Nazareth Awakened - Chapter 02: Wives of Solomon

[TillForPie]

"2014," the vampire intones in confirmation. "Then it's been 12 years."

[sblock=Reading the Vampire]Law's Roll: Composure 3 - Empathy unskilled penalty 1 - hard to read 2 Failure with 0 successes
Chance's Roll: Composure 3 - Empathy unskilled penalty 1 - hard to read 2 = Failure with 0 successes
Harper's Roll: Composure 4 + Empathy 1 - hard to read 2 = Success with 1 success
Agnasci's Roll: Composure 2 + Empathy 2 - hard to read 2 = Failure with 0 successes[/sblock]This woman is very difficult to read and the others are probably amazed by how long she's apparently been underground, a feeling they might think she shares, but Harper isn't so sure. To him it sounds like she's surprised by how short her time staked has been.

"Magellan's a sweetheart," she says. "It was good of him to send you. I've been through Nazareth before, wouldn't mind staying there for a while until I figure things out." She pauses. "Does that mean you're all wizards, too?" To everyone but Agnasci her expression is difficult to make out in the dark but it's clear from her tone that she's smiling. "Got any magic to cover that up?" She nods toward the shallow hole.

[sblock=Spell: Self Healing]Roll: Gnosis 1 + Life 2 = Success with 3 successes
Thanks to a 10-again reroll Harper heals 3 points of lethal damage[/sblock]Harper focuses on the imago of his healing spell, imagining himself at full health. In an instant the puncture marks on his neck have closed and he feels himself flushed with life. It's cost him some mana but he's back in tip-top shape. Not a bad trade.

With his mage sight spell he can detect that the Gauntlet is thick this deep in the city, just like last time. Other than that and the spells of some of his companions he detects nothing unusual with it.

The others feel his spells go off.

Harper has spent 1 point of Mana and healed away 3 points of lethal damage, leaving just 1 behind.

 

[Rubberneck]

"Got any magic to cover that up?" She nods toward the shallow hole.

"Yupp, it's called a shovel."

Law says as he begins shovelling dirt back into the hole.

"Do you have any place to stay in Nazareth or do we need to find someplace for you?"

 

[TillForPie]

She watches with amusement as Law fills in the hole. "I'll find something." Maybe this won't be as hard as they'd thought, though there's no telling what her solution might entail.

"There any stores open 24-hours around here? I need new clothes." Everything she's wearing is covered in dirt and her blouse is torn from the staking. She could probably use a shower, too. "And I need to feed soon." Apparently what she took from Law and Harper wasn't enough. "Just get me to Nazareth and I'll take care of the rest."

 

[Shayuri]

"Uh, we have something lined up you can use to stay in," Chance demurred. The last thing they needed was a vampire loose on Nazareth, improvising. "Clothes are no problem. And we'll figure out a way to feed you too. How much do you need, exactly? And does it have to be people?"

 

[Mosier]

Agnasci grabs a shovel, eager to be out of here. He's content to let the others do the talking, for now.

 

[GlassEye]

Harper, Thyrsus mage

[section]

Harper frowns. There was apparently a lot that they didn't think of that, on retrospect, should have been obvious. Foremost on that list was that the vampire, whatever her name was, might not want to follow their plan. He stows that thought for later.

"What do we call you? 'Hey, vampire' probably isn't the best mode of address."

Since she asked if they were wizards Harper is pretty sure she didn't sense when he cast spells. He doubted she would sense his scrutiny and so he examines her with his Second Sight trying to get a read on her pattern (if vampires have one) so that he can recognize it later, if necessary.

​

[/section]

 

[TillForPie]

"Uh, we have something lined up you can use to stay in," Chance demurred. The last thing they needed was a vampire loose on Nazareth, improvising. "Clothes are no problem. And we'll figure out a way to feed you too. How much do you need, exactly? And does it have to be people?"

Chance is the next target of the creature's amused stare. The vampire considers a response for a moment before giving it. "Yes, I need to feed from people." What reason does the vampire have to lie? Clearly everyone's on the same side in this - if she's got an easy way to take care of things it might be best to just let her handle it herself. Chance has always been good at cutting through the crap and seeing to the heart of things and when the vampire smiles at her after answering it really seems like they might even wind up becoming friends.

