Wikipedia Challenge - Dick Erixon

Came up with "Dick Erixon", an article about a Swedish blogger. So this isn't purely inspired by the title, but also the country mentioned in the article. As I invented the Wikipedia Challenge I deem that inspiration can come from anywhere and need only be tangentially related to the article itself.

-

Dick Erixon was a simple man. It was only natural that he worked for IKEA. After all, all of the proud citizens of Ikearike Intesverige did their part for the glory of their corpocracy.

He did not work in the stores, selling the möbler like many of his fellow countrymen; he was a businessman (affärsman, as they were called). It was a high-status job and he had it because of his high intelligence and creativity.

He, like most affärsmän, worked in a cubicle writing reports and going to meetings. His title was pinned to the entrance of the cubicle - Chef för Affärsområde Erövring.

He came into work fifteen minutes later than usual – there was a tillbud on the road he usually biked down to get to the office – and sat on his MARKUS. He took some of yesterday’s files out of EFFECTIV to quickly review them before the morning’s meeting.

He looked at Agda, who worked in the cubicle next to his, and gave her a smile. She returned his smile and gave him a quick wink.

Dick grinned to himself; he’d always thought Agda was the most gorgeous woman in the office – sitting at her MATTEUS with her legs crossed flirtatiously, showing a little bit too much thigh. She rolled her MARKUS towards Dick’s cubicle.

“You’re late. I heard there was a tillbud?” She asked, sounding more interested than you would expect.

“Yes, it’s probably those damn rebels again.”

Agda nodded in agreement. “Yes. Those lantvärn need to stop with their foolish quest for peace.”

“They are certainly going about it the wrong way. Äldesteikea is about peace; the lantvärn are about death. Or at least it seems that way.”

“I suppose it does seem that way.” She murmured. “But I can sort of see where they’re coming from. The war is causing so much loss of innocent life – “

“Loss of life that doesn’t recognise Äldesteikea!” Dick responded quickly, cutting her off. “The lantvärn - rebels, whatever you want to call them - they’re killing people who are devoted to Äldesteikea! People who have dedicated their lives to Äldesteikea. People like you and me, Agda!”

Agda frowned a little.

“I don’t know. All of us, us citizens – “

“Coworkers.” Dick corrected her immediately, giving her a slight glare.

“Sorry. Coworkers. All of us co-workers,” She continued, saying the word with a tiny but detectable dose of venom. “Don’t really have much choice. After all, what will happen to us if we were to say something blasphemous about Äldesteikea?”

Dick reeled in horror at the thought. He couldn’t even imagine what somebody could say about Äldesteikea that would be blasphemous – he tried to think of something, anything, but all he knew about Äldesteikea were good things. He struggled and managed to form the words in his mind: ‘Äldesteikea is perfect, and therefore cannot become anything better than he is’. Just thinking that prosaic sentence made him feel uncomfortable. He managed to reply to Agda:

“You mean, people are able to think of... unpositive things to say about the great Äldesteikea? He who gives us food, shelter and clothing? He who without which our lives have no purpose?”

Agda leant closer to Dick, and whispered her next words.

“Don’t you remember life, all those years ago, when Äldesteikea was just IKEA? When it was just a shop, a place to buy quality products at affordable prices? Before Sverige became Ikearike Intesverige?”

“The Dark Ages, that’s what you’re talking about?”

“They were not even ten years ago! You really mean to tell me you can’t remember? I was only a girl, but I remember it well.”

“How old do you think I am?!” Dick replied, automatically.

“Can’t you remember?”

Dick struggled, and thought back to ten or fifteen years ago – back to when he was a teenager. To a world without Äldesteikea. To Sverige, as it was known then. To his school, his computer games. It was hard to think about – not having Äldesteikea in these memories made them almost painful – but he knew that the world was okay then. But he remembered something else, too.

“But Sverige was only tiny! It was less than ten percent the size of Europe! Now Ikearike Intesverige is far larger and grander! No more are Norge, Finland, Estland, Polen, Ukraina and the rest of them seperate countries! We are all a part of Ikearike Intesverige and with it, proper children of Äldesteikea. We have given them an opportunity they didn’t have before. To become a part of something greater.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” She said bitterly.

“Yes, I do.” He nodded, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, let me look through this file. I have to present a report shortly giving a plan for the invasion of the remaining countries in Western Europe that haven’t agreed to become a part of glorious Äldesteikea’s empire.”

Wikipedia Series: 1968-69 WIHL Season

Necessary Context: Werewolf: The Forsaken

The Apollo program captured the imaginations of millions of people the world over. The months leading up to the first moon landing had a great significance for a certain, small subsection of the population – the werewolves.

After all, the Uratha always revered the moon as a goddess – something intangible, something that had a spirit. Not a lifeless lump of rock, slowly, imperceptibly falling towards the earth.

However, some of them – the Iron Masters in particular – some of them wanted to find out what she was like, to see how they would feel with their paws on her soil. They wanted to see if they could commune with their Mother on a deeper level, to achieve that spiritual connection.

Luckily for them, a man named Edwin who was one of those selected to visit Luna was Wolf-Blooded. He was almost forty, however, so his First Change was probably never going to happen.

Never, that is, unless they could force it.

Dozens of tribes throughout the United States worked on the issue; those with vampire connections – or with the ability to barter with them – managed to get a good contingent of the Ordo Dracul working on the problem.

There were sacrifices to be made, of course – some of the more dedicated packs let their spirit domains go to a rather unkempt state. Some of them – the ones whose totems did not support their perhaps rather foolish errand – abandoned their totems. One or two packs even had an all-out fight with their totems, killing them. They didn’t fear the loss of their totem; any totem that didn’t help them with what they viewed as a righteous mission was not worth it, anyway.

In fact, so strong was the desire of the werewolves to work together that it saw for the first – and perhaps only – time in history the forsaken and the pure were united for a common purpose.

In the end, the oldest, most knowledgeable vampire scientists announced the breakthrough with heavy hearts. They had found out the ingredients they would need to concoct a potion that would force any Wolf-Blooded human to have their first change.

The problem was, it called for some very rare and hard to acquire ingredients. The first was the blood created from the birth of three separate ghost pups – one born to pure parents, one to forsaken parents, and one to one of each.

In addition, all six parents needed to be ritually sacrificed and drained of blood by their own pack alphas, and this blood would be part of the potion as well.

Once all the blood is reduced into a fine, thick paste (by evaporation) it is to be combined with crushed samples of dozens of rare herbs and animals.

The Ordo Dracul announced the cure to the werewolf community, knowing that their new allies would not take the news all that well.

They were not disappointed. The werewolves murmured amongst themselves, trying to work out what the most ethical course of action was. To get a Uratha to the moon, were they going to have to disobey many of her most important teachings?

Some of the werewolves took it upon themselves to try and conceive this ghost wolf. They performed the rituals that were meant to reduce the severity of their Mother’s wrath, and then dozens of male werewolves and dozens of female werewolves would spend the night together, the females taking care to only pair themselves with a single man, to make identification of the father easier.

Many of them hadn’t gotten approval from their pack alphas, yet: but they would worry about that later on.

As the months wore on, about twenty pregnancies were recorded, all in all. And, out of these twenty, they did manage to find werewolves whose pack alphas would consent to their ritual sacrifice, even if they did not necessarily approve.

