Molly Toombs
A thing that has always held true about Molly Toombs-- once she was set on a path, she was difficult to deter or distract from it. The last several weeks had been plagued with a restless mind and uncomfortable sweats, cravings, pangs for something she'd tasted once and her mind and body told her she simply needed to have again.
Memories of a savage rooftop blood exchange. Night terrors that were easily confused with insane visions of a World Ending Something that lived below the ground. Uncomfortable recollections of how hard she had to resist lapping blood from the broken, disfigured, terrible body that she'd dragged to safety and tucked away from the world.
The reappearance of the Reflection Beast was a blessing on her poor mind and soul, really. Mirror worlds and alternate dimensions were less daunting than the demons she'd been fighting with in the dog days of this year's summer, and she was pleased to focus on them instead.
Even without the internet, the Blue Room bar was not difficult to learn about. White Pages were still a thing, after all. It would be a few days after the exchange in the St. Luke's locker room, but one evening as the sun was kissing its last pink-orange streaks of farewell to the sky over the Westward mountains, Molly pushed open the door to the Blue Room and walked inside.
The benefit of a place like this was it wasn't difficult to look like you belonged there, no matter your style, so long as you fit within a certain age group that Molly just so happened to fall comfortably someplace in the middle of. She dressed herself in snug dark jeans and flat black shoes, along with a nicely cut peach-colored blouse that left freckled shoulders bare in the heat that still lingered in a Denver September.
Go to the bartender. Ask for cards.
This is how whoever was tending the bar would find Miss Molly settling onto a stool at the bar and smiling politely, waiting for the opportunity to (one would assume) order a drink.
slaughter and mayhem
The Blue Room is barely open, just a whisper of color on the horizon, just a suggestion of brightness; well. The Blue Room is barely open. They card, and the bouncer is a big thick man, shaved head, dark skin, who looks as if he's setting in for a long night. There are tattoos crawling down his neck under his shirt and he does have a sense of palpable menace, albeit a sheathed sense. People that big just happen to seem menacing, no matter what they're doing.
The Blue Room is barely open, right? Which means that inside there isn't a lot of competition for the bartender's attention. There are two die-hard fans of tonight's show hanging out near the stage, sipping on oldfashioned drinks pulled out of one of those nostalgic cocktail cookbooks that are hitting the stands in more and more numbers. The ambiance is low-light, old Hollywood seedy, glamour unthreaded and dethroned, and it's an intimate little space. The stage is intimate, too: impossible for whoever's playing tonight to escape. The waiter, because there is a waiter -- they serve a few snacks, finger-foods, a dollar menu on Thursdays when they harken back to the Depression and Denver's Dry as Dry Can Be Speakeasy days, and a dollar menu on Wednesdays when they just serve cheap beer and let it flow flow flow so there are Wednesday nachos -- is chatting up a scrawny white boy and a hispanic woman who are doing soundchecks. The music playing is decent, but mellow.
Because it's early yet.
The bartender is a guy around Molly's age with blue hair and sleeve tattoos of Monet's water lilies, except lurking beneath the water lilies are fantastical shapes: monsters, Chthulhu-esque. He leaves off checking his phone when Molly appears, approaches her with a smile pressed out of some glossy magazine ad, and asks her - "What'll you have?"
Molly Toombs
"You would make a great start to my night if you could bring me a ginger whiskey." Molly made this request for a drink with a well-practiced smile to mirror his own. Molly's smile was no glossy magazine thing, but had learned to be smaller, shaped subtle and coy on her mouth and face. Much of it went into the eyes and corners of her lips, instead of being a bright dazzling show of teeth that others got away with.
Remember, Molly's charisma skills were growing and honing themselves in a world that felt like a constant game of chess, except the wrong move was death because every piece was a pawn and you were always the goddamn pawn.
When the man with tattoos and blue hair came back, Molly would graciously accept the drink and pay immediately instead of opening a tab. Rather than taking a sip first, she glanced down and fussed idly over setting the glass on its napkin (or coaster, or whatever) just so neatly and centered while keeping him there with her leading question.
"So, I've been told that I could come to this place and ask the man behind the counter for cards. Would you be the right Man Behind The Counter for that?" When she glanced up to the man and his gaze again, she did so with a lift to her eyebrows that signified significance-- certainly, she wasn't referring to a deck of playing cards or a matchbook that would substitute a business card, was she?
slaughter and mayhem
He braces himself on the counter while she keeps him there, seeming more than content to have the pretty redhead take his attention off of the whole lot of nothing he also has to do. A few more people begin to filter in, but it's as smoke: just a trickle that, when it spreads out, is gauze, is transparent, is not enough to denote a crowd, not yet. Early nights.
His eyes are blue, not the blue of the Reflection's, but a robin's egg blue, an Easter chocolate blue, and he looks quizzical and then as understanding dawns -- rueful, perhaps. It's a complicated expression.
"I would not be, but if you hang around for another half hour, the person you want will be right along. You want," he lifts his fingers, wiggles them, "magic, right?"
The casual nonchalance (it would seem, anyway) of the nonbeliever. Faint, the half-smile, not a glossy paged dazzle thing now.
Molly Toombs
The finger-wriggle when the man spoke of magic, and the way that his mouth formed around the very word, told Molly immediately what he was already explaining-- he was not the man for the cards. He didn't put any faith in them, whatever they actually were. But Molly did recognize that the half-smile was more genuine than the glossy magazine page one that he'd offered when he'd initially walked up. Less of a presentation, more human and real.
He wasn't a believer, but he didn't seem to be actively patronizing her either, and that much Molly could certainly respect. So she smiled-- this time a little broader but no less coy-- and lifted the hand whose fingers weren't dedicated to the cool sides of her glass to wriggle them right back.
"The magic," she confirmed with that finger-wriggle, "of having the answers."
This was followed by a sip of her drink, and she appeared satisfied with what she tasted when she set the glass back down. "I've got no problem with a bit of a wait. The drinks are pretty good."
slaughter and mayhem
"I make them myself," he says, with the kind of tongue-in-cheek not-quite-smirk that almost segues into deliberate blandness. "Hold that thought," added, because that trickle of people into the Blue Room have all eddied around the bar, and they want spirits to imbibe. He provides.
The crowd becomes a crowd fairly quickly once a party arrives, a pub crawl sort of deal with somebody giving what seems to be a tourist's guide schtick, albeit a low key one; the people in the tour guide's (?) wake start to explore. The people doing soundcheck and messing with the instruments disappear and the music takes on a more experimental edge, a fusion of hip-hop of folk-electronica- weird stuff.
Before the bartender can circle back to Molly, somebody else has joined Molly, or at least seems to want to. They came in with the tour guide's crowd, a slightly off-kilter man with an aquiline nose that gives him the look of a hawk and long-lashed eyes, a face that seems smooth, almost mask-like in its etched stoicism. There are rings on his fingers and his eyes seem bruised, almost, with sleeplessness or shadows. He's not handome, but he has a certain presence.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he asks, because why not start with the tried and true? He doesn't smile as he says it, but asks the question rather gravely.
Molly Toombs
[Intelligence 3 + Occult 4]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
A thing that has always held true about Molly Toombs-- once she was set on a path, she was difficult to deter or distract from it. The last several weeks had been plagued with a restless mind and uncomfortable sweats, cravings, pangs for something she'd tasted once and her mind and body told her she simply needed to have again.
Memories of a savage rooftop blood exchange. Night terrors that were easily confused with insane visions of a World Ending Something that lived below the ground. Uncomfortable recollections of how hard she had to resist lapping blood from the broken, disfigured, terrible body that she'd dragged to safety and tucked away from the world.
The reappearance of the Reflection Beast was a blessing on her poor mind and soul, really. Mirror worlds and alternate dimensions were less daunting than the demons she'd been fighting with in the dog days of this year's summer, and she was pleased to focus on them instead.
Even without the internet, the Blue Room bar was not difficult to learn about. White Pages were still a thing, after all. It would be a few days after the exchange in the St. Luke's locker room, but one evening as the sun was kissing its last pink-orange streaks of farewell to the sky over the Westward mountains, Molly pushed open the door to the Blue Room and walked inside.
The benefit of a place like this was it wasn't difficult to look like you belonged there, no matter your style, so long as you fit within a certain age group that Molly just so happened to fall comfortably someplace in the middle of. She dressed herself in snug dark jeans and flat black shoes, along with a nicely cut peach-colored blouse that left freckled shoulders bare in the heat that still lingered in a Denver September.
Go to the bartender. Ask for cards.
This is how whoever was tending the bar would find Miss Molly settling onto a stool at the bar and smiling politely, waiting for the opportunity to (one would assume) order a drink.
slaughter and mayhem
The Blue Room is barely open, just a whisper of color on the horizon, just a suggestion of brightness; well. The Blue Room is barely open. They card, and the bouncer is a big thick man, shaved head, dark skin, who looks as if he's setting in for a long night. There are tattoos crawling down his neck under his shirt and he does have a sense of palpable menace, albeit a sheathed sense. People that big just happen to seem menacing, no matter what they're doing.
The Blue Room is barely open, right? Which means that inside there isn't a lot of competition for the bartender's attention. There are two die-hard fans of tonight's show hanging out near the stage, sipping on oldfashioned drinks pulled out of one of those nostalgic cocktail cookbooks that are hitting the stands in more and more numbers. The ambiance is low-light, old Hollywood seedy, glamour unthreaded and dethroned, and it's an intimate little space. The stage is intimate, too: impossible for whoever's playing tonight to escape. The waiter, because there is a waiter -- they serve a few snacks, finger-foods, a dollar menu on Thursdays when they harken back to the Depression and Denver's Dry as Dry Can Be Speakeasy days, and a dollar menu on Wednesdays when they just serve cheap beer and let it flow flow flow so there are Wednesday nachos -- is chatting up a scrawny white boy and a hispanic woman who are doing soundchecks. The music playing is decent, but mellow.
Because it's early yet.
The bartender is a guy around Molly's age with blue hair and sleeve tattoos of Monet's water lilies, except lurking beneath the water lilies are fantastical shapes: monsters, Chthulhu-esque. He leaves off checking his phone when Molly appears, approaches her with a smile pressed out of some glossy magazine ad, and asks her - "What'll you have?"
Molly Toombs
"You would make a great start to my night if you could bring me a ginger whiskey." Molly made this request for a drink with a well-practiced smile to mirror his own. Molly's smile was no glossy magazine thing, but had learned to be smaller, shaped subtle and coy on her mouth and face. Much of it went into the eyes and corners of her lips, instead of being a bright dazzling show of teeth that others got away with.
Remember, Molly's charisma skills were growing and honing themselves in a world that felt like a constant game of chess, except the wrong move was death because every piece was a pawn and you were always the goddamn pawn.
When the man with tattoos and blue hair came back, Molly would graciously accept the drink and pay immediately instead of opening a tab. Rather than taking a sip first, she glanced down and fussed idly over setting the glass on its napkin (or coaster, or whatever) just so neatly and centered while keeping him there with her leading question.
"So, I've been told that I could come to this place and ask the man behind the counter for cards. Would you be the right Man Behind The Counter for that?" When she glanced up to the man and his gaze again, she did so with a lift to her eyebrows that signified significance-- certainly, she wasn't referring to a deck of playing cards or a matchbook that would substitute a business card, was she?
slaughter and mayhem
He braces himself on the counter while she keeps him there, seeming more than content to have the pretty redhead take his attention off of the whole lot of nothing he also has to do. A few more people begin to filter in, but it's as smoke: just a trickle that, when it spreads out, is gauze, is transparent, is not enough to denote a crowd, not yet. Early nights.
His eyes are blue, not the blue of the Reflection's, but a robin's egg blue, an Easter chocolate blue, and he looks quizzical and then as understanding dawns -- rueful, perhaps. It's a complicated expression.
"I would not be, but if you hang around for another half hour, the person you want will be right along. You want," he lifts his fingers, wiggles them, "magic, right?"
The casual nonchalance (it would seem, anyway) of the nonbeliever. Faint, the half-smile, not a glossy paged dazzle thing now.
Molly Toombs
The finger-wriggle when the man spoke of magic, and the way that his mouth formed around the very word, told Molly immediately what he was already explaining-- he was not the man for the cards. He didn't put any faith in them, whatever they actually were. But Molly did recognize that the half-smile was more genuine than the glossy magazine page one that he'd offered when he'd initially walked up. Less of a presentation, more human and real.
He wasn't a believer, but he didn't seem to be actively patronizing her either, and that much Molly could certainly respect. So she smiled-- this time a little broader but no less coy-- and lifted the hand whose fingers weren't dedicated to the cool sides of her glass to wriggle them right back.
"The magic," she confirmed with that finger-wriggle, "of having the answers."
This was followed by a sip of her drink, and she appeared satisfied with what she tasted when she set the glass back down. "I've got no problem with a bit of a wait. The drinks are pretty good."
slaughter and mayhem
"I make them myself," he says, with the kind of tongue-in-cheek not-quite-smirk that almost segues into deliberate blandness. "Hold that thought," added, because that trickle of people into the Blue Room have all eddied around the bar, and they want spirits to imbibe. He provides.
The crowd becomes a crowd fairly quickly once a party arrives, a pub crawl sort of deal with somebody giving what seems to be a tourist's guide schtick, albeit a low key one; the people in the tour guide's (?) wake start to explore. The people doing soundcheck and messing with the instruments disappear and the music takes on a more experimental edge, a fusion of hip-hop of folk-electronica- weird stuff.
Before the bartender can circle back to Molly, somebody else has joined Molly, or at least seems to want to. They came in with the tour guide's crowd, a slightly off-kilter man with an aquiline nose that gives him the look of a hawk and long-lashed eyes, a face that seems smooth, almost mask-like in its etched stoicism. There are rings on his fingers and his eyes seem bruised, almost, with sleeplessness or shadows. He's not handome, but he has a certain presence.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he asks, because why not start with the tried and true? He doesn't smile as he says it, but asks the question rather gravely.
Molly Toombs
[Intelligence 3 + Occult 4]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly is a noticing sort of Molly, and her noticing is backed with certain knowledge, so deeply has she delved into the occult. Her area of interest is -- what is her area of interest? Things that go bump in the night: a specialty, a specialization. The man has a band around his wrist; it does not tell her or hint at any thud bump creepsome night-dark creatures or monsters or stories, but she does recognize coming across it in her studies. The band is red and on it written in darker red (almost black, but who's to know for certain in bar lighting?) a Hebrew character. The fifth sephira in the Tree of Life: גבורה. Severity.
The essence of judgment and limitation; the divine fire, and awe there-of.
MollyHuman as any other, save for what she now knew (and an awful lingering craving, supernaturally-laced dreams etched in her mind to haunt her sleep), Molly was a woman of a few vices. She liked her drink-- specifically when she was out at bars. It was easier to motivate yourself to mind the number of drinks you have if you were paying $8 (or somewhere thereabouts) for each one. Molly hadn't quite finished her first drink, but had certainly already figured that it would be precisely that -- a first drink-- when a man found the seat next to her and brought with him an air of doom.
Molly glanced to the side at the man and his storm cloud, and her eyebrows rose in surprise and something else flavored like skepticism when he asked her if he could buy her a drink in the same tone he would probably use if offering someone on death row a cigarette.
A cursory glance over the figure was all Molly needed to gather at least one detail that she could remember, that called to the particular sort of attention that she had for the unreal and disbelieved. She looked only just long enough for the Hebrew to translate to English and for that to translate into the next conclusive thought, then turned her eyes to the glass she'd previously been nursing and tipped it to check how much was left -- a swallow, if that.
"From the sound of it, the better idea is to take you up on your offer; I may need it to hear whatever message you're here to share." Molly brought her glass to her lips, drank what remained, and slid her empty glass forward on the bar to indicate its status to the bartender.
slaughter and mayhemMorris: Perc + Alert. Does he notice Molly noticing his bling?
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhem[Test test!]
slaughter and mayhem'Amused' isn't quite the word. He isn't 'amused' by or at Molly, but her answer puts him in a good humour. The good humour acts as the premonition of dawn: a suggestion of leavening, before day comes to break the night over its knee and cast away its chilly daemons. The traces of this good humour are subtle. His face doesn't change or his air of reserved companionability become warmer, but there is a thaw.
He rests one hand on the bartop, and raises a finger to summon the bartender. "Another for the lady, on my tab," he says, when the bartender has come, obeying the scrape of Molly's glass or the man's finger. Then he leans on his elbow on the bartop, as if someone once told him that doing so detracts from his height and makes him seem safer, and he has got in the habit of it but doesn't really understand the principle.
The amusement is more evident in his controlled, politic voice, "What is necessity to you? That is, what is necessary, what is," here he seems very conscious that this is deep-end of the pool bar conversation, strange, so he echoes her own words back at her almost apologetically (if one can do so without being apologetic), "a need to you? That you must hear, that strangers approach with."
MollyWhen the bartender came by and Molly's new 'companion' placed a drink on his tab, she changed her beverage of choice to a gin and lime. Smiled to the bartender, just as before, and turned her attention more fully to the nameless man with features and a disposition to match the word on his wrist charm. He had leaned down against his elbow, eased up on his height some in doing so, but was no less intense.
Thawed? She sensed that, certainly-- a crack in the ice was worth knowing, just in the same way that it always behooved a soul to know the ground on which they stood in general.
Molly didn't flash pearly whites in a show of charm, wasn't going to try and win the man over. She had a feeling that he was probably firmly grounded in whatever cause he had chosen for himself already. Instead, Molly's face stayed conversationally neutral. Serious without being severe-- curiosity being the strongest accent to her tones. When she answered, the words came with little hesitation.
"Knowledge, and understanding." It went without saying that she didn't mean 'understanding' in any diplomatic or peace-making sense. The girl was a Loreseeker, an Occultist, a woman with a taste for the unknown and a thirst to make them known-- to herself, not to the world, they certainly couldn't handle it if she barely could.
"Safety should fall in a close third," she added, and flashed only a small grin when she did.
slaughter and mayhem"Hmm." The sound thrums deep in his chest. "I approach, you consider I offer you knowledge, understanding, and safety; and for this you might need a drink. Hah." He says hah rather than actually laughs, and it crackles with whisky energy, although his voice stays deliberate, even quiet. "How unusual. Do you know what this means?" He touches his finger to the band around his wrist, twisting it slightly so that she can better see the Hebrew lettering.
Molly"Oh I highly doubt that you're offering me anything remotely close to safety or understanding." Molly said this sincerely, but didn't sound like she was holding the fact against the man. She didn't imitate his pose exactly, but Molly did have her body turned inward to face him, and did mutually rest one arm on the counter. Her head didn't rest on a hand supported by an elbow, though. She rested the length of her forearm on the counter's edge and tapped short fingernails muted and quiet and seldom on the surface instead.
"But knowledge gets gleaned from just the fact that you walked up-- some, not much. Anything you've got to say just adds to that." Blue eyes didn't hesitate to make contact with his, or to study the set of his brow or cant of his mouth when he was talking. They did hop away when he indicated the wrist band, found the lettering and confirmed what she was already pretty sure of.
"It's the fifth sephirot. Severity." She paused, glanced upward for a moment and made a face like she was going through a mental library of well-studied books and vocabulary lists. "Gevurah."
The hand that was on the counter turned over, palm up, in a loose representation of a shrug or surrendering an effort. "I only know what it says, though. I'm not sure what that means entirely... for you, at least."
slaughter and mayhemMorris: Perception + Empathy, Diff: 8. Following this, Molly's Awareness will jangle, unless it is a failure or a botch.
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Perception 3 + Awareness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhemHis expression stays implaccable, stays calm, and his is not a mobile face: his eyes do not brighten, or sharpen, or intensify, but he does look at Molly in a studious fashion. He does not quite pay lip service to playing at being caught by something about her, but how else is someone to read the close look if not as interest? He must be interested. Molly can feel a certain ache in the marrow of her, familiar if still not exactly common, as the creature flexes a vampiric discipline. The sense of it is familiar now, something Abraham has done, Lux too, and even back and before that strange Finchbird. Did they ever explain what it is they were doing? That they were doing anything? It feels active -- a flexing.
"Self-knowledge?" he says, testingly, and perhaps she is reminded of Harald for a moment. He would turn the question in a similar fashion, were they having one of their not-dates. "That you are pretty, so men walk up. Knowledge-of-me? That I am the sort of man who asks women with hair like Set," he is referring to the Egyptian god, Set, Seth, who was said to be redhaired, "and asks to buy them juniper."
"To me, it is a reminder, and it has been a sort of - " His gaze lifts from her, to the bartender, to another pair of people at the bar, then return. "Passcode, you could say. Password. Knock knock." He raps his knuckles on the bar; the sound they make is deliberate rather than sharp.
MollyThere's a moment there before the gin arrives where the air around her stilled. It was within the same moment that Morris had reached and flexed to better read and understand the curvaceous anomaly that was Molly Toombs. She recognized the pull, the ache, that came along with it. It felt like a drop in pressure, but also like a drop into a coffin with something not-yet-dead taking up space alongside you.
Vampire.
In an instant, she knew, and the way that her pupils tightened and how her eyebrows raised first in surprise, but then stayed out of suspicion and distrust (precisely what that show of power had told him, that she didn't trust him or the situation and she was cautious and worried of it) made it clear to him that she knew. He knew, she knew. There was a definite understanding, and the crack in the ice that was previously mentioned took shape when the perspective of the lake's crust it resided upon was revealed.
Molly thanked the bartender when he'd arrived with her drink and wrapped the glass up in her palm. It was lifted halfway through the journey to her face when pause was given just enough to inquire: "A passcode for entry to what?" The rim of the glass did a nice job of covering mouth and distorting what expression it may make while she waited for her answer, peering at him over the beverage and sipping slowly.
slaughter and mayhem"My good graces," he says, and his voice is stirred with that good humour that has exists but has yet to bring a smile to his face. An opacity, our Morris. "Hah. No, I make a poor joke. A passcode for entry to a, what you would call, a brotherhood."
"You have noticed something about me," he says, baldly. "Would you tell me what it is aloud?"
MollyEarlier Molly had explained that she would walk away from this conversation having learned something, carrying some bit of knowledge. This wasn't because she thought it was a low-hanging fruit, though at times it seemed that information was being handed to her on a suspiciously silver platter. She had a keen eye for it, and an ear for it as well. Like a skilled scavenger as opposed to an amateur beggar.
