Difference between revisions of "Black Corsair"

Elizabeth "McAllistair" doesn't advertise her vampiric nature, and she doesn't go to any particular lengths to disguise it, though she most likely won't admit to it without reason. Black Corsair is of average height and petite build with long red hair and hazel eyes that glow golden when her vampiric nature shows through. Her skin is practically alabaster and she has a deceptively youthful appearance. She seems to favor clothing in shades of black (partly as a dry joke on her part), but has been known to wear other things as well. On occasion she has been spotted with large bat-like wings and twisted facial features.

Black Corsair was named after a type of assassin bug; her real name is Elizabeth "McAllistair" (a surname she chose for herself; her original surname is never used), or Beth to her friends. She was born the year of 1312 in England, and lived life as a serf under a tyrannical lord until she finally tried to make a run for a better life when she was 19. She slipped away one night and was heading for London, but her freedom was short-lived when she fell prey to a vampire and was turned before she reached the city. She spent the next hundred years under her sire's thumb, and was largely feral until she finally grew strong enough to control her bloodlust. In another fifty years, she managed to gain the upper hand against her sire and killed him, freeing herself from his control. After that, she grew determined to learn combat and subterfuge skills so that never again would she be forced to exist under the control of another. Centuries later she's developed into a high-end combatant, well-suited to leadership, stealth, or mercenary work.

Beth is something of a chameleon in social situations, often behaving in whatever manner she believes the situation calls for. She's had centuries of practice with her poker face, and is highly skilled at only showing people what she wants them to see in terms of what's really going on in her mind at any given time. Among company, she's most often smirking and demonstrating a witty (and sometimes dark) sense of humor, though there's also a keen watchfulness to her. Generally speaking, she seems to be charming company. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of people she's known, she harbors her share of melancholy and bitterness... but at the heart of it all is a staunch Machiavellianism that's been difficult for her to overcome, though she's made great strides in regaining some of her humanity. If there is one thing she's learned in all her years, it's that while some things never change, nothing lasts forever. In the end, Elizabeth is an enigmatic and potentially dangerous individual who is self-assured and entirely comfortable in being a stone cold killer who often walks the fine, grey line between anti-villain and anti-hero.

The late 1400s and early 1500s were a dangerous time in Europe, even more dangerous for anyone who seemed out of place or had earned the ire of influential people. The Spanish Inquisition was in full swing for a period of fifty years and during that time, Elizabeth hid herself away in Italy, still a young vampire who had only relatively recently broken free of her sire.

She was posed with a few problems during this time, namely the unnatural dormancy that overtook her with every rising of the sun. However, she was able to bend even this to her advantage by becoming a cortigiana when she had attracted the interest of an Italian duke. In return for her affections and companionship, she was given a general education and access to more wealth than she had previously ever known.

Victims were plentiful so long as she was careful, and her contact with high society helped greatly in preventing any suspicion being cast on her. The Sistine Chapel opened during this time and that proved something of a nettle to her, unable to set foot inside to see the magnificent work that was said to grace its ceiling. A few years after that, however, bell chimes were invented and she would often give over a little time each day to listen to them ringing through the air.

Still, it all seemed only a step above what she had left behind when she had killed her sire; a gilded cage was still a cage and she disliked being indebted to a man who she didn't really care for. Murdering the duke in cold blood, she took what modest wealth she could and went on the move again. Not daring to return to Western Europe at this point, she ventured further East, into the Ottoman Empire. It was there that she was introduced to life as a trader and she attached herself to the various caravans that traveled along what would come to be known as the Silk Road.

All manner of new sights and sounds made themselves known to her as she traveled between China and what would become Turkey. She picked up more new languages to augment the French and Italian that she already knew, adding Turkish, Arabic, and Mandarin to her repetoire. Of course, more than a few caravan workers met their end at her hands, but they were few and far enough between that they were often simply thought lost to sickness or climate when she was through with them.

