The stone door rumbled open, dust shaking from it, filling the dimly lit air. The hiss of long-sealed air beyond the door was loud, momentarily drowning out the anxious breathing of the dozen warriors standing behind the rogue and wizard who had managed to figure out the locking mechanism that finally opened the long-sealed tomb of the great pharaoh Casshepshut the Third. Behind them lay over a dozen floors of the deadly dungeon, the pharaoh’s tomb no simple matter to navigate. Hundreds if not thousands of people had tried over the centuries to plunder the tomb, but none had succeeded, and only a handful of those had made it out alive; those who were not so fortunate had joined the ranks of undead swarming the graven halls.
There had been nearly a hundred brave souls when the endeavor started, and over the course of the many days it had taken them to traverse the maze-like tomb, fighting horrors beyond imagining and trying to avoid or disable traps of the most deadly ingenuity, there were now only fifteen left. Aside from the haggard fighters, the rogue, and the wizard, a lone priestess remained of the dozen who had entered with the party.
“Is this really it? Are we…are we here at last? The Dark Queen’s tomb?” asked the kerryn priestess, her tail twitching back and forth nervously behind her soiled holy robes.
“This is it, without a doubt,” said the elven wizard, his voice heavy with weariness. “There is simply nowhere else to go within this tomb but here. You can already see it…her sarcophagus lies there, still sealed.”
“Nobody locks a door like that if they aren’t protecting the most valuable damn thing ever; she’s got to be in there, and hopefully with all her damn treasure,” said the halfling rogue, her voice on edge, but eager.
The paladin of Lashanna stepped forward, approaching the threshold of the opened chamber, sword and shield, still caked with the dark stains of countless slain undead, held boldly before him as he turned to address everyone. “We end this now, everyone. This is the night that Casshepshut’s reign of terror ends. She’ll haunt the night no more, and we’ll see a real dawn once we leave this place. No longer shall the people of Orrorhnictus suffer the monstrous hordes of the night! We’ve persevered this far, and we can see this mission through! Onward!”
With the rogue leading the way, the warriors spread out into two lines until they could be sure that there weren’t any further traps. The wizard and the priestess hung toward the back of the line, eyes glued to the sarcophagus, just waiting for something to come out of it. Surely the great mummy knew they were here? It had to be readying a terrible offensive by now.
As the tense minutes passed, the rogue had cleared the way to the sarcophagus and then had taken extra time to make sure that it wasn’t trapped. At last, she gave the thumbs up and scurried aside, letting the paladin and the other warriors surround the stone enclosure.
The paladin offered a prayer of protection, and the priestess mirrored it, only to Saressh. As the protective magic washed over them and hands tensed on weapons, the paladin nodded, and two warriors began pushing the lid of the sarcophagus aside.
A deep rumble echoed throughout the chamber as the massive lid was moved, and at last, it fell to the floor with a mighty crash.
There was silence in the room as the paladin kept his sword angled into the mummy’s resting place.
Why hadn’t it reacted yet?
“Aren’t mummies…supposed to be…dried up and covered in bandages?”
“She looks…fleshy.”
“Are those elf ears? Wasn’t Casshepshut a human?”
“It’s…like no mummy I’ve ever seen before,” said the paladin.
There was a slow intake of breath, and then a heavy sigh from within the sarcophagus. “That is because I am not a mummy, you idiot.” The voice was certainly female, though flat and emotionless, and with an unfamiliar accent.
“In Lashanna’s name, may her holy wrath consume thy undead flesh!” roared the paladin, his sword flaring with brilliant light as he brought forth the smiting power of his goddess. He plunged the blade downward in a decisive strike, obviously intending to go for the chest of whatever lay within.
As the brilliant light faded, it revealed a look of shock upon the paladin’s face, a sudden loss of confidence that caused the gathered warriors to take a step back, their own confidence wavering.
Another sigh from within the sarcophagus. “You disturb my slumber, and you are this disappointing?”
The paladin roared as he put his full weight upon the holy blade, the gleaming silver glowing again with Lashanna’s divine power. Through the intense light, a delicate-looking hand could be seen grasping the sword blade as it was pushed back. With what seemed to be a casual effort, the paladin was flung bodily from the side of the sarcophagus, across the chamber, where he slammed into the wall, his armor groaning at the impact. His sword clattered to the floor a few feet away as he slumped to the ground, rolling onto his side, moaning in pain as his arms clutched his midsection.
