A Chat And Starting Another Quest

It's all real.

Fucking hell, it's all real.

That was the be all and end all I'd gained from my short meditative session. Every memory was filled with detail and I could remember all of it - there's no way the VR pod could do all that. Especially considering that it shouldn't give me actual martial arts skill. It should just be a passive that takes over when I fight, and yet that's not the case. I have all the theoretical knowledge and I know exactly how to use it like I was indeed trained by a centuries old vampire.

This isn't just a game. I've no clue why this happened or even how it happened, but I've been sent to a world based off of the smut/action game I was supposed to be beta testing.

Did the company send me here? Were they actually humans or some sort of omnipotent ROBs who wanted to send people to new universes and used the beta testing as a guise? Or did something go wrong in the pod that wasn't supposed to happen, I died, and then some ROB picked up where the game was supposed to?

...Questions, questions, questions, but no answers in sight.

Opening my eyes from my meditation, I looked down at the pale and calloused hand before willing it to change. The fingers turned to claws and became massively elongated. Then I changed them back just as quickly. I cycled through that process a few more times and fully realised just how much I could feel. Just like when I earned that passive skill from getting my Fortitude pathway to Level Five, I could feel the flesh and bones changing whenever I turned my fingers to claws.

It only cemented the fact that I was actually here in this world. A world based off of Marvel. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little underprepared. I'd made my character with the goal of playing a game, not surviving in a messed up world like Marvel...but at least I didn't go the pure human route.

I'd have been majorly screwed if I basically tried to make a Punisher 2.0.

At the very least I'm solidly superhuman and should be able to fight people on Spider-Man's level. But there's still so many people that could swat me like a fly if I get pulled into certain comic runs. Just thinking about World War Hulk is terrifying me beyond actual rational thought.

Stopping myself, I closed my eyes and used a breathing technique to calm my hammering heart. Which was odd. As a Vampire, my heart shouldn't be working. But it is. A side-effect of being Genetically Engineered or something? God knows. I'll have to try and figure it out though. This isn't a game and I need to know everything I can about everything I can if I wanna survive this place.

Opening my eyes again, I took in the world with a much calmer countenance. I was still thoroughly fucking rattled, sure, but I knew I was better off than most people in Marvel. Namely the billions of completely ordinary humans on Earth who are routinely subjected to the whims of superhumans, aliens, gods and demons. Hell, I'm better off than the standard Kree or Skrull as well, so I guess that's something. Not a lot of something but still, it's something to be happy about.

I heard movement to my right and turned to see Elsa finally rousing herself awake. I was shocked at how good my sense of sight and hearing were, even with no levels in the Auspex pathway, and I could easily see the micro-expressions on her face and how her muscles trembled and contracted with each movement and every breath.

Reining my enhanced senses in, I got up and out of my sitting position and walked over to her. I drew on some of my Chi, a dark red coloured energy flashing over my hand as I reached out to hurry her recovery. I had to be careful with my Chi when it came to healing fully living creatures, I knew that.

After all, even with a working heart I was at least partly-undead. So my Chi was dark and twisted as a result. But it was still life-force and could still be used to help people.

Just had to be careful with it because it was naturally better at killing than it was at preserving life.

The red Chi flushed from my hand and into Elsa who suddenly went tense and I was thankful for the fact I had Level Five in the Chi pathway. Without it I'd have not had the control needed for this kind of healing/resuscitation. I'd have probably just straight up killed her if it were any lower than Level Four and that's not something I want.

Because despite this seeming to all be real, I still had the system the game used to empower your character. And the quest system. Which meant Elsa was a pivotal character for a quest line and a quest line usually involved lots of levelling up, something I sorely needed.

Her blue eyes snapped open and when they latched onto me, she sent a rushed punch right at my head but I quickly stopped it before it impacted my face. She'd have probably sprained her wrist if she hit my face, or worse, and I stopped infusing my Chi into her, "Calm down," I said before bringing my hand away from her stomach and standing up, "I'm not your enemy. Someone was controlling you and using you to attack me."

Backing away, I gave her some space to digest what I'd just said and he hand absentmindedly went to the choker she was wearing. Before she looked to me, "How do you know I was controlled?"

