03-17-2017, 08:45 AM
"Alright, fellas. I'm gonna be taking a serious nap. Charlie's the boss while I'm out, but you shouldn't expect too much trouble. Them tusk heads are gonna be layin' low for a few days. Just hit the streets and try to find those cats the Westside mentioned, dig?"
Harlan had sealed himself in his private quarters, standing over a small brass bowl he'd set on his dresser with a brown cone of compressed powder heaped in it. With a flick of his finger, he summoned the Lure of Flames and touched it to the cone. A moment of reality was all it took to light the heap, which glowed dull red and started to give off pungent smoke. Tremere Pyramus Incense. He'd had to recreate it with Omnilium, but it worked well enough. Blood Mage scholars used it for mental focus and clarity during arcane research, and Harlan figured it couldn't hurt after the events of the last couple days. He was going to need to concentrate to "pierce the veil", so to speak.
Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.
-drip-
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Harlan was in his office, writing a a subtly insulting letter to the Ventrue Primogen. He looked up at the heavy oak door, a silhouette raising its hand to knock a third time. "Keep your hat on, I'm busy. Is it important?"
A familiar voice spoke from outside, a cool, clipped intonation. His pit boss. "There's an issue outside. Your presence would solve it expediently." Harlan grumbled and tucked the quill and parchment into his desk drawer, next to a wet, dripping eyeball and three small red rocks. "Fine, fine. Better not be some drunken Kine, I swear to Ravana."
He opened the door and stepped out into an inferno, coughing suddenly as smoke dried out his already dessiccated throat, itching the dead flesh. He was standing in a burning room, a city skyline visible through a window wreathed in emerald flames. It was a lot to take in through the eldritch fire, which sucked the heat from the room even as burning embers singed his suit. "Hey man...you gotta....you gotta let me get another hit..." The vampire stepped back into a wall in surprise at the voice, an emaciated torso sticking from the ceiling and waving limp, jaundiced arms covered in track marks. The torso was headless, the ragged neck stump moving like a pair of lips as it spoke again. Shit...now he knew why this felt familiar.
He'd done this.
Dreading what he knew was in the bathtub, he turned away from the dismembered, still living junkie and walked across the burning room like a robot. Unable to stop himself, he opened the door and walked in, the mirror displaying a nightmarish image out of the corner of his eye, a pale, skinny ghoul. Glowing gold eyes that burned with a feverish hunger and a circular mouth ringed with far too many teeth, thin, needle like claws scraping at the other side of the glass. His Beast. Or at least, what it looked like according to that mirror Mongrel had shown him. He ignored it.
In the tub was murky water, mixed with clumps of gray ash and bone fragments. The remains of his Sire, his elder Vitae burning in Harlan's veins. He stared at the water, watching something move under the foul slurry, and was unable to react in time as a large, burly forearm erupted from the tub and cracked him in the jaw, pain shooting through his chin as fingers dug into his eye sockets and yanked him into the water.
"An' that's what we do to fuckin' shysters 'round heah! Yee haw!" The sound of gunfire and horse hooves receded into the distance, Harlan's body twinging with pain as he felt numerous bullet holes leaking blood, his neck broken and his fingers mutilated. From next to him, also floating in the muddy swamp, his Sire let out a pained chuckle. "Well kid...looks like we should have folded a day ago...let that be a lesson. Don't milk a run too long...."
Harlan spat out a tooth and groaned. "Wish you would have told me that before the lynching, Jim." Another laugh and hacking cough. "Can't learn a lesson like this without going through it, Harl. Maybe you ought to think about that when you wake up, kid. Don't lose your mind in the past."
Dawning comprehension as Jimmy's words sunk in. The pain and bullet wounds vanished, and he realized he wasn't lying facedown in a Mississippi swamp. He was standing....somewhere. A featureless void, much like the Nexus. It felt less real, gauzy, mutable. It had taken his memories and made him relive them...but then again they'd been on his mind. How else could he plan for his future but go over his past?
The pull of dream was strong in this place, and he had no doubts he reached where he was trying to get to. Purely as a test, he reached out with the full force of his chimerical might and created the first thing that came to mind. A giant, spinning roulette wheel popped into view from the ground, the loud burst of bells and chatter and celebration arriving with it. The sound faded after a moment, but the wheel remained, spinning lazily on it's axis. And with no more effort than an illusion.
