NationStates Jolt Archive

The moonlight shone down as it always did. Kain enjoyed the private solitude of his homeland, although he did long sometimes for company. The walked around the ruined buildings where the marks of the war only years ago still remained. A workshop blasted by dragonbreath. A tower crumbled by a earthquake or flaming boulder. A path way, now a gaping hole as disintergration spells were cast upon the buildings.

Kain had been there, and lead the resisting force. He knew everything that occoured. But that was in the past now. He was searching for something else than memories this night.

Velmora was now a desolate and indecorous the humble ruins of a mystical human race named the Psi, a race which Kain had once belonged before his vampire change, lay as a reminder that these people had once lived and died here.

The moonlight made the place sparkle strangely, the stones still retaining faded runes which made them glow a slight pale blue in the moon's touch. Many spirits still wandered these places but Kain had seen none, but he knew they were there.

He was walking the pavements, looking for a specific metal which was used rarely in the production of magical artifacts when he heard something. None the wind or the whispers of his mind. No, this person was flesh and blood who approached.

"Show yourself." Kain simply stated, his deep voice echoing though the ruined place.

Kain stood, awaiting the stranger to show himself. Kain himself appeared more of a demon than vampire, his green-skin and three pronged talons seemed deadly and hardly vampiric attributes. Then again, the dark gift changed each one differently. With a silvery white hair that seemed to glow from a light, Kain seemed quite the daunting and eerie figure within this forgotten city of memories and spirits long gone from this world....

Thunder relapsed once again over the ruined carcuss of the city as a slight noise echoed into the night. The approach of a gently-tredding march.
The moonlight faded as the clouds began to sink over the land, shrouding around the towers and deformed fragments of the world with greater menace than before.

The smell of blood was working its way out from behind a nearby ruin as a shadow re-positioned itself on a half-shattered ceiling.

From its in-human perch, the long dark hair of a slender figure lay draped over its face. Gravity seemed to bow to this figure's whishes as it sat crouched upside down upon the grey and mildew-spread tiles.

The figure looked over towards Kain, studying this powerful being with upmost respect and humble adoration with flesh and bone piercing white eyes. Thunder roared overhead once again, revealing the two dark slits within his eyes.

Using the mind gift, the dark figure sent a humble greeting. He saught audience with Kain, a very powerful yet young being of not a disimilar race to kain's. He was, indeed vampire.

As the figure dislodged its strange position form the ceiling, it fell to the floor with an angelic grace, he walked gently over the ruins with his cat-like eyes fixated upon the glowing runes. Over the figure's shoulder was the hilt of some form of inhumanly beautiful weapon, it was bound with the accuracy and skill of a swordsmaster with the crafted talisman of a very ancient spirit upon the top.

The moon showed itself over the puffed grey of heavy clouds as the rain began to fall, sending a gust of wind that sent small spools of dust and debree over the metal plated boods of the traveller. A long black leather trench coat was wrapped around his slender yet muscular body.

The wind began to play with his hair, pushing it away from his face now with ever-playful fingers.

An angular and strong face revealed itself. The pale white skin of a blood drinker with the looks of a fallen angel. His slitted eyes blinked as they came into focus of the being he had searched for, too long had he awaited this moment. He was completely humbled by Kain's presence.

"My lord."

He bowed down upon one knee, bowing his sodden wet head upon his chest in complete adoration. His voice was deep and clear cut like a crystal stream. His eyes fluttered up to meet with Kain's and he began to weep with sorrow as he bowed his head once again.

"My name is Valentinos Morteium. I come in humble and deep pardonings, you are such a sublime creature to my preconceptions of your legendory status in the udergound world. My lord you do not know how long and hard i have searched for you."

Valentinos rose to his feet and let a smile creep over his lips. Tears of crimson were working their way down his face now, dripping into the water droplets upon his leather coat.

"My family are dead."

Kain was suprised that another vampire would wish to meet him, although thinking about it he did realise that his name had entered legend as such, such were the extent of his actions. Kain felt the fabled status baggage and he did not enjoy the attention to which it granted upon himself.

"I see my reputation preceedes me yet again, there is no need for you to respect me so. You sought my audiance within my shattered land it seems....to what end, and what has caused you family to be killed? Are you the catalyst of such events?" Kain asked curiously, his deep voice with a softness of concern.

