Vertical Transportation

     Across the table, her partner, a Halloween Grarrl, let out a loud hiss and swept all of the cards, dice and pawns off the table.

      The Meerca patted her arm. "Best six hundred and sixty-seven of one thousand, three hundred and thirty-three?"

     Before the Grarrl could respond, a clanging metallic knock echoed around the stone chamber. Both gamers hissed in annoyance.

     "Get the door!" The Meerca snapped her claws at a Mutant Hissi in a corner, who interrupted their delicate task of draping cobwebs around torch brackets.

     Skulking in the shadows and hunching under their thick cloak, the Hissi muttered their way to the door.

     "We've already sssubscribed to the baking sssociety's newsletter," they croaked, not bothering to open the door.

      "I'm no baker," a little voice piped up from the other side. "I have something for you! Can I come in?"

     "We've already RSSSVP'd for the cultists' annual charity ball and ice cream tasting," the Hissi continued.

     "I'm pretty sure I needed to deliver this thing here! May I come in?"

     "We've already bought five copies of the Zombie Ghosts' cosssplay calendar."

     At the games table, the Grarrl tapped her claws on the game board while the Meerca, rolling her eyes, mimed twisting a door handle. The Hissi gave her a double nod.

     Slowly, achingly, the door swung open with an exquisitely tuned creak. The Hissi was particularly proud of this creak. It rose in pitch at the precise moment the contents of the chamber became visible to those who waited outside. It was the kind of creak that could only be achieved through years of carefully not oiling the hinges.

      A small Usul stood in the opening. "Howdy!" she said brightly. "I'm Shelly. Mary and me were just doing Grave Danger, you see -" she held up a Droolik that was busy slobbering over her arm. "And Mary brought me something not at all like the bits of food and random junk Petpets usually find down here. It seemed pretty important, so I thought it'd be a pity if someone was missing it! Fortunately, the pretty lady could tell when I was getting closer to the right place, so she guided me down."

      "Grave Danger?" whispered the Meerca.

     "It's that new thing where they send Petpets down to treasure hunt for them," answered the Grarrl. "Really reduced the number of curious kids tearing through the place. Much quieter."

      In a flash of shadowy cloak, the Meerca swooped down from the table and stood on her tail in front of the Usul.

      "Puny morsel," she hissed, "you dare to knock on our door for your pitiful scavenging! We had not yet ordered dinner and you may not be a food delivery professional, our favourite dish, but indignation might just make us hungry enough to make do..."

     "Hey, I didn't even knock on your door!" Shelly raised the Droolik and the ominously glowing gem she held. "I would've, but as you can see, my hands were full."

     There was another knock. This time, the two vampires glanced at each other. It could not have come from the door. There was only one other place to consider inside this chamber. Slowly, the pair glided over to where their coffins lay.

     One coffin was ajar, and a few books full of colourful bookmarks and pages of notes spilt out from beneath the glossy dark lid. The other was wide open, full of an array of yarn in every colour, abandoned in the middle of an attempt at sorting it.

      The third coffin in the alcove behind them stood firmly locked, secured by chains and a spiky, ornate padlock which was now glowing.

     "What's that?" said Shelly. "Take the trinket this way? Sure can do, Ma'am!"

     The two spun round to see her addressing the gem in her hand, which emitted glowing sigils and arrows. Recognition dawned upon the Grarrl's face.

     "I thought you had put that thing away!" she hissed.

      "I thought you had it!"

      Shelly sauntered between them and bopped the gem against the padlock. There was a click and series of clangs from the chains that slithered off the coffin. Then, another knock.

     The Grarrl sighed. "Come in," she said pointedly.

      Lightning flashed through the chamber, followed by a peal of thunder. Shelly cuddled her terrified Droolik, who had burrowed into her coat.

     The door of the coffin slammed open. A Halloween Cybunny stood over them, her paws crossed over her chest. The wind blew through her long dark curls and voluminous lace-trimmed skirts - and nowhere else in the chamber. Once the echo had died down and the chamber was silent, her crimson eyes snapped open.

