The blasted lands
Samantha and Johnny had thanksgiving with Lydia. Their dad didn’t seem to care which was nice. Apathy was better than anger. In any case the thanksgiving was nice, the only thing grandiose about it was the house. It was just Sammy, Johnny, Lydia, and Lydia’s parents. Aloice had a perfectly lovely thanksgiving with just him and his mom. James on the other hand went to a gathering at his cousins house and his WHOLE extended family was there. But everyone survived until Friday. Everyone used the classic excuse of having a sleepover at everyone else’s house and said that they’d be back Sunday.
Now the quad was gathered in the starside, wearing some new makeover’s Amy whipped up for them. Samantha with an all purple and black dress. Lydia with a similar dress except it matched all her hair colors. James with a white shirt, black vest, and black jeans. Aloice remained unchanged pretty much. He already looked the vampire part. But he did get a sweet upgrade to his coat that gave him a bit more armor. Same goes for James’ vest.
The gothic squad was waiting in Amy’s shop for Nico to arrive. The mood was dramatic to say the least. The only thing James needed was a cigarette to go with his brooding and the look would be complete. Samantha was all a buzz as always, ready to go find a missing vampire and death with dark vampire stuff. Aloice was fantasizing about vampires as he often did. Lyda was just sitting there quietly, waiting for Luca. and he did arrive. The door opened and he was dressed even more dramatically than the quad. A full black tailcoat, poet's shirt, black slacks, and a long sword sheathed at his side.
“Come, it’s time to go.” Luca said in his soft voice. James did his best to keep his composure but Lydia noticed his posture stiffen a bit and his flush when he saw Luca.
“You sure you’re gonna keep your cool while we’re working for this guy.” Lydia poked fun at James.
“Oh you bitch.” James groaned, “not. A. word.” the asimar demanded.
“Mmhmm mmhmm.” Lydia said smugly as they walked up to a very fancy 1930’s town car parked just in front of Amy’s shop. Luca opened the door and climbed into the back, everyone else followed suit. As is the nature of many magical things the car is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. So there was plenty of room for all of the adventurers.
“First we must head to my home.” Luca said, clicking his fingers. The car quietly came to life and began driving, with nobody in the driver's seat. Then after a few moments the car lifted into the sky. “It’s a different bubble, as you call it, and there we will meet some friends who are going to help us. We will meet them at a gateway from my realm to Iowa.”
“Your realm is in Iowa?” James asked with a little smirk.
“No, but there’s a connection to it in Iowa.” He sighed, “it won’t take long, we’re taking a shortcut through old Amsterdam.”
“What can you tell us about your brother?” Lydia asked.
“He’s young for a vampire, somewhat obsessed with human culture. He was attending a university in Nigeria, when he vanished. He looks much like me but he dresses much more human.” Luca was looking out the window of the car as the vanishing city below.
“He does look a lot like you.” Aloice thought out loud, “but he’s shorter.”
“You’ve seen him?” Luca asked.
“Yea, just briefly though. He never sees me in the dreams.”
“It’s still good that you can see him. It means he’s safe.” Luca was stoic as ever but you could also see his shoulders relax a little bit if you paid enough attention.
“Who do you think took him?” Lydia asked.
“I’m unsure, I have many enemies. But it’s safe to assume a rival vampire family has him.”
“So we might be fighting a lot of vampires?” James asked.
“We may be, there is something you should know about fighting my kind. Your healing spells will not work on me, they will actually have the opposite effect. My kind gains nourishment from necrotic energies.
“I have a spell that I can use for that in case you ever need healing.” James mumbled, “I don’t know exactly how I know all of these spells but I’ve got you.”
