Encounterlogs
Yasmins Odd Encounter Sr Tomas 240309
In the mysterious ambiance of the Serenity Grove treehouse cafe cradled within a massive oak, Yasmin, an amateur paranormal investigator discovered amidst a serene night of jasmine tea and casual eavesdropping, finds her curiosity piqued by an unusual occurrence. A frenzied TikToker, EyeOnDaSky779, is caught performing a paranormal investigation on the grounds below, his antics broadcast softly into the night's eerie silence. Yasmin's intrigue only deepens when the man abruptly ceases his commentary, prompting her to investigate. Descending from the treehouse via fireman's pole, she finds herself amidst oddly placed electronic equipment but no sign of the investigator. Pushed by a faint scent of blood and a night vision monitor's guidance, she ventures into the forest, inadvertently stumbling upon a grim scene; the TikToker lies injured, his fate hanging by a thread, as he becomes the victim of an unseen predator's assault.
The situation swiftly escalates as Yasmin finds herself ensnared by a vampire, the perpetrator behind the TikToker's critical state. Despite a desperate struggle and an attempt to leverage her abilities, Yasmin faces a harrowing choice dictated by the vampire's blood-curdling ultimatum: coerce the dying man to submit to the supernatural world or bear the weight of his demise. The vampire, refusing to be bound by a Venetian oath that would ensure Yasmin's safety and educational oversight for the newly turned, remains cold and impassive, shifting the moral burden onto Yasmin’s shoulders. Torn between the sanctity of human life and the harsh laws governing the supernatural, Yasmin confronts the grim reality of her world, where choices are seldom black and white, and actions, however well-intentioned, carry consequences that ripple through the echelons of both the mundane and the arcane.
(Yasmin's odd encounter(SRTomas):SRTomas)
[Fri Mar 8 2024]
In the treehouse cafe
Cradled lovingly in the branches of the massive oak, This large treehouse serves as a great hotspot for those visiting the gardens below. Surrounded by clear glass windows framed in a double layer of silken and woolen drapes perfect for every season, it provides a breathtaking view of the entire surrounding landscape whether stopping by for a quick snack or a refreshing drink, or just to meet and mingle with other visiters and friends. Comfortable light-padded chairs carved from a soft light wood sit around three round tables spaced evenly to one side of the treehouse, opposite a small serving counter housing a variaty of snacks, a medium-sized glass door fridge cooling a number of drinks, a juicing machine and an electric kettle for making and serving hot beverages. Sitting between them across from the door is a plush padded deep blue couch, large enough to comfortably seat three or four people without being crammed together.
It is night, about 38F(3C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. Waist high mist flows through the area. There is a waning crescent moon.
(An amateur paranormal investigator has stumbled onto the truth of the supernatural world and has evidence. Your target and their allies are tasked with containing the situation.
)
Nestled comfortably in the canopy of the massive Northwood oak, the Serenity Grove treehouse cafe proves a cozy little spot in these very wee hours of the morning: the gentle rustle of leaves accompanies the soft murmur of conversation as patrons enjoy their drinks and snacks, and the night's last rays of moonlight filter through the foliage, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow across the wooden floors and rustic furniture. The subtle spice of jasmine hangs redolent around Yasmin as it wafts from her tea, beckoning the young woman into an even deeper calm - but then, to her supernal hearing, there is a disturbance - hurried footsteps crunching down below, circling around the tree. A human gait, at least - not a werewolf. Still, those footsteps thud heavily into the earth below, as if weighed down by some heavy load. What could be amiss? Whoever-it-is certainly isn't coming up to the cafe.
Yasmin is seated at her usual corner table near the windows, an eye upon the view outside - darkness and more darkness for the most part, with the occasional mist rising high enough to obstruct what she can see of the ground below. It's another misty sort of night, and her hands clasp tighter around her cup of tea to leech off its warmth while she sips slowly at it - jasmine-scented green tea, her usual. Routine is comforting, sometimes.
And then there's footsteps, beneath - someone lurking around at four in the morning, before the sun's even risen? Unusual. Yasmin's attention momentarily shifts away from her idle thoughts, towards whoever it may be down there. There's a glance around at the patrons of the cafe, sparse as they may be for the time of the day, and she keeps her senses tuned towards the disturbance, even if she doesn't move from her comfortable spot to figure it out. She'd only just gotten her seat warm, after all.
