–==Official Submission==–
FROM: General Debinani Rahl
RE: Chapter Five – The Plot Thickens

The Covenant Mystery

Sometime recently, a few individuals had appeared in the
Yew area, skulking about at night and generally giving
everyone the chills whenever they were around. I had a few
run-ins with this Myca fellow, most of which left me
nowhere but cold and confused, stifling the mammalian
instinct to start screeching, climb up a tree and start
tossing fruit and feces at the bastards. We never really
got any hard evidence that these fellows new something
until just the other night, when Sandoval and Shade had a
bit of a run-in. The following is his report:

Captain,

Sergeant Sandoval and I were in Kent’s Last Pint last night
and

encountered that strange, old man again and his pupil. We
learned quite a

bit about them. First of all, they are members of something
called the

Covenant of Blood. I’ll tell you more about that later. The
old man’s name

is Myca (don’t know if that’s his full name) and the
pupil’s name is Kamir

(also not sure about his full name). Kamir referred to Myca
as ‘Master’. I

do not know what the significance of this is. I assumed
that Kamir was an

apprentice or pupil to Myca. Something I learned later that
night makes me

think it may be something more.

Anyway, Sandoval spoke to them for some time before I had
the chance

to. I was engaged in conversation with an elven-mage that
carries around a

human heart (don’t ask). I was also more than a bit drunk.
Once I realized

that they were talking about the Society, I began to press
for answers

(ok…I was a lot drunk and didn’t consider that this may
have been

dangerous; I’ll accept full responsibility for my actions).
By the way,

something peculiar happened. Sandoval placed a healing
potion before Myca

(Sandoval was out of ale, and he was also drunk…don’t
tell him I told you

that). Myca reacted violently and recoiled from it.

I pressed Myca and Kamir (who also said he knew of the
Society from long

ago) to tell me from when they knew of us and where. They
wouldn’t say

exactly when, but it was very long ago. I pressed and
(forgive me, but I

was drunk and can’t be entirely sure that I heard them
right since they were

so evasive) Myca admitted that he knew of us from before
you came here. He

was in your homeland, Captain! He knew of Vesper and his
knowledge was

firsthand! The man is absolutely ancient, I’d say.

I decided (perhaps wisely) not to push them any further,
and they didn’t

seem to be willing to tell me any more, anyway. They said
that they had to

leave. Myca offered his hand, and I took it. When I did,
his sleeve

slipped up his arm and revealed a faded tattoo. The tattoo
is that of the

Black Rose Society. And unless I’m loosing my mind, Kamir
tried to hide

something on his arm, too. I’m willing to bet anything that
he had the same

tattoo. By the way, Myca’s flesh is very pale and as cold
as a corpse’s.

He’s also incredibly strong. I let them leave at that time.
Sandoval

believes that they are vampires. And I think he’s
right…I’m getting ahead

of myself.

At any rate, I went for a walk after that. Clear my head,
you know.

When I came back, Myca was there again. I didn’t talk to
him much, and he

left soon after. I did get to speak to the Elven-Mage with
the human heart

in a bag (once again, I don’t know why; he says he’s
studying it, but I

don’t know for what). I asked him and he admitted knowing
something of

Myca. In exchange for some reagents, he told me what he
could. All he

really did is verify what Sandoval suspected. Myca is a
vampire, but he

says that he is not exactly an ‘evil’ one. I don’t know
exactly what he

meant by that. Maybe he meant that Myca is not evil for a
vampire, but

until recently, I was convinced that vampires did not
exist. I may have to

look into them.

Well, that’s what happened, Captain. Sorry I couldn’t find
out any more

than that. I’ll try and stay away from the ale next time
I’m at the Pint.

Hopefully Myca will stop in and maybe I can learn more. You
may want to ask

Sandoval for his part of the story. I don’t know what was
said between him

and Myca before I got into the conversation.

If you want to know what all this means to me, Captain,
well…

I’d say that Myca was a member of the Black Rose Society
when you

joined. Did he look familiar in any way? Does the name
Kamir ring a bell?

By the way, they mentioned that they had met another
member. I think it may

have been Shadowspawn. You may want to ask him about it.
Anyway, as I was

saying. Maybe Myca didn’t get out like you did, and
something happened to

him. Or maybe he had to make the wrong kind of deal to get
out.

Regardless, he may know where Tablenhelm is. This may be
the break you’ve

been looking for.

Well, that’s my report, Captain.

To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure how to
handle this. The obvious response would be to confront
these individuals and squeeze them for all the information
they have, but it just doesn’t feel right. If they felt
like explaining, I’m sure they’d just come out and say “Hi,
Black Rose, cool, we used to be too…”, not inundate my
senior non-comms with vague references to things they never
witnessed.

As far as the details gleaned are concerned, I’m troubled.
The tattoo they’ve described is the same used by the 1st
back in the day when there were hundreds of them and not a
single one were nice people. Hell, if it had been in charge
back then I would’ve put all of em in a sealed crate and
just let em loose when we had a lot of something’s to kill.
Old Bruenor used to joke about building the palisade around
them. Never got too close to any of those creepies during
the few weeks of my membership before everything went to
hell, so I suppose it’s conceivable that they could be
members of the old Society. This fact then leads me to some
other disturbing conclusions.

If they are vampires as the rumor has it, and they were
members of the old Society, and they managed to escape Cove
with their lives, then that would mean that when the
Captain gated me away, he didn’t gate me into another
Sosarian shard, he gated me into the future. I find this
stimulating and unnerving at the same time, for if this is
the same place, then there may still be traces of The
Society’s legacy surviving hidden away somewhere.

This is, of course, entirely academic…but I think I’m going
to have to watch my step around these vampires until I can
glean what they want and why.