You might as well start making ghouls if you're going to be using this place as your new home now. You'll feel safer if with absolutely loyal day guards around anyway.

You call everyone to the village square the following night. It's a little surprising for everyone, but of course they don't want to disobey you.

"Okay, I've gathered you all here because it's come up many times that some of you desire the same gift I have. This makes sense since you would indeed be better in every way and you would also be closer to your god. However, none of you are yet worthy of such a thing. In fact some of you never will be! Yet, I am a merciful master and as such I will bestow a minor bit of my power so that you may get a taste of it. Who knows, maybe in time you will impress me to the point that I will eventually complete your transformation."

At this point your words are met with signs of hope and excitement. You expected that, so that's one less thing to worry about. You're still wondering which people exactly to choose and how many. You probably want to pick the key members in the community though, so you figure you might as well give Vic what he's always wanted first.

"Okay Vic, come on over here and we'll get started." You say and cut your arm to drain some of your blood in a cup.

"Um, me m'lord?" Vic asks.
"Yeah you! Who the hell else's name is Vic in this village? Now come on."
"Uh, that's okay I don't think I'm quite worthy yet. I believe that there are many others here deserving of your gift more."
"You're joking right? You've been begging me to turn you since I took control of this place. You're just nervous, come on."
"No, I really realize now that I shouldn't have annoyed with my petty request as I did. I thank you for your generous offer, but perhaps one of the many lovely young women that…"
"Vic, stop being a bitch and get over here!" you say raising your voice.

At this point the crowd is getting agitated with Vic's stalling and begin pushing him forward, telling him that he's a "chosen one" and he should be embracing this moment.

Vic slowly moves towards your position and then suddenly his eyes roll in the back of his head and he wobbles a bit before falling over.

"Oh for fuck's sake…" you say shaking your head.

One of the other villagers goes over to help Vic, but after some inspection…

"He's dead m'lord!" the village "doctor" exclaims.
"He's fucking dead?!" you say.
"Heart attack it seems. I believe all the excitement of being a benefactor of your glory was too much for him."
"Maybe…"

Something about this doesn't seem right.

"Kick his body. In fact I want several of you to stomp on it." You say.
"M'lord?" someone asks.
"You heard me."

Not wishing to anger you, several of the villagers comply. Vic's body just absorbs the kicks and doesn't move.

"Okay, I guess he's really dead, set his body on fire, no need to waste anymore time burying it. Actually never mind, there's a torch right here, I'll do it."

You take a nearby torch and go over to Vic's body. As you slowly lower the flaming piece of wood closer to Vic's body, you watch his eyes.

You watch…

Then just as you touch Vic's body with the actual flame, his eyes open and his entire form changes into a thin smooth gray skinned creature. Its face isn't anything like you've seen before, having only slits for a nose, a simple line like mouth and its eyes are just white orbs.

"SHIT!" it shouts in different voice than before and immediately rolls away and attempts to scramble for safety.

While the villagers are confused and scared by all this, you of course keep your cool and easily catch this creature and drag it into the empty house you reside at in the village to interrogate it.

"Okay, what the hell are you?" you demand.
"Please! I'm a doppelganger and I'm only doing my job!" it pleads pathetically.
"By job, you mean spying and infiltration! I only know ONE person that rules over a ragtag group of multi-racial misfits that might have the balls to do such a thing. How long have you been working for Green Eye?"

The doppelganger wastes no time in selling out Green Eye. It says it's been with Green Eye for quite some time, but only was infiltrating Maldito shortly after you threatened Green Eye. It says it was originally masquerading as the head carpenter, but soon changed into Vic (and in both cases obviously secretly killed) when it realized you were serious about making the village your permanent home. It of course has been in contact with Green Eye off and on the whole time.

