Dragging out an old VtR NPC

[athousandfaces]

My dear girl!  It has been far too long.  And I am so very far behind in my work.

Yes, yes, it is a pity about young Alexander.  I always thought he had such promise, but he just was too short-sighted in the end.  Ah, well.  No real loss.  In any case, there's much to be done and crying over spilled blood is a kind of sentimentality I don't really do.  There is no time like the present, after all, and plenty of time to sleep in the metaphorical grave! 

Comments

is "necro-ing" inherently a vampire pun or is that more a zombie thing

[gisella]

[ whispered, though there's nothing particularly secretive or conspiratorial about her tone — if anything, it's amicable; it seems it's just how she talks ]

A woman after my own heart, in that case.

Being dragged about into ...this is some sort of interdimensional hub, if my understanding is correct... is certainly unsettling. But it's also an opportunity we would truly be remiss not to take advantage of.

[athousandfaces]

[ Her own voice is chipper and precisely enunciated to the point of slight obnoxiousness. ]

Quite! It would be such a terrible waste not to. I'm surprised more people don't attempt to do more exploration.

[gisella]

[ well, it's not like either of them can judge ] (( /creepy ladybrofist ))

In my experience, the majority of society has an extremely disappointing habit of not being nearly ambitious or interested enough in what they could achieve, if they only did that exploration.

[ with a bit of a smirk ] Too short-sighted, I suppose you could say. Not unlike your...student, was it?

[athousandfaces]

Not so much a student as... well, I had once hoped he could be a student, but that turned out to be a bit of a wash. I tried to teach him how to think for himself, but you know what they say about leading a horse to water. Eight-hundred years later and still clinging to those antiquated ideas.

[gisella]

[ She shakes her head: such a shame. ]

Alas, I am not myself unfamiliar with that particular disappointment. So few of us seem interested in any true form of self-improvement, instead apparently content to still live out the old mortal ambitions.

But as you say: there is plenty for us to do, with or without them.

...I suppose I ought to introduce myself. Briony Corfe, Master of the Elysian Curse, Sworn of the Dying Light, Kogaion to the city of Chicago.

[athousandfaces]

Indeed! Alya Novak, Forgotten and Tested Master of the Sanguine Terror, Dragon Knight of the Axe, at your service.

Ah, Chicago! I've been there once or twice, but not recently; I rarely stay in one place for long. Has Montcalm fallen into torpor, then?

[gisella]

[ The "Forgotten" gets a bit of an eyebrow raise. Admittedly so does "Tested," but for a different reason. ]

Quite recently and quite...suddenly, in fact. Nothing I cannot handle, of course [ or at least, nothing she's going to admit to not being able to handle ], but that won't stop me from giving him an earful when he comes out of it. [ Because either he's a jerk or something worse happened to put him in torpor before she was ready, and she doesn't know what she's going to do in the case of the latter. ]

And of course I have to ask... is there a particular reason for your being currently, shall we say, "forgotten," Ms. Novak? I should like to think you're among friends.

[athousandfaces]

My dear girl, I have been forgotten nearly eight hundred years. I haven't used my real face for a very long time.

[gisella]

Fascinating. Do you find it interferes with your sense of personal identity?

[ Normally she'd take offense to the "dear girl," but from someone with that level of mastery of Obfuscate for longer than she's been alive, well, she'll take it. ]

[athousandfaces]

Not in any way that I find inconvenient, I suppose you could say. The things that I value most about myself are internal, and all existence is change, in any case. Well, at least the worthwhile kind of existence.

[gisella]

Absolutely. It is, after all, why we do what we do: to change, overcome — transcend, as they say.

Suffice it to say that I am impressed. Much as I'd thought myself beyond such things, I find myself compelled to ask: would you be interested in teaching these techniques of yours? I assure you that I am nothing if not a highly committed student.

[athousandfaces]

Far be it from me to turn away someone who wishes to learn! And I do not doubt you are. It does take a great deal of patience, though. A bit of dramatic flair helps, too.

[gisella]

I do not lack for patience.

"Dramatic flair" may not come so naturally, perhaps; I attribute it to entirely too many years spent playing the one sane woman. But if anything should be entertaining to learn, I imagine it should be that.

...These are all entirely methods of your own invention, I take it?

[athousandfaces]

Indeed! I have seen others who have developed... similar methods; there is one I have seen among our shadowy brothers and sisters, but it still lacks the ability to fine-tune that I personally prefer.

The initial exercise I usually suggest is to attempt to alter your appearance in one small way. Adding or removing a mole, a slight change of hair color, that sort of thing. It's harder than it sounds, but once one is able to maintain it without much conscious thought for a full night, the next steps are far easier.

[gisella]

From that description, I should think it had more akin to the Coil of Flesh than anything else... yet somehow adapting the powers of concealment known to ourselves and our shadowy brethren as you put it...

And yet none of this has required any form of a chrysalis in order to develop the ability...
Truly fascinating. It will take some training of my own before I'm quite prepared for even that first step, but until then there is no shortage of research to be done...