Part 1: Off to a Flying Start

Alright, let's get this show on the road.



Our first choice is to skip the intro or not, and for obvious reasons, we choose not to skip it.



And our story begins... with some old grandpa talking to his grandson, who is laying in bed. Alright, I'm game to see where you're going with this.

My grandson! You're already 15 years old now.
Oh, grandpa! Don't start going senile on me again!
Shhhh! It's time for me to tell you a very important story!
GRANDPA! I don't need a good night story to go to sleep anymore!
But this will most definitely not be a GOOD night story, more a BAD night story...
Oh, grandpa! Your stories haven't scared me in a long time!
We'll see...



Now, how should I tell you this story? Like it is right now, or rather...



...with bloody writing, like this? Or...



...just plain and simple? What do you like the most?
Hm, I think you should tell it... 1) ...with a bloody border! 2) ...with bloody writing! 3) ...the plain way!

I'll stick with the bloody border. It wouldn't be right to play it with the basic textbox, but the red writing is harder to read.

As you wish... and should the hero hurry up a bit, or should he move about normally?
Hm, I think... 1) ...the hero should walk quickly. 2) ...the hero should walk normally.

Gotta go fast. Who the hell would ever want an RPG hero to move slowly? There's nothing more tedious than slowly trundling through towns, dungeons et al.

Good, good... now, tell me, what do you know about vampires?
Vampires? (Maybe this story won't be so boring after all!)

Dialogue in brackets is the character thinking, in case you didn't know. I think it's a fairly established dialogue writing convention, but you never know.

Well... hm... well, they hate garlic, die from sunlight and they abhor churches and crucifixes. They are also hurt by water, so rain is very painful for them. They can't cross running water, and they can only enter a building when invited into it.
Hm... where did you learn all this?
Well, dad told me some of it, and the rest I got from a book I once read.
I figured that was the case... now, I'm going to tell you the truth about vampires! Those things you just told me only apply to the fourth and following generations of vampires. They are weak and vulnerable, but still dangerous. Now listen well:



Vampires are undead, but nobody knows how the first generation of vampires came into being! If a vampire of the first generation turns a human into a vampire, then the new vampire is a vampire of the second generation and therefore weaker than its sire. It follows that later generations are always weaker than their sires.

So this game also follows the vampire generation concept in the way that later generation vampires are weaker than earlier generation ones, and that later generation vampires are a lot more vulnerable to the folklore solutions to vampires like garlic, sunlight and crucifixes.



But the undead do not die like normal humans. Vampires of later generations are easily killed with holy water, crucifixes and sunlight. But vampires of the first two generations are not harmed by such things. To kill such vampires, you must first drive a stake through its heart. That will paralyze it. Then you cut its head off and fill its mouth with garlic.
Grandpa, that's disgusting!
Yes, but if you don't do that, it will rise again! And by the way, vampires don't necessarily need to sleep in a coffin... they just do it because they heal their wounds more easily when resting in one.



Vampires were widespread up until 400 years ago. They killed many humans and turned them into their own kind. We have a brave priest to thank for vampires being wiped out these days. He gathered many brave men around himself and led a Holy Crusade against the hellspawn.

The Holy Crusade is an important event, so remember that name, it'll come up again later.

The Crusade took many years to complete, but it was successful. Vampires were gone from this earth. At least that's what the people thought. But now, I'll tell you a story I heard when I was a child. Believe it or not, vampires still have feelings!



But a vampire that cries, cries only tears of pure blood! More commonly, a vampire feels hate and rage!
Grandpa! Get to the story already!
Alright, you impatient brat! It's a story filled with feelings, love, hate, jealousy...

Fade to black.



We then cut to a city at night, and we see some vampires strolling about.



They transform into bats and fly away, and we get some opening text.

"IT WAS A TIME OF DARKNESS
BUT HEROES CAME
AND THE BLOOD RED SKY
TURNED A LIGHT BLUE
THE EVIL DIED
FOR ALL ETERNITY"

And then...





