Path of the Vampire forum

The night isn’t working in Zelda’s favour.

It started off well and dandy. The cold was crisp, as always, and though she doesn’t like Winter clothing—doesn’t like Winter much in general—she dresses for the occasion anyway. Kind of. Her legs are bare, and on her feet she wears a pair of pastel blue converses. She doesn’t like wearing shoes over skates, either; and when she does wear shoes she prefers heels over flats. But sometimes, skates and heels are not quite as practical as she’d like them to be. She wishes she’d been born with wheels for feet rather than ugly things with toes. Such is life, however, and as much as she might wish for it, she doesn’t think that evolution will ever quite get that far.

The dress she wears is a royal blue, spotted with small white polka-dots. The style of the dress doesn’t really matter, as it’s covered by a large, thick tan trench coat—a stylish trench coat, of course, but still a hulking big jacket that Zelda would prefer to do without. It’s not that she’s cold, but that she’ll probably be slaughtered by a gang of ‘pires were they to see her flaunting her non-coldness to the human public.

Normally, she’ll hang around at home. Why? She doesn’t quite know. She’s not much of a recluse—or well, never was before. She’d be at home only to sleep, and that’s it. Even then she could go several nights without having to go home. Lately, though? She can go downstairs and slaughter a few zombies, sell a few things in the shop, buy things in the shop in the foyer of Corvidae, and then go home again. Done. Dusted. No need to even exit the apartment complex.

Except to feed, of course, which she has to do every night. And in order to feed, she has to go for a romp through the sewers. It’s in the sewers, on the way out, that she encounters her first problem. A hunter—the kind she can normally best, but this time she did not. A few bullets caught her in the gut, buried deep into her flesh. He runs off before she can do anything to retaliate. She swears, curses under her breath, and praises herself for having the foresight to carry the trench coat through the sewers, rather than risk getting it grimy whilst wearing it. She pulls the thing over her shoulders and ties it around her profusely bleeding wounds; she’ll need to feed on more than one poor victim, now.

There’s this thing that she’d discovered that she was capable of; she can feed in crowded places, and no one notices. No one cares. As if she’s put up a shield around herself, so that no one can see. She has no idea how it works, only knows that it is a blessing. Except sometimes, sometimes it doesn’t work. Like tonight—sometimes, those she chooses to feed on are savvy bastards. They know what she is, and what she’s up to. Another ******* hunter—this one with a knife, which slashes her arm, gouging a gaping hole through both trench coat and skin. She screams—a shrill shriek of both surprised pain and frustration.

At the edge of the small park, she drops to her haunches, breathing deeply and heavily. Her head spins due to loss of blood. She knows, however, that she can fix this. She can fix it…

Except when she goes to summon the spirits that she will need to gain the strength to heal herself, no spirits come. Instead, a hulking mass of dead flesh and shadows comes to life in front of her. The first thing she thinks of is a Balrog, right out of the pages of Lord of the Rings. The thing is huge. Nasty looking. And for the moment, completely oblivious to Zelda’s presence.

There’s another shriek waiting to happen, but Zelda sucks in a quick breath of air and holds it; she sits there, completely still, completely terrified, eyes wide and incredulous.

What the merry ****.

It may very well be a throwback to some by - gone earlier days, but Ripper could honestly say that he loved his Triumph motorcycle. Although with his newly acquired vampiric finesse he was likely able to move faster to a location by running than he would while riding on top of the vintage frame; still, it roared and snarled like a beast on its way through the city streets-and on every inch of it, from hoodlight to kick-stand, he knew to be as patently British as he was-each and every gear of it.

Weaving tightly through the packed city traffic, heedless completely of the residentially posted safety laws, Ripper fishtailed and threw his bike into a hard left to narrowly avoid rear ending into a Volvo while passing on its way through an intersection. Burnt rubber and the long trail of a curved skidmark marked the near collision as the Killer thrummed the throttle down again and kicked into heavier gear to accelerate for making up lost speed. The resulting backfire was deafening in the cold night air and could easily had been mistaken for a gunshot or the report from a rifle fire.

Laughing crazily into the wind, the vampire spared only a quick glance over his shoulder at the pile up of shaken drivers and twisted fenders he had left in the wake behind him. Up ahead the tall metal gates loomed in the distance as the man took another daring turn-building up once more to the desired speed which he was only able to obtain during a long straightaway.

