Prelude: Life Begins at Night

Eve feels Silas' reaction to her snarling at the cat and automatically agrees with his suggestions, without a second thought. You don't become an elder for nothing, after all, surely he would know best. "That is not my area of expertise, but I believe those should be held under the Oriental Institute. I can lead the way, if you like." Descending down the stairs past the front desk, Eve walks into the Balliol archival holdings and into the tunnel that connects them to the old bike shed, where she climbs over the gate. Smiling a little sheepishly, she instructs the others: "I'm afraid it is rather unelegant, but these old tunnels have been repurposed many times. They're not really meant to be access points, so uhm... over the gate is the only way in."

Mehdi shrinks as Eve releases her primordial snarl, and it seems he might run off just like the cat. For the remainder of their journey he keeps quiet and subconsciously crouches within Liam's shadow. When it comes time to manuever the gate, he deftly crawls over the obstruction and lands on the other side, keeping an anxious watch ahead.

Bowing beneath the predatory presence of older vampires was a familiar sensation to Rae, but one that never seemed to get any easier. As instinct took over, she cast her eyes to the floor, her fangs protruding from her mouth as she struggled to remain standing. Knowing that the underlying sense of panic would linger beyond this moment, she did her best to compose herself and focus on the task at hand. Upon reaching the gate, she thoughtlessly launches herself into the air, bounding off of a nearby wall to vault over the obstruction without even coming into contact with it. Landing squarely on the other side, she continues on silently, staying close to Eve.

Liam looks at Rae, once again impressed by the young vampire. "Eve, where did you get her? Perhaps I should make one of my own."  He climbs carefully over the gate himself, not interested in being flashy or looking too competent. That got you called upon to do menial work for elders too often. 

Eve lays an equally reassuring and possessive hand on Rae's shoulder, smiling with pride. "She was quite the lucky find, thank you Liam." Once everyone is over the gate, Eve leads the way through the back door of the bike storage through a few rather rustic looking tunnels to the annuals storage section, from which they suddenly emerge into brightly lit, modern and clean tunnels connecting the main libraries. They walk a little further and eventually reach some older corridors again, lined with bookshelves. "The Oriental Institute's storage starts here," she says, gesturing around. "Please mind the moving shelves, they develop a surprising amount of force."

Silas continues with the group and sees all the spry young kind leaping over the gate and lets the cat down from his embrace and looks to it and in an assertive voice says "Follow". He then casually makes his way over the gate maintaining his composure and the cleanliness of his suit. Once across the gate Silas bends down and gestures to the cat to return to his arms and the cat returns to his throne as Silas tries to hide the enjoyment in his face from the rest of the group.  Eve leads the way through the tunnels and as the group reaches the start of the Oriental Institute's storage Silas lets out a directive, "Search for anything related to Ancient Egypt. Also, Eve is there any secret archives that contain kindred information?"

Khalid, the last to hop over the gate, keeps a lingering eye on the hall-way the group entered from watching for anyone following.  After a brief moment he too vaults over the gate observing the supernatural creatures in front of him and being reminded of just a couple hours ago when he first met Eve.  He reaches towards his neck shuddering before pulling himself together and catching up to the rest of the group, keeping to himself.  Waiting and watching.

"There are over 3.000 books in the Egyptian Collection." Eve says, raising her eyebrows in a teacherly manner. Then she remembers herself and adds: "Rae can track down the mythology section, that should help. As far as I know, each college guards their own vampiric collection carefully and does not share them with each other outside of certain cooperations. There is a 'Special Collections' area in the Bodleian, but even I don't have access to that..."  Pressing her lips together, she doesn't look too pleased about it. "Anyway, Rae, my dear, would you be so kind and have a look in the computer over there  if we can find anything about this goddess here?"

A large open area can be seen just beyond the computer as the group approach the terminal. The space has been cleared free of desks and five lidded wooden coffins stand in a pentagon in the centre of the area. Mehdi is the first to spot them in the distance, quickly followed by Rae.

