Path of the Vampire forum

The sun had just risen as the red-headed female, having finished her shift, left The Necropolis for her apartment. The walk to Beta Towers was fairly quick at this time of morning, not being early enough to catch the morning commuters. The breaking sunlight also meant that little to none of Harper's Rock secret vampire community would be out and about either. She, of course, knew of them and was even employed by them. Her general policy was as long as they didn't threaten her or her friends' existences or the general existence of the human populace of the city, she would be content to let them be.

Her current objective was to find information on the group that her father had been working with or for at the time of his death. She had learned, upon coming to the city, that the plane crash which had claimed his life had been no accident, but rather an attack meant to be targeted at him, and perhaps a couple of the other passengers. The female wanted to know what he had been working on that would warrant such drastic measures. Perhaps today she would try to find another lead on the group, she decided as she checked her watch. Noting that her favorite net cafe, Moonlight Lotus Cybercafe, should be open by now, course was changed to head there instead for an early start.

She greeted the attendant who smiled and indicated her favored terminal was free. Slipping into the open seat, Amalea slipped her access card into the slot, waiting for the computer read and authorize her use as she debated where to try today. The dangerous game of covertly trying to access private information was likely to be her best solution, she decided, given she has had no luck in finding anything legitimately. Pulling out her notebook, she leafed through till she found her list of sites that held promise.

‘Vampires are People Too,’ she decided was her target for the day. A few clicks and commands later, she was into the organizations server. Pursuing through the initial list of files, she downloaded several that had promising file names before moving deeper into maze. “Ah ha,” she exclaimed under her breath as she came upon a treasure trove of encrypted files, downloading them all before logging off. One by one, she painstakingly decrypted them, discarding each in turn as worthless to her quest, till a single file was left.

The largest of the files she had been saved for last, knowing that it would take the longest to decrypt. A couple hours later, her efforts were rewarded as the process finished, yielding a newly decrypted file. Opening it, she began to read the document, engrossed in its contents. It was definitely not the type of information she had expected to find on a vampire lovers site.

Somehow, it seemed she had managed to acquire a message between a pair of vampire hunters, if she read it correctly. It mentioned testing that had been run at Seigneur de l`Azur, which she knew from her job was the old Broussard place, which had been blown up after the fall of Emmanuel Broussard and his minions. Apparently, the blood thieves connected to Emmanuel had recovered some sort of scroll with details on a ritual, deemed ‘sour blood’. The message said the ritual is thought to alter a human’s blood to be toxic to vampires. She was glad to see that the ritual would protect humans but would not harm a vampire. The message continued, indicating that a team was being sent to the ruins of the building to retrieve whatever information there was to be had on the ritual and if they were lucky – the original scroll.

Pen danced across paper as the red-head jotted down the information contained within the message before transferring the file over to her thumb drive. She momentarily considered deleting the original file off of the server, but decided that that would raise too many alarms and alert the group that someone was privy to their plans and possibly push up the timescale or size of the retrieval party. Neither was a risk the female was willing to take as she ejected the portable drive, securing it and her notebook in her pocket.

A moment was spent contemplating how best to deal with the situation, though it was obvious that the scroll or any information needed to be retrieved before this foreign group was able to get to it. It had too much potential to be too dangerous to the vampire populous to allow such, even if it did benefit humans. There was no way she could do this alone and she wasn’t sure that asking those she knew from The Necropolis was a wise idea either, given that they not look kindly on the idea of such a ritual and seek to destroy it. A quick shake of her head was given as she decided upon a simple message upon one of the forums to which she belonged.

Looking to gather a group for a treasure hunting adventure. Potential for danger is high. Anyone interested should seek me out at Honeymead Library, today. Ask for Red.

Logging off, she shut down her session before gathering the rest of her possessions. Waving to the attendant, she made her way to the Wickbridge Station. She paid for her ticket, stepping on to the platform as her train arrived. The trip to the Honeymead Station was quick as was the walk to the Library. Choosing a corner where she could see the door, but still have some privacy, she settled into one of the seat to see if anyone showed.

