David Vance's Questionnaire

David Vance lives in Los Angeles these days. He moved there because Tyrion offered him a job as a researcher under his detective agency, which is based there. Since moving, he’s acclimated to the city a bit. He enjoys the local experimental cuisine startups, and the coffee membership he has. He despises the traffic, but what can you do? If anything in this world will ever change, it won’t be LA traffic. David’s apartment is a bit small, but nicely furnished with a king sized bed, a mid size TV, a couch and a bathroom/shower combo. It has a small sound booth, mostly for him to perform research and rituals in unheard by any neighbors. 

David gets his money from a few sources. First off, he earns money from Tyrion working his day job at the detective agency. He performs occult research and mundane research, as well as doing a bit of on the ground work. David does a lot of the preliminary question asking work for Tyrion. David also gets money here and there from his craftwork trading on Offr Red, and from chance deals with other Contractors. David spends his money to ensure his success on jobs mostly, and tends to hoard money otherwise to save for these crucial moments. If it’s for a social deal with other people of his level of experience though, he’ll spend a bit more than usual to try to impress them or make a good impression.

David would do just about anything to bring Bobby back to life. He was killed in an unexpected, sudden, and unjust crash with a drunk driver. As a father, why would you do anything less? He would risk death for his son, he would kill for him (though only if necessary, he certainly isn’t doing it if it isn’t required-he does not enjoy killing), he would even embroil himself in dark and forbidden knowledge to do so. There is about one limit that would give him pause, and make him truly step back to reconsider. If he had to take a kid away from another parent, David would pause, and have a dilemma on his hands. He would never want to be the monster that took a parent’s kid away from them, the way that drunk driver did to him. 

Bobby’s death a few years back was an earth shattering change for David. When his son died, David grew desperate in his grief, to the point it tore his family apart. He wasn’t available to spend time with his wife, Melanie, when she was undergoing her own greatest period of suffering after losing her son. He stayed up all night researching the occult, throwing himself into Blavatsky and any other possible glimpse he could find of finding a way to bring his son back from the dead. During the day he worked a grueling insurance job, and was away from home all shift. Eventually, it was too much for Melanie to handle. She divorced David, and left him to rot with his research. Though the divorce hurt David deeply, Bobby was his top priority, and it was ultimately this priority that lead him to sign the Contract, finally allowing his occult research to bear some fruit.

David is quite close to his son, Bobby, despite his death. He has talked with his spirit on the phone, summoned the imprinted shell of his rage in battle, and devoted more time in his life to finding ways to bring him back then he has any other person. Even if he has to sometimes lie to his departed son to bring comfort to his troubled mind, David would do almost anything for him. David is closer to Bobby than he would ever be to any living soul. He stays up far too late researching nightly, just as he has for over 3 years for Bobby. Nearly everything David does, he does for his son.

David is starting to open up to his boss, Tyrion, a bit. Conducting daily occult research for a hardboiled detective already skilled in cracking open mysteries does tend to air out some secrets. Tyrion knows by now of his Offr trading, his obsessive and unhealthy late night occult research habits, his complete addiction to coffee, and his ability to speak with the dead. He has not yet learned of David’s ability to truly raise them, a very recent development.

And finally, David’s closest coworker in the network of Contractors out there has got to be Liam. The man understands David, as one who walks a similar path hand in hand with death. David would be willing to share a drink with Liam anytime, and the man has also started to somewhat begin to serve as a bit of a moral lifeline, or compass suggestor. David wishes the man wealth, health, and happiness. Both know what it’s like holding onto the wishes of the departed. At least one of the two of us should have some joy in it.

