“Death be a plague upon this earth. For only as wretched can be described, the fate of having the soul severed from thy flesh, only to be cast into the abyss.
The essence of change and evolution. There must be a higher purpose, a higher force at work, a path toward salvation. For what is the worth of a soul, if it so easily can burn.
I am the immortal incarnation of Death.”

It was almost midnight.
The streets of the town's Chapel District, welcoming during the day, were now devoid of any sound. The buildings looked like gaunt, mute sentinels in the dim light cast by the full moon.
Jacen felt uneasy walking these empty alleys at night. Time passes fast drinking at the Twisted Bottle inn. He paced quickly through the quiet foggy alleys, his distress amplified by the thought of the rumors surrounding the district; rumors about people disappearing at night, only for their maimed corpses to be discovered days later, at the shores of lake Krykun.
The constabulary had warned people to avoid the district at night.
A few more turns, and Jacen would finally find himself at the solace of his home… the same few turns he had taken twice already.
Had his drunken state led him astray? Jacen froze in his tracks.
Confused, he looked around to evaluate his surroundings, to try and figure out where he was.
He turned around once more, only to see a pair of red eyes, staring at him from within the fog.
His scream never came out.
The fog cleared, and the alley was empty.

Stillness was an irritation. The vexing notice of yet another failure.
When the shaking stopped all that was left was another dead subject.
Another empty shell with foam in its mouth.
Frustrated, Draven undid the harnesses and took the body off the operating table.
For many months he has been abducting unsuspecting wanderers during the night to conduct his experiments on.
It had been to no avail.

His blood grinded against his subjects' veins, always resulting in death.
It mattered not. He had plenty of time.
The few remaining priests and the constabulary had their hands full conducting their bloody inquisition against the VampZ, whose eating habits were indiscernible from Draven's modus operandi.
And he had material.
A veritable smorgasbord of fools always roamed the streets at night at the Chapel district, the part of town where the VampZ's presence was weakest.
No one would dare look for him at his hideout, the abandoned facility where he was raised and experimented upon.
The birthplace of Necrogenesis would be the birthplace of his wonder.

But the process was unrewarding for him, and unforgiving for his subjects.
When his blood alone proved inefficient, Draven began subjecting them to the same physical torture that the Priests forced on him, trying to replicate the creation he has become.
He had to make their bodies stronger. He had to make them endure.
The facility stored all the implements needed to cut through flesh and saw through bone, to flay the skin and solutions that burned at the slightest touch.
Tools that Draven was all too familiar with, tools that caused him excruciating pain, a pain that he now shared with his victims.
Pain made him strong.

But it would all be in vain. None survived merging with his blood. The experiments would only result in bodies to dispose of.
But Draven was not one to let things go to waste. Failed experiments could still make decent meals. The world he would create was one for the strong, not the frail. The weak deserved to be treated like fodder.
And frustration only increased his appetite. Not even a mother could identify the remains he dumbed at lake Krykun.

Despair did not get to him. The town offered a limitless stock.

Draven soon came to the realization that he was wrong as to why his experiments were failing.
The root was not at the weakness of their bodies, but at that of their souls.
The fulfillment of his goal grew more complicated, but it wasn’t impossible.

Not for him.