The following warnings occurred:
Warning [2] Undefined variable $awaitingusers - Line: 33 - File: global.php(816) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/global.php(816) : eval()'d code 33 errorHandler->error
/global.php 816 eval
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "style" - Line: 874 - File: global.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/global.php 874 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined property: MyLanguage::$lang_select_default - Line: 5014 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 5014 errorHandler->error
/global.php 874 build_theme_select
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions.php 5041 is_member
/global.php 874 build_theme_select
/showthread.php 24 require_once
Warning [2] Undefined array key "mybb" - Line: 1919 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 1919 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_indicators.php 41 my_set_array_cookie
/showthread.php 626 mark_thread_read
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 743 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 743 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "additionalgroups" - Line: 6953 - File: inc/functions.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions.php 6953 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_user.php 733 is_member
/inc/functions_post.php 399 purgespammer_show
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "profilefield" - Line: 6 - File: inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php(467) : eval()'d code 6 errorHandler->error
/inc/functions_post.php 467 eval
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "canonlyreplyownthreads" - Line: 642 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 642 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 700 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 700 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showvideos" - Line: 705 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 705 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "showimages" - Line: 743 - File: inc/functions_post.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/inc/functions_post.php 743 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1063 build_postbit
Warning [2] Undefined array key "invisible" - Line: 1497 - File: showthread.php PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php 1497 errorHandler->error
Warning [2] Undefined variable $threadnotesbox - Line: 30 - File: showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code 30 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1524 eval
Warning [2] Undefined variable $ratethread - Line: 38 - File: showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code PHP 8.1.27 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php(1524) : eval()'d code 38 errorHandler->error
/showthread.php 1524 eval




Beef at the Taqueria (You Always Pay for it Later) [ attn: Kali & Mercy ]
#1
Kali and Baja flee the scene of their botched exchange and Mercy manages to tag along. It's probably that the driver of that box truck had almost run her down that Kali is willing to allow the Gangrel to accompany them.

They end up back at Kali's apartment, Baja limping behind, the largest patch of the Ravnos' atrophied and disintegrating flesh covered up by a dish rag he'd snagged from outside the taqueria's kitchen. He favors his right side, and when they get into her living room Kali sees why. The long black sarong he wears gets pulled up gingerly, showing that the inner part of his thigh is also rotted through, the edges near the skin turned to ash, but those fleshy and muscly striations closer to the bone have a muddy and muddled rot to them. He hisses at the sight.

He has still been clutching that black sequin purse and the severed hand he'd claimed from the woman. Throwing both onto her coffee table – or whatever other stimulant gets done off of that particular surface of Kali's apartment – they land with a clatter and dull thud.

Baja carefully lowers himself onto the couch, make-up-painted face wincing in pain. His eyeliner and mascara still run from a blood sweat that the earlier struggle had set upon him. His shirt, a buttoned up silk blouse, is slashed here and there. Apparently from a knife by who knows? At least these wounds are beginning to heal. It's a tough old bird that nestles into the leather chair.

"Muistă fucking pizda a face laba with that fucking knife," going from one tongue to the other as he leans forward. The loose translation being: Cock sucking fucking bitch trying to jerk me off with that fucking knife. The knife he'd wrested from her hands and dumped down a sewer drain on the way back.

"Over fucking book. Fucking book!" Ooh, he must be pissed. His English is falling apart. He leans forward, opening the purse, upending it, and shaking out its contents.

A mobile phone. A wad of cash. A tightly wrapped brick of the substance Baja had been expecting as payment. And an aged leatherbound book that had been his contribution to the deal done wrong.

The last is marked, Lerna: A History of the Peloponnesian Waters. The lettering, it embossing and age, and even a few of the bookbinding stamps within tell that it was written at least in the 16th Century. Or so she can tell once she starts examining it and Baja begins giving its pedigree.
Reply
#2
The apartment that Kali takes Baja and Mercy to is situated in Downtown Denver and, conversely to how Kali might present herself, isn't a shithole. It's hardly a high-end place but it's located in that rare range that allow her a certain amount of freedom in coming and going without running into her neighbors yet aren't in any particular state of disrepair. The inside is almost set up more like an office than a home; the front area is arrange for meetings and there's a desk in the corner with a few stacks of papers. Three maps are on the wall; one of Denver, another of the state and a third covering the US as a whole. They're all marked up in red, blue and green Sharpie with roads outlined showing major trucking regions, several X's with indecipherable shorthand and the like.

