PHASHU PLOT—ABRIDGED
(Click here for HILARIOUS cliff notes!)
“With notes!”
CHAPTER 1: THE CHASE
“My name’s Mhirou!”
SYNOPSIS:
It’s a spooky night in a bad part of town, and Kay Mhirou is homeless, angry and bored. Her bad night gets even worse when it becomes clear that someone is following her, trying to unnerve her with flickering lights and the sounds of breathing and footsteps. As soon as things get physical, she finally gets a glimpse of her harasser; a tall man dressed all in blacks and grays with a hooded ‘cloak’ hiding his features. He taunts her and Mhirou responds with violence, pulling her pistol and firing…unfortunately for her, the bullets barely make him flinch and her fist, when she then tries to punch him, does even less. He asks for her name, but she has no intention of giving it to him and, spooked by his invulnerability and creepy attitude, runs.
Mhirou stops to catch her breath, but can’t get any peace as this mysterious guy is much faster and won’t leave her alone. She is too tired and stressed to have any chance at outrunning him anyway, and finally tells him her name is ‘Mhirou’ after he makes a jab about confronting her fears and solving all her problems with violence. Now that he has her name, he lets her go.
Once the shock wears off, she is even more scared than ever and delirious enough that she literally runs into Ray, an old acquaintance with whom she parted on less-than-stellar terms. Ray is just as surprised to see her, and quickly realizes that something is wrong when he sees her shaking, dirty, scratched up and hardly able to speak straight. Ray goes to find someone to help her, and the cloaked man comes back for one more scare. Mhirou is too terrified to move as he licks the blood off her cheek and leaves her with his name, ‘Ephidell.’
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Mhirou’s first appearance, established as short-tempered and overemotional, full of bravado but without the skills or confidence to back it up
-Ephidell’s first appearance, established as a mysterious creepy asshole
-Mhirou learns the futility of using guns against Ephidell
-Ephidell and Mhirou learn each other’s names
-Lots of ‘early installment weirdness’ with Ephidell torturing Mhirou for his amusement
CHAPTER 2: THE EXPLANATION
“Old character crossover super-show”
SYNOPSIS:
Ray returns with Krystal, another old acquaintance, in tow to help get Mhirou inside. She’s still completely delirious and mentally burned out after her ordeal, unable to do much but mumble and weakly flop around. They carry her back to their residence where they leave her on the floor with a blanket to sleep it off, intending to ask her about the details in the morning.
Mhirou, predictably, has a night full of bad dreams and wakes up ready to scream some more before she realizes it is daytime, she’s indoors and Ephidell is nowhere to be found. She switches from relieved to embarrassed when Krystal comes to check on her, realizing that the two of them saw her weak and crying, and goes to fix herself up in the first-aid room without further comment. Krystal is exasperated that trying to be nice got her nowhere, informs Ray that she didn’t find out anything new other than that some guy was involved with whatever happened to Mhirou.
Ray goes to try a more direct approach, shaking Mhirou out of her cleaning trance—she’s gone eerily silent and unresponsive, scrubbing her wounds raw. He snaps at her to tell him what happened and what’s wrong. She’s clearly still shaken up, but manages to say something about being tormented by someone with glowing red eyes wearing a cloak. Ray gathers that the guy was some sort of monster, which she confirms, but then gets aggravated at his continued questioning and goes into unnecessary detail about exactly what happened, as well as getting worked up enough to blame Ray for not helping her more. Ray argues that there was nothing he could have done other than what he did, and that she’s still the same old ungrateful bitch she always was. Sick of dealing with her stubbornness and shitty attitude, he tells her good luck and good bye.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Basically nothing
-This is easily the weirdest and most pointless chapter
-Some cameos from Ray, Krystal, and Kang since this was before the plot split off into its own universe
-Mhirou alienates the people trying to help her because she’s hysterical and, well, Mhirou, but who the fuck cares since they never show up again anyway
CHAPTER 3: THE KILL
“With friends like these…”
SYNOPSIS:
A week after her ordeal, Mhirou is in the same old situation as before, stealing food to survive and going nowhere with her life. She’s heading back to the back alley where she sleeps when she is accosted by the leader of her old gang, who has been trying to track her down and intends to punish her for deserting them some time ago. Before things go too far, there are lights flickering off, breathing and scraping noises. Mhirou correctly assumes that Ephidell is back on the scene and wonders how her life could get any worse.
But it looks like this time he’s here to help, and snaps her assaulter’s wrist to give her an opportunity to unload a few bullets into his chest. Ephidell finishes the job by slicing the guy’s throat, conveniently positioning himself between Mhirou and the alley opening so she cannot run. She demands to know what he wants from her, and he responds by running the conversation in circles and asking what she wants instead while poking fun at her miserable life situation. Mhirou retorts that of course she doesn’t want to be starving and homeless and friendless, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of options. Ephidell offers to let her go with him. She responds with a frantic attempt at violence but is out of ammunition. They briefly discuss change, and then Ephidell continues to make fun of her fear of him and lack of knowledge about what she wants.
Eventually, he lets her out of the alleyway and bullies her into going with him to get food, clothes and a warm bed. When she initially seems reluctant to go with him, he adds that he’s the only one trying to help her and heavily implies that he’s not going to give her a choice in the matter. A very cowed Mhirou decides that she’s hungry and miserable enough to risk it anyway, asks one more time why he is helping her, and he responds with a cryptic ‘you remind me of someone.’
