Cyrus Solaris
A couple of days had passed since my conversation with Cendra and our run-in with the other sleepwalking students.
In that situation, I was glad she was with me and provided a buffer between me and the actions I would have taken to get out of it.
Her mere presence counteracted a little of the rage and resentment that had been boiling up since leaving Gramps and Lady Arya.
I couldn't depend on that, though, no matter how tempting it felt; that's why tonight I'm going to check out the second location, which was the old, rundown dorm on campus.
Cendra wanted to tag along, but I couldn't allow that. I didn't know what I would find, and I didn't want another person to get hurt because of me. Besides, sneaking around in my astral projection was just much more efficient for matters like this.
Let's see what this rundown place has to offer.
I lay in bed, followed my breathing techniques, and eased out of my physical body.
Hovering far above the isle, I got a great view of the academy; I'm still amazed that something this large can sustain itself this high up for so long.
Pushing the thought aside, I focused on the task at hand.
Gathering more information on this creature.
The old dorm was supposed to be on the main central isle in the south pavilion behind the combat facility, and supposedly closed down for over forty years. So I made a beeline for it, hovering over everyone and everything this academy had.
When I arrived, I saw no remnants of the old dorm behind the large combat facility—just patchy grass.
It must have been torn down. But that can't be the case; I've always felt a separate mass in this area.
So are they hiding it?
The old dorms were supposed to be a couple of hundred yards behind the combat facility.
I hovered around the area for a while, wishing I were in my physical body, because I could have easily confirmed the thought.
But I kept floating down the grassy field until I saw a couple of pieces of wood sticking out of the ground on the horizon.
When I got closer, I realized the pieces of wood were signs that read "off limits." And those signs just happened to be in front of a few small buildings that I assumed to be the old dorms.
The dorms themselves were still standing. Some of the walls and roofs were collapsing due to deteriorated wood and cracks in the foundation.
I phased through the walls of the rundown dorm, and when I arrived on the other side, my astral form flickered rapidly.
I saw large claw marks etched into the walls, and red stains splattered on the floor. The room looked like the remnants of a horror film.
So an attack really did happen here, and inside a dorm of all places?
As I hovered through room after room, I found the same scene repeated, each one more devastated than the last, as though a battle had torn its way through the building.
But something caught my eye. There were pieces of paper that looked like notes written by a student sprawled all over the floor.
Floating above the debris, I scanned it, hoping to find a clue.
Then I saw it.
The faded heading on one sheet of paper read, Vlad of the Night Notes. Beneath it was a section that described what the creature from the book looked like. The depiction matched what I saw in the painting at Founder's Hall, and matched the vague image of what I experienced myself.
But these weren't the only notes scattered on the blood-stained floor.
Another piece of paper listed the creature's characteristics and habits: it blended into the shadows, emerged at night, siphoned its victims' energy, possessed fangs made of cosmic energy, went into a frenzy when it hadn't fed, could sire its victims, and grew stronger by absorbing their energy.
A lot of these characteristics matched what I had experienced, but the others terrified me.
I knew there were more types of behemoths than I could imagine, but after reading these notes, I felt like this creature had way more sentience than it should, and I worried about how many students may be under its control.
This is way more than I signed up for, and now I'm left with more questions than answers.
Why is this written down here? Was there another student investigating the same thing I was?
Why is it choosing Xhatal Academy as a hunting ground? Is it being controlled by someone else? Why haven't more people talked about this? And why does the academy seem to be hiding this?
I looked through the rest of the notes on the floor, but none of them were related to what I was looking for. So I phased out of the dorms.
Everything about this situation left me feeling uncomfortable as I floated back to my isle. All the clues I have obtained feel like they won't be enough to solve this case, making me wonder whether the reason all this information was buried was that no one could defeat this thing.
If so, what does that mean for me?
But as my astral form hovered in the space between the isles, I let myself sink a little—just enough to catch a glimpse of the rift's swirling portal on the surface.
At first, I thought the words whispered to me that day came from the rift, but now I'm not so sure.
Not ripe enough. What is the reason for that? Does the creature prefer one type of energy over the other?
The more I asked myself these questions, the more my astral form flickered.
I only had one last location left to scout, and I needed it to give me something definitive. Otherwise, my time here at the academy is finished.