The Vault Dweller Novels & Stories

To my knowledge, these tunnels were used as an escape option if the werewolves of this Kingdom were threatened either by humans, witches, or foreign werewolves from across the seas. Turning to my right, I let my hand follow along the right wall. Keeping to this side of the wall, I traipse until I feel the small stone protruding slightly from the wall. I press and wait as a latch opens and two pairs of churning grey eyes lock with mines. "Password." "Go fuck yourself, Jacob," I say to him. "Hmm, sorry stranger that ain't it." He goes to close the latch but I stop him. "Open the door before I tell Malcolm and he kicks your ass for leaving me out here. It cold and my tits are freezing."

he screamed, jolting forward from the chains, the cold, rusty metals clicking together, digging into his skin. “15 seconds,” I whispered, my lips hovering over his ears. The hairs on his skin stood at alert. His lips quivered, and low mumbling words escaped his mouth. “And your time starts now.” He swallowed, tears hanging in his right eye, and blood from the other. “The Red Vault. It's in the red vault!” “Where is the Vault?” “Wh—where? I swear...that's all.” He jumped from the seat as I bent, the blunt edge of the hammer tracing his feet.

Vance snatched them away, turning his back on the broken guild master as he marched toward the towering vault doors. The vault of Port Valen was a masterpiece of dwarven masonry and Abyssal magic, designed to withstand a siege. But magic required a source, and with the Abyssal Purebloods crushed, the protective wards hummed with a weak, fading light. Vance jammed the first key into the lock. The mechanism ground heavily, echoing through the square like a dying beast. With a massive heave, Vance threw the iron doors wide. The interior was vast, cavernous, and stacked high with wooden crates, iron chests, and rows of shimmering silver bars. The wealth of a hundred coastal cities sat rotting in

Jévon Ward. Oh, we were going to have fucking words the next time I saw him. If he thought, I was just some cheap hump-and-dump he had another thing comin— WOAH! "So, uh, we're here?" There was an impressive collection of security deposits with a large vault door bigger than a hill giant smack dab in the middle. The room was lit with torches as opposed to the electrical lights in the rest of the building. The air musty quality of the air, plus the limestone stalactites dripping down from the roof, made this feel less like a vault and more like some vampire's cave tomb. "It should be in box bHX40030. Just uh give me a moment to get up there."

Metal clicked softly, and the ground shifted beneath them a circular platform descending into darkness. Adanna drew her weapon. “You could’ve warned me before stepping on a secret elevator.” He smiled faintly. “I like surprises.” “You like control,” she countered. He didn’t deny it. The platform stopped with a hiss, opening into a cavern lined with flickering blue lights. Giant data towers pulsed like heartbeats, each connected by streams of luminous fiber. It was beautiful in a terrifying way like standing inside the veins of a machine. “The Echelon Vault,” Victor murmured. “It’s still alive.”

Upon it, a single glyph smouldered: the antlered flame. Beneath it, a name. The Hollow-Blood. Lana stirred. Her eyes were human again. “Mummy…” she whispered, “did I do something bad again?” --- AETHERIA VAULT The Vault had no doors. No windows. No air. A man lived inside. A man made of dust and ritual. He had not seen the sky in twelve years. Tonight, the stone wept. A scroll rose from the cracked altar, bound in moon-gold seals and silk older than language. The seals screamed, tearing one by one. Wax bled like veins.

Just venom. Marta was already inside, relaying security patterns to us in a whisper. “Motion sensors disabled. Internal cams looped. We have a six-minute window. Go.” We entered through a collapsed drainage tunnel beneath the foundation. Cold. Tight. Perfect. Inside, the vault wasn’t a steel monstrosity like you’d expect. It waed into the wareorse floor beneath a ceremonial mat, disghiddened beneath crates of aged tea. The irony wasn’t ,lost o,n me, hiding data behind legacy.

The guards are human, which is also expected, because human guards in daylight are the correct security architecture for a facility that is primarily protecting supernatural assets from supernatural threats, and human guards are susceptible to approaches that supernatural guards are not, and I have been a hunter for nine years and the approach takes twenty-two minutes. The vault is forty feet underground and it has the quality that underground spaces used by very old things have, which is the accumulated weight of everything that has been stored in them over the centuries they have been in use, the specific atmosphere of age that is not decay but density, the air of a space that has been fil

“The Sovereign Heir is present. But the King is missing. Initializing 'Judas' Counter-Measure.” "What?" my father roared, spinning toward Silas. "What is it doing?" "The Vault isn't a safe, CEO," I said, a slow, lethal smile spreading across my face as I felt the violet fire returning to my blood—hotter and hungrier than ever. "It’s a mirror. And it doesn't like what it sees." The violet light from the Vault didn't hit me. It hit the monitors. It hit the scanners. And then, it hit the live feed of the swamp.

The floor cracked beneath them. A hole. Dark. No bottom. The creature stepped toward it. Not afraid. Not falling. It gestured. Inviting. Return to the beginning. --- On the surface, the estate trembled. The guards backed away. No sirens worked. No cameras worked. Sofia stared at the vault entrance and whispered, “What did they bring back?” No one answered. Because there were no answers left. --- In the chamber, the vault gave its final command. One word.