The Oracle Paths

[Leader of the Dracul Clan since the year 914 of this era, his secret relationship with Xaverie Zangruth nearly caused the clan's extinction. The birth of Aisling, a hybrid, and his desire to protect her also betrayed all the Vampire values, proving that he was no longer fit to lead the Draculs.

Sentence: Eternal Rest]

As with Vlad Dracul, whose body had been stolen by Jake, Grimwald Dracul had only been condemned to a premature sleep. His deeds and past reputation did not justify his execution or a harsh sentence, but he had to be disposed of.

Based on what Jen, the fake Remus, had told him, Jake now knew that the Demons had not acted alone. It was a safe bet that Xaverie Zangruth, despite being a Demoness, had truly loved him and the Demon clans had made good use of their romance to further their darkest designs.

The Demons had official and unofficial allies in all the Factions as the recent Battle of the Council had illustrated. The Shapeshifters were among them.

Unlike Remus, Grimwald was a tough nut to crack. Like Haynt or Kenway, capturing or killing him would require far too many sacrifices and was impossible to accomplish discreetly if he refused to leave Laudarkvik.

On the other hand, his righteousness, sense of honor and duty were noble traits that his enemies could easily exploit. Thus, Remus, who was clearly weaker and more incompetent, was killed and replaced by Jen before the demons made use of the information obtained by Xaverie to launch their attack. The fake Remus then blamed him for these crimes and invoked his sense of honor to warrant his arrest and renunciation of the throne.

The target of this attack was an open secret, but rumor had it that the goal of this nighttime assault was the secret crypt of the Dracul clan. If this was the case, all of the clan's Vampire Ancestors who had chosen to enter the Eternal Rest of their own free will had fallen into the Demons' hands. No one knew what happened to those old, sleeping Vampires.

Jake didn't know the whole story, but the Mimic had said that without Xaverie's cooperation, the Demons could never have succeeded. The bottom line was that all demons, without exception, were inherently evil. They might love, protect, fight for a cause, have ambition and even feel compassion, but their preconceived sense of morality was distorted.

To put this in perspective from a human's point of view, most anthropological studies concluded that humans were inherently good. One could be selfish, cruel, lecherous and violent, but with the exception of psychopaths, most people, including infants, instinctively knew when they were hurting someone. If they didn't realize it, as soon as they did, they would feel bad or guilty about it.

It was only as they grew up that they would learn to make sense of things, to toughen up. Those who ended up becoming big name criminals like mafia bosses or drug barons had simply learned to disregard their conscience in order to prioritize their personal interests or those of their families. In private, they could still be loving fathers and mothers, good friends and wonderful lovers.

With Demons it was exactly the opposite. Whether they were born from the miasma resulting from negative thoughts or whether their species was categorized as such, what they all had in common was that they were born fundamentally evil.

A young Demon would feel bad, feel guilty when it wasn't doing anything wicked. Depending on the type of demon, they might have their own specialties and fetishes, but that was pretty much the idea. Unlike humans, as they grew up they were also influenced by their environment and experiences and in some cases they ended up adopting a behavior and moral code that went against their instincts.

Xaverie Zangruth, Aisling's mother, was a prime example of this particular type of Demon. Her actions, her way of life, were appalling to her own people, but her strength was such that none of them dared hold it against her.

However, as with the above example regarding humans, she could act like an angel and even indulge in such a role, but when she returned to her true nature, she was as evil and twisted as any Demon.

Grimwald Dracul's mistake had been to forget this truth when he fell madly in love with her.

The reason Aisling's existence was so controversial was that neither the Vampires nor the Demons were able to trust her. Her ambivalent nature made her unable to fit into either clique. She was an outcast and that was why she had gathered the other Mutants and other hybrids that everyone else spurned to form her own faction.

With all this information in mind, Jake weighed the pros and cons, but eventually decided to wake Grimwald. The Oracle Scan indicated that he was lvl 91, which put him in the same league as Haynt. Not including the old vampires from the crypts that the demons had ransacked, he was the highest level Vampire still alive in Quanoth.

As with Wyatt and his subordinates, Jake sprinkled some of his blood on him and waited for the magic to work. The revival took longer than for Wyatt and the others. Perhaps it had something to do with the length of the Eternal Rest.

About five minutes later, he opened his eyes.

"Who are you?"

His voice was hoarse like that of a parched person, but his serene face was as tranquil as a waveless lake. When he asked this simple question, there was nonetheless a kind of regal aura emanating from him, betraying his immense past glory and his used to ruling.

"A friend of Aisling's. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you." Jake apologized with a polite smile.

"Speak."

Jake spoke and Grimwald listened in silence as he lay still to let the blood within him regenerate his strength. Several times his eyebrows furrowed, but at no time did he show any sign of panic or annoyance. It would seem that he had long been suspicious of the circumstances of his arrest.

When Jake was done filling him in, Grimwald wiggled his fingers as if testing their response, then rose from his coffin.

"We've got work to do. And I have revenge to exact." The weakened Vampire declared flatly but with a fierce glint seething in his ruby eyes.

Now that he was standing before him, Jake finally saw the resemblance to his daughter Aisling. The young woman got her crimson hair and horns from her mother Xaverie, but most of her facial features she owed to her father.

Grimwald was a handsome man who looked about twenty years old when he was almost 950. Like Remus, he was a dark-haired man with an innate charisma, but unlike Remus, he had the mannerisms and look of a seducer. Each of his gestures was an ode to flirtation, as if he had spent his whole life perfecting his game to enthrall the crowd.

No wonder a demoness like Xaverie fell in love with him. Even desiccated with parched skin, he was still able to capture the hearts of the ladies. Before he was condemned, the number of groupies worshipping him numbered in the thousands.

Accompanied by Grimwald, Jake then stealthily left the Draculs' headquarters the same way he had come, using his improvised Stealth Spell. The duo immediately left the city without attracting attention, returning to Jake's previous hideout. When they arrived they found Wyatt, Selen and his other subordinates waiting for them.

Jake made introductions, then recapped what he had learned from Jen and explained his own intentions.

"I have only one goal. To save my friends and show them what I'm made of." He concluded with a creepy sparkle in his eyes after a long litany. "Who wants to fight alongside me?"

Wyatt became solemn, but without hesitation, he joined in. Saving Carmin was not up for debate. Grimwald stood silent. His mere presence here indicated his support. The problem came with Wyatt's subordinates.

The young Vampire Progenitor thought they would be eager to take revenge and save their friend, but the reality turned out to be much starker. The punishment they had just endured had deeply traumatized them, and the mere mention of attacking the perpetrators caused them to have an anxiety attack that manifested itself in a disturbing episode of hyperventilation. Their PTSD would not go away in a short time and they were temporarily dead weight.

The only one who chose to tag along was Selen, but she was shaking so hard when she said it that Jake took pity on her and ordered her to rest. With a wry smile on his face, Wyatt could only agree.

"Let's go."

The crack trio then sped through dozens of mountains, forests, hills, plains, and lakes at unimaginable speed. They were so fast that their figures were beyond blurred, no human eye could lock onto them.

A few moments later, and more than 500km west of Laudarkvik in the middle of the Wilderness, the trio spotted a fortress. Jake and Wyatt were hardly surprised, but Grimwald was stunned when he saw it. He was certain that this fortress did not exist in his time.

While he slept, things had apparently changed dramatically.