As the thunder coursed above in those dark and far away clouds, they caused the light to cast down upon the land and those two vampiric figures, mingling the moonlight and the roaring thunder, making both figures that much more dramatic. Kain's green face gaining shadows and lighting, and his hair streaming with rain. The white fibric still help that supernatural essance about it, as did Kain entirely. He was unlike most other vampires, in appearance in aura, for in fact, he was not entirely vampire anymore, such as his experianced had shaped him so.

Upon Kain's shoulder was a dark blue cloak, a cloak which bore a clan symbol of the Shentavos, a deeply powerful clan. The most powerful vampire, and Kain's sire, of the Shentavos was Ravelyn Shentavo, a vampiric angel. A spirit which had guided and assistance Kain so many times, but no longer due to her death. The symbols of the Shentavos was a bleeding heart, impaled with a sword though the center. It was emblazened upon the cloak, proud and lionised.

The cloak seemed unrestricted by gravity, and only obayed it's silly enforcement of gravity in it's own time, moving slower than it should in some sort of miniture defiance of nature itself. For Cloak, as it was simply known, was hardly a normal cloak.

Much of Kain was not what it seemed, there lay many a legend which was outclassed in drama by the truth of actual events.

Valentinos remained silent for a very long time and turned his back upon Kain,
he sat upon a rock and looked out over the vast expance of the land.

He sat in awe of such a deserted but wonderful land. In all his many years, he had never found a place to admire such as this before. His sword began to sing to him as it did over and over again, using the mind-gift to place melodies and tunes inside Valentinos' head.

The lightning crackled through the clouds once again and lit up something rather amasing upon the neck of Valentinos. A rune that had been burnt into the back of his neck by a painful method. Possibly the most painful mehod a vampire could endure: Direct sunlight expoliation...

As soon as Valentinos knew that the wound was showing, he snatched up his collar and glared at Kain as if he had insulted him...

"Explain yourself. Now." Kain said slowly and ominously, viewing the rune upon his neck.

"How did you get that rune upon you!" Kain spoke quickly and urgantly, looking around for any signs of danger, sounds, figures, anything. His eyes darted around.

Valentinos' stomach churned, he knew he had to explain himself now.

"I do not know what this damned marking means!" Valentinos replied in a sharp and rather fearful shriek and saw movement in the corner of his eye.

"I am cursed with this! Kain you obviously know what i bare upon my skin. Tell me! I have searched you for an eternity. I know i have been doomed."

Valentinos' hand found itself resting upon the hilt of his sword...

The rain continued to pour, filling both vampire's with the background din of each drop of water crash upon ancient stones of the Psi. The rain grew in it's intensity, and a small layer of water covered everything as if a flood was about to occour.

Kain looked straight up at those darkened skies, the water poured over him gracefully and pleasantly. His long white hair flowed behind him making him seem some sort of banshee at first sight.

He smiled oddly, looking up directly at those rumbling and complaining clouds, clouds which held little remorse for anything, striking where it wanted to strike in it's childish anger. Kain gave out a very low dark chuckle, as if bemusement from the entire event that this vampire would arrive here.

"That rune upon your neck is a beacon to all vampire hunters...you have been followed with some care and attention...we now have visitors. I suggest that you make yourself prepared for a combat." Kain said simply, looking to the skies...concentrating now.

His eyes narrowed upon those darkened clouds, silently commending the vampire hunter's ingeniuty in this method of attack and tracking. His ears heard another crack of thunder, striking some distance away on a silver statue, making it hum deeply and damagingly. The statue itself was humanic in appearance, with a great number of arcane tatoos upon his body. In his hands was a staff upraised to the heavens a symbol that he was protecting the city, his robes ones of a celestrial nature. The name copper plaque had been destroyed in the proceeding combats of the war.

They were close now....Kain could hear them around....and above them. It was a new form of attack Kain had the solution to.

Defend from ground targets, I will deal with flying to begin with. Kain spoke mentally in Valentinos' mind, his voice calm and prepared.

Valentinos' eyes grew hot with the blood rush flowing in through every artery and vein within his body. His face grew into a contourted smile of sharp fangs and deadly thirst.

As thunder rapped once again overhead, Valentinos' trench coat was flung from himself, sending a spray of water over the two as his coat spun up into the air like some dark ghost-like kite.

Without another word, valentinos was speeding over the rocks like a bat out of hell, his feet barely even touching the muddy ground as he slipped through the shadows. Water flung from him in a thin mist as his blurred movements carried him over the landscape.

