Dead sheep produce no wool, after all.
By banging at a comforthouse door, I was able to rouse its proprietor, and with coin from my prey I was able to secure lodgings for the day. I spun a tale of being a trader from Bucharest named Targosh whose cart of goods was washed away in the river on the trip, and had just managed to stumble into town in hopes of meeting my partners. An extra silver coin saw to it my clothes would be laundered, and another saw to it that I would be left alone to sleep off my weariness until the following nightfall. Despite my growing thirst I did not pay for a night’s company, not wanting to put any miss out of her bed so late, nor frighten her with my apparently death-like state come dawn.
I could have gone to an inn for the same services, but I a house that sold fairer flesh is more likely to be discrete about my presence, and I did NOT want to awaken in the burning sun’s light because somebody came in and threw open the window to air out the room! Besides which, such houses of pleasure are much less likely to take notice of my…eccentricities. You pay for privacy, and it is often more secure than the confession of a priest, so long as you treat the staff with courtesy.
Evidently grateful for the business, since it seems they are between the caravans that bring them most of their coin, I find myself soaking in a wooden tub of soapy water while it is being filled a pot at a time by the owner’s daughter. A cute blond girl, fresh into her womanhood, whose scrubbing of the dirt and muck from my back stirs hungers in me that I had not felt since my days as a young soldier. Despite this, I harden my heart even as my manhood follows suit, and try to engage her in conversation rather than bed-play.
“So tell me, how is your life working in a house of comfort? Do the others find jealousy in your favor as the owner’s daughter?,” I found in my life with my wives that getting a woman talking gossip about other women is a good way to lose interest in more carnal activities with them.
“No Targosh, I do not work here. Father just woke me to bathe you, normally this would be Marissa’s task but it is too late to fetch her from her bed, and father seeks to marry me to a wealthy merchant so that I may be taken from this place.”
Very well, that is a bit more…honest…than I am used to hearing from a woman. Suddenly with actual curiosity about her, and since the sun is still far below the horizon, I am a bit rude to ask, “So what, he seeks to marry you to ME, a man who just wandered in from the street with only a full coin purse to his name? It seems to me that his standards are pretty low, what of YOUR pride as a woman?”
Pouring a flask of water over my back, she continues, “I’ve had the occasional suitor since I first entered womanhood, living in a place like this certainly leaves no lack of prospective men, but they all found me too strange to marry. And it is not like I would be able to give you sons, after all, so I think father just wants rid of me.”
Now I am MORE than curious, “Strange how, do you have three teats? Maybe an extra limb beneath your skirts? Analisa, you are a BEAUTIFUL young woman, and even barren I doubt ANY man of means would reject taking you as his mistress.”
“I am NOT the barren one! It is YOU who can no longer sire children, Lord Tepes…oh.”
I spin around, splashing soapy dirty water from the tub as I snatch her hand, and stare into her shocked face, “How do you KNOW my name, woman! And what makes you think I am unable to sire children.”
“Please my Lord, I meant no offense, the spirits just TOLD me of you when I felt the dead at father’s door! Young Merrick of your army, HE told me that we were safe with you, and the spirits do NOT deceive…do they?,” she asks me as fear starts to filter into her pale grey eyes.
I release her wrist and face her, speaking seriously, “No, at least THIS spirit of yours is being truthful. If he truly was a soldier in my army, then he knows how I treated those who…took advantage. But listen and be aware of my words Analisa, it is not ME that you have to fear. Tell NOBODY of what you know, let me remain Targosh of Bucharest, lest you AND your father be dragged into the dungeons and put to pain for answers you do not have. I doubt that the Ottomans would care about your innocence…being Ingram, the idea of torturing the innocent is something they enjoy, after all.”
I lean back against the tub’s side while she rushes out of the room, eventually returning with a new bucket of hot water to add before I break the uncomfortable silence, “So…spirits. You are a witch, are you not? No wonder nobody wants you, men have to watch their reputations and having a wife OR mistress that is to be burned at the stake by the The Church OR The Ingram is not a good for that.”
“Yes my Lord…I mean, yes…Targosh,” she says with her eyes downcast, obviously upset at having disappointed me.
And if I needed to care about such things anymore, I might not have said what I said next.
