Topic: Terror at the Masquerade

Dracina Hemdagg

Date: 2013-09-08 00:24 EST
While the masqueraders were having their fun in the main room of the restaurant, death struck swiftly within the kitchen. What few screams made it past the lips of her prey were drowned out by the celebrations outside. One cook tried to make a beeline toward the door that joined the kitchen with the massive dining floor outside, but the dark shape was quick to catch him and drained his blood while those few that still lived cowered in the pantry.

In due time, she'd meet with those last stragglers too and feast on their blood just like she had feasted on their comrades. No one outside this kitchen was the wiser. No one knew that one of the patrons that had joined in the festivities was a depraved monster capable of such cold-hearted murder. She enjoyed each crimson drop that passed her fangs as she drank more than her fill.

The last fell limp from her gloved grasp and she turned to glance around at what she had wrought. Gorged on blood, the vampire smiled a malicious smile at the sight of one of the serving maids caught within the kitchen lying on her back in death, grasping futilely towards the alley's service entrance. Another cook, who had tried to fight her with a steel butcher's knife lay hunched over a counter, eyes staring blankly at a roaring fire in the stove.

She passed him by and claimed her full, white mask and replaced it on her face. No one would know what had fully transpired here or why it happened. No one save the Scathachians and their allies who knew that a mysterious vampire affiliated with the Temple of Bhaal, whose face they had never even fully seen, stalked them relentlessly with the rest of her cohorts.

The dark shape turned now for that service door and stepped silently out into that alley, leaving the kitchen staff behind her to their eternal rest. Only then did she keep the promise she had made to her dance partner and cackled madly with full-throated laughter before drifting from sight as her form disassembled into mist that swirled off in the direction of the late night wind.

The fools had indeed served to amuse her.

Issy

Date: 2013-09-17 18:07 EST
Isuelt was standing with her head bowed and the bridge of her nose pinched by two fingers. She listened to the reports and chatter from Sgt. Cullen and the coroner as if they were a million miles away. Yet every word seemed to pierce a shard of glass through her brain. Her Scathachian Sisters behind her, Jewell Ravenlock next to her, Isuelt was absolutely furious. Furious that this event was marred by such a ruthless tragedy. A vampire...on this night. She knew Bhaal was behind it. Even though the coroner and Cullen waved off the certainty with a We'll have to wait until we find some sort of conclusive evidence before jumping to that fact... She could feel it in her bones, deep within the pit of her stomach and she could barely stand it.

"This...cannot be." Her voice was quiet, yet it seemed to cut through the din of chatter. There was a stillness in the gruesome kitchen that bade her continue. "We cannot allow ourselves to be toyed with in this manner. Scathach herself should be ashamed of us and our patience. We wait for the enemy to come to us, even when they slaughter those that we are sworn to protect?" Still in her ballgown from the evening, she heaved her breaths as she rallied herself. "I know this is the god of murder. It stinks of his minions, his filth, his sickened comedy. And I will no longer stand for it."

Their Temple was going to begin rebuilding this week. The memorial bust of Eudora was completed and ready to be on display, and there was simply no way that this determined and stubborn woman was going to play sitting duck to an enemy that had scraped at her all her life.

"War is upon us yet again. As ever. The Temples of Scathach and Bhaal once more rear their heads and ready for battle. And we, my Sisters, my allies, we will be ready."