Luca just nodded, looking back out the window. Conversation was light as they drove through the sky that got darker and darker as they passed. Eventually the sky shifted from inky darkness to suddenly be full of stars, and the car began to descend into a low hanging fog that scraggly leafless trees poked up out of. It was obvious we were here. The car landed gently and rolled to a stop. Luca put down the wine glass with a bit of blood in it down in a holder and exited the car. The quad followed behind him. He followed part of the dirt road through the fog, until he happened upon a door in between two trees. He opened it and stepped through, followed by the rest of the quad. They were back in the mundane world, standing outside of a large windmill in a field of corn. Luca looked much the same here in his mundane world form, except that his otherworldly beauty was toned down just a touch.
“They’re late.” Luca grumbled, looking at his watch.
“I’m sure they’ll be here.” James assured, realizing just then how close he was standing to Luca. The Latino boy was almost ashamed to say just how smitten he was by this vampire. But he held it together. Not enough to slip past Lydia’s notice though. She just smirked knowingly. Soon enough however the awkward moment ended and two figures approached. Two women who looked identical to each other, save for one of them being covered in combat gear.
“These are Mina the mage Barb the fighter.” Luca said, motioning to them, “they will assist us whenever we need them along the journey.” he then quietly walked back through the door in the windmill and everyone followed suit. In the magical world it was more obvious who was who. Barb was a big muscle bound ork while Mina was not muscle bound. Luca returned to the car and got inside, reclaiming his original seat and drinking the rest of his blood. Everyone piled into the car after him, with the twins taking the furthest seat back.
“Mina, Barb, these are my associates. James, Lydia, Samantha, and Aloice.” Luca explained, “with Mina’s magic, we should be able to use Aloice’s link to my brother to locate him.” The car started moving again, this time not taking to the sky but driving down the dirt road. “Nobody but staff should be in the castle, so we do not need to worry about the prying eyes of other vampire lords. Hopefully soon we will know our destination.” everyone just nodded in affirmation at what he said and waited, driving through low rolling fog to a castle that couldn’t yet be seen. But soon the fog broke and there it was. A castle fit for a king, dramatic stone gothic architecture, long tall windows, and somehow even taller doors. The car parked right in front of the steps to the entrance. The party piled out after Luca who ascended the stairs elegantly. James couldn’t help but notice how Luca’s stunning nature struck a chord in him. But he pressed on up the stairs.
The atmosphere of the castle was oppressive and dark, like you would expect a vampiric castle to be. But there was life. Staff that milled about the castle completing various tasks. But they just ignored the party as they made their way to a large set of stairs and followed Luca all the way up to the very top of the castle. The party emerged in an observatory with a dome made of glass, a massive telescope resting on a chassis that looked like it could make the whole dome move.
“Stargazer?” James asked as he looked around the massive room.
“Yes, I enjoy reading the constellations in my leisurely time.” Luca answered, “Perhaps one day you will have time to truly appreciate this castle.” James flushed an embarrassing amount at that.
“Alright, Aloice, Stand here.” Mina instructed, pointing at a large open swath of ground. Aloice did as he was instructed and waited as Mina grabbed a large jar and began to pour white sand onto the ground around Aloice in a pattern. A giant spell circle. “Aloice, Luca, I’m going to need the both of you to spill your blood on the circle. Luca just nodded solemnly, pulled out a knife and swiped it across his palm. Only a few drops of blood spilled before the blood stopped. Aloice was next, much more hesitant than Luca had been. But he followed through, cutting his palm with the knife and letting a nice stream of blood trickle down to the floor. And with that Mina put her hands down on the spell circle. Light flashed up from the circle, and a scene appeared around Aloice. Like a holographic slice of a town. A streetlight was visible, the sidewalk, the corner of a building, and even a little bit of the road was visible, but no signs, nothing that could give an indication of where this slice was from.
“Come on, there has to be something.” Lydia muttered, walking around the holographic scene, recording with her phone as she went. James was floating around the scene, trying to glean anything, while Samantha was low to the ground, trying to find details in the rocks or maybe even bugs if they came by. Then suddenly Mina faltered, and the hologram flickered and died out.
“Something’s blocking me.” she groaned, putting a hand to her head, “your brother was within a few miles of wherever that was.”
