Planting Seeds II
Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 2:34 am
TIMESTAMP: Solace 2, Glade, 123
NOTES: -
NOTES: -
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And with that, Vergil shifted his gaze back onto the man beneath him and began to saw through the sternum, using his own Rhabdomancy to ensure his stillness and, out of mercy, Pheromancy to reduce the man’s pain as much as he could. The surgeon was methodical; he cut through flesh and bone, reaching the heart in short order. He suffused the organ with his own aether before severing each vein, each artery, and finally placing it into the waiting sarcophagus.
The process was as swift as he could make it, but he’d be lying to himself if he denied the man’s suffering. It would’ve been utterly horrifying to have one’s still beating heart removed before one’s very eyes– and he wasn’t completely numb, either, but it was…a necessary sacrifice.
On the other hand, Hector was a bit more clumsy and he didn’t bother with Pheromancy for this. Rhabdomancy was maintained, yes, so his victim could not move, but the entire process was an incredibly agonizing one. The younger elf was slower, less familiar with the anatomy involved, and cracking the ribs, for him, was not a clean process. When he beheld the mans heart in his hand, too, he took a few extra moments just to stare at it, to watch it beat in his grip; there was something powerful about holding another’s life in his hands like this.
“Hector,” the voice was…disapproving.
The boy blinked, startled, but then acquiesced, cutting all relevant ties and then quickly placing the organ into his waiting reservoir.
“S-sorry…” the young witch muttered; it was…hard, fascinated as he was by these things, to employ any sort of mercy.
With the hearts in their new homes and the bodies rapidly being reduced to sludge, the next step was for the vampyres to bleed themselves into the sarcophagi lest the newly harvested hearts wither. Because of this, Vergil had each container made specifically for their proportions; nothing absurdly large both to save space within the lab itself as well as to not require an unnecessary amount of vitale from either he or Hector.
“Wait! I…before we do this, I can…make it easier for us,” Hector spoke again just as Vergil had cut into his own flesh.
The older man froze, though only his eyes moved to his beloved. “Hm?” For a second, he seemed confused.
But then, he remembered. “Oh–! The sigil…yes, paint it with what blood I’ve already drawn.”
Hector nodded, wicking the liquid red from the other man’s arm and drawing a sigil on the floor, twice, once each at the foot of the stone sarcophagi. It was a quirk of his, Fever Rune, and it would ease their blood loss by providing additional regeneration thereof. It would also make self-injury hurt more, but it wasn’t as if either of these two were unused to pain. Once each rune sat suffused with the boy’s aether, Hector nodded and stepped onto his own, Vergil following suit with the one drawn for him before turning his attention back to his own wound, willing his blood now to fall within the stone receptacle below.
Aided both by the runes Hector had drawn and the fully charged greater Sanguinyte shards they each possessed, they were actually able to fill each container in only one evening. The endeavor was still quite a tiring one. Regardless, they did not need to worry much about encountering a shortage of blood– being Inquisitorial agents, sustenance was provided for them, and since Vergil had actually informed his superiors that they intended to do this, they’d been given additional blood to ease the process.
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About a day had elapsed between the bloodletting and when next both returned for the third primary step. The laboratory itself was climate controlled, but even so, they very much doubted that the span of time they had left for would make much of a difference regarding the sludge in the vats. However, upon their return, they did note that some of the vitale they’d filled the coffins with had drained– or, more likely, been absorbed by the heart itself. Hector appeared puzzled, but Vergil assured him this was fine; this was supposed to happen; the extra space created was necessary, anyways, because they’d refill it with what remained of their victim’s corpses.
The third step was a process that would happen over the span of a few days. Each man would consume as much of their victim’s remains as they could, suffuse it with their aether through meditation and their Vitalis rune, then regurgitate it back into their sarcophagus. This was a tedious, disgusting process that neither enjoyed, but it was something they could both endure; after all, anyone who could endure a Vitalis initiation could certainly force themselves through this, too. Due to his size and stomach capacity, Vergil ended up finishing quite a bit quicker than Hector. About a day, in fact.
“Are you sure you can’t help me?” The boy asked, looking and sounding as sweet and beguiling as he could.
“No–...Hector, it has to be your aether. I really wish I could, but…that would ruin it.” The older vampyre really did, badly, wish to help, weak as he was to the other’s varying plights.
Hector pouted, but if that was the way of things, he’d press ever onward. “Can you at least stay here with me? Or…or am I taking too long, will you have work?”
They’d been granted a few days of time during which they could do this, but since Vergil was completed, he felt it necessary to return his services to the hospital, duty bound as he could be.
“I…suppose I can for the rest of today, but it’d be cruel of me to take more time away from my patients.” He sounded conflicted.
To that, Hector groaned, “...oh, but must you? Must you really?”
