The hamlet of Queensbridge wasn’t unlike Innsworm, only that it was smaller and stood on the path of a river rather than on a hill. Prospero observed the settlement from a distance, keeping to the shadow of the canopy where sunlight was scarce. Every time a paw of his slipped out from the darkness, it singed as if pressed by hot iron, but the pain faded just as swiftly when he retreated.

  He could not approach the village in his current form, both for fear of the sun and causing a panic by strutting across the roads in the hood of a beast.

  [Canine Form] Deactivated

  Coaxed by will alone, his posture straightened out, his bones readjusted, and the soft fur upon his flesh shrunk until he was a man once more. His father’s cloak was large enough to serve as a shroud, though he looked rather suspicious all covered up.

  “There’s not much else I can do…” he muttered, “Now, to find the watermill.”

  It was a towering structure, alive with movement and loud enough to be heard from some distance away. Prospero marked the wooden wheel carving through the river and descended the slight hill into the hamlet’s perimeter, ignoring the fearful stares and gasps of the villagers going about their morning business. Before he could reach the watermill, a militiaman donning an ill-fitting helmet stepped forward to block his path. “Halt! State your name, ser!”

  “Prospero Baptista,” He answered, “I am Gaspar’s son, and I am here on urgent business.”

  “Prospero…?” the fellow’s moustache twitched as he leaned forward to get a closer look, “...Gods above - it is you, young master! To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit? It’s been many a year since-”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, but this is no time for pleasantries.” Prospero shook his head, “Innsworm is… something evil has descended upon us. My father is dead, and I fear it’s only a matter of time before Queensbridge suffers a similar fate.”

  He paused to observe the guard’s expression shifting from pleased to horrified, then continued, “...I must see the couple who tend the watermill immediately. I was instructed by my father to do so in an emergency.”

  The guard spun his gaze from side to side, unbelieving of Prospero’s words and terrified of his sudden responsibility to relay the news to the villagers, who continued about their days unbeknownst to the weight of Prospero’s words. “Young master, this is…”

  “I’m sorry for burdening you all of a sudden, but I must move quickly.”

  He did not wait for a reply, marching straight past the frozen militiaman towards the few steps leading up to the entrance of the building. He did not bother to knock, but as soon as his foot crossed the threshold of the door, he was repulsed by some phantasmal force which prevented him from entering. The more he pushed against it, the fiercer it became, until a plainclothes gentleman occupying himself with filling sacks of flour from the nearby hopper, which extended like a wooden beam up to the structure’s second floor, noticed Prospero at the entrance while lugging a sack of flour over one shoulder. “Oh… we’ve got a visitor,” he said.

  “My apologies for intruding,” Prospero lowered his cowled head.

  “Don’t know who you heard it from, son, but if you want flour, you’ll need to buy it at the market just like everyone else,” he replied. “I’ve never seen a man quite as conspicuous as yourself, forgive me for saying. Who are you, if you don’t mind the question?”

  For the second time, Prospero began, “I am Prospero Baptista. Son of-”

  Then, all of a sudden, the man was upon him, the sack of fresh white flour spilling as it dropped. Both hands fell on Prospero’s shoulders, dragging him inside. There was no longer a force forbidding Prospero from entering. The fellow’s eyes grew fevered and desperate. “Prospero!? Is it really you!?”

  Safe from the sun, his cloak came down, and the youthful face once known to that old miller had now taken on all the qualities of a grown man. The familiarity evident in his gaze lasted for a second, replaced just as quickly with stern purpose. “Where is Gaspar!? Where is your father!?”

  Prospero found himself hesitant to speak. “...He is gone.”

  “By the Triumph! It’s happened!? It’s really-” craning his neck, the miller shouted above, “Eliza! It’s happened! Prospero is here!”

  There came a tapping from above, and soon, there was another in the room; a woman - the miller’s wife, who appeared just as unassuming as he but whose expression was rife with a kind of experience that belied her humble status. “Prospero…” she began. “Is it true? Is your father-”

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  “It is! I won’t say it again! Don’t be so cruel!” With a gentle shove, he and the miller were separated, “Please, tell me what’s happening! I travelled through the forest to come here in the night, cursed with a lust for blood! The System calls me a Vampire!”

  “Young master… try to calm down,” the woman replied. “We will explain. Your father entrusted us with that burden, so please - let Albus take you to the house where you can sit down and rest for a moment.”

  “...I’m sorry,” Prospero sighed. “I fear the worst for this village, and I haven’t slept a wink since escaping. Can you promise me that my questions will be answered?”

  “Without a doubt,” the one named Albus took Prospero by the shoulder and led him to the door. “Let’s first cool your head off while Eliza finishes up in the mill here. You can ask as many questions as you’d like once she’s come around.”

