Dungeon Raider System

What seemed to be a simple request from Soulfire turned out to be way more complex than Uriel anticipated. It was supposed to be pretty straightforward, find Mark, kill him and get rewarded. The first step was done way easier than he expected, in fact, it was Mark who found Uriel and went to meet with him.

Instead of fighting against Uriel, though, Mark wanted to talk and that created an endless streams of possibilities Uriel couldn't ignore.

"Just tell me what you want how much you're paying." Uriel said shortly.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. In terms of credits, I'm more or less bankrupt now since I went from the son of a wealthy family to a night club owner in a short time."

"That settles it." Uriel grabbed his revolver, but Tina placed herself in front of Mark.

"Wait, just let him explain and everything will become clear. Please, do it for me." She cried.

It wasn't that Uriel didn't have any feelings for Tina, but none of those feelings were positive. After using him to get good grades and allowing him to get humiliated without so much as lifting a finger, Tina still felt entitled to asking even more of him. It infuriated Uriel, but it also piqued his curiosity.

He knew both Mark's and Tina's personalities better than most people, and the fact that the latter would protect the former was unthinkable. Unless he turned her into a vampire that is, something he needed to confirm before fighting since she was also a heavenly rank hunter.

"Fine." Uriel grunted in reply, which gave Tina the false impression he did it for her.

Mark led everyone back to the small underground room to speak more privately, but it was occupied by two incapacitated vampires. Their wounds had already regenerated, but since the metal pipe wasn't removed they were unconscious and twitching involuntarily.

"What? I just did what I had to." Uriel shrugged and followed Mark to the next office. Since it was also very small, Soulfire, Tina and the other girl had to remain outside, but they would have still been able to participate in the conversation had Mark not closed the door on their faces.

"I'll make this short. I need you to help me kill my Sire." Mark said, looking Uriel directly in the eye.

"Do you know what do they call when someone asks another person to do something without paying them? It's a favor. This may come like news to you, but I'm not inclined to do any favors to you."

"I know I was a bad friend..."

"A bad friend?" Uriel cut him short. "A bad friend raids your fridge, freeloads, asks for unreasonable things and bails on their agreed chores. You were never a friend of mine, so cut the crap and get straight to the point.

The more I look at you, the more I want to kill you." Uriel thought of the kind of things that annoyed him the most about having friends, though he knew they were nothing compared to the benefits. One of said benefits now rested inside his trait and gave him the confidence to face Mark and all of his minions.

"Fine, I treated you badly and I was a jerk to most people, but this isn't about me. I know that whatever it was you had, now Sam's got it. I don't know what is that thing, but it makes him invincible and he's going to kill us all."

"And what do you plan to do about it?" Asked Uriel, now intrigued to know what else did Mark knew.

"I'm not that good of a leader, but I'll be willing to follow whoever makes a stand against him and that includes you."

"That sounds good and all, I may have bought it in the past, but now things are different. I won't fall for your tricks ever again. You always pretended to be my friend while doing the nastiest things to me, you're nothing but a double faced scumbag. What's stopping you from doing the same thing again?" Although Uriel let out exactly how he felt about Mark, he didn't even get flustered.

Hearing him, Mark felt he was just pointing observations and judging by his tone of voice, Uriel might as well been reading a list of groceries. There were no inflections on his voice and he didn't stutter or hesitate to speak his mind.

"You've grown, not just your rank. I mean, you really matured. Don't you think the same is possible for me?" Mark used the only weapon he knew would work against Uriel without fail: Logic. Even if he was never a true friend to Uriel, Mark spent enough time around him to know him as well as Uriel knew Mark.

"You see, I would feel tempted to believe you're now a more mature version of yourself. An altruistic version that wants to save the city and is willing to die fighting to protect people, the thing is... I know you're a vampire. Do you deny hurting people to drain their blood? Do you deny turning Charlie and who knows how many more people into vampires to make them your little puppets?

Heck, even Tina and that other girl..."

"They're not vampires, I didn't turn those two. After our last encounter I only turned people who wanted to become vampires. And while I can't deny I drink blood now since I need it to regenerate flux, just like all the other vampires do. The thing is, the ones turned by others get their supplies by either killing people or from that butcher shop they call hospital.

I, instead, created this club to drain people with their consent, they even get paid." Mark shrugged.

"This is pointless! Even if you say all the right things, nothing changes the fact that you killed your own father and you're now trying to kill your brother to keep the company." Uriel pointed his finger at Mark, who lowered his gaze and let out a sigh.

"I did kill my father, but you don't know him. He was evil, violent and he forced us to become hunters to secure his position, he also wanted to force me to marry Tina to further his political agenda. Do you think I would have turned out the way I did if I had a loving father and a nice family? You met my brother Ethan before, do you really thing he was always like that?"

"But your brother is innocent! He's an idiot and a jerk, but an innocent one."

"What about him? I never attempted to kill him. All I did was to send him a genuine apology letter where I congratulated him for becoming the new head of the Jacobson building firm."

Uriel's head was spinning so fast he was already feeling dizzy. Of all the people to ever walk the earth, Mark was the only person he deemed as completely irredeemable, but he now started wondering if his opinion was biased. It wasn't that he said all the right things, but if what he said was true he was also taking the necessary actions to become a better person.

"Hey, Soulfire, did Mark send you a letter?"

"Yes, that's how I knew he was after me. You can read it if you like." Soulfire handed Uriel a folded piece of paper with a brief message.

"Congratulations on becoming the CEO, big brother. You'll get what you deserve and then some more. I'm sorry." Uriel finished reading out loud and then turned to Mark. "Is this your idea of an apology letter? It sounds like a death threat!"

Uriel then turned to Tina, who flinched as soon as she met his gaze.

"Tina, did Mark turn you?"

"No."

"Did he force you to do something you didn't want to?"

"No, it was his father the one who wanted me to marry him, but he's been a true gentleman with me." Although Tina prided himself in being able to control her emotions, she couldn't help but blush when replying to Uriel who now looked way more handsome than when she met him.

"You, wait... what is she doing here?"

"She's just a hunter with an ability to track people's energy signature. She's been really helpful in keeping tabs on you."

"So you've been spying on me!" Uriel accused, only this time Mark didn't defend himself.

"I did, I've seen your every move for a while now thanks to this." Mark said with a grin that reminded Uriel of the times he used to bully him, though now it didn't affect him in the slightest. Or that was the case until a patch of black skin, similar to a tattoo but darker than ink, started crawling up to Mark's neck and then his face.

Mark's skin turned black until it covered exactly half of his body, giving him the physical appearance Uriel always thought he deserved. The problem was that he not only recognized the cryptid that possessed Mark skin as an eclipse, but he also realized he had seen it before.