male lucem

Flood

[ Flood: Intelligence + Investigation ]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Flood

[ Grey: Intelligence + Investigation ]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

Dies Irae

I.

I have come into some information, had said Nobody In Particular, regarding an interesting prospect, a Gehenna cult.

And also: I think it would rather be a fitting adventure for a one like you and a one like me to go digging at.

Then we stake out a claim and dig and see what is waiting to be unearthed, Flood had replied.

Cainite's bones. Stoppered words. Mystery.

Flood: I'll light a fire. You can let me know where the smoke comes out?

I'll find a way to reconcile myself, had replied Nobody, in terms of being the help.

Let's touch base at the parking lot. You know the one. The night after tomorrow? Three hours 'til sunrise.

So it had gone.

Flood's vampiric friend or ally (don't let Paige know [good job?]) had been as good as his word (he usually was [words can be stoppered but honor never can, even if it is honor sharped with self interest]) had appeared on that night when the hunt was just beginning, little to share. Since then, perhaps they've met physically once or twice, once at that parking lot another time in some other hidey hole, Denver being full of catacombs to those who know it well and have traveled the knotted mapwork of its veins at night night after night.

Flood's information string-tugging has been thorough, but for the most part there hasn't been much smoke.

Jack's seen Jonson where ever it is he pretends to be the 'help' has followed him around but rather wryly states that he's the world's most boring man better at a mask than a mask-maker, though there was a week when it would seem that Jonson was in a shitty mood.

Until, and recently just after the eclipse although not right after, Jack calls Flood to let him know he spied Eleanor Faulkner [seems Eleanor or Ellie as she tells people to call her doesn't live in a house under the name Eleanor Faulkner, the name Eleanor Faulkner being mostly fabrication- spit and wattle, put together with a few paper-trail tricks], in the company of a man whose shadow Jack saw open up like a butterfly blade, become three.

The next night, her staff was dismissed [she is the kind of woman who has a staff], and she seems to have disappeared entirely, whisked away taken by a cab. What cab company?

Two guesses.

Grey or Jack or both it is who let Flood know about a hastily thrown together party following this that it seems good old Bradley Jonson of the Dry Denver Jonson is going to be holding. Private. At his residence just outside of Denver, something to drum up money, but it seems like the kind of 'do for an announcement to investors (the names of which Flood now holds).

II.

The Mourners of [Abel] Enoch do meet on occasion because while Flood has allowed himself to lapse and may look upon the religion of the Sabbat as he may his pack takes it both somewhat more seriously and even so a means to an end.

For the Ventrue Antitribu with a Madonna's face and serenity of bearing, who in her quiet moments (we can not call them 'unguarded') is very like a statue of Nike or one of the wingéd and implacable personifications of blind Justice, that end is a vendetta. Her serenity is rarely disturbed but neither is it animal dumb. After the blood moon eclipse and the early rising, she'd seriously considered what it might mean if anything and what such signs might mean for their war in Denver. Grateful to Flood but not dumbstruck by that either. Katherine - Kate - is as honest as she is honorable and she is very honorable.

The Toreador Antitribu wears a mask that is more mercurial and more quicksilver, a crafted thing that fits like a skin over an enlightened cruelty which lies beneath. He is a sweet-faced man with golden hair and skin of ice who never pretends breath and sometimes when he is out and about at a club or some other prey watering hole where he goes to prey upon he is nothing so much as the fox in a henhouse, so clever and gluttonous the expression in his eyes although he has a disaste for killing. He is neither honest or honorable but he is shrewd and can be surprisingly subtle.

Their ends are all served by dealings with and manipulations of the kine.

Kind farmers. Kind - well, perhaps not.

The Mourners do meet on occasion although perhaps not as faithfully as certain fanatics would want the services to be held and when they do meet for a vaulderie rite then the instrument Alain, who is the priest, uses is an ornate straight razor, crafted specifically by the Antitribu or his contacts for this pack. The handle is a hard wood chased with bone [from an innocent who will be incorruptible now as they are dead and never knew much more than milk-warmth from a mother who shook as she handed her child over to the golden-haired demon who came to her and cajoled, told her that wouldn't it be kinder to smother the child herself before giving it to someone who will boil it down to its parts] and platinum [from somebody who knew better, knew that ring was her mother's only consolation but took it anyway knowing it was bad regretting it immediately after taking the dog tags too].

