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Grubbs did not like the silence, the silence made Grubbs have to think because he had nothing else to do. He tried to look around instead, admire the trees, wonder what animals lived in the forest but no. Every time a twig snapped, Grubbs had to stop himself freaking out because obviously there was a demon right there. And of course as soon as the topic of demons came up then Grubbs really did not want to think because demons led to thinking about the past which in turn led to thinking about more demons which in turn led to thinking about magic which…it was a bloody vicious circle and Grubbs did not like it.

The conversation had started to die down, to stop the silence Grubbs had been talking to Darren but after the first few stops he was beginning to get tired. What was more annoying was the small voice in Grubb’s mind that kept telling him that he could keep up, all he needed to do was use magic. This voice was getting irritating, Grubbs was NOT going to use magic, no no no. Then Grubbs had fallen completely silent after one of their stops he had accidentally frightened a harmless, small animal by invading their territory. Of course Grubb’s initial response had been something along the lines of OH MY GOD A DEMON and not OH MY GOD A CUTE, FURRY ANIMAL. You got the idea.

But eventually they got to civilization, Grubbs almost freaked out. There was NO ONE on the streets and his immediate reaction was DEMONS. But no, it was just that it was an ungodly hour to be roaming around. This fear was finally settled when the motel they went to ended up being completely normal with normal people working there and nothing out of the ordinary happening. Grubbs looked around, what he really needed to do was find a phone (before demons attacked and everything went to hell- Grubbs was still sure it was going to happen) and get into contact with Dervish (who was probably freaking out by now).

Grubbs could not help but point out the obvious.

“So what now?”

He was going to go find/probably more likely avoid demons which would probably lead to sitting around and moping and getting in trouble but in case there were demons, would the vampires (Grubbs was still not over that) help?

Darren slumped into one of the small rooms, eyeing up the dreary wallpaper and threadbare carpet for a moment before shrugging his bag onto one of the beds. The rooms were modest by human standards but he wouldn’t be complaining. Days of sleeping in a cave made you appreciate the simpler things in life, like beds!

He stood for a moment, at a loss for what to do, when Grubbs spoke again.

“I’m not sure, maybe we should check with the locals and see if they’ve seen anything suspicious?”

He scuffed the toe of his shoe at a particularly holey piece of carpet.

“And well I mean, Mr Crepsley and I could always go and eh…” He really wasn’t sure on how to word it without worrying Grubbs. Obviously the other boy knew about the whole vampire thing but Darren assumed that he could probably be slightly… put off if he had to follow them around while they fed on humans. The only problem was, Darren could feel the slight weariness of not having drunk a decent amount of blood in a few nights, having packed less than ideal amounts in his hurry to leave the Mountain.

He decided the best option would be to change tack.

“Hey Grubbs, are you hungry at all?”

ooc: hey guys sorry for being so slow over the past couple of days. i have some free time this weekend but up until then i have too much going on to make a post. sorry about holding everything up ;3;

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Grubbs had to stop himself laughing at Darren’s explanation of this person…wellies? Really?

“Sorry, sorry.”

Grubbs responded dismissively, trying not to laugh at this apparently evil welly wearing person. And truth be told, Grubbs thought he was doing a really good job at not laughing at the mental image of some terrifying individual who thought wellies were a good fashion statement until Darren added the creepy part and Grubbs just snickered.

“No really, I’m sorry. I’m sure this person is really scary just…wellies…”

Grubbs was not going to get over that for a while.

Mr. Crepsley also added to the description of this person, a god? Grubbs was not sure he believed in such things. Demons, sure, vampires, apparently, gods…that was a little pushing it. Grubbs zoned out for a little while thinking about that then realized that Dervish would probably have cracked a joke by now at such a notion. Grubbs was disappointed by the lack of a joke actually which only made him remember why he was in the middle of a forest in the first place and that there might be demons around and that Dervish probably needed his help and-

Okay, chill.

And once again, Grubbs zoned back into the conversation, and at the mention of a chess game- Lord Loss what? No, this was not Lord Loss, just another chess obsessed scary…lunatic? Who enjoyed messing with humans? Well.

“So, do you think this guy would help demons?”

I mean, he’d be an idiot to do so. Demons never let anyone live even those who were on their side. Grubbs went back to thinking about demons and began to freak out just a little. What if everyone was dead already? Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no-

Darren shrugged his shoulders in Grubbs direction at his question. He supposed there was a possibility if things were getting too boring for the weird little man he would probably look anywhere for some mroe entertainment… even if that entertainment broke all of his toys.

Darren mulled over it for a moment longer. Mr Crepsley was probably right. Mr Tiny wanted the human race alive - mentally and physically scarred maybe - but alive nonetheless.

