Tytonidays and Nights - Group 3 (closed)

[Cristiana]

The bar had been pretty dead tonight. It was most likely due to the opening of that biker bar not too far from her multimillion dollar staged club. Since it was slow, she handed off the reign to who was working beside her tonight. “I think I will take a stroll.” Was all the information she gave before wiping her hands free of the fruit juices from the fruits she was cutting and storing for when they were busier. With that she slipped into the booth and let the fade portal take her away. What she wasn’t informing her co-workers just yet that she was in the nefarious group that was known as Ty and she was going to meet a few of them to discuss something very important.

She ended up in the caverns just in time to see a bright shining jewel sitting right where she happened to teleport from the club into the gray lurking space. When she bent down to grab it, she had seen the oddest sight, a little boys figure ducking down the hall. His laughter was what drew her to him. She kept on his tail, picking up the toy truck he dropped taking the mine shaft down to the lower level. What in the world was a child doing in the mines? All along she was keeping aware for someone calling out the child’s name, someone like a parent or guardian but no one was calling for him. It was just this lone child wandering around aimless.
Down in the lower level, her heightened senses kicked in. She followed his scent down into the large room. For now she tucked the toy truck into her backpack when the first tremor hit. It shook the cavern where she stood, trying to knock her from one side to the other side of the walls like she was stuck in a salt shaker. Her first thought was what idiot was trying to use earthquake in the caverns? There wasn’t time to investigate idiots and children finding their way to the cavern, she had to pick one over the other. Naturally, she went after the child calling out random names, “Oh Billy, Oh Sebastian, Oh Tommy, Oh Timmy..” What the hell could the little **** be named? Nothing was grabbing this little demon spawn’s attention. She kept calling out random names that were related to males, even some of the males she knew trying to see if this child would stop running and stop, turning around. Finally she blurted out, “For ****’s sake kid stop, I have your truck!” That’s when he slid to a dead halt turning around to face her.
“You… you have my truck?” He looked around him realizing that it wasn’t on him anymore. “Give it back thief! You stole it from me!”
“Why you ungrateful little bra…” The next tremor hit, this one was worse than before knocking poor little Jimmy, as she was know thinking of him, on his butt. She actually fell against the wall. “Listen kid, this isn’t the safest place for you. Maybe you should go back home.”
It was her surprise when he informed her, “I’m running away from there. They made me eat broccoli and they know I hate that ****.”
She wasn’t sure which happened first, her eyes widening or her mouth dropping open. She fished the child’s truck from her backpack in which he snatched out of her hand before it came out of the bag fully. She shook her head wishing to hell she brought some aspirins with her. “Sounds like typical parents kiddo,” She tried to lure him out of the dark cavern, “How about I give you a chocolate bar if you show me where home is?” The kid was good, not going to be fooled with sweets when he shook his head no.
The tremor this time was bad, horrible. The rocks came sliding down; she could hear the kid scream but didn’t reach him in time to protect him from anything that might fall on him. She fell inches short of getting him flat against the wall. She felt something solid hit her dead in the back and dropped her like a dead fly. She felt like she had been splattered against the window by a fly swatter. Instead, she picked herself up, rolling off the rock that collapsed on her. It wasn’t until the dust cleared that she seen how small it was. A little hand reached out pulling her to stand up, “Lady you okay?” He said with the look that tears were about to flood his face, now he was genuinely scared. “What was that?” He said hugging his truck to his chest.

“I don’t rightly know kid.” She looked around trying to see clearly through the dust that had formed from the avalanche of rocks. “But uh… it’ll uhh.. Be alright.” She said shakily because what the hell did she know. She didn’t want to yell out and see who else was here just in case it caused another tremor in the cavern. “Let’s stay quiet and see if anyone else is down here, if they got hurt ok? We can .. uh, play doctor?” She said unsure. The kid folded his hand in hers nodding. When in the hell did she become a babysitter and why didn’t she turn to investigate why there were tremors or an earthquake inside the caverns instead of chasing this brat kid around.

[Nishaa]

Bullwood.

She had made her way to bullwood, she was under instruction from Velveteen to get to the mines. She had been given the task of collecting, mining a few gems. She had a pickaxe over her shoulder. She had nabbed one from a merchant. He didn’t ask questions. She had paid him well not to ask questions, it was how badasses like Nishaa rolled, man. She squeezed herself into the small entrance to the mines and made her way into the tunnels, the rails on the path. She looked them over casually, inspecting the walls for any gems that lay embedded within the walls. She didn’t feel anything at first she was far too busy scanning the area for anything.

