The snowy haze cleared as Tangurple approached the structure. When the wind died and the kicked up snow fell back to the ground, a large circular and open facility stood in front of him. It was lined with marble pillars which sat upon a snow-dusted stone base. In the center was a circular altar with two red rugs draped across it in a bisecting pattern. Out of curiosity, Tangurple approached it. On its surface were two pewter bowls with a sizable gap between them. He studied it for a minute, making a quick sign of the cross before placing the recently obtained items onto the altar.

The mammoth pelt was placed between the bowls, a vial of his blood was placed into the left bowl. He pulled out the vampire heart and set it down into the bowl on the right. However, it shriveled up, turning rot brown. He stared at it and poked it. It then shattered into a thousand pixels and vanished. "Damn it," he cursed.

He looked up and spotted three women dressed in green robes with white flower crowns on their heads. They greeted him in unison creating a conglomerate of female voices, "Welcome traveler, Syna greets thee with a warm smile. She sees the offerings you have placed upon the altar. However, you have been lied to. The heart which you possessed was not a vampire's heart but one of a deer. Vampire hearts do not shrivel, they burn and turn to ash."

"Who are you three?" Tangurple asked already guessing them to be an affiliate of Syna.

The response was spoken by one girl rather than all three. She was the youngest and shortest of the three, a dwarf based on her appearance, her voice was high pitched and nasally. "We are priestesses of Syna, women who've given up their worldly lives for a higher purpose and for now, that purpose is to purge Eonus of vampirism."

The middle woman was much older but still young in comparison to the third. The second woman smiled at him. She was a wood elf due to her pointy ears and small antlers on her head. She added on to the dwarf's statement, her voice being much more appealing to the ear. "Judas is the source of this vampiric plague and he must be killed. Syna demands his heart as a suitable sacrifice to cleanse Night of her affliction."

The third was a high elf, the tallest and oldest among them. She had a grandmotherly tone to her voice, "You must be quick or you may lose her forever."

"Quick? The hell? What are you talking about?" Tangurple was suddenly dumbfounded.

"Judas has two captives with him," the high elf explained. "They are feeding him, strengthening his already overgrown power. If he can drain them both, Syna fears he will be too strong for the visitors to handle."

"Visitors? You mean the other players?"

"Yes," the three said in unison.

Tangurple quickly pulled out his map. It showed him where he was standing in Ashua and as a reminder, he placed a marker over this spot. "I knew Judas had something to do with her vanishing again. That bastard will get what's coming to him because karma is a bitch like that." Not too far away, the sound of panting alerted Tangurple to someone else's presence. He turned around and equipped his sword and shield. The figure approaching, however, wasn't hostile. "Falcher?"

The gnoll sluggishly trudged over the hill's crest and slumped down to his knees, exhausted. "I... Hate... You..." he said between breaths before collapsing to the ground breathless.

Tangurple sheathed his weapons and rushed over. "The hell happened to you?"

"Draugr, vampires, you..." Falcher clenched his chest, panting heavily. "I'll be fine, just have to wait for my health regen to kick in."

"Draugr?"

"Armored zombies with anger issues. I hate this place, I really do."

"Good to see you're still you."

"The master of fencing won't give up easily. Unless there are more vampires involved."

"Well..."

"Nope, not doing it. I want nothing more with vampires. I've had my fill of cleansing for six lifetimes."

"Why not seven? Or ten?"

"Don't push it."

"Oh, I'm so gonna push it. Besides, this is the last vampire we'll have to fight."

"What makes you so confident in that?"

"It's Judas-"

"HELL NO! You're mad, no, absolutely insane to even think about taking that mad bastard on."

"I'm obviously not capable of soloing him. I'll need you, Creoft and a handful of other guildies for this fight."

Two figures crossed the hill's top and waved down. "I don't think the council will approve of your plan," Creoft warned.

"What plan? I was just gonna stab the shit out of him until he fell over." Tangurple replied jokingly.

"Good to see Falcher still lives. I'm guessing you had fun. We saw the flattened area of snow."

"You have no idea the hell I went through," Falcher groaned.

"Good, I don't want to know. But Tang, after that little slaughter in Jonkas, the council is highly distrusting of me and Tullus. Speaking of whom, where did that slug collapse?" Creoft walked back over the hill and down its slope.

