Sunday, 2 November 1800. 8:45 p.m.
Carid and Amy's room
White. Whiteness surrounding her. Crushing her. The wind, howling like a banshee chorus, deafening her and ripping her mind to shreds.
And the hunger. Surging up from within, filling her being and driving her mad. She had to run! She had to hide, she had to FEED! Yet she couldn't move. The white and the wind closed around her. Captured her. So dark....so cold....
Carid awoke with a start, almost falling headfirst off her bed. She caught herself and collapsed back onto the sheets and pillow. for a few moments, she just lay there, waiting for the intensity of the dream to fade from her mind.
So she had managed to fall asleep after all. She never thought she would. She spent she knew not how many hours that day just lying in the darkness, senses completely on guard. Ready for the Tremere to send some sort of evil magic spell at her at any moment. Not that she was totally sure how to ward off a magical attack, now that she thought about it. But somehow, remaining paranoid seemed much safer than trying to sleep. She had the feeling the Tremere hadn't gotten much sleep either. For the same reason.
Well, wasn't that ironic? Both of them so paranoid about being attacked by the other that neither actually did anything.
But she had fallen asleep. Even without her dirt. It was still downstairs in her bag. By the time she had realized she had left it, she had already figured it would be a bad idea to go into deep sleep-or any sleep at all- that particular night with that particular roommate.
And yet she had fallen asleep. Unbelievable. She could never sleep without her dirt. And on the rare occasions that she did -like now- the dreams came. Sometimes they came even when she had her dirt. But never as bad as when she went without. And certainly never as bad as today. It was probably the combination of tension, anger, paranoia, and no dirt that had done it. Well, that would teach her, wouldn't it?
She didn't feel like thinking about the no-dirt dreams anymore. She never did. Besides, dreaming of unbearable hunger made her want to feed as soon as possible. She didn't think there were many hunting opportunities this far up the mountain, but there was supposed to be a variety of blood supplied in the downstairs kitchen.
Well, wasn't that boring.
Oh well. Blood was blood. She swung her legs off the bed and flipped on the electric lamp next to her bed. The light wasn't very bright, but it was enough to let her see her way to the door.
Still a bit shaken by the dream, she failed to look up and check the Tremere's whereabouts until she was halfway to the door. And dangerously close to the warlock's bed.
She spun on her heel, expecting to see some cosmic stake pointed at her. Instead, she saw Amy lying on her back, apparently fast asleep. So exhaustion had taken her too.
Or had it? It seemed quite unlikely that a Tremere would allow herself to go to sleep without any viable defenses put up. A little voice in the back of her mind reminded her that the same could have been said for a Tzimisce, but she opted to ignore that for the moment.
Carid took a long look at Amy's prostrate form. She certainly couldn't see anything. But then she wasn't much of a sorceress. Her interests were more in the physical plane.....blood, flesh, femurs....so she essentially had no way of knowing what the Tremere might have done to protect herself.
She bent down and picked a small rock off the carpet. It had probably fallen of one of their shoes yesterday; it was just a tiny pebble.
She held it in her hand for a moment, then gently tossed it in the direction of the sleeping Tremere.
It bounced. As the rock came within about a foot of Amy's head, it was caught by a indent of blue sparks and flung backwards without a sound. The Tremere didn't stir.
'Wow', Carid thought. 'That was pretty impressive.' She looked for the rock to try out the shield again. When she couldn't find it after a few moments of searching, she decided experiments with Tremere magic could wait until after breakfast. She left the room and went downstairs.
On the way down she grabbed her sack from its place slightly off the third step and extracted the small bag of Austrian dirt she carried everywhere with her. Even though she wasn't planning to go anywhere for a while, she attached the bag to her belt anyway. It was a kind of security blanket.
As she made her way towards the kitchen, Carid wondered when they would be getting their assignments. Not that she was overly eager to start traipsing halfway around the globe with a member of the most vile clan of the Camarilla bastards.....
But she had no idea what she was expected to do HERE. Tonight, she knew they were getting their things. That would be good. The rooms were so sparse now. Redecorating would surely take tonight and maybe even tomorrow night. But what after that? They were supposed to get ghouls in about a week. The Ventrue had implied they would all be there at least until then.
Wonderful. What was she supposed to do after that? Avoid the Tremere as much as possible? Wait for the Malkavian to prank her? There was no library here, despite the Ventrue's claim on 'ample literature'. Well, at least once her own things got here she'd be able to read something worthwhile. The best they had in there was the Organized History of Human Anatomy and It's Study. Not a bad book, but not enough pictures and diagrams.
