A Morning in the Forest

 A Morning in the Forest 

by Simon W

Ithil'lyn hadn't been sleeping well since the night the roots of Ren had burned. They'd tried to take advantage of the time by leaving their home before sunrise to pick herbs that were most potent in the darkness just before dawn and to mark the trees that needed to lose branches over the winter. They'd be back later to harvest the branches to ensure the trees would be healthy come spring. This morning they'd filled half their herb basket before finding a comfortable spot to sit and wait for sunrise. 

***

"Demons! Hide!" The fear in Palauta's voice had been palpable. Ithil'lyn hid, borrowed dagger in their left hand, even going so far as to hold their breath to be as invisible as possible. Every movement the other folks in the little group made made their skin craw. Please stop moving, they thought to themselves, but they didn't dare say anything for fear that even a whisper would betray them all. When those they were hiding from started talking, Ithil'lyn realized with sick dread that it wasn't demons. It was far worse; it was fellow Returned. 

***

A snuffling sound brought Ithil'lyn out of their thoughts. A fat bear had turned over a log nearby and was happily eating the grubs that had been under it. The bear paid zero attention to the motionless Effendal, confident in their belief that they were bigger and stronger. At another time that wouldn't have saved them, but Ithil'lyn didn't need any bear pelts for anything right now. Ithil'lyn just watched as the bear shuffled around and then eventually wandered off. 

"I'm sorry I'm failing you, Bear," whispered Ithil'lyn after they were alone once more, "I'm doing a lousy job of protecting hearth and home lately aren't I?" 

***

"Every sentient being on Adelrune needs to face the consequences of their actions, Levindicus! You don't get to be the one person that doesn't apply to; you're just not that special." He'd been trying to justify his reason for needing to escape death because he feared his soul was in peril. Ithil'lyn was so angry. But all of that anger disappeared in a flash when someone else wanted to harm him. They went from berating him to trying very hard to save his life in the matter of a blink. It hadn't worked.

***

"Quork?" Once again Ithil'lyn was brought back to reality by wildlife. This was a raven cocking its head and staring at them with its bright, knowing eyes. Ithil'lyn idly threw some of the jerky in their pocket that they kept specifically for such occasions at the bird. "I don't have anything for you besides food. I can't remember any of my dead who aren't Returned. Just please promise me that when it's my time You come for me instead of Eden, ok?" The raven blinked and cocked their head to the other side. "At this rate, You might be seeing me sooner than either of us expected." The raven chattered and flapped their wings at Ithil'lyn and then flew away. Was it just a bird startled by something Ithil'lyn couldn't hear yet, even with their sensitive hearing, or was it their God telling them that He disapproved of their fatalism? 

The forest was alive with chatter now that the sun was up properly. Ithil'lyn turned their face to the sky. Another day had started and that was supposed to be a new beginning. But everything felt like an ending right now. Still, people needed to be fed, clothed, and supplied. If nothing else would get them through their days, duty to their people would have to do. It was cold comfort. 

Self-Knowledge

Self-Knowledge 

by Simon W.  

"Let it fall to the Delfestrae to weigh pros and cons of what we know to be right"

The words of the First of House Kaelin echoed in Ithil’lyn’s head. They were finally home from the August gathering, away from the dust and chaos of Port Frey. Here in a little clearing in the forest they had made themselves a haven where no politics, Effendal or Port Frey, could touch them unless they allowed it.

Racks for drying herbs, a shed for curing wood, an entire workbench for tanning and curing leather, and a pile of stones made the space look exactly like what it was – a place where work was done. The only splash of color about the place was a small rosebush that Ithil’lyn had transplanted last autumn when they had found the clearing and decided to claim it. The red stood in stark contrast to the greens and browns they were surrounded by.

“I suppose I’m meant to feel ashamed,” Ithil’lyn said quietly to themselves. “My deepest apologies to the Perillinen but I’m not. The next time I do something without weighing the pros and cons will be… the second time.”