By the time the 1530s rolled around, she heard word that the Spanish Inquisition's activities had largely died down and she was beginning to feel rather homesick, so she returned to more familiar hunting grounds.

Eventually, England came to be at war with Spain. In fact, Europe had been in a considerable amount of turmoil in general, and it seemed a good time to take to the sea for a while. While Beth couldn't be guaranteed regular victims, becoming a member of the Sea Dogs along with people such as Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and Walter Raleigh proved to be sufficient enough to keep herself sustained.

She cut her hair short every day, bound her chest, and dressed in men's clothing since women were still not highly accepted on ships in those days. It was easy enough for her to remain undiscovered as her mental powers were really coming into their own then, and she didn't need to concern herself with all of the same bodily functions as the humans with which she sailed.

Serving as part of a fairly reputable privateer crew, Elizabeth would take in her fill with every ship they raided and every port they put into, both in blood and in coin. However, picking off Spanish ships in and around the Caribbean was not without its obstacles, given the presence of the sun. At this point in time, she was only just growing out of falling dormant during the daylight hours, and so she took night duties as often as she could.

After forty-five years of moving from crew to crew, Beth finally returned to land once word reached her that England and Spain had grown peaceful with each other again.

Unfortunately, as was wont to happen in Europe, it didn't take long for war to break out yet again a relatively short time after Beth returned to shore. In 1618, the Thirty Years' War kicked off and most of the European countries became involved. Beth remained on the move for most of war, trying not to stay in any one place for too long. However, that same drifter nature was what garnered unwanted attention as she was passing through Bamberg, Germany. Largely due to serious crop failures, famine, and rampant disease the European witch trials that had been ongoing during the time had taken firm root in the area. Needless to say, it took only a murmur of accusation towards her that she was brought before the Prince-Bishop Gottfried Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim and faced with a holy symbol of faith. While Beth was never a witch, her obvious repulsion branded her as one and she was sentenced to torturous interrogation, followed by being burned at the stake. The flames were near enough to drive her mad, but mercifully, she burned to a husk before that truly happened. As her body was disposed of, along with those of other unfortunate victims, she slowly began to regenerate and was forced to feed on local wildlife until she had the strength to take human prey and flee the region.

By the year 1888, Elizabeth had returned to familiar London. The Industrial Revolution was over and she found the air a little fairer once again. The easiest place for her to go unnoticed was, of course, the section of town known as Whitechapel. The area was crammed with immigrants and the destitute, poverty was rampant, and so was the alcohol abuse and violence. Perfect hunting grounds for a vampire.

Her kills began simply, falling into a common pattern of luring the naive and foolish to a place she could feed without interruption and then dispose of the body. It was a lifestyle of secrecy and deceit that she was long used to, but forensics were coming more and more to the fore, and sometimes made it difficult for her not to draw attention to herself. It was that autumn, however, that things changed.

The serial killer known as Jack the Ripper made himself a useful scapegoat for Elizabeth's own victims. She began to prey on women more frequently, and when she was finished feeding, she would mutilate or even dismember the corpse. Much as Jack the Ripper's murders created a stir, so too, did her own. The incident known as The Whitehall Mystery was entirely her doing, and there were a handful of other victims that eventually led authorities to believe there was more than one killer at work after all.

Once Jack the Ripper's modus operandi began to disappear from London's streets, Beth was able to continue her vicious hunting for a time before deciding that it was again time for her to move on when she began to hear whispers of rumors about herself wherever she went.

The year that gave birth to superheroes around the world. This was, perhaps, the greatest blessing of history to Elizabeth. With powers emerging amongst the human population, it became easier and easier for her to disguise her own supernatural abilities as super powers. Having once again disguised herself as a man, she had fought in World War I and would soon take advantage of World World II to make contacts and begin her career as a mercenary. Adopting the name Black Corsair, she set to work establishing a network for herself that extended into the 21st century.