And it is after one of these occasions that Katherine tells Flood that one of his clansmen did ask her to deliver a message. Ominous words from one Cainite to another, something of a latent threat in: message delivered. No threat this time: just a heavy piece of paper, cream stock folded in an old fashion that needs no envelopes and sealed with a heavy red wax from which there's a whiff of vitae, and in elegant script

I would speak to you at your earliest convenience. We have a matter of faith to discuss.

- Adrian

And where would one find Adrian? Apparently Kate comes now equipped with that information as well as a cellphone number.

III.

Alice Littleton. Alice Littleton. Alice Littleton née Jonson.

Word from Paige, sent through one emissary or another, perhaps again through a serene but wry Kate, about that old scandal. Peter Townsend replaced a defrocked priest; it was scandalous because the defrocked priest grew quite obsessed with the predecessor to his post, who'd laicized (an unlucky parish) himself on account of old age, and the man Townsend replaced made many wild accusations, preyed upon the credibility of those in his flock and made up 'little known but holy' rites not for the average member of their faith and cast demons out. Townsend had been something to the defrocked priest- a star pupil in a seminary school off to the west. The defrocked priest: Brian Kelly. In jail now, dying of liver failure. An embarrassment hushed up.

Alice Littleton née Jonson and Mr. Jonson of the Dry Denver Jonsons.

There is a connection. Second cousins.

IV.

Tonight's a good night for a party or tonight's a good night for a tete-a-tete or tonight's a good night for shadows to rise up and swallow something whole; rain and slush and snow, rock and black black roads.

Flood

These are Flood's priorities:

There are kine trying to play in the shadows at games beyond them, and must be investigated.

There are the things in the shadow that are unknown, things that perhaps play with their games on the kine, and must be investigated.

And then there is vitae, and where Flood's clan is concerned that is a thing of shadow and blood commingled. It is a dangerous place. It is a chief priority.

Flood has learned from the mistakes of his past.

When Flood receives Adrian's message Flood responds. Decades under rubble teaches one a lesson. It hardens ones resolve like a diamond, but it lends that precious stone's clarity.

Some time over the journey from Union Station to his haven Flood finds himself driving through the stretches of urban wasteland and industrial complex. The number gets punched into his mobile phone. He puts it to his ear and waits for the ringing to stop and be replaced by a voice from the other end.

And perhaps this matter, this need for correspondence between parties, can be settled quickly enough he can make a party... Flood, however, is not holding out hope.

Dies Irae

Flood doesn't have to wait long for the ringing to stop. Once, twice. Before voice message, and the voice on the other end is deep but pleasant. A voice that would have no range when it came to singing but would make men and women say you should be a singer.

"Adrian speaking."

Flood

"This is Flood. You wished to converse; I would be glad to do so. Is this a convenient time?" It touches a much upon the contents of that message passed to Flood by way of Katherine as is possible.

It had been surprisingly short for such a traditional means of correspondence.

 

Dies Irae

"Ahhh." Accompanying rumble, thunder and gravel in the sound. Warmth and stoicism both. "The time will be convenient when you arrive," Adrian says, and the warmth has not lessened for all it seems slicked over courtesy. "I am at," and an address is given for a teal house which offers palmistry, appraisals, and legal advice [the sign is in Spanish] on Federal.

Flood

The conversation resolves itself quickly.

"I'll be there in the time of a drive from the station," he finishes.

That time elapsed, Flood pulls up in the Lincoln Navigator, a burly black SUV he sits behind the wheel of  just a handful of blocks away from the establishment. He climbs out and hoofs it the remaining distance, the crack-slap of those shined black dress shoes carrying him the rest of the way. His suit is a stormy ocean blue painted over in large black windowpane plaid lines, his shirt a satin black with the lightest shine to it, his tie a complementary blue and white paisley pattern.

Flood doesn't speak Spanish, but his fluency in Italian as well as any accompanying illustrations will no doubt make translation a simple feat. What he's looking for is that building number and next a door that will allow him entrance.

The Lasombra strides toward the door and pulls it open, entering and looking about the foyer for the Cainite that had requested his presence.

