+- WoD Denver Forums (http://forums.woddenver.com)
+-- Forum: Vampire: The Masquerade (http://forums.woddenver.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=13)
+--- Forum: In Character (http://forums.woddenver.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=15)
+--- Thread: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] (/showthread.php?tid=309)
Pages:
1
2
A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Joey - 08-16-2013
Violence breaks out on East Colfax near a K-Mart parking lot. What a surprise.
There are many reasons, most of them superficial, for this relatively small outbreak of bloodshed. The real reason is dominance. The real reason is power. The real reason is absolutely petty.
A shopping cart is hurled by a burly brawler named William who looks like he should play ball in a prison league, caught with an angry hiss as the impact breaks bones in Flood's fingers, and hurled back by that same dead man in his sharp suit with his sharper words and sharpest glare. Kicks connect, others are dodged as a man with a pulse that's fading is left crippled on the sidewalk but manages to roll out of the way of the next. The Lasombra without a pulse who should be a corpse turns with a sharp piece of wood in hand. It's a drum stick sharpened to a fine point.
Flood turns toward another pocket of fury. One being is an instrument of precision and the other of feral instinct. They are locked in a struggle for dominance eternal. The deciding factor first seems like it will be bared fangs. They'd snapped back and forth even when earlier the hulking bruiser Flood dances with had tried to break them apart. Sharp teeth find ligaments and arteries that keep vitae pumped muscles from working as well as they should. They are bites that plunge deep not only into flesh but soul. Bites that undo them on a very basic level. William had tried to loosen Mercy and to run off with the smaller woman, but Vee is an anchor and Mercy is a lock-jawed beast of the wild and they are bound.
William, the living interloper into this battle between the undead had been laid low at least long enough for it to be settled. Flood plunges his stake into Mercy's back and through her heart, leaving her still. A lifeless and unmoving woman clad in leather and now in sprays of vitae and chunks of chilled flesh, her claws still out and sharp and dangerous as ever. Locked there as she is plunged into involuntary torpor.
Flood feels the Beast's hunger and though by his garb and bearing he may look like he should be a member of that Ivory Tower – that he should be more skilled at controlling it – he turns on William and jumps at him, ready to sink bared fangs in and suckle at his very life's essence. What's left of it.
But then the word comes clear.
“Stop.”
A command, such a command, taking such a hold on him is both something Flood is not use to and something Vee must be very use to issuing. He stops. Dead in his tracks. His chest does not heave as one might expect, and that must make his the symptoms of his frenzy all the more unsettling. He twitches and aches in place, violently beginning and ceasing to lunge again, as if some collar has been placed on his very will and he is leashed, fettered, bound to the spot. Bound by that command.
But still straining against it.
He stops, yes. But he does not shut up. His voice sounds so very angry. So very unsettled by this development. "Get them in the fucking car. And find me something to eat or I swear..." Or I swear. He leaves the threat at that, as he hurls it at the Sabbat that has so thoroughly bound him. Still, as moments go on, Vee can see that the hold will not last forever. And there is William crawling on what little energy he has left in that diesel engine's tank. Maybe crawling away. Maybe curling up to hide under that old Model J's pristine bumper, who knows, but crawling.
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - errin - 08-16-2013
Vee does not need a Lasombra to issue orders to act.
It's a surprise when Mercy falls slack in arms made all the more powerful by blood. The surprise does not last long. Unlike Flood, Vee is not lost to the Beast. Vee's generous tap into increased power and speed is staid, measured, precise. When it becomes clear that Flood's was not, when it is seen that he is intent on feasting upon that which Vee considers claimed at the start of this whole unseemly affair (in a goddamned K-Mart parking lot ugh), actions come fast and furious.
A body is dropped bonelessly to the pavement, it's owner no longer a threat for now.
A command is given and a truth is laid bare. That this newcomer, this ethereal, androgynous creature who seemed to tame and innocent, is something far more dangerous than any here considered.
