Dark_RP

Alberto's captivity was short-lived. No longer protected by legions of zombies and a coterie of cainites - The Sabbat took the opportunity to retrieve their comrade, leaving Zuranna with a sore head.

Alberto in the meantime, went on a team hit mission against Tamoszius. Since Tamoszius knew Alberto and was well disposed towards him, the hit was a simple, quick and hideous betrayal of everything his former coterie had sacrificed so much for.

Gideon had received a call from Thornhill asking if they could identify the body of the thing that attacked the Succubus' mortal manager when Reg was last there...so together they went. As they left Zuranna arrived and tagged along. The body, laid out in Brennon's bare VIP suite, was not readily recognizable though Danior had a fleeting memory of seeing the guy the night of the Werewolf attack on the Succubus Club.

They also noticed a strange tattoo on the back of the right hand of the corpse. Gideon identified that it had been administered post mortem, which would suggest the possibility of some kind of magical/vitae powered tattoo artist, since tattoos on vampires were known to be temporary.

But then the Succubus club came under attack again. From more werewolves. This time they were in a much more precarious position, and fleeing was a more difficult prospect. They all decided to stay and they took what little furniture there was and began barricading the doors. Once the operation was completed, the werewolves burst through the floor to ceiling windows of the VIP suite instead and a fight was on.

Gideon got in a head shrinking, while Danior somewhat successfully sewed confusion and Zuranna took a big hit. Brennon kill one werewolf by shooting it in the head with silver bullets, but as his head was inside the same werewolf's head at the same time this lead to mutually assured destruction. Just as the momentum of the battle began to turn against them the werewolves heard a howl, turned and headed into the labyrinth.

They followed, at a 'safe' distance. The labyrinth was in disarray, a huge fight had occurred down there, but few had been killed it seemed. Genghis confirmed it, that the werewolves were after Portia for some reason. The seeming deathlessness lasted until they stepped inside the heavily damaged maze. Dozens of dead and dying lay about like rejected dolls. Danior was shocked by the scene at first and move to help, but ended by callously drinking all the spare blood that he could. Reg found himself a little secret door, clued in by a bloody hand mark against the wall in an area that would have been much darker but for the damaged walls of the maze.

Entering the closet sized room, he found two bodies. One of them, a werewolf - still in his monstrous form, and the other a young man. They had apparently strangled one another to death as their hands were still around each others throats. Gideon searched the bodies and Reg searched the room.

The body had one thing of interest on it: A slightly damaged gold death mask, set with the visage of Gideon Jones. Gideon took it and looked up to see Reg, in the next room.

Another secret room that Reg had found and slid open. This time it contained a mattress, some manacles set into the wall and in its centre there was a glass vial of thick inviting red liquid lit from above by a single bulb. Reg lifted the vial and decided that he had had good luck with mysterious viles in the past and drunk it down.

"Of course.", were his last thoughts as his vision swam and faded to black.

They looked around, restraining Anthonio from attempting to indiscriminately torture their captives, and wondered. "How the fuck do we deal with this shit?", when the phone broke them out of their reverie. Anthonio answered, but the voice on the other end asked to be transferred to Fredegar. Perplexed, Anthonio considered pretending to be Fredegar but before deciding one way or the other he realized he had already given the phone to Senor Fredegarian Edwardus anyway.

"Fredegar, meet me downstairs,", began none other than Jefferson, "bring whoever you want, except Anthonio."

Fredegar went down on with Gideon to meet with Jefferson, wondering why he had chosen such a time as this to talk with him. After introductions were had Jefferson began to craft his tale, telling them it was important for them to truly understand what they had gotten themselves into.

Best Served Cold



Jefferson began: 1791 was the year it happened. I was 24, younger than you are now. But times were different then, I was a man at that age. Jefferson told how he and Neally had been friends since childhood, how they were the spoiled sons of rich parents and as young men they spent their time in a sort of hedonistic lifestyle. Neally preferring baser pleasures while Jefferson pursuing the more lofty arty farty type of stuff. He explained a rich, unusual and complex relationship between the two of them that was put to its first big test when Neally became an opium addict. Through the inevitable rough patch Jefferson stuck by his friend but after recovery Neally stopped seeing Jefferson. Jefferson allowed him the space.