She wore her jogging bottoms. (something to wear in these tedious moments.) God, what she did for her loyalty to her gramps and gramma. If they told her to jump off a cliff, there was a good chance she’d jump. If they told her to anything silly – she would. Nishaa was like a dog in that way. She’d follow orders, and do as her owner says. They respected her, as she respected them – so they asked her to do this task for her, then she would. Her top half was silly. She wore a Guns N Roses Tee, it was crop. It showed off that skull ring belly she had. (she wasn’t ashamed to show that bad boy.)

She got down onto the second floor, that was when she felt the first tremor. It was a tickle. She didn’t think anything of it. Earthquakes were common right? She meandered through the tunnels as she began to yank a couple of sapphires free from the wall, using her brute, vampire strength they came free as the wall cracked. She began to walk further into the mines as another tremor hit, this time this one was a little more violent. Little rocks began to fall from the ceiling, she found herself looking up. She grumbled a little pushed her pickaxe against the nearby cavern wall and looked up again. This time another tremor came, not even a minute had passed by since the last one hit, and this one, this one was a nasty ******.

She could hear it, the ceiling cracked above her head. She didn’t have time to react. She was impaled immediately. The ceiling fell on top of her. Pinning her to the ground. Nishaa was rendered unconscious. She didn’t know how long she was out. She just laid there. The blackness surrounded her.

[Remington Rothfelder]

The order had been a simple one.

Invade the darkest parts of Harper Rock, on the outer edges of the city, and from it take the most brilliant gems to bolster Tytonidae’s funds. Of course. If you asked him, he suspected once they were all retrieved, the jewels would be placed away somewhere for safe keeping. There was no such thing as an inexhaustible mine, and once the caverns were tapped dry of their rich ‘blood’, there would be an enormous spike in the area for locally harvested stones. He doubted very many people would have considered that, but it was the sort of thinking he associated with his faction. A step ahead. Where man just endeavoured to survive in a brutal and harsh society, it was his gang mates that thrived.

A big part of that was due to their foresight.

Ariadne for example. Bottled blood sold to look like wine. Such a simple, simple concept, and yet she was the one who had innovated. All vampires needed to drink. And most were smart enough not to want to be caught. Remington would not have been surprised if she was a very wealthy woman indeed.

He had a sledge hammer in hand when he descended into the caves. He caught sight of Nishaa just a few steps ahead of him, and chose to follow after her rather than call out. But that was Remington’s nature. Most thought him an arrogant show pony who liked to strut and preen. The truth of the matter was that he was used to being alone in a crowd, and despite his often confident quips, he felt very little legitimate need to draw attention to himself. At least not directly. Not even to make himself known. People always underestimated meat heads.

Overlooked their potential intelligence.

That was how he liked it.

They were struck just moments later. Or rather, the cave was. The ground and walls shook. Remington pushed himself up against the cave wall. That had been what they said to at school wasn’t it? Whatever the case, his eyes shut through the duration of the quake. He wasn’t easily nauseous, but the world moving around him, and him unable to stop it made his guts turn for some reason. Last thing he wanted was for the walls to be stained red with his evening’s meal. And that meant when his eyes finally did pop open once more, he caught sight of Nishaa pinned under some rubble that had fallen from the roof.

She looked really fucked up.

Unbeknownst to him, the two of them were not the only ones in the cave.

He shoved away the smaller rocks that covered Nishaa’s body, and that left merely one very large boulder that covered her leg. It was nearly as big as she was. His hands were primed against it and ready to shove the damned thing off when he heard the sound of a child laughing. His fingers quickly pulled away from the stone’s surface as if he had been caught doing something untoward with himself by someone not meant to see that type of thing. He took the Masquerade seriously. And there were no children vampires. At least. There weren’t supposed to be. He had learned that recently. So he glanced around, searching for the source of the voice. “Hello!” He called out finally.

It was at that point, the youth came running from whatever direction Cristiana was. Remington glanced that way, and immediately recognized her. They had been on a hunt together. He assumed they had been given the same orders. Who else would they find down in the caverns? “Cristiana.” He said simply. A greeting and acknowledgement.

And that was when the kid found him. Though the child just sort of stared up at him like he was some kind of behemoth.

He supposed, to someone so small, he might have seemed that way. Covered in tattoos, and broad enough in the chest that he sometimes had difficulty walking straight through doors. Muscles didn’t help the situation.

“Are you a super hero?” The boy asked.

“Of course not. What hero admits to it?” A wink. “Say, can you run back and get my friend over there?” He pointed vaguely towards Cristiana.

Waiting until the child ran off, Remington moved to shove the big boulder out of the way, hoping the boy would not notice him doing what was clearly not a feat of human strength. Or. If he did see it, that he would believe the super hero ruse.

DICE ROLL: Succeeded.

Remington was able to move the rock out of the way without the child suspecting that he was a vampire!

