Amrit the Vampire, Ch. 6

Haunted by a forgotten past

CW: assault, violence, murder, blood,

Intended for mature audiences

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Table of Contents

Previously…

Amrit the Vampire, Ch. 5

You encounter the descendant of an old foe and help them in some way. Check off a skill and create a Mortal character.

340 AD, Gupta Empire

Decades passed with mindless repetition…until one night. Flying as a bat across the rooftops, I came upon a woman carrying a torch, walking alone at night. Easy prey, so I thought, and followed. It was then I noticed a man following her down an alley, pulling a dagger. I’d seen scenes like this before, he was going to rob her and perhaps kill her. He grabbed her arm and went to press the blade to her back to scare her, but she was already moving, twisting away, pulling her own blade and stabbing her attacker in the throat. He staggered back and crumpled to the ground. In the fire light, I saw the woman’s face and she looked familiar. Then I noticed the shadow behind her. Two more men creeping up that she didn’t notice. I dropped behind them, shifting to human form and attacked. I reached forward and snapped the neck of one from behind. The other turned, yelling and swing his sword. I ducked, hit him in the stomach, doubling him over and then kneeing him in the face, knocking him out cold. The woman turned to me, seeing the results.

“You have my thanks, though I could’ve handled them myself.” She looked me up and down. “Why intervene?”

I shrugged, as I didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know. You’re familiar to me for some reason but I don’t know why. My name is Amrit.”

“Mine is Anna,” she said. She wore leather armor and had other weapons on her belt, throwing knives, potions, pouches and other things. She looked ready for war. She noticed me looking. “For years, there’ve been rumors of a monster here, killing and feeding on the populace.” She sheathed her blade. “I hunt monsters, like my father before me.”

I noticed she had a necklace around her neck bearing a cross.

I check the skill Fighting and create a new Mortal, Anna, the Vampire-hunter.

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Roll: 1d10 - 1d6 = 9 - 5 = +4 → Prompt #39

One night, I found myself forgetting things. I knew I fled Rome after being exposed…but I didn’t know who exposed me or why. What else did I forget?

I cross off Christians, monster, and diplomacy in Memory 3.

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Roll: 8 - 3 = +5 → Prompt #44

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I’ve lost everything….

She came in the night, a creature like me, bursting through the window. She called out a name I did not recognize. “Amon! I have come for you! AMON!” She looked and pointed at me, recognition in her eyes.

I had no idea what she was talking about. “Who are you?” I asked. “What are you doing here? I do not know this Amon.”

She shook her head. “You do not remember what you did to me?” She leaped at me.

We fought like animals, ripping out chunks of flesh, slicing and biting each other open with claws and teeth. I became a feral animal, a wolf, attacking with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough.

She was stronger. She beat me down again and again, until I couldn’t move, until I lay bloodied and broken.

My servitors simply watched.

She crouched over me. “You turned me into this creature and you don’t even have the decency to remember who I am. I’m taking everything. Maybe you will remember this, if you live.” She stood, pointing at the servitors. “You serve me, now. Bow to your mistress, Lady Chione.”

They bowed.

“Now, take everything of worth from here and burn this place to the ground.”

I cross off Servitors of the Lineage, and check off three skills, Feral, Shapeshifting, and Healthy Constitution.

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Roll: 2 - 2 = 0 →Prompt #44.2

What did they do to send you into darkest despair? Erase your earliest Memory. You will never get it back. Gain a skill.

I came to, being dragged across the ground, but all I could see was white. I was wrapped in cloth. I struggled but was too weak to do anything.

“Drop him here,” I heard Chione’s voice.

I was picked up by many hands and then dropped to into a hole with a painful thump.

“Bury him,” she said.

I felt something land on top of me. More. It was dirt and it grew heavier and heavier. It blocked out the light and all I could see was darkness. I heard muffled talking above as more and more dirt was piled on. I could barely take a breath. But then, I didn’t need to breath. It was then I realized what Chione had done. I was too weak to get out and I also could not die, not like this.

I panicked. I tried to shift and move my body but I could not, every attempt an agony. I tried to call out but nothing came. Minutes passed, hours, days. I slept and woke, slept and woke, nothing changing. I forgot about my time in Rome. I do not know how much time passed. I screamed. I had visions, I imagined entire worlds but always returned to my prison of dirt. I cried. I sobbed. I laughed. I broke.

