[b]Mihail’s Apartment, the Night After the Incident[/b]

[b][i]Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy.[/i][/b] That same message echoed in Mihail’s mind over and over again, keeping him awake into the wee hours of the night, drifting in and out of a dream state before a massive booming sound shook him fully from his slumber. [i]Goddamned earthquakes! I bet they do not have to deal with this in Miami...[/i] Even after the shaking had stopped, the whispers continued. Mihail’s father Grigore had told him about how hunters would receive strange messages in the back of their mind after their minds had been fully awakened to the World of Darkness. But Mihail was not a hunter. He was acting in self-defense, and he had killed the vampire in a fit of rage, almost accidentally.

No, Mihail was not a hunter. He had come to America to get away from that life, to forget about the supernatural, to live the American Dream he had heard so much about. And yet...

[b][i]Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy.[/i][/b] There it was again. Mihail got up from his queen-sized bed, gazing out across Downtown Los Angeles from his 8th-storie condominium. Here he was living in luxury after leaving the Romanian countryside behind. He accomplished every young basketball player’s dream, and was playing for the most renowned organization in the history of basketball.

So why did he now hold this sense of impending doom? As though soon, everything he held dear would come crashing down around him, and he would be [i]forced[/i] into the life of a hunter. It had happened to other members of his family before him. Mihail’s mother told him stories of artists, bakers, actors, accountants, lawyers, all of whom were eventually contacted by the Messengers. Many tried to avoid it, but the overwhelming majority upended their lives to pursue the hunt. Some became mages instead, but their goal was always the same: preserve the mortal realm by striking down the monsters who would harm it. Sword and sorcery ran through the veins of every Dobrescu. To deny it was to deny destiny.

Of course, Mihail wanted no part of it. He saw what the Hunt had done to his grandfather Iacob. Over the years, the killing, the violence, the things he’d witnessed, turned Iacob into an empty shell unable to empathize with his peers and obsessed with slaying monsters. And when Iacob could stand the isolation no longer, when even other hunters began to look upon him as though [i]he[/i] were the monster, he undertook a suicidal mission, dying in a blaze of glory alongside his targets.

Mihail’s father Grigore had not suffered the same degree of emotional torment from the Hunt. His loving wife was a mage, and the two were able to confide in each other about their supernatural perils. They helped each other to retain a passionate spark of humanity. Perhaps it was this love which made Grigore the best hunter the Dobrescus had produced in decades, far less likely to die on a mission, but far more likely to become a target for retaliation. When the vampires found his residence in Romania, a vampiric hit squad slaughtered him in brutal fashion and crucified him in a grotesque mockery of his faith. Mihail and Malina never figured out who was responsible.

But Grigore could summon fire at will. He could break through flesh and bone with his bare hands, and track a vampire through snowy mountains and treacherous canyons without the use of modern technology. Mihail was just... Mihail. He was fast and strong from the rigorous training of an NBA player, but he wasn’t a supernatural killing machine.

[b][i]Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy.[/i][/b] The voice echoed in the back of his mind once again. The same phrase, over and over. As much as Mihail would’ve liked to say he didn’t know what it meant, he did. The Hunt was calling to him now, as it had called to every Dobrescu before him. A dynasty of sword and sorcery dedicated to protecting the mortal realm from that which dwelt in its shadows; a bloodline so infused with supernatural energy that even as a child, Mihail was able to see the World of Darkness. “Fine, fine,” he muttered groggily to himself, “I will reclaim my damn legacy if you shut the fuck up.”



...



The old tome was dusty and heavy. For once, Mihail was thankful for his gargantuan height as he lifted it off of the bookshelf without aid or difficulty. The uncreatively-named [i]Carte de Vampiri[/i], or “Book of Vampires”, was a history of House Dobrescu’s exploits in the Old Country. The first chapters, written by Maria Dobrescu, detailed the reign of the notorious Vlad the Impaler, and explored how the original Dobrescu hunters exploited divisions between the Tzimisce and other clans in order to limit their power. The house started off as hunters disconnected from any organized inquisition who were hired by vampires to kill vampires, switching sides and allegiances between Tzimisce and Tremere. In the long run, this worked, and by assassinating key members of each clan (often with the aid of the other), their power in the voivodes was greatly diminished.