Ithil’lyn walked past all their various workspaces to a new set up. It was a stone and some wooden practice blades. They started going through a series of motions, warming up. They didn’t know if they had ever known how to wield weapons for anything other than hunting in their first life but when they had been convinced that the entirety of Port Frey wanted to kill Cecil, they decided that it was time to learn. The basics seemed to come almost naturally which made them think that someone had taught them this before. Blast this foggy memory!

Ithil’lyn practiced until sundown and then went to clean up in the small stream that burbled through the back of the clearing. While there they pondered all that had happened at the gathering although really there were only two things that stood out with perfect clarity. There was the trial and there was the name.

The trial had been… stress and drama and probably had aged Ithil’lyn by at least a hundred years. They were not entirely certain what the rest of Port Frey thought of the outcome. But it had suited them just fine. They were not interested in either executing or banishing fellow Effendal and feeling like either option had been on the table had been extremely uncomfortable. The sense of needing to circle around and defend one another was very strong. Strong enough that Ithil’lyn knew it had been instilled in childhood even if they had no specific memory of the lessons that imparted that knowledge.

The name would take getting used to. No, the name would be familiar in a few weeks. Vesryn’s absence would hurt for years. Ithil’lyn didn’t know why he felt the need to explore the death realms, but curiosity was certainly something they understood. Ithil’lyn just wished that he could have satisfied his curiosity in some way that was less… permanent. Still, he’d given them a gift and they were not going to return it.

Standing in the pale light of the half-moon, Ithil’lyn looked out to the forest. “Gods of the Old Ways, hear me. I have been renamed with the Ferryman Poppet’s power at the request of my friend, Vesryn, who now travels the death realms. I am Ithil’lyn, the Eviscerating Bloodstorm, of House Delfestrae”

They walked back to their work area from the stream. Tomorrow at dawn there would be more tasks to do. But for now they would sleep knowing that the Gods knew their name and that they knew exactly who they were for the first time in a long time.

The Aftermath

 Character fiction from a troupe Vampire: The Masquerade LARP...

The Aftermath

by Simon W. 

Nyx didn't know why the truck was slowing down. They hadn't thought that far ahead. They'd jumped in, disabled the driver and then immediately jumped into the trailer, by going through it. This was their chance to stop what Pentex was doing before it got too big to really hurt anyone. 

Nyx still wasn't sure what to make of Pentex. The more they'd worked for them and the more they'd spied on them, the worse it had felt. Nyx was a pragmatist; they knew that even anything as simple as doing data analysis for such an organization was doing harm but sometimes you have got to break a few eggs to destroy a corrupt chicken farm. Or some analogy like that. But the fact of the matter is that, as far as they could tell, Pentex hadn't hurt them personally. If the Anarchs didn't have this strange alliance with this one group of Werewolves, Nyx would probably had tried to keep working for Pentex in order to keep spying on them. But that wasn't going to work and so Nyx had gathered every last bit of information they could on the Abomination project and given it to the Anarchs. And tonight they were here to help definitively end the project, along with some other former Cammies, Judge Stone, and the weird Werewolves. Tonight was effectively going to be Nyx turning in their resignation. 

Tails, what a name, was the guy running the group of Werewolves. He'd given a mission briefing and combined with his packs' intelligence and Nyx's they had figured out that the project involved something called Get of Fenris kinfolk and Brujah. Pentex was making shock troops, or attempting to anyway. The process was notoriously difficulty and most test subjects would die. But Nyx knew that there were two successes who were on this convoy, along with all of the necessary ingredients to make more subjects once the truck got to the Pentex facility. It was Nyx's job to make sure that everything inside this truck was destroyed. It seemed a straightforward enough task; breaking things was something Nyx was naturally good at. 