“There has to have been something.” Luca muttered, his brow furrowed. James reviewed the footage with Lydia, looking for anything. But they didn’t have any luck.
“I think I may have seen something.” Alice spoke, “it was hardly visible but I think I saw part of the street name? Maybe the last half.” Aloice walked forward, carefully stepping over the lines of the spell circle while still clutching his hand. Luca took Aloices hand and cast some kind of spell that closed up the wound.
“We’ll take what we can get.” Luca said. Aloice recreated the characters he’d seen on the sign on a piece of paper that Mina gave him. Luca took it from Aloice and studied it for a moment. He then left the dome. And returned a few minutes later with a laptop. He was typing with one hand and plopped down on the floor by the circle. After a while of silence and searching he smiled. “Got him. He’s in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Africa in the Indian ocean.”
“How soon can we get there?” Lydia asked.
“That’s the problem. If we come Via the mundane world they’ll see us coming a mile away. We have to get there the hard way.” Luca said with a grimace.
“Oh shit, don’t tell we’re gonna have to go through-”
“The blasted lands.” Luca finished “the only gateway to Zanzibar from the magic realm is on the other side of the blasted lands from here.”
“I’ll gather up some more supplies.” Mina said with a sigh, getting to her feet and leaving the room.
“I’ll take it the blasted lands are… difficult.” Lydia asked.
“That’s an understatement. It used to be an empty bubble. But when a wizard cast a necrotic death spell on all of Seattle something had to be done. So the best wizards that could be mustered transported the parts of Seattle that were infected. About a fourth of the Seattle space needle was transported, along with a fourth of everyone’s souls who were in the area. That’s one reason why the depression statistic in Seattle is so high. The souls and materials that were transported were corrupted. And now it’s a land full of mutilated twisted undead creatures whose only goal is to make more.”
“That sounds… fucking awful.” Lydia snorted ruefully, “these jobs are always diving into the deep end with uh huh?”
“Evil birds, evil villain power couple, shiny jewelry, a horde of zombies.” Samantha chuckled, “as long as I get to bash some zombie heads in we’ll be all good.” Lydia glared at Samantha, annoyed she wasn’t taking this seriously. Especially with how their last big adventure went. The group was only in the castle for another hour as extra preparations were made, mainly healing potions. Along with a stash that wouldn’t dissolve luca from the inside out. And with that they piled into the car once more and they were off.
“As much as I would like to, we cannot fly through the Blasted Lands.” Luca explained. The ground is dangerous, but there are creatures there that rule the sky. And they are not to be trifled with. Instead we will keep a low profile on the ground, making our way through the city rubble to avoid the plains roamers as much as we can. Even with this caution we will still be encountering beasts you can’t even imagine. It’s roughly a thirty hour drive, uninterrupted and without a detour. We will not stop if we can help it.” Luca’s speech did not incur any hope in the group. But a steely determination hung in the air as they drove through the fog of Lucas' realm.
It seemed like an eternity was spent in the fog. But then it abruptly stopped. The landscape that stretched before them was dark, overcast with a thick blanket of clouds that occasionally flickered with lightning. The realm was not totally dark however, there was some kind of ambient light, about as bright as the full moon, that displayed the impression of a cityscape in ruble in the distance. There was no color to be found in this realm, everything shades of gray and black. Even everyone in the car had their colorful tones muted slightly by the aura of this place.
“This feels wrong.” Samantha shivered, feeling like this aberration of nature was trying to infect her.
“It is… but don’t let it get to you Samantha.” Luca warned, “only pain follows.”
The first seven hours of the trip were tense. They made their way past piles of rubble, with nothing but flickering shadows seeming to chase after them from the jagged pieces of concrete that lay in destroyed piles. They had made it to a more dense part of the city, where buildings still stood. Tall and hollow, with the threat of watching eyes from every single dark space. The car then came upon a particularly rocky area of the road and began driving slower. And that’s when a growl that sounded like someone wretching rang out. On top of a pile of rubble stood a single undead creature. A Dragonborn, wearing a hoodie and jeans that were ripped to shit. Half of its face was decayed off, revealing bone still dripping with viscera and sinew. Then another 12 crested the hill, completing the baker's dozen.
