By this point, Agris has run out of breath, so he goes quiet, and instead concentrates.
Action: must escape bonds. Don't struggle... slip. At just the right moment, slip out of the grasp of these not-people.
1
Dramatic Fail!
Agris is Doomed!
[1d5=5]
Description: The character is almost certain to suffer a dire fate. The Storyteller has a pool of dice equal to the level of this Condition, which refills at the start of each session; he may apply those dice as a modifier to any roll made for the character, if that roll is relevant to the character’s Doom. Actions which, if successful, would help to bring the Doom about may be given a positive modifier, while actions which would help prevent the Doom may be given a negative modifier.
Resolution: The Doom comes to pass; or, the character does something which makes the Doom impossible.
Beat: The character succeeds in a task that contributes to his Doom - any roll that gained bonus dice from this Condition qualifies, and the Storyteller may give Beats for other rolls as well.
((Dramatic failure-whenever you have more 1's than successes. Dramatic Failures 'reward' you with a negative condition, or otherwise make things that much harder for you.))
Agris decided to wait and act on nothing more than the most common of magic-simple luck. He turned inward, patient and calm...and...
He felt a shadow pass over him.. Before, he might have not noticed it. With his eyes open, however...the man could not help but feel he was now
utterly doomed. The price of a roll of the dice-sometimes you lose. He had a momentary vision of three women in a dark, dusty house-a cloud of long threads and looms around them, perching like spiders in a great and terrible web. Young, Old and Mature-occasionally they take a pair of sharp, mirror bright scissors, and snip a thread...sometimes they take one thread and tie it to another...or tie many threads together into a knot...and then cut the knot in two. They smiled easily, tending to their work with a simple, easy joy-three peasant sisters tending to a daily labor.
Somehow he knew these women were now measuring his own thread (he could see the thread in his minds eye, a cord so fragile and helpless against the ever-hungry scissors and the sisters three), wondering, pondering...
...
Do you have a thread, is that what you are asking?
...
I hope so. Not even
you should be beyond fate.
"Be honest. You're as bad a-" Alice's wrath swelled and overflowed, a vessel of hatred surging forth.
A brutal swing of the baseball bat cut her off mid sentence, and the weapon was swung again, and again, battering at the woman until the bat dripped with brain and blood. With each meaty thwack, Alice snarled. "Don't. Talk. Shit. About. My. Sister!"
When the thud became more of a splash, Alice stopped, panting heavily at the exertion, swung her bat again through the air to splash some of the blood off.
"Bitch," she spat, and turned to the computer. She knew a bit about them, how they worked.
She pulled a memory stick out her jacket and plugged it in... this wasn't the first time she'd stolen files. Didn't need to be a hacker to plug in a USB. Anything she could use, and more importantly, that they couldn't, seemed good to do. Maybe she'd look at it later.
She went through the computer quickly and copied anything that seemed interesting before pulling out her memory stick and setting C:// to format.
Then she turned to the now slightly mushy woman and went through her pockets. Anything valuable, interesting, went into her own, before she left, turning off the lights as she did so. Maybe anyone else would think there was no one down there, so the corpse wouldn't be discovered until later.
+1 WillpowerA haze of red and white. Alice gave into her inner beast-perhaps, her true self-and felt the ancient blood rush of murder and mayhem. Every strike drove her further and further downwards into an imposed damnation. Every crack of the bat upon flesh and then bone and then brain echoed down into places best not thought of-every act of unthinking violence adding to the eternal, unholy choir.
I wonder what her sister would have thought if she could have seen her then?
[Resolve+Composure=7+1(Integrity)-1(Acting in accordance with vice)=7
5, 2, 4, 6, 5, 4,
8Success!
Alice gains Guilty Condition
Your character is experiencing deep-seated feelings of guilt and remorse. While the character is under the effects of this Condition, he receives a –2 to any Resolve or Composure rolls to defend against Subterfuge, Empathy or Intimidation rolls.
Resolution: The character confesses his crimes and makes restitution for whatever he did.
Beat: n/a
As usual, once the song of blood fades, or the high wears off-then comes the guilt, crashing down. Like an ugly and avaricious whore engaging you on the street, you don't want her-but, she's not going away. Alice tries not think about (what her sister would think) the blood on her hands. Justifications follow, and denials. The woman was a monster. She deserved to die. You had to do it. You
had to do it.
Right? Right.
Still, Alice couldn't suppress that twinge-toying with that faint bead of morality Alice still entertained from time to time. She knew she would have to pay for this.
There would be justice. Maybe not the justice of the men...or what these people thought justice was...in her own way, she would have to make this right. Alice knew that eventually, all debts have to be paid...
...
Alice quickly managed to scoop up whatever data was in the contents of the computer-probably horrible things, she was sure-and then tentatively turned to scrounge in the dead womans pockets...
A wallet. A few bucks. A drivers license. A few cards that look like the sort used to open hotel rooms-Alice snatches these eagerly. A name that doesn't matter anymore-bizarre. Her name was Alice too.
No pictures of kids or parents, but what looks like a boyfriend. The happy man has his arm around the smiling woman you just killed, in a place that could have been New York, once upon a time. Both smiling, alive, maybe in love. A very old picture-tattered around the edges, stark black and white, like something out of WW2-old timey cars in the background and everything. And yet, the woman she (murdered) killed looks no different in this old picture than she looks (looked) now. As if she hadn't aged a day.
No weapons on her. No way she could have threatened Alice...at least physically.
Oh.But, she was wearing the most beautiful necklace. A long chain of beautifully wrought gold-in the shape of two serpents, whose open mouths formed into a clasp. The eyes of the serpents were studded gems in a rainbow of colors. Diamond, sapphire, ruby, jade.
In Alice's limited experience, she sincerely doubts the woman was wearing this merely as a fashion accessory. She can feel...a hint of something strange about it. Maybe something wonderful. Maybe not.
Alice slipped it into her pocket with a covetous glance around her-like any common thief-and, stepped back into the hallway, after turning the lights down. Hoping the body wouldn't be discovered until she was finished. So she wouldn't be forced to pay. As, deep down, she knew she needed to.
You like the story, don't you? Well, here's what happened next... ((Player action))