Path of the Vampire forum

January 5th, 2012

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

The scream finally died in his throat, and he sank to his knees in the street. The zombie followed several moments later, minus its head.
He lowered the ax. At least he had thought that it was his trusty fire ax, but now he saw that it was little more than a twisted metal handle. Was it still his ax? If he replaced the head of the ax, and the missing section of the shaft, would it regain its former identity, or would it be a new thing entirely?
Of course, the question plaguing him was not truly about the ax: it was he that had been broken down and remade from his least important components.

Was he still himself? The taste of iron and pain lingered in his mouth: blood. He knew what he was, and he had the memories of a life, but was that him? Furthermore, he could not determine how he had come to be this thing, or for what purpose.

These were his first coherent thoughts in an indeterminate length of time; it had plagued him unconsciously during his long frenzy, but now he was faced with it in the silence. The endless gunfire of the QZ still surrounded him certainly, but only now did he find stillness enough to reflect on his situation and state. He was caked in untold months' of grime and gore, and what little scraps of clothing that hadn't been ripped away by prying zombie hands provided little in the way of protection or modesty.
Looking around for the first time, he began to actually see the environment he was buried in. Unattended bodies were scattered in the streets in various states of decay, left wherever they fell. The stench was toxic. Most of the walls were riddled with bullets, and he couldn't see an unbroken pane of glass anywhere. He had been to two war-zones, but this was another tier of chaos entirely: if he didn't know better, he would suspect he had been left to rot in hell.
He knew better: he had a hazy memory of flinging himself to the roof of a building with superhuman strength. Next, an image of taking the ax from next to his old bunk in the Fire Station. Intent to kill.

Before that... nothing. He searched for a preceding memory, and found himself alive... alone in his living room... finding himself short of cigarettes... grabbing his coat as ward against the sting of the cold Canadian November... and... nothing.
Maybe the rest would come to him, and maybe it wouldn't. The realization should have inspired fear or anger, but it did not... merely a vague, distant concern. Maybe he had burned through all his anger, or maybe something had gone very, very wrong.

In either case, the first step was to get out. He needed a replacement weapon. Even with his military background, he found it was a strange need to put getting a weapon before getting answers. Acquiring either, however, meant heading into the city, which meant he needed clothes and a bath. Thankfully, human bodies were often buried in quality clothing, and the cloth often outlived the flesh: even among these zombies. Corpses and water: he would find both on the north end of the QZ.

He stood, looking at the broken handle in his hand. It was formerly an ax he had carried for ten years in the Harper Rock Fire Department; a tool he had saved a dozen lives with. It had once been a reliable and valued tool.

He cast it away without a second thought. A sign of things to come, whether he knew it then or not.

November 11th, 2011

Iron and pain. It didn't take long for him to establish the need, and it didn't take him long to begin pursuing it with reckless abandon. Those first nights, he was seen more often than not: driven thoughtlessly by the thirst. He completely drained a young couple who were, by their scent, walking home from a bar. He was not lying in wait... this was merely the corner he turned since his last feeding.

He started with the man. In their haze, they had not even paid attention as he moved toward them. When he shoved the man against the wall, there was a sickening crunch. His strength should have surprised him, if he was aware enough to be surprised. He was without any higher function: as if in a dream, the strangeness did not even register.

The bite following immediately: imprecise, crude, sloppy, but serving the purpose. The man was dead moments later... likely a mercy, given the extent of his injuries. Behind him, the woman was screaming, but he lacked awareness of it until he saw her make a dash for the street. Drawn to the movement, he pounced with unnatural speed and caught her as she reached the street. He might have been seen if he'd fed on her there at the mouth of the alley, but when he pulled her back, the unexpected force of his pull literally took her off her feet; he did not yet know his own strength, nor did he have the judgment to realize it. She hit the dumpster with force enough to dent it. The unconsciousness that followed was, again, some act of mercy.

There was nothing of cruelty in the kill: he was simply driven to find more. He was like a rabid animal now... there was nothing to guide him and, at the moment, nothing to stop him. When the police sirens started, he instinctively moved in the other direction, like a feral dog. His mind was asleep, or perhaps it did not survive the Turning, but this was not his nightmare... right now, he was the nightmare -- the brief and final nightmare -- of whatever unfortunate soul crossed his path.

His own nightmare had not yet begun.

January 25th, 2012

Sunlight. He turned his eyes east, pupils constricting to pinpoints.

He hissed. The light stung, but it had been almost a month since he had been able to harden himself against it. What the light was, however, was surprising.

