Dracula: Patient zero

Chapter: 6

Vladus Tlesnasa rebirth

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Quintus Tlesnasa was a 54 years old man living in the outskirts of the city named Felsina. Originally from Rome, Quintus ended up moving into Etruscan territories to avoid execution. The Romans judged his work on human anatomy as the work of a heretic.

He had been living a simple life, making a living out of his potteries and artworks. Recently he even supplemented his revenue by teaching the neighbor’s son. Their family was not rich, but for a little fee, Quintus was more than happy to teach the young man.

Having no family, no children... Life was lonely to say the least, so the young boy’s presence once a day was more than welcomed. That day was like the others, pottert making, then while the pottery is cooking in the kiln, teach the young lad writing, reading, mathematics and other various subject.

Quintus was more than a simple scholar, he had been thirsty for knowledge all his life. He had read most of the books in existence, learned many languages, and studied every subject as if they were essential to his life.

When the young boy left, Quintus took his pottery out of the oven and placed them on a table. He grabbed his painting material and started painting magnificent designs on them. Some were scenes depicting banquets, other were scenes of victory in battles.

The old man truly was a magnificent artist. After that, the old men took a clay tablet and inscribed a few mathematical problems for his young student to complete the next day. Once he was finished, the old man crawled into his hammock and went to sleep.

Another uneventful day, but being uneventful didn't mean bad... It was better if nothing happened than having Romans coming for your head. The following morning Quintus got up, and as usual went to start making pottery. He was presently working on a beautiful amphora*.

Amphora*: An amphora (English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container of a characteristic shape and size, descending from at least as early as the Neolithic Period. Amphorae were used in vast numbers for the transport and storage of various products, both liquid and dry, but mostly for wine. It is most often ceramic, but examples in metals and other materials have been found.

As he was working on the handles, he saw something from the corner of his eyes that didn't belong there. It was a small drinking cup made out of clay... Very poorly made but it had an original shape to it... Quintus having never made such a shaped cup knew it wasn't his, nor anyone he could thing of.

Immediately Quintus went to check if he had forgotten to lock the door, but it was properly locked... A bit puzzled he ended up shrugging it off, as there was no time to ponder about such an unimportant matter. Then as usual, he made pottery, placed them in the furnace and waited for Sethre to arrive.

«Sethre» Teacher Quintus! I'm here!!!

«Quintus» Good. Come I have a little test for you today.

Saying that, Quintus grabbed the clay tablet on his desk intending to give it to Sethre for him to complete but he immediately stopped in his tracks as he was looking at the tablet. Someone had completed it...

The answers were not all correct, and the handwriting was horrendous but the one who had completed it had definitely thought carefully about the problems. Quintus doubted that even Sethre could give such interesting answers.

Why would someone enter his home at night to make pottery, answer mathematics questions and simply leave without stealing anything..? Quintus noted the problems that the mysterious person had gotten wrong on another clay tablet, and then erased the answer before giving it to Sethre to complete.

Suddenly as Sethre was completing the test, there seemed to be a commotion outside. Quintus went outside to see what it was about and saw two of his neighbor having a heated conversation. Apparently one of them had found some of his livestock horrifyingly mutilated in the morning.

A wild predatory animal was visibly on the loose and needed to be taken care of. Apparently the animals were so violently shredded to pieces that it seemed more likely to be the work of a bear rather than a wolf or a big cat.

Better make sure to be inside before sundown, thought Quintus to himself as he walked back to his house. Eventually Sethre finished the test, so Quintus went on to teach him a bit more on how to read certain characters.

After the young boy left, Quintus went to his furnace to get his pottery out as usual. Without knowing why, Quintus had cooked the foreign cup as well and placed it on the table opposite to the one holding his own potteries.

As usual he painted them and placed them on a drying rack for the night. The entire day, Quintus had been puzzled by the mysterious intruder actions so he decided to make another test, but this time about what had been learned today.

Then he went to bed trying to subtlety staying awake and catch the intruder on the act. After a few hours there was still nothing happening and it was becoming difficult for Quintus to stay awake. A few hours later as the sun was getting up, Quintus woke up.

«Quintus» Crap! I fell asleep...

Quintus then quickly ran to his work-area and had a look around. The new test was perfectly completed with almost no mistake in the answers, and even more surprising was the big amphora laid on a table. It was not the work of a professional but was surprisingly well done.

