The mirror's reflection is a source of utter bafflement accompanied by the terror of the corpse's unfeeling gaze within it. A torrent of introspective terror overcomes you, driving long, dull knives into your spirit as sensations originating moments ago pound, producing a craving for more.
Your deep internal ramblings are stopped by the soft impact of paper on your face. It slides down your face and lands on the ground in front of you. Lazily and numbly, you stare down at it, reading the message scrawled in barely legible cursive.
My dearest childe, as of my reckoning, you've mere minutes before company arrives. Please, dress yourself lest they drag you before the Prince naked.
You tilt your head off to the side, utterly confused by the entire situation. "What?" Leaves your mouth, soft and perplexed. The note is proved to be precognisant as the door gets a knock on it, jolting you to your feet. The message rings loudly, spurring a robotic walk towards the wardrobe nearby.
Grabbing a t-shirt and sweatpants to avoid nakedness, you pull them on you just as the door opens up quietly. The man you see is soft-faced, with blonde hair and a quality suit that seems ever so bulky on him. He stares at you for a second, mind catching up with reality before he utters "Sleep."
The staring contest continues for a few seconds before his face twists in fear and he closes the door quietly. You think over what just happened, working over the situation as an inkling of the thought that you may be in danger forms. A thought that is confirmed by the door blasting open and something coming at you with immense speed. A blur of skin and red silk which overwhelms your sight.
A Blistering Assault-7d10>6=[4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 7, 7)=6 Successes
Desperate Defense-5d10>6+1(Willpower Spent)=(9,1,1,1,2)=2 Successes
Staked Successfully
Something hard and sharp rams into your chest, cleaving whatever is in front of it with a dull pain, somewhat like slamming into the edge of a table. It continues onwards deeper into you until something vital is struck. The universe fades into blackness, sensation empty and emotions blase.
Trapped in a sensationless realm, you are forced to wait whilst sanity frays into ever thinner strands. It is a subjective eternity before anything happens to you, swirling patterns weaving in darkness out of, perhaps, sheer mind-numbing isolation. They speak of nothing in particular, senseless, squamous language continuing until light pierces it.
Your chest aches horribly as the new environment reveals itself to you, a brightly lit space, a dozen individuals surrounding you in the cage of steel and glass you find yourself in. They are below you by a few feet, leading you to look up and see the chain by which you are suspended.
Glass latticed by grey metal ensconces you and as you try to speak, scream, any noise at all, you cannot seem to draw breath, a fact which spirals panic through your mind until the sudden realization that you are not suffocating hits you.
Focusing on something other than terrifying revelations, the occupants of the room, all invariably strange-looking people that you can only get glimpses of through the bottom of the cage, seem to discuss something. Minutes pass until finally, a black-haired man of heavy Slavic features stands up, a look of incredible annoyance on his face, and presses a button on the wall near to him.
With a hiss of air, your lungs suddenly fill with breath. The man gets near to the glass, looking at you in the eyes. His voice, heavily accented with some variety of Eastern European nation, comes through the glass only slightly muffled. "Good evening, neonate." Tapping the glass lightly, he washes the previous aggravation from his face and offers a kind if focused expression. "You are in luck, a member of this council has, upon looking at the facts of the situation, offered to stand in for your absentee sire."
The absolute confusion is likely reflected in your face, as he merely shakes his head and has the bottom of the cage drop out. You follow along with it, landing somewhat hard on a table. The room moves without you, many people standing up and leaving without you being able to spot them, all of them save for one.
A woman of approximately six feet stares you down. She bears a ragged mess of horrible scars proudly displayed on her arms and legs by the short-sleeved tee and khaki cargo shorts that she currently wears. Her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses whilst her ears come to sharp points.
The intimidating nature she portrays is quickly disarmed by her words, "So, sweatpants and white t-shirt kinda girl, huh?" An easy grin showcasing filed to points teeth forces the words from you "You a shark girl or somethin'?"
