Greywick had always been a town of parasites, but this was different. Before, the leeches were small, each scuttling for his own small meal—the merchant bled dry by a crooked guard, the farmer stripped of his coin by a back-alley thug. Greywick was a sick, festering wound, and everyone fed on the ooze.
Blaze didn't care about healing the wound. He only meant to be the biggest, most beautiful maggot of them all.
The first whispers of his system slithered through the gutters and back alleys. They had a name, a name hissed in smoke-choked taverns and muttered on salt-slicked docks: the Blood Tax.
Nobody knew what it meant at first. Was it a coin tithe? Did the new Crimson Lord demand firstborn children? The theories were as wild as the town itself, but by the week's end, the terrifying truth became impossible to ignore.
It began with the gangs.
Blaze summoned the dregs of Greywick's underworld to the ruined chapel. Dozens came, some lured by greed, most dragged in rattling chains by his lieutenants, Kael and Garrick. The stench of sweat and fear filled the chamber as the thugs, smugglers, and cutthroats cast nervous glances at the strange shadows that coiled and writhed across the walls.
Blaze rose from his makeshift throne, the cursed ring on his finger pulsing with a faint, crimson light. His eyes, the color of fresh blood, swept over the quivering crowd.
"You have lived fat on this town," he said, his voice a deceptively soft thrum that filled every corner of the chapel. "You've stolen and killed and fed on the weak. That ends. From tonight forward, you feed me."
A nervous ripple went through the crowd. A few of the bolder men tried to laugh, but the sound was thin and weak. Most just swallowed and clutched at the knives hidden in their belts.
Blaze simply lifted a hand.
Shadows detached from the walls, slithering across the stone floor and wrapping around a man who had muttered a bit too loudly. The poor thug shrieked as the tendrils pinned him to the ground. Kael stepped forward with a wide, manic grin and ripped the man's sleeve open, baring his pale arm.
Blaze bent, his fangs sinking into the flesh. The thug's screams dwindled to whimpers... then to a chilling silence.
When Blaze pulled away, a single drop of crimson blood dripped from his chin. He let his gaze fall upon the assembly once more, his eyes holding no mirth, only a terrifying promise.
"This is the tax," he said. "Each month, you will give me a measure of your blood. You will survive, if you obey. If you resist..." He gestured to the husk of a man slumped at his feet. "...You will feed me in full."
No one laughed now.
The next stage was organization. Garrick oversaw it with the grim precision of a battlefield general. He drafted ledgers and took names, tallying every gang member, every smuggler, every crooked guard who now fell under Blaze's hungry shadow.
Each man was marked with a brand seared into their arm—the sigil of a crimson fang. The brand itself was nothing more than a mark, but rumor spread that Blaze could taste their blood across any distance. They said he would know if they withheld their due. Fear did the rest.
The system worked swiftly and efficiently. By the second week, blood flowed into the casks Kael had lined with runes stolen from some abandoned shrine. The ruined chapel became a dark vault where barrels of scarlet essence glowed faintly in the shadowlight. It was a reservoir of power, a weapon waiting to be wielded.
Ledo, trembling with eagerness, became the master of whispers. He wove stories in the taverns, embellishing tales of those who failed to pay the tax. Stories of men drained dry in alleys, of entire families disappearing overnight. Few knew which stories were true, and that was precisely the point.
And Asha—Asha enforced. When a dockside gang refused to pay, she arrived at their den with claws bared and murder in her eyes. She left only one survivor, his arm marked with deep claw scars, sent crawling back to spread the word.
The Crimson Court's system was complete. Greywick had always been a town of parasites, but now the greatest predator of all had claimed his throne.
But Blaze did not stop with the gangs. His hunger was a vast, bottomless well, and his plans were vaster still.
The next targets were outsiders. The travelers, the mercenaries, the smugglers just passing through—those who profited from Greywick's lawlessness but did not belong to it. Why should they leave untouched while his subjects bled for him?
"All who profit from my town must pay the tithe," Blaze decreed to his council. "They may give coin, yes, but blood first. Blood always."
Garrick, ever the pragmatist, frowned slightly. "Coin feeds bellies, my lord. Blood alone won't keep Greywick standing."