It showed in the sharp cast to her eye when her thought about the term 'passcode' was corrected. No, no, it was no 'Open Sesame', but rather a verification into a brotherhood of some kind. Like a secret handshake instead of a key.
When called out on what she noticed, the woman didn't seem particularly surprised, but was still a little reluctant in answering immediately. She concluded her long sip of gin and set the glass on the counter, but did not relinquish her hand from the cool glass it cradled. There was no conspiratorial glance about to see if anybody was watching them, but Molly did lean forward some and duck her head a bit to make the conversation more sheltered, if only by body language and acoustics. Her voice was reasonably low for whatever din around them existed.
"You're a vampire."
The way she stated it was obvious. Not terrified, not disbelieving, not quaking in her boots. She spoke the term with familiarity that couldn't be denied. Like vampires were a regular column in the newspaper she read every morning.
"So I can only imagine what kind of shade you've come to cast over my evening."
The essence of judgment and limitation; the divine fire, and awe there-of.
MollyHuman as any other, save for what she now knew (and an awful lingering craving, supernaturally-laced dreams etched in her mind to haunt her sleep), Molly was a woman of a few vices. She liked her drink-- specifically when she was out at bars. It was easier to motivate yourself to mind the number of drinks you have if you were paying $8 (or somewhere thereabouts) for each one. Molly hadn't quite finished her first drink, but had certainly already figured that it would be precisely that -- a first drink-- when a man found the seat next to her and brought with him an air of doom.
Molly glanced to the side at the man and his storm cloud, and her eyebrows rose in surprise and something else flavored like skepticism when he asked her if he could buy her a drink in the same tone he would probably use if offering someone on death row a cigarette.
A cursory glance over the figure was all Molly needed to gather at least one detail that she could remember, that called to the particular sort of attention that she had for the unreal and disbelieved. She looked only just long enough for the Hebrew to translate to English and for that to translate into the next conclusive thought, then turned her eyes to the glass she'd previously been nursing and tipped it to check how much was left -- a swallow, if that.
"From the sound of it, the better idea is to take you up on your offer; I may need it to hear whatever message you're here to share." Molly brought her glass to her lips, drank what remained, and slid her empty glass forward on the bar to indicate its status to the bartender.
slaughter and mayhemMorris: Perc + Alert. Does he notice Molly noticing his bling?
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhem[Test test!]
slaughter and mayhem'Amused' isn't quite the word. He isn't 'amused' by or at Molly, but her answer puts him in a good humour. The good humour acts as the premonition of dawn: a suggestion of leavening, before day comes to break the night over its knee and cast away its chilly daemons. The traces of this good humour are subtle. His face doesn't change or his air of reserved companionability become warmer, but there is a thaw.
He rests one hand on the bartop, and raises a finger to summon the bartender. "Another for the lady, on my tab," he says, when the bartender has come, obeying the scrape of Molly's glass or the man's finger. Then he leans on his elbow on the bartop, as if someone once told him that doing so detracts from his height and makes him seem safer, and he has got in the habit of it but doesn't really understand the principle.
The amusement is more evident in his controlled, politic voice, "What is necessity to you? That is, what is necessary, what is," here he seems very conscious that this is deep-end of the pool bar conversation, strange, so he echoes her own words back at her almost apologetically (if one can do so without being apologetic), "a need to you? That you must hear, that strangers approach with."
MollyWhen the bartender came by and Molly's new 'companion' placed a drink on his tab, she changed her beverage of choice to a gin and lime. Smiled to the bartender, just as before, and turned her attention more fully to the nameless man with features and a disposition to match the word on his wrist charm. He had leaned down against his elbow, eased up on his height some in doing so, but was no less intense.
Thawed? She sensed that, certainly-- a crack in the ice was worth knowing, just in the same way that it always behooved a soul to know the ground on which they stood in general.
Molly didn't flash pearly whites in a show of charm, wasn't going to try and win the man over. She had a feeling that he was probably firmly grounded in whatever cause he had chosen for himself already. Instead, Molly's face stayed conversationally neutral. Serious without being severe-- curiosity being the strongest accent to her tones. When she answered, the words came with little hesitation.
"Knowledge, and understanding." It went without saying that she didn't mean 'understanding' in any diplomatic or peace-making sense. The girl was a Loreseeker, an Occultist, a woman with a taste for the unknown and a thirst to make them known-- to herself, not to the world, they certainly couldn't handle it if she barely could.
"Safety should fall in a close third," she added, and flashed only a small grin when she did.
slaughter and mayhem"Hmm." The sound thrums deep in his chest. "I approach, you consider I offer you knowledge, understanding, and safety; and for this you might need a drink. Hah." He says hah rather than actually laughs, and it crackles with whisky energy, although his voice stays deliberate, even quiet. "How unusual. Do you know what this means?" He touches his finger to the band around his wrist, twisting it slightly so that she can better see the Hebrew lettering.
Molly"Oh I highly doubt that you're offering me anything remotely close to safety or understanding." Molly said this sincerely, but didn't sound like she was holding the fact against the man. She didn't imitate his pose exactly, but Molly did have her body turned inward to face him, and did mutually rest one arm on the counter. Her head didn't rest on a hand supported by an elbow, though. She rested the length of her forearm on the counter's edge and tapped short fingernails muted and quiet and seldom on the surface instead.
"But knowledge gets gleaned from just the fact that you walked up-- some, not much. Anything you've got to say just adds to that." Blue eyes didn't hesitate to make contact with his, or to study the set of his brow or cant of his mouth when he was talking. They did hop away when he indicated the wrist band, found the lettering and confirmed what she was already pretty sure of.
"It's the fifth sephirot. Severity." She paused, glanced upward for a moment and made a face like she was going through a mental library of well-studied books and vocabulary lists. "Gevurah."
The hand that was on the counter turned over, palm up, in a loose representation of a shrug or surrendering an effort. "I only know what it says, though. I'm not sure what that means entirely... for you, at least."
slaughter and mayhemMorris: Perception + Empathy, Diff: 8. Following this, Molly's Awareness will jangle, unless it is a failure or a botch.
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Perception 3 + Awareness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhemHis expression stays implaccable, stays calm, and his is not a mobile face: his eyes do not brighten, or sharpen, or intensify, but he does look at Molly in a studious fashion. He does not quite pay lip service to playing at being caught by something about her, but how else is someone to read the close look if not as interest? He must be interested. Molly can feel a certain ache in the marrow of her, familiar if still not exactly common, as the creature flexes a vampiric discipline. The sense of it is familiar now, something Abraham has done, Lux too, and even back and before that strange Finchbird. Did they ever explain what it is they were doing? That they were doing anything? It feels active -- a flexing.
"Self-knowledge?" he says, testingly, and perhaps she is reminded of Harald for a moment. He would turn the question in a similar fashion, were they having one of their not-dates. "That you are pretty, so men walk up. Knowledge-of-me? That I am the sort of man who asks women with hair like Set," he is referring to the Egyptian god, Set, Seth, who was said to be redhaired, "and asks to buy them juniper."
"To me, it is a reminder, and it has been a sort of - " His gaze lifts from her, to the bartender, to another pair of people at the bar, then return. "Passcode, you could say. Password. Knock knock." He raps his knuckles on the bar; the sound they make is deliberate rather than sharp.
MollyThere's a moment there before the gin arrives where the air around her stilled. It was within the same moment that Morris had reached and flexed to better read and understand the curvaceous anomaly that was Molly Toombs. She recognized the pull, the ache, that came along with it. It felt like a drop in pressure, but also like a drop into a coffin with something not-yet-dead taking up space alongside you.
Vampire.
In an instant, she knew, and the way that her pupils tightened and how her eyebrows raised first in surprise, but then stayed out of suspicion and distrust (precisely what that show of power had told him, that she didn't trust him or the situation and she was cautious and worried of it) made it clear to him that she knew. He knew, she knew. There was a definite understanding, and the crack in the ice that was previously mentioned took shape when the perspective of the lake's crust it resided upon was revealed.
Molly thanked the bartender when he'd arrived with her drink and wrapped the glass up in her palm. It was lifted halfway through the journey to her face when pause was given just enough to inquire: "A passcode for entry to what?" The rim of the glass did a nice job of covering mouth and distorting what expression it may make while she waited for her answer, peering at him over the beverage and sipping slowly.
slaughter and mayhem"My good graces," he says, and his voice is stirred with that good humour that has exists but has yet to bring a smile to his face. An opacity, our Morris. "Hah. No, I make a poor joke. A passcode for entry to a, what you would call, a brotherhood."
"You have noticed something about me," he says, baldly. "Would you tell me what it is aloud?"
MollyEarlier Molly had explained that she would walk away from this conversation having learned something, carrying some bit of knowledge. This wasn't because she thought it was a low-hanging fruit, though at times it seemed that information was being handed to her on a suspiciously silver platter. She had a keen eye for it, and an ear for it as well. Like a skilled scavenger as opposed to an amateur beggar.
It showed in the sharp cast to her eye when her thought about the term 'passcode' was corrected. No, no, it was no 'Open Sesame', but rather a verification into a brotherhood of some kind. Like a secret handshake instead of a key.
When called out on what she noticed, the woman didn't seem particularly surprised, but was still a little reluctant in answering immediately. She concluded her long sip of gin and set the glass on the counter, but did not relinquish her hand from the cool glass it cradled. There was no conspiratorial glance about to see if anybody was watching them, but Molly did lean forward some and duck her head a bit to make the conversation more sheltered, if only by body language and acoustics. Her voice was reasonably low for whatever din around them existed.
"You're a vampire."
The way she stated it was obvious. Not terrified, not disbelieving, not quaking in her boots. She spoke the term with familiarity that couldn't be denied. Like vampires were a regular column in the newspaper she read every morning.
"So I can only imagine what kind of shade you've come to cast over my evening."
slaughter and mayhemA bare flicker of a lash, as if he has been struck so forcibly by an idea that, though his expression does not precisely waver, he himself must be dislodged. Molly leans in enough to turn their conversation into a conspiracy, and still leaning as if to cut away his great height, he inclines his head toward hers, brown-as-honey strands of dirty blonde shifting across his placid brow, his fish-cold countenance even when there is a thaw or has been a thaw there must be cold for the premonition of thaw to exist.
"But what is a vampire?" he asks, at the last. His rests his gaze directly on her face. "To be throwing shade?" He does not ask these questions as if to deny what she has deduced. "That is like 'dissing' someone, no?"
"I must know what your thoughts are, for I know not what you are that you know this."
Molly[Perception 3 + Empathy 2)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhemMorris: I am an inscrutable enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a box that has a face drawn on it and gives no reading. Right?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Molly[Right.]
MollyThe questions seemed to have Molly caught. She looked at him carefully and saw nothing but the very same mask that had arrived to begin with. He was impossible to read, and Molly found that equal parts discomforting and frustrating. It was hard to know where things were going if she couldn't tell where they were coming from in the first place.
The hesitation was drawn out, made some uncommitted effort to cover her time spent thinking by taking another small drink from her gin. She nudged the glass away after the last sip, still mostly full, and hooked her elbow on the counter so she sat straightened back up.
"I'm just attentive. And waiting for somebody, actually."
Her eyes hopped back behind the bar, hunting for some new tender, like the arrival of another face behind the bar was what she was expecting, who she should ask about the cards. But it occurred to her that she was only told to wait for about half an hour. That the bartender was only specified because they would know who to point out, not necessarily because the person she was seeking there was a staff member themselves. So Molly looked back to the man cautiously and asked, sounding a lot like she expected to get a negative answer but was going out on a limb anyways: "I don't suppose it would mean anything to you if I asked you about cards?"
slaughter and mayhem"But I must insist you tell me more clearly," he says, blandly. "For the vampyr wants to be hiddden from 'just attentive,' is very dangerous."
He pauses, as if thinking over what she said to him. He straightens and turns his head as if he would look at the bartender, or behind the bar, but he does not remove his gaze quite from Molly, though his eyes leave her face to touch on the rest of her. One must ascertain whether one's barflies have wooden stakes under their clothes, eh?
"Oh. Yes, it would. You are here for the cards?" Barer pause. "I do not wish to speak of the cards; I wish to speak of your attention to detail."
MollyIt wouldn't take a lingering gaze to figure out that Molly probably wasn't hiding anything under her clothes (and if she was, she was defying laws of space). The evenings were still quite warm, and Molly wore no jackets or bulky clothing to hide a stake beneath. Her mouth did set into a bit more of a line when he warned her about dangerous 'vampyrs'.
All the same, she stayed at the bar with body language indicating that she wasn't growing antsy to leave.
"I am," she answered. "I'll explain myself, and hope that you'll tell me more about the cards in exchange." She paused just long enough to raise her eyebrows significantly at the man, then continued in a show of good faith. Diplomacy, right?
"I've got particular interests, and particular experiences. I've run into more than one like yourself before. I know what that is when the air hums disturbed-- recognize it now. So whatever it was that you did there," and she waved a finger loosely in the air in indication of his scan of her aura, "it betrayed you."
slaughter and mayhemThe vampire's eyes are brown, and his interest is active. But it is not revelatory. Molly said that knowledge might be gleaned from little facts, tiny choices: that he walked up, that it is night, and anything he has to say adds to that. And this may be true, but it is not easy. His eyes are brown, might if they were ever seen under direct light be a paler wood, but in the certain gloom of the bar are simply black mud, lent intensity by the cut of his cheekbones, the stillness of his mouth. He has a mouth that belongs on the statue of an emperor, an asymmetrical thing, one curve of the lip higher than the other. He could be old. He could be older than any she has yet met. He could be young. He could be almost fresh-made, though not so fresh-made he is slavering and barely in control of himself. He is all control, all unrevealing contemplation. Few extra gestures. A spare nod, though whether in agreement or because it is what the conversation requires, when Molly gives the vampire the ol' eyebrow raise.
"Hmm. Fascinating. Your particular interests, they are the pursuit of knowledge? You are wanting to know more about vampires? These others you have run into like myself, will you give me an example of one such run-in? I must judge," this, with an air of the explanatory which is somewhat awkward. He doesn't explain himself; it is rusty.
Molly"I want to know more about pretty much everything." Molly offered a small smile to the man whose expression would not break and would not tell. "Vampires aren't necessarily ranked higher or lower than anything else on that extensive list."*
The smile didn't quite fade, but did change to something that was apologetic on top, for show, but beneath that resolute. I must judge. Her eyes skipped toward his wrist when he'd said that, and she thought for a moment before meeting his gaze once more. She'd long since decided that the respect given and sometimes gleaned in tiny degrees back that came from meeting a vampire's eye far outweighed the cons that came with averting eyes blatently. Molly figured that seemed like a challenge to too many of the ill-dispositioned.
"I can't throw people under the bus, for a plethora of reasons." She'd learned better than to share secrets in her time navigating the supernatural underbelly of the city. "Let's not waste too much breath arguing it, mkay?"
[*Rolling Manip 3 + Subterfuge 3 for Molly's fib about how much she cares to learn about vampires]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Perc+ Empathy. How do you rank us, Miss Toombs? The Most Interesting Ever? The Least Interesting Ever?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Nice effort, mortal. But is it enough?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhem"I do not ask for names or, hm, telling descriptions then. But I must, I do wish to know how far into my society, ah, my society's secrets you have penetrated with your attentiveness to detail and your sixth sense. Is it this which has motivated you?"
He rests his elbow on the bartop again, this time resting also his chin on his thumb, curling his index finger over his mouth. The pose is a casual one, but there is nothing nonchalant about him, if there is also nothing obviously passionate.
"There are some who say conversation is a waste of breath. I am not one of these."
Molly"This, yeah. Ghosts, and the mages and their ways too. I suppose you could say I got on a path of realizing if so much I'd already been told was impossible was actually real, where was the limit on what else could be real?" She shrugged her shoulders dismissively, as though the origin of her nigh-suicidal interests and curiosity was as boring as explaining that you met your husband through a mutual friend (because doesn't everyone?).
She seemed to take a moment to consider his parameters that she need not reveal actual identities. While his was impossible to read, Molly's face seemed to openly mirror what his gathering so far had told him. She looked openly suspicious when she felt as such, didn't mask when she was taking time to think, and clearly interested when something caught her attention-- like realizing that he was the man with the cards, for instance. Sharp behind the eyes still, no doubt, there was nothing dim about her. She found a way to remain alive, after all.
"Hum. Well, here's one: I recognize that someone I'd been talking to for a few minutes didn't blink or breathe or have a pulse. They see what I've realized and let what they are be known, and I manage to convince them to let me walk away alive." It sounded idiotic, edited down the way it was, but that was the consequence of not leaving evidence of the person who betrayed the Masquerade in your story.
slaughter and mayhem"Astute!" Another blink. Astonished? Perhaps.
Here he does spare a brief look, rather than merely turning his face, for the bar and its bartender. It has not yet been half an hour, but the mark is approaching fast. The vampire knows nothing of Molly, waiting, though he has guesses based on what he does know: conjectures, wheels within wheels. He nods once, as if to himself. A point made, a solid point, a veritable touch in whatever mental game he plays behind that mask of his.
"Do you publish your findings? If no, why no?"
slaughter and mayhem[wth, chat. i posted a minute before i 'forgot' to log out. HOW DO YOU JUDGE?]
MollyThe shape that Molly's mouth took at first showed that she was about to answer him with a quick 'no', but paused when he followed up with a 'why'. Her lips pressed back together, and Molly contemplated the question for a moment. Reached out and helped herself to another small sip of gin while she did.
"I don't, because I don't think that people should know these things. Humanity as a whole entity wouldn't be able to continue like it has if it figured out how low in the food chain, in the scheme of it all, it really sits. I, as one person, can cope with and navigate what we've been blind to since the dark ages. Mankind?" She shook her head to punctuate and answer the hanging question she'd left both.
"Besides, what would I publish? The Real Truths? If I were to publish anything that isn't encrypted in a nest of common falsehoods and misinterpreted myths then I'd draw too much of the wrong attention and do myself in."
slaughter and mayhem[Do you believe what you are saying, or are you trying to con me?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhemHe preserves silence for a moment. The bartender does not come by to offer him a drink, and he didn't order one for himself as cover. His lashes are straight, do not curl upward, and he stares hard at the bartop.
"But you desire to know these things." A statement. He doesn't expect her to expand any further on that theme, as far as she can tell. Another thawing, bare, subtle; at least a movement in the glacier, his eyebrows lofting much as a golden retriever's might.
"Would you be desirous of meeting someone who is, ah, who would be very keen to speak with you about these matters? Is this of interest to you, this exchange of ideas?"
MollyIf Molly chose to play it as such, she could be a proper femme fatale with the va-voom and the bold red hair and the cool confidence that she kept about her like a shawl more often than not. But she always did prefer to be effective and direct-- it was a part of why a number of the nurses she also worked with hated her, while a few other veterans liked her best. There was no game in playing seductive to a vampire. She assumed that they'd all been around at least 50 years longer than she had right off the bat. They wouldn't be fooled by batting eyelashes and generous cleavage, anyways.
So Molly's approach to this Morris man -- though she had no name for him yet -- was nothing of that sort. She touched a finger to the condensation on the outside of her glass and wiped it away, off and between her fingers.
"It interests me very much. But in the name of self-preservation, I try not to make a habit of following nameless men into lairs to meet people who are 'very keen to speak with me'."
Straight-forward, blunt, but at least these days Molly remembered to at least try and smooth that over with a bit of a smile.
Molly[Intelligence 3 + Academics 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhemHis lips move, but it is not a smile; it is an impulse, and he follows it. A resettling of lips over teeth, and a steadying nod. "It is good you ask. This is your request for a name. I am Morris. Morris Quincey."
He offers her a palm. His hand seems strong, worn, well-creased; a workman's hands, which probably means he is an erudite professor -- or was.
MollyMorris's lips moved in a not-smile, and Molly's moved in a similar small motion. Her's was certainly a smile though-- recognition, understanding. Not unlike seeing where a joke was going before the punchline was stated.
The offered hand was answered in turn when she pressed her palm to his and clasped his hand for a small shake. Her skin was, of course, smooth and warm and her pulse throbbed like it ought to. Molly had never not been alive.
"Molly. It's nice meeting the only redeemable character from Bram Stoker's pages."
slaughter and mayhemHis hand is cold, but his skin does not feel waxy, does not feel dead; that would be too easy, wouldn't it? But vitae makes them over into a semblance of life, freshness, eternity. He is cold as ice cream, but he is not dead yet. He only dies each morning with the sun, and waits to rise again.
"Yes, that Quincey was very pleasant and useful besides. I have always been fond of cowboys. It is why I am here in Denver, all cowboys. Will we go meet my friend now, Miss Molly? We must go tonight, for I do not know I could find you again. Your feet might get cold?"
"But what is a vampire?" he asks, at the last. His rests his gaze directly on her face. "To be throwing shade?" He does not ask these questions as if to deny what she has deduced. "That is like 'dissing' someone, no?"
"I must know what your thoughts are, for I know not what you are that you know this."
Molly[Perception 3 + Empathy 2)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhemMorris: I am an inscrutable enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a box that has a face drawn on it and gives no reading. Right?
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Molly[Right.]
MollyThe questions seemed to have Molly caught. She looked at him carefully and saw nothing but the very same mask that had arrived to begin with. He was impossible to read, and Molly found that equal parts discomforting and frustrating. It was hard to know where things were going if she couldn't tell where they were coming from in the first place.
The hesitation was drawn out, made some uncommitted effort to cover her time spent thinking by taking another small drink from her gin. She nudged the glass away after the last sip, still mostly full, and hooked her elbow on the counter so she sat straightened back up.
"I'm just attentive. And waiting for somebody, actually."
Her eyes hopped back behind the bar, hunting for some new tender, like the arrival of another face behind the bar was what she was expecting, who she should ask about the cards. But it occurred to her that she was only told to wait for about half an hour. That the bartender was only specified because they would know who to point out, not necessarily because the person she was seeking there was a staff member themselves. So Molly looked back to the man cautiously and asked, sounding a lot like she expected to get a negative answer but was going out on a limb anyways: "I don't suppose it would mean anything to you if I asked you about cards?"
slaughter and mayhem"But I must insist you tell me more clearly," he says, blandly. "For the vampyr wants to be hiddden from 'just attentive,' is very dangerous."
He pauses, as if thinking over what she said to him. He straightens and turns his head as if he would look at the bartender, or behind the bar, but he does not remove his gaze quite from Molly, though his eyes leave her face to touch on the rest of her. One must ascertain whether one's barflies have wooden stakes under their clothes, eh?