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Discovered that Ephidell can one-way communicate telepathically with Mhirou
-Ephidell uses intimidation/manipulation/guilt to get Mhirou to go along with him, for the first time of many, many times
-Mhirou has now been rescued by Ephidell instead of just tortured by him, confusing her even more and making her wonder about what exactly his motives are
-Mhirou begins asking Ephidell why exactly he’s looking out for her
CHAPTER 4: THE PLACE
“It’s fun to stay at the YMCA”
SYNOPSIS:
Ephidell leads Mhirou through a series of narrow streets into an empty warehouse hidden behind a trick door, then down a stairway leading underground. He explains that the place he’s taking her is actually an underground storage bunker, originally used by a paranoid business owner and now by runaways and moochers—at least, the ones that aren’t scared away by monster stories and urban legends.
Behind a chain fence off the main tunnel is the storehouse proper, obviously very old but it is clear that people have been here in the past. Mhirou works her way through a room with beds and into the food storage area to finally get something to eat, constantly trying to ward off jump scares by Ephidell, who is switching between minding his own business and startling her for his own amusement. She finally snaps at him that he gave her no choice, he completely ignores her comments and continues trying to hustle her into the other rooms in the bunker. As they move through to the shower and first aid area, they see more disturbing graffiti and what appear to be claw marks in the cement—Mhirou does her best to not think about this too much as she goes to take her shower after shooing Ephidell out of the room for some privacy.
It doesn’t last for long, though, since as soon as she finishes Ephidell is right back in there taunting her again. This is the last straw for Mhirou, having had enough of his bullshit, throws a hairbrush at him and douses him in shower water. Turns out this was a bad idea…Ephidell despises getting wet and drops the playful act to threaten her again. He eventually loses interest and she runs off to the bedroom, but doesn’t even get to relax for long before Ephidell is hovering back over her, telling her not to stay down here too long, tempting as it may be, or she’ll go mad. She gripes that HE is the one driving her mad, not some random building, and he goes into a laundry list of all her faults before adding that it doesn’t matter if he’s driving her mad since she has no life left to lose.
Mhirou loses her temper and shakes him around, yelling in his face that he doesn’t know enough about her life to be putting her down like that. Ephidell says that she wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction if he were wrong. They have a bit of a more subdued conversation about them being similar in several ways, ultimately Ephidell admits that she is not nearly as far gone as he is, and that she should use that to her advantage. Mhirou contemplates this before finally falling asleep.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Introduced to the ‘YMCA’ underground bunker
-First appearance of Ephidell’s phobia/hatred of water
-This chapter is probably Ephidell at his most immature dickish
-Mhirou finally stands up to Ephidell but immediately gets threatened and intimidated back into submission even worse than before. So it’s all fun and games until Ephidell isn’t getting what he wants. What a fucking baby.
-‘Burn in hell fucking bastard monster of Satan’
CHAPTER 5: THE TRIO
“Fancy meeting you here”
SYNOPSIS:
It seems that the bunker is not as forgotten as Ephidell made it out to be. Three people enter the area—an older man, a younger man in his twenties and a teenaged girl. They immediately sense something is up, considering the lights are on and there are other signs of recent activity. They split up to search the place, the girl (Libby) stumbles upon the sleeping Mhirou and her brother (Adrian) comes to investigate. He wakes Mhirou up and demands to know what she’s doing there.
Somewhat relieved to see some human company for a change but still understandably defensive, Mhirou is initially evasive with Adrian since she doesn’t think he’ll believe her if she tells him the truth. She eventually reveals that she was forced down there, gives them Ephidell’s name, and describes him as some sort of monster or vampire. Adrian takes her back out into the main room to talk with Kaz and determine whether or not she’s lying.
Kaz takes a little convincing, but once Mhirou starts agreeing with him and backing up his claims he changes his tune. Mhirou takes a time out to think things over before rushing headlong into some idiot plan. She decides that taking a chance on locking Ephidell away forever is better than just giving up and letting him torture her forever. Kaz and Libby go grocery shopping for bloody meat as ‘bait’, figuring that Ephidell hasn’t fed in a while and he won’t be able to resist. Adrian stays behind to ‘keep an eye on’ Mhirou.
The two of them chat. Adrian refuses to buy into the ‘vampire’ story but is still unnerved out by the thought of it. As they talk more, Adrian mentions that one of her earrings looks familiar—it was a badge from her old gang. She thinks that this means trouble but is shocked when Adrian reveals that one of his friends, Khard, was in the same gang…also an old friend of Mhirou’s who she thought dead. Mhirou is overjoyed to hear that he is still alive, contemplates this exciting news and her messed up life before dozing off.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Adrian’s first appearance, established as a down-on-his luck punk with a bad attitude
-Libby’s first appearance, Adrian’s younger sister, much more timid than her brother.
-Kaz’s first appearance, a grizzled old veteran who clearly has a bone to pick with Ephidell.
-Revealed that Ephidell was involved in some other shenanigans with Kaz and his friends decades ago
-Mhirou finds out that her best friend and crush from years ago, Khard, is still alive!
-Mhirou apparently doesn’t like smokers
CHAPTER 6: THE PLAN
“The best laid plans…”
SYNOPSIS:
Mhirou wakes up when Kaz and Libby return, sack of bloody meat in tow. He refuses to go into any details before everyone is sworn to secrecy. Once everyone pledges their loyalty, he demonstrates the complicated combination to open the safe. More gashes and gouges decorate the metal of the interior. They dump the ‘bait’ pile in one corner and go back out to outline the plan. The ‘plan’ basically boils down to having Mhirou stay in the safe to lure Ephidell in, wait until he gets distracted by the meat pile, then run out and shut the door. Mhirou says that’s about the stupidest goddamn thing she’s ever heard.
