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Boredom hung in the air like humidity on some tropical isle. A lone clock
broke the silence ticking rhythmically through the still, thick apathy.
Amaya sighed and slapped the play button on the stereo, replaying the same
Cure CD it had spewed forth for days. To the sounds of an altogether too
perky Rob Smith Amaya prowled about her lair like some escapee of a bad
Dracula remake (masquerade... pah, better to hide in plain view.)
Perfecting her immaculate but ever attended to makeup Amaya reached for her
bag and headed out the door, slamming it behind her in frustration.
Anything was better than this, even facing... ugh... the Mansonites.
With that thought Amaya sighed and reminded herself to find some better
minions, sure the growing crowd of goth wannabes that inhabited the
Brisbane City Mall were useful, trapped by an ethereal spell of love and
devotion, but would you put the fate of your empire in a group of people
that thought applying lipstick involved spreading it up your cheek?
The time, my friends, had come for better things, and as the sleek black
monster that Amaya liked to call a car pulled into the CBD she considered
the various groups that would not, like so much of society cat call "freak"
at her and instead offer with utter stupidity their resources and services
in the name of her favour. She chewed her lip and stabbed the button to the
carpark elevator with an inch long claw. Studiously ignoring the stares and
mutterings of the lifts occupants, with the arrogant knowledge that she
would live to see even the youthful of them die, Amaya clambered out of the
lift and absentmindedly lit a cigarette, drawing the scowl of a security
guard standing, with desperate nicotine cravings, under the No Smoking
sign.
Stopping briefly at a newsvendor to acquire more lung killing nicotine
sticks. Amaya chuckled briefly at the advent of yet another Marilyn Manson
cover, so much for Levay being the intelligent pagan's satanism. Here it
was though, that inspiration was wrought, for plastered across the cover of
some horrendous comic collector's magazine was an ad. But this was no
ordinary ad; when the notorious American coterie had instigated the company
White Wolf as a cover for the Masquerade everyone had thought they were
mad, that surely we would be at risk. Amaya smiled down at her pridefully
worn clan badge and shook her head, they were wrong, and it had brought
forth many opportunities, including the open gate for her next set of
followers. Amaya paid some cash to the news attendant and smiled briefly
once again at the Vampire CD Rom ad and set off in search of her weak
willed targets, so desperate for female attention that this group had been
known to pretend to be them for large periods of time.
Amaya was on a quest for role players.
@-,-'--
It was a Friday evening and the comic store was packed full of 12 year olds
bearing hundred dollar bills, throwing their money at such consumer giants
as Magic: the Gathering. Sure for a hundred bucks they got a thousand slips
of paper... more for your money! But hell, even Amaya thought Richard
Garfield must be working for Pentex, as the glazed eyes and wagging tongues
of the teens around her pointed to less than natural urges.
Now but to find a victim so as to infiltrate their little society. Amaya
glanced about the temple to consumerism. Close to the back and pouring over
some horrendously inaccurate historical sourcebook was a lone and gaunt
young boy. Slipping behind him Amaya leant forward and in a soft,
carressing and breathy voice spoke.
"Hello sweetheart, I'm new to town and I thought that you might know where
I could find a good campaign around here." She stopped to let him get down
from the foot he'd jumped in the air and for his eyes to contract from
their dilated positions about the size of tea... err coffee cups (all
praise the espresso God). She picked up the book he'd dropped and looked at
him, appraising that the agape mouth meant two sided conversation was
currently implausable. "Perhaps I could buy this for you and we could chat
about a few games?" Amaya smiled at him with her best acted sincerity and
taking his trembling hand led him to the counter.
@-,-'---
Several cigarettes later, young Craig, or Etrius the Third as he preferred,
had started onto the topic of the wonders of thermite in the Cyberpunk
system and Amaya had all but fallen asleep, this of course did not concern
him in the least, for years of misinterpretation had led him to believe
that sleep during conversation was actually deep concentration. She blinked
slowly, blew a cloud of acrid smoke in his face and said, "Yeah, doll
that's great, but... don't you have any other friends?"
"Um, well, gee miss not really, but all my players hang out at this club up
the road." Amaya's eyes lit up, the hub centre of the society, a club full
of brain dead adolescents more concerned with a fictitious technological
system of a nigh on impossible future than the reality of the present. This
was going to be easy. Amaya grinned pulled down her shirt to air more
cleavage and adjusted her stockings, chortling at the wide eyed stare of
her gamer geek friend, and set off down the road trailing a babbling 14
year old with all the social skills of a skunk on smack.
@-,-'---
It was truly horrible. The sountrack to some obscure Anime film that hadn't
aired even in Japan in 30 years spewed out across the air waves. Parts of
the club were filled with smoke and the true degenerates, the 30 somethings
that had never grown out of their childish fantasies, however the rest of
the apace was filled with 12-18 year olds almost all but male, who Amaya
knew with horrid pessimism wouldn't get the courage to approach a girl
outside of the safety of a firewalled irc client before the age of 25.
Piles of character sheet lay across tables, the skeletons of dreams, lives
lived in hope, but never in reality. Books bearing impossible statistics
calculable only with the imaginary number system, and histories repleat
with dates set in the calander systems of other universes spewed onto the
floor from bags of holding, shelves of mystery and tables of ineptitude.
Stilted conversations concerning rules conversion and trade values could be
heard at random intervals, current games were muttered, actions of daring
heroism enacted in this little hovel. Yet, every step Amaya took killed
another sentence, the ever antisocial gamers not used to this social
invasion, let alone from a woman that looked far too much like she escaped
a Timothy Bradstreet painting. Amaya smirked to herself and stood in the
middle of the main room and cleared her throat.
"Who here plays White Wolf games?" Amaya smiled smugly as most of the room
raised their hands or called out."I have a proposition for you, a 24 hour a
day 7 day a week Live Action Role Play. No joining fee, I will provide the
necessary information and source books and for those who do well in the...
game... I will award *ahem* unique and interesting White Wolf merchandise."
Muttering ensued around the room and Amaya smirked as many looked
altogether too easily swayed. She let forth her preternatural aid in their
seduction and grinned as several started to approach. "At present we have
enough Vampire characters but we are currently seeking the roles of ghouls
and mortal herd/ allies."
Their stupidity astounded her. Their youthful enthusiasm choked her. The
most popular game of the club stood before them in full "live" glory,
offered to them as a quasi reality, here they had the chance to live a
dream, to become the fantasy that this woman before them represented,
endless youth and eternal beauty, power and wealth, well earnt but beyond
compare. She smirked with evil ambition allowing one fang to be bared, seen
only by one promising youth who earnt for his observation a wink, followed
by a deep flush that over took his face. A list of willing fools grew and
as the night went on was culled for the useful and resourceful.
@-,-'---
Amaya leaned against her car, the lights of the city she over looked from
the ridge were reflected in the immaculate black polish of the hull. Next
to her a youth stirred and gazed at her with an indecent obsession. Amaya
laughed hollowly and threw him some dice, glancing at their results before
reaching for the boy's neck yet again. "No successes. Would you like to
spend some willpower? No I didn't think so...."
@-,-'---
amaya
who gets sick of being asked at gaming conventions if she's there for the
vampire LARP
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