woke up in a coffin.
That was one way to wake up. Knowing that I was in a metallic box, with little to non-existent air, as well as cramped and tight corners. However, I was unbothered by this knowledge. Uncaring of the fact that somehow, I had slept on a soft semi-orthopedic five-by-six bed surrounded with duvets, and now I woke up in a coffin.
For someone as claustrophobic as I was, I didn't seem all that worried. I could feel fear beginning to bubble in the deepest corner of my mind. A slowly growing horror at the knowledge that I was buried alive. Yet despite the growing emotion, like a tap that leaked water yet never seemed to fill the bucket, the fear never quite reached me.
I don't know how long I stayed in the coffin, in that dark, dreary silence filled with nothing but my own apathetic thoughts. It could have been an hour. Maybe two. Maybe even a full day. Somehow, my capacity for patience and my ability to feel boredom had become a thing of legend. Still, it didn't take much longer before I decided to move.
The inside of the coffin was engraved, and I was resting quite relaxed and comfortably on what seemed like velvet cushions of the highest order. Considering how heavy the top of a stone coffin would be, and the weight of what I imagined was six feet of dirt pressing against the lid, I didn't have the greatest hope of getting out.
My arms came up, pushing against the coffin lid. Unlike my previous thought, it didn't feel even a quarter as heavy as I expected. The lid came off with barely a hiss before I tilted it to the side. There was no heavy thud of metal on stone. Instead, I could hear the faint whir of machinery as gears and wheels went to work.
Curiosity.
Whatever had happened to my sense of fear, atrophied as it really was, didn't quite seem to reach my curiosity. I felt it at full blast. The questions rang in my head, the what, the why, the where.
My hands reached out. Unfamiliar pale hands. I clasped the corner of the coffin and, with a solid grip, heaved myself out. Where the motion should have been smooth, I didn't expect to straight-up catapult myself out of the coffin. Regardless, I found myself landing smoothly in a crouch. I didn't need a mirror to see the frown on my face as I looked around the room.
I found myself in a majestic and ginormous room. A room filled with luxurious silk curtains that blocked the windows. Expensive-looking chairs that seemed more valuable than anything I had ever owned. A fur rug filled the center of the room, the fur from a beast I could not even name. Yet despite the sheer luxury and opulence, the entire room was in disarray.
The expensive-looking chairs had been upturned. The chandelier hanging above was dented. The curtains had rip marks. The bookshelves that lined the walls were broken, their contents scattered all over. A huge portrait of what seemed like a man and a woman had been ripped, with the focus of the carnage centered on their faces, making identifying them a hassle.
The only thing that seemed unaffected was the black and red coffin nestled in the absolute center of the room. At a glance, it looked to be at least twenty feet away. My brain came to a halt at that realization. Twenty feet. I had leaped at least twenty feet out of the coffin. The previously forgotten fear and worry began to bubble up again, but once more I could sense it without truly feeling it. Without the animal part of my brain screaming that I should run, cry, or preferably hide myself under a chair and wait for things to make sense, I began to move automatically. I was not the neatest person by any definition, but something about the untidiness of the room irked me deeply.
"You can't just leave everywhere scattered, my love. Do I truly have to teach you how to be a gentleman as well?"
I slowed as I came back to myself and realized I had been trying to arrange the room. Or at least make an effort. I had straightened the huge bookshelves, something that looked like it would have taken at least ten men to move. I was halfway through replacing the books when the memory ended.
I remembered a woman. A soft yet vibrant voice so full of life. The smell of roasted garlic. A dash of blonde hair like a streak from a painter's brush. A smile so heartwarming I felt something slip past my eyes. My forearm automatically came up and wiped the liquid away. If I had spared a moment to look at my arm, I would've seen the streak of red on the black sleeve.
Instead, my focus was on the memories. That same intense and innate sense of curiosity filled me. Who was that? The blonde-haired woman with a smile that froze me for long seconds. I tried to search my mind for the memories, yet they were simply inaccessible. Not missing, I knew they were there, yet it felt like some kind of mental block stopped me from reaching them. It didn't matter how much effort I put into thinking about it. It was like futilely battering at the walls of a castle with my bare fist.
Utterly useless. So I just decided to stop. I was done with restocking the shelf and arranging what little I could, and that quieted the thought of disappointing her. With that done, I looked down at myself. There was no mirror present in the room. There was what looked like the remains of one in the corner, unfortunately not spared from whatever calamity had struck. It looked like it had been hit with a wrecking ball, hit so hard it skipped breaking and jumped straight to being pulverized.
A pity. It was one of her favorites.
The thought struck me like a hammer, and I staggered backward away from it. I found I possessed another emotion that didn't seem atrophied, annoyance. It was slowly getting to me. The unknown memories. The unfamiliar environment. The scattered room. I needed to leave. I needed to breathe. I needed out.
I spun on my heels and began to power walk, ignoring the majestic cloak following my movement and the twirl of my hair. I pushed the door open and walked out, leaving the room behind me. If I had the mind for it, I would've stopped and marveled at the passage I found myself in. I would've stopped and wondered about the tapestries that lined the walls, a black dragon on a field of red. I saw it. Or perhaps a glimpse was more accurate.
Yet it didn't seem to register. My feet kept pounding against the floor as they took me down a flight of stairs. I vaguely noted how the stairs seemed to move. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing. There was a smell of parchment, dried blood, and rosemary, as well as a hum. Two different kinds of hums, I realized the more I walked. The first was familiar. The kind I had heard when I pushed open the lid of the coffin.
It was the hum of machinery. Electricity passing through copper. The turning and groaning of gears. It filled the walls and the ground I walked on. I turned a corner, this one lined with plate armors, empty and standing in forever vigilance. My feet carried me down the hallway as I tried to make sense of the other sensation.
It was a different kind of hum. I found it hard to explain. It was in the air. It permeated the ground, the walls, and even me. I felt it in myself, in the blood in my veins. It filled every part of me. I was so immersed in the sensation that it took me long seconds to realize I had come to a stop. I blinked confused eyes as I beheld where my feet had led me. It was a throne room. Just as massive as everything else in this place, humongous to the extreme, filled with the same sense of extravagant and opulent wealth on display.
There were the huge tapestries here as well. Tapestries that held the same design, a black dragon in a field of red. A supermassive chandelier lit up and hung at the center of the throne room, along with more recent electric lights lining the walls. If I were more in the moment, perhaps I would've wondered about the sheer paradox that was this entire place.
