WotR Chapter 76: May not Cause Vampirism

“How’s it hanging Nadia?”

“I’m in the sewers with Baroke. It is absolutely foul down here.”

“Good, keep him alive unless I tell you otherwise. I don’t think Calvin’s ready for a solo act yet, anyway. He’s got a lot of growing to do, and the right friends help facilitate that.”

“Why do you keep giving him unsolicited advice, anyway?” Nadia asked.

“Because it’s the kind of stuff I wish I’d heard when I was his age, obviously.”

“It’s ridiculous. Forcing him to dance? What got you so excited about that?”

“Listen missy, when you have a dog that could win gold, do you keep it at home its entire life? No! You take it to the park and socialize the shit out of it. Stressors when you’re growing up inform your adulthood. Especially how you deal with things when you’re a teen. Which he is.”

“Besides,” Elliot continued, “he got three levels in his social skills from a single ball. If that’s not a tangible result, I don’t know what is.”

“Fair enough, but being so keen on balancing him out is counter to what I want. I want ruthless and cruel. He had the propensity for it when he was younger, you know.”

“He’s still at the age where he can learn what we need him to. You just have to present him a most vexing problem, and remove every other tool to solve it, save cruelty. Might have to do it a few times. Eventually cruelty will stick in his head as a primary method for solving problems.”

“…You’re so wise.”

“Bitch, I’m a thousand years old, I took Child Psychology in college,” Elliot said, leaning back in his chair, clasping his fingers behind his head. “And I know this kid like the back of my hand. I was this kid, after all.”

***Calvin***

Calvin took a minute to excuse himself from the steadily growing line of dance partners, finding a chair at the edge of the dance floor to rest and inspect his new Ability choices.

Read Expression has reached Level 10!

Read Expression Level 10: Passive bonus to reading expressions. 50% correction.

+1 Intuition

Please choose an ability or mutation from the list of compatible ones.

Abilities:

Poker Face: Give away little by way of facial expression.

Open Book: Gain an intuitive understand of the relationship between two people who are looking at each other.

Princess Detector: Read Expressions correction applies to precisely divining another user’s social status.

Don’t kidnap the scullery maid, kid! No matter how much she begs for it!

^from Your Princess Is In Another Castle.

Universal Language: Large bonus to understanding pantomime and expression regardless of species.

Mob Mentalist: Read the attitude of large groups of people easily.

The Body Talks: read Expressions correction now applies to body language as well.

Mutations:

The Pheonix’s (W)right eye- while making eye contact, you can discern if the target believes they are lying. Less useful on sociopaths and the misinformed.

Med Tricorder: At will, determine a person’s health and identify anything that might be affecting them merely by looking at their face. Includes wounds, infection, blood loss, poison, food poisoning, drugs, parasites, disease, etc.

No jokes at the end of each description? Calvin thought.

Well, you’re growing up quick and I figured you didn’t need silly shit at the end of your Ability descriptions.

I suppose. I didn’t really understand them either.

And that’s what made it funny.

All right, then I better start narrowing these down, Calvin thought as he scanned through the choices.

Poker face doesn’t do much for me. Nobody ever accused me of being incredibly easy to read. That’s out.

Open book is interesting as it gives me information about people that they might not want me to know. I’ll keep that on the list.

Princess detector is too niche.

Oh, come on!

You want me to spend a whole ability on discerning what someone’s status is when our entire society is built on flaunting it as much as possible?

Yeah, I guess so. Carry on.

Universal language is pointless when I can steal languages from dead bodies.

Mob mentalist is a maybe. That would make reading them with Feel Intent more accurate, but it’s low on the list.

Body talks is a possibility. I could see it helping in combat. Karen was always telling me to pay attention to every part of her body at once. As if that were possible.

The eye is redundant with Feel Intent, and Med tricorder is…interesting.

Calvin was torn between Med Tricorder and Open Book. Open Book would allow him to know immediately if two people were in league with each other, which would make it very difficult for someone to backstab him or make deals behind his back.

Med tricorder on the other hand would come in handy if his friends were ever poisoned or drugged, or stabbed, and he needed to know which.

That’s probably not gonna be an everyday occurance.

I choose Open Book.

Calvin’s brain tingled for a good thirty seconds, along with a bit of light nausea, before it retreated.

Why don’t Abilities knock me out?

They’re less invasive, obviously. System certified not to turn you into a monster.

Calvin played with his drink a moment. Did that make him want to stop investing in Mutations? Not if a good one reared its head.

Calvin mentally nudged the other notification to come back.