"Because I didn't do anything you accused me of. I've been asleep for...what year is it?" I asked when I realised I didn't actually know.

"2023," she answered tentatively, definitely unsure on whether she should answer or not.

"Thanks," I said before doing the mental quick math, "I've been asleep for the last four years. When did those murders happen?" I asked and realisation quickly dawned on her. "From your expression, I'll hazard a guess that they were within that four year time frame of me being in a self-induced coma, right?" I sighed before dragging a hand across my face, "Then someone's using you to get to me for a reason or I was just an unlucky scapegoat."

"But that...that doesn't make sense," she shook her head, brows furrowed in confusion before she suddenly curled up in pain. She clawed at her head, hollering and screaming as she did so and I rushed back to her side before she hurt herself with her eyes with her nails.

I pushed the palm of one of my hands against her head and pulled on the Telepathy I'd gained from having Higher Life-Form at Level Two. It was decent enough and my memories had plenty of practice with it, so I could easily see the problem in her mind. A lot of her memories were locked up with psionic chains and I had no doubt those chains were put there to stop her from remembering the culprit of this entire situation. My telepathy wasn't strong enough to remove the chains guarding her memories but it was strong enough to stop her from damaging herself anymore by trying to draw on the memories that were chained up.

Separating the memories from her conscious mind, I slapped them temporarily into her subconscious before pulling my hand away with a major migraine forming. Taking a deep breath and rubbing at my forehead and temples, I looked to see Elsa had stopped spasming in pain and instead was just breathing heavy and shivering.

"Don't try and think about why you're here or who the Vampire you're hunting is. They're a very strong Telepath and I barely separated the effected memories from your conscious mind," I took in a deep breath before standing up to full height again, "Do you know anyone who could break the shit they did to your mind?" I asked and held out a hand to her.

"...Yeah, I do," she said after a few moments of heavy breathing before taking my hand and letting me pull her up, "But I'm not gonna like having to go to them for this," she bit out in distaste. I wonder what the history behind that distaste is? Though I pushed aside that thought for now.

She brushed herself off and the both of us went silent for a minute or two as she regained her bearings and I recovered from the Telepathy induced migraine. Then she turned to me with a quirked eyebrow and a curious expression, "Just what kind of Vampire are you though? Silver doesn't effect you. You're way stronger and faster, not to mention more durable...are you a new breed?" she asked in sullen realisation.

I nodded in reply, "Yeah. I'm the next step after the Vampires you're probably most used to," I left it at that and while she looked like she wanted to question it more, she left it there too.

Which was good because I wasn't gonna answer any of her questions. I'm gonna be playing my strengths and weaknesses close to my chest from now on - last thing I need people to know is that I'm weak to Gold and that once a month I'll be weakened to half my strength because of a moonless night. Fuck, I'm regretting picking Vampire as an affliction now. At least I didn't pick Lycanthropy or the Carpathian Vampire, so I should look on the bright side for now.

Elsa pushed past the lull in the conversation after that and pulled out her phone, typing in a number before pressing the call button and then bringing the phone to her ear. The phone rang a few times before someone picked it up, "It's me, Elsa. I know, we said we weren't gonna call each other but I need your help with a new case," she paused and a voice spoke up on the other side which caused her to sigh, "Please, Steph, just do me this solid and we can call it even, yeah?"

I tried to listen in but something was blocking my hearing which was...odd. Magic?

Oblivious to my trying to listen in, the other side of the phone said something that caused Elsa to relax the tension in her shoulders and show a tired smile, "Thank you. This isn't all sunshine and rainbows for me too, you know? I'll text you the location, so get over here when you can."

"Ex?" I blurted out the question on my mind and Elsa gave me a look before giving an exhausted laugh.

"Yeah. A particularly bad one. She should be here soon enough though," she leaned up against a rundown wall and literal seconds later an orange portal opened up in the middle of the room. Ah, shit, I should've known a universe based off of a smut-game would've included genderbent characters.