"Oh. Yes, it would. You are here for the cards?" Barer pause. "I do not wish to speak of the cards; I wish to speak of your attention to detail."
MollyIt wouldn't take a lingering gaze to figure out that Molly probably wasn't hiding anything under her clothes (and if she was, she was defying laws of space). The evenings were still quite warm, and Molly wore no jackets or bulky clothing to hide a stake beneath. Her mouth did set into a bit more of a line when he warned her about dangerous 'vampyrs'.
All the same, she stayed at the bar with body language indicating that she wasn't growing antsy to leave.
"I am," she answered. "I'll explain myself, and hope that you'll tell me more about the cards in exchange." She paused just long enough to raise her eyebrows significantly at the man, then continued in a show of good faith. Diplomacy, right?
"I've got particular interests, and particular experiences. I've run into more than one like yourself before. I know what that is when the air hums disturbed-- recognize it now. So whatever it was that you did there," and she waved a finger loosely in the air in indication of his scan of her aura, "it betrayed you."
slaughter and mayhemThe vampire's eyes are brown, and his interest is active. But it is not revelatory. Molly said that knowledge might be gleaned from little facts, tiny choices: that he walked up, that it is night, and anything he has to say adds to that. And this may be true, but it is not easy. His eyes are brown, might if they were ever seen under direct light be a paler wood, but in the certain gloom of the bar are simply black mud, lent intensity by the cut of his cheekbones, the stillness of his mouth. He has a mouth that belongs on the statue of an emperor, an asymmetrical thing, one curve of the lip higher than the other. He could be old. He could be older than any she has yet met. He could be young. He could be almost fresh-made, though not so fresh-made he is slavering and barely in control of himself. He is all control, all unrevealing contemplation. Few extra gestures. A spare nod, though whether in agreement or because it is what the conversation requires, when Molly gives the vampire the ol' eyebrow raise.
"Hmm. Fascinating. Your particular interests, they are the pursuit of knowledge? You are wanting to know more about vampires? These others you have run into like myself, will you give me an example of one such run-in? I must judge," this, with an air of the explanatory which is somewhat awkward. He doesn't explain himself; it is rusty.
Molly"I want to know more about pretty much everything." Molly offered a small smile to the man whose expression would not break and would not tell. "Vampires aren't necessarily ranked higher or lower than anything else on that extensive list."*
The smile didn't quite fade, but did change to something that was apologetic on top, for show, but beneath that resolute. I must judge. Her eyes skipped toward his wrist when he'd said that, and she thought for a moment before meeting his gaze once more. She'd long since decided that the respect given and sometimes gleaned in tiny degrees back that came from meeting a vampire's eye far outweighed the cons that came with averting eyes blatently. Molly figured that seemed like a challenge to too many of the ill-dispositioned.
"I can't throw people under the bus, for a plethora of reasons." She'd learned better than to share secrets in her time navigating the supernatural underbelly of the city. "Let's not waste too much breath arguing it, mkay?"
[*Rolling Manip 3 + Subterfuge 3 for Molly's fib about how much she cares to learn about vampires]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Perc+ Empathy. How do you rank us, Miss Toombs? The Most Interesting Ever? The Least Interesting Ever?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Nice effort, mortal. But is it enough?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhem"I do not ask for names or, hm, telling descriptions then. But I must, I do wish to know how far into my society, ah, my society's secrets you have penetrated with your attentiveness to detail and your sixth sense. Is it this which has motivated you?"
He rests his elbow on the bartop again, this time resting also his chin on his thumb, curling his index finger over his mouth. The pose is a casual one, but there is nothing nonchalant about him, if there is also nothing obviously passionate.
"There are some who say conversation is a waste of breath. I am not one of these."
Molly"This, yeah. Ghosts, and the mages and their ways too. I suppose you could say I got on a path of realizing if so much I'd already been told was impossible was actually real, where was the limit on what else could be real?" She shrugged her shoulders dismissively, as though the origin of her nigh-suicidal interests and curiosity was as boring as explaining that you met your husband through a mutual friend (because doesn't everyone?).
She seemed to take a moment to consider his parameters that she need not reveal actual identities. While his was impossible to read, Molly's face seemed to openly mirror what his gathering so far had told him. She looked openly suspicious when she felt as such, didn't mask when she was taking time to think, and clearly interested when something caught her attention-- like realizing that he was the man with the cards, for instance. Sharp behind the eyes still, no doubt, there was nothing dim about her. She found a way to remain alive, after all.
"Hum. Well, here's one: I recognize that someone I'd been talking to for a few minutes didn't blink or breathe or have a pulse. They see what I've realized and let what they are be known, and I manage to convince them to let me walk away alive." It sounded idiotic, edited down the way it was, but that was the consequence of not leaving evidence of the person who betrayed the Masquerade in your story.
slaughter and mayhem"Astute!" Another blink. Astonished? Perhaps.
Here he does spare a brief look, rather than merely turning his face, for the bar and its bartender. It has not yet been half an hour, but the mark is approaching fast. The vampire knows nothing of Molly, waiting, though he has guesses based on what he does know: conjectures, wheels within wheels. He nods once, as if to himself. A point made, a solid point, a veritable touch in whatever mental game he plays behind that mask of his.
"Do you publish your findings? If no, why no?"
slaughter and mayhem[wth, chat. i posted a minute before i 'forgot' to log out. HOW DO YOU JUDGE?]
MollyThe shape that Molly's mouth took at first showed that she was about to answer him with a quick 'no', but paused when he followed up with a 'why'. Her lips pressed back together, and Molly contemplated the question for a moment. Reached out and helped herself to another small sip of gin while she did.
"I don't, because I don't think that people should know these things. Humanity as a whole entity wouldn't be able to continue like it has if it figured out how low in the food chain, in the scheme of it all, it really sits. I, as one person, can cope with and navigate what we've been blind to since the dark ages. Mankind?" She shook her head to punctuate and answer the hanging question she'd left both.
"Besides, what would I publish? The Real Truths? If I were to publish anything that isn't encrypted in a nest of common falsehoods and misinterpreted myths then I'd draw too much of the wrong attention and do myself in."
slaughter and mayhem[Do you believe what you are saying, or are you trying to con me?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhemHe preserves silence for a moment. The bartender does not come by to offer him a drink, and he didn't order one for himself as cover. His lashes are straight, do not curl upward, and he stares hard at the bartop.
"But you desire to know these things." A statement. He doesn't expect her to expand any further on that theme, as far as she can tell. Another thawing, bare, subtle; at least a movement in the glacier, his eyebrows lofting much as a golden retriever's might.
"Would you be desirous of meeting someone who is, ah, who would be very keen to speak with you about these matters? Is this of interest to you, this exchange of ideas?"
MollyIf Molly chose to play it as such, she could be a proper femme fatale with the va-voom and the bold red hair and the cool confidence that she kept about her like a shawl more often than not. But she always did prefer to be effective and direct-- it was a part of why a number of the nurses she also worked with hated her, while a few other veterans liked her best. There was no game in playing seductive to a vampire. She assumed that they'd all been around at least 50 years longer than she had right off the bat. They wouldn't be fooled by batting eyelashes and generous cleavage, anyways.
So Molly's approach to this Morris man -- though she had no name for him yet -- was nothing of that sort. She touched a finger to the condensation on the outside of her glass and wiped it away, off and between her fingers.
"It interests me very much. But in the name of self-preservation, I try not to make a habit of following nameless men into lairs to meet people who are 'very keen to speak with me'."
Straight-forward, blunt, but at least these days Molly remembered to at least try and smooth that over with a bit of a smile.
Molly[Intelligence 3 + Academics 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhemHis lips move, but it is not a smile; it is an impulse, and he follows it. A resettling of lips over teeth, and a steadying nod. "It is good you ask. This is your request for a name. I am Morris. Morris Quincey."
He offers her a palm. His hand seems strong, worn, well-creased; a workman's hands, which probably means he is an erudite professor -- or was.
MollyMorris's lips moved in a not-smile, and Molly's moved in a similar small motion. Her's was certainly a smile though-- recognition, understanding. Not unlike seeing where a joke was going before the punchline was stated.
The offered hand was answered in turn when she pressed her palm to his and clasped his hand for a small shake. Her skin was, of course, smooth and warm and her pulse throbbed like it ought to. Molly had never not been alive.
"Molly. It's nice meeting the only redeemable character from Bram Stoker's pages."
slaughter and mayhemHis hand is cold, but his skin does not feel waxy, does not feel dead; that would be too easy, wouldn't it? But vitae makes them over into a semblance of life, freshness, eternity. He is cold as ice cream, but he is not dead yet. He only dies each morning with the sun, and waits to rise again.
"Yes, that Quincey was very pleasant and useful besides. I have always been fond of cowboys. It is why I am here in Denver, all cowboys. Will we go meet my friend now, Miss Molly? We must go tonight, for I do not know I could find you again. Your feet might get cold?"
MollyAny number of times now Molly has been asked, often solemnly and across a car console, why she kept pursuing these mysteries. She wasn't stupid, she knew very well that it would inevitably be the death of her-- or worse. She could just turn away from it all and go back to leading a normal life. It really wasn't too late for that. She could put her nose to the grindstone and become a proper M.D. with little effort at all, the affinity and experience with medicine that she had. Have a nice house, a family. A place where she could lay her head and forget the nightmarish hellscape that she knew crawled under and within the city.
She'd never answered directly or entirely. Largely because she didn't entirely know how to articulate that answer even to herself. Even now, with this strange vampire with a fake name stolen from the pages of Dracula, she told herself that even if she did shake her head and try to be on her way the average vampire certainly wouldn't let her just roam off into the night, knowing what she knew and what he was.
It was better to go on her own terms, with her own dignity about her, wasn't it?
Molly's expression set into something grim while the concern of cold feet hung in the air as the last words spoken. Her mouth pressed thin, brow flattened, and she looked across the bar; briefly to the door, as prey contemplating a break from their shelter does.
Then she huffed out her breath and took one final full-sized drink from the glass of lime-stained gin.
"Okay. Let's talk about this friend of yours." She slid from her stool and to her feet. Apparently willing to begin to walk and talk. Molly was the sort to pay for her drinks as she went, so the first glass at least had been paid off already. "What will they want from me?"
slaughter and mayhemHe told the 'tender to put the drink on his tab. The tab will keep and will seem to be a longstanding thing when and if they leave together. He straightens and checks his pockets as if for keys. Molly is apparently willing to begin to walk and talk. He does not look deeper than her appearance but his gaze seems ready to skim beneath the surface. He does look at her closely, and blandly. Masquerade is a potent word for this vampire.
His gaze flickers, as if to indicate his willingness to respond to her reasonable inquiry; let us talk about this friend of his.
He considers. Think think. "No more I think than you will want from them. Will you take my arm? It is oldfashioned I know."
MollyBonnet-blue eyes laid skeptical on the unreadable vampire, but after a moment passed the corner of her mouth quirked up just a little. "I suppose, if it humors you so much."
So Molly tucked her hand about Morris's forearm, and the free arm swung idle at her side so it could be free for things like managing a door or brushing bangs away from her eyes (the damn things were in need of a trim), or going for the eyes if things on this spiraling adventure started to go sour.
Willingly enough she'd walk along with him on out of the bar. Once they were past the front door, as Molly was glancing left and right along the sidewalk she posed a question:
"What else can you tell me about this person? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're much like you." A vampire, she means, of course.
slaughter and mayhemSeptember. The thin sportsjacket he wears is not threadbare but neither is it the best material there is. Beneath the fabric, his forearm is sinewy, the sinews could easily cord into steel. He puts his hand over her hand on his forearm, to tuck it more comfortably against his side. If she feels trapped, it is perhaps because she is, if he is as strong as he looks.
They turn left, to round the Blue Room's building and go down a well-lit alley which takes their shadows and fashions them into Sherlock Holmsian art, thence into the parking lot.
"Yes, my friend is like me in some ways, but in others very unlike me. What is it specifically you would like to know about this person? For you seem to be a fisher."
MollyAs they made their way down the alley, Molly's eyes crawled over the building wall that their shadows stretched across. It was an almost cartoonish exaggeration of what she felt was happening-- it looked like being swooped away by a hawk. She never thought of herself a being much of a field mouse before she encountered beings that actually did view her as a food source.
The alley had fewer people by far, fewer ears to worry about editing one's self for. It was clear that her lips were looser when they were away from the small group that were smoking cigarettes out in front of the bar they were circling around now.
"As far as my imagination's been let to run, I figure that we're going to some literal lair or another where some Bill Nighy king sits on a throne of rat bones and secrets. I'm hoping it's more mundane than that, but the unknown lets the mind wander free."
She looked forward again, away from the wall, and concluded: "Frankly, I'd like to be assured my chances of walking out of there comfortably intact."
slaughter and mayhem"Hah." As if the unknown lets the mind wander free was a joke, almost, or struck him somewise as funny; of course he does not laugh or crack a smile or do anything other than seem to be attentive, but the hah speaks of submerged warmths.
Headlights wash over them as somebody turns down the alley and drives past them into the lot, which is not entirely empty. It is early nights yet, so people are arriving for the Blue Room or any of the other restaurants and bars which line the street. No one is close enough to hear them.
"This one is mine," Morris says, gesturing to a boxy car from the 80s which looks to be in very good condition, with Eastern European engineering, and perhaps a few bribes to the emissions regulatory board. It is black. Do most vampires drive black cars? Do certain clans have a prediliction for certain colors? His car is black; it says nothing about its owner, much as Morris' face says little about him. He is not blank, he is simply bland.
"Now, what assurance can I give you? You do not know me. I am not a wanton murderer, but you do not know this for certain; my friend is not a wanton murderer, either, but that must be even less clear from your viewpoint. I will tell you these things, but it is no assurance. You seem a woman very conscious of, hm, checks and balances, am I correct in this?"
"Do you drive, Miss Molly?"
Molly"Well, you need to mind your balance in the shoes I walk in...."
Molly said this casually instead of cryptically, or at least tried to Checks and balances were absolutely something she kept track of. Doing so was the only way to know when you had leverage, if it should or could be used, and when the scales were tipped just enough to land in her favor. She was looking over the solid black car that he'd indicated, but looked back up to him with an inquisitive raise of eyebrows when he asked if she drove.
"I can, yeah." Eyes back on the car. "Can't you?"
slaughter and mayhem"I can, but I thought I would offer you my keys. Then control of the machine would be yours, as far as assurances will take us," he adds, his tone one of explanation, but not apology.
MollyAgain, Morris is set with a thoughtful look. It's a little less grim this time around, at least, but more intrigued, or puzzled, or both. Then came that half-quirked smile once more as well, and she nodded. "It's a thoughtful gesture. Thanks."
Then, with her palm out for the keys:
"So, where are we headed?"
slaughter and mayhemMorris hands her his keys, and the attentive air sharpens as he does so. But she does not throw them, and try to flee him. Molly gets into the car, and so too does Morris, and they leave this place together. Behind them, in the Blue Room, a certain bartender tells another someone came by asking about the cards, but the redhead is gone. The cards will keep, surely, and whatever information they had to offer.
"I will see," Morris tells Molly, and he takes out a cellphone and taps out a long text. While he waits for a response, he offers Molly music. Most of his music is classical stuff, though he has a surprise Enya CD in among the rest.
"The Brown Palace Hotel. You know where it is?"
If Molly does not, he directs her. It is not a very long drive, and Morris answers conversational sallies with the same sort of conversation he has given her thus far. When they have reached the hotel, and a valet is ready to drive the car down into the parking structure, Morris once again offers Molly his arm. If she does not wish to take it, he does not do more than give her a considering look. He does not push.
When they are in the elevator, however, with no stop-off for the concierge, he says, "It occurs to me, may I ask you a personal question, before you meet my friend?"
MollyAs a matter of fact, Molly did know where The Brown Palace was, and didn't need directions to get there. She'd drive with her window down if the owner of the car offered no protest, and hooked an elbow in the window space and let the wind whip at her hair.
Whatever conversation Molly had to offer, it was largely casual while still a little prodding-- how long have you been in Denver? oh that nice. The Brown Palace has a nice bar where you can buy some rich cigars, if that's your thing. been a vampire very long?
Where there wasn't conversation, there was thoughtful silence. This was how Molly pulled up to the hotel and got out of the car-- quiet and thoughtful. She let the keys pass into the hands of a valet and brushed at her hair a bit with her fingers to smooth it back into place after the drive, and saw no harm in further humoring the man with a hand on his arm. That free hand remained as such, and Morris had made no shows of strength or dominance to raise red flags and have her trying to flee just yet.
In the elevator, Molly took her hand back and stood with her arms folded behind her back. Her gingery eyebrows raised curiously when he sought permission to ask a personal question.
"What's your question?"
slaughter and mayhemAll information is important, isn't it?
Molly learns that Morris does not yet think of Denver as a permanent home; this is his first anwer. His brow furrowed in thought when she asked him whether he has been a vampire very long, and his answer was something without precision. "Longer, I think, than you have been Miss Molly." That is his second.
They are going up to the highest floor the elevator will go to. Then there is another elevator, which requires a keycard to go up in. Morris does not have a key, but he sends another text once they are in the elevator. His hands dwarf the phone. Then he settles, his arms clasped loosely behind his back, his reflection in the closed doors immaculate.
And present, which is important to some people.
"The term 'blood doll'; is this term a familiar one to you?"
MollyMolly's keen attention to detail picked up on any number of things. The steel-wire strength of Morris's arm under his coat, how the phone dwarfed in his hand, how the bracelet he wore meant Severity, Gevurah, the Essence of Judgment. That his reflection was present, not absent as with two other vampires that she'd known for some time.
The question of the term 'blood doll' had those curiously raised eyebrows furrowing straight away. Like she found the words offensive. Her hands kept behind her back, though, and she stood and patiently waited in the second elevator while waiting for some response to the text that her escort had just sent.
"I know what it is," she said with only a little bit of a bite to her voice at first. She didn't care for how that had been set up as a personal question. She didn't like that it was asked in the first place, that it was anywhere on his mind (though what had he been doing out at the bar, then, if not hunting and prowling when he just so happened to stumble across her?).
"...I hope that question isn't leading into any follow-ups along the same vein."
Molly[That wasn't going anywhere, was it? Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 5) ( botch x 2 )
slaughter and mayhemHe is not emotionless, after all. Molly, watching the man's imperious hawk of a nose, the broad almost-regal planes of his face, the melancholy set of his eyes, detects a moment of insult. As if the use of blood dolls were, to him, an abhorrent thing; as if the suggestion that he would so lure her was the same as spitting in the lemonade he offered her in his position as host. He doesn't seem to like the accusation in her tone, and perhaps she thinks she detects a stiffening.
"Hah," he says. "A pun. No; I simply wished to know whether you would expect to be given the Kiss, or if that is a thing you are wanting and have experienced before."
MollyMolly's lips pressed together and she held her quiet for a moment. Looked back to the reflective doors and the dark indigo of her pants, the soft peachy tone of her blouse. Focused on and took some sense of familiarity in her own reflection for the time. It was good, at least, that he appeared offended by the question. Even if it did seem to be something of a jab at his shows of good faith thus far, what hospitality (if you could call taking someone to an arranged location) he's offered. At least there was some comfort in seeing that his intention here wasn't something most foul. At least, not that thing most foul.
When he clarified the question, it was Molly's turn to appear a little insulted, and even a bit uncomfortable. Yes, she'd been bitten. Yes, she knew why and how some may go seeking that experience again. Molly herself held to dignity, shame, and pride too firmly to give way to that-- much how she didn't go seeking vampire blood after being exposed to it by some Malkavanian maniac.
"Trust me, teeth in my throat aren't something I go seeking out. Be assured I wasn't hoping for some... debauchery in coming along on this adventure."
slaughter and mayhemHe nods his acceptance of her statement once. His agreement? ah, well. Molly is not at her sharpest right now, or Molly is at her sharpest now; hasn't he become clear to her, in this elevator?
"I should ask you no more, until we are with my friend; it is greedy of me, to take bigger part of interesting conversation."
The elevator dings and Morris holds the door open with his arm, to allow Molly precede him out onto the second-to-topmost floor.
MollyShe really did think that she had clearly seen that she didn't need to worry about unwanted advances. She was confident that she'd seen this in a fleeting break in the bland mask of this man who looked like he was from another era just dressed up to blend with this one. So she didn't worry, not immediately, on the matter. The elevator had come to a stop and the doors began to slide open. It was time to meet this 'friend'.
Molly passed by Morris's chest and open arm to step out of the elevator and onto what she could comfortably call the top of the building. Not the topmost floor, but they were far enough off the ground that they may as well be.
She didn't roam much further past the elevator doors without her escort. This time around she wouldn't humor him with an arm on his forearm either, if that were something he'd offered his arm for again. Instead she tucked her hands into the seat pockets of her jeans and kept her elbows near her sides and would take step alongside the undead man when he would walk out from the elevator as well.
slaughter and mayhemThe hall is elegance. Hushed elegance, but elegance nonetheless: plush carpeting to smother footsteps and sleek art deco ornature to give an appearance of transcending time or being fixed in time. Crystal sends rainbow prisms dancing on mellow honeyed walls; the lighting is personal rather than impersonal, rather than too bright.
Morris does offer her his arm once more, and so when she demures gives her that considering look which has been promised before, but does not push her. He walks Molly down the hall, and around a corner, and there standing in front of another elevator (the private one, which leads to the sun-soaked topmost suite) is what appears to be a young woman.
The young woman has radiantly pale roses-and-cream skin, which while owing more to ivory than to sand does not quite give her the appearance of death; she has blonde-streaked darkish chestnut hair, curled over one shoulder and cut with an air of professional. The curl is girlish; there is much about her face which is girlish.
Molly could perhaps deduce on her own that this is Morris' friend, even before his stride checks and he lifts a hand in greeting. But his stride checks and he does lift a hand in greeting. He does not call a greeting, but half-glances at Molly. The creature by the private elevator door has her keycard in hand and she presses it against the button, so when Molly and Morris (M&M) are near enough for actual conversation there is a ding and the elevator door opens.
"This is my friend," he says, to Molly, taking it upon himself to with an elbow hold the elevator open. "And this is the woman I told you about, who is a knowledge-seeker; but I leave to you to make proper introductions."
slaughter and mayhemooc: ahem, "to you ladies to make proper introductions."