David Vance lived a mostly sheltered childhood, growing up on the outskirts of a rich neighborhood outside Jersey City. His parents, Fred and Gloria Vance, were overworked office workers who hardly ever had time to spend with their son. Vance attended prep school, and while he didn’t fit in—the young Vance was obsessive into certain topics, and once he chose something to pursue he was stubborn as an old dog letting it go—he was successful. After high school, Vance went to NYU for a business major. At NYU, Vance had more freedom to pursue his hobbies without judgement. No one cared if he spent hours poring over some old book. At NYU, he also met Melanie, who he would later marry, a med student with a killer sense of humor. They met studying late at the library, her working on a Paper and Vance studying a New Age text in his spare time. After that little study session they really hit it off, and from there Vance bloomed. He was quite successful out of college, and was hired into the same life insurance company his father had worked for before him.

static, and then a camera blinks on. David sits across from the camera on a couch in a dimly lit apartment, ritual candles alight at the corners of the room basking it in an orange glow. Reclining on the couch, he glances towards the center from under the brim of his bowler, the wood of his throat moving as he begins to speak

“Well, first time for everything, but before I begin, I gotta tell you you’re a bit of a dick. Yeah you, email questionnaire thing. I ignore you for a bit, think you’re just some email scam, and then you start filling yourself out with details about me? Talk about asshole behavior. And you didn’t even describe me all that well”

He gives a deep, unsatisfied sigh, the serpent carving twining through the yellowed bone surrounding the woodwork, seeming to smile in the dim orange light.

“I was in love, it’s true, with Melanie Carter.”

”But it’s fine I get it. You want to hear it from me. Though it’s a bit of a low blow to ask about Melanie.”

Taking a pause, David gets up in his casual sweatpants and shirt to pour himself a stiff Scotch. He returns to the couch, and settles in.

“We met back in the university days. A long time ago. Me already predestined to the same white collar drudgery my parents had done for decades, her the hardest working med student I’d ever met. She lived, Melanie Carter. Melanie Vance. Carter again now, I think. She lived like each day would be her last, like she had to be out and about in the world all the time. I guess I was the one person she was able to vent to.” 

“We got jobs out of college. I went insurance, she went nursing. Every day I’d come home exhausted from the job and the only person I’d want to see was her. We’d spend mere hours together every night, but it was the highlight of my life. Eventually I proposed to her, took a day off of work to do it. It was the first day I’d taken off in 3 years. She said yes, of course. Nearly tackled me too. *he chuckles, but it doesn’t go to his eyes*”

“To be honest, married life wasn’t all that different from our life in the few years past graduation. We’d already been living together. Just meant we were more committed.”

”After a year, it turned out she was pregnant. We hadn’t planned for it, but we talked about it, and we decided we wanted to keep the baby. Our happy little accident. That’s how she always referred to it.”

“We named him Bobby, after her favorite Uncle. And suddenly, I had two important people in my life. 2 people who made all the drudgery worth it. 2 people who made me not mind that I was living the same dead end life my parents had.”

He takes a swig of the Scotch, grimaces a little.

“Of course, this story doesn’t end happy. Years down the line, after Bobby…passed, I was lost. Searching for him. Trying to find a way to bring my boy back. Melanie, well…she grew distant. Or maybe I did. We’d only ever had a few hours each day to spend with each other between our jobs and our son, and when I spent all that time on research instead…it hurts, but I understand why she got lonely. Just wish she’d talked with me about it. Instead, one day I came back from work and found the house cleared of all her stuff, and a good deal of Bobby’s too. Just the divorce papers and a letter left on the floor. It said that if I couldn’t move on, she would. That she’d rather be with the living than her dead end husband.” He gazes into the camera, pain swimming in his gaze. “It still hurts, but I understand why you did it Melanie. You should live, and leave me risking my life for the dead.”

the camera clicks off

The camera flashes on. David Vance is sitting on the couch again, and as the question hits him, the bone growing out of his throat shifts as he tilts his head and takes off the bowler

”My worst fears? Where do I start?”

“I fear that I’ll be put in a situation where I have to choose, between my son or another family’s lives. I don’t….I don’t know what I would do there, and that scares me.”

David makes himself a Scotch, and sits back down.

“And then of course, there’s Liam. We see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I worry…with the things these jobs have you do, I worry we’ll cross a line one day. That either I’ll go too far, or Liam will. And we both know that Liam serves accountability via the back of the skull. And if I were out in that spot, with Liam hunting me down, I don’t know if I could bring myself to do what would need to be done. To put the mad dog down. To kill a friend, a friend who gave me a second chance at breathing when the world took it away. And vice versa, if Liam ever went too far on his crusade, mistakenly hurt someone innocent…I don’t know if I’d be able to bring myself to put him down. I hope I would. For his sake especially. I know if he could see past whatever blinded him in a spot like that, see that he’d betrayed himself like that, he’d take himself out before I could ever reach him. I just hope that never happens. We make a good team.”

