Second meeting at Capitol Park

[Adeline Martin]

“Have you ever been shot, Helen?” She asked seriously, looking at her. It wasn’t fun and was a potential masquerade breach. Any Kindred who used guns in the open was a fucking moron. That doesn’t stop that from being the Kine’s go to though. “Hmmm they do have to catch you first. I am the master at disappearing around a corner.” She said with a slightly predatory grin. Oh she was. Protean had more uses than most would guess. You could hide in the earth as well as evade the sun.


“Keep in mind, a concentration in a martial art is not the basics. The basics is what we both already know. We are honing!” She said with a huge grin, her eyes brimming with a bit of humor and force of personality. While she was playful, she was also encouraging in this instance.
She nodded confirming her words. “If the situation ever allows… I will show you some of my more specialized abilities.” She kinda doubted it would, but who could predict the future? The more interesting question would be, would she keep it to herself?


“Be careful in the midwest if you decide to go on ‘walkabout’ mate.” She said with a phony Aussie accent. She wasn’t bad at mimicry, either. “The midwest may seem sleepy in certain kine circles, but fierce battles for territory still rage today. Major cities tend to be a lot more stable, but the mid-sized ones are a battle royale”

[Helen Kingsley]

Helen taps a spot between her right sholder joint and the collarbone with her finger.

"Caught one in the shoulder up in the Hindukush, nerve damage was a bitch, but hey, the arm's still attached and works. Apart from that... ? Mostly Hollywood fleshwounds and grazes. Once things get close enough, lotsa people get so panicky or pumped up or are so badly trained, they can't aim for shit. The amount of dumb fucks they let have guns these days, I tell you... Some idiots shoot at everyone who so much as looks at their lawn wrong. Even if you're just trying to get that twitching guy in a pool of blood off that lawn. No, especially then. Still better than getting stabbed, though." She grins. "Guess being stabbed in the back over a percentage is nicer, but I don't really do boardrooms."

Not a problem she's envious of, but then, in her line of work, most of the time, you see the big ball of shit that comes rolling your way.

"Honing it is, then ! Sounds better either way." She laughs. "Alright, I'll keep my eyes open, then.

Tell me about it, I made some pretty good friends in those places, though. Just not the kind of folks you would bring home to mum and dad."

[Adeline Martin]

"Ahhh. I see." For Kine a gunshot wound was serious. For Kindred it was more a serious issue of the Masquerade. Especially if you were hit center mass. By all accounts, and despite what you see in the fucking movies, humans go into shock when hit anywhere in center mass near vital organs. Which means shrugging it off and walking away, or ripping the gun out of your attacker's hand while they shoot you, was a big fucking no no.

"For me guns represent the absence of feeling more of the impact of murder for most people. I mean. You just point, and squeeze the trigger. It's not looking someone in the eye as you rend their flesh, smelling the blood, feeling it drip over your hands fresh from wounds you just made. Feeling them struggle against you as you kill them." Two completely different beasts in Adeline's opinion. It was far more efficient to pull a trigger, but far far more visceral to murder with your hands or a knife, or claws for that matter.

The Ventrue did have a penchant for word smithing. That was for sure, but over the years Adeline had realized it was innate due to their disciplines. Both Dominate and Animalism made you commit to clear communication. To become a master of it. For some it really was an art form. So she nodded her head to Helen with a grin. "Thank you!" Taking the compliment for what it was.

"Yeah, you do meet some really interesting folks outside of the reach of the large city. Those who have chosen a certain area to stay in that's their own." Some of the most dangerous Kindred you could meet fall into these categories.

