Elijah
Elijah has problems with focusing.
Anyone who has met Elijah knows that he has a problem with focusing. Knows that he takes in too much sensory information at all of the wrong times and has had people express very vocally that they will take it out of his scrawny ass (slender, asshole, thank you very much) and probably just never study with him. It was fine when he had finals to study for or he had some innocuous thing that Kalen left him alone to do for various and sundry reasons.
Now, it was different. If he didn't have results and didn't measure up, he was done in the order. Done. Completely done. He didn't think he could possibly fail out, but at the same time h didn't think he could get a C in a harp performance class but he nearly did after not showing up to a midterm recital. (Car accident, he had almost said fuck it and just taken the C but he would have had to explain to his parents how you get a fucking C in a harp class.)
Anyrate, not the point. The point was that he had to take in a lot of information very quickly and seem like he had a good foundation and like he knew what the fuck he was doing.
So, he put in an order for some adderall from a dealer he'd done business with before, and left good feedback. Five out of five, would repeat the transaction again. Adderall and ecstasy. Because seriously, why not?
So, there he was, on a bench waiting. And reading a book about the history of the printing press- he was actually interested in it. Somewhere, his club kid cred was tanking.
Samir
Elijah has good timing. If he had tried to reach this dealer a week ago he would have found him to be decently divorced from reality but that's a story for another time. He may not be able to form a mental picture of the guy in his head but he has the handle he uses on the Dark Net (slakhani) and he has a good idea of his level of intelligence and education (proper grammar and punctuation when he types!) When you're dealing with drug dealers the less you can remember about them the better anyway.
No better way to regain one's club kid cred than mixing stimulants with MDMA.
His dealer comes out of the darkness skinnier and wide-eyedier than the last time Elijah saw him. He is not disheveled and unwashed like he just this moment decided to crawl out of his apartment but he does have the jittery look of a man who hasn't gone outside in a while.
In his more alert state Elijah can appreciate the way Samir walks. Long strides with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders bunched as if to make it more difficult for someone to grab him from behind. He has long black hair he keeps tied tight in a knot at the base of his neck. Beat-up wine-red Doc Martens and black jeans and a leather biker jacket overtop a band t-shirt. No jewelry. He's chewing his lip as he rounds the bend towards the kid with the resonance like disorder with a purpose.
Sam feels like the needle when it first hits your vein. A stranger staring at you from across the room. He looks like he needs a fucking cigarette.
"Yo," he calls just before he's right up on Elijah's bench.
Elijah
He's not yet at the point in his magical career that he can say that his timing is the result of being clever and having mastery of reality. No, right now, Elijah can just chalk up good timing to good luck- sometimes, he gets a break. Prefers to deal with this guy on the Dark Net because he remembers very distinctly that they guy with… you know… hair. Hair and probably not glasses. Anyway, he remembered that the guy very distinctly did not look like he was going to kick Elijah's ass. He could have been a blackbelt in something- appearances are often deceptive- but he definitely gave the feeling that beating the shit out of Elijah wasn't on his to do list.
(There are things Elijah remembers, vaguely, things he doesn't think about often but occasionally come up in deals. He doesn't know how lucky he is, well and truly. Doesn't remember what he'd said to Nines- except that he'd heard some disembodied voice say that the man was a murderer, that Elijah shouldn't push it. He doesn't remember how much he bought, or much else, save for that moment when the needle hits your vein, then euphoria, then just… nothing. He doesn't remember taking too much, doesn't remember how he got home or even how he got to the ER. Just remembers his dealer/"friend" Megan telling him that she wasn't too keen on one of her best customers dying on her and not to run his mouth off.)
The less you know, the better.
He does appreciate the way Samir walks, the way he seems to be aware that things could go from bad to worse. Guy looks like he could use a cigarette; Elijah smiles at him like they're friends. They both know that's not the case. "Hey man," he says as he puts the book aside. Careful with it. Clothes are comfortable, but somewhat professional. Slacks, button down shirt, a vest (who wears a fucking vest?). Clearly, while club kid fred may wain, his hipster game was strong.
