A Vampire Name Riond

Kla: So much anticipation!

Ele: Hurry up!!

Tab: …

Nic: I feel shadowed by those two now….

Tab: For sure.

Riond watched as the crystal wine glass was slowly filled by the bartender with rich blood. It wasn’t real human blood like some blood thirsty vampires loved; it was fish blood, for the bartender was human and the inn he was in was occupied by humans. He didn’t mind, the inn keepers accepted him there especially when he was the only vampire who would willingly drink fish blood. Riond gratefully took the wine glass and gulped down his fill, his tongue stinging from the fishy taste of the blood. He enjoyed the taste of blood but always avoided human blood so as to not go hunger-crazy like some vampires he knew.

The bartender snorted and placed the jug full of blood underneath the counter as he glanced around the counter of the bar. No one was there, say for Riond. The bartender sighed and pulled the jug back out for free refills. Riond quickly finished his first glass and glanced up from his stained glass towards the wall. The inn was well furnished because of the many passersby who dropped in to have some much needed rest. The inn was well placed between two major cities, the Ghoul forest of Shynad SYUH-nad to the north and the two human cities Washington and Elliot to the east and west. Washington named after some president or rather and Elliot after the founder of Galabant.

Riond was different for a vampire; any human would look at him and mistake him for a ghoul easily, mostly because his mother was a ghoul. His hair was a forest green while his eyes a strange vivid tangerine color with his pupil a chestnut color. He didn’t mind about his eyes, it gave him a strange complexion that made vampire-hating humans stay away from him. He wore a no-sleeve black tunic with a thick jean like material jacket to cover his bare pale arms and dark green fingerless gloves; his jeans baggy and black with black steel toe boots made out of leather.

The inn was simple with stairs leading to the second floor to Riond’s right and two doors behind the counter; the door on the right leading to the cellar and the door on the left leading to the kitchen. Behind Riond were several round tables made out of tarnished wood. Hovering near the ceiling was the recently invented Light Orbs. The bartender wore a regular white apron with just one large blood stain on his chest, he wasn’t big slightly small with no hair and a mustache and a goatee. The inn itself was three stories tall with ten rooms per floor.

Riond carefully poured yet another glass of blood and quickly gulped it down, licking at his lips as he glanced towards the kitchen door. The door suddenly opened and a human woman came out, her cheeks piggy but her waist small enough to fit into a size six dress which she wore now. “Riond!” the woman shouted with glee, throwing her arms out.

The inn manager, Linda Bekets, quickly walked towards the counter where Riond sat and placed herself directly in front of him and his glass. “I’m surprised you’re not outside, it’s a perfect morning for you to be out!” she exclaimed.

In truth it was a perfect morning, rain clouds covered the sky giving the sun no way to enter, the perfect morning for a vampire to waltz around. However, Riond hated walking around in the rain, especially when it rained so hard that anyone could become as pruned as a raisin.

“Not my type of day, Linda.” Riond replied, his mouth starting to dribble blood down his chin, which he quickly wiped away.

“You best see who we have staying over this find day!” Linda said, leaning in closely to Riond. “We got a couple in Room P; quite a ruckus they made during the night, I must admit! I could hear the screaming comin’ from up there! They had a girl with ‘em so I bet they were givin’ her a beatin’ perhaps.”

Riond’s eyes suddenly widened as he forgot to swallow and the blood slid down his air tube. He quickly turned his head away and coughed out the blood onto the floor. The bartender behind the counter quickly grabbed a mop from the cellar and began to mop up the floor. “Not possible!” Riond sputtered, wiping his mouth again. Many times he heard about child abuse or any type of abuse from humans, he never truly whiteness it happen however. “Did you stop them?”

“Of course I did, Riond! You think I’m a foul hearted person? I stopped them right away and brought that girl down here for a piece of cake and somethin’ to drink.” Linda explained, her face looking grave as she shook her head. “Quite a beating the youngling took, couldn’t believe it. Of course I told her to head north to that Ghoul forest up there.”