Dies Irae

Palmistry, appraisals, & legal advice. The teal house is an example of the Spanish colonial school of architecture with a rather spare yard, being in a portion of the neighborhood where residence and business blends and becomes one; what once may have housed a wealthy Mexican family now houses who knows how many. It is not a good neighborhood at night but what neighborhood is good at night? Certainly very few. The door is open and of heavy wood as if it were culled from a ship or a pew but the house is protected by a black screen door, black iron flourishes to evoke a mediterranean ambience included, and of course the screen door is not locked. A moth has caught itself, pale-winged, in the screen and twitches its way to death as Flood opens and enters the foyer; it is the only pale thing, other than his skin, other than the hint of white on the pattern of his tie.

The foyer is not well-lit but it is suitably lit, the lighting being amber and soft and yellow, dreamy lighting for a dreamy late-night, a candle burning caught in a lantern of black iron and rippling orange glass. There are a couple of couches and a desk as tall as a pulpit and on one of the couches is a man who stands as soon as Flood enters. 

"Flood," he says, and it's the same voice as the one on the phone, so this must be Adrian standing tall to welcome him, unsmiling as a Centurion is unsmiling before Caesar unsmiling as Caesar is before his mirror. "Welcome; would you enjoy refreshment?"

Flood

Flood's eyes don't smile, but they regard the other with a measure of respect, because while he is other he is also Lasombra.

"Thank you," for the welcome and for the offer, "but I refrain from nourishment the nights I am with my pack," because the offer had been polite and so must the refusal. "When we share blood in the cup Caine gave us," explaining himself in a clear and sure voice that doesn't necessarily try to match Adrian's, "I leave it to do its work unadulterated."

Flood had been called here to discuss matters of faith. That seems like a good foot to start upon.

The voice probably does match, as his height might, and as his sureness surely does as the distance between where Flood has entered and where the other Lasombra stands is closed to a more intimate arm's length. It makes up for the lack of a handshake.

Dies Irae

Adrian was taken by deathlessness and darkness when he was in his prime, the prime of middling age. His features are thick and Latinate, his eyes deepset but a striking color, water pale ringed in darker blue, pouches beneath that only add to an air of solemn and occasionally exhausted or driven warmth. His nose is crooked and the lower half of his face a short little more than bristle clipped beard, a suggestion of shadow. He is dressed well, but without the same flair that Flood displays. There is no silk an there are no patterns, simply gray slacks and a white button-up shirt and a black blazer.

A spare smile flickers at Flood's response, because it tells Adrian that Flood did call him immediately following his receiving Adrian's message, sealed by wax and blood, ostentatious for so simple and blunt a scrawl. He holds out an arm to bid Flood sit, and there is a stirring from a doorway.

A young girl comes through it, chest heaving as if she had recently run or hurried and was trying to hide it; her eyes are coal black and she stares hard at Flood for a second before recalling herself and nervously asking a question in Spanish. Adrian says something back briefly in the same language, and Flood may extrapolate that the girl was asking whether she should bring her sister in and Adrian, with an air of affection, was saying no, no little doe, go back to your practice.

"Please sit," Adrian says, when the girl has disappeared. And once Flood does, Adrian does as well with a neat little hitch of his pants to keep them wrinkle-free, leaning forward not to pierce Flood with his eyes but to fix him nonetheless in place.

They are Lasombra and Lasombra are strong, but how many are direct and to the point? 

"I understand that you were in the darkness for many and many again years, brought to bear on the night again only recently, and for a time you were solitary." The man does not sound as if he is deliberately needling Flood, only mildly setting up this question, prying yes but not to sneer. "What brings you comfort in these modern nights? Your pack?"

Flood

Flood looks up at the girl that comes in, though he doesn't keep his eyes on her for very long. It might not be because of her age or simply because she was claimed and he had refused the offer.

Flood's attention returns to Adrian and he sits besidehim on the couch, turning a bit and crossing one leg over the other. One arm finds itself crooked on the arm of the couch. The other is open, laying itself across the back of the couch, his hand closed into a relaxed fist.

Flood nods as if to affirm Adrian's understanding is correct.

"I don't seek comfort. It's a dulling indulgence. An addiction if chased. It never did much for me, and after many years' rest I don't wish to be idle," and if Flood has things, other than the pack he has noted, other than the Sect he is affiliated with, and other than the work of rebuilding an empire he hints at, he seems intent on leaving them off the table for this discussion.

It's the kind of answer that keeps him from prying in return. It also, and without much subtlety, tries to steer the conversation toward something more resembling a point. Hopefully Adrian's question has served to at least establish a context for it.

