rises from the East. I wonder if it bathes the ruins of the Thatcking. I wonder if the sun won't shy away from these disease-stricken shores, similar to how sons would abandon their fathers there. How fathers will refuse to bury their children. Oh, how I wonder.

I come from the East. A stowaway in the bowels of a ship. My fellow passengers, an army of rats, and a procession of corpses.

 Hidden in the coffin of a nobleman, who does not exist anymore, I made the journey from the Nation of Thatching to Somer. I am lucky that the prince of Thatching is on board, for, if he were not, we would have been torched at sea.

This is not the last chapter in the voyage of the ship which got me to here. It will keep on sailing west. Spreading the disease, with its precious cargo of rats and fleas. I have seen this all before. 

Well, not seen. The Black Death is not something that the modern world knew of, these days. Again, I suppose that it is an unfair comparison. For, this new coughing sickness is something that has little to do with the Black Death. Little, and yet, a lot.

I care very little about it all, though. I can no longer get sick. Perhaps, when I first landed in this strange world, I could have. But that was not my fate.

 How was I supposed to know that the pale stranger, with his ponytail kept neat by a dark red ribbon, with his alluring golden eyes, was a vampire?

A vampire, who can walk in the daylight? Madness. And yet, when his teeth sunk into my neck, I was the mad one. Mad with desire, mad with a thirst I did not know the origin of.

I am what one might call a Hero of Ultimate Fate. Silly, in a world that no longer needs one. The demon lords have long since became picked from the rang of the reincarnators. And most of them have more than two brain cells to rub together.

They are driven by the same modern principles, which drive us all. The desire to get rich, in a world which can worship the land you step on, if you are lucky, or, even better, smart enough. The desire to be someone, who people look up to.

Maybe, I would have fought against the vampire, if I knew he was a demon lord in truth, but I digress. At that moment, as I didn't know where I ended, and where he began, I would have vowed to serve him.

There is one myth about vampires that they don't teach you at school. A myth, that is typical and well-known for this world. Perhaps, it might even hold water, for my world, if vampires even exist out of Moria.

Vampires are not made, they are born. So, imagine my surprise, when the vampire let me drink from him. He might have thought, that seeing as I was not in the body of a vampire, that would have enslaved me.

What a nice opportunity for him. My death, wrapped in a bow. Yet, I have a cheat ability, much like many other Heroes of Ultimate Fate. It is called: Ability Steal.

Now, I can't steal just about any ability, I come across. It must be compatible with my body, with my blood type, and my soul. It just so happens, that vampirism fits the bill.    

Instead of him making me his doll, I drained him dry. His blood, his limited knowledge about his condition, and his assets, became mine. That is how I learned about the heroes, and the demon lords. And, even about the dark lords, but that is something I don't want to get in detail right now.

The ship is pulling into the harbor. I have heard that the port city of Frampton, when the trade is good, can house as many as 200 ships. That is 200 ways that the rats, who were my constant companions, can spread out, and into the world.

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But what does it matter? I am hungry, dining on rat blood, something you will have to wrestle from the plague infected fleas, would do that to a man. The night is young, the city is still healthy.

My plan? Get a blood bank, and then hole up in the countryside. Not because of my health, mind you, but the blood bank's. Vampire blood can keep many sicknesses at bay, when ingested by a human, but not the coughing sickness.

I know, I tried that already.

The people on the deck are covered in see-through blankets, and look more like vampires than I do. I, with my lips clean of blood, seem to be the only one not effected. An irony, that.

A hand reaches out to me, and grabs my foot. I look down at the child, who is staring at me with wide eyes. Unlike the frail woman next to him, he doesn't have blood on his lips.

"Sir, can you spare a coin?" The boy asks, in the Wisterne dialect favored in Manch.

I bent, and touch the neck of the woman next to him. No pulse.

"Please, if I don't give a coin to the captain, he will throw mama overboard," the boy continues in the same melodic Wisterne, which is even more accented, by his panic.

"She is dead," I tell him, without a shred of mercy. "And if you don't come with me, so you will be."

The boy begins to shake his head. I take out a coin from my pouch, something that the demon lord's assets fill every month, and placed it next to the woman.

"Come with me and live," I tell the boy, and then offer him my hand. "Come with me, and see a bright new day."

It is unclear to me why I made this offer. The boy is just a human. Doesn't even have enough blood in his veins for two. Yet, I think I admire the fight left in him.

That spark, which made him grip a stranger's foot. When he knew, full well, that he could have gotten a kick to the head for his troubles, or worse.

Vampires are not the worst thing, that one might find in the wild. The boy's olive tanned cheeks become wet with tears. He takes the coin, and then my hand. I wonder what difference does it make, for little Nico's mother to be burned in the harbor, rather than to be thrown overboard.

But perhaps such sentiment is lost on me, just like my humanity.

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