Kain, having finally been released from the stocks, went to meet up with
Turel, Raziel and Melchiah who were sensibly standing to one side ignoring
everything going on around them. Raziel was trying desperately to avert his
gaze away from the man with the giant legs and the clown make-up on.
"Come on, I'll make you a balloon animal," said the man with giant legs as though he were talking to a small child. "I'll make anything you want!"
Raziel's head turned round now.
"I want a vampire!" he demanded. Sweat could be seen coming from the man with the giant legs' head. It was removing some of his makeup.
"Er. or perhaps, a dog?" he said anxiously. Raziel was facing the man now, and the man, despite his rather high vantage point, was beginning to wonder if this guy was wearing a costume after all.
"I SAID a vampire," said Raziel emphatically. The long-legged man had taken out a handkerchief now and was trying to wipe away the sweat, but was only succeeding in smudging his makeup.
"But everyone loves dogs!" he said. He was growing ever aware of the claws this guy had.
"Are you deaf? He wants a vampire," said Turel. Mr Legs now saw there were three of them, and realised there was a great danger of there becoming none of him very quickly indeed.
"Or perhaps I could manage a cat."
"VAMPIRE!" shouted the vamp trio. Mr Legs took a step back, took out a balloon, inflated it then made a dog out of it. He handed it nervously to Raziel.
"There you go son, a nice vampire for you," said Mr Legs. Raziel looked at it. It looked as though he were looking into a crystal ball or something.
"It's a dog," he whispered. Mr Legs put his hands up defensively.
"Yeeeah. but it's not just ANY old dog. No, it's Rover - The Vampire Dog!" he explained.
"It looks just like a regular dog to me," said Melchiah with a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Well that's how Rover looks, isn't it? Up until he sinks his fangs - his VAMPIRE fangs - into your throat and drinks your blood," Legs justified. To reinforce the idea, he carefully - very carefully - took the dog from Raziel then began to wave it in front of his face and going "WHOOOOOHHHH".
"That's the sound ghosts make, not vampires," said an unconvinced Turel. Legs gave the balloon animal back to Raziel, who was clearly disappointed with it.
"Who is this Rover anyway? I've never heard of him. In fact I've never heard of a vampire dog at all," said an equally unconvinced Melchiah.
"Look at the time," stuttered Legs, even though there was no real way to look at time in Nosgoth unless you were Moebius. "I really must be getting on."
Legs quickly hurried away, using his long legs to his advantage. He turned to see if he had been followed and was relieved to see that he had not. The vampires were still staring at the balloon animal trying to establish whether or not these 'vampire dogs' existed. Legs went down the side of one of the tents where no-one could see him as he tried to get his breath back. Sadly, by freak coincidence, what had to be Nosgoth's only vampire dog, Rover, was also down here waiting for anyone who might come his way. Rover did not go "WHOOOOOHHHH" but it did tear Legs' throat out before he could manage a scream. Then it drained his blood, and afterwards it almost choked on an un-inflated balloon.
The vampires sadly missed the evidence of Rover's existence and the balloon animal was tossed away. It was at this point that Kain (who had taken a little time out to appropriately deal with Rahab and Dumah) found them.
"Hey pops," said Turel.
"Turel?" asked Kain.
"Yes pops?"
"If you ever call me 'pops' again I swear there will be trouble," said Kain.
"Where are Rahab and Dumah, Kain?" asked Raziel who by now had forgotten all about balloon animals. Kain chuckled evilly.
"Well I left Dumah in the stocks and I believe Rahab is hanging upside down from a tree like a bruised piece of fruit," he explained.
"What about Zephon?" asked Turel who unlike Raziel seemed to remember that Zephon actually existed.
"I thought that he was with you?" said Kain in response. Turel merely shook his head.
"Perhaps we should go and look for him," suggested Raziel.
"He can take care of himself," said Kain. "Besides which I do not intend to stay at this awful party for one second longer than I have to. I've been here much too long as it is. We have to find Moebius. Do any of you know where he will be?"
"I think he's been spending most of his time in a large tent up near the back of the field," said Turel. Kain was almost shocked - Turel might actually have been of some use for once.
"Then let us find this tent. Moebius and I have much to discuss," said Kain with a predatory smile on his face.
"Discuss? I thought you were going to kill him?" asked a puzzled Raziel.
"When I said discuss I didn't ACTUALLY mean discuss," said Kain impatiently.
"There's a discus throw around here somewhere I'm sure of it." pondered Turel. Yup, back to his usual moronic self, thought Kain.
