[actual play] Vampire the Requiem - The Two Thrones

 

Episode 2: Bloody Mary

 

Part 1

 

Tristan dreamt. He was in Manchester, and in the cold alleyway blood dripped, a pitter patter of claret, onto the cobbled street. His mouth was slick with blood and there on the ground was his latest kill. The body was like a broken doll in the street lights. It was then it heard it. A disembodied voice from in the gloom of the alley way, calling for him, needing him.

Tristan followed the voice, down the twisting, Escher like street, and barely noticed how the street gave way to thick vines of tearing thorns. The whisper beckoned to him, wanted him, and led him to a graveyard. The moon was high in the sky, and from a mausoleum. Tristan walked up to the gate of the tomb, and went into the darkness.

Tristan awoke in his bed in a sweat, the sheen of blood staining the bed sheets. He needed to feed and have a walk.

Galen was awake and preparing for the meeting at Elysium. Once more it was held at the Circle Club, and it was a chance for Galen to find out more about the blood sorcerer that Constable Ihram was looking for. It was in Galen's bathroom, of his grotty haven, that his mentor (if you can call an aspiration that), had left him a message. The mirror was steamed up and written in the condensation was 'The Thorns, they Tear'.

Galen and Tristan were at the Circle Club. There was still much talk about the death of Fiona, and that Galen was something of a hero amongst the younger Carthians. There was also talk of renewed fights and postering between the Invictus and the Carthians, and that the Constable, and certain elder Carthians and Invictus had been working to prevent these fights.

The entire Elysium was abruptly interrupted as a man burst down the stairway from the entrance. He immediately made his way to Bishop Michael Kenner. The bearded, stern looking priest, and leader of the Lancea Sanctum in the city, looked down on the cowering man. The younger vampire begged for forgiveness, crying that all his friends were dead, that they had been punished by the mother of Longinus.

The young vampire was taken aside by the Bishop and the Elysium was rife with gossip. Ihram took Tristan and Galen to the store room and, following his earlier deal with Galen, but now also offering Tristan an incentive, asked for them to go and take their Ruth along with them and investigate the haven of the dead vampires. Ihram knew where they made their haven as he had been watching them like many of the coteries of young Kindred and Anarchs.

The coterie took Ruth's van and made their way to haven, which was an abandoned apartment block in Longsight. They made their way in through the damaged fence and into the dank and filth ridden building. There were signs of fire damage and the place was littered with all manner of foul things. Needles from addicts and discarded condoms and spray paint cans were scattered around, and the coterie that Tristan and Galen were looking for were in a pair of apartments. There were bodies all around in the apartments. There were mortals and there were decapitated vampires. There were even bodies of Kindred who had had their hearts removed.

Tristan picked about and found a pile of notes that look like some sort of instructions for a ritual, while Galen took photos. In the bathroom Galen found a grotty and foul room, and in the basin was sticky blood. On the cracked mirror was a bloody hand smear, and weirdly there was a foot print. The bloody print was on the basin, and somehow was halfway in the mirror, or would be if the mirror was not there.

Ruth looked at the notes and explained to the others that this was some sort of initiation ritual, but with no special meaning. It was some sort of petty mimicry of a Lancea Sanctum ritual, but with the added nonsense of calling upon the Bloody Mary myth, and of course this has perhaps some relation to the tales of Longinus’ mother, the ‘Bloody Mary’.