Blame it on the fiancée

We were essentially mostly fighting in these sessions. First of all we went to a tannery, and after some long stairs there was bad magic surrounding good magic and an abomination clinging to the ceiling. There was a hole in the floor.

We later had to go interrupt a ritual in the big hole in the ground, among the subterranean crystals ... and fought some more stuff. Cultists and abominations, oh myyy!

We're pretty good at fighting. No one's died yet. Touch wood. We also had to lug an ox head out of there and reunite it with its body? Or we returned it to there. Something like that. It was months ago now. 😆

When a Malkavian says someone's crazy ...

Lottie and Julius discuss theories with Aisling. Lottie removes Aisling's anxiety, because right now, there's a fuckload to be anxious about and she needs a clear head. Is the Prince trying to do something without the Primogen council knowing? Might it involve tunnelling under Central Park? No wonder the werewolves might be a bit miffed. Can we talk to the werewolves?

They also do need to speak to the Prince, but going in there with all their memories isn't a good plan. They need to somehow temporarily remove or edit a number of memories just in case. Fortunately, they have a Tremere at hand who knows just what to do.

Frankie's history lesson from Theo continues, and they also discuss hunting grounds and territory and so on. He also finds out about Hunters and Mages, and that there also seem to be Faeries and Ghosts. All this because he asked if there were other things beside vampires and werewolves he should know about. It's also suggested that if he comes face to face with Ekaterina, he should do nothing except to leg it.

Just prepare the loot list for next week

We go on adventures with a mare cat! There's a village in the forest. Will they sell us a chicken? Elindra ends up giving them one of her daggers in return. One of the villagers has a symbol for the Punisher god? But he's forbidden - on pain of death! - to worship? The village is a bit whack. Giant trees, giant bears outside the village ... and a sleeping lindworm?! We tactically retreat.

A Mother Marsh says someone needs to owe her a favour if she's to guide the part across the marsh, unless we want her grumpy. Elindra does this, thinking she can do some convince-a-roo with the help of Xanatha later. We manage to safely cross the swamp.

The 6-year-old boy we met earlier shows up, and wants Murmei to eat some sort of nut to show he's not evil. Murmei eventually eats the nut, because he's not evil, FFS.

We were attacked by things we should've run away from.

There's an axe. There's a grove. There's an old elf? We eventually go to a cultist building and kill cultists. My notes vary greatly in their, ahem, detail. *cough*

Elder vampire uses a telephone for the first time

Waking up, and after having breakfast in bed, Lottie makes a round of phone calls. Val didn't have any strange dreams, but he'll go Auspex Frankie to see if he's now glowing gold too. Frankie recounts the Greek creation myth to Julius over the phone (the Elder vampire's first ever phone call! We're so proud of him!), and it seems both Tartarus and Eros were missing. Seb reports more innocent shop keepers have been arrested.

Frankie also makes a phone call - Benny reports the cane is still on schedule and Angela was pleased about the flower delivery. Val shows up, confirms Frankie has a bright golden aura, and drops him off in Red Hook before heading off to speak to his cop contacts. In Coffey Park, Theo gives Frankie a history lesson. Frankie points out that the Sabbat attack is being led by Ekaterina, which makes Theo realise things are perhaps slightly higher priority than he previously thought - insert facepalm here.

Lottie and Julius go to a secret lab in Queens and meet up with Aisling the Tremere. She recoils having seen Jeanine's thin blood, especially as she finds out where it's from. She does a few experiments on it, and says it's similar to the thaumaturgic Path of Blood, but somehow inverted? It's like Entropy of the Blood, "Chaos undoing Creation", an Unravelling of the Generation. They also discover that it isn't a directed spell, or whatever, meaning it might have been directed at someone else and then spreading up the generation line. It spreads from Childe to Sire? Frankie is absolutely fine, but the Prince got a hold of Jeanine's other Childe - Maslowe. Coincidence?

Perhaps they do actually need to tell Aisling everything that's been going on, so Julius tells her everything. She may or may not thank him for this later.