Rising from the confines of the sarcophagus was a naked female form, elven, with ghostly pale skin and long dark hair, green bordering on black, tied in a thick braid that was nearly as long as she was tall. She was short, delicate in appearance, not even five feet tall. There were no marks upon her from the paladin’s sword. Her closed eyes opened, revealing a supernatural red glow, and as she opened her mouth, fangs could be seen. “I wish not to be disturbed. This is your only warning to leave this place and allow me to return to my slumber. If you shall not grant me this, then your only recourse is to slay me, if you can. Face me, and it shall be to the death. There will be no mercy.”
“Vampire!” cried one of the warriors, weapons raising. The priestess uttered a prayer, holy light spilling over the warriors to bolster them against the powers of the undead and to grant them a holy barrier to aid in their defense.
The wizard uttered a quick incantation, his hands moving rapidly. With a final utterance, more magic washed over the assembled warriors, and they began to move faster, almost a blur. Seemingly as one they rushed at the naked woman, spears, axes, swords, maces, halberds, all flying at the vampiric elf.
And they all struck, some bursting with fire and electricity, others glowing with inborn magic, a few others with less brilliant holy energy than that of the paladin’s sword.
The elf didn’t move, didn’t seem to react. With the multitude of weapons pressing against her, her eyes blinked.
Across the room, the paladin stirred, snatching up his holy blade as he staggered to his feet, saying something that only the kerryn priestess and perhaps the elven wizard could hear: “Ngggh…not a…not a vampire…” His teeth were gritted as he called for Lashanna’s light and touched his chest to restore his battered body.
The elf closed her eyes again, head drooping as she sighed once more, a heavy, dejected sound. “So disappointing. Death it shall be, then.”
One of the bigger warriors rushed behind her, wrapping his arms around the slender body. “Stake her! Through the heart!”
As others moved to follow the order, a strange look passed over the warrior’s face who grappled the vampire. As the stakes were brought to bear, he staggered backward, holding his muscled bare arms before him. Black splotches had appeared, tracing throughout his veins as an anguished cry brought him to his knees.
The stakes struck at the heart of the elven woman, shattering into splinters as they impacted her delicate-looking flesh.
The priestess ran to the warrior’s side, recognizing a virulent poison when she saw it, but as she began uttering the prayer of nullification, the warrior slumped to his knees, then to his side, frothing at the mouth as his body seemed to decay before her eyes.
He was dead before she even had a chance to heal him.
A panic spread through the warriors as they skittered away from the nude elf, who still hadn’t moved from her place within the stone enclosure.
The wizard uttered another spell, throwing his hands out toward the elf, a bolt of green energy racing toward her. It was a most powerful spell, one that could turn the hardest metal into powder, the same with any flesh, alive or dead. It could destroy constructs of pure force!
The woman didn’t react as the deadly green bolt struck her. The magic seemed to dissolve as it flowed around her, becoming so much harmless light.
Even the wizard was shocked, taking several steps back, mouth agape.
At this, the rogue finally made a move, having remained out of sight below the lip of the sarcophagus. Silent as death, she leaped behind the elf, her enchanted shortsword and dagger plunging toward the elf’s unprotected back, glowing with holy light.
Only one arm of the elven being moved, her gaze never wavering as her arm shot out behind her, snatching the halfling in midair by the collar of her armor. “If you face me, face me honestly. I give no quarter to assassins.”
As the elf spoke, a look of horror spread over the halfling’s face, which quickly began to wither. A pathetic whimper escaped her. Her already small body seemed to shrink further, and by the time the elven woman dropped it to the ground, it was a desiccated husk, seemingly all lifeblood gone.
The elven woman seemed ever so slightly less pale.
Had she just consumed all of the halfling’s blood without biting her?!
Too stunned by the revelation of what she saw, the priestess couldn’t move as the paladin charged forward, leaping high and coming down with the searing holy light blazing from his sword once again. “Lashanna! Grant me the strength to slay this monstrosity!”