[Aksel]

Menial, back-breaking labor. It was befitting of him, someone so lowly and worthless. It was expected, honestly, that his faction would find something tailored more to his less than desirable attributes, even if he had recently taken to training his mind over flexing his muscles and gathering strength. He shifted in the darkness, the gloom like his natural home. The space he found himself in was small, with only enough room to swing his axe. The simple tool had been left for him, along with a note tied to its head and rested against the door to his apartment. The stone before him was large; huge, even. Several times the size of any sapphire he had seen in the mines to date.

Yes, the great and mighty Tytonidae that so many people in this grim, shamelessly cutthroat city feared and scorned had sent him on the ever glorious mission into the mines. A mission meant to line their pockets with the cash these glimmering stones caused to flow from every shop in their small municipality. He had been down here for weeks already as it was, collecting the stones for his personal collections and to trade for his own bankroll. They turned a much better profit than most of the seemingly useless items he came across in his everyday activities.

He ran his thumb across his lower lip, working the dry, stiff skin as he thought. There was a fault in the stone that nearly ran down the center of the gem. A single strike would work the precious material loose and only cause a small fracture in the brittle quartz that surrounded it. It was truly an ideal find, and one that could almost easily cut his trip short. His eyes followed the fault in the crystalline stone that surrounded the precious gem, and decided upon the space that appeared most brittle, just above the sharp point of the deep blue of the sapphire.

Nodding in silence, he hefted the axe, its head resting against the other side of the small crevice, just above the man corridor of the cavern that led deeper into the dark, the metal contacting the wall of the cave with a solid click. With that touch, he tested the limits of his space. There was easily enough room for a solid swing. He pulled his arm back again, the handle of the axe angled to offer him more space before he began the arc, the head of the axe dragging across the stone and sending sparks shooting through the small space, a thousand tiny flashes of blistering bright light surrounded him. The tiny flicker made his visage flash in the light, a lifeless face, his eyes sunken and his features drawn and wan. He looked the true walking corpse that he had become in that brief flash of brilliant luminescence.

The axe cleared the wall and shot through the air with a lethal force, its heavy head and long, lightweight shaft acting as a pendulum, multiplying the power of his strike against the stone several times over. When the metal struck stone, a sharp, brittle crack echoed in the small space. The sound alone was enough to cause his brain to feel like it quivered inside his skull. The crystalline quartz of the wall began to split, the gem still nestled firmly within the wall. He lifted his hand, fingers working into the space that had been formed between the gem and the wall and pulled, the heavy stone nearly the size of a basketball cleanly rolled from the sunken space that had been its home for, undoubtedly, hundreds if not thousands of years, waiting to become humble bounty for the Owl.

As the stone fell into his pack, another sharp crack erupted from the crevice, and another, before the floor beneath him began to tremble. He could feel the very structure of the caverns beneath him shifting and, muffled through several feet of stone, the ceiling of the shaft leading into the main cavern collapsing. “****. No, no, no…” He zipped his pack and turned, scrambling into the small opening into the shaft and dropping to the floor, his feet landing deftly and quietly as he sank down, using his knees to absorb the impact. His open palm placed flat against the cold stone of the floor, his dark, onyx orbs scanned the darkness as the dust began to settle.

He had missed most of the trauma in the small space above, the wide path beneath his find receiving most of the damage. He couldn’t have caused so much with a single swing of an axe. Could he?

Of course you can.

He pushed the voice away. The shadow that always invaded his mind in his most vulnerable moments. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach as his throat felt tight. He couldn’t see even the smallest hint of light from the path above. The entire corridor had collapsed. There was no getting out; not tonight. “Trinity.” The single word spoke the entire volume of his fears. He had only just convinced the poor girl that he had not abandoned her to the night alone, that his departure had not been his own choice and now, here in the dark, dusty depth of this icy cold hell, he was trapped again, and with no way to reach her, would be leaving her to her own wild imagination. How was he going to explain a second disappearance?

She won’t listen.

He pushed the voice away. He didn’t have time for the pit that she always dragged him into. The darkness that always came with the childish chime. He ran his hand over his face and took a long, steady breath. He couldn’t change what was going to happen by standing in the dark and panicking about it. He slowly stood, his knees stiff from the impact. He could see shapes moving in the dark some distance ahead, the distorted sound of voices echoing off the stone walls accompanying them. His features set into their natural grim state, his lips twitched into his trademark frown as he pulled his gun from the holster at his thigh. He left the weapon hanging loose at his side, his finger resting lightly against the trigger guard, ready to flip the machine pistol into action at the first sign of foes.

As he drew closer, the voices became clearer, less space between them to echo off the walls. He recognized the voice as Remington, one of the newer members of the faction. The form that he stood over looked worse for wear, a form that, upon his approach, shifted into the shape of Nishaa, fellow Owl and sibling to his sire; a form he least expected to find beneath the rubble of a cave-in that he had not caused to happen, so he had convinced himself. He closed the distance between them as Remington pushed the rock from over her mangled body, the child running into the direction of Cristiana. He had never spoken a word to either of them. He had never really had the occasion to need to do so. He did, however, recognize the both of them from their passings by in the tree house.