It's difficult to hear /too/ finely from so lofty a perch as Yasmin's, but he's certainly up to something. The shuffle of overburdened footsteps pauses every so often, and a different, crunchier sounds out during each little intermission. Digging, maybe? It's hard to say; acute hearing could only do so much at a distance. A sharp nose didn't do much for her, either - this was a cafe, after all, and the fragrances of fresh pastries and teas and other hot drinks overpower anything external to the treetop proper. It gets to the point where the angelborn simply /must/ approach closer to get even a single more detail out of the situation, but fate sees fit to toss her a bone. It's soft, and struggles to cut through the ambience of the cafe, but it's there: a voice. Masculine. Higher pitched - this guy would definitely be singing tenor, but that's not to say it sounds young, exactly.
"What's up, TikTok?" sounds that faint male voice. "This is EyeOnDaSky779 on another witching hour stake-out for ghosts, spooks, and the paranormal."
A patron pushes his chair back as he stands from his table, offering polite thanks to the server who comes to collect his mostly-full cup of tea. The noise of it all blankets anything from the south, but the patron makes his exit soon enough, and Yasmin can resume listening.
"So like I was saying recently, the witching hour isn't /actually/ midnight, dawgs. That's a myth -"
There's no more talking. This isn't some other din cutting him out - the man stopped talking, certainly. He does not resume.
Yasmin takes another sip or two of her own tea while she listens to the TikTokker beneath the treehouse cafe, mildly curious, but mostly bored. Her mind's on other things and momentary distractions can only prove to be so interesting for so long. She's halfway lost interest already at the first sentence, just idleness keeping her senses attuned to whatever he's attempting to film down there - there's going to be next to nothing, she assumes, until the sudden cutting off of his voice. The silence is more deafening than the initial noise was, and curiosity piques again.
The rest of her tea goes down with another large sip, and her donut, mostly untouched, is just picked up to be eaten on the go when Yasmin makes her way over to the exit of the treehouse - there's a ramp for boring people and a rope ladder for those feeling adventurous, but she chooses neither this time in favor for the third option of the fireman's pole, nodding a farewell to the familiar young man manning the cafe from behind the counter and then sliding down the pole until she's stood upon solid earth once more. There's a look around, curious, to see if she can spot Mister EyeOnDaSky779. "Hello?"
Yasmin earns herself a lone, awkward wolf whistle from an undoubtedly male patron as she mounts the fireman pole and makes her descent - it dies off when no one laughs, but there's a more organic quality to the silence that follows it. Real appropriate, whoever you are. Still, gravity is an exacting mistress, and there's little time to linger. Once the angelborn's feet touch the earth, though, it becomes apparent that the aspirant TikTokker is nowhere in sight. There are a few devices hooked up to the tree trunk which certainly don't belong - scanners, something with impractically long antennae, something with a tiny CRT monitor that displays a bright yellow infrared copy of Yasmin's figure upon it. Wherever the camera for it is, it's considerably more discreet. Whoever this guy is, he apparently put a production budget into his little show. That said, he simply isn't /there/, whether Yasmin wanted to praise him for his set up or confront him over screwing all this crap into a living tree. But... there was something in the air. Blood. Not a lot of it, but it was there... somewhere. The scent was faint enough to not paint a clear direction for her to wander towards. The treeline extended out to the north and to the west, and there were some defaced water features just to the south... But few clues to begin with.
Yasmin is a nice sprinting distance away from town, essentially unarmed other than her pocket knife and not equipped to run into a wolf or something in the woods if she goes out there blindly following the scent of blood that hangs in the air. There's a wrinkling of her nose at the iron tang of it, and she noms down on her donut anyway - no food waste - while she moves over to the tree to check out the monitors and scanners attached to it, attempting to tug at the devices just to see if she can manage to pull them out. She keeps an eye on the CRT monitor, trying to see if she can figure out the location of the camera through it enough to claim that for herself too - her night vision isn't quite the best, and this doesn't seem the right time to be using her usual, go-to lighting up maneuver.
