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Post by Behax on May 20, 2019 22:57:18 GMT
Barnaby's explanation jogged something vague in his memory. These cultist paladins would have been around when he had previously been awake. He knew the name Dardariel, but he couldn't recall a lot. It was likely that they had not been held in particularly high esteem by the Bastista family. It would all depend on just how fanatical they had been. Lucien himself had rarely worked with others, and it was especially rare he'd worked with anyone outside of his own family. So it was probably not particularly surprising his own knowledge on the subject was lacking.
"Hmm that's true enough, if it was the land or the house, you wouldn't be able to enter either....." He frowned when Barnaby suggested it could be Victor himself. "Victor? What as if he somehow blessed the water first?" Her queried as his eyes were drawn to what Barnaby was pawing at.
Lucien stood, walked to where Barnaby was and picked up the object. "If I had to guess....whatever the popular drug choice of the current age is." He knew that what drugs were considered "in" by the aristocracy changed with the wind and tide, but his time asleep meant he no longer knew what that would be. Alcohol had always been his own personal poison of choice. He got the feeling what Victor was chasing was something darker.
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Post by Grimm on May 25, 2019 16:04:11 GMT
Barnaby’s nose twitched at his masters explanation. This scent was in various places all around the premises and there was one just like it on the nightstand next to the bed…and in the library. It seemed that Victor was very fond of his drug.
“Perhaps. No telling what kind of things they were into. The Dardariels had been wildly extreme in their hunts and would have considered even you a sin of humanity.” Again being careful around the water on the floor, he hopped over each red tinted puddle to the next until he was near the door again. “They saw corruption and evil everywhere, except in themselves. And if I can remember correctly had been rumored to have bred human women to angels in their obsession with wiping the occult off the face of the earth. So what would you suppose happens when you turn a nephilim into a vampire?” If Barnaby had been in his human form he would of had a look of curiosity bluntly written across his face, but it was evident enough in his tone. He was quick to pad into the bedroom and up onto the the bed, were Victor was almost completely healed; which even with the aid of a dhampires blood was still extraordinary to say the least for a newling.
Victor was fumbling with the medical kit when a cat had jumped up on the bed, his body was trembling with the echoes of the trauma he had just endured. “I thought you had an odd smell, nephilim. So what’s your real story, hmm? You lure my Master here, you feast on him again and again…and you reek of Walter.” Barnaby’s curiosity flashed to a bit of anger with his accusations when he mentioned Walter. Victor stared at Barnaby, stunned that the cat had spoken. He looked down at his kit wondering if perhaps he had already taken his medication, sometimes he would hallucinate…which felt different from the visions he was plagued with.
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Post by Behax on May 28, 2019 11:45:26 GMT
Lucien let out a hollow laugh at Barnaby's comment. "Pretty sure that sentiment was shared by some of my own family." Part of the reason Lucien had wanted to disappear in the first place, and been because to some (not all), he had been seen as little more than an exceptionally powerful tool. The vampire blood running through his veins had made it easy for some members of his own family to treat him like an object. certainly made it easy for him to be treated with disdain by his uncle.
He wasn't so sure if he believed the part about Nephilim. Lucien wasn't so convinced that they even existed, if they did they were rarer than he was. The again if anyone would know whether or not Nephilim existed...He supposed it would be a demon. If Victor really was one however...It would only add to the reasons Walter would have been drawn to him. He liked rare and beautiful things.
"Barnaby! Thats rude. Victor is a victim in this!" Lucien chastised Barnaby as he walked back into the room. "You seem to have healed quite well already...." Lucien remarked as he drew closer to the bed, sitting on the edge. Even he was a little surprised by how fast Victor had healed. "Do you know what happened?" He asked softly.
