A Trip in the Barrens

May 5th, 2019 11:57 PM

An odd partnership was what some would call it, the two always sniping at one another when found in open court together. However, sometimes there was solace that could be found when you were around those you bickered with the most. It was that very reason that the Lord reached out to the savage. Maybe with Garrett he could find a way to make the times in the Barrens.

Finding himself in a small motel that rented by the week it was a way to survive in this wretched existence of starvation. His room was hidden around the back of the building away from the main road. Thus far no other patrons of the isolated lodging had found their way this far back - likely for the best.

The few windows that there were had thick black tar paper over them, something he would rip down when he was done - though it was a pain to pay extra to keep house keeping away. He had safer places he could travel too when he wasn’t stuck here, and his true haven in these desperate nights was safer than this backwater stop.

It served a purpose though, and it was where he would meet Garrett. In this cozy little room, one bed in front of a TV, a small kitchenette with a table and chairs, and an old ratty wingback chair, all before a sharp turn that led into a bathroom. Out of date wallpaper and some of the piping stood out on the wall which gave the fleabag motel some flavor. It would do.

Sitting on the end of the bed, the Lord watched the spanish language news, the TV providing the only light in the room as the viewer hunched over. Wearing a t-shirt almost seemed out of character for the lord who was rarely seen in less than business casual. It still hid the marks though. Otherwise a crisp pair of black slacks with matching shoes finished off this new casual look.

His phone laid beside him, the last message a simple one - the directions to to the room sent directly to the savage.

Krakenbox Garrett Prosper

**Garrett Prosper** · May 6th, 2019 12:52 AM

Prosper pulls up quietly in the dark, GPS pinging the location that the banished Lord had provided. Garrett hadn't seen the Kindred since Court, and the response to his halfway-joke was a bit jarring. He's dressed like his current age bracket, smelling faintly of alcohol from the party and with a dazed student under the effect of the Kiss in the backseat.

He didn't take much at all, which wasn't like him, but this was a risky exchange and he wanted to mitigate Murphy's Law. Magnum concealed for the worst, he lightly raps on the door after sending a warning text. The wall doesn't do much to hide the Beast on the other side, causing him to shift with nervousness and he blinks back at his waiting retreat.

May 6th, 2019 01:20 AM

Was there even someone in the room was a hard question with the blackout on the windows, but after a few moments the door opened, with the chain still locked and the Lords rugged face visible with accentuated shadows produced by the limited light. It may as well have been a zombie at the door, as there was no pretense of life other than the subtle movement of the eyes. No chest rising and falling, no blinking, nothing. The first signs of life came as the lips curled into a predators smile.

”Mr. Prosper. I apologize for the lack of pomp but given my current circumstances I am sure you understand.”

The door was pushed forward to close so that Arturo could get the chain unhooked, and so he could open the door for the younger looking Kindred. The Lord kept one hand on door, the hunting knife he had flicked open ready to go to work, and hidden behind the door where he held it.

”Are you carrying?”

An odd question from the Lance, but it seemed his baser instincts were coming through, the practice from meetings like this back home were being brought to light. As he spoke, with the hand not holding the door he made a lifting motion towards the waist of his own shirt, a signal to have Prosper admit he had something or to show the Ventrue there was no weapon.

Could the Savage pop claws though? That was a question for less starved mind.

Once this was sorted out he would swing the door open, tossing the knife onto a nearby table if wasn’t needed any longer.

”I appreciate you making the drive.”

Stepping back into the room the Lord stopped by the kitchenettes table which the knife was on, pulling out a seat for the Savage which he leaned heavily on.

”I promise that next time I will find better conditions to host.

A smirk, and a soft chuckle. A corpse laughing was almost unsettling when the better part of the mask was dropped.

**Garrett Prosper** · May 6th, 2019 02:03 AM

As the monster peered out at him, Garrett lip twitched in its own half-formed snarl as his eyes pin from the threat. The Lord still maintained airs, rattling off an apology that almost sounded like a joke. The words seemed reflexive at this point.