In a low, hushed voice that was meant to only carry the space between the two of them, he offered his assistance to the man. “If we can keep the kid distracted, I can boost her.” He kept the words vague, nondescript, and commonplace to keep the child’s naturally suspicious mind from knowing exactly what it was that he proposed. Even with the cautionary whisper, there was no way to tell exactly how observant the kid might be, or how sharp his ears were.

[Helena (DELETED 4251)]

Helena sat in the middle of the closet grumbling about the amount of clothes, yet somehow she still had too many!!! How was that remotely even possible when two thirds of her clothes in this city had already been dispersed to charity or family!? She grumbled to herself looking over the wardrobe costing well more than the apartment was worth. When the phone went off she gave a huff of relief that something would distract her from having to try to sort through more of the mass. “Ha! Eve, my dear, I guess the rest of my clothes will have to wait to be sorted."

The woman’s baby blues scanned the email she picked up over the hacked phone getting the assignment at hand; when she was done reading she scrunched her nose. The shrug rose and fell on her shoulders, “This should be interesting. But if this ruins my nails, someone is taking me out on a spa date to fix them!”

She said while looking at the phone. Besides it was a perfect time to test out these new, non designer jeans she was convinced to buy in place of the tailored name brands that she was accustomed to wearing. Instead of one of her precious shirts, glancing at the email and where it said she should go, she grabbed one of Jax’s tee shirt since he wouldn’t mind, as far as she knew. Along with some of the ‘sale’ shoes that begrudged on her heart and soul. She liked sales as much as the next person, but cheap, poorly made clothes and shoes were horribly uncomfortable. Still. These ones weren't too bad, they may not be as good as what she would normall buy, but these boots would be much more comfortable than her usual high heels.

The Algonquin Caverns weren’t too far, not with her ability to teleport to anywhere in the city she could possibly want to, that is. Though, she did not teleport directly to the cave, as she chose to appear in a back alley in a closer part of the town to her destination, to take her time and a walk. The walk was short lived from there. She stopped just long enough to look into the window of the shop almost tempted to buy something before remembering she was on a mission to collect gems from the caverns, “Later, my pretties.”

She said running her fingers down the window and toward the caverns. She made her way to the first level of the place when the ground shook for the first time. The thought struck her that it was strange the ground shook here, but she didn’t pay much mind to it. It was underground caverns, which meant area of underground that was completely hollow. Of course it wouldn't be completely stable.

Her first gem, the green emerald lay not too far into the darkened hovel of a place. She wandered down to the second level taking the elevator shaft, a shift old mechanical and wooden one manned mine shaft that creaked when you turned the wheel to lower you. Not the safest thing in her opinion. On her way to the second level, the ground shook again, this time nearly dropping her to the bottom of the dark hole. “****!” she cried out nearly losing her grip on the wheel but she held fast.


Once down on the ground she got out of the little wooden box that made due for an elevator and headed away from that piece of crap before it broke plunging something through her heart. When the final quake hit, she ran toward the biggest room hearing the wall crumble and crash behind her. She turned around in enough time to get a face full of dust. If she needed to breathe she’d be coughing a storm. It did sting her eyes enough to rub them but otherwise didn’t bother her.

She kicked at a rock, pissed that she was trapped inside the room but at least she could wash off this dirt with the water in the stream behind them. As she went further in, people came into view; she dropped down to Nishaa’s side, “****! Nish! Nish? Wake up, dear. You need to wake up."

She didn’t bother to look up and greet anyone else, she didn't think they'd very much blame her for not giving them her immediate attention. She started to clear the rocky mess off the woman not paying attention to who else was caught in the room. Mostly focusing on the small debris rather than anything big. For now making sure the woman was consciously okay was more important. If she moved anything and ended up pulling something wrong, she could seriously hurt the woman. It wasn’t like she was going to exchange pleasantries while someone was hurt.

[Cristiana]

There needed to be a moment to assess the situation at hand, several people trapped in the dank dark cave with one trapped under rumble and rocks, a human child whom she vaguely remembered from somewhere and several others in the room with them. The best part of all of this is they were in the room with water, so the child wouldn’t dehydrate. Granted, he was surrounded by vampires, who in a few days would be starving if this took more than a day or two to clear. She had some parcels of food she carried with her at all times to snack on but it wouldn’t last more for more than a few days. She looked around as the child came back over to her from Remington, yet she couldn’t recall his name for the life of her. Helena , Aksel and Nishaa she knew but Remington she wasn’t as familiar with. Askel, she had decorated an apartment for, Nishaa well who in Ty didn’t know her and Helena she was very familiar with from parties and from time to time, Helena worked for her as a model.

