#Dryad!Gaz

[forestshadow-wolf]

Cw: mention of suicide (not graphic), (vague) mentions of torture

Vamp!ghost in a pure silver muzzle so he can't prey on anyone.

He got turned and muzzled by human!Roba because the torture got so bad that he killed himself, and Roba couldn't have that, so he had him bit. By vernon.

The sadistic bastard was stoked to be able to keep Ghost around a little longer as his "play thing"

The muzzle, little more than a cage for his face, was five horizontal bars with one bisecting the center vertically. At the base of the mask where it sat on his mandable was a hinge, so it could expand and contract because Roba still wanted him able to talk and scream, like the sick fuck he is.

It burned and bubbled and hissed as it seared onto his face, melting the skin so it would cling to the metal when it "healed"

With Ghost's newfound immortality Roba was able to have so much more "fun" with him. He kept him for years, cutting him open whenever he felt like it, just "to see what's going on in there". Branding him with silver to "see what it does" (like he didn't already fucking know). Starving him for months on end. And the muzzle never once came off. When he did get it was through a straw that he was graciously given a single pint of blood.

Then he got bored. And he threw him away. And still the muzzle wasn't removed.

No not thrown away. Buried. In a load of shit. In the desert. One last experiment. To see what Ghost could withstand. He was doomed to burn to death, and even then it was to starve for eternity, or drink through a straw for the rest of his life. He sure as hell wouldn't be getting the muzzle off himself.

One good thing he learned through all this. How far he could break before he truely broke.

Roba locked him in Vernon's reinforced casket, and threw away the key. It took two days of nonstop beating at the wood before he got out, even with the help of the deceased vampire's jaw.

It took 3 days of hiding, and 4 nights of running at inhuman speeds to find the nearest army base.

He also found out that to say he was "starved" wasn't exactly accurate, but there was no other way to describe it. How else you do describe a lack of a need to eat, and yet feeling your body weaken just the same. How else do you explain the feeling of his body using up the blood in him. The way his heart never beats so he needs new blood to replace what has been absorbed or turned into waste, later to be released as venom. What word do you use to describe that othern than "starved", but it's an inhuman kind of starvation, so completely NOT human.

When price found him he was sucking his fifth stolen blood bag dry. He truely was "starved" after so long of not feeding.

The man said he was putting together a task force with the help and authority of a CIA agent. The man, Captain Price introduced him to a dryad, a nature spirit.

It's unusual for a spirits and sprites, especially ones so close to nature, to be in such a violent line of work. But here he was, nonetheless.

Price himself was a normal human, it's the only way the force was allowed to come into fruition.

Ghost was taken to a medic, to see if they could remove the constant burning silver from his face. But it was no use, the doctors said their tools were too soft to ceable to cut into his skin to remove the muzzle. And so there was nothing they could do, short of ripping the thing off, which would only cause more damage, and they didn't have the manpower to do so anyway.

So he stayed in the muzzle, donned a mask to avoid sun exposure, and price made sure to keep a constant stock of blood packs for him, even if sometimes he was reduced to dumping dehydrated pigs' blood into a glass of water, price made sure he was never "hungry" again.

Then price found soap. A natural born werewolf, he said. And he was all rambunctious and happy-go-lucky energy, or that's what it seemed like on the outside. Then Ghost learned that he was a sniper and demolitions specialist, with a wicked memory, and a background intense anti-interrogation training, and he has to wonder how much is for show.

It's only after they defeat hassan that soap asks about it. The muzzle. He knows he saw it when he removed him mask in Las Almas, but he said nothing about it, not did Ghost offer anything.

Soap says he thinks he can get the muzzle off, but they'll need to take leave, head back to his home. Ghost isn't sure how he likes the sound of that. He does want the burning silver off, but he's pretty sure he's heard that wolves and blood suckers weren't exactly friends. And while he's already dead, he can still be killed, and he definitely can't survive an entire pack of wolves (sans one)

Soap says it'll be fine, he'll vouch and/or protect(?) Him. Price encourages him to go, says he can finally get the stupid cage off. And gaz is laughing his ass off at his predicament, and just generally being unhelpful.

