Soon after Vorden went through the teleporter to return home, Serene in the vampire settlement finished finding a place in her greenhouse for all her new plants. She was quite excited to learn what she could do.
Minx had somehow found time to copy some notes so she could learn more than what she had time for during her stay. She missed her friend and nothing was better than having her friend walk her through things.
Minx had described some of the things humans could use potions for and that was the lane she was interested in. She had some weapon ideas but wasn't sure if she had all the missing pieces of her research yet.
There weren't very many subclasses she could experiment on but thanks to school she knew a few. She just needed to get their trust.
But first, she needed to learn how to tend these new plants without killing them. It took her several months to get the right balances down. She lost many plants but, lucky for her, she didn't kill all of any one species. One species, she managed to save only one plant.
Around the time Minx was building her shelter, Serene began taking small samples of her new plants and breaking down the chemical composition of them.
One day she was doing very delicate work, deep in concentration when a boy walked in.
"Still playing with your chemistry set, huh?" the male said lightheartedly.
Serene jumped at the sound of a voice and her sample went flying, shattering on the floor.
"Rokene!" her face twisted in anger. "Do you realize how long I've been working on this?"
He chuckled, "I have a surprise for you. Agree to go out with me and I'll give it to you."
She glared at him.
He sighed, "okay… Here it is." He brought his hand from behind his back and brandished a book.
She saw the cover and squealed. Minx had told her there were books that discussed ancient plants. While she fell under a noble family, she was not permitted to use the market system to purchase anything. She had to discuss what she wanted and if their turner agreed, they would buy the thing for her.
Her turner had gone missing and the Family Leader, Sunny Kent, was the one she had to submit requests to. It wasn't such a big deal for her the way it was for others. While Serene conducted research on plants, her main job was to grow the plants that subclass required for food.
She had to report to Sunny, transfer the food to her. Sunny would then have her produce delivered to the king who would divide it between those who needed it in the 13 families. Her deliveries were much more frequent than blood delivers so the food would be fresh upon delivery.
For that, she was paid in "stuff" for her hobby. Which is how she now had a book from Earth on plants that no longer existed. Sunny was very interested in how she even felt the need for such a thing. Rokene, her son and heir, was quite interested as well when he found out she'd made a friend that fell under the tenth leader, Quinn Talen.
This book was thick. Her reasoning for the purchase was to determine if growing these plants on their planet affected the chemical composition of her rooted friends.
Rokene watched her work for a while and got bored. He never tired of her though. He wasn't highly sought after because He was going to become the leader of the family someday. However, his family wasn't the most powerful, but he wanted a girl who didn't want him for his position. It was a selling point for Serene. She gave everyone the cold shoulder.
That was also the incredible thing with the tenth. She never met Quinn, but she would talk about all she learned from Minx all day. It seemed for the first time in her life, she had made a friend who could verbally respond to her voice. Serene looked forward to Quinn bringing Minx back next time he returned.
After two months of confirming each plant was able to grow as the book said, she thought about what she could do with the plants she had. Healing potions were an option, but she didn't have enough.
She read her notes on propagation, the process of taking a cutting of a plant and growing roots then planting it. This creates more plants when seeds were unavailable. Not all plants worked this way so she needed to confirm the plants she needed would respond to this.
A week later, she needed to forage for some local plants. She was curious if a similar plant would be just as effective, so she planned to do both at the same time and see which was better.
Serene loved the tranquility of walking alone in the forest. The birds sang such lovely songs, and she liked to pretend they were singing for her. She didn't have the family ability to speak to familiars, and she was glad of that. She preferred her fantasy.
She had gone several hours from the settlement looking for more of her plant when she noticed two females walking back towards the settlement. Serene's eyes flashed a glint of something unrecognizable. There should be no vampires this far out unless they were hunting. These ladies were clearly not doing so.
'What were they doing?'
Serene walked in the opposite direction. She had a feeling she'd get in trouble if anyone knew what she was doing but she didn't care. Not every vampire family cherished life.
Not long later, she came upon an area she had foraged in before and was elated. However, she noticed a crater and inside it was a dome-shaped building. Serene looked around carefully then raced to the door.
She looked around once more then entered the building.
The entrance was a cave rather than a door and it curved around the inside of the dome. Inside, her blood ran cold. Along the outside of the walls were a long line of cells like you'd find in a jail. Inside each one was a vampire subclass.
Serene walked along, looking inside each cell. She felt she needed to tell someone but feared for her life if she did. Eventually, she stopped in front of a cell. This one had a subclass that was meant to be killed on sight. A blood fairy. The poor man had his wings pinned to the floor.
"Who are you? Who am I? What is this place? What did I do?" His barrage of questions broke her heart. She didn't know what to tell him.
"Do you have any memories at all?" she asked softly.
He shook his head.
"I don't know what I can say. I stumbled upon this place… I don't know how to open this door." her eyes were welling up with tears.
"It hurts. It hurts so bad," he said as tears started to fall.
She sat down outside his cell and they talked about nothing important. She decided to do this every week as long as she was able. Over time it became clear his mind was slowly breaking. As she returned back to her greenhouse, herbs in hand, she had a different mission.
She had some successes and some failures. She refused to accept failure.
One day she was returning from another foraging trip to see a group of people walking through the settlement with a purpose. She paused and gave them a good look. She realized some of these people she recognized from before. There was a face missing and she frowned.
Serene returned to her work feeling down. She was testing something when Rokene came running in.
"The Tenth Castle has lit up!"
She nodded, "I thought it would."