(To Hunt) At the Nox

[Bea]

"Where I'm from, the sins of the child are the sins of the mother or the father," Bea explained. "If it got out the Stax's kid was fucking shit up, that would ruin him. If there's other bullshit about not having permission to sire, too, then it's pretty obvious that Stax would have a lot to lose. So this seems pretty cut and dried to me.

"Oh, wait, except for the fact that some of this happened in our city, so now there's two domains that need to claim a pound of flesh. Given the current location of these proceedings, I recommend we proceed with the trial here. You don't need that kind of trash in your city, right?" she asked, looking to Eli and Hennink.

[Yumyumcrow]

Stax watched Emma cautiously, face turned slightly to one side, eyes narrowing. His posture altered as well, a subtle shuffle away from the Gangrel when she sat with him.

"I am sorry, I do not follow? You want to know how my Domain works? The Primogen Council is made up of representatives of the Clans; most of the Council is Unconquered but one of their number is an Acolyte and another has no particular affiliation. The Council is, of course, headed by my patron the Marquis of Haight-Ashbury. The Prince is the most powerful Kindred in the city and the Council liaises with him regularly. Otherwise it is blessedly rare that he shows his goddamn face."

He looked at the Savage full in the face.

"Why? What does this have to do with anything? Carson Forde was seen near the last known locations of a number of Kindred who have since disappeared. Our Reeve is tied up with something else and when she does turn her attention to our poacher problem, she is misinformed and looking in the wrong direction. I don't have to tell you about the way the Unconquered work, or why I would take the time and effort to bring Carson Forde in myself. With assistance. I doubt you'd understand."

He smiled thinly.

Inside the adjoining room a silence hung in the air and clawed at the walls. Hulking Eli seemed bored, going so far as to close his eyes. Hennink stared, openly and with wide eyes at the hunched fledgeling; at length he turned away with a smirk crossing his face.

"The baby is getting hungry. Shit guy, you burn through the juice now... I mean, fuck, haven't you figured out how to control yourself yet?"

Eli replied: "Let him be. He's speaking true as he knows it. Model baby."

Hennink chuckled and shook his head: "Rightly speaking we Carthian's don't have much space in San Francisco, if you get my drift. What we got has happened because of Stax. So - you see the bind, right? We do owe him favours." He looked over at his hulking companion. "But I reckon he's used a lot of them up, now. See he's accessed our crew's safe houses. Fed from our... safe spots... and used us as a private army for his Invictus shit." He threw a glance at Forde - an reptilian and emotionless stare. The gaze softened when he turned to William, Jesse, and Bea. "Sure, have a trial or whatever. If you like picking on the weak model baby. Kinda typical of Vic justice, that. Then again, this is a Vic Domain, so they say. I say leave the model baby around. We gotta talk favours for making us waste our time and resources on his hunt. And cleaning up his messy eating habits."

The smile was for Carson Forde.

"Go on, model baby. Call me out on your new nickname..."

Forde shuffled further into the corner, away from Hennink mostly. "We... I... I got some strange friends. Friends of friends who, like, knew someone or something. They were, like, hackers or something. Tin foil hat brigades, yeah. It was a safe house. Stax found us but they mucked about with him and it gave us time to get out. Mostly... He ah talked and they just let him in. Yeah. But he had to talk and stuff..."

A ghost of a smile. "My Lisette said she came from Africa. They were, like, new here or something? Weird how she knew all these, like, black ops type people, huh? Her uncle knew stuff, she said. Said she'd know how to reach him. She said what I had was a curse. Said her uncle had talked about this stuff." Forde shrugged. "But she never said where he lived, only that she knew she could find him..." He broke off into a cackle; his cracked voice bounced off the walls.

Eli was not impressed. "You killed two people on the road here, baby model. Then maybe three more in San Francisco - if Stax was telling the truth on that. If you are linked to the disappearances Stax is talking about that.... up to four Kindred. Vampires. I think he's lying on that. You'd get yourself done long before that. But I'm tired of being dragged out to clear up your shit. Baby model!" He showed his teeth.

If it was possible, Carson Forde actually paled.

And for some book keeping...

