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Discipline of the Flesh -- An Example by Thom Marrion Zuzu Petals was trying very hard to sleep, but a pile of cardboard boxes in an alleyway is not a very comfortable a resting place. Still, she tries. It is bad enough losing sleep because of the nightmares, she does not want to let a little thing like the smell of garbage or the noise of the city streets keep her awake. Zuzu Petals is an attractive young girl of sixteen with gray eyes and long tangled hair died that shade of neon green that only a couple of packets of Lemon Lime Kool-Aid can create. She is dressed in a haphazard collection of thrift store castoffs, all covered up by a large army jacket. Zuzu would never be accused of being tall. Still, the jacket made her look like a little kid. "Isn't that the most adorable thing you have ever seen?" a female voice at the entrance of the alley rasps. Zuzu opens her eyes and sees an outlandishly dressed woman walking toward her. The woman looks like Marie Antoinette with hair dyed black and a gown spray-painted to match. The Queen of the Night licks her lips. She is not alone either. On her right is a handsome young looking man with a blond mop top and a black turtleneck. Very British Invasion, very Retro Mod. There is another guy on her left who looked like Buddy Holly, except a lot paler. Zuzu first rolls versus her Perception. Zuzu has a Perception of 3, which she doubles to 6. She rolls a 4 for a total of 10. Zuzu Petals is Gifted and so she is able to sense that the not only are the people in her alley oddly dressed, they are not even human! The Goth Queen walks closer to her and says, "Just look at what we have found. She looks so yummy and I am sooo hungry." Buddy Holly catches up to her and grabs her arm, "Leave her alone Gethsemene, she's just a kid for crying out loud!" Gethsemene stops and gets a cold evil look in her eyes. "Lester, if I knew you were going to be this squeamish maybe I should have never turned you in the first place. I brought you over from the other side, and I can send you back. Now get your hands off of me. I'm having this girl." Mop top steps in and grabs Buddy Holly. "Come on Lester. She's just some runaway, nobody cares what happens to her." "I do Jeremy. I care." says Lester quietly. "Well I do not!" screams Gethsemene, "You are both pathetic. Now come her little girl." Gethsemene starts to shift her form. As a Vampyre, she can manipulate her flesh to a certain degree, depending on her Willpower. Gethsemene has a Will of 3, so her face stretches into a fanged monstrosity that causes a Fear Test at -5. Her hands stretch into claws that will do D4 x Gethsemene's Strength (6) in slashing damage (see Mystery Codex, p. 100). Zuzu has to make a Fear Test (see WitchCraft, p. 130). She rolls a 6, and subtracts her Willpower (4). Fortunately she is a Pariah and has a fairly high Willpower. Total is 2, but Gethsemene is looking particularly hideous due to her Vampyric Manipulations. Her Horror Modifier of 5 is added to the roll, making the final total a 7. If it had been a 9 or more, Zuzu would have needed to consult the Fear Table. As it is, Zuzu consults her own memories and uses her Anguish to activate her Disciplines of the Flesh. Zuzu remembers. She remembers her father coming into her room when she was a little girl and raping her. She remembers her mother beating her and calling her a slut. She remembers being locked in a basement by her foster family. The memory that hurt the most was the reason she had to live with a foster family in the first place. Zuzu remembers seeing her father face down in a pool of her own blood and her mother standing over him with a gun. Her mother just looked at Zuzu as she held the gun to her own head and told her daughter, "It's all your fault. You ruined everything." That is when Zuzu's mother pulled the trigger and killed herself. That is the image that activates her change. "No mommy no mommy no mommy no mommy no mommy no mommy . . ." mutters Zuzu, tears streaming from eyes that stare blankly ahead as she rocks back and forth. "Geez Gethsemene, what did you do to her?" says Lester as he adjusts his Buddy Holly glasses. Zuzu decides to use Fury first (see Mystery Codex, p. 166). She spends 5 points of Essence and rolls against her Willpower and Anguish, which are both at 4. Her roll of 7, plus the 8 from her Attributes, gives her a total of 15 -- a Very Good result (see Outcome Table, WitchCraft, p. 129). Fury gives her 3 points that can be distributed among her physical Attributes per Success Level, and Zuzu just got four Success Levels. This gives her 12 points to play with. She decides to add 6 points to her Strength, raising it from 1 to 7. She adds 3 points to her Dexterity raising it from 2 to 5. The last 3 points she adds to her Constitution and raises it from 2 to 5. Gethsemene looks on in surprise as her little girl-snack rises to tower over her, clothed in the shredded remains of her ragged clothes. Only the army jacket is still big enough to even think about fitting. Gethsemene leaps at Zuzu and slashes the Pariah with her claws. Gethsemene has Brawling 2 and Dexterity 5. She rolls a 6, giving her a total of 13. Zuzu decides to dodge. She has Dodge 3 and her Dexterity is now 5. She rolls a 4 giving her a 12. Zuzu steps aside quickly, but not fast enough to avoid the Vampyre's attack. Gethsemene can do D4 x 6 with the claws she now has. She rolls a 2, giving her a 12. But the claws are slashing damage so (after armor, of which Zuzu has none) this is doubled to 24. If Zuzu had not changed, she would be at negative Life Points from that attack. As it is, she has 34 Life Points left. This does not change the fact that Zuzu has a huge gash across her chest and that a lot of her blood is now splattered around the alleyway. A better defense is going to be needed. Zuzu remembers and uses her Anguish to create Flesh Chitin (see Mystery Codex, p. 166). She spends 10 points of Essence and rolls versus her Constitution and Anguish. Her Anguish is still 4, but her Constitution is now 5. She rolls a 4 and gets a total of 11. Since she spent 10 points of Essence she can have D6 x 10 points of Armor