We have a title card.



We then cut into one of the houses in this town. I'm not going to explain who these characters are, because the game is going to be doing it for us in just a bit. Just know that the guy in the bed is Valnar, our main character, and the girl to the left is Aysha, his girlfriend.

.....zzzzzzz..... .....gnnnnnnnn.....

Valnar turns around in the bed.

.....noooooo..... .....arrrrrrrr.....

He turns again. He's clearly not having a good time.

.....stop it..... .....let me be.....

And again.

.....noooooo.....



Now we're inside his dream.

Oh, you'll understand once your blood turns viscous and slimy as it flows through your veins! You'll see that you won't act differently to me at all!
Never! What you want to do is blasphemy in the face of the existence of human life!
Haha! Listen to you, you sound so ridiculous! Blasphemy!



At this point, this mysterious character starts laughing, and it plays a particular "evil laugh" soundbite. I'm going to be counting these because I've noticed that Marlex gets quite a bit of mileage out of that soundbite. Evil laugh counter: 1

You pathetic human! Feel the taste of immortality!
NOOOOOOOOOOO!



Chomp.

What have you done?



And Valnar falls to the ground.

Fade to black...



...and cut back to his house.

.....stop.....

He turns again. I just want to point out that I object to the usage of five dots as ellipses. This game plays very fast and loose with punctuation, I find.

.....let me be.....

And again.

.....noooooooo.....



And finally he wakes up with one big scream.

Valnar?



Aysha makes her way over to Valnar.

Valnar? Are you alright?
I had that dream again!
The same dream again? Valnar, I'm worried about you! You've been dreaming this same dream every night! And that for four weeks now! This can't go on like this!
You're right! If something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to break down!
Now, just calm down a bit first! Always remember that I love you, Valnar!
I love you too, Aysha!



We cut to the character backstory room, read, where the game gives you the information about characters you kind of need to get started.

"Valnar and Aysha Darnus."



"Aysha is Valnar's long-time girlfriend. She met him during a festival in Klennar."

Klennar is the town we're in right now. There will be more placenames and we'll eventually get a map to place them all on, so just put Klennar in the back of your mind for now.



"They've been living in this city for four years now. She is a pretty young lady, however, she acts quite dismissive towards others.



"Recently, something seems to have been bothering her. But Valnar could never work out what that was."



"Valnar is a young warrior from Limm, a city north of Klennar. When his parents died, Valnar was already old enough to take care of himself. He fights with great passion, but ever since he had that dream for the first time four weeks ago, he's been becoming more and more nervous and fragile. He suffers greatly from this returning nightmare. But he gains courage and security from his girlfriend, Aysha, who always tries to cheer him up."



And back to the house. Now we're in control of Valnar, and this is where the game would start if we had chosen to skip the intro. Let's talk to Aysha.

Do you feel at least somewhat alright?
Well, I've got a terrible headache!
My poor dear! If only I could do something for you!



I better take my armor with me! Who knows, maybe I could run into thieves...

While bopping around the house, we pick up a leather armor...



I better take a weapon! That's the only language that everybody understands! Even thieves.

...and a short sword. Let's jump into the menu:



From top to bottom, the options are "Items", "Skills", "Equipment", "Save" (note it not being available, we'll get to that eventually) and "Quit Game". Valnar is a warrior, at level 1, his status is normal, he has 21 HP and 0 MP and needs 33 XP to level up. He also has 0 "Filar", which is the currency of this game. And because I think "Filar" sounds kind of dumb, I'm going to be calling them "bucks" instead, at least in my own commentary. In translation I'll keep "Filar", I guess.



The only two items we have are the armor and sword, and we have no skills.





We equip our gear - a Kyojin short sword, which is "a small but sharp sword (+3 ATTACK)", and our leather armor, which is "a light leather armor (+3 DEFENSE)". Nothing fancy.