It's essentially Kali's secondary business location. The primary is too likely to have humans around and in Baja's state, that would be bad.

Kali lets the three of them in and gets Baja over to the upholstered couch. (She'll get a new one later.) The hand lands on the table next and the Ravnos woman's pistol clunks down next to it. "Jesus, man." She wrinkles her nose. "What the fuck did she do to you? Will some food even help with that?"

She can't help but smile when he slips in and out of Romani. It's a language she knows well and she shakes her head, pulling out her cell phone. She gives a quick look to Mercy and shrugs, gesturing around. "Make yourself at home. Just don't poke around anything on that desk."

A quick phone call in Spanish to one of her employees at the warehouse ensues; the Rroma is good-natured but clearly controls the direction of the conversation as she tells them to keep an eye out tonight. She doesn't ask; she tells. And she only has to tell once, directing the person on the other end to call her about anything remotely out of routine that might happen. She flips the phone shut with a flick of her wrist (she goes through cell phones with relative frequency; a good trait for drug lords anyway) and without a goodbye.

When Baja starts ranting in increasingly-broken English, Kali sighs. "Baja...Baja! Daca nu se concentreze am de gând sa pun sare pe picioarele tale!" She slips into Romani to get his attention; the phrase translates roughly as "If you don't calm down, I'm gonna poor salt on your legs!" She sighs and slips back to English as she picks up the book and starts leafing through it. "What's so important about a book about a 2,300 year-old war that she resorted to this?"

Yes, the girl has some education. Shocking, we know.
"The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules."
"Good men don't need rules. And today's not the day to find out why I have so many."
Reply
#3
Mercy follows the other two vampires out of interest, interest for what could cause that man in the van to try and run her down, she wanted to know what was so important...her reasons were her own, but the look on her features as she steps into the apartment of Kali's is one of intense concentration, and not just a bit of displeasure. Her prey had escaped her after all...thats enough to make any predator a little testy.

She watches the ensuing antics at the same time as she surveys the apartment, when Kali tells her to stay away from the desk she does, but only after casting her dark gaze in its general direction, examining it for a long moment before sitting down on the floor at the end of the sofa upon which Baja was seated, she listened to them talk and waited...waited for information.
Reply
#4
Information reveals itself in tatters and troves, but never droves.

"It's about lakes," waters instead of wars, "Not even the good and bloody part," his composure regains as he corrects Kali. No, the thing is actually about the lakes of Lerna and the settlements there. If someone should look at him for more, he throws up his hands. "Fuck I know? Kine need something to read on the toilet after I give him the bite."

In her perusal Kali begins to notice something about the binding and cover that triggers the thief in her. Something hidden often means something valuable. The ever-present insights, more cerebral powers of the blood at work, notice a place where the binding is just beginning, after all these centuries, to draw back. Where the leather cover stretched over its hard backing can be peeled away.

"Fuck it," Baja says of the now-blood-stained tome with a shrug, in case she were to worry about damaging it. The skinny bitch with the bad blood mojo hadn't worried about damaging him.

The book has another name, the first sheath a layer preserving the next for posterity. An Examination of the Lernaean Quorum and its Persecution by Tomás de Torquemada, it reads, this time inscribed in Old Spanish. No author's name is given.

As Kali begins fiddling with the tome, it's Mercy who next has something to add to the mix, should she chose to. The Gangrel catches the scent of blood – not just Baja's or his assailant's, but more potent vitae, which seems to saturate the book. Much like she had once smelled a dream drenched in.

When Kali examines the spine and its binding again, she is able to pull out something wrapped in brittle linen. Its threads melt away as she folds it to reveal a piece of metal nestled inside. It is shaped like the curved blade of a letter opener, only pointed on both ends, tarnished with age and etched on one side with an eye and on the other with the skeleton of a hand pointing. It is inset with a piece of amber, inside of which a mosquito lies trapped and fossilized, a little window through the odd artifact.

Perhaps his curiosity is waning because of his wounds, but Baja instead sets about putting on the television with the click of the remote, the flat screen that hangs in her living room coming to life. 3 AM and 4 AM teasers are already coming on for the 5 AM news, and they tell of the arrest of a man suspected in a hit-and-run in Federal.

Mercy will not elude reminders of the one that got away.