“As you said, I am NOT most men, maybe I am not even a man at all despite my…shape,” I turn to stare at her until she feels my eyes on her, and her head lifts to look me in the eyes, “Darling girl, I am here for a PURPOSE, and so long as you help me with that…well, I died years ago, so it seems that I am open for marrying again. And a witch that can talk to spirits, and feel the presence of the dead? That seems like a good wife for me to have.”
I see the light of hope in her eyes spark, and her smile becomes so radiant that it is as if the sun came out in the room, except that my flesh does not char, “Yes my Lord…husband?” She kneels down beside my tub taking up my had to her lips, “If my craft would serve you, then it is yours to use.”
I pet her head and feel myself smiling benevolently, “Are you sure of this, who knows how long I have been dead in the ground, it isn’t like I have a crown or castle to share with you. This is likely to be a very one-sided marriage, Analisa. And I doubt the dead can be wed in any temple.”
She just looks up to me, eyes wet with tears, “It is the year of the Lords 1550, my husband, you have been dead some 80 years now, and your legend has only grown in these past generations. I care not what the temples say, do you think they would marry a WITCH in their walls any more than a DEAD man? I grew up praying for you to return to this land, to purge it of the Ottomans once again, and now…you are here, and seek ME as wife?
“I am yours, in all ways that matter, I am yours now and forever.”
***
Having a loyal servant at my call, and keeping watch over me as I sleep, is a much greater relief than I thought it would be. Telling her father that I am willing to take her as my mistress, since it isn’t like I can walk into a temple and marry her at midday, insures that she is at my service for the rest of my stay. I have to leave most of the gold in my purse with him as security for this, since it is so easy for travelers to make promises they have no intention of keeping, but it isn’t like it is MY gold in the first place.
Hmmm…mayhaps I should lighten the belts of MORE Ottoman soldiers tomorrow night, to restock my coffers, I think as I lay in my bed above the kitchen while the sun rises, and embrace my return to fitful sleep. Or at least that is the intention, yet rest never comes, and I am left feeling weary AND awake, unable to rest, with the bite of every bug and prick of every piece of straw. The thirst that grows with the dawning sun only makes my discomfort worse. I CAN’T SLEEP!
After an interminable time tossing and turning in the bed, I drag my weary bones out of my room, and look for Analisa. If I cannot rest, at least I can learn what I have missed these past generations. And I find her asleep in a small room beside the kitchen, next to the front room where I hear her father snoring away. Realizing in my fog-filled mind that it would be the height of rudeness of me to disturb my new bride-to-be, I close her door quietly, going to the common room to sit and think in the darkest corner by the fire far from the light around the entrance.
I have difficulty thanks to my hunger, not the gnawing NEED that I once felt trapped in the ground, but annoying nonetheless. Combined with the feeling of my body AND mind trying to march through thick mud in the rain, and my contemplations are…difficult. I get the impression that I am thinking slowly, time itself appears to skip around me, with maids coming in to start preparations for midday meals that I must wave off. Then before I am aware of it, others come in for an early dinner, and I feel the press of the sun slowly creeping towards the horizon. At an unknown point in the day Analisa and her father started working once more, but I don’t know when. The world around me is like shattered temple glass, its patterns only apparent when I focus on them with great effort. Effort it is impossible to maintain.
So instead I push myself internally, with a desperation to find out WHY I am suddenly unable to slumber. What is different? I slumbered while trapped in my…grave…and when I was borrowing a room from Merta’s family, why is this FAR more comfortable bed suddenly like trying to rest on broken pottery? I bathed before leaving the forest AND when I arrived here, so it cannot be my cleanliness. But…I am now known to a witch, and witches are well known for being tricksome and subtly insidious, could she be trying to bring me harm? NO, that is a thought UNWORTHY of me! If she DID wish me harm, better to LET me sleep so that she could molest my body unimpeded. Besides which, I am her only ally around here, other than her father...why would she throw away such a rare asset?
Maybe it is the WARMTH of my new bed? My hole in the forest, and the farmhouse, were both doubtlessly far colder in the night than a room over the kitchen, with its stoked oven being heated for the morning’s baking. No…that isn’t right, I don’t seem to truly FEEL the heat OR cold anymore, it is more just an AWARENESS of it. Unless I make an effort to know, I cannot tell.
