Walpurgisnacht, 1691.
The two spires of the abandoned Vansgoth Abbey towered over its namesake village.
Just earlier that evening, a dozen masked horsemen had rushed through the streets and to the old sanctuary. The building, intended as a sacred place, was quickly perverted into an travesty of its original intentions.
Ominous chanting echoed through the old monastery amid the cries of an infant, stolen for their base purposes.
Candles were arranged into a large inverted pentagram and in the center of the star, a bowl containing a bowl of ashes. Five objects were placed on top of the dust: a ring, an eyeball, a rib, a heart, and a fang.
The black-clad leader of the group carried the infant into the center and drew a dagger.
The child's wailing stopped forever as its blood and innards fell upon the dust.
The walls shuddered as the Satanic ritual reached its climax.
The blood-saturated ashes erupted into a black fire and began to pulsate.
Tears of blood streamed from whatever sculpture retained its head after the wear and tear of the march of time. Likewise, the candles of the star began to ooze plasma while the black flames continued to consume the five objects burning within.
Like a twisted parody of Elijah's trial at Mount Carmel, a beam of lightning hit one of the bell towers, destroying it.
A second explosion came from within the sanctuary.
The small congregation were all killed by the blast, save one.
By the time he recovered, flames were licking the ceiling of the chapel.
The light of the fire revealed that an imposing figure in the very center of where the blast had occurred.
He seemed aged, yet somehow charismatic and attractive. A strong, pale face, clean-shaven save for a bushy mustache. White hair, very little around the temples, but quite abundant everywhere else. His ears were pointed at the top.
The figure wore a black cape and not a speck of color was on his person.
The surviving human, in awe, approached the "man" and knelt at his feet.
Looking upon his human summoner with blank stare, the master held out the back of his hand. He had oversized fingernails, sharp as spears and the ring used in his summoning was upon his finger.
Kissing it, the human displayed full loyalty to his non-human master.
A conflict, dormant for a century, was on the verge of restarting.
NOTES:
1. The name "Vansgoth" was derived from "Vandorf", the German town in the 1964 Hammer movie The Gorgon.
2. The appearance of Dracula is derived from the description given by Bram Stoker. Ironically, the sprite for his first form in the original game somewhat resembles this description, save for wearing a red cape.
3. The logic of giving Dracula a servant/follower came from that trend in CV canon: Shaft in 1792, Renfield in 1897, Elizabeth Bartley in 1917, as examples.