dresdenphileWatch out for snakes!Registered Userregular
Jack DeLuca
This is going south and fast. Newt might be a dumbass, but he doesn't deserve to die for it. Probably.
I say,"You know what? I changed my mind; fuck all this."Newt, I'll make this real easy: apologize to Lizzy for bowling her over, without any use of the words 'fuck' and 'lunatic', and I'll take a minute to tie my shoe. You get to walk your happy ass back to whatever rock you woke up under without further incident. You give us a big thumbs up to your bosses, and we all go back to being blissfully unaware of one another. Win-win. What do you say?"
Really? With no awareness of his surrounding and no ability to act. You could leave him out in a field somewhere to burn in the sun. Or set him on fire. Or just cut off his head. Blood bound at least you get to live and it's not like its permanent. It's far better than Final Death.
He takes a second, not sure whether to believe the offer.
"...Real about that Miss Lizzy, but you were in my face like you were gonna hit me. Wasn't trying ta hurt you, just to put some distance between us. Honest."
The blood bond is true love, albeit a twisted and
perverse version of it. Ultimately, we can’t reduce the vagaries
of love down to a simple “yes/no” system. Some
thralls (particularly people with Conformist or other
dependent Natures, or with Willpower 5 or less) will
commit any act, including suicide or murder, for their
beloved; other characters have certain core principles
that they will not violate.
We're talking about a state where a being that can theoretically live forever would be enslaving himself to a being that could tell him to wait for the sun and have him simply obey. Yes, I think that is perhaps the most frightening thing I can possibly imagine. I would rather die than be possibly tortured for the rest of eternity without the ability to stop myself from willingly doing it.
Blood bonds are fucking Freaky As Shit
Then again, maybe Newt is not that smart and doesn't think these things through. He did, of course, punch someone in a room full of people who already didn't like him.
I am fully aware of how the blood bond works. Like, for example, you've only quoted the most extreme version of how it works after three drinks on three different nights. First and second drink are much less extreme, though still bad. And though bad, still vastly perferable to Final Death.
This is not a game about your morality. This is a game about monstrous creatures so cowardly they would rather accept Damnation than death. And they are know they are Damned. They will do anything, anything, to avoid Final Death. You think I'm wrong about that, well I don't care. That's your value judgment but you're not the Storyteller here, I am. If I think vampires would prefer being Bond to being staked, then that's how it works in my world.
You don't like my Storytelling, there's the door. No one is forcing you to play and no one is forcing you to leave. Either way, thanks for playing.
Hold on now. This is a game, keep the drama in character. We all have different interpretations and understandings of the rules. Not saying either are right but Mikey is the GM/Storyteller. If his version of V:TM has blood bonding more acceptable then dying then it is. And that could be a character by character thing. Currently, Lizzy would rather die than be bound to anyone but that's because of her rebellious nature and Chatelle's history. Could that change? Sure, but that's something that's going to take time and the right circumstances to do. Newt might rather be bound, as he's a spineless coward. That's he's perfered choice between death and enslavement.
Newt doesn't need to be told twice or even told at all. The moment Jack's gaze is avert the Nosferatu is practically tripping over himself to hurry out the door and in to the protection of the dark of night. As he escapes into the shadows his crazed howl can be heard echoing through the treelines. Even with the spy gone, there is still a palpable aura of tension around the group now. No one is certain of each others motives any longer. A fissure has erupted, revealing both the violent and manipulative tendencies of the players on the stage. It reminded all that you are vampires and, as such, not to be trusted.
That tension is cut like a sharp knife as Chris's paiger begins to chirp from his belt. He looks down at the small plastic device, though he does not seem to recognizing the number. Trusted or not, the paiger sounding had snapped you from your reveries. There was a job that had to be done. Two of you commited through boons owed to the most powerful Kindred in the Pudget Sound.
What do you do?
@shdwcaster You do not recognize the number in the paiger, but you also know only a handful of people have access to this number. At nearly 2 A.M., that means that it is likely Ellaina checking in with you.
