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There are three vampires that we know of, Huard, Sebastion, and Selene. From what we know of them, this apparition is more in Sebastion's line than the other two, but time will tell.

Sam and Jaspar are going to get a mightly shock when they start to put 2 and 2 together and find it equals 7. Mind you, if/when Oscar tells Sebastion (presuming it is him) of this little visit, they are going to get a mightly shock anyway :)
 
Perhaps poor Oscar's last name is...






... Renfield? ...

When he ate the bug it was a dead give-away. Except Renfield had more hair.:D

Joe
 
Since this mysterious (and miserable) Oscar talks about bringing the Eye to 'him', it seems logical to assume that he's been turned vampire either by Sebastion or by Huard (the voice that calls out to him that it's time to feed is deliberately left undescribed - so it could be Selene, but I'll ignore that possibility for now).

Seems a sure bet that it's Sebastion so I think we can be sure that it isn't him.:D I mean coz wouldn't be that obvious would he?:D

Joe
 
Seems a sure bet that it's Sebastion so I think we can be sure that it isn't him.:D I mean coz wouldn't be that obvious would he?:D

Joe

True, true, it would be very obvious. But then, what if coz1 is being obvious on the assumption that such blinding obviousness will throw us off the scent, allowing him to make the obvious choice of Sebastion be the surprising one after all? Or maybe he made it obvious, so that we'd think it couldn't be him, but then we'd think it was Sebastion after all, so that we'd be doubly (triply?)surprised if it didn't turn out to be Sebastion in the end. Or maybe...

This way madness lies, clearly. :D

Good to hear from you, Joe, it's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of your banter (the fault's mine, for being absent for months). :)
 
Awesome set of updates Coz. Ill echo everyone's comments on Selene and Sebastien, the particular update with the exchange and the chemistry between them was tantilizing ;)

So now Abraham is a vampire, it should be interesting. Selene calls it a gift, but as Abe says, it sounds more like a sentence. Just to confirm, do you vampires die in the sunlight? or do they just hate it?

It should be interesting too, if Sam would meet Abraham in his time ;) the guy is immortal after all, and judging from the eye's disappearance in the present, someone might have done a great job protecting it after all.
 
It's been a long and busy week and it's time for some fb-fb:

Boy that was a close call for Selene, although she performed amiably.
Also many congratulations on concluding the Eagle in the Winter! Finishing off an AAR in style is a great achievement...
I'm glad the fight came off like I'd hoped. I needed to make them both strong people, with Sebastion a bit stronger. But Selene can hold her own. She's a tough cookie. And thanks on Eagle. It was a long time coming but it feels good. Now if only a few more people would read it. ::sigh::

I agree with the Tolkien analogy, and I see merit in your comparison to Sauron. But I say that Sebastion is not (yet) Sauron, he is Saruman - absurdly ambitious enough to try for total rule but without Sauron's power to back it up. He may grow into Sauron's role in time, but I think he is not there yet.

The real source of Sebastion's disfunction is not that he can't see that others want the Eye, but that he cannot see why they deny it to him as a matter of right. He'd have been right at home as a king of the 'divine right' school; his merest whim should be law.
I can agree with that. Sebastion has quite a self-image and little patience for other's desires. On the one hand, you could say it is how he survived all these years. But he might get reckless, which may end up hurting him. We'll have to see. ;)

Nooo, more vampires!

The whole world shall be cover in them! Though I wonder how he got to be that way. Are vampires immortal or did that certain girl give him the gift of life, which then means that she is still alive and that she is immortal..

Ok too many rampant thoughts :eek:o
Vampires are indeed immortal, though I do think they have weaknesses and can be killed if handled correctly. I'm working on a way to show that. Stay tuned. :D

Left with no clues, Sam Finch is for now. And the man feeding on Oscar would be none other then Sebastion as Abraham Huard would never sink this low to feed. Unless the long years have depraved him and he is not as Selene thought he was.

EDIT: Of course it is entirely possible that I'm missing something and that I'm totally wrong.
I'd say that was a clue but not one Sam can figure just yet. He hasn't put two and two together simply because the thought of what he's just seen is foreign to him. He has no idea it exists yet. As for who it was at the end...I can't say.;)

It's a bloody infestation! :p Good work, sir! :D
Heh. Well, who's to say we haven't already met this one...maybe not in this timeline, but another. :D

Perhaps poor Oscar's last name is...






... Renfield? ...
Ahh, you caught it. I didn't want to make it too overt but I love that character - so odd but perfect for the story. Now what to do with him? :D

Had to do some Googling to make sense of that allusion, Director. :) It's been a long time since I read Dracula - that's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it. ;)

Since this mysterious (and miserable) Oscar talks about bringing the Eye to 'him', it seems logical to assume that he's been turned vampire either by Sebastion or by Huard (the voice that calls out to him that it's time to feed is deliberately left undescribed - so it could be Selene, but I'll ignore that possibility for now). Either Huard has lowered his standards in the last 140 years, or Sebastion has grown more sophisticated. Neither option makes me very happy, though the latter should be more reason for concern.

