Zola wandered the fields after digesting her three-day-old meal, listening to the sounds around her. She was close to the forest where her "father" lived. There was a shortcut to getting there, but only Raziel and those of a spectral persuasion could use it. The Material Realm, the world known as Nosgoth, was home to the living, of humans, vampires, and other flesh and blood things. The Spectral Realm was home to lost souls and beings composed of spiritual matter, such as the scavenger sluagh, disposed vampire souls, daemons and the like. The two realms were the same, but each had their peculiarities, such as changes in topography and wildlife, for example. The ruins that littered the forest were built centuries ago by druids, according to the spiritual winds that flowed betwixt the trees. These winds dictated how the ruins would appear in the Spectral Realm. And given that the druids could travel between planes, those ruins held quite some importance to Raziel and his brood. She was at the fringe of the forest, where the ruins could be seen deep in the fog. The huge trees were spaced about, home to forest monkeys and ravens. Zola walked down the hill and towards the foggy wood, knowing what lay upon the forest floor. 

The fog rolled about her, as the moss-covered forest floor shimmered and moved about. Insects and predatory slime molds moved endlessly, hunting and avoiding one another in the primitive wood. She waddled up to a rotunda of cyclopean masonry, gray and flat. A row of megaliths stood before her, juxtaposition and placed closely together, creating a path high in the treetops. She smelled the air and found that two large... Things were heading her way. The air went silent, and Zola realized what those two things were. 

Two mutated humans came crashing through the underbrush, gargling bile and froth at the sight of a vampire in their midst. Their atrophied arms were useless stubs; their dominant arms were long, massive pillars of bone and muscle, ending in two thick claws for pounding and a formidable thumb claw for stabbing. The double-elbowed arm was also an advantage for their withered bodies and visible hearts; they stood against their large arms as look-out posts, their snake-like heads lined with serrated teeth. Wearing only leather and animal-skin armour, the mutants gargled out their battlecries and came bearing down on her. They dropped to their stubby muscular legs, raising their giant arms as they did so. Zola leapt into the air as two arms slammed down on either side of her original spot, shattering the stones. She came back close by and sighed, letting her material form fade into the Spectral Realm. 

She watched as the two mutants faded away in midcharge, and as the colours of the world changed. The greens and browns of the forest flowed into the glowing blues and greens of the world of spirits. The spiritual winds flowed around her, silent and unnerving. They had always unnerved her; it always seemed as if the true death was always near, and that she could be swallowed by a spectral predator at any given moment. The sky glowed with its light blue shade, and the moon and sun were both visible, oddly enough. She watched as the end of the nearest megalith creaked and groaned, lowering itself to foot level. Trees groaned as they bent about, and the ground changed elevation at random in different places throughout the forest. Same world, different dimensions. She walked onto the megalith, watching the sluagh below her fight over a freshly deceased soul. Most souls had the shape of their previous material form, but others grew and adapted to their surroundings, becoming new predators or wanderers of the Spectral Realm. The recently deceased soul had been captured by the sluagh, and was being torn apart by their teeth and claws. The withered frame of a soul vanished before her eyes. 

Zola continued walking the megalith path, as sluagh fought each other, pack against pack, and as certain souls grew and changed to suit their surroundings to hunt one another. Zola stopped at a circle of megaliths, the circle below home to strange souls. 

She tore a rift through the Spectral Realm, peering through the claw-length tear into the Material Realm. Just her luck; she needed to possess a body in order to get back into the land of the living. Once in the body, she would burst out of it and regain her corporeal form. There was a band of humans walking by, no doubt heading to Raziel's, she pondered gleefully. She found a particularly thin woman travelling with the group, snobbish with her leather vest and armour skirt. Zola would teach her a lesson in humility. She spun through the tear like water down a drain, flowing into every orifice the black-haired human had as a mist. 

