A figure through the smoke coming from the hills would make it’s way down a dirt path. He didn’t necessarily move quickly, and he didn’t seem to radiate anything special until one really gandered at him. The shade that slowly drew into the scene could be made out in armor, a demon hanma strapped to his shoulder which could be placed at his face. He had a spiked mid-length hairstyle, buzzed on the sides and pink in toner, black ink was running across his face in an ancient tribal fashion.

Sharp canines and red eyes set him apart from your regular human, as well as the extra arms that dangled hidden beneath a cloak thrown over his body. His fingernails were black like onyx, matte like charcoal. Three individual daggers hidden across his body, able to be drawn at rapid pace.

Erebus was a Master, refined with his weapons to a point he didn’t use magic, at least not realistically. He much preferred to carve his enemies apart with his inhuman physicality. Recently Erebus had defended his guild, likely attracting attention he other-wisely avoided, but nothing could be done when his infamy has spread so far and wide— yet he was drawn out again without quite understanding himself.

Tracing out to the west region, Erebus had been thinking on a lot. Most of which he wouldn’t admit too. It was only a week ago, he was in Oak watching an individual who peaked his interests, met right around here. Peculiar as it was, Erebus was seemingly lured in by an otherworldly whisper of her voice. It called him to her when she thought about him, he wondered if that’s because she had drank from him, or because they had shared more than that upon their chanced encounter.

That Witch of a Dracula, he thought to himself...

And yet, staring at the sky tonight, he stops under the moonlight unassuming and without knowing who was right there. Tilting his head to the side, it was only then he was seeing her again. Not in his thoughts, or even if he was, he speaks out to the girl.

This was the mystical effects of a vampire— here he was, pulled from the trenches of his Underworld. Back into the vision of that same woman who enchanted him in the castle, he couldn’t help but get excited— Erebus didn’t show that emotion, despite actually feeling it...

Of course... he had been stalking her, not purposely. The question of whether that was truly his fault was up for debate. When his crimson eyes met hers, his face grinned down at her sitting alone, revealing the smugness of his visitation. “Well what do you know?” He started up. His tone was like that of an old friend, or perhaps an old enemy. “It’s good to see you again Valeria, are you enjoying the countryside?” His voice was invasive, mysterious. One truly couldn’t read Erebus, he was a freelance assassin. Yet she knew him better than most, explored him better than most.

He knew he hadn’t made his way here on purpose. She was on his thoughts, and just like the succubus she was. The Vampyrss appears before him, or he before her... It mattered not to him why he came before her, however it must have meant she was thinking of him too. “Not sure if you’ll find any of your kind in this area, they are more prominent in Dahlia.” Small talk. He thought, would ensure she stuck around. She intrigued his mind, perversed his ambitions. It was no doubt he felt some sort of magnetism.

Erebus walked closer and sat down beside her, leaning back and retrieving something to smoke from his pocket, he unwinded without welcome. Unafraid to get close to her, which he was sure might cause her to react at him. Though he cared not, he wasn’t here to please her. He was merely in the area to chat, at least... That was the best way to polish the truth. Erebus imprinted on the Vampire, now connected to her until she was done with him.

Escaping that fate was impossible, he was beginning to realize Valeria was going to take up his headspace, and be a character that wasn’t immediately a stranger a week later. He couldn’t deny that he liked that though. Not after that night in Castle Phantasm... She was burned into his memory; and wouldn’t easily be shaken from it.

Not until he left her wonder, it was unknown whether Valeria knew she had this power, but if she did. It kind of pissed the man off. He could sense it, and it irked him. However, that was not the way his mind was working, no— his new nature through the pact caused him to hold onto things. To keep them conquered in his mind and spirit.

Damn her for that.

The way she drank him. He loved it just a little too much...

Erebus packed a bowl of herbs into the pipe sticker, whatever he was smoking, it had a certain aroma that invited peace. Erebus then looked down at his pants, finding a cargo pocket for a zippo, flicking it open, it’s unbalanced kerosene engulfed a large fire that didn’t truly appear to phase him while it was clearly burning his flesh.

