destinystrings | Time Of Truthiness!

"...Huh. So vampires are suckers for historical dramas. Maybe I'll start calling you Prince Maugris from now on. ...Or London whatever your real name was." She would have to go take a look at the apartment listing again.

"So what happens if a human does find out about you guys?" Drawn and quartered, each vampire gets a limb. "Or if one of your vampires gets out of control?"

"Landen. And nobody calls me that. I'd prefer just Maugris. I can't really be Prince if I'm here, and anyway I really hated being Prince."

He shrugs his shoulders, looking uncomfortable. "There are... different ways. If it's just a glimpse of something they shouldn't have seen there's a trick some vampires have where they can basically wallpaper over someone's short-term memory." He's deliberately picked the most harmless option - and it says a lot about the other options that he thinks that one is the most harmless.

"A vampire who gets out of control mostly gets threatened with the fact that there are bigger and badder vampires out there who would prefer they stay in control. If that doesn't work, they get kicked out of the city and have to find somewhere else - and vampires do communicate with each other, enough that if they go to a new city they can expect the people there to know. If they're really bad, the threats even get carried out." He doesn't like that part.

"As you please, Prince Landen."

Phantom Girl will, of course, sweep her cape out as she descends to one knee in a bow as is customary with royalty.

"So what happens if, say, some plucky investigative reporter is watching in an alleyway when one of your vampires takes the blood he needs from a passerby? And then he follows you around because that's what plucky investigative reporters do?" Whether or not she had said as much, the point of these questions were, of course, to make a judgment concerning Maugris and his vampire culture.

Edited 2013-08-27 02:06 (UTC)

"Well, for a start the vampire in question gets in serious trouble for not just getting spotted, but letting himself get followed around. As for the reporter... any evidence he has gets mysteriously lost or damaged. His stories never quite seem to make it to print." He shrugs. "He keeps pushing, he might lose his job, even get recommended to see a psychiatrist about his delusions about vampires. A lot of vampires are good at manipulating mortal society behind the scenes - assuming a reporter trying to break news about a conspiracy of vampires doesn't get put on psychiatric leave all on his own."

He really, really hopes she doesn't ask what happens if the reporter keeps going. That's where things get ugly, and Maugris is starting to work out that he can't actually lie at the moment.

"Hm."

Phantom Girl has more or less figured out where this is leading on her own.

"Well. Totally ruining his life means he's still got one left to ruin, at least. This kind of thing is hard on normal humans, isn't it? I suppose coming out into the open and establishing some sort of vampire blood bank to keep you all satiated is out of the question."

"I don't like it, but it's the best option we've got. Besides, if he's smart enough to keep his mouth shut on his own it can be kept from going too far." Or if you lie like hell to your superiors and hope they don't look into it further.

"But no, going public won't really work. Best case, nobody believes us and they think we're all crazy. Worst case, it's stakes and torches time. And that's without dealing with what vampires would do if they thought they didn't have to hide anymore." They've been over that part enough that she gets the idea, he's pretty sure.

"You know, in these kinds of stories, the plucky investigative report usually ends up managing to bridge the gap between cultures and opening up a brave new world of vampire-human friendship. You could give it a go and see what happens." ...She was probably joking. Phantom Girl resumes floating and drifts a few feet away.

"Honesetly, though. You're playing referee right now, and it's working, but... How long do you really think you guys can keep it going? What will happen when it breaks down?"

"It seems to be working so far. The Camarilla's been around almost six hundred years, and vampires in general a lot longer than that. It, uh, isn't always with methods as nice as the ones I talked about, but so far we haven't managed to all get ourselves wiped out by hunters or werewolves or anything else that doesn't like us."

He sighs and shakes his head. "When it really breaks down, it usually goes in favor of the mortals - there's a lot more normal humans out there than there are vampires. My city was pretty much abandoned by Kindred for five years because a conflict got too big and spilled over into the mortal world. Most of the vampires involved in that mess met final death; the ones who didn't just had the sense to bug out."

"...There are werewolves, too?" Was the most important part of that statement, of course. She manages to shake off the expression of exasperated disbelief after a moment or two and resume the conversation. "It still seems like there ought to be a better way... It doesn't seem fair to anyone involved right now."