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Post by Grimm on May 28, 2019 18:27:02 GMT
He hadn’t quiet understood all that the cat had said, the shock that it was even talking had made it incomprehensible. “A talking cat…sure why not…” Victor said mainly to himself when it was evident that he wasn’t having a vision or a hallucination. Now in the presence of others, he pulled the sheet to cover himself, although it left his upper body exposed, the scars of self inflicted wounds overlapped each other on his arms in a depressing timeline of his past. Having them exposed made him feel vulnerable and his body language was easily readable when Lucien sat down on the bed. It didn’t help that Barnaby’s silver eyes were staring at him suspiciously. His body still trembling, he reached up and rubbed his shoulder and his neck as if he was trying to smooth out a sore muscle in his back. “I don’t know. I was in the bath,” slender fingers pushed back his long wet black hair as he tried to recall what had happened before he started to fumble with his medical ki again. “I was swallowed up by a vision and when I came to-“ he was preoccupied trying not to relive the hell he just went through.
While Victor was having issues preparing a dose of his drug, Barnaby on the other paw, was scrutinizing every inch of Victor. Barnaby was old, biblically old although you wouldn’t know it by the way he acted; but Barnaby had been in Egypt when the winged freaks decided to start their purge of anything that wasn’t deemed holy. The newling certainly had the smell, but he didn’t have the look. Nephilim were the definition of strength and warrior prowess; things that Victor’s thin slender build didn’t have. A frame so delicate that one could compare snapping it to a twig. Barnaby circled around Victor, silver eyes narrowing when he saw Victor’s back. While the rest of Victor’s body had healed properly, the two vertical scars on his back were almost as fresh as the day they were made.
“Nephilim’s are bad news.” Barnaby warned Lucien, his ears a tad flattened.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Victor threw a pained and confused glare at Lucien’s familiar.
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Post by Behax on Jun 2, 2019 22:38:32 GMT
The evidence of Victor's self-abuse made Lucien frown. It reminded him more than a little of Luca, and the memory of him just made Lucien fill with more guilt, regret and worry. He needed to find him. But for now he had to worry about what was in front of him. With another pang of guilt, he shook the thoughts of Luca from his mind.
"Has this happened before? Since Walter.....Changed you?" Lucien asked, trying to be delicate about it. His expression grew a little more concerned as Victor continued to fumble with his med kit. He had a feeling the answer to his question was likely no, as he didn't think Victor would be eager to get into a bath again if it had happened before. Still it didn't hurt to ask, even if the answer felt obvious.
"So are demons, vampires and werewolves," Lucien shot back at Barnaby, getting a little exasperated with his behaviour.
"He keeps calling you a 'Nephilim' because he thinks you are one," Lucien explained simply. He took a deep breath to try and steady his emotions. "Will you be less catty if I release you from Walter's curse?" He didn't think it could be helping Barnaby's mood to be trapped in such a small, limiting form.
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Post by Grimm on Jun 5, 2019 17:43:08 GMT
Victor shook his head to Lucien’s question. The bath had been his escape, he would lounge in the waters until he would shrivel up like a prune.
“Catty?!” Barnaby gasped offended at the notion, if he had eye brows they certainly would have been raised. “Is that intended to be a pun?” He sounded so exasperated. “Perhaps your long slumber made your head a little foggy, but do NOT,” Barnaby was rather riled up his fur standing on end and had he been in human form the way he stalked towards Lucien on the bed would have probably been intimidating, but instead it was a mid-sized house cat with two small silver horns, “make the mistake of mocking me. I am older than the pyramids of Egypt, I was worshiped as a God and you, you…..” Barnaby wiggled his body with feline wrath trying to come up with some savage burn but instead he yelled at Lucien. “…YOU ARE AN IDIOT!” For Barnaby his personality was rather catty, always saying what was on his mind and hardly sugar coating the bitter edges of his opinions.
Barnaby leapt from the bed, stomping (if that’s what you could call it) his toe beans against the hardwood as stormed out of Victors bedroom, mumbling something about having to eat field mice and lizards for the past 50 years and have a meal interrupted you might be a little rude too.
