21:35 <banana> East of Manchester central, across the Medlock, is the suburb of Bradford. Most of it is new-build, a middle class development with a lot of red brick and watered but disused green spaces. 21:38 <banana> Tucked away in the edge of Bradford, beside one of the city's major football stadiums, is Philips Park, an unremarkable piece of conserved nature which is a relic of older settlement. A block and a half on the edge of the park were burned out in an era where nobody wanted to move in and take up the broken plots. 21:38 <banana> One of the few surviving buildings is a cracked and emptied out Presbyterian chapel, formerly white-painted stone, now a shell of bleach and soot. 21:39 <banana> You arrive at 11. There's no moon tonight, and the trees of the nearby park are bare; Winter begins the day after tomorrow. 21:40 <VoxPVoxD> Brrr. 21:40 <banana> Presumably some sort of secret exists in the broken church - movable bricks, cogs where the organ once sat, slots in the walls... Willie and Bob don't know the secret. When they arrive, the altar's already slid away from its moorings to reveal a tight little spiral of stone stairs down into even deeper darkness. 21:41 <tom> Bob's fucking with his ODIN again. He's having a hard time getting the damn thing to read his shotgun as a valid weapon. He's still futzing with it as he steps out of Willie's car and exhales a long trail of vapor. Vapour. Whatever. 21:41 <tom> "Yes, Five shells, you stupid piece of-" 21:41 <tom> He finally gives in and starts inputting values manually. 21:42 <tom> So now there's a big block of unformatted text filling the bottom of his field of vision, next to a neat little ammo counter. 5/%. Fine, who cares. 21:44 <tom> "Okay so we got a secret passage under the altar. Can't believe I didn't think to put that on the card." 21:44 <VoxPVoxD> Willie hesitates at the entryway to the ruined church. She's in coat and scarf. Now that it's getting down below 10 at night she's contemplating earmuffs... but she'd need to redo her hair first, so instead she suffers. Deep breath, exhale. You can't see her breath. And then across the threshold with her eyes wedged shut. 21:44 <VoxPVoxD> Nothing? 21:45 <tom> Bob's in his jacket. There's a thin kevlar vest over his t-shirt beneath it. It's not even ceramic. Unbelievable. 21:45 <banana> This place isn't sacred to anything but urban neglect. 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> Once the first few seconds pass without incident she's a completely different person, who doesn't quite so visibly feel like a little girl. Onward and downward! Deeper, darker, more. 21:46 <tom> Bob will pretty much insist on taking the lead on this one. "You good back there, Princess?" 21:46 <tom> There's a pause from the darkness. "Still workshopping that one." 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> "I'm fine, thank you." 21:46 <banana> The stairwell gapes unjudgmentally. 21:47 <tom> Well, like the lady said, Onward and downward. 21:47 <VoxPVoxD> She's feels a lot safer seeing Bob in front of her. 21:49 <tom> No electric lights, or what? Single entrance, probably a labyrinth of catacombs full'a dessicated carcasses. Bring it on. 21:49 <tom> He switches to infrared. 21:50 <tom> ...Not before quickly toggling the etherics just to make sure there aren't any spookies thinking they're gonna get a drop on Stormin' Goreman. 21:50 <banana> The stairwell is very cramped. It was built for shorter people, and to be a secret. It twists a few times and then you're out - into a room devoid of light and heat. Bob steps off the stone and onto something soft. 21:50 <VoxPVoxD> please be dry please be dry 21:50 <tom> Bodies. It's bodies. 21:51 <tom> There's just a small amount of pale green light illuminating the upper half of Bob's face bleeding out over the visor. He looks down, frowns. 21:52 <VoxPVoxD> Behind Bob is the possibly-distracting white glare of her iPhone's flashlight function. 21:53 <banana> The tiny furious glare of the flashlight bounces off bits of stone and velvet and gilt. Bob can see most of what's in here, although from his point of view there's a dull patch passing across his vision that isn't visible, which are the only things Willie can see at all. 21:54 <banana> The crypt isn't large; a hundred square metres or less. But it's lavishly appointed. There's a bed down here, a little sofa-nook with a television - everything turned off and unplugged - and a whole bunch of what you can only describe as treasure. 21:54 <banana> Carpets, tapestries, golden goblets in alcoves, piles of metal chain links and ancient coins on the floor. Gemstones set into skulls which are hanging from the ceiling. 21:55 <tom> "Aw, that's adorable." 