"Here it is.." Silas said as he lead Gavin into a large room that was floored with wooden boards and its walls completely bare and white. The windows to the room were large, which let the bare-afternoon sun in through the windows. Gavin stepped into the room after Silas and their footsteps and voices caused echoes to bounce around the empty space of the room.
"So what do you think?" Silas asked him as he motioned to a collection of objects situated against a wall - the only objects in the room. Gavin stepped forward and examined each of them, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Since when did you collect antiques?" He asked as he briefly examined each one. The antiques ranged from ancient pottery and tools to decorative pieces and some paintings here and there. What really caught his eye though was a large block of stone that seemed to stand out from the rest, right in the corner. He walked up to the collection and examined it closely.
"Since when? Like.. a few months ago. My newest addition was that painting over there" he sighed. "Auctioning can be boring as hell sometimes, and tedious. But in the end, it all seems to pay off" he said with a smile at the end.

As Gavin's eyes finally set upon the large block of stone, he felt something inside of him and stopped for a moment, examining it closer. It was more of a massive piece of decoration, judging from its appearance that was shaped like a bird-crest. Another bird-crest seemed to be edged right into the centre of the stone decoration. It must have been at least two and a half meters tall and almost a full meter thick in length and width.
His eyes widened.
"Silas.. this isn't.."
"Eh?"
"There's something inside it!" Gavin exclaimed as he looked the thing up and down.
"Wait what?" Silas stepped forward and examined the stone object. "What do you mean inside?"
"It's not a decoration, it's a bloody sarcophagus.." Gavin replied. Silas looked at him, and then back at the Sarcophagus, and then back. "Uhh, you sure about that? I mean, it doesn't really look like-"
"Listen, I know there's someone in there. I can sense them.. but their essence is faint as if they're... no, not dead. But near death. As if drained..." Gavin paused for a moment, the essence of his being was familiar to him but it was almost too faint for him to recognise. Almost.

"Vampire. It's a vampire." Silas's eyes widened this time as he looked at it. You mean I just purchased a vampire from an auction? Well holy shit... how do we let 'em out?"
Gavin kept his eyes on the sarcophagus. "I've seen this before. Just like with Draetheus a six years ago when Armageddon invaded Earth."
"What does Draetheus have to do with this?" Silas interupted.
"The Apocalypse released him from what looked like a tomb, and they had a human sacrifice there to awaken him completely." Gavin walked up close to the sarcophagus. He grasped the sides of it and looked back at Silas. "Help me with this will you?"

After the two had managed to drag the sarcophagus out into the middle of the room, Gavin again walked up to it and took out a pocket knife, flipping it open and pressing it against the palm of his hand.

Silas merely watched as his friend walked up to the stone object, listening closely.
"To release him, they poured the blood of the human onto a series of carved symbols. They may have been connected to some sort of system that fed him directly because by the time we managed to take out all the guards, he burst through the wall without much effort."
Gavin held his palm over the bird crest and let multiple drops of his blood gush out from the cut, allowing it to land on the bird crest. He let it pour out for a few moments before withdrawing himself and standing back to see what happens.

The stone block in question that Gavin had taken an interest in was especially prominent given the crude material it was made from. Upon a distant view; it appears to be shaped like a flat, two-dimensional chalice or goblet, standing upright on a small flat base. It narrows upward into a thinner section before graceful curves widen the top out considerably, meeting up with the flat and level top. Closer inspection would reveal the choice for such a shape - Chiseled into the front with excruciating detail is huge bird, a raven. Its outstretched wings, flared outwards, fill up the entirety of the much wider top half of the block, while the thinner, narrower bottom contains the feet and the tail feathers. Further chiseled underneath the feet of the raven is a small ribbon, contained within a phrase. 'Servi Aternam Di Inferi' - Latin for 'Eternal Servants of The Gods Below'.

