Charles bends at the middle and brings a hand to his jaw, his gaze growing distant with thought for a moment.]
None of the more typical vampiric vulnerabilities on other versions of Earth affect my kind, besides sunlight. Starvation, aphrodisiacs, adrenaline compounds, and magics that fracture the conscious mind, are dangerous. [He straightens again.] Not the usual components of spells, I'd imagine, but I won't assume.
Aphrodisiacs? [ Nate repeats, looking surprised. That's very far from a typical vampire allergy.
Unless... ]
You mean that, um. Anything that gets you excited, it makes it harder to keep control? [ That would explain why adrenaline is a problem, too. ] That must be extremely hard to deal with, here.
[He appreciates the sympathy, even if it doesn't feel necessary at this point in his stay in Duplicity. His situation is what it is. All he can do is try to prepare as much as he can for the ways the city might try to fuck with him.]
That's correct. It's given me good to reason to observe the rules where and when I can. [Regardless of how he feels about them.] A trip to the SLUT centre always means dangerous stakes.
I'm happy to explain my condition and its origins in more detail, if that'd be useful.
[He knows his situation is unique in some ways among Duplicity's vampires, which could make it harder to wrap the mind around, so he takes his time to organize his thoughts before he begins to explain.]
I was turned in 1915. Being an elder vampire does make a difference for my kind - if we manage to live that long with our minds intact, the experience insulates a vampire from falling to bloodlust. Bloodlust is a reaction to starvation or sufficient overstimulation, and on Earth, as long as a vampire feeds on a schedule and is careful with their associations, it's simple enough to avoid ending up underfed or overstimulated. [Particularly if someone has ready access to blood. Like a medical professional.]
None of that experience or preparation means anything here. The last time I experienced bloodlust was in 1936, but as soon as I arrived here, it happened twice in my first four months. [His expression pulls into something tight, and grim.] As I mentioned in my posting, I know the first time was because of whatever stimulating compound I was given in the SLUT centre. The second time, I can only assume magic was involved.
All vampires on my Earth are connected to a being referred to as the 'First Sire'. What she was before she became the creature she is, I don't know, but in 2023 she was a demigod of sorts, and a being of pure madness, bloodlust, and physical lust. Falling to bloodlust draws a vampire further along their path to becoming a creature like her, and each successive time strips away more self-control, and conscious sense of self. I haven't witnessed the end result myself, but there's enough Liberated lore on the matter to suppose that the creature that emerges on the other side isn't much more than a whirlwind of mindless collateral damage.
[He frowns slightly.] There's a psychic and hive mind element to the condition, too, but I've only recently discovered parts of this for myself. When a sorcerer with psychic magics attempted to force me into unconsciousness, my power reacted on its own, and I tried to break him psychologically. [He doesn't know how else to explain it, when the memory is as foggy as it is. All that remains is a shadowy mirror of the feeling of being in bloodlust, and having a weaker creature prostrated before his claws.]
From all of this, I've gathered that it's more important that I be stopped in the middle of bloodlust, rather than trying to prevent it wholesale. No matter what I do, I think it's safe to assume that it's going to keep happening, because the city has advanced technologies and ways of influencing us that none of us understand.
You've seen 2023, then, you've been a vampire for more than a hundred years.
[ it's a long time. Something about the modernity of it resonates with Nate. From Charles' dress and manner he'd thought him from an earlier time. Apparently not. ]
That's...okay.
[ He frowns. ]
Okay. There's a lot in that. My magic isn't really good against what the city does, they can just alter it, or nullify it altogether. Basically if the effect comes from them, there's no guarantee I could stop it.
But maybe I could still stop you. Make a charm that would, I don't know. Slow you down, or shock you hard enough to break through the fugue. Or if that wouldn't be enough, something to knock you out, maybe. We can experiment, see what works and what you're comfortable with.
But...tell me about this psychic sorcerer, too. Do you know their name?
[Charles nods. They're on the same page, and it sounds like Nate is truly invested in doing whatever he can in his power to help. It feels hopeful, and he's grateful. Real thanks will have to happen after this entire process, but it's not something he's going to forget.]
That's the idea I reached with a few others: something to stop me, even if the city's interventions themselves can't be stopped. Alaric - the psychic magic-user - was in the process of testing a measure of that nature on me, but he vanished from the city before it could be rooted in my mind. [He knows it's selfish to begrudge anyone leaving the city, but it'd been devastating to find out Alaric was gone, and made the same desperation he'd felt in February rear its ugly head all over again.]