MollyUp the hall, around the corner, and there is this mysterious 'friend' up ahead. Molly had been right to withhold gender pronouns up to this point, though her first impulse was to suppose that she was going to see some older gentleman, a 'boss' figure of some kind. Her hands slipped free from her pockets when the young woman (appearing younger than herself, even-- girlish enough that Molly would suppose 20 or 21 to be the physical age she was facing [though that made absolutely no promises to true age, did it?]) came into sight.
Morris had lifted his hand in greeting, and Molly had inclined her head some, but didn't offer any enthused or for-show polite smiles like many felt obligated to at least offer when initially meeting somebody. This wasn't a lunch date with a business associate, after all, so the standard rules didn't exactly apply.
The doors to the next elevator had opened already, and while Morris held the door open he made a brief introduction to introductions, left Molly and this mysterious friend do the rest themselves. So Molly paused in the hallway, not stepping into the elevator just yet, and held her hand out for the milk-maid-pale young lady in an offer to shake. "I'm Molly, and I understand we've got some mutual interests to discuss."
slaughter and mayhem"Hello, Molly," the creature says as she takes Molly's hand, and it is a pretty creature, but her main asset must be her voice. It's an enchanting voice, a put-you-off-your-game you're-so-busy-listening-to-it voice. Her demeanor is to the point and so is her handshake, which is cold. "Morris leads me to believe the same thing! You can't know just how out-of-the-pale I find it. Do call me Sophie; it is what most everybody does. Have you eaten yet tonight? Shall I ring for something from room service?"
The elevator door pushes gently against Morris' spine and he stands straight for it, his eyes hooded and his straight lashes giving him an air of casual sensuality at odds with his demeanor.
He doesn't say anything yet, but his air is not one of the inactive observer; he holds himself as if he is still a participant. Should Molly look at him, he nods as if to offer her encouragement. Should Sophie look at him, he looks back at his most bland, which is very bland indeed.
MollyThe woman's voice is beautiful, enthralling even. It was tough not to be wrapped up in it, though Molly couldn't quite say that the enchantment was a thing of warm milk and honey. It captivated, absolutely, but offered no comfort or shelter. Molly's handshake was direct but not too firm, she saw no need to squeeze hands in show of strength or compensation. It certainly was warmer than the cool palm it met with.
Still, this pretty creature had Molly offering a polite smile after all. The enthusiasm was difficult not to match at least a tiny bit.
"No, I'm just fine, thank you." Plus there was something very Hansel and Gretel feeling to sitting and eating before creatures that would rather just eat you. She avoided it if at all possible.
A glance was cast back to Morris, a brief one, and after the encouraging nod from him she looked to the young woman who preferred to be called Sophie. "I'm intrigued to know what it is we're here to discuss-- the suspense of it all could curl hair. Are we going up?"
slaughter and mayhem"We are."
Once they're inside the elevator - see how it hearkens back to another era, see the gold designs liquid fluid on the marbled walls, see the graceful arcs and sharp geometric designs - and Morris has allowed it to close, Sophie covers the touchpad with one hand and with the other types in a security code.
"I find it more convivial to have certain conversations where I can be reasonably certain I will not be overheard. Have you been in Denver long?"
Ding, again. This time the elevator lets them out into a foyer; the foyer spills into the (opulent, tasteful, Classic, Classic, Classic, all Classic Aristocratic American) living area, couches and walnut tables and more touches of another time here and there. The light is still soft enough for intimacy, and there is a cold fireplace. A crystal decanter with some dark liquid within set out on the coffee table beside a stack of notebooks and a tablet, and a snifter with signs of recent use.
Sophie of course bids Molly to take a seat; Morris of course follows. The conversation, it seems, will begin in truth once everybody is settled and comfortable and the initial proprietries have been observed, hm?
MollyInside the elevator it was a thing of expense and luxury. Molly was pretty sure that there was gold within the marble walls, and noted how the elevator required a handprint touch screen to operate. She was fairly certain that the elevator itself cost more than her entire apartment combined.
"I can certainly respect that," Molly commented on Sophie's preference for confirmed privacy when speaking on delicate matters.
When the elevator doors opened again, Molly confirmed that the top floor of this building was worth more than the whole of her apartment building, each unit combined. Her jaw didn't fall open when she looked around at the ceilings, the walls, the fireplace and couches and crystal decanter that sat on the table between them. To look at her expression, you could tell that in her mind she was blowing a low and impressed whistle at what she was seeing. Outwardly, though, Molly did a fine job of keeping cool and casual looking, like this was no big deal and she belonged perfectly well.
"For the better part of a decade now," Molly answered as they made their way out of the elevator and to the seating area. "I'd moved out to Denver for college and liked it enough to stay."
Here, Miss Molly, please have a seat. If she was gestured to one seat in particular Molly wouldn't object to taking that. Otherwise, she'd find herself tucked into the right-side corner of one of the sofas, with an arm propped up on the arm of the couch, and her other hand rested in her lap. Legs would cross at the knee so a patent black leather ballet flat hovered in the air as opposed to being set flat on the floor with its counterpart.
"You must have been settled in here for some time, to have all of this set up for yourself." Molly presumed Sophie was something of an old power amongst vampires here in Denver. She did have a penthouse in a nice hotel with secured access and plenty of wealth to put into it all. Or so she perceived.
slaughter and mayhemMolly is given the freedom to choose her own seat. Sophie settles herself in across from Molly, and by sheer chance that is in a chair that could, with a little imagination, be polished up into a regal and almost-contemporary throne; something not made of rat bones, but, well. Not all vampires are as nice in their habits as Molly's friend Harald. Morris chooses to sit in a seat with his back to the door, jerking his trousers up as he folds himself down. He looks almost too big, too farm-house lean, for the civility of his dress and his setting, like a beast trying to play at manners. But it works; doesn't it work? Maybe it works.
"Not so very long, but the staff here is discreet. Now have you really not guessed what it is we're here to discuss? You don't mind if we save smalltalk for later."
The last sentence tacked on not apologetically, neither of these vampires seems as if they have it in them to be very apologetic, but as acknowledgment of Sophie's sudden jump-skip over more inquiries into how Molly enjoys Denver how Sophie enjoys Denver blah blah blah boring yuck.
MollyThe trio sit in their own approximation of a triangle: Molly with the elevator to her left and some wall or window or fireplace or what-have-you to her right, Sophie across from her, and Morris at some in-between point with his back to the elevator doors. Something about his choice in where to sit gave her the impression that he was serving as some sort of guard or muscle to this pretty roses-and-moonlight young woman.
Ah, but let's cut to the chase, shall we? Sophie wanted to know if Molly could guess at what they were here to discuss. The one human left in the room straightened just a little, shifted her right arm so that both hands rested together in her lap now instead. Business talk it was.
"I would venture to suppose that we'd be discussing vampires-- or, more to the point, what I know and how I picked Morris here--" she still said his name out loud like she didn't believe it, but was humoring and playing along by using it anyways "--out for what he was.
"Or, at least, I suppose that's what you want to hear from me."
slaughter and mayhem"Correct. I want to know how much you know," Sophie says, as if she means to hear it. The redhead has the whole of Sophie's attention. Girlish her appearance may be, but her demeanor is that of a tower, a scion, a pillar, some edifice which must stand. It is not actively aggressive. "Ideally," and she smiles, "How exactly you came to know it. I said it before and I'll say it again: this sort of conversation really is just beyond-the-pale."
"What do you want to hear from me?"
MollyMolly's eyes hopped briefly over to Morris again. This question posed to her by his friend, his boss-woman, this Sophie, was about the same as he'd asked while she was at the bar sipping gin. She soon looked directly back to the woman whose demeanor was older and bigger than her body seemed to be. Answers were best delivered straight-forward. Showing the half of her that wanted to make for the elevator and escape, the half she'd been silencing and stamping down in the pursuit of knowledge and fulfilling curiosity in general, it would serve her no help. Appearing cool was Molly's default and it'd served her fine thus far.
"That's an incredibly general subject. Suffice to say I know... probably an amateur's amount about vampires and their culture." That's a lie-- she considered herself an intermediate at worst. Certainly nowhere near an expert though. "I know of the factions, of some of the basic things you all are capable of, which old myths are generally true and generally false, and that nothing is really definite or all-applying except for the effects of the sun."
As for how she came to know it, she shook her head a little, almost in apology, and repeated a statement she'd given her escort earlier that evening. "I can't relay exact details. I'm unable to throw any individual under a bus here, for preservation's sake. I hope you can understand." A small, fleeting smile was offered to go along with the apology, but a general synopsis was provided. "Let's just say that observing someone with no pulse or breath walking alongside you raises some curiosities and gets you doing some research."
And what she wanted to know from Sophie? Well, they'd get there. Molly figured that there'd be some questions or comments for what she'd provided thus far that the woman would like to work her way through first.
Molly[Manipulation 3 + Subterfuge 3: Skills you cannot navigate the vampire world without]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie, do you believe Molly's impeccable lying skillz?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris, what about you?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
slaughter and mayhemMolly's eyes meet Morris's when they get there. He gives a mild shrug of his shoulders, his hands clasped on his knee. The shrug could mean many things; it could be a nervous tic. He does not seem nervous, but then, what would nerves look like on such a placid creature? He is too busy seeming like a civil beast.
One of the two vampires paying her atttention sees where Molly fudges, blurs the lines, downplays her own interest.
One of the two vampires does not.
Sophie waits a beat. Her expression has gone through some small changes, while listening to Molly lay out her status as amateur vampiric lore-keeper.
"What of the factions do you know? I'm fascinated. How this must look from the outside." There is the subtle insinuation of a question on the word 'outside.'"
MollyDid Molly notice that Morris caught her lie? Likely not. She was lying directly to Sophie after all, more concerned about the woman who she was brought before, the one with the air of authority, than she was about the civil beast that kept silent company with them both. When asked what factions she does know, she kept that lie going further, continuing to gently downplay what she knew and leave gaps in the knowledge that she actually held.
"Well, there's two main factions-- the 'church' and the 'state', so to speak. The group that has order and structure and the other group that's waiting for the word to fall apart. I know that there are different.... 'bloodlines', too. Different kinds of vampires, if you will." Her freckled shoulders bunched up and dropped back down with a hapless kind of shrug. It was an indication that she didn't know much more to say on that line of thought.
While she was playing that she knew less about vampire than what she actually did, that didn't mean that Molly Toombs was playing dumb across the board. The mild inflection of a question as to whether Molly really was on the outside or not didn't go missed. To answer it, Molly lifted a hand and waved it almost as though to chase away any notion that she may be anything but human.
"Certainly the outside. Outside looking in, perhaps, but I'm not a part of this world."
Something about it sounded like she was denying the inevitable.
slaughter and mayhem"The 'church' and the 'state,'" Sophie echoes, and the word 'church' curdles on her tongue. Her voice is such a thing that it lends her leashed contempt (she despises the 'church,' or that description, or something about it) some added oomph. She shakes her head and one sleek curl goes bounce, bounce, and she says, "You are not a ghoul? Do you know what that is? Do you, in your heart, feel more allegiance toward one faction over the other?"
MollyAs she'd told the man with the Gevurah bracelet, Molly picked informational gems from every bit of conversation, every approach, in particular when she was in the mind to look for them. The way that disdain flavored the woman's tongue and words w hen she spoke of the 'church' was a clear flag to Molly that this woman was of the Camarilla, not the Sabbat. Yes, she had the words for these factions, they'd been shared with her by some shadowy man in a three-piece suit quite a while ago.
"I'm no ghoul," she answered with a straight face, and a renewed straight set to her eyebrows that had her looking unamused, if not a tiny bit offended. Of course she wasn't a ghoul.
As for allegiance, Molly shook her red head so hair fell off her shoulders to rest in front of them instead. "It's not my war. Why would I pick sides in a battle that I have no reason to be fighting in?"
slaughter and mayhem"Don't be a little fool." Sophie shakes her head, though her eyes stay fixed on Molly; as if she cannot believe it.
Morris clears his throat. "Sophie -- "
"Morris, please," deliberate, icy. "I am being honest with our guest."
"Some tact -- "
But he is ignored from there-on out by the creature who clasps her hands together and leans over her knee. Her voice is enchanting, yes, is enthralling, and what there is in Sophie (perhaps Molly knows enough to make a guess not only at her affiliation, but at her bloodline - her clan - as well?) is implaccable.
She tries to speak eloquently; she is usually an eloquent speaker, a leader, one who knows what beats to hit. She is angry, and wrathful, and she does not seem as if she is going to fly into a frenzy and attack Molly, but she is not going to soften what it is she says.
Tact, pfah.
"If nothing else, you are human. If you don't care about your fellow man, perhaps you care about yourself?"
"Do you know what the 'church' as you call it does to the unfortunate humans in its power? They do not see them. They make sport of them. They make ritual implements from the bones of infants! They hang living men and women from hooks and still-living take turns draining them, cutting them that their blood is collected in a glass, so the poor victims are conscious! They use them for food and they use them for fodder and for the walls of their deep holy places.
"They have the ability to take someone such as yourself and twist your body so that it has lost its eyes and its mouth and its ears but retains its nostrils so that it may yet breathe. They kill without a thought because you are no more than cows. I don't mean free-range pets, but cows kept without any thought for quality of life. They regard those who are not part of their horrid little religion as meat for the machine.
"They are insatiable: where they go, they bring violence. There is absolutely no recourse to justice for those without their structure. You have no voice. You have no standing, in the eyes of their law. You are nothing but a bag of blood or the raw material for a sculpture. Worse: Here, in Denver, we are all of us in churning water, caught in a tempest -- so you may be the raw material for a mindless soldier. Do you know what they do to people they snatch off the streets? They turn them. They turn them into vampires, and they abandon them. They bury them in this state and those who wake find themselves buried alive. Of course they do not need to breathe, but can you imagine the terror? The madness?
"How long would it take you and how desperate would you need to be and how completely would you lose yourself to the Beast -- yes, we all have a Beast -- before you reached the surface? And then what? Would you still be Molly? Would you still remember what it is to be human? If you did, you would soon not: That is what their business is. The business of putting humanity beneath their heel, cruelly and without regard for the sanctity of life.
And that is what they do to humans, who they do not have a vendetta against, who they do not see themselves at war against."
"Why do you not pick a side? Why do you not think there is a reason to fight? Why do you turn your nose up at the thought of being a ghoul?"
[Sophie's Manipulation + Leadership. -2 Diff for Enchanting Voice. Get up in arms, silly mortal!! How's the impromptu speechifying?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 7 )
Molly[Perception + Empathy: I'm really good at this roll.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Molly[Perception + Empathy: I'm really good at this roll.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
MollyFor a moment there is a back and forth, and Molly's sharp blue eyes followed after it. First to Sophie, warning her not to be a fool, then to Morris who tried to step in. To Sophie, bowling over her companion, who tried once more but failed to quell the woman who was like a spire, an ivory tower, in the room amongst them.
She sat stiff on the couch as Sophie leaned forward and fed her a string of imagery to describe and then further expound upon the evils that the church, the Sabbat, the faction of so many, many business cards hidden somewhere secretive in her apartment, consisted of.
As she pressed on, blood drained out of Molly's face, making her freckles an all the more obvious splash across her face. Her hands knitted together in her lap, and she did a decent job of not looking too disgusted in her facial expressions, but it was tough to keep those details from playing out and sink in as a terrible truth.
Truth, you see, because Molly understood perfectly in looking into this woman's face and listening to the compelling charm of her voice that she was not lying. That she really was describing the destroyers of men and could not, for the life of her, understand or condone Molly's indifference on the matter.
When the woman concluded with what felt a hell of a lot like a challenge to take up arms and join the fight (because why would you not want to be a ghoul and be able to fight?), Molly realized her mouth felt dry and licked her lips. Processed, looked at the coffee table for a moment to break away from that gaze (but the voice still rang, almost [maybe?] supernaturally invoked as it sounded). Finally, she huffed a breath and found her voice.
"I... had no idea." Sincerely, she didn't, the truth of that was bare in how stunned the insight had left her. She looked like she was struggling to believe what Sophie told her as literal information, like she was struggling to rediscover her ground and her original purpose there, and like she maybe wanted to puke just a little bit at the same time. The poor girl never did recover her color.
"I'm not a soldier, though. I don't want to fight."
[Spending WP]
Molly[Manipulation + Subterfuge]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris: checking Molly's temperature. How're you feeling, Molly?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie: Yes, how are you feeling, Molly?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Morris Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie Tiebreaker?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
MollyThere was a truth in what Molly said and a lie in what she didn't want to show or say or even come close to bringing up or talking about whatsoever.
The truth was in what Molly had spoken about having no inkling that any carnage was a thing, nothing so terrible or chilling to the bone. Also in that she did not want to fight. If anything, Molly considered herself a healer, despite her less-than-soft nature and demeanor overall. Molly didn't seem like much of a nurturing soul, but she was a nurse for a reason after all.
The lie was something that she managed to keep from Sophie. But Morris was perceptive, much like the hawk she'd compared his shadow to earlier. He saw in the serious cast to her face and introspective quality to when her eyes slipped away from Sophie that she was adding those deeds up to identities and very seriously reconsidering some relationships that she had.
slaughter and mayhemThere are two vampires watching Molly. Two vampires who watch how Molly's skin change colors, how she grows so pale she might rival them, how her freckles stand in sharp relief; one of them sees Molly maintain her composure, as best as she is able, some of the stunned shock and overload visible, but essentially isn't Molly one cool character? There are two vampires watching Molly, wanting to see how it is she reacts, what she is feeling now, trying to guage which way she'll jump: what she felt, how she was moved.
"Why not?" Sophie asks. "Is it because you shy from a physical brawl? There are other ways."
Morris, whose gaze does skim beneath the surface of Molly's mask, who teases out some hint of her feelings as a sieve might skim a stone from a dark pool, looks contemplative and blank. He rubs his brow with the pads of his index and middle fingers.
He says, softly, "My friend is invested in this matter of war, as you do see now. I too am invested for other reasons."
"Morris, my god! Let her speak," Sophie says, with impatience.
"Sophie, my god," he echoes, blandly, "Let her process."
MollyIs it because you shy from a physical brawl?
Molly shook her head quickly, almost like she may be a little offended by the notion. She didn't pride herself on being much of a brawler, she barely knew how to hold her fist so as not to hurt herself if she had to defend herself. But she was healthy, and she liked to count herself as being at least a little tough. No, Molly's concerns with fighting existed elsewhere.
When Morris spoke up, explained Sophie's passion in the cause and eluded to his own, she looked over to him instead. Glanced quick-sharp to Sophie when she cut in impatiently to petition for room for Molly to answer her inquiry-- why not join the battle?
Morris's comeback earned him a momentary look that he easily read for the thank you it was. Yes, please, let her process.
A few moments passed, and Molly shook her head a little again, picking up the answer she hadn't quite gotten out earlier. "No, it's just that your chances of death tend to skyrocket if you join a war in any capacity."
slaughter and mayhem[M: Wits roll.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[S: Wits roll.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhemFor once, Morris is quicker than Sophie is to speak his mind, perhaps because he is more in tune with Molly's internal landscape (and Sophie's, too. His friend is not what he would call 'subtle,' but none would).
Morris says, gently, "Some would say that your knowledge of our society is also your membership in it. Certainly membership without privileges and rights, but nonetheless it is membership. Some would also say that your chances of death, knowing without participation or patron, are already very high."
Molly[Wits: Keep it cool, Toombs]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
MollyEven shaken with an almost overload of passionate, enthralling description of the types of terrors and evils that one side of this battle of vampires practiced on a regular basis, Molly managed to keep her hands from shaking and even cleared the stunned horror from her eyes successfully. She could shelve grappling with relationships and trusts that she had built previously for the sake of keeping face before these two vampires-- particularly in the face of what Morris was just so kind to point out.
Molly turned her face back to him and smiled, the expression very small but unshaking, and she gave herself credit for that much.
"I wouldn't call it a membership myself. I don't even like participating in the politics of my own species, let alone that of vampires." She glanced ever-so-briefly to Sophie, then back to Morris as she continued to speak level and clear, as it was important that she was understood.
"I know what comes with being a ghoul. I don't want to be in anybody's servitude. I've made it a policy of mine not to stir pots or share secrets, specifically so I can step on as few toes as possible, and keep on with my own life." The smile found a way to become more pronounced and grim both at once. "I've figured that insight would land me in trouble before, but somehow have skimmed death just fine up to this point."
Next, almost abruptly, Molly shifted her attention back onto Sophie. A shiny change of subject could serve her well at this juncture.
"Did you still want to know what I was hoping to take away from this in turn?"
She'd never answered directly or entirely. Largely because she didn't entirely know how to articulate that answer even to herself. Even now, with this strange vampire with a fake name stolen from the pages of Dracula, she told herself that even if she did shake her head and try to be on her way the average vampire certainly wouldn't let her just roam off into the night, knowing what she knew and what he was.
It was better to go on her own terms, with her own dignity about her, wasn't it?
Molly's expression set into something grim while the concern of cold feet hung in the air as the last words spoken. Her mouth pressed thin, brow flattened, and she looked across the bar; briefly to the door, as prey contemplating a break from their shelter does.
Then she huffed out her breath and took one final full-sized drink from the glass of lime-stained gin.
"Okay. Let's talk about this friend of yours." She slid from her stool and to her feet. Apparently willing to begin to walk and talk. Molly was the sort to pay for her drinks as she went, so the first glass at least had been paid off already. "What will they want from me?"
slaughter and mayhemHe told the 'tender to put the drink on his tab. The tab will keep and will seem to be a longstanding thing when and if they leave together. He straightens and checks his pockets as if for keys. Molly is apparently willing to begin to walk and talk. He does not look deeper than her appearance but his gaze seems ready to skim beneath the surface. He does look at her closely, and blandly. Masquerade is a potent word for this vampire.
His gaze flickers, as if to indicate his willingness to respond to her reasonable inquiry; let us talk about this friend of his.
He considers. Think think. "No more I think than you will want from them. Will you take my arm? It is oldfashioned I know."
MollyBonnet-blue eyes laid skeptical on the unreadable vampire, but after a moment passed the corner of her mouth quirked up just a little. "I suppose, if it humors you so much."
So Molly tucked her hand about Morris's forearm, and the free arm swung idle at her side so it could be free for things like managing a door or brushing bangs away from her eyes (the damn things were in need of a trim), or going for the eyes if things on this spiraling adventure started to go sour.