Yet like everything else, it seemed too little to worry or think about. Instead, I caressed the armrest of the throne. Just like everything in the building, it was scaled to size. The backrest towered high and was inlaid with what looked like soft red cushion. Judging by the feel of it as I allowed myself to finally sit down, it was.
The throne felt comfortable in a way I could not put into words. Familiar, in fact, I realized as I sunk deeper into it. One hand rested on the armrest and the other cradled my face, while my legs stretched out. All in all, it was a languid posture that spoke of little worries and even less fear. The fingers on my free hand gently tapped against the armrest in a slow familiar rhythm as I looked straight ahead. Past the throne room was what looked like an entrance hallway, and after that, there was a humongous door. It looked like the biggest thing I had ever seen since I woke up.
"My lord, you are awake at last."
I turned my head woodenly to address the figure at my side that had spoken. I had heard him coming from miles away. The clack of his feet upon stone, the thump of his heart in his chest, the breath in the air, the space his presence displaced.
I knew he was coming, yet somehow I had not been worried. There was not the slightest hint of danger radiating from the figure before me. A figure whose voice I recognized quite well. My eyes trailed the figure. Dark brown skin, dull gray hair, pale blue eyes set in a beautiful yet masculine face that seemed fit to do nothing much but smile.
"Hector?" The voice that came from my lips was gravelly. Unfamiliar.
"Yes, my lord. I came as soon as I heard your fingers tapping. You summoned us. I assume once Isaac is done with his self-flagellation, he will come running as well."
I blinked at the response. At the soft smile on his face, a soft smile that was slowly shifting into worry. Yet the worry on his face had nothing on the worry in my heart. That fear, that worry that didn't quite seem to reach the bucket, had finally done so and the bucket was filled and was beginning to spill.
"Get me a mirror."
"My lord—"
"Now, Hector." I cut him short at once with a near snarl, the strength in my voice forcing him to take a step back. He immediately pivoted with a quick bow.
"At once, my lord."
Then he left me. Trapped in my thoughts. For the first time, I looked down at my hands. Pale skin with fingernails that looked fit for ripping out a human heart.
Hector returned shortly after. Yet despite my request, he brought a shard of a mirror instead of an actual one. I didn't bother with a word. Instead, I stretched out a hand. When he placed the mirror in it, I lifted it to my face and froze.
What I saw didn't feel like me. Pale skin like polished marble. Crimson irises ringed with black, bright with inner fire. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. Long black hair, alongside a meticulously crafted goatee and mustache combo. Ears that were just the slightest bit pointed. I reached up and traced my fingers over my face, matching the reflection. The skin was cold, but the pressure and the movement were all mine.
These were the features I had only seen in one animated show I watched years ago. The features of a man that had been ready to drown the world in blood and was only stopped because of his monumental depression and the fact that his heart wasn't in it. History's longest suicide note as his son called It.
I was Dracula Fucking Tepes.And suddenly the impermeable barrier that had blocked my memories and dulled most of my emotions broke. I blacked out in the face of overwhelming horror and dread.
A/N: This is something new I've been working on, and unlike most of my snippets, my interest doesn't seem to be drying up anytime soon. Expect a couple of chapters over the coming days. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Aigloss, RazielofSecrets, LEGENDARYNOT and 842 othersbornsinnerJul 13, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 2 New View contentbornsinnerNot too sore, are you?Jul 13, 2025Add bookmark#32"Don't hurt them. They don't understand. I know it's not your fault, but be better than them. Please!"
That memory, a memory the original Dracula never saw, but one I had watched from the edge of my seat, showed humanity basically asking to be doomed when they made the stupid act of killing Lisa Tepes. Dracula had not been there, and even Alucard had arrived too late to witness the burning. But I had. I had what was basically a front-row seat to it, as the skin melted off her frame, as she screamed her throat raw, as her beautiful blonde hair melted into her scalp and her ey—
My eyes snapped open at once. All that fear, all that worry, had slowly begun to retreat under what I realized was the monumental weight of Dracula's age and sheer inhumanity, numbing my prey like worries and fears. Above it all was his depression, a depression so deep it hung on me like a cloud.
"Where are we?" I found myself whispering as I slowly released my tight fist, watching dispassionately as the powdered remains of my armrest drifted to the floor. The shard of glass I had used to observe myself floated in front of me for long seconds, reflecting how wide my red eyes were.
As if it knew its job was done, it floated away from me and sped far off in a blur, flying back to what I now realized was the study. This was a shard from the mirror Dracula used to view things far away. Why hadn't Hector brought a random mirror? The answer struck me despite the confusion filling me. Vampires didn't have a freaking reflection. That must have been why he had been so surprised at my request. Thankfully, he had been smart enough to remember the magical mirror.
Hector looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and I was made to remember that after Lisa's death, he had been the one I had gone to. Dracula had gone to, I corrected myself. Yet I felt the weight of that distinction to be a waste of effort. There was no distinguishing us. I was Dracula, and Dracula was me.
Which made it hard to suppress the sheer, utter rage that bloomed in my chest at the sight of his face. The first man I had gone to with my plans. The first man I had trusted. The same person who betrayed me, to be strung along by the sash of sweet hips and Carmilla's pretty words and what was his reward? Slavery. Easy, gullible Hector.
She had convinced him too easily. Her words had been easily refutable. It had filled me with outrage to watch it happen. A gentle soul, he had been called. However, this was not that Hector. Not yet. There was still the fact that I had lied to him, not with words. I had never explicitly told him my plans. There was only one person I told those plans to. Instead, I had allowed him to build an idea based on a notion. That was the final thing that helped dull my rage.
"Master Dracula, you seem troubled," a smooth, accented voice called out from my side. Another movement I had heard, cataloged, and then promptly discarded due to my sheer, utter faith in its owner. I would need to stop doing that. Hector had proven that decision a mistake once already. Still, this person was different. The one person I knew whose complete loyalty lay with me.
Dark African skin, with pale brown eyes. He had tattooed dots above his eyes, with dark stripes around the crown of his utterly shaved head. He stared at me coolly. There was none of the worry on Hector's face. There was only a calm sense of apathy. Yet if you knew to look deep into his eyes, there was a madness there.
