"Z-Zyphre?" asked Lydia, stumbling back. "Wh-what's going on here? What –"

Lydia hit the corner and bent over, gripping the roots of her hair. Zyphre moved towards her and touched her shoulder. She flinched away from him. "Zyphre, what are you? What's happening? I don't understand what's going on!"

"Then perhaps we should explain it to you," hissed the shadow. "You, my Lydia, were my bride. My beautiful, terrible bride. You were called the Harbinger of Death. Zyphre was a member of my council. I thought I could trust him, so I assigned him to be your guardian. He can turn into a bat; only a bat. He could easily play the part of your familiar while on the outside world. Zyphre is a very special kind of vampire, you see. His mother was turned while pregnant with him, and he was born as a vampire. He had the very useful immunity to sunlight. As for the other weaknesses of a vampire, he trained until he worked up an immunity to them. All except for one. He never quite overcame garlic."

Then it hit Lydia. She turned to look at Zyphre. "That time you began sick," she said in a shaky voice. "There was the smell of garlic in those spices." Zyphre nodded, not taking his eyes off the shadow.

"I never anticipated him developing feelings for you," continued the voice. "You were mine. You were off limits."

"Lydia is not an item!" yelled Zyphre. "She belongs to no one! Not even you!"

"And I certainly never anticipated him destroying my physical body in order to free you from me," hissed the voice as if there had been no interruption. "But it was too bad for him that you loved me. You contacted me; you made the plan to get my body back. I would need ten thousand lives to restore my body, and Waterdeep has ten thousand people in it. I have taken almost all of them. Within the hour, I will have all of my old power.

"But then something happened that I did not intend. Just as you were leaving for Waterdeep to restore me, Zyphre used his power to wipe your memory completely. He intended to hide who you truly were from you, to steal you away, to make sure I could no longer touch what is rightfully mine. He even set spectral wolves on you when you woke up, just to make sure your godly powers were sealed."

"That was you?" demanded Lydia, rounding on Zyphre. He looked upset.

"You don't understand," said Zyphre. "I couldn't let you keep living like that! It would have eventually destroyed you! I cared about you too much, I couldn't let that happen!"

"I almost died!" shouted Lydia.

"I know," said Zyphre, almost timidly. "I was terrified. All because I wasn't there to protect you."

"Protect me?" she shouted. "You tried to kill me!"

"No!" he shouted, distraught. "I never tried to kill you! I did it to protect you!"

"If you two are quite finished," hissed the voice. "You were carried back to the orc camp, but your demi-god powers came into effect while you were being examined, and you ripped out the throat of the shaman. Shortly afterward you were trancing to escape pain, and I seized the opportunity to speak with you. Zyphre failed to completely erase your memory, and you knew you still had to go to Waterdeep. You just didn't know why. I decided to remind you. The gown was a gift, to remind you what the life of a queen was like. You don't seem to have treated it very well. It's all bloodied and torn. You even ripped the skirt to reduce the pain of that scum. What a waste. It is a pity.

"Zyphre, on the other hand, got a call from my right hand to go talk about the mission. He didn't want to leave your side; if he hadn't, he would have seen me enter your mind. He still felt it, of course, but he was several hours' away, no use to you. He lied for you, but I can always see through his lies, even if my stupid right hand couldn't. Instead, he decided to anger Zyphre, and Zyphre killed him rather than have him relay what I already knew back to me. By the time he got back, you had already slaughtered the goblins, unleashing the power buried within you that I nudged just a little closer to the surface. That scared him. He thought his little memory suppressant was failing."

"You bastard!" screamed Zyphre. "Stop talking! Now! Don't tell her any more!"

"Zyphre has been dropping hints about what he truly is all over the place. For starters, he's a vampire bat. Vampires can only turn into vampire bats; a real bat familiar can be any type. The time he collapsed after smelling the garlic. His ridiculously fast healing. When he took his gaseous form every time the dragonkin swung at him…"

"SHUT UP!" shouted Zyphre, lunging forward. He tore his claws down the shadow's chest, and the shadow leaped back.

"Do you really think you can do that to me?" it hissed. "I have very nearly gotten the lives of everyone in this city! I have enough now to take physical form…"

The shadow solidified. Grew flesh, a long beard, a face. The shadows reformed around his body to make a long, billowing cloak. He ran his new hands up and down his new body, feeling his chest, feeling his face. He threw back his head and laughed.

Nerull, the God of Death, was on the living plane once more.

Yeah, those bad guys just love to monologue.

Ironically, Nerull is Neutral Evil, and Zyphre is Chaotic Evil, and yet Zyphre isn't saying a word. I think Lydia might be in shock. We'll find out.

Also, just throwing this out here now. I've gotten several comments that Zyphre sounds like he's from Tw!light from my family and the guy playing Claire. Our DM decided he was a vampire, not me. Our DM and I both want to murder that creature for smearing the vampire lore with that horrid piece of...I'd call it literature, but that would give it too much credit. Zyphre is a badass. Edward is a fairy. Zyphre is immune due to a complication in his birth. Edward has been dunked in a bucket of glitter. Zyphre went through 2500 years of intense training to become the most powerful vampire in the world, staying with holy symbols for extended periods, crossing bridges with running water beneath them, until he had overcome them all (except garlic, but he's working on it. It only smacked him because bats noses are so keen. It would have made him nauseous in his vampire form, but he could have ignored it). Edward is a pussy. Anyone relates Zyphre to Twil!ght and I will hunt you down and end you painfully.

Oh, and that comment of him only being able to turn into a bat. The 3.5e Monster Manual says that vampires can take the form of a bat, dire bat, wolf, or dire wolf at will as long as he returns to his normal form before the next sunrise. Zyphre can stay in his form as long as he wants, but he can ONLY be a bat, he cannot be a dire bat, wolf, or dire wolf. He also does not have to return to a coffin full of soil from his homeland to sleep, since he is not dead. He is the world's only living vampire. That also means that the rule "If brought to 0 hp they turn into their gaseous form and must return to their coffin within 1 hour to heal one hp. Fast Healing then resumes as normal." kind of fucks him over, but he's got something like 2400 hp, so I think he's good. Explaining all this shit here because it won't be explained in the fic. Chances are I'll remember more stuff and add it here, but I think I've got everything.