It was the year of our Lord, 1479.
Three years after a great war raged between the vampire count Vlad Dracula Tepes and the rest of humanity after they falsely executed his poor wife, Lisa from the village of Lupu, under the suspicion of witchcraft.
Just when it seemed that there was no hope for mankind to prevail, a champion arose at a desperate time - a true-blooded vampire hunter named Trevor Belmont. Trevor Belmont and his comrades triumphantly slew Lord Dracula - a truly glorious victory for all.
However, the peace it brought did not linger for long. As news of his death became an absolute finality, great forces from distant lands emerged from the darkness in hopes of succeeding the late Lord Dracula as the Prince of darkness.
Many magicians and vampire lords clashed against each other in a mad contest for power. Amidst this chaos, the great wound that Dracula inflicted upon the land began to fester and grow, transforming the land into a desolate ruin.
Ravaged by hideous plague and dire famine, the people's hearts turned black and murderous. The weak were slain without pity, while the land was pillaged and scourged without remorse.
By the end of that forsaken year, both factions of this hapless conflict lay dead in the barren fields of Wallachia, the once mighty nation further fallen from grace. Now only darkness dwells in the land, from which the curse grows stronger every day...
The fiery cannonball missed him by an arm's reach, the unrelenting dread of his doom clung by his throat, choking his weak little throat.
"Faster, damn it!" Hector desperately yelled out to his beastly mount, a night creature built from a fallen stag a few days ago.
Under a desolate valley completely cloaked in winter, the lonesome Forgemaster dashed his mount through the thick layer of snow in haste. Behind him was a thick fog racing to catch him and his monstrous steed from afar, like a malicious specter.
But there was something beyond it, something massive that made Hector blink twice to see if it was real. What was sailing through the fog like seawater was a silhouette of a nasty ship, almost too real to be a mirage in the cold.
Its tattered sails hanging from its only mast were riding in the wind, black and dark as the moonless night, and so was the hull of the ship. The bow was adorned with bones pale and skinny like a vampire's, and a pair of chaser guns attached to either side, firing at him but narrowly missing.
"Beware", said the people of Jova, a lonely village from two days past. "Beware of the Pirate of the Roads. For a year he rides with the fog of night, on a ship that swims through the dirt smoothly like water. It's a terrible omen to laugh at his name, for his ears are sharp like a wolf's and they hear everything, from loudest of screams to soundless whispers.
"That's how he finds them, see. His foes laugh at the rumor of his existence, vampires call him a fool while magicians call him a joke. At night, he howls like a dreadful wolf, to signal the misty sea where he shall sail in a frigate of death. Come morning, they who whisper ill gossip, they who commit atrocities to the people of this land vanish without a trace. He leaves, but not before leaving behind a trace of his own, a fanged tooth dry with blood but shiny with gold."
I must have the worst luck imaginable, Hector thought as he recalled what the villagers told him that night. In a drunken daze, he was told he made rude insults to the Pirate himself, as an experiment to test whether or not the man was real. Two days came and two nights fell, yet the Pirate hasn't appeared. Until now.
Cannonballs narrowly missed him by both flanks, passing him by and making craters out of the thick snow. Hector pulled on the reins much tighter as his profuse sweats began to freeze in his skin, but the ship was far too quick and was already gaining on him and his mount. He turned back and as the ship ever so closely reached him, he caught a glimpse of a figure standing in front of the bow.
Amidst his exhaustion and hunger for two days straight, Hector was shaking with fear and confusion at the figure behind him. The Pirate was quite tall, his stance unshaken by the rocking of his ship. His body was covered by a cloak that shimmered under the morning light, whilst it sang like pieces of steel clashing with each other to make a horrible tune.
On his head of long messy brown hair, his face was obscured by a black tricorn hat with a red tassel on top and a pair of peacock feathers perched on each side. A pelt of great warg, possibly a night creature, wrapped around his neck like a thick, fluffy scarf.
