Postcards From Enoch

Jasons' Journal

Dear Mom

Written and left in Jasons' apartment in Enoch

Well, for starters, I'd like to apologize for missing the last 35 birthdays. And I'd like to apologize in advance for missing all the birthdays left. Ditto the rest of the family. But the world's changed, and I've changed quite a bit. That said, I've quite a bit of time on my hands for the forseeable future. There's very little I can actually say, but I'm healthy and self-sufficient. I'm not in prison, but I am pretty far out of the States - such as they are. I'm learning, but it does seem like for every plus there's a minus. I have things, but none of them are a John Elway jersey. I have a computer, but it's not a Commodore 64 from the thrift store. Still, I've got a lot of time to reflect. So, I'll keep you updated, and if a miracle happens I'll be able to hand this to you. Overall, I'm not entirely sure you'd be proud of everything I've done, but as I'm sure you're aware you didn't raise a choir boy. I did however, turn out OK. Relax on that.

Quiet consideration

Choices. As I'm not going at a breakneck pace for the forseeable future, I look back and realize that this current outcome was not inevitable, but that the choices I made created this. There is some measure of pride to be seen, but simultaneously a realization that I could have done it better. Preparations need to be made to prevent similar calamity in the future. Boltholes need to be established and maintained. In this, computers will be a blessing. Sadly, there ain't shit for access here. Seriously, not even dialup. Thus, I'll have to commit these plans to memory. Personal goals still remain; advancement of Auspex, perhaps an innovation is needed - Thaumaturgical knowledge needs to be gained in order to secure the group. Also, we need to determine where we're going to land in order to make our next strikes.

Perhaps I may need to redefine what I consider breakneck.

Additionally, there is a great boon I have to think of. I have a great care for my clan - this is perhaps not odd, as I chose this. But this clan is fractured. I need to find a way to bring them back. It may be a long goal, but I wish to walk the halls of Alamut and read from the great libraries. I think I know what I want; Access to the records the hand has regarding the clan. Haqim created us for a purpose, and I would see that purpose fulfilled.

The Limitless Mindscape

One thing I've been doing some is dreaming. It's odd - I don't remember dreaming a great deal when I was breathing, and I rarely dreamed as a vampire. But now that I have the time, I find myself doing a bit more of it. Of course, now I have a greater range of abilities. Still, I must be cautious - nightmares are also dreams after all. It's a great difference between Enoch and the realm - It's a great honor to be here, but all is darkness. The brightest colors of Enoch are dismal - particularly given the colors I could see in the world. Still, there's an advantage to this dream realm I visit. I see things that people see, do things people do. It grounds and reminds me of all that could be lost in a way that memory simply can't. I need to expand my abilities and bring others here. As a gift, or a boon perhaps. I do need to work on my tan, before I can't.

Forward-Looking Statements

Also in the back of my head, plotting the wherefores and who's of our eventual return. Question - am I still light enough to fake out as a Toreador. Something to consider no matter where we go, as an art fop is generally more tolerated than diablericidal maniac. That said, I'll need to ground myself thoroughly before going to wherever we go. Mask thoughts. American bald eagle, done up in a style like Carnival. Big, brash, and bold. I can make that happen. New identity...John McTavish it is. Next item on the list, laying a more portable groundwork.

Plotting things out

Let's presume for the moment that I can fake out as a Toreador for the moment. Next bit, Tina. Pretty sure she can rock it as well. So what do we "do"? I think I could make it as a metal sculptor, and Tina could be a decent fashionista. The problem is going to be the expectation of Elysium attendance. I'm pretty sure I could get us out of that particular hell with a few short remarks, possibly even a "yo mama" comment. Now for rest of the coterie, I'm pretty sure we can song and dance. Brenda as a caitiff? Meanwhile, Hugo...eeeyeah, maybe he could caitiff it there as well. Cass has the Brujah thing locked down, which makes life a little easier. Still, backgrounds need to be built. And really, what is Elysium but a real-life flame war? Gods but that'll be fun for a few nights.

As far as memory goes, I think I understand Old Me's choices a lot better, now that I can recall them. There's something about humanity that is, for lack of a better word, special. Sometimes, choices are made in an outrageous act of rebellion that resonate through centuries. Having grown up as an outsider, being given the opportunity to rebel in the greatest way possible was quite tantalizing. However, the cost of self-exile is steep. I think knowing this gives me a great sympathy and respect for Brenda. I believes her path is not one of choice as it is necessity - I've seen her lab. Humanity erodes at such acts that are in fact necessary for our goal.

Todo list

Crap. Enforced isolation is driving me batshit. Fortunately, as I'm still self-aware enough to realize I am going crazy, we may as well spend some time working on what I can work on here. To wit, Dream-realm activities. Not going to lie, seeing the sun is a thing. Now to work on swords or archery. I think archery. I wasn't too bad when I was breathing, and there's something about archery that calls to the roots. To sharpen the mind, chess. Then developing a cover story. I think we're going to pose as Toreador from LA, wherever we land. I could be an accountant embraced to ensure Dear Fathers' finances, and then Tina can be my sister the fashion model. I've seen the magazines she hides. Andre could be our bodyguard. Not sure what everyone else has in mind, but that's what I'm going with.

I still need to shoot something and code something. My kingdom for 4 bars. Even on a 3G network.

Back to the library - I still need to learn how to read some of the books here. And some of these tablets. Why tablets? Because that's what people wrote stuff down on before the advent of paper. Quite frankly, it would not surprise me if wars were fought over some of the things written here. It would surprise me less if Haqim came back and said "Guys...this is my laundry list."

Supplemental todo list

Okay, archery? That's a little bizarre. I have perfectly good VanHelsing docs in my head. That's time better spent doing useful things. Like reading. Again, I'm having flashbacks to a youth in the library, surrounded by books. The down side of this library is that I'm reading the books in it like a kindergartner. It's oddly pleasing to see a word I recognize. Okay, cuneiform, but still. Also, the symbolism just straightup hurts. I'd write an app for this, but there's nothing to write an app on. Also, reading up on some Toreador history. If I'm gonna fake it, I best be able to really fake this funk for at least 30 years.

Still haven't narrowed down where we're going to land. Though it's a discussion for everyone as a whole, the first prerequisite is that we're near her, but in a non-sabbat city. That's going to be kinda rough. Although if memory serves, nobody ever told me this would be easy.

Other things to work on. Teaching Hugo Celerity, and style. He has some raw talent and in his wheelhouse, he's got the chops to make it. The problem is he's not exactly, adaptable. And that is going to be something he's going to need. That said, he's got the kit to be exceptional. Now if we could just do something about the obsession with stealing shiny things. and we're really going to have to work on his cover. Charm, speaking well to women and men, dressing...the details make the deal.

Tina, she's turned out to be quite a boon. The only real problem I see there to work on is the humanist aspect. We're going to work on that as well - we have time. But what are the lessons necessary to regain humanity? Again, to the library. Maybe we'll have to consult philosophers - really, what is Humanatis but an ideal? An ideal that we strive for, to treat with the masses better than we are treated. Doing things without expectation of recompense. Doing things that raise others up, and thereby raise ourselves up. I have a belief that we can in fact do what is necessary without sacrificing what we are in order to do so. I will have to set the example of what is right action.

It is quite possible I'm becoming a leader. Fuck.

Additional todo list

Once again, allies may become a need. The more I consider it, the more I think we need some 'acknowledged' sect assistance. The Sabbat are right out. The Camarilla, not so much. They've been around too long and they're a little too...comfortable, as a whole. If my memory is good, I think there's a new kid on the block. They might be of use to us. Of course, we're altering history pretty severely if we do, but still. History as I recall it ended rather badly. I'm going to have to develop a cover that allows for some serious jetsetting. I'll run the idea past Masood, see what he thinks of turning the Justice League into a Giovanni-smoking machine. Still, we'll have to keep everyone in range. Otherwise the whole thing has the potential to be an uncoordinated mess.

Time to go big or go home.

Starting a War

In the category of "Go big", I submit the following:

To the members of Clan Rosselini,

Greetings. I wish to convey my admiration for you - the events of Cagliari most certainly have placed your name where ears can hear them. However, I have a deep concern for you, as your masters do not share my admiration. Let us set them aside for the moment while I ask a question of you; who are the greatest masters of necromancy? Some of you may have been slightly dumbfounded, thinking we were leaving the Giovanni aside. We are, for though they may tell you of their history, and even preen over certain aspects of it, the simple truth remains - they are not the best. They are however, very good at using a tool that fits their desires, and they have the luck that the Devil Himself would admire.

History is written by the victors, and in a sense, they have won. But listen to their history, and a pattern emerges. Their victory is gained on the ashes of others, those who have the misfortune to have another family name. Your victories, their laurels. In truth, how far would they really be if you were not there? If any of the others had not fallen under their sway? If Fortune had looked right instead of left, where would you be? Would the roles be reversed, with Augustus taking orders from Rosura, and having his failures recounted every time he wished to see something done?

Again I sense questions - what's my motivation for this? Simple, really. I am a historian of sorts, and in history do I read the future. Combine that with a small amount of secret knowledge, and a historian can see into the future. A future that stretches onward for millennia, with the Rosselini as First Among Lapdogs. Is this truly a fit fate for you? I suppose there are some who are content to carve the kings' throne, to sweep and dust and ensure the palace is neat, but I personally think such drudgery a poor existence. Look upon your brethren, and decide if living in a shadow is your deserved fate when you lit the torch. Consider the fallout from Cagliari, and ask why such things must be. Ask yourselves if it is time to renegotiate the contracts that bring you your nightly vitae, and bring childer into the darkness.

Ask yourselves if it is time for Clan Rosselini to take its' rightful place. The Giovanni have power over you so long as you let them. Certainly my words will be seen as an affront, a sin against The Way Things Are. I suppose if you are content, you have every right to remain so. Carve the throne. But for many of you, I sense reality seeping in, ever so slightly. I encourage you to marshal yourselves, for the war has already begun - in the demands, in the restrictions, in a thousand ways made subtly manifest is your place as the eternal servant being reiterated. Let history be the judge of your actions.

This may need re-write. Bounce it off a few other people. I'm not ignoring the irony that I'm starting a war among vampires as I'm trying to end one among the humans. There may be sleepless days ahead as I worry about just what the hell I'm unleashing.

Going slightly mad

All of this plotting and planning is perhaps a distraction. I'll be honest, I don't just miss computers and guns. I need them. Seriously, I was fiddling with an abacus and found myself coding a hello world. In binary. If I were to drain all the emotion, I would say I'm a few fries short of a happy meal. But, since I am a creature of emotional states and desires, I have to reply to myself that I am in fact doing something of importance, and that what I do is a thing that is in fact necessary.

This must be what going mad feels like.

Back to the point of the matter, Enoch is in and of itself a wondrous structure. The most ancient of our kind walked these streets, begat their childer, lived among people, bartered with them, and sowed the very seeds of eternal wars. Even with people who don't have a jot of Auspex, this place resonates, but the only emotion I truly feel from it is that of age. I saw the Titanic exhibit once when it went through Denver - it was amazingly powerful, and walking through and touching its' hull, I could barely conceive of the forces that went into its' craft, and its' eventual demise. I will declare to this night the hull was still cold from the sea.

And I find I've digressed again. How do the Malkavians cope.

I'm working very hard to not alienate, because the things I miss are my own. I can't let this stop me from making my way back to the land of the living, and thereupon make some serious headway with what must be done. Can we do it without destroying our souls? Weighing everything in the balance, I find a trade acceptable. I can regain what is lost. The Giovanni will not have such good fortune.

Time to refocus and pull mine shite together. I know better. This is not the time to be falling apart. The world may indeed be on the precipice of apocalypse, but I am not going to have to need a moment and let the world fall. Chance has landed us with a multitude of things - the opportunity to make the world a better place. How many people can truly say that? If granted the chance, how many people would hesitate?

And so now I look at the part of myself that's not ranting and raving and prepared to swap rooms with a Nos if there's a decent connection in the deal. The part of me that is sitting like the chess player I used to be, plotting out a series of 5 or 6 moves in preparation for the win. Boston. Perhaps it'll take a decade or three, but I will make that city mine, and then after the vault is neutralized, I'll leave it.

I've always kind of hated Boston. Centuries of self-righteousness smugness based off of the fact that they drunk-dialed King George to tell him to fuck off first. Currently a Giovanni city in all but name, it shows where the Camarilla is weak. Now would be the time to bring the League from a West-coast anomaly to a force to be negotiated with, and ceded to. While the Sabbat has a no-holds barred policy because they are predicated on "Not that", the League may be a more acceptable partner to keep the forces of anarchy and the desire for self-determination channeled. The elders may not like it, but that's because the league is more predicated on positions due to talent within the area, not favors owed. So we'll need to campaign aggressively, but not gain a position. Every offer must be weighed in the balance of "Will this help us take the Boston Vault."

For now, I need information. Data-data-data, I cannot make bricks without clay. I need to keep an eye out for the things Brenda needs. I need to keep an eye on the Giovanni financials. I need to build my own finances. Wherever we go, we're going to hit the ground running.

Creating a new character

Alright, time to pull my head out here. So to make this happen, I have to re-imagine myself. So I put myself in an old, old headspace. That of teenaged me, creating a new character for D&D. But using myself as the template,and filing off the serial numbers a touch. First thing to worry about, skin tone. For that, we're turning the clock back a bit and claiming native American-ness. Need to be a little taller though. 5'6" or so. Longer hair, like down to the knees, make it black. And...sadly, I'm gonna have to lose the goatee. This is more of a sacrifice then I thought, but we can work it.

Now then, a name and a Clan. I know I had the McTavish alias picked, but I may have go more...ethnic. Digging back into the memory bank for some names, and it's slightly amusing; there really aren't any "ethnic" names in my personal family tree. Honestly, the names in my family tree are Parenteau, McNickle, Carlson, and some others. So yeah, gonna have to off-board on the name. Jeff Bear Track. It's a start.

