Vampire III: Sunnydale Nights

[Lex-Kat]

Cerise is nuzzled, and suddenly realizes that Mister Buttons is saying goodbye. Noooooooo!!! Cerise quickly tries to pick Mister Buttons up. But if he escapes her grasp, she'll follow him in.

I volunteer to be the sacrifice as well.

[Wizibirb]

I can't help but laugh at this situation, we have the last mason and maybe one of the last Vampires volunteering to sacrafice themselves.

[Uncle Festy]

Ooh! Ooh! I volunteer!

[Reinholdt]

I'm not a vampire. It just says on the wiki that I read that I should be one.

And Mister Buttons is not letting Cerise be the sacrifice, no way.
...
Course he's a kitty, so can't really stop her. He just meows at her to stay back before hopping to it.

Silly hoomans not understanding kitty.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Bwahahahaha.

Why don't you all just go and sacrifice yourselves?

Have a bit of fiery fun toghetter!

[Helgraf]

Endgame (Part III)

It has to end.

It has to end so it can begin again.

In the end, they decided to begin the ritual, deferring the decision on sacrifice until the neccesary moment. The fear of ADAM arriving before they were finished did much to encourage this decision - any time wasted arguing only increased the odds of the monster discovering them too soon.

Sorcery is inherently unsettling. Here, at the Hellmouth, where the dimensions bled into one another and the barriers were ... permeable, the effects were intensified. Distorted. Magnified. The words echoed like thunder, rolling through the tunnels, slipping through holes in darkness to resonate through the soil above them. Fouled colors leaked from the dome, drifting in the air like smoke, twirling and changing, seeming to reach out to brush against exposed flesh, leaving behind a sickly sweet scent and a greasy stain, like one had rubbed their face with a cold slice of pizza from the Pit.

And in the tunnels, the hunter, too, is caressed ... he raises a finger to stroke the spot, then licks it slowly. A slow grin parts his lips and he begins to move faster, following the scent of the demonic taint toward its origin.

They're leading me right to it... the fools.

In the chamber of the hellmouth, time and space slowly become distorted as the ever-increasing pressure of the ritual continues to tear at the wound in reality, pulling away scabs of solidified demonic essence from the dome to give them all a glimpse of what lay beyond.

A glimpse was enough, indeed, far too much. Their resolve was shaken to the core; it took phenomenal effort to continue with the ritual in light of what they'd just perceived.

Jontom looked them over with a critical eye. Several would not last much longer. They'd used what little of the supplies they'd been able to take with them to provide barriers to the primary incantors; he hoped it would be enough. As soon as the ritual was complete, he was going to lead most of them into the tunnels toward the exit they'd identified. Here, he would use the chemicals acquired to melt through the locking mechanism and free them at last. It wasn't supposed to have been like this. They were the monster hunters, not the hunted. They had the tools, the data, the research and intelligence - and in the end, none of it had been enough, and he was fighting a retreating action to protect the civilians.

Sound ... changed. It travelled muffled and garbled, as though all were submerged under water. The last portions of the barrier tore away in a gout of black ichor.

And that was when ADAM stepped into the cyst.

They scattered; the students as a whole expended, there was no longer in them hope, and so they fled, that their lives might go on a little longer, even if that little was to be bought minute by minute.

Cerise grabbed Mr. Buttons and ran, but she turned her foot inward, falling hard. Pain flared through her body as she tried in a state of panic to struggle to her feet and begin moving.

ADAM turned to face her, shaking his head a moment.

No. You will finish this, or I will ensure your pain and suffering will not end. He lumbered toward her, faster than she could scramble on her injured ankle; reached out to grab her ... and a grey streak tore through the befouled air, landing face first on the abomination with a hissing sound; claws never removed tore into demonflesh, and fangs savaged any parts of the monster they could reach; a lucky swipe tore into ADAM's briefly exposed left eye and the membrane collapsed, leaking a yellow pus-like fluid; and drawing from the creature its first scream of pain.

My hooman! Mine!

Mr. Buttons - or as he preferred, Reinholdt Kattus, knew he could not stop the monster. But he also knew exactly how to get and hold its attention, and he scrambled around the back of ADAM's head, scratching and biting the whole time. He leapt to the floor, slashed at the monster's hamstrings - it could never sever them properly, but that wasn't the game anymore. He had to keep scoring small injuries, had to keep its attention. Back. Back, and another darting assault, one arm-spike tearing open his side, exposing his ribs; only pure luck had kept it from being a lethal strike.

Cerise was about to shriek for Mr. Buttons when a hand clamped over her mouth. Before she could really react, she was being lifted into the air and carried away.

"No more victims," Thufir hissed into her ear as he carried her into the tunnels.

Reinholdt was beginning to slow from a string of 'lucky escapes' that left his fur and skin torn. He launched himself again, felt himself hitting resistance, and suddenly flying helpless through the air, landing hard, not quite on his feet. His vision clouded as he remembered many nights with his hooman; his silly, misguided hooman, who, for all of that, had always been there with pettings when he wanted them, had never kicked him out of the bed when she was sleeping.