Moments ago, it was midnight. Obviously that was impossible, but it seemed that way. He was perched on the fourth story ledge of the south end of the Harper Rock Courthouse, hidden between gargoyles. He was watching the movement on the other side of the river: the Quarantine Zone. He remembered trying to determine the origin of their numbers... and suddenly, inexplicably, it was seven hours and forty-eight minutes later.

His flesh steaming, he stood. The problem of the zombies was now far from his mind. The first weeks of his turning had been spent in a murderous haze between feeding and the QZ. The feeding had been necessary, and the rampage in the QZ... that was necessary for reasons he was not yet willing to face. As he came out of that haze, that pain seemed to be growing more distant each day. If he was going to return to that rampage though, perhaps he should remain in the sunlight.

The thin layer of dust on his shoes suggested that he hadn't moved which was a small consolation: a lapse was problematic, but a lapse accompanied with actions would be a catastrophe. That he had not slipped back into a murderous rampage was vaguely comforting. But, then, what? Had he really been sitting there, unaware, for nearly eight hours? At least on a rampage he would defend himself... being completely vulnerable was another problem entirely. He had slipped into some kind of Stillness. The memory of a long-forgotten military lecture sprang to his undead brain: he had heard about catatonia as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The realization should have bothered him, and he knew this, but instead he walked calmly towards the fire escape. Given the last year of his life and subsequent death, it would have been a greater curiosity if he was intact.

July 3rd, 2012

"Making a weapon that kills is easy; the hard part is looking at yourself in the mirror." The voice and images faded quickly, replaced with concern. Bad enough that the Stillness continued to take him, but now he had experiences: hazy images and thoughts that were difficult to recall after the fact -- not unlike dreams.

"Blood is blood," the Wraith Guide had said. "Spilling it is controlling it, but one does not necessitate the other. Across generations and ages it flows, and it is all the same." The lesson from Reyvia was enigmatic, just as his previous lessons were, but as the words seeped deeper into his subconsciousness (if such a thing existed), he felt the change.

The recent images had been of his grandfather -- military man turned weapons contractor. The garage-workshop Wendell had sat in as a child became a million-dollar industry. It was the military heritage of seven generations of the Groom Family realized... a heritage of cunning violence that Wendell never fully realized while he was human. The men in his family were mostly officers and contractors, whereas Wendell had flunked out of school, maintained a record of theft and assault, and barely managed to hold a position as a drill sergeant (largely due to his family's string-pulling). Wendell had died a disgrace in his family's eyes long before he was actually turned.

If they could see the war machine he had become -- his current skill and strength -- they would have no further doubts about his place in their legacy.

The consideration surprised him. He had no desire to reconnect with the living members of his family, much less to win their approval, but even the passing thought -- like the recent development of "dreams" -- set him on edge. He was unused to feeling on edge, or feeling anything at all. Being on edge drove him to fill the time that the Stillness would usually take him with productivity.

What had served as a ramshackle dojo in the woods had been transformed into another work station: not unlike his grandfather's garage. Here, he gathered metals and materials for his new projects. He was able to clearly recall the old man working away on the metal and replicate those actions as though they were his own. The transformation was rapid, unexpected, and useful.

He started with an IED... a weapon that frequently intruded upon his thoughts. His third attempt had uprooted a large oak. With a war brewing, such terrible force would be strategic and necessary. His designs were rapidly evolving from that point: not merely potent, but downright savage. His grandfather had correctly foreshadowed his future: making the weapon was easy and looking at himself in the mirror was impossible.

Perhaps if he could have seen what he was becoming, his path would have been different.

March 21st, 2012

The Abandoned Docks. For nearly two months, Wendell had looked for a place where he might be free of The Stillness. When he paused, or thought too hard, he often woke hours later. Day or night: it didn't seem to matter. When he was not immediately threatened or stimulated, his mind give pause to a deep and hollow emptiness. A noisy environment would help: the television in the cabin, or the chatter of the Mall might forestall The Stillness awhile, but he'd inevitably slip and lose the next few hours. Generally, it was only hunger or movement that could rouse him back to consciousness... sometimes both, which seldom ended well for the source of said movement.

He was drawn back to the Docks though. Seeping up from the ice, the water lapped against the concrete barrier like a shallow stream, and the scent of rotting wood drew his mind to ancient, mossy forests (but without the danger of Fae). He'd never much appreciated nature, but this place provided some measure of reassurance. This is where he first discovered he could delay The Stillness in an active environment. He had long-since habituated to the sound of the flowing water -- it no longer kept him awake -- but there was something that brought him back, day after day. The Docks lacked the security of his other hiding places, but the sound of moving water soothed a discomfort he couldn't name: a sense of impeding doom in his skull that he never noticed until it was absent.

