Chapter 404: When, Not If (2/2)

“Yes,” Craig said.

“Which is what, exactly?” Jason asked.

“The dominus vampire bloodline allows those higher in the bloodline to completely control those below it,” Dawn said. “When a dominus vampire creates another vampire, they can control it, along with any more that vampire subsequently creates.”

“Bryan was part of the dominus bloodline,” Vermillion confirmed. “We’re pretty sure that one of the old ones in South East Asia somewhere was controlling him.”

“Bloodline domination functions rather like a star seed,” Dawn explained. “Like a star seed, it is intensely difficult to detect outside of special circumstances.”

“I had a bond with Bryan, using my bloodline,” Vermillion said. “The bond was severed when the domination was put in place.”

“A star seed hides so well because it infiltrates the soul,” Jason said. “How does this bloodline get in?”

“Only lesser vampires are transformed in body alone,” Dawn said. “Greater vampires – bloodline vampires – are changed body and soul. It is why they cannot be forcibly turned, unlike lesser vampires. They have to accept the change.”

“We have to accept the gift,” Franklin corrected.

“Mate, I’d return that gift,” Jason said. “It makes you eat people.”

After parting with Vermillion, Jason sent himself, Farrah and Dawn out to sea via portal and set up a cloud house. Distractions aside, they still had a node to repair and Jason needed to recover from the fight. A good number of Shade’s bodies had been wiped out by the APC’s weapon systems and it took most of Jason’s full mana supply to reconstitute one. He had managed to replace a few using the mana he had after the fight, far above his normal maximum but there was still work to do.

Jason went off to shower before he started meditating to replenish his mana as fast as possible. Midway through the shower, he swore out loud.

Cloud flask supply of [Crystal Wash] has been exhausted.Supply additional [Crystal Wash] or an alternative cleansing agent to maintain cloud construct cleansing effect.

He was surprised it had lasted as long as it had, the flask doing an effective job of diluting the huge quantity Jason had fed into it. That didn’t stop him from being aggravated when it finally ran out.

While Jason was showering, Farrah and Dawn went to the balcony to relax as they overlooked the Pacific. Farrah took the chance to ask some questions.

“I’ve been wondering about the vampires of this world. Do you know why they have so much more self-control than the vampires of mine? Is it the lower magic, somehow?”

”That is one of two factors,” Dawn said. ”Magically-charged sunlight has a negative effect on vampires. In the short-term, this means their strength is greatly reduced in sunlight. In the long-term, it has a degenerative effect on their minds.”

“Does that mean as the magic of this world gets stronger, the vampires will start losing control?”

“Eventually some of them will, yes,” Dawn said. “There is also the other factor to consider, however, which is strength of bloodline. The vampires of this world were spawned as echoes of other worlds. The oldest likely had the full strength of bloodline originators, so many of this world’s vampires have much richer bloodlines that those of your world. It will shield them from sun degeneration.”

“So, even the old vampires now being woken up can be reasoned with.”

“Yes,” Dawn said. “Although, I would not hold out great hope. Their personalities may not have been warped due to their vampirism but they will still be huge arseholes.”

Farrah raised her eyebrows at Dawn’s unexpected vulgarity and they both started laughing.

Jason trudged through the cloud house, where he encountered Dawn.

“Oh,” he said, looking up. “Dawn, you don’t know how to make crystal wash, do you?”

“I’m not an alchemist.”

“But you could get the formula, right? Or something that works the same from another universe or whatever.”

“Not while I’m in this avatar.”

“But if we killed you off, though, you could grab the formula from wherever and bring it back. Then we just have to find a decent local alchemist… why are you looking at me like that?”

Dawn walked away.

“Is that a no?” he called out after her.

He continued on his way, finding Farrah on the balcony, lounging as she looked out over the ocean. He fell backwards as a deck chair made of cloud rose from the floor to catch him.

“All done?” she asked.

“Every Shade, present and accounted for. How goes the proto-space hunt?”

Finding the right nodes to repair required carrying out rituals in proto-spaces. As they improved their understanding of the process through trial and error, they had a better grasp of which proto-spaces would help them and which ones would throw out false positives. It allowed them to be more discerning in their activities, making the search for each individual proto-space take longer but ultimately saving them time.

“We had one hit but it was a gold-rank space. You were still down a bunch of Shades and I thought trying it at anything less than full strength was a bad idea.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Bad ideas are kind of your thing.”

Jason chuckled.

“I suppose they are.”

He pulled a silver spirit coin from his inventory and slipped it into his mouth.

“I miss cooking,” he complained. “I really want to make a hazelnut dacquoise.”

“I miss home,” Farrah said. “Did you realise that I’ve spent more time in your world than you have in mine?”

He sat up, looking over at her.

”No,” he said. ”No, I didn't. But yeah, especially if you don't count all that time I was in an astral space.”

“I’ve found your world as wondrous as you did mine,” Farrah said. “I’m ready to go back though. More than ready. I want to see hairy idiot Gary. Rufus is no doubt hopeless without me. I want to see my parents. My city. We were so eager to escape it and now I’m desperate to get back.”

Jason’s chair slid across the floor to arrive next to Farrah’s and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“You’ll get there,” he said. “It’s when, not if.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to have to play tour guide when we get there, you realise.”

“Oh, gods, no. I don’t even want to think about the trouble you’ll cause.”

They both knew that their arrival in Farrah’s world would not be a light, fun time, but they were happy, for the moment, to pretend. That their arrival would herald the worst monster surge in the history of the world was something to think about later.