Alas, Hector managed a little smile as a forest stood on a hilltop to his left. He swerved his mount just as the ship was about to run him over. Whilst the ship itself took its time to turn toward the forest, Hector managed to disappear into the woods and lose his trail.
As his mount hindered at its pace deep into the heart of the forest, Hector slumped against its head as the adrenaline was finally wearing off. As he caught his breath haphazardly, his dry eyes wandered around the area.
How did it come to this? Hector thought. Things never went his way ever since he left the confines of Styria, now in the possession of his friend and fellow Forgemaster Isaac.
Hector began to reminisce the first time he bore witness to the great curse sweeping the land of Wallachia. The stench of death scoured the land wherever Hector went, with no sign of life or vegetation occupying the countryside.
What was once a lush forest in the region surrounding Styria had all rotten thanks to the aftereffects of the war. The trees of the forests have lost their splendor and hollowed into thin blackened husks the scale of a human bone.
The soil beneath was a desolate blight with nothing left growing in it. Ravens flocked the dark sky above them, as Hector took notice of something hidden within the trunk of a nearest tree.
It was a flower, a lone pale rose, slowly corroded by the blight. Hector dismounted from his night creature and approached the tree. He knelt to meet the flower, and plucked it right off the barren ground and felt its weightless touch on his hand.
But the flower has nearly corrupted by the blight itself, with the stem all the way to the petals. At a mere blow of the frail wind, the flower crumbled away into dust, scattering away in an instant. Since then, that image never left Hector's mind; he was so disturbed by how much damage his former master wrought to the world.
Suddenly, something sharp and thin managed to graze his ear while he was deep in thought. The object embedded into a tree right in front of him, a dagger with one side dripping with his blood.
Without looking back, Hector immediately gripped on his mount and raced through the forest. As his mount galloped away at high speeds, he turned to see the Pirate leaping on foot atop the trees, hopping from branch to branch at such speed, managing to catch up with Hector's night creature.
The Pirate threw another slew of daggers at Hector, to which he blocked them all with his sword he took from the Styrian armory, now rusted as the years have gone by. The Pirate leapt from a branch and took out a rope dart; with it, he threw it against a faraway tree in front of him and grappled from one tall tree to another.
No matter how hard Hector tried, the Pirate was never giving up on his pursuit. Finally he brandished his sword from underneath the cloak and whilst managing to outpace Hector's mount. Now in front of Hector, the Pirate raised his blade just as his prey approached.
Hector tried to swerve his mount in the other direction, the Pirate managed to cleave its head off in one fell swoop of his sword. Hector was flown off its back and stumbled against the muddy snow.
He tried to get up, but he turned to see the Pirate walking toward him. He raised his sword again, now intent on killing Hector, but it couldn't be that easy.
Hector rolled the sleeves of his coat, revealing a tiny red-scaled dragon night creature curled up around his arm. It quickly awoke and spewed out a ball of fire on the Pirate, who managed to shield himself with his cloak.
The ball exploded upon impact, knocking the Pirate back a few meters. It gave Hector enough time to escape on foot, leaving the Pirate in the snow.
He ran as fast as he could, turning in random directions across an endless barren forest shrouded in snow and ice. The blizzard began to pick up, covering Hector's tracks in the process. All the while, Hector cursed himself as well as the predicament that led him here in the first place.
Damn it! He thought madly, battling the cold with the rage burning in his heart. Damn it all! Damn that bitch Carmilla for trapping me in that hell! Damn Isaac for making me leave and see "other humans"! Damn that bloody Pirate and his absurd mode of transport! Who in their right mind would make a ship that runs on land?! And Lenore... damn it, Lenore...
Even after everything she's done to him, Hector's fragile heart still couldn't let go of Lenore, the late diplomat of Carmilla's council of vampires. Although their time together was never a perfect fairy tale and it ended on a horrible note, he clung to that feeling desperately as it was the only semblance of love that he ever knew in his life.
