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Description
"'His Butler, And The Count'. A spate of strange deaths plague London, with people found with puncture wounds on their necks and drained dry. Meanwhile, a mad woman screams of a coming 'rain', and a dashing foreign Count makes his debut in high society..."

So, onto the second chapter of our Dracula story, and this one took some overhauls after the initial outline. Dracula's attacks were slightly more numerous in earlier drafts, and what he was doing also changed. At first, the victim's blood was collected as a means, on its own, to power a type of super weapon, then the idea of collecting special types of items relating to the weapon scattered around London came up. Only problem, it didn't mesh with the killings. Eventually, I decided to make Carfax more central to the plot, as well as find a way to tie in the boxes of earth mentioned last time. In the original novel, they served simply as resting places, which wouldn't work in this new context and certainly not against someone with Ciel's resources. Also, the climax was considerably toned down, originally ending with a much larger, more physical battle between Dracula and Sebastian. However, I had done this last chapter, and since Dracula was now in human form, I decided to go for a more low key, cerebral approach and bring out that manipulator quality further in him, making himself much more of a match for our leads.

In my mind, I saw Dracula as not too far off from Vlad Tepes, partially his real life inspiration, and also, for the sake of a visual reference, Gary Oldman from the 1992 film. The long hair, suave demeanour and mock sophistication mixed with world weariness, I thought he brought alot to that performance and gave probably the most well rounded performance of the character on film (no disrespect to Lugosi or Lee, who are icons in their own right). I had toyed at one point, very early, of going further with Dracula's ability to change age and have him come to closer to Ciel, but felt that a bit redundant and obvious.

Also, as before, I took choice elements from the novel and folded them into my own story for added effect: Lucy and Renfield being slightly meshed into one character, the use of an asylum which houses a character tied to Dracula, transferring some of Van Helsing's knowledge and techniques over to Undertaker, who seemed like a natural fit for said info, Carfax (the films made it a creepy Gothic abbey. In the book, it¡s an estate) and the idea of surviving victims having some kind of psychic tie to Dracula ala Mina. Speaking of her, I ended up also dividing parts of her and Lucy into Ciel and Lizzie respectively, such as the aforementioned link and that time bomb-esque tension from Lizzie falling victim to vampirism, raising the stakes as well as making it that much more personal for Ciel. Oh yes, it was fun to write Lizzie and that very bouncy, over enthusiastic rapport she has with Ciel, but she had to matter as I didn't want what amounted to a gratuitous cameo (m ore on that too in the next part).

Bedlam Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem and Bethlehem Hospital, was a South London mental health facility founded in 1330 after having been a priory, that came to define the stereotypical insane asylum and probably helped inspire the likes of Batman Arkham. The hospital still exists and functions today as a psychiatric hospital under the NHS, but it has moved location several times.

A solomonic circle is just a fancy way of saying magic circle, referring back to The Lesser Key of Solomon (yes, the biblical Solomon), a spell book whose namesake also had a seal that enabled him to command demons and conjure up great magic. One of its parts was Ars Goetia, which long time fans may recall from my 'Trancy´s Tale' OVA The Resurrection Men/The Awakened.

---- NEXT EPISODE -----
In a desperate race against time, Ciel and Sebastian pursue Dracula back to his homeland of Transylvania, intent on stopping his masterplan. But, back on his native soil, the land answers his every beck and call, and even one hell of a butler may not be enough to stop the Son of The Dragon...
Next time on 'Book Of Vampire': His Butler, In Carpathia.
'For You See, I am Simply One Hell Of A Butler'
-----------------------------
Episode 3: savagescribe.deviantart.com/ar…

Your comments, as always, are Very, Very Welcome! Big or small, have your say below.

Description
"'His Butler, And The Count'. A spate of strange deaths plague London, with people found with puncture wounds on their necks and drained dry. Meanwhile, a mad woman screams of a coming 'rain', and a dashing foreign Count makes his debut in high society..."

So, onto the second chapter of our Dracula story, and this one took some overhauls after the initial outline. Dracula's attacks were slightly more numerous in earlier drafts, and what he was doing also changed. At first, the victim's blood was collected as a means, on its own, to power a type of super weapon, then the idea of collecting special types of items relating to the weapon scattered around London came up. Only problem, it didn't mesh with the killings. Eventually, I decided to make Carfax more central to the plot, as well as find a way to tie in the boxes of earth mentioned last time. In the original novel, they served simply as resting places, which wouldn't work in this new context and certainly not against someone with Ciel's resources. Also, the climax was considerably toned down, originally ending with a much larger, more physical battle between Dracula and Sebastian. However, I had done this last chapter, and since Dracula was now in human form, I decided to go for a more low key, cerebral approach and bring out that manipulator quality further in him, making himself much more of a match for our leads.

In my mind, I saw Dracula as not too far off from Vlad Tepes, partially his real life inspiration, and also, for the sake of a visual reference, Gary Oldman from the 1992 film. The long hair, suave demeanour and mock sophistication mixed with world weariness, I thought he brought alot to that performance and gave probably the most well rounded performance of the character on film (no disrespect to Lugosi or Lee, who are icons in their own right). I had toyed at one point, very early, of going further with Dracula's ability to change age and have him come to closer to Ciel, but felt that a bit redundant and obvious.

Also, as before, I took choice elements from the novel and folded them into my own story for added effect: Lucy and Renfield being slightly meshed into one character, the use of an asylum which houses a character tied to Dracula, transferring some of Van Helsing's knowledge and techniques over to Undertaker, who seemed like a natural fit for said info, Carfax (the films made it a creepy Gothic abbey. In the book, it¡s an estate) and the idea of surviving victims having some kind of psychic tie to Dracula ala Mina. Speaking of her, I ended up also dividing parts of her and Lucy into Ciel and Lizzie respectively, such as the aforementioned link and that time bomb-esque tension from Lizzie falling victim to vampirism, raising the stakes as well as making it that much more personal for Ciel. Oh yes, it was fun to write Lizzie and that very bouncy, over enthusiastic rapport she has with Ciel, but she had to matter as I didn't want what amounted to a gratuitous cameo (m ore on that too in the next part).

Bedlam Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem and Bethlehem Hospital, was a South London mental health facility founded in 1330 after having been a priory, that came to define the stereotypical insane asylum and probably helped inspire the likes of Batman Arkham. The hospital still exists and functions today as a psychiatric hospital under the NHS, but it has moved location several times.

A solomonic circle is just a fancy way of saying magic circle, referring back to The Lesser Key of Solomon (yes, the biblical Solomon), a spell book whose namesake also had a seal that enabled him to command demons and conjure up great magic. One of its parts was Ars Goetia, which long time fans may recall from my 'Trancy´s Tale' OVA The Resurrection Men/The Awakened.

---- NEXT EPISODE -----
In a desperate race against time, Ciel and Sebastian pursue Dracula back to his homeland of Transylvania, intent on stopping his masterplan. But, back on his native soil, the land answers his every beck and call, and even one hell of a butler may not be enough to stop the Son of The Dragon...
Next time on 'Book Of Vampire': His Butler, In Carpathia.
'For You See, I am Simply One Hell Of A Butler'
-----------------------------
Episode 3: savagescribe.deviantart.com/ar…

Your comments, as always, are Very, Very Welcome! Big or small, have your say below.