At least Jasper wasn't bitten, with all the complications that would bring. :)
I would hesitate to call Oscar a vampire. I won't say he's not but consider him at least a rung down the ladder. He's certainly a pet of someone. I'll bring that out a bit more as we go along. As for Jasper being bitten...now that's a scary thought. Depends on how he was bit, I guess. It's something Sam surely wouldn't want to deal with for sure. :D

I do get the feeling Oscar is a sort of cattle, hoping to trade the the Eye for his freedom, perhaps?
That's a bit more along the lines I was considering. He's a servant wishing to trade the eye not so much for freedom but perhaps favor.

There are three vampires that we know of, Huard, Sebastion, and Selene. From what we know of them, this apparition is more in Sebastion's line than the other two, but time will tell.

Sam and Jaspar are going to get a mightly shock when they start to put 2 and 2 together and find it equals 7. Mind you, if/when Oscar tells Sebastion (presuming it is him) of this little visit, they are going to get a mightly shock anyway :)
All good thoughts. But I'll not give anything away just yet. :D

I'm about halfway through at the moment, and I'm enjoying the noir/vampire crossover. Excellent so far. :)
Thanks, Fiftypence. Always good to have you reading along. It's been interesting trying to connect the two strands.

When he ate the bug it was a dead give-away. Except Renfield had more hair.:D

Joe
Yes, that was my one sop to those in the know. It's a dead give away (oooh, bad pun.) :D

Seems a sure bet that it's Sebastion so I think we can be sure that it isn't him.:D I mean coz wouldn't be that obvious would he?:D

Joe
Wouldn't I? If I have you guessing, I'm doing something right.

It's Huard, Selene was wrong, Sebastion is dead, and Huard is even more powerful than Sebastion was before.



Ok how wrong was I?
Can't say you are right or wrong, but that's an interesting guess. I think we can reasonably assume it's a vampire but which one, I'm keeping close to the vest. In truth, it may be one we haven't yet met. ;)

True, true, it would be very obvious. But then, what if coz1 is being obvious on the assumption that such blinding obviousness will throw us off the scent, allowing him to make the obvious choice of Sebastion be the surprising one after all? Or maybe he made it obvious, so that we'd think it couldn't be him, but then we'd think it was Sebastion after all, so that we'd be doubly (triply?)surprised if it didn't turn out to be Sebastion in the end. Or maybe...

This way madness lies, clearly. :D

Good to hear from you, Joe, it's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of your banter (the fault's mine, for being absent for months). :)
Very good, Stuyvesant. I wanted to keep it ambiguous just for this very reason. Another interesting theory.

Awesome set of updates Coz. Ill echo everyone's comments on Selene and Sebastien, the particular update with the exchange and the chemistry between them was tantilizing ;)

So now Abraham is a vampire, it should be interesting. Selene calls it a gift, but as Abe says, it sounds more like a sentence. Just to confirm, do you vampires die in the sunlight? or do they just hate it?

It should be interesting too, if Sam would meet Abraham in his time ;) the guy is immortal after all, and judging from the eye's disappearance in the present, someone might have done a great job protecting it after all.
Thanks. I had fun with the Selene/Sebastion fight. It won't be the last, though it may happen earlier, if you know what I mean. ;)

As for vampires and sunlight, I can go ahead and say it does not kill them in this world, at least not right away. It is an extreme irritant and were one to go out and simply stand in the sunlight too long, it could kill them.

Finally, you are on to something with the Eye and the 1930's. Won't say what just yet.


To all - I am working on the next update. It'll either come today or tomorrow. Thanks for the great comments, folks. I love the guessing game and you all have done a great job looking at the story abd coming up with some solid theories. Keep 'em coming. :)
 
When he ate the bug it was a dead give-away. Except Renfield had more hair.:D

Joe
Damn! Joe and Director beat me to it :). That was the obvious connection when I read that piece. All that was missing was the barred windows and the full moon. So, after Sam and Jasper left, (insert_name_here) arrived for a feeding. That was awfully fast. Was, perhaps, (insert_name_here) listening all the while? It would have been funny if he had disguised himself as a bug and Oscar ate him. Well, maybe not that funny for the plot...
 
It's been a while since I've been able to read this because of RL which has prohibited me from being online but, I must say that this is without a doubt my favorite AAR out there, by a longshot especially in the narrative category.

It's like reading an actual novel, only a few pages at a time and waiting for the next pages to be published.
 
