cleostsebastian
Shattered past
Posts: 92
(8/19/05 10:46 pm)
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Game Twenty-Eight: 08/14/05
998,009 B.C. • Day 1
A Long Days Night
Cleo and company made their way down what would one day be the Persian Gulf coast of Basra, Iraq. Eventually, they came across city ruins, where once stood the massive town, Enoch. It was covered in salt as almost everything was in the area. On their way there, Cleo talked to Jeremiah as both had concerns about Jacob’s recent turn to martyrdom. They both agreed to keep an eye on him, in case he proved unreliable. It took so long to make any sort of distance that they realized that the sun would be coming up soon.
The group decided to use their Kevlar bags as protection from the sun and sink their way to the bottom of the ocean. Before Cleo made her way into the bag, she could see a blue light in the distance, which she later learned was Damien, as Jacob had seen him do this before. Cleo then sealed herself in the bag an headed towards the bottom of the ocean and soon faded away into deaths cold arms.
998,009 B.C. • Day 2
City of Ruins
When Cleo awoke, she was in a state of panic as she was disoriented and started to rip at the Kevlar bag to get out, eventually making her way to the surface. Almost out of instinct, she gasped for air that her body no longer required. Then she made her way to shore, hoping no one would notice, but deep down she knew they did.
While drying herself on the sand, Cleo heightened her senses to get a further bearing on their location. Using Jeremiah’s binoculars, she could see a dome-shaped building a couple of miles ahead and relayed this information to the group, which they then decided to celeritize to the location to cut down their travel time.
Shortly, the group was at the location of the domed city ruins. Cleo placed her Compuband® on and scanned the area, also taking some pictures of the location for future reference.
The group made their way to what was once the entrance to the city. Cleo could see that the doorway was still intact. It depicted an elderly bearded man with his arms stretching towards the ground. The left hand was positioned differently than the right one, which Cleo wondered what this had signified.
Jacob entered the doorway without concern or care of whether or not their was a hidden trap or portal. Cleo thought to herself that they should be more careful in this wildly different world that they were now in.
Once they entered the city, they made their way towards the dome. When Cleo entered, she saw the ceiling still had much of its artwork still intact and could see an image of what looked like a dark woman with wings, possibly a demon. Cleo looked further, but was distracted by something out of the corner of her eye, a young child running from the shadows. Running over to investigate, she found a woman with several children, hiding out from the devastation, looking tired and hungry. Cleo switched on her translator to Enochian.
After some adjustments, Cleo was able to understand the female, but thought that it must look strange to hear a voice coming out of someone’s mouth but not having her lips move in sync. Cleo decided to read the woman’s aura and saw that she was afraid and suspicious, just as she had verbally communicated. She kept pleading that they don’t hurt the children and that they should go away and leave them alone.
Eventually, Cleo calmed her down and was able to find out that she had escaped from her village with the children. They were fleeing from some unknown entity that desired to abduct their little ones.
Jacob approached and continued conversing with the woman while Cleo responded to Jeremiah, who was trying to get her attention. He showed her a basin, etched with Enochian language, and strewn with dried blood. She spent some time deciphering the area and was able to surmise that this was dedicated to Caine.
Cleo then made her way back to the woman, who told her her name, Mara. She also asked her what the name of her village was, and she replied Solon. Talking with Mara further, she found out that there was a cylinder within her village and then continued by drawing an image in the sand. Cleo wondered if this was one of the cylinders that Nikolai had given her. She then told Cleo of her missing friend Darius, who had returned to the village to look for his granddaughter.
Cleo had overheard Jacob asking Jeremiah how old he was. Jeremiah replied that he had been sired at around the time of The War of the Roses, 1468. Cleo was amazed at finding out that he was as old as that and was still able to retain a carefree persona.
While Cleo inspected the ruins of Enoch for the next couple of hours, Jacob proceeded to catch fish for the woman and children to feast upon as they looked malnourished. She asked Jacob about catching some for themselves and he did so. Jacob gave one to Cleo and she bit into the fish and immediately threw up blood. The fish must have consumed some of the salt that was toxic to the vampires, which caused Cleo to regurgitate the blood.
The night had almost come to an end and the party decided to bid Mara and the children farewell and once more headed towards the sea to protect themselves from the sun’s harsh rays.
998,009 B.C. • Day 3
Village of the Damned - Taulit Lautanit (The People Resting)
The next day, the group awoke and proceeded towards the edge of the salt-laden area of land and made their way onto the grasslands, progressing towards a cliff that oversaw the surrounding area. Cleo could see that the ruined city was in fact the fabled city of Enoch. She pondered on what could have caused such total destruction on this scale and magnitude. Had Caine caused this? Was this the remnants of his judgement day? Cleo began to grow concerned about her mission and what she didn’t know about this place and time period.
The group ventured further down the cliff and could see a jungle and decided to head towards it.
At the edge of the jungle, they were confronted by an old man that wanted them to leave as they were not welcome to travel on his path. Cleo was bemused by this person, who revealed himself to be Darius, Mara’s friend. Cleo inspected his aura, which showed sharp flickering, mottled shifting and vermillion. His aura was almost hyperreal, as if he had been a picture perfect character out of a movie. This seemed odd to Cleo and she started to distrust this individual and was even more suspicious after Jacob had said to him that they were heading to the city of Solon and the old man replied that he must return to get his granddaughter. Why hadn’t he left with his relative, instead of empty handed?