Dies Irae

"I myself enjoy a dream of comfort," Adrian replies. His tone is not confessional and he does not smile. There remains warmth, but perhaps that air of warmth is deeply ingrained and means as little as the color of his hair (black, and combed back). "Or did enjoy. Eh?"

"I am told that you seek knowledge of a strangeness in the Church and a man named Peter." A pause, placid, as if for confirmation.

[Things that might be rolled. Manip + Subterfuge.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

Flood

[ Mining the deep: Perception + Subterfuge ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Flood

Flood nods. It's a bow of his head and only comes in a single movement.

"The teller?" A question following that simple confirmation.

And he goes on.

"The teller might be one who knows that it is more than a strangeness or incongruity. Like things, like the church, like us, it has older roots. Or the teller might be one who knows that you know these things; a teller of a like mind?"

"If you could illuminate," a smile at the word, derisive, though it isn't directed at Adrian, "the mystery, I might be able to convince myself to look elsewhere to make my hands less idle."

Dies Irae

"Ahh. But I do not want you to look elsewhere," Adrian says, with an apologetic smile. The apology does not quite reach his water-pale eyes but very little does and if water is a metaphor for the color of his eyes and they are not as warm as his voice and his general air the water is still tempting, the kind of lovely pools that invite unwary to dip their toes in and splash around and then it is too late. "I would be most,"

a pause, as if he is searching for the right word. His brow has furrowed. There is an air of someone used to speaking a language that is not English beneath his innocuous lack of accent.

"I would be most grateful if you were to - let us not say illuminate - " - how serious he seems, how without humor, and he gives a slight shake of his head, touching his forefinger and middlefinger to his temple " - but get to the heart of the mystery, yes, and scoop it out."

"This is the matter of faith I wrote of. Male in lucem."

His hands clasp together before him. Whose faith? Adrian's? Flood's? The priest's? The parishioner's? The Sabbat's or - ? That scrawled sentence left open for interpretation, and opened again for interpretation now that there is slightly more context. A conversation about faith.

Adrian starts, as if he has recalled Flood's question which may or may not have been rhetorical. Adrian chooses to treat it as if it were not. "The teller?" An echo. "Of like mind. It is no secret."

Flood

[ Intelligence + Occult ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Dies Irae

male in lucem

Evil in light, or perhaps sickness in light, or perhaps even light is sickness, or light sickness, a half-surfacing memory of a scrap of a tale told by his sire or one of his sire's contemporaries in the mad nights of his first awakening to Power, to shucking away of what humanity there was to hold him back; a weakness that is - apocryphal, highly so - infected unfortunate abyssal scholars that they can no longer commune with the darkness and lose their deathless hunger but do not die.

He remembers too that which he has already pondered, going over and around this problem of the Cainite's bones: a woman who introduced hself as a member of the Order of the Light and drew forth a flower.

But now that flower of memory blossoms more to suggest a bloody heart at the center of it, something with a carnivorous smell, a meaty smell, and a fragrance which thickened the air so that it trembled with a light light like a cage light from a mirror no that's not right mirrors are not in this memory of a story of a connection of something but mirrors are involved. Mirrors and light and the bloody heart of a flower and its fragrance and 

its seeds. There. Male in lucem. A disease.

Flood

"The heart is a dark organ full of chambers that never see light. Has any of your darkness already mined those chambers? What might help bring order to the facts laid out before me," he asks and intimates with the slightest of inflections.

"Then we might both have the gratitude of the other," and a pause. "And others?"

"This is a plague o' our house. Put upon our house from within? The result of a war within our house?" And Flood shifts. He moves forward and his face does the same. His eyes grow sharp. They are just a clear as before but have an edge like glass that might lodge itself and cut if not handled carefully.

Handle me carefully, no, that's not the message. Do not try to handle me. I am a sharp thing.

"Tell me," and he can be cordial, and he has been, but this is decidedly direct. "There is no more room for moving in the shadows. I will begin moving with purpose," his tone decisive.

Flood

[ Manipulation (Cult of Personality) + Leadership. Blowing another WP. He's at 6. ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 7 ) [WP]

Dies Irae

[Perception + Empathy. Tell me. What do you think I can tell you? An informant's name or fairy tales or are you casting your nets wide?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

Flood

[ Manipulation + Subterfuge: Don't you worry about that. ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Dies Irae

"I am impressed you know so much as you do. You are compelling," Adrian observes, basso profundo more basso profundo than Flood has yet heard it, so that the sound is an in-your-bones in-your-marrow noise. He is still unsmiling, but the lines around his eyes spring into existence and that (comforting) exhausted air around said eyes grows more present.

