Chương 89: 060 – Pseudo-Vampire Research Island

Luckily for the Kaedekin of Vampire Research Island, they got a little more time to get their act in order as everybody changed air tanks. While there was still air in everyone's tanks, after a brief discussion Doctor Namine had suggested the tanks be changed a little early so the refilling operation wouldn't have to be conducted within the confines of the research facility, and Commander Bronze had agreed. Changing the tanks didn't take long, even if everyone needed assistance.

It was a two-person operation, under the dubious logic that if you were in vacuum alone long enough to need to change tanks… you were dead anyway. Needing someone else to be with you wasn't so much a design flaw as a fundamental philosophy ruthlessly built into the design. Naturally, someone forgot to build that philosophy into the pajhadin suits, because those tentacles of theirs managed the job just fine.

And by touch too, with one pair of tentacles holding the replacement tank while the other pair felt around blindly for the slot it was to go into. Fortunately, there were no shortage of hands for the task, and everyone soon had new air tanks on, their expended ones sealed to prevent leakage—in case there was something that might be communicated in the remaining oxygen supply—and picked up by the Kaedekin. That chore done, they all made their way to Vampire Research Island.

Loren turned her head as she felt a warmth fall into step beside her.

"Seraphine," she greeted.

"Hi!" Seraphine said with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry if it seems like I've been ignoring you, but I should be finished with everything now, so I can spend the rest of the trip with you and answer any questions you have!"

"It's fine," Loren said, noticing other Kaedekin falling into step with other members of the excursion party. She recognized them all as Kaedekin who had acted as guides during the visit to Stargazer Fortress, who seemed to be having their own little reunions.

"I understand you have things to do. Why are you people doing vampire research?" Yes, she knew it was abrupt but it was an important question.

"Vampire research?" Seraphine blinked before her expression looked shocked.

"We're not doing vampire research! That's extremely dangerous! There's never any Dancerlight on this planet, it's practically a world perfect for vampires!" Loren saw people glancing towards them as they talked, and while seeing expressions was a bit difficult because of the helmets, there seemed to be a mix of amusement and agreement. At the very least, they probably agreed about the planet being great for vampires.

"We're going to vampire research," she pointed out.

"No…?" Seraphine said slowly.

"We're going to pseudo -vampire research. The prefix is important." Loren hoped it was, and it wasn't just some ad copy.

"What's the difference?" Seraphine opened her mouth, then paused.

"Ah, wait we're here. I think Megumi is about to explain." They arrived at what first looked strangely like a sunken area surrounded by guard rails. However, beyond that was a low, cylindrical building that was painted bright blue, and had been labeled 'Danger! Holy(?) Water Tank!', which drew a small smile from Loren and bemused looks from everyone else. Beneath that, in larger print, were the words 'Detonate In The Event Of Vampire Containment Breach', with a bullseye and several arrows pointing for emphasis.

Loren turned a flat look towards Seraphine, who apparently recognized the expression.

"Things go wrong," the Kaedekin said, as if that explained everything. A wide moat surrounded the building, with lights glowing underneath the water showing it was both deep and flowing quickly. A downwards-angled bridge over the moat connected to the artificial little island the building was on, and on the sides of the bridge were big signs that read 'Structural Weak Points For Bridge Collapse!

Destroy In The Event of Containment Failure', with more helpful arrows pointing towards where exactly the weak points were. In Loren's well-considered engineering judgement, those were definitely weak points, and it looked like just destroying one would cause one end of the bridge to collapse into the water. At the mouth of the bridge was a small circular plaza with three life-sized statues in the center, two of whom were apparently children.

"This is Pseudo-Vampire Research Island," Megumi declared.

"This is where we study historical examples of pseudo-vampirism and try to replicate the spells they made with their Flame so we can add it to everyone's general spell list." Someone near Loren raised a hand.

"What's the difference between vampire research and pseudo-vampire research beyond the prefix?" they asked, sounding only partially facetious. They must have heard her talking to Seraphine.

"Well, vampire research—which we don't do—would probably involve studying vampires, which we thankfully don't have any of on this planet. Pseudo-vampire research involves trying to recreate things that we know pseudo-vampires were capable of. Examples like these three." She gestured towards the statues.

"These statues are the three most well-known pseudo-vampires from the old Earth, Pyrotheurgists who were capable of utilizing vampire-like abilities. There's Black Queen, who was a part of the Court of the Falling Sky with Stardancer; Frozen Garden, who was one of the protectors of Yosakimachi as a part of the Afterschool Student Alliance; and… her." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Every single Kaedekin in sight had a full-body twitch at the same time.

After a slightly overlong pause, Commander Bronze prompted.

"Her?" Again the simultaneous twitch.

"Yes… her. We… don't say her name. She might hear it and try to find us." Megumi—and every other Kaedekin as well—made a gesture that she recognized from her cousin the Catholic priest, moving their finger to make a shape in the air.