Taking into account Yasmin's generally perceptive nature, as well as her enhanced senses, finding the camera is a sure thing - it's just slowed down by the dark. Of course, if she had a flashlight, things would be much easier.
Does she spend a few extra minutes in the dark, or does she cut to the chase with some form of light? And, if so, how?
Carrying around flashlights is for plebs who can't glow blindingly with a moment's thought - that is to say, not Yasmin. She isn't limited, at least to total darkness or blinding brightness - there is an inbetween. Her knife is fished out of her belongings, and then, a bit of concentration later, fire begins to lick along the blade of it, like a makeshift knife-torch to guide her path while she looks for the camera. She can use it to find her way through the forest to figure out the mystery of the disappearing EyeOnDaSky779 and watch for any incoming dangers through the heat-map, hopefully.
The flaming weaponry does serve as a somewhat less obvious manifestation of Yasmin's abilities, true. It does cause the monitor to become rather less useful the closer she gets to the camera, though, as the heat leaking from it sends infrared waves blooming out over the lens, but that's fine - Yasmin locates the camera secured to one of the trees in the woods with a fastener strap. It's not cabled to anything, so it must be transmitting its feed wirelessly - guess that monitor isn't as retro 90s-core as it looks. Damn posers. Still, it did seem to have memory, if Yasmin wanted to go through it - maybe there was evidence. Not too much time has passed... though that bloody tang in the air is getting a bit stronger. Give it long enough, and she won't need the camera to find anything at all.
There's /probably/ not enough time to go through the camera when there might be someone injured in the woods. Yasmin hadn't heard an answering reply to her 'hello' but that doesn't mean there might not be anyone nearby, and she extinguishes the fire before reaching for the camera - and the strap, both of those things can go around her waist. The CRT monitor is held up, in one hand, so she can look around - north, east, west, south, show her all the happenings of the woods around her, magic machine. It's Paranormal Investigator Yasmin out on duty.
DETECTIVE.
ARRIVING.
ON THE SCENE.
The monitor takes a bit of levering to pry it free - its baseplate had been screwed lightly into the grandfatherly oak, though there's no evidence left of any power tools. Still, Yasmin is a strong woman, and a combat knife is just the thing to force the loose screws free from the abused oak wood. The scent of blood grows strong enough for her to chase it down by direction, now, and rushing through the woods isn't so dangerous this close to town. She could still mostly see the road to the east, though the path took her northwest - and then a flash of orange-red appears on the screen that sharpens into the silhouette of a man, lying on the forest floor. The heat is leaking out of him like liquid... by the neck. The man should have been protected by Sanctuary - was this an accident?
There's a muttered curse under her breath, and her previous attempts at subtlety go out the window; Yasmin may trip over a stray root or two in her rush to approach the man in the process of actively dying, though she manages to keep hold of her monitor like any good detective should. "Hello?" she calls out from a few steps away, and then closer still to crouch near the guy, trying to figure out if he's still alive. "Are you okay?" A wince. Of course he's not fucking okay. "Uh. Hold on. I will call the ambulance..." Her phone is pulled out with her free hand, trying to see if she has signals at all here for such a thing.
Then there's an iron bar of an arm being wrapped around Yasmin's throat, just a little bit stronger than she was. The vampire is cool to the touch - the infrared might've picked him up with a few degrees difference from room temperature, but he must've barely shown compared to the man bleeding his heat onto the soil below. "Stupid," a man's voice whispers harshly into her ear. There's blood on his breath - and, faintly, jasmine tea. The patron from the cafe; she must've heard the vampire put his prey into a trance the moment he descended the treehouse ramp. "You startled me. I hate to waste my food. Nosy bitch." The vampire was laying the blame for the human's torn throat at the angelborn's feet, apparently, and desires bombarded her all at once. The urge to help that bleeding man escape and survive. The urge to help that vampire cover up his mistakes, to not lose his Sanctuary as a consequence of his murder-to-be, to punish the squirming, impertinent child in his arms - to feed before sunup and make an escape of his own.
Whatever Yasmin wants to do, she'll have to deal with the hostile vampire's ambush.
"Wh-" Yasmin's words are cut off when the arm closes properly around her throat, the reflexive cough that follows barely making its way out of her, and she struggles instinctively against the grip, hands coming up to claw at that iron grasp. Fucking vampires, of course. They should really be up there along with werewolves as Just The Worst, Ever.