And then, after years of this endless suffering, I found there was something I could do. I could be at rest for as long as I needed. Perhaps, until the end of time, even. I rested.

Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash

I gain the skill Torpor.

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End of Chapter Notes

This was a truly wild chapter. Let’s start at the beginning. I got a couple votes for the question of who to use for Amrit’s enemy’s descendant, and it was between Chione, Amrit’s forgotten lover-turned-vampire, and Seth, the Christian vampire-hunter. I decided to go with Seth, in order to have a connected memory, which I felt made for a more interesting experience and possible storyline.

Some interesting prompts have you start crossing off or erasing certain types of words from memories which is pretty cool.

But then, when I read prompt #44, I loved it. A chance to bring Chione back! I won’t reveal the actual prompt which is so cool, but I will talk a little bit about it. It required me to spend three resources and check a skill, but you will notice I didn’t have three resources to spend. In this game, if you don’t have a resource available, you mark a skill instead and vice versa. So I lose my one remaining resource and luckily still have enough skills to check off. The thing is, the book says that when this happens, it means the situation turns out as bad as it can, for your vampire, which is why I had Chione pretty much break him and burn his house down.

Then, at the perfect moment, I rolled double 2s, meaning I stay on the same page and move up a prompt, which is always somewhat connected to the previous prompt. It’s always so cool when this happens in the game as you get to directly continue a storyline that’s going on. The randomness keeps it from happening often which makes it so much cooler when it does happen. It may be strange to hear that I was nearly giddy reading about how I had to make my vampire’s life even worse, sending him to his ‘darkest despair’ but what can I say, I love it. I figured what could be just about the worst thing for an immortal? Burial. The prompt also says to make a skill and I just thought it would be perfect if all these years he spent being buried, he learned how to attain Torpor. To me, it works so well.

I also realized that this whole time, I’d made a mistake while playing! I’d thought a diary could only hold one memory but in looking back, it can hold up to four! Wow, I have been forgetting more memories than I needed to. I will keep that in mind moving forward but, who cares? It didn’t ruin anything and honestly, this will always happen during solo play. You’ll forget rules or misinterpret them, etc. Then you just have to decide whether to rewind or keep playing.

I hope you’re enjoying this almost as much as I am playing it! Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments.

• Name: Cassius, Amrit

• Time Period: 310 AD

• Location: Alexandria, Roman Empire, Gupta Empire

• Skills:

  • Performing rituals (X)

  • Literacy (X)

  • Diplomacy ( )

  • Bloodthirsty ( )

  • Ashamed (X)

  • Humans are cattle ( )

  • Humans are tools (X)

  • Fighting (X)

  • Hiding (X)

  • Shapeshifting (X)

  • Healthy Constitution (X)

  • Feral (X)

  • Torpor

• Resources

  • A modest home

  • Small gold statue of Osiris

  • Ritual scrolls

  • Potions

  • Servitors of the Lineage

  • Spear

  • Ruins

  • Diary Scrolls

• NPCs

  • Mortals

    • Chione, a female servant in the temple,

    • Amr, the high priest of the temple, dead by my hand

    • Jabari, my brother, a scribe, died during the time I was enslaved for a 100 years

    • Mido, a lowly peasant who wishes to become a vampire, was in my service in Alexandria

    • Hanan, a village woman who loved me and I forced her to kill her family, she burned my Diary Scroll and I forgave her, she fled with me to Italy when the army came for me

    • Seth, a Christian vampire-hunter trying to find and kill me

    • Anna, Seth’s daughter, a Christian

  • Immortals

    • Osiris, leader of a secret cult, claiming to be a god

    • Chione, a female servant in the temple, who I accidentally turned into a vampire

    • Sekhmet, ancient egyptian vampire who enslaved me for a 100 years

    • Drusa, a strix, who recognized me as a fellow immortal, we fought and she took my spear but I managed to escape, she converted my companion to attack me but I escaped again,

• Marks

  • A hole my chest that doesn’t bleed but doesn’t heal

• Memory 1

  • 340 AD: I find a female vampire-hunter named Anna, descendant of Seth, and help her when a couple thugs attack her.