Samir
So he's graduated from sweatpants and crippling physical pain to two seconds away from revealing himself to have a fucking pocket watch. Kid must be a Hermetic. No other Tradition treats its initiates as if they've just been sent off to boarding school and then acts surprised when they wander around at night looking for drugs and sexual adventure.
This park is crawling with vampires according to some people. Something could come out of the dark at them at any moment. Samir could stop the electricity in a person's heart with the power of his own fucking mind and he still looks as if his own mind is the thing causing him the post trouble.
Elijah has no way of knowing that. For all he knows the dude has a hit out on him or he's pissed off a rival dealer or he's high himself. Good dealers don't use their own product but they don't know each other.
A friendly smile begets a nervous twitch of a response and Sam keeps his hands in his pockets as he sits down beside Elijah.
"You, ah..." Right. Gotta act normal if they're going to do this shit out in public. "You ready for classes to start?"
Elijah
[Manip+sub: This is completely normal.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
He does. Have a pocket watch, that is. Checks it right quick, as though it was going to show anything other than the same time it always does. Except for when it does. You know, standard cat logic. Watch goes back in his pocket- because why else would he wear a damn vest except to carry a freaking pocket watch.
"Yeah, kind of? I'm taking some short courses that are pretty much kicking my ass," he says, that much is the truth, too. It wasn't so much a short course and more I'm making a horrible lifestyle decision that is going to essentially make me lie to my family for the rest of my life but then again that could also be true of going to college to play the freaking harp (and the piano, but mostly the harp). Elijah has a good track record for lying to his parents, so everything is golden there. I'm taking my medication or it was the only class open or of course I'll come back to Louisiana after school ends.
"There's something about doing difficult things that I was gonna say, but I totally fucked it up."
Punctuated with a laugh. He's comfortable, like they know each other.
Samir
"If it's easy, it's not worth doing?"
Aside from both participating in a parallel economy they have a core group of associates in common. It's strange to sit beside someone about whom he knows so much simply from going on a digital message board and skimming his posts. Not strange in the sense that he hasn't done it before because he does shit like this all the time. He's a reality hacker. He can learn a person's life story within minutes of meeting them as long as he can conjure up an Internet connection. That isn't how he's gotten to know the Awakened who call Denver home and that isn't how he intends to get to know them.
Still: he knows Elijah has had a storied time the last year or so and Elijah doesn't even know this guy's name. He knows he's a good-looking brown-skinned kid with a Canadian accent. Even that will fade once the dealer's walked away.
Pretending to shoot the shit is a good way to keep suspicion off of them and what they're doing but it also helps Sam practice his social skills. Maybe takes the edge off the loneliness riding him like a vengeful spirit for a bit.
"Or, ah... what'd Teddy Roosevelt say, about envying people leading difficult lives well."
Elijah
(Straight intelligence: GAH, I have totally heard this quote before!)
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well," he replies to Samir. He does remember what it was, or at least remembers the quote well enough because he remembers having to write it down fifteen times in middle school because his history teacher had been insistent that they learn one important quote from one influential person a week. One of those awkward things that people try and make you learn in school and it stuck with him.
He can also recite a hand full of poems by Walt Whitman. He prefers William Carlos Williams. They weren't talking about poetry, though.
"What is that? A Tautology? When you flip two things- not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog? Or all the crap that big teacher guy in Mystery Men was saying?"
Samir
Samir never experienced the joy of public middle school. Having a hippie physics professor for a mother gave him plenty of world experience but it didn't do a whole hell of a lot for teaching him how to survive in group settings. Everything he knows past a seventh-grade level he knows because of his own natural curiosity and his own nerdish intelligence.
Poetry isn't anything he has much experience with. He is not a creative type. He has a certain elegance in the way he writes and he looks like the type of guy who might like spending his nights at indie rock shows or hanging out with other counter-culture chain-smoking types. If he does he's the quiet one in the group. Too busy sitting back and listening to participate.
