The Lore of the Darkness

Hansen looked up with a start as Sack appeared abruptly in the group's suite. Disdaining to walk around the city, the half-orc had used his Helm of Teleportation to flip himself back to their lodgings so as to be nearer to his next destination - the Thieves' Guild. Grinning at the bard's surprise, Sack indicated he should get on with the housework before heading out again - on foot - to complete the trip to the location Ruld Grenark had provided.

The Guild house turned out to be in a district of the city traditionally occupied by foreigners, visitors and transients; a good cover for strange happenings. The building itself was unremarkable, and had a small, derelict shop attached at the bottom. It appeared empty; but once Sack had clambered over the counter and started searching, a man appeared from the inner door and challenged him. Fortunately, the standard hand-sign used for recognition among the thieves of Karennal was enough like the one used here for the half-orc to identify himself as a fellow guildmember.

Ushered through, he found himself passing through the usual activities of a Guildhouse during the day; fences and retired thieves working through piles of loot from the previous night, servants repairing equipment, and, glimpsed through doorways, bunkrooms where guild thieves slept the daylight away.

He eventually was brought before a table where a man was sitting, whom his escort addressed as "Daymaster". Sack indicated his inability to speak, and a thief familiar in handsign was sent for; this eased negotiations considerably. Dropping a rope of pearls worth around 4,000gp on the table, Sack indicated that he wanted to know about vampires and the Senate. The Daymaster's eyebrows knitted as he made the pearls disappear. "Are you saying that you think vampires are going to attack the Senate?" he queried. Sack sighed. "One of them is one. Which is it?" he signed tersely.

The Daymaster prevaricated rather, and Sack dumped a crown worth six thousand gold on to the tabletop. Despite this, it seemed that there was not much to be learned. Exasperated, Sack demanded whether the Guild here even had spies watching the Senate ? "We watch their houses," responded the Daymaster, "but we normally wait until they're out before we visit." He did, however, manage to direct Sack to the Renders of the Dark's establishment in the city. Sack grunted in annoyance, picked up the crown again, and blinked out of existence.

"Oh!" cried Hansen as, for the second time that day, Sack materialized in the hired rooms without the slightest warning. Muttering, the half-orc stomped out again, heading for the vampire hunters' premises.

Meanwhile, Surya and Hildraft had been issued with a flat, carved ivory token by the priest of Aderra, entitling them to research within the Library. Arriving there, they were admitted on production of this, and given a standardized briefing on the rules of the Library; quiet please, no removing books ("magical measures" were alluded to that would prevent inadvertent removal), access to the public galleries at will, food and drink would be provided by the library's slaves.

Surya caught the expression "public galleries". Asking what this meant, he discovered the existence of the banned sections, wherein the books not available to the average citizen were stored. Filing this information away for future reference, they set to work.

Over several hours, they made some progress. They found some references to vampires fairly quickly, but as these were grouped with pixies, witches, boggarts and genies, they were of little use. However, in the History section, they discovered a battered old volume, written over six hundred years before by an Erlyid called Cheftan van Helsing. This extraordinary individual appeared to have been either a very early vampire hunter or possibly an actual founder member of the Renders of the Dark. His book was a treasure-house of information. Chronicling an incursion into Imperial society by vampires in van Helsing's day, the book recounted the insidious growth of the nightcrawlers' power, culminating in their defeat and uprooting by van Helsing and his associates. The book contained a great deal of lore and good advice on vampire fighting, including some specialized techniques which appeared to have been lost in the intervening time, and a detailed description of the mechanics of vampirism, the Blood Gift, the 'death', the rising, the Thirst, and the terrible power that could be gained by a vampire who turned to his own kind for sustenance. It also had back-references to an even older book, a work on speculative theology named the Sopedalia, to which it referred the reader for details on the origin of vampires and the creation of their Clans.

Understandably, the pair immediately returned to the shelves in search of this work, but were disapointed. Enquiries revealed that the book was banned, and more, under Imperial Seal for security reasons. They pleaded with the librarian for permission to read it, but he was firm, even when Surya "accidentaly" dropped a bulging purse of gems and coins; they could submit an application to have a librarian research the work, but it would not be made available.

At this point Hildraft played his hole card. He offered the librarian an opportunity to make a copy of the Journals of Elverandil in return for access to the Sopedalia. As the Journals had been lost in the ruins of Lantalaure until their recovery by the Mergil Quest, he was pretty sure the Library wouldn't have a copy, and in this he was right. Realizing he was in over his head, the librarian went to fetch Nective, the High Priestess of Aderra in Thornal, to make the decision.

