LORE: Training a Hell Hound (MATURE)

[Emora Deen]

Tenele had no intention of finding Atul to begin with. She was fine by herself, and for the moment she just wanted to keep Stalker company. She sank to the floor next to his head and rubbed the tip of his ears with both her hands. "If you don't drink you won't get better," she told him softly. "You have to get better so you can continue to stalk me." She sat there for the longest time, huming a silly song that made no sense and was a little off pitched.

[Soran Nightblade]

Stalker's ears perked up, and he seemed to be listening to her voice singing. He lay with his eyes shut and seemed pleased to soak up her attention, if not the water. But after a few minutes, he raised his head toward the door where Vlad had left and stared at it with an uneasy tilt of his ears.

Vlad got a sinking feeling as he made his way down a long line of stone stairs into an unused prison chamber at the base of the building. The chamber had several cells and a large central area where guards could stand watch. It was perfect for their purposes. In the past, Vlad hadn't been tied up voluntarily during his experiments, but he opted for it now because he knew that if he was hurt enough, he could break things. And 'things' included people.

The vampire walked into one of the cells and let Maxwell shut him in. It was so easy to go through these steps and think of the decision in the abstract. But actually doing this was a different matter. A vial of holy water would kill him. In the past, a single drop had been enough to put him past his breaking point. He had to hope this unicorn REALLY liked him.

"Now then, shall we start?" Maxwell said as he dug through his case and produced a corked glass vial containing a crystal clear liquid.

Vlad grimaced at the words, because they were the words Maxwell always used when beginning an experiment. He reached out and took the vial from him, studying its contents. "I'm serious about calling Tenele if something goes wrong. If you don't kill me, she will," he pointed out.

"Don't be ridiculous. As if a human could kill you," Maxwell said sternly, but he decided to humor the vampire for now. It couldn't hurt for him to believe what he wanted. But there was no way he was bringing that distracting girl down here in the middle of his experiment. "When you drink, take it all in one quick swallow."

"I was hoping to savor it like wine," Vlad mocked sourly. He could feel his heart pounding as he pulled the cork loose from the vial. This didn't feel right. But then, how could it feel right to drink poison?

[Emora Deen]

Tenele just kept humming, trying not to think of what was going on beneath her somewhere in the palace. She tilted her head back on the bed and closed her eyes, continuing to pet stalker, though her hand was shaking a bit. She was getting upset, and she didn't want to be upset. But, Vlad was being hurt... She shook her head, trying to block it.

But, she couldn't. "This isn't right," she whispered, drawing her knees up to her chest. "He shouldn't have to go through this."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad drew up his resolve, and threw the vial up to his lips, downing the contents in a quick gulp. It razed down his throat the instant it connected, scalding like mad fire through his chest. The vampire immediately dropped the vial, which shattered on the floor. He made a choking noise and staggered backward. The burning spread out through his body like his bloodstream was full of hornets. He looked out at Maxwell, whose watching form blurred in and out of focus, but he couldn't speak. Maybe his windpipe had dissolved. He couldn't think clearly enough to give it much thought.

His eyes widened with panic as he tried to find breath to explain that something had gone wrong - that it wasn't working. Instead, the only sound that came from his throat was an agonized groan as he staggered backward and thudded hard into the wall. He wrapped his arms across his chest, as if that would do anything. Every inch of everything was alive with flames, so it was like putting pressure on an open wound with another open wound. His legs gave way and he collapsed onto his knees, hugging himself tighter. He was starting to break into a series of shocked gasps, although his breaths scalded hot enough to melt stone.

"Will you stop breathing, please. You'll only make it worse. It's like you're sucking your goddamned thumb," Maxwell observed strictly from outside the cell. If he was alarmed by the course of events, he didn't show it.

[Emora Deen]

A frightening thought came Tenele in that instant. Maxwell was very clearly a demon. Verin... possessed demons. Said demon was trying to torture and or kill Vlad. Thus, she came to the conclusion, that said demon was really Verin and she had an ass to stomp into a puddle of mud only to walk dry at some later point. Tenele went to the spot where she had laid her mother’s sword that night, and the spot she had only five minutes ago seen it sitting, glinting in the ray of sunlight that had fallen through the window in the ceiling. She reached for it, only to find her hand grasping for nothing. The rain had stopped; the sun had momentarily broken through one of the clouds, and was falling on a spot that was empty.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad was on his knees now, hunched over with his arms around his chest. He fought the overwhelming urge to lie down with every faculty that remained to him. He wasn't about to just collapse and die on the floor. He set himself against it with a pained growl and tried again to make out Maxwell's form. His vision swirled sickeningly. "Not working," he choked, gagging on the pain.

"If it weren't working, you'd be dead by now. That's sixty seconds, you're doing well," Maxwell's voice cut through the rushing of blood in his head.

Vlad shook his head jerkily. It didn't feel like sixty seconds. It felt like his heart was about to explode. "Tenele," he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Really, Vladimir, I've waited a long time for this. I'm not going to leave my experiment to fetch you that woman. Don't be pathetic; You'll see her when you're done."

The vampire glared up at where he thought the man was standing. "Bastard," he growled, wanting to rip the man's throat open, but he couldn't. He couldn't even move. What would happen to Tenele if he died here? Would Verin come after her, as she'd been told? Would Atul be able to protect her? Would she marry Atul? He couldn't think anymore. His mind whited out, and he couldn't prevent himself from collapsing sideways onto the ground. His body felt impossibly hot. It was like being filled with molten iron. His nails dug hard into the stone floor and he lay there gasping.

