In the safety of his vault, Vainqueur Knightsbane took a handful of coins from his hoard and showered his niece with them.

He had allowed his niece to rest on his hoard, until its warmth helped her forget her captivity at the hands of the bat-beast. Yet, in spite of his best efforts, she remained quiet and slightly scared of the outside. “Uncle,” Jolie finally asked him. “Do I have a birth defect?”

“Of course not!” Vainqueur reassured her. “You are almost as perfect as me!”

“But Dad died, and they hurt me!” Unfortunately for her uncle, Jolie may be young, she was also smart for her age. Her lost horn would constantly reminded her of her imprisonment. “You always told me pain was a birth defect.”

“Because you were too young for the truth,” Vainqueur said, having himself only learned about this shameful secret of dragonkind recently.

He could no longer spare her feelings.

“Pain and death…” Vainqueur struggled to find the right words, to deliver the terrible truth. “Pain and death are not birth defects! Every dragon suffers from them!”

Jolie’s eyes morphed into the purest expression of dread and horror. While she understood the truth deep down, to hear it from her beloved uncle must have shaken her to the core. “Even you?”

“Even…” Vainqueur’s voice broke. “Even I.”

The revelation scared her even more of the outside.

"Jolie, through my journeys, I learned that true confidence is not being ignorant of death,” Vainqueur told her, trying to cheer his niece up. “True awesomeness is being me: fighting to the bitter end because I know that despite the risks, I will always prevail. Because I am me. Even Death bows before my strength, wealth, and peerless genius!”

“So if I grow strong and big and rich like you, I can overcome death?” Jolie’s head perked up.

“Exactly!” Vainqueur encouraged her. “But you cannot become as amazing as me if you stay at home all day. You have to grow fat on cattle, cultivate the best minions, destroy your enemies, and get rewarded for it with wealth! That is the dragon way to happiness!”

His words lit up the fires of enthusiasm in his niece’s eyes.

His vault’s doorbell echoed through its walls, Vainqueur grumbling as he opened the large door.

He found Knight Kia waiting in front. “Is Jolie—”

Vainqueur began to close the door before she could finish, intent on keeping her out. But unfortunately, his niece had heard the voice. “Kia!” She immediately rose up to welcome her perverse excuse of a minion, forcing her uncle to keep the gates open.

“I’m so sorry,” the Knight apologized while hugging the dragonling; as if it would make up for her sin of minion incompetence. “I should have stayed with you all the time. Did they cut off your horn?”

“Yes, and they took my blood too! They tried to seal Uncle in a bottle!”

The Knight scratched Jolie behind the ear, the way Vainqueur often did; the sight made him envious, although he was too good to show it. “This is just the beginning,” Knight Kia said. “Once a Fomor has its mind on something, it never stops.”

“You’re not leaving again?” Jolie asked her minion.

“No, this time I will stay with you constantly,” Kia said, “At least. until you have enough levels to defend yourself. I will train you until you become a [Paladin] so unstoppable, that you will eat vampires for dinner.”

“Good, because if I find out if anyone hurt my niece again on your watch, there will be nothing left of you to breed,” Vainqueur warned the manling, and he meant it.

As for the fairies, the dragon could no longer ignore their schemes.

Now was the time for action.

Sitting on the back of his horse, backed by a legion of clerics, kobolds, and ghouls, Victor glanced at the barricaded house in front of him. It had taken most of the day and last night, but this was the last warehouse to raid.

“Sir, what do we do?” Jules asked, glancing at the shut windows.

“If she’s not out in five minutes, break the door and kill them all,” Victor told his troops. “No quarter.”

Fortunately, the door opened and Savoureuse walked out. A dozen vampires followed her, their hands on the back of their heads. Charlene closed the procession.

As Savoureuse told them, the Nightblades had already turned her into a vampire. Her skin had turned dead white, her eyes crimson, and her body had slimmed considerably. She looked more attractive and confident, in a predatory kind of way.

“We’ll find a way to cure you,” Victor promised her, climbing down from his horse while carrying his bazooka.

“Cure what?” Charlene replied. “My newfound immortality?”

“You’re not mad about your current situation?”

“No! Being a vampire is marvelous!” She put her hands on her hips, flaunting her new figure, “I feel so much healthier and stronger! I will have to hide from the sun when I run out of elixirs, but I will stay young forever! I no longer feel the ache in my back!”

Victor thought she would feel conflicted about losing her humanity, but she took it awfully well. “Good to see you back then.”

“And let me tell you, things will change,” Charlene replied, her bloody eyes full of authority. “When I find that traitor Croissant, I will suck him dry, and not in the way he thought I would.”

Victor had already planned to decide his fate with his sister after the current matter dealt with. “Where is Emile Lavere?” he asked the prisoners. Lucie’s second-in-command was the last loose end he had to address.

“We trapped him in his coffin when he refused to surrender,” the assassin replied. “None of us here will fight for a dead woman.”

“Shoot the coffin with arrows, check the corpse, then cremate it,” Victor ordered Jules, the necromancer entering the house with an escort to do the deed. With Emile gone, they had defanged the guild’s leadership in Murmurin.

As for the minions… “You have fought the law,” Victor warned them. “Caused us a lot of trouble, sowed chaos, and threatened the emperor’s subjects. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“We surrendered?” a rogue said. “Shouldn’t you be a tiny bit merciful? I mean, Sav got away with it.”

“Not really,” Savoureuse sighed.

“I condemned her to five years of community service,” Victor said, and by that, he meant cook duties. “And unlike you, she fully cooperated.”

“Then we are sorry, and we won’t do it again?” one of the vampires responded bashfully.

“Yeah, you’re scary, sir,” another rogue replied. “And also very handsome!”

“Phooey, and here I thought you needed a backbone to become an [Assassin] these days,” a new, mocking voice taunted the cowardly killers. “I stand corrected.”

Victor raised his eyes, noticing someone on the roof.

A humanoid crow with feathers as black as the darkest night, and eyes shining like stars in the dark. He wore a ridiculously extravagant crimson harlequin costume and swung a scythe full of wailing souls. The way he hopped on the roof, he clearly delighted in his coyness; and somehow, watching him felt wrong.

How did he manage to sneak up on everyone? And why did he look exactly like… like...

…

It couldn’t be.

“Who the Happyland are you?” Victor pointed his rocket launcher at the newcomer.

“I’m Deathjester,” the birdkin harlequin announced himself with a mock bow, before leaping off the roof and gracefully landing in front of Victor. “God prince of crime. Accept no substitute.”

Deathjester

Deity (guess my type! Avian/Divine!)

Strengths and weaknesses mean nothing to me; all bend to my will.

Yes, that’s me, I’m the real deal. The patron god of criminals, troublemakers, tricksters, and birds (because birds are awesome). I’ve killed every type of creature at least once, even Mithras at one time. I could give you the gory details, but that would make for an entire black comedy novel.