Of Matthew Storm

[Kyle]

I'll be posting stories based on my character in Steve's Hastings campaign. It's a sin-cityish game that also involves supernatural horror set in the city of Hastings, a city in the US that got so corrupt and fulll of gang and mob control that the government just walled it off and now won't let anyone leave.

Matthew Storm was a Private Eye who recieved a message from his brother Jacob that he was in Hastings and needed help. Matthew immediately left to find him and even continued into Hastings when he learned he wouldn't be allowed to leave. In the few years since his arrival he's made some friends and enemies as well as started his own business as a PI operating for whatever group will pay him.

I'll be posting a new one after each adventure is finished and they'll each talk a little about what happened in that adventure, as well as being insights into his character. Hope you enjoy!

[Kyle]

Matthew Storm – Aftermath 1
“Well that was… different,” says VV as she looks over at me, sounding a little perplexed.
“Why, is something wrong?” I ask the red haired beauty lying next to me.
“No, not at all! It’s just you’re not usually so…cuddly, I guess.”
“Oh. Well…”
She looks up at me with her piercing gray eyes. “It was a case wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I look down at my bandaged leg without really thinking.
“I wasn’t going to ask,” she says quietly. “What happened?”
“I got bitten by a dog, it tore up my leg pretty good.” Her face goes a little pale but really I got off lucky. I hope Gary’s okay. Poor guy took an axe to the chest, but fortunately I managed to patch him up a bit. I’ll call him tomorrow to see how he’s doing.
“I wish you wouldn’t take such dangerous jobs,” she says quietly. “I mean, if it’s about the money, I could go back to dancing again…” She trails off.
“No! I know you never really liked dancing, and I know you don’t want to go back to doing it.” To be honest I didn’t approve of her dancing either, and I appreciate that she stopped. “Besides, it’s more than the money. Every job I do brings me one step closer to finding my brother, plus I make contacts and allies for when it’s finally time to go.”
“Matt-”
“I know you don’t think it’s possible, but I will find a way out of Hastings. After I find my brother, or what happened to him, we’ll all leave together. You and I can go back to my hometown and settle down.”
“That sounds lovely Matt, but do you really think we can get out?”
“Of course, there has to be a way, I mean, stuff gets in here right?” She nods but she doesn’t look optimistic. I know that she doesn’t really think that I’ll be able to find Jacob or get any of us out of here, but when Matthew Storm sets his mind to something you can be certain it’ll get done! I step out of bed and start pulling my clothes on. “Well it’s getting late and I should head home. Thanks VV, I’ll be by again soon.” I suddenly turn around and sit back down, giving her a tight embrace.
“What was that for?” She asks as I step back.
“Nothing. It’s just, I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Oh?” She asks, raising an eyebrow, “is this about something that happened during your case?”
“Yeah, you don’t want to hear the details, trust me.” I shudder at the thought of those men eating the woman we were sent to find, and then there were all those girls in cages, and the videos… I should really destroy those things, but I know I need them to help make a case against the men behind it. “Just, be careful okay VV?”
“I will, but it’s not me you should be worrying about.”
“I know, I’ll be more careful.” I finish pulling my clothes on and turn to the door.
“And come see me again soon, alright?” She asks as I begin to open the door.
“I’ll do my best VV, but you know how these cases can be.” She nods and smiles at me, still looking concerned. “Bye VV, see you soon.”
“Bye handsome,” she croons with a sultry wink. She blows me a kiss as I step out the door and into the hallway. As I close the door I notice a younger blonde woman come running up the hall. She skids to a stop in front of me.
“Oh, mister Storm,” she says awkwardly.
“I’ve told you before Cindy, my name’s Matthew. Victoria’s inside,” I say with a jerk of my thumb towards the door.
“Oh, right. Thank you mister Sto… Matthew.” She turns and knocks on the door as I continue down the hallway. Cindy’s a good kid. It’s just too bad that she had to grow up in Hastings instead of somewhere where she’d have a real chance.
I walk down the stairs and take the short hallway to the entrance. I bypass the main rooms of the club, VV’s the only girl I need. As I glance onto the main floor I shudder again at the memory of the club I was in earlier, but it’s nothing like this place. The Victorian is a classy place and I know the girls here are treated well, VV sees to that. I head down the hall as quickly as I can with an injured leg and nod to Julia where she sits behind the register and guest log. She nods back and I step out the door into the cool night air.
“Have a rough night mister Storm?” Asks Paul, the huge bouncer leaning on the wall next to the door. I’m 6 foot 2 and not exactly a beanpole, but this guy towers over even me.
“Yeah Paul, got hurt on the job, you know how it is.”
He nods and idly rubs the jagged scar running down the right side of his neck. “Sometimes work can be dangerous,” he says simply. “You gonna stick around for a chat?” He asks with carefully hidden excitement, I know that being a bouncer here isn’t exactly the most exciting job. Most people know that you don’t cause trouble here, not in a nice place like the one VV runs.
“No. Sorry Paul, but I really gotta get home and get off this leg. Even tough guys need time to heal, right?”
“Right,” he says with a laugh, “alright mister Storm, see you around.”
“Yeah, seeya Paul.” I begin to walk away but then turn back for a moment. “Paul? You take care of VV for me, okay?”
Noticing the seriousness of my tone he stands up to his impressive height and snaps to attention. “Yes sir, nothing will happen to Victoria Valentine while I’m on duty.”
I nod, “thanks Paul, I know I can count on you. Be seeing you.” I turn again and make my way home through the dark streets. I have to admit; the longer I stay in this town the more I want to leave. I glance back at the glowing sign for the Victorian that I can just make out from the street I’m walking down. At least even in this place of greed, violence and corruption there are still some good and beautiful things.
Kyle Bentley July 16, 2008

