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Rumors of mummies and ghosts of dried up cities are popularized on Sandy Island. On Fishman Island, locals always talk of half-fish, half-human monsters - in spite of how ridiculous that is for the area. Lulusia Kingdom is full of stories of nightmare-haunting monsters and death-defying serial killers. Drum Island, although home to lapahn, still has myths of yetis running around the mountains kidnapping hikers. While these myths and rumors change from island-to-island depending on the climate and the local culture, one fact remains constant - none are exempt from these fantastical tales.

From the dawn of man, stories of monsters have been passed from generation to generation. They're bedtime stories to some, fear-induced control over children to others. As time wore on, these legends began to appear in pop-culture, being the main theme of popular movies and books that were absolutely devoured by the public. Even as popular as they are though, the general consensus seems to be that they're merely fiction. It is to those outside this line of thinking that these rumors and ghost stories are the most important.

Bogart D. Weiss travels around the Grand Line with his ear to the ground in search of these very rumors. With each rumor, he vets the storyteller and tracks down as much information as he can on the target. Days, even weeks, can be spent sniffing out information in order to prove a target's innocence or guilt. However, with all the time that Bogart has spent searching out monsters, not a single one has come up true. All rumors end with a misunderstanding between parties or information spawning from a stretch of imagination. The creatures of myth and legend are determined to remain just that - myth and legend. Yet Bogart does not falter in the face of failure. His raison d'etre is to not only prove the existence of monsters to the world, but prove that his father's life wasn't a lie.

Bogie grew up hearing stories of monster slaying from his father, secretly a marine, as bedtime stories and false tales of his journeys overseas. His father, Hideki D. Weiss, was sent off to seen often as a Marine, but it lead the man to different islands, allowing him to absorb the local rumors and spin greater tales for his son upon his return. Bogie grew up knowing only these stories and when his father didn't return from sea one year, these stories shifted from simply stories to life goals. Bogart D. Weiss wanted to  retrace his father's footsteps, prove the existence of monsters, and hunt the creature that slayed his father - whatever that may be.

The island-bouncing had been a bust for the young man, but he had picked up wind of a new rumor that ended up bringing him to the shores of Drum Island. While local rumors remained the same, there was something new that had piqued his interest. Yetis and snowmen did there best to drown out everything else, but rumors of a new creature had popped up - a vampire.

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Gear:

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Bogie stood in a small town close to the shoreline of Drum. The town seemed poor, not even wealthy enough to afford paved streets or sidewalks, yet the lord of the town lived in a large house - almost a mansion - at the top of a hill overlooking his township. "If this were a story, I'd only have to look there," the boy thought, reaching around his back to retrieve the book that was clipped there. Holding the book in front of him, Bogie gently caressed the cover, running his fingers gingerly over the stitching the bound the leather squares together. The book gave him a strange feeling of comfort, a physical reminder of the person his father was before his death. The leather squares were creepy in their own right, but his father had bound this book himself, so they held a different meaning to him than anyone else that'd view it.

The young man opened the cover and flipped through the pages. Each page held the information on a different monster and how to kill them. There was so much the book could teach, but Bogie already knew what he was looking for. Flipping through the letters of the alphabet he got to V, searching through the various monsters until he came to the one he was looking through - the vampire. It was why he was here, so even if the monster was different from what the rumors were saying, he should at least rule it out first.

Hunter Manual wrote:Vampires are creatures that particularly hunt in the night. Their predatory abilities range from heightened senses and heightened physical attributes to hypnotism and alluring beauty. These creatures feed on the blood of humans to sustain themselves, but do not hunger or have a need to feast. They do not age; an average life expectancy cannot accurately be quoted.

Weaknesses:

• Sunlight
  
• Garlic
  
• Branch of [Wild Rose, Hawthorn]
  
• Mustard Seed
  
• Sacred items (Crucifix, holy water, rosary)
  ...
  

Non-proven methods of destruction include staking through the heart, decapitation, or complete incineration of the body.

The hunter sighed. The book contained useful information, but a lot of it was unproven or incomplete. His father had been an active hunter in life, but had died before he could accurately access the information he had written, mostly writing rumors and secondhand experiences to test at later dates. The manual had been unofficially passed to Bogie upon his death, making him the second in line to test his fathers research and prove its accuracy. As of currently, however, he had been unable to seek out a creature that had been rumored, all of it coming up as misunderstandings.