She isn’t the only one who thinks so. They are joined by a woman, dressed for combat, who claims to be a hunter and introduces herself as ‘Quo.’ She chides Kaz for being so obvious about his plans that she was able to track the place down effortlessly. She also adds that as long as they treat Ephidell like some sort of mindless monster, they won’t get anywhere. Quo produces a vial of blood that she claims will paralyze Ephidell if it gets in his system due to its similarity to his own DNA, explaining that she knows so much about him and his kind because she has been hunting him for years.
They mix some of the blood in a bottle of first aid spray and send Mhirou to wait in the safe until nightfall. Quo leaves, the other three hide off in one of the hallways. Mhirou tries not to think too hard about the claw marks in the safe, or all the myriad ways the plan could fail. Instead, she tries to think about finally finding Khard and getting her life back on track after all her mistakes, eventually spacing out while waiting for the moment of truth.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Quo’s first appearance, established as a smug, superior, condescending ‘hunter’
-The giant wall safe comes into play
-The group hammers out the final plan with Quo’s assistance and the vial of blood
-First mention of Ephidell being part of a ‘species’ of vampire rather than just a lone anomaly
-Mhirou admits to herself that she thinks too much and keeps things bottled inside since she has no one to talk to
-At one point Mhirou thinks about how dumb it would be to ‘try and open a complicated lock while there’s a vampire in the room trying to kill them all’ nice foreshadowing there, I never noticed that before lol
CHAPTER 7: THE ATTACK
“…Often go awry”
SYNOPSIS:
The plan goes off the rails almost immediately, as Ephidell gets the drop on Mhirou. He clearly saw their plan coming a mile away. Communicating with her telepathically, he makes fun of the ridiculous trap but seems curious to know what Quo was doing down here with them, somehow sensing her presence. Mhirou demands once more to know why he’s singling her out for ‘help’ and then constantly tormenting her. He responds that she wouldn’t take help willingly so he had no option but to use force, and he could tell a lot about her by the way she reacted to fear.
Not about to sit through another scare session, Mhirou uses this opportunity to spray Ephidell in the eyes with the first aid blood spray. He does not react well—yelling at her and demanding to know where she got that while twitching and collapsing. Mhirou makes a run for it but doesn’t get out of the safe before he grabs her ankle and tells her she’s making a big mistake. She doesn’t get to say a whole lot on the matter before Kaz appears and shoots Ephidell in the neck, drags Mhirou out of the safe and pushes the door shut.
Quo returns and congratulates the stunned crew on a job well done, then informs everyone that they know too much and have to die. She kills Kaz first—the other three panic and run down the bathroom hallway and jam the sliding door shut. They frantically discuss a plan and Libby suggests letting Ephidell out so they can escape while he and Quo fight. They argue whether or not he could still be alive or even willing to help, but they ultimately decide that it’s their only shot. Mhirou hides, Quo forces her way through the door with impressive strength, Adrian and Libby lure her into the back bathroom and Mhirou runs for the safe while the other two try, unsuccessfully, to kill Quo. She stabs Adrian and Libby before going back to deal with Mhirou.
Mhirou is just barely able to enter the combination and fall on the handle while being stabbed by an angry Quo. A surprisingly alive but still clearly under the weather Ephidell manages to escape the safe and prevent another murder by somehow mentally assaulting Quo, who is angrier than ever. Not quite as angry as Ephidell, who rages at her for attempting to murder innocent people to keep him locked up. She takes her leave.
Ephidell binds up Mhirou’s wound as best he can before giving her an ultimatum—she owes him a favor, and he’ll forget about the trouble she caused and help her out now. Delirious with blood loss and not wanting to die, she agrees. Ephidell goes to check on the other room, where an injured Adrian is mourning his dead sister. Ephidell pushes him out and drinks Libby’s remaining blood to regain his strength. Mhirou tries to convince Adrian not to die, they have a short conversation about living and being strong, then Mhirou blacks out from blood loss.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-First appearance of ‘mortal blood’ paralysis
-Quo reveals herself to be an even worse problem than Ephidell
-Kaz and Libby die via Quo, we hardly knew ye
-Revealed that Ephidell has some sort of unexplained control over Quo
-Ephidell makes a vague reference to a ‘promise’ when asked why he didn’t let Mhirou die
-Ephidell coerces the nonspecific ‘favor’ out of Mhirou while she’s delirious
-Maybe if you hadn’t been such a dick to Mhirou, she wouldn’t have conspired to paralyze you, blind you, shoot your head off and lock you in a safe to die while everyone else got stabbed Ephidell, fuckin’ OOPS
CHAPTER 8: THE RECOVERY
“Once you’re in, you’re in over your head”
SYNOPSIS:
Mhirou wakes up in a hospital. She bombards the doctor with questions, and finds out that she and Adrian were brought into the ER by Ephidell. She refuses to elaborate on the nature on their injuries, or the nature of their rescuer, figuring no one would believe her anyway. She meets with Adrian after she’s recovered a little, he is in fairly bad shape emotionally after his sister’s death and the whole ordeal. They have a discussion about their rough situations and not giving up.
She leaves the hospital a few days later, right back where she started from again with no money, no food and nowhere to sleep. She makes her way to a public park, where she is immediately confronted by Quo, who demands to know her connection to Ephidell and why he is so interested in her. She warns Mhirou not to get involved, and not to fall for Ephidell’s tricks. Mhirou explains that there’s nothing she’d love more than to not be involved, and the situation is kind of out of her hands. Quo gets a little more aggressive and starts going on at length about Ephidell’s manipulative tendencies, warns Mhirou not to let him bite her, and begins telling her about things he has done in the past before she is suddenly, mysteriously, stopped again.
