(Necropolis) The Grand Tour

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Gilroy waited on street level for Alice to arrive. Behind him stood the derelict house that hid the main part of the Necropolis in its sub-basement. The facade was still much as he'd first found it, windows broken in and not even bothered to have been bordered up. Even the homeless tended to avoid setting up residence in it's decaying shell. Atmosphere and location still tended to be the main deterrent from investigating. Eventually Kenneth needed to include more defensive measures but for now it was good enough.

The Haunt fiddled with the new key he'd had made for the albino cousin. If she truly wanted to help improve the Necropolis she'd need access.

[Alice Hart]

Alice approached the location Kenneth gave her on foot. Choosing to wear worn jeans, and a battered hoodie. She didn't know the state of the Necropolis, and she would rather not ruin any of the meager collection of nicer clothing she was able to bring with her.

She could see his silhouette upon the backdrop of a decayed, and decrepit shell of a house. No one sane, no one with any shred of a self preservation instinct would venture close, which of course meant that this was the perfect front to the entrance of the Nosferatu Kingdom.

She walks up to him slowing making sure her feet make noise as she walks, not intending to startle him. She didn't want his buzzing voice high with fear. She notices him fiddling with something that glimmered slightly-occasionally in the low streetlight. "Hello Doctor," she great, and while neither of them has counterfeited life, they are still on the street, out in the open, she would always hesitate to us a Kindred tittle over a Kine's moniker given theses circumstances.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

"Hello Miss Hart," Kenneth's head bobbed in greeting "If you'll please follow me." A quick check around didn't reveal any Kine out this late at night in a neighborhood like this.

Kenneth led the way into the house. The first floor was nothing special, save for the piles of dirt that seemed to have gathered under the sills. Gilroy skittered forward with the confidence of a rat picking its way through a dump. Stairs descended into a dark basement where Alice will probably be glad she hadn't activated the blush. The small corpses of over a dozen vermin and a cat were in the center of the room. All fairly recently killed and starting to bloat with horrid smelling gases that had slowly leaked and filled the basement with stench. Kenneth walked past them without taking any great notice. He'd been the one to drain them of blood and place them there after all. The old deterrent had decayed to little more than fur and bone, and after his fast he had found himself with extra rat corpses on hand. The cat was just extra, added when he'd had to stop it from eating the rodents.

As dead eyes adjust to the darkness, a metal door can be seen looming on the wall with a pad lock holding it shut.

"This is the main entrance to the Necropolis," Gilroy explained "And this," he held up the bit of metal "is your key. If you lose it, please tell Mr. Marlon or me immediately so the lock can be replaced. I don't know how skilled you are Obfuscation but if possible, enter the house while Cloaked to prevent arousing too much suspicion. If you bring guests, make sure they enter as stealthily as possible."

[Alice Hart]

Alice dutifully follows after Kenneth, her unreal amethysts, darting, picking out anything and everything, but not really seeing much beyond old dusty house. Her mouth falls open at the sight of Gilroy being this surefooted. Surprised to see him lead forward with not a misstep. Her brows climbing in her surprise at the pile of animal corpse. 'Ick' she thinks reflexively, 'Are they there just because of...creepy? Are they meal remains? Or both?' She wonders, but shakes her head. 'It really didn't matter dose it? If they're a deterrent, then I guess it's working since I'm still being lead through....and if it was someone's meal...well it's not like I have ate much the same before.' She frowns at the sight of the cat's corpse among the pile. 'Poor kitty.'

She's being handed a key before she realizes that there is a reason for it. She blinks at the sight of the padlock, somehow thinking that it would be more...something not so mundane to lead to the Necropolis.

"My key." she mouths, she never planed on letting it out of her sight. Thoughts of stringing it around her neck fluttered around, didn't women have sparkly key necklaces? She could do that. She grabs the key and holds it close. The Whip trusted her enough to give the literal key(s) to the Kingdom, just because she was a cousin. She was giddy, that's what this feeling was. She wanted to brake out in a happy dance. She doesn't, because she hears the catch. "Ah-hah..hah..ah..." she bit her tongue because she was even allowed guest! Her! Guests! That meant friends-maybe. She shook her head, and debated telling her Whip that Masking her Beast was the highest form of Obfuscate she could do...