“Out of the car! Fight!” Luca shouted, throwing the door open and unsheathing his sword. In an instant they were in the fray. Aloice behind the car firing as fast as he could, Luca swinging his sword with precision, Lydia bursting into a Rage and slashing through one of them, the twins got overwhelmed as they tried to fend off the horde, Samantha turned into a bear, clawing her way through the monsters, and James flew up to fire his bow into the crowd. The team came out swinging, ready to fight. But the ferocity of these undead proved to be difficult to overcome. Everyone was wounded, the undead just kept on standing back up after receiving wounds that should have felled them.
One of the twins got bitten and was screaming in agony as her sister pulled her away. Luca was beginning to show signs of fear on his face. Samatha was hurt enough that she reverted to her kobold form and had to defend herself with her staff. Lydia was being overwhelmed by four of the beasts at once. And Aloice was on the verge of losing his hiding spot as the line began to break. James saw all this, feeling a power course through him.
“Enough!” James shouted, raising his mace and plummeting to the ground, glowing like the sun. He slammed his lion's paw into the dirt and a wave of golden energy radiated out from him, eviscerating most of the zombies. The heavy hitters were then able to pick off the rest of them. But they still weren't out of the woods. James rushed over to Barb, she had been bitten on the arm and the wound was already festering and beginning to rot. In a blind panic James put his hands over the wound and thrust energy into the woman's body. She untensed, and stopped screaming. Her wound was gone. But the spot on her arm was still gray.
“You’ve slowed it.” Mina said, “we have time to battle it before it takes her.” Barb's sister pulled the musclebound woman to her feet and supported her back to the car.
“You’ve all done well.” Luca huffed, putting his sword in its sheath. “Let’s move.” Nobody wasted a minute, piling back into the car. It started up quickly and continued the trek through the blasted lands. Mina was able to heal Barb with moderate success. There was still a small gray spot on her arm and the scars of the sharp teeth that had bitten down into her remained. At this point after this battle and the damage they had sustained everyone was already exhausted. They spent the next four hours recuperating, and dressing their wounds, thankful that the necrotic energy only spread through bite.
The Seattle space needle was visible from where they were. It was small, like luca said, only a fourth of the needle was transported. Leading to a one fourth scale version of it. Samantha was rather distracted. Despite the disgusting things she’d seen here so far she was excited for more adventure, to defeat the next monster. And the next monster did indeed arrive.
They were driving by a tall brick wall when it smashed through in front of them. It was some kind of animal, but it was so mutated and decayed it was unrecognizable and looked more like the manticore from star wars than anything else. Once again, this time more sluggishly, the team rolled out. Aloice took his position behind the car firing shots that would have been devastating to any normal animal. Lydia and Luca teamed up, hacking away at the creatures ankles. Samantha charged forward grumbling and cast a spell, opening her maw wide. A steam of steaming acid shot out from her mouth and poured over the front of the beast, making the putrid skin sizzle and slop off. The beast promptly backhanded Samantha and sent her sprawling to the ground with the breath knocked out of her. James quickly cast a healing spell Samatha’s way and got a quick thumbs up from the lizard in response. Then James got his bow out and began to fire arrows into the center mass of the rotted creature.
The twins did… their best. Practically none of their hits landed and it was obvious that Luca was very irritated with this fact. But despite the twins shortcomings Lydia and Luca hacking away at the beast from two sides managed to essentially widdle it down to just its spinal column. Then Aloice, in one shot, pierced the eye of the creature and it fell to the ground dead.
“That… was sick as fuck.” Samantha groaned from where she had fallen, and then just hobbled back to the car. Everyone followed suit. The long journey was beginning to wear on them. Tired eyes and a snoring Samantha. It took a while but soon everyone who was able to sleep, was asleep. Nothing but lone straggling zombies happened for ten hours. Samantha somehow managed to sleep the entire time.