21:55 <tom> "Domicile in the back. Bed and a tv." 21:55 <tom> "...I guess they don't need a bathroom." 21:55 <banana> Willie's got limited vision of the crypt, but her blood roils in sympathy with the presence of a vampire. 21:56 <tom> He's got his shotgun pointed at the floor as he comes into the open center of the crypt. 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> The opulence puts Willie at ease in direct proportion to how unnerving the feeling of a nearby vampire she can't see is. 21:57 <tom> "Cool; nobody's home. I think we've got like fifteen, no, twenty seconds before they seal us in to suffocate, yeah?" 21:58 <VoxPVoxD> "Ssh!" 21:58 <tom> He nods, rolls his eyes. 21:58 <banana> Eye-rolling turns out to be just the thing, actually. 21:59 <banana> As Bob looks up he catches a glimpse - the edge of the high ceiling. Something's wedged up there, silky, like a vast satchel or cocoon. 21:59 <tom> His smile broadens. 22:00 <tom> His weapon is still pointed at the floor as he takes his hand off the barrel and gestures that way for Willie's benefit. 22:00 <VoxPVoxD> "Ms. Hursley?" She brings the flashlight up very slowly. 22:02 <banana> As the phonelight swings over the cloth, it bursts forward - coming off the wall in a flash of black and red and plummeting to the ground, very close to Bob. 22:02 <banana> In a flash of motion that would be difficult to intercept, the mess of silk straightens up into a grand cloak, from which a woman's head rises - brown hair tied back into a ponytail, thin handsome face, eyes that you shouldn't look at because you know the drill. 22:03 <VoxPVoxD> Gosh. 22:03 <tom> Would you say that the grand cloak is, in some way, similar to say, a dracula cape :) 22:04 <banana> Agatha Hursley-Apple gives the impression of being tall and thin, but she's right in front of you both, so you know that she's only 5'6". She's just slight, built proportionately smaller as if a relic of an earlier era. 22:05 <tom> "Ma'am." 22:06 <banana> The vampire bares her fangs in some sort of response to Willie's flashlit greeting, then turns her head away a little to hide them again. "...I wasn't comfortable with this. It's one thing for the elders, who can be assured you pose them no danger. Where is my surety, if I tell you my secrets and then you leave this place?" 22:06 <banana> Her accent is mildly Scottish, but primarily aristocratic. Old Shires nobility. 22:06 <tom> "...That's a hell of a question, miss. I guess I can answer that by saying I thought it was even odds you were about to rip my face off." 22:07 <tom> "Bob Goreman." 22:07 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Would you not have recourse to the covenant if we betrayed you?" 22:07 <VoxPVoxD> "Willie Wellesley, ma'am." 22:07 <banana> Agatha: "That hardly means what it once did." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> How cold is it down here? 22:09 <banana> She moves closer, past Bob, so that she's now more in Willie's face than his. "Perhaps we could have you silenced. Certainly. But this is a world of information, computer networks, broadcast radio. Reprisals come too late to stop a message." 22:09 <tom> "If you don't want to talk, that's fine, we can fuck off. It's no skin off my nuts, there's other folks on the list." 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> Willie will respectfully keep the flashlight directly out of Agatha's eyes, but she does open TrackCheck. 22:09 <banana> It's not as cold as it was outside, by virtue of being buried in the earth. But there isn't a lot of warm air to pool down here, since you're the only ones heating it. 22:10 <tom> "We're just trying to figure out what happened to mom and dad." 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I can offer you my word, as far as you will carry it, that we intend no harm. We're here to help, like my fcolleague says." 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> "But we respect the fact that the only Unconquered surety is servitude, which we cannot offer." 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> "Is there a light, ma'am?" 22:14 <banana> There is - it's a notification on Willie's phone and Bob's glasses. 22:15 <banana> Agatha Hursley-Apple, Invictus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03rzUoyq9K0 22:15 <banana> "All things survive in order to pass on their lineage. Is a broken line a failure to survive?" 22:16 <banana> Agatha: "A light.. yes, alright. Come further inside." She steps out of the way in order to permit this. 22:16 <tom> Bob's expression softens as he watches the vampire. 22:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's doesn't. A scared vampire is scarier than one in full command and control. 