From The World Is A Vampire
- Lord Blake's Personal Journal
- December 22nd, 2028
- The winter solstice has arrived once again, the most holy time for an Abyss mystic. Its a time of reflection and contemplation, and experimentation if as a magister one possesses the sorcery of shadows. As yet, I do not, but how long will I be able to resist the siren-song of the midnight arts? Alas, I make do with the myriad Discipline Techniques based on Obtenebration that I have been able to acquire and those few that I have crafted myself. However, I know eventually, that I must give in and learn the rituals of the Abyss that Nystor has offered to teach me; its the only way for me to truly understand the primordial darkness and through it perceive the secrets of creation. In the short term, it might also offer some kind of edge against my nemesis, my shadow-self, my doppelganger. May the darkest night shield me from my most potent enemy and gift me the guile I will need to best him before the passage of the Age.
- Instead of holy contemplation and experimentation upon the sacred isle of Sicily, I sit this night reflecting on the Jyhad, or rather my most recent part in it, within my new lodgings in Glasgow, Scotland. I have come here at the urging of my dual patrons, Nystor my guide on the Road of the Abyss, and Guilelmo Aliprando, my grand-sire and the Archbishop of Nod. While each has offered different, yet equally compelling reasons for my presence in Caledonia, my actual reason for being here is an unlikely alliance with a scion of the Ventrue Clan, one Brian O'Reilly. Let me first say, it is nearly impossible to resist the machinations of an elder magister and thus, a herculean feat to resist the manipulations of two such. And so, to Scotland I have come, for a sword that does not bend, must break. Yet, my most secret reasons for coming remain still my own, for O'Reilly and his coterie of demigods represent the best vehicle for success against my doppelganger.
- Each of these individuals is supposed to be one of my mortal associates from before the Embrace, and yet, while each appears to be the person I knew, they behave in ways that suggest they are centuries older than I. As yet, I have found no rational explanation for their superior skills, their expansive knowledge of the secret history of the Kindred, or their unparalleled aptitude for a variety of sorceries. On the surface of things, their facades are quite perfect; to someone who has not known them before, to strangers, they appear exactly like me, American expatriates who have moved on to the Old World, taken new identities as we all must and begun new lives. It is only when one peers past that too perfect facade, to what lies beneath, as only an old associate, friend or family member might that one begins to see the staggeringly powerful individuals who hide behind a masquerade within a masquerade.
- Only one explanation, rational or otherwise has been offered to explain the unexplainable. The circumstances of the revelation may have contributed heavily to the fact that I received anything remotely like the truth and after all, they say that truth is stranger than fiction. It was the summer of 2015. I and my traveling companion Madame Mina (alias: Kaitlin Porter), a Ravnos Vadoma (sorceress) and thief, had just arrived in Istanbul. We knew that the city's Night Society was in the midst of a civil war of their own; a three sided conflict involving the unholy killers of Clan Assamite, those brave or stupid souls that remained of the Camarilla and the monstrous foot-soldiers of the Sabbat. Of course, there was the requisite neutral parties trying to mind their own business and the inevitable scavengers and carpetbaggers.
- It was finally revealed to me that Madame Mina was looking for a piece of personal property that she had lost at some undisclosed time in the past. She was certain that it was hidden in the former haven of a now deceased Assamite sorcerer; the sorcerer turned out to be one of the greatest blood-magicians in history and an old enemy of Madame Mina. His name was Kateb Zeke, he was an Ashepu (Middle Eastern blood-wizard) born and Embraced right there in Istanbul. According to the good Vadoma, he was also the master sorcerer who taught her the arcane arts. Of course, all this started to make sense to me, except for Madame Mina's embarrassing level of skill, as it would have taken decades, if not centuries to acquire that kind of power. Its here that the story takes a truly strange twist, as Madame Mina tells me that Kateb Zeke was her mystical teacher in another life-time, centuries ago, when she was Embraced as an Assamite warrior. Here it is necessary for the suspension of disbelief, as I knew this woman as a mortal less than two decades ago. During a lull in such a fantastic tale, she explains that there are three castes of Assamites: warriors, sorcerers and viziers who apparently act as mediators in disputes, both within and outside of the clan.