A sharp chill runs down Mehdi's spine as he spies the coffins; his wings flex anxiously beneath his suit. "Over there," he comments before scurrying over to them. At first he keeps his distance, circling around like an animal assessing a threat. He scowls at the strange symbols, and a lump rises in his throat as his mind begins to race with all sort of ominous warnings that they might tell. The only way to stop the rising dread his imagination creates is to overcome the instinctual fear and get closer. "Eve? Rae? You might want to take a closer look at this." he says, eyes scanning the unintelligible parchment on one of the coffins. His entire body is tense as he leans over them, as if at any moment something might pop out and drag him in. After a few moments he steps back, curiosity sated for now, but it's not long before his mind again starts trying to hypothesize what these horrific portents could mean.

As Rae logs into the computer terminal, the coffins come into her periphery. Intrigued, she leans over and watches Mehdi carefully examine them. Once he calls Eve and herself over, she slowly walks up to inspect what is inscribed. After a moment of reading, she freezes with fear and begins backing away as carefully as possible. "Everyone back away from the coffins. It's Sanskrit, it says; 'Do not wake them.' 'Do not talk to them.' 'Do not drink their blood.'

Curious, Eve comes over and inspects the coffins - they appear ajar. "Interesting, very interesting. Sanskrit, yes. Can you put it into context, Rae?" She walks around the coffins, careful not to touch them, then backs up to the group. "This arrangement reminds me of some old stories, like a ritual to focus or harness magic of some kind. Their blood could be too powerful for anyone to handle drinking or... it could be cursed. Whoever lies dormant here is powerful. But why would anyone bring them here, rather than keeping them safe somewhere more secure?"  Despite the obvious danger, Eve seems more excited than scared.

Liam looks around the room, brushing his fingers against the shelves as he tries to occupy himself. Eventually he coughs. "Erm, what were we doing down here again Eve? I thought we were just getting away from whatever was happening up there." He glances nervously at Silas. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to help. It just might be useful if I knew what I could do?"

"Yes, to get away of course, but just before everything descended into chaos, my dear Rae was asked if she could help with some curious texts that were found, as a translator... sadly, she wasn't told anything more before we left. We figured we can leave through one of the areas holding ancient texts and see what we come across, alas, here we are."

Liam nods.  "OK. and this is in Sanskrit?"  He asks half interested. " Indian no? Yet there was something about an Egyptian cat goddess? Curious."  His tone suggests the opposite. "Would it be a leap to suggest the ancient Egyptian vampire was entombed here and released, no is angrily taking out climbing out the wrong side of her coffin on our friends up there? Unleashing a plague of felines on us first? Was that one of the Egyptian plagues? But why entombed in England with Indian warnings?" He runs his finger along the edge of a coffin as he speaks looking to find a crack where the lid is not fully lined up. 

On that note, Rae speaks up, "The writing is Vedic Sanskrit. This configuration was used as far back as 1500 BC, though there are flourishes that make it difficult to determine exactly when it was written. But the base form can be traced back to the area in and around present-day Iran, rather than India."  Having watched Eve move around the coffins with eager interest, Rae relaxes a bit and takes a few steps towards them.

Liam finds a crack where the coffin is ajar. Peering inside he can see the leg of a humanoid figure that still lies within.

Liam steps back. "Persian, Indian, still not Egypt." He backs away further. "Someone is still in there, FYI."

Khalid looks towards the coffins apprehensively standing as far away as possible while still remaining in sight,   "Are you sure we should be interfering with this?"   He fingers his pockets while alternating between looking for an exit and watching Eve.

"I don't see how an Egyptian deity would be connected to this, but... I don't know." Eve wonders, then her eyes widen when Liam announces there is someone inside the coffins. "Oh there is? Oh what I would give to have an archeologist with us right now, this is a most interesting find. We're not interfering, of course, we'll be very careful. But aren't you dying to know what or who is inside?" Grinning at Khalid, Eve's eyes sparkle with curiosity. "If these are indeed older vampires, then they won't be able to feed from you. Now, how to best open these coffins without disturbing anything..." She approaches them again and inspects them, trying to see what Liam has just seen.

"What if you didn't have to open them to see their contents."   Khalid paces slowly attempting to get a better angle to observe the coffins without approaching.  "I could let us all see inside without disturbing them.  Although if anything is alive within they will be able to see us as well."

"You could? Why yes, that would be very helpful!" Eve beams, impressed. "I doubt that whoever is in there is awake. These coffins could be newer, but the writing is very old, so if these are old vampires, they should be fast asleep."