She breaks down laughing, actually falling back into her seat. The joy radiates from her in a primal sense, unfettered by any desire for measured action, but rather basking in emotion wherever it comes. "Fuckin' hilarious!" The voice displays its savage grain, accented with the tremble of a long-forgotten classically proper speech pattern.
Edging her chair forward with a roll of the wheels, she offers her hand to you, "Name's Lacey, you?"
Staring at the hand before slowly taking it, seeing nothing else to do, you respond. "Anna, now where the hell am I?" She cuts you off by standing up with your hand in hers, walking off towards the door as you stumble to keep up with her.
Any questions are ignored as you get pulled outside into the fresh, cold night air. The car that awaits you is a heavy truck that looks like it could win a fight with a brick wall. Judging from the scrapes along its navy blue paint, it likely has. She opens the door and handles you into the passenger seat despite some protests from you.
Getting into the driver's seat, the engine rumbles to a start as she drives off. "That place is wired to the gills, doll." She speaks, easy confidence in her motions and voice. "Now we can talk all nice and free like."
Blinking away the questions that pose, you focus on the primary matter at hand, "What the fuck is happening?!" The only reason you don't scream that is the public venue, instead having it come out as a heavily heated talk.
She smiles, responding smoothly while her gaze is overtop the asphalt ahead, "You're dead, doll. Kicked the bucket, bought the farm and went belly up. Any number of ways to say you tried to meet that damned maker and ballsed it up."
Glancing at you for a moment, she continues, "'Course, someone decided that your story doesn't end there. Fed you a drop of blood, pure and strong, got you standing, made you hungry." Lacey grins, a dark thing full of animalistic fervour, "Made you a vampire, lick, a monster of elder night that eats what you used to call people for breakfast, lunch and dinner."
You want to provide resistance, to call it bullshit, a lie by a crazy bitch. Then the memories of that man in the room. Tackling him down, drinking his life into you by frenetic instinct until nothing was left to sup on. She takes a turn into a bar parking lot, someplace called The Little Lady.
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It's a scum-filled place on the inside, causing you to look down and breathe a sigh of relief that your shirt doesn't have a hole in it. A realization which spurs ever more questioning of what exactly happened. Dank wood ridden through with a dozen different fluids is accompanied by a severe liquor stench.
Patrons, men and women both, tend towards the intimidating and violent looking as well as sending eyes towards you, eyes which quickly mind their own business upon spotting your compatriot.
Lacey sits on the bar, letting rock music from another era wash over her with an easy grin. The tender doesn't bother her as she taps the stool next to her, beckoning for you to sit. As you do, she talks, "You probably got some questions, so lemme get you some answers." She leans up, looking at the bar before barking a "Get out!"
The crowd scrambles, going outside at a frenetic pace as if the very fires of hell were at their backs. After everyone save the bartender clears out, she speaks. "Ask away, lick."
You learn of what you are, Kindred is the word for it, vampire something more modern. A perhaps earth-shattering realization that is left blase and irreverent by your conversational partner. She explains that you are now her progeny as far as the city cares, not caring to explain why she did it.
When she gets to explaining idle specifics, a series of gunshots ripple through the air, sounding clear across the city and making Lacey's head turn like lightning towards it. "Damnit, now?!"
She stands up and rushes out towards the door, sparing only a moment to bark, "Sabbat, nasty fuckers. Get a gun and stay with my ghoul." As you stand up, trying to ask what the fuck she means, but she is gone out through the door.
The bartender, a dark-skinned man with a very broad build and bald head pulls a shotgun from underneath the bar, "Hey, should probably get behind this thing, it's got metal plates in the front." Loading ivory white shells into the gun, he sits back at the bar, pointing it firmly at the door.
What do you do?
[X] Get behind the bar and hopefully find a gun, Lacey hasn't led you astray so far.
[X] Go outside and try and catch up to her, you don't just leave off on that.
[X] Something else?