There's a kick at the man upon the ground, Yasmin's eyes boring fierce holes into him in the darkness. She's not quite able to form words at the moment, but the meaning is clear: 'Get the fuck up and outta here, you need a fucking doctor and I need to set a vampire on fire.' She'd probably say it without all the F-bombs though. Or the latter half of it. All her energy, for the moment, is used in her struggle to free herself from the vampire's clutches, and she brings out her knife again - unlit, no conjuring fire in front of the normie who may or may not have realized what's happening yet - to stab back, blindly, at whatever part she can reach.
To his credit, the bleeding man does struggle - but he's overweight, out of shape, and already very pale. Loss of blood pressure hadn't knocked him unconscious yet, but it would soon. Still, he manages to scoot a little further back away from Yasmin and the perfectly normal looking guy with the fangs. He lulls for a moment, then gets back to kicking - over the woman's shoulder, the vampire curses, his hypnotic trance not quite able to overpower the human's surging instinct to flee and survive. "You're strong," he whispers, struggling to close his arm into a full headlock around Yasmin's neck. "What are you, the Order? I wouldn't have hurt him so badly if you didn't bloody scare me in the first place." Of course the vampire could speak perfectly evenly in the middle of a physical altercation - dead, tireless flesh didn't need oxygen to power it. Vampires really were the worst. "I thought you were a human. I was going to make you forget." And probably take a bite, but it's not like he'll admit that. "Why don't we figure something out?" While the human lies bleeding to death. Of course, if the TikTok aspirant /did/ die, there'd be nothing to protect the vampire in a real fight... And the evidence would be taking care of itself.
'Figuring something out' would require Yasmin to be capable of drawing a breath enough to talk. Her last stab had struck out at only air - this time, she ensures she elbows the vampire in the stomach first before jabbing back with her knife again, held in a reverse grip between her firm fingers, even if she's rapidly running out of oxygen - and strength, along with it. Figure /that/ out, loser.
Just kidding, Yasmin is the loser here with her lack of air and her need to breathe. Alas. Maybe she might be open to negotiation if he wasn't attempting to choke her out. Should've thought of that first.
Stab. Stab. Yasmin's knife does dig into the dead man's flesh, but all this really elicits is a little sigh from the vampire. "You are not hurting me," he points out, though he nonetheless releases the angelborn from his grip and shoves her forwards towards the dying-but-not-dead human man.
Now that she gets a good look at him, the vampire's trousers are sporting a few holes, but he's barely bled. God damned vampires really, really are the worst. He bends his knees and straightens out again as if to test the mechanics of his thigh haven't been too badly damaged for locomotion, and indeed they have not. He takes a step forwards.
"I'm hardly going to sing my nerves back to life for a fight," he says, his face blank. "I am a vampire. You'll have to dig a lot deeper if you want me to feel pain." He's not armed, at least - Yasmin had her knife, and soon she'd have her fire back, too. Vampires weren't supposed to be very resistant to incendiary weapons, right? Maybe that was a myth. The vampire's attention shifts from Yasmin to the dying man, and he - or it, more than he, as inhuman as this one's acting - frowns. "Teach him the words to lower his Sanctuary," he instructs Yasmin, "And I will turn him. I prefer to not embrace ones so... slovenly... but I'd rather not kill him, either." He pauses, then adds, "I will absolutely not speak the words myself. It is up to you."
Damn, that man really is dying, huh? Vampires may have passed werewolves on the tier list of 'worst supernaturals ever to deal with'. Stupid vampires. Stupid werewolves, even if none of them were at fault here. Yasmin almost collapses when she's released and pushed towards the man, coughing to clear her strained airway and taking deep breaths of sweet, sweet air before she rushes towards the injured man, attempting to figure out how long he's got left. "Venetian oath," she says to the vampire, staring at the injured man instead of at him - she knows better than to look a vampire in the eyes. A hand comes up to his throat, trying futilely to stem the flow of blood with the pressure she applies. "You won't hurt me. You will teach him - properly - how to be-... a part of our world." There. Those sound like reasonable demands, surely.