Victor had given up with his drug but he was at his own cranky over stimulus, everything hurt, even his back. “I don’t even know what a ’Nephilim’ is! Master shows up and does this to me…. I find you and then…” Victor looked at Lucien pleading. “I don’t even know what is going on anymore. Can’t you just kill me?!”
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Post by Behax on Jun 23, 2019 22:51:57 GMT
Lucien took Barnaby’s outburst in is stride. He was used to the demon having less than kind words for him. He watched him have his tantrum and shrugged when the demon left.
“More fool for him…..I was actually going to undo that curse.” He was more talking to himself than to Victor. Barnaby acted high and mighty because of his history and longevity, but this wasn’t the first time his temper had cost him.
Lucien gave Victor a look of deep sympathy. “I’m not going to kill you, and you are looking for someone to help you with that….Look somewhere else. You'll not get it from me.” There was a bitter tone to Lucien’s voice.
“As for Nephilim….They are basically half-angels…… but there are two types. Ones who are half-human, half-angel. And ones that are half-demons.”
Lucien stood rom the bed, and picked up the two now empty bottles.
“You are lost…....But you must not despair.” He looked to the moon rising in the sky outside.
“Get dressed, and I’ll show you something you can learn to do too,” he said before walking out of the room. “You’ll find me in the kitchen….If Barnaby dosn’t find a way to murder me with his tiny cat body,” he called back as he headed back towards the stairs.
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Post by Grimm on Jul 3, 2019 13:39:55 GMT
Barnady was livid as he walked through the house, grumbling to himself under his breath. He would continue to protest Lucien’s support of that hussy nephliim. He didn’t like him, didn’t like the smell of him; his prejudice for the race made him lean hard toward hating Angels and their kind. He wasn’t buying the damsel in distress act he thought Victor was putting on and the entire thing reeked of a trap. But then again, he was curious as to what would happen if one of the angelic kind had been turned. Nephilims were unstable enough, but forcing the holy with the unholy? The cat demon thought about the possibilities until he wasn’t as angry as he had been before.
Barnady had made his way back to the kitchen looking apologetically to the pork waiting to be cooked; he could eat it raw but why would he want to do that knowing the succulent flavors that awaited from cooking the fat down. He jumped up on the counter and sat down as if staring at the meat hard enough might start to cook it, damn the curse Walter put on him - he could be cooking it now if he had thumbs.
——— Victor felt ashamed of himself pleading with Lucien to kill him. He turned his beautiful emerald eyes downward to the sheets and to the medical kit in his lap. His entire world was being dumped upside down again, talking cats, demons and angels - everything in between. Lucien was right, he was lost, horrible terribly lost and it made the despair he felt deeper. He nodded to Lucien as he left the bedroom, waiting a few moments before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Moving without purpose, he found a pair of pants and sorted through a few shirts on the floor before he settled with a loose white pull over shirt, something one would more likely wear under their clothes. His back stung as he slipped it on, which prompted him to go to the mirror to take a look. He grimaced when he took a peek at the reopened wounds on his back and his acknowledgment of them seem to make them hurt all that much worse. It was a painful memory, one that he was ashamed of. Was that talking cat right? It would certainly answer more than a few questions, but the grotesque growths that had once been on his back resembled nothing of the beautiful marble wings down in the basement.
He had to wonder why that area didn’t heal when the rest of him had done so quickly after drinking Lucien’s delisous blood. He made a face as thought about the taste of the man’s blood being was something he desired. With a sigh he put his shirt back down and continued getting dressed.
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Post by Behax on Jul 5, 2019 23:07:43 GMT
Lucien caught up with Barnaby in hardly any time at all, not that he’d expected to find the demon back in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything at first. Moving silently through the room, practically undetectable until.
“It’s not going to cook just by you scowling at it,” his tone was light despite what had just transpired.