"And in this matter, I would be helpful if it is in my power."

He unclasps his hands and sits up, straightening his shoulders. "Very so. I have indeed mined as you say the dark chambers of this heart, unintentionally. It has preyed upon me, both the unintentionally and what I have found myself stained by and with."

He still does not smile. He did smile once, in courtesy, did he not? But he is Caesar looking at himself in a mirror or a Pope catching his own reflection in a cup of wine and not recognizing it quite.

"The kine I did take for my supper was named Joyce Ellis. His parish is - was - the Immaculate Heart of Mary; it is on," the neighborhood is given not offhandedly but with great deliberation. "But I drank from this man and his blood rang in me like church bell's and the night did simmer away when I called on it. When I returned to the man, he knew me for what I am although there was no reason that he should have. It was difficult to kill him," a troubled frown, his eyes still on Flood, still fixed on Flood an expanse of open water. 

"Let me show you what the after did look like. A stain yet remains. You will see."

Adrian does not seem to be a showman. He does not open his hands or do anything more than unclasp them as he did, placing one on his knee and bracing himself before his shadow bulks and from the bulk of his shadow, from beneath his feet and from behind his back, from the places cast by this warm amber light which keeps them both frozen as if they were dark flaws in its design: more darkness. Three tendrils only and Adrian commands them not to whip or froth but to slither themselves like serpents until they coil up braided into a dark dense tree in front of the two Lasombra couch-seated.

He seems to expect Flood to see something in those tendrils, those Abyssal arms which he holds still. Has he paled? He is already as pale as ice.

Flood

[ Perception + Awareness: Let's have a look-see, shall we? ]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5) ( fail )

Flood

[ Perception + Subterfuge ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Flood

[ Perception + Alertness ]

Dice: 5 d10 TN10 (3, 4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Dies Irae

As the darkness blossoms into sinuous serpents which twist into a tree (not a showman, Adrian? Really?) before Flood's eyes, as Flood studies those shadows laid out for him, his subconscious insight gives him a flash of -- rightitude, of that-which-is-chosen, a reverence carefully cared for polished up not to brightness but to greater depths of void. There is something attractive about that tenebrous darkness which, and this is all instinctual, this is all visceral, wants to call his out, wants his to join the braid.

A hunch: there would be power in it.

Is power in it.

But Flood can also see, through whatever facade's Lasombra such as Adrian put on, that Adrian's hand trembles and he tries to keep it from doing so. He cannot quite manage it. There is a worn-down wariness, weariness, the exhaustion of someone using muscles that have not been used 

(though how glorious the darkness is how rich and full of)

and Flood can also see, sharp-eyed creature that he is, when he examines that darkness closely, what looks like an inconsistency. The inconsistency almost wants to be a dappled pattern which fades.

Flood

There are things to see here and Flood looks upon them all with apprehension and calculation, the same two tools he puts to use in his observation of Adrian asking him to observe it, and at the end of this he is certain of one thing: he is no more or less certain than he had been.

And so he is left with his observations and Adrian's stories to add to those his sister-by-sire had shared with him.

"Two more - at least - a brother and a sister of our house, perhaps, and perhaps a dame and childe, or a mentor and apprentice, I am unsure, they tread through these chambers. They are on its periphery and working toward their own ends," looking to Adrian for a reaction at this revelation. Looking for and looking expectantly for more.

"Tell me, Adrian, if I were to go to the mines on the edge of town what might I find there? If I were to look to the developers, the builders, the men funding a certain site, what might I find there?" Flood looks around the house.

"You live out here in Federal," and he had heard that Spanish.

This is a stereotype? No, this is a leap of intuition. This is knowing the way the world works.

"Out here with the laborers, with the kine-backs upon which this city was built and is still being built, and I cannot help but wonder if you know of a Jonson. Of a Lang. The pharaohs and the taskmasters," and his head cants to the side. "What future do you build?"

This is a gambit made before a show of strength, as far as Flood is concerned, and his legs finally unfold and he leans forward, elbows on his knees, as he waits for an answer. As he reads the poker face he is presented with.

