Let's Play VtM: Night Empire

[Gondolin]

What root said. UPDATE, goddamn it!

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

C. Going all guns blazing into the Bishop of Oxford's palace threatens to blow the Masquerade - it'll be splashed all over the next morning's papers. On the other hand, the Special Branch getting into a (likely messy) firefight with guys holed up in the Bishop of Oxford's palace still does't do us much good, and is going to take an impressive fucking cover-up - it's not like Britain is going to be in danger from people with a fanatical uncertainty about the Resurrection any time soon, and as a hostage, in 90% of probable situations, he's totally valueless. The bishop's residence is 10 minutes out of the city centre, too; it's off a residential road. All-in-all, not good for a night-time raid.

 

[grotsnik]

All The Faithful Departed



All too fast, London gets away from you; the car turns up onto the Hammersmith flyover, the crass colossal billboards fall back, and in an instant, there’s nothing left but endless grimy terraced houses far below; in another instant, only darkness, spattered by torrents of rain.

Iacomo’s response is simple, and to-the-point.
‘Meet you there.’

Your communication with the local authorities, however, takes a little more work, as you’re passed back between various snarling voices asking you various questions about the history of the London Camarilla; you’re only six miles from the boundaries of Oxford when you finally get through to the right person.
‘You have reached me.’
‘Sire,’ you say into the phone, trying not to sound too harried, ‘I seek permission to enter the bounds of the city of Isis, for myself, a Baron of London, and for an Archon of the Camarilla and his retinue.’
The old Prince of Oxford is silent for a moment.
‘State your case,’ he says. ‘Hunters were mentioned. I do not believe hunters are to be found in Oxford. If they were, I should already have dealt with them.’
‘I’d be surprised if they have acted openly within the borders of your city,’ you tell him, ‘but I am quite certain that they’ve holed themselves up in the residence of Bishop Shaw; the kine authorities, I fear, already have the building surrounded - we have no desire to intrude upon your affairs, sire, but we have to act quickly. The Archon knows these hunters well, and he has a personal debt to settle with them.’
A slight wheeze or growl, followed by another short silence.
‘You are gladly granted permission into the city of Isis, citadel of dreaming spires,’ the Tremere says. ‘Nor will you go unaided. My childe will attend you at the scene, and with her the gargoyles of Oxford. They will remain out of sight, beyond the wit of the kine...but they are there if so required. My childe would be glad to present herself to the Archon.’
You begin,
‘I’m sure he’d be honoured to-’
The Prince of Oxford has hung up on you.

*

You park the car out in the fields to the north of the small suburban scattering to the west of the city, headlights off, as instructed, and scurry through the rain and over the fence towards the designated house, blazing with light and emitting a steady thump of obscenely loud bass.

Inside, the walls are hung with cheerfuly multi-coloured banners; helium balloons bump and loll softly up against the ceiling of the living room.
The short, sideburned Geordie superintendent who introduces himself as ‘Donaldson’ explains to you, without a trace of humour,
‘The family that lives here, the, uh, Gormleys, sent letters around to their neighbours a week ago explaining that their seventeen-year-old daughter was going to be having ‘a few friends’ around tonight. We’re a decent distance from the Bishop’s home on this side of the suburb, so we’re not expecting to be observed, but we thought the targets - or the locals - wouldn’t be too concerned if they noticed a lot of cars pulling up here.'

As he leads you through into the marble-topped kitchen, where cratefuls of beer and alcopops are lying buried beneath laptops and mounds of wires, Donaldson adds, as an apparent afterthought,
‘They’re in a safe place, of course.’
A long-haired man in shirtsleeves is at the centre of the technological jumble; he gives you a polite nod and returns to his work.

‘Alpha is spread out in the copse on the eastern side of the house, covering the main road and the front entrance,’ Donaldson says, jabbing at the fuzzy satellite image displayed on the nearest monitor. ‘Bravo are watching the windows from the northern side - there’s a flat first-floor roof they should be able to scramble up onto. Charlie are watching the garden - it’s walled, but there’s a gate opens out into the school playing fields. Besides which we’ve got four vans in reserve to cover the perimeter and evacuate the local civilians once it all kicks off. We know there’s a guard in the garden, and two watching from the upstairs windows above the front door. They’re carrying assault rifles. No sign of the Bishop, and we can’t tell exactly how many more are in there. At least five.’ He gives you a plaintive look that’s presumably meant to inspire confidence and trust. ‘Candidly, sir,’ he adds, ‘we haven’t been told much. I mean, Christ...who’d want to kidnap a bishop, in England?’
This should be simple enough.
You stare at him for a couple of seconds, as if trying to decide whether he can be trusted. Then, nodding to yourself, you take his arm and lead him back away into the hall.