A phone call home to Mama Mactavish, explaining the situation had Ghost reluctantly agreeing to go, if only to appeasethe frantic woman. Soap requested 3 months medical leave for both of them, and price easily signed off on it, practically pushing them out the door.

Soap's home was nice, a fair bit or farmland with a large home that just seemed to radiate comfort.

Mama Mactavish was first to meet them at the door with a fresh batch of homemade danishes, she pulled them both into a bone crushing hug and ushered them inside. She didn't even flinch at the sight of the muzzle or the horribly "scarred" skin underneath or his fangs.

Simon wasn't so sure what to think about that, he'd never had this kind of kindness before. He didn't hate it. Everyone else was almost as friendly, and he couldn't tell if it was a pack of anomalies, or if the rumors were false. They even had fresh lambs' blood for him, warmed to perfection.

He and Johnny were given a day to rest and settle in, then they were being woken at the crack of dawn, to start collecting herbs and begin preparations. Mama explained that it was a family secret, so she swore him to secrecy.

He supposed it only made sense for a family of werewolves to know how to treat silver burns.

She put Johnny to work making so sort of... salve (us that what you call it? He wasn't sure), then mama had donned a pair of gloves and had him lay down with his head in her lap, she started massaging the salve into his skin around the muzzle.

It was slow work, and took hours to make even a small bit of progress, but progress it was. As more and more of the silver lifted, Johnny helped slide gauze underneath to prevent it from burning back on.

It took all day and most of the night to finally be able to lift the muzzle off, but Mama never once complained.

Simon thanked her profusely, and would be forever indebted to her, but she just waived him off.

A week later the wounds were still trying to heal over, and he knew by the end of their leave there would be little more than a faint scar over near-perfect skin.

There was one night that Johnny had joined him sitting out on the porch. One unable to sleep, and one who would never sleep again.

"Why did you help me?" It'd been running through his head since they arrived. "You hardly knew me."

"I know you enough." Johnny chuckled, knocking their shoulders together.

"But why?" He still didn't understand.

"You know what it's like to have the words 'echoic memory' on your file? I do. It's why I took all that extra training, put it to use a few times too. But nothing could have prepared me for being force-fed silver." Johnny shivered with a faraway look in his eyes. "The pain lasted months. I couldn't be active for nine months. I can only imagine what it must've been like to live with that on your face for years."

"Thank you."

Johnny nodded.

They spent the rest of the night there on the porch, at some point Johnny fell asleep on Simon, and Mama found them early in the morning.

[blogapart3bis]

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Bon, faut quand même que je vous raconte ma virée en Auvergne, la « retraite ludique » dont je vous parlais la semaine passée. À l’origine, l’idée est de Jean-Paul, qui est originaire de la région: il avait appelé ça Le Buron des Joueurs.

Le concept, c’est de loueur un buron – une ancienne bâtisse, dans laquelle autrefois les paysans du coin fabriquaient le fromage de Cantal, réaménagée en gîte d’altitude – et d’y amener une cargaison de joueurs.

En fait de cargaison, au final, on était quatre. Y compris l’organisateur, donc.

Il faut dire ce qui est: l’Auvergne, c’est beau, mais c’est loin. Même quand on est motorisé, mais surtout quand on ne l’est pas. Genre, trois heures de train pour rejoindre Jean-Michel, un des quatre, qui partait de Valence, plus six heures de route.