Lucien walked around the kitchen and saw that another bowl was full of blood from the pig carcass. There probably wasn’t much left in it by this point. He replaced the bowl with another just in case and began decanting the full one into the two now empty bottles.
It was probably okay to start slicing it up now. Give poor Barnaby a meal actually worth eating. He returned his swords to the counter top, before digging through the kitchen for a suitable knife. He started by removing the limbs. Threw three of the pig’s legs into a bucket before preparing the one he still hand in hand for cooking.
“I know you have reservations…..But you could cut the guy a little slack. He’s hardly the first mortal that Walter has fucked with. And it’s not like you haven’t been wrong before,” he gave Barnaby a pointed look as he said that.
“It wasn’t like I met Garrett ...Under amicable circumstances….” He’d been sent by his family to deal with the vampire Lord, Garett Lamine. Lucien had even successfully gotten past Barnaby due to his skill at being stealthy. It had been Luca who’d caught Lucien. Garrett had seen in Lucien the scared, neglected boy that he was and sought to change that, which had been the first crack in what would eventually become the chasm splitting Lucien from his family.
Barnaby had never really liked Lucien, but there had been a time when he hadn’t trusted him either.
“I’m not asking you to drop your guard, but you can…..be an overprotective mother hen, without being outwardly hostile.” Lucien might not have asked why Barnaby was sticking around, but even he was smart enough to have figured it out without being expressly told. Ownership of Barnaby had passed to him. It certainly explained Barnaby’s behaviour towards Victor. After all he’d already lost one master to Walter, despite his distaste for Lucien, he probably didn’t want to lose another.
He’d started cooking cuts of pork from the leg by the time Victor joined them.
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Post by Grimm on Jul 8, 2019 17:04:15 GMT
Barnaby’s ears laid flat with annoyance when he heard Lucien’s voice but choose to remain silent as he watched his master prepare the pig. His tail had been lightly tapping on the countertop but as Lucien addressed Barnaby’s attitude, his tail curled to wrap around his feet almost hugging himself. He’d often do the same when Garrett had been chastising him, the only difference was his ears were still flat with mild annoyance instead of shame.
As far as Barnaby was concerned he hadn’t been wrong; Lucien had been the end of his beloved Master, even if it had been indirectly. “Another animal reference.” The cat demon sighed, imagining Garretts voice telling him to cool it. “I want you to understand the gravity of the situation,” Barnaby looked at Lucien with his silver eyes his voice most serious. “I was there when a Nephilim came to Egypt, I saw the destruction he brought. And no one was safe, not even those who put their trust in him. You either kill them or you run from them - you don’t sleep with them!” His tone was still flat, but he was trying to maintain some kind of calm.
It was at this time when Victor entered the kitchen, his naturally pale face turning red at the mention that the cat had known and possibly even seen the two of them having sex. The more he thought about the more mortified he looked. Victor was dressed, but he was certainly a slob about it, his shirt hanging from his waistband and barely clinging to his shoulders.
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Post by Behax on Jul 8, 2019 18:14:07 GMT
It wasn’t that Lucien wasn’t listening, or didn’t think that Barnaby had a point. It was just that he also understood that Victor was a victim in this, perhaps in more ways than one.
“Then….I suppose you are going to very strongly disapprove of what I’m about to show him….” Lucien couldn’t imagine that Barnaby was going to like what was going to happen next. “And it’s not like I knew he was a Nephilim when I slept with -” Lucien trailed off when he realised Victor had joined them at last. Besides it might still have happened anyway, he had made his bed with an ancient Vampire and his Werewolf charge after all.
He gave Victor what he hoped was a comforting smile. He decided not to tease the young vampire about it.
He made quick work of the meat he’d been cooking. Already having cut it into cat manageable sized, he scrapped it out of the pan and onto a dish, setting it aside from Barnaby to eat.