‘All right,’ you say. ‘This is beyond classified, Donaldson. But the way I see it...you have a right to know. We think these fanatics, these sick fucks, may have brought some weapons into the country. Hallucinogens, perhaps. A dirty bomb. Seriously nasty stuff. Perhaps they intend to execute the bishop and release it in one of our cities simultaneously. Perhaps it’s a ransom job. We simply don’t know. But your men have to be ready for anything in there. The specialists will be arriving shortly, and if your boys find anything...off in any way, they need to leave it well alone, make contact with our specialists, let them swoop in. Understand?’
Donaldson gapes at you.
‘Off,’ he ventures. ‘Off how, sir?’
‘If we knew that, Donaldson,’ you say, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘if only we knew that.’
Unfortunately, he persists.
‘They told us these were rag- uh Islamists,’ he says. ‘But they don’t look like them, sir. They don’t look like Muslims.’
You gaze into his eyes.
‘Yes,’ you tell him, gently, ‘they do.’
After that, it’s only a matter of ensuring that everyone else in the house is on the same page as Donaldson and yourself.

*

You wait outside in the darkness, trying in vain to ignore the appalling bass thumping out through the night, but it’s another twenty minutes before the Prince’s childe arrives.
She comes by bicycle, rattling erratically through the mud and the broken soil, hopping off before the vehicle comes to a standstill.
‘I came from a study group,’ she explains, tossing the bicycle carelessly down and slipping off her black gloves. ‘Kempe, Malory Kempe. You must be Mr Sommers.’
You shake her hand.
‘Pleasure,’ Kempe says. ‘The gargoyles are well back, don’t worry - lurking near an old scout cabin in the woods further back along the road. To be used at your discretion. The Kine taken care of?’
‘They’ll do as they’re told,’ you reply. ‘Will you be joining us as well, Miss Kempe?’
‘Malory,’ she says, turning vaguely into the darkness to . ‘We’re too far from the river to make use of Mother Isis, but I think I can lend a hand without raising the suspicions of our brave boys in blue, yes. Where’s the Archon?’
Iacomo says, from the shadows,
‘Here.’

It’s all you can do not to flinch.
The Archon steps forward into the light cast from the windows of the house.
‘I’ve been reconnoitring,’ he says, without glancing at you. ‘Your man Fellowes says there are twelve hunters inside the house, and another kine - presumably the bishop - who’s frightened, and angry. Another aura, too, a Kindred, barely discernible. Are we all prepared here?’
‘The surveillance and command team are yours,’ you tell him, ‘but the assault squads are already in the field - forgive me, Archon, I cannot-’
‘It’s all right,’ Iacomo says, waving a hand. ‘I’ll speak with them directly via the command team’s radio - a few words should do the trick. Well done, Sommers. And you are?’
Kempe bows low.
‘Prince Grocyn sends his salutations and gratitude,’ she says, ‘as well as a pissed-off Tremere and an army of gargoyles, ready and at your command. He...also begs that you forgive the crassness of his request, but - should his suspicions about the Society’s presence here be warranted - he...believes he might be entitled to a share of the proceeds.’
The Archon gives her a long, lingering stare.
‘Archon Iacomo,’ he responds, 'presents his best wishes to Prince Grocyn, and expresses his bewilderment at any mention of a ‘share’. Perhaps if the Prince had suspected the presence of these hunters, and their motives, and had kept them in play regardless, hoping to scoop them up at the end of their little crusade in one fell swoop and so profit...but seeing as this would be an act of gross selfishness with little regard for his duties towards his city or the Camarilla, I can hardly well countenance such an absurd idea.’
Kempe’s expression does not flicker.
‘Indeed you cannot,’ she says. ‘The Prince used, therefore, the word ‘might’. He might well be entirely wrong, and he would always bow to the superior ruling of an Archon of the Camarilla upon such matters.’
Iacomo smiles, darkly.
‘So,’ he asks. 'What can you do?'