"Look, we find Moebius. I may say a few things to him. Then I will kill him and proclaim this day 'Moebius is Dead' day," explained Kain. It was not the most brilliant plan in the universe. But it was a plan all the same.
"Won't that confuse people? I mean, having 'Kain is Dead' day and 'Moebius is Dead' day on the same day?" enquired Turel.
"Kain isn't dead you fool," hissed Melchiah. "At least not the dead kind of dead, if you know what I mean."
"The same will not be said for any of you if you do not SHUT UP and take me to this tent immediately," snapped Kain. So they did shut up, and Turel lead the way to where (he hoped) the tent would be.
The second person arrived at the Dating Agency soon after Malek. This person was perhaps not an ideal pairing for Malek, because this was a guy and this guy was Mortanius. The necromancer had heard of the dating agency by chance. Word was already spreading of it's opening, and of course Mortanius had ears everywhere. Not literally of course - that would be bizarre.
There were no windows in the building. Mortanius had hoped to get a look inside before he entered. Despite all the places he had been in his life he found the discomfort surrounding this one bet them all.
No one in Nosgoth knew of his secret crush on Ariel. If they did, he would be laughed at, and the great Mortanius didn't hold with being laughed at. He wandered over to the door - his thoughts filled with the horrifying sight of Ariel naked - and saw a sign that said 'Necromancers welcome.' How thoughtful of them, thought Mortanius. Necromancers were rarely welcome anywhere. Necromancers who were Mortanius were NEVER welcome anywhere.
Without hesitation now he opened the door and walked in. There was no one in the almost empty, dusty room and Mortanius thought at first that he had made a mistake and this wasn't a dating agency at all. Before he could notice the bell, he called out.
"Hello!?"
He thought he heard something coming from a room in the back, then a woman shouted:
"Just one minute please! Don't go anywhere!"
Mortanius had no real intention of leaving now. Somehow he had gotten it into his head that Ariel was a member of this place, and he could get a date with her without actually having to ask her on a date.
Before long Mortanius had become the second member.
"When should I come back?" he asked Myria.
"Don't worry about that - I'll have word sent to you when we find you a match," she explained.
"I don't have a permanent address," said Mortanius.
"Like I said, don't worry about it," she said softly. Mortanius didn't worry about it anymore.
While vampires may be welcome in Nosgoth's dating agency, they were much less welcome in Moebius' tent. Fortunately, Kain didn't really care if they were welcome or not. He strode on in, his sons (minus Rahab, Dumah and the missing Zephon) behind him in case of trouble. Moebius had his back to them and Kain stood with his eyes locked on his prey. There did not appear to be anybody else in here with them. Kain waited patiently like a hunter stalking a deer. He waited right up until Moebius began to take his clothes off. At this point Kain sprang into action and cleared his throat very loudly indeed.
"Well Moebius, for all your apparent knowledge of the future, it seems that you have once again failed to take me into account," said Kain. Moebius quickly put his robes back on and turned around as casually as possible.
"Ah, Kain, we meet again," he said.
"Yes, and here was me thinking I was dead and all." hissed Kain.
"But you are dead, wretched vampire. The only problem is, your still up and walking around. A problem that will be remedied soon enough," said Moebius in his most incredibly irritating voice.
"Allow me to fix it for you," offered Kain. He sat down on the ground with his legs crossed.
"I see that your jokes are as dead as you are Kain," said Moebius after groaning. Kain stood up again and walked forward aggressively.
"But perhaps not as dead as you are going to be," said Kain. Moebius began retreating rather quickly to the back of the tent.
"What are you so upset about Kain? You just disappeared. I thought you were gone! What harm was I doing to pass your demise off as my own doing?" crowed Moebius, putting his arms up in a desperate attempt to ward Kain off.
Then Kain heard a commotion behind him, and turned to see his sons fighting with a bunch of warriors. The vampires were of course winning, but Kain had been distracted non-the-less. When he turned back, he found that Moebius had almost escaped out the side of the tent after tearing a hole through it. Before he went through it, Moebius spun round dramatically to face Kain, and began holding his arms up to the sky (or at least the roof of the tent.)
"You almost had me Kain. But this is not where, or how, it ends. Fate promises more twists before this farce undresses itself.completely," he said.