David takes a long, slow drink and breathes out deeply. 

“I fear that I’ll never be able to bring Bobby back. That I’ve done all of this just to let him down again.”

He pauses, looks at the camera.

”But frankly, I’d rather not think about any of these things. You people, and some of your questions, make me sick.”

Vance reaches forward and the camera shuts off.

When the camera turns back on, Vance sits at a desk, his eyes tired under the brim of his bowler. It’s been a long night.

“My most prized possession, huh? Wonder why you’d want to know that”

Vance stares daggers at the camera

“But fine, I’ll tell you. I have quite a few prized possessions, but there are two that matter more to me than the rest.”

”These,” Vance says, pulling what appear to be scraps of bloody (the blood is old, and dead, and dried) T-shirt out of his pocket, “are really all I have left of my son Bobby at the moment. When I focus on them I can call upon his shell. I know it’s not him, even if it feels similar. Just a memory of the rage he left behind that night. The rage I caused.” 

A tear, unbidden, from the corner of Vance’s eye.

”And this,” Vance says while pulling out a Blackberry phone that resembles a grinning skull which seems to eerily stare out at you through the camera, “has allowed me to talk to him again. To truly talk with him. When I was…going through a very hard time, this phone gave me hope. I won’t forget SilverWolf for providing it. What he sent me in the mail that day changed my life, and changed the lives of many who have passed beyond.”

“I wake up, and make myself a coffee. Always.” 
David stares out at the camera with tired eyes.

”After that, most days I brush my teeth, take a shower, shave, change, and drive to the office.”

”I know it might be boring, but that’s the 9 to 5. Even with a different job now, it’s still the same old routine I’ve been working for 20 years now. It’s funny, how while some things change some things stay the same. The daily grind doesn’t change.”

Morning Light filters through the windows, and Vance gets up to start brewing a pot of coffee.

“As for why the coffee….I tend to stay up late researching. As is, I was answering y’all throughout the night between research. Sometimes I just need a nice cup of joe to get me through the day.”

The coffee finishes brewing, and Vance pours himself a mug.

“Ah, now that hits the spot”

“I would probably finally shell out the cash to get a better suit. As much as I love this thing, it’s seen better days.”

David gestures to the suit he’s been wearing, a black suit which has many signs of wear and tear: rips which have been patched up, dust on certain areas, loose threading on the sleeves.

“But I’ve had this suit ever since my life insurance days. It’d feel strange to replace it with a new one. It’s been with me through thick and thin, through some things so strange you wouldn’t believe me if told you about ‘em. If I truly had to look my best though…I’d take the thing off and put on an Armani. Armani makes some damn good suits, even if they don’t quite have the same history as mine.”

“It would probably take me a good twenty minutes to prepare. I’d have to shave, put on the new suit, maybe iron it if it was just purchased. But I wouldn’t want to keep the party waiting. No amount of looking good makes up for being late”.

David stares down the camera, regret swirling in his eyes at the mention of ‘being late’.

“However else you prepare, you should never be too late”

“You know, I haven’t celebrated a birthday in quite some time…”

David says, his bowler tipped low as the evening sun sets outside his apartment window.

”But now you’ve got me thinking about it. And you know, I think what I’d like most is to share a couple of drinks with some of those I trust. Get to have that bar experience I missed out on after the Scottish job.

I’d invite Liam, Emily, Bankston, and of course Rhea would be welcome as well. 

We’d find some hole in the wall and watch the football game, play some pool. Maybe after the drinks I’d take everybody out to mini golf and we’d see who could still land a shot after the bar. It could be a fun contest, though I bet Liam would drink me under the table and still land a shot or two.

Honestly, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll add it to the calendar, if I’m still around for my next birthday in a couple of months”

David takes out his phone and adds the event ‘Birthday Party-invite Liam, Emily, Bankston, and Rhea’ to his calendar 

“My greatest regret…I’ve already discussed this before. It’s that night.”

“That one awful night. When I showed up too late. When I got to the site of that crash and my boy was…was pulp in the wreckage.”