  Prospero lifted the cape over his head to protect from the sun as they left the mill and travelled across the road, where a quaint little house sat with its door rattling in the wind. Albus locked it behind him and drew the thin curtains of the windows to stave off the worst of the sunlight. “Have a seat, young master.” he said, “You must be exhausted.”

  Truthfully, he didn’t feel fatigued in the slightest - no doubt an extension of his newfound vampirism. Even so, he sighed as if freed from a great burden while seating himself at a tiny table in the corner of the room. Albus pulled up a chair from beside the entrance and joined him, flour dust dancing from his shoulders. “I’ll say this much-” he began. “You did well to come all this way with how little you understand, young master.”

  “Master Albus…” Prospero paused. “Was my father a Vampire? Please be truthful.”

  “Aye. He was,” he nodded, “and a powerful one, too - in his prime, at least. Unheard of for a Vampire to settle down, but that’s exactly what he and your mother did all those decades ago.”

  “My mother, too? Was she-”

  “Human,” Albus said. “Again - unheard of. Vampires don’t have much use for love, but she and Gaspar were joined at the hip. He was mad for her. But you’d know that better than me.”

  A lump formed in Prospero’s throat. “Then… what am I?”

  “A Dhampir,” he allowed the name to linger in the air. “Half-Fiends. Not much different from humans bar their dislike for the sun. But you’re a Dhampir no longer, young master. That much is certain.”

  “Father had me drink something before he was killed,” Prospero continued, “It was… blood. It must have been. Dark, terrible blood. It awakened something within me that seems to have been slumbering all this time, but which now takes hold of me like a curse.”

  “The Beastblood… I can’t believe it,” Albus paused. “Did you see him, young master?”

  Prospero leaned back. “Who?”

  Albus followed the movement, leaning forward with his voice hushed as if afraid of invoking terror with his words. “Orlok…”

  The man with the face of a wild animal, disfigured beyond recognition, pale as a sheet, and with two eyes which seemed to pierce bone-deep. Prospero had never heard the name spoken once before, and yet it took shape in his mind as the creature who had stolen his father’s life. He nodded quietly, and Albus’ expression turned grim. “He is here, then… just as your father predicted.”

  “What is he?” Prospero dared to ask.

  “Another Vampire, though of a different sort than your father - of most Vampires, really,” he explained, “Cyprian Orlok is his name, and much like your father’s, it was once known throughout the Incandescence. He is very dangerous, Prospero, and the concoction your father had you imbibe is the treasure he seeks. A treasure which now flows through your veins.”

  Two hands grasped Prospero’s shoulders. Albus’ voice was dire now, as if relaying the most important message he would ever know. “No matter what happens, Prospero, Orlok cannot acquire the Beastblood. That is why you are here. Why your father led you to us. You may flee across the Celestial Ocean until the stars fade, but Orlok will hound you to the end of time if fate permits. When he reaches you - and it is a matter of when, not if - you must be prepared to oppose him.”

  It was the dire truth Prospero never wanted to hear, but which he knew to expect. His family was dead, his hometown destroyed, and now he had been tasked by a man less than ten minutes his acquaintance to oppose the indomitable force which stoked the fire to begin with.

  Albus could see the growing fear in his eyes. “What we ask of you is not easy, Prospero.”

  Before a reply could form, brimming with hesitation and refusal, the door opened, and the woman named Eliza marched in. “The townsfolk are in a panic,” she said. “Did you tell them of what transpired in Innsworm, Prospero?”

  “...I told a guardsman, yes,” he nodded. “Was that a poor idea?”

  “I’m grateful, actually. It saved me the effort,” she walked up. “Orlok cannot- has my husband told you of Orlok? In any case, he and his legion cannot travel by day. This gives us some time to evacuate the villagers before he marches at sundown.”

  “-And you, young master - you will be gone by then.” Albus returned his gaze to Prospero. “There is a man called Alto in the Port town of Glassoph to the north. He has been awaiting your arrival for many years, and has a Voidbeast prepared to take you into the Incandescence. It will not save you from Orlok, but it will buy you some time. Time you will desperately need to become stronger.”

  “I… I don’t understand,” Prospero’s throat ached. “I do not want to leave. I do not want this burden. Why is this gift you call the ‘Beastblood’ coveted so dearly by the man named Orlok?”

  “It’s only morning.” Eliza folded her arms. “Darling - take the young master out to train for a few hours. The wolves have been digging at the graves in the cemetery again, and the foresters won’t cull them no matter how many times we ask.”

  “That may be for the best. And I can recount the rest of Orlok’s history to Prospero while we do it,” Albus stood. “Follow me, young master. I’ll reveal all of the answers you seek on our way to the graveyard.”