Spitting dryly at the mention of the man, Baja picks up the woman's hand, a ring still pulled onto its right ring finger. "Costume jewelry wearing skank," he says. Baja wears many rings, baubles and jewels in silver and gold that twinkle on his dexterous fingers, but this one is a trophy he seems to relish.

Until he tries to pull it off.

The tips of his fingers sizzle as he touches it, and he drops the hand like a hot potato, launching into a new and renewed flurry of curses and Romany oaths.
Reply
#5
Mercy Comstock

Mercy had only been listening for the moment, listening and smelling and feeling, sight had not been apart of the equation. But then her nostrils flare widely as a familiar scent filters through her nose and her eyes narrow sharply as she pushes off the ground and rises, turning as she did so to look at Kali and the book she held.

She took several steps towards the woman, slowly, carefully and she frowned as Baja lost a finger, but remained fixated upon the book.

"That smell...." She says slowly. "Such potency...can you smell it?" She asks the others. "So old...so strong." She doesn't reach out for the book, not yet. Her eyes fix upon the strange little dagger, and though she has no reason to expect violence from Kali, a weapon is a weapon.

Kali

Kali smirks and shakes her head in amusement when Baja reveals the purpose for his ownership of the book. "Jesus, man. Get a subscription to People or some shit. Making them read this is just mean."

She furrows her brow when the binding peels back and flat-out ignores her clanmate's comment about the tear. She quirks her lips thoughtfull and sets to pulling the binding back. The more true title makes her blink, and she looks back at the other two. She's taking this book seriously all of a sudden. The knife just adds to that and she holds it very gingerly, moving it out to arm's length as she examines it.

She moves to set the knife down on the table and flip through the book. "Have you actually read this or just assumed based on the cover?" The words are directed to Baja, but then he stars cursing like a Romani sailor. She holds back the grin.

"Dude, I do have neighbors. Not that I care about them, but..." She looks at Mercy. "I don't have the super-senses on, but I don't doubt it. So anyone know who the fuck the Lernaean Quorum is and why was it being targeted by the Spanish Inquisition?

Mercy Comstock

Mercy simply shook her head at the inquiry that Kali made, the name the Lernaean Quorum could have been the name of a prog rock band for all she knew, and for all she cared. Priorties drove her, what she knew mattered and she would follow that path like a wolf on the scent of prey.

She held out a hand for the book, a silent request that, after a moment is reinforced by the words. "May I?" The tone is odd for Mercy, it is not gutteral or hoarse, it is something all together more cultured and human, but it feels forced, pushed out of her for that moment in an attempt to get a better sniff.

"I have smelled this before...."

Kali

Kali shakes her head amiably when Mercy asks to see the book. Whatever tension there may have been earlier when they first encountered each other outside the restaurant, it's completely gone from Kali now. Which is not to say that she necessarily trusts Mercy or is ready to pick out drapes, but she's not a potential threat to her interests for the moment.

Kali is all about her best interests.

"By my guest, chickadee." She hands the book to the Gangrel and heads off into the back room with little more than an half-muttered "excuse me." There are sounds of rustling around, metal clanging on metal and she comes back with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, some tweezers and kitchen tongs.

"Hand that hand over, Handy McHanderson," she says to Baja. "I'll get the fuckin' ring off."

Baja

While Kali is still holding the book, paging through it, she realizes that does seem to be written in that same English as the original cover, not the Old Spanish of the hidden one. It tells of Lerna and its history. A Peloponnese region of springs with a grand lake, it is perhaps best known for being the home of the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed beast defeated by Heracles in his Labors.

But the area had been settled in earlier times of antiquity. It lists tribes believed to have used it in what, when translated to modern terms from the book, may have even been Neolithic. More than a half-dozen millennia ago, and in what also sounds like a rough estimation of the Early Bronze Age.

The historian who wrote the book also tells of it swelling with the largest tumuli, large prehistoric man made mounds, in all of Greece. Of the House of Tiles, a two-story building whose ruins were uncovered, with terracotta tiles comprising its roof in a time when such building materials were either rare or unheard of. Fortified against violence millenia before the birth of Christ, which the book refers to as the First Year of Our Lord.

It also recounts the Daughters of Danaus, an earlier legend of Greek mythology predating Heracles.

That is about all that Kali is able to get from her skimming of the book before she hands it over for Mercy. More time will be needed to truly absorb the thick volume's knowledge.

As for Baja, if the sizzle weren't enough of an indicator, the tips of his fingers - index, middle and thumb, the three he'd put to work trying to pry the ring free from the boney fingers - are badly burnt. Once he has regained his composure he just looks down at the hand.

