Advance Australia Fair [Old World of Darkness]
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
I would honestly expect our Spheres to be more along the lines of Astra 2, Yatudhana 3, Dharma 0, Maya 0, etc.
Defining broad areas of coherent competency within our paradigm, like how a Virtual Adept might have Spheres of Exploits (for on the fly real world stuff), Firewall (for countermagic and anti-scrying), Footprints (for scrying and gathering info), Turing Test (for dealing with spirits via the AI paradigm), and Hacking (for seizing control of technology). Or a Hermetic might have Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Ether.
Or something like that, anyway, rather than mapping to some weirdly universal model shared by all the Traditions and the Technocracy, who are just pretending to be different weirdoes who actually believe in their paradigm. The Nine Spheres have always been a contrivance for gameability, and they sit uneasily in the setting even as a unifying idea amongst the Traditions.
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Or we could have full Indian monster demigod spheres. I guess that works too.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Midline. Best (or worst) of both worlds. Room to breathe and room to doubt, murder at your own pace.
-[X] Go with Odette. You want to hear more about what she has to say.
-[X] Go with Odette. You want to hear more about what she has to say.
Since we're a shapeshifter, it might be us. Also, Ichiban.
Nidhoggr
Suletta Permetta
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh you poor kid, you are gonna get Kaneki'd so bad.
A sniper on the objective? Not on your life. (For the record this is almost everything I know about Overwatch)
[X] Midline. Best (or worst) of both worlds. Room to breathe and room to doubt, murder at your own pace.
-[X] Go with Odette. You want to hear more about what she has to say.
- Location
- madison
[X] Midline. Best (or worst) of both worlds. Room to breathe and room to doubt, murder at your own pace.
we are an archer who can rip people apart, a positon where we can shoot or tear works well for us.
also, has anyone else noticed how both the traditions and technocrats are treating us almost exactly the same? dear old dad said the crats where going to sit on us until they found a leash they were confident in, the assholes who have us now are only willing to use us because they already have a leash they are confident in. I bet If dame asshole thought we could survive the kill switch she put on us she would be keeping us locked up while she found one we couldn't.
we are an archer who can rip people apart, a positon where we can shoot or tear works well for us.
also, has anyone else noticed how both the traditions and technocrats are treating us almost exactly the same? dear old dad said the crats where going to sit on us until they found a leash they were confident in, the assholes who have us now are only willing to use us because they already have a leash they are confident in. I bet If dame asshole thought we could survive the kill switch she put on us she would be keeping us locked up while she found one we couldn't.
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- Location
- madison
I meant tradition as in the magic side things rather than them being big on following tradition. Also, I doubt that. They justified essentially enslaving us by citing old traditions. mercenary does not mean they don't have odd traditions they cling to.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I meant the same thing. They aren't Trads. The Dame Commander probably isn't even a mage. They claim to be Knights of St. George.
Incidentally, the reason they cited for our detention is, essentially, that they could make use of us. If they couldn't, I doubt they would have kept us.
This whole thing with our service is sketchy. If the Union were to find they were behind the attack and are currently keeping us, they might be in trouble. Less trouble than we'd be in, that's for sure, but still. The attack they pulled was a pretty big violation of neutrality, and now there are two 'outsiders' who know about it. Neither is interested in revealing it, of course, but should they push too hard... They are taking risks bringing us on board and granting us some - any - measure of freedom.
Also, do you think that the Union didn't have the means to make a leash like theirs? They are the most technologically advanced faction around.
Incidentally, the reason they cited for our detention is, essentially, that they could make use of us. If they couldn't, I doubt they would have kept us.
This whole thing with our service is sketchy. If the Union were to find they were behind the attack and are currently keeping us, they might be in trouble. Less trouble than we'd be in, that's for sure, but still. The attack they pulled was a pretty big violation of neutrality, and now there are two 'outsiders' who know about it. Neither is interested in revealing it, of course, but should they push too hard... They are taking risks bringing us on board and granting us some - any - measure of freedom.
Also, do you think that the Union didn't have the means to make a leash like theirs? They are the most technologically advanced faction around.
- Location
- madison
remember that time we woke up with a lump? a lump that then vanished? that was their attempt at a kill switch. I think they were trying to find a way to implant a bomb into us that our rapid healing wouldn't just push out. Given dad hinted they couldn't they were likely having trouble with it. It's not like they could just give him a tattoo in magic ink that could kill him with no RnD.
Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
Life/Entropy/Time/Prime(/Corr?) at high enough would let you set up a conditional killswitch. Remember, anything a Trad can do a Crat can do too (as long as they can justify it in-paridigm and it's not using Spirit or any of the other spheres Crats can't get.)
- Location
- madison
dad implied they didn't have a leash, that implies that for whatever reason they were having trouble making one. It could have been something as simple as our nature necessitating something custom, and no one with the right spheres to do it easily and quickly was on hand. It's also possible that whatever dame asshole used to tattoo us was some heavy duty shit, it wouldn't be surprising for a mercenary group that old to have one or two end artifacts kicking around. Or the tattoo actually can't kill us and she's reckless enough to bank on us not figuring that out.
- Location
- in the trash
If the Technocracy tried and failed, there are a couple of explanations.
