Death After Death 213-215

Ch. 213 - Mixed Blessings

When they were on the ground once more, the dragon spent another ten minutes lecturing him about what it was they’d seen. It was informative but also repetitive, and strangely, the dragon insisted that though this cavern would be present in many of the other worlds they’d visited, it would be empty, save perhaps for other beasts. There would be no other gold or signs that a dragon nested there. 

While that would have made sense if he hadn’t seen another vast cave full of wealth, he had, so it made the whole thing harder to swallow for Simon. It was only when that was tapering off that Simon finally decided to broach the question again. “How does that relate to Helades’ magic?” 

“Do not speak her name to me,” the dragon growled menacingly, showing real hostility for the first time. 

Simon hadn’t felt this sort of malice, even in the moments when it was considering eating him when they’d first met. Then, it was more impersonal, like running into a grizzly that was trying to decide whether it was hungry or not. Now, it was definitely personal.  

“I apologize,” Simon said swiftly, “I was not aware that you didn’t care for her.”

“This is not her world, and the magics she uses complicates things immensely for those of us who travel between different versions of it,” the dragon grumbled. 

“How so?” Simon asked.

“Each time one of her pets, including you, perish, a whole new set of possibilities is grafted onto the world so that they might live again to focus on whatever tangled goal she has conceived of,” Icefang growled. “These new possibilities are out of sync with the ones that occur naturally. Imagine if the river you watched so recently was sometimes iced over and sometimes not because a few winters were spliced in there amidst all the other summers. It makes the ether more turbulent, and it makes navigation that much harder.”

“Isn’t her magic just the same as yours, though?” Simon asked. 

“It is entirely different,” the dragon roared, showing signs of real anger again. “The tide of existence flows unerringly from the beginning of time to the end. The whorls and eddies in that stream are all that you and other lesser mortals know, but my perspective is greater. I can see how unnatural it is and how troublesome your kind can be. Sometimes, I think I should purge them entirely, but I do not wish to incur her wrath so directly. I would prefer that her and her ilk stay far away from me.”

“So you have seen other people in the Pit?” Simon asked excitedly. “You’ve spoken to them?”

“Seen? Yes. Spoken to them? No.” the dragon rumbled. “It is poor manners to play with one's food. Normally, I devour all of those in league with her, but it would be poor manners to do to someone who has saved my life. There will always be an Icefang, but I would be very unhappy if it was not me.”

Simon struggled to take all of that in, trying to process the dense information he’d just been given. It put a new context on all the worlds he’d left half-finished, and part of him worried just how much damage he might have caused on some levels, but he had no way of fixing it. 

“Can you go back in time too? Or just move through space and possibility,” Simon asked finally. 

“Time travel is not possible,” the dragon said flatly, “Not even for your Goddess. She does not even move her pawns back in time. She just moves the past up to start again. That should be all the proof you need.”

Simon considered that, not sure what else to say. Eventually, he said, “Well, she pushes us through to the future, too. In fact, the exit I need to take is in your very hoard.”

“What?!” Icefang thundered, obviously taken by surprise at that. “Where?” 

While it sniffed the air and looked around its hoard, Simon slowly walked to the area he thought the chest he was looking for was, and then, when he spotted part of it buried beneath a mound of coins, he started unburying it. 

This dragon knows a lot, but it's obviously way off base, at least on some of this, Simon decided. The Pit goes through its cave, which probably means the Pit always goes through its cave. That’s like four million caves, minimum, and at least a few of them have gotten this far. If it really could see all possible worlds, it would know that. It would have seen other people before me. 

He didn’t say that, though. The thing already smelled of smoke at its current level of agitation. Whether that was because of what he’d revealed about Helades or because he was digging through its hoard, Simon couldn’t say, but he had no wish to aggravate the dragon further. 

“It’s actually right through here,” Simon said, opening the chest. 

As soon as he opened the chest to show the twilight orchard that lay beyond, though, the dragon recoiled as if it encountered a foul smell. “How dare she,” the thing rumbled. As soon as it said those words, it started to inhale. That pained Simon because he knew what was about to happen next as he glanced across the cavern to where his backpack lay. There wasn’t anything he really needed in it, but it was always nice to have a solid backpack. 

