Notes Initial

8th september

Jake watches vampire club at night

Daniel visits Doc Holiday in the morning to discuss morphic fields, also gets introduced via email to Sunita Chandra as person knowledge about vampire society.

The group meets at Hyde park flats at noon and head down to the basement. Find a petrified vampire body, looks in shock/fear as if fell backwards. Wallet, no id, 2 credit cards.

Looking around, Jake & Swan experiences some halucinations and negative emotions, Daniel seems unafected. Swan uses spirit sight to ntoice dark tenticles trying to touch the group, keeps them at bay but doesnt cut them.

Ritual site has ancient magic symbols around it and 13 bodies, the node is befouled by the corruption of the entrance into the material plane through which it flows. It is connected to 13 sites.

In 1972 there was serial killing spree, which occured at the connected sites.

Can unpick original ritual, ease symbols in a certain order, break connections and then cleanse the site. Or can combine into single ritual, faster but harder.

Swan sees vision of sunshine, happiness, peace, harmony, echoes of the unfinished murial.

Can they be traced?

no chance, well slight chance, almost no chance. No. Well, what astronomers cal almost no chance.

"Riiight"

"i need to show you someone." Jake shows steve and kelly some pictures, sits back in a mild trance and starts to recite the conversation. Emphasis on alley fight, steve freezing, threatening to get rid of kelly.

"so theyve been wat hing us all this time

could they have followed us he?

Probably maybe using some non vampires

Daniel checks with mind sphere but doesnt sense anything but jake and swan look around and notice a man in the corner paying the group attention. Swan uses life to realise the man is a vampire. He gets up calmly and begins to leave. The group scramble into action. Daniel follows straight after trying to use mind to make him seem like someone else but te vampire spots him. Swan sneaks out but is also spotted, she decides to fake running off to inform someone. The vampire takes off at a run and is using his senses to make an intercept route. Swan stops periodically to 'decide on a route' and uses life to shield herself from harm. Jake tracks swan on phone, daniel calls him and gets directed to follow swan

jake apports sword from his safe location to him to the great shock of steve and kelly. Then when swan stops to be intercepted by the vampire, and casts a life spell to summon a swarm of bees, and suddenly a sword clatters in front of her feet as the vampire turns a corner and runs straight through the swarm.

Swan grabs the sword and rushes the vampire with a vicious slash and with a shocked expression the vampire collapses to theground, oozing a black ichor like substance as his neck is half severed. Swan distressed by this starts to cry and curls up in a corner. Daniel arrives a few minutes later and using mind magic 5s significantly calms her down before taking her asid and consoling her, saying jake will be here soon.

in the car jake says "it has been tsken down but not dead." eliciting hurt loks from the vamps and immediate apologies.

jake drives up and everyone gets out. kelly says "i think i know him, seen him around"

jake gets an id from the body "can we put him in storage somehow?"

I just mean, i dont want to talk around him, but there was this vamp we found was in some kind of suspended animation.

"How should wknow " says kelly

would a stake through the heart do that"

"wouldnt that kill anyone?"

Memory wipe is considered, daniel suggests dominic would be able to dothat.

Jake contacts professor x and asks if this is a good idea, he suggests kelly is a mesmerist and could do that. Group goes to an abandoned factory.

Swan suggests to combine prime into her life spell to make a more potent blood for kelly to supercharge her mesmerisation. Channelling the godesses blessing and goodness. jake telepathic whisper "backwards rednecks".

Susperia arrives, accepts the blood, poppy dog eye from karren and some blood is shared with her and steven. Kelly then attempts to mesmerise the vamp as soon as he wakes up prompted by wving blood in front of him, and groggily looks into her eyes.

She says "calm down and be still" the he does "you will answer questions honestly and completely, obey my commands" and a bunch of other restictions "when i give you this command you will go back to report, froget everything today and say it was uneventful evning group went with the ghostfacers"

interrogation commences.

Harrison, kinda like mercenary employed by someone he owns fealty - Ada, who then has fealty to the spanniard. His orders together with a few others are to keep tabs on stevens group and the ' thralls' for five years off and on. Does other surveillance. Thinks the vamp coterie must be important in some way, someting about the cambridge massacre. Other people from the massacre are being kept tabs on. There were a numbe of elders who sired neonates that night. Spanniard seems to wnt to push the coterie to make them useful, probably have plans for them.

Dead mans blood from natural causes slows them down, ingested or injury. Staking will kill young vampires, older are incapacitated. Decapitation and fire is sure fire ways. Older vampires seem generally more resilient to all kinds of damage. Sunlight is pretty much death sentence. all vampires can heal, most can do basic improve senses, speed, strength, etc. some kind of shapeshifting is possible. Control humans, animals, turn into animals, mist. influence some can Controll humans who drank your blood, enter their dreams. A lot of variety, some powers linked to bloodlines. Rumours old vampires can stay a bit up after sunrise / before sunset. Vamp blood strengthens humans. Vampires have connection to their sire.

