So we left off last time with Otis just having killed Asif and stashing his body in his Lair. He heads back to the morgue, and gets a call from Josh. Josh, having returned to town after parting ways with Weaver back at Derrick's place (whereupon Weaver just went home and drank until he passed out), wants to come talk to him, and as not just any random jackass can get into a hospital morgue, Otis lets him in the service entrance. Josh formally introduces himself to Alberto and asks if the blind elder vampire has any plans regarding the current situation (survival), and if there's anything he can do to help them out (not really). Alberto mentions that he's planning on taking Weaver up on that offer of crash space, but as it's already about 2am, they'd rather hold off on setting that up until the beginning of the following evening where they don't have to worry about a wrong move or two leaving them racing sunlight.
Josh tells Otis that he left a note with the Society, but he's realized that they might have to regard Barbara as an enemy and that she might aim the Society after them. Alberto points out that he's had one or two brushes with the Society in the decades he's been in the city, and for the most part they can be somewhat permissive of vampires as long as you're not slaughtering people. Josh asks Alberto if they should have to worry about some sort of power vacuum and accompanying political struggle among the vampires now that Derrick's gone off the deep end[0], and Alberto just shrugs because he's honestly never had any reason to care what the 'surface' vampires do (and he's not convinced that's changed) and thus he actually knows very little of what's likely to happen.
Otis asks Josh what he's working on accomplishing, especially by trying to get the Society involved in what's going on. Josh says he's working on 'allies and information' and Otis rightfully points out that those are a means to an end, but not any sort of goal or solution to the problem. So they settle on 'finding and killing Derrick and the beast' as a goal. They don't know anything about the creature that Derrick has summoned, but Derrick they know a bit about. Otis comes up with the idea of waking up Weaver from his drunken stupor in a few hours and going after Derrick during the day.[1]
So Josh leaves and afterwards comes up with a decent excuse to get his other cover, Alice, the day off from her job at the clinic so they can go out and fight Derrick. Otis naps for a few hours, then goes out to buy an airhorn, some cymbals, and a metal bucket. At about 8am he drives through somewhere and picks up a greasy breakfast sandwich and some Gatorade sneaks into Weaver's house where the mage is sleeping off a lot of booze. He proceeds to blasts the airhorn right next to Weaver's head to wake him up. He then explains to Weaver what's going on as he hands him the breakfast sandwich and the Gatorade to help him recover from the expected hangover. Weaver's a little pissed and unsteady, his British accent keeps cutting in and out, but in the end Otis shares his plan:
They're going to go out into a sunlit field somewhere, teleport Derrick out under the sun, and beat him like a piñata to help the sun's rays destroy him.
Weaver agrees and lets Otis hang out while he gets cleaned up. He goes and harvests some mana from his hollow, and the group arranges to get together at a spot near the highway where a bunch of land has been cleared for development, where it's open to the sky and there isn't any easy means of hiding. Josh gets some orange vests and clipboards and hard hats so it's easier to look like they're supposed to be there. Otis puts in a call to the Wrong Alley pack, and manages to rustle up a little backup from them, in the form of Bernard, Mike, their wolf-blooded packmate Luke Henderson, and the Gargoyle. They all get together in the cleared space, with Luke carrying a shotgun wrapped in a tarp, and the Gargoyle has a bit of a freakout upon seeing Josh[2] but keeps it together.
They gather in a circle around a designated spot and Weaver performs a ritual casting to teleport Derrick into that space, though he's having trouble nailing down his exact location with sympathetic magic despite having his personal journal. But the ritual completes, and... a fountain of shadow bursts from the ground?
It comes out of the ground and sprays into the sky like someone striking oil in an old cartoon. It gathers into something like a cloud and begins unfolding into an owl shape, and Otis can sense through the mystical 'marker' he put on Derrick a while back that Derrick is in the cloud somewhere. He immediately melds with the solid shadow, diving into it, but even as powerful as he is, he struggles with the power of the shadow beast. Josh considers taking on his demonic form and assaulting it as a swarm of techno-organic insects. The werewolves and their packmate are caught off-guard and reassessing the situation.
Weaver panics and, risking Paradox, uses Time magic to jump back in time far enough to stop himself from casting the ritual in the first place.
