Nightmares, Curses, and Consequences... Oh My!

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Vampire: The Masquerade live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

Nightmares, Curses, and Consequences... Oh My!
by Simon W

October 31, 2019 - Sundown

The blood was everywhere. On her hands from the countless times she'd murdered. In her eyes from the tears she'd cried from anger, frustration, and sorrow. And in her heart from the sheer uncountable number of times it had been broken. Love lost... dreams dashed... every negative human emotion centered on her. She adsorbed it into her very soul every night and then dreamed about it the following days.

It was exhausting. It was the combined negative energy of the eleventh most populated city in the United States and surrounding metro area. Nearly three and a half million people... nearly three and a half million private hells and they were all on her shoulders. Frankly, Marianne was starting to think that fighting against literal demons from hell was probably easier.

She wanted to stop. It was torture. But then she remembered the rain, the despair, the miasma that had overtaken the city when the other way had been tried. She sighed. This way was better. Which really just goes to prove that, as fascinating as they were, Donzella was absolutely correct about Mages being dangerous.

The nightmares each day were overtaken by memories each night. She saw the Infernal cultists fall before her in the church as they tried to stop the cleansing of a holy object. She remembered killing them and no matter how much she wanted to do otherwise she couldn't convince herself that it hadn't been a terrible and dire necessity. And hazy, half formed memories were surfacing... of being underground, of thaumaturgical rituals, and ancient hungry vampires.

***

The ritual was clearly thaumaturgy but it was old, so impossibly old. And the Kindred in the center of the warding circle was most certainly not a Tremere.

"My name is Umushtart - and I have been the guardian of this place for a very long time; since the day Tiberius expelled the Egyptians from Rome, and the twilight of the Xin Dynasty began to dim."

Before Marianne could ask any questions of this mysterious Kindred, there was an inhuman roar. It was impossible to tell if it were of fear, anger, or triumph. Umushtart spoke again, “You have come here seeking answers. And you shall have them - but you must help me stop them."

Marianne looked at Veda and Mrs. Sterling. "Who are they?" she mouthed at them. Umushtart answered: “The First Named. Childe of The Unnamed…”

The three Kindred who came at them were older and more powerful than anything Marianne had ever fought against. She had already been hurt more than once on the way down from disabling the thaumaturgical wards. She wished that the others were with them, but they'd gone down a side passage. Veda and Mrs. Sterling, both far more capable combatants than herself, drew their attention while Marianne helped where she could. Umushtart showed her abilities as a combat thaumaturge as well.

It was a brutal slog of a fight. Working together they managed to destroy first one, then another, of the ancient Baali until only The First Named remained. Even then, four on one, it was a struggle to not succumb to his fury. As there was a shake and a rumble of something happening down in the side passage that no one could see, he finally came to the end of his resources and the blow landed upon him that would kill him. Before he turned to ash he spit out words that were so full of venom they needed no translation. That was a curse and Marianne braced for impact.

The impact didn't come. Umushtart spoke, "Today...you have...ended a great and terrible evil. Your friends...below" she says, motioning down with her head as the other group arrives, carrying their wounded as well. "Did as much as you did. This place...and its contents...are yours now. The world...and my masters...will be..."

Whatever she meant to say no one ever heard as her veins turned black and she, herself, turned to ash.

***

The trip home was quiet and then, as though by magic, the memories had lay quiescent for months. Marianne suspected that what had been hidden in her psyche was probably the impetus behind her making the decision to learn to fight better; and her increasing desire to learn more and more about the infernal and demonic specifically so that she could destroy it. While the events of the last several months could be seen as impetus themselves, there had been an unexplained urgency to it all. An underlying motive which now was becoming clearer.

November 1, 2019 - Sundown

Marianne woke up from another day of nightmares. She suspected it was the Mage's working that had unlocked the memories she had lost over the summer. She sighed, and went to stand up. Instead of her effortlessly graceful movements though, she was slow, jerky, and the room looked... off.

She carefully made her way to the bathroom to wash up and prepare herself mentally for the night ahead. They all seemed so fraught lately. It was frustratingly more difficult than it seemed like it should be, as though her sense of balance were off somehow. She got to the bathroom, flipped the light switch and caught a look at herself in the mirror.

A stranger looked back at her. A stranger who had no left eye. As she stared in horror at her reflection the weight of everything that had happened in Italy the previous summer suddenly landed on her shoulders. The curse of The First Named had finally landed and nothing in the rest of her life was ever going to be the same...