A Pain in the Neck

[Alain the Carnedge]

The wasteland was a pretty dramatic contrast to the white abyss that he was in before. So were the bones that were littered all around the cliff which he was about to go hurtling down. Aw, hell. Alain jumped off as he hit the ground, his vehicle in mid-air for just a second before it landed with a horrible crunching noise, completely crushing the bone it had landed on. Continuing to speed off the cliff, it flew off the edge and hit a tree before the impact with the ground. Alain slid down the cliffside, stabbing his blade into the rock as he approached the bottom to lower the speed of his descent, and jogged over to the bike to survey the damage. It was by all purposes, decimated. A wheel had fell off, there were more than five different holes of varying severity, and there was more smoke coming out than he knew was even possible. Should've gone slower. Now what? There was only the distant howling of wolves to be heard through the fog that enveloped the wasteland in front of him. Alain ditched the idea of creating another bike very quickly, as he imagined it'd end with either crashing into something in the fog, breaking the new bike and likely a few of his own bones, or getting assaulted by some kind of monster that was attracted by the noise, though both happening weren't exactly out of the question either.

None of his other choices were very desirable, so he gave up and resigned to walking through the fog instead, making sure to use his Dataverse Device so he could do something as he took a nice, calming stroll through the badlands. Moving for what seemed like forever, the only sights being blood, bones, fog, more wasteland, and the flickering image of his device's holographic screen. He tapped the headphone more than a few times in some kind of reboot attempt, but it did nothing at all, the screen merely continuing to have short bursts of static before cutting out entirely, then cutting back in another few seconds. It was annoying, but he persisted until he did everything he wanted in the Dataverse, then resolving to the fate of marching endlessly forward. The stench of death, decay and the like weren't exactly helping Alain's opinion of the place, though neither were the constant howling coupled with what he swore were sounds of flesh being torn apart by some starving, perhaps desperate creature. While it was expected that something would jump out at him on the endless stroll into the fog, a horde of vampires, zombies, skeletons, or maybe just a pack of wolves, nothing that he saw even approached him, the noise eventually fading into nothing but dead silence. After a few hours of walking, staring at the sunless sky out of pure boredom and a significant amount of consideration at the idea of setting up camp, Alain eventually arrived at a small, apparently deserted village.

Alain moved through what would've appeared to be a ghost town at a first glance, all doors closed, no sound made whatsoever. He'd stopped and sat down for a few moments, wondering if he should loot the houses or use them as shelter. Alain heard the creak of a door opening behind him as he was still thinking, turning around to greet who, or whatever stepped out. "Uh, hi?" The resident of the village slowly opened the door and walked out, hesitant. "You're not a vampire?" Alain gave them the angriest glare he could, and they merely stared back. "Yeah, I'm a vampire that just decided to walk straight through your village. Without pale skin. And no armour or weapons on me. Idiot." The villager showed no sign of offense at all, merely stating his request. "Look. You're clearly tired from walking here..." the villager looked back down the road Alain walked down, likely to check if he actually had wandered in on foot. "And we need your help. There's at least one person in the village who's one of the nightwalkers. I'll give you a place to rest in my inn, but in return, you find out who these people are." Though it was something to do, Alain was skeptical. I just happen to walk in while this guy's got a job for me? Unlikely. Not impossible, however. "And I should believe you why? I just got here, and you having a job for me seems a bit more than a coincidence...not to mention, that if you are telling the truth, you shouldn't really be trusting me, should you?" The Innkeeper thought for a few seconds before responding. "We've been living in Darkshire, basically a highly fortified town, for a while, but ever since they got the hint that we had a vampire in our group when we first moved in, we were all kicked out before a single person could protest. We're only alive because Dracula's vampires are far too focused in their attempts to breach Darkshire, they weren't aware that some of us were kicked out, now defenseless. The vampire with us, however, has likely gone rogue.Also, no, I shouldn't really trust you, but Dracula's army will find us soon, assuming the bloodsucker here hasn't killed us all first. So, what do you say?" Alain sighed in annoyance. He didn't appear to be lying. Oh well, better than sleeping on the ground and getting stabbed in my sleep. "Guess we have an agreement."