Blood Queen Reborn

Just the day before this whole expedition, Fex had gone over to Logan’s dorm to talk about changing his watch number. At the time, it was to convince Vorden of a lie that he had gained an ability over the weekend. Unfortunately, this might’ve caused Logan to get suspicious of him. Why would three seemingly normal students need to get their watches changed?

After all, it wasn’t like he could explain that he’s a cyborg who’s watch couldn’t detect his MC, and Layla had also done the same thing, but her records stated she previously had an ability.

Despite his concerns that the secret of vampires being real was about to be discovered by Logan, the shorter boy was a little preoccupied with another matter. Tapping the arm part of his suit, the large light on the top of his head turned off, getting replaced with more dimmer lights throughout his mech armor.

"So, do you come here often?" Fex joked, walking over to his side.

"No."

"Really? Then why are you here?" Fex asked, leaning in a little closer, "I didn’t see you get eaten like all the other students did."

"That would be because I was not eaten," Logan replied.

"So you went all this way just for me?" Fex swept back his hair, keeping it cool.

The truth was, Fex was cautious about Logan’s true intentions. There was a risk that Logan had figured it out, that he was a vampire, and he needed to know what he was up to.

"No."

Fex frowned, "Then why are you here?! I don’t know about you, but this place ain’t exactly a vacation spot."

"If you will let me speak, I adjusted the scanner the school gave us to increase its radius," Logan spoke back, "I had to power it with my own beast crystals due to the device’s crummy battery life. Anyways, that’s when I discovered that there seemed to be strange tunnels underground, but they didn’t quite look natural, so I decided to investigate. I was not expecting anyone else to be down here."

Fex rolled his eyes. Strange tunnel ways were the least of his interests, then his eyes widened, "Wait, so you know—"

"No," Logan abruptly replied.

"You didn’t let me finish my sentence, I was going to ask if you knew where my friends are," Fex retorted, "I came down here myself cause they were also swallowed by the same beasts as I did."

"Apologies, I was expecting you to ask a different question," Logan said, then opened up a holographic screen for both he and Fex to see. On it was a 3D map of the tunnel system, not fully figured out yet with several missing details, and blind spots. As time went on, more and more details were slowly getting filled in.

Logan continued, "I am unable to locate living signatures due to the density of the stone, but, if you must, you can follow me in case we encounter them."

He closed the map, and walked down a specific path, which Fex followed in tow.

There was a bigger question in Logan’s mind, and it was to do with the direction of the tunnels. Although he didn’t know every single one, several of them led to one location in particular.

’I need to figure out just where these tunnels lead to before I leave.’

—

"—And I would say, that’s pretty much everything," Layla concluded.

While they were waiting for Vorden’s body to regenerate, Layla and Quinn were explaining the gist of what it was they all were. After needing to come up with several lies before all of this, it was just way easier to tell the truth.

Not that the truth was any more digestible, as it was a lot to take in. Vampires, ghouls, maybe more. Out of their team, only he and Quinn were humans.

"Wow, I thought we had the wilder secrets, but I guess vampires and ghouls are a thing," Raten commented, "Say, think werewolves are real? Maybe I could find a cute werewolf gal— Actually scratch that, too much hair. The moment she gets dunked in water, it’ll smell like wet dog for a week."

Vorden wanted to slap Raten. Ever since they left that island, Raten kept staring at all of the women they came across, and made several comments about them. It was fine once or twice, but after a while, it was starting to get annoying.

Layla placed a hand on her hip, and looked above, "So, what’s the plan on getting out of here?"

"Think we should try to come out the same way we came?" Vorden commented.

"No, I don’t think that’ll work," Quinn said, "The membrane up there is too thick to push through."

"What if you two tried to make a tunnel out of here?" Layla suggested, "You still have the earth ability copied right?"

"That could work," Quinn nodded, then frowned as he realized something, "Except, we wouldn’t know what direction to go to"

"And making new tunnels risks having a cave in, even if we both have the earth ability," Vorden replied, "We’re lucky we can breathe now, but even if nothing collapses the walls, we might run out of oxygen if we make the caves too big."

Quinn perked up, "Wait, if the caves have air, then—"

"There must be an entrance of some kind!" Vorden finished his sentence.

Layla sighed, then looked to the holes around them, "I really didn’t want to go down these tunnels."

"Why not? You’re the only one out of us that can see in the dark," Vorden commented.

"I know! But I just get this feeling that there might be danger here," Layla quickly replied, "And incase you didn’t know, but this cramped environment is awful for my bow."

Even though she was best suited in the back, Layla was going to need to be the one up front as the only one with night vision. At least, she could hear and smell better than the others.

They traveled through the tunnels, almost wordlessly as they were hoping not to distract Layla from listening ahead. As they did, they passed by a few glowing blue crystals on the walls. They were a pretty sight, but it made Quinn really want Erin’s inspect skill.

’Thinking about it, how is she?’ Quinn thought, then opened up the chat tab.

{Quinn} Where are you?

{Quinn} We got eaten by these purple beasts that spat us out into an underground cave system.

It was a bit of a funny coincidence that both he and Erin seemed to end up in predicaments where the other was their only way to contact help. Except instead of Erin getting trapped, it was him.

{Erin} I leave my team alone for 5 minutes, and you guys get stuck somewhere.

{Quinn} You know there are times when I can’t leave you alone for 5 minutes.

{Erin} What am I supposed to do?

{Erin} It’s not like I have some sort of skill to teleport you out of there.

{Erin} I can’t even sense you two.

’Wait, can Layla sense Erin?’ Quinn thought.

"Layla, are you able to feel for Erin’s whereabouts?" He asked her.

Layla shook her head, "I don’t know where she is, I think the dense rock is messing with that sense."

Vorden didn’t know what these two were talking about as he wasn’t told about the family connection sensation, but he just assumed it was a vampire thing.

Sniffing the air, "I think I smell someone! But, they may be hurt," Layla exclaimed.

Vorden and Quinn shared a glance before the duo followed Layla towards the source of the smell. As they ran, there was a pit of dread forming in Layla, the smell being far too bloodied for her liking.

Right as they turned a corner, even the humans could sniff the scent of iron, and they arrived in yet another pit. However, instead of surviving students, what they came across was something far more morbid.

They were human corpses mangled by the massive fall.

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