The Sun is setting, another day gone in torpor, Manfred climbs out of his coffin
He thought he heard something while resting, and indeed, Igor had decorated the crypt, to celebrate his 231st birthday. Manfred sighs, ‘I should have been dead for over one and a half century by now, gone and forgotten’. And while i am dead for over two centuries, I have not been forgotten at all, at least not by igor.
‘Nights like these make me want to crawl under a heavy tombstone and never wake up, but that would be to give up, and a Carstein never gives up!‘ he tells himself. leaving the crypt and entering the house in search of breakfast, he sees Phaere, who knows enough not to congratulate him, instead she excuses for not forbidding igor to decorate it all, ‘sorry, i have been busy with academy matters, it slipped my mind’. ‘At least you can congratulate yourself on not letting the beast inside taking over for another year’ she says. He nods and walks to the cellar where his blood is stocked. ‘You know you are the sole reason it has not taken over, I was damn close when you found me all those years ago’ he tells her.
Sipping a vintage beverage, he ponders the rising of a vampire clan somewhere in the lone isles, ‘bloody stupid, the lot of them, as if being a vampire is something to be proud of, I am a human, born and raised, my family was human, but they are all gone now, only I am left of the once great house of the Carsteins’ He thinks back on the night it happened, going to rescue the millers daughter from the clutches of the local Vampire clan back in Sylvania. Though noone knew about vampires then, he thought it would be some goblins, or maybye some lizardmen who abducted her, maybye some of those pesky elves, never such dread monsters as he did encounter though. He still remebers the taunting of the packleader when they overpowered him ‘you are one of us now’ he said, after having bitten him, ‘we will live in your castle now and feed of the locals without fear of retribution’. ‘Never’ he said, and lopped of the head of the leader with his sword, ‘I will never be as you!’.
‘Igor’ he shouts, ‘take down that decoration, there is nothing to celebrate today, and saddle my mount, i have monsters to kill!’