"I am fine, Isaac. I am tired and weary, but I am fine." I finally allowed my eyes to drop from my most trusted follower. Instead, my gaze fell to the ground. I needed time to think. Time to work through my thoughts.
"Perhaps it is time. You have not fed in over a year now. Not even from the animals in their pens, nor from the blood locked in cold storage. You are powerful, my lord, but even for you…" Hector's voice trailed off.
"Live as a human man would, my love. Do it for me."
"I will take your words into consideration and think it over. But for now, that is all." I dismissed the duo with a wave of my hand. Yet they didn't move. This time, it was Isaac's turn to speak.
"I received word from my night creatures, Master Dracula. Your guests are almost at the doors." The words were punctuated by a heavy pounding on those giant gates that loomed before me.
I let out an annoyed sigh at the banging. I could already tell the identity of the pest responsible.
The gesture came to me easily. I didn't even think it. I simply waved my hand with another sigh and the doors began to swing open slowly. Before I could take the time to wonder how the hell I achieved that, something pushed the door from the other side, expediting their opening. I was immediately greeted by the smell of ale and blood as a red-haired, lanky yet muscled vampire with a ridiculous forked beard walked in.
"Fucking finally. You'd think you didn't want to see us, considering how long I've been knocking already. Now can we get this fucking war council going? I'm up and ready to fuck up some humans."
I knew it was impossible. Our physiology denied it. Yet somehow, I could feel it incoming, a ridiculous headache at the prattling of this stupid, foul-mouthed vampire. I already regretted not killing him the day he and his ragtag bunch of dumb vampires sailed their boats to attack Dracula's castle in Iceland. What sort of vampire sails on boats, knowing how dangerous running water is to our kind?
Stupid Godbrand and his band of smooth-brained vampires. Yes, I was annoyed and irritated by his presence.
Trailing behind the Viking vampire were the figures that would serve as our war council, generals plucked from the corners of the world. Ancient and loyal. Each sworn to Dracula by blood, battle, or fear.
Dragoslav the Carpathian entered after Godbrand. Bald-headed, thick-bodied, and silent, the vampire lord of the Slavic mountains wore heavy armor beneath a cloak the color of old blood. His broad face was all sharp cheekbones, cracked lips, and eyes the color of dirty ice, while his beard had streaks of white in it. He was a vampire whose loyalty had not come easily. It had taken Dracula six months to break past his castle and bend him to his will. The far-casting mirror in Dracula's study had been looted from the man, forged by the old hermit smiths of that region.
He bowed. "My Lord Dracula, Dragoslav of Carpathia attends to you."
Cho followed after him, gliding like a ghost behind Dragoslav. She was tall, not as tall as me, but more than some humans. Long raven-black hair flowed down her back, and her body was wrapped in gold and crimson robes. Her black eyes turned to me. Cho was old. Maybe even older than Dracula, she had been born before the fall of the Tang Dynasty. Once a concubine turned sorceress, she drank the blood of her emperor and turned her imperial palace into a nest. Dracula had not conquered her, Instead, he had earned her loyalty with knowledge. Taught her true magic. A favor for a favor. It had been enough to make her bow.
The twin figures of Raman and Sharma came in next. The duo were a rare occurrence: siblings turned vampires together. They looked younger than the others, their skin not quite sun-kissed like Hector or nut-brown like Isaac, but dark blue, like corpses that had drowned. Dracula had met the duo during one of his travels, roughly in the same lands where he had met Cho. He had encountered them while they fed and had taken them in due to their apparent youth. Taught them etiquette, then released them. Centuries later, they had not forgotten him.
Before today, I hadn't even known their names. They had been mere mooks in all but title. Dracula had called them generals, but their feats had been forgettable. They had only served to highlight just how strong and dangerous the trio of Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha had been. That was all their accomplishments had amounted to.
But here and now, I realized these were real people. They had history. Stories that built them. Myths born from their very presence.
They stood before me, even as that annoying redhead Viking, Godbrand the self-styled general of the North, was already kicking at a chair with his muddy boots, practically pissing all over the room with his presence.
"You lot take too long with your brooding. Let's get to it," he growled, slamming a hand on the long obsidian table. "War waits for no man or vampire."
I said nothing. I simply stared. Already, they were all watching me, my generals, my loyal monsters. They didn't realize I wasn't the Dracula they knew. Not entirely. But they would soon. Now, in fact.
"Fuck off."
The sheer anger and vitriol I packed into those words froze them. Even Godbrand, who had been prattling since he walked in, was silent. But as expected, he recovered fastest.
"I reckon I didn't quite hear you right, because I refuse to believe that I just sailed all the way from—"
"Another word from you, little Godbrand, and I will rip your fangs out of your mouth and feed it to you."
I leaned forward, my whole body radiating menace as I towered over them from my throne, amplified by the difference in height.
I recognized what was happening. I was angry. I was lashing out. And most of all, I had absolutely no interest in continuing Dracula's plan. Some part of him that still lived in me didn't even fight me on that. Surprisingly, we were the same person. I hadn't yet gone through his memories, they must've spanned centuries, but to him, my memories were just a blink of an eye.
He knew as well as I did how futile it all was. That was not the path I was going to take.
"Leave me."
I had only one thought in my head, even as the anger bled out and the depression that clung to Dracula's soul returned to wrap itself around me. The generals shuffled out of the room with nervous backward glances. Only Isaac and Hector remained.
I needed to find a way back home. I didn't care how. I had no interest in mass slaughter, nor in reigning over vampires that behaved like feral cats. If I had to see Carmilla even once, I was almost certain I'd be tempted to break her neck and rip her head off.
But that was Dracula speaking.
I simply needed to leave.
"To where, my lord?" Hector asked. I realized I had spoken aloud.
"Away from here," I said with a tired sigh.
That was when the idea struck me. The answer had surrounded me the whole time. It was the ground beneath my feet, the chair I sat on, the stairs I walked, and the room I awoke in.
The castle.
It had stared me in the face for so long. The castle could travel from one location to another by moving through space and time via magic and some mechanical means I didn't know the details of, at least not without digging deep into Dracula's memories. However, I knew it was possible.
Dracula himself had never tried it, never bothered with it. Why would he want to see even more humans? But theoretically, it was possible. Not just traveling from place to place on this single plane of existence, but across realms.
This was how I was going to get home. I knew the broad strokes. Now all that was left was the how.
