Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Creating Vampires Will Never Hurt You
Date	8/18/25
Storyteller	Jolyne
Tier	All tiers; priority was handed to those with more relevance to Melfyra
Player Characters	Kora Caroli, Illiam Elro, Zeal, Vara
Rewards	150xp, 1x Theatrical Mutagen (Lesser), 1x Wayfinderfinder, 1x Alcohol, 1x Cayden's Brew to each player character
Result	Successfully determined the cause of commotion and recovered Melfyra!
Author	naokikozo
Downtime	3

Associates associated with a very associative associate worked together to find said associate and another individual who had a coincidental run-in with said associate. There is a vampire linked to this incident.

(The report, though Kora's, is drier than it typically is. Best to assume she was more careful while writing.)

Log

As the freshest of us on this quest comparatively speaking, I took it upon myself to record the events that transpired; the pros handled the legwork of this mystery~. Thanks to our dear receptionist Janet's observations, Illiam, Zeal, Vara, and I rushed to see if something happened to Melfyra - each of us with our own reasons. Just hours ago, she was minding her business in delivering a log of her own when another man took note of her features and fled in abject terror. Melfyra herself did not take well to his reaction and disappeared from everyone else's sight. When the four of us approached Janet, she would divulge all she knew.

The individual was a human with short brown hair who did not seem like a known face in Onadbyr. Janet put him at about 5'1" with slight stubble, though she did not absorb any other features of his. Supposedly he did not drop anything, but Vara quickly disproved this when we went to investigate the location of the encounter. Me knowing Melfyra, she could not have dropped a particular ring, but the man sure did. Upon further inspection it was a wedding band! While that still did not tell us enough about the man, it was at this time that Illiam figured Melfyra would have gone somewhere she did not wish to be found. If she feared for her life more than anything, that had to have been the correct conclusion - and it was.

We went to Illiam's shop Elro Leatherworks, where my "big sibling" cast Pinpoint. They quickly determined that Melfyra was about four days away on horseback from Lancaster, in a cave. Vara figured Melfyra must have teleported away at precisely 100 miles from the city, but the other man of concern must not have fled nearly as far. Illiam recalled that Melfyra had an escape plan all prepared in case she ever suspected that she might be at risk of being hunted down. It all stemmed from her basement... Apparently said place had defenses even I wasn't aware of! Given it was around three in the afternoon when we began our search, we figured it would be expedient to track down the seemingly normal man first.

Back to the scene of the fright, Vara, ever the bloodhound, got the man's shoe prints. That was the first step to tracking him down. Our focus was thrown off, however, when Illiam and I noticed bats up in the sky... Bats with fangs? The sight made us think of vampires! They circled around where we were just heading. I spoke with them via telepathy, but they flew off as I did. As that went on, Zeal was even more studious of the bats. If they were vampiric in nature, how was it they had no issues flying in broad daylight? Even so, they were still abnormal enough to have intelligence on par with the average humanoid. Vara divined that they were most likely were-bats. Though I know less of the variety of creatures above shore, it was wiser to trust my friends' judgement.

As it would be difficult to reach the were-bats, we decided to proceed with our search of the scared man. The footprints led us to a tavern in town, busy but not to the point where it was a maze to tread through. We spread out, and I spotted someone in the corner who matched Janet's description! In light of recent events, his mannerisms indicated that he did not want to garner any attention. I subtly got the others to pay heed to the man, just in case he might run off again. With a gentle touch, I initiated conversation to him. Belethor, so he goes by, is quite afraid of vampires. His fear stemmed from his hometown, which is located about thirty days' worth of travel from our city. His home had the misfortune of being taken over by a vampire who took a stark resemblance to our dear Melfyra. When the rest of the team gathered to him and asked more, Belethor declined to speak much more about the subject. Rather, something kept him from loosening his lips any further.

I was sure this behavior couldn't have been Melfyra's doing. This isn't like the lady I know. Illiam stepped forward to affect a curse placed on Belethor if there was one, on his back. While the villain of this story did indeed put a spell of sorts on him, it was less a curse and more a rune trap. Going by the differences, a curse would have prevented him outright from having the ability to say more, while a rune trap made it so that Belethor would experience a terrible fate if he let on more than was allowed. Truly, we have yet another nightmare to contend with. Not one to be deterred, Illiam made an attempt to dispel the trap altogether. In their first attempt, we were not able to gather much other than that the vampire was an extremely powerful caster if they could give Illiam this much trouble. Luckily, Illiam refused to back down and successfully rebuffed the rune trap ritual, just enough to disarm it! We witnessed light phase out of Belethor's mouth, and he looked like he was doing better.