She stumbled into the kitchen, still tired and unrested from sleeping with nightmares and no dirt. Oddly enough, the only other occupant of the room was Cathy, the Brujah. She had expected more of them at this time in the evening.
Cathy just sat at the table, staring blankly into space. Carid ignored her and went for the ice chest where the blood was supposed to be. She extracted a decanter, not looking at the type and not particularly caring, pulled out the cork, and began chugging the contents right there.
"Clocks." Cathy said aloud.
Carid took the decanter from her lips and wiped her mouth on her sleeve, inadvertently leaving a pink streak across the left side of her face. "What?"
"Clocks. There are clocks in the ice."
The Tzimisce turned and opened the ice chest. After careful inspection of the contents, she looked back up at Cathy.
"What do you mean there are clocks in the ice?"
"Why would there be clocks in the ice?" the Brujah muttered pensively.
"That's what I was about to ask you...." Carid's voice trailed off as she realized it was hopeless.
"Stupid Brujah...."she muttered. going to finish her blood someplace else. The bewildered Brujah remained at the table, wondering why anyone would put a clock in the ice.
Carid wandered through the front hall, still wondering where everyone was. The muffled sound of shouting coming from the general direction of the large oak door gave her some clue.
"AUGH!" Courtney cried. "Be careful with that! That's a very expensive piece of woodwork, you bumbling Brujah fool!!!!"
"Courtney, they can't hear you." Carleigh chided her from the other side of the porch. "They're all under Dominate. They can't hear anything."
"They're ruining my table!"
"Your table is fine--wait a minute. You're not going to try and put that in our room, are you?" Carleigh gaped.
"Of course I am! You think I'd leave that in one of the common rooms? That's Spanish oak!"
"Courtney! That thing is huge! There's no way you can keep it in there!"
"You just try and stop me, Ventrue." Courtney growled. What she wouldn't give for a few nice big war ghouls right now. That was the one thing the fleshcrafters were good for. Making war ghouls. Other than that, the fiends made her skin crawl.
But be that as it may, she would have traded this idiotic control-freak Ventrue for the Tzimisce any night. She was baffled that Carleigh hadn't changed the rooms. Hadn't the Ventrue claimed to be in charge? Privilege for the elite was something Courtney had always expected and even relied upon, especially during her mortal life. So what was wrong with Carleigh?
The ghouls deposited the Spanish oak table at the foot of the steps, then went back into the van for more of the things.
"Hey, wait a minute." Courtney frowned. "Are they just going to leave it there?"
"According to this," Carleigh looked down at her notebook, "they were only supposed to bring the things up here. We have to put them where we want them on our own."
"What?! Who made this up?!"
"The council." Carleigh said simply. Then reading from her notebook, "All personal possessions were sent to the council, and then the council sent them up here in the care of ghouls under dominate, so as not to reveal the location of this base to anyone other than personal ghouls who may have escorted their dominators here last night...."
"I don't want the full case history!" Courtney spat in annoyance. "I just want my stuff upstairs!"
The sound of snapping twigs distracted both their attentions toward the forest. Courtney's face lit up.
"Hey! Gangrel!"
Michaela glanced up, startled. There hadn't been any small animals around, so she was coming back for breakfast....damn. She knew she should have gone around the back.....
Courtney hurried to meet her as she came closer to the house. "Would you like to protect an important piece of woodworking?"
Michaela stared. "Um....not really."
Courtney sighed. "Well, would you like twenty five shillings?"
"No."
"Well what DO you want?!" the exasperated Lasombra threw her hands up in confusion.
"Nothing, really."
Courtney stared at the Gangrel as if she'd grown a second head.
"Do YOU need something?" Mika asked.
"I-I...." Courtney stammered. "I need that table moved upstairs."
"And you want me to move the table?"
"Yes." Courtney sighed tiredly.
"Then ask me to move the table."
"What?" the Lasombra gave her another odd look. "Okay....Will you please take that table up to my room?" she said, emphasizing the word 'please'.
"Okay." Mika said. She crossed the yard, picked up the table rather effortlessly, and carried it inside.
Courtney and Carleigh both watched her go, baffled expressions on both their faces.
"What was that?!" Courtney exclaimed after a few minutes.
"I'm.....not sure..." Carleigh murmured.
Courtney hurried after her table, wanting to make sure the Gangrel put it in the right place. As she passed by, Carleigh heard her muttering....
"I offer her the chance to get a favor from me, she doesn't want that. I offer her money, she doesn't want that. She must want something, everyone wants something....."
Carleigh shook her head.