Post by Joseph Mayek on May 14, 2005 20:17:40 GMT -8
The newspaper rustled quietly as his eyes scanned the articles slowly, curiosity itching somewhere deep in his mind as to why he’d bought it the evening before.
Lingering effects is all…a murmured voice buried in his mind answered the emotion.
That week had been interesting, despite the torture that it had been. All torture, whether of the body, the mind, or the spirit; whether self inflicted, or imposed, had a captivating quality to any who had a true thirst for knowledge. The intricacies contained within a given individual… a nerve here or there; the eyelid convulses uncontrollably. An injection of emotion here; tears result. Another there; you have unfettered fury. His own had given reason to sift through the dusty shelves of memories long untouched, to roll over corpses of the long dead and stare painfully upon the grimace of their deaths.
Interesting… all of it.
Guilt, shame, pity, remorse… imposed upon him, magnified and multifold, it was nothing new. He had experienced it many times during the… process, and even without the mystical reinforcement, he felt it. Tainted as his soul might be, without a real conscience by mortal, or perhaps even Kindred standards, he had felt the pang of all those emotions for his role in the deaths. All of them, from the first slit throat at the command of his Domitor, as well as the death of that same so called “Master”, and on, through the centuries; including the most recent role he had played in the death of mortals. Kine who’d had no concept of what forms the Angel of Death might take until it had stumbled in, and finished their lives.
Perhaps it was even why he had bought the paper on such impulse. Was he so different? Were his crimes any worse than those of every day mortals?
The conscious reason, though, had been because of an article he had spotted an old man reading at a bus stop in the Rack. “Crime rate up in most Eastside cities.” It had read. Therefore, he had indulged the curiosity that had touched his mind for the past two weeks. A curiosity best articulated with a simple thought. ‘What exactly –were- mortals up to, these days?’
The comment made by Circe, that Goldwin would be keeping an eye on the crime rates of mortal society in clan domains, stilled edged its way through his mind as he found the article in question at last.
“Duvall’s crime rated dipped by 52 percent in ‘04.” He mused, as it was part of the Tremere Territory, both then and now. Bothell was another matter. Meth was to blame, it seemed, as well as in such places as Redmond and Issaquah.
He gave a soft laugh.
What did they expect us to do? Become nighttime superheros? Defending the weak? Righting the wrongs? Yes… We’re clan Tremere, we bring Justice to the night!
A soft snicker escaped his lips, and he simply shook his head and scanned on through the rest of the paper.
Legalizing scalping... lawsuits against the city for the constitutional right to open Strip-clubs… Sports… Weather… Ah, there was an amusing title. “Finger in Wendy’s chili case traced to man’s hand” Woman trying to get money by putting a finger in her chili… interesting. And on he scanned with a chuckle…<br>
In the end, it gave no true answers. Mortals were what they always were. Beasts who rutted in filth, fed on the dead, destroyed themselves, and one another. There were not convenient charts of what humans were capable of, they only kept track of the crimes. Not the emotions left in the aftermath. Nor did they have a chart of ‘Good Deed rates’, marking the actions of the decent and ‘good’, to compare to the Crime rates.
Rumors and gossip, persuasive and enticing as they wished to make themselves look, were as they always were. Trash.
The paper was crumpled, and went to it’s rightful home.
He rose, his preparations for the evening already complete, and moved to the engraved emblem on the stone floor of his room, it was time to indulge another aspect of his unlife before going on to the Elysium. This one just as primal as his curiosity.
Hunger.
Lingering effects is all…a murmured voice buried in his mind answered the emotion.
That week had been interesting, despite the torture that it had been. All torture, whether of the body, the mind, or the spirit; whether self inflicted, or imposed, had a captivating quality to any who had a true thirst for knowledge. The intricacies contained within a given individual… a nerve here or there; the eyelid convulses uncontrollably. An injection of emotion here; tears result. Another there; you have unfettered fury. His own had given reason to sift through the dusty shelves of memories long untouched, to roll over corpses of the long dead and stare painfully upon the grimace of their deaths.
Interesting… all of it.
Guilt, shame, pity, remorse… imposed upon him, magnified and multifold, it was nothing new. He had experienced it many times during the… process, and even without the mystical reinforcement, he felt it. Tainted as his soul might be, without a real conscience by mortal, or perhaps even Kindred standards, he had felt the pang of all those emotions for his role in the deaths. All of them, from the first slit throat at the command of his Domitor, as well as the death of that same so called “Master”, and on, through the centuries; including the most recent role he had played in the death of mortals. Kine who’d had no concept of what forms the Angel of Death might take until it had stumbled in, and finished their lives.
Perhaps it was even why he had bought the paper on such impulse. Was he so different? Were his crimes any worse than those of every day mortals?
The conscious reason, though, had been because of an article he had spotted an old man reading at a bus stop in the Rack. “Crime rate up in most Eastside cities.” It had read. Therefore, he had indulged the curiosity that had touched his mind for the past two weeks. A curiosity best articulated with a simple thought. ‘What exactly –were- mortals up to, these days?’
The comment made by Circe, that Goldwin would be keeping an eye on the crime rates of mortal society in clan domains, stilled edged its way through his mind as he found the article in question at last.
“Duvall’s crime rated dipped by 52 percent in ‘04.” He mused, as it was part of the Tremere Territory, both then and now. Bothell was another matter. Meth was to blame, it seemed, as well as in such places as Redmond and Issaquah.
He gave a soft laugh.
What did they expect us to do? Become nighttime superheros? Defending the weak? Righting the wrongs? Yes… We’re clan Tremere, we bring Justice to the night!
A soft snicker escaped his lips, and he simply shook his head and scanned on through the rest of the paper.
Legalizing scalping... lawsuits against the city for the constitutional right to open Strip-clubs… Sports… Weather… Ah, there was an amusing title. “Finger in Wendy’s chili case traced to man’s hand” Woman trying to get money by putting a finger in her chili… interesting. And on he scanned with a chuckle…<br>
In the end, it gave no true answers. Mortals were what they always were. Beasts who rutted in filth, fed on the dead, destroyed themselves, and one another. There were not convenient charts of what humans were capable of, they only kept track of the crimes. Not the emotions left in the aftermath. Nor did they have a chart of ‘Good Deed rates’, marking the actions of the decent and ‘good’, to compare to the Crime rates.
Rumors and gossip, persuasive and enticing as they wished to make themselves look, were as they always were. Trash.
The paper was crumpled, and went to it’s rightful home.
He rose, his preparations for the evening already complete, and moved to the engraved emblem on the stone floor of his room, it was time to indulge another aspect of his unlife before going on to the Elysium. This one just as primal as his curiosity.
Hunger.
