Old World Blues

Anything you might want to try out that doesn't temporally or thematically fit the serial should go here. This is an ideal space for all your what-ifs and might-have-beens, as well as for your average silliness.
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Karl the Mad
 

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Old World Blues

Post by Karl the Mad »

It had been a year since Marius Vlastos had lost his final gambit. A year since the curse was lifted, since his plans had come crashing down, since Shield had, for reasons he was only now beginning to fathom, prevented Preston Hauser from fulfilling the vengeance that had so consumed him for his adult life. For the sake of the remnants of his sanity the ancient vampire had forcibly shoved all the myriad issues and manias associated with these events to one side, and focused on other things. Any other things, anything to keep him from falling into the gaping chasm of depression and emotional hysteria that lurked in the back of his mind.

Old as he was, strong and skilled as he was, he knew that he'd lose control if he fell into that chasm, and he knew that, at this stage, he'd go straight to the Pit. And he'd not receive a warm welcome there. He had that rarest of things, a Second Chance, and he knew he could not waste it.

He had left the dissolution of Hauser Cooling to the boy and the lawyers, and for a while had focused on cleaning house in Alexandria Antiquities. For it was still a legitimate business, and chasing relics across the globe had been a satisfying distraction in the years when he despaired of fulfilling his ultimate dreams. A profitable one too, over a couple of centuries; the Hauser fortune had been a pleasant bonus, but not entirely needed at the time. The vault in Hope was not his only repository, not by any means, and what he still held to could be used as leverage and protection down the road.

What did they expect of him? To go crazy and start murdering indiscriminately? Find some smaller-scale fulfillment of the schemes he had obsessed over for hundreds of years? It had been tempting, to be sure, and he wasn't certain he would keep avoiding that temptation. But for now, he was in a self-imposed stasis, simply going day-to-day, relearning piece by piece what it meant to be a citizen on this ball of dirt he still loathed. He was once again questioning why he had been on that path, something he had not done for generations; it had once seemed self-evident, so enormously obvious that it was stupid and pointless to question it. Now of course, he had nothing else to do.

This particular day, he was out walking, dressed in heavy clothing despite the heat of late summer. The better to avoid touching those he walked by, of course; things like temperature had long since ceased to bother him. He stopped and looked up, realizing he was some blocks away from Holden Hall, but shrugged and kept going. If he wanted to be anywhere in particular, he could easily run or climb his way there, after all.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Old World Blues

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With Hell's thwarted invasion and Heaven's intercession had come new realities. 

The city was undergoing a second Reconstruction, Alkaev and Goliath gorging themselves on new renovation contracts that allowed for further uses of cutting-edge materials and technologies. What would have taken decades to erase was now seeping away like a well-treated series of wounds, Hope's proverbial immune system essentially adjusted by the addition of the warthog's new believers and assistants. The Goat had been right, in a sense. Demons now freely walked the Earth. Unfortunately for him, these were Fiends of the Socratic sort, infinitely more glad for the chunk of offered normalcy than for anything resembling a chance to flex their powers. Angels and corporeally manifested souls now followed along, these last ones looking almost like any other mortal, safe perhaps for the preternaturally healthy glow of their skin and eyes.

Nosferatu Ops' unsubtle info-dumps regarding the need for empathy when approaching someone of Marius Vlastos' stripe had turned into a concerted campaign by the Vienna Council, urging other plurimillennial souls to come forward and seek the assistance that was theirs to claim. In any case, the Alexandrian would at least know he wasn't expected to abandon his misanthropic outlook overnight, and that inroads had to be built over time. Bridges had to be constructed. Empathy was something that surfaced out of slow and constant diligence. At least, that was what Ecaterina Naxos, his therapist of the same age group, had been able to impart in their first session, a month ago. She might've been Minoan by birth and not Alexandrian, losing your ancestral home to volcanic wrath and spending the centuries flitting across Europe and the New World did impart some useful bits of perspective.

Still, Cate would've probably insisted on his wearing lighter clothes... Early June was warm, even going on the sweltering on some days, and some people naturally couldn't help themselves but to briefly stare at the nonagenarian fellow with his long sleeves and coat. Manners prevailed, of course, and nobody asked questions; but even Damnatio Memoriae hadn't been able to stave off staring children's eyes forever.

