Venatores Noctis: Unlikely Foundations: Chapter 4 – Deaths and Lives of Our Own Making

Fanart of Nevar by @ArtistsSouthern (on Twitter)

Chapter 4 – Deaths and Lives of Our Own Making

As Nevar and Vanina continue upward, they come across dead serfs with their bodies completely destroyed as if they were killed by a sadist.

“What happened here?” Nevar says.

He continues forward before he is pushed back by his angel. A trap is activated as spikes come from the rug underneath him before the trap automatically hides itself.

“You have to be more careful!” Vanina says while clinging on to one of Nevar’s arms.

“Okay, okay I will!”

Despite Nevar’s heart feeling like it’s going to burst out of his chest he feels out where he should go. There are many places on the ground that activate the traps, but there are certain ones spread apart that just appear to be solid ground.

“I’ll go first again,” Nevar says.

Nevar then nervously steps on one of the supposedly safe places on the floor only for it to activate a fire trap on the wall that he manages to duck under just in time.

“What are we supposed to do if every part of the ground activates a trap?” Nevar says.

Vanina thinks about a possible solution while feeling the floor and looking around for possible clues. Nothing in particular separates this castle from the others besides the color of the wallpaper, the paintings, and various other decorations, but the paintings that depict ballroom dancers catch Vanina’s attention.

“I think we have to move like the dancers,” Vanina says.

“What makes you think that?” Nevar wonders.

“Just look at how the leg of one of the dancers lines up with the places in the floor that doesn’t activate a trap and the ones ahead of it have the same dancers looking like they continue the dance.”

Okay, but we’re still going to have to guess where the next one is. Perhaps we should just find another castle to approach the center from. Maybe there’s even a secret way around the trap.”

“But the apeman and the other serfs are already attacking the center and we may not get there in time. Besides, your angel and my barriers could protect us if we make a mistake.”

“I wouldn’t test them to protect us if we’re doing something that we shouldn’t.”

“I have a good feeling that we should. There has to be a better way.”

“I see that there are claw marks on the walls and ceiling so the serfs could’ve been crawling on them, but they could have traps on them as well and we can’t crawl on them like they can. What better option is there?”

“…alright. I guess there’s nothing better. God, please protect us in this risky plan.”

Nevar takes Vanina’s hand and the two begin to move in the same way as the paintings of the dancers depict. They move in the direction that the dancers seem to be moving in while hesitating only for a few seconds to make sure the next part of the floor isn’t a trap. This works surprisingly well as the two begin to smile and actually enjoy dancing with one another. Even though they have to guess at certain points because of the blood on the paintings, they manage to get far until the point where this is no other painting.

Seeing this ahead of them, Nevar points this out then says, “What do we do?”

“Uh. Umm. Take a guess?” Vanina answers.

“Tch. Why couldn’t these vampires complete this collection of paintings of all things?”

When the two get to the place where there is no painting, Nevar hesitates to move as he feels out the floor whereas Vanina wants to just guess.

“Hold on, we still have a second-”

“The second is up!”

Vanina moves them forward while silently praying. A barrier then forms around them as dozens of spikes hit it. The spikes then recede and their barrier dissipates once they are safe.

“That was too close,” Nevar says while continuously shaking and trying to shake off his fear.

“You think? I’m just glad to be alive,” Vanina says.

After shaking off what just happened, the two go through a door. For the rest of the way up, there are no traps. There aren’t even lords or serfs that get in their way as most are already dead. Going further up shows the two the answer as to why. Opportunistic vampire lords and serfs, and normal serfs rebel against their masters either for power, to escape, or to join the rebellion against the lords of the tower. Taking advantage of this, Nevar and Vanina head closer to the center to find that the previous masters of the tower have been overthrown by more powerful lords. The apeman priest and his serfs fight against these lords.

In an attempt to help, Nevar and Vanina join the fight. Numbers are the serf’s greatest weapon as the lords squash and kill them as if they were swatting flies. Some of the serfs attempt to go for the living heart in the center of the room that’s keeping the tower together, however, the lords are too quick and kill these serfs. Seeing that the heart is more than a decoration and the primary target, Nevar shoots his shot at attacking it and manages to hit it several times. Unbeknownst to him and some of the others, castles start falling off the tower because of this and bury themselves in the ground, and crash into the castles below the ground. A vampire lord notices what Nevar is doing and goes after him for an instant kill but is intercepted by the apeman priest who takes the lethal blow for him.

“Why?” Nevar says without really knowing what to say.

The priest’s guardian angel then manifests and decimates the vampire lord that struck him into bits.

“I can’t let a soul as brilliant as yours die so soon when you have so much to do. As for me, I guess God favored me more than I thought. My doubts were my worst sin, but it looks like I don’t need to worry about that anymore. I’ll see you later, son of Raven. Oh, and my name is Josiah since you wanted to know so badly.”

Life then leaves the priest’s body as his guardian angel goes to him and carries his soul upward until both disappear.

“Nevar!” Vanina says as she runs to his aid.

Her barrier of swords protects them since the rest of the serfs are dead. Five lords are left who fiercely attack them both in an attempt to protect the tower and gain the glory of being the one to kill them.

“Thank you, Vanina! I’ll finish this!”

