Vampire Mist: Ballad of the B-Team, Book One Read online

  Vampire Mist

  also by

  adam thomas

  stories of sularil

  The Islands of Shattered Glass

  The Halfling Contagion

  The Storm Curtain

  the shields of sularil series

  Torniel (Book 1)

  The Jeweled City (Book 2)

  True Sight (Book 3)

  Seven of Shadow (Book 4)

  For all these books and more:

  adamthomas.net

  ballad of the b-team

  book one

  adam thomas

  Vampire Mist: Ballad of the B-Team, Book One

  Copyright © 2021 by Adam Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  Paperback ISBN: 979-8-50432101-1

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews. For information, please contact the author via the website adamthomas.net.

  The persons, places, and events portrayed in this work of fiction are the creations of the author and the player characters of the B-Team role-playing group. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental.

  While the player characters and many of their foes were inspired by the source books for Dungeons and Dragons,™ no material protected under the trademarks and copyrights of Wizards of the Coast is contained in the narrative herein.

  For my friends who spun this tale with me

  carrie

  (Emric)

  rachel

  (Alurel and Syne)

  matthew

  (Jeral)

  adam

  (Rhys)

  rowan

  (Shonasir)

  kelsey

  (Rosamund)

  nik

  (Ronin Nar)

  brian

  (Wiggins)

  For a map of Sularil visit

  adamthomas.net/vampiremistmap/

  “Vampires will charm the trousers right off your backside

  if you give them half a chance. That’s why it’s always

  better to stake first and ask questions later.”

  Excerpt from Highest Stakes:

  A Memoir and Manual About My Life as a Vampire Hunter

  by General Grem Axehaft, S.J.F.

  ten years ago

  Rosamund’s Fresh Start

  Lorelei Crane stood in the bow of the ship, watching the towers of Thousand Spires coming closer and closer. The sun had set hours ago, but Lorelei’s sharp eyes missed nothing, even in the semi-darkness of the half moon’s glow. She curled her long, snow-white fingers around a line and squeezed until her sharp nails drew blood. The deep red droplets matched Lorelei’s mane of hair, which she wore unplaited down her back. She had not looked at herself in a mirror for many, many years, but she knew she was beyond lovely. Indeed, she was so striking that potential lovers rarely approached her. She was like the top of a mountain: beautiful at a distance, but hard to reach, and the attempt possibly fatal.

  Lorelei had spent the days of the ocean crossing in her well-appointed cabin, and the nights she had spent on deck, watching the stars and brooding on her failures during her years on the Islands of Shattered Glass. Apranashar had warned her not to try to make a new vampire until she herself had been one for at least a hundred years. But Lorelei had grown impatient. Surely, 91 years was close enough?

  It hadn’t been, and the Grasp, a powerful criminal syndicate on the Islands had not taken kindly to her trying to turn their leader. Even a vampire as deadly as Lorelei could not have survived the full brunt of the Grasp, and so she had vanished. She bought the ship, hired the crew, and made sure none of them knew each other, so that when crew members went missing, no one would kick up a fuss. The voyage across the Glass Ocean was long, but Lorelei still had plenty of crew to finish the journey.

  It was time to start over, and Thousand Spires, the Jeweled City of Sularil, would be her new home. She had been Samantha Esris once upon a time before meeting Apranashar during that fateful diplomatic trip to eastern Daen. Following her ascendancy to undeath, she had stylized herself Captain Redtooth, a dreaded pirate of the waves who only attacked ships at night.

  Lorelei winced at the memory of her overly dramatic first vampiric persona. After a run-in with a vampire hunter, she took herself to the Islands of Shattered Glass and remained there for many years. But now she was back in her home country. No one would remember her. And even though no one knew the name Lorelei Crane, she desired a new one.

