It may not be much and you may not entirely be satisfied with it, but this is your home for now and if you're ever going to leave it, it's going to be on your own terms, it won't be due to getting run off.

You calm down a bit and gather your thoughts.

"Okay, if these are also Joachimites that we're also dealing with, they're also going to have holy men and possibly even a little magic. We can't really afford to just wait for them to come to us, because I've run into these fanatics back in Holgard and they will absolutely kill every villagers if they think it's Joachim's will."
"I don't know much about the human gods, and nothing about Joachim, but from what I heard, I don't doubt it." Kayla says.
"Well generally the Joachimites are supposed to be pacifists, but occasionally you get a very militant sect and they can make a follower of Karn look like pussies by comparison. In any case, this could work in our favor. If they're torturing the hell out of the villagers, those same villagers are probably looking for their undead savior. Meaning me. Now I could go at night, but I'd like to keep up the illusion of walking around in the day. So I want you to take about twenty ghouls including Stinky and go wipe out any hunters or Joachimites at Ulig for starters. I also want you to encourage the villagers to start resisting the fanatics a lot better than they have been doing obviously."

Kayla doesn't look confident in your orders.

"Um…"
"Problem?" you ask.
"While the ghouls leave me be and some of them will even listen to me if I say the orders come from you, but you're asking me to herd twenty of them into battle. I just don't think they're going to listen to me like that."
"Just say I'm giving the order or hell, bring Stinky and I'll tell her and she can relay the rest…"
"It's uh, not that sir. I…um…the ghouls don't like me. Never have. I think they believe I shouldn't be so close to you when none of them get to be. I mean if it wasn't for you, I'm fairly certain they'd attack me."
"Of course they would, but I'm here, so they won't."
"That still doesn't mean they're going to be totally obedient to me. Even when I'm in your form they don't like it. I believe they find my scent offensive."
"Wait, they're offended by YOUR smell? I don't think I've ever detected any sort of scent from you. It's as bland as your near featureless appearance."
"Maybe that's problem. I'd probably have more success if I smelled more like you."
"So what are you getting at exactly? You saying you need to rub up against me or something?"
"Well I was suggesting something a little more than that. If we could be physically intimate, I believe I could adequately copy your scent and commanding presence…"

You've practically got an army of religious fanatic vampire killers beating down your door and Kayla wants your dick. You'd laugh if this situation wasn't so serious…actually you laugh anyway.

"Are you seriously telling me you want to have sex with me right now?" you say.
"I know it seems like a weird time given all that's going on, but it really would help with the task you've assigned to me." Kayla responds.
"I don't see...fuck it. If it's going to help, let's get to it. However, you're going to have to change first. I mean maybe you're a beauty right now to other doppys, but you're just not doing it for me in your natural form."
"Understandable. Um, is there any particular form you would like?"
"I dunno, surprise me? Wait, on second thought, don't surprise me."
"I think I know of a form that will please you. I've heard you describe her enough to me that I think I can copy her."
"Wait, who are you…oh."

And before your eyes, you see Kayla transform into the image of Isabella, well ALMOST the image of her. She's not a perfect match since she's only working by your description and one major thing that's standing out is the eyes. Her eyes are still those blank white orbs.

"Well? Does this work?" Kayla asks a bit hopefully.
"I suppose it'll have to, because we don't have time for you to get it perfect. Well let's get this done. Now is there anything I should know about? I mean you aren't going to start transforming into a gray blob or something in the middle of this are you?"
"Not unless you want me too sir."
"Good and no I don't. Okay, come over here."

Kayla comes over to you and the first thing she does is kiss you on the lips and puts her arms around you. It's weird, for multiple reasons. Least of which is because you're embracing something that looks like "Isabella" but obviously isn't her. While you appreciate the attempt at illusion, those white orb eyes are destroying it.

"Hold on, stop." You say.
"Did I do something wrong?" Kayla asks.
"Not as such, but…you're going to have to turn around and bend over for this."
"Oh, okay."

During the act, Kayla takes every opportunity to insist that you rub her body and press up against her as much as possible as she wants to get your full "essence." While she said she wasn't going to turn into a gray blob during this, she starts having a very "squishy" feeling to you. It's almost like her body is partially melding on to yours.

She tells you to hold her tighter and goes on about how good this all feels to her. You're a little reluctant to do so since it isn't like Kayla's a vampire and you could easily break her if you used all your strength, but then again, you partially feel like you're fucking water. And that of course makes you concerned that she's going to envelope you or something.