The vampire crosses his arms and stares at Yasmin. "No," he says, firmly. "I will not be pressed into a Venetian oath that will extend through years of training. Years for something to go awry that I may be held accountable for." He turns to look at the human - yes, he's slipping in and out of unconsciousness now, which means the brain damage will be setting in promptly. "I cannot embrace the already dead, Orderite. Do as I suggest or you will have both caused his accident and denied him his chance at a continued existence." His lips thin, and he claims, "Your hands will be more soaked with his blood than my own. You must stir him and have him speak the words, or he will die, and it will be your own fault."
The situation swiftly escalates as Yasmin finds herself ensnared by a vampire, the perpetrator behind the TikToker's critical state. Despite a desperate struggle and an attempt to leverage her abilities, Yasmin faces a harrowing choice dictated by the vampire's blood-curdling ultimatum: coerce the dying man to submit to the supernatural world or bear the weight of his demise. The vampire, refusing to be bound by a Venetian oath that would ensure Yasmin's safety and educational oversight for the newly turned, remains cold and impassive, shifting the moral burden onto Yasmin’s shoulders. Torn between the sanctity of human life and the harsh laws governing the supernatural, Yasmin confronts the grim reality of her world, where choices are seldom black and white, and actions, however well-intentioned, carry consequences that ripple through the echelons of both the mundane and the arcane.
(Yasmin's odd encounter(SRTomas):SRTomas)
[Fri Mar 8 2024]
In the treehouse cafe
Cradled lovingly in the branches of the massive oak, This large treehouse serves as a great hotspot for those visiting the gardens below. Surrounded by clear glass windows framed in a double layer of silken and woolen drapes perfect for every season, it provides a breathtaking view of the entire surrounding landscape whether stopping by for a quick snack or a refreshing drink, or just to meet and mingle with other visiters and friends. Comfortable light-padded chairs carved from a soft light wood sit around three round tables spaced evenly to one side of the treehouse, opposite a small serving counter housing a variaty of snacks, a medium-sized glass door fridge cooling a number of drinks, a juicing machine and an electric kettle for making and serving hot beverages. Sitting between them across from the door is a plush padded deep blue couch, large enough to comfortably seat three or four people without being crammed together.
It is night, about 38F(3C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. Waist high mist flows through the area. There is a waning crescent moon.
(An amateur paranormal investigator has stumbled onto the truth of the supernatural world and has evidence. Your target and their allies are tasked with containing the situation.
)
Nestled comfortably in the canopy of the massive Northwood oak, the Serenity Grove treehouse cafe proves a cozy little spot in these very wee hours of the morning: the gentle rustle of leaves accompanies the soft murmur of conversation as patrons enjoy their drinks and snacks, and the night's last rays of moonlight filter through the foliage, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow across the wooden floors and rustic furniture. The subtle spice of jasmine hangs redolent around Yasmin as it wafts from her tea, beckoning the young woman into an even deeper calm - but then, to her supernal hearing, there is a disturbance - hurried footsteps crunching down below, circling around the tree. A human gait, at least - not a werewolf. Still, those footsteps thud heavily into the earth below, as if weighed down by some heavy load. What could be amiss? Whoever-it-is certainly isn't coming up to the cafe.
Yasmin is seated at her usual corner table near the windows, an eye upon the view outside - darkness and more darkness for the most part, with the occasional mist rising high enough to obstruct what she can see of the ground below. It's another misty sort of night, and her hands clasp tighter around her cup of tea to leech off its warmth while she sips slowly at it - jasmine-scented green tea, her usual. Routine is comforting, sometimes.
And then there's footsteps, beneath - someone lurking around at four in the morning, before the sun's even risen? Unusual. Yasmin's attention momentarily shifts away from her idle thoughts, towards whoever it may be down there. There's a glance around at the patrons of the cafe, sparse as they may be for the time of the day, and she keeps her senses tuned towards the disturbance, even if she doesn't move from her comfortable spot to figure it out. She'd only just gotten her seat warm, after all.
