[North Shore Nights] Chapter Three: Deepening Night.

Valentine


Taking the opportunity to let the Vitae heal some of the worst internal damage, Valentine's mind boils and writhes, control held by just a fingernail.


It's enough.


1 vitae to heal 1 lethal. Results for 4 dice: 2 successes [ 9 0 6 1 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Re-roll 10: Results for 1 dice: 0 successes [ 6 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)
 
To Valentine


'20s Boxer is coming at you with a haymaker that will crush ribs.


-3 Defense = 7 dice. Results for 7 dice: 3 successes [ 4 5 9 9 6 5 0 ] (TN: 8 ) Re-roll ten: Results for 1 dice: 1 success [ 9 ] (TN: 8 )
 
Valentine


Valentine folds lifelessly around the fist. The tableau holds motionless for a second.


Valentine's Beast looks up into the face of the mannequin, grinning with bloody fangs.


"My turn." Snarling, it strikes back with the machete, as Valentine watches dispassionately from behind his eyes.


Dex 5 + Weaponry 4 + specialty 1 + Frenzy 1 + damage bonus 2L - Defense 4 = 9 dice.


Results for 9 dice: 3 successes [ 4 6 1 7 0 9 6 7 9 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Re-roll 10: Results for 1 dice: 1 success [ 9 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


4 lethal inflicted.
 
Gavin


He carefully follows the ragdoll out into the street, more than a little dazed by the surreality of the situation as he absently shuts the gate behind him with a dull creak and a soft thud, eyes adapting to the flicker of street lamps and moonlight.
 
Annabelle


She looks back over her shoulder towards the door, and her smile softens sadly. "They are... well, living. I mean, for them, life goes on. They're mourning, of course, but their is still full light and rationality and no monsters at all." She trails a hand along his shirt buttons to rest on his chest. "Me? I'm... coping. The night has always been dark and full of monsters for me. Now it's just a little darker, and there are some more monsters to meet." The smile has fallen from her lips entirely, and she avoids his eyes.
 
To Valentine


You'll leave another deep signature in the creature's body along with the massive wound it sports on the chest. A arm and hand clatter to the ground noisily and the creature looks from you to its now missing arm, falling backward. The light leaves its eyes, something like sawdust flying out of the flat plane of its mouth.


Down and dead.


I'll just rule this one dead, one health level makes no nevermind to me.


Buddy boy behind you is ready to pounce when Selene falls upon it, hackin' and whackin' and stackin'.
 
Valentine


Valentine's body whirls and lays in simultaneously, in utter silence.


Dex 5 + Weaponry 4 + specialty 1 + Frenzy 1 + damage bonus 2L - Defense 4 = 9 dice.


Results for 9 dice: 5 successes [ 3 8 6 0 8 5 0 9 5 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Re-roll 10s: Results for 2 dice: 2 successes [ 0 8 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Re-roll 10: Results for 1 dice: 0 successes [ 4 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


7 lethal.
 
To Valentine


The narrow waist of the creature gives way to the hacking edge of the machete, falling like sapplings on the field.


The street is quiet.


Selene is covered in bloody sweat, rising silently, her hands shaking some. "I haven't had that good a fight in years..." She walks over, looking at you, checking your face and pressing at your ribs, "You okay? What's broken?" Her face in a menagerie of ugly purple and yellow bruises and it looks like her cheek is broken, the bone is sitting at an odd angle in her face. She doesn't seem to fazed by it. "You okay?"
 
Valentine


Valentine stands rigid, quivering. Enough... enough....


"ENOUGH!" Valentine suddenly slumps, staggering. Pulling himself upright, he shakes his head. Something grinds unpleasantly.


"I.. I'm ok... I think my skull's fractured... a few ribs.... nothing a little drink won't fix."
 
To Gavin


The little doll holds a knotted hand over its stiched mouth and silently goes through the motions of polite laughter. Holding its stomach, leaning back just so, and shaking slightly. Trapsing down the sidewalk, no one in sight, it walks on, bidding you to come with it. It gets to the corner of the Carter's gate and walks onto the campus green surrounding the house. It looks back out at you.
 
To Anna


He cups your chin with a dusky hand and turns your face up to meet his eyes. "What happened?" There's a touch of steel there in his voice.
 
To Valentine


She nods, looking at your forehead intently before leaning up to lick a trail of blood off your cheek, all the way to your forehead. "We can find food, yeah..." She squints some and bites back whimpers of pain as her cheek visibly rights itself and the skin flushes as her blood mends the wound.
 
Valentine


Valentine winces in sympathy. "Bastards kicked the shit out of me faster than I could heal... I need to feed before I do anything with this. Let's go."


Unsteadily, he re-sheaths his machete and wipes some of his own blood off his face. Grimacing, he spits out a fang and some blood. "Such a waste."
 
Annabelle


She is silent for moment. "These kids... they're my world. It's the same everywhere I go; I set up a dance studio, and they come flocking to me, and all of them need some kind of escape from the world. I get up every night for them, I give them their escape, I never feed from them, and in turn, without them knowing it, they make me feel almost human." She shivers and bites her bottom lip. "Now Keith is dead. And I know it's not just a coincidence that he died the same night the stars went out. I don't know what is out there, but it killed my boy. And it feels like... it killed a part of me too."
 