When they met again, Neally had been embraced by Lodin and subsequently Neally embraced his old friend Jefferson. Now Neally was the superior partner in their friendship as sire. Jefferson accepted the role and the two of them picked up their friendship from there they had left off. Until Emily Carter, a young actress that both of them fell in love with in different ways. Neally wanted to taint and corrupt the pretty girl but Jefferson felt compelled to protect her from such corruption. Neally eventually won.

When Jefferson found out about the Blood Bond that almost guaranteed he would be forever cut off from Emily he became angry and then obsessive in finding a way to 'rescue' her from the clutches of the corrupting Neally. Neally, not realizing that there was any method of doing this, enjoyed teasing Jefferson with the possibility all the while slowly perverting Emily's precious humanity.

When Jefferson learned of the Sabbat and their methods for breaking the bond, he realized this was his best chance to help Emily and so he joined, sacrificing his own humanity so that he might save hers. He spent years in the Sabbat, gaining status and prestige and rank etc in Canada, before he remembered his old life and set off back to Chicago to complete his mission. In retrospect, telling Neally that he was back in town and ready to do immortal battle was a mistake, Neally had power and influence of his own by then (1967), being Lodin's chief aide and immediately deduced Jefferson's temporary haven and had him staked until Fredegar released him.

Jefferson explained that he had been using the Malkavian discipline combined with blood bonding Neally to unhinge him into comitting terrible acts so that Neally would flee to the Sabbat, where Jefferson would exact his ironic revenge, win Emily's heart back and be gloriously triumphant. His careful plans were in jeapordy if Lodin managed to get hold of Neally. Jefferson asked the coterie to 'accidentally' allow Neally to escape. At first they were not happy about doing this, concerned with the consequences that Lodin might throw their way. As Jefferson began to grow threatening, Gideon arranged a compromise. If Jefferson were to force his way past them and take Neally for himself, they would offer no resistance.

And not a moment too soon since Anthonio had all but cut Neally's head off as he lay there staked.

Anthonio and Trilobyte were surprised at Balthazar's sudden appearance but relinquished control of Neally to him, despite Balthazar acting a little OTT even for Balthazar.

All but Trilobyte and Thomas were brought into the conspiracy as they went their seperate ways. Thomas having lost control of his beast having been staked so unceremoniously had hurt himself, but only in the short term.

The real perplexity came to them upon learning that Lodin had not heard anything about Balthazar going to that area for Neally related activities.

Here is where Anthonio lives:



A history of the project can be found here (slightly, ahem, amateur).

Strange day, stranger nights

After having a dream filled with the colour red, and the definite sense of a 'presence', Anthonio woke up, late once more. He decided to go to the newly opened Succubus club where he met a compelling young woman who insisted that she had known Anthonio, had dreamt of him since she was a little girl etc etc. After a brief, paradoxically self-confirming and self-denying conversation Anthonio did exactly what he wanted to avoid doing, and he gave her his contact information. It was then that Kevin Jackson turned up, offered Anthonio a promotion: giving him a 'hood to look after, some security personnel, his own dealers and whatever is left after Jackson takes 20% and he's paid his guys - he warned Antonio to be alert for the Mafia.

Bedside knife, sir?

Gideon awoke, late etc, and discovered a blad sunk up to its hilt next to him. A strand of hair is still growing back as he muggily got his bearings together. Trilobyte was called to help see if any fingerprints could be lifted, Anthonio was called to psyco-metricise the blade.

A print was lifted, but Trilobyte found that Hurrican3's security had improved and he suffered a catastrophic computer crash as a result. Feeling very angsty, Trilobyte opens up a livejournal account and posts an angry entry, forward dating it 13 years in symbolic fury. Read that post.

