I cannot let Prince Ciobanul know of this, for fear he replaces me in my position here. I must figure a way to keep up the APPEARANCE of a full treasury, while I refill it, and keep funds going to the north. Which means I must bring my OWN wealth up from Adrianople, so the Prince does not catch word of any increase in taxes.
I shall find who is responsible for this theft, and their punishment ALONE shall earn me my entrance into the Protean Pits!
The next few weeks are a whirlwind of domestic bliss. Thanks to Analisa hiring the less desirable of society as our servants, they gratefully ignore our idiosyncrasies in exchange for stable employment. They know that they will not have NEARLY as good a life if they make an issue of their master sleeping all day and their mistress talking to ghosts. Despite this the scaly Kobolds that make up easily half the household as a result are just…DISTRURBING to me, but I try not to show it. I often had to punish entire tribes of their thieving cousins, and now I find them the most RELIABLE servants I ever had…life is truly strange at times.
I spend much of my early nights carousing at the various taverns that serve the travelling merchants or mercenary forces, trading coin for drinks to get the rumors which will form the base of my attack on the Ottoman invaders. The later evenings I spend either savaging the more brutal Ottomans, leaving them impaled in sight of Poenari Castle, or enjoying the company of my new wife. Once the governor of Targovi?te tried to ambush me, but I could easily see them in the dark, and that night I left TWO handfuls of his soldiers impaled come the dawn.
But what I find oddest is that my hunger is somehow…lesser. Maybe it is because my body is getting used to it, like becoming immune to a poison over time like that king of old, or maybe it is from the regular drinking of witch’s blood. My skin even seems harder to penetrate, Could Analisa’s spirits be trying to aid me, since she is so happy with me?
Because of my actions, often the governor sends criers into the town to decry me abstractly, and offer rewards for my capture. At least that is what the servants report, and I have no reason to think them liars, especially since I often hear of it in the taverns as well. Odd that I can swallow more than a mere sip now, but it just makes the hurling of it afterwards more annoying.
Thankfully nobody knows I am responsible for the dead Ottomans, other than Analisa. However this does not keep others from being captured and blamed, which is a sad occurrence. I make it a point to be particularly brutal with my victims after each such public execution.
At least now the governor is releasing his prisoners after a couple days, when it is obvious that I am not the one in his cells.
And as winter comes closer, the nights grow longer, and my time to act increases.
***
“No, no, NO! You have to PUSH your breath OUT, while PULLING your soul INSIDE,” says my spectral teacher, as they keep trying to explain how to get the spell to work. With the recent attempt to ambush me, Analisa’s heart nearly gave out from her worry. A couple nights later, after she spent some time at the graveyard, and now I have a magic instructor attempting to teach me his old skills. She found an assassin with an interest in the mystic arts, who used them to assist taking his prey, and thought that such a man’s skills would assist me in my nightly endeavors.
Sad to say that since he can only remain in the world for a short conversation at a time, the progress is…well…NOT progressing.
“You speak nonsense, who can say a walking DEAD man even HAS a soul!,” I spit back, my own frustrations at the repeated failures getting the best of me.
“That is horse shit and you KNOW it! Can you think? Well maybe NOT, but I know you CAN love. And only a soul ca-,” at which time he seems to be sucked into a point in his navel, vanishing like water from a holed bucket.
While grinning to myself in petty satisfaction, I hear the most beautiful voice in the world, “I don’t think you actually WON that argument, love.”
I take the perfumed soap-soaked towel she hands me, and use it to wipe the light bloody sweat from my naked body, as I stand up from my cross-legged position in the cellar. Handing it back to her as I get dressed once more, I have to ask, “So you are not here to bring him back so that we might finish our argument?”
Her face lights up, “
“So an hour from now?”
“Yes, plenty of time for you to get there,” she pats off imaginary dust on my clothes, “I am going to go sleep until your arrival. Wake me when you return, and I shall see to your…appetites.
A horse would have taken a third of the time, but despite my new home having a few horses stabled for use around town, none will let me ride them. Something about my new nature makes them skittish, and while I can soothe them enough to pet and give them apples, they either lock up in fear or go wild if I try to mount them. So it is that I spend an hour hustling through woodland in the dark, lighting my oil lantern as I approach the old woman’s home in the thickets.