So this is difficult for him. Difficult and necessary. Loneliness won't go away if you ignore it any more than voices or intrusive thoughts will go away.
"Or, ah... A or not A. If A implies B, then not-B implies not-A. If at least one of A or B is true, and each implies C, then C has to be true, too." A beat. "I don't know shit about grammar. I think Roosevelt was just ripping on people who skate through life without ever encountering any..." He clears his throat. "... any adversity. The dude rolled out of bed and pissed manliness."
Elijah
"Didn't he, like, punch a bear or something?"
A beat.
"I'm not even joking, I thought he did things like wrestled animals and busted trusts because, y'know, fuck monopolists."
Samir
The question is so absurd Sam actually laughs. He looks like the sort of person who doesn't even know how to smile. Turns out he has quite a nice smile. Takes care of his teeth even though he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. Laughing doesn't do anything to dispel the electric anxiety from his eyes but it does loosen him up for a few seconds.
Elijah isn't even joking. Fuck monopolists. Sam considers this and then pulls out his smartphone and starts to tap the screen as he talks.
"They didn't have Wikipedia back then. Bullshit had to travel by telegram. The amount of physical evidence generated by rumor propagation, even if he didn't actually punch a bear, if he--okay." A beat. "He was hunting in Mississippi and the dogs found an old bear they 'chased until exhaustion,' and the guides clubbed the shit out of it and tied it up so he could come shoot it, but Roosevelt didn't think it would be sportsmanlike. So he had one of the guides shoot it just so it wouldn't keep suffering. A political cartoonist named Clifford Berryman published a cartoon about him refusing to shoot the bear, and that's how Teddy Bears got their name. Google doesn't say anything about him punching one though. Sorry."
He bookmarks something called 'Dirtbag Teddy Roosevelt' and puts the phone back in his pocket.
Elijah
"Whaaaaat?" he laughs, starts to lean over to see what was on the screen before sitting back up. Elijah concluded that he probably didn't need to be looking at the smart phone of his drug dealer on account of the fact that there are Things He Does Not Need To Know. Sits back up and shakes his head. Looks sideward and notes that the guy does have a pretty nice smile.
"I had no idea how that came around, I thought it had something to do with bears? But seriously, thought he punched a bear and I thought that's a really weird thing to do if you are off Mike Tysoning bears," he looked at his book, then back, "I totally knew I liked Taft more."
Samir
"Wait, was Taft the one who looked like a walrus?"
Ah hell. If they're going to sit here talking about bear-punching and whether or not it ever actually happened then Sam is going to light a fucking cigarette. He extracts a small yellow case made out of plastic and from it extracts a filtered cigarette he rolled himself. Avoiding contaminants requires a certain amount of paranoia. His lighter is a cheap plastic thing he picked up at the gas station.
It's worth mentioning that Sam's hands smell like rubbing alcohol. So does his phone. Elijah might not have noticed this until he leaned in to glimpse the screen and even then it might not have registered. It is not a strong smell but it is a persistent one.
He shucks a filter out of the pack and puts it into his mouth without touching it. Lights the tip and shoves everything back into his pocket. Presumably this ritual takes as long as Elijah's response. It isn't universal collusion. Sam would rather listen than speak.
Elijah
"He did kind of look like a walrus," Elijah confirmed, "most people just remember the thing about the bathtub? But by current standards Taft is probably about the size of a regular husky guy. Totally not going to judge his presidency based on his BMI, but the guy did more than freakin' Roosevelt did. I mean, he did a bunch of anti-trust stuff and he improved the postal system, which was a big deal for the time because the postal system was super important. Hell yeah effective postal system."
He looks at the case, plastic, and takes in the faint scent of rubbing alcohol. Elijah propped his arms up on the back of the bench, sat there like he was comfortable with the space. talked like they were friends, because the young man didn't know strangers.
"Did you know that some people suspect Lincoln had Marfan's Disease?"
