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[Thael]

NWOD Stone

Shadow Name Stone

Occupation Police Officer Lt
Division Robbery Homicide/SWAT

Past
Maxwell was very interested in action movies and tactical games which is why he became a cop. He felt they would require less brainwashing and still allow him to take part of the action. His natural talent with rifles, evident even in childhood with BB guns and the like, was recognized in his time in the academy. This resulted in extra attention with a focus on his marksmanship skills and upon graduation he was marked for eventual inclusion in SWAT.

Awakening
During a competition many years later he was not doing so well and instead of using his prepared rifle for the final round he used his spare which was actually more familar too him from long years of use. During his round he martialed his focus to get into "the zone". While he reminisced down the years with this old friend he felt a sudden deeper kinship with his weapon. The worn smooth corners of the wooden stock against his shoulder was suddenly a landscape of valleys and mountains on a miniscule scale. The trigger that was as fluid as water now felt like two pieces of sandpaper grinding as he squeezed it down. In his mind's eye he could see the hammer hit the casing and spark the explosion that rocketed the bullet to the target. The sensation of the bullet against the internal rifling that starts the spinning motion which would stabalize its flight was like a vibrating bed in a honeymoon suite. The particulate clouds both at the muzzle and the chamber were works of art in motion. He was so deep into his focus that when he was startled from the trance, that seemed to have lasted for days, it was to find he had finished his round of shots. He felt only one had been made but checked the rifle and found it empty of all 5 shots. Looking at his sheet he saw only one bullet hole which seemed at odds with having fired 5 shots and guessed he just missed wildly on his others while suffering his tunnel vision. However verification of his rounds, behind the target, revealed the impossible. All 5 shots had passed through the same hole on the target as the first and were mashed into 1 lump behind it. If it had not been for the evidence of the crushed bullets stacked on each other it would not have been possible to believe anyone could accomplish it. Max's shock was only partially from achieving such a marvelous feat of accuracy, it was that he still could feel the rifle with the same level of detail as it rested in his arms. Once he managed to pay attention elsewhere he was able to see and feel details of the world around him in a way that was more in depth than before, while not to the level he recalled from the shooting, it was far more detailed than before. It was like he knew items at first sight as if he'd worked with them for years. He was dazed and detatched as people congratualted him on his spectacular finish. Later he found himself in the shop behind the armory back at the precinct staring at the newfound vistas that he once took for granted as a simple machine shop. The mishapen mound of lead was enshrined as it were as a plaque in his office, to commemerate the event. It is usually lumped in with all his other awards and commendations from his years of service.

Family Tragedy...
Having increased his time in the armory repairing and tweaking fellow officer's gear, Stone had by default become the "go to" guy when something needed to be made. Be it refurbishing parts for firearms or the occasional part for a cruiser, to helping the bomb squad with crafting tools, or even customizing gear. He even helped out the dept by having people bring him any spent ammo materials (brass and the occasional slugs) so he could hand craft replacements and help lower costs. This typicaly focused on special use rounds like armor piercing, tracers, hollow points, etc. Trying to craft enough standard ammo to affect costs would have been a waste of talents, at least if he did it the mundane way. What no other living soul in the force knew was that Stone had found better ways to ply his craft. He could take raw materials and reshape them with his mind to fit his needs. 100 blobs of lead, 1 well made bullet, a little sympathetic ritual and voila', 101 matching rounds in a matter of moments. Max took great care to make sure he was never caught out on his little secret, it would cause too many questions and ruin the real reason he did it. All the time he saved was dedicated to other "works" and research.
However he was not as careful as he thought and being untrained left him unable to detect spying eyes that hungrily watched him work. They were watching when he was startled by a rookie sent to inform him of a traffic accident involving his wife and children. They were watching when he arrived on the scene too late to hear the last words any of his family spoke. They were watching when he had to be dragged away when he spotted the driver of the other car, an obviously inebriated individual. The woman driving the guilty vehicle was on record as having DUIs before and while in the hospital for minor cuts and bruises was found to have alchohol poisoning due to her level of intoxication. After the funural Max withdrew from all contact, taking leave from the force with the psychologists approval. Stone felt that his abilities were only scratching the surface of what was out there and dove headfirst into studying the occult to find out more. He knew that Hollywood said you could never bring them back, or that if you did it was not really them, but he refused to believe their fables and stories. After all they were only make believe and what he could do was real, and he would bring back his family for real too.


