St. Louis Plague Zone

Lost amid the thrill of the discovery of Atlantis in 2054, an isolated resurgence of VITAS, which has already by this dated killed an estimated 35% of the world’s population between the first major pandemic in 2010 and the smaller epidemic in 2022, occurs in the barrens of East St. Louis. Eastside is already suffering due to economic and infrastructure collapse, as well as having to deal with waves of HMHVV infected being flushed out of Greater St. Louis by joint UCAS/CAS action.  With incidences of both VITAS and HMHVV growing in the area, and no help or support coming from outside, Eastside is quickly considered to be a lost cause and reduced in classification to feral.  UCAS, CAS, and various corporate officials decide that the area must be cordoned off to prevent the spread of infection.  Between 2055 and 2065 there are nearly constant skirmishes along the nearly 15 mile long cordon as the Eastside Wall is built, effectively protecting the rest of the area from the growing pandemic.

• The Plague Wars were a booming time for St. Louis, particularly economically, as biz was plenty as the Wall went up.
• .spook
• Oh yeah, great time for everyone that couldn’t get out of the Plague Zone, infected or not…
• .piRat

Today the Wall is still maintained and Eastside still appears to be in the grip of what many now just refer to as The Plague.  Drone and spirit reconnaissance shows that there is still life behind the Wall, and many speak out for allowing the uninfected a chance to be tested and leave.  The government and corporations claim that the infection rate it to high for this to be feasible though, perhaps as high as 70 to 90 percent.

• If the infection rate, for either VITAS or HMHVV, were really that high then the Plague Zone should be a quite undead wasteland.  The fact that something like life endures indicates there is something else going on in there.
• .hAlLuCiNaGeNeTiCiSt

The Plague Zone, as many now call it, is still in lockdown as options are explored for reclamation.

• Get this, one “option” that both Lone Start and Knight Errant are using is to dispose of criminals that they don’t want to deal with into the Zone during a routine fly over.
• .piRat

Rache, Part VII

My segmented mind collapses back in on itself.  The pain is to great now to keep the charm running.  But Bob is on his way, and all I have to do is wait to be rescued.

If she shows.

We haven’t been on good terms lately.

Hell with it, I just have to trust her.

Now, I take stock of my injuries, yes, definitely plural.

In the time I have been focusing on Bob, I have been gifted with two feet that can’t walk, due to the puncture all the way through; several cuts about my face from the flat bladed slapping; several lacerations on my chest and thighs, surely from the edge of the cutlass, but thin enough to be paper cuts, and just as painful.

I could begin to heal it all right now, but I think Donald might just do it again, for lack of anything else to do, so I keep still and enjoy my companion pain.

Probably tired of me, especially when I seemed to pass out, he rises from the rotting chair and takes his rotting self to the center of the hold, where he begins a simple kata using the rusty cutlass, which sings with each stroke through the stagnant air.  That bears more looking into when I pry it from his cold dead hands I decide, and add it to the list of to dos.

Then, quite suddenly, there is a boom from above, and distantly, when sounds like rattle of gunfire, and a very inhuman howl.

Thank goodness.  She made it.

New Merits for Mage the Awakening

Elemental Specialty (•••)
Effect: Your character has a natural talent working magic upon a certain base element (earth, air, fire, water), and gains +2 bonus dice when using improvised magic affecting or controlling that element.
Drawback: The bonus is only gained using improvised magic as the regimented method of rote spellcasting is not suited to allow natural talent to shine. Also, whenever the character uses magic of the opposing type (earth opposes air, fire opposes water), they suffer a -2 die penalty, again, only to improvised magic.

Ruling Three (••••)
Effect: Your character counts another Arcanum as Ruling in addition to the two gained from your Path. This third Ruling Arcana may not be the Inferior Arcana of your path. Available only at character creation.
Note: A character that takes this Merit, if later joining a Legacy, must select one that boasts one of their existing Ruling Arcana as it’s Primary Arcana, as by having Three Ruling Arcana already they are unable to forge a strong tie to a Fourth.

Rache, Part VI

Appearing to ignore my grin, Donald drags a rotting chair out from behind some rotting crates and sits his rotting ass down, cool kid style, one arm on the back of the chair and one spearing the rusty blade of what I can now only call an honest-to-gods pirate cutlass into the floorboards between my legs, showing that he has easy thrusting reach from where he is sitting.  His eyes harden when he realizes that he won’t get a reaction out of me like that.  I’m not that jumpy.