22:17 <tom> Pop, click, the shotgun comes apart into two pieces, which go into his jacket. 22:18 <tom> "...You know, you should cut a channel right here, where the stairwell meets the floor." He points. 22:19 <tom> "If someone tried to pour, say, burning gas down onto you, it'd catch it." 22:19 <banana> Agatha doesn't seem to care about the gun. She flicks a switch and there's an actinic blaze - lightbulbs scattered about the catacomb nooks, but bare and old. They light the crypt irregularly, casting odd beams on her comfortable furniture and strange treasures, some of which look like the furnishings of the chapel above. 22:23 <VoxPVoxD> Willie makes a mental note to suggest to Bob after we're done that casually indicating how one might murder a vampire in their sleep is a conversation starter with very niche application. 22:23 <banana> Bob's words - those she does care about. In the sudden light, he looks up to see a vampire who's suddenly back in front of him, right in front, with her cloak drawn back and arms... lowering to her sides, face relaxing from a strange twist. 22:24 <tom> The smile never leaves his face. If anything it carves itself deeper into his face. 22:24 <banana> "...Yes. I suppose that would help a little bit." 22:24 <tom> "Just trying to help, ma'am." 22:24 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "We're very grateful you were willing to receive us." 22:25 <banana> Agatha stalks over to her bed and sits on the edge of it, looking even further up at you. "I note your gratitude. Who are you here to help, then? Alex, alive after all these years?" 22:26 <tom> "Dunno." He turns to Willie and quirks an eyebrow. Just how much about what we already know are we prepared to reveal, here? 22:26 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "If at all possible, yes, the reunion of the Count and Countess with their covenant, lands, and title." 22:26 <banana> "Is that... who you meant by mum and dad?" 22:27 <tom> He angles his head, thinking, frowns, speaks: "We think we got a positive ID on Ruth, but what we got doesn't really make sense." 22:29 <banana> Agatha: "You've skipped several steps." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> It feels weird that Bob is taking so much initiative here. She's having to adjust her approach on the fly. But so far she doesn't dislike it. He's doing well! Compared to how one might have pictured 'Bob takes initiative in interviewing the ancillary elder vampire' going. 22:30 <tom> "I'm no detective. Fill me in." 22:32 <banana> Agatha frowns in confusion. It looks more relaxed, at least. "I'm very sorry. It's the way you're speaking - you enunciate more clearly than most thesenights, but your vocabulary is very colloquial. I find it difficult to keep up. You've skipped from topic to topic." 22:33 <tom> "Yeah, sorry, I'm supposed to take pills for that." 22:33 <banana> "Mental health medicine?" 22:34 <tom> Bob taps his visor, checks something real quick. "Sorry, I forgot you're from Nineteen-hundred." 22:34 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "We found our leads by investigating uncharged, unexplained assaults. A woman lies broken but not destroyed in the Royal Infirmary, and we have strong reason to believe that the Countess Salford is the culprit." 22:35 <tom> "Specifically, we are searching for the Gardeners, as per Weaste's instruction. I have adult hyperactive attention deficit disorder. It's fine." 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> Raising her voice the tiniest bit: "But her appearance raises some questions, and leaves many others unanswered." 22:35 <banana> "The year of our Lord eighteen seventy-one. But I do understand psychiatric medicine. It's not my intention to accuse you of acting unseemly garrulous." 22:35 <tom> If she gets any more old-timey Bob is going to make the soy face. 22:36 <VoxPVoxD> Garrulous? Bob? Perish the bloody thought. 22:36 <tom> They really are all just a bunch of fucking nerds. God damn. 22:36 <banana> Agatha turns to Willie. "Yes. That is a dilemma, beyond the one we all faced when the honourable Mrs. Gardener was merely slaughtered. 22:36 <banana> " 22:36 <banana> "You want to know.. what Ruth was like before 1984?" 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "That will do for a start, if you don't mind, ma'am." 22:38 <banana> Agatha draws her legs up onto the bed, letting the cape pool around them. Physically she looks about thirty, albeit a dwarfish thirty, but it gives you the momentary impression of a child. 22:38 <banana> "Ruth wasn't a very nice woman - but she isn't a ravening bandit. Wasn't. She was controlled, pragmatic. Understood her position. Not like Alex, who was only casually or accidentally cruel - a very generous man in matters of intention." 