It is late in the day, maybe Analisa has some insight or can ask her spirits about this, Is what I was thinking as I stood to find her. Or I tried to stand, only to collapse back onto the table like my legs had been cut out from under me, catching myself loudly and collapsing back into my chair, as one of the two un-rented barmaids comes to inquire about my wellbeing.
“Are you well, good sir? You have not eaten or drank anything all day, mayhaps I can fetch you an ale or some stew?,” she asks with obvious concern. Probably a bad image for them if their customers see others passing out in the dining area.
Frustrated with myself more than her, I just try to get her away from me, “
Her face brightens up and it seems I said too much, “OH! You are Analisa’s new man! Here, she is tending to one of the other girls right now, so how about I fetch you a free wine to keep you warm until she can see to you. We just got in a good batch!”
Before I can object she is already walking back towards the counter window, with the kitchen AND the liquors on the other side, and I must admit that I am THIRSTY…just not for wine.
A few moments later she is back with a deep red fluid in a peasant’s poorly-made glass. She sets it down before me with a smile before running away to see to another customer, all before I can say anything. So there I sit, only aware my legs still exist because I can feel them with my hands, and this completely unappetizing fruit-smelling fluid on the table in front of me. Fruit? Yes, it smells of apples and strawberries, as well as the grape from which it was made…I think I even detect a faint hint of hickory? I take a careful sip, not having been particularly enamored of wine as anything other than a way to force myself to sleep and forget the day’s worries.
After swallowing it, my stomach knots and turns, the fluid rushing back up my neck like a runaway horse! I manage to catch it in my hands, muffling the noise, and am forced to smear the filth off on the leg of the table to go unnoticed. Damnation, it seems I do not drink wine, anymore.
After some quiet panting, more for the remembered comfort it used to bring than the need for the breath I no longer crave, I set my fog-filled mind to figuring out how to regain the use of my legs. Using my left arm I pull my right foot across my lap, and then remove the boot to assure myself that my flesh is still there. Poking at it with my untrimmed fingernail, I can feel the pressure of it after a while, but there is no sensation of even the muted pain that I am able to feel now.
So it seems that they are still part of me, but can why can I not MOVE them? Mustering up more effort than I have spent since drowning an old instructor with too-friendly hands, eventually even through the dreary press of daytime I manage the impossible…I move my toes. And then, after massaging the limb so that my blood flows through it now that my heart no longer beats, I manage to recover the use of my right leg. Yet massaging the left does not give me any sensation below my knee, no matter how long I do so.
Placing my boot back on, and my right leg back on the floor, I turn in the chair to reach my lower left leg and begin massaging my calf as well. But even THAT returns no sense of touch to it. What is different between the two? Why was my right leg able to recover, yet me left cannot? I try to turn back to face the table, but now my RIGHT leg is not working either, and then I have a realization.
IT IS THE GROUND! Feeling like a simpleton, I realize why my LEGS can sleep yet I cannot, and why my room upstairs is insufficient to give me rest. I was buried for generations in the land of my birth, the very Wallachia whose soil my ancestors sleep within, and is not death called “eternal rest”? Some essence of my new night-creature nature NEEDS the embrace of the earth to be able to relax itself, so that I can sleep. And since I was on a pallet on the ground, and my feet are a good head’s distance from that same soil, it would appear that I just need it within maybe elbow’s distance. Probably I need it to be WALLACHIAN soil as well, since what I know of the mystic says that it is all about symbols and poetry.
With this revelation I can’t help but feel myself smile, then frown as my mind slowly finishes the reasoning out my situation. DAMNATION! I cannot just lay down on the taproom floor and “die” with all these people around, nor play act at being a dead body in the kitchen, without sending everyone here screaming in alarm. And with the sun up, I cannot leave to find someplace to hide and sleep.
Which sparks a dim but good idea. So I lift my legs to massage feeling into them once more, allowing me to stand and slowly shuffle my way to the room’s kitchen window, “Pardon miss, but would you happen to have a empty potato or other sack I can get off of you? I find myself in need of one.”
Thankfully those who work here are used to strange requests, and I get a potato sack without even a sideways glance. So then I slip out the back door, the one that leads to the outhouses, since it is late in the day and they are on the east side of the building. Despite my precautions to stay out of the skin on my face stings viciously, and even its glancing light reflected off of distant structures feels like hot needles in my eyes, forcing me into a heavy squint. But I see my goal through the glare, thanks to shading my eyes with one hand, THERE is the woodshed!