“Come in dead man, I have been waiting for you,” an old cracking voice reaches me on the wind shortly after I see her home. It seems there is no reason to try and hide my nature, after all.
After blowing out the lamp, I set it down on a convenient old fallen tree, and walk through the door that creeks open as I approach. Inside there is an old grandmotherly woman sitting under a shawl in a chair before a low-burning fire, occasionally poking at it with a poker. The ceiling hangs with bags and bunches of strange odors, above the tables filled with bizarre looking items.
“Come, sit,” a flick of her wrist moves a stool from the wall to near the fire pit, “I know you do not feel the efforts of your walk here, but I do not desire a crick in my neck from looking at you standing there.”
Well, it IS her home, “How did you know I wasn’t a breathing man?,” I ask as I sit, my intended questions lost to curiosity.
She starts with a humorous chuckle which quickly ends in a cackle, wiping a tear from her eye as her joviality ends. “The lass who came to ask for me for this meeting, who shares a bed with you, is a witch…and you think an OLDER one would not be able to tell?”
She reaches over to pat my arm before continuing, “But that is not what you WANTED to talk to me about, and a dead man’s coin spends as well as any other. So ask your questions.”
“What AM I?,” I hastily say, just as she finishes speaking, it being the most needed question I had.
“Ah, one must know themselves to succeed in their endeavors, and it would seem you do as well. You are Strigoi, my friend. One would think the night-living and blood-drinking would have told you as much…surely you know the legends.”
I just shake my head, “That cannot be. Those same legends say Strigoi have magic powers, such as commanding the creatures of the night and controlling the weather. I cannot even make MIST, much to my teacher’s frustrations!”
She turns in her chair to stare at me full in the face, suddenly serious, “So what do you FEAR you are, then?”
Her serious is shared by my own, her insight into my fears that I had not even acknowledged myself pulling it out of me, “A…I…when I was a janissary, I heard legends of the Ghoul. A night-walking dead man that consumes the flesh and blood of the living, often those they care for. Savage beasts in a man’s shape, and I don’t know if I am to lose myself and BECOME one.”
“
“Your teacher is, let me guess, the ghost of some dead mystic?”
“
“No, it was just obvious. The problem isn’t that you lack the capacity for a Strigoi’s magic, it is that you are not being TAUGHT to use it. Your instructor would be good enough to teach the living with similar gifts, but YOUR touch of magic comes from the same source that lets you walk the night…NOT the secrets and mind-twisting of the mystics.”
I lean forward to ask my next question, Money well spent so far, “So how DO I use my magic?”
She just grins sideways at me, leaning over to whisper conspiratorially, “It is your WILL that lets you walk the night, your stubborn refusal to give in, augmented by the cursed forces that motivate your limbs. Think on THAT, think about moving your arm but don’t LET it move, and speak what you wish into the world. You will be able to open the books of your Strigoi magics this way, and once you read that first page the rest shall be open to you. But much like a book they will all share a common theme in their contents, and it will take effort and time to open new ones.”
“I…I don’t really understand, books and limbs? Am I to find a spellbook, and somebody to show me how to utilize its contents?,” I am befuddled, Is she speaking poetically or literally? Is this a riddle of some sort?
“
“I once knew a magus that could fill the battlefield with fog, to hide the soldiers from prying eyes. I thought it would be a skill I could learn, but I could not…which being so BASIC a spell, made me think I was NOT Strigoi,” my confession comes out, my inability to do something I set my mind to a fresh wound to my pride.
“Ah, I understand now. Yes such a thing IS easy for Strigoi to learn, but like ALL magics it MUST be LEARNED. You just have…access…to a realm of magic even us witches cannot use. This is one of what I was trying to talk about, the Strigoi ability to control weather by UNDERSTANDING it, and then moving their curse to MAKE it. Once you open up this ability, like a book you will have the capacity to use spells that touch upon it,” now she leans forward and her voice becomes firm, “However be WARNED. Once you do so, other powers of the Strigoi will become HARDER to discover. Think of your cursed life as a rope with a knot at one end, the knot you grasp to move it. Each magic puts another knot in the rope, giving you another place from which to move your unliving power.