     Shelly pointed excitedly. "That's her! That's the lady I saw in the gem!"

     The Cybunny smirked and opened her hands, claws out. In front of the coffin, the Meerca and Grarrl had fallen into deep bows.

     "Hail, Dark Mistress."

     "Dark Mistress, hail."

     The Cybunny proclaimed, "I have awoken from my slumber." She took a step out of the coffin and into midair. She floated slowly to the cobbled floor, her skirts rippling around her. "Lempi!" She reached a hand towards the Grarrl. "Avamira!" She surveyed the Meerca. "How have you used the gifts of longevity that I bestowed upon you?"

     "I have knitted my mile-long scarf," the Grarrl said fervently. "My collections now fill the vaults beneath us. My stamp albums grow full."

     "My thesis nears completion at last, my lady!" said the Meerca. "I need only find one more new advisor, as the previous ones have all retired."

     The Cybunny clapped her paws together. "Marvelous! We will accomplish great things. Now that I have returned, we are ready to take over Neovia proper."

     With that, she hitched up her skirts and strutted out of the chamber. Lempi clacked her teeth. "Why did nobody shut that door..."

      "She won't get too far," said Avamira. "She's missed a lot. We'll catch up to her. You hold the fort," she added for the Hissi, who was sweeping dust contentedly over the floor.

     The Cybunny stood in the middle of the passage outside. Shelly, who had cheerfully trotted after her, stopped to gaze up at her.

      "Pitiful mortal child?"

      "Yes Ma'am?"

     The Cybunny gave her a soft smile. "You did well in retrieving my seal and delivering it to me. You will be rewarded in due time. Of course, since you made it here, you recognise this place and you know exactly where we are." She raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Don't you?"

     "Yep!"

     The lady waited, glancing around, her smile growing stiffer while Shelly beamed up at her. "Are you sure?" she pressed.

      "Floor 254 under, vault 36D! Past the Knitting Club and the Baking Society and the Circle of Dice Collecting and a dragon or two."

     The Cybunny's lip curled. "They had me stashed... all the way down?"

     "It was quite a trek! But I can feel my legs again now."

      Shelly's next thought was cut off by the Cybunny leaning down to stroke her hair.

      "My name is Natalie. But you may address me as Dark Mistress."

     "Wowee, thanks Miss Dark Mistress!"

      They were surrounded by doors. In the Vaults, staircases were never found in the same passages. Natalie looked around the doors, picked one at random, and strode confidently through it. A massive skittering of Spyders greeted her. She concealed a slight recoil.

     "I came in through this door, actually," came Shelly's voice behind her.

     Natalie hurried over to her. "Oh, well, if you prefer the safer route, we shall take it."

     They ran into little trouble. The vampire opened doors and barged in more and more confidently until she stumbled right into a spherical Petpet.

     "You dare ooze upon my person!" she cried.

      "It was only spooked, Miss Dark Natalie." Shelly made shushing noises to soothe the Globilol.

      The Cybunny was busy trying to stomp the ooze off her shoes. While opening the next door, she managed to wipe most of it off with a handkerchief, which she tossed. It landed on a pile of parchments.

     "Oh, hi again!" Shelly waved at a young Acara cultist, who was seated behind the parchments, gaping at the very complicated magical chart that had just been ruined by ooze.

     "Oh, clumsy little me!" Natalie let out a singsong laugh.

     The cultist's paw hovered uncertainly over a selection of wands and staves, all too big for them. The other cultists' voices could be heard beyond another door.

     "Let's say we can just forget this happened," Natalie said quickly, twirling her fingers in front of the Acara's face. Their expression soon changed to one of blissful content, and Natalie and Shelly were free to leave unhexed.

     "Wowee Dark Natalie Miss, you do magic too?"