He didn’t bother trying to calm the beast. Instead, he just dove through the opening as quickly as he could, rolling as far as he could once he was on the other side. The gout of flame that followed was both intense and short. The stream of fire lasted only a moment because the gateway failed, and it was abruptly cut off. Whether that was because of how far he moved from it or because of the damage the dragon’s breath did to the container that was holding it, he couldn't say. 

Still, at least he was in one piece. “Well, I burned that bridge in style,” he said with a little disappointment. 

Simon used his cloak to beat down the small grass fire that was still going on next to him. The last thing he wanted was for someone to come out and investigate. As he did so, he battled his own annoyance. If he’d known that mentioning the gate would have made Icefang explode so thoroughly, he would have asked more questions first. The dragon obviously didn’t know everything, and it wasn’t right about everything, but it knew a lot, and Simon could definitely have learned more from it. 

“Well, maybe I didn’t solve it,” he said hopefully, but he felt pretty sure he probably had. Oh well, what’s done is done, he told himself. I’ll just have to find another dragon or something.

Instead of dwelling on it, Simon looked around. The orchard was just as he remembered it, minus the bleeding and, of course, the vampire. His original plan, after he finished talking to the dragon, had been to drag the half-eaten corpse of Sir Anias and use the smell of blood to attract the vampire, but since he’d been forced through the gate a lot sooner than he’d intended, that was out. 

With a shrug, Simon picked up a couple of likely branches and started cutting them down to size with his sword. Then, when he had half a dozen, he started whittling them down into wood stakes. The vampire might not be coming for him, but it was almost certainly still coming for that house down there, and he would be ready.

When the stakes were ready, and it was fully dark, Simon made his way down to the farmhouse to look around. It was a peaceful scene, and other than the firelight coming from the windows and the sounds of dinner and family coming from the main room, there was nothing happening. 

Simon watched what looked to be an adorable family of six sitting down to eat a simple country meal together. As he looked on from the darkness, he felt the twin pangs of jealousy and hunger, but he ignored them both. Instead of dwelling on the fact that he hadn’t eaten for a while or how nice it would be to have exactly the sort of life he saw before him, he focused on finding a reasonably hidden place where he could watch and wait. 

That’s why I’m doing this, he reminded himself. So that me and everyone else can sit down with the ones they love and have meals like that. 

He ended up choosing the woodpile next to the shed because it had a clear view of the dining room window. However, as he waited, he pondered that thought because he realized that definitely wasn’t the truth, or at least not all of it. What was he doing in the Pit now? What was even the point? 

It was a harder question than he would have thought. Ostensibly, he was here so that he could beat his punishment incarnation and then choose a more desirable life than the one that Helades thought he was due. But isn’t that what I’m doing already? He reflected. 

It was. He was doing what he wanted. The very reason he’d come to the Pit was to do this, though perhaps in a slightly sane way. It was to go adventuring with Freya and raise a family. It was to make art and teach his son to be a man in Ionar. Trying to stop a dragon from being assassinated and biting off his tongue so that he could join an insane anti-wizard cult probably wasn’t on that list, but they hadn’t been the worst experiences, and he didn’t regret them. 

Still, what is this all for? He asked himself again. He was on level thirty-three now. With some concerted effort, he could probably finish the whole thing in less time than he’d spent learning art in Ionia and—

As he tried to puzzle the answer out, his thought process was interrupted by the sound of a scream and then a crash in the dining room. Though he could only make out shapes from the poor-quality glass at this distance, he could still see enough to tell there was a fight or some sort of struggle. Even though he hadn’t heard the sound of breaking wood or shattering glass, the vampire had clearly made it inside the home. 

Simon vaguely wondered about whether the thing had actually turned into a bat or a mist or whatever it was they were supposed to do. He didn’t think too much about it, though. Instead, he pulled out a stake for each hand where he’d tucked them into his belt, and he charged the door. This thing had already tasted his blood once, and he wasn’t going to get another chance. 

Ch. 214 - Ambushed

He wasted no time and kicked down the door. It was barred, but even so, the flimsy thing gave without the need for a word of force. That let Simon finally see what was happening. The small dining room contained the ruins of dinner spread across the floor, along with an elderly farmer and his wife and their younger daughters, who both seemed to be women in their twenties. 

It wasn’t the young women that the thing was attacking, though. They were just screaming. Instead, the vampire had the man pinned to the wall high enough that his feet weren’t touching the floor. 