"I know, I know, she's a whole universe away and there's no magic we know of that lets someone know when someone is talking about them, and it's probably a silly superstition… but we can't take the risk." One more shudder, and then Loren saw the first fake smile on a Kaedekin's face.

"If you'd all follow me down the bridge, please? Don't worry, it's perfectly structurally safe, it's just built to be easy to destroy."

"… why?" Commander Bronze said, even as he followed their hosts down the slope of the bridge.

"While we're not doing vampire research, we're not taking any chances," Megumi said firmly.

"So Pseudo-Vampire Research Island is designed to be hard for vampires to escape from and easy to use to contain them. The bridge is inclined so that if a vampire reaches it, they'll roll down it and back to the island when the moat puts them in a torpor. If the vampire somehow gets on something that can carry them across the bridge while they're unconscious, the bridge is easy to blast so it collapses into the moat.

We put a water tank above the lab that's constantly being agitated, so any vampires that get made will be under running water to keep them sedated. And if that fails, the water inside the tank is holy water, so if it gets blown up, it will flood the lab and burn any vampires with the power of Jesus Christ… theoretically."

"Princess Megumi, 'theoretically' isn't a comforting thing to hear when you're talking about what seems to be intended as a security system," Commander Bronze said, sounding mildly amused. Megumi sighed.

"We know, but… to be honest, we can't really be sure it's proper holy water. No one on the planet is a baptized Catholic, never mind a priest, so we don't really know if we did it right."

"What did you do?" Loren recognized Cooper's voice.

"Well, first we heated all the water to try and boil the hell out of it, so it would have a higher holy ratio." Loren managed to stifle the laugh that wanted to leave her mouth. The Kaedekin sounded dead serious when she said that, so it was possible she meant it literally.

"Then we got everyone together, lit some candles and tried to pray for it to become holy water, and we admit we're pretty sure that's not actually how you make it fully holy, but it was all we knew how to do. We don't know a lot about Catholicism, but we're pretty sure that the way you get things done is to pray and ask God very nicely and politely, so you don't get turned to salt or get smit… smited? Smote? Ugh, I never know how you're supposed to conjugate that word properly.

We could have used Shinto and Buddhist-style holy water, but Catholic holy water is the kind that has documented effectiveness against vampires, so that's what we went for."

"I'm… fairly certain only a priest can make holy water," Commander Bronze said neutrally.

"Would you like me to ask one of the ship chaplains for details?"

"Oh, would you? That would be a big help with everyone's peace of mind. Even if no one is actually trying to make or become a vampire, accidents happen, and it would be really bad if we accidentally unleashed vampires onto a planet that never gets any Dancerlight."

"Excuse me," one of the rakido said, "but what is a 'vampire'? You've used the term repeatedly, but we're still don't understand what it is."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Megumi said, looking mortified at her lapse as she turned and began to walk backwards on the bridge so she could face everyone.

"I should have remembered… A vampire is someone afflicted with a form of undeath as either part of an act of deliberate malice, or in very rare instances self-inflicted out of a twisted desire for power. Someone who's a vampire has their soul trapped in their corpse, which is slowly being cannibalized for magic to keep the effect going.

The person in question has a choice to either kill people to absorb their soul using warm blood as a conduction medium, or slowly experience increasing amounts of agony as their own soul devours itself to maintain functions. From stories we've heard, starvation won't actually kill a vampire, simply put them in a lethargic state where they're in so much constant agony it will slowly warp their mind into deciding being an obligate cannibalistic murderer is preferable." Megumi grimaced.

"Of course, that's if you're a good person. Someone who deliberately and purposefully turns herself into a vampire… well, the closest allegory would be a recusant who specializes in core devouring, a viledead or lifewraith who murders people to steal and graft their organs onto themselves to artificially prolong their life and eats the rest that they can't use, or… ah, what's the term? An ishdapwa. A vampire is basically a human ishdapwa, siphoning other people's souls through their vital fluids."

Loren wasn't an expert at the subtle facial expressions of rakido and pajhadin, and she didn't know what counted as expressions among Changers and tiwada at all, but she'd seen enough movies to recognize horror and disgust, even through a suit helmet.

"You humans have monsters like that?" one of the rakido said, sounding like they were trying to realign what they know about the universe.

"Of course not," Loren heard one of the normies say.

"Vampires aren't real. You only see them on movies, games and bad romance novels."

"Yes, they're real," Megumi said right on top of them.

"Humans are good at driving things to extinction, but they're not that good. I'm a wizard. We know about this stuff." She snapped her fingers and a long, golden flame appeared, floating just above the tip of her index as if the digit were a candle.

"Trust me." They reached the end of the bridge, Megumi's heel hit something, and with a cry she fell onto her back. There was a beat, punctuated by a groan.

"I'm all right!" she declared, thrusting a thumbs-up into the air.

"Welcome to Pseudo-Vampire Research Island! Watch your step!"