The Path to Mastery

[Noah]

As the apprentice sorcerer falls beneath a thunderous hail of bullets, his body crumpling in an undignified pile at Noah's feet with a distinct and resounding thud, the vampire shows no shame in stripping the dead man of his powerful relic. With the glove slid onto his own hand, Noah feels his veins thrumming with arcane might beyond his comprehension. Though he knows not where the power comes from, or indeed even how it functions, he knows one thing for certain: it is better served upon his person than the recently slain human's.

As Noah twists his wrist to examine the relic now gloving his fingers, he ponders the nearly unfathomable maze of events that has led to this moment.

Word of the day: fortnight. Such an arcane and underutilized word, that: fortnight. Denoting two weeks, or more precisely fourteen days, it derives from the Old English term fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights". I know from JB that a lunar fortnight is half a lunar synodic month. The Welsh and Greek languages do not have such a word, instead favoring the measurement of fifteen days with pythefnos and dekapenthímero respectively. The Hindu calender operates upon a lunar cycle as well, with the term paksha representing half the lunar month, which can be either fourteen or fifteen days. The word fortnight is also favored humorously within the furlong–firkin–fortnight system.

Fortnight. Two weeks. Fourteen days.

I came to Harper Rock on August the 14th. Today is August the 28th. Is it too cliché to say that it feels longer?

Our time - that is, my family's - spent here feels simultaneously to stretch for eons and to be pass by in a flash. I have blinked and found myself catapulted through time, though I have also ticked the agonizing hours down second by second.

We have adapted better than I could have ever hoped for. Though I take some pride in the knowledge that even at my age I have grown the fastest in terms of raw power, I am prouder than I know how to describe of my entire family. They have taken to this city and all the splendor within with a remarkable ease. Each of my children have shown tenacity, bravery, and adaptness beyond measure (though at different paces, with Aubrey always the closest behind me as I face each new threat the city has to offer).

We have faced eldritch horrors I do not yet have names for: armies of corpses, scaled and aquian humanoids, entities of pure darkness with grossly twisted appendages, centaurs of the spider and human variety, and hideous amalgamations of decayed bodies. But despite the horror, there is a surreal beauty to be found within Harper Rock.

For is it not elegance incarnate when the ones I love burst wide with smiles at each new abomination they slay? Is there not a transcendant harmony in the way in which the vampiric denizens dance through the streets, as if their routines were choreographed? Perhaps most wondrous of all is the sense of community.

Though even in my short time I can tell it is a tenuous thing at best, the Immortal beings in the city are always open to assistance. They have welcomed us, the Levesque, with open arms, gifting upon us weapons, relics, healing, and advice. One need only ask to find aid at every corner. And though I believe such efforts could be more organized... Well, that is a future goal.

My own personal journey has been no less incredible. In these fleeting but aeonian days, I have accomplished much - and yet not enough. Ah, of course: the timeless contradiction of having it all yet craving more. But such is life, is it not?

To Every's frustration and Caligraces's wry amusement, I have made a mission of accumulatjng several powerful artifacts that I am told have taken those older and more skilled than I some considerable more time than I have spent to acquire them.

The first of these is a blackend steel armlet inlaid with black diamons on Noah's right wrist, which has suppressed his need for daily blood. Upon the same hand is an off-grey leather glove with barely discernable runework etched into it, energizing the speed in which he can cast his newfound powers. The man currently sports a black suit jacket whose craftsmanship and fashion rivals million dollar brands, which somehow seems to mystically deflect small numbers of physical attacks. Beneath that is a fit, slimming bulletproof vest, enchanted with incomprehensible arcana to shrug off bullets. A subtle, threaded necklace with an ivory tooth is tucked beneath his shirt, the energy of the creature it once belonged to empowering the rate at which his own powers grow. A golden, spiral armlet winds around his left wrist, contrasting sharply against his otherwise onyx fashion, and it vibrates with anticipation near any human. A silver knuckle ring in the shape of a small 'v' can be found upon that same hand, glinting sharply near the presence of money. And to complete the ensemble, a small acorn threaded through with a small, black chain hangs from his belt, funneling reserves of stamina into his being as the chime of midnight tolls each day.

I have seen more violence, too, than I have in my previous forty-odd years. I have ripped the literal throats from gangsters, snapped the necks of would-be thieves, and dueled to a bloody end in the middle of a Grove. I press on regardless, undaunted. I have never flinched from violence, though I am not the type of man who finds any sick fulfillment from the deed. It is simply what must be done. When faced with hordes of monstrosities, either supernatural or of the more mundane, human variety, my trigger finger is calm.

It must be.