From the streets somewhere behind the park, there’s the sound what sounds very much like the firing of a shot gun. Zelda twitches and yelps, and the hulking attention of the summoned creature turned toward her. She looked up into its face – or what she assumed was its face. A shudder of terror piloted through her body and she was forced to stand and stumble backwards. She couldn’t stay where she was; she couldn’t cower like some coward and wait for the monster to rip her limb from limb. That’s what it looked like – it looked like it could and would rip her limb from limb.

From the holster under her arm Zelda retrieved the gun the she most often toted when not out specifically to shoot the **** out of creatures that needed to be dead. The small handgun felt insignificant and useless in her grasp, but it was all she had. Of course, the girl was fully aware, on some level, of her shortcomings. She was fully aware that as much as she liked to think she was the best that there was, she knew it wasn’t the case. She knew that she could get the **** kicked out of her by things and vampires older and stronger than she was. And she knew this was one of those moments where she should admit that she wasn’t strong enough and flee.

And yet she couldn’t.

She couldn’t fathom running away. No one was there to witness her fear. No one but herself. It was justified. She could, and should, do it. But she couldn’t. Because there was such a thing as having pride in oneself, and she never wanted to be ashamed of herself. She couldn’t imagine living a life where she was constantly ashamed of herself. If you didn’t like yourself, then what hope could you have in the world?

And so she shouted, her voice quavering at first but then gathering strength. It was a banshee battle cry, a rugged sound to encourage herself to forge onward and deal with the consequences as they were dealt. She started to fire shots from her gun; the bullets hit their target but didn’t do much. It was all she could do, however, and always one for living in the moment, she failed to think of what would happen when she ran out of ammo. She just continued to fire and back away from the creature as it advanced upon her. She was vaguely aware of the sound of a motorcycle somewhere nearby, but was far too preoccupied to figure out where or who might be driving it.

Ripper hit an incline fullt-tilt and felt himself go airborne.

The front tire impacted upon the creatures face and traveled backwards behind it's skull, leaving a tread mark that the rear wheel soon followed over after with another bump.

The squeal of the Fadebeast was more from the shock instead of the pain. It had been attentively focused on the smaller creature that dared to challenge it and the mechanical charge of the motorized assailant had gone unnoticed until it had cleared the fence.

If Zelda had been paying proper attention she might have noticed the sound of that motorcycle getting louder. The grunt of it like a constant growl, crackling in the otherwise silent night – silent, aside from her banshee scream and the cracking of the gun in her grasp. She knew that Nyla wouldn’t be at all happy with her if she drew attention to herself in this way. But hey, easily explained. Any human would probably react the exact same way, especially if they had a gun on them. Zelda could easily say she had no ******* idea what the monster was and lie her *** off about the fact that she had summoned it. That didn’t even need to be mentioned.

That crackling growl did get closer, however, and Zelda only noticed it properly when the machine was flying over her head. Easily distracted, she couldn’t help but to admire the Triumph – yes, she knew what it was and had often told herself that she wanted one – as it wasn’t often one got to admire such a beautiful machine from below.

The wheels were used as a weapon and the fadebeast went down. It shouldn’t have been possible to see shock in a creature that so obviously had no emotions, but that’s what Zelda thought she saw. The thing was down – twitching, not entirely dead, but down. Zelda sucked in a breath and laughed.

”Holy ******* ****!” The exclamation, mixed in with her laughter. She veered away from the monster and toward the man on the motorcycle. She was loathe to take her eye off the fadebeast, lest it rear back to health. ”Thank you!” she shouted so as to be heard over the din of the motorcycle.

Ripper turned back sharply to see what it was that he had hit. The rear tires fell into perfect alignment arriving behind him, kicking up a smoke screen of dirt and gravel that flew up behind him in a cloud that covered the park and ground floors like a small fog.

When he'd first head that unearthly sound his first thought was that maybe the drive shaft had jarred loose. A quick check through revving of the gears made it to report by sound that most of the important mechanics were still strapped into place.

”Thank you!” she shouted so as to be heard over the din of the motorcycle.

