“I don’t see why I’m the weird one for not wanting to be covered with the particulate remnants of dead people!” Syril said after another round of teasing.

  In the direct aftermath of the fight, he’d spent a few minutes constantly humming to himself as he cast spells to clean the thrall remnants from his clothing.

  The teasing resumed on the road after he mistook road dust for a missed spot.

  “Not just dead people, dead vampires!” Syril said with a shudder. “Who knows what’s in the blood they drink.”

  “Wouldn’t mind being a vampire,” Linar said, cutting in. “Enhanced physical prowess, immortality, cool capes. Triple secret treasure rooms. What’s not to like?”

  “You’d be okay never seeing the sun?” Ellen asked.

  Linar squinted up at the sun, shielding his eyes and then shrugged.

  “I’m more of a night owl.”

  “You’d have to subsist off the blood of sapients,” Grom said.

  Another shrug.

  “I know a blood guy.”

  “You know a blood guy ?” Ellen asked.

  “So what? Lots of people sell blood for lots of reasons and I make good money connecting buyers and sellers.”

  “Doesn’t make you evil?” Bill asked.

  Linar considered this one a moment.

  “That seems more a problem for other people, not me.”

  “What about all the adventurers that come to kill you?” Syril asked.

  “That’s only the dumb ones that set up near towns and kill indiscriminately. The real problem would be the compulsion to obey a sire.”

  “What do you mean?” Syril asked.

  “The Count for example,” Linar said. “No one is seeking to kill him. He keeps a low profile, keeps some captives for blood in his basement, and no one minds. I bet I could do something similar if I bought blood and comported myself like a good upstanding-if-nocturnal citizen. Whose to care?”

  Everyone stopped and stared at Linar in shock.

  “You know…” He continued on unaware, “that’s probably why he sent us to kill this vampire. I bet he was his sire.”

  “Count Kevin?” Grim asked.

  “How do you know all of this?” Syril demanded. “And for the last time its Count Keavon.”

  “Are you sure?” Linar asked. “I’m pretty sure Grom is right.”

  “That’s not important!” Syril snapped. “How certain are you of his nature?”

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  Linar turned back, only then noticing he’d left the group behind.

  “Wait, you guys didn’t know? It was obvious.”

  When met with blank stares he continued, holding up a fist and raising a finger at each point.

  “He’s super pale. He never eats food at those dinners he invited us to, he holds all his meetings at night and never leaves his castle, plus the whole dungeon thing.”

  “How do you know about his secret blood dungeon?” Grom asked.

  “Would you believe I got lost looking for the bathroom?”

  “No,” they all said in unison.

  Linar shrugged again.

  “Believe what you want,” he said. “But I’ve seen a lot of secret dungeon basements, and this one was the first secret blood dungeon basement.”

  They looked over Linar’s tacit admission to countless breaking and enterings, to discuss the more pertinent topic.

  “What do we do?” Bill asked the group, looking at Grom.

  “Why are you asking me?” Grom asked.

  “Because you’re a cleric of Cland?” Bill said, as if it were a trick question.

  “Right, right,” Grom said quickly. “Well, I’d turn the question on you. What do you think Cland would want us to do in such a situation?”

  “Kill the vampire,” Bill said.

  Grom hadn’t expected an answer so quickly, though in hindsight he admitted that was a bit foolish.

  “And how did you come to this conclusion?” Grom said, feigning an air of a fatherly lecture and hoping to get Bill to talk himself out of the idea.

  “Because he wants us to defeat evil?”

  “And why does Cland wish us to do that?” Grom asked again.

  “To… help people?” Bill said, his eyes opening wide in revelation.

  Grom just nodded along and waiting for Bill to supply his own answer. He was prepared to keep asking why until Bill was sufficiently confused and gave up, but to his surprise, the twice dead warrior got to where he hoped.

  “If the Count isn’t hurting people—though the blood dungeon suggests that he is—killing him wouldn’t help anyone, but only bring chaos into the city. We need to investigate and find out the truth.”

  “Exactly,” Grom said, relief filling him.

  Syril let out another sigh.

  “I hate it when adventuring follows us back to the city,” he said.

  A while later when Bill was out of earshot, Ellen whispered to Grom, for once taking her nose out of her newly claimed spellbook to pay attention to the group.

  “You didn’t have any clue what to say did you?”

  “Not a one,” he said, smiling she reflected on his genius.

  “Would it kill you to read his precepts?” Ellen asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it and decided that it actually might. I’m terrified of going into one of his temples and getting smited.”

  “Smited?” Ellen asked, “Not smote?”

  “Definitely smited,” Grom said. “A cleric would know.”

  “Yeah,” Ellen said, “A cleric would. Do you know one we can ask?”

  ?

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