He lit the bite, and leaned back just as she removed her arm from the bench beside his person and closed her arm. Erebus was no fool to body language and just like his own would mansplain, her’s took a disposition of mild discomfort. However, seeing is how she didn’t leave, he chalked it up merely to attitude. Something he was particularly experienced in having known both Nuala and Venus for a few years now.

“That’s because you didn’t seek peace in Oak,” he jested. “You were out for blood, and found something else.” Erebus smiled with a charm that imitated the devil. He certainly could be assumed one, and he quite liked that. It was becoming of him, as he slowly transcended beyond what he was meant to be— or perhaps what he was destined to become. “I do a little creeping in the night myself but I don’t see you as one to talk Vampire Hunter.” Erebus drew a significant point. Valeria did stalk her own kind, so if he were stalking her, it was quite literally no different than what she herself did. “Hypocrite.” Erebus snuck the diss, and teased.

Erebus blew a cloud of smoke, packing another tree from a sack at his pocket into the pipe spicket. While she retorted or engaged in her next bit of dialogue, Erebus held on hand out for her to take it, if she refused, he’d simply shrug and hit it again himself. Her next question was a notable one, which he barely had a fair answer for.

“Well, I remember finding that Merchant. He offered me a deal, and said I was going to be visited and chosen if I paid his price, all would come together. I thought he scammed me for six and half million...” Erebus started. “I began to have nightmares, visions of being eaten alive and ripped apart.” He continued. “Then, before I would be swallowed entirely I bit into the monster’s juggalor. I don’t know what it was, or who it was. But when I awoke, my body had undergone an evolution, and somehow I knew this was linked to the Pact with the God the merchant alluded too. It was foolish to give my money over at first, after all... There was nothing there at first. It didn’t happen right away.” He sighed. “I’m not sure why a God’s blood is in my veins, but I guess it means I’m some kind of Warlock. Someday— I might become a God myself.” He finally concluded. “I’m just a man for now— indefinitely until things make more sense. I’m only shooting guesses through the dark for now.”

“Oh, that is a hard offer to pass up.“ Erebus said, through an indecisive tease.

Erebus listened to her peeking to his side, the layers she wore were attractive, a skirt and jacket, light colors. The opposite of what he donned, in dark shades of red, purples and black. They represented the polarity of good and bad. She killed her kind as a means of justice, he destroyed his enemies as a form of signification. There shouldn’t have been so much chemistry, magnetism, and... affection. Crawling up into his lap and pushing his pipe to the side, the girl planted soft red lips against him. Erebus leaned upward as he felt his lustful disposition calling— her whispers tickling his ear in the same seducing way they had done already nights prior.

“Let’s make the deal sweeter,” he rested his hand on the back of her head, tugging her blonde locks back with black fingernails softly burying in and controlling her. He brought her face back to his, and slipped his tongue within her mouth, purposely slicing her teeth against it so the gold would slide gracefully into her throat once more. “I don’t stay out at night to stare at pretty killers.” He started with his voice, “If you want to hang around me then you‘ll have to be my partner, take some jobs and make some money with me adventuring.” He releases her at the last word— the euphoria washing over her by now from his blood. Resting her face cozily into his neck to plant more kisses... or bites.

“Get nice and strong, protect yourself. Help me conquer this world.” He finally finished. There was an atmosphere of intensity behind his words. Otherwise, he just simply wouldn’t have been Erebus, his demands were unavoidable. A man of ambition only seeks to carry his own people out of the trenches, and Erebus was one of the few in this world who could give people the push and safety to grow to their final forms. He was a key to Eternal Nightmare’s success— because he was the most faithful, his human ingenious carried him from the streets of Oak to a name of infamous legend. He sought only to be written in text and remembered, remarked on for all time.