”I wasn’t there for Bobby that night, when he needed me. I wasn’t there in time to save him. Couldn’t warn him about the oncoming truck.”

Vance stares into the camera with a heavy heart, tears in the corners of his eyes.

“If I could turn back the clock, I’d do anything to have been there for him that night. Anything to change those final words. Instead of telling him it was a dumbass idea to go out, I would have gone with him, ridden passenger…made sure my boy didn’t do anything reckless over a small argument. It was just a small argument…a molehill. A molehill that became the mountain which broke my life apart. If only I could have been there.”

Vance sits in silence, and tinkers on a new device he has set out on a workbench—a radio of some kind. He works on it in silence for hours, determination in his downturned eyes. His actions make clear what his words have not—that despite his own failure to be there for him in that critical moment, he won’t give up on his son. That he won’t ever fail his son that way again.

“My gifts…that’s a strange thing to call them. I typically think of my abilities as the fruit of my research. For years before these jobs, I conducted occult research. New Age philosophy, and the teachings of Blavatsky, held routes which were especially of interest. They taught of elementals, the outlines or ghosts of ourselves we leave behind as we move through the world. 

When I go on jobs, my next researches are often fruitful…as if my payment is success in my endeavors for a time. After my first job, I was able to turn the Blavatsky research into something truly substantial…I was able to find Bobby’s elemental, an echo he left behind in that crash. An echo of his rage. My son’s dying anger. It wasn’t him…or wasn’t all of him, at least.

But it’s helped me to venture further than I ever could alone. Since then my research has expanded significantly. 
I’ve discovered how to get in tune with my own elemental echoes to an extent, and have found a route to possibly bring my son back. The blood of the Gorgon, Medusa’s blood used by the healer Asclepius. It’s a long story how I found that path of research…I won’t get into it now.

The only time I ever received a physical payment was that time I did a job for SilverWolf. He thanked me for my services with a device…a phone which can speak with the other side. 
I decided to take a look into potentially reverse engineering some of its technologies, and that’s kept my apartment study quite busy recently. 

This research can help people. This discovery of repurposing of the old ways, can protect the innocent and bring my son back in time. Thats worth the cost. It has to be”

“For a long time I believed in no god. It’s not to say I was an atheist necessarily, I just…was never raised to believe in anything in particular beyond the value of practical labor. I wasn’t sure exactly what was out there. After…after Bobby’s death I dove head first into anything spiritual I could find. I stayed up hours late researching any which belief promised it could bring him back to life. None of them worked. No God saved me in my time of need. No Buddha enlightened me from my troubles. Eventually I fell into more esoteric practices seeking that route of salvation. More occult routes, you could say. The teachings of Blavatsky were especially helpful.

But I’ve had a business relationship with a fellow I refer to as the Businessman for some time now. He was always a figure of power. Recently, he told me that he was a kind of being you could call a God. Though I was hesitant to believe him at first, he did quite literally answer my cautious prayer. So while I may not view him as my personal lord, or as a valiant savior…and I am by no means his direct servant in the world…I do view the Businessman as a powerful enough figure to be referred to as a class of being one could label ‘Gods’. This has made me start to…reconsider some of my earlier disbeliefs. The world is more open and strange than I thought it once was, and that is truly a wonderful thing. It means my own purpose has more hope to it than any who say it is impossible would believe.”

“I want to believe that there are things out there which can be studied and researched. That there must be a way to bring Bobby back. I want to believe in the good in people, even though it’s often hard to do so.”

David sighs, deeply

”But I’ve often seen things contradict this. I’ve seen creatures function differently than the tales describe. I’ve seen good people cross lines and become horrifically monstrous. I’ve seen things which cast doubt on whether I can ever truly save my son. 

But through it all, I persevere and adapt. If a beast is different from its tale, I write up a new set of research notes about it. If a good person goes bad, I put them down to protect the rest of the good still out there. The good that I know must still be out there. If a method fails in helping bring my son back to life, I try another one. 

I never signed that Contract to just give up at a challenge. A challenge to my worldview is no different in that regard. I’ll adapt to it, and move forward.”