“Here follow me…. This is going to be a bit messy,” Lucien said, grabbing another of the bottles of blood from the counter. He pulled the cork from it and began to drink. Considering Lucien was still not in great shape, especially after just letting Victor drink from him, it could only mean he was about to do something that was going to put extra stress on his body.
He led the way to the library, ignoring the sins from the night before he re-corked the bottle and gave it to Victor to hold. He then began to move furniture aside, and clean up a large space in the floor.
He then cut his hand on one of his swords and used the blood from the wound to begin making a circle. If Barnaby had followed he would have immediately recognised it as a summoning circle. One of design he would already be familiar with as well.
“Vampires, and well most other creatures that fall outside of the mortal realm, are able to make bonds with Demons and other lesser celestial or divine creatures as familiars,” he explained as he continued filling in the circle of his own blood.
“Blood is often the price. You have to sacrifice something for this kind of power, and it is usually a sacrifice of life, and nothing represents life quite so much as blood,” he continued.
“Shifters of the dark, hear my long absent voice, as I command you to return to my plane. Dormant has our contract been, now I have need of you again. Take this sacrifice of my blood as the toll to return ever to my side.” As Lucien spoke the circle began to thrum, and glow with an eerie purple light. There was a flash and when the light faded in the circle stood a girl, her age indeterminable but likely around 15 or 16. She had short messy locks and was dressed like a maid, and was holding something black and feathery in her arms.
She opened her eyes slowly, they were purple and they turned wide when she saw Lucien.
“Master!” She knelt immediately.
Barnaby would recognise this girl as one of a pair of twin familiars Lucien commanded. This was Elarie.
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Post by Grimm on Jul 14, 2019 2:00:23 GMT
Barnaby was left with the ultimate dilemma; eat his food or follow his new Master into the library. But his stomach had clearly chosen as the cat demon stuffed his face with the succulent ham. And perhaps that was a good thing for Victor because it left Barnaby unable to hurl insults at the both of them.
Victor felt the heat in his cheeks, he wanted to just disappear from existence and had he not felt so lost he probably would have run away from embarrassment, but instead he follow Lucien with his head down, his long black hair hiding his face. When they went back to the library he could still smell their scents intertwined and part of him could still taste the dhampires rare blood on his teeth. He took the bottle when he was handed it and watch Lucien curiously as he move the furniture. Victor was going to protest when Lucien began to draw the circle, but he was still so enchanted by the sweet smell…
The serried blue light scared Victor and he took a few steps backwards. The sudden flash of light and Victor toppled over backwards, not quiet believing his eyes. The young vampire didn’t know what to make of it Lucien’s female familiar or her attire as he stared at her from the floor.
“Why would you show him how to do that?!” Barnaby on the other hand whined loudly, his belly so full of pork it was nearly dragging the ground as he hopped onto the large table in the middle of the library, careful where the stepped of course.
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Post by Behax on Aug 16, 2019 12:02:23 GMT
Barnaby’s demand went ignored, fore Lucien’s attention was on his female familiar and the bundle of feathers in her arms.
“Erol?” He asked, his tone somewhere between his usual carefree warmth, and the coldness Barnaby and now Victor would recognise as the very edge of Lucien’s rage. The Dhampire’s emotional state the last 2 days had been dangerously unstable, and that hadn’t changed since his previous outburst at Barnaby. Just because he looked like he was holding himself together, didn’t mean he was doing a particularly good job of it. He might even at this point be more dangerous than the Nephilim that Barnaby was so afraid of.
Elarie nodded solemnly to confirm, the bundle in her arms was her brother.
Lucien took a step closer and carefully took the bird from her arms.
“It was….Walter my Lord.”
Lucien nodded, stroking the Raven in his arms. He looked up to Victor. “Lesson number 1. If you have a familiar, they are not immortal, no matter how powerful they claim to be.” He shot a quick glance at Barnaby before continuing. “They can die, and they can be hurt. Usually they can recover quickly so long as their master is able to sustain their vitality. However in my previous state, Erol here would have been unable to draw enough power from me to recover properly. Animal forms require less power to maintain, so it easier for them to recover and survive in this form.” His tone was soft as he spoke, he was explaining things to Victor as much as he was soothing the bird he held.