Stumbling to it as the glare robs me of the ability to see small things, like the water-filled bucket I tripped over and nearly fall on my face, I make my way there. Moving aside the man-high pile of wood to collect against the outside wall with my newfound strength, I fall to my knees to start sweeping handfuls of soil into the sack. My lower legs fall asleep, and my scooping hand soon follows as I lose control of it and my right forearm at the same time. Not that it is uncomfortable, quite the opposite, like the comforting coolness of silken sheets on a hot summer’s night.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Once the sack is full I use my left arm to pull myself up, shaking my right arm and stomping my legs while hanging from the woodshed’s room beam, until feeling returns. Then I move the woodpile back in place, and return to my room while holding the closed sack aside. There I curl up on my bed around it, pulling the covers over me, as the sting of my skin fades and my awareness with it.
***
For all of maybe an hour. When the sun finally dips below the horizon and consciousness returns to me, I have two truths that appear in my mind. First is that I did not dream for the first time since I awakened. The second is that, while the weariness and skipping-time are gone, the fogginess in my mind remains…even if not so pronounced as when the sun was out. It seems that even the dead NEED sleep, to be capable.
I am putting my boots on, after hiding the bag of dirt beneath the bed’s frame, when there is a gentle tap on the door followed by a familiar voice. “Targosh, are you awake? I have come to see to your needs for the night.” At Analisa’s words the hunger I feel grips my stomach, and my throat feels parched as I notice my fangs extending, I doubt these are the “needs” that she is referring to.
“Enter my darling, I am decent.”
She comes in, a tray with a bowl, small loaf of bread, and mug of ale on her hip, “I heard that you have not eaten all day, so I thought to bring you a meal.” Oh precious girl, I am hungry but NOT for mortal sustenance.
Shaking my head as I nearly flop onto the bed, my weariness overtaking me, I focus on pushing my fangs back into my upper jaw so as not to scare the girl, “No Analisa, while I am hungry I am afraid that my dead body cannot derive sustenance from such things.”
At her confusion I have to continue, “Blood girl, I must drink the life’s fluid in another’s veins to keep the hunger in control. And I am feeling that hunger now, so I am going to go satiate my appetite with the enemies of Wallachia.”
“But, my Lord husband, today the streets have been filled with Ottoman mercenaries trying to find who killed two of their own last night! If you harm them, they will NOT take mercy on you, and believe you to be the killer,” she pleads with me to stay, while setting the tray on the room’s small table.
“
“Stay here and eat the food while I slip out of the building, and if anybody asks I was here WITH you all night. You so often prayed for my return to rid you of their rule, do not mourn your prayers being answered
***
There are two things you need to fight ANY war, three if you count the will to fight. The other two are information about your enemy and your allies, and the second is cold hard currency. It is my good, and their BAD, fortune that my enemy is basing itself out of Castle Poenari just outside of Targovi?te. I have spent many a year in that castle waging my own wars against the Ottoman invaders, and I know its passages as well or even BETTER than the architect who made it, since I rebuilt it.
Well enough to know that there is a secret escape route, designed to be as…inconvenient…as possible. And with enough coin I can buy secrets from the enemy themselves. The coin that is kept INSIDE Castle Poenari, from the purse of the enemy themselves. This will be the THIRD time I’ve used the Ottomans’ own funds to fight them
It takes me well into the night to reach the side of Castle Poenari, just below the shaft that drops the privies into the creek which runs by, thanks to having to keep out of sight of both villagers and soldiers. Thankfully, my night-capable eyes let me see them well before they can see me, making avoiding notice ridiculously easy. Easy enough to steal a few burlap bags and some rope from a small barn on the way, the beasts sleeping soundly even as I take a woodcutting hatchet. I hope to need these soon, I will make it up to you my good farmer.
Of course, the creek provides difficulties of its own, with the odd clay-like wall that it seems to produce when I push an arm over it, but thankfully I have already figured out a way past that. A rather undignified hop that releases the pressure confirms this. Now I just need to get ACROSS the creek to the wall of Castle Poenari, just pass the smaller Castle Arges just below and on the other side of the creek. It is time to see if fate is on my side, or if I am going to be having the last bath of my life.
