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Post by Meluivan Indil on Sept 10, 2008 5:36:27 GMT -5
She pulled away from her victim long before there was a chance of permanently damaging her. The voices in her head screamed out in anger at the cessation in feeding but she justified her actions as a need to preserve her prey for a later date. A semi used up victim would always live to be a victim again some day, but a dead victim just became poison to her system.
So she moved back out into the street and realized that her companion had drifted off. In the confused jumble of her mind she knew there was a reason why she was with him, why she had to find him again, but with the voices screaming for blood that reason became confused. But she did have to find him. It was very important for some reason.
So she moved quickly along the streets stopping every so often to feed from one of the less violently maddened citizens. After all, she did need to keep her strength up and it was the only way to quiet the voices inside her head.
She knew what he smelled like. He had a different smell than the others in the city and every so often she’d catch a whiff of it as she moved along the streets. A smile lit her face as she walked by a door that was ajar in one of the many buildings she was passing. The smell was stronger there. So she crept into the building and let her nose lead her to the prey… no companion she was searching for.
Once she knew she was in the same room as he she couldn't help the urge to play a little cat and mouse. She slid stealthily across the room and brushed along right beside him, never touching him "oh Ark," she whispered and then a high giggle left her lips, but she kept moving knowing to get too close could mean her own demise.
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Post by Ark on Sept 10, 2008 7:34:08 GMT -5
Ark paused for a moment at Atavus’ giggling taunt before continuing with his search. By his estimation, distracting his eyes from his work seemed to be a pointless endeavor in the limited light of the interior room. For now, he’d have to rely on his ears.
That also may prove to be a futile effort, given the vampire’s reputation for stealthy hunting as a species, but for now it served as his only option. With his electronic ears attuned to whatever noise was made in his vicinity, he checked one final drawer.
A phone book? Surely it wouldn’t be that simple…
A quick flip through the book soon revealed what he had wanted, however ‘Center for Mystical Botany and Herbology’ sounded right, at least. Now he had to think, quickly, before Ata tried to eat him, or something else that was just as annoying. Before entering the building, he’d noticed a street sign at the corner, which placed him on Western Avenue, and his destination was on thirty ninth court… That was the street near the park; not necessarily the opportune place to be at the moment, but regardless, he needed to go.
He gazed about the room wearily as he considered his options, deciding that finding some way to get some distance between himself and Atavus was his best bet in the absence of light. With a quick flick of the wrist, a small flurry of glass needles shot towards the doorway, and, after smelling no blood, ark dashed through it and back to the city streets, sure Atavus would be generally displeased at his rapid departure.
‘Ugh, mortals…’
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Post by Meluivan Indil on Sept 10, 2008 8:01:30 GMT -5
She noticed that he hadn’t even acted like her presence made any difference at all and for some odd reason that brought her lips out in a pout. He was ignoring her. Why was he ignoring her?
But if he was gonna ignore her she certainly wasn’t going to let him know that it bothered her, so instead she slipped to the far side of the room and found a perch on top of one of the many desks that were spaced throughout the room.
Her eyes zeroed in on what he was doing and she had to stifle the urge to ask him what he was looking for. But soon he seemed to find something and a confused look covered her face. A phone book! A stupid phone book! Well hell, wasn’t that just downright boring? She again stifled the urge to speak and waited patiently to see what he’d do next.
She watched as he flung glass needles towards the door and she shook her head at the futile gesture, but slid from the desk prepared to follow him wherever he was heading.
The voices still rang through her mind but something else was telling her to hold back, to discover more of what her prey/companion was up to. The distinction between prey and companion had pretty much become nonexistent in her mind. He had blood flowing through his veins, blood she’d tasted once, and had to admit would like to do so again, but still something held her back. Something about a willing sacrifice placed him in a different category than her other prey in this city. It didn’t actually make sense to her mind and the voices screamed for her to just take what she wanted, but the voices weren’t what had kept her alive for over five hundred years now. Her instincts had done that, and her first instinct now was to hold back the bloodlust and just follow him.
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Post by Ark on Sept 10, 2008 22:31:14 GMT -5
"Okay, this is the park... so if I make a left? Yeah, left, right. Wait, right, of course!" Ark muttered confusedly, shuffling his feet anxiously in the park's grass. "Stupid electricity."
He was more than entirely annoyed by the all-encompassing darkness that seemed to eat him alive. His revelry was immediately interrupted, however, by a savage hit to the side of the head by what seemed to be flail of the medieval variety.
Seriously, a flail? Was there anything this stupid city didn't have?
Ark was sent reeling, clutching his head as he tumbled into a tree, his mechanical ear sparking painfully; the thing was trashed. He reached up and quickly withdrew his hand after he was lightly shocked by the machine. That shock, however, was followed up by another savage blow to the top of his head, forcing him to unceremoniously eat dirt, as they say.
