Los Angeles: Blood Moon - ❌💀labm-d5-sewer-council

Day 5 Location: Sewers Players: Vincent @Vincent ICEberry, Diego @Diego, Bruiser Rat ST: @!Your Hyennaes @Slinar [Alexander Montferrier] #❌💀labm-d2-burning-flesh (edited)

@Diego, Bruiser Rat There were a lot of disturbing news lately. Sabbat packs started to appear in the city too often. Garry asked the clan to go deeper in the sewers. Nevertheless three of the clan first disappeared then found dead. One of the Clan named Selma just disappeared and there were rumours from somewhere she sent information to Sabbat itself. The most recent news was that anarchs with Nines and Jack beat the pack out of the city at the factory.

Sabbat. Bad news. Apparently showelheads don't quite count as a run-in with the Sabbat, so Diego couldn't wear that as a badge of honor. But even that fight was vicious and left him with some nasty bitemarks, which took several nights to heal. And now the Sabbat was full on moving in on the city. And Rats are disappearing, and not in the usual good way. Dead. Those three? He knew them enough to know he would miss their absence. Selma? Now that is a conundrum. For the Rats to betray each other felt unthinkable. Diego always felt like that was one thing that the Rats had over the other clans. His Sire's blood may have given him the face of a lazily mashed potato, but he always reminded himself that at least these particular bloodsuckers were always looking after each other. - Bugger, - he muttered and slid into the pothole, closing the lid behind him. He got Gary's memo, of course. "Off the radar, deeper into the warrens". But you can't just drop everything and beeline for the first sewer entrance. Not when you're running a biz. This made Diego what... a night late? Hopefully that won't be a problem. Last thing he wanted was to find himself on the ol' Golden's bad side. Even in the sewers Diego clung to the shadows. It was crazy not to, not with three clanmates dead and a possible traitor. He was packing heat, of course. Just in case. (edited)

Garry's gathering room was not as nice as it could be imagined, but the wide cave somewhere deep under the ground was just safe enough at the moment to collect the Clan and talk. Sewer Rats were pretty rare specimen since a few of them disappeared. Good part was that some were still un-live. In the room Diego found two of his clanmates. Gary and Mitnick. There should have been Imalia somewhere and the new one called Vincent.

In the gathering room the hood finally came off, and Diego's hand moved across the almost bald head, him appreciating the moment. Weird as it sounds, this was what safety felt like to him - a touch of fresh (heh) air on his scalp. - Weird seeing you not hunched and upright, Mit. I barely recognized you, - jabbed Diego as he approached his clanmate for a shake. - Good to see you in one piece. He couldn't stick too long by Mitnick. Wouldn't be wise or polite to ignore the top rat and Diego didn't plan to. (edited)

- Weird to hear someone was staring to my ass all that time, - He just chuckled, but not really with joy. But he did raise his hand in a greeting manner. - Damn, my boy is still outside, got some disturbing news.

Gary was covered in the most dark corner and looked through some papers in his long fingers.

Seeing the top rat seemingly preoccupied, Diego felt a bit more at ease to talk. He graced the Mitnick's comeback with a chuckle of his own, but distress in his clanmates voice put Diego back on the edge. - Your little ray of sunshine is caught wind of something? - he asked with a note of concern in his voice. His eyes darted to Gary in the shadows, as if Diego's next words will be grounds for trouble. - I've been out of the loop for the last two nights. Only bits of info, like the thing with Selma. Three of ours gone? What's going on? He lowered his voice before he knew it. Even though it would hardly help if the top rat wanted to listen in. (edited)

- Something totally new, small details, but not exactly about the things you mentioned. I hope he will return soon and will tell us some more.

Gary looked up finally, put aside his papers and corrected his nice jacket. - So... - His gritting low voice appeared really close, - we're not yet all here. Should we wait for the other two? Then he turned to Diego. - Hope you don't mind putting some dirt on your shoes? Haven't seen you for ages.

