Lara wiped her brow and tossed a glance over her shoulder at the setting sun, gauging how much more time she had left before dark. Strands of her hair hugged her perspiring face, and she pushed them back perfunctorily. She and Neuth had been at the forge all day, reshaping the mysterious sword and agonizing over every detail. With his expertise, they had managed to nearly complete it. Lara briefly considered ditching the creepy crossguard but decided against it, as she wasn't yet certain of the significance.

"Welp," exclaimed Neuth minutes before sunset, "that's probably my best work in twenty years. Not so sure about the shape, though."

"It's perfect," breathed Lara, hefting the now intact artifact in her right hand. She gave it an experimental spin, then grasped the hilt with both hands. "If I find the original maker, I'll let him know you're not a fan of his design choices."

"With your luck, the maker is a vampire," quipped the blacksmith. They shared a laugh.

'That would be my luck,' Lara groaned inwardly.

Exhausted from their labors, the pair extinguished the forge, made their way back inside, and bolted the door. Neuth bustled from window to window in his usual fashion, ensuring all entry points were locked and covered sufficiently by the thick, black curtains. Lara couldn't imagine living like this, in fear that the darkness could murder her at any moment. There were no night parades, holiday ice skating, or romantic moonlit strolls. The people of Nosgoth lived in a world where half of their existence was shut up indoors. But as Neuth explained to her, it was a superficial precaution. A locked door would not halt a starving vampire, and they were very close to the corrupted Pillars. She mentioned this to her new friend, who sighed in agreement.

"Word came yesterday that two young lovers 'ad been found drained in the woods not far from here. Not ours, but still human… and still very young. Foolish to go out at night. Better to suffer the wrath of an angry father than the thirst of a vampire. But tell that to two young kids in love."

Lara grimaced. Her new sword laid upon her lap, gleaming magnificently in the small gas lamp light on the kitchen table. She ran a finger along the curves of the central ridge, finishing her journey with a sharp tap of her nail on the steel. "I must be here to help you," she said. "If not for that purpose, then what?"

"Rotten luck," replied the old man, setting a steaming cup of tea in front of Lara. "You know, I canno' stop ye, but I've got to warn ye, many a warrior 'as faced the creatures of the night. There's a long, bloody 'istory that we simple folk are tired of keepin' track of. But we remember. Not all warriors come back 'ome."

"That's true in my world as well," said Lara, solemnly. "Listen, I'll make you a deal. I won't take a risk that doesn't get me closer to going home, but I will try to help solve your vampire problem along the way."

"Deal," smiled the blacksmith. The two clinked their tea cups together and passed the rest of the night in contemplative silence before turning in.

o-o-o-o

Raziel didn't know what he had expected. After making the journey around the Lake of Tears and up the perilous mountain face, he had hauled himself over the last ridge and finally beheld what lay beyond the last charted space in Nosgoth.

With his keen night vision, the vampire saw forest, and more forest, stretching out for miles in every direction. There was nothing else. This area held no unfathomable secrets of ancient times. It was only unclaimed. Without a bustling population of humans, thanks to his kind, there had been no need to expand across the mountain. And so, the wild frontier was simply that.

"I might actually be disappointed," Raziel mused, kicking a loose stone down the rock face. He watched it tumble until it plunged beneath the canopy of trees. It had taken a significant amount of time to get up there, and now, finally seeing that he had been missing nothing all these years, he could only chuckle at himself for getting his hopes up.

Making his way back down the mountain would take him less time than the ascent. He had a few hours until dawn, so he sat on a flat stone and gazed over the land he had traveled and conquered yet knew so little about. Maybe that is what plagued him. Did he yearn to unearth the past and thereby exhume long-dead secrets? It sounded exhausting. And how would it benefit him?

He cast his golden eyes back toward Nachtholm. He would need to stop there to feed for the night, unfortunately. Thinking about the miserable little town made his lips curl with disdain. It didn't look good for whomever he caught that night, as whether he decided to simply feed from them or take their life largely depended on how annoyed he was these days.

"No use procrastinating," he chastised himself, and slipped back down the mountain with surprising speed.

With an hour to spare before sunrise, Raziel found himself back in Nachtholm's deserted streets. If he wanted to feed tonight, he would have to break into someone's home or steal quietly into the inn by the eastern bridge. He decided the latter option would be the path of least resistance and made his way steadily East. As he neared his destination, a curious sensation overcame him. It was minute and gentle, like a soft humming behind his ear. He turned toward the opposite side of the path and took a step. The hum grew slightly more distinct. Unable to control his curiosity, and knowing he was the most dangerous thing in the night, he made his way briskly behind the house, where an old forge sat cooling. He sniffed the air succinctly, detecting nothing unusual about his surroundings. And yet, the humming had not ceased.

The raven-haired vampire approached the forge, scanning the gloaming for the source of the strange sound. What he found was even more perplexing: a serpentine mold for the blade of a sword. He had only seen one sword such as this in his whole existence as a vampire, the Reaver, and it belonged to Kain. Had someone seen this sword, then asked the blacksmith to forge a facsimile? Preposterous. When Kain drew the Reaver, no enemy survived. How then, did this mold come to be?

Running out of time, Raziel cast one last suspicious glance at the smithy before returning to the street and climbing to the top floor of the inn across the way. Forcing a locked window ajar and slipping deftly inside, he smiled wickedly at the unlucky human who would be his meal tonight.