"That is...fine. Oh- a weapon? Yes," he moved the light jacket and flashed the pistol, with a strange flicker of familiarity pulling at the back of his mind for these types of exchanges. As the knife clattered on the table without so much as a proper confirmation, Prosper blinked as his frown deepens. Whatever his own situation with Florin, this was just nasty. And dangerous.

He didn't expect Arturo to be two steps from a Frenzy, but there he was, still pulling out a seat with another polite apology like everything was anchored. It was a macabre scene. "I feel like asking how you are is kind of redundant," he says carefully, "So, change of plans," he jabs a thumb back outside, "I am going to call an animal for you first."

May 6th, 2019 02:20 AM

A sneer came from the Lord, as he looked down at the floor. With his head half hung the eyes drifted back up to lock on the Savage, as if staring a hole through the younger looking man. The beast wanted to carve him up, but that was energy it did not have, though it stirred for a moment at the thought of food, but hissed in disgust at the offering.

”Garrett...I appreciate the offer, believe me.”

The words were a little slower than he normally rattled them off. He seemed to take a few moments to find his next sentence, a processing time much slower than what Prosper would have noticed at either the Cigar Bar or the Church - or Court for that matter.

”If it were so easy as trap an animal I would. There comes a point though where it is simply not enough. I would be a mockery at this point and create more problems than it would solve.”

Moving away from the chair the Lord shuffled to the bed and turned to take a seat on the edge. His movements seemingly aged as the essence of life was a valuable resource in his body - and one which he was lacking.

”The Kine are all that will quench the thirst I feel. And out here? Opportunity is slim to none. It is truly a punishment, I commend the Prince for having such a wicked place to place the naysayers. Sad that I had to experience it first hand.”

May 6th, 2019 02:28 AM

A sneer came from the Lord, as he looked down at the floor. With his head half hung the eyes drifted back up to lock on the Savage, as if staring a hole through the younger looking man. The beast wanted to carve him up, but that was energy it did not have, though it stirred for a moment at the thought of food, but hissed in disgust at the offering.

”Garrett...I appreciate the offer, believe me.”

The words were a little slower than he normally rattled them off. He seemed to take a few moments to find his next sentence, a processing time much slower than what Prosper would have noticed at either the Cigar Bar or the Church - or Court for that matter.

”If it were so easy as trap an animal I would. There comes a point though where it is simply not enough. I would be a mockery at this point and create more problems than it would solve.”

Moving away from the chair the Lord shuffled to the bed and turned to take a seat on the edge. His movements seemingly aged as the essence of life was a valuable resource in his body - and one which he was lacking.

”The Kine are all that will quench the thirst I feel. And out here? Opportunity is slim to none. It is truly a punishment, I commend the Prince for having such a wicked place to place the naysayers. Sad that I had to experience it first hand.”

**Garrett Prosper** · May 6th, 2019 02:39 AM

Prosper hovers by the door, attention flicking from between Garcia and the car. "Well that is certainly inconvenient," he mutters. The Savage had a small hope that he wasn't that potent yet. The perks of staying on the lower end of the ladder was something Garrett actively measured with his Danse, without having much interest in pursuing Coils of the Blood.

"Remember that little outburst in Court?" he gestures to himself to clarify, not looking to further agitate the starving predator, "We were not bullshitting. All the Gangrel Dragons of Sacramento understand the Beast on a more personal level. So when I say this it is from a position of experience? I am not entirely confident I can hand over Kine without you ripping them apart. The statistics of that going sideways are going to create more...problems. Do you have a suggestion about mitigating that?"

Garrett does his best to shorten his sentences. Not out of a sense of stupidity but to match the pace Arturo was setting. It was a serious conundrum, and he really, really wished he didn't have a contact high at the moment. If the Lord had just taken that extra step to divulge. It wasn't exactly a secret after being invited to his little penance party. He was beginning to reconsider his consistent association with the Clan, with the Savages making more and more sense every passing week.

May 6th, 2019 02:56 AM

”You can always drop them off and close the door. You are not responsible for something you don’t see.”