1. The Dame-Commander is bluffing us and has no leash. On the other hand, Ring of Truth only requires 1 dot spheres.
2. Dad was running interference.
3. The Technocracy was hampered by paradigmatic blinders.
4. They had to use some really high level shit to install the bomb switch.
5. We did have an implanted bomb, but our rescuers/kidnappers disabled it. And then repurposed it because they're a bunch of pricks.
1. The Dame-Commander is bluffing us and has no leash. On the other hand, Ring of Truth only requires 1 dot spheres.
2. Dad was running interference.
3. The Technocracy was hampered by paradigmatic blinders.
4. They had to use some really high level shit to install the bomb switch.
5. We did have an implanted bomb, but our rescuers/kidnappers disabled it. And then repurposed it because they're a bunch of pricks.
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- Location
- in the trash
Oh right; I keep calling a bomb but it's not really a bomb.
It's a magical tattoo that causes us great agony when activated. What I want to know here is if she was being literal (it vaporises a huge chunk of our body), or some metaphysical bullshit like taking years off our lifespan or a piece of our soul or something.
It's a magical tattoo that causes us great agony when activated. What I want to know here is if she was being literal (it vaporises a huge chunk of our body), or some metaphysical bullshit like taking years off our lifespan or a piece of our soul or something.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
He said that they maybe would start looking at us as an asset instead of just a tissue factory if they had the infrastructure to contain us. He also said he can't take the chance they would not.
Interfering with making us controllable/harmless would make things worse for us, so this possibility could probably be ruled out.
That is kind of puzzling, though - the fact that they needed infrastructure in place. Is this tattoo really enough to hold us?
- Location
- in the trash
It's a matter of paradigm.
Technocratic paradigms (which are often "this is just hyperadvanced science/psychology/economics) tend to be a more chained to infrastructure.
For example, a Verbena witch and a Progenitor scientist might both be able to make a life extension drug. But the Progenitor's paradigm is that she needs a state of the art laboratory. She needs highly unstable reagents that can only be created under careful conditions. She needs equipment to filter out unwanted chemicals, and spectrometers to ensure the purity of the final product. Etc etc.
Meanwhile the Verbena witch goes out and gathers a bunch of exotic ingredients from magical ingredients and plants, throws it in her boiling cauldron on the night of a full moon, and cackles madly while dancing around the cauldron. Stir every five minutes.
In the end, both get the same mechanical result; they have a drug that extends a person's lifespan. But the methods look very different.
(The advantage to Crats is that their stuff is less likely to blow up in their face due to Paradox)
Technocratic paradigms (which are often "this is just hyperadvanced science/psychology/economics) tend to be a more chained to infrastructure.
For example, a Verbena witch and a Progenitor scientist might both be able to make a life extension drug. But the Progenitor's paradigm is that she needs a state of the art laboratory. She needs highly unstable reagents that can only be created under careful conditions. She needs equipment to filter out unwanted chemicals, and spectrometers to ensure the purity of the final product. Etc etc.
Meanwhile the Verbena witch goes out and gathers a bunch of exotic ingredients from magical ingredients and plants, throws it in her boiling cauldron on the night of a full moon, and cackles madly while dancing around the cauldron. Stir every five minutes.
In the end, both get the same mechanical result; they have a drug that extends a person's lifespan. But the methods look very different.
(The advantage to Crats is that their stuff is less likely to blow up in their face due to Paradox)
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Sounds more like it's targeting our Spirit part?
Chapter Sixteen: Harrow Road
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
"I'll um… stay around the uh… middle?" you say hesitantly. Acutely aware with every halting syllable that dribbles out of your mouth that you're being judged by everyone else in the car. You don't know where to look so you just kind of look anywhere that isn't making eye-contact. "I just, um, doubt I'm ready to jump right into the middle."
"You're gonna have to 'jump right into the middle' sooner or later," says Nathan, somewhat muffled since he's still facing his door.
"That's the idea of building up to it," Ma Jiayi says patiently. "It won't help anyone if he bites off more than he can chew and gets himself killed on his first mission."
You really wish he'd phrased that differently. Quick say something else so you don't have to think about it.
"And is it okay if I partner with Odette? It's just that, y'know... " you glance at her, pause a moment, then look back at Ma Jiayi and keep referring to her in the third person. "She can still shoot them if she's hanging back looking after me. Right?"
"Yes, that is how guns work," she replies.
"Suits me just fine," Nathan grunts.
"Okay. Glad we got that all straightened out," you say. You get the distinct impression that nobody's listening to you any more, so you just kind of slump back in your seat.
"Hey!" Ichiban chimes in from the stereo. "Bring me back a vampire skull! I wanna varnish it and make it a paperweight. I can pop bottlecaps with the fangs and shit."
Everyone ignores him. Odette just checks her pistols. They're handsome things, shiny and chrome, frames adorned generously with gold filigree. She must obsessively maintain them to keep them looking so showroom-good if she's actually using them to kill people too. You're not really a gun person so you have no idea what type they are, but the profiles are weird. The empty space ahead of the trigger guard and under the barrel have been filled in with a square block of metal, housing what looks like tac-lights and laser sights. She pensively twirls a six-inch suppressor between her fingers, internally debating how loud she wants to go. Jesus, the pistols are already almost a foot long each, she must be trying to overcompensate without being so gauche as to use Desert Eagles.
