The ladies' dressing room (pre-dawn Sun. 4/1/07, Jocelin)

[Detritus]

Jocelin blinks

"He did that . . . what . . . why? I thought the main criteria for our mission was plausible disposability?"
Anneke fixes both you and Antoinette in turn with a baleful one-eyed gaze, full of cyclopean reproach.

"Get them out of here," she hisses in a stage whisper to Camille. Rebekka turns to her subordinates and swings her chin toward the far end of the hemisphere of light. Sabine moves to where Rebekka directs, and touches the sphere at four corners of a door-sized rectangle, and a portal to the outside of the ward appears.

"Come on, Jocelin, let's go get dressed," Sarah says to you. "I think Leo needs a bit of alone time, and we can talk more downstairs." She gives you a tentative smile, but the smile slides off her face as she gives Antoinette a guarded look. You feel no urge whatsoever to contradict the suggested course of action.

"You should come, too, Antoinette," says Camille. Antoinette takes a look around, and then exits the sphere at a near trot.

[Kalzazz]

Jocelin goes with Sarah, even more confused now

[Detritus]

((Sorry this got so long. Every time one of the NPCs made a point, it seemed like that just uncovered another point that also needed to be addressed. I tried to make the post at least somewhat readable as a story. If you want to skim all the exposition and then answer the question at the end, that would also work, given Jocelin's level of political savvy. ;)))

====================

When you leave the ward you find yourself in a tall attic. The ward is large enough to extend into dormers on either side. You descend a stairway into the upper floor of the house. Sabine leads everyone through the master bedroom into an adjacent dressing room where everyone's clothes are.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Antoinette asks. "Did a bug crawl into One-Eyed Jill's gaping socket and die there?"

"A bit of it is probably self-recrimination," says Camille, "but she's mostly upset because she has only recently learned of the incident between Heather and Jocelin at the school a few nights ago."

"Rebekka already explained it once, when we were at the school," Sarah adds, "during her high-drama moment."

Nodding, Camille says, "While Jocelin incurred the more immediate debt directly to Heather, their respective relationships with the Justicar and Samantha incurred a lesser, indirect debt between them."

"But what does that have to do with me?" Antoinette asks, brow furrowed.

"In a moment," says Camille. "Heather informed the Justicar that she transferred the resultant boon she held over Jocelin to Samantha. Once that happened, Samantha sought redress with Arcadian himself, after she incapacitated Jocelin."

Camille stops and looks at everyone else in the room before she resumes speaking, this time to Jocelin.

"A Justicar is very powerful, politically, but there are some things that even they find difficult to work around. Foremost among them is Prestation, the social code at the very heart of the Camarilla. Bottom-lining it, it's a favors-for-favors system that requires the party on either side of a boon not to injure the other. In essence, it is the social lubricant that permits a veneer of civility to form in the dealings of a society filled with predators."

"But that still doesn't answer..."

"Just wait for it, Antoinette," says Sabine. "There's a lot of ground to cover."

"Thank you, Sabine," Camille says, and continues.

"Once the boon transferral deed was done, it was a simple matter for Samantha to use it as a lever to provoke a confrontation. Refusal would have resulted in loss of face serious enough to compromise Arcadian's effectiveness as Justicar. Eventually, he would have been removed from office, and the boon would still be hanging over his head despite the loss of authority."

"He did manage to secure the release of you two, as well as Jack and Leo, but none of you could be revived until tonight," says Sabine. "We had to do the ritual to get the splinters out of your hearts. Samantha and her allies didn't even bother with splintering Jack since he was already in such rough shape. That poor sap," she says, and then gives Camille a darkly significant look.

Antoinette gives you a weird face, the incomprehension of her look mirroring your own confusion, and Camille begins speaking once more.

"We are nearly there, Antoinette, but first you must both be made aware of just how grave the situation is. Political upheaval more powerful than any hurricane is about to blow into New Orleans. Gwynnis, the Toreador Justicar, arrived in town earlier tonight. She may have already put out word of a conclave to be convened in New Orleans. It seems very likely to me that two outcomes of any such meeting will be that Rebekka will ascend to Prince of New Orleans, and that Anneke will be placed in command of any operation to repel Sabbat incursion into the city.

"When Anneke learned of how it came to be that Arcadian owed a boon to Samantha, she was furious. She wanted to destroy you both on the spot. I think she believed you both to be agents of the Sabbat. She is the eldest surviving childe of Gwynnis, and I believe also one of her most trusted lieutenants. I'm convinced she would have had the authority to put you both to Final Death. We would not be having this conversation right now, but for Rebekka's intervention on your behalf."

Antoinette looks stunned at this revelation, her eyes unfocused into a thousand-yard stare as she recalls her trip from L.A. Camille nods at both Sabine and Sarah, evidently signaling them to do... something. Sarah doesn't look all that enthused about it, but Sabine says "Do it!" in an assertive voice, and Sarah seems to acquiesce, although it is not apparent that she does anything in particular when Camille resumes.

"Tell me," she says, "did either of you know whom the vitae you drank at Samantha's came from?"

"What?" says Antoinette. "No, no idea. Some guy. Why should that matter?"

