To Flick One's Tail.

[viadolorosa]

Ysra'el cracked a truly sincere smile over the faintest of chuckles, his sun worn skin, almost leathery in texture, cracking with the signs of premature age

"I have been wandering the desserts looking for these western lands for three years time, I wouldst be the first to volunteer to rest n a trough and eat the straw that ye'r horses would not even feed off of at this'ere point".

He shook his head, his long-short hair windmilling about his head even with the deftest of movements.

"I am a humble man, I would be happy to stay with ye'r slaves that shouldst a guest of higher calibur come to visit thou mayest have a room appropriate their station".

His visage was like that of an enamored child, playful and innocent, a wild smile, showing off his off-white teeth, almost grey in their discoloration, being poorly suppressed despite all his efforts.

However the cheerful look was burnt away in a phantasmagoria of pain and absolute horror as the romanticism of this rather absurd eventide was morosely cloven in twain by the diabolic contortion of innocence to mayhem as that sacred fo places begot the sight of the tortured ether of ghastly apparitions

Ysra'el reeled backward, shouting as tears deluged forth from the sockets of his eyes, his hands coming up over his mouth, and his breaths forced into laborious heaves.

"Jah"!

He blasphemed, uttering the true name of his god as he would a word of profanity or a term of stress.

Though that most high of offenses did not register with him, as for the moment he felt the context permitted him calling on his only spiritual anchor in the most dire of ways.

Ysra'el's cringe blinded him, just as he was muted by his clenching teeth.

[Capella]

Capella had been around so much death in her near-500 years that these sights just barely phased her. Though, Ysra'el was a little worse for wear, and that saddened her more than the ghosts.

But indeed, what in God's name were these things and why had they so suddenly appeared? They were gruesome in a way where no one had seen these people die, no one had been there for them, and their family probably had no idea that they were dead and were convincing themselves that they had just gone missing.

The true sadness of death is when no one knows, Capella thought. Then, when Ysra'el let loose the name of his deity in frustration, the grisly images faded back into the orb that floated lightly in the air.

"Thank you for that, Sir," the vampire told him, forcing a smile that may have been a bit inopportune. "It seems that this presence is no fan of the holy, which leads me to believe that it's daemonic."

The orb traveled a little bit ahead of them, and Capella was compelled to follow it this time, determined to find out just exactly what it was. The trees got a little thicker and the foliage a little more scarce.

[viadolorosa]

The repugnant gallery expired itself leaving the original glow to bask in it's own cynic float, it's blank facade radiating in mock of the very lights above that not minutes ago Ysra'el had been drawing inspiration to worship from. He now sorely hated the thing whose identity he had the audacity to even entertain the thought of it being a creature cut from divine cloth.

He heard Capella speak but did not recognize her words, perhaps it would have comforted him to know that holiness of the almighty was recognized by whom he could only assume was a heathen, not that such would prejudice him as it was for the heathen's sake that he had periled to venture here, or maybe to even a greater effect the recognition that foreign daemons would recognize the name of His Holiness would compile a certain spiritual momentum for the missionary but too enthralled in the clap of fear he had failed to hear the words for what they were and took them instead as just noises.

Ysra'el devoted himself to trailing the flight of the woman, and the terrible wight that led her path, in motion only, extroverted just enough to know where he was going, his mind however had yet to recompense itself in any shape from that which he had seen.
He was following for the sake of not being alone anymore, he was chasing that he would not need face himself alone, for surely he was liable to destroy himself in exegesis of himself. It seemed so trifling a thing to Capella, something to shy away from indeed but she was morosely collected, had not shown any the bit of disgust for the sight they had both beheld and furthermore had thrown herself forward to follow the thing.

He hadn't the time nor the spirit to work through himself on these matters though and focused solely on not loosing Capella, whom made her way through the forest by a deftness that Ysra'el could not himself imagine nor call within his power to command, her vampiric senses lending to her what the fumbling man just could not find, as his humanity weighed him down to fall further ad further aback, any advantage he gained as a lamb was of poor use in the blackened woodland.

[Capella]

It comforted her to know that Ysra'el was behind her, but Capella worried that maybe he wasn't doing so well. He was brave indeed to travel these lands, though, so she would commend him for that.

Past Haven, things got much scarier, and much less of a haven of any sorts. There were bats in the air, screeching as they searched for a morsel of food. There were crows as well, cackling and picking at each other as they surveyed the lands. Things were more of a... a wasteland at this point.

And then, there something was, poking from the earth and beckoning for them. A stake in the ground had a sign that read "Ruins of God - Enter the Heretic", and in the ground, quite poignantly, there was a door. It was a door of wooden planks, very old, with a handle of tarnished bronze, and Capella was sure that it lead to these ruins. For the first time in a long time, she wished that she had her aristocrats with her. Sighing, she rubbed her arms for warmth.