"Don't lie down. Get up, Vladimir," Maxwell said, and the vampire thought he heard the first signs of anxiety in the man's voice. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Maxwell continued to call out to him, but it was like being underwater. The words didn't sound important, and couldn't possibly be more important than the pain. He heard the latch on the cell unlock and the gate squeal as Maxwell threw it open.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele was running down the hall, enticing a lot of interest, but no one followed her. Where had he said they would go? To the dungeons? Where are the dungeons? Her heart was racing, and she didn't think it would calm down. She grabbed one person and asked them to direct her to the dungeons, and all they did was blink questioningly and admit they had no clue where they were. So she grabbed a few more people, until one man finally knew of what she spoke.

She was going so fast down the steps that she nearly tripped over the him of her dress several times. So Tenele hiked it up to just a litle above her knees and kept running. Screw not having a sword, she'd fight bare handed if she had to. She'd die if she had too, but there was no way Verin was taking Vlad away from her again. She jumped the last few steps to land on the dirty dungeon flooring, her foot scraping across something sharp lying between the cracks in the stone.

"Vlad?!" she called, the panic clear in the tone of her voice. She would not lose him.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad blinked hard, trying to regain his vision. Someone was shouting just above his head, grabbing onto his wrist and trying to pull him onto his back. The words made no sense to him. He swiped out with a sharp-clawed hand at whoever was hovering over him.

"I said be still!" Maxwell commanded. He grabbed the hand that had just struck him and pinned it securely to the ground. The vampire's skin was hot to the touch. The deep gash Vlad had managed to inflict on the doctor's chest began to close itself immediately. "Don't waste your strength! I'm trying to check your vitals. Concentrate, Vladimir!"

The vampire tugged shakily against Maxwell's grip. The contact hurt, but then again, everything hurt. "Fine...just let go," he rasped, and the doctor actually released his grip on his arms. Vlad writhed onto his side and lay shuddering while Maxwell's hands tested his pulse and temperature.

"Vlad?" a voice called from the outer chambers of the dungeon.

"Te...nele," Vlad barely whispered.

Maxwell frowned and turned his attention toward the direction of the voice. Great. He hoped the girl wouldn't be a distraction. "Here," he shouted for her benefit as he continued trying to understand Vlad's reactions.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele heard the call and she whirled around, running in that direction. She came to a halt just in the doorway . Her eyes fell on them, and saw Vlad’s painful position. “What have you done?” she whispered hollowly, running to him and shoving hard on the doctor’s shoulder to move him away from Vlad. She cupped a hand on his cheek, tilting his head towards her. “What have you done?!”

[Soran Nightblade]

"Be careful, he could strike you," Maxwell warned the girl flatly, using the interruption to rush outside and burrow through his bag for something.

Vlad groaned at the slight movement. His hugely dilated eyes winced open and looked blindly at her, the black nearly drowning out the red. His normally cool skin was feverishly hot.

"Three minutes and counting," Maxwell updated the room as he grabbed some tools and came back out. "He's really doing quite well," he said to Tenele as he crouched opposite her on Vlad's other side. "It has to be working, or he'd be dead by now. The temperature is a problem, though. I need to get his shirt off, so keep him still," he said.

[Emora Deen]

Sure, keeping a vampire four times her strength still was going to be really easy, Tenele thought to herself as she moved her hands from Vlad’s face to his wrists and pinned them down. She doubted it would do any good. “Vlad, please be still,” she whispered to him softly, soothingly, her thumbs brushing across his skin.

“I’m going to stab you when this is over,” she growled to the doctor across from her.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad groaned at the contact of Tenele's hands on his wrists and pulled against it, but not very hard. Everything seemed like an enemy or a source of pain at the moment, but somewhere in his mind he was able to register that this was Tenele and that she wouldn't be hurting him without a reason. His breathing was frantic.

Maxwell produced a small knife from his pile of tools and cut open the front of vlad's shirt, pulling it away from his skin. He reached around the vampire and lifted his upper body slightly to pull the fabric completely way. Then he pressed a glass thermometer into the vampire's mouth and held it there. Vlad glared at him, but didn't move. After a few seconds, Maxwell removed the instrument and stared at it. "103. On his scale, more like 130," he observed, turning to stand up.

"Doc..." Vlad strained, stopping the man in his tracks, "If you go write that in your damned log.....I swear I'll haunt you." He tried for a smirk that came out as a wince and then twisted into a flat-out grimace.

Maxwell turned and studied the vampire. Trying to joke around? Maybe having the girl there actually was a good thing.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele watched Vlad with a concerned expression, fearful for him. She let go of his wrists and brushed her hand across his cheeks, framing is face. She bent forward and kissed his lips gently. “Please stay with me,” she whispered to him, hovering over his face and staring him in the eyes, though she didn’t think that he could see her at the moment. “I love you.”

She wanted to clobber the doctor for what he had done, but decided to wait. She hadn’t even asked him if he was Verin. She’d come down here with that purpose and had only ended up going to Vlad’s side. His reaction to whatever had been given to him scaring her from remembering why she had originally come down there.

[Soran Nightblade]

Her kiss was the first touch that didn't hurt him since drinking the potion. That's right....she loved him. He couldn't afford to die this easily. He'd sworn not to make her cry again. He reached up to her with shaking arms and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm not going anywhere," he strained between halting gasps.

[Emora Deen]

She rested her head against his chest, underneath his chin. “You better not,” she told him, closing her eyes as she rested against his hot skin. It was so rare to feel his felt as fiery as it was at that moment. “Are you feeling better?”