Ultimately, since Golconda is a unique experience for each vampire, you should ask what Golconda means to the player pursuing it. What questions does she want to address and answer with her experience?
As noted previously, paths to Golconda tend toward extremes, and that’s one main reason many end up hermits the closer they get to ascendancy. This could alienate the character. It also means stories will have to specifically challenge those expectations, but truly cater to them. For example, a follower of Humanity will have to refrain from most traditionally “immoral” acts in pursuit of Golconda.
Many chronicles simply won’t allow this to be an option, and many troupes’ characters will inherently limit that possibility. How does that character reconcile a relation-ship with characters on the Path of Caine, for example?
For this reason, ask what extremes the player expects to take on the path. This should be addressed up front, and communicated clearly and in no uncertain terms to the other players. As with any chronicle decision, everyone has to be on the same page, so they can weave a collaborative story. Vampire: The Masquerade assumes there will be at least some ideological antagonism between characters, but by and large, the players should be playing characters who generally get along and can work together. Irreconcilable differences make for very frustrating chronicles.
Another consideration in catering chronicles to the Golconda-pursuing player is such: Does she expect to succeed? The answer is likely yes, but isn’t necessarily.
Golconda is a great place to tell stories of tragic failures, bittersweet lies, and painful truths. If failure is something the player is comfortable with, many of these differences and complications won’t be such big issues. So, working with that in mind is actually quite liberating.
“There she is,” Anahita whispered. “Keep her safe, Blake.”
The scab on my face where my eyes had been cut itched, but I didn’t scratch at them. They were healed and that was all that mattered. I looked at the person I was to follow the next two weeks. Five feet and five inches tall, a bit under two hundred pounds. She had a portfolio in one hand and a large purse. She pulled her hood up obscuring her face, but I had seen a picture on Anahita’s phone. Big brown eyes, a nose ring. Tattoos on her hands. Shouldn’t be too hard to keep track of.
“Good hunting,” she said, turning and walking the opposite direction down the street. I pulled my own hood up and started after her, walking slowly. If I got close enough, I could smell her, and that would help me find her. I was hungry, so smelling her would be easier. I walked behind her, pretending to talk on my phone as she walked into a bodega.
I watched her pull the MetroCard out of its plastic wrapper and shove it in to her pocket as she looked down the street towards the train station. Not too quickly I followed behind, sticking to the shadows when I could. I made my way onto the subway, sitting at the other end of the car while she listened to music, loudly. Something like anxiety nagged at my mind. I knew better than most the terrors that could lurk within the New York City subway system. If she took the train every evening, there could be many opportunities for potential enemies or even allies to test me. I saw her get up from her seat and stand in front of the door, holding her portfolio in her hand. I stood up a few seconds after and exited the train, tailing her as she went.
The woman walked west and then north, the smell of rain hinting at the weather to come. She walked quickly, as if she was running late, and I glanced at my watch.
6:47pm. I looked up and saw her stop at the corner, not dashing out into traffic as I had feared she might. She waited and resumed her quickened pace down the street.
I shook my head as I saw where she was going. The art museum. “Anahita,” I muttered, shoving my fists into my pockets and following after her, easily scaling all the steps without growing tired. I went in through another door and paid to get in, despite the donation being a suggestion.
There was a special drawing class being held in the museum, in the newly-returned Blake exhibit. I wanted to bite the program in half. It had been decades since that day. I was still a young vampire by the Kindred’s reckoning, but that day seemed so long ago when this had started. Did whomever Anahita answer to know about the museum and the art exhibit and our
thoughts clouded my mind as I followed her through the museum. Not all the exhibits were open now, but I could easily trail her through the shadows and halls.
I watched her draw. I watched her talk to other humans. I watched her pack up to leave. I followed her home, following less closely. I watched her home until I had to leave. Anahita showed me where I could sleep while keeping my watch. I found it cramped, but serviceable. I woke the next evening and waited for her to come home from work, scratching my nails against the bricks of a building as I waited. I followed her home. I watched her through her window. I walked the perimeter of her building and waited on the roof, listening at the pipes. My hunger heightened my senses, and I knew of any non-human who came within five blocks of her home. My fingers clenched into fists at their presence.