“It seems that the foolish persistence of paladins has not changed,” mused the nude woman, her voice still cold and lifeless. She finally moved, turning to face the paladin’s charge, though she remained otherwise motionless.
The paladin’s leaping slash crashed against the small elf, holy power exploding from his blade and surging around her body. He followed up with four more quick strikes, each causing a thunderous burst of sound to echo within the chamber.
He stood, sword pressed firmly against the elven woman’s breastbone, a look of shocked disbelief upon his face. This simply could not be!
“Only at the time of your death do you realize a profound truth,” said the woman. One of her hands grasped the glowing sword blade, smoking rolling, but seemingly not affecting her in the slightest as her other hand touched the paladin’s breastplate and drew him closer. Throwing his sword aside, she moved faster than even the magically enhanced warriors, sinking her fangs into the paladin’s neck.
He too withered, his body going limp. A darkening of skin spread from her lips, through his quickly dwindling veins. The poison in the woman would have killed him without question had he not been drained of all of his blood before it could do so.
As the paladin died, his corpse tossed aside, another surge of holy power rose from his desiccated form, spreading throughout the chamber. His final act, his very soul bolstering the will of those allies that remained, filling them with resolve and divine power and the will to destroy the vile creature that had slain him.
The priestess felt this too and uttered another prayer of protection to Saressh.
The wizard released a flurry of quick spells, burning through his arcane energy in a cloud of magical bolts, rays of fire, multicolored beams of light.
As the spells crashed into the elven woman, the warriors were already upon her, weapons striking with deadly precision, aiming for her central mass, for the neck and head, anything vital.
There was a sudden impact that rocked the chamber as though an earthquake had begun, and the sarcophagus crumbled. The shockwave sent the priestess rolling along the ground, her habit flying from her head. The wizard likewise tumbled and rolled. Warriors flew in all directions but for two, who remained in the unbreakable grip of the elven woman, their bodies shriveling as their lifeblood was taken from them.
“Run! We must escape this place!” shouted the wizard. “We must warn everyone of what lies here!” He regained his feet, uttering another spell, hands somehow remaining steady as he brought out the components he needed.
As the remaining warriors picked themselves up, a shimmering box of pure force appeared around the crumbled remains of the sarcophagus and the monstrous elf. “She cannot escape the field! Run while you can!” shouted the elf.
Several of the warriors did just that, running in terror, leaving their weapons behind. Others remained, unable to resist the urge to keep fighting as they gathered about the wizard.
The elven woman finally took a step, approaching the cage of force. Her hand touched it, and she cocked her head, her red eyes turning toward the wizard.
She pushed her hand forward, and the force cage cracked around it, then exploded into thousands of motes of harmless light. “It seems you were incorrect, wizard.”
Any remaining confidence the wizard had was shattered as his force cage had been. He stumbled backward, muttering incoherently to himself, eyes wide and filled with terror.
The elven woman was suddenly behind him.
Nobody had seen her move.
The wizard’s body shriveled as she sank her fangs into his neck, drawing his lifeblood into herself.
The remaining warriors tried to dislodge her, but they couldn’t budge her in the slightest, their weapons having no effect upon her flesh, their strength useless.
Dropping the husk of the wizard, the elf sighed again, looking up to the ceiling of the chamber with a momentary flash of emotion on her face. The priestess recognized it as sadness before it was replaced with the stony emotionless visage that had been there before.
With no apparent effort on her part, the elven woman caught the blade of the massive sword wielded by one of the largest warriors in the group, a giant’s greatsword, claimed years ago in an intense battle with a storm giant warlord. With only the slightest movement, she flipped the massive blade from his hand, the hilt landing in her own, which was seemingly far too small for such a large weapon.
She took hold of the hilt, raising the blade as easily as though it were a rapier, and whipped it about her in a motion that was too fast to follow. She let the tip of the blade fall to the ground as the warriors stumbled backward, falling into multiple pieces.
The priestess shrieked in terror as their blood stopped in midair and flowed into the woman standing amongst the carnage.
The elven woman turned her head to the priestess, regarding her with head cocked to one side.
Then she was in front of the priestess, her diminutive form looming over the kerryn as if it were just as large as the original wielder of the sword she now had in hand. “Shall you cast your magic upon me then? Will you join your allies in their final resting place?”