"So what the hell is Green Eye exactly planning?"
"Well originally he just wanted to keep a check on you, but when you made Maldito your permanent home, he got more concerned. I think he's planning on attacking you directly and most likely destroying the village."
"Because that worked out so well last time. So what then has he hired hunters or something? Should have known he wasn't going to be above doing that."
"No, actually he's been crafting silver weapons for everyone. Mostly daggers, but I know for a fact he's been focusing on silver shot for the few firearms we have."
"Where's he getting all this silver from?"
"The mine I guess. Green Eye said it used to be a silver mine before it ran out."
"Well apparently it didn't completely run dry if he's got enough to scrap weapons together. Gotta hand it to Green Eye, though. He's been busy and I underestimated his fear of me. Smart of him to not tell me that it used to be a silver mine too. I didn't even think of that."
"So…what are you going to do?"
"Kill my enemy of course, might as well start with you. Wonder what doppelganger tastes like…" you say and prepare to bite.
"No! Wait! Please! I could help even more! If you attack now, you'd never get Green Eye. He's got a whole system of hidden tunnels, traps and shit. You might wipe out everyone under his leadership, but I doubt if you'd find him. He knows those mines like nobody else."
"Oh, I'm sure I'd find him eventually."
"Well, maybe, but as I said, he's probably trapped the entire place too and considering he's been preparing for you, some of those might even be dangerous to you. Let me go back and…"
"You think I'm stupid? You sold out Green Eye so quick and you were supposed to be on his side. How quick would you sell me out?"
"But this is different, I can see you're the more powerful force in this instance and I always side with the winning team. It's what my kind does. Green Eye doesn't know that you know that you know anything. In fact I can probably get him to meet with you. You're supposed to pick up your new tribute soon aren't you?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well let ME go and pick it up. Except I wouldn't go as me, I'll go as YOU."
"Wait, you're going to copy me?"
"Yes. And I'm going to arrive at Green Eye's place during the day to do it. I will pretend that I'm such a powerful and old vampire that I have the capacity to walk around in the daytime! This will throw them all off so much that they'll scramble to appease you quickly. When they drag out the girl, I will then claim it isn't good enough and that I will be back at night to renegotiate the deal with Green Eye personally. He'll be concerned enough that he'll meet with you, probably seeing if you have any other weaknesses, since thinking you can walk around in the daytime is going to cause him to discard his original plans. Of course it'll actually be you who'll meet him at night, at which point you'll easily be able to over power him and whoever else is with him. Trust me, it'll work!"

An intriguing plan you suppose, you just aren't convinced though.

"Sounds like a shit plan, and I still don't trust you. I don't think you can convincingly copy me anyway." You say.
"The hell you say! I'll have you know that I am one the most skilled of my kind! I can easily copy you, right down to your quirky mannerisms. Especially since I've been observing you for awhile now." The doppelganger says a little insulted.
"Is that so? Well prove it, and maybe I'll make a decision based on how good your performance is."

You let the doppelganger go and it has prepared itself to display its powers to you. It takes a bit longer to transform into looking like you than when it transformed back to its real form.

The first thing you realize is you haven't seen yourself in years. The dop looks like you, or at least what you looked like before you became a vampire, then again you haven't aged since then so that's presumably what you still look like.

The dop then begins to talk like you and act like you. It's very arrogant, condescending and just an all around dick.

Which means it's copying you exactly.

"See? I can pull this off! Just give me a chance and hey, when Green Eye is dead, I could help you in other ways as well!" the dop exclaims as it transforms back.

It certainly is an eager creature. You just aren't sure if you can trust it. And if you can't trust it, then why take chances?

You kill it

Trusting a duplicitous creature that can mimic you perfectly? Yeah that's a great idea and won't at all turn around and bite you in the ass later on!

You're not taking chances, the dop dies and then Green Eye and the rest of his crew after, you don't care how many tunnels he's got in that mine of his, he is not going to hide from you.

First things first though.

You approach the dop without another word and bit it on the neck. It makes a horrible wailing noise and no sooner have you drunk some of its blood that you immediately stop because it tastes completely fucking horrible.

"Ugh! Shit! I've tasted greenskins better than you!" you say spitting out most of the gray stuff.

