The Vampyr of La Selva

Adam honestly wasn't the biggest of fans of Jardineria, the whole island to him seemed to be rather fake in a sort of roundabout, we're-not-really-your-friends kind of way. He wasn't particularly sure why this was a feeling that overwhelmed him on the island, it was more of a general sort of feeling he had had as soon as he stepped off the boat. He had left his ship in the city of Miravista with a tool he had been hired to craft for a man somewhere in the center of the Northern district of La Selva and the trip overland had taken a couple of days to get there from his entry point, and the whole time he had felt uneasy. It probably wasn't the locals; despite their darker skin they were no different from anyone else he saw in the world -especially not since some of the smiths on Illusia were from here as well- but it was the feeling of being watched that set him on edge, the feeling that he was not alone no matter where he went.


It had been strongest at night, each time he had taken a room at an inn and slept the night he had found he had rather awful dreams, waking each and every time in a start -and multiple times in a night- before shaking himself and pacing a little to put himself to sleep again. It had hardly helped and he awoke each morning feeling gritty eyed and rather put out, his usual pleasant demeanour not gone per se but it was definitely muted, his smiles only half-hearted instead of full and truthful to everyone he saw. Maybe it was because of this tiredness that he was attuned in a way to the whispers as he finally entered La Selva, departing from the stage coach he had hired with a nod and a tip for the driver then began to walk, aiming for the obvious center of the town. The whispers around him were a muted buzz this time, clearly not directed at him, but even in his state of near-insomnia he was able to hear some of the mutterings around him, some of them were even interesting.

"That's right, drained of all of his blood!"
"I heard there were puncture marks on his neck!"
"Dead in his bed-"
"Eyes wide open in ter-"
Adam was interested but he had a job to do first, he muted the voices around him consciously as he approached the town center, reaching a large mansion made of marble and stone. Raising one hand he knocked hard on the bronze doors, a tall pale man -the first one he had seen on Jardineria in fact- answered quietly, looking Adam up and down with a broad sneer.

"Hi there," Adam said good-naturedly, "I have a delivery for the mayor."

Axel had just arrived in this strange island during his trip to another island. The ship he was hitching a ride her stopped in this place and it would be awhile before they left. It was already night when they arrived on the island being night time and being tired from it he discounted the eyes on him as exhaustion induced paranoia. Axel decided to go find a room to stay to get some sleep, hopefully in the morning he would Be able to find a ship out of here. But as he lay the feeling didn’t go away, which was very suspicious so he decided to investigate later on, maybe he would wait for that ship to set sail after all, it was a nice one to be sure.

So eventually he would head to sleep and next morning he would look around for any local rumors that could fit what he experienced. As well as getting the ships leaving schedules for the next few days just in case he wanted to bail. This time at night he would investigate more rumors and eventually hear whispers of blood being drained from a body. So he would go over to the people talking about it and ask “hey im doing a sort of investigation into strange occurrences and was wondering if you could tell me more about what you said about the blood being drained from a body?”

For a long moment Adam's smile and greeting to the strangely pale Jardinerian remained unanswered, the butler(?) looking him up and down a few moments with almost insulting slowness, taking him all in. It wasn't like Adam looked particularly dissheveled or unkempt; he always kept his appearance at least relatively decent and since he had had the night before to sleep -at least a little- he wasn't looking tired or overwhelmed or anything else he had generally felt since he had arrived on this piece of ass island. Still, the man took quite some time before nodding slowly, though he made no move to let Adam in.
"You will need to use the servant's entrance," he said with a slight curl of his lip in a sneer, "On the West side of the house. If you do not know your directions as I suspect it is on th-"

He cut off with a deeper sneer when Adam had simply nodded after the words 'West Side' had been mentioned before shaking his head in probable disgust and then he stepped back into the house and slammed the door shut in the young smith's ever-smiling face.
"How incredibly rude for no absolute reason." mused to himself with a small shrug, hefting the package in one hand as he turned and made his way around to the right side of the house from the front. The pathway was well-worn and almost smooth, probably the result of hundreds of feet walking over the paving stones over many years towards the servants entrance. When he reached it he raised his hand to knock before it was opened without a word, the same pale man staring down at him then he jerked his head as if to say 'come in'.

"The tool was a simple task in form but the materials that you requested were a little harder to come by where I normally work," Adam said as he followed the man into a kitchen, a plump woman in chef's whites smiling at him quickly before casting a glance at the butler then turning back to a large pot that was eliciting wonderful smells, "Which explains the general cost I quoted your lor-"
"My Master." the man interjected, stressing the word strangely, "Not my lord."