Word of his exploits in Karennal had reached this far south, and his name was known here; soon, an interested group were listening carefully to his account of those happenings over a cooled beer. That done, Gedrun, the leader of the Thornal division, asked him what his business was in their city. When Sack laconically signed, "There's a vampire in the Senate", a spray of beer was coughed across the table.

Business was quiet for the Renders in Thornal. The last vampire sighting in the city had been ten years ago, as Dran Trasutor had said; most of Gedrun's men had never seen a real vampire. Now, gradually, it dawned on them that this was it; the real thing; and on some scale as well. Sack stated baldly that if it proved impossible to pick the vampire out of the Senate, he was going to kill them all, and left them to get active doing what they were there for.

Within a few minutes, the formidable priestess arrived. In her late forties, tall, slender and ascetic, she fixed the pair with penetrating, calm eyes. "Are you trustworthy?" she asked. When they assured her that they were, she dismissed all her attendants. When they were gone, she turned to face the pair again. "I am inclined to assist," she stated. "Some of Sigred's reports have reached here, and I know somewhat about you two." The pair glanced at each other. This could be good or bad.

"I am the High Priestess of the Goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge," she continued, "and as such I feel that books should be read. This concept of banning books, restricting knowledge, is anathema. Here is what I shall do. At midnight tonight, a certain volume will be 'accidentally' left in this drawer here," she touched the tabletop lightly. "At dawn it will be returned to its' place." She smiled slightly. "The Library will be warmly thankful for your donation of a copy of the Journals." she concluded, holding out a hand for the document.

Having returned to their rooms and met back up with Sack, the researchers, plus Hansen the bard, returned to the Library at rather later than eleven pm. The Library was quiet at this time of night, only a few insomnic scholars bent over books as the unlikely party trooped through the halls. As they passed, many of these bent hostile expressions on them, but with a start, the others realized that the target of most of these was - Hansen. For while the rest, with their armour and swords and clearly foreign air, were strange, Hansen carried his lute slung over his back.. and this was a Library.

Notwithstanding this, the group reached the desk, and located the book in the drawer mentioned with no trouble. Hildraft had collected a large pile of works on smithcraft and swordsmithing as a cover, and piled these at the front of the desk as Surya extracted the Sopedalia from the drawer and examined it. The book was bound in a stained, worn black hide that was clearly not leather, though it also didn't appear to be human skin. Nonetheless, the book trailed an aura of evil like smoke as it was lifted into view, and all felt a deep disquiet as they opened it.

The text was written in Elvish, which language Surya and Hansen could read, but the form was so archaic and formal that it was soon apparent that only Hildraft, with his Ta'nara abilities, would be able to read it properly.

The dwarf remembered something else. While he perused the book, he sent Surya to wander the shelves in the Magic section, to look out several volumes on Crysmagic, and set Hansen to copy out relevant sections. Both had formed an interest in this subject, spurred by the fragments of Sancrist Crystal in their pouches and the memory of the stone circle at Maraka.

The book was written by one Soped, an elf who had lived in the so-called Golden Age, before the coming of humans or even dwarves into this region of Alair. It dealt with a variety of different religious structures, most of no interest to the group and many of which no longer existed. The meat of the book was the chapters covering Cain himself.

They described how Cain became the first of all the elves to murder; to deliberately slay another elf. Anfadil, the elven God of Law, cursed him, but Cain twisted the effects of the curse to suit his own ends, now horribly distorted, becoming the first vampire in the process. Believed dead, he operated under cover, bestowing the Blood Gift on more and more sentient creatures. The elves, mightier then than in later days, proved too resistant for his purposes, perhaps because their lifespans made the "eternal" life of the vampire less appealing, but with the arrival of humans Cain was furnished with all the raw material he needed, and his power grew rapidly.

The oldest of the High Clans were created personally by Cain to organize his forces, though some rebelled and abandoned his cause to pursue their own goals.

Finally, the existence of the subculture of the vampires became known to the elves, and five of their greatest heroes, led by Galoriand and Elverandil, challenged Cain in his lair. Though they defeated him, they were unable to put an end to him, and were forced instead to imprison him on a demiplane pinched off and sealed against any conceivable intrusion.

It was difficult to be sure, but in reading the Sopedalia, Hildraft formed an impression that its' author might himself have been a vampire.

Moved by a dim memory of something he'd heard of being done elsewhere, Surya took the book to a window, and allowed the pale silver light of the moon to fall on it. Revealed by this were more writings, watermarked under the main text, written in such strange script that only Hildraft could even be sure that they were writing. Swiftly he copied them down, shuddering; they formed a paean of praise to, or possibly a summoning of, Cain himself.