Author’s note: I’ve recently started a PF2 stream with a few friends on the Twitch channel Roll the Role. The premise: A crew of dhampirs with the same ‘sire’ have banded together to make coin, a name for themselves, and sort out their complicated past and future. This flashback takes place after session session 5.
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Years before…
Absolom seemed to be the place to start. Where else to plan but in the city at the center of the world?
Anna dismissed her driver, sending her off with some coin and a glowing reference. The Kellid woman seemed relieved to go. Ever since taking the position, she’d had nightmares and had been growing ever weaker. Her once ruddy complexion had become sallow and pale. Obviously, traveling in this soft, hot land was taking its toll on her.
Obviously.
Anna set up in a small apartment her father had set up for ‘business.’ As the business was less than gentlemanly, it wasn’t a part of his holdings that the rest of the family knew about. She could remain there unperturbed… mostly.
Lucia kept to herself, mostly hovering in corners, watching Anna sort through papers. She sometimes offered a morose comment, but she was hardly one for conversation. Left to her own devices, Anna noticed that the spirit tended towards household tasks. She even took to braiding Anna’s hair, which was just as well: It wasn’t as if Anna could hire a proper staff.
Still, it was curious, and a clue. Had the spirit been a lady’s maid?
Whatever she had been, a conversationalist she was not. Anna was never overly social, but her time at The Acadamae had given her a taste for company. She found she regretted not doing more to bring back poor Everett, and missed the uneasy banter between herself and Maizon. She wondered if he had made his way to the Magaambya. Perhaps she could visit… but no, that would be too much of a distraction. Besides that, she had read up on the arcane college’s moral bent. She doubted her research would be welcome there.
She sighed. It was a pointless train of thought, at any rate. While she hadn’t been explicit, Maizon was no fool. He realized what she was, and had left as soon as humanly possible. Anyone who realized would quit her company out of ignorant fear and, she had to admit, valid concerns.
She ran her tongue over her sharp cuspid, and an idea came to her. Mortals would flee, but if they were like her…
Her father said little about her condition, save that it was an unfortunate side-effect of his attempt to break the family’s curse. He would obliquely mention a visitor, some sort of expert, in unguarded moments, but if she pressed, he would change the subject. She moved to a trunk that she had yet to unpack and opened it. She hadn’t packed much when she left, but she did take what couldn’t be replaced: The LeClerche registry and journals.
It was the custom amongst the noble class to keep track of who visited the estate, when, and for how long. After all, one never knew when a biographer might see fit to immortalize you, and you would want to prove that you had hosted illustrious individuals. More practically, it allowed the house staff to prepare for a returning guest.
Anna flipped through the leather bound journal, scanning until she got to her birth. No, she knew all these names… family, clergy, healers. Back further, then. Few visitors during her mother’s confinement. A dinner party with cousins. A visit from some of father’s business associates. And then…
She found it. Her blood turned to ice.
Julian. A viscount, with a family name she can barely make out. He stayed for a month, so obviously a traveler from far. That month? Nine months before her birth.
She did some quick mental math. A human pregnancy is 40 weeks, but two of those weeks don’t count. Her mother may have already been with child when he arrived… or Anna may have arrived early.
She stared at the name. She had her father’s journals, but she’d never seen mention of a Viscount, nor a Julian. She’d read over the events of her birth more times than she could count on the way to Absolom, and outside of family and healers, there were no visitors. Her father had always been a voracious journaler, never leaving out a detail of leading his household. Would he have been able to resist recording such an auspicious visit?
Of course not. Not unless he wanted to hide something…
She found herself looking around the sitting room. The accommodations were lush in a way her home never was: Deep, soft fabrics, overstuffed divans, candleholders placed just so in order to give guests a lovely glow to their skin, suggestive paintings of fruit and scantily clad nymphs. A love nest for a man who, at home, was formal to a fault and never drank more than one glass of wine in an evening.
If he had kept a secret apartment, then why not a secret journal…?
She was on her feet in a second, tearing apart the desk. Lucia rose from her morose reverie. [Mistress? What do you seek?]
“A journal. One my father kept.” The spirit looked at the trunk Anna had brought with her. “No, not any of those. One that’s here. It might be hidden, or it might be out…”
It took an hour. The bookshelves were emptied, the desks and curios gutted, the walls tapped upon. Anna finally found it: A slim green volume, just like the others, with only one difference: The pages were gilded silver rather than gold. A subtle difference, but one that would stand out to one in the know. She opened it, and her father’s words stared back at her.
Met with the most unusual gentleman at Mistress Honeysuckle’s salon. A Viscount… My favorite practitioner had taken ill, so I spent the evening talking with him instead. I find myself envious of how well-traveled he is. I can barely extract myself from my responsibilities long enough to look after our interests here once a month.
She looked at the date. A year before her mother would have fallen pregnant with her. She scanned forward. It seemed that every time her father made his way to Absolom, he made certain to find time to spend with the mysterious Viscount. ‘Smitten’ was the only word she could use to describe his entries.
Nine months after their first meeting: He asked if the rumors of the LeClerche curse were true, and I confess, I was too drunk to be a convincing liar. A fortunate folly, though, for it seems he has some ideas on how to break it… He spoke of previous ‘experiments’, but I was too much in my spirits to retain details. Not that it matters. Vincent is terribly clever, and I confess, my training was scant at best.
She stared at the words for a long time. Experiment.
And she wasn’t the only one.
And her father… not a bad man. Never a bad man. But obviously pulled too easily into someone’s confidence. She suspected his favorite ‘practitioner’ falling ill was no accident. Anna never knew her mother, but by all accounts, she was a lovely and mild woman… And even if she were a shrew, she was Anna’s shrew.
Carefully, she paged back to their first meeting and started making notes. Where had the Viscount been. How long had he stayed. What names he dropped. It wasn’t much information, but it was enough, for she knew two things: She wasn’t alone, and this man had likely killed her mother and preyed upon her father’s hope. He promised a cure and left behind a monster. Well, so be it. A plan was forming her head:
She was going to find the others.
They were going to find the Viscount.
And then, they would get their revenge.
Together.
Katie Plays Games 