By the time the year 2010 rolled around, Beth had established herself as a high-end freelance mercenary with a worldwide network of contacts and plentiful resources at her disposal, thanks to lucrative contracts and savvy investments. The vampiress came to set up a base of operations in Millennium City after being called in for a favor by one of her contacts; a large beast of a man, named Rex (aka Dmitri Volker, aka The Mad Dog of Prometheus).

The two had never met face to face prior to that point in time, but it didn't take long for them to discover that they worked quite well together. Agreeing to become business partners, Beth became a more permanent fixture in Millennium City. After a time, it became clear that they had grown to care for one another, and their business relation evolved into a romantic one. Eventually, Rex became her Familiar, thus becoming mentally linked with her and sharing in a measure of her abilities. Once she had helped him with bringing down a longtime enemy of his, he returned the favor by giving her aid against an overzealous vampire hunter who called himself Parting Shot.

Their relationship was tested pretty quickly when it became a realization to Rex that Elizabeth would outlive him and that she could not bear children. However, he refused to allow her to turn him. With some misgivings, she began to search for a cure for her vampirism while Rex kept Parting Shot occupied and off of her trail.

After extensive research, investigation, and interrogation; Beth set up another base of operations in Vibora Bay, as it seemed that Vladic Dracul might have had a cure in his possession. Her deep down reluctance to give up her vampirism and her lust for power, however, conspired to paint a very different set of intentions into her mind. Elizabeth began working to undermine Vladic's New Shadows vampires, recruiting many of them over to her own side with promises of power and reward once she overthrew him. Her focus became to steal the cure and use it as a weapon against Vladic Dracul after having it synthesized for use against other vampires should they threaten to try and overthrow her in kind. She would have succeeded, if Rex had no convinced her to abandon the ruthless scheme and reminded her of her original purpose in searching for a cure. While she did resume her search in places that wouldn't escalate the faction war in Vibora, she still took it upon herself to be a thorn in Vladic's side so that she wouldn't appear weak and open to retaliation. It was during this time that she met Zarek Nightwood.

Ironically, Zarek was a hunter of vampires and other supernatural creatures, but unlike Parting Shot, he didn't kill indiscriminately. It took a little time, but he and Beth established something of a friendship over their mutual dislike of Vladic Dracul and Beth's intentions of forsaking her darker nature to become human. Having been to many different dimensions over what amounted to thousands of years, Zarek was familiar with a cure for vampirism, and agreed to make it for Elizabeth. It was never guaranteed to work on a vampire of her age, and unfortunately the elixir drove her to madness, instead of returning her to humanity. As her final act of sanity, she fled to Monster Island so that she would avoid bringing harm to Rex. However, being mentally linked to Beth was torture for him, and he was eventually forced to hunt her down and slay her.

Normally, that would have been the end of things, but such was not to be Beth's case. As it happened, while she had been reduced to a feral existence of madness, she was spiritually tagged by a necromancer named Matthias Trent. When she was slain by Rex's hand, her essence was captured and placed into a magically cloned human body that Matthias had created. Infuriatingly, Elizabeth found herself bound into slavery again after so many years; and even worse, she now lacked the power to free herself from it. Her servitude to the necromancer persisted for two years until she was finally able to make contact with Rex, shocking him with her return to life.

Sadly, Rex had moved on with life after her death and was involved with another woman by the name of Vip; the leader of a mercenary group known as Cerberus Tactical Solutions. Still, Rex was her only contact she trusted enough to help her escape Matthias' clutches; and with the additional assistance of Vip, the mage was hunted down and killed. Free once again, and with Rex intent on remaining with Vip, Beth set out to regain the power she had lost and found herself a new sire to turn her.