Quo leaves, and sure enough, Ephidell is there. Mhirou isn’t exactly excited to see him, and is honestly a little concerned that she is getting used to seeing him. He tells her not to listen to Quo, and that he has to stick around for protection now that Quo has targeted her, not to mention the ‘favor’ Mhirou owes him. She fumes some more about all the unanswered questions she still has, and points out that the LAST time she followed him with the promise of food and shelter, it didn’t work out so great.
Ephidell promises that this next location is completely unknown to anyone but him. Mhirou is obviously still reluctant and initially refuses, prompting a series of nudges and manipulation that change her tune pretty quick. She resents the fact that she is yet again being pushed by Ephidell into doing what he wants, but doesn’t have the strength to argue anymore. They head off together once more.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Quo has an intense dislike of hospitals
-Both Mhirou and Adrian make it through their ordeal relatively okay
-Mhirou’s gun has gone missing
-Once again, Mhirou doesn’t want anything to do with Ephidell, but goes along with him again because she’s doesn’t have the energy to resist or argue
-This is basically the last we see of Ephidell 1.0, now we shift from violent/scary-creepy to more silly-creepy
-Upon reading this again, I find it incredibly fucking surprising that Mhirou didn’t ask Adrian where Khard was. I guess we’ll just put that on the list with the other hundred thousand things that would change in this plot with a re-write
CHAPTER 9: THE ASSOCIATED
“Please enjoy these delightful side characters”
SYNOPSIS:
Quo meets with her contact—a man named Harp, another vampire with some connection to Ephidell. He tells her it’s a shame she messed up her own plan, and that he’ll need some more time now to observe Ephidell before they make another move. She isn’t in the mood to deal with his odd, slow behavior and threatens him with a knife, but he disarms her calmly and tells her they will meet again when the time is right.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Adrian makes his way to Khard’s apartment. He lets him in, and Adrian barely even knows how to begin explaining what the hell has been going on. He tells him that Libby was killed, along with Kaz, and gives an abridged version of the events in the underground bunker. Khard is initially skeptical, but then Adrian mentions Mhirou. Khard is just as surprised to hear about her as she was about him, and offers Adrian a place to stay for a while as he digests all this bizarre information.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Harp’s first appearance, established as an EXTREMELY odd person, slow to speak and slow to act and clearly mixed up in the head, but still dangerous
-We find out Quo is in cahoots with Harp, and she got the vial of blood from him
-Revealed that Harp and Ephidell go ‘way back’
-Khard’s first appearance, established as a laid-back, serious, sleepy kind of guy
-Oops this chapter was a little weird and short but at least it introduced some relevant characters
CHAPTER 10: THE MONSTER
“As if things weren’t bad enough”
SYNOPSIS:
Ephidell and Mhirou finish their trek to a very old, mostly deserted part of town, at a laughably cliché clock tower next to a graveyard. But this place, like the YMCA before it, has more to it than meets the eye, as Ephidell reveals when he pushes open the heavy fireplace and leads her into the basement. There are several rooms, and he leads her to one with a ridiculously oversized, extravagant bed. Mhirou notes that the bed and the candles he gave her to see with are new, and he had clearly been planning on taking her here for a while. She doesn’t dwell on it too long before falling asleep.
She wakes up the next morning and explores. On the hunt for food and bathroom facilities, she finds a circuit breaker room with a trapdoor, a room full of unused junk, and finally Ephidell’s bedroom. He is resting on the bed, but points her to the bathroom and helps her up when she slips and drops her candle. After a little bit of flustered slapstick flailing around in the darkness, she complains about her hunger but Ephidell tells her he has no mortal food. She goes off to forage for herself. He tells her as she leaves, that if she draws blood, he’ll be able to find her, wherever she is.
Mhirou spends the whole day lost and hungry. She sits down on a bench to rest up for the long walk back to base, only to realize she has company. A young girl, with ragged clothing, her eyes wrapped in bandages and a cane on her lap. She explains that she is waiting for her brother to find and help her, and that her name is Viza. They strike up a bit of a conversation, with Mhirou feeling rather sorry for the sick little girl, but things take a turn for the weird when their chat about being hungry leads to Viza stating that Mhirou ‘smells familiar’ and ‘would be just fine.’ Before she has time to be more than confused, Mhirou finds herself with claws digging into her arm. She frantically tries to free herself, uncovering an eyeless face under the bandages and causing Viza’s ranting to become even more crazed and sinister. She throws up some sort of horrible black blood sludge on Mhirou, who finally is able to free herself and run for it. Viza seems to be morphing into a more monstrous form as well—her arms growing enormous and dragging the rest of her body after Mhirou in a slow chase.
Mhirou quickly outdistances her and just as quickly runs into Ephidell, who presumably smelled the blood from her wound and came to assist. Mhirou frantically babbles about the craziness she just went through and eventually blurts out Viza’s name. Ephidell is shocked by the news and appears deeply unsettled, but does not elaborate. He instructs Mhirou to ditch her ruined clothing and follow him after it becomes clear they are not in immediate danger, and the two head off into the rainy night.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Introduced to the clock tower base
-Viza’s first appearance, established as holy shit crazy monster little girl???
-Actually her name is Vera now, I was still in the middle of making this document when we made the switcheroo
-I’m gonna leave it as Viza since this is strictly old-roleplay stuff, for posterity or whatever
-We find out Ephidell clearly knows who/what Viza is, and is afraid of her
-Mhirou loses her iconic jacket, back when it was a huge deal for characters to change clothes
“With notes!”
