Tales of Past Glories. Very Past.

Who am I?

Where to begin...really it's been awhile, and I find myself having trouble keeping my thoughts together. It's really, kind of like diablerie, but without the advanced generation.

I suppose some catching up is in order. Going back in time twice doesn't happen every day, after all. I mean I'm me, but I'm also a member of the Syndicate circa 1933 (Commodore 64 days.. Man I coulda been something.) and a Turkish trick rider in the current year of 1094.

Things seem different, frankly. Like...the group isn't so much a group. The ones I remember as Brian-Eadwulf and Brenda-Godiva...frankly scare me. Like there's a whole level of creepy where they live, and I'm not sure we can accomplish goals with them. Cassandra is...somehow my sister, Songul, and I'm oddly protective. Call it the older brother complex. Having been an older brother at least once, and even some dim memories of being mad because her husband...took a concubine without permission? Something. Either way, I was rather put out when Rambert tried to put moves on her and I surprised all of us by finding my sword in my hand and having it pointed rather pointedly as his manly bits.

Anyway. My name, or at least the name I have now, is Cengiz. Pretty common where I was born in...Denver, 990 years in the future. Okay, maybe not. But in this day and age, Cengiz is somewhat common because Ghengis Khan is still 100 years from becoming the shit-wrecking Mongol on the steppes. This is difficult, remembering historical touchstones that haven't happened yet. Shit, we're still a year and a half from the first crusade. Which makes my advanced science a rather difficult thing, even my 1933 hyperscience is very difficult to perform due to the vagaries of the collective will making such things an impossibility, despite them being Science.

Curiously, I've been in the pageant as a rider for 40 years; something about having been sold to them to erase a debt. Thanks for nothing (again) Pop. My sister reads fortunes, I shoot arrows and do backflips and such from the back of my horse Malik-Adham (The Black King). When I'm not doing that, I'm helping with the animals in the pageant, since I can talk to them. Or at least I can make them understand me. It's not exactly genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, but it pays the bills.

The pageant is taking on a few new people when we leave, like always. Eadwulf, his wife, and Godiva and her, well, boytoy, I guess. I mean, really it's probably the only chance they'll ever have in their lives to travel, and since they're going to live for awhile, it's pretty much a good idea. Plus, I mean how exactly are you going to change the world by living in a peasant village of 150? But to the interesting stuff. Apparently Goodwife Eadwulf (Sunnigfu) was defiled as a young lady, and other ladies of her age kept it hidden because the defiling one was the local priest, who promised good husbands in exchange for their silence on the matter. Sunnigfu didn't think that was exactly right, so she came to the Pageant for an object to exact revenge. Annnnd she did. Boy howdy did she. Somehow she turned into a wolf as big as my horse, and then made an example of the ladies by kinnnnda sorta shredding them from the waist down. Really gory, and there were a few times during the adventure when my Toreadors' soul was enthralled by the spectacle. If revenge could be an art, what an artisan she would be. That said, I think I'm going to avoid her for a month or so, given that I shot 4 arrows at her and hit twice. The whole thing was a weirdness, since Godiva did something she never does and saved peoples' lives. I approve, but when an act of kindness is something out of place, is this someone you can really trust?

But enough of that for now, I suppose. I'll expand on this more as we travel to our next destination, and I find myself looking for answers to some of the simplest philosophical questions; who am I, what next. And are we in that old Ben Bova novel Orion, going back in time to prevent future horrors? Too many questions and not enough Guinness. Note to self, invent Guinness.

We Three Kings

I hereby call this meeting of the three jokers to order. Myself, Cengiz, and Seppel. Sepp, you're the one with the punchable face, you take the minutes. Cengiz, I'd kinda like to apologize for moving in, but it's a weird trick of, well, magic. Sepp can tell you more about it when he's done whining about how I shot him in the ass.

Think nothing of it. As I recall, I was dying.

Herr...Jason. I must protest; you are and were a Reality Deviant. Despite this mockery, the path is clear; the Precepts of Damian clearly state that Reality Deviants must be destroyed. We were simply going to take you off the street, vivisect you, see what knowledge of temporal mechanics we could learn and then destroy you. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Reality Deviant, says the guy with the titanium legs. First, I know what you were planning to do, even before I shot you. One does not bring a T-1000 to extend an engraved invitation to tea. Second, we have a lot of time ahead of us to bitch and snipe at each other, you're just gonna have to deal. Third, we're kinda in a little peril, so if you could stow it for a bit we gotta figure out what's up with Paderborn.

I'm back!