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> 5'6 isn't a dwarfish height. That's only a couple of centimetres shorter than Willie! "What was her relationship with the Count like?" 22:41 <tom> Bob uncorks the felt-tip and spends a little time carefully giving the shitty bat doodle red eyes. https://i.imgur.com/y5AJX5D.jpg 22:42 <banana> Agatha is watching both of the hunters carefully - not quite as nervously as before, but she hasn't stopped paying attention. Occasionally she blinks as her mind goes back decades in order to bring memory forward to the present. 22:43 <banana> "Forty-five years ago, and one assumes for a great many years before, they loved each other. An emotion frozen in time, one of the old guard's experiments with family." 22:43 <banana> "I am attempting to bring to mind what they were like.. thirty-seven years ago. Characters changed in that time of great pressure. Souls who had never known desperation before or after death found themselves in a revelatory crucible." 22:44 <tom> "That's when things really went pear-shaped, huh. Eight-four." 22:44 <banana> Agatha: "I myself was deeply preoccupied at the time." 22:44 <tom> "No doubt." 22:45 <banana> "It's amusing that you referred to Ruth as 'Mum'. We aren't related in the blood, and Alex.. turned my mother, actual birth mother, into a vampire." 22:45 <banana> "He had good intentions, I hasten to add. By the standards of the time." 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> "May I ask?" 22:46 <tom> Bob checks the geneology. "...Sorry about your mom." 22:47 <banana> Agatha looks back and forth from Bob to Willie again, and answers Willie. She raises her eyebrows archly: "It was along the lines of, making an honest woman of her." 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's nostrils flare. 22:48 <VoxPVoxD> It's hard to hide her expression of distaste and anger. 22:48 <tom> "Woww that's shitty." 22:48 <banana> "All four of the late Count's childer were, well, concubines. Let's not say doxies. No doubt he would be 'cancelled' in the modern era." 22:48 <banana> Agatha: "At the time, it was considered morally superior to his peers, who didn't typically reward their fleshly playthings with the Embrace." 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> Willie is very eager to move on from 'if you liked it you shoulda put a fang on it'. "...Baron Weaste intimated that the progeny of the Salford line had recently begun to perceive stirrings in the blood. Is that true of you? Would you mind talking about that a bit?" 22:50 <tom> That gets a pretty rough chuckle. 22:52 <banana> Agatha sees what you're doing and smiles again, sadly. "Not at all. For myself, it began early this year. A hunger beyond the usual, one that's almost... ascetic. I've felt a need to limit myself accordingly, as if overindulging would be a sin against that great gaping emptiness that can't drink its fill." 22:53 <tom> "That doesn't sound great." 22:53 <tom> "Our lab guy might know something about that I guess, but I'm gonna say right now that doesn't sound good at all." 22:54 <banana> Agatha: "I can't speak for Watson or.. it probably does have something to do with closeness to the sire. My blood is only forty years removed from the main line of the House. So most survivors of the clan should be less-affected." 22:55 <banana> "However, you are correct. For the Count himself? It feels like he was starving invisibly for twoscore years and then crossed some dark threshhold in these plague years." 22:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Of note is that of the injuries the Countess's victim sustained, none were bite marks." 22:56 <VoxPVoxD> "She was trying to take the human away." 22:56 <tom> "Yeah we're trying to figure that one out. Wouldn't a- oh fuck, I figured it out." 22:56 <VoxPVoxD> Thank you, Bob. 22:56 <tom> He shuts up. 22:57 <banana> Agatha: "I understand to what you're profanely alluding." 22:57 <tom> He steps back a respectful distance back toward the mouth of the crypt and can be heard going 'fuuuuuuck' in the background. 22:57 <banana> "If Alex is somehow unable to feed on his own, Ruth would hopefully help. ...Perhaps it's not right to hope for that." 22:58 <tom> And he's back: "There's a chance the disappeared aren't dead, though, right. They might be keeping them alive........ maybe?" 22:59 <VoxPVoxD> Christ. Salford can't be this woman's birth father, even if he is her mother's rapist. So what happened to her father? "Right now we're looking for leads. Hope, or its absence, comes later. Before the Northern Rebellion, did the Count and Countess have any favoured haunts beyond Inchcape? Any places, or types of places, they felt secure, and might be drawn to in duress?" 