Death is only a state of mind.

Greetings and welcome to my home. I am Veckah Tar Nobril , a 3000 year old vampire. Please make yourself comfortable, have a goblet of bloodwyne, and relax. The story I have to tell you is quite long and I would be honored if you would stay for it all.

I was born into a family of wizards, my father was of the red robe variety, meaning that he Practiced the arts of neutrality. My brother was of the white robes, practicing only good magic. My mother was a natural seer of considerable skill.

When I was born, my mother went into a psychic trance from which she never emerged, she died three weeks after I arrived.

My father tried, but he was so into his magic that I was often overlooked or forgotten. He never acknowledged my femininity in any way, I never owned a dress or even a simple hair barrette Only when I started to show my own natural talent of magic did he start to spend more time then absolutely necessary with me.

My brother, hateful person that he was, ignored me completely. As far as he was concerned, I did not exist, eventually it started to work both ways.

As I said my father started to spend time with me when my magical abilities started to come to light. He started to teach me, honing my skills. I was a quick learner, and soon I was taking what he had taught me, and using it in my own ways. Everything I did was the exact opposite of the way he had taught me. I began experimenting on my own, teaching myself new spells and learning to brew potions.

My father tried to keep tabs on me by teaching me a simple mind communication ability. We cold talk to each other by simply thinking back and forth. I quickly learned that he could also read my mind this way. I learned how to block him even quicker.. I think that I scared my father, because eventually he started to leave me alone.

One afternoon, after my father had put me through a particularly tough morning of exercises, I was taking a walk in the nearby woods. (I often came here to relax, and to escape). I was approached by a peculiar old man. He first tried to talk to me through my mind, thinking that it was my father, I blocked him. This caught his attention, he showed himself to me and began to walk beside me. As we walked, he told me that his name was Fisturan, and that he was looking for an apprentice. Realizing that he was asking me to go away with him and expand my magic, I accepted without hesitation. I left without even saying good-bye to my father, I never saw him again, I was fourteen.

I stayed with Fisturan until I was twenty. He taught me his type of magic, necromancy, the magic of the dead. It was the only magic I studied for many many years, even after my becoming. When I left, I knew enough to make my life as an adventurer, and not much else.

I joined a small adventuring party within a month of my leaving. We were a party of four:
myself,
a human male bard, Ivan,
a human male warrior, Blackmain,
and a human male warrior, Darr.

We were hired by a cleric to go on a quest with him. We accepted the mission before we found out that he was a half-vampire. When this knowledge was found out, the rest of the group wanted to forget the whole thing, but my magical curiosity wouldn't let me, so I talked the others into continuing, that was my first step into the realm of the undead.

The cleric, when we found out about his "condition", informed us that he would remain in the half-vampire state as long as he did not partake of living blood. This eased the minds of the other members of my party, to a point. In a foolish overreaction, the cleric was burnt to a cinder. I gathered up his ashes, meaning to have him resurrected at a later time That would be the next and most influential thing I did to further my decent into the world of darkness..

The party decided to continue on the quest, it was the least we could do. We happened upon a rouge gargoyle, I was attacked and pinned beneath it. One of the other members of the party had a magical item called a Wand of Thunder and Lightning, he shot the gargoyle with a bolt of lightning, destroying it. Unfortunately, he did not understand that lightning is electricity, and that the human body is a natural conductor, I also was destroyed in the process..

My fellow members gathered up my remains, which were nothing more than ashes, and carried them along, planing to resurrect me. They didn't know that I had the ashes of the cleric on my person when I was destroyed, our remains mixed. When I was resurrected I came back as a half-vampire.

I know what you are thinking, wouldn't the cleric have come back also?, or perhaps, why was it me and not the cleric? To these questions I have no answer.. I have thought about it often, andthe only reason I can come up with is that my god, Asmodaous, foresaw that my future and his were intertwined, and intervened. I will explain that statement soon.

Not long after I was changed, the party and I came upon a village that was being slowly destroyed by, what seemed to be, a strange illness. People of the village would be fine one moment, working playing, ect.., and the next they would be dead, seemingly bled to death. No one was spared, even the young and strong were being affected. We decided to stay and investigate, my final step.