There is no colours present aside from the dirtied grey of the stone, though along the sides of the block there is a clear line of darker, glass-like black stone that circles around the structure, indicating that some super-heating of rock had taken place to make a rather crude weld line.


Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/35805601@N07/7365467720

Gavin's attempts to lay blood on the face of the now-identified sarcophagus is met with a rather anti-climatic nothingness - Not even a sound stirring from within. It seems this glorified coffin isn't like what Gavin had seen in the past, this particular one seeming to be significantly more mundane in it's function. Given that welded line on the side, it's pretty clear that whatever is inside was never intended to be retrieved.

A few tense moments had passed and nothing had happened. Silas blinked before switching his gaze from the coffin to Gavin.
"Uhh, hate it to break it to you man, but-"
"I know. It didn't work." Gavin looked the sarcophagus up and down and then stepped up to it again, examining the raven that was now decorated in his blood. "There must be something..."
Silas stepped up to the coffin as well, right beside Gavin.
"I mean, if it's designed to contain someone then it must open from somewhere" he said as he inspected the edges of the sarcophagus. "Look at this."
Gavin looked over to where he gestured. "It's welded" he deduced.
"Looks like whoever's in here wasn't really popular in their time." Silas added.

Gavin then gestured Silas to get back. Silas looked at him for a brief second quizzically, but then immediately understood. As soon as he had moved away from the sarcophagus, Gavin's eyes lit up with fire and his eyeballs were consumed in flames. They were instead replaced by two, pupil-like balls of fire that floated in the middle of his now dark and empty eye sockets, glowing and casting a dim light outward onto the sarcophagus. Gavin stepped to the side and placed his hands on the side of it, the tips of his fingers particularly pressing against the area that had been welded. Gradually his fingers had warmed up to the boiling point and the flesh from his fingers burnt and melted away, revealing skeletal digits underneath. However Gavin did not flinch, nor did he react.

As time went on, Gavin channeled more and more heat into the welded area, which began to heat up exponentially as the seconds flew by to the boiling point and soon beyond. Again, another blanket of silence fell upon the large room as the two watched and waited to see what would happen.

Gavin had quite the task ahead of him if his plan was to melt through the rock along the entire edge of the weld, given that it it makes an entire loop around the edge of the statue. Assuming Gavin's fingers could reach a temperature of around 1400 to 1500 degrees he'd be successful (Albeit in for a time consuming process to continue around the edge) but regardless of if he could or could not hit those temperatures, the stone would begin to crack well in advance from the heat. A tiny concussive snap is sent through the room in tandem with the crack forming, having extended from it's origin point on the side of the sarcophagus and wrapping around the corners onto both the front and back, scarring the featureless, smooth back of the slab and sullying the craftsmanship of the front.

Should he still be trying to work his way slowly around the edge of the welded seam, more cracks in similar fashion would appear, quickly criss-crossing the front and back in a chaotic manner. Eventually, these cracks would have done enough damage for small parts of the thinner lid of the front to start shedding a few lighter pieces that have been dislodged, crumbling to the floor with a light clack. Any structural integrity the front is had is completely compromised and if Gavin was attempting to keep the lid intact by undoing the weld, anything more he did at this point was going to destroy it regardless.

As the cracks spread more and more throughout the lid, Gavin took notice of how weak the front of the sarcophagus looked. His hands still on the welded side, Gavin looked back over his shoulder to Silas.
"Are you seeing this?"
Silas nodded. "Yeah. Do you think we could-"
"We can, but should we?" Gavin turned his head to face the sarcophagus again.
"What's the worst that could happen?"

Gavin looked back at Silas again, before facing the sarcophagus and taking a step back. He balled his left arm into a fist and brought it back, before swinging it forward in a wild haymaker strike, slamming his fist with superhuman strength into the middle of the sarcophagus.