It's difficult to hear /too/ finely from so lofty a perch as Yasmin's, but he's certainly up to something. The shuffle of overburdened footsteps pauses every so often, and a different, crunchier sounds out during each little intermission. Digging, maybe? It's hard to say; acute hearing could only do so much at a distance. A sharp nose didn't do much for her, either - this was a cafe, after all, and the fragrances of fresh pastries and teas and other hot drinks overpower anything external to the treetop proper. It gets to the point where the angelborn simply /must/ approach closer to get even a single more detail out of the situation, but fate sees fit to toss her a bone. It's soft, and struggles to cut through the ambience of the cafe, but it's there: a voice. Masculine. Higher pitched - this guy would definitely be singing tenor, but that's not to say it sounds young, exactly.
"What's up, TikTok?" sounds that faint male voice. "This is EyeOnDaSky779 on another witching hour stake-out for ghosts, spooks, and the paranormal."
A patron pushes his chair back as he stands from his table, offering polite thanks to the server who comes to collect his mostly-full cup of tea. The noise of it all blankets anything from the south, but the patron makes his exit soon enough, and Yasmin can resume listening.
"So like I was saying recently, the witching hour isn't /actually/ midnight, dawgs. That's a myth -"
There's no more talking. This isn't some other din cutting him out - the man stopped talking, certainly. He does not resume.
Yasmin takes another sip or two of her own tea while she listens to the TikTokker beneath the treehouse cafe, mildly curious, but mostly bored. Her mind's on other things and momentary distractions can only prove to be so interesting for so long. She's halfway lost interest already at the first sentence, just idleness keeping her senses attuned to whatever he's attempting to film down there - there's going to be next to nothing, she assumes, until the sudden cutting off of his voice. The silence is more deafening than the initial noise was, and curiosity piques again.
The rest of her tea goes down with another large sip, and her donut, mostly untouched, is just picked up to be eaten on the go when Yasmin makes her way over to the exit of the treehouse - there's a ramp for boring people and a rope ladder for those feeling adventurous, but she chooses neither this time in favor for the third option of the fireman's pole, nodding a farewell to the familiar young man manning the cafe from behind the counter and then sliding down the pole until she's stood upon solid earth once more. There's a look around, curious, to see if she can spot Mister EyeOnDaSky779. "Hello?"
Yasmin earns herself a lone, awkward wolf whistle from an undoubtedly male patron as she mounts the fireman pole and makes her descent - it dies off when no one laughs, but there's a more organic quality to the silence that follows it. Real appropriate, whoever you are. Still, gravity is an exacting mistress, and there's little time to linger. Once the angelborn's feet touch the earth, though, it becomes apparent that the aspirant TikTokker is nowhere in sight. There are a few devices hooked up to the tree trunk which certainly don't belong - scanners, something with impractically long antennae, something with a tiny CRT monitor that displays a bright yellow infrared copy of Yasmin's figure upon it. Wherever the camera for it is, it's considerably more discreet. Whoever this guy is, he apparently put a production budget into his little show. That said, he simply isn't /there/, whether Yasmin wanted to praise him for his set up or confront him over screwing all this crap into a living tree. But... there was something in the air. Blood. Not a lot of it, but it was there... somewhere. The scent was faint enough to not paint a clear direction for her to wander towards. The treeline extended out to the north and to the west, and there were some defaced water features just to the south... But few clues to begin with.
Yasmin is a nice sprinting distance away from town, essentially unarmed other than her pocket knife and not equipped to run into a wolf or something in the woods if she goes out there blindly following the scent of blood that hangs in the air. There's a wrinkling of her nose at the iron tang of it, and she noms down on her donut anyway - no food waste - while she moves over to the tree to check out the monitors and scanners attached to it, attempting to tug at the devices just to see if she can manage to pull them out. She keeps an eye on the CRT monitor, trying to see if she can figure out the location of the camera through it enough to claim that for herself too - her night vision isn't quite the best, and this doesn't seem the right time to be using her usual, go-to lighting up maneuver.
Taking into account Yasmin's generally perceptive nature, as well as her enhanced senses, finding the camera is a sure thing - it's just slowed down by the dark. Of course, if she had a flashlight, things would be much easier.
Does she spend a few extra minutes in the dark, or does she cut to the chase with some form of light? And, if so, how?
Carrying around flashlights is for plebs who can't glow blindingly with a moment's thought - that is to say, not Yasmin. She isn't limited, at least to total darkness or blinding brightness - there is an inbetween. Her knife is fished out of her belongings, and then, a bit of concentration later, fire begins to lick along the blade of it, like a makeshift knife-torch to guide her path while she looks for the camera. She can use it to find her way through the forest to figure out the mystery of the disappearing EyeOnDaSky779 and watch for any incoming dangers through the heat-map, hopefully.