Within a few moments, the crunch of a neck being broken upon impact of feeding echoed through the mud and stone carcass of the land. The soft incence of mortal blood arose from the small ruins in which valentinos had slipped into. The gentle sigh of a relieved vampire worked its way into Kain's mind.

'The first Scout is dead." Valentinos' mind gift seemed to weave its own path through kain's mind like a small silver thread of vampyric intrecasy and intent.

Valentine now stood upon a small ledge, he sat in the misted remains of a castle watching, waiting. His back arched over like some large cat. His ribs gently moving as his body sucked in air, and then removed it as untouched as any other imortal. He had no need for air.

"Echo 4 19, bearing down on target 2. Echo 4? Echo 4, do you read? Shit. I am taking this bastard down. Strum, take left!"


They came, flying from the heavens looking like inperfect angels, condemned from heaven but not evil enough to be in hell, angels in purgatory. They were in fact, hunters, with great mechanical and magical wings, diving towards the grim vampire who stood staring back at thier goggled eyes, eyes which Kain saw beyond the glass, bore little love of vampries. They held great lances within thier hands, silver and humming with a strange arcane energy, and small shields with the symbol of some God in which these zealots obviously served.

The two aeral knights, confident of thier suprise strike, realised that Kain was staring back at them, unmoving and unafraid. The enemy had judged them, judged them before the winged knights could even see thier green skinned vampire. Thier arcane goggles told them of the direction of thier enemy, a tracking device which locked onto any vampiric signitures.

They swooped down, their lances trained onto Kain, thier arms cradled with thier powerful lances, thier mechanical wings folded to allow a perfect dive which immense speed. The method in which these warriors hunted thier vampiric foes was to dive down at great speeds, impale thier victim, while spreading thier wings to stop them from crashing and harming themselves. The vampire impaled with thier silver lances would be destroyed, if not completely crippled. It was a highly daring and innotive technique, one which Kain had never encountered before.

Kain launched his own form with the same speed as those daredevil vampire hunters, like knights who rode upon the air as steeds, with a spontanous responce which the knights had not expected. This was supposed to be a suprise attack!

The initative had just been lost by the vampire hunters. Badly.

Kain's greenskinned form burst forward towards the vampire hunters, the winged knights confused by this sudden and insane stratagy. What was he thinking? He was going straight towards thier lances! This was one brave or highly stupid vamprie!

The vampire had a battle plan however. The winged knights were going to be beaten by Kain's intellgence.

Bursting toward thier faces, and fading away as Kain went through the vampire hunters, the rightous hunters charged ahead, certain that they had impaled the vampire, but realising that they had hit nothing but thin air. The lances hummed louder as Kain's mist form went around the two, who rocketed towards the ground.

"What the fuck!"

The two knights were about to activate thier wings to stop thier mad crash into the ground, triggering it by a mechanical and arcane button which was on thier chest. Thier left hands went to press it franticly, panicked by this event. These men were experianced, but a vamprie had never pulled that stunt on them before.

The button was pressed....but nothing happened. Just a high pitched whine and putter as the system failed. The wings remained tucked away, completely useless to the two knights. Kain was holding both wing sets, preventing the mechanical trigger of the magic that would slow thier decent and release the wings.

Screaming now, as they flew full force towards with thier lances crunching into the ground, still humming as they did so, both knights smattered into the ground, Kain holding onto thier backs and using them to cushion his own fall. Their skulls crunching were hardly satisfying to Kain, the spirts of blood splashing all over the pavement, and over his chest ina strange affirmation of a kill.

This had just occoured in a lighting two seconds, seconds which seemed like horus to Kain as he got it perfectly done.

Both were dead, but Kain lifted them both up with a demonic strength and smashing thier bodies into the ground again, the rattling of thier broken equipment eventually and feebly opening the bent wings, which hummed slightly....flickering and dying as the magic failed to opperate.

"You stupid bastards. You did not know you were fucking with." Kain said grimly and walked away, knowing that more would come later on....



The intitiative had been lost.

Thousonds of biting little wingless insects were dislodged from their nests in the arms of some hunters nearing Valentinos. The crackkle of their mortal weaponary screamed as rounds were pumped through the spherical-pressed lips of these cradled machines.

Valentinos watched with amazement as these small tubes with slightly rounded edges worked their way through the air towards him. Their small faces biting through te wind as they spun in a whining hoarde towards him.

