There was a small portion of nobles who had survived the onslaught of the vampires and their thralls. That is to say, there was a small portion of nobles who survived without fleeing to exile or to Anglond’s Black-Site. These people were among the members of the Mages Guild, a place where those of either high birth and/ or high magical talent were gathered to explore the arcane, at least to the limits of what the Church decided was acceptable. Based in the largest cities of the Luminas Confederacy, the Anglish Branch of the Mages Guild had evacuated London days before the Month of Long Fangs had begun.

This was due to a tip off from a man who claimed to have escaped from the thrall of his former undead masters, and torture showed that he was not lying. Thus, the Mages Guild had packed up everything it could and left the cities to hide out in its group of ancient towers that were deep in the mountainous north of the nation. The nobles who were members of the Guild were now in the third week of the Month, and magic could only keep them going for so long.

So, when a group of human survivors of the genocide that they claimed had occurred in Anglond arrived carrying enough food to last the Towers a good long while, they were welcomed with open arms. And then they were promptly kicked out once their food had been taken. There could be no increase in the number of mouths to feed, and if that meant repaying kindness with cruelty then so be it.

Midway through the third week, the Mage Towers were finally faced with the arrival of the undead. To make sure that the doors were not breached, a magic spell made the doors to the five Towers vanish, leaving only a solid wall in their place. The mages were prepared to starve to death rather than let the undead have even the slightest chance of entering. Centuries of knowledge and information was gathered in the five interconnected towers, and they would rather die than let the brainless undead have books they could not read and staves/ wands they could not use.

Little did they know that the army of undead that had gathered outside was under the control of the most book smart and magically gifted Vampire House that existed. Little did they know that their defenses were nothing to the undead sorcerers that had neither the limits of age or the limits of ethics to keep them from exploring the depths and majesty of the arcane arts. While indeed here to defeat the last remaining potential threat to their Two Gods’ domination of this land, they had another, separate goal as well.

There were books inside that they may not have read, information inside that may not have been understood and spells inside that may not have been seen before. This could not be tolerated! All knowledge must be shared, it must be understood, it must be recorded! Failure to do so, failure to document and record history, the arcane and other information was like letting a part of the world die forever! If history and discoveries were lost, it could set the world back by decades, centuries or even millennia!

This was why the army of undead was here, and why they were milling about in a not so pointless display of force. They were here to keep the attention of the enemy mages on themselves and away from the true threat. House Nefarius had begun its preparations, and with their boundless magical potential and without the limits of mortality they were already quite far enough along on their set of spells.

Mortals weren’t the only ones with access to teleportation magic, and they certainly weren’t the ones with the highest mastery of it.

…

The Guild Master of the Mages Guild walked into a great library in the center tower. The five towers were arrayed like an ‘X’, with the one in the center having the most preferable quarters and amenities. Beneath his quarters in particular was the Great Library, the place that held a copy of every book ever written. The former fortress he was in was a hold over from the former Albion Branch, but was also the former headquarters for the entire Mages Guild. It was a place that all mages were to visit at least once, even if only to know that this was the last safe haven they could go in the event of a doomsday scenario.

Lucien Cromae was the Guild Master of the entire Mages Guild, and beneath him were the individual Guild Masters of the individual branches of the Guild. Known by his moniker of ‘The Seven-Colored Destructor’ he was the strongest non-clergy Light Magic user in the world, having taught Light Magic the individual who seemed to be a certain choice for being the next Pope. While that person now surpassed him by far, Lucien was content to know that he was at least the second best, and thus was no longer going to be challenged by young fools who thought that by beating the number one they could take his place.

As he walked through the Great Library, he saw a rather gaunt and pale man in an extremely exquisite robe sitting at a table surrounded by a pile of books. As the man would finish reading one, it would float away and return to its original place on the shelves and another book would float over to the man. It seemed that the man had gone through most of the books in the Library, as while he was seated in the center of the room, the books were filling up an emptied portion that was only about 1.8% of the library. Seeing as the whole catalogue contained over 10,000 books, this man had to have read most of them before Lucien had even noticed him.

Lucien approached the man and laid his hand on his shoulder.

“Such devotion to knowledge is admirable, but you must take breaks to digest the words you have consumed. To go from book to book like this, how long have you been here? Please, come with me, we must get some food and drink in you.”

The gaunt and pale man ignored Lucien and continued speed-reading. Eventually he managed to finish the last book and held his head in his hands. Lucien watched as the skinny young man began to softly cry for a while before interrupting.

“I know it is hard. The fact that the mindless undead will eventually take this place and destroy all this priceless knowledge is truly a terrible thing. That is why everything here is being locked away tomorrow in a temporal vault. Only a mortal, such as ourselves would be able to access it, and once the dead have been beaten the future generations will be able to learn from us. We will not die in vain, my boy.

The skinny young man rose to his feet and brushed off Lucien’s hand.

“You fools….”

“Excuse me?”

The pale and twiggy man turned to face Lucien, who saw the crimson, glowing eyes and fangs of a vampire.

“You are a gathering of FOOLS!”

Rather than attack Lucien the vampire began to go on a tirade.

“All this knowledge, what is it really? Everything in here is garbage! No invention, no innovation, no discoveries! Just the same damn thing repeated OVER AND OVER! You call yourself ‘men of intellect’ and yet you don’t dare push any limits or look beyond what had been seen before! You are a gathering of blind and deaf idiots leading each other in a circle!”

The vampire sighed and shook his head.

“I was wrong. So very wrong….”

A staff appeared from nothing and flew to the vampire’s hand. He turned back to face Lucien with a look of utter contempt and disdain.

“There is no knowledge here worth saving, and there are no people here worthy of joining the House I founded. I should let you starve in here and die of ignorance, but I won’t.”

Lucien summoned his staff, which materialized out of particles of light.

“I, Alec Nefarius, challenge you, Mages Guild Grand-Master Lucien Cromae to a duel. If you manage to either win or impress me, I will let both you and your people in this structure live. Should you die or fail to impress me, then both your life and theirs are forfeit.”

Alec opened a portal and began to walk through it. He left one final word to Lucien before passing through.

“I will see you at the top, or not at all.”