shadowdice
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I don't think I ever posted the snippet I made for a Seattle story here
Terrible cold seeped into the creature's limbs wherever it ran or flew over the metal and stone that had overtaken the landscape. Inhuman physicality and gifts from the heart's blood animating the corpse let it leap, speed, and fly from spires that reached higher than any ship's sail, castle keep, minaret, or church spire.
Bare toes left spiderweb cracks on wet, cold stone when it flung itself from a high tower. The creature hurtled into a narrow space far below, slipped between buildings and arrested its force in midair. Anyone who looked up would see a figure hang in the air like a marionette on strings.
It fell on a source of warmth, sunk fangs in, moved to the next that had let out a shriek of terror.
More blood filled its mouth. Faint sounds grew to startling clarity. Countless machines buzzed around the city, inside the buildings, screeching across winter roads.
A voice the occupants of the body had heard, noticed, listened to in their slumber was recounting a tale to the tune of a string instrument.
"And then from the gates, I hear him calling calling. 'My Princess don't despair A hero's come to free you.'"
"His eyes bleed hard with hope, as I wave smiling smiling. I clutch my chest and cry 'my hero, save me won't you?'"
"My heart is pounding breathless, To know a hero is on the way. My knight in shining armor, whose courage pushes the dark away."
An unsated void was left where the strength afforded by dozens of mortals should be.
Snow went in all directions when the creature heard food move across the way. Fingers hooked through ribs better than any tool, then wrenched bone to bring blood to its mouth. Uncharacteristic weight burdened its chest, ladened its limbs, left the creature's body too weak.
It was still hungry.
Always, eternally hungry.
The snow at its feet was stainless white despite the corpse that lay there.
Much of its power was gone. Not just the Fortitude and Celerity afforded to the body by effort and consuming others of its kind, but its Potence was lesser.
It was so hungry.
Another part of the corpse struggled to come to consciousness, to take the reigns of the power which now animated it. Deeper, scattered, bound within its burning limbs was a third which did not belong.
"I've been watching him climb. Only for me, that fact alone is motivation.
But it can't be. He took a blow against the dragon. He's bleeding free, just counting time until he weakens."
A brief moment saw the body's original occupant plant one foot in front of the other, turning away from the melody. The corpse sprinted, blood flowing, strengthening it far past the limits of humanity yet still far slower than what it should be capable of.
It ran faster than the screeching metal outside, a word for it which the corpse's animate body did not care to remember. Already near the outskirts Original One attempted to fling the body well away from the most savory meal available.
Fire burned where their blood had been stolen and branded upon them. Forces other than the beast, its soul, the attendant, and fragments burrowed within its form took momentary control. The elder monster's body was pulled along with strings by those lesser than it, those who wished to feast upon a heart that had devoured hundreds, if not thousands in war.
"Heroes like he that fell before him, can't bear to see. That might explain why tears are falling.
But then I hear his voice. He's even laughing, laughing. 'Don't worry Princess Such a scratch could never stop me.'"
Righted, the corpse sped to the one who called to it with feeling.
Powers of Control and Madness found their barbed hooks tear free and lines go loose. The corpse ran, then leapt, then flew faster than an arrow. Nothing would stop it as the corpse would even scurry when it had to navigate strange narrows or crash through stone with a battering ram's force.
Cracks rang through the night.
Fiery projectiles lit up the dark for the scantest seconds. They dug through the corpse's threadbare rags. Each smoldered in its chest with heat that set it aflame.
The Elder heard the clicks of the weapon again, traced the path of prior attacks, sighted a man in dark clothing with a weapon it had vague memory of.
"Finally caught up with ya, damn geezer."
Metal was torn from a building which had an abundance of it. The Elder's makeshift spear flew true.
Its opponent lacked the time to react as sheer strength imparted more speed than the interloper had the ability to dodge properly at this distance. Vitae fell on snow.
'He's rushing up the stairs. His armor ringing ringing. Its sound is like a bell that sets my soul afire.'
The Elder longed for another more. Shadows drew the vampire melt into darkness to seek out its desire.