The pager startled me enough that if I hadn’t been keeping my trigger finger indexed along the side of my gun like a good boy, I probably would have very loudly put a new hole in the floor of our little hidey-hole. As it was it took me a moment to juggle reholstering and pulling the pager off my belt to check the number.
“Hey, did anyone see a phone around this dump? We’ve got electricity, so there’s gotta be a phone line, right? Basically the only people who have this number are from work, and if I’m getting paged at 2am, then something pretty catastrophic has probably happened to the build.
Okay, that, or the new guy checked in code without bothering to test it first, and left a semicolon after a for loop. Either way I need to call in.”
Hey, just because Kris has a pretty good idea of who's trying to get his attention, doesn't mean he has to let everyone else know that yet.
Damien Thorn
I look around at the wreck that is the living room. A fire, a flipped table, a nearly staked Gremlin...things could be better. When the pager goes off, it snaps me out of the tension a little. I start doing what an apprentice does in the chantry. Cleaning.
When Chris asks for a phone I remember one was on the wall when I was scrounging for baking soda, "Yeah, there's one in the kitchen by the backdoor."
"That was a mistake. You should have giving him the stake." Lizzy says as she looked around the cabin for the first time. "So what in blazes happen here? Did the TV threaten someone you hold dear?"
Going back to my old way of posting. The other way felt like it was killing my writing flow and I wasn't liking it.
"The TV just started sparking and that nasty rug caught fire. Roland and Chris fought it for a bit and I ransacked the kitchen for something to help put it out. I think this place is haunted or something."
As I picked my way towards the phone I gave my own answer to Lizzy’s question. “Tell you what. If you don’t believe the ghost explanation, would you believe that it was Thing 1 and Thing 2, but the Cat in the Hat never came back to help with the cleanup? I mean, we’re real enough, why not ghosts too?
At that point, I found the phone, closed the door to the kitchen, dialed the number on my pager, and waited for Elianna or whomever had beeped me, to pick up.
Chris picks up the receiver, satisfied by the dialtone on the other end. Hooking the phone under his jawline he starts to dial the number on the paiger. That was when it starts to get strange. The line picks up but not to the sound of Ellaina's voice. On the other end an automated teller picks up, asking Chris to "Please hold." The line begins to buzz and chirp and squeel, like the sound of a angry dial-up modem or accidentally calling a fax machine. Finally, the sound of heavy plastic clanking together of a phone being picked up from the base.
"Don't speak!" says a familiar female voice at the other end who is definitely not Ellaina. "If you nearly got punched out by some rednecks in a skezy bar last night, press the one key twice."
It was her - the blonde woman from the other night, xfangx. Chris hestitates for a moment, then presses the one key accordingly.
"Do NOT call her from that location. That house is bugged. I'm forwarding the number now," xfangx says. Chris nearly drops the paiger as it goes off again in his hand. A new number has appeared in the display. "The phone at the Three Lion Pub is secure."
Before Chris can respond, there's the sound of a receiver meeting its base and the call is disconnected. Chris knows that location, though; it is not far from his office.
I carefully hung the receiver back up, trying not to disturb the pile of dishes stacked perilously close to the phone as I did so. It took me a moment to compose my face, then exit the kitchen back to the group.
“Look, I hate to be the wet blanket on all of this, but it’s past 2am now, and thanks to our little hitchhiker buddy, we still don’t even have a plan for how to deal with these hunters. That was my office, sure enough, the build is almost literally on fire, and they need everyone’s favorite night-owl coder to save the day, again.” I rolled my eyes for dramatic effect. “How our hero manages to write such high quality code at hours when most people are at the bottom of their biorhythms is a mystery that no one knows.”
“In the event I can wrap this up quickly, are you all going to do anything tonight, or should I just plan on same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow?”
Going to WAG that I need a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll here?
Geth roll 6d10 for I Sure Hope They Buy This
They aren't excepting a lie about something so innocuous, so let's go DC 5. If anyone wants to pick up on that lie, DC 7 Contested Wits + Subterfuge or Perception + Empathy since his claims aren't outside the realm of possibility.