He looked up to see the small girl who was shouting and waving at him. He smiled and waved back at her. It was unclear to him for what precisely he was being thanked for though. Maybe it was jumping over her with the motorcycle, or perhaps it was (more likely) for having managing to not hit her with it while doing so. What ever one it was, she was more than welcome to it seemed to have made her night as she was now in the aproposism of laughter.

"What's so ******* funny?

he wondered to himself, stomping down hard on the clutch and shifting into high gear-rounding up another cloud of dust and exhaust that coated the distance between them.

He left the area with in a final salute, twisting his fingers up into the crude two-fingered gesture known as the "Vicky". Here on the North Americas though it was most commonly recognized as the classic 'Victory' symbol.

He never did notice the Fadebeast.

Zelda tried not to cough and splutter as the dust was stirred by the back wheel of the guy’s motorbike. What she really wanted was for him to stop the bike; to get off so that she could admire it. Zelda was, in a very basic way, a social person. At every possible opportunity she would talk the ear off strangers. Sometimes they were open to it. Sometimes they weren’t. The latter she learned to get away from as quickly as possible – they were no fun. In Zelda’s world, it made perfect sense that this guy should stop the bike and at least have a small chat.

But no, not at all. Instead, he revs the bike and stirs up a further cloud of dust. Although he had responded to her thank you, that was all he was inclined to do. If he said anything else, she couldn’t hear it over the bike. He didn’t stop the bike. He didn’t get off. Instead he left her there in his cloud of dust. And the last thing he did was give her the finger. Well, two fingers, but a gesture she knew very well to mean: **** you.

”WELL **** YOU TOO!” she shouted to the disappearing bike, the red break light a bouncing ghost through the swirling dust. He wouldn’t have heard her, but it felt good to shout, nonetheless. Grumbling under her breath, Zelda brushed herself off, spun on her feet to get her bearings – she didn’t actually really know where she was, and she was still feeling confused and a little beaten up. She decided to go try find a nice shop somewhere – somewhere safe – to buy her blood. And then maybe she’d go home. She’d had enough. She strode toward the lights and the noise, knowing she’d soon find a clue as to where she was.

< Zelda > Once again, Zelda found herself slogging around in the sewers. This time, rather than skates or heels, she has opted for practicality - she had taken a page out of her sire's book and decided to go without shoes. These days, she has the ability to levitate anyway, and small scrapes and scratches hardly matter. They healed within minutes. Otherwise, she wore a pair of tight black leggings and a tank top - down there, in the sewers, there was no need for pomp. She treated it like a training session, with her long red waves of hair tied up in a high ponytail. Though, her make-up was still pristine, and her nails painted a gloriously bright London red. In one hand she carried a blade - enchanted, apparently - and slung over her back was a gunsmith's rifle. Blood spattered her bare arms, and a few drops had landed on her cheek. She may have looked petite and worthless, but she was slowly getting better at this whole killing things, thing.

< Ripper > Ripper chambered his large automatic rifle and slung the weapon up to rest behind his back. Jumping down the few feet from above, he reached upwards to use the tip of his freshly used sword to reach up and nudge the manhole back to place. Rivulets of warm blood slid down the blade and ran over its pommel to drip down on him below.

< Zelda > Zelda flicked a rogue piece of red hair from her eyes, blowing at it, as she rounded the corner. It was one of those short corridors - not a dead end - where there was an entrance (or exit, as it were) to the sewers. She stopped in her tracks and stepped back cautiously, as she found her way blocked by someone entering. Friend or foe? She hung back, eyeing him curiously, to see what he might do next. Of course she could see the blood on the sword; she was desensitized to it.

< Ripper > a short puff of breath alerted him to another presence as he glanced behind to see who else stalked the shadows. these corridors here were usually well traversed, so it would be no surprise to him encountering another vampire-especially this close to the sunrise when most sought refuge. he turned around fully to see her diminished frame and was surprised slightly to notice that he recognized this girl! with all the new names and faces cropping up lately he hadn't really expected that but he remembered her as the one who had thanked him once ago for...he really never did know what for.

< Zelda > The guy doesn't move. Zelda herself doesn't have such a great memory - perhaps she'd have recognized him if he'd still been astride that magnificent bike, but otherwise, not one ounce of recognition. She had a hard enough time remembering 'family', let along strangers that weren't even met. She had determined, however, that the male was in fact vampire (call it a sixth sense) and not a hunter. Her toes curled a little before she stepped out from the darker shadows. Her red painted lips curled up into a smile. She was hardly a shy woman, and nor was she ignorant. She quite liked people, generally. "Lovely night for a walk through the sewers," she said cheerily, laughter and sarcasm clear in her hazel-brown eyes - even if it was quite dark down there.