And so, in May – after all the ‘births’ had occurred - the fateful ceremony was performed, amid much wailing and regret at not being able to follow Mother Luna’s doctrine. However, after performing the ceremony, one of the pack alphas went mad; he had not adequately prepared himself for the horror of the deed.

The scientists got the blood, and boiled it and boiled it and boiled it, until nothing was left but a paste. They then tirelessly – over the course of two weeks, keeping careful account of the moon phases – created the compound.

After more than a year and the deaths of so many, it was now complete!

All that remained was to administer it to Eugine Aldrin. And how hard could that be?

Donne senza nome

My latest strategy for getting inspiration on days I don't have it is to go to the random wikipedia article and get inspiration from the title (and nothing else).

I managed to go to Donne_senza_nome - almost skipped it, but then I got an idea and ran with it.
----
"Donne Senza Nome"

The priest stood quietly in front of his congregation, his eyes to the ground, his hands raised in prayer as he spoke the words - quietly, but with purpose.

"Donne Senza Nome"

The tiny chapel was filled with people dressed in black and clinging to rosaries as they joined his chants, or voiced their own silent prayes.

A much loved man had died in this small fourteenth century Italian village, and this congregation was mourning him. The mysterious Plague had struck another victim.

This was not the black plague, it was something different.

"Donne Senza Nome"

The priest repeated. The congregation all said the words, too, praying that the man would pass into heaven and join their god in paradise.

Then, a woman stood up and began to speak. This elicited dissaproving murmurs from the shocked congregation.

"This monster should not have a christian burial!" She cried out in rage.

The crowd looked at her in silence.

"Don't you see? God is sending this plague as a punishment! It is only those of us who are the most wicked that he strikes down!"

The dead man's son stood up. "You mean to say my honourable father was wicked?"

"Yes! Otherwise, why would the lord have taken him? Think! None of the best people in the town are being struck down; the ones who died before him, they were the men who gambled away the bread they needed to feed their children, the women who disobeyed their husbands, the children who threw rocks at the dogs!"

"Where is your husband?" The man's son asked, glaring at the woman.

"He succumed to the plague; he was a gambler."

"And you survived because you are a good woman, I suppose?"

"Yes. I survived because there is justice in this world!" She cried, her eyes wild.

"Leave us." The priest spoke up, finally. "We need to pray in peace."

The woman left without saying another word.

"He was a wicked man."

She murmured to herself, casting a bitter look at the almost undetectable bump in her stomach. At the child she had named Romeo, the child the dead man had put there despite her screams.

She took a scrap of lined paper out of her coat, and, underneath the dead man's name, wrote the following:

"Romeo. Miscarriage."

She pictured the dead man's face, and hoped it would be good enough.
------
If you didn't understand the ending, it's because this is technically DeathNote prequel fanfic.

Death_note

Why Brynn Tix is scared of Tigers

Stats @ http://750words.com/entries/share/417808

Brynn Tix, at the age of forty years, centaur on the brink of adolescence. His life up until this point consisted mostly of playing with his brothers, and learning the basic life skills that any productive tribe member needs.

He didn't get to see much of his sister; centaur boys didn't see much of females in general. The women were highly prized and were given intensive lessons in the arts, calling on the spirits of nature, and leadership from a young age. Some of the girls will end up moving to other tribes to attain positions of power that opened up; with the rarity of female births, it was not unusual for a tribe to see no female births in decades. Fortunately, Tix's tribe was one of the largest tribes, and had some very fertile lines in it, so his sister Shara had two companions in her lessons.

Tix was playing with his brother Voq at the edge of the woods. Voq had always had a fertile imagination, and so came up with the best games to play. Right now, they were pretending that a particularly large rock was a foaling mother, and they had to defend it from the advancing wolves. They would throw pebbles into the undergrowth and kick at the plants, then run back to the rock giggling to themselves.

Normally, their proximity to the tribe and the amount of noise they were making scared all the nearby animals away - or, at the very least, they gave the annoying centaurs a wide berth. But this time, the noise had served to attract an animal. And it wasn't just any animal, either.

It was a tiger.

***

"Voq! Look out! There's a giant spider!" Tix yelled, grinning as he gave a mighty kick to a leaf that was slowly falling to the ground.

"Thanks, Tix!" Voq said, grinning as he threw a rock at a target that had been painted onto a tree for use in archery practise.

The boys giggled as they played, oblivious to the tiger that was stalking them.

The tiger was a large and powerful one that had just had the misfortune of being kicked out of his territory by an even larger, more powerful tiger. As a result, he was forced to hunt closer to the centaurs than usual. But it seemed that it wasn't exactly a misfortune for him; after all, his new hunting ground was already bearing fruit.

Like a coiled spring, the tiger pounced on the unaware centaurs, scarcely making a sound.

He caught the quivering young centaur in his claws, and scratched at his rump. Tix looked on in horror as he saw his brother's haunches begin to bleed beneath the monstrous creature's grasp.

Tix, pale at the sight of blood, bolted as quickly as he could, in the direction of his home. He could hear Voq screaming and stamping as the tiger clawed at him, but as he got further away these sounds faded.

Fortunately, their mother, Brynn Nersha, had been performing a ritual not far away, and she heard Voq's cries for help.

She galloped towards the tiger, and gave it a decisive kick in the head. It hissed at her, baring its fangs. She held onto her totem - an orc's tooth on a leather cord around her neck - and focused on communicating with the tiger, telling it to leave them alone.

The pair stared one another down for a good long while, until the tiger begrudgingly made its way off. Nersha immediately applied a healing salve to her unfortunate son's bloodied body, and lifted his quivering, sobbing equine body onto her back.

"Shh, Voq. You're going to be alright."

And so the mother carried her child into the tribe land, taking him to a soft pile of moss and leaves that served as a sort of sylvan infirmary. Immediately, the entire tribe was abuzz with centaurs wanting to help their matriarch's son.

And from the edge of the concerned crowd, Tix was watching it, left only with the memory of his brother being savaged by a vicious beast and, worse still, of how his cowardice prevented him from helping.

Juliet and Sophie

Trying to expand on Juliet some more, give her some more backstory, etc.

I refer to her having Obfuscate 3 in this story; rest assured, this is not something she has now, but just one of the many abilities that she had once but has since been lost in her torpor. She doesn't even remember that she once had the ability to obfuscate.

Stats @ http://750words.com/entries/share/413277
------
Juliet had had a productive couple of years.

It was the late 1800s, and she was enjoying herself immensely. Things were finally looking up for her. She had learned from a Mehket friend one of their most closely guarded secrets; the secret of making yourself invisible, a silent witness to the events that unfolded around you.

Juliet's girlfriend of the time was a perfect subject for her suriveillance, too; her name was Sophie, and she was a werewolf, as had become the norm for Juliet. Werewolves were out of control and tended to kill things that they loved. As long as Juliet avoided the werewolf's claws, she could be a witness of the aftermath of this destruction - and with her newfound ability, that was a piece of cake.

Sophie had five children and a husband - a husband she wasn't in love with, of course, but a husband who made a suitable father for the children and who was able to provide for them. Sophie had never dreamt of love, just of stability. But with both Juliet and her husband, she had both.

Of course, her husband had begun to suspect. How could he not, with Sophie spending nearly every night off with either Juliet or her pack. And Juliet, for her part, had done nothing to lesson his suspicions, even sometimes planting items of men's clothing around the house for the husband to find and fret about.

