| Night Classes | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Chronicle | DC Chronicle |
| Game Date | November 22, 2015 |
| Real Date | March 4-22, 2016 |
| Characters | Jacque Beaumont Marcus Vitel |
| Locations | Limbo |
| Previous Scene | Night Errands (Jacque) Adventures in Babysitting (Vitel) |
| Next Scene | A Midwinter Night's Tale (Jacque) Lullabye for a Stormy Night (Vitel) |
| Content Warnings | None |
| Original Scene | Night Classes |
Night Classes is a scene from the DC Chronicle featuring Jacque Beaumont and Marcus Vitel. It depicts Vitel teaching Jacque the basics of Abyss Mysticism.
Scene Summary
Jacque arrives at Limbo, where he leaves his damaged clothing behind in the rented car and enters the club. He avoids the few clubgoers still present as well as the ghouls beginning to clean up and close the place down and goes upstairs, where he finds Vitel sitting in his balcony box. He enters and bows, and Vitel invites him to watch as the club is shut down around them, eventually leaving them in silent darkness.
Vitel asks Jacque what he saw during this process, and a confused Jacque says that he saw the darkness allowed back in when the lights were turned out. Vitel asks him to explain and wonders why Julian Augustine chose Jacque as his child when Jacque struggles to come up with answers, repeating that light's power is to push darkness away, although it can always return. Jacque suggests that he learned from priests in his youth that darkness existed before God created the world, which does not impress Vitel, who tells him that all religions have known this and that it is far older than Christianity.
Vitel tells Jacque a folktale about a king who was so frightened of darkness that he searched the world for somewhere to escape it, only to eventually commit suicide when he realized that there was darkness inside his own body. Jacque is troubled by the story, thinking back to his time as a sailor and how dark the ocean was, before guessing that he must be wrong about the idea that light can push darkness away. Vitel points out that the fact that he can't see something doesn't mean that it isn't there, and Jacque finally correctly guesses that Vitel's philosophy is that light only masks the ever-present darkness. Pleased by his eventual success, Vitel agrees and dismisses him.
Script Summary
The script summary for this scene pares it down to only dialogue and action directions, allowing for a quicker and easier read through what was actually said and done by the characters. Click on the "Expand" tag to the right to view the entire script summary for this scene.
Jacque arrives at Limbo, leaving his garment bags in the backseat of the car. He gets out and adjusts his tie, then goes inside. He walks through the club and goes upstairs to the balcony, where Vitel is sitting in his box. He enters the room and closes the door behind him, then bows to Vitel. There is a long silent pause as Vitel's Obtenebration discipline makes the room darken and moves the shadows.
 VITEL: Look. Watch. |
There is a long pause. The club slowly shuts down for the night downstairs. Finally, the lights are all turned out.
VITEL: What did you see? |
 JACQUE: I saw the lights being turned off. I saw-- I saw the night come in. |
VITEL: The night come in. Did you? |
He gestures at the darkness.
VITEL: Tell me. Where did the night come from, before it came in? How was it kept out? |
JACQUE: I do not know where the night comes from. It is here until the lights... push it out. |
VITEL: So. It is not that the night came in, then, but that it was already here. For how long, do you wonder? |
JACQUE: Yes. It was always here. It, ah, has been here a long time, I think. When I was a child... the priests said that the world was full of darkness once. Before God spoke. |
VITEL: The priests. In the beginning, there was darkness. This story is older than your priests. |
He raises a hand.
VITEL: In every religion, this is understood. In the beginning, there was darkness. Before all things, there was the abyss. And the lights push it out, you say. Do they? What is the power of light that you so readily describe? |
JACQUE: The light did not always push it out. There is more of it now. And it is different. The nights used to be darker. |
VITEL: You have said this thing twice now: the light that pushes the dark away. Is that what it does? |
JACQUE: I do not know. It seems to, Your Majesty. The night is here and then... The light comes and the darkness goes to the edges. |
There is a long pause.
VITEL: There was a king, in times past, who was afraid of the darkness. Even at noon, the shadows still stretched away from him wherever he stood. So, he determined that he would hide from it, for surely there was somewhere that it could not find him. At first he hid in houses and buildings; but there was darkness there, on account of the roof above. So then he hid in forests and fields, but there was darkness there, waiting beneath leaves and canopies. He hid in the waters of rivers and seas, but he found that the deeper he fell into them, the darker they became, until they were as black as midnight, and he became afraid of them most of all. So he returned to land, and he ordered his workmen to begin to dig, so that he could crawl so far beneath the earth that the darkness could not find him. And they dug until they reached the bottom of the earth, and so the king was thwarted, because there was nowhere to hide. And on the next day, he was found dead in his chambers, for he had looked in the mirror to shine his royal teeth, and in the back of his throat, he had seen darkness inside himself as well. |
There is another long pause.
JACQUE: I see. Or I am beginning to, Your Majesty. If the light does not push it out then... What is its power? |
VITEL: Is the world a bowl? Is it filled with the darkness, lapping at its edges? If you pour light in, does that darkness move - push, as you say - to its edges? |
JACQUE: No, it is not. There is always darkness where the light cannot touch. But where the light does touch... I do not see the darkness. |
VITEL: Yes. Where the light does not touch, the darkness waits. It is a patient sea, darkness. Because you do not see something, does this mean it is not there? |
JACQUE: No, Your Majesty. There are many things I do not see. It does not change... what is and is not. |
VITEL: Because you do not see it... does not change it. Because you do not see it does not mean something has, as you say... pushed it away. |
He lifts his arms and spreads his hands at the dark club.
VITEL: So if the power of light is not to push, what is it? You cannot see something, but it may still be there. You may dig down into the foundation of the earth, but you cannot find your way beneath it. |
There is a pause.
JACQUE: It masks it? |
VITEL: It masks it. That is the power of light: it cannot push, or change, or drive away. It can only lie atop, like a thin linen veil. Even that, imperfectly, partially, leaving shadows in corners and around edges. Beneath, at the bottom of all things, in every story: the darkness. You may go. |
Trivia
- The damaged suit Jacque discards at the beginning of the scene is a result of the events of To Fight Another Day.
- Vitel's tale of the king afraid of the dark is not any well-known traditional tale, but several elements, such as the mention of digging into the earth and beneath the ocean, suggest that it may be related to the ancient Babylonian story of King Gilgamesh, who after his friend Enkidu's death was so afraid of mortality himself that he searched the planet (unsuccessfully) for a way to cure death.
- Both Jacque and Vitel use ocean metaphors to describe darkness; they are both members of Clan Lasombra, which has traditionally been associated with the sea and often has members who act as sailors or pirates.