*

The plastic cuffs are cutting into the flesh of Shaw’s wrists. He has no idea why the thugs - or the holy brothers of Saint Leopold, as these maniacs insist upon calling themselves - bothered applying them when they dragged him back to the house. It isn’t as if he’d be able to put up a fight against them.
The door opens, and he’s shoved forcefully through.

‘I -’ he begins, and halts.
His study has been transformed. The bookshelves have been emptied, their contents tossed carelessly onto the floor and - judging from the wreckage inside the hearth - in certain cases burnt upon the fireplace. In their place stand...well...
‘What is this?’ he asks. ‘What are all these things?’

Pacelli glances up at him. He’s sitting in the bishop’s own reclining chair - the cheek of it - cradling a small golden globe in his hands.
‘Why,’ he says, ‘the fruits of your labour, my lord Bishop. Have you ever seen such a hoard of sacred treasures? Your intercession with the archivists led us to the thigh-bone of the blessed Aethelbert. The phylactery of the heretic Pelagius was discovered on Salisbury Plain, thanks to the message writ in your copy of his scriptures. And this rather gorgeous ivory-dagger necklace, recovered by your colleague the Bishop of Guildford, belonged to Sparrowhawk of Abingdon, who, if I’m not mistaken, may well have been one of the very fiends we hunt.’

Shaw stares.
‘I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘All this for...for a treasure hunt?’
‘Of course you don’t understand,’ Pacelli replies, smoothly. ‘Because you’re stupid, and you’re stubborn. We did not recover these relics for their financial value or out of some misdirected passion for history. You are standing in the centre of an arsenal - an arsenal which, thanks to the milksop blindness of your church, has gone forgotten, and some of the greatest weapons in the history of your island nation which you might have used against these monsters we do not fully understand, less still know how to use. Studying these artifacts will take time, too much time - but at least we have them.’
He tosses the globe up into the air, like a basketball.
‘They tell me,’ he continues, ‘that you attempted to smuggle a note into the basket of holy wafers before yesterday’s Eucharist. A note that simply read ‘help me’. That was very foolish of you.’

Pacelli screeches the reclining chair back and gets to his feet. Shaw attempts to take a step backwards, but the two thugs are right behind him.
‘It’s grandiose, I know,’ Pacelli says, strolling towards him, still tossing the globe in one hand, ‘but I had briefly imagined that you’d be sympathetic to our cause once the veil had been yanked aside - that you might even be willing to fund a new branch of our organisation, exclusive to this country. Your colleague in Guildford proved far more compliant - heavens above, what is that hideous noise?’
Shaw can faintly make out a throbbing bass beat from somewhere beyond the walls of the study.
‘It’s just kids, I think,’ he mumbles, trying to keep Pacelli’s gaze. ‘Someone down the road was having a party tonight. Just children.’
‘Typical of your nation’s decline,’ Pacelli responds, curling his lip. ‘You see, my lord Bishop, this is exactly what I mean. Youth running wild and feral, living only for pleasure, the rich and the impoverished alike snatching whatever they can take from those around them, a spreading darkness beneath your streets - and you, their moral leaders, their guides unto perfection, their shields against the horrors of the night, mewling about cake sales and winter festivals and the gays marrying one another - and the more I see of you, my lord Bishop, the more I see what a feeble thing you are, the more I doubt that you truly believe, even now. You’ve seen the devils and God’s angels, you’ve seen the battle-lines, you’ve seen the world beyond your banal material earth - and yet you still. Don’t. Believe.’

Shaw says, very quietly, almost beneath his breath,
‘I believe my wife is dead. I believe it was your ‘angels’ who murdered her, not the devils that you torture. And I will pray for your eternal soul, Erasmo Pacelli, but I do not believe it can be saved.’
If you exist, he thinks, if you have ever existed, if you stand for justice, if you are not merely one half of some false and alien dualistic conflict that makes our earth its battleground, strike down this man who commits evil in your name.
I’ve seen horrors before, distant horrors, in the newspapers or on the television, and I’ve always been able to rationalise them. I’ve always been able to understand why you would not intervene. But any man can only go so far. Strike him down. You have to. And if you don't, then you are not there. Please.