Mike was putting wires together on his main robot which was still not done after months of working on it.

"You're doing it wrong. That wire doesn't go with that one." The Annoying Robot which was more commonly called Rude Robot said.

Mike swatted the ball with legs off the work bench, it landed on the ground with metal ting.

"Ow, that hurt!"

Mike rolled his eyes. "You can't feel anything.." he muttered.

"Hum, well I know it would hurt if I could!" it grumbled as it sulked off into the darkness of the ruined building, cussing all the way.

Mike sighed softly, "I need a break from this.." he said softly. He couldn't keep working on a project that wasn't going anywhere. He pushed the parts aside and took out his cell phone, seeing if there was anything new to read. The words treasure hunting adventure caught his eye, but then so did the word danger.

"Hmm..." Mike started to put away his things in the hideaways he made in the walls. He then grinned and typed out a text to the guy named Windy, well nicknamed Windy anyway.

'Hey you like danger right? If you're not busy stalking that blonde woman, meet me at the Honeymead Library.'

With that he grabbed his backpack and looked around for the annoying ball of metal. "Yo Ru, where are you?" he asked, he couldn't see the darn thing since it was black.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't but if I leave you here and you piss off the wrong person they might take a hammer to you." Mike said with a grin. He soon heard the robot's little legs working over time to get to him. He picked it up and tossed it into his bag before taking off.

He hadn't been to the library in forever and when he got there he was happy to see that it got a make over. He should spend some more time here. He was distracted for a moment as he looked around but finally remembered why he was here. Now who was he going to ask for this Red person?

Anemoi hadn’t been very active lately, other than working out in his hotel room. If he stayed outside too long that annoying Lexster would find him. He had yet to be able to grow his hair any longer than what it was right now, thanks to her. He felt like he just had to get stronger, but then did it really matter? If he was going to try to believe in this whole vampire thing, how did one even fight them? Vampire, mutant, whatever they were. Maybe he just needed to find some help.

He was distracted by his thoughts when his phone announced he had a text message. He was sure it wasn’t Kira, they hadn’t really spoken that much lately. Though he still couldn’t think of who else it would be. He pulled it across the table until it was in front of him. “Ah, Robot Boy..” he said softly. He wondered what the kid wanted. He seemed to like robots over humans and they only really knew each other because of Snow’s little ‘gang’.

'Hey you like danger right? If you're not busy stalking that blonde woman, meet me at the Honeymead Library.'

Anemoi stared at the message then slowly shook his head with a sigh. Did people think that was the only thing he did? He put his phone in his pocket. He had to wonder what he was up to and whatever it was might be better than staying in his hotel room. He got up from the small table and gathered his things before quickly leaving. He just hoped it was worth it, whatever it is.

He stopped in front of the library, he had never been here before. He took in a deep breath before pressing on. Stopping again once he was inside the building, he spotted the young man. “Yo, Mike, what is this about..?” he asked.

She had been hunting for Windbag. It was tricky, getting around before the sun went down but Alexandrea had her thrall tracking the human and when she got the text saying she had seen him going into the Honeymead Library, Alex risked a slight burn to use celerity to run there, ducking quickly inside as she felt the heat of the sun and then using quickening to make the wound less severe. Meagan was already inside and let Alex drain her of some blood before wandering off.

She chuckled to herself. It was weird thinking of him being a reader. Her fellow sister of the DTM was the owner of the library now, so Alexandrea would have to resist the urge to cover the annoying human male in paintballs. But it looked like his hair was getting too long again. Alex would have to fix that. She popped a stick of gum into her mouth and followed, grinning ear to ear.

Anemoi's back was to her as she walked up behind him without a sound. But just as she was about to take the gum out of her mouth and stick it in his hair, she saw Mike Barone. The kid she had rescued in the Quarantine Zone. Her eyes darted around looking for that rude little robot of his, even as the gum went back into her mouth.