The priestess whimpered, shaking her head. She was vaguely aware of the growing warmth between her legs which would further stain her holy robes.
The terrifying red glow in the elven woman’s eyes began to fade, then vanished altogether, replaced with a more natural-looking amber color.
“W-w-w-who a-a-are y-y-you?” stammered the priestess, still unable to move, though with the woman’s eyes no longer glowing, the terror that had consumed her had diminished. “Y-your n-not C-C-C-Casshepshut…”
Again cocking her head, the elven woman looked about the chamber. “I recall leaving her remains near the sarcophagus. It seems they have wasted away to nothing. How long has it been?”
The priestess gaped, shaking her head.
“What year is it, kerryn?”
“Uhhh…i-its um…t-ten-one-forty-eight…”
The elven woman brought the massive sword over her shoulder, turning her back to the kerryn. “So…nearly five thousand years. It took that long before you were able to breach this tomb. It seems that I picked well.” She turned back to the priestess. “I am Yasraena Achikariael Onimatsuri, in answer to your inquiry.”
“A-are y-you going to k-kill m-me?”
“Should I? Do you wish me harm? Though you bolstered your allies, you did not attack me directly. You seem far too timid for that. My hunger is sated from my long slumber, and you are safe for now, kerryn.”
“Um…R-Raz-Razalieda. I’m Razalieda Shikigeru.”
Yasraena raised her chin, looking down at Razalieda unblinking. Though hard to discern, there was something in her faintly glowing eyes.
After several very uncomfortable moments, Razalieda gulped. “I-is something w-wrong?”
Yasraena blinked, then turned her attention back to the chamber’s exit. “You…remind me of someone I knew long ago. Even your name sounds…similar. Why did your band come here, Razalieda?”
“T-to slay the great mummy lord Casshepshut. We…we thought she was responsible for keeping the darkness that plagues this sector alive. It has spread to many surrounding planets and systems since, so we have been trying for hundreds of years to cleanse this planet.”
“Planets? Systems? I take it to travel amongst the stars is commonplace now?”
“Yes, actually. It’s only been in the last couple of decades that we’ve managed to gain a foothold on this world and create a handful settlements, though I guess they’re more like fortifications. Holy bastions where various groups try to cleanse the evil here. Something about the planet won’t let all the advanced technology we have function, though, otherwise we would have cleansed it from orbit. We can’t even get our ships too close to the planet without them failing and threatening to crash. Anyone who comes here has to use magic, and that’s getting rarer these days.”
“I do not recall this place being as you describe when I last was awake. Interesting.”
“What are you going to do now?” Razalieda asked, finally coming to her feet, still clutching at her holy symbol.
“Part of me wishes to return to slumber, but if there are such wondrous technologies that you could devastate a world so casually, perhaps my suffering can finally be ended.” Yasraena turned her head back to regard Razalieda. Her cool stare continued for another uncomfortable stretch, but at last, she nodded to the chamber exit. “Come along priestess. If there is such a great evil here, then I must allow it a chance to slay me. Perhaps even I will be surprised.”
Yasraena spoke cooly, almost no emotion in her voice, though she seemed more…expressive when speaking of the great evil slaying her. Razalieda, gulped, recalling what the paladin had said. “Um…what did the paladin mean when he said you weren’t a vampire? What was that truth you mentioned?”
“If you wish to know, then cast your detection magic upon me. I shall allow it.”
Suddenly very nervous once again, Razalieda nodded, holding forth her holy symbol and uttered her prayer, focusing upon Yasraena. As the holy light spread and touched Yasraena, Razalieda’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak.
“Now you know what he realized upon his death. I am still very much alive and contrary to his most fervent beliefs, and perhaps appearances,I am not evil; I simply acted as nature demanded, and I did give warning, did I not? Come along; this place has become unpleasant.”
“B-but my allies! I can’t just leave their bodies here! The corruption of this place will surely turn them into undead!”
“Perform your holy rights if you must, then,” Yasraena replied after a moment’s consideration. “I am nothing if not patient.”
Hey there, y’all! I couldn’t find the time last weekend what with the holiday to manage a post, but I’m going to attempt to get back on track this weekend, at least until the next holiday weekend upends my schedule again.
