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I am a vampire hunter. If you’re lucky enough to live outside the Nox Isles, I envy you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sun and to see it regularly would be a dream come true. Although, if you could place this journal in a raft and pray for it to reach the Nox Isles, that would be appreciated. I would appreciate actually having the book that I wrote in case I lost more memories instead of it being missing.
Let me restart real quick. I won’t be writing my name down for my own safety, but you can call me Ava. It’s the closest most have ever heard of my actual name. As far as I know, I’m the only vampire hunter across the islands and one of a handful of free humans. Unfortunately, that’s almost all I know. I awoke roughly a month ago with specific memories of only 3 things: my name, my mission, and how to summon my sword.
It’s a blade blessed to kill vampires and, if I focus enough, the blade ignites with an odd colored flame. (Correction, I just found the term for it in the mythos book I was just reading. It’s soul fire. I really shouldn’t be surprised. My sword has a skull design on the pommel.) I do possess what I believe to be more general knowledge, such as my cardinal directions, my language, stuff like that, but nothing specific to me beyond the three things I already mentioned. At the moment, I’m taking a brief moment to rest in the library of the Rancher family. Old family of vampires. I actually finished fighting Lord Alexander Rancher just a bit ago. I had previously killed a few of his fledglings, and when I was about to kill the last one, it decided to try a desperate gamble. “W-wait! Please! I-I’ll tell you where my lord resides! Just- please spare my life!” I paused at this, blade pointed at its heart. Usually, there wasn’t this much emotion in the voice of a vampire. But I wasn’t about to let my guard down. “Spill” I ordered. The vampire quickly nodded. “It’s just Northeast from here! A five-hour trek on foot! May… Can I leave now? I don’t want to die.” I would have obliged, had I not seen the telltale look in its eyes. A look of “This fool fell for it.” Unfortunately for it, I wasn’t about to let it hurt more people. So I brought my blade a little closer as I just barely leaned down. “How many people asked that question before you killed or drained them? And how many times did you let them leave?” Any sign of emotion quickly left the vampire’s face. The metaphorical mask was dropped, and it just snarled and glared at me as I stabbed its heart. Dissolving the creature into silver dust within seconds.
Double success. Five vampires were removed from the population, and now I knew the location of a leader of vampires. The reason I say a leader instead of the leader is because it's rather difficult to have one leader when everyone is scattered across multiple islands. Especially when there are perpetually violent waves and winds that push all who try to leave back onto the land they tried to leave. It’s not natural weather; nothing about the Nox Isles is natural except for land and its foliage. The gods made sure no one could leave. And that, unfortunately, included the humans who already lived here. I don’t know if I was born here or not, but I don’t care. I have a mission, and the means to continue it. Moving on, with the information I acquired from the vampire, I looked to the sky for the moon to guide me. It was still pretty early in the night, so it wasn’t hard to tell which way was East thanks to the moon. The harder part was figuring out which direction was North, but after I located Polaris, it wasn’t too hard. However, I had been exhausted from traveling for a good few nights at that point. So I did a quick look around the area and went to a nearby tree. I then broke off a few branches and used them to mark which way NE was. It was only then that I had finally laid myself against the tree.
I try not to sleep too frequently. It’s not really safe and it makes it hard to keep track of time. However, I’m only human. And collapsing from exhaustion during a fight is more dangerous than taking a few hours of rest. When I woke up, the familiar dense cloud coverage that at one point in the distant past was likely daytime was what greeted me. The branches of the tree almost looked like they were holding up the clouds. I looked around again and no one was around. I found the marking I left and remembered what had happened the night before. I reached for my sword but it wasn’t there. Now, this isn’t anything new. My sword tends to vanish if I put it down and stop thinking about it for too long. I have been able to make it disappear on command but it can be a little annoying at times. Getting back on track, I got up and went towards what was likely going to be a manor or something. In all honesty, I only had a vague idea of what to expect. Vampires tend to just live wherever. However, one thing is always consistent, if they have livestock, those people live in worse conditions than the vampires. Whenever I get the chance, I free and give the people some pointers to whatever safe houses I know of.
But I always remind them to be cautious. Vegan and non-bloodthirty vampires are good allies but I’ve seen the looks they give me whenever I show up with cuts and claw slashes. They all still have some hunger for blood. It’s in their nature. After maybe an hour or two, I saw a town up ahead and a pit formed in my stomach. I hate traveling through towns. It’s unsettling to just walk by a bunch of things going about their lives as if they don’t torture people nightly. I would simply kill them if there weren’t so many. I don’t need an entire village after me. Especially since it would alert the local count or lord(depending on how old the vampire is) to my presence. I can’t hunt vampires if I’m dead. It’s easier to escape a manor filled with a bunch of terrified vampires than a village of angry ones. This town in particular felt familiar though. I didn’t feel the need to ask around for directions or information. I just kept going. It was a little away from the town but the estate was still visible from where I was.