It's been another busy week, folks and between trying to find time to write and a bit of an issue that requres working out (that itself requires time), I just have not been able to get that next update out. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, I likely won't have that time this weekend either (as I need to help my pops do some work on his house.) Bear with me and I hope to get back to this soon enough. For now, I'll anser a bit more fb.

How long do vampires live? :D
I think comagoosie answered that one. ;) They are immortal if left alive, at least in my opinion. I understand there are schools of thought that don't consider them such, but that's not me.

Damn! Joe and Director beat me to it :). That was the obvious connection when I read that piece. All that was missing was the barred windows and the full moon. So, after Sam and Jasper left, (insert_name_here) arrived for a feeding. That was awfully fast. Was, perhaps, (insert_name_here) listening all the while? It would have been funny if he had disguised himself as a bug and Oscar ate him. Well, maybe not that funny for the plot...
There are reasons why (insert_name_here) did not want to be seen. I'll reveal that eventually. I can say, they were not disguised as the bug. :D

I like the Renfield bit, very nice. It also indicated to me that he might not actually be a full-blown vampire, which you later comfirmed.
Thanks. I wanted to find a way to include that character and hopefully I'll be able to keep using him. He's not full blown vampire. More a slave.

It's been a while since I've been able to read this because of RL which has prohibited me from being online but, I must say that this is without a doubt my favorite AAR out there, by a longshot especially in the narrative category.

It's like reading an actual novel, only a few pages at a time and waiting for the next pages to be published.
That is very much a compliment, sir. Thank you. I do intent to write this very much as a novel, or at least novella. I'm pleased that reading a few updates at a time reads well that way. Hopefully I won't keep you waiting too long for the next update.


Thanks again, all, for your comments. :)
 
Heya coz, just dropping in to say thanks for giving something very very enjoyable to read while taking a break from note-taking. I'm glad I had the glimpse of spare time to read through your latest work, it's a real pleasure to read, I love the 1938 sections, I'm a sucker for Noir action and the situational alliance between Sam and Jasper, the vampire scenes from what I've read so far are fantastically atmospheric and perfectly chilling, exactly what I would hope for, alas I haven't had time to finish it, but I expect I should be able tomorrow XD

Subscribed!:D

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* * *

New York City, 1792

Abraham Huard wandered the streets, hungry and tired. He knew that it was the rich, sticky essence of a being he required and the thought of taking such from another human was something he simply could not stomach. The snows began again and he noticed that the ice cold flakes did not seem to burn his cheeks anymore. His skin did not need to freeze. He was dead.

Wind picked up and howled as he thought about what might be ahead of him. His finger turned again the ring signifying his loved one so far away…could he ever return to her now? How would she see him? How could she? And how could he?

There was no direction given him save protect his own self. She…the beautiful lady, his savior…had sent him away into the wilderness where he could starve. He might then be truly dead. But in order to do what he required to keep going, his action would be such that he still could not contemplate. He was a gentleman after all…not some rough beast. Could his center hold once he let open such a dam?

He attempted to control his thoughts and find that one thing he needed to do…he need to seek help. But who? Certainly Selene. He had to find her again to figure out his actions. But he required immediate help for he knew his days of sunlight were over. How could that be, he wondered to himself. Never again to see the sun? No warmth for his skin…the feeling of happiness that bright orb washed over him…gone.

He tried hard to focus his thought but his senses were so much sharper. He could clearly hear rustling in the woods beyond. And his singular thought became clearer. A rush of excitement moved over his body and by instinct, he ran with great speed into the wilderness to grasp that which caused his rush. A deer, just having enough time to look up and spy the attack, felt no more. Abraham pounced and sunk his newly sharpened teeth into the animal’s neck. Blood poured out of the creature and brought life into Huard once more and he nearly felt the urge to shout such was his pleasure.

But once the animal lay dead at his feet, Abraham rocked back on his feet and hit the ground with a thud. Sitting, he slumped over and placed his head heavy into his hands…the shame and embarrassment too much for his new life. He grieved for the beast…himself and the deer. And yet, he remained hungry.

winterforest.jpg

There was only one man he could turn to in this state. And he questioned the reception he would receive. But he made his way to the hotel and found that there was great ease in climbing the walls to rest on the balcony of the man’s room. The door was open and inviting, curtains blowing out with the breeze. He entered with slow steps and found him asleep. He shifted to the bed quietly and bent towards the prone body whispering,

“Temple Franklin…”

To be continued in Episode II​
 
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Caught up again. So he has turned to Temple... I thought Franklin would have more to do with it, though this doesn't seem to be the way I imagined it. I wonder how he will be recieved. Temple has found it so hard to believe in Vampires at all; could be possibly believe his friend is one too?
 
Caught up once more! Wonder what Temple will do when he sees Abraham

oh and this AAR needs a coffin.. promise me that this AAR will have a coffin! :)