• Memory 2

  • 310 AD: I find myself uninterested in human concerns and live only to hunt, kill, feed and sleep.

  • 340 AD: I forget specific details of some of my memories.

  • 340 AD: A vampire from a forgotten memory, Chione, attacks me and takes my servitors away, leaving me bloodied and broken.

• Memory 3

  • 340 AD: A vampire from a forgotten memory, Chione, attacks me and takes my servitors away, leaving me bloodied and broken.

  • 360 AD: Chione and her servitors bury me underground and leave me to suffer, I spend years in agony.

• Memory 4

• Diary

  • Fleeing to Gupta Empire

    • 305 AD: … expose me as a… …and I flee to the Gupta Empire and take a new name, Amrit.

    • 305 AD: I use diplomacy and manipulate humans in order to increase my wealth and…in this new land.

• Lost Memories

  • Amr

    • 30 BC: Amr honors me with a small, golden statue of Osiris, I am grateful and display it in my house.

    • 30 BC: Working late with Amr at the temple one night, I am overcome with hunger and murder him, drinking his blood.

  • Chione

    • 30 BC: Chione and I begin a secretive romantic partnership, I show her some of my scrolls and read to her.

    • 30 BC: Chione sees me bloodied and we fight, I end up turning her into a vampire like myself.

  • Mido

    • 70 AD: A peasant called Mido has been following me and wants to be like me, he enters into my service.

  • Jabari

    • 30 BC: Jabari has dinner with me in my home and we discuss our worries about the war and what will happen between Rome and Egypt as Octavian’s army approaches the city.

    • 30 BC: Jabari witnesses me drinking blood from rats and discovers my condition, he promises to help me, bringing me potions.

  • How I became a Vampire

    • 30 BC: Osiris performed a dark ritual, pulling my heart out of my chest, consuming it, and having me drink his blood, I have changed into a Vampire.

  • My life before a Vampire and the decades soon after

    • 30 BC: Publicly, I am Amon, priest of Osiris, responsible for performing rituals at a temple in Alexandria, privately I am part of a secret cult led by a figure claiming to be Osiris.

    • 70 AD: A creature or goddess, Sekhmet the Bloodthirsty, enslaves me and uses me for dark purposes for a hundred years, I finally use a ritual to escape her clutches.

    • 95 AD: I find solace from my hunger in observing human lives in Rome, it brings me peace for a time.

  • My Time in The Qattara Depression

    • 70 AD: Disgusted with myself, I flee to the Qattara Depression to seclude myself from society in a cave

    • 80 AD: A woman named Hanan finds me and visits me over the years, becoming a close companion, I force her to kill her family when she resists me.

    • 85 AD: Hanan burns my Diary Scroll in anger, I do not remember what I’ve lost and I forgive her.

  • Fleeing to Italy

    • 80 AD: I find a new outlet in painting the walls of my hut and finding some peace within the beauty.

    • 85 AD: A group of mortals attacks me and burns my hut to the ground, I kill them all in their sleep as revenge.

    • 90 AD: An army comes after me, I flee with my things and Hanan to Italy and take a new name, Cassius.

  • Drusa

    • 95 AD: In a small Italian village, another immortal, a strix named Drula, attacks me, takes my spear and I hide from her.

    • 95 AD: Drusa turns Hanan against me, Hanan uses my old spear to nearly kill me, I express how ashamed I am and she can’t finish the job, I flee.

  • Shapeshifting

    • 303 AD: I drink centuries-old potions and gain a new skill, shape-shifting, which helps me elude hunters and find prey to feed on.

    • 303 AD: To sustain and increase my shape-shifting abilities, I train my body but lose bits of myself the more I shape-shift and lose a Memory.

    • 305 AD: I lose myself in my animal instincts and bloodthirst, hunting and slaughtering with wild abandon.

  • Influence in Rome

    • 295 AD: Over 300 years, the Servitors of the Lineage, created by a servant I did not remember, Mido, serve me and my interests as I grow in wealth and influence in Rome.

    • 303 AD: I kill a Christian after reading his bible and help turn the Roman aristocracy against Christians.

    • 303 AD: A Christian vampire-hunter named Seth comes after me.

Next Chapter → Chapter 7: Amrit emerges from the grave