Okay, I’m scared shit-less, but I don’t broadcast.

He jumps into the deep end right away, no nonsense.  “You have the relic, don’t you.”

I shake my head, biting back the torrent of words that want to spill out.  The cutlass separates the fine leather of my shoes, and the skin and flesh of the skin inside it.  Bob is having a nice lunch today.

Of course.

I smile, and partition my mind out, an easy mental trick, leaving one part working while the other prepares to piss the shit out of Donald.

“No clue what you’re talking about dick-cheese.  Gonna have to be more spe…” and I’m cut off by the smack of the sword against my face again.  Donald grins, and slips the rusty point beneath my chin.

“I don’t know how much of this you can take with what appears to be a concussion and all,” Donald shrugs, seeming almost caring, “but I can keep this up for a very long time.  I know things, about where to cut, to produce the most pain, and the least bleeding.  About how to keep a man awake, about…”

Gods, he does drone on.  “Pardon Donald, but I don’t care what you know,” he seemed shocked that I was interrupting him, “or what you think I know.  If you’re going to torture me, cowboy up and do it, just don’t monologue, please.”

He stabs my other foot, neatly slicing through tendons, as his fist backhands me across the temple.  I hope it’s enough.  That sheltered part of my mind is drawing in all the pain, and feeding it to Bob, nurturing him, until.

There, sentience.  Bob becomes a small, vibrant pain spirit, and begins to gorge as Donald again strikes me and slashes the inside of my right calf.  My segmented mind calls out to Bob, urging, pushing, and even though the feast before him is great, he floats off, unseen by cutting and pummeling Donald.

I’ve promised him much if he returns on his promise.  If he succeeds, I won’t have much problem with that.

Back to the fore front.  I can’t feel my right leg, and the glances at it I get between jarring blows to the side of the head don’t look good.

And my suit is ruined.

Rache, Part V

It’s still there, every time I close my eyes, just out of sensory range. I run from it, in the way that one does when one is dreaming, legs pumping on nothing but aether, floating at breakneck and yet painfully slow speeds, always ahead, and yet always just shy of the goal. What is the goal.That is the question.

Dreamscapes flash past as I approach and yet flee from it, echoes of other lives that ripple in the Astral like fleeting imprints of things past and yet to be. There a child makes play with a friend at once beautiful and despicable, here a man in a sagging skinsuit blushes at his nakedness as he plys his worldly trade for the unworldly, there again a fox runs blithely through the fens, just beyond the reach of an octagenarian in a youth’s body, dreaming of a better time, and past them all I rush, and it behind me.

Some day it will catch me.

And as I ponder this, knowing that it has happened, yet hasn’t, will happen yet certainly will not, my head throbs, a dull ache spreading behind the blazing emeralds that are my dream eyes, burning through the cobwebs that grace the library of my mind’s eye. Suddenly I know.

I must have a concussion, always makes me wax poetic.

Clawing my way out of the dreamvision, then wanting to fall back in as the headache becomes a headfuck this is killing meache to signal my triumphant return to consciousness, I begin to hear voices is the to bright darkness.

“…if he doesn’t have it. He’s sure to know who does,” rumbles a basso voice, strained with the whine of someone who fucked up and is being put to task.

Silence, figurative of course outside the pounding in my brain, and then a light voice with a playful and terrifying lilt coos, “You’d best hope so Don, I’ll leave him to you.”

Footsteps, easily twenty yards and receeding, with an echo, no outdoor sounds, heavy latch being drawn, slight give of pressure, gentle rocking sensation, metal grating, slamming door, hollow echo, pressure creaking.

I’m on a boat, most likely in the hold.

Then I’m drowning.

Being drenched in something that tastes vaugly like Satan’s piss after a hearty helping of asparagus. I throw my head back to indicate that I’m awake, which elicits a painful flash from the vile creature currently squeezing my brain. There, before me, is a small man, swarthy one might say, compact, and not in the least imposing.

Unless you count the rather rusty and rather sharp looking pigsticker in his hand.

“Ah, Donald I presume, thanks for the wakeup call. You will of course be responsible for the drycleaning,” I serve, floating the ball into his court.