He wouldn't even admit it to himself, but whoever was beating on him packed enough of a punch to cause him to see stars. Before he could recover from this dazed state however, a large fist impacted his lower spine, followed by another, and another, which would have easily pulverized a normal human being at this point.
Ark was used to taking pain, but this was getting aggravating fast. Not only had both of his cybernetic ears been entirely trashed, but he was now being lifted into the air by a crumpled cybernetic tail. All the while, he could feel the anger bubbling inside of him, growing more and more turbulent with each passing second, demanding one thing and one thing only: retribution.
And boy, did he ever satisfy that desire.
Without prior warning, Ark began thrashing violently in the grip of his assailant, who dropped him in suprise as he began to groan in pain, his bones mending as he reached up to his head and with a double fisted gesture, ripped the remnants of the two ears off his head, crying out in pain as he did so before his sand did the same with the tail, all three removals leaving bleeding, gaping wounds.
More startling, however, was the fact that he was now growling, quite bestially, at his unseen aggressor, his hands flexing as they morphed into something akin to vulpine claws.
If one could see, they'd notice a real tail sprouting in lieu of the mechanical one, real ears following suit. He let out a dark chuckle before cracking his neck.
His ears twitched as his opposition's footsteps could be heard like thunder. "I see you" he growled out, lashing out fiercely, driving his claws deep into the assailant's chest before retracting quickly, Ark's face looking strained as the assumadely massive man dropped.
Of course, he couldn't really see, but he could almost see with his auditory and olfactory senses, and right now, he knew Ata was close, but he could also catch the faintest whiff of sage and some vanilla: the botanical center.
With a disgruntled growl, he dashed off with incredible speed towards the building, weaving between trees just to relish the feeling of speed.
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Post by LadyRiona on Sept 10, 2008 23:19:39 GMT -5
Jude was typically a good natured individual. She tried her best to be polite and professional and she usually succeeded in doing so; it was a necessity as a doctor. For this, she was known at least by reference, if not by name, in the city as an emphatic, patient, and genuinely caring doctor.
However, when her sleep was interrupted by something outer than her work pager, Jude was often loathe to show her better qualities. In fact, she was more than reluctant to even open her eyes to inspect what woke her.
With a grumble, Jude fought with herself to open her eyes then strove to listen to the darkness in her house. She was still for a few more moments, waiting to hear anythign else akin to what had woken her. She wasn't positive, as she'd been asleep, but she wanted to say it had been a loud thunk.
After hearing nothing for about two minutes, Jude turned onto her side and started to slip into sleep once more. She'd probably heard nothing, probably just dreamed it.
Just as Jude was drifting off again, she heard another noise and sat up in bed. She was now fully awake and quite certain she'd heard something this time. It sounded more like a clatter, like a handful of objects had been scattered from one surface to the floor. And sure enough, a moment later, she heard it again, loud and clear.
Someone was in the house.
Without a thought, Jude reached into the top drawer of her bedside table and produced a Glock. She checked the clip to ensure it was fully loaded then quickly slipped out of bed then into the hallway. Again, she heard the noise. If this was a burglary, she thought, the criminal wasn't very skilled at stealth. Nor were they very quiet, Jude realized, since the person began speaking.
Carefully, Jude peeked around a corner into the living room. There, a lone figure stood. From a quick assessment, the figure was male, around six-foot-two, roughly one-hundred and sixty pounds. Too big for her to easily take down in her current state. Plus, there was just something about this character that seemed...odd. Maybe the fact that he was talking to himself and not stealing things?
After taking a deep breath, Jude held the Glock in both hands, stepped into plain view of the man, then aimed the gun at him.
"Don't move," she told him. "Get out of my house; I won't hesitate to shoot you." Her words were clipped and her hands were steady, sign enough that yes, she wouldn't hesitate.
The man, however, just looked up, startled from her voice. He began to laugh in what could only be called an insane manner before charging her. In his advance, he slipped his foot under a wire, which pulled a lamp off a nearby table and sent it flying toward Jude. She sidestepped to dodge it and by the time she recovered, the man was practically on top of her. He grabbed her and she struggled against him. Once she had her footing and balance, she shifted enough to stand on one foot, jerking her other leg up to knee the man in the groin.
Oddly, it didn't immediately cripple him, though he did let go of her. Without another thought, Jude slammed the butt of her gun into his skull so as to render him unconscious but do no other harm.
Once the man was on the ground, Jude walked over to her window. She could suddenly hear more odd, raucous noises. In the streets, a stampede of people were rushing about in various states of disarray. What was going on?