Whether or not she would ever admit it, diplomacy ran in her blood. Phantom Girl heaves a slight sigh.

"Trying to establish relations with Earth centuries ago went about as well as you would expect - at first. We had the advantage of the Martians having paved the way to the idea of otherworldly visitors, and really, Earth was used to monster attacks and superheroes and all of that already; aliens were just another step up the weirdness ladder. In the end, we managed it with as little conflict as we could have hoped for. And today, Earth is the bastion for the main body of the United Planets - and for my team, of course. ...The point is, if they can take 500 different species of aliens, maybe they can handle vampires. ...In a few hundred years."

Edited 2013-08-28 02:42 (UTC)

"Yes, there are werewolves. I thought we talked about the werewolves before? They really don't like vampires, I think because things that smell dead aren't supposed to be walking around. Thankfully we mostly stay in cities and they mostly like to hang around the outskirts."

He sighs again. "You're right, it isn't fair. I don't like it, even less than I like how most vampires behave around each other. Which is lousy, by the way. But aliens have the advantage of not having a few thousand years of preying on mortals behind them. And there are more aliens than vampires, and they aren't completely vulnerable at the same time humans are up and about most often. I'm sure you guys got nutjob terrorist attacks when you were trying to assimilate - imagine how bad it would be if there were only a couple million of you in existence at all, ever, and all it took to kill you was dragging you out in the sun while you were asleep."

"...Oh. We did." A slight pause. "I get the stories I hear here mixed up with old movies I've watched before; it's hard to tell them apart sometimes."

Phantom Girl has the decency to look vaguely embarrassed as she continues on. "And, er, I wouldn't be too sure about the whole preying on humans thing. ...I mean, not Bgztlians; we're saints, but. I have it on good authority that humans are surprisingly easy to manipulate. Honestly, though, no one really likes the Coluans that much." A firm clearing of the throat before she proceeds. "I see your point, but. It isn't as if vampires have another planet to live on, either. Sooner or later, like you say, someone ends up making a mistake and the bad things happen anyway. Since you're obligated to coexist..."

A small shrug.

"...Don't you get lonely?"

He raises an eyebrow at her estimation of her own race, looking a little curious. "I don't know, if vampires are harder to manipulate than humans it's only because a lot of us are already such manipulative bastards that we know what to spot. But after that I kind of have to know. What do Coluans do?"

After a long moment, he adds, "... Yeah, a little. But since most of us can at least pass for humans it's not like we can't interact with them. I mean, I was taking night classes at the university back home. And after dealing with the other vampires in Metatropolis for a while I usually need to spend the rest of the night away from people if I don't want to haul off and punch somebody."

"They're a hive mind of inorganic humanoids. ...Living robots. Their claim to fame, besides being incredibly obnoxious to anyone they meet, is producing the Brainiac line - Brainiac I was all into the whole genocide, 'humans are insignificant worms' thing. Brainiac V is fine, though, for a given definition of fine. He's on the team and off the hive mind; we like him even if he's way too cynical for his own good."

This from Little Miss Snark herself.

"...Anyway. I guess that's enough Q&A for the moment." A slight pause. "We should probably talk about the whole 'can't lie' thing, unless you had any burning questions you wanted to ask me. I've totally been abusing it."

"O...kay, so they're annoying living robots that occasionally toss out crazy supervillains?" Maugris is perfectly comfortable with using the word "supervillain" on account of talking to a superhero right now.

"Yeah, I've been talking too much even for that anyway. Feel free to smack me if that happens, by the way. I know I ramble." He rubs the back of his neck. "But... yeah. The 'can't lie' thing. That's worrying. Uh. It's a very nice night."

He pauses. "Okay, I was trying to say 'it's really cold tonight'. So yeah, looks like it's no lying."

"Yeah, I know. I tried to say 'Bgztlian blood disappears on bloodshed' earlier back when we were doing the whole 'don't eat me' bit, but apparently, the censor wouldn't take it. And hey, I was the one asking. I have a habit of being curious about things that aren't any of my business; it helps with the family trade."

