"Man, the mission board has been nothing but about puppets and burning guys, whatever they are called, I am already getting sick of it" a rugged adventurer complained, taking a hefty chug of poor quality alcohol, struggling to get drunk with this thing cut with so much water it was noticeable.
"Stop whining for a second will ya? Those missions are made by the king himself, I have had so much money in my entire life, taxes on the money earned this way are lowered as well, why are you moaning and groaning for?
This is the best chance of our life to get something for ourselves" his drinking buddy chastised him for being an idiot, earning nothing more than a grumble amidst the rowdy atmosphere of the tavern, it was well into the evening, the sound of bowls and spoons amongst other wooden cutlery hitting against one another was the most prominent sound source.
The ungrateful adventurer being the sole person trying to get himself dead drunk.
"That's not what I am complaining about! Did you take a good look at those creeps? The one's in their long, flowing cloaks not only fill my days but also my nights!
Bastards visit me in my nightmares, and I am not even talking about the guys with their burning eyes, can't stand their ramblings, makes me feel filthy just thinking about them…" shaking his head, he finished his cup in one go, still not feeling the gentle arms of lady drunkenness enveloping him.
"Why does the boss keep adding more and more water?! There are no shortages of booze, is there?
Not like he takes the expensive stuff anyways…" his companion was going to respond, but both of their attentions, alongside of that of a few more patrons closer to the entrance were drawn to the outside, they couldn't see anything, but they could hear it, something heavy rolling and stopping right in front of the tavern, drawn by what sounded like only two horses.
Most definitely horses, hearing one of them loudly neigh into the night, carriages and caravans came and went, stopping as well, nothing too out of the ordinary, even that late at night but the audible creaking was rather bizarre, some of them sounding like the moaning of ghosts.
The adventurers and workers having come to unwind from their hard day of work quickly went back to what they had been doing, not overthinking anything, barely a few paying attention when someone from that caravan stepped in the tavern, doing so without fanfare, awfully quiet.
Dressed in a long black mantle, tightly buttoned up all the way to the very top of their neck, old grey working pants, ample enough to allow all sorts of wide movements, dirty brown boots that had seen better days, but still held on, fulfilling their purposes just as well as new.
Leather gloves that stood on the opposite spectrum, appearing like they had just come out of the leather worker's shop.
The mantle was in a good state, but to those that happened to glance in its direction when the door opened, what stood out the most was their headwear, a helm of great manufacture, the slits for the eyes looking like bars, only shadows laying being them.
"Good evening sir, what can I do for you?" a waitress approached the grim-looking individual, beaming a nice smile at them.
The person, a man as one could tell by the voice, did not sound quite as scary as he looked, simply asking for some food.
"Miss, a word" he stopped her before she went away.
"I am but a visitor here, but I was wondering, is it not worrying to be living so close-by to the territory of The Impaler?" he asked, getting a simple answer.
"Nothing has ever happened, so nobody worries about it, and we aren't that close to it anyways" she swiftly moved through the crowd leading him to an empty table.
Indeed, Loimos currently found himself near a border of Tamaris, still technically inside of the country, but beyond there, one would have to travel wildlands, designated as a wide span of nature that should not be touched upon too much, settling settlements was not allowed and the gathering of ressources was tightly regulated, within parts of those lands, was where the king had allowed some of his more nature oriented business partners to set up places of living.
Wood elves and such, the king had greater plans obviously, but merely having good relationships with them was a great boon on its own, beyond the uncharted nature, laid the mountains chains that marked the true borders of the kingdom, their tops domains of various monsters, but more particularly home to a single winged beast of great power, which ruled the eternally snowy region.
But neither of those were of interest to Loimos, what was of interest was a place situated in between the wide mountain chains, in this direction, the mountains went on for much longer than anywhere else, marking it as truly impossible to traverse reliably.
In the middle of the rugged terrain, mountains left a space free of their influence, at the bottom of here, laid a place were many explorers would find their end, impaled and left to rot amidst the other countless corpses, there, impaled cadavers were as common as trees were in Tamaris.
No one truly knew what was lurking there, as none that had witnessed this scenery had been able to dig deeper, either running away, following reason, whilst the others that attempted to uncover the mysteries never came back, following curiosity.
Loimos's will to venture toward the land of the impaled wasn't mere curiosity however, he had a mission to fulfil, a rather difficult one at that, finding the gravelords was like looking for an invisible needle in a stack of hay amidst thousands of other stacks.
They knew how to make themselves discreet whilst awaiting for the return of their king, their strength was needed now however.
The issue of finding them was true for all, but one, unless The Impaler was not the vampire lord famed for this particular act of intimidation.
Finding home cradled in between high mountains, where the sun could only reach with difficulty was another sign that Dracula, Son Of Dragon was awaiting the second war on life here however.