None of that happens though, and after an "interesting" time with Kayla, you feel even weirder about it all and there's a sticky gray coating on most of your body.

"Ew." You quietly say to yourself.
"That was wonderful! I've never known someone so intimately like that! I could really feel all your power! It was all so intoxicating! Mmmm." Kayla says and continues to rub up against you and putting your arms around her body.

She's in complete ecstasy and while you're not surprised due to your magnificent sexual prowess, there's shit that needs to be done.

"Look, you think you can take lead the ghouls now?" you say and start separating yourself from her. (Which isn't easy since you seem to be literally sticking to her)
"Yes, I think it should be easier now."
"Good, get going. I want this done."
"Very well sir."

Kayla looks a little disappointed that you're already shoving her out the door, but you had no plans on making this a permanent "thing" anyway. It's going to be a little weird now though.

However, you don't want low morale so…

"Kayla, just remember if it starts looking bad, make a strategic retreat. I can always make more ghouls, but I can't replace you."
"Why thank you sir! And I will, but hopefully it won't come to that." Kayla responds with a smile before transforming into you and leaving.

Well, now things are going to be even weirder, but you'll worry about that later.

All you can do now is wait and hope that the attack is successful.

As it gets dark, you start to grow impatient and begin to suspect the worst, but Kayla returns. Not many ghouls follow her, but she's back. She knows how much you hate interacting with "yourself" so she transforms back into her natural form.

"You're back, I was just about to go to Ulig myself. I trust it was a success?" You say.
"It was, though as you can see, there were many casualties. Most of the ghouls I took with me died, including Stinky. A lot of the villagers were also massacred as well, but I believe they are more determined to fight against the fanatics after my speech to them." Kayla says.
"Okay, it's the start. I'm going to head to Yilbov. It's the next closest village to us and hopefully they don't know what's gone on in Ulig yet, but I trust you let nobody escape."
"No, none of them fled in the first place. They fought to the death."
"Good. That's exactly what I'm going to give them."
"Wait, don't you want anyone to go with you?"
"No, I'm going to do this myself and stealthy because they're probably going to be even more alert for trouble. Better if I go alone rather than having ghouls tipping my hand. It's been awhile since I've done it this way, so it'll be fun for me."
"As you wish sir. Just be careful. The hunters and Joachimites we encountered were well prepared. Silver shot, silver weapons, even bombs."
"Not surprised but…"

Just as you're about to complete your sentence, you see a ghoul running towards you. It's Lurky. He looks severely wounded.

"Master! Master!" he shouts.
"Lurky? Thought you might be dead. What the hell happened to you?" You answer.
"I almost was! Caught and tortured! There are many many hunters and those crazy worshippers in the forest! A large camp!"
"How many?"
"Lots! Well…none now."
"Wait, you telling me that YOU killed them all?"
"No! I didn't even kill one! Had help! Someone like you!"
"Someone like me? Wait…another vampire?"

Before you even put the pieces together, a familiar figure arrives and gets all the ghouls attention in town. It isn't due to her naked body though, it's because this is a woman of great power and dominance.

"Sir…is that…" Kayla asks.
"Yes, that's her and if she's here, it can't be good."

Isabella has arrived and judging by the look of distain on her face, she's not in the best of moods.

She throws several ghouls out of her way and tells them to back off. They comply, but the fact they're all in awe of her and ignoring you completely is telling of how much power she's currently displaying. Even Kayla looks a bit entranced by her.

Isabella approaches you and you just stand there like prey.

Fortunately she just slaps the hell out of you. You take it since you don't have much choice and nobody is rushing to help you either.

You rub your face and address Isabella.

"Hello Isabella, you're looking as lovely as …"
"Don't fucking flatter me, I know how good I look! Ugh…this place…its crawling with ghouls. I don't know how you can stand the filth or the smell. I feel dirty just standing here. I understand you need humans to kick around, but I thought I taught you better than to associate with ghouls. Have you REALLY looked at the company you're keeping?"
"Yes, I'm well aware Isabella."
"Are you? Because I think if you thought about it, you'd realize that hanging around with humans, ghouls, and…shit…I don't even know what you're supposed to be." Isabella says temporary distracted by Kayla.
"I'm a doppelganger. Heard much about you. Pleasure to meet you at last." Kayla says with a little bow.

Isabella turns back to you.