Meanwhile Harper, unburdened by whatever is invisibly affecting the others, scrutinizes the vampire for several long moments. She has an inhuman resonance. That alone would probably give her away were he to ever scrutinize her again, but just in case he also examines the details of the pattern of her aura, her "fingerprint." He's sure he'd be able to positively identify her through scrutiny in the future. As he suspected, she didn't seem to sense his magic.

"What do we call you? 'Hey, vampire' probably isn't the best mode of address."

"Gloria."

Agnasci and Law finish covering the hole and the group begins on its way to the Tahoe. As they step through the gate that Chance had unlocked Gloria asks "So what's changed in the last 12 years?" Most of the group were children when Gloria was staked.

 

[GlassEye]

Harper, Thyrsus mage

[section]

Harper walks along quietly. Something just isn't sitting right with him. Nothing he can particularly put his finger on but he would swear he felt magic of some sort. Since his mage sight didn't show anything he's probably okay. Or not; if there is one thing the movies agree on it's that vampires are tricky creatures and dangerous. A bit of Penrose's paranoid advice would be welcome right about now, he thinks.

"Gloria," says Harper trying the name on for size. A snippet of music runs through his head; something old from the 70's or 80's, he isn't quite sure. "Uh, the Red Sox won the World Series when I was a kid." He hesitates before continuing. "I'm not really sure what else to tell you. I'd guess lots of things have changed but we lived it so it's kinda hard to pick out something relevant. Kinda like the boiling frog."

He's nervous and rambling. He goes to the back of the vehicle to load the shovels. "This is us." As if it wasn't obvious.

​

[/section]

 

[TillForPie]

Something in Chance scratches at her subconscious.

[sblock=Resisting Gloria]Chance's Roll: Willpower 6 = Success with 4 successes
Chance shakes off the effects of Gloria's power[/sblock]Chance doesn't know it, but she's slipped the hold.

Chance has spent 1 Willpower. She has 5 remaining. As far as she knows, nothing's changed: Chance remembers the good feelings Gloria's power has already generated as being genuine. Gloria's power simply ceases to force Chance to have a positive reaction to whatever the vampire says or does.

 

[Shayuri]

Chance nodded placidly at Gloria's suggestion, and wondered idly if she could ONLY drink blood. It might be fun to have a girl's night out sometime, she hadn't met many folks in Nazareth that she could just hang out with...

Vampires. The voice in her head was gruff and scratchy, but still kind of juvenile. She recognized it right off, because she'd been imitating it on the way to the cemetary. There was some old vampire movie with 'the Coreys' in it where they played deranged vampire hunting teens, and were way cooler than the actual vampires. And now one of the 'Frog Brothers' was scoffing at her in her head. Can't let a bloodsucker get into your head. Some of them know how to play nice, but they're all animals underneath.

As odd as it seemed to be accepting wisdom from Corey Feldman, Chance had to admit she'd been letting Gloria's pleasant demeanor wiggle past her better judgement. She'd been just about to agree to just let her roam around Nazareth at will, unattended! Even if she WAS careful, someone might get killed. Or see something they shouldn't. Or she could just LEAVE and then where would they be?

Now, where were they? Oh right, twelve years.

"Well, Dubya won again in 2004, then we had Obama twice now," she started. "Legal protections against state searches and seizures have gone on eroding, and the NSA has been caught red-handed surveilling American citizens like...three times now, and no one seems to give a damn. Governments in the Middle East have been destabilizing like CRAZY and no one's talkin' about black ops and psyops from the Pentagon...like, ten or eleven seperate documented ops aimed at that EXACT result, and now it's happening and no one's even suggesting we might have something to do with it." She took a deep breath. "Plus, the Mars probes have been uncovering evidence...over and over again...that not just LIFE is up there, but intelligent life and it may even still be there...but NASA is more about ob-fu-scation than illumination these days... China's busy turning itself into an economic apocalypse second only to its human rights violations and dousing itself in a constant flood of industrial waste and acid rain... Oh hell, and you slept right through the Economic Meltdown!" Chance cackled with laughter. "Alright, this is gonna take a minute, because there's the story you'll hear around, and there's the REAL story..."

Abruptly she paused, noticing the expressions of the others.

"What?"