Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 41

Cleaning up the literal mess in the ballroom and the figurative mess that stemmed from what happened in the ballroom took well in to the next day. The wounded needed healing, bodies had to be carried out, structural damage had to be patched up, and prisoners were carted off and interrogated. A group of Alahna’s royal guards asked Kay, very politely but very insistently, if he would check everyone they could get their hands on for monstrous replacements. At that point, with multiple people turning into black goo monsters and attacking people in public, any chance of keeping the secret completely under wraps was gone and the guards felt it was more important to stave off another attack if one was waiting in the wings.

Eleniah followed along as the guards corralled people and had Kay check them over quickly. The circumstances gave Kay the ability to experiment openly and melting the blob monster away with waves of blood had given him some ideas. No one that was brought in front of Kay, dragged or escorted, or that he was brought to set off any of his vampiric senses. He also tried splashing blood on people instead of taking the time to inject it into them. It was enough for everyone in the moment, although one of the guards muttered about getting Kay to redo everyone if needed. They went through dozens and then of people, by the end city guards and notable adventurers that were close enough to grab were brought in and had splashes of blood dropped on them simultaneously. No one was an impostor and the royal guard gave the same story to anyone who protested or asked too many questions, there’d been an attempt on the queen’s life and a special magic was being used to make sure no one was a collaborator. Kay gave it decent points for a cover up, since it was technically true, just in pieces.

The only eldritch fake caught in the hunt was found trying to break their way out through an unused servants corridor. Later reporting revealed that they’d just stood up in the middle of their shared room with other servants in training and walked off, right about the time that the blob monster it’s fellow dopplegangers had become started dying. Somewhere along the way they’d gotten trapped in a closed off section of the passages between walls that let servants travel quickly and instead of turning back the fake teenager had started trying to beat his way through the walls. It was unknown why it didn’t transform in its efforts to escape, but the loud sounds of it pounding on the stonework had drawn attention to it.

It attacked the royal guards that were tasked to investigate the banging, still not transforming or showing any powers beyond what a regular teenager would have throughout the fight. The guards who’d subdued it had thought that they’d caught one of Karmondur’s conspirators when they’d taken it down and tied it up, not something else, but they’d brought it in front of Kay anyway. A splash of blood and a few seconds of waiting revealed it as one of the eldritch beings. It had stared down at its hand that was sizzling and bubbling as it turned into black sludge with the same void expression as the others. Slowly raising its head, it opened its mouth and made the first noise Kay had heard any of the things makes. It sounded like television static mixed with dubstep music, a dial up modem screaming, and the voices of the dammed screaming. Everyone jumped back from the thing, and Kay instinctively responded to what he believed was an attack, coating the thing in blood and dissolving it.

With the thing dead and nothing concrete learned the whole experience was set aside as something to unpack later, and the testing spree continued, although not for much longer past that, as they ran out of people that it was worth putting effort into acquiring to verify if they were truly themselves. As testing turned to interrogation, they learned some interesting, and potentially horrifying news. The thing they’d caught hadn’t been the only person who’d stood up without a word and walked off, all at the same time. None of the others were found as the evening turned into the night and night turned to early morning. The royal guard stopped assuming Kay would do whatever they told him to, thankfully for them they didn’t tell him to do anything untoward at any point, and he moved on. As soon as he was free to move where he wanted, he headed directly for the room where he’d first seen the black goo, the storage room where they held the remains of the first doppleganger discovered.

“Have the guards who are there been briefed?” Kay asked of the royal guard still following him around, after telling the man where he was going.

The grim faced veteran nodded once. “Yes, you already tested everyone at the palace and anyone close enough to bring back in. The ones who were there were rotated out and replaced with a set who you cleared.”

“Good. If they’re real people and they try to attack me, its your job to stop them before a fight starts.” Kay glanced next to Lauren who was marching next to him opposite Alahna’s guard. “Don’t get lethal unless they turn into a goo monster.”

Stutter stepping as he tried not to trip, the guard’s head snapped to his with a look of confusion and shock. “What!? But you tested them!”

“They got left alone with the body of an enemy who I’m not sure is dead.”

His eyes went wide. “Oh. I… I can get them to cooperate. If they don’t, then…”

“Good.”

