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Vampire the Gentrification

Session 2

Protests and Establishments

The group — Rex, Estaban and Magda —are in their coterie house, exploring and taking account of all that happened; their introduction to a new city; meeting the Prince — maybe; meeting a cat who Magda decided is called Prince, and who she adopted; investigating a football match; discovering a plot to protest a 24 hour social services push in the city’s libraries; and after a little help from a gossip possibly even discovering the man organising the library protest along with getting his number; a man who even thinks Rex, Magda and Estaban are his friends and, ‘the right kind of immigrants,’ i.e. not a drain on the state.

As the group explore their new home they find a basic laptop setup for some internet connection — Net Nanny type software installed — along with hidden places for them to slumber through the day, and a running fridge full of bagged blood bearing the same factory markings as the strange blood they were given on their arrival; the blood that sated their entire hunger.

An hour or two before dawn they hear the doorbell ring. Magda is in the living room, catching up on Irish and European news with through-the-night TV, while Estaban goes to the front of the house and Rex stays on the landing to not present a too foreboding welcome while still being prepared.

Estaban looks out the windows by the side of the door and sees a beautiful woman, in her mid twenties, wearing what looks like the professional outfit a wealthy, office working woman in World War 2 would wear; wool and tweed skirt-suit, pale stockings, shoes with low heel and t-bar over the top of her foot, along with an expensive and worn leather satchel of the kind WW2 school kids carried, but looking more like a handbag.

Her makeup is impeccable if it wasn’t for half her face being caved in. She looks like someone who’s a few years, and reparative surgeries recovered from an unfortunate blast in Blitz beleaguered London. Or, to Estaban, she’s almost certainly a Nosferatu.

Estaban opens the door and she asks for Magda, who Estaban calls for. The women introduces herself as Jennifer, opens her satchel, and gives Magda some cat food and milk for Prince, saying she’s made quite the impression with her behaviour, even if, as far as she’s aware, cats shouldn’t really drink milk. Magda dismisses this and feeds Prince some milk and wet kitten food in the kitchen.

Then they all go to the living room where Jennifer begins to explain; she’s there to set them up on the vampiric communication network in the city.

This phone network is run off hidden 3G broadcast systems that move around business locations in the city — vampire owned — so it can’t be tracked.

She takes the original Nokia 3210 Estaban held and sets them all up with new 3210s, containing both a standard SIM and a vampire section of the phone. If they get the number of another vampire it’ll automatically be checked and ported to the vampire part of the phone, one that can be wiped at a moments notice, if Jennifer is let know of an issue.

She also explains the group could well have been given a domain, something rather surprising given their time in the city, but they’ve made an impression, not least of which via Prince with Magda. Jennifer Hussey even explains the actual Prince himself is sure to be aware of this.

She says to go see a woman named Jessica, who runs a flower shop near them, who’ll explain more to them the following night.

Then she’s gone, after she fits each of the vampires with faceplates of their choosing for their 3210s, and transferring the details Estaban got the night before to his new phone. Rex asks for a simple black faceplate, Magda for one pink, with sparkles, and Estaban chooses one from the local rugby team, Munster Rugby, in red and white.

The Library

The next night the vampires wake to no new trouble, run through all their waking routines and dine on some more of the blood in their house, reducing their beast completely again.

Estaban checks his phone and sees a text from the man he met the night before — Derry — the man involved with the protests, saying Estaban hadn’t been answering his calls and to contact him.

The group decide not to call Derry but tell him they’re on the way to the protest, not to worry, knowing this is something they need to investigate more. That it could be why they’ve been brought to the city by the vampire leaders here.

Arriving at the protest they notice some police presence but no real protest. There’s a few people standing around, but not many. One of the people who is standing around is the librarian they met the night before, who put her foot in her mouth regarding the group as simply ‘immigrants,’ at least by her words.

She immediately sees them and apologises, but the Estaban dismisses her concerns and says people are just tired, not to worry about it.

She says it’s good of them to show up to the counter-protest about what these libraries are providing for needy people but her library has mostly escaped issue. It seems all to be on the Northside of the city, at the Northside’s libraries.

It’s then Estaban checks his phone to see a text from Derry, the man involved with the protests, celebrating that the trouble had been moved to the Northside, and to come up and look.

Estaban and Rex figure out how far it is to get to the other library, realising they need their own transport with city centre public transport being unreliable. They look to purloin something that’ll carry them. Something found out of the way of the police presence near library.