Vincent went to the sewers very carefully. You don't wanna be added to the ones already dead. He heard some voices in the Gary's room and hurried there. Mitnick, Gary, and... Diego? Yeah, that is his name. - G'night everyone. Are we having some kinda briefing? I've got lots to tell you! Sire, forgive me my absence. Couldn't let Warlock go there just on his own. Listen! And Vince told everything he found out that night. First, the handsome Tremere with... Telekinesis? Yeah. Then, the Chris' sister, who couldn't be seen in the cameras though they were properly calibrated. Vincent carefully guessed she possessed the same ability to go invisible as their clan, but somehow stronger, hiding her from the cameras. Then, Chris the Toreador with his suspicious behavior, though he had gone through some serious shit and is scared as hell. Then, the factory with a shovelhead security guy. The Warlock took him home who knows what for, probably experiments. Looks like the maggot who Embraced him is gonna have a hard time. Then, the insides of the factory... Vincent described them in all the details, graphic and disturbing for he has never seen anything like this (edited)

@Los Аngeles StoryTeller#0000 @Mitnick#0000 @Diego, Bruiser Rat

Diego habitually straighten his back the moment Gary addressed him. Old habits. - Sir, was cleaning up a bit of a mess topside. Rival businesses are harder to ignore, when the apples and oranges we peddle explode once pin is pulled, - the gunrunner was talking fast but clear, as was habitual for his reporting. He barely stopped himself from finishing the sentence with a second "sir", as was appropriate for his old job. - But everything is SNAFU right now. Just as he finished talking, the "ray of sunshine" entered the scene. Diego hardly met Vincent "in the wild", and only knew about him that Mit was satisfied with his achievements. Well, Diego was about to get a taste for those achievements. Listening to the quite prolonged story, the gunrunner realized he was quite impressed with the fellow Nos' tenancy and inquisitive nature. And he was even more so impressed with the events unfolding "in the wild". - Quite the story, kid, - he nodded at Vincent. - Especially the taming of the shovelhead part. Never thought something like that quite possible. The shovel hitting the head tends to give them brain damage. Often that is not a wound they'd heal. - Sounds like things are going FUBAR, Sir, - he commented to Golden upon the end of the story. - Wherever you need me, I'm ready. I'm don't remember these boots clean since they touched the Prince's precious shiny floor. (edited)

- Yeah, the Tremere took him to his flat, dunno why. The guy is clearly gonna be executed. But I'm more concerned about Selma. Even Chris, the club owner knew that she worked for the Sabbat. It's gonna hit our reputation really hard.

- We urgently need to locate Selma and... Interrogate her. And if she is guilty, she will be executed. Maybe these rumours were just a coverup. And yeah, what's the deal with that girl in the club, Mitnick? Could it be just an interference? Can she possess some power to fuck with the tech? (edited)

- We haven't heard from her about a week. She disappeared right the night the pack was killed by Anarchs. Can it be connected? I am almost sure, - Mitnick finished.

Diego frowned and lowered his hood, ending the endearing feeling of comfort and safety. - They could get a lot out of a shovelhead. To them, both the person and the blood can speak. Don't mean they will share the answers with us. You did good, kid, and it makes sense why the Tremere took the shovelhead. But with one of ours being on the line - scratch that, with a lot of Rats being on the line right now - this is the last prisoner we can afford to give away. We need to take this itti-bitty investigation into our own hands now, - he looked at Gary. - I apologize if I am out of line on this, sir. He nodded at some details from Mitnick. - With Selma, we must consider a second option. There are way too many ways for our kind to extract information out of properly restrained kindred. Too many ways to break the mind or siphon the knowledge out. We could be dealing with a traitor or we could be dealing with a victim. We need to find her. Check her haven, see what she was up to. The reflection-less fledgling at the Reflection club bothered him as well. - About that girl... Jane, was it? - paranoia was biting into him hard. - Chris is supposed to be a Toreador, right? And he did the Siring. See here... this is kind of worrying. Back when I was already in on the kindred existence but before I became this pretty, I would ask everybody about everything. And, to the best of my knowledge, there are two reasons why a kindred could have no reflection and not be caught on camera: a unique, very rare burden of siring, or a trait associated with a specific clan. A clan that, to my knowledge, entirely resides within the Sabbat. The Lasombra... The Club theme and aesthetic fits all too well. One way or another, we cannot rule out deception. (edited)

Gary frowned. - We have a lot to do and at the same time three of ours met final death. It is up to you to decide what to do - do you want to risk or just close and wait. At the moment there was one more figure at the entrance - a 'nice' spotty face of Imalia. Seemed she stood here for some time already.

