Tale Weaver's Vampire: The Masquerade Game Board

[izillama]

Clover nodded, pretending to casually shrug off Koln's serious warning, "Don't worry, Koln. I think I know what to do."
Biting her lip in apprehension, she motioned for Koln to sit up. She still wasn't entirely sure how this was going to work. But the little voice in the back of her head was telling her that it would. What choice did she have but to listen?
Nodding again, as though replying to some internal question, she reached forward and steadied Koln's shoulders, tipping his head up to lock eyes. She spoke her theory out loud, "I feel like; if I can make you do things against your will, tell your mind to do something, maybe there might be a way to command it to unlock its memories as well. This weird power I've gotten since I became a vampire--since I became a Ventrue?--it has to do some good, right? I certainly hope so. And I certainly have no intention of harming you, Koln. Not intentionally."
She quickly glanced at Ruby, trying to give the girl a reassuring smile. But she worried that her grin looked haphazard and fake. She was a bit worried about what she might find in the depths of Koln's mind, after all!
But still, she persisted. Turning back to Koln, she drew herself up and locked gazes once more. Then, she nodded definitively, "Ok. Here we go. Koln, show me your memories."

The forgetful mind! Attempting a memory probe!

 

[Tale_Weaver]

University of Denver

Clover nodded, pretending to casually shrug off Koln's serious warning, "Don't worry, Koln. I think I know what to do."
Biting her lip in apprehension, she motioned for Koln to sit up. She still wasn't entirely sure how this was going to work. But the little voice in the back of her head was telling her that it would. What choice did she have but to listen?
Nodding again, as though replying to some internal question, she reached forward and steadied Koln's shoulders, tipping his head up to lock eyes. She spoke her theory out loud, "I feel like; if I can make you do things against your will, tell your mind to do something, maybe there might be a way to command it to unlock its memories as well. This weird power I've gotten since I became a vampire--since I became a Ventrue?--it has to do some good, right? I certainly hope so. And I certainly have no intention of harming you, Koln. Not intentionally."
She quickly glanced at Ruby, trying to give the girl a reassuring smile. But she worried that her grin looked haphazard and fake. She was a bit worried about what she might find in the depths of Koln's mind, after all!
But still, she persisted. Turning back to Koln, she drew herself up and locked gazes once more. Then, she nodded definitively, "Ok. Here we go. Koln, show me your memories."

The forgetful mind! Attempting a memory probe!

Please be aware that what you are about to see may or may not be completely accurate. Koln is rather deranged at this point so even his subconscious is altered.

Clover
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Looking into Koln's eyes, Clover starts to see things. Everything you are seeing appears to be through the eyes of Koln. She sees a vision of a man in robes holding a book and reading passages from it to her. She then sees other various parts of Koln's memories but they are all so short and seem to be out of order. Most of the visions appear to be inside some kind of complex with robed figures all speaking what sounds like French, although Clover can't really make out any words.

Eventually a vision comes up of a man lying on the ground bleeding from the neck. A deranged figure stands over the man laughing. The man has shoulder length wavey hair and what looks like a business suit covered in blood. There are other visions that follow of what you can assume is Koln stabbing at a similar looking man and cackling madly, blood splashing everywhere.The man who was lying on the ground dead rises up and starts sauntering towards you. His eyes look hollow, like black voids. You hear someone scream "THADDEUS!"

Clover spends 1 Willpower Point to focus on these visions.

You see yourself in an office with and old man. He hands you a passport. He too is speaking French but you can hear him more clearly. He is saying something about a mission in Denver to follow Thaddeus. He also gives you a cross as well as other documents and a cell phone. This is then followed by a vision of Koln grabbing weapons. There are guns of all sizes in what appears to be some kind of locker room. Koln grabs his S&W and tries to get some of the others but his hand keeps passing through them. He ends up grabbing a bright green squirt gun instead. There are a few other less important visions in between but Clover starts to recognize Koln's surroundings suggesting that he is in Denver at this point. She sees visions of Koln sitting at tables drinking coffee and occasionally watching the people that pass by. You suddenly get the overwhelming feeling that you are being watched and a man who is wearing the same clothes that Jacob Prestor was wearing that night he attacked you shows up in the background of a few of these visions. The last clear vision Clover gets is of a farm. It is daytime but the farm looks completely abandoned. No animals and no people. Koln seems to be checking the ground for tracks and spots a trail of blood. The trail ends up leading to dead animals, cows and horses and a few chickens lay butchered on the ground baking in the sun. All of them look like they had their throats slashed.