Vampires of all clans from this point forward would know better than to ally with a Dobrescu, and so the family began to conduct its own, independent operations. These chapters were where the most valuable knowledge in the book began to reveal itself: ancient combat techniques used to slay vampires from seemingly every clan. In House Dobrescu’s prime, they supposedly operated from Kiev all the way to Constantinople, eliminating threats to the delicate balance between mortals and Kindered. Strategic. Careful. Acting with extreme precision. Rarely if ever targeting a vampire in their lair, and avoiding feuds with specific clans at all costs. Many of the Kindered who died during the Romanian Anarch Revolt did so not at the hands of other vampires, but Dobrescu assassins. During this time, the Dobrescus took advantage of their strength by warring against a small group of Malkavians to acquire numerous artifacts and precious texts, some of which were now displayed on the very same shelf from which Mihail had taken his family tome.

Overtime, the precarious coexistence which existed in some areas of the Eastern Orthodox world, sometimes called “the Dream”, began to collapse. Some vampires lashed out. Violently. These individuals would become the Dobrescus’ new targets, leading to more open and violent conflict. These missions were far more dangerous, and Dobrescu Family Tree rapidly shrank as many of their agents perished. Even those who fled to neighbouring Russia and Austria were targeted and killed by various vampires’ clans. It is at this time, with House Dobrescu at its lowest point, where the modern techniques for vampire hunting were developed. Incantations, spells, wards, weapon techniques, all of it was right here in this book. As though he was back in college, Mihail began to take notes on his laptop, making sure to memorize the important points of the different clans’ weaknesses. Most of the information within was on the Tremere and Tzimisce, but the Dobrescus had fought every clan from Kiev to Constantinople: some with greater success than others. The book did not have any information past the mid-1930s, but Mihail knew from his father that many of his extended family were executed for helping Romani prisoners to escape from concentration camps. Mihail had two uncles in Romania who had gone into hiding after Grigore’s assassination, but Mihail did not know if they had survived. For all Mihail knew, he was the last living Dobrescu.

The last section of the book featured no advice, historical analysis, or lengthy descriptions of long-dead vampire lords. It was a kill list, with the names in chronological order, dating all the way back to the Early 1400s. Each name was a target--a vampire that House Dobrescu had either killed, or intended to kill at some point. The entries listed their clan, a brief summary of their crimes, any Dobescru family members who they had killed, and one of four designations: at-large, dormant, dreamer (referring to “the Dream”), or slain. 

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of names. Few of them had survived the Dobrescu hunters. The carnage described by this list was almost nauseating to Mihail. This family tome paid homage to the killers, mages and hunters who incinerated, decapitated and slaughtered their way into history. These were their victims. Yet there was a small bit of pride which welled inside Mihail, something he may not have felt if reading the book before that fateful encounter with the vampire a few days ago. [i]This is their legacy. But it is not mine. It can’t be.[/i]

Mihail kept flipping through the book. To his surprise, the record of vampiric deaths carried well into the mid-2010s, though they were far fewer in number. None other than Grigore Dobrescu dominated the last twenty years. [i]Thirty-one. He killed thirty-one vampires. This family’s greatest hunter since the Second World War.[/i] In the five years since Grigore’s death, not a single vampire had been slain... until now.

As Mihail looked at the list, and subsequent pages’ row upon row of empty space left to record future kills, the voice in Mihail’s head grew louder and louder, until it was a scream. [b][i]Honour your family. Reclaim your legacy. Reclaim your legacy. RECLAIM YOUR LEGACY![/i][/b] The sound was unbearable, and there was only one thing which would make it stop. Shakily, feeling as though he’d pass out from the pain in his head, he reached for a pen sitting in a mug on the corner of his desk, and began to write his own entry in the Book of Vampires.

[color=ed1c24][b][i]Unknown Vampire. Tremere(?). Attacked me, it was in self-defense. Slain with fire on June 20XX by Mihail Dobrescu, Son of Grigore and Malina.[/i][/b][/color]

The voice was silenced. Mihail breathed a sigh of relief.

[i]So... what now?[/i]

Deep down, Mihail knew that signing his name had sealed his fate.