Undeterred, Bogie began to seek out the rumor that had brought him to Drum. The greatest source of information, he had found, were the very people the rumors had originated from. Naturally, he couldn't find the initial source, so anyone was good to begin an investigation. There were people that could be extraordinarily useful in these cases though, as they were the ones that saw the most people throughout their day and thereby had a greater chance of hearing these rumors.

Horse-drawn carriages and even human-drawn carriages flooded the center of the streets, so Bogie stuck close to the buildings as he walked through town. He passed various shops on the way, including a blacksmith, tailor, shipwright, and a general convenience store; all of which were useful, but not as much as the place he had his eye on. It wasn't long before he came upon the building he had sought - a pub, relatively busy even in the middle of the day. Pirates, marines, and average townspeople were all possible and frequent customers, making it a wealth of information that other shops just couldn't compete with. It also helped that alcohol eased even the tightest lipped.

Bogie entered the pub, walking up to the counter. He didn't drink, but he could still be a customer if that's what was necessary to get the bartender to start talking. "Howdy," Bogie began, instantly regretting his choice of hellos.

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Gear:

This was a small port town, small enough to where it's original name and place on the map had long since been lost, and where the residents and locals all seemed to know each other. The face of a stranger was a rarity these days, as even the marines who found themselves stationed here likely only did so because they had family in these parts. If nothing else, people here wanted to keep to themselves and live quietly, even if that meant letting certain things go unnoticed or unreported.

The bartender raised an eyebrow at the newcomer. From the moment he walked it his choice of dress had managed to draw a few sets of eyes to him, but as he sat down and opened his mouth, Bogart immediately set out on making the wrong impression with the townsfolk of Drum. "...Uh, hello? You gonna sit there trying to seduce like some sort of queer cowboy or are you gonna order somethin'?" the Bartender replied, seriously hoping this kid wasn't going to be a regular run of the mill freak. "If not, the exit's right were you came in."

---

Gathering information was a simple process. At its core, the only things needed to successfully gather information were the right people, to whom you'd ask the right questions, the answers of which you'd follow up on, repeating the process until you find what you're looking for or come up with a solution. For as simple as it could be explained, the actual practice was far from it. The answers that people gave didn't always make sense or bring up something new and far too commonly were those that intentionally stood in the path of making sense of an issue. Defiantly these people intentionally give incomplete answers or an attitude that makes them difficult to work with - as was the case with this barkeep. Bogie had come in in relatively high spirits, greeted the man with no ill intent, and was gifted with a reply filled with malicious attitude and only demanding he hurry up as a customer, if he were to be one.

The young man sighed, rubbing his temple as he glanced over the back wall behind the bar counter. Numerous bottles lined the shelves in even rows, not even enough space to leave room for the dust that'd inevitably gather. Several different variations of whiskey, an uncountable amount of different tequila, and many more options were all placed up together to allow customers freedom in their choice of drink. The people and islands may change, but bars always stayed the same, right down to the multiple beer taps, complete with different handles brandishing the logos of their respective distillery. Of course, none of this meant anything to Bogie. He'd made his fair share of attempts at discovering a taste for alcohol, but it had never stuck.

"Uh... Yes." Bogie's words were slow and careful, but unfounded attitude like this couldn't worm its way under his skin so easily. "I'll just take a club soda for right now, thanks." He gave the barkeep a quick smile, patting the counter of the bar innocently. "Actually, what I'm here for is a little information, if you could help me out." He was definitely toeing the line by asking the man so plainly, but he set down enough beli for the club soda and a little extra to see if the opportunity got the man's attention.

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Gear:

"Sure thing, bud." the bartender replied, reaching back to grab an opaque, green bottle filled with Bogart's drink of choice. After quickly filling the glass with a handful of ice, the man slid over the cup of clear, fizzy water. Yet as he turned back to face the newcomer, he was hit with more or less what he expected from the boy. After taking hold of the beli and looking it over, he narrowed his eyes and sighed. "Alright, shoot."

---

Even if he had to plainly state that he was looking for information, he'd learned from his past ventures that outright looking for monsters was probably the worst way he could come out with his questioning. He hadn't found any creatures yet, but he'd at the very least learned what not to do when interacting with people. The questions that he wanted to ask weren't easy to stomach, so it was easier to mask the monster as something else first.

