A lone human, accompanied by a horde of night creatures, makes his way to a port town in the Middle East: Isaac, a Forgemaster who worked in the employ of Dracula, until the vampire lord cast him far away to save him when his castle fell under siege. The townsfolk give the hooded stranger a wide berth as he makes his way to an antique shop. The shopkeeper immediately recognizes that Isaac is a Forgemaster. After making small talk with the shopkeeper, Isaac requests a Carpathian transmission mirror, having heard that this store had one. While the lead doesn't pan out, as the mirror had been purchased, the shopkeeper offers something else of interest: a distance mirror, which allows its owner to see images from great distances. Isaac uses the mirror to confirm that Hector is alive and in Carmilla's captivity in Styria. Before departing, the shopkeeper offers to let Isaac keep the distance mirror, in exchange for a favor should his soul end up in Hell one day.
As Isaac prepares to depart for the port, however, the town's guards confront him and demand he leave the city. Isaac tries to explain that he intends to do so by boat, but the guards insist he leave, lest he face their wrath. Exasperated, Isaac berates himself for letting the shopkeeper's prior kindness make him forget that humanity was a miserable cesspool of hatred. Reminded once more of the nature of man, Isaac gives his night creatures permission to feast on the guards.
With no one to stop him, Isaac makes his way to port, where he requests the aid of a ship's captain to ferry him and his hoard to Genoa. Isaac is initially hesitant to enlist the captain's aid, having already been disappointed once more by humans, but the captain convinces him to spare him and let him ferry him and his hoard, his boredom with his occupation leading him to take on what promised to be some very interesting company.
Back in Styria, Carmilla convenes with her sisters for a new plot: the territories east of Styria were in discord due to Dracula's war, making the region ripe for conquest. The humans in that region could serves as a self-sustaining source of sustenance once it is under their control. As to the matter of amassing an army to carry out this conquest, they had Hector, the forgemaster, in their custody: he could make new night creatures to build their army. There is a potential problem, however: Hector has no reason to want to help Carmilla, and night creatures are only loyal to their forgemaster, so allowing him to make night creatures could give him an army with which to rebel against her. Lenore volunteers to address this issue and make Hector more amenable to helping them.
In Lindenfeld, Trevor sets out to get breakfast for himself and Sypha when he is approached by the Count of Saint-Germain. Trevor, however, isn't too interested in entertaining Saint-Germain. When Trevor dismisses him, Saint-Germain approaches Prior Sala, the leader of the monks, to request entrance into his priory and ply his trade as a scribe. He entices Sala with knowledge of Dracula, and offers to look into the priory's books for information on Dracula. Sala allows Saint-Germain limited access to the priory in exchange for anything he can find about Dracula. Afterwards, Saint-Germain asks Sala about his fascination with Hell, to which they answer that Dracula was there, reunited with his wife.
Meanwhile, back at Dracula's castle, Alucard is collecting freshwater when he hears the distinct sound of a drawn bow. He chases the source of the sound to a pair of Far Eastern hunters, who explain that they had come in search of him specifically. The hunters introduce themselves as Sumi and Taka, and they had come in search of Dracula's castle in search of knowledge to help them slay a vampire named Cho, a member of Dracula's war council, who kept them as slaves. Even though Cho died during the siege on Dracula's castle, they beseech Alucard for whatever knowledge he can impart to help them hunt vampires in their native country of Japan. Glad for the company, and believing his mother would have liked for him to impart his knowledge, Alucard agrees to take the two under his wing.
Tropes
- Bazaar of the Bizarre: Isaac walks into a store that sells mystical items run by a Blind Seer.
- Blind Seer: The old shopkeeper Isaac meets with is blind but can smell and sense that Isaac is a Forgemaster.
- Bullying a Dragon: Isaac is accosted by a group of Tunisian guards that want him to leave the city immediately and threaten him with weapons. Isaac is also surrounded by a large group of vicious monsters. The guards don't last long when they press the issue.
- Commonality Connection: Alucard accepts to teach Sumi and Taka when they mention that they are alone which Alucard can sympathize with.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Carmilla's scheme to conquer the territory ravaged by Dracula's attempted genocide is met with some skepticism, but the general consensus with her sisters is that it may just work. It's just a matter of working out the logistics.
- Deadpan Snarker: Striga and Morana are very snarky especially towards Carmilla.
- Didn't Think This Through: Carmilla's plans aren't well thought out and full of holes which her allies point out and have to compensate for.
- Establishing Character Moment: When Carmilla unveils her goal of creating a vampire-dominated fiefdom due to the vacuum left by Dracula she is quickly reminded that there are still monumental preparations and planning that need to be done and Hector, the lynchpin for creating an army for her, is monumentally pissed off at her. It shows Carmilla's new angle for the season: as an ambitious but ultimately short-sighted Smug Snake that needs her allies to make anything remotely workable.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Invoked In-Universe by the captain of the ship that Isaac sets his eyes on. When asked for his name, the captain claims he himself forgot it and everybody simply addresses him as The Captain.
- Hope Spot: Isaac thinks the old shopkeeper who gave him the distance mirror is good folk. Sadly, his experiences after stepping out of the shop remind him that such people are firmly in the minority.
- Hypocrite: Isaac displays two instances of this
- Despite hating humans for being blindly violent and quick to judge, he massacres all of the town guards for demanding his monsters to leave and threatening him when he refuses. This gets into Disproportionate Retribution since it's not unreasonable for guards to not want human eating monsters inside a human city.
- He also planned to kill The Captain and his crew in order to take his ship.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: When Alucard first confronts Sumi and Taka at his castle, Alucard throws a rock at Taka before pinning Sumi. Alucard remarks that if he wanted to kill Taka he would have aimed higher.
- Nerves of Steel: The ship's captain remains calm, unflappable and even interested while Isaac is approaching him with a demon army and threatening to kill him and his crew. He not only negotiates for him and his crew's lives, he even gets paid.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A villainous example. Carmilla's sisters are quick to point out that Hector is unlikely to help them create an army after the way Carmilla treated him, and scold her for not being more pragmatic considering she knew she would need his help for her plan.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: When the magic mirror shows Isaac that Hector is now a captive of Carmilla, Isaac is delighted to see the traitor got punished. He then immediately plans to go visit Hector to punish him further and kill him, since the fact that Hector is still alive is unacceptable to him.
- Seen It All: Implied with The Captain who knows what Isaac and his demons are through experience and is unphased by them.
- Sentient Phlebotinum: According to the shopkeeper, the distance mirror has a bit of an ego and works best if addressed as "sir".
- Sexual Karma: Trevor and Sypha have an active sex life with each other, enjoy each other's company, and are also virtuous monster hunters.
- Strolling Through the Chaos: Isaac calmly makes his way to the docks while his army butchers the city guards.
- Super-Stoic Shopkeeper:
- The blind shopkeeper sells his wares to anyone who can pay and that includes supernatural entities and monsters. As such Isaac being a Forgemaster doesn't phase him.
- The Captain isn't a shopkeeper but also counts. He calmly negotiates with Isaac despite being surrounded by monsters.
