CA Chapter Eleven (Patreon)

“You added me to her Friend list, right?” Alpha asked, stepping forward to stare down into Amy’s face as Myles nodded. Disconcertingly, the woman’s eyes were open, and she stared straight up at Alpha. She hadn’t protested or made a single sound during the escape, and Alpha had wondered if she was just sleeping through it. She was definitely awake now though; her eyes drifted, and every few seconds she blinked and brought them back to Ava or Myles.

Crouching, Alpha said, “Amy? Blink once if you understand me.” She felt a little ridiculous. That was the kind of thing they said in medical dramas, and it sounded silly then, too.

Amy blinked. But she’d been blinking, off and on, for a while, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything, did it?

“I’m… Alpha. I mean, I’m also Ava. The woman who helped you today. Your… attendant, I guess? And this is, um, Myles.” Alpha leaned back, and Amy’s eyes flicked to Myles. Alpha frowned. “Well, I guess you kind of know him, since he’s using one of your avatars.”

Amy’s head rolled to the side, and Alpha wasn’t sure if that was a denial, or if the woman just couldn’t control the motion. Carefully, Alpha grasped Amy’s chin and turned her face back toward her.

“Look,” Alpha said, sounding gruffer than she meant to, “I have to bite you. It’s going to hurt, and I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for a lot of talk. When the sun comes up, I’m going to burn if I’m still outside, and people are going to start coming through here, and wonder why there’s a person lying in the middle of the road.”

Myles waggled his hand. “Probably not that last, actually,” he grinned. “Travelers have a habit of leaving their Zombies lying around like so many dirty socks.”

This was true. If it weren’t for the fact that most players liked to start with the Well-Rested buff, there would literally be Zombies left standing on every street corner. There were deterrents too, including the fact that an abandoned Zombie could be robbed or even killed, but the carrot seemed to work better than any number of sticks, at least according to most players.

“Anyway,” Alpha went on, returning her gaze to Amy, only to find that the woman’s eyes had lost focus again, and her mouth was slack. “Dalmation, we lost her,” she muttered, then played back what she’d said.

She glared at Myles, who thought it was hilarious to put a profanity filter on her, though he changed the settings on a regular basis. “Dogs? Really?”

The AI just winked at her, and she resisted the urge to poke him in the eye.

“Whatever. Okay,” Alpha drew in a deep breath, “you did Friend me, right?”

[Turn Ally] was specific to allies. If Alpha tried to Turn someone who wasn’t either a friend or in her party, it would fail, and the person she was trying to turn would die. She didn’t know where Amy’s respawn point was, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. Technically, the person she was trying to turn was also supposed to give verbal permission, which would increase the chances of the skill succeeding to almost one hundred percent, but for the first bite, just being on each other’s friend list should be good enough, at least according to Myles, who was supposed to use his powers as a Developer to friend them.

“Yes,” Myles said, patiently. “You’re good to go.”

Alpha looked down at Amy, using one of her vampire skills to see how much blood the woman had.

Amy

Blood Pack: 10 units.

She had to drink nine units of blood, and then inject some of her own back into Amy. Fortunately, she didn’t have to bite the other woman’s neck, so she picked up a limp arm and turned it so the sharp fangs jutting up from her lower jaw would pierce the radial artery. She had to turn Amy’s body and twist her own head awkwardly to get a good angle, but at last she bit down, feeling thick, strawberry-flavored fluid begin to flow.

“It’d be easier if you’d gone for fangs on the top, like I suggested,” Myles teased as he knelt down beside them and helped steady Amy’s body. Since her mouth was otherwise occupied, Alpha could only glare, which was clearly insufficient, since Myles just chuckled unrepentantly.

It took a little over three minutes before Myles said, “There. She needs your blood, now.”

Alpha pulled back, and bit down on her own lip, piercing it with her fangs before triggering [Turn Ally] and pressing her mouth against Amy’s arm again. As a vampire, her pain input was set to the maximum by default, but she’d grown used to inflicting small injuries on herself during the time she’d spent leveling this skill. This wound had to be larger than the small cuts she needed to turn the tiny fairies she’d practiced on, but she still barely flinched. She couldn’t help feeling like she deserved a little pain after what she was putting Amy through.

“There,” Myles said, resting a hand on Alpha’s shoulder, gently pulling her back. “That’s enough.”

Alpha blinked, rocking back as she looked down at Amy, who was distinctly paler than she had been a few minutes before. “Did it work? Why isn’t there a notification?”

Myles shook his head, grimacing in distaste. “The vampires were developed by Harris’ team. Carl had to approve it all, but otherwise they didn’t have anyone telling them what to do, and the race was never properly tested before being added to the game, so it has bugs and glitches all over the place. Try using [Identify] now.”

Amy (servant) - Ranger. Level 74.

Blood pack: 1.25 units

“I can see her class and level now!” Alpha said, more startled by that than the confirmation that [Turn Ally] had succeeded.

Myles laughed. “Her character was one of the very first ones, of course, and back then there were only four classes available. We - they - didn’t even add the ability to see tags until the alpha testers asked for it. Bridge wanted the game to feel completely real, and of course seeing labels floating over everybody’s heads definitely isn’t realistic.”