The lid of the Sarcophagus cracks apart in a shower of crumbling rocks, dust and blood. Pinned to the back of the sarcophagus and suspended off the floor by several stone pegs with her arms and wings outstretched, hangs the promised vampire within. There's pegs in her ankles, legs, thighs, stomach, wrists, lower and upper arms, shoulders, as well as liberally applied to the membranes in her outstretched wings; with several locations on the wings having huge gashes where the vampire's own weight resting on the pegs has torn them through. Old, dried and incredibly flaked blood marks the locations where blood has poured from all of the pegged areas, as well as marred the back and base of the sarcophagus where it had presumably run down and pooled during the original act. It's amazing that the vampire is even still clothed through the rips and tears her simple purple dress has received. Finally, above everything else, the vampire's defeated head lays limply to the side, slumped against the back of the sarcophagus with her jaw wide open and her eyes obscured by her messy, blood-flaked unkempt hair.

Silas was particularly on the nose. Whoever put this vampire in here, really, really didn't like them. Surely it would've been easier to just kill the vampire at this point instead of going through to all of this effort to pointedly keep them alive.

The vampire doesn't seem to react to the lid being shattered open, though something deeply primal, feral, is stirring within them, potentially felt via Gavin and Silas' sixth senses...The smell of blood is in the air and the vampire, unmoving currently, is keen to get at it on some base level she isn't consciously aware of.

As the lid cracked open and revealed the mess within, Gavin took another step back and reflexively, so did Silas.
"Hoooly shit" Gavin said aloud as the smell hit his nose. He used his hand to cover the bottom half of his face as he gazed into the coffin at the seemingly-dead vampire. A moment passed before Silas stepped up and next to Gavin, keeping his eyes on the vampire female. He eyed the pegs, which for a moment caused him to wonder what kind of pain this individual must have gone through, what events must have transpired to lead to her predicament.
"Come on, let's get her down." Gavin said as he started to remove the pegs.

A few minutes later, they had laid her down in the middle of the room and pushed the sarcophagus away. The pegs had all been extracted and were piled up inside the coffin.

"Damn, whoever did this must have hated her a lot," Silas commented. "Is she dead?"
Gavin sensed something. A stir of sorts, a small growth, not physical but...
"She isn't dead, else I wouldn't have sensed her. Her essence was detectable to me before, and now its growing.. I think she's waking up."
"Waking up? Now?"
"Yeah but, she's weak. At least that's what I can tell."
"No shit." Silas retorted.

Gavin glanced down at his still bleeding palm, which he had clenched after his first attempt at the re-awakening failed. "You think it'd work now?" Gavin asked, holding his hand up.
Silas looked at his hand and stared for a moment before nodding.
"But be careful."
Gavin knelt down beside the vampire and held his hand over her mouth, opening his fist and letting the blood drip freely into her mouth.

While one would expect more blood from the holes left behind by each peg under normal circumstances, this vampire has nothing left in their system. With each jostle of a peg being removed from her, the flaking blood on the vampire easily disintegrates from the slight movements; further being exasperated when she is moved free of her prison and laid to rest in the middle of the room.

Thankfully, it's much easier to remove pegs from a dormant vampire than a feral one. Had she still had some energy left, she'd undoubtedly be feral; though that being said they'd just removed all the restraints keeping the vampire in place and now their plan was to feed that vampire. One who hadn't tasted a drop of blood in god knows how many years. Perhaps this was not the best of plans for their own well being though credit where credit is due, this is certainly the more humane approach. Dormant vampires can't particularly feel pain; of which there would have been a lot from those pegs.


The Vampire doesn't react to the first several drops of blood, taking her a moment to stir from the smell, the feel, the taste but most importantly the power contained within. Her body shudders ever so briefly, as if trying to move but failing to do so. Her tongue extends upwards to the blood, trying to get as close to it as possible. She continues to try and move while her strength is incrementally returned to her, her shuddering becoming more frequent. After a few minutes of blood dripping into her mouth, she extends a twitching, shaking hand up to Gavin's arm, attempting to grab him and pull that bleeding hand closer ever so weakly so she may suck at the blood directly, or more likely bite.