No one looked at Simon despite his dramatic entrance. He didn’t blame them. The vampire had just torn out the man’s throat and was glorying in a grisly waterfall of blood. Compared to that, it was hard to imagine anything more shocking. 

Simon wasn’t sure the vampire would have turned even if he’d uttered some stupid battle cry. He didn’t, though. Instead, he just walked right up behind the vampire and stabbed him with his stake as hard as he could.

All the best deaths are anticlimactic, Simon thought, hoping to drop this prick in a single blow.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pull it off. Even though the piece of sharpened wood bit deep into his flesh, the thing reacted almost instantly, dropping its victim, and whirling on Simon with a vicious backhand that knocked him backward. It roared in pain, but even before Simon hit the table, he whispered a word of force, and the stake in his left hand shot forward like a bullet, piercing the thing’s chest a second time.

This one went even deeper, and it staggered it. Simon had no idea if that was enough, and immediately pulled out two more weapons, but even as he did so, he decided that it was unnecessary. The thing was dying. 

No, scratch that, he clarified as he watched it smolder and decay. It’s dead already. The vampire might not know it yet, but he did. It roared in pain a second time, but as it did so, it started to fall apart into little chunks of ash. 

Once Simon decided the thing was toast, he ignored it and dropped the stakes. Part of him told him that was a terrible mistake, but there was a man bleeding out feet away from him, and literally every second mattered. So, instead of watching the vampire’s death throes for the next minute. Simon moved to heal the other man.

It was a rough time. “Hyakk,” he muttered, using a word of healing to repair just the jugular and refill as much of the lost blood as he could. Then, as he tried to understand what parts of the muscle and the trachea were damaged, the farmer’s hysterical wife tried to pull him off of the man. 

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Get off him! Leave the man his dignity at least!”

Simon didn’t bother to respond to her charges. Her fists were tiny, and her blows lacked strength. She was barely a distraction. 

“Mama! Leave him, mama! He’s trying to help!” one of the young woman said as both of them pulled her bodily off of him. Simon ignored them, other than a quick check back at the ashes to make sure the vampire really was staying dead. 

The maimed farmer was still choking, which meant that he was trying to breathe, but he wouldn't keep doing so for long without a little help. Simon tackled that next, using several words of lesser healing to pin the mangled flesh back into place a little at a time, followed by a full word of healing to try to put it back together. He had no idea how to make a larynx or an epiglottis, but he was pretty sure if he put it all back together, the body would do most of the heavy lifting for him.  

Slowly, the man’s breathing improved, and even though he was unconscious and flayed open, Simon thought he would probably make it. He used one more word of healing to put the muscle, fat, and skin back together, then followed that up with a word of greater cure in case the man had been infected with vampirism. He had no idea how that would work, but if it was anything like it did with zombies, it was better to be safe than sorry. 

It was only when all of that was done, and the man seemed likely to make it, that he turned to the women and said, “Please, could I have some water to wash my hands and his wound.”

One girl moved to comply while the other asked, “Was that magic… are you a warlock?”

Simon nodded because no other explanation was likely to work. “I am,” he agreed. “I was hunting this vampire, and I got here too late.”

“Too late?” the mother gasped. “In disbelief. How could you have been too late? Do you know what that animal would have done to us if you hadn’t…”

“Shhhh, Mama, be still,” the second daughter said as she handed Simon a pitcher of water. “It's all going to be okay. Isn’t it, stranger.”

“I think it might be,” Simon agreed as he used the pitcher to rinse away the blood from the wound to make sure it was healed shut before he rinsed off his hands. 

After that, he lifted the deathly pale farmer and carried him to his room. He’d been planning to leave him there and introduce himself more properly to the other women in the cottage, as well as see what he might do to fix the splinted door. 

However, as soon as Simon set the man down, he stirred and grasped Simon’s sleeve. Simon paused, and the farmer tried to speak more than once but was having real difficulty with it. That was only to be expected since he’d only just had his throat ripped out. 

Simon tried to tell him to save his strength, but he seemed insistent. So, instead, Simon got him a glass of water, and after choking and sputtering on that for a few seconds, Simon was surprised to find that it helped remarkably. 

Once he’d finished the glass, the farmer began to speak again, and this time, Simon could finally understand what he was saying if he leaned in close. 

