To say that there were dark places on the island of Hemlock was to speak a tautology. The entire island was a dark place, in many ways; a place where the darkest of Faetasia’s creatures walked.

And yet, somehow, the crumbling manor on the outskirts of Hemlock’s oldest city seemed particularly foreboding. Certainly it was well-protected, magically; its owner had spared no expense in warding it, once upon a time.

And deep in the manor’s lowest levels, its only occupant began to stir.

There had been a shift in the winds, as it were. Rumblings, changes, things that pierced even the deepest of slumbers. And the slumber—the millennia-long torpor—of Artemis Ventru had been quite deep indeed.

Even in sleep, though, she planned. She plotted. It was her way, of course; she and her line were schemers, and their plans simmered long and slow. And even in torpor, she could dream, of a sort.

A loud thunk heralded the opening of her coffin, the slide of heavy stone lid and its contact with solid stone floor. A white hand gripped the side of the coffin, and Artemis Ventru, for the first time in centuries—perhaps millennia—sat up and stretched.

Truly, she didn’t need such things. Her body was, for the most part, beyond ordinary aches and pains and stiffness. But a little motion was good for the limbs nonetheless.

She climbed out of her coffin, smoothed her dress, checked her nails. A tired sigh passed her lips as she reached up to par at her hair—at some point in her sleep, it had come out of its styling, and now it tumbled around her, a loose mess of deep indigo that she would have to tame before she received visitors.

There would be visitors, surely. There were others who would know that she was awake. She took in the state of her basement, and ech’d, unhappily. Utterly unfit, and if this was so bad, she knew the upper floors of her manor would be in terrible disarray. Time, she supposed, to find a few ghouls that might be willing to clean for her, so that she could make this place presentable again.

The woman who had once been a Pure—centuries ago, when she had been mortal, and naive, and foolish—made her way to and up the stairs, to the main level of her manor.

They would come. And whether they we’re friend, foe, or something in between, Artemis Ventru would be ready.