If denied, the vampire would attempt to begin using her other hand, just as shaky as the first, to assist her, letting out a soft pained whine like an injured puppy.

"She's definitely alive." Gavin said, his hand still hanging over the vampire's mouth. He eyed her up and down as she began to shudder, assuming this to be a sign of her strength returning to her.
"Woah.." Silas said as the vampire then extended her arm upward to grab his bleeding hand. As her hand wrapped around his forearm, Gavin resisted for a moment before relaxing and allowing his palm into her mouth.

"You sure about what you're doing?" Silas asked.
"This won't kill me," Gavin replied. "Even if she drained my entire body, you know that."

The Vampire encloses her lips around Gavin's cut, weakly beginning to suck the blood out of it more directly, letting out deep, quiet, content growls throughout the process as she satisfies her centuries-long hunger. As time goes on, her frail, shaky and weak grip on Gavin strengthens and stabilizes seemingly with little regard for the fact that Gavin is kindly letting her feed, threatening to keep Gavin's arm exactly where it is. Her wounds on her body begin to show the starting signs that they're recovering, though her wings do not.

After several more minutes, the vampire's eyes shudder slightly before attempting to open, briefly catching a glimpse of the strong sunlight lighting up the room. This causes her to close her eyes immediately, recoil away from Gavin and cease drinking from him for a moment, scrunch up her face while turning her head to the side away from the light, letting out a singular huffed growl in annoyance.

She attempts to, now rather forcibly, pull Gavin's hand down to where her mouth had repositioned, wanting to bite into Gavin's wrist for a greater and more direct flow of blood. If Gavin attempted to resist, her second hand would get involved and her grip would change to dig her nails as deep into Gavin as they could to gain better leverage, her mind still lost to her bloodlust.

"Yikes, she's hungry" Silas commented in response to the growls.
"How old did you say this sarcophagus was again?"
"Can't really remember. Something along the lines of 'centuries'  when I bought it from the auction" Silas replied.

Gavin almost backed away instinctively as the vampire suddenly moved and turned away from the sunlight, but her grip kept him from moving away as she pulled him with renewed strength down to where her mouth now was. Gavin however did not resist at all and allowed her to continue feeding.

Silas watched this happen and then looked at Gavin. "Uhh, you feeling good?"
Gavin remained silent for a few seconds before replying, "A bit dizzy, but I'll survive."

With her teeth firmly now sunken into the wrist of the stranger, the Vampire is able to efficiently gulp down blood instead of slurping away at a slow trickle. She is now rather quickly approaching a full recovery, or at the very least get away from this mindless shell and return to her sanity.

After a three or so more minutes of this relentless drinking, the Vampire attempts to open her eyes once more, her eyes darting around to scan the environment as well as her kind savior, in part an act of dazed panic equally as much as one of curiosity. This act co-insides with her easing up on how quickly she's draining blood from him along with her grip relaxing just a touch. Her eyes settle on the stranger's own eyes, in perhaps what is the first sign that she's regaining her mind.

The Vampire pulls her teeth out from the Stranger's wrist, her grip on him almost fully easing up, one hand relinquishing it's grasp while the other keeps a weak, token hold on him. She turns her head over to the other side carefully and lifts it partially off the ground with an exasperated breath, using her free hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight. She scans the rest of the room, taking note of the second stranger and the nearby sarcophagus. After having processed the information for a brief moment in time, she lets her arm and head fall back to the floor, closing her eyes and letting out a weak groan. Her everything hurts.

"She's looking right at me now, I think she's regained consciousness" Gavin said as the vampire's eyes met his. He winced slightly as she withdrew her teeth from his wrist and as soon as he felt her grip soften, he gently pulled it back, rubbing it with his other hand.

The vampire rose up from her sarcophagus slightly to observe the room she was in, noticeably getting irritated by the sunlight. Silas also met her eyes when she took note of his presence before falling back down into the coffin.