Riond put his left arm on the table while his finger on his right hand ran along his bottom lip, thinking. Shynad was the best place for any abused human to go, Ghouls always took care of any orphan. “Do you have a speeder I can borrow, Linda?” he asked.

Linda nodded and reached into the pocket of her apron to pull out a small disk with a hole in the middle. “Bring it back you hear!” Riond quickly took the disk from Linda’s hand and slid off the stool towards the door.

Quickly the door slid open as Riond approached it and quickly closed as he got outside. “Curse the rain.” He muttered as he pulled the jacket up over his head from the pouring rain. He quickly went around the wide of the inn to find a car like vehicle with no tires and a windshield for the cover of the seats. Riond quickly approached the vehicle and tapped the small disk against the base of the vehicle below the windshield. After two taps the disk stuck to the car like a magnet and a section of the windshield opened along with the base of the vehicle. Riond quickly climbed into the vehicle and tapped the windshield to close the opening. He quickly rubbed his hands together to warm himself as he glanced over the controls.

There was no handle or steering wheel like a normal vehicle had back on Earth long ago, instead there was a small view screen in front of him that came out from the dashboard and approached him. The view screen flicked to life and strange letters scrolled across the screen. “Blasted machines.” Riond cursed under his breath as he tapped on the screen to put it back into the dashboard. The inside was like a normal car from back in 2050 with a dashboard and leather seats, two in front and the back with three seats, one in the center. The driver side consisted of the place for the view screen and a rectangle outline below the view screen with four curved buttons on either side. The dashboard was tan along with the seats while the outside of the vehicle was a dark red.

Riond quickly tapped the rectangle outline twice and it slid away to reveal two jack openings as if for headphones. He quickly reached between the two front seats, opened a compartment and pulled out a shabby headset with one ear piece on the right side and a mike connected to it. A wire led down from the ear piece and the mike to form two jacks at the end. Riond quickly slipped on the head set and positioned the mike next to his mouth and proceeded to plug in the jacks to the entrances provided.

“Okay, Glider on.” Riond spoke clearly into the mike. The vehicle suddenly roared to life and lifted off the ground; it wavered a bit as the hovers on the bottom stabilized. “Manual control.” He said. Two control sticks came out from underneath the dashboard on either side of him and he quickly grasped them. He tugged on the controls pulling them out from underneath and positioning them in front of him and near the view screen. “Poina! POH-EE-na” Riond quickly tilted left on both controls and the vehicle hastily reared left to point a way from the inn. He quickly pushed forward on the controls, making both sticks point downwards and the vehicle roared past the inn to the north.

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Gliders of this age can reach about 200mph in about one minute making it docile especially when Gliders are nature friendly. The way to fuel a Glider is by giving it at least a gallon of water into an exhaust port in the back of the Glider. With a gallon of water a Glider can go ten miles until it stops, with two gallons a Glider can go for twenty miles and so on. Gliders themselves weren’t discovered until 3250 where the design was first made. After ten years ghouls and humans discovered a way to get Gliders to use water in order to convert energy to fuel the hover pads on the bottom of the Glider. The systems in the Glider would use the concept of dehydration synthesis to separate each water molecule from another and thus attach each hydrogen element with hydrogen in some complex concept. Each oxygen element would then connect to another to make a long chain of oxygen, same with the hydrogen. The hydrogen and oxygen chains would then rub against each other in a parallel line to make the protons in the atom spin, thus creating energy. Quite frankly, it is a confusing process, but all in all the energy that was made would provide the energy needed to turn on the hover pads underneath. Each Glider has at least three hover pads underneath in a line covering the entire surface area of the Glider.

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Riond let go of one of the control sticks and blew warm air onto his hand. He was cold, and he always hated being cold. However, it was really easy for him to get cold; his hands were small with long fingers pale from lack of sun or in this case no sun. Even with gloves to warm his hands they felt like blocks of ice as he placed it back onto the control stick. Shynad wasn’t far now, Riond could already see it over the horizon. Although he could not see the city itself, for the city rested in the trees, the whole forest was practically the city itself; exclude a small line of trees along the edge of the forest. Only about two more minutes and Riond would officially arrive at the border of the forest where he could easily gain access into the city.