This night, as Juliet stood silently in a corner, completely invisible, she watched the final confrontation.

It started out as an argument; an argument that got more and more heated as time wore on. Juliet could see Sophie struggle to maintain control of herself, trying to suppress her rage.

But Sophie was a Rahu, and that was not in the nature of these beasts. When her husband accused her of being involved with one of her packmates, it was the last straw. This small, mild-mannered woman all of a sudden became a giant, furry killing machine. She roared at her husband, and, with a quick swipe of her monstrous paw struck three clean gashes into his chest.

The look of horror and disgust on the man's face before the life left his eyes made Juliet's heart leap as she felt, for one fleeting moment, the strength of his grief and confusion.

Sophie roared again, and that gargantuan head began tearing at the man's flesh, and swallowing it, crunching the bones as though they were nothing.

Juliet went up the stairs, and ceased her appearance of invisibility; one by one, she went to each of the children and with the power of her majestic charisma, convinced them to go into the lounge room.

Five children came running down the stairs; children who had no idea what was about to happen. When they entered the room, the beast saw them, attracted to the movement, and dispatched with them, too.

Eventually, Sophie recovered from the rage, but it was too late. She sat there, in the middle of the piles of flesh and the pools of blood, sobbing.

Juliet made her entrance here.

"Sophie? What's happened?" She asked, her face contorted into a very convincing mask of concern.

Sophie said nothing, as Juliet sat beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Don't worry, honey. These things happen." She said, smiling despite herself.

~~~

Ten days later, under the light of the full moon, Sophie and Juliet stood, hand in hand.

Sophie was not over her actions by any stretch of the imagination. But she had become determined, under Juliet's schooling, to go to a place where the pain would leave her, where she could be in peace.

And so, the pair of them made a toast to the full moon, Sophie muttering a prayer in first tongue, as they drank the poison together.

Sophie fell asleep for one final time.

Juliet, as a vampire, was unaffected by the poison. She watched Sophie die with a smile.

The grief that they'd shared, the grief that Juliet had caused, it made her feel something that she felt so rarely these days.

It made her feel alive.

~~~

Juliet, today, remembers only the werewolf killing her own children, and the suicide that resulted.

She does not even remember Sophie's name.

She is no even certain whether or not she embraced Sophie. Can a werewolf be embraced?

Perhaps Sophie is out there, somewhere, and has found out exactly how much of a hand Juliet had in the events of that fateful night.

Perhaps Sophie is a powerful vampire seeking her revenge.

Or perhaps Sophie just died by her own hand, and that was that.

Juliet's Origin Story

Story for my character in Luke's upcoming campaign.

Stats @ http://750words.com/entries/share/409816
-----
Juliet's memory was fuzzy. It always had been, as far as she could tell; her life was a highlights reel of moments of grief, sadness, and emotional torment, and, honestly, that's the way she liked it.

She knew her name wasn't always Juliet - well, perhaps it was, but she had no way of knowing one way or another and it didn't matter. Someone must have compared her to the Shakespearean Juliet in a Via Dolorosa or something, and the name stuck.

She always wore a bracelet with the word "Juliet" written on it in what were now antique pewter beads, so she could remember it was her name when she awoke.

She wasn't even entirely sure how old she was; that is to say, what century she was born in. She remembered putting corsets on. She remembered having servants help her with all the dressing, but only because it embarrassed her when her body started developing.

Her human life was, too, barely remembered. How much of it she had figured out from sparse notes she left with her torpid body versus how much was actually there in her mind she couldn't really say. But she did have a few vivid memories.

She remembered a strong feeling of love. Oh, how she pined for the memory of that feeling; tiny and fleeting though it was, the memory was all she had. The vampire psyche, over time, almost completely loses the capacity to feel emotions, yet her memories can bring those shadows to the forefront of her mind and make her happy again.

But what she remembered with perhaps even more vigor was the sadness. The feelings of loss and hopelessness. Because, after all, love is very rarely found without such feelings.

So Juliet knew that she was a very well-off child during her life. She had described her family, the architecture, the little memories that she would sometimes hold onto after torpor. People had told her everything; mostly, they seemed to converge on eastern Europe.

She died when she was about nineteen; perhaps she was older and looked young for her age, though. Equally, she may have been only fourteen and matured quickly.

Unlike most vampires, her embrace was not the cause of her death; rather, the death was the cause of her embrace.

Back to the love. The young woman that she had fallen for. She couldn't remember anything about her lover - not her name, her face, the way she looked. She wasn't sure whether their love was doomed solely because of their genders, or if she was from the lower classes, or even - like in the great story she named herself after - from a rival family.

She remembered the torment, though. The anguish that their parents, their families would never approve of their love. That sort of feeling is all-encompassing; she could think of nothing else for as long as she lived. Their visits were few and hurried; their letters were frequent and mournful.

From the torture of their forbidden love, it became clear that they would be unable to achieve happiness in their lives. Their letters frequently spoke of suicide; of ending it all. And with each passing week, it looked more and more appealing.

And so, one day, Juliet sent a letter that proclaimed her undying love, and proposed a suicide pact. In those days, at least, they had access to all sorts of poisons.

On the pre-determined night, under the full moon, Juliet and her nameless love made a toast to the stars, said a prayer, and drank the poison. Her death was like falling asleep, and with it came a feeling of ecstasy she had not felt before or since.

Unfortunately, her death was interrupted by a pale man with wild, dark hair and dark eyes. Juliet awoke to him, gnawing away at her neck, drinking her blood - or perhaps putting blood into her?

Her memories of the next few nights were vivid - physical torture, something she had not felt before, but something that seemed to fit well with the mental anguish she had been put through the past few months. On several occasions she almost laughed from the glee of it all, the release that this pain gave her.

The pale man would leave her, tied up in the wildnerness, only able to scream impotently at the wilds. She wondered whether he hid behind a tree and listened to her, or if he had business to conduct elsewhere.

Perhaps he had also woken her lover, and had her imprisoned in the next valley.

But if he did, Juliet didn't remember. Not now.

Not after the fog of dozens of ages clouded all but her most cherished memories.

If the star-crossed lovers had been reunited, Juliet wasn't sure that the memories of such a reunion would have made the cut.

December Challenge, Day 1

It's sort of a diary entry so I'm not posting the content here, sorry!

Stats if you want to see, though:

http://750words.com/entries/share/407721

Madge Takes the Nuzlocke Challenge!

I'm taking the Nuzlocke Challenge on Pokemon Leaf Green, just because I can.

This is going to be a list of my pokemans and when I catch them/how awesome they are. Completely unrelated to the rest of the blog, but like anyone except Bublefoot reads this anyhow.

Rules:

• Any Pokémon that faints is considered dead, and must be released.
• The player may only catch the first Pokémon encountered in each area, and none else. If the first Pokémon encountered faints or flees, there are no second chances.
• All pokemon must be nicknamed
  

YES: THIS IS HARD CORE POKEMANS.

