Member
TokyoPewPew
RPM
PrinceAlexus
ThePigOrcEmpire
Mole
CabbageAngel
Nameless Hero
JFK
Mjolnir“A fellow hunter, you are? It’s my pleasure to meet you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Iustina Anghelescu. I’m 33 years old this year. I’ve been a hunter for the last four years or so. I Specialize in Hunting Vampires—as much as anyone can specialize in hunting cryptids, anyway. Let’s get something out of the way. My father is Romanian, and I have a Romanian name. Yes, I speak some Romanian. No, this isn’t a family business. He doesn’t know that I hunt them. As far as I know, he doesn’t know they’re real at all. In another life, maybe I too would have gone through my entire life blissfully ignorant to this part of the world, just like my parents. I’d be practicing medicine back in Canada. I’d be in an emergency department somewhere, saving lives, setting broken bones, and paying my good fortunes forward. Me and my ex-husband, we would have lived humbly, yet comfortably, with our kids, watching them grow up, giving them all the love we could, and visiting our parents in Montréal for the holidays.” “But instead of a challenging, but fulfilling career to pursue, instead of a family to nurture—instead of giving to the world, I’m doing something else. Sometimes I think I’m better suited to it. I’ve earned nothing else but to take from the world, anyway. But for what it’s worth, I try only to take from those who would have Wronged me in the same way as I was, were they given the chance. It’s that chance I take from them. You see, there are different sorts of vampires. It’s not that they’re different by nature, mind you. It isn’t a supernatural curse, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe its origins are, but the impacts, as far as I’ve seen, can be understood without grimoires and occultism. It’s an incredible, miraculous thing, vampirism. If we could only root out more vampires, collect samples, build a rigorous understanding of them, and use what we learn, we could all profit from their longevity, their resilience, et cetera. Even those that feed only from animals and appear sick as a result retain some of these traits. They vary in their behaviors, just like the humans they once were.” “I digress. I Know My Prey. And I call them prey, because I admit, I am not fundamentally better than them. They choose to hunt people. I choose to hunt them. So, let me tell you how I came to know them. The first vampire I encountered, I encountered by chance. My mother’s family, they always go hunting there in the—in Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve. On one of these hunts, in—euh, I was in university at the time, anyway—so on one of these hunts, I saw my first vampire. I had shot a deer. I went out on my own to track it further, while everyone else was cooking dinner and setting up camp. And I saw him there, drinking from the deer I had shot. I saw his teeth and his eyes with the night-vision googles. But because he drank from that bullet hole, when we inspected the pelt later, nobody really believed me. It was a joke in my family for years. In English, people talk about Moby Dick—the white whale. In my family, they used the term “Iustina’s monster.” As the years went by, I approached it from every corner. In truth, I should have gotten distracted there and dropped it when I stumbled upon other odd secrets of the world. But I couldn’t let it go. Not through medical school. Not through magic. Not through meeting my former husband in medical school. No, even when we got married, finished our residencies, and I was pregnant with our son, my little Étienne, I still wondered about that night routinely. It was always there, waiting for me in quiet moments.” | __________________________________________  WRONGED SPECIAL: When you spend a point of Luck, you find a dangerous lead on your prey. BERSERK: No matter how much harm you take, you can always keep going until the current fight is over. During a fight, the Keeper may not use harm moves on you and you cannot die. When the fight ends, all harm takes effect as normal. DIY SURGERY: When you do quick and dirty first aid on someone (including yourself), roll +Cool. On a 10+ it’s all good, it counts as normal first aid, plus stabilize the injury and heal 1 harm. On a 7-9 it counts as normal first aid, plus one of these, your choice:
I KNOW MY PREY: You get +1 ongoing when knowingly investigating, pursuing or fighting the breed of monster that caused your loss. Charm +0 Cool +1 Sharp -1 Tough +2 Weird +1 |
“I never know how to speak about these days. It’s easier to speed past it, you know? I don’t want to think so much about it. It’s My Fault that this is not my life, anyway. I was blinded. I had only just finished residence when it happened. I was working that night when an ambulance brought in a patient in critical condition. She had been hit by a car and backed over. Really, we all believed she shouldn’t have survived. I was the one who did most of the intake for her, especially once we moved away from essentially conducting DIY Surgery to triaging other, less critical patients. I checked up on her several times in the ICU, and every time—it was just one mystery after another. Something inside of me told me that there was something important here—something we were all missing. We thought it was the trauma at first, but her veins—they just stayed so dark. Her blood was dark too, darker than anyone had seen. She was healing too fast. She seemed so ready to leave, as if she’d bolt as soon as she could.” “I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know. I needed so badly to know if I was right. I snuck a blood bag wrapped in a towel into her room when I went to check up on her again. She said nothing. I brought her another the next night. She looked better. Much better. I brought a third one, for the price of an answer. I knew it. I knew it. For all those years, I had known they were real. I wasn’t crazy. Well, I wasn’t seeing things, anyway. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. I had to learn more. I had to know what made these creatures the way they were.” “We developed a rapport. I stole blood bags, kept her fed, subsidized her—kept her happy. She let me hold a microscope to her. It was our secret. My obsession. This relationship, she began to occupy more and more of my attention. Then, I confess, I went on maternity leave. Excuses were easier than ever, and then Benoit—my ex-husband—he returned to work. I was alone for all of his shifts. And this vampire, Salomé—this vampire, soon, I let her into my home for the first time. The first time of many. It became as habit. She was sometimes helpful, even. I was Selfish. I was Complicit. I told myself that this being was nothing more than a normal, reasonable person with a disease which fascinated me beyond reason. And for that, I sacrificed my entire life. I…let myself sleep while she was over. And when I awoke, I had lost blood. Étienne, he was…well, everyone called it MSN—ben, SIDS, in English. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. I was anaemic, everyone said. It was not my fault that I Lost My Son, they said. So, how can one reconcile this, when one knows the truth is different?” “There was no investigation. Nothing. I knew there couldn’t be. I had to find her. I was not letting another one get away without answers. And who else was going to bring one of these what they deserved? I went Berserk. It had to be me. I removed my own IV. I discharged myself. I grabbed my rifle, and I began my new hunt. If she hadn’t stolen my wallet, I would have never found her. I would have limped home, defeated. But I imagine any vampire who behaves as her is not so careful. I hunted her from our home in Winnipeg all the way to New Brunswick. I found her sleeping in a motel during the day in Baie-Comeau. It was as though I was possessed. I waited until sunset, then followed her throughout the night. Eventually, she caught on. I managed to herd her away from any motels or other options for cover. When daytime came, I hunted her like a dog. I can still remember the pleading, her being In Denial—all of it. But did the completion of my hunt bring me peace? Of course not.” “I knew enough to know there were more of these, and had hunches of where to start looking. I quit my job. Things moved fast. I made everyone want it to be over-with. Benoit, he pays me a small alimony, which I use to keep myself going. And me? I notarized a will, loaded an encrypted usb with the truth to be released upon my death, sold most of what I had left, and got on the road. Vampires are nomads. So, I am the same. I hadn’t planned on staying here in Stone’s Throw for more than a night. I was looking for a new trail, and hadn’t found it yet. But here? Here, I have the scent of something big. I’ve beaten little details out of other leeches before, but I have never before felt so close to finding one of the mutated vampires. These monsters, they’re rare. From what I understand, they’re special. And on the saint-host of the chalice of the fucking tabernacle, I will find one of these and crack them open too.” The-Edge-of-the-Other-Side-is-Time |