Next, comes the part where I figure out why I was embraced by a Toreador. We'll call it because of my coding skills. Electronic artiste, provided by a tribal grant. Now traveling the world to see the great art of the clan. Sure, that'll work. Enough of a sop to the ego, makes them think I'm a wide-eyed naif. Also has a built in excuse for disappearing from Elysium for nights on end.

About the only thing left is the name itself and the minor physical alterations necessary to sell the look.

Vacationing in Mauritius

No gonna lie, it's been an interesting year. I mean I really don't need to sleep, time is a very...odd thing. I check in with Cass now and again to make sure I know what day it is...and occasionally what month it is. It's a cheat, but I use celerity to mark the time. A few seconds of frenetic action, then I know when an hour has passed. I should backtrack a bit, really. I've skipped a few things, I see now. As far as my financial standing goes, the Hand is going to take care of it - it'll be dispersed and converted into something else, most likely land. By the time I'm back, I should have access to the bank accounts and whatnot necessary. Given how much I have, I may have a large stake in something like...well, probably a chunk of Africa or Europe. I checked the balance sheet a few times, and I am in fact worth more than a few countries the last time I looked. Admittedly small countries, but still. I am nothing if not a creature of ego.

Enoch has a way of putting that ego in check, however. Masood and I took a walk-around, and saw some very powerful things - the gardens of Malkav, beautiful in some way. The temple of Lilith, where the chatterlings are kept and educated. Note to self - if here for another year, offer to teach the kids how to deal with technology. I spoke with Narbonidas at the Tower of Stars and discussed a ton of things - apparently I'm more of an oddity here than usual; not so many viziers here, really. Essentially me, Tina, and Masood are a sizable fraction of the total viziers of the Hand. Gods help us. That said, I'm working on my swordplay; Masood has taught me quite a bit in regard to the scimitar. It does lend itself toward slashing, but he has given me a beautifully jeweled scimitar for my American Express card. It doesn't have the same heft as my pistols, but it's strangely comfortable. I think it's because it's from Masood. Narbonidas is enchanting it to do a bit more against the occasional spectral assault. Handy things. Also, the practice with the sword helps me get used to my new body. Taller, a little lankier, and the hair is going to take some getting used to.

Again in the humbling is the local languages, which haven't been spoken by mortal men in hundreds of millennia. While I'm not fluent, I can get by well enough to make the wraiths understand me. That was several months shot to hell, but hey if I'm coming back here, I'm going to be understood by god. The other thing that gives me a bit of a squick is the slave pits of Irad. Seriously, it's weird that people...are here. Pretty much taken from everywhere, probably so they can't rise up. But I've taken one for my exclusive use as a food source. She's very...skittish. She's depressed, but I think she can be of, while not use, she can be an example for Tina - possibly have her pick out her own from Irads' pits. We just need to be sparing with blood use, which shouldn't be a problem. Masood was much kinder than me, to be honest. He doctored some of the slaves - to be honest, had I had a doctors' bag I'd probably have been there with him. Speaking of humanity, Tina. We had a long (read: couple days) conversation regarding humanity and its' positive aspects. While freely admitting that our eventual goals will erode at our humanity, this is our challenge. Humanities aspects are to be admired, not seen as an inconvenience. We are humanists, that we may preserve and minimize the damage to humanity our actions will do. That said, Tina is going to redouble her efforts to be humane.

And then Brenda came around with a proposal. We get a week off to go back to the world and help her with a thing in Mauritius. Weird shit is afoot, and we get to check it out.

Coming back to the lands of the living was an exercise in awesome. Colors. I saw colors. While for most, this is an experience that's meh, I remind the Gentle Reader that after a year watching 50 million shades of gray, this was an unholy awesome experience. Reds, blues, yellows, greens, and all the colors of the spectrum that I could possibly want. My eyes thought this backwater shithole of a port was a ripe slice of heaven. And the tech. So awesome. I mean it was closed beta when I left and now it's in ports. Meanwhile, my POS has bars, but it's updating. And updating. Annoying, but I had colors to see...which is probably why my cash got lifted.

Dammit. I mean, it was only 10 grand, but it was the only 10 grand I had. So now I had to go find who had my cash and gently educate them. It took a minute or two, but I finally heard what was probably the happy cry of a street meat who hit the lottery. So I darted and found the exact opposite. Little kid who mighta been 8 or 9 with a slashed femoral artery. Quick assessment, I had to time this just right - and I did, giving some mouth to mouth vitae-transfer, which got the kid just onto the side of "gonna live". After that it was a semi-simple matter to ask the right questions to give me an image of who had done this, and the chase was on. Brenda was miffed that I had cockblocked the grim reaper, and we had a spirited discussion while my predatory muscles flexed for the run and the chase. Sometimes, it's good to give into your baser instincts a touch. It felt good. Really good, actually. Wind, dekeing through the crowds, keeping track of everyone and finally arriving at Cass with the perpetrator in some sort of cop-academy double arm bar. The others were out of the fight, but I the leader was still spitting trash at Cass in several languages. 1, that's not how you treat a lady. 2, that's definitely not how you treat a lady who could dislocate both your shoulders in the time it takes you to draw a breath.

With Hugo mopping up, I felt it incumbent to lesson the young punk who'd tried to kill over what was rightfully my money and was a remorseless little twit. I wasn't entirely heartless - as the branch is bent, so the tree shall grow. However, on the other side of that was the grand tradition of the west, where a wronged man shall extract justice. In between these, was me. And so a modified Texas affirmative defense was in order - "Your Honor, he needed a kick in the nuts." The crowd was simultaneously horrified and appreciative. I mean, on the one hand, this kid was apparently pretty known as a punk. On the other hand, he was pretty much a defenseless opponent. Fortunately nobody was leaping to the little punks' defense, which gave me enough time to take my cash and leave enough for him to have a reason to be arrested. Which he was, and that left us time to get our collective asses to meet our contact, with enough time to burn.

Brenda had an idea, but she needed some animals. That's Hugo's gig, and he did better...or worse then expected. He summoned a few rats, and then he sang the song that the cat people sing when in hopes of rescue. It was amusing on several levels. Seriously, Cass and I were watching and really not sure what to do. So I just mentioned to Cass being a young man and wishing to be buried in pussy - this was not how that dream went. A commentary on life - and it sure as hell beat watching my phones' update progress. Cass thought it was funny, and I'm sure Hugo would have thought it funny had he not been in the middle of a mess. Eventually, the cats fled courtesy of some illusionary water. Hey, when life gives you lemons, add water.

Whatever plan Brenda had for the animals was promptly shelved. So, that sorted, we actually got around to meeting our contact. We mucked about for a bit, discussed all the nitty gritty and were given the run of a pretty good stock of weapons. Shotguns and pistols were the order of the day - from the maps, it looked like it was going to be close-quarters asskicking time. And on the off chance I ran out of ammo before I ran out of targets, a nice little axe was also found to hang from my belt. After that we discussed extraction plans and where to go after the deeds were done. And a few people got a quick jack-up on their weapons just in case.

A quick trip and recon were the next things to be done. We drove out there, and I left my body behind for the astral. Number one, I am still damn sexy in the astral, but I'm still the damn sexy original me, and not the slightly taller and longer-haired Salish boy I have chosen to become. Self-image plays a lot into this. Speaking of self-image, the house was jacked up and looking like a wasps nest, the dogs were reminiscent of Cereberus, and whatever was in the pool was some kind of hideous. Back to my body (in 2.6139 seconds according to Cass' internal Timex) and reporting in. First order of business, the dogs. Pistol out and several very quiet shots later, Cass and I had sent the dogs to a farm upstate where they could play with the other three-headed beasts from mans' darkest nightmares, chase fluffy bunnies, and do whatever the hell else such lost creatures did. Then came the pool house - and...whatever was in the pool needed to go first. Out came the shotgun, and one very impressive round later, whatever was in the pool hated life right then. It was at that moment that I remembered what we'd forgotten. Body Armor. I was reminded of this when I got gangtackled by either several somethings or one big something with a lot more teeth then anything ought to have.

I came to a few seconds later to discover the fight was pretty much over and the pool and backyard had been redecorated in Early Splatterpunk. It was gross, but I chugged out the blood from the little beggars and healed up enough that I didn't need to use my shotgun for a cane. It'd do. After sweeping and clearing the place (Horror movie directors could take notes. The horror of a living flesh house is that it's there, oppressively. Not the jump scare, the idea of someone putting massive effort into this as a Good Thing.) we found gas and matches. Damn shame what happened after that, but we got the hell out and back. Fortunately our contact was a restaurant guy. I'm going to have him whip up something for my food source. I mean really, all they have to eat on that island is some black grain that they make into something that looks like черный хлеб. I mean really, it's kinda nasty-tasting, but if there's nothing else, I suppose it's a thing to eat. Still, I think a gyro and a salad might be appreciated by her. Also - need to check on the Greece-Turkey thing. See if they actually managed a peace agreement, or at least a cease-fire.

You're not my Mummy!

So it's already been another year. I mean really, how can you tell in this place. To finish up Mauritius, we had about 4 days to kill after we did the thing. Night 1, healing, night two, opening up a slush fund with the Bank of France under a new pseudonym and making several deposits of some horse racing winnings and more than a few other card game wins. I have a shiny '68 Aston Martin and several other investment properties - resort in Australia, some farmland in South Africa, and a small island off the coast of India. I'll leave it to the bank to manage them appropriately, and I may even visit them in a decade or so. They'll make nice boltholes. Meanwhile, Greece has basically been annexed by Turkey. Meh. On the one hand, annoyed that my little efforts in the peace process went to hell, on the other hand...not much I could do to change what happened.

So that done, I brought some of the local food back with me to Enoch for Suhaila (the woman I pulled out of Irads' Crazytown). I think she rather liked it. Suhaila's an interesting one - she was from a well-off Turkish family, was a beard for a gay husband, then somehow offended someone, who had her kidnapped and brought to Enoch. After that, she was currency in the Lord of the Flies thing they've got going on, then I came along. She's happy to be my concubine, and I suppose that's as good a term as any for what's going down here. She makes herself pretty - or as much as she can manage here, with loose but revealing clothes, kohl makeups, and an overall sense of wanting to keep me happy. It doesn't hurt that I do occasionally tend to her needs while taking in my own food. There's a bit of odd psychology at work here - I mean with a random "I need blood, you have blood, gimme" situation, there's a sense of intimacy there, but when you have one vessel that you really do need to take care of, there's a greater bond that forms. Maybe it's the Auspex, but I can tell how she's been feeling for some time before we do the thing. Emotions flavor the blood. For bonus points, we'll draw it out over the course of an hour or two. Suhaila may in fact be the happiest woman in Enoch. She gives awesome massages - which I do occasionally need, because I'm working on my ability to navigate the dream realm, or at least the equivalent here. And they're not all good dreams.

In Enoch, there are 4 tombs. These tombs are supposedly the resting places of Antediluvians, but the names carved on them are Loz, Nergal, and Ninmug. The fourth is unknown. When I dream, they visit me. Loz is a warrior, and his dreams bring blood-fear, fire, and the most primal instincts of flight-or-flight. Even the Beast is cowed in abject terror. He's a titan, at least from my perspective. Mars, Ares, Anhur, Thor, all of them and more. Describing a force of nature is a bitch. But suffice to say when I dream of him, I'm pretty much shit for a long time afterward. Ninmug is a little more mellow, and his dreams are dreams of the future, beyond even the future I remember of the Giovanni nightmare. The Giovanni prospering, the world rebuilding and crafting new cities, new languages, and slowly returning over the course of millenia to rediscovering all that will be lost. In some ways, it's heartening to see the resiliency of the human race as it overcomes things that would fit in quite well with Revelations. That said, I'm still not giving myself a free pass just because I could theoretically ride the apocalypse out. Sometimes the visions are of The First City as it was - Caine, always with a face in shadow, passing judgment over his court. I think I even glimpsed Haqim once. It may have been The Sorcerer, but I can't say - and they didn't wear nametags. But it felt glorious, to be honest. Nergal, is something of an advisor. Her dreams are peaceful and filled with counsel, and she always appears to me as a beauty that far surpasses any in this world. At times it's a little frightening. I mean, this is an immensely powerful creature, why does she speak to me as a near-equal? It's nice to have a wise woman in your corner, but it's...awkward is the only way I can describe it. Either way, she's very invigorating, and she has reminded me that my job is strategy - getting Brenda to the place she needs to be to work her Fuck You Augustus gig. But my job is to know the enemy, and thereby bring about his defeat. The fourth one - no name, but when it visits, again the next couple nights are shaky. Not in a sense of raw force, but in the subtle sense of being watched and judged. It's creepy. Fortunately, I'm not the first and only to have such visions, so that's a comfort of sorts; but I don't think Suhalia really understands why I'm doing this.

During this timeframe, the world isn't standing still. Tina has found her focus - the sword. I've watched her, and she's good. It doesn't hurt that she's learning from a Warrior. I mean Masoods' no small potatoes and I'm learning a ton from him, but I think Tina's going to be the sword-meister. I've guest-lectured for the Erinyes on the subjects I'm really good at, so that they're not stumbling around trying to figure out how the power button works. As a sidebar, I've also discovered that Masoods' focus is in medicine - and we're really...bridging a gap of sorts. I mean, we are somewhat of an age, and we can see enough of ourselves in the other that we have a solid working relationship, at least. I mean, I'll talk to him about most things, and he can offer the advice that only comes with a few more centuries under the belt. Perhaps in a year or so I'll ask about my siblings.

On other fronts, the Rosselini-Giovanni split is happening at a nice pace. The Giovanni are damn near throwing down a pogrom, which is good because the more effort they spend on their cousins, the less they spend on the rest of it. But, until I can get into Baldesars' dreams, that'll be something for popcorn time. And on a final wrapup note, while Masood may not understand technology the way I do, he does understand my need for it, and that I do go a little stircrazy at times.