From here on Clover starts to lose control of the visions, she can see the 24th Diocese and that faithful scene where you all were attacked by Prestor. You see Koln trying to fight off Prestor to no avail. You then see a vision of Koln stabbing a man sleeping on a couch. The knife firmly planted in his chest he screams before dying. You also see Koln running from a house panicking. Visions start to mold together and you lose track of what you are seeing, some of them are just too horrid to put into words. Lacey starts to show up in some of them and tries to comfort Koln, one time she hands him a rubber duck. Your mind can't take it anymore and you feel yourself burning. You have to break your connection with Koln!
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Clover lets go of Koln and is left exhausted and breathing heavily like she woke up from a bad dream.

 

[izillama]

Hey, cool post ^.^

Clover disengaged from Koln's mind without anything in the way of grace. Her hand flew up to her mouth to keep from crying out, and she found herself fumbling backwards and shakily hitting the bed, sitting down haphazardly as she tried to calm herself.
Her head hurt! She wasn't sure if this exchange had hurt Koln at all (and she hoped it didn't) but this had been mental torture for her! Was this how Koln was existing every moment of every night, now? How much turmoil and confusion could one man go through! No wonder he seemed insane!
Upset and confused, Clover buried her eyes in her palms. The images were still there. As strange as they were, she struggled to make sense of them and not let them get away. She sensed Ruby's eyes on her head as she sat in silence, and she hoped that no one would break her concentration as she collected herself.
Clover didn't even know what Koln was doing at the moment. Was he looking at her? Was he ok? She didn't dare look at him. She would never see him the same way again.
She began shakily, reliving the events one more time out-loud for her friends to hear.
"Koln. You were young. I think a very young priest. In training? But then... I think you might have stabbed someone. And then... no. Maybe it wasn't you..." She shook her head, the memories already floating away.
She had to hurry!
"Thaddeus! I think that you were sent here to kill him! From France, maybe? They sent you here. And you came here and scouted out the town. You found a farm. Animals. Everywhere. Dead. Throats slashed. A farm. Where was it? But you definitely came here for Thaddeus! You were definitely sent! I..."
Her voice trailed off, the last spurts of images coming to her mind. Koln had stabbed someone. Yes, that had definitely happened. And... a duck?
She heaved a sigh of relief, looking up towards Koln with deep remorse in her eyes. If what she saw had been true, Koln had known of Thaddeus. And, she remembered, Prestor had been there and had been watching Koln. She dropped her head, "Prestor was scouting you out, Koln. I saw him there. Maybe... he was after you all along? Why else would he have been in the 24th Diocese that night? What if...?" She was grasping at straws, feeling so drained by the effort of recalling what she had seen that she was amazed, "What if he knew you were after Thaddeus? What if that's why he tracked you down? Do you think it was intentional? Thaddeus was Prestor's enemy, too. What if... that's how he thought he could help you defeat him?"
She shrugged, immediately feeling ridiculous for even suggesting it.

 

[Strider_Koln]

"Koln. You were young. I think a very young priest. In training? But then... I think you might have stabbed someone. And then... no. Maybe it wasn't you..." She shook her head, the memories already floating away.
She had to hurry!
"Thaddeus! I think that you were sent here to kill him! From France, maybe? They sent you here. And you came here and scouted out the town. You found a farm. Animals. Everywhere. Dead. Throats slashed. A farm. Where was it? But you definitely came here for Thaddeus! You were definitely sent! I..."

Koln is still and unblinking, his expression is as if he just saw a terrible ghost. He remembers those pieces and struggles to pull them together. After a moment he replies coldly, "I have killed a few times Clover. And you know what? I enjoyed it, doing the Lord's work." As he speaks he remembers a little more, cracking a smile, stifling a chuckle, and holding his head in his hands. "My role was to erase sin, by any means necessary. However I never killed anyone that still could have been saved. I merely hastened Divine judgment upon those who were beyond redemption. I never took anyone's life unless they deserved it, God willing. Sin, like vampirism, is a plague upon humanity, and it is my role to stop that infection by cutting away all of the diseased limbs one by one for the rest of my days..." Koln finishes speaking, still appearing distant.

