Excavations

(Somewhere in the northern reaches of Winterfell)

The grinding noise of the heavy construction clank ceased as it shut off its drill appendage and an atonal, metallic baritone rose from the wide ditch. In the sleepy dusk, it rotated its carbide light to the man sitting nearby, whose face remained motionless behind his goggles.

OBJECT DISCOVERED***BEGINNING EXTRACTION

A few yards from the excavations, a figure sitting in a folding chair in a long leather coat and fur hat looked up from his steaming cup of tea through tinted goggles. He held out the cup to his side, and a half-rebuilt doll of shattered porcelain and dirt-encrusted black lace accepted the cup with an outstretched shaking saucer.

As he stood, doll tilited over with a faint crash. As a spider-like clank crawled over to the doll with a jar of glue and a roll of duct tape. He peered over at the ornate, mud encrusted coffin that the large clank placed neatly as his feet.

"Open it."

Another small spider-clank scuttled over, circling the coffin with a spinning brush until the edges of the lid shined. It rang a series of bells, and the other small clank set down the glue jar and flanked its twin. Two others of its series quickly joined them, edging excitedly around the coffin until they found slots to jam wire-thin extentions. The clicked and chattered at each other until they rotated their probing limbs in unision, and the lid flew open in a flurry of gears, slapping down on two of the spiders with a crash.

Aleister's eyes opened, pale and renslucent as he opened dry lips in a hiss, exposing his fangs.

The man drew a large knife from his equipment belt and a bottle from his pocket. In a smooth motion he popped off the cork with an upswing of the blade. Red foam seetehed from the rim and vanished in the exposed earth.

"Drink."

The vampire lunged at seized the bottle in both hands in the blink of an eye. With unbecoming noises he greedily finished the gift, and dropped the bottle as his skin assumed a warmer tone.

"Danke...I..."

His sentence was interrupted by the wooden qurrel that ripped through his tattered ruffled jacket, the fletches marking where the shaft lodged in his heart.

The other man caught him before he fell back into the ditch. He rested his pistol-crossbow on Aleister's chest. He silently mouthed the word "Marcus" as he slipped back into Torpor.

"Now, Great-six-times grandfather, we're going to have a little talk about...fermentation."