Samir
[int + academics IDK DO I?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Samir
The question makes Sam frown but then again plenty of things make Sam frown. He's a pretty sharp guy and he can crack jokes when he's of a mind to but his mind is a preoccupied place. If Elijah takes away from this encounter that Sam seems as if he's got someone nattering in his ear that oughtn't be that wouldn't be an unfounded observation.
They are not kindred spirits. Sam isn't haunted by the dead. It's his own thoughts that won't leave him alone.
He frowns and then he cleaves a plume of smoke out his nose. Ashes lazy into the grass and adjusts the way he has his feet planted on the sidewalk. His back has not been touching the bench this entire time and it doesn't start now. If anything he's slouching where before he had been bunched up. Turned towards Elijah like they're friends sure but if the two of them are friends it's hard to tell which is The Weird One.
"Marfan's the one where super tall people don't have enough connective tissue, right?" he asks once his airway is clear. "I mean, that'd make sense. He died way before Marfan wrote about it, eh?"
Elijah
"I think so? I have no idea, I know it's the disease when you don't have enough connective tissue and people end up being, like, super tall and having weird ribcages. I just saw something on TLC when I was in high school about the Mütter Museum? Which was, like, really freaking cool and I kinda want to go at some point… but I'm not actually super keen on flying?"
Which was amusing. He was willing to jump out of an airplane, but he was not willing to stay there and just ride out the flight. Whatever the case.
Somewhere, in the bushes, there was something rustling. It wasn't' anything strange, nothing really. It was the time of day or night or twilight that people didn't often have reason to be hiding in shady places, but there they were. Something rustled, and it seemed innocent enough. Something rustled and it made a sound. Something that gurgled and burbled and sounded wet and sickly-
Then, stopped.
Samir
Sam is on his feet and spinning towards the noise before he can even stop and think if he ought to consider the possibility that he's still fucking hallucinating.
It was the sound. He's heard noises like that before. His eyes are bright-wide in the dark and his nostrils are flared as he tries to keep his breathing under control. Now would be a shit time to panic. He holds onto his cigarette a moment longer.
A quick glance at Elijah. He doesn't have to ask whether Elijah heard that if Elijah didn't react to it. He'd rather hallucinate than have to admit Grace was right and he shouldn't come to Vampire Park after sundown.
Elijah
[Per+alert, I heard that, right?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Samir
[so alert]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
There is an awkward moment, and it is awkward- even Elijah knows it's awkward, when one has to wait and see if the person with you heard something. He's holding his breath, looking sideward at Samir and trying to play it cool. Trying to pretend like he didn't just hear some unpleasant gurgling noise and now would be a shit time to panic.
Beyond that, the blond has no self preservation instinct. So, he's standing up, turning his attention the other way, and starting a slow approach to whatever is in the bushes.
---
Samir can see it, just the peeking of something sickly white and sallow in the bushes. He sees it, with patchy hair and awkward posture. It seems like something that might be human- possibly. Human is a relative term in some instances, but it isn't the sight of the thing that catches his attention. It's the sound, it's the slight crunch and sickly slick tearing of muscle.
He can see something in the bushes with it, splayed wide open and filled with vivid reds and putrid pinks. He catches a look at a tuft of fur- something that goes into the air and is tossed.
There isn't enough blood on the ground to warrant a second humanoid figure in the bushes. Crunch, rip, sickly sweet ironbloodsweatshitgarbagedead.
---
"What the fuck?"
Yeah, if there was a question of whether or not Elijah saw it, there wasn't one anymore.
Samir
Normally Sam has to psych himself up to touch another person. Psych himself up or smoke a joint. He keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer on him and avoids shaking hands when he's introduced to other people and that's easy enough to chalk up to the fact that he's a hacker. Anyone who spends all their time inside breaking into other people's digital lives doesn't have much time to figure out how to interact with them in the meatspace.
Sam tries. And Sam isn't stoned right now. Turns out adrenaline is a powerful substitute.
His customer may not have a sense of self-preservation but neither does the dealer have a strong stomach. Sam reaches out and grabs him by the upper arm. His fingers are cold and his grip is not powerful. This is not a man who knows what the inside of a gym looks like.