CHAPTER 1: THE CHASE
“My name’s Mhirou!”
SYNOPSIS:
It’s a spooky night in a bad part of town, and Kay Mhirou is homeless, angry and bored. Her bad night gets even worse when it becomes clear that someone is following her, trying to unnerve her with flickering lights and the sounds of breathing and footsteps. As soon as things get physical, she finally gets a glimpse of her harasser; a tall man dressed all in blacks and grays with a hooded ‘cloak’ hiding his features. He taunts her and Mhirou responds with violence, pulling her pistol and firing…unfortunately for her, the bullets barely make him flinch and her fist, when she then tries to punch him, does even less. He asks for her name, but she has no intention of giving it to him and, spooked by his invulnerability and creepy attitude, runs.
Mhirou stops to catch her breath, but can’t get any peace as this mysterious guy is much faster and won’t leave her alone. She is too tired and stressed to have any chance at outrunning him anyway, and finally tells him her name is ‘Mhirou’ after he makes a jab about confronting her fears and solving all her problems with violence. Now that he has her name, he lets her go.
Once the shock wears off, she is even more scared than ever and delirious enough that she literally runs into Ray, an old acquaintance with whom she parted on less-than-stellar terms. Ray is just as surprised to see her, and quickly realizes that something is wrong when he sees her shaking, dirty, scratched up and hardly able to speak straight. Ray goes to find someone to help her, and the cloaked man comes back for one more scare. Mhirou is too terrified to move as he licks the blood off her cheek and leaves her with his name, ‘Ephidell.’
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Mhirou’s first appearance, established as short-tempered and overemotional, full of bravado but without the skills or confidence to back it up
-Ephidell’s first appearance, established as a mysterious creepy asshole
-Mhirou learns the futility of using guns against Ephidell
-Ephidell and Mhirou learn each other’s names
-Lots of ‘early installment weirdness’ with Ephidell torturing Mhirou for his amusement
CHAPTER 2: THE EXPLANATION
“Old character crossover super-show”
SYNOPSIS:
Ray returns with Krystal, another old acquaintance, in tow to help get Mhirou inside. She’s still completely delirious and mentally burned out after her ordeal, unable to do much but mumble and weakly flop around. They carry her back to their residence where they leave her on the floor with a blanket to sleep it off, intending to ask her about the details in the morning.
Mhirou, predictably, has a night full of bad dreams and wakes up ready to scream some more before she realizes it is daytime, she’s indoors and Ephidell is nowhere to be found. She switches from relieved to embarrassed when Krystal comes to check on her, realizing that the two of them saw her weak and crying, and goes to fix herself up in the first-aid room without further comment. Krystal is exasperated that trying to be nice got her nowhere, informs Ray that she didn’t find out anything new other than that some guy was involved with whatever happened to Mhirou.
Ray goes to try a more direct approach, shaking Mhirou out of her cleaning trance—she’s gone eerily silent and unresponsive, scrubbing her wounds raw. He snaps at her to tell him what happened and what’s wrong. She’s clearly still shaken up, but manages to say something about being tormented by someone with glowing red eyes wearing a cloak. Ray gathers that the guy was some sort of monster, which she confirms, but then gets aggravated at his continued questioning and goes into unnecessary detail about exactly what happened, as well as getting worked up enough to blame Ray for not helping her more. Ray argues that there was nothing he could have done other than what he did, and that she’s still the same old ungrateful bitch she always was. Sick of dealing with her stubbornness and shitty attitude, he tells her good luck and good bye.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Basically nothing
-This is easily the weirdest and most pointless chapter
-Some cameos from Ray, Krystal, and Kang since this was before the plot split off into its own universe
-Mhirou alienates the people trying to help her because she’s hysterical and, well, Mhirou, but who the fuck cares since they never show up again anyway
CHAPTER 3: THE KILL
“With friends like these…”
SYNOPSIS:
A week after her ordeal, Mhirou is in the same old situation as before, stealing food to survive and going nowhere with her life. She’s heading back to the back alley where she sleeps when she is accosted by the leader of her old gang, who has been trying to track her down and intends to punish her for deserting them some time ago. Before things go too far, there are lights flickering off, breathing and scraping noises. Mhirou correctly assumes that Ephidell is back on the scene and wonders how her life could get any worse.
But it looks like this time he’s here to help, and snaps her assaulter’s wrist to give her an opportunity to unload a few bullets into his chest. Ephidell finishes the job by slicing the guy’s throat, conveniently positioning himself between Mhirou and the alley opening so she cannot run. She demands to know what he wants from her, and he responds by running the conversation in circles and asking what she wants instead while poking fun at her miserable life situation. Mhirou retorts that of course she doesn’t want to be starving and homeless and friendless, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of options. Ephidell offers to let her go with him. She responds with a frantic attempt at violence but is out of ammunition. They briefly discuss change, and then Ephidell continues to make fun of her fear of him and lack of knowledge about what she wants.
Eventually, he lets her out of the alleyway and bullies her into going with him to get food, clothes and a warm bed. When she initially seems reluctant to go with him, he adds that he’s the only one trying to help her and heavily implies that he’s not going to give her a choice in the matter. A very cowed Mhirou decides that she’s hungry and miserable enough to risk it anyway, asks one more time why he is helping her, and he responds with a cryptic ‘you remind me of someone.’
