For the Record

"Yeah, she's long gone.”

I even checked with Will Detection to be sure, nothing out there but goblins, kobolds, and slimes. There was a weird spot I couldn’t sense further back in the dungeon, but my death knight reassured me that detection Skills never work on the boss room until you enter it, so I guess I won’t worry about it for now.

What I will worry about is how she still hasn’t fed.

I’ve got the vitality of a freshly dusted ascendant coursing through my... my everything I guess, so...

“Use your Drain Skill on me,” I say.

She squeaks and takes a step away from me, our bond a sudden storm of confusion.

I sigh. “I mean it. I’m not being impulsive. I completely consumed one of the two idiots I dusted, I have plenty to spare.”

“A-are you sure?” she stammers back, starting to blush again for some reason.

“Yes,” I confirm. “Do you know how to use it?”

She just looks at me for a moment, and then finally nods.

And then she walks closer and takes my hand, only to hesitate again. I give her a push through our bond, and she promptly raises our hands and sinks her teeth into my forearm. The slow trickle of vitality leaving my body is hard to miss.

I see.

(Looks like hers needs a physical act,) Nyx says.

Pointing out the obvious?

(Oh shut up. Besides, you keep calling it ‘vitality’, ‘vitality’ this, ‘vitality’ that. You’re draining mana. Literal divine energy that empowers the soul? The only reason it has an impact on ‘vitality’ is that the body mirrors some kinds of soul injury and apparently having an abomination forcibly bleed your soul counts!)

Hey, fine. Whatever.

Without stopping, Izahne flicks her eyes toward me and gives a questioning look.

“Until you get a System notification, it will tell you when you are sated. That’s how that trait works, at least if it’s the same for you as it was for me. We don’t know how long you can go between feedings without losing control, we shouldn’t take that risk until we’ve confirmed that.”

She offers a quiet ‘mmph’ and continues her feeding, even closing her eyes. Our bond is radiating some kind of positive something, so I can tell her Skill probably has some kind of reinforcement to it.

After a few more minutes like this she sharply exhales through her nose and gently pulls her teeth from my arm. After a quick rematerializing cycle, the injuries leave no trace.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

She looks kind of drunk or something but at least offers a quiet ‘mm’. I wonder if Draining normal humans has the same effect... we’ll need to test that at some point. In the meantime though, she still needs practice, so I use Will Detection to sweep for the nearest group of weak enemies and lead her to them.

“Here’s the plan. I’m going to hit them with my Aura, and you are going to practice your Skills on them while they’re transfixed. It won’t be the same as using them against monsters who can fight back, but it should at least let you get the hang of it.”

“Alright. Is there anything I should practice first?” she asks.

That’s a good question.

“What does Natural Weapon do?”

My death knight holds out a hand in a fist and then flicks her fingers outward, the ends of them extending into talons of ash. “This, but I can also make a weapon from... whatever this is,” she explains as she pokes at one of her fingers with another.

“It’s ash, no question. I guess that makes sense considering you’re my death knight and my entire body is made from the stuff. What kind of weapon can you make?”

She focuses for a moment, and the ash on her fingers glides across her skin toward her palm. More ash seemingly pulls from her arm to feed into it, and after another moment it coalesces into a jet-black featureless shortsword. “This. It’s a lot lighter than what I’m used to, but I can feel a connection to it.”

I nod. “Yes, because it’s a part of you.”

We finally round the corner to confront our prey and as usual, all it takes to reduce them to quivering statues is one wave of my Aura. I gesture toward them and Izahne descends upon them, clearly testing the balance of her blade at first and quickly finding a rhythm.

After the last one falls and she brushes the offal from her blade, she gives me a satisfied look.

“What?”

“I got a Skill and enough experience for a Class level from that!” she chirps.

I could ask, but it’s faster to just look at her Status. Blood pacts sure are convenient!

[Desiccate 0]

Hmm, I see. Looks like a Class Skill. That makes sense considering she was using a bladed weapon, and I’m pretty sure that’s what her Class is all about. Apparently using Drain on me got her a level in that as well.

“Desiccate? Interesting. Can you tell what it does?” I ask.

Izahne nods excitedly. “It’s life poison! It inflicts Infernal element damage that weakens the target over time!”

“Not bad at all. We should focus on leveling that up, but you also need practice actually fighting with that thing,” I say as I gesture at her shortsword. “I’ve already confirmed that practicing things makes them stronger, regardless of Skill level. It’s why my dimensional storage is so flexible, and why I can do so many things with my ash that aren’t described in any Skills.”

“That’s well documented. Even though I don’t have the Class for it any more, I definitely still have the muscle memory for making... certain things...” she trails off.

That works for me. I say nothing and instead continue our hunt.

We burn through half a dozen more groups of monsters, netting her enough experience for two more Class levels as well as two levels in Desiccate and three in Natural Weapon. My gut feeling is that her Class is more stealth or finesse than brute force, but since she needs to be able to fight to begin with this will do for now.

We could probably deal with the boss monster on our own but my death knight is hesitant, so I settle for heading back for now. I’ve had some juicy ascendant vitality – okay, fine, mana, and am feeling satisfied for the moment.

“Are you ready to Drain humans like you did to me?” I ask.

She freezes.

(Blunt as ever, I see,) Nyx jabs.

I sigh lightly. “I’ll remind you that you’re no longer one of them. How did it feel to fight that human earlier? The one who cut you up. Did you feel any hesitation?”

Ah, that’s a worried look. She's worried. I tilt my head.

“I... felt nothing. Nothing at all. It was like I was cutting a piece of wood. I... I don’t understand.”

“You shouldn’t feel anything,” I flatly reply. “You aren’t one of them anymore. I could tell you haven’t thought about this, but I’d rather you have this crisis now without an enemy in front of you. You’re not human. You’re like me. A monster, and a particularly insidious one – an undead monstrosity that stalks the night in search of life to drain. I was born like this but you spent centuries as one of them, so I assumed you would probably struggle with the shift. A lot of those social instincts you had, they’re not yours anymore, they're gone and you need to accept it.”

And now she looks like she’s going to cry. Or, maybe she already is a little bit. I pull her into a hug, pressing her face into my shoulder.

I hold her like that for a few minutes until her sniffles have mostly stopped, and then we continue toward the dungeon exit.

“How do you do it?” she quietly asks, breaking the silence. “How do you do anything with anyone or anything if you don’t feel anything about it?”

I give her a sideways look. “You say that, but this is all I’ve ever known. I had to learn to pretend to care. You’d be the same if you’d woken up for the first time as this kind of undead monster. And before you ask again, no, I don’t feel anything for you or anyone else. But we’ve been over this before.”

Izahne gives my hand a squeeze, coupled with a brief spike of frustration and some flavor of sadness from our bond as we exit the dungeon into the dwindling light of the empty evening sky.