=The Soon To Be Fledgling, Anna=
Retuning a guitar for the fifth time, Anna nursed the hangover of the Rich and Famous without having that status. Her skull had an entire construction crew working overtime inside while she twisted knobs of her recently cleaned instrument.
The atrocious snowstorm had seen roads closed and enough detours that it was stupidly late by the time she'd broken into the rundown venue of her not so legal gig.
It had been as an opener for Phyre, a band that presumed a Ph and y would make a name both copyrightable and cool while forgetting about how it sounded like a failed festival.
Well, they could work a crowd if they were black out drunk.
Both parties, not just the perpetual state of most bands. Anna had been working on her blood alcohol level by the time she heard the tenth off-key note. The whole thing had to be way worse for her bandmates.
She couldn't imagine being the one who composed a new song just to hear those guys follow up with that mess.
Wood creaked overhead in the crack house hotel. Whatever renovation they were trying to do hadn't kept out the meth, cocaine, fentanyl, or whatever the hell it was the people above were shooting up, snorting, and probably leveraging into their veins by popping themselves open with chisels. How this place even had sections of running water and electricity was a wonder of misused money and probable lead poisoning.
Weird that the place still had copper wiring.
"My heart is pounding breathless, to know a hero is on the way. My knight in shining armor, whose courage pushes the dark away."
She riffed a few lines. Anna wasn't a composer and sung from her roommate's playlist. Anna hadn't enjoyed the stories of 'we've all got to become friends and everyone's misunderstood' that came from the same guy.
The acoustics in this basement were terrible. Most of the trash around hadn't even been from the party. What little it had was protection from the wind and a relative lack of water.
Losing her guitar while drunk enough to enter a mini-coma wasn't her best moment. Anna was just glad her bandmates had loaded her into the truck. There was a reason she made sure to have the keys on her, it meant nobody could leave her behind.
Shadows made fun of her, flickering in the little light the room had.
"But then I see him stumble, onto the trap that marks his end. And whisper, 'thank you my dearest friend.'"
A lightbulb went out.
"My face is flush with fear-"
Solid vanta-black seized Anna.
It outright pitched into the black while the absurd color took on an inky, wet quality. Pools of shadows reached into the air.
A pale figure staggered out. A blood drenched corpse with four bullet holes burning in its chest, a wet sheen to its fingers where it had flecks of gore underneath fingernails, and a completely spotless mouth with ruby red lips. In complete contrast was the red all about its chin and wherever the monster's tongue couldn't reach.
Her heart went pounding.
She couldn't do anything but watch the bullet holes in the corpse sizzle. Atrocious sounds of wetness and the stench of burning flesh brought tears to Anna's eyes. The staggering corpse cupped her face, almost gently as the floor rang. Each of the bullets were forced out with a loud, sharp, ding while they continued to sizzle.
A beautiful, gaunt, terrifying man cupped her cheek, let it stay there before slipping it down to rub his thumb over her clavicle with enough force her bones creaked. Anna's heart kept on pounding against her ribcage.
White knuckles tightened around her guitar for a swing.
Fangs plunged into her throat.
=The Wanderer, Luca=
Memories cut open the Elder's haze of bloodlust.
The tax of blood which saw him torn from home, cut in body, and divorced from every tradition and remnant of the life he'd known. The boys he'd grown up with and circled around to gather any memory of their home. Nightly prayers.
Being dragged through mountainsides by a horse until his back was ribbons.
Having to kiss the cudgels that beat him.
Music played in war.
His sire's fangs.
Countless faces of the dead flit through his memories, the human, the Kindred, and other supernatural beings up until the Great War and the choking, burning ash. The final spell of a hateful Baali once his Nephandi compatriots died under the spell and claw of an unlikely coalition.
Luca came to himself with the vaguest memories of rage, pain, and comfort from his time in torpor. He cradled a limp body of a young woman. Parts of her clothes were materials he did not recognize.
No pulse sent life through her veins. A guitar of colorful make was gripped in her hand.
Regret shot its arrow.
