I notice a recording machine on my left, sitting on an end table next to a chair baring the monogram A. G. Oddly enough, it's rewound to the beginning. I hit play and turn back to the light, a wailing, static screech echoing from all across the room. Must have the thing hooked up to a surround sound system.
Let's hear this Mad Hatter King.
I turn back to the light as the electronic whines turn into dour Victorian English.
It is quite peculiar the happenings I’ve been made to witness from my supernatural longevity. I’m thinking of one unfortunate phenomenon in particular, of unique interest to my station both as a professional and as a sufferer of this vampiric condition. It seems the stream of time has begun to erode the moorings of my chosen course of study, for the methodologies that gave birth to psychology are slowly disappearing.
I find myself in an era that overlooks the physical component of psychological pathology time and again in favor of the sadistic practices of Freud. Chronology, Dactopintalism and the rest of the old guard have fallen by the wayside, its champions all silenced and dead with my unique exception. Would that I could make my voice heard again, although it may be suspicious should I return to popular medical discourse fifty years after my apparent death.
No, better that I continue my study into the psychosis in secret. One day, may I hold up my own cure as validation of the methods. I am confidant no cure for my condition or that of my beloved wife lies within our figurative minds, waiting to be unlocked by the correct combination of memories uncovered from our childhood and I am most certain it has nothing to do with the relationship between myself, my parents and my genitals, sorry, Sigmund. I choose to stay my course.
There's a click over the loudspeakers, followed by a brief silence and then the crackling of another audio entry.
Another unfortunate casualty to tide of time; Insane Asylums. I lament their loss not only as brokerage houses for the breadth and depth of human psychosis, but also I shall mourn the disappearance of the peculiar environment present only in an insane asylum.
I can hear a door screetch open somewhere in the mansion over the sound of Grout's droning. Not exactly what I'd expected from a man supposedly mad. I leave the library and back track to the entry way, looking for doors no longer locked. Grout's audio diary continues to play through the halls. He must have the entire building rigged.
That palpable atmosphere of blistered brains and churning bowels, the odiferous deluge of freely flowing bodily humors, that gently rolling cacophony of distant sobs and screams, the muttered cursing of perceived enemies and the blissful gurgling of the lobotomized. Like a new born babe discovering the sky.
Hmph. I shall still find test subjects as surely as I find bloody sustenance in the night, but this climate, I fear, may never be replicated.
The audio ends in a click, but another doesn't begin in its place. I make my way to the open doors at the very end of the hall.
There's another leather clad gibberling waiting for me, empty eyes appraising me behind the mask. In a single smooth motion it leaps over the the table, hands raised, screaming inarticulate madness.
Its corpse spins spectacularly in the air, twirling from the blast of lead before bouncing on the tile. I walk into the room, the telltale cries and laughs coming from all corners of the room.
Unlike the first gibberling, this one doesn't notice me when I approach, never breaking out of its endless cycle of crying laughter.
I put the shotgun up against its head and shoot it.
No telling when it'd go off, better to clear them out now while they're not fighting back.
Especially since some of them seem to resort to cannibalism. There's an electric whine in the walls.
Often I reflect with great regret on the missed opportunity that was my infector. Had I been conscious after the attack, I could have stopped the orderlies from locking her in the roaming pen. What I would give for just one interview, a few simple questions of the plague ridden woman who met her end that dawn.
Of course there is no guarantee she would have been any more helpful than my current crop of test subjects, mewling wretches. Few could be called enthusiastic. Given the nature of the tests I cannot expect the same fervor from all of them but a modicum of cooperation would be appreciated. Animals.
The one called John went so far as to gnaw off his arm to escape into the floorboards like some feral rodent. I still hear him scurrying about at night, making an atrocious mess.
The diary ends in a click just before I've kill four more of the females.
I wish everything went this smoothly.
The doors leading out of the room are locked and the only staircase ascends directly into the ceiling. It takes some digging before I finally notice a wall mounted light that looks the same as the ones in the library.
The
only wall mounted light in the entire room.
I pull it down, and it gives way with a groan.
I climb the stairs, quickly ascending through the ceiling door into the room at the top, hearing the sobs of utter despair long before I'm through the threshold.
I don't even both to put the gun against its head this time.
There's a scream nearby, accompanied by the slamming of irregular footfalls against the floor.
He dives at me, clawed hands outstretched, blood still flying from them.
The shot to his head throws his upper body backwards, feet flying out in front of him until he lands almost perfectly on his back. There's almost nothing left of his head, but otherwise I'd give the landing a six.
I don't know how Nines got through all this without killing everyone, but I'm glad he did.
This is fun.
I reach the end of the hall and start up a spiral staircase running the inside of one of the towers as the whine kicks in again.
My studies proceed at a languid pace. I’m mired in fowl concavity at my wife’s advancing illness. My subjects grow restless without proper supervision, but I cannot pull myself back from this black depression. How many nights I’ve wasted now, gazing from the tower walk, pondering the frailty of existence.