While Elizabeth managed to attain what she was after, it produced unforeseen results. From what analysis she's had done, it seemed that somehow there was something of a freak supernatural accident when she was turned a second time; her age from her previous bloodline and the age passed down through her new bloodline combined and catapulted her into a more advanced vampirism. In this new state, Beth discovered that she could now shift her shape into that of a fierce, winged hybrid. The powers she possessed previously were amplified, making them more potent and longer lasting; she even developed an entirely new ability of limited pyrokinesis.

After a time, Rex and Elizabeth reconciled their relationship and he decided to try and be with her again. Despite the fact she knew it wouldn't last, she took him back both as lover and Familiar. Within a few months, however, Parting Shot learned of Beth's return and seemed to have found out a disturbing amount about the changes she had undergone. When they faced each other again, Beth was inflicted with a toxin that Parting Shot artificially developed to target vampire blood, nearly destroying her. Rex once again proved to be her saving grace, getting her to sanctuary and donating his blood to her. Shortly thereafter, not wanting to have to rely so heavily upon Rex, Elizabeth made greater efforts towards finding willing donors and alternate suppliers.

Once she recovered from the immediate danger of the toxin, she once again encountered Zarek Nightwood and confronted him about the cure's failure and how it had brought her to almost complete ruin. Intent on atoning for the faulty elixir, he agreed to work more carefully on another cure and also work on cleansing the toxin from her body. In the meantime, Beth noticed that Rex wasn't entirely happy in her company, and decided to let him go and be with Vip, for a number of reasons; not the least of which was the fact she had been conversing with her new sire and had begun to re-evaluate her existence.

Convinced by her new sire, Elizabeth decided to try and put her lust for power behind her and turn over a new leaf by attempting to be more moralistic in her actions. At that point in time, however, she'd grown pretty disillusioned with the entire notion and could just as easily have shifted back towards evil with the right push. Luckily, she found herself drawn closer to Zarek's companionship and had the opportunity to begin exercising her new choice by supporting him through his own personal trials. As they spent more time together, Zarek taught her to read Enochian and the basics of magic theory, and provided her with a spell that she could use to allow herself to sleep, if she so desired. As misfortune would have it, though, Zarek soon vanished mysteriously; and although Beth searched for him, she was soon doing her own thing once again.

For nearly a year, Elizabeth remained on her own in Vibora Bay, once again accepting contracts as Black Corsair and hunting down members of Vladic's gang in her leisure time. She continued to walk the line of neutrality, for the most part; looking out for her own interests and hovering in the grey space between good and evil. It was one night during that period that she crossed paths with a man named Ferik Reshnikov, finding him also bringing grief down on the heads of some New Shadows vampires. The two hit it off pretty quickly, and after a few more encounters they entered into a casual relationship, with Ferik talking Beth into moving back to Millennium City. However, things rapidly came to a head when Ferik adopted a daughter and seemed intent on living a far more mundane life than anything Beth had experienced since before she'd been turned. It didn't take long for her to determine that life wasn't for her, and she quietly slipped away to let them live their lives in peace.

Resuming her operations back in Millennium City, she picked up a familiar scent from over a year ago...that of Zarek Nightwood. Having thought he was possibly dead, she tracked the scent and found him once again, only for it to turn out that Zarek was suffering from amnesia after his disappearance. It was a bit of a blow to her that he didn't recognize her, but his brother, Tristian, figured his memories would return on their own, and with a little time, they did. At this point, Zarek finally used his magic to sever the mental link she still held with Rex.

From what Beth was told by Tristian, Zarek had awakened a being known as The Faceless One, and that it was now hunting him in order to further its own power. With that threat looming in the background, Parting Shot and his band of hunters finally made another move, and managed to track Beth down and capture her. She was brought back to a remote location outside of Vibora Bay where she was tortured for a day until Zarek and The Etoile Wanderer found and rescued her, killing Parting Shot and his men in the process. They brought with them a potion that Tristian had brewed to cleanse the toxin from her body, and at last, she was free of Parting Shot and his machinations against her.