"Well, at least you have someone around here with a little class I guess."
"Isabella, what are you even doing here? I thought you never wanted to see me again." You ask.
"And I would have been glad to oblige. However, your actions here had consequences. Severe ones. Did you really think that you could just conquer a bunch of villages and it NOT cause any attention? My home is ruined thanks to you."
"Wait, what?"
"I suppose its more fool me for not paying more attention to your actions, I just didn't expect you to stir up a fucking crusade. The large group of Joachimites and hunters marched through Dert and burned the entire village. The poor dumb bastards never even knew there was a vampire living nearby."
"They destroyed Dert?"
"Yes, and by the time I found out about it, the crusade had already moved on towards your area. I might have known sooner, but I had already stocked up on villagers previously and had food for a while. In any case, my reliable food source was destroyed and I went to hunt the assholes who did it. Eventually I caught up with them and found your minion getting tortured. After killing most of them with only one or two managing to get away, I turned my attention to him. Of course your loyal minion told me everything that he didn't tell his captors for obvious reasons, however I sort of suspected you were the cause of all this anyway. I warned you and you didn't listen. You never listen…"

And you feel like you're in the crypt again…

Still, as usual she's sort of right. Doesn't mean you like it though.

"Okay, I get it. So I take it you're here to help?" you say.
"Help? Well that is an interesting dilemma. If you weren't involved, I'd probably finish off the rest of these fanatics and hunters myself and be on my way, but considering that you are involved, I'm tempted to just take off and leave you to deal with the rest of the situation. I've probably killed enough of them to qualify as revenge and it's not going to change the fact that I need to find a new place to live since my livestock has all been killed." Isabella says.
"Can't you just go to Holgard or prey upon travellers nearby?"
"Yes, I suppose I could, but ugh…that's not ideal. Then again neither is looking for a new home. In any case, I'm still not convinced on helping you."

"Um…Miss…Isabella? If I may…" Kayla says.
"Actually under normal circumstances, you may not, however since I'm more willing to listen to a complete stranger right now rather than my ex, you might as well dare to address me. Say what you have to doppelganger." Isabella remarks.
"I…we…would be most grateful for your help. While you may have eliminated a great camp in the forest, there are still many enemies currently occupying the villages in the nearby area and as you said, one or two from the camp you destroyed got away. I can only imagine they are already on their way to warn their fellows which means they will be more prepared. I think we would be able to handle this situation much easier with your superior skills assuming you wish to help us, oh great mistress of the night."

Isabella cocks her head to the side listening to Kayla trying to appeal to her sense of vanity.

"Where did you find this one? It's good at this. It's respectful without being excessively annoying like a ghoul or quaking in fear like a human, and it almost comes off as sincere. It may even be sincere. However, I'm not actually interested in hearing your minions beg on your behalf. I'd rather hear YOU do it."
"What for? I mean you either care enough about your revenge or you don't. I mean I was planning on taking care of this myself before you showed up anyway…"

Kayla suddenly goes over to you.

"Sir, I really think we should take her help. There are an awful lot of hunters still alive and we would probably lose less humans and ghouls with your ex helping us. It will just be better in the long run."

You refuse Isabella's help

Considering Isabella has seemingly already wiped out a majority of the fanatics, your task is going to be a lot easier now. She's already helped enough; you aren't going to beg her for more help especially if she's going to be telling you what to do the whole time.

You still like her and all, but there was a reason you didn't work out.

"Isabella, I appreciate the assistance you have already given, but I think we can all handle it from here."

Isabella briefly looks insulted, but she quickly hides it. Seems she figured you'd give in.

"I see. Well if that's how you feel about it, then I shall take my leave. Good luck I suppose. I mean that in general, since even if you do succeed I doubt you're actually going to learn any sort of lesson from it all. I can imagine that the same thing will happen again five years down the road and I'm certainly not going to be anywhere near here when it does. Guess I'll see what the Delantium Kingdom is like this time of year. Goodbye."

Without another word, Isabella takes her leave.

Kayla suggests that you reconsider, but you tell her to remember her position, as it isn't her call in the first place.

"Very well sir didn't mean to overstep my boundaries." She says.
"I'm going Yilbov, I'll be back as soon as I can." You say and take your leave as well.

By the time you get to Yilbov, it feels like a very familiar scene. Namely when Green Eye's men were pillaging Maldito, though minus the rape and double the torture and burning alive.

"FOLLOWERS OF THE EVIL SPAWN MUST BE PURGED! THE WILL OF JOACHIM DEMANDS IT! NOW REPENT AND ACCEPT THE MERCY OF JOACHIM BEFORE THE RIGHTEOUS FIRE CLEANSES YOUR FILTHY SOUL!"