They stare at each other, Tzimisce and Lasombra, measuring, one furious the other eerily calm, for only a second before the one is off. The one is headed deeper into the parking lot. The one finds a figure moving all alone, back up toward the store after delivering some customer's belongings into a vehicle. The figure suddenly finds itself hauled around by a grip of iron, forced to face a creature both beautiful and bloody, a creature that locks eyes with him and smiles serenely.
"Follow." So says Vee for the second time tonight, and he does. He follows the Vampire back to a man he saw only a short while ago. He still has Flood's crisp twenty wadded up in his pocket.
"Eat," says Vee when they reach the car, but without the command of earlier. Vee does not pause as Vee walks down the huge hulk of a human. Leaning down, William is caught by the collar and halude to feet that do not want to hold him. He is then dragged to the side of the car, to a door that is prised open with a surprising delicacy before he is tossed inside like a sack of potatoes.
Then it's back to the little upstart that tried to get between Vee and what Vee wanted. A little once-vicious, once-snarling dog who was there, it seems, the night Vee's childe died the Final Death. Mercy is hauled up by her hair, lifted off her feet to reach a creature that stands at full height. Fangs slip out, sink into dead flesh, and - unless Flood pauses in his feast (unlikely) - finishes the deed.
It's not even anger, it's not even revenge. It's simple practicality. Mercy stood up. Mercy needed to be put down.
And so she was.
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Joey - 08-16-2013
This does not happen often.
To Vee it may seem that, like so many Sabbat, Flood is lost to the Beast. Indeed he revels in it. Flood would argue, like many of the more disciplined Sabbat, that there is a difference. He could stop this. Perhaps try to steady and focus himself again once his belly is full. That he chooses not to. But he's too busy focusing on the lamb led to slaughter when that red shirt brought by similar force of will. Flood looks him up and down before descending upon him in hunger unleashed. Opening his neck with two stabbing ivory dagger pricks from his fang. Drinking deeply from the font of life, his undead body is again filled.
Her revels in it at first, yes. But that revelry becomes debauched as his body is filled and his vessel is emptied. He can feel the pulsing expulsion of blood on his lips and tongue grow more and more faint in its steady metronome. His heartbeat weakens, but it still conducts its tune through the veins and arteries as life reaches climax, crescendo, and is finally eslipsed. He does not realized he has become hypnotized by it. He does not realize, at least not at first, that what he takes is traded for a part of his soul.
He steps away from where he has pinned the K-Mart employee against the side of his car. This employee had a name. His name was Harold and Harold is no longer with us. Only now does Flood read that name tag on its lanyard. What remains of Harold slumps in the unyielding dead man's hand that catches him by the collar of his shirt and deposits him into the Model J as well. A body that is layered atop William's still-living one like a paper weight to hold down the giant of a man.
Flood turns back toward where Vee is finishing Mercy, still wiping blood from his mouth with his handkerchief, though it still discolors his teeth and the lines of his gums something ghastly. And when he sees Vee ready to finish Mercy, his voice is clear:
"She gave you a run for your money. She'd be a valuable soldier once broken and swayed to our cause. Don't forget you have a choice," and it's then the coldness in Flood's voice becomes more apparent. That he has become less of a man and more of a monster than before. Especially when he says, not caring one way or another: "Make it quick," getting into the driver's seat of the car and then turning over the engine.
Joey @ 11:32AM
[ Oh no. I killed someone. (Flood's monotone) Conscience at difficulty 8. ]
Roll: 2 d10 TN8 (2, 2) ( fail ) VALID
niko @ 11:32AM
D: Witnessed!
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - errin - 08-16-2013
Vee leads a little lost lamb to the slaughter, and what of it? What does this one care about Harold and Harold's family, Harold's lover, Harold's pets or friends or life? Flood needed to eat, and Vee was not about to let him feast on what had alread been claimed. Flood drinks. He drains that boy dry and tosses him into the back of his car like a heavy, Harold-shaped blanket tossed over the weakened mortal that still lives.
