Content Warning
Grief, Manslaughter, Assault
What a shame, all your sweet remains are scattered 'cross the room
Cigarettes that once graced your lips are now trampled wounds
There were times I thought I would try to reach out to you
But now sorry's late and it's overplayed, just a sad excuse
–Atreyu, “Gone”
“It’s not supposed to be like this.”
Simon looked down at her limp body in his arms. Her pale face was smeared with his blood, flecks of it intermingling with her gentle freckles. Her startling green eyes stared sightlessly across the room toward the exit, half rolled up in her head at the moment of expiration. Her rumpled black jacket and her black nylon stockings seemed to cover a body that was suddenly too small for them. And her own unblemished wrist, the one that had just fallen from his mouth less than a minute ago, lay unmoving on the stained shag carpet beneath them.
The panic hit him first, welling up suddenly and powerfully. In it, he rejected the notion that she was gone. He rejected his part to play in the blame for it. “No, no…no, no, no…” he muttered and then began to scream out in denial and frustrated rising tones. “Wake up, wake up, please…oh, please…” If he still breathed, he’d be hyperventilating about now. But his lungs were as still as hers.
Simon tore open his wrist with his teeth again and let the blood sluggishly seep from the wound. He laid her gently on the floor and grabbed at his wrist with his other hand to force the substance out faster. It dripped slowly first onto her cheek and then into her open mouth.
Revival?
This is a dramatic action, so it calls for a roll. Let’s see if Simon can revive his lady love. He rolls 1 Action Die (AD) because he has no skills or gear that would aid here. Against 3 Challenge Dice (CD) for it being a formidable action. 4 vs 3, 3, and 6. We have to score greater, so that 6 makes it a failure. You can spend blood to increase your AD value but even so, I can only match, not beat, that 6. I will do so anyway for this scene because it makes sense. Simon is down to 8 blood.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all aside from the too slow drip dripping of blood seeping from the already closing wound in Simon’s wrist. She was dead. And it was his fault. The grief hit him next, the grief that would remain with him all the rest of his days, even when he tried to bury it. It wrapped around him like a weight, an infinite weight, and he sank back on his heels. It felt too hard to be in this moment but it was a moment that would never end for him and never allow him an exit. He stared at the corpse of the person he loved best in all the world.
“But…" he said. "I followed all the steps,” he said to her, knowing how useless it was to explain or to try to figure it out, even. “I did what he said.” And then it struck him, somewhere dull and deep but still surprising. He had been lied to. Used for some nefarious purpose. Did the old man get off on this? What could have been the reason for this unjust cruelty? “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This was our way out.” And then the anger took hold. Oh, it was an insufferable anger. A smothering anger. Mixed with an unending grief and a powerful shame, it was an unquenchable anger.
Simon stood, sparing a single, last glance at her. He had never done anything right in the whole time they had been together. His schemes and plans had never brought them any happiness. He had never given her the attention she deserved and, even in death, had failed her utterly. And now she was gone. Gone, gone. But he wasn’t the only one to blame, he thought to himself quietly as he moved over to the mantlepiece. He’d make the old man pay, come hell or high water. And he didn’t care what happened to himself in the process. Vengeance would be done. He was coming now and there were demons laughing that were coming with him.
He reached up and knocked a bottle of whiskey to the floor. Then another. Taking up the matchbook from the mantle, he lit one and dropped it into the mess on the floor. The shag went up instantly and in moments, a great conflagration danced in Simon’s eyes. Demons danced there too. He turned and left.
Simon stalked from the building as the flames burst from the upper windows on her third floor apartment. “Oh, my god,” someone nearby yelled. Simon looked up and saw two young men standing and gawking at the fire.
“Yes!” Simon yelled aggressively and shoved one of them hard enough to send him staggering several steps backward, “so go call 911! Now!” The young man nodded, frightened, and turned away to go make the call. Simon snatched his friend by the shirt collar and shoved him into the nearby alleyway. “Bad luck for you, then,” Simon snarled and bared his fangs.
The young man in his North Face jacket started to scream but Simon was quick to cut it off.
Grab the Bloodbag
Simon will initiate a combat here. We’ll say this bloodbag is the weakest he could be with 1 CD and an associated d6 (4 blood). The game doesn’t have enough space to make note of how this would play out. Drinking from humans heals d6 blood. But if a weak human only has d6 blood and there’s a fight first, well, then there’d be no blood left to drink. So I’m going to houserule that they’re separate. You don’t need to conserve blood from a fighter to drink afterward.
Simon uses Vampiric Speed to step in and he’ll deliver a gut punch with his knucks to knock the wind out of the young man. So 3 AD vs 1 CD. 6, 4, and 3 vs 2. Difference between 6 and 2 is 4, which is dealt to the young man’s blood, which takes him out. Simon drinks and heals d6(4) blood, which takes him back to full.
Simon darted in, slipping on his knucks and delivering a powerful blow to the young man’s gut. All the wind and yelling went right out of him. Simon slammed him against a wall, drove his fangs into the man’s neck, and drank his fill. With that accomplished, and his blind rage nowhere near sated, he stepped from the alley and mounted his nearby motorcycle. Sirens sounded in the distance, on approach to the fire which had caught the rest of the building in its maw. Simon started and revved up his motorcycle before taking off. There was only one destination on his mind. He needed to find the old man and make him pay. In blood.
Next: Session 2, Rush Inside My Brain
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