This is the first part of my playthrough of Tim Hutchings’ Thousand Year Old Vampire. To see my overview of the game, click HERE, and to see the cast of characters and the origin of Nathaniel Morrison, vampire, click HERE.
THE JOURNAL OF NATHANIEL MORRISON, ADVISOR TO DUKE RUTHERFORD
November 20, 15xx
Disaster has struck! My existence as one of the undead has been surprising in many ways. For instance, I have heard told that those of my kind cannot bear the sun’s light, for we are creatures of the night. While it is true that I feel much stronger and more alert under the moon’s cool glow, the sunlight does me no harm. Also, I have made my way to the chapel to see what effect the hallowed ground might have, and I was puzzled to find that the visit was as meaningless as it would have been had I been alive. It seems there is much superstition surrounding vampirism–which is a thought, in hindsight, I would have never imagined I would have to contemplate.
As I have stated, though, all is not well. One part of the vampire myth that is true is that I require the blood of the living in order to quench my thirst–which by the way, is now my only need for sustenance. I have begun to lure the curious, those who have heard rumors of my occult dabblings, to my tower, so that they may view my library and examine my altar-chamber. Then, while they are distracted by the mysterious wonders my tower holds, I take their lives. It is…surprisingly easy, both in the physical sense and in the emotional sense.
I am not entirely cold-blooded, I have unfortunately discovered. This evening, whilst supping upon a young lady of the court–some niece of a cousin of a baron, my own patron and friend Lord Rutherford came to visit. He found me in the midst of my kill, and immediately ran off. I knew that I had to stop him, to explain myself, and that I would not lie to him. Elliot Rutherford has been a kinder man than any other nobleman I have ever met, and if I could only talk to him, I could convince him that I am not a monster, that I am the same Nathan he has known all these years.
I leapt out of my tower window and landed quite hard on the ground below. The fall would have killed me prior to my transformation, and I had not attempted such a feat since that fateful night. As Elliot left my tower, I caught him by the shoulders, shaking him. “Elliot, brother-of-mine, I can explain!”
He threw himself back into my tower and made the sign of the cross. “Back, foul creature!” he yelled. And indeed, I must have looked like a demon, my face and clothes covered in blood, and that dark, shadowy aura surrounding me, growing darker. “In the name of Christ, I drive you back!”
I approached him, and he ran back up the tower stairs. I should have let him run, trapping him in the tower’s heights until he could calm down, but instead, I gave chase. “Elliot, I can explain!”
I entered the ritual chamber, where Elliot stood at the window, shouting for help. “Elliot, it is me, your friend Nathaniel. Please, let me speak.”
Lord Rutherford glared at me, hatred replacing the fear in his eyes. “I always knew that what you did here was a blasphemy before God, but I should have known that there were no limits to your depravity!”
I was taken aback. I had not known Elliot to be a religious man, and this confession that he had long held a distrust of my character was a slap in the face. “Elliot, please–“
“Do not speak my name! I banish you from this tower! When the bishop hears about this, he will surely have you burned alive for this abomination!”
And he was right. I had no recourse here. Even if I could convince him that I was not a vampire, he had seen me murder a young woman, and one that would be missed. If word got out about what I had done, well–
Before I had even finished the thought, I quickly moved and pushed my friend out the window, to his death. I would clean up after my other crime, then plead that the death of Lord Rutherford was a drunken accident. He was, after all, a man of huge, destructive appetites of late.
And so it was that I lost by dearest friend in the world, the first of my crimes that left me feeling diminished, less than human rather than greater. Perhaps I truly was a monster after all.
Chapter one postmortum.
Mechanical considerations and my updated character sheet appear on the next page.