2022-01-24
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INVOLVED PARTIES
INCIDENT REPORT
Gimme Back My Bullets...
- Aradia exits the Théâtre de Douleur following the hasty assembly of the Anarch Council. She steps across the street to use the payphone, calling Yuki at the Barnard College chantry. She plans to introduce Josi and Emily to the computer club there, but wanted prior authorization — which is granted.
- Before heading back into the theatre, Aradia notices a pale green sedan pull away from its parking spot just up the block. It has a New York license plate, beginning with the sequence 2HL-.
- Josi calls Emily, using the mobile telephone she acquired from Rasmodius. Emily is stoked to go to the Barnard College computer club, and agrees to meet the coterie on campus. Before hanging up, she tells Josi that she loves her.
- Josi and Justine head into Manhattan in the "morgue mobile" while chatting about Hebrew iconography and the significant of numbers. Justine muses that perhaps they should look into the numerological significance of the number 98, even beyond gematria.
- Lina and Erik accompany Aradia in her hotrod. Erik is mouthing along to "Gimme Back My Bullets" when Aradia makes it weird by comments about his bare chest. Erik steps out at a donut shop in Brooklyn, transforms into an owl, and flies away in Aradia's rearview mirror.
Weird Science...
- Emily is awaiting the group at Barnard College. She, Josi, and Lina meet up with Yuki at the computer club. Emily and Yuki seem to get on famously, chatting excitedly about however-many-baud-modems and whatnot. Yuki seems to be especially keen on waxing philosophy, claiming that the universe is nothing but one big operating system — an operating system that can be hacked and altered, so long as you understand the code. She lights up talking about the "God-Machine" and the coming singularity. She's just concerned that the Order of Reason might beat her to it.
- Josi and Lina are trying to follow along, but neither have much of a grasp on this level of technobabble. In fact, Josi is so far removed from her comfort zone that she lashes out — grabbing something from the shelve and smashing it upon the floor. Emily is beyond embarrassed, and Josi excuses herself, leaving the room with Lina in tow — but not before slipping Algernon into Emily's pocket. Yuki seems unmoved however, and merely comments that those with "dead Avatars" can't help it. She goes on to state that she now has an excuse to build her "foci" anew.
- In the hall, Josi asks Lina about her criminal leanings, and invites her to help plan the heist of Prince Cortés' painting for the Aranta Shadur. Lina's confident that there hasn't been a safe made that she can't crack, or a train too fast for her to board.
Come to the Sabbath...
- Aradia and Justine head into the Sigma Delta Tau (ΣΔΤ) sorority house. On their way, the two chat about their occult leanings and experiences. Aradia mentions that High Regent Sturbridge had previously tutored under Aleister Crowley himself. Justine is surprised, because she too had a passing mentorship with Crowley, albeit at the end of his life.
- Entering the great hall, Aradia and Justine are greeted by a ritual scene. Encircled, arms locked, are perhaps fifteen women. They all chant in unison, their lips moving with an unfamiliar language. Within the circle of bodies, scrawled upon the floor, is a red sigil. It's part pentagram, but so much more. The intricacies belie smaller glyphs and sigils embedded into the design, each near a candle or piece of gore — a blood heart, a pair of eyeballs, etc. One symbol stands out however... the Leviathan! The very same design that was inscribed upon Josi's arm. Though the trappings around it here seem to hint at a different purpose. Perhaps a spell of binding?
- Standing at the edge of the ceremony is Aisling herself, reading from a heavy tome, leading the chant. She makes eye contact with Aradia, and motions for her to join. Aradia steps into the circle.
- Justine stays back, watching the ceremony from the edges of the room. Using her supernatural senses, she can see the the raw magic pulsing through the lines and shapes of the sigil. More so, it seems to bee drawing this power from the encircled bodies.
- As the figures beside Aradia break arms to make room, Justine senses a howling wind in the aether. The candlelit room grows somehow darker in through her cunning sight, filled with tenebrous intent. In the spaces between worlds, a single bell rings out. Then, without warning, Aradia's arms have closed the circle back. The supernal gust halts, as the invocation continues. It eventually reaches a crescendo with a flick of Aisling's athame, spilling her own vitae to feed the spell.
Welcome, Princes of Hell...
- Moving away from the ceremony of the great hall, Aisling leads Aradia and Lina to her private study / office. Aisling seems perturbed, and lets Aradia know in no unclear terms that her presence is expected through this ritual — until Halley's Comet has passed by the planet. She reiterates that those who benefit from membership are expected to give back equally to the chantry.
