Eat Them All: Book 2- Chapter 39 (Patreon)

++As a vampire ages and gains power, they are less and less sated by ‘lower’ forms of life. Humans and elves, those beings of higher cognitive function, retain their nourishing properties for the longest, but for most of the undead drawing strength from blood more than a few Tiers below theirs is near-impossible.++

Book 2: Chapter 39

Apparently, Ajoke’s method of training new recruits consisted of first just scaring the absolute shit out of them. Ludvich very much approved of this, given how similar it was to the style in which he’d begun his own training. The differences, though, were more notable than the similarities. 

For one thing, there were far more trainees here than trainers. After the initial vetting period, Witchfinders would have at least one instructor for every five students, and usually more like three. Here, Ajoke had picked up several hundred townsfolk for training. Within the day her fellow Ìràwà were in town to help with the process, so the ratio wasn’t quite as skewed as it could have been, but it was still hard to imagine anything being managed with such a disparity.

And yet, it was. Ludvich for his part was able to mostly just sit back and watch the physical drills, mainly learning how different the training of an elite was from common foot-sloggers. People were paced more, now, than he had been. Witchfinder trainees who weren’t able to match the demands of harsh conditioning simply washed out, deemed unfit stock to complete the training. Here they had no finite number of graduation slots, and every extra fighter was needed. So things were gentler.

People who fell were helped back up, there was a greatly reduced number of rubber balls being shot into people’s bodies with quarter-strength powder charges, in general the whole affair seemed rather less like a protracted gang-beating with extra steps, and more like an attempt at teaching things.

Not that the teaching was of nearly so high quality as Ludvich had received, there simply wasn’t enough time to focus on each individual trainee as much as was needed for that. After a few days he felt very much like the amount of progress made would have equaled the results of 24 hours spent training as a Witchfinder. The actual ‘raw materials’, the people being trained, fell short, too. 

Just to become a trainee in any Witchfinder institute required a combination of physical and mental traits that only one out of every twenty were deemed to have after intense screening. Of all the trainees here, numbering a good three hundred, perhaps a dozen could have attempted to follow in Ludvich’ career, and of those he imagined less than five would succeed.

Those who did manage would have done so only after several years more than they were being trained for now. This would never be an army of Witchfinders.

But then, they didn’t need one. They were going for quantity rather than quality, because quantity was fast and quality was slow. It would mean a lot of casualties when they defended the town, even if they lived. But less than if they lost. That made it fine. 

Ludvich kept watching the training, following along as he scrutinised it every step of the way. Laps around Norvhan, moderately fast but mainly just long. Stamina was the first thing you needed in a fight, more than Strength or Speed, stamina was what kept you operating well into the conflict. Ludvich had known smaller skirmishes to last half an hour or more, and wasn’t surprised when one of the Ìràwà told him true battles could stretch on for hours. 

Next were weapons drills. The hardest part here was getting everyone equipped with actual weaponry, because though the town had plenty of muskets, it was looking at a miserable lack of bayonets. The solution was to train people in shifts while they set the smiths onto producing more blades; half the trainees ran and did resistance training, half drilled with their weaponry.

Briefly into it, Ludvich had an idea and shared it with the Ìràwà. They agreed it was a good one, and so he took aside some of the more promising trainees. The poor sods, numbering a dozen in total, seemed excited at first. That faded fast when they realised how much meaner Ludvich’s training was than what they’d been getting. 

They were at it for twelve hours a day, with the initial difficulty being keeping them rested. Fortunately, growing Toughness stats meant that they didn’t need quite as much shut-eye as most, and could get away with only five or six hours a day. They still became nocturnal soon. 

He roamed through woodlands with them, carrying out his usual hunts but focusing more on teaching them the methods of moving quietly and lightly. He had them practice marksmanship by aiming for their prey, taught them how to navigate a grimwood with landmarks, went over all the things he’d once been taught.

They were not, unfortunately, very good. Not by his standards at least. Of the twelve of them, maybe three were picking things up as fast as the average Witchfinder student from back when Ludvich was in training, and only three more would’ve taken as long as a year to wash out. 

Which didn’t make them enormously worse than the trainees who’d go on to actually become Witchfinders. At that level of selection, the gradations between acceptable and sub-standard were rather fine, and it was mostly budgeting that made the Witchfinders so narrow about it. 

Ludvich didn’t have the luxury of being so picky. Left to choose between three half-baked Witchfinders and twelve below-average and half-baked Witchfinders, the latter would easily be more effective. That he’d need to spread his training more thinly gnawed at him, but not as much as having one quarter the numbers would.

So he continued, and despite the disadvantages—not least among them, Ludvich being a shit teacher—the trainees started to pick things up. Within a week they were moving noticeably more quietly, rustling bushes in a way that Ludvich would’ve needed to listen out for were it not for his vampiric senses. They were navigating better, communicating with signs and guessing at each other’s intentions every so often. It’d take a long while more before they fell into that old rhythm of familiarity that made a well-drilled team so devastating, but they still had a while to work on that.

Right now, at least. 

And all while they continued improving, so was Ludvich. He was ready to evolve, soon enough. 