Can you tell me a little more about your magics? I'm not picky about solutions, provided they work, [he admits] but I'd like to know how your power works, and where it comes from. [A beat.] No trade secrets, of course. [He does remember seeing something on the network about Nate starting up a business of some kind.]
[ Charles may not know it, but this is absolutely Nate's favourite subject. ]
Magic is...everywhere. In everyone, everything, between places. It's the energy between realms. Most people can't see it, but witches like me can manipulate that energy. We're born with the power.
Technically speaking anyone could be born sensitive to it, to some degree, but it's rare. Witching families like mine have been cultivating the talent for centuries, through...selective marriage and. Well, breeding. My family, the Hawthornes, are one of the oldest, and strongest of them, so we have access to a wealth of knowledge gathered over time.
Just having the sensitivity isn't enough, you have to learn how to wield it. We've put structure around it, like a curriculum. Witches keep personal grimoires that record what they've learned. Work hard enough, and you can even learn to create spells, drawing on raw magic and manipulating it with your will. It takes time, and...obsession, frankly.
[ He shrugs his shoulders. ]
It's all secret in my world, or it's supposed to be. I actively caused a problem on that front for some time, there's a lot of traditions I don't agree with. But it's different here, anyway. Everything supernatural is a bit more...known, and close to the surface.
[Charles listens intently, drawing upon the little he knows about the magic of his own world, and trying to use that to better understand what he's hearing. There are some similarities - the secretive nature of some of those who use magic, and the way it's cultivated over time - but they end abruptly.]
To a certain degree. The part that doesn't make sense to me, is why magic like yours - and frankly, that of many others - should work in a place like this, when it must be drawn from your home world. [A beat.] But I have a feeling that's another of Duplicity's unexplained [but in this case, helpful] mysteries.
No, not drawn from my home world. Quite the opposite. It's drawn from everywhere, all the time. Every world exists at once, and the spaces between those worlds is where magic comes from. It's everywhere, every time and every place. See, any world is a physical place. Magic isn't physical, it's something beyond. It doesn't have those kinds of constraints.
[ He lifts his shoulders, before leaning forward a bit on the table. ]
[The vampire's eyebrows rise. He's never been a fan of the theory of the multiverse, but he's had to swallow that ever since arriving in the city. It's not simply wild speculation devoid of concrete evidence, any more. The multiverse is real, and Duplicity proves it.
It's not magic's fault, exactly, but so much in Duplicity is a mess, scientifically. If he stops to consider the tangled logic of it all for too long, it gets frustrating.]
So, following that explanation, the magic you draw on exists in all of our home worlds, too. It's simply a matter of whether anyone from where we came from has discovered it and mastered the ability to use it, or not.
Theoretically, yes, I suppose. I mean, maybe there are other worlds where they have, or they call it something different. Or it manifests differently. A lot of worlds call on magic of some kind. If you ask me, we all just have different ways of relating to the same thing.
[ Nate's magic works differently from Stephen Strange's, and so on. He isn't troubled by that. Every world is different, too. Why would it be surprising that magic might take different forms in each one? ]
I like that thought. Like the chaos of nature, expressing itself in different ways across an infinite universe.
[He can't help himself. Even though he's grown more accustomed to the chaos and randomness of life over time, a core part of him will always see it as mess in need of research, understanding, and fitting into the known logic of the universe.]
Chaos that, often enough, has rules guiding its expression. [Even nautilus shells express the Fibonacci sequence.] I prefer your explanation to the one I've heard often enough from other magic users in the city, which mostly amounts to shrugging, and saying it 'is what it is'.
Yes, well. I've had to spend a lot of time thinking about the nature of the universe. My world's in some trouble on that front.
But...I can't change that here, and I much prefer problems I can solve, so. What do you think would work best, for getting you out of bloodlust? Could a shock bring you back to yourself, or would you need to be knocked out entirely?
Most likely the latter. As far as I know, there's nothing that can bring my type of vampire back from bloodlust, except satiation. That much could be done, I suppose, but it's not ideal. Anyone in my path would be made to deal with a blood-crazed vampire, which could be dangerous for even people in the city with the strength to counter me.
[There's no elegant solution either way, but he doesn't care.]
Not having control over where, and how, I might be knocked out is dangerous for me, too, but I don't see any other choice. People can't truly die here, and I'm prepared to accept that consequence, if it comes to that. [The obvious way he sees it happening is if he manages to pass out somewhere that sunlight will touch hours later.]
I could build in some kind of shield charm, to give you some protection once you're down. At least it might help.