      Natalie lay a paw over her chest, bunching up her frilly sleeve. "These are only the powers that come with a curse like mine. You see, long ago, I was a young girl exploring underground secrets." She smiled mischievously at Shelly. "Much like you. Beneath an ancient family's mansion, I met another young woman. Her family had dabbled in dark arts and made her into... something terrible. One warlock in particular had dreadful plans to use her powers for his dark designs. So, I helped her to defeat him for good. And in order to do that, I joined her in her long, cursed fate." She grinned. "I am much better off for joining her!"

     "That's a good pitch, Ma'am Dark Mistress Natalie. But um, I hear many better pitches from all the other cults in here, you'll need to step up your game."

     The Cybunny opened her eyes wide and flicked her paw dismissively.

     The next door would not budge.

     "Yoo-hoo, I'm in a little bit of a hurry," Natalie called in her sweetest voice. "Won't you please help a little lady through?" She waited, then scratched her claws against the wood. "I can hear people in here!" she growled. But the voices inside seemed to be arguing.

     Natalie hitched her skirts higher and gave the door a kick. Her boot went right through the thick wood, which splintered around her petticoats.

     "... luggage in Altador," a tourist finished just as they walked in.

     Natalie twirled her finger in front of their eyes. "So be it, you are luggage in Altador." The tourist was still. "Is anyone else going to get in my way?" she spat.

     Another tourist put their hands on their hips. "Lady, your little mind tricks won't work on me. I have a strong mind, you see. I am immune to hypnotism!"

     She leaned over them. "You are feeling sleepy..."

      The tourist immediately dropped to their knees and began to impersonate a chicken.

     "That's not very nice," said Shelly, trailing after Natalie.

     The vampire glanced back, surprised. She raised one hand towards the tourists, tentatively, and bit her lip. "The effects will be brief, worry not," she said. "Even after a long slumber, I have perfect control over my abilities."

     At the next door, they fell face-to-face with themselves.

      Sally groaned, "Ugh, not more doppelgangers. I'm sick of playing banjo at you guys! Why is it always the banjo?"

     But Natalie positively shrieked in adoration. "This is what I look like! Very well-preserved. Timeless." She grabbed her doppelganger by the paw, yanked her forward, and proceeded to feel her facial features. The doppelganger's confident look slowly changed to one of confusion, then unease.

     "We cannot use mirrors," Natalie added for Shelly's benefit. "Oh, this new friend is going to come in so handy!"

      She walked along, dragging the doppelganger with her. When her double tried to cling to the door frame, Natalie twirled her fingers in front of the other's eyes. It took a lot more focus than with the cultist, but the double was eventually subdued.

     "I think you ended up taking a different route," said Shelly. "Now I'm not so sure."

     Natalie opened a door into a room full of skeletons. They had the next door barred with a pile of furniture. "Excuse us, would you mind awfully letting us through?"

     "Gee, I dunno, guys," said one skeleton. "Do you think we mind?"

     "Maybe we'll have to think on it a bit more," said another. "Like, when people barge in on our meetings, do we usually like, like that?"

     "I always think to myself, gotta love when strangers barge through our place and our stuff. That's exactly why we set up everything, you know?"

     Natalie's hand reached through the nearest skeleton's ribs and gripped their spine.

     "I am in a bit of a hurry," she breathed. "I have not fed in several decades, you see."

     "That's so chilling!" said the skeleton, limp in her hand. "I am so afraid for all of my blood!"

     A strangled cry built up in Natalie's throat and her nails scraped against bone. "You should fear for your marrow." Behind her, her doppelganger began to struggle again. Shelly was desperately looking for a more accessible door.

     "Natalie, will you slow down!" came an irritated voice down the passageway.

     Shelly sighed in relief. The other two vampires had caught up.

     "You left a whole trail of hypnosis!" Avamira complained. "Always for someone else to fix after you."

     "Natalie, let them go!" Lempi gingerly set a claw over the Cybunny's shoulder. "This is not how we do things here anymore. We do not start fights, especially when we don't know who is allied with whom. I know you've had a long sleep and you're longing to get back into action, but you still need time to catch your bearings."

