"Hey, Archelaus!"
"What is it, boy?"
"You know how an ...aargh... elephant gets down from -ouch- from a tree?"
"No."
"It sits on a.... huff, huff... leaf, and then it waits for autumn! HA!"
"Ah yes, you told me that one before. Now... shall we call it a day, lad?"
"I wasn't aware that we gotten started yet! Are you going soft on me, old man?!"
The child... Archelaus couldn't remember his name, if he had known it to begin with. His identity mattered little in this case. What mattered was that the boy been inside the sealed kettle filled up with boiling water for an hour now. The boy could still manage to get the front of his face just above the water so that he could speak.
"Well, I'm sorry if I bore you, child." With the wave of his left hand, the kettle's lid was unlocked and removed. The child got up from the kettle, shivering in pain.
He was NOT a pretty sight.
"Hmm..." Archelaus went out his working table and began to write. "It seems I may have been wrong about making you outgrow your pain, so to say. But our time together have been educational as I have noticed that your ability to regenerate has impro-"
Archelaus turned to a bat as the boy attempted to stab him in the back with his left arm taking the form of a trident.
"You have unlocked the secret of shapeshfting, I see?" Archelaus turned himself to human near the door. "I'm impressed. You are only a three-monther."
"I learned that weeks ago. Easy, as long as you have a great imagination." The boy said proudly. His burned skin had now healed and regained it's normal color. "Bet it took you years, old fart!"
"I suppose being a child vampire has it's quirks." Archelaus waved his hand once more, and an invisible force pushed the boy up against the wall once more and the chains wrapped themselves around him.
"So... What now, old man?" The boy made a mocking smile. "You have hurt me in every single way imaginable. I will be disappointed if you repeat yourself. So tell me; What now?"
"Now?" Archelaus was wearing two brown thick gloves and held a fancy-looking dagger in his left hand. "Now, we move on to phase 2; silver-based weapons."
"Why silvaaaaAAAARG!!!!! PLUTO ON A HORSE!!!"
Through the three months where Archelaus had done everything he could to hurt the boy, the brat had never allowed himself to show fear or anything that could somehow be seen as a sign of weakness. It helped that he knew that whatever happened to him, he would heal up quickly. Wounds sealed themselves, body-parts grew back, so on and so on.
But Archelaus could clearly see the fear in the boy's eyes, as he seemed surprised by how much pain he had felt from the silver blade as well as how i frightened him h´that the hand he had just lost wouldn't grow back.
"We are not invincible, brat. Don't ever forget that." Archelaus cleansed the knife. "In fact, we have many weaknesses. Silver slows down our ability to heal ourselves, garlic makes us rot away, the sun will burn us to ashes in less than 50 seconds. Just to name a few. You think you know pain? Not yet you don't."
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"Hey... Archelaus!"
"What is it, boy?"
"You know... why the.... gods, that hurt... know why the... duck have... flat feet?"
"No. I don't."
"Because it... arg... it walk in... forest during... during autumn! Ha..."
".... Forest during the... Ah, I understand. The elephants. Not bad, lad. You make up these jokes yourself?"
"Not much else to to... when you leave... Arg...ow..."
Archelaus wrote down how long it took the boy to regrow his left leg on a papyrus scroll.
"Interesting... Boy, have you noticed that the time it take you to regrow a limb is 1 minutes and 25 seconds shorter since I began to use objects made out of silver on you?"
"Hurrah..." The boy looked at his leg as it finally had regrown his foot again. "... So how long does it take for my limbs to grow back?"
"Four minutes and 35 seconds."
"THAT long? Boo!"
"Actually, you can heal faster than me now. Surprising how much progress one can make with a silver saw." Archelaus finished writing and rolled up the scroll. "I believe that you are ready for the final test, boy."
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His name was Suluco. And he was a busy man.
Actually, he wasn't a man at all. He was a cyclops.
After a refreshing and quick lava bath, Suluco got to work on a couple of axes. His hammer made an echo inside the volcano where his blacksmith could be found. Suluco loved his work. Loved the heat, loved his craftsmanship, loved the feeling of holding a finished weapons in his hands, studying it from bottom to top, how sharp it was, if it was balanced in weight and then come to the conclusion that it was, as usual, practically a piece of art.
What he didn't like was visitors. He preferred his own company.
"Busy as always, are we, Suluco?"
Not many could survive the heat inside the volcano. And Suluco knew that voice to well.
"... Of all the days to not have any silver on me..." The one eyed giant sighed. A griff came flying from above and landed next to his anvil. he beast took the form of an elderly man. "What do you want, blood feeder?"
"Now, don't be so unfriendly, my dear blacksmith. After all, it's been so long since I paid you a visit."
"Not long enough." Suluco dried his sweaty forehead with the back of his left hand. "What do you want?"
"Remember that favor you owe me."
"... Yes... The one you won't haven't allowed me to repay you in 42 years, just to remind me of that... that... that terrible affair."
"That more the reason to be happy to see me, Suluco." The vampire bared his teeth in a diabolical smile. "I'm here to free you from your debt. You control this volcano, correct?"
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