The truck Nyx was inside right now was the middle of the convoy. They suspected, since it was the most defended position, that the equipment would be in there. And as their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting it was obvious that had been a good supposition. Vials of blood in suspension, lots of computer equipment, and very breakable looking scientific equipment met their eyes. Nyx started casually destroying the crates nearest them. A strange sound made them look up and stare at the other end of the trailer. Two figures were there. Two enormous figures, easily seven feet tall and they were built like tree trunks. It was difficult to describe their enormity since they also looked vaguely like people, just really large, really angry, really unhinged people. Nyx locked eyes with them and recognized something in them, a familiar hint of fanaticism tinged with suppressed rage. Maybe, Nyx thought, they were more Brujah than Get of Fenris, whatever that was, and there was a way to get out of this situation in a rational way. 

"I don't suppose you boys want to discuss philosophy, do you?" Nyx asked. 

Their answer was to raise glowing red fists and run at Nyx roaring gutturally. And thus the fighting began. It wasn't anything close to a fair fight. They were easily as fast and as strong as Nyx was, and they had something else... some way to making Nyx's punches on them hit Nyx instead. Sheer stubbornness kept Nyx in the fight for as long as possible. At the very least it was doing a good job of destroying everything else in the trailer. 

Just as Nyx was well and truly losing the fight and pondering what a crap deal it was to die in a tractor trailer fighting against monsters created by the literal personification of a late-stage capitalist hellscape, the back doors were wrenched open from the outside by Judge Stone. He was the Anarch that was here to essentially watch the former Cammies to see if they were pulling their weight. As he opened the door, Arctos flew into the truck and started spitting out some sort of acrid smelling liquid. It was ignited somehow, Nyx couldn't see, and the interior of the trailer just erupted into a firestorm. All of the remained equipment and the two Abominations caught fire. They didn't die quietly or gracefully. And in that moment, Nyx felt something, some connection between themselves and the dying men. There was some visceral, familial feeling that they were feeling now that it was being severed.

Nyx didn't even notice that Judge Stone had interposed himself between them and the fire. They were suddenly lost in a series of memories that hadn't made any sense before. Digging themselves out of the ground to be met by a bunch of people in suits who seemed to expect them there. Those first six months when Pentex was teaching them how to be a vampire and how some nights when they woke up they were nearly entirely drained of blood and starving. The glee that the Pentex operatives had shown the first time Nyx had realized that when they got into a fight their fists would glow burning red and their hits were able to even hurt Werewolves. The fact that Nyx had been shipped out to California right around the same time the decision was made to move the Abomination project facilities out there. Things which had been disjointed and unconnected before suddenly came into sharp and horrifying relief. 

The drive back to the gathering passed by in a blur as Nyx was lost in their own thoughts. When they got back, Vincent and Arctos tried to be cagey about what had happened until Dahlia sharply reminded them that they were still probationary and there were no secrets among the Anarchs the way there were in the Camarilla. That was when Nyx told everyone assembled that they had found Abominations, and that they were... family. 

"You mean...they were your broodmates?," Genie asked concernedly. 

"No," said Nyx, "they were my children."

Nyx had never seen the Malkavian look so unsettled in the 18 months since they had met. And the look on Genie's face was echoed on Vincent's and eventually as the implications rippled out into the rest of the room everyone looked vaguely horrified. 

Later that night Nyx approached Judge Stone. "You're good at genealogy, yeah? I need to find the vampire who made me. I need to know why he did it. And maybe.... we'll talk about philosophy."

I'm THAT Kind of Brujah

Character fiction from a troupe Vampire: The Masquerade LARP...

I'm THAT Kind of Brujah 

by Simon W. 

Nyx's alarm went off and they looked at the time. It was 6:30 am. They sighed, put a bookmark in the book they'd been studying and made their way to where they slept. They'd considered just setting up a place to sleep in the library about a dozen times but the idea of the books and scrolls being burned because some overzealous hunter wanted to kill them was just too much to stomach.