      Natalie tossed the skeleton and doppelganger aside. "I am perfectly preserved and capable of finding my own bearings!" she hissed. "You will not tidy me into a closet like some newly turned fledgling!"

     As though to illustrate her words, she vanished in a twirl of lace and ribbons, and in her place rose a swarm of Batterflies.

      "Oh no," said Shelly, "after her!"

     But Avamira strode slowly into the passageway. "She still won't make it far."

     The swarm had gathered again a few doors down, and Natalie stood there very shakily.

     Fuming, she reached for the nearest door.

     "I wouldn't do that if I were you!" called Lempi. "That's the Knitting Club, the toughest folks around."

      Natalie raised an eyebrow. "Why should that be of any importance to me?" she asked coldly, trying to conceal how winded she sounded.

     "Because they have a vampire extermin-" Lempi groaned. Natalie had opened the door at the mere mention of this juicy rival.

      In a cosy stone chamber filled with rugs, patchwork, cushions and cross-stitch, the Knitting Club was hard at work. Among them stood a garlic Kiko. Natalie let out a scream and slammed the door shut.

     "It's been decades," Lempi continued gently. "Neovia has changed. The way these Vaults are used has changed. We have all found a way to live in mostly peace. Most conflicts are resolved with words, sometimes pranks, and a little curse here and there. You can take the time to learn about it."

     Natalie's eyes flashed scarlet. "All I need to learn is the path to the exit. Once I know how to get out of here again, and once I have fed, then we will see who gets to live in Neovia and how."

     With a grunt of effort, she flew out of this passageway as a swarm of Batterflies again.

     They caught up with her in front of a smooth set of double doors, Shelly jogging ahead of the two vampires.

     Natalie was knocking against the double doors. "The exit seems closer than ever," she whispered triumphantly.

      Shelly leaned past her. "S'cuse me. That's not how you use this." Under the Cybunny's round eyes, she pushed a little button next to the doors. It lit up. "Now, you wait."

     Shelly waited, slobbering Droolik safely in hand. Natalie surveyed her suspiciously and waited.

     There was a ping.

     The doors slid apart smoothly.

     Inside, a Halloween Gelert towered over them, draped in a floor-length black gown and a cascade of black hair.

     Natalie let out a gasp. "Adeline."

     Lempi and Avamira, catching up, gasped in relief. "Lady Eaves! You came back."

     "My dear, you have awoken from your slumber."

      Natalie clasped the Gelert's paws in her own. "The curse has finally worn off. Now we can be together. I will make sure that no one will hurt you ever again."

     "There will be time for that," said the Gelert slowly in her deep voice. "Time, after all, is one of the gifts for which we have sacrificed so much, is it not? So, take your time, my dear. The potionmaker that terrorised the city has been vanquished. The Spirit of Slumber is no threat. The city thrives and there are those who would rid it of all its strangeness, but we have new allies. Please, take the time to discover all of these new things with me. I have so much to show you."

     The Cybunny glanced left and right, fists and teeth still clenched, then looked at her feet. She nodded shakily. Adeline put her hands on Natalie's shoulders, supporting her.

      "Now, my dear, let us return to my crypt and catch up. We have much to discuss. Would you like to take the lift down with me?"

     Natalie glanced up. "The... lift?" she asked in a hushed whisper. Yet another new thing.

     The Gelert stepped aside to let her see the useless mirror and the shining buttons. "Instant vertical transportation. They're all the rage these days."

     The Cybunny turned up her nose. "No, thank you. We shall take the scenic route. We know the way." She hitched up her skirt, nodded, and walked away with dainty little steps.

      Adeline laughed quietly. "See you downstairs."

     Avamira stepped hopefully towards the elevator. Adeline, looking straight into her eyes, pushed the button that shut the doors on her, and the lift went down once again. Avamira sighed.

      "Hey, vampire ladies?"

      The two looked up at Shelly. "Again... You might want to hold on to this in the future. Just in case."

     From her Droolik's mouth, she produced the gem that had kept the vampire sealed.

          The End.