[Helen Kingsley]

"Nice to see people don't do less than murder these days. Tsk, tsk, tsk." She's not totally serious when admonishing Adeline. "You're in a fistfight, even if you got the upper hand ? That shit hurts. Best case you just skin your knuckles, but more likely you get some other souvenirs, too. Same if you go at each other with chair legs or shit like that. To really hurt the other guy, you need to mean it. You must want to hurt that hurt. And that's shit a lot of folks ain't comfortable with. Fucked up, but at least it's honest about it. Guns ? Pull that thingy with your finger enough and the other guy goes pop. Most of the time you don't even have to hose him off you afterwards. Doesn't need thinking about what you're doing. Way too easy. Puts a ot of folks into positions of power they got no business being in and makes it way too easy to dismiss any option that ain't complete destruction of the other guy. As you said, people lose sight of how much impact that shit is supposed to have, and it shows with kids these days, running around like it's been two days they found out that thing between their legs is good for things other than taking a piss."

Funny, its almost the same little diatribe she's thrown at Conner some time ago in Elysium.

"Well-deserved." is all she has to say about her compliment. "Oh yeah, sad little kings on sad little hills, most of them. But some solid folks as well, if you know which is which."

[Adeline Martin]

Adeline shrugged at the mock admonishment with a grin. "Hey look, its rough on the road okay? There isn't anyone like you and the big lady to keep everyone honest about where that line is." She paused and shook her head. "I haven't gone out of my way or anything, you know?! More to your point, they certainly meant it..." Every damn time she had been attacked, it was for her blood. Full stop. In her experience after a Kindred went diablerist, they usually didn't stop or lay low long enough to clear the stain of it from their soul before they were coming back for more. The only time that rule wasn't true, was her own sire.

"It's funny what happens when you give someone power over life and death and see what they do with that power. Most do exactly what you stated. I have found more often than not that we are partially chosen by the company for our discernment in that regard. A certain willpower..." It took a lot of fucking willpower to make it past the first half century of this life. Most didn't make it. They choose to meet the dawn instead of continueing on as they watch the world move on, and everything they knew and loved dead or dying around them.

"Losing sight of how precious life is I think is the true curse." No being thinks of itself as evil, after all. Even Adeline, as bloodthirsty as she is, acknowledged the importance of life. It helped that murder was very complicataed in kine society now. Not like the good ole days. As murders and rapists are beginning to find out when they are caught for their crimes sometimes as far into the future as 30 years.

She laughed at the last bit. "Those sad little kings on their hills are the scary ones. Enough power to hold that little hill against all comers, but not enough to take a real Kingdom for themselves."

[Helen Kingsley]

"Not saying you did, just you're escalating pretty quick, from nothing to murder, just like that. That's the point though, you don't bring the attitude, you're little more than some wannabe tough guy who folds like a knife just because you break his nose. These days, it's amateur night out here way more often than it used to be." She shrugs. "You get what you pay for, really. I mean, there's always a bigger fish out there and the more aggressive folks go through the valley of darkness, the sooner they find they're not the baddest motherfucker out there like they thought. Only it's too late by then. I ain't that impatient if I get any say in it." She leans back and folds her hands behind her head. "Yah, among other things. I mean some folks have uses for folks like that, but those mostly get the jobs nobody else wants." Read: they stay ghouls., if they even get that far, unless they really mess to impress... "True, happens quickly, though, if you're in the right circles. Some folks need some outside intervention to see they're down the wrong path."

[Adeline Martin]

She nodded. "I get that, and its a shame the city has gotten like that." She pondered. "Some of my family mentioned about how transient people from our company are here. Any particular reason you think?" She asked quietly. She had some ideas. Like restriction on haven and herds would be a sticking point for a lot of Kindred. Especially when its expected to help the Reeve in investigations. Asking Helen was a way to get one more Kindred's opinion on things. Getting to the truth with Kindred took time, and a lot of conversations. She was good at that.

Adeline grinned in agreement. "Here fucking here to that. Preach it!" To the point about not being in any hurry to meet the scariest shit out there anytime soon. There were horrors in the dark that were far far more unpleasant than Kindred. Just as cunning too, cause you don't hear about them until you are eye to eye with it. Her mind went back to her time in the Tomb. To the Trials. "Some things I have seen make me question a lot of things about the company."