Dies Irae

Adrian, with great care, begins to release unlace the shadow tree, and if his hands shake more as he does so he also grips his thigh more firmly and with greater strength, quelling the tremor entirely. One tendril drops as if it were water; splashes out, spreads, and becomes a shadow that only dreams of the abyss, something quite mundane cast by a couch.

His glance appears to be troubled by Flood's assertion that two more of their house have got themselves involved, a sharp and negatory shake of his head. It seems involuntary, and he is more Caesar looking at himself in the mirror than ever, the frown carving exhaustion from his eyes and between his brows.

Tell me, Adrian. Tell me, two words which echo with the particular personality Flood is able to bring to bear on men and women, quick and dead, which drags them after him.

"A Jonson and a Lang?" he echoes, thoughtfully (as if in thought, mulling over the equation of name + name as if it were 2 + 3 and he's going to come to the sum eventually because it is an easy one but then again). Jonson and Lang and developers and a certain site; this has Adrian frowning but differently than he'd been frowning, less a furrow in his brow, less sharpness.

"Phil Lang you speak of. I do know of the man, but his business has not been of interest to me. He is a heathen."

From there, back on point, a spark of warmth cindering into ash and heat: "And any of our house who tread those chambers, I do not know what they do, but perhaps they turn their back on what it is we know," one more tendril of darkness he releases, lets ravel toward the floor; his eyes go to it, soft, "is ours by blood and by right. Anti-what we are. Perhaps antitribu."

Dies Irae

[I have no poker face. Manip + Subt.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Flood

[ TELL ME THE SEEEEKRITS. Spending a WP. ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN10 (1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Flood

[ Obtenebration: Manipulation + Occult ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Flood

An arm remains as the Lasombra who had heard the bells of a church ring in his ears now struggles to give it form. He trembles and it perseveres and Flood?

Has seen either a weakness or a strength, and he must know which. From the corners of the room, the four corners of the world, as if Lasombra rising at the mention of their antitribu, converge upon the arm that remains to snuff it out. Intent on this result.

To end it and its inconsistency with the darkness as it should be and the Abyss as it is.

With their rise Flood rises to his feet. He doesn't ready himself for battle. A general of the shadows has forces marshaled to do such things and so he stands straight and proud so that, if this is a threat, it is a very subtle one. A threat like a fish hook or an arrow, so smooth running one way, but so very jagged and cutting the other. It depends on if you're moving with him or not.

With him or against him.

"Then those who would impede will be sanctioned for their heresy," he says simply.

[ Arms of the Abyss snuff out and smother Adrian's remaining arm.

Manipulation + Intimidation: A very veiled threat. ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Dies Irae

[Male in lucem. #1.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

Flood

[ Stamina ]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 5) ( fail )

Dies Irae

Day of wrath; dies irae. So do the dark arms Flood's will and blood conjure up converge on that one rippling, one rightitude power promise strength or weakness which is it tenebrous arm held barely aloft beginning its balletic descent into mundanity, and so do they smother it as if it were a darkness and greater darkness came upon it. Adrian rises to his feet at once when he realizes what is occuring, his eyes leaping from where they'd gone and a word on his lips unspoken. As he looks at Flood with something needle-sharp and scholarly, something curious as well as wary then.

The darkness as it should be and the Abyss as it is.

Flood does not hear the silvering of bells in the marrow of him but he does hear a chord that strikes a glissando against his eyeballs and against his throat and in his fangs where they are tucked-away and it feels lucent. He feels this as his shadowy arms smother out that weak one lie across it; one dissolves and dissipates is sublimated by that other and smothered in turn; then another dissolves and dissipates is sublimated by that other and smothered in turn. He has two shadowy arms holding strong.

The glissando fades, but perhaps he feels stained, as if the air of a sick room is clinging to him and he needs fresh air. Or perhaps that metaphor means nothing to vampires as long dead and far from humanity as most of the Sabbat.

"It should be so," Adrian says, or is saying, watchfully.

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Flood

[ Stamina ]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Flood

"Thank you for your hospitality, Adrian, and I hope that we will be able to share company and gratitude in the future," and with that the two remaining arms move to attend Flood. They find his true shadow, though they are truer, and they find the cuffs of his pant legs and the darkness beneath his footfalls to disappear into.

Flood turns toward the foyer and begins to head to the door of the house and place of business.

If unimpeded in his exit he will continue onto the sidewalk and to that parked SUV to climb inside and drive off.

Dies Irae

[AND ROLL CREDITS.]