The sky darkens as you drive. As the light wicks away towards the east, grey giving way to purple and blue, giving way to an ugly, burnt orange. The glow of Sydney pollutes the night. Scorches the bottoms of the clouds. It's shaded but it's not dark here, it's never truly dark here. The sedan's window wipers thud back and forth. Scrubbing the crystalline windshield clear. Streetlights shine and spark in the beaded drops that remain. Little bits of live wire; coppery bright, stark and harsh against the gloom.
You rest your cheek on your palm and watch the neighbourhood roll past. You've... never really been out here, down here, before. The Links weren't a gated community but you could tell where the borders were. Where the boundaries lay. The Links was the place with the the nice houses in neat rows sitting on well watered lots. The place where every driveway had a BMW or a Mercedes and the police rolled through every few hours.
Domestics and serving staff to make the broad bay windows gleam. Nannies for the kids. Gardeners and mowers to trim and manicure the extravagant green. But the people who actually lived there lawyers and doctors. Vice presidents and civil ministers. People who were Important even if they didn't rule the world (you sort of wonder how many might have actually been like that heh). It seeped into everything. Permeated everything. It was in the little details, the way it all fit together and felt. The place where everybody knew everybody and nobody knew anybody.
This is different.
This is new.
You've never been in a place that's felt so...sick before.
Yellowing, heat-withered trees line narrow streets. The buildings barely rise above their boughs, three, four stories at the most. A kilometre away you can see apartment complexes jutting up into the rainy sky. Outlines hazed by the steaming, misty, storm. A few window squares shining with amber light. Jiayi slows, humming to himself as he manoeuvres around the parked cars pressed against either curb. Shadows cluster beneath eaves. Broken windows sit behind barred grates, halfheartedly boarded up. A stack of newspapers sits on the corner. Liquefying in the downpour. Glued to the cement sidewalk as they slowly fall apart.
A rhinestone studded dog collar dangles, half in a gutter. Bobbing and knocking against the rusted grate as the water flows past.
"...What happened?" You ask softly.
"Sabbat." Jiayi says. The car stops, he turns the wheel hand over gauntleted hand and manoeuvres it back in between an off-white van with Community Centre on the side and a four-door sedan. You can see dust lining the dashboard. Rain drips through the half-cracked sunroof. Shops across the street, already closed. A construction site just off the footpath, plastic sheeting stained with rust. He gestures without looking back. Without so much as turning his head. The radio still playing his classical music.
"Targets are in there. Remember Meghanada: priority is the hemophages. Spare the blood-slaves if you can."
And then he just...takes a dog-eared paperback with a broken spine out of the console and rests it against the wheel. A second passes. A blunt, brass-plated finger gingerly turns the page. You can hear the rasp in the quiet of the car.
"B-" the door opens, you jerk towards the sound. Clutching your unstrung bow against your chest like a security blanket. The tails of Nathan's coat slip from the seat and whip away into the rain. His pallid form visible for a second before the downpour swallows him. Vanishing behind a curtain of chainlink, a veil of rain.
Jiayi turns the page, reaches over and closes the door with a heavy thud. You fidget in your seat, glance over at Odette. Unsure of what to do. Where to put your hands, whether to stand and step out or just sit and shut up or... what. She's tapping her toe against the floor and staring off at nothing. Fist against her cheek, lips shaping words. Numbers. Counting back, counting down.
Scarlet light flashes in the distance. Lightning forks and flashes overhead; thunder rolls through, shaking the windows in their grooves. You flinch, hunch down as you hear a second sound beneath it. Something like shattering wood but bright, bright and brassy and metallic.
The red glow pulses again. Its darker this time, so deep it's almost purple. It reminds you of a bruise. Burst blood vessels beneath the skin. You hear another bark and then nothing.
"Three, two, and... one makes ninety all told." The woman beside you sniffs and rolls her shoulders. "Took his sweet time. Such a show off, he's like a peacock in black mascara you know? Who can stand men like that?"
You look at her like she's a fucking alien. She rolls her eyes too and sighs. "Just try not to trip. This is your show and all, I'd hate for you to eat shit on opening night."
And then her door opens and it's just you and Jiayi in the car. He turns another page with a soft rasp, you could be on another planet for all he cares. Your heart thuds in your throat. Your fingertips start to tingle. The dim lights above seem a thousand miles distant, the seat creaks as you hunch down. You're not going to do this are you? You're not really going to do this are you? This is -heh- this is some really crazy shit. Hunting vampires? That's not, this isn't- what if you're hallucinating? What if this is really all just some week-long psychotic break a-and you're just going to flip out and murder some orderlies or shoot a bucket of arrows into people just trying to go to their fucking civic hall. What if these people just kidnapped you and-
Oh.
Oh right that part happened, heh.
Another page rasps. You act before you can think and throw the door open before you have to hear that soft, scraping sound again. Gutter water splashes over your feet. Rain patters on your hood, droplets clinging to your lashes. Your shoes and socks are soaked through in seconds. Your hoodie a moment later. But out here, standing in the rain, you do feel a bit better. A bit more together. A bit more real. Odette's already started walking towards the open gate, you hurry around to follow her. Pause, pivot, and dash back to close the door.
You try to focus on breathing. On the physical sensation of your chest expanding, ribs pressing out against tanned skin. Like you're lining up a shot at the range. It helps a little too. Your shoes squelch and bleed water as you step onto the sidewalk. You hesitate and drop to your knee. Bending your bow, running the string through the eyeholes, half folded over the thing trying to keep it all as dry as you can. It's easier than you remembered. Alien, foreign brawn tenses and shifts. Cords of stone fused to the slender bone.