The band of ten made their way around the horrid ruins, after studying the strange spiraling designs and snail etchings. Their leader, a woman with rippling black hair, was a stern and silent woman, prone to violent fits of rage at the slightest provocation. She walked in the middle of the nine men, armed with a giant metal pole, grinded into a point at both ends. She felt something forming all throughout the inside of her body, slowly moving about and expanding. Her torso, chin and limbs began to expand, as her band stared in horror. One of the men groaned. "She's possessed!" The black-haired mercenary gasped and gagged, letting out on final wheeze of a groan. "Help... Me..." Then her form bulged even more, finally splattering blood and entrails everywhere. The forest floor was a scattered display of crimson modern art, with chunks here and there, but mostly in the tree branches above. What stood in her original spot frightened the men. 

Zola grinned at them and yawned, stretching her lower jaw out to expand. Then men readied their spears, and two of them had flamethrowers. The largest one bellowed. "DIE, VAMPIRE!" With that Zola jumped to avoid the torrent of fire that flew from both sides, letting four of the men roast; one of the flamethrowers was hit, causing its fuel tank to explode. She landed and smiled at them. Unarmed and outmatched, the men ran for their lives. She laughed harshly, chilling them enough to slow their progress. She waddled amongst the trees, thinking up her strategy. 

Tomorrow at midnight... Raziel isn't too far from here, and most of these hunters and mercenaries will be coming from the same directions I had come from. All I have to do is use my hunting skills to their finest and lure them into my mouth. Once they're unarmed and unable to resist, I'll digest them all! I'll have to go around these five men and settle down as a mansion. That'll take up most of my energies... With that she leapt from tree trunk to tree trunk, holding on by her claws. 
 

The mansion was built of cyclopean masonry, with stained glass windows and reaching three floors. Raziel studied it from the balcony of his own. His was a hidden tower, overgrown with vines and strangler figs. Yet this one appeared in a cloud of fog, bright and welcoming for humans. Vampires would have avoided it like the plague, that's for certain. Odd. Maybe it's a trap of some sort... 

Most of the mercenaries gathered around the silent, albeit bright mansion in the clearing, as various vampires-for-hire slinked by without notice. The vampires could smell that an old vampire did not live there, and so they assumed it was some sort of trap set up as a test. The humans, fifty in all, dropped their weapons into their holsters and sheaths and left them outside, upon seeing the paper behind the front doors' windows. 

Please leave all weapons outside upon entry, or else you will be turned back.
Thank you, The Management 

All fifty men and women dropped their guns, knives, swords, axes and pikes outside, entering through the solid chestnut door. Within the main hall, which oddly enough took up the entire first floor, was a large banquet table covered from corner to corner with food of all kinds. The food was the first thing that caught their attention. The second thing was a loud, echoing voice that rang out from the ceiling. "My guests, my friends, please make yourselves at home. I will present myself in time and state the matters at hand. But for now, eat." 

The mercenaries needed no further urging. Having finished off the last of their rations on their journey and lost the rest to vampire hogs, they were famished by most accounts. They ate and ate, until they noticed something odd about the food. By then the scene around them had changed. Stone changed to muscle fibre, carpeting turned to bile, and the food turned to excrement in their hands and mouths. They panicked and yelled in unison, as the hall turned into an airless sack of muscle and bile. They fell into one another, as the glowing green bile of glyph energy leaked through the muscle walls. The voice from before rang out in cackling laughter. "Kukukukukuku... Into the belly of the beast, you went. I am one of Raziel's childer. And you all are my new meal! Goodbye!" 

Zola rubbed her massive belly, bloated into a giant sphere around the middle. She felt her prey slowly turn into concentrated blood within, as her body shrunk down considerably. The vampires that had passed by before turned to stare in horror at the scene. One of them, a bald woman with a black leather coat gasped. Her long, pointed ears quivered as she clacked her two upper canines. "How ghastly... She ate all fifty of them whole. Such an effective luring technique..." 

Zola decided to waddle her ponderous frame to Raziel's home, slowly shrinking down with her digesting meal. She lumbered by the others quickly, stopping in the middle of a strange spiraling pattern of moss on the ground, before two large doors. She sat down and let out a rumbling belch that shook the forest. This heralded the arrival of the other "survivors". 

