Rifts : Chaos Chronicles

[Jay 2K Winger]

Simon stares as He-who-is-not-the-devil-but-apparently-a-vampire retreats in the face of Shadow Tiger's heretofore unseen 'master' (he assumes), He-who-is-not-the-devil-but-actually-a-werewolf. Simon mentally makes a note to get or assign names to these two figures so he doesn't overly complicate things-- then finds a simpler way to denote them in his brain.

"Did I step into an Underworld movie at some point?" Simon finally blurts out. "So we've seen Marcus and William, is there an immortal father lurking somewhere on a ship, overseeing everything?"

He grimaces as he gets a headache just from thinking about it, which is blessedly different from the headaches he gets from his Rift Sight.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, then addresses Shadow Tiger. "What. The FUCK. Is going on?" This is a clear sign that he's agitated. Simon almost never swears.

[Mytical]

Shadow Tiger hesitates, but finally...

"You have just seen the two oldest Rift Shards in action. Sometimes the Rifts dreams...are nightmares. My master, Griffin Blake, and his brother Devon are two sides of the same coin. As you probably guessed..one is cursed to be a vampire, the other to be a werewolf. My master has sought ways to contain his curse, his brother to gain enough power to break the curse. Both seek the same thing, but in very different manners. Devon does not care about collateral damage, my master very much cares."

He pauses as if not sure to continue. "My master should be the one to take the story from here. It is not my place. You should get some rest first..if you wish..after that..I will take you to my master, and he will explain more. I assure you, as long as he is in his mansion, and wearing the manacles, he is perfectly safe to be around."

[Mytical]

((You may still add to the scene if you want, just make sure to note that is what you are doing))

The next day, those who have questions for 'The Master' are greeted by Shadow Tiger. He transports them through the shadows. It is a very odd trip. Unlike the wormholes and teleporting done by Chris and the transportation specialist it is not instant. Instead you enter a void where you can't even hear your own heartbeat. It is somewhat disturbing to have every one of your senses cut off completely. It seems to take forever, but mere seconds later you step out into..luxury.

You are in some sort of mansion, in one of the (presumably) many Dens of the place. It seems to go on forever. One thing of interest is the walls seem to be made of silver, and runes (similar to the ones on the manacles) are carved into the walls. Standing facing away from the group is somebody who looks very much like the vampire you faced last night. The main difference is his hair has no pony tail..and is short cut. He has his behind him as well, and you notice the manacles firmly in place. They do not seem connected to each other, and no chains can be seen.

"Greetings, you have many questions I am sure. Let me see if I can answer them before you ask. If not, I will be happy to answer any I might miss. Please..have a seat."

The seats are very comfortable looking, and look OLD yet very well taken care of. Between the furniture, books, and odds and ends in this room..you easily estimate there is millions of dollars worth of 'stuff'. Just in this room alone.

"As Jarrod has probably told you," he turns around and there is one more glaring difference between him and the vampire from last night (though he is clean shaven now)..ice blue eyes (sort of a white-blue) reminding you almost of a full moon..including no pupils. "not all Rifts come with dreams..some come with nightmares. Approximately two hundred and fifty years ago, the first Rift arrived." This news would confuse Simon if he came, because the first recorded one was only about one hundred and ninety years ago. "It was huge, encircling the whole world."

He himself comes to sit and look unblinking at the group. The group will notice he does not seem to breath, and does not seem to blink..at all. "We had no way of seeing or detecting them at this time, so only two young boys were affected by this rift. The first, and last, that affected two dreamers at the same time. Myself, and my brother. We are cursed, as you have guessed. Outside these walls I am a beast, mindless .. only thing on my mind is my next meal. Which is why..I do not hate my brother. I KNOW the hunger, and he is trying in his own way to end that hunger."

"I digress, however. You see the Rifts became much smaller, and only happened occasionally at first, some passing with nothing happening at all. No dreamers around, and not big enough for anything to come through. As time passed, they got larger..and more frequent. I believe they are building up to another planet wide Rift. IF my brother can get the four shards you have recently found..he might be able to alter reality as we know it. We share a unique talent, not only are we totally immune to any power given by a rift..we can use inactive shards. My apologies, I do tend to ramble from time to time. While this would not bother nor affect me, as he would just send us back to before we acquired our abilities, and we would live normal lives..it would change everything for everybody else. People might not be born, people might not have died when they did. You might not even exist. I would not risk the world, to return to my innocence."

"As it is dangerous for me to leave this house..I must ask you to stop him. It will not be easy, for although he has all the strengths of a vampire..he has none of the weaknesses. Your Rift powers will be useless against him, at least directly..and he will seek to gain more shards..adding them to his own power..killing the ones who they belong to if needed. Whatever happens, however, you must not let him get those specific four..because if he does..he will be unstoppable. Right now, I am more powerful then he. He fears me. How much longer that will be true is anybody's guess. Find a way to shut down the Rifts..find a way to stop my brother..or..everything may be lost."

[Kristev]

"If they happen without dreamers being present, then we can safely discard the theory that brain waves are involved. A vampire with no weaknesses. And our own powers cannot directly hurt him. There are so many questions. Short of me using a hurricane to throw rocks at him or calling every animal in the world to come and attack him en masse, I don't see what good I'd be able to do."

Luigi politely excuses himself, and makes use of the tarot cards, hoping to find a weakness they can use against the vampire.

[Mytical]

The man nods. "If this was easy...I would have my normal contacts handle this. And..while we can not be harmed by Rift abilities, we are not exactly immune. Your hurricane might not HURT my brother, but it can for instance slow him down. He would still have to fight the winds to move. There are clever ways to use ones abilities that would work."