I Knew almost immediately that there was a vampire causing the "illness". My vampire senses told me so, They also told me that this vampire was old and powerful. At this time in my long life, power was the one thing that I strived for. I talked the others into letting me set a trap for this vampire and set it into motion.

Out of all the villagers, the most affected were young, beautiful, elven women. So I disguised myself as such and rented a room at the inn. As planed, the vampire came to me that night. I did not trap him as I had told the others I would, but begged him to make me a whole vampire, which he did, gladly. I did not know that in the process he would also make me his mindless slave.

I do not remember any part of my time as the vampire's slave, The only thing I have are the stories that others have told me. None of them are pleasant. I was make to reek havoc on the village, killing many, and destroying a lot of property. I turned on my party members, and generally was a nasty person. I was in this state for over a month.

I was saved from this by a fellow vampire, whom to this day is still my companion and friend, Stephen blackmoure. Blackmoure was looking for this vampire, seeking to destroy him for crimes committed against Blackmoure's former village. He found him and in the process found me, saving my life and sanity.

I was told that my master had grown tired of me and ordered me to watch the sunrise, knowing that it would destroy me.As I sat waiting for the sun Blackmoure found me and tried to bring me out of the impeding dawn. I resisted and he entered my fuddled mind calling forth memories that were locked away from me by my evil master. Again I resisted. With the help of my party-mates, he was able to bring enough of me back to save myself. I was burnt badly by the sun and had to remain underground for almost a year. Blackmoure brought me blood and continued to work with my tortured mind, slowly bringing me back from insanity

That is how I became one of the undead

After my year under the dirt, I emerged a vampire with my mind, a frightening thing at first. As I have already stated, I was quite power hungry and I walked the dark-side of life and magic. I did everything to be the best storybook vampire I could. I think I frightened even Blackmoure, although he would not admit it.

Blackmoure and I found an adventuring party that was willing to let us travel with them. Blackmoure had made a magical item that protected us from all but DIRECT sunlight, so we were able to travel in the daylight hours.

The party consisted of eight members:
Myself,
Blackmoure,
Echo, a female human cleric
Into, a male human cleric,
Outo, a male human warrior
Kaz, a male minotaur warrior
Tomar, a male human warrior,
and Bane, a male human warrior.
I became quick friends with Echo and Kaz, and I loved, and still love, to torment Bane. He is a bit of a holier than thou boob.

We traveled for awhile, enjoying each other's company, looking for a job.Strangely enough, one found us. We met up with my old party members, they were on a journey to test out the powers of a magical sword Ivan had found. Not knowing what powers this sword had, he accidentally opened a portal to Hell, we decided to go into hell and explore.

Blackmoure decided to stay behind, he still had not finished with his quest to destroy my former master. We said our farewells and went our separate ways. I would not see Blackmoure again for over one hundred years.

My time in Hell is a story in its self, so I will not go into deep detail of it here. I will tell you though, we were put into the middle of an overthrowing of power, and change of rulers. Asmodaous, with our help, overthrew Beelzebub, and to this day is still ruling. Asmodaous also became enamored with Echo, they are happily married and she rules by his side. Into changed his religion and became a priest of Asmodaous. He now is a higher daemon in Asmo's army.

We all received gifts from Asmodaous for our help in the battle. Each of us were given a country on our home plane. Echo was also granted a kiss from Asmo (it changed her alignment so that she could become his bride), Into was granted some new spells, outo was granted greater strength, Kaz was granted metal horns with a magical enchantment, Tomar was granted a magical sword, bane was granted a holy sword and given a palidinship, Darr was granted the ability to shape change into any metallic dragon, Ivan was given a talisman that controlled a tower of sorcery, blackmain was given a sword that stole souls, and I was granted the ability to time travel. All in all, not a bad take for one job.