The child tugged her shirt, “That man says he needs you and you are his friend.” She looked down to him, but it wasn’t that far down since he was nearly as tall as she was. She gave him a faint smile heading toward the man she was least recognizable to.

“Thank you dearest one.” She kept a hold of the boy’s hand in the off chance the earthquakes returned and they ended up getting trapped anymore. Approaching the man, she kept the smile on her face trying to keep the child calm and make it look like she was just saying hello to the man she was suppose to know, “Oh dear,” She called practically everyone dear or dearest, “It seems we have a situation going on.” She kept herself as a shield between Nishaa and the boy’s line of view. Helena and Askel seemed to be taking care of Nishaa’s trapped state. Her eyes lingered toward Nishaa and the boy trying to non verbally communicate to Remington the child, who seemed awfully recognizable to her, they were in some kind of trouble here. “Think you can help them while I teach him,” She motioned to the child again, “Some basic survival stuff and get some water from over there?” She pointed out where the underground stream ran through the caverns. More importantly, in case more came down she wanted someone else to know where she was, “Does he seem … familiar… to you?” She whispered low enough the boy didn’t hear but knew well enough Remington could hear her. “He… looks… like I have seen him before?” Her brow furrowed before it dawned on her. Her eyes widened and she looked at the child again, turning his face toward her, “Oh my dear, I knew he looked memorable. He’s the mayors’ son!” Her eyes flashed toward Remington. “I seen him on Halloween, and the kid was wearing a costume so I didn’t pick up on it right away!” Really it was the super hero comments that made the gears in her head start turning. The child had been dressed as Batman, said he was the coolest because he was just an ordinary man under the costume and still kicked butt. Cristiana had, at that point, brushed the child off with a laugh and turned to the father who was her main objective for that evening. It had been why she was late to her own Halloween party in the Metronome Club.

“I can occupy the kid some, I have met him before, if you think you can help them get some of this clear. Maybe we should see if we can fortify this room a little more in case there are more earthquakes? And see if anyone has anything useful in their backpacks to help keep this kid distracted? I have a few tricks I can use.” Now seeing as he has been ignored for too long, it was the childs cue to start whining.

“I wanna go home!” He cried out to the two adults looking up at them. “Can you take me home?” She wanted to rub her temples already; really she didn’t like children all that much but tolerated them for the majority of business endeavors.

She bent down to his height, “Dearest one, do you remember me? I remember you. Well, we are going to see about getting out of here but first, we need to make sure you have some water to drink!”

The kid looked at her, giving her an expression that was flat out rude, “I’m eight, not a baby.” He said in a condescending tone. The boy turned on his heel walking toward the flowing water. It wasn’t like they could kill him, but somehow she guessed by the end of the night, she’d want to see the brat punished.

Once she had him away from the group, it was just her and the kid by the water she called his name sharp and quick making him turn his head to face her. His eyes caught hers in the direct gaze. She used her powers on the child, hoping to make him docile and keep him drawn to her verses paying attention to the others working to free Nishaa, if she could persuade him to just stay over here with her then they could do what they needed. “My dear, you really want to play over here with your truck and not look back at the other. It’s safe over here with me. I will take care of you. Can you do this for me?” She said letting go of his face, her eyes scanning his face to see if the power washed over the boy like it did so many other vampires in the past. This child should be a very easy target with his weakened will and innocent state of mind. Just like she guessed, his eyes turned to her enthralled. She hummed the song she last heard in the club while the boy played quietly with his truck. She dug through her bag to see what she could use for a cup, to see if the water was clean enough to drink. If she drank it to find out if it was safe enough for him to drink it, then no real harm if something was wrong with it. She just needed to find something to use as make shift cup. The water didn’t smell bad, no sulfur scent but they were in a cave and looks can be deceiving.

((Dice Roll *with Vel's help* Using Pacification on the child. -Fantastic. Looks like Lady Luck is on your side. )

[Nishaa]

• • • 
      “Niagra, you found me.”
      
      He giggled opening his arms to her for the girl to embrace him but she didn’t. She had seen what happened next in her dream; she had heard the voices urging her to kill. So she did, she acted on the voices in her head, the voices that told her to take his life, offer it to the devil – so the occult books had said, as so she did her knife slipped into the boys chest like a knife cutting butter, she looked into the whites of his eyes, she could see fear within them. She could smell it even. It was all over him as the boy collapsed to the ground, he shook on the floor, and his body spasmed on the ground as Nishaa turned herself from the boy looking at the blood coated dagger. She lifted it to her mouth and licked at the blood, ingested it – until she coughed.

