11 11- Lessons from vampirism

"It's for science, for science!" She repeated to herself, her palms pressed firmly against her ears; crimson with the high pressure they were under, in her vain attempts to block out the sound. "Yeah, for science and betterment of humankind. Moreover, they just talked in detail, telling with joy and wearing that dreamy look on their smug faces how they enjoy culling humans. How they enjoy sucking blood, the younger the victim, the more delicious the taste. They are rapists, murderers and cannibals, enemies of all sanity and reason. I have no pity for them. NO PITY WHATSOEVER."

Cynthia raised her muttering by a tone, as she tried to convince herself. Convince herself that the vile humanoid creature they had captured from the outskirts of Morthal didn't deserve pity – that using it as a test subject wasn't cruel. That this didn't contradict the high values and morals that she had made for herself, the values and morals that she had decided were what made those red and green lines for her as Zin had called them, as he had encouraged all those connected to himself to adopt such moral principle; calling it a rare sunlight in the cold and depressing world…

And yet she couldn't bring herself to see what was happening. Since they had found the creature inside the bog outside Morthal, as it lay in ambush, waiting as its partner lured the poor child into the bog, under the promise of a belly full of food – an easy enough lure for a war orphan whose father had died fighting the Thalmor, and mother persecuted and carried away for interrogation by the very same Thalmor. They had caught the duo as they had just revealed their – as they called it: magnificent – fangs to the child of five, and the child had started panicking, sensing – late as it always goes – that there was something wrong with the kind uncles. ­And yet, when the sobbing child was told by her after much consoling to go home, the only reply Alva gave –for this was the poor child's name - was to take her with them, as she had nowhere to go.

She had brought the child back to her home, where she was taken in by Zin, who said that the child had great potential; even the vampires had confirmed this, claiming that they intended to keep her as a pet and groom her to be their agent as well as bolster their numbers.

The level of disgust she felt with the vampires was extreme, and it only grew as they related to them the whole of their thoughts, their beliefs, and their actions. For she had come to learn this – Zin's education involved – that an evil doer can be punished for their evil, but a believer in evil is always a plague on earth.

And yet she never could have imagined that she would one day pity any human harming blood sucker, let alone one of the duo they had caught the week before. Yet she had started pitying them only five days after their capture. All her hatred, all her disgust had turned to pity the day when the first of the two vampires died.

Cynthia started a walk down her memory's lane, as the hoarse screeching toned down to heavy breathing. That day, when Zin had explained after their extensive study what a curse on a human entailed, as the monster before them was bound and fettered, missing chunks from its body, all contributions to experiments, as they had tried to see if cut off meat from a vampire could survive. Multiple experiments yielded the same result: exposure of the said part to almost anything before being cut off from the vampire resulted in it becoming ash.

At last, Zin had thought of a final experiment. To the astonishment of the six, the vampires included, Zin had told of a ritual that could be performed that could result in a person being cured completely from vampirism. However, Zin had explained that vampirism was actually a contract of sale in which the soul of the seller is sold to Molag Bal in exchange for great power and nigh immortal life; and to undo this sale, a similar soul must be paid to Molag Bal, in the form of a black soul stone, incurring different deities as witnesses of the trade. Zin had wanted to see what would happen, if vampirism was reversed without paying a soul, and thus they had went to the catacombs of the temple of the divines to try expelling Molag Bal's influence from the vampire.

The result was frightening. The vampire had twitched and shivered, as its body was destroyed, its veins, eyes, everything bursting into a blood mist as it screamed the most agonizing of screams imaginable. Such screams that even hearing them was a torture unimaginable.

Cynthia learned many things that day. How many kinds of voices a human can make. How loud a sound a small statured creature can make. How many parts can go missing before a humanoid stops making noise. How true is it that human hearts can stop beating listening to horrible sounds – because her heart did, and she would have died if not Zin giving her some hasty first aid.

Yet Zin did get his answer – the dead vampire did leave blood and flesh – although splattered all around, yet flesh and blood nevertheless. A gruesome warning from the lord of domination and enslavement of mortal's to any who tried to go back on their agreement.

A cough from Zin brought her back from the depressing memory. She opened her eyes to see the tired childish face of her detail, which was wearing a not so childish expression.

Since the day the vampire died, she had seen him become increasingly pale, though she had noticed that the firm resolve in his eyes had increased, as did his insistence on his strange experimentation. Cynthia felt a shiver go down her spine just imagining what could have caused him to have this steely a resolve, such that he increased his madness, as she had started calling his experimentation; to increase, even after witnessing the gruesome scene of the vampire's death.

"So, these are the results that we have got over this week," Zin began, shaking the list the four had been compiling of the results of different experiments they had been doing on the two vampires. "And sure they do comply with my original hypotheses.

A vampire is a being whose body has been modified magically. Its bones, blood, internal organs, brain, eyes – in short everything – carries traces of heavy magical manipulation.

For explanation," and here Zin made float a drop of blood from the tethered vampire; blood being the only body constituent of vampires not turning to blood upon disengagement from body, "this drop of blood is made from countless small units, as I mentioned before, called cells. These cells make up blood, and similar and dissimilar cells make up the whole body. These cells are constantly dying and there are new cells taking their place, their speed and quality defining the stage of life the human is at. Babies have greater cell regeneration rate, their bodies grow, their brains mature, and their cells ultimately help their organs grow, enlarging their sizes and growing their body density and toughness. Over time, all cells experience changes with aging. They become larger and are less able to divide and multiply. Many cells lose their ability to function, or they begin to function abnormally, dictated by the body of the individual they are the part of – through the DNA which holds the information and the detail of the individual. Imagine this DNA as a spell model. So, if the magic is invested in the body in such a manner that it modifies the body's DNA - the body's spell model, and makes the body to maintain the peak stage," here Zin paused dramatically, taking a deep breath, as his eyes almost took on their birth color and shine – two suns shining brightly – "indefinitely - we can explain the body of a vampire in such a way."

Now, keeping this modification of the DNA requires a high amount of magika, such that even the elves were unable to get it from the surroundings to maintain their immortality, resulting in their bodies being downgraded to adapt to this level of magika. So this results in a hunger from the body to sustain itself. A hunger for magika. Here is where Molag Bal comes into play – the body being unfit to maintain itself in its habitat, craves more magika and lord Molag Bal provides said magika, in exchange for blood. Prolonged life for life liquid. That's what the concept of vampirism is. An agent selling the life essence of its fellow beings to Molag Bal for a good living."

"Sounds pretty much like the relationship between a third world and first world leader" Zin muttered under his breath.

"Anyways, the things noteworthy here are that Molag Bal has imposed certain limitation on the vampires, such that only the magika provided by him can fulfill the magika need and certain sources of energy will have adverse effects on the vampires, such as the sun, purifying energies like those in his enemy Meridia's influence. However, the high ambient mana ensures that these have minimal effect on his servants, resulting in only weakness and slight burning, compared to how much effect these must have normally in case of lower or no magika presence."

"In view of this, we can say that a body that does not age indefinitely requires a high amount of Magika, an amount that cannot exist on Nirn, however, manipulation of the body's code to a degree allowing the extension of lifespan is possible, though there is a limit to it. A body unmodified for mana, exceeding its normal racial limits may burst from too much mana being introduced into it, resulting in mages living longer but not too indefinitely, and aging over time, although slower than their racial counterparts. An exception may be the legendary mage Lord Divayth Fyr who somehow managed to modify his code and somehow managed to get a fitting magika source, though details about him are rare…..