"I'm sorry Clover. I warned you... it would have been for the best if you had not gone inside my head. Abandon hope and wipe your feel all who enter I believe is the saying..."

 

[Tale_Weaver]

University of Denver

I'm going to move things forward so we can move on to the next night. I'm going to assume that everyone goes to sleep soon after the conversation over Koln's memories.

Koln and Clover
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Visions of the man in the bloodstained business suit haunt your dreams. You can't really make out his features, but you can tell that they are certainly twisted in nature. The scene at the farm stands out the most in all of this. Both Koln and Clover relive it as if they were there. Beautiful, yet haunting. The farm looked like it wasn't abandoned long, the crops were still healthy and the building was in good shape. Even in this dream sequence there is no sign of any people at the farm, no bodies to be found. Just a heap of dead animals, slain in cold blood for some unknown purpose.
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Ruby
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You have nightmares about the scene that Clover described of Koln stabbing at the man on the couch. Could Koln really do such a thing? You see the man as some demon or possibly a vampire at first, but then he starts to bleed from the knife wound in his chest. You also dream about the farm, but not the one that Clover and Koln were talking about. You dream of being back on the farm with your family. This dream seems so real to you that your mind gets whisked away to another place and it feels like you are home again.
[/sblock]

 

[Tale_Weaver]

The Twilight Kids Event

The group awakens on this lovely Wednesday night. They spend 1 bloodpoint to awaken.

Clover goes upstairs to check on Mindy because she never got to see her after the events of the previous night. Clover knocks on her door and there is no answer. A girl who lives near Mindy says that she hasn't been back at her dorm room all day. Someone said they saw her at the mall earlier.

Clover goes back to her room and convinces the group to go with her to the mall. They search the mall and don't find Mindy. Instead they find a group of kids wearing all black hanging out in front of the new Hot Topic. At first the kids act hostile towards Clover, Koln, and Ruby accusing them of being "vampire posers". When they are convinced otherwise they explain to the group that they are goth kids who have been tormented lately by the arrival of some annoying Twilight fans. They could care less about how kids are in love with everything Twilight, but the fact that people are lumping goth kids in with these freaks is really starting to piss them off. They tell the group that these kids tend to hang out at the local night clubs. Maybe they can find their friend there.

When the group goes to the 24th Diocese they see a group of kids hanging out with Twilight shirts on. The group decides to approach them and ask them if they have seen Mindy. They admit that a new girl has joined their ranks and will be meeting with their idol, a "true vampire" named Valance (I think that was his name). Mindy shows up moments later and the Twilight kids struggle with Clover to prevent Clover from taking her away from them. They manage to escape leaving no sign of how they got away so quickly. The group decides to go back to the mall to tell the goth kids what they found.

The goth kids confirm that the Twilight kids are always talking about some "pretty vampire" they come in contact with. The goth kids decide to move the conversation to a local diner that they hang out in often. They explain to the group that this "vampire guy" approaches young girls who wear Twilight attire in many locations throughout the city. They figure that a good way to catch this vampire in action is to have Clover and Ruby pose as young innocent Twilight girls in one of the more popular locations that people have been approached in, a meadow near a playground not too far from the diner. The meadow is a perfect place to stage a sparkly vampire encounter because it is of course the location of that all-too-famous kissing scene in the novel.

So Clover and Ruby dress up in Twilight clothes and sit in the meadow idly talking to one another. Valance comes out of the shadows and approaches them. He acts friendly but suave commenting on how serene the meadow is and asking if they like to play baseball. When he is convinced that they have fallen for his antics he hands them a card with an address on it. He tells them to go there later that night to attend a meeting that the Twilight kids are having. Clover and Ruby report this back to Koln and the goth kids and they decide to drop in on this meeting.

Clover and Ruby go to the address with Koln and the goth kids following behind. The address happens to belong to a large mansion with a theater attached. Clover and Ruby sit with the Twilight kids in the theater as Koln and the goth kids hide in the bushes outside. The Twilight kids explain to Clover and Ruby that this is an initiation ceremony that all of them have gone through. Tonight is going to be Mindy's initiation into the group. Valance appears on stage with Mindy and a bowl of some kind of red concoction. Valance is about to have Mindy drink when Clover and Ruby jump into action, shortly followed by Koln and the goth kids breaking through the windows. In the confusion Valance escapes with Mindy. The group manages to capture one of the Twilight kids though. Her name is Jen and it turns out that she is a ghoul of Valance, and a rather cherished one at that. They pressure Jen into telling them that Valance has a lair under the mall. They let Jen go and return to the diner to hatch a plan.

