Conscript 1.1
TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
In one moment, he was in one place and in the next he was in another.
It was a rather difficult thing to describe.
Jack Tanner was a Cainite, a vampire in mortal terms and thus somewhat accustomed to odd things.
But this was new.
He could remember New York City, the siege, the war against the Sabbat, the ritual, and then nothing.
In his next conscious thoughts, he was in an unknown forest. He wasn’t too disturbed by this, after all, he was a Gangrel rather than some pansy-ass Toreador, but these woods were somewhat more overgrown than any that he knew of in the United States.
As to how he got here, well that was somewhat difficult to remember. He could recall men with staves and robes, the red tinged anger of frenzy, blood on his claws, on his fangs, screaming . . . and then he was here.
Under the sun.
That was rather important wasn’t it?
Cainites are a nocturnal race. They have been since God banished the first murderer from the light of His day. To find himself walking around untroubled in the sunlight was rather disconcerting.
If nothing else this was enough to convince Jack that something strange was going on.
But whatever it was, Jack wasn’t worried.
Because after all, how bad could this place really be?
--------------------------------------------------
Jack had been in the woods for several days now and he was already sick of it. Yeah, he was a Gangrel, the Cainite clan known for their survivalist skills, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed roughing it. For one there was a severe lack of human vessels to feed off of.
He wasn’t going to starve. Jack been embraced two years ago, which meant he was capable of sustaining himself off of animal blood. To be honest, Jack sort of pitied the elders for their need to feed off mortals. When he wasn’t resenting them for being tyrannical assholes of course.
But animals were still a far cry from humans. He so missed Manhattan’s vast hordes of vagrants and illegals. So sweet and expendable. As long as you made sure they weren’t on drugs or something first. Like that one time that had Jack fed off of some hobo who was high on LDS right before a meeting with the prince, and he started tripping out right in front of the whole court . . . Damn maybe Jack was hungrier than he thought.
Regardless, Jack wasn’t in Kansas anymore. As if it hadn’t been obvious enough that New York was worlds away, not ten minutes ago he had been attacked by giant Spiders.
Not like tarantulas, but spiders the size of rottweilers.
It might not be impossible to find those on earth, after all the world was large and filled with strange and dangerous things, but that combined with the other discrepancies was all leading up to a very disconcerting picture. At least it wasn’t New Jersey.
---------------------------------------------------------
After two weeks stuck in the middle of the wilderness Jack had finally spotted a sign of habitation. He had been hunting for prey sometime around midnight when he had spotted the glow of a campfire off in the distance. Having not interacted with anyone for two weeks Jack was naturally keen to investigate.
He slipped closer, able to see perfectly in the dark thanks to his knowledge of the protean discipline. Within a few minutes the Gangrel found himself bordering a small clearing, which sure enough contained a man sitting at a campfire.
The man was anachronistic looking. He was an older man with slightly dark skin, a scraggly beard, and wore a suit of plate armor with a sword and dagger sheathed on his back. It was a very medieval look but at this point Jack wasn’t surprised. Compared to giant spiders what was this?
Approaching the man would be a risk, but it was one Jack needed to take. The Cainite needed to know where he was. And if the man wasn’t helpful, it’d been a while since he’d tasted human.
After some deliberation Jack decided to approach openly. It would be best not to startle the man and cause a conflict. And if things went wrong the options of murder or running away still remained. However strong of fast this human was, Cainites still had advantages that couldn’t be beaten.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack entered the clearing in full view and let the man take stock of him. The Gangrel wouldn’t have looked out of place back in New York City, but that might not apply here. Physically he had pallid skin, brown hair, and looked to be around sixteen years old, as that was when he had been embraced two years ago. Fairly average street clothes rounded out the pedestrian look, nothing but a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, and t-shirt.
So naturally Jack was surprised at the wary look the man gave him. At least until he realized that he had forgot to deactivate his protean eyes.
People do tend to react badly to their fellow men walking around with glowing red animalistic eyes.
Damn the hunger was starting to get to him. He’d never made that mistake before.
After taking a moment to curse himself for his utter stupidity, Jack decided that his previous plan of masquerading as a human was no longer viable. It looked like he would have to take another approach.
The Cainite put on his best smile, (it was terrible) deactivated his protean eyes and walked over to the man.
“Hello there, mind if I have a seat?”
The man in armor seemed a little surprised but nodded, and so Jack sat down a few feet from the fire.
“I’m new around here.” Jack said. “You don’t suppose you could tell me the name of this place?”
“It is called the Brecilian Forrest.” The man answered.
