Vampirism: On My Life of Death
There is no fanfare in this book's presentation. The title is printed plainly, in block letters, on the front. The author's name written underneath in an equal lack of exposition.
The book is bound well, to last the ages, like most of its kind on the Island.
Introduction
By Anastasia Severyna
AR 170
Seven years ago I became a Vampire before I knew what a Vampire was.
I was born and raised in the countryside of the mainland. I lived on a small homestead, with crops, animals, a loving husband and my young boy. My family is still alive, though they believe that I am dead and gone.
The actual event of my turning is not known to me. The last memories of my life were having an old friend over for dinner, followed by a commotion, and then exhaustion took me from consciousness.
I did not have a Master and, from what I have pieced together, it died sometime during my transformation. When I awoke in my root cellar, and for weeks afterward, I had not known what I was. According to my research it seems that most Vampires learn about their powers, and their hunger, by serving a Master.
Eventually I was informed of my condition by a band of criminals that found me eating rats in the basement of their pub. They employed me for a few months in their business. I had never heard of the Curse until then, and for the majority of my earliest months I barely had any control over myself. I sustained myself on the blood of animals and livestock.
I have decided to write the account of my Curse for a few reasons: I have a lot of time, it will help in teaching others of my Condition, and maybe I will learn more about myself.
While I have not met very many other Vampires capable of speaking, as opposed to the undead coteries that I have seen following Andunor's many mages, I believe that the nature of our Conditions can vary between us. Thus far many have reacted to my accounts by telling me my situation is unique.
Some of the Vampires I have met seem to enjoy their Curse.
I do not.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
What It Feels Like I
Do you have emotions? Can you feel pain? Can you feel pleasure? Do you sleep? Can you eat?
The list goes on, and I don't think I can answer all of them in a single book. I will do the best I can to elaborate in the general sense.
I think of myself as Dead; I once lived, but now I don't; I am, but I was.
There are memories of my life, my husband and my son. I remember the cool breeze, the warmth of the sun, and the joy of wine and friendship.
There was a time when I had a shadow, but now I am only that shadow.
If one wishes to know the true experience of being Undead you need but look down to your own shadow. People will eat, drink, love, and live; their shadow does all of these things too, but it does not experience them the same way the owner does.
I have no shadow of my own, no reflection of my likeness, and few experiences that match what I once valued in my life. Maybe I am the shadow? Maybe I don't even exist? Maybe this is the afterlife, or maybe I have accidentally committed a divine crime that I must atone for? I do not know.
I can do everything I once did in life, but their meaning is less material: I can eat but not taste. I can rest but not sleep. I can lay with a man but not feel warmth or pleasure. I can be wounded but not feel pain.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
What It Feels Like II
I do have emotions but they come to me in hindsight as if run through a great filter, their color drained, and deposited as mere remnants on the other side. For example: something may occur that should leave me angry, or upset, and those feelings can take minutes, or hours in rare cases, to fully emerge. By the time emotions do arrive there is little to act on, and they too are suppressed as result.
One exception, probably expected, is when I feed. I feel relief as the tide of the Black Water rolls away, and sometimes the quality of the blood itself is cause for greater relief because the tide is affected strongly. I cannot describe it as pleasure to be exact, but this relief is the strongest sensation I can feel besides such extremes as being exposed to the Sun. The Black Water will be explained soon.
There are things I do in Death that I once did in Life. I explore the countryside of this island under its moon, and even the vast caverns of its Underdark. These activities, while not the same as they were in Life, remind me of my past. It is a distant and detached pleasure, like two friends reminiscing of a shared memory, and it is in these pursuits that I can find some small spark of Life in.
I cannot sleep. For many months this small fact had near driven me to a point of madness; the boredom of waiting for the sun to fall, pacing, sitting, laying, and all the while listening to the Black Waters roll in the distance. With great practice I have since been able to enter a waking meditative state that I call Torpor. It is not sleeping, but not fully alert either.