Gavin


Great, a possessed little Pillsbury doughboy... He tries to scan his surroundings with senses a little more thorough than mere sight dependent on rods and cones... but comes up with nothing. Disappointed and more than a little frustrated, he continues after the suspicious doll, trying to suppress rising dread.
 
To Valentine


She will be very short and very sweet in collecting two homeless men from the nearby streets. Promising a good lay and bit of cash for some smack. She cleans up her face and uses a bit of the Blush to give herself some life, tearing her sleeves off and ripping the seam of her jeans to show perfect white skin. They come willingly and die just as quickly. The first she simply puts in a sleeper hold and hands him to you, unconscious deep in the back of the alley, against the old dumpsters. He's an old man, with a hat made of old paperbags and newspaper. Hard wrinkled face, though he looks to be well-off in sleep.


Resolve + Composure, unless you just want to drain him down.


The other she lures in not ten minutes later. Some young little heroin addict with rotting teeth and terrible complexion. "I like better fare than you usually." She whispers in that sexy low tone she uses right before she strikes.


"Wha...?"


She drains him enough to keep him down for a long, long while.
 
To Anna


He has enough humanity left in him to nod at that, and smile. "These things happen, honey. The whole world will go out like a light someday. And we may still yet walk upon it when that time comes. Or we may sleep under its rich earth or sleep under the waterfalls or deep in the mountains. No matter, it is best, I believe, to live now and in the moment as you have. Elders...we get caught up in our games. I think being ousted from Spain was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to jar me out of some of my old ways. Granted, I cling to others, but look at me, I'm wearing modern clothing and I can actually relate to human beings again. And those of us who retain our spirits." Wrapping an arm around your waist, he pulls you down onto his lap for a moment. "Just watch them, they don't even know we're here. As you say, they make you feel alive again. Just watch...and watch the art and the vibrancy in each step...closely now."
 
Valentine


There's no attempt at discretion, Valentine's simply too hurt and hungry for that. No-one will miss this man. Valentine drains him dry. As he drinks, his body heals, bruises fade in seconds. The man goes limp, Valentine lets him drop to the floor. As he watches the light go out of this man's eyes, he feels something inside him that was human break a little further.


And then he stops caring. "Just meat."


7 vitae gained. 4 vitae spent healing 7 bashing. Humanity Roll: Results for 3 dice: 0 successes [ 2 3 4 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Humanity falls to 4. Rolling for Derangement. Results for 4 dice: **BOTCH** [ 1 2 3 6 ] (TN: 8 ) (damage/extra)


Derangement roll failed. Narcissism derangement gained.
 
To Gavin


With little soft sounds it makes it way through the grass across the open common toward one of the teaching halls. Gillford, it says etched in the stone above the doors. Hmm, open field, so to speak, a large triangle of grass flanked by sidewalks that funnel into Gillford.
 
To Valentine


Selene's face slowly lapses into a sort of euphoric state of bliss after feeding. Her bruises fade just a smidge. "I love that feeling. I can feel my heart beat everytime their blood pulses into me..." Pushing her hair back into a dirty ponytail, she looks over at you. Doesn't really say anything about the corpse at your feet. "Time to go home?"
 
Valentine


Valentine nods. "We can report this tomorrow. This isn't the first time I've seen these things... or heard that voice."


Valentine turns away from the body and heads out of the alley without looking back.
 
Annabelle


She lets him pull her into his lap, wanting to close her eyes for the time being, but instead directs her gaze out the window, down into the street where the kids from her class are hanging around in a group until every last one of them has been picked up. Despite the tension in the night, and their knowledge that the night is dangerous, they are happy, laughing, a couple of them still dancing around. Her lips twitch up in a small smile again, her usual, light-hearted countenance slowly returning.
 
Gavin


Gavin thinks a mish-mash of conflicting thoughts upon being greeted by this sight. On the one hand, nothing was going to creep up on him with open space - probably. On the other, he was ill at ease to go wandering out with no cover of which to speak. For the time being, he continues to follow the doll. He's not a nervous wreck by any interpretation, but his level of 'cautious paranoia' is rising slowly but steadily.
 
Garrison Blake


Riding in the cab, Blake ponders the situation in Roanton. The smart money is to take off. Go somewhere else. Roanton does not seem the safest place at the moment. It's what his sire would do. But. He's not his sire. As illogical as it seems, he feels responsible for this demon creature. He was there when it first appeared, and he did not stop it at that time. Sure, it was too big to face alone. The smart warrior knows when he is outclassed, and Blake was certainly outclassed. Nevertheless, he feels responsible. There's another factor - his honor will not let him flee. That responsibility, plus his honor, means he's staying. Even if that means research.


The cab pulls up to the Chapter House. Blake gives the cabbie the requisite fare and heads in. Just because he didn't like doing research didn't mean he wouldn't do it. He walks to the library with determined purpose...
 
To Anna


"See? All is not lost, for you can still smile and they can dance even in the darkest times." He gives your chin a soft tap. "Smiling is something we do not exercise often enough. Not at all."
 
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