“Great. I’m going to cut to the chase. I found myself here through some rather unusual circumstances, and am totally lost. Could you help me out? “
“Of course.” The man said. “If you wouldn’t mind answering some questions in return.”
“Sure. If you show me a map first.”
The man simply raised an eyebrow.
Jack held out his hand.
Lacking a verbal response, the armored human pulled a map out of his robe and handed them to Jack. The contents were about what Jack had expected.
He was no longer on earth. Other realms of existence were not entirely unknown to Cainites, though not much more than that they were best left to spirits and lupines. Considering this, why couldn’t Jack have gone to another world? All available evidence seemed to support the theory.
And this would explain him not disintegrating under the sun. It made sense really. Cainites were banned from the light of earth’s sun, sol, not stars in general. If this was another world, and its sun was not earth’s sun, that there was simply no reason for it to harm him.
But that didn’t really matter now. What mattered was that Jack could not tell the natives that he was from another world. Caine knew it was hard enough for Jack to believe even though he had been through it. Any explanation would be taken as either deceit or insanity.
And so, Jack would lie.
When asked where he was from, he would claim to be from another continent. Judging from the map and the observed technology level, it would be a believable story.
And if it wasn’t, he would eat the traveler.
If discussions continued, the masquerade would still be useful, if in a highly modified form. Jack would be open about his nature, about being a vampire, but he wouldn’t tell this native everything. The basics, but anything more he would lie about or refuse to answer.
Course decided Jack spoke. “Now before I answer any questions Mr.?”
“Duncan.”
“Duncan. I fell that I should warn you that my superiors have a habit of murdering anyone who learns too much about my people. So, you might want to be careful about what you mention to others.”
“Thank you, I will. Now,” Duncan’s voice hardened. “What are you?”
“Could you clarify?” Jack replied.
“What are you?” Duncan repeated. “You’re obviously not human or elvish. The only creatures I’ve met that resemble you were abominations.”
An abomination? That sounded ominous.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with that term.”
Surprise flashed across Duncan’s face. “An abomination is a creature that is possessed by a demon.”
Jack didn’t know a lot about demons besides what he had read in the Bible, but he knew enough. Namely that they should be destroyed on sight, and avoided if at all possible. It was one of the few things that all Cainites agreed on, even those murderous lunatics in the Sabbat.
“Well I can assure you I’m not one of these abomination things. Interacting with demons has always been banned on pain of death.”
At this point Jack realized something. The people here had a term for being possessed by a demon.
Back home they called a person possessed by a demon “a person possessed by a demon.” Because it basically never happened. But here it was apparently common enough to warrant its own term.
He never had to put up with this kind of crap in New York.
But Duncan was still waiting for an answer. Well, he’d get one that was true, if only in a distorted way.
“My species are called Cainites,” Jack began. “We come into being somewhat differently than most creatures. When we are,” Jack struggled for the right words. “Born we are born dead. Then we merge with a being of hunger and spite that we call “the beast”, which brings us to a semblance of life.”
Duncan’s eyes widened a bit at this but Jack continued.
“To be clear, the beast is not a demon. The beast is not a spirit. The beast is the beast.”
And now to explain the hard part. Vampire feeding habits.
“But as undead we do not survive on the same things as mortals. We drink blood.”
“Blood?”
“Human blood preferably. Not necessarily enough to kill them, but I do need it. I’m still young enough that I can subsist on animal blood but I’d need far more of it.”
Duncan frowned and sat in silence for a minute.
“That could be difficult for you. You might not be an abomination, but many will not believe that. Especially the Chantry.”
“What is the Chantry?” Jack asked.
“They are the main religious authority of the known world. They would not take kindly to someone with your particular dietary needs. It would remind them to much of blood magic.”
That really didn’t sound good. All powerful religious organizations and Cainites tended not to get along well. And though humans were weak individually, Jack had crossed paths with the Society of Leopold often enough know how dangerous they could be when organized.
So much for returning to civilization.
“Well,” Jack began. “If that’s the case I may want to stay in the forest for a while. Living around a bunch of violent fanatics doesn’t really sound like my style.”
“You could do that, but there are alternatives.”
Jack raised an eyebrow but gestured for Duncan to continue.
“I am a member of an organization called the Grey Wardens. We are granted immunity from ordinary laws in exchange for our service. If you were to prove yourself worthy of joining us, then the Chantry would find it difficult to touch you.”
After a pause Jack responded. “All right. I’m listening.”
A/N: This is a story of mine that I'm cross-posting from Spacebattles. All the previously written content should be up here within the next few days.