Willingly enough she'd walk along with him on out of the bar. Once they were past the front door, as Molly was glancing left and right along the sidewalk she posed a question:
"What else can you tell me about this person? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're much like you." A vampire, she means, of course.
slaughter and mayhemSeptember. The thin sportsjacket he wears is not threadbare but neither is it the best material there is. Beneath the fabric, his forearm is sinewy, the sinews could easily cord into steel. He puts his hand over her hand on his forearm, to tuck it more comfortably against his side. If she feels trapped, it is perhaps because she is, if he is as strong as he looks.
They turn left, to round the Blue Room's building and go down a well-lit alley which takes their shadows and fashions them into Sherlock Holmsian art, thence into the parking lot.
"Yes, my friend is like me in some ways, but in others very unlike me. What is it specifically you would like to know about this person? For you seem to be a fisher."
MollyAs they made their way down the alley, Molly's eyes crawled over the building wall that their shadows stretched across. It was an almost cartoonish exaggeration of what she felt was happening-- it looked like being swooped away by a hawk. She never thought of herself a being much of a field mouse before she encountered beings that actually did view her as a food source.
The alley had fewer people by far, fewer ears to worry about editing one's self for. It was clear that her lips were looser when they were away from the small group that were smoking cigarettes out in front of the bar they were circling around now.
"As far as my imagination's been let to run, I figure that we're going to some literal lair or another where some Bill Nighy king sits on a throne of rat bones and secrets. I'm hoping it's more mundane than that, but the unknown lets the mind wander free."
She looked forward again, away from the wall, and concluded: "Frankly, I'd like to be assured my chances of walking out of there comfortably intact."
slaughter and mayhem"Hah." As if the unknown lets the mind wander free was a joke, almost, or struck him somewise as funny; of course he does not laugh or crack a smile or do anything other than seem to be attentive, but the hah speaks of submerged warmths.
Headlights wash over them as somebody turns down the alley and drives past them into the lot, which is not entirely empty. It is early nights yet, so people are arriving for the Blue Room or any of the other restaurants and bars which line the street. No one is close enough to hear them.
"This one is mine," Morris says, gesturing to a boxy car from the 80s which looks to be in very good condition, with Eastern European engineering, and perhaps a few bribes to the emissions regulatory board. It is black. Do most vampires drive black cars? Do certain clans have a prediliction for certain colors? His car is black; it says nothing about its owner, much as Morris' face says little about him. He is not blank, he is simply bland.
"Now, what assurance can I give you? You do not know me. I am not a wanton murderer, but you do not know this for certain; my friend is not a wanton murderer, either, but that must be even less clear from your viewpoint. I will tell you these things, but it is no assurance. You seem a woman very conscious of, hm, checks and balances, am I correct in this?"
"Do you drive, Miss Molly?"
Molly"Well, you need to mind your balance in the shoes I walk in...."
Molly said this casually instead of cryptically, or at least tried to Checks and balances were absolutely something she kept track of. Doing so was the only way to know when you had leverage, if it should or could be used, and when the scales were tipped just enough to land in her favor. She was looking over the solid black car that he'd indicated, but looked back up to him with an inquisitive raise of eyebrows when he asked if she drove.
"I can, yeah." Eyes back on the car. "Can't you?"
slaughter and mayhem"I can, but I thought I would offer you my keys. Then control of the machine would be yours, as far as assurances will take us," he adds, his tone one of explanation, but not apology.
MollyAgain, Morris is set with a thoughtful look. It's a little less grim this time around, at least, but more intrigued, or puzzled, or both. Then came that half-quirked smile once more as well, and she nodded. "It's a thoughtful gesture. Thanks."
Then, with her palm out for the keys:
"So, where are we headed?"
slaughter and mayhemMorris hands her his keys, and the attentive air sharpens as he does so. But she does not throw them, and try to flee him. Molly gets into the car, and so too does Morris, and they leave this place together. Behind them, in the Blue Room, a certain bartender tells another someone came by asking about the cards, but the redhead is gone. The cards will keep, surely, and whatever information they had to offer.
"I will see," Morris tells Molly, and he takes out a cellphone and taps out a long text. While he waits for a response, he offers Molly music. Most of his music is classical stuff, though he has a surprise Enya CD in among the rest.
"The Brown Palace Hotel. You know where it is?"
If Molly does not, he directs her. It is not a very long drive, and Morris answers conversational sallies with the same sort of conversation he has given her thus far. When they have reached the hotel, and a valet is ready to drive the car down into the parking structure, Morris once again offers Molly his arm. If she does not wish to take it, he does not do more than give her a considering look. He does not push.
When they are in the elevator, however, with no stop-off for the concierge, he says, "It occurs to me, may I ask you a personal question, before you meet my friend?"
MollyAs a matter of fact, Molly did know where The Brown Palace was, and didn't need directions to get there. She'd drive with her window down if the owner of the car offered no protest, and hooked an elbow in the window space and let the wind whip at her hair.
Whatever conversation Molly had to offer, it was largely casual while still a little prodding-- how long have you been in Denver? oh that nice. The Brown Palace has a nice bar where you can buy some rich cigars, if that's your thing. been a vampire very long?
Where there wasn't conversation, there was thoughtful silence. This was how Molly pulled up to the hotel and got out of the car-- quiet and thoughtful. She let the keys pass into the hands of a valet and brushed at her hair a bit with her fingers to smooth it back into place after the drive, and saw no harm in further humoring the man with a hand on his arm. That free hand remained as such, and Morris had made no shows of strength or dominance to raise red flags and have her trying to flee just yet.
In the elevator, Molly took her hand back and stood with her arms folded behind her back. Her gingery eyebrows raised curiously when he sought permission to ask a personal question.
"What's your question?"
slaughter and mayhemAll information is important, isn't it?
Molly learns that Morris does not yet think of Denver as a permanent home; this is his first anwer. His brow furrowed in thought when she asked him whether he has been a vampire very long, and his answer was something without precision. "Longer, I think, than you have been Miss Molly." That is his second.
They are going up to the highest floor the elevator will go to. Then there is another elevator, which requires a keycard to go up in. Morris does not have a key, but he sends another text once they are in the elevator. His hands dwarf the phone. Then he settles, his arms clasped loosely behind his back, his reflection in the closed doors immaculate.
And present, which is important to some people.
"The term 'blood doll'; is this term a familiar one to you?"
MollyMolly's keen attention to detail picked up on any number of things. The steel-wire strength of Morris's arm under his coat, how the phone dwarfed in his hand, how the bracelet he wore meant Severity, Gevurah, the Essence of Judgment. That his reflection was present, not absent as with two other vampires that she'd known for some time.
The question of the term 'blood doll' had those curiously raised eyebrows furrowing straight away. Like she found the words offensive. Her hands kept behind her back, though, and she stood and patiently waited in the second elevator while waiting for some response to the text that her escort had just sent.
"I know what it is," she said with only a little bit of a bite to her voice at first. She didn't care for how that had been set up as a personal question. She didn't like that it was asked in the first place, that it was anywhere on his mind (though what had he been doing out at the bar, then, if not hunting and prowling when he just so happened to stumble across her?).
"...I hope that question isn't leading into any follow-ups along the same vein."
Molly[That wasn't going anywhere, was it? Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 5) ( botch x 2 )
slaughter and mayhemHe is not emotionless, after all. Molly, watching the man's imperious hawk of a nose, the broad almost-regal planes of his face, the melancholy set of his eyes, detects a moment of insult. As if the use of blood dolls were, to him, an abhorrent thing; as if the suggestion that he would so lure her was the same as spitting in the lemonade he offered her in his position as host. He doesn't seem to like the accusation in her tone, and perhaps she thinks she detects a stiffening.
"Hah," he says. "A pun. No; I simply wished to know whether you would expect to be given the Kiss, or if that is a thing you are wanting and have experienced before."
MollyMolly's lips pressed together and she held her quiet for a moment. Looked back to the reflective doors and the dark indigo of her pants, the soft peachy tone of her blouse. Focused on and took some sense of familiarity in her own reflection for the time. It was good, at least, that he appeared offended by the question. Even if it did seem to be something of a jab at his shows of good faith thus far, what hospitality (if you could call taking someone to an arranged location) he's offered. At least there was some comfort in seeing that his intention here wasn't something most foul. At least, not that thing most foul.
When he clarified the question, it was Molly's turn to appear a little insulted, and even a bit uncomfortable. Yes, she'd been bitten. Yes, she knew why and how some may go seeking that experience again. Molly herself held to dignity, shame, and pride too firmly to give way to that-- much how she didn't go seeking vampire blood after being exposed to it by some Malkavanian maniac.
"Trust me, teeth in my throat aren't something I go seeking out. Be assured I wasn't hoping for some... debauchery in coming along on this adventure."
slaughter and mayhemHe nods his acceptance of her statement once. His agreement? ah, well. Molly is not at her sharpest right now, or Molly is at her sharpest now; hasn't he become clear to her, in this elevator?
"I should ask you no more, until we are with my friend; it is greedy of me, to take bigger part of interesting conversation."
The elevator dings and Morris holds the door open with his arm, to allow Molly precede him out onto the second-to-topmost floor.
MollyShe really did think that she had clearly seen that she didn't need to worry about unwanted advances. She was confident that she'd seen this in a fleeting break in the bland mask of this man who looked like he was from another era just dressed up to blend with this one. So she didn't worry, not immediately, on the matter. The elevator had come to a stop and the doors began to slide open. It was time to meet this 'friend'.
Molly passed by Morris's chest and open arm to step out of the elevator and onto what she could comfortably call the top of the building. Not the topmost floor, but they were far enough off the ground that they may as well be.
She didn't roam much further past the elevator doors without her escort. This time around she wouldn't humor him with an arm on his forearm either, if that were something he'd offered his arm for again. Instead she tucked her hands into the seat pockets of her jeans and kept her elbows near her sides and would take step alongside the undead man when he would walk out from the elevator as well.
slaughter and mayhemThe hall is elegance. Hushed elegance, but elegance nonetheless: plush carpeting to smother footsteps and sleek art deco ornature to give an appearance of transcending time or being fixed in time. Crystal sends rainbow prisms dancing on mellow honeyed walls; the lighting is personal rather than impersonal, rather than too bright.
Morris does offer her his arm once more, and so when she demures gives her that considering look which has been promised before, but does not push her. He walks Molly down the hall, and around a corner, and there standing in front of another elevator (the private one, which leads to the sun-soaked topmost suite) is what appears to be a young woman.
The young woman has radiantly pale roses-and-cream skin, which while owing more to ivory than to sand does not quite give her the appearance of death; she has blonde-streaked darkish chestnut hair, curled over one shoulder and cut with an air of professional. The curl is girlish; there is much about her face which is girlish.
Molly could perhaps deduce on her own that this is Morris' friend, even before his stride checks and he lifts a hand in greeting. But his stride checks and he does lift a hand in greeting. He does not call a greeting, but half-glances at Molly. The creature by the private elevator door has her keycard in hand and she presses it against the button, so when Molly and Morris (M&M) are near enough for actual conversation there is a ding and the elevator door opens.
"This is my friend," he says, to Molly, taking it upon himself to with an elbow hold the elevator open. "And this is the woman I told you about, who is a knowledge-seeker; but I leave to you to make proper introductions."
slaughter and mayhemooc: ahem, "to you ladies to make proper introductions."
MollyUp the hall, around the corner, and there is this mysterious 'friend' up ahead. Molly had been right to withhold gender pronouns up to this point, though her first impulse was to suppose that she was going to see some older gentleman, a 'boss' figure of some kind. Her hands slipped free from her pockets when the young woman (appearing younger than herself, even-- girlish enough that Molly would suppose 20 or 21 to be the physical age she was facing [though that made absolutely no promises to true age, did it?]) came into sight.
Morris had lifted his hand in greeting, and Molly had inclined her head some, but didn't offer any enthused or for-show polite smiles like many felt obligated to at least offer when initially meeting somebody. This wasn't a lunch date with a business associate, after all, so the standard rules didn't exactly apply.
The doors to the next elevator had opened already, and while Morris held the door open he made a brief introduction to introductions, left Molly and this mysterious friend do the rest themselves. So Molly paused in the hallway, not stepping into the elevator just yet, and held her hand out for the milk-maid-pale young lady in an offer to shake. "I'm Molly, and I understand we've got some mutual interests to discuss."
slaughter and mayhem"Hello, Molly," the creature says as she takes Molly's hand, and it is a pretty creature, but her main asset must be her voice. It's an enchanting voice, a put-you-off-your-game you're-so-busy-listening-to-it voice. Her demeanor is to the point and so is her handshake, which is cold. "Morris leads me to believe the same thing! You can't know just how out-of-the-pale I find it. Do call me Sophie; it is what most everybody does. Have you eaten yet tonight? Shall I ring for something from room service?"
The elevator door pushes gently against Morris' spine and he stands straight for it, his eyes hooded and his straight lashes giving him an air of casual sensuality at odds with his demeanor.
He doesn't say anything yet, but his air is not one of the inactive observer; he holds himself as if he is still a participant. Should Molly look at him, he nods as if to offer her encouragement. Should Sophie look at him, he looks back at his most bland, which is very bland indeed.
MollyThe woman's voice is beautiful, enthralling even. It was tough not to be wrapped up in it, though Molly couldn't quite say that the enchantment was a thing of warm milk and honey. It captivated, absolutely, but offered no comfort or shelter. Molly's handshake was direct but not too firm, she saw no need to squeeze hands in show of strength or compensation. It certainly was warmer than the cool palm it met with.
Still, this pretty creature had Molly offering a polite smile after all. The enthusiasm was difficult not to match at least a tiny bit.
"No, I'm just fine, thank you." Plus there was something very Hansel and Gretel feeling to sitting and eating before creatures that would rather just eat you. She avoided it if at all possible.
A glance was cast back to Morris, a brief one, and after the encouraging nod from him she looked to the young woman who preferred to be called Sophie. "I'm intrigued to know what it is we're here to discuss-- the suspense of it all could curl hair. Are we going up?"
slaughter and mayhem"We are."
Once they're inside the elevator - see how it hearkens back to another era, see the gold designs liquid fluid on the marbled walls, see the graceful arcs and sharp geometric designs - and Morris has allowed it to close, Sophie covers the touchpad with one hand and with the other types in a security code.
"I find it more convivial to have certain conversations where I can be reasonably certain I will not be overheard. Have you been in Denver long?"
Ding, again. This time the elevator lets them out into a foyer; the foyer spills into the (opulent, tasteful, Classic, Classic, Classic, all Classic Aristocratic American) living area, couches and walnut tables and more touches of another time here and there. The light is still soft enough for intimacy, and there is a cold fireplace. A crystal decanter with some dark liquid within set out on the coffee table beside a stack of notebooks and a tablet, and a snifter with signs of recent use.
Sophie of course bids Molly to take a seat; Morris of course follows. The conversation, it seems, will begin in truth once everybody is settled and comfortable and the initial proprietries have been observed, hm?
MollyInside the elevator it was a thing of expense and luxury. Molly was pretty sure that there was gold within the marble walls, and noted how the elevator required a handprint touch screen to operate. She was fairly certain that the elevator itself cost more than her entire apartment combined.
"I can certainly respect that," Molly commented on Sophie's preference for confirmed privacy when speaking on delicate matters.
When the elevator doors opened again, Molly confirmed that the top floor of this building was worth more than the whole of her apartment building, each unit combined. Her jaw didn't fall open when she looked around at the ceilings, the walls, the fireplace and couches and crystal decanter that sat on the table between them. To look at her expression, you could tell that in her mind she was blowing a low and impressed whistle at what she was seeing. Outwardly, though, Molly did a fine job of keeping cool and casual looking, like this was no big deal and she belonged perfectly well.
"For the better part of a decade now," Molly answered as they made their way out of the elevator and to the seating area. "I'd moved out to Denver for college and liked it enough to stay."
Here, Miss Molly, please have a seat. If she was gestured to one seat in particular Molly wouldn't object to taking that. Otherwise, she'd find herself tucked into the right-side corner of one of the sofas, with an arm propped up on the arm of the couch, and her other hand rested in her lap. Legs would cross at the knee so a patent black leather ballet flat hovered in the air as opposed to being set flat on the floor with its counterpart.
"You must have been settled in here for some time, to have all of this set up for yourself." Molly presumed Sophie was something of an old power amongst vampires here in Denver. She did have a penthouse in a nice hotel with secured access and plenty of wealth to put into it all. Or so she perceived.
slaughter and mayhemMolly is given the freedom to choose her own seat. Sophie settles herself in across from Molly, and by sheer chance that is in a chair that could, with a little imagination, be polished up into a regal and almost-contemporary throne; something not made of rat bones, but, well. Not all vampires are as nice in their habits as Molly's friend Harald. Morris chooses to sit in a seat with his back to the door, jerking his trousers up as he folds himself down. He looks almost too big, too farm-house lean, for the civility of his dress and his setting, like a beast trying to play at manners. But it works; doesn't it work? Maybe it works.
"Not so very long, but the staff here is discreet. Now have you really not guessed what it is we're here to discuss? You don't mind if we save smalltalk for later."
The last sentence tacked on not apologetically, neither of these vampires seems as if they have it in them to be very apologetic, but as acknowledgment of Sophie's sudden jump-skip over more inquiries into how Molly enjoys Denver how Sophie enjoys Denver blah blah blah boring yuck.
MollyThe trio sit in their own approximation of a triangle: Molly with the elevator to her left and some wall or window or fireplace or what-have-you to her right, Sophie across from her, and Morris at some in-between point with his back to the elevator doors. Something about his choice in where to sit gave her the impression that he was serving as some sort of guard or muscle to this pretty roses-and-moonlight young woman.
Ah, but let's cut to the chase, shall we? Sophie wanted to know if Molly could guess at what they were here to discuss. The one human left in the room straightened just a little, shifted her right arm so that both hands rested together in her lap now instead. Business talk it was.
"I would venture to suppose that we'd be discussing vampires-- or, more to the point, what I know and how I picked Morris here--" she still said his name out loud like she didn't believe it, but was humoring and playing along by using it anyways "--out for what he was.
"Or, at least, I suppose that's what you want to hear from me."
slaughter and mayhem"Correct. I want to know how much you know," Sophie says, as if she means to hear it. The redhead has the whole of Sophie's attention. Girlish her appearance may be, but her demeanor is that of a tower, a scion, a pillar, some edifice which must stand. It is not actively aggressive. "Ideally," and she smiles, "How exactly you came to know it. I said it before and I'll say it again: this sort of conversation really is just beyond-the-pale."
"What do you want to hear from me?"
MollyMolly's eyes hopped briefly over to Morris again. This question posed to her by his friend, his boss-woman, this Sophie, was about the same as he'd asked while she was at the bar sipping gin. She soon looked directly back to the woman whose demeanor was older and bigger than her body seemed to be. Answers were best delivered straight-forward. Showing the half of her that wanted to make for the elevator and escape, the half she'd been silencing and stamping down in the pursuit of knowledge and fulfilling curiosity in general, it would serve her no help. Appearing cool was Molly's default and it'd served her fine thus far.
"That's an incredibly general subject. Suffice to say I know... probably an amateur's amount about vampires and their culture." That's a lie-- she considered herself an intermediate at worst. Certainly nowhere near an expert though. "I know of the factions, of some of the basic things you all are capable of, which old myths are generally true and generally false, and that nothing is really definite or all-applying except for the effects of the sun."
As for how she came to know it, she shook her head a little, almost in apology, and repeated a statement she'd given her escort earlier that evening. "I can't relay exact details. I'm unable to throw any individual under a bus here, for preservation's sake. I hope you can understand." A small, fleeting smile was offered to go along with the apology, but a general synopsis was provided. "Let's just say that observing someone with no pulse or breath walking alongside you raises some curiosities and gets you doing some research."
And what she wanted to know from Sophie? Well, they'd get there. Molly figured that there'd be some questions or comments for what she'd provided thus far that the woman would like to work her way through first.
Molly[Manipulation 3 + Subterfuge 3: Skills you cannot navigate the vampire world without]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie, do you believe Molly's impeccable lying skillz?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris, what about you?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
slaughter and mayhemMolly's eyes meet Morris's when they get there. He gives a mild shrug of his shoulders, his hands clasped on his knee. The shrug could mean many things; it could be a nervous tic. He does not seem nervous, but then, what would nerves look like on such a placid creature? He is too busy seeming like a civil beast.
One of the two vampires paying her atttention sees where Molly fudges, blurs the lines, downplays her own interest.
One of the two vampires does not.
Sophie waits a beat. Her expression has gone through some small changes, while listening to Molly lay out her status as amateur vampiric lore-keeper.
"What of the factions do you know? I'm fascinated. How this must look from the outside." There is the subtle insinuation of a question on the word 'outside.'"
MollyDid Molly notice that Morris caught her lie? Likely not. She was lying directly to Sophie after all, more concerned about the woman who she was brought before, the one with the air of authority, than she was about the civil beast that kept silent company with them both. When asked what factions she does know, she kept that lie going further, continuing to gently downplay what she knew and leave gaps in the knowledge that she actually held.
"Well, there's two main factions-- the 'church' and the 'state', so to speak. The group that has order and structure and the other group that's waiting for the word to fall apart. I know that there are different.... 'bloodlines', too. Different kinds of vampires, if you will." Her freckled shoulders bunched up and dropped back down with a hapless kind of shrug. It was an indication that she didn't know much more to say on that line of thought.
While she was playing that she knew less about vampire than what she actually did, that didn't mean that Molly Toombs was playing dumb across the board. The mild inflection of a question as to whether Molly really was on the outside or not didn't go missed. To answer it, Molly lifted a hand and waved it almost as though to chase away any notion that she may be anything but human.
"Certainly the outside. Outside looking in, perhaps, but I'm not a part of this world."
Something about it sounded like she was denying the inevitable.
slaughter and mayhem"The 'church' and the 'state,'" Sophie echoes, and the word 'church' curdles on her tongue. Her voice is such a thing that it lends her leashed contempt (she despises the 'church,' or that description, or something about it) some added oomph. She shakes her head and one sleek curl goes bounce, bounce, and she says, "You are not a ghoul? Do you know what that is? Do you, in your heart, feel more allegiance toward one faction over the other?"
MollyAs she'd told the man with the Gevurah bracelet, Molly picked informational gems from every bit of conversation, every approach, in particular when she was in the mind to look for them. The way that disdain flavored the woman's tongue and words w hen she spoke of the 'church' was a clear flag to Molly that this woman was of the Camarilla, not the Sabbat. Yes, she had the words for these factions, they'd been shared with her by some shadowy man in a three-piece suit quite a while ago.