Sighing, “Hector…the more time you spend speaking, the longer this will take, love.”
Vergil was right, and the boy knew this, though when he looked in the other man’s direction, Hector’s eyes narrowed, clearly displeased. Determined not to be left to do this all by his lonesome, he forced himself to continue consuming the foul, rotting sludge, repeating that process through the rest of that day until finally, there was none left.
The young elf was relieved to have completed this task, standing now over the sarcophagus he’d filled. The blood within almost seemed to glint with magic, at times, and disgusting as a vat of blood and biomatter was by very nature, that aetheric shine in combination with crimson was actually rather beautiful. At least, to Hector, it was. He stood there, just admiring it, unaware of time passing, not paying attention to his surroundings.
So when Vergil rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, he startled, almost jumping back; the older man laughed.
“So engrossed in things you can get, sometimes…” he said in jest.
“I just…it’s lovely, isn’t it? I bet it’ll be so very strange as our simulacrums begin to take shape, too.” Hector was quite eager to oversee that process, too.
“It will be, won’t it? I’ve never seen this done, so I’m interested in the process as well. I might log the memories in crystals for records.” Watching a shell of himself grow was, admittedly, fascinating; beyond the fact that this was a failsafe should he ever die, Vergil’s interest in this process was, in large part, simply to experience it for himself, to record it for himself.
With that in mind, he’d actually had the sarcophagi made with a double-lid. The first lid, which Vergil now moved to apply to each, was glass. He’d latch and lock this first lid securely, sealing it in place. For this to work, sealing the vessel was necessary; this lid would not be disturbed, but it would allow him to observe the growth and progress of each Bloodseed within. The second lid was a proper stone one, flat so that the two chambers could be stacked, but sturdy, beautifully made. With each sealed, the two vampyres endeavored to lift Hector’s and place it on top of Vergil’s; Hector’s was a tad smaller, after all.
Should anyone else try to move either container, however, they’d very likely fail to do so at all– they were extraordinarily heavy; Vergil was a large man on top of being a vampyre and, over time, he’d meticulously used Vicissitude to increase his own muscle density, making him ever stronger. Hector helped more for maneuvering something so large, but almost all of the weight was managed by Vergil.
Over the next few weeks, Vergil would lift the lid of Hector’s to check it at least once nearly any time he was working within his lab. Less often, he’d have Hector come in to help him and check the progress of his own below it. Everything proceeded apace, strange and fascinating as it was to watch clones of themselves slowly take shape. Vergil was really quite enamored with the way each bodily system slowly wove itself ‘round one another over time, too– he’d never seen anything quite like it before.
After about two months, around the 60th of Glade, the bodies were, by all appearances, fully constructed.
The process was as swift as he could make it, but he’d be lying to himself if he denied the man’s suffering. It would’ve been utterly horrifying to have one’s still beating heart removed before one’s very eyes– and he wasn’t completely numb, either, but it was…a necessary sacrifice.
On the other hand, Hector was a bit more clumsy and he didn’t bother with Pheromancy for this. Rhabdomancy was maintained, yes, so his victim could not move, but the entire process was an incredibly agonizing one. The younger elf was slower, less familiar with the anatomy involved, and cracking the ribs, for him, was not a clean process. When he beheld the mans heart in his hand, too, he took a few extra moments just to stare at it, to watch it beat in his grip; there was something powerful about holding another’s life in his hands like this.
“Hector,” the voice was…disapproving.
The boy blinked, startled, but then acquiesced, cutting all relevant ties and then quickly placing the organ into his waiting reservoir.
“S-sorry…” the young witch muttered; it was…hard, fascinated as he was by these things, to employ any sort of mercy.
With the hearts in their new homes and the bodies rapidly being reduced to sludge, the next step was for the vampyres to bleed themselves into the sarcophagi lest the newly harvested hearts wither. Because of this, Vergil had each container made specifically for their proportions; nothing absurdly large both to save space within the lab itself as well as to not require an unnecessary amount of vitale from either he or Hector.
“Wait! I…before we do this, I can…make it easier for us,” Hector spoke again just as Vergil had cut into his own flesh.
The older man froze, though only his eyes moved to his beloved. “Hm?” For a second, he seemed confused.
But then, he remembered. “Oh–! The sigil…yes, paint it with what blood I’ve already drawn.”
Hector nodded, wicking the liquid red from the other man’s arm and drawing a sigil on the floor, twice, once each at the foot of the stone sarcophagi. It was a quirk of his, Fever Rune, and it would ease their blood loss by providing additional regeneration thereof. It would also make self-injury hurt more, but it wasn’t as if either of these two were unused to pain. Once each rune sat suffused with the boy’s aether, Hector nodded and stepped onto his own, Vergil following suit with the one drawn for him before turning his attention back to his own wound, willing his blood now to fall within the stone receptacle below.
