The Pits

[Alice Hart]

In the nights she...slept. Much had stayed the same. Their numbers were few, and no new faces came. Though an old one returned, and still, Alice didn't quite know how to feel about that. While much had changed, though the changes were something the Haunts of the Domain knew.

It was a quiet night, few or perhaps none, but her, dwelt within the Necropolis, that was slowly, painstakingly slowly, beginning to regain some of it's old elegance. The lines of the Realm Below, the Deep Kingdom.

And she had the return of her once mentor, and Cynthia Weiss to thank for that.

Alice hummed a wordless tune as she travels the length and breadth of resurgence of those elegant lines.

Stopping at the Dark Temple, but never-ever going in.

The trek continues and leading her to the newly reformed Garbage Pit, and yes, the Blind Doll steps forward.

Trash crinkles and crunches beneath her feet.

It was stupid, and silly, but she laughs at the sound.

[Cynthia Weiss]

Cynthia growled as she pushed another pile of garbage and refuse down into the muck of the Garbage Pits sewage. She was not entirely sure how this place could pile up the garbage so quickly. Was it another strange quality Necropoli tend to attract? It was a mystery for another night. She tossed her broom aside and stepped away from the fowl smelling sludge. She brushed a bit of stray dirt and rush that somehow got on her old hoodie.

The haunt spun around when she heard laughter. The empty, hollowed out sound of it put her on edge. She was a bit surprised to see the ghostly image of Alice walking down towards her. Cynthia was able to calm down. A little anyway. "Oh. Ms Hart. I wasn't expecting to see you down here." She walked over to a stack of boxes and started arranging them into crude chairs for the two of them. Somehow the faint scent of chemicals broke through the other smells in The Pit. "Have a seat. You're looking better." She tried to sound genuine, but a hint of concern managed to bleed into her words.

[Alice Hart]

"Oh!" The hollowed sound of laughter cuts of with a sound of surprise. "I didn't realize that there was anyone here." A blessing and a curse. Tranquility's Mask. At least for her, without sight.

Following the sounds of movement and the scent of chemicals, like cyanide, sulfur - or was that bleach and....? Alice's head shakes, as she moves, hands out to feel the makeshift chair. "Thank you." she ducks her head, swiftly bringing it back up, "I'm feeling better." though anything would be better then the White. "How have you been since we last spoke?"

[Cynthia Weiss]

Cynthia did her best to help guide the blind doll to a box. Last time she checked it was crammed with shredded paper and scrap cloth. "Usually trying to keep this place under control. I'm more surprised when others willingly come down here." The artist herself sat down on an old crate, the wood darkening and creaking ominously from the moisture in the air.

"Been well enough I suppose. Managed to get this place up and running again. Still looking for a place to call my own. As nice as the Caldarium is, I'm getting worried I'm messing with the ambience with my...Curse." She really could not think of a more polite way of saying that she smelled like someone sprayed nail polish and pesticide all over the place. ​"Was meaning to talk to you about it but... Yeah."

[Alice Hart]

"Ah," Alice nods, "Upkeep, maintenance. It's the reason what when most of the Clan left, we were left with collapsed tunnels, and unusable rooms. So, thank you. Really, for taking care of this." Alice says when Cynthia finds her own seat.

"Well, it seems like I can help with that. You've added to the Necropolis, and obviously maintaining it. So, you're free to carve out a Sepulcher for yourself and use that as a Haven, if you want or...whatever else you'd like to use the space - within reason." says the Blind Doll as her mind turns over the scent issue. "As long as the waters are clear and Caldarium is a font of serenity, then your...Curse." Alice still didn't like that term to describe their affliction, and she didn't much like 'affliction' either! "Isn't messing with the ambiance," hollow voice firm, "The Caldarium is a place for all of us to come and not be turned away no matter what we smell like, or look like or act like. Or whatever other burdens the gods have deemed fit for us to shoulder in our Requiems."