Pallet Town - Barry, SASSY CHARMANDER, Level 5
Route 1 - Matt, CAREFUL PIDGEY, Level 3
Route 22 - Cindy, HASTY RATTATA, Level 3
Route 2 - Jess, SASSY RATTATA, Level 3
Viridian Forest - Kate, GENTLE CATERPIE, Level 3-Level 21

~Defeated BROCK: All pokemon level 15 (they have some killer rock weaknesses, I wanted to be sure I'd stomp him.)~

Route 3 - Sharon, DOCILE SPEAROW, Level 7-Level 24
Mt Moon - Lisa, GEODUDE, Level 7-9

~Remove Jess from team; add Lisa: Lisa gets fainted in Mt Moon by a zubat! Blast! Guess Jess is back...~

Route 4 - Anne, SPEAROW, Level 10
Route 24 - John, CATERPIE, Level 7 (-_____-);; Could've got a bellsprout or an abra but NOOOO.
Route 25 - Wendy, WEEDLE, Level 8
Route 5 - GLORIA, BOLD Meowth, Level 14-Level 22

~ Go Gloria! I love Persian, so she may be a permie; remove Jess, add Gloria, fingers crossed Gloria does better than Lisa ~

Route 6 - , MEOWTH, Level 16
VERMILION CITY - Max. MAGIKARP, Level 5 (when I get EXP SHARE he's going to be OFF.THE.HOOK)
Route 11 - Faye, SPEAROW, Level 17
DIGLETT'S CAVE - Fainted a DIGLETT :(

~ Kate was fainted by a Magnemite in Lt Surge's gym at level 21 :(~
~ Beat Lt Surge- Gloria L21, barry L23, Cindy L22, Sharon L22, Matt L22, Jess L18 (HM Slave)~

ROCK TUNNEL - Amanda, BOLD MANKEY, Level 16-Level 22 (killed by a clefairy T___T)

~ Gloria OHKO by Rival's Kadabra, Lavender Tower ;-; - and I'd used my Water Pulse TM on her, too x_x ~

Route 8 - Vulpix roared at me :(

~ Sharon fainted by a Koffing's poison ~

Route 7 - Stacy, RELAXED BELLSPROUT, Level 19-22

CELADON CITY: Sabrina, IMPISH Eevee, Level 25 - turns out Eevee can't evolve into esp/umb in FR/LG so straight to the PC she goes.

LAVENDER TOWER: Greg, CALM Gastly, Level 16

~ Stacy OHKO by Koffing selfdestruct @ L22~

Route 16 - Chris, Doduo

Rewrite of Judith backstory.

This is the incremental rewriting of the Judith backstory in the previous comment. Keeping it uploaded (though half-finished) so Jason can have another look at it and see how much less it sucks now =P.

Ryan was sitting at the table of a small cafe in Fremantle, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate - one of his vices that he still enjoyed partaking in on occasion, despite the effort it took to drink it. He had an arrangement with the owners, and so was sitting in his own, private room along with James, one of his closest allies in the Carthians and Judith's current Seneschal.

James' position meant he was almost always in the Invictus headquarters, organising things for Judith so that they would all go the way she planned it. He was there with Ryan, ready to help report to a group of ragtag misfits - two vampires, a werewolf and even a rather cunning human. James was not so keen on holding onto his humanity, despite his much more recent death, and so had a glass of blood. At his foot was a medium sized dog.

After most of the business was taken care of - reporting the facts about the underground headquarters, its security, and all the rest of it - Ryan decided to give a history lesson. He cleared his throat, ready to tell the tale. He was speaking into a new iPhone.

"I think you would all agree it is important to know your enemies. Well, I think I can help you with that; I've had the, shall we say, fortune to have been there when Judith took control of Perth. I'm not messing around with you here; all of this is true, and it's not a story I have told in full for a very long time. But you could be some valuable new allies for us, considering all the damage you have done. Especially because our goals are the same, after all: we want to see a President, not a Prince."

He paused to take a sip of his hot chocolate.

"Now, you must first understand that life was very different in the 1950's - yes, that's when Judith got into power. She has been Prince for 60 years - no mean feat, and I will admit she deserves it.

You have probably observed that modern vampires seem to all live in a big commune together. That wasn't the way it was back then.

In the 50s, I was still living in a mansion in the hills; the one I had 'died' in ten years before, the one that my enigmatic will had declared must remain unoccupied until fifty years after my death. They thought I was an eccentric famous person, you see; but the money I had set aside to pay all the government fees was more then enough, and so it was.

My home has been torn down since then, of course, but it was very nice, let me assure you. Large, with all the windows boarded up tight and, for extra security, a bed with a lid, like a coffin. I kept an entourage of men to feed on, and the local people all kept away, convinced the place was haunted.

This was the way most vampires lived - we each had a Haven, over which we were lord. Town meetings were held in the Cathedral at midnight on the first Wednesday of each month, and mass was held three times a night every Sunday. Attendance to the town meetings was optional; attendance to at least one mass per week was not.

The Carthians numbered very few back then - there were only two of us, and we would meet in secret, dreaming of the revolution that we knew would not come for a long time. Outwardly, we were Invictus; there was no point in creating a division between us and the other marginalised covenant.

Perth was ruled by the Sanctum. Kaamil was the Archbishop - that's what they call their Princes; I would blame them for it, but we Carthians prefer President, so who are we to judge."

Ryan chuckles to himself, but continues.

"There were about thirty Sanctum members, and about ten Invictus, including me and my comerade. Additionally, there were maybe thirty unaligned Nosferatu.

The nature of Nosferatu is much like that of rats - and I mean no disrespect to either creature; they swarm, creating more of themselves, and enjoy living in labyrinthine sewer tunnels. The Nosferatu spent much of their time digging new tunnels, creating a sewer of sorts below the museum. They lacked ambition, too; they were content to live in their catacombs, hiding from the world, though I do not doubt that they could have seized power if only they were smart enough.

The Sanctum was always having members flocked to them; many neonates would go there, enjoying the familiarity of the church services and the promise of salvation for even we damned. Empty promises, I'm sure - the kind the Sanctum is always offering. The Sanctum did not need to resort to fear and blackmail to keep members back then. Even a few of the Nosferatu joined them - something that is almost unheard of for those sewer-dwellers."

Ryan thought about the next place his tale would turn to, trying to formulate the narrative in his mind, not wanting to miss any detail that this band of a few misfits might benefit from.

So, you can see that we had a nice, stable existence back in those days. The Nosferatu and Sanctum mostly ignored each other, save for the precious few Nosferatu who joined them; I speak specifically of Michela, who is now Cardinal. Yes; she, too, that foolish beast who tries so hard to live as a human, she once delighted in digging her own sewer tunnels.

Then, one day, I was taking a bath at home when I heard a knock on the door. I ignored it, but they continued, making a great deal of noise and ruining the relaxing atmosphere.

I had one of my ghouls go to send the person away, or, if they would not leave, to take them so that I may have a snack."

He smiled a wicked smile at the thought, and continued speaking into the phone.

"Yes, so no sooner had I sent the ghoul to the door when I heard the footsteps of a running person going up my stairs.

I immediately had my ghouls extinguish the candles that I had put at a safe distance - what is a relaxing bath without candle light, after all? But you can never be too careful, and even the humble candle can be a deadly weapon to a vampire.

Standing in the doorway was a lively little waif of a girl with blonde hair and ice blue eyes. Dawn is her name; I don't know if you have met her, but she is still around. She was, and still is, a member of the Invictus. She is also Gabe's sister, and it is easy to see the resemblance - though I had not met Gabe yet.

Dawn was a friend; we were both of the Daeva clan, which gave us something in common.