It was a simple answer, one that may not be to the liking of the Savage.

”A larger calibre? That disappoints me, otherwise a couple pillows are enough to make a whole lot less of a fuss. Units are free standing, no one is close enough to raise an eyebrow. I don’t have so much pride as to feel the beating heart.”

The size of the gun would make a bigger boom, but a clean execution would make for an easy snack...No temptation at that point, and the fear of frenzying was largely mitigated by a fully belly.

Perhaps the bigger point to make was the casual discussion of murder to have this hunger issue resolved. Starvation made normally rationale men make rash decisions. That should say something about past choices.

”Or did you have something else in mind, Garrett?”

Since sitting the eyes were locked on the Savages, unmoving, unblinking, just as their host. The Lord was open to suggestions it seemed on the surface, maybe still understanding the extreme nature of violence.

**Garrett Prosper** · May 6th, 2019 04:53 PM

Prosper pinches the bridge of his nose as he thinks, teeth gritting as the Lord hones in on simply meeting a need. The prospect of preserving his humanity flies right over his head, buried in the Beast's instinct to Consume. However, Arturo did have the foresight to reach out rather than just gut the next prey that crossed his path. A flicker of self-preservation in that respect, as well as asking Garrett what he had in mind rather than attempting to physically remove the obstacle.

"No execution. Give me a minute to think, please."

The Savage looks around the room, keeping mind of the hungry corpse to twitch in his direction with lost patience.

All right, Dragon, just logic this out.

"You know, I cannot call you boring. I did not expect our sniping to escalate into a philosophical reflection on moral choices this evening," he snorts.

If he left, Arturo was just going to murder someone. Jeopardizing the Masquerade to keep the moral high ground was not on the table. He moves the factors around in his head, applying it to his knowledge of the Coil. Time, potency, physical markers, temperament... He would have whipped out one of his spreadsheets if he didn't feel the weight of the room. "Statistically? This does not go in your favour. I know you are not really interested in long term consequences right now, but if you callously murder someone, your hunting just gets harder in the future." The Kindred wouldn't care about what's 'wrong', so he appealed to survival and kept it simple.

"If luck is on your side, you will not lose control. I like to stack factors in my favour, however." Powers of the Blood aside, he wasn't interested in getting into a fire fight with a Ventrue that had at least thirty pounds of weight and muscle on him. Not for a Kine, anyway.

"I need that knife," he says, pointing it out before he makes the movement. He gauges the reaction in case more paranoia tips the room in another direction. "You are going to pay me a Boon, and I am going to give you blood to get you off the precipice. And we are not going to bring it up again because of that Boon. Otherwise, I am not throwing someone to you to die without some sort of mitigating factor. The numbers are not there; I do not care how confident you are in yourself."

May 7th, 2019 03:12 PM

Is that where this was going, it seemed the Dragon had a problem with the efficient means of execution. Shame, Arturo was not a stickler about cold food it was too bad Garrett had too good a set of table manners to allow that. So be it, he would play the game for the time being if it meant food. The Serpent screamed, steel the skin and rip past the welp - it was a weaker beast, a weaker body, and he would not be stopped in his hunt. Once the feeding was done, the sinew could tighten and pay retribution for any shots fired in opposition to the feeding.

”Quite the leap Garrett.”

The dead eyes locked on the young looking vampire. The Corpse unmoving, unbreathing.

”There is no going back from this no matter that outcome. We may not speak about it, but between you, myself, and God. We will know.”

Consequences may escape them, and the statistics that the Savage measured may be in the aid of the Lord, but again, hunger had a strange way of changing a man. The eyes moved to the knife, and then back to Garrett, making sure he had him locked.

”Take the knife, and the boon. I agree. Make the cut.”

He could practically taste it...He just needed to see it.

2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-05-07 15:10:41		Arturo Garcia rolls 6 to Have Garrett make the cut. (10 Again)		3, 3, 9, 10, 5, 1, 1		2 successes

A Trip in the Barrens

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