“But the rope is only SO long, and after each knot there is just LESS rope to make another. You will have to practice and explore your Strigoi nature to GROW that rope, so that new knots can be added. Now, I can start you on this path, tell you the not-really-secret secret that lets you make that first knot and every one thereafter…but is the power to control the weather the one you want to discover NOW?”
I sit up straight to think while she goes back to her fire, a flick of the wrist throwing on another piece of kindling. It is only a few minutes for me to decide, “What OTHER kinds of Strigoi powers can I command instead? Twisting the wills of others? Commanding night creatures?”
“
“I will have to think on the others, but for NOW the ability to control weather will let me best pursue my goals. So…what is this not-so-secret thing you would tell me?”
She just chuckles for a while, before revealing my idiocy, “It was your DESIRE to move and escape your grave that moved your limbs to do so, and it is that same will that moves you every time the sun sets. If you know HOW mist forms, you just have to DESIRE it to exist and push your will into that desire…as if you were climbing from your grave hat first time.”
I’m shocked, “Is it THAT simple, just ‘wish’ to have mist, and I have it?”
“Not quite,” she shakes her head, “You must UNDERSTAND the mist first, but then? Yes, it IS that simple. Why not step outside and try it?”
***
After creating the mist my first time, and feeling the slight drain on my motivation that it causes, I leave the pouch of coin for my erstwhile instructor and leave with shame at myself. It is really so EASY, I should have figured it out on my own long ago! But I was so used to seeing priests and mystics with their arcane chants and prayers, I never THOUGHT to utilize the same dark power which moves me to summon the same magics. I guess Justina was right, at times I can be an idiot.
On the walk back I practice, seeing how far I can stretch my newfound connection with the weather of the world. A blast of wind that can blow leaves off a tree is easy enough to understand, having felt them before on the battlefield. With some effort, in a clearing by the trail, I am even able to pull a bolt of lightning from the cloudy sky, although I feel my eyes unfocused and a bit dizzy from how much I have been moving my “curse” at that point. I can ALMOST feel the ability to keep the blasting wind blowing, by pushing it to a wider area and pulling on the power so it is not all unleashed at once, but it ever QUITE comes together. I must not understand what moves the wind enough.
And the cloudy sky? Not possible at this time, I must learn MUCH more about them first.
So it is that I reach home after midnight, the gate guard letting me in without question, before finally retiring to his bed. I don’t bother waiting for my butler or his assistant to get the door, Let them sleep. Instead I climb into my bed with Analisa, the north-facing glass doors covered in heavy cloths comforting me in the knowledge that I will not burn in the sun. She mumbles in her sleep and moves further into my body, while I kiss her hair and…just hold her.
I know she wanted me to waken her, but my hunger is still sated from yesterday and she is sleeping so contentedly. No, as much as even my dead body rises to meet her passion, I do not want to disturb such restful slumber.
I fall into restful darkness before she wakes.
As time goes on over the following weeks, I start using my mist-casting to sneak through the watchers of the Ottoman mercenary camps around Targovi?te. Before I was unable to do this, there being fires to keep the night watch warm whose light would reveal me, but given that it is winter and the snows are starting to fall nobody pays attention to a bank of fog moving across the field at night.
My original intent was to capture or kill the mercenary leaders, and drag them to Poenari to put on pikes. Unfortunately I find myself simply unable to enter their tents, my feet refusing to lift when I try to step into them. Thinking that it is something like the invisible soft wall over water, I take a running leap at one…only my feet refuse to lift from the ground and I wind up face-down in the dirt.
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Sadly, the same is true of the tents they use to house their warriors. However the tents they have over their cooking fires and supplies ARE easy to enter, It must be something to do with my curse. Didn’t the stories of Strigoi say they must be invited INTO a home to enter? I would think a tent was NOT a ‘home’, but it appears like any structure in which somebody sleeps counts…damn. Does this mean that the only reason I could enter Poenari was because I once OWNED it?
So I take my frustrations out on the cooking gear and supplies, smearing night soil from the camp’s latrines into their cauldrons, and mixing weapon-oil into the cooking lard. Let them try to march and make trouble when they are shitting themselves to death!
Another mist casting lets me sneak out after my work is done, and I find a patrol near Targovi?te to take my frustrations out on.