But, remember, I just just been surprised by Dawn's intrusion on my private time. I sat up in the bath. She looked at me mildly, excitement written all over her face.

'Ryan! You won't believe the news - Gabe is here.'
'Gabe? Your brother? I thought he was living in Melbourne?'
'He was, but one of his allies decided that she could push into Perth with no trouble - he has come with a group that want to wage war on the Sanctum so that they can put forward their Prince!'

This got my attention - a new Prince? Dawn's brother? Perhaps they could be convinced to come to the Carthian side one day - Dawn was always more progressive than I thought was appropriate for a member of the Invictus.

'Do you really think they have the resources for it?'

Dawn's expression betrayed her uncertainty.

'I don't know. I'm not sure how strong the others are. Gabe is powerful, though, and I am sure their leader could hold her own against Kaamil in a fight.'

I hesitated.

'How many are there?'

'Well, they are all very powerful - maybe a little less so than Michela or Maria, but still powerful.' She started, but I had to interrupt. I have never been one for bullshit and hyperbole, and this response reeked of both.

'How many?'

She frowned. 'Six or seven.'

'That's not so bad. We could work with that. Maria is an Invictus, after all, so she will almost certainly side with Gabe's crew.' I paused. 'Gabe's crew are Invictus, are they not?'

Dawn nodded. 'Of course.'

'Well, then; I suppose we are going to go to war.' I said, itching at the chance to push the Sanctum out of our lives.

~~~~

Ryan paused for a few minutes, looking at James and taking another sip of his hot chocolate.

"I shan't go into any detail about what followed from that day.

Judith and her entourage had arrived in Perth, and they had designs on bringing Invictus to prominence. She brought with her some rather powerful vampires, such as Fiona, Gabe and Walter, and with the Nosferatu remaining neutral the two sides were almost evenly matched.

The battle continued for five years, and during that time Judith called herself the Prince concurrently with Kaamil calling himself the Archbishop. They both declared that they were in charge of Perth, when in reality they just lead their covenants.

Eventually, it became clear that the Invictus were victorious; the Sanctum were reduced now to less than half a dozen members. Worse, still, Faruq had left them for the Invictus - I didn't know why at the time, but now, of course, it's clear that he did it for love.

Kaamil realised that his position was hopeless. I remember that a weekly meeting was called so both sides of the conflict could formalise their agreement. They selected the museum's function room as the site of the official announcement.

All the vampires in Perth - save, of course, for the Nosferatu - attended. I sat at a table with Dawn, Faruq and Gabe and my fellow Carthian. We had tall glasses of blood and were almost cheering in glee as we watched Kaamil, sitting on a long table with Judith, Fiona, and Walter. It was easy to tell that he did not want to be there at all.

'What a stubborn old bastard.' Dawn muttered, following my gaze. 'Sorry Faruq.' She added quickly, looking at Kaamil's brother. Faruq, for his part, just shrugged, still staring at Gabe.
I laughed, and said, 'I know what you mean. Any Prince with half a heart would not act the way Kaamil did. How many Sanctified are left?'
'Four or five.' My fellow Carthian spoke up. 'It is foolish, even for the Sanctum. He should have rescinded years ago, when it became obvious that he had no hope of winning.'
Dawn looked about to say something, but a hush fell over the room as Judith got up to the podium to speak, Fiona standing right beside her.

When you see Judith - if you see Judith, that is - you will notice, first of all, that she is tall. It is undeniable from looking at her that she is one of the Kindred; she looks eerie, with her skin almost white and her hair, eyes, and even lips a haunting black. You can see ruthlessness in those eyes, in those strong features of hers.

She was wearing a long, dark green dress with black gloves that ran up to her elbows. Her companion, Fiona - who you've seen, was wearing a revealing dark shirt and a short skirt that went to just above her knee. Fiona was holding a gun, protecting her Prince.

Judith spoke, her voice projecting to fill the entire room.
'Vampires, I am pleased to be before you here today. I wish only to say that I am committed to ensuring that the Masquerade continues. I have no rules on who you may feed, beyond the obvious: no feeding on supernatural creatures, and that no trace must be left of you. Enjoy the blood.'

We all clapped respectfully, as Judith and Fiona sat back down. Kaamil got up, carrying several sheets of paper. Dawn groaned.

Kaamil cleared his throat noisily, and spoke like a scared schoolboy who had been asked to be first to present his assignment to the class.
'My fellow Kindred. I have had the - the fortune of getting to meet each and every one of you during my time as Archbishop, and I am pleased to have had that opportunity. Today I step down from my position, and I do so with a smile on my face and with joy in my heart, for I know the Lord has a plan for me that involves Judith, our lovely new prince.

'Rest assured that I will remain the Bishop - the spiritual leader of the Lancea Sanctum. We are a strong covenant with blessed ideals, and so, too is the Invictus. Working together we can bring Kindred society together, and become stronger as a people.

'I ask that everyone reflect on those who had to die so that this evening could come to pass; those of you who have lost a friend, a childe, a sire, remember that they did not die in vain but in glory, as those who were Sanctified were doing the Lord's work. Those who were not... well, I'm sure the Lord will forgive them.

'I now ask that we all take a moment to pray, to be grateful for what God has given us, the opportunities, the rewards, and even the hardships, that we may all be here today to share in his blessing.'

Kaamil paused for a few minutes, muttering a prayer; most of us talked quietly amongst ourselves as he did so. I looked over at Judith's table and saw her and hers talking amongst themselves, as well. Nobody but Kaamil and Michela seemed to care about his bullshit speech and prayer.

Kaamil was in a desperate situation, and it's clear why he and Michela were reduced to siring new childer, and, worse still, using blackmail to get new members.

But I have spoken enough about Kaamil; you know him well enough by now. He is somewhat pathetic; I hope he will do everybody a favour and go into torpor for a century or two, and wake up when nobody remembers what an insufferable fool he was.

I want to talk about what happened to the Nosferatu.

~~~

If they had had their way, the Nosferatu would have ignored the change in Princehood just as they ignored every other major event that had ever occurred amongst the Kindred in Perth.

However, Judith needed them. She needed a haven, and she had a very clear idea about what it would be. She wanted security and obscurity - she did not want to live in an abandoned house, or to pose as a human, like many of us did. She wanted something permanent, and she had her eyes on those Nosferatu tunnels.

She sent one of her people down into the labyrinth to broker the deal. To this day, nobody is sure what the terms were. Of course, we all knew that blood had to be involved, and probably some sort of freedom to continue to live as they did. Or maybe Judith just threatened to kill them if they did not comply. Perhaps she had all the Nosferatu blood-bonded to her vampires, to do their bidding.

In any case, the Nosferatu began digging around the clock, with the help of dayjuice. Dayjuice is, of course, a special blood-based drink that allows a vampire to stay awake whilst the sun is up. The Nosferatu tunnels being underground meant that they had no reason not to take advantage of this commodity and dig 24 hours a day.

And dig they did. If you walked near the museum, you could hear the ground beneath you being moved around. Under the cover of darkness truckloads of earth were carted out.

We all knew that the Nosferatu were digging an underground area that all the vampires in Perth - every last one of us - could live in, together. We could keep a group herd, and all have the protection of the Sheriff and Hounds. We were all looking forward to it - we liked the idea. As a Carthian, I was impressed by the foresight of this plan, and the unity that a common living area would give to us.

But I was going to be disappointed.