So he commissioned Hasammeli, the master smith, to forge me...a laptop. It is without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, moreso since it's been forged from a spectre. I mean, we're talking pico-circuitry and a metric fuckton of data storage here. And it's self-recharging as long as I'm gentle. the power is some dark energy that's here but I don't precisely understand - but what I do understand is that if I have to get a fast charge, I have to go out near the dark clouds that have...things, in them. The casing itself is priceless, gems for lights and scrollwork that is effortlessly flowing and functional. I'm going to be months in naming it, for this, this singular one of a kind device brought me to tears unbidden. Especially since it was forged from a single Spectre over the course of a year. Two years total, since it took him a year to figure out how to make one from the plans Masood brought him. I really could have kissed Masood for this, and Hasammeli gets free beer for as long as I can. And the rest of Hasammelis' forge is simply...a masters' forge. We do not want Hugo loose in here.

But, as we turn the page, we now have another job. Just outside the palace proper is a very Egyptian kind of place, and we scored an invite to dinner one night. It was very surreal, and for bonus, we had entertainment and utterly plush divans to settle on and enjoy - it was a delightful 8 courses of blood, starting with an animal appetizer, and slowly moving up through various flavors and aromas, with a dessert course of the fabled Deep-Fried Twinkie™ - I was sated. We spoke at length, and he seemed somewhat surprised that I'm a Vizier - mainly in that between me, Tina, and Masood, we're a good percentage of the total viziers in the Hand. We played cards; seriously, the guy knows damn near every card game that's ever existed, and I swear he had aces in every pocket. We pretty much split in terms of wins - which for me was like being taken to the damn cleaners. I lost more hands that night than I've lost in a decade. Afterward, we spoke at length with our generous host, Inauhaten - aka the architect of multiple temples (Thebes and Karnak) and tombs for the Egyptian 18th Dynasty and a mummy (Seriously, he's a 3000-year old card shark) who had a job for us. Over discussions of lineage and other things, we were given a tale fascinating and frightening.

Backstory time. King Tut was one of a long line of royalty whos' family trees did not fork, as it was thought that only the gods could have children with other gods. Genetics however, doesn't give a squeaky shit about who's a god and who's not, and after several generations of gods having kids with other gods, you get stupid gods. Tuts' sister-wife miscarried twice, and then to ensure she had a child entreated all the gods for a third. This included the forbidden gods, like Set. They did eventually have a living daughter to carry on the line, which was a Good Thing. This child was, however, a dark child. Pets died mysteriously when she was young, and as she approached her majority age servants were executed for frivolous reasonings. The child was executed before she could fully take power, however her mothers' entreaties to the dark gods lived on within her. Her sarcophagus was entombed near her parents, where it was hoped it would be undisturbed for all time.

Wish in one hand, shit in the other - tell me which hand fills up first. I'll wait.

Fast forward to the late 1920's, when a pair of American explorers found the sarcophagus and were looking to make a quick buck or two off selling some authentic Egyptian relics that were really real. Alas, the stock market went to shit and people had to reprioritize - and some chick who'd been dead for 3 millennia was not high on the list, as she wasn't getting any deader and there was the more important question of the time; what was going to be food that night. So the two brothers took their liberated goodies to Ipswitch, Massachusetts and hoped for better days. With the benefit of information, we can all guess how that turned out.

So with that in mind, we need to search Ipswich, recover everything we can, and not run into anything else - because one of her retainers has survived into undeath; quite possibly as a Follower of Set. Recovery of the body is paramount, and the sarcophagus itself has been sealed with 7 keys. Finding a key is bonus. In theory, we can find this thing and be done in a few weeks.

My shopping list includes body armor.

Wherefore Art Thou, My Country?

So...getting to Ipswich was a thing. A thing that's necessary, but nasty. Master Jagdish painted an X in human ash on my face and gave me a push. Then I find myself in the mostly-dark and overwhelmed. Scents, smells, and sounds commence an assault on me to tell me I'm in the really real world again. Squirrel. Honestly, I took a few minutes to absorb and retrain my brain to filter the extraneous noises like heartbeats and insects - the things there aren't many of in the Shadowlands. To be quite honest, each one of these trips is refreshing in its' own way. To the Shadowlands, where there is blissful silence and I can listen to everything. To the realms of humanity, where all is noise and we must separate the wheat from the Wonderbread.

Oh, and outside the old door there's a pair of guys having a conversation...probably a couple hundred yards off. Cass did unto the door with grace and aplomb, and we made as nice an exit as we could. Leaves, chills, these are all signs of autumn. Crunchy leaves and whatnot all around, this doesn't feel like a good thing. Plus loud noises might scare off whoever was there. So better late than never, Quietus says hallo. As we're closing in, we hear what they're all about; graverobbing some poor old dead lady.

There are few things that everyone in this group can agree on - one of them is that taking this that have been sent along with the dead is a Bad Idea. I mean, even the cannibal necromancer agrees on this social construct. For me, it goes back to a belief that a persons' most treasured things were theirs, and that these things were to be taken to the afterlife with them, as a symbol of battle or wealth or status. Taking those things from them was interrupting the cycle, and angering the dead. Quite frankly, I'm going to have enough enemies before this is through, so why make another enemy for the sake of a shiny trinket? These two obviously didn't have that problem. Cass scampered up a tree outside the quiet bubble and catcalled the folks. They decided Granny didn't need her stuff taken just yet - so they hauled ass for their truck, which I could see was part of the ipswich cemetery care crew. Sure, they cared. But two warpath-ey indians and their baller sidekick were damn well going to make sure they reconsidered some of their life choices. We gave chase, me darting through the woods and headstones like I'd done it before (growing up in the boonies has its' benefits kids), and Hugo and Cass sailing in my wake with slightly less aplomb. Brenda was sauntering like this was no thing for her.

It really didn't take much to get them out of commission, as when they got to the truck Hugo made them think it wasn't starting (damned annoying to hear the starter grind and grind), Brenda helped out with a dose of obtenebration cloud (It's creepy feeling microtendrils of shadow flitting about your skin, moreso when you're human and can't comprehend shadows doing anything even remotely other then what they do normally) and Ray and the Sidekick totally lost their minds. Ray tried to leave the truck and ran into my arm after I snagged the .357 out of the glovebox that he was reaching for - I mean it wasn't like he was going to show us his registration and insurance after that. The other guy bolted the fuck out of that shitstorm like the draining shade of death itself was coming after him with a Gore-X bladecaster and rotary meat tenderizer (also makes Julienne fries!) and Hugo gave chase, followed thereafter by Cass who gave a rendition of "Armbars for Everyone" in B Major, which did not exactly fly well with them. The coup de grace was delivered by Hugo, as after a quick discussion with Brenda the recently deceased scampered out of her grave and into the nightmares of two people with dexterity and creepy dead-granny movement. Give Granny a kiss, boys.

Side note: This is why I fear the night when Brenda learns chimerstry.

Having relieved themselves of their illgotten gains (along with feces and urine), they'd suffered enough, at least in my opinion. And so after hiding ourselves with Chimerstry (Thanks Hugo) we set off to discover more about where we were. I don't like it a goddamn bit.

A moments' digression, deal with it. A fair chunk of my Army career was spent not too far from here. South Carolina and Virginia to be exact. I remember mostly that it hurt, but that this was making me better in the long run. I remember an hour in an elevated position with most of my weight on my shoulders and arms because we'd hosed up. I remember the first time I felt loves' keen sting, a result of a relationship not too far from here. And this...country, is just not up to the standards I was expected to uphold. Suffice to say after a night of research, the FAS and I are not friends, and I will not weep for its' eventual downfall. I will weep for those bones who rest uneasy in a land that is not the country they gave their most for. One night if I get bored, I'm going to kill the firewall that keeps the FAS in a internet bubble. It really feels like a V for Vendetta kind of thing. Philosophical question - looking at this, and having made a few trips to the favelas, who's really worse off? Peace and security at the expense of liberty, versus abject poverty in relative freedom? This may be a consideration for next year. The price of immortality is watching everyone you love fade and die; they forgot to include your homeland in that old saw. I mean, I've never been what you would call excessively patriotic, but that loss seems to almost be a marker on the road of "you can't go home again, because home's no longer there." Still, all the philosophical musings in the world can't prevent me from thinking for a few moments, "I shaved my head for this?!"

Back to the matter at hand. We're really in a small-ass town, like "I've been in stadiums with more people" small. Which is a blessing in disguise, frankly - while the infrastructure really isn't there to do much, that means a few vampires who are quick on their feet are going to be able to get the thing and get the job done. Rapidly. Walking through the streets to the library with Cass, we noticed that yeah, we're kind of out of place. It's apparently mid-October, and Halloween isn't yet illegal. But going by houses and listening to the news was interesting. It wasn't quite the "If it bleeds, it leads" of my youth, but it was still just as disheartening because everything was spoken in a way to glorify the state. With that firmly lodged in my hindbrain, I decided to check out my phone to see if it had finished downloading updates yet, and it hadn't. Apparently I needed the FAS security app in order to make calls. or do anything. That's pretty friggin annoying, which needed to be fixed posthaste. Cass decided we needed to go to the local historical museum and check out our targets. Which, meh. We do need to get a lay of the land, and we might as well start somewhere. I, however, absconded while Cass had the ladies' attention - finding the admin office was dead easy, registering our sim cards silently somewhat less so, but a password under the keyboard is a thing that never gets old.

Once that was done, lodgings were required - we found a nice little bed and breakfast run by a japanese couple, which was a good thing - there's nooks and crannies where we can hide, and if necessary we can run the old snooze in the closet gig. Walking along I was able to pause for a moment and revel in all the colors. Beautiful stuff. Next stop, for a laptop. Much nicer than the one I've got in Enoch, but a little less traveling through the underworld-ability. Another oddity, the green folding money of my youth is quickly going elsewhere, and I couldn't get to my offshore funds without a crapton of work. But Euros will do just fine - especially when you have some hefty dominate happening. That done, we all collected ourselves and went to a diner, because Brenda wanted to eat something and she likes to gross us out. And I needed to acquaint myself with the computer technology, which led to the earlier depressing epiphany. If we need a car, there's a used car lot. It looks like the only cars left to the public are about 20 years old. They all went to the war effort, and now the FAS security is the only ones with anything remotely modern. They're on electric. A slight economic disparity, and showing subtly who's in charge.

After that, we tripped to where the dead brother was for a wee bit of graverobbing ourselves - Brenda wasnted to check something out and need a pot and some seasonings. Seriously. At the site, we cracked open the grave and let Brenda do her thang. She...cooked. I suppose that's really the only way to explain it, but we spent an hour looking out for anything or anyone coming to do naughty things while Brenda was all witching hour and shit. Whatever she learned from boil boil toil and trouble time was not pleasing to her.

Discussion happened, and we split the party. I know, in D&D it's a total sin, but this is the real world, and sometimes it can't be helped. Brenda and I (She's gotten her auspex up to the point where she can travel with me in the astral realm) were off to search Castle Hill where the brothers supposedly kept their gains (Oh, and where one brother was murdered. In the Study. With The Candlestick. I shit you not) and hopefully find a clue. Meanwhile, Cass and Hugo were heading to the cop-shop for some firearms and body armor. Seriously, I'm packing a .357 with 6 rounds, and no body armor. Effectively, I'm naked.

Speaking of - the astral realm. Brenda was apparently expecting something else, probably because she's been doing all her travel in all the wrong places. I'm not so far distanced from humanity that I can't appreciate a pleasing form - okay, in the Astral Plane, Brenda's pretty flippin' hot. (you can't spell psychotic without hot. Just sayin'.) I'm not sure if that speaks to me, or her. I'm not telling her, because she'd either roll her eyes or go all grade school on me. Either way, the astral plane is a private joy that nobody can take from me.

With that filed under "Shit We Keep To Ourselves", we headed for Castle Hill, a lovely little place for a wedding, but very much not a place to spend the night. The place was huge, and we had to search everything. And pause to read the minds of the bored-ass guards who's main concerns were about how the Red Sox had pissed away yet another season, the patrol routes, and what the hell the Bruins-Celtics-Patriots were thinking with what they were doing. Timing was filed away, I paused to admire the sheer cheek of someone putting a painting of Nathaniel gazing down studiously at the spot where he was murdered, and we began the serious task of finding an Egyptian sarcophagus in a New England mansion. All the while fighting that itching feeling of being watched.

We did find it well secured behind a false wall and down a staircase, and there's a ritual maze that we need to navigate. Also...yeah, I think we're going to need a truck to move this thing. Back to our bodies to plot and plan and maybe, just maybe we'll make it through this. Also, I need to grab some makeup and kit for Suhaila. Maybe a dress? Meh, gotta figure it out tomorrow. Also I need to figure out how to silently move some funds here just in case. And while I sleep, we get to go play in Baldesar Rosselinis' head. Go me.

Enemies of the State

In the midst of the deep considerations of how we're going to infiltrate Castle Hill (complete with orphans of the state and some weirdass spiritual things of an egyptian flavor), Cass and Hugo returned to the bed and breakfast which we had declared to be our base. They smelled of sewer and were bearing gifts from the local FAS armory, however their look was one of "We need to blow this popsicle stand." And thus we headed back to the graveyard where we first came to Ipswich. Troublesome indeed, but once we were back in and took an inventory, I was in a small slice of heaven. There were shotguns, pistols, at least one sniper rifle and a couple drones. And ammo. Enough ammo to start a war with the FAS - which was not the plan, but damned if it's better to have and not need. Contenting myself with that, I figured a night in the crypt with memories of Montreal wasn't so bad. I did not sleep well; as these Egyptian urchin-looking things kept invading my dreams. And Baldesar was nowhere to be seen. Damn him for being awake.

Waking up the next night brought a few realizations. Number one, the cops took a dim view of our trip to the candy store. I know this because a couple cops had made a trip to the sarcophagus - one of them liked cheap cigars, cheap booze, and needed more fiber in his diet. The other one was bathing in Old Spice. Not even a little like the morning coffee of old. But, morning routine sorted and slightly dusted, we had to get Hugo something to eat. He was looking a little blecch, so we went a couple ways where we could find a snack or two. So I traded out the 357 for something with a little more subtlety and went to the drug store. First thing of "It ain't right" - there's drones patterning the street. Shit. Probably looking for us. No problem, we can scoot around those. Got a few things and then went to the coffee shop to find some snacks.