She swallowed the gum and gave the kid a warm smile. "Why, Mike! How nice to see you again. How've you been?"

Giving Kira's stalker a glare, Alex waved a fresh stick of gum at him as a warning. "Windbag. What are you doing here? Mike going to teach you how to read?"

Batman was doing what he did most of his days. Daydreaming of his fiancée, Corin, as he idly moved his eyes over the bank of computer screens. One screen held his attention most of all, the largest, was segmented into several smaller images, each one showing the hacked stream from the city's CCTV network.

Crime was slow in waking up, as the darkness settled over the city, the camera's field of vision illuminated by the streetlights. He was about to get up, to fix himself a bite to eat when a message popped up on one of the smaller screens.

Looking to gather a group for a treasure hunting adventure. Potential for danger is high. Anyone interested should seek me out at Honeymead Library, today. Ask for Red.

"The potential for danger is high..." He mused, tapping a few keys on the keyboard, moving his mouse to click one of the honeymead feeds. "Could be a trap. But if there is danger involved, I cannot risk people getting hurt." He would have to play this tactfully, he had been careful not to reveal his true identity to anyone, with the exception of Corin, and Wolfgang, though the latter had visited him in hospital where, his bat-suit was not the usual attire for recovering patients.
He contemplated going without, blending into the sea of faces, but thought better of it.

Punching in the code to the storage locker built into the recess of the wall, the door opened, to reveal his suit. With determination he dressed. Honeymead was the other end of the city, he contemplated the sewers, but the smell would give him away. The rooftops we his other alternative. but then he remembered one of the tricks he had from the blood, one of his vampire acquaintances gave him. and within a blink of an eye, he was there.

Certainly a six foot man in a bat suit would stand out, entering the library, instead he made use of an open window, sticking to the shadows. He watched. Wanting to see who would show up, other the than the two males and the blonde, Alexandrea, he remembered. The chick with the paintball gun.

Davis' case was getting colder by the day. Broussard was supposedly dead, but none of his rivals had claimed the attack as being theirs. If the attack were a turf war, as was suspected, there should have been rumors of SOMEONE claiming his death, if nothing else as a warning to any other rivals. No one was bragging about taking him down; hell, no body had even been found. She had been working the usual angles and was coming up empty. Perhaps it was time for a different approach.

One of the things she had noticed about Harper Rock was that its goth subculture was not very "sub" at all. Citizens of the town seemed obsessed with the occult. Maybe there was some hippie new-agey incense-burning reason for the cover-up, or even the murder itself. She would have to get herself acquainted with some of these witches and warlocks. Good thing Davis was good at undercover work.

One website in particular seemed promising, a forum questioning the existence of vampires. She signed up, though she did not make any posts. First she had to read and get a feel for the type of behavior expected, and then she could take part.

Her chance came sooner than expected.

Looking to gather a group for a treasure hunting adventure. Potential for danger is high. Anyone interested should seek me out at Honeymead Library, today. Ask for Red.

She had two choices. She hadn't made a name for herself yet, so she wasn't sure they would trust her. However, she also might not get another chance to see if these were the type of people she was looking for.

After thinking it over, she decided to go for it. She would give one alias or another, probably just going with her old high school nickname, "Jinx," and then just play the cute and innocent card if she were called out. Besides, she was not about to take a chance with civilians and the "potential for danger."

If they were regular civs, their idea of danger probably had a lot to do with jumping fences and maybe running through the woods. However, if they had the same idea of "danger" as she did, they could probably use one of the RCMP's top inspectors on their side.

Dressed in nondescript street clothes, Inspector Davis made her way to Honeymead Library. She took a breath before entering, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she was in character as the naive thrillseeker she was pretending to be. She walked through the door, feigning nervousness.

Davis bit her lip. "Ummm," she spoke to no one in particular, "does anyone know where I can find Red?"