Doing this for several weeks quickly changes the winter behavior of the Ottoman forces. Gone are their night-time patrols, and the cooks are not sleeping IN the kitchen tents to guard them…coincidentally keeping me out. So come nightfall the streets of Targovi?te become clear of Ottomans, and strangely these bodies at night make them MORE active as the townsfolk become confident that the strange killer waging a war on the Ottomans is only doing so on the OTTOMANS.
And they are completely correct.
So in the early evenings Analisa and myself go out to the town’s bustling market, purchasing household goods to be taken back by our servants, or just to enjoy the life that has returned to her home for the first time in her memory. For myself, I am just happy to see her smile and laugh so much, often even buying small treats to hand out to children with her. These people now feel so safe that they let their children run around town alone at night. I dread winter’s ending, for it will bring fresh mercenaries here to abuse them…I must figure out a way to dispose of ALL these damn Ingram bastards!
Maybe the ongoing war with Transylvania can be aggravated, letting me dispose of Anatoli and eventually Mircea…but how to rule during the DAY, and how can I keep the Ottomans OUT? The winter nights are long enough to get me to Sibiu in Transylvania, if I can find a way across the Sibin river…it is too wide for me to risk leaping it! Then there is the mountains…I would be starving by the time I got through them, and who knows what would happen then. DAMNATION, I guess I am stuck here!
Then I hear Analisa laugh with some children, as she pulls the string on some wheeled toy and they chase it around, and I forget my morose thoughts. No, I get to STAY here, with HER. I am blessed more in death than I have been in life, it seems.
It is while looking at her that I see with my night-eyes that there is a small child across the street, staring at them all from the darkness of an alley. I can even make out that they are crying, and when they remove their threadbare hat to wipe their eyes I can see the horns rising from their skull. A devil-blood child?! HERE?
Then as it puts the hat back atop its ragamuffin head, I see the slits in its wide eyes and the pale white scales on the back of its wrists, and I adjust my assessment, NOT devil-blood, but DRAGON-blood, if I am right. And from the looks of it, its ancestor was a snowbound dragon, which explains why it is not shivering in the cold while wearing such thin rags.
Giving a handful of coins from my purse to Analisa, with word that I have to go do something but will return quickly, I leave her with the laughing children and the half-orc manservant. Casually walking around the larger building across the street, I slowly and quietly walk down the alley to behind the child, “You know you CAN go play with them, if you are so lonely.”
It jumps before spinning to face me, eyes wide in fright that quickly turns to hunger when I hold out the meat-baked bread I bought on the way. As I thought, it is either an orphan or so poor that steady meals are a rarity, “Here take it if you want, I bought more than I could eat.”
“Fangk hoo,” it (no HE) mumbles in a boy’s young voice with his mouth stuffed by half the entire roll. The thick and sharp eye teeth grinding into the bread inside his surprisingly-wide jaw.
I can’t help but laugh, the child’s attempt at good manners obviously ruined by talking with his mouth so full it swells his CHEEKS. Once I calm down, as his face reddens from embarrassment sets me off again, I manage to get out, “Go child, play with your friends, no need to fear your rags will insult us.”
I give him a gentle push to the mouth of the alley, where he stumbles to a stop and confesses, “I…can’t, sir. They don’t want to play with a poor kid whose parents were killed. They fear being around me will make the governor suspect THEIR parents, so they throw things and curse at me.”
“How old are you, boy?,” he holds up seven fingers, tipped with thick sharp dark nails, after I ask. Dearest gods, he looks no older than SIX…how long has he been living on his own?! So I kneel down in front of him as an idea forms in my mind, “Me and my wife cannot have children of our own. Would you like to come be our son?”
Sudden terror fills his eyes, “Are you going to put ME on a stick too, mister dead man?” By all that is holy, HOW are is night-time nature so easily told by so many!
“What makes you ask that, boy?”
“I…I saw you a couple moons ago, holding up that patrol soldier I was hiding from, and drink from him like a wine skin. Then the next day I saw him on a stick up at the castle, when I was looking in the morning’s kitchen garbage for something to eat.,” he stands upright, fire in his eyes as his anger stiffens his spine, “I am a child, but I am not STUPID!”
I can’t help but reach out to gently
“Like the soldiers that killed mom and dad?,” he askes with sudden hope in his voice.