Alpha shook off about a dozen questions she wanted to ask and just said, “Everybody else I’ve turned passes out until sunset. Is it different for players?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, reaching out to carefully adjust Amy’s body to a more comfortable position. “They get a Paralysis debuff until their blood regenerates. Generally, that takes anywhere from a few hours to a whole day, during which they can’t move or communicate in any way. Vamp bites are actually venomous, and can paralyze prey, kind of like a spider, but you have to take fifty to eighty percent of  the blood pack to use it. Less than fifty, and the victim runs away screaming or keeps hitting you. More than eighty, and they’ll die if you don’t turn them.”

“So, I can’t bite her again until, what, her blood regenerates?” Alpha asked, frowning as she glanced toward the setting moons.

Holding out a hand, Myles grinned, and his voice shifted to the sing-song patter of a shopping channel host, “Having blood problems? Not today! We’re now offering our special Blood Booster Potion! Just one of these, and you’ll return to full health in just a few seconds!” A vial appeared on his palm in a dramatic cascade of sparkles.

Alpha snatched the bottle from his hand and stared at the red fluid swirling inside. “This is just a regular healing pot!”

He grinned, unrepentant. “Technically, she’s fine. She just needs to heal, though it takes longer than usual to recover from a vampire bite. Being a servant helps her recover a bit faster, but with a potion, she should be ready for the second bite in just a few minutes. You can’t take any shortcuts with NPCs, but players don’t have enough patience to wait two whole days for results.”

Popping the cork, Alpha pressed it to Amy’s lips. Some of it dribbled down her cheek, but the game was designed to allow potions to be administered to ‘unconscious’ players, so most of it went down Amy’s throat, though her eyes didn’t so much as flicker while she drank.

After a moment, Alpha used [Identify] on Amy again.

Amy (servant) - Ranger. Level 74.

Blood pack: 9.8 units

Impatiently, Alpha waited another few seconds and checked again. And again. The moment [Blood Pack] told her Amy was fully recovered, she picked up the other woman’s wrist again. Looking down at the unblemished skin, Alpha grimaced. “Are you sure this will work? I haven’t made a… a thrall before.”

Myles puffed out a little breath. “That actually increases your odds. You can only have ten thralls, and each one is more difficult to get. You’re more likely to succeed than fail, though if you ever try to turn someone into a minion vampire, your best odds will be about one in four.”

“What happens if I fail?” Alpha asked. She’d asked before, but Myles always somehow dodged the question, and she’d let him, because she had a feeling the answer would only make her worry even more. Still, it was time to find out.

As if sensing her resolve, Myles met her eyes and said simply, “She goes to respawn, and I try to cover it up. I still have access to the lab’s server - though any significant flow of data other than what I’ve already established will trigger an alert - so I’ll change the logs as quickly as I can. Unfortunately, her respawn point is the castle, and that can’t be changed. There are a few things that Bridget made sure even Devs couldn’t do to any character but their own, so there was never any temptation to misuse the power they were given.” He grinned a little. “Plus, programmers have a bizarre sense of humor, and you wouldn’t believe what some of them did to each other before Bridge nerfed their access.”

Alpha refused to allow him to sidetrack her. “So, she’ll die, we may be caught, and she’ll just revive back in the lab server anyway?”

Myles’ expression became pained, but he tried to shrug it off. “Basically. I… don’t think they’ll notice before I can change the logs, but we’d definitely have to sneak her out again. Until she can set her own respawn point, she’ll go back there any time she dies.”

“Dachshund,” Alpha muttered, then rolled her eyes as Myles grinned and said, “Gesundheit.”

She couldn’t bite him, so she bit Amy instead.

After something less than a minute, Myles tapped her on the back. “She needs more of your blood, this time. Starting now.”

Alpha’s eyes flashed up at him as she glared accusingly. He should have told her sooner, but she knew why he hadn’t. With her pain input set to maximum, biting herself hurt almost as much as it would in real life, and now she had to do more? Myles grimaced apologetically, but motioned meaningfully toward Amy, whose arm was still bleeding freely.

“Finnish Spitz,” Alpha muttered, and chomped down hard on the end of her tongue. Blood instantly filled her mouth, and it tasted like salt and copper, not fresh fruit or a dessert beverage. She resisted the urge to spit it out, and instead leaned down to seal her lips over the twin punctures in Amy’s arm.

After that, it felt like her own blood flowed out as quickly as Amy’s. She blinked when Myles’ face began to swim in her peripheral vision, and she started to tilt forward. Myles gently caught her, holding Amy’s arm when Alpha’s fingers began to tingle and feel weak.

You are Dizzy.

You are Nauseated.

You are Weak.

The notifications blazed against the reddish darkness behind her eyelids, but she forced herself to continue as her world narrowed to the arm she clutched, and the flow of metallic, salty strawberries that threatened to make her retch.

When Myles pulled her back, she slumped, pressing the back of her arm to her trembling mouth. She tried to look at Amy, but her vision was still blurry. “Did it work?” she slurred, her injured tongue sending a stab of pain through her with each word.

“Yes,” Myles’ voice was low and triumphant, and his warm arms wrapped around Alpha’s cold body, pulling her close. “Yeah, it worked.”

Giving up on getting her eyes to focus, Alpha relaxed against him, letting her eyelids close. “That was disgusting. Next time, you have to be the vampire,” she muttered, and she felt the laugh that rumbled through his chest. His face pressed against her hair as he leaned forward, and for once she didn’t protest.

“I will, I promise,” he said, then added very softly, “Thank you, Ava.”