Anywho, a bit of background on this story:
Yasraena is one of my old D&D characters from back in the 3E era, specifically from around the time the Epic Level Handbook came out. The campaign was meant to be an over-the-top, epic level campaign from the get-go, so OP characters were allowed by the DM. The DM didn’t go by ECL, rather just CR modifier of templates for this one, so you had the choice of starting at level 5, or having any amount of CR modifiers if you chose to have a template or two. I started at level 1, having picked to create an elf (half surface, half drow), who was also a dhampir and an ermordenung (a creature from the Ravenloft setting). Our first game was basically a tournament amongst the players to see where they stood when facing one another. Though I was level 1, I wound up winning, having suffered only 1 point of damage throughout the tournament, which was immediately healed on my turn thanks to my fast healing.
I was off to a good start on the over-powered scale, lol.
Things got crazier as we built up toward the Epic Level Handbook content, Yas would prove to be the group’s big hitter, specializing in a mercurial greatsword (x4 crit on a greatsword!). Nearly everyone else went into some form of dual-wielding or multi-wielding (one character had like 30 attacks per round due to dual wielding and ‘wing blades’ with the multiattack feats). We were very light on arcane ability since it was meant to be a campaign based around an elite fighter school, by the way. She only ever had five or six attacks at most, but she was a consistent hitter, and thanks to her massive strength and con, she could deliver some massive hits, even without a critical, and could take anything that got dished out.
Now, the DM also decided to reintroduce something from the 2E days that I feel was more along the lines of craziness from a new DM than something that should have come back, but for whatever reason, a life-stone was put into the game. These things came from epic-level creatures that looked like Mokona from Magic Knight Rayearth (does that take anyone else back?), which had vorpal attacks, a high crit range, and if you died from it, it ate you and your gear, and couldn’t be resurrected. The trade-off, though, for killing one of these things was a chance that a life stone would drop. To make use of these, you had to swallow the things, and then survive a massively high Fortitude save to live (or suffer the same consequences as getting eaten). Passing this check, you now received half damage from all sources, and got massive save bonuses and immunity to death effects (I think that was right on the last part anyway; it has been a few years…).
By the time we got hold of one of these, Yas had started into her epic class levels, namely a Legendary Dreadnaught, which conveniently enough, comes with a 2nd level ability to get +20 on any one saving throw per day. With her already massive saves, there was only one way she would have failed, and thankfully, I didn’t roll a 1.
To make things even more ridiculous, there was a special boost at some point to represent some super special training that basically bumped everyone like 15 or 20 levels. Instead of that, though, I took the Paragon template from the Epic Level Handbook. If Yasraena was crazy-powerful before, she was even more so now. One particular fight near the end of the campaign saw us facing down a literal army of world-destroying creatures known as Hecatoncheires. These things were badass back in the day, and the whole party teamed up to take one on, managed to kill it throughout all their attacks in two rounds. Remember, all of them were mutli-wielding with a massive number of attacks.
Yasraena walked up to one of these and one-rounded it with five or six attacks.
Yeah…she might have been a bit OP, lol.
To the reason behind this story…I was actually inspired by a Halloween rewatch of the Vampire Hunter D movies this year, and some discussion with the gaming group of some of the novels. Yas is certainly similar to D in a lot of ways, as she was basically an experiment for her mother to attain power, not to mention the in-universe power scale. So, I started wondering what she would be doing throughout her life, and decided that she would likely have grown extremely bored and tired of living, but her nature wouldn’t allow her to end things herself; she would want to be defeated in battle. And when you’re the most powerful thing walking, that’s going to be difficult.
So, without a lot of background info on the situation, I got it in my head that she decided to just go to sleep in the most dangerous place she could find, and just see if anything had changed if she ever woke up. To her great disappointment, nothing really has; paladins are just as stupid as ever, and everyone just has to try to slay the apparent vampire. So now, in the far future, she’s back on her quest to find something badass enough to kill her, or perhaps, she’ll find something else to live for.
We’ll see…could be a whole series of stories here.
Anyway, thanks for reading, everyone; hope you enjoyed the story, and my little journey into my D&D past. Let me know what you think! Hit me up with a comment here, or stop by my Discord server!