Blaze's smile was a thin, humorless line. "Coin is fleeting. Blood is eternal. They will give both. But the blood comes first."
The decree spread like a plague. Outsiders balked, raged, and swore they would leave. A few did. Most stayed. Greywick was too profitable, too lawless a haven to abandon. They cursed the Crimson Lord but bared their arms all the same, bleeding into the chalices Kael carried with mad glee.
By the end of the first month, Blaze had what no ruler in Greywick's history had ever possessed: a true reserve.
The casks in the chapel vault pulsed with runic seals, filled with the very lifeblood of criminals, travelers, and mercenaries alike. Each night, Blaze stood before them, drinking as he pleased. His power swelled. His spawn thrived. His control deepened its roots in the town's rotten soil.
And beyond the ruined chapel, the whispers spread.
Merchants muttered of a shadow ruler who demanded blood instead of coin. Drunks on the docks spoke of crimson barrels locked beneath the old church. Smugglers warned newcomers to bare their arms or lose them.
Greywick's people—its thieves, its liars, its parasites—learned a new truth:
The Crimson Lord had made the town his nest, and they were all just prey, waiting to be fed upon.
The Blood Tax was a masterpiece. Or maybe a beautifully efficient curse.
In a matter of weeks, Greywick's very lifeblood had been mapped and siphoned, bled into casks deep beneath Blaze's crumbling chapel. The gears of this awful machine turned with the quiet precision of a clockwork nightmare. Garrick's ledgers ran with crimson ink, each line a life forfeit. Kael, a hound in human skin, guarded the vault like a rabid dog, while Ledo slithered through smoky taverns, his whispers twisting into tendrils of fear. And if anyone dared to cheat the system, Asha was there, a bone-breaker who never missed.
The operation was a marvel of efficiency. Terrifying. And, most importantly, silent.
Or at least, it should have been.
But rumors are like water; they always find a crack to seep through. And Greywick was nothing but a foundation of cracks.
The first drops of fear came from the civilians. In the grimy slums near the southern wall, mothers clutched their children tighter at night, their prayers to forgotten gods a low hum in the dark. They spoke of men who went into the old chapel with color in their cheeks and came out ghost-pale, their arms tightly bound.
"They bled me like a hog," one gambler moaned in a tavern, a fresh bandage on his arm already seeping. "A cup, he said. Just a cup. But look at me!" He waved his arm, but no one at the table bothered to look up from their dice.
Another man spat, his voice barely a whisper. "He'll bleed the whole town dry."
Civilians don't revolt. They've been stepped on for too long to bother. They just whisper, pray, and watch the old chapel with a mounting dread.
Merchants, however, were louder. At the northern gates, a trader from the empire threw a sack of silver down on a guard's table, his face flushed red with fury. "Coin I will pay! But blood? You're insane if you think I'll let some lunatic drink from me!"
The guard, who now bore a faint crimson sigil burned into his wrist, simply shrugged. "Rules of Greywick. Blood first, then coin."
"And if I refuse?"
The guard just jerked his chin toward a shadowed alley. A moment later, Kael emerged, a jagged grin on his face, fangs gleaming. The merchant's face went white. Slowly, he rolled up his sleeve. His blood was joining the Crimson Lord's coffers before nightfall.
The gangs, meanwhile, lived in a different kind of fear. Not of Blaze himself—that terror had long ago carved into their bones—but of what came next.
In a cramped den under the docks, men huddled together, their voices hushed. "He'll drain us all," one whispered, scratching at the crimson fang burned into his arm. "Every month more. First a cup, then a pint, then—"
"Shut it," another snapped. "He hears, you're dead."
"He can't hear through walls."
"Can't he?" The man's eyes darted toward the shadows in the corner, dark and thick despite the lantern's glow. No one looked too closely.
The conversation died on their tongues.
Ledo fanned these whispers like a man stoking a fire. He wove tales of punishments worse than death: men turned inside out, women drained but kept breathing, children stolen for their veins. Most of the stories were lies, but that didn't matter. Lies, if believed, could be sharper than daggers.
But Blaze knew that fear could cut both ways. The Blood Tax was a roaring success, but it was also… loud. Too loud. And sooner or later, someone was going to notice.