He has abilities in senses, stealth, disguise.lives in catacombs, in tunnels under sheffield (constructed largely by vampires, always has had stong vampire presence), like one of thefiefdoms of a empire. He names his enemies. Thinks spaniard is grooming a few tens of vampires sired at massacre. Get some names/info.

Jake finds thereis strong connection between karren and kelly.

Harisson has poisoned bloodline, his blood cannot be consumed bu humans, vamps. Drinking blood of vampire by vamp can gain abilities, possibly pemenantly if vessel killed fully consumed. Possible addiction. One view is Vamps are demon ridden humans/corpses possessed when near death. Geneal belief that vamps are animated by some entity or other. Harrison thinks Vampires came about from a pact with a demon which maintains their life but gets their soul when they finally die. Iron lady is somewhat of a sorceress, can call demons for spying, divine stuff from blood. Harrison is looking for a way out, so far nada. Vampires often get a regimented early training aimed to develop them for desired abilities, so bloodline isnt everything.

Vampires organise in fiefdoms, some are indpendant from overall society "the accord" which stipulates a number of rules eveyone should subscribe to. How to sire - get permission, killing other vampire. Anyone signing on to them - in theory - is also protected by them. Kane is seen as the first vampire. Fiefdoms vary a lot, sheffield is vey rigid, structured. Vampire in charge of sheffield is known as iron lady, previously memorian and scheneschel. Old vamps geneally have titles over names. Big chain of lords and ladies.

Daniel "if she investigates she better looking to ally or there will be havoc."

Swan bs "so do you know about the children of the sun"

Harrison actually does, saying they were an order dedicated to erradicated his kind, now only remained in myth."

"yes, myth..."

There are bloodbanks which have way more blood drives than required.

Spanniard is big on mind control and mental manipulation, influencing crowds.

Marcus "Aurelius" - troubleshooter, for unofficially getting in touch with iron lady. Hangs out at bar x. Harrison recognises the emanciated vamp from basement when drawn by swan, he is one of Eida's lieutenant.

There have been some demon cults around town since 60s, mor apparant after 70s.

Daniel finds out about some vamps who deal with humans, sell blood etc.

Also, one of the elders the chessmaster has butted heads with Spanniard.

the town council is pretty riddled with vampire influence to keep tunnels safe.

swan "Are we doing the ritual tomorrow"

Daniel "Yes, i have mad the preparations"

Swan "if you want to hide from spanniard, the hyde flats would be a good idea."

steve "is it safe?"

swan "its a poisoned favour, but ill be there."

steve "okay, i will convince the others"

Jake uses scrying to use connection between steve and spanniard, and sees him in a plush vaguelly mediterian decorated room discussing politics, alliances etc. He then uses correspondence and sees parent/child connection between them.

Harrison mentioned working with a witch, sounds like technocracy, on a virt adept chantry. Jake contz ts prof x about it and gets an exclamation mark back, shortly after "it explains a lot."

Swan and daniel both report to their mentors.

9th

meet at hyde park. Daniel augments intelligence for 24 hours. Ritual to dispel takes 14 hours. Daniel draws miniature version of the old laylines, places candles where the nodes would have been, sits in the center and puts a book in front of him befor going into a meditative trance. 2nd 3hour is most productive, near the end he speaks in languages he doesnt even know he knows and sees a vision of himself that is not quite himself in a bubble outside of which a great wall of water is.

---

6th september

herbert gets a call while at hyde flats, weird body has come in and they need help with this tricky situation.

Thomas "glad youre her, just have a look tell me what you thik" on the mortitians slab is...thomas. No cause of death, death sigt not really dead. "just, just touch him" Herbert touche him and the body slowly morphs into heberts likeness.

"when did he come in?"

"Just earlier today."

"looks like a tricky one"

"let me take over, youve had a long day.

Thanks, youre a pal. Thomas leaves without much more prodding.

"alone, in the middle of a night,with a corpse." *cracks fingers*

inspecting the body, this is mage like magic, he is physically changing however. Body not dead, dormant. Very faint pulse, doesnt appear to be breathing. Body in perfect shape, no aging, scars, wounds, wrinkles etc. After cutting a sample of flesh, it slowly heals over. Using death, this...thing...has never had a soul. Looks like somebody was mind controlling this before. Xray shows metal objects, probably shot repeatedly. Also something attached to the spine with some very fine wiring running up the spine. Herbert puts in the paper work for this body to be quietly 'transported'.

magically isolates signal of device, calls retainer to move body.

In morning Herbert speaks to Sarah Grayam, chief pathologist.

"a body came in yesterday, I think thomas might have put in a report not entirely accurate. He was a little off yesterday, i sent him home. Between you and me he might have an abuse problem." hebet getures to suggest drugs.