Thanks to Vanina’s help, Nevar can continuously damage the heart of the tower. Even as a lord slips through the barrier, Nevar does not let this scare him and uses his finishing blow to whip both the lord and the heart in half. With the heart destroyed, the lords of the tower begin to take whatever valuables they have if they haven’t already begun to get up and leave. In this chaos, Nevar and Vanina run as fast as they can as the castles crumble into the ground. Vanina’s barrier protects them from the debris as they continue in whatever direction seems correct. What they may know is that the castle they’re in is falling to the ground as the others in the air are. As the castle falls, the room around them rotates, but they still manage not to be thrown around. They go from castle to destroyed castle in their desperate and blind attempt to survive.

Eventually, the castle they’re in falls to the ground. The cushions of the overly expensive couches break their fall along with Vanina’s barrier. They continue upward as they use the rubble as makeshift stairs until they break out of the castle and onto solid ground just as the rest of the castle sinks into the ground.

“Talk about a fall from grace. I thought we would never stop falling,” Nevar says.

“At least we’re finally safe,” Vanina says.

“Yeah, why don’t you turn off your barrier then?”

“The Blessed Mother and God have more control over it than I do so there must be a reason-”

A vampire lord leaps out from the dirt and punches Vanina a fair distance away. Thankfully, she isn’t too hurt because of her barrier’s protection, but now she is too far away from Nevar to help him. Nevar tries to hit the lord with his whip as the vampire dodges his strikes until he’s able to get some distance between him.

“Oh my. You are your father’s son. It’s not too late to make up for what you did. Become a vampire, help me dig up the remains of the tower, and we will rule the world as we once did,” the lord says.

“Who even are you?” Nevar asks.

“Someone who will be the master of this world.”

“I didn’t even see you defending the heart of the tower. How important can you really be?”

“More important than you think, boy. While those fools were defending a tower that was already killing itself, I was attending to my own strength. Behold the fruits of my labor.”

The area around the vampire lord’s hands darkens like a cloud forming in the sky before he raises them to the sky to darken it. Nevar’s and Vanina’s heads begin to hear the temptations of demons as they feel their strength begin to leave them.

“So, what’s it going to be?” the lord asks.

“I’ll never accept your offer,” Nevar says while attempting to attack the lord.

Now that his strength is lessened, Nevar is even slower at trying to attack the lord and misses more than usual. It doesn’t help that this entire ordeal has pushed him to its limits either.

“Give up. I can tell you’re afraid of me.”

“That’s right. I am afraid of you. I was afraid of nearly everything in that tower, and yet, I kept fighting because I was more afraid of sinning against God and letting the people who love me down.”

“So, it’s fear that drives you. How pathetic.”

“No, it’s not fear that drives me. It’s my love of God, family, and friends that push me forward when I would rather just cower in fear and do nothing.”

“That’s even worse. You know what? I don’t think I need you anymore.”

“Then try to take my life.”

Nevar lets go of his fears while whipping the ground to signify him letting it go. The lord then charges at him until his arms suddenly come off because of Nevar’s guardian angel. This stops the lord right in front of Nevar who he is now visibly afraid of.

He then leaps back and says, “You think this is over?! It isn’t. I mutated my body before I became a lord. Any second now, I will-”

Multiple arms replace the arms that the lord lost. The mutations don’t stop there as the lord loses both legs and gains four arms in their place. In addition, he gains two more arms that sprout out of his shoulder and one more that comes out of his mouth. He then charges at Nevar confident of his victory. Meanwhile, Nevar is calm and confident as his senses are boosted beyond that of a vampire by his faith in God. Because of this, he perceives everything in slow motion up until the point where he strikes the vampire. After the first strike, the lord is too afraid to move since his pride was shattered along with a majority of his body with that one strike. Nevar then unleashes a fury of whips to finish off the lord. The darkness disappears when the lord dies as the night sky gives way to the morning sun.

Vanina finally reaches Nevar and the two embrace and kiss one another. Horses approach them from a distance led by Rinaldo who almost falls on his face while dismounting his horse to embrace Nevar as well.

“Thanks be to God infinity times infinity that you’re alive!” Rinaldo says with held back tears flowing from his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re safe too, uncle,” Nevar says.

“Did you destroy the entire tower by yourself?”

“No, I did it with the help of my wife to be, Vanina along with a saintly priest, named Josiah, my guardian angel, and the intercession of Heaven.”

“Of course, of course! There was never a doubt in my mind that you would accomplish great things.”

“Really? There were plenty of doubts in my mind.”

The three of them laugh before heading back to Rome. Since the remainder of the tower and lower tower are still beneath the ground, the site of it becomes heavily guarded by the best soldiers of the Church just in case more vampires spring out from it, but what they don’t know is that the vampires and their serfs are too busy weeding out the weak among them before they’ll make their move on the surface. Nevar is celebrated as a hero and is married to Vanina shortly after. Josiah and the many serfs that helped Nevar are given graves at a graveyard where many saints are buried. Meanwhile, many vampires and their serfs still plague the lands during the night.

This makes Nevar dedicate his family to the eradication of them and all that is evil on the earth as he says to the excitement of a zealous crowd, “From this day forth, my family and I will hunt the night! May God’s will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

The End