“Shut up,” he returns the volley, adding a smack across the cheek with the flat of his blade, much to the enjoyment of the headache demon which I’m now tentatively calling Bob, and a muttered curse, followed by, “I talk, you listen, and then you answer. Anything else, and I kill you.”

I stare at him, quirking a smile as best I can, being covered in piss generally rumpled.

“You understand?” he glares.

“Dear Donald, you told me not to tal…” and yes, another swipe with the flat, this time in the other direction, again delighting Bob.

There is almost a bit of a snarl in his voice as he exclaims, “Nodding until I say otherwise, shaking if you want more pain, and don’t ever call me Donald again, got it?”

I nod, and again, even manage to force a grin.

Rache, Part IV

7:28 a.m. Next scheduled bus for this lovely stop? 10:30 a.m.Still hate mass transit.

Well, I can wait around in this god forsaken neighborhood for a few hours, or I can get moving.

Moving sounds good.

I head back towards my apartment, and notice Sullivan stepping out of the derelict building, some thug hot on his heels with a distinctly Johnny shaped bag over one shoulder. Goon pops the trunk of a clean, sleek, black limo, which looks totally out of place among graffiti stained barred buildings with trash tumbleweeds flowing by on the dump scented winds, and dumps the John-bag unceremoniously into the back and slamming the hood. Sullivan eases into the back as Goon makes for the front, and with both sequestered inside the no doubt bulletproof glass and steel, they slide away, the limo a black phantom slipping through the squalor, untouchable. I got to get me one of those.

The goon, not the limo.

Must be nice having someone take care of the dirty work for you from time to time. Course, I don’t have the means. I barely get by on my own, but that’s mainly because I don’t have the patience to work the system. Besides, it just doesn’t seem right. This from one who hunts others and captures them for money outside of any type of legal system. Anyway, no manservant for me. No limo either.

Not that I would give up my baby, even if she is fickle.

The pavement is sticky, and I dare not look down for fear of what I might see, but rather continue on down the street, some fifteen blocks to cover. No one notices me. It helps that I am putting out the “you can’t see me” vibe, clouding the minds of the weak and all. In all honesty, I don’t think anyone would see me even if I wasn’t hexing them. This area is just desolate, people going god knows where, their eyes locked to the front and slightly unfocused so they look determined, driven, and yet nonconfrontational at the same time. The visage of the city.

I duck into a corner store, just opening, and allow Johnny to treat me to breakfast. Powerbar, coffee, pack of gum. Keep spoiling myself like this that twenty is going to last awhile. Back out on the street, I wolf down the powerbar, and suck down the coffee. Both are less than good, but fuel is fuel. More of the cities denizens are crawling out of their holes, heading for work, or play, or whatever it is that they do.

8:13 a.m. Time is flowing quickly. I figure I’m about halfway home. I ease up a bit, and even grab a seat on a bench on the barrier between the street and the park. There’s a magazine caught under a foot of the bench, some bum’s forgotten pillow stuffing no doubt, and I pick it up, flipping through meaningless articles about “men of the year” and “fall fashions.” I’m reading some tripe about how we can’t call Pluto a planet anymore, when my fingers to numb.

I drop the magazine, and flex my fingers, both hands tingling. What is going on. Scanning the growing street crowd, I don’t see much of anything going on, but I open my eyes anyway, and still nothing. Aside from minor spirits flitting this way and that, there is nothing to warrant a warning. At least not in the street.

I start to turn towards the park at my back.

And all I see is blackness.

Rache, Part III

7:03 a.m. I wish I hadn’t quit smoking. Couple of drags would be really nice right now in the brusque morning air. A small man, in height and frame, is leaning over the bleeding youth, sliding a wicked looking syringe into his forearm. My contact. He also is wearing a suit, but of a more dated style than my own, yet crisp and well kept. He is just closing his black doctor’s bag as he turns to look at me, green eyes alert yet weary, leaving Johnny boy drooling blissfully. He pulls out a pack, slides out a square with his lips, and lights it with a quickly produced Zippo, which disappears with equal haste. Then he nods to the pack and holds it out to me.I turn it down.“Roughed him up pretty bad, didn’t you wizard,” the smaller man chides, smoke escaping as almost living tendrils from between his clenched, yellowing teeth.

I deadpan, “Show me a mark that doesn’t fight, I’ll show you an untouched mark, “ and head for the stairs.