His vision came back into focus again, though it was rimmed in a red haze. The thing had found his hiding hole in the cavern floor. He could see it now, lit up by the weird hanging lights behind it. Reinholdt didn't understand what it was about that that upset his hooman so. Did not understand what it was supposed to represent. He knew though, that he was very nearly spent - and the thing would go after her. He hissed, legs tensing up for one last assault.

Mine!

He dashed forward, between the monster's legs, turning in mid-move with those extra vertebrae cats were given for just this sort of thing, then leapt onto ADAM's back and proceeded to flay away with claws and teeth.

Time and space. Desire and Intent.

As hell bled over into the cyst, it flowed out into the kitty; turning him feral; bones shifted and grew, claws extended, digging deeper; teeth sharpened, lengthened.

He grew, form expanding, becoming what he always knew he was in his mind's eye - The Cat, Primordial.

Under the additional weight, ADAM stumbled backward, throwing out his arms to grab the only thing that would stop his momentum - the floating slab above the cyst.

--

In the Principal's Office, two eyes snapped open. A lizard's smile played over the Principal's lips, and he quietly hissed.

Checkmate

--

The restraining spells, designed to hold a demon still until the Principal could vivisect it to fuel his own quest for immortality, snared ADAM; but since he was also parts machine and man, could not fully paralyze him. Neither could Reinholdt move, pinned between monster and stone. The pair of them slid downward, until at the last, they dropped through the exposed dome. There was a massive crackling of crawling lightning, then silence. The Hellmouth was once again sealed.

--

The Mayor shook his head quietly as he looked down at the chessboard in front of him. He reached out, taking the black king and setting it on its side, then picked up the phone and placed a brief call.

--

The surviving students emerged in a small gully in the woods in time to watch the strange group that had barricaded the school pack up the last of their equipment into canvas-top jeeps and APCs, and drive off.

--

It was over. It was finally over.

--

Dirk Kris, Jontom Xire, Lex-kat, The Bookworm, and Thufir. The last survivors.

And with that, this game, interminally delayed again and again, is over!

[Wizibirb]

*applauds helgraf*
I really should take notes from your narrations.
however... for the life of me I can't figure out whos won... I have a feeling it wasn't us, cause it feels like the principle won.... and he was an NPC!!!!!

oh and also, at the vamps..... WHY DID YOU KILL ME!

[Lex-Kat]

Cerise fought against Thufir's strong grip. Once he removed his hand from her mouth, she screamed out for her kitteh. Mister Buttons!!!!! We have to go back. Please!!

((Great game Helgraf. Loved the narrations. ))

[Reinholdt]

Be happy my silly Cerise. Get lots of good noms.
Goodbye.

((That last narration made me feel sad.
Though I got to go nuts kitty style on the big bad!
And now I'm trapped in hell until a sequel drags me out of it for all eternity.
Great job Helgraf. Grats to the survivors. ))

[Mustiado]

Wow. Wow wow wow. Masterfully done, Helgraf.

Even though I think I'm dead.

[Uncle Festy]

*applauds helgraf*
I really should take notes from your narrations.
however... for the life of me I can't figure out whos won... I have a feeling it wasn't us, cause it feels like the principle won.... and he was an NPC!!!!!

oh and also, at the vamps..... WHY DID YOU KILL ME!

Because you claimed to be a vampire to Yspoch, who had scried me just before he died, and I wanted to test your claim.

[Lex-Kat]

Wow. Wow wow wow. Masterfully done, Helgraf.

Even though I think I'm dead.

Yeah, I believe he sacrificed himself so we could get to the tunnels. Thanks MUstiado.

[Wizibirb]

I knew that would come back to bite me in the but.... sigh oh well great game loved the narrations.

[Helgraf]

Wow. Wow wow wow. Masterfully done, Helgraf.

Even though I think I'm dead.

Yes, you died at the security center, buying time for the others. I forgot to strike your name from the list of the living; that's fixed now.

Be happy my silly Cerise. Get lots of good noms.
Goodbye.

((That last narration made me feel sad.
Though I got to go nuts kitty style on the big bad!
And now I'm trapped in hell until a sequel drags me out of it for all eternity.
Great job Helgraf. Grats to the survivors. ))

You got to be the hero. Sadly, in a Whedon flick, that means you die or worse.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Good game, good game.

Luckily for you, I was not very familiar with ADAM, and you had silly little heroes.

Didn't you know what happens to heroes in Whedonverse?

[Reinholdt]

Captain Reynolds did pretty well as I recall. There is precedence!

[Mustiado]

Captain Reynolds did pretty well as I recall. There is precedence!

Yeah! And don't forget when the mysterious potential of Reverend Book was finally realized! ... wait...

/bitter

[Dallas-Dakota]

Though to be honest, I really have no clue how I survived till I became ADAM.

Vampires? People who knew stuff/masons?

[Lex-Kat]

Can we get a player list w/ roles? Or is it too late?