A/N: Finding a good vector for world hopping alongside a main character in possession of it that is also interesting enough to write about is surprisingly hard. Kudos to @Alpha_ræd for figuring that out. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Greatazuredragon, tom4ito, LEGENDARYNOT and 755 othersbornsinnerJul 13, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 3 New View contentbornsinnerNot too sore, are you?Jul 15, 2025Add bookmark#60I stood up with more energy than Dracula had been able to muster in years, my body moving with frantic motion. The answers lay in my study. Which brought up a new question: where even was my study? Fortunately, it was not a question I had to ponder for long. My feet began to move at once, leading me away from the throne room and up a set of stairs that had coincidentally appeared where there had been none.
"Isaac, Hector, attend me at once," I called out, with an air of command as I began to walk forward, and my ever-loyal Forgemasters followed after me at once. Despite how strange my character must be, despite everything, they followed without a word.
Castlevania was alive. Not literally in the sense that organic beings were, but in its own way, it lived. The steam pipes that ran through the entire castle were its veins and arteries. Its heart was the engine that housed the core of the castle. The further I walked, the more doubt tried to slip into my mind. However, like fear, doubt didn't seem to be an emotion vampires were fond of. Unlike fear, though, I could feel the slightest trickle of it, which meant it was not completely cut off and atrophied like my sense of fear.
Instead of allowing myself to think too hard on the very clear and obvious possibility that my plans were very likely to fail, I distracted myself by questioning my Forgemasters.
"Where are my forces?"
There was a brief silence before Isaac replied. "You ordered them into hibernation since you got married to Lisa Tepes. When we arrived at the castle, you said you would awaken them after the war council was convened."
I hummed at the new information Isaac had supplied. I knew I was not doing myself any favors by asking questions Dracula should have known. Questions that I did know, but simply didn't have the patience to sit back and find by sifting through the ocean of Dracula's memories.
So I continued my questioning. "And the night creatures?"
This time Hector was the one to reply, and there was none of the previous hesitation, indicating they were either getting used to the strangeness of answering questions I should already know the answer to, or it was a report they had not had the chance to give me.
"We've only just begun creating them. Between the both of us, we have a dozen total that have been made. If you need us to hurry things up, I'm sure—"
I immediately raised a hand to forestall the suggestion.
"There is no need for that, Hector."
My feet finally came to a stop. This was not just any other part of the castle. This was my study, and past these doors was another entrance that would lead to the heart of the castle. I had asked about my soldiers and the night creatures to get a better sense of the time frame I had to work with. So far, it seemed like Isaac and Hector had just gotten here. If they'd only been able to scrounge up a dozen night creatures, especially compared to the thousands they had unleashed upon Wallachia by the start of canon, then that meant I had at minimum six months to get out of Wallachia before I was forced to make truth of Dracula's promise. And I felt it.
Even with all the knowledge from the show about how futile and wasted the slaughter of Targoviste as well as the rest of Wallachia was, somehow I knew if I remained here until then, I would regret it because I would be compelled to follow through on that threat. However, despite how scattered and wild Dracula's original attack had been, he had managed to accomplish something important. The death of the bishop that had led the attack, abduction, and subsequent burning of Lisa Tepes.
My fists automatically clenched in anger at the image of the bald-headed, self-righteous man who had been the cause of everything wrong that happened in the series. This time, blue eyes would not have the pleasure. Dracula deserved it, and I would give it to him.
I pushed the door to the study open and stepped in, ignored the floating shards of glass, and instead walked even deeper. Past books, a wide mahogany table, and chair, beyond a picture of Lisa hanging over a fireplace. Instead, I stopped at a hidden door that was not there a minute ago, pushed it open, and stepped into the heart of Castlevania.
Here, more than anywhere else, I felt the truth of the world. Of this castle. Magic and technology, working hand in hand. I could see giant gears turning, clanking, and spinning in the background. I could not tell for sure what they did by just looking, but I was certain that whatever it was had to be important. Then alongside that, there was the thick and heavy feeling of magic. One that radiated fiercely off the large floating cube in the middle of the room.
The black cube, sectioned into different parts with bands of gold, hummed quietly with magical power. I recognized it. Right now it was inert. Simply moving power, absorbing and refining it before spreading it around the castle. That was it being dormant. Now that I looked at its sheer complexity, I understood the choice I was making. And I understood more importantly that it was going to work. Yet before I could begin the great work of figuring out how to go about manipulating and configuring the castle to travel to not just other locations but other universes, an act I knew for certain I would have to delve deep into Dracula's memories to uncover, I needed to clarify things with my most trusted.
"I brought you both here to let you know that the plan has changed." At this point, the duo must have grown tired of being surprised, so their reply came quickly.
"What do you mean, Lord Dracula?"
I hummed for a bit, my eyes laser-focused on the floating cube before me. "I shall not be going ahead with the original plan. Humanity shall continue on only because I shall not be here to witness it. I have grown tired of them."
This time the silence was poignant until Isaac decided to break it.
"Are you sure about this, my lord?"
For such a stoic and apathetic man to express such shock...
"You had been certain. We had gathered together for this." He continued.
I was suddenly reminded of why Isaac had joined me. This was not the Isaac Dracula had thrown into the desert to spare his own life. Not the Isaac who had a riveting and deep conversation with a wise night creature. It was not the Isaac who had gone through a journey of growth and self-realization. No, the Isaac I had by my side was simply a young man who hated humanity enough that when a centuries-old monster asked him for help in genociding his race, he had answered with a yes, and barely a blink of his eyes.
I turned my head to the side and away from the engine that had taken up my focus for the past few minutes, an act that allowed me to look behind myself and the dark-skinned man behind me. The whites of his eyes, the slight opening of his lips, the flare of his nose in surprise. So I gave him a small smile, probably the first I had made in over a year.
"Are you still my friend, Isaac?"
The question stilled the dark-skinned man, and like a dark cloud dispersed by the coming of the sun, his features eased. The worry, surprise, and doubt that plagued him for the past few seconds disappeared in place of his total faith and loyalty in me as he replied.
"Always."
I could feel a weight lift off my shoulders. It had been doubt. Not just my doubt, but Dracula's as well. Isaac seemed as much a son to him as did Alucard.
"And what of you, Hector?"
The gray-haired boy in a man's body blinked surprised eyes at the exchange he had just witnessed.
"Of course, my lord."
I nodded in response.
"So be it then." I turned back to the cube.