Mikey CTS on
// PSN: wyrd_warrior // MHW Name: Josei //
0
dresdenphileWatch out for snakes!Registered Userregular
Jack picks up that Chris isn't being entirely truthful. It's true that coders keep long, often time ridiculous hours. Maybe it's the timing of the event or the cadence of Chris's voice. Jack's not entirely sure why he thinks Chris is lying. Must be a detective's intuition.
dresdenphileWatch out for snakes!Registered Userregular
Jack DeLuca
"Seems like Newt's rubbed off on you, Kris," I remark, folding the bills before putting them in my pocket. "We just threatened a man's unlife together. I think we're all good enough friends now to get the truth about where you're off to in such a hurry; wouldn't you agree?"
And now we have to do this the hard way. Great. “Yeesh, nobody just trusts people anymore, do they? Fine, if you must know, “ I turned slightly to make sure I was looking right at Jack, “my contact from last night wants to meet up. I most emphatically do not want to bring the entire Mystery, Inc. gang with me lest said contact up and disappear back into cyberspace again.
And as much as I’d love to just disappear back into my little life and not hear the words ‘Camarilla’ or ‘Anarch’ again for the next fifty years, that isn’t going to happen, so I’d better go to this meeting. If I take Seu… Lizzy with me, would that satisfy your paranoia enough? I think you can be pretty certain that she won’t bother to cover any prevaricating I do to this group.”
"Are we leaving now then?
I rather do that then wait for ghost in the den."
0
dresdenphileWatch out for snakes!Registered Userregular
Jack DeLuca
I hold my hands up, surrendering the point. "Sure, sure. That's cool, man. Do what you got to do. I'm just trying to make this dysfunctional family a little more functional."
I look for a broom to help the kid clean up and add, "As far as Lizzie tagging along: she's a big girl; that's her call."
Trying with reasonable success to hide my slight smirk at finally winning a point tonight, I start to head for the door. "Up to you, Lizzy, whether you want to come along or not. The rest of you, I guess I'll see back here tomorrow then?"
"Let's go. I'm not sure I can stay here anymore!" Lizzy nearly sings as she starts out.
When the two are in the car, Lizzy turns to her companion, "I really don't need to be here when you meet your friend. Just drop me off at the bar at the end of the bend. I trust you aren't going to stab the group in the back or face. You're the less like Judas of all of us in this place."
“To the bar, in my car, ‘cause it’s not far? Right you are.”
I looked at Lizzy again, feeling like I was going slightly cross-eyed. “I think your speech pattern is starting to rub off on me a bit. Ouch. Can you find your own ride back to your haven tonight, or do I need to pick you up again after I finish with whatever this is going to be?”
There needs to be a sad emote button. Sorry to hear about that. My job too is looking shaky right now so I understand the boat you are in. Hopefully you'll find a new job soon enough.
Shit man, that sucks. Drop me a line if you want and I can see what we've got available at my company. We've got stuff literally all over in a ton of fields.
You do you, if you need some time, take it. This ain't a job, =P. We'll be here.
Posts
This is going south and fast. Newt might be a dumbass, but he doesn't deserve to die for it. Probably.
I say,"You know what? I changed my mind; fuck all this."Newt, I'll make this real easy: apologize to Lizzy for bowling her over, without any use of the words 'fuck' and 'lunatic', and I'll take a minute to tie my shoe. You get to walk your happy ass back to whatever rock you woke up under without further incident. You give us a big thumbs up to your bosses, and we all go back to being blissfully unaware of one another. Win-win. What do you say?"
Fuck it, do what you want.
He takes a second, not sure whether to believe the offer.
"...Real about that Miss Lizzy, but you were in my face like you were gonna hit me. Wasn't trying ta hurt you, just to put some distance between us. Honest."