The persistent Ravnos doesn't answer her question. He pulls out a pair of gloves - of course he caries leather cloves with him - and this time is more careful when he touches the ring, holding it out toward Kali for her to use the pliars on as he bends back fingers already beset by rigor mortis.

They start working it off again, not giving up on claiming what he seems very sure is his trophy. So set upon it that he doesn't notice the rotting of his legs and the slashes healing themselves across his body as the two Ravnos set to the task.

"Book is the book I was asked for," grunt.

"Stolen from Settite in Vancouver four months ago. Did not need leads, she knew who had it. Been sitting on my fucking shelf while I wait for customer to show up. Then she says she is being double crossed. Paranoid. Does this to me," just as much like he's vindicating cutting off her hand as he is telling the story behind his ownership (9/10th of the law) of the book.

While they do this, Mercy is allowed to touch the book for the very first time. It feels heavy in her hands. When she looks at the knife, taking the book into account, and that second name it has, she may realize that the two are related. Only useful as the sum of their parts.

The Gangrel looks closer and it is if the blood has been inscribed into its pages and cover, etched there, the scent of the old vitae mingled with the aged vellum printing medium.

And she also realizes that another scent, the blood of a different kind and age, is actually upon the sharp piece of amber-embedded metal. The lines of its etching, the eye on one side and the pointing skeleton's hand, are filled with the dried old vitae, like it was used in some ritual.

And finally it dawns on her, through combined analysis and effort, that perhaps it is not a dagger - it has no hilt, though it is sharp - but instead maybe similar to the yad used by Jews to read the Torah.

Mercy Comstock

Mercy frowns as she looks at the book, sniffing it like an animal before eying the dagger, her frown only deepens as a variety of things click together in her mind, old dusty parts of her psyche coming alive as she considers the items as a whole...and not as their individual parts.

She then does something...slightly odd, she opens the book, glancing briefly at the writing before holding it up to the light and looking carefully. It is then that her frown deepens, the furrows of her face becoming like valley's before she holds out a hand.

"The...dagger please." She asks, it would seem that shes onto something. Her hand sat outstretched, waiting. She would not take it...she was trying to be cooperative, in her way.

Kali

Kali is quite handy with a pair of pliers. Take that as you will, but she sets herself to helping Baja get the ring free without actually touching it. "And your paranoid client who just fucked your world up...what do you know about her?" She's hoping that it's more than 'she's a bitch.'

Mercy asks for the knife, and Kali looks over for just a moment before nodding. She sets the hand down for a second and picks up the 'blade,' handing it to her. "Knock yourself out."

Baja

Baja shrugs. "Paid extra to keep it confidential. Did not question because who fucks with the snakes and does not want it confidential?" He actually looks like he might've once had sympathy for the request, especially for that little bit extra in exchange, but now that she's reduced him to a burnt and rotting version of his previously cultivated self, he looks no where near as forgiving.

Mercy Comstock

Mercy takes the knife and weighs it in one hand, turning it over in her grip as she considered the ramifications of such a thing. "This...is more then it seems." She said with a growl as she held up the amber to her eye and looked at the page through it. She did so for several moments before bringing the book down.

She looked at the others briefly as she considered her options and after a moment of looking around, she disregarded the desk, as she had been told to avoid it, and instead placed the book open upon the coffee table before Kali and Baja as they continued to work at the ring.

"This...is holy." She said, and not a moment later she cut her own wrist with blade, letting the blood seep onto it, before dabbing some of the blood onto the symbols...just incase. It is then...that she goes to look through the amber once more, seeking what she was certain was there.

Kali

She doesn't seem surprised by what Baja says, or even annoyed. She understands the business and that sometimes you have to take calculated risks with people. Unfortunately, that sometimes bites you in the ass or turns your legs to rotting flesh.

Mercy's statement that it's holy is also not a surprise, though that brings an audible look of disgust. "Fucking hell. Baja, homie, I think you've run afoul of goddamned hunters of some kind."

Kali


As soon as the ring is off, she's taking a step or two back. She kind of already suspected that when Baja got burned. "Congratulations, you have some kind of blessed ring that will end you if you put it on. Enjoy."

Baja

Kali finally manages to twist and turn the ring free and off of the hand. By the time it is off and she congratulates him on his new prize, his avarice seems to have subsided, and now he realizes that he could not even wear the thing without slowly burning til Final Death.