Adam simply shrugged as he was shown into a large open study where a large man -broad as well as imposingly tall- sat behind a mahogany desk, a man who grinned broadly when Adam placed the package he was carrying down on the desk and laughed openly.
"You are the smith I hired?" the man asked, though he continued speaking before Adam could reply, "Excellent, excellent! Now, I'm sure Vlad here can give you your payment, as long as the tool is up to specifications of course?"

After awhile of asking Axel had heard lots of strange rumors some of them were about the mayor or his staff even. Some said the mayor was secretly a vampire, some said his butler was the vampire, and some said both were. He also heard rumors about people being drained of there blood in the middle of the night. The accounts of what happened varried but most agreed these people were killed by something that sucks blood because of the puncture marks on he neck all victims had as well as missing blood.

Axel decided to continue his investigation into the strange occurrences though problem was it was getting hard to tell what was true and what wasn’t. There was so much variations, though thankfully a few things did seem to be reliable one of those things being he learned that others were also feeling like there being watched.

He wondered how he would find such a creature if it existed with such unreliable leads to go off of. He hoped that eventually he could get some reliable information about whats going on, or enough people will have heard of a way to find this thing. Later when it started to get dark he decided to head back to his room and think about what he had learned from his investigation.

[[OOC: So sorry about the delay, been super busy with work and health stuff]]

---

It would have been a lie to say Adam was not slightly disgruntled with the questioning of his abilities as a Smith, the mayor's almost flippant query about the quality of the tool was something he would have normally been able to shrug off -people were mostly stupid after all- but he was tired, hungry and more than a little sick of this goddamn island, so his smile was perhaps a trifle more rictus than normal when he replied.
"Sir I can assure you the specifications of the task were completed to the exact level you desired and to the highest quality you can find in the West Blue," he said not-quite-curtly, his eyes even and his voice otherwise calm, "In fact if you permit me to show you the item I can assuage all of your fears very easily."

The butler had returned then with a small money clip of Beli on a silver tray, but he halted by the door when the mayor raised one hand and flicked his middle and ring fingers in a quick gesture, halting the man in place.
"By all means lad," the mayor said with a slight sneer and some evident disrespect, "Assuage away."
Adam's smile did not slip, if anything it became more relaxed and even as he leaned forwards and grasped the package, unwrapping the twine around it in a quick movement and letting the white paper around the strange device fall away. It was a little box made of a shining metal that Adam had been sent specifically to work with, the lid opening up to a mirror on the inside with a small latch on the underside. Inside were nine small holes to place glass vials -Adam had also had those made- and as he opened the box and turned it to the mayor he bowed slightly, his eyes shining.

"Hmph," the mayor snorted softly, "Yes I suppose that will do nicely. You may collect your payment now and leave me."
He reached forwards and picked up the box to admire it, turning in his chair away from the young smith opposite him as he did so. The butler nodded his head to Adam as the younger man picked up the money clip, a small sneer on his face as well as Adam left without another word. If this self-important asshole wanted to be rude then he could be too, walking out calmly and easily, looking around at the paintings on the wall as he did. Something was bothering him as he walked but he couldn't quite work out what it was. It took until he had walked outside completely and the door was barricaded quite audibly from the inside that he realised what had bothered him - even more than the mayor's attitude, more than his words and eyes.

He hadn't had a reflection in the shining mirror-like box...

As Axel continued his investigation learning all sorts of rumors all regarding a monster though. Problem was it was hard to tell what was true without investigating each one. So Axel went and decided to investigate each one. Some would take more effort so he went to finish with the easy rumors first after he was done with them he started investigating more tricky ones.

During the course of his investigation he eventually found out about someone who met the mayor because he was hired to create something for him. So Axel decided to wait outside the manor for this person to leave. Once he did Axel would try to follow him to see if this person was just a servant or not. He would make no attempt to hide, given his size though it would be hard to do so in first place.

Plus making no attempt to hide would mean that when he was spotted he could just talk to him without him being suspicious hopefully. At very least he would be far less suspicious then if he was caught trying to hide. Once the man saw him Axel would ask him “ i was hoping to talk to you about something, im doing a investigation into strange occurrences in this place and was hoping you could help me.”

He would then go onto to say shortly after “ did you notice anything strange about the mayor when you visited him?”