1st Brauzeit (Brewmonth) 2511 IC Bezahltag (Taxday)
It is now almost midday. The weather is still cold enough to steam one's breath but at least the snow has stopped and the wind has fallen after last nights blizzard. The passage of people over the morning has trampled most of the snow from the streets, so apart from all the garlic things are almost back to normal.
There is some sort of problem at the mine. The miners have stopped work and are refusing to go back. They say that
'there is something down there' and that some of the miners have gone missing. They say they have been killed and eaten by a monster, but you may not believe that.
Lord Matthias, the Graf's son and 'de facto' governor of Hugeldal has sent to Castle Black Rock asking for help. Quite what sort of help remains to be seen, speculation varies from an army to a specialist team of monster hunters, or perhaps just one amazing hero. The latter being a favourite option amongst the townswomen.
In the meantime, the Strigany folk who camp just outside the town walls and usually provide distracting entertainment for the townsfolk have suddenly gone. Apparently, after months and months of providing sometimes controversial services to the town they have simply packed up and left. You have been told that they are moving North with the intention of avoiding
'The Coming Darkness', whatever that means.
In practice, of course, your character knows exactly what that means because the Strigany have been going on about it for weeks. The only real question is how much of what you hear you actually believe.
The story which has been repeated all around the town with suitable embellishments and exaggerations is that
'a great darkness is coming' which will engulf the town and possibly most of Black Rock. Nobody knows what this darkness is, not even the Strigany, apparently, but people have been going missing, and not just miners. There have been people stumbling terrified through the town gates claiming that their entire families have been taken, though none of them seems sure about what took them. Only a few days ago a poor farmer stumbled into town half delirious with fear and grief claiming that his wife and three children had all been taken.
The Strigany have told everyone to leave and to put as much distance between themselves and Hugeldal as possible before the darkness engulfs them, but it's hard to say how many have actually left, or whether the people who have gone missing are just the ones who heeded the warning.
The latest rumour is that it was the Strigany themselves who were the cause of the disappearances. Rolf Bek the man who stands in the Marketplatz every day agitating the townsfolk waiting to draw water from the well reckons that the Strigany were harbouring an evil beast in their caravans. A vampiric monster which is now hiding in the mine and preying on the miners and townspeople.
The idea that the Strigany are in league with vampires is an old one, but if this really was their doing then why flee from their own creature.
Nevertheless, many people have taken it seriously and a growing number have taken to wearing chokers of garlic and silver charms to protect themselves from the beast.
Doktor Verfullen claims there is nothing to worry about and vampirism is merely a disease like any other, and that even if it is caught, it is merely an imbalance in the bodily fluids that causes victims to thirst for blood and that for the right price he can cure it with a suitable medicinal brew and that removing the elongated incisors is a relatively simple surgical procedure and not too painful.
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