From Cam-Wiki

Contents 1 Disclaimer 2 Early Years 2.1 Battlefield in Greece 2.2 Meeting the Monster 3 Missing Years 3.1 Waking up in Hong Kong

Disclaimer

Please be aware that this is a series of events from the perspective of the Requiem character Cassius and are not generally known to other characters within the game. Unless your character has IC knowledge of these events this page is OOC information purely to futher expand the motivations and development of Cassius.

Back to Cassius IC Page

Early Years

Battlefield in Greece

Date: 1823
Location:Naousa

It didn’t actually hurt anymore. Probably not a good sign since he was lying in a pool of his own blood. The wound was deep, and if it opened again he wouldn't last long. On the other hand it was surprisingly comfortable here, lying on the corpse of a largish Janissary. The sun was too bright in this land, even the air smelt wrong. So strange that he could smell anything above the stench of voided bowls and violated flesh of the soldier underneath him. Still wondering about the smell he watched the sun split into three, spin about the sky, and then blink out.

It was dark now. Not good, he’d lost hours; no idea how many. Next time he slipped into sleep he might not wake again. For a moment he considered taking out the small knife he kept in his sleeve and finishing the job the Turk's sabre had started, but really he didn’t have the will. Not that it mattered, he was starting to see and hear things now. Not far away he could make out clearly a French nobleman, resplendent in decadent refinery, calmly sifting through a pile of dead Greeks. The French had gutted his city less then a decade ago before being driven off by the viciousness of the Russian winter, and now they were here. Typical bloody French.

He giggled to himself and the apparition spun at an alarming speed to look at him. It said something, no doubt in French, and he responded with a rude phrase he’d picked up from a particularly angry whore back in Moscow. The man scowled and, no doubt picking up on his accent, said something in broken Russian. That was simply hilarious. The apparition tried a few times more, but he couldn’t reply even if he wanted too, he was giggling too much, well more of a croak then a giggle, lubricated only by the blood from cracked lips. Darkness took him once more in mid chuckle.

It was light again, far away he could hear others scavenging the dead, but right now he was fixated on a small skin on the Janissary's belt. He apologised to the slowly swelling man, it wouldn’t be polite to upset someone nice enough to act as his pillow, even as he struggled to reach the skin with its mouthful of water. It was amazing how much effort this was taking, and in small moments of lucidity he realised just how pathetic his efforts to sustain his life just a little longer really were, yet he couldn’t stop.

Dark again. Not sure how that happened. The skin was empty and the Frenchman was back, looking down at him. They icy blue eyes above him were dead inside, and around the mouth of the man was dried blood. The mouth was moving, but all he could pay attention to were the teeth, pointy, vicious. Even in his state he knew a Voordalak stood above him, he didn’t care about the odd words that penetrated his fogged mind “survivor”, “tithe”, “toy”. The monster was bending over him now, forcing its mouth onto his. Cold hands held his head motionless, an obscene kiss forcing his mouth open. There was a vile taste as something gushed down his throat, something cold, sticky, and foul. The blood of the dead and dying, regurgitated by a monster from his grandmothers bedtime tales, poured into him, burning his soul even as it revitalized his flesh.

“Stand up and walk”, it commanded :“I’m not carrying you”.

He rose from his putrefying deathbed, a dying man newly filled with stolen life, and a damned vampire in a lace collar. He couldn’t help it, he laughed even as he followed. Laughed at the absurdity of it all, laughed at how foolish he had been to scoff at the old tales, laughed at the site of a bloodstained Frenchman standing outside the walls of Naoussa.

“Oh yes, you’ll be perfect for the bitch” the monster muttered as he eyed his new acquisition with disdain.

Meeting the Monster

Missing Years

Waking up in Hong Kong

Date: 1978
Location: Kowloon, Hong Kong

In the peaceful place a voice invades. Nagging. Proding. The voice of mother. It demands attention and draws him towards the light.

The blackness of sleep fades away, exposing the Beast beneath. The beast knows only pain, feels only hunger.

The light burns him, silver light that hurts his eyes, hurts his head. He flinches away from the cruel light, but his body does not respond.
He falls, still pinned by the searing light.

He snarls, but only hears a wheeze. Too weak to stand, he begins to crawl away from the brightness. There is a dark place ahead, the sound of water. The beast goes towards water, a place in comforting darkness to hide and heal.

Tan Chun was the first through the door that first morning, as always she would work till exhausted, driven by the necessity of being the only one working in a family of nine. She was the first one to see the gouges in the polished floor, like a great clawed beast had appeared out of thin air in front of one of the massive wooden support pillars and then moved across the room to the kitchen. Naturally the manager was furious when he arrived an hour later, but even he couldn’t realistically blame the damage on his diminutive sous chef. Instead he had to get repairmen in to fix the damaged boards, and after rebellious muttering amongst the staff even a feng shui practitioner to convince the superstitious kitchen hands that a demon hadn’t taken up residence in the restaurant.