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-12-24 05:07:32		Carson Forde to resist rolls 3 to Resolve + BP (10 Again)		8, 6, 5		1 success
2016-12-24 05:07:00		Hennink uses Auspex 1 (Beast's Hackles) rolls 7 to Wits + Empathy + Auspex (10 Again)		10, 8, 4, 10, 2, 1, 9, 1, 5		4 successes
2016-12-24 04:55:26		Eli to take Forde's measure rolls 7 to Wits + Empathy (10 Again, WillPower)		6, 2, 8, 6, 4, 9, 5		2 successes

[Emma French]

Emma watched Stax as he spoke. It was interesting to watch him. She didn't know what to believe of his story, but then most lies were based in truth. It really didn't matter to her any more whether he was being truthful or lying.

"Why are you surprised by my question about your domain? Didn't we discuss earlier that when we had a chance you would tell me about it?" Emma cocked her head and gave a pleasant smile. Only the smile really didn't reach her eyes. She really didn't like this man. There was just something about him that rubbed her the wrong way. It was probably the disrespectful way he talked about his Reeve and his Prince.

"You don't seem to like your Prince or Reeve much. Are they really so horrid? Do you like the council system?" Emma paused for a moment looking at him I the eyes. "You are correct in stating I do not understand why you would need to track down and bring in Forde by yourself with just the assistance of the gentlemen in the other room. You could try explaining it to me. Because the way it looks now isn't so good for you." Emma waiting patiently for him to reply, but beast was wanting to rip him a few new holes in his pitiful body. However, she did know there were domains out their with horrible leadership. So she would give him the benefit of the doubt and wait for him to spin his tale of woe. Besides, she did not have the right to end his unlife. The time was coming soon that she would need to report this to her boss who could report up the chain of command. Of course, if he retaliated against her she could kick the shit out of him. She almost smiled at the thought.

Mean while, She really wanted to know how things were going in the other room. The story being told in there had to be interesting.

[Bea]

Bea just gave a snort, unimpressed by the little game the other Kindred seemed to be playing with the baby neonate. The asshole was going to be ash. Was no point in trying to feel him out, as far as she was concerned.

"If Stax is trying to blame Kindred deaths on this sad excuse for a pair of fangs, then I think his motivations are all the more obvious. Clearly, Stax intended for baby fangbanger here to make a mess, because that would him an easy scapegoat. What better way to take the heat off of some murders than by pinning it on a goddamn walking masquerade breach?" she suggested, gesturing at lil' Carson.

Maybe she was getting too much joy out of shitting on someone younger than she was, but whatever. You had to take your pleasures where you could.

"Regardless of that shady, feudal motherfuckers intentions, though," Bea continued, "the issue is that this little puppy tracked shit all over our carpet. He killed people in this Domain, didn't he? That's really the only thing we care about."

[Hugh Everwood]

Jesse was only marginally interested in Carson's fate: The hand dealt to him was crap from the get go, the decisions he made not helping any, the friends he got making matters worse, and Stax being an idiot sire helping none. Doubted he would be going to survive all that long, the guy caused a Breach in their city and killed someone, even if that someone was out of town as well.

Maybe the Prince was going to be magnanimous about it, but wasn't much chance for that.

"Flexing those Movement muscles are we, makes you feel big and bad about making the poor fella shrink in his corner." Jesse commented with a roll of his eyes, looking up to the ceiling again as if there was a mantra for patience written up there. "Wouldn't be surprised if Stax was lying about the Kindred death. Our guy here," he nodded at Carson, "doesn't seem to be all that knowledgeable to be going about killing any of us. Unless they were pretty damn young."

Even then, wasn't that easy to kill one of them.

Hearing Carson talk about some black ops people made him grimace. "What's with the cackle? Nervous tick; can't be making you any popular a model," he said, then looked at the other Kindred around. "Any of you think Lisette might be involved with hunters? Black ops and all. Might have tried to get them a fancy new toy to study."

He nodded at Carson again.

[Alessandra]

Breach issues…just the type of text every Reeve looks forward to getting. Not.

And why wasn’t Emma able to handle it? Though if it was serious, and something Emma wasn’t sure about, texting her had been the right call. But still, a possible Breach…and an outside Domain being here just spell trouble. A whole lot of fucking trouble.

She pulls into the Nox, only a couple minute’s after getting the text. Her guns were pulled from her holsters and doubled checked. Not that she intended to use them within Nox, but sometimes they served as a deterrent. And she was Reeve, she had the right to come into Elysium armed, well, armed with something besides her claws.

So into the common area walks Ale, dressed in her usual black. Two .357’s could be seen inside her unzipped leather coat, holstered at her side. Her boots were knee high and steel toed, her hair was up and she did not look impressed at all.