- Justine is excused to Aisling's small foyer / private library while her and Aradia speak in private. Happy to pursue the books on display, Justine becomes almost transfixed with the titled spines. She sits down at the small writing desk, obsessed with the open book that seems to be in mid translation or annotation. The pages seem to be instructive — at least, visually — of the sigil in the great hall. It depicts the Princes of Hell, and in particular, the Leviathan — the Hellmouth. Justine is shocked as her previous tarot reading comes to mind! She drew The Tower, which depicts the Hellmouth!
- In private, Aisling admits to Aradia that the the sigil on the floor is connected to the Leviathan, or rather, numerous Children of Outer Dark. The chantry is holding an ongoing vigil — a binding ceremony — to keep the Children from awakening as their harbinger passes nearest Earth.
- These entities exist in a state of physical and psychic separation and imprisonment. Their flesh exists in the material realm, embedded in the substance of the Earth itself — in "tombs" that show no sign of construction and that have walls etched with the scars of their thrashing. Their minds, however, exist somewhere else, in a sea of tormented horror that is to them sweetest bliss. Should some event encourage one of the Children to awaken, their minds and bodies would come closer to union, their unclean knowledge released upon the world. The essence of their nature would spill over into all sapient minds in the vicinity, driving them to greater and greater acts of depravity, causing reality to warp and twist to the breaking point.
- Aisling claims that to keep these "neverborn malfeans" slumbering, she and her coven mates must perform increasingly vile acts of atrocity. For if the waking dreams of the Children were to grow dull or boring, then they would start awake... and there would be worlds nor gods any longer.
- To this end, Aradia is tasked with taking a ritual concoction to Hess Triangle. There, she has been instructed to mix her fresh vitae into potion and use it to outline the embedded isosceles triangle. The plaque marks the node of three crisscrossing ley lines, and this ritual will help to tap their power for the chantry's own use. No further spell work is required, but Aisling does stress discretion... many in Kindred society would not look upon the actions of the chantry with kindness.
- Aisling calls the inner circle of the chantry — those that work to keep the Children of Outer Dark from waking — the Order of Moloch, or the Molochim. That they summon and bind infernal forces so as to fight fire with fire... literally.
Satanic Panic...
- The coterie reassembles on the campus grounds. Aisling harboring a dark purpose, Justine taken aback by the revelation of her divination cards, and Emily with a confounding new gift from Yuki — an enchanted razor blade that, when used on flesh, can draw a "cable" of blood to be plugged into a data port, allowing for some sort of control.
- Dawn is approaching soon, so the coterie make plans to retire for the day. Emily returns to the Warrens, while Justine goes home to Club Medea. Lina and Josi return to the Center for Thanatology, where Josi asks Pius about the prophecy that Baron de Troyes had previous given: "From the ruins of the Third City, upon the backs of snakes, the lion’s wings are slow to mend. Thy kingdom come!" Pius agrees that this could be a remark about his own past. The lion's wings could be a allusion to Mithras, his patron deity. The Third City was a common enough title for Carthage, which he had spent some time in. The snakes, perhaps, refer to the Setites that had exchanged safe harbor for necromatic secrets.
- Aradia uses the last hour of night to approach Hess Triangle. She mixes her vitae with the provided potion and uses it to trace the plaque on the ground. Just as she's finishing however, she is ambushed by a group of cloaked figures, each wearing a crudely carved animal mask. One calls out "she's here for the nexus" and grabs her wrist, their touch somehow burning and blistering her skin. Yet another plunges a crooked dagger into her shoulder blade, the wound emitting far more pain than would be normal. Eventually, Aradia spits an acid glob of vitae at her nearest assailant, burning their flesh in return. They grunt some garbled, unrecognizable langue, putting emphasis on a word which sounds like "nergal".
- The battle continues, as Aradia calls out "fire" to get the attention of the nearby bodega operator. He steps out with a shotgun, chasing the masked figure away. With little thanks, Aradia, too, flees the scene. She's injured, and her stigmata flares up. Blood begins to drip into her eyes, and smear along the steering wheel of her car. She floors it toward her penthouse, blood pooling up in her shoes and on the gas pedal. She managed to make it to her haven before dawn, but passes out just inside the door, leaving her blood-splattered car parked up on the sidewalk outside...
MUSIC FROM THE SUCCUBUS CLUB
THE CONCLAVE
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