Sometimes, however, life found ways to land pleasant surprises. A middle-aged mother and her son of some ten years walked past, the boy doing his best to avoid being too obvious. Preternatural ears being what they were, however, Marius might be able to hear the boy tell his mother that the old man they'd just crossed looked cool, like a cross between a Jason Bourne character and an Agent from The Matrix.

The overcoat. That must've been it.

Holden Hall's main gate came up, one half of it parting with a buzz as a sandal-wearing former Marine walked through it, looking more absorbed by some kind of shopping list on his phone than with the road. Aidan Drake justifiably didn't have Marius' reservations about physical contact or clothing, cargo bermudas and a shirt displaying the myriad facial expressions of Darth Vader in grid form lightly stuck to his chest by a gust of wind.

"Okay, so... An ASUS motherboard with an LGA 843 socket, two sticks of M.4 memory, four sticks of DDR6-"

The last time Aidan Drake had been surprised by Vlastos, he'd survived a potentially neck-breaking swat of the hand with no discernible injuries and later shown no mental discomfort in response to the Grecian man's old forceful imprinting tricks. It hadn't been pleasant, naturally, but Drake's psyche had pinged in response to the old man's torrent of anguish in a way that felt as though his brain's structure had laughed at the attempt at trauma. Vlastos had been left with the echo of a strong sense of déja vu, the Eldritch part of the Marine - as well as Charles Jenkins' own psyche - both giving the impression that they'd seen more than their fair share of loss. The younger of the two hadn't been able to make a dent in Marius' skin using his guns, but tricks the vampire would've previously associated to nightmare creatures from the ocean's depths had quickly been brought up to the fore.

The end result was a pair of mortals that had a unique perspective to his own existence. A strangely empathetic one, at that, given their past scrapes...

This time, however, Drake's instincts didn't so much as kick in. There'd be no fear on the wind, either - only mild surprise.

"Oh - Hi, mister Vlastos. Sorry about that, our fill-in for Preston's got pretty specific needs and I, uh, kinda suck at this computer hardware crap. I was trying to memorize his parts list, seeing as I'm going to spend the morning playing gopher boy."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: Old World Blues

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Just his luck, the flow of pedestrian traffic meant he wound up here anyway. And who should be at the gate but the Drake boy? He who could resist some of Vlastos' dirtier tricks, together with the scarred old man who hung about Holden Hall. The vamp wondered where those two had come from, and what the source of their mental fortitude was; nothing as simple as War, Marius had seen plenty of War and had broken soldiers with far more experience. It was those meddlesome Void Weavers, it had to be.

And since it amused him in a petty sort of way to be an obstruction, he let the boy walk into him. Take that, social mores.

Marius blinked slowly and tried not to look bored as Aidan explained whatever menial drudgery was to occupy the day for him. "How sad for you, boy," he replied, laying the sarcasm on a bit thick. "Shall I play the violin for you, or perhaps tag along and bore you with the tragedy that is my life these days." He still could not keep the abject loathing out of his voice, but they told him it was okay to not let go all at once. "Not all bad, I suppose... I overheard some brat tell his mother I looked like Agent Smith and Jason Bourne put together, whoever those two are."
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Re: Old World Blues

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Drake being who he was, he seemingly glossed over Vlastos' obvious contempt. Forsythe Holden's Skype call regarding the need for temperance in front of the Alexandrian hadn't so much as been required, as far as he was concerned. Expecting him to pop a gasket in a constructive sense and turn into a teddy bear blessed with the consistency of poured and rebar-laced concrete would've been unwise. Odds were no progress would be measurable in Aidan's own lifetime, anyway! All he could do was hopefully serve as reason enough for someone in Marius' position to at least try and develop their sense of empathy.

"They're just movie characters. Action heroes and antagonists, respectively. They're mostly indestructible in-canon, owing to in-fiction concepts. I won't bore you with the details - just torrent 'em if you're interested."

A corner of his lips quirked up. "As for you boring me... I don't have Sarah's drive for History, but I got a few kicks out of some over-the-shoulder stuff. Feel free to tag along, I'm getting used to tempering the local sourpusses." 

A wry pause.

"That'd be Zeb Buck and yourself."