He bit his wrist. Vitae transubstantiated by his heart flowed back within the woman. In mere moments there was vitality in the corpse. A pale hand took the proffered wrist while the other gripped her instrument to the point that wood creaked. Her face buried itself in his arm with hungry slurps.
Luca took in his surroundings. Brickwork, wood, metal piping of a basement that had gone to rust and ruin. Trash, discarded bottles, broken crates, and ever yet more refuse littered an area which bore a makeshift stage. Water pooled in various brown puddles that stank like sewage. Light poured within the basement through narrow windows.
Not the worst venue. Luca's experience in the Janissaries and as a pirate had plenty worse.
Nassau had been a true wonder for Clan Lasombra. Drunkenness was a problem, though it made many in his Clan agreeable.
Still.
Luca flexed one hand. Strange markings scored his limbs and body. Movement brought flares of pain worse than if he'd been branded. Strength which should be his did not come forth. His clothes were a formless white shift that did not belong to him.
Someone had taken the time to mark him, but had either a feeling of shame that saw him clothed or ritualistic desires to dress him up as a sacrifice.
His newborn Childe let out a gasp. More blood than a human body could contain left her cheeks as pink as a child of Seth. Luca would need to investigate the toll taken when The Beast seized his body from Torpor.
Amends must be made.
Luca cleared dirt from a box to lay his Childe down. He made sure the guitar was safe from the muck and water before taking in more of the room. windows on the inside of the building were boarded up for some reason. Chain-link gates had been set, again, for purposes he could not fathom.
Countless boxes, corrugated pieces of metal, an errant ladder, and more littered a hovel that his Nosferatu compatriots would sneer at. Maintenance was not in the vocabulary of those who owned this place of squalor.
Yet, there were yet more materials he was unfamiliar with. Pallets of wood were topped with a waterproof tarp of unknown make alongside a thick envelope bearing plastic lining both inside and out.
The odd material on the inside made various small pops from even the slightest force. Within were American twenty-dollar bills. Many were crisp while others had beaten, stained paper. Various changes from what Luca was familiar with were accounted for, but the most notable was a note.
Series, 2021 was the most recent.
Over a hundred years had gone by while he slept.
A note within the envelope read:
'No paycheck for your friend this week. you tell him, we see him snooping upstairs again and he'll lose something real valuable.'
Whatever place this was had been used for criminal activity. Not necessarily his people's.
The nearby door creaked open, a man with an electric hand torch stood in a hall filthier than even this room. An older man, perhaps a grandfather, looked at Luca with surprise, then a flicker of surprise before settling on concern. "Hello? Friend, are you all right?"
The guard tilted his head, holding the light back behind him to better see Luca's form.
Luca must have been the very vision of a tortured prisoner between the strange clothing, deep burns or otherwise gouged flesh, and blood on him.
Hunger cried out to gorge.
He shut the Beast within a tower, sealing it behind him as it should.
"Thank you good sir." Luca's voice came out dry, cracked. He had doubtlessly swallowed dust, and perhaps cloth when the Beast flew about. "I only recently escaped." A squeeze of his hand made flesh crack open to show more of the terrible wounds. "I do not know who they were, but they bound me, and cut me, and put me in this garb for a ritual. I do not know what they believe, but they dragged a poor girl here as well."
The electric light turned once Luca pointed to his child, her mouth was was red with his Vitae.
"My God." The man stumbled over the debris to reach her, shining the light over the woman to check her for wounds. "She is cold, not clammy. The wind from those windows can't be helping though. Can you help me carry her?"
Vitae spun within his veins. It moved in the shape of Presence. Will projected outward only for the blood to turn sluggish.
Teeth clicked together. Blood reversed, subtlety lost in favor of his natural Dominate. "Good sir," Two fingers went up to eye level, guiding the man's gaze to be transfixed with Luca's own. "You will forget this encounter and return to whatever compatriots you might have to say you found nothing but large rats. It was quite terrible but nothing of particular note."
The kind man gave a nod with not a thought between his ears.
Little effort was necessary for Luca to sharpen his senses. The nice man strode through the door, closed it behind him and spoke with another man who might have been the intended recipient of the package Luca had found.