Therein came our first problem - a nice sized board with our pictures on it. Wanted in question for a list of crimes longer than my schwantz. Breaking and entering a federal facility, theft of government property, assaulting a fed, resisting arrest, vandalism, hooliganism - along with that, cautions for the good citizens to not approach and instead inform the feds...it was impressive. Seriously, it was like the good old days of Montreal all over again. However, being that we were in a police state, the system overrides everything. So if we change the system, we'll be left alone to do our deeds. First priority, changing the pictures to "Not us". That way we can say "No, mistaken identity, we're good citizens". With my new laptop, I backtracked and altered the pictures with amazing speed and skill. No lie, the fed security was good - but I'm better. So between the time I got a mocha and by the time we got our bearclaws the deed was done. And the feds were on their way, because a good citizen had narc'ed. But, we were clear as long as we played it cool after all the people were filed out after learning that a police action was in process. I am a meat popsicle.

Second problem arose when not everyone was paying attention to my technological wizardry, and had not lived under a police state. Police State Rule #1: Don't argue with the cops, even if you are a former cop. Cass popped off at the cop, and the situational control was lost. Which is a nice way of saying the cop tried to tase Cass, Hugo totally lost his cool and went fangy-fangy omnomnom time, I shot out three kneecaps, and Cass had a slight weapons malfunction that resulted in the camera and the drone outside being shot to hell. Admittedly, I should have broken out Presence or some Dominate to try and save the moment, but nothing's really going to help Hugo except a few pints of the Old Red Kroovy. Old Sabbat Me came out of his little doghouse with a golf clap and a bucket of popcorn, because this was his kind of party. The orthopedic surgeons will be doing brisk business thanks to me, as there was one more cop out the back with a shotgun. One more kneecap gone, and the next order of business became Acquire Transport. Cop car was out, because there was some manner of biometric security that I did not have time to hack. But there was a 91 jeep right there begging for my loving touch. Hopped in, hotwired it, all easypeasy. Meanwhile, looking back to the door to see what was coming out and it was Cass hauling a pink raisin cop (sigh) over her shoulder and dragging Hugo (amusing). Slinging everyone into the back and then Brenda nudged my brain.

After advising her that subtle had officially gone the way of the dodo, we decided I needed to lead the cops toward the mausoleum hideout so we could turn the tables and lead them into our custody. Reel in the fish by turning on the lights of the jeep and flipping a few shots back at the feds to bring them closer. Too close as it turns out, since they ran me off the road a little bit before the cemetery. Shoulda had Cass drive. Alas, but the resulting firefight was mercifully brief as a kneecap and a hand later the cops were dealt with. There was some bargaining, and I did announce to the cops the The Peoples' Liberation Group For the Free Ejaculation of the Western Alliance was in town, had hostages, and was going out to sea. That's right Jason, start an international incident. That always makes it better.

Seriously, I know why the feds had so much ammo in their stash now. They need it cause they can't aim for shit. In their defense though - I don't think the feds assigned to the sleepy little town of Ipswich are used to having efficient and trained killing machines drop in. Although they're good about backup, as a military unit is coming in with an ETA of 40 minutes - I think we can squirm out of this. The drones are going to be an effective tool, and we'll lead them out to sea while we haul ass for the mansion. I shudder to think what my rap sheet is going to look like after this.

Not-quite-Enemies of the State

So starting from the point where we have two yahoo's who are theoretically the head cops in town. Le sigh. We can't kill them, so now it's time to song and dance. There's some presence, there's some dominate, and suddenly we're an operative team who have arrived on scene to assess, test, probe and surveil for weaknesses, sending our full reports to Internal Affairs division, copies to Joint Special Operations Command. Not gonna lie, we did successfully do that. I would like to thank the Academy for this award. You like me. You really like me. Hugo's poor schlub that he killed is going to be "Declared dead and then reassigned within 24 hours". And because I'm a mind-reader, I told him he could take the flipping cuff key out of his boot and call off the goddamn alert status already. What I forgot to do was get his access codes so I could do a remote wipe of the servers where all the nastynasty pictures of us were. Ah well, we had to return at least some of our haul anyway.

After an inventory (again) wherein we kept the drones, some ammo, grenades, and a few shotguns but stored all the rest of our goodies with Brenda. Now, on the down side, I know Brenda and what she's going to do with the corpse. Hence the going to the source to get the goods is going to be a good job for myself and Cass - mainly because I don't want Cass flipping out at what Brenda does to the cop. So, Cass pushed the jeep out, Hugo fixed the tire (dude has a hell of a trade if this vampiric thief gig doesn't work out,) we lost the jeep seat, Cass traded in some weight to match up what we liberated in ammo, I wrote a preliminary report, and we headed back into the belly of the beast.

We were greeted by the captain and a short platoon of angry looking bereted mofos who were commanded by Lt Col Resting Bitchface. We dropped off what we were going to return, were invited for a drink, which we did. Lt Col starts reading us a light riot act, she knows General BigDick, etc, etc. So I promptly gave out names, ranks, serial numbers, and all the other sundry shit. Apparently Lt Col Resting Bitchface wants us to know that she's Large And In Charge, and that she doesn't care what we think our orders are, while we're on her turf, we're going to be in uniform and we're going to be reporting to her daily. It was kinda like watching someone trying to put a leash on a couple of junkyard dogs. Quite frankly, she's probably worried about how this is going to hose her shot at rank. The poor thing, I suppose I'll have to ease her worries.

Meanwhile, uniforms were brought for us by Corporal Lefty that we had to wear while in her august command presence. Having a few scars to show off, Cass and I changed in front of them. (Not as big a deal as you might think - coed showers and whatnot take the edge off for the non vampires, and for the fanged among us...meh.) So dressed to her satisfaction, we were re-read the "I am your superior officer" BS, and we excused ourselves. No biggie - Seriously, I've blown off Princes and other people who could have a detrimental effect, but I'll play her game while we're working this cover angle.

Next stop, to the Lieutenant CommGirls' station where we were requisitioning and embargoing the files - okay really I just deleted the shit out of them, and then I looked a little closer and found out that she'd made a hardcopy. I read her mind a little, and discovered points of interest. Point one: She's in love with the captain. Point two: Ezra(!) came in and dominated her into giving him a copy. I discovered that ezra's got a good obfuscate, but not better than me. So I altered her memory just enough so that Hugo was knifing the private instead of chewing his godless throat out, and we exited. A word on the new uniforms...I like them. They have a patterning effect that shifts a little to match the background. Good thing too.

Ezra knowing we're in town is...Bad News. But it's bad news that we can deal with. Next step is going to be another round of recon of Castle Hill - we'll get the centipede drone to search every square inch of the temple and see if we can confirm that the sarcophagus we saw astrally is live or if it's memorex. So cass, Hugo, and Brenda went to take care of that part while I stayed behind and forged us some orders. Not gonna lie, it's a beautiful set of orders and emails that have been forged from JSOC, putting us on temporary duty with internal affairs effectively giving us license to maim and recruit potential people for spookdom. Also, depositing some message traffic for delivery at 0459 that read (more or less) as follows: "Dear Lt Col Resting Bitchface; unless otherwise directed, me and my squad are gonna go do our thing as outlined in our orders previous commencing at 0500. Love and kisses, Major Dick." Hey, I did what she said and checked in - she's got nobody to blame but herself. This would have been a lot easier had I made myself a full bird, but alas.

Sadly, with every high there must be a low. And the low arrived when my oh-shit alarm went off as I was prepping send ye the message traffic. I reached out and everyone else had a creepy feeling too. Except Hugo. However, after listening around they heard howls. And not the good kind either. Load up everything I can and haul ass for the longest 3 minute run of my life back to the cop shop to commandeer a vehicle that wasn't bio-locked and head for the castle hill. And fuhuuuck did I come into something awesome. They managed to drive off two of the furballs, kill one, send one...somewhere, but the last one was going after Brenda with a passion.

Since I know how to make an entrance, I let them know a second before that I was coming in and had friendly flash-bangy grenades coming in to announce my presence. Brenda was a wee bit saddened by this, but it's her ass I was saving and even though we had a pretty good numerical superiority, the rule of thumb when dealing with the hairballs is that there is no such thing as overkill. So we overkilled, and Brenda's shadow form was miffed at me. I'm pretty sure she wanted to "observe the death" or whatever the hell it is that she does, but really there's a factor of expedience that takes precedence over lab work. Of the bodies, one reverted to a wolf, and the other was a human. Nobody I knew, and quite honestly A) I didn't know Ipswich that well and B) I couldn't have made sense of the remains of that face had I tried. Seriously, I couldn't tell mandible from orbital socket. Rule of thumb number 2, bring silver to that party. Subsection to that rule is "Don't drink from them." Cass kinda broke that rule, and I did not like the look in her eyes. Brenda was off schlepping the centipede to the temple for me, and Cass was about to go bonkers, so I did the rational thing.

I jumped into the armored vehicle I'd liberated and locked the goddamn doors. Hugo throw up a cage around Cass after she'd done a little runner and pulled it back to us, where she finally calmed down as Brenda came back looking a little worse for wear. I'll have to get that from her later. For now, we have to play the waiting game while the centipede runs its' course and finds us all the exits to that temple. Good times will be had by all, and Ezra is going to have a baaaaaad day I guarantee.

A New Player Has Entered The Game

So having holed up for a bit, it was fairly obvious that Cass was not coming back from crazy time any time soon, so Brenda coalesced back into her not-quite-normal form and requested distraction for Cass. I obliged, but damn it was creepy. Vulcan Pon Farr ain't got shit on the crazyface Cass was making. Not fun, even a little bit, and a sobering reminder that even under her absolute control, there's a crazy fucker inside every vampire who wants to play jump-rope with my (or anyones') intestines. Upshot is that I was worried there for a second until Brenda tagged her and in no uncertain terms was she sleeping off the firewater.

That crisis averted, Brenda and Hugo (to a lesser extent) were looking a touch needy. So the plan, in theory, was simple. Bring three troopers in, let Brenda and Hugo top off, apply a little dominate, and everyone goes home. Feel free to pause for a moment after you figure out how it went. My words ain't got anywhere else to be.

So it was great right up until I forgot that these guys were carrying for the field. AKA loaded up with their standard assault rifle/pistol/grenade loadout. And as much as I was the wolf leading the lambs to slaughter, they were, in point of fact, my lambs. And these were some moderately badass lambs. Brenda was having a fine old time feeding, but after a little misstep with Dominate (flippin' rookie mistake), Hugo turned Brenda into a werewolf.

Why can't the gorram plan ever go smooth?

All hell officially broke loose at that point. Trooper2 scrambled like a mofo, and her pistol cleared the holster before I was able to knock it just askew. Brenda bit Trooper1's arm off at the forearm after I knocked his assault rifle offtarget with a smooth shot with my pistol - I meant to do that, but the official report will not so reflect. We didn't even get to Trooper3. Alas. So with the engagement shot to hell, Trooper 2 did I thing I would ordinarily applaud, but my applause was muted because she chucked a frag grenade behind her. And behind her was us. Not happy is a me. So I covered Stumpy from the blast, let everyone know I was going to be out covering the mortal side of the population, threw a quick tourniquet on Stumpy, grabbed him and his arm, and lo did I haul dat ass at warp 1 to catch up. There was a chopper en route already - apparently my lambs spook easily or something. At least we got evac, and yes I did wave them down with Stumpys' arm. The poor LT in charge must have been worried, fortunately for him I just needed a detail to drive the car back to base. Stumpy was out cold and thus giving no trouble, so I gave orders to be notified when he came back to consciousness for a debrief (to wit, I still need to dominate his mind.)

So, having sequestered the pair, I proceeded to dominate them into remembering that we went to the carriage house, attacked werewolves, fell back, were counterattacked by said werewolves, and then we evac'ed. It's not going to hold up under minute by minute scrutiny, but damn - combat's a funny thing, y'know? It's not like you can jot down "12:02; opened fire. 12:02:13; arm bitten off. Fuck." and really remember it. So with that done...oh, my lord was it getting close to dawn. That's bad juju for Major Me. So I stopped by the comms group with an abbreviated report and the UNODIR check-in. Lt Colonel will not be pleased. The werewolves will not be pleased. Shockingly, I have not a fuck to give for their feelings.

A quick jog to the farmhouse, and Hugh and Brenda have stumbled into something weird. Like, a farmhouse with three kids chained under the stairwell with various...things (!), two dead foster parents (less ! - perhaps even understandable, given the rest of the house), and at least one dead body buried in the cellar. With that happy thought, we dozed off.

And were awakened at about 2 in the afternoon by tapping. Whoever said no rest for the wicked was not just whistling Dixie. Since my corporeal form is highly flammable, my noncorporeal form decided to check shit out. Especially since Brenda was groggy. No people about, just tapping at the farmhouse. Weird as shit, but since I couldn't really do anything about it except watch, I decided to check out the hive I had stirred. And damn had I stirred a hive. Lt Colonel Resting Bitchface was in high dungeon, with a house-to-house search happening and a request for my scalp writ to the Pentagon and what is this bullshit about werewolves? The captain's a bit more pragmatic, as I saw him take 5 and call someone to get some silver bullets made. Operation "Blame The Fucking Furballs" is going well. I admit, my inner PFC was giggling at making high-ranking officers reach for the Tums. With that happy thought, I went back to my body...and missed.

I have to admit, there was a moment of "Again with the goddamned Nazis" before I found myself...at a card table. In a 1920's tux, and the makings of a full house in my hand. At least I got that going for me. After winning the hell out of the hand and collecting a pile of banknotes (Oh yeah, I'm definitely dreaming here) I found a paper to discover that I was in or near Cairo. At least it was a Cairo paper, but on the up side Brenda and Hugo are in the dream with me. So the only thing to do is...follow the dream. We saw the brothers Winthrop leaving in a Model T, and we caught the next cab. Habib was kind enough to provide us with cigars and refreshment while our kidneys got jostled. Through Luxor, across the Nile and playing cards some more. Hugo was there first and won a couple hands. And then I sat at the table. The gentlemen were less then pleased, but it was a game, and a game in a dream. Seriously, it feels good to just sit at a table and let the world go away for a minute while teaching people not to draw to an inside straight. Finally I started looking around for the person who created this dream and found Nathaniel watching Nathaniel. 2 and 2 does in fact equal 4, so we walked over to talk to the man. First things first though, I had to concentrate to alter the dream a bit - so I cleaned myself up. It took a second but at least I was cleaned up. Talking to ghosts is difficult when you're being assaulted with your own ballsweat. It's annoying, distracting, and very...ungentlemanly.

