Winter Festival in Theapan (Part 3)

Prince Leo thought about King Micah's interest in talking to Vorbuk before speaking to Vorbuk quietly, "What does he want from you? Do you have any idea what it could be about?"

"We will find out later," Vorbuk responded before adding on, "first we should find out who came from Drethia."

"Someone from Drethia arrived?" Prince Leo flinched at the information. "That could be nearly anyone."

Vorbuk hesitated before asking, "There's no simple way to tell them apart from others here?"

"There isn't a method that you could consider easy," Prince Leo whispered. "vampires could look like any species. Elves, humans, even dragons could become one of their species. They could be anyone here."

Vorbuk watched the prince talk as he took in the look of puzzlement on his face. The prince was surely unable to tell the difference among those present to notice who was from the vampire race. However when he heard that dragons could even become one of their race it made his blood chill. Someone who carried both the bloodline of a vampire and a dragon would surely be someone terrifying.

"Master," Ashley whispered to them as he joined in the conversation, "when it comes to the vampires of Drethia, their current king is of the dragon race."

Prince Leo nodded at Ashley's words to affirm them. It was something that made Vorbuk uncomfortable as he would eventually need to deal with the king of Drethia. How do you deal with someone who is both dragon and vampire? It felt complicated and gave him a feeling of stress the more he thought about it.

A palace servant was passing by with a tray of fresh glasses of wine. Reaching out his hand, Vorbuk grabbed a new glass and placed his empty one down. The servant was silent in the process as they tried to keep their gaze away from the king. He did not notice the servants reaction as he raised the glass slowly while the servant paced himself away from them.

"Master~!" Ashley's hand suddenly reached out and grabed Vorbuk's wrist to stop the glass from getting any closer to Vorbuk's lips.

Vorbuk was stunned for a moment before replying, "What is it?"

"I will take this one and get you something else." Ashley had a bright smile on his face with a cold gleam in his eyes.

Vorbuk had no time to refuse as Ashley carefully took the glass from his hand without further explanation. He could only watch as the vampire lifted the glass to his own mouth and downed the wine. Chugging down every last drop of the drink he felt as if he saw Ashley wince slightly while drinking.

Ashley did his best to hide his body wincing as he drank it down. He did not want to make anything obvious to the others around them. It would only cause unnecessary problems. As a vampire normal poisons would not be able to kill him so he chose the most simple way to hide the fact that the drink was poisoned.

Master had been so concentrated on thinking he did not see the look in that servant's eyes. Ashley thought as he found his assumption to be correct. A violent poison was in the drink he took and downed. Once the drink had been swallowed it sent a wave of thorny pain throughout his body. It was like he was being stabbed with countless needles.

His body went into overdrive in order to neutralize the poison. As a vampire his body fought and struggled to digest and destroy the poison taken in. While he felt himself getting better right away he cast his gaze across the room. Another pair of eyes were returning the gaze as he located Aoki.

A feint nod of his head in Aoki's direction. Aoki began to move directly on Ashley's signal.

"Ashley are you okay?" Vorbuk asked seeing the strange behavior of his.

Ashley smiled brightly and held the wine glass in his hand as if he had found something, "I am fine, master~"

Ding! [ Quest Activated: Rats In The Palace

Assassins Dealt with: 1/3 ]

What? Why is this showing up now? Vorbuk thought to himself as he stared at the message. Realizing after a short pause that he must have almost drank poison. Ashley's reaction and the message saying one out of three threats were dealt with only made him connect the dots quickly.

You only mention three problems for me to deal with after I almost die from one of them? Vorbuk growled lowly as he tried to suppress his annoyance.

[ Invalid. ]

No, what is invalid is that you pick and choose on your own when to inform me of things. Vorbuk scolded the god's voice in his head.

[ I can not always tell you everything. ]

Wait... are you talking back to me now? Vorbuk was surprised to see the voice suddenly showing a bit more life to itself towards him.

[ … Invalid. ]

"Vorbuk?" "Master?" He heard Prince Leo and Ashley calling out to him from the sides as they noticed him go quiet. For a moment Vorbuk felt glad that he could mentally communicate with the voice in his head. If not he felt others would find him crazy for talking to himself.

"We should move on with things before anything else-" Vorbuk started to speak but found himself cut off by the sudden approach of someone else. He could sense the man walking up to him from behind even before he heard the man's silent steps among the crowd of people nearing in. It felt like he was a beast cornered by a larger monster. The man's aura was cold and yet barely able to be noticed like a feline stalking a mouse; his presence was not able to be noticed until he made himself known to Vorbuk while approaching him directly.

"A pleasure to meet you, your majesty, King Vorbuk." A cold voice called out to him causing all three of them to feel chills down their back. It was a voice that gave a cold sweat while a wraith wrapping itself around them. "I am Grand Duke Heket of Drethia."

While turning to look at the pleasant smile on the man's face Vorbuk felt something strange about this duke. He could not understand what it was about him that felt familiar and yet dangerously different at the same time. Grand Duke Heket wore a black hat and suit. The man's eyes were like dark black voids that gave the feeling he would swallow you whole if you stared into them.

Vorbuk forced the words out past the tension he felt in the pit of his stomach, "Welcome, Duke Heket."

"Yes," Grand Duke Heket looked pleased at Vorbuk's response. "I was passing by when I happened to witness your work back at Cista Kingdom when you helped King Micah. It was a beautiful thing to see in person even if it was from such a distance."

"... Excuse me?" Vorbuk felt uncomfortable. This man was there?

Dangerous, this man is dangerous. Vorbuk felt his instincts screaming at him as he made eye contact with those dark eyes. Without realizing it he swallowed hard unconsciously while the man observed his every reaction. It was like he was sizing Vorbuk up from head to toe. No, he absolutely was judging Vorbuk by his own measures.