Gavin turned around and looked at Silas. "There anything you can do about the windows?"
Silas looked at him, "I'm on it."
A few moments later, Silas had lowered the blinds on each window, dimming the sunlight that came through them. He then walked over to the coffin and looked down at the vampire female with Gavin.
He looked at her for a few seconds, taking note of her restored state before clearing his throat.

In consequence to having her token grip broken out of, the Vampire's arm falls down to the ground without putting up any resistance to gravity. After several seconds of contemplating life, her aching body and the meaning of both, being prompted by the closing of the blinds to open her eyes once more slowly. She raises an arm weakly in front of her face to look at it, or more crudely, to look through the coin sized holes that have been left through it.

At this point, she figures that being miserable inside the sarcophagus is a bit too much. She'd much rather be miserable on the floor outside of the sarcophagus. She clasps her hand against the lip of the sarcophagus, using it for leverage to help roll onto her side so her other hand can grab the same edge. Slowly, like a frail grandmother with her lack of speed and shaky arms, she begins to pull herself upwards and over the edge of the sarcophagus with pained huffs accompanying her movements.

Should she not recieve assistance; she'd roll herself over the lip and fall with a soft thud on the floor on the other side with a grunt, ending up on her side. God-damn crippled lady has to do everything herself around these parts.. But at least she's no longer laying ontop of her own wings, now with the ability to fold them up, she would do so.

If she did recieve assistance, she could potentially be convinced to sit upright, leaning against the side of the sarcophagus for support with her wings folding up about halfway, smacking her lips together briefly before uttering "Thanks" in an incredibly raspy, thin voice, followed by some coughing.

As she vampire began to pull herself over the sarcophagus and almost fell onto the floor, Gavin and Silas moved to assist her.
"Whoa there!" Silas said as he grabbed her left arm and Gavin grabbed her right. They both helped her into a sitting position, leaning against the side of the sarcophagus.
Gavin took his hands off her and took a few dazed steps back. "I'll... be right back." He said as he walked out of the room, as if in a slightly drunken state.

Silas watched him exit the room before turning back to the vampire. "You're welcome" he replied.
He paused for a moment before speaking again. "So, what's your name?"

The Vampire spends some time licking around her mouth and lips, preparing herself to talk again. She feels a round of 20 questions coming along. During this process, she briefly examines her legs, noting the similar holes in them that her arms have in them.

"Cy." The Vampire, dubbed Cy, responds, with that same raspy voice, though at least there's no coughing after it this time. She unfolds a wing opposite to the side she's leaning against the sarcophagus, examining the tears and holes in it before collapsing it back against her side. If it weren't for her sheer exhaustion overpowering any facial expression she can make, she'd be looking mighty unpleased right now. "Water?" She requests, looking down at the ground briefly. Drinking lots of blood may good for her body but it hasn't exactly done wonders for how painful it is to speak at the moment.

Silas followed her gaze and also looked at her legs again, trailing up to her wings. A vampire with wings, that was a rare sight. He knew the elders had such characteristics but was always skeptical of the notion that there were modern vampires that also carried on that trait. Then again, she was centuries old apparently.

His eyes met hers when she asked for water. He nodded.
"Sure, stay here." He replied, although the last part wasn't necessary - judging from her condition, it didn't look like she'd be going anywhere. He turned and exited the large room, making way to the kitchen. On the way to the kitchen, he had to pass the living room and saw Gavin slumped over one of the sofas, his head leaning back over the backrest causing him to face the ceiling. Silas walked over to him and stopped right by the sofa. His eyes were closed.
"You alright there?" Gavin opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to look over to Silas.
"Mmmalright" Gavin replied in a slur. Silas saw that the colour from his face had been dried and he was paler than normal.
"Drained you dry, didn't she?" He said, a smirk forming on his lips.
Gavin closed his eyes and turned his head back to face the ceiling. "Alllmost..."
Silas chuckled and left the living room, finally making his way to the kitchen.