An Automaton walked past, clad in reproduced turn-of-the-century attire fit for a summertime stroll, complete with a straw boater's hat. Drake let a few polite moments pass so as not to be too untoward within earshot of the Clank, and then looked back to Vlastos.

"The Industrial Revolution must've already been a lot to take in, I can't imagine how it might've been to realize dead people could keep walking around in mechanical bodies... How did you perceive or react to the Age of Steam, anyway? Did some of the earlier designs have anything in common with Alexandria's automata?"
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: Old World Blues

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Indestructible, eh. Hmf. Either the brat from before was unusually perceptive, or he was blinded by pop culture tropes. Whichever it was, Marius decided it was a compliment and to be taken as such.

"Don't compare me to that waste of potential," he retorted with a sniff. "I did something with what had been forced upon me, but the Buck lich? He sits around drinking his fortune and pretending to do some research now and then. It's pathetic!"

Aidan asked about the Age of Steam and the Industrial Revolution, but Marius just shrugged. "I don't remember," he grunted sourly. "I wasn't meant to be immortal, to survive for so many years, and my memory isn't what it should be. It would take me hours of remembrance and meditation to answer your question properly, boy, and we don't have that kind of time."
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Re: Old World Blues

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Three started back on his path, assuming Marius might tag along for a while. 

"So, just in case my feeble mortal mental processes haven't caught on, you're saying a man whose only fault is of having less emotional strength throughout the last two hundred years than you is a bigger complainer than yourself - who's just complained about loss of memory stretching back to Antiquity."

He coughed in his fist, hiding the word bullshit in there.

"Sorry," he said, gasping, "summertime allergies... Any two-bit retirement center nurse would tell you stimuli are essential. If you just sit there hating us from a distance, you'll wake up one day not being able to remember the day the worthless peons gave you an object lesson. Remember what Asshole Leonard told you about personal implication? Holden told us he called that warm fuzzies. Good Guy Leonard's latched onto that pretty hard, being a loose soul in the mortal plane makes it too easy for them to distance themselves from the rest of us. The more you interact, the more you are.

You don't need immortality to rack your kind of misanthropy, believe me. I've seen banged-up veterans when I came back here, some of them so scarred they hated everyone who so much as looked at them. You spend four years knee-deep in hatred and bigotry on both sides of the fence, there's no way you'll come back from that unscathed."

He'd turned around and started walking on his heels for a few steps, partly to be sure Vlastos wouldn't just take a stealthy left and leave him hanging.

"Try going back to basics. You're an antiquarian, so there's forms of mortal art you respect. Find an art gallery that has an exhibit running with things you like, and strike up a convo with the exhibit's curator or the museum's. Skip past the awkwardness of small talk and dig straight into the goodness: finding archaeological grants, how the region's political climate's affected your respective works, the quality of the pieces on offer, the artistry behind them..."

He scoffed amusedly. "And for God's sake, ignore the Internet. People have no filter there. You need basic manners to start even a professional relationship, and there's jack shit there, unless you slip in some echo chamber and parrot the group's screed back at them. Things have gotten a lot weirder on popular imageboards now we've got angels and demons laying their frustrations online."
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Re: Old World Blues

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Marius didn't dignify Aidan's sarcasm with any kind of retort; a simple withering glare was enough for him. The past few months had shown him that there was some merit to being ignored by the majority of people surrounding him, and not having to put up with their pithy witticisms was high on that list.

"Interaction is what I'm trying for right now," he replied. "Small talk was not so hard a skill to regain as I had thought it would be. My employees at the vault here in Hope were surprisingly understanding, although I'm sure the out-of-court settlements had something to do with it." Abusing one's employees wasn't something to easily weasel out of, but Marius had been willing enough to pay off those he had misused the most. He still took pride in the company he had built up over the centuries, and while he couldn't appreciate sarcasm, he could appreciate competence and clarity of purpose, which he looked for (or told his proxies to look for, anyway) in employees.