Two weeks passed. It was the final day. I was weary and hungry. It was early evening, and the woman I was protecting, Rani, was coming up the street.
I smelled someone familiar. I turned and stepped out of the alley. Anahita was coming down the street from the opposite direction of the woman. Was she coming to relieve me? I watched as Anahita stopped the woman.
They spoke for two seconds. Anahita reached forward and a flash of metal made Rani drop her groceries, their contents spilling to the concrete. I stepped forward, my mouth hanging open but unable to speak. The smell of blood made my hands shake and my muscles tense as I fought the urge to rush forward and lap it up.
“You’re not done yet,” Anahita mouthed. She licked the blade and then walked away, leaving Rani gasping on the sidewalk. I looked both ways before I rushed forward.
“Please, please, help me,” she said. She was crying.
It was a cut to her abdomen, but I could smell blood only, not bile or other fluids. My mouth felt so dry as I stared down, my hands shaking.
“I’ll... where’s your phone?” I asked. She gasped, her purse flopping open. I reached in and pulled it out, dialing the number quickly.
“911, may I help you?”
“I’ve got a stab wound victim on the corner of Canal and Hester,” I said, my voice trembling.
“Yes ma’am, we’ll send someone over. Is the victim stabilized?”
“She’s awake,” I offered. I put my arm behind Rani and eased her down so she could lie on the sidewalk, her body shaking. Her blood seeped through her clothes onto my coat and shirt. I could feel it seep through, so
“Ma’am, are you still there?” the voice on the phone asked. I dropped the phone, unable to speak. I held Rani and thought about the feeling of my teeth in my mouth, the sharp edge of them and the beast that danced at their edge. I thought of how the desire to sink my mouth into her neck felt. The want. I let it spread through me. I sat in my greed as I cradled her, focusing on not digging my fingers into her skin, not pulling her apart. I waited for so long I thought the sun would come up and she would die in my arms.
The sound of the ambulance made me look up, the red and blue lights approaching. People had gathered around us, and I had somehow blocked them out. The EMTs parked and quickly came to our side, pulling her away from me and putting her on a stretcher. With a clack of metal they had her in the ambulance. I vaguely recall being asked to come along. I entered in a daze, barely hearing the door slam behind me.
We rode to the hospital. I tried to answer any questions they threw at me as best I could without saying anything about Anahita. I said she was a strange woman. I said I hadn’t seen her. It was so fast. I don’t know why she did it. Maybe it was racially motivated. No, I was not her girlfriend.
I waited until they got her inside. I wasn’t allowed in after that. I stayed outside the hospital, knowing her scent. I felt her blood begin to stiffen in my clothes as I walked the perimeter of the hospital, entering through some side door and getting in that way. I found my way to the emergency room and listened in, watching for anyone who might interfere or worsen her situation.
I slumped down against the wall. I put my head in my hands. I thought about Pallas and others I had
tortured in the name of the Hand. I thought about this woman and her blood, which smelled so fragrant on my clothes. I thought of Anahita. I thought of Enoch and dying without dying. Transcending without end-ing. The names and not knowing which of them to call of them for help, knowing full well there was no help there. Only one type of end. One which would be less painful, less treacherous. Where hiding would be no longer needed, and all would be in the open.
What of this did I want? Was I just happy knowing these things were true, no longer passing my days in hungry shadows, waiting for my sire to send me on an errand, to fight with the Camarilla in an attempt to stop their pathetic seeming, to find some purpose in the night? I knew my place was not like most of my age. I had been chosen. Was that enough? To be chosen, yet again, for some special eternity?
Was eternity even promised? I knew it wasn’t. But something like it stretched before me, before us all. It was smeared with blood and gore, and the winds that blew were secrets so old they reeked of bones and limestone.
At its foundation were the histories of those in Enoch who lay dreaming. Or perhaps they were awake and biding their time until we were ready. When would be ready to receive them? Was I ready?
Was I?
“You are ready.”
I turned to Anahita. She was wearing something different. She had fed recently and her eyes shone with pride. In me? In herself, for bringing me this far?
“I am,” I said. “I am ready.”
“Let’s go.”