All the while, Mercy has been left to Vee's mercy, which let's face it is basically non-existent. Not for insects, not for rabid little dogs that dare try to get between Vee and the things that Vee wants. The Gangrel hangs limp from one cold, pale hand, head snapped back to expose her throat. Vee will not drink from her, will not drain this one dry. This blood is inferior, despite the run she did in fact give the Tzimisce. If not for Flood and his broken drum stick (really? him? a drummer? or did he claim it from a meal?) Vee and Mercy might still be locked together, tearing at each others flesh until one or the other finally came up with something more effective.
She'd be a valuable soldier once broken and swayed to our cause.
Vee looks over the car to the Lasombra, blue eyes a little more like ice than they were before. The decision has already been made, see. It was made when Vee lifted Mercy's body from the ground.
Bloody lips spread into an unsettlingly sweet smile.
"I already have a new soldier."
And clearly Flood doesn't want Mercy for his own. Or he wanted her for the both of them and Vee could. not. care. less. Vee has a William now, or will. Soon, very soon.
But first things first. No more delays, no more false-starts. Vee, still holding Mercy by the back of her skull, brings the other hand to her shoulder.
And tears.
Mercy's head comes free with a squelch and a snapping of dead tendons and vertebrae. The Tzimisce examines this work with a smug, satisfied smile. Another body to add to the pile on poor William. At least no one's getting blood on Flood's new flatscreen, or ruining the packaging of that Breaking Bad season 1 boxed set.
The head Vee keeps. A cell phone is retrieved from a pocket of those jeans, thumbed to life and speed dial #1 pressed.
"Isobel," says Vee as the Vampire slips into the passenger seat, Mercy's head held by the hair and kept in the lap. "We have a situation."
========
Conscience:
niko @ 11:34AM
[Vee: IDGAF (or does Vee?): conscience at diff 8]
Roll: 2 d10 TN8 (2, 7) ( fail ) VALID
niko @ 11:34AM
[look at that fucking 7]
Joey @ 11:35AM
[ Witnessed. They are bad mo'fo's, them 7s. That one is. laughing at you. ]
Head Pull
niko @ 12:57PM
[str+4+brawl-1 (ow): goodbye, head, dropping a WP because Vee is pretty much done with this]
Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) VALID
Joey @ 12:58PM
[ Witnessed and that's 5 successes because you forgot about the WP. ]
niko @ 1:00PM
[dam: str+4+4]
Roll: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) VALID
Joey @ 1:01PM
[ Oh yeah. Mercy's soak. ]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 ) VALID
Joey @ 1:02PM
[ Witnessed. Poor Mercy. Go put it on a spike somewhere. ]
[[edited because I used the wrong tags >_<]]
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Samael - 08-18-2013
Our William, he's a good-meaning sort. He doesn't hurt people and hasn't for years...at least, people who are not consensual in the act. Sure, he beats people with chairs and baseball bats and garbage cans and he raises people up into the air by their throat so he can slam them down on their back. He delivers kicks and stomps and punches and overhand slaps hard enough to redden peoples' chests on a regular basis, but that's all part of the game when you're in professional wrestling. Despite his enormous size, his frightening visage and his ability to intimidate, he's not a violent man.
Not anymore.
However, when he sees things going on that he doesn't understand, when he's following this strange androgynous creature and not realizing why and he sees that Mercy--this small, feral woman who he thinks is a vampire--is about to be attacked he steps into action. It's only right. Even if they're monsters and dead things and whatever they might be, she's a woman being ganged up on by what may be a man and a woman or just two men. As he would say if he'd had the chance to comment, That shit ain't right.
