A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"What the fuck?!" the female vampire cried out when she noticed the obstacle in her way.

Her companion quickly noticed the problem as well and growled, "It's a trap!" The cold, damp air of the cave seemed to close in around them, amplifying the sudden tension they felt.

"Who's out there?!" he roared, frantically looking around.

That's when the two of them finally noticed a human woman who had previously been obscured by the obfuscation sigil. It was Emily. The raven-haired woman had already snuck over to Anders and Amelia, who where struggling with the red-haired vampire.

Currently, the larger Anders was holding his victim in a submission hold. "Dammit, Anders! What the fuck is wrong with you! Let go of me!" he roared while struggling against his larger opponent.

But Anders didn't answer. He was simply obeying his mistress.

Meanwhile, Amelia had jumped up and turned towards the other female vampire, and her black-haired companion.

"You! Who are you?!" the blond woman cried out at Emily, but went ignored. Emily was focused on her task. Her heart pounded as she reached Anders. She pressed the magic circle against her target's forehead, her mind racing. 'Just a few more seconds,' she thought, blocking out the chaos around her.

'If I fail now, everything falls apart.' Her sadistic grin hid the urgency she felt, masking her inner turmoil

Unfortunately, this vampire was a second-ranker, and had not been exposed to Emily's primer aura at all. Thus, it was going to take at least a handful of seconds before the man would succumb to Emily's control.

The red-haired vampire she was enslaving didn't remain idle, however. He could feel Emily worming her way into his head, and it terrified him. "Wha— What are you doing?!" he screamed in a panic. "G— Get out of my head!"

Those words were all that the remaining two vampires needed to understand what was happening. "That woman must be controlling Anders and Amelia somehow!" the black-haired man frowned, furiously. "We need to do something! There's no telling how long it will take her to enslave Hendrik as well!"

"Ignore that wall of plants for now!" he told his female companion, clearly taking the lead in this matter. "We will need to deal with this without Lars for now."

"Alright," the woman nodded while eyes Amelia, who was standing in between them and Emily. "You go for Amelia, I'll take down the woman. There's no way Amelia can stop us both."

No more words needed to be said, and they quickly shot into action. Swirling storm clouds encircled the man's hands as he charged at Amelia. At the same time, small sonic waves exploded from the woman's feet, and she charged at Emily, taking a route that circled around Amelia.

Like a good slave, Amelia tried to intercept the other female vampire and protect her mistress, but was forced to defend herself when a stormy fist flew at her face. She screeched, and her own nails extended with sandy extensions again, before defending herself against the man in front of her.

At this point, no more than three seconds had passed since Emily started enslaving the red-haired vampire, Hendrik. She wasn't entirely oblivious to her surroundings, and knew that the few feet of distance between her and the blond woman would be closed in less than a moment.

Thus, she had prepared for the worst. While her right hand maintained the magic circle in front of Hendrik's head, her left hand clutched a sigil stone. Elora had created this using Erik's spatial affinity, linking it to both Emma and Emily. The stone would teleport them to safety if either was about to die, a final failsafe in their dangerous mission.

When it did, both Ashcroft sisters would be teleported to a random spot, a few hundred meters from here. At that point, the sisters could use Emma's golden disc ability to disappear into the distance.

Unfortunately, that would also mean the failure of their mission here, meaning Erik and Elora's plan would fail. At that point, they might just have to leave Finnmark without ever freeing Astrid's mother and killing Sigurd. Something that Astrid would obviously find unacceptable.

Fortunately, there was still one more combatant in this chamber that the vampires didn't know about.

The female vampire's face was glowing with confidence when her hand was mere inches from Emily's throat, ready to tear it out and free her comrades.

But suddenly, her instincts screamed.

She twisted, ducking to the side, just as a golden disc whizzed past where her neck had been a micro-second ago.