"Well..."

The orb of light dangled over of the door before very suddenly materializing into something solid and falling onto the ground. Capella raised her eyebrow in wonder, a little taken aback by this magic. The item the orb had turned into was round and pearlescent, like a milky white opal with specks of light blue and purple. She then thought it mimicked more of a piece of silvery granite, but stopped trying to compare it to things. She could go on all day, after all.

She kneeled down to take it, but a fiery sensation rippled up from her fingers and over her body, and immediately she knew that it contained silver. Her head erupted in pain, and she stayed there with her hand on her temples, trying to will it away.

"I hope you're good at mysteries, sir," she told the man, "because I don't see how things are adding up so far..."

[viadolorosa]

(quick question; does silver affect shifters as well, you don't mention it a s a weakness for vampires in any of the descriptions so I am at a loss on whether it effects shifters the same way and you never mentioned it or if they are immune to the effects of silver)

Ysra'el was quick to sprint the final leg of the sojourn, coming in at a running stop just short of Capella, huffing and heaving, using his cane as a prop to rest himself on, lurched over, a line of spittle reaching halfway to the earth below his hanging head.

He looked up to see the bespeckled stone left unretrieved as Capella, rather stoically, recoil to message the ache of some toxicity from her brow.

He had not the faintest of ideas as why she had let the stone remain on the ground, nor did he really care, he suspected a valid reason for such as the woman had shown a great inner strength as of yet, or rather it was a dominating confidence that broke the air about her character, a commanding flippancy that vomited the demand of authority and so the notion of something as unresponsive as rock, sitting on the earth as if it were a brute fact, defied a certain expectation for Capella that Ysra'el had developed in the short time he had breathed the same air as her, as not much more could be said of the two as he had followed her, quite possibly to his utter destruction, on less than what could be entitled a conversation, quite possibly due to the very dominance he had just seen broken.

He heaved his chest in great expanses and ebbings as he forced a response out of his uncomfortably dry mouth, his very words grating on the ridges of his failing tongue.

"I am good at nothing that is not blessedly given to me from God".
He aid rather weakly

"If I am sent to open this door in His name than thee is no wall that would not crumble before me". He almost exclaimed if it had not been for the shallowness of his breath, which had made itself ample enough that he should find himself even now, unknowing if the stone that had defeated the woman whom he knew was his physical superior would permit his dominance over it and even if not he wold hold on to it and move it from the door that it's seal forbade entrance thus into, his faith unwavering.

[Capella]

((ooc: Somewhere I had it written that silver was a weakness to vampires, but it probably got moved somewhere in the shuffle for organization, so I'll definitely have to put that back up. Thanks for letting me know that it isn't out in the open... I should definitely fix that! Hehe. And no worries, it isn't a weakness for shifters.))


Capella was unable to fathom what it was exactly about this man that was so... unique. Maybe it was the fact that he was so utterly not full of himself and his abilities. Or, perhaps it was that he so utterly didn't demand respect from people he didn't know. Through all of the filth and hostility, she had somehow found a man who was pure as could be.

This notion excited her thirst, for the blood of an innocent was a delicacy among the feeding nightkin, but she knew it was wrong. She wouldn't allow herself to steal the lifeforce from an innocent, as much as she knew that the darkness of such an act lied quite willingly in her heart. Capella had seen True Vampires. She had seen the nightkin who fed upon blood regularly and acted upon their cursed instincts, and she would fight that with everything she had.

"It's silver," Capella said with weary breath. "Somewhat, at least. It burns my being when I touch it."

She moved her hand over the bronze handle to the door and, sure enough, it sent a familiar burning sensation all through her veins.

"It seems as though this handle has also been laced with silver. Maybe this is God's way of telling you that he wants you to open it, Sir."

She stood up and moved out of the way, giving Ysra'el the room he might need if he so chose to pry open the door to these forwarned ruins. She felt useless and burdensome. She was governess of this place, she was responsible for what went on... so, shouldn't she be doing things in the face of danger?

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "This is such a dangerous place..."

[viadolorosa]

"Silver"?

He looked down at the rock in his hand, which was just that, a rock.

"It burns you"?

He stared at the lump, it was in no way a menace to him, no greater daemon hidden that it my lash at human hand and soul. If he was in any way horrified before he certainly was now equally confused.

"Surely not"!

He almost laughed at the absurdity

"Excuse me, please, but where-for doth I come silver is an ore mined and valued, are all the people hither in this land so accosted by it"?

He almost scoffingly crinkled his brow as the lump fell from his fingers to bounce back to the ground with a new terror entering the shine of his eyes.