Raziel sat in his study, frowning. "So uncouth. Harumph... Time to show myself, now that the source of the trap as shown itself." His mansion was mostly vertical, consisting of the foyer, the guest chambre, the aerie for him and his childer, and his study. He flew down into the foyer from a round opening in the ceiling, where the marble floors shone brightly. There were six pillars holding the ceiling up. The carpet, died red with blood, drifted up into seemingly thin air, as a ramp slowly appeared under it in a splattering fashion, composed of solid blood. The ramp split into two opposite ramp, going left and right, meeting at two rounded alcoves that led to two blood larders, the archways stained with even more blood. The main ramp led into the guest chambre, a large domed room with four couches and a table at the centre. The aerie was situated right above that, the study above the foyer. He opened the front doors to let in his "guests". 

His arms had evolved into large wings, his fingers grown rather long to support the translucent wing membranes. He had another pair of wings growing forth from his shoulder blades, and his black hair was held back in a knee-length ponytail. He wore his black business suit for the occasion. 

Zola was the first one in; the others remained far behind her as she gradually shrunk down in size. Soon she was just a minor sphere. Raziel's brow was raised in alarm at this. "Oh, so my childer has developed a unique gift? What is it?"
Zola grinned. "Remember that mansion outside? That was me hunting. It's a lure technique."
Raziel raised one brow at this. "I think I can comprehend that. Now, as for the task at hand. Including my childer here, there are fourty-seven of you. One Rahabim and one Melchiahim, hrm, that's interesting..." He tapped his chin and shrugged. "Well then, here is the task. I cannot leave my home, due to the training of my new childer. There is a certain vampire out there that has been my rival for quite some time. He is a lot older than I am, and I fear he may be an ancient."
Some of the elder vampires on the floor groaned and mumbled to one another at this.
"Now now," Raziel warned calmly, "No need to panic. I fear he may be, I do not know for certain. His name is Zachiah, and he has been attacking everyone around Nosgoth, including my siblings. He has also been creating vampiric livestock and mutants deep in the marshes. Attacking those that are unable to attack, my siblings, even more so. This I cannot allow. You must go out and find Zachiah. Once you find him, I want you to kill him. The first one to bring me Zachiah's head and heart recieves two million pounds and a mansion to be built wherever they so desire, understood?" 

The vampires cheered and bellowed, knowing that it was an offer too good to pass up. The oldest vampires were silent; they knew of the dangers involved with Zachiah and his spectral past. Zola followed Raziel back up into his study after digesting her meal. The others decided to check out the blood larders, or sit about in the guest chambre for the coming day. 

Zola leapt from the hole's edge onto the ceiling, then back to the blood-stained carpeting. Raziel sat at his desk, looking through some old texts he had written about the Spectral Realm. He spoke to her in a low voice. "Zola, you remind me of Zephon, with those claws and porcelain skin. You are one of my nine childer, the youngest returning from the forest right now, and as such, you hold the strongest connection to the Spectral Realm as a Razielim. None of my siblings can lay claim to that, nor can their children, unless they had been brought back twice. And as such, I believe you are best suited to the task at hand."
Zola arched a brow at this. "Is he a spectral vampire?"
Raziel stood and walked over to the table beside his bed. "He... Is a devourer of souls, an ancient. I lied to the others, because I want him dead. But I cannot fight right now, for my latest child is struggling with her flying lessons, and as you can see..." He unfurled his left back wing, stretching out to reveal a massive tear in the membrane. "I am a bit hindered." 

Raziel unlocked the steel box that lay upon the side table and flipped open the lid. He turned to face her, holding the contents of the box in his elongated fingers. Zola gasped at what he held. It was the Soul Reaver... Well, the handle, in any case. In all its horrid glory, the wretched handle quivered and glowed with a sickly blue green light, just like the glowing winds of the Spectral Realm. The butt of the tight corckscrew handle ended in a sucker, and the handguard consisted of four squat, upturned tentacles, lined with tooth-lined suckers. A strange eye was at the centre on either side, the pupils a horizontal keyhole of sorts. It blinked as Raziel lifted it to her pondeorus chest. "Take it, my Spectral Insect." 