Tullus was just standing there, motionless. Creoft called out to him, he didn't respond. Suddenly, everything started breaking down, sight became cluttered in static and random bars of color. The ear piercing noise of the infamous "ear rape" rang and drowned out all sense of consciousness. They all collapsed to the ground in pain, visionless, and unable to hear.

After what seemed like hours of torture ended in only a few minutes. Falcher laid limp in the snow, not willing to move a muscle. Pyroholiday firmly pressed his head against a nearby rock. Creoft pushed himself up to look down the hill. Tullus was gone.

Another handful of minutes passed and the group recovered, slightly. Tangurple sat up and held his head in his hand. "If that happens anymore I'm just gonna jump."

"Tullus is gone," Creoft mumbled.

"Not again. I'm putting twenty rounds of beer on Judas taking him." Tangurple checked for his weapons which were all still there.

"Let's theorize here for a moment, humor me, please. If what you're saying about Judas taking hostages is true and this glitchy shit is what causes the transport, then maybe Judas is the source of this glitch and perhaps killing him will end it."

Tangurple sighed, "now you finally believe me."

"Well, yes. Now I have almost conclusive proof of this and a possible way to end it. The council has been probing me for the past month about this thinking I knew what caused it. I guess now I do. Come on, we need to get back to the Town of Initiation and inform the council. You're my proof, Tang."

"I was afraid you were gonna say that."

January 29, 2043

Empora was much warmer than Ashua. The permafrost feelings wore off as they basked in the starting zone's warm atmosphere. The Town of initiations was bustling with life as merchants and players traveled back and forth through the gates. Creoft led the way to the Council's meeting hall just in time for the Thursday wrap-ups. Creoft bashed the doors in with a heavy kick, startling and grabbing the attention of everyone present, including the hundred archers in the room and upper loft.

The first to call out to Creoft was Hagtard, "Cro! Welcome back to the warmth, how was the adventure into the frozen hell? Where's Tullus?"

Creoft took a deep breath, "There was another glitch and when we came to our senses, Tullus was gone. We have a lead, however."

"Then come tell us, don't stand there. We're all eager to hear."

The rest of the council gave half attentive head bobbing and weak encouragements.

Creoft took his seat at the throat of the table. "Our little chase after Tangurple wasn't just for the sake of preserving the friendship, not at first. Tangurple lead us to the vampirism cure shrine. It sits in the northwest corner of Ashua on a remote cliff in the mountains. The NPCs there have some knowledge about what Judas, our next zone boss, is up to. They told us he has two hostages, three now with Tullus, and he's using them to strengthen himself. This design is far beyond even my wildest dreams but I've got a round of beer on him trying to increase his boss rank."

Hagtard remained quiet, either in curiosity or out of boredom. Elvici spoke up, "How does taking hostages increase his boss rank?"

"Judas is a vampire, an idea I stole from biblical and folklore. In addition, I helped design his fight and part of it involves draining thralls to boost his health regeneration rates. I believe that with this glitching going on, he's manipulated it to instead beef himself up into higher tiers."

"What is his default rank?"

"He should be a rank four, each zone deeper, the zone boss goes up one rank."

A woman dressed in the colors of Flugel Der Freiheit stood up and questioned him. Her voice was smooth but demanding. "What makes you think that Judas could do this? Do these boss no longer run on your code?"

"Storm," Creoft replied. "Since we discovered sentience in the NPCs, they've been changing and rewriting themselves. It would not surprise me if they broke out of their code locks and started living like you and I did in the real world. Why else would Judas, a vampire, take players hostage? He doesn't need to feed because no one is attacking him." Creoft then paused, "probably..."

The girl dressed in the green robes of the German guild was known as Ag_Storm. She was a young Tasaki girl but within her was the anger flare of pissed off red wasp. "What proof do you have?"

"Only conjecture and pattern analyzation. You all remember during the raid on the Jonkas castle? I believe he sought out admin privileges. In the aftermath of it all, we never found the body of the Jarl or any of his guards. As of right now, none are respawning and the city is a slaughter fest with the remaining ghouls still around and a few player killers. I have no idea if Judas has succeeded in obtaining admin privileges but the vanishing of the infamous Mother of Darkness and now Tullus suggests that he may now be hunting players for their EXP and levels."

