Bastosi's Truth About Vampires

The Truth About Vampires.

by LeRoy Bastosi.

We have lived among you for millennia. I use the word "lived" intentionally because we are not dead or undead but very much alive. Our differences are due to a magically induced virus created by one we acknowledge as the mother of us all. She is one of the fey, a sidhe (pronounced she-e) or what you humans might call an elf. She was a very gifted powerful sorceress who wanted even more power. She devised a complicated spell to give herself the power she craved. The result was more dramatic than even she had envisioned. She became many times stronger, faster, magically attuned, and powerful than anyone alive. She healed from minor wounds almost instantly and from major wounds in minutes. She could shapeshift into any form she had tasted blood from.

What the mother of us all did not anticipate was that she would no longer be able to eat solid food and would require drinking blood to survive. Nor did she anticipate that sunlight would burn her and cause her to forever become a creature of the night. One more thing she did not anticipate was that she would become totally insane.

A little over twelve thousand years ago she decided that humans were becoming to numerous compared to the fey who are not very fertile. In this she was not alone, since humans were pushing the fey out of their traditional homelands as they spread ever outward. The big advantage the fey have over humans is that they are essentially immortal, dying only from trauma. The other advantage the fey have is that humans have no magic, while all of the fey races have magic to spare.

Her answer to the problem of unchecked human expansion was to create an army of fey with her powers. Her children. Created from her blood and under her control, she planned to radically reduce the human population. Once again it did not go as she anticipated. She drained sidhe mages of their blood to nearly the point of death, then she fed them her own blood. After several repetitions of the process over several weeks the mages were transformed into creatures of the night like her. Unfortunately her plans went awry again. Her "children" were even more insane than she was. They were little more than blood sucking abominations impossible to control.

Eventually she gave up on transforming an army of sidhe into her children and tried changing full blooded humans instead. That was also a failure. Humans could not make the change because they lacked the magic needed for the virus to change them. They did become stronger and healed rapidly, but they lacked magic and immortality. They were also quite insane and difficult to control, even with her ability to control the minds of others. In the end they were too hard to control and those that survived the blood bath when they attacked each other either escaped and disappeared or were killed by sidhe mages.

Out of desperation she sought out hybrid mages. She discovered that a few of the half human half sidhe mages could make the change and remain relatively sane. After even more experimenting she discovered that if those hybrid children created children of their own from other hybrid mages they were even more stable though less powerful. And so she began building her army to destroy the humans.

It took nearly eighty years to create and train her vampire army. Even with mind control and the power of intimidation her fledgling vampires were hard to control. But finally they were ready. You might think eighty years is a long time to prepare to fight a war, but the sidhe are immortal. They take the long view of history.

As insane as she was you might think she would loose track of her goal and indeed at times she did, but over all she was singular in her determination to kill all humans and when distracted she would quickly regain her focus. She organized her army into one hundred companies of one thousand and eleven members each. At the head of each company was a powerful first generation vampire general. Under the general were ten second and third generation vampire lieutenants. Each lieutenant had control of a troupe of one hundred warriors, mostly goblins and orcs. Why did she create such precise units? Who knows why. But those were the numbers she set and when she reached that goal she was ready to start her war.

You might wonder how someone I have admitted was insane could organize such a powerful force and control them. I said she was insane, not stupid. She was always one of the brightest and most inventive the sidhe. None of the fey have ever been very inventive, that gift appears to belong mostly to the humans. I don't know why, perhaps it is because the flame that burns shortest burns brightest. Humans are short lived but also the most inventive of the intelligent races. She was one of the few fey who had that inventive gift in full measure. After she became a vampire she would often loose focus, but she always came back to her primary goal; to exterminate humans.

So finally the war began. It was not all one sided. The humans had powerful weapons to offset their lack of magic. They had created energy weapons that used crystals to generate and focus light that could cut through the hardest of materials. They had flying machines that could move at great speeds and were equipped with their most powerful energy beams. Their most powerful advantage over the fey were blades made of cold iron, which disrupts magic and is toxic to fey.

