Nick let out a content hum as he felt a warm sensation spread throughout his body, starting from his neck. With a smile, Nick stretched out and opened his eyes. He was feeling awfully good, it must have been a most excellent nap. Nick found two women looking down at him with large frowns.

“Hey, what’s up guys?” He asked.

Chloe sighed loudly. “I’m going to be seeing you an awful lot, aren’t I?”

“He seems to enjoy getting injured.” Paige added with a sigh of her own.

“When the healing is this good, then how could I not want to keep coming back?” Nick said with a smile.

Chloe just shook her head and shooed the two of them out of her office. Nick had never felt better, his body felt springy and fresh. Chloe’s healing was top-notch stuff, he wondered what an even higher levelled Healer could pull off. Paige looped her arm through Nick’s and happily skipped out into the reception. What had gotten her in such a good mood? Sandy was still sitting behind the receptionist’s desk and frowned as Paige led him past her. Nick also noticed the storage closet now had a sign on it that read ‘Staff Only, Please Don’t Enter’.

It was only after seeing the sign that Nick realised why Paige was so happy. He had promised something to Paige, and she was surely going to be cashing that one in hard and fast. Nick tried to stay optimistic, at least he was going to have a lot of fun. Hopefully, he would still have enough free will afterwards that he’d be able to continue on his

goal-directed pathway. He had a lot of new information and possibilities to consider, he wasn’t sure if Paimon was aware that he had heard what she’d been saying after he’d been commanded to sleep. He shuddered as he remembered how coldly she’d spoken about killing him. He also sighed as he remembered that Paimon was a vampire as well, it wasn't quite his original concern that she was just after his blood but she had openly admitted to wanting his blood. God damn bloodsuckers.

“Hey Paige, is Paimon a vampire, like you?” He asked.

“Like me? No. The Mistress isn’t. If you really want to know about her you should ask yourself. It’s rude to talk behind someone’s back.”

Like Paige? It sounded like Paige had focused on that particular part. He wasn’t certain but he had a suspicion that while Paimon might not be a vampire, she was likely something similar. It was that, or she was just really into blood. Nick actually hoped that it wasn’t the second possibility. A monster that had a reason to drink blood felt a bit more palatable than a human that just liked the taste of blood. Wait, did vampires have to drink blood or was it just a fun leisure activity for them? Luckily, he had one nearby he could query.

“Hey Paige, do you have to drink blood?” Nick asked.

“Have to? Well, a lot of my strongest skills revolve around the act of obtaining and the consumption of blood. It’s like me asking if Explorers have to explore.”

“So do Paimon’s skills revolve around blood as well?”

“You’d have to ask the Mistress herself.” Paige replied with a slight smile.

It made sense to Nick. Maybe Paimon wasn’t a vampire, but some sort of evolved vampire. Wait, he was skipping over a massive bit of information that he hadn’t properly considered up until this point.

“Hey Paige.”

“Hmm?”

“Is Vampire a class? Or are you some sort of monster?”

Nick realised he’d heard some mixed things about the vampires. Paige had just talked about skills and compared Vampire to Explorer, implying it was a class. Abby had made it sound like the vampires weren’t humans, some sort of monster spawned from the bowels of the Complex. Which one was it? Or was it some sort of mix of the two? Nick’s curiosity had certainly been enraptured by the idea. Classes could change people’s personalities and attitudes, could they actually turn a person into something other than human? Were there werewolf classes? Wait, were catgirls a possibility in this place? Nick needed to know, for scientific purposes.

Paige looked genuinely hurt. “I’m not a monster Nick. Yes, it’s a class. You won’t find it at any button though, there are some classes that can only be unlocked through doing a ritual. You renounce any classes you have and take one single class to fill the space of both. Vampire is one of those classes. I’m just as human as you or anyone else here.”

Nick felt bad, he hadn’t meant to offend her like that. He felt rather stupid, openly questioning if someone was a monster certainly wasn’t the politest thing he’d done. Paige seemed to notice his turmoil.

“Well, I’ll certainly make sure you make it up to me. I can’t let you get away with hurting a lady’s feelings like that can I?”

What happened in the following hours after they made it back to Paige’s room would haunt Nick for the remainder of his days, he was certain of it. He was left covered in bites, cuts, and various scratches, barely able to breathe. He felt like a dried husk, a man without enough fluids to even function. Nick had never felt this anaemic in his life, not even after the closet incident. By the time Paige was content Nick wasn’t even sure where he was. He simply collapsed into the bed, his eyes closing and he wasn’t sure if they’d ever open again.

Luckily they did. Nick wasn’t sure how much time had passed but eventually, he rose from the grave, albeit incredibly weakly. His eyes cracked open and he found himself alone in Paige’s four-poster bed. He struggled to sit up, his body screaming in protest. All he could feel were aches and pains, it was so blinding he almost thought that he had just become aches and pains. As he tried to recall what had exactly happened he realised that there was something off about his thoughts. All of the memories were fluffy and positive, but he felt a detachment from them. He could feel how emotionally charged the memories had become, how they painted a very positive picture of what had happened. It felt like he was a third person though, looking at them from an outside perspective. He was being told they were positive but he didn’t feel like they were.

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That’s when Paige walked into the room.

“Oh! You’re finally up. I was getting worried, I thought I might have to call a Healer.”

Nick looked at the woman before him and felt a wild mixture of emotions. She was gorgeous, but she wasn’t. She was kind and understanding, but she wasn’t. He wanted to do anything she asked of him, but he didn’t. He thought the world of her, but he didn’t. The flurry of contradictory feelings left him physically pained and confused. His head dropped into his hands and he let out a long groan.