It was a rather difficult thing to describe.
Jack Tanner was a Cainite, a vampire in mortal terms and thus somewhat accustomed to odd things.
But this was new.
He could remember New York City, the siege, the war against the Sabbat, the ritual, and then nothing.
In his next conscious thoughts, he was in an unknown forest. He wasn’t too disturbed by this, after all, he was a Gangrel rather than some pansy-ass Toreador, but these woods were somewhat more overgrown than any that he knew of in the United States.
As to how he got here, well that was somewhat difficult to remember. He could recall men with staves and robes, the red tinged anger of frenzy, blood on his claws, on his fangs, screaming . . . and then he was here.
Under the sun.
That was rather important wasn’t it?
Cainites are a nocturnal race. They have been since God banished the first murderer from the light of His day. To find himself walking around untroubled in the sunlight was rather disconcerting.
If nothing else this was enough to convince Jack that something strange was going on.
But whatever it was, Jack wasn’t worried.
Because after all, how bad could this place really be?
--------------------------------------------------
Jack had been in the woods for several days now and he was already sick of it. Yeah, he was a Gangrel, the Cainite clan known for their survivalist skills, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed roughing it. For one there was a severe lack of human vessels to feed off of.
He wasn’t going to starve. Jack been embraced two years ago, which meant he was capable of sustaining himself off of animal blood. To be honest, Jack sort of pitied the elders for their need to feed off mortals. When he wasn’t resenting them for being tyrannical assholes of course.
But animals were still a far cry from humans. He so missed Manhattan’s vast hordes of vagrants and illegals. So sweet and expendable. As long as you made sure they weren’t on drugs or something first. Like that one time that had Jack fed off of some hobo who was high on LDS right before a meeting with the prince, and he started tripping out right in front of the whole court . . . Damn maybe Jack was hungrier than he thought.
Regardless, Jack wasn’t in Kansas anymore. As if it hadn’t been obvious enough that New York was worlds away, not ten minutes ago he had been attacked by giant Spiders.
Not like tarantulas, but spiders the size of rottweilers.
It might not be impossible to find those on earth, after all the world was large and filled with strange and dangerous things, but that combined with the other discrepancies was all leading up to a very disconcerting picture. At least it wasn’t New Jersey.
---------------------------------------------------------
After two weeks stuck in the middle of the wilderness Jack had finally spotted a sign of habitation. He had been hunting for prey sometime around midnight when he had spotted the glow of a campfire off in the distance. Having not interacted with anyone for two weeks Jack was naturally keen to investigate.
He slipped closer, able to see perfectly in the dark thanks to his knowledge of the protean discipline. Within a few minutes the Gangrel found himself bordering a small clearing, which sure enough contained a man sitting at a campfire.
The man was anachronistic looking. He was an older man with slightly dark skin, a scraggly beard, and wore a suit of plate armor with a sword and dagger sheathed on his back. It was a very medieval look but at this point Jack wasn’t surprised. Compared to giant spiders what was this?
Approaching the man would be a risk, but it was one Jack needed to take. The Cainite needed to know where he was. And if the man wasn’t helpful, it’d been a while since he’d tasted human.
After some deliberation Jack decided to approach openly. It would be best not to startle the man and cause a conflict. And if things went wrong the options of murder or running away still remained. However strong of fast this human was, Cainites still had advantages that couldn’t be beaten.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack entered the clearing in full view and let the man take stock of him. The Gangrel wouldn’t have looked out of place back in New York City, but that might not apply here. Physically he had pallid skin, brown hair, and looked to be around sixteen years old, as that was when he had been embraced two years ago. Fairly average street clothes rounded out the pedestrian look, nothing but a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, and t-shirt.
So naturally Jack was surprised at the wary look the man gave him. At least until he realized that he had forgot to deactivate his protean eyes.
People do tend to react badly to their fellow men walking around with glowing red animalistic eyes.
Damn the hunger was starting to get to him. He’d never made that mistake before.
After taking a moment to curse himself for his utter stupidity, Jack decided that his previous plan of masquerading as a human was no longer viable. It looked like he would have to take another approach.
The Cainite put on his best smile, (it was terrible) deactivated his protean eyes and walked over to the man.
“Hello there, mind if I have a seat?”
The man in armor seemed a little surprised but nodded, and so Jack sat down a few feet from the fire.
“I’m new around here.” Jack said. “You don’t suppose you could tell me the name of this place?”
“It is called the Brecilian Forrest.” The man answered.