(At this point Magda’s player needs to leave due to a real life commitment, so we leave her supervising at the library. Another solo session will be run with the player at some point so they can establish some of their own mysterious plot.)

As Estaban and Rex are looking around for transport they hear a car beeping at them. A man is excited to see them and says Derry is looking for them, and this man, the man in the driver’s seat, can drive them to the other libraries.

Giving in Rex and Estaban sit into the car, with another person sitting in the back-seat — a man named Alfie who looks a bit drunk and whom they recognise from the night before. Rex sits in next to him figuring he’s a whiskey drinker, by his breath, and knowing he has a way with whiskey drinkers along with Rex knowing he has a hip flask in his pocket.

Estaban asks about what’s happening and is told the protests had all been moved to the Northside. No-one knows how it happened but it did happen, and Derry is as happy as a pig in shit.

Meanwhile, Alfie is in the back explaining things to Rex, mainly about immigrants and work, but he seems caught in two minds about this. He says some fairly outrageous things but it seems to be more parroting of what he hears around him and thinks is acceptable talk rather than any true belief, or malice. He comes across as a fairly simple tradie, certainly far from bright, and very able to adopt as part of himself what goes on around him.

When the car arrives at the library, parking at a distance, they see a boisterous crowd but not outright violent. Police vans are parked nearby, with riot police ready to go. There are both protesters and counter-protesters. People looking for trouble, any trouble; these people are the kind who’d look for trouble no matter what. They’re not here for the politics or social movement, unlike the counter protesters.

The driver offers to show Rex and Estaban the other library on the Northside which also has a protest, and Rex and Estaban feel they have no choice but to agree to it.

Showing off the other library, where much of the same is happening at a smaller scale, the driver explains Derry would be in a bar in the centre of the city, but on the Northside-side of the partying centre of the city. He says where the group can find him if they wish — he'd love to see them — then the driver drops them off further from the city centre near the The Bridge, the bar they met Derry in the night before. Estaban and Rex making sure this man didn’t see them exit the car near their home.

A Flower Arrangement

They decide to search out this Jessica woman, with the flower shop, where they find a branch of an overnight café cum eatery cum flowershop, selling flowers to partiers who may need to apologise to someone while on their way home from, perhaps, too much partying.

The place is busy, with tall plants and tables outside the front in a smoking area in some repurposed parking spaces, while the inside has all manner of local crafts, chocolates, cards, and everything handmade it’s possible to imagine.

The girl at the counter, after hearing their request for the Jessica woman, says she’ll be back soon, she’s just stepped out, then asks if they want a coffee. No charge is put through as the girl feels they might be associates of Jessica, whereupon Rex and Estaban ask this young woman about the flowers, then for an affordable flower arrangement of her own.

The flowers are cheaper than usual — as explained by the worker — by about a third, but the arrangement the young woman comes up with is beautiful. She says she’s been desperate to make an arrangement of her own but is still being trained. She absolutely out-does herself with this one, and it really is very affordable.

While this is happening Rex and Estaban are looking around the store, and happen across some of the tourist maps like they were given the night before, for the football match. They even find one with what looks like the same vampiric feeding zones outlined on it, including a new area marked off in heavy black line, around where they went to the game.

Jessica soon arrives, with the young woman at the counter who made the flower arrangement being instructed to wipe Rex and Estaban’s bill for their coffees and bouquet. The young woman smiles at them, seemingly smitten they’re her first floral customers.

Jessica introduces herself as they go outside. She’s dressed sharply, in a suit, looking more like she’s come from a business meeting than she does a hippy dippy woman with a flower shop.

She explains — with some gravitas and enunciation — Magda, Rex, and Estaban have been granted a domain on the road the football stadium is on, and it’s theirs to maintain. Not only that but they’ve been granted a premises on the domain, to turn into a business as they wish. Maybe they can earn an income? Most importantly it might set Jennifer Hussey — the Nosferatu with the phone network — up with a new location for her 3G transmitters.

An Attack

Estaban and Rex thank Jessica, unsure of her and their entire situation in the city, then decide to check out their new domain. On their arrival to the bar by the stadium — the one that took pictures of Magda and Prince for the bar’s website, instagram, facebook, bluesky, etc. — they find an area is cordoned off by police.

An Garda Síochána have blanketed the area, their presence seemingly relocated from the nearby library where no protest occurred. There was an attack and there’s blood everywhere.

A Crime Scene Forensics unit are busy at work, with a lot of Gardaí standing around ensuring people stay back.

