The Veil

II

I’m sorry this has taken so long. It’s been an arduous process to get financial support for my research, as you might think. It’s not easy to convince Universities of the importance of researching what looked like the writings of a mad man near death during the black plague, and the utter importance of his words. Especially since he talks about so many fabled creatures. Everyone thought I lost it or was somehow affected by a trace of the Plague… But I’m not crazy, as the Pentex Corporation is not crazy either. They requested me to complete the research, as they thought I was “attuned” to the story.

Now I have a huge research grant, access to a huge database of arcane information and tons and tons of time to dedicate to this research. As I said before, I still don’t know if this would be just a wild goose chase. If these are, in fact, just the writings of a mad man the Pentex Corporation is not going to be happy about it.

But let’s cut to the chase. Let’s go to what I have found about this “Carolvs McCallen” character so far. And man, I feel like I’m losing my mind as I go through his story. I promise you, what you’re about to read in this report is just the truth and nothing but the truth according to my findings.

Let’s go back in time to around 800 A.D., in the Norwegians region, surrounded by the German Sea. The McCallen homestead is not mentioned in any historical record, except some really old and very local documents, because of the rise to fame as a feared Pirate Captain of the youngest child. Carolvs was the child who had to endure the most harsh conditions as his parents were old by the time he was born and by the life expectancy standards of the time. They couldn’t support him further, so they gave him away as a fisherman’s apprentice. The document says he was very badly treated by his master, and was in fish cleaning duty without much to eat during his early years.

By the time he was a teenager, he had endured so much his mind was that of an adult, eager for knowledge and adventure. He took his little free time to try to learn as much as he could and try to get away from his menial life. He started getting the attention of an elderly erudite, Luthielle, and his apprentice, Alastor. He was educated in the language of the time, and learned to read and write. However, seeing the erudite was pretty much a hermit and having adventure in his heart, he started to drift apart from them. At the moment, piracy was not a huge force to be reckoned with, but had a huge share of adepts due to the harsh economic conditions.

A pirate boat had been using this town as their main port, and Carolvs decided then to join their ranks, much to the dismay of Alastor who kept repeating that they were “savage vampires” and he should not try to earn fame and fortune but to help keep the balance in the world with the knowledge the erudites provided. This, of course, did not feel appropriate for Carolvs, whose desire of adventure and fortune took the best of him, leaving in their boat as they left port.

This is the part where it gets hazy, as much of the information has been compiled from different local sources around the German Ocean, but he fought hard to earn the captain’s recognition and go up in the ranks. He was treated badly by his crewmates but he had learned to endure such treatment in his early years. Eventually, a mutiny started and he saw his chance to prove the Captain, whom he respected very much, his loyalty and valor, fighting alongside him and his few loyal men. When the smoke cleared, he was given the second mate rank, and the captain started grooming him to be a more important part of the crew.

Now, and as fictional as it sounds, according to the records the captain was actually a vampire, and saw the potential for carnage on this young man, and decided to take advantage of that. He started to train him on naval combat, maritime boarding combat and the young man took it, becoming more bloodthirsty as the time passed. By the time he was 25 he was first mate and a ghoul for his vampire lord. Around this time, the captain decided it was time for him to sire this bloodthirsty killing machine he created into a new vampire. He became second in command, and both ruled the ship with an iron fist, gaining fame as fearsome pirates, bloodthirsty and remorseless. Several attempts to sink them or kill them were unsuccessful and eventually, around 8-10 years later they parted ways as Carolvs decided to get his own ship and his own crew and sail the oceans.

By the time he became a captain, he became even more ruthless but, as they say, nothing melts a frozen heart like the raging fire of love. He fell in love with Elena, the daughter of a celtic erudite, and eventually he took her into her ship. But even though he was in love, his bloodthirsty ways were never sated and Elena started to grow scared of the man she loved, and disgusted by the horrible acts she saw every day on his ship.

At this point in history, I definitely started understanding some more of the lore they used to refer to people back then, as this “erudites” seem more like “mages” or “sorcerers” than scholars. This is because this Elena, this daughter of erudites, decided to accomplish what many had tried before and rid the world of this evil at hand, summoning a storm and sinking him and his crew for good, even if this meant for herself to be sacrificed as well.

The storm created a huge mäelstrom that started sinking the ship, and Carolvs, feeling betrayed as he saw Elena conjuring this storm to send him to his demise, killed her. But it was too late for them and even though he fought the wheel trying to save his ship and his crew, the ship sank to the bottom of the darkened and furious ocean.