23:00 <banana> Agatha nods. "I'd like a few minutes to refresh my memory. Could you please wait upstairs, then return after.. I'll say a baker's dozen?" 23:01 <VoxPVoxD> Willie, readily: "Of course, ma'am." 23:01 <tom> Bob's already taking the stairwell. He gives the vampire one last pained look, like he wants to say something, but doesn't. 23:01 <banana> Agatha leaves the light on, but the stairwell is twisty, and it barely leaks out into the burned kirk. 23:02 <tom> "I'm ready to meet a vampire that's just, like, happy with how events are unfolding." 23:02 <tom> This is once they're outside, of course. 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> Willie paces around the ruined chapel. She's got a lot of nervous energy once the vampire's out of earshot. "Are you? Are you? What sort of creature is happy with..." She makes a grand, vague, sweeping gesture with her arm, not dissimilar from backhanding the empty space between her and Bob. 23:03 <tom> "I bet Bonasera feels pretty good." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> "Don't." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> "Not now. Just— don't." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> Weakly: "Please." 23:05 <tom> Bob triangulates: "We're doing good. We've got good info." 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> Willie, breathing hard: "Yeah. Yeah." 23:05 <tom> "She was about to tear my face off, not yours, anyway." 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> "Maybe don't lead with that next time." 23:06 <tom> "What, it's sound, helpful advice that every nice, friendly vampire should follow to not die." 23:06 <VoxPVoxD> Willie would give Bob a look her, but she turns away instead. She's got something in her eye. 23:06 <VoxPVoxD> *look here 23:06 <tom> Nooooooo. 23:08 <VoxPVoxD> She mutters under her breath very gently. Three more deep breaths. A little stretch in the dark. Okay. Oooookay. She's ready for the call now. 23:09 <tom> He sucks in his breath and strides back down the staircase, a little bit smaller. 23:10 <tom> "...Anyway I think living in a ruined chapel is fucking sick, personally," he mutters. 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> You basically do already, Willie doesn't say. Who knows how good vampire hearing is? 23:11 <banana> The lights are still on, and you have the stairs to get accustomed to them this time. The furniture has been disturbed a little, you think; concretely, Agatha is now sitting on the sofa with her hands in her lap, waiting, and the cape hung up on a wall-skull beside her. 23:12 <VoxPVoxD> So terribly lonely down here. 23:14 <banana> Whoever's first back in, she beckons over. "I've thought of a few places and activities which I associate with Salford and Ruth." 23:15 <VoxPVoxD> Willie took point, and will sit if invited. "That would be very helpful, thank you." 23:15 <tom> He steps onto the tile off the stair, right where the channel to divert pouring liquids should cut across the hearth into a drain. He can sketch diagrams! Hell, now he'll offer to dig the damn thing! 23:16 <tom> He lets Willie take point on this one. 23:17 <banana> Agatha: "Inchcape was their stronghold before the mutiny, and one of the Court's great places of Elysium. So they didn't have much reason to site important things elsewhere. However, little is not the same as none." 23:20 <banana> "Taking Ruth first, she was a great frequenter of auctions. Everything from furniture to stock certificates - she enjoyed the bidding aspect. There's a place in Spinningfields, Halliwells on Hardman Street, which was her main haunt, and the restaurants around the square were her favourite when the tithe allowed for it." 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Willie nods. She has her phone and notepad out, cross-referencing. Is that near the hat museum? 23:23 <banana> Not too far, actually. Just the other side of one of the inner-city tributary rivers. 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> What's it like to find out your dead mother lives on as a vampire? What's it like to know she waited to embrace you until you had a daughter of your own? What's it like to do the same to your own daughter? 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> Did they grieve before or after? 23:24 <banana> Agatha: "Alex had a townhouse in the Northern Quarter once. Personal, not part of the estate; it was called Seveneaves." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> Did they think they were doing the decent thing? 