Chapter 52 The Biology Lesson (1/2)

As Rassa had expected, Victor had made an appearance an hour or so after Arita had turned in for the night.

'I can sense your apprehension, what's wrong?' Victor asked nearly straight away.

'...How did you do it?' asked Rassa, conjuring up the thought of Victor feeding on the two knights yet making their experiences pleasurable.

'Manipulate their emotions you mean?' confirmed Victor, 'Every Vampire is capable of that. If they're not in pain it makes influencing their memories far easier. It's a skill every vampire learns early'.

'Manipulating emotions and memories?' asked Rassa in disbelief, 'Why was I not informed sooner?'

'Memory manipulation is something that you won't have access to until you're unsealed,' Victor stated, 'As for emotions...you spent most of your time feeding on animals, there is no reason to manipulate their memories when they cannot speak'.

Rassa didn't want to admit it, but that was a decent reason.

'Can I learn now?' asked Rassa.

Victor sighed, 'I suppose, though like I said, there is little point using it on animals. Perhaps I shall take this opportunity to teach you Vampire biology. It will make many things much easier to comprehend in future'.

With that Rassa felt himself drawn into a memory.

***

It turned out to be a series of memories of different times in Victor's life when he was tutored on the topic of biology. Most of it occurred before the events of the last memory Rassa had been drawn into.

The great thing about memories though, was that he was not only told about Vampire biology, he also had the opportunity to experience it through Victor.

The basis of all Vampiric abilities and differences lay in their origin. There were 2 ways to become a Vampire, the first was to be turned, which the memory only touched on as a process that involved a sacred ritual. The second was to be born a Vampire.

Vampires as a whole lived a very long time, it wasn't unusual for one to live more than five millennia, and as such their birth rate was rather low. It was incredibly difficult for a Vampire to become pregnant, and even then the gestation period was quite long, almost five years. No matter how one began as a vampire, whether turned or born, their body needed time to acclimatise to its potential abilities, and hence they were considered 'sealed' Vampires until such a time as they were ready. Another term for this was Fledgling. The period they were sealed usually lasted until their body was matured for a born Vampire, but for a turned Vampire it could be shorter depending on the age they were turned and how quickly they adjusted.

Still, as with Rassa, Fledglings were not exactly defenseless.

They contained the superior strength and speed of a Vampire, but were unable to enhance it further using their Life Lines. They had the ability to feed, and thereby influence the emotions of their prey, and enact the paralysing venom, but they could not use the blood they fed from to fuel their Life Line abilities. Essentially, any ability given by the Life Lines was unaccessible to a Feldgling.

After Rassa understood these basic principals, the information started to become more specific.