Dex enjoyed the walk to Honeymead Library. The brisk autumn air helped wake him up, and the bright (very bright) sunshine was always a pleasant reminder of the other side of things, of what the world could be. He had actually been planning to sleep in this morning to offset yet another late night, but that was before his webphone woke him with an alert.

At first, he was disappointed. He’d spent a great deal of time writing that app, but without the resources of a national government to back his efforts, scanning the entire internet for key words and phrases was very hit-or-miss, with an emphasis on “miss”. On its face, this morning’s post was another dead end:

Looking to gather a group for a treasure hunting adventure. Potential for danger is high. Anyone interested should seek me out at Honeymead Library, today. Ask for Red.
Keywords: danger, hunting, red, treasure

It looked like someone looking for geocashers or LARPers or something like that, but it was from a vampire website where he’d seen more than enough questionable posting before, so he’d pulled himself out of bed and sat down at his computer to see what he could learn about this treasure hunter “Red”.

“Red” had posted from a public terminal in the city, and a little more digging showed that wasn’t all he’d used it for. Red, it seemed, was a hacker, and like most hackers, enjoyed delving into places he didn’t belong. It took a little bit, but Dex was able to follow Red’s footprints into a pro-vampire propaganda site. (Twilight had done a fantastic job of turning any number of women into willing bloodsack fangirls.)

It was the files he’d found at the end of Red’s trail that convinced him to make his way to the library this morning. Encrypted files, and not with any sort of off-the-shelf software, either. Reading them in the first place was tricky; Dex had to figure either that Red had spent hours making them readable, or that the trail he’d followed was left there on purpose.

Broussard had a ritual that made blood unpalatable to vampires, Dex considered as he stepped into the library. Unfortunately, it seems the Euros know about it, too. And here I was hoping those rumors I’d hear were just that. Dex had never been a fan his European colleagues. None of the Blackfeathers ever had been, really. The Euros had a bad reputation: Shoot first, ask questions never. The worst of them were Christ-maddened zealots known to murder people for the crime of being the victim of some or another monster…something about being “tainted”. Dex had never had the pleasure of dealing with them in person before (though he knew enough to know they didn’t like being called Euros to their face). He’d just as soon have spent the rest of his life not dealing with them, but this ritual, if it existed, was just too good to pass up. Besides, he couldn’t let a bunch of normal citizens walk into a den of Euros unprepared.

Dex’s eyes scanned over the crowd in the library before settling on a woman with red hair seated alone in a corner, seemingly very interested in the library patrons around her. He made his way over to her.

“You must be Red,” he said with a friendly smile. “Anyone else show up for the treasure hunt, or am I first?”

The sun had been just about midway to its apex when the red headed female had slipped through the library doors. Judging from the position of the shadows, a couple hours had passed while her nose had been buried within her current book. A glance at her phone confirmed her suspicion. She was genuinely surprised that no one had shown up sooner, knowing that many seemed to either live on their computers or had alerts set for new posts. Logging on to the forum via her webphone, she noted neither any replies nor private messages and began to wonder if anyone would dare show.

With a sigh, she returned to her book, having decided to remain there for a while longer. Barely a couple pages in, she heard the door open. Looking up slightly over the edge of her book, she noted the male that had entered. The backpack made her wonder if he was perhaps a student from the university in town; the way he stopped to look around gave credence to her thoughts, but then again, nothing was truly as it seemed in this town. An eye was kept on the male as she returned to her book. A couple moments later, the opening of the door drew her attention once again as another male made an appearance.

Yo, Mike, what is this about..?

Now she had a name for the first guy, but still no clue as to whether or not they were there to study or to meet with her. She shook her head in amusement as she decided that next time she left a cryptic message for people to meet her, she was going to give more explicit instructions. She didn't even make it back to her book before the door opened once again admitting a blond female this time.

Why, Mike! How nice to see you again. How've you been? Windbag. What are you doing here? Mike going to teach you how to read?"