To confirm that the trap really was rendered a non-issue, the poor man revealed our suspect's name: Lefarym. No further harm befell him, and since our own reality merged with another, common sense told us that Melfyra has an evil doppelganger that we should be on the lookout for. This is a difficult matter to explain, but if we are to pursue this Lefarym, it would best be done at a later time after we get a much better lead. Though, we were close enough to grasping one after all; the were-bats we saw before were under instruction to watch Belethor so that he would spread word of a strong vampire. It felt like a sick game where the poor man's life would be basically horrible because sky-bound eyes were nigh always on him, and Melfyra was indirectly put at risk of wrongful defamation! We requested Belethor to pretend he was still scared spitless. If it might buy us time, our hope was that the act could keep Lefarym distracted. Before we parted ways, we returned his missing wedding band to him. By misfortune, it slipped off his finger when he ran off from Melfyra earlier.

With one objective down, we needed to track down Lefarym's bat swarm and find/reassure Melfyra. Since her location was quite a ways from town, the group agreed to begin with the bats. Vara's mark on them made it all too easy to triangulate the fanged fools. In fact, they were still in the city! We caught them squabbling amongst themselves on the ground, taking up humanoid guises. In seconds, Zeal scared them nearly to death, and the one were-bat that shifted into a flying form had nowhere to run, courtesy of yours truly~. Zeal followed up with a big bear hug to uh... "Zeal" the deal. I made that up just now.

With that, we had ourselves an easy interrogation. Vara confirmed none of the bats were rune-trapped; Lefarym made the error of trusting her subordinates too much. Getting them to talk, they figured either we were going to kill them or their boss would. It was but a foregone conclusion that we peacefully convinced them to cooperate. They had to travel for 30 days just to get to Onadbyr from Belethor's home. These folk can fly for so long, it's amazing they have such resilience. They went by a mountain pass, most likely flying over a certain Lancaster on the way. To ensure they could be trusted to tell us more, Zeal and Vara would transfer the were-bats to the grave knights' cells where they would be held for further questioning. It is doubtful they can escape, given their fear of anything that could risk swift termination.

With every other hiccup out of the way, the four of us - still Illiam, Vara, Zeal, and I - were able to travel in three days' time to where Melfyra most likely was. Right on point! Spotting a cave, we entered via stairs. There was a campfire not far in, and it looked like the path was going strong... Melfy! More and more flora covered the terrain, suggesting we were close to our friend. There was a wall of thorns blocking our path, but it dissipated quickly almost as if it recognized us. We found our more prominent person of interest curled up and panicking on the other side of what looked like a glowing anvil. The room she was in had a lot of water - no issue for me, though there were plenty of stones for everyone else to traverse. Melfyra muttered in her distress. Unable to bear her gloom any longer, I gave her a big hug (which she returned~) and assuaged her of fear. It slowed Melfy's pulse, but it was not enough to fully relieve her of her nerves. I called in Zeal and Vara (the former's aura helped us), who got close by; Illiam who was a closer friend to Melfyra than I was her, um, let's say affectionate other, was the only other person who willingly stood close.

Melfy was hungry... She must not have had sufficient rations to camp out in her secluded hideout for the days that she kept to herself. Illiam cut their hand open for blood, which my gal accepted. It helped comfort Melfyra a little more... The poor soul was doing better, but this was where I had to pull out the big guns. From past experience, I knew how Melfyra felt great fascination in the world below sea level. So as to calm her down further, I shared ten minutes' worth of my memories with her in an instant, and that helped as well. At this point, Melfy was more responsive, revealing she had been well aware of Lefarym all along. The fiend! There was another duplicate of a former associate (Kagari, may they rest in peace), and it stood to reason that the reality merge caused... problems. Melfyra wondered if she and everything in her life was even real. Naturally, we were not about to let a good friend spin into an identity crisis.

Illiam helped convince her the doppelgangers of the older associates are mere cartoonish caricatures of ourselves. With me reminding her of her paintings - especially of her abode in Lancaster, as well as a double dose of something I shan't mention on this log~, I could tell her heart was back on course. We were lucky we made it to Melfyra when we did; she could only subsist on rations for so long. With our mission all but a success, Melfyra pulled out a recently recharged wand to teleport us back to Onadbyr. We found ourselves in her basement, with naught a worry about the defense mechanism! Janet did not have anything for us, but Melfyra's safety was all I- no, we needed.

To end this log on a more positive note, we all spotted a new frame among Melfyra's collection of art. It looks like she has been attempting to make a self-portrait with as much reliance as a vampiress can get out of a mirror! While admirable, if you ask me, Melfyra's beauty cannot be captured by mere art! If you wish to see one's true beauty, you must bear witness to their inner radiance! Conversely, if you are on the hunt for a dark and dreary ambience, look no further than Lefarym, the pretender!