She pauses in her steps, both to allow her Beast a moment to process those present, and to access the situation and who was there. It was always interesting to have her Beast feel both anger at being challenged, and rage at the weaker Beasts.

“Evening,” greets the Italian, walking futher into the room, “I’m Madam Reeve Antinori, seems there is a situation here tonight. Who wants to fill me in?” she asks, dark eyes look to Emma, expecting the deputy to step up. But she was sure someone else would step in first, but she knew she would trust what Emma had to say over the others. Being family, a Deputy and her Priscus.

[Emma French]

Emma's eyes stayed on Stax. "Hi, been a busy night. I was out for a walk around the bad part of town. Heard some commotion from a rundown building. Approached it as Jesse and William also approached it. We found Forde, a guy who is in the other room, standing over a body. We began to question him when we realized he is a newb. This gentleman, Stax, and his partners, who are also in the other room, drove up. Jesse and William took Forde out of harm's way and brought him here. I Brought the other three after a brief discussion with them." Emma rolled her shoulders. "From what I can ascertain from all the conflicting stories is this lying sack...is Stax sired Forde and did not give him proper lessons. Forde went on a rampage of breachiness across San Francisco and into Sacramento. Stax has had a crew go in and clean the mess at the house. Stax also seems to have very little regard for his domain leaders including the reeve and felt it was his duty to chase down Forde. Our general consensus is that he is trying to cover up something."

"Now, normally I would just quietly escort all these gentlemen to the border of the domain and not care what happens to any of them. But the breach or potential breach issues has me concerned as well as some of this shit happened here and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. So before I give in to my more savage will and beat the shit out of him, I thought I should do the correct thing and alert you, as Reeve, to the issues." Emma's emphasis to doing the correct thing was obviously aimed at Stax and his disregard to doing the correct thing in his own situation.

Sorry to cut in before everyone could act, wanted to catch Ale up with a briefing.

[Yumyumcrow]

"Your city. Your rules. I'm all for pulling out - this has been a waste of time," Eli glowered and lapsed into moody silence.

Hennink continued staring for a little longer, then: "Yeah. Eli's right. Stax pulled into this whole affair to repay some dues the Movement owed him. I guess we repaid those." He added nothing further regarding the disappearances; instead he gave Carson one last glance. "Sorry baby model. This... isn't our Domain and last I heard the Movement was about dead here. So like, I guess you are on your own. If you didn't have self control issues you might have stood a chance - but yeah, you messed up."

Carson Forde: hounded, cornered, finally exploded. Not into frenzy - perhaps being in the presence of so many Beast's was enough to cow his own mewling monster for the present - but into a fury of tortured words and posturing. Somewhere in the storm was: "Fuck you! I need help! You're all just gibberish and shit! I'm going to find Lisette's folks on my own! I don't need you! Fuck you! I want to get out! I'm fucking going out!" Through it all the fledgeling flailed toward the door, his voice rising and gaining a hideous edge from his own snarling Beast. Mortal company would have perhaps winced, but here he was among Kindred.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-12-28 23:07:57		Carson Forde to get angry rolls 3 to Presence + Intimidation - 1 untrained (10 Again)		5, 2, 5		failure

Anything else Hennink, or indeed, anyone else had to say was lost in the tsunami of tantrum.

In the main chamber of the Elysium, things were progressing differently. Stax, his face now blank, cocked his head to one side as he regarded Emma. "You have a very curious notion of praxis if you think that one must actively like your betters." For a moment he appeared to want to say more, but then changed tack: "Our Prince is an earthquake waiting to happen. One does not simply place him in the general run of Society; something might get broken. My patron the Marquis understands this very well and devotes much effort to keeping our... illustrious... Prince and Society at arms length; it demonstrates great strength of character and shows why I'm so very happy to call the Marquis my patron. I have respect for my Reeve - but on this particular matter her focus is lacking. This is an observation of my own, and here I am, showing my credentials in attempting to resolve a problem that does not interest my Reeve. Funny, I would have called that... initiative."

His posture shifted.

"You must have a very strange little Domain where you all must love and admire the most powerful predator and no one dares do anything for fear the one's at the top might be offended. I was under the impression thats how thing's worked in Society."

Stax stopped when an unfamiliar Beast walked so brazenly into Elysium. The muscles of his face and mouth spasmed before he managed to regain composure. And into that gap, Emma launched her briefing.