So he first tried to make the odds even. He picked up the closest thing in two hands and lobbed it at the strange man who had told him to go with Mercy in the first place sometime earlier. He heard a satisfying crunch and was already turning to separate Mercy and the other person when the cart came back with even more force than he'd thrown it, impossibly. He staggers back and, still not believing things, he decides it's time to run so he grabs at his little feral friend (not-friend) and tries to run. But even his prodigious might can't separate them, and then a kick comes out of nowhere, impacting hard into a face that was already ruined long ago.
William knows how to fall, but only when he's expecting it and he doesn't expect this. So when he hits the ground it's not on his back, spread out over the most space to minimize damage. He lands hard on his side. And he doesn't have much time to react before another kick is coming at him. He rolls back, instinctually, and narrowly avoids it. And then he stares as a wooden weapon is plunged into the Gangrel's back, the woman he feared and didn't understand but somehow felt the urge to protect. Because she was a woman. You don't hit women. Ever.
Now, the focus is no longer on him, as the two remaining vampires are locked in a battle of minds that--again--William doesn't understand. The giant is running on instinct at this point, beaten to near-unconsciousness with just two blows. In his mind Mercy is already dead (that's how you kill vampires isn't it? A stake through the heart?) and so he rolls into a crawling position. Desperation has taken over; his mind threatens to submerge in pain. But he still scrambles, gasping for air, blood leaking from his nose and a spot on his forehead where the shopping cart hit.
The crawling doesn't last for long, nor does the consciousness. He makes it further than you might expect...desperation can get you a long way. He's crawling with his last ounces of strength for the K-Mart and he's almost to the neon glow of that giant red K when smaller hands than should be capable of it grab him, drag him back. He passes out somewhere along the way back to the car and dead weight is tossed in the back of the car.
It isn't until the second, headless body falls on him that he is jostled back into blurry unconsciousness. He's the foundation in a grotesque pile in the back of the car, and everything (EVERYTHING) hurts. He groans lightly, tries to move and realizes that he's weighed down. And then he
remembers.
Panic threatens to step in and drive him into a flurry of frantic action, but a cooler head prevails. He dealt with bad problems in prison, and he takes several moments and breathes, staying very still as he tries to think. He comes up with a plan. It's not a good plan; it could very well mean his death. But it's the best thing he's got.
So he waits. Though his flesh crawls with every pat-pat-pat of blood and gore that seeps through the pile of flesh and bone to hit his back, his stomach threatens to unload the alcohol and meat that made up his last meal from the smell and the conversation over a cell phone makes him deeply afraid--not the words, just the voice alone--he waits. William is not the strongest-willed man on the planet, but he is a man of some measure of control and he is not the kind to be paralyzed with fear. When you're at your lowest (and this is a low in William's already-tragic life, though probably not his lowest in the near future), you either fold up and wait for death or you find your reserves. And that's what he does.
It's a difficult thing to judge, you know. You have to time it very, very carefully when you decide to leap from a moving car in an attempt to escape. Too slow and the driver (and passenger) can slow down and get you before you can run away. Too fast and--well, you're going to die. William is no expert in jumping out of cars, and either is entirely possible. But he has to try.
He gathers his will when he thinks the time is right. He carefully moves, being as quiet as possible, and uses the fact that one is driving and the other is distracted on the phone to slough the bodies as far off him as possible without attracting attention. He reaches out, carefully, for the care door. And then, in a combined force of will and action, he bursts forward. The car door is thrown open and he leaps, tucking into a roll as he tries to hit the ground as safely as possible.
He's nearly unconscious. This act may well push him into a fully-such state or worse. He certainly can't get far once he's on the ground if he can get anywhere at all. But William has a choice. And between choosing passive death or an active (if infinitesimal) chance at life, he's taking his fate into his own hands.
His mother would be proud if she knew, if she could ever know. Our William, he's a good man.
[[Willpower blown to ignore wound penalties long enough to make his leap. I'm open to whatever rolls y'all may want for him to try this!]]
