Holland by Night

While the war in Amsterdam is still raging, and their hometown is not yet safe enough, the coterie of Lucius gets sent to far-away Hungaria to build an outpost for the Camarilla. They go without the graces of Tremere Franceska. She has her duties to attend to in the chantry in Amsterdam.

Date in World of Darkness: Thursday 25th of April 2002
Played at: Arjan

What happens when you lose control, when you no longer possess the ability to act the way you have intended? If you are no longer in control, who is? Criminal ethics have pondered this question in extents, and the moral paradox of assigning the deranged perpetrator of an alleged crime to the caring hands of a skilled therapist, leaves the victim bereft of any satisfaction. In absence of a liable actor, it is as if the crime itself ´just happened´, as if it these things occur out of nowhere. Control and thus accountability are therefore the last stops for the world to make any sense. Responsibility implies intent and purpose, however insignificant, and thus provides the last hope of structuring our chaotic world in chunks of comprehensible pieces, when everything lacking purpose and intent seems just madness, deconstruction, chaos, compromise, instability, lack of reference. Losing control, and letting this chaos roam free is therefore the (un)intended acquirement of insanity, leaving the world to the Malkavian. No offence to our recently deceased and dear companion Gerrit Schwarz of course.
Or did you think that I was unaware of my own fixation on control? That my recent experiences haven’t destabilised the way I view my world, my associates, the essence of my bodily and mental existence? Oh, just you wait!
In short, I have been mentally and physically reshaped, the latter quite literally. Having been locked up in some 'Arcadia'-cellar in Utrecht, strapped to a stone table, this wretched fish-like Tzimisce with an unworldly long and distorted female face and some sort of living creature in its belly, had devised some ‘enhancement’ of my spine. In a manner of which the agony and degradation of life itself cannot possibly be described, it extended my vertebrae through the skin, moulding and shaping it as if they were a cheap lump of clay. Ever communicating in a soft and comforting tone, it drove me to the very brink of madness, realms of mental incomprehensibility I had hitherto not explored. Why did the creature wish to reshape me in such a ghastly manner? In an penultimate attempt to liberate myself, I attempted to smash the glass it had brought to my veined thirst, but I lacked the strength to harm it in any way with the makeshift weapon. From then on, I did not wield any power any more, I was left to the mercy of a madman.
The creature was invading my very body and soul, while I was drained of any bodily or mental sustenance that could still assert my existence of a dignified Cainite. I was no more, in an attempt to estrange myself from my impossible position, I even distanced myself from the relatives of my mortal family I had been a member of, in a human life before I had even tasted human blood that I now craved so badly. In an act of ultimate cowardice, the creature had my own mortal brother murdered, with whom I had spent so many years of my own life before the undead. It sought ways to even further degrade me. And it explored it to the limits of the laws of science itself, supplying me with a Tzimisce-sign on my forehead, a bewilderingly altered, red-colored eyeball and a backside shaped like that of a Stegosaurus.
When I was finally set free again, my friends found me, with the exception of our deranged but friendly Malkavian who had sadly found his final death, as I later learned. They sought to alleviate my distress, tended to me when I most needed to. Aalvar, returning to the site of my torture later on, saw however that the place was completely abandoned. Everything was swept clean of any sign of existence, let alone presence of the creature that had reshaped me. This unsettling fact outraged me, you can imagine. The murderous, deforming fiend had vanished without a trace.
Now my ´restoration´, as I will euphemistically name it, is quite another story. Lucius´ servant Jonathan had experienced a torture comparable to mine, and was dispatched to some flesh-carver in Alkmaar to whom I was also brought. Besides ridding me of the uncomfortable body distortions, he abused me in quite another manner as I now do admit, a new form of new degradation, to which I again had no way of resisting.
Again, while he was fixing me I was drained from all blood and the man granted me access to vast resources of blood that I was allowed to quaff, when I was awake from the lengthy periods of sedation. The blood oddly started to taste better and better, to the extent that I could not do without anymore. My Saviour, as I shall sarcastically call the Vampire who reshaped me, had me drinking his own blood, bonding me to him as a dog to his master! From being crippled by the one, I was enslaved by the other.