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Discovered that Ephidell can one-way communicate telepathically with Mhirou
-Ephidell uses intimidation/manipulation/guilt to get Mhirou to go along with him, for the first time of many, many times
-Mhirou has now been rescued by Ephidell instead of just tortured by him, confusing her even more and making her wonder about what exactly his motives are
-Mhirou begins asking Ephidell why exactly he’s looking out for her
CHAPTER 4: THE PLACE
“It’s fun to stay at the YMCA”
SYNOPSIS:
Ephidell leads Mhirou through a series of narrow streets into an empty warehouse hidden behind a trick door, then down a stairway leading underground. He explains that the place he’s taking her is actually an underground storage bunker, originally used by a paranoid business owner and now by runaways and moochers—at least, the ones that aren’t scared away by monster stories and urban legends.
Behind a chain fence off the main tunnel is the storehouse proper, obviously very old but it is clear that people have been here in the past. Mhirou works her way through a room with beds and into the food storage area to finally get something to eat, constantly trying to ward off jump scares by Ephidell, who is switching between minding his own business and startling her for his own amusement. She finally snaps at him that he gave her no choice, he completely ignores her comments and continues trying to hustle her into the other rooms in the bunker. As they move through to the shower and first aid area, they see more disturbing graffiti and what appear to be claw marks in the cement—Mhirou does her best to not think about this too much as she goes to take her shower after shooing Ephidell out of the room for some privacy.
It doesn’t last for long, though, since as soon as she finishes Ephidell is right back in there taunting her again. This is the last straw for Mhirou, having had enough of his bullshit, throws a hairbrush at him and douses him in shower water. Turns out this was a bad idea…Ephidell despises getting wet and drops the playful act to threaten her again. He eventually loses interest and she runs off to the bedroom, but doesn’t even get to relax for long before Ephidell is hovering back over her, telling her not to stay down here too long, tempting as it may be, or she’ll go mad. She gripes that HE is the one driving her mad, not some random building, and he goes into a laundry list of all her faults before adding that it doesn’t matter if he’s driving her mad since she has no life left to lose.
Mhirou loses her temper and shakes him around, yelling in his face that he doesn’t know enough about her life to be putting her down like that. Ephidell says that she wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction if he were wrong. They have a bit of a more subdued conversation about them being similar in several ways, ultimately Ephidell admits that she is not nearly as far gone as he is, and that she should use that to her advantage. Mhirou contemplates this before finally falling asleep.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Introduced to the ‘YMCA’ underground bunker
-First appearance of Ephidell’s phobia/hatred of water
-This chapter is probably Ephidell at his most immature dickish
-Mhirou finally stands up to Ephidell but immediately gets threatened and intimidated back into submission even worse than before. So it’s all fun and games until Ephidell isn’t getting what he wants. What a fucking baby.
-‘Burn in hell fucking bastard monster of Satan’
CHAPTER 5: THE TRIO
“Fancy meeting you here”
SYNOPSIS:
It seems that the bunker is not as forgotten as Ephidell made it out to be. Three people enter the area—an older man, a younger man in his twenties and a teenaged girl. They immediately sense something is up, considering the lights are on and there are other signs of recent activity. They split up to search the place, the girl (Libby) stumbles upon the sleeping Mhirou and her brother (Adrian) comes to investigate. He wakes Mhirou up and demands to know what she’s doing there.
Somewhat relieved to see some human company for a change but still understandably defensive, Mhirou is initially evasive with Adrian since she doesn’t think he’ll believe her if she tells him the truth. She eventually reveals that she was forced down there, gives them Ephidell’s name, and describes him as some sort of monster or vampire. Adrian takes her back out into the main room to talk with Kaz and determine whether or not she’s lying.
Kaz takes a little convincing, but once Mhirou starts agreeing with him and backing up his claims he changes his tune. Mhirou takes a time out to think things over before rushing headlong into some idiot plan. She decides that taking a chance on locking Ephidell away forever is better than just giving up and letting him torture her forever. Kaz and Libby go grocery shopping for bloody meat as ‘bait’, figuring that Ephidell hasn’t fed in a while and he won’t be able to resist. Adrian stays behind to ‘keep an eye on’ Mhirou.
The two of them chat. Adrian refuses to buy into the ‘vampire’ story but is still unnerved out by the thought of it. As they talk more, Adrian mentions that one of her earrings looks familiar—it was a badge from her old gang. She thinks that this means trouble but is shocked when Adrian reveals that one of his friends, Khard, was in the same gang…also an old friend of Mhirou’s who she thought dead. Mhirou is overjoyed to hear that he is still alive, contemplates this exciting news and her messed up life before dozing off.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Adrian’s first appearance, established as a down-on-his luck punk with a bad attitude
-Libby’s first appearance, Adrian’s younger sister, much more timid than her brother.
-Kaz’s first appearance, a grizzled old veteran who clearly has a bone to pick with Ephidell.
-Revealed that Ephidell was involved in some other shenanigans with Kaz and his friends decades ago
-Mhirou finds out that her best friend and crush from years ago, Khard, is still alive!
-Mhirou apparently doesn’t like smokers
CHAPTER 6: THE PLAN
“The best laid plans…”
SYNOPSIS:
Mhirou wakes up when Kaz and Libby return, sack of bloody meat in tow. He refuses to go into any details before everyone is sworn to secrecy. Once everyone pledges their loyalty, he demonstrates the complicated combination to open the safe. More gashes and gouges decorate the metal of the interior. They dump the ‘bait’ pile in one corner and go back out to outline the plan. The ‘plan’ basically boils down to having Mhirou stay in the safe to lure Ephidell in, wait until he gets distracted by the meat pile, then run out and shut the door. Mhirou says that’s about the stupidest goddamn thing she’s ever heard.