Righting herself, the woman turned and roared, "Who?!" The echo of her voice bounced off the damp cave walls, mingling with the sounds of the ongoing battle.

Her eyes widened in surprise when she noticed the roots and plants that had previously blocked the entrance to the bunker, were now replaced by a woman in a fantastical maid outfit. It had been Emma's first ranked nature spell, which conjures a protective dome around the caster, that previously blocked the entrance.

In order to keep an eye on what was happening, she kept a few gaps open in the dome, allowing her to see the danger. Thus, she quickly dispelled the dome, and conjured her disk to attack the vampire.

Emma's heart pounded in her chest, but determination shone in her eyes. "I won't let you stop us!" she exclaimed, her voice steady despite the fear gnawing at her.

Naturally, Emma knew of the sigil stone, as she also had one, so she knew Emily wasn't in any real danger. She just didn't want to fail the mission and let her master down.

"Dammit, there's another one!" she cried out towards the black-haired man.

"Ignore her, and save Hendrik, dammit! I'm almost done here, and then I'll take down the other girl!" the man exclaimed while on the verge of defeating Amelia. Although Amelia wasn't any weaker than this guy originally, the fact she was now a mindless doll seriously hampered her fighting potential.

The woman realized he was right, and quickly lunged towards Emily again. Unfortunately, the disc also came flying again straight away, forcing her to dodge while cursing.

Afterwards, she immediately lunged again, knowing she only had to get her hands on the raven-haired girl for a moment. Emma was getting desperate, as she still wasn't as adept at controlling this disc as she would like to be, and she knew the vampire woman would eventually get to Emily.

But this time it was different. When she lunged towards the place Emily was just before, she now faced a dull-eyed Hendrik instead.

She was too late.

The enslaved Hendrik punched her in the face, and she skidded back, blood leaking from her nose. "Dammit!" she cursed. "Frederik! We're fucked!" she yelled at the black-haired man.

With Hendrik now enslaved, Emily released a sigh of relief as her heart stopped pounding quite so hard. She shot a grateful look at her little sister, who looked back with chest puffed up in pride.

Frederik, meanwhile, was just dealing the final blow to Amelia, whose bruised body crumpled to the ground. She was still alive, but even enslaved as she was, her body simply didn't obey her anymore.

Unfortunately, their ordeal wasn't over yet. Frederik and the blond haired woman were now engaged by the newly enslaved Hendrik and Anders, who didn't need to hold Hendrik back anymore.

They likely wouldn't last long, however, just as Amelia.

But this gave Emily the time to head for the fourth vampire, who was still bound by lightning chains. Lightning chains that were already showing some cracks due to his struggling, but where still holding for now.

When she reached him, she started the enslavement process all over again, causing this bound man to begin struggling even harder, his eyes wide in panic.

At the same time, Emma conjured the protective dome once more, but this time she stayed outside of it. She darted towards Amelia, skirting around the chaotic battle between Hendrik, Anders, Frederik, and the blonde vampire.

Once there, she started casting her first-ranked healing spell in the hope of getting Amelia back into the fight.

Between a second-ranked Runebound vampire's natural recovery and Emma speeding up the process, Amelia's broken body was recovering at a remarkable speed.

The seconds passed while Amelia healed, the four vampires fought, and Emily tired enslave the chained up man as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough. In the middle of his enslavement, the man roared and finally freed himself from his bonds, quickly pushing Emily away. The raven-haired woman yelped and stumbled back, while the man clutched his head.

"Ah, fuck!" he cried out in pain. "You tried to mess with my mind, you bitch!" he roared, before lunging at Emily, intending to kill her and end this madness.

Emily panicked. Her first-ranked darkness orbs were deadly, but their stopping power was minimal. And this vampire was like a raging bull who only needed to close a few feet of distance between them.

"Did we fail after all?" she sighed inwardly, as she watched the vampire approach and felt her emergency sigil stone pulse, ready to save her life if necessary.

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