What Lana was able to glean from Arthur's story was the vampires had undergone two civil wars. The first was before he had become a vampire. The first king was the strongest of them all. He broke some rule and they ended up putting him in eternal slumber. There were 13 original vampires that never age and could potentially live forever.
Two of the rules were "Never fall in love with a human" and "members of the same family cannot kill each other" This second one led to a discipline problem. The tenth leader came up with an idea to create a kind of law enforcement family that was an outsider to the rest of the families.
King Arthur was selected and his reign was supported by the vampires who helped him protect his kingdom. He was turned the same way the originals were so he didn't age either. He was unwillingly changed and had no memory of the ritual that changed him. Arthur allowed them to settle in an area that was protected by hills and went there from time to time as he did with all the people in his kingdom.
One time it was so they could give the original king's power to him, the same shadow power Quinn holds. Eno, the tenth leader helped him learn it and also helped him figure out how to fake his death and take up his role in the vampire settlement. He stayed long enough to help elect Eno as the king. He then returned to his castle. Everyone in it was dead except 20 round table knights. Those he had to turn because they were almost dead. He had his small punisher family.
Some day later, Arthur had no idea how much time had passed, just that it was a long time, Eno decided to go into eternal slumber. Another king was elected, the 6th leader. They started to expand but were very careful to not exactly break the rules. Arthur saw the writing on the wall and started expanding his punisher family. A problem was on the rise.
As questioning for breaking rules began and punishment was delved out, it was discovered the king had ordered the 6th family to engage in such behavior. A civil war broke out in which Arthur's smaller forces won out. A new king was elected. The 6th leader was sent into eternal slumber as punishment.
Arthur began to think the trouble was that Eno felt they should be outsiders to the vampires and that may have caused too much hostility. In the end, he decided his family of punishers should move. Many who wanted to live a life of peace moved with them. He had people monitoring the settlement of vampires. He promised them that if they increased the number of vampires past the newly set limit or they decided to give the humans trouble, he would be back to punish them.
Setting a limit on how many family members there could be for each leader was a direct result of what the 6th had done with expansion as well as monitoring that number just to be sure. After the punishers left, they had many years of peace. Arthur had no idea of how much time. Eventually he had gone into slumber thinking things would be fine. He had given a blood crystal to one of the knights of his family line in case they needed to wake him up.
It was Quinn who ultimately woke him when on the orange-portal planet. It was as Fex had said, a vampire settlement. The blood crystal he inserted in the pillar that day was what woke him. Since all his people were gone, he was now on a quest to find them. Silver told the group they were taught the other side won the war and the punishers were wiped out at that time.
Quinn then shared his tale. Silver and Fex finally smiled because it looked like Fex would get a lighter sentence. Arthur said the book that turned Quinn sounded like something the tenth could do. It made sense he was then the leader once he used it.
Once they were done sharing, the whole group, minus Arthur, moved to one of the rooms. They were to stay with Arthur until the council called for them. Mattresses and blankets from other rooms were brought into one. They all sat around catching up and sharing stories. How did Erin get away from Pure and meet up with Leo, what happened during the fight with the leaders to all involved, Quinn was wondering how Borden got so small. Layla and Erin were glad to be reunited.
Lana was feeling left out because these were not her friends. It was Peter who asked her why she was here. All eyes were suddenly on her and she didn't know if she liked this any better.
She looked right at him, "I'm here because I needed to thank you. You were the reason I was able to escape the dungeon. I needed to make sure you escaped as well."
With that, there were a whole bunch of questions. No one ever escaped the dungeon. It simply was impossible. She looked down at her lap and took a deep breath. Vorden was sitting next to her which surprised her. He patted her knee to encourage her. She took another deep breath. "I have a really powerful ability that is surprisingly easy to hide from the military. Thanks to Logan tampering with my watch, it's stuck at level 5." She smirked.
"I'll back my story up a bit as well but not share all the details. They are not for the feint of heart. My twin brother and I are orphans. We grew up in an orphanage and were … mistreated. Three years ago, a volunteer who had retired from Military Base 2 explained to us, we were likely going to go there. He doctored our records and explained some of the less savory things that go on there, such as Truedream. We were wary from day one."
"Also on the first day, I met Logan while we were waiting for the rest of the class to show up. He always looks tired as he did that day. I decided then to bring him food a couple times a week. He helped me with food research. He also built me this special kitchen that I carry in this bag," she pointed to it on her back, "Since that time, his family has paid me for commercials for the kitchen as well as to test follow-on models. That has afforded me some protection from the evil at the school."
"I ended up in the dungeon before that protection was put in place. I was investigating the actions of someone from my orphanage who was not a nice person but was being backed by Duke. Logan had me under surveillance but, just like with Peter, it didn't keep me out of the dungeon. The difference was, my time was there for an investigation to be run, no more than 48 hours were allowed. It looked like Duke was just going to take my ability and let Pucket get what he wanted before the investigation period ended so he'd have plausible deniability."
"A few things caused a problem with his plan. The first was Pucket came before my ability was taken. He and his friend died down there. I also now have more caution when using my whip because I didn't expect to kill with it. The second was there was a wight with sensitive ears down there who complained quite loudly that my screaming was hurting his ears…" She chuckled and looked at Peter.
"He calmed me down when I panicked. As a result, I started sending energy to my tree. I wasn't sure where I was, but I was hoping I was close. Every time I felt my energy returning, I would send it out to try to locate my tree, throughout the night. That morning, Truedream came for me. Apparently, it was just before Logan's mother did. Truedream came into my cell and a man walked toward me and I started screaming. My tree, her roots burst through the wall, grabbed me and pulled me to the surface but I have no memory of it. She died after that. Her root structure was destroyed. Vorden was the one who found me. I never asked how. We became friends by spending three days a week together, him teaching me to fight after what happened to you guys in the assembly hall."
Logan responded, "he was in my room and saw the flashing signal of your watch back on the map I made of the base. The GPS wasn't perfect but he left when he saw it. I also told your brother so he went looking for you."
Lana nodded, "he considers Vorden a hero now." She sighed then continued, "I need everyone to understand something with relation to Vorden. He promised my brother he would protect me and keep me safe. He doesn't want to have to tell Dobin that I died because he failed to keep his promise. Not allowing me to participate in rescuing Fex was never my problem. I remember a few months ago when a blond knocked on my door upset because he felt like he had betrayed Quinn. It was the night Fex took Peter away. He did the same thing with me. He made the decision and announced it to everyone without even talking to me about it. And yes, it still hurts. I'm working through it."
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