"If I may, my lord, what is the plan now?" Hector asked in confusion.
"I'm leaving. Leaving this place, most likely never to return, for if I do, I fear I would slaughter the world to appease the ache in my chest." I admitted to them as much as I did to myself. "So I would ask you this. Would you join me?"
I was not sure why I made the offer. I had a feeling it was some remnant of Dracula, some subconscious part of him that had made the request. Yet I was not averse to it. The plan was to get home. I was not certain how we were going to go about it, but I doubted the duo would hate modern-day Earth that much.
"Of course, my lord," Hector replied immediately.
"You will always have my complete loyalty, Master Dracula, in this life or the next," Isaac finished.
"Good, because I have a job for you, Isaac," I started, the vague plan for revenge taking root in my mind. I doubted Hector could do it, but Isaac was different. Stronger. Faster. Better. He was perfect for what I had in mind.
"You'll travel to Targoviste for me and bring back a certain bishop."
"Of course."
With his agreement, I waved them away. As they left, I sat down on the floor in a cross-legged position and opened myself to Dracula's memories in full as I began to make sense of the engine that sat in the heart of Castlevania. The heartbeat of the castle and the means I would use to travel in search of home.
It had taken long months, broken up by only a few hours of rest, where I sat and watched like an observer as Dracula struck the stupid bishop that killed Lisa Tepes bloody. It almost became a routine. An hour or two in which he was beaten within an inch of his life before I left to rest for a few minutes, then went back to the Heart of the castle.
It was with that singular, burning intent and focus that I reached into the core once more.
My hands were stretched forward, my fingers twisted into a shape. But there were no spells spoken. The core was already keyed to me, so I reached out with my will.
The heartbeat of Castlevania pulsed in time with my thoughts. The cube, no longer dormant, began to glow. The bands of gold twisted, clicked, and rotated around the obsidian mass. Glyphs flared into being on its surface, each one ancient and unfamiliar, yet intimately known. Not learned, but remembered. Dracula had built this. Or rather, refined it. The engine had existed long before his birth. A relic from a forgotten age. He had simply bent it to his design.
And now, I would take it further.
I pressed my palm to the air just shy of its surface. The cube responded. Power surged through my arm, linking me to the castle in full. I gasped, nearly buckled from the weight of the connection. Castlevania wasn't a place. It wasn't even a fortress.
It was a machine. A thinking, feeling, half-living bridge. A bridge not just through space, but through possibility. I don't think even Dracula had anticipated what the castle would become from its humble beginnings. He had only ever scratched the surface.
My mind flooded with schematics, dimensional calculations, records of past jumps, locations it had visited, and echoes of other realities it had skimmed across but never dared to anchor in. There were dozens. Hundreds. Some were strange but grounded, other continents, other times. Others were outright alien, shattered timelines, realities where the stars bled green or where the laws of magic had been stripped bare.
But one of them, far in the distance, was vaguely familiar. I was not quite sure it was home, but it was more familiar than here. My time was running out. Since I had kicked out the vampires, they had been making a mess of things. But that was no longer my business. What remained my business was the fact that I had been locked in here for over seven months.
So I reached for it like a drowning man reaching for air. And Castlevania, understanding that I didn't seek conquest or war like I previously did, but only to escape, began to shift in kind.
Metal groaned. Gears twisted. The floating cube rose higher, rotating faster. Sparks of red lightning danced in the chamber's high ceiling as the castle responded. The air thickened with ozone and old blood.
A memory sparked, Sypha speaking to Alucard about locking down Castlevania. "Magic is changing things according to intent." Her intent had been to lock down Dracula's castle, to summon it to the Belmont Hold and stop it from teleporting away. But I was different from the blonde-haired Speaker in that regard. My intent was vastly simpler. I wanted to get the hell out of here.
There was a crack of thunder and a displacement of air, and the castle that had stood outside Wallachia for the past few years disappeared from sight. Peasants nearby would be the only ones to observe and notice that, unlike the first time the castle had appeared, this time it vanished in an explosion of red lightning.
A/N: Guess the first world. And Don't worry, despite the SI's words, this is not the last we shall be seeing of Castlevania. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Greatazuredragon, tom4ito, The Overlord and 790 others
Yarla was kissed by fire. A trait that was not all that rare, but not too common either. There were a lot of different stories and rumors about women like her, especially with their red hair. Most of them were as fictional as the dragons the kneelers and the crows talked about, but there was a glimpse of truth in their stories. A single one. Fire-kissed were hot-blooded, impatient, and impulsive.
This meant that her act of staying as still as she could was a legendary feat by itself, yet it was a battle she was slowly losing. Her grey eyes peered from her spot beneath a bush, and she searched for her partners in justice. There were seven of them in total, although despite how much she searched, she could only make out three figures hidden in different spots.
Dirk and Isha hid underneath bushes like hares, their bodies wrapped in furs to protect them from the snow, while Briar stood perched on a tree that could handle his weight. They had been there for what felt like hours, but judging by how little the sun had moved in the sky, it could not have been minutes at most.
Any longer and she would—
"Stop fidgeting, sister, you're going to give yourself away."
The hushed voice of her brother called out to her as quietly as he could. She turned her face to find him inches away from her; her surprise was greeted by a soothing smile from him. Gavin was her twin brother, but other than their similar features, they couldn't be further alike.
He was calm where she was fidgety, silent, and could be mistaken for a child of the forest, where she was as subtle as a giant rampaging through the haunted forest. Yet despite their differences, Yarla loved him more than anything in the world.
Before she could ask how he was able to sneak up on her, she heard the footsteps. And like a switch had been flipped, Gavin's features hardened as he raised a hand up to silence her, his face tight in concentration. Shortly after, he raised his hands, displaying his fingers. An open palm and one finger. Six people. Yarla smiled fiercely. They outnumbered them. Even if there had been ten of them, with their ambush and the general unpreparedness her foes had been showing, she had expected her group to win, but now, now it was certain.
She gave a nod and watched as Gavin crawled away, most likely to inform the rest of their group. Unlike what it looked like, this was not a raid or a true attack. This was retaliation upon the bastards from the Sealskinners, a small tribe like theirs that lived beneath the foot of the Frostfangs.
A group had ambushed, robbed, and then stabbed Isha's elder brother just a few days ago when he had gone hunting. The older boy had only managed to crawl back home and tell the tale before he returned into the embrace of the Old Gods, and as had been their practice since dawn suddenly began to rise slowly, they had burnt the boy's body.