[Kyle]

Matthew Storm – Aftermath 2
I am not a happy man.
I lie here in a bathtub in a dirty hotel room in a building that would have been demolished if not for the walls going up. I ensure my two pistols are placed within easy reach and then fluff my pillow as best I can. I can hear Kally, Mika and Gary sleeping in the other room. One of them is snoring, though I'm not sure which. Gary's voice rises over the sound, making small frightened noises. Poor guy, the stress of all this is really hitting him hard. He's been acting weirder and weirder lately, even somehow hitting his head on the sink in the bathroom earlier. I hope that axe wound he got hasn't gotten infected.
And Mika, the guy has guts, I'll admit that to anyone who asks. Crashing his car into the side of Big Mike's apartment building to get rid of the guy in the back seat wasn't exactly smart, but it was certainly ballsy.
That's the main thing I'm worried about. Those guys were from outside the city, meaning we're into something big here. I'm worried about Heather and VV but I can't contact them without giving myself away and putting them in danger.
They already talked to VV and she said where I was, plus she didn't tell them about our relationship, so hopefully she'll be safe as long as I don't try to reach her and she doesn't try to contact me somehow. She must be worried about me too.
Heather is a bigger concern, they probably know she's my secretary so things could get rough for her. I told her to lay low, so hopefully that will be enough. I'm still worried though, if they find her she won't know where I am and things might get real nasty.
I roll over so my right eye can see over the edge of the tub, through the door I left slightly ajar and into the hall. If anyone tries to bust in they'll step right into my sights.
I take some time pondering this Barbie chick that's letting us stay here. She seems like a decent sort hiding behind a tough face, something I know a little about myself. Hopefully she won't ask anything too hard of us in exchange for letting us stay here. I know she'll ask something, she wouldn't have gotten this far, or anywhere at all, in Hastings by giving out charity.
Still, at least there's a dull silver lining. These guys who are after us are professionals from the outside, which means they must have a plan to get out of the city. They wouldn't sign away their freedom just to complete one job, that's just not good business. If we can convince them to let us know their plan then maybe we can all get out of here. It's not guaranteed and I still need to find out what happened to my brother Jacob, but at least it's a chance. I promised VV I'd get us out of here and I will.
I shut my eyes and try to block out the sounds of the others sleeping. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep and we can start fresh in the morning. Kally and I already found some money, ammo, and food and drinks in the abandoned warehouse and gas station nearby. Maybe there'll be something of use in the old strip club I noticed on our way to the warehouse. You never know, even some leftover booze would be handy.
I try my best to get comfortable while still looking out the door.
I miss VV.
The thought pops into my head unbidden and I ponder it slowly. I'd never realized how much I miss her when I'm lying in bed alone. Maybe if I get out of this I'll take her up on her offer to spend the whole night with her.
Kyle Bentley August 4, 2008

[Kyle]