Lastly it remains to be said that I have some desire to continue existing that I cannot account for. Why don't I just walk out into the Sun, or plunge myself into the ocean? Maybe there is some deep need to exist, or maybe the need to end is like the rest of my emotions; they have yet to arrive.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
Physical Transformation
Throughout my first months as a Vampire I greatly changed physically. It seems that this is different for every Vampire, and at least one I've found in Andunor has not changed at all. I was told that some kind of deal with otherworldly creatures had helped with this.
I once had blonde hair, brown eyes, and was about average in my height. My change was gradual, but noticeable, and according to those around me the first changes beyond my bloodless flesh were my hair and eyes.
My hair became brittle, dry, and black. I can pull large clumps of it away, to see for myself, but it quickly grows back to the length it was before I died. The hair that I pull away turns to dust shortly after. In fact anything I pull, cut, or remove from myself turns to dust.
It wasn't long after that my eyes became 'dark, with some red' according to my earliest associates. I noticed I could see very well at night, or in general darkness, and this has helped me adapt to my new life in the Underdark.
The structure of my body also changed, but this took much longer than my other attributes. I have no way to see my final appearance, but I can see that my hands have changed. My fingers had grown longer and my nails grew to sharp points. Frequently I am told that everything twisted inward, became aggressive, even when I seldom feel that way.
It almost goes without writing that I found myself to be faster, stronger, and more alert than I was in life. This extra physical strength usually is most potent after I feed.
I have no heartbeat.
My flesh takes on the ambient temperature.
I must remember to draw breath before speaking or my voice is absent, or croaks.
I must remember to blink.
I have no use of a privy. Alcohol has no effect.
I don't feel pain, but I can feel dull pressure.
There are probably many other things that I have since grown used to that elude me in the penning of this journal, but these are the most common questions and also some of the questions never asked.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
The Black Water I
Immediately before I awoke in Death I dreamt myself floating on dark waters under a star-filled sky. I could see my home on the shore. I paddled as hard as I could, but the land pulled away from it still. There was no current.
I gave up, and watched as my home vanished into darkness. The stars above me, one by one, died out. Even the moon faded like a ghost into the night. Eventually it was just me, and the rolling of the dark waves. Then I awoke.
There is no possible way for me to explain why, but I can explain what the Black Water is and what I have learned it means. In short: it is the manifestation of my very nature. It is my Hunger.
I hate it.
At all times I am surrounded by a infinite ocean of Black Water. Even now I can hear the tide as I am writing this entry, like putting my ear to a seashell, but since I have fed recently it is just at the edge of my awareness.
I know that none can see this, that it isn't real, but it exists all the same. The Black Water has a tide; the more my hunger grows, the closer the Water get. If I neglect my endless need then, eventually, the Black Water finds me. It will flow through any door, up from any brick, rain down from any ceiling. It will surround me until I drown in its Blackness.
Drowning in it is just as unpleasant as any of the living can imagine. When I am hungry my belly does not ache; I drown.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
The Black Water II
When the Black Water takes me the dream begins again: I float on the dark tide. I watch the stars die. I watch the moon fade. I am in an endless sea of senseless despair. It is the same Dreamscape every time.
Meanwhile my body hunts, and it does not care where or how it finds what it needs.
During my first weeks I roamed the wilderness, trapped with the nightmare of perpetually drowning until waking once more, somewhere else, with fresh blood on my lips and clothes. It took months to learn what the Water meant, how close it sounds before it finds me, and that when it does I will lose control.
Of the initial group of men that sheltered me, gave me work, and tried to teach me about what I am; one man dared to become more than an associate. This man through his bravery became my friend.
He was first to be betrayed by the Black Water.
I had neglected the tide because I did not like feeding on life like a parasite. One evening the Waters flowed and took me while we spoke. I drowned in it. I sat upon the dark water, watching the stars wink away, and consumed my only friend. Only a minute later did I awake again, as myself, standing over him. My efforts to not be monstrous had made me a monster.
Common fear is no longer a sensation, as the living might understand it, but I fear the Black Water. I fear it and I hate it.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
Nature
I cannot speak for all Vampires, but my Condition has come with a connection with parts of the Natural world that I cannot fully explain.
