Onyx dragons are the closest thing to an undead that exist among the crystal dragons without actually being undead. While all crystal dragons have strange life forces the onyx dragon have negative energy blended in instead from positive energy. Their magic is necromantic in nature though any undead they create ends up having crystalline protrusions. They have psionic abilities such as telepathy though it only functions on undead.

Adrian

After General Fuller leaves the soldier simply looks at us, or more specifically the women of our group. I think he is just over twenty, probably a drafted college student.

“I’d suggest not ogling any of them and showing us to the nearest inn or hotel” I say.

“Sorry it’s just . . .” he starts before nodding. He will not doubt have been told about us if he is to show us around. There is some fear in his eyes when he looks at me.

“This way, it’s a little far and the roads are not currently open to civilian vehicles” he then continues.

I periodically release a pulse of energy to try and catch an echo of negative energy. I don’t find anything in the hour walk, perhaps they are in a different part of the city?

We arrive at a hotel and while Abagail takes care of getting rooms I lean over to Lysan.

“How are you and Talia doing? Figure anything out yet?”

I am answered with a hug followed by a whisper of “Sister and me will show you later.”

I smile before being interrupted by Abagail giving us room keys. I don’t understand why she gave me two different rooms though. At least not until I opened the door to one of them a few minutes later.

Five people simply cannot sleep on the two beds made for a single person. I frown at the inconvenience that this will cause me later as I check for electrical energy to find nothing out of place.

I pass the other room key to K, it is for the adjacent room.

“Which room will you be staying in?” she asks.

“Both? I plan on trying to find something after sneaking past our armed escort beforehand though” I answer.

“You just can’t get enough of us, can you?” Talia teases.

“Nope, and it’s all your faults for being such beautiful women” I counter earning smiles from all of them.

“So, what are you planning on going to do tonight?” K asks.

“I’ll have to do a bit of explaining. Yesterday Bryan and me found the vampire duke in charge of Kansas City and learned that the vampire duke of this city is in liege with my family.

I want to see what I can learn from whoever that is before removing the possibility of him being a problem for us when we eventually end up fighting my kin.”

“Can I go with you?” Ria asks and I think for a moment.

“I'd like you and Kythia to stay here and protect my mom. If something goes wrong she is not our strongest member.”

Ria nods smiling, happy to help though there is some disappointment too.

“You are bringing Bryan with you then?” K asks and I nod. Him being an Undead Hunter makes him necessary for stuff like this.

“Can we come?” Talia and Lysan ask simultaneously.

“Why?” I ask.

“We haven’t gotten to spend as much time with you recently” Talia answers.

I pause for a second before realizing that they are right, outside of the bedroom I haven’t been with them as much as K or even Ria recently. I don’t want to risk them getting hurt though.

“Alright, you need to practice whatever fire and light stuff you’re picking up and it would not be good to accidently burn down where we plan to sleep.

No letting my mom know until after we are gone though. I wouldn’t be able to keep her from coming and she is not ready for a real fight.”

The elves hug me before stepping back.

“When will you be leaving for this?” K asks.

“A few hours after dusk. The vampires need to be walking around if I’m to find them.”

“I’ll let Bryan know. I think Talia wants to show you something.”

I nod as K turns to walk outside. I turn back to the elven girls to see both of them holding an erratic uncontrolled flame an outstretched hand. The flame shifts in size and color, from red to golden as the twins show next to no control over the ability.

“So what can those flames do? That isn’t normal fire.”

They shrug, the movement somehow causing the fire to jump out of their hands. While the flames that were currently golden in Lysan’s hand dies out quickly while the crimson flames in Talia’s begin to rapidly spread quickly as the temperature of the room climbs. The flames spread over Lysan before I manage to begin to suppress the growing flames.

Seconds pass as the flames slowly die after they immediately cease to spread from my intervention. As they do so I push Talia away from the flames as I tackle Lysan. The flames die out and I find a completely unharmed elven girl under me, though her clothes have been mostly destroyed.

Only after standing up do I notice the burns along my arms, second degree burns. Lysan is saying “sorry” over and over again as she fumbles with her amulet that she uses as a focus for her divine magic. I hold my arms out as she fusses over them, only now do I start feeling the stinging tingle of the burns.

She chants and a blue glow spreads from her hands erasing the burns in a gentle tingle. I could have healed them myself but she seemed to need to do so herself. As soon as her spell ends I make sure to have healed my other injuries and pull her into a hug. I don’t say anything for a moment and she calms down.

“I’m alright. Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” I ask though I’ve already checked and found no burns on her.