"Riddle me this, how would consuming players and invulnerable NPCs give Judas admin privileges?"

"Consumption of the guards and perhaps the jarl would allow him to absorb their functions and coding, open a doorway into the system to guarantee survival. Anything else, madame doubt?"

"Yes," she growled. "Don't ever call me that."

"Fine for me."

Hagtard raised his hand. "Is it safe to assume you have some grand plan for this witch hunt?"

"Perhaps more of a suicide run but yes. One last time before we break, I want a full raid party geared to the teeth in the best sets we can scrounge up and spec'd for their jobs, no mixes."

"Why should we give that to you, the damage from the previous witch hunt is still being counted for. I for one have a very strong disapproval for your tactics." Storm held a clenched fist in her hand.

"Have I ever led you astray? Have I outright wronged you?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You hid your true identity for months, you keep leading our guilds to the slaughterhouse. The trench in Uskor, we lost hundreds of fighters in that endurance battle. Add another two hundred in Jonkas and guess what, you're Mussolini, you can't wage war for shit."

"Ouch..." Creoft held his palm to his heart. "I'm hurt."

"If only you were dead..."

"Oh come now, Storm."

"Don't 'Oh come now' me. If you value your testicles, you will hold your tongue. Flugel Der Freiheit will spare no more fighters for your shenanigans."

"Shenanigans?!"

"Yes, your disastrous escapades through the Andes Mountains. If we are to get involved, it will be on our terms, not yours."

"Howev-"

"Nein!" Storm shouted. "None of that, or I will personally dethrone you."

"Alright fine, you win."

The room fell silent for a minute or two until Hagtard spoke up. "Do you know the exact area where this Judas is?"

"Yes, actually. Each zone boss is located in an isolated dungeon meaning he's going to be in a cave somewhere. Ashua has very few actually delveable caves. The only one big enough to be used a final boss room is in the far west." Creoft explained.

"How deep is the dungeon?"

"It's pretty big. A vast network of dual-layered caving, the kind where it's easy to get lost."

"Isn't that where the in-game maps come in handy?"

"Except this dungeon is deliberately unmapped; part of the design which, in hindsight, is legitimately a horrible idea."

"So we're walking in blind to massive cave network to hunt a sentient psychopathic vampire boss. I hate to admit, but this is beyond my pay grade, Cro. I'll get ya whatever gear you need but I ain't going anywhere near it."

Creoft turned towards Elvici who sighed heavily, "yer bloody mad thinking you can just go in there and win. Either you've gone mental or I'm hopped up on shrooms."

"Either way, I'm going to need some pot."

"Pot with an 'S'... Pot-ssss." Elvici corrected. "But yes, I'll make a handful of healing pots for ya, ya loon."

"Then the glory of victory belongs to the Guardians of the Collapsed-"

"And if you die, the crown of this council is passed to me," Storm demanded.

"I have no intention of dying."

"No one does but it still happens. If you do win by some remote chance, I offer the unwavering loyalty of FDF as long as I live."

"That's a bet I'll take."

"Since we're gambling here," Hagtard dropped ten thousand Gold coins in a pouch on the table. "I put 10k on Cro."

Creoft then stood up and turned to Tangurple and Falcher who'd been relatively silent for the whole discussion. "You two ready to go vampire hunting?"

Tangurple replied, "I think I just shit myself..."

Falcher rolled his eyes, "Is Pyro tagging along as well? We'll be needing extra DPS to pick up for the lack of a missing healer because this is gonna be one hell of an endurance battle."

Pyro held his ax and ran his fingers across the ax head. "I think this girl has one last fight in her. I'll tag along."

Tangurple, Falcher, and Pyro left the meeting hall quickly and ran off towards the blacksmith.

Creoft was about to follow but Elvici stopped him. She looked at him worriedly, "Ya sure you can handle this?"

Creoft placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "Only one of us needs to live past the fight for it to be a victory. I know my skills and abilities-"

"I don't want to hear statistics, Cro. I just want to hear you."

"I'm sure I can win."

"Then win, for Janik, Tullus and everyone else who's been lost to this vampire boss."

"Their deaths weren't in vain and it never will be, that is a promise, Elvici."

"Good, now let's get you and your friends geared up."