Eventually his legs gave up, and he slumped against a nearby tree, assured that he ran far enough to lose the Pirate's trail. The night was getting darker, and the forest seemed much more menacing than it did when he stumbled upon it. The howling of the wind pierced his ears, and his icy-cold fingers were shaking dreadfully.
What am I doing? Hector made an epiphany, whilst the snow embraced him. Why am I so desperate to live? There's nothing waiting for me here, just the promise of death and despair. The humans in this country are probably dead already. Is this some sort of retribution by God Himself? Just to punish me for all I've done in the name of my masters?
Hector laughed hopelessly, the sound overtaken by the winter. His red dragon crawled out from under his sleeve and coughed up a puff of fire to keep its master warm.
Oddly, he thought as he pet its head, only the dead are kind enough to keep me company all this time. It might just be the only thing I'll ever be grateful in this life for.
The dragon began to tug on his coat and gestured Hector to a sight in the distance. Amidst the dense fog, he could make out the silhouette of a small castle in the distance.
Apart from that, he smiled. A shelter right in front of him at last, Hector slowly got up and with the last of his strength he marched toward the castle.
Despite the wind trying to blow him away, Hector managed to reach the castle on top of a hill. At closer inspection, the castle was rundown and desolate. The roof was caved in and not a single flicker of candlelight warmed any of the windows. Outside the walls were catapults, submerged in snow.
Regardless, Hector marched into the front gates, burst open as if a siege had once occurred here. Inside Hector was met with a disturbing sight. Littered around the courtyard were hundreds of bodies laying dead on the grounds, the evidence of a battle that neither side had won.
Swords lay by the cold dead hands of their beholders, while shafts of arrows were pierced deep into their bodies. Hector limped past them and marched inside the main hall where he bore witness to a group of refugees - men, women, and children alike - huddled together on the marble floor, forever bound by frost in their final moments.
At this point, Hector bore them no mind as he avoided them and ventured deeper into the ruined castle. Each chamber he entered into was caved in by catapult fire, letting the winter chill breach its walls. He eventually traveled downstairs to the castle's dungeons, the only part of it that was left unscathed by the attacks.
The cells were left open and emptied out. Hector gathered all the torches on the wall and chose a cell that's nearest to the entrance. He pilled the torches together and, with a whiff of flame, created a makeshift bonfire that kept him warm for the night.
Terribly tired and dazed from the night's events, Hector placed his hammer - his preferred tool for forging night creatures - on the foot of his bed and his sword by his side as laid down on the ugly little bed, quickly slept in it like a log.
The moment Hector opened his eyes again, he was immediately assaulted by the solar flare right in front of him. He was no longer laying in his crummy bed in the cell, the unwelcoming chill of the dungeons replaced with a warm soothing breeze.
Strangely, he found himself in the middle of an endless field of radiant red poppies set against a bright blue sky. Of all the horrific imagery he had come to witness in just one day, this managed to strike Hector in a way that he did not expect.
Where? Where am I? His mind was littered with such thoughts. I was just sleeping at that dingy cell and now... How the hell did I get here?
"Why, I invited you here," a solemn and dignified voice answered as if he were listening to his thoughts.
Hector nearly gave himself whiplash for turning his head so fast to where the voice was coming from. In the distance, he saw a golden gazebo in the middle of the poppy field. Inside was a man sitting casually whilst stirring a cup of tea.
Hector didn't say a word. He knew right away that this man was a magician, even more powerful than him. And this place must be his creation. The man's eyes however, were emeralds that glistened with amusement.
"It's been so long since I've invited someone to my little tea party. Loneliness must be getting to me lately. Come, take a seat."
Unlike the exaggerated tone in his voice, the mysterious stranger maintained a calm yet deposed expression on his sharp face. Despite his earnest request, Hector was still frozen in both fear and caution, wary of the stranger's true intentions.
"Oh right! I haven't introduced myself! Stupid me!" The stranger pretentiously slapped himself on the knee as a gentle smile softened his thick lips. "My name is Aeon, dear Forgemaster. Pleased to meet you!"