(Skeleton Keys) Ill Tidings

Jan 22nd, 2015 09:53 AM

Sodden, bedraggled, and mentally exhausted, David is a sight as he slips into the bowls of the Nox using the service entrances. Suddenly self-conscious, David fidgets with the edges of his sleeves while suddenly missing the feeling of 'shivering fingers;' autonomic functions to try to keep warm have long-since fallen by the wayside. A glance behind him reveals Tracy in much the same state. Unfortunately, the knowledge gained this evening weighs heavier than his soaked-through clothes.

It cannot wait.

David was silent as Tracy drove from Yolo County with an ear trained for the chirping of her phone. His mind, however, sought the ways it all could have gone better. Dog chose his end, in a way, fighting for his love. Roxie, however, did not and as it turns out, David was proven false. David questions himself if they were seen at the entrance, if that keyed things off, or if it was planned to happen at that moment all along.

“Bingen?” The question is directed towards Tracy as they walk the diamond layout of the Elysium, “Baldwin?” The truncated question simply asks if they've sent word back. David heard a body fall back in the thicket. He hopes it was neither of them.

Responsibility must be taken for the Change one enacts.

Coming to a stop in front of the Prince's office, sans coat, David takes in a breath and knocks.

Mentions:
Yumyumcrow Hildegarde Jag Tracy Burns West Asa

**Tracy Burns** · Jan 22nd, 2015 10:18 AM

Tracy shook her head in response to David's question, the weight of the implications heavy on her shoulders. Certainly she was glad that he had survived, but if Hildegarde had not made it out, she would still consider it a failure on her part. But how could they have done things differently? The petite Gangrel wasn't sure if anything they may have done would have prevented the outcome they had been handed by fate. A mixture of emotions surged through her. Anger. Sorrow. More anger.

They have to pay for what they've done.

Unless Dog and Roxie had found a way to miraculously escape the bunker, the redheaded Savage had lost two of her clan mates that evening. She was their Priscus, but beyond that, she considered both of them friends. The anguish she felt threatened to overtake her, if it wasn't for the fact that Tracy had mastered the impulses of her Beast to some extent. Yet, the desire for vengeance was greater than anything else she felt at that moment.

As they stood outside the Prince's office, the petite Gangrel looked defeated. However, she did her best to compose herself as they awaited for a response.

**Hildegarde Bingen** · Jan 22nd, 2015 05:05 PM

Through the murk and the mire and the pouring rain she had come. Ran, really, but she was barely aware of that. She had only been cognisant of her destination: the parking lot, Iago waiting for her. She had crashed, flailing, against her car, a primordial wraith drenched, covered in mud and twigs.

"We must go! We must go!"

Iago, eyes wide for he had not seen his mistress like this in many, many years, could only oblige. Noblesse oblige and chivalry only work when the Lady is demure. Hildegarde flung herself into the back seat, trailing ooze and green things. It was only as they pulled out that she regained some sort of composure, peeling off the drowned beret and casting it, useless, at her feet.

"To the Nox. Use back streets. None must see me."

Iago was too well schooled to argue.

The Lord slipped through the darkened tradesman's entrance, stalking quickly to the lower floor. In her fugue she ignores, or fails to notice, the signs of another's passing. It is only when she reaches Elysium that she discovers that the Dragon's had escaped the conflagration. There is a look of brutal surprise hammered onto her features. Other emotions: relief, pleasure, take much longer to work their way - half remembered - across her face. The gasp though, is audible.

"Grand Wyrm. Guardian... The Kogoaoin?"

Standing there, the Lord slowly returns to the present. She seems quite shocked at the state of her hands.

Jan 23rd, 2015 03:49 PM

He hears the gasp. The sharp intake of breath that stands out because, at least David, isn't breathing himself. David turns towards the sound and at the same time one of his questions is answered. Relief washes over the Shadow's features at seeing Hildegarde's haggard appearance. The Mortician examines her, the greenery that crowns her, the mud that has caked at the edges of her fingers, and her aura, making sure that nothing in the interim between she wasn't turned against them.

4 Successes, Aura Precept looking for Weak/Muted before Comp.

Satisfied, the Grand Wyrm speaks in quiet tones, “Devoured, long before tonight. Replaced by another, who we saw. The rest will have to wait for His Grace's ears.”

Dull-brown eyes rove the halls, searching, while ears wait for the tell-tale sign of Asa granting an audience.

**Hildegarde Bingen** · Jan 23rd, 2015 05:02 PM

PM'd the Auspex results

**Asa** · Jan 24th, 2015 01:56 AM

As David is staring at Hildegarde, the door opens.