Months later, Beth came across a woman coming out of a magic bookstore in Millennium City, who bore some striking resemblance to herself. As she watched, the woman bent double and clutched at her sides in pain, and Beth picked up the scent of burning flesh. The incident seized her attention, for she had suffered the very same effect while under the control of Matthias Trent. Tailing the woman to an empty house, Elizabeth was only slightly caught off guard when the woman abruptly turned and opened fire on her with a spray of bullets. Mere bullets were not enough to cause much harm to Beth, and she ended the would-be gun fight quickly with a clean shot to the woman's head. A few heroes came to investigate the scene and it was determined that the woman's body wasn't an original, but that her soul had been pulled from somewhere else and put into a copy. The discovery confirmed Beth's concerns that Matthias had returned, and she knew he must have had a phylactery hidden somewhere when Rex and Vip had hunted him down. Bringing the body back to Zarek and Tristian, she allowed them to attempt to recall the soul of the woman and interrogate her about Matthias using a soul trapping amulet. Unfortunately, The Faceless One had anticipated the move, and laid a trap for Zarek. When he used the amulet, he was trapped inside a nightmare and fell into a coma. Tristian and Elizabeth did what they could to try and help him, but after about a week, Zarek managed to save himself.

Meanwhile, Matthias had hired a super villain known as Arcanum to capture two of Beth's acquaintances; The Etoile Wanderer and Tarot, in an attempt to use them as bargaining chips to obtain Beth. Matthias confronted Tristian outside the Nightwood mansion in Vibora Bay, but Tristian refused his attempts at negotiation and defeated him. However, from what Matthias had said, Tristian was able to discern that the soul-stealing mage's phylactery was Beth herself; somehow he had cleaved his sould to hers when she had been in his servitude. The Etoile Wanderer and Tarot were freed from Matthias' grasp, although Tarot remained unknowingly tagged. A final confrontation eventually came to pass, and once Tristian had agonizingly severed Matthias' soul from Beth's, the necromancer was greatly weakened by the process. With the help of a mercenary called Caliban, Tristian was able to keep Matthias distracted, and Beth's vampirism allowed her to recover from the ordeal first. Swooping in on the mage, she seized his head in her hands and squeezed with so much supernatural strength, that she painfully forced the blood out from every orifice in his face and crushed his skull, killing him permanently.

Back in Millennium City, a powerful necromantic priestess was wreaking more widespread havoc. Beth had continued her efforts to take only select contracts and align herself with good causes, but it was an uphill battle for one such as her. In contact with the hero network of the city, Elizabeth volunteered to help them take down the priestess. With the way events unfolded, however, she was soon the only one that could get close to the formidable foe by posing as a loyal soldier. Unfortunately, despite the fact Beth had helped in the priestess' defeat, the heroes she'd been assisting took her for a real turncoat and called a witch hunt down on her head. With Zarek's help, she fled to another dimension to live in a medieval fashion for a time, until things cooled off.

Well over a year later, she returned to once again find herself on her own. Some of her first actions were to reconnect with her more recent sire, Red, and to make the acquaintance of one Jason Harper. Sharing some remarkable and fundamental similarities, Beth and Jason quickly warmed to one another, and developed a close bond. Shortly after meeting Jason, Beth also met Avner Nephar - a fellow vampire and newly risen Prince of Millennium City. The two vampires became fast friends, and unknown to nearly everyone, he took Beth on as his Seneschal (second in command). In addition, she ran into Rex once again, only this time he seemed quite out of his mind and very angry with her. It turned out that when she had had Zarek cut their link, he had nearly been killed when he lost the powers being her Familiar had granted him. Not only that, but it resulted in the death of a young girl he had sworn to protect, and he blamed it on Elizabeth despite the fact she'd had no knowledge of the situation at the time.