With a running jump, I hurl myself across the creek into the side of the wall, gripping frantically at its stones. Despite this I start to slide down the wall, but the hook of the hatchet catches between two stones and halts my slide into the burning-cold water. Thank the gods, I do NOT want to know what BATHING in wild water would do to me, after seeing how it scoured my hand!
Looking up towards the privy exit as it extends over the creek, I am at an angle where I can see something that is invisible from other angles. The small entryway on the inside of the reeking shit-passage, that leads further INTO Castle Poenari! To be exact, the secret exit for fleeing the castle should it fall, where I could then swim my way to freedom and eventual revenge. Only now it is my way INTO my old home, and after some stench-ridden climbing I make my way into it. Hunched over almost on all fours for a good couple of strides until I leave the width of the walls, to stand in a small lightless chamber at a wall with a length of iron-banded thick wood. The mechanism is not designed to be OPENED from this side, just SHUT, but my newfound strength is enough to pull the locking post out of the stone’s grip, so that I can slide the wall out and open the passageway.
The door INTO the treasury room of Castle Poenari. Sadly the heavy thick iron-bound doors on its other side is closed, and likely locked with a bar on its other side, so no way to get into the castle THAT way, A pity that, since it would be quick work to kill all others here if I could sneak in…and get past the guard’s quarters on the other side, so best to stay on my plan.
I see chests full of coins and even gems and jewelry, all the wealth stolen from my people over the years that has either not already been sent to the Ottoman throne, or is being kept from the Sultan’s accounts by his greedy local factor. Unfortunately while I can SEE the coins and gems, they are merely grey shapes to my night-creature’s sight. It takes a firestarter and a lantern to cast light into the room, so that I can separate the gold coins from the copper. I fill several of my burlap bags with mostly gold and some silver before tying them shut, and another with valuable-looking gems and jewelry, before ferrying them out into the secret exit. Originally the plan, when I put this passage in during the castle’s restoration, was to empty the treasury into a waiting boat and leaving my conquerors with an empty prize.
This time I take and throw the bags across the way into the grass on the other side of the creek, before returning the treasury. Instead of throwing the remaining wealth into the creek, and thus giving the castle’s new inhabitants a clue about this secret way in, I pile as much as I can into the small room on the other side of the door before shutting it, Wealth NOT in their hands is almost as good as if it was in MINE! I still have to leave two chests of low-grade coins, and the larger objects of wealth, in the treasury, just because of the limits of space. The last thing I take, placing it near the exit to the creek in its oiled-leather wrapping, is Dragon’s Fang…the blade too distinct to carry if I want to hide my robbery, but too valuable to my family to leave in the filthy hands of an Ingram swine.
I am just thrilled that it was retrieved and brought here, after my death. Even more so that whoever did it HID it under a chest of low-grade coinage, I would have never found it if I had not moved that chest.
So now I have to get BACK across the creek, but it seems that contact with Castle Poenari’s stones causes the same pushing wall effect as touching the ground, making my original plan of grabbing the sod on the other side a poor one. But I have an idea, something I could do when my body was younger and my muscles more energetic. While gripping the bottom of the secret passage’s entryway, my fingers cracking and bleeding from where I have them shoved into its stones, I hold myself up crouched AGAINST the wall as if it was the ground itself. If I can get enough strength into this, I can flip in the air and land on my feet, just like when I was training in the Janissaries.
With a savage PUSH against the wall, pressing against the push-back of the creek’s aura, I put ALL of my new body’s power into the leap. Most of it is lost to the aura, until my feet leave the stones, and I find myself flying across the creek with what seems sufficient force to make the jump.
But I must tell you that I was unable to complete my flip, despite my newfound strength. Maybe it was the loss of power from the creek, or just twenty years being without practice, but instead of landing on my feet and staying upright with my hands…I land face-first. Into a bag of hard coins, instead of soft sod. Thankfully none are here to see my embarrassment!
I spend the rest of the night taking and burying the bags in the woods outside of Targovi?te, keeping only a full purse of silver and a few gold (I think, since it was a handful of coins each from a mostly-silver and mostly-gold bag), leaving a couple coins on the farmer’s chopping stump to pay back my theft.