"That sounds familiar." thought Kain aloud. Moebius laughed and turned to make his escape, but at this point Raziel hit one of the poles that were supporting the tent and it collapsed around everyone, Moebius included. The tent cover now lay on the ground with several human, several vampire and one Moebius shape underneath it. Suddenly the Moebius shape jumped up a little and began waving his arms around.
"HELP!" cried the rather muffled voice of Moebius. The vampires managed to cut their way through the cover while the other humans crawled their way out. Moebius however was still struggling underneath the tent.
"Need a hand Moebius?" asked Raziel.
"Yes please," begged Moebius.
"I was just trying to be funny - I didn't actually want to know," replied Raziel.
"Good thinking hitting the main pole like that Raziel," praised Melchiah.
"Er. yes," said Raziel, who had actually been thrown into it and hadn't meant for the tent to collapse at all. Kain walked over to the shape of Moebius, cut another hole through the now very-holey tent and pulled Moebius out. Except it wasn't Moebius after all. It was a man dressed like Moebius and wearing a Moebius mask. The time streamer had made good his escape.
The third person to visit the dating agency (let's not forget, Nosgoth's FIRST dating agency) was, perhaps surprisingly, Vorador. Of course however, Vorador was not actually looking for a date. He was instead seeking his old enemy Malek, who he had heard was in town looking for him along with revenge. Vorador's mentality here was basically 'Do unto other's before they do unto you', and frankly his plan was to find Malek and send him back to hell before Malek had the chance to do it to him. Like Kain's plan earlier it was perhaps not the greatest planning in the history of planning, but it would suffice non-the-less.
The plan had brought him here, to just outside the dating agency, where Vorador's spies had reported a sighting of him. Vorador almost chuckled at the foolishness of the warrior. Did he really believe it would be easy to hunt down the great Vorador? Malek would be dead long before he realised just how difficult it was. It wouldn't help one bit if you got up early in the morning. It wouldn't even help if you stayed up all damn night.
It had occurred to Vorador how strange it was that Malek would visit such a place. Another thing puzzled him perhaps even more than this, but of course it was not his immediate concern. Vorador was relatively familiar with the layout of Meridian, and he had not been aware of this place before. But he reasoned with himself, his spies wouldn't report such a trivial thing as the opening of a dating agency, and Vorador himself wouldn't be aware of it's existence because it must be new. He cared little for it anyway. His only purpose for being here was to find a way to get to Malek. As the vampire headed over, he failed to notice to sign on the door which read 'vampires welcome' and barged on in.
"Come on, I'll make you a balloon animal," said the man with giant legs as though he were talking to a small child. "I'll make anything you want!"
Raziel's head turned round now.
"I want a vampire!" he demanded. Sweat could be seen coming from the man with the giant legs' head. It was removing some of his makeup.
"Er. or perhaps, a dog?" he said anxiously. Raziel was facing the man now, and the man, despite his rather high vantage point, was beginning to wonder if this guy was wearing a costume after all.
"I SAID a vampire," said Raziel emphatically. The long-legged man had taken out a handkerchief now and was trying to wipe away the sweat, but was only succeeding in smudging his makeup.
"But everyone loves dogs!" he said. He was growing ever aware of the claws this guy had.
"Are you deaf? He wants a vampire," said Turel. Mr Legs now saw there were three of them, and realised there was a great danger of there becoming none of him very quickly indeed.
"Or perhaps I could manage a cat."
"VAMPIRE!" shouted the vamp trio. Mr Legs took a step back, took out a balloon, inflated it then made a dog out of it. He handed it nervously to Raziel.
"There you go son, a nice vampire for you," said Mr Legs. Raziel looked at it. It looked as though he were looking into a crystal ball or something.
"It's a dog," he whispered. Mr Legs put his hands up defensively.
"Yeeeah. but it's not just ANY old dog. No, it's Rover - The Vampire Dog!" he explained.
"It looks just like a regular dog to me," said Melchiah with a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Well that's how Rover looks, isn't it? Up until he sinks his fangs - his VAMPIRE fangs - into your throat and drinks your blood," Legs justified. To reinforce the idea, he carefully - very carefully - took the dog from Raziel then began to wave it in front of his face and going "WHOOOOOHHHH".
"That's the sound ghosts make, not vampires," said an unconvinced Turel. Legs gave the balloon animal back to Raziel, who was clearly disappointed with it.
"Who is this Rover anyway? I've never heard of him. In fact I've never heard of a vampire dog at all," said an equally unconvinced Melchiah.
"Look at the time," stuttered Legs, even though there was no real way to look at time in Nosgoth unless you were Moebius. "I really must be getting on."
