The Vampire's Harvest

24

Pulling the rope from your waist, you place the long cord across your palms before closing your eyes and beginning the basic all purpose spell Ferris has taught you. It would be more effective if you knew a specific chant, but without that knowledge, all you can do is concentrate upon your desire to tear the ward down and hope the rope is the proper conduit to do so.

You feel heat sizzling along your skin, concentrated along the line of the rope which becomes as hot as fire. It sears your palms and once the last word leaves your lips, you pull your hands away. As you do,the rope falls to the ground before bulging and elongating. The threads that composed the cord shift into scales and the knots at the end transform into a rattling tale and a sleek serpentine head. You step back, marveling at your power as the immense snake opens its jaws to reveal long fangs. With fangs bared it strikes at the ward repeatedly. And so it continues to snap forward with a hiss. Time, however, ticks away and you aren't sure if any progress is really being made.

Stepping forward, you reach in between the snake and the door, only to find the ward torn by holding.

"What are you doing?" asks Kinley, who runs down the hall to meet you with drones in tow.

"Kinley," you cry, "you need to leave!"

But it's too late. Just as she registers your command the voices stop from behind the door. Kinley's eyes go wide and, though she looks straight at you, you know she's already peering into the afterlife.

Her chest grows red, her mouth stretches in a scream, and then she bursts into deep red flames. Her skin sears and white bones appear beneath molten muscle. Ashes pile upon the floor and smoke rises in grey, grotesque ribbons. Within a minute, she's gone.

That night the town is liberated. The top echelons of the vampire nobility is wiped out in a single strike. Lower ranking vampires now train a keen eye on the abandoned farm that has no owner or protector to claim it. However, the vamps won't make a move after their numbers were diminished in the massacre, which gives Ferris plenty of time to build an army of mages to defend our home.

Ferris won and he never learns of what happened to Kinley that night. You sometimes consider telling him, in order to relieve yourself of the guilt and to give him some kind of closure. However, you don't dare to destroy his blissful ignorance. Instead you bear the weight of guilt and remorse upon your shoulders. You may be free from the vamps, but you live the rest of your life as a prisoner to your own disappointment.

***

You've found one of the unsuccessful endings for this branch of the story...Why not go back and see if you can find the right tool to use to take down the ward?