  The towers of Thousand Spires grew taller as the ship approached the end of the long voyage. The city spanned a thirty mile isthmus between Arillon and Sul, and its tall buildings rose in wood and stone and metal. Lorelei wanted a name like those buildings in the distance: strong, unyielding, everlasting.

  Steele. That was a good surname. And she would choose a softer given name to set others at ease: a flower to go with her mettle. Daisy Steele? No, too childish. Iris Steele? No, that didn’t roll off the tongue. Rose Steele. Closer, but too clipped, too monosyllabic.

  Rosamund Steele.

  Lorelei rolled the name around her mouth and spoke it aloud to the waves and the wind. Yes, she would be Rosamund Steele, and given time, the great city of Thousand Spires would be hers. She smiled, and her fangs glittered in the moonlight. She was a vampire. She had nothing but time.

  one

  Today, in a Tomb

  A sharp smack jostled Emric from his magical sleep. The young dwarf pulled himself to a seated position, put a hand to his smooth, gray cheek, and looked up to see Alurel standing over him, her hand raised for a second swing. “I’m awake, I’m awake,” he said.

  The half-elf lowered her hand and flashed Emric a winning smile. The dancing firefly lights of the cave reflected in her eyes. “We got it while you were napping.”

  “Just because magic can’t put you and Shonasir to sleep, doesn’t mean we’re all so lucky.” Emric sighed, and with the last of his exhale he added, “Elves.”

  “The dragon knocked out Rhys too, but Jeral woke him up in time to deal the final blow.”

  Rhys Highridge ambled over and offered Emric his hand. The human swordsman towered over Emric even when the dwarf was standing up, but from his seated position Emric felt like a little puppy yipping at Rhys’s knees. He grasped Rhys’s dark brown hand and allowed Rhys to pull him to his feet. The strong warrior yanked with little apparent effort, and Emric was standing.

  “How’d you get so big, Rhys? I’ve never seen you lift weights or anything.”

  Rhys tossed his head back and laughed. Several of his locs had shaken loose from their tie during the fight, and the locs swished along with his laughter. “Does years of chucking hay bales on my parents’ farm count?”

  “I thought Duna’s family were all orphans,” Emric said. But Rhys’s face went stony at his observation, so Emric changed the subject. “The real question is does that creature count as a dragon?”

  Emric, Rhys, and Alurel walked over to their companions, Jeral and Shonasir, who knelt by the slain dragon. It was, they had to admit, the least scary dragon they could imagine. Its scales were all colors of the rainbow and felt more like petals than armor. And it sported a frill around its neck that looked like a flower in blossom, making the dragon’s snout the stamen. Still, it had packed a wallop, especially after the trials of the higher levels of the cavern had sapped the party of much of their vital
ity. Thankfully, this dragon didn’t breathe fire or acid. It merely put its victims to sleep. Well, that and it attacked them with its teeth, claws, and tail.

  “Jeral, you’re a dragon,” Alurel said. “What do you think?”

  “I look like a dragon,” Jeral said, pointing to his green scales. “But I’m not one. I’d say that it is definitely a dragon. How will we brag that we bested one otherwise?”

  Indeed, they had prevailed in the end, and now the dragon’s flesh was beginning to sparkle and shimmer and disappear.

  “Just like the fairies and beasts above,” Shonasir said. They were an elf of the Parth people and the most recent person to join the band of adventurers. They were good with a bow and had an uncanny ability to summon elemental forces, but beyond that Emric and the rest knew little about them. That said, it was good fortune that brought Shonasir to the party for they had needed an elf’s handprint to open the secret entrance to Verinurel’s tomb.

  The five adventurers waited patiently for the dragon’s body to return fully to its home plane of existence. When it had gone, Shonasir bent down and picked up the jewel the dragon had been guarding. The yellow gem was strung on a silver chain just like the other four they had discovered above.

  Shonasir walked over to the staircase and pushed the gem into a socket in the stone surface. The stairs quivered and then began spiraling downward. “One more level?” Shonasir asked.

