DOUBLE D’s GUILD

🖤 DAY 3 — "THE WHISPERED NAME" 
Theme of the day: "The Strigoi's Beloved" collection 
A vampire's love is always a tragedy. 
It either ends in death... or lasts forever, but somehow differently. 
📌 Find an item from the "Strigoi's Beloved" collection 
📌 Write a love story that left a mark on Casimir's heart.

A vampire's love is always a tragedy. Lala is beginning to think that's because it never actually ends… which feels like false advertising, honestly.

The item was labeled  Velvet Ribbon , which felt… underwhelming. Lala turned it over once, then twice. “Is this it?” she asked. Tara leaned in. “Maybe it does something.” Julie shook her head. “It already did.” John glanced at the tag. “That's usually when we give it space.” That felt less like a rule and more like a survival tip.

The ribbon was soft. Black. Worn in the way things get when they've been handled often—but not recently. Like something that had been held onto long after it should have been let go. Or, Lala noted, something that refused to be let go at all. Lala didn't touch it. That felt like personal growth. John nodded slightly. “Good call.”

The tag was short. Unhelpfully short.  Beloved of Strigoi. Name: Elira. Status: Unresolved. “Unresolved?” Tara repeated. “That's not a status.” “It is here,” Julie said quietly. John added gently, “It usually means the story didn't end the way anyone planned.”

There wasn't much written—just fragments, enough to make a shape. Elira had not been part of the retinue. She had not made a deal. She had not said yes. Which, Lala noted, already made her the smartest person in the room, historically speaking. “She chose him,” Julie said. Lala frowned. “That feels like a detail that should come with a warning label.” John added, quieter now, “It means she stayed… even knowing.”

Elira knew what Strigoi was. Stayed anyway. That part was underlined twice, because apparently once wasn't concerning enough. Tara tilted her head. “So... what happened to her?” Lala kept reading, then immediately regretted her literacy. There was no transformation recorded. No ritual. No exchange. Just time. Years Decades. The kind that don't end things—they just… stretch them.

“She didn't die,” Lala said slowly. Julie nodded. “No record of death.” Laura added quietly, “That's not better.” John said, softer, “No… it usually means something held on.” The ribbon shifted slightly on the table—not enough to move, just enough to feel noticed. Lala stared at it, then didn't, because she enjoys being alive.

“She stayed,” Lala said. “With him,” Tara added. John shook his head slightly. “Not in the way you're thinking.” That landed exactly as badly as expected.

The final note was written differently—not Guild-issued, not careful:  “He could not let her fade.”  Silence. Tara frowned. “That sounds romantic.” “No,” Lala said immediately. “It sounds like a problem.” John added gently, “It sounds like he didn't know how to let go.”

Julie read the last line quietly:  “So he gave her something that would remain.”  Lala looked at the ribbon again—soft, black, unchanged. Laura stepped back. “I don't like where this is going.” “Same,” Lala said. “I'd like to unread this.” John added, “That would be ideal.”

“She didn't become like him,” Tara said. “No,” Julie agreed. A pause. “Then what is she?” Tara asked.

No one answered. Because they were all looking at the same thing.

The ribbon
.

Still. Perfectly preserved. Waiting.

John exhaled slowly. “We should go.” Not rushed, not alarmed—just certain. That helped. As they turned to leave, Lala hesitated for just a second. Behind them, something shifted—not the ribbon, something quieter. Like a name being remembered. Or whispered.

“Lala,” Tara said gently.

She didn't look back. That felt like the correct life choice.

Later, the record would still read:  Unresolved.

Lala disagreed
.

Some things aren't unresolved.

Some things are just…  still here.

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LaLa a3d26b

Guild: Double D’s

DAY 4 — "LAUGHTER THAT MAKES THE CANDLES GO OUT" Artifact: In Bed with a Vampire
The painting was not there on Day One. Now it hung in the dining room between two frames Tara had photographed empty. A woman sleeping in a dark bed. A figure bent over her.
"That's your face," John said to Lala.
The scar above the left eyebrow. The hands folded just the way she slept.
Then the laughter came — from everywhere and nowhere, the private laughter of someone who had been waiting and found the wait entirely worthwhile. Every candle went out.
When John found the lights, the figure in the painting had turned its head. It was looking out at them now.
Lala did not sleep. None of them did.