They swept around the corner in formation, Kay only slowing down because the two Blood Guard in front of him were physically, and purposefully, blocking him from getting in front of them. At the end of the hallway stood two more royal guards, who watched carefully as they approached. The guard following Kay snapped something at them which Kay didn’t understand when they were five feet away. The two guards on duty responded with more gibberish and the first one ordered them to hold out their hands. Glancing at each other, they obeyed slowly, keeping the path to get a hand on a weapon unblocked. There was no sizzling, melting, or turning into sludge when Kay dripped blood on them and everyone relaxed, except for Kay.

“Anyone else inside?”

“Two more, watching the container.” One of the new guards responded.

“Okay. One of you open the door so I can blast the room, then we can move in if its safe.”

After a quick shuffle of people in the hallway so everyone could fit, Kay ended up holding his arm over the shoulder of one of his defensively minded Blood Guard, waiting for one of Alahna’s royal guard to swing the door open. After a quick and quiet count, they did just that, and Kay let a red fire hose coat everything in the room. Two humanoid shapes in the converted storage room started thrashing immediately, and the substance in the container slammed the lid open and started to climb toward the ceiling. Red pseudopods grabbed it and dragged it under, mobile liquid battling mobile liquid. Kay had the advantage in volume and managed to submerge the living oil slick and disintegrate it before it could escape.

As it struggled against the dissolving agent trying to unmake it, Kay concentrated on the goop, trying to learn about it as best he could in the limited time frame he had. They couldn’t hold on to any of it to study, not if Kay’s nascent theory was right. Reaching out and pulling with blood cells even as the magic in those cells and the substance they made up removed his sample, Kay tried to pull the thing apart to see its insides. Just like before there didn’t seem to be an inside, just a solid mass of material that could move on its own. One cell grazed a tiny fragment of it and Kay’s frown of concentration became a frown laced with worry and tension.

The three guards stared frantically at the small room while Kay drained the blood away. “Where are their bodies?”

“We got to the door, they went in, the door closed, and we heard nothing. No one’s gone in and come out. Where did they go?”

“It ate them.” Kay responded.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“What?”

“It ate them.” Kay repeated, glancing around at every surface nearby. Grimacing, he sloshed blood over everything and everyone. He let it linger on the surprised royal guards, Blood Guard, and Eleniah before storing it again. “We need to go talk to Alahna.” Without saying anything else he turned and left the bewildered guards behind.

He found Alahna in a large meeting room hurling orders at people in military uniforms. Some were admirals and ship captains and the rest were generals and leaders of ground troops. She was giving them orders about taking control of traitorous nobles’ territories and what to do with armed resistance. When Kay entered she stopped mid sentence.

“King Kay. Is there anything I can do for you right now?”

“Yes. We need to talk about the issue you asked for me to assist with.” Kay replied with a level look.

Alahna must have seen something in his eyes because she immediately stood and started moving toward another door. “Work up plans based on the information we have now,” She ordered the officers, “When I return we can go over everything again before anyone sets out.”

They moved together into another, smaller meeting room, the same size as the one they’d had their first candid meeting with Alahna. She gestured for them to sit and took a seat of her own after activating a small enchanted item. “There. I’m sure that you can guess what this does, but if not, its incredibly hard to eavesdrop on this conversation now. They’re expensive things but worth it.” She took a moment to breath deeply before looking back up at Kay. “I don’t think you’d interrupt me at a time like this without important information. What did you find?”

Kay knew that trying to explain his theory, which he was pretty sure was correct at this point and that made him quite scared, would take ages. Not for any lack of intelligence on Alahna’s part but because she didn’t have foundational knowledge to build her understanding on. There were parallels with magic thankfully, and just telling her what things did would be generally easy as long as she didn’t ask for the mechanics behind the actions, but he still thought it was better to tell her what had gone on while she was busy instead. With some minor additions from the royal guard who was still around Kay told her about testing everyone, finding out the capture teen wasn’t real, and discovering the still living enemy and the deaths of the two guards.

Alahna let her head loll back against the couch. “Damn. Damn. This could not be happening at a worse time.” She sighed, “I take that back, it obviously could, but this is still bad. And from the way you’re looking at me, it’s probably about to be worse.”

Eleniah, who had been a silent observer since the end of the fight, leaned forward and smacked her palm down on the small coffee table in between the two couches. “I’m going to make it a little worse myself. Why the hell didn’t you tell us you were expecting a coup attempt during the dance party you told us to go to!?”