Chapter 622 - The Man Who Cried Vampire!
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It was upsetting not to receive any money from Delvin but it seemed that Astrid is way too careful when it comes to handling her cash. This letter of credit serves no value anywhere outside the Thieves Guild and Serana had no use of it. Still, she kept the letter of credit and headed towards the docks of Riften.
"What are you looking for, beauty?" Asked one of the men who seemed to be working in the dock as she strolled by the pier.
The stink of the fish reeked through the man's motions but as he got closer to harass the well-dressed lady, he smelled some stench that was a lot stronger than his and it was coming from that lady's mouth as she spoke.
"Sarthis Idren!" Serana replied, "I am looking for a Dunmer that is called Sarthis Idren."
While it is not weird for people to look for Sarthis Idren considering his profession as a drug dealer, the fisherman seemed threatened by the mere presence of Serana now that he got closer.
He looked around but it was too late already. His mates have already gone ahead to the Bee and Barb inn and he was just going to tie up some literal loose ends so the boats don't dangle with the current at night and get damaged.
"I… I think he is that way!" The Nord fisherman pointed with shaky fingers and managed to hastily take one step back from Serana as she looked where he pointed.
He realized that something is wrong with that woman wandering the dock at night and smiling towards him this way. She was calm… too damn calm… as calm as a Slaughterfish waiting to jump off the water and wreak havoc. He really wanted to get away.
"Be a dear and guide me there?"
As the man was certain he slipped away, the woman's voice came from the direction he wasn't looking when he was slipping away causing him to instinctively back off with terrified expressions.
"It's just… it's over there!" He pointed out with a shaky hand.
"Lead the way, please."
"I am begging you…"
"Do it!"
The man went down on his knees to beg for mercy but each time the woman spoke, the suffocating scent of blood coming from her mouth terrified the living ghost out of him.
He was a man that thought it would be fun to hit on a woman wandering the docks alone at night but right now, he was begging for his life in front of a Vampire.
He knew it was a vampire just by the hunger in her eyes and the bloody feeling she gave. He knew that Riften is the home of the Dawnguard and despite the crime rate and the infamous Ratway, this city was cleaned from the inside out from Vampires. He only needs to run past that woman and he'll stumble into a Dawnguard patrol in any street.
He just had to…
*Flick* *Flick*
Serana flicked her fingers in front of the man's face and brought him to his senses.
"You okay, mister?" She called, "Where is that Sarthis Idren fellow? I really don't want to have my dinner late."
"Y- y- y- y- y- y- yes… it is… he is… over… this way."
The fisherman found no way for himself to outrun the Vampire woman and her eyes were gleaming with a dangerous light as she demanded him to lead the way. The situation where he found himself never avoiding.
"This… this way!" He said, took a step back, turned to the side, and started walking paying his full attention towards Serana rather than the pier he's walking on.
As they went down from the higher pier to the lower pier, the light became darker and the air around the woman became much colder and colder as she kept staring at the man in a bad hunger. The moment he approached a torch hanging on a wall, he immediately pulled it and walked away from her at a faster pace.
"What was that?" She asked.
Looking back, she was there no more but rather, she was locking her arms in front of him.
"DIE YOU MONSTER!" was what he wanted to say inside his head.
"Just for lighting." But rather than shouting and waving the torch, he just extended his hand and offered it to her.
"I have good eyes, no thanks." She said before asking impatiently, "Are we there yet?"
"Yes… it is… that door… over there." He said and pointed gasping shortly between every word as his mental state was consumed by fear.
"Oh! You're a lifesaver." She showed a faint smile as she said so.
"Can I… go now?" The fisherman asked as his fear was taking over his mind but Serana's reply made his heart almost burst from terror.
"Of course not!" She replied, "No good deed goes unrewarded."
Her hand moved swiftly and as the man accepted the fate of getting his body torn and his blood spilled, yet what met his eyes was the reflection of moonlight over a shiny object.
"I only have silver on me!" She said, "Go buy yourself something nice."
"…"
The man received the silver septim silently and felt like he was staring into the void. With shaky hands, the man put the coin in his pocket and turned around to walk away.
Suddenly…
"Have a nice life!"
Those words immediately triggered the man and he bolted away into a full-powered sprint.
"Sigh!" Serana sighed, "That wasn't necessary, Hert."
"My lady?" A voice similar to Serana's replied as a woman walked out of the shadows as she seemed not to be able to contain her smile.
"Where is Hern?" Serana asked.
"I am here, my lady."
This time, a man of a close resemblance to the woman appeared. Both of them were vampires and they seemed more powerful than any common ones too. Hern and Hert bowed to Serana as she stared at them.
"Stop causing trouble. This is the first phase of our plans so make sure to do everything as planned. I didn't save your lives so you keep playing around." Serana said patiently.
"We hear you, my lady." Hert knelt instead of bowing and poked her husband Hern to kneel as well.
Seeing the two Vampires being submissive to her, Serana was filled with pride and confidence.
"Everyone else, you're all in possession?" She asked.