The flaming weaponry does serve as a somewhat less obvious manifestation of Yasmin's abilities, true. It does cause the monitor to become rather less useful the closer she gets to the camera, though, as the heat leaking from it sends infrared waves blooming out over the lens, but that's fine - Yasmin locates the camera secured to one of the trees in the woods with a fastener strap. It's not cabled to anything, so it must be transmitting its feed wirelessly - guess that monitor isn't as retro 90s-core as it looks. Damn posers. Still, it did seem to have memory, if Yasmin wanted to go through it - maybe there was evidence. Not too much time has passed... though that bloody tang in the air is getting a bit stronger. Give it long enough, and she won't need the camera to find anything at all.
There's /probably/ not enough time to go through the camera when there might be someone injured in the woods. Yasmin hadn't heard an answering reply to her 'hello' but that doesn't mean there might not be anyone nearby, and she extinguishes the fire before reaching for the camera - and the strap, both of those things can go around her waist. The CRT monitor is held up, in one hand, so she can look around - north, east, west, south, show her all the happenings of the woods around her, magic machine. It's Paranormal Investigator Yasmin out on duty.
DETECTIVE.
ARRIVING.
ON THE SCENE.
The monitor takes a bit of levering to pry it free - its baseplate had been screwed lightly into the grandfatherly oak, though there's no evidence left of any power tools. Still, Yasmin is a strong woman, and a combat knife is just the thing to force the loose screws free from the abused oak wood. The scent of blood grows strong enough for her to chase it down by direction, now, and rushing through the woods isn't so dangerous this close to town. She could still mostly see the road to the east, though the path took her northwest - and then a flash of orange-red appears on the screen that sharpens into the silhouette of a man, lying on the forest floor. The heat is leaking out of him like liquid... by the neck. The man should have been protected by Sanctuary - was this an accident?
There's a muttered curse under her breath, and her previous attempts at subtlety go out the window; Yasmin may trip over a stray root or two in her rush to approach the man in the process of actively dying, though she manages to keep hold of her monitor like any good detective should. "Hello?" she calls out from a few steps away, and then closer still to crouch near the guy, trying to figure out if he's still alive. "Are you okay?" A wince. Of course he's not fucking okay. "Uh. Hold on. I will call the ambulance..." Her phone is pulled out with her free hand, trying to see if she has signals at all here for such a thing.
Then there's an iron bar of an arm being wrapped around Yasmin's throat, just a little bit stronger than she was. The vampire is cool to the touch - the infrared might've picked him up with a few degrees difference from room temperature, but he must've barely shown compared to the man bleeding his heat onto the soil below. "Stupid," a man's voice whispers harshly into her ear. There's blood on his breath - and, faintly, jasmine tea. The patron from the cafe; she must've heard the vampire put his prey into a trance the moment he descended the treehouse ramp. "You startled me. I hate to waste my food. Nosy bitch." The vampire was laying the blame for the human's torn throat at the angelborn's feet, apparently, and desires bombarded her all at once. The urge to help that bleeding man escape and survive. The urge to help that vampire cover up his mistakes, to not lose his Sanctuary as a consequence of his murder-to-be, to punish the squirming, impertinent child in his arms - to feed before sunup and make an escape of his own.
Whatever Yasmin wants to do, she'll have to deal with the hostile vampire's ambush.
"Wh-" Yasmin's words are cut off when the arm closes properly around her throat, the reflexive cough that follows barely making its way out of her, and she struggles instinctively against the grip, hands coming up to claw at that iron grasp. Fucking vampires, of course. They should really be up there along with werewolves as Just The Worst, Ever.
There's a kick at the man upon the ground, Yasmin's eyes boring fierce holes into him in the darkness. She's not quite able to form words at the moment, but the meaning is clear: 'Get the fuck up and outta here, you need a fucking doctor and I need to set a vampire on fire.' She'd probably say it without all the F-bombs though. Or the latter half of it. All her energy, for the moment, is used in her struggle to free herself from the vampire's clutches, and she brings out her knife again - unlit, no conjuring fire in front of the normie who may or may not have realized what's happening yet - to stab back, blindly, at whatever part she can reach.