Le Buron des Joueurs, séjour ludique dans un buron du Cantal (Auvergne, France), 29 juillet-2 août 2019. En route vers le Buron de la Fumade-Vieille. Photo: Stéphane Gallay, sous licence Creative Commons (CC-BY)

Nous nous sommes donc retrouvés dans le moulin familial, avant de partir pour le buron en question. Encore une demi-heure de route, suivi par une heure et demie de grimpe à pied. Et, même si l’Auvergne, ce n’est pas les Alpes, quand ça grimpe, ça ne fait pas semblant: le Buron de la Fumade-Vieille, où nous nous trouvons, se situe autour de 1500 mètres d’altitude.

Une fois sur place, l’endroit a indéniablement du charme: vieilles pierres et charpente en bois, vue imprenable sur la vallée de la Cère et les monts alentours et des vaches. Plein de vaches. On y trouve l’eau courante et des sanitaires modernes, ainsi qu’un couchage très correct.

Le Buron des Joueurs, séjour ludique dans un buron du Cantal (Auvergne, France), 29 juillet-2 août 2019. Photo: Stéphane Gallay, sous licence Creative Commons (CC-BY)

Évidemment, quand on est un indécrottable citadin, on va tout de suite sentir la fraîcheur parfois brutale des nuits, l’absence mordante d’électricité et la connectivité 4G un peu aléatoire. Mais bon, le but est aussi de faire une retraite et de jouer.

Et, de ce point de vue, les quelques jours passés sur place furent très ludiques: du jeu de rôle (HeroQuest et Freaks’ Squeele) et du jeu de plateau « expert » (Azul, Gandhi et le proto Siebenbürgen).

J’avoue que j’avais un peu l’impression d’être une pièce rapportée au milieu d’un trio d’aficionados de Glorantha – l’univers créé par le regretté Greg Stafford et qui a donné naissance aux jeux RuneQuest, HeroQuest et consorts.

Le Buron des Joueurs, séjour ludique dans un buron du Cantal (Auvergne, France), 29 juillet-2 août 2019. Photo: Stéphane Gallay, sous licence Creative Commons (CC-BY)

Mais ça n’a jamais été gênant; j'ai appris beaucoup de choses sur cet univers, que je ne connaissais pas vraiment, et en prime j’ai pu tester le système de HeroQuest (qui, il y a quelques années, m’avait d’ailleurs inspiré quelques idées pour Tigres Volants 3).

J’ai aussi pu tester, pour la deuxième fois, un scénario Freaks’ Squeele que j’avais déjà joué à Ludinord et qui est prévu pour être publié dans un prochain supplément. Il y a eu de très belles actions épiques, débiles ou les deux de la Team Beast’n’Bots (une huli jing – la version chinoise de la kitsune japonaise – une dryade et un geek manipulant des nanomachines).

À côté de cela, ce fut – comme je le pensais – un séjour passablement gastronomique. Aligot, truffade, cantal, saint-nectaire, saucisse de Morteau, sans parler des bières locales et des fruits du coin. L’altitude, ça creuse; le jeu, aussi.

Le Buron des Joueurs, séjour ludique dans un buron du Cantal (Auvergne, France), 29 juillet-2 août 2019. Le Buron de la Fumade-Vieille. Photo: Stéphane Gallay, sous licence Creative Commons (CC-BY)

Bon, il y a le léger détail que, suite à une fuite de gaz, le séjour a failli se terminer de façon extrêmement rôliste: dans une ��norme boule de feu. On en a été quitte pour quelques moments d’inquiétude et une vaisselle à l’eau froide.

Pour 2020, ça serait bien d’avoir plus de monde. Bon, d’un côté, avoir le buron pour seulement quatre personnes était plutôt pratique d’un point de vue confort – on ne se marchait pas sur les pieds. Mais la région a aussi des structures plus grandes, peut-être plus adaptées pour des grands groupes.

Gardez donc l’œil ouvert pour une future annonce du Buron des Joueurs 2020, si vous aimez les jeux, la nature et que vous n'avez pas peur de faire un peu de route, ça pourrait être intéressant.

Plus de photos? Ma galerie est sur Flickr, sous licence Creative Commons.

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