We're talking about a state where a being that can theoretically live forever would be enslaving himself to a being that could tell him to wait for the sun and have him simply obey. Yes, I think that is perhaps the most frightening thing I can possibly imagine. I would rather die than be possibly tortured for the rest of eternity without the ability to stop myself from willingly doing it.
Blood bonds are fucking Freaky As Shit
Then again, maybe Newt is not that smart and doesn't think these things through. He did, of course, punch someone in a room full of people who already didn't like him.
This is not a game about your morality. This is a game about monstrous creatures so cowardly they would rather accept Damnation than death. And they are know they are Damned. They will do anything, anything, to avoid Final Death. You think I'm wrong about that, well I don't care. That's your value judgment but you're not the Storyteller here, I am. If I think vampires would prefer being Bond to being staked, then that's how it works in my world.
You don't like my Storytelling, there's the door. No one is forcing you to play and no one is forcing you to leave. Either way, thanks for playing.
But in all seriousness let's drop this please. I'm really liking this game and I rather not see petty arguments end it.
I take my eyes off Newt and step to the side. I stop pointing my gun at him, but I don't put it away just yet. "Good enough. Scurry along, Newt."
That tension is cut like a sharp knife as Chris's paiger begins to chirp from his belt. He looks down at the small plastic device, though he does not seem to recognizing the number. Trusted or not, the paiger sounding had snapped you from your reveries. There was a job that had to be done. Two of you commited through boons owed to the most powerful Kindred in the Pudget Sound.
What do you do?
@shdwcaster You do not recognize the number in the paiger, but you also know only a handful of people have access to this number. At nearly 2 A.M., that means that it is likely Ellaina checking in with you.
The pager startled me enough that if I hadn’t been keeping my trigger finger indexed along the side of my gun like a good boy, I probably would have very loudly put a new hole in the floor of our little hidey-hole. As it was it took me a moment to juggle reholstering and pulling the pager off my belt to check the number.
“Hey, did anyone see a phone around this dump? We’ve got electricity, so there’s gotta be a phone line, right? Basically the only people who have this number are from work, and if I’m getting paged at 2am, then something pretty catastrophic has probably happened to the build.
Okay, that, or the new guy checked in code without bothering to test it first, and left a semicolon after a for loop. Either way I need to call in.”
Hey, just because Kris has a pretty good idea of who's trying to get his attention, doesn't mean he has to let everyone else know that yet.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
I look around at the wreck that is the living room. A fire, a flipped table, a nearly staked Gremlin...things could be better. When the pager goes off, it snaps me out of the tension a little. I start doing what an apprentice does in the chantry. Cleaning.
When Chris asks for a phone I remember one was on the wall when I was scrounging for baking soda, "Yeah, there's one in the kitchen by the backdoor."
"That was a mistake. You should have giving him the stake." Lizzy says as she looked around the cabin for the first time. "So what in blazes happen here? Did the TV threaten someone you hold dear?"
Going back to my old way of posting. The other way felt like it was killing my writing flow and I wasn't liking it.
"The TV just started sparking and that nasty rug caught fire. Roland and Chris fought it for a bit and I ransacked the kitchen for something to help put it out. I think this place is haunted or something."
"Should we call the Ghostbusters then? Help, Help! There's a Slimer in my den!" Lizzy laughs.
As I picked my way towards the phone I gave my own answer to Lizzy’s question. “Tell you what. If you don’t believe the ghost explanation, would you believe that it was Thing 1 and Thing 2, but the Cat in the Hat never came back to help with the cleanup? I mean, we’re real enough, why not ghosts too?
At that point, I found the phone, closed the door to the kitchen, dialed the number on my pager, and waited for Elianna or whomever had beeped me, to pick up.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
"Don't speak!" says a familiar female voice at the other end who is definitely not Ellaina. "If you nearly got punched out by some rednecks in a skezy bar last night, press the one key twice."
It was her - the blonde woman from the other night, xfangx. Chris hestitates for a moment, then presses the one key accordingly.
