Bounties!

Local gossip spreads like wildfire. It doesn’t matter where you are or what the population is. Even though you technically aren’t a local, you spend enough time around the others to catch up on some of the rumors. If you were to solely listen to the tavern staff, you could probably live off what they tell each other for a few weeks. Affairs, hauntings, killing; rumors of creatures of the night…

However, when you saw there was a bounty for vampires, you couldn’t help but smirk a bit. There were a lot of weird freaks leftover in the world. These were no doubt a couple of weird-os with filed K9’s that drank blood and lurked around at night, pretending they are something they’re not. Well, whatever the case, the locals didn’t really take too keen on these wanna-be blood suckers all that well since it seems they were going after livestock, and were into terrorizing some of the more isolated pockets of the village.

You took the piece of paper from the board and started to cover the contents of the bounty. It’d take you a little over an hour to get to the last seen location, but aside from Maple, nothing was really keeping you here anyway. You went over your gear, making sure you were packing enough firepower to take care of whatever it was hiding in the woods.

Though the thought of weirdos were there - you were still a little nervous of it actually being a terribly deformed mutant since the details about the attackers were a little...strange. While one mention says a pale woman, another describes their attacker as being a tall pale creature with bat wings.

It’s all fun and games until you actually bite off more than you can chew. Being torn into pieces by some 8 foot monster doesn’t sound like it’d be all the enjoyable - and you’ve seen it. The only comforting factor that this probably wasn’t something to that degree was that it only requested 1 man to do that job…

Less hope that’s correct.

After grabbing your webbing and gun, you embarked towards the location where it was last seen. An oddly fitting name of “Red River Drain”. The river got its name because apparently there was some kind of battle that happened at one point that caused the river flow to be red for a few days (weeks?) So despite it losing it’s lovely tint, the name stuck.

The journey there was as natural as you expected it to be. The world around you was calm and wildlife seemed to be normal. You set camp next to the stream and settled in by creating a defensive perimeter around your makeshift camp. After hiding your tent and dug out with pine and forest debris, you started to just unwind. The hike up here had taken a fair amount of energy, so you thought some proper rest might be deserved before getting engaged into any kind of engagements.

When you woke up, the small fire you made had killed itself. You blink a few times and look around. You fell asleep to the sound of birds around you - but now everything was silent. Nothing besides the stream beside your camp made noise.

A tinge of uneasiness washed over you as you shuffled in the dark. You felt much more exposed than you did earlier when your eyes adjusted to the moonlight. It pierced the branches above you and cut through dark shapes into treelines.

You took your rifle and worked away from the camp. If there were any vampires, now would be a good time for them to start popping up...You also wanted to make sure you didn’t somehow sleep past anything triggering your traps. You walked for a bit...for a long bit, You came to a stop and crouched. You walked too long without incident. You probably passed your own defensive line. You cursed and sighed - real rookie mistake!

You cut off from the treeline, getting away from the branches that littered the floor. You were making too much noise in the silence of the forest - you weren’t being sneaky and you were announcing your presents every step. You made for the river, where you hoped the soil would pillow your stomping a bit better.

Just as you started to descend into the trench of the stream, the moonlight pierced the overcast and ignited the tall green on the other side. A gentle, blue color set made the field glow in soft color. You paused again, but this time it was because you realized you were being watched.

A pale figure stood in the grass. It just stood there. You hunch down and shoulder your rifle, expecting it to break for you. That was no human being, though it shared a few features that’d make it humanoid. There was a faint glow coming from the eyes that drew your stare into its eyes. It definitely sees you, but you aren’t sure what it’s doing…

Whatever it is, you’d feel more comfortable if it was gone. You train the barrel of your rifle up and lean into the stock, slowly placing your finger on the trigger and begin squeezing. Before the break of the trigger, you stop.

Behind the sound of the stream, you could hear a small humming noise. You adjusted your stance and lowered the barrel to look around. Your attention shattered and split. You couldn’t focus on one thing. The humming noise increased, it sounded angelic and sweet, alluring and peaceful.

You started to look for it a little more carefully, causing you to stumble into the stream. “Fucking shit!”

It just then you heard something rushing towards you. You look up to see the tall, pale figure dashing towards you. It’s features, this close, were horrifying. It lunges at you and tackles you into the stream just as your rifle spits it’s jacketed hollow pointed into the ground. Darkness fills your vision, and pain fires through your whole body...You black out when the pain becomes too much for your senses.