She isn’t the only one who thinks so. They are joined by a woman, dressed for combat, who claims to be a hunter and introduces herself as ‘Quo.’ She chides Kaz for being so obvious about his plans that she was able to track the place down effortlessly. She also adds that as long as they treat Ephidell like some sort of mindless monster, they won’t get anywhere. Quo produces a vial of blood that she claims will paralyze Ephidell if it gets in his system due to its similarity to his own DNA, explaining that she knows so much about him and his kind because she has been hunting him for years.
They mix some of the blood in a bottle of first aid spray and send Mhirou to wait in the safe until nightfall. Quo leaves, the other three hide off in one of the hallways. Mhirou tries not to think too hard about the claw marks in the safe, or all the myriad ways the plan could fail. Instead, she tries to think about finally finding Khard and getting her life back on track after all her mistakes, eventually spacing out while waiting for the moment of truth.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Quo’s first appearance, established as a smug, superior, condescending ‘hunter’
-The giant wall safe comes into play
-The group hammers out the final plan with Quo’s assistance and the vial of blood
-First mention of Ephidell being part of a ‘species’ of vampire rather than just a lone anomaly
-Mhirou admits to herself that she thinks too much and keeps things bottled inside since she has no one to talk to
-At one point Mhirou thinks about how dumb it would be to ‘try and open a complicated lock while there’s a vampire in the room trying to kill them all’ nice foreshadowing there, I never noticed that before lol
CHAPTER 7: THE ATTACK
“…Often go awry”
SYNOPSIS:
The plan goes off the rails almost immediately, as Ephidell gets the drop on Mhirou. He clearly saw their plan coming a mile away. Communicating with her telepathically, he makes fun of the ridiculous trap but seems curious to know what Quo was doing down here with them, somehow sensing her presence. Mhirou demands once more to know why he’s singling her out for ‘help’ and then constantly tormenting her. He responds that she wouldn’t take help willingly so he had no option but to use force, and he could tell a lot about her by the way she reacted to fear.
Not about to sit through another scare session, Mhirou uses this opportunity to spray Ephidell in the eyes with the first aid blood spray. He does not react well—yelling at her and demanding to know where she got that while twitching and collapsing. Mhirou makes a run for it but doesn’t get out of the safe before he grabs her ankle and tells her she’s making a big mistake. She doesn’t get to say a whole lot on the matter before Kaz appears and shoots Ephidell in the neck, drags Mhirou out of the safe and pushes the door shut.
Quo returns and congratulates the stunned crew on a job well done, then informs everyone that they know too much and have to die. She kills Kaz first—the other three panic and run down the bathroom hallway and jam the sliding door shut. They frantically discuss a plan and Libby suggests letting Ephidell out so they can escape while he and Quo fight. They argue whether or not he could still be alive or even willing to help, but they ultimately decide that it’s their only shot. Mhirou hides, Quo forces her way through the door with impressive strength, Adrian and Libby lure her into the back bathroom and Mhirou runs for the safe while the other two try, unsuccessfully, to kill Quo. She stabs Adrian and Libby before going back to deal with Mhirou.
Mhirou is just barely able to enter the combination and fall on the handle while being stabbed by an angry Quo. A surprisingly alive but still clearly under the weather Ephidell manages to escape the safe and prevent another murder by somehow mentally assaulting Quo, who is angrier than ever. Not quite as angry as Ephidell, who rages at her for attempting to murder innocent people to keep him locked up. She takes her leave.
Ephidell binds up Mhirou’s wound as best he can before giving her an ultimatum—she owes him a favor, and he’ll forget about the trouble she caused and help her out now. Delirious with blood loss and not wanting to die, she agrees. Ephidell goes to check on the other room, where an injured Adrian is mourning his dead sister. Ephidell pushes him out and drinks Libby’s remaining blood to regain his strength. Mhirou tries to convince Adrian not to die, they have a short conversation about living and being strong, then Mhirou blacks out from blood loss.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-First appearance of ‘mortal blood’ paralysis
-Quo reveals herself to be an even worse problem than Ephidell
-Kaz and Libby die via Quo, we hardly knew ye
-Revealed that Ephidell has some sort of unexplained control over Quo
-Ephidell makes a vague reference to a ‘promise’ when asked why he didn’t let Mhirou die
-Ephidell coerces the nonspecific ‘favor’ out of Mhirou while she’s delirious
-Maybe if you hadn’t been such a dick to Mhirou, she wouldn’t have conspired to paralyze you, blind you, shoot your head off and lock you in a safe to die while everyone else got stabbed Ephidell, fuckin’ OOPS
CHAPTER 8: THE RECOVERY
“Once you’re in, you’re in over your head”
SYNOPSIS:
Mhirou wakes up in a hospital. She bombards the doctor with questions, and finds out that she and Adrian were brought into the ER by Ephidell. She refuses to elaborate on the nature on their injuries, or the nature of their rescuer, figuring no one would believe her anyway. She meets with Adrian after she’s recovered a little, he is in fairly bad shape emotionally after his sister’s death and the whole ordeal. They have a discussion about their rough situations and not giving up.
She leaves the hospital a few days later, right back where she started from again with no money, no food and nowhere to sleep. She makes her way to a public park, where she is immediately confronted by Quo, who demands to know her connection to Ephidell and why he is so interested in her. She warns Mhirou not to get involved, and not to fall for Ephidell’s tricks. Mhirou explains that there’s nothing she’d love more than to not be involved, and the situation is kind of out of her hands. Quo gets a little more aggressive and starts going on at length about Ephidell’s manipulative tendencies, warns Mhirou not to let him bite her, and begins telling her about things he has done in the past before she is suddenly, mysteriously, stopped again.