Some things are worth more than living forever, you see. Knowledge is one of those things. 

The song had played again in the night, and then a message from the Anarchs to the ex-Camarilla members of the domain of Los Angeles. And with that, it seemed like the third Anarch revolt came to another conclusion, only this time they'd won. The defeat of their forces and the treaty being signed in 2019 hadn't been the end of the story; it had only been a lull in the fighting. As the New Year approached to put 2023 to bed, it would seem the Anarchs were stronger than ever.

"This is because they believe in something,"  Nyx muttered to themselves as they waited for the deathlike sleep to come with the dawn. 

Nyx didn't believe in anything, unless the accumulation of knowledge could be considered believing in anything. Something about being murdered and turned into a vampire had stripped them of their ability to be an idealist like they had been when they were alive. They'd taken the job with Pentex because it paid. They spied on the Camarilla for Pentex because that was part of the job. They'd spied on Pentex because they were super shady and Nyx wanted to know what they were up to. And they'd started working for the Anarchs because the other option was to be a prisoner. The Anarchs had made it very clear that killing Nyx was never on the table; granted they did that after Arne had thrown his life away trying to defend Nyx. All in all, it hadn't been a night of very good decisions made. 

And now? Now the Anarchs were openly running the domain of Los Angeles with their friends from the Independent Alliance. It was a bizarre turn of events. And Nyx had helped, slightly. In truth the biggest way they had helped was to simply stop helping the Camarilla which everyone thought was totally reasonable because Arne had died. Well, and they had neglected to actually warn anyone that the Anarchs were coming. 

"I wonder what sort of libraries the Anarchs have" Nyx mumbled sleepily as the dawn approached... 

Liminal Space

Character fiction from a troupe Vampire: The Masquerade LARP...

Liminal Space

by Simon W. 

    The dirty lie that our culture likes to tell us is that the only important kind of love is the romantic kind. It's supposedly secondary to everything else; the love between parent and child, the love between siblings, and it's most definitely supposed to be so much stronger than the love between friends. We are told that friendship is a different feeling than romantic love, rather than both of them simply being different facets of the same feeling. 

    It is, as I said already, a dirty lie. That's one of the things you learn real fast when you realize that you're aromantic. And tonight I feel the weight of that lie; hanging around my neck like a chain. Arne is dead and it's partially my fault. Granted a lot of it is his own damn fault! He's the one who wanted to come and kill Phoenix Society folks and he's the one who, once we got jumped, refused to keep his mouth shut. He told me he'd be with me to the end... and then less than an hour later he was ashes at my feet. Maybe someday I'll have it all sorted out, but at the moment my rage is equally directed at both him and the assholes who killed him. 

    I guess he was with me to his end. But what about mine? The last lesson he tried to teach me consciously was right before my release. He told me "don't hesitate". I don't know what else I am supposed to do when I don't have all the facts.

    I'm still a prisoner. I'm still uncertain of what my future holds, although Arne's ashes certainly are a grim reminder that I'm still in a great deal of danger. I should be thinking, or planning, or scheming. But all I can do is feel this horrible emptiness. My brother, my friend, the closest thing to family I had in this complete nonsense existence I have found myself in is gone. 

    

    I guess now I find out what kind of Brujah I am. I suspect no one is much going to like the answer; me most of all. 

Nothing To Do But Think

Character fiction from a troupe Vampire: The Masquerade LARP...

Nothing To Do But Think

by Simon W.

    You ever just find yourself in a situation where you've got nothing but time and only the thoughts in your own head to keep you company? Maybe that's just me. It sure feels like I have spent a lot of my existence in that state. Back when I was properly human I would fill that time with studying, and learning, and arguing. Now? Not so much.

    Oh yeah, I guess I should explain that. I'm not what you would exactly call alive anymore. In January 2022 I was walking home from a protest and I got jumped in a dark alley in Boston. And when I came to I was different. I had no idea what all that meant eighteen months ago. I may not entirely understand it even if I actually have the eternity I've been promised.