Estaban and Rex walk up to the entrance of the bar, via a little walkway carved out through the crowd control. They’re told the bar is locals only, whereupon Rex and Estaban explain they’re only calling in to thank the bar for the last night, when they were let into the VIP area in return for pictures of Magda and the cat for the bar’s promotional efforts.

The female Garda is having none of it, though, until a tough, brutish looking tower of a man comes up to her, police ID numbers removed from his shoulders. He explains these are the people from this morning's Cork City Football Club’s social media and to let them in. The female Garda looks royally pissed off at this guy, who’s swanning about like he’s in charge — despite being in 90% of a uniform, 10% less than most others, and an obvious breaking of protocol. He has, however, seemed to explained Estaban and Rex's presence and need to be in the pub.

Inside the bar people are looking incredibly pale and cowed.

With Rex and Estaban settling in the same woman from the night before greets them, the animal lover, bartender Marie. She looks grim but seems a little happier to see them, saying they really needs Magda and Prince to come back and visit them, the two would cheer everyone one. Then she offers a drink to Rex and Estaban.

Taking the drinks it’s explained, by all around, to Estaban and Rex the attack was vicious, with theories of lovers quarrels, muggings etc. Marie and the other drinkers explain this doesn’t make sense, though, not from what they've heard. Nothing about this makes sense. The attacker seemed to appear in an instant and disappear again immediately. How much of this is whispers, though, no-one can tell, certainly not Rex and Estaban.

Estaban quickly leaves to the bathroom, seemingly to pee, possibly to throw up after the grim scene has been explained to him. It’s actually to throw up the drinks and coffee he’s had, along with some of the vitae from blush of life it took to keep it all down.

Estaban cleans up the toilet as best he can, then Estaban and Rex make their leave where they notice a Crime Scene Investigator taking their photo from afar. They also notice another photographer, even further away, taking their photo. A man not in a crime scene uniform.

Knowing he has no way to hide Estaban continues to walk towards The Bridge, the bar Derry had been in the night before, while Rex activates his Obfuscate abilities once hidden by a church.

Moving invisibly among the CSI people Rex discovers the security cameras didn’t show much other than it being a brute of a man who seemed to attack, either in their thirties or forties, and with a shaved head and missing teeth. And, of course, that the local Priest and his god botherers are out praying.

Rex tries to gain access to the camera the forensics photographer used to take their photos but after a little bit of stalking knows — from his time as a Private Eye — these Gardaí are far too switched on to drop the chain of evidence from such a brutal attack, especially when they were active for a protest so nearby.

Back to The Bridge with a Boon

Back in The Bridge Estaban has settled into the bar, where the barman who previously ignored him seems happy to talk to him, along with Alfie, the drunk they met earlier in the car touring the libraries with them. Derry isn’t around.

The barman and Alfie explain the attack was completely out of the norm, like nothing they’d ever experienced around that area — an area just a quick walk away and another quick walk to the library the protest was diverted from.

The woman, apparently, is fighting for her life in the Emergency Department in the Level 1 Trauma centre in the main city hospital; being pumped full of blood after so much of it was left all over the walls, footpath and road.

Rex catches up and they all begin talking to Alfie, the barman now quietening people and giving them their Last Call marching orders.

It turns out Alfie is really quite an amiable man who’s spent his life, and spent most of his body’s health, working on building sites; he can do a little bit of everything. When Rex and Estaban mention they might have access to a property he tells them he actually worked on that place and it’s full of old junk. He’s happy to help them out, though, for a little cash in his pocket. And if they’re ever in need of a job just hit him up, he always knows of someone hiring; that this works both ways for people trying to make their way through their lives as simple, honest folk.

Still concerned, however, about the attack right at the starting border of their new domain Estaban and Rex return to their coterie house. They decide to call Jennifer Hussey — the Nosferatu — and only definite vampire contact they have.

She answers after a few rings and they ask her about what’s happening; about the attack. Agreeing to owe her a boon for what she tells them she says anything that happens on their domain is there issue. This is the way of things. It's up to them to maintain their territory.

However, all being told, they should really focus on establishing themselves within the area — among the people, quietly, and among the businesses — that’s where the proof of things will be; how well they can manage the area and mortals they’ve been assigned to manage.

Other things are there to be worked on, while the domain and mortals are most definitely theirs, now. It is their domain.

Link to a write up of the first Vampire the Gentrification session.

Link to Magda's solo session and new haven.

Back to Vampire the Masquerade.