“Yes boy, JUST like them. And I will be your NEW dad, but you have to keep what I am and do at night secret, understand?”
Tearing up he lunges forward, arms wrapped around my neck, “Yes!”
***
We returned home shortly thereafter, and find the boy a room that the maids set up for him. And his name is VLAD?! I feel the hands of fate in this. To avoid confusion we just call him “little Vlad”, but since even our more trusted servants know me as “Targosh” it only is useful for Analisa.
And Analisa is EXTATIC over having a child, having secretly been mourning her fate without one by me. My walking up to her to introduce our new son made her so radiant with happiness, that I briefly thought I was a risk of the sun. The two of them spend the entirety of the next day, and all of the spare coin we had, out shopping for him the next day. I find this out when I rise from bed at sunset, and visiting him in his room see him nearly DROWING in a sea of toys, and arguing with my old spectral teacher, “I KNOW I can do it, but I don’t WANT to!”
“I have little time young man. You WILL learn this spell if it-,” and once again he is swept into the realms of the dead through an unseen hole in his midsection.
“So I see your mother is tending to your education, little Vlad. What was he trying to teach you?”
His newly-cleaned fangs glinting in the lamplight, he smiles and moves his hands in a gripping motion while chanting in poor latin. “THIS!,” he says as one of his toys between us rolls towards him before lifting into the air.
Gently stepping around the rest, I poke it as it hangs in the air, before going to grip his shoulder in happiness, “Good, son! And you learned this in just ONE day?”
“Uh uh, I learned it after sunset, but mister ghost is MEAN and wanted me to KEEP doing it!,” he says in a huff before setting the toy on his bed, “But I wanna practice SWORDS, not SPELLS. I wanna HELP you get rid of the bad soldiers!”
Gripping the child’s shoulder I comfort him, “I will talk with your mother about this. Maybe we can get you training to use a blade, and grow to be a strong warrior.”
Turns out Analisa isn’t happy about “her little boy” risking his life on the battlefield. However I convince her to let him train in the blade, since I have no intention of letting him be at the mercy of some Ingram cockroach just because he cannot wield weapons…and we are BOTH familiar with how the Ingram treat those of even a little non-human blood. We can hide him from the eyes of the Ottoman soldiers during the night, since I have put fear of it in their hearts, but during the DAY?
No, it is best for HIM that he learn to defend himself. And after his time on the streets, he is tougher than his small size would indicate.
So I get one of the house’s guards to train him from noon until nightfall, his mornings spent in study with the ghosts that Analisa can find who can teach him sorceries. Come sunset, I spend an hour candle teaching him what I know from my time on the battlefield, both with wooden blades and troop management. The chances of him leading an army are slim, but not nonexistent…and he enjoys playing with the wooden soldiers I commissioned for this.
So it is that the winter passes, and I turn t sleeping in my grave in the wine cellar after waking to the smell of my own flesh smoking from the strong sunlight having penetrated into our upstairs room. It seems that even INDIRECT daylight can burn me, given enough time.
As spring goes on, my evening sessions with little Vlad have to end, so that I have enough time at night to terrorize the Ottomans while still spending time with Analisa. I would think he was sad about it, but my lovely wife tells me that he has taken to teaching war games to the children of our servants, and playing with the little half-elf and kobold children before bed.
I am just glad he has finally found children to play with.
Then one night I awaken to the faint sound of swordplay coming through the stones, Did little Vlad finally get good enough to practice with live steel? Pushing up the entrance as I uncurl to stand, the sweet smell of fresh blood hits me, and instincts both old and new take over.
Leaping over the ale kegs that hide this corner as the entrance falls back into place, I run up the stairs to the ground floor, flinging open the door. Before me I see a kobold maid gripping a tall candelabra in both scaled hands like a spear, facing down the hallway to defend the door, her tail stiffly pointing up behind her back in fear.
“What is happening?,” I ask, the thought of WHY she is defending the wine cellar lost as I hear a fresh batch of ringing metal.
“We are under attack master, they TOOK the mistress!”
My unbeating heart alights in flames, everything becoming red in my sight, as the world seems to move slowly.