"Jocelin?"

[Kalzazz]

"Uh, no idea . . . I didnt suddenly find myself madly in love with Heather or Samantha . . " Jocelin considers, "Wait, you mentioned the Sabbat . . . was it the Abyssal Sabbat mockery of the Blood of Christ?!" Jocelin shudders and crosses herself as she considers that notion


"Why did he wish for me to be released, to destroy me himself?"

"Im not a Sabbat pawn, the Sabbat are the blackest, most vile of blasphemous monsters that pervert His gifts . . "

"The Prince can detect falsehoods of the tongue . . . I would be very willing to tell Prince Johnson or any of his delegates Im not Sabbat, really"

[Detritus]

"Uh, no idea . . . I didnt suddenly find myself madly in love with Heather or Samantha . . " Jocelin considers, "Wait, you mentioned the Sabbat . . . was it the Abyssal Sabbat mockery of the Blood of Christ?!" Jocelin shudders and crosses herself as she considers that notion

"Why did he wish for me to be released, to destroy me himself?"

"Im not a Sabbat pawn, the Sabbat are the blackest, most vile of blasphemous monsters that pervert His gifts . . "

"The Prince can detect falsehoods of the tongue . . . I would be very willing to tell Prince Johnson or any of his delegates Im not Sabbat, really"
After you and Antoinette give your answers, Camille gives an inquiring look to both the Tremere, each of whom shakes their head in the affirmative.

"They speak the truth, at least as they understand it," says Sabine. Turning to Jocelin, she says, "there are others in New Orleans who can detect falsehoods of the tongue. Some of them are in the room with you right now."

"OK, it's good to get that out in open," says Camille. "I didn't believe that you knew, and I'm glad to be proven right.

"However, the symptoms would not quite be as you describe, Jocelin," she says to you. "Apparently, Anneke has had some experience dealing with the Sabbat. She described a ritual they engage in called The Vinculum."

"What's that?" Antoinette asks.

"Basically, it's a communal Blood Bond," Camille answers. "From what Anneke has told us, Sabbat Kindred group themselves into packs. Each member of the pack bleeds themselves into a vessel, and then partakes of the resultant mixture. The effect is something that is more diffuse than a true Blood Bond, but many Kindred can be so joined in a short amount of time, even after only a single instance of participation. The strength of the connection seems to vary from individual to individual almost at random.

"Arcadian most likely did not know of this when he secured your release from Samantha. Once Anneke learned a little about the circumstances surrounding Arcadian's destruction, she immediately suspected that you were both moles, recalling as she did that you each had a drink that Samantha had offered you. I think she's right that the vitae you drank would have placed you under the influence of the members of Samantha's pack, but I didn't believe you were consciously part of it."

Camille winds down for the moment after this monologue, and Sarah picks up where she left off.

"My guess is that they checked to see what sort of influence they could exert over everyone who had a drink of the mingled blood, and then erased the memories of those they had difficulty in controlling," she says. "That would explain why Menachem never came back, because he was already under the strong influence of someone in Samantha's pack. It also explains why neither of you felt anything out of the ordinary; the effect was too small for anyone in the pack."

"That's a lot to take in," Camille says. "You're both going to hit a pretty rough patch of turbulence for the next little while, especially you, Jocelin. If you have any questions, we can try to answer them for you."

[Kalzazz]

"Were Bianca and Black Cat really part of this, or was that someone somehow looking like them, with magic or such?"

"I texted Bianca a SOS when the mess started, so I thought that uh, cavalry would arrive"

"Also, just what was it that hit Jack? Was that a spell?"

[Kalzazz]

Jocelin does also put her clothes back on

[Detritus]

"Were Bianca and Black Cat really part of this, or was that someone somehow looking like them, with magic or such?"

"I texted Bianca a SOS when the mess started, so I thought that uh, cavalry would arrive"
"Well, Black Cat was with you almost the entire time when you went to Samantha's, wasn't she?" says Camille. "And didn't Bianca call her back to New Orleans right around the time Samantha made her claim to the Justicar? It looks pretty bad for them. They haven't turned up recently, although Yuri and Uma have. I think that's where the dividing line is between Camarilla and Sabbat for the Brujah.

"I spoke of Anneke's self-recriminations, and this is why I think she's mad at herself -- she never recognized Black Cat for what she truly was. Neither did I, or Mr. Johnson, or Rebekka, for that matter. You might remind folks of that if things start getting too hot for you in the coming days."

"Also, just what was it that hit Jack? Was that a spell?"
"Quietus," Sarah says softly. "Assamites." There is a hardness in her face that you've never seen before.

"Our two clans have been mortal enemies since the time that we enforced the settlement on the Assamites to prevent them from committing diablerie. Those of that clan who remain independent remain under that stricture, but it seems apparent that those who have sided with the Sabbat have somehow overcome this limitation."

[Kalzazz]

"Were there any werewolves involved?"

[Detritus]

"The Garou?" asks Camille. "What I know of them suggests they don't really make distinctions between Kindred, and they hate us all, save perhaps for my more rustic brethren. I'd be very surprised if they were involved."