He fell into silence again, keeping step with the other boy without thinking about it much. The entire situation was far from ideal and the added thought of throwing Mr Tiny into the mix had unsettled him greatly. Up until now all he had to worry about was blood thirsty vampaneze trying to kill his entire clan but now…

Now he just wanted a soft bed and a warm meal and a few moments to discuss how things had been at the Mountain since Mr Crepsley had left a while back. He wanted a few hours of normalcy with his mentor and no demons or vampaneze or anything else getting in the way!

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For some reason, the idea that vampires drinking blood was an actual -you know- fact and not something made up by crazy people was really funny. What was also really funny, for Grubbs at least, was the fact that vampires also had to eat normal food and the first mental image he got was of some really stereotypical Count Dracula looking vampire walking into a fast food restaurant. It was an amusing image, no one else would probably find it funny but Grubbs was not really sure how his mind worked nor did he really want to find out. Thus, it was hysterical.

Either way, bloody funny mental image moment over. So what about the whole shape shifting into a bat thing? I mean, that’d be kind of epic if it was true right? Well, it depended. Shape shifting was certainly not epic or fun or anything (just a little note from, um, personal experience) but then again that was not really the same thing. Anyway, Grubbs was about to make a joke about the shape shifting bat thing when Darren asked a question about tunnels.

“Oh. Well, I guess it depends. There will be demons to kill…”

Grubbs trailed off, this was a really good point. To close a tunnel you had kill the person who opened it. Well no, first you had to find the person who opened it then kill them. And given how much skill Grubbs had when it came to paying attention and actually knowing what was going on, this was going to be a little more difficult. Hm, maybe they could find some weaker demons and bug them for information…it worked…sometimes- Grubbs scowled, no, he was pretty sure he could work out who was an evil mage helping demons. You think that’d be a little obvious.

Grubbs was off in his own world and not paying attention, but when he did zone back into the conversation at hand, the part he caught was Mr.Crepsley talking about someone who likes meddling with people, was malicious and did not take well to boredom.

Lord Loss, what?

“Wait, who are you talking about?”

Grubbs asked slowly.

Darren kept his eyes trained to the ground while first Mr Crepsley spoke, then Grubbs. The former was probably right about Mr Tiny, and Darren’s experiences with the little man had been minimal at best (and he really wanted to keep it that way). The latter was confused again. Darren didn’t blame him if he was honest, if he hadn’t met Mr Tiny for himself he wouldn’t have believed any of the stories he had heard.

“Mr Tiny is… Well he’s…” Darren paused, finally looking away from the ground to glance up at his mentor’s face for  second, hoping to glean to correct words. “He’s a little man in wellies with a heart shaped watch,” he finished lamely. The young Prince sent a foot flying at an unfortunate nearby tree root. “He’s hard to describe, but if you put his name together ‘Mr Desmond Tiny’ and shorten his first name, you get ‘Mr Des Tiny’ or ‘Mr Destiny’.“ 

Darren took a moment to glance at Grubbs, waiting for the look of utter shock and disbelief that would probably never come. In Darren’s defence he had been very young when that fact had been pointed out to him and it had seemed so much cooler back then than it did now. In fact right now he was feeling a little silly for bringing it up.

“Anyway he’s really creepy.”

Smooth.

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More walking…awesome. Grubbs was not going to complain, civilization seemed like a bloody awesome idea right now and, you know, making sure people were not dead. He was still a little paranoid, I mean who was to say there were no demons around? Grubbs tried to tell himself this was true; there was not enough magic in the air, the demons would have attacked, there would be signs (what those signs were Grubbs did not know but that was not the point.)

The point was Grubbs was trying to make himself not freak out. Grubbs Grady- most self deluding person. Ever.

Well maybe demons knew what vampires were and were all like ‘hellfire! better not mess with vampires’ or something like that. Actually, speaking of vampires, Darren started talking. So he was a half vampire?

“Coolio!”

Grubbs responded, it was true, vampires were pretty cool. And they seemed a lot less evil than demons so far. He felt like he ought to be a little more freaked out, but he wasn’t.

“So, do you have to drink blood or is that people making stuff up?”

I mean, it was an interesting question. If vampires had super speed and super strength and had issues with sunlight then what else was true? Invisible in mirrors? Shape shifting into bats? Grubbs would have carried on this thought process but Darren spoke again.

What Grubbs would have responded was something akin to this; well I know where you are coming from, I’m guessing people would freak out if I told them I was a werewolf so I figure it’s the same for vampires too. But no, that was not a good response. There was  no point in even mentioning werewolves because it had absolutely nothing to do with demons or vampires and there was no full moon. For now…yeah that was not fun. There would be no full moon tonight thank god but one would eventually show up, hopefully not soon though.