[ But there'll still be some level of risk. There'd have to be; they're talking about something that would do enough damage to Charles to knock him down when he's at his strongest and most vigorous. It's not going to be gentle. ]
Tell me what it's like, when you're in that frenzy. I mean, physically. The charm's going to need to be activated by something, some kind of trigger where it'll recognise you're out of control and release the spell. Normally I'd make it trigger when your heartrate goes over a certain amount, but that's hardly going to work in this case. Do you have any thoughts on what would?
[It's a critical question, and Charles falls silent for a solid minute as he considers what the proper target might be for a trigger. Alaric was planning on putting a purely mental block on his mind, but it sounds like Nate's magic is more physically-oriented than that. His heart doesn't beat, blood doesn't push through his veins, so what else is there?
He's not sure what to offer, beyond the extraordinary tangle of heightened emotions and instincts that is bloodlust.]
I don't, beyond the way I feel when it's happening. Any more obvious physical triggers - the teasing out of claws, or fangs - are the result of other emotional states I experience, and not simply bloodlust. [Charles frowns deeply.]
The experience of it is pure savage elation. [He offers the words without reverence.] Whatever I had been thinking about, before it occurs, is swept entirely from my mind. My focus narrows to the closest living creatures near me, the beating of their hearts, and what the Creature will do to them. [It's always some variety of violence, which he doesn't think he needs to expand on, and neither does he want to.]
The mental state is highly specific, and could serve as a trigger, if something like it can be targeted.
[ Okay, tricky, but potentially doable. Nate leans forward, considering it. ]
Can you...visualise that mental state in your head? Maybe we could try and teach the charm to recognise it, based on your memories. Then when that happens in real time, it'll react.
It's new territory, [Charles admits, frowning] but I've never experienced emotions or memories as a gateway to bloodlust, alone. It's not something I've heard of happening to other vampires of my kind, either.
I'm willing to try it; I have some fresh memories from this place that could be recent enough to give the charm something extra to 'latch onto'. [He trails off pensively.]
But for the sake of taking additional precautions, I'll arrange to try it somewhere safe. [Which means relying on the same restraint he used with Alaric. Easy enough.] Is it something you'll need to be present for, to gauge the take?
[Even without a display of Nate's power, his confidence sells that he can handle himself. It's not enough to dissuade Charles from taking his own precautions, but it's reassuring, all the same.]
All the evidence I have says it can't, and won't, happen, but I prefer not to take risks with my vampirism. There's a basement room in the hospital that would serve the purposes of a test well: it's never occupied, and should you end up needing some kind of help, Kyle and numerous other magic-users work in the building. I can meet you there on any night you'd be prepared.
A couple weeks it is, then. I'll await your call. [And with any luck, the first test will work without any unexpected problems.]
And thank you, Nate, [he says, sincerely.] Even for simply trying - it means more to me than I could begin to explain.
[Which may go without saying, but it feels important to insist on the significance of his being able to live in the city without worrying about being a threat at any given moment.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Charles bends at the middle and brings a hand to his jaw, his gaze growing distant with thought for a moment.]
None of the more typical vampiric vulnerabilities on other versions of Earth affect my kind, besides sunlight. Starvation, aphrodisiacs, adrenaline compounds, and magics that fracture the conscious mind, are dangerous. [He straightens again.] Not the usual components of spells, I'd imagine, but I won't assume.
no subject
Unless... ]
You mean that, um. Anything that gets you excited, it makes it harder to keep control? [ That would explain why adrenaline is a problem, too. ] That must be extremely hard to deal with, here.
no subject
That's correct. It's given me good to reason to observe the rules where and when I can. [Regardless of how he feels about them.] A trip to the SLUT centre always means dangerous stakes.
I'm happy to explain my condition and its origins in more detail, if that'd be useful.
no subject
If you wouldn't mind, I think it might. I mean, I know Kyle's lost control before, but I'd say by and large it hasn't been a problem for him.
Does it happen for you often, and how easily? And how, um. Recently, were you turned? Is that a factor?
no subject
I was turned in 1915. Being an elder vampire does make a difference for my kind - if we manage to live that long with our minds intact, the experience insulates a vampire from falling to bloodlust. Bloodlust is a reaction to starvation or sufficient overstimulation, and on Earth, as long as a vampire feeds on a schedule and is careful with their associations, it's simple enough to avoid ending up underfed or overstimulated. [Particularly if someone has ready access to blood. Like a medical professional.]
