The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Winterhawk99]

The death of a vampire

I am a warrior and hunter at heart, but there are times when even a warrior such as I must set aside their weapons and take up the pen; times such as this. I write this now to tell the tale of great deeds and of valor, of deadly horror and of deceit; I write this to tell the tale of a vampire queen, a weretiger hunter, and a band of powerful offworlders.

I suppose it all started far to the north, in an icy, frozen land of unnamed mountains. Inhabited by weretiger prides and vampire covens, the pristine snow was often stained scarlet by the blood of the hunted and hunter alike. It was in this tumultuous setting that a powerful vampire by name of Avilia came to the fore. Unlike many of her contemporary vampire lords, she was cunning as well as skilled in the arts of battle and quickly became the most influential, and dangerous, vampire in their dark coven. So much so that she became a prominent threat to a nearby pride of weretiger, it fell to the masterful hunter, Pernan to find and kill Avilia at all costs. In the end the cost was his life. Before his body again joined with the earth, he gave a vial of the vampires blood to his younger brother. And so it fell to his brother, Haden, to hunt down and kill this most foul taint. I hunted for her tirelessly, my search drawing closer and closer to the heart of the vampire lands. In the end I discovered from a defeated vampire that Avilia had been banished from their lands before she became too dangerous even to her own kind to remain in the troubled north lands. And so she and some of her ilk fled south, and so I followed…

I would like to pause here and inform the reader that these events are of Avilia’s growing power in the south, and how it conflicted with a surprisingly new power in the land, a power not of this world, and so for these events I must rely on the eye witness accounts of the offworlders.
A trio of these offworlders traveled in the lands between the ruined village of Eisential, now inhabited by goblin kind, and a shrine near a small but flourishing lake when they stumbled upon a great tiger who had been badly drained by a vampire. I am told the names of these offworlders are: Swan the elven warrior, Furn the human druid, and Ellidy the elven bard. Not content to let such a crime go unpunished or allow such taint remain so close to their new home, the trio set out in search for the vampires. It didn’t take long before they stumbled upon a feasting vampire hidden away in the upper rooms of the ruined inn. After a bloody battle between the vampire, the offworlders, and the local goblins, the vampire laid slain and the goblins fled or dying. Believing it to be over the trio left the goblin land, happy to have rid the world of a dark menace, however, what they did not know, was that they had simply killed a foot soldier, one of Avilia’s recently turned servants.

Hidden away from the eyes of travelers and feasting on a seemingly endless supply of goblins, Avilia slowly expanded her power base in this new land. Finally the queen herself ventured out of her lair into the land, watching and learning of the new inhabitants. She finally approached one near the entrance to Morzelmore, formerly Loc Nordith. I have been told that the man she approached is called The Dark Wanderer, but many of the offworlders simply call him Dark or Fred, he is a human and seems to be as easily corrupted and fooled as the stories I’ve heard would have me believe. She convinced him to steal a sword of some power, I had thought it merely a legend among my pride, an ancient and powerful sword that legends claim was wielded by Random Wronghand himself. I have been informed by the cleric of Random, a friend of mine by name of Gilin, that the swords true power has been dormant for many centuries even before the great calamity that devastated the world and only Random himself knows how to reawaken the sword’s magic. Now there are many speculations as to what the sword could be and I will not delve to deep into those myths in my writing, but some of the most prominent legends say it is a sword will destroy undead merely by looking upon it, others say that the sword has a mind of its own and that a blade master must do battle with the sword before it will accept the master as its true owner. Needless to say this blade could be deadly to all in the wrong hands, given time Avilia might have been able to corrupt it so it is as deadly to the living as rumors say it is to the dead. Making up some fictitious tale, Avilia convinced this ‘Fred’ to steal the blade for her. Ignoring his own better judgment, Dark took the blade from under the altar and fled the temple while Gilin was away battling nearby undead from Rock Point. Discovering the blade missing upon his return, Gilin rushed to the nearby offworld village to ask for their aid. Finally Shana, a human priestess of Lathander, Kano, a human warrior and soldier, his wife Ameilia, a Fey’ri samurai, and Ellidy the same bard who discovered the rot in Eisential, caught up to Dark but not before he handed the blade over to Avilia. Recognizing the vampire for what she was, Shana attacked and the others soon followed. After a short and bloody battle in which Avilia killed all but Shana and Ellidy, those two only surviving because in the weakened state she was already in from the sunlight she did not wish to risk herself when she already had what she wanted.

