Desinka sank away from him when he laughed. “Sorry, Desinka. I wasn’t laughing at you. I was telling myself something that my girlfriend told me a week or two ago. It makes a lot more sense now.”

Desinka looked puzzled instead of worried; it was an improvement, at least. Serenity wasn’t sure what to say next; did he tell her she was a vampire or that biting him was fine? Neither seemed like a good way to calm her down, but she had the right to know what was happening to her. Serenity was sure he’d pick the wrong way, no matter what he did, but he needed to try.

He’d prefer to know, so he decided he’d treat her the way he’d want to be treated. “I know what’s happened to you. At a high level, at least. I think I can do something, but I need to know more. Do you want to know the bad news or wait until I can maybe give you some good news as well?”

Desinka paused and seemed to think for a moment. “I’ll wait. I’ve been hit with one thing after another for weeks now, I’d rather have it all at once.”

It wasn’t the choice Serenity would have made; he’d have wanted to know now. He was glad he’d thought to ask instead of just telling her. Was there anything else he should do?

Yes, one thing. Serenity undid the straps holding his armor tight around his chest and pulled it forward, so that it hung at the waist, then tied the arms behind his back to support its weight. His shirt covered most of the same area, but not quite as much; this way, she’d be able to get at his shoulder instead of his neck if she did need blood. Serenity remembered what it was like to not have oxygen for a while, and while he expected an injury from her to be less severe than a dagger in each lung, it was worth avoiding.

“If you need to bite me, aim for the shoulder, above most of the scales,” Serenity suggested, pointing at an area slightly above his collarbone where the scales were patchy as they became less common leading up to his nearly scale-free neck.

“I don’t think you’d have much luck getting through the scales, and I’d rather you didn’t bite me on the neck. On other people, the upper arm might be a better choice, but that has the scale problem.” It wouldn’t be any fun to be bitten where he’d suggested and it would definitely require healing, but he had healing. It’d be fine.

“You expect me to bite you? Then - then you shouldn’t -” Desinka didn’t seem to want to finish the sentence, but Serenity noticed that her diction was starting to slip. Her teeth were probably already extending, which was probably his fault for bringing up the idea of biting him so blatantly.

Oh well. He’d known he was going to mess up somehow, and getting bitten really wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It wasn’t like she could turn him, after all.

“You’ve done well at resisting it so far.” If he said more than that, he’d guarantee her loss of control, wouldn’t he? That wasn’t the goal. The longer she could hold out, the better, probably.

He’d want to make sure she wasn’t thirsty before her father returned; Serenity knew he could stop her before she hurt him too much, but he wasn’t sure her father could say the same. “Are you ready for me to come over to you?”

“No, but go ahead anyway. It’s not getting any easier.” Desinka closed her eyes. Serenity knew she had to be having issues; she was starting to hiss a bit.

He stood up, walked around the table, and put his hand on her shoulder. When Desinka didn’t even open her eyes, Serenity went ahead and pulled on his Death and Essence affinities to look at her. It worked fine, even though neither affinity showed on his status anymore.

There was a similar feel of tainted, death-touched Essence about Desinka. With her example, he could see that there was indeed Curse magic linked to Essence wrapped around Death magic, and that the curse on her was linked somewhat loosely to a copper-tasting Death magic that somehow felt crimson and bloody as well. The Curse magic seemed far weaker on her than it had on Syri, and that wasn’t because it was older; instead, it seemed like there had been less of it to begin with.

As he started to trace it, he felt pain in his shoulder. Desinka must have lost the battle against her new instincts and her thirst. The pain directed his attention to his own shoulder, and Serenity suddenly felt the curse attempt to move into his body from her teeth. It was different in that way from the draugr curse on Syri and Lek; it couldn’t move by simple proximity.

Is this an earlier attempt? A less successful one? Or did they deliberately make a weaker curse?

At least he knew for sure that there was a curse; it wasn’t simply the “Curse” of vampirism. While he agreed that vampirism was innately similar, it wasn’t actually a curse.

He also knew that his Curse resistance wasn’t letting the curse do anything to him. A larger piece of it would be useful, so he willfully allowed it to move past his Curse resistance, only to realize that there was no way it even possibly could infect him.

He’d expected Eat Death to protect him, and it would - but he was completely immune to the curse even without it. He couldn’t even lower his Death immunity, and it blocked everything the curse tried to do. He wouldn’t be able to learn much from it, though he did find that it was annoying despite his immunity. There was an intent behind it to make him submit to the will of another, and that bothered him on a level he couldn’t quite define.