From her greeting, Amalea figured she was acquainted with the pair of males in some fashion. If she had to guess, her money would be on her knowing 'Mike' better than his friend. In any case, it seemed like the library was becoming a hip spot and she sincerely hoped they were there to meet her. If this many other people were going to show up for unrelated items, her group would have to be exceedingly careful on how they conducted their business. She glared at the door as she heard it open again. Surely one of these people would be for her, she figured. The newest female seemed a bit nervous, which was a good sign to the red-head as she took it to mean she was probably there for the meeting.

"Ummm, does anyone know where I can find Red?"

Finally!, she thought. Someone who was interested. Carefully, she slipped her bookmark into the book to mark her page. Before she got far enough to actually close the book, another male slipped through the door. He caught her attention simply because he seemed to be searching for someone. Book finally fell shut as she moved to slip it in her bag as he made his way over.

“You must be Red. Anyone else show up for the treasure hunt, or am I first?”

She stood, smiling at him. She was impressed he had figured it out for himself and taken the initiative to take a risk. Based on that, she knew he'd be a good addition to the team. "Indeed, I would be Red. You're first to be bold enough to come over, but the nervous looking female is here for the party as well. I was just about to go over there."

"Anemoi.." Mike said but before he could say anything his rude robot said, "Oh the pretty boy stalker showed up. Feel so safe now."

Mike's eyes widened and slipped the bag off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. "Son of a.." it started but Mike kicked the bag. "Shut up or I swear I'll dismantle you." Mike hissed, there was a high pitched yelp from the bag but nothing else. Mike returned the bag to his shoulders.

"Anyway..." Mike said as if nothing happened. "I read something online about adventure, treasure and maybe some danger so.." he said, "I needed a break and your the bodyguard person...so take care of the danger part for me?" he asked with hope. "We're looking for someone who calls themselves Red...and well...not sure if I should asked a redhead such a question."

His bright blue eyes drifted to the blonde, "Alex.." he said, "I've been fine. How are you?" he asked with a smile. It had been some time since he ran into the woman. He was going to ask if she had seen the same message but got distracted. He looked between her and Windy, "You two know each other?" he said, though it didn't seem to be a nice knowing and Windbag sure didn't seem like a nice nickname.

Mike's attention was pulled away from them as he saw...Batman. "Ahh.." he wasn't even sure what to think about it. Some crazy man? Real life superhero? Slowly more people showed up, he wasn't sure how busy this library normally was but he had to wonder if they were all here for the same reason.
He listened closely, hearing the name Red from first a female then a male who seemed to have gone to the redhead. There was no glare or sharp reply about it so it must be the right person.

"Soo..." Mike said, looking to the two he knew. "Seems Red has been found...shall we seek out more information?"

Anemoi’s jaw tightened when he heard that blasted annoying robot of Mike’s. “Damn paperweight.” He muttered. He stared at Mike a moment, he was supposed to be Snow’s bodyguard, protect the group he suppose. He only tolerated them for something to do while he waited for another chase to kill Kira. “Treasure?” he said, rolling his eyes a bit. “What kind of treasure?” he didn’t really believe this, though it would be nice to find something of worth as he needed the money.

He twitched when the blonde showed up. “Lexster..” he said, running a hand over his hair. “Oh very funny. I can read Kira’s text messages just fine you know. Unless she starts up with that other language.” He mused. Not that they had exchanged a lot of words recently but he was sure it would annoy the girl to know that her friend does talk to him. He looked to Mike, “We have an interest in the same woman, just not the same interest..” he said, Lexster was Kira’s overprotective friend and he wanted to kill them both but wouldn’t touch Lexster so Kira didn’t get serious about trying to kill him.

Anemoi looked off at the people who showed up. “Batman…really? And I thought this town couldn’t get any more fucked up..” he said softly. “Though I say we know who Red is now. Lexster can just go away now.” He said, glaring at the woman.