Asa is dressed casually, in slacks and a french blue dress shirt; casual, in the sense that it's not a suit and the black vest doesn't match the grey slacks. The hand not on the door is holding... a football.

A curious look is directed at the trio, lingering on the sad state of their clothing and sodden features. The door opens wider, and he steps back. The other hand joins the first on the football. It bulges slightly as he... squeezes it.

"Good evening."

He's seen stranger than the trio. The tone is cautiously curious; in his experience, the more bedraggled the appearance, the worse the news.

"Priscus Burns. Priscus Regan. Whip Bingen."

Their appearance is no reason to eschew courtesy, after all.

Jan 24th, 2015 10:02 PM

Asa's greeting grabs David's attention. A shift of weight and the Shadow offers a bow to the Prince, fastidious and unassuming. The Ventrue's mere presence smothers David's own tiny, pinprick of light. “Your Grace, please forgive our states of dress,” only the Shadow Priscus' soft-spoken tenor carries with it a souvenir of his past life; a man so far removed from the person he is now. Change, sometimes, is a slow rising tide.

“But, what we've learned – witnessed tonight must be brought to your immediate attention.”

The more bedraggled the appearance, the worse the news, indeed.

“May we come in?” Though it seems Asa already has, politeness is a security blanket and even in these dire times, David wraps himself in it fully.

Should the Prince welcome the drowned trio into the room, David slips in. He visibly seems to try to take as little space as possible, despite his lanky, six-foot frame. The Shadow touches nothing, though a look of recognition at the football seems to come and go like the breeze as he waits for the door to close behind the other two.

**Hildegarde Bingen** · Jan 25th, 2015 01:20 AM

"If it please your Grace, I believe we must insist," Hildegarde added her quit voice in support of her Grand Wyrm. The power she had witnessed astounded her still; and who knew what the others had witnessed inside the confines of the bunker itself.

**Asa** · Jan 25th, 2015 08:38 PM

Without the mortician's Beast in evidence, Asa's only had two to focus on -- which became one with a single word.

Insist?

If he had been Blushed, perhaps a flush might have revealed the white-hot surge of anger. Instead, the bloody demand to show his cousin in excrutiating detail what she could and could not insist upon was only in evidence by the needless and slow blink. Even to the man, it rankled, suspecting that such demands were fueled by his own Covenant's erosion and their ascension.

"You may enter."

The overly formal words were a subtle, gentle warning, as he stood aside and widened the door.

Asemi-circular couch faced a dark television, with an over-sized ottoman between them. Another football rested on the couch, which was easily large enough to accommodate all of them. In the back corner was solid desk of dark wood that exuded a sense of age well beyond that of the other furnishings.

Jan 26th, 2015 01:12 PM

Once the door clicks behind the last to enter, David begins, “This evening, a cadre of us – Dog, Priscus Burns, Whip Bingen, Priscus Baldwin filling a boon owed to Dog, and myself – went searching for the Kindred known as Muir.” The Mortician only starts with the briefest of contexts, moving swiftly to the point.

“Our search took us to Yolo County, to a bomb-shelter surrounded by thralls or a group of ghouls. What we found within that bomb-shelter, was not Muir, but Regent Hart, cemented to the wall.” A breath is taken, unnecessarily perhaps, but used to simply slow down the cavalcade of bad news being given to the Prince of the Domain. “A Kindred by the name of Jacqui Coturi, the Regent explained, had abducted her and was slowly feeding from the Regent.”

“Further,” David meticulously recounts, “Regent Hart explained that Muir was Diablerized by Coturi; with the help of and only after, Regent Erika Brady ripped out his knowledge. This information includes Order Secrets and our Security Protocols.”

David sews his fingers together in front of him, a slow shift of his weight follows, “Dog remained behind to try to dig the Regent out of her cement prison as accelerant was poured into the bunker. The rest of us discovered a wood barricade which we brought down, however, unfortunately we were too late. Coturi, I believe, lit the accelerant and the bunker behind us went up in blinding flames.”

Mulling over his thoughts David adds, “It is my belief that Priscus Baldwin defended our escape and further, it is my belief that this is connected to Aïleen McFarlane's Murder and everything else surrounding the Torpid Elder, now in Brady's possession.”

The Grand Wyrm and Shadow Priscus look towards Tracy and Hildegarde in case they have anything to add.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-01-23 15:36:30		David Regan rolls 7 to Int + Occult + Aus - 2 Patterns (10 Again)		2, 5, 9, 5, 10, 10, 7, 9, 4		4 successes

(Skeleton Keys) Ill Tidings

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