So instead, Grubbs just kind of shrugged.

“I mean, most people would freak out if you tried to explain other universes and demons to them.”

Then he paused, before adding with a grin.

“Except when, you know, they break out and start killing people and then it’s aaaallll down hill.”

Making jokes out of really depressing and hopeless situations? It was a special ability of the Grady’s.  Appropriate? Maybe not, but funny, hilariously funny. You had to take things like demon invasions as being funny, otherwise you would go crazy…

“Oh yeah, we have to drink blood, but we can’t live off of it alone, we have to eat regular food too.”

Darren nodded along with Grubbs as he mentioned the demon thing again and half smiled at his last comment. He supposed that it was something similar really, if Grubbs knew all about these demons, he would have to keep it pretty quiet otherwise he’d wind up locked up in some sort of loony bin before he’d even got halfway through his explanation. If he was honest, he kind of felt bad for Grubbs, knowing about the demons was making Darren nervous already, and although he had yet to come across one, from what he had heard about them, he really didn’t ever want to. 

“So what’s going to happen if we do come across a tunnel?” Darren said, sounding a little worried. He highly doubted that running up and sticking a sword into it was the best course of action, but what else could he and Mr Crepsley possibly do to help? 

And then he had a terrible thought. Who was the most likely person they knew that would want to aid a demon who wanted to destroy the world? He hated to interrupt Mr Crepsley while they were walking, he knew that the older vampire preferred to travel in silence, but this was important, “Mr Crepsley… What if… what if Mr Tiny is somehow involved in this?” He hated to say it aloud, it only seemed to make things worse, but the small man in the wellingtons had been at the centre of so many terrible things in the past that Darren couldn’t help but wonder.

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Well when Grubbs said ‘nearest town’ he totally meant Carcery Vale, and he was going to say so when Mr.Crepsley started talking. Alright, Grubbs was completely aware that finding a tunnel swarming with demons was a super, super bad idea but if they didn’t find the tunnel then people were going to die. And sure, at first it’d be maybe a thousand or so -something that Beranabus never saw as important, but if the demons weren’t stopped it would become more and more and…you got the picture. This was bad.

“No, you don’t-“

Grubbs stopped, of course they didn’t understand. No one understood what threat demons were until they faced them, that was why there were idiot human beings willing to help because they thought they could control demons or that the demons would let the humans help them. It did not work that way.

The other reason Grubbs stopped was because he knew that looking for the tunnel was suicide, as much as it totally needed to be done, it was suicide. He was torn between being completely okay with going away from the tunnel and wanting to deal with the problem right away.

The cowardly side was winning right now.

Anyway, Grubbs noticed Mr.Crepsley looking at a map for the nearest town. A few hours away? Was that Carcery Vale? Grubbs was not really sure where he was.

“Um, excuse me, may I look at that map?”

Woah, wait, was that like -politeness- right there? Well yes it was because Grubbs wanted to see the bloody map to see where the nearest bloody town was and whether or not it was bloody Carcery Vale. He was getting a little worried, what if that was where the tunnel was? Hell, the tunnel had to be in the area, there was way too much magic around…Either way, Grubbs was slightly offended by the next comment.

“I won’t slow you down…um, probably not much anyway.”

Grubbs started off the sentence pretty ticked off then remembered that vampires normally had coolio speed related powers (or so they did in films) so he probably would. But he could at least try and use magic to kind of keep up, right? Actually scratch that, that was just a bad idea in general. Grubbs sighed inwardly, why -in every single group/situation/universe/everything was he always the most useless? Seriously, it was getting annoying.

But back to what was going on, they were walking again, supposedly towards the closest area of human civilization -always useful for finding demons. Grubbs was still pretty ticked off but he figured he might as well stop sulking and talk to people and by people Grubbs meant Darren.

“So are you a vampire as well?”

Hey, fair question.

As they set off, Darren hurried to where he had left his bags after his ungraceful entrance earlier and lugged them back onto his back. The sun hadn’t been set long, and that meant they were going to be walking for a while. Darren didn’t bother to ask where exactly they were going, he had learnt from years of experience that asking stupid questions like that was going to earn you nothing more than a sharp rap on the knuckles from his mentor and not the answer you were looking for. They started off in silence and Darren was content to just let his feet go on autopilot and let himself day dream for a little while. The terrain was flat and most of the tree roots were unexposed, meaning he could walk without any real danger of being tripped unexpectedly.

Mr Crepsley was notoriously quiet when he wanted to be and Darren had grown used to that, which is why he was quite surprised when Grubbs broke the deepening silence.

“So are you a vampire as well?”