Phantom Girl glances around at the others outside, none of whom look terribly concerned.

"I didn't notice it before, but I guess I was an antisocial hermit and I didn't come out earlier today, either. Is this another weird city thing, do you think?"

"I don't know, probably. I certainly don't know anything that can make a whole city not lie." He glances around. No, no major panic going on; either people haven't worked it out yet or they've settled into it by now.

"Anything you can think of?"

"I'm sure there's some obscure demon out there with the power to force the truth. The god of psychic intuition or maybe polygraph tests." Phantom Girl grimaces momentarily. "As idealistic as superheroes are supposed to be, I'm leaning towards thinking this might lead to more strife than anything. 'Does this costume make me look fat?', and so on."

...

"You don't need to answer that."

"Good, I wasn't going to. I'm pretty sure you're enough younger than me that noticing would be kind of creepy, anyway. You're probably right about this being more of a problem than otherwise. If nothing else, it's something that can get into people's heads, and even if it's just a truth thing that's generally bad news."

He pauses, as if he's halfway waiting for her to call him out on being uncomfortable with that when he's suggested memory wiping as one of the more acceptable ways to uphold the Masquerade.

"Anyway, I don't suppose you know anybody who'd have a good way of finding demons, do you?"

"How old are you again?" She asks, fully conscious of the compulsion to speak the truth. The hypocrisy inherent in his words does not escape her, but picking at it now wouldn't help with their problem any. She expects that Maugris has two sets of morals he follows in his head - those applicable to normal life and those necessary to maintain the Masquerade. On occasion, they did not, perhaps, always agree.

"I don't think there's such a thing as a demon detector, no. Even if there is, we don't even know whether or not it is a demon. ...Since everyone's obligated to tell the truth, maybe we should ask some questions."

She would be perfectly right about how Maugris runs his morality - not that Maugris was necessarily happy about it; breaking his personal morals to uphold the Masquerade tended to leave him depressed at best and twitchy at worst. "Altogether, 43. As a vampire, around 18; I was Embraced when I was about 25." He's still very young as a vampire, though if vampires could get gray hairs he'd probably have them.

"Well, I can actually probably tell when something's a demon, but I have to know what to look at first. But yeah, asking around's a good plan. Assuming we can figure out somewhere to start."

"Oh, good. I was half-afraid you were one of those centuries-old Dracula types." Some stereotypes had stuck around even into the 30th century. "I can handle 40; that's like, my mom's age." Honestly, she had already slotted Maugris into that age group form the start - anything over 21, to a teenager, was akin to the Ancient of Days.

"...Let me give something a shot."

Phantom Girl floats up about twenty feet into the air and over a group of people nearby. ...She draws in some breath.

"Hey! Who knows anything about this stupid truth-telling thing?!"

She had never been the best strategist on her team.

"Yeah, no. I've met a couple of them, they get... weird. A lot weirder than me," he qualifies; he isn't entirely sure how weird he comes off to normal people (even if an alien diplomat from the 30th century is a bit of a stretch for 'normal').

He sighs and puts a hand to his face as he watches Phantom Girl's strategy for finding out if anyone knows anything. "Do you really think that's going to work?" he mutters to himself.

"I can hear you! They have to answer truthfully, right?"

The chorus of 'no's and odd expressions that follows is just about what can be expected from such an approach; Phantom Girl drifts back with a shrug.

"OK. Next 20 foot stretch of sidewalk."

Maugris actually looks vaguely impressed. Sure, he could have heard that from where she is, if he tried, but he has special vampire powers.

"There's got to be an easier way than working through the whole city like that. Look, do you know if there's anywhere demons tend to hang out particularly? Uh, preferably ones that don't breathe fire?" he adds, remembering the rather unpleasant encounter with a Pyro Jack that led to him awakening his Persona to start with.

As the team busybody, Phantom Girl makes a habit of practicing eavesdropping from increasingly greater distances. At Maugris's question, she chews on her lower lip for a few moments.

"...Yeah. I think there's a nightclub. A few of them."

Time Of Truthiness!

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