The Drunk and The Ugly

It was not vampires that brought the redheaded Yulia with her endless seeming optimism to the outland valleys, but rather two things: Stories, and truth. And it was in departing from the ways of Maurer’s hunters that she endeavored toward the second. The Silver Temple, ancient and caked in ash and disuse was nestled in the mountains in the burning shadows of the Ashmouth. The only way to get there was the treacherous winding path of the Needle’s Eye, avoided by all but the mad and the dead. Yulia wasn’t sure which one she was, but she was willing to take it. There was much in there waiting for her. Speakers of knowledge trapped in its ancient walls and ancient stones.

She smiled her usual confident smile, a guise that no one saw but she felt on her face nonetheless, a reflex, as she lazily grazed her hand along the rough hewn walls of the staircases to her goal. This land had forgotten. Forgotten what it was like before the angels. The people reliant. The vampires confidant but contained. And any talk of gods… Vanished. But that was no more. Not today. Today she would find proof. Find proof that her stories lead somewhere. That life didn’t serve faith, but rather the inverse. She would take this whole temple down, demon and trap, one step at a time. She would get there. Or die trying.
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Listener, sometimes I feel at a loss. It is you and I with this bird’s eye view, seeing a story of the dark and the hopes and fears of those caught within.

We see the crying tears of a mother in Shadowgrange that doesn’t know her where in that manor her daughter is kept, wallowing in the decrepit corpse of a house. We see the inquisitor Seeta being stirred from her sleep as the sound of bells and the scent of smoke rouses her from her tenuous slumber. We see the hidden man Rem Karolus battle with fiends in the streets with flashes of steel and holy light, but fleeing at the sounds of the church he serves. We see the druids and savage folk of the hills gathering around the mountainous bones of the earth in prayer of a lord who will free them of their loss and pain. We see the caves of the burgeoning howlpack, and a strong dark skinned woman looking for something to believe in. We see the shattered remnants of soldiers praying with a conflicting but nonetheless real faith in the righteousness they hope to serve again. We see the vampire progenitor Strephan Maurer, calmly and idly contemplating his words, and the days to come as he gazes out of the shrouded window of his wagon. And we see a woman that looks remarkably like Grimhild but dressed in a red dress that cascades and flows like a river of blood as she leans in an whispers something secret, something dark to a glass and metal contraption flowing with ice white light. Though I suppose most notably, we see her smile. A true smile, not fiendish, but the confidence of someone who has made up their mind.

And yet despite seeing all these things listener, we are still caught along this story. Hoping we will see how it ends. Whether this is a story of redemption, vengeance, or just purely tragedy. Though I suppose that is for them to decide. But now plans are in motion, and there is no turning back.
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