Legs quickly hurried away, using his long legs to his advantage. He turned to see if he had been followed and was relieved to see that he had not. The vampires were still staring at the balloon animal trying to establish whether or not these 'vampire dogs' existed. Legs went down the side of one of the tents where no-one could see him as he tried to get his breath back. Sadly, by freak coincidence, what had to be Nosgoth's only vampire dog, Rover, was also down here waiting for anyone who might come his way. Rover did not go "WHOOOOOHHHH" but it did tear Legs' throat out before he could manage a scream. Then it drained his blood, and afterwards it almost choked on an un-inflated balloon.
The vampires sadly missed the evidence of Rover's existence and the balloon animal was tossed away. It was at this point that Kain (who had taken a little time out to appropriately deal with Rahab and Dumah) found them.
"Hey pops," said Turel.
"Turel?" asked Kain.
"Yes pops?"
"If you ever call me 'pops' again I swear there will be trouble," said Kain.
"Where are Rahab and Dumah, Kain?" asked Raziel who by now had forgotten all about balloon animals. Kain chuckled evilly.
"Well I left Dumah in the stocks and I believe Rahab is hanging upside down from a tree like a bruised piece of fruit," he explained.
"What about Zephon?" asked Turel who unlike Raziel seemed to remember that Zephon actually existed.
"I thought that he was with you?" said Kain in response. Turel merely shook his head.
"Perhaps we should go and look for him," suggested Raziel.
"He can take care of himself," said Kain. "Besides which I do not intend to stay at this awful party for one second longer than I have to. I've been here much too long as it is. We have to find Moebius. Do any of you know where he will be?"
"I think he's been spending most of his time in a large tent up near the back of the field," said Turel. Kain was almost shocked - Turel might actually have been of some use for once.
"Then let us find this tent. Moebius and I have much to discuss," said Kain with a predatory smile on his face.
"Discuss? I thought you were going to kill him?" asked a puzzled Raziel.
"When I said discuss I didn't ACTUALLY mean discuss," said Kain impatiently.
"There's a discus throw around here somewhere I'm sure of it." pondered Turel. Yup, back to his usual moronic self, thought Kain.
"Look, we find Moebius. I may say a few things to him. Then I will kill him and proclaim this day 'Moebius is Dead' day," explained Kain. It was not the most brilliant plan in the universe. But it was a plan all the same.
"Won't that confuse people? I mean, having 'Kain is Dead' day and 'Moebius is Dead' day on the same day?" enquired Turel.
"Kain isn't dead you fool," hissed Melchiah. "At least not the dead kind of dead, if you know what I mean."
"The same will not be said for any of you if you do not SHUT UP and take me to this tent immediately," snapped Kain. So they did shut up, and Turel lead the way to where (he hoped) the tent would be.
The second person arrived at the Dating Agency soon after Malek. This person was perhaps not an ideal pairing for Malek, because this was a guy and this guy was Mortanius. The necromancer had heard of the dating agency by chance. Word was already spreading of it's opening, and of course Mortanius had ears everywhere. Not literally of course - that would be bizarre.
There were no windows in the building. Mortanius had hoped to get a look inside before he entered. Despite all the places he had been in his life he found the discomfort surrounding this one bet them all.
No one in Nosgoth knew of his secret crush on Ariel. If they did, he would be laughed at, and the great Mortanius didn't hold with being laughed at. He wandered over to the door - his thoughts filled with the horrifying sight of Ariel naked - and saw a sign that said 'Necromancers welcome.' How thoughtful of them, thought Mortanius. Necromancers were rarely welcome anywhere. Necromancers who were Mortanius were NEVER welcome anywhere.
Without hesitation now he opened the door and walked in. There was no one in the almost empty, dusty room and Mortanius thought at first that he had made a mistake and this wasn't a dating agency at all. Before he could notice the bell, he called out.
"Hello!?"
He thought he heard something coming from a room in the back, then a woman shouted:
"Just one minute please! Don't go anywhere!"
Mortanius had no real intention of leaving now. Somehow he had gotten it into his head that Ariel was a member of this place, and he could get a date with her without actually having to ask her on a date.
Before long Mortanius had become the second member.
"When should I come back?" he asked Myria.
"Don't worry about that - I'll have word sent to you when we find you a match," she explained.
"I don't have a permanent address," said Mortanius.
"Like I said, don't worry about it," she said softly. Mortanius didn't worry about it anymore.