So, not gonna lie. It's been hectic of late. Traveling in the 11th century is what we could politely call 'a stone cold bitch', but that doesn't quite encapsulate the utter misery of it. The logistics are simple, but with the pageant it's a problem. Generally. Anyway, currently we're in Augsburg- and all hell has broken loose. Short version, multi-faction war to decide who's gonna lead this place, the merchant class is finally waking up to the fact that the nobility sees them as well-dressed peasants, and did I mention there's a couple Methuselahs in town for Round gods-only-know in a pissing match that's gone unabated for millennia?

Right then. Best thing about Nuremberg? Cold beer. They had it. Legit cold beer. I couldn't even bitch about it being a wheat beer, it was beer and it was cold. Me and Songul had a couple, and then some other things happened, I think we were getting drafted into some merchant mages guild - but events intervened and that's a no-go. So after that, I bought some things with my hard-earned coinage, and we went to a joust.

It wasn't the worst thing in the world, and I made a few gold with the bookies, and things were going pretty well, and then I saw Eadwulf head over to a guy who was, well...apparently a handsome lad. Upon further inspection, it was Prius. Aka Helena-the-toreador-methuselah's ghoul. (yes I have his game card showing all his wins, losses, kills-before-weapon-break averages, army K/D ratios but I am not a fanboy. We all get them. I just memorized mine.) If he's in town, that means Helena's in town. Oh sweet happy day, I am gonna get a shortcut to the big time. After dusk, me and the rest of the Four Horsemen chirping the jousters left and right, because their horses are crap, and I see Helena. Because I've been looking for her and hell yes. Trying to locate Arikel through Helena was not happening, so I had to get closer.

In retrospect, it wasn't the worst Embrace I've ever had. It's awkward that I can say that, but true. But I walked up to Helena and after a longass moment of staring into the face of a goddess, spit some Shakespearean sonnet action. I mean, okay, it wasn't the best recitation, but damn I was a little flat-footed. Which I suppose she approved, as when I was done I was trying very hard to think to her that I'd like to have a bit more time to discuss things, but it earned me a grab and rush into darkness.

I woke up with a dozen other guys, and a few other things for breakfast. I was tame, as it were, but my new brothers weren't as cautious. So with that out of the way, Helena arrived and told us to follow. So we did, I mean who wouldn't right? We went forth to a stormy night, with what almost sounded like a young war in the distance. We were told to advance, and I got a sinking feeling hadn't had for some time. We were a mass embrace of newly minted 5th generation Toreador. Theoretically we have no idea what's coming and the blood we were given was pitiful compared to what we needed. Shit is about to go sideways, and whoever we're going up against is probably enough to take out at least half of us without breathing hard. Yeah Helena, not my first rodeo. Now looking forward is some guy and Songul, and yeah, all hell broke loose. Job one was to get Songul the hell out of the way, because I heard her heart beating. Fast. So I kicked in the afterburners for the first time in awhile as a cloud of obtenebration blanketed the area and while I was cool, Songul was choking to death.

Oh look. Shit has gone sideways. I tried to snag Songul before she died, but there was some scary shit standing next to Songul and my feet carried me right the hell out of the cloud. It was about to get messy, with obtenebration cloaking vampiric chaos...and then Astarte had apparently had enough of the undead bullshit. She literally buried all of us. Part of me wishes I could have gotten to know her, but...maybe I'll get another chance to apologize for my part in the ruckus.

Anyway, I woke up the next night, Augsburg is a fighting zone, Helena's nowhere to be found, and I've got a pretty good number of brand-spanking-new powerful-ass vampires on my hands. No idea where anyone other than me is, and my Auspex is not beefy enough to find out. One would think that after spitting love verse that won't be invented for 6 centuries, I'd at least get some dancing before I got a kiss followed by dinner and the shaft. But anyway, back to more important things. My new brothers got Abbreviated Vampire 101, and well...they're gonna have to deal with their conditions as best they can. Hopefully the devil looks after his own, because I sure as hell can't in the middle of all this. Hopefully I'll be able to link up with some of my compatriots and head south, because in theory the pageant was heading to Rome, and I'm gonna have to steal, beg, borrow and get there rapidly. I need clean underwear.

Winter came.

So I'm glossing over a few things, however, here's the high points before I delve deep into the narrative. So Cengiz by itself isn't great when you're hanging out with nobility, and some digging through the memory hole pulled up Pasha as a surname/title from the Ottoman Empire, so that's close enough. Annoyingly, I'm gonna have to find some spare change so that I can actually get a decent outfit or five, but I think I'm going to have some time to do that.

