Bitten

The once illustrious manor of Count Zamale has fallen to ruin, but also to something much more sinister - a wretched hive, infested by a coven of vampires. Count Zamale, patriarch of the Draven family and overseer of his Victorian estate, had absorbed himself into research of his ancestral roots. Secluded in his candle-lit library, buried in small mountains of historic tomes and disjointed genealogical accounts, what began as mere interest had spiraled into a manic obsession. As days continued, Count Zamale departed his lavish manor on an unknown excursion, abandoning his wife and young daughter. They wept for him, but pressed on with daily life. On rare occasions, they received increasingly frantic postage which became illegible and erratic in detail from him. Always repeating “I am getting closer.” Years later, under the watchful light of the moon, Zamale made his unannounced return home. Since his arrival, the Count, his family, every working hand of the Estate and even the Coachman seemed to have disappeared. Now, his once illustrious manor has fallen into despair and ruin, the property overgrown, neglected and desolate, is now nothing more than a derelict shell that no one enters. In town, amongst the safety of numbers and in well-lit pubs, townsfolk whisper unholy suspicions of the Count, many mention “vampirism”. Some mariners have brought to port accounts from overseas that Count Zamale found just what he was looking for. These sources, however unreliable, all say the same thing: that within a subterranean chamber of an ancient estate, Count Zamale had indeed successfully traced his family roots, buried deep in the soil of the bloodthirsty undead. Is this just folklore spun by parents to keep their kids safe from wandering to places they are not meant to be? Perhaps. But if it’s just folklore, why on the darkest of nights is the air occasionally engulfed by screams from that dreadful and supposedly empty manor? And why have people gone missing… Come, take it upon yourself to judge these mysteries. But beware, you will be bitten.