[network] @Mnemosyne; video; night 227; history will judge us [open]

[bookofnope]

[Beckett starts the feed sitting huddled in a corner against a wall that's been burned a featureless black. He's not wearing his tinted glasses, and both his look and voice are flatly composed, distant.]

I am going to start recording everything. Simply leave this thing on at all times. We are losing too much information to patchy and inaccurate records in a way that is simply inexcusable considering the means we have access to. I strongly recommend that you all do the same. [He pauses, then nods half to himself.] If nothing else then for those who will come after us. Eventually.

[So optimistic, Beckett.]

Do let me know if you would like to receive regular transmissions of my records. And if you have, and are willing to use the means to put some of them on SD cards that may be preserved in the event of lost access to our iteration of the network. There is... a certain comfort in the thought of posterity, in my experience. Such as it is.

[Such as it is. He wrinkles his nose at the thought, and puts the tablet aside, though the recording keeps running. After a bit of time, he picks it up again and adds a text message, along with an attached file: TheBookOfNod.txt]

The file I am attaching is the complete text of the Book of Nod: the mytho-historic principle document of the Cainites, namely, the vampires of my world, transcribed from memory. I doubt this is of particular interest to anyone, but my physical copy was recently destroyed, and as far as I am aware, that was the last copy in existence. My purpose here is thus its preservation as a text. I am the last record of my Kindred. Let something remain.



[OOC: I didn't want to directly link one but if anyone's interested for whatever reason it's actually really easy to google up an online copy of Vampire the Masquerade's Book of Nod. I'm sorry it's so painfully 90s.]

Comments

@carcinoGeneticist; text

[quadrangle]

[He reads maybe a few lines of the book before giving the fuck up. Yeah, no.]

YOU HAD THIS MEMORIZED?

video;

[bookofnope]

I've been puzzling over this text for two centuries. So yes. It was, as they say, not a big deal.

audio;

[quadrangle]

[No video for you, sorry Beckett, but he'll switch to audio to make this conversation go a little more smoothly.]

So you're a scholar?

[He's reluctantly intrigued. Kanaya would get a kick out of this guy, to say the very least.]

[bookofnope]

[He doesn't mind; it's taken a long time, but he's stopped worrying about other people in town. Bigger fish to fry, always.]

I used to call myself an archaeologist. Now... I suppose historian is the only appropriate title left. But yes, I was - am.

[quadrangle]

[... Kanaya and Aradia, then? He's less sure about Aradia, but... anyway.]

Did you just do vampire history or did you study anything else?

[bookofnope]

There is no clear cut distinction between vampire and human history. They are often one and the same. My focus was on my own kind, but that did not mean limiting myself - why do you ask? Do you have any interest?

[quadrangle]

[That question probably shouldn't startle him. He is dumb.]

Uh—not really? I mean, not personally, I guess. Human history is kind of interesting, but my friend Kanaya is the one who was into.. uh, vampires. We call them rainbow drinkers though.

[bookofnope]

I've heard the term before. [The presence of vampire-like creatures in other worlds continues to fascinate him, though he's not sure it's a healthy fascination.] And these are native to your planet? A different species, or changed members of your own?

[quadrangle]

[... Oh. So he probably knew one of the other trolls. Karkat can't decide if that's a reason to relax or a reason to be wary.]

Changed members of our own. Kanaya's one, but I don't know how the fuck her transformation happened. I... wasn't in the room at the time.

[He'd tried to revive her, failed, and ran away with Sollux's unconscious form, leaving her for dead. Because he's a fucking fantastic leader, obviously.]

[bookofnope]

[Beckett makes a faint interested noise. Changed is much more interesting than inborn, for his purposes, such as they are.]

Do you specifically not know how she was transformed, or is the mechanism not understood? I mean - is it a natural biological process?

[quadrangle]

Uh...

[Fuck, there's a question. He thinks about it for a second, then makes a frustrated noise.]

Look, I don't know, okay? One second, she's—she's just lying there, the next she's glowing and probably chainsawing people in half. Her dancestor was one too? But we didn't find out about that until later.