The first sign was a priest. Not one in flowing robes, openly bearing the church's sigil—Greywick had a habit of chewing up and spitting out such men. This one wore a simple cloak and the plain clothes of a traveler. He walked the streets with soft steps and sharp eyes, appearing one market morning. He bought bread, spoke gently to vendors, and smiled at children. He seemed harmless.
But the moment he set foot in the town, Blaze felt it. It wasn't a sight, or a sound, or a scent. It was the way the cursed ring on his finger burned, the way his own shadows recoiled. Holy magic. Subtle, cloaked, but undeniably there.
The church had sent a watcher.
That night, Blaze sat on his throne in the ruined chapel. Kael stood at his side, Garrick hunched over his ledgers, Asha leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, and Ledo lurking behind them like a rat in the shadows.
"There's a priest," Blaze said, his voice flat.
Kael snarled. "Let me tear him apart. I'll drag his holy guts through the mud."
"No," Blaze said. His voice was soft, final. "Not yet."
Garrick frowned, his pen poised over a ledger. "What do you intend, my lord?"
Blaze leaned back, his crimson eyes half-lidded. "We are not yet strong enough to burn the church openly. If they suspect too much, they will send more than one priest. They will send fire and steel."
Asha tilted her head, her amber eyes glinting. "Then what?"
"We let him watch," Blaze said, a thin, cruel smile on his lips. "We let him see exactly what I want him to see."
And so, the priest watched. He saw the gangs shuffle toward the chapel once a month, pale and trembling. He saw smugglers bleed into chalices at the docks. He heard the whispers of the Blood Tax, saw merchants curse and then submit.
But he never saw Blaze. Not once. Shadows shifted just enough to keep the Crimson Lord hidden. Kael prowled the streets at night, too fast for the priest's eyes. Garrick kept the docks orderly, but never invoked Blaze's name. Ledo's lies left no trail. Asha's claws left scars, but no path back to her master.
The priest collected fragments, shadows, and fears—enough to form suspicion, but never proof.
And Blaze, from his throne, felt him growing restless. It was a dangerous game—dangling bait before the church without letting them bite. But it was necessary. The Blood Tax would not survive in silence forever. Sooner or later, the Light would notice. Better to shape what they noticed than let chance decide.
Late that night, Blaze stood in the chapel vault, gazing at the rows of blood-filled casks. Shadows writhed around him, curling like smoke.
"They will come," he murmured, not to himself, but to the cursed ring that pulsed against his finger. "The Light always comes. But when they do, they will not find prey… they will find a nest."
The ring's whispers slithered through his mind, a mix of praise and mockery. Nest. Yes. A nest for predators. A throne built not on gold, but on blood. Drink, little king. Drink and grow.
And Blaze drank.
The priest was more resilient than Blaze had anticipated.
For weeks, the man played the part of a harmless stranger, a saint in worn-out boots. He smiled at beggars, gave bread to orphans, and bought rounds of drinks for the dockhands, his pockets as shallow as his questions. He'd ask about the tides, the price of grain, and why the gangs looked so pale and hollow-eyed. Harmless, right?
But the priest always, always, circled back to the chapel.
Every night, his footsteps would slow as he passed the ruined spire, his eyes lingering on its shattered peak. Once, he even reached out, a fleeting touch against the weathered stone, and whispered a prayer too soft for mortal ears. But Blaze heard it. The shadows carried the words to him like rats scurrying with stolen scraps.
"O Light, reveal the darkness hidden here."
Blaze's smile had been a sharp, thin line. He could have ended the man a dozen times over. A simple command to Kael, a whisper to Garrick's knife, one tug of shadow to make the priest vanish like all the others. But that wasn't the point.
Blood fed the body, but fear fed the legend. And Blaze intended to give Greywick a legend it would never, ever forget.
The demonstration came on a moonless night.
The gangs had gathered as always, their pale faces and trembling hands a familiar sight in the ruined chapel. Casks were filled, ledgers marked. Kael prowled the aisles, his fangs bared in a casual threat. Asha leaned in a corner, amber eyes watchful. Ledo scurried among the ranks, whispering rumors as if trying them on for size.
But Blaze felt the shift in the air—the faint, cautious glow of holy magic seeping through the cracks of the chapel door. The priest was watching.
Perfect.
