Darkest Dungeon:

The Draven Estate

PROLOGUE: DREAMS AND MEMORIES

It feels like a half-forgotten dream but also vaguely real. Whenever it comes to me in times of slumber, it always feels more tangible than it should, like it's just there for me to reach out and touch. And yet I remember the day and I know what actually happened, so why do the events of the dream begin to feel more factual with each time I have it? My father grabbing me by the lapel, tossing me out the door and screaming "Get into the carriage boy! Don't look back!"

And while that isn't exactly inaccurate, in reality, when I flew out the door, I was followed by a suitcase of my belongings and the words that left my father's mouth were not words of concern but rather those of detestation. "You have brought disgrace to this house for the last time!" he said with a raging fury about his voice.

I still see everything, as clearly as the day it happened. The tall halls of that modestly large house, marble pillars and columns, the red carpet leading to the main hall and eventually to the front door, the feeling of choking as my father tightly grasped the lapel of my shirt as if I was a hated enemy and not one of his own blood, I see it all. And I guarantee that as certain as the bullet in my gun misfiring when I need the most, it is a memory.

However, memory does tend to play a trick on the mind at times. Perhaps over time my brain over-compensated for the painful memory of being cast out of my own home by turning it into something equally tragic but far less wistful. Instead of being driven out by my father for playing a little too fast and loose with our name and fortune, the narrative transformed into my father bravely sacrificing his life for me to get me out of the house while something dark consumed it. Things can easily be misconstrued in the mind of a child. I was fifteen then, and that night was ten years ago.

I know what I know, but what if I don't?

CHAPTER 1: DISMAS

Alarm bells. Great. Now I need to make a break for it, but in which direction exactly? These hallways seem endless, I can't figure out how to go back the way I came and my torch is close to fizzling out. Maybe bread crumbs would've been a good idea, or droplets of blood on the floor. Either way, at least they would've helped me find a way back. "THERE'S THE THIEF!" I hear one guard say, and I take that as my cue to run. Destination? God help me.

I race off in the direction where there isn't a guard, and desperately hoping that it was leading to an exit, any sort of exit. The front door would be nice, a side gate even better, but at this point I'd gladly take an appropriately large window overlooking the ocean, although, this house is not by the coast so I guess that's a bit less likely than the other two.

I take any possible turn possible, I keep track of any potential landmarks or anything specific that I find to make sure I'm not going around in circles. In the distance, I can still hear the guards, sometimes fading farther away, sometimes getting louder. These corridors all look very similar, grey, bleak and drab, and bookshelves, and paintings of old people looking equally grey, bleak and drab, so I base my movements on the distance of their voices.

After noticing that I've seen a specific painting three times, I realized something was off - I was going in circles. I cannot mistake this painting, as there is nothing like it throughout this entire house. Very rustic, not quite abstract, but not quite defined either. It's like the painting is intended to play a trick on the mind of whoever looks at it. Fortunately, it seems this area of the mansion is somewhere far from where the guards are currently looking for me, so I had the liberty to pause very briefly, rethink my exit strategy, and maybe steal this painting, too, not sure if it'll be worth anything but if not then I can keep it. I like souvenirs.

I reach out to the painting by its sides to lift it off its hook; I've only moved it slightly when I heard a sound, a rumbling noise. I turn around to see that the wall behind me was opening, slowly at first but then all at once, clearly a secret entrance. After hopelessly trying to nudge the painting off the wall, I surrendered to the fact that it was nothing more than a fancy, decorative switch to this door, so I ran into the opening instead, straight down the stairs, and in the distance behind me I could hear the door closing, either there's an exit at the end of this secret room, or I just locked myself in the dungeon of the house I was robbing. Excellent, Dismas. Excellent.

I'm not very clever under pressure of being caught so I assumed "secret entrance" meant "not even the guards know about it". And if that were the case, maybe I'll try to backtrack once ample time has passed and they'd no longer be looking for me. In the meantime, I'll check out what's inside this damn secret room, and it doesn't look like it's going to be easy.

First thing's first, the room is pitch black. I dropped my fizzling torch the moment I started to run, and all I have is a box of matches in my pack but better than nothing, I guess. I fetch the matches from my pack and light one. The few seconds that I had light gave me a brief glimpse of the immediate area. There were faint images of what looked like a board of scientific formulas or equations that I would never be able to understand.

But in those few seconds, I managed to spot a torch on the far wall opposite me, so I stumble across the room and light it. The torch provided some much needed light so I could investigate further, and this was not a secret dungeon. It was more of a secret laboratory. Who was this guy? I was aware that he was rather wealthy but secret scientific experiments? Vials of blood, pieces of dead animals, beakers filled with green liquid. I don't want to find out.

I look around and see another set of stairs leading down, and going down hasn't killed me so far tonight, so why not?

At the bottom of the stairwell was a door. No room, no big space, just a typical wooden door. Locked, of course. I press my ear against it to check if I can gauge what would potentially be on the other side, and to my surprise, it sounded like it was the outside. I quickly get out my lockpicks and I try to pick the lock, and the moment it unhinged, I ran out, and it was indeed the outside. By my estimation, somewhere roughly around the southeast wing of the mansion, and luckily just a short sprint to the wall where I made my entrance.

After about five minutes of quietly sneaking towards my exit as opposed to quickly sprinting, I find myself having made the right decision, which was a nice change, because manning the wall where I made my entrance was the biggest, most brutish guard I had ever seen, not so nice change. I sneak up behind him and hit him on the back of the head with the butt of my knife… not very effectively, may I add. He turns around and hits me and knocks me to the ground.

"I've got you, you thief!" he says, in the deepest, most intimidating voice a person could have. "I'm not even going to call for my boys. I'll take care of you all by my lonesome." He ominously mutters as he slowly approaches.

"That's your problem, though. By your lonesome. I'm not that stupid." I say arrogantly as I draw my gun which nine times out of ten misfires when I need it most.

"That thing will attract more attention. Even if you do pull that trigger and shoot me, my boys will be here in no time to stop you from escaping."

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just buying some time." I say confidently as I see a huge towering figure loom behind the guard. The huge figure lifts up a sword and hits the guard with the butt of it. No sense in shedding blood for the sake of a mere robbery, I guess. The guard falls over in front of me, completely unconscious, while the towering figure extends a hand to help me stand up.

"Took you long enough. I almost had to use this." I say coyly as I gesture to my pistol.

"If you did, it would've alerted all the guards and we'd be in far bigger trouble. Now let's go." The giant figure says.

I holster my knife and my gun, I grab my pack and the bag of loot, and we exit through a hidden hole on the wall that I gouged when I made my entrance. We walk a short distance from the wall fortunately without much trouble and we get to our carriage. My partner makes his way inside, and I throw the loot in right after him. I sit in front, grab the reins, and off we went. It's a half-day ride to the village, but the loot should be enough to keep the orphanage supplied for a good five to six months, hopefully.

All things considered, it was a successful night's work for Dismas and Reynauld. Wonder if I can come back for that painting, though.