Time passed, the offworlders recovered from their wounds, the vampires hid away with their new prize. And me? I arrived in the northern most regions of the Hadara Mountains. Tracking the passage of Avilia and her followers took time but I found signs of their passage in the form of dead dragon hatchling and slaughtered bugbears until I finally reached her lair deep beneath and ancient temple, now desecrated and overrun by goblins. While I was studying my prey, Shana, Ameilia, Kano, Sweetpea the kender, and Ellidy stumbled upon me. I discovered that their goal, like mine, was the demise of the vampire so I aided them by telling them where to find Avilia. I watched as they fought the vampire and realized that even if I had aided them directly, she was more powerful than any of us, and though the offworlders fought valiantly, they were no match for the dark queen’s skill and were forced to flee. I remembered a legend among my people, stories of an ancient ritual performed by the lycanthropes of old in the Great War between the armies of the vampire king and the tribes of the lycanthropes. I am bound by my word to keep the ritual a secret from all and as such cannot go into detail, what I can say, however, is that the blood of Avilia herself, the same blood my brother gave to me before he returned to the earth, was a key component.
I approached the offworlders as they rested near a strange portal and told them of my plan to kill the vampire and that I would require their aid when I had finished gathering the needed components and information for the ritual. They agreed to aid me however they could and we parted ways for a moon and a fortnight. Finally I was ready to perform the ritual and bade them come to me. When they arrived it was an hour before nightfall and we had but a short time to wait before I could begin the life altering ritual. Before I knelt in the circle I told them to be on guard fore I suspected Avilia had discovered my plans and would surely try to stop me from going through with the ritual. My fears were correct, as soon as night fell and I began the ritual, a wave of vampire warriors attacked. Kano, Shana, Sweetpea, Ameilia, and Ellidy were able to fight off the first wave I am told with little trouble. I soon lost awareness of the outside world and knew nothing but the circle and the ritual so I am unsure of just how many waves of vampires tried to stop us, many times I felt the bite of their blades and sting of their spells but always there was the priestess of Lathander, the brave little kender, or the lovely bard by my side to mend the harm done by the foul creatures. Kano and Ameilia fought bravely and were overrun but a handful of times. I am even told that in the melee Fred finally arrived to lend a hand, he too fell but twice. At last the ritual was completed and I stood and looked around as the rising sun turn hundreds of vampires to ash and a fresh morning breeze cleansed the land of their evil remnants. I cannot describe the feelings within me with the ritual complete; it is something akin to a new feeling of strength, as though waking up after a restful night of sleep and discovering you have been moving at half speed your entire life. Even with my new found power I had no desire to battle with Avilia in her own lair but I knew she would not dare follow me out into the light of the day so I asked the offworlders if they were willing to go down and lure her out of her hiding. In the end it was the Kender that went down alone into the pit of undeath to bring back its queen. I am unsure what happened below, and I doubt we will ever know for Pea would not speak of it, though I imagine her constant use of garlic and holy water aided her more then she could have thought it would. Tired of waiting, however, Ameilia set off into the temple and ran into the Avilia as she chased Pea, changing targets the vampire struck Ameilia with her great sword, forcing her to flee. After a few moments of waiting Pea and Ameilia ran from the Temple with Avilia hot on their heels and as Pea moved out of the way to allow me to fight her unhindered Ameilia turned to face my foe and was struck down by a single blow from her great sword. Leaping into the fray before others could get into my way I was able to move my battle away from the others while the survivors entered the lair of the vampires to destroy Avilia’s resting place and recover the sword stolen from Random’s temple. My battle with Avilia was the hardest I have ever fought, and hopefully the hardest I ever will need to fight, but in the end I removed her head with a swipe of my claw and watched as, deprived of a place to return to, she slowly turned to ash and at last vanished from the face of our world.

There is little more to tell in this tale. Shana returned to the surface and, with the power granted by her god, was able to revive Ameilia. The offworlders were able to return the blade to Gilin the priest of Random and right the wrong committed seasons ago. I was able to avenge the death of my brother and rid the area of the remaining vampires who had escaped the battle in the woods and the ensuing destruction of their lair. Now, for the time being, the offworlders have returned to their village and live in relative peace. I do not know where I will go, it is not yet time for me to return to my pride, I think I will remain in this strange new land learn more about the people that now call this land home.


Story by Baskilisk Kron