Above, something shrieks.

One of the Society brothers is standing, assault rifle in hand, apparently bemused, at the entrance to the upstairs bathroom.
‘It’s nothing,’ he calls down, in response to Pacelli’s cry. ‘Tap exploded.’
He pushes the door ajar and gestures to the little plastic sink, which is frothing wildly with water.
‘It’s an old house,’ Shaw says. ‘The faucet must have gone. You’ll need to call in a plumber.’
An expression of sneering contempt crosses Pacelli’s face.
‘My dear lord Bishop,’ he says, ‘do you really think I’d be so stupid as to-’

A second tap explodes. The sink overfills,
Then the shower-head bursts; water is jetting out from the end of the nozzle, twisting the hose back and forth. A pipe snaps; a torrent pours forth.
Pacelli screams,
‘Tonge, get the hell away from there - hod rounds!’

The water gathers. And rises.
It builds, a column of flurrying liquid, a translucent cyclone, before the eyes of the astonished hunter. He raises his rifle to his shoulder.
The pillar of water twists, faster than anything Shaw’s ever seen, lifting Tonge into the air, and slamming him against the wall head-first. The man’s skull seems to buckle, caving inwards; blood splatters the cracked cyan tiles.

Pacelli snatches hold of Shaw’s collar and swings him back into the study, slamming the door behind them.
‘Damned black magic,’ he babbles, hurrying to the desk and yanking a pistol up from out of the drawer. ‘Satan’s sorcery - but it can only maintain the spell for so long, and we have tricks of our own, this room is quite safe - ah, the faithful have opened fire - quaesumus Dominus, ut in hora mortis nostrae Sacramentis refecti et culpis omnibus expiati, in sinum misericordiae tuae laeti suscipi mereamur-’
Shaw sinks back against the wall of the study.

It happened, he thinks, elated. After all these years, it finally happened. A goddamned miracle.

*

‘Alpha are going in,’ you say, ear lowered to the radio.
Iacomo nods.
‘Let’s see what traps the Society has set for us,’ he replies. ‘Once they’re all dead...a full-on assault. Tell Kempe she’s to keep the gargoyles hidden - the hunters will be able to spot them, but that doesn’t mean our kine friends should have to. You may as well stay here, Sommers. Pacelli and his minions will be well protected against our little tricks of the mind.’
‘Archon,’ you begin, ‘do you really think you should-’
But he’s already gone.

*

The attacker hesitates for the slightest of seconds, then leaps down from the top of the garden wall, lands, and rolls across the wet grass, tilting his rifle.
When the blazing-bright phosphorus trap explodes from the undergrowth beside him, it does little more than startle him, but even that gives Brother Chauncey long enough to move up behind him and jam a wooden stake swiftly through the gap between the two folds of his body armour and into the heart.

Beside him, Brother Sand takes up a crouching position against the edge of the rockery, aims at the black-suited figures leaping across the orangery wall on the far side of the garden, and fires. Two of them fall; another makes it to the cover of the garden shed and returns fire.
‘Fuck,’ he says, tilting back the awkward frosted visor manufactured by Huginn Corps of Norway, ‘can’t fucking see to shoot with this thing on.’
Chauncey crouches and peers down at the prone figure.
‘It’s not a vamp,’ he mutters. ‘It’s human. Armour’s UK government issue. Bish must’ve got the word out somehow.’ He puts a hand to his ear and says, more loudly, ‘Copy all parties - targets are not vamps, humans, repeat, humans-’
‘Fucking humans?’ Sand snarls. ‘I’m switching to regular rounds, this is bullshit - and this damn thing can come off, too, it’s shitting up my aim-’
Pacelli’s voice, broken up by static, screeches in his ear,
‘Neg...hum...no...Christ...’
‘Did you hear that?’ Chauncey yells, firing. The garden door slams open; a couple of figures dash through. Sand gets one of them in the leg.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he snaps, ‘fucking helmet, they are not vamps, repeat, not vamps, requesting permission to remove my visor- I can't hit them when I've got this fucking thing over my eyes!’
There is no response.
Sand tears the visor from his face, takes aim, and brings down the attacker hiding by the garden sheds. He blinks. Then, with a smile of sudden, beatific understanding, he turns and shoots Chauncey in the face.