Despite the words of their elders, the group refused to sit back and allow the attack on one of theirs to slide. The Sealskinners were a tribe just as small as theirs, with less than a hundred people total. There was no reason to fear them, so they had decided on a reverse ambush, to steal whatever they had hunted. If they also managed to shank one or two of them, it was no skin off her back.
She watched from her spot beneath the bush as the group of six joked and laughed as they walked by her, although it seemed like two of them were slower as they carried something heavy, most likely whatever they hunted. So when Gavin shouted "Attack," Yarla knew her opponent.
She burst out of the undergrowth with a yell on her lips and her arms mid-swing. The brown-haired boy that was the closest to her, his arms still carrying his side of the small white beast they had hunted, barely had time to blink in surprise before the haft of the wooden spear in her hand slammed into his face.
Then the screams started. She only had time to see Isha dive out of her hole in the bush, the fire-sharpened point of her spear first. The spear plunged into a surprised boy's neck. Yarla was no stranger to death, yet the emotion on Isha's face as she leaned forward, forcing the spear deeper into the boy's neck, as well as the look of horror on the boy's face, froze her on the spot.
Her tribe was not one of raiders. They were one of the few tribes that could grow some of their own food, and that skill made them soft, less bloodthirsty. Why attack your neighbors for food when you can just grow whatever you want?
"That's enough, surrender!"
The sound of Gavin's voice echoing in the road path finally managed to shock her out of her stupor, and she realized the fight was over. The rest of the five youths had been beaten up, and with Gavin's call, the two that still held weapons, one a stone axe, the other an unstrung bow he had been using as a stave, both dropped their weapons, but not without glares toward Isha, where the young woman continued to stab down frantically at her dead foe, with tears in her eyes.
It took Gavin walking up to her and placing a cautious hand on her shoulder to stop her rampage. "It's over, Isha," he said soothingly. "It's done, he's dead. Your brother has been avenged."
That sentence must've given the group an idea of their identity because the biggest boy, the one that had dropped a stone axe, let out a bark of a laugh. "Wait a minute, you lot are from the grass munchers, aren't you?" Yarla glared at him instantly, but her glare had nothing on Isha's glare.
The boy looked unconcerned. Instead, he bent and picked up his axe, a cocky grin on his face. "I can't believe a group of grass munchers managed to ambush us. Shame," the boy started, before letting out a shrug. "Still, I assume this is revenge for the fool that refused to hand over the rabbit when we asked. Anyway, Oren over there has been killed by the mad girl, so your blood debt has been paid. This is over. Now we have to leave, we have a great trophy to return to the village."
Ignoring the condescending tone and the way the boy acted, Yarla instead looked down. She was the closest person to the dead beast the bastards had hunted, and if the death of one of theirs didn't seem to hurt, then stealing their prey and trophy should.
From what little she could see, it was some sort of white-fur beast. A wolf? She wondered. Not that regular wolves were worth the stress of hunting them. The meat was too stringy, a good trophy perhaps, but not a good hunt for food. Yet when her feet kicked the beast over, the features of the beast froze her.
"You stupid fucks actually killed a baby snowbear."
She found the words slipping from her lips, surprise, shock, and horror staining her voice. The rest of the group turned to where the dead bear lay. It was too big to be a wolf, and those features made it clear. Beady eyes, a shorter snout than what could be found on a wolf, the stubby ears, and the stocky body.
She looked up to see Gavin was just as pale as she felt. Even Isha looked scared. Gavin turned toward the leader of the group. "Tell me you killed the mother as well?" Her brother's voice was as frigid as the wind from the Land of Always Winter.
"What mother? The beast was alo—"
The big stupid bastard was cut short as a powerful roar blasted through the forest. Yarla didn't need to be a warg to tell the feeling of sorrow and pain that was in that roar. More importantly, how close it sounded.
The next few seconds happened like a dream. The foolish bastard that led the group barely had the time to turn as a wall of white fur burst out of the forest on the side.
The snow bear killed the boy with a single swipe.
One moment he was standing, mouth half-open with some smug reply caught between his teeth. The next, his chest exploded inward as a white-furred paw the size of a full-grown man's torso hit him. The impact cracked bone and caved in his ribs with a sickening crunch. His body flew backward into a tree, struck the trunk hard enough to split the bark, and then slumped lifeless to the ground.
The bear didn't pause. It lowered its monstrous head and bit clean through his neck. The sound was wet and final. Then it looked up and black eyes found them.
It turned, slow and deliberate, toward the dead cub lying beside Yarla's feet. Steam rose from its maw. Thick white fur bristled with snow and blood. Its breath came out in great, heaving puffs that fogged and hid its features. And for a moment, everything stood still.
Yarla's legs refused to move. Her blood had gone to ice. All she could do was stare as the snow bear lowered its massive head toward its dead child. It let out a sound that shattered whatever part of her still believed animals didn't feel grief.
Then it looked up again, and this time, it was looking straight at her.
It looked ready to charge, but before it could, the sky cracked and lightning split the heavens, slamming into the forest what felt like a half-hour trek away. The impact shook the earth as a blinding red flash lit the forest, followed by a blast of heat and static that made her bones hum.
Gavin was the first person to recover. "SCATTER!" he bellowed.
The world erupted into motion and Yarla stumbled back. Briar leapt down from his perch. Isha dropped her spear and scrambled backward. One of the remaining Sealskinner boys tried to run the wrong way and was trampled before he got two steps.
The bear roared and swatted wildly.
It was placed in the middle of the path and it tore through the group like a hurricane of meat and muscle. She scrambled back up, heart pounding, just in time to see the bear tear into Dirk. He screamed once before being crushed beneath a swinging paw. Another paw lashed out, and another Sealskinner boy died with a single hit. The body rolled to a stop at her feet. The blank eyes and mouth opened wide in regret snapped her out of her terror.
"RUN!" Gavin's voice rang again.
Yarla didn't argue.
She bolted through the snow. She didn't know where she was going, all she knew was that she had to run. Her muscles burned as they propelled her forward. Her skin smarted as the branches slapped against her as she pushed through them and the roots of the trees tried to trip her. Still she ran.
She didn't know how much she had been running, but by now her breath steamed in front of her, legs pumping, heart hammering so hard she felt sick. Still, behind her, she could hear the crunch of snow, the low growl of something massive moving fast through the forest, and the sound of people dying.