"I've been hired to search for missing people. There's been rumors of people disappearing without a trace, so if possible, I'd like to put a stop to that." It wasn't even as if Bogie knew there were missing people. He was just targeting a vampire hallmark. People would disappear and it was a better solution to them trying to feed than leaving a drained body in the middle of town. Manipulating the questioning in this way also helped. Most people couldn't get behind monster hunting, but many would at least make the attempt to help solve a kidnapping. "If you know anyone that's disappeared or can point me in the direction of anyone that would know anything, you'd be a big help."

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Gear:

Immediately the Bartender's eyes and ears perked up and at attention at the mention of missing people. Now far more invested in Bogart's presence, he felt compelled to let the boy in on some troubles that the marines in the area had been keen on ignoring. "Yeah, you got that right. People on the outskirts of town have gone missing without a trace, their homes just completely empty." the man said, leaning in closer so he didn't have to speak as loudly or draw any unwanted attention. "Some of m'regulars have been gone too, it's been gettin' worse. People just goin' in the middle of the night and closer to town lately. If I were you I'd start with Esmerelda, lovely old woman lives just down the street in the old brick house, can't miss it. Her husband and son both just went missing no more than 3 nights ago, and they were some of my favorites."

Leaning back, the bartender gave a courteous smile and nod towards Bogart and continued to serve drinks to the patrons as if the conversation never happened, content that he had done everything he could.

---

Bogie smiled, content that the bartender had seemingly changed his tune. By asking questions that would put him in a good light and reflect badly on them if they didn't answer, it was easy to get answers; though a little beli did help to ease the mood. The bartender had not only given up the name of someone he could talk to, but was kind enough to tell him where she could be found. Getting up from his bar stool, Bogie reached into his pocket and retrieved a few extra beli as a courtesy for the man's help, then kindly left before finishing his drink.

Upon walking out of the bar the young man was greeted with the brisk, winter air of Drum. It had been so warm inside that he had temporarily forgotten. Even though he had grown up on a spring island, the snow never bothered him anyway. He simply buttoned up the top of his jacket and walked up the road in the direction the bartender had pointed. The crunch of his boots against the fresh snowfall was the only companion Bogie had, yet he nodded politely to each person he passed on the way, even if they weren't so keen on strangers. Just as instructed, it wasn't long before he came upon the brick house that he was told about.

It was hard to miss the house, as he was told. Oddly, it had a dead vine covering the side of it, extremely out of place on the winter island. The young hunter walked up to the wooden door and knocked lightly, tucking his hands back in his pockets to keep them warm as he waited for the woman, Esmerelda, to answer.

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Gear:

As Bogart approached the solitary home, the sound of shuffling could be heard from within the house, indicating that someone was inside, if a bit noisy. Yet as he knocked, the shuffling ceased almost instantly and the residence became deathly quiet. After a minute or so of silent waiting, the shuffling noise returned, this time followed by the sound of dull thuds and the sound of scraping wood. From the frosted windows, a scene of horror could be spotted out of the corner of Bogart's eye.


A man, no, a creature feasted on the flesh of what he could only presume to be Esmerelda, the door leading into the snowy back of the home having been broken down off it's hinges, the entire house ripped apart as if a hurricane had blown through it, and blood covered nearly every surface. It was out of the ordinary for a murder to so brazenly occur in the middle of the day, but something about the situation was more than foreboding.

---

Backing up a couple extra feet away from the door, Bogie achieved a better view into the window. A humanoid creature stood hunched over the bloody corpse of another person. The chest cavity of the corpse was ripped open, flayed out like a goat to allow the creature easy consumption of its innards, and three of the four limbs were ripped off, but nowhere to be seen. The creature, an arm in its mouth, looked up momentarily to spot Bogie on the other side of the window pane, but its focus was too enveloped in its current meal to distract it for long. The young man placed a hand on his hunter manual, the same way a religious man would clutch a Bible. However, the one thing that Bogie could see that sent shivers down his spine were the fingertips of the limb in the monster's mouth. Half-painted a light pink, it was the last sight that Bogie needed in order to push him forward.

Without calling for the authorities or screaming for help, the young hunter bolted for the closed door. He grabbed the brass handle and jimmied it, but it wouldn't turn and the door remained tightly shut. Rolling with the punches the current event was throwing at him, Bogie backed up and gave the door a solid kick. A creak, a wheeze, but it stayed standing. The second kick, however, busted the door frame and sent the door swinging inwards, allowing Bogie to rush in fearlessly.