When the newcomer mentioned their status and affiliations, he rose smoothly from his seat, adjusting his jacket and fidgeting with his hair. His mouth formed a stylish self affecting pout before he could stop it. His eyes dropped to Emma, flicked to Ale before he gave the Reeve a very private wince.

"Mister Marvyn Stax, Libbretist and Player. I have come on business to capture a notorious poacher who has been plaguing my Domain. With me are two members of the Carthian Movement. Unfortunately the chase strayed into your Domain's bounds - for which I am willing to discuss making amends with Kindred of Quality..."

And then the moment was lost. Voices - a voice! - raised from an adjoining room begins to echo through Elysium's quiet halls. It is a voice tinged with hysteria.

It is the voice of Carson Forde. Stax controls his urge to turn and schools his face. But his eyes...

They glimmer with mischief.

[Bea]

And now the baby fangbanger was throwing a tantrum.

Fucking christ.

"Deal with him," Bea tried to yell above the cacophony, waving a hand at the homicidal, self centered little shit. She was going to get the fuck out of that room. She wasn't getting paid, so she wasn't dealing with that kind of bullshit. Besides, she wanted to get her eyes on that lying piece of coagulated funk calling himself Stax. She didn't like the idea of him chatting genially with anyone when it was so goddamn obvious he was seeping snake oil.

She left Hennink, Eli, Baby Model, Jesse, and the Doctor, walking back out to the impromptu gallery the court had been turned into. And it was a good thing she did. Someone knew had arrived.

"Oh, thank god you're here," Bea sighed as she walked up. "We've got a real mess on our hands," she said as she came to a stop next to Ale.

"This asshole sired some random guy who made him hard, then decided he'd use the baby fanghead as a scapegoat for murders that he's obviously complicit in," Bea explained, waving a hand at Stax. "And now his runaway scapegoat's killed people in our city."

[Alessandra]

Thankfully Emma took the lead and explained what had been going on. Well, at least from her perspective, it would be unfair to pass judgement without hearing from the others.

Newb? Ah, someone screwed up, royally. Make a Childe and then drop the ball, not good.

A hand goes up to her forehead as the awesome news just keeps getting better and better. Breaching the Masquerade is not something any of them can afford to be lax on.

“Well, thank you for letting me know. And I agree, normally escorting them out of the Domain would be a wise thing, but breaches cannot be ignored.”

Eyes then shift to Stax as he talks. His titles tell her he is Invictus, but clearly he had no grasp on what was going on.

“Ah, a fellow Kindred of Quality. And yes, it is unfortunate, as it sounds like there has been breaches made in this Domain and others. Now certainly you, as a Kindred of Quality, with titles of Function, know this cannot be brushed under the carpet. What amends did you have in mind?” eyes shift back to Emma, “How severe was the breach? Was it just the one body in our Domain? Or are there other Breaches?” how severe the breach would determine what amends, of any, would be acceptable.

Ale takes on a defensive stance at the voice, turning to face the next room. Was this the guy Emma mentioned? Was he close to a frenzy? She really needed to start carrying stakes around with her.

She looks back to Stax, her own eyes narrowing. She was starting not to like this guy and whatever he was selling.

But before she could say anything, Bea emerges from the room, with some new, and important information.

“Oh, really?” eyes shift back to Stax. “When were you planning on letting me in on this little tidbit?” The eyes narrow once again at Stax, who she sizes up before saying anything. “I’m dying to hear what you have to say about this new information. Breaking any of our Laws has dire consequences. I shouldn’t have to tell you or remind you that the sins of your Childe are your sins to bare as well, his breaches are yours. Does your Prince allow you to Sire Childe? Or did he give you permission?” cause if not, then maybe they would be doing San Fran a favor by disposing of this clown. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to keep things as civil as possible, but in our Domain we take our Laws and Traditions very seriously And your mistake put my Domain at risk.” The edge had returned, this Savage was not happy. Right now she wanted to stake him, his Childe and whoever else was in the other room. Then deliver them in a gift wrapped box to the Prince, they put his Domain at risk.

Without taking her eyes of Stax, she address Bea, “The kid in question, is he a danger to our Elysium right now?” she didn’t want to create ill will between Domains, but she’d be damned if someone didn’t answer for this crap. And if he was a danger, then he would need to be put down. “And if I heard correctly, Jesse is in that room correct? If so, I’d like him to come out here and tell me if our guest here is lying.” Gotta love Shadows, able to read auras and all.