After about a year of non-stop digging, the base was finally finished.

The Nosferatu finally had a day that they could sleep through, a day that they didn't partake in any of that cursed dayjuice.

Judith sent a few dozen human ghouls down that day - she said it was to inspect the work and to paint, and put in furniture and carpets. This was a lie. She sent them down not with paint, but with flamethrowers. In less than an hour, those hard-working Nosferatu who had spent so many long days and nights digging for her, all of them were burned to ash.

There were very few survivors, save for the ones who had left their Nosferatu colleagues behind long before - such as Michela, the Sheriff, who had become more loyal to the Sanctum than the unaligned Nosferatu. Misguided woman still passes herself off as human - and as the Police Commissioner, no less!

But I digress.

I received word that we were all welcome to move our Havens into the new quarters; we would each be given a room or rooms appropriate to our status.

I remember walking down those stairs for the first time. The first thing that struck me was the smell, a smell I haven't experienced before or since. The half-drying paint fumes mixed in with the pungent ash, the unmistakable smell of a vampire that had burned.

I felt my shoes on the soft, fire-retardant carpet; it must have been expensive. I dialled the combination of the padlock on the door - in those days, you see, we didn't have keypads yet, but the padlock was sturdy. I opened the door, and with the rush of those smells - those awful smells, all the more potent now - I thought I could hear them groaning in half-felt pain. I shivered involuntarily for the first and only time since my death, the images of burning vampire bodies choking my mind.

All that paint and plush, fire-retardant carpet reminds my body what it feels like to need to vomit. Sure, those digusting creatures didn't have much - anything - in the way of a respectable culture, but it was a culture nonetheless, and now there is no trace of it.

That's why we Carthians don't like to make our Havens down there - we mourn the nosferatu who were lost.

None of us ever expected to be mourning nosferatu.

Story of how Judith came to power

This is a story I imagine Ryan telling. I'll probably clean it up/fix it up a bit and then give it to my players.

I think I had better tell you the story of what has happened to the vampires over the last one hundred years or so; more specifically, how Judith managed to get into power. It might help you with whatever it is your plan is going to be. After all, our end goal is the same; getting us Carthians into the position Judith now is in.

In the 50s, Perth's vampire community was a bit different to the way it is now. We lived primarily in our own individual Havens, with a few sires keeping their childer with them for a dozen years or so until they found their place in the vampire heirachy. We Carthians were even fewer in number then - in fact, there were only two or three of us, and we called ourselves Invictus because it was easier to pretend to be a part of a larger covenant, and hold our rare meetings in secret.

The Prince was not a Prince but an Archbishop, and his name was Kaamil, and I'm sure you can gather that it means the Lancea Sanctum was in power. And they had a lot of it. There were about thirty of them. It was a different world back then; new childer now rarely get swayed by the Sanctum, but many people in that time saw it as a way to continue to experience their fragile humanity in some form. It helped them make sense of their curse, with all the promises that their god made of salvation and redemption.

Back then, there were more Nosferatu. Dozens. Now there are only two or three left, as I'm sure the more astute of you may have realized.

Nosferatu are a strange species, they prefer the company of their own kind and make their lives underground, either using old sewer systems or making their own winding, filthy tunnels. The Nosferatu actually created the area under the museum that the majority of the vampire population now lives in. They are patient and have nothing to do with their time but sire childer and dig tunnels.

Then Judith came in - I think it was from Melbourne though it may have been Sydney. One of the big cities, at any rate. She brought with her an entourage of about a dozen of her most loyal and strong vampires. Being an Invictus, us precious few Carthians saw her as being preferable to the Sanctum, and happily sided with her in the battle against the Sanctum. Her loyal vampires included Fiona, Gabe and Walter amongst their most powerful.

The Archbishop and his Inquisitors tried to hold us back, but ultimately we reigned victorious. He affably stepped down from power when he saw there was no way he would win, but the stubborn old man did so after a great many of his people were dead. They were so low in numbers that they had to resort to siring new childer so they would not go extinct or be doomed to obscurity like the Ordo Dracul.

Judith needed a Haven, suiting her status of course, and so she and hers approached the Nosferatu. You can't live in a hotel forever, after all!

In exchange for a steady supply of human blood, amongst other things, Judith convinced them to carve out the hallways and rooms the Invictus now live in. You must understand the Nosferatu enjoy living in irregular tunnels, but most everyone else likes the order and cleanness of a square room. So Judith made them dig those more or less perfectly shaped rooms and halls. I'm not sure what she promised them, but, as you'll see, they never got a chance to find out.

After a year of drinking dayjuice and the resulting continuous digging, the Nosferatu had completed their task. So they all took a day of well-earned rest, going into the daily sleep that they had missed out on for a solid year.

During that day, while they were helpless, Judith sent a contingent of her loyal ghouls in with flamethrowers.

There were very few survivors, save for the ones who had left their Nosferatu colleagues behind long before - such as Michela, the Sheriff, who had become more loyal to the Sanctum than the unaligned Nosferatu. Misguided woman still passes herself off as human - and as the Police Commissioner, no less!

But I digress.

I received word that we were all welcome to move our Havens into the new quarters; we would each be given a room or rooms appropriate to our status.

I remember walking down those stairs for the first time. The first thing that struck me was the smell, a smell I haven't experienced before or since. The half-drying paint fumes mixed in with the pungent ash, the unmistakable smell of a vampire that had burned.

I felt my shoes on the soft, fire-retardant carpet; it must have been expensive. I dialled the combination of the padlock on the door - in those days, you see, we didn't have keypads yet, but the padlock was sturdy. I opened the door, and with the rush of those smells - those awful smells, all the more potent now - I thought I could hear them groaning in half-felt pain. I shivered involuntarily for the first and only time since my death, the images of burning vampire bodies choking my mind.

All that paint and plush, fire-retardant carpet reminds my body what it feels like to need to vomit. Sure, those digusting creatures didn't have much - anything - in the way of a respectable culture, but it was a culture nonetheless, and now there is no trace of it.

That's why we Carthians don't like to make our Havens down there - we mourn the nosferatu who were lost.

None of us ever expected to be mourning nosferatu.

Stats page http://750words.com/entries/share/365500

Gabe backstory - Gabe's discovery

And so, with Gabe's current situation - questing endlessly to find his lover's murderer - in mind, we can go back to his human life, over a hundred years ago, when he found his sister's new, and altogether mysterious, aversion to the daytime.

For several months their lives continued as normal - as normal as the unwitting brother of a vampire could be, anyway. Gabe had not seen Dawn at all during the day ever since she arrived late all those weeks ago, but she would come in shortly after sunrise and he would go home shortly afterwards.

Dawn was still a wonderful serving maid, talking to her clients and making them laugh at all the right times. She seemed to have gotten even better at it, lately, when Gabe thought about all the extra gifts that the men she worked with were giving her. And, still, that mysterious stranger - Nigel, that was his name - that mysterious Nigel would often come and see Dawn.

And now Gabe noticed that Dawn wasn't eating or drinking anything, either. This was a girl who used to delight in stealing teacakes and sandwiches from the kitchen at every opportunity; a girl who would sit down and share a beer with Gabe - despite how unbecoming of a lady alcohol was, Dawn still used to sneak beers whenever she could. And now she seemed to have sworn off of all the things she used to enjoy. It had to be Nigel!

