Dracula
Channel: edgar mina
Date: 2023-09-22

In the 15th century, Vlad Drăculea is the Prince of Wallachia and Transylvania. As a child, he was a royal ward in the palace of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and was trained to be a soldier in the Sultan's elite Janissary corps, where he became their most feared warrior. He was called "Vlad the Impaler, Son of the Dragon", after slaughtering thousands by impaling them on spears, but became sickened by his own acts and abandoned his past.
Now ruling his domains in peace, Vlad and his soldiers discover a helmet in a stream and fear that an Ottoman scouting party is preparing the way for invasion. The stream leads to Broken Tooth Mountain, the top of which has a cave carpeted in crushed bone. Within the cave, they are attacked in the dark by an inhumanly strong and fast humanoid creature, killing Vlad's retinue. Vlad barely escapes and returns to his castle, where he learns from a local monk that the creature is a vampire, a Roman from the days of the Empire named Caligula, who was tricked by a demon for personal success and great powers, but was trapped in the cave as the price for this. Vlad celebrates an Easter feast with his wife Mirena and son Îngeraș, when an Ottoman contingent arrives at the castle. Vlad offers them the usual tribute payment of silver coins, but the emissary wants an additional tribute of 1,000 boys to be trained as Janissaries. Vlad refuses. Mirena believes Vlad can convince Sultan Mehmed II to show mercy. Vlad offers himself in place of the boys; but Mehmed refuses and demands Vlad's son in addition.