The dop attempts to get away after your temporary distraction, but it's a futile endeavor, you catch it and ignore its last pleas for mercy before breaking its neck. You aren't actually sure if that's going to kill it, so you decapitate it just to be sure.

You leave the house and find that a minor crowd has gathered from a safe distance. They're probably wondering what exactly happened, time to make up a story.

"Is that…thing gone m'lord?" someone asks.
"Yes, of course it is. Didn't you hear its death scream? I interrogated it first though. Apparently those bandits I thought I took care of have regrouped and will be trying to attack again. However, we know the truth now and can prepare. I'm going to track them down and finish them off for good, however I'm still going to bless some of you and when I do, you will be charged with helping the defense of this village. I trust you all will be up for the challenge should it come to that." You say.
"Of course m'lord! We all will!"
"Then we will start tomorrow, for now though I wish to spend time alone."

You spend the rest of the night wondering if you should just go ahead and attack tomorrow night or wait around to turn some of the villagers into ghouls so you have help. As much as you hate to waste time to let them get better equipped, you decide if the mines are as trapped and treacherous as the dop claimed they were, it probably would be to go in with help, if only to use as fodder.

The next night you start again with what you originally planned. This time you pick a married couple at random and decide to see how it goes. You give them both some of your blood which causes them to gag a bit and then generally feel "weird."

The pair of them stagger back home. You then repeat this process with five more villagers before you need to stop as it's a drain on your own strength.

A couple days and nights pass and you repeat the process with all of them and just when you're starting to get frustrated, they start to show a change. The seven of them become more fawning than usual towards you and you don't even have to do anything. They're also paler and beginning to move in a less normal fashion. It's more of a loping gait. Their appetite becomes a lot less normal as well.

You think you've finally changed them into ghouls. You're glad it didn't take as long as Isabella once suggested it would if you attempted it.

However, you soon discover all her warnings were correct. First off, they ARE very annoying with how much they're underfoot all the time. Still, they are very obedient and they soon finish digging out the area meant to be your new resting place under the house. It's crude, but you figure it can be worked on continually. For now though it's functional enough that you don't need to sleep in a hole in the ground in the forest nearby.

Keeping them subdued when you're asleep is another matter however. While you attempt to tell them to stand guard over you, they're little like children in that they get bored and have short attention spans.

While they haven't actually attacked anyone yet, they're acting aggressive enough that it won't be long. This naturally causes some of the other villagers to be wary and now that's potentially messing up your relationship with them.

To counter act this, you give a few intimidating speeches, re-hyponotize a few of the key villagers again and have a few of the more aggressive ghouls whipped before the mob and scold them for their behavior. The pathetic creatures soon learn that they aren't going to be chewing on their neighbors anytime soon. Still, it does make other villagers less eager to want to become ghouls now, though you're sort of wondering if it's worth it since it's taking your strength to upkeep all the ghouls which is in turn taking more of a toll on your villagers anyway.

While you're trying to keep a precarious balance of humans and non-humans together through your powers and plain old fear, you also keep in mind that it will soon be time to meet up with Green Eye and his crew. You just hope you'll have the element of surprise to a point where it won't matter how many silver weapons they have.

When the night finally comes, you head to Green Eye's mine with your ghouls who happily follow.

When you arrive, the lone hobgoblin guard stands there at the entrance with the child tribute. You can already sense the rise in the savage's heartbeat when he sees you arrive with your ghouls. The child of course is already scared.

"Um…we have your tribute as usual." The hobgoblin says.
"Yeah, about that. Don't really need the kids anymore. There's been a change in recent developments." You respond.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, in fact I've decided to make the whole tribute process simpler by getting rid of you all"

It doesn't take long for the hobgoblin to process what you mean exactly. His eyes widen and he turns to run, but you catch him before he gets anywhere and break his neck.

You turn to address your ghouls who are already in the process of advancing. The boy who is tribute is frozen in fear.