He did a quick count of eight hundred dollars, considered what that might actually be worth as it seemed a large amount in his era, and turned to the sleeping Childe. "Now, to find shelter."
Agony sent Luca to his knees. Violet light scorched his body from within. Vitae smoked out of the gruesome wounds. He forced himself up whilst a sharp pain scrambled his vision.
"Huh," An unfamiliar voice rang out in his mind. "That's not my voice not my mouth its coming out of either. I know the back of my hand like the back of my hand, and that's not my hand."
Children of Malkav.
"Silence. Should this be one of your pranks your entrails shall be cut out and crafted into vines to decorate the walls while your broken body lay pinned to the floor, ribcage cracked open to hold a bouquet of flowers that shall feast upon your vitae."
The voice went quiet for all of a second before the irritating tone continued. "Oh, you can hear me. Uhhhh….good evening. Sorry, I seem to be in your head."
Either a Malkavian was playing a prank, or the Beast had done the most idiotic act possible and diablerized a Malkavian.
The latter did not rule out the former.
Close to any other Cainite that died by his fangs and had their heart's blood join his would be far more welcome company. His dearest wife amongst them. Creaks from above drew his attention.
Many more than there should be in a condemned building.
Whomever left the money here was still in the area.
Luca drew his Childe into the same carry he did for his other Childer when they were first Embraced into his world and that joyful time he had taken a woman to marriage. "You shall be fully fed when you awaken, and I-"
He trailed off, considered the horrendous clothing on his form. "Shall conjure proper clothing and more currency."
AN
A path of chivalry Lasombra vampire elder wakes up and dislikes everything he sees
An Elder's Cheat Code, Conjuration 3 Magic of the Smith (Conjure complex objects and make them real. Costs 8 blood points)
Elder Luca: One must simply slaughter one's enemies and drain them of all their blood to conjure adventuring funds and tools out of their life force.
Anna: Are...are you turning people into item drops from a JRPG? Did you kill a crack head and turn their blood into 170 pounds of gold coins?
Elder Luca: Yes
Anna: Do you have a cave somewhere in europe that is just filled with gold bars you made out of people you killed?
Elder Luca: Also yes but it varies between various objects of value. Emerald, rubies, sapphires, platinum, silver.
Bare toes left spiderweb cracks on wet, cold stone when it flung itself from a high tower. The creature hurtled into a narrow space far below, slipped between buildings and arrested its force in midair. Anyone who looked up would see a figure hang in the air like a marionette on strings.
It fell on a source of warmth, sunk fangs in, moved to the next that had let out a shriek of terror.
More blood filled its mouth. Faint sounds grew to startling clarity. Countless machines buzzed around the city, inside the buildings, screeching across winter roads.
A voice the occupants of the body had heard, noticed, listened to in their slumber was recounting a tale to the tune of a string instrument.
"And then from the gates, I hear him calling calling. 'My Princess don't despair A hero's come to free you.'"
"His eyes bleed hard with hope, as I wave smiling smiling. I clutch my chest and cry 'my hero, save me won't you?'"
"My heart is pounding breathless, To know a hero is on the way. My knight in shining armor, whose courage pushes the dark away."
An unsated void was left where the strength afforded by dozens of mortals should be.
Snow went in all directions when the creature heard food move across the way. Fingers hooked through ribs better than any tool, then wrenched bone to bring blood to its mouth. Uncharacteristic weight burdened its chest, ladened its limbs, left the creature's body too weak.
It was still hungry.
Always, eternally hungry.
The snow at its feet was stainless white despite the corpse that lay there.
Much of its power was gone. Not just the Fortitude and Celerity afforded to the body by effort and consuming others of its kind, but its Potence was lesser.
It was so hungry.
Another part of the corpse struggled to come to consciousness, to take the reigns of the power which now animated it. Deeper, scattered, bound within its burning limbs was a third which did not belong.
"I've been watching him climb. Only for me, that fact alone is motivation.
But it can't be. He took a blow against the dragon. He's bleeding free, just counting time until he weakens."