23:25 <VoxPVoxD> ...were they? 23:26 <banana> "It's offices now, and has been for some time. However, there are still... spaces within the building which are reserved. Used for special purposes. I was brought to Seveneaves, then I took Liz to the same place of tradition, and.. I'm not sure how much of it survives, but the Carthians took it all over." 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Was it secured? At the time, I mean. Could someone have theoretically hidden somewhere in Seveneaves all this time? 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> " 23:29 <banana> Agatha: "It's possible. One apartment was preserved, as well as tunnels and other spaces, set aside on the plans when the office conversion was done." 23:29 <tom> Bob cracks his knuckles and taps the frames of his visor. He switches to hands-free mode. It's the same software they used for Stephen Hawking's glasses, or so they said. His eyes twitch while he pulls up an image editor, a few tabs of Google Maps, and gets to work. 23:30 <banana> "I thought about who'd have known Ruth better, but.. there's only Watson. Her bloodline was not well-favoured, despite two centuries' increasing prominence." 23:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "And they were embraced under the same auspices as your mother?" 23:31 <banana> "Ruth's childer? Yes." 23:32 <tom> Bob quietly exhales a curse. 23:32 <banana> Agatha grimaces sympathetically. "Apart from the gypsy, I don't think there were any complaints." 23:33 <banana> "You have to understand, or- actually, there's no reason you should understand. You're mortal, quick-minded, changeable. The things which made sense in another era have been.. overturned. Permanently, in some cases." 23:34 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Please do explain. Any possible inroad into their mindset is valuable." 23:36 <banana> Agatha waves her hands a bit - a fairly human gesture. "As far as I could tell, and I wasn't in the inner circle- Alex and Ruth loved each other. In life and in death. I believe the nature of that love... changed. They remained devoted, on a spiritual level; connected so inextricably that people would say 'Countess' although she was in no way entitled to it. 23:36 <banana> " 23:37 <banana> "They were also very old, and physically.. controlled. They had whatever urges and capabilities they wanted to have. The tithe was generous." 23:37 <VoxPVoxD> "The tithe being the blood-debt rising up the chain from their juniors." 23:38 <banana> Agatha: "Although Alex was a very kind man, and Ruth was helpfully practical, their tastes were... their jadedness was..." 23:38 <VoxPVoxD> Willie nods encouragingly. 23:38 <banana> "Yes. Many juniors, of the territory rather than the blood." 23:39 <tom> "I'm sorry, I'm mostly gettin' it but.. what do you mean by that?" 23:39 <banana> Agatha: "Have you learned how it works? In your terrifying and necessary profession? Have you learned about the thickening of the blood?" 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Yes." 23:40 <tom> "N-yes?" 23:40 <tom> "Yes." 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> "They could no longer subsist on human blood. The onus is on the vampires under their dominion to supply their aqua vitae." 23:41 <banana> Agatha: "Both Count and Mrs. Gardener were well past that point, had become creatures at the apex of a phalanx. Their power was vast and their needs were met, trivially, but only through a great and social network." 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> "I was given to understand that the tithe was the material basis of the Rebellion." 23:42 <banana> "If they haven't been in the mind-fogging sleep of death these forty years, I'm not sure the covenant could even sustain their return." 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> "Does that comport with your experience?" 23:43 <tom> "I mean, I don't know how it works. I thought you guys just go to sleep, like frogs in the winter. What's it take to make a Revenant?" 23:43 <banana> Dryly: "My experience? It comports with the sort of thing the Marxists used to say. A theory wholly inadequate to justify tearing our world apart." 23:44 <VoxPVoxD> They're taking humans, not vampires... but you can make a human into a vampire, if a newborn vampire's blood is good enough for a sufficiently jaded elder. 23:44 <banana> "My experience was my mother and granddaughter locked in bloody slaughter because of disrespect and beliefs so deeply held neither of them could concede even to survive." 23:45 <tom> Bob looks at his feet and just shakes his head, trying very hard to keep either of the women from seeing his eyes behind the visor. 