It began with wolves. In my earlier years when hunting for prey in the forests, most often deer and other large animals with enough blood to sustain me, I had attracted the attention of a wolf. I use the singular for this animal because night after night it was always the same wolf following me and watching my hunts.
After some weeks of this common occurrence I began to feel its presence, and in further weeks some kind of symbiotic communion had formed. It sounds absurd to be writing it, but we started communicating by thoughts. The beast's thoughts were never very complicated, but it clearly had somehow become an extension of my will.
I can call the wolf to me often, though in the Underdark it is not so easy to reach out to it.
My ability to communicate with animals did not end there. I discovered soon that I was able to communicate with any animal, beast, or even the spiders in the Underdark. Now, by communicate, I'm not saying that I'm barking or growling or otherwise making noises - but somehow through mere eye contact I can convey small thoughts and receive signals.
The wolf is the only animal that responds to my thoughts as if they were commands, and I haven't discovered any other way to command other creatures.
I may have the power to change myself into a wolf, but it has only happened once and only by sheer accident. As of the time of this writing I have not been able to do it again.
My research indicates that many of my kind can do these things, and even have some connection to bats. I have not had any connection with bats whatsoever.
Druids and Holy Men both claim that I am unnatural, that I do not deserve to exist, that my mere existence is an affront to Nature. Why, then, is my connection with Nature so much stronger than it was in Life?
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
The Condition's Phenomena
I won't outline every manner in which I can be destroyed or inconvenienced, but there are very common well known peculiarities about the Condition I can write about. Obviously I will leave some things unwritten.
Mirrors
I cast no reflection in mirrors, or any known surface such as water, but a mirror is not simply a mirror absent my reflection. They are direct windows to the Dreamscape. I can see the Water, I can see the stars dying, I can see the moon fading. The Dream is manifested inside of them, no matter the size, and I hate it. As far as I know they have not caused me a total loss of control, but I will break them if I must.
Shadow
I don't cast a shadow, but this is often difficult to notice unless a very hard light is on me. In places such as the Underdark, or traveling the surface under foliage or a partial moon, I don't believe it is noticeable enough to give me away.
Sunlight
Probably the most well known weakness about my kind is the Sun, and there's no point in trying to obfuscate this fact. I have no idea why the Sun hates me, but it does. I have felt its brief kiss and it is a pain well beyond description. Every part of me screams in agony. There is nothing else to write on it.
Coffin
This might be different for every Vampire, but I don't have one. I do not know if this is some kind of folklore, or reality for other Vampires, but when I choose to enter Torpor I will lay on a bed or simply stand in place.
Mist
Like a second nature I have learned how to turn myself into a kind of mist and travel great distances. Often it is easiest to travel to places I have been before, around a nexus of magic such as a portal, but there are times when I am forced into a mist. If my body is damaged heavily, such as during battle, I break apart into a mist until I can physically return. It is a highly unpleasant sensation.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia
Final Thoughts
Throughout my Death there are many, most often the dark eldar, who tell me they envy my immortality. All the definitions I can find of Immortality say that it is to live forever, but if I no longer experience Life am I really living forever, or simply existing forever?
Is the reality of this Condition, this mere shadow of existence, really what others think of? I believe what these people really wish for is to eternally enjoy Life's many pleasures. Such pleasures rarely exist for me. What they envy of me, or think they want, is not what I have.
I never wanted this Curse, and I never wanted to hurt anyone. To the best of my ability I feed on wildlife, monsters, and those who themselves are guilty of being monstrous.
Andunor has proven to be hospitable for me. The dark eldar do not seem to mind me in their midst, for all who live in this place are monstrous, and besides some of their powerful Houses and dangerous Guilds there are few here that will ever be missed. Nothing surrounding this city in the dark is good or honorable, and as a result I have yet to be taken by the Black Water since I arrived.
Day 22, Month 10 (Marpenoth (Leafall)), 170 AR
Anastasia