Tonight, however, something else had his attention: between the broken crates along the water's edge he spotted the corner of a case. Maybe it was because the heightening of his senses that allowed him to notice, or maybe it was just because of the random clear patches of ice or movements of the silt. More than likely, it was because today was the first day of the astrological year -- the first day of Aries -- and the event was scripted by forces outside his understanding.

Without thinking twice, he hopped down into the frigid water after it, heedless of the temperature and not questioning why it was this case and not one of countless others nearby that he was drawn to. Breaking through the ice and digging it out of the mud, he set it back up on the dock and jumped out of the water after it. The lock which held it shut was very old, and between its age and his strength, he was able to snap it off with just his thumb and forefinger. Opening the case, he peered in.

At that time, he didn't know what he was looking at, and he certainly didn't know how useful it would be to him. A cold, aggressive instinct flowed through him at the sight of it though. It gave name to the uncomfortable pressure between his eyes, and better still, unconsciously assured him that the destruction he sensed coming could be met and defeated.

For the first time since he was turned, he grinned.

"Well well... someone remembered by birthday."

October 14th, 2011
Condition: Human

Wendell was in the chair. He had attended dozens of military funerals as an honor guard, or out of respect (he'd never had any true friends per se), but now -- almost upon the anniversary of the last time he sat here -- he was in the chair again. Side by side plots. His own name on a third tombstone: unmarked for the year of death, it would be 2012 if the doctors were right.

Vincent, his brother, stood in opposite the coffin. It was Vincent's string-pulling that got this grandiose funeral for possibly the last "military" man in the Groom family: Vincent's boys would inherit the business. Those boys, standing on either side of their father, would never (God willing) have to look down the barrel of a gun to do anything but check their products; chances are they'd even have someone to do that for them.

Vincent's legacy was apparent and Wendell's was now ended. All his life, Wendell thought that his failures might be overlooked if his sons were successful. He'd pushed them to service. He'd "retired" from the army to keep them from having to work under the burden of his own unsavory reputation. And now, it was all for nothing.

Two sons who tried to follow in their father's footsteps: one dead overseas, and now one dead right here at home while trying to set up a Quarantine Zone. A Quarantine against what? He had heard only fantastic rumors... and they wouldn't let him even see the body. For all he knew, the coffin being lowered into the ground was empty.

Empty. Fitting.

The handshaking and reception passed quickly. What little family he had left primarily came for themselves and for a young man that, by all accounts, might have done well. Wendell's association with them, and his own sons, was unfortunate and best now forgotten. When the cancer finally claimed him, and it would, there would be no one in the chair.

He lit a cigarette before getting in the car, perhaps he unconsciously wanted to expedite the process. He had always thought he would go out fighting. Since his squad leader had sacrificed himself those decades ago, he had sworn to never give up without a fight. That example had stayed his hand from loading his old revolver on several occasions for one final shot.

The revolver...

The drive home was quiet, but his increasingly desperate and disorganized mind had focused on that revolver: he wouldn't give up without a fight or at least some damned answers. If the rumors he was hearing about the Quarantine Zone were true, he would need it -- and then some. First, however, he needed to investigate the rumors, and then he needed a plan to get in.

Formulating a plan to get out never crossed his mind.

August 1st, 2012

Despite the smell of blood and rotting meat, there was something beneath that triggered a memory: the smell of the gymnasium, of freshly sharpened pencils, and fruity bubble gum. The Abandoned School on the town's west side once had a name, but he'd not passed his Junior Year here, and there was a yearbook in a storage locker somewhere that proved both.

The Blood Thieves had set up shop here early, and Wendell had returned to his almost-alma mater to do what he was good at. He'd stuffed an entire row of lockers with Blood Thief bodies, coming back later to remove them en masse with a forklift and bury them in the city dump. A threat to the vampire community deserved no greater.

Now there was a war, but it wasn't the war Wendell had pushed for. He had been outspoken about the Blood Thieves early, he organized the Blood Hunt to force them to the table, and he pushed for the missive of war. By all accounts, he was more architect of this war than anyone else he knew. But the tables had turned when the Blood Thieves did: no longer outsiders, they were now vampires. They were now part of the community he sought to protect against outsiders. If they could operate as vampires within the Masquerade, he reasoned that these Former Blood Thieves could be quite the asset.
Reason, however, did not play a part in what followed: violence. Counterproductive violence. A vampire-vampire war was a pointless exercise in getting noticed. Few saw the way he did -- devoid of emotion -- which was blessing and curse. Vampires simply rose again to make more war... each time a little weaker, which weakened the community. He smelled the influence of a third force, goading them into destruction from within.
He was distracted by these images, reflected in the fading morning moonglow seeping through the cracks in the ceiling and brought to life by the dust particles wafting within. Perhaps, too, the odor of so many deceased Blood Thieves in the walls prevented him from smelling the live one behind him. Either way, the creeping approach was noticed too late. When Wendell turned and raised his arm for the block, the blade sliced cleanly through at the wrist of his right hand -- his weapon hand.