“Nick, what’s wrong?” Paige asked, concerned.

Nick felt compelled to answer. “It hurts. Pain. Lots of pain.” He groaned out.

It wasn’t the physical pain of his body that was killing him, he’d dealt with far worse in that department. It was the sharp pain in his head he felt as he tried to process all of these contradicting thoughts. He felt so overwhelmingly compelled towards Paige but he also had a rational compulsion that was actively trying to dispel everything he was feeling about Paige. It only got worse as Paige closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him. His senses were assaulted by her presence, her touch, her smell. All of it flooded his mind once again, leaving him in agony.

“I didn’t go that hard on you Nick, it’s just a bit of pain.” She cooed into his ear.

Her voice was like a steel rake being dragged through his eardrums and across his brain. Nick screamed in pain and dropped to the ground. His body refused to listen to him, he wanted to grovel at Paige’s feet and beg forgiveness for his actions but his mind refused to allow him. He was left a spasming mess on the floor, his muscles receiving too many mixed signals. Nick couldn’t even begin to actively try and sort through them, his mind was being assaulted by the worst migraine he’d ever experienced. It felt like barbed wire was being pulled through his head, digging its barbs into whatever it could catch.

He heard Paige curse and she scooped him up into her arms. Nick felt pleasure race across his body as she made contact with him, her embrace the most perfect thing in the world. He also refused to accept that assertion. Paige started moving very fast, Nick didn’t have the best grasp of the outside world right now but he could make out walls zipping by. He was then outside, then back inside a different building in no time at all. Nick heard a shout and he was then lying on a familiar surface in a growingly familiar room.

“Paige it’s the first thing in the morning, what the hell-” Chloe paused. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

Nick’s body was still a spasming mess and his mind was in a pretty similar state, barely able to hold down a singular thought. When Paige stayed silent Chloe spoke again.

“Christ, he has more venom than blood. What the hell were you trying to do to him?”

Paige answered in the cold voice he’d rarely heard. “This has never happened before. What is wrong with him?”

“Give me a minute, I’m not even sure what’s happening. What usually happens? I haven’t seen someone with this much venom in their system before, alive at least.”

“The venom acts the same as their blood. He shouldn’t be responding like this.” Paige replied curtly.

In a moment of pure desperation, Nick activated Intolerable Weakness, hoping that it would save him from whatever was causing him his anguish. He immediately began vomiting but didn’t have the strength to project the fluid out of his body. He began choking on his own vomit and his spasming became more panicked, his muscles and mind freaking out at the very real possibility of dying like this. Choking to death in excruciating pain. At any other time, he probably would have laughed at the situation but right now all that he felt was pain and panic.

Thankfully Chloe stepped in quickly and rolled Nick onto his side, letting the fluid spill out of his mouth. She let out a surprised yelp as the thick black fluid, Paige’s venom, began running out of his mouth in copious amounts. Chloe suddenly realised something was terribly wrong when after a minute it just kept coming. She screamed something at Paige and the smaller woman paused for a moment before dashing out of the room. Not long after someone came running back into the room and Nick felt a tingling sensation spread throughout his body. His weakness was slowly fading away, but the pain only slightly subsided. Nick just kept vomiting, he wasn’t sure what was being healed but he knew that it was keeping him alive.

It was as his mind cleared that he realised the huge mistake he had made. Chloe had said that most of his blood had been replaced with venom, but here he was throwing all of it up. He had literally almost killed himself, accidentally expelling all of the blood substitute that had been keeping him alive. The healing he was getting must have been acting as a replacement or substitute of its own. Nick really needed to keep better track of all his blood, he couldn’t keep this anaemic lifestyle up.

After a period of time that felt like years, Nick finally stopped throwing up. He must have finally gotten rid of all the venom from his system. His mind had finally cleared up as well, he quickly processed what was in the room around him. There were three people, two of them he knew, one of them was a new face. Paige and Chloe were to be expected, the third person was an ancient-looking man who held his palm towards Nick. He was the one that had been healing nick, not Chloe? Chloe looked rather angry, her rosy cheeks matched with furrowed eyebrows. Paige looked rather impassive, but when she noticed Nick was looking her face shifted to concern and worry. Nick wasn’t buying it at all.

Nick sat himself up. “Thank-” He suddenly coughed up some more black fluid that had been lurking in his throat. “Thank you.” He finally said.

“You did most of the work.” The old man said with a gentle smile. “A truly interesting skill you’ve found yourself. Be very careful when using it in the future young man.”

With that, the man turned and left the room. Paige stepped out of the way and gave him a very wide berth, the old man didn’t pay her much mind and simply left. Nick looked down at the floor and saw a rather ghastly mess. Chloe must have grabbed a bucket at some point because most of the fluid was in one. A large amount of the thick sludge was caked across the floor though. Nick sheepishly looked up at Chloe. When she saw his expression she sighed and the anger left her face.

“You’re cleaning this up. We’re having a private talk. Paige, you can wait out in the reception.” Chloe spoke clearly, emphasising where she wanted Paige.

“I think it would be best if I stayed with Nick right now.” Paige replied.

“No. This is a private conversation, you caused this. As a Healer, I must talk to the patient about their health, in a private and confidential manner.”

“Paimon would insist.”

“Well, Vassago would also insist. Please take it up with him.”

Paige pouted but was ignored. Chloe then escorted her to the reception, leaving Nick alone to consider what the hell had just happened to him.