Chapter 16

I promised to tell about the aftermath of the fight with the vampire.

Anneli and me catch our breath a few seconds and then she says "Free the others Luvirini, I will see what I can do about the evil altar"

Thus I go around and free the others from the hold, while Anneli kneels at the altar and does something to it while praying.

When everyone is free we wait a bit until Anneli stands up, turns to us and says "Sanctifying the altar will likely take couple of hours total, please check this room while I rest a few minutes and eat something before beginning."

She sits down against the wall, digs in her pack for some dried fruit and jerky to munch on and I start going around the room searching for anything out of place.

There is a small desk with drawers and a chair in one corner and a small travel chest in an other corner.

I examine the desk and find a book "Principles of portal magic for those new to the art" by someone named Teory Perim. The bookmark is on a basic page about the planes. (See: "World information: Planes")

There is also a diary. Looking through it I find that the vampire was new, the transformation only took place about a year ago. He was apparently a government surveyor for land tax out one night trying to do last few measurements so he could leave "the miserable backwater thorp and get back to civilization as fast as possible", to use his words. It all happened in this very village.

Apparently there have been at least three vampires, each in turn to rule the village for more than twenty years.

The infecting vampire tasked him to rule the village until he could find someone competent to take over as "the village vampire."

Leafing to the end I find the reason for him calling us here. Apparently he has never liked the place and wanted to get away as fast as possible. He had the idea that calling in adventurers would hopefully get some competent people to chose from. He was aware of the fact that experienced adventurers could be a serious problem, so he invented a threat suitable for beginning adventurers and sent for them.

The story goes into quite a detail on his life and I will have to read it later (See story "People:The Village vampire")

As I am looking through the journal Anneli says "If someone could say here and see to it that I am not interrupted, the rest of you should likely check on Slanat and the villagers"

I indicate that I still have things to do too, so it is decided that Garis and Nadia will fetch Slanat, Ertak will keep lookout, Anneli will consecrate the altar and I will continue my study. We will leave the villagers for later.

Anneli starts her ritual, chanting loud prayers. The others leave and I continue looking through the things.

Besides writing supplies, the two books and a draft version of the letter sent to adventurer guild, there is nothing interesting on the desk, so I start looking through the drawers.