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Joey - 08-18-2013
[ After discussing with Sam, we agreed on this:
Dexterity + Stealth roll. Difficulty 5 for William. Resisted by a Perception + Alertness from Flood and Vee, difficulty 8. Because he's in the back and both of them are distracted.
Followed up by a Strength + Athletics since he's trying to move the bodies and jump out in one fluid-type movement. William's Strength Specialty will be in effect for this.
If the Stealth roll fails on William's part he can still beat them to it if his Initiative is higher in the round. ]
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Joey - 08-18-2013
Samael @ 12:27PM
[[Come on, sneaky Will! WP spent to negate wound penalties for this roll as well, Dex+Stealth]]
Roll: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) VALID
Joey @ 12:27PM
[ Witnessed! ]
Joey @ 12:27PM
[ Flood: Perception + Alertness. Difficulty 8. ]
Roll: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 2 ) VALID
Joey @ 12:32PM
[ William is undetected by Flood. And I quote: "Unless observers score more successes than the sneaking character does, she passes undetected." - V20 page 262 ]
Samael @ 12:32PM
[[Init +6 for in case Vee tops 2 succ]]
Roll: 1 d10 TN5 (1) ( fail ) VALID
Samael @ 12:34PM
[[Aaand Strength+Athletics, Spec Brute, WP spent to negate wound penalties]]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 ) VALID
Joey @ 12:34PM
[ And witnessed again. ]
Samael @ 12:34PM
[[Oh Will. You try so hard. It's cute.]]
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - errin - 08-18-2013
niko @ 1:32PM
[Vee: percept+alert diff 8]
Roll: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID
niko @ 1:35PM
[Vee: init: dex+4+wits-1: +10]
Roll: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail ) VALID
Samael @ 1:37PM
Witnessed!
Real post incoming shortly.
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - errin - 08-18-2013
Flood's attention is on the road ahead, Vee's is on the phone for a brief conversation with one called Isobel. In the back, Will makes a bid for freedom, or death at his own hands which is a freedom all its own. It's possible that he'll spend eternity hoping that he succeeded in the attempt.
It happens when Vee is turning to ask Flood a question, after having told Isobel that a creature named Harold's disappearance will need to be explained. The Tzimisce is in the middle of asking after their destination when, from the corner of the eye, a shifting of bodies is witnessed. Only one body in that pile should be capable of movement and it's at the very bottom, which means that pile is stacked rather high.
The phone call is abruptly ended - Isobel has enough information to start at least - the head still held in one cold hand - by the hair, that pretty, dark, surprisingly soft hair - is tossed thoughtlessly into the back of the car.
Vee is smiling, pleased and proud with the choice made tonight. There is no worry or concern on that face, no fear that the quarry is about to escape. One might wonder that this creature is capable of such feelings, that they would have been felt even had the creature looked into the back just in time to see a door thrown open and a body slip free.
"Pull over," says Tzimisce to Lasombra.
RE: A species of violence... [ East Colfax Aftermath ] - Joey - 08-18-2013
At least in Flood's head it sounds like a request. He's sure Vee has a reason for asking him to pull over. Maybe his fellow Cainite is waiting for directions from the phone that was just closed. A destination where bodies can be disposed of and her new claim can be deposited.
The Lasombra hasn't noticed the quiet stirring in the back seat. He doesn't know what their only perishable and on-the-verge-of-perishing cargo has in mind or has already done.
A car like this is very loud and who knows what he's missed between the accompanying growls of the engine and creaking from its frame and suspension.
But his belly is full and when that happens his view of the night becomes terribly more optimistic, so he's at least able to twist what might be a command into sounding like a request.
And so he pulls over, because there must be a good reason for it, the car finding a space on the side of the road and settling in it, throwing the transmission into park one they've come to a complete stop - which may be in the midst or shortly after William is throwing himself from the vehicle.