None of that experience or preparation means anything here. The last time I experienced bloodlust was in 1936, but as soon as I arrived here, it happened twice in my first four months. [His expression pulls into something tight, and grim.] As I mentioned in my posting, I know the first time was because of whatever stimulating compound I was given in the SLUT centre. The second time, I can only assume magic was involved.
All vampires on my Earth are connected to a being referred to as the 'First Sire'. What she was before she became the creature she is, I don't know, but in 2023 she was a demigod of sorts, and a being of pure madness, bloodlust, and physical lust. Falling to bloodlust draws a vampire further along their path to becoming a creature like her, and each successive time strips away more self-control, and conscious sense of self. I haven't witnessed the end result myself, but there's enough Liberated lore on the matter to suppose that the creature that emerges on the other side isn't much more than a whirlwind of mindless collateral damage.
[He frowns slightly.] There's a psychic and hive mind element to the condition, too, but I've only recently discovered parts of this for myself. When a sorcerer with psychic magics attempted to force me into unconsciousness, my power reacted on its own, and I tried to break him psychologically. [He doesn't know how else to explain it, when the memory is as foggy as it is. All that remains is a shadowy mirror of the feeling of being in bloodlust, and having a weaker creature prostrated before his claws.]
From all of this, I've gathered that it's more important that I be stopped in the middle of bloodlust, rather than trying to prevent it wholesale. No matter what I do, I think it's safe to assume that it's going to keep happening, because the city has advanced technologies and ways of influencing us that none of us understand.
no subject
You've seen 2023, then, you've been a vampire for more than a hundred years.
[ it's a long time. Something about the modernity of it resonates with Nate. From Charles' dress and manner he'd thought him from an earlier time. Apparently not. ]
That's...okay.
[ He frowns. ]
Okay. There's a lot in that. My magic isn't really good against what the city does, they can just alter it, or nullify it altogether. Basically if the effect comes from them, there's no guarantee I could stop it.
But maybe I could still stop you. Make a charm that would, I don't know. Slow you down, or shock you hard enough to break through the fugue. Or if that wouldn't be enough, something to knock you out, maybe. We can experiment, see what works and what you're comfortable with.
But...tell me about this psychic sorcerer, too. Do you know their name?
no subject
That's the idea I reached with a few others: something to stop me, even if the city's interventions themselves can't be stopped. Alaric - the psychic magic-user - was in the process of testing a measure of that nature on me, but he vanished from the city before it could be rooted in my mind. [He knows it's selfish to begrudge anyone leaving the city, but it'd been devastating to find out Alaric was gone, and made the same desperation he'd felt in February rear its ugly head all over again.]
Can you tell me a little more about your magics? I'm not picky about solutions, provided they work, [he admits] but I'd like to know how your power works, and where it comes from. [A beat.] No trade secrets, of course. [He does remember seeing something on the network about Nate starting up a business of some kind.]
no subject
[ Charles may not know it, but this is absolutely Nate's favourite subject. ]
Magic is...everywhere. In everyone, everything, between places. It's the energy between realms. Most people can't see it, but witches like me can manipulate that energy. We're born with the power.
Technically speaking anyone could be born sensitive to it, to some degree, but it's rare. Witching families like mine have been cultivating the talent for centuries, through...selective marriage and. Well, breeding. My family, the Hawthornes, are one of the oldest, and strongest of them, so we have access to a wealth of knowledge gathered over time.
Just having the sensitivity isn't enough, you have to learn how to wield it. We've put structure around it, like a curriculum. Witches keep personal grimoires that record what they've learned. Work hard enough, and you can even learn to create spells, drawing on raw magic and manipulating it with your will. It takes time, and...obsession, frankly.
[ He shrugs his shoulders. ]
It's all secret in my world, or it's supposed to be. I actively caused a problem on that front for some time, there's a lot of traditions I don't agree with. But it's different here, anyway. Everything supernatural is a bit more...known, and close to the surface.
So.
[ A beat. ]
Does that...answer your question, even a little?
no subject
To a certain degree. The part that doesn't make sense to me, is why magic like yours - and frankly, that of many others - should work in a place like this, when it must be drawn from your home world. [A beat.] But I have a feeling that's another of Duplicity's unexplained [but in this case, helpful] mysteries.
no subject
No, not drawn from my home world. Quite the opposite. It's drawn from everywhere, all the time. Every world exists at once, and the spaces between those worlds is where magic comes from. It's everywhere, every time and every place. See, any world is a physical place. Magic isn't physical, it's something beyond. It doesn't have those kinds of constraints.