And so, one evening when Nigel left before Dawn, Gabe was lying in wait outside and followed him. He wanted to see where he went afterwards, and Dawn must have been staying there, because she had stopped sleeping in her bed at home.

Gabe followed for a long time until Nigel reached a small cottage on the other side of town. Odd that Nigel would have walked this far to go to a tavern, when en route there were several others. Nigel entered the house and Gabe stayed outside, waiting in the shadows.

The house itself was old, yet charming. It had a well-kept garden and the door and walls were in very good condition - no holes or cracks anywhere. He also saw the house had window shutters, but he didn't really notice this or think it had any significance. He would know later what it meant.

Nigel remained in the house for a long time - Gabe was now annoyed by the window shutters, since they were all locked it meant he couldn't peek inside. And he was curious as to what Nigel was doing, alone in his house, with no lamp or even candle lit. There was also no smoke coming out of the chimney, he realised, despite the bitterly cold nights of the British winter.

Eventually Nigel left again, closing the door carefully behind him. Gabe sat there, hiding in the shadows, and followed him to his next destination; the more, well, decrepit part of town where the town's lowlifes lived. The beggars, the thieves, even some of the servants. Nigel walked through there with the confidence of a man who has nothing with him worth stealing. Gabe grabbed his pocket knife, keeping it ready.

As Gabe watched, Nigel stood in the middle of the street, clearly waiting for something. A short, skinny woman appeared, dressed in rags with skin so pockmarked she looked as though she had gone through a windmill along with the grain.

With an apparent disregard for the possibility of anyone watching them, Nigel brought the woman close to him, and buried his face in her neck. Gabe squirmed a little, made uncomfortable by a gentleman such as Nigel going so far as to embrace this urchin. The woman, for her part, moaned in ecstasy, sounding for all the world like a harlot except in that her moan, in all its exuberance, seemed to be genuine. Gabe looked on, baffled, and sneaked closer, trying to get a better look.

Then the realization came upon him like a shock - this man was drinking the degenerate woman's blood, wasn't he?

"Vampire."

Gabe murmured to himself, barely audible, for he had heard in the folklore that vampires had a supernatural sense of hearing. They could turn into bats and wolves, too, and he didn't know much about bats but he knew wolves were dangerous and had wicked senses. This knowledge carried with it a terrible weight, despite everything it explained about Nigel - why there was no fire or even candle flame in his house; why they had not once, not ever, seen him during the day, and why, most of all, Dawn's behavior had become so odd of late.

He shuddered, the fateful thought that his sister had to be a supernatural creature of some sort beginning to consume him. She was his best friend, and yet she hadn't told him. He wondered if that had been by choice, or if she wasn't allowed to.

Then he realised something that made his blood run cold - his sister was dead, and there was no way that the Almighty would allow such an awful creature into Heaven.

What a terrible thought - that she would die one day, and her death would be final, with no hereafter!

Story stats etc: http://750words.com/entries/share/357401

Continuing Sail's story

This is part of my Neopet, Sail's, life story, or something. I felt it needed to be added to for the first time in over a year, so why not do it on 750words?

TAG: Neopets

And so Sail headed out to sea under the guidance of the little blue weewoo that had sung to her each morning.

It was not easy going, with only a ramshackle raft and a poorly constructed paddle. But really, what did you expect from a creature with four legs?

She paddled along, the weewoo sitting on her shoulder for most of the journey, occasionally flying out a little way to ensure that Sail was staying on course. It soon became dark, and Sail had not managed to make much progress at all.

She put the paddle down for a few minutes, to rest; she looked up at the sky, and noticed it was beginning to fill with clouds. The fur on her back stood up as she worried about what she was going to do if there was a storm. Her raft wasn't equipped for it, that's for sure.

She managed to get some sleep that night, despite her rumbling stomach conspiring to keep her awake. It got cold, but she and the little Weewoo huddled together trying to stay warm.

Then, all of a sudden, Sail was woken up by a noise that is familiar to any sailor, and a noise that any sailor knows to dread. Thunder.

She got up immediately, grabbing her paddle in her mouth, and began furiously attempting to move the raft away from the storm. She wished now more than ever that she'd decided to rip her shirt up and make a sail out of it to attach to the raft; but she was too happy at finishing the raft to think of that. Stupid!

The weewoo chirped, clearly worried; it stayed sitting on Sail's shoulder, not wanting to fly out in the cold, in the wind. At least it wasn't raining, yet.

Sail paddled for what seemed like hours; the water became choppy, with huge waves coming up and drenching her, soaking her fur and shirt right through. The smell of salt water filled her world, and she wondered for a moment whether she should just lay down, give up, let the ocean take her.

But she wasn't about to let that happen. She redoubled her efforts and paddled even harder, hoping to get out of this awful mess. Fortunately, her weewoo companion had taken to the sky and stayed there, watching Sail, avoiding the oceans and managing to remain dry.

Sail looked up at her friend, smiling for a moment, thinking that perhaps everything would be okay. And then a wave came; a wave far larger than the others. This wave was final. This wave capsized the raft, and sent Sail into the cold, dark water.

~~~

Sail awoke some time later - maybe hours, maybe days; there was no way to be sure. She woke to the caress of cool water on her wet, ragged face.

She got up, looking at the land around her; she'd washed up on the beach, on a land far larger than the small island she was marooned on. She breathed a sigh of relief; surely this place would have other neopets on it, or, at the very least, food!

She staggered onto her tired paws, and began to walk along the beach. She could smell in the distance a familiar scent; that of a fish that had been washed up on the shore. She broke out into a run, and found her prize. It was a small fish, but a welcome meal to a lupe that hadn't eaten in who knows how long.

As she ate, she heard a familiar trilling. She looked up and saw the weewoo from before, flying around in circles above her, chirping merrily. Sail grinned, relieved her friend had survived the journey as well.

So, where do we go next? Is there a city nearby?

Sail asked the petpet. Again, it chirped happily and zipped off. Sail, energised from the meal, laughed and ran after it.

~~~

The journey to the town was a long one, but a plesant one. There was lots of countryside for Sail to run through, lots of snowbunnies and the like for her to snack on (no more half-rotted fish! hurray!). She knew that if she got to a city with a port, she'd be able to get herself onto a ship, and, maybe, somehow join another pirate crew.

They arrived in brightvale together, Sail and the weewoo. Sail had decided to name the weewoo Amy - after a pteri who had been on her old ship - and Amy seemed to approve of the name, happily sitting on Sail's shoulder and surveying the hustle and bustle of neopets at the market.

Sail was looked around, wanting to find a safe corner to spend the night in. Then, all of a sudden, she heard a voice that sounded familiar somehow, but a voice she did not recall ever hearing before.

Hey! You, with the bandanna!

The voice cried. A kindly-looking blumaroo walked up to her, a big grin on his face.

You wouldn't happen to have been abandoned on a pirate ship when you were a pup, were you?

Sail was confused.

Why do you ask?

She asked, guardedly. The blumaroo laughed again, and held out his paw for Sail to shake.

Well, kid, my name's Will. And if you were abandoned on a pirate ship as a pup, well, I know where your parents live!

http://750words.com/entries/share/353373

Faruq, Gabe Descriptions; Gabe musing about Faruq's murder

Well, I suppose before I get more into the past of Gabe and of Faruq I'd better explain who they are and why you should care.