Humming mildly to himself, nodding with simple good cheer as a greater power than himself overtakes his mind entirely, Sand strolls towards the back door, firing up towards his comrades at the windows, until he is obliterated in an instant by the napalm device he had planted in the patio himself a week before.

*

Kempe opens her eyes.
‘They’re distracted,’ she says, to nobody in particular, in the deserted night of the copse. ‘Fly unseen. Kill any kine who suspects your presence.’
The air around her shimmers, and contorts, filled with the sound of invisible wings.

*

Pacelli ducks up the staircase.
‘Human?’ he yells into his mouthpiece. ‘You fools, they aren't human, they're agents of the fiend Iacomo, tools of the black serpent - use the phosphorus grenades! Shoot them in their withered hearts! Kill the prisoners, quick, before they can reach them-’
Behind him, the windows explode, glass spraying out across the floor; indistinct, huge, half-visible forms lurch through onto the landing.
Pacelli takes aim at the nearest one, and fires.

The hod round splinters when it hits its target, driving tiny fragments of mistletoe-branch deep into its flesh; he knows he has fired true, because the air itself contorts as a hideous grey-skinned beast flickers into existence, careening forward, its chest and its wings crashing down against the delicate wooden railing, utterly unconscious.

He steps over it, with a quick and careful calm, draws his long knife, the reconstituted metal once blessed by St Christopher himself, and consigns another of Satan’s children to damnation.

*

The hunters are fast; Edgar Fellowes fancies himself faster. They are prepared for his kind, he has no doubt about that, so he waits patiently as they waste their phosphorus grenades and blessed bullets on their fellow mortals.

Most of the brothers of St Leopold have retreated back into the house, firing down onto their attackers from above; one remains, pinned down on the edge of the patio. He leaps to his feet, shrieking,
‘Apage Satanus!’
and dashes at the kine holed up by the rockery, holding a simple wooden cross aloft.

‘Well,’ Fellowes concedes, taking aim, ‘it’s not a bad idea.’
He plugs the faithful soul in the back of the head, sending him tumbling out over the lawn.

Fellowes waits for the distant crashing sound that indicates the gargoyles have arrived, then watches calmly while the rest of team Bravo pile in through the garden door. After two consecutive explosions rock the house, sending roof-tiles shattering down onto the patio, he judges it safe to begin his own assault.

Iacomo has already passed through the hall; the elder vampire’s aura lingers amongst the fallen kine of both sides. The other defenders, Fellowes judges, have retreated upstairs or back into the eastern wing of the house, where the sound of gunfire suggests some of the government men have broken through. And inside the study - ah.
Fellowes kicks open the door.

A thin, bearded man in his middle-aged, hands pinioned behind his back, gazes at him.
‘I don’t-’ he whispers. ‘I mean, I didn’t-’
‘Calm down, calm down, old boy,’ Fellowes replies, lowering his pistol. ‘We’re here to-’
And he realises just where he is.

Gorgeous, intricate baubles, gold inlaid with ancient gems, rest upon every shelf. The crown of an old Saxon king, tarnished but patterned with gorgeous swirls, sits on the desk, beside a tapestry depicting a princess upon her knees before a shimmering grail. An ornery elephant king’s tusk dripping with pearls. A magnificent African clay urn upon which creeps the wily god Anansi. The pale and tawdry hideousness of the world drips back into silence, and for one single still moment there is only beauty.

Fellowes stands there, eyes wide, pistol dangling loosely from his fingers, with the enraptured stupid wonder of a man who has at last, after decades of searching, found his faith, until a brother of St Leopold dashes into the hallway behind him, and, more out of panicked fear than any sort of divine anger, takes aim and fires a Hod shell from his shotgun and directly into the Toreador’s heart.

*

So they’re dying. It doesn’t matter that they’re dying. Every fiend that falls tonight is a blow struck against the armies of hell, and every soldier of God who perishes will be welcomed with open arms in paradise. Even if he, Pacelli, should die - but he cannot die, he has a duty, to return the holy relics to Rome, to ensure that the sacred artifacts may be used to avenge this treachery, the Bishop’s treachery. He has to get back to the study, he’ll cut through whatever hordes Satan can muster, he is with Christ and Christ shall overcome.