We were only gone, what seemed to us, two weeks, when we returned we discovered how much different time moves between planes. On our home plane we had been gone for almost a hundred years. Everything we had known was gone, ether passed down to a new generation, or simply destroyed. A new religion had overtaken our lands, Christianity. This religion was overseen by intelligent trolls. The main monarchy was now run by an offspring that should have been drowned at birth, and the lands were in chaos.

Not long after our return to our home plane, the party split ways.
Echo, Into, Darr, Kaz, Bane, and Myself stayed together, the rest went their own path. Most of them I have never seen again.

Within just a few days after the split, we came across a village that was having some very familiar problems. I knew immediately what was happening, another vampire stalking, almost identical to the one my former master had started over a century before.. I knew this madness had to stop.

We tracked the vampire to his lair. We had no idea what waited for us inside. The caverns were a maze, devised by a twisted, sick mind. Around every turn was a trap or undead minion of the master, but my worst nightmare and biggest fantasy come true was when we were confronted by the oldest minion of the mad master. My own brother had been turned into a child of the night!

I say this was my biggest fantasy because the first thing that ran through my mind when I saw him was, "what righteous irony, you pompous, arrogant, sot." My worst nightmare because he had retained enough of his mind to know who he was and what had happened to himself, this drove him utterly mad. His insanity made my time with the master seem like a walk through the gardens.

We fought him and with no little effort brought him to the point of near destruction, then I got my final retaliation on my 'beloved' brother. You see, unlike the myths, not all vampires are destroyed by a steak in the heart, some of us are simply made immobile. My brother was one of these. I staked him and put him in his coffin, then sealed his coffin into a wall. He is still there as far as I know.

When we found the master, the battle was fierce, most of us were badly hurt and Into was near death. Suddenly the ceiling collapsed in on top of the master, on top of the rubble was Blackmoure. He was able to stake the master and end the madness. Blackmoure himself was near death and the story he was to tell us when he recovered was amazing.

It seems that Blackmoure tracked down the master not long after we parted ways. He fought the master and lost, but instead of killing Blackmoure, the master simply kept him in a wounded state, denying him the blood he needed to heal. Eventually Blackmoure escaped and had been evading the master for over a year, slowly tunneling through the ceiling, waiting for the master to let his guard down enough to allow Blackmoure to attack. Our battle with him had accomplished this .

Blackmoure was badly undernourished and in need of rest. I found him a safe place to rest and charmed enough of the master's human servants to keep him fed for quite some time and left him to heal. We were separated for another year.

When we left Blackmoure, we were summoned by Asmodaous. There was an island that was the home to a very powerful mage, by the name of Livef. This mage had gone mad and Asmodaous wanted us to try to restore this woman to her sanity, or at least stop her from destroying the ecological balance of the island.

You see this island is a very special place, it is the island of the four greatest fears. A testing ground for the best warriors, possible Demi-gods, and daemons. To reach Livef we had to face the fears ourselves, and survive them.

Our first test was the fear of famine. As we walked the landscape we got more and more hungry, and even if we ate something our stomachs remained empty. All any of us could do was continue walking and ignore our growling bellies. This test was to be my hardest, there were a couple of times I came close to going into a blood rage.. A starving vampire surrounded by mortals is a very touchy situation.

The next test was the fear of Disease. We each experienced different illnesses. My disease was the sickness of leprosy, I literally was coming apart at the seams.. Next was the fear of war. We were thrown into the middle of a massive battle. We were separated from each other and had to fight the battle on our own. When we finally all made it to the middle of the battle field the war rageing around us simply disappeared.

Our final test was the fear of death. Now to a mortal this test was hard, but it was almost impossible for myself and Echo. If either of us would die, we would simply go to our god, and ether be given our lives back or be made gods ourselves., major dilemma. If we did not feel the fear we could not continue on our quest. So, what were we do do? The only way ether of us would fear any type of death was absolute destruction so we would not go on to Asmodaous.

I got the idea that we had to destroy ourselves to go on, so I rushed Bane and grabbed his holy sword. Now let me tell you something, if you have ever been burned badly, multiply that by about thirty. and you will have the pain that ran up the length of my arm just by touching the holy thing. I cannot begin to describe the pain when I ran the blade up my back.