...and Betrayal
Stone did not really make a lot of progress for several months until he stumbled upon a little hole-in-the-wall pawn shop. An elderly woman of surprisingly spry movement had managed to collect a few tomes of unknown history and origin, merely for "flavor". It was amoung these ancient relics that Max finally started finding clues, and gaining hope. Using these as stepping stones to the locations of more in depth material, Max began his journey into the realms of death. With finances running thin, Stone returned to active duty and his old familar machine shop. Work was slower than it had been when he left, combination of people not knowing he had returned and not willing to burden him. This suited him fine and he made little effort to buck the trend. This left him with plenty of time to devote towards his new paths of research. The one benefit he had not thought of in advance was his renewed access to the corpses in the morgue. He had been puzzling over how to gain access to dead flesh for his experiments but now he had nearly unlimited access. He started making rapid progress in his efforts to master death and bring back his family but it was short lived. His avenues of information started running dry. Books went missing, people that could not be tracked down, once open-minded holders of heirlooms and artifacts became uncooperative or even hostile. Max started becoming frantic to find the pieces he so desperately needed, he knew he was close. If only he could put together a few more details he would be ready. He decided to start at square one and go back to the pawn shop and see if anything new had come in that might help. Sasha, the shop owner, was delighted to see him again. She treated him as she had before, completely oblivious to his frazzled appearance and ushered him into her "mystic" section to show him her new aquisitions. He put up with her idle prattle for as long as he could then asked if she had aquired any more old books. The twinkle in her eye and sly grin were like the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. Taking down a battered leather grimoire she set it on a table and opened it to a spot just past the middle. This portion layed out a ritual, requiring two people, that would grant him the control he sought over the souls of others. With this he KNEW he would be able to call the souls of his family back. From there it would be short work to craft them bodies to inhabit, his studies before his families death were surprisingly useful there. Sasha said that when she saw this ritual she immediately thought of him, and offered him her assistance, claiming she had studied the relevant portions for the parts not done by the beneficiary. After weeks of increasing frustration and encroaching depression, Stone leapt at her offer blindly. That evening after he had studied the portions needed for his part in the ritual, Max joined Sasha in her living space at the back of the shop, to perform the ceremony. The instructions said that Stone was to have his soul "un-anchored" and replaced to create a slight detachment that would make him more aware of it. This supposedly led to greater control over your own soul and by extension other souls. Sasha's part was to act as controller of the soul while it was unattached, to prevent bad things happening to it, also to protect Max's body from possesion by unwanted spirits. This is where things started to go wrong. The ritual made no mention of the pain and disorientation. This it turns out was by design. While reeling from the removal of his soul he was unable to notice that Sasha not only did not put his soul back into his body, she put it into her own. The she took a jar and opened it over Max's prone body, mentally forcing the soul within to attach to his soulless shell. His disorientation soon left after the replacement soul was ensconed within but his shock was renewed at the drastic change that had come over Sasha. The once kindly, spry elderly woman was now a ravishing woman in her early 20's. Uncomprehending exactly what this drastic change meant, but willing to let it go for now, as he was trying to gather his wits to verify the spell had worked. Sasha, having gained what she wanted, promplty walked towards the front of the shop and out the door with nary a glance back.


Aftermath
Stone tried to find sign of Sasha once he could move but it was a futile effort as expected. He returned to the shop and decided to see if he could at least find some clue as to who the mysterious woman was or get a better idea of what just happened. He did manage to glean a few telling items. First and foremost was what appeared to be an original copy of the book she showed him that had the same ritual but its description for its use was much more sinister. It detailed the method in which to use souls to prolong life, possibly indefinately provided more souls were available.

to be continued