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@iris-j-verblenk.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 5:00 PM

#LitHodgepodge 6
I actively try *not* to have archetypal characters in my WIP, so the MCs are out.

Someone who might qualify is #DuvacOC, the brooding, grumpy, dark vampire dude.

Have two snippets from my WIP novel #SteepedInShadow
The first is from Chapter 1; the second from Chapter 4.

Sometimes, Duvac regretted ever proving himself competent. Efficiency always came at a price, and for him, that price was responsibility—leadership. Not that he didn't like leading and teaching others how to defend themselves, but the downside continued to eat at him, slowly hollowing him out like acid dripping on a rock.

He remembered every soldier he'd lost, the names burning themselves into his very soul. It had always been like that, even when he was still mortal, still fighting for a crazed emperor with visions of grandeur, watching his companions fall like flies from either starvation or festering wounds they gained in battle.

Duvac had also died on the battlefield, except that he had risen, and for a while, his afterlife had been that of a civilian. At least, until he'd gotten roped into one of those territorial spats that came up whenever there were too many Immortals walking the earth.

"How did he not escape your grasp earlier?" Duvac asked the woman. His mind moved back toward the remote control he'd found on the scientist Judah had killed, but he wanted verbal confirmation. "How did you get him back whenever he vanished?"

"W-we zapped him out," the woman answered.

"With the computer chip in his brainstem, right?" Duvac asked, a feral growl rumbling in his chest. "Des monstres, autant que vous êtes," he cursed. "What else does it do besides tracking him like a rabid dog?"

This time, the woman fell silent, staring up at him, wide-eyed and afraid.

Duvac took a deliberate step forward, his boot landing in the pool of blood that had gathered underneath the man he'd drained dry with a wet splash.

"Now, now, don't be coy; you must know what else it does," Duvac growled.

"I-If I tell you, you will kill me!" she gasped in terror.

"I will kill you either way," Duvac nonchalantly answered. "The how, however, depends entirely on your cooperation."

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