Telling him now, rather then he finding out later sounded like the best plan. "Ican'tCloak!" she squeaks out in a rush. Covering her key with both hands, pulling it closer still, afraid that the worm might take it from her.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

Kenneth gets out his own key and begins to unlock the door but his head jerks at Hart's sudden outburst.

"That's fine. It's not a skill everyone is capable of achieving. If you don't mind me asking, what skills do you have? Not just gifts of Blood but mundane," he said neutrally before going back to working the lock. It would have been preferable for secrecy's sake for her to know how to Cloak but Garrick couldn't even Mask the Beast. Diversity in ability was one aspect of survival in a group. The pad lock came off and Gilroy opened the door. A set of metal stairs descended into a sub-basement where the main Necropolis room was still being worked on.

"This is the Caldarium," currently it amounted to little more than a sitting room with a concrete bench lit by a flood lamp but there was something comfortable about it "The building's utilities are active and there additional construction materials stored in some of the side rooms." There were some cluttering the main room as well.

Kenneth descended the stairs and upon reaching the bottom picked up a binder. "I have some ideas and sketches of how I hope it to look once finished," he said flipping to one of the tabs to show her. There was an almost infantile plea for approval in his body language as he revealed the plans. "Though, since we are still building the final product is still flexible."

[Alice Hart]

For a moment, she was but Atlas, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. Then, Gilroy dismiss her worry with a few word. Ignoring the jerking head, but that really was her fault.

"Of the Blood...Masking my Beast, and ah..just started learning our Clan's Discipline." She answers easily, relaxing her posture, but keeping her key secure within one hand. Holding it hard enough that she knew an imprint, an afterimage of the key would remain.

"Mundane skills... I've always sort of known when not to be around, and I'm speedy. Not supernatraly so. Oh! I've also started learning parkour. Some self defense...not much. Just learning how to use my environment to my advantage. It's not much," she explains stepping down the metal stairs. "Since was Embraced, I ah thought that learning how not to be around, and how to get away was a must." Frankenstein's monster surrounded by a mob, all fire and pitchforks came to mind.

"If-if I can ask, what are your own skills, mundane and otherwise?"

As they entered the Caldarium what felt like a soft, sweet smile crossed Alice's face, which meant that it was too fake, too sharp, too wide. A stab-happy slasher smile. Alice is always thankful that she didn't always wake with red lipstick. She didn't want to think of how her smile would look framed in Red Revival, or Red Dragon. Or another shade in french she didn't know how to pronounce. "I'll probably be down here working on...something or other...putting those materials to use. Hopefully I don't fail at that." She looks down pulling her smile from her face, "If I do, I'll replace what I can with fresh materials."

Alice thinks on how she could spruce up the Caldarium, when she's handed a binder. Kenneth flips it open to a tabbed page and Alice coos.

"Oooh. Thank God." she whispers, "I would have bent or offered no resistance over other parts of the Necropolis, but the Caldarium...once..I was invited-and-it was just..." she starts, and stops, before gathering herself to try again, "There was still that same sense of peace, but it was blood-pools, with layers of pus over-top. And that filled, holes in the ground." Alice allowed a shiver of revulsion travel through her.

"But this," she says tapping the page. "This is just magic."

When she looks up from the binder it's with a bright (Too wide, too sharp, and altogether fake.) smile.

OOC

Those images are fabulas! Waay better then what I had in mind.

[Kenneth Gilroy]

"Most of my experience lies in scientific research, specializing in biology and chemistry. I over my career I have acquired a minimal background in medicine, engineering, and politics. Since my anointment into the Lancea et Sanctum's priesthood, I have studied enough to say I having a broad knowledge of some subjects and detailed knowledge of the Lancea in particular. I have associates within the university because of my job and some within city government and the public works division because of my work with waste reclamation. It was with their help that I turned on the building's water and electricity." Which had promptly flooded the place when a pipe burst, but that was not important for her to know.

