Chapter 41: How To Find a Vampire

In Oasis Springs Valentine has encountered an obstacle he did not consider in his teen years. Having spent most of them researching vampires, and how to become one, it's another thing when you're old enough to pursue the dream. Because it's one thing to want to become a vampire, it's another to actually become one. For all his research into vampire lore, Valentine still doesn't know how to find a vampire.

He tries his best to gain inspiration at the piano.



But at the end of the day, the best he can do is go look. And for that it needs to be night time. So while his parents are at work he goes to sleep, only to inform them in the afternoon that he will be out and not to expect him to be at home early.

 

Carolyn, a bit worried about her son, tries to give him career advice instead. "One day you'll be taking over the company," she tells him, but Valentine just shrugs. Right now he has no such intentions. He does however agree to letting his mother mentor him in logic for a little while. Logic can never be wrong when searching for something hard to find.




And then he's off. He starts at the bar downtown. Surely a bar should be a place that vampires looking for a meal go to? But soon he discovers that it's not just being out and about at night, but also figuring out who might possibly be a vampire. He talks to almost everyone, debating the existence of vampires with most of them, but to no avail. There is no way to tell if anyone of them is a vampire, most probably are not. But then again, would a vampire reside in a place like Oasis Springs? A desert soaked in sun year round? Probably not.



Valentine concludes that he must take his quest elsewhere, and where to go if not Willow Creek? After all, that tree Willow took them to, wouldn't that hold his answer?

He sets off the next morning, arriving at a snow covered Willow Creek. But when walking over to the tree, the tree is just a tree. There is no hole. No portal to another world. He tries to remember if Willow said something, or did something, but can't recall anything but the giant portal and going through it. Is this the right tree? He tries to speak to it.
"Open!"
"Let me in!"

But nothing. Eventually he has to give up.



But giving up on the tree is one thing, now that he's come all this way he's not ready to give up on the town just yet, and Willow Creek has one of Simland's most prominent libraries. Maybe he can find something there? Either about how to enter that tree or on where and how to find vampires. He heads over.

Once there he speaks to the librarian, but like so many others she does not seem to know a thing. She tells him to search the internet, seriously? Eventually, she relents a bit.
"The museum in Tartosa has a library section that dates back hundreds of years, and they have an entire section dedicated to myths about the occult."

At least that is something.



He's just about to leave when he spots a woman sitting in the back. Isn't that... well sure it is. Jasmine Goth. A Goth has to know something about vampires and the occult, come on, they have to!

And so he heads over, introducing himself and trying his best to be his most polite self (being mean that's not a small feat). Jasmine is really not impressed, however, and when he asks about the occult she more or less calls him stupid. No luck there. If she knows something, she's not letting on at least.



Before leaving Willow Creek, Valentine decides to head to the nightclub in town. It's open surprisingly early, which gives Valentine a chance to take a nap in one of the sofas. No, it's not recommended. No, it's not something he is proud of. But he needs his rest and if you want something badly enough...



Once night arrives, and with it more guests, Valentine tries his best to do what he did the night before. Chatting with the bartender and the guests reveals nothing, however.




So at the end of the night, Valentine plays some tunes on the piano, and then start his way back home, where he can plan his trip to Tartosa.



Back home Valentine starts preparing his trip to Tartosa, promising his parents that he will be back before Winterfest, hoping that it's a promise he will be able to keep.

He rents the same house as his parents have rented before, but barely has time to pack his bag before heading off to Tartosa's museum. Once there he takes the time to view the art pieces there, but find the statues generally more interesting than the paintings.





But he's not really sure what to look at, or what to find. He asks one of the locals. Who directs him upstairs. "That's where the library section is."



And what a library! It's not nearly as large as Willow Creek Archives, but the ambiance! This is Valentine's kind of place.




And the librarian is actually helpful. Guiding him to a large tome from long ago that speaks of the myth of count Vladislaus Straud. What more it talks of a town, deep in the mountain's crests where the sun never reach and the dusk always prevails. Now that sounds like a place worth exploring.

Renting a car, Valentines starts driving, across the bridge and into the mountains. Higher and higher, deeper and deeper, until he reaches the edge of a small town called Forgotten Hollow. It's not quite dusk, but a lot cooler than Tartosa, and as Winterfest is near you need a coat, even if the ground is still snow free.

At the town square Valentine finds a statue of the count from the legends. So this must be the right place, even if it's not really dusk-dark.



He walks around town at first, exploring the now empty streets. High up on a hill he finds an old cemetery, and a large manor that looks both old and imposing. It looks sort of like a picture in the tome in Tartosa. Could it be the count's old manor? And the grave his victims?




Returning to the center of town, Valentine finds his way into a lounge on the bottom floor of a crypt. The opulence is striking, and Valentine definitely approve.

Like previous attempts he tries to chat up the other people at the bar, trying to figure out if any of them might know of a vampire. But when one actually shows up it's so obvious that Valentine is sure that he has never met one before.

Valentine immediately strikes up a conversation with him, and learns even more about being a vampire than he already did. But his new acquaintance is restless, and wants to leave too soon. Valentine sees his chance slipping through is fingers.




"Turn me!" he calls out, stopping Caleb in his tracks. If there ever was a time to regret it, to think twice, to find out more and weigh his options... well that ship sailed because no one needs to give Caleb permission to drink more than once (in fact many need not to give permission at all).



Soon Valentine feel himself becoming dazed, as if he's had way too much juice, and then there is the feel of Caleb's ice cold lips on his neck and a chill running down his spine as his fangs pierce his skin.

Caleb could just drink and leave, but Valentine asked to be turned and who is he to turn down more children?

After, as he walks back to his car, Valentine is so tired he is about ready to collapse. He knows he should probably not be driving, and when he wakes up in the morning, ready to head for home before Winterfest as he promised, he is not sure how he got there. In fact he's not sure he went anywhere at all. The entire night before is a daze in his mind, a faint memory of something he heard in a story, not true, not lived, but not untrue or unlived either. He has a hard time separating real from fake. The lingering feeling of everything coming down to a deep hunger that food cannot fill, and a nausea that just won't pass.