“I should be dead,” the man whispered, “But I ain’t. Still, you should kill me just to be sure. I don’t want none of that curse near my daughters, you understand? They’re old enough to start families of their own, not to start killing them!”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Simon assured him, hoping it was true. “I healed your body and purged your blood of the curse. You won’t be having any troubles there.”

“Well, if that’s the case, it will be a miracle,” the man sighed. “But you should be saving those fer yerself. You killed the dog that did that, but the witch that he serves will take that personally.”

“He had a master?” Simon asked. Simon seemed to recall him mentioning something about that just before this asshole had killed him the last time, but that was a long time ago, and he would have to consult the mirror for those details.  

The farmer nodded. “The dark lady.” he rasped with his raw throat. “While I thank you for your help, she’ll know what you did. She’ll come for you. You should flee while you can.”

“Maybe I’ll pay her a visit too,” Simon said, not put off by this. He’d been planning to look for the next level and leave right away, but dawn was only a few hours away, and vampires were kind of helpless when the sun was out, so putting down a few more might be fun. “Do you know where their lair is?”

“Everyone knows,” the man whispered, pointing at the wall across from him. “Castle Gravenstone. It is a cursed place that was empty for decades, but a few years ago, she returned and brought all manner of wickedness with her.”

Simon shook his head at that. Evil was like a fire, and no matter how many times and places he put it out, it always sprang up somewhere else. This one he probably didn’t even need to pin on his doppelgänger. There was a lot of evil here in the east that he’d barely touched on. He’d found one werewolf, along with rebels and cultists. That probably meant there were a lot more of each, just waiting to unleash their evil on the world. 

“If it was morning, you could see it from here,” the farmer continued. “It’s not even half a day's ride, and it lords over the whole valley, but I wouldn’t go there. It is a fearsome fortress and the living that follow her as well as the dead. The region prospers under her peace, but even so… the beasts must feed, and sometimes a family just… they just vanish, but we all know what happens.”

Maybe the Unspoken aren’t so bad after all, he reflected.

“I’m pretty fearsome myself,” Simon said, “But what I want to know is if it’s so terrible here, why not simply pack up and go somewhere else?”

“Where would we go?” the farmer asked. “I don’t speak the westerling languages as you clearly do, and the south and eastern lands are much more dangerous. They’re full of monsters. As to the north, well, we both know that’s impossible with the war.”

“What war?” Simon asked as he wondered about the monsters the man mentioned. He was getting the sneaking suspicion that with all the problems he’d had in Brin and Ionia, they were the easiest zones that he was likely to encounter. Chiara was shaping up to be much uglier, and then, of course, there was Murani to deal with and—

“The one that the Mountain Lords are losing, with the Murani,” the farmer interrupted Simon’s thoughts by reading his mind. 

“Here, too?” Simon asked. “You’ll forgive me. I come from the west, as you’ve guessed, but I thought that war was done.”

“Aye, in the west, it has been for a time, as I understand it,” the man nodded, “But that doesn’t mean they’ve given up. They’ve simply turned their sights elsewhere.”

“So, you’d rather live beneath the threat of vampires than die from one of these other dangers?” Simon asked sourly. 

The man went to answer but instead suffered a coughing fit, and all he could do was nod until it finished. “It’s a bargain with the devils, I grant you, but it’s worked out pretty well until tonight.”

That answer annoyed Simon, but before he could press the man any further, he was shooed away by his wife, who insisted that he needed his rest. He did. The farmer’s life had been spared, but he was probably still looking at pneumonia or something, in the best case. Simon could stay and tend to him for a few days. Even without magic, a few herbs he knew would go a long way. However, if what he’d said about vengeance was true, all of that would probably have to wait until tomorrow at least. 

Simon asked the daughters a few more questions, and though they were obviously afraid of him, they answered his questions quickly and as honestly as he could. They didn’t know a lot, but they shared what they did. 

It’s probably because they’re afraid of me, not in spite of it, he realized as he finally decided to get a few hours of sleep before daylight. 

Staying up all night would be the smart thing, but whatever vengeance awaited him wasn’t going to happen instantaneously in a world without cell phones. If he wanted to purge the castle of whatever creatures lay within it, he was definitely going to need to rest. He’d used a lot of magic in a short time, and he felt drained. 