“Perhaps in a day ot two Erol will be able to regain a human form…..” Now he was mostly talking to himself.
“They can also be trapped in this form if weakened enough to do so first, Barnaby for example has been cursed, that's why he’s currently a cat. I can assure you, it’s not his preferred choice.”
At the mention of Barnaby, Elarie turned her attention to him, and it was full of contempt. Barnaby’s attitude towards Lucien had hardly endeared him to the Dhampire’s familiars.
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Post by Grimm on Aug 25, 2019 18:54:01 GMT
If Barnaby could have rolled his eyes in his cat form he would have at Lucien’s lesson number 1. In the cat demon’s mind he was the closest thing to a god, even if that wasn’t true. He might be old and powerful but being worshiped in Egypt had gone to his head quiet literally when he was young. Barnaby often forgot he wasn’t immortal, it sure felt that way some times; Walter had been a grim reminder that he could die. And he certainly didn’t like being reminded that he had weaknesses.
Barnaby circled around behind Victor who was seated on the floor, sticking out his tongue Elarie in response to her look of contempt. While Barnaby very much disliked Lucien, he was very much smitten with the twins; not that he would ever admit it.
Victor hadn’t bother to get up from his stunned position on the floor. He was wishing he hadn’t given up so easily on his medication application. This was all just too much for him to take in, but he could see how much Dhampire’s care about his familiars by the way Lucien soothed Erol. His soft voice was enough to sooth him too. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with caring for something else. I barely care for myself.” Victor tucked his legs underneath him, content to keep to the floor, getting up seamed like too much work.
“Oh have I noticed,” His tone was dripping with the same sass he had once used towards Lucien. “…freak.” Barnaby trotted snobbishly by Victor, giving him a nasty side eye as he went. The cat demon was feeling rather jealous watching Elarie and Erol finally reunited with their master…while he had to watch his die. His ears were laid back flat in ill tempered annoyance and seeing Erol’s state only made him feel worse that he wasn’t enough to save anyone from harm.
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Post by Behax on Sept 21, 2019 21:28:55 GMT
“Well for the most part Familiars take care of themselves, their main duty is to their masters, so they tend to do the looking after. Though...Never contract with something that has a stronger will than you, because who wears the crown can change. You can take that as lesson number 2.” Lucien explained.
He supposed he didn’t really need to bother to teach Victor any of this. However in terms of being a vampire he was a child, practically a baby. One that was abandoned by his sire no less. That troubled Lucien more than lineage of Victor’s blood. It might have been safer to cut Victor loose. Let him die. But Lucien wasn’t the kind to do that, not to someone so clearly suffering. Besides, he wanted to see the bigger picture. Wanted to know Walter’s plans. Aside from causing him heartache and anger.
With a click of his fingers the circle he’d used to summon his familiars went up in flames in an instant. Leaving the floor as if it had never been there.
“We’ll get onto lesson 3 and 4 in a moment,” he said ignoring Barbany’s rude comment towards Victor. For a second time he cut his hand allowing himself to bleed enough for it to drip onto the floor. Elarie looked like she might protest, but said nothing. This time Lucien marked out a different magic circle. One that Barnaby might have been vaguely familiar with. It wasn’t exactly the same as the one Garret had used to summon him, but it was very similar.
“But first it’s your turn,” Lucien said turning to Barnaby before inclining his head towards the new circle. “You I can at least do something about.” He sounded a little sad at that, There was nothing he could do for Erol right now except keep him close by. But Barnaby’s predicament was fixable, and Lucien wasn’t cruel enough to force him to remain trapped in such a small body. Even if under different circumstances it would have amused him greatly to watch.
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