Path of the Vampire forum

Title: Stationary Quest
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Characters: Narla, Cara

Narla must post first, outlining a story on the following theme (feel free to get creative):

Setting: A well lit large office building
Backstory: The group ended up crossing paths as a result of some criminal undertaking (some or all characters).
Occurance: you meet a group of Lionelli gangsters who ask you to retrieve an item of evidence from a police department.
Variable: Narla is vomiting blood.

Participants: 2
ARES: no
Speed: very fast
Chapter: no
Minimum Words Per Post: none
Maximum Words Per Post: none

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This thread was generated via the Roleplay Matchmaking System.

The confining space was pitch black and only sliver of bright light from beneath a door broke through the inky darkness. Narla awoke slowly, her body heavy and exhausted, and something churned her stomach like dryer full of rusted nails. She begins to groan, but a wave of numb, but twisting pain forced a metal taste into her throat. She immediately swallowed the sound because of it. Narla shifted onto her side, refusing to aggravate whatever it was that made her ache but failing as her abdomen seared its agony into every move. It wasn’t until then that she registered she was lying down, everything else inserted itself into her thoughts afterwards—questions of where she was, why she was hurting, why it was dark, and what happened.

With a grunt and groan of effort, and some louder more whimper-like noise from the discomfort caused by the gruffer sounds, the waif lifts herself to her feet and sweeps her hand in front of her to seek a wall while her other arm pressed gingerly against her waist where the pain was the worst. Her body swiftly protests and a sour irony fluid heaved with the contraction of her gut up her throat and out on the floor with a splat. Narla gags and coughs up the rest, some she unintentionally breathed in and some that scratched at her throat.

‘What’s going on..’ she thought hazily, trying in her dizziest of efforts to straighten herself after the force of the retch almost knocked her over. She claws again for the wall but finds a cold, flat metal something instead, and uses that to all the more desperately press forward toward the sliver of light that peered under the door. Her hands search the surface frantically for a knob and once found the ill woman swings open the door of the janitorial closet.
The flood of lights sting her eyes.

As she adjusts the brightness, a raspy, cheerful man’s voice greeted directly in her right ear. “Morning sunshine,” he sang with a teasing lilt, “you look like ****.” Narla felt a cold hand grip and squeeze her triceps, then yank her forward. She grimaces but doesn’t say a word because when her eyes fully adjust she realizes she’s in an office room full of abandoned cubicles and a few pale, solid individuals, all individuals wearing a familiar, bestial stare as she is dragged by. Stares that fell on her as though she were a steak… or a walking blood bag…

It isn’t long before she is herded into a group of nicely dressed people she assumes are the ones that originally worked in the empty cubicles. The employees were in a variety of conditions, some healthy, some beat up, one or two dead among the others, pale and without obvious injury except for more than one pair of bit marks on their necks. She is tossed to the ground near one of the bodies, another wave of pain hitting her as she meets the tile floor. Straining up into a sit, Narla is finally able to see the blood that stained her hand and clothes, and the gash in her side that bled red and clear almost yellow fluid.

“Alright, lets try this again..” one of the pale men began with a sigh, “I need some more volunteers… “

Cara was still only just getting used to Harper Rock. She had come here too find her father, which she had, things had turned out a bit odd but she found him...and a lot of other unexpected things. Among them, vampires. The lionelli however, were not among them. She was here particularly more on accident then expected, she had been carrying her gun in just enough view for one of the soldiers to see it and when they called her out on it she had the sudden urge to run. Ultimately, she ended up in here and was pretty sure she lost them...only to run right into the herded group of people here and before she really realized it had been disarmed and tossed into the crowd of people. She was too surprised and trying to get a hold of what exactly was going on to here whatever they must have said first, only hearing,

“Alright, lets try this again..” one of the pale men began with a sigh, “I need some more volunteers… “

She bit her lip as she saw the injured woman from beside a few of the others a few steps away, what in the world did I run into? What is this? Some kind of vampire gang? Gotta be vampires they're pale as crap and cold. she thought trying to calm down as she realized she was very possibly in mortal danger here and with vampires she had no idea just what she could really do about it, especially this many. On the other hand, whatever they were volunteering for she didn't really know if these office workers could handle, whatever it may be.

"Uh, what, exactly, are we supposed to be volunteering for?" Cara asked aloud swallowing after she did so. She was pretty sure she was gonna get picked now, but rather her then these people, maybe she'd actually make it back out alive...whatever it was they were doing.

Just as the vampire standing before them began to speak, Narla noticed a movement in the corner of her eyes. Following it, she sees another woman being pushed into the group.

