The City of the Dead

Ken's Vampire Game

Session Four

Saturday Night

Before beginning her investigations into the Gangrel, Helena decides to visit Vaughn to get some more background information. Not really knowing how to go about organising a meeting with him, she decides to make her way into the club that Sophie and Peter, the two Toreadors the girls met in the bar, run at the Casino. In the club, Helena spots Peter, dressed impeccably in a blue suit, mingling amongst equally exquisitely dressed people. He sights Helena as she nervously hovers in the doorway very aware of her scungy clothes, and walks over to her and draws her aside from the crowd. After telling him that she is here to see Vaughn, Peter offers to take her upstairs to him. Before taking her, he offers her Sophie?s assistance in choosing some ?nice? clothes should she need them in the future.

Peter tells Fong that Helena is here to talk to Vaughn before he leaves her to return to the club. Fong disappears into the small room Helena previously visited Vaughn in, and soon emerges to tell her that she will be called in when his master is ready for her. After a long wait, Fong tells her to enter.

Upon greeting Vaughn, Helena bows and makes her request for information about the Gangrel. She asks why he is interested in them, and about how to go about investigating them.

Vaughn says that he noticed at the meeting on Friday that the Gangrel exhibited an unusual level of arousal, especially in relation to the attack at the nightclub, when they usually keep to themselves and don?t typically concern themselves with kindred politics. He notices this as particularly strange in light of concerns that there is something strange arising in Melbourne, although he is unsure as to exactly what it is. When Helena asks what the Gangrel are like he describes them as more animal than human oriented, and that they are more beast than vampire. In relation to observing them, Vaughn suggests that it is important to realise that they are mainly animal, and that it is important to keep your senses about you, which should not be too difficult for Helena as she is a Toreador, and one of his descendants. Vaughn also adds that Helena may be particularly useful to his enquiries in that Helena is not familiar with kindred politics, and that she is welcome to involve Daria and Jennifer, however he does not want their investigations to be known about by the Knights. He says that Jessica is a hunter, and that she lives in Dandenong. Valerie hunts further out in farmlands in the South East, and Frederick hunts amongst factories in the Western suburbs.

Meanwhile, Daria decides to do some more investigation in the club in Springvale while it is in full-swing. Dressed in a trench coat, she finds herself getting a lot of attention amongst the local Vietnamese gangsters. Using her potence, she manages to take blood from one of the boys. While feeding from him, she finds herself slightly intoxicated from the cocktail of alcohol and other drugs in the boy?s blood. However she does not find much in the way of information.

While at the club, Daria receives a call from Helena, who asks for her help in investigating the Gangrel and tells her of her conversation with Vaughn. When they meet up at the club, Daria hesitantly says that she will help, however she is not happy about keeping information away from the Knights, as they are the ones whom they owe primary respect to, and that anything that she finds out she wants to tell Alfred, although she agrees that she will not tell him that she learnt it while doing investigations for Vaughn. Daria also questions why Vaughn is interested, and indicates that she is interested in finding out his motivations. Helena calls Jennifer, and despite her similar reservations, she agrees to help out on the same conditions as Daria. She says she?ll be over quickly as she is in the area.

Helena suggests that they go and observe Jessica?s house. Jessica?s house is set back from a densely overgrown garden. Amongst the garden are a number of cats moving around. They park the car around the corner, where Daria and Jennifer wait while Helena tries to observe the house from a vantage point concealed by shrubs a distance away from her house. As Helena looks into the house, a form with glowing red eyes looks out of the window of the dark house. She walks outside, and Helena can see that she has a furred neck and elongated fingers and nails that are almost claw-like. She starts looking around, as do her cats. She moves out further and jumps up into the boughs of a tree, looks around, and then jumps back to the ground.

Feeling terrified and panicky, Helena runs back to the car where Jennifer and Daria wait, and tell them that yes, she was scared off by Jessica doing nothing more than looking around, and that no, she did not want to go back. Jennifer offers to try to organise a meeting with Jessica the following night and talk to her herself.

Sunday Night

The next night, Jennifer calls Jessica and they organise a time to meet that evening. As Jessica opens the door to greet the girls, her eyes glower bright red with vertical slits, yet she quickly flicks her head, and just as quickly she shifts back to her normal appearance. There are a lot of cats roaming around her house. The girls notice that she looks around a lot. At one stage her eyes flick back to the red glow, yet she flicks back just as quickly. The cats hiss at the girls, yet Jessica orders them back.

When Jennifer says that she and the Gangrel were looking uptight on Friday night, Jessica replies that she does not know what she is talking about. When they bring up the possums in the Necropolis, particularly when she has told Helena that she likes to feed from possums already, she also says that it was not related to her or the other Gangrel. When they ask who it could be, she mentions that Nosferatu sometimes control animals.

Jessica brings up that the Camarilla are not the only Vampires in the city. She has seen their tracks, marks and signs of their kills. They are hunters, and they?re going to hunt us all. She has never seen them, but she?s a hunter, and can tell.

The conversation with Jessica is confusing and sometimes contradictory. Jessica?s demeanour is diffident and vague. The girls learn that Jessica used to hunt with [male Gangrel], but that they hunt differently now. Jessica repeatedly states that losing control and the kill are essential parts of hunting. However she also says that killing humans is hard to live with, and that she doesn?t ever lose control. With probing and repletion Daria asks Jessica, "Was it you at the Necropolis?" Jessica answered, "Yes." When asked again, Jessica denies being there.

Eventually Jessica stands up and says she?s going hunting and wanders out of her haven. After a whole lot confused shared looks, the girls come to the conclusion that Jessica is nuts, but she may know something.