Acting has reached Level 10!

Acting Level 10: Behave exactly as you intend. Convey emotion naturally. 50% correction.

+1 to Intuition

Please choose an ability or mutation from the list of compatible ones.

Abilities:

A mile in his shoes: 1 Bent to disguise yourself as the target for an hour, including voice and tactile effects. Does not lend supernatural knowledge of the targets’ mental state.

Infectious emoting: 2 Bent. Act out an emotional state (Anger, Calm, Sadness, Happiness, Defeatism, Courage, etc.) and watch it spread like wildfire!

Confidence: At will, speak with such surety that people want to believe you. Even when they know they shouldn’t. Causes victims to build belief and make assumptions based on your statements if they aren’t paying close attention.

Playing possum: Spend 1 Bent to prevent damage while manifesting visible wounds. User will suffer from non-lethal effects of the wound until time limit expires or User dismisses the ability.

^from Medi-Tate

Master of Disguise: Acting correction now applies to the effectiveness of disguises and props in offsetting suspicion, allowing the User to maintain a cover and blend in with significantly less preparation.

I.E. a hat instead of a full ensemble.

^From One of the Guys

Look, a red herring!, A.K.A. Who,Me?: 1 Bent: A denial or emphatic statement from the user will distract anyone within earshot for *Acting* Seconds. Intuition resisted by Stability.

^From Master-Baiter

Mutations:

Me myself, And I: design up to five alter egos. Each one may be a different race or gender, changing your body when they assume control. Pro: Can fool rigorous magical testing to determine your identity or locate you. Con: stay on good terms and ask nicely for your body back.

Mesmerizing Eyes: capture a target’s attention for as long as eye contact is maintained, causing increased suggestibility and memory lapse. Intuition resisted by Will.

“Hmmm… Calvin thought as he scanned through them. The Acting options were honestly a lot more interesting, and right out of the gate he could see three that appealed to him: Infectious Emoting, Master of Disguise, and Mesmerizing eyes.

Infectious emoting was almost like an entire kit of emotional manipulation spells. He could act hopeless while getting arrested and escape while the guards suffered from ennui, or on the other side of the spectrum, he could act totally berserk and make his men-

The thought of Berserk put a bad taste in Calvin’s mental mouth. He still distinctly remembered the sheer joy of-

Calvin popped the side of his head with his palm and took a swig of the bubbling wine imported from Boles.

Okay, the other two. Master of Disguise synergizes extremely well with One of the Guys, making me even better at infiltrating places I’m not supposed to be, and Mesmerizing Eyes…may cause vampirism…

Calvin drummed his fingers on the table, sorting through the three abilities.

Elliot, what’s vampirism?

Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

Oh, Elliot cleared his throat.

They’re horrifying monsters that were perverted into women’s pornographic literature by MaryAnne Wrice, and then a series of increasingly less capable authors, culminating with Mye Immortale.

But what do they do?

Well, if you wade through the sparkling skin bullshit, they are at their heart, undead creatures of the night that feed on the living. Everything else is fluff.

Are they stupid?

Nope. They’re the aristocracy of the undead. In theory.

What are the odds I become one?

About one point two-two percent.

I choose Mesmerizing Eye.

Oh, shit, move your drink!

Calvin’s eyes began to sear with pain, like someone was jabbing hot glass in there.

“Gah!” Calvin choked back a scream and shoved his incredibly thin fluted glass roughly out of the way of his face, splashing some of the wine on the fine silk of the tablecloths.

The pain began to spread, out from his eyeballs, around the crown of his skull in a band, and down into his jaws.

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.

Sweet, blessed relief came when Calvin’s eyes rolled up and his forehead slammed into the glass underneath the fancy white silk.

***Ella***

“What are you so concerned about?” Ella said, waggling the roasted forearm in front of Maya. The little ranger looked like she was going to puke her guts out into the desert sand.

“It’s not like you’ll get any diseases from it. Unless you eat the brain.” Ella remembered the last time she’d seen someone stupid enough to try eating brain on a dare. Ushu had been sent into the forest alone, trembling from the sickness, never to return.

The genosians would not eat someone stricken with Kuru.

“Don’t eat the brain.”

“I’m happy with my hoppers, thank you.” Maya said, looking away as she flipped her hopper over in the fire. Hoppers were round shelled creatures that dug burrows in the sand and would lunge out at smaller animals like shrews and centipedes. Their shell allowed them to cook nicely in the coals of the fire.

“Suit yourself.” Ella said, cutting off slices of mostly-cooked Uleisian and chewing on them. They were a bit grainier than Gadveran, a bit flavorless.