A noise from the door made Jude turn around again. In the doorway were two women, bodies moving with their heavy breathing. They looked battered and bloody and were laughing maniacally. Then, without any warning, they started toward her in great, loping, irregular strides.
Jude held the gun out toward them. "Stop!" she shouted. No response.
"HELP!" she shouted, though it was probably fruitless.
So she fired the gun once, twice, and a third time toward the women. One fell to the ground, screaming and writhing in pain. The second continued to advance on her. Jude pulled the trigger to fire a third shot and only heard a click.
Jammed.
"SOMEONE!" she cried once again, then readied herself to be mauled.
What was going on?
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Post by Meluivan Indil on Sept 14, 2008 8:23:35 GMT -5
She shouldn’t have stopped for that snack. Dang it, she’d lost him. She could still smell his scent on the air but she should have kept up with him. This was too important to let the voices distract her.
She was passing a house leading towards the cities busy center and heard a shout for help followed by screams of pain and then another call for help. She considered ignoring it. She had her own troubles to deal with, but the smell of fresh blood assailed her senses and she found herself veering towards the house.
She wanted to scream in futile rage as her body seemed to have a mind of it’s own. At this rate she’d never find her companion.
Once she entered the home she took in the sight of a woman being assaulted by one of the cities deranged. A gun rested in her hand but the clicking noises it made assured her that it was either empty or jammed.
Her eyes zeroed in on the deranged woman moving towards the other and she shook her head in anger moving forward and quietly up behind her. Her hands wrapped around the crazed woman’s head and she stared at the bite marks on her neck. “I already bit you. Shouldn’t you be sleeping off the blood loss somewhere?”
The woman tried to spin in her grasp to fight her off but instead snapped her own neck seeing as Atavus had been turning her face the other direction to bite her again. She immediately dropped the dead woman and backed up in utter disgust. She had been poisoned by dead blood before and was not about to go through that again.
She stared up at the woman holding the pistol and shivered slightly as she noticed the woman’s eyes were completely untouched by the madness. So this city did hold at least one soul that was untainted by evil. Imagine that. The voices in her head screamed for her to destroy the woman before her, but for once this night her own conscious took control and she backed away.
“I can’t stay here,” she whispered and then caught the scent of Ark again, very near. The scent was changed though. Not completely but there was something feral in the mix now and this frightened her. “My friend. He needs my help,” she said in a louder voice and was gone before another word could be said.
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Post by Ark on Sept 14, 2008 14:15:14 GMT -5
Upon quietly opening the facility's door, Ark felt as though he'd entered his paradise. Rare herbs and minerals lined the walls of even the entrance lobby as he merrily browsed their selection.
"Oh my, is that a key lime tree?" Ark muttered to himself, gingerly tapping one of the fruit. Oh, if only he had the time to cook... maybe he'd make a few useful concoctions before he administered that cure...
No, that was the fox talking, people first, potions after. He whined a little; he did really like key limes. With a quick glance, he stashed one, he 'payment.'
From what he'd seen, this curse had begun manifesting in a sort of supernatural virus that effected the person on contact, as expected... that left him a few options for a cure, most of which involved key limes (he momentarily 'forgot' the others).
One, a liquid concoction that ended up with a consistency akin to cough syrup, as humans called it. Rather vile tasting stuff, but it required a vast amount of material that was reduced to a very limited supply and even with this phenomenal selection, there wasn't enough Egyptian lotus blossom on the whole continent to cure a whole city... plus it had the nasty tendency to cause particularly violent hallucinations.
After a few more minutes of browsing, even after finding an actual catalog of their inventory, his cure seemed determined, even though he really, really didn't want to have to use this one; people generally didn't like the side effects.
He paused for a moment, grabbing his arm to stop its shaking as his boned could be heard cracking and shifting as he progressed further and further into a transformation that would be grossly unwelcome in this situation. With a growl, he took a bite out of the lime he'd picked, skin and all, and grimaced at the bitter sweetness before the shaking ceased. These limes never ceased to amaze...
He sighed shakily, sitting roughly, now noticing yet another tail had grown in, giving him a lovely pair of the damned things. He needed to work fast before taking care of himself; that lime would keep it suppressed so long as he wasn't forced to fight for a while.
"Right, I'm going to need some serious spices... wasabi powder... ugh." He muttered; he had never been the biggest fan of the stuff, but it had its moments.
He began scribbling down ingredients as he stood, pushing open some double doors and squinting at wall signs pointing to laboratories. Thankfully, this particular cure was excessively potent in even the smallest doses and therefore could be administered in a variety of ways, airborne, waterborne, injection...
Unfortunately, the temporary blindness that followed exposure would also be an issue.
"I really hate my job."
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