Reflections during a night walk.

You are walking along the streets of a large city at night. The low amount of lighting and the predominance of darkness can be unpleasant features of the terrain for ordinary people who would decide to take a walk now. But this darkness is a favorable habitat for you. Your vision pierces the darkness and allows you to easily distinguish the smallest details of objects: the leaves of a nearby tree that rustle due to a gust of cool wind; the silhouette of a rat that ran next to the cart; dark spots on one of the counters...

You keep going...

You think that your current existence (the term “your life” no longer sounds correct in relation to you) requires you to comply with certain conditions.

One of these conditions is that you should not allow the light of the sun to touch your body. You are now a creature that can be active in open areas only at night. Or, at a minimum, you need to wait until the twilight state. You must constantly hide in the shadows. Darkness has become the only acceptable habitat for you.

The second condition of your existence after that terrible metamorphosis that happened to you in the crypt: you must regularly satisfy your “hunger.” “Hunger” is an extremely weak concept that does not reflect your feelings well. What can you say about your feelings? The euphoria of wild delight at the moment when your sharp and long fangs pierce the pliable flesh of a pitiful mortal creature.

The overwhelming pleasure of the pulses of warmth, invigorating taste and pleasant aroma of blood that you drink from the body of the victim until this body is just an empty and lifeless bloodless shell.

A debilitating feeling of inner emptiness, weakness and fatigue due to the fact that too much time has passed since the previous absorption of the life **** of a mortal victim. The more time passes after taking the “food”, the more painful impulses you feel inside your lifeless vampire body. It looks like slow rotting from the inside, which is combined with mental oppression of consciousness.

However, all these descriptions of your feelings are too primitive to reflect the power of your “hunger” and the strength of your satisfaction at the moment of satisfying this “hunger”.

The only thing that matters, the only thing that can satisfy your needs, is blood. The blood of intelligent mortal beings.

A couple of days ago you tried eating regular food and drinking regular drinks (wine from the wine cellar of the merchant Oran). This didn't lead to anything good. Your body only experienced severe spasms of vomiting.

Even before this, you tried to drink the blood of an animal: while you were flying in the form of a bat from the forest towards the city, you saw a wounded horse on a narrow forest road, which was unsuccessfully trying to rise from the ground. The horse's hind legs were injured and the horse was lying on the ground. You finished off this animal, taking its life with a blow to the head with your claws. You tried drinking the blood of this animal. But the taste of this blood seemed extremely bland to you. The blood of the animal did little to satisfy your “hunger.” You almost didn’t feel the surge of strength and energy from drinking the animal’s blood.

Therefore, the only way to satiate you, to satisfy your “hunger,” to nourish your body with strength and power was the blood of intelligent mortal beings.

This need makes it necessary for you to search for victims.

While you are thinking, your walk continues.

Narrow, dirty streets and alleys that connect into a kind of labyrinth. Residential buildings with heavily overhanging upper floors are pressed tightly against one another. Even on the clearest day, the sun's rays will not be able to fully illuminate the street. The winding streets narrow and widen, but their width rarely exceeds a few meters. In some places, one cart can hardly squeeze through.

During the day, life here is in full swing, the street is filled with all possible sounds: the cries of heralds and street vendors; loud noise and knocking coming from craft workshops; animal cries; the rumble of carts.

And at night the city is dominated by impenetrable darkness. Only a few torches dissipate the darkness a little. The torches are probably used by small groups of city guard patrols.

You try to stay away from the torchlight. You continue your night walk.

You see the distant silhouette of a tall building. The spiers of the Cathedral of deity Orlan, which is located in the central quarter of the city of Onteria, rise above small houses. Officially, this cathedral is called the “Cathedral of Indestructible Piety.” You read that the cathedral was built about 15 years ago in honor of the soldiers who died defending the city of Onteria from elven troops during the War of the Bloody Waves.

This cathedral is one of the two tallest buildings in the city. The second such structure is the fortified city citadel, which is the residence of the feudal ruler of this city and the surrounding lands - Count Leobald Kresen (this man has a reputation for being a reserved, phlegmatic and stingy person).

Thinking about a large religious building (such as this cathedral) brings you only feelings of bitterness, disgust and fear.

You want to move away from the central areas of the city. You try to move towards the outskirts of the city. There are extensive slums there. There is more darkness and fewer city guard patrols.