"Mayaparitsatya..." he whispered. "Reality is what I make it."
Harlan had sealed himself in his private quarters, standing over a small brass bowl he'd set on his dresser with a brown cone of compressed powder heaped in it. With a flick of his finger, he summoned the Lure of Flames and touched it to the cone. A moment of reality was all it took to light the heap, which glowed dull red and started to give off pungent smoke. Tremere Pyramus Incense. He'd had to recreate it with Omnilium, but it worked well enough. Blood Mage scholars used it for mental focus and clarity during arcane research, and Harlan figured it couldn't hurt after the events of the last couple days. He was going to need to concentrate to "pierce the veil", so to speak.
Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.
-drip-
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Harlan was in his office, writing a a subtly insulting letter to the Ventrue Primogen. He looked up at the heavy oak door, a silhouette raising its hand to knock a third time. "Keep your hat on, I'm busy. Is it important?"
A familiar voice spoke from outside, a cool, clipped intonation. His pit boss. "There's an issue outside. Your presence would solve it expediently." Harlan grumbled and tucked the quill and parchment into his desk drawer, next to a wet, dripping eyeball and three small red rocks. "Fine, fine. Better not be some drunken Kine, I swear to Ravana."
He opened the door and stepped out into an inferno, coughing suddenly as smoke dried out his already dessiccated throat, itching the dead flesh. He was standing in a burning room, a city skyline visible through a window wreathed in emerald flames. It was a lot to take in through the eldritch fire, which sucked the heat from the room even as burning embers singed his suit. "Hey man...you gotta....you gotta let me get another hit..." The vampire stepped back into a wall in surprise at the voice, an emaciated torso sticking from the ceiling and waving limp, jaundiced arms covered in track marks. The torso was headless, the ragged neck stump moving like a pair of lips as it spoke again. Shit...now he knew why this felt familiar.
He'd done this.
Dreading what he knew was in the bathtub, he turned away from the dismembered, still living junkie and walked across the burning room like a robot. Unable to stop himself, he opened the door and walked in, the mirror displaying a nightmarish image out of the corner of his eye, a pale, skinny ghoul. Glowing gold eyes that burned with a feverish hunger and a circular mouth ringed with far too many teeth, thin, needle like claws scraping at the other side of the glass. His Beast. Or at least, what it looked like according to that mirror Mongrel had shown him. He ignored it.
In the tub was murky water, mixed with clumps of gray ash and bone fragments. The remains of his Sire, his elder Vitae burning in Harlan's veins. He stared at the water, watching something move under the foul slurry, and was unable to react in time as a large, burly forearm erupted from the tub and cracked him in the jaw, pain shooting through his chin as fingers dug into his eye sockets and yanked him into the water.
"An' that's what we do to fuckin' shysters 'round heah! Yee haw!" The sound of gunfire and horse hooves receded into the distance, Harlan's body twinging with pain as he felt numerous bullet holes leaking blood, his neck broken and his fingers mutilated. From next to him, also floating in the muddy swamp, his Sire let out a pained chuckle. "Well kid...looks like we should have folded a day ago...let that be a lesson. Don't milk a run too long...."
Harlan spat out a tooth and groaned. "Wish you would have told me that before the lynching, Jim." Another laugh and hacking cough. "Can't learn a lesson like this without going through it, Harl. Maybe you ought to think about that when you wake up, kid. Don't lose your mind in the past."
Dawning comprehension as Jimmy's words sunk in. The pain and bullet wounds vanished, and he realized he wasn't lying facedown in a Mississippi swamp. He was standing....somewhere. A featureless void, much like the Nexus. It felt less real, gauzy, mutable. It had taken his memories and made him relive them...but then again they'd been on his mind. How else could he plan for his future but go over his past?
The pull of dream was strong in this place, and he had no doubts he reached where he was trying to get to. Purely as a test, he reached out with the full force of his chimerical might and created the first thing that came to mind. A giant, spinning roulette wheel popped into view from the ground, the loud burst of bells and chatter and celebration arriving with it. The sound faded after a moment, but the wheel remained, spinning lazily on it's axis. And with no more effort than an illusion.
"Mayaparitsatya..." he whispered. "Reality is what I make it."
“I don’t wanna be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”