Kingfisher

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Definitely interested. I'm thinking about playing Rats thug. Maybe a goblin, maybe not.

@Brother Tumbo

Awesome sauce! Feel free to chuck a CS up in the OOC

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Collab post between Kingfisher and OneFatBadger

Despite the anarchy that was spreading across the city, some swathes of Santa Somabra managed to remain untouched by the ensuing chaos. The Nyctari were quick to learn from the riots, and there was soon a practical army of enforcers guarding the families main source of income.

Cicero and Maddie made their way warily through the red light district, making sure to keep their possessions tight on their person. Squat, ugly-looking buildings ran along either side of the grimy street, with scantily clad sex workers calling down to passers-by from balconies high up above, and leaning across brick walls in small packs.

The district was buzzing with all manner of noises, as people scuttled back and forth, seeking out whatever perversion took their fancy. The street was swarming with life, like an anthill on a summer’s day, and a variety of stenches wafted through on the cool midnight breeze, none of which bared much thinking about.

The pair’s destination was the most grandiose building on the street; with great purple pillars out-front, and extravagant silk curtains hanging in the clear glass windows.

A tight cluster of women in form-hugging miniskirts and tube tops stood in the way of the ornate wooden doors, one of whom called out to Cicero as he and Maddie walked over.

“You look like a right creepy fucker,” she snorted, looking the man’s dark silk hood and brown trench coat up and down “I can do the weird shit, but it’ll cost you.” She shot them both a gap-toothed grin, and her friends laughed along.

“How much would it cost for me to get to use my favourite little toy on you?” Maddie chirped, as she strode right up to the group. The working girl looked slightly taken aback, and the smug grin on her face faded completely when Maddie gently pushed back her red blazer, revealing the harpy knife she wore on her hip.

One of the group hissed something in Italian, but they begrudgingly moved apart; Cicero and Maddie striding right through them and into the building. Maddie paused for a moment as she past the working girl, giving her bronze cheeks a firm squeeze, before catching back up with Cicero.

The interior of the establishment had been done up like an old Western saloon, with smooth wooden tables dotted about the place, a winding staircase leading to the bedrooms above, and a long bar at the farthest end of the room. Squeals and screams of all sort drifted in from the bedrooms on the upper level, and a lone barkeeper stood watch behind the counter.

“What’s your poison?” The barkeeper called out as the pair made their way over. He was a huge man in a white wife beater that hugged his bulging gut, and a slick purple dragon tattoo covered the left side of his face.

“What would Señor recommend?” Cicero asked in his calm, smooth voice. He paused, hovering over the bar, before softly rapping his knuckles three times on the polished counter.

A wicked smirk spread across the barkeeper’s pudgy face “I think I’ve got just the thing.”

The large man led Cicero and Maddie over to a huge vending machine, with a clear glass window and gleaming steel frame, before hitting 666 on the number pad. A deep groan rung out from inside the machine, like the dying grunt of a wounded animal, promptly followed by the sound of whirring gears. Slowly, the vending machine shifted sideways, revealing an empty doorway in the side of the wall, which led to a downwards winding black steel staircase.

“Rad.” Said Maddie.

“I think you’ll find the range we have available to be to your liking.” The Barkeeper shouted after them in a voice that was dripping with sleazy intentions, as the vending machine slid back into black behind them.

There was a short walk down the staircase, with the metal steps clanging beneath their feet, before the pair arrived in a claustrophobic little room with tacky brick walls and three enormous steel doors that looked as those they belonged in an asylum. A vampire dressed in a crisp black suit, with a dark purple tie, stood at the centre of the room, his powerful arms folded closely across his muscular chest.

