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.

[ < The Datoning ] [ Next > ]

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.

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 takes place after session session 4.

[ < Study Hall ] [ Lenore’s Shopping Spree > ]

After wishing her siblings good night, Anna returned to her room with no intention of sleeping. Instead, she opened her notebook and started to write. A journey to another world, filled with dangers but few explanations. Perhaps it was the fey? But it seemed almost too orderly for the wild folk. And the gifts they had found were of the Material world. A magical tattoo. A feast for the undead. Instructions on creating a revenant. Deadly weapons…

Almost as if someone wants them tested and armed. 

She found herself flipping through journals, looking for signs of a benefactor. Enemies they had, but friends…

She stops on a page towards the front of one book. It contains one thing: A list, carefully copied from a previous journal, which itself had been copied from an even older journal. It contained only four items. She’d long ago lost track of how often she’d rewritten it, but even so, not a single item had been ticked off…

✱✱✱

She didn’t go home.

She did send word back, once she found an inn, that they were to close up the wings and admit no guests. She gave leave to the family’s butler to pull from a special fund of reserves to keep the estate standing, but otherwise, the manor would be kept silent and still, like a tomb. 

She also sent the driver back, hiring a new one. After all, the man had family he wouldn’t want to leave for weeks on end. Also, he was older. She wanted someone hale, who could endure longer roads and harder climes, and… well. Just in case. 

Food didn’t really satisfy Anna. Not completely.

So a Kellid, far from home, was hired. A woman, to keep tongues from wagging, but still able to move her luggage around with one arm and crack the skull of anyone who might give them trouble. She also didn’t ask questions, as long as the coin kept coming. In fact, she didn’t seem perturbed that Anna’s only instruction had been to vaguely wave east when asked where they were to go. “Give a shout when you want to stop.”

Anna stared out at the road from within her carriage. She didn’t have a plan. A plan, though, was useless if you didn’t know your goal… or what threatened you. And it was clear that the vultures were coming. Her cousin had been warned off easily enough, but could she keep everyone at bay? Her particular line of the family was small (just her, in fact), but several generations back, it branched out and spread through Golarion. Word would spread about a part of the estate being up for grabs, and it wouldn’t take long for a cousin with more guile and desperation to come calling.

She took out a journal and began to make a list of things that could secure the LeClerche estate in her name without question:

1. A marriage of good standing
2. A writ from the Emperor of Taldor
3. A legitimate birth

She stared at that last one, then scratched a deep line through it. That could take centuries. Betting on that sort of luck was for fools and halflings. 

The shadows stirred across from her, and her fingers tightened on her pen, leaving her white knuckled. She forced her face into  a placid mask and looked up. “Ah, good. I was hoping we might talk.”

She had been hoping for nothing of the sort. The spirit dredged up uncomfortable emotions in her. It had saved her, twice, possibly thrice. It had answered her call. 

It killed her father. 

The spirit’s form was of a woman, of an age that was neither young nor old. Her eyes were void-filled pits of shadow, and her skin so pale it was practically see through. Her clothes, dark, were tattered beyond recognition. Her hands were unnaturally bony and long, with ragged nails. The aura around the creature screamed malevolence, both pinning Anna to the spot and daring her to flee.

Anna, however, was a monster as well. She didn’t scare easily. 

“Thank you,” she said, “For playing along back at the house. Cousin Preston would have been an enormous headache.”

The void studied her. 

“And, of course, your help with the solicitor.” She’d already forgotten his name, again. It wasn’t important. He’d drawn a weapon on Anna, after all. He’d lost the right to a name. “And his body.”

The face floating across from her remained impassive. Time to press.

“Was that the first time you helped me?”

She braced herself, ready for her fears to be confirmed. The spirit spoke, its voice caught somewhere between a hiss and a gurgle. [Of course, mistress. We have helped before. The servant.]

Anna blinked. “Servant?”

[You were small. So small. Your mother, she had just passed. The woman, the servant, she was a lady-in-waiting, and followed the Lady of Graves. She said you were wrong. That you should be made right.]

Anna thought back. A story, told in whispers in the back hallways, caught only in bits and pieces, came to her. Yes, something had happened to her mother’s maid… “What did you do?”

[She went to fetch water. Deep wells hold many secrets.]

“Ah. Well. Thank you, for that. Good help and all that.” She barely noticed the words tumbling out of her. Her father had always called her a ‘creative’ child, when she talked about seeing things in the shadows. All this time, she had a guardian angel… 

The spirit had not stopped talking. [–wanted to take you, kidnap you, ransom you. A fire took him. The parson who carried Daemon’s Touch meant no harm, but could not be allowed upstairs. His heart gave out in the parlor. A grey hound who took offense to you–]

A rather enthusiastic guardian angel. Anna held up a finger, and the spirit stopped. She had to ask. 

“And my father?”

The spirit was silent for a heartbeat. [He did not mean you harm.]

“So, you didn’t kill him?”

Another silence that stretched. [Mistress, he was marked. I did not like it, but he bore the mark.]

The death was fresh in Anna’s heart. Her father was only a few weeks gone. With her research, she knew exactly what state his body would be in by this time. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out… Technically larvae, but that doesn’t scan as well. She blinked back tears that she could not let herself cry here. 

“What mark, praytell?”

[The one that draws me. The one they bear when the time has come.]

“And me. I suppose I’ll bear the mark?”

The spirit cocked its head to the side, dark caverns regarding her curiously. [Mistress, only the living can bear the mark.]

Interesting. “Did my mother bear it?”

[She might have, in time. But another took her away. Something rotten in her veins sapped her strength. I would have regretted that one, as well. Most, I have regretted.]

Something rotten in her veins. Anna ran a tongue over her cuspids, too sharp for comfort. They drove her, sometimes, to do things she didn’t wish to do. And a mark that appears… that sounded rather like something with some logic behind it, rather than mere bad luck. And this poor creature had been bound to it for who knew how long.

Rather than hate it, he felt a growing kinship with this wisp of a soul. 

“Do you have a name, spirit?” It shook its head no. “Well, that won’t do. You’ll need one for the task ahead.” She added an item to the list: Revenge.

“We shall call you Lucia. Our enemies will need something to use in their laments.”