The smell the entered Bogie's nostrils was far from pleasant. The faint scent of iron masked with the heavy stench of a rotting corpse and defecation nearly made him gag, but the adrenaline rushing through his veins reinforced his will like steel. The young man ran through the short hall and turned into the room he'd viewed from outside, but his momentum carried him forward still. Stepping onto the blood-soaked carpet and leaping over the flayed corpse, Bogie rushed the creature with intent to kill, only to come face-to-face with his own shortcomings. As his foot came down on the far side of the corpse, his footing slipped on a puddle of blood, sending him careening towards the floor at the foot of the monster he'd come to kill.

The creature had little time to notice the man as he bolted into the house due to its current meal, but with the new dish laying neatly at its feet, its attention was finally grabbed. Slinging the arm in its mouth away, it dove down at Bogie, still on the floor. The only thing that kept Bogie alive in that moment was his state of hyper-focus caused by the adrenaline, allowing him to instinctively react before the monster's jaws took a bite out of his flesh.

Sticking up his foot, Bogie shoved his heel directly into the monster's jaw with all the force he could muster at that moment. Contact was made, but there was no physical sensation associated with it. The jaw of the creature simply fell off, kicked cleanly away by Bogie's instinctive attempt at self-defense. The creature couldn't sink its teeth into him anymore, but its body weight and natural strength allowed it to continue being a threat. It collapsed onto the fallen Bogie, the close proximity allowing the hunter to knowledge of knowing that it was the source of the rotting smell.

The two of them struggled on the floor for a moment, but the creature's lack of intelligence made it almost no match in an equal fight. Bogie wrested one of his arms free, allowing him to throw and elbow at the creature's temple. One... Two... The second elbow dizzied it, allowing Bogie to throw the creature off of him and scramble onto his knees, where he'd continue throwing elbows while the creature was down. There was no chance for it to get up by that point; Bogie had used his elbow to cave in the creature's skull and end its life before it could cause any further harm.

With both the creature and Esmerelda dead, Bogie was left panting and covered in blood in a stranger's house. The adrenaline in his system was still pumping and his mind wasn't clear - he simply sat there, waiting, hoping someone would come help him make sense of what had just happened.

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Gear:

As the ghoulish creature lay lifelessly on the ground, Bogart was left alone in silence, surrounded by the carnage the creature had caused. Yet, as he waited for someone, anyone to give him guidance or reason, he was met with frigid silence. In that moment, the air seemed a bit colder, harsher, and definitely more lonely. Inside the Hunter's Manual, there was advice and methods for nearly every creature imaginable and some not, but it spoke nothing of Bogart's current status, and the eternal struggle that all hunters come to. Alone after the kill, the mind is hyperactive and on full alert, thoughts racing as if still in a desperate struggle with no outlet. It's enough to break men, drive them mad.

It was the sharp whine of the icy wind billowing through the two open doorways that brought Bogart back to reality. Even though a number of people had passed by Esmerelda's home by this point, seen inside, seen the young hunter covered in blood and panting, they simply ducked their heads and carried on, not wanting to involve themselves in the horrors that plagued their town right in front of their eyes. Surely it won't happen to us. There's no way. Someone else can figure it out.

No matter the excuses, or what the townsfolk knew that they weren't willing to disclose, Bogart was on his own, the only leads left to follow being the rapidly dissappearing tracks in the snow leading from the back of Esmerelda's home to the outskirts of the town, or returning to the bartender with the news, covered in the blood of the woman he was just sent to investigate.

---

"I have to be dreaming. This has to be some freakish nightmare." Or so he thought.

Sitting on the floor of a blood-soaked room, panting, Bogart had been brought to his knees by the events that had just unfolded. He had only been on Drum long enough to question a bartender and walk down the street, but he'd been thrown into conflict with a creature he'd never seen before and never expected to find. His life had been threatened by the jaws of an inhuman, but he'd managed to come out on top and survive. If that was worth something under the circumstance, everything would have been pretty much fine, but it was far from that.