Ch. 215 - Wrecking Crew

Simon slept fitfully and awoke at the smallest sounds throughout the night. Each time he awoke with stakes in hand, worried that he’d meet his end at the hands of a paranoid farmer’s wife, or worse, some awful witch that commanded vampires, and perhaps worse, he was instead woken by the sound of a rooster. That was a reassuring sign, and when he opened his eyes, he saw light coming in through the shutters. 

When he got up and went to check on the farmer, he found him deathly pale. The man had a fever, but he was still breathing. He whispered a word of lesser cure to give his immune system a chance, but there was no easy fix. With the messy surgery he’d done, his body was still trying to put everything together. Even beyond all of that, there were likely a dozen different pathogens to contend with as well. He was in for a rough ride, but Simon believed he would get through it. 

Even that wasn’t enough to wake the man up, though it did wake his wife up, and she glared daggers at Simon. “I want you out of my house,” she hissed. “The fever won’t go down as long as your cursed presence is sucking the life out of him.”

Simon didn’t laugh at that, but he wanted to. Instead, he said, “I’ll see what I can do to solve your little vampire problem, and then, after, I’ll see if I can find some herbs on the way back.”

She didn’t answer and only glared at him. So, he bid both of her daughters good morning in an effort to reduce their fear of him. Then left the house, if only to make her happy. Outside, he took a look around, and opposite the orchard he’d come in from, there was indeed a foreboding, ancient-looking castle partway up the far wall of the valley. 

Well, that’s not quite as close as the farmer made it sound, he thought with a sigh. That sealed the deal; he was definitely borrowing their horse. 

Before he did that, though, he looked at his equipment and took stock of the situation. He hadn’t been planning to fight vampires or attack any castles. He wasn’t exactly in the best shape either yet, so it was clear he was going to need a little help. 

“It’s not too late to dig around and find the portal out of here,” he told himself. “It’s probably right around here somewhere.”

That would have been the easy way, though. That would have been Helades way. He didn’t just want to get to the end anymore; he wanted to save everyone that he could along the way. 

So, he spent a few minutes referencing some of the patterns from his notes before transforming his sword into a vorpal blade and a couple of his arrows into lightning arrows. While he did so, he marveled at the fact that what he would have once needed a forge and days of time to create, he could now do with only a few words of metal shaping. 

He chose to create the sword in a configuration that would be powered by him instead of by his target. So. he’d have to toss it when it was done so he didn’t burn through years of his life. Still, he was probably going to need to get through a castle gate or portcullis or something, and this would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to knock it down. 

Once all that was done, he grabbed some more wood that he could fashion stakes from on the way, then he saddled up the horse he found in the barn and started riding across the valley to rest up. “After this, no more magic for a month,” he told himself while he used his dagger to whittle fine points. He’d probably burned two or three years of his life already, and he’d barely even done anything. 

“Well, barely done anything is a bit of an exaggeration,” he corrected himself while he rode on. “I only killed a vampire, saved a life, and probably solved a level. No big deal.”

As he went, he noted that with the exception of the evil-looking castle he was riding toward, the valley he was riding across really did seem like a nice place. It was full of tiny farmsteads and dotted by the occasional hamlet that looked inviting, even though he made no move to visit them. The place bordered on idyllic, with small herds and large grainfields here and there.

He’d been all over Brin and had only seen a few places that looked as bountiful. That was enough to make him see the farmer’s point on some level, but it seemed like a pretty brutal trade-off. “Live here, be perfectly safe, until one day your whole family is ripped to pieces,” he muttered to himself. “How’s that any different from living on the plains south of Crowvar? At least there, when the centaurs attack you, you can actually fight back.”

Here, he wasn’t really sure what the common people were supposed to do about vampires. “I thought you had to invite them in or something?” Simon said in exasperation. Truthfully, he wasn’t really sure. It had been a long time since he’d read any vampire stories. They were never his favorite. All he really remembered was that the real ones didn’t sparkle and that the only way to take them out was to stake them. 

He passed a couple of people on the road, but other than wishing him a good morning, no one tried to stop him. When Simon reached the last bend in the road before the castle, he tethered his horse in the shade of a tree and continued on foot. This was both because he would seem less threatening and because he had no wish to harm the farming family’s animal. Horses were the lifeblood of a farm, and losing it to an arrow would be dumb. 

