Episode 29: Trial and Error
Written By Karl White
After learning hard lessons in Stone Age Europe, Ezath travelled along migration routes, landing where a large human population had gathered around 7000 BCE, on the lands that would become Ancient Greece. This time she stayed unseen among the dwellers of the Cave of Schist, snatching her food from where they slept at night and vanishing before dawn.
Their language and customs were different, evolving. Ezath knew blending in would fail until she could pass unnoticed. So she watched, learned, and waited. And as the Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean civilizations grew, Ezath folded herself into them, piece by piece, until she was part of the weave.
As the Greek city-states swelled, walls rose, domiciles and buildings erected, giving places for her to hide in the day time...and roam the dirt streets at night. She was finally living among her food. No doubt, the savvy citizens of the up-and-coming city knew there was evil at work, but the hunter, at the very least, looked like them.
Within a century, Ezath was a shadowy member of Greek society and much keener on carrying out her nightly feedings. She’d again attempt to create Underlings, but humans, not far removed from the wilderness, had trouble adapting to newfound powers, either exposing themselves quickly, or running amok. Forced to be put down by Ezath for fear of outing her. What she needed was someone of great discipline. A mind forged for restraint.
In 757 BCE, with a new, concealed hiding place and steady food supply, Ezath decided to again attempt to create another clone for companionship. She set her sights on a Spartan named Nikos. She watched him for weeks, his discipline like iron, a soldier’s mind that could be bent to her will.
Gaining his confidence, Ezath lured him to a darkened alley, and attacked. First weakening him, then she fed the warrior some of her blood. After the change took over, he quickly submitted to her. In the weeks following, Ezath taught Nikos how to be an efficient and silent killer. But their union would be short lived...
Ezath lures Nikos down an alley - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
War found them. Messenian soldiers, attacked sacking the city. Fire leapt street to street until Ezath’s lair burned. She and Nikos fled into smoke and shouting.
The couple tried to leave the chaotic city. At the gate, a Messenian patrol recognized the cut of a Spartan. Steel flashed. Nikos went down, slaughtered by their swords. Ezath had no choice but to leave Greece, alone.
For Vampires, time ticks by differently. While they’re physically susceptible to being killed...biologically, the parasites from another world, their Underlings, and Minions are all in a state of undying. For them, cellular regeneration, unlike us humans, doesn’t slow or stop. They experience no hormonal aging or accumulated damage due to environment.
However their diet can affect metabolic aging, albeit temporarily. Their lust for blood comes from an enhanced biological process which keeps their cells in a constant state of renewal. Blood is also important in supplying the nutrients for enhanced cicatrisation, meaning they can heal rapidly from any wound. If they subsist on inferior blood, meaning anemic blood, or blood of the sick, they will become weaker. Vampires can go without feeding for long periods of time, but again will grow feebler during such periods.
They also practice torpor: a shortened echo of the Long Sleep, taken to save energy through barren winters or lean years. They burrow into soft ground and let the world rush past. As centuries shifted around her, Ezath used the shorter sleep like a veil, sometimes vanishing for the span of a human generation when danger climbed or attention gathered, then waking to a changed world and starting again.
Torpor, a form of hibernation for Vampires - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Driven from Athens, Ezath drifted to Rome, another city on the rise. It felt like starting over, but this time experience steadied her hand. She would not repeat old mistakes.
Tired of the shadows, she changed the hunt. She’d learned the new law of status: coin. So she weaponized what she had, precision as a huntress, beauty as camouflage. She’d lure men from the upper crust into her confidence. She’d feed on them, and bleed their fortunes dry.
Soon she would move at her own discretion. Commissioning a fortified chamber, hidden, defensible, where she could sleep and feed without being found. She also had the luxury of time, having the dwelling built, watching those with knowledge of it wither away into dust. Knowing for sure her sanctuary was truly protected. And so, she lived a mysterious figure, that could prominently be part of society when she wanted to, then retreat and reinvent herself for the next generation, and no one was the wiser.
But on a fateful rainy night in 117 BCE, Ezath’s life changed. Though she wouldn’t know it right away, what happened and how it would reverberate outward, would alter her life forever... As she had done countless times before, she seduced and had plans to kill a wealthy aristocrat from Pompeii, named Otho. But critical errors vetting her affluent prey put her in a vulnerable position. Otho was no noble, but instead a con man who had been watching Ezath, unbeknownst to her. He knew she was secretly killing wealthy men, stealing their money. So he was attempting to get close enough to blackmail her.
Otho, 117 BCE - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
He confronted her with details of the murders, ignorant of what she truly was. Rage answered. Ezath struck to kill. But Otho was prepared for trouble. He pulled a knife and as he slashed her with his blade, some of her blood hit his tongue.
The change detonated. In moments, Otho turned, shocking them both. And with new and powerful, heightened abilities, he fought free and fled into the storm, running until Rome and the horror of Ezath was a memory.
In the chaos, she failed to Tune him and thus did not establish a Sight with her newly created Underling –- A mistake she would regret. Somewhere beyond the city, a man now lived who knew her face, carried powers that could meet hers, and could make more like himself, soldiers to shield him, strike for him, and keep his secret. Ezath had created a nemesis. She just didn’t know it yet.
Despite her mistake with Otho, Ezath remained in Rome. And by the early 5th Century she was not only Rome’s wealthiest citizen, but had amassed a fortune rivaling anyone in the world. She still slept beneath the city’s heart, in her fortified chamber now buried under centuries of stone.
Ezath wisely surrounded herself, creating a pair of faithful Vampire guards –- Camilla and Felix. They kept watch, hunted for her, delivered prey to her door. They also procured news in the summer of 410, the Visigoths, led by Alaric I, were preparing to invade and sack the city.
Alaric, sacking Rome in 410 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
She remembered what invasion meant. In 387 BCE, the Gauls had poured into Rome and left almost no stone unturned as they pillaged. Her sanctuary was nearly exposed, she’d even fought in the streets beside commoners while the aristocracy locked themselves away. Rome survived, repelling the invaders, but it was a close call. The memory hardened her contempt for the “upper crust” and she favored their slow, careful deaths.
By 410, Rome was a shadow of itself, brittle with corruption, bled by its own elite. Ezath saw the shape of survival. At nightfall she sent word to Alaric -- safe passage for herself, Camilla, and Felix, in exchange for a lion's share of her money, and a gift the Goths would cherish.
She had no qualms paying for freedom. She had fewer betraying the corrupt. She went to the senators, revealed what she was, and promised to slip them and their families out unseen, if she might travel with them. After they reluctantly agreed, she led them through Rome’s dark underbelly, down forgotten veins of brick...straight into the Visigoth hands.
With the price paid and her promise kept, Alaric let Ezath and her Brood walk from the ruin unharmed.
TO BE CONTINUED…