Nishaa seemed to always dream of her past, the night that she killed her brother. Over and Over she would have the same dream, and she’d always wake up feeling guilty. She grunted twisting her head to the side in her unconscious sleep like state before she finally woke up.

Nishaa’s eyes slowly opened to find herself looking at Remington, Aksel and Helena. She blinked a few times feeling a pain in the lower half of her body. She wriggled trying to get herself free but what she didn’t realise at first was that she was still impaled; most of the debris that had fallen on top of her had been removed. Over and over she could hear her name being spoken. The person speaking sounded as if her voice was panicked. Nishaa looked to pinpoint the source of the panicked tone, onyx orbs looking directly at Helena.

• ”Imawake!”

She said in a croaky, hoarse voice as she pushed herself up slowly. Dirt meshed across her pale, pristine features. As she freed her hand from underneath her belly to rub at her cheeks dirt etched away after each rubbing. Nishaa noticed then, that there was a little boy with Cristiana. She remembered the woman from her scavenger hunt. She took a selfie with her as one of the tasks. That boy though, she recognised that boy. She squinted to try and remember. (A habit of hers when she tried to remember.) THE MAYORS SON!. Nishaa lifted her fingers to point in his direction.

She looked directly at Remington, and Aksel.

• ”Is that who I think it is?”

She asked curiously as she once more tried to pull herself free but it was no use, not with that giant *** boulder on her leg. She gave the rest a pleading look, a look that said ‘get this damn thing off me’ she then turned to face the ceiling, there was a giant gaping hole where ceiling used to be. Funny that.

[Remington Rothfelder]

Remington had only just finished hauling the large rock off of Nishaa, the one that had effectively kept her pinned from rib all the way down to hip, used his superhuman strength to carefully set the thing aside; when Aksel and Helena made their appearance known. Helena began to clear rubble off of the other woman though there was still another large rock holding her leg in place. He used the heel of his boot to press against it until it was solidly pressed to the ground, creating leverage. He leaned down to grab one of Nishaa’s arms and under her knee, tugging her out from under the dust and fragments of stone. Had she been human, he might have been more careful. No telling what sorts of injuries she might have sustained to her skeletal structure.

But she was a vampire. She would heal.

Only once he had ensured she was at least out of the way of immediate further injury did his attention turn to Cristiana. She had been speaking, seemingly on the very same subject that Aksel had brought up when he approached. Well that seemed to be a good enough plan for him. She could distract the kid while they took care of Nishaa. Though it lacked in one particular area.

“I’m going to go take a look around and make sure we’re trapped down here. If we are, then we should probably begin fortifying the area, yeah. So we can begin to dig our way out.” His words were whispered, though to the other vampires, they likely seemed to be at full volume. He didn’t really see the point of hiding the plan from the kid because he would see it in action, but the more in the dark the child was about the whole thing – the better. A truth that only became more resoundingly clear when it was revealed that the boy was the son of the mayor. Not that Remi would have opted to just do away with him otherwise.

Children were impressionable. Nobody was going to believe stories they had to tell, or at least not anybody credible. And while he was a very violent man by nature – he also lived by a code. It was discipline that had been one of the factors to draw him to Tytonidae to begin with. He would not consider hurting a child. That was the unspoken solution to most Masquerade violations wasn’t it? If a human was dead, they couldn’t tell any tales. There were monsters in the world, and then there were monsters.

When Cristiana wandered off towards the water with the boy, Remington glanced back towards the other three. “Be back in a few. Will update everyone when I return.” He commented, figuring that Helena and Aksel would be able to help Nishaa with whatever she needed. He then hefted his sledge hammer so that he could begin to carefully but thoroughly prod at the walls in the darkness. He wasn’t sure how much force it would take to make a wall collapse or make the cave in worse (or possibly trigger another one), but he knew that he needed to make sure the wall of rock between himself and the outside world wasn’t paper thin. There was a lot of tapping. Metal on stone. Like some kind of odd echolocation. Rhythmic and constant. All of the way around a misshapen perimeter.

He ended up right back where he started a good ten minutes later. They apparently didn’t have a ton of room either.

“Well that was no more helpful than I was enlightening. I think we are pretty solidly trapped here. Any suggestions on how we’re going to build supports without wood? And should we just try digging through the part that collapsed?” Because the truth of the matter was that the entire tunnel leading into the area where they had been trapped might have collapsed. There was no way of knowing how long they would be down there. What if it was a week? A month?

[Aksel]

Turning from where he stood next to Remington, the tall, wiry man lifted a bony hand to cover his gaunt features. His laughter never came, though this was as close as he would usually come to a laugh as Helena jumped into panic at Nishaa’s side. If she were anything like him, she had been shot, stabbed, possibly even had limbs entirely removed from her body in the time since she had first come to Harper Rock. Getting hit with a blunt object, even as heavy as the stone ceiling of the cave, was hardly anything to fret over so completely. He realized then just how jaded someone could become to what was, before, a matter of supreme permanence. Life and death, a line that before seemed more like this sort of door that, once you had passed through, the door was locked behind you and there was no going back.

