Location: The East Wing Transcription Room.
Atmosphere: Funeral Home Chic.
The Transcription Room, usually a place of ink stains and quiet productivity, currently looked like a mausoleum.
Master Elian, the Senior Scribe, was wearing a black armband. Gerrick, the Cynic, was staring blankly at a wall. And Lucas, the Junior Scribe, was lying face down on the table, surrounded by crumpled tissues.
The air smelled of stale coffee and despair.
The door creaked open. Marcus stepped inside, holding a thick, grey manuscript.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Marcus said, his voice brisk. "I trust you have recovered from the... emotional events of last week?"
Lucas lifted his head. His eyes were red. "Recovered?" he croaked. "Marcus, he died. He looked at the sun and he died. How can we work? How can we transcribe tax reports when the King of the Night is dust?"
"It was a metaphor for the futility of vengeance!" Elian shouted suddenly, slamming his hand on the desk. "A perfect, grammatical metaphor! And I hate it!"
"He should have eaten the Hunter," Gerrick grumbled. "Tactically, he had the high ground."
Marcus sighed. He placed the grey manuscript in the center of the table.
"The Young Master anticipated your... lethargy. He offers this."
The three scribes looked at the book. It wasn't the sexy, dangerous black leather of Dracula. It was a sensible, slate-grey wool binding.
Title: The Investigator of the Mist District
"What is this?" Elian squinted. "A sequel? Does Dracul return as a ghost?"
"No," Marcus said. "It is a new genre. It is called Mystery."
Lucas sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Does it have romance? Does the Detective pine for a forbidden love across centuries of time?"
"He pines for tobacco and silence," Marcus replied. "And occasionally, he pines for the solution to a particularly difficult chemical equation."
Lucas dropped his head back onto the table. "Boring. I don't want chemistry. I want to feel things."
"Open it," Marcus commanded, his voice dropping to that terrifyingly polite tone he used when the kitchen staff was late. "The Young Master says that if you do not like the first chapter, you may take the rest of the week off to mourn. But if you do like it... we print five thousand copies by Friday."
Elian reached out. His hand shook. He felt like he was betraying an old friend by reading a new book so soon.
"Just one page," Elian whispered. "To critique the syntax."
He opened the book.
The City of Weeping Poets
Location: The Gilded Tankard (Adventurer's Hub).
Time: Midday.
If you wanted to see the cultural impact of The Nocturnal Tragedy, you didn't look at the nobles. You looked at the Adventurers.
Usually, this tavern was filled with boisterous discussions about goblin ears and loot drops. Today, it was quiet.
A Level 50 Paladin sat in the corner. He wasn't drinking ale. He was drinking red wine from a goblet he had clearly bought just for the aesthetic.
"It's not about the loot, Davin," the Paladin said to his confused Rogue party member. "It's about the legacy. When we kill a Skeleton King... do we ever ask why he is a skeleton? Maybe he is waiting for someone."
"He's a skeleton because he's dead, Goran," the Rogue said, checking his daggers. "Can we please go? The dungeon resets in an hour."
"You have no soul," the Paladin sighed, adjusting his black cape. "I'm not wearing my helmet today. I want the monsters to see my sorrow."
At the next table, a group of Elves from the Silvershade Forest were huddled together. Usually, Elves looked down on human literature as "crude scribbles."
"The prose was surprisingly... adequate," one Elf admitted, elegantly sipping dew-water. "The way the human author described the passage of time... 'A thousand years is but a blink to the mountain, but an eternity to the heart.' It almost felt Elven."
"Do you think the author is a Half-Elf?" another suggested. "No human understands that level of existential dread."
"I heard he is a reclusive Sage," a Dwarf grunted from a nearby stool. "Though I have a complaint. The stake was made of white oak. Amateur work. If you want to kill an Immortal, you use Cold Iron with a Rune of Binding. I sent a letter to the publisher explaining the metallurgy."
The Dwarf took a swig of ale.
"Still... I cried like a baby when the rose crumbled. Don't tell the clan."
The Church for Damage Control
Location: The Cathedral of Light – Private Office.
Bishop Ignatius was a man of God. He was also a man who was currently losing a PR war against a fictional corpse.
He paced back and forth, his golden robes rustling.
"The donations are down, Inquisitor," Ignatius hissed. "The people are not buying Solar Candles. They are buying... roses. Dead roses. They are putting them on their mantles."
Sitting in the chair opposite him was High Inquisitor Vos.