He turned his head slightly to look at the other boy. Mr Crepsley had obviously filled Grubbs in on the whole bloodsucking creature of the night business but had seemingly neglected to mention Darren’s situation at the same time. He supposed it was fair enough really.

Darren nodded his head in answer to Grubbs’ question and opened his mouth to elaborate further, “I’m a half vampire actually. Not as strong or as quick as a full vampire, but I can withstand sunlight.” He grinned cheekily at Mr Crepsley’s back. “A lot of vampires have half vampires as assistants because they don’t get burned by sunlight. It’s useful to have someone like that around.”

He kicked at a stone in passing, it skidded along the leafy ground in front of him. “You know, most people freak out when I tell them that… not that I’ve told a lot of people…”

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Grubbs could not criticize this person for having no idea what was going on, in fact Grubbs envied him a little. He wished he had no idea about demons but unfortunately that was never going to happen. Grubbs inwardly blamed his great great great (this will carry on for a while) or whatever ancestors for deciding it’d be a fantastic idea to mate with demons. I mean, who did that? Really? And Grubbs had to be related to those people…honestly.

But back on topic…this was a confusing conversation and the majority of normal people would just walk away at this point…or lock you in a mental asylum which is not fun.

“Basically. They’re all like -hell bent on wiping out humanity.”

You know when you say it out loud it just sounds funny, or maybe that was just Grubbs who was able to make the end of the world slightly amusing (as I said, it definitely ran in the family).

Grubbs was also still trying to work out what to do next. Truth be told, he was never usually the one responsible for decisions (or thinking) nor did he want to be. There were only two choices luckily enough, find The Disciples or the tunnel. If they found The Disciples they would end up going after the tunnel and if they found the tunnel The Disciples would show up.

If this was actually a demon problem. Grubbs shook his head, of course it was! Why did he keep thinking that?!

Grubbs dropped the thought process when this new person started talking again, fighting demons…oh wait, hold up. Grubbs forgot about that, he really, really, really did not want to fight demons but…he kind of had to. It was not a life choice, it was something that was already decided as much as Grubbs wished he could live under a rock and not ever see a demon again. Hellfire! He dropped the whole discussion about fighting demons for the time being. He did not want to talk about it, nor bring up past encounters with said demons.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

Grubbs said, completely ignoring the questions about fighting demons and shaking Darren’s hand. Well at least this guy seemed nicer than Mr.Crepsley.

And speaking of the devil -I mean, vampire…Grubbs scowled and crossed his arms, he was about to respond with some rude response when he realized that Mr.Crepsley was actually right. Grubbs was pretty erratic but he would be fine in a fight…he’d fought demons before (almost died more times than not) but that was not the point!

Grubbs Grady -Coward until pushed…

But Mr.Crepsley did have a point, fighting demons with three people er, two vampires (maybe?) and one werewolf magician (which sounded like the coolest thing ever but totally was not) was not going to go down well especially if the tunnel was really strong because then the demons could put themselves back together and…it was just a mess. But in order to find The Disicples…

“We need to either find the location of the tunnel or find the nearest town…”

Like Carcery Vale. Grubbs paused, if there was another tunnel open in Carcery Vale he was going to -no that was not possible. They would have noticed that right away, right? Grubbs hoped so. Great, now he was paranoid.

When Darren noticed Mr Crepsley had most of his belongings - few that they were - packed away, he took a second to wonder where exactly they were planning on going. He had left the Mountain with the sole intention of bringing Mr Crepsley back with him and going back to sitting in that old chamber all night and… wait why exactly was he eager to go back? He pondered on it some more, thinking back over the last few years he had spent as a Prince, barely even sticking his head outside for fresh air. It would be a shame to rush back so soon, even with the threat of the war and the added complication of demons on the rampage.

It couldn’t exactly be said that Darren was the sharpest of vampires, but he was still slightly sceptical of Grubbs’ story, but the strange boy had managed to convince Mr Crepsley, which was good enough as Darren was concerned. It just left the question…

“So where are we supposed to start looking? Do you know where any of these Disciples are? How will going to the nearest town help, Grubbs?” He asked in genuine confusion. Going towards human civilisation filled Darren with equal parts excitement and dread, it had been so long since he had come into contact with any human (Grubbs excluded, but Darren hadn’t made up his mind on what exactly Grubbs was, because he was nothing like any other normal person the half vampire had ever met) and he wasn’t sure if he would remember how to act properly. No honestly, I’m just your every day creature of the night. No big deal. 

He looked over at Grubbs again for a moment, he seemed strange and hyper and possibly had some sort of attention problem, but in a weird way Darren liked him. He was so much different from the serious vampires that he had been surrounded by for so long. Maybe it would be good to act like a kid again, even for while, and to have something like a normal friend. Well maybe scratch the normal part.