The Goth kids tell the group that they are experts when it comes to the secret underlairs of Denver. They explain how to access the tunnels under the mall through an entrance right outside. The group decides to go right away and they find the entrance without too much trouble. The Goth kids insist on going down into the tunnels with the group despite disagreement on Koln's part. They all go down as one large group and it isn't long before they find Valance's lair. The lair looks like a high school gym and is set up as if it is prom night. It appears that Valance has prepared for an invasion after Jen returned to him. He is near the entrance with Mindy being held in the back towards the stage. Valance tries to talk the group down but a fight breaks out and Valance calls upon his ghouls for help. Despite Heather and Jens help along with a dashing entrance by Keith swinging down from a chandelier with a cape on; Valance can see that the fight will not go his way and he quickly kicks over a can of gasoline and ignites the room before leaving out a back entrance behind the stage.

All hell breaks loose and Keith is trampled by a bunch of panicking teenage girls as they race to get out of the quickly growing inferno. The group manages to save Mindy along with Valance's ghouls Heather and Jen. The lair happens to be beneath Hot Topic so the store is mostly destroyed by the fire. The event ends with the group saying their goodbyes to the Goth kids. The Goth kids thank them for their help and one of them hands Clover a pair of brass knuckles.

For completing the event the group got the Achievement: The Undergroundables (worth 2xp). They also got 8xp for good roleplaying!

Clover, Ruby, and Koln get 3 bloodpoints for feeding off of the spoils of war.

The night ends with Clover escorting Mindy back to her room and then joining the rest of the group for a good day's rest.

 

[Tale_Weaver]

University of Denver

Clover wakes up the following evening (Thursday) at around 5:30pm spending 1 bloodpoint to do so. She has English class at 6 according to her schedule. Koln and Ruby can wake up whenever.

 

[izillama]

Tonight, it seemed harder to wake up than usual. Maybe it was the nightmares, or maybe it was the growling urge in the pit of her stomach, but Clover was not feeling very rested. As she dressed (grumpily) she stared fixated at the wall in front of her as she performed the usual cadence: Skirt, zip, shirt, buttons, tie... She seemed almost confused when she ended up in her schoolgirl uniform again. Why did she choose to wear the same thing every single night? But then, she realized that she felt most comfortable this way and brushed the unnerving thought aside that she too might be losing her mind.
Clover made her way across campus in record time, breezing past some young hopefuls who stared at her skirt blowing in the chilly fall air and wondering why she wasn't wearing a coat (which she had forgotten in her haste). She sat through a boring lecture, focusing more on the act of pretending to breathe than on the lesson on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then after class, she was the first one out of the room and bolting back towards the dorm to hunt down Mindy.
She knocked on the Texan's door, intent on giving her a piece of her mind for her subordination the previous night!

 

[Tale_Weaver]

University of Denver

Clover made her way across campus in record time, breezing past some young hopefuls who stared at her skirt blowing in the chilly fall air and wondering why she wasn't wearing a coat (which she had forgotten in her haste). She sat through a boring lecture, focusing more on the act of pretending to breathe than on the lesson on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then after class, she was the first one out of the room and bolting back towards the dorm to hunt down Mindy.
She knocked on the Texan's door, intent on giving her a piece of her mind for her subordination the previous night!

Clover can hear Mindy's voice behind the door say "just a minute!" Soon the door opens and Mindy is there, she is wearing a sports bra and some rather tight sweatpants. She looks surprised for a moment and says "Ah..hi Angie..." she has trouble making eye contact and looks mostly at the floor "I was just on my way to the gym actually...ya know...about last night....I know I was a bad girl...." She opens the door wider for Clover to come inside still looking at the ground.

 

[izillama]

Clover cleared her throat as she stood in the hallway, a moment passing awkwardly between the girls. But she didn't want to alarm Mindy to the fact that she was ticked off. Hey, it wasn't like Mindy was her slave! She still had a life.
'Damnit, the trouble this girl put us through last night...!'
She smiled sheepishly, "Hey, no problem. You know though, going to the gym sounds like a good time. Mind if I join you? I could go quick get changed. Hey, and maybe Ruby could use some social interaction as well. Though like I said: Only if you don't mind." ^.^*