Odette's back is barely visible through the haze, shit shit shit. You stop drooling over yourself and charge after her. Ground vanishing beneath your feet, chewed up in seconds. You slow from a sprint to a jog, a jog to a walk as you draw even. Trying not to look like some psychotic stalker or brave vampire going for the rear attack. She cocks her head and just gives you a Look.
You swallow your apology and match your stride to hers (you probably didn't even need to run, she isn't really walking all that fast). The two of you walking together into the site. Scaffolding on one side, orange mud and clay underfoot. Tufts of green half buried by earth moving equipment that sits idle and rusting. The community center is parallel to the lot. A brick pile beneath a sloping roof. No lights shine inside.
The first body lays sprawled over a cracked cement paving tile, breathing shallowly. Scarlet trickling down his cheek and sticking to his grey-streaked beard. There's a woman beside him, face-down. Features concealed beneath her headscarf. Her foot sticks out into the rain but they're dry as they can be in the storm. Odette doesn't stop to check on them. You hesitate but neither do you. Trust. Team-building. Nathan wouldn't have killed them and they would've hurt themselves if they tried to fight you right? Right.
A younger man, slumped against a concrete wall, dark hair plastered to his scalp by the rain. An older woman, old enough to be your grandmother, laying in a heap beneath a blue tarp. A broad-shouldered guy in a tight t-shirt and sweats on one of the catwalks. Pipe-struts dented and his arm's bent at an odd angle but he's breathing. They're all still breathing. You broke into the vampire's yard and you didn't even kill their guard dogs, you didn't even hurt them really.
"Watch your step." Odette skirts the edges of a crumpled form laying in the centre of the field. You turn and your breath catches in your chest.
It was caught halfway between human and...something when it came undone. Sliced in half from groin to skull. Her dress split with a tailor's shears. She was thin. Model thin, junkie thin. Skin shadowed by lividity. Razored teeth poke past ruby red lips and blood-flushed gums. You don't know what her eyes look like, she has no eyes. The top of her head a dome of bone and lavender meat. A single limb lays beside her, half-transformed into ropy brawn and sickle talons.
Your stomach churns.
The one pinned against the wall has no head. Just a ragged stump from the neck up. You can see the handprint in the brickwork. Burned and scorched and branded into the rock in the shape of a man's palm. The head flash-glued the corpse in place. Its legs twist the wrong way, pale pink legs burst out of ragged jeans. Shadows flicker and thrash around its feet. Ink-black tentacles twitching in their death throes.
Your stomach aches.
There's a hole ahead. A wet, raw wound in the earth. Wind moans around it, trash and detritus swirl on the updraft. Rivers of rainwater, miniature cataracts, cascade down the lip. You can hear bellowing below. See the flicker of scarlet light. The dead, the undead, the aliens, the vampires lay around it. Red-black, treacly ichor, joining the flow. The human body fed through an infomercial food processor; dead meat ripped and minced and cubed and chunked and even the ground beneath them gouged out in razor thin arcs. You...can't actually tell how many there were to begin with.
Your stomach squirms and you hear the sticky, sickly sounds of hunger.
Odette sideyes you as she circles the hole. "Don't throw up on me now alright? This is where we earn our pay."
You nod mutely, trying to swallow back the drool that floods your mouth. Keep it from spilling out. You couldn't tell her if you wanted to. You wouldn't know how. She pops a cap and tosses a flare down the hole. Watching, gauging, following the pure white flame. When she jumps it's almost a relief. This time you don't have to work yourself up to follow her down, down into that open grave. You just want to be away from those bodies. Away from that feeling. The pangs in your belly.
Lean forward, just keep leaning forward. Let yourself fall. Cold earth shoots up around you. A rush of air, slithering shadows. The impact of landing just rattles you, shakes you but it doesn't hurt. You didn't even really know that before you jumped heh, that was dumb of you. You're ankle deep in cold mud, sunken into a crouch, and then you lift your head up to awkwardly, scan your surroundings in panic but instead you just end up staring. A little slack-jawed, a little awed, because it is a big fucking room. The ceiling is vaulted, rising high overhead. Shored up by cracked, clear resin and concrete columns. Tunnels spoke out. Tight and dark and claustrophobic. A pallid giant lays in the centre. Bloated belly covered in scars. Heavily muscled arms tipped in arthropodal claws. It has a head but you can see faces, other faces, slack and calloused and worn away. In the belly. In the shoulder. Half-submerged skulls poking against the skin.
"Get ready!"
And then you don't see anymore before they're coming. Boiling out of the tunnels.
Crawling over each other like ants.
It's just a flicker of impressions. A collage of details and associations. Canvas wings splayed between bony fingers, laced with veins. Raw skin, baring the striated sinews beneath. Carving claws, gutting claws, wet from the earth, the cold, clammy clay.
And then Odette is laughing, guns in either hand. Crackling like a bonfire as she stitches a line of white-needles across the swarm. Flitting, spinning and whipping from position to position. Pose to pose. Chewing them down before they can spill into the chamber.
And you?