Value. She rolls a 4 and now has an Armor Value of 40. Gethsemene gets a cocky look on her face and leaps high into the air just as a tall monstrous Zuzu becomes a tall monstrous Zuzu covered in a thick black carapace. She now looks like a Kafka short story on steroids. Gethsemene slashes, rolling a 4, for a total of 11. She hits and rolls for damage. She rolls 3, multiplied by her Strength of 6, for a total of 36 points of damage. This is enough to slice a normal human in two. Yet, it just glances off the Pariah with a loud scraping noise. Zuzu starts to laugh, which in her present form is not a very pleasant sound. The Pariah decides to go all out and uses Reshape (see Mystery Codex, p. 167) to become even more of a threat. She rolls versus Constitution and Anguish again, getting a die roll of 6. This gives her a total of 15. Another 5 points of Essence is spent and Zuzu tilts her head back and screams as her body rips and reforms. Her chitin-covered arms stretch and enormous black talons grow out of her fingers. Her mouth gets wider and her scream grows louder as her jaw dislocates and her teeth grow into enormous fangs. Gethsemene cannot even see Zuzu's face any more -- just a gaping mouth of dagger-like fangs. The fangs sit on top of a huge, black, armored body with talons scraping the ground. The body still sports an army jacket that comes only to Zuzu's elbows at this point. "We are so dead," whimpers Jeremy. "We're already dead." replies Lester. He did not want to bother with the girl in the first place and he is in fact looking forward to seeing Gethsemene get her butt kicked. Zuzu lashes out at Gethsemene. The Pariah rolls a 7, plus her Brawling of 3 and her current Dexterity of 5. A total of 15, which is a Very Good result and increases her damage by 1 before applying the Multiplier. Gethsemene attempts to dodge. Her Dexterity is 5 and her Dodge is 2. She rolls a 5 for a total of 12 and very gracefully leaps into the path of Zuzu's giant talons. Zuzu rolls for damage, D8 x 7 (her current Strength). She rolls a 5, plus 1 because of her Success Levels, multiplied by 7 becomes 42. Since it is slashing damage and Gethsemene has no armor, it is doubled for a total of 84 points of damage. This is 26 more than Gethsemene’s Life Points. Gethsemene is practically split in two as her intestines are splattered against the walls of the alley. Since she is a Vampyre, there is still no risk of dying from merely physical wounds. Still, the Chronicler rolls to see if the Vampyre remains conscious. Gethsemene has a Constitution of 5 and a Willpower of 3, but her roll will be at -26 because of the damage that she took. She will need to roll a lot of tens to stay awake. She does not roll a ten. Zuzu turns around and stares at the other two Vampyres, her heavy rasping breath sounding like rusty pipes scraping together. "Well, what are you waiting for vampyre boys? Don't you want to attack me, I'm just a helpless little girl. Aren't you bloodsuckers hungry!? DON'T YOU WANT A YUMMY SNACK!?!?" Jeremy decides that he better do something about this and uses Manipulate Emotions (see Mystery Codex, p. 104). He starts to get that look in his eyes that he habitually gets when he is focusing Essence. Lester smacks him on the back of the head. "What are you doing?" ”I was going to calm her down." ”She's Gifted. She'll see what you are doing and it will probably just piss her off even more. Excuse me, Miss? If you don't mind, we'll just go ahead and leave now. If you will recall, I didn't even want to bother you in the first place. So we'll just head back, you can get back to sleep in your box or whatever, and we can all just get on with out lives." The Pariah and the two Vampyres stand in the alley and stare at each other for a few more minutes. Jeremy is really scared at this point and Lester is none too happy about the current situation himself. It is impossible to tell what is going through Zuzu's mind at this point because her face is no longer designed for expressing emotions. It is only designed to bite huge chunks out of things. Finally, Lester starts to move and he drags Jeremy all the way out of the alley. Lester looks behind the Pariah at the body of Gethsemene. "One last word of advice, if I were you I wouldn't turn my back on her.” With that Lester and Jeremy run down the street as fast as their undead legs can carry them. Zuzu turns around and sees Gethsemene leaning against the wall as she slowly pulls her intestines back inside her body. As a Vampyre, Gethsemene regains 1 Life Point per Willpower level every Turn. So Gethsemene is regenerating 3 Life Points a turn. She still looks pretty bad. Zuzu starts marching towards the wounded Vampyre with her claws raised high and her impossible mouth curved in a hideous smile with way too many teeth. Gethsemene looks up slowly and silently curses. As Gethsemene gets the last of her guts placed back inside her body, she closes her eyes and spends 2 points of Essence. Suddenly instead of a bleeding woman in a shredded black dress, there is a small black raven flapping its wing frantically as it tries to get out of the ally as fast as it can. Not a bad idea, since the noise of the fight seems to have attracted attention. The approaching sirens are already starting to drown out all the other noises of the city. Zuzu walks over to a sewer grate and looks down. She decides to use one more Discipline. She spends another 5 Essence point to activate Beast Skin (see Mystery Codex, p. 166). The first officer on the scene has his gun out and is prepared to start shouting “Freeze” and “Drop Your Weapons” and maybe start shooting. He was not at all prepared to see a giant, black, carapace-covered monster turn in his direction. He is similarly unprepared to see its face of fangs split wide or hear its inhuman howl beat on his ears. He is completely unprepared to witness it collapse into a huge swarm of cockroaches that quickly crawl down the sewer. By the time the other officers get there, the only thing that is left is a veteran cop puking his guts out, and a torn, old army jacket. Which is a shame, because Zuzu really liked that jacket.
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