Zola hesitated a bit, feeling a chill emanate from the horrid remnants of a vampiric sword. Then she snatched it up quickly, to avoid any nasty pains that the Soul Reaver could possibly inflict. The handle writhed in her hand, as the suckers puckered up and the eyes widened. The tentacles twisted about and clamped aorund her hand and wrist, but they weren't tearing away with their suckers. Rather, the entire Soul Reaver rotted away before her eyes, turning to dust with one last squeal. Raziel stared in disbelief. "What the hell did you do to it?!" 

Zola gasped. "Absolutely nothing! It did that of its own accord!"
Raziel grumbled. "You truly are something, Zola. Sword handles don't just crumble to dust like that!"
Zola wet her lips. "Maybe you stunned it somehow."
Raziel snapped. "How do you stun a sword handle?!"
Zola huffed. "It had eyes and tentacles. It had to be alive, and you had to have stunned it!" 
Raziel shook his head to clear it. "I didn't! And it crumbled in your hands, just as you handled it!"
Zola shrugged. "Welp, maybe it's resting somewhere? You know, it'll come back in a mist or something?"
Raziel shook and gesticulated wildly, as his "guests" below listened to his tirade with entertained expressions. "It wasn't stunned, it's dead! The Soul Reaver is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone off to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If it hadn't been blinking like it was, it would be pushing up the daisies by now! It's metabolic processes are now 'istory! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off it's mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible!! IT IS AN EX-REAVER!" 

Zola stared at his wide eyes and grit teeth with shock, as the "guests" below whooped and cheered. She stammered, trying to find her words. "I... I didn't kill it... You're so mean, you always were... Un... Unh.. Uwahh... Hng... UWAHHH!" Then she burst into tears sobbing. Raziel blushed a bit in shame. He hugged her. The "guests" were silent. 

They looked up at the ceiling as Raziel cried out and Zola giggled. "Aaagh! You bitch! You bit me! Get out!" 

Zola leapt from pillar to alcove to floor, waddling into the guest chambre. There the lone Melchiahim smiled at her. "You held the legendary Soul Reaver, and it broke? What did it look like?"
Zola shrugged. "It looked like a bunch of squid tentacles, actually. The blade has been broken a long time ago and all, so..."
The Melchiahim scratched her bald head, her long pointed ears twitching. "It broke? That's something. A lot of people wanted that sword, too. Oh well." She stood up, as others went out to hunt. "I'm Marilee, one of Melchiah's first. I hear you're one of Raziel's middle children." 
Zola blushed somewhat and grinned. "Yeah, I'm the middle child. So, where are you gonna have that mansion built, anyway? I mean, if you get Zachiah's head and heart?"
Marielee looked up, thinking hard. "I really don't know. Maybe close to home, I guess, what about you?"
Zola smiled. "I'll have it built far down south, by the Baltas Sea." 

The lone black-haired Rahabim looked up and grinned, revealing two long rows of translucent needle-like teeth. His white skin was marked with constantly-changing black marks, spiraling and wavering. He wore small rectangular glasses, his solid blue eyes shining. His guttural bark caught their attention. He stood up, his three-digit limbs webbed and clawed. "Oi! This Zachiah sounds like a tough deal. If he's an ancient, then there's no real way to kill him. That means we'd have to go to the land of the dead in order to put him down for good, and even then, he could end up as a lost soul, and we wouldn't get his heart or his head! So how would go about taking his head and heart, hm?" Zola and Marielee stopped and thought. The Rahabim's hair hung down his back in ragged lengths, and his silver back plate was marked with Rahab's glyph, his blue shorts taut against his muscular legs. "I am Noab, one of Rahab's advisors. I was sent to see about Lord Raziel's doings and this 'job', as he calls it. I know of Zachiah and his raids well enough. He's nigh unstoppable, but we can easily finish him with the right knowledge. We just can't let him escape to the land of the dead, that's all. If we can hold him here, we can finish him." 

Zola and Marielee nodded, knowing that was the key to defeating Zachiah. They would head out that upcoming night, parting ways for the hunt of their unlives.