Bribery Works!

Hours later, The Count sits on his throne, surrounded by the many golden flickering flames illuminating the darkness of the castle. Hunched over slightly, he closely examines a framed portrait of his son, it being so as they had no cameras back in Transylvania. Very little in the way of technology at all, really. Beside him dithers Renfield, going about his various servantly duties with narry a care in the world.

Continuing to stare intently at the portrait, The Count speaks into the cold night air. "I think sometimes the boy hates me..."

"You could always kill him." Renfield provides offhandedly while going about his tasks. Clearly he couldn't think and work at the same time, else he'd have realised how stupid that was to say.

Turning his head slowly to look at his servant, The Count glares with ire. "... Not helpful, Renfield."

Renfield shrinks into himself under his master's scornful eye. "Oh, uh..."

*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK*

At the sound of knocking coming from the castle doors, The Count turns his head slightly towards it in acknowledgement, before refocusing his attention back on the portrait of Vlad held firmly within his grasp.

Renfield, after a small, silent pause, speaks. "...I'll go master"

Receiving an 'Mmmn' in return from the Count, Renfield shuffles off to answer the door.

A few moments later, Renfield re-enters the main hall with a large box in hand. Walking back to his masters side, Renfield informs the Count of his discovery. "No one there, but I found this on the doorstep! It's for Master Vlad."

"Well open it!" The Count demands, the concept of privacy applying to anyone other than himself an unfamiliar notion.

Renfield tears through the cardboard rather than the tape in his haste, turning the once pristine, neatly packaged box into a misshapen mess of cardboard. Reaching into said mess, Renfield grabs hold of the box's contents. "Something called a juice-a-tron three thousand." He says, lifting up a smaller, more colourful cardboard box with the words JUICE-A-TRON 3000 on the front in one hand, and two raw, bloody, vaccum packed slabs of meat in the other. "Haau... and some steaks."

Staring longingly at the almost viscerally red meat, the count nearly drools, transfixed by the slow squelching about of the blood in the pack. Ripping his gaze from the crimson flesh, he turns his head skyward, looking in the direction of the tower as he speaks, a significant softness to his tone and features, a severe contrast to his earlier attitude.

"Oh, Vladimir...."

Feeling uncharacteristically warm and fuzzy, the Prince of Darkness hurriedly orders Renfield to store away the items from the parcel, before flitting up the castle towers staircase in a flurry of movement. Standing outside the door to his sons bedroom, the Count takes a minute to consider his words, beginning to say something before throwing it away with a quickly muttered "No, no. Not that!" or a "Gah! That isn't it!".

Deciding that he's being ridiculous, The Count paces forward, his steps measured and quiet as he opens the door to Vladimirs room and peeks his head in. "Vladimir, I... I wanted to say thank you, for the meat." Saying this, he moves the rest of his body into the room, standing by Vlads door as he continues to thank his son. "If I had a working heart, it would have been touched. Vladimir..."

Haven gotten no response from his son, The Count moves further into the room, coming to a stop at the foot of Vlads bed. ".....Vladimir?"

Moving to stand to the side of Vlads bed, a sneaking suspicion gnaws away in the back of his head as he observes the unmoving shape beneath the covers. The Count, peterbed by the lack of movement from the bed, rips the covers off of the shape underneath.

"Ugh. Dad?!" Vlad groans sleepily as he's torn from the cozy warmth of his quilt.

The Count, startled to see his son for some reason, exclaims. "Vladimir! You're sleeping?!"

Seemingly surprised by his fathers usual weirdness, Vlad responds in confusion as he slowly sits himself upright. "Uh..... Yeah? You grounded me, what else would I be doing?"

"I, uh.... well..... well you should be practicing your vampire skills! Yes! That's it!" The Count finally excuses, having been lost on what to say for a moment. "Sleeping at night is so breather-like. No son and heir of mine is going to spend a night like THIS sleeping!"

Still groggy, Vlads face twists in confusion as he appraises his father. "..... Dad, I'm 12. I don't have any vampire skills."

"Well it's never too early to start practicing Vladimir." Informs The Count, moving emphatically as he speaks to enunciate his words. "You know, when I was your age, I was so excited to get my powers. I spent hours practicing every night!"

Picking up the usual spiel his father had a tendency to put down, Vlad responds with a healthy dose of sarcasm. "So I should too?"

"That's my boy Vladdy! I'm glad you see it the same way I do!" His father states, having either ignored or missed the manner in which his son spoke, and taken his question as a statement.