While vampires may be welcome in Nosgoth's dating agency, they were much less welcome in Moebius' tent. Fortunately, Kain didn't really care if they were welcome or not. He strode on in, his sons (minus Rahab, Dumah and the missing Zephon) behind him in case of trouble. Moebius had his back to them and Kain stood with his eyes locked on his prey. There did not appear to be anybody else in here with them. Kain waited patiently like a hunter stalking a deer. He waited right up until Moebius began to take his clothes off. At this point Kain sprang into action and cleared his throat very loudly indeed.
"Well Moebius, for all your apparent knowledge of the future, it seems that you have once again failed to take me into account," said Kain. Moebius quickly put his robes back on and turned around as casually as possible.
"Ah, Kain, we meet again," he said.
"Yes, and here was me thinking I was dead and all." hissed Kain.
"But you are dead, wretched vampire. The only problem is, your still up and walking around. A problem that will be remedied soon enough," said Moebius in his most incredibly irritating voice.
"Allow me to fix it for you," offered Kain. He sat down on the ground with his legs crossed.
"I see that your jokes are as dead as you are Kain," said Moebius after groaning. Kain stood up again and walked forward aggressively.
"But perhaps not as dead as you are going to be," said Kain. Moebius began retreating rather quickly to the back of the tent.
"What are you so upset about Kain? You just disappeared. I thought you were gone! What harm was I doing to pass your demise off as my own doing?" crowed Moebius, putting his arms up in a desperate attempt to ward Kain off.
Then Kain heard a commotion behind him, and turned to see his sons fighting with a bunch of warriors. The vampires were of course winning, but Kain had been distracted non-the-less. When he turned back, he found that Moebius had almost escaped out the side of the tent after tearing a hole through it. Before he went through it, Moebius spun round dramatically to face Kain, and began holding his arms up to the sky (or at least the roof of the tent.)
"You almost had me Kain. But this is not where, or how, it ends. Fate promises more twists before this farce undresses itself.completely," he said.
"That sounds familiar." thought Kain aloud. Moebius laughed and turned to make his escape, but at this point Raziel hit one of the poles that were supporting the tent and it collapsed around everyone, Moebius included. The tent cover now lay on the ground with several human, several vampire and one Moebius shape underneath it. Suddenly the Moebius shape jumped up a little and began waving his arms around.
"HELP!" cried the rather muffled voice of Moebius. The vampires managed to cut their way through the cover while the other humans crawled their way out. Moebius however was still struggling underneath the tent.
"Need a hand Moebius?" asked Raziel.
"Yes please," begged Moebius.
"I was just trying to be funny - I didn't actually want to know," replied Raziel.
"Good thinking hitting the main pole like that Raziel," praised Melchiah.
"Er. yes," said Raziel, who had actually been thrown into it and hadn't meant for the tent to collapse at all. Kain walked over to the shape of Moebius, cut another hole through the now very-holey tent and pulled Moebius out. Except it wasn't Moebius after all. It was a man dressed like Moebius and wearing a Moebius mask. The time streamer had made good his escape.
The third person to visit the dating agency (let's not forget, Nosgoth's FIRST dating agency) was, perhaps surprisingly, Vorador. Of course however, Vorador was not actually looking for a date. He was instead seeking his old enemy Malek, who he had heard was in town looking for him along with revenge. Vorador's mentality here was basically 'Do unto other's before they do unto you', and frankly his plan was to find Malek and send him back to hell before Malek had the chance to do it to him. Like Kain's plan earlier it was perhaps not the greatest planning in the history of planning, but it would suffice non-the-less.
The plan had brought him here, to just outside the dating agency, where Vorador's spies had reported a sighting of him. Vorador almost chuckled at the foolishness of the warrior. Did he really believe it would be easy to hunt down the great Vorador? Malek would be dead long before he realised just how difficult it was. It wouldn't help one bit if you got up early in the morning. It wouldn't even help if you stayed up all damn night.
It had occurred to Vorador how strange it was that Malek would visit such a place. Another thing puzzled him perhaps even more than this, but of course it was not his immediate concern. Vorador was relatively familiar with the layout of Meridian, and he had not been aware of this place before. But he reasoned with himself, his spies wouldn't report such a trivial thing as the opening of a dating agency, and Vorador himself wouldn't be aware of it's existence because it must be new. He cared little for it anyway. His only purpose for being here was to find a way to get to Malek. As the vampire headed over, he failed to notice to sign on the door which read 'vampires welcome' and barged on in.