  “Can you ride that storm thing down like last time, just to be sure?” Emric prompted.

  “Yes, I think I have enough focus left to awaken one more.”

  The elf whipped an arrow from their quiver and fired it at the stairs. The arrow pinged off the stone and scattered away. But the point where the arrow struck began to glow. A moment later, a small lightning-filled tornado flashed into existence. Shonasir jumped into the middle of it, and the storm elemental flew down the stairs with its awakener in tow.

  “That is a very cool bit of magic,” Jeral said, his green snout breaking into a wide grin.

  “It’s safe,” they heard Shonasir call from below. “There’s nothing down here but more of the glowing firefly lights.”

  The rest of the party descended the stairs in the normal, non-magical way and joined Shonasir in the lowest level of the tomb.

  “Does everyone have a gem?” Emric asked.

  They all held one in hand or claw: white, black, green, yellow, and blue. The central pillar, which enclosed the stairwell, was notched with five slots in a vertical line. Above the notches, Elvish words were carved.

  da afthayo

  “Shonasir?” Emric asked.

  The elf ran their fingers over the carved words. “It’s an imperative. ‘Come down.’ What could that mean?”

  “We came down all these levels of the tomb,” Alurel offered. “Perhaps it’s an invitation to come down one more to find Verinurel themselves.”

  “Ah, I don’t want to alarm anyone,” Rhys said, still gripping the hilts of his twin longswords.

  The party turned and saw the misty images of all the guardians they had bested as they descended the levels of the tomb: quick, knife-wielding faeries; fey wolves; a dryad, elven spirits, and the flower dragon. The images formed out of the mysterious firefly-like motes of light that illuminated the tomb.

  “They’re just standing there,” Jeral said.

  “What are they waiting for?” Emric asked. The dwarf gripped his flute and prepared to cast his bardic magic.

  “They’re waiting for us to go wrong,” Shonasir said. “Look here: ‘Come down.’ It has two meanings. Verinurel’s remains are inviting us to go down one more level, and we need to put the gems in the right order.”

  “Alphabetical?” Rhys offered. “Blue would be first.”

  Alurel rolled her eyes. “You’re thinking like a human, Rhys. In Elvish, blue is laneson. Black would be first – devason. Who has the black gem?”

  “I do,” Jeral said. “Shall I?”

  “Do it.”

  The green dragonborn slipped the gem in the topmost slot. Immediately, the hovering elven spirits surged forward and lashed out at Jeral. He pulled the gem free and grabbed his head at the pain of the psychic intrusion.

  “Not alphabetical,” he managed to say before collapsing against the pillar.

  The elven spirits returned to the perimeter, where the other guardians were now stalking in a circle around the party.

  “I’ve got it,” Shonasir said. “We need to put them in order of elevation.”

  “If that were true, wouldn’t black still be first because of outer space?” Emric asked.

  “I don’t think so. It all has to do with what colors mean. In the human tongue, black is just black. But in Elvish our word for black comes from the color of the raven. Devason is literally ‘of the raven.’ Do you see?”

  “I get it,” Emric said. “What are the others?”

  Alurel held up the blue gem. “Laneson. ‘Of the sky.’” She pointed to the white gem Emric held, then to the green gem in Rhys’s big hands. “Orulanon. ‘Of the cloud.’ Tharinon. ‘Of the leaf.’”

  Without waiting for further debate, Shonasir pushed the yellow gem into the topmost slot. The guardians did not react. “Kiniron. “Of the sun.”

  Alurel stepped forward and placed the blue gem below the sun. “The elves of old must have been very enlightened to know that the sun was higher than the sky.”

  “There’s an old dwarven saying in Anvilcairn,” Emric said. “We have forgotten more than we will ever know.”

  Jeral had recovered from the spirits’ attack. “What does that mean?” he asked, raising the ridges of his scaled forehead. If he had had eyebrows, they would have raised too.