Aided both by the runes Hector had drawn and the fully charged greater Sanguinyte shards they each possessed, they were actually able to fill each container in only one evening. The endeavor was still quite a tiring one. Regardless, they did not need to worry much about encountering a shortage of blood– being Inquisitorial agents, sustenance was provided for them, and since Vergil had actually informed his superiors that they intended to do this, they’d been given additional blood to ease the process.
- - -
About a day had elapsed between the bloodletting and when next both returned for the third primary step. The laboratory itself was climate controlled, but even so, they very much doubted that the span of time they had left for would make much of a difference regarding the sludge in the vats. However, upon their return, they did note that some of the vitale they’d filled the coffins with had drained– or, more likely, been absorbed by the heart itself. Hector appeared puzzled, but Vergil assured him this was fine; this was supposed to happen; the extra space created was necessary, anyways, because they’d refill it with what remained of their victim’s corpses.
The third step was a process that would happen over the span of a few days. Each man would consume as much of their victim’s remains as they could, suffuse it with their aether through meditation and their Vitalis rune, then regurgitate it back into their sarcophagus. This was a tedious, disgusting process that neither enjoyed, but it was something they could both endure; after all, anyone who could endure a Vitalis initiation could certainly force themselves through this, too. Due to his size and stomach capacity, Vergil ended up finishing quite a bit quicker than Hector. About a day, in fact.
“Are you sure you can’t help me?” The boy asked, looking and sounding as sweet and beguiling as he could.
“No–...Hector, it has to be your aether. I really wish I could, but…that would ruin it.” The older vampyre really did, badly, wish to help, weak as he was to the other’s varying plights.
Hector pouted, but if that was the way of things, he’d press ever onward. “Can you at least stay here with me? Or…or am I taking too long, will you have work?”
They’d been granted a few days of time during which they could do this, but since Vergil was completed, he felt it necessary to return his services to the hospital, duty bound as he could be.
“I…suppose I can for the rest of today, but it’d be cruel of me to take more time away from my patients.” He sounded conflicted.
To that, Hector groaned, “...oh, but must you? Must you really?”
Sighing, “Hector…the more time you spend speaking, the longer this will take, love.”
Vergil was right, and the boy knew this, though when he looked in the other man’s direction, Hector’s eyes narrowed, clearly displeased. Determined not to be left to do this all by his lonesome, he forced himself to continue consuming the foul, rotting sludge, repeating that process through the rest of that day until finally, there was none left.
The young elf was relieved to have completed this task, standing now over the sarcophagus he’d filled. The blood within almost seemed to glint with magic, at times, and disgusting as a vat of blood and biomatter was by very nature, that aetheric shine in combination with crimson was actually rather beautiful. At least, to Hector, it was. He stood there, just admiring it, unaware of time passing, not paying attention to his surroundings.
So when Vergil rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, he startled, almost jumping back; the older man laughed.
“So engrossed in things you can get, sometimes…” he said in jest.
“I just…it’s lovely, isn’t it? I bet it’ll be so very strange as our simulacrums begin to take shape, too.” Hector was quite eager to oversee that process, too.
“It will be, won’t it? I’ve never seen this done, so I’m interested in the process as well. I might log the memories in crystals for records.” Watching a shell of himself grow was, admittedly, fascinating; beyond the fact that this was a failsafe should he ever die, Vergil’s interest in this process was, in large part, simply to experience it for himself, to record it for himself.
With that in mind, he’d actually had the sarcophagi made with a double-lid. The first lid, which Vergil now moved to apply to each, was glass. He’d latch and lock this first lid securely, sealing it in place. For this to work, sealing the vessel was necessary; this lid would not be disturbed, but it would allow him to observe the growth and progress of each Bloodseed within. The second lid was a proper stone one, flat so that the two chambers could be stacked, but sturdy, beautifully made. With each sealed, the two vampyres endeavored to lift Hector’s and place it on top of Vergil’s; Hector’s was a tad smaller, after all.
Should anyone else try to move either container, however, they’d very likely fail to do so at all– they were extraordinarily heavy; Vergil was a large man on top of being a vampyre and, over time, he’d meticulously used Vicissitude to increase his own muscle density, making him ever stronger. Hector helped more for maneuvering something so large, but almost all of the weight was managed by Vergil.
Over the next few weeks, Vergil would lift the lid of Hector’s to check it at least once nearly any time he was working within his lab. Less often, he’d have Hector come in to help him and check the progress of his own below it. Everything proceeded apace, strange and fascinating as it was to watch clones of themselves slowly take shape. Vergil was really quite enamored with the way each bodily system slowly wove itself ‘round one another over time, too– he’d never seen anything quite like it before.
After about two months, around the 60th of Glade, the bodies were, by all appearances, fully constructed.
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