"I'm skilled enough with Obfuscate to hide myself and objects. Through practice. with the Discipline I also have practical knowledge of stealth and sleight of hand." Kenneth didn't mention that he still didn't feel up the social challenges undeath kept throwing his way. At this point it would undermine his position.

As Alice looked over the binder and smile, Kenneth was about to feel insulted. It was so easy to see her comments and expression as sarcastic. He was starting to be able to read her though and not always trust his initial feeling whenever she was being 'fake'. He also couldn't imagine her saying his design was worse than pools of blood and pus.

"Thank you," he says with the small smile of a flea infested mouse being given a dab of peanut butter.

OOC

First one is about 3 Dots, second would be a total of 5 Dots. So still some work to invest.

"Where were you before here?" he asked nonchalant manner that still manages to come off like he plans on stalking her.

[Alice Hart]

Alice not, unsurprised at his mundane skills. A Doctor, and academic, and a research fellow. She had expected his skills to lie in the more intellectual side of things. Alice felt her stab-happy smile return, she quite liked the image he presented - at least, mentally, her fake-fake eyes took in the twitching worm, and gave another mental 'ick'. The dichotomy - the Scientist and the Bishop. Many dislike to pair the two. Alice found that it gave Gilroy his own twisted Nosferatu charm.

Then his skills in Obfuscate are reviled and Alice has to wonder if he's keeping his other Blood skills to himself. Maybe she should have done the same. But you can't gain trust, without it.

Paradoxically at Kenneth's thanks, Alice wants to flinch away from the smile, while also want to pat his head like he's a puppy that managed to piss on the newspapers, and not on the carpet.

OOC

Sooo shiny! I'm going to be putting XP in. But how much is the cost of the 3dot (since getting to that first seems easiest. But that 5dot...OMG sooo pretty.) would it be 6xp because there's already one dot purchased, or 12xp? Or something else?

It took a moment for Alice to realizes that Gilroy's obsessive stalkerish question, wasn't anything she wouldn't answer is asked by someone else. "Canada, originally. Way up north. I always wanted to see California...and I thought it would be too much of a cliche to end up in L.A."

[Kenneth Gilroy]

That wasn’t a lot of information but it still added to the picture. She had traveled a long way and had chosen the less obvious of options. Her Sire had died early in her Requiem and no one had taken her in for some reason. Her skill set in evasion and hyper vigilance. And she couldn't be as happy as she pretended to be acted seemed without this being a vast contrast to previous experience. A picture had started to form in Kenneth's mind but it was still incomplete and needed more data points to be clear.

“And now that you've arrived what are your current goals that hope to achieve, whether in the immediate future or long term?” he asked not in any accusatory way but like it was the next logical step in the conversation. He took a seat on the cement bench, making it that much easier to look down on him and think of stepping on him. Then again, only fools trod on vipers.

[Alice Hart]

Alice leans against the opposing wall. Looking down upon the vermin, but knowing that he had fangs the same as she. She contemplates her answer for a long moment as they stay in the stillness. Alice's gemstone eyes lock onto the curve of the floor lamp. Her reflexive reaction would have been 'nothing'. She hadn't wanted to do anything besides survive another night for so long, but she came here to find herself, plant of roots...gain a purpose...she didn't want to be handed what she wanted, or thought she wanted. She would lose all respect for herself if that were to happen...but what did she want?

Not to long ago her only goals were to attend collage and spend forever with Henry.

"Collage. I'd like to attend collage." she says at last, her porcelain face neutrality set, looking unnaturally still in the moment. Only her lips moving. "Maybe write a book. Fiction. I've always loved fiction." her tone wistful, "Learn to Cloak myself." She added with a tough of humor.

There she had a list, a small one with only three goals, but it was more of a plan then she had a moment ago.