That, sadly was the highlight. We talked very briefly, but upshot is that he wants the chick in the coffin just as much as Ezra, except that Ezra became a setite and he became a ghost. Sibling rivalry is such a bitch. Admittedly I lost my shit when he called me a Setite. But really who wouldn't, right? He tried to keep me in there, but I was able to exert just enough control to get my ass out of his dream to wake up. So the bad news is that we not only have to fight a Setite for the sarcophagus, but a Specter as well. Because the gods are seriously bored and figure we need a challenge to keep their interest. For those keeping score at home we're currently fighting a ghost and a setite who are only indirectly helping each other and may sabotage each others' plans as much as ours; meanwhile the FAS military has a presence in that their applecart has totally been upset, and somewhere out there are werewolves who may be perturbed that they're being set up as the fall guys in this. What's life without a little excitement, neh? Now to go find Cass, deal with the silver-leafed bitch, run some interference, collect data from the centipede, and formulate an assault plan. We may need the orphanage evac'ed before we do anything. That's gonna be fun. I may put the shrapnel back in my back for dramatic "I ain't got time to bleed" effect.

Queens' Horsey to Queens' Bishie 3

So having woke up after an unrestful night, with an unknown number of dead people in the basement with me (and let me tell you friends and neighbors that's an unsettling thought) I felt...semi refreshed. First order of business, where the hell's Cass. Apparently she got kinda-sorta buried and was somewhat put out. However on further review, draggin her unconscious body around was inconvenient with regard to the approaching sun, and the expedient option was given mild approval. To business then. Cass was a litttle freaked by the dead bodies in the upstairs, shocked-but-not-shocked as only a cop who worked Vice can be by the kids in the Harry Potter closet, and so she set to getting those things sorted as rapidly ash possible, while I showered off and got my hair properly braided. One does not report in to Lt Colonel Resting Bitchface looking like a ragamuffin, after all. Then Brenda did creepy deadbody shit and they stood up. Oddities were presented in the form of some serious egyptian style tattoos. Fuck. We got that on camera. Afterward, Cass got express her anger upon the two dead bodies upon their walking into the cornfield. Meanwhile, we rifled the place looking for things, and Brenda found some collectibles that went into a wheeliebag (don't ask me the significance, I'm not a crazy necromancer,) and I found a few pictures of their probable associates. After that Cass got the shower and we got ourselves...somewhat presentable. And then we took Hugo with us to meet the wench while Brenda scouted out new digs, our last ones having been utterly remodeled.

The meeting was brief and filled with angry words. I was in a mood because the cop shop had been cordoned off and turned into a fire base. As per protocol, I was relieved of all my weapons. I felt very unnerved by that, and may have been why Cass kinda took the lead. I did adopt a horribly relaxed position while the Lt Colonel read us the riot act because Hugo's papers were not in order, we were bad and we should feel bad and werewolves don't exist. Completely ignoring the three dead ones in the cooler, she had a point. There was a lot of back and forth, we asked her to quit hassling the Pentagon because 99 percent of the pentagon doesn't know we exist, etc, hello it's a frickin' black op. Apparently that didn't register with her because she wants a live one for proof. Even ordered it. We respectfully disagreed with her presumption that such a thing could happen. Okay, we told her to get militarily bent. Cass needed some new togs, which she used to show off her scars from the Emerald Kerfluffle. Blamed werewolves. The Lt Colonel was a little more reasonable after that, and was kind enough to accede to our request that the orphanage be evacuated. Cause, y'know, 3 in the carriage house, they might be using the kids as human shields. Cause they don't have the same respect for life that we do. Ahem.

After that, grabbed my laptop and found it hadn't been screwed with (shocking) and I went to hunt down the comms Lt. - she's got a thing for the captain, and we need to backchannel some things to him in regard to what's happening soon. Bad news, I smelled something like she gotten cut. We spoke and I commented. She looked shocked that I could smell Aquaphor on her and admitted she'd gotten a tattoo. Note to self, not everyone can smell that good. As an enthusiast of the ink I commented with happy sounds and asked her the standard what'd you get where'd you get it is it where I can see it without violating military decorum stuff. She stammered a bit, but I kinda read her mind while she was doing that. It took a couple seconds, and then her mind was an open book like Dick and Jane Learn. The captain "encouraged" her to get an Egyptian cartouche, she can't wait to show him even though it's not something she'd get for herself, and my heart sank. We really need to whack Ezra. That man does nothing but annoy - up to and including encouraging young and impressionable officers to get shite ink.

But, that's a secondary thing; off to review what the centipede found - important shit. Good news, it's got a hell of a good map of the place and it found the emergency exit. Bad news, it didn't find Ezra. Semi-bad news, battery's down to 15%, so we'll need to replace that. Mark that on the todo list and of course we have a problem. To wit; Brenda and not one but two of the goddamn furballs are apparently taking offense at being the fall guys for our shenanigans. Whilst hauling ass toward the action I called 911. I was promptly patched into the military comms where I did as all wise commanders do when the going gets tough, and requested a sniper to flip his thermals on and have a fine old time shooting things.

Bless his heart, he did. The things split up, I took a few moments to survey. No Brenda. But I could smell her, and went in that direction. Cass needed a moment because she still loves her some werewolf blood. Gotta keep telling that shit's bad news, and eventually we'll get through it. Still, we had targets to service, and I was able to catch up - however, the motherfucker dodged. I have no idea how. But he fucking dodged my shot. Sometimes, life just isn't fair. I'll keep my feelings on it to myself, however, as Brenda had what could be politely called a rough night. Seriously, she wasn't dead, but she looked like a half-mile of bad road. She had damn near been decapitated and oh damn did that frighten-anger me. Hauled her back to our new digs and then went rapidly to the copshop, where I promptly requisitioned 10 units of blood, A and O and if he did not produce rapidly, he was going to replace her. I got what I needed and back we went, gogurting the blood down her throat. Not like I was having trouble doing that as someone who was gonna die did a fine trachea removal job on her. (Side note, if I get the chance, that sumbitch is dying.)

Crisis mostly averted, we went to swap the battery out on our centipede. That was a little more problematic then anticipated; the exit that was found is squeezy and probably more for a snake. Fuckin Setites. Also, the pool of poisonous Australian water-snakes was a bad thing. (Note to self, never go to Australia - their motto is "It can kill you in 6 seconds.") A little grapple and swing across, swap the battery, and we're off again. I did leave the grapple and rope just in case. Meanwhile, Hugo was having trouble with the snakes. Apparently his Dr Doolittle schtick does not guarantee that snakes won't kill you. After a little trickery with fire, the poor kid is gassed. We need a couple days off to recharge for the assault. We may not get them. But for the last order of business, I need to keep tabs on the captain through the Lt. With that in mind, breaking into the cop shop was a thing that needed to happen. They upgraded their systems, but given that I'm...pretty good at this computer thing, I can kinda keep up with what they've got. Fractal encryption is a thing - badass, but I'm still better. Admittedly, it took an hour or two to get through everything, but after that I was in and telling the cameras that Daddy wanted to know if Ezra or the captain showed up. The captain did in fact show up, but he's at home working out. That's good, but I have to catch up with the Lt and ask her about the captain and whatnot. Good times, and the Ouchy bullets are loaded. Just in case.

Small Towns...kinda suck, actually.

So playing catchup was easy with the Comms Lieutenant, as she was still chilling out in the cop shop. And they are continually upgrading the security every couple hours. Huh. I wonder if we had anything to do with that. The walk itself was worthy of a moments' digression.

The FAS has caught on to the soothing effect of blue lights, and with that they've installed a ton of them in street corners and whatnot. Watching them, along with thick billowing midnight fog, was an exercise in what it's like to be a Toreador. Seeing beauty and calm in the pebble-droplets of water as the heavier ones cut through, leaving vapor-trails of nothingness reflected in thousands of myriad directions. It was a rather peaceful moment, and really all I needed was a fedora to be in a serious maltese falcon kind of vibe. That got wrecked the moment I looked up and saw the FAS flag. I mean I'd seen it, but I'd never really looked at it. The crossed red stripes, an eagle with a sword in its' talons on a blue field...it looked like the old East German flag of the cold war had a drunken night with the Confederate flag and this was their baby. Their ugly...ugly baby. I was kinda depressed, but I'm not sure if Cass would get it. Silly Brazilian.

That said, the world refocused and I checked out their latest acquisitions in the combat range. A few more people, and what looks like an upgraded 105mm towed howitzer. I suppose taking a leaf from the TF2 Engineers' schpiel ain't always bad - to wit "how do I prevent that big ugly mother-hubbard over there from tearing me a structurally superfluous behind? Answer; Use a gun. If that don't work, use more gun." But while admirable, less may be more in this instance. But honestly, I couldn't exactly blame them. I mean...we kinda started the ruckus, so it's not exactly on us to critique their reaction.

Unto the cop shop we went - the process was annoying and I did have to torch a little blood to let the biometric scanners know that yes, I'm a human. No, really. Check the scanner. That completed to annoyance of me, we went a looking for the for Lt Scott and found her looking over the warboard as everyone checked in from patrols. Good news, we don't have to deal with Colonel Resting Bitchface until tomorrow. Which is going to be when we finally set things in motion to get the fuck out of here, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had a brief discussion with the Lt Scott, asking her a few brief questions about her relationship with the captain - the flashes I got from her mind were rapid and it needed some interpretation. First thing was a shower scene; no real explanation required. then there were a few more things, but what stood out in my mind was that she's starting to think about leaving the FAS. This is a new thing for her, particularly since in her position she'd be looking at a court-martial and death sentence, rapidamente. There was a quick discussion with Cass' head since I was busy considering what a lousy poker she'd be. Admittedly, I'm a leg up in the department - still, she flushes every time the captain is mentioned. Now Cass confirmed that the Lt is a ghoul and she excused herself after that, indicating her stims were wearing off.

A series of epiphanies started rolling in. One, the FAS has a bad habit of riding their troops hard and putting them away wet with these 24 hour 50-50 shifts. It's not that they outright tell the troops to start taking speed, but it's really the only way to stay conscious for that long. This is going to cost them in the long run, as people are going to see their kids go off all dewey-eyed and smiling and return broken and eventually it'll catch up to them. Might take awhile, even upwards of 70 years. But damned if they're not bequeathing their grandkids a revolution. That'll be nice to see. Second, Lt Scotts' a ghoul under stress. She's going to go see Daddy Ezra (who's pretending to be the captain. Another black mark goes next to his name.) Third, I have a great surveillance system at hand. Time to go astral and commence watching. Cass can query the Captain on what the hell is up from his angle while I took a 'combat nap'. Following the Lt was a challenge, if only because the astral fog was a pain in the ass to navigate. Seriously, I could barely see my feet. I did get them at a nice little coffee shop, but...damn. Ezra is good at hiding. There was some reassurance, and I marveled at the human capacity for self-delusion for a minute. I mean, the captain was talking to Cass in his office. And somehow he'd outrun the Lt to the coffee shop where he was telling her that they'd be safe soon. Number two epiphany, Ezra's getting ready to beat feet as well, using Lt Scott as his passport. I'm presuming he's got some serious presence. Shit shitshit. We're going to have to move tomorrow, which means we'll need to feed as much as we can through tonight and tomorrow. I may need to requisition a cooler and some additional blood packs.

Now for the weirdest part of the night - it took me forever to get back to my body. Stupid fog. Once back, I called for a quick headshed in my head. Cass was there, Brenda was out to lunch (literally,) and Hugo was mentally gassed and muttering about meeting Ezra. Fuck me. Once I'd contained my initial explosion, we found out that Ezra'd had a chat with Hugo and was kind enough to offer his number and make arrangements to have Hugo (and his unknown compatriots) make a quick getaway to Boston before the Scourge shows up.

Can you say "The sonofabitch is setting up a trap," boys and girls? I knew you could.

This is a good thing. He, being a devious little rat-bastard, is going to try and throw us to the tender mercies of the local undead authorities and make his escape with the sarcophagus and Lt Scott to rebuild an empire in another locale. Fortunately, I know where the exit is. Now the real trick is going to be outrunning Ezra. I'm going to need to track him through the Lt. They're going to be tied together. That said, doing some housekeeping - I did a remote shutdown on her phone, rerouted all her messages to me, and now...how to plan around Ezras' plan. Job one: Sarcophagus. Secondary: Ezra. If we can neutralize him, it's a good thing. Tertiary, Lt Scott. If we eliminate Ezra from the picture, she's going to be a little bent. Possibly a lot. Note to the inner white knight; shut up and play the damn ball as it lies.

Addendum:

So after contemplation, I have to look longterm. I need a replacement for Andre, and Colonel Resting Bitchface may have volunteered. Andre is not going to like what's about to go down, but here's the base thoughts. Andre's going to set up shop in the farmhouse we, ah, borrowed. We'll have to get it cleaned and fumigated, but it'll make a decent listening post. From there, he gets to sit on his heels for a couple decades, relax, and feed the colonel blood regularly. Mine. Still haven't figured out how we're going to manage the logistics, but it's doable. Meanwhile, he'll be just watching and maintaining a small herd and basically getting a dossier together on Boston. Intel was our major stumbling block here, so I don't want that to happen in Boston. His second job will be to relay revolutionary screeds to the Milliners. Vampire politics being what it is, they may be looking at the Rosselini and eyeing the exit.

In a couple decades, I've got a blood bound flag officer and a lot of training scenarios that'll go horribly awry. The idea is not going to be to turn Boston into New Cagliari; the number of people who truly deserve that fate are few and far between. The idea is going to be Cagliari as the stick, and survival as the carrot. Someone slipped, fell on the lock, and the door opened. All the ghosts got out. Oops.