With the feel of the sun’s gaze coming closer to the horizon, I slip into my bed with Analisa, the bag of dirt under the thin mattress embracing me in its cool comfort. Holding her I feel the drowsiness of the day start to take me as she mumbles and pushes herself into me, making me wish that I had the energy to take her as a man should, when the dark takes me once more.
***
The next night sees me in the comforthouse’s main room, spending coin like it was water to quench the thirst of the other patrons. I have found that I am able to keep down a few sips of ale, so long as I space them out, and thanks to Analisa’s help “refilling” my already-full mug none seem to notice that I am not nearly as drunk as I pretend to be. But it is thanks to their inebriation that my own questions gain answers, and I get an impression of the current political atmosphere.
The current Ottoman-installed “Prince” is Mircea Ciobanul, who has increased taxes to ruinous rates, and maintains a force of Ottoman mercenaries to serve as his princely military and tax collectors. A man with no noble claim to his name, put in his position due only to his loyalty to the Ingram, he has been funding mercenary forces to keep the Habsburgs of Wallachia from pushing into Wallachia’s borders. Ah, so it seems I stole his payroll…SUCH a pity
Most trade in Targovi?te is made up of war goods to the mercenary forces, and mercenaries from all over the Ottoman Empire and even Moldavia, seeking employment. Those from Moldavia are accepted by the locals, being from a similar culture, despite the usual problems of housing warriors of such ill repute as mercenaries. But the same cannot be said of the Ingram-worshipping Ottomans, who treat the people of Targovi?te as little better than cattle. So it seems there is a conflict here I can take advantage of, maybe pitting the two trends of mercenaries against one another. Or even treating with the Habsburgs to push out the Ottomans…better temporary Habsburg rule than a lifetime under an Ingram boot, or served as a meal to their vile gods!
As the night wears on, a few discrete inquiries with the growing crowd coming for the free libations, leads me to a man looking to sell his home. A small manor house near the edge of the forest by the creek, outside of the town’s wall, so it has its own short palisade to defend it. Since it sounds perfect, and would be close to the comforthouse, we make drunken arrangements to look it over and maybe change over the deed tomorrow after nightfall. He is obviously curious why I want to do it so late, since we will need lamps to see it (or at least HE will), and I explain, “Good sir, after TONIGHT, do you honestly think EITHER of us are going to be able to stand unaided before then?”
With a drunken laugh and a sloppy collision of our mugs, he agrees and praises my foresight.
So it is the next day just before dusk that I am groggily woken by Analisa’s shaking me, so that I can get cleaned up and dressed well enough to give the impression that I have been awake much of the day. With a borrowed lamp from the comforthouse, I follow my business partner to the house, and he proudly invites me in after unlocking the gate door. It is another key to get in from the enclosed yard, into the house itself.
A short while later I have to admit…it really IS perfect. Two stories tall with only courtyard windows on the bottom story, as well as a third story circular tower attached to the house that can be used as a solid stone fallback point should the courtyard AND the house fall to an attack. The house has a half-full wine cellar, which I am told will be part of the sale, and the flagstones of it look loose enough that I can pry them up for a secure bolt-hole to sleep the day away. The outer walls of the house are made from fired bricks, as well as the wall surrounding the courtyard, and the gate itself is a double set of doors with a lock on the outer door and a two-story gatehouse complete with murder holes. In essence…it is a small FORTRESS, built long ago before Targovi?te became so populous. I agree to meet him at the comforthouse he next evening, with a public witness of his choice, to exchange a not unreasonable sum with him in exchange for the keys and deed. My own witness will be Varovich, Analisa’s father.
After parting ways I return the lamp to the comforthouse then sneak out on my own through the back door, and make my way into the woods. A couple hours later I am back with the mostly-gold bag, counting coins on my room’s side table under faint lamplight so that I can tell their denominations, when there is a faint tapping at my door, “Targosh? It is Analisa, may I enter beloved?”
Beloved…it has been long since I heard that said with such sincerity, “Of course my darling, you need never ask. Do, please, enter.”
She comes in and starts with, “Do you need any-,” before her voice stops and her eyes widen in shock at the sheer WEALTH atop the table.
“
***
Thanks to Analisa fetching a flat case to hold the coins from a cabinet maker the next day, that night I exchange a box full of sorted coin for the signatures needed to take possession of my new home. Varovich almost cuts his head I half with the width of his joyously proud smile, and returns the purse he held in collateral to me as I take his daughter into my new house. Moving the bag of soil in her trunk of clothes, of course.