"My deepest apologies"! He quickly shouted bowing his head
"I do not mean to offend, I am in err-".

He somberly lifted his head back up as he begrudgingly shuffled to the latch of the great door where he immediately began to tug on it.
"-And worry not for the danger hither, I have come so that it may be lifted, that the sun may shine once again in this province and that all manor of demons be convicted to melt into realms inaccessible by the highest of creations, man".

He sounded with a gruff yelp, pulling with all his might, which in actuality amounted to very little.

[Capella]

The door gave way with Ysra'el's effort, and a plume of steam and dust rose into the night air. What was revealed was little more than a small passageway leading down into darkness by planks of wood that served the purpose of a ladder.

Capella looked down into the hole, wide enough for maybe two people, and her weak night senses kicked in. At about thirty yards down, the passage made ground and forked off into two different directions. But that was all she could see. She looked back up at Ysra'el and got to her feet.

"No harm done," she assured him and his words. "You've done no offense. I understand your curiosity." She then sighed deeply, keeping the events with a previous one, "Shiloh", who wasn't aware of what she had been either. Judging by Ysra'el's background and purposes, she was worried that he would take it even worse.

"I'm afraid I'm not human." Capella peered into the ruins. "I'm... I'm a vampire, Ysra'el. I've been alive for almost five hundred years, and as you can see, I haven't done a bit of good for this town. I wouldn't say I'm the most Chaotic of my kin, but nor am I the most innocent."

She placed her hand out before her for another polite handshake, this one hoping for more honor.

"I want to make a promise with you. I swear by my own blood that I will not drain you of yours."

She hoped that Ysra'el wouldn't turn hostile. Hoped, hoped, hoped...

[viadolorosa]

The priest clenched his bottom lip between his teeth and mulled on it gently, his neck arching back a bit, his brow furrowed and his nostrils flared. He did not quite know how to respond, know that is a lie, he knew just how to respond but he knew not how to articulate it.

Vampire lore was a scarcity among his people, the Lilitu were the closest things and they fed only off of the blood of babies, however they were ancient demons long since though departed from the realm of men, the western vampire was of unknown origin to the easterners as Lilitu could not convert a human into a demon as the vampire did, they were cousins of sorts, was the best any of the great theologians had ever ben able to conclude with the little information they had, and so vampires were to be considered Lilitu for all intents and purposes. but these were the traditions of Man, what had been decreed by God as either the Lamb or the Lion was ambiguous at best, demons were to be exorcised, without a doubt, they were angels that had forsaken the light of God, and their goal was the perversion of the earth and thus were the enemy.

Vampires were essentially quasi demons. Human with demonic properties, and he began to question whether those traditions were accurate, after all, unless he was currently being deceived, this woman seemed nice enough.

He took up a rather indignant posture and stared into Capella's eyes, moving the head-hole in his robe away from his neck with a smile.

"Ifest thou wants my blood all ye need is ask. A promise between men is nothing more than words and ifen is is your' want to break it than ye have the freedom to do so. I am powerless to stop you in any case, as you outrank me in all but mortality, to which I am no man's equal.

All that is done is predestined to be done, if you find yourself at my throat it was meant to be as such".

He smiled taking the woman's hand graciously in both of his, bowing his head.

"Though if it makes ye rest easier I too will oath. i am a virgin you see and on my genitals I swear to not touch yours'". He smiled awkwardly at his attempt at a rather crude, if not certainly unnecessarily vulgar, joke that rang truer as an actual promise than he knew Capella would probably ever understand.

"I think it best we start our way downward". He said starting for the door as to begin what he understood to be a rather clumsy descent. All the while his mind came back to the revelation of his new friend's nature. Perhaps thsi would be a theological work to define his career, can vampire's receive the revelations of the Lamb, did they have souls, were the demon or human? His people would surely need to know, and he promised to discover the truth.

[Capella]

((ooc: I wrote a story with a lilitu in it once... they're really interesting things to study!))

"Yes, downward. A good idea."

Capella was happy that Ysra'el didn't condemn her for her being what she was. Enough good people had in the past, but as time went on, others that she was meeting for the first time were more understanding. They were taking into consideration the hospitality and kindness that she showed.

Good. People were shaping up a little bit, it seemed. This put a skip in her step as she followed Ysra'el down into the ruins. The scent grew mustier and mustier the further they descended, and grew in warmth as well. The shadows made by the rocks and clumps peeking out seemed more and more vicious as the moonlight from the opening gradually disappeared.

Where were the two of them going?

She could at last see the bottom if she looked past Ysra'el, and there seemed to be a sign that they'd reach once they landed. One way pointed to the left and said "Daemon Mouth", and the other way pointed right and said "The Alter Pit".