"Hold on, wait…ah damn it! Fatty! Fuck, I was going to tell you lot to leave the boy alone so he could tell the tale to his village of how I saved him from the bandit scum. Never mind now I guess."

You smack your ghouls around to get them to stop feeding on the boy and the hobgoblin so you can get the rest of this task finished.

You once again enter the mine and once again you come to the large open area where most of Green Eye's people are gathered. No sign of Green Eye, but in the meantime, you'll be wiping out the rest of his people.

Doesn't take long for your ghouls to start howling and leaping into battle with abandon. You don't bother reining them in. Green Eye's people are for the most part unprepared, but there is some resistance. With the silver weapons, they probably would do a lot better than last time against you, but since you brought a bunch of ghouls, they do about as well as last time.

The battle in the main cavern is quick and bloody, several of your ghouls go chasing people down in various tunnels. The rest of them start feasting on the dead already in the immediate area.

While you hear sounds of fighting and screaming coming from various tunnels, you still have not seen Green Eye; it would appear your hunt for him is going to begin right now.

Since you've already been warned about the place being trapped, you figure it probably would be a good thing if you took some of your ghouls directly with you. Of course it might be a good idea to leave most of them here to guard this area just in case Green Eye tries to escape this way when you're looking for him.

You decide you can probably afford to take two and leave the remaining two here. The other three that went running off will probably wander back here eventually.

You then give your orders and you pick the tunnel that you remember seeing Green Eye walk from the last time you were here.

You cautiously walk around even keeping the ghouls slightly back, since while they are expendable, you don't want to just lose them unless you have to. So far though, and you aren't coming across anything out of the ordinary. This is good in that there aren't any dangers that have been nearly killing you, but bad in that you haven't uncovered any secret passage ways or rooms that Green Eye might be hiding in.

Eventually you stop hearing any noise of combat. Either your ghouls killed everyone or you're getting far enough a way from you original location.

Later, you've already gone down several dead ends and while you're not lost, you are getting frustrated since there doesn't seem to be any clue of where Green Eye is. You start to curse yourself in that it might have been a good idea to try to leave one of his people alive to point you in the right direction. Even leaving the dop alive and dragging it with you, would have helped.

You start to get paranoid that maybe Green Eye has doubled back somehow and managed to escape so you start heading back to the large cavern near the entrance.

The problem is you do it so fast that you aren't as cautious this time, and while you passed through several tunnels that weren't trapped, you don't take into consideration that Green Eye didn't sneak around and trap them after you already passed through.

Even then, you might have been quick enough or had the danger sense to avoid something amiss, but your ghouls are another matter.

No sooner have you heard the "Spong!" noise that you quickly look to where you need to take cover.

A huge rumble occurs in front of you and before your eyes you see both of your ghouls gets crushed by a cave in by an explosion. You are actually blown back a bit and quickly scramble up when you also see that this isn't just a cave in, but a cascading effect.

You have no choice but to run back deeper into the mines, though you're so busy trying to get away, you end up taking a tunnel you haven't explored.

You run down the unexplored tunnel trying to avoid getting buried and hoping you outrun it or find an exit of some sort.

You find an exit, but it's down.

Once again, not paying attention, you fall down a pit. You attempt to grab on to the sides of the smooth wall, but you only succeed in ripping your fingernails off in the process and it disappears eventually anyway as you fall into a larger underground cavern and slam hard into the rocky ground below. Your yells of pain echo throughout the cavern.

You've most definitely broken several bones in your legs. You'll regenerate, but it's going to be slow, especially without any fresh blood around, unless there are some rats around.

As you start to look for something like that, you feel more rumbling. At first you think it's ceiling collapsing on you here, but then you realize the sound is coming from below.

This silver mine closing down wasn't due to it running dry, it was more because there was an infestation of giant insect things in the lower parts of it, which you have now discovered.

The chittering becomes louder and eventually several many legged, many eyed things burst forth from the ground.

You fight about as best as you can in your situation, but you're weak, crippled and overwhelmed.

You die screaming in the darkness as you are devoured.