“Room 1 is currently in use-“he was beginning to say, before he was suddenly cut off as Maddie shot forwards and clasped his throat in a death-like grip. Maddie had always relied on agility to win her fights, in life and in death, and she was fast even by vampric standards, giving her the opportunity to sink her bestial nails into the guard’s throat and rip it straight out of his neck, at a speed almost too rapid for the eye to register. A fountain of dark red spilt forth from the vampire’s neck, and hot blood bubbles frothed in his open mouth as he stumbled forwards, choking and gagging. The guard’s body swayed limply back and forth, before Maddie placed one hand on either side of his head and twisted it with a sudden sharp and fierce movement, snapping his neck. The vampire’s body crumpled and collapsed on the ground, blood pooling out across the warm stone floor.

Cicero bent down, carefully guiding his hand through the corpse’s breast pocket, before removing a long silver key. The dark figure slid the key into the first great steel door; opening it to reveal a lean decaying man who had a small blonde girl pushed up against a white china sink.

“The bloody fuck are you cocksuckers playing at?!” He hissed as the pair stepped inside the room, turning to face them as he released his grip on the little girl. “I’ve got the room for another two hours yet, piss off!” As he spoke his slender brown tongue visibly flapped back and forth inside his mouth, which was exposed through one rotting cheek.

“Sharing is caring.” Maddie said sweetly, before darting towards the undead figure and scooping him up off of the floor, slamming him into the wall with such force a sickly crack rang out through the soundproofed cell. The figure fell to the floor, the air knocked out of him, whilst Cicero calmly guided the horrified young girl out of the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Maddie to her prey.

“You’re sloppy,” she giggled at the corpse-man who lay sprawled across the floor “You should know better than to visit the same kiddie dungeon more than once in such a short space of time.”

“Get fucked, you crazy bitch.” Snarled the corpse man “There’s nothing you can do to me that’ll make me talk. I can’t feel pain.”

“Perhaps not in the conventional sense,” Maddie pondered with one finger placed delicately on the corner of her lip “but everyone can feel pain. You just need to find the right spot to poke, or the right nerve to yank on with searing tongs.” She grabbed hold of the corpse man’s lower jaw, before slamming his head back into the wall.

He laughed through her fingers “You’re just not getting this are you?”

“Oh, that was more for me.” She admitted with a sly smirk.

“But it’s like I said,” she cooed icily “You’re sloppy. You leave trails for people to follow, patterns that can be picked up on. Always little blonde girls, always roughly the same age, always the floaty pink dress with the white bow. It wasn’t hard to trace it back to the real deal.”

“Abigale…” wheezed the corpse man, wide eyed and shaking.

“You’re one sick little puppy.” Maddie cackled, snorting slightly “And now my boys have got your itsy bitsy niece all tied up and ready to cook. What is it you like about her, anyway?”

“Sweet little things…” mumbled the corpse man, gazing off into nothingness

“Eurgh, whatever. Now start talking, or your squeeze ends up in bite-sized pieces all over Santa Somabra.”

“Diego will kill me if he finds out I squealed.” The corpse man spoke in a quiet voice.

“Which is worth more to you; your life or your blonde-haired cunt?” Maddie sniggered.

“Get it over with, then.”

“Where is Treviño hiding?” snarled Madeline

“A boat, it moves around so he’s never in one place long.”

“Called?”

“He never keeps the same name for more than a couple weeks,” The corpse man said with a loose shrug “last time I was on board it was The Baron’s Gambit, but there’s no way it’s sailing under that name now.”

“You better tell me something useful, or my boys are going to start taking chunks out of baby Abigale’s hide.” Maddie said with a dark frown.

“He’s got his own sweet vice,” The corpse man said, laughing without humour “I guess the dead want so –fuckin’- badly to cling on to little sprinkles of our past lives. There’s this broad he can’t stay away from for more than a fortnight. They get up to all sorts of naughty things in this little house up in the hills. Only us real high up Rotfaces know about her.”

“What’s so special about her?”

“I’ve never met the dame myself. Just did a drop off to the house this one time. If I give you the address, will you let Abigale go?”

“Brownie’s honour.” Maddie said with a twisted grin.

