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The nocturnal monarch, cloaked and hiding, the plague shall give unto them the chance to throw off their chains, and make constructs of bone march under its banner. The fanged nobles shall leave their castles and thus swear allegiance to their undead overlord. The moon's pale light will guide their steps as they march towards the coming of a new era, where darkness reigns supreme. The world will tremble at the sight of their unholy alliance, united in their thirst for power and conquest.
Pale humanoids, paler than even you, or some with blood-red irises or dark sclera. The worst impulses and characteristics of the aristocracy personified. You knew them by name: Vampires.
Where they came from is unknown, though the church has done its best to drive them out of most places. Most of them live like outcasts, living as squatters in the forests and mountains or in half-abandoned castles, from where they extract taxes in the form of blood. The only place where they could operate relatively openly was in the mountain range between the kingdoms of Istvary and Corbilia.
Not that there is much to gain from them going into it openly; they're weak to sunlight and silver, and they can't stand garlic, holy symbols, or certain kinds of magic, nor can they cross running water. And they must ask permission to enter someone's house, though in the stories they usually find a loophole around one of these weaknesses.
If they were to come, it would be very, very bad news, especially if they were to unite under the rulership of a monarch, though what they looked like, or who they were, remained unknown to you. Sixty to seventy years, six to seven decades. That would mean you had the time to prepare and the time to do research and take measures. You put the velvet cloth over the orb. A good night's rest would do you well.
First thing in the morning, there are two things you should do: Inform Father, and start expanding the small laboratory the old wizard had left behind.
After breakfast, you rode over to the <span class="mu-i"> Mithradische Palast </span> , where Father had taken up residence, to inform him. He would listen, but whether you could make him care about something to happen about sixty years from now, he still, he received you as warmly as he had always done.
<span class="mu-i"> ''You should not have used that orb, at least not without someone else there.'' </span> He gave you a rather limp lecture, more done for the sake of having a lecture without actually reprimanding you.
<span class="mu-i"> ''But, you clearly saw something, something that is of use to us, which is more than I ever got out of that thing.'' </span>
<span class="mu-i"> ''Indeed I did. I peered into the decades yet to come and saw that a great calamity is to come, two great ones, a plague, and the coming of a new era for vampires.'' </span> You said in a serious tone.
He was a bit dismissive of it at first, though he became more accepting of what you said the more details you revealed.