A brief moment saw the body's original occupant plant one foot in front of the other, turning away from the melody. The corpse sprinted, blood flowing, strengthening it far past the limits of humanity yet still far slower than what it should be capable of.
It ran faster than the screeching metal outside, a word for it which the corpse's animate body did not care to remember. Already near the outskirts Original One attempted to fling the body well away from the most savory meal available.
Fire burned where their blood had been stolen and branded upon them. Forces other than the beast, its soul, the attendant, and fragments burrowed within its form took momentary control. The elder monster's body was pulled along with strings by those lesser than it, those who wished to feast upon a heart that had devoured hundreds, if not thousands in war.
"Heroes like he that fell before him, can't bear to see. That might explain why tears are falling.
But then I hear his voice. He's even laughing, laughing. 'Don't worry Princess Such a scratch could never stop me.'"
Righted, the corpse sped to the one who called to it with feeling.
Powers of Control and Madness found their barbed hooks tear free and lines go loose. The corpse ran, then leapt, then flew faster than an arrow. Nothing would stop it as the corpse would even scurry when it had to navigate strange narrows or crash through stone with a battering ram's force.
Cracks rang through the night.
Fiery projectiles lit up the dark for the scantest seconds. They dug through the corpse's threadbare rags. Each smoldered in its chest with heat that set it aflame.
The Elder heard the clicks of the weapon again, traced the path of prior attacks, sighted a man in dark clothing with a weapon it had vague memory of.
"Finally caught up with ya, damn geezer."
Metal was torn from a building which had an abundance of it. The Elder's makeshift spear flew true.
Its opponent lacked the time to react as sheer strength imparted more speed than the interloper had the ability to dodge properly at this distance. Vitae fell on snow.
'He's rushing up the stairs. His armor ringing ringing. Its sound is like a bell that sets my soul afire.'
The Elder longed for another more. Shadows drew the vampire melt into darkness to seek out its desire.
=The Soon To Be Fledgling, Anna=
Retuning a guitar for the fifth time, Anna nursed the hangover of the Rich and Famous without having that status. Her skull had an entire construction crew working overtime inside while she twisted knobs of her recently cleaned instrument.
The atrocious snowstorm had seen roads closed and enough detours that it was stupidly late by the time she'd broken into the rundown venue of her not so legal gig.
It had been as an opener for Phyre, a band that presumed a Ph and y would make a name both copyrightable and cool while forgetting about how it sounded like a failed festival.
Well, they could work a crowd if they were black out drunk.
Both parties, not just the perpetual state of most bands. Anna had been working on her blood alcohol level by the time she heard the tenth off-key note. The whole thing had to be way worse for her bandmates.
She couldn't imagine being the one who composed a new song just to hear those guys follow up with that mess.
Wood creaked overhead in the crack house hotel. Whatever renovation they were trying to do hadn't kept out the meth, cocaine, fentanyl, or whatever the hell it was the people above were shooting up, snorting, and probably leveraging into their veins by popping themselves open with chisels. How this place even had sections of running water and electricity was a wonder of misused money and probable lead poisoning.
Weird that the place still had copper wiring.
"My heart is pounding breathless, to know a hero is on the way. My knight in shining armor, whose courage pushes the dark away."
She riffed a few lines. Anna wasn't a composer and sung from her roommate's playlist. Anna hadn't enjoyed the stories of 'we've all got to become friends and everyone's misunderstood' that came from the same guy.
The acoustics in this basement were terrible. Most of the trash around hadn't even been from the party. What little it had was protection from the wind and a relative lack of water.
Losing her guitar while drunk enough to enter a mini-coma wasn't her best moment. Anna was just glad her bandmates had loaded her into the truck. There was a reason she made sure to have the keys on her, it meant nobody could leave her behind.
Shadows made fun of her, flickering in the little light the room had.
"But then I see him stumble, onto the trap that marks his end. And whisper, 'thank you my dearest friend.'"
A lightbulb went out.
"My face is flush with fear-"
Solid vanta-black seized Anna.
It outright pitched into the black while the absurd color took on an inky, wet quality. Pools of shadows reached into the air.