“Master wants to see you; tonight, sundown,” he barks, stopping me in my tracks. He takes a long drag and flicks the brand over the edge of the roof as he continues, “Wants you to come alone this time.”

“Come on, that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know that she would freak like that,” I break in, grinning openly as my back is still to him, “Honest mistake and all that.”

“You brought a wolf into his haven, and all you can say is “Honest mistake?” he continues, sounding closer to me now. the scent of him washes over me, the cheap cigarettes, the whisky he keeps in his breast pocket, and something deeper, hiding behind the bouquet of normalcy.

Decay.

I shrug, “Fine, I’ll come alone. Anything else errand boy?”

“Why no sir, do enjoy the rest of your day sir,” he quips, and I can hear the smile in his voice. Something is up, and tonight doesn’t sound kosher. I hate Sullivan.

Time to head home.

Rache, Part II

I hate Mondays. Course, it isn’t Monday. Its Sunday, but then, with all the crap that is happening today, I almost have something to look forward to.

Early morning appointment with no sleep. Check.

Creepy dead girl voice on the phone asking for help. Check.

Car won’t start. What do you think. Did I mention that I also hate public transit? Even if I am tweaking the strings to make it arrive on time.

5:30 a.m. and I don’t think I’m going to make it. Someone on the bus has smoked hash in the last half hour, and it reeks. If I cared, and I could figure out who it was and persuade them to give it up for their health. I could tell them they won’t find enlightenment at the end of a lit brand. But then, who am I to say. Maybe they will. I twist a charm to block the stench from my senses, and look out the window.

The city, rolling by me at a maddeningly slow pace, doesn’t look good. She’s been dying slowly for some years, but its tough to see if you can’t open your eyes to look. The sun is burning just on the edge of the horizon, and even it’s impending rise hasn’t sent the street tricks to their owners’ beds, nor their marks to their wives’. The homeless, hiding in plain sight, wake early to make sure that underpaid cops and other bums don’t take the treasures they’ve hidden in shopping carts. They mill around dying campfires burning low in well used drums.

My fingers go numb, and on instinct I refocus my eyes so I can see, just in time to notice the taint of spirit influence and apathy washing over the whores and the wastrels. Not my job to worry about, and not my right. All the same, I thumb open my cell and text the dog soldiers with the intersection and the proper code. Least I can do for letting me squat in their territory. I get the standard “FQ-U” which lets me know they’ll check it out.

5:37 a.m. and ten blocks from the meet. I know I’m going to be late.

I might as well enjoy the ride. A girl’s bobbing head two rows up tells me she’s rocking out some tunes over her wireless ear buds. I tap the signal, twist it into auditory input, and listen in. Fergie. London Bridge. I drop the line. Kids these days. No taste. At least she isn’t singing out loud.

I lean my head back and close my eyes. Maybe a quick nap will do me good.

I barely hear the driver call the stop, and nearly have to claw my way to consciousness. I dash for the front of the bus, hopping or sidestepping a few legs, and stumble out into the growing morning light.

5:59 a.m. Just in time.

“Johnny boy,” I call to the little, emo looking puke across the street, unlocking the grate to the corner store, “we need to talk.”

He looks, then according to my tingling fingers, he looks. And then, of course, he runs.

They always run.

Good thing I hexed him before I left the pad. Oh, forgot to mention that didn’t I? Yeah I know, taints the soul and all that. Who cares, I’m getting paid. Helped that they clued me on what momma named him, so did the vial of blood. I’ll have to thank them when I come to collect, and I promise I won’t up the price. Maybe.

I stroll after him.

The first fall isn’t even my fault; he’s looking back at me as he runs into a morning jogger. I couldn’t have asked for that one. He pulls himself back up, a bit slower than the health nut, who promptly pushes him back down. That was probably me. I chuckle, and continue to follow, pulling out my shades and sliding them on to complete the MiB look, dramatics and all.

He climbs up again, the jogger gone, and continues to run, nearly dodging a bum steered shopping cart, only to twist his ankle on the uneven sidewalk. He curses, and looks my way. I wave, yeah, I’m still here, closer now. I’m thinking he’s got to know, got to try and unravel what I’ve done, but nope, no art, just running. I shake my head, and reach out to a barrel fire he’s nearing, nudging it over. This is pushing the limits, but I can take it. The flaming debris covers the walk in front of him, and with traffic on his left, he ducks into the nearest building. Predictable, and right where I want him.