It reminded him of what Guildmaster Irene had tried, only more offensive. Serenity felt a growl building in his throat, and pushed the curse out of his body and back into Desinka’s before he scared her.

When Serenity’s power over Death pushed the curse away from him and into Desinka, it ran along the blood she was drawing from him, and he felt the power in his blood start attacking the curse itself. He wasn’t going to learn anything more from the curse, and this seemed like a good way to continue, so he encouraged the assault by threading more Death mana and essence through his blood. He watched it cleanse the curse. When the curse dissipated, something else changed.

[Bloody Red Vampire bloodline overwhelmed]

[Do you want to take Desinka as your progeny?]

That was unexpected.

It wasn’t his decision to make, was it? At least, it shouldn’t be.

Ask Desinka. It’s her body and her life.

Serenity saw another set of messages appear. He somehow knew they weren’t intended for him even before he read them.

[Bloody Red Vampire bloodline overwhelmed]

[Permission requested to:]

[Replace the Bloody Red Vampire bloodline with the Daywalker Vampire bloodline]

[This will replace your current (unknown) Sire with Serenity]

[Accept / Reject?]

Serenity saw the message sit there as Desinka drank her fill. He didn’t want to rush her, so he took the time to examine her body with both Death and Essence. There were no large surprises to be found with his Death magic; she was a fairly standard, if very weak, vampire. He suspected that whatever the “bloody red” bloodline was, it wasn’t a bloodline of power.

His Essence magic found a tiny monster core in her brain. Unlike the ones he’d felt in people in the past, it was clear that it was active; it was filled with and matched the energy of her vampirism. He suspected that if she accepted the altered bloodline, her core would change to match. There was a lingering feel of the curse, as well, and he knew that the core had formed from its Essence.

He knew he had a choice. He might be able to destroy the core, and there was enough remaining of the Pathed person she had once been that she could once again walk the Paths - but only as a vampire. That couldn’t be changed at this point; he didn’t have the power.

If he chose, he could instead link her to either himself or the dungeon he controlled. He discarded the idea of linking her to himself without much consideration; he didn’t want someone who was forced to do what he said following him around, and it wouldn’t aid her at all. Having Moira around was bad enough, and Moira wasn’t a vampire.

Linking her to the dungeon would give her a source of sustenance other than blood and would give the dungeon another place to send the bits of essence and mana it couldn’t recycle into monsters normally. It would also mean that she could never choose to be anything but a monster; destroying her Core once it was linked to a dungeon would be the same as killing her. As long as she was close enough to the dungeon, the dungeon would eventually re-form her.

That would be of great use to her, but it would prevent her from leaving Tzintkra unless she somehow figured out a way to extend the bond - which might be possible if she gained Tiers or the dungeon grew in size and power.

Serenity knew he could also do nothing, leaving her the way she was - a monstrous vampire who would probably get herself killed.

The best choice for her was probably the first one. It was the only choice that would leave her Pathed instead of a monster, which meant she’d be normal. A vampire, yes, but vampires were not all that unusual; they usually lived with whatever species they had started as, and most were nearly invisible to those who weren’t looking for them. Serenity - well, Vengeance - had met vampires with vastly different skills and Paths over the years. They had limitations, but they could still do nearly anything with their lives, other than truly live alone.

The second option had the obvious limitation of not being able to leave Tzintkra, and it and the third option shared the risk of there being people who could tell when a “monster” was near. Serenity could tell, but he wasn’t certain how common it was, otherwise. While Margrethe could feel the “stale” essence given off by the cores of dead monsters, even if they’d been absorbed by the Pathed, she couldn’t feel them in living monsters or in Serenity. It was likely that there were Paths that could - beastmasters, perhaps? - but that wasn’t the real problem with the option.

The real problem with the second option was lack of knowledge. Serenity knew how Paths worked, but monster evolutions were far blurrier. The fact that he got his Abilities mostly from a Path tied to the Evolution would have told Serenity he was different from other monsters even if the Voice hadn’t confirmed that by telling him what monsters could use their Ev on.

If Desinka chose to stay a monster, whether she was bound to a dungeon or not, she wouldn’t have the freedom to choose her future that Paths gave. She would be limited by her Species.

Wouldn’t she?

He was playing around with things he didn’t understand. While that was a good way to learn about them, playing with fire was also a good way to get burnt.

As he was thinking that, the door to the small house opened and Messenger Rakyn stepped inside, closing the door behind him immediately. “No one followed me here, and I’ve finished my routes for - by all the gods, what’s going on here?”