What Makes a Monster

♱Fifty-One♱

Third Person P.O.V.

Soran does not rest while at The Bloody Keep. He worries over a great deal of issues. Karsissia's home is not a place that any should wish to be, but what he worries about most of all resides in his own home. Malatis has yet to give off any signs of a troublesome situation. Soran worries nonetheless. He tosses and turns in the night resulting in him getting up to continue his research instead. There's no point sleeping if sleep will not take him, and there's no point being there any longer than necessary. He will work and work until the deed is done.

For once, Soran willingly drinks when the mindless servants trudge over to him. On a silver tray rests a heart so warm it still steams and a fresh pitcher of blood. Soran nearly rips through his bottom lip when the tray is presented to him. After the servant exits, he eats swiftly then hides the empty tray in shame.

Being hungry has become the norm for Soran, being at the point of starving no longer bothers him. Hunger is but a dull throb not even worthy of being called an annoyance. Instead, he hates the sensation of being full only to crave more. That's how feeding is; eating and devouring yet continuing to thirst and that is not a mindset Soran wishes to keep. However, the fastest way to leave is to work, to never take a moment's rest. It's why, after a long nine days, Soran has gotten as far as he has.

As Karsissia said, she and Quelen went missing for nearly five days. While they staked out the Unborn's camp, Soran went over Karsissia's own notes into the matter. There is much she did not share. He is the disappointment, after all, but she knew Soran had a far more analytical mind than hers. This time around, more information is given, some that even he hasn't discovered over the years.

For example, in Karsissia's own writing, she never states how, but she admits to her death long ago, along with Quelen's. That points to more proof for a theory Soran always had; one has to die first before becoming a vampire. In Soran's case, the priests that cared for him in his youth once admitted that Soran's mother grew very ill while pregnant. Soran stopped moving, everyone feared the worst. By then, the priests were already toying with her, who knew what really happened. The only thing Soran was told was that two weeks later, he showed signs of life again. During his mother's illness, Soran must have died before he was even born.

Karsissia is good at keeping secrets though. To this day, Soran doesn't know if she is even aware how to create a vampire either. If she does, she certainly has the answers well hidden. The most Soran knows is that the caster must first give themselves to Tethros. They must dabble in the dark arts until they are no longer human already; another common notion in all three of their pasts, both Karsissia and Quelen were once Unborn whereas Soran was manipulated by them. The Unborn are the only ones capable of bringing about another vampire because they are the only ones able to call to the darkness. No Priest of Aena could ever commit such a feat, not without losing themselves completely.

Over the last few days, Soran sat through the long hours of day and night, finding that there has been even more going on than what he, and those in Aberia, knew of. In Yvlacna there are countless missing persons, turns out Karsissia isn't only to blame. She actually kept up with, as she called them, her flock. She never took too much than what she thought could be replaced. Karsissia always wanted to make sure she had a variety of meals to choose from. But it isn't just Yvlacna either, all over humans are disappearing far more rapidly and the Unborn's numbers are growing, all slowly traveling to the same camp.

Even Soran had grown anxious by the time Karsissia and Quelen returned. With them, they had nearly two dozen Unborn corpses and another dozen alive. Those that lived were kept in the prison cells beneath the keep while the corpses came and went from the lab over the coming days. Soran interrogated those that he could, who had limited information that he could easily discover by cutting them up so he chose to go that route. After slicing into them to see what he could find, the answers he got became troubling. It's why he has called them all to meet, to examine what has been found and, hopefully, get some answers.