Of course if they do that, the Giovanni are coming hard and fast, so the League should be gracious enough to stop by with an offer that they can refuse, but wouldn't if they're smart. After that, Col Resting Bitchface Varnham gets her own deal on the table. Stay with us and do things, or walk away, retire, and get old fast. Job one is going to be make contact with the League. Job two is going to be present them with the keys to Boston, if they want them. Job three is to make it work logistically. Job four is to get away with it. Fallback positions, Montreal, QC...Or south. Perhaps the hand should gain a small influence in the League. Just enough to make this feasible.

Time to clock in

So having unofficially taken over the farmhouse as our working HQ for the moment, we've got shit to do. First things first, me and Cass wake up early enough that we can still see the last vestiges of the sun from appropriate vantage points. It's almost surreal and peaceful and, not really zen but thought-provoking. What we've left behind.

And then the zen of the moment was promptly shot to hell by Hugo waking up screaming. Guns out and down, and it turns out he'd just had a nightmare. He had a rather vivid daymare of the rest of us in horrific deaths, and our vengeful spirits blaming him the whole time as he slogged his ass through some desert hellscapes. So that part sorted, Brenda the Unbeknownst To The FAS got prepped to do her thing while the rest of us who were Knownst went to do some things with them. During that little prep-time, a storm had rolled in. Rapidly. It was disconcerting and beautiful at the same time; I could see the rivulets as they crawled down the windshield. Walking into the chow hall was a bit of an adventure, each droplets' splash making tiny explosions. That said, we skipped rain gear and wandered in. Hugo found a place as my protector, while Cass wandered and talked to the nervous knots of people here and there. Apparently the buzz is that weird shit was happening, and the storm was not helping the mood. Meanwhile, I had to tell the head cook exactly what I needed for an energy drink, to be presented to the Colonel later along with a bullpup modification that would make the reload cycle more ergonomic. Despite the plans starting to come together, the undercurrents of the room really put me on edge, like I just had an unyielding desire to punch someone in the face.

The cook shouted it back to a couple E-2-looking flunkies, and basically had a look like he was lord and master of the domain. To wit; "Punch me, Major, for I am a slovenly twit who needs discipline." An eternity later, powershake delivered and a smirk like he didn't need to work out ever on his face, we parted. That said, he pulls that shit tomorrow and I will officially go all Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann on his sorry ass. I decided that for tonight though, my energy would be better expended in the armory. AC/DC, angle grinders, and some metal sealants later, I had a prototype. Daddy like. Having dropped some blood into the powershake, I was ready to head in when the armory went to alert status. Ah, the sweet sweet music. We booked it to the cop-shop and headed on in, getting our asses ready. The tech screens were up and displaying information rapidly. Captain Hugo was directed to gather info on what the funk, while the Major and the Major went into the seat of command presence and figured out what the hell.

In short, weirdness. 4 of the SOSUS bouys had gone dark, and a couple more sensors on land had gone out. The rapid-response team was getting their asses handed to them, and the night was going from the average snafu (Situation normal, all fucked up) to yellow-alert tarfu (Things are really fucked up.) Meanwhile, 4 beacons were utterly stationary the whole damn time. Inquiry was met with the response that those 4 were watching the kids from the orphanage. Filed and noted, because they had bigger fish to fry. To wit, the fish that were coming out of the ocean, shedding their wet-gear and shooting with aplomb and heading for the orphanage. Our job was simple - head 'em off at the pass.

Which we did. It was a relatively easy job (for us), but the odd part was the after-action party. Two other people were wounded and medevac was enroute. They'd been shot point-blank in the chest and left there. It's an old tactic, leave the wounded and make others soak up resources saving them, but after further inspection, there was no small amount of eyebrow raising over their weaponry. Vintage. Like "this belongs in a museum" vintage. We were dealing with some ghouls, from the way they decayed and their blood.

While you go back and click on the Dresden Files and refresh your memory on when you've seen these antics before, I'm going to do a full-body shudder from my epiphany.

Having looted the bodies of all the useful gear, I got a hold of Brenda and filled her in. There were still 4 to sort out, and we were collectively voted Sorters of the Month by Sortinius Sortivian of Sortonia. This is where it got really strange. It turned into something that actually kinda reminiscent of my dungeon-crawling days of breathing. Seriously, trapped doors, secret doors, the whole kit-n-kaboodle. I was the trap-finding rogue, Hugo was a theivy booger. Of note; they're not the best guards, as a few of the orphans had absconded from their care. Also, the 4 that were guarding the orphans? Not so much. They had been tortured after a fashion. The one I'd found was missing his ears, and Brenda told us about two more who were missing eyes and tongue, respectively. Last one's probably shy a nose. But that's another guess. The other thing of note was a room where there were paintings of us. Intriguing, but damn. The lights went out, and when they came back up, they were no longer the good likenesses they were. My painting had been decapitated, and then there were burning, shrieking, other annoying deaths for the rest of the crew. The three orphans in tow didn't get to see that. Lastly, one sarcophagus in the next room. Shifting the lid, we found stairs going down and a ripe slice of fubar awaits. Also, the FAS is way too reliant on technology, as they have all these sensors, but the sensors don't tell the whole story. (Irony, you are occasionally fun.)

The rest of the epiphanies of tonight are relatively simple. Orphans are bait. Traps are there to slow us down. All that's really left is getting to the finale and seeing if we can't take one of these relic ghouls with crappy weapons alive. At stake, a large number of children, this towns' faith in the FAS, and, y'know. Potentially the fate of the world.

I wanna shoot something.

Small Towns Are Quaint. No, Really.

It was a godless dungeon crawl, and it reminded me that I was a bad person at the end of it. Listening and looking at the last door, and I could smell roughly a thousand bats in an oceanside cave. The centipede was hung up and not giving me annnnny details so that was out. In the midst of all this I heard two human heartbeats. One rapid, one slow. From what I could filter, Slow was actually taking a nap.

Somebody wake up Hicks.

Wasn't going to be me though. At least not without knowing what the hell else they'd brought to the party. Astral recon was in order, and with that I needed Brenda to come with. And thus with Standard Instructions left for the care and consumption of mine corporeal ass, we went out for walkabout. And we were not in a cave when we got there. It was more like a ripe slice of the Egyptian Nile.

Fuckberries.

Odds are good that this was some sort of illusion or something to keep astral projectors (to wit, me and Brenda) from finding out what's up. The only way through is through. One thing that Brenda has trouble with (We'll need to work on it) is that she keeps thinking she's bound by normal physics in the astral. This is obviously untrue, given where we are and what we were wearing. Oops - forgot to mention that little tidbit. I was rocking some serious Horus-looking gear, and with a big spear to boot. Brenda was like...some vulture goddess in her whole flesh-cylinder thing. As a sidebar, does Brenda's insistence on asexuality mean she's adapted better to the vampiric condition then I have, or is it simply a function of our paths? A side conversation for another night, because that could go into a shit-ton of philosophical tangents, and currently I gots some shit to do.

First order of business was direction. There was a red line across the way that seemed to be the place to go, so up and over the dunes we went. No idea where the hell we were, and the starfield gave no clue as to where we really were. Either I was in some sort of time tweak to the point where the stars themselves had shifted, or I was in a section of the astral where the special effects crew was kinda lazy. Time stretched, and my body said we were good, but as we got closer the redline resolved itself into a wall of fire. A big. Big. Big wall of fire. I mean, you wonder what the fires of hell look like as a vampire on occasion, and from what I could see, this was the tippy top part. The beast was in the backseat screaming at me to stop being an idiot. Sometimes I listen. Sometimes I don't. And sometimes I call upon long unused skills to ignore the sonofabitch. See, Old Me had more than a few bad qualities, but one that I kind of admired was the ability to jump through fire. I checked the memory banks, and found that yes, I remembered how to do that. I looked, found what appeared to be a passage, and told Brenda. Channeling Montreal memories, I found the mantra track I wanted (It was a special remix of "This is Halloween" if you must know) and blew through like a boss. Brenda was hot on my heels, and she may have been cursing me. I didn't care to take notice, because I was a little busy flying the Millennium Falcon out of the Death Star with every safety interlock disengaged as the Beast finally just said "fuckit, I'm out" and quit crying. Stupid Beast. It took a while but we did finally get through. No clothes, and I think my hair might have lost a few inches from the smoldering, but hey. Did it.

The first order of business after that was to deal with the problem of wee me being unable to see through the elephant grass. Easily sorted, as we're astral. The man can fly, and so I did. And saw Brenda in a minor pickle on account of some mosquitoes that had not passed FAA light aircraft certification, but probably didn't give a shit. Fly you fool. Apparently the safest course through this was in fact trucking down what was for all intents and purposes the Nile. The light did occasionally get dull, so I ran through a few things to keep myself sharp. Okay, so I dragged my toes through the water at a rather high speed and threw up a wicked roostertail. Overall a wicked cool night, beautiful moon (still a crap starfield) until we got to the village where I got chainwrapped and sank for a second. That was annoying as shit, but I shrugged off the chains and got back up. Somewhere along the way, why clothes had reformed, and I was once again a hawk-looking badass. The priest of Sobek rowed his ass out to deny us passage. He told me to get thee down. So I did - and I did pretty well for someone a good 30 feet above the dance floor, thankyouverymuch. That said, I was a little focused on the head guy, and then Brenda sidles over to me and mentions these guys all look alike. Dat's racist. But, upon further review, it was true. It wasn't quite as creepy as 600 Jango Fetts in the chow hall, but damned if it wasn't close - also, more lazy special effects. People, have some dedication to your craft. Meanwhile, the head priest of Sobek was yammering about how we weren't allowed, we were bad and we should feel bad, and the crocodiles were going to eat well.

Obviously, this was for show so negotiation was not a thing. Since I am occasionally a showoff I did a tuck, flip, and smacked Sobeks' head honcho with the butt-end of my spear. He went down like a sack of potatoes, the mobile garden gnomes shrank back in fear, and then Brenda and I went through the freakin' village already. They shrank to a pinpoint as we hauled ass at about Mach .6 to the end of the river. We were almost there. I could feel it. This was what we wanted. The dead bint was going to be at this temple, and we were going to get her and out of the whacked-out town.

Except we didn't. Our cords got yoinked and we were back in our bodies. Hard. What the funk. My eyes opened to a luxuriously appointed limo. So I had to catch up on what had happened to my body while the management was out. Apparently things had gone way left field while I wasn't looking. It took a few minutes, but apparently a Malkavian had invaded the command center, and everyone was a little whacked out. Specifically they all thought they were children. For the record, I'm not getting paid enough for this shit. And I know this was totally driving Cass' sense of decorum and fair play up the wall.

She really needs to survive the apocalypse and get some perspective.

The ride to Boston didn't take too long, and it may have been a part of the "Why yes, we're in charge" flavor that's typical of all these visits that start off on the bad foot. I'm not gonna lie, we probably didn't make the most dressed to impress kind of look as were brought forth to meet the people. Cass took lead and gave a brief rundown on the situation, and how we were tasked with making an offending personage in the person of Ezra go meet his dear and fluffy lord Set chop-chop and posthaste. It took an awful long time for a debrief, especially since initial formalities had to be observed. After the introductions and so forth happened, we were escorted to a 5-star hotel penthouse suite. I checked the computer connections, found them sufficient for my immediate needs, and finally was able to slough off some funds from my investments in Marutius to get some cash up in this bitch. Daddy needed some freaking coin. And for the first day in two freaking weeks, I slept well. This is not a thing that can be overstated, frankly.

Awakening fresh as a daisy, there were staff awaiting to attend. It was an awesome thing. Since I had the cash and I was going to have to impress a bit, I sent for a tailor, hairdresser, manicurist for my feet and toenails, and promptly proceeded to wash a couple weeks of combat and general grunge out of my hair and buttcrack. That took a while, but dedication has it's perks. Suitably robed, I then began to discuss things with the tailor, and that I was in fact going with a spring theme; greens and whatnot were going to dominate. and a little underarmor, just in case.

In with the theme of just in case, firearms were procured, and we all met in the common area of the suite. Cass had the look of "Don't tell me what the bill is", and I don't even want to know what Brenda was doing with the corpses. She did however have a oh-shit bag prepped and ready to rock. Bless her for thinking ahead. I'm not going to lie, once they had the accouterments of personal defense and high fashion prepared, I looked good. And they had 99% of it on site. The only thing they really had to send out for was a walking stick for me. As a gentleman, a walking stick is a necessity. And if necessary, can be used to crack a fool over the head before the pistol clears my small of the back holster to make the world a better place. Oh, and a little origami for "my" primogen, as Joseph Bearpaw is a Toreador light-sculptor.

Finally a 3-minute limo ride later, we went to a grand ball. 250 mortals, a dozen vampires, and damned if I almost wasn't wanting to be back grunging through the basement and sorting out how to bullshit this through the Colonel. Of course, she has her own problems. We'll get those sorted out in due course, but first things first. To the red carpet, appreciative gestures to the assembled crowd. Yes, I'm a freakin' billionaire, and I can comport myself socially. A lengthy apology for our tardiness, and a humble appreciation of the responsibilities of the Prince, saying all the right words to get the game going just in case there are any people from the Hand around. Phrasing can be awkward, but it was worked around. A restatement of purpose and a good show was in order. Cass' mental grumbling about the whole sideshow we were partaking in was giggleworthy, because she is mission focused. Not gonna lie, I was a little worried as well, but these little side trips are in fact necessary to the endgame. (Note to self, get a few dresses made for Suhalia. She'll appreciate them.)

Fortunately, the origami was sufficient to bring the Primogen to a loss of self, which I'm pretty sure scored points, but I think we were both exceptionally taken with her. I think it was her eyes. Purple, magnificent amethysts that even my auspex couldn't find a flaw in. Shit. Logical me was having conniptions trying to keep the rest of me focused. It was not working, as most of me wanted to be in my bunk. The down points of the night were Cass' revelation that there are five freaking families of witches or mages or whatever kicking it in Ipswich. My mental shriekery may have overwhelmed the world for a minute or two, but eventually I got my shit together.