You're back in that vault. At the bottom of the stairs with your sister. You don't have to reach for it, not really, it comes to you. Or maybe it was always there: your happy place. That moment of crystal clarity where everything made sense. Draw, inhale, sight, loose, exhale. Again. Again. Again. Feathering alien bodies to the slow thud of your heartbeat. Utterly unsurprised at the fact that there's twenty arrows in your quiver, always twenty. You take a mechanical, methodical approach to it all and it seems to work. Don't try for the fancy skill shots you think you might be able to make. Just do what you know. Make sure the ones Odette tags stay down. Take them in the head when you can. They're tough, tougher than the Pentex-men, but you've got this. You have this. And sure Odette isn't Lakshmi but-
A furious monster drops from the ceiling, screaming something about a cane. Lean and rangey and heavy and you hit the ground so hard your jaw snaps shut like a steel trap. It's in your face, it's lunging at you. Lipless mouth packed with ivory fangs. Blind face twitching with pallid rage. It has one of your arrows in its shoulder. You can feel its hot breath feel the air displace as its gnashing jaws draw closer and closer and even as you fight with all your might you know that
You
Because you're lying in the mud.
You are lying in the mud.
You stand and unfold, holding the dangling creature out at arm's length as you try to brush yourself off with your free hand. Your efforts only smear the filth further. Ugh. How did this even happen? How were you so sloppy? Gods you're dirty. What if Father finds out? You shudder at the indignity.
In the background some mad dancer is spinning, spitting death and fire. You'll deal with that later, right now you're just... inspecting your catch. You tilt it this way and that.
[...What are you?] You ask in Sanskrit. The civilised tongue. You don't really expect a civilised answer but you have hopes.
It warbles something about walking sticks you don't really understand and wrenches itself free, writhing half-liquid like a cat. Choosing to fight rather than flee for its miserable life. You watch with half-amused curiosity as it chews in vain on your wrist, desperately gnawing in hopes of tasting the sweet, royal blood within. You curl your arm, bring it close, and bite it back.
Your fangs sing deep into the crook of its neck, piercing the blood-rich veins as its own spring free in a howl of pain. No ordinary flavour, not one of man or god. You taste anaemic lust and watered-down want. Beauty stolen and life scavenged. Something new. Your curiosity blossoms.
[Hrm...]
Your claws sink into the slick, warm meat of its torso as you pierce it from both sides. Hear it squeal and shriek and scream as it thrashes in a mad seizure of agony. Sink your hands wrist-deep in the creature, grasping a few ribs in one and its spine in the other. And then, almost contemplatively, you rip it in two.
Barely a drop of wasted blood lands in the filth as the creature is torn asunder. It detonates in a pink cloud of flesh, of blood and bone. Into tendrils of squirming, black-laced meat. It flows into you, into your clawed fingers, into your palms, stray threads sinking into your forearms rather than fall to be wasted. Your veins bulge. Swollen and bloated as you digest your meal.
You cock your head. Lick your lips. Bring up one gore-soaked, scarlet-dyed hand to lick your palm. It tastes...
Hrm.
There's a small skirmish raging around you. The dancer vresus a dozen or so of the tick-things. None of them seemed to have really noticed your light snack, between the darkness and the crazed shadows cast by the burning taper. You'd be insulted if you remotely valued their attention.
But still... it is a battle.
[ ] Take the opportunity to eat a few more of the sickly beasts. You're still not sure if you like it or not exactly and could use a more informed palate.
[ ] Find your wondrous, snake-twined bow or another favored tool and dispense with these creatures altogether. Try and make some sport of it.
[ ] Politely introduce yourself to the dancer and get some answers. She's busy fighting the scuttling things so she can't be that important, but you can hope.
[ ] This is ridiculous. There has obviously been some catastrophic foul up involved in this chain of events. Beckon a servant to attend to your needs.
"You're gonna have to 'jump right into the middle' sooner or later," says Nathan, somewhat muffled since he's still facing his door.
"That's the idea of building up to it," Ma Jiayi says patiently. "It won't help anyone if he bites off more than he can chew and gets himself killed on his first mission."
You really wish he'd phrased that differently. Quick say something else so you don't have to think about it.
"And is it okay if I partner with Odette? It's just that, y'know... " you glance at her, pause a moment, then look back at Ma Jiayi and keep referring to her in the third person. "She can still shoot them if she's hanging back looking after me. Right?"
"Yes, that is how guns work," she replies.
"Suits me just fine," Nathan grunts.
"Okay. Glad we got that all straightened out," you say. You get the distinct impression that nobody's listening to you any more, so you just kind of slump back in your seat.
"Hey!" Ichiban chimes in from the stereo. "Bring me back a vampire skull! I wanna varnish it and make it a paperweight. I can pop bottlecaps with the fangs and shit."
Everyone ignores him. Odette just checks her pistols. They're handsome things, shiny and chrome, frames adorned generously with gold filigree. She must obsessively maintain them to keep them looking so showroom-good if she's actually using them to kill people too. You're not really a gun person so you have no idea what type they are, but the profiles are weird. The empty space ahead of the trigger guard and under the barrel have been filled in with a square block of metal, housing what looks like tac-lights and laser sights. She pensively twirls a six-inch suppressor between her fingers, internally debating how loud she wants to go. Jesus, the pistols are already almost a foot long each, she must be trying to overcompensate without being so gauche as to use Desert Eagles.
The sky darkens as you drive. As the light wicks away towards the east, grey giving way to purple and blue, giving way to an ugly, burnt orange. The glow of Sydney pollutes the night. Scorches the bottoms of the clouds. It's shaded but it's not dark here, it's never truly dark here. The sedan's window wipers thud back and forth. Scrubbing the crystalline windshield clear. Streetlights shine and spark in the beaded drops that remain. Little bits of live wire; coppery bright, stark and harsh against the gloom.