To his credit, the bleeding man does struggle - but he's overweight, out of shape, and already very pale. Loss of blood pressure hadn't knocked him unconscious yet, but it would soon. Still, he manages to scoot a little further back away from Yasmin and the perfectly normal looking guy with the fangs. He lulls for a moment, then gets back to kicking - over the woman's shoulder, the vampire curses, his hypnotic trance not quite able to overpower the human's surging instinct to flee and survive. "You're strong," he whispers, struggling to close his arm into a full headlock around Yasmin's neck. "What are you, the Order? I wouldn't have hurt him so badly if you didn't bloody scare me in the first place." Of course the vampire could speak perfectly evenly in the middle of a physical altercation - dead, tireless flesh didn't need oxygen to power it. Vampires really were the worst. "I thought you were a human. I was going to make you forget." And probably take a bite, but it's not like he'll admit that. "Why don't we figure something out?" While the human lies bleeding to death. Of course, if the TikTok aspirant /did/ die, there'd be nothing to protect the vampire in a real fight... And the evidence would be taking care of itself.
'Figuring something out' would require Yasmin to be capable of drawing a breath enough to talk. Her last stab had struck out at only air - this time, she ensures she elbows the vampire in the stomach first before jabbing back with her knife again, held in a reverse grip between her firm fingers, even if she's rapidly running out of oxygen - and strength, along with it. Figure /that/ out, loser.
Just kidding, Yasmin is the loser here with her lack of air and her need to breathe. Alas. Maybe she might be open to negotiation if he wasn't attempting to choke her out. Should've thought of that first.
Stab. Stab. Yasmin's knife does dig into the dead man's flesh, but all this really elicits is a little sigh from the vampire. "You are not hurting me," he points out, though he nonetheless releases the angelborn from his grip and shoves her forwards towards the dying-but-not-dead human man.
Now that she gets a good look at him, the vampire's trousers are sporting a few holes, but he's barely bled. God damned vampires really, really are the worst. He bends his knees and straightens out again as if to test the mechanics of his thigh haven't been too badly damaged for locomotion, and indeed they have not. He takes a step forwards.
"I'm hardly going to sing my nerves back to life for a fight," he says, his face blank. "I am a vampire. You'll have to dig a lot deeper if you want me to feel pain." He's not armed, at least - Yasmin had her knife, and soon she'd have her fire back, too. Vampires weren't supposed to be very resistant to incendiary weapons, right? Maybe that was a myth. The vampire's attention shifts from Yasmin to the dying man, and he - or it, more than he, as inhuman as this one's acting - frowns. "Teach him the words to lower his Sanctuary," he instructs Yasmin, "And I will turn him. I prefer to not embrace ones so... slovenly... but I'd rather not kill him, either." He pauses, then adds, "I will absolutely not speak the words myself. It is up to you."
Damn, that man really is dying, huh? Vampires may have passed werewolves on the tier list of 'worst supernaturals ever to deal with'. Stupid vampires. Stupid werewolves, even if none of them were at fault here. Yasmin almost collapses when she's released and pushed towards the man, coughing to clear her strained airway and taking deep breaths of sweet, sweet air before she rushes towards the injured man, attempting to figure out how long he's got left. "Venetian oath," she says to the vampire, staring at the injured man instead of at him - she knows better than to look a vampire in the eyes. A hand comes up to his throat, trying futilely to stem the flow of blood with the pressure she applies. "You won't hurt me. You will teach him - properly - how to be-... a part of our world." There. Those sound like reasonable demands, surely.
The vampire crosses his arms and stares at Yasmin. "No," he says, firmly. "I will not be pressed into a Venetian oath that will extend through years of training. Years for something to go awry that I may be held accountable for." He turns to look at the human - yes, he's slipping in and out of unconsciousness now, which means the brain damage will be setting in promptly. "I cannot embrace the already dead, Orderite. Do as I suggest or you will have both caused his accident and denied him his chance at a continued existence." His lips thin, and he claims, "Your hands will be more soaked with his blood than my own. You must stir him and have him speak the words, or he will die, and it will be your own fault."