I know what you're thinking. Energy weapons, flying machines, steel swords? No such things existed twelve thousand years ago. You are wrong. They did exist then. Science was far in advance of where it is now, but those skills and many others were lost from human memory. She made sure of that.

The vampires used their natural weapons; magic and enchanted weapons. Her armies first attacked and destroyed all of the human's airports, military bases, factories, and research facilities. Then they took out libraries, schools, and any other centers of knowledge and learning.

Her armies decimated the humans, in the true meaning of the word. The first strike killed ten percent of all humans. The battles raged for years. Human's struck back against they fey wiping out many towns and enclaves.

After eight years of war the human's were little more than ragged survivors hiding out in caves and small hidden groups. They were no more than twenty percent of their prewar populations. But the fey had suffered too. Half of all fey had died in the bloody war from human retaliations.

Finally the fey leaders appealed to her generals to end the war before all intelligent life was wiped from the world. Some of them listened. A group of generals confronted the mother and pleaded with her to end the war. She was outraged and looked upon them as traitors. She turned on them in her rage and a blood bath ensued. That was when her generals learned that draining another vampire of their blood also drained them of their power and magic. The survivor became stronger from absorbing the looser's magic. Her generals and their armies turned upon each other with a vengeance.

The generals created more vampires and swore them to their service and the battles continued for another thirty years. But now the humans were mostly ignored as each general cut out a territory their own. The world fell into a dark age of war and ignorance. The mother of all vampires was forced to abandon her plans and go into hiding after several generals banded together and nearly killed her.

Finally after nearly forty years of war the surviving generals made a truce with each other and the fighting stopped. They built elaborate underground sanctuaries for themselves and a few of their most talented and trusted followers. Most of the orc and goblin warriors had been killed and the surviving warriors left to rejoin what was left of their clans.

The vampires made sure the humans remained backward farmers and nomads but otherwise left them alone. They used them as a ready supply of fresh blood. The vampires also began regulating the creation of new vampires and formed a vampire council to make sure their will was followed. No vampire was allowed to create more followers unless the council approved. They also began removing the memory of their existence from humans. They only killed humans who were the dregs of society and would not be missed. Mostly they drank moderately from humans and removed all memory of their night time visits.

And so it remained for thousands of years. Vampires controlled the world from behind the scenes. They controlled the human leaders, most of whom never knew they were being controlled.

Then about two hundred years ago the vampire council agreed to allow the humans to expand their scientific research. They were curious where human inspiration would lead. A few new discoveries, such as splitting the atom, made them wonder if allowing humans to experiment with science was a good idea, but they adopted a wait and see attitude.

And so we come to today. You might ask yourself how I know so much about vampires and the hidden history of the world. How could I know what I'm writing is correct? I know because I lived that history. A was one of her generals. I survived and became very powerful. Naturally my true name is not LeRoy Bastosi. I was born with another name, but that must remain secret or the council would surely kill me for writing this history. I have been careful to keep my part in the wars vague to remain anonymous.

I never wrote the name of the mother of all vampires because names have power. I do not desire to attract her attention. She is even more powerful and insane than before the wars. But she is still around and is seen on occasion.

I often walk openly among you and have used several names. Since all vampires are physically in the prime of life and since we all come from fey stock, we are all handsome and beautiful. We use our magic to appear less perfect while we walk among you. We must be more careful today due to pictures and video since we do not show up on them. Just as we have no reflection and must avoid mirrors. But that is not a hardship. I find humans fascinating to observe. Their odd and sometimes erratic behavior keeps life interesting. After so many millennia of life I need that mental stimulation.

So, tell me of your experiences with vampires. Have you had any? Any you can remember that is? And you other vampires out there; will you speak openly as I have? Give me your feedback.

I am LeRoy Bastosi, a vampire.