Gabe and Faruq are two vampires who lived in Perth for an undisclosed period of time until the present. Well, Faruq didn't quite manage to get to the present; he was ambushed and killed by vampire hunters in early 2010. Gabe and Faruq were lovers, and so they were very close and rather devoted to one another.

Gabe is a tall slender man, with pale skin, blue eyes and long, white hair. He does not look wiry, despite being thin; it's all lithe muscle. He moves with an astonishing strength and dexterity that is only appropriate for a supernatural being. In his long life, Gabe has seen a great many things and done a great many things, not all of them good. He has an easy-going nature and revels in sarcasm. He's wily and intelligent, preferring to use his brains over his brawn, but he's as good a shot as anybody. He just knows the right time to shoot and the right time to ask questions.

Following the death of Faruq, he became a lot more cynical, particularly because Judith - the leader of the vampires and his 'boss' - blamed Faruq not only for his own death, but for the death of Fiona who he was charged with protecting. Knowing Judith would not authorize the vendetta Gabe so sorely wanted to pursue in an attempt to kill the vampire hunters responsible for Faruq's death, Gabe went off on his own and started seeking out any vampire hunters he could find. There were no surviving witnesses to Faruq and Fiona's massacre, so Gabe was going to do it the old fashioned way - by killing everyone who it could have possibly been and calling it a day.

The death of his loved one of course caused his psychopathic streak to reassert itself. This was an asset of his when used in interrogation - though he tended to play good cop to Faruq's bad cop, but it was not being well-supervised here. It was untamed and wild as he was cruel to his victims, but in his mind, at least, they deserved it.

~~~~

It goes without saying that Faruq was one of Gabe's great allies. Faruq, himself, was rather short - five foot seven or so, dwarfed a little by Gabe's six foot frame. But you would never know he was that short by looking at him - he was stocky and well-built, rippling with muscle and power. When he punched someone down, they stayed down.

Physically, Faruq had dark skin (though not black), dark eyes, and dark hair that was styled in dreadlocks. He wore simple clothes - dark t-shirts with tribal designs on them, jeans with chains coming off of them, sometimes spiked collars and wrist cuffs. He looked like a thug, and he owned it, even playing it up a little.

He was dumb, but had street smarts. He knew from watching his brother - who held a high position in Vampire society - as well as from watching other Princes and Archbishops, that being the leader was more work than it was worth. It made you a target for assassination. It put you in danger from being usurped by your own people. What was the point, when you could live a perfectly serviceable life by being the hired muscle of the leader? It kept you relatively safe, after all, and gave you control of the guns.

~~~

Unfortunately, Faruq didn't benefit from this; he was killed by four young, wiley vampire hunters and had no way of knowing about it. At least, that's what Gabe kept telling himself. Gabe knew, of course, that there are security measures a vampire can take against having their car set alight - dousing it in water periodically, for example - but they had no way of anticipating that an attack would come.

Now Gabe was on guard, of course. He wouldn't make the mistake - yes, he had to admit, Faruq had made a mistake, even if he couldn't anticipate it. He wouldn't allow himself to be killed. He needed to find Faruq's murderer and avenge the death, regardless of the risk he'd be taking.

Gabe knew a few things: firstly, the murderer was probably not a vampire, as it takes a very strong vampire to keep his cool in the presence of a bonfire like the one that killed Faruq. No vampire would willingly go near such a thing; the risk would be too great. However, it had to be someone with connections to the vampires; who else would know where Faruq was going to be enough to lie in wait?

He also knew that it probably was not someone sympathetic to the Sanctum or the Invictus because of how they were aligned. This left the Carthians. And the Carthians, hiding away in their stupid little graveyard, they had their fingers everywhere in the human world.

That's what the Carthians were - stupid, misguided vampires that thought they were still human. Idiots!

see stats at http://750words.com/entries/share/350817

Gabe/Faruq backstories, part 1 - Gabe and Dawn

Gabe and Faruq had met a long time ago, and were together for a very long time. They needed to be, I guess - they needed each other. But let me first go back in time, and tell you how they came to be:

Gabe was a simple man from the 1850s. He worked at a family-owned tavern with his parents and sister. They both worked in the front of the bar, so they had a lot in common; greeting the patrons, getting them their usual orders, and the more dull duties such as cleaning. His sister was named Dawn - maybe not originally, over the past 150 years these sorts of things became harder to keep track of - but Dawn was what he'd called her for quite some time, and so it is what we call her today.

Dawn was a friendly young girl - blonde hair, blue eyes, friendly smile. Gabe had always had white hair - who knows how it came about, but before his death he was never really clean enough for all that hair to be white, anyway. Gabe and Dawn always got along well; they had to when they worked together so closely.

Then, one day, they had an unusual regular begin showing up. He arrived a few hours after sunset, and sat there, looking at the other patrons, until he saw one he apparently liked and struck up a conversation. Then they went away together, apparently for a walk, though nobody could really be sure. The man never ate or drank anything, though he was always buying drinks for others.

After a week of this, Gabe and Dawn had come to know him as a regular, though not on a personal level. When he came into the tavern, he was quickly handed a newspaper and gave them a shilling for their trouble.

Dawn seemed drawn to this man - he was good looking, and Gabe knew it, too. Gabe and Dawn spent much of their time together, discussing the men they saw, which ones were cute and all the rest of it. Dawn always thought it was just her brother being entertaining, being a friend, chatting with her; but he was really interested in the men as much as he was the women. After all, couldn't one appreciate beauty in a man's features as well as a woman's?

And so, Dawn kept talking to this man every time she got an opportunity, and reporting back to Gabe what they discussed. The man kept on coming to the tavern and leaving with different people each night. When Gabe asked these companions of his, they said the man was just lonely, wanted someone to go for a walk with, have a chat with. None of them said he did anything untoward or indeed anything sexual. This last part was a bit disappointing for Gabe, who had been known to have the odd fling with patrons - male and female alike.

As the weeks wore on, Dawn got more and more tight-lipped about what the man was saying to her. Gabe knew better than to ask; if she wanted to keep something a secret, she would have a good reason. These siblings kept very few secrets from one another. And so, on the night that Dawn left work early, left with the mysterious man whose name they didn't even know, Gabe let her do it. He knew she wasn't stupid. He knew she wouldn't do anything rash or dangerous; it wasn't the sort of person she was.

The next morning, she didn't show up for work. Gabe was worried, and asked around town if anyone had seen her. Nobody had; it was Gabe, and the now still mysterious - but a bit less strange - stranger that had seen her last. He didn't know what the man could have done to her, didn't want to think about it; but the stranger had seemed harmless enough. Hadn't he?

Then that evening, just after sunset, Dawn arrived at the tavern for work as if nothing had happened. She smiled at Gabe:
"Hi, brother. Sorry I'm late."
"You're not just late, Dawn! It's been hours. You were meant to be here for lunch..."
"I know." She shrugged and smiled a carefree smile. "But I couldn't make it. In fact, I'm not sure I will ever be able to come in for a lunch shift again. You'll be able to take care of it, won't you?"
He gave her a suspicious look.
"Dawn - what's happened? Are you okay? Is everything alright?"
Dawn nodded.
"Yes. Everything's fine. I just... I just would prefer to work nights now."

Gabe gave her another suspicious look. He knew she still had a secret, but he would find out what it was soon enough.

If you're that way inclined, for story stats, check out http://750words.com/entries/stats/348855