Pacelli barges through the kitchen door and guns down the two balaclava-ed men, one, two, before they even have a chance to raise their rifles. His aim is off, and he only hits one of them in the belly, but they fall all the same.
‘What?’ he mutters, finishing the intruder off with a shot to the head. ‘Human? No matter, go with God. And if you serve Satan, let him take thee.’

He halts to reload, his fingers trembling as he presses a new clip into the chamber; and, suddenly, his earpiece screams - long and hard, a cry of drawn-out agony.
‘Shut your mouth,’ he hisses, and rips the device out in one swift motion. His men are dying. Let them die. Why do they need to shriek about it?

As he approaches the door that leads back into the hallway, a familiar figure steps out of the shadows and across the threshold.
Pacelli says,
‘You.’
He raises his pistol and fires.

Iacomo blinks. He gazes down at his own neatly-buttoned shirt; blood is spreading out across the left side of his chest, and goes entirely still, frozen upon his feet.
Pacelli smiles.
Then the Archon lifts his head up and grins back.

A little splinter of wood falls, quite silently, onto the tiles at Iacomo’s feet. Then another, then another, the fragments of the bullet squirming out from his chest and falling, like rain, to the floor.
‘A tutto c’e rimedio,’ Iacomo says, cheerfully, before adding, as an apparent afterthought, ‘fuorche alla morte.’
He steps in front of the hunter, lifts him up by the lapels, cracks his forehead against his foe’s sunken nose,and tosses him against the nearest wall.
Pacelli’s pistol skids away across the floor and beneath the cast-iron oven unit.

‘I suppose,’ Iacomo continues, striding across to the fallen man, ‘that you have some last-resort incendiary device hidden beneath those black robes of yours. Fanatics, eh? Exploding yourselves at the drop of a hat. Well, since I do mean to enjoy this, I’d better start with a few precautionary measures.’

He steadies Pacelli’s outstretched hand beneath the sole of his boot, and reaches for the knife rack.

*

Captain Edwards pushes his way through his men, who are for some inexplicable reason standing calmly in the hall corridor, refusing to move, nodding at the dull moans of pain and loud thudding sounds emanating from the kitchen.
‘What the hell are you doing, standing around - Jesus Christ!'

Iacomo merely glances around.
‘It’s quite all right, Captain,’ he says. ‘The only reason dear Pacelli here looks so unpleasant is that since he’s seen fit to wire some kind of irritatingly complicated explosive to his own torso, I’ve had to restrict myself mainly to his face. The knives are for his own safety, to prevent him from setting it off. In fact, he died in one of the explosions as we entered the house, the, ah, wounds you see are the result of flying shrapnel, and the sounds you are hearing are simply air being expressed from the corpse. Your medic will confirm my diagnosis.’
Edwards finds himself curiously compelled to agree with this diagnosis himself.
‘Makes sense,’ he says, and salutes. He isn’t sure why. In fact, although it now seems quite certain that this tall dark-skinned man is one of his superiors, he can’t recall having ever encountered him before. ‘Is there, er, anything else we can do, sir?’
‘We’re almost done here. My people will deal with the bodies; I suggest your lads clear out and get yourselves debriefed. Oh, and if any of your men believe they’ve seen anything strange, suffered any peculiar audiovisual experiences, send them back to me immediately. We’ll need to get them to a doctor in case they’ve ingested any of the weaponised hallucinogens.’
‘Weaponised - right, sir. Yessir.’

Edwards salutes, once more, and orders his men to move out and leave the gentleman alone with the mutilated corpse that’s wailing softly, pinioned by its wrists and ankles by knives that have been thrust deep into the very brickwork of the wall.

Iacomo waits until they’ve gone.
Then he leans across, and whispers into Pacelli’s one remaining ear,
‘See that? That’s why you aren’t going to win.’
The hunter continues to moan, the same indistinct word as before. It’s probably ‘Christ’.

Iacomo takes hold of his old enemy’s head in both hands, hugging him intimately close, one arm around his collar, and breaks his neck.

*

It’s a long walk through the dead.

You pass into the threshold of the garden, past the corpses sprawled amongst the tattered orange trees and across the silly ornamental rockery. The back door is nothing but splinters.

Kempe is inside the living room, perched on top of a sofa that’s riddled with bullet holes, speaking in a low monotone to the Bishop, who sits, head clutched in his hands, upon the floor. She gives you a nod.