It was likely the worst wound he had sustained thus far, and the most inconvenient one by a wide margin. The hitman seemed to take notice of that, because he took a moment to survey his victory. Wendell, however, was caught by the lack of sensation: he had long since moved past the emotional feelings of being a human, but even the physical feelings were dimming.
Weeks ago, he caught himself rubbing his hand along a patch of brick wall, unable to feel the rough hew of the material. He tried for so long that he had actually worn the skin clear off his fingertips. Now, faced with the stump of a forearm, and only a vague sleeping-hand sensation, he realized the extent of the damage. Separation from the emotional world might be nothing compared to separation from the physical in both its blessings and its curses.

Slowly, the Immortal training kicked in. Blood oozed from the wound at first, then coagulated so rapidly it made popping sounds: air, trapped by growth, and expelled from tissue. Thin tendrils of blood-fibers forming a frame, hardening like bone, thickening -- quickening -- with the human soup still gushing from his wrist: fingers... one joint at a time... and then, finally, sharp blackened nails.
They, Wendell and the Blood Thief, stood shocked for a moment, both gazing at new hand: vaguely resembling human hand badly scarred and burnt. Wickedly functional, but weaker than the original which was now ashes scattering on the floor. His regenerated hand was like a regenerated vampire: crawled back from the Shadow Realm. It returned, but in a state that weakened the body as a whole.

This was not the war Wendell intended, but it was war. If diplomacy would not play a role, then it needed to be ended as quickly as possible, and that meant turning his unbridled violence on the Former Blood Thieves. Put them in the ground... burn down their homes and their resources... salt the damn earth, need be. Insure that, when they return, they are not in a state to make war again. Regrettably, it would weaken the community, but less-so than a drawn out war.

Wendigo was going back to war. That war started immediately. As it turned out, the new hand was stronger than he'd calculated ... it snapped the neck of the amazed Blood Thief before he found the sense to run. Wendigo shoved the body into a locker unceremoniously and planned his day.

Step One: obtain gloves to conceal the state of the hand
Step Two: kill everyone

April 22nd, 2012

Fangs... snout... snarl... Wendell's form changed wildly. Fur changing color, thickness... the length of his face lengthening then shortening... horns... tusks... hooves... claws... and then back to the humanoid form. Failed again.

He rolled over onto his back, exhausted. His clothes were shredded by the last two hours of failed attempts. The privacy fence behind the cabin was the only modesty he was afforded at this point... but had someone looked over the fence recently, there would have been greater concerns than modesty.

By all accounts, he should have been able to produce the animal form by now: he had long since mastered becoming the Monster. In fact, some of those traits seemed to stick permanently. His teeth were not merely fangs: long canines had replaced each tooth, and from the instant he opened his mouth in front of a human, his non-humanness was revealed. Luckily, he seldom needed to speak with humans. His nails came to wicked points if he let them grow out, and so he didn't. He wouldn't tell anyone this last part, but his eyes no longer appeared to have pupils or irises either... they were, according to the two or three who witnessed it, milky white orbs devoid of detail other than veins. He ordered costume contacts to correct this: wearing sunglasses at night drew undesired attention.

By all accounts, he was not tied to the human form... far separated from it, in fact. He had communed with the Wraith Guide Klae as the CrowNet instructed, but the "lesson" was surprisingly vague.

"If the mirror reflects form," the voice had echoed in his mind, "Then what are you if formless in it?"

The words had confirmed suspicions he couldn't voice. Brain and body both rot after death... he'd seen enough death to know this, and he'd been cut enough to know that his blood was not flowing. Plus, he was not breathing: no oxygen meant no cells, and no cells meant no life. He was not human: he was a consciousness given form by some great force of will... perhaps only partly his own.

Thus, as the Will changed, so did the form. It was easy to gain the form of a monster, because he understood the Will it took to be a monster. And yet, when seeking an animal form, it eluded him.

Looking up at the moon, there was no energy left to continue practice. No frustration either. Frustration was a human emotion derived from a human brain. The more he understood that the human brain could not still be the origin of his thoughts, the farther he drifted from human instinct and human emotion. There was no point to frustration, anger, lust... even fear was pointless: all fear stems from a survival instinct to avoid your death, or the deaths of those close to you. When resurrection became fact, fear (like the other emotions) became as vestigial as an appendix: pointless at best, destructive at worst.

