I don’t know why I expected Rodentia’s map to not be formed out of a rat display screen. The good thing was that we could take a picture, and the way the rats formed it made it a very good three dimensional map. But it was kind of lacking a certain aesthetic. Like, anything that made sense. And the smaller details were blurred by whiskers and tails.
But we did know where the vampires had been spotted, and we also knew where there was a conspicuous empty spot on the map. I said nothing about it. We didn’t know the full extent of what the sensors might pick up. I only made a report that we were approaching the projected location of some villainous vampires when we were on our approach.
“Should we expect traps?” I asked Rositsa. “Like blood magic circles or something?”
“If there are any I will be able to sense them,” she said.
“Do you think they’ll have advance warning of our approach?” I asked. Maybe I should have asked to study her form of magic. Just to understand it, obviously. I doubted I would be able to use it even if I wanted to.
Rositsa pondered my question for a few moments. “They will likely be able to sense us coming, but not much further out than visual or hearing range.”
“Would it be more difficult for them to sense someone small?” I asked.
“Small and non-humanoid, even,” Midnight expanded my question.
“Certainly,” Rositsa agreed. “Though your scent might still give you away.”
“Hmm,” Midnight said. I couldn’t really sense anything happening, though I tended to associate the particular way he did nothing visibly with manipulating his suit. It wasn’t even super tech but just actual advanced technology, so my supernatural senses couldn’t pick anything out. “What about now?”
Rositsa sniffed. “I certainly could not pick you out among others. Your presence might still be noted individually, but at a lesser distance.”
“Good enough,” Midnight said, hopping down from my shoulder to my outstretched forearm, then to the ground. “I will go ahead.”
Midnight didn’t have to ask me to monitor his condition. We wouldn’t be far anyway, according to our rudimentary super-tech map. Maybe a few hundred feet of tunnels after all the bending and twisting.
“Before anything else,” I spoke to the team, including Midnight through our comms. “We need to confirm we ended up with the correct vampires. I trust Rositsa’s magic, but the city would prefer we capture them all if possible.” I looked to Rositsa. “They won’t be turning into mist, will they?”
“Of course not. It is a cowardly feature for those unfit to call themselves vampires.” She frowned. “Is it rude to insult people from your world in such a manner?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’d just like confirmation that they can’t have such abilities.”
“Not if they are from my world, and that part is a certainty with the resonant magic at the scene of the incident.”
“Good. That ability is annoying.”
Rositsa nodded, having experienced battle with some vampires like that a while back.
Midnight didn’t show any signs of concern as he moved further away from me, taking advantage of his catlike stealth… and of course amplifying technology with scent concealment and camouflage features.
We stopped our approach a bit closer, and a few minutes later Midnight returned to us with a report.
“I spotted four of them,” Midnight commented. “They appeared to be heading towards an exit…”
“So no waiting for midday with a prepared team to pick them up, then,” I commented. “We’ll have to catch them.”
“They didn’t seem to be in a hurry,” Midnight said. “But I suggest a quick pace.”
Our feet echoed on the concrete of the sewer access tunnels.
“I can smell them ahead,” Rositsa said. “Their sins linger strongly around them.”
“We still need to capture them alive,” I reminded her. The last time she fought another vampire, she ripped out his blood. So I was hoping she could do that a bit less.
I pulled out a couple pairs of handcuffs from Storage so they would be ready. “Midnight, we’re splitting Multi-Haste.” I instructed.
We’d already briefed the group on most of the known abilities. Blood control, bat transformations, that sort of thing. I wasn’t a fan of the whole blood control thing, but Rositsa assured me that it would take a powerful individual or a group to manage what I experienced, unable to move.
All of us were instantly faster as we followed Rositsa’s lead. It only took us a few moments to round a final corner, finding the group approaching a ladder. They turned as we approached, no doubt hearing or smelling us. We didn’t have any light to give us away as people had been prepared with night vision if they didn’t naturally have it, but as a group we weren’t particularly stealthy beyond that.
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The first thing I did was fling Light at them all. I shot five orbs of light, two of which hit one of their members and one which stuck to another. The remaining two landed on the tunnel around them.
Even startled in that manner, most of them stood ready to fight- but one turned to run. They were fast, which would have been a serious problem without Haste, but as things were we remained ahead.
Twirl slashed at two of them as he slipped past, chasing the fleeing target. Blood flowed freely from their arms where he’d cut them, but hopefully the silvered weapon would be useful in convincing them to surrender instead of fighting.
One of those in front reached out towards Punk Monk who was charging forward, and she stopped- for a single moment. Then she activated the dispelling abilities of my staff. I might have been jealous she could do that if I hadn’t learned to do the same independently. Having mana stored in an item was nice, though.