"I'm no ghoul," she answered with a straight face, and a renewed straight set to her eyebrows that had her looking unamused, if not a tiny bit offended. Of course she wasn't a ghoul.
As for allegiance, Molly shook her red head so hair fell off her shoulders to rest in front of them instead. "It's not my war. Why would I pick sides in a battle that I have no reason to be fighting in?"
slaughter and mayhem"Don't be a little fool." Sophie shakes her head, though her eyes stay fixed on Molly; as if she cannot believe it.
Morris clears his throat. "Sophie -- "
"Morris, please," deliberate, icy. "I am being honest with our guest."
"Some tact -- "
But he is ignored from there-on out by the creature who clasps her hands together and leans over her knee. Her voice is enchanting, yes, is enthralling, and what there is in Sophie (perhaps Molly knows enough to make a guess not only at her affiliation, but at her bloodline - her clan - as well?) is implaccable.
She tries to speak eloquently; she is usually an eloquent speaker, a leader, one who knows what beats to hit. She is angry, and wrathful, and she does not seem as if she is going to fly into a frenzy and attack Molly, but she is not going to soften what it is she says.
Tact, pfah.
"If nothing else, you are human. If you don't care about your fellow man, perhaps you care about yourself?"
"Do you know what the 'church' as you call it does to the unfortunate humans in its power? They do not see them. They make sport of them. They make ritual implements from the bones of infants! They hang living men and women from hooks and still-living take turns draining them, cutting them that their blood is collected in a glass, so the poor victims are conscious! They use them for food and they use them for fodder and for the walls of their deep holy places.
"They have the ability to take someone such as yourself and twist your body so that it has lost its eyes and its mouth and its ears but retains its nostrils so that it may yet breathe. They kill without a thought because you are no more than cows. I don't mean free-range pets, but cows kept without any thought for quality of life. They regard those who are not part of their horrid little religion as meat for the machine.
"They are insatiable: where they go, they bring violence. There is absolutely no recourse to justice for those without their structure. You have no voice. You have no standing, in the eyes of their law. You are nothing but a bag of blood or the raw material for a sculpture. Worse: Here, in Denver, we are all of us in churning water, caught in a tempest -- so you may be the raw material for a mindless soldier. Do you know what they do to people they snatch off the streets? They turn them. They turn them into vampires, and they abandon them. They bury them in this state and those who wake find themselves buried alive. Of course they do not need to breathe, but can you imagine the terror? The madness?
"How long would it take you and how desperate would you need to be and how completely would you lose yourself to the Beast -- yes, we all have a Beast -- before you reached the surface? And then what? Would you still be Molly? Would you still remember what it is to be human? If you did, you would soon not: That is what their business is. The business of putting humanity beneath their heel, cruelly and without regard for the sanctity of life.
And that is what they do to humans, who they do not have a vendetta against, who they do not see themselves at war against."
"Why do you not pick a side? Why do you not think there is a reason to fight? Why do you turn your nose up at the thought of being a ghoul?"
[Sophie's Manipulation + Leadership. -2 Diff for Enchanting Voice. Get up in arms, silly mortal!! How's the impromptu speechifying?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 7 )
Molly[Perception + Empathy: I'm really good at this roll.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Molly[Perception + Empathy: I'm really good at this roll.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
MollyFor a moment there is a back and forth, and Molly's sharp blue eyes followed after it. First to Sophie, warning her not to be a fool, then to Morris who tried to step in. To Sophie, bowling over her companion, who tried once more but failed to quell the woman who was like a spire, an ivory tower, in the room amongst them.
She sat stiff on the couch as Sophie leaned forward and fed her a string of imagery to describe and then further expound upon the evils that the church, the Sabbat, the faction of so many, many business cards hidden somewhere secretive in her apartment, consisted of.
As she pressed on, blood drained out of Molly's face, making her freckles an all the more obvious splash across her face. Her hands knitted together in her lap, and she did a decent job of not looking too disgusted in her facial expressions, but it was tough to keep those details from playing out and sink in as a terrible truth.
Truth, you see, because Molly understood perfectly in looking into this woman's face and listening to the compelling charm of her voice that she was not lying. That she really was describing the destroyers of men and could not, for the life of her, understand or condone Molly's indifference on the matter.
When the woman concluded with what felt a hell of a lot like a challenge to take up arms and join the fight (because why would you not want to be a ghoul and be able to fight?), Molly realized her mouth felt dry and licked her lips. Processed, looked at the coffee table for a moment to break away from that gaze (but the voice still rang, almost [maybe?] supernaturally invoked as it sounded). Finally, she huffed a breath and found her voice.
"I... had no idea." Sincerely, she didn't, the truth of that was bare in how stunned the insight had left her. She looked like she was struggling to believe what Sophie told her as literal information, like she was struggling to rediscover her ground and her original purpose there, and like she maybe wanted to puke just a little bit at the same time. The poor girl never did recover her color.
"I'm not a soldier, though. I don't want to fight."
[Spending WP]
Molly[Manipulation + Subterfuge]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris: checking Molly's temperature. How're you feeling, Molly?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie: Yes, how are you feeling, Molly?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Molly[Morris Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
slaughter and mayhem[Morris Tiebreaker!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
slaughter and mayhem[Sophie Tiebreaker?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
MollyThere was a truth in what Molly said and a lie in what she didn't want to show or say or even come close to bringing up or talking about whatsoever.
The truth was in what Molly had spoken about having no inkling that any carnage was a thing, nothing so terrible or chilling to the bone. Also in that she did not want to fight. If anything, Molly considered herself a healer, despite her less-than-soft nature and demeanor overall. Molly didn't seem like much of a nurturing soul, but she was a nurse for a reason after all.
The lie was something that she managed to keep from Sophie. But Morris was perceptive, much like the hawk she'd compared his shadow to earlier. He saw in the serious cast to her face and introspective quality to when her eyes slipped away from Sophie that she was adding those deeds up to identities and very seriously reconsidering some relationships that she had.
slaughter and mayhemThere are two vampires watching Molly. Two vampires who watch how Molly's skin change colors, how she grows so pale she might rival them, how her freckles stand in sharp relief; one of them sees Molly maintain her composure, as best as she is able, some of the stunned shock and overload visible, but essentially isn't Molly one cool character? There are two vampires watching Molly, wanting to see how it is she reacts, what she is feeling now, trying to guage which way she'll jump: what she felt, how she was moved.
"Why not?" Sophie asks. "Is it because you shy from a physical brawl? There are other ways."
Morris, whose gaze does skim beneath the surface of Molly's mask, who teases out some hint of her feelings as a sieve might skim a stone from a dark pool, looks contemplative and blank. He rubs his brow with the pads of his index and middle fingers.
He says, softly, "My friend is invested in this matter of war, as you do see now. I too am invested for other reasons."
"Morris, my god! Let her speak," Sophie says, with impatience.
"Sophie, my god," he echoes, blandly, "Let her process."
MollyIs it because you shy from a physical brawl?
Molly shook her head quickly, almost like she may be a little offended by the notion. She didn't pride herself on being much of a brawler, she barely knew how to hold her fist so as not to hurt herself if she had to defend herself. But she was healthy, and she liked to count herself as being at least a little tough. No, Molly's concerns with fighting existed elsewhere.
When Morris spoke up, explained Sophie's passion in the cause and eluded to his own, she looked over to him instead. Glanced quick-sharp to Sophie when she cut in impatiently to petition for room for Molly to answer her inquiry-- why not join the battle?
Morris's comeback earned him a momentary look that he easily read for the thank you it was. Yes, please, let her process.
A few moments passed, and Molly shook her head a little again, picking up the answer she hadn't quite gotten out earlier. "No, it's just that your chances of death tend to skyrocket if you join a war in any capacity."
slaughter and mayhem[M: Wits roll.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
slaughter and mayhem[S: Wits roll.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
slaughter and mayhemFor once, Morris is quicker than Sophie is to speak his mind, perhaps because he is more in tune with Molly's internal landscape (and Sophie's, too. His friend is not what he would call 'subtle,' but none would).
Morris says, gently, "Some would say that your knowledge of our society is also your membership in it. Certainly membership without privileges and rights, but nonetheless it is membership. Some would also say that your chances of death, knowing without participation or patron, are already very high."
Molly[Wits: Keep it cool, Toombs]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
MollyEven shaken with an almost overload of passionate, enthralling description of the types of terrors and evils that one side of this battle of vampires practiced on a regular basis, Molly managed to keep her hands from shaking and even cleared the stunned horror from her eyes successfully. She could shelve grappling with relationships and trusts that she had built previously for the sake of keeping face before these two vampires-- particularly in the face of what Morris was just so kind to point out.
Molly turned her face back to him and smiled, the expression very small but unshaking, and she gave herself credit for that much.
"I wouldn't call it a membership myself. I don't even like participating in the politics of my own species, let alone that of vampires." She glanced ever-so-briefly to Sophie, then back to Morris as she continued to speak level and clear, as it was important that she was understood.
"I know what comes with being a ghoul. I don't want to be in anybody's servitude. I've made it a policy of mine not to stir pots or share secrets, specifically so I can step on as few toes as possible, and keep on with my own life." The smile found a way to become more pronounced and grim both at once. "I've figured that insight would land me in trouble before, but somehow have skimmed death just fine up to this point."
Next, almost abruptly, Molly shifted her attention back onto Sophie. A shiny change of subject could serve her well at this juncture.
"Did you still want to know what I was hoping to take away from this in turn?"
Vampires
"Of course."
Molly can see, when she shifts her attention back to Sophie, that the vampiress is not distracted; but nor is she a terrier, shaking a point, and when she says of course she says it at a slower beat, a certain noblesse oblige in the nod of her head.
Molly
The go-ahead granted by the woman that appeared to be in charge out of the two present had Molly comfortably abandoning the subject that she had with Morris for the moment. The topic of memberships into clubs of the undead and what obligations and responsibilities her knowledge gave her was one that Molly loved to avoid. She didn't want to be responsible for anything, after all. She just wanted to learn and hoard that knowledge to herself-- as though it were gold and she were some sort of lore-dragon.
She didn't exactly exactly settle into the couch when she turned shoulders and waist to better face Sophie again-- Molly was far too tense to actually make herself comfortable, and wasn't the sort to try and feign arrogance and confidence with a sprawl across the sofa. Instead she sat with one foot on the floor, the other in the air due to her legs still being crossed at the knees, and with her hands folded together on top of her lap.
Despite her attentive and tense posture, despite the revelation of horrors laid upon her having only just been pushed aside in her mind for further processing when she wasn't just trying to save her skin and keep afloat, Molly's voice was still perfectly level and calm and cool and collected. Not a warble or shake to be found.
"I wanted to know what you've heard about the terror under the streets of Denver-- that sucks life through earth and concrete. I've heard it was asleep for a long while but has begun to stir. What do you know of that?"
Molly was no on-point terrier herself, but the intense focus while she waited for the answer couldn't be chased from her eyes.
Molly[Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
vampires[Morris, inscrutable emotional ninja?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Sophie, who thinks Morris should stop showing off his stupid poker face.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly[T-t-t-tie breaker!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Pfffffft. I can be better at inscrutable emotional ninjaing than Morris, god damn it.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
vampires[Sophie: -_-
Morris: (too inscrutable for LOL to show up)]
vampiresMorris is as unrevelatory as he ever is. His expression is one of bland attention, a neutral listener, and the tilt of his head and the sidelong look directed toward Sophie could mean anything, but Molly has no guesses, no sense of what the sidelong look means, no sense that he is moved at all by her question whether because he is interested or annoyed.
Sophie is a vampiress, and one Molly believes is of high status (this is a correct belief), so it is rare that her mask slips too far. It doesn't slip now, but nor is it so perfectly constructed that Molly doesn't see certain signs. A set to Sophie's mouth, the way her eyes flick over to Morris' and how she turns her head when she does it, lifting a hand fingers rubbing together before she rests her elbow on the back of her chair and leans. Artifice. Midway through Molly's question Sophie's interest lashed out; and now she says,
"Very little. I don't spend much time listening to the propaganda of doomsday cults, or, truth to tell," a nod, "spend much time chasing their leads. I do however know some who have made it a point of pride to gather information: bloody lakes, isn't it, Morris?" A pause. "My dear, are you familiar with the word Antediluvian or Methuselah in context of vampiric society?"
MollyOf course Morris's face offered no signs, his posture gave way no hints to how Molly's question may have struck. He briefly exchanged looks with Sophie, Sophie who was collected and knew how to wear a mask but had tiny little tells that Molly was able to pick up. She was interested, that was certain. Interest was a dangerous double-edged blade-- if she was interesting she was less likely to be killed, but she was equally less likely to be let to walk away. Balancing precisely how much interest somebody had in you, especially when that body was a cold one, was a tricky game that Miss Toombs had never really gotten down to a science.
Propaganda, the vampiress called it, and Molly's lips pressed subtly together-- she didn't really like the dismissal of something that she knew to be so real, so terrifying, so etched into her mind that she saw images of The Terror on repeat in her nightmares. In no position to argue its authenticity, the mild pursing of lips was the most protest she could give.
"Methuselah I only know from the biblical stories..." The human woman's answer came with a slow shake of her head, one that was almost apologetic. "Antediluvian is... the pre-Great Flood time period in the same stories?" She sounded less sure on the second term than the first, but concluded in a way that said she wasn't seeking confirmation as to how accurate her understanding as it currently stood was.
"Not in a vampiric context, though." Though she could certainly imagine how a character who was said to live the longest of any man on earth may tie in to a race of unaging beings.
vampiresMorris cracks his lips to say, "There are some who do say such a creature is what is beneath. There was a Nosferatu who was said to be working on the subject, and my kin do hear things on some nights."
His voice is a sheet of metal in its blankness, reflective without ever revealing a picture.
"Mm," Sophie says. "Tell me, why are you interested in these stories? Is it because they are different from what you are used to, because you believe the end is nearing, want to play guardian?" Here, the female vampire leans forward, clasping her hands, "Or is it because you want to stir the spoon?"
MollyClear blue eyes hopped back to Morris when his voice joined the higher female tones in the large, immaculate room. The connection interested her-- perhaps this creature was Methuselah? Or perhaps it was from the time pre-dating God's task to Noah to build an ark to save the unwicked? A Nosferatu was looking into the matter, which seemed appropriate given that Molly knew enough to know that they were the vampires of the underground. This was right up their alley, after all.
But then, back to Sophie, for the woman in charge had more queries of the interesting mortal woman-- why did she care? What was it that Molly planned to do with the information she sought?
Molly's expressions had learned to become more presentable, more polite. The cool attitude she carried was more tempered these days, not nearly so icy as it had been perhaps a year or two ago. She did not smile for this conversation, made no efforts to lay down charms, but even with a flat set to her mouth her eyes were still softened enough to give the impression of being open and conversational, less sharp and severe and intense than how she no doubt truly felt.
"Because understanding something is the best way to survive it. Ironic, given how vastly more dangerous life has become since I've started seeing into the shadows, I know. But ignorance is a flimsy shield, and I'd rather take on the task of building a better defense myself."
Molly's arm twisted just so in her lap, angling her wrist to aim the face of a watch she wore in a direction that made it easier to read. The gesture was small, casual, apparently thoughtless, but checking one's watch was a universal signal that they were preparing to conclude and leave.
vampiresMorris has not leaned back in his chair. He sits up, at ready. He continues to sit up, at ready, his attention moving between the apparently young women. He doesn't smile, either, nor does Sophie; this is a serious conversation, not a social meeting. In this, all three creatures in the room are in agreement.
"There are some who would disagree with you," Morris says.
Sophie's lashes sink down when Molly checks her watch and when they rise her gaze is brilliant, and she finally smiles. A courteous curve of a soft mouth, and she says, "I'd like to hear your impression of myself and of Morris here, so far, and then I'd like to give you some thoughts."
Molly"Oh there are plenty who disagree with me," Molly agreed with Morris, and for how grave the topic was her tone didn't quite match. She sounded nearly humored with this paradox she's created in her own life.
When asked for an impression, the woman who was now so much more an occultist and lorekeeper than she was a nurse (her actual paying profession) gave pause. She was thinking, but not so much about what impression she had as she was about what to say, how to say it, how to best extract herself from this situation now that she'd asked her questions and gleaned her information. Playing into the conversation and giving a little to get a little had (as far as she was concerned) lessened her chances of the stalwart Morris simply following her away from the bar and putting an end to her before she could cause any more tears in secretive veils. She'd paid her dues, and was ready to get back out from behind this secured door.
With a small and slightly uncomfortable shift where she sat, Molly finally spoke up after several seconds of lapsed silence.
"You, Sophie, I'm sure hold a seat of power in whatever hierarchy this system has. I believe Morris here is your right hand."
There was perhaps more to say-- the way that her sentence stopped at the edge of her tongue suggested that she initially had more words to follow but decided not to share them. An incomplete thought or impression that she'd stopped before it started, so she wouldn't be petering out in the middle of a sentence like an engine who had run through the last of its coal. There was a suspicious flicker of eyes over to Morris before she looked back to Sophie more directly once more. How impossible the man was to read set her on edge, no doubt like many a person before her. If mystery were a strength, then he would be an Olympian.
"...Aside from that, I just don't really know. It's difficult to gauge a person without knowing their intentions, and all I know of you is that you're here for the War and you're passionate for that cause." It was infectious, really, but she didn't say so aloud-- she didn't want to encourage the woman, after all.
vampires"Allow me to change that, and tell you more about myself and my intentions." Sophie's clasped hands unclasp and she holds them out once, for emphasis, before bringing them back together with a soft clap, which in turn emphasizes a little nod. She is very intense, Sophie, and her voice is certainly easy to listen to, certainly a siren's in some respects. Her tone of voice is blunt. Forthright. Reasonable.
"I do indeed have status in the Camarilla, and though it was the War which brought me to Denver, it is not only the war, you see. I also came to help support my clansmen, who have been hard-hit, and my government, which has found itself in certain areas stretched thin. I am here to resolve problems as much as to stop those who would breed anarchy and bloody barbarism in Denver's streets. I am here to help this city be strong. I want to see it become a power."
"Morris here thought we'd benefit from a conversation because you, I'm sorry to say, are a problem, and problem resolution is one of my strong suits.
"I intend, and I desire, to resolve this problem in a way we can all be happy with. I don't want you to feel like you have no choice at all. Some would call you very unfortunate right now, but others -- and I hope I am one -- would say that right now you are extremely fortunate and whether fortune or misfortune is to be yours is currently up to you."
There is a tiny pause here; Molly can tell it is a courtesy pause, for Sophie means to continue speaking.
vampiresooc: er, "and as I said problem resolution is one of my strong suits," even. Deliberate repetition is deliberate.
MollyThe more that Sophie spoke of her status and her abilities as a problem-resolver, the more that Molly's posture stiffened and straightened. She wasn't quite seated at the edge of the couch cushion, but she certainly was not set all the way back in her seat either. Her back didn't touch the sofa's back at all, for she sat straight-spined as could be, with her shoulders straight and her hands kept in her lap in something of an imitation of Sophie's.
When revealed that Molly was brought there was a problem to be resolved, the red-haired mortal's nostrils flared with a small but sharp intake of breath and her chin lifted by several degrees. The sensation of prickling on her shoulders and the back of her neck spoke of impending danger, and also of the ghosts of hackles that ancestors to her species far down the line rising to the threat (oh, but this was no threat, it was a promise-- a compromise-- a deal-- a trap).
The pause was clearly a courtesy. Sophie clearly had more to say on the matter. But the pause was presented for a reason, a bit of ground that was perhaps intended to make Molly feel as though she really did have some input in her fate tonight. So Molly wet lips that had gone quite dry quite suddenly and inclined her head in a small 'go on' kind of a nod while adding:
"It seems you have some ideas to suggest already."
vampires"I do indeed. I'd see you as a ghoul. I know you don't want to be one, but I don't want human beings such as yourself to see beyond the Masquerade -- a pretty metaphor made law by the Toreador, who enjoy metaphor -- " back on track. " -- so we're already beyond that want. You could be my ghoul, or you could be Morris's here.
"I'm quite skilled when it comes to a discipline we call Dominate, which I'm sure you've deduced from the name is a power which allows me to command someone. With this discipline, I can try to erase your memories and replace them, then send you on your merry way. However, I am loathe to do this, because you are freakishly perceptive so it seems only a matter of time before the problem begins again. And there are these other mystery vampires you are aquainted with. Besides, why suppress knowledge once it has been won, when it could be more usefully employed?"
Thoughtfully: "I could force that out of you too, but again, I am loathe to do this. I don't want to waste my effort."
Another pause, and once again, Molly can see well that Sophie has more to say, but she is giving Molly time for input or perhaps to break away or faint or something.
Morris does not jump in. He is as still as a leopard in leaf-shadow, watchful.
MollyI'd see you as a ghoul.
The suggestion was right out the gate, and Molly's reaction was small but recognizable-- a wrinkle to the bridge of her nose and a pinch to the brow. A look of disgust. Just as Sophie was loathe to use her skills to Dominate, Molly was similarly disposed to the idea of becoming bound to either of these mystery vampires. Though, admittedly, Sophie was less and less a mystery. A Toreador, she revealed herself to be. Willingly spilling information for she knew how easily she could clean it back up if Molly were to leave unbound this evening-- slim though the chances of that appeared.
There was no surprised raise of eyebrows to suggest that she was unfamiliar with the vampiric ability to control. Molly hadn't witnessed it first hand, but she'd certainly heard of it, and knew full well it was why some would choose to avoid eye contact with vampires altogether (though Molly knew those efforts were futile, a vampire could force that chin up and make eye contact happen if they very much wanted-- Dominate was an appropriate name for the power and the will behind it as well).
Morris stayed silent, leaving the room quiet when Sophie had paused. She was giving Molly a chance to do something, but faint certainly wasn't on the list. She was far too courageous a soul for that.
Too bad that courage didn't come with wisdom automatically as a counter-balance. That's how situations like this happened.
"....what if I were to suggest a sponsor? Someone aside from Morris or yourself to take responsibility, someone that you would be able to trust not just to keep my knowledge from rending this Masquerade but to make the best use of it as well?"
[Manipulation + Leadership: My idea is awesome you should totally listen to it, + WP because jesus christ shit has gotten real]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
vampiresMolly has potential.
Right now, she wields herself in just such a way to sound intriguing, to sound appealing, to sound like oh yes follow me a leader am I, and Sophie raises both eyebrows.