It was hunting them. But she didn't look back. She couldn't. The trees blurred. More branches whipped past her face. Her lungs burned, and her legs threatened to give out, but still she ran. She didn't stop. Didn't stumble.
Until she saw it.
It rose from the snow like a dark mountain that had taken root in the earth and grown out overnight. A gigantic black structure with multiple offshoots and buildings held up by crafting that could only be performed by the Old Gods. The air around the building, no, the castle shimmered with a heat that shouldn't have been there, the snow around it was still melting into steaming puddles at its base. Its doors were titanic, wrought from some dark metal, and carved with symbols she didn't recognize. Lightning crackled still in the air around it, static crawling across her skin.
She didn't realize she had stopped. Her feet froze in place. What… was this? It looked like something out of a nightmare. She had been born and raised around this area and she had never seen the structure before today. Did it have something to do with—
There was a crack behind her, and before she could respond, Yarla was thrown into the snow as someone collided with her and she was flung sideways. She barely had time to blink as she watched a massive paw bury itself into the ground exactly where she'd been standing a second before.
She shoved and shook her head as she rolled further away. When she finally made distance, she opened her eyes and Gavin was standing above and in front of her. He had been the one to slam into her and save her from getting squished.
He stood between her and the bear, spear raised, face grim. His arms shook, but he did not step back.
"Get up," he said. "Keep running, and no matter what, promise me you won't look back." Gavin turned and gave her a half smile. "Promise me, Yarla."
The bear roared before she could reply, and it charged forth again. Gavin leaned forward, spear pressed against the ground, and eyes focused as he looked ready to sell his life for her. Then there was a blur of black, and an explosion of force that sent snow flying as well, blocking her view and flinging her back once again.
When she recovered, wiping snow from her eyes, she was greeted with the figure of a man. He was enormous, taller than even her father on the rare days he remembered to come visiting, if only to fuck her mother. The figure was cloaked in black like a crow, with long black hair flowing behind him. She could only see his back, but his sheer presence sent a chill down her spine, one that had nothing to do with the cold. He stood where the bear had been just a split second ago.
Yarla's gaze dropped to the man's feet, where the beginning of a trench had been carved into the snow, stretching from where he stood to where the bear had been hurled, only stopping because it slammed into a tree. The beast rose shakily, then let out another deafening roar.
The figure tilted his head slightly.
"Tell me that is not The Wall in the distance," he said, his voice a low drawl, almost annoyed, if it hadn't sounded so damn regal. He shifted, now fully facing the distant gleam of ice on the horizon, the colossal wall that separated the true north from the southern kneelers and the black-cloaked crows. "I'm going to have a serious conversation with Castlevania," he muttered, "about what I call home when I'm done here."
A/N: First World. ASOIAF/GOT. Like someone guessed. One virtual Cookie for you. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Greatazuredragon, SagaSinistro, tom4ito and 866 othersbornsinnerJul 16, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 5 New View contentbornsinnerNot too sore, are you?Jul 18, 2025Add bookmark#159Annoyance. One of the few emotions that still managed to pierce through the centuries of inhuman detachment and a year long depression that made up Dracula's core.
The plan had worked. More or less.
I realized that the moment the castle shifted. The air changed. The magic settled.
I'd looked out the window and found a frozen wasteland staring back, halfway up a mountain, the land below smothered in snow and dotted with skeletal trees. For a second, I thought I'd dropped us in Antarctica. Or worse.
Then the scream cut through the silence. A human scream. A child's voice. Dracula wouldn't have cared, not after Lisa's death. Even before then, the odds of him caring enough to leave his castle to attend to whatever was screaming at his doors were marginal at most. But I was the one in control now. Mostly.
I spun on my heels and ran, which was where I fell into a bit of an impasse. I didn't account for speed. Luckily for both the castle and me, enough remnants of Dracula's instinct remained to smooth the trip. The journey from the study, down the stairs, and through the great hall blurred together. I remembered only flashes. The cold. The wind. The white light bleeding in through the open door. And then, instinct.
A foot snapped out before I had time to think, connecting with something massive and furred. It went flying immediately. It's heavy weight crashing through snowdrifts until a tree finally put a stop to it. I stepped out into the cold, cloak trailing behind me like smoke, and took in the world fully. The air was cold. The sky gray. And far in the distance, looming over everything like a monolith...
A wall. A massive, frozen wall that stretched across the horizon. I stared for longer than I was proud to admit in disbelief, but no matter how much I looked at it, the massive slab of ice horizon didn't care to prove me wrong by dissipating like a fever dream. Instead, it gleamed brightly as whatever sunlight managed to slip past the gray clouds hit it.
Holy shit. I'm in Westeros. That was what I wanted to say, at least. Instead, the moment my lips parted, my voice called out in a soothing, regal, and deeply unfamiliar tone. "Tell me that is not The Wall in the distance," I found myself asking rhetorically to the open air.
I gave a brief glare at Castlevania, and in response, the castle doors creaked open the slightest bit wider. Despite Dracula's memories of the contrary, at least what little I allowed myself, I was almost certain the quasi-sentient castle was laughing at me. "I'm going to have a serious conversation with you about what I call home when we're done here," I muttered at it.
The wind suddenly picked up. Snow scattered across the clearing, and somewhere below, slightly further down the mountain that Castlevania had decided to plant itself on, something howled. I took a breath. Partially out of habit once again, and less out of necessity. I didn't have the best memories of vampires from the Castlevania anime but I'm pretty sure they were not undead, at least not fully.
That aside, the air was clean. Brutally cold, dry, and thin but clean. Not a trace of industry, no stink of oil or smoke. Just the pure, raw breath of a world that had been stuck in the medieval ages for over ten thousand years. Judging by the show's end, I didn't expect them to be leaving anytime soon. The realization settled in slowly, like frostbite.
I was really in Westeros. Not just anywhere good. I could've landed in the Reach, a beautiful land filled with roses, wine, women, and knowledge. Instead I was smack dab in the ass end of the continent, on the other side of the wall which explained the cold. The screaming. The walking steroid in a fur coat I'd just launched halfway down a mountain. And of course, just in case I've not stated it enough, the huge fucking wall in the distance.
