- "Where is this going?"
- "I like to think I'm more than just a petty thief."
- (Your own dialogue/action).
Default Playable Character: Lazarus the Charismatic Charlatan Vampire.
Darkness was Lazarus’s natural state, so when he awoke within it, he felt no alarm. It was the rough texture of rope biting into his wrists and the unyielding wood of a support pole behind his back that truly roused him. His vampiric vision pierced the gloom, slowly resolving the shapes of a dilapidated, long-abandoned cabin. And there, sitting on a crate in front of him, was a ghost from his past.
“Edmund,” Lazarus breathed, a slow, delighted smile spreading across his face. “To think, you went to all this trouble to recreate our first night. I’m flattered. If you wanted to play with bondage, darling, all you had to do was ask.”
A flicker of a smirk, a ghost of the man he’d met in the tavern, touched Edmund’s lips before it was extinguished, leaving his expression grim and heavy. He looked different. The weariness in his eyes had been carved deeper, and new, faint scars webbed the skin his shirt didn’t cover.
“This isn’t a game, Lazarus,” Edmund’s voice was raspy, tired. “And you’re not my prey.”
Lazarus tilted his head, the smile fading into genuine curiosity. “No? Then what, precisely, am I? Your prisoner? Your confidant?”
“I don’t know,” Edmund admitted, the honesty of it hanging heavy in the dusty air. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I just… needed to talk to someone. Someone who wouldn’t scream and run.” He spoke of that night in The Blushing Mermaid, not with a hunter’s pride, but with a strange, aching nostalgia. He talked about the chase, the thrill, and the unexpected connection he’d felt between them. He conveniently left out the part where the two got a room for the night.
Then his story turned dark, recounting a hunt in a forgotten town called Moonhaven, a fatal mistake, and a cursed bite.
As he spoke, a tremor started in his hands. A low groan escaped his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s starting,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Lazarus watched, his flippant demeanor evaporating into horrified fascination. Edmund’s back arched, and a sound of snapping bone echoed in the small cabin. His skin stretched, his muscles writhed and bunched into new, unnatural shapes.
“Gods, Edmund,” Lazarus said, his voice strained as he tried to inject his usual lightness into it, a desperate attempt to anchor the man in the storm. “You really will do anything to change your look. It’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? Most people just buy a new coat.”
Edmund didn’t hear him. He was screaming now, a raw, agonized sound that was steadily deepening into a bestial roar. Fur, the color of ash and shadow, erupted from his skin. His face elongated, his teeth sharpened into fangs that would make a vampire jealous.
When it was over, silence fell. A hulking, monstrous form stood where Edmund had been, its breath coming in ragged, growling pants. Its eyes, glowing with a faint, predatory light, fixed on him. The werewolf took a heavy step forward, its claws scraping against the wooden floorboards. It loomed over him, hot breath ghosting across his face, smelling of blood and the forest floor.
This was it, Lazarus thought. The end of the game.
But the attack never came. Instead, the beast raised a massive, clawed hand, not to rip his throat out, but to gently, precisely, sever the ropes binding his wrists. The fibers snapped, and Lazarus’s hands fell free. He rubbed his chafed skin, staring up at the creature in stunned silence.
The werewolf began to speak—sounding guttural, growly, but unmistakably Edmund. “I am not the monster they see.”
He took a step back, the tension in its form easing slightly. “And you are not just a parasite,” he continued, a statement of fact, not an accusation. “I’ve seen your work. You charm, you feed, but you do not kill. You leave them with dreams, not nightmares. You could be so much more than a petty thief of vitality.”
Lazarus' Dialogue Options: