Please, have a seat.
No, don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. You haven’t done anything wrong. Not at all. But there are some things we need to discuss. I’ve heard about the questions you’ve been asking. No, really, please do not worry. I repeat, you aren’t in trouble, and no one’s upset. But you deserve answers.
First, yes, I am an actual professor here, although I don’t currently teach any classes. That’s how I can call myself Professor Ezekial Blake. Heh, yes, I have found the Holy Grail of professorship, tenure without teaching! Although I do teach. Upper-level advanced classes, one on one sort of thing. I’d like you to consider a course with me, in fact.
But first, as I promised, answers.
Would you like a drink? Feel free; I’m going to have one, after all.
So. I don’t know how you found a photograph from the Great Vancouver Fire in such good condition, but yes, that is me. Not my ancestor, hmm, how many ‘greats’ would it take to put a grandfather back in 1886? Math has never been my strong suit.
(By H.T. Devine)
Yes, it is me. I am immortal. Or rather, I am an Immortal. For reasons unknown to me, if there are any reasons behind it, I belong to a peculiar subset of humanity that cannot, except in very exceptional circumstances, die.
Really.
No, for real.
Sigh. All right, allow me to demonstrate. Let me just get positioned right – ah, there we go. Mind the plastic sheeting.
Ouch.
Oh, calm down! You’re not the one who drove a knife through your own eyeball into the brain.
Yes, it’s a real knife. Satisfied?
Now would you like that drink? I thought so.
I first discovered my condition, for want of a better word, in 1862. I had just come up with the first wave of prospectors out of California to Vancouver, or rather what would become Vancouver. I had traveled from my home in New England to California to strike it rich, without any luck whatsoever, and so thought I’d try my hand up north.
I was here for all of about a week before I was attacked by a bear and killed. Except, of course, obviously, I didn’t die. And it wasn’t a real bear, mind you. She was a were-bear – yes, those are real, I’ll explain that later, if you keep interrupting I’ll lose my place and never finish – who was determined to keep these invaders out of her family’s lands.
I awoke a few hours later, completely healed, although my clothes were a bloody ruin. I changed into my other set of clothes, took my knife, and, I am ashamed to say, went to hunt her.
Oh, this knife. There we go. It’s all part of this Immortal thing, it’s bound to me somehow, and I can summon and dismiss it at will. It’s a rather large knife by today’s standards, I suppose, but it has proven effective.
To continue. I did find her, and we fought for hours, neither able to gain the upper hand. My transformation left me with the strength and skill to duel with a bear, which I didn’t even think about until well afterwards. In any event, neither of us won, we both simply collapsed.
As we lay there exhausted, we got to talking. In English, of course, her grasp of my language was impressive and far superior to my non-existent knowledge of her tongue. I couldn’t even pronounce her name, sad to say; I took to calling her Sara. Yes, looking back, it was hideously colonial of me, but in my meagre defence, I did always like the name Sara.
To slightly shorten a too-lengthy story by skipping over irrelevant and prurient details, Sara and I became lovers, and soon husband and wife. At the time it was not seen as very odd to take a Native wife, and Sara’s inner fire so impressed the other settlers that they were simply jealous of me. And with very good reason!
Oh, Sara.
Sorry. I still miss her. Anyway.
Well, gold didn’t pan out, if you’ll pardon the pun, but we did find gold in the trees. Logging took off, and with my particular ability I was most successful at it. When you can’t die, you can cut some corners at logging. I should have died any number of times, but I was by far the fastest logger, and no one could figure out my secret.
I helped to influence the placement of the end of the Canadian Pacific Railway in Gastown. I thought having it closer to Sara’s peoples’ lands might bring them some prosperity. Well, hindsight is 20/20, they say, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last big mistake I’d make.
Two years later, in 1886, once the first train arrived from the East, Vancouver was officially incorporated as a city, and Gastown became the name of a neighbourhood in that city.
And two months after that, the entire city burned down. I had discovered some strange sort of elf – a Fey-touched, I now know they prefer to be called – that was feeding on the life force of the city’s residents. I confronted him, and in the ensuing melee somehow a fire started, and spread much too quickly. I did manage to finish off the villain, but by then the entire city (such as it was) was ablaze.
We set up tents afterward, and held a city council. That’s your photograph. And yes, that’s me, and yes, I haven’t aged a day. Physically.
Life continued rather uneventfully for the next several years, although I gradually became concerned as Sara grew older and I did not.
In 1907 a mob – they called themselves a ‘league,’ the Asiatic Exclusion League – rampaged through the city. My time with Sara had exposed me to the plight of the members of our city who were not white, and so I took to the front line against them. There were thousands of whites, railing against other races while acting so barbarically themselves; it took me years to gain enough distance to appreciate the irony.
I spent the next few years stalking the leaders of the movement. Those I could frighten away I allowed to flee, while those who refused I simply killed and disposed of the bodies. It was a dark time.
And it was all for nought. I thought the league defeated, and Sara and I became involved in the labour movement. We picketed, and helped to organize the general strike of 1918. In the meantime, the League rebuilt itself, and gained enough political influence in 1923 to pressure the government to essentially end all Chinese immigration to Canada.
I thought that I detected some hidden hand behind this new league, and investigated. I discovered that a vampire – yes, they’re real as well – was using the league both to pursue political power and to protect herself. She had used some sort of incantation to make herself to the sun and such other dangers to vampires, but there remained a way to kill her. That method was known only to scholars of traditional Chinese herbalism, and thanks to her no such people would be arriving in Canada any time soon.
We fought, she and I. Sara was by now too frail to fight; I had to sneak out in the middle of the night to keep her from following. I left a note of explanation: I would take the vampire queen as my personal prisoner back to China and there seek the means to end her.
On my travel I ran into another Immortal, a man named Lin Qiangri. He told me about his time following a Chinese revolutionary who claimed to be the son of God and the brother of Christ. I was fascinated.
It took me several months to find a sage with the correct knowledge, and another month to gather the necessary ingredients. I duelled with the spirits of ancient warlords and cast down demigods. Finally, though, it was over, the queen was perma-killed, and I went back to Vancouver.
And, of course, Sara had passed away while I was overseas. My last words to her, I thank God, were “I love you.” But she died alone.
I retreated into myself for a time. I used the information Lin had given me to win a seat for myself at the Anglican Theological College, which you should know eventually became the Vancouver School of Theology here. It was comfortable, and I appreciated the chance to consider ideas of goodness and grace at an academic distance. I played the part of a religious man, and found comfort in the rituals.
It was through the school that I first learned of some kind of spirit moving through the city, killing at will. The murders weren’t connected by the mortal police, though, because each was committed by a different person, and in many cases they caught the ‘criminal.’ Each one claimed to have no memory of the crime. Some were found lying and imprisoned, others were found insane and locked up in an institution. But the more I looked into the matter, the more I grew to believe their claims of innocence, and to see what was happening.
With the help of other professors and students here, we went through centuries of documents, and discovered the truth. We were facing a demon, not the normal sort – yes, they’re real, and no, they’re not actually all that bad for the most part, I’ll introduce you around – but a body thief.
This creature could pass from mortal to mortal at a touch, and hide in someone’s soul until it chose to take control, pushing the person’s will aside and taking over the body completely. Once its job was done, it could retreat back inside and look for an opportunity to move on to a new victim. Worse, if it chose, it could sever the soul’s connection to its own body, and make that body its own forever until it decided to simply jump to another victim, consigning the soul to existence as a ghost.
I finally found the thief, and we fought on the Lions Gate Bridge. I was covered scalp to sole, with no exposed flesh but for my eyes, to keep it from jumping into me. I had no choice but to kill the host body. After my final stab, though, before I could grab the body to bring back for the banishment ritual, it pitched itself off the bridge into the water.
It’s bound to that body, whatever its state, until another human touches it. I don’t know where the body has gone, I hope to the bottom of the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but I deeply fear it has or will wash up somewhere and the killing will begin again. I watch for it.
So that brings me back to you.
I belong to a House of Immortals, the Corvus. We seek knowledge. I have set up my own network, out of this school, of likeminded people with the right aptitudes. Together we make sure that this city stays free from this and similar evil.
I sense in you an energy, a potential. I don’t know what you’ll be, but I know you’ll be so much more than average. You will be a force to be reckoned with. Join me and use that force for good.
Excellent! I’m so happy you decided, and so quickly!
No, no need to worry about what would happen if you refused.
Anyway! Please take a look at this photo. See her? Yes, that’s Faith Eternal. Yes, even I have heard of her.
Now please take a look at this. And this. I know, those are artistic representations, not photographs, cameras didn’t exist back then. But the resemblance is striking, don’t you think?
I believe that there may be a group of Immortals, probably of House Orphis – I’ll explain later – who have some centuries-long plan. I mean, what are the odds of the same woman appearing at those particularly significant moments in time? There is something going on, I think, and I’d like you to learn what you can about her. Try to get close to her. You’re young and attractive, use that, I have no idea if it will work but it’s worth a try.
Welcome to the Club. Hope you survive the experience.
Game Summary:
Year of Rebirth: 1862
House: Corvus – I’ve got my House’s back, and they’ve got mine. But I’ve set up my own secret organization, just in case.
Personal Tragedy: I was not there for my wife’s death; my quest took me away from her, and now all that’s left to me is my quest.
Badass Rep: defeated ancient ghosts and outwitted demons pretending to be local gods; discovered and hopefully defeated the body thief.
Inner Deal: I know that I don’t deserve this immortality. I know so many more deserving souls. I have failed so often. I must try to be worthy, although I know I won’t be.
Historical Influence: helped make Vancouver what it is today.
Unyielding Yearning: to finally rest, which means finishing my duty to Sara by protecting her lands and the people on them.
Throne of Comfort: my office at the School of Theology at UBC, surrounded by mystic items and tomes of secrets, and my comfy chair, teapot and radio. It’s protected by its anonymity; who would suspect this place?
somanyrats 