“Liam— he’s a good guy even if he’s a bit, ah, troubled. At heart probably the best man I know, even if that fire that drives him is dangerous. I love how he knows what it’s like. Talking with the dead. Hearing their concerns. Their whispers driving you up the wall from a hundred different angles. We’re alike that way…even if o don’t think we have quite the same take on it. To me, each one of those whispers is a plea from someone who needs help. Wants to be heard. At least most of the time. What I dislike is that fire of his. That look he gets sometimes, that righteous fury. It comes from a good place, but if it’s not handled right it could hurt a lot of good people in its way. 

Emily is a whirlwind. Wherever she walks, people get caught up in her wake. A party that never rests. A confidence that doesn’t stagger. I like that about her. She’s the bravest of us, I think. As for what bothers me…those robes she puts on lately, that otherworldly veil. I don’t know where she picked up the technique…whether it was her folks at GenWyld that granted it to her but…something about it strikes me as off. Like she’s involving herself with bad influences. 

“The perfect room, huh?” Vance reclines, thinks about it.

”It’s probably a living room. Great carpet. Nice couch. A La-Z-Boy in the corner. Big flatscreen TV to watch the game on. Enough room for the family and friends to relax and unwind. Good view of the outside.”

”It’s damn near impossible to beat a good living room. And when you get home, run half ragged from some job another, when the kids are already in bed, you’ve got those nice couch cushions to lie down on. Let your back rest easy for a while. Honestly, the more I talk about it, the more I miss it. I used to have a living room like that once myself. Though the TV wasn’t half as nice. 

Maybe one day…if I can do right by my son, I can have a living room like that again. Have that new foundation for a home.”

My philosophy, eh. I’m a failure at a lot of things. A failure at football, though I still have some of it left in me. A terrible insurance agent, since I haven’t been doing it in quite some time now. 

A failure of a father. I live with that every day.

But if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s researching the shit you won’t find in between the covers of Sports Weekly. The CryptoLeak backlogs. Secret histories of Rome. 

Ghosts, demons, and summoners of far worse. 

The Planes of a name better left unspoken.

I found the Gorgon’s blood, after all, and it took a damn lot of research to find it. 

My philosophy is pretty simple. If you fail, if you fuck up, if you follow through and can’t finish something…don’t give up. 

Give it another go. 

There are plenty of times I’ve been plain wrong, even in my own fields of expertise. But eventually, where it counts, I started to get things right. Because every time I was knocked down, sometimes literally, by some monster or such, and sometimes by other pressures, I got back up and kept at it. Even back in the day before I saw any monsters, when it costed me my marriage.

Other than that…I try to keep an open mind. Every time I find something secret, learn something buried, well…some of those sorts of things will definitely shake up a stiff world view. 

Ghosts are real. So were ancient alchemists, and their goals were abominable. The Romans stole the Gorgon’s blood from one of Apollo’s temples, and put most of the followers of that temple to the sword. There are ancient automatons that follow the commands of pureblooded Romans sleeping even now under the Colosseum. GenWyld can mess with DNA in ways that look like an Asimov tinfoil theory. 

Believe me or don’t. Thats your problem, and I couldn’t give a shit which way you lean.

To most people on the street, half the things I’ve found in my research and my life seems batshit crazy. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it either. But you have to keep an open mind to do this kind of thing.

So my advice for anyone who follows in my footsteps is simple—don’t give up, and get ready to see some weird things. Things that’ll stick with you, every night you try to sleep.

Hopefully, like me, what you’re doing is really worth it.

I know in my soul, that Bobby is.

Every man has lines he won’t cross. Some men, rare men, cross those lines without breaking. But it’s never easy. And it’s not for the better.

David stares long and hard into the camera 

For me the lines are simple, really. It’s families.

Fathers, sons. Mothers, daughters. Some people shouldn’t be caught up in and hurt in our line of work.

I also can’t bear to let those who harm such people walk away free of the scale of judgement.

I also can’t stand being put in a box. Being bogged down and trapped—it’s the sort of thing that makes me feel I’ll never reach Bobby again. Like when I was trapped as the flesh of that thing. 

And finally…pain. You’d think a guy who’s gone through as much shit as me would have overcome it by now…but at the end of the day, I’m just as human as you are. 

You cut me and I bleed. You cut me enough, and it’s agonizing. 