***
The entryway at the end of the hall leads into the foyer, and there I see a mass of turban-wearing warriors attempting to press the house’s guards up the stairs. The candelabra is in my hands, a faint memory of a startled “eep!” reassuring me that I did nothing to attain it. As one of the Ottoman mercenaries slowly turns to face me, his hands raising to bring his sword and shield around to face me, his face shatters and the bloody turban goes flying, as my weapon flies through the air to imbed itself in his skull.
As I lunge forward to grab a hooked blade from the dead fingers of a mercenary, I hear the voice of Vlad’s teacher on the stairs above me, “Master is here!” Then the screaming starts.
The blade is not dragon’s fang, but I spent years using these, and the old reflexes remain. Much to the ill luck of these invaders! The first one loses his shield-arm at the elbow, before falling to the ground as I take his knee out on the backswing, his blood drenching his fellows and me as well.
Before they can redress their line to face me, the ones closest to the doors reacting fastest, I sweep the blade through BOTH ankles of the man halfway up the staircase, from the backside so that the strike avoids his armored shins. This not only causes him to lose focus on fighting my servants, but causes him to collapse onto the others on the stairs.
With savage screams the kobolds wielding whatever they could grab as spears sweep around the guards, and start furiously stabbing into the mass below them. It does little damage against their armored bodies, but manages to keep the group from regaining their feet, and thus keeps them off of me.
“ANALISA!,” I find myself screaming as I dully feel a sword blow hacking into my ribs, before caving in the shield and then the SKULL of the man who struck me. “WHERE IS ANALISA!”
Another blow hits my sword arm at the shoulder, stopped by the bone, as one of the men at the base of the stairs drops his shield to deliver a powerful two-handed blow. “MY ANALISA!,” I yell as I grip the man’s face, pulling his head to the side as I bury my fangs into his throat, tearing it out.
The room falls silent, except for the occasional clang and grunt of a kobold striking absentmindedly at somebody. Meanwhile I drink my fill of the struggling man’s blood in a handful of breaths before his heart slows and stops, dropping the mostly-empty man to the ground to stare at the wide-eyed fearful soldiery.
In a quiet but forceful voice filled with obvious fury, “You took my wife, invade my home, kill my servants, and threaten the safety of my child. You DESERVE to wander forever in the mists of death,” with a spread hand waved through the air I unleash my mist-making spell, filling the foyer with thick nearly-impenetrable fog.
Afterwards it only takes a brief time to slaughter the remaining soldiers, the ones who were not close enough to the exit to find it and flee at least. After finding no more prey I let the mists settle, and stare up at the faces of my servants atop the stairs, even the scaled faces of the kobolds pale from terror. “You have nothing to fear from me, just tell me where is Analisa?,” I say even as I stand there covered in shredded finery drenched in blood.
A small voice from the hallway speaks up, the maid that was guarding my rest, “They took her earlier today, in town, when we were shopping for food. Her last words to me were to protect the wine cellar…I didn’t know you were SLEEPING in it, master.”
Stomping towards her I kneel down to catch her yes, pushing my words out with barely-constrained panicked force, “Tell me what happened.”
While shaking in fear she manages to squeak out the story. Evidently she had gone with one of the half-elves to get supplies for the kitchen, since it was getting low, and Analisa went along to not only pay for it but also to get a blade for little Vlad’s upcoming birthday. On the trip an Ottoman patrol had come barging down the street on horseback, and the servant was unable to escape in time thanks to the bags of flour he was carrying. After he had been trampled, Analisa being the kind selfless soul she was, she used her witchery to heal him before he bled out on the flagstones of Targovi?te.
And everybody SAW it. Not only that, but the horses had been clearing a path for a mounted patrol, and THEY saw it as well. While the people of Targovi?te MIGHT have been convinced to leave her be, the Ingram faith is not nearly so benevolent. They ran her down to drag her to Poenari for judgement, and she bade the maid to go guard the cellar. Then the assault came an hour later, and they managed to hold them at the gates for hours, but eventually they were battered down and the gatehouse burned, killing the guards within. It took them only a brief period after that to hack through the doors and gain entry into the house, calling for the arrest of ME, and I came in shortly afterwards.