The corpse of the woman he had come to see, Esmerelda, was laid splayed out like the carcass of an animal being divided up for its meat. The humanoid creature looked like a meatball before it was molded into shape, smashed by Bogie's attack dredged up by his instinct to survive. He was a young, inexperienced hunter on an unfamiliar island surrounded by strangers that had already shown their disdain for those they weren't familiar with, yet now he was covered in the blood of both these corpses. No amount of investigation would make this scene favor him. If he didn't want to trudge through town covered in blood, back to the bartender, then he'd have to find a better solution.

The young man took a moment to calm his heart beat and catch his breath before standing up. The scene made his stomach turn, but he as calmly as he could, Bogie stepped back over the corpse and exited the living room. The door he had busted in breathed icy air through the house, but the sensation was different than what it should have been. It was almost as if the air was flowing, rather than simply entering. Rather than exiting back onto the street, Bogie followed the hallway in the opposite direction, passing by a few closed rooms before coming to the kitchen.

It goes without saying that this room lacked the two corpses and their bloody mess, but it was in just as much disarray. The kitchen table was cracked and flipped over, chairs thrown around the room, and the counters full of damaged dishware and opened food. On the far end of the kitchen was the culprit - an open door, busted open nearly as bad as the front. It seemed as if Esmerelda had to experience her fate alone, as this seemed to be the creature's entrance point.

The open door had already begun to spill snow into the house, showing just how long it had been open for. Bogart, stepping up the the opening, peered out into the snow-covered yard. Esmerelda lived towards the outside of town, which made her an easy target for the thing that showed up. There were footprints in the snow leading up to the house, however faint, that showed which direction the creature had come from. Bogie wasn't experience in tracking things this way, so if he didn't move quickly, his only lead would fade to the forces of nature.

Taking a deep breath, Bogie stepped out to follow the trail.

---

Gear:

As Bogart followed the faint trail through the snow, bloodied and cold, he found the prints leading him into a patch of frozen forest situated along one of the lesser hills that made up the mountainous island of Drum. It took hours of trudging and the trail had long since vanished into the icy ground, but Bogart eventually found shelter as night rapidly descended upon him. A cabin, decrepit and abandoned, sat partially buried in the snow. Still, as the hunter approached, it became clear that this was to be his temporary haven. With no pathways in sight, and the blizzard intensifying, to turn back or continue onward would surely mean death by succumbing to the elements.

Inside was a somewhat familiar scene. The furniture was in total disarray, though completely cold and covered in cobwebs, and the front door was left completely open leaving snow piled up in front of it and into the entrance. There was an oil lantern, frozen over and covered in dust left sat upon the center of a table, and blood stained wood from a time long past covered the home. Still, there was no corpses to be found, whatever had taken the residents having finished their meal long ago. Still, it was here that Bogart the hunter would stake his claim as the snow raged outside in the moonlight.

---

The clouds over Drum were constantly blanketing the island with a layer of snow, but no matter how long it snowed, it never piled up higher than Bogie's ankles, yet that was more than enough. After hours of walking through the snow-covered forest, his shoes were soaked through to his feet, chilling his body to the core. The seemingly never-ending walk paired with the cold that soaked him to the bone mounted to an ever increasing sense of dread - a feeling of impending doom at the mercy of the winter island.

There was no end to the walk in sight. The trail he'd begun to follow had long since disappeared to the snowfall and the light of day was beginning to do the same. Tired, cold, and hungry, the hunter finally had a stroke of luck as he passed from the trees into a small clearing. A lone cabin stood, obviously abandoned, in the center of the clearing as a bastion of hope in the dim, dreary sky. If he couldn't find food, the cabin would at the very least offer shelter from the cold and a place for him to put up his feet for the night. The young man crept closer to the cabin, hope swelling in his heart.

The door was propped open by a mound of snow, the inside of the building making a final proclamation towards its abandonment, but that was just as well. Kicking the snow out of the way, Bogie shut the door and closed himself into the the cabin. With the cold dread still sticking in his body, he mounted a chair against the door to reinforce it in case anyone wanted to interrupt his rest. With the rest of the wooden furniture Bogie began to build a fire, smashing a few of the chairs and using the debris as kindling for a flame. It wasn't too long before the fire was burning and the cabin was slowly beginning to warm up, but the hunter couldn't keep his eyes open to witness the full effect of what he'd built.

It was on the floor at the base of the fireplace that Bogie fell asleep. Out of the cold and in the warmth, rest was made all too easy.

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Gear: