The Vampire's Harvest

59

As the rope warms in your hand, you focus your thoughts on keeping the horde of vampires and drones away from the exit. As the spell comes to an end, the rope rises from your grip and one of its knotted ends, shoots out to a corner of the room, snagging the arm of a decorative wall sconce. Then it hooks a chandelier, then a table leg, then a thick marble column. Elongating as it cruises from corner to corner of the hall, the rope eventually creates a tangled web between you and the furious force.

Vampires and drones alike attempt to plow through the obstacle, their superior strength uprooting some of the ropes anchors. However, the slackened line mixed with taut expanses, only makes the web that much more muddled. Eventually, hissing vamps become entwined while the mindless drones simply keep pushing on, despite the resistance. With your barrier obstructing their way, you stay well out of arms reach and they stay blissfully ignorant within the radius of Ferris's spell.

First, there is a scream. Which is soon followed, by the vampires turning their claws from your web to their own chests. Their skin glows, licked by a flame bursting inside of them. With arms reaching towards the ceiling, their mouths gaping in a silent screech, fire spreads across their pallid skin and an inferno ignites the hall. The humans that remained stalwart beside their vamps, run screaming for the outer rim of the ballroom, slapping out little flames that caught their fancy wares. Drones continue to trudge onward, desperate to complete their mission because their crying masters never had a chance to utter a command to do otherwise. So the vampires turn to ash, their charred bones clattering to the floor.

With their death, their last demand of the drones is nullified and overwritten by the one set within the curse of every vampire's enslavement. With their master dead, the drones will now spend the rest of their existence hunting down their master's killer and once they've succeeded, they too will find rest. As mindless beasts, however, all they know is that you were marked as a source of danger for the vampires and thus an accomplice to their masters' demise. And so they continue on, doing what they can to reach you until Ferris and the others charge into the hall and begin a new chant.

Some drones turn to face the additions to the room, but they don't have time to act upon their innate knowledge that these new faces are the true killers. With a quick spell uttered, the drones are released of their captivity and their flesh rots away from their bones. The body decomposes as it should have, given the time they spent as a walking corpse. The stench quickly becomes too powerful for your stomach and after a quick wave of acknowledgement to Ferris, you sprint for the door and take a deep breath of the cool autumn air.

After that night, your story becomes one of legend. Ferris and the coven extol you as the hero of the town even though it was Ferris's planning and their spell that killed off the vamps. However, it was you everyone saw and, though no vampires survived that night, word still spreads of your brash threat to an entire room of the vampire elite and the subsequent bonfire as you watched mercilessly from behind your barrier.

Ferris didn't mind giving the credit to you. Without the celebrity, he is able to lead the town unfettered by awestruck citizens and well-meaning travelers who make pilgrimages to the town in hopes of seeing the one who defied the vampires. Ferris, in fact, uses your draw to his advantage, enlisting all those wishing to escape the vampires' grip to join his coven. Under his tutelage, these new recruits learn battle magic and then are sent back to their towns with the knowledge they gained.

Soon your town is well known for their battle mages and, even though the vampires eventually rebuild their strength after the terrifying massacre, they make no attempt to reclaim the town for their own.

***

Congratulations, you found the successful ending for this branch of the story!  Why not go back and see what happens if you fail to fend off the vampires and their drones...