The borderline of trees…

“Quite frankly, I have to admit, I would rather have a vampire in my bed then a demon.” A ghoul said; her voice raspy as she looked to her partner who helped guard the city. They both sat on a branch on a very high Vudon( VU-don tree gazing down below them on ground level with spears in both of their hands.

“Well said, although some prefer vampires then humans or demons.” The other ghoul replied, moving his hand as he spoke the words. His partner looked at him and nodded in reply as she too started to make strange hand movements.

“I agree. Remember Kelara’s KEa-la-ruh son? What was his name? Ren something I think.” The female ghoul said tapping the branch she sat on.

“Riond, strange name for a ghoul if you ask me.” The male ghoul replied smiling.

“Well, the boy is half ghoul half vampire. Might I remind you.” The female ghoul replied and suddenly stopped, her hand motion frozen and she tapped her knee and pointed through the cluster of trees in front of them towards the long prairie. “A human perhaps?” her partner shook his head in response.

Riond and the Glider…

Riond finally arrived and quickly pulled back on the controls to bring the Glider to a halt just before the trees started. He quickly tapped the windshield and the opening appeared once again. He climbed out and tapped the windshield to close the opening again where the grasped the disk from the hull of the Glider, pulled it off, and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans.

Riond quickly glanced towards the trees, held up four fingers and waved. Suddenly two ghouls descended down and landed on the grass in front of him. One ghoul was a female and the other a male. The woman had long spring green haired tied into a pony tail behind her whereas her eyes glistened a yellow green color with her pupils a dark green. The man had cornflower colored hair whereas his iris and pupils a periwinkle. Both held a spear in their left hand with a shard of silver on the tip as the point of the spear.

Breathing slowly Riond stomped twice on the ground and pointed to his right eye and at each of the ghoul’s eye in return, he stomped on the ground twice again and opened his mouth to show his large canines that broke out of his gums. Both ghouls grimaced at the sight of his canines making Riond quickly close his mouth and point to his groin and clap and stomp at the same time. He quickly composed his body again and twisted his index finger with his middle finger, followed by three fingers pointed out sideways, curved his hand into an ‘o’, stomped his foot, and followed it up with a clap over his mouth as he slowly slurred out ‘duh’.

Suddenly woman burst out laughing, tapping the tip of her spear on the ground as she laughed. “Don’t overdue it, Riond. I am Montii. MON-tee With me is my mate Woan. WHAN” she explained, motioning with her hand towards her partner.

Riond sighed, he hated talking with the ghoul’s complex hand motions; he rather preferred to speak the speech of humans like almost everyone else on Galabant did. “Well, do you know or not?” he asked.

Montii glanced towards Woan, thinking about what Riond asked. “I think I do recall a human girl coming here with the woman from the inn last moon.” She said, fingering her spear in through. Woan nodded and looked towards the large trees.

“Yes, there was a human girl who came. Retna came by to pick up the girl to bring her before Mananeis MANA-niece as I recall.” Woan explained. “I think that may be the girl you are asking for, Riond.” Riond nodded quickly, no doubt that was the girl Linda told him about. “Well then, we will take you to Mananeis to see the girl then.” Woan turned and hastily jumped into the trees, followed by Montii. Riond groaned and placed the palm of his hand on the wet grass; he licked his lips and quickly bounded off the ground high into the tree tops to follow Montii and Woan.

( - Vudon trees stand about as tall as a Redwood tree from Earth in California. Also has the look and feel of a Redwood tree and a Douglas fir tree.

Tab: Wow, those pronunciation keys are helpful by annoying.

Nic: I wonder if Mar is even using them correctly.

Kla: That was interesting.

Ele: That is one tall tree and one great story!!

Tab: Please review!