Just in time to see a Nosferatu extend "her" hand to me. I was so being punished for a sin or 5. And on top of it, and someone who had announced themselves as somewhat younger and less skilled, I had to pretend I saw the illusion and wasn't kissing a pustulous gnarled claw. Blecch. Not enough listerine in the world to clear that. But, I managed to bull through, and I so look forward to going back to little old Ipswich to fix that trainwreck.

CAMELOT. ('tis a silly place.)

So, after all the recitations and whatnot, speaking to the king of what are we doing and trying to kind of...well, roll with the crazy because we need crazys' help to at least get off our asses while we do the thing. I got to meet and confirm my status as the new guy - no big deal, as long as we get what we came here for; to wit, free reign to make Ipswich a better place via erasing Ezra and retrieving the dead chick.

The Summers are the first of the Ducklings. Beckett has some sort of metrosexual thing going on, which worked enough to give me pause. Tamsin was certainly beautiful and the sachet of violets gave her a pleasant feel, but in a mortal way. Hecate is a goth who was comfortable being a dark unnoticed butterfly on the edges. Cecily's blind, but she can get around quite well - she almost echolocates like a bat, but she still needs the cane. Those are the ducklings.

Elsa is all of them and more - I kid you not, she has that indescribable something that would make people go to war, men and women alike. I felt need and thoughts that were long, long dead. (Is this some sort of a Toreador Primogen thing, or is it more a Toreador thing. Questions for later.) But the story continues a bit, as I gave her a quick kiss on the hand, I'll tell you one thing for damnsure; her blood is old. And it's got a kick. Damn. Damn were my fangs wanting to come out and play. Not for nothing that I can fake it.

In amongst all this was a secondary conversation that Cass and a Nosferatu had a conversation that I caught bits of. Bonus, he's Hand. Hopefully we can get a meet up soon and get this party for-real started. A little help in this would not go horribly amiss and some delayed help with the cleanup. Eeesh that's gonna be a job itself. And in the long-term, we can get direct intel on Boston and I don't have to worry about sending Andre into the land of crazy.

But, to the stories. So finally getting everything out of the way and touching on sensitive subjects - particularly when Cass prompted me to get the part about the goddamn furballs - we decided to go to...Camelot. Jesus we gotta roll with these guys? Batcrap crazy, but the lunatics run the asylum. Sigh. It's a sad night. And so the duckling alighted, with me and Cecily bringing up the rear - she seems decent enough, but I kinda did the elbow-cupping guide thing and it got a little easier for her, and we went to a carriage. There were coachmen who took care of the rig, and they were packing. Well, I was packing too, so there was a moment. Because we travel in freaking style, there was a painting of a gorgeous scene on the ceiling of the carriage. I think it may have been done in the pointillist style, but nevertheless, an exceptional piece. We took the scenic route, with the ducklings doing an acapella of a Mozart symphony; and doing it justice. Elsa and I spoke briefly, me again reiterating that I wasn't long for being here. The interesting question was when the possibility of domain came up. I respectfully demurred and declined, instead preferring the domain to be given to my childe if it came to that. There was a tsk tsk as I haven't even passed through my first mortal lifetime and a mention of the horrors. Oh Elsa your warning is so well meant. I demurred a bit and then went about gilding the lily a bit, not commenting on the horrors that are right freaking here in Boston. That said we did take the scenic route, and I shamelessly praised Elsa's offer of non-aid, saying her very words were sufficient.

We pulled up to a place that, well, it had an aura. Decaying, decrepit, well overgrown. If there's a picture of this place, the caption would include "Scene of the crime" and "hidden horrors". 7 feet of weeds and malodorous noxious annoyance, and probably a few dead bums. And this is Camelot. Fuhuuuuck. Herding the ducklings was amusing, as I was bringing up the rear. The Summers kids were adorably scared. I mean I'll admit I checked to make sure the safeties were off on the pistols as we went down to the round table and saw some serious shit.

It was, upon reflection, an insane asylum, but everyone had a role to play in the court. The crazy people the FAS couldn't take care came here, apparently. And there were kids. And it was all just...wrong. Like the ship was tilted. There was a discussion, and the prince called for something called 'the dragon feast'. Three people were brought in, and everyone...set themselves upon them. Brenda I fully expected to take part, because this is her Happy Place. Quite frankly, if you take the Arthurian trappings away, I think she'd be pretty happy here. Things to study. It was quite honestly scary - I mean, as a guy who remembers the Sabbat days, I have done some shit. Slaughter, fishing, games of football with Joe as the ball...this took it all. The things we did were for a purpose; this was a madman displaying his beneficence. And he was in charge. Somehow. There's more to this, but damn - this is some fucked up repugnant shit right here. And it didn't end. After finally getting to the meat of the matter, I asked for a day for "counsel with my sages" or something. Gods, anything to get this meeting over with so we can get back to work. The prince leaped on table made a stirring rendition of "we gonna do some shit" and no-shit pulled a flaming sword from his belt.

Hail and welcome Gentle Reader! I fear Goodman Jason leaveth much from the tale, so I shall take quill to parchment and continue in his stead. Our liege King Arthur did find our cause noble and just, and so did bless this quest to rid Ipswich Village from the clutches of the vile serpent Ezra, and indeed allow us to reclaim the items our good count Inhauten of the Far Holy Lands bade us fetch for him. Stolen items, a fair maid and her resting chamber. Indeed blessed by Excalibur itself, which I know for the Angel Gabriel himself, messenger of gods' good works, did say unto me that this subterfuge would end in grand fashion, and gave me the favor of Lady Elsas' holy cup and cherish it, for it would gain us the victory upon the field, and further my chance of being rid of this powerful witchcurse.

Forgive me, for I have not made proper introduction, I am Jacob B'erpah from County B'adahss of the greater far realms of the kingdom. It is a lowly place, and so I must maintain a ruse in order to maintain a semblance of decency. There is Goodman Jason, a peasant but noble in heart, adept with the tools of the peasantry. And thusly cursed with a nights' existence while seeking the path to be a true knight. Alas it was that such a thing was discovered, and banished was I from the Round Table to be forevermore known as Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film. A pox upon the craven Sir Robin who was changing his armor and saw the ruse. Did he not know the history of County B'adahss? You see, as an anarcho-syndicalist commune, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but when my turn came it was ratified at the bi-weekly meeting by the required 2/3 majority that I be the knight of the county. But, as Goodman Jason would not be accepted by such royalty, thus was it agreed (again by the required 2/3 majority as we were dealing with external matters) that I would be reborn Sir Jacob B'ehrpah.

Gabriel bids me to skip a bit. Having made plans to drag the snake worshipper Ezra to open battle that we may meet as men, I was conveyed by the masses to the door of Camelot and thus await carriage to our quarters - my hand grasping the favor of the ethereal beauty Lady Elsa, her cup as conveyed to me by her footman in the person of Messenger Gabriel. While certainly not a favor in the traditional sense, such a grand gesture of the Lady Elsas' care for my person shall not be unrewarded. A discrete gesture, for the Ladys' favor would be noticed by green jealous eyes of the courtiers (fops and delicate ladies who must be protected as citizens of the realm nonetheless.) For it is through me that we shall be redeemed, and this cup of favor must never leave my person. And indeed it did not, all through our conveyance through the land. My squires were acting as if they themselves were bedeviled with a foul humour of the bile. Lady Cassandra, in her stead as my sister and squire Lady B'erpah, hath outreached herself a bit, demanding that we wait as cowards would. Nay, she did not hear the words of our king, who bade us ride at the vanguard - Ezra must know that we are the heralds of his doom. I called for the armor of County B'adahss, and my family sword that I may place it at his throat and send him to his damnation.

My squires failed me most miserably. They refused my commands, making me place my own armor about myself (no matter, the time taken there would allow my liege king time to send forth his mightiest steeds for our conveyance,) and indeed manacled me like a common criminal as if if I were the one touched in the head. Preposterous. My wroth was felt, as most assuredly things will not go properly if we do not cleave fast to the words of our king. Does Cassandra not recall our shame at being cast out? The Good Witch Brenda seemed amused. Witches. One should never fully trust their counsel, but she has been a good and steadfast ally even through all the turnings of the seasons. And Hugo, taken unto our bosom by Fortune itself, a low footpad taken up to be our reeve, seemed to think that the plan was poor. Never. Heart, faith, and steel shall be our watchwords. And with these things, and the favor of Lady Elsa shall guide my hand and sword in this battle, and upon my return there be sweet delights of conversation and the reward of a kiss from the fair maiden. Whereupon after a rest of the victorious, I shall reclaim my seat from the craven Sir Robin. He shall feel my steel in an honorable duel.

The favor of Lady Elsa. They have taken it.

Down With the King (Cass' Take)

I swear on whatever is left of my soul to swear upon, I am going to get that goddamn Malkavian one day. One day, hopefully sooner than later, I want his ass staked, doused in holy water, unstaked JUST LONG ENOUGH to realize exactly HOW much he has fucked up, and restaked. Then burned. His ashes spread across a church ground in Alaska where the sun shines for 6 months out of the year. And polar bears piss.

Whatever plans Jason had for turning Boston to the League are long dead now, and I wouldn't be terribly sorry to see most of this court burn to be replaced entirely by another. But I get ahead of myself, and Jason is in no state to explain. The cluster-fuck that was Ipswitch, has become the cluster fuck that is Boston. The Prince, ugh, I loathe to even call him by title, decided to take offense that we hadn't played introduction and tea time before going to deal with the massive Setite problem. After screwing with the FAS and demanding we go along, I dragged Brenda and Jason's inert bodies into a limo, Hugo helping, and dealt with the Prince's second in command. Who seems suspiciously intelligent and semi sane for a Malkavian but, I digress. She's an oddity, something puts me at ill ease around her but I have no firm things to go on. Anyhow, After being trotted around Boston and put in a nice hotel that mostly served as a reminder of who had more wealth and power here, subtlety is not a Malkavian's forte apparently, we had to explain ourselves to the court of Boston.

"My" primogen, or more accurately, the Brujah primogen Pug Jackson seems a reasonable sort. His restraint and disgust at the later festivities has only earned him more respect in my eyes, even if he plays up certain stereotypes fairly heavily. Perhaps to his benefit however. Primogens abounded and the Nosferatu quietly let me know that they are also Hand, with several pieces of key information for us. That the prince is not in charge, to talk later, and that I was not passing off well as Brujah. My current identity as Dawn Bearpaw - sister of Joseph Bearpaw, he Toreador, and I Brujah, may need some revisiting. Apparently my adherence to the societal norms and reservation is too obvious these days. I remember when I first met Jason, simply beating the snot out of things and outbursts came easier then. Was it because I didn't know the cost of what I was doing and my status as newly changed gave me some leeway in behavior, nevermind the clan association? Or is it that simply the nature of my true clan is starting to set in and show through? I fear it's more the latter, than the former, nearly as much as I fear true death knowing I am now damned. I do not envy the older members of my clan, perhaps I find myself wishing I had some of their powers, but I do not envy their distance from the world. Something to think on when we get back to Enoch. If we get back to Enoch.

After the nudge from a fellow Hand member however, I proceeded to make a grand fool of myself. The toreador Primogen, Elsa...there is something about her. Perhaps it is some power of her clan, perhaps it is something she herself knows, whatever it is, she is the most beautiful, ethereal, and attractive creature I have ever met. More than that though, she reminded me of my youth, which seems so long ago as to be forgotten, and all things human. All things new. The dead opposite of everything I fear becoming due to my clan. Men are usually what I would be interested in, nevermind some early questions on that in my youth, but Elsa is a wholehearted exception to that. Or she would be, had I not immediately alienated her upon introduction. Jason fared better, and for one of the few times since I met him I was truly jealous. This Brujah thing needs some revisiting I believe.

Eternal status musing and pretty (probably backstabbing, and horrifically evil, and it would never work) Toreador aside, I behaved myself in something of a less than dignified manner. Which upon reminding Jason to discuss the problem of the fuzzy assholes we call werewolves, apparently THAT was sensitive enough (the whole thing wasn't? really?), to go to "Camelot".

Camelot, is a decrepit old house, reeking of evil and death, rotting to it's core. Ruled by the madman of a Prince who believes himself to be King Arthur and followed by his knights of the roundtable. Except there is nothing admirable, nor good about this King Arthur. Children, disabled, mortals in a terrible state are kept here, dirty, diseased, and abused. That alone was enough to make my stomach turn. Beyond that though, there was the dragon feast. Something that would make me wish the Prince of Boston dead and refuse to work with him on it's own, but he committed an even worse offense later. As it turns out a dragon feast is where a set of "cops" of some sort, perhaps ghouls or simply a mockery, drag in prisoners. Perhaps they weren't good people, but they didn't deserve that, nobody deserves that. Mortal and kindred alike were set upon them to feast. Brenda indulged herself fully, something I am trying hard not to hold against her. I lost track of Hugo at this juncture, but I myself was too revolted to focus on anything else. This mockery of all that is good in the world, all that one might admire about humanity, in the middle of perhaps the most depraved thing I have ever watched. Granted, I have seen the aftermath of the Setites more than their actions, but this was wholly screwed up. Pug Jackson refrained as well, he looked none too happy to be there, which makes me deem him both sane, and perhaps worthy of dealing with.

The Prince of Boston's sins however, are worse than that. After all of this, he did a rousing "go get 'em" speech, and then promptly did something to Jason that has removed him from all sanity. If the Prince is mad, he shared his madness with Jason. Who now believes himself to be a Knight of the round table, accompanied by an angel, infallible, with some sort of holy chalice (it's just a goblet of ordinary matter but that's not how he sees it), who must go get the infidel Setites now. Somebody have mercy on us, since God won't, this is too much. Nothing I know of can snap him out of it, nor Brenda. After convincing him to at least get armor, he's forgoing guns as a dishonorable weapon, I tied him down which took some doing. Let me repeat that, it bears repeating. JASON doesn't WANT his GUNS. Nothing is convincing him to not charge off into ipswitch tonight, no amount of cajoling convinces him to delay, and he's not in the right state of mind nor prepared enough to go deal with this. It's a death sentence, and a certain recipe for failure. I attempted to dissuade him by removing his "holy chalice", but he wound up simply frenzying. I returned it but, no avail there. Note to self, do not touch the sippy cup safety blanket. Brenda managed to knock him out kindly at that point, for which I am quite grateful to her.

