You decide to take a risk. You should at least try to get your things back.

You think, “I'm going to need my weapons and armor. I'll try to find them. After this, I will immediately leave this disgusting crypt..."

You open an inconspicuous hatch, which is located on the stone floor near the sarcophagus. What do you see?

A small wooden staircase that leads down into darkness. You carefully walk down these stairs.

The steps are creaking. However, the design of this ladder looks quite strong and can support your weight.

Thanks to the changes that have occurred to you, your vision allows you to discern details of the surrounding area. Ordinary human vision would be unable to discern absolutely nothing in this darkness without the slightest glimmer of light. The staircase is quite long (about 10 meters), it leads to the further underground levels of this crypt. It is likely that the size of this ancient crypt is much larger than originally thought - many unexplored rooms may be hidden in the dungeon.

You fearfully think: “What kind of horror could be hiding in the darkness of the deep underground levels of this crypt?! I don't even want to try to imagine it... I need to try to find my armor, my shield and my sword. After this, I need to get out of this damned place as soon as possible!”

After you finished descending the wooden stairs, you found yourself in a spacious room. In each of the four stone walls of this gloomy underground room there was a passage leading along dark corridors somewhere to the side. There were no doors in these passages. This fact made you even more uncomfortable.

You looked around the room and you could see that various objects were laid out along one of the walls. You came closer. What lies along the stone wall?

A wide variety of things.

A jumbled pile of cloth and leather clothing (a closer inspection reveals that almost every item of clothing has dried blood stains on it).

Several bags and small sacks (you look inside and see that inside there are some gold coins, a couple of glass vials with a dark liquid, several copper rings and amulets). You take the gold coins for yourself (there are not many of them - only 9 coins; but you decide that you will need this money).

Closer to one of the passages into the dark corridor you find a pile of armor and weapons. These are mostly quite low-quality samples: spears, axes, several worn iron chain mail, a pair of helmets. A closer inspection allows you to see that some of the chain mail has rips. This looks like marks from a blow with a bladed weapon (or something more powerful).

Soon you find what you were looking for among this pile of objects.

Your steel plate armor. Your iron-edged shield. Your steel longsword.

You look at your things. Each of these items bears the sacred symbol of someone you recently served as a paladin. Hand of Justice and Lightning of Retribution. Symbol of the goddess Fardenna. Stern Mistress of Justice.

The realization of the impossibility of returning to a past life depresses your consciousness. Guilt and pangs of conscience make you feel bitter about your current state.

However, you decide that sad thoughts are inappropriate now. You suppress your emotions. You try to quickly put on your steel plate armor. After a few minutes you succeed. However, the high speed of your donning of armor **** you to lower your caution somewhat: the metal of individual elements of the armor made a clanging sound with every movement while you were getting dressed.

Finally you have finished donning your armor. You took your sword and your shield. Now you need to leave this gloomy place as quickly as possible. You headed towards the stairs to reach the top level of the crypt.

You only have to take one step up the stairs when suddenly you hear the sounds of hoarse laughter.

You turn around sharply. In the middle of the room stands a tall, thin human male, who is dressed in a dark gray camisole, leather pants and leather boots of a rather expensive cut. This human male's face is covered with wrinkles, his hair is completely gray (this hair reaches just below his ears), and he has no beard or mustache. He has a slightly humped, crooked nose that vaguely resembles the beak of a bird of prey. This person does not have any weapons in her hands. All you see are empty palms touching each other in a mocking applause. His eyes are constantly watching you.

You are mistaken. The mistake is that you assumed that this person is human.

A closer look allowed you to notice something that sent a shiver through your body. Now you see the shade of this... creature's eyes.

His eyes have a dark red tint. The pupils are not visible.

This is not human.

The realization of this sad fact was somewhat belated.

You barely had time to raise your shield to protect yourself from the swift attack of this vampire.

The speed of this unholy monster was so high that you barely had time to understand the direction of its movement from the fleeting shadows and sounds.

A strong beat. You were thrown back by the **** of this blow and the back of your head was unpleasantly bruised on the wooden stairs. You heard your shield make a cracking noise.

It's good that you were able to block the first blow with your shield. You swing your sword left and right, trying to hit your lightning-fast enemy.

But the steel blade only cuts the air in vain.

From the surrounding darkness, words reach your ears, the tone of which is permeated with contempt for you: “You are such an intellectually primitive creature that you decided to descend to the lower levels of the crypt... Do you really think that your ridiculous trinkets like armor, a shield and a steel sword will help you? Your mental insignificance is so blatant that you don’t even amuse me...”

You turn from side to side at the sound of the voice to be ready for an enemy attack. But you don’t have time to notice him. Swings of your sword do not hit him. Although you feel the extremely close presence of the enemy. It circles around you like a secretive nocturnal predator around its prey.

New blow! You manage to notice that the vampire’s hand has long, dagger-shaped claws. It is these claws that he uses as weapons.

This time you did not have time to put up your shield. The blow of the vampire claws hit you in the left shoulder area. Thanks to the armor, your body was not injured. But you see that deep depressions were left on the steel of the armor from this blow. This fact will shock you.

You think, “This monster is so strong that it can pierce steel plate armor in three or four hits!”