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LBB 

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Guild Quest   Day 4.  The Chronicles of Strigoi’s Castle
Guild:   Double D’s

DAY 4 — “LAUGHING THAT MAKES THE CANDLES GO OUT”
FOUND: The Vampire Doll

It looked harmless.

Small. Porcelain-faced. Dressed in faded velvet, with stitched lips curved into something almost like a smile.

Almost.

You picked it up.

That was your first mistake.

The laughter came instantly.

Sharp. High. Wrong.

Every candle in the corridor went out at once, plunging you into a darkness so complete it felt alive. And then—the pain.

A sudden, twisting agony shot through your arm.

You dropped the doll.

But the pain didn’t stop.

In the darkness, the story unfolded.

A thief.

That’s who had brought the doll into the castle long ago—a clever little man who thought himself untouchable. He had heard of Kazimir’s treasures, of relics soaked in centuries of power, and believed he could steal one without consequence.

The doll had been his prize.

A voodoo construct, crafted to control the undead.

Or so he thought.

The laughter echoed again.

Closer now.

You felt your fingers curl involuntarily, nails digging into your own skin. Your knees buckled as invisible strings tightened around your limbs.

The truth revealed itself too late:

The doll does not control the dead.

It transfers the curse.

The thief had laughed, just once, when he first held it.

Moments later, he was screaming—his body twisting, breaking, collapsing under forces he could neither see nor fight. Kazimir had watched in silence as the man became the puppet, not the master.

And when it was over…

The doll remained.

Waiting.

The candles reignited.

The pain stopped.

You were on the floor.

The doll lay a few feet away, perfectly still.

But as you forced yourself to stand, you noticed something new—

Its stitched smile…Was wider than before.

And then Kazimir’s deep, booming laughter echoed through the whole castle.

День 4
Гильдия Ёжик в тумане

В пыльной витрине старого магазина игрушек, среди выцветших плюшевых медведей и сломанных заводных солдатиков, сидела кукла-вампир по имени Носфератушка. Глаза-бусинки взирали на мир с холодной надменностью, а на алых губах застыла вечная ухмылка. Но сегодня произошло нечто из ряда вон выходящее: глубокой ночью, когда город погрузился в сон, из груди Носфератушки вырвался низкий, жутковатый смех. Хохот был сухим, дребезжащим, словно сотни летучих мышей одновременно били крыльями по стеклу Старый продавец, мистер Бин, спавший на раскладушке за прилавком, подскочил на ноги, дрожа от ужаса. Он схватил старую швабру и, набравшись храбрости, осторожно выглянул из-за прилавка. Носфератушка все еще сидел в витрине, но теперь его глаза светились зловещим красным огнем, а на его лакированных туфельках лежала крошечная, наполовину съеденная шоколадная конфета. Мистер Бин облегченно вздохнул. Оказалось, это всего лишь мышёнок, который нашел себе лакомство и случайно задел механизм смеха в кукле.

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48557а

DAY 4 — “THE LAUGHTER THAT EXTINGUISHES CANDLES”
Theme of the day: “Vampire’s Laughter” collection
FOUND: Notes of Bloodsucker book from the “Vampire’s Laughter” collection

The laughter erupted without warning in the library, rich and startled, the kind Casimir had not known he still possessed. Liora had just read aloud from the forbidden Notes of Bloodsucker, mocking his dramatic entries about “eternal solitude” while wearing nothing but the ruby pendant and a mischievous smile. One candle after another snuffed out as the sound rolled through the room, flames bowing like courtiers before a king who had finally remembered joy.

He caught her in his arms, still laughing, and for one perfect heartbeat the castle forgot it was a tomb. They spun between the shelves, books tumbling, her mortal warmth pressed against his chill. The laughter ended only when she cupped his face and whispered, “See? Even monsters can be happy.” But happiness, like candlelight, is brief. That night’s joy still lingers in the rafters; sometimes, when the wind moves through the corridors, the same bright sound returns—only to die again, reminding the castle of what it once held and what it lost when Liora’s light went out forever.

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Tara 🇺🇸 031cde
Guild: Double D’s