"No," he says, though it comes less sure than what he'd said earlier. "Saw her. Smelled her blood," and he seems to be convincing himself it wasn't some human hunter. And he can still smell it on the hand. The same as he'd smelled it when he cut it off. Kindred vitae, not kine.

"Bitch was Kindred. But wouldn't even tell me her clan," and as he says it, the hand... It is as if by magic. It does was a Kindred hand maybe should do when severed. It slowly begins to rot, then mummify as the skin dries and draws tight, and moments later it begins to break down until within a few minutes it becomes dust.

Mercy has other things than questioning a Ravnos broker of stolen goods, though. The first time she holds the amber up to the open pages of the book, it shows only that same writing. The second time, she can see something that is not English. She may recognize it as Spanish. The same Old Spanish of the cover, which Kali is able to decipher, if a little slower than her fluency in the more modern Spanish tongue.

The double-sided blade, almost like a bookmark, can be placed down over the words and then slid from left to right to read through it. And it posits an entirely different history of Lerna and the powers that were at play there in ages past.

And, just as it is written in vitae and revealed by vitae, the stories it tells are not of the kine, but of those who bear the Blood of Caine.

Kali

She arches an eyebrow at Baja's protestation "Then she's some kinda fuckin' Holy vampire or some shit, considering she could wear the ring."

She looks at the hand, which chose only AFTER the ring was removed to dissolve, and she opens her mouth. Then shuts it. "Oh for fuck's..." The next few words she spits out are possibly some of the foulest in the Romani tongue. She stomps off toward the bedroom again while Mercy is Figuring Shit Out with the book.

"Getting a Dustbuster!"

Mercy Comstock

The wound on her wrist is licked, the wound sealed by the touch of Mercys tongue, and as she lays the blade across the pages there is a snarl of delight, pleased at what she has found...but that strange smile upon her face furrows once more into a frown as she realizes what she has found....she cannot read. A rumbling growl rolls out past her lips as she looks up at Baja and Kali.

"It was hidden." She said gesturing to the two bladed reader. "It's in spanish." She grumbles, obviously unable to read it. "Who speaks spanish?" She asks, pushing the book towards the others, even as Kali rose to get the dustbuster.

Baja

Baja has leaned forward from where he'd fallen back into the couch after freeing the ring. He'd just left it sitting there on the coffee table, next to where Mercy had been...

Unlocking mysteries. Spanish mysteries. Older mysteries. His focus returns to the ring, picking up the round silver setting with cut and polished black glass inlaid in it. The pliers had managed to nick and mark the setting, but not the glass. He takes them again and picks up the bauble but their metal teeth, examining it.

"Writing inside. Of course fucking writing inside. Of course fucking writing I can't read." He huffs, and though he wants to throw the ring across the room, it finally seems to occur to him that he is within another Kindred's haven. So, he instead sets it down and leans back into the couch again.

Should Mercy of Kali end up examining the ring, they will find it has etchings on the interior, those these are ones that neither of them will understand.

Kali

She comes back out with one of those mini-portable Dustbusters that looks like it's from the late '90s. "Spanish?" She gestures to hand the book over, her grin returning to some degree. She's still displeased with the idea of a holy ring hanging out in her apartment (and a holy book, for that matter), but she's putting that aside for an interest in being able to read coded messages in Spanish.

"Dame el libro, chica. I'll be our translator."

Mercy Comstock

Mercy nods to Kali's words, a brief look of relief flashing across her features. She had been worried that none of them would be able to read the text, and that would have meant she wasted precious blood for nothing. But Kali was to the rescue, and she shifted to allow the woman to sit down where she had been, and instead moved to gingerly examine the inside of the ring.

One might wonder how someone like Mercy would know about these sorts of things, ancient languages and secret messages in books, she did not look like the scholarly type, or even bookish, and certainly not an initiate of deep and mystical secrets. But as she looks at the inscription in the ring her brows furrow in displeasure and she hisses in frustration.

"We need an ancient historian...this language is..." She frowns as she tries to remember the name of it, or what she had heard it called all those years ago.

"Linear B." She croaks it out in displeasure and leaves the ring be....she had done all she could, for now at least.

Kali


She does indeed sit down where Mercy was and takes the mystical spy decoder dagger, starting to look it over. She snorts in amusement when Mercy says they need an ancient historian. She has no idea what Linear B is.