Vos was the Church's most terrifying weapon. A man who hunted demons for a living. He wore a mask of silver and carried a sword blessed by the Pope. He was sharp, lethal, and utterly devout.
"It is a fad, Your Grace," Vos said, his voice distorted by the mask. "The public is fickle."
"It is not a fad! It is a Seduction!" Ignatius slammed a report on the desk. "Yesterday, a nun was caught writing fanfiction in the scriptorium. She was writing an alternate ending where the Hunter and the Vampire team up. It is heresy!"
Vos shifted in his chair. "Did she... finish it?"
Ignatius blinked. "What?"
"For evidence," Vos said quickly. "Did she finish the manuscript? So we can analyze the depth of the corruption."
Ignatius narrowed his eyes. "Inquisitor... have you read the book?"
Vos went still. "I confiscated a copy from a cultist. I reviewed it strictly for tactical assessment. To understand the enemy's propaganda."
"And?"
"And..." Vos cleared his throat. "The author, this 'Truck-kun', displays a frightening knowledge of the Dark Arts. The psychological profile of Count Dracul is... compelling. He represents the Shadow Self. The part of us that rejects the Light not out of malice, but out of pain."
Ignatius stared at him. "You liked it."
"I judged it," Vos corrected defensively. "However... I do believe the Church should not ban the book."
"Why not?"
"Because," Vos leaned forward, the silver mask gleaminig. "If we ban it, it becomes forbidden fruit. We must instead... co-opt it. We should release a sermon explaining how Dracul's death was actually a last-minute conversion to the Solar Faith."
Ignatius rubbed his temples. "You want to canonize the Vampire."
"I want to control the narrative," Vos said. "Also... I think if the author releases some new text. We should investigate. I volunteer to read the advance copy."
"You just want to read the book, Vos."
"I am doing my duty, Your Grace."
Back in the Scribe Room
Time: One Hour Later.
The silence in the room had changed. It wasn't the heavy silence of grief anymore. It was the tense, electric silence of concentration.
Elian was on page ten. He wasn't crying. He was frowning—not with disapproval, but with intense mental effort.
Gerrick was chewing on the end of his quill.
Lucas was the first to break.
"He... he didn't use a spell," Lucas whispered, looking up. "The victim was found in a locked room. No magical residue. The windows were sealed from the inside. How did the killer get out?"
"It's a Teleportation Scroll," Gerrick said dismissively. "Obviously."
"No," Elian cut in, his eyes glued to the page. "Read the description of the chimney, Gerrick. 'The soot was undisturbed.' If he used a Scroll, the air displacement would have scattered the soot. It wasn't magic."
"Then how?" Lucas demanded. "Is he a ghost?"
"It's the bell rope," Elian murmured, flipping the page rapidly. "Look at the layout of the room. The bell rope is new. Why replace a rope in an old house?"
The three scribes looked at each other. They weren't thinking about Dracul's broken heart anymore. They were thinking about Physics.
"The Detective," Lucas said slowly. "He's... he's kind of a jerk, isn't he? He told the widow she was lying because her ink was smeared."
"He's efficient," Elian countered. "He values Truth over Politeness. It is... refreshing. The Grammar of Reality."
"But who is the killer?" Gerrick slammed his hand on the table. "I need to know! Marcus! Where is Chapter 2?"
Marcus, who had been standing silently in the corner like a statue, smiled.
"Chapter 2 is currently being proofread," Marcus lied smoothly. "The Young Master suggests that if you work efficiently... perhaps you might 'accidentally' see the draft before it goes to the press."
The effect was instantaneous.
Elian grabbed his quill. "Lucas, dip the ink! Gerrick, prepare the vellum! We are transcribing The Detective. And if I find a single split infinitive, I will write a strongly worded letter to Truck-kun!"
Marcus watched them work. The grief was gone, replaced by a new, burning hunger.
Curiosity.
He slipped out of the room and walked down the hallway, pulling a small notebook from his pocket.
Subject: Cultural Transition.
Status: Successful.
Observation: The subject "Lucas" has ceased wearing his vampire fangs. He is now squinting at dust motes in the hallway.
Marcus paused. He looked at a small crumb on his own cuff. The raspberry tart.
"He knew," Marcus whispered to himself, a shiver of genuine fear going down his spine. "The Young Master knew I would eat it. He didn't use magic. He used... psychology."
Marcus quickly brushed the crumb away.
"I must be careful," the Steward thought. "If the Young Master starts writing a book about a 'Perfect Butler,' I am doomed."