A pale figure staggered out. A blood drenched corpse with four bullet holes burning in its chest, a wet sheen to its fingers where it had flecks of gore underneath fingernails, and a completely spotless mouth with ruby red lips. In complete contrast was the red all about its chin and wherever the monster's tongue couldn't reach.
Her heart went pounding.
She couldn't do anything but watch the bullet holes in the corpse sizzle. Atrocious sounds of wetness and the stench of burning flesh brought tears to Anna's eyes. The staggering corpse cupped her face, almost gently as the floor rang. Each of the bullets were forced out with a loud, sharp, ding while they continued to sizzle.
A beautiful, gaunt, terrifying man cupped her cheek, let it stay there before slipping it down to rub his thumb over her clavicle with enough force her bones creaked. Anna's heart kept on pounding against her ribcage.
White knuckles tightened around her guitar for a swing.
Fangs plunged into her throat.
=The Wanderer, Luca=
Memories cut open the Elder's haze of bloodlust.
The tax of blood which saw him torn from home, cut in body, and divorced from every tradition and remnant of the life he'd known. The boys he'd grown up with and circled around to gather any memory of their home. Nightly prayers.
Being dragged through mountainsides by a horse until his back was ribbons.
Having to kiss the cudgels that beat him.
Music played in war.
His sire's fangs.
Countless faces of the dead flit through his memories, the human, the Kindred, and other supernatural beings up until the Great War and the choking, burning ash. The final spell of a hateful Baali once his Nephandi compatriots died under the spell and claw of an unlikely coalition.
Luca came to himself with the vaguest memories of rage, pain, and comfort from his time in torpor. He cradled a limp body of a young woman. Parts of her clothes were materials he did not recognize.
No pulse sent life through her veins. A guitar of colorful make was gripped in her hand.
Regret shot its arrow.
He bit his wrist. Vitae transubstantiated by his heart flowed back within the woman. In mere moments there was vitality in the corpse. A pale hand took the proffered wrist while the other gripped her instrument to the point that wood creaked. Her face buried itself in his arm with hungry slurps.
Luca took in his surroundings. Brickwork, wood, metal piping of a basement that had gone to rust and ruin. Trash, discarded bottles, broken crates, and ever yet more refuse littered an area which bore a makeshift stage. Water pooled in various brown puddles that stank like sewage. Light poured within the basement through narrow windows.
Not the worst venue. Luca's experience in the Janissaries and as a pirate had plenty worse.
Nassau had been a true wonder for Clan Lasombra. Drunkenness was a problem, though it made many in his Clan agreeable.
Still.
Luca flexed one hand. Strange markings scored his limbs and body. Movement brought flares of pain worse than if he'd been branded. Strength which should be his did not come forth. His clothes were a formless white shift that did not belong to him.
Someone had taken the time to mark him, but had either a feeling of shame that saw him clothed or ritualistic desires to dress him up as a sacrifice.
His newborn Childe let out a gasp. More blood than a human body could contain left her cheeks as pink as a child of Seth. Luca would need to investigate the toll taken when The Beast seized his body from Torpor.
Amends must be made.
Luca cleared dirt from a box to lay his Childe down. He made sure the guitar was safe from the muck and water before taking in more of the room. windows on the inside of the building were boarded up for some reason. Chain-link gates had been set, again, for purposes he could not fathom.
Countless boxes, corrugated pieces of metal, an errant ladder, and more littered a hovel that his Nosferatu compatriots would sneer at. Maintenance was not in the vocabulary of those who owned this place of squalor.
Yet, there were yet more materials he was unfamiliar with. Pallets of wood were topped with a waterproof tarp of unknown make alongside a thick envelope bearing plastic lining both inside and out.
The odd material on the inside made various small pops from even the slightest force. Within were American twenty-dollar bills. Many were crisp while others had beaten, stained paper. Various changes from what Luca was familiar with were accounted for, but the most notable was a note.
Series, 2021 was the most recent.
Over a hundred years had gone by while he slept.
A note within the envelope read:
'No paycheck for your friend this week. you tell him, we see him snooping upstairs again and he'll lose something real valuable.'
