Mystery mansions
Another episode of Vampire the Masquerade!
On the following night, the gruesome fivesome met at the young Giovanni’s place to sum up what they had just experienced. Walter and Chiara argumented (read: bickered) about the presumed werewolf, flipping through books, while Dom pondered whether he should pay a visit to Elizabeth von Hess. The team had also recieved a message that Marc de Rouen was nowhere to be found. It seemed like it was also time to go and ask a certain Malkavian primogen named Maria a few questions, despite the horrified look on Chiara’s face. Dom set out to see Lady von Hess, while the rest (C in a stylish kimono and traditional Japanese geta-shoes) headed out to the Primogen’s dwellings.
Chiara deliberately stayed behind the others when they entered, muttering something about ”a creepy kid”. The childlike Malkavian was building a tall tower of blocks, but when she saw the four visitors, she knocked it down, and said ”I don’t want to talk to you!” The Concubine walked beside the girl and somehow convinced her to tell what was wrong. ”Uncle Freeky’s gone missing.” Suddenly Chiara heard a squeek behind her, and ran to the center of the room, screaming in panic, while the Primogen’s ghoul servant chased the little rodent to the kitchen with a rifle in her hand. C asked the Primogen if she knew where Mr. Freeky Van Der Weyen’s residence was, and the girl said the team should ask the dog. Sure enough, they soon found themselves following a Great Dane through Manhattan, after Hans was done with gushing over how adorably stout and handsome the dog was. Meanwhile, the Italo-American Caitiff had reached Lady von Hess, and sat down to hear what she had to say. The woman pretty much stated that she needed Dom’s help in weeding out the competition, adding ”I can make you anything you want.” Dom, however, was bemused, and neutrally answered that he’d think about it.
What would you get if you combined the Addams Family with Scooby-Doo’s Mystery gang? …The coterie of vampires that now stood in front of a large, ornate gate, when the Great Dane had finally halted. There seemed to be some strange Tremere symbols on the gate, which Walter deciphered to be a ward against werewolves. Jinkies! Dom also arrived to the location, as he had been keeping in touch with the others on the road via text-messages. Walter recieved an electric shock when he tried to use the intercom on the gate, but after a while the team found a secret door through the gate, just barely avoiding a trap wire behind it. At the mansion, the Tremere tried the door, and the wall behind it exploded, but remained unharmed! While the others walked to the other side of the house, Chiara looked around to see if there was a shed of some sort, which there was. Dom quickly realised the Giovanni was wandering off, and ran after her. After he had disarmed the shed as well, the door to the shed opened to reveal a hanged man swinging from the ceiling. It turned out he was still alive, and the Necromancer tugged his pant-sleeve with a cheerful ”wake up!”
This ghoul was the missing Malkavian’s body-guard, who had tried to hang himself. The motley of vampires (mainly C) persuaded him to let them in, which was a complicated ritual of tapping tiles, turning the chimney and whatnot. The ghoul himself was convinced that the werewolves had taken his master, and he had been in the kitchen when it had happened. Upon closer inspection to the building, it was quite a wild goose-chase, despite an interesting -if pointless- conversation with Native American ghosts, a hallway of mirrors, chandeliers dripping blood and people crucified to the attic floor. Hrumpf - Malkavians. Oh well. Frustrated, the fab five stormed off to Mr. de Rouen's mansion, This turned out to be a more eventful edeavor, as there was no obstruction to getting inside, and there was, not only signs of a large fight, but the slashed corpse of a bodyguard laying right next to the doorway. Chiara practiced a familiar trick of Nigrimancy to contact the deceased. He could tell them that there had been a man in a business suit, followed by a large gang, and before the poor guard could react, he had been killed by incredibly sharp talons.
While the other four clambered upstairs to investigate, Dom remained next to the body, examining the dead guy’s cell-phone. He called a number by the name of ”The boss”, and a phone rang somewhere upstairs. The Clanless fetched the phone and checked calls last dialled and received by de Rouen. Dom saw that the former (before the call he had just made, obviously) was from Lady von Hess, so he dialled her number. The Ventrue lady seemed extremely surprised at first, but got rather annoyed by Dom’s presumptiousness, so she said ”we had some business - not your business!” and hung up. The last call de Rouen had made was to Silver, to whom Dom made a more concisive situation report of the situation. At the same time, Chiara was in de Rouen’s bedroom, holding a rather unbecoming portrait, trying to summon its owner, while Hans and Walter (who startled C by turning on the lights, as she was still using Auspex) followed the Concubine, who had just found a secret door to a staircase behind the library shelf. The staircase lead to a long tunnel underground, but as the dust there was quite undisturbed, the three put together that de Rouen hadn’t had the chance to escape through it.
