A successful hunt! Grandmaster Artorias’ new organization, the Sanguine Order, slew a vampire with a helping hand from a team of adventurers. We arrived in a small hamlet around midday, and by the evening had gathered what information we could from the locals. A creature had been taking able-bodied workers in the night and leaving remains on well-worn trails.

Given the frequency of the disappearances, the Grandmaster decided to recruit some adventurers passing through the village. We rallied before dusk and set off to hunt for the creature. We found skulls stripped of flesh and too recent to have been cleaned by insects, then bloody chains discarded from an attempted escape. We knew that this creature was too precise to be a lycanthrope, too intelligent to be a wraith or great spider.

As we pressed on, a clearing revealed a number of humans under the creature’s thrall, guarding a chalice on the forest floor. They did not react well to our arrival, and were struck down swiftly. When we searched their bodies, however, we found silver coins aplenty - almost as if our prey had been snatching it away from wherever they could. This gave Grandmaster Artorias an idea, and examination of the chalice proved wise. They had acquired a Forge Chalice, an old artifact from before the cataclysm! Using arcane runes, the chalice heated the silver to its melting point in a matter of moments. We used the silver to coat one of the adventurers’ weapons, as a pair of vampire spawn had revealed the nature of our prey.

To acquire this much silver, however, we had to slay more thralls and the spawn which attacked us in an ambush. They had begun turning a man taken from the village and left him in our path as bait. We remained wary enough to not be caught entirely off guard when they burst from cover, but had to kill the man as he turned.

Following the source of our attackers, we located a door inscribed with runes. Our best translation told us that the doors would open if blood was shed unwillingly, and an offering of blood pushed aside the stone which blocked our way.

Face to face with our foe at long last, we steeled ourselves in the vampire’s great hall and struck down his servants. Finally, with silver in hand, our band of heroes slew the vampire in his lair. The creature was fierce and nigh invulnerable to steel weapons, but fell quickly to moonlight’s metal. Our party suffered casualties, but triumphed together. This was no small feat, we would find, as the order of the silver sword - a cadre of monster hunters like ourselves - was destroyed by this very vampire. Grandmaster Artorias proclaimed that we would take their sigil, albeit modified, as our own in a show of respect to those who came before us.

We could not stop the vampire from enthralling some of the village’s people. We have not slain Orzalon, nor his henchmen, nor ended the demonic incursion. But we killed a monster, saved a village, and honored the memory of fallen warriors.

I feel better for having done some good.