It clicks off as I reach the top.
Hm. This must be the tower walk he was talking about.
I can see why he wasted so much time up here. If he's really dead maybe I can talk LaCroix into giving me this place.
After I kill the rest of the marauding inhabitants, I mean. I don't really want them prowling about while I'm sleeping.
I reach the bottom of the stairs, executing three more of the females before reaching another set of massive double doors. I unbar the latches and push them open, revealing a green hued dining room without a table or chair left unturned and an army of gibberlings cackling and sobbing.
So, if this is the dinning room, I wonder if that makes them all a family?
One of the leather clad ones swipes out at me, claws ripping across the solid oak door and sending splinters through the air. That must be papa gibberling, the strong, angry one.
The first shot rips through its pelvis and the second one catches its head as papa gibberling crashes to the ground.
That must be mama gibberling. Aunt gibberling came out a few seconds earlier.
And the oldest daughter, sister gibberling, who has a string of luck slightly better than the rest.
Instead of the welcome explosion of buckshot, the Ithica only manages a desperate click. The gibberling grabs the barrel and tries to yank it from my hands. I let go and it stumbles back, tossing the shotgun against the wall. It gives me enough time to pull out the glock before its on top of me.
It jams the knife into my stomach, but practically shoves its head into the barrel of the gun in the process. Three taps of the trigger and the gibberling family is finished.
Oh wait.
It's baby gibberling, who walked in on the whole scene.
I pull the knife from my stomach and stab her in the top of the head.
Fucking gibberlings.
The hallways start to whine.
After decades of solitary study into this affliction, I have learned that it is by no means mine alone. Indeed, this city is home to and entire society of similarly afflicted individuals with whom I’ve only recently made contact. They are an understandably standoffish sort, by and large, but I have been able to confirm with them that the condition is indeed vampirism, which apparently comes in a multitude of strains, each with a spectacular set of symptoms such as invisibility and even a sort of lycanthropy.
Through numerous official interactions with the governing body of this secret society, I have concluded that their fundamental understanding of the vampiric condition is woefully lacking and mired in suspicion and pseudo-religious dogma that would make a Turk balk for its scriptures.
Running out of ammunition while fighting sister gibberling's made me a little more conscientious about ammo.
Indeed they seemed impressed with my studies and the eloquence with which I was able to present them. Apparently the typical of my particular strain of my form of vampirism is far from the vanguard of the King’s English. So impressed were they that they even offered me an office in their government, a rather high office, by the sound of things.
I believe I shall accept. If nothing else, it shall provide a lofty vantage point with which I may observe the breadth and epidemiology of the affliction so I may move more expeditiously towards a cure.
What the
fuck? This had better not turn into some evil mirror shit, I don't know how effective pumping bird shot into that kind of thing is going to be.
I crouch down by the fireplace to get a different angle on the mirror, and notice a set of protrusions that look a great deal newer than the rest of the woodwork.
I push them in, and the fireplace slides open.
Oh.
Grout you fucker, you had me worried.
I have accepted the role of ‘Primogen’ for clan ‘Malkavian’, the dreadfully winsome label applied to the particular strain of vampirism I suffer. So named for some supposed vampire father figure of old. More poppycock grown from a backward culture that seems interminably drawn to children’s tales and the fiction of Victorian romance when it should concern itself with the science behind their suffering.
No matter. I have taken this office for no greater reason than the advancement of my research. I must make mention, however, that even among my would be peers in this governing body of vampires, the level of paranoia and superstition is frightening.
As her body hits the floor, there's a groaning from somewhere down the hall.
Their intelligence is not the question, no indeed, for as they courted me for this appointment I had to suspect that their overtures were hand tailored for what must be my obvious infatuation with reason, For the devil would to well to have such honey tongued tempters.
Even so, I could not help but notice the dressing of language these vampire leaders chose for their siren song. Whether it is born of habit, from addressing their unwashed, ill educated subjects or from their own deep seeded beliefs, their linguistic flourishes belie a faith in superstition over the providence of empirical reason that must be an all pervasive theme in this society of darkest night.
...Damn it all, now I’m doing it to.
Alright, so I'm all jacked up on some shit in a can, I dunno what it is but it's not the kind of jacked up that makes you think good with English so most the end is not even with having any words in it except for Grout's pre-recorded memoirs. I thought about sitting on this and fixing it but this update is late enough anyway and I mean they can't all be stellar right right I'm glad we all agree.
Also hey did you know it's like impossible to find those memoirs transcribed like anywhere on the internet? And to extract them you have to do some bullshit? Did you know that I had to transcribe them myself while listening to them in game? Did you know that if you interrupt the recordings once at any point they will never play to the end again and will randomly cut out? Did you know that I am really bad at transcribing and get like one or two sentences further for every play through of the recording? Did you know I hate Grout now? I HEAR HIM IN MY SLEEP.
Edit: Oh yeah I skipped a bunch of shit because I'm like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit look at all these things I did and I didn't really wanna write anymore