I turned to look at the beast I'd kicked. It wasn't dead. Of course not. Say whatever you want about Dracula, but for all his great and terrible deeds, killing random wild animals was not one. Instead, he usually glared at whatever beast was unfortunate enough to cross his path during his travels, while exploring the world at Lisa's request.
I stared at the bear, my red eyes piercing it, and for all of five seconds, It froze up. Its instincts, far superior to human's told it a simple truth. I was a greater and more evolved predator in every way that mattered, which, for a bear, especially one of the snow bears of the North that ruled supreme shy of mammoths, was an unfamiliar feeling.
Unfortunately, despite my efforts, the bear shook its head and shifted its eyes from me to the two figures I had just saved from a mauling. I had a sense of anger and rage radiating from the creature which made me wonder, what the hell did they do to piss it off, kill its cub? I didn't have the chance to spare them much attention, but what little I had seen so far spoke of red hair and frightened features.
I took two slow steps, my eyes focused on the bear, and suddenly I was blocking its line of sight once again, and it was forced to look back at me. My movement had been instinctive, born out of a desire to not be ignored, some remnant of Dracula once again. Which was not the only sign of his influence, because I doubt I would've been this unworried about standing up to the bear if I were my usual self.
The bear didn't seem very happy with it, judging by the way it was dragging itself up with all the grace of a drunk mammoth, snorting steam and glaring at me like it knew what my ancestors had done to its own. Behind me and to the side, Castlevania creaked. Ancient stone adjusting to a new world, its weight settling further into the side of the foreign mountain. I could feel it through my connection like a heartbeat. The magic of the castle was reacting to something.
It was enough to distract me as the bear let out another roar before bounding forward once more, crushing snow beneath its feet as it charged towards me with murder in its eyes. Yet once again, despite the danger of a charging multi-pound bear hurtling towards me like a train wreck, I didn't feel the slightest fear or worry, even while turned away.
"Watch out!" Two voices called out in sync with each other, and I found myself contemplating the fact that I could understand them, a scenario that was proving more interesting to the more complex scientific and intellectual mind Dracula possessed.
Four feet away from me, the bear pounced forward, throwing its full weight into the jump, maw wide open, finger long fangs bared and ready to dig into soft human flesh. The bear was nature's perfect murder machine, heightened and enhanced by the more brutal conditions of the Far North it was forced to endure. It was a creature that decimated hovels, an animal hunting parties avoided, and yet when it got within a foot of me, my right hand snapped out automatically and caught the beast by the throat while my gaze remained focused on the castle, my mind deep in thought.
Whatever language the two teenagers... For the first time, I glanced at them, actually taking in their features. Red hair, blue-gray eyes. Soft features, slim limbs, yet slightly packed with muscles that spoke of a body forged from hunting and traversing the forests. Were they children or particularly small adults? I found it hard to judge, considering how much they were cowering and staring at me and the bear in my hands with wide eyes. Judging heights was difficult when you were a seven foot tall centuries-old vampire.
The bear thrashed in my hands, which was only possible because of the light grip I kept on its throat. Its much longer limbs scratched at the arm holding it up, yet its long black claws were unable to find purchase in the black cloth that wound tightly around my form. Unconcerned with the still thrashing beast at literal arm's length, my thoughts immediately went back to the language.
It was not English, that much I knew. There was a bit of Proto-Indo-European Lithuanian with a dash of Albanian, two enduring languages that had... my thoughts screeched to a stop. Lithuanian? Albanian? Even as I asked those questions in my mind, I was already getting answers.
Lithuanian was a Baltic language known for its conservative nature that had endured for time immemorial, and Albanian was an ancient language that stretched far back and originated from prehistoric times when men still lived in caves and used stone tools.
How did I know this? That was not a question I should've bothered with.
"My father is a man of science, a philosopher, a scholar, and knows things our society has forgotten three times over. Do you still not understand the enormity of what we're doing? He's a repository of centuries of learning."
Alucard had been right. Unlike most versions of the vampire known as Dracula and even the Castlevania games included, Dracula from the Castlevania anime was a genius. A polyglot, a man of science and magic. A centuries-old vampire with an intellect so vast, it would take multiple lifetimes to put to words.
Dracula was not just some brutish vampire, despite how well he mimicked it as well as his sheer martial capabilities and propensity for combat. Above it all, Dracula was a fountain of knowledge and wisdom that spanned eons. I was a fountain of knowledge and wisdom that spanned eons. A consequence of opening myself so much to Dracula's knowledge and influence earlier in my efforts to manipulate Castlevania to previously unused levels.
"I think it's dead now, my lord." A soft voice called out from behind me. Enough to make me blink scarlet eyes in response. I was getting lost in my own head. How did Dracula do it? Centuries of life and experience. How did he not get lost in all of it. I turned my head to the limp bear in my hands and raised a brow.
The kids were wrong, not that I could blame them. It was a perfectly fine leap of logic. Lost in my thoughts, my grip on the bear had tightened until I had stopped blood flow to its head, knocking it unconscious. Any more and the bear would be dead. I slackened my grip and watched it fall to the ground, displacing snow with its great weight. My arms were not even the slightest bit strained despite the effort of holding it up until it fell unconscious.
Dracula was a physical monster, and it came to me once more. This was him after over a year of not feeding, a year of trying to live like a man, followed by mourning his wife's death. This was Dracula at his weakest, and he had manhandled Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard like babies.
"It's not dead. It's resting, but not for long," I said without turning back to look at the duo. Despite how interesting seeing humans who were not Isaac or Hector was, I found I was not in the mood to interact with them. Too many things were running through my mind, so I sent the kids off. "It won't be sleeping for long..." I stated, leadingly, then I turned to stare at them, and they flinched back.
"Thank you." The brave boy who stood in front of them said with a nod too serious to be on the face of the teen. My reply was silence as I stared at them with hooded eyes, lost in thought. I vaguely noted Hector and Isaac watching from a balcony. Then, as the children fled down the mountain and back to whatever hovel they called home, a Night creature followed behind them. Most likely to ensure they actually got home as well as for reconnaissance.
Instead of wondering about my Forgemasters' loyalty and initiative, I turned away and began to walk back into the castle. The moment I stepped past the threshold, the castle doors shut behind me, closing me off from the world. There was work to be done. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Greatazuredragon, SagaSinistro, tom4ito and 769 othersbornsinnerJul 18, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 6 New View contentbornsinnerNot too sore, are you?Jul 22, 2025Add bookmark#194