You rest your cheek on your palm and watch the neighbourhood roll past. You've... never really been out here, down here, before. The Links weren't a gated community but you could tell where the borders were. Where the boundaries lay. The Links was the place with the the nice houses in neat rows sitting on well watered lots. The place where every driveway had a BMW or a Mercedes and the police rolled through every few hours.
Domestics and serving staff to make the broad bay windows gleam. Nannies for the kids. Gardeners and mowers to trim and manicure the extravagant green. But the people who actually lived there lawyers and doctors. Vice presidents and civil ministers. People who were Important even if they didn't rule the world (you sort of wonder how many might have actually been like that heh). It seeped into everything. Permeated everything. It was in the little details, the way it all fit together and felt. The place where everybody knew everybody and nobody knew anybody.
This is different.
This is new.
You've never been in a place that's felt so...sick before.
Yellowing, heat-withered trees line narrow streets. The buildings barely rise above their boughs, three, four stories at the most. A kilometre away you can see apartment complexes jutting up into the rainy sky. Outlines hazed by the steaming, misty, storm. A few window squares shining with amber light. Jiayi slows, humming to himself as he manoeuvres around the parked cars pressed against either curb. Shadows cluster beneath eaves. Broken windows sit behind barred grates, halfheartedly boarded up. A stack of newspapers sits on the corner. Liquefying in the downpour. Glued to the cement sidewalk as they slowly fall apart.
A rhinestone studded dog collar dangles, half in a gutter. Bobbing and knocking against the rusted grate as the water flows past.
"...What happened?" You ask softly.
"Sabbat." Jiayi says. The car stops, he turns the wheel hand over gauntleted hand and manoeuvres it back in between an off-white van with Community Centre on the side and a four-door sedan. You can see dust lining the dashboard. Rain drips through the half-cracked sunroof. Shops across the street, already closed. A construction site just off the footpath, plastic sheeting stained with rust. He gestures without looking back. Without so much as turning his head. The radio still playing his classical music.
"Targets are in there. Remember Meghanada: priority is the hemophages. Spare the blood-slaves if you can."
And then he just...takes a dog-eared paperback with a broken spine out of the console and rests it against the wheel. A second passes. A blunt, brass-plated finger gingerly turns the page. You can hear the rasp in the quiet of the car.
"B-" the door opens, you jerk towards the sound. Clutching your unstrung bow against your chest like a security blanket. The tails of Nathan's coat slip from the seat and whip away into the rain. His pallid form visible for a second before the downpour swallows him. Vanishing behind a curtain of chainlink, a veil of rain.
Jiayi turns the page, reaches over and closes the door with a heavy thud. You fidget in your seat, glance over at Odette. Unsure of what to do. Where to put your hands, whether to stand and step out or just sit and shut up or... what. She's tapping her toe against the floor and staring off at nothing. Fist against her cheek, lips shaping words. Numbers. Counting back, counting down.
Scarlet light flashes in the distance. Lightning forks and flashes overhead; thunder rolls through, shaking the windows in their grooves. You flinch, hunch down as you hear a second sound beneath it. Something like shattering wood but bright, bright and brassy and metallic.
The red glow pulses again. Its darker this time, so deep it's almost purple. It reminds you of a bruise. Burst blood vessels beneath the skin. You hear another bark and then nothing.
"Three, two, and... one makes ninety all told." The woman beside you sniffs and rolls her shoulders. "Took his sweet time. Such a show off, he's like a peacock in black mascara you know? Who can stand men like that?"
You look at her like she's a fucking alien. She rolls her eyes too and sighs. "Just try not to trip. This is your show and all, I'd hate for you to eat shit on opening night."
And then her door opens and it's just you and Jiayi in the car. He turns another page with a soft rasp, you could be on another planet for all he cares. Your heart thuds in your throat. Your fingertips start to tingle. The dim lights above seem a thousand miles distant, the seat creaks as you hunch down. You're not going to do this are you? You're not really going to do this are you? This is -heh- this is some really crazy shit. Hunting vampires? That's not, this isn't- what if you're hallucinating? What if this is really all just some week-long psychotic break a-and you're just going to flip out and murder some orderlies or shoot a bucket of arrows into people just trying to go to their fucking civic hall. What if these people just kidnapped you and-
Oh.
Oh right that part happened, heh.
Another page rasps. You act before you can think and throw the door open before you have to hear that soft, scraping sound again. Gutter water splashes over your feet. Rain patters on your hood, droplets clinging to your lashes. Your shoes and socks are soaked through in seconds. Your hoodie a moment later. But out here, standing in the rain, you do feel a bit better. A bit more together. A bit more real. Odette's already started walking towards the open gate, you hurry around to follow her. Pause, pivot, and dash back to close the door.
You try to focus on breathing. On the physical sensation of your chest expanding, ribs pressing out against tanned skin. Like you're lining up a shot at the range. It helps a little too. Your shoes squelch and bleed water as you step onto the sidewalk. You hesitate and drop to your knee. Bending your bow, running the string through the eyeholes, half folded over the thing trying to keep it all as dry as you can. It's easier than you remembered. Alien, foreign brawn tenses and shifts. Cords of stone fused to the slender bone.
