KB: 131, Rooms: 57, Objects: 256, Tasks: 547, Events: 16, Characters: 32

Introduction

You awaken...

At first it seems that you are still unconscious as little seems to have changed. Everywhere about you is inky blackness.
"Hello..." you call, and hear the word echo '... lo... lo... lo...' away into the darkness. "Is anyone there?"
'... there... there... there...'
Weakly you put a hand to your head and wince at the sudden sharp pain that flashes through your mind. Your fingers come away wet with blood. You are wounded, and badly it seems, though you feel little more than slightly unwell. However, a further examination reveals, on your neck, two small puncture marks an inch apart, that send jagged pain through you from head to foot when you touch either. The wounds do not appear to be deep but they hurt. Oh, they hurt...

After some time in the darkness - it is difficult to tell how long as you lack any means of gauging the passage of the seconds into minutes and the minutes into hours - your eyes begin gradually to adjust. You make out shapes: a wall, what looks to be a steel door, a dead body... and several others who, just like yourself, appear to be locked in this place.
"Abandon hope," an old man with a thick black beard tells you. He coughs bloody phlegm into a handkerchief and stares at you with pain-maddened eyes. "You'll never get out of here alive."
"Where am I?" you ask. "I remember..."
You remember nothing. Nothing before you awoke. It is as if your entire life has consisted of these few hous since your awakening.
"In Hell itself," says the man. "In Hell itself..." He waves one feeble hand around the place you soon come to think of as your "cell" and adds, "this is Castle Vaslock. The lair of the vampire..."

And so your adventure begins. Your name is unknown to you, as are the circumstances of your arrival in this place, Castle Vaslock, the "lair of the vampire". You have with you little: a journal in which you can take down notes as you progress, a few small items that you were carrying at the time... rather, best to say, that you are carrying now. What happened before your awoke is a question you are, as yet, unable to answer.

Lair of the Vampire is split into several parts, each of which must be completed before you progress to the next part. Whilst not easy, the game is (hopefully) logically and shouldn't be (too) hard to finish.

Throughout the game (and in particular in the very first location) you will encounter a wide range of characters. Some of these are like you, lost souls at the mercy of the evil lord who rules the castle, others are willing slaves, others are the servitors he commands - interaction with such characters is vital to the completion of the game. On a lesser note, it will also allow you to gain a few much needed hints and tips.

Conversation should be begun in the format "talk to harris" or "talk to vardo" - if a character has more than one name, each can be used. Their response will contain a list of subjects (the underlined words) in which they can be asked about. So "talk to harris" might generate a response along the lines of "I don't know how I came to be here... in this castle. I mean, the last thing I remember is waking up with my fiancee, Emily, in a small boarding house in Bekkel. After that, nothing..."

In the above example, you could then "ask harris about [the] castle" or "ask harris about [the] boarding house" (note - words like "the" and "a" are optional. Missing them out altogether makes no difference to the responses you will get.) Harris will then tell you about the castle, or what little he knows of it so far.

Conversation isn't strictly limited to the underlined phrases characters say to you. You can ask them anything you want (although most of the time this will fail to generate anything but a standard response from them). The underlined phrases are meant merely to act as a guide.

If you're stuck, typing "help" might (or might not) offer a few tips on how to proceed. Typing "hint" will open up a detailed list of hints. There is no walkthrough for the game available but the help and hint commands should you to progress through the harder parts of the game.