Chiara discovered that, as she could summon de Rouen, the Ventrue had been killed. He told Chiara that there had been at least 20 attackers in the house, some of which had been Gangrel. Chiara inquired whom the Ventrue thought would make a good Prince, and while he laughed at the mention of Lady von Hess, he himself gave Galebros his warm recommendation. Chiara bid him a peaceful rest, when she heard gunshots coming downstairs. Dom was in a pickle. He had been attacked by three men, one of which he had managed to take down quickly, but the second one had caused him aggravated damage with his talons, and the Caitiff was now incapacitated. The remaining two - one Gangrel and one Nosferatu - were advancing towards the staircase, but Chiara had grabbed the Desert Eagle off of a dead body guard, boosted her strength with vitae, and severely wounded one of the attackers by shooting him square in the chest. The necromancer shrilly shouted for C, Hans and Walter to come to her aid, and Hans -dashing up the secret stairs using celerity- sliced the wounded Gangrel’s head off with one, clean swing. Chiara jumped over the railing, landing quite gracefully next to Dom, and nurtured him back to consciousness by feeding him a little of her own Vitae. Hans had shot down the Nosferatu, who had inflicted the German pilot damage, which Hans was luckily able to heal.
The vampires decided to cut off the head of the incapacitated enemy vampire, then drinking his blood. Walter made some blood magic items off some of the vitae, and the Giovanni summons the dead Nosferatu’s soul for interrogation. Seething, but forced to answer question after question, the ghost tells our heroes that the pack of Vampires behind the attack were a Sabbat pack called the Red Fists, lead by Red Jack. The soul said he hoped that both the Prince and the missing Malkavian would be killed by now, which gave some hope that they hadn’t faced their final death yet. C cheerfully took upon herself the task of calling Galebros, who was painfully exasperated when the Malkavian anachronism told him the details of the team’s discovery in her own, cryptic way, wondering what it was about hands that the Sabbat found so fascinating that they had to have everything named after the body part. Dom was taken to his home, where Chiara sent some blood-packs and a ”get well soon” -card.
Everyone was soon greeted by the rumour that Father Bruce's church had just been burned. How odd indeed, that those who have gone missing are all more or less most likely to claim the title of Princedom...unless the Prince is still in one piece.
On the following night, the gruesome fivesome met at the young Giovanni’s place to sum up what they had just experienced. Walter and Chiara argumented (read: bickered) about the presumed werewolf, flipping through books, while Dom pondered whether he should pay a visit to Elizabeth von Hess. The team had also recieved a message that Marc de Rouen was nowhere to be found. It seemed like it was also time to go and ask a certain Malkavian primogen named Maria a few questions, despite the horrified look on Chiara’s face. Dom set out to see Lady von Hess, while the rest (C in a stylish kimono and traditional Japanese geta-shoes) headed out to the Primogen’s dwellings.
Chiara deliberately stayed behind the others when they entered, muttering something about ”a creepy kid”. The childlike Malkavian was building a tall tower of blocks, but when she saw the four visitors, she knocked it down, and said ”I don’t want to talk to you!” The Concubine walked beside the girl and somehow convinced her to tell what was wrong. ”Uncle Freeky’s gone missing.” Suddenly Chiara heard a squeek behind her, and ran to the center of the room, screaming in panic, while the Primogen’s ghoul servant chased the little rodent to the kitchen with a rifle in her hand. C asked the Primogen if she knew where Mr. Freeky Van Der Weyen’s residence was, and the girl said the team should ask the dog. Sure enough, they soon found themselves following a Great Dane through Manhattan, after Hans was done with gushing over how adorably stout and handsome the dog was. Meanwhile, the Italo-American Caitiff had reached Lady von Hess, and sat down to hear what she had to say. The woman pretty much stated that she needed Dom’s help in weeding out the competition, adding ”I can make you anything you want.” Dom, however, was bemused, and neutrally answered that he’d think about it.
What would you get if you combined the Addams Family with Scooby-Doo’s Mystery gang? …The coterie of vampires that now stood in front of a large, ornate gate, when the Great Dane had finally halted. There seemed to be some strange Tremere symbols on the gate, which Walter deciphered to be a ward against werewolves. Jinkies! Dom also arrived to the location, as he had been keeping in touch with the others on the road via text-messages. Walter recieved an electric shock when he tried to use the intercom on the gate, but after a while the team found a secret door through the gate, just barely avoiding a trap wire behind it. At the mansion, the Tremere tried the door, and the wall behind it exploded, but remained unharmed! While the others walked to the other side of the house, Chiara looked around to see if there was a shed of some sort, which there was. Dom quickly realised the Giovanni was wandering off, and ran after her. After he had disarmed the shed as well, the door to the shed opened to reveal a hanged man swinging from the ceiling. It turned out he was still alive, and the Necromancer tugged his pant-sleeve with a cheerful ”wake up!”