Valentinos lifted himself in a leap and bound over the ledge, spinning over the small silver insects as they lodged themselves into the sodden stone and rock, chipping away at teh timeless faces of the ruins. Valentinos landed in a crouch, his boots slipped back as he put his weight through one arm to perform a single handed flip over and onto the area of the black-armoured crowd.

"Holy shit!" A computer-enhanced voice crakkled through the mouthpiece of an armoured uniform as the squad of dung-beetle like mortals wheeled away from this baing. This strange beast which they had tracked for months through the vast cities, the cold and dark forests...the wastelands.

"Mortals." Valentinos laughed almost dumbly as his fangs flashed under the moonlight.

More clips were loaded into their weapons as they encircled him.

"Open fire"

The scene that followed was one of sheer human stupidity. They opened fire upon a target that was surrounded by their overwhelming numbers. All Valentinos had to do was simply jump over the crowd, which is exactly what he did. Their silver bullets did not follow the target, they followed the paths in which they were aimed.

Cries of wounded soldiers echoed up into the night as a mass of crimson-spewing and limp bodies flashed in the thunder and lightning. The light flashed over them over and over again, like many little strobes of licking flame. Valentinos stood behind the circle of armed soldiers, watching with a bloodied sour smile. His arms folded into his chest in amusement as the armoured soldiers fell.

The untouched few turned to try to take their best shot at the evil creature. The silence of empty rounds were followed by the clicks of their machines running out of power.

"Fuck! Run for it! RETREAT!!" One cried as they turned on their heels and skidded through the now waterloged bowl they were situated in. The circle of dead and wounded bodies became something like a military blocade as they clambered through the collapsing and screaming pile. Valentinos laughed and picked off one straggeler with a short distance to close upon him.

He suddenly let go of the body as a loud noise came rumbling behind him. It sounded something like the noise of a thousond bats within one of the caves he had hidden in as a young blood. The light came from imbetween the pillars of the ruined building as he slouched and turned his head.

His hair now hung over his face in a mangled mess as the onpour of rain fell over him. Blood trickled from his lips in a smudged crimson second tongue.
The two bright eyes of some machine shone upon him like sunlight. Valentinos covered his eyes for a split second as he stared towards these two bright lights. As the screeching and low metallic bubbling of some form neared him.

"SHIT!"

Valentinos leapt to the side and rolled into the pile of bodies as a large metallic slug burst through the pillars, its large metal plated wheels dragged the body of a gigantic beast over the tiled floor, the stonework popping under teh imense weight of the beast as it spun upon its own axis and turned to face valentinos.

The beast was like a box, plated all over and impenitrable it seemed. Valentinos turned and ran up the wall beside him in a rapid retreat like a rabit from an oncomming danger.

The whirr of a mechanical device sounded behind him as something was shot after him. The whirr of a large electricaly charged projectile made contact with Valentinos' back. He felt his hair singe and his skin began to flake away like dry mud. He let out a shrill cry of pain and let the fire run through his body, it had not killed him, therefore...it would not stop him. Valentinos sped up, his feet blurring underneath him as he ran towards that muscular green and almost godlike figure upon the hill.

"Holy shit did you just see what that vamp just took?"
"Shut up and load another one." The officer inside the tank grunted, and put his cigar back inbetween his fat lips.

"You seriously want to invade my fucking nation?" Kain said with a certain degree of dark humor, as he stood looking at Valentinos as the fray ensued between the vampire hunters.

Shit, these guys were packing some punch. Ah well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, the hunters never did really relent in thier quest for vampire kills. Kain had been one of the most reputable vampire in existance, although there were many more powerful than himself. Kain was simply known for his actions.

"Is it war you want? War you will have!" Kain cried into the small hunter army which was flooding the area like insects. Thier black bodies glided into this battlezone, in small groups, thier advanced machine guns bearing a heavy payload, runed silver bullets, bullets which had some limited arcane power to home in, and dispel limited shields.

Kain spoke mentally to Velentos, instructing him of his battle plan. "We should fall back into the Library. It is that tower like building, to the east. More defendable and I have access to my devices."

Kain chanted and summoned arcane energies to his disposal, the blue energies forming between his two cloven hands as he spoke the words of his people. The realm of reality was changed as energy formed into his hands and body, filling him with the usual ecstacy that was provided when a mage altered reality to his or her bidding.

Cloak, prepare the defence of the library. Warm the wards. Kain instructed his ally as he sent his spell off into the small army.