The new one appears confused, and the wounded woman agrees she has every reason to be just as Narla herself is. Yet, despite this, the new face is the first to speak. She winced internally, expecting the man speaking or his friends to retaliate in some way.

Instead, then gangster appears unfazed, and appears more pleased though a smile doesn't form against his pale lips "I'm glad you asked.. It's an errand run. Retrieve some information for us, and you can go home. Very straightforward."

Narla scans the faces of everyone that was tugged into this situation. Fear, hesitation, uncertainty clouded most of their faces. For a minute her gaze descends to the corpses, and she wonders what it was they did to be drained dry and left there. They were there to make a statement, she was certain. She did not want to die here. She made a deal with someone else, and there was no doubt she would be more likely to be killed here than outside based on the presence of the corpse.

These vampires were more than willing to kill without batting a lash. She could see it in the coldness of their dead eyes, the animosity lurking behind them with a leash just loose enough to give them that reach to tear someone apart. "I.." she starts, opening her mouth, "..I'll do it..". Her barely there voice was loud enough for the vampire to hear just fine given his sharp senses. He looks her over, withholding a smirk, "Cute... Any other volunteers?"

"I can do it.." she attempts again with more pleading eyes and not a single change in her volume. The woman winces and pushes herself onto her feet. The pain came like daggers this time but she pushes through it into a stand. "...Please, what do you need..?"

The vampire grins and shrugs, "Alright, fine.. Anyone else?" There was a heartbeat before a nervous young man raises his own hand. His hand shook intensely but he was more than willing to keep it there in the air. "Ah.. look at that.. Progress. Last call.. One more and you'll be run through the task."

Cara gritted her teeth, How shady. Information? Come on, trying to hide or find something? Gotta be a gang, blackmail? Evidence? What you want? she thought frowning at the injured woman and shaking her head frowning visibly, What did they do? She was in no position to fight them right now, but she swore she'd make them pay for this later if she could.

She shook her head at her as Narla offered herself as a volunteer, "The crap is wrong with you." she said quietly. Then some young man offered himself, clearly stressed about it but determined, good job boy. "Alright." Cara raised her hand, "At least one of us needs to be not be injured or shaking." she said with a fake cockiness.

Great, a badly injured woman, some worried young office guy, and me. Been here for a few weeks what am I supposed to know? Good question is will this get us killed, or will it get everyone else here killed. She walked over towards Narla keeping her hands somewhat up so they didn't shoot her or anything gesturing for the other volunteer to come over, "Hey, need help?" she asked automatically going to try and make sure she could stay standing if that meant letting her lean on her for the time being, hopefully with the other volunteer on the other side.

"Don't know what's wrong with you two but gotta hand a bravery card to you. I'm just an idiot." She joked, in spite of the seriousness of the matter and how aware she was of it. Heh, joking are you? This how you cope with a potential death is it? Oh well, maybe you can be the one to keep people's spirits up eh?

"So what do you guys want?" Cara asked aloud.

==========AUTOMATED RANDOM EVENTS SYSTEM==========

When the group is next outside, a bird unloads thick droppings on Cara.

Narla offers Cara a sad smile that quickly fades in on itself hearing the other woman's mumble just enough. She would not argue, or crack a joke back. Most of what she does makes little sense to most other people. That reaction wasn't new to her. The shivering man behind her earns himself a little smile, too. Maybe he knew he might not get out of this alive, as well. She does not say anything further to the gangster. Cara's concern has the woman shaking her head, "No, I'm okay," if being bloodied by vomit and an infection in her side counted as okay. "..I'm not brave, and you aren't an idiot," she answers in a tiny voice, not fully able to meet her eyes when they are close enough to do so face to face.

"You ain't very patient," the gangster answers smoothly with a mildly amused sneer. He motions for them head for the door. "Oh right, I forgot to remind you that if any one of you backs out, retaliates, fails, any of that ****, consider it the end of you and all the nice people you're with. Cool?" With a subtle gesture he nods at the corpses lying on the ground in the middle of the group of other employees. The gangster smirks his amusement at the wounded woman, the mouthy chick, and quaking employee. He is convinced each one of them will do at least one of those things.. The dead man will have to send a separate group to finish where they left off, but the three would easily attract the police's attention. A free distraction.

The frightened worker joins Narla, and both wait for Cara to join before heading out of the room with one vampiric gangster leading and another flanking them. Assuming they leave without complications, the two Leonellis will guide the three outside. On their way there, they will see the entire building is on lock-down by the gang, and a fair amount of people were severely injured or very dead at some point in time when the takeover took place. The three were originally held on the second floor, and they were not the only group being escorted out of the building. A black suv with tinted windows awaited them outside in the back of the office tower. A round, but muscled vampire opens the door for them to step inside.