[bookofnope]

Chainsawing people in half is not typical vampire behaviour as I know it. [In one of those bone-dry tones of his where it is legit impossible to tell if he's being serious.]

But now you have me at a terminological disadvantage. Dancestor?

[quadrangle]

[He sighs.]

Portmanteau of "descendant" and "ancestor" and not my fucking idea. It's complicated. Anyway, my point is that I guess it's genetic? But for some reason you need to die before you become one. Or maybe you don't need to die, I don't fucking know.

[bookofnope]

Descendant and... ah. Time loops.

[He says as though he has the slightest idea how that actually works.]

I must say, of all the variations I've encountered, your world seems the most alien to me. It's a very curious coincidence if you also happen to have creatures that feed on blood and are - dead? Undead? Do you know their status exactly?

[quadrangle]

Trust me, she's alive. And, uh—there aren't any others. Because.

[His species is sort of extinct. So it goes. As for the alien thing, he could easily switch over to video and clear up just about everything on that front, but. Yeah, no.]

I'm not sure if it's coincidence, anyway, but you're from.... whatever Earth you're from. So maybe it's something else.

[bookofnope]

Because?

[That's what he picks up on, and the rest falls away. Even more interesting than parallel vampires are parallel extinct vampires.]

[quadrangle]

Oh for fuck's sake.

[He heaves an aggravated sigh. Take a fucking hint, why don't you, or not.]

Sgrub. Heard of it? Or Sburb, whatever. Anyway, long story short, meteors. Because meteors. The end.

[bookofnope]

[Alas, hint-taking has always been his great weaknesses.]

Ah. The destruction or possible overwriting of the universe, was it? Although I'm not sure how that can be accomplished via meteor, unless it is a particular meteor sent for that reason by a divine frog. You lead a very convoluted existence.

[quadrangle]

[Um, what.]

Meteors plural, and my universe wasn't destroyed? Or I don't think it was. Fuck, it might have been, but it wasn't because of meteors. The meteors just... look, it's complicated.

[And this is why he'd just wanted to leave it at "because meteors." Goddammit, man.]

Let's just say they're why my species was wiped out.

[bookofnope]

[Well, that turned into an awkward leaping to conclusions. Beckett blinks.]

In that case, let me offer my completely useless condolences. I was under the impression that you were also involved in that universe-rewriting lark, or at least so Davesprite seemed to suggest.

[quadrangle]

[Translation: this guy knows jack shit about the whole Sgrub/Sburb clusterfuck. Oh how Karkat envies that ignorance. Seriously, he's actually feeling sort of jealous and what is this.]

Different universe. Mine was... we were cut off from it. And the humans' universe, but we could communicate with them. That's how we arranged the scratch.

[... This is way more sobering than anticipated. He sighs.]

Anyway, I guess it happens, right? The humans had the same deal, at least as far as the rest of them dying.

[bookofnope]

I don't know. I only have a very partial version of the story. Which stands to reason, as the full story seems to be enough to fill several thick tomes.

[He looks at the tablet, considering - wishing he could see the boy behind it, and considering how much he wants to push. He'd been taking in this particular story in small doses since every dose seemed more unnerving than the last, but the vast expanse of its unknowns calls to all his instincts.]

Were you really a god of sorts, at some point? Responsible for the creation, or at least generation of worlds?

[quadrangle]

[Well, that sure is a question that just got asked. He's not even sure if it should be a point of pride anymore, only...]

A whole universe, yeah. The humans' universe. Our session made theirs, but their session was flawed from the start because of outside interference that wasn't us. They had to do a hard reset of the game to get a chance of winning, and we joined up with them because we were friends at that point and it was the only way to survive.

[bookofnope]

The only way. Despite your godhood. Or was that only a matter of perspective - a one-world, one-feat divinity, creator but no lord. That must be -

[He starts to say "frustrating", then thinks he might say "exciting", then settles on -] confusing.

[quadrangle]

Basically? Yes. We were supposed to receive the Ultimate Reward when we won—defeated the Black King, made our universe, whatever—but we got screwed out of it at the last second. And then there's shit like being god tier, but that's not really immortality, either? Or being all powerful. Like i said, complicated