Chapter I

Vampires, beings that rejected their humanity in exchange to gain power, they appeared as suddenly as the magic did. They kill to calm the thirst of blood, and their favorite one, is the blood that can remind them what they once were, human blood. Mankind knew they only had two options, surrender or fight for their lives, but resistance was futile. The vampires had enough power to take down hundreds of knights by their own, the relationship between humans and vampires was like that of a hunter and his prey. 

The situation didn’t change until the church discovered how to properly use magic thanks to their constant prayers, they founded a force to fight those monsters that caused nightmares to everyone for so long, the Vampire Peacemakers, the only warriors that could fight in this war against the horror itself. For many years, mankind and vampires were in a constant draw, no matter how many fights they had… but one of those fights was where things started changing.

The task had to be done in a vampire fortress, and only a few Peacemakers could accomplish such thing, but things didn’t seem to go as expected, we can see the Peacemaker running away from a group of vampires.

"Take him!" The vampires chased the man, at least until he left behind his steps a tiny piece of paper with strange runes on it. The vampires could see it only when it started glowing just a few centimeters from them, followed by an explosion that blew up the entire hall. The Peacemaker nearly made it to the next room, he ran through just to be surprised by an ambush, surrounded by at least fifteen vampires keeping their distance.

"Now, Fire!" the vampires used their magic to prepare projectiles made of ice, shooting all at once. Answering to the movement, the man took a scroll, forming a tiny dome of fire. No one could see anything, the vampires were confused, they didn’t know if he was dead or alive, but suddenly, the window at the end of the room Shattered into pieces, and from the fire emerged the Peacemaker, jumping off the window as he holstered a gun.

The entire castle could be seen from there, the man took a tiny marble from his bag and threw it, aiming to the next tower as the vampires jumped off the window too, chasing him. "End of the line, Peacemaker!" shouted one of the vampires just before being surprised seconds before catching him. The man suddenly turned into a tiny beam of light that flew away fast enough to confuse every enemy.

"Where did he go?!"
"Find him! We can’t let him escape!" As they failed chasing the objective, the Peacemaker reappeared again exactly where the marble that he threw some seconds ago was. He ran through the new hall, finding two vampires in his way as guards of a giant door just behind them "How is he-!?" before one of them ended the sentence, the Peacemaker took down both vampires with his weapon at the same time, a mix between a whip and a sword. Just a single slash from the distance was enough, the sword retracted again, giving it the shape of a normal sword.

The Peacemaker opened the door with a kick and entered the room walking, he found the place he was looking for. The room was illuminated, but just the half where the door was, the other half was in complete darkness, one could barely see anything but a pair of glowing red eyes, looking with contempt at the man. A vampire appeared just to block his way at a distance "Surrender Peacemaker, no matter how many vampires you have defeated, you are no match to our lo-!" once more, a quick slash from his special sword took down another vampire from the distance, this was enough to make the red-eyed gaze waver, and just after that, the Peacemaker made his words. "I’m Vaelion, veteran Peacemaker. I’m here to kill the Vampire Lord, Alice Bloodbane" his voice was cold and serious, he didn’t hesitate at any moment while talking, his sword was aimed at the red eyes in the dark. But they disappeared, not because of any kind of trick or magic, the lord just closed her eyes. The steps could be heard, slowly walking to the Peacemaker.

After the steps went on for a few seconds, the lord showed up, surprising the Peacemaker instantly, but not for being the biggest menace he had ever seen. It was just a tiny and cute-looking girl, she wasn’t much taller than a meter and a half. She was standing there crossing her arms proudly with a smug smile "Seems like you are really good at your work, Peacemaker, but you won’t go any further" she said with confidence, the vampires behind her were looking at their lord with total happiness, as if she was their heroine. "That’s our lord!" were the first words heard, but soon others did the same.
"Show him his place!"
"Lord Alice, our savior!" As the vampires praised her, she continued talking to the Peacemaker.

"You see, your ran out of luck the very moment you decided to-" after a while, she stopped her monologue to shout at Vaelion who showed a face of complete disappointment.

"Hey! Are you listening to me?!" Alice turned mad as soon as she noticed Vaelion’s disrespectful behavior.

"Are you really Alice? The vampire lord I have to hunt…?" asked Vaelion instead of answering.

"Yes! I am Alice Bloodbane, the Vampire Lord! Do you have any problem with that?!" 

"I thought you would be taller." these words made Alice even angrier.

"Well, I’m sorry to not be as tall as other vampires!" before she continued, Vaelion interrupted her.

"Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter." his answer almost made Alice blow up of pure anger, a single tear could be seen as she was doing her best to not just scream, grumbling and barely managing to contain herself.

"Well, if you are Alice Bloodbane then I should complete my job now." this made Alice change her mood as soon as she saw how Vaelion was about to grab his sword and she tried to stop him in a panic.

"Wait, wait, wait! T-there’s no need to rush, haha…" just after that, she barely stopped Vaelion from commencing the fight and recomposed herself, trying to recover her initial look.

"I-I already lost too many soldiers, if we fight now I would lose even more. So, for the good of my people, I’m willing to negotiate with you." these were the words Alice said, her personal guards were touched by the kind acts of the lord, but it seemed like Vaelion didn’t care much.

"Sorry, but I’m not interested." he said as he gripped his sword again and prepared himself for the fight, being close enough to slash Alice, but just before that, she shouted desperately, covering her face with her arms and closing her eyes.

"N-no! Wait! I can tell you where the other lords are!" this stopped Vaelion from swinging his sword and, for Alice’s surprise, he asked back.

"Really?" Alice nodded repeatedly with energy and gave him a map. then, as he was holding it, she opened the map and marked the locations on it with a quill brought to her by a servant that she had called with the snap of her fingers.

"Here, now you can leave this place, goodbye, have a nice journey!" Alice was already waving at Vaelion with a nervous smile and she started thinking about the situation while the Peacemaker was checking the map «That was close… if he discovered that I’m actually even weaker than this vampires my head wouldn’t be mine anymore…»But her bad luck wouldn’t end here. Vaelion wouldn’t leave so easily.

"Wait, I didn’t say I would accept this." this completely changed Alice’s face in less than a second. "I will accept if you guide me." «There’s no guarantee of this information being true… I should make sure she isn’t lying…» thought Vaelion after establishing the new terms of the negotiation.

"N-no way! I-I need to take care of this place and the people in it, I also have work to do, you know?!" she was panicking after these words, but she just made the situation worse.

"There’s no deal then, I guess." Vaelion placed his hand on his sword once more and instantly made Alice change her mind.

"No, wait, I get it, I’ll guide you!" Alice released a sigh after Vaelion calmed down. «this guy… he really tricked me… I need to get rid of him as soon as possible…»

"Let’s go then, I have work to do." said Vaelion as he was leaving, taking Alice’s arm dragging her across the floor and leaving the place while all her guards wished her good luck, she was shocked by the situation and the doors closed slowly, settling Alice’s destiny.