Not only for my own sake, but for that of my family. I promised them a home here in Harper Rock. And if the world will not give us one, then I shall carve it out with my bare hands for them.

There are other reasons as well, altruistic in performance if not entirely in motivation. I still see protests against my existence, raging humans flaunting signs calling for my death. The city, as beautiful as I make it out to be, is itself seemingly upon the verge of collapse. It needs structure. Security. As our race enters the light of the world, so must we banish that which threatens to consume us.

I have ambitions for this city that I dare not yet speak aloud, not even to myself in quiet moments. Soaring dreams that seem to stretch above the starlight. Of bending an organization (or two) to our wills, of our kind infiltrating and securing a place in the government, of striking our enemies from this world entirely. But such things are for the very far future. More pressingly, there is perhaps the matter of... Power. For nothing in this bold, new world can be accomplished without it.

[Noah]

You approach the Oracle, a middle aged homeless woman dressed in old fashioned clothing, which is worn and caked in dirt. She looks up at you with her thin, grubby face and stretches out a filthy open palm. If you wish to know where something important is about to happen in the city, she can tell you, and asks for $1000 in return. Pay it?

Noah had encountered self-proclaimed seers and prophets before, of course. Swindlers and conmen, the lot of them. As a human, he placed little faith in the possibility of magic or the thought of destiny. His destiny, he had always believed, was his own to forge. That his family stood beside him in one successful venture after another was all the proof he had ever needed that he was the master of his fate.

But as a vampire...

He himself could bewitch minds, summon swarms of insects, mystically shroud the minds of his enemies to confuse or intimidate them, and he had only begun to tap into the possibilities of power now open before him. So he figured why the hell not?

Flipping his wallet opened, he handed the woman her tribute in a small stack of hundreds.

The woman takes your money, and with a voice as clear and articulate as can be, she tells you that very soon something is going to happen on the city streets (at 28, 31, world). She tells you to hurry, as fate waits for neither mortal, nor immortal.

Noah Levesque, it seemed, had a date with destiny.

[Noah]

[for_peace][/for_peace]

Event: Sleep When You're...
You stumble on a group of zombies shuffling around in one of the districts outside of the Quarantine Zone. They seem to be making their way towards well-populated areas. What do you do?

Was it a coincidence that he and Alex had been surveying this area just an hour before for plots of land, weighing the potential risks and rewards of building in the Quarantine Zone? Or was it, as the elderly woman had implied, Fate herself guiding Noah with a warm, unseen motherly grasp?

Noah had all the time in the world to figure out the answer to that, but that time would have to be answered later.

The zombies had broken through weaker parts of the fencing, which from previous visits the Allurist knew were poorly guarded to begin with. It was partially why he had joined The North American Deanimation Unit. Despite the flaws in their organization, he had seen them as something like kin. While Noah typically despised authoritarian structure, his position as a volunteer militia allowed him to act without supervision to both protect his new home and earn a tidy sum doing so.

Money, however, was the last thing on his mind as he watched the pack shambling towards a residential district of the city. Through his peripheral vision, he watched a mother grab her child and begin to run, a group of teenagers scream and backpedal into a corner, and more - a dozen human cries sounding out at once in terror.

Noah acted decisively. Whipping Invictus from his back, he barreled forward. There was no war cry, no savage rage. Only quick, methodical actions. He had already realized that there were too many of the ghouls to fight on his own. But that was what power was for. Real, raw, true power as none he had ever felt flooded his veins. The power that would save these people. The power that would save his family.

The first to come was the most surprising. He had controlled the minds of humans already, Bewitching them to his own purpose, but this was... new. Alien. As he considered the plethora of humans around him, his mind connected to a series of them before he consciously realized what was happening. A lightheaded buzz overtook him for a moment as the hivemind formed and his whims became their actions.

And as one, ten humans surged forward to flank the pack of zombies from the left.

From the opposite flank, as arcane anima surged through his blood like fire and whipped out towards the world at his command, a hundred thousand insects formed together in a buzzing fury. They came from corners and cracks throughout the city, hornets and flies and spiders and a myriad more he did not have the names for swirling together to slam into the side of the pack.

Noah, for his part, strode straight forward. The barrel of Invictus was lifted with one hand as his fell flat. It was an intimidating effect when combined with the mystical forces already swirling around him. Though corpses could not feel fear, the front of the pack wavered long enough for Noah to line his shots.

----------

In almost no time, you easily put down the zombies and are able to continue on with your night.

Noah disappeared before any of the humans he had saved could speak to him or even capture his identity. It was for the best. But as he turned his back on the crowd, an easy smile formed as he waded into the city to see what else it had in store for him.