Prologue

In a secret compound far beneath the earth, in a dark room sat multiple men and women seated evenly around a circular table, they were holding a meeting. The largest seat held and equally large man, who while rather heavy, held the markings of one whose strength was still there, The man spoke in a deep rumbling voice that echoed across the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, you all know why we are here, to discuss the growing issue of Rogue and Feral mages.” He paused letting it sink into the others present before continuing “Through much research it has come to our attention that this particular problem was caused by our own complacency. In the haste to eradicate the Necromancers that violate the peace of the dead and the Demon worshipping Warlocks, it appears that we as a whole have further destroyed the subtle balance of magic.” As his words echoed, the other people present started to murmur and raise their voices in dissent. The woman next to the large man surveyed the others with a cold indifferent look as the squabbled amongst themselves. “ENOUGH.” The large man spoke in a near whisper, his voice carried though, soon enough the room became silent. “I realize that this is difficult to swallow for some of you, but this is a reality now.”

He looked at each of the other men and women as he spoke. “Unfortunately since all the Mages with inherent connections to Death and to a lesser extent Black magic have been neutralized by the Order headed by our overzealous counterparts in Europe, this is an irreparable truth, we cannot remedy this matter.. For now all we can do is become stricter and set our Seers and oracles to keep watch to keep ahead of these incidents.” He paused to continue when a shy timid sounding voice interrupted. “U-uh, Sir? Excuse me, but that isn’t entirely accurate.” The speaker was a younger woman, by far the youngest of those in the room, but no less influential among them. “There is one who may fit what we need, In fact he was the nephew of one of us.” She glanced at the woman whose atmosphere made one feel chills for a moment before continuing to speak. “I am sure all of you recall the raid conducted on the Coven headed by the last vampiric descendant of the being known as Dracula. “

A click and a whirring sound could be heard as a projection appeared on the wall opposite them. She waited for the assembled to reorient themselves before she continued. “We know that they had been kidnapping children and that the Order interrupted some sort of ritual sacrifice. There were two children involved in that case: Tristan Carver and Kandace Martin.” On the screen two teens were shown, one an attractive redheaded girl with a spattering of freckles across her nose, the other was a tall athletically built teen with dark, dark, black hair that contrasted with his paleness. “They were on their way home from an engagement at their school when the both of them were grabbed. Afterwards the girl Kandace was sacrificed to summon something, we are still not sure what, we think it was the firstborn of Dracula, anyways, that is what we know from our own sources.” She paused as a few of the others started to grumble as that was information they all knew previously, and they didn’t like their time to be wasted. “I was able to obtain Order Footage of the event. As you will see, it paints a different picture form what we had heard.” Another click could be heard as a video started playing on the screen. It portrayed a large cavernous room full of people, at first glance they appeared to be human, but the feral twisted look on the faces of some gave them away for what they were, Vampires.

Some of them wore ornate hoods and cloaks, others were in other modes of dress, and others still were lacking clothes at all, feasting on the blood and bodies of the unfortunate ones who were sacrificed beforehand. In the center of the room, there were two teens, the only living non-thrall humans among those present. The boy, Tristan was tied to a stake, while the girl, Kandace was secured to a stone altar, her clothes torn, revealing much of her skin. After several moments of silence a tall figure draped in heavy robes entered, and the mass of vampires parted as the figure moved towards the altar. When he reached the altar he took his hood down revealing a familiar face to the two teens, he was a teacher at their school. The man turned around and addressed the assembled vampires. “Today my brethren we shall finally succeed, these two are the sacrifices we have been looking for. One is a human descendant of our lord Dracula, the other will serve as the flesh sacrifice to bring our Mother, Our Goddess to this Plane, to us!!” as his speech ended, his eyes lit up with a frantic and fanatic gleam. The assembled vampires cheered and screamed at his words and got equally worked up.

He reached into his robes and pulled out a large ornate dagger, that had the emblem of Vlad Tepes Dracula, the son of the Dragon. At the moment he did so, the already cheering Vampires erupted into even louder noise. He moved swiftly not giving any present the time to react he plunged the dagger into Kandace’s chest, painting her clothes crimson. The blood was present for but a moment before it was absorbed into the dagger. A crimson glow arose from the dagger and settled over her trembling and shuddering form. Seeing this, Tristan’s eyes blanked out and for a moment his struggles against his bonds that had been near constant, stopped. Then shortly afterwards his struggles intensified, and his eyes turned black. A Dark aura rose around him and then expanded; causing those it hit to feel chills. The robed man looked and a look of surprise crossed his face as a sinister smile took its place. “I never expected that you would Awaken now, let alone to Awaken to Death, regardless you shall be a tasty .” It was at that moment that the constraints on him began to decay. The robed man advanced as Tristan escaped his confines and rushed at the vampire.

