"Yeah" Dean agrees, his head swimming with everything that he is going to need to learn. All of a sudden he recalls what she had said about their Clan.

"Asali, you mentioned a bat." he cocks his head just a little. "Does that mean some of our Clan can...fly?"

"In that form, yes," Asali says. "I can teach it to you, but it will take time to learn. Knowing how to protect yourself will likely be more important in the short term."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:17, Fri 15 Nov 2019.

It's not all bad then Dean considers I'm technically immortal, and we can fly... as odd as that was to think about.




"Right" Dean agrees and nods sharply. "We should probably focus on that. None of this will matter if I'm gone in a week." says says grimly. "So if the Prince does, ah, draft us I guess. How does that work? Can you tell who they are? are you guys constantly attacking each other like what happened at the Jade Dragon? Have you ever killed one?" he asks as it becomes appropriate.

"The Baron will let us know when he needs us," Asali says. "But the werewolves have pretty much adopted a more nocturnal cycle as they lost more than we did when we were fighting on different schedules."

"Fortunately the war isn't constant. We would all be dead if it had been. And I have put down a few werewolves myself."

She continues to teach you how to draw upon your vampire blood to protect yourself.

Dean attempts to rally and clear his mind of the myriad distractions that continue to press in upon his consciousness. There are things, many things, that demand his attention, but none of them would matter if he followed the fate of his Sire and the majority of his newer Clan mates.

Everything else, his family, a dog, what his new friends were doing elsewhere, money, a vehicle. Everything else would have to wait.

Asali coaches Dean in how to focus and with time, his skin hardens. It doesn't look harder, it doesn't feel harder, but it is harder.

"You have now started experiencing power in two of the areas we are known for. The third is animals and when we select a dog for you, I will help you with that power too. But more important than your powers, is your ability to feed. How do you want to feed?"

Dean works hard to keep up. He imagines people and animals enduring all sorts of horrible things as they work, and in the end he can feel the difference. He feels tougher, he is tougher, like he had the thick hide of some large animal.

It feels really good actually, or t least Dean thinks so. Safer and more secure.

He nods to Asali postponing the third lesson, then considers her question for a moment. The idea seems less distasteful than it first did, although he is still conflicted.

"I was kind of just thinking about just taking it, like find a place where I can get someone alone, like a locker room or something, sneak up behind them and then bam." he snacks a fist into his palm. "How do you do it?"

"That works," Asali says. "As long as you know how to Passify your target, all you need is eye contact and a nearby safe place. I have a cute dog and I'm a woman, so I'm non-threatening. People approach me when I'm out walking the dog. And even if they don't, they don't mind if I approach them. It's win-win-win."

"That makes sense, I would never think that, well..." he shrugged. "You don't exactly scream Vampire"

So he could make feeding simple, he would just have to be smart about it. That and he would not have the advantages of appearing harmless. That was one edge Asali would also have over him.

When Asali mentions the dog the first one to come to mind was his families dog, Raider. But a part of him is hesitant to include the innocent creature in all of this. If they were at war, whichever dog he picked would be in danger, that was just just the way it would be. He needed a working dog, not a pet.

"Alright, so I'm going to be careful, but given enough time, and since I'm new. If something goes wrong and somebody sees something. What do I do? I mean if I can wrestle them down or whatever great, but what then? Do those sorts of things get reported to somebody? The Prince?" Dean asks his Sire.

"Most of us don't scream vampire," Asali says. "And those that do have learned how to hide. Younglings normally spend all their time with their Sire, so if anything happens, the Sire takes care of it. But the Baron seems to have something in mind for you and your friends. So there may be nights when we won't be together. But I expect that I will still be your first line of defense."

Asali's words bring a degree of comfort to Dean. He still has his Cohort, he still has his Sire, Asali, who seems intent on fulfilling her duties in that role. He even had a place to stay, with his beautiful Sire no less.

Unless the Prince delivered some sort of devastating news, he was more confident now that he could make ti through the night and to begin to tackle his myriad problems one by one. With a little help if need be.

He continues to listen and work with Asali.

Asali opened the door, pulled in the MIB waiting outside, and closed the door again.

Dean watched Asali, wondering if this meant that their instruction was done for the moment.

"After you have decided who and where," Asali says. "The first step of feeding safely is eye contact. The second is to do an Obi-Wan Kenobi and mind trick them. You don't have to wave your hand. What you tell them doesn't matter, as long as it keeps them in place without resisting and doesn't go against their convictions. 'Relax' works."

"The third step is actually feeding. And you will sense when you have taken as much as you can safely take. You can take more, but it will be bad for the person you feed on. And you don't know how much more blood you can take without killing them. As step four, you lick their wound so that you don't leave any telltale signs."

"Your suggestion lasts about a minute or two. Sometimes a little longer. And they forget what happened. If you only need to take the edge off, you can feed on the same person every other day. If you need more, you should likely not feed on the same person for a week."

"So let's try that. Look into his eyes and focus on controlling his mind. It may take a while, but you will know when you have succeeded."

At this point in the evening, trying to pull a Jedi style mind trick seemed far more plausible than the other things he had done.

Not trying to invent the wheel, he made solid eye contact with the attendant, pupil to pupil, and then in a low but insistent voice he said "Relax" he repeated this, until he was fairly certain it had worked, and then went in for a snack, and to get a better feel for how much he might be able to take.

If the MIB was resisting or if Dean wasn't doing it right was difficult to know at first. But when it clicks in place in Dean's mind, he knows that it works now and that it hadn't previously. And with the suggestion, Dean can see that it works too on the MIB's demeanor. And Dean steps in and feeds.

"Sweet deliciousness," Hunger says.


"Just a little more," Hunger said. "He can take it. He is a ghoul after all."

Dean had barely felt the first itch of hunger, as he had been so well sated the day before. He felt full in just a few seconds, but the desire to continue just to feel the delicious sensation was there.

All too concious of the eyes of his Sire upon him, he pulled back, paused a moment, then closed the small puncture wounds.

"Good," Asali says. "Now we have covered feeding too. Is there anything you feel we haven't covered?"

Dean thinks for a moment. He had learned so much, but he still wondered how he would fare if he were thrown to the wolves over the next few nights. He had no idea how to fight, and while he was not looking to start trouble, if it comes to him or his Cohort, he wants to be ready.

"Could you teach me a little bit on how to use these things? The claws I mean?"

"Certainly," Asali says. "Do you want something quick and dirty or something more advanced?"

Dean considers the question. If he was actually going up against somebody, something like a werewolf especially, he wanted to be able to truly defend himself.

"I've technically got the rest of eternity, right? Might as well go with the advanced stuff." Dean considers himself an athlete after all. He had a foundation,and believes he can handle the most challenging lessons.

"In theory," Asali says. "But in my experience, everybody dies, Big Guy."

She shows Dean how to punch and kick. Letting him attack empty air and she then corrects his moves to make sure that he makes them properly.

Dean finds it odd, learning to use his arms in a way that he had never imagined. His basic knowledge of anatomy allowed him to easily envision the notional claws catching on flesh, then tearing through ligaments and arteries.

This is not theoretical, not to Dean, and the threat of being killed as a conscript in a millennia long war is as real a danger as he has ever known.

He follows her instruction, realizing that this was likely just the first lesson of many.

"It's time," a MIB shouts from outside the office. And Asali stops the training session. You have been working out for quite some time and should have worked up quite a sweat, but you haven't.

She opens the door and commands "heel," which Snowdrop does.

"Come with me," the MIB says.

Dean braces himself for whatever is about to come on that longest of days and follows the attendant out and back towards to conference room.