She didn't like the sound of either.

[viadolorosa]

(ooc: i haven't really looked into world wide vampire myths, I only know the lilutu as baby sucking lilith spawn)

Ysra'el looked about in the blackness, almost entirely blinded save for the start of the latter he could only faintly make out in distant lunar glow.

"I trust that you can actually see, so if you could lead us onward, maybe informaing me to any key developments about us, I would be most appreciative". He said rather matter-of-factly an obvious annoyance creeping in his voice.

[Capella]

"Well..."

Capella's voice didn't carry very far in the hot, moist ruins. Her ears picked up sounds of steam dripping from the walls and landing in the dirt and a faint chanting in the distance. Her eyes, however, could see hardly a thing.

"I'm afraid that I'm just as useless in this case. I haven't fed in months. My senses are like a human's almost. I do know, however, that we have two options. Left or right? Would you rather venture off into..."

She neared the signs and squinted her eyes to see, "The Daemon Mouth, or The Alter Pit?"

The chanting had gotten slightly louder, and by now she was sure that Ysra'el could hear it. It sent a chill down her spine, reminding her of dranged cultists. She was wanting to go home more than ever now.

[viadolorosa]

The haunting echo of daemonic chant crawled through the stone pathways, cutting through the steam as if it's chilling drone would turn the gaseous water into ice should the reverberations contact the droplets. It had a similar effect Ysra'el.

"I dread the source of this creeping song more than I do the prospect of facing any creature daemonic".

He breathed deeply trying to draw oxygen from the marinade air.
"So I think it best we travel to this alter, as I think we will find the conductor of this production thence".

He said growing cold in his demeanor, attempting to distinguish his left form his right, though without understanding his orientation to begin with he might as well walk in any direction he may choose.
"That is of coarse you would dare to trust me to choose our way".

[Capella]

Capella smiled at Ysra'el's last line. He was so very self-conscious sometimes.

"I trust your direction better than mine. To the Alter Pit we go. I hope that there is in fact some sort of altar there. Organized religious worship space seems much more welcoming than a hoarde of daemons."

She turned to her right and lead the man into the way that they had settled upon, her heart thumping as much as it could in her otherwise dead body. As of late, it had been pumping stronger, which was both a good and a bad sign. The further that they went into the ruins, the more things started to change.

The walls became less of a dirt and earth texture, and more of a hard, rock-like matter. From time to time, something would protrude from the walls and shimmer in the dim darkness. Capella could've sworn that it was quartz. What was quartz doing growing in a place like this?

She felt an uneasy quelch in her stomach realizing what "Alter Pit" must've meant. She knew what places heavily inhabited with Chaos did to you. They altered you. Mutated, a better word.

Further down into ruins, the path gave way into a huge cavern, with stalactites and stalagmites that gave off just enough glow to be sufficient light. The crystals that were forming were beautiful, as were the unique calcium formations from the condensation that was still dripping.

She saw also what appeared to be an underground sect of The River of Abraham, recognizable by its same dark, unreflective current that was gently gliding through the caverns.

"This is beautiful, Ysra'el. Can you see better?"

[viadolorosa]

Ysra'el followed clumsily behind the vampiress, his thoughts lullingly going about the events up until now, though peculiarly he never brought himself back to the horror of the wisp's terrible gallery, his mind had caught itself on the snag of the woman's trust in him. It bewildered every sensibility he had and utterly. He had shamed her by showing her his naked form, he had insulted and laughed at her, he had told a joke which in hindsight, due to her lack of response, he was afraid had offended her, he had taken a position of leadership, assuming that she would submit to his will, with no evidence to suggest it and yet she told him she had faith in his abilities. It astounded him, but he could not keep a smile of his face!

Oh how amazing is this! He thought in explosive joy, she was forgiving him, putting his transgressions away from her! His excitement was only growing over having met this person, a vampire that had told him expressly that she had no intention to willingly give in to her baser instinct for HIS sake and ignoring her own well being. the very notion that her existence may qualify him killing her later on completely left his mind, he looked on her as a human and nothing else, for surely at this point, he had concluded, she possessed a soul!

His elation was only brightened, like the sun's warm red glow exploding into white as the cover of cloud abandoned it, as the suppressive musk of humidity cleared away into a more gentle mist and the filth of the earth was made into a smooth of stone.
And not even the pang of the cramps the cold floor beneath sent into his legs could ruin what he beheld next.

"Can you see better?" She called out to him.

Suredly he could.

"I see now why this be so named the altar pit, only a fool would not see the majesty of divine creation in this place"!

He broke out in an over-excited smile that cut his face from ear to ear as he was bathed hina dull white and lavender glow.

"Do we go down into it?" He asked almost pleadingly of her.