"Well, that's a lot better than what I was gonna suggest. You've got yourself a deal. But, you have to keep up your end of the bargain." She launches into the air, leveling with Shui's line of sight. With a finger pointed right at him, she adds, "And listen here, mister. You're making the deals like we came to you threatening to kill you instead of the other way around. So if for a second you even think about trying to harm Xo for this whole lycanthrope business, you won't like the outcome." Satisfied, she gets her still-loaded brooch out of her pocket and deactivates it, and flies out the door, whistling.

“No, if you believe Aaron to be behind these strange instances, then you must believe me. I believe Aaron Firehand is a behind a group of vampires called les Éternals.”

“It seems as though we have a common interest.” Shui states.

"My statement still stands," Sheerow throws over her shoulder at him. She nearly trips out of the inn, doubled over with stifled laughter as she relishes in the fact that she guessed something correctly about this strange man while trying to bluff her way out of fighting earlier. He really did fight vampires! Who would've guessed. I guess I did. Her laughter resides as she waits for the rest of the group outside on the street, ready to get the day started and come up with a plan of attack.

"So, are we done here?" Xo asks Shui, blanky. He is still pretty tired. He gestures for Shui to get out of the doorway so he can get through. Now in the hallway, Xo continues to Shui, "By the way, you had mentioned another target you were here to kill." He crosses his arms with a raised eyebrow. "Do you mind sharing?"

“I am after les Éternals, a group of vampires that I believe that Aaron started. If you help me, I promise that your blood debt will be payed… in full.”

"Oh." Xo does not ask why Shui was searching for the vampires at a random tavern. Then he walks down to Sheerow.

Seeing Xo walk up to her, she waves him over. Assuming he steps close, she flies up to his level, and quietly asks, "Are you okay? That was kind of weird." She leans close to him so no one else can hear, should they join the two outside the inn.

Xo turns his head to Sheerow and answers with a narrow face, "I am fine." He turns his head back to its neutral position. "Poh, the guy would have stood no chance, anyhow."

Rieka scrambles to follow them out of the inn, so rushed she forgets to put her hood up. 

"Hey! Hey, wait!" she rushes out, skidding to a stop outside. "We don't know anything about these vampires! And we don't have a plan either!"

"Yeah" Akyan says after rushing over to Reika. "We said we would help with Aaron. Besides, if Aaron is in charge of them. Why not just cut the head off the beast?"

"You're totally right, but I'm just checking," Sheerow chides, finishing just in time as Reika and Akayan rush out of the building. "Oh, I know," responding to Reika's visible rush with a chuckle. "I just felt that if we didn't get out of that room we would have been debating over this and that and blah-blah-blah for decades." She pushes herself further up in the air until she's far above everyone's heads. She looks up at the sky, then at the street around them, thinking. A small tutting sound escaped her lips. "I like what you're saying, Akayan, but how are we supposed to do that? Is Aaron a vampire too, or just behind the group... what's the name... Lay Eternal-lays? Weird name. Anyways, we could do this one of a few ways." She closes her wings, pressing them against her sides as she dives to the ground feet-first. She breaks her fall at the last moment, lightly fluttering down to the ground. "We already know our clones are in relatively close proximity to Aaron. If we did some sort of coordinated attack, that could work. But the problem is finding a way to exchange information and plans. We could try to find Aaron ourselves, but... I have no idea where he is." She pauses, tsking some more. "We could also get Shui to help us find these vampires, and we just follow the blood trail back to Aaron. But a), we only have Shui's intel to work off of, b) he may not even be associated with the vampires, and c) for all we know, Shui could definitely be luring us into some sort of trap. He didn't seem to let the whole thing with Xo go easily. Or he could be working for Aaron." She continues to mull over her own thoughts, before shrugging it off. "That's all I got. Anyone have any ideas?"

At around the point Sheerow said 'We could do this one of a few ways,' the gears in Xo's head collapsed. He thinks he got the jist, though. "I trust Shui about as much as I trust a troll," Xo claims. He does not know what a troll is, but he thinks they are untrustworthy. Staring at the ground wide-eyed with the last joint of his thumb resting on his beak, he says, "I have got no clue what our best option is." He doubts anyone here has any teleportation spells.

"The last time I trusted a monster hunter, it came back to bite me," Rieka agrees with Xo, placing her hand on her side, almost as if reliving an old wound. "In terms of our options - well. I'm no fan of vampires either, but ceaselessly slaughtering them is against Selune's teachings. Some of those vampires may have been turned against their will. It wouldn't be fair to kill them. So..." she lowers her voice to a whisper. "Let's not, ok? I think we have bigger fish to fry."

Malikily shakes his head as he snaps out of his daze. "I am very confused, what vampires, who's shui, and where in the nine hells are we?!?!"

"Oh, Malikily, I did not see you there." Xo says, facing Malikily, wide-eyed. "You must have slept in. Shui is a monster killer. So," he coughs, "you know how my clone is a Lycanthrope, for whatever reason?" He breathes in deep as he looks parallel to the road. "Well, he bit Shui's arm off, and Shui confused my clone for me. Yeah..." Looking back at Malikily, he tells him, "he was going to, aheh, 'kill me,' but we agreed instead to help him fight a group of vampires called 'les e-ter-nels.' They are being led by that dude that killed us last night." Xo lets out his previous breath, allowing space for another large breath. He looks at the inn they just exited, "as to where we are, we are at a town from Rieka's past." He gestures to Rieka. "The dead weirdo put us through a portal, and so here we are. We are, at the moment, figuring out whether we trust Shui or not, and discussing what to do right about now." After having talked for so long, Xo finds a fence or something to rest his arm on, and stares off into space. _How did Sheerow do it so flawlessly..._ Xo wonders.

"Yeah," Reika sighs, giving Malikily a nod. "This is the town that I grew up in."

"I doubt that Aaron himself is a vampire, and like Rieka said the vampires he created may or may not be acting on their own accord. Either way I'd prefer to stay out of it." He crosses his arms and stares at the ground, "If we had a way to get to los aminour quickly, I'd say we should just attack him. However, we are all getting the feeling that magic isn't working there. So we would be at an extreme disadvantage. Our best bet may be to try to lure Aaron out of Los Aminour. Unfortunately, I have no idea how we would do that. I have no idea what Aaron's motives are. Why did he hire us to begin with? How did he know any of us would actually take the job? Why he sent us on that stupid mission to get his cat back? What was the purpose of that? Was it just to see what we are capable of? Why does he think one of you two is the rightful queen? What gave him that idea? Why did he clone us or whatever he did? If he actually killed us back there, wouldn't our clones have disappeared? None of this makes sense to me. What does he even want?! He's already president or whatever?!. Gah! If we had the answer to even one of these questions, maybe we'd have a better idea of how to deal with him."

(Side Note: Your magic works here in the Outskirts of the Darkness. Pretty strange. Also, the finale is this Wednesday for the Crossover. If there are any ties your characters still have, finish them before then. Can’t wait!)

(Side Side Note: Don’t forget that there are ways to answer the secrets of the universe in D&D. And if there are vampires, there are cool magical artefacts surrounding them.)