    Of course, I also may not live to see another night. I am in somewhat of a precarious position at the moment. Let me try and sum up in a way that makes even remote sense.

    First off, the monsters in the night that you, me, and thousands of generations of people have told children scary stories about are very, very real. I'm one of them now. I'm a vampire. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real (and they are complete assholes). The Fair Folk are real. Mages are real. Demons are very real. God is probably real and He is not happy with.... well certainly not with me. I don't know if He really likes anyone although there are certainly some humans who are convinced He is on their side. Fortune 500 companies are actually worse than I believed as a human and also I work for one now. Boy how the mighty and idealistic have fallen.

    So yeah, jumped in a dark alley in Boston. Boston isn't really known for its dark alleys or its nightly street crime but this was a special case for some reason. I got knocked out, woke up buried in a hole in the ground and dug my way out. It was not what you'd call a fun time, not the least of which because I was both hungrier and angrier than I'd ever been in my life. A bunch of dudes in suits were there when I came out and instead of running away from the obvious monster that I was they handed me what I legitimately was a Capri Sun and let me calm down. Spoiler alert: it was not juice.

    One of the guys there gave me the basic run down that I was a vampire now, that I shouldn't go out into the sun, and that I was now on a very exclusive and slightly awkward diet. He also mentioned that if I didn't get myself killed I'd just live forever and that there is some weird political system I was going to have to learn to navigate. Then I got offered a job doing statistical analysis, told that I should never tell anyone who was gangrel who I worked for and shipped in a box to California after six months. I soon learned that gangrel wasn't just a fancy old English word for feral; it was a specific type of vampire. 

    Once in California I discover that in addition to statistical analysis I am supposed to integrate into the local vampire society. That actually isn't so hard because there is current a war going on, sometimes an actual shooting war, but always an ideological one. There are three organizations and they all always want new recruits and they all think they know the only correct way to be a vampire. Another spoiler alert: they're all wrong. 

    So now I'm here and I'm told I will be a provisional member of society for a year while they do their best to indoctrinate me into their culture. Honestly, that's a pretty short time all things considered. We start the inculturation of children at birth and don't really consider them full members of society until at least puberty. I guess the fact that I don't have to spend at least six years learning how to talk and recognize that other people exist outside of my own experience was an advantage there. But I digress (I do that a lot). The first person to take on my education was Nate and he was very concerned that I was a plant or a spy from one of the other vampire organizations. He was half correct; I was a plant and a spy but not for vampires. More on that later. Also, if I survive this Nate is going to probably tell me I'm an idiot for a couple of hours next time I see him. Is it weird that I'm kind of looking forward to that possibility? I'd like to not die in the immediate future which is a weird thing for a literal corpse to say but there you go. 

    Nate figures out that I'm not a spy for the folks called the Sabbat. He also figures out that I am working for Pentex but he doesn't really care about that. So after a month he tells the guy running Southern California that I'm fine and won't burn them all down in their sleep or something. There was some debate as to who was going to take on the rest of my education, I mean indoctrination. Which is how I met Arne. Arne is pretty cool, if about a thousand years out of date. He's pretty much the only family or friend I've got at this point, sort of a combination of brother and father all in one. He's been teaching me how to be a vampire and how to survive in the Camarilla for the last eleven months. 

    In the last eleven months all of my bosses at Pentex murdered one another (I told you Fortune 500 companies are awful!) and there is new management. The original mission I was on is obsolete so I guess I have found a home for real? Except for the fact that I am currently in enemy territory with Arne and we are both unconscious and I have no idea if we're going to be killed, questioned, or some combination of the two. I'm really worried about Arne because the things I have heard about what the Sabbat do to Elders is not good and the things that I know the Phoenix Society does to Elders is even worse. 