I charged at Echo, hopeing to only give her enough warning to let the fear register. As I got within striking distance, and began my swing, Asmodaous appeared in front of her and I struck him instead. The next thing I remember is waking up on top of the mountain throwing up everything I had eaten in the last week, with Echo and my other party members lying beside me.

The sword I had struck Asmodaous with was embedded in a rock nearby. The metal had turned to an ebony black, and when Bane tried to remove it he was thrown back from it as soon as his had touched the hilt. It had been changed into a unholy sword, all of the goodness drained and replaced by nothing but darkness. I still carry this sword by my side.

We quickly regrouped and found Livef. The mage put up a fierce battle, but eventually we were able to break through her madness enough to get her to flee the island. Livef and I have remained, what I suppose you could call, friends sense.

When we returned to the mainland, I knew that something was not right within my body and Echo had not been able to contact Asmodaous sense the Death test. I rented a room at an Inn and went into a deep trance, trying to find anything unusual. I quickly found what was wrong with me, I was pregnant, with Asmodaous!

During my pregnancy with Asmodaous I remained within the confounds of Hell. I did not want to risk his life for my comfort. My pregnancy lasted over ten years, I to this day do not know why. I also called for Blackmoure, he and Echo were my only companions during this time.

Once I had given birth to my God, Blackmoure and I returned to our adventuring days and began our lives as they are now. I looked up some of my old friends, Kaz, Bane, and Darr, and we went looking for something to do, We found a castle ruin and decided to explore, this is where I would find the KEY to my future, literally.

This fine castle had belonged to a friend of ours, Ivan. Ivan had been murdered by his own son. his son had gone completely insane. and was letting the castle fall down around his ears, his mind rotting away as surly as the fine tapestries around him were, Because of his madness he though that we were figments of his imagination and talked to us, telling us things about his life and what he had done to his father. He also let it slip where he had hidden all of the good treasure , we quickly went to find his stash.

When we found his hiding place, treasure wasn't the only thing we found. Sitting on top of a chest was Ivan's decapitated head. The head was amazingly well preserved, so well preserved, that it still spoke! Ivan, or rather Ivan's head, told us how his son found him, gained his trust then one night came in and lobbed off his head while he was sleeping. He also asked us to carry out his revenge on his son. Of course we were more than willing to help, for a fee. He said that we would have all of his worldly goods if we would avenge his death and set his soul free, exactly what we did.

We went back to the room where we first encountered Ivan's son, he was not there. We searched the castle, and finally found him in the room where he had murdered his father. He was reliving the night of the murder, with all the necessary props, including his sword. We rushed him, hoping to catch him off guard, we were unsuccessful. Now you would think that five against one, especially when two are vampires and one is a minotaur, would be a little unfair, WRONG!!! This young man was as strong as an ox and had magic on his side.

We fought, and after a very strenuous battle, were victorious. We separated his head from his body and took our trophy to present it to Ivan. When we returned to the room, all that was left of Ivan was a small pile of dust. We all said our good-byes to him and went to divvying up the treasure.

Among the gold and jewels was the medallion that Asmodaous had given to Ivan for helping him win the war in Hell. This was the only thing I wanted. This key would open up, not only the tower, but the door to my future.

Blackmoure and I took our leave of the others and went to the tower and began our future there. We cleaned up the tower, and put up a large fence around the perimeter of the boundaries of our five mile square country. we built some other buildings on the grounds and then started to recruit our" countrymen".

This country is now totally populated by vampires. Most of them are young fledglings that attend our school for the undead, but we also have some older residents that act as teachers, including Vlad Dracul, Earth's famous Dracula.

I just recently began to venture out ofmy country again, this is how I found the land of Ravensdale. This place has become my second home.

Well my tale is now done, I thank you for following me though it all. I hope that you have found my tale entertaining and perhaps even enjoyable. Please visit the homes of my friends. I shall now take my leave of you. I wish you pleasant journey, and I hope that all of your dreams will come true.