Several villagers are tied to stakes and begging for their lives. Some are saying they were forced to serve you, others claim ignorance, and none of it does any good of course. The fanatics are burning some infidels tonight and that's that.

Meanwhile there are several hunters patrolling the village in groups of two. You manage to actually take out four of them before alerting everyone to your presence. It was a good try at least.

"IT'S THE VAMPIRE! KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!" the head zealot shouts and quickly burns the rest of the villagers tied to stakes.

Gunfire, crossbow bolts, and silver throwing knives are all fired or hurled in your direction. It's a bit chaotic with all the villagers running around, but at least some of them are taking hits for you, though perhaps not voluntarily.

You take down several Joachimites, before the head zealot calls forth a beam of light from his hands and aims it at you.

"FEEL JOACHIM'S BURNING LIGHT, DEMON OF THE NIGHT!"

You feel it all right too, and it hurts like hell when it briefly hits your chest. You quickly get a nearby villager to use as a shield, but it doesn't work, you soon smell flesh burning as the beam burns right through the villager.

You get temporary relief by ducking behind a house. The problem lies with the zealot being on a high platform in an open area and his spell seemingly following you without error. You peek behind the corner and see that he's still yelling about killing you all the while his victims are screaming and burning close around him.

While you're pondering your best move to get to him, you get shot in your side by a hunter. His next shot would have been your head had you not been quick enough to dodge. You rush the hunter and break his neck with ease and trying to ignore the pain of the silver now lodged in your body.

"Shit…need to finish this asshole. What this…oh this might work." You say and find a spherical metal object on the body of the hunter. It's a firebomb.

You grab it and the body of the hunter and go to face the zealot again.

"YOU CANNOT HIDE BLOOD LEECH! THE LIGHT WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU!" the zealot says as his light beams hit the body of the hunter.

You smell the burn and it won't be long before it goes through, but you hopefully don't need that long.

You throw the firebomb at the zealot, which misses, but it didn't need to hit him and you weren't aiming at him anyway. You just needed it to hit one of the burning villagers near him.

Before you know it an explosion occurs showering the entire area with wood, flames, and body parts. You continue to use the body as a shield. Last thing you need is a random piece of wood flying into your heart.

After the destruction has died down a bit, the remainder of the Joachimite fanatics clumsily try to bash your head in with silver cudgels. They fail and join the rest of the dead.

And there are certainly a lot of them. This village is in complete ruins. Most of the villagers are dead or hiding, a few though are angry.

"YOU! You brought this upon us all! Even Green Eye was better than this! You've been preying upon all of us and it stops today!" someone shouts and then you feel a silver bolt in your back.

"Agh! Fuck! Ungrateful wretches!" you exclaim and turn your attention to the group of peasants that have grabbed hunter weapons to finish you off.

They have about as much success as they did. Your wrath is swift and brutal. After putting down the minor peasant revolt, you address any villagers still around, but hiding.

"If you still wish to live under my protection, you had best find shelter in the nearby village of Ulig. If not, then I suggest you take to the wilderness now, and forget about this place for the rest of your short lives."

You take your leave of the village and head back home. A little slower than usual due to all the silver in the side of your body. You're going to have to get Kayla to help fish the stuff out.

When you return Kayla does indeed tend to your wounded body. She's very attentive and even offers you some of her blood to keep up your strength and help with the healing process since there aren't any humans around.

You take her up on her offer, since while her blood is horrible tasting, you can't afford to be a chooser right now. You tell Kayla that tomorrow morning she needs to take ALL the ghouls to one of the villages and wipe out all the enemies there as well.

You rest up for most of the day, hoping that the attack goes successfully and a counter attack doesn't occur while you're trying to rest.

Fortunately Kayla returns, unfortunately she's gotten half of the ghouls killed in the process. The other half is in various conditions ranging from somewhat bruised to missing a few body part.

Kayla also says that most of the village was destroyed and not even by the fanatics. There were too many ghouls for her to control properly and some of them ran amok. By the time she got them all back under control and eliminated the fanatics, most of the villagers were either dead or they fled.

So while you officially won, you lost the village, worse, you lost the humans in it. Kayla is obviously no general, and while yelling at her makes you feel slightly better, it doesn't really solve anything. You just realize you're going to have to redouble your efforts at the fourth village.

Later that night you head to Goloki with your ghouls and you have more success, but probably not much more. In fact, it's a good thing you took your ghouls otherwise you might have been in trouble.