She said as much.

“Probably the lack of moisture and fat.” Grant said, cooking his own meal with a set of a dozen floating knives.

“Don’t worry, Ilethans still taste the best, in my opinion.” Ella said.

“I’m honored.”

“Why are you putting up with this?” Maya demanded, looking at Grant. “She’s an abomination!”

“Rude,” Ella said, baring her teeth at the little ingrate. Amusingly enough, Maya was about as low as it was possible to get on the priority of edibility. She was small, meaning she wasn’t worth much in food, and didn’t consume a lot, either. She was a skilled hunter, meaning she was more valuable alive, and she was female, meaning she could make more of her kind in the future, replacing those they did eat.

Besides, Ella was eating Uleisan so she didn’t have to force Maya to share her catch, so why was she so upset?

“We should just leave her here.” Maya said, eyeing Ella.

Ella felt her eyebrows rise, and a burning anger begin to build in her chest. She’d been more irritable since the Guuya, a result of the blending of minds. She reflexively went still as she tried to wrestle Calvin’s anger down.

“Nope,” Grant said, a floating knife bringing a bit of sand-gulper up to his mouth.

“Why not?”

“I’ll give you three reasons. First, you never betray a team-member. Ever. Second, Calvin would kill you when you got back, and third…” Grant eyed Ella. “I don’t think you would win that fight.”

“But eating people is abhorrent,” Maya said, glancing over at Ella.

“It is what it is,” Grant said, his gaze going distant. “I remember a winter up in Tark. We underestimated those snow-rats. While we were huddled around fires, just trying not to die, they were outmaneuvering us, moving through ten feet of snow, destroying our supply trains, damning us to a starving hell in the middle of the boreal forests.”

Grant snapped out of it, glancing between Maya and Ella

“Long story short, we ate some of our men who died of the cold, then we got the fuck out of there come spring. The first Tark Offensive was a godsdamned disaster.”

“But she doesn’t need to eat people, she’s doing it because it’s fun. We’ve got an entire caravan over there!”

Maya pointed at the caravan packed to the brim with Cobalt spines, along with travel supplies, along with food and water. It was surrounded by dark-skinned dead men who worked for Orson. Most of the corpses were sliced to pieces by Grant, but a few of them bore Maya’s fletched arrows, and even fewer had signs of Ella’s bludgeoning.

She had to get face-to face with them, while the other two could kill from a distance.

Ella glanced over. In her mind, the dead Uleisans were part of the food, but there was plenty of food to keep a couple dozen traders alive as well, packed away on the glass carrier sleds.

“I was curious about how they taste.”

“Could you do our pint-sized archer a favor and refrain from eating people while we’re on this trip?”

Ella eyed Maya, the little ranger giving the two of them irritated glances. She pushed down the indignation and tried to make the civilized decision, rather than beat either of their skulls in.

“Alright, but if we run out of meat, I’m going back to Uleisans.”

“Fair enough.” Grant said, then glanced at Maya. “Fair enough?”

“I’ll…make sure you don’t run out.” Maya said, holding out a petite hand.

Ella tossed aside the forearm and engulfed Maya’s hand with her own, grinning. “Thank you, Maya.”

“Just keep your shark-mouth away from me,” Maya said, leaning backwards.

Again, Ella stomped down the desire to break the little one’s face. They were already at a compromise that favored Ella, so she could afford to be the better woman.

After another hour or so of chatting by the fire, they left the caravan for the sand-pirates to find, hopping on their spare sled and heading for the mountains to the south, where the Storm-Stretch company got their primary export:

Cobalt Spines.

“Now how exactly is leaving the spines for other people going to make us money?” Ella asked, looking over her shoulder as they sailed away over the ocean-like desert.

“You got me,” Maya said.

“The kid’s got some kind of scam set up where he’ll cause a major whiplash in the price of cobalt keratin, and therefore glass, allowing him to profit indirectly from foreknowledge of other people’s panic and misery,” the aging general said, lighting a bit of Jush powder in his pipe.

“Honestly, I don’t know where he gets these ideas… Sometimes he’s just a horny, no-nothing teenager, and sometimes it’s like having a jaded seventy-year old who’d kill you as soon as look at you as a boss.”

The jush smoke was caught in the ever-present desert wind and swept in front of him.

“But damn if I’m not having a good time.”

“Here here!” Ella said.

“We just killed a quarter of a hundred people,” Maya said, scowling at them.

Ella ruffled her fuzzy ear-length hair.