After making their way through the jungle’s edge, they came upon the city of Taulit Lautanit. They could see huts closely guarded by the village’s male warriors. They seemed to be spread around the central building.
Almost immediately they heard a gonging sound emanating from the village. Suddenly, warriors descended from the trees around the group and were advancing towards them. Cleo responded by raising a force cube, that surrounded the party and was almost 20-feet wide in length and height. This caused the trees to bend and break as the shield expanded outward from her body. The party seemed scared as Cleo’s powers were bewildering and otherworldly to them. She told them to be sure and not to try to exit the force cube. Samantina ignored her and crept into the shadows only to reappear near the central hut while Jacob and Jeremiah readied their weapons for when the shield went down.
Cleo was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a force shield of this magnitude and told the others that they were going to have to shift tactics and move forward. The others agreed. Jacob activated his compuband®, Simon, and told the villagers to back off or they would get hurt. Unfortunately, some of them didn’t take heed and were repelled back. Then some of the villagers blocked the path of the wall and were trampled upon by the shield, leaving them dead before Cleo had realized what had happened, as she was focused on keeping up the shield.
Jacob railed into Cleo demanding her to stop.
She deactivated the shield.
Needless to say, she felt bad about what just happened, but was not aware of the villagers’ unfortunate demise. Jacob intimated that she was becoming evil with her increased abilities.
Cleo never felt so alone, than at that moment…
Why was Jacob constantly condemning her? Was he finding the mission hard? Was he distancing himself from his friends? Or was what Jeremiah and she feared coming true?
She stormed off to the central building to find out what was so important for the villagers to protect. It was a bunch of their children, kept together, to protect them from some outside source.
The group could see several birds circling the hut as if readying to attack it. Samantina pulled into the shadows and unsheathed her ebony swords, unsuccessfully stabbing at the flying pests. Soon, the birds flew away and then the old man, Darius appeared from the jungle. Cleo realized that there was a connection between the birds and the old man, but didn’t know what that would be. Darius retrieved his granddaughter and Jacob told the group that they had to help bring the children back to Mara with the old man. The group agreed and Cleo tried to redeem herself by helping the children down the cliff side via telekinesis. Making their way back to shore, they found a cave nearby to rest. The children began complaining of hunger, they wanted bananas and wild boar. Jacob and Jeremiah elected to go hunting and retrieving of food for the children. Samantina stayed and helped looked after the kids.
Darius cradled his granddaughter and started complaining that she wasn’t looking very well. The child was an infant and from the best Cleo could tell, she was dying. Was she malnourished? Or was it something else? Samantina suggested that they might have brought back a disease of some kind, infecting the children. Cleo knew this was nonsense as vampires can only carry blood diseases and not other viruses. Cleo took the child and inspected its blood by transferring some into her brooch, then analyzing it on the compuband®. It found nothing wrong with the child.
Darius started accusing the vampires, and soon was rambling that they needed to leave him to his family but Cleo refused. She knew something was awry with Darius, but she couldn’t figure out what. As she passed him she dropped an item near his ankles and cast an Enochian spell upon him that would reveal his footsteps by wilting the grass that he walked upon.
Jacob and Jeremiah returned with food and noticed the girl looked ill, but couldn’t help the infant. The group mutually decided to retire for the night deep within the cave, as everyone had no desire to return to the ocean. Cleo then readied an area deeper in the cave than the others were located as to protect her magic items. Then, she heard a yell from Jacob as he and the old man were quarreling over whether he should stay in the cave, but the Darius was insistent on leaving. As soon as he exited the cave, he was surrounded by the same birds that were in the village. They created a whirlwind of sand and dust around the two individuals.
Darius and his granddaughter were no more.
Jacob went to fetch Mara and bring her back to the cave.
During this time, another of the kids fell ill. Now it was one of the elder children. Cleo inspected its saliva and used some for another analysis, but to no avail.
After some time, Jacob arrived with Mara. Cleo looked at her where she stood and noticed the wilted grass that revealed her footsteps. Mara asked about the children and wanted them to come to her. She called for them and they came running up to her. She held the sickest child close to her and Cleo then realized not only was the old man, the birds and Mara one and the same but it was probably the reason behind the infants’ deaths.
Cleo commanded that she drop the pretense and let go of the child as she told her she was a liar. This startled Jacob who readied himself to block Cleo from harming the woman.
Cleo held out her hand towards Jacob as if to stop him while explaining to him that she had cast an Enochian spell upon the old man that would reveal his footprints by wilting the grass he walked upon, yet there it was, revealing Mara’s footsteps.
Mara then changed into a demon with wings, then quickly changed into 100 or so birds.
Jacob immediately shot his weapon at them and chased after the birds and he managed to take out two of them, but they made their way over the sea.
The group returned to the cave and decided to retire for the night, unfortunately leaving the children defenseless. Cleo dug a shallow hole and placed her items within and buried them with sand, then covering them with a small stone as to remember where they were located when she woke in the morning.
998,009 B.C. • Day 4
The Truth Revealed
The next day, the group awakened to find all the children but four were dead. This angered Cleo as she tried hard to protect them from harm. Cleo touched the cave and was able find out that it was a demon that was stealing the souls to provide nourishment for its unborn demon child.
After the newborn exited its mother’s body, it walked away down the shore of the coast as the mother demon dissipated into thousands of spiders and crawled away.
Cleo and the group would now have to take care of these children, bringing them with them on their journey.
Cleo pondered at how this would complicate their mission…
Edited by: cleostsebastian at: 12/16/05 6:57 pm
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