"Don'tgotowardsitwhatthefuckareyoudoing?"
Elijah
Someone is holding onto his arm. Elijah isn't particularly strong, either, but he does have a bit of stamina. You have to if you do the kinds of stupid things Elijah does on a regular basis. He does stop, though, eyes don't come off the bushes though. He thinks about things Dan's told him recently, but we digress.
"… something really stupid that I kind of regret thinking about," crunch, snap, swallow.
The thing sits up, viscera hanging from its too-wide mouth. It has an almost comical frown, like a gulper eel from the depths of the abyss. Its neck is too long and its eyes are small. Too small for its face and so achingly human. A robin's egg blue with the softest doe-eyelashes. Its hair was oily and dark. Its arms long- or at least, one set of arms was long.
There was a second on the big cage, cracked at an angle that was almost reminiscent of a praying mantis. Not the shade of the rest of the body but a lovely golden tan, set against an almost breathtaking set of breasts- its belly distended and sloshing fullness. Its legs bent the wrong way. The place where the nose should be was flat against the face.
It turned and Elijah immediately stopped moving. Waited. Held his breath.
Samir
Something happens to the unseasoned mind when it encounters something only the reptilian brain knows to fear. Even stepping out in front of a car or registering the approach of a barking dog is enough to shut down the conscious thought of a person afraid. The concept of fight or flight being the only two options is an old and misleading one.
More often than they do anything else when human beings are confronted by danger they do nothing.
These two young men are not just men. They're fucking wizards.
They both still fucking freeze when that thing rises up out of the bushes. Sam already threw down his cigarette in favor of grabbing Elijah's arm and now his fingers create a vice around his biceps. His other hand claps over his own mouth like to stifle the voice he's too nervous to generate anyway. He's shaking. Being quiet about it. Shared instinct that stillness will get them out of this.
At least if they're going to die they aren't alone. Right? At least Sam isn't. If Sam dies first Elijah won't remember he was even here to begin with.
The Madame
It opens its mouth- oh god why did it have to open its mouth? It doesn't so much open as it flops downward, exposing row after row of tiny, saw-like teeth. Viscera hangs from its lower jaw and tumble down onto the ground. Its tongue laps at the air, not unlike a snake would to taste what was around them. It's small, painfully human eyes fix on something near the two men- the ones who bend reality to their whims.
The small hands on its rib cage knit their delicate fingers together, rest over the top of its breasts in a mockery of modesty, as though it would be embarrassed to be in such a state in front of mixed company. The vestiges of humanity, the kind that give way to rage when those lovely blue eyes detect something-
Disgust, perhaps?
Rage, a natural response. The sound it makes is that of two women screaming, the sound of broken glass in a garbage disposal, the sound of a vicious harpy. How dare they be appalled.
(Initiatives, please?)
Samir
There's no time to think and he doesn't have the capacity to do it anyway. Samir doesn't have a child or a soulmate or a family that takes up the forefront of his desire to get out of here alive. Even his cactus would forget about him if he didn't come home one day. That doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to live for. He's going to change the world one day.
Tonight about he's going to do is have to change his shorts.
He still has his hand around Elijah's biceps when she shrieks.
[+5!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
There is this moment, a quiet section when his stomach tightens and fear holds onto his mind and all he can think is that he isn't a coward. He is not a coward, but this is terrifying. All he can tell himself when his lunch threatens to come up on him and he feels everything run cold and his focus goes pinprick fine is one thing: this is wrong. He knows that the creature can't possibly be human… but it was. The cant of its head, its eyes, that sound it made that was so fucking wrong and so fucking human.
"Oh, fuck," his voice cracks.
All he can think is to stand there, straight and tall and to try and focus. Says something under his breath that isn't in fucking english, that isn't in a human language, but here goes nothing.