Whatever place this was had been used for criminal activity. Not necessarily his people's.
The nearby door creaked open, a man with an electric hand torch stood in a hall filthier than even this room. An older man, perhaps a grandfather, looked at Luca with surprise, then a flicker of surprise before settling on concern. "Hello? Friend, are you all right?"
The guard tilted his head, holding the light back behind him to better see Luca's form.
Luca must have been the very vision of a tortured prisoner between the strange clothing, deep burns or otherwise gouged flesh, and blood on him.
Hunger cried out to gorge.
He shut the Beast within a tower, sealing it behind him as it should.
"Thank you good sir." Luca's voice came out dry, cracked. He had doubtlessly swallowed dust, and perhaps cloth when the Beast flew about. "I only recently escaped." A squeeze of his hand made flesh crack open to show more of the terrible wounds. "I do not know who they were, but they bound me, and cut me, and put me in this garb for a ritual. I do not know what they believe, but they dragged a poor girl here as well."
The electric light turned once Luca pointed to his child, her mouth was was red with his Vitae.
"My God." The man stumbled over the debris to reach her, shining the light over the woman to check her for wounds. "She is cold, not clammy. The wind from those windows can't be helping though. Can you help me carry her?"
Vitae spun within his veins. It moved in the shape of Presence. Will projected outward only for the blood to turn sluggish.
Teeth clicked together. Blood reversed, subtlety lost in favor of his natural Dominate. "Good sir," Two fingers went up to eye level, guiding the man's gaze to be transfixed with Luca's own. "You will forget this encounter and return to whatever compatriots you might have to say you found nothing but large rats. It was quite terrible but nothing of particular note."
The kind man gave a nod with not a thought between his ears.
Little effort was necessary for Luca to sharpen his senses. The nice man strode through the door, closed it behind him and spoke with another man who might have been the intended recipient of the package Luca had found.
He did a quick count of eight hundred dollars, considered what that might actually be worth as it seemed a large amount in his era, and turned to the sleeping Childe. "Now, to find shelter."
Agony sent Luca to his knees. Violet light scorched his body from within. Vitae smoked out of the gruesome wounds. He forced himself up whilst a sharp pain scrambled his vision.
"Huh," An unfamiliar voice rang out in his mind. "That's not my voice not my mouth its coming out of either. I know the back of my hand like the back of my hand, and that's not my hand."
Children of Malkav.
"Silence. Should this be one of your pranks your entrails shall be cut out and crafted into vines to decorate the walls while your broken body lay pinned to the floor, ribcage cracked open to hold a bouquet of flowers that shall feast upon your vitae."
The voice went quiet for all of a second before the irritating tone continued. "Oh, you can hear me. Uhhhh….good evening. Sorry, I seem to be in your head."
Either a Malkavian was playing a prank, or the Beast had done the most idiotic act possible and diablerized a Malkavian.
The latter did not rule out the former.
Close to any other Cainite that died by his fangs and had their heart's blood join his would be far more welcome company. His dearest wife amongst them. Creaks from above drew his attention.
Many more than there should be in a condemned building.
Whomever left the money here was still in the area.
Luca drew his Childe into the same carry he did for his other Childer when they were first Embraced into his world and that joyful time he had taken a woman to marriage. "You shall be fully fed when you awaken, and I-"
He trailed off, considered the horrendous clothing on his form. "Shall conjure proper clothing and more currency."
AN
A path of chivalry Lasombra vampire elder wakes up and dislikes everything he sees
An Elder's Cheat Code, Conjuration 3 Magic of the Smith (Conjure complex objects and make them real. Costs 8 blood points)
Elder Luca: One must simply slaughter one's enemies and drain them of all their blood to conjure adventuring funds and tools out of their life force.
Anna: Are...are you turning people into item drops from a JRPG? Did you kill a crack head and turn their blood into 170 pounds of gold coins?
Elder Luca: Yes
Anna: Do you have a cave somewhere in europe that is just filled with gold bars you made out of people you killed?
Elder Luca: Also yes but it varies between various objects of value. Emerald, rubies, sapphires, platinum, silver.