"Yes."
"I am!"
"Ready…"
Ten confirmations were heard aside from Hern and Hert who were standing in front of Serana.
As Serana's eyes gleamed brightly in the darkness, 12 pairs of eyes around her gleamed with the same hunger she did as they went knocking on the door of the unfortunate drug lord.
***
"A Vampire! It's a Vampire! Help! Folks! People! A Vampire!" The fisherman went into the Bee and Barb running with half his weight lost from the horror he was in.
"A Vampire? Are you sure?" Talen-Jei, the inn assistant, was the first to respond since Riften was one of the safest places thanks to the Dawnguard.
"A Vampire! A Woman… She-Vampire! She's- She's at the docks. Her mouth… it reeks with blood." The fisherman cried.
"By the Gods!" One exclaimed.
"What did she do to you? How did you escape? Did she injure you?" Another asked.
"No! She didn't touch me! I swear to Mara!" The fisherman freaked out knowing that what they meant by saying is referring to the vampiric infection.
"But…" He then remembered something, "She gave me that coin!"
The fisherman took the silver coin off his pocket and threw it on a table.
"Don't put that in front of me!" The woman who was sitting at the table tried to throw away the coin but as she was doing so, she paused and looked at it saying, "Isn't that a silver septim?"
The inn descended into silence as everyone looked between the coin and the freaking out fisherman.
"It is a silver coin indeed." Said a man who was sitting opposite that woman.
The tense atmosphere started to grow little by little as people seemed to be calming down gradually.
"What's wrong? What's with silver?" Asked the fisherman.
"It is pure metal, you goddamn moron! Pure things like silver make the vampires burn!" Said the man.
"But she… she was holding it casually. That can't be right!" The fisherman cried as he tried to justify what he witnessed.
"You moron! You're scaring my customers!" Keerava the innkeeper shouted as brought her broom to chase away the fisherman, "The priest said the other day that unholy beings like vampires can't appear on a silver-plated mirror because it is a pure metal! Fishermen should be the next thing they burn after vampires! Get out of here! Get back to that dirty bunkhouse!"
As the Argonian innkeeper kicked him away, the Nord fisherman was at a loss for words as he was more sure than anything in the world that what he witnessed was nothing natural. It is like death incarnate and he wasn't supposed to make it out alive.
He had to escape, he had to run, live, and be as far away from here as possible.
Seeing the little man run, a pair of multicolored eyes watched the situation then got narrowed before a shadow sprinted through the roofs of Riften and headed towards the dockyard.
***
"Vampires! Please! No! Have mer… *CRACK*!" The last thing Sarthis Idren, the drug lord of Riften, felt was every bone in his neck shatter.
Thirteen Vampires walked slowly and very carefully made sure that whoever's dead stays that way. Attacks from their fangs can carelessly turn any of the dying here into a vampire if they survived so heads had to be rolled in order to make it look like a drug war massacre or something… which ironically is the case.
Serana extracted all the information she wanted from the Dunmer drug lord and left him for her three hounds to rip to shreds.
"Deekus! Make sure that you remove any bite marks and throw some of the bodies in the lake." She said as she ordered her first hound.
"Yes." The Argonian Vampire Deekus replied.
"Ennodius, help Deekus chop off the bodies." She ordered again.
"My lady." The Imperial Vampire bowed his head and took out an axe.
"Lurbak, you're on bone-breaking duty." She finally added.
The Orc Vampire groaned as he was unable to speak due to the metal dog gag Serana put on his jaw since she quite hated his voice.
"You caused a big mess, young girl!" A four vampire appeared to Serana and spoke down to her rather than being as submissive as the rest.
"Aunt Agnis, I hate spilling blood but for pests like them, I am really less and less remorseful." Serana replied.
"I don't care what you do! I just want to get back to my house already. This is the farthest I have been from my home in 20 years." The Elderly Nord Vampire who is called Agnis seemed to be complaining about everything.
"We will! We just wanted to do one last thing on the way back." Serana replied and started walking out of the warehouse followed by her underlings.
Those Twelve Vampires are no stranger to anyone who ever played the game and if Jon was to see this scene, he would be shocked at what Serana managed to accomplish.
Those 12 Vampires are all the kill targets that Serana was sent on by the Dark Brotherhood during the past few months. Each of them is simply an Assassination Target which she converted into Vampires except for Hern and Hert who were already are.
She gathered herself a team of dangerous individuals that she made all by herself and she bestowed upon them the gift of the night.
Their purposes were all conflicted but her goal was enforced upon them by the power of her blood since she is a strong and ancient vampire. All she needed to do was to give them a choice, die to the blade of an assassin or become a vampire and look after whoever wanted them dead.
It was a fair trade that all twelve of them accepted except for old Agnis who seemed rather unaware of the concept of death.
Still, Serana had founded herself a small family and she was ready to outplay both Jon Dare and her Father. Her next goal is the Redwater Skooma Den.
"Not so fast, miss vampy! Those are so many corpses you're leaving behind… dontcha think?"
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