As she sets up the master bedroom with her fresh sheets, I tell her I have to leave for a bit to feed my growing hunger, only for her to grab my arm as I turn. “No love, it is our first night in our home…spend it with your wife? If it is blood you need, I have plenty to slake your thirst.”
“Darling love,” I say as I grip her shoulders, “I appreciate your offer, but I would not want to pain you. A woman’s burden and joy is to bear her man’s children and tend to their comfy home, NOT to slake his unholy hungers!”
Her hand comes up to touch my face under my mustachios, stroking my cheek and enflaming my hungers in several ways I had not expected, “I shall never experience the pains of childbirth from your bed, my unliving husband…let ME decide what pains I can bear for you. It cannot be worse than the loss of my maidenhood!
“And THAT I would give you now, as well.”
I never thought to feel this since rising from my own grave, the hunger that any man knows for a willing and beautiful woman. Between the two needs, and the succor of comfort I have not known since my first wife’s kindness, I…lose myself.
We pass much of the night in passion and blood, like a fire was lit inside of me and only Analisa’s touch could keep me from burning. As the moonlight comes in from the room’s doors of glass panes, she screams in pained bliss, even as my fangs dig into her collar bone. During our brief respites while the passions build once more, she uses her witchery to seal the wounds, turning them into nearly-imperceptible scars that only accentuate her ivory beauty. I find them strangely attractive, as she leans her neck over my face, resulting in yet more rolling through the bedsheets.
Eventually our passions wane, as does her vigor, and she falls asleep kissing my chest; our bodies covered in her blood-streaked sweat. My fire now only cold smoldering embers, I stroke her hair to soothe her to sleep, and find myself lost in her scent. It is as the moon goes across the sky, its pale light gifting her glowing skin color through the misty glass squares, that I realize something.
I truly LOVE this woman. I was going to just run the Ottomans from Wallachia, but now I want to TAKE its crown, to share it with her.
But sadly, needs must be tended to, and all too soon I feel her deep breathing as she is lost in exhausted slumber. Slipping from under her I make sure the blankets and cushions are wrapped around her to keep her warm in the night’s chill I no longer feel, and go to the wine racks in the cellar. With my newfound strength moving the racks around to open a section of the floor in the corner is easy enough, although I must retrieve a fireplace poker to pry up enough of the flagstones to fit myself inside.
It takes until the sun is starting to crest the horizon for me to dig up and dispose of enough soil to fit myself under the floor, and sculpt a wooden platform over the hole. The platform would be strong enough to support the flagstones even if somebody stands atop them, which I test by jumping up and down on them. The last task I do before climbing into my improvised tomb is to leave a note for Analisa, telling her that I will return after nightfall, and instructing her to take the remainder of the funds from my purchase to secure servants and guards.
As I climb in to sleep, before the sun sends my soul back into the dark, I chuckle to myself. Odd that I would find a WITCH to be as trustworthy as my former bodyguards.
***
NAME: Vlad Tepes III
RACE: Vampire (Human)
AGE: 45.2 years alive, Dead under 1 year
HIT DIE: 6
ECL: 6
XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 20,200 / 21,000
SIZE: Medium
SPEED: 30 ft.
ERA: Renaissance-Era
ABILITY SCORES: Cha 16, Wis 10, Int 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Str 16
FAST ACTION: 10%
DURABILITY: 6 TEMPORARY HIT POINTS: 23
SAVING THROWS: Fort +13 (10), Ref +1 (0), Will +8* (6) [* Booster +1] [+1 vs. being disabled]
[Immunity (ability drain, age, Compulsion, disease, poison, Transformation from others, Fortitude save effects that don’t apply to objects as well]
ARMOR CLASS: 10 (+0 Dex), flat-footed 10, touch 10
ATTACK: Base Attack Bonus +6, Melee +8, Ranged +6; +4 to Stunts.