"Do NOT call her from that location. That house is bugged. I'm forwarding the number now," xfangx says. Chris nearly drops the paiger as it goes off again in his hand. A new number has appeared in the display. "The phone at the Three Lion Pub is secure."
Before Chris can respond, there's the sound of a receiver meeting its base and the call is disconnected. Chris knows that location, though; it is not far from his office.
I carefully hung the receiver back up, trying not to disturb the pile of dishes stacked perilously close to the phone as I did so. It took me a moment to compose my face, then exit the kitchen back to the group.
“Look, I hate to be the wet blanket on all of this, but it’s past 2am now, and thanks to our little hitchhiker buddy, we still don’t even have a plan for how to deal with these hunters. That was my office, sure enough, the build is almost literally on fire, and they need everyone’s favorite night-owl coder to save the day, again.” I rolled my eyes for dramatic effect. “How our hero manages to write such high quality code at hours when most people are at the bottom of their biorhythms is a mystery that no one knows.”
“In the event I can wrap this up quickly, are you all going to do anything tonight, or should I just plan on same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow?”
Going to WAG that I need a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll here?
Geth roll 6d10 for I Sure Hope They Buy This
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
@dresdenphile @shdwcaster
"Seems like Newt's rubbed off on you, Kris," I remark, folding the bills before putting them in my pocket. "We just threatened a man's unlife together. I think we're all good enough friends now to get the truth about where you're off to in such a hurry; wouldn't you agree?"
And now we have to do this the hard way. Great. “Yeesh, nobody just trusts people anymore, do they? Fine, if you must know, “ I turned slightly to make sure I was looking right at Jack, “my contact from last night wants to meet up. I most emphatically do not want to bring the entire Mystery, Inc. gang with me lest said contact up and disappear back into cyberspace again.
And as much as I’d love to just disappear back into my little life and not hear the words ‘Camarilla’ or ‘Anarch’ again for the next fifty years, that isn’t going to happen, so I’d better go to this meeting. If I take Seu… Lizzy with me, would that satisfy your paranoia enough? I think you can be pretty certain that she won’t bother to cover any prevaricating I do to this group.”
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
"Are we leaving now then?
I rather do that then wait for ghost in the den."
I hold my hands up, surrendering the point. "Sure, sure. That's cool, man. Do what you got to do. I'm just trying to make this dysfunctional family a little more functional."
I look for a broom to help the kid clean up and add, "As far as Lizzie tagging along: she's a big girl; that's her call."
Trying with reasonable success to hide my slight smirk at finally winning a point tonight, I start to head for the door. "Up to you, Lizzy, whether you want to come along or not. The rest of you, I guess I'll see back here tomorrow then?"
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
"Let's go. I'm not sure I can stay here anymore!" Lizzy nearly sings as she starts out.
When the two are in the car, Lizzy turns to her companion, "I really don't need to be here when you meet your friend. Just drop me off at the bar at the end of the bend. I trust you aren't going to stab the group in the back or face. You're the less like Judas of all of us in this place."
The bar is the one we talked to Janet at.
“To the bar, in my car, ‘cause it’s not far? Right you are.”
I looked at Lizzy again, feeling like I was going slightly cross-eyed. “I think your speech pattern is starting to rub off on me a bit. Ouch. Can you find your own ride back to your haven tonight, or do I need to pick you up again after I finish with whatever this is going to be?”
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
"Come get me. Home is a long and lonely walk you see."
"To the bars then! You know, this reminds me of a joke. You ever here the one that starts off
'A bear walks into a bar in Billings, Montana and orders a beer.
Bartender says 'We don't serve beers to bears in bars in Billings...' "
I believe that's Exit, Stage Right for Kris, and presumably Lizzy, at least until Kris arrives at the Three Lion Pub.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
Last Friday, I was laid off from my job. I'm going to try to keep this going but posts will no longer be consistent for the foreseeable future.
I hope you all understand and I'm sorry. I've enjoyed this as much as everyone else.
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
You do you, if you need some time, take it. This ain't a job, =P. We'll be here.