Odette's back is barely visible through the haze, shit shit shit. You stop drooling over yourself and charge after her. Ground vanishing beneath your feet, chewed up in seconds. You slow from a sprint to a jog, a jog to a walk as you draw even. Trying not to look like some psychotic stalker or brave vampire going for the rear attack. She cocks her head and just gives you a Look.
You swallow your apology and match your stride to hers (you probably didn't even need to run, she isn't really walking all that fast). The two of you walking together into the site. Scaffolding on one side, orange mud and clay underfoot. Tufts of green half buried by earth moving equipment that sits idle and rusting. The community center is parallel to the lot. A brick pile beneath a sloping roof. No lights shine inside.
The first body lays sprawled over a cracked cement paving tile, breathing shallowly. Scarlet trickling down his cheek and sticking to his grey-streaked beard. There's a woman beside him, face-down. Features concealed beneath her headscarf. Her foot sticks out into the rain but they're dry as they can be in the storm. Odette doesn't stop to check on them. You hesitate but neither do you. Trust. Team-building. Nathan wouldn't have killed them and they would've hurt themselves if they tried to fight you right? Right.
A younger man, slumped against a concrete wall, dark hair plastered to his scalp by the rain. An older woman, old enough to be your grandmother, laying in a heap beneath a blue tarp. A broad-shouldered guy in a tight t-shirt and sweats on one of the catwalks. Pipe-struts dented and his arm's bent at an odd angle but he's breathing. They're all still breathing. You broke into the vampire's yard and you didn't even kill their guard dogs, you didn't even hurt them really.
"Watch your step." Odette skirts the edges of a crumpled form laying in the centre of the field. You turn and your breath catches in your chest.
It was caught halfway between human and...something when it came undone. Sliced in half from groin to skull. Her dress split with a tailor's shears. She was thin. Model thin, junkie thin. Skin shadowed by lividity. Razored teeth poke past ruby red lips and blood-flushed gums. You don't know what her eyes look like, she has no eyes. The top of her head a dome of bone and lavender meat. A single limb lays beside her, half-transformed into ropy brawn and sickle talons.
Your stomach churns.
The one pinned against the wall has no head. Just a ragged stump from the neck up. You can see the handprint in the brickwork. Burned and scorched and branded into the rock in the shape of a man's palm. The head flash-glued the corpse in place. Its legs twist the wrong way, pale pink legs burst out of ragged jeans. Shadows flicker and thrash around its feet. Ink-black tentacles twitching in their death throes.
Your stomach aches.
There's a hole ahead. A wet, raw wound in the earth. Wind moans around it, trash and detritus swirl on the updraft. Rivers of rainwater, miniature cataracts, cascade down the lip. You can hear bellowing below. See the flicker of scarlet light. The dead, the undead, the aliens, the vampires lay around it. Red-black, treacly ichor, joining the flow. The human body fed through an infomercial food processor; dead meat ripped and minced and cubed and chunked and even the ground beneath them gouged out in razor thin arcs. You...can't actually tell how many there were to begin with.
Your stomach squirms and you hear the sticky, sickly sounds of hunger.
Odette sideyes you as she circles the hole. "Don't throw up on me now alright? This is where we earn our pay."
You nod mutely, trying to swallow back the drool that floods your mouth. Keep it from spilling out. You couldn't tell her if you wanted to. You wouldn't know how. She pops a cap and tosses a flare down the hole. Watching, gauging, following the pure white flame. When she jumps it's almost a relief. This time you don't have to work yourself up to follow her down, down into that open grave. You just want to be away from those bodies. Away from that feeling. The pangs in your belly.
Lean forward, just keep leaning forward. Let yourself fall. Cold earth shoots up around you. A rush of air, slithering shadows. The impact of landing just rattles you, shakes you but it doesn't hurt. You didn't even really know that before you jumped heh, that was dumb of you. You're ankle deep in cold mud, sunken into a crouch, and then you lift your head up to awkwardly, scan your surroundings in panic but instead you just end up staring. A little slack-jawed, a little awed, because it is a big fucking room. The ceiling is vaulted, rising high overhead. Shored up by cracked, clear resin and concrete columns. Tunnels spoke out. Tight and dark and claustrophobic. A pallid giant lays in the centre. Bloated belly covered in scars. Heavily muscled arms tipped in arthropodal claws. It has a head but you can see faces, other faces, slack and calloused and worn away. In the belly. In the shoulder. Half-submerged skulls poking against the skin.
"Get ready!"
And then you don't see anymore before they're coming. Boiling out of the tunnels.
Crawling over each other like ants.
It's just a flicker of impressions. A collage of details and associations. Canvas wings splayed between bony fingers, laced with veins. Raw skin, baring the striated sinews beneath. Carving claws, gutting claws, wet from the earth, the cold, clammy clay.
And then Odette is laughing, guns in either hand. Crackling like a bonfire as she stitches a line of white-needles across the swarm. Flitting, spinning and whipping from position to position. Pose to pose. Chewing them down before they can spill into the chamber.
And you?
