02-19-2017, 05:48 PM
The hookah bar that had been known as the Desert Oasis, long since out of normal operation since Argus and the Metalheads had taken over to use as a base of operations, had disappeared. Or rather, the front door and broken sign marking it as such had disappeared. Replaced only by a blank brick wall that looked like brand new construction against the old, crumbling brickwork. Passersby paused momentarily, wondering just what had happened. The Metalheads seemed to have disappeared overnight, their drop locations and favorite hang out spots empty of the clanking, rough-and-tumble gangsters and their chemmed up overboss. Where could they have gone?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Sluuurp.
“Chroist, what a fucking vintage. He must have shot up every drug ever invented! Ghh-ghhaaahahah!”
Harlan twitched, curling his fingers into his palm, yellow nails cutting gashes into his dead skin as the drugged Vitae coursed through his undead body, Argus's decapitated body hanging upside down and leaking blood into a dark stone jug. The Ravnos was shirtless, his eyes glowing with power as the temporary high made his mind fire on full blast once more. The dismembered bodies of the remaining Metalhead had been drained of blood, and when that bored the conman, he’d extracted their Omnilium. Much easier than he thought, and it had only occurred to him after an intense thinking session of what to do with the bodies. He’d gone on an extraction spree, breaking down dead gang members, their broken furniture, and accoutrements into base OM.
The feeling was maniacal, and familiar in a way that he hadn't experienced since the worst time in his life. The Week of Nightmares. He had found out the details after the fact, wandering across the Eastern Seaboard and picking up information here and there from sympathetic Kindred. Zapathasura, the Ravnos Antediluvian. The progenitor of the Trickster bloodline, it’s beginning and it’s ending. He- or it, really - had awoken from a centuries long torpor. Ravenous. Starving. And angry.
A being of unbelievable power, it’s mere consciousness sending each and every Ravnos around the globe into fits of maniacal power and psychosis, with the fantastical reality warping powers to back it up. Zapathasura drank half of Bangladesh and devoured any of its children it encountered to feed it’s ancient hunger. The monster was only brought down by the combined efforts of mortal enemies, and “a golden sunbeam from the Heavens”. With it’s dying scream, it unleashed a psychic wave through the blood. Every Ravnos entered the blood frenzy, diablerizing each other and being destroyed by mortals or frightened Camarilla members. Harlan himself had diablerized his sire and woken up in a ruined building, twisted into fantastical geometries and filled with screaming, shambling humans morphed into nightmarish forms. He’d torched the buildings and wandered for months in a fugue state. One of perhaps the last hundred Ravnos left in the world.
But this was different. He was the only Ravnos he knew of here, and his kind had evolved to become solitary. Loneliness was a non-factor at this point. He had kine to manipulate and entertain himself with. And if Omni desired his Primes to be more powerful than they had been before in their home worlds, well then….the consequences were currently surging through Harlan’s body.
The interior of Desert Oasis had been metaphysically gutted, nothing but bare walls and floor left. Harlan had redressed himself after cleaning the blood and gashes off of his skin after his destructive binge on Argus’s drugged Vitae. He’d kept a sizable amount of the remainder in an obsidian jug, seeing the future potential for his own brand of potent chem. Sliding on a blue silk shirt, the Ravnos began to focus on a certain aesthetic, luxurious carpeting, big, leather recliners, wood paneling, and muted candelabra lamps on the wall. He’d bring that style back, the class and respect of Old World Vegas. He’d bring it back, one block at a time. Yes. Yes, this would make a suitable gentlemen’s club from which to start his crusade of aesthetics.
A day later, the new brick construction of the blank building Desert Oasis had become rippled. A stout oak door pushed out of the brickwork, forming a spacious but understated entrance. A single lamp was lit above the door, and the words “LUXOR SOCIAL CLUB” drew themselves in elegant script and lit up in green neon. The door opened, and a black gloved hand reached out to place a chalkboard on the wall, the words “NOW ACCEPTING APPLICANTS” visible in three inch high letters.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Sluuurp.
“Chroist, what a fucking vintage. He must have shot up every drug ever invented! Ghh-ghhaaahahah!”
Harlan twitched, curling his fingers into his palm, yellow nails cutting gashes into his dead skin as the drugged Vitae coursed through his undead body, Argus's decapitated body hanging upside down and leaking blood into a dark stone jug. The Ravnos was shirtless, his eyes glowing with power as the temporary high made his mind fire on full blast once more. The dismembered bodies of the remaining Metalhead had been drained of blood, and when that bored the conman, he’d extracted their Omnilium. Much easier than he thought, and it had only occurred to him after an intense thinking session of what to do with the bodies. He’d gone on an extraction spree, breaking down dead gang members, their broken furniture, and accoutrements into base OM.
The feeling was maniacal, and familiar in a way that he hadn't experienced since the worst time in his life. The Week of Nightmares. He had found out the details after the fact, wandering across the Eastern Seaboard and picking up information here and there from sympathetic Kindred. Zapathasura, the Ravnos Antediluvian. The progenitor of the Trickster bloodline, it’s beginning and it’s ending. He- or it, really - had awoken from a centuries long torpor. Ravenous. Starving. And angry.
A being of unbelievable power, it’s mere consciousness sending each and every Ravnos around the globe into fits of maniacal power and psychosis, with the fantastical reality warping powers to back it up. Zapathasura drank half of Bangladesh and devoured any of its children it encountered to feed it’s ancient hunger. The monster was only brought down by the combined efforts of mortal enemies, and “a golden sunbeam from the Heavens”. With it’s dying scream, it unleashed a psychic wave through the blood. Every Ravnos entered the blood frenzy, diablerizing each other and being destroyed by mortals or frightened Camarilla members. Harlan himself had diablerized his sire and woken up in a ruined building, twisted into fantastical geometries and filled with screaming, shambling humans morphed into nightmarish forms. He’d torched the buildings and wandered for months in a fugue state. One of perhaps the last hundred Ravnos left in the world.
But this was different. He was the only Ravnos he knew of here, and his kind had evolved to become solitary. Loneliness was a non-factor at this point. He had kine to manipulate and entertain himself with. And if Omni desired his Primes to be more powerful than they had been before in their home worlds, well then….the consequences were currently surging through Harlan’s body.
The interior of Desert Oasis had been metaphysically gutted, nothing but bare walls and floor left. Harlan had redressed himself after cleaning the blood and gashes off of his skin after his destructive binge on Argus’s drugged Vitae. He’d kept a sizable amount of the remainder in an obsidian jug, seeing the future potential for his own brand of potent chem. Sliding on a blue silk shirt, the Ravnos began to focus on a certain aesthetic, luxurious carpeting, big, leather recliners, wood paneling, and muted candelabra lamps on the wall. He’d bring that style back, the class and respect of Old World Vegas. He’d bring it back, one block at a time. Yes. Yes, this would make a suitable gentlemen’s club from which to start his crusade of aesthetics.
A day later, the new brick construction of the blank building Desert Oasis had become rippled. A stout oak door pushed out of the brickwork, forming a spacious but understated entrance. A single lamp was lit above the door, and the words “LUXOR SOCIAL CLUB” drew themselves in elegant script and lit up in green neon. The door opened, and a black gloved hand reached out to place a chalkboard on the wall, the words “NOW ACCEPTING APPLICANTS” visible in three inch high letters.
“I don’t wanna be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”