The City of the Dead

Ken's Vampire Game

Session Sixteen

Sunday Night

Jennifer arranges a meeting with Kris, the Malkavian who has so far proven helpful in easing Daria's symptons.

She gets back to the other girls to tell them about what she has found out. She says that the Lord of the Dance was never a mortal, but now has made himself a body using human flesh and vampire blood. This body was probably what Daria saw turn to stone. Apparently his power can be disuped by steel, so it is posible that now that he has a body, the Lord of the Dance is vunerable.

While Niel and Brin were subsumed into "the dance", Sladek chose to become a part of it. Humans are being sucked into it as well, and the goal of the Dancers is to spread the dance all over the city. Their goal is to spread chaos and claim power amidst the confusion.

However the cultists serve something else - The Maurauder, a demon vampire, the creature, she tells Daria, that unfortunately consumed her sire, Malcolm.

Daria remembers her conversation with Brin on at their first Meeting; he said that Malcolm took up a sword and went to fight his crusade, but was killed. He said that Malcolm "should have waited for the Dancers". Daria wonders if this means that the occultists could be disturbed by the Dancers, therefore making an attack against them easier?

Jennifer said that the cults want death, destruction and despair; they want everyone dead and there will be no compromising.

When Jennifer asked Kris how to find the Dancers, she was cryptically told to "follow the drums". Apparently not many powers work on the Lord of the Dance.

Daria mentions that the Lord of the Dance wore an ankh that she believed would displace him should it be removed. However no such thing had happened when she had tried to remove it...

Meanwhile Helena is contacted by Samantha, one of the Lasombra Daria suggested may be helpful for getting information regarding histories of the cults, Romania and Sydney from. Helena meets her in an office building outside of the city. Her aura pulses with curiosity and wariness. As Daria suggested, she holds all of her cards to her chest, and then has the audacity to enquire into their findings and to send her regards to Jessamy, both of which Helena scoffs at. One thing that she does say, however, is that Heresy has come back to the city much stronger than when she left.

Monday Night

The girls meet up in a cafe the next night. Jennifer is acting really strangely, and Daria and Helena have a difficult time working out what she's going on about. She's saying a whole lot of crypical things, like she wants to get out of the city for awhile with her ghouls for reasons she can't say, and asks the girls if they want to do things like go and see the latest James Bond film, and play "I Spy".

Humouring Jennifer, they begin a round of "I Spy". She emphatically says that she spies something starting with L - Lasombra.

After some questioning, it becomes apparent that Jennifer has been screwed around with by Heresy, however it's hard towork out what exactly has occured, because Heresy appears to have enchanted her in some way so that she is physically incapable of expressing what has gone on.

Helena asks if she can perhaps tell her what is going on through asking her to tell an analogous 'story'. Jennifer says something like "once there were a couple who were married; the bride was so beautiful that the devil took her. The husband went to the devil and said he'd do something in return for the bride, and the devil agreed, and now the devil is calling upon the agreement".

Frustrated, Helena touches Jennifer to try and glean information from her. She gets an image of a woman saying that "she'll watch her for one week, and report anything that she finds or does". Jennifer agrees and says "in exchange you'll leave me and mine alone".

So Jennifer has to watch Daria for one week and report her findings and actions. Daria laughs. "No worries, we'll just hang out for a week, Jennifer!".

During their meeting Jennifer mentions that she has recently spoken to someone who says that Heresy has done some odd things for strength. She also says that this situation with the Lord of the Dance has happened before, or maybe will again.

To wile away their hours together, Jennifer suggests that the girls engage in a little sharing of their disciplines; there is a whole lot of weird facial expressions and comments like "I don't know, you just look at it and it just happens" and violation of the girl's shadows.

Tuesday Night

The girls go back to the city the next night. On their way back Daria gets give a call to a frantic-sounding Alfred, who demands to know where Daria has been. She says that she was with Jennifer and Helena and that the three of them are driving back to Melbourne together at the moment.

He tells them that there has been a massive incident at the Necropolis - apparently there were close to 100 people active there, there were dozens of fires and the ground is littered with spent casings.

When the girls arrive at the Necropolis, there are lights, police cars, people "hanging", guns, and also a silver Lotus, a black Caddilac and a white Limosuine.

The police try to send the girls away but let them through when they say that they are with Alfred.

There are scorchmarks everywhere. Alfred tells the girls that there are vampires rising all over the place, and also mentions that there have been an increase number of missing persons reported in Melbourne recently. When the girls ask if he's managed to get any information out of them, he says "They're insane, berserk and they're not even sure whats been going on. Jessamy's got a vision of the leader, he's got wings and a crown, if you believe that." Six staked vampires are strewn on nearby ground, scorched and mutilated, as they watch Alfred pulls a nail imbedded in the temple of one of them.

Meanwhile, Daria is having her moment in the sun, so to speak. She smirks at Alfred, overflowing with sarcasm. Understandably Alfred isn't in the mood to deal with being showed up by someone he deems crazy. When Daria's taunting persists, he gives her one last warning to shut up and draws his gun to her head.

She reminds him of Malcolm's photos, but he doesn't know what she's talking about; he's never got around to seeing them. Daria heads home and picks them up to show Alfred.

Alfred is enraged and takes out his anger on a nearby corpse, unloading his gun into it. He furiously confronts Luke, telling him he doesn't care about his personal vendetta against a dead Lasombra. The argument stops just as they both reach for weapons.

Jessamy is wandering around the scene, pressing his hand to different parts of the carnage. He talks of something with wings that seems to be burning, wearing a crown of steel. He says something about the creature controlling fire and the leader having metal around his head. Something about being burned, buried and fed blood from a cup.

When Daria has a look around, Daria sees Dancer symbols strewn around, and suggests that some of this could be Dancer related.