From the portal walked an absolute bombshell of a woman. She had a statuesque figure with curves in all the right places and a slight fragility to her that screamed 'runway model' - if anything, when I saw her face, I'd have to say she looked like Elizabeth Debicki but with black hair and grey eyes. Which meant she wasn't far off from me in terms of height. Her grey eyes were first on Elsa, a sort of melancholy in them which was replaced with a faked indifference before they turned to me.

She looked me up and down before smiling and then looking back to Elsa, "New partner? I didn't know you worked with Vampires, Ellie."

"He's not a new partner. Just a part of the newly fucked up web of this case I took on," Elsa spat on with a frown before striding up to the genderbent Dr. Strange, "Can you take a look in my head and unravel whatever's in there?" she looked over to me as if she was about to say I discovered something there but didn't know my name, so I helped her out.

"David," I answered simply and she carried on.

"David looked in there and gave a temporary solution but couldn't do anything about it--" she was stopped by Strange holding up her hand - strange in and off itself to think of her as a HER, pun unintended - before she used the free hand to gesturing between the two of us.

She frowned, losing her earlier smile and looked down on Elsa with a slight amount of disbelief, "You let a Vampire with psychic powers mess about in your head, Ellie? What the hell were you thinking? He could've fucked around in there and made the problem you're speaking about in the first place!"

...Honestly, if I were in her place, I'd have thought the same thing. So I can't really blame her.

"You have any spells you can use to make sure I'm telling the truth?" I asked Strange and she spared me a glance before nodding, "Then use them. I'm innocent. I wanna get to the bottom of this shit show as much as she does," I pointed to Elsa while keeping eye contact with Strange. I know I'm tempting fate by letting her cast some unknown spell on me but I'd rather it be that than to have her forcibly restrain me and delve into my head for my innocence.

She looked at me for a few long seconds before nodding and lifting a hand which made an arcane gesture that faintly reminded me of a seal from Naruto before an orange light sparked into existence around her hand.

The sparks coalesced into a ring filled with mystical symbols which shot toward me and wrapped around my throat. "You can only speak the truth now. So, go ahead," Strange dropped her hand.

"I didn't personally place the chains in her mind. Neither do I know who did," I answered truthfully, feeling an odd force enacting it's will on my throat. I could instinctively tell that if I tried to lie, my vocal cords wouldn't follow through and would just lock up instead. Huh. I should look at trying to learn some magic so I'm not useless against it in a fight.

"And you didn't make the situation worse when you entered her head? Didn't look into any of her memories to sate any curiosity you had about her?" she asked with a stern voice.

"No," I shook my head, "I just did what I felt was best to stop her pain. Whether I unknowingly made it worse or not is something I want you to look into, honestly," I admitted before going silent. Strange hummed and the ring around my throat broke, dispersing into sparks once more. "I like peanuts," I tried to lie and did so successfully, getting an odd look from both Elsa and Strange, "What? I wanted to know if that light show signalled the end of the spell or whether it was a trick."

Strange rolled her eyes, as if she'd ever pull off such a thing, and I refrained from calling her out on it. Pretty sure in some comic runs Strange has done some pretty funky stuff. And genderbent or not, this is still Dr. Strange we're talking about. I'm not just gonna trust her because she's a hero or whatever. Got more chance of me trying to seduce Ugly John.

"He's telling the truth...which makes this whole thing a lot harder to sort out. If he were the one to do it," she looked to me, "No offense, but I'd have been able to force you to undo it," she turned back to Elsa, "But because he's not the culprit, we'll have to do this the old fashioned way. The slow way."

This seemed to set Elsa off, "We can't take the slow way, Steph. Whoever fucked with my head is out there killing people. I can't just sit around diddling with my thumbs while that shit happens, can I?" she said in an exasperated tone and Strange gave her a tired look.

"Always having to do something, huh, Ellie?" she said before turning around before Elsa could say a thing in response and opening a portal for us, "Come on then," she called out and entered it.