Actually it was an almost exact replica of the one he had made the day before. Then, the day went as usual but Quintus thoughts were now exclusively turned toward the ghost living in his house. When the young Sethre left, Quintus went to get the pottery out of the furnace as usual and once again placed the ghost’s pottery together on another table.

He stayed there, looking at them with questioning eyes. From that day onward, Quintus started acting strangely. He was speaking out loud as if he was talking to the ghost, teaching him about his mistakes and how to fix them.

One day he took the clay tablet, and corrected the answers while giving explanations out loud. He then wrote new questions about various subjects he had talked about so far and placed it on his desk. Then the weirdest part began.

«Quintus» Ho. no.! I. Forgot. to. Buy. Some. Important... stuff.... I. Will. Need. To. go. out. And. Buy some... of. that. stuff... This. Will. Probably. Take. me. at. Least. an. hour. Haa. Well. Gotta. do. What. You. Gotta. do... He awkwardly said in a loud voice before leaving the house.

Valdr who was still in the attic waited until Quintus was far enough before opening the hatch leading to the main floor. He was learning at a very fast pace and was already ahead of the young boy coming there everyday.

Valdr took the stick used to write and quickly completed the test. This time it was mathematics and words spelling. Then Valdr could hear foot step rapidly approaching, so he quickly jumped through the hatch and closed it behind him. There was no ladder leading to the hatch but that wasn't an obstacle to Valdr.

Quintus quickly entered the house and ran to get the clay tablet. It was already completed... He had been gone only 15 minutes... Not only that but the way the answer were written showed that the person who did it had learned from him.

Now convince that there was someone hiding in or around his house, Quintus started turning everything upside down looking for the stranger living with him. He looked under, around the house and in every possible hiding spots but couldn't find anything.

Then Quintus slowly lifted his head up and looked at the ceiling.

«Valdr» Ho crap! Thought Valdr.

Quintus rapidly brought a ladder to climb to the attic. He opened the hatch and peered all around with only his head through the hole. Not seeing anything he got up and started looking around. There was straw scattered all around but except that, no sign of anything being disturbed.

After looking everywhere, Quintus was unable to find anything to answer his questions about the strange ghost living with him. What Quintus didn't know was that Valdr was in the attic with him at that moment, but moving at high speed without making a sound. He simply kept running around making sure to always be out of his line of sight by staying behind him.

Valdr was surprised at how easy it was, he didn't remember being this fast before... Also those last nights during his hunts, Valdr felt more powerful than ever as if there was nothing he couldn't do. Even without human blood he was overflowing with power.

Little did he know, Valdr being born in 10,000BC was now over 9000 years old. Also, with vampires growing stronger as they get older, Valdr was not the same vampire he once was. His current powers couldn't be compared to when he was only a few hundred years old.

Because of that he could feel many thing he didn't understood. For example, he could feel some presence that seemed incredibly far away. As if they were part of him, or people closely related to him. At first he thought that maybe it was some other part of his body having been scattered across the earth but the more he pondered about it the more he considered these presences to be something more significant.

He had also discovered that he could see through the eyes of some nocturnal creatures if he concentrated hard enough. He still wasn't sure how it worked exactly, but last night he had seen through the eyes of a bat flying through the sky in a giant flock of them.

Valdr felt as if he could somehow control them, having them spy for him if needed. But he still needed a lot of practice to understand how it all worked. Being so much more powerful was also one of the reasons as to how he had managed to resist his urges for blood.

He had fed exclusively on animals blood for a few days and was slowly getting accustomed to it... Ok to be perfectly honest, Valdr had relapse a few time... But killing five humans in three days was very little compared to the millions he once killed, so he was still proud of his progresses.

Turning his attention back to the old Quintus who was visibly at a lost, Valdr wondered if he should show himself to him. If it wasn't for him being unable to go out in the sunlight, he would have pretended to be a normal human, but with his condition it was a lot more complicated to pull off.

«Quintus» I know you can hear me!....... Who are you?..... What is the reason pushing you to hide from me?........ You know whatever you are, Illyrian, Carthaginian, Celt, Germanic, Goth, Slav, Roman, Greek.... I don't care. Whoever you are, if you don't wish me harm you shouldn't have a reason to hide from me...

[...]

Then giving a long sigh, Quintus turned around to head toward the furnace.

«Quintus» HAAAA!!!!!! Quintus almost fell on his ass as he saw Valdr standing right behind him.

He had approached him without a single sound and was standing there without moving staring at him. Valdr was naked and incredibly dirty, covered with mud, blood and everything else you can imagine. The two men stayed perfectly silent and stared at each other for what seemed like hours.