‘Sommers,’ someone says, from the next doorway.

Iacomo gestures for you to join him in the study.

‘They got your man Fellowes, I’m afraid,’ he says, sitting with a sigh in the chair, rolling a small golden globe across the desk with a flourish of his hand. ‘He isn’t quite gone, not yet, they didn’t have time to decapitate him so they left him bleeding out with those damned Hod splinters in his heart - the gargoyles took him back to Oxford. The Prince will do all he can.’

He watches you closely, leaning forward across the desk and steepling his long fingers.

‘The Bishop,’ he says, ‘will live. Not my first choice, given all that he has heard and the impact all of this has no doubt had on a gentle and fragile mind, but...there will be no covering this attack up. We need him to tell the world exactly what happened. These...lunatics who took him hostage, these religious fanatics. It will be a thin and baffling story, but with the proper guidance he alone can make it more convincing. He says one of his colleagues remains under guard in Guildford - and that poor fellow may not fare so well when he is liberated, alas.’

‘And the Kindred prisoner?’ you ask.

‘Dead before we could reach him, sadly. Now - I’d like to thank you, Sommers,’ he adds, sitting back as if he has dismissed the matter from his mind entirely. ‘For your help in this coup. As you can see...the hunters have left their quite substantial plunder behind. English relics, imbued with English power. I shall certainly take my share, and no doubt I shall have to hand a few of the most potent items back over to Oxford, in order to keep the peace...but I think we could turn a blind eye to something or other disappearing. I invite you now - take your pick. Then, I fear, we must gather up our friend the Bishop and begin sowing a few quite colossal lies.’


(As a practical and well-educated man with much experience with vases and other such things, you are capable of discerning to a certain degree what exactly the various powerful relics might be useful for and which ones might be used without requiring extensive knowledge of the arcane - though any one of them might have hidden properties of which you are not aware.)

A) A carved stone lies upon the table, etched with some form of Celtic hex. Since the hunters have taken the time to gather it, it seems likely it can be used against supernaturals in some capacity.

B) A miniature wax figure, intricately detailed, stands upon a nearby shelf. Given the right encouragement, it presumably animates itself to serve its owner.

C) The golden globe itself appears to be a puzzle-box of some description; the continents themselves are marked out by grooves. Perhaps pouring one’s own blood into the grooves would unlock it, though who can say whether or not the results would be positive.

D) The hunters were entirely mistaken when they picked up this Grail tapestry - it is simply an alchemical allegory of some sort. You cannot tell exactly what each symbol represents, but it’d certainly gain you favour and an audience were you to take it to a Tremere or to any Kindred or Kine collector of antiquities.

E) The clay urn marked with the figure of Anansi is a reliquary - the presence of the spider-god suggests that the wraith contained within is a particularly troublesome one.

F) The dagger-necklace, inscribed with the name ‘Spearhafoc’ indicates ‘Sparrowhawk’, the ancient vampire-thief and contemporary of Mithras. It may well lend aid to burglars in some capacity.

G) There’s no time to examine any of the relics - you owe it to Fellowes to be there if he is in danger of a Final Death.

 

[grotsnik]

5400 words. Whew.

 

[Gondolin]

 

[Gondolin]

Edgar! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

[Smashing Axe]

I'm really tempted to go for G right now, but it's a futile action. Good for our humanity though.

C, the puzzle-box intrigues me.

Edit:
Going the bro option, G

 

[Esquilax]

It's back!

Fuck the relics. Maybe we can save Eddie? I don't know, but what I do know is that he's the only one we can trust and he's been loyal through thick and thin, and that makes him just about as rare as these relics. Voting G.

... But man, these items are really fucking sweet. I'd probably go with D in order to curry favour with another Baron (either the Toreador antique collector, Carabas, or the Tremere) so we can get them to support Vogler for Prince. C is really interesting as well.

 

[grotsnik]

Wikipedia aficionados will note that the chapter title refers not only to the obvious massacre of the hunters and the potential loss of the faithful Fellowes, but also to the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, otherwise All Souls' Day, the Catholic celebration which in pre-schismatic times lent its name to the famous All Souls College of Oxford. It's, like, working on several levels at once and shit. Totally deep.

 

[CappenVarra]

5400 words. Whew.