"Dammit, and I just had my last ancient historian for dinner last night."
Reply
#6
A skimming perusal of the text will reveal that the Many-Headed Methuselah, also known as the Lernaean Quorum, was a Malkavian coterie founded before the word even existed. Members of the Clan of the Moon, Mercy recalls how that vitae's smell had conjured images of a vision from nights past and a certain whispering beast who had little to say when asked to account for his actions.

Five facets of the same identity, the book catalogs numerous legends that exist as to their creation. A group of five, those who have actually met the Quorum claim it believes itself to have been ordained by Malkav for a very important task:

To protect a very ancient and very powerful artifact known alternately as the Stone of the Blood, the Altar of Caine, the Cornerstone of Enoch, and numerous other names in the accumulated quotes the writer has gathers from Noddist scholars and ancient translations. Most often, though, the book's anonymous author refers to it as the Blood Stone of Enoch, the first city where Caine ruled alongside his childer before the Great Deluge.

Some sections recount Kindred of varying age positing different theories. One puts forth they are the Embraced figures from or the inspiration for the Greek Myth of the Daughters of Danaus: Aegyptus, his son Lynceus, Lynceus' wife Hypermnestra, their son Abas, and Abas' wife Ocalea. Others believe they are the wayward children of Lilith, Mother of Monsters, wretched creatures who wanted to be human and were embraced by Malkav because of the mysteries he thought they held. Another title, the Many-Headed Methuselah, is heavily tied to research by a group of vampires whose name Kali is unable to properly translate, tracing the Quorum's settlement in the House of Tiles outside of the lake where the Lernaean Hydra was believed to guard the gates of the Underworld. Still others think that upon Malkav's reported death they were the five of his childer and grandchilder who shouldered the brunt his madness, spread it through the clan, and were bound forever by the trial to defend his legacy.

Whatever the Malkavians' origin, that legacy is embodied in the Stone, though whatever it actually is and what its true powers are is unknown and a topic of wild conjecture.

Throughout their history the Methuselah have hidden the Stone from the machinations of Antediluvians, other Methuselah, and even the Lupines, sorcerers and mankind. Numerous conflicts are recounted with varying degrees of detail, ranging from the Followers of Set in the Middle East, lupines in what is now Russia and Eastern Europe, Lasombra in Sicily, the House of Tremere both before and after their founding as a vampiric clan, and time and again they eluded capture.

Until the Spanish Inquisition, where they somehow earned the ire of Tomás de Torquemada, Spain's first Grand Inquisitor. Rumors that the Lasombra directed this hand of the church in order to gain control of the Stone, they were weakened by the faith of the Black Friars. That same faith warded off the Lasombra who came to question the captured Quorum, and Torquemada ordered them burnt at the stake.

A Nosferatu ghoul who was present at the burning said that as their black hoods were withdrawn and they met the sun, the vampires first screamed, but the scream became haunting choral singing. The next night five Spanish Malkavians disappeared, and Nosferatu who became interested in the situation uncovered word they were jumping from city to city in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

It was around this time that the Camarilla, only recently founded, began gaining momentum in Europe and rumors of activities such as blood gods, ancient artifacts, and Noddist lore in particular became heavily censored by the Princes that rose up in the Ivory Tower's shadow.
Reply
#7
She reads aloud, translating for Mercy and Baja as she reads through. The Ravnos provides occasional commentary as she goes along, such as:

"Oh great...Noddist Malkavians. And here I was worried we'd be dealing with unstable individuals."

"They hid the stone, at least until it fell down and started chasing Indiana Jones down a tunnel..."

"They pissed off the Spanish Inquistion...because nobody would expect that."

When it's all done, Kali sets the decoder glass down and rubs at her eyes irritably. Obviously they don't get tired or dry out the same way that a kine's does...it's more for effect than anything else.

"Okay. So we have crazy Kindred chick who has some kind of fucked-up ring that hurts us but kept her hand from rotting post-disarming until the ring came off, who has the ability to really fuck our worlds up if my erstwhile clanmate's legs are any indication. And she was trying to get her hands on some kind of super-secret Noddist lore than the Camarilla would kick our collective asses over if they knew we had it, because The Truth Is Out There and Cigarette-Smoking Man is an Archon or something like that."

She pauses for a moment. "Oh, and there's supposedly a super-special double-cool rock floating around that, we can assume, your client wants to either obtain or keep secret. Did I miss anything?"
"The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules."
"Good men don't need rules. And today's not the day to find out why I have so many."
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)