For this, it is for THIS, that I am going to one day ensure the Prince of Boston is put down like the stark raving mad dog he is. Who the hell lets a Malkavian rule anyhow? Who is the power behind the prince that is supporting this? I will have my answers, and I will have some payback as well. That is a dish of revenge that will have to be served quite cold, but we're immortal afterall. One does not fuck with my mission, screw with my friend, and send him to die and in the process ensure the failure of the Hand, and get to get away with it.

Afterwards I attempted to go feed in peace, having spent a bit more than I wanted to in subduing Jason and earlier events, and found myself a nice little goth coffee house. Goths are so easy to feed upon, because they're so willing. I'm attractive enough I effectively have them eating out of my hand as I eat from theirs. Granted, I take longer than some of my kind to feed, because I would prefer none of them wake up the next morning feeling worse for wear, which means it's more of a snack buffet than anything. Everyone goes home happy, with no more guilt on my conscience than I walked in with. As is my usual luck however, when I went to leave I noticed the distinct sense of three other vampires using Celerity. One who hid in the shadows, two who approached me. "Someone" wanted me in a car to go speak with them. They're important don't you see, so I get to be kidnapped and don't need to know who. This got old decades ago, I'm quite tired of being the neophyte who gets kidnapped whenever someone wants to talk to me. Did these people never have mothers to teach them better manners?? If they'd at all bother to perhaps oh, ask semi politely, they'd get a much better reception from me. As it was however, while I know I am capable in a physical fight, one against three who already had Celerity activated wasn't odds I cared for. I told them off, staying quite well in the public eye near the coffee house. Alright, perhaps that's cowardly, but, so is kidnapping people. They weren't any pleased about it, but reminded me I could not hide here forever. That much is true, but a witty rejoinder I didn't have. Either way...using what I learned the last time I was in Enoch I gave them the slip in the shadows myself, and weaved my way back to the hotel without being followed. Dimwits. I'm in no mood to play right now. I have a setite, werewolf, and masquerade problems in Ipswitch, all brewing, while dealing with this insanity with the Prince, my tolerance for bullshit is at it's limit.

Returning to the hotel to take my watch over Jason, who I hope comes back to his senses one day. I do. Brenda says he's gone crazy before. He'd mentioned something about some horrific things he'd done , telepathically, during the dragon feast...disturbing as that isn't the Jason I know. Another topic to discuss with him when he comes back to his right mind. Frankly simply some time to decompress and think was what I wanted, so I stayed in while Hugo and Brenda went to feed. I hear them returning down the hallway now, but it sounds like they are not alone.

We do not approve.

So things happened while I was mentally out and breaking out my impression of the monty python; apparently everyone fed, declined a rude invitation, and then brought one of the inviters back for a discussion with a stake in his chest. Some shenanigans ensued, and well, apparently Cass got a little wild. After which the group was nice enough to consider what to do with the knocked-out batcrap crazy vampire when he wakes up all crazy and cranky.

It's nice to be loved. But Cass and Hugo went to a pet store or 5, while Brenda acquired a few winos. It was an undeclared race, and Brenda won. Two winos were provided first, and then the pin on the Jason-grenade was pulled.

Which brings us to the parts I remember; it really starts off on a down note so think of a cute fuzzy kitten while reading this next part. I woke up with a full belly and two dessicated bums, and that sinking feeling anyone of an age gets when they're coming out of the visit to crazytown and they realize that they have done screwed the pooch severely. Also, I was hammered. Like Bacchanal of 97 hammered. All of this made for an interesting hour or two while I waxed depressed about the human condition, my own sorry ass, and my utter inability to control myself. Gradually sobering, it was one of those "I got shit to do" times. (As a sidebar, I truly envy Brendas' inhumanness sometimes. Sometimes.) But, I went from Crazytown to the suburb of Drunksville called Sad, and then a final stop and Hangover City.

I hate Hangover City. Nothing's nice. From there we finally wound up in what-next-ville. Which after some discussion turn to "Back to Ipswich", on account of we got shit to do there. Put on the Rich-guy persona and we rented a nice SUV (it had a bar, but I did not spring for the hot tub), hauled ass back to Ipswich, and found out that as the entire command structure had been replaced (Sent to Bethesda for medical evaluation), the operation was being stamped "successfully concluded" and the wrapup was in play. Well...there goes the easy path to world domination. Dammit. Mountain to Mohammed time. And, all of this gave me something to do so I wouldn't sit and brood about my miserable state like some whiny Louis - seriously. So after all the initial interviews and discussions, we're heading to the Colonel tomorrow via proper chopper, and then back to Boston for a meeting with our newest personage from the Hand - an old Nos named Benjamin. Thankfully, my dayplanner is clear for the moment. I mean the dead chick ain't getting any deader, and as I recall, it's difficult to keep a stout defense up for any length of time. So at least a couple nights of longterm prep will not go amiss. So I bought the farm. Well, the farmhouse we were borrowing for the time being. I had an hour to kill, and we're gonna need a staging area for any eventual attack on Boston, if it goes the violent route. Livestock's getting sold. Cause I can - hell I might turn this into a rental property later on down the road. ROI is a thing.

Next night, I felt better. I break into Bethesda's cloudstore, build Brenda an alias so she can be my medical consultant. I get to da choppa, and an hour later we're in Bethesda. Hugo was given the job of taking the SUV back to Boston and dealing with another short-term job. The flight was smooth, the in-flight movie sucked, and service was tolerable. We were checked in, DNA scanned, and then we headed to the patients. Brenda conducted interviews, and...yeah, they're a little crazy. It'll wear off, but afterwards...this is an incident that's going on their records. These are the sorts of things that wreck careers. And again, I have a little seed of bitterness toward the Prince and his...knights. Sure, the Prince thought he was doing me a favor by bringing me into the court. But these guys were all just wrong place wrong time when a Malkavian came to town. Given what I've seen of the FAS, I hope the command structure is okay with being in the service industries after they muster out. Even if we save their careers, they're kinda hosed.

An aside for the moment - I can, with effort, forgive the Prince for his deeds with my greymatta. He thought he was doing me a kindness, a favor if you will. Though this is madness, yet there be method in it. As I have eternity to work out my mental quirks and kinks, it's a bump in the road. I can take the long view, and see the merit of his actions - as much as they have rustled my jimmies in a most unpleasant manner. That's a revenge that I can take in installments. But to simply go in and drive 50-some mortal to madness, causing all sorts of mayhem and attracting an undue attention to all sorts of things, not to mention their lives and careers have taken a dramatic turn south on a whimsy, is an abuse of power that will not go quietly into that night. I spent one eternity being an unpleasant fellow to the mortals, I will condone only Brendas' unpleasantness in this - and that only because I understand far and fully the necessity of that unpleasantness.

The solution to this, obviously, is that a new Prince must be acquired. Perhaps even a new political structure entirely. In the midst of all this is a second dose of Vitamin Jasonblood for the Colonel who tells people she's 30, but is really 36. With that sorted, back to Boston and the meeting. I get in touch with Hugo, and find out he's been contracted for a job; to wit, stealing a brooch from the Toreador Primogen. Oh hell the fuck yes. And mad props to Hugo, he got a boon out of the deal contingent upon success. Now, the last time he tried breaking and entering I recall it not going quite so well - we're gonna change the odds up a bit. I'll need a modeler, a few hours of runtime, and the brooch. I'll have to talk to Elsa about it, get a boon from her for keeping the real brooch in her dainty hands and alerting her of such a travesty, hand the fake to Hugo who gets a boon from the Nosferatu, and then we come back to cash them in later.

Don't hate the playa. Hate the game.

So now, the meeting with the Nosferatu. We kept it short, especially since a fair chunk of the lighting was Bens' own bioluminescence, and there were a shit-ton of crabs. The deal is thus. There's three vampires of about 16th century vintage running, well, New England. One of them is the one who was the mysterious Boss, and two others who would be Sabbat members if they weren't killing Sabbat members left and right. Also, one of them by the name of Warwick has compromised about 99% of the Nosferatu. The next bit is where it gets interesting. With regard to the Soul Vault, he didn't have any location. We discussed, and it seems like my longterm plan to flip if not the Milliner branch of the Giovanni, then all of Boston might be viable.

Now to make it happen.

Plottus Interruptus

So, with things satisfied and the plan coming together, it was time to clean house. Knock out all the jazz in Bethesda, take out a few other things, and then leave a note at Bens' Crab Shack if we needed some intel. Alas, plans have a way of not coming together. Reality is such a cold-hearted bitch.

We arrive and standing at our door is a guy in a trenchcoat. And shoes. He apparently misplaced his pants, which did nothing to improve my mood. Then he asks if I am who I said I was a couple days ago. Just in case he's the distraction for the kidnappers, my sidearm found its' way into my hand and aimed at him. I asked (politely, I thought) why and who was asking. You know, the basic questions you ask when a flasher is at your door and ready to deploy. Turns out he was there to tell us that the forces were gathering at the Boston Common baseball field. To fall upon Ipswich.

Right. That.

Having acknowledged his message, he was free to do his thing. So he flashed Cass. On the one hand, I will admire dedication to a bit, as he was in fact ready for action - despite having a gun pointed at close range. On the other hand, I had shit to do, and he was...not blessed.

With that I had to table the electronic breaking and entering; the only way I could have had enough time was by burning all the blood in the hotel, and I was just not up for that. So that was marked on the to-do list, I prepped my toys and we found a wagon. The drive was annoying, as such things are - pulled into the copshop to locate the MIA Lt Scott and the captain. They redecorated. I tweaked blood to breathe, bodytemp, and so on - it was annoying, but it had to be done. Then I asked if they had her location. I commandeered a comm station and popped a locator trace. As she was heading north, I called the local station and got a hold of Lt PencilNeck, who was so eager to please and clueless it made me want to strangle him. My kingdom for a freaking sergeant. Seriously, he was a step behind me the whole way. But, he was useful enough to understand what I wanted and he made it happen. And I would not be surprised if he got off the video with me and was like "That was so rad." Do people still say that? Meh.

Frankly, I didn't have high hopes for the chase - Ezra didn't get where he is by being stupid, after all - but I was playing with house money, I could make him switch to an alternate plan, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to panic and fuck up. I'm generous like that. Eventually I was able to bottle up Ezra and Lt Scott, giving them a parting gift of sorts, and After making sure the town was on lockdown, all the cops were aware, and Ezra was going to have to go to plan B, I let them have their fun and went to go link up with the Boston folks.

Brenda had grown a big set of chesty parts and went trick-or-treating. Well...I suppose it could have gone worse, but still. Things to do. Hecate and Beckett were there representing the Toreador, with Pug and his boys for the Brujah. And...the knights. And, because my life is an amusement to someone, there was the tremere regent. That was enough, but damn were we a messy team. Still, it was a mess as we went down - the sabbat were one, the local werewolves another, and a third force I couldn't really identify but damn was it messy. Hecate barfed, which made me groan inwardly. Way for the clan of the rose to represent.

Quite frankly, I can't blame her - I mean she might be like 30 or 40 years under the night, and I'd lay a small bet that she'd never seen an abattoir like this before. It was impressive, and I was able to pretty much trace out the whole battle as it went down. Of note, a couple werewolves that were dead were still in their deathblender form. A scientific curiosity, or an invitation to get a rug? Who knows, really. Alas, me without my skinning knife and with a timetable to keep.

Anyhoo, after that we got down to the burial chamber, whereupon the regent said it was magically trapped. Message filed under Q for "No Shit Dick Tracy." Disarmed, and dealt with. The burial chamber was in fact, fit for a queen; beautiful carvings, gold, gems, and a coffin of exquisite manufacture. That was open...ish. Nobody touch the cursed gold. Seriously. We locked up and left...but it was more surreal somehow. Bad thoughts kept intering my mind. Imagining popping the Dumbass Tremere in each eyesocket and taking his heartsblood...on principle. Very, very creepy that my mind actually considered it. That done and dusted, the Tremere wanted the coffin. Sure. No.

The trip back up was still kinda creepy, and all the blood. Again Hecate lost her mind and went all blood-happy on at least one of the gallons in there. Of course, my tut-tut action lasted for as long as it too for me to realize just how many gallons were up in this beast; and, well, I may have touched my tongue to the wall a little. Brenda was giving me a side-eye kind of look. And when she's the decorum police, something ain't right. After we exited

Finally, we grab the coffin, get it back to our Entry Tomb - taking the makeup and clothes for Suhalia - and then crack a bone to make a portal to the underworld. After that, Brenda's sire hiked us to a boat. He was verreh pleased and to show off, we got a ride back on a legit Roman Trireme. As accommodations go, it wasn't bad. I woulda sprung for the one with a jacuzzi though. A week later, we're on the shores of Enoch. Life is good. Sort of. All the plans for Boston are in the cooler. Alas. I suppose with some time to reflect, I can make it work. The Colonel is gonna be my ghoul, and then I have to get her a cushion to land on for when she gets punted out of the FAS service. I'm thinking a weapon mods company. Not making guns, just making them...better. That said, I'm settling into Enoch again. Suhalia's thrilled. Life kicks ass. But we'll consider more later.

Epilogue:

Someone get the phone, because I fuckin' called it! Seriously, it took them two months to gently send the Colonel to her retirement party. And now, we're going to get her to her next career; designing and implementing modifications and improvements for weapons. Keep her nose in the game, and give her a little bit of an in when we get ready to take Boston. Meanwhile, other plans are on hold; we may have to step up or work on our timetable for QC. That said, Suhalia was thrilled to get the things I brought for her - and after a long, long day of working out, she gives a great massage. She is of course, acceptable company. Brenda's creepy, but I do need to get her input regarding the Stick for the League takeover. How do you make a bomb that affects the land of the dead...and how big would it have to be to put a crack in a soul vault.