Epic update right there
Also,

Edgar! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Let's hold on to humanity and fuck the artifacts (would probably go with B as summoning sounds cool for a non-combat vamp as Tony), voting G.

 

[Esquilax]

As a practical and well-educated man with much experience with vases and other such things.

Actually bro, this was the best line in the whole update, possibly the entire LP.

As if we needed another reason to go see Eddie. A room full of ancient artifacts of power, yet not a single VASE among them. FUCK. THIS. PLACE.

 

[Gondolin]

Actually bro, this was the best line in the whole update, possibly the entire LP.

Yeah.

 

[Kz3r0]

C

 

[Hellraiser]

A truly marvelous and codexian update well worth the wait.



Also...

FELLLOOOOWWDEESSADQASWSS



Our best of bros, asskicker extraordinaire shot buck a fucking huntard.

So the huntards knew Iacomo? Intriguing. however I am more concerned with *who* the captured kindred was. If it was Sabbath, it could screw us over somehow.

The globe seems intriguing (and dangerous) as does the urn. However because the damn WoD wikia ain't loading I have no idea what are the danger and benefits posed by owning such an urn.

I think G) would ensure Eddie's loyalty should he survive, despite any and all attempts Turcov or anyone else may make. At the very least it is worth a humanity point I guess, if our bro is to meet his end.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Excellent read, grotsnik.

I think G) would ensure Eddie's loyalty should he survive, despite any and all attempts Turcov or anyone else may make. At the very least it is worth a humanity point I guess, if our bro is to meet his end.

G it is then. Eddie is far more useful than any trinket and would make a dangerous enemy should Turkov turn him. (BTW, how much do you want to bet that Turkov will rush to his side as well?) Besides that, Iacomo seeing that we aren't just a self serving prick will be good for his opinion of us.

 

[grotsnik]

So the huntards knew Iacomo? Intriguing. however I am more concerned with *who* the captured kindred was. If it was Sabbath, it could screw us over somehow.

Just realised what you meant by this - 'gone' was a bad choice of word, since I meant 'he's dead' rather than 'he's escaped' - he was still under guard when Pacelli ordered his men to execute the prisoners. Have corrected, apologias.

 

[Cassidy]

G

An ally is better than any artifact of power.

 

[Storyfag]

I'm also in favor of G.

 

[Gondolin]

I'm in favor of you updating your own LP. How about that?

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

G.

Wikipedia aficionados will note that the chapter title refers not only to the obvious massacre of the hunters and the potential loss of the faithful Fellowes, but also to the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, otherwise All Souls' Day, the Catholic celebration which in pre-schismatic times lent its name to the famous All Souls College of Oxford. It's, like, working on several levels at once and shit. Totally deep.

It's also part of the original charter of All Souls, IIRC: to pray for the souls of the faithful departed, with particular reference to the dead from the Hundred Years War.

As always, your research is almost as impressive as the narrative itself, and spotting the references and allusions almost as much fun as the choices. (Fr. Pacelli was an interesting choice of name...).

(I was going to correct you on da, quaesumus Dominus, (vocative Domine, surely?) but apparently this is the official version.)

 

[Esquilax]

G

An ally is better than any artifact of power.

So what you're saying is that a friend...

Spoiler

is the greatest treasure of all

 

[Random Word]

The fact that I can't brofist here is a travesty.

There isn't a vase, but there is an urn. Urns are like vases full of dead people. Don't know what we'd do with an angry Wraith, though.

G

 

[grotsnik]

G.
(I was going to correct you on da, quaesumus Dominus, (vocative Domine, surely?) but apparently this is the official version.)

Da quaesmus Dominus I think I have right - it was one of my favourite weekly recitals in school, beside libera me domine de morte aeterna, and it seemed appropriate. But it's been a good seven years so I may well have got it wrong. God, I'm drunk.

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

G.
(I was going to correct you on da, quaesumus Dominus, (vocative Domine, surely?) but apparently this is the official version.)

Da queasmus Dominus I think I have right - it was one of my favourite weekly recitals in school, beside libera me domine de morte aeterna, and it seemed appropriate. But it's been a good seven years so I may well have got it wrong. God, I'm drunk.

You've got it right. I was just surprised by the grammar. Then again, ecclesiastical Latin.

 

[Excidium]

G) Bros before loot.