Not long after, Beth crossed paths with Zarek and the pair of them reunited as she once again found him in dire straits. His immortality seemed to have been stripped from him in his most recent battles on another plane, and she endeavored to help him. This time around, however, it seemed that Tristian was working against him and even attempted to kill Beth. Since then she and Zarek have learned that Tristian has aligned himself with a long time foe of the two brothers, and Zarek's only chance for recovery relies on finding the fabled Fountain of Youth.

Following close on the heels of Tristian's attempt on her life, Rex also tried to assassinate Elizabeth in an ambush, and would have succeeded if not for Jason and Avner. She was not about to let Rex walk away from such an attempt, however, and gathered together a small group of allies to hunt him down and put him to death. It was not the relief that she'd hoped it would be, though, and she actually felt some guilt over his slaying, even if she did regard it as a necessity because he knew far too much if he was going to make an enemy of himself.

For a few months, Avner and his group of vampires were a welcome distraction, but things quickly deteriorated as Beth was incapable of respecting him as a leader. She tried, but failed to form a good opinion of most of his flock, and after an ill-fated mission that resulted in the death of one who she had actually liked, she abandoned her position as Seneschal and set out resolutely to continue on another path under Jason's employment. Giving up freelancing, she chose instead to officially attach herself to Jason's private military company, which takes on contracts with organizations such as the Department of Defense. During this transitional period was about when she met a werewolf nearly as old as herself, named Karn, and after a while the two of them grew to mutually respect and admire each other.

As things stood, Elizabeth had settled somewhat comfortably into her new life choices. While things seemed to be going smoothly, it wasn't meant to last as trouble once again reared its ugly head. It came in the form of backlash from having been involved with Avner's group; apparently she'd gained some unwanted attention from a powerful group of vampires who saw her as a threat and weren't so willing to simply let her just walk away. Branding her as something of a criminal amongst her own kind, a hit squad was sent after her and the ensuing months proved to be a long and dangerous game of cat and mouse between vampires. Eventually, Beth was able to dispatch her hunters, but only because of the allies she had who were willing to put their own lives on the line to save hers...even if one of those allies had created a breach of trust in the process.

Despite the fact the danger had settled for the time being, she was haunted by a dream she'd had during one of the very rare times she slept... enough that she knew it wasn't some mere dream, but a vision; perhaps even a summons. Beth deliberated over her thoughts for quite some time before she at last decided she needed answers; it was so out of the ordinary, she couldn't ignore it. Even though she'd only just stepped into the rank of second in command, she was displeased with the recent shaking of her trust, so she resigned from Harper Security Solutions, and set about tracking down the source of the dream that had so strangely visited her. While she had deliberated with herself over whether it was worth risking all she'd gained to investigate the portent, there was perhaps some unknown foreshadowing happening in her life as she began cultivating new friendships; most notably with a shapeshifter who went by Slick, and another vampire she'd made the acquaintance of some time prior who was ironically called Cross.

Since signing on with Black Sun Rising, Elizabeth has begun crossing over ground that's quite alien to her in terms of her relations with people. She was elevated quickly to a position of leadership, along with Slick, after they passed through a test of ability posed to them by their employer. While she has not been having the easiest of times, it seemed that hope may have finally begun to take root within her battered spirit.

After some months, Beth has begun to seemingly settle down for the first time: her heart and spirit have grown more peaceful than they've ever been, she's purchased a home with Karn, and has settled firmly into her position with Black Sun Rising. Relationships with her friends and coworkers continue to be built upon, though there was some nettle to her when Zarek once more returned and she felt she had to finally break things off with him, informing him that she'd moved on after his repeatedly long absences without knowing where he had gone or whether he was even still alive... it was a bittersweet end to their romantic relationship. She did, however, make the suggestion that perhaps Zarek ought to try signing on with Black Sun Rising, as well -- he would be a valuable asset to the company, and she felt they might be a decent fit for one another… But it seemed he was content to finally retire. In the meantime, Elizabeth has been exploring the apparent growth and development of her vampiric powers, testing their seemingly expanding boundaries.