"My therapist suggested something similar, actually. Find a museum, wander about, see what memories could be triggered by the pieces on display." He chuckled, the sound disused and a bit rusty. "I was at a small showing upstate last week, in fact, and found a painting I had myself done some few hundred years back. That I could remember, as plain as day; I spent five years on that piece, trying to find just the right colors, materials, subjects... I may as well show you, boy." He brought his phone out, and a few moments' manipulation had a picture of a large, framed painting of a waterfall, pouring down between moss-covered rocks. "As much as I hated this place and everyone on it, there were still a few things I thought worthy of preserving, in some fashion. And this, a stream in Ireland, was one of those things."

He let Three examine it for a few moments, then put the phone away again and sighed. "It's gone now, of course. The stream dried up, and the land leveled out to build a housing development." He fixed Three with a glare. "And before you say anything, yes, I know how it must sound, to put effort into preserving some things when if all went to plan, everything would burn away, artwork included. I realized that as well, and the irony only made everything worse."
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Re: Old World Blues

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Three had been about to voice approval of Marius' painting when the vampire added an addendum regarding the absurdity of his goals in relation to his attempts at preserving the past. He frowned for a second, looking as though Vlastos' assumptions regarding his response were a bit puzzling.

"Marius, I'm the last guy alive you'll ever have to convince regarding how irrational the human experience can be. A few years back, I wanted to tear the guy who'd used me in Najeeban to pieces. I wanted to curse his name, stomp on his face for destroying the life I'd known. Then I met him and I felt most of my questions, my hatred for him just - wither away."

He gestured at his neck. "What I went through is indescribable. It hurts. It cost me the woman I loved, the life I wanted to lead when I'd come back here. When I saw who my pain was keeping alive and safe, however? As soon as I saw Gammell and the rest of the Promethean Order; I knew exactly who I'd suffered for. I'd go through six Najeebans again if that could kick Amaxi up Her crotch hard enough for Her to feel it."

Aidan parted his hands in a show of powerlessness. "It makes no sense and I know it - but it's how I feel. My parents call it my finally growing up, but I'm just confused by all of it."
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Re: Old World Blues

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Marius sighed, in irritation and defeat. "Are you trying to gloat, boy? That you found your closure, your peace, your light at the end of your tunnel? Well, good for you! I'm sure if I knew who I was suffering for, all my suffering would melt away just like yours' did! Is that it?" He scoffed bitterly. "I really doubt it's that simple, boy."

He was about to keep going when something caught his attention. A distracted mother, crossing the street without watching. "Ugh... one moment." His body blinked before Drake's eyes, and then the mother was standing there with his arm around her, daughter in hand, scared and confused. "...really? You're the same dumb bitch I pulled from the street before! Didn't you learn anything?!" the vampire snarled, letting her go. "Pull the music from your ears and the phone from your nose! You've a child, for pity's sake!"

"...p-please don't swear in front of my d-daughter," the woman replied stiffly, wide-eyed and shaking, clinging to the provided outrage to steady herself. "It's, it's- wait, you're-!"

"Yes, yes, Marius Vlastos at your service," he replied, bowing sarcastically. "I tried to kill you all but this fine young man and his friends stopped me." He jerked a thumb at Three, hard enough to send a small gust of wind at the younger man's face. "He's single, too! Better snap him up, girl!"

"Um, I- I'm dating someone already," she said, staring wide-eyed at Three now. Her daughter, somewhat over a year old now, was likewise silent and staring, clinging to her mother in the face of these strangers.
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Re: Old World Blues

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Three stepped forward, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about that - my friend here's still being seen by a therapist for the Vienna Council. Subtlety's kind of a lost art. Call it a work in progress..."

Then, aided by his Lexicon, Drake landed a small elbow jab Marius would actually feel in his ribs. Then, using a non-aggressive version of a trick he'd pulled in their final confrontation, Aidan seemingly made the world go blank as the woman, her daughter and all other onlookers froze in their tracks. It felt like he'd hit Pause on the world, when he'd simply heightened Vlastos' perception of a single second.

"You wouldn't like it if I called you an idiot without provocation, Marius - and even with provocation you'd be willing to wring my neck for it. People don't like it when you berate them as harshly as you did when they don't know you on a personal basis. They also don't like it when someone's status as single is brought up out of nowhere."

Three sighed and gave the frozen world a once-over. "Focus. Dose your reactions appropriately, next time. And maybe apologize to the girl."

Then, with a sound not unlike a wind tunnel's aperture being closed, time resumed its course with a slight whoosh.
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