They are here. Instinctively, the thought of them is distanced - to think of them is to invite their attention. Agris becomes still and shrinks in his wheelchair, betraying no signs of life for a good moment.
Become still, submerge in a sea of dazed minds. Lower my profile.
It is a thing that many of the Old Country knew to do in one way or another, whether they were cognizant of it or not.
Subterfuge+Streetwise=3
5, 4, 5"Bezverkhy, Agris.
Bezverkhy, Agris.
Bezverkhy, Agris."The
(not a) man repeated Agris's name relentlessly as a machine recording. His attempts to fade into the crowd hampered by his wheelchair, which makes him stand out like the proverbial sore thumb...or, maybe it's something else.
Eventually, the flunky turns to him directly-catching his eye with a slightly crooked grin. Oh yes, something very wrong with this fellow, Agris thinks. His arms are too long, and is that the shadows or are they bent in the wrong places...his teeth too sharp, like little flecks of metal...maybe he knows...
he knows that you know...or does he?
"...Bezverkhy, Agris. You're being called. Please...come forward." He says politely, holding his gaze on you. The flunkies left hand twitched on the side of his pants, for no reason Agris could guess.
Twitched like a spider."Nice to meet you, William. I'm Diane Ceres." she says, shaking his hand firmly. She noticed the attractiveness, yes, but she certainly was no home wrecker.
He seemed to read Diane's thoughts, settling down. Social shields going up, stepping a bit more carefully now. Diane feels a moments tug on her conscience-that someone else should have someone like
him, before she could even get a chance to know his name. That's unfair, she thinks wryly, very unfair. It stings her
pride...that old green lioness wakes up, and stretches itself out in the back of her mind-suggesting her all the bad things she could do here, the fun she could have. He's obviously interested. It was the first thing in his glance, that undisguised lust. And what's harm of inquiring a bit further, pushing things a bit, seeing what happens?
Her common sense launches a respectable counterattack to this line of argument, that she's not here for
that and it's obviously a bad idea anyway. He showed the hand with the ring for a reason, right? Right.
"...Likewise...treasured to meet you.
So, what sort of job are you going for, Diane?
Me-I'm a draftsman by trade...I draw blueprints, technical schematics, diagrams. Putting my years in Art College to good use, I suppose...you know, I wanted to be a cartoonist, originally..." He says with a hopeless shrug, his mood darkening momentarily-Diane can tell he's the sort guileless sort of fellow who couldn't lie to save his life, his emotions oft written right on his face. Right now, he looks like some who dropped something valuable long ago, and has long since ceased looking for what he lost.
"...but, that's no life you can plan a future on..."Alice hissed a sibiliant shit under her breath. Acting quickly, she moved off the stairway. She opened a door on one side of the hallway, and left it open before turning and going in to the one opposite. With just a hairline crack left open, she waited, breath bated. She clutched her bat tightly.
Dexterity+Subterfuge=3
9, 6, 10!
2Alice wasn't perfect, but she had guts and low cunning-a sure mark of any real survivor. She hid as quick and quiet as she could, leaving what she hoped was a false trail...
The clattering sound seemed to get quieter as it got closer, and the only reason she could think that this was so, was because it was trying to
sneak up on her. She watched with cat-killing curiosity from her crack in the door.
I don't wonder why she did watch. When you get into this world, you learn ignorance is no defense. Closing your eyes just means you won't see what killed you. Alice has learned this lesson. She watched.
...
She has no idea what the thing is, and her minds eye was wrong in about a hundred ways.
Her first idea was that it was...the head of a corpse, who had died painfully...about 4 feet long and 4 wide, sure, but the dimensions were not sure in her mind. It could fit through the narrow doorways with languorous ease, yet it looked massive enough to swallow her whole. It looked like a head, anyway. A mans head. No ears, or nose...but, there was a mouth-filled not with teeth, but with what looked like a lunatics idea of a picket fence-beds of rusted medical tools, syringes, scalpels, saws...two massive eyeholes-stitched tightly shut with industrial wire. It floated off the ground through no means she could she discern, gazing about blindly...but,
searching...she had not doubt those eyes could see. That horrible sound was caused by what amounted to the beings hair-it's scalp was lined with rusted barbwire, trailing slightly behind it, rattling on the ground. It's skin was pale as the belly of a toad, covered with old, hastily treated wounds (her minds eye notes many firearm wounds-long lines of small, dark holes and the gory, shredded wounds of what could only have been a shotgun)-and dark purple clotted blood, running down it's face like grisly tears...it floated otherwise in complete silence, sometimes rising slightly off the ground. The most horrible thing was the muscles in it's face seemed to be twitching and moving soundlessly, as a man may do when sleeping restlessly. Was it trying to talk? To laugh?
Or scream?She took a deep breath. Steady. Calm as still water. Remember your mantra.
The being's blank eyes followed her path unerringly, as if it could see her footprints in the expensive carpet-then floating over to the half open door, peering in with a dullards idle curiosity. There is a
loud bang that nearly made her jump in fright, but of course her desire to live was stronger than that. The being had opened the door fully to look inside. Not with any sort of hands, but...by magic? ESP? Psychokinesis? Who the fuck knows?
It's 'back' was to her, and she had to decide what to do. (Player Action)
Author
Topic: World of Darkness (test campaign) Scene 1 (Read 6946 times)