Vlad, accustomed to his dad hard-headed nature, aquiesses quickly. Obviously he had very little intention of actually practicing, but his father had no need to know that. "Yeah... uh, ok dad. I'll start practicing right now."

"Good!...." The Count declares, boasting a proud smile. Not moving, the Count continues to watch his son expectantly.

An uncomfortable silence, at least to Vlad, permeates the tower room as the Count continues to stare. Under the unwavering attention of his father, Vlad speaks."..... Uh, dad?"

"Yes Vladdy?" The Count inquires.

"..." Vlad sends his father an imploring look, before looking over to the door and nodding slightly towards it.

At his sons indication, the Count looks to the door breifly before returning his gaze to Vlad. Slowly, his eyes widen, the raising of his eyebrows making several creases appear on his forehead as realization dawn's on him. He was being asked to leave. "... Oh, right! Don't want me distracting you from your practice. Right you are Vladimir!"

At his fathers reluctant, though still proud, concession, Vlad smiles appreciatively. It was rare for anything he said to be taken seriously, heir or not.

The Count strides towards the exit, though as he places his hand on the aged oak of the door, he stops. Turning subtly towards his son, he says "Thank you, again, for the steaks..." before doing a small spin on his heels, strolling through the door, and closing it gently behind him.

As his father silently flitts away from the tower, Vlad remains still, smiling warmly at the closed door. 'That went well.... I think...?' Thinking this, Vlads smile of affection becomes mischievous as he turns from the door. Making his way over to his bed, Vlad thinks on how fortunate he was that his father didn't notice anything strange about how he was sleeping in his regular clothes, and not his pajamas. And even better, he'd probably been able to secure some privacy for the rest of the night. He'd need it.

Kneeling down beside his bed, Vlad reaches underneath it and grabs for something. Though, as he'd apparently put it a bit further back than he'd intended, he'd had to assume a different strategy to get his item back. Shuffling slightly away from the bed, he leans closer to the ground, eventually abandoning his kneeling all together in favour of lying on the floor. Reaching once more under his bed, further this time, Vlad grabs what he was looking for and stands back up.

In his hands, Robins grappling hook from earlier is held, the rope attached to the end falling loosely to the ground and trailing under the old bedframe.

Pacing quickly to the window overlooking Stokely, Vlad firmly attaches the hook to the inside of his windowsill, making sure the metal digs securely into the cracks and grooves of the stone, before tossing the rope -which had been dragged from under the bed by Vlads movement- out of the window. Gazing out over the quiet night of Stokely, Vlad quickly leans over the windowsill to pull on the rope, testing it's safety for climbing.

After making sufficiently sure that the hook won't be dislodged mid-climb, Vlad begins to slowly and carefully clamber over the windowsill, placing one leg outside of the tower while the other remains on the ground. This, incidentally, had him straddling the windowsill like a horse, which would be quite the entertaining sight to any who'd see it.

Sitting on the windowsill in this uncomfortable fashion, Vlad looks back into his room in caution. There's no way he'd be able to climb all the way back up if he forgot something, only to go all the way back down again. Eyes scouring over the room, his gaze stills suddenly, becoming fixed on the cape hung precariously on the mirror.

Internally, Vlad debates whether or not he should take the damn thing. On one hand, he is by no means a fan of what it represents, to him at least, but on the other.... If anything went wrong. If he got caught... wearing that cape would lessen any punishment from his father significantly, if not improve his fathers image of him. Struggling with himself for a few minutes, Vlad berates himself internally even as he's getting off of the windowsill and walking towards it.

Plucking the tough, heavy fabric off of the mirrors edge, Vlad pulls it over his shoulders in a swift, decisive motion, as if ripping off the bandaid. Before going back to the window, the boy looks at his reflection in the mirror. He frowns.

Turning harshly from his reflection, Vlad marches back to the window, plops down on the windowsill, takes hold of the climbing rope as strongly as he can, and shimmys carefully backwards. Sitting on the edge, the not-yet-vampire breathes slowly and deeply to calm himself, before taking one large gulp of air, swallowing down any panic along with it, and beginning his descent of the tower.

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Chapter 9: 1694 words (not including this bit)

Heya! Sorry this one's a bit late! Got COVID, got over COVID, had to take care of sick family members, and then do some Halloween preparations. So I figured, f*ck it! I'll just post this one on Halloween. For the spirit of it and all. Anyway, yeah! Any feedback, constructive criticism, or support would be great. You know the deal. I hope y'all enjoy the chapter and have a frightful Halloween!!! #HalloweenBestHoliday!!!

Ps. Stones if you may!? 💎💎💎