Searching around the house, we find some itching powder. It inflicts Berserk and Blind on opponents, and if I remember correctly, Berserk means the enemy will attack anything, either you or his own team, and Blind makes physical attacks really unlikely to hit. I may be remembering that wrong, though, we'll see when we get to use this stuff.



This is a book about vampires. Thankfully, vampires have been wiped out for good a long time ago! I wonder why Aysha has been reading this!?



I don't want to drink alcohol right now! Even if it's from my favorite trader, "SephiMike"!

Who likes community member cameos? Marlex likes community member cameos! Alright, now let's head out.



Aysha, I'm going to go to Dr. Jarn and have her give me some painkillers!
In this rain? Be careful that you don't catch pneumonia!
I appreciate your concern, but I won't be long.
If your pain is really that strong, maybe you should get a full check-up.
Yes, but for now something for this pain will suffice. I won't be long, a few minutes tops!
Alright, Dr. Jarn only lives a bit north of here anyway. See you in a bit!
I'll be right back...



What terrible weather!

As that massive blood writing tells us, we are currently in Klennar. Nothing much to do in town right now, all doors just lead to a "I don't want to go here" message, so let's head straight up...



...to Dr. Jarn's place.

This is Dr. Jarn's house!

He knocks at the door.



Valnar! Come in!



Valnar! What is it that's so important that you came here this late?
I have an extreme headache!
Hm, are you sick? Well, I'll give you some strong painkillers. But please come back tomorrow, then I'll give you a proper check-up!
That might be for the best!



Hm, this should help!

And we get some painkillers.

Thanks, doctor! I'll come back tomorrow!
Well, then I'll see you tomorrow!



The painkillers are actually an item. They heal 10 HP, and they also heal the status effect "Ill", which I think is a variation on poisoning, but again, not sure. With painkillers in hand, we head back home.



You're back! What did she say?
She gave me some painkillers to start with, and then she said she would want to give me a thorough check-up tomorrow!
That's definitely a good idea. Maybe you're seriously ill!
Please don't get too worried about me. I've only got a terrible headache. But hopefully I'll be feeling better with these painkillers!
I sure hope so, my poor dear!
I'll take the medicine and go back to bed now. You should get some sleep too. Why were you awake this whole time anyway?
I just had something to eat and thought about some things.
Alright. But please come to bed soon and get some sleep.
Don't worry. I love you!
I love you too!
Good night, my dear!



Valnar hops into bed and we fade to black again. Then, suddenly, the music changes to ominous, slow, evil-sounding MIDI distortion guitar music! We hear a woman scream! Then, the "vampire bite" sound effect! Then, an evil laugh, however one that is different from the one I'm counting! And finally, a door being kicked open!





Remember how I talked about this game playing really fast and loose with punctuation? That's NINE, count 'em, NINE exclamation points! Whenever something like that happens, I'm just going to purge the extraneous exclamation points from my translation, because I see no reason to keep them around. I guess they indicate EXTREME EMPHASIS, but come on, you can do just fine with one exclamation point!



Valnar gets up and runs out of the room.

Oh no! What happened? These god damn painkillers made me tired! AYSHA!



Valnar really likes sinking to one knee or whatever this sprite is supposed to represent him doing.

Aysha... where could you be?



He heads over to the other side of the room to find what we've already noticed a while ago.

Blood! God damnit! What happened here!? She still has to be somewhere around here!

Let's rush outside to see if we can't find a trail.



A long trail of blood!

Follow the bloody brick road, follow the bloody brick road...



Even more blood! Maybe I can follow the trail! But I have to hurry! The blood is being swept away by the rain!

Well, look at it! That's a LOT of blood! It'd be very strange if that just stopped all of a sudden. Also, I don't think there's a time limit on this. We continue following the bloody trail.



Oh no! Nobody can lose this much blood and still live...



Yeah, that is a whole god damn lot of blood.



Hm, it seems like Aysha was dragged out of town! Aysha, hang on! I'm coming to rescue you!

And out of town we head...



...into some foggy ass area.

Pretty foggy out here!