"I'd love to have you suggest a sponsor, someone I would be able to trust. Please continue."
MollyFor how quickly the gears were whirling about in Molly's head they would be creating smoke were it not for the adrenaline that lubricated them well. Her mind was flying, though she sounded confident and assured in her idea, though she presented it and herself in a way that was calm as a lake surface undisturbed, smooth like glass, she was scrambling. Her recommendation that she find a sponsor was made up on the spot, something that she thought would be a better way out than submitting to a life of servitude to one of two people (or, really, probably both given the partnership at hand here) that she'd met just hours ago, that she could trust no further than she could throw.
But she bought herself some time. Sophie was curious, and wanted to hear more. Who would Molly suggest?
The better question in Molly's head was: Who would Sophie be willing to put faith in?
She did a quick roll through the rolodex of business cards that she had hidden cleverly, but committed firmly to mind. Not a name inked onto card stock had been forgotten. The sad thing was that Molly realized how many of those cards were passed to her by fingertips that-- according to Sophie-- were stained with cruelty that didn't bear repeating in her mind.
This left very few, just one really, and so she grasped to that straw tightly as the lifeline (funny choice of words) that it was.
"A Nosferatu. A part of your Camarilla. A knowledge-seeker much like myself, a stimulator and shaper of minds and curiosity. With what I know right now, I can identify some things, but really there'd be potential untapped without the opportunity to continue to learn and grow, right? If a part of the deal is to be useful, then the best deal would be to make me as useful as possible. Put me under the wing of someone who can enable that, and I could go from being kept quiet to being one hell of a resource."
vampires"Morris here can enable that, or there are other Kindred who have specific uses for occultists who might be interested in you. I wouldn't give them a dog I didn't like without great gain promised, but there it is.
"Do you mean the Nosferatu I mentioned previously or do you have one specifically in mind?"
Molly"I don't know if we're speaking of the same person." The tone carried a polite apology on it, like how an apologetic smile would probably sound, but Molly's freckled face remained quite serious. There was nothing pleasant or joking about bargaining for your own fate, after all.
"I do have one specifically in mind, though. If you gave him the same opportunity that you're offering me, here, I'm sure you wouldn't be disappointed."
vampires"Who is this Nosferatu and why is he not already your sponsor?"
Sophie's eyes are sharp, of course. They're blue and lovely and she looks like she was such a flower-faced sweet thing when she was alive; a little piece of somebody's heaven, like she should be a shepherd girl in a pastoral or some high society girl coming out in silks. But they're sharp, and they sharpen now, and she looks human but she is not.
MollyA woman as aware as Molly was, vampires could be as sweet-faced and rose-silk-skinned as they pleased, but they couldn't be confused for human, particularly not when she already knew precisely what they were. Sophie was a pretty girl with a beautiful voice, it was no wonder that she'd found status and possibly even a following of allies and contacts. Molly could understand how it would be easy to fall into step with her and trust what she had to say. The undead woman seemed full of passion and belief in what she spoke, and nations had been led into wars by people with less power to sway.
"He goes by Jack, but as is the nature of his sort his actual name is anybody's guess." She shrugged her shoulders, a small up-down. The second question gave Molly pause, though, because it was something that she didn't entirely understand herself. When her answer came, it was slowly spoken as though she was still contemplating it even as she was delivering it.
"I suppose because he was biding his time... maybe waiting for the correct opportunity. He's... meticulous and thorough. I don't doubt it's been long since written into his plans."
She wanted to look to the door, to check on the unmoving, predatory-silent Morris, but confidence and presentation were key here, so instead the urge was resisted and Molly kept her focus on the woman deciding whether she would walk out of here tonight or not.
"What better opportunity than this, though?"
vampires"You have a way to contact this 'Jack'?" Sophie says. Before Molly can answer, she adds, "And you do understand that 'sponsor' is still a euphemism for ghoul, correct?"
Molly can hear Morris shift, restively, in his seat. It's noteworthy only because he has had so little problem being still, still, still until now.
MollyFor the first time in such a while, Molly's mouth curved into a small smile. The expression was sardonic, almost sour on her pretty face for how very cynical it was, but that grim curve of lips at least offered a full understanding of what they were bargaining.
"Of course. It's the only leash that any of you would be able to trust. Contracts are only worthwhile if they're signed in blood."
There's a small rustling sound from Morris's direction, a redistribution of weight in his seat, that caught Molly's attention and had her glancing briefly his way. Maybe she thought that the shifting sound was actually the ice cracking on the dense sheet that hid the man's thoughts and intentions from the open air. Even though her attention had been called briefly to her left, to the vampire serving as a sentry, Molly's continued reply was still directed to Sophie.
"I can get in touch with him. We're overdue for a reunion anyways."
vampiresIce shifts, and somewhere a glacier cracks, but it all looks the same, doesn't it? Morris is as subtle as Sophie is not, and his eyes are hooded and mellow.
He gives Molly a slow, slow nod, and it is her guess what he means to indicate with it. Sometimes inscrutability is not the asset we might wish for.
Sophie's eyebrows raise again, and she says, "I see. Or rather, forgive me, I am very stupid, I do not see: How is it you know this Jack Nosferatu was a Nosferatu? Did he tell you so? Did he tell you that he was a vampire?"
Slender pause. "And how do you envision yourself getting in touch with him? By phone? Can we have a message delivered somewhere?"
She sounds very courteous, though not apologetic.
"Or do hope we trust you to leave this hotel, without any assurances other than your word, to find this sponsor?"
MollyThe nod is noted, but as impossible to decipher as the rest of the person attached to the gesture. Were Molly not a creature drawn to mystery in and of itself she would have long since lost patience with the impossible to crack code that was this Morris Quincey.
Another time, though, she may consider trying to crack that code further. Sophie was getting to the point-- how did she reach out to Jack? How did she know what he is? And furthermore, was she expecting these vampires to just let her roll out on a word of trust alone?
Again, Molly wet lips that kept wanting to go as dry as the mouth and throat that they served as the doorway to, and looked back to Sophie once more.
"I've seen his face-- the true one. There's no mistaking him for what he is. I do have a phone number..." She trailed off there, as there was a lack of confidence in whether the number was still active, if Jack would answer the call if she placed it.
"If he doesn't answer, would you expect me to stay here until he does?" Molly turned the questions back about for a moment, and canted her head forward and sideways just a little while she inquired more directly about her path out of this precise situation. "Please, don't think that I misunderstand the gravity here, but I have my responsibilities to attend to. Mundane though they may be, they are still my own, and a nurse gone missing tends to draw the wrong sort of attention."
She paused momentarily for thought and maybe a little for punctuation as well before continuing. "Are there no assurances I could leave with you beyond my word alone?"
vampires"There are no assurances you could leave with me. However, I could make it so that you had no choice but to keep your mouth shut and to return, and if I were to do that I might trust you to go forth and try to contact your Nosferatu. How did you come to see his true face? Was he aware of it?" A pause; a brief smile, pulse of a thought: "Did you really see a Nosferatu's true face? I wonder at you for wanting to see it again."
Molly"By circumstance," was Molly's simple answer to the question of how she came to see a monster's true face. "He wasn't aware at the time, but there's no way that he couldn't be aware of it now. Yet another reason why we're long overdue for this reunion." Clearly there's much to be said between Molly and this Nosferatu Jack that she was speaking of. It was small, underlying, but the way that she spoke, even vague as she was being, there seemed to be some amount of history established already. Perhaps why Molly was so eager to recommend him as a sponsor-- it was the closest thing to trusting a vampire that she could come to.
"I would rather the assurances of a monster I already know than make pledges to a the predator that I've only just met." Again, Molly's serious expression gave way just long enough for a small smile-- this one apologetic, and far from warm. It really wasn't the kind of thing to crinkle up the corners of the eyes. "No offense meant.
"How would you make it that way? So I would have to return, and have to remain quiet?"
vampires"She would use that discipline she did tell you of, the Dominate," Morris says, breaking his silence. "It is a matter of implanting suggestions in your mind."
Sophie keeps her eyes on Molly's face, doing her best to read the mortal.
Molly[Manip + Subt: I wanna be like Morris; Unreadable!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Sophie: Pishaw.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
vampires[Morris: ?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
MollyIf she were to find a way out of here with her pulse and (most of her) free will intact, Molly may find a moment to look back on the encounter here at the Brown Palace Hotel and be proud of how well she handled herself. Her face was not blank, not entirely expressionless, for she was thoughtful and certainly appeared as such. However, it was impossible to tell precisely what those thoughts were. It was reasonable to believe that Molly may be scared out of her wits, but she certainly didn't appear to be. She could be lying through her teeth about everything she's said so far, but there were no batted eyelashes or picked fingernails to give her away.
Composed, courageous, and cool. These were the words to describe Molly Toombs as she sat straight-backed and flat-mouthed on a couch that could very well cost more than her entire apartment's worth of belongings.
"I didn't realize that it had selective uses...," she told Morris flatly, but probably honestly (but he couldn't quite be sure of that, could he?). With a turn of her head, Molly put her eyes back upon Sophie's deceptively young face. "I thought it was an all-or-nothing kind of a power. I would ask how I could trust you to only make those adjustments while tinkering in my mind, but I've already realized that I don't really have that much of a choice in the matter. Besides, you've both been gracious enough to leave my neck intact, which I certainly appreciate."
Her hands finally unclasped and legs unfolded. Both feet found themselves on the floor, and Molly smoothed her hands down the tops of her thighs to rest her hands at her knees for the moment instead.
"I can try to place that call now, if you'd like. If that doesn't work out, I'm willing to work with your terms to be able to find my own way home tonight." There can't be much worse than keeping me trapped here, after all, she thought.
vampiresWhen Molly begins to ask how she can trust, etc., etc., Sophie begins to look impatient and she drums her fingers against her knee.
Blueblooded Sophie, noblesse oblige Sophie, the word 'gracious' is dropped at just the right moment, and the impatience doesn't break over Molly's head (or Morris's head, if we're being honest).
"Go ahead," Sophie says.
MollyGo ahead, and the permission to move freely had been granted. At no point had she actually been instructed to stay still or stay at attention, but an unspoken understanding of the matter had been found. When any wrong move could be your last one, it was best to just minimize movement altogether.
Molly leaned forward and reached into her back pocket for where she'd stashed her phone-- a smartphone, thin-built specifically because she didn't want a phone that she couldn't fit in her pockets, and covered by a mint-colored leather case. Molly flipped the case open to reveal the touch screen face of the phone, and lowered her eyes from the pair of vampires to watch what she was doing.
A few swipes and prods of the thumb later, and Molly hesitated only momentarily before pressing what had to be the 'Dial' option and holding her phone to her ear.
She really could only hope that Jack answered her call.
vampiresMolly can hear the ringing, ringing of the phone, and then a click-beep and the standard voicemail message which comes with one's voicemail.
You've reached (this number). Leave a message.
Beep.
MollyThe silence while waiting on the ringing in her ear is no doubt palpable, and broken when Molly took a breath into the receiver and left a brief, simple message that Jack would recognize as being intentionally short. For the sake of prying ears. If he ever hears the voicemail, that is.
"Jack. It's Molly. It's time we talked, so I need you to call me back. ...Please. Bye."
Molly took the phone from her ear with only the mildest crease of thought and disappointment to her brow, then thumbed the screen to end the call and subsequently the recording on the as-of-late estranged Nosferatu's voicemail as well. Molly didn't pocket the phone just yet, but let it rest in her lap between both hands and looked up across the seating arrangement to Sophie once more. Her eyebrows raised to silently ask what came next-- she didn't need to state the obvious that her sponsor, her deformed and hunched and monstrous chance at safety, had failed to answer.
vampiresSophie preserves a silence for one second, two seconds, three.
And then she says, "Shall we wait?" with cool civility, and when Molly indicates that she'd like to wait for a couple minutes, they do. Sophie doesn't ask any questions, and neither does Morris. Sophie pours herself some liquid from that decanter on the coffee table, light catching on the crystal and sparking out. It must be blood. It's probably blood. She drinks it neatly, and doesn't offer any to Morris, perhaps because he wouldn't take it -- or because he prefers his drink hot.
And after a little less than a couple of minutes, "It seems your sponsor is not going to respond."
MollyWhen offered the option to wait, Molly took it with the time stipulation of a couple of minutes. This was agreeable enough, and so it was. Sophie poured herself a drink from whatever was on the table (probably-- nope, definitely blood), and Molly made no indication whatsoever that she would appreciate even so much as a glass of water.
Every so often Molly would glance down at her phone as though she expected a text message may appear without her hearing a notification or feeling a buzz in her lap. No such message manifested, and at no point did the phone ring with a return call. She didn't so much sigh as slowly exhale until her lungs were empty when the hostess called time.
"No, it doesn't seem that he will," she agreed. "At least not just yet. He may be indisposed at the moment. I may have to seek him out instead."
Molly leaned forward again so she could tuck the phone back into her pocket, and stayed leaned forward in a manner that showed she was ready to stand but waiting for somebody else to do so first. "I'll find him, though, rest assured."
vampires[Dominate Action! Manip + Leadership + Specialty. Molly's current WP 6 = diff. -2 diff 'coz Enchanting Voice. Let's see how well these suggestions take hold.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
"Of course."
Molly can see, when she shifts her attention back to Sophie, that the vampiress is not distracted; but nor is she a terrier, shaking a point, and when she says of course she says it at a slower beat, a certain noblesse oblige in the nod of her head.
Molly
The go-ahead granted by the woman that appeared to be in charge out of the two present had Molly comfortably abandoning the subject that she had with Morris for the moment. The topic of memberships into clubs of the undead and what obligations and responsibilities her knowledge gave her was one that Molly loved to avoid. She didn't want to be responsible for anything, after all. She just wanted to learn and hoard that knowledge to herself-- as though it were gold and she were some sort of lore-dragon.
She didn't exactly exactly settle into the couch when she turned shoulders and waist to better face Sophie again-- Molly was far too tense to actually make herself comfortable, and wasn't the sort to try and feign arrogance and confidence with a sprawl across the sofa. Instead she sat with one foot on the floor, the other in the air due to her legs still being crossed at the knees, and with her hands folded together on top of her lap.
Despite her attentive and tense posture, despite the revelation of horrors laid upon her having only just been pushed aside in her mind for further processing when she wasn't just trying to save her skin and keep afloat, Molly's voice was still perfectly level and calm and cool and collected. Not a warble or shake to be found.
"I wanted to know what you've heard about the terror under the streets of Denver-- that sucks life through earth and concrete. I've heard it was asleep for a long while but has begun to stir. What do you know of that?"
Molly was no on-point terrier herself, but the intense focus while she waited for the answer couldn't be chased from her eyes.
Molly[Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
vampires[Morris, inscrutable emotional ninja?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Sophie, who thinks Morris should stop showing off his stupid poker face.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly[T-t-t-tie breaker!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Pfffffft. I can be better at inscrutable emotional ninjaing than Morris, god damn it.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
vampires[Sophie: -_-
Morris: (too inscrutable for LOL to show up)]
vampiresMorris is as unrevelatory as he ever is. His expression is one of bland attention, a neutral listener, and the tilt of his head and the sidelong look directed toward Sophie could mean anything, but Molly has no guesses, no sense of what the sidelong look means, no sense that he is moved at all by her question whether because he is interested or annoyed.
Sophie is a vampiress, and one Molly believes is of high status (this is a correct belief), so it is rare that her mask slips too far. It doesn't slip now, but nor is it so perfectly constructed that Molly doesn't see certain signs. A set to Sophie's mouth, the way her eyes flick over to Morris' and how she turns her head when she does it, lifting a hand fingers rubbing together before she rests her elbow on the back of her chair and leans. Artifice. Midway through Molly's question Sophie's interest lashed out; and now she says,
"Very little. I don't spend much time listening to the propaganda of doomsday cults, or, truth to tell," a nod, "spend much time chasing their leads. I do however know some who have made it a point of pride to gather information: bloody lakes, isn't it, Morris?" A pause. "My dear, are you familiar with the word Antediluvian or Methuselah in context of vampiric society?"
MollyOf course Morris's face offered no signs, his posture gave way no hints to how Molly's question may have struck. He briefly exchanged looks with Sophie, Sophie who was collected and knew how to wear a mask but had tiny little tells that Molly was able to pick up. She was interested, that was certain. Interest was a dangerous double-edged blade-- if she was interesting she was less likely to be killed, but she was equally less likely to be let to walk away. Balancing precisely how much interest somebody had in you, especially when that body was a cold one, was a tricky game that Miss Toombs had never really gotten down to a science.
Propaganda, the vampiress called it, and Molly's lips pressed subtly together-- she didn't really like the dismissal of something that she knew to be so real, so terrifying, so etched into her mind that she saw images of The Terror on repeat in her nightmares. In no position to argue its authenticity, the mild pursing of lips was the most protest she could give.
"Methuselah I only know from the biblical stories..." The human woman's answer came with a slow shake of her head, one that was almost apologetic. "Antediluvian is... the pre-Great Flood time period in the same stories?" She sounded less sure on the second term than the first, but concluded in a way that said she wasn't seeking confirmation as to how accurate her understanding as it currently stood was.
"Not in a vampiric context, though." Though she could certainly imagine how a character who was said to live the longest of any man on earth may tie in to a race of unaging beings.
vampiresMorris cracks his lips to say, "There are some who do say such a creature is what is beneath. There was a Nosferatu who was said to be working on the subject, and my kin do hear things on some nights."
His voice is a sheet of metal in its blankness, reflective without ever revealing a picture.
"Mm," Sophie says. "Tell me, why are you interested in these stories? Is it because they are different from what you are used to, because you believe the end is nearing, want to play guardian?" Here, the female vampire leans forward, clasping her hands, "Or is it because you want to stir the spoon?"
MollyClear blue eyes hopped back to Morris when his voice joined the higher female tones in the large, immaculate room. The connection interested her-- perhaps this creature was Methuselah? Or perhaps it was from the time pre-dating God's task to Noah to build an ark to save the unwicked? A Nosferatu was looking into the matter, which seemed appropriate given that Molly knew enough to know that they were the vampires of the underground. This was right up their alley, after all.
But then, back to Sophie, for the woman in charge had more queries of the interesting mortal woman-- why did she care? What was it that Molly planned to do with the information she sought?
Molly's expressions had learned to become more presentable, more polite. The cool attitude she carried was more tempered these days, not nearly so icy as it had been perhaps a year or two ago. She did not smile for this conversation, made no efforts to lay down charms, but even with a flat set to her mouth her eyes were still softened enough to give the impression of being open and conversational, less sharp and severe and intense than how she no doubt truly felt.
"Because understanding something is the best way to survive it. Ironic, given how vastly more dangerous life has become since I've started seeing into the shadows, I know. But ignorance is a flimsy shield, and I'd rather take on the task of building a better defense myself."
Molly's arm twisted just so in her lap, angling her wrist to aim the face of a watch she wore in a direction that made it easier to read. The gesture was small, casual, apparently thoughtless, but checking one's watch was a universal signal that they were preparing to conclude and leave.
vampiresMorris has not leaned back in his chair. He sits up, at ready. He continues to sit up, at ready, his attention moving between the apparently young women. He doesn't smile, either, nor does Sophie; this is a serious conversation, not a social meeting. In this, all three creatures in the room are in agreement.
"There are some who would disagree with you," Morris says.
Sophie's lashes sink down when Molly checks her watch and when they rise her gaze is brilliant, and she finally smiles. A courteous curve of a soft mouth, and she says, "I'd like to hear your impression of myself and of Morris here, so far, and then I'd like to give you some thoughts."
Molly"Oh there are plenty who disagree with me," Molly agreed with Morris, and for how grave the topic was her tone didn't quite match. She sounded nearly humored with this paradox she's created in her own life.
When asked for an impression, the woman who was now so much more an occultist and lorekeeper than she was a nurse (her actual paying profession) gave pause. She was thinking, but not so much about what impression she had as she was about what to say, how to say it, how to best extract herself from this situation now that she'd asked her questions and gleaned her information. Playing into the conversation and giving a little to get a little had (as far as she was concerned) lessened her chances of the stalwart Morris simply following her away from the bar and putting an end to her before she could cause any more tears in secretive veils. She'd paid her dues, and was ready to get back out from behind this secured door.
With a small and slightly uncomfortable shift where she sat, Molly finally spoke up after several seconds of lapsed silence.
"You, Sophie, I'm sure hold a seat of power in whatever hierarchy this system has. I believe Morris here is your right hand."
There was perhaps more to say-- the way that her sentence stopped at the edge of her tongue suggested that she initially had more words to follow but decided not to share them. An incomplete thought or impression that she'd stopped before it started, so she wouldn't be petering out in the middle of a sentence like an engine who had run through the last of its coal. There was a suspicious flicker of eyes over to Morris before she looked back to Sophie more directly once more. How impossible the man was to read set her on edge, no doubt like many a person before her. If mystery were a strength, then he would be an Olympian.
"...Aside from that, I just don't really know. It's difficult to gauge a person without knowing their intentions, and all I know of you is that you're here for the War and you're passionate for that cause." It was infectious, really, but she didn't say so aloud-- she didn't want to encourage the woman, after all.
vampires"Allow me to change that, and tell you more about myself and my intentions." Sophie's clasped hands unclasp and she holds them out once, for emphasis, before bringing them back together with a soft clap, which in turn emphasizes a little nod. She is very intense, Sophie, and her voice is certainly easy to listen to, certainly a siren's in some respects. Her tone of voice is blunt. Forthright. Reasonable.
"I do indeed have status in the Camarilla, and though it was the War which brought me to Denver, it is not only the war, you see. I also came to help support my clansmen, who have been hard-hit, and my government, which has found itself in certain areas stretched thin. I am here to resolve problems as much as to stop those who would breed anarchy and bloody barbarism in Denver's streets. I am here to help this city be strong. I want to see it become a power."
"Morris here thought we'd benefit from a conversation because you, I'm sorry to say, are a problem, and problem resolution is one of my strong suits.
"I intend, and I desire, to resolve this problem in a way we can all be happy with. I don't want you to feel like you have no choice at all. Some would call you very unfortunate right now, but others -- and I hope I am one -- would say that right now you are extremely fortunate and whether fortune or misfortune is to be yours is currently up to you."
There is a tiny pause here; Molly can tell it is a courtesy pause, for Sophie means to continue speaking.
vampiresooc: er, "and as I said problem resolution is one of my strong suits," even. Deliberate repetition is deliberate.