I gave Elsa a look and gestured for her to enter first. Not because I'm a gentleman or anything but because I'd rather have two test subjects check out the mystical portal before I entered it. She took me up on my offer and walked through the portal and when I was satisfied that it wouldn't lead to a meat grinder, I followed after her. The place beyond the portal was much better than where we'd been - we'd gone from a rundown dojo to a well-kept library filled with mystical floating lights, comfy chairs and a great big fireplace with a bear skin rug laid out in front of it.

Except the bear was five times the size of a normal bear. Either magic...or I need to be on the look out for giant bears.

I did, for a few moments, think about perusing some of the books. But my instincts blared like sirens in my head and told me that'd be a very, very bad move. Which logically makes a lot of sense - probably covered in magic safeguards and landmines. Last thing I want is to open a book and find myself teleported to the center of the sun or the vacuum of space.

Shivering at the thought of it, I saw Strange waved a hand and pull a book that was labelled 'Mind Magic' in Latin - because for some reason I could understand that - and she flicked through it as she walked to that great big fireplace, "This will take a while. If David is correct and this is a telepathic Vampire that put those chains in your mind, it'll take some time to find magic that can actually effect it and safely at that," she sat on one of the comfy-looking leather seats next to the fire, "In the mean time, why don't you fill our Vampire friend here in on what you know and can access without activating those chains, Ellie? While you're here, he can go out and do some investigating."

[Quest Started.]

[Discover a lead for the Psionic Vampire case with the information given to you by Elsa Bloodstone. Rewards: Level Up (x1.5) + Reputation Up With Both Elsa Bloodstone and Dr. Stephanie Strange.]

...I know early game you're supposed to level quick but two quests that each lead to level ups? That seems a little too good to be true. Maybe it's supposed to show how hard this quest is and how under-levelled I am? Knowing my luck, it's most definitely that.

Before I could think any further, I felt a stinging at the back of my throat and my fangs tried to come out on their own. Feeling the hearts of both women so close to me and beating so much blood through their veins, I nearly jumped right into my Vampire form and rushed them but thankfully this body had been trained to resist the thirst and had an unnatural amount of discipline because of the martial arts training and the fact it was genetically engineered to be the best it could be.

Rubbing at my aching throat, I looked to the two women, "Before that, do either of you have any spare blood bags laying around? Last thing I wanna do is drain an innocent dry the second I go out into the world," I spoke with a slightly strained and hoarse voice as I held back the urge to change and drain the two of them dry. Strange looked up from her book, giving me a look that seemed surprised I'd even asked.

"Sure," she waved a hand and two blood bags appeared from nowhere. Magic or whatever, I didn't care and rushed to the floating bags of blood. One moment I was standing a few meters from Strange and Elsa, and the next I was guzzling down blood.

Bloody hell, I get that this body's been asleep for years and hasn't fed but to act like this as soon as blood is involved? I'll have to work on my discipline a little. Though, to be fair to my new self, the fact I even had this much control after four years of no feeding was a herculean feat in and of itself. Still didn't mean I liked the thought of being so tied to drinking blood like this and that if I was hungry enough I'd have to act like this.

It also drove home just how fast I was. Because neither Strange nor Elsa followed my movement as I approached the blood bags. Doing some quick math in my head, I quickly worked out that at my top speed I could run at mach 7. Which is more than twice as fast as a fighter jet.

How did I get that number? Well, Level Four enhanced means that as a baseline I can run at 40m/s, which translates to 89 MPH. As an American Vampire with Level Three Celerity, that baseline is multiplied by sixty to produce 2,400m/s or over 5000 MPH or, as I said, mach 7. Which means I'm pretty damn fast. Not as fast as someone like Quicksilver, sure, but fast enough that I could run circles around Spider-Man or anyone near his level.

And, like all my stats, it'll get better as I level and allocate points to my Celerity pathway.

So, as I drank the blood which was surprisingly delicious, I forcibly pushed my circumstances to as far back in my mind as I could. Otherwise I'd probably have a panic attack. Why? Because suddenly arriving in the Marvel universe is scary as shit. Guess I'm lucky I'm an orphan who lived on his own. If I had a family, this would probably suck even more than it already does.

With that in mind, I finished the blood bags and got ready to listen to Elsa give me all the information she could. Bad circumstances? Better just focus on the quests and distract myself.