To say she wasn’t already as powerful as him was a lie, but her potential reached far greater distances. Her power far higher up the mountain. So the deal with the Devil was set; if she craved him hard enough. She would adjust to his leadership. Or— take a position to lead him, as her partner.

Erebus held the sophistication that few could contest with, he didn’t feel that his conditions were unfair, but rather, critical and quite necessary. His response was simple, the woman was attractive but he followed an uncharacteristic approach to life. “Trouble is as trouble does.” His hands, which were the pair visible, rested on her backside as she began to feed on him. Fueling lust behind his eyes yet again, however— as one who resisted, he was a challenge she quite enjoyed. Erebus definitely wished to abuse and violate her, but the inner core was different with this Human. He sought those who needed protecting, and that in turn, arguably made him a good person.

Erebus was aware he was notorious, it put a target on his back. If Valeria wanted to drink upon the Rogue, it left her a target by association. His conditions were overall in her interests, but that didn’t mean he was going to let the sex-drive influence his decisions and ambition. Surely, that is what she was referring to.

“I’m no more grateful for what I am, and what courses these veins, than you are.” He retorted sarcastically, inhaling the scent of her as she licked the wound left upon his pale neck. “After all, you wouldn’t be in my lap if I didn’t reach the stage of your own otherworldly presence.” What Erebus said could be taken as cold, as it essentially assured her they both knew what mutual ‘using’— they would be doing to each other. However, it was also this reason he figured he could trust her. Nowhere else on Earth would she find someone quite like him, he trusted in his own ego to persevere.

Many would have been intimidated by Odin for example, but Erebus was his right hand. How could a human achieve the recognition of entities like that— if they weren’t something special themselves. Erebus exuded confidence through any adversity, perhaps Val didn’t know it yet, but what she really would find addiction too was even deeper than surface level thirsting. She wanted carnage and bloodshed, and destruction of what she deemed her enemies.

She worshipped what he stood for already, it wouldn’t be the blood, but the charisma in his being. The longer they spent together, Erebus believed her temperament would resolve, but he was sure to carry her for a ride until that day settled on its own.

Erebus met her in the middle of their kiss. Pressing his lips against her bottom and pulling out the soft sensation that came with it. “I think it’s proof enough that you need something beyond your revenge and meals. Your lust can’t hide from me, I’ve marked you… and If you’re here, then you will participate for me, there’s simply no reason not too. You’re going to be apart of history.” He spoke softly and slowly, his words invasive and rather aggressive but his delivery was seductive to say the least. Eyeing her as he spoke, he allowed his irises to lower to her breasts and back up with a straight face that seemed to carry its own addictive charm.

Erebus listened to her speak, and while she was attractive, her words ignited hostility in him. He was the manic sort, never fully adjusting to the command of anyone he didn’t trust. It seemed as though his thoughts about her were wrong, she wasn’t in his hand the way he had been falling into hers. This pissed him off, surely no one could control him. He was of free will. So as she caressed his cheek, his hands move up to her waist. One gripping her so that she couldn’t escape, the other was sent forth like lightning and would attempt roughly smacking her across the mouth, hard enough to draw her own blood and send her face in the opposite direction. If she attempted to block it was futile, his other hands would creep from between the cloak and catch to lock her wrists, she was at him whim and mercy this close. Erebus knee this, and after the escapade she had to know it as well. His expression was dead serious, neither depicting that he was fairly upset (though he was) nor enticed (though he quite adored someone with so much... angst)

“What makes you really think I care if you join. It was your proposal. Do you think I’ve nothing better to do than follow you around? I’m the most wanted man in the continent,” He let the words invade her thoughts like toxin from a snake bite. “This was your offer, these are my conditions.”

He was cold and eclipsing, if she retaliated then so too would he. In a demented form of the way she attempted to caress his face, he would grab her chin in just the same quickness he popped her so that she was staring eye and eye with him— this wasn’t to intimidate her. This was simply who he was, after the blood integrated into his personality, he was not one to spare women from his force. He didn’t like the way she spoke down on his being, although he craved her. He wouldn’t roll over and let her disrespect his proposition.

