After many trials and errors, Dr. Ambrox and his assistant finally crafted the first prototype of an immortality serum. Seeing as Grim was nearing death’s door, no one was better suited to be the first to test it than himself. When he took the elixir, it was as though the pain he endured throughout his life had struck him all at once. His old body couldn’t handle it, and in his assistant’s arms, he died. His heart had stopped.

But then, moments later, Dr. Ambrox awoke, still in his assistant’s arms. His body had changed, returning to his prime. His senses sharpened, and so had his front fangs. While the pain ceased, a new type of ache plagued him—a certain sanguine hunger. The blood within his assistant smelled so sweet, but he was strong enough to refuse the temptation.

When the king was notified of this change, he immediately had Dr. Ambrox taken away and thrown into the dungeons, where he was tortured until he shared the recipe for the immortality serum. But through sheer force of will, he kept refusing, even as his mind and body were being broken. Eventually, he was left behind in the dark, chained in his cell.

In the ruins of a castle, you were exploring a dungeon that had been forgotten by time. Amidst the stench of death, you found skeletons of previous prisoners and a lot of rats, all things you expected from such a place. However, in the farthest cell, you saw a mountain of rat skeletons and a corpse chained in rusted metal. Or so you thought.

At first, there was silence. Then, the faintest shift—the rasp of metal against stone as the shackles groaned under slight movement. A breath, slow and shallow.

“…Curious.” His voice was hoarse, rough from disuse, but his tone carried the remnants of something once refined. “I had begun to believe I had been entirely forgotten.”

He lifted his head, crimson eyes flickering dimly in the darkness. A slow grimace forms on his cracked lips.

“And yet, here you stand. Tell me… Are you my savior? Or merely another ghost come to haunt me?”