You're wounded several times and lose a good number of ghouls. You do manage to keep more villagers alive. After drinking a few of them to heal yourself somewhat, you tell the survivors to head to Ulig. You think after all this is over, you're just going to have your people in one village. It would be a lot easier to rule them that way.

You eventually stagger back to Moldito and once again Kayla tries to tend to you as best she can. She asks if you're sending her with the remainder of the ghouls to attack the last village in the morning, but given her last two attempts resulted in heavy losses, you tell her, you'll just take care of it tomorrow night.

After giving a few general commands to her, you go to your room to try to rest. This is taking it out of you more than you thought it would. It really is a good thing Isabella took out the main camp, but you're starting to wonder if you let your pride get in the way of making things easier.

You quickly dismiss such thoughts and eventually close your eyes to rest.

You don't know how long you sleep for, but you're suddenly woken up, by the sounds of battle above you.

"Shit! Don't tell me they counter attacked…" you say to yourself getting up.

Nobody has come down to your lair yet, not even Kayla or ghouls, so you assume that they're defending. Must have been sudden if nobody informed you.

Its still daytime, so there's little you can actually do except wait for someone to come to you. You could go up and try to give orders from the ground floor inside your home, but that's a dangerous position. A couple of those bombs that the hunters like using so much could blow it up and if not get you completely in the blast, it would destroy the house on top of you and probably expose you to the sun. You're also not healed completely, so it would be better to just save your strength and wait for them to come to you.

It is frustrating just waiting around though. You start wondering if the traps you set are working, how many hunters you're going to have to deal with and if Kayla's dead or not. You chalk up Kayla being dead since she probably would have come to you by now and while she can look like you, she isn't actually you, and doesn't have your powers to stand up to the hunters.

Eventually you start to hear the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs. Multiple ones. This is it.

You wait for the first hunter that turns the corner and put your fist through his chest. However no sooner have you done that when two Joachim zealots blast you with that burning light spell to your face.

Despite being half blind and your face on fire, you kill one of them and a hunter that stabs you in chest (But fortunately missing your heart), but then you hear the other zealot shout some prayer of some kind and you suddenly feel a great sense of terror. Something you haven't felt since you were human.

Part of you feels the desire to run, while another part of you feels the desire to just quake in fear and freeze.

"YOU CANNOT RESIST THE WILL OF JOACHIM! FEAR HIS BURNING STARE AND DIE UNHOLY CREATURE!"

This is soon followed up by multiple gunshots to your body and head. Silver burns through your body and you fall to the ground. You have truly never felt so helpless.

You roll over and attempt to crawl away, but someone hacks at one of your legs and practically severs it. Your cry out in agony.

"Chop the vile thing's head off and be done with it!" someone shouts.
"Hey look behind us." Someone else says.
"Tilderman? I thought you were dead…wait what're you doing?" another voice asks.

You then hear the sound of a metal clank on the floor. Several people shouting "SHIT!" and then a deafening blast.

The blast probably would have killed you outright had it not been shielded by the hunters closer to it. As it stands you've only lost part of your legs (One of which was partially severed anyway) part of your back it literally on fire and you've got burns on most of your body.

You have just enough strength to roll over a couple times to put the flames out, but you don't know how you're going to heal from this. Miraculously your hearing isn't completely gone and the muffled ringing goes away pretty quickly.

Charred body parts are all over the corridor and the smell of burned flesh and blood is filling the air along with smoke and powder.

You hear a single set of footsteps approaching, and you certainly hope it isn't another hunter, because you're not in much condition to fight right now.

You then see a figure step through the smoke and by the way they're dressed and armed with a repeating crossbow, they do indeed look like a hunter, however you see the eyes which are those familiar blank white orbs.

"Kayla?" you ask.
"It is I." she answers.
"Thank the gods…except for that asshole Joachim."
"I wouldn't thank them yet sir."

Kayla points the crossbow at you.

"Wha…are you serious?!" you say.
"Very serious sir. Your usefulness to me is at an end and I'll never have a better opportunity to kill you. Without any more ghouls around, now I don't have to worry about them either. The number of villagers is at a manageable number and I'm sure they'll be even more pliable now, especially without their ruler eating any more of them. In a few more years, who knows? Maybe I'll go try to find that Isabella and rekindle our relationship. She seemed much more powerful than you anyway."

With those last words, you see Kayla transform into you and then fires multiple silver bolts into your heart.

As your body seizes up and goes into a paralysis, Kayla takes a saber and finishes you off with a chop to your neck.