[5+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Elijah
[Ms. Thang - 6+1d10
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Elijah
Order:
Ms Thang: 6
Elijah: 10
Samir: 14
The Madame
The creature leans forward, lays its long and slender arms on the ground. It hunched forward, its vertebrae straining against the skin and it lurched forward bounded towards the two men and its stomach sloshed as it ran, as it tried to bridge the gaps between them. It was hungry, god it was so hungry, don't you fucking judge me hungry.
(action: Run and cut off your food supply)
Elijah
Elijah swallowed, exhaled slowly and straightened. Words came, not just words but Words. Actual, True Words, instructions and pleas and Instructions (because it was an exertion of will, and his will was law, please, please work (it will work))
(Action: Start Prime 2 Rote- Striking whatever the fuck that thing is with prime-based lightning. Mostly just prime)
Samir
Samir can't just chant and make shit happen. He has to take a handheld computer only slightly larger than his smartphone out of his pocket and tell it what he wants to have happen. This hack doesn't have a shortcut because he's only ever had to use it once.
[Action: Readying focus. Excellent use of your time, buddy.]
Elijah
[Prime 2: What the fuck, universe? Diff 3 + sphere 2 + vulgar (without witnesses) 1 = 6 - 2 quint = diff 4.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
The Madame
This is what happens when you corner two people who are capable of defending themselves in means that make literally no sense to anyone else. The creature lunges, bounds forward and skids around, stands up to a height that is tall and oppressive. Its head cants to the side, mouth still open tongue exploring the air around the two men. Its eyes didn't seem focused. Its breath was atrocious.
There was the barest hint of Chanel number five on the air, clinging to the creature's hair. The last bits of human vanity.
It's standing up lanky and tall and tasting the air around them and it can feel the judgment, can feel the disgust and the frustrations and all it can think of and all it knows is an undying hunger. It can feel its body rotting, dying and the vestiges of humanity slipping as its more human side clawing for recognition. It stands up, lanky and tall- and rakes its chipping, brittle fingernails over whomever it may hit.
[Action: claw the crap out of Elijah, sorry kid- the dice were angry.]
Elijah
Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit.
He has to keep talking, isn't sure whether or not this will make a difference, but he's damn sure that he isn't going to stop now.
[Keep with this stupid effect, oh my GOD DO NOT KILL ME]
Samir
And there goes his future ability to tolerate that scent.
Sam's hands are shaking but he doesn't drop the little computer. He hits a few keys to tell it what he wants to have happen. First thing he's going to do when he gets home is write a program for a SHE'S GONNA EAT ME scenario so he doesn't have to think next time.
[Forces 2: BACK THE FUCK OFF LADY, aka Electrical Chaos. Base diff 6, -1 for Unique Focus, -1 for Quintessence, +1 for Fast-Casting. Yes WP.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah
[More prime stuff: +1 difficulty because we're extending the effect]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Elijah
[This is going to hurt. Dex3+brawl2=5 - 1 (OWW!), diff 6]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Elijah
[And damage!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2) ( botch x 3 )
Samir
http://www.sadtrombone.com/
The Madame
It makes an agonized sound, and the smell is atrocious. The smell is that of burning hair and searing flesh and it is in pain, it is shocked, overwhelmed, not thrown off its game just yet. It sat up, looked with the kind of confusion that only comes from sleepers. It couldn't find a source, but that was definitely electricity. It shrieked, raised its hand high and raked its claws down-
Except.. it didn't. Except, it should have been rough and aching but, instead, all the ire was restrained, all the strength sapped from its too-long limbs, bloodied fingers running across the young blond man's cheek, down the front of his shirt, leaving bloodied marks across his skin and along the front of his vest.
The air felt cold and everything was so achingly quiet and burst forth into something loud. Something terrible, something that rips apart at the seams and gives way to something that is beyond reason and suddenly painfully real. This is the truth of the world, set apart in blue eyes and gaping jaws- there was something larger here. there are people who are pawns. The world is made of components and they're interchangeable.
The beast before them is art. Terrible, astounding art from the imagination of some horrible genius.