When he reached the gate, it was still before noon, and the thing was shut tight, which was just what he’d expected. Even the postern gate was closed, and he suspected the portcullis was, too. Only a single watchman was in the nearest tower, and he called out, “Who goes there!”

Simon thought about it for a moment before he called back, “I have business here! I’m expected!”

The watchman yelled out, “Well, what is it then?”

Simon shook his head and spread his arms before he called back, “It's not the sort of business I should be yelling about in public!”

The man cursed a streak then but didn’t follow up further. Simon had been completely bullshiting, but apparently, that worked. Instead of yelling down anymore, he opened the trap door and started walking loudly down the staircase. A few minutes later, he reached the gatehouse and opened up a small hole for peeking out the postern door. 

“Alright,” the portly man said, half out of breath from the walk. “Who is it that’s expecting to see you then.”

That was the moment Simon realized he was probably fucked. He opened his mouth to try to make someone up, but as he did so, the self-important guard kept talking. “Gotta warn you, though, whoever it is, you ain’t gettin’ in here until after sunset. Something happened, and well, I’m sure a man like you knows the drill. This place ain’t much as long as the sun’s out.”

Simon nodded at that and said, “Yeah, I totally get it.” Then he drew his sword and shoved it right through the wood with only the slightest resistance. The steel chest piece of the guard didn't do much better than that. 

He aimed for the Carnia but came in a little above that junction between the lungs, slicing through the trachea instead. The result was the same. He pulled his sword back out, and as that happened, the guard backed away, already mortally wounded, even if he didn’t quite understand what was happening. 

“What… I… Help, help…” the man tried to call out, but he lacked the air to project any more than a whisper. 

Simon drew his sword back, then forced it into the notch between the postern gate and the larger gate, slicing clean through the thick wooden bar that was the locking mechanism. Then he pushed it open without issue, even as the other man staggered back. He collapsed to the ground before Simon could reach him, which was fine. The guard had died as merciful a death as he could grant him. 

Next, Simon walked over to the portcullis and cut through that too. It took longer, but took no more effort. The only issue was that his blade was only magical in the cutting direction, so he had to do it in three straight cuts instead of one long arc. 

There were a few other men wandering around the courtyard, and he could see two standing together on the far wall near the cramped keep, but no one paid him any mind. “They will the second I push this over, though,” he said to himself as he sheathed his sword for a moment and looked at the heavy chunk of steel he’d have to topple to enter. 

While his sword treated armor like tinfoil, he still chose his bow for the next portion of his attack. As soon as he kicked over the cutout he’d just made and stepped through, he was knocking an arrow to his weapon and pulling back. For his first shot, he didn’t bother to use magic. It was only twenty or so yards away. He just aimed for the man in the middle of the group and fired.

The result was spectacular. Even as the first man started to shout an alarm, and two more drew their weapons, one of the younger men, who might have been a squire, was hit square in the chest. On its own, that would have been a killing shot for one and not a bad opener, but even as the shaft sunk into the young man, lightning arced out of the arrowhead in all directions. 

Simon could have used fire and blown him to pieces, but greater diffuse lightning caused chain lighting to reach out in a dozen different directions, catching almost all of his fellows. Those who were not killed in the blast were maimed and stunned by it. Simon smiled at that, deciding that it was even more effective than he thought it would be, as he looked for his next target. 

He found it in the form of the man who was running toward the large bell in a tower at least fifty yards away, and he calmly took another arrow from his quiver and took aim. 

Not all of his experiments worked. His attempt to harvest strength from wretched goblins had been a complete failure, but apparently, magical frag grenades were a thing now, and if he was going to kill someone anyway, he had no qualms with using their life to fuel that sort of spell. 

The next arrow he fired was perfectly normal. It was only the words of distant shaping he whispered as he released it that made it special. At this distance, Simon didn’t have a prayer of hitting that guy from here in a single shot, but with magic, he didn’t need to. The arrow found its way right to the base of his neck in a single arcing shot that was utterly improbable. 

As soon as he’d fallen off the catwalk, Simon was drawing his sword once more to deal with the other men who were approaching him. He still had like six hours before crunch time, but if he was going to purge a vampire nest, then he absolutely wanted to make the best use of his time. The clock was ticking, and unlike most of his quests, he was on a timer here.