23:46 <VoxPVoxD> Willie puts a comforting hand on his leg. 23:47 <tom> "Fuck that's awful. God damn." 23:50 <banana> "I can't help but agree." There's only one good thing that came out of the whole affair, and Agatha's not telling anyone about the Baker girl who grew to the age of thirty and then kept on growing afterward. 23:51 <banana> Agatha: "Do you have any more questions about about our missing peers?" 23:51 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Do you want them found?" 23:52 <banana> Agatha: "If the alternative is a continuing series of attacks on the city and Ruth carrying out some desperate blood-scheme, then yes." 23:54 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Right. Thank you, ma'am. This has been very helpful. Would you like me to leave a card in case you have any more ideas, or in case you wish to retain our services?" 23:54 <banana> "Why on earth would I wish to do that?" 23:55 <tom> Bob looks a little hurt at that, but he recovers fast. 23:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I don't know, ma'am. But they pay me to ask." 23:55 <VoxPVoxD> "Thank you again. You've been very accomodating." 23:55 <tom> "Yeah." 23:56 <banana> Agatha: "You're welcome. I can't just ignore the state of affairs forever, or assume it won't be violently uprooted again, and therefore... I was wrong to see you as dangerous intruders." 23:56 <banana> "We are at least, I think, in the same ecosystem." 23:57 <VoxPVoxD> The smile is... almost entirely not pained. "Yes, I think so. Good night, ma'am." 23:57 <VoxPVoxD> "Bob?" 23:57 <tom> He angles his head back toward the staircase. "Let's scoot. Thanks, Agatha. The quicker we get this wrapped up the faster the killings stop, and everyone's happy." 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> Let's not overpromise. 23:58 <tom> He'll let her take the lead up the stairway this time. "Ciao," and he's out of the harsh old-timely lightbulbs of the crypt. 23:59 <banana> Everyone does seem to agree when it comes to the killings. 23:59 <VoxPVoxD> Up top Willie is breathing like she had to climb five times as many stairs to get back into the night. 00:00 <tom> Bob is trying to be more measured this time, so there's a pause before he says anything. "...I plotted Seveneaves or whatever with the killings. Dead-center." 00:00 <tom> "It matches with what the Constable told you guys about their own people being involved, too." 00:00 <VoxPVoxD> Willie just nods. 00:01 <tom> "You need to sit down?" 00:01 <VoxPVoxD> Willie shakes her head. They're outside now, not far from the car. 00:03 <tom> Bob follows just behind, keeping an eye on the entrance to the crypt before it disappears behind a stone wall on the pavement beside the car. 00:03 <tom> "...You okay, Willie?" 00:05 <VoxPVoxD> "Yeah! Totally, I'm..." Her voice sounds almost normal until she turns back by reflex to look Bob in the eye, or some approximation through his shades, and starts crying. 00:05 <tom> Oh fuck oh shit 00:06 <VoxPVoxD> It's not a noisy cry. Willie's not a noisy cryer. 00:07 <tom> Bob immediately goes to clap his hands on her shoulders and pull her into a not-quite hug by the car. "Hey, hey! It's okay, k-Willie, all that shit was forty years ago." 00:07 <tom> Bob immediately goes to clap his hands on her shoulders and pull her into a not-quite hug by the car. "Hey, hey! It's okay, k-Willie, all that shit was forty years ago." 00:08 <tom> "We gotta focus on what we can do." 00:08 <tom> "We have multiple M.I.A. That's not dead, that's missing." 00:09 <VoxPVoxD> "No it wasn't. No it isn't. It's been happening for hundreds of years and it's still happening and it could happen tomorrow or a month from now or" Willie dissolves entirely into his arms, sobbing into his chest. 00:10 <tom> He pulls her in and just deflates like a balloon. Kinda awkwardly patting her on the back. "Shit, I forget with the fire and Kagemenauch an' all, you're still pretty green to this awful shit." 00:10 <tom> "Don't lose that, okay?" 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> He's so warm. 00:12 <tom> "The end of hope is the beginning of death." 00:12 <VoxPVoxD> She doesn't want to pull away. But she does. Deep, shuddering breath. "Yeah, well. I don't think it's practical for me to go to pieces after every interview." Big sniff. "This job'll make an honest woman of me yet." 00:13 <VoxPVoxD> "Is that de Gaulle?" 00:13 <tom> "Shit, I got that from a video game." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> Willie gives Bob a little breathless laugh and then taps him on the side of the face. "God bless you, Bob Goreman." When Willie gets back in the car she dries her eyes, double-checks her makeup, and then drives away from the ruined kirk, trying to clear the fog from her mind with some music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76nuBsqPRLg