Blaze rose from his throne. "Tonight," he said, his voice a blade scraping on stone, "you will see what happens to those who cheat my tax."
The gangs stiffened.
At a flick of Blaze's wrist, Garrick dragged a man forward—a smuggler caught siphoning blood from the casks to sell on the side. The fool struggled and cursed, but Garrick's grip was iron.
Blaze descended the altar steps slowly, each footfall echoing in the sudden silence. Shadows coiled around his feet, following him like loyal hounds. The smuggler's curses broke into a desperate babble.
"My lord, please, I—I paid, I swear it—"
"You bled once," Blaze said, his voice a soft, deadly murmur. "Then tried to profit off what belongs to me."
The man fell to his knees, sobbing. "Mercy, I'll never again—"
"Mercy is for the Light," Blaze cut him off, his voice dropping to a whisper that still reached every ear in the room. "And I am not the Light."
He seized the man's chin, forcing his gaze up. Crimson eyes met human brown. All at once, the smuggler's struggles ceased. His breath hitched, then went still.
Blaze's hypnotic gaze sank into him, crushing his will like a boot grinding ash. The man's eyes went blank, his body slack.
"Stand," Blaze commanded.
The smuggler rose, puppet-like and trembling.
"Raise your arm."
The arm lifted.
"Now…" Blaze's smile sharpened, revealing the faintest glint of fang. "Bleed."
The man drew a knife from his belt, pressed it to his own arm, and slashed deep. Blood poured down, spattering the floor. He didn't scream. He didn't even blink. He simply obeyed.
The gangs gasped, some stumbling back. Ledo grinned, a ratlike sneer of pure delight. Kael let out a low, rumbling laugh from deep in his throat.
Blaze released the man from his thrall. The smuggler blinked once, twice—and then saw the river of blood pouring from his arm. A long, choked scream finally tore from his lips.
Blaze struck like a shadow. His fangs sank into the man's throat, silencing the cry in a gurgle. He drank deep, draining not just blood but spirit, until the body sagged, lifeless, in his grip.
When Blaze cast the corpse aside, silence reigned.
"The blood is mine," he said softly, the words a cold promise. "All of it. Do not forget."
The priest saw everything.
Blaze felt it—the faint pulse of holy magic just outside the chapel door. The man hadn't dared to enter, but the shadows whispered his presence, his held breath, his quiet prayer.
Blaze let him see. Let him carry the memory back to whatever church rat-hole he'd crawled from. Let the tale spread.
Because stories were stronger than walls, stronger than steel.
And by dawn, Greywick was drunk on stories.
"They say he drank a man dry before the whole court!" a tavern-goer whispered, eyes wide with terror and thrill.
"No, worse," another said, leaning in. "He made the poor sod cut himself open first. Just stood there, bleeding like a pig, and then—" The man made a tearing motion with his hands, miming fangs sinking into flesh.
"Light preserve us," a woman muttered, crossing herself even as she edged closer to listen.
But no one left Greywick. Not the smugglers, not the traders, not the mercenaries. The town was too valuable, too lawless, too profitable. They cursed the Crimson Lord, they prayed against him—but they paid his tax all the same.
The priest left soon after. He walked quietly through the gates at dawn, cloak pulled tight, eyes grim. Garrick's spies confirmed it.
Blaze watched him go from the shadows of a rooftop. He could have ended him, even then. But that would have been a waste.
Better to let him run. Better to let him carry the story of Greywick's shadow ruler back to the church. Better to let the Light gnash its teeth while Blaze drank and grew stronger.
Back in the chapel vault that night, Blaze stood among his casks, the smell of blood thick and heady.
Kael prowled beside him, restless. "The priest will bring more. He'll bring fire. Steel. You should have let me rip out his throat."
"No," Blaze said, his hand resting on a cask and feeling the faint, rhythmic pulse of blood within. "He will bring more, yes. And that is exactly what I want."
He smiled, his crimson eyes glowing in the dark.
"Let them come. Let them bring their priests, their paladins, their fire. Let the world hear of the Blood Tax. Let them curse my name. Every whisper, every prayer, every story… only feeds me."
He turned, shadows coiling thick around him, his presence vast and terrible.
"Greywick is mine. And soon… so much more will be, too."