He went across that line several times in a week. The space between life and death was practically where he called home. Once he had learned of the Fade, and that such things as Fadewalkers existed, his true calling in the life he had been placed into was crystal clear. He couldn't really imagine doing anything else with his experience. As the fellow Dane forwent pleasantries to check on the woman sprawled beneath the stones, he understood that she was truly upset. He calmed his jittery amusement and let his hand fall at his side. His lips had never twitched from their neutral line, pressed thinly together as he had watched. He stepped forward as Remington turned to depart in a search of the room’s perimeter. “I do not think that we will be going anywhere. You know where to find us.”

He leaned down, placing a hand on Helena’s shoulder. “She will be alright. She has endured far worse than a little smashing, I am cert-” Like she was on a cue, the woman croaked, announcing her return to a cognitive state. As Nishaa worked herself to her elbows, he dropped to a knee at Helena’s side. “See?” He nodded to the woman sprawled across the stone floor before them and he held out his hand to her, offering to help her sit upright, to test her spine. Paralysis was hardly a worry in a vampire, as far as he had been made aware, and as long as the pair of functioning adults remained between the child and Nishaa’s mangled form, he could hardly survey the damage to her body. This was hardly material for a child’s eyes, at any rate.

“We have got to stop meeting like this.” The quip was in a flat, serious tone, his features set as always in that saddened expression as he hefted her forward. He cocked an ear, listening to the click, rap, tap of Remington’s hammer, gauging for himself exactly how far the man could walk, how much space they really had down here. The trip was short lived as the other male came back upon them in quick order. This caused the already grim expression to grow dark on his face. His mind was moving ahead, inventorying the pieces and building a plan. This wasn’t going to be an easy task with a living, breathing child down here with them, sedated or not.

First things first. “Nishaa, are you going to be alright or are you going to need some assistance? I do not know exactly what sort of…” he glanced to the child, his lips pursing. He was not an Allurist. He didn’t really know any Allurists very well. He wasn’t sure if this child under Cristiana’s sway would hear or, even worse, remember the things that he heard while within the spell. He glanced back to Nishaa then, and continued, choosing his words carefully. “…strengths you possess, exactly. ” His hands slowly moved from her form, letting her sit up on her own power as he moved to his feet, brushing the knee of his slacks. What he had seen when he had glanced in Cristiana’s direction had set his mind to work again.

He turned, and hoisted his pack off the floor, his arm disappearing into the main bulk of the strong material. When it returned, he held a small pill bottle in his hand. “Cristiana.” he said firmly across the space between them, his hand holding the bottle high. “Do not even think of drinking water straight from the ground. I have a filtered bottle and purifying tablets in my pack here.” The look in his dark, onyx gaze said everything that he needed to say. If she drank the water, and didn’t hand it to the boy right away, he would simply drink it himself when he had the chance. He would have to, if they were as solidly trapped as Remington believed. If she refused to let him drink, his suspicions would be aroused. How could she drink water that he couldn’t? Lies could only wave a web so wide if you didn’t have a thread of truth in them somewhere.

“”These will kill the bacteria in the water.” he tossed her the small bottle of tablets, the pills rattling in the hard plastic shell as they rolled through the air. He reached into his pack again and removed a charcoal filtered drinking bottle, already filled with distilled water. Store purchased, of course. “Let him drink this first. After that, use those tablets for any water you use from that stream. It is going to be bitter, but he won’t get an infection while we are down here.” That would hardly come out in their favor, the mayor’s son dying on their watch while they were trapped in this hole. Especially over something so trivial as a bacterial infection. He had iodine drops and peroxide, but he could only carry so much in his pack before it became more of a giant medical kit strapped to his back. He had lamented to give in to Trinity when she had chided him: ”You can only be so prepared.”

This would be the one time he had left something at home that he would need. He was certain of it. He sighed, and ran his thin hand over his face again. Think. He thought to himself. He was thinking. He was thinking fast, his mind working in myriad paths toward the same goal. Getting them all out of here alive. It would have been easy without the kid. His black eyes slid to the kid again and he frowned. “Alright. While we are down here, no flames. We need to preserve as much oxygen as we can, until we can confirm that we have a line to the air outside. No sense in suffocating ourselves. If you need light, use an electric lamp. I have two, one here…” he pulled one from his pack, holding it out to them. He wasn’t sure if anyone else would have brought one, but if they hadn’t, he had the spare. “And the other on my person.”