Silas lost in thought paid no attention to Liam's question until he mentioned that a body was still in the coffin. Silas looks to Liam, "Personally, I'd ask for a song but, I'd rather not wake the dead." More interested in the fresh mage and his abilities. He asks Khalid, "Fascinating, how are you able to do that?"

Khalid pauses staring at Eve for a second too long before nodding,  "I have a feeling I'm going to regret this."   Khalid quickly busies himself, first pulling out the black fighter's gloves stuffed in his pocket and slipping them on.  He then speaks of truth, uttering words in a foreign tongue.  Pointing a gloved hand towards the circle of coffins he remained at what he presumed to be a safe distance taking a few seconds to complete his chanting.  At the conclusion of his chant he raised his hand above the circle of coffins and pinched his fingers together.  Then as if unveiling a cloth covered prize he pulled his hand upwards and the material of the coffin quickly grew translucent creeping from the bottom and ending at the lids.

Liam gives a slight bow to Silas. "If you change your mind I am sue I can find a song to suit the situation." He gives a slight shake of his head, still thinking on Eve's words from earlier. "I died a long time ago it feels, and gave up on such desires to poke into the unknown not long after. In this instance I hope that it is only the cat that your curiosity kills." He steps further back. "All due respect of course."  He humms very gently even as he moves further back still. "Wake me up, before you go go."

The lids of the coffins fade until they are little more than a smoke after-image, revealing that all five are occupied. Annabelle Triabel, Lady Amissa, Frazier, Count, Dunlop and Blake. The five missing masters. Each of them lies motionless.

Rae's expression becomes grim as she looks over the bodies in their coffins, "Oh no...does it then follow that there are currently  five Methuselah hunting at Oxford?" Stepping closer, she looks over one of the Masters more carefully, "They've been staked. They're in Torpor."

Mehdi lets the kindred deal with their kindred business, still skulking in slow circles around them. He only moves closer when the mage reveals the contents of the coffins, and with wide eyes Mehdi gawks at the ancient vampires. “I have an awful feeling about this...” he says under his breath.

Eve quietly takes in this new information, but her face pales a little more than usual. "Have you ever heard of anything like this?" She asks Silas, unsure. "Is it safe to take a closer look? I need to know more." Reaching out behind her, she gives Rae's hand a squeeze. "We don't know that, there is no use in guessing. We need to arm ourselves with knowledge, what we need now is more information."

Silas responds to Eve, "I have never seen anything quite like this. It bears similarities to ritual tropes such as pentagrams and summoning or magic circles but nothing kindred specific that I can recall." Silas takes a pause as he investigates the bodies of the sleeping heads closer through the invisible coffins. "What I can tell, which may be obvious to others, is that the bodies themselves have been purposefully arranged in the coffins. They were not just lazily dropped in." Silas takes a moment to think about what Eve said. We need information, and we need it fast. He looks up and begins speaking to Liam and Eve, "I'm sure one of you has had some form of discussion with your college head, and Eve is right, we need information. The only ones in this room that know the most of what's going on are currently in torpor by our feet. We will wake one of them, ideally, the one who is most amicable to one of you two. I'll leave it to you two to decide who we wake."

Liam shrugs. "I avoid people in these positions as much as I can. If we wake one they may be angry. Or worse grateful, think of all the favours they will start to ask of their favoured rescuer." He whispers to Eve. "I prefer the quiet life, walking as a god among humans. Do you know any of them? I'd sooner not wake the only one I have ever spoken to, besides he probably wouldn't even remember me."

Rae observes quietly as the older Kindred speak, and she mutters a few short phrases to herself as Liam proclaims his delight in "walking as a god among humans.". ".... better to reign in hell. A monolith of beauty....set against a transient backdrop."

With Silas' approval, she looks to Liam next, but since he does not seem keen on waking the master of his college, Lady Amissa seems the obvious choice to Eve. "Rae, we'll wake Lady Amissa. I think the head of All Souls is our best bet. If she does not take kindly to being woken..." Eve smiles, as if she's talking about an angry kitten, "make sure you stay out of her reach, okay?" She gives everyone else a chance to back up and then pulls the stake out.

The stake is lodged stiffly between Lady Amissa's ribs and is difficult to remove. However, with a bit of work and a solid tug, Eve finally wrenches the dark shaft off wood free. There's a moment of tense silence and then the woman's eyes snap open with a reflexive gasp. She bolts upright and snarls at those surrounding her, the shadow of her beast rising behind her like a spectre.