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--


< Ripper > *nods, acknowledging her greeting*
< Ripper > "You're welcome."

< Zelda > Zelda blinked. The smile lessened, slightly. One could almost see the cogs turning in her brain. What had she said that required that kind of response? Her head canted to the side. Maybe he was one of the insane ones. There were a few of those around. And expected, too - this kind of life was slightly insane. "... are you taking credit for the loveliness of the sewers?" she asked, assuming that the guy had thought she was thanking him for the 'lovely walk'.

< Ripper > the wh-? Ripper noticed the slight change of the pace and expression of her face shifted subtlety; something in what he said appeared to have resonated with her by knocking her breezy exuberance down a notch. The smile was still there but some of the sarcasm and good-humor now seemed to have slipped behind a veil. He felt the all too familiar sensation of somebody sizing him up and held he tried to stand there motionless as a statue until she was done.

< Zelda > The guy doesn't say anything. He stands there as if she might pose some kind of threat. Zelda, of course, has no idea how that could be; they're both similarly armed, and he's got an advantage of height. He doesn't make a move to leave, or to brush past her. But nor does he respond. Silence is not something that Zelda appreciates, much. She narrows her eyes. "...are you okay? I mean, you said you're welcome as if I thanked you for something..." she says, a curious arch to her brow, her lips slightly ajar as the sentence trails off. She's obviously expecting him to expand.

< Ripper > "Has anyone done lately a thing worth thanking for?" he asked the question simply, laying a simple prod to remind her without pushing into the details of their encounter earlier. The remembrance of it now prompted a smirk upon his face quite resembling the one held before-as though it had leaped off from her face and over to him.

< Zelda > Again, those painted lips go slack. Her free fingers rake through her red hair - a habit she has when deep in thought. Some might consider Zelda thankless. She does take a lot for granted. Not because she's spoiled, really, but because she's always flitting about like a Disney fairy on crack. She doesn't hold on to events or thoughts for very long before moving on to the next thing. She lifts her chin as she finally remembers one single significant recent event, that did not include Shan giving her new and superior weaponry. "You happen to drive a rather glorious Triumph?" she asks, eyes bright.

< Ripper > Ah, the Triumph! It would make sense that she had remembered the bike and not his face; the brief flash of their encounter leaving small time to take in many details fully. He'd had a little less to focus on, only her confusing appreciation which had marked out her persona to remember especially. It was a practiced technique that he had learned to hone in very quickly whenever another vampire sought to use violence against him. Those faces were imprinted indelibly in his memory even though the names rarely seemed to stick.

< Ripper > He found himself in the very familiar situation of recognizing somebody whose name escaped him entirely though his grin was the telling reply that she might have been looking for.

< Ripper > "Yes, a very nice night for a walk."

* Ripper continued onto her previous question (having now caught up in his mind).

< Zelda > Her hazel-brown eyes widen inquisitively as she waits for a response; she had asked a question, to which he just stood there gawping. Her tongue unsticks from the roof of her mouth as she blinks. "Well? That's the only incident I can think of. Some guy flying over a wall or a fence or whatever and flattening a fadebeast I had accidentally--" and here she creates quotation marks in the air....only to have him finally respond. But not to her question. She drops her hand. Maybe he's got some kind of head injury. "Are you okay?"

* Ripper was more than okay! not only had he found out that one mystery-without even having to ask- he had also just learned of his apparent success in scuttling a rather large predator so easily that he had not even noticed the effort.

< Ripper > *his laughter filled the narrow halls and bounced across the cracked linoleum walls*

< Zelda > Zelda's shoulders straighten and those lips of hers turn crooked. Now he's just laughing at her, and she still has no idea who the hell he is or whether he's even who she thinks he might be. "Right. Uhm. I'm glad I was so amusing. I might ah... go this way," she gestures over her shoulder, her lips tightly pressed together for a moment. "And ah... maybe I'll see you around," she says, again regaining her general cheer. It's never usually lost for very long - just lingering beneath the surface.