To my great shame I praised and defended my Saviour in his request to be allowed to live in Haarlem, when he returned me to the city after restoring my former proportions. Blinded by the lure of his blood and gullible because of the grand work he had done, I desperately tried to convince my weary and suspicious comrades and the Prince of Haarlem himself of the good intentions and great assets that my Saviour could provide, only aiding in his deceiving schemes. This is the moment I ultimately lost control of the will that had guided me through the above described episodes, while Aalvar launched one insult after another in the direction of my Saviour. To my horror, Prince Lucian swept the bottle of precious blood my Saviour had given me from my hand. Imagine the best blood you ever tasted just being spilled, the substance most dear to me down the drain, my undeniable link to my Master severed.
I was completely engulfed by my own rage, the injustice and indignity being done to me time and again, even by my own friends. The world had gone completely bananas, a merry-go-round of distorted faces, bone, flesh, blood, tools for cutting and slicing, my dead brother, the Prince and friends laughing at me, my Saviour smiling his grim smile, me, falling, biting, kicking. All the misery and attrition of the past weeks were brought to a single focal point - the blind fury that swept all decency from the present. Adding insult to injury, my own Company-members and the Prince deprived me of the only consolation I had left for the moment. Luckily I am strong at heart, but weak in limbs, had it been otherwise they had felt the full wrath of my fury unleashed upon them. I even succeeded in biting my own company-member Aalvar (my sincere apologies), who had hitherto rescued me on several occasions, but I was soon to be back in control of my senses.
While I had been busy being mutilated by a Tzimisce and healed and bonded by (probably) another, the world hadn’t stopped spinning. Just before my back was to be pushed back into my original shape, I had received a letter from the Ventrue High Council, a message containing an unexpected honour which paradoxically, does not hold any interest to me whatsoever. I am, supported by the Company, supposed to establish a foothold in Budapest, Hungary, and assume the function of Prince there in due time. What nonsense is this? Quite content with my former function of our (now departed) Prince´s herald of bad news from of Amsterdam, I have never wished to acquire higher ranked offices. Furthermore, even if I had the ambition to become Prince of Budapest, it would not attract less trouble to my person. It could even mean my final end, I realise, but we have simply been ordered to go. Not going would render us adversaries of Prince Lucian to whom we have pledged allegiance and loyalty, not going would probably infuriate the Ventrue High Council, whose rage I fear even more then the troubles that await us in Hungary.
While we are discussing these matters with our Prince Lucian, sirens and press surround the Gravenzaal (Count’s Hall). What is going on? Has this something to do with that paper article (see below) on alleged unauthorised nightly activities in the building (as I clear my throat, stare at the ceiling and whistle in innocence) and the secret caller harassing Aalvar? Aalvar had been receiving mysterious phone calls from a man, demanding sums of money. Is this the work of the same man? While the others flee, I am left with Prince Lucian and our new Assamite Company-member called Harold Frederick Mallory. In an attempt to escape through the floor, I realise that I am incapable to recede through the small hatch. Remember, my back-spikes had not been mended, and so that Assamite fool suggested to just break them off!
Eventually, we managed to escape, the Masquerade was kept, and gossip stories shushed. The culprit of this all, some deluded journalist that was recently embraced, the poor bastard, was peacefully silenced. It was some quarrel he had with Aalvar, but the cause is hardly enough to be mentioned in comparison to the chaos he had created. Aalvar luckily kept the beast within (as is not always the case) and discretely brought the matter to a satisfactory end.
Just when things (except the irreversible) had been successfully taken care of, Francesca refused to go on our mission to Hungary. This is sincerely bothering me. The coherence of our company of loyal Cainites is breaking apart. After the tragic death of Gerrit Schwarz and Francesca remaining behind, how on earth are we to accomplish our task in Budapest with two-fifth of our Company missing? Pondering these and other questions in the crate, harbouring us on the journey by airplane that was carrying us to our destination, I feel tense and slightly claustrophobic. But the next thing I know, we are buying expensive suits, entering a deftly hotel lobby and meeting the ones who are to introduce us to the task at hand. And I wonder what they, and the future will have in store for us.