  “Basically, the smiths of old were way better than the smiths of today. I like to study history. Take Raven Sunforger –”

  Alurel clicked her tongue. “How about you place your gem and save the lecture for later.”

  Emric huffed his way to the pillar and placed the white gem. Jeral placed the black gem, and that left Rhys with the final one. He slid the green gem in place, and the floor all around them began to shake. They backed up as it split apart, revealing a wide set of stairs leading down into a small cavern. A stone sarcophagus filled the space. It was covered in phosphorescent moss that made the whole chamber glow green. The firefly motes fell like fat snowflakes all around them.

  “The tomb of Verinurel, the first elf to die in Daen.” Shonasir’s reverence made their words slow and thick. “I wonder how many times Verinurel has made the journey to and from Karanathan since then?”

  “Karanathan?” Jeral repeated.

  “The plane of deep magic and mystery. It is the home plane of my people. When elves die, our spirits return to Karanathan for a time before being reborn in the material world.”

  Emric squatted and wiped away some of the moss. “What does this say?”

  Alurel bent down and read the Elvish script.

  Li kinen het,

  Af laepiston ikeeyo

  Inrielnim kaerest

  Anyaelnim yon kara.

  Fyarana. Fyarana.

  “It sounds beautiful,” Emric said, “What does it mean?”

  Alurel smirked at him. “You should really learn Elvish. It’s the oldest language in Sularil.”

  “Dwarvish might be about the same age.”

  “But it’s not as pretty.”

  Shonasir inserted themselves between their bickering comrades. “It translates roughly to this.”

  At the moment of dawn

  Go to the stones

  The magic links will shine

  Your magic will grow

  Deep peace. Deep peace.

  “It’s going to be dawn soon,” Rhys said. “What are the magic links?”

  “The kaerest. The gems,’ Shonasir said. “They must hold more magic t
han just opening the tomb. Let’s go.”

  The party left the eerie beauty of the tomb and each grabbed a karest on their way to the stairs. They raced towards the surface and arrived as the predawn gray just began to give depth to the bay beyond the forest. They emerged in the midst of a circle of standing stones, five in all, with a sixth marking the center where they had entered the tomb.

  “Quickly, spread out and put on your karest,” Shonasir said.

  The others obeyed the elf without further discussion, and each took up position by one of the standing stones. Just then, the first rays of dawn set fire to the eastern sky. They watched the light climb slowly up the standing stones until it reached their chests.

  The light hit Emric, the dwarven bard of song and oration. He stood a few inches over four feet tall and owned a slight build, especially for a dwarf. He had light gray skin the color of wet limestone and flame red hair. His close-cropped beard gave his face the impression of being wreathed in a well-tended fire. Various instruments hung from his pack and belt so that he tended to jingle when he walked. He knew he cut a rather comical figure, and he had left Anvilcairn because he couldn’t stand the expectations that tried to force him into a mold he didn’t fit. He hadn’t meant to get arrested in Kelentir, but if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have met his new friends. Emric looked over at Alurel and smiled, knowing that her secret was safe with him.

  The light reached Alurel’s chest next. The half-elven druid hailed from the island of Starfall, which bathed itself in the Glass Ocean many leagues to the east of where she now found herself. The Forest-Betwixt-the-Rivers was her people’s ancestral home, though they had been driven out on multiple occasions by the land-hungry humans of Kelen. Alurel counted herself among the Oruana Kir elves, though the Starfallen had long since been separated from their full-blooded elven kin. Alurel’s features were softer than an elf’s, but her copper skin marked her as someone other than fully human. She was a person caught in-between, and she had chafed against the Sularin prejudice towards her people ever since she left Starfall. Why had she left? She was never quite certain herself, but something within her drove her to find more animals with whom to commune. So what if the Sularins didn’t believe the Kir could change into animals? Let it be her little secret, at least until a panther was suddenly tearing out their throats.