When I make the building, he is still trying the doors on the first floor, all of which I have already made sure are stuck or locked. Save for the last on the right, with the stairs heading up. He takes it, and as it closes the door swells stuck, another charm dropped from my roster. I release the illusory wall over the elevator he should have seen, but didn’t. I ride up to the fifth.

I’m already in place on the roof as he slams open the door, heaving from his run up the stairs. He’s got a gun out, and I shake the numbness out of my hand as I sense the sound bending charm around it. At least he’s smart enough not to want to draw attention. He tracks around the rooftop, and makes for the edge near the closest neighboring building, then falls back a bit. Nice of them to tell me about his fear of heights as well. I step out of the shadow of the ruined air conditioning unit.

“John, let’s talk,” I open casually.

He turns the gun on me, and pulls the trigger, which does nothing. He still hasn’t dispelled that hex.

“Oh, such violence I sense in you young one,” I deadpan. Jedi-like? Yes, Corny? Sure, but who’s watching.

“You can’t touch me,” he whines, “the Conclave won’t have it.”

“But John-boy, you ran like you knew me,” I counter, prepping a counter if he tries everything, “so you should know I don’t truck with consul.”

“Besides,” I sneer, “I know who you’ve been playing with, and I don’t think your bosses would be to happy about that, now would they?”

He rushes me. I can feel him twisting something as he comes, but I unwind it as he throws his first punch. That costs me a shot to the stomach, but the suit absorbs most of it. He throws another, a right hook coming in high. Sidestepping, I pull him off balance with his wrist and slam his arm behind his back, hook my foot around his, and drop him to the loose asphalt of the roof. His black-dyed emo doo makes a nice handle as I slam his face into the shale repeatedly. Finally, a bit to quickly for my own tastes, he goes limp. I give him one more face plant, just to make sure he’s out, and then stand.

I let the hex drop as I zip tie his hands behind his back and dig through his pockets. Keys, don’t need them. Twenty bucks, mine. A club matchbook with a number for Amiee in red ink on the inside, interesting, and taken.

Pulling out my phone, and noting the time, 6:23 a.m., I punch the number for my contact, texting a simple, obvious message.

“PICKUP”

Rache, Part I

You’ve had that dream right? You’re running from something. You can’t see it. You can’t hear it. Hell, you can’t even smell it. But you can feel it somehow. You know its there, and you know its getting closer. And that feeling, that certainty that it is right behind you, hounding your every step, it’s breath shocking the hairs on the back of your neck to attention, is a feeling of dread. That’s where I am. I’ve been running for so long that my muscles have gone warm, burning, screaming, aching, numb. And still it comes. My mind is drawn thin from fear and panic, my eyes blind to anything but forward. And still it comes. And now I can hear it, the staccato of it’s screech soft at first, but slowly gaining power, with each repetition piercing further into my weary thoughts, telling me something important, reminding me like the scent of apples reminds me of my mother’s kitchen, and the stench of decay, my father’s workroom. What does it want?

Right.

Wake up.

5:00 a.m. the crimson LED lights bleed into my tearing eyes the second before I backhand the clock from the night table. I hate getting up early. It doesn’t help that I just crashed a little under two hours ago. Hell, I’d probably still be awake if not for the appointment. Glancing across the room, I see the suit hanging on the back of the bathroom door. At least I remembered to get it dry cleaned. As I stumble into the bathroom, almost falling over the coffee table along the way, I kit bash a quick charm, wringing out some more mental and physical vitality for the day to come, adding to it a cold shower for good measure. No time for morning rituals, I’ll probably be late as it is, so I throw on the suit, black, over a cream shirt and contrasting tie, single Windsor for speed, and make for the door. Of course, just as my hand reaches the knob after unlocking my prodigious safety precautions, the phone rings. The coffee table again gives me trouble as I dash for the Batphone. No really, I have a Batarang shaped phone. I’m a dork, sue me.

“What,” is my common greeting.

Silence.

“Okay, hello,” I try again.

And again, silence.

No one knows this number. I don’t get crank calls. I am easily pissed.

I mentally pull the strings of energy, and restructure my thoughts so that I can interpret them, and even with those alterations, I can only make out a weak voice. A child’s voice. A dead voice.

“Help me”