Luigi gets no help from the cards.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Simon rubs his temple-- a familiar habit, indicative of his trying to make sense of the frequently-changing nature of the Rifts. "That long... these Rifts have been happening that long?" He shakes his head. "There are no constants with these things, are there?" he grumbles angrily.

"As it stands now," Simon says to the werewolf brother, "the Company has three of the elemental Shards. The fourth is in the hands of the girl we found at the location of the Air Elemental Rift."

He paces a bit, still rubbing his temple. "Our powers won't work on him? There goes the idea of tearing him apart on the quantum level..." He grimaces. "I've been trying to find a way to stop the Rifts," he says to the 'Master.' "But with no known constants, it's hard to come up with an equation that will work!"

[Mytical]

"It gets worse," continues Griffin. "I believe this is not the first time the Rifts have come to our world. If my hunch is correct, they go in cycles. A strong one comes, alters reality..then many smaller ones come. Building stronger and stronger until another world wide Rift. Then they go dormant for a long time, only to come again. I have been studying these Rifts for a long time, and will open my library of knowledge on the subject to you. Believe it or not, as crazy as these Rifts are..I believe there IS a pattern. Finding it so far has eluded me..for a long long time. Figuring out that pattern, as complex as it may be, may be the only hope of shutting the Rifts down for good."

[Kristev]

"There is one thing you could do. You could use your powers to demolish the land he's standing on or the vehicle he's in. I suppose I could create enough healing rain to saturate soft sand into quicksand."

Luigi doesn't say much else. He spends his time thinking, wondering.

What happens when he finally goes to sleep is much more exciting to him.

He's standing on Brighton Beach, preparing for a picnic. Suddenly, he has a vivid image of Kathleen walking out of the water like the birth of Venus, and yet not Kathleen. She is finally wanting to be his. Except that she's composed entirely of water. Luigi doesn't care and runs out to meet her, following his heart. The sense of peace is overridden only by the newfound sense of power. As he melds with his Kathleen, or this strange aquatic variation of her, he finds that he's melding with the ocean, too.

The dream ends, and Luigi is left with a deep sense of knowledge, knowledge from beyond the dawn of man, from the very ocean from which all life first evolved. (He's been medically trained. He would know evolutionary theory as medicine requires it to make any sense at all.)

But as Luigi awakens, he feels very different. It is not right. After a few moments, he realizes it is him. His flesh has been replaced by water. Understandably, Luigi freaks out and starts screaming for help, as he has never been through anything like this before.

[Mytical]

((This happens after the meeting is over, btw and it is still ongoing))

Luigi wakes a second time, to find himself flesh once more. A dream within a dream it seems.

[Kristev]

He responds by taking a mild sedative, not enough to put him back to sleep, but enough to calm his nerves.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Simon nods to Griffin. "All right. I'm going to need all the data and information you may have accumulated about the Rifts so I can start running pattern analysis back at my lab. If there's a pattern there, I'll find it. And once I find it, I can find a way to stop them."

It's later, after finishing his deliberations with Griffin and returning to his lab-- where Simon hurriedly dumps as much of the data into the computers as he can, and has his programs start running algorithms, mapping them for later analysis-- that Simon feels tired enough to sleep. Since receiving his Shard in the Long Island disaster, Simon has generally required less sleep than most, but he needs it now. Distantly, his brain reasons that it must be due to the frequent activity and overtaxing of his Shard, but this part of his brain is silenced by the rest, which is trying to sleep.

And he does sleep. And he dreams.

He dreams of fire. Fire surrounding him in a forest, cutting him off, trapping him... only to find himself facing a beautiful female form crafted out of the fire. The fire-woman calls to him, and he finds himself going to her... embracing her... feeling the fires wrap around him, burning into him... until his form becomes fire itself, and as a sensation of Power fills him--

Simon awakes, gasping, then sits up, clutching a hand to his temple. That dream cannot have been a coincidence... He goes to his lab and pulls up the Company records, trying to find out what happened to the Fire Shard after it was recovered from Alaska.

[Mytical]

According to the data, the Shards were taken to a secure facility in Nevada..where they promptly vanished. As he is trying to find where they might have gone, he notices three shards just sitting on the console next to him..they were not there just seconds before. One of them is calling out to him, the problem is .. everything he knows tells him that a single person can only have one shard..and can not get rid of a shard. The call is almost impossible to resist however. All he has to do is reach out, claim it, and it will be his..

It is foolish, it is crazy, and it is probably a huge mistake..but can he resist?

((Remember until you each discuss your dreams, the others know nothing about them))

Meanwhile Luigi feels the strong compulsion to get up and go ... somewhere ((Wherever the shards currently are)).

[Jay 2K Winger]

Simon nods to himself as he sees the Elemental Shards were sent to the secure storage facility in Nevada-- until he comes to the addendum that they went missing. He's about to pull up the detail logs to find out more specifics when he feels the familiar twinge of a Rift Sight headache, but he keeps his eye-patch in place.

That's when he sees the three Shards there-- Water, Fire, Earth. The Shard inscribed with the Fire sigil calls out to him-- it practically GLOWS-- and he finds himself reaching for it--

--with a supreme act of will, he stops himself. He's not sure what's going on here, but this should be investigated before any hasty decisions are made. He rummages in the cabinets in his lab and comes up with three clear evidence capsules. Using a pair of tongs, he separates the three Shards and puts each in its own capsule, then putting them aside.

Possibly without realizing it, however, he has tucked the Fire Shard into a pocket of his lab coat. Not quite claiming it, but not letting it get away from him either.

[Kristev]

Luigi goes and searches for the shards. He does not know why, only that he must find . . . something.

[Mytical]

Luigi is lead straight to Simon..and without knowing how or why, knows exactly where the shards are, and which is calling out to him.