You're saying something - I can hardly even SEE you, Valnar!



As we continue to follow the trail, we get some more blood text. This doesn't all appear right now, but I'm just putting it all together here.

"WHAT IS A DAY WITHOUT NIGHT?
WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT DEATH?
IS ONE ALLOWED TO KILL FOR LOVE?"

And some comments from Valnar, like these:

What's going on here?

This can't possibly all be Aysha's blood!



Hm, this rope leads up this mountain. You can get a good view from up there. But that doesn't matter right now! It seems Aysha was brought up here!



We climb up the rope and hit some sort of plateau, but seemingly, this is a dead end.



God damnit! The trail goes dead here!
Hm, strange! There's also blood flowing from under these rocks! There must be a secret entrance here somewhere!

And sure enough, if we just check the exact spot we're standing at right now...

Let's see... Hm... There has to be a mechanism around here somewhere!



Well, that was simple enough.

Aha! Aysha, I'm coming!



Now we find ourselves inside some sort of cave, and the blood trail is still going strong.



Wahnfried! Wait, no, wrong game. Also, wrong skin color.



You bastard! Let her go!

Might as well bring this up right away - from what I've seen, people really like using "Schwein" as an insult in this game, which literally translates out to "pig". Now, "pig" can also be used as a perogative in English, but it's not giving off the same vibe as I think it should be. To my knowledge, "pig" as an insult in English means one of three things - the person is a police officer, the person is a glutton, or the person is a lecher. And neither of these fit in this situation and the other ones either. So I'm just going to use "bastard" instead. Could have used "asshole" too - it just needs to be a more generic insult.

Also, this guy is Abraxas. Remember that name too, it'll be important later.

Oh, you stupid human! Can't you see? She's DEAD! What you see is only a bloodless shell! Do you see her eyes? Glazed over, completely without expression!
Murderer! Let her go! I'll execute you for that!
You understand nothing! She died a long time ago!
Liar! You killed her! I'll avenge her with your blood!
This discussion with you is pointless! I'll now destroy her once and for all!
You bastard! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



Ow...
Rot in hell, Molana!



God damn that's one big sword.

Molana?



Well, whatever this Abraxas guy's deal is, he does not fuck around.

Nooooooooooooo!
And as for you, worm...
Oh, Aysha!



Who are you, anyway? It seems like you knew Molana quite well! After all, you stupidly followed us all this way here!
You god damn bastard! I was her friend! And you killed her! You'll pay for that!
Why are all humans just so shockingly stupid? I've saved you from great pain! And you won't even thank me!
WHAT? You saved me from pain? Just you wait, you monster!



Valnar leaps in to attack!

You'll understand some day...
Wha-



And gets unceremoniously bitchslapped into unconsciousness.

Some day... you'll understand...



So we occasionally cut back to this place, mostly when we have some sort of time or place jump.

And he just collapsed?
Yes. Valnar had no chance against the stranger, who was just much too powerful. A single strike was all he needed to rob Valnar of consciousness.
And why didn't Abraxas just kill him?
That's a good question, but you'll have to wait until later in the story for the answer. Another question is why Abraxas called Valnar's girlfriend, Aysha, Molana.
I bet she wasn't human.
How do you figure that?
Well, it's obvious. No human could lose that much blood. Even large people have eight liters at most in them. And what Aysha, or rather, Molana, lost in Klennar must have been far more!
Well, aren't you a clever little brat! Alright, but what was she then?
Hm, I bet she was a vampire!
That could be, and what was Abraxas?
A vampire too?
Hm, and why would a vampire kill another vampire, even though there are already only very few vampires remaining in the world?
Hm... no idea, grandpa. Continue with the story!
Alright, so Valnar was now unconscious, his girlfriend had been stabbed... but in a different place, one year earlier, another very important event occurred. A vampire named Asgar...

...and that's where we'll cut it for now. We've established some backstory for Valnar, the first of our protagonists, and next time, we'll establish Asgar, because he also has a fairly long story coming up.