Testing His Limits

Silax stood at the doorway and stared at the courtyard. There were a few barrels that looked like they were still in good enough conditions to hold liquid in them. He couldn't tell for certain not until he checked them out, but he couldn't do that now.

The sun had already risen, and it shined its light down on the courtyard. Silax hid in the shadow created by the doors to the hall.

It was a strange feeling for him, not being able to stand under the rays of the sun. When he was still sick and unable to do anything physically straining, one of the few pleasures he enjoyed was sitting in a garden and basking in the warm light of the sun.

Something that seemed so mundane before had now turned into something life-threatening. His mind still wasn't made up on whether his transformation was a gift or a curse.

Silax wanted to know how bad the sun would be if it shined directly on him. The book had said that ghouls disintegrated under sunlight, while a fledgling would burn under it. There was a difference between disintegrating and burning.

Silax stretched his arm forward slowly, as his hand got to the border between the shadow of the door and the sun's rays he paused.

He took a deep breath then pushed the tips of his fingers pass the boundary of the door's shadow.

Immediately his fingers began to sting, then a second later the pain got worse. His skin began to emit smoke and a burning smell filled his nose. He pulled his hand back quickly, but the pain remained. It took about thirty seconds for the pain to subside.

Silax looked at his hand, it was mottled red and white, and there were blisters at the tip of his fingers. Although his hand emitted smoke and smelt like it was burning, it only looked as if he hard been scalded by hot liquid.

Silax pondered on how a burning smell and smoke would only lead to mottled skin and blisters. He wasn't sure if this was the effect of a vampyres regeneration, of if something else was at work.

As he looked at his hand, he could see the skin begin to heal, the blisters on his fingers deflated, his skin squirmed around moving back to their natural positions, the redness of his skin faded, regaining their natural color.

It took less than a minute for his skin to go back to normal.

'So, if I'm exposed to direct sunlight, as long as it's not more than a few seconds, I'll recover in under a minute.'

Silax raised his head and looked out into the courtyard.

'What would be the effect of a more prolonged exposure? Would It still take less than a minute to completely heal? Or maybe the damage from that would be irreversible. It's better to find out these things when I can control the conditions, than in a life-or-death situation.'

Silax stretched his hand forward again, this time around he didn't take a pause and he put the whole of his hand completely under the sun.

His skin began to sting once again, then came the smoke and the burning sensation. Ten seconds into his test, his skin began emitting ash, the pain became immense, but he gritted his teeth and held on. He had been through worse pain twice within the last few hours.

After another five seconds his hand burst into flames, he quickly pulled his hand back and started trying to put out the fire by patting it. He eventually snuffed out the flames, and just in time, cause the flames were already spreading up his arm.

It had climbed halfway to his elbow, and his burnt sleeves were proof of that. Since his hand was no longer under the sun, the flames had lost their source of energy, and his body was able to fight back against them.

'So the limit is fifteen seconds, but that would be cutting it too close. I should make sure I'm never in a situation where I would be under the sun for more than ten seconds.'

The skin between his elbows and wrist were already beginning to heal, but he couldn't see any changes in his hands.

His hands were blackened, and his fingers looked like long, thin pieces of charcoal. He could barely feel any sensation in them, but the fact that he could feel a little was good news to him.

He took out some bandages from his bag and wrapped them around his hands tightly. He chose to return to the hall, that was enough playing with the sun for today.

On his way back, as he stepped into the pathway that led to the hall, he saw a huge rock next to the opening of the doorway. The stone was twice as tall as him, and wide enough that it would need two people to wrap their hands around it. He recalled Kal's strength and how he used his body as a weapon.

'I've always relied on being strong and quick due to the fact that it was the only way to get an advantage over other elves, but that could only take me so far. Compared to a spiritualist, even one with just one Orenda-Sigils, I was always physically weaker. Using my wits and technique was the only way to best them in a duel. Once they had more than one Orenda-Sigil, then no amount of technique could bridge the gap in strength.'

Silax decided to test out the increase his rebirth as a vampyre had on his physical strength. He threw a quick solid punch at the rock, and his fist left an indentation on it. Then he threw a few more quick jabs at it, which resorted in cracks spreading through the face of the rock.

Silax planted his feet firmly into the ground, wrapped his arms around it. He tried to lift it, but he couldn't get a solid hold on it. He extended his claws, and they dug into the stone acting as grips.

He tried again, straining against the weight on the rock. He eventually lifted it about a foot off the floor, he held it for a few seconds before he couldn't anymore. He let go of it, and let it slam down with a loud noise that echoed through the hall.

Next was his speed. He looked down the hallway of destroyed traps, it was about a thousand meters in length. He took a deep breath then launched himself forward, his foot was steady on the floor, the uneven surface not giving him any trouble.

He was counting the seconds in his mind as he flew past broken spikes, cracked pressure plates and scorch marks. He came to an abrupt stop right in front of the doorway just as he got to twenty-seven.

'Twenty-seven seconds to run a thousand meters, that's half the time it would have taken me before. I'm not even out of breath, I could probably run a couple miles at full sprint before getting winded. My strength is almost three times what it used to be. I would have to use precise weights to measure the increase in strength, but it is definitely more than twice what I had.'