«Quintus» Are you the one I have been looking for all this time? Valdr simply tilted his head to the question.

«Quintus» Is that blood? Are you all right? Why aren't you wearing clothes?

«Valdr» ..................

«Quintus» What is your name?

«Valdr» ..................Valdr. Finally hearing an answer, Quintus suddenly became exited.

«Quintus» Vla.. Varl... Vral... Vlard... hum... Never heard such a name... Where are you from? To that, Valdr simply pointed north.

«Quintus» Hoo! Are you Celt?? Valdr who didn't know what Celts were simply shrugged his shoulder.

«Quintus» Never-mind... It doesn't matter. Wait for me I will warm you some water to wash yourself... You can't be seen looking like this...

Quintus then warmed up a bucket of water for Valdr to clean up, and even gave him new clothes to wear. It was a white garment called a tebenna, which is the most common male garment. Similar to the Greek chlamys, the tebenna was a long cloak that was draped over the left shoulder and then wrapped around the torso under the right arm.

It was often decorated with clavi, stripes of color that indicated the wearer's status or rank in society. The tebenna is thought to be the model for the Roman toga, and Romans also adopted the use of clavi.

«Quintus» Hoo this suits you quite well.. You look like a noble or something hahaha.

«Valdr» ....Noble?

«Quintus» Never-mind that... Are you hungry? I have some dried meat hanging over there. He said pointing at a big piece of dried mean hanging from the ceiling.

«Valdr» No need... I don't eat solid food. Hearing this Quintus showed a puzzled expression but quickly brushed it off as someone having bad teeth. It wasn't that rare to see people with so many cavities that they couldn't chew solid food anymore.

From that day, Valdr kept visiting the old man everyday, learning everything the old man had to teach him. How to act in society, mathematics, calligraphy, philosophy, sociology, physic, etiquette, biology and everything else you can thing off.

Quintus always found strange Valdr ability to simply vanish when he looked away for more than two seconds, he also never found where he was hiding during the day. In exchange for teaching him, Valdr was doing some chores around the house but strangely he always did them at night.

Quintus wasn't sure whether he had a good reason for it, maybe he was hiding from some people looking for him. Quintus knew the feeling, Rome had wanted his head for a few years already so he wasn't a stranger to the concept of hiding from pursuers.

As strange of a relationship as it was, two years went by in a flash. Valdr was now fully adapted to this new world and was now confident in his ability to blend in as a normal Etruscan citizen. Quintus also told him many things about the world and about his home, Rome...

To help him blend in, Quintus gave Valdr a new name fitting of his new environment. A name like Valdrislav would immediately be perceived as a foreign name and attract attention. So from now on, Valdr was to be called Vladus Tlesnasa. Giving him the same family name as him was a blatant sign of affection from the old man toward Vald*... I mean Vladus.

[Carthaginians territories, South coast of the Mediterranean sea.]

Velthur was walking at fast pace toward a dark room in a big villa* situated on the seashore. It was a beautiful villa* surrounded with palm trees and marble sculptures.

Villa*: (especially in continental Europe) a large and luxurious country residence. A large country house of Roman times, having an estate and consisting of farm and residential buildings arranged around a courtyard.

«Velthur» Master, I have returned.

«Dark figure» Finally! Speak! What news do you bring? How many thousands, millions of death so far? mwahahahah*

«Velthur» ....... Hhmmm... Nothing of the sort seem to be happening...

«Dark figure» WHAT? THIS CAN'T BE POSSIBLE! I DEFINITIVELY DECIPHERED THE SACRED TEXT CORRECTLY!!!!! Filled with anger the man was throwing objects in all directions.

«Velthur» Hmm Master... I think you may have succeeded...

«Dark figure» How so!? If he had been resurrected, there would be corpses all over the country by now!!!!!

«Velthur» I have received information that the pagans as well as the soldiers sent to execute them had been brutally dismembered by what seemed to be a wild animal that night.... After hearing this the dark figure bad mood suddenly lightened up.

«Dark figure» Really? Huhuhuhuhuuhu* I see I see.... Then... Maybe he wasn't a senseless killing machine after all??.... Even better... Could he be learning to live in this world? Could he be... Preparing for something? HeahahahaHHAhahaHAHah!* Velthur!!!

«Velthur» Yes master?

«Dark figure» Prepare my ship!!.... It may finally be time for me to meet with God... Mwahahahahaha*

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Many thanks to gcman01 for proofreading this chapter!

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