does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[maggie_of_the_owls]

The Countess leads Pen across what appears to be a dance floor, past a bar, and through a door on the other side of the room. This door opens out to a fairly normal hallway, and a few doors down there is a door with the name Gloria Scott written on it, and "The Countess" surrounded by doodles of bats written on a piece of paper and taped underneath.

[campanas]

"Bats!" observes Pen.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Oh, yes, that was some of my employees trying to be funny," Gloria says, smiling fondly.

[campanas]

"Why is funny?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Ah...well, I'm a vampire, and there's a popular misconception that vampires turn into bats," Gloria says. "That's where the 'Countess' bit comes from, too--there's a tie in popular culture between the idea of vampires and the rank of Count."

[campanas]

"I don't thinking either kind vampires do turn bats."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"...My kind of vampire does not turn into bats either. What kinds of vampire are you familiar with?"

[campanas]

"Is Sunshine kind and Aurum kind."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"We have thirteen kinds of vampire here, but they're arranged in classes--it's not an arbitrary system, it's objectively better to be a higher class than a lower one."

[campanas]

"That a lot kinds."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Most of them aren't very easy to distinguish--a seven is a little bit stronger and faster and so on than an eight, but not by a huge amount."

[campanas]

Nod nod. "Think only one kind vampires each Sunshine and Aurum, but, Aurum have half vampires and more hybrid kinds."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"...There are dhampirs, here, but they're vanishingly rare and don't come in fractions."

[campanas]

"Why no fractions?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"...You create a vampire, basically, by being one of the kinds of vampire that can reproduce and feeding someone your blood. If you do this to a pregnant woman, instead of her being turned the fetus becomes a dhampir."

[campanas]

"Then what if baby growing up having kids?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Not all dhampirs are fertile. If they are, a male dhampir will sire human children and a female dhampir will bear dhampir children."

[campanas]

"Oh. Huh. Different Aurum."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Apparently. What, can vampires have children there?"

[campanas]

"Not girl ones. Boy vampires. Or, magic."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"That seems strange. I'm guessing that kind of vampirism has some sort of genetic component? Ours doesn't."

[campanas]

"Think so. Not all sure, mostly remembering bedtime stories."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Alright then. So, you said a door broke to send you here? What kind of door?"

[campanas]

"Here is locked, look like house door I guess. Other side bar door. Supposed going home but not."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"What's the bar door?"