This ghoul was the missing Malkavian’s body-guard, who had tried to hang himself. The motley of vampires (mainly C) persuaded him to let them in, which was a complicated ritual of tapping tiles, turning the chimney and whatnot. The ghoul himself was convinced that the werewolves had taken his master, and he had been in the kitchen when it had happened. Upon closer inspection to the building, it was quite a wild goose-chase, despite an interesting -if pointless- conversation with Native American ghosts, a hallway of mirrors, chandeliers dripping blood and people crucified to the attic floor. Hrumpf - Malkavians. Oh well. Frustrated, the fab five stormed off to Mr. de Rouen's mansion, This turned out to be a more eventful edeavor, as there was no obstruction to getting inside, and there was, not only signs of a large fight, but the slashed corpse of a bodyguard laying right next to the doorway. Chiara practiced a familiar trick of Nigrimancy to contact the deceased. He could tell them that there had been a man in a business suit, followed by a large gang, and before the poor guard could react, he had been killed by incredibly sharp talons.
While the other four clambered upstairs to investigate, Dom remained next to the body, examining the dead guy’s cell-phone. He called a number by the name of ”The boss”, and a phone rang somewhere upstairs. The Clanless fetched the phone and checked calls last dialled and received by de Rouen. Dom saw that the former (before the call he had just made, obviously) was from Lady von Hess, so he dialled her number. The Ventrue lady seemed extremely surprised at first, but got rather annoyed by Dom’s presumptiousness, so she said ”we had some business - not your business!” and hung up. The last call de Rouen had made was to Silver, to whom Dom made a more concisive situation report of the situation. At the same time, Chiara was in de Rouen’s bedroom, holding a rather unbecoming portrait, trying to summon its owner, while Hans and Walter (who startled C by turning on the lights, as she was still using Auspex) followed the Concubine, who had just found a secret door to a staircase behind the library shelf. The staircase lead to a long tunnel underground, but as the dust there was quite undisturbed, the three put together that de Rouen hadn’t had the chance to escape through it.
Chiara discovered that, as she could summon de Rouen, the Ventrue had been killed. He told Chiara that there had been at least 20 attackers in the house, some of which had been Gangrel. Chiara inquired whom the Ventrue thought would make a good Prince, and while he laughed at the mention of Lady von Hess, he himself gave Galebros his warm recommendation. Chiara bid him a peaceful rest, when she heard gunshots coming downstairs. Dom was in a pickle. He had been attacked by three men, one of which he had managed to take down quickly, but the second one had caused him aggravated damage with his talons, and the Caitiff was now incapacitated. The remaining two - one Gangrel and one Nosferatu - were advancing towards the staircase, but Chiara had grabbed the Desert Eagle off of a dead body guard, boosted her strength with vitae, and severely wounded one of the attackers by shooting him square in the chest. The necromancer shrilly shouted for C, Hans and Walter to come to her aid, and Hans -dashing up the secret stairs using celerity- sliced the wounded Gangrel’s head off with one, clean swing. Chiara jumped over the railing, landing quite gracefully next to Dom, and nurtured him back to consciousness by feeding him a little of her own Vitae. Hans had shot down the Nosferatu, who had inflicted the German pilot damage, which Hans was luckily able to heal.
The vampires decided to cut off the head of the incapacitated enemy vampire, then drinking his blood. Walter made some blood magic items off some of the vitae, and the Giovanni summons the dead Nosferatu’s soul for interrogation. Seething, but forced to answer question after question, the ghost tells our heroes that the pack of Vampires behind the attack were a Sabbat pack called the Red Fists, lead by Red Jack. The soul said he hoped that both the Prince and the missing Malkavian would be killed by now, which gave some hope that they hadn’t faced their final death yet. C cheerfully took upon herself the task of calling Galebros, who was painfully exasperated when the Malkavian anachronism told him the details of the team’s discovery in her own, cryptic way, wondering what it was about hands that the Sabbat found so fascinating that they had to have everything named after the body part. Dom was taken to his home, where Chiara sent some blood-packs and a ”get well soon” -card.
Everyone was soon greeted by the rumour that Father Bruce's church had just been burned. How odd indeed, that those who have gone missing are all more or less most likely to claim the title of Princedom...unless the Prince is still in one piece.