Of Shattered Spite
25st of July 2006 A.D.
"Go! Make sure they can't get away," you shout into the earpiece, even as you turn your sword against the murk. These things might not have a head, but you'll bet they still have a heart. Closing your eyes you listen.
Lose 1 Essence (Renew Melee Excellency) -> Now at 6/12
Blood like red nectar races though the alien veins of the Red Court, viscera twisted to deadly purpose fly towards you, each seen in a flash of instinct, each parried and there... a heart all-too human thudding with the adrenaline of battle, of challenge. With one swift blow you pierce it, fire illuminating a tangle of glistening guts as you weave between them. Shoulder, knees arms and feet as much as the buckler of black metal ward them off as they try to entangle you, but there are just
too many of the darn things. One manages to latch on to your armored ankle, its blie-laced bite burning through the stone of your armor until it gnaws at flesh.
It is not trying to drink your blood, you realize with a sudden disquieting jolt
but dissolve and consume bone for the vital minerals within.
You take 2 Wounds
As most of the vampires not wracked in agony from the grey one's tendrils continue to rip and tear through any part of it they can reach through the murk you see with distant eyes one of them, gaunt and ashen-skinned, hang back and open its mouth to... sing. You had expected some kind of bestial screech or at best a single high note fit to shatter glass. Instead it sounds more like a symphony of instruments not meant for human hands, tones that defy the ear and melodies that twist back on themselves in haunting echo.
The enemy is less appreciative of the music, you can feel one of the bony tendrils cringe as it brushes against your arm and for the merest instance you see one of the headless thrall 'attack'... by bumping into your shoulder unharmed but unresponsive.
Another way for the blood drinkers to immobilize their prey when it's too far to spit, Usum notes, as impressed with the tactical acumen as you had been with the song itself.
It is all too clear that those vampires still in command of their senses are in no mood to feed as one of the others rips an arm off the headless thrall with one clawed hand, while the other carves its way into its chest.
One of the bone tendrils had been reaching for it, but it's clear that it can't use dead flesh for its magic. Through eyes uncounted you see another rocket towards almost faster than the human eye can follow. Good thing you aren't entirely human these days. The sword that is part of your soul arcs to meet it, slicing off the black injector tip as you surge forward with a perfect breast stroke if you do say so yourself and ram your sword where the central mass aught to be.
Your flEsh will tWIst youR Throat wiLl siNg
YoUR blOOd will fLy, your Mind will SCREAM
The words strike you like a thing manifest, physical, a curtain of lead, darkness without end, pain without relenting, a nightmare not of the soul, but of the flesh raised revolt.
In answer from the depths of your soul, from the place where your will is enthroned in power imperishable rises a denial not strident, but quiet as the shadow on the grave of a vanquished foe, soft as the wind through the arches of a city enduring in ruin.
As your anima chases away the murk of the dead wizard you guess you see flesh of the thing already decomposition into a foul sludge, though the translucent five foot diameter shell just drifts slowly to the bottom of the lake.
So that was a death curse you realize.
Nasty. Snapping your shield closed you grab for the thing, it has to be some kind of magic after all. "Mine."
None of the vampires argue, just finishing off the last of the headless thralls, but then Don Phillipe says something you did not expect: "My lady we are sore wounded from the battle and some of us will take many days to recover from the agonies inflicted. May we withdraw from battle?"
For a moment you wonder if he is planning some kind of treachery once he is out of your sight. After all the possibility of that is part of the reason you had decided to stay in the fight, but no, the bent posture, the twitching ears bent towards you, the way his fangs are hidden behind rubbery lips. He's terrified of you and wants to get as far away from you as he can before you can kill him and all his remaining servants.
That begs the obvious question:
Do I want to kill them all now? On the one hand you had been allies of a sort, perhaps they had even spared you injury, but on the other they are murderous blood drinkers who are going to carry news of you and what they had seen you do to the Red King.
"The terror you sowed in their minds might be turned to a useful purpose at a later date, Lady Garbed in the Ramparts of Empire," Usum whispers thoughtfully.
"None of your existing allies seem to have the resource."
What do you do?
[] Let the Vampires go
-[] You are not going to betray your allies no matter how distasteful
-[] Usum is right, you still have all that contact information
[] Insist that they help finish the fight (Charisma+Intimidation)
[] Kill them, the world will be a better place without them
[] Write in
OOC: Took me a while to figure out what the DCs for a death curse should be and I almost rolled one dice too many for your countermagic, but when I got all the ducks in a row...well you will see in the roll section. I am posting those. 