So as far as everyone else is concerned, just when he's about to begin the teleportation ritual, Weaver suddenly stops and says he came back from the future where this went completely off the rails and they were unprepared. He describes what happened, and Luke is like 'y'know, this is officially beyond me' and wanders off. Otis is pissed -- partially because he's certain that Weaver panicked and jumped back without giving him enough time to kill the owl-thing, partially because he's refusing to crack one more book to deal with this. He tells them to call him when they can kill the creature, and he heads home. The werewolves and the Gargoyle also leave.
Josh and Weaver try to figure out what to do now, what went wrong, and Weaver points out that now that he has a good look at it, he's petty sure the creature has definitely taken some inspiration from the strix because of Derrick's connection to it, and maybe they can use that. Josh suggests that maybe Weaver figure out some means finding where Derrick is at the moment and start from there, but at this point one of the construction crews working in the area has become aware of their existence and comes over to see what's going on. Josh is ready to just leave before they get in trouble, but Weaver, grumpy, tells him basically the truth since it sounds so unbelievable. The man just stares at him and begins calling the cops.
At about this point we jump ahead to that evening. Otis begins helping the Baddacelli relocate themselves to Weaver's basement. Weaver's out at the moment because he and Josh are on their way to Chemical Reactions (Leland's club), hoping to find someone they can talk to about this mess. And when they get there, they're immediately pointed out by Leland and introduced to his new friend...
Zac's new character, Lawrence Stills, a Nosferatu troubleshooter. After Derrick diablerized the strix, Humfrey notified his sire (who helps run Charleston), because Humfrey tells his sire everything. Out of concern, Humfrey's sire Francis dispatched an agent to quietly insert himself into town and watch Derrick in case he is a problem that has to be dealt with. And tonight, he's gotten the call that that time has come.
So after introductions, Stills goes up to the VIP room with Weaver, Josh, and Leland as Weaver explains what's gone on. It's made clear that the vampires are already moving behind the scenes to make sure there's somebody in a position to keep the vampires in town in line when all hell breaks loose, and Leland leaves Stills and the others to get a handle on what's going on. Stills, however, doesn't quite trust them on account of the fact that they are -- as Leland has referred to them -- 'a wizard and a blogger,' and not vampires.
They're interrupted a couple of minutes later by Leland, who's gotten off the phone. He informs them that are plans in place to prevent a power vacuum in Morgantown, and official announcements will be made to the city's Kindred in due time. He's not at liberty to announce who's going to be in charge, but that person has authorized him to pass along to Stills that Josh and Weaver can be worked with and that they can do whatever they have to do to resolve this without getting anyone killed. Weaver steps forward and says that he can't speak for all of the mages in Morgantown, but he would like Leland to pass along to whomever's going to be in charge that they should work out some sort of alliance for the immediate future. Josh asks Leland if he knows anything about the Society, and Leland says that his occult knowledge begins and ends with "I'm a vampire in a nightclub" but he knows that the people in charge of the Society have an arrangement with the Invictus (implying Barbara).
Leland then clarifies for the non-vampires in the room that he's just serving as a point of contact here. That there is a larger vampire government at work (the Invictus). And while I so very wish I'd thought to use this wording at the time, he says in so many words that government leads to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy leads to red tape.
But in the meantime, he leaves them to it. Stills proceeds to explain to the others exactly what brought him out there and that he's been keeping an eye on things and knows roughly what they've been up to. He offers the theory that Derrick consuming the shadow owl they encountered triggered his nascent diablerie addiction, and that's what sent him after Alberto and off the deep end. Weaver thinks it's more that the failed attempt that really was the breaking point, but either way it's happened and now is the time to deal with it.
And we left off there.
[0]-- Not that most of the vampires in Morgantown have any reason to know what's happened in literally the last couple of hours.
[1]-- I think this might have been precipitated somewhat by Alberto explaining that he has methods of remaining awake during the day that wouldn't apply in the morgue (the True Worm merit from the Nosferatu clan book). But I don't exactly keep strict track of everyone's dialogue in my notes, especially if I'm playing a character in the scene.
[2]-- As a reminder, beasts and demons don't mix.
No comments:
Post a Comment