Part
One
The vampire sits at his ancient chair, the legs of the chair creaking from the effort. He sighs, running thin fingers along the worn oak edge of his desk, then reaches for a quill, inkwell, and parchment in a drawer.
It’s been an age since he’s written anything of note. Too long, he realizes, tapping the quill on the page, attempting to summon the words he wishes to impart.
He begins with a thin line across the top of the page, scrawling “150 YEARS AGO” in elegant script, the letters of his language looping and connecting to create a sublime tapestry of refinement.
Leaning forward, he begins his tale. He writes,It is my hope this short tome will explain things better than my spoken words ever could.
A single lit candle flickers nearby, dripping wax onto its stand in the dark study room. He’s surrounded by shelves filled with scrolls and dusty books he hasn’t opened in years. It’s better if the people he associates with don’t know of the tomes’ existence.
He readjusts his weight, eliciting another groan from his high-backed seat, before his quill begins to move with the memories of a distant life filling his mind.
The world looked much different than it does today, a century and a half ago. In those days, Haven was a simple mountain city crafted by the best hands humanity had to offer.
Stonemasons, artificers, carpenters, craftsmen. They worked together to build the bones of this place among the clouds, which would one day become a sprawling metropolis infested by dangerous inhabitants.
A hundred fifty years ago, Haven was a mountain border town, a halfway point. Humans built the city to act as such,providing trade routes and, more importantly, toll roads, to the regions in the north and south below the mountains.
What are now known as the Olhavian Peaks were simply the rigid obstacles that stood in the way of two disparate kingdoms. The mountains were a natural border, providing defense against high winds and armies.
Haven acted as a buffer between the northern and southern kingdoms, which regularly warred and attacked one another. Acting as neutral grounds, it’s no wonder the budding city became popular and attractive to both kingdoms.
For a time, things were peaceful. Trade forced Haven to rapid growth, both kingdoms finding usefulness in a place free from banditry, religion, or even laws.
Of course, in such a lawless, new land, things could not last peacefully forever. Faith and religion were the first to grind the city down. Robber barons and road bandits were next, the opportunists of this world finding a place ripe with coin free for the taking. Merchants from both kingdoms hired mercenaries and escorts along the mountainous trade routes to protect their affairs. The paid militias fought each other, in time, becoming little more than bandits themselves, and Haven became just one more stronghold to be conquered.
The conquering came slowly, at first. These diverse changes caused a government to form in Haven, to enact some sort of framework for protection against the outside forces attempting to bully their way into the Havian way of life.
As Haven expanded its size, stretching from one end of the peaks to the other, encapsulating the entirety of the summit valleys cut into the tops of the ridges, smaller factions and fiefs sprouted up. There was too much coin passing through to go unmolested and uncontrolled.
Farm owners became rich men. Their workers became slaves and serfs. Class struggle erupted, and within years thelocations across the peaks became known as Haven East and Haven West, with neither faction conceding nor dealing with the other. Armies were hired, fences and walls were erected, and the early days of a peaceful existence were dashed.
Just north, toward the base of the peaks, came the discovery of the silver mines. The Haven factions built a tenuous truce to work the mines. New coinage was minted, the land was wealthy with opportunity, and many people from the war-torn kingdoms south and north swarmed the mountains to partake in the growing, bustling cityscape.
Politics emerged within the Haven factions. Within these groups, a fetching, cunning woman met a handsome nobleman—if he could be called that—named Odael Zey.
Back then, a nobleman was simply a landowner. Councilman Odael became a preeminent fixture within Haven society, and his cunning wife went along for the ride.
Her name was Alacine.
A hundred-thirty years ago or thereabouts, Alacine and Odael bore a son. This son would become a man of some importance much later, though at the time he was simply a know-nothing whelp caught in a shifting confluence of ideas, politics, and scheming. He was reared in the tumultuous life of court politicking and backstabbing.
Noblewife Alacine, it can be said, was the worst schemer of them all. Of course, no one at this time knew her true intentions, least of all her husband, Councilman Odael Zey.
Their young son was smart like his mother and arrogant like his father. A dangerous combination for one so young. He was a self-important youth, reading constantly, drawing from philosophies around the world, learning all he could. His mother was his heroine, because he saw how she plotted in the shadows a rise that would benefit both her and her child.
In hindsight, it’s quite ironic a thing so forbidden and menacing in the current day would be so hopelessly sought-after and promising at the time.
The silver mines. An abyss that would cut deeper and deeper into the earth as the years passed, fueled by human greed and the need for evermore wealth, without any of the Havians knowing what awaited them within the deepest pits.
Because it was from this cavernous abyss glittering with silver veins of wealth and prosperity that the first vampires in written Havian record were discovered.
We make them sound like such an ancient thing, the vampires. And they might be. Yet in Haven, once the shining beacon of what humanity could offer if given the right tools and ideas to prosper? Well, even now, there are those of a certain age, either living or, more likely, undead, who would remember a time before the vampire infestation of the mountain city.
It’s another cruel twist of irony that the vampires once called home to the caves that provide the very element which is their greatest weakness.