@Nosferatu

- Well, the shovelhead can't know much, he was just buried and clearly couldn't understand a thing. As for Selma - first, we need to check her haven then need to reach out to our clanmates in the nearby cities to look out for her. Second. Check the cemeteries. The Sabbat can just go there and Embrace a whole army. Don't even need them to be trained or brainwashed. The Masquerade is the main pain in the ass for the Camarilla. We go out to deal with these zombies - Sabbat tracks and hunts us down. Jane and Chris.... Mitnick, did you see Chris in the camera? Can you check on him now, maybe the cameras can see him. I don't think he would dare to name the club this way and fill it with mirrors just for fun. Anyway, if we don't act for the Camarilla's sake, we will be painted as traitors cuz of Selma... Oh, hi, Imalia.

- Fortunately, there are extra steps before they can raise a shovelhead army in a cemetery. Can't raise the dead, - Diego decided to deflate the threat level a bit. - They would need to fill the ground with freshly kidnapped kine first. Several times the army they would want to raise. So breath in and breath out. Just then, he saw Imalia come in. Her he understood hella less than, say, Mitnick, Barbarus or Bertram. He'd say he pitied her... had her hysterics and temper tantrums not been on of the things he counted as reasons to stay away from the warrens. Still, knowing what it cost a Camarilla kindred to get a Prince's permission to sire a childe, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was wasteful. But he heard that this wasn't a rare thing. He bowed his head to her, not sure what she could add to the conversation. But remained respectful. - Back on topic of the Terries and Selma... It's unfortunate that you got so little out of Chris Terry. He said the Anarchs talked to her in some cemetery, right? - he looked to other kindred with a tint of growing annoyance. - The hell does that even mean? She confessed to large scale betrayal and wooshed away? And they let her? It that what follows? Do we have any other leads on this? Mit? Sir? Actually, this ended up being way more angering to Diego than he thought it would. He was keenly worried about the possibility, however tiny and minute, that someone was trying to throw one of them under the proverbial bus. And that this was the extent of the burden of proof Rats needed to condemn one of their own. - Let's start with Selma. We look after our own. Her haven, then if we don't find leads there - wherever the Anarchs met her. (edited)

- Selma's Haven was here for some time, but she did have a house in the suburbs, - Gary added, - wanna check it out? - He waved his hand in 'go for it' gesture.

- Okay then. Maybe I'll be able to blackmail Chris into telling me more. He loves his sister very much. And I even know where I can do it. Any place with our camera, so we can be sure Chris isn't one of the Sombras too. Yeah, btw, we need lots of cameras, Mitnick. Time to become Argus the Thousand-eyed.

- I figured you had some other job for us, sir, but I would be happy to get this out of the way as soon as possible, - said Diego. The kid was enthusiastic, the gunrunner couldn't help but appreciate that. But there was some tempering to do. - Don't jump to antagonizing respected Anarchs just yet. Camarilla ain't in the position to do that yet. From your story I made the conclusion that you made a good enough impression on them. Play up to that. Come in with worry and care, offer help, offer to be their secret keeper, before somebody else decides do so. If they are sombras who switched to the Anarchs - let them know their secret is safe with you. If it wasn't Chris, who Embraced Jane, but rather some Sabbat arsehole with a wicked sense of humor - show compassion and let him know that the Nos can cover up for that with proof of other kindred with such a condition. If it's just a quirk of the embrace - make it clear that you will make sure no other kindred thinks otherwise. All in exchange for Terries' friendship. There was one last option Diego didn't voice. The Sombras could, same as the Nos, cloud other people's minds. It could very well not been Jane standing there... To distract himself from that last conspiracy theory, he decided to switch his attention to Imalia. - Imalia, good to see you in one piece. Pretty and smelling of roses. Do you know our Selma well? Any insights others don't have? (edited)

3

Gary seemed to listen to his shoulder, before some of the Nosferatus present could see a little rat chattering in his ear. He looked at the assembly, before saying : * "There are gunshots in the sewers, visibly a pack of the Sabbat ganking on a kindred. Someone wants to see who has been ashed or can be saved?"he said in his gritty low voice.*

- Fuck. I ain't a fighter, but they went too far. Let's show them who's the boss of the ~~gym~~ sewers!

If you go see what's happening#❌🌙labm-d5-very-malk-trip

- Oh yeah, can someone give me a gun?

4

"Here you go. Don't get yourself killed." Mitnick said, as he grabbed a semi-automatic pistol from his pant and gave it to him.

-Thanks, Sire. I won't. After all, it's just for self-defence.

Shots in the sewer. Somebody really thought starting a fight on Nosferatu turf was a good idea. A good cause and an implied order. That was enough to get Diego running full speed ahead.

#❌🌙labm-d5-very-malk-trip