The vampire smirked and backhanded Tristan away, he flew back and collided with the constraining horde of vampires, but that did little to stop his momentum. All in his way scattered, either using their unnatural speed or they were knocked about like bowling pins when he impacted with them. He hit the stone wall and a crater was formed, with cracks leading from it due to the force of the impact. He spat out a massive amount of blood and much of the crater formed was painted with blood from his body. His body fell to the ground, with a sickening splat, his body lay there for but a moment before the Aura around him intensified. His wounds closed and his skin shifted as the bones rearranged and took their proper places in his body, those that were shattered by the impact reformed. Tristan arose and for a moment he floated, the sheer density of his magical aura keeping him afloat. He rushed towards the vampire, who disappeared in a blur and Tristan’s momentum stopped cold. The robed vampire held Tristan still with one hand at his throat, his arm that was in contact with the Aura visibly decayed and reformed at an astonishing rate.

“You are astonishingly strong for one to just have awoken but that matters little, your added strength will merely make you a more delicious meal.” The vampire then pulled Tristan in close and sank his fangs into the teen’s neck. Soon enough the vampire finished and opened and held it to Tristan’s mouth forcing him to ingest some of his blood. “With this we shall have another Vampire from the line of Dracula, and a mage at that, you shall be powerful.” As he spoke he dropped Tristan’s body and turned to address the vampires that had reassembled. “With this, Brethren, We have gotten stronger and soon enough our Queen will be here, aGHH, Ahem.” The Robed vampire broke out into a series of coughs and started gagging. The veins on his body could be seen turning black and his coughing started to expel dark colored things along with blood. He looked at Tristan, who was unconscious still though his form shook as the change began, a look of horror crossed the vampires face as he began to fall apart and decompose and the aura around Tristan, which had dimmed, grew stronger.

At that moment the mass of vampires was shaken by something. Blood spurted out, as a bullet impacted against the head of a vampire, the creature crumpled to the ground. Soon enough the same scene could be seen around the cavern, as heavily armed people entered and started engaging the previously distracted vampires. Soon enough the battle became evenly matched as the Vampires turned more attention to the intruders. During the chaos enfolding around him, Tristan regained consciousness for a moment. He crawled slowly towards the Altar, where Kandace still lay with the dagger embedded in her chest and a crimson glow around her. He reached the Altar and grasped the stone lip at the top staining it with his blood as he shakily rose. He grasped the dagger and pulled it out of her chest. The lack of blood in her body showed when no blood flowed out of the large wound in her chest. The crimson glow around her shook for a moment and dimmed before disappearing into her. Tristan pulled at her body and he staggered back and fell down next to the altar. He settled next to it with Kandaces body lying across him, he checked her pulse, and there was none. Engrossed as he was in this, he didn’t notice the chaos around them dying down, as he extended a hand to cup her pale face, his action was interrupted by an arrogant mocking voice.

“Well will you look at this touching sight, really it is lovely and sweet.” The speaker was a tall handsome man dressed in gaudy white robes. Hope appeared in Tristan’s eyes for a moment before they dimmed as he saw the look in the other man’s eyes. “Normally we have ways to stop the Change, but here is different. You see kid, you are different you Awakened, so with help could fight off the Change, but unfortunately you Awoke to a taboo magic. Sorry about this kid, but you gotta go.” As that was sinking in the man pulled a gun and shot Tristan between the eyes. He then turned around and yelled to the others “Ok, that’s a wrap folks, lets burn the bodies and collapse this place for clean up, then have the Government stooges mop up any loose ends.” As they left and the footage moved with them, the rearmost people tossed silver spheres behind them, which erupted into flame, and the room started to shake and crumble as it collapsed on top of itself. No one noticed when one of the prone forms near the altar rose. There was a click as the image disappeared and the footage ended.

“As you can see Ladies and Gentlemen, they did not tell us the entire truth about the incident.” The lady spoke briefly before pausing for a moment to let what they had seen settle in. “After I obtained this footage I had some investigations done and had found traces of the boy. For around a few months after this incident there were reports of a being fitting his description that took care of troublesome beings. He also got into altercations with some of the Agents of the SSD and a few members of the Order, each altercation ended with his death, but he did not stay dead. From what our researchers have been able to determine, because of the lake of Inherent Death mages, when it Awoke in him the magic sought to create an anchor, simply put, His magic will not let him die. As for the girl, we have not seen her so we think she is dead, we are not aware of anything concerning what they tried to summon.” She looked at the other men and women and awaited a response. The large man spoke and said “We shall put plans into motion for this, until something better can be thought of, agreed?” The assembled nodded or gave their assent in some other way.