Bram Stoker was lounging in an inn chair, a thick ancient book resting on his thighs as he casually flipped through it.
A full glass of red wine sat beside him.
After reading for a while, he closed the book and set it aside. Supporting himself, he sat up, raised the wineglass, and held it up to the sunlight.
The wine inside the glass was not clear. Instead, it looked somewhat viscous.
Under the sunlight streaming in through the window, black matter flowed through the transparent red liquid like a living thing. It looked like tiny parasitic worms made of black solid matter.
Bram shook the glass in satisfaction, then extended a finger and tapped it.
Under the external stimulus, the black tendrils inside immediately writhed and gathered together. The less-clear portions congealed into a lump and shrank into a red ball the size of a date, with several black tendrils pulsing like blood vessels.
"—Still not concentrated enough."
Bram gave his assessment.
He took a glass test tube from his robes and dripped several drops of blood into it. The blood floated on top of the wine, looking like a pool of oil.
Then he cut open his own wrist and dripped his blood into it as well.
The two kinds of blood mixed together and sank downward. The condensed "heart" shattered again under the impact of the external force, dispersing into the wine.
"All right, take a break."
Bram said leisurely, "Come have some lunch. We'll continue in a while."
In the corner of the room, an old troll knelt facing the furnace, his upper body bare and his back covered in runes.
At those words, he silently began putting things away. He placed the black herbs back into the herb pouch, then picked up the leeches and