[ He lifts his shoulders, before leaning forward a bit on the table. ]
Or at least that's how I understand it.
no subject
It's not magic's fault, exactly, but so much in Duplicity is a mess, scientifically. If he stops to consider the tangled logic of it all for too long, it gets frustrating.]
So, following that explanation, the magic you draw on exists in all of our home worlds, too. It's simply a matter of whether anyone from where we came from has discovered it and mastered the ability to use it, or not.
no subject
[ Nate's magic works differently from Stephen Strange's, and so on. He isn't troubled by that. Every world is different, too. Why would it be surprising that magic might take different forms in each one? ]
I like that thought. Like the chaos of nature, expressing itself in different ways across an infinite universe.
no subject
Chaos that, often enough, has rules guiding its expression. [Even nautilus shells express the Fibonacci sequence.] I prefer your explanation to the one I've heard often enough from other magic users in the city, which mostly amounts to shrugging, and saying it 'is what it is'.
no subject
Yes, well. I've had to spend a lot of time thinking about the nature of the universe. My world's in some trouble on that front.
But...I can't change that here, and I much prefer problems I can solve, so. What do you think would work best, for getting you out of bloodlust? Could a shock bring you back to yourself, or would you need to be knocked out entirely?
no subject
[There's no elegant solution either way, but he doesn't care.]
Not having control over where, and how, I might be knocked out is dangerous for me, too, but I don't see any other choice. People can't truly die here, and I'm prepared to accept that consequence, if it comes to that. [The obvious way he sees it happening is if he manages to pass out somewhere that sunlight will touch hours later.]
no subject
I could build in some kind of shield charm, to give you some protection once you're down. At least it might help.
[ But there'll still be some level of risk. There'd have to be; they're talking about something that would do enough damage to Charles to knock him down when he's at his strongest and most vigorous. It's not going to be gentle. ]
Tell me what it's like, when you're in that frenzy. I mean, physically. The charm's going to need to be activated by something, some kind of trigger where it'll recognise you're out of control and release the spell. Normally I'd make it trigger when your heartrate goes over a certain amount, but that's hardly going to work in this case. Do you have any thoughts on what would?
no subject
He's not sure what to offer, beyond the extraordinary tangle of heightened emotions and instincts that is bloodlust.]
I don't, beyond the way I feel when it's happening. Any more obvious physical triggers - the teasing out of claws, or fangs - are the result of other emotional states I experience, and not simply bloodlust. [Charles frowns deeply.]
The experience of it is pure savage elation. [He offers the words without reverence.] Whatever I had been thinking about, before it occurs, is swept entirely from my mind. My focus narrows to the closest living creatures near me, the beating of their hearts, and what the Creature will do to them. [It's always some variety of violence, which he doesn't think he needs to expand on, and neither does he want to.]
The mental state is highly specific, and could serve as a trigger, if something like it can be targeted.
no subject
[ Okay, tricky, but potentially doable. Nate leans forward, considering it. ]
Can you...visualise that mental state in your head? Maybe we could try and teach the charm to recognise it, based on your memories. Then when that happens in real time, it'll react.
I could see that working.
no subject
I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. Try to put myself in the emotional shoes of what the state feels like?
no subject
[ A beat. ]
Is that possible, or likely to trigger an episode for you?
no subject
I'm willing to try it; I have some fresh memories from this place that could be recent enough to give the charm something extra to 'latch onto'. [He trails off pensively.]
But for the sake of taking additional precautions, I'll arrange to try it somewhere safe. [Which means relying on the same restraint he used with Alaric. Easy enough.] Is it something you'll need to be present for, to gauge the take?
no subject
I was planning to cast the spell actively. Would that be a problem, I mean...do you think it's likely to actually set off a bloodlust state for you?
Because if so, I should definitely be there. I can knock you out myself if need be.
no subject
All the evidence I have says it can't, and won't, happen, but I prefer not to take risks with my vampirism. There's a basement room in the hospital that would serve the purposes of a test well: it's never occupied, and should you end up needing some kind of help, Kyle and numerous other magic-users work in the building. I can meet you there on any night you'd be prepared.
no subject
That'll work. Kyle won't mind.
I have some research to do, and some building blocks to make, but...give me a couple of weeks, maybe? I'll be in touch.
[ ooc: would you like to play this out? ]
no subject
And thank you, Nate, [he says, sincerely.] Even for simply trying - it means more to me than I could begin to explain.
[Which may go without saying, but it feels important to insist on the significance of his being able to live in the city without worrying about being a threat at any given moment.]