"Many know a lot of occult information. Which is why at the end of the day, they are left to their own devices. They get so little company tho, that their manners are anything but refined." She could relate. Being amongst the Kine so much, and even her fellow Kindred was making her feel like she was one of the few who had 'settled' into their Danse. That her humanity was indeed in question when she had felt it was fine before this. "We are each other's mirror. If you take that away, there is no one to tell you no, or that its a bridge to far, or maybe just not a good idea..."

[Helen Kingsley]

"Departments are too small." That's an easy one. "Normally, you got an issue with your boss, your coworkers can even it out with enough bodies around. Over here, you don't get along with your boss, you're pretty much fucked. I mean, if you discount the folks you never see outside assemblies, you got what ? Two to three people per groups and you're the new kid on the block. And that's if you're lucky. Usually that also keeps the smaller groups on the fringes as well." She chuckles. "Devil shits on the biggest pile, so the guys go where others are already and the smaller groups eke out a living somehow in their low numbers."

Some things never change, no matter where you go.

"Also means there's less conflict over budgets and shit like that, though. Right now, no one is really competition for the others. Which ain't necessarily bad as such. Centralization also might play a role with its effects, but I don#t know enough how things used to be before my time to have an opinion about that. Right now, the numbers sort of enforce that, and there's still enough stuffs falling off the truck anyway." Includes stuff like housing, but just as she's said, the low numbers leave few other options, really. She shrugs. "Also, people are fickle. Their ideas don't adapt well or they don't get along with bosses or management, they resign. Or get resigned. Or simply stop showing up and nobody ever leanrns where they went. Or they simply get better offers elsewhere.

Company life mostly sucks. What can you do ? You pass the shit you can't change, look for the bits you can make a difference and make sure you still like what you see in the mirror when you get up. That's what I try to do at least. How do you eat a dinosaur ?

One bite at a time until you get to where you get to. That's how." Simple ? Oh yeah. Sometimes, things ain't that complicated, really. Same with the mirror bit. Some nice illustration, though ! "Exactly. Either you get the fuck back among people, look for somone to whack you over the head often enough until you get it or you lose touch and next thing you know, you got 20 cats and don't know how to talk to the pizza guy right. Gets worse when people keep postponing retirement, mostly."

[Adeline Martin]

So the issue started from the top. Typical. So many points to Helen for having the balls to be critical over the entire situation. So she would continue to play things by ear. "Gotcha, loud and clear!" She said with a small smile.

"Less competition, like you said, is not a bad thing. When there is to few resources and a ton of competition for them, things can get ugly. Or interestesting depending on your bullshit level." Adeline's was a low threshhold, and you would be hard pressed to find a Ventrue who didn't operate the same way.

She giggled in earnest at the Dinosaur analogy. "Ohhh goodness! I love that analogy. So fitting for the company isn't it?" She nodded at the last bit. "Their curse? Is paranoia. It eats them alive." Which would explain the first bit too.

It was then Adeline felt it. The dawn was nearing. She instinctively looked to the east for a moment. Not that she had much to worry about. She could meld with the ground and that was that. Helen on the other hand could not.

"You should be getting back to your place, dear. The night will soon come to an end..." Though for her part she looked unhurried. Just a friendly reminder to a colleague.

Good to close if you are! Thanks for an awesome scene!

[Helen Kingsley]

"Can be, though. Get your fingers in too many pies and overextend, and you start definding it all, you ain't defending anything. I mean, sure, lots of things run well, but the further I go from the center, the more likely I could carve out some place to put my tent and if I cut down comfort and visibility a bit, it might be years before someone happens on me by accident and knows I exist. Which is great when you're a squatter or passing through, but it kinda sucks once you're in charge of something."

On Adeline's last comment, Helen looks up into the sky, as if to check something.

"Sounds about right."

Right back at you, thanks a lot. Closing !