It turned out to be a boon for the business in the end, as word got around that a spirit had taken up residence in the drains beneath the building, and curious patrons would come just to ask the staff about their resident ghost. The restaurant changed its name to the singing ghost, and good fortune did seem to smile upon it, business was good, and for some reason the rodent population that usually bothered floor level businesses seemed to be absent. On the downside management did have to deal with the occasional staff member slacking their duties sitting next to the drains, when caught most would just smile and say they were listening to the ghost singing in the pipes.

==

Date: 1979-80
Location: Kowloon, Hong Kong

Sometimes, from the safety of the darkness it would look up at them, and but only when it was sure they could not see. They lived in the light, keeping him away, despite the feelings in his belly. They would rumble and chirp, sometimes noises he knew; sometimes the sounds were familiar sometimes not, but always beyond his understanding. Down here in the tunnels there was always the noise of those above, and the gentle sound of lapping water that would soothe him to sleep as the hated sun rose above.

Time meant little down here. There was only the drip of the water, and the noises filtering down from above. Too weak to hunt he had to wait, calling the small food to him with whispers so that he might feed. Slowly however, things began to change. Words came, words that had meaning. One night as he reached out to pull the food to his mouth a word came crashing into his mind with enough force to stun him. In shock he dropped the food, watching it flee in sudden terror. There was a new hunger now, a hunger to understand that was stronger than the hunger in his belly. Food was rat.

He began to listen to the noises from above, trying to work out patterns, clutching at familiar sounds. Eventually he came to realize that there were three different sets of sounds, one set was achingly familiar, one very alien, yet they often meant the same thing. The last was nonsense, singing that meant nothing but attracted him time and time again to peek at the small female as she bustled around the rooms above. He longed to seek one of those above and make it show him more words, more meanings, but when he got close the hunger grew too strong. Just watching the blood pulse beneath the skin of ankle and thigh was maddening, and he knew that up close the urge to feed would overpower the need to know, he also knew that he did not yet have the strength. Not yet.

==

Date: 1981
Location: Kowloon, Hong Kong

The new owner, a Mr. Charles Edward Smythe had dismissed the alleged haunting as native nonsense, and demanded that his new acquisition be updated with the most modern of fittings. Part of the refurbishments required the expansion of the drainage systems beneath the building to allow for the greater flow expected from the modern kitchen, a project that is delayed twice as workmen refuse to enter the pipes beneath the site.

Arriving at work several hours before dawn on the fourth day of the refurbishments, the sous chef was once again to witness the supernatural at work. As she entered the kitchen she was struck by the distinct smell of sewers, and discovered the filthy crumbled body of one of the workmen crammed in the kitchen sink. The unfortunate worker had had his throat torn out, but there was no trace of blood. Too shocked to scream Tan Chun was startled to hear the grate of metal on stone from behind her and whirled just in time to see one of the drainage grates being pulled closed from the other side by a pale, clawed, hand.

Even though police scoured the area, even sending workmen into the maze of tunnels beneath the building, no sign of the attacker was ever found. Work crews refused point blank to work on the site, ensuring that the refurbishments would never be finished. Worse still many staff were afraid to come to work, fearing that the meddling had angered the resident spirit enough to take a life, and leaving the place shorthanded even as the tragedy served to drive the number of patrons up. The restaurant almost lost its sous chef since she claimed that the ghost had whispered her name as it disappeared back into the wall, marking her as the next victim, and had refused to come back to work until the owners bribed her back with triple pay.

Fresh blood, strong blood, had washed the beast away. With the blood had come a flood of tastes, memories and understanding. There was a sense of self now, where before there had only been instinct. He knew himself now, knew his name, and his nature. He was strong enough to walk now, still weak, but he could reason enough to get by. It was time to leave these dank, smelly pipes and return to the night world above, but first he had something he must do.

The doors of the White Dragon shut for the last time on the 12th of August 1981. Despite being in a prime site in the Kowloon area they would not open again for an unbelievable three years. The final nail in the coffin was the disappearance of both the head chef, refugee from mainland China, and the sous chef as they worked late that last night. Official enquiries went nowhere, and while the case was never closed it was suggested that the head chef had actually been part of a contact ring for Chinese informants, and had killed the workman when he stumbled across a clandestine meeting. It was assumed that the sous chef was either in cahoots with him, or had been eliminated for the same reason.

Locals of the area however had come to a different conclusion. The spirit had slain those that had disturbed it, and had come on that last night to claim the woman as his mate, dragging her into hell. Some claim to have seen her over the following years, red-eyed and fanged, and calling down the sewer grates for her demon lover.