He glanced around at them, taking in the situation critically. Three healthy, unhindered vampires, one occupied vampire, one civilian human, and one injured vampire. It was quite a crowd; a lot of personalities. Blood was going to be a problem. Tempers were bound to flare in such a small space. Fortunately they had water for the boy, and for other uses that may prove useful, and the rest of his kit was still intact. If Nishaa couldn’t heal her wounds herself, he had a single wrap of gauze tape and the bottle of iodine and peroxide. The bottle and tablets were in Cristiana’s hands. The matches wouldn’t be useful here, but they were there. Flares, again useless, and a suture kit. He was sure that, if necessary, there were objects in their packs that they could use for splints with the tape. “We are going to need a plan of action.” he glanced back, again, to the kid. “Does anyone have an iPod, or a portable radio, or something to distract the kid long enough to let Cristiana join us for a minute without the tag-along?”

He glanced back to the room hopefully. There it was. The one thing that he had forgotten, and it was the one thing he was almost never without.

[Remington Rothfelder]

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

<Aksel> Setting his pack aside, the few pieces of his kit mentally catalogued, he moved to stand among the group by Nishaa and, waiting for Cristiana to join them, struck up the conversation they all knew was going to be necessary. “I have what is left in my kit, not much use we will get from it, I am afraid, beyond making a show of caring for wounds. We need an accurate count of whatever else we might have that will be useful. Anything. Batteries, blades, food… anything that you might have on hand. I know most of you do not know me that well, but I can help with blood and anima. I have a little survival training, obviously…” he waved at his pack and sighed.

“Unfortunately, I believe that is about all I will be able to assist with. I am mostly worried about the boy, keeping ourselves fed and away from him for the duration of our time here, as well as keeping him fed and hoping that the oxygen does not run out down here.” He turned to Remington, then, as he was the only one of them to have walked the full circle of the room. “You did not happen to notice a draft along any of the walls you were prodding at did you?”

He rubbed at his face and continued. “People will notice the cave in very soon since this is a very high-traffic cavern. My hope is that they will get to us within the day, provided that the cave-in is not as bad as it looks from this side. We will not have any problems holding out for a day, I do not believe. If they do not get to us before then, however… we need to work out how to keep ourselves off the boy, and away from his suspicion. I no longer feed from a living vein, and I know for certain that I am able to fast for nearly a week. I can help keep someone else from starving in the mean time.”

<Nishaa> She was pulled out with the help of both Remington and Aksel. Such helpful dudes they were. She nodded her head in their direction a silent thanks so they didn’t arouse the suspicions of the child, the mayors child more to the point. There was a masquerade to uphold. Regardless of being trapped in this place with a small child, who could very well have a wild imagination. She let air escape her mouth, an old human habit. As she closed her eyes, for a moment she forgot the world around her - she focused on that leg of hers. Focusing all the power she healed the wound, the gaping wound that would hinder her moving about and helping the others get out of this damn small space closed up. She let out a sigh of relief as she stood herself up. Brushing down the dirt from her clothes. Her jogging bottoms ripped, there was even a hole in her top. She frowned, but didn’t say anything.

Her onyx orbs fixated on Aksel as he spoke. He spoke of helping others stop themselves from starving and she nodded her head. Her dirt infested raven hair bounced with her. “I can help too.” She chimed in. She knew lots of powers from the Necromancer path, it was the path she was turned into, blood boosting, and healing was her speciality.

He wanted a count though, a count of anything useful. She turned her eyes around and began to make her way back to the place she had been impaled just moments before and plucked her pickaxe that was flat on the ground. She scooped it up within her hands and headed back to the group.

“I got this?” She said. She didn’t have much else, she expected this to be a get in, and out kind of job. She did think about her wraith. Summoning the damn thing to her. “I can call my wraith? Maybe he can tell us how enclosed we actually are.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked to the group.

<Remington> He was silent mostly, because that was Remington’s natural state. He was the sort of man who didn’t believe in the act of talking unless one had something to say that was substantial to the conversation at hand. He had nothing on him but his clothing and his sledge hammer. He, much like Nishaa, had thought the whole thing would be a quick job. How many times had he descended into the caverns to get gems on his own? There had never been a cave in before, and no indication there could be. There had certainly never been any children down there. Why in the hell was there even a kid out in the middle of the night. In caverns. Much less the Mayor’s kid? Who had been the reject responsible for that bright decision? “I don’t think we should wait around to be rescued. We have no clue how severe the damage to the caverns could be, and the longer we wait to get out, the worse the situation gets.” But Remi was a hands on type of guy. He hated leaving his life in someone else’s hand. “As for air I thought I might have felt a little breeze over by the stream, which could also mean that might be the wall to try and break through.” And then, as an after thought. “I won’t be accepting any healing unless everyone else is taken care of. Conserving all of our resources is important. So long as nobody cuts a finger or starts to bleed, I’ll be fine.”

Vote off: Helena