Samir
Later he will contemplate the significance of the story of a dead president's refusal to shoot an incapacitated predator even while recognizing the mercy it would grant. He doesn't want to kill this thing. It was alive once. Underneath the horror of it Samir can recognize it as something that was human once too.
It's caught in an arc of weak electricity and if he executes the program again there's a very real chance he'll kill this thing.
He doesn't want to kill this thing but he doesn't want to die either.
Elijah
Don't touch me.
It's all he can think and he can feel blood on his cheek and there's a scratch at the place where he can feel his pulse beating and he wants to scream. he wants to drop the effect, he wants to run away, he wants this to all stop and all that comes to Elijah's mind is the imperative don't touch me. His heart is beating too fast and his cheeks are pale and-
"…"
Words stop for a second. He's about to throw up, the world is small, and somewhere his mind recognizes that this was a person. Can catch the ebb and flow of human emotion there, the pain, the frustration, the hunger that overrides the human parts that are left. What life is there after this?
He can't stop now. Can't drop it now, he has to finish this.
The Madame
It shrieks again, lunges forward towards Samir because it's hungry, because it wants something, because it's angry and scared and hurt and like the more basic instincts it needs to fight, it needs to attack, it needs to consume until it can feel nothing.
[action: Bite Samir. Because you're delicious.]
Elijah
Words finish, the focus shifts, and it is through absolute force of will that Elijah even finishes what it was that he was saying. Words and intentions and Truth and any number of bullshit things come together into something that was real. It wasn't kind, it wasn't beautiful, but at the very least it would be swift.
[Action: Finally finish that Prime 2 effect, sitting on 5 successes right now!]
Samir
All he has to do is execute the function and hope it doesn't make his computer explode.
He executes the function.
[+1 diff for extension, all other modifiers carrying over.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah
[Prime 2: Kindly hurry up and die. Please? Please please?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 4) ( fail )
Elijah
[Aaaaand biting Samir, sorry Samir. -2 (because fuck having 7 health levels)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
[Sorry 'bout your face.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Samir
[OKAY I TAKE IT BACK KINDA WANNA KILL YOU RIGHT NOW. he can't spend WP this time and he's almost out of quintessence so he's not spending any sorry buddy.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (1, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Samir
ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS SAMIR
Elijah
Prime 2: PLEASE DIE NOW. -2 quint= diff 6?
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
[Paradox]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Samir
[MY TURN.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Samir
[THANK YOU UNIVERSE soak.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
Aaaaaaand Prone to Quiet? Diff 9- "I looked in its eyes and it got weird for a minute."
Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 1 )
Samir
Ooh look at me my name's Elijah I can oppose my Prone to Quiet roll. *upgrades to Level 9 Madness and goes home*
Elijah
There is a sound something makes when it is in pain, when it is dying, when its life is slipping from it and the world is going bleak and oh god, oh god this is the end and all it knows now is hunger and all the basic, decent human parts of this monstrosity are screaming for all of this to end. Oh please, please let this end. And the two men are standing there, wide-eyed and intent and certain that they want to walk away from this.
Samir pushes, executes programs and protocols and whatever pleas and bargains and ultimatums Elijah issued to the universe are met. The world is bright, then smoldering, then charred. Then, it is beyond charred, the beast is molten, melting, little arms curling inward until all that was left was the scent of ozone, similar to chlorine and stinging their eyes and noses and what had once been a towering mass was reduced to little more than unspecified bits and charred pieces.
A lock of hair. A single jagged fingernail.
Samir
Adrenaline and shock help him ignore the fact that the melded forms of two once-women tried to take a chunk out of his fucking face.
The fact that he hits the wrong key and his effect arcs back on him and knocks him on his ass helps too. Whatever else happens after that is nothing to which he is privy. He can't see or hear Elijah's effect unleashing on the mound of sentient flesh that came out of the bushes.
Though the wound bleeds and he obviously ate quite a bit of paradox just now Elijah has plenty else to worry about right now. There's a pile of smoking ash where a monster once stood and though he shrugs off his own backlash as much as one can claim to shrug off backslash. The nausea and the shaking come after the adrenaline releases its old. That smell.