I’m not all proud of how closely I’ve stuck to my lines. I still remember when those International Rippers got away in New York. How I had to make difficult priorities. I still feel that kids dead eyes sometimes, in quiet moments. He deserved justice. And someone did deliver it. But that someone wasn’t me.

If something threatens my ability to save my son again, I think as much as I’m ashamed, I’d make the same call.

It’s always Bobby, above all else.

Intermezzo

A brief foray out of character into some of the songs that chisel out David’s journey.

1. Gone Away - The Offspring

This is a song of loss, and the pivotal song of the start of David’s journey. His son Bobby was hit by a drunk driver in a tragic truck crash, ending his teenage son’s life far too short. Since that point David’s life fell apart. He obsessed over research into the occult, desperate for away to undo what had been done. Desperate for a way to bring back even a piece of his son. He became such an obsessive recluse that his wife Melanie divorced him, and he drowned himself in books and CryptoLeak searches nightly. It all seemed hopeless, any hope of heavenly delivery far out of reach, until the day that slick Hollywood bastard came by with an impossible promise—just do a small job or two, and all your research won’t be for nothing. Desperate, David took that chance. This song reflects David’s feelings in the three grinding years before that fateful encounter.

2. One More Light - Linkin Park

This song characterizes David’s rekindled hope in bringing back his son from the dead. It is true he ignored his son’s rebellious outbursts till that night he took the car out too late in a reckless drive. It’s true that David still blames himself for not being there for his son when he should have been. Leaving a void in the house, ‘one more chair in the kitchen than you need’. But it also taught David to protect the value of families—it’s why he prioritizes the innocent, parents, and children so greatly. They matter to him. He’s not willing to let one more light go out, like how his son perished. And he’ll work through just about anything to reignite his son’s life. One more light is David’s mantra. If he can accomplish the impossible and overcome death for his son, no more downtrodden families will have to fear the fading of the light.

3. Hurt - Johnny Cash (Originally a song by the Nine Inch Nails)

This song carries the dark half of David’s obsession. David has many a time before taken too great a risk, or assumed too much into mysteries he does not know. He has died again and again—once by ritualistic suicide in an attempt to bring Bobby to life, once in a Venetian Tomb in which his foolish death doomed a world, once to a small town lurking menace. Though he’s clawed himself out of the grave in various ways, taking his chance to start again, David has let people down. A world has died on his watch. A town has perished on his watch. Allies and friends he has left for months in the wake of one death. 

David’s reckless failures come with a price, and that price is Hurt— for both him and all around him.

4. Comeback - Redlight King

But of course Vance is willing to risk it all— he is at heart a High Roller. Time and time again he’s put everything on the line, rolling everything on the dice. The bowler he wears signifies a time he went in alone and bet everything, including his life, on pure chance and came out on top. But even when David’s wild gambits don’t work out, and everything goes to shit, he’s a hard man to keep down—he digs 6 feet out of his grave and keeps moving forward.

5. Mr. Crowley - Ozzy Osborne

This song refers to the famous occultist Aleister Crowley. David’s own research into the occult is inspired by and draws upon the work of New Age occultists of his ilk, including Helena Blavatsky. David has been looking for their secrets for quite some time. And of course just like the song accuses Crowley of, David does talk with the dead. Quite frequently. Phone calls them, even.

6. Our Time Now - The Plain White T’s

For a long time after the divorce, David had given up on any kind of romance. Despite being single, he had unhealthy restrictions and guilt attached to his old marriage. One friend broke him out of that self destructive stupor. In one night of clubbing, excess, and hedonism, the bold Emily Miller broke through his inhibitions and allowed David to break free of his self imposed chains, discovering new parts of himself as he did so. Now David is free of that particular self destructive guilt, and is free to revel in the time he shares with the few reliable allies he has come to find. David may often walk a solitary road, but for a trusted few, he can be an exceptional team player.

7. No Giving Up - Crossfade

The number one thing that defines David is his resilience. His unwillingness to ‘give in and go in to that good night’ peaceful. It’s a resilience he shares, with his ways of raising the dead and bringing the living back from the brink. And of course he climbs back himself. With Vance at your side, you can be damn sure you won’t be throwing in the towel for the merciful end—willing or not. In Vance’s mind, there is No Giving Up.