Not a pleasant experience at all, and by the time it was done Ludvich understood why Reggie had made such a fuss about it. 

Name: Ludvich

Age: 56

Race: Feral Predator [Deity Race, Tier 2]

Class: None

Attributes: 

(P)Strength 30

(P) Speed 31

(P) Celerity 31

(P) Toughness 30

(T) Charisma 9

Abilities: 

Blood Magic I

Form of the Beast I

Apex Predator I

Traits: 

Enhanced Senses I

Regeneration I

Wild Thing I

Ludvich knew what a Feral Predator was, and had known when he selected it. Even if he hadn’t, Sycily’s description would have filled him in.

‘Feral Predator. You are a creature of the night, and the Beast within you makes you strong and vicious. Bolster your body and command the animals that share the land with you, reign as the king of predators.’

Perfect, that kept Ludvich exactly as misanthropic as he’d already been. And here he’d been worried about some drawback to whatever Race he selected next. 

His main motive in choosing Feral Predator had been the mention of being made stronger and more vicious. Viciousness aside, strength was what he needed right now. If Ludvich picked up some fancy technique then it might take him a while to use it properly, but he already had a lifetime of turning physical power into dead enemies. The learning curve for that was well behind him.

“What’s the limit on my Attributes now?” He asked Sycily. She didn’t say anything in answer, just brought up his sheet again.

Name: Ludvich

Age: 56

Race: Feral Predator [Deity Race, Tier 2]

Class: None

Attributes: 

(P)Strength 30/45

(P) Speed 31/46

(P) Celerity 31/46

(P) Toughness 30/45

(T) Charisma 9/33

Abilities: 

Blood Magic I

Form of the Beast I

Apex Predator I

Traits: 

Enhanced Senses I

Regeneration I

Wild Thing I

Not bad, that. 

***

Reggie had been worried Anne might die, or return and say she’d seen nothing of use. Either scenario would’ve been problematic for his plans to not get ripped apart by pissed off elves. What happened instead was potentially even worse. 

The creature in the mines, and he knew, now, that there had been a creature in the mines, emerged as soon as the sun went down, and it emerged with her held hostage.

By the look of her, Anne wasn’t that hurt. She also wasn’t that unhurt either. Her face was sheet pale and her eyelids were drooping, such that Reggie thought she was sleepy at first. 

No, it’s blood loss. That thing’s a vampire, and it’s drunk from her.

[Wow, that’s what you do to other people, isn’t it Reggie? Except you kill them rather than leaving them alive. This vampire must be much nicer! I bet he didn’t even know she was already weakened from you drinking her blood.]

Dvo had really bad timing, as usual. Or maybe really good timing. His remarks were getting less frequent and more cutting. Like he was learning how to hurt him. 

Reggie buried that worry, not having time to dwell on it, and focused on the more tangible danger ahead of him instead. It was dusk, and Krieg had exited the estate with him. That brought a pinch of reassurance to the situation, since Reggie was much more comfortable staring down an unknown vampire with company than without.

“Hello,” he began. “How—”

—”What are you doing in my territory?!” Krieg snarled, stepping forwards and drawing his sword like he was in a race to lose as many limbs as possible as fast as possible. Reggie took a deft step away from him, ensuring that he’d be as far from the blast radius of any magic this enemy might possess as he could be, and decided to hold his tongue for now.

The newcomer tilted its head slightly, running an eye up and down Krieg. 

“You are not Guerra,” it noted. “Did you slay and devour him?”

Apparently, that was the perfect thing to say. If it had been trying to piss Krieg off. The vampiric knight took another step forwards and now seemed to be almost convulsing with the effort at not pouncing on this newcomer like a wild animal.

“I was charged with watching over this Domain, and keeping the scum out,” Krieg hissed. “Scum like you, Irazhtan.”

Ah, Reggie had been wondering about the sudden hostility. He wasn’t sure how Krieg had identified the vampire’s Lineage, and would certainly be asking if they didn’t both get dismembered and eaten now, but the Varenthor hadn’t exactly been subtle about his distaste for them.

Nor was the Irazhtan subtle about reciprocating it.

“Guerra was an anomaly among your kind, a warrior with some appreciation for history and learning. I see that he remains an anomaly. I slumbered here because I needed to, dog, and once I am well fed enough to travel I shall darken your lands no more.”

“You want me to provide you with blood?!” Krieg snarled, incredulous, it sounded like. Reggie personally didn’t see much wrong with the offer, but then eating rats tended to temper your sense of entitlement.

“And then I will leave, and neither of us needs to endure the other’s company.”

Krieg got a nasty look on his face at that. 

“You’re asking this because you’re too weak to hunt, then, is that right?” Reggie could see the thoughts connecting to one another in real time. Krieg was waiting to go from ninety percent sure to fully sure, and as soon as he did this strange vampire would die by his hand.

But the vampire didn’t oblige him with panic, or even worry. Nothing at all that might confirm the Varenthor’s suspicions. Quite the opposite.

“I can hunt, if I wish,” he replied. “But I would need to depopulate much of the surrounding territory of life in order to sate myself. I am a Master Tier vampire, a Tier 5 vampire, and I ask you, once more, for something to eat.”