On the ground Sam makes a low miserable noise that sounds like it would be a plea to some sort of deity for assistance if he weren't an atheist. If there weren't a chorus of voices around him arguing over whether one of them ought to tell him not to open his eyes.
They're the only voices he will be able to make out under the crackling of electricity and someone or something far-off in the distance screaming over and over.
Elijah
[Stamina, diff 8- because seriously this is disgusting]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
His stomach lurches and he closes his eyes, strips off his vest and uses whatever clean pieces there are to scrub the blood and the bits of something off of his skin and there is a forced calm punctuated with shaking hands and a decided moment where he feels like he's going to heave, like something is going to come up but nothing does.
He can worry later- because there is a sound coming from the man on the ground, "hey-"
it's all he can think of to say, still holds his vest too tightly in his hands and his steps are uneven and the world still feels like it's skipping beats and traveling too quickly and everything is fucking screaming. "Hey, we need to clean you up," it's all he can think. It bit him, and Elijah doesn't know if whatever that thing was happened to be contagious and-and-and-
He takes a few steps forward, almost reaches for Sam to try and check if he's okay but the universe seems intent on telling him to slow the fuck down.
Samir
On the ground Sam digs his heels in an unconscious test to ensure he still has control of his body. He's breathing fast and panicked but if this were just a panic attack he'd be fine. There are drugs for that. Drugs would do something for panic. This is not an organic psychiatric meltdown but how the hell is Elijah supposed to know that. He doesn't even know the guy's name.
He sits up. He still has his hands jammed in his eyeholes. Vocalizations with every exhalation and there's too long a pause for him to be responding to Elijah but Time and Elijah are having a bit of a tiff at the moment.
"SHUT UP!"
Opening his eyes doesn't make it any better. He shouts and springs to his feet and tries to brush something Elijah can't see off his arms and chest and face. Blood coats his palm and he doesn't realize he's bleeding but he is beginning to realize that he's slightly fucked. Panting respirations don't do anything to calm him down and he jumps the way he'd jumped when they heard the creature in the bushes earlier whirling around to face something Elijah can't see.
Stopping up his eyes didn't help. Stopping up his ears doesn't help either but it's worth a shot.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
This is what is referred to in English as Not Good.
Elijah
"Dude-dude!" that's all he's got, that's all he can think to say and the seconds are ticking on or maybe they're minutes, or maybe it's all moments and there are times where he is fairly certain that the measurement of time is kind of bullshit but whatever they were, the time seemed to pass at the wrong rate. Some seconds too fast, others too slow, like it's an oval instead of a circle. He inhales sharp and knows he doesn't need to fucking touch Samir right now because that? That doesn't end well.
"Stand still," he says, he insists, and he tries to keep up, has a horrible feeling that the man is going to run, he has a feeling he's going to run and he has to keep up. He has to keep up because all he can figure is that he's had a psychotic break or he's tripping out or there's something with the blood and the bite mark and-
"You're bleeding," is all he can say, looks for something that he can't see. Tenses and lets a feeling of dread wash over him when he realizes that either Samir is hallucinating or Elijah can't see something very fucking dangerous. He reaches forward, puts a hand on his arm without thinking. Doesn't realize how bad this could be.
Samir
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME, MAN!"
He whirls around and shoves Elijah. That's the extent of his violence. He shoves Elijah and something about the way he shoves him suggests it's less to maintain his own sense of personal space than it is to stay away from the younger man so something worse doesn't happen. Blind madness in his eyes. For all Elijah can tell he doesn't even recognize him right now.
Sam's blood is on Elijah's clothing now. The Virtual Adept stalks off and he's hyperventilating still sounds like he's very close to letting despair collapse in on him like snow through a rotted roof but he appears to be in the same physical condition as he was in before the monster bit him.
"I don't have to listen to them," he says low like he's talking to himself. A mantra. "I don't have to listen to them I don't have to listen to them..."
Now's as good a time as any for Elijah to practice calling an adult.