*

“Where’d you disappear off to?” Madeline Hollinghurst asked Cicero as they strolled down a blacked-out street. "You missed all of the fun.”

“I had some purchases to make.” Cicero said plainly.

“Not little girls, I hope.” Maddie smirked.

“Not little girls.” Cicero replied, the hint of a smile flashing across one corner of his mouth.

“Now we know where Treviño’s been this whole time, I’m guessing you’ll want in on the action?”

Cicero stopped in his tracks, turning to look Maddie in the eye.

“We’ll have to drop this, for now. We’ve just ruffled the feathers of two of the deadliest predators in Santa Somabra.”

“For fuck’s sake…” fumed Madeline, colour rushing to her necrotic cheeks.

“We’ve threatened the security of one of the Nycatri’s establishments, and we can’t risk them catching wind of that. I play a delicate game, one that I cannot allow to be threatened by drawing unnecessary suspicion to my person. Equally, the full wrath of the Nyctari family could pose a serious threat to you and your Reapers. The wisest course of action would be to go our separate ways, and reconvene some nights from now.”

“Fine.” Maddie managed, her fists clenched.

“I’ll be in contact.” Cicero promised, slipping away into the shadows.

“Later, fuckboy.”

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Hello lovelies, just dropping by to apologize. I had a personal emergency that came up over the weekend and spanned into this week. I'll be back into the swing of things by tomorrow, seeing as I took some personal time away from work - thank goodness for paid vacation!
Much love. ♥

@Rockette

No need to apologies, Real Life takes priority. Hope everything's alright.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Still recruiting, to those who are interested. The game is properly underway now.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

They are breaking the "Ma" vamp convention. Heathens! - ALL OF THEM!



I'm posting it because XSilentWingX is preoccupied by bears during this weekend and unable to do so. Credit for the post goes to xSilentWingX who definitely deserves it. :>.

P.S.: I promised there would be confetti.

@potatochipgolem

Oooo but are we certain our new comer is a vampire..? *shifty music*

Its cool, we didn't want America anywyas.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Collab post between Kingfisher and OneFatBadger

It didn’t take long after the lights went out for the city to fall into chaos. What little illusion of a structured society that had existed beforehand was snuffed out with the electricity, and armies of the once powerless were storming the streets. The previously ever-present divide between wealthy and poor quickly became a distant memory, as houses were pillaged, shops were looted, and blood ran through the gutters like rain water.

Maddie had been strolling leisurely down the street when she’d caught sight of the small gaggle of girls in their fishnets and black miniskirts, with their roughed up hair and racoon eyes. She’d tailed them back through the darkness, and now what was left of their group were hogtied on the cold kitchen floor.

“P-please, we don’t have any money.” Sobbed the blonde one, eyeliner running down her tanned cheek, her ginger friend tightly clutching her arm.

“Not so cocksure anymore, are we, buttercup?” Maddie sneered with a sharp laugh “and trust me; you’ve got the only currency I need.”

She pressed her hand firmly against the blonde’s neck, causing her to yelp slightly, before tilting her head sideways, and then sinking her long needle-like fangs into the young woman’s sweet bronze flesh. Someone screamed, but the world had drifted away and become an ethereal shard at the back of Madeline’s subconscious. Blood, sweet and red and hot, poured into her mouth, swelling inside her, filling an insatiable hunger. She was a little girl in the cramped flat in Liverpool, pulling the legs off of spiders, then she was walking across the moors, strolling side by side with Doctor Blackwood, and then she was breaking free from her bonds and darting through the night with Archibald, the hunt seeping into every cell in her body, stirring the beast from its slumber.

A sharp jolt tore her away from her gorgeous nightmare, and then she was tumbling across the kitchen floor, dazed and confused. Her eyes cleared and blood was dripping out of her open mouth, her face contorted in an inhuman snarl.

A dark figure now stood between her and her prey, his lithe form clad in a huge brown trench coat, a dark silk hood obscuring his features.