After several months working for Black Sun Rising, Elizabeth’s previous troubles with her kindred resurfaced… this time it seemed the higher powers of their society were intent on summoning something to bring against her. The crimes for which they had previously tried to execute/assassinate her for were really an excuse for them to take her out for being a threat to their seat of power and way of governing. In order to keep control of the bloodlines and prevent their purity from degrading further, Elizabeth had to be dealt with as it turned out she was the progenitor of a new bloodline. Unfortunately, the vampire who had taken control of the city after Beth’s previous coven was pushed out remained a hostile obstacle, and joined in on trying to remove her from the picture in order to gain favor. To make matters worse, it seemed there was a rebel faction within the Council that sought change in how things were run, and wished for Elizabeth to champion their cause, and so she found herself caught between three sides.

In trying to take steps to deal with the situation at hand, Beth was nearly killed when she was lured into a well-planned ambush. Despite the fact she was rescued and recovered, it was clear the situation had become dire enough to warrant her resigning from Black Sun Rising so that she might apply all of her focus to resolving the veritable army of troubles in her personal life, and Karn departed as well in order to continue helping her against the numerous threats.

With some counter espionage on Beth’s part, she and her allies were able to corner the city’s “ruler” and eliminate her along with her entourage. Those that were left of that faction skipped town, or adopted a low profile. Since none of those few remaining were really powerful enough to pose a threat (most of them lacking in connections and being very young by vampire standards), the notorious redhead let them be where she most likely would have hunted them all down in earlier days. The trouble was, the throne was now empty and, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum. Before making her move against the city’s ruler, she’d proposed to Karn – and through him, his sire – that his sire should take over once the ruler was deposed. If he declined, she realized she would have to take over herself, but doing so would only work against her under her current circumstances.

It was a tense few days of the city’s supernatural underworld hanging in limbo before Karn’s sire, Auroch, revealed himself. The timing likely couldn’t have been better when Auroch chose to emerge from under the radar to meet and gauge Elizabeth. The meeting was a somewhat reserved, but casual, affair after he engaged her on the street accidentally-on-purpose when she was concluding the sale of one of her recovered antiques. The two of them agreed to coffee at a nearby cafê and spoke at some length, testing each other in a civilized exchange before a slightly wary trust was established on both sides, and Auroch accepted Elizabeth’s offer to take control of the city. While Auroch settled in and began to establish a vastly more diplomatic and just rule over the city’s supernatural underworld (not to be mistaken for being soft), Elizabeth, Karn, and Auroch’s pack worked even harder to acquire intelligence on the Council’s movements.

With some very surprising assistance from the same hunters who had nearly killed her a couple of months earlier, the pair learned that the Council was summoning forth a monstrous and nearly god-like being known in vampire history as Sanguine Prima – the first of their kind, created by an alliance between Darkness and Chaos in order to corrupt the world when humankind was only really getting started. Not only that, but it seemed the Council’s head had an even more serious motive for going to such insane lengths to see Elizabeth destroyed: Not only was she the progenitor of a new bloodline, but her blood (and the blood of any she turned) was capable of permanently absorbing and assimilating the powers of other vampires if she were to feed on them. Essentially, her bloodline was a point of convergence that had the incredible potential to unite the bloodlines into a single line. For those on the Council who adhered strictly to tradition and the old ways, it was a terrifying prospect. The rebels, of course, saw their chance for the revolution they craved. Bringing this new information to Auroch, it was also learned that the lycans had their own legend regarding Sanguine Prima (known to them as the Great Devourer) that told how the first lycans had been created to combat it, and that they managed to lock the monster away from the world in a cage of moonlight.

