was exhausted, drunk. He lolled upon his bed, chained down, and his cries were like the gonging of great cracked bells as his skin peeled back and his blood boiled! The sun's rays were concentrated in his eyes, which blackened to craters in his head! His hair became smoke, while his limbs and various parts cracked open to issue jets of steam and stench! And through all of this Wratha laughing like a madwoman in a shaded part of the room, dancing from one foot to the other in her excitement, and hauling on a rope which she had fixed to his bed, dragging Karl more surely into the focus of the sunlight.
'Karl's body shrank and shrivelled; he was finished; his leech deserted him, came wriggling from his trunk as finally he burst open at the belly. Seeing all of this, Wratha closed the curtains and rushed to Karl's bed, and took his cindered head with the same silver sword which she'd used to slay Radu Cragsthrall!
Then she turned to his vampire, which was also fatally burned and dying. In its final throes, the creature produced its egg - and at last Wratha had what she wanted! Of her own free will she opened herself to the thing, which entered her without pause and hid itself away in her flesh. It was done, and Wratha was or was about to become Wamphyri!
'Karl's warriors had been hauling on their chains from the moment of his first scream. Now one of them burst free and came hurrying to discover and destroy his master's tormentor. Wratha, consumed by that ecstasy of agony which ever attends the transfusion of an egg, nevertheless stood tall and showed herself to the creature. For her time in Cragspire had been well occupied, and she'd made herself known to all of these children of Karl's vats. However dully, they had grown used to Wratha and responsive to her vampire techniques and aura; and so she'd exercised her will over them, practising for this very day.
'Now the time had come when these preparations must be put to the ultimate test. Wratha faced the warrior down, shouted at it with voice and will both ... and the monster at once backed off! Then, knowing that she had won, Wratha ordered the warrior to a new post right there in a corner of Karl's bedroom; except that the room was now hers, no less than the warrior itself was Wratha's. For her will was abroad in all the corridors of Cragspire (soon to be Wrathspire), and Karl's other creatures were likewise quickly quelled.
'Beasts are beasts, however, and men are men, of which there were several sleeping in the spire. But Wratha's sigil - an unseemly device, to my mind -shows all too well what she thinks of men! She called for Karl's lieutenants one by one, showed herself and her handiwork to them, demanded their allegiance, their obedience. Some were common thralls, while others were undead vampires who had perhaps aspired to Karl's seat; whichever, none made objection. Let one so much as frown or make wry face, Wratha's attendant warrior would rumble and vent furious gases. And so now she was risen in every respect, Wratha of Wrath-spire, and ready to announce that fact.
'Come sundown, she sent out a lieutenant and flyer with messages of invitation to certain other Wamphyri Ladies, such as Zindevar Cronesap and Ursula Tor-spawn, informing them of a gathering in Wrathspire. Vastly intrigued, they all attended of course; but Wratha's special guest was Devetaki Skullguise, the so-called "virgin grandam" of Masquemanse, whom she much admired. Devetaki, when she was a thrall, had vied with a vampire girl for her master's egg. She won the ensuing fight but lost the right half of her pretty face, flensed from the cheekbone. Since when and to this very day, she wears gold-filigreed half-masks of lead: a smiling mask if her mood is good, and one which frowns when it is sour. In this way the two halves, both living and leaden, always concur. But being Devetaki, usually she wears the frowning mask. Ah, but when she is most angry, then she wears no mask at all...
'Well, I will make a long story short: the Ladies accepted their new sister (Zindevar of Cronespire, perhaps grudgingly), and following the Ladies the Lords. For after all, Wratha was Wamphyri now; which was, is, and presumably always will be the way of things. The route to ascension is not important, only the getting