The grip on her blood broken, Punk Monk lunged forward and cracked the guy’s ribs, before proceeding to sweep the legs beneath all three of them. Bandage and I arrived just about that point, and I grabbed one about the time she was trying to turn into a giant bat.
I heard a screech from Rositsa that registered as words. “Surrender your lives to face justice for blood wrongly taken!”
Personally, that made it sound like we were killing them either way. She wasn’t particularly familiar with Haste, however, so her words were likely blurred.
Jaws clamped around my forearm, cracking my Force Armor. That was all that she could do transformed? I wasn’t impressed by this lady I was wrestling. I managed to put one cuff around the end of a wing. Interestingly she did not begin to transform back, but I supposed natural shapeshifting wouldn’t work that way. It was only magical during the process. The power suppression on the cuffs wasn’t instant anyway.
Ultimately that made things harder for her as I twisted her wings behind her back so that I could get the other side of the handcuff in place. Fortunately they were meant for adjusting to pretty much any shape, so I didn’t have to worry about anything else. She continued to writhe around as the power suppression fully took hold, turning the vampire into at most a pretty strong and pretty big bat.
We ended up with a numerical advantage since there weren’t all eight of the theoretical individuals present, which allowed Midnight and Twirl to take down the fleeing individual. Bandage didn’t even have to use any magic as she helped Punk Monk take down another. Rositsa was holding the last one against the wall, and it seemed like he even had most of his blood still inside him.
Soon enough we had cuffs on everyone, and I couldn’t help but think it seemed strangely easy. Why did they even send so many angels after a group like this? Even if the angels were kind of individually lacking, they probably weren’t any weaker than these guys.
-----
Interrogations weren’t my job, so after the vampires were taken away by the Brigade the matter was out of my hands for the moment.
“Thank you for your assistance,” Rositsa said. “It is my hope that we will soon capture the rest of them and allow my honor to be restored.”
“Did this really harm your honor?” I asked.
“I am known to Extradimensional Affairs as a representative of my people. I hope that they will recognize that we are not all like this.”
“They already get that,” I pointed out. “The angels from your world are jerks. Anyway, will the interrogation be easy? Since you guys can’t lie. Or can you just say nothing?”
“They might be stubborn,” Rositsa said. “But if Malaliel is present, I think they will be more concerned for their own lives than silence.”
“I don’t think she’d just kill captives,” I shook my head. People giving false surrender was one thing, but Extra probably wouldn’t appreciate it.
Rositsa shook her head. “They don’t know that, though. They will assume certain things based on the information they have about angels.”
“Good point. Anyway, I should probably head to bed. I try to keep a vaguely normal sleep schedule. If we learn more things about the situation, I’ll help you clean up this whole thing.”
“Thank you once more,” Rositsa said. “I appreciate your friendship.”
-----
In the morning, I had a message from Calculator. It contained a picture and a series of messages.
Following was a picture of a familiar place. The inside of a kitchen.
Calculator might not appreciate that response, but he hadn’t tagged anything as urgent so he probably wasn’t actually mad. Just the standard level of annoyed supervisor he usually displayed.
Overall the assessment of the vampire hunting expedition was at a neutral rating. Our objectives were successfully accomplished without excessive cost or harm to personnel, but there were a few things that weren’t optimal.
For example, we had come prepared with restraints for capture but not another set of nonlethal weaponry suited for the situation. Combat coordination was fine, but it might not have been if Rositsa wasn’t able to partially counter the enemies control of blood. I wasn’t sure that there was something in particular I could have done about that. Would Physical Freedom work? That would be useful to consult with Rositsa on. And her version of blood magic in general. It didn’t seem that we had caught the most powerful of the bunch who came through, so being prepared for that could be useful.
I did know I could use magic even when my blood was being controlled, though. Dispel should probably do something about that, or attacking whoever was doing it. But that might not be the most dangerous ability they had, even if it was of direct concern.
But Rositsa had a nocturnal schedule and was trying to hold down a normal job. Thus, she couldn’t randomly take too many days off to speak to me. She might be willing to give recorded lessons, but it was more difficult to take in information when I couldn’t ask questions. I would also miss out on what things felt like, which would be helpful in case I needed to react to them later.
As for actually learning blood magic, even if I wanted to I suspected I couldn’t. It would probably be like trying to learn druid or cleric spells. Or to replicate any other power that fit vaguely into the category of ‘magic’. I simply couldn’t see that working.
Blood also seemed like a pretty inefficient power source compared to mana, unless I happened to have a bunch of spare blood around from enemies or something. I didn’t have so much of the stuff myself that I was willing to just give it up.