Flinching, Eve quickly drops into an instinctive curtsy. "Lady Amissa, I am Eve de la Fontaine, of your clan. I have woken you. Can you tell us what happened?" With a tiny motion of her fingers, she indicates for Rae to stay back.

As Eve motions for Rae to stay back, the monstrous aura of the Master lashes out, agitating her already skittish temperament. In a flash, Rae has retreated to the farthest corner of the room, pushing herself into the wall like a frightened animal. She bares her fangs, instinct commanding her to protect her un-life.

Mehdi falls back as well, letting out a surprised hiss before scurrying backwards into the shadows as the looming power of the awakened vampire pulses out into the space.

Amissa seems to pull herself back from the brink of frenzy, the blood receding from the vessels around her eyes as she brings herself back under control. "Amissa..." she muses, as though testing the sound of the name on her tongue.  "Is that my name?" The elder vampiress asks, tilting her head to the side in curiosity.

Eve wrinkles her eyebrows in confusion and shoots a questioning glance at Silas. "It is... may I ask, what do you remember?"

Silas takes a step back as his inner beast reacts to the Elder's impressive aura. Letting Eve to try and talk to Amissa. Silas returns a cautious but puzzled look back at Eve as she continues her questioning.

"I..." Amissa hesitates. "I am a vampire. Of the Mekhet clan." She says this with conviction, as though it's a rock she can cling to in a storm. "You... I know your face. I knew that we are blood. These others I do not know." The vampiress warily watches those gathered nearby and pauses once more. "Where are we?" She asks.

"This is Rae Andrews, my childe. This is Silas - and that is Liam McCarthy, of Somerville." Eve indicates each vampire in turn, clearly embarrassed that she doesn't know Silas' last name. She doesn't find it necessary to introduce the humans. "We are at Oxford University, in the library of the Oriental Institute, to be exact. We found you here in these coffins after we heard word that you and the other heads had disappeared. I decided to wake you, hoping that of all of them, you would be able to help uncover this mystery." 

This seems to confuse Amissa even more. "Oxford... yes... I know Oxford," she murmurs breathily as though talking to herself. Her eyes fall on the coffins besides her and the hunger begins to return to them.

Tearing herself from her corner, Rae forces herself to move forward and bow, "Lady Amissa."  Then Rae feels the hunger of the Elder, as if a gaping pit had just opened up in the center of the room. Taking slow steps towards Eve, she reaches out for her and whispers, "Eve, I think we need to back away."

Understanding the danger of a hungry, confused elder, Silas refrains from making any sudden movements as to not provoke her. He watches patiently and cautiously as he observes Eve's attempt at diplomacy, quick to leave if it goes awry.

Liam stands in the corner, carefully looking submissive and unimportant. His brain though, is racing through the pros and cons of offering some of his blood to the hungry elder. What if she doesn't stop? What if she nearly doesn't stop and I'm hungry for the night? After all this excitement that could be dangerous. What if she becomes addicted and keeps coming back for more?  On reflection, the cons list is rather longer and more severe than the pros list and he stays quiet.

Khalid controlled his breathing as best he could while going through a mental checklist. I already dismissed the spell, I have an exit strategy (as much as that'll help), and so far the others seem as concerned as I am, which is good, I think.   The mage carefully shifts positions in an attempt to get a better view of the incident, but quickly thinks better of it on the off chance that he will be spotted.  His position was good enough as is, hopefully the others missed his quick exit, or if they did were kind enough not to comment on it.  At the moment it seemed best to simply wait, listen, and hope he was forgotten about.  

Eve, without looking away from Lady Amissa, reassures Rae: "Lady Amissa is the head of our clan and the leading light of All Souls, we have nothing to fear from her. Besides, there are two bars right upstairs full of drunk students at this time of night. Easy prey..." She muses to herself, carefully watching Lady Amissa's reaction.

With nobody prepared to intercede, Lady Amissa's bloodlust slowly grows until she brutally falls upon the torpid form of Count Dunlop, tearing at the man's throat as she devours his vitae!

Caught up in her blood lust, Amissa feasts upon Count Dunlop, sending vitae spurting in all directions. There's a sickening crunch as the Master's head is torn from his body. It tumbles from the coffin and onto the ground with an unpleasant squelch, and when Amissa looks up it's clear that she has fallen into a total frenzy.