His spell blazened into being, a torrent of a storm cloud. It bore it's own sentiance, a great howling spirit bent on destruction as it reared it's ugly head. It roared at the army, halting it's progress as the troops considered thier options to this creature of another realm.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mmiii_gallery/82987.jpg

Kain and Valentinos ran together, side by side, running at a sprint of a vampiric pace. kain seemed undrained by that massive display of magic, amazing Valentinos....until Kain simply said.

"Amazing what an illusion will do....but it will not last long. Thier mages will soon figure out it is harmless but for a few weak shows of power!"

"Then it is a good thing we are running!" Valentinos cried as he followed Kain over the rotting lands.

It was all too soon before the soldiers were on their tails again.

Glancing back, Vaneltinos could see the swarms of black armoured creatures trying to follow in the vampiric wake. Their clumsy persuit was not enough to catch up with the pace at which these two could run.

And then they came...the high-pitched whining of a combustion-engine powered hover bike closed in upon them. Another two of these strange whining machines sounded behind them as the crackle of silver bulets flew past them. Valentinos and Kain dodged between the screaming silver pods. Valentinos found his back a heavy burden as he felt the pain again.

It was a sharp fire of mangled and twisted skin, his hair was singed to the edges of the shrivelled wound and although he was beginning to heal, it would be months before a wound of such extensity would fully heal over. Valentinos gritted his teeth as he moved on, bullets sprayed past his boots only inches from him this time. Kain sped up his pace once again and Valentinos was forced totry to keep up with him. The hover bikes slowly lost distance as the two figures ascended a large mud-coated hill.

Valentine knew that no matter where they went, they would be close behind them.


Inside the clouded shell of the tank, the commander recieved a fuzzy transmition.
"They are going towards the library." A voice crakkled over the intercom of the machine. The commander let his greacy black hair settle into place before he llit up another cigar.
"Get the kites up there." He smiled.
"Sir do we have permission to mount an assult that large?" The voice crakkled once again.
"Do as i say damn it, i give you permission. That should be enough for your damned minds! Now get on with it, we have two vampires to kill!"
The tank let out a groan as the drivers and computer techies sped the machine up to a charge.
"Sixty Miles per hour sir." The head driver announced as he leaned back over the console.
"Is that all the damned contraption can do?" The officer laughed and waited for a reply, but the crew were silent, and went backto their work. "Crap."



Valentine felt the last strand of his hair regrow, the smell of burning flesh was still pungeant and sickening to his nostrils. Kain seemed un worried of it, and more focussed on getting to the library.
Onwards they ran, over large craters and glowing runes as the crackle of larger guns echoed in the distence.

"Watch out." Kain pointed to the skies as several golden spheres flew overhead.

Without another word, the howl of a large object descending towards them gradually grew louder and louder.

Mud and stone was thrown over the two figures as a shockwave sent a long line of broken earth into the air. Like a stone thrown into water, the ripples moved across the land.

Another scream forewarned another explosion, this time it landed a few feet from Kain, throwing them both to the right in a screen of brown and cutting stones.

The sharp stinging of tiny pieces of stone ripped over Valentinos' flesh and face as the dirt felw up into his eyes. Kain was undoubtedly struck as badly as Valentinos was, but his pace did not slacken. Kain's power was endless it seemed.

As Valentine's skin began to heal over, he found himself being carried somehow. It felt like a hand was being gently pressed against his back to assist him over the terrain as he sometimes lost ground from Kain.

"Could it be...?" Valentinos thought to himself... "No. She would never assist me." He cleared his mind from thoughts of the past. They would kill him far more quickly than the mortal machines would if he did not controll his emotions. Valentinos placed a hand upon the hilt of his sword, it was keen to be unsheathed...but when? Valentinos looked ahead and he could faintly make out upon the distance the gently carved outline of the library!

They were almost there!!




"In position" The tank crew announced to the commander.

"Good, as soon as those bastards hit the ridge of that hill, they are toast!" The commander lit up another cigar and climbed the stepps to the roof of the tank.

Upon opening the hatch, he signalled to the snipers and small squads to take their places. Another tank was allined opposite theirs, and the battle plan was arranged to perfection.

The formation was an upside down "v" of troops and lightly armoured machines. Air support was ready to drive the vampires through the funnel, and as soon as they reached the tip of the funnel, air support would launch a special attack, and the ground troops would move in. Eventually surrounding the two targets.
"Oh those basterds are going to pay." The commander laughed and scratched a pink line of scarred tissue upon the back of his neck. "Oh they are going to pay."