MollyThe more that Sophie spoke of her status and her abilities as a problem-resolver, the more that Molly's posture stiffened and straightened. She wasn't quite seated at the edge of the couch cushion, but she certainly was not set all the way back in her seat either. Her back didn't touch the sofa's back at all, for she sat straight-spined as could be, with her shoulders straight and her hands kept in her lap in something of an imitation of Sophie's.
When revealed that Molly was brought there was a problem to be resolved, the red-haired mortal's nostrils flared with a small but sharp intake of breath and her chin lifted by several degrees. The sensation of prickling on her shoulders and the back of her neck spoke of impending danger, and also of the ghosts of hackles that ancestors to her species far down the line rising to the threat (oh, but this was no threat, it was a promise-- a compromise-- a deal-- a trap).
The pause was clearly a courtesy. Sophie clearly had more to say on the matter. But the pause was presented for a reason, a bit of ground that was perhaps intended to make Molly feel as though she really did have some input in her fate tonight. So Molly wet lips that had gone quite dry quite suddenly and inclined her head in a small 'go on' kind of a nod while adding:
"It seems you have some ideas to suggest already."
vampires"I do indeed. I'd see you as a ghoul. I know you don't want to be one, but I don't want human beings such as yourself to see beyond the Masquerade -- a pretty metaphor made law by the Toreador, who enjoy metaphor -- " back on track. " -- so we're already beyond that want. You could be my ghoul, or you could be Morris's here.
"I'm quite skilled when it comes to a discipline we call Dominate, which I'm sure you've deduced from the name is a power which allows me to command someone. With this discipline, I can try to erase your memories and replace them, then send you on your merry way. However, I am loathe to do this, because you are freakishly perceptive so it seems only a matter of time before the problem begins again. And there are these other mystery vampires you are aquainted with. Besides, why suppress knowledge once it has been won, when it could be more usefully employed?"
Thoughtfully: "I could force that out of you too, but again, I am loathe to do this. I don't want to waste my effort."
Another pause, and once again, Molly can see well that Sophie has more to say, but she is giving Molly time for input or perhaps to break away or faint or something.
Morris does not jump in. He is as still as a leopard in leaf-shadow, watchful.
MollyI'd see you as a ghoul.
The suggestion was right out the gate, and Molly's reaction was small but recognizable-- a wrinkle to the bridge of her nose and a pinch to the brow. A look of disgust. Just as Sophie was loathe to use her skills to Dominate, Molly was similarly disposed to the idea of becoming bound to either of these mystery vampires. Though, admittedly, Sophie was less and less a mystery. A Toreador, she revealed herself to be. Willingly spilling information for she knew how easily she could clean it back up if Molly were to leave unbound this evening-- slim though the chances of that appeared.
There was no surprised raise of eyebrows to suggest that she was unfamiliar with the vampiric ability to control. Molly hadn't witnessed it first hand, but she'd certainly heard of it, and knew full well it was why some would choose to avoid eye contact with vampires altogether (though Molly knew those efforts were futile, a vampire could force that chin up and make eye contact happen if they very much wanted-- Dominate was an appropriate name for the power and the will behind it as well).
Morris stayed silent, leaving the room quiet when Sophie had paused. She was giving Molly a chance to do something, but faint certainly wasn't on the list. She was far too courageous a soul for that.
Too bad that courage didn't come with wisdom automatically as a counter-balance. That's how situations like this happened.
"....what if I were to suggest a sponsor? Someone aside from Morris or yourself to take responsibility, someone that you would be able to trust not just to keep my knowledge from rending this Masquerade but to make the best use of it as well?"
[Manipulation + Leadership: My idea is awesome you should totally listen to it, + WP because jesus christ shit has gotten real]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
vampiresMolly has potential.
Right now, she wields herself in just such a way to sound intriguing, to sound appealing, to sound like oh yes follow me a leader am I, and Sophie raises both eyebrows.
"I'd love to have you suggest a sponsor, someone I would be able to trust. Please continue."
MollyFor how quickly the gears were whirling about in Molly's head they would be creating smoke were it not for the adrenaline that lubricated them well. Her mind was flying, though she sounded confident and assured in her idea, though she presented it and herself in a way that was calm as a lake surface undisturbed, smooth like glass, she was scrambling. Her recommendation that she find a sponsor was made up on the spot, something that she thought would be a better way out than submitting to a life of servitude to one of two people (or, really, probably both given the partnership at hand here) that she'd met just hours ago, that she could trust no further than she could throw.
But she bought herself some time. Sophie was curious, and wanted to hear more. Who would Molly suggest?
The better question in Molly's head was: Who would Sophie be willing to put faith in?
She did a quick roll through the rolodex of business cards that she had hidden cleverly, but committed firmly to mind. Not a name inked onto card stock had been forgotten. The sad thing was that Molly realized how many of those cards were passed to her by fingertips that-- according to Sophie-- were stained with cruelty that didn't bear repeating in her mind.
This left very few, just one really, and so she grasped to that straw tightly as the lifeline (funny choice of words) that it was.
"A Nosferatu. A part of your Camarilla. A knowledge-seeker much like myself, a stimulator and shaper of minds and curiosity. With what I know right now, I can identify some things, but really there'd be potential untapped without the opportunity to continue to learn and grow, right? If a part of the deal is to be useful, then the best deal would be to make me as useful as possible. Put me under the wing of someone who can enable that, and I could go from being kept quiet to being one hell of a resource."
vampires"Morris here can enable that, or there are other Kindred who have specific uses for occultists who might be interested in you. I wouldn't give them a dog I didn't like without great gain promised, but there it is.
"Do you mean the Nosferatu I mentioned previously or do you have one specifically in mind?"
Molly"I don't know if we're speaking of the same person." The tone carried a polite apology on it, like how an apologetic smile would probably sound, but Molly's freckled face remained quite serious. There was nothing pleasant or joking about bargaining for your own fate, after all.
"I do have one specifically in mind, though. If you gave him the same opportunity that you're offering me, here, I'm sure you wouldn't be disappointed."
vampires"Who is this Nosferatu and why is he not already your sponsor?"
Sophie's eyes are sharp, of course. They're blue and lovely and she looks like she was such a flower-faced sweet thing when she was alive; a little piece of somebody's heaven, like she should be a shepherd girl in a pastoral or some high society girl coming out in silks. But they're sharp, and they sharpen now, and she looks human but she is not.
MollyA woman as aware as Molly was, vampires could be as sweet-faced and rose-silk-skinned as they pleased, but they couldn't be confused for human, particularly not when she already knew precisely what they were. Sophie was a pretty girl with a beautiful voice, it was no wonder that she'd found status and possibly even a following of allies and contacts. Molly could understand how it would be easy to fall into step with her and trust what she had to say. The undead woman seemed full of passion and belief in what she spoke, and nations had been led into wars by people with less power to sway.
"He goes by Jack, but as is the nature of his sort his actual name is anybody's guess." She shrugged her shoulders, a small up-down. The second question gave Molly pause, though, because it was something that she didn't entirely understand herself. When her answer came, it was slowly spoken as though she was still contemplating it even as she was delivering it.
"I suppose because he was biding his time... maybe waiting for the correct opportunity. He's... meticulous and thorough. I don't doubt it's been long since written into his plans."
She wanted to look to the door, to check on the unmoving, predatory-silent Morris, but confidence and presentation were key here, so instead the urge was resisted and Molly kept her focus on the woman deciding whether she would walk out of here tonight or not.
"What better opportunity than this, though?"
vampires"You have a way to contact this 'Jack'?" Sophie says. Before Molly can answer, she adds, "And you do understand that 'sponsor' is still a euphemism for ghoul, correct?"
Molly can hear Morris shift, restively, in his seat. It's noteworthy only because he has had so little problem being still, still, still until now.
MollyFor the first time in such a while, Molly's mouth curved into a small smile. The expression was sardonic, almost sour on her pretty face for how very cynical it was, but that grim curve of lips at least offered a full understanding of what they were bargaining.
"Of course. It's the only leash that any of you would be able to trust. Contracts are only worthwhile if they're signed in blood."
There's a small rustling sound from Morris's direction, a redistribution of weight in his seat, that caught Molly's attention and had her glancing briefly his way. Maybe she thought that the shifting sound was actually the ice cracking on the dense sheet that hid the man's thoughts and intentions from the open air. Even though her attention had been called briefly to her left, to the vampire serving as a sentry, Molly's continued reply was still directed to Sophie.
"I can get in touch with him. We're overdue for a reunion anyways."
vampiresIce shifts, and somewhere a glacier cracks, but it all looks the same, doesn't it? Morris is as subtle as Sophie is not, and his eyes are hooded and mellow.
He gives Molly a slow, slow nod, and it is her guess what he means to indicate with it. Sometimes inscrutability is not the asset we might wish for.
Sophie's eyebrows raise again, and she says, "I see. Or rather, forgive me, I am very stupid, I do not see: How is it you know this Jack Nosferatu was a Nosferatu? Did he tell you so? Did he tell you that he was a vampire?"
Slender pause. "And how do you envision yourself getting in touch with him? By phone? Can we have a message delivered somewhere?"
She sounds very courteous, though not apologetic.
"Or do hope we trust you to leave this hotel, without any assurances other than your word, to find this sponsor?"
MollyThe nod is noted, but as impossible to decipher as the rest of the person attached to the gesture. Were Molly not a creature drawn to mystery in and of itself she would have long since lost patience with the impossible to crack code that was this Morris Quincey.
Another time, though, she may consider trying to crack that code further. Sophie was getting to the point-- how did she reach out to Jack? How did she know what he is? And furthermore, was she expecting these vampires to just let her roll out on a word of trust alone?
Again, Molly wet lips that kept wanting to go as dry as the mouth and throat that they served as the doorway to, and looked back to Sophie once more.
"I've seen his face-- the true one. There's no mistaking him for what he is. I do have a phone number..." She trailed off there, as there was a lack of confidence in whether the number was still active, if Jack would answer the call if she placed it.
"If he doesn't answer, would you expect me to stay here until he does?" Molly turned the questions back about for a moment, and canted her head forward and sideways just a little while she inquired more directly about her path out of this precise situation. "Please, don't think that I misunderstand the gravity here, but I have my responsibilities to attend to. Mundane though they may be, they are still my own, and a nurse gone missing tends to draw the wrong sort of attention."
She paused momentarily for thought and maybe a little for punctuation as well before continuing. "Are there no assurances I could leave with you beyond my word alone?"
vampires"There are no assurances you could leave with me. However, I could make it so that you had no choice but to keep your mouth shut and to return, and if I were to do that I might trust you to go forth and try to contact your Nosferatu. How did you come to see his true face? Was he aware of it?" A pause; a brief smile, pulse of a thought: "Did you really see a Nosferatu's true face? I wonder at you for wanting to see it again."
Molly"By circumstance," was Molly's simple answer to the question of how she came to see a monster's true face. "He wasn't aware at the time, but there's no way that he couldn't be aware of it now. Yet another reason why we're long overdue for this reunion." Clearly there's much to be said between Molly and this Nosferatu Jack that she was speaking of. It was small, underlying, but the way that she spoke, even vague as she was being, there seemed to be some amount of history established already. Perhaps why Molly was so eager to recommend him as a sponsor-- it was the closest thing to trusting a vampire that she could come to.
"I would rather the assurances of a monster I already know than make pledges to a the predator that I've only just met." Again, Molly's serious expression gave way just long enough for a small smile-- this one apologetic, and far from warm. It really wasn't the kind of thing to crinkle up the corners of the eyes. "No offense meant.
"How would you make it that way? So I would have to return, and have to remain quiet?"
vampires"She would use that discipline she did tell you of, the Dominate," Morris says, breaking his silence. "It is a matter of implanting suggestions in your mind."
Sophie keeps her eyes on Molly's face, doing her best to read the mortal.
Molly[Manip + Subt: I wanna be like Morris; Unreadable!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
vampires[Sophie: Pishaw.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
vampires[Morris: ?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
MollyIf she were to find a way out of here with her pulse and (most of her) free will intact, Molly may find a moment to look back on the encounter here at the Brown Palace Hotel and be proud of how well she handled herself. Her face was not blank, not entirely expressionless, for she was thoughtful and certainly appeared as such. However, it was impossible to tell precisely what those thoughts were. It was reasonable to believe that Molly may be scared out of her wits, but she certainly didn't appear to be. She could be lying through her teeth about everything she's said so far, but there were no batted eyelashes or picked fingernails to give her away.
Composed, courageous, and cool. These were the words to describe Molly Toombs as she sat straight-backed and flat-mouthed on a couch that could very well cost more than her entire apartment's worth of belongings.
"I didn't realize that it had selective uses...," she told Morris flatly, but probably honestly (but he couldn't quite be sure of that, could he?). With a turn of her head, Molly put her eyes back upon Sophie's deceptively young face. "I thought it was an all-or-nothing kind of a power. I would ask how I could trust you to only make those adjustments while tinkering in my mind, but I've already realized that I don't really have that much of a choice in the matter. Besides, you've both been gracious enough to leave my neck intact, which I certainly appreciate."
Her hands finally unclasped and legs unfolded. Both feet found themselves on the floor, and Molly smoothed her hands down the tops of her thighs to rest her hands at her knees for the moment instead.
"I can try to place that call now, if you'd like. If that doesn't work out, I'm willing to work with your terms to be able to find my own way home tonight." There can't be much worse than keeping me trapped here, after all, she thought.
vampiresWhen Molly begins to ask how she can trust, etc., etc., Sophie begins to look impatient and she drums her fingers against her knee.
Blueblooded Sophie, noblesse oblige Sophie, the word 'gracious' is dropped at just the right moment, and the impatience doesn't break over Molly's head (or Morris's head, if we're being honest).
"Go ahead," Sophie says.
MollyGo ahead, and the permission to move freely had been granted. At no point had she actually been instructed to stay still or stay at attention, but an unspoken understanding of the matter had been found. When any wrong move could be your last one, it was best to just minimize movement altogether.
Molly leaned forward and reached into her back pocket for where she'd stashed her phone-- a smartphone, thin-built specifically because she didn't want a phone that she couldn't fit in her pockets, and covered by a mint-colored leather case. Molly flipped the case open to reveal the touch screen face of the phone, and lowered her eyes from the pair of vampires to watch what she was doing.
A few swipes and prods of the thumb later, and Molly hesitated only momentarily before pressing what had to be the 'Dial' option and holding her phone to her ear.
She really could only hope that Jack answered her call.
vampiresMolly can hear the ringing, ringing of the phone, and then a click-beep and the standard voicemail message which comes with one's voicemail.
You've reached (this number). Leave a message.
Beep.
MollyThe silence while waiting on the ringing in her ear is no doubt palpable, and broken when Molly took a breath into the receiver and left a brief, simple message that Jack would recognize as being intentionally short. For the sake of prying ears. If he ever hears the voicemail, that is.
"Jack. It's Molly. It's time we talked, so I need you to call me back. ...Please. Bye."
Molly took the phone from her ear with only the mildest crease of thought and disappointment to her brow, then thumbed the screen to end the call and subsequently the recording on the as-of-late estranged Nosferatu's voicemail as well. Molly didn't pocket the phone just yet, but let it rest in her lap between both hands and looked up across the seating arrangement to Sophie once more. Her eyebrows raised to silently ask what came next-- she didn't need to state the obvious that her sponsor, her deformed and hunched and monstrous chance at safety, had failed to answer.
vampiresSophie preserves a silence for one second, two seconds, three.
And then she says, "Shall we wait?" with cool civility, and when Molly indicates that she'd like to wait for a couple minutes, they do. Sophie doesn't ask any questions, and neither does Morris. Sophie pours herself some liquid from that decanter on the coffee table, light catching on the crystal and sparking out. It must be blood. It's probably blood. She drinks it neatly, and doesn't offer any to Morris, perhaps because he wouldn't take it -- or because he prefers his drink hot.
And after a little less than a couple of minutes, "It seems your sponsor is not going to respond."
MollyWhen offered the option to wait, Molly took it with the time stipulation of a couple of minutes. This was agreeable enough, and so it was. Sophie poured herself a drink from whatever was on the table (probably-- nope, definitely blood), and Molly made no indication whatsoever that she would appreciate even so much as a glass of water.
Every so often Molly would glance down at her phone as though she expected a text message may appear without her hearing a notification or feeling a buzz in her lap. No such message manifested, and at no point did the phone ring with a return call. She didn't so much sigh as slowly exhale until her lungs were empty when the hostess called time.
"No, it doesn't seem that he will," she agreed. "At least not just yet. He may be indisposed at the moment. I may have to seek him out instead."
Molly leaned forward again so she could tuck the phone back into her pocket, and stayed leaned forward in a manner that showed she was ready to stand but waiting for somebody else to do so first. "I'll find him, though, rest assured."
vampires[Dominate Action! Manip + Leadership + Specialty. Molly's current WP 6 = diff. -2 diff 'coz Enchanting Voice. Let's see how well these suggestions take hold.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
vampires
The vampiress sets her glass down and runs her tongue over her teeth to make certain there are no stains. Then she leaves her chair and sits beside Molly, taking the young woman's chin in her cold fingers, gently directing the nurse's head so that their eyes can comfortably meet. This is pageantry; Sophie does not need to do so, but why not? Her eyes are a very pretty and guileless blue, and when she begins to speak, hypnotic (mesmerizing [enchanting]) voice slipping into Molly like a hook through an eye fish-hook open-eye, it becomes impossible to look away from them.
"I am going to give you a set of instructions and, after you leave this hotel room tonight and before you return to it next Friday at seven o' clock pm, you are going to obey those instructions to the very best of your ability, without by look or deed or word revealing to anyone or anything that you are under command.
The instructions are as follows: You will not speak of tonight's conversation with anyone, with the exception of Jack, myself, or Morris, and should you find yourself in a position to be compelled to reveal any information you learned here tonight, including my location, you will drink from a bottle I will give you before you leave.
You will seek out your Nosferatu contact using all the skill and guile at your disposal and then when he is found you will contact me using the following phone number [she says a phone number]. You will tell him what passed here, and then you will return to the Brown Palace Hotel at 7 o' clock in the evening and give the name Molly Yellow at the concierge's desk. When the concierge brings you to a room, you will stay there until I come to speak to you. You will not be armed when you return to the Brown Palace Hotel with any object you know or believe to be harmful to vampires, up to and including recording devices or your cell phone.
While I go to get the bottle for you," without breaking eye contact, Sophie reaches out a hand. Morris looks at her hand. Looks at her hand. Sophie is continuing to speak, "you will write on this piece paper the names of the three people in this city whose welfare you care for most."
A rustle of paper. Morris puts a little notepad on the coffee table along with a pen and slides them both toward Molly.
Sophie regards Molly for a moment, thoughtfully. And then she says, "And those are your instructions. Now I'll be right back with that bottle."
The apparently young woman stands up, with the intention of going into another room and leaving Molly alone with Morris.
And her instructions, of course, which have already become a compulsion and a chain and as deep-rooted as Molly's need to breathe.
Molly
Sophie rose from her seat and joined Molly on the sofa, seated neat and pretty to her right. Molly watched her approach, careful and cautious and distrusting like a dog with an animal control officer on the approach. Cool fingers touched her chin and angled her face toward hers, and though Molly didn't jerk her head to resist or raise a hand to fend the other woman's arm away, there was certain reluctance and stiffness behind Molly's jaw and in the cords of her neck when the moved with the vampire's commanding touch. Blue on blue eye contact was found, and then Sophie began to speak and no force in the world could break Molly's eyes away from hers.
The voice was impossible to ignore, and seeped into Molly like a miasma, mist-fingers creeping in through her lungs and up to the creases of her brain, into the edges of her heart. These were not suggestions or instructions alone, but words that re-programmed and compelled. She would keep this conversation quiet, and shewould sooner poison herself than be forced to speak of it with any besides three undead souls (do vampires have souls?). She would have no choice but to come back, she wouldn't think of any other alternative. Of course she was going to come back at 7pm and lie about her name and politely wait unarmed for this vampiress to make sure she'd upheld her end of the deal and struck a pact with a Nosferatu occultist.
The final order, though, struck a chord with Molly. Certainly she couldn't resist it, she was under a trance, but even then something deep within her bones stirred.
Betrayer
Still, once Sophie had risen from the couch to go fetch the bottle of what Molly didn't need to be told outright was poison, once Molly's eyes were free to go their own direction (dazed, glassy, fogged though they may be still), there was a certain sad reluctance in how she looked to the notepad and pen that were set on the table for her to use. To write the names of three people that would serve as collateral in this bargain. Slow, but steady, she pulled the notepad more evenly in front of her and took the pen in hand, then put it to paper.
The first name was put down immediately. The second name was soon to follow. There was a lengthy pause before a third joined-- it spoke of genuine uncertainty as to who would hold that third slot. When read later (or if Morris was looking over the paper to observe as she did), the paper would read:
Nathan Amherst (Marszalek)
Jack
Devin Loercher
Jack
Devin Loercher
Later she would twist and hurt and cry with the guilt of giving up the two unfamiliar names on the list. She would want to call them and warn them to just steer clear of dark places for the rest of the week, perhaps even the rest of the month until all of this had been figured and the dust had settled. It would make her sick, dragging Nate's name back into this mess, make her worry and fret for poor Devin who had no idea about any of this, who was just worried about building his career and going out on a successful date with a nice girl. But the names were there in ink that may as well be blood.
That, more than any other part of the contract, was what left Molly looking particularly pale under her freckles and grim in the set of her mouth and eyes when Sophie would return with the bottle to send her on her way.
vampires
Neither Morris or Sophie are gleefully gloating over Molly's predicament. Morris doesn't bother to breathe in or make the little sounds that a human alone in a room would make, but he watches Molly as she writes on the piece of paper, and when he judges that she is done he reaches one long arm out to press his fingerpads on the paper and pull it toward him.
"You may have forgotten your original purpose at the bar," Morris acknowledges, with a slight incline of his head. "I will tell you about the cards now. There is a woman there who, according to those who believe in such things, has true visions; I have not experienced this for myself, but she is a reader of cards."
And Sophie returns, holding a bottle as promised, which she hands directly to Molly. The bottle does not look like a poison bottle. The bottle looks like an energy sip bottle and it is unsealed.
"There doesn't seem much else to say about our business tonight," she says. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
The dismissal is clear; the woman does not seem to be someone who likes to spend time on superfluous things. Abrupt? Not quite, but inexorable.
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