He was so far separated from one form, he reasoned, he should be able to become liquid if he desired. He didn't even have a form of his own: his true form was part of the Eternal Ethereal. He was vast as the moonlight, formless as the darkness, as simultaneously strong and intangible as gravity, and as ruthless and subjective as time itself.

Later, when the officer responding to an animal noise complaint held her flashlight over the privacy fence, all she found on the grass was a thin evening frost.

August 7th, 2012

Blood. The soil of Harper Rock was soaked in it. He was growing in his ability to manipulate it in others: paralyzing, healing...
He rolled back the earth; here his strength seemed greater use because here the ground was soaked with an incredible amount of blood.
He dragged the bodies out of the huge black truck two at a time and threw them into the mass grave. Some of them were very young... promising... full of possibility... tiny flames snuffed out.

Of course, it wasn't he who had killed them -- certainly he'd slain them -- but the ones who ended their lives were the Blood Thieves. Young minds like that could easily be corrupted by the promise of power and money... his old criminal record was proof of that. Without guidance, or some interference, they would spiral into corruption. Maybe there were those who could have provided it, but Emanuel... gave them guns threw them to the wolves. Worse: threw them to vampires. For what? To soften up the enemy so he could sit in his Penthouse.
To wield that kind of power and use it for personal gain was unimaginable. To be willing to sacrifice others rather than surrender that power, doubly so. It was the worst kind of creature.
For the first time in months, perhaps only now because he had time to think, a small sneer of disgust played on Wendell's lips, revealing the hellish cage of teeth beneath.

It had been a long time since Wendell gave pause to consider a human life; since he entertained the possibility of crossing paths with his deceased progeny in the Quarantine Zone. These Blood Thieves... some were younger than his sons. Would there be a funeral for these boys? A ceremony with an empty casket and a grieving parent in a chair, mourning the end of his or her legacy?

He paused only another moment, and rolled the earth back over the bodies. Not enough time to care: some of this grave's occupants still hadn't arrived.

August 11th, 2012

Gun pressed firmly against the bottom of his jaw. He'd been here before... in his human days, he had contemplated suicide so many times that he had long since determined the exact angle to fire at for a clean kill. Each time, he had remembered his oath to not go down without a fight.

However, there were two things different here. First, this was a fight. Second, he was not actually dying; most vampires called it death, but he had actually seen enough death to know better. Humans on a battlefield would be downright grateful for a week-long injury... especially compared to the probable alternatives.

The moment before he pulled the trigger, he wondered if perhaps he would be the exception: that he wouldn't come back. Once, he had considered oblivion entirely desirable; now, he was indifferent. He had been mildly curious about the Shadow Realm for awhile: no one had managed to put him there, so he was admittedly naive to it.

The bullet when into his brain, but there was no real sensation... just a thick black fog which gave way to an apocalyptic hellscape.

Date Unknown
Condition: Shadow Realm

Wendell was no longer himself. He had realized that this was the truth for some time; that the vampire was a projection of Will rather than a human form, but now he wasn't even that. He was the Eternal Ethereal expressed.

It was amazing how much ground he could cover in this Shadow Realm. When one wasn't expending themselves in combat or tracking, one could drift almost indefinitely. There were no sounds or even smells to distract him: just images. He couldn't be "seeing", he realized, because there was no light here. He was simply drifting between Wills in some sort of constructed space. As he overpowered the Wills of others, he felt his strength rapidly growing. As he found the "edges" of the space, he began to Understand... though he could not yet put that Understanding into words.

This sort of existence would be undesirable to most. No wonder the Elders seldom acted: learned helplessness. Two hundred years of being trapped in this existence must have pushed them to surrender their Will. Above him (if such direction existed) he could "feel" the living world... the hole in the veil. Like sunlight waiting to sneak out from between clouds. He couldn't estimate the passage of time, but he would return soon. He was in no rush for such things.

He found one of the Shadow-Equivalents of the Fire Department and drifted up to the roof. He used to lay up on that roof during his human days and let time pass between calls. Someday, months or millennia from now, vampire-kind would be overpowered and sent back here... likely permanently. Most would go mad... there was no sense of time, and nothing to do. Wendell would not feel boredom or despair as he "watched" the shifting grey sky. This was as close to oblivion as he might ever reach.

If he slipped into the Stillness here, would he ever come out of it? Cogito ergo sum... but when you are only an expression of thought, do you exist if you stop thinking?

Time to find out... if there was an oblivion to be had, he had earned it.