Empires SMP Halloween prompt oneshots

Day 14 - Vampire

           fWhip whistled to himself as he started mixing some very volatile chemicals together. He wasn't worried that anything bad would happen at all. After all, he was an alchemist, although everyone had seemed to have forgotten that. And alchemists were known for blowing their potions up, whether accidentally or on purpose, or maybe that was just a Grimlands thing. Then again, gunpowder was a staple ingredient in splash potions.

           But yeah, fWhip wasn't worried about anything at all. He was just brewing a new potion that he'd never heard of and didn't even know the name of that he'd learned the recipe from a suspiciously old book that randomly appeared on his desk one day. Maybe Sausage had something do to with that. Sausage seemed to be somehow involved in everything.

            So fWhip continued to brew the potion. It had some weird ingredients in it, like goat blood, onions, cat fur, dragon fangs, and white hair from a corpse who had died at night, but fWhip was used to doing weird things to get weird ingredients for his potion-making hobby. And everyone else was used to it too, so no one asked any questions when he dug up a grave, attacked someone's goat, and stole from someone's onion patch. Except one.

           "fWhip, what in the world are you doing?!" His twin sister Gem hissed, hands on her hips and purple magic sparking slightly from her wizard staff strapped to her back. "Uh, hi, Gem! And I was doing absolutely nothing!" fWhip said, backing away, pretending he hadn't just been chasing Gem's familiar, Gandalf, to pluck some hairs from him, and trying to pry one of Gem's dragon's mouth open to pull out a tooth.

           "You were getting ingredients for potions again, weren't you?" Gem sighed. "Maybe," fWhip said sheepishly. "fWhip, are you sure you're making a safe potion?" Gem asked suspiciously. "Um... no." Her twin brother admitted. "fWhip!" Gem groaned. "Do you want to die because of that explosive hobby of yours?!"

            "Life is about taking chances!" fWhip protested. "These are too many chances already!" Gem yelled. "My dragon almost bit your head off and you were only gathering ingredients!" fWhip hated to admit it, but Gem had a point. He rolled his eyes. "Okay, Gem, I'll be extra careful when I do my extremely dangerous hobbies."

            Gem knew that was as far as she could convince him. "Thank you." She said. Then she softened and smiled slightly. "You know I'm doing this because I love you, right?" fWhip smiled back. "Of course." He left Crystal Cliffs and began the long walk home. "You really need to get some wings! An elytra would help a lot!" Gem called after him.

            As soon as he was back in the Grimlands, fWhip immediately started brewing again. He grinned manically; he couldn't help himself. He loved danger. He ruled an empire that was all about grimness and explosions. It was kind of a given. He wondered how his twin sister had turned out so cautious, although that was probably because of her magic lessons, where one wrong spell could hurt everyone.

            Soon the potion was a dark shade of blood red and fWhip was done. He grinned, then glanced out the window. He'd been brewing it all afternoon; it was night now, with the crescent moon in plain sight. From its position in the sky, fWhip deduced that he hadn't just been brewing all afternoon. It was early one in the morning now.

             fWhip turned back to the book where he'd gotten the recipe from, trying to see what the potion actually did, because that moment was the only time he thought about the actual function of the brew. He was just excited for a new brewing recipe. But the book didn't say what the potion did; it did add though that it would only worked when drunk at night. Well, that's convenient, fWhip thought, taking the phial and pouring its contents down his throat.

            Maybe he should have thought twice about using himself as a human test subject. But he wanted to know what the potion did and he couldn't think of any other way. But as it was, the potion was drunk, and the effects were instantaneous.

            Pain shot across his shoulder blades as a pair of leathery black bat or dragon wings sprouted from his back. His fingernails lengthened into claws and his jaw felt slightly itchy as bones rearranged and his incisors sharpened into thin, long fangs. His fiery orange hair suddenly paled to moonlight white and his eyes became bloodshot with slit pupils, as red as the potion that had caused this horrifying transformation.

           fWhip glanced at the mirror and panicked. He couldn't see his reflection. He didn't have one. He felt his wings and his fangs, thought about the ingredients of the potion he'd drunk, and all became clear. He had turned into a vampire.

           He was on the verge of a panic attack, hyperventilating. Then one clear thought rang through his head. Gem. Gem can help. Without thinking about it, fWhip crashed through the window and began to fall through the air. But at the last second his wings spread open wide and he was soaring like he wore an elytra. He headed to Crystal Cliffs, his vampire instincts making him thirst for the sweet taste of human blood. And as he flew, one thought kept beating in his mind like a mantra. Get Gem get Gem get Gem.

           The hours that it took to fly to his twin sister's empire seemed to take an eternity, but sooner or later,be arrived. fWhip crashed through the Gem's bedroom window and landed, sprawling in a heap on the floor.

           There came a feminine shriek as Gem bolted upright in bed, scrambling to her feet. Gandalf, who'd been curled up peacefully on her belly, leapt up with a hiss and snarled at the intruder. "fWhip?" Gem called out uncertainly, her eyes adjusting to the moonlight. The sound of his name made him perk up and soon the vampire was on his feet, smelling the sweet scent of fresh, pumping blood coming from right in front of him.

          Gem's eyes widened in horror as she rcognized fWhip's inhuman features. "fWhip!" She cried out, hand on her staff. "What happened?!" fWhip snarled incoherently, driven mad with his thirst for blood, and lunged at her to sink his new fangs into her neck.

           Gem reacted quickly. She dodged to the right and fWhip crashed into the wall, still not used to his new body. He recovered soon, though, and dove to bite again. Gem cast a few nonlethal spells at him and scrambled for the door, aiming for the potion supply to maybe find a concoction that could fix her brother.

           But fWhip wouldn't let her leave. He jumped on her leg and his sharp claws drew blood. Gem yelled in pain and Gandalf pounced on the vampire with an outraged hiss, scratching madly. But the scent of flowing blood only excited fWhip even more and the two twins fought tooth and nail all night.

          Exhausted, Gem was cornered with fWhip salivating madly and trying to get at her, but the wizard had cast a shield spell to keep her and Gandalf safe. But it was only temporary; magical beings like vampires could penetrate the shield with enough force. And fWhip was exerting a lot of force on it, driven crazy with his lust for blood.

           Just as the shield was on its last legs, though, the morning sun peeked sleepily over the horizon, signalling a new day. fWhip glanced out the window for a split second and shrieked in agony at the bright light. His hair suddenly reverted back to its usual auburn shade where the sunlight had touched it. On impulse, Gem dropped the shield and pushed her brother straight into the rising light.

          fWhip screamed like she hadn't heard anyone scream before, and the wizard covered her eyes and ears tightly shut. After a few seconds she cautiously opened them to see fWhip, fully human, sitting on the floor with a horrified expression on his face. Or not fully human after all; fWhip still had dragon wings.

          Gem ran to embrace him and the twins squeezed each other tightly. "I'm so sorry, Gem!" fWhip sobbed. "I should have listened to you! I'll never mess with potions again!" Part of Gem smiled when he said that, but instead she hugged him tighter and just whispered over and over, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..."

           When they finally distangled, fWhip looked at his reflection and was incredibly relieved to see that he had one, but then stopped at the sight of his wings. "I have dragon wings." fWhip said, shocked. "Cool." He flapped them uncertainly, then turned to Gem, worried about how shewould react to this. "Hey, you said I needed a new pair of wings."

           The twins couldn't help it; even after all that they'd been through that night, they broke into uncontrollable hysterical laughter and didn't stop for the next ten minutes.