* Bite +8 [+8/+3 or +3] melee (1d4+1 Piercing, counts as Feeding)
* Slam +8 [+8/+3] melee (1d6+3 Blunt)
SKILLS (+3 to Social skills and NPC Attitude checks, –3 instead in enemy territory):
* Charisma-Linked (+2)
* * Bluff +5 (0)
* * Diplomacy +6 (0)
* * Gather Information +5 (0)
* * (Wildman) Handle Animal +5 (4) [+2 from Animal Affinity, –5 from being a Vampire]
* * (P) Intimidate +12 (9)
* Wisdom-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Listen +7 (4) [+1 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness]
* * (P) Profession (manager) +8 (7)
* * (P) Sense Motive +9* (9) [* +1 for verbal uses]
* * (P) Spot +7 (4) [+1 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness]
* * (Wildman) Survival +6 (4) [+2 from Wildman]
* Intelligence-Linked (+1)
* * (Wildman) Knowledge (geography) +2 (1)
* * (P) Knowledge (military & tactics) +10 (9)
* * (Wildman) Knowledge (nature) +4 (1) [+2 from Wildman]
* * (Enduring) Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +5* (4) [* Booster +1]
* Dexterity-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Balance +1 (0)
* * (Stalker) Hide +2* (2) [* +2 in wilderness]
* * (Stalker) Move Silently +2* (2) [* +2 in wilderness]
* * (P) Ride +7 (7)
* Constitution-Linked (+1)
* * (P) Concentration +1 (0)
* * (P) Strong Heart +11 (10) [ranks converted to Temporary Hit Points]
* Strength-Linked (+1)
* * (P) Climb +1 (0)
* Linguistics +2 (2)
* Wild Empathy +8 (<3>) [+2 from Animal Affinity]
FEAT (Simple Weapon Proficiency, Martial Weapon Proficiency, Light Armor Proficiency, Medium Armor Proficiency, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Shield Proficiency):
* HD 1: Animal Affinity
* HD 3: Leadership
* HD 6: Iron Will
* Human: Royal Blood
* Vampire: Alertness
* Vampire: Improved Grapple
* Undead Con 12+: Toughness
* Birth: Born Under a Dark Star
* Wildman 1: Track
TRAITS (Tough Hero):
* Favored: Wildman ×1
* HD 1: Combat Bonuses ×1
* HD 1: Stalker ×1
* HD 1: Weapon Training ×1
* HD 2: Combat Bonuses ×2
* HD 2: Enduring ×1
* HD 3: Combat Bonuses ×3
* HD 3: Enduring ×2
* HD 3: Wildman ×2
* HD 4: Combat Bonuses ×4
* HD 4: Enduring ×3
* HD 5: Combat Bonuses ×5
* HD 5: Enduring ×4
* HD 5: Wildman ×3
* HD 6: Combat Bonuses ×6
* HD 6: Enduring ×5
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Vampire Special Abilities
* Blood Bite [Con damage from Bite attack counts as Feeding, can Bite in Grapple as a touch attack]
* Darkvision 60 ft.
* Inflict spells instead heal Strength, cure spells instead cause Strength damage
* Feeding [Blood drank restores equal ability score damage, further from Human is less effective]
* Human Blood [counts as Human for spell effects based on race]
* Insanity Recovery [Feeding heals Insanity as if it was ability score damage]
Vampire Weaknesses
* Allergies [1d8 damage from contact with daylight or holy symbols and holy ground, unless consecrated to a deity of darkness, death, or evil]
* Blood is Life [bleeding effects still apply to you]
* Cursed Blood (Soil Bound) [Can only sleep if in your homeland, or near at least 1 Lb. of its earth]
* Daytime Sleep [fatigued during daytime hours, Sinker –1 to skill checks during the day, cannot sleep at night]
* Hospitality [needs invitation into homes, cannot harm those they invite into theirs if they behave]
* Hunger [stacking –1 Intelligence penalty at dusk, which only goes away a point at a time from Feeding]
* Taint of Evil [alignment counts as Evil for spells and special effects, even if you are not]
* Vulnerable Dismemberment [Slashing weapons can still deal critical damage]
* Vulnerable Heart [Piercing wooden weapons can still deal critical damage]
* Ward Away [cannot come within 10 ft. of a holy symbol or mirror strongly presented to them by a living being]
* Water Allergy [1d6 damage from contact with naturally-running water, and cannot pass it under your own power]
Leadership 7 [3 base from HD, +3 from Charisma, +1 from Intimidate]
Fear-descriptor effects +2 DC