Matthew Storm - Aftermath 3
I'm almost glad for the pain.
If it wasn't for the sharp pain of the axe wound on my arm I would swear I was losing my mind. I stand outside the door of the hotel and look up at the gray sky, my hand slipping unbidden to my bandaged arm.
There are too many things that trouble me about last nights events to list, but the big one is a simple question.
Was it real or a dream? It's hard to believe it was either. If it was a dream then I could put it out of my mind easier, but then were did this cut come from? And what about the mirror shard and tape in my pocket? And those rounds I used? What happened to them? The other clincher is that everyone else told me they had the same dream. That's just not normal.
But if it was all real? What then? How did we move through so many different places in so short a time? How did all those strange things happen, and why? The most troubling questions is how come there were no signs of what happened when we came to afterwards?
I head back inside and look around for Barbie, she's probably doing sudokos again. I have to ask her if we can have another room, since Kally busted the door to our previous one.
I pause in the hallway leading to the main lobby as memories of last nights events move through my head. I close my eyes and lean against the wall, trying to find some meaning in the memories.
We'd all gone to sleep, me in the tub to keep an eye on the door, and the next thing I knew I was woken by the crash of combat. I leapt up and found Kally fighting what looked like a pair of walking corpses! Despite our fear we managed to fight the things off and escape into the main part of the hotel. The whole place looked like a disaster area, all old and run down, I mean more so than usual, and there were locks and chains on the door to the stairs. After breaking one of my lockpicks trying to open it we went to a nearby room, thinking we could break a window and climb out.
As I walked in the smell alerted me to a body impaled on the wall of the bathroom by a huge metal spike. I told the others not to look and we headed into the main part of the room. I fired a few rounds into the window but they just stopped without even cracking the glass. I told the others not to bother making a rope out of the bedsheets, which seemed to be stained with blood anyway. We heard movement outside and despite our attempts at hiding these four cloaked maniacs found us and attacked with axes. Everyone else was fine but I got a gash to the arm, a gash which flowed with some kind of green goo. I don't know what the stuff is, but I've been feeling weak ever since I got hit. When we killed them the bodies and the things they were wearing and carrying dissapeared, so I couldn't get a sample to figure out what it was.
After finishing them off we wandered back into the hall, lost and with nowhere to go. Gary said he thought he saw Adeline, that girl we were looking for and found dead, and we decided to head after her. We found a dark hole and crawled in, eventually coming out in the middle of a road in the country. We looked around and investigated some movement in the nearby woods to find an old abandoned summer camp. We looked around the main cabin and the ring of smaller ones and found that a bunch of them were set up with medeival style torture implements and manacles, real twisted stuff. One the smaller cabins had this weird mirror that when we looked at it, saw rot moving across the floor towards us. The weird thing was, it was only in the mirror! When it had fully covered the floor of the mirror it began to leak out and so I smashed the thing, taking a shard in case it might come in handy.
As we searched the cafeteria I found a trap door leading to the basement, where there was a large safe I could hear sobbing from. I managed to pick the lock and when I opened it a little girl ran out and hugged my legs.
Suddenly we were standing in a street next to an old house. We went in, as it seemed like the house was drawing us in somehow, and Gary found a little girl's diary that apparently belonged to Adeline! We also found a tape in the kitchen, but nothing to play it on. After we went upstairs a bunch of rough looking types armed with miniguns broke in through the front door! The others hid in one of the rooms while Gary was looking for a book or pages or something and I took cover at the corner at the top of the stairs. When one of the guys came up I grabbed him and shoved him down the stairs, hearing something break when he landed. I ran into the room with the others and we climbed out the window onto the roof. We sniped the one unknowing guy in the backyard before he knew we were there while the rest of the goons were running up the stairs. Just as they reached the room and started climbing out after us we dropped down to the yard and ran back through the house. We reached the street and saw that same tunnel ahead of us. We dove into it and started frantically crawling and when we reached the end we woke up.
I wish I could say it was just a dream but I woke up with a shard of mirror and a tape in my pocket, a chunk of my arm missing and a couple empty slots in my revolver cylinders. I talked to the others and they all had the same dream. When we talked to Barbie she wasn't nearly as freaked as I expected, she didn't even suggest we were drunk or crazy, and she even offered her opinion that maybe this Adeline girl was haunting us.
I have no idea what's going on anymore, this stuff's all just too weird for me. I miss the old days where all I had to worry about was my next paycheck and avoiding any run-ins with the local toughs. I talked to Barbie about getting me some body armour, so at least I can hopefully survive all this.
Pretty much the only good news is that that abandoned strip club had a lot of booze in it, although I know Mica will probably drink most of it, the way he's going.
Each day this weird stuff lasts I find myself more and more concerned with my friends and loved ones. Maybe I could get Barbie to send VV a message, that might work. I think I'll do that, plus I've got to ask her about all this supernatural stuff. It seems to me that this Barbie knows a lot more about the subject than she's letting on.
Kyle Bentley, August 20, 2008

[SkittlesMeTimber]

pretty good stuff so far I say. I like being able to see into my player,s...character"s heads....i may get the others to start something like this up.

[SkittlesMeTimber]

Also: if i were in mica's situation, id be drinking booze like it was water too.

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