    In my defense (do I have a defense; who exactly am I trying to defend myself from here?) it was his idea to come here. But it was my contact that facilitated it. So I guess if we die we have each other and ourselves to blame. 

    I've been beaten all to hell, I'm angry (really, really angry), and I have no idea what is going on and no one to talk to but the empty spaces inside my own head. This seems like it could be really bad. I wonder if death has finally caught up to me...

    Only time will tell. But I swear to you, me(?), whomever... if these folks kill Arne and not me I am going to make them regret every single one of their life choices. 
   

The Nightmare

Character fiction from a Classical Greek era Werewolf the Apocalypse LARP. 

The Nightmare

by Simon W. 

"Ellll-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-saaaahhhhhhh...."

The voice drew Eli down a long hallway. Compelling, beguiling, impossible to ignore; it sounded like wind chimes on warm summer nights and the calming crackle of a peaceful hearth fire. It promised warmth, love, and never being abandoned. Eli nearly tripped in their hurry to reach the source of the sound. 

As they were running down the hallway, they missed when it changed from smooth stone covered in tapestries to a catacomb lined with bones. The voice drew them on as the hallway got darker, narrower, and danker. But as the surroundings grew more unsettling, the voice sounded all the sweeter. 

The hallway finally ended in a small room filled with bones, both human and wolf, and as Eli stepped inside the door disappeared behind them. Whirling around to find the way out, they found themselves facing Khui as he had looked the day they married.

"Oh.... Love is this really you?" Eli asked breathlessly.

"Of course, death could never separate us." He drew Eli close and held them close. In their relief at seeing their beloved once again, they didn't think it strange that he was cold. He wrapped his arms around them, only they turned into snakes hissing into their ears. 

"I died because of you"

Eli finally realized the danger and tried to struggle out of Khui's grasp. 

"You failed your mother."

The arms turned into snakes only grew tighter. 

"You abandoned Lysander. Theodore is dead because you left; abandoned him just as your mother did you." 

Eli twisted and turned, trying to see Khui's face now that he was saying such vile things. 

"Our son will die before he has a chance to live because you cursed him to life as a full moon born."

Eli tried to cry out against this but their voice had been stolen by the snakes now squeezing around their neck. 

"Your other children resent you. Your siblings see you as a burden. Even the dead know that you are unworthy and not to be trusted."

The room they were in dissolved, and Eli found themselves on a wide desert plain, hearing the wind rising in the distance. Looking to the horizon they could see the sand coming toward them like a wall.

"It's beautiful, is it not, the Storm? Soon we will ride it together. And you will never be weak or useless again."

The voice was no longer sweet and comforting. It was sibilant and cold. Eli knew without a doubt that whatever it was that held them, whose face they still could not see, was not their beloved Khui. 

"You will be the instrument of my vengeance. None of them will suspect weak, useless, Elissa of Carthage, unable to even speak to a single spirit. First you will destroy the children of Owl and then you will destroy all of the Gaians. And, you will enjoy it."

Eli shook their head violently in denial, since they still could not speak. They struggled with all their might to break free. 

"I'm waiting; I'm always waiting..."

The sandstorm hit with full force and Eli felt themselves being torn apart by the violent wind. But just before they were completely annihilated they heard one last whisper.

"Mine..."

Elissa opened their eyes, heart pounding, to the relatively comforting normal darkness of their house on Dokos. They took slow, deep breaths and carefully listened. They only heard the normal nighttime sounds of the the pack sleeping. They ran their tongue over their teeth to see if they were normal. They were normal teeth, not fangs. Finally after what seemed like an age, Eli was able to convince themselves that they were not actually a vampire. 

They got up and went to look outside. From the position of the stars it was only a couple of hours until sunrise. Eli figured they might as well get up. No more sleep would happen tonight. They shivered. If only it were possible to go without sleep at all.

It was going to be a long day. And Elissa of Carthage had work to do. So they may as well get an early start.