You're back in that vault. At the bottom of the stairs with your sister. You don't have to reach for it, not really, it comes to you. Or maybe it was always there: your happy place. That moment of crystal clarity where everything made sense. Draw, inhale, sight, loose, exhale. Again. Again. Again. Feathering alien bodies to the slow thud of your heartbeat. Utterly unsurprised at the fact that there's twenty arrows in your quiver, always twenty. You take a mechanical, methodical approach to it all and it seems to work. Don't try for the fancy skill shots you think you might be able to make. Just do what you know. Make sure the ones Odette tags stay down. Take them in the head when you can. They're tough, tougher than the Pentex-men, but you've got this. You have this. And sure Odette isn't Lakshmi but-
A furious monster drops from the ceiling, screaming something about a cane. Lean and rangey and heavy and you hit the ground so hard your jaw snaps shut like a steel trap. It's in your face, it's lunging at you. Lipless mouth packed with ivory fangs. Blind face twitching with pallid rage. It has one of your arrows in its shoulder. You can feel its hot breath feel the air displace as its gnashing jaws draw closer and closer and even as you fight with all your might you know that
You
I
Are Am
Falling
Rising
You catch the thing's head. Black claws digging into the slick scalp. Squeezing hard enough that it squeals and slashes at your arm. You barely notice as the strikes spark off your forearm. Skin rippling, banded in streaks of fiery orange and sable black. You have moderately more pressing concerns to deal with right now.Because you're lying in the mud.
You are lying in the mud.
You stand and unfold, holding the dangling creature out at arm's length as you try to brush yourself off with your free hand. Your efforts only smear the filth further. Ugh. How did this even happen? How were you so sloppy? Gods you're dirty. What if Father finds out? You shudder at the indignity.
In the background some mad dancer is spinning, spitting death and fire. You'll deal with that later, right now you're just... inspecting your catch. You tilt it this way and that.
[...What are you?] You ask in Sanskrit. The civilised tongue. You don't really expect a civilised answer but you have hopes.
It warbles something about walking sticks you don't really understand and wrenches itself free, writhing half-liquid like a cat. Choosing to fight rather than flee for its miserable life. You watch with half-amused curiosity as it chews in vain on your wrist, desperately gnawing in hopes of tasting the sweet, royal blood within. You curl your arm, bring it close, and bite it back.
Your fangs sing deep into the crook of its neck, piercing the blood-rich veins as its own spring free in a howl of pain. No ordinary flavour, not one of man or god. You taste anaemic lust and watered-down want. Beauty stolen and life scavenged. Something new. Your curiosity blossoms.
[Hrm...]
Your claws sink into the slick, warm meat of its torso as you pierce it from both sides. Hear it squeal and shriek and scream as it thrashes in a mad seizure of agony. Sink your hands wrist-deep in the creature, grasping a few ribs in one and its spine in the other. And then, almost contemplatively, you rip it in two.
Barely a drop of wasted blood lands in the filth as the creature is torn asunder. It detonates in a pink cloud of flesh, of blood and bone. Into tendrils of squirming, black-laced meat. It flows into you, into your clawed fingers, into your palms, stray threads sinking into your forearms rather than fall to be wasted. Your veins bulge. Swollen and bloated as you digest your meal.
You cock your head. Lick your lips. Bring up one gore-soaked, scarlet-dyed hand to lick your palm. It tastes...
Hrm.
There's a small skirmish raging around you. The dancer vresus a dozen or so of the tick-things. None of them seemed to have really noticed your light snack, between the darkness and the crazed shadows cast by the burning taper. You'd be insulted if you remotely valued their attention.
But still... it is a battle.
[ ] Take the opportunity to eat a few more of the sickly beasts. You're still not sure if you like it or not exactly and could use a more informed palate.
[ ] Find your wondrous, snake-twined bow or another favored tool and dispense with these creatures altogether. Try and make some sport of it.
[ ] Politely introduce yourself to the dancer and get some answers. She's busy fighting the scuttling things so she can't be that important, but you can hope.
[ ] This is ridiculous. There has obviously been some catastrophic foul up involved in this chain of events. Beckon a servant to attend to your needs.
I don't think you'd even have Spheres. Meg is not a learned scholar, and even if he was, his magic is intensely linked with his physicality. That tends towards stuff like Yozi-style Excellency descriptors over even custom Spheres. Like, if I wanted to describe Westin's magic (another Euthanatos) it would be something like:
-As a man of divine blood, I can achieve the feats of ancient heroes such as Achilles and Perseus and Herakles, such as impossible physical prowess and unsurpassed martial skill.
-As an avatar of Fate, the world itself works to ensure that my Justice will be delivered.
-My understanding of the forgotten world of gods and spirits allows me to travel to forgotten realms and cause harm to those immortals which dwell there.
-My personal arete regarding the stolen fire of technological advance allows me to beseech the spirits of these tools for favors.
Westin is more of a learned scholar than Meg (guy's got the equivalent of a MD, a Ph.D in programming, and could probably qualify to teach at a high-end private school), so Meg's 'magic' would probably be even more tied to descriptors than to spheres. (As a side note, experienced mages tend to do this-gather tons and tons of random-ass skills at professional levels because you never know when your Virtual Adept might get doxed or mind-fried and you'll have to hack that fucking computer yourself)
Meg has probably gone full in on the "divine blood, ridiculous feats of ancient legends" etc etc though. It's a really useful paradigm!
XkaliburRage
Perpetual Procrastinator
I'll wait for people that know better then me on what to do, but I never say no to eating people.
LaRed
Are you stupid or something
- Location
- Mou Ikkai hell
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[X] Find your wondrous, snake-twined bow or another favored tool and dispense with these creatures altogether. Try and make some sport of it.
It worked on Pentex well enough.