“Great. I’m going to cut to the chase. I found myself here through some rather unusual circumstances, and am totally lost. Could you help me out? “
“Of course.” The man said. “If you wouldn’t mind answering some questions in return.”
“Sure. If you show me a map first.”
The man simply raised an eyebrow.
Jack held out his hand.
Lacking a verbal response, the armored human pulled a map out of his robe and handed them to Jack. The contents were about what Jack had expected.
He was no longer on earth. Other realms of existence were not entirely unknown to Cainites, though not much more than that they were best left to spirits and lupines. Considering this, why couldn’t Jack have gone to another world? All available evidence seemed to support the theory.
And this would explain him not disintegrating under the sun. It made sense really. Cainites were banned from the light of earth’s sun, sol, not stars in general. If this was another world, and its sun was not earth’s sun, that there was simply no reason for it to harm him.
But that didn’t really matter now. What mattered was that Jack could not tell the natives that he was from another world. Caine knew it was hard enough for Jack to believe even though he had been through it. Any explanation would be taken as either deceit or insanity.
And so, Jack would lie.
When asked where he was from, he would claim to be from another continent. Judging from the map and the observed technology level, it would be a believable story.
And if it wasn’t, he would eat the traveler.
If discussions continued, the masquerade would still be useful, if in a highly modified form. Jack would be open about his nature, about being a vampire, but he wouldn’t tell this native everything. The basics, but anything more he would lie about or refuse to answer.
Course decided Jack spoke. “Now before I answer any questions Mr.?”
“Duncan.”
“Duncan. I fell that I should warn you that my superiors have a habit of murdering anyone who learns too much about my people. So, you might want to be careful about what you mention to others.”
“Thank you, I will. Now,” Duncan’s voice hardened. “What are you?”
“Could you clarify?” Jack replied.
“What are you?” Duncan repeated. “You’re obviously not human or elvish. The only creatures I’ve met that resemble you were abominations.”
An abomination? That sounded ominous.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with that term.”
Surprise flashed across Duncan’s face. “An abomination is a creature that is possessed by a demon.”
Jack didn’t know a lot about demons besides what he had read in the Bible, but he knew enough. Namely that they should be destroyed on sight, and avoided if at all possible. It was one of the few things that all Cainites agreed on, even those murderous lunatics in the Sabbat.
“Well I can assure you I’m not one of these abomination things. Interacting with demons has always been banned on pain of death.”
At this point Jack realized something. The people here had a term for being possessed by a demon.
Back home they called a person possessed by a demon “a person possessed by a demon.” Because it basically never happened. But here it was apparently common enough to warrant its own term.
He never had to put up with this kind of crap in New York.
But Duncan was still waiting for an answer. Well, he’d get one that was true, if only in a distorted way.
“My species are called Cainites,” Jack began. “We come into being somewhat differently than most creatures. When we are,” Jack struggled for the right words. “Born we are born dead. Then we merge with a being of hunger and spite that we call “the beast”, which brings us to a semblance of life.”
Duncan’s eyes widened a bit at this but Jack continued.
“To be clear, the beast is not a demon. The beast is not a spirit. The beast is the beast.”
And now to explain the hard part. Vampire feeding habits.
“But as undead we do not survive on the same things as mortals. We drink blood.”
“Blood?”
“Human blood preferably. Not necessarily enough to kill them, but I do need it. I’m still young enough that I can subsist on animal blood but I’d need far more of it.”
Duncan frowned and sat in silence for a minute.
“That could be difficult for you. You might not be an abomination, but many will not believe that. Especially the Chantry.”
“What is the Chantry?” Jack asked.
“They are the main religious authority of the known world. They would not take kindly to someone with your particular dietary needs. It would remind them to much of blood magic.”
That really didn’t sound good. All powerful religious organizations and Cainites tended not to get along well. And though humans were weak individually, Jack had crossed paths with the Society of Leopold often enough know how dangerous they could be when organized.
So much for returning to civilization.
“Well,” Jack began. “If that’s the case I may want to stay in the forest for a while. Living around a bunch of violent fanatics doesn’t really sound like my style.”
“You could do that, but there are alternatives.”
Jack raised an eyebrow but gestured for Duncan to continue.
“I am a member of an organization called the Grey Wardens. We are granted immunity from ordinary laws in exchange for our service. If you were to prove yourself worthy of joining us, then the Chantry would find it difficult to touch you.”
After a pause Jack responded. “All right. I’m listening.”
A/N: This is a story of mine that I'm cross-posting from Spacebattles. All the previously written content should be up here within the next few days.