Analisa is at Poenari, in the hands of that bastard-born Anatoli…and that is NOT ACCEPTABLE! Calling for the head butler, he shakily walks down the staircase to me, little Vlad following behind him while gripping his waistcoat in fear, “Take the household funds, ALL OF THEM, and go with guards to the Varovich’s comforthouse, he is Analisa’s father and will aid you for her sake. Hire ALL the mercenaries you can find that are NOT Ingram, and bring them here to guard this place until my return. I intend to protect little Vlad and all those sworn to my service, no matter what it might cost, as best I can.”
Then I tear off my filthy finery and start collecting the more intact pieces of armor of the dead, until I have a single intact suit of half-plate and its leather underlayer. Still drenched in blood, it will ruin the leather if I wear it, but I don’t care as I tie and strap it onto myself.
Everybody follows me outside after I grab the pokers from the foyer fireplace, and go to the workshed to fetch rope, collecting just in front of the doors. The head butler is back by the time I have the pokers bent and a rope tied around their joining, forming a poor grappling hook. Looking at them all while tying sackcloth bags around the bent tines, I then catch all their attention before my butler can leave, “Saddam Anatoli dies tonight, and I will return with Analisa. No more hiding.”
***
NAME: Vlad Tepes III
RACE: Vampire (Human)
AGE: 45.2 years alive, Dead under 1 year
HIT DIE: 7
ECL: 7
XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 27,050 / 28,000
SIZE: Medium
SPEED: 30 ft. [20 ft. in armor]
ERA: Renaissance-Era
ABILITY SCORES: Cha 16, Wis 10, Int 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Str 16
FAST ACTION: 10%
DAMAGE REDUCTION: 1/magical silver
ENERGY RESISTANCES: Cold 5
DURABILITY: 6 TEMPORARY HIT POINTS: 23
SAVING THROWS: Fort +13 (10), Ref +1 (0), Will +9* (7) [* 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: 18 (+8 Half-Plate), flat-footed 18, 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)
* Ottoman Longsword +6 [+6/+1] melee (1d12+3 or 1d6+1d8+3 in two-hands Slashing, 19-20/×2) [Crescent Blade ×2, Longhand]
* Slam +8 [+8/+3] melee (1d6+3 Blunt)
SKILLS (+3 to Social skills and NPC Attitude checks, –3 instead in enemy territory):
* Charisma-Linked (+3)
* * Bluff +5 (0) [+2 from Sense Motive]
* * (P) Concentration {Undead} +3 (0)
* * Diplomacy +6 (0) [+2 from Sense Motive]
* * Gather Information +5 (0) [+2 from Sense Motive]
* * Handle Animal +4 (4) [+2 from Animal Affinity, –5 from being a Vampire]
* * (P) Intimidate +13 (10)
* Wisdom-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Listen +9 (4) [+2 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness, +1 from Aged Master]
* * (P) Profession (manager) +9 (8)
* * (P) Sense Motive +9* (9) [* +1 for verbal uses]
* * (P) Spot +9 (4) [+2 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness, +1 from Aged Master]
* * Survival +6 (4) [+2 from Wildman]
* Intelligence-Linked (+1)
* * Knowledge (geography) +2 (1)
* * (P) Knowledge (military & tactics) +11 (10)
* * Knowledge (nature) +5 (1) [+2 from Wildman, +1 from Aged Master]
* * Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +5* (4) [* Booster +1]
* * (Aged Master) Spellcraft +5 (4)
* Dexterity-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Balance +1 (0)
* * (Stalker) Hide +3* (2) [* +2 in wilderness] [+1 from Aged Master]
* * (Stalker) Move Silently +3* (2) [* +2 in wilderness] [+1 from Aged Master]
* * (P) Ride +7 (7)
* Constitution-Linked (NA)
* * (P) Concentration +NA (0)
* * (P) Strong Heart +NA (10) [ranks converted to Temporary Hit Points]
* Strength-Linked (+1)
* * (P) Climb +2 (1)
* 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
* HD 7: Aged Master ×1
* HD 7: Mastered Power (Weather Mastery) ×1
* HD 7: Stalker ×2
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 inly 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
SPELLCASTING
* Mastered Power (Charisma-based, CL 7, Maximum SL 3rd, Spells Per Day 4)
* * 0th – none.
* * 1st – obscuring mist.
* * 2nd – gust of wind.
* * 3rd – call lightning.