So waking up, there's some shenanigans afoot; just a feeling. I go hang out with Burkhart and Alard, and Alard seems nervy; he scoots without really saying much and I'm shadowing his ass, because if there's one thing neonates love to do, it's get in trouble. I say this without a hint of irony on account of I've got 4 centuries of relative undeadness under my belt, whereas these two are still discovering how awesome and depressing some of this is. Trail Alard to a brothel which is weird in and of itself, since Al's usually not shy about hitting up the ladies of the night. Fun times, and I even met up with Eadwulf real quick for a confab and "This is weird"; we creep up the stairs and there's voices arguing. Nudge the door open and there's Al with his brother and a guy from the western alliance. Can't really place his name but Al's cheesed off; in the few seconds I put together the pieces of the crap - Big Brother is going to flip the house to the Western Alliance, Al's having none of it, and the dude from the west is a friggin wizard. I discovered this when he chanted a bit and the sun came up.

Ouch.

Al had a worse time of it, but I blitzed through the sun (Screw you gandalf) and tackled Al out a window. More dings ensued, but Alard got an object lesson in Healing Nasty Damage. Which sucked, but hey, whatcha gonna do. We heal up, advise and then decide we need to get the head of the house involved. Haul ass to the family manse, and wow were we late - the troops of Big Brother were staging a coup of sorts. So we warned the fighting factions that the eastern alliance was riding hard and fast, the traitorous bastards. Having sorted out those guys, Eadwulf, me and Alard got our asses up to the top tower where Adeline of Berengar (Big Brothers' bride-to be) was weeping over the near-corpse of Alard of Katze. Apparently Big Brother was trying to legitimize his shenanigans by taking over the barony via untimely death. Alard was having none of it, but I was able to grab the brothers' arm to try and keep him in the high tower.

I was able to keep the arm in the tower, but Alard kinda-sorta jacked his strength and tossed Big rother out the window, and well, physics was a bit too much for that particular shoulder. Good news, no need to dig a hole when they bury him. Well, they might, but that's another story. The rest of that night was dmaage control with Eadwulf dominating the shit out of everyone and me engaging in cleanup and spin control. Great times.

Next night, the funeral wake for Big Brother will be promptly followed by the wedding of Alard to Adeline. And Alard is a woeful husband, wailing on about his lost humanity as soon as he woke up, and how he'll never be able to have children and just so much whining. Alard has always had a punchable face, and damn was he not helping his "don't punch me in the face" cause. Laid it out, explained things, and through a combination of asskicking and gentle brotherly sympathy, I was able to get his ass together enough to dress and prepare to comport himself. I swear I may be Lestat to his Louis. (If he's still whining in 1990, I am legit punching him.)

Off to the family manse again, jiggity jog. Two swords because damn it's gonna get messy and I am wanting to be prepared. I even enchanted my sword, just in case. Leave Alard in his chambers, check out the chapel for exits (minimal, we're going through the window if it comes to it) and secure a rope in the bastion, just in case escape plan A goes awry. Also of note, there were freaking roses everywhere. Seriously unnerving because there's a lot of symbolism there. I even touched one and saw Prius. That's...great. Helens' still around and singing her own damn song. It was great fun, until I got back to Alards room and found him unconscious with a dagger in his chest. If I recall correctly, on the wedding night the stabbing is supposed to be metaphorical and done by the husband and not to. (I mean there are exceptions if you're into that sorta thing, but I'm certainly in no place to judge.) I told my other brother Burkhart to go get Godiva, because she can fix this. And then the lights went out. All of them. As pretty much the entire wedding in the manse starts dying. Slowly. This is so not how this night was supposed to turn out. There was only supposed to be one dead guy at the wedding, not...several hundred. And there's a few minutes while I wait for the ambush on my ass, and I notice it feels like Songuls' watching. Good times, so I showed off a little with the lightsaber (Okay, enchanted sword, stop quibbling) and finally got off my own ass to find out more what the fuck, and also find the lovely bride. Which was interrupted by some rude bastards who wanted me staked and secured. That took a few minutes of my time, while sorting their asses out and trying to explain to them that it was a Bad Idea. They legit fricking teleported out. Assholes.

Meanwhile, Adelines' hared off with the youngest of the Katze family down a secret exit and while said youngest is certainly handsome, he ain't me. So me and Eadwulf chase and get ourselves...stuck behind a wall. Apparently it's there to keep the supernatural from crossing. So, in an act of frustration, I zapped the retreating brother with a little taser-bolt. Uhm. Yeah, that's pretty new, honestly. Maybe some new thaumaturgical path, but still. Homeboy was walking funny. I think the wizard and I are gonna have a loooonnnng talk when we get a chance. But first, get out of this god-forsaken abbatoir and begin plans to counterstrike.