“Please don’t let her hurt us-“one of the girl’s was squealing, then the figure politely gestured for silence. It was a calm, soft gesture, which would have been unassuming in a lesser-man, but held power in his nimble fingers.

Maddie hissed, and their eyes met. Her marron glare was the swing of the machete’s blade, the roar of the oncoming hurricane, the sweet scent of fresh blood billowing on the wind, and the purring of the vengeful night-horror’s that lurk beneath the beds of children and adults alike. His murky green stare was the thundering of hooves on pagan soil, the clash of dancing steel in sweltering sunlight, and the mourning of a love so ancient it predated Santa Somabra itself. There was an icy sadness in those fog-like eyes, but then there was grim determination, a zealous code of honour, and a brazen chivalry that Madeline Hollinghurst had long since thought dead in this world.

“Leave them be,” he bid her in a voice that was soft yet firm “there’s enough darkness in this city, what with all these lights off.”

Maddie gently guided one claw-like fingernail over her wrist, an autistic tick drifting in from a life she had given up decades ago. “Not scared of the dark are we?” she cooed “Although I suppose in this city, you’d be stupid not be.”

The figure looked her over, and there was a glimmer of sympathy in those murky green eyes “Of all the things to fear, darkness holds the most merit.”

A sharp grin spread across Maddie’s face, stretching to the edges of her likeness “That’s subjective. There’s no certainty that darkness will drink your soul, whereas I’ve made an art form of mutilation.”

One of the girl’s whimpered quietly, and Maddie suddenly became aware that she still had blood dripping off of her sharp pale fangs.

The figure softly clasped his hands together, his long trench coat rustling slightly. “I’d welcome it if death could bare my weight.” When he spoke he had the voice of a soldier.

The beast’s long dark wings fluttered from within Maddie’s stomach, and she felt the hunger growling inside her. “You’d be surprised how much a reaper’s scythe can hold,” she said with a little wayward giggle “Why don’t you hop on and find out?”

“I’d commend you achievement, but with my departure to infierno so too would depart your only chance at finding Señor Treviño.” The figure stated plainly.

Diego Treviño

A tide of thoughts flooded through Madeline’s brain, surging through her synapses. Ally.Friend?.Traitor.Cunt.Prey.

“For your sake, you’d best not be lying to me,” she said darkly “You’ll not have the opportunity to make the same mistake twice.”

Her mind was humming loudly in her ears, and the shadows of her subconscious began to tick away like the flick of a knife.

“Lying is free and fluid. Like Señor Treviño’s location if you prove to be untrustworthy.” He replied boldly.

“How about I peel back your mind and see what tasty little secrets are scuttling around in there?” her voice cracked like a barbed whip, lashing out across the kitchen.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” He didn’t blink or shift his weight about, and simply stood between Maddie and her prey, his face an emotionless, statue-like mask.

“This had better be worth it,” Maddie hissed “I was so looking forwards to draining these one's dry."

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@onefatbadger Approved. Love the creative CS!

@Kingfisher I hoped I portrayed Ruzghul well enough. I figured him to be 60% smarts, 40% brutish force.

Also, @Mystic sorry I went ahead of ya, Kingfisher advancing the plot kinda gave me a head start on a new post.

@DJAtomika

You did well with Razghul, very faithful portrayal, but as you rightfully pointed out Andy wouldn't be going back to the Martovanni estate any time soon

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

@Kingfisher Aw, where's the part where Ruzghul walks in on Andy and Anthea's little pow wow? XD

If you don't mind, could I take control of Ruzghul for my next post? It'll help with the story arc I'm building.

@DJAtomika

Yeah, that should be fine. Just try and keep inline with how he's been presented, and remember that he's arguably the most powerful man in Santa Somabra, so sassing him probably wouldn't end well.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Is this open to new applicants, by any chance?

@lorelei

Aye, we're open to new applicants.

Welcome to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Next plot post is up. Bit of a spanner in the works for y'all.