Quo leaves, and sure enough, Ephidell is there. Mhirou isn’t exactly excited to see him, and is honestly a little concerned that she is getting used to seeing him. He tells her not to listen to Quo, and that he has to stick around for protection now that Quo has targeted her, not to mention the ‘favor’ Mhirou owes him. She fumes some more about all the unanswered questions she still has, and points out that the LAST time she followed him with the promise of food and shelter, it didn’t work out so great.
Ephidell promises that this next location is completely unknown to anyone but him. Mhirou is obviously still reluctant and initially refuses, prompting a series of nudges and manipulation that change her tune pretty quick. She resents the fact that she is yet again being pushed by Ephidell into doing what he wants, but doesn’t have the strength to argue anymore. They head off together once more.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Quo has an intense dislike of hospitals
-Both Mhirou and Adrian make it through their ordeal relatively okay
-Mhirou’s gun has gone missing
-Once again, Mhirou doesn’t want anything to do with Ephidell, but goes along with him again because she’s doesn’t have the energy to resist or argue
-This is basically the last we see of Ephidell 1.0, now we shift from violent/scary-creepy to more silly-creepy
-Upon reading this again, I find it incredibly fucking surprising that Mhirou didn’t ask Adrian where Khard was. I guess we’ll just put that on the list with the other hundred thousand things that would change in this plot with a re-write
CHAPTER 9: THE ASSOCIATED
“Please enjoy these delightful side characters”
SYNOPSIS:
Quo meets with her contact—a man named Harp, another vampire with some connection to Ephidell. He tells her it’s a shame she messed up her own plan, and that he’ll need some more time now to observe Ephidell before they make another move. She isn’t in the mood to deal with his odd, slow behavior and threatens him with a knife, but he disarms her calmly and tells her they will meet again when the time is right.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Adrian makes his way to Khard’s apartment. He lets him in, and Adrian barely even knows how to begin explaining what the hell has been going on. He tells him that Libby was killed, along with Kaz, and gives an abridged version of the events in the underground bunker. Khard is initially skeptical, but then Adrian mentions Mhirou. Khard is just as surprised to hear about her as she was about him, and offers Adrian a place to stay for a while as he digests all this bizarre information.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Harp’s first appearance, established as an EXTREMELY odd person, slow to speak and slow to act and clearly mixed up in the head, but still dangerous
-We find out Quo is in cahoots with Harp, and she got the vial of blood from him
-Revealed that Harp and Ephidell go ‘way back’
-Khard’s first appearance, established as a laid-back, serious, sleepy kind of guy
-Oops this chapter was a little weird and short but at least it introduced some relevant characters
CHAPTER 10: THE MONSTER
“As if things weren’t bad enough”
SYNOPSIS:
Ephidell and Mhirou finish their trek to a very old, mostly deserted part of town, at a laughably cliché clock tower next to a graveyard. But this place, like the YMCA before it, has more to it than meets the eye, as Ephidell reveals when he pushes open the heavy fireplace and leads her into the basement. There are several rooms, and he leads her to one with a ridiculously oversized, extravagant bed. Mhirou notes that the bed and the candles he gave her to see with are new, and he had clearly been planning on taking her here for a while. She doesn’t dwell on it too long before falling asleep.
She wakes up the next morning and explores. On the hunt for food and bathroom facilities, she finds a circuit breaker room with a trapdoor, a room full of unused junk, and finally Ephidell’s bedroom. He is resting on the bed, but points her to the bathroom and helps her up when she slips and drops her candle. After a little bit of flustered slapstick flailing around in the darkness, she complains about her hunger but Ephidell tells her he has no mortal food. She goes off to forage for herself. He tells her as she leaves, that if she draws blood, he’ll be able to find her, wherever she is.
Mhirou spends the whole day lost and hungry. She sits down on a bench to rest up for the long walk back to base, only to realize she has company. A young girl, with ragged clothing, her eyes wrapped in bandages and a cane on her lap. She explains that she is waiting for her brother to find and help her, and that her name is Viza. They strike up a bit of a conversation, with Mhirou feeling rather sorry for the sick little girl, but things take a turn for the weird when their chat about being hungry leads to Viza stating that Mhirou ‘smells familiar’ and ‘would be just fine.’ Before she has time to be more than confused, Mhirou finds herself with claws digging into her arm. She frantically tries to free herself, uncovering an eyeless face under the bandages and causing Viza’s ranting to become even more crazed and sinister. She throws up some sort of horrible black blood sludge on Mhirou, who finally is able to free herself and run for it. Viza seems to be morphing into a more monstrous form as well—her arms growing enormous and dragging the rest of her body after Mhirou in a slow chase.
Mhirou quickly outdistances her and just as quickly runs into Ephidell, who presumably smelled the blood from her wound and came to assist. Mhirou frantically babbles about the craziness she just went through and eventually blurts out Viza’s name. Ephidell is shocked by the news and appears deeply unsettled, but does not elaborate. He instructs Mhirou to ditch her ruined clothing and follow him after it becomes clear they are not in immediate danger, and the two head off into the rainy night.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
-Introduced to the clock tower base
-Viza’s first appearance, established as holy shit crazy monster little girl???
-Actually her name is Vera now, I was still in the middle of making this document when we made the switcheroo
-I’m gonna leave it as Viza since this is strictly old-roleplay stuff, for posterity or whatever
-We find out Ephidell clearly knows who/what Viza is, and is afraid of her
-Mhirou loses her iconic jacket, back when it was a huge deal for characters to change clothes