Narla wrote: "..I'm not brave, and you aren't an idiot,"

Cara didn't really want to argue with her about this. Wasn't really important whether they were brave or idiots, they could talk about that later when they weren't about to potentially get themselves killed by some vampire gangster nut jobs. She wondered if she'd tell her father about this if they didn't die, if she really wanted to or not.

She wanted to glare down the vampire as he threatened them about what would happen if they didn't follow their directions as they walked towards the door with the vampires still around them, and headed towards a van with tinted windows. Great, truly great, she didn't know why this really somehow made her think things were worse, it wasn't like anything could make it look better or the same. It really just meant they were getting closer to whatever it was these people actually wanted.

Plop Cara shut her eyes and grimaced as a turd dropped right onto her shoulder, she looked at the jacket she had on for a moment. "Great." she said sarcastically, very carefully pulling it off and tossing it across the ground. For starters she had no desire to keep that on right now, and second who knows what would happen if somebody found that outside the building.

When the door was opened Cara got in first ready to help the other two in, while also getting in first to look around just incase there was any chances here. Not that she could use them, since they were holding everyone inside hostage. But you never know, might be good to know ahead of time.

When the pigeon pooped on Cara's shoulder, Narla found herself frowning a little. Getting pooped on by a pigeon was supposed to be good luck.. It was clear Cara did not believe the same so the thin woman kept her mouth shut. Narla waited for the more nervous of the three to slide into the car after Cara, not keen on being squished between two people at the moment with the gash in her waist. She leans against the window when the larger man closes the door. Soon they were on the road.

The interior of the suv is remarkably similar to that of a police vehicle's. The backseats were barred off from the front, and the windows were just as protected. Narla had been in the back of one once.. it made her believe it wasn't impossible the suv was stolen and repainted. The seats were covered with a protective plastic, likely to keep the stains from seeping into it from whichever person bled their way into the car as seen by the discolored floor where they failed to come out.

Narla feels her stomach churn again, and closes her eyes, focusing on her breath. The pain was no less uncomfortable, and her movements disturbed the sealing her blood cells tried to do. She was pale, though she hadn't noticed, and cold, but she told herself they will finish this just fine. She could wait to die.

The nervous employee looks between the two women, chewing on his tongue, before he finally piped up. "I'm Jean." He smiles a faint smile, "I work there.. heh. A pleasure." He spoke tensely, and timidly as if he didn't wish to waste his last breaths, yet he was clear. With a swallow he fell quiet.

"Narla," the wounded waif answers in a tiny voice.
She doesn't say more for a little while.

The ride is smooth and unhurried, and the driver does not begin to speak until they are three minutes into the drive, he does not turn to look at them either. "Listen closely," he begins, "Forensics. back door to your left.. there's a filing cabinet with a shiny keypad lock in the storage room.. Third drawer down, seventh across. Type in the password... Get the bag to the middle man. Don't lose it." With an air of finality, the driver went quiet.

"W..what?" Jean's eyes flash his shock, "You ..you want us to steal.. from the police? We aren't professional thieves!"

"You volunteered. It's your problem now, figure it out quickly. We're five minutes away.. Any other questions?"

"A map?" Narla asks quietly. The driver doesn't hear her.

Jean buries his face in his hands,"****"

This was hardly a good place to escape from. Not that there was much of a choice, people's lives were at stake. They had to play along, for now at least. And just hope that they wouldn't kill them. Cara turned her head as the man introduced himself, and in spite of his clear nervousness, smiled. Narla managed to get her name out as well, though it was incredibly quiet. "I'm Cara. Just wish the circumstances were a bit less...well deadly." she said honestly but smiling nevertheless.

Finally the driver spoke answering the question of what they were doing. In spite of what it she listened closely, this was something she didn't want to forget. Jeans shock didn't deter the criminal from them doing it, seemed kind of stupid in her opinion. But what other choice did they have, if they did get caught, they'd just tell them what happened. So she started thinking, not just how could they get in and get the thing, but how could they tell them what was happening, there was doubtless a pen and paper somewhere inside. Maybe they could leave a message and escape quietly. With Narla as injured as she was Cara was pretty sure there would be no way to do this quickly. They'd have to think it through pretty good.

Narla asked for a map but the driver didn't seem to hear her, Cara repeated it a bit louder, "Hey, we need a map. You can't expect us to just go straight to the room and back out, or for that matter know too little about the nearby buildings, and still have any thought we could actually accomplish this right?!" she said it with a bit more irritation then she actually had, trying to enforce the idea that they needed anything they could get to accomplish this and refusing something so vital would be a stupid idea.