“It didn’t hurt, I just felt comfortable.” Lysan answers as Talia starts checking over the both of us.

“Good but no more fire unless you’re somewhere you can burn to the ground without consequences or I’m ready to help deal with it.”

The two of them nod, before Talia asks a question.

“Could you help us before we go looking around for a bit?”

“Sure, when you were making that fire how did it feel? How did you do it?”

“Our mana feels funny, like there were two different energies in it. The fire is from them” Lysan answers.

Two energies? That is probably the cause of the shifting color of the fire, its probably some supernatural essence of fire and light that they have started producing. The fire is probably whatever energy was dominant in Talia’s flames when she lost control of it, so light doesn’t destroy and spread.

“Whichever energy was dominant in what Talia lost control of is probably fire, the other energy I assume is light. . .”

“We have both? How?” both of the twins say at the same time.

“I’m not sure how to explain it, I just filled in what was missing. There was patterns of fire and light in you so I assume those energies are at least some derivative of the two.”

“How did you know what to fill in?” Talia says in confusion.

“I noticed a pattern and there were things I recognized from how my magic works. I don’t know how your new abilities work, I only filled in missing pieces.

Try to summon those flames again but lower the amount of mana and one of the other energies.”

They both nod and create their constantly changing unstable fires once more. I try to sense light and fire with my magic to find both are present in the flames. While the flames are crimson there is more fire, the golden flames hold more light. I think I can replicate the fire but it seems oddly complex, as if the mixture shifts in purpose and effect rather than just destructive power. . .

The flames slowly shift, Talia’s become more destructive and wild while Lysans become gentle though both are uncontrolled. As the energy shifts to the extremes of becoming almost pure fire and light the twins lose control again but this time I am ready to remove the wild energy before it causes any problems. I hope Abagail will handle the issues caused by the earlier incident. At least the fire alarm didn’t go off, the lack of smoke perhaps?

“Try again, though this method could be wrong. Your flames are getting more erratic as it gets closer to not having the other non-mana energy. If this correlation continues even as you start getting more control then the blend of energy is needed for what you now are.”

They nod and try again. The same thing pattern of flames going out of control even as their flames get slightly steadier. Their control is awful, but the mix of energy has stopped most of its unstable shifting during the short few hours that pass before Bryan knocks on our door.

“Ready to go?” I hear him ask.

“Just a moment” I say before turning back to the twins and voice the conclusion that I’ve come to. “The blend seems to be a necessity in your fires, but are you ready to go vampire hunting?”

They nod and smile at the opportunity to run off and likely end up causing mayhem with me. We stand up and they follow me out of the room.

“Any idea where to start?” Bryan asks.

“Yes actually. Where could we find some young dumb and stupid recently turned vampire?”

“Wherever it goes to feed. Somewhere someone could go missing for a day or more without arousing suspicion.”

I smile while the elves give us slight looks of confusion.

“The question is however if we will be able to get into such places. We don’t have the IDs required at most such locations.”

“I think they only ask for IDs when you order alcohol.”

Is that the case? I’ve never been to a club or bar, never saw the point in going to one. We’ll find out I suppose.

“So, do you know where the people watching us are?”

Bryan nods, “There are a few people watching the halls and the street outside. I don’t know if there are any surveillance devices.”

“There aren’t any electronics that shouldn’t be in the room. I check earlier but could not find any odd flows of electricity.

If we pass by those few watchers with invisibility we shouldn’t have any problems from them until we are on the way back.”

Bryan nods, “when do we leave then?”

“No point in waiting. We’ll have to hold hands to keep from being separated, I don’t know a way to be invisible without also hiding us from each other.”

Both the twins grab a hold of me while Talia takes one of Bryan’s hands. A moment later I bend all wavelengths of light and take a step lightly pulling my small group.

At the end of the hall a soldier was sitting in a small foyer that holds the elevator. I frown as he sits so as to see both the exits and the hall towards our rooms. I frown, someone is clearly having us confined so we can be spied on. It is better than the attack on sight from before but I still do not like it.

I move next to the door and change my bending of light in a fraction of a second into an image. The soldier looks up, the lighting of the room changing ever so slightly must have caught his attention. He looks at me and the others but turns to the other parts of the room before going back to the paper that he is not really reading.

Bryan slowly opens the doors to the stairs and we close it slowly before I move back to my imperfect invisibility. No one is in our path before reaching the ground floor, I repeat my trick of a false image to get past the door without anyone noticing. We take advantage of the revolving door as others pass though entering the hotel. My nose cringes slightly at their scent which smells odd to me.