They were out on an open stretch of road with hardly any rubble around them, and off in the distance was what appeared to be a circular slice a dock, ocean included. It was blessedly empty except for four shambling zombies.
“Wake up, we’ve got a few.” luca said, rousing everyone in the car. They rolled to a stop and slowly piled out of the car as the zombies took notice and began running toward them. Aloice raised his gun and began firing at the zombies, while Lydia and Samantha dashed forward with the rest of the party close behind. Lydia intercepted the first, pretty tired of the bullshit at this point. She landed two heavy attacks in quick succession with her swords and the first zombie was down. James smashed a zombie's jaw asunder with his mace, but it didn’t quite go down. Samantha turned into a full silverback gorilla, sliding right up to a zombie and clocking it in the face twice.
Somehow the twins were useless… again. They did their best but their hits just weren’t landing. None of the spells or club swipes so much as saw zombie flesh. Luca, in frustration, stepped in front of them and cleaved one of the undead in two right at the waist. Lydia quickly finished off the zombie James had been working on, and James smashed in the skull of the zombie that had been in front of Samantha. And the zombies were all dead. There was a moment of silence before the party began to turn to head back to the car. Samantha transformed back into her lizard form as well, glancing at the water. She was about to turn back when she saw something. A large shadow in the water.
“Guys! Company from the water!” Samantha shouted, realizing just how huge the creature was. Samantha closed her eyes and clapped her hands together. About a hundred feet above the party a dark stormcloud appeared and got larger and larger over their heads. Samantha’s scales began to lift a little, and static sparked around her body. Lydia readied her sword, James readied a spell, and Aloice trained his gun on the water as the shadow approached. Six seconds of baited breath was all they had time for before the creature breached the water. And all the prepared spells and attacks fired.
The mutated octopus that must have had 21 tentacles of varying sizes was shot in head by Aloice, struck by lightning summoned from the sky by Samantha, had a tentacle chopped off by Lydia, the Twins both missed their attacks, James launched a blinding ball of light at it, searing the slimy flesh, and Luca managed to score a long gash across another tentacle. Despite all of this damage, the creature still lived. Wrapping a tentacle around Lydia and thrashing her around. It surged forward and tried to eat Luca with the grotesque beak under its tentacles and he just narrowly escaped. The twins were swept aside by the massive tentacle and sent sprawling.
“DIE BASTARD!” Samantha cackled, sending another bolt of lightning down on the creature. Its bulbouse head was melting open at this point. Lydia managed to slash herself out of the tentacle and score another hit on her way to the ground. James rose his hand up, black necrotic energy spiraling around his hand that he shot toward the injured Luca who surged with energy and swung his sword with a renewed vigor. The mage twin finally landed a hit, scorching the side of the creature's head with a fire bullet. And Aloice managed to shoot out its eye.
In response the creature thrashed around, grabbing James out of the sky and slamming him to the ground, bashing into Lydia, and advancing towards the car. The front line fighters were overwhelmed by the attack and were in a disarray. But before it could get to Samantha in a great cry she brought down a third bolt of lightning that lanced right through the top of its head. It twitched for a moment, before collapsing to the ground.
“Haha! Take that fucker!” Samantha cheered. Nobody shared the same excited sentiment as they pushed tentacles and monster bits off of themselves and returned to the car. The rest of the journey was uneventful. Samantha wouldn’t stop blabbering about the lightning trick she had done until Lydia scolded her, and everyone else was exhausted. But eventually they made it to a lone building out on the flat gray plain beyond the corrupted version of Seattle. The car stopped in front of the building, and they were all able to pile out. Luca led them through the front door of the building, and when they reached the other side they all transformed back into their human forms. They were in a dark building, and when they exited it through another door, they were in a city. They had made it to their destination. Zanzibar.