Cy closes her eyes as the other vampire leaves the room, focusing her attention briefly on the sound of his footsteps and the momentary words he and the other stranger shared. The oddly casual nature of the conversation, coupled with what little she'd seen of the two of them thus far led her to the thankful conclusion that her awakening wasn't met with any hostilities, though with this realization a bigger, more pressing question forms in her mind. Why had they decided to revive her?

She attempts to bring herself to her feet despite her injuries, still with her eyes closed, clutching the side of the sarcophagus for leverage with one hand, her other using the floor, both assisting her. She manages to lift herself upwards a few feet, though when it comes time to put weight on her legs they collapse out from under her, sending her unceremoniously back down to the ground with a soft thud and a grunt. The pain of her injuries she could handle, what was pure agony was the inability to do something so basic as standing up, let alone anything else. Combined with her having been boxed in the first place and it's pretty good recipe for a shattered confidence and spirit, left to simmer for god knows how long. Who knows when or where exactly 'now' and 'here' is and if there's even anything left for her.

She leans back against the lip of the sarcophagus, holding her hands slightly above her lap as she focuses briefly, as if she's trying to manifest something, though nothing seems to be happening at all. This would likely be what Silas returns to find Cy doing.

Silas returned to the room with a glass of water in his hand. In his other hand was a glass jug full of more cold water. As he entered the room, he looked at the vampire who now had her hands above her lap, as if trying to summon or create something. He ignored this casually and walked right up to her, lowering the glass towards one of her hands.
"Here's your drink." He said.

A few seconds passed while he eyed her injuries again and then looked back at her directly.
"Seeing as how you're a vampire like me, don't you heal? Or it is gonna take some time?" He asked.

Cy gives up at whatever it is she's attempting to do when the drink is offered to her, opening her eyes to contemplate the glass of water for a moment before lowering one hand. Her other hand moves to take the glass, giving a soft nod to the other vampire as she does so, immediately taking a long and deep sip from it, continuing throughout the question though ceasing at the end. She licks the edge of her lips once more as well as the inside of her mouth before responding.

"I...Don't know." Cy responds, her voice still raspy though now with water to soothe herself with frequent sips it's slightly more tolerable to talk. "Being...Completely drained is...And I don't know for how long..." She derails slightly. "Why did you release me?" She asks.

"I bought your... coffin." He said. "I didn't actually know there was someone inside until my friend pointed it out to me. He said you were alive in there. So.. I thought we'd help you out."

He looked, once again, at her wounds. "I'm assuming you weren't in there of your own volition. Someone locked you inside didn't they?"

The word 'bought' intrigued Cy in particular. "I'm glad you two knew...What you were doing at the very least. Thanks...Again." She offers. "And...Yeah. But I don't particularly see...The group involved selling one of these things." Cy pauses, taking down a sip from her glass. "Which makes me wonder just how long I've been...Dormant for."

Group? So she was hunted most likely...
"It is likely that your coffin was mistaken for a decorative piece.. that's what it was advertised as anyway." Silas explained. "I was told that it is centuries old, so whoever did this to you are likely long gone now."

He set the jug down on the floor. "Which means, the world isn't as you once knew it. Things have changed over the years, you'll need some time to adjust."

"I wouldn't count on them being gone." Cy pauses, looking a touch troubled at the casual mention of centuries. "Vampires can stick around for a particularly nasty length of time...As I'm sure you are no doubt aware." She moves her hand down to pick up the jug, carefully refilling her glass as she speaks. "But...I suppose I don't really need to be concerned about...That right now." She looks down at her legs, reflecting on the events she could remember before having blacked out, placing the jug back on the floor. Using the now free hand, she casually pokes around one of the holes in her legs, examining it like a bad memory, drawing a slightly sharp breath inwards as she touches it the first time.

"You ah...Got a name? And what about the other one?" She looks back up to the other vampire.