Anthonio managed to pick up the sense of an old room filled with antiquities, werewolf skulls, locks of hair and other occult knick-knacks from the knife, but that is about all he could get.

Trilobyte and Gideon were at Anthonio's house trying to work out what had happened. A passive aggressive comment from Gideon riled Anthonio into threatening to damage Gideon's car. Gideon called his bluff, and terrified one of Anthonio's goons away. Antonio ordered a second goon to do the deed. Gideon's response was to use the first goon's dropped Uzi to fill the second goon with small pieces of hot metal. This sparked full battle stations as goons began pouring into the room spraying bullets towards Gideon. Fortunately, Anthonio managed to calm things down before a bloody massacre occurred.

Trilobyte attempted to use Anthonio's business computer to hack in the FBI database, but instead broke that computer as well. Anthonio, sick of his guests asked them to leave. Trilobyte began to take Anthonio's computer. Anthonio's opinion on that was demonstrated by him Uzi-ing the shit out of the computer.

More strange shit

Trilobyte followed some strangy spicy smells to find, behind a laundromat, ritualistic symbology painted on the floor, incense, a skull staked into the ground by a devilish totem stake, various charms etc. It was Haitian voodoo and approaching it resulted in a bursting forth of blue flame. Trilobyte tried to rescue the skull using the telekinesis, but found that he had lost control and a flaming skull was flying towards him. He beat a wise retreat.

This was nothing compared with the robust-looking Oriental man (he was not a burley as Hurley but he was as stocky as Locke and taller than Sawyer and was as 'win' as Jin, as fun as Sun, and as slack as Jack with less hair than Claire, a gait like Kate, and...), began hovering in the middle distance, seemingly following him in a spiritual or 'astral' form. He is followed all the way to near the chantry when the apparition is seen no more.

I'll blow my motherfucking brains out

Thomas got shot at by a guy who then shot himself in the face.


Death's Sweet Sting

While at the Succubus Club, Trilobyte met their old friend, Saul Osiecki vampire hunter extraordinaire. Saul told Trilobyte that he had infected Arthur with a vampiric virus that was a modification of the virus that causes mono (aka glandular fever). Saul had reason to suspect that the virus spread from Arthur, perhaps because somebody had fed off Arthur's corpse. Now the human population had a general infection, and this was spreading to further vampires. If the Arthur case was anything to go by - a second holocaust might break out - with viscious lunatic vampires slaying people horrifically and without restraint. Saul needed a lab and a guinea pig so that he can work on a cure - he and Trilobyte agree to meet to figure something out.

After conferring with the coterie, Trilobyte told the Tremere just about everything and then tried once again to track down the fingerprint. Hurrican3, had a message for him. "We have a mutual interest in this person. Meet me and we'll discuss it further"


Wipeout

Fredegar made his way through the sewers to the central nexus hive of Nosferatu activity. On approach he heard the sound of rushing water. He quickly exited the sewers just in time for a gigantic tumult of water to burst through the sewers. The safe haven was in tatters, the walls damaged by the water, the furniture washed away. A foreboding sense of impending horror seemed to approaching and Fredegar decided not to wait it out.

The Garbage Gang - Don't mess with us or we'll trash you

And so the coterie agreed to meet with Hurrican3 on the Garbage Barge, whilst buried under piles of garbage ready to ambush Hurrican3 should the situation merit it. The barge, captained by NecroCaptain Joburt Zimmerman




Hurrican3, aka, Bobby Weatherbottom, warned Trilobyte that the owner of the fingerprint was some kind of elusive hunter/collector. Little was known about this particular hunter/collector other than several attempts to take them down had mysteriously failed with tragic results. Bobby advised Trilobyte to leave it well alone and cease investigating things further lest Trilobyte join the dead. In exchange for information about a Werewolf forum that might have more information, Trilobyte agreed to place a bug into his own computer that would track all of his FBI searches and report them to Bobby.