It was another few grueling months of evasion and intelligence gathering before Elizabeth and her allies located the ritual site where the Council intended to perform the summoning. Arranging discreet travel was a challenge for getting everyone they needed to the Amazonian Rainforest in Bolivia; Auroch bringing his retinue, along with some fellow elder lycans and their retinues, and Elizabeth bringing a good portion of her own network. Even so, they were greatly outnumbered by the assembled Council and the ensuing battle was nothing short of a brutal bloodfest. Worse still, they had not arrived in time prevent the Council’s head from summoning Sanguine Prima. Auroch himself stepped up to engage the creature within an earthen dome he erected, while Beth, Karn, and Red took on the sorcerous head of the Council. Eventually, the rebels who had been hiding within the Council’s ranks turned on their kin and sided with Beth and her allies. Lives were lost that day, human and vampire alike. Elizabeth was grievously wounded, but in the maelstrom of the battle she became infused with some of Sanguine Prima’s blood that had been shed before Auroch put up the dome, and healed at a miraculous rate, even for her. She proceeded to rain havoc down upon her foes with a flood of newfound power. Eventually, the mages of the redhead’s network and the elder lycans were successful in establishing their own ritual and Auroch joined them to seal the Great Devourer away from the world once more. With the monster’s banishment, however, the majority of Elizabeth’s newly gained power was stripped away and she fell on the field. By that time, thankfully, the tatters of the Council were on the run and she was recovered and given aid by the lycans.

Some time after the battle in Bolivia, it was determined that some of Sanguine Prima’s corruption remained suffused within Beth. Auroch, and a couple of the other elder lycans, offered her the choice to keep the bit of power she had gained and train rigorously to learn how to control the corruption, or allow them to attempt a ritualistic cleansing and remove the corruption and its power from her. It was a great temptation to the vampiress to keep the power she’d gained, but with some reluctance she stuck to the path she had chosen to walk and decided on the cleansing. It turned out to be harsh going, akin to a very rough exorcism, but the lycans were successful in removing the corruption from Elizabeth’s being.

After all of the turbulent ordeals, there was finally only some aftermath left with which to deal. The hunters had unfortunately used the samples of Beth’s blood they’d obtained to synthesize bioweapons against other vampires, and proceeded to launch attacks against the Council rebels, wiping out more of their number than that had been lost in Bolivia. Auroch stepped in and tried to arrange a deal with the hunters to cease and desist, and to stop in their use of Elizabeth’s blood, then setting up a close watch on the hunters in an effort to ensure they did as told. Next, the rebels wished to meet with Elizabeth and Auroch in Spain. Favoring diplomacy, Auroch extended the invitation to include the hunters, trying to extend them an olive branch in the hopes of creating an alliance between humans, vampires, and lycans. It was not to be, however, as the hunters proved treacherous in what amounted to a suicide bombing of the meeting that destroyed yet more of the rebels, leaving their ranks decimated. Not all was lost, fortunately. Alvaro, the vampire elected to be the rebels’ spokesperson, agreeably made a deal with Auroch that Elizabeth would take up the mantle of leadership of their remaining numbers and through her, the lycans would have access to the vast library of knowledge the Council had archived in numerous locations around the world over the millennia.

Finally, Elizabeth and Auroch took up working together to tie up loose ends, such as tracking down where the intelligence regarding how to summon Sanguine Prima had come from and who else knew about it, as well as executing the captured head of the Council after getting as much information from him as they could. They discovered that there were a trio of beings the Council had consulted, known only as The Mothers, and that they were hidden away in a secret grotto along the coastline near Nagasaki, Japan. It was with some considerable effort that Auroch’s people managed to make contact with The Mothers, but a restricted meeting was agreed to and Elizabeth began to find out what she could about these mysterious and seemingly ancient beings from the Council’s archives.

As wrapping up the aftermath of the past year continues, Elizabeth has since been adopted into the lycan pack by Auroch. In addition, Beth and Karn have been approached by another enigmatic figure and invited to join a private team of individuals who work against supernatural threats orchestrated by a shadowy group that was thought to only be a myth...but according to him, it seems the Council was only the tip of an even larger iceberg.