“It seemed obvious to me why you kill your own kind— it’s not like the most of you chose the gift, or in your eyes curse, am I right?” he finally spoke after a pause. Assuming she was going to listen to him. He’d speak further. “Valeria, I’m not here to play games about who gets what glory and I’m not going to trust any ‘witch’ that I think can betray me. Consider the deal off the table if you think you will. History is history, brought to life by more than one person. That doesn’t mean my history. Nor does it mean yours. It’s fate— and the names etched into the books are guided by those who work the hardest.” He finished up without remorse. “Chase your kind alone. If that’s all that sates you.”

Erebus would simply push her away, the full intention to just remove himself would in turn push her to the ground if she didn’t take her stepping correctly, and his daggers were hidden in his equipment if she attempted to collect his bounty or attack him in refute— he had come for nothing, he guessed. Valeria knew Erebus was not the respectful type so it shouldn’t bother her too much, it was in her best interests to watch herself around another monster.

Especially one who otherwisely wanted nothing but to help her. Perhaps, things were possible, perhaps they weren’t. But facing the world alone was hers to do is that is what she chose. He took that path himself once, and was offering her a better one. Should she not understand that, despite being older than him by a few decades, then he could not be bothered to care any longer. The image of her would be burned into his skull, but it could never take priority before all that he stood ahead. At least... he prayed that was true.

Sometimes— things must be put down quickly. If there is ever a hope to get over them.

Changes of heart were long and far between. Valeria prolonged her night with him and spoke from her heart. She simply wished to be wanted, without the pain of finding herself attached… Erebus assumed that was the jist of it after she was finished; having felt the sting from his hand against her mouth and the frostbite of his cold shoulder on her heart. He didn’t have to say much else, he let the Vampire speak her case, facing the direction opposite of where she stood, the blonde’s pleading— and begging for a chance to reconcile amused the War God’s Chosen, she had yet to find her reason to live and it seemed she was beginning to find one in allegiance with the darkest disciple, Erebus Gresham.

He could almost relate to her refusal to chase anything but revenge, if it hadn’t been for Odin’s careful consideration and his dragging Erebus along, the Rogue would have faded into the background after his use to Zagan finished and ran dry of it’s course. Yet, two-to-three years after the fact, he was a thousand times more powerful than he was then. Valeria wasn’t after power though, she was desperate for something more meaningful, she craved adventure, and his golden blood, which different both him— she could clean his wounds, and they could share something in the middle.

“... Better. I‘ll be in Oak then, two days from now— and don’t be late.” Shrugging, Erebus pushed his pipe back into his pockets and moved on with himself, however. He didn’t go that far.

Lingering just on the outskirts of her field of her sensory at all given times, he stalked her movements and her tendencies to learn her. Erebus didn’t necessarily care about her emotional feelings (yet...), but he did wish for her to make a safe passage home. She was a valuable ally, and if her last words were true, he was living in her head rent free. If that was the case, she would surely be the closest thing to a lover and trustable partner he’d found thus far. Something about that... Perhaps rubbed him the right way, even though she had previously set him off.

It was simply up to time now whether their connection meant success. World domination, in one hand, relied upon these two getting along. Erebus decided that he would show her loyalty so long as loyalty returned in due form (as much as he could, that is). He had one last comment for her before he left completely, stopping about twenty feet or perhaps more to let her hear his last thoughts. His head tilted to the right to show his target of dialogue was her, “Don’t expect any apologies for how I am, you won’t find remorse dwelling in this heart... I will help you achieve your goals. Your warning is already in effect, the way I see things, there’s little more I have to remind you of... I do want you Valeria, I want you in many ways to be frank, Valeria Hildegard— you’ll find a way to adjust to the demands of your fate. Your strength and your company— for my blood and resources. Consider your deal sealed.” He lifted a hand up as if to wave, making a slow exit through the shadows. His steps soundless as the night.

-END & EXIT-