Chương 1: Prologue: A Sister's Sins
Emily prepared herself to commit a great and lesser sin. Her hands shook as she listened to the low clacking of a cane on cobblestones. No one knew her quarry was here; the dhampir liked to move absent his entourage. His extortion of her had become routine. The sin she was about to commit was one of her guest's most known crimes. No one was coming. That was good; she could ill afford witnesses or black knights asking questions.
She held up a picture blurred from the glare of a low lamplight. That was the problem with being a vampire; even the lowest light cast a horrible glare. Her brother was the only one she made out in the picture.
That was ok; she barely remembered her parents anymore. At 8, she was turned and only aged half the speed each year until she turned 16. That was her problem; she looked so young compared to her aging brother. He might have been 30, but she didn't like to count.
Vincent, her cringy thief of a brother, was 30 years old and classless. Emily knew because Vincent didn't know a spell like false data to fool spies like she did. Her brother's attributes were so low he couldn't see much of her stats, but she paid attention to his. Illusion magic was his specialty despite his talent for thievery.
The clacking was growing closer. Resnick shouldn't be here; he was responsible for her brother's team of gravediggers. Something always went wrong, and it was up to a powerful Dhampir like Reseneck to handle it. Every day sleds of corpses were taken to be buried to purify the graveyard with negative energy. It was the only way her brother could make enough money to buy blood for her. She was her brother's greatest weakness; one way or another, he would be free of her.
Resnick held her brother's life in his hands. The fool thought Emily was helpless. By the time Emily was 15 in the new life, she had already fed off another turned. Cannibalism was a practice considered forbidden.
The door to the room opened, she shielded her eyes from the invading light, and Resnick entered all smiles under his wide-brimmed hat. The fool always appeared confident with his rapier at his hip and crossbow at his side. Of course, no one would fight a lvl50 dhampir. A vampire especially wouldn't challenge them under the sun.
At Emily's meager lvl20, she was no match for Resnick, especially during the day. He was confident enough to come to her home on the poor side of town without bodyguards. Normally a dhampir of the Camazotz family would have an endless entourage. Still, lately, Resnick had taken to radical claims about the godless theocracy. He had a view on humans that the true vampires didn't like. But, as one of the voting powers of the republic, the Camazotz couldn't afford to kill off a valuable resource like a dhampir. So they took their protections away. Someone would pounce, and they would accuse another family of the assassination and demand reparations.
She poured him a cup of tea as the dhampir took his wide-brimmed hat off and placed it on a dusty wooden wrack.
"It has been some time since our last session. You've grown older again. Maybe I won't rescue your brother in time when he needs help." Resneck said.
Emily sucked on her teeth. She should have expected an insult from the start. Her brother was her greatest pride and shame. It would be better if they parted ways, but the fool was too devoted for his own good. She didn't need his help. He couldn't see it. Vincent, the lvl0 classless gravedigger, was the talk of many as his sister; her status was lower than dirt.
"We are forever grateful for your magnanimity. Offering a boy of 10 a dangerous job like a gravedigger was quite daring. Some would say you did it more for amusement than charity."
"It's hardly charity. Vincent does good work and hasn't died in 20 years. If only the boy didn't have such sticky fingers. Has he saved up enough to purchase a hunting tag for you?" Resnick dangled a silver hunting tag good for 10 humans a month in front of her. "This one is worth 100 pieces of silver. How much does a gravedigger earn again? That's right, a silver every month. As a classless, that's the price of your blood rations." All she could do was smile and bare it.
Emily watched the man sip his tea and smirked on the inside. The poison was already taking effect. The purple petals lightly fell from a flower on the table. It really was amazing how gullible Resnick had been.
"Are you expecting something to happen? I noticed you haven't touched your tea." Resneck said, tapped his amulet, and smiled. Then the man's pale face morphed into a mask of pain.
Emily smiled and tapped her foot.
"How much do you think your original amulet sold for? My big brother has such sticky fingers."
She plucked a violet petal from the rose in the center of the room. Resneck tried to stand but fell on the floor. His body shook as he tried to hoist himself up on the cane. Emily kicked it, snapping the stick the dhampir had once beaten her brother with until Vincent couldn't stand. The offending instrument collapsed with the man, never to harm anyone again.
"Do you smell that pollen? It's called Nina, after a long-dead princess of the night. It weakens the powers of those unused to its effects. Much like a vampire staked through the heart, you are quite powerless. Fortunately, I developed an immunity to the pollen. It only took a decade. My brother was always so concerned with my fainting spells."
She approached the beautiful man with dark curls framing his face. Emily grabbed a great handful of Resneck's luscious hair and yanked him up. She felt her fangs extend and bit the man's neck. This was the sin Emily had longed to commit, an act of treason that would set her free. At last, she fed from a member of the Camazotz and gained power.
A large family like the Camazotz grew too large and unorganized, letting its prominent members wilt on the vine. It was glorious and terrible. She drank until the dhampir's heart pittered out and stopped. The body didn't turn to ash or something silly like that. No, it remained a very dead heavy body, but fortunately, as a vampire, her strength was immense.
Emily ran a sharp blade over the corpse's skin and began the long process of removing it. Some illusions needed a semblance of truth. Using his skin would fool all but the highest-tier scan skills. So the young vampire took what she didn't need to a preprepared room filled with rats.
She had taken her time and considered what she wanted to use to dispose of the body. Rats were the best she could come up with. So Emily tossed the body to the rats and watched them swarm the fresh meat.
The camazotz's blood empowered her more than ever, and she basked in the feeling of superiority. Then reality set in. She used the spell glamour and false data to transform her status page into a copy of Resneck Camazotz. For a decade, she had invited him to tea and studied the man while he threatened her brother and took her body. Every insult had been worth it; the man hadn't suspected she would bypass his defenses. The idea of a weak turned like her below level 10 managing to harm him was laughable.
She unveiled her second sin from under the blanket on her bed. In her bed was a girl who looked like her, altered with a glamour and drained dry by Resnik's fangs. This was the minor sin she had dreaded. To have a clean break and give both herself and her brother a chance to move on, she had to die for him. He would hate her and bang his fists on the ground, but at the end of the day, Vincent would move on and find happiness.
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