[Cynthia Weiss]

"Why thank you very much." Cynthia said with a nod that was a little lower than normal. It seemed highly unlikely that she would be able to see it, but she had hoped the grateful tone was enough. "I think I saw a few spots I could set up, given enough time to dig myself a hole in a wall." She stopped as Alice talked, a few more nods that would remain unknown to the Priscus. "I know. Just after all these years staying in one spot, doing whats basically couch surfing isn't as appealing as it once was. Truly San Fransisco has ruined me forevermore." What little air that was left in her lungs was released in an exaggerated sigh of melodramatic discontent.

There was a slight pause as something registered in her mind. "That reminds me, is the Solstice still going ahead? I do remember you inviting me to that." With what had happened recently, she was unsure what was happening with a lot of things within the domain.

[Alice Hart]

"Your welcome, very much." Alice answers with an ever eerie, ever hollow laugh. "Good, I'm glad you wont have to search long and hard for a place you can call your own within the Necropolis."

"Couch surfing is never fun." Alice says, a parody of a sage nod follows. Keeping the theme of her melodramatic sigh. "Before I came here, that was much of my nights. Roaming from place to place. Slipping in and out of Domains depending on how we were viewed by the Prince, or whoever was in actual power." Alice shares with the goth girl, "Next January I'll have been here for two years, and already I've been here longer then I've been anywhere else."

Alice gives a start at the question, her mind turning to the ritual performed and the memorial given to her fallen Coterie mate.

"I'm...I'm afraid the Summer Solstice has past us by. It was in June, on the twentieth. The next with be the Autumn Equinox, on the twenty-second of September....but that's normally something private within the Circle. The next open Rite will be the Winter Solstice, which is on the twenty-first of December." Alice rattles off in quick succession, having missed the Summer Solstice, she'd made sure to ingrain the date for the others still left in the year in her bones. She wouldn't miss another.

"Why do you ask?" had the goth girl really wanted to attend?

[Cynthia Weiss]

The artists head tilted slightly. "You travelled on your own on your first nights? I'm impressed." Most times stories like hers turn to cautionary tales as to why one should remain in the gilded cage of the city limits. "And now you are making me feel a little nostalgic for my earlier nights. Much less complicated than the politics and power plays that usually happen. Safer too" She added with a small laugh.

Cynthia looked surprised as Alice rattled off dates and times. "Mostly because I'm curious. The Circle is a mystery to me even after all this time. In domains I visited they were distrustful of outsiders or had to be...Quiet about what they did because of Certain Kindred." It was a private conversation, but Cynthia's words were veiled in case the other members of the clan stumbled into the Pit. Still it was blatantly obvious what she meant. "Plus it's rare for me to be invited to anything. Didn't want to be rude after all."

[Alice Hart]

"My sire was ashed two months after my Embrace, I kinda had too." Alice explains, wondering if Cynthia would ask for more then that. "Oh, I hear you there. Sometimes I wish I was free to roam once more." she says, knowing if she said she wished away her duties and responsibilities they'd be gone and she'd be running for her unlife, Alice nearly sighs, she remembers a time when that sort of thought wouldn't have crossed her mind.

A silence, stunned perhaps is what meets Alice's quickly rattled off dates.

"Curiosity..." Alice nods, she was once curious too. "Many of the Circle's secrets are that way for a reason, but that's the same for other Covenants secrets too. But, I do understand what you're saying. It hadn't been until I came here that my own curiosity was piqued. I'm a relatively new convert myself...is there anything specific you wish to know? If I can answer, I will."

The Blind Doll nods, "I understand that, and here. You are formally invited to the Rite I'll host for the Winter Solstice."

[Cynthia Weiss]

Cynthia winced. "Sad to hear. At least learn enough from him or was he the sort to have his future death loudly advertised." Alice's sire was a mystery but she knew it was difficult to get through the Requiem without someone to tell you whats happening in the first few nights.

She smiled and nodded when she got the invitation. ​"Thanks. Hopefully nothing is gonna interrupt is one."

She thought on in for a second, the sound of her her fingers tapping against her knee could be heard. "I suppose I could ask the obvious. What does the circle actually believe in? I only have second hand sources to go on and well..." From pagans gallivanting in the forests dressed in nothing but blood to witches worshipping twisted primeval powers they don't understand, the goth girl had heard all sorts of things. "...I imagine that they are less than accurate."