"will you be willing to put this in writing"

"uhh...yeah, i can do that"

"okay, well get me that report and if youve got concrete proof we can sort it out. W have to be seen to be rigorous."

"while you're here can you help me with something. Need to get original cause of dezth confirmed, should only take a few minutes."

Herbert goe to see body, reads report the guy was industialist, wa in a boardmeeting when he had a heartatta k. Invetigation dud to death threats and her wife was saying his business rivals were planning assassination.

herbert visits dr holiday with a sample of heart tissue to discuss findings on body, mentor suggests this is nanotech possibly technocracy. Induced heartattack so clearly murder. "pity they ar not active so there isnt a way to trace them and not enough to recreate. Interesting! Oh well."

Herbert goes back and changes cause of death to induced heartattack detectable by human tests. Gets sarah to order tests and it gets confirmed.

Then hebert takes some much deserved sleep waking up in the morning of 8th. After referring daniel to dr holiday he does some rseach in dr holidays journals in preparation for the operation and spends most of the day removing dvice from the morphing body at his sanctum where he had moved it. He then spends friday between examining the body and covering shifts at the morgue.

The chameleon body has been grown about a year or so, it is mostly alive and would fool any mundate doctor. Device plugs into nervous system allowing a passanger to control it and improves its ability to shapeshift (the tech augmenting what the biology can do).

---

Daniel goes around correcting the symbols on the walls to proper enochian. Swan paints herself and dances sky clad invoking the light of goddess

Magical tremmor in the area, laylines shift and change, suddenly the node become the intersection of two leylines as it would have been. Looking aorund with mage sight thee is a conflageation of quintessance in the flats, suddenly there are 13 other nodes in the area. Officially hottest piece of real estate in sheffield.

all the mages get phone calls rigt away aking what they did and the mentors arrived presently and begin to inspect the area. Daniel confers with Dominic who believes the status of leylines was not a matter of natural progressin the city but artificially imposed and this was ground zero.

Jake notices asbesto vans puling up through multi spacial perception, he recognises one of the workers as the mage harrison worked with. He warns the group and prof x begins to mess with their equipment while dominic and daniel hide the basements node throug use of prime. Swan. And fiona heads up and gets jasmina who is looking in a bit of a reverie, speaks about hearing the goddess. Swan leads her away to avoid the technocracy. Meanwhile daniel castx incognito prsence on herbert who goes out, and finds some kids who he pays to vandalise the technocracy vans. For some reason technocrats leave fairly quickly, thoug they leave a bunch of bugs.

Everyone lies low the rest of saturday on advice of mentors, but keep a look out on sundsy 11th.

Jake is walking around cathedral, setting up bugs. He spots a blonde sitting on one of the benches which he recognises a the woman described in the note from their future self. He decides to bug her.

Daniel keeps Eye on university, walking around campus. Something weird is happening, an effect maybe ritual subtle flactuation of magic is occuring which seems to be causinv unclean taint like in the basement.

hebert is in dr holidays lab examining the chameleon body.

Swan is in the hyde flats, she visits the basement and saws a woman clad in a dress of flowrs step through the gauntlet. She smiles benevolently at swan, carrying with he the sense of summer. Swan grets her in the correct manner.

"gretings. I believe you wantec to talk to me.

Confluence of forces was brewing such that disaster might have struck

yes, it was aveted

what did happen if you dont mind my asking

negotiations, they are still proceeding, but we hold this place

how do i call you?

Swan

you may call me rose red

may i request free passage for my compannions

name them

i will bring their names to you

Anothe figure steps through the gsuntlet, it is leia. She grets rose red

i was planning to introduce her to you

i thougt that i'd approach her since you're being woefully slow.

They exchange pleasantries.

Daniel pinppoints room, enters, there are 3 young ppl around 20ish arabian or. African with blood symbols painted on their forheads in circle with 4 ppl hooded forming an outer circle they are chanting in corrupt enochian. Its mage magic but tainted, spirit and mind magic linking them together, but also something alien. With seconds until the effect, daniel draws an enochian symbol on the wall, and shouts magical scripture dispelling the circle throug sheer willpower. The young people run for their lives as they seem to be freed fom the spots where they were previously frozen.

daniel runs out of the campus and watches with mage sigt seeing a Roiling mass of red fire, with something roiling in the center and then it blinks out of sight.

Herbert arrives and begins to scout the campus with magesight. all that remains of the cultists ar their robes and ash. Hebet sees no cause of death, as if they were never alive. he and daniel inspect the ritual but cannot find anything beyond the basics of it being a ritual to reach throug the gauntlet. Swan cant tell anything about it. Swan keeps watch for campus security, jake examines the remaining robes of the cultists and finds ruaty knives and mobiles.