Before heading off to bed, Julius was fed some bottles of blood to make him wake up again, and that's just as well, as half his face seems to be missing. (Thanks, Ecaterina!) That's going to take a while to heal back up.
Lottie lures a group of fratboys back to the house as Julius is in no position to go on a hunt in his current state. The couple's particular way of feeding is somewhat unsettling to watch for anyone who isn't them.
They then have a catch-up. There's going to be an outright war with the Sabbat, and an Elysium will have to be called ASAP. The gold auras are gone. As new safehouses are needed, and a safehouse for LJ isn't safe if anyone but them know about it, Lottie hands Frankie the key to Jeanine's place, saying Jeanine left it with them (they swear they didn't kill her, but don't tell him they tortured her), that it's intended for him, and unlike the places he might want to go in Brooklyn, it's warded.
They have an outing to said apartment, near Morningside Park. Looking around the place (using one of the fratboys as a canary) they come across a kitchen drawer of "oppressive nothingness" and Jeanine's will, listing Frankie as her heir ...
Julius quickly averts his gaze from the creepy drawer, but Lottie goes full on Auspex on it - and starts having a seizure. She leaks blood and gold from her face, and Julius goes after her.
In the Dreamscape, as that's where Lottie ended up, she's seeing both Nordic mythology's icy plains with a giant trapped inside the ice, and a snake wriggling around his feet trying to eat through the ice. The Egyptian mythology's pyramid is also there, and she can see shadows of herself and the others from previous visits. The pyramid is bigger and more ornately decorated.
Neith, the goddess who wasn't there last time we encountered the Egyptian mythological dreamscape, talks to Lottie, offering her all the knowledge and answers she wants/needs, but it will hurt. She's fine with pain, as long as it doesn't hurt Julius. The gods propose a bargain of "perfect preservation" of LJ's relationship, but that sounds too much like a trap so Lottie doesn't take them up on it. She's told to climb the pyramid ...
“Welcome to Vampire, where paranoia is not a bug, it’s a feature.”
“She looks to see if there’s anything else he wants to do with them before they throw out the empties.”
“They’ve had murder sex and this wasn’t it.”
GM: “I feel the term ‘slippery slope’ isn’t quite adequate anymore.”
“I wondered what I was going to put in my second mug and she said ‘bollocks!’, so I said I don’t really want bollocks in my mug.”
“And it all sort of took a downwards turn from there.”
Lottie: “Frankie ain’t stoopid … Not about everythin’.”
“Lottie always has a plan. They’re not always good plans, but she always has one.”
“There are two states in the world: people who don’t know vampires exist, and people who hate vampires. Everyone hates vampires, including other vampires.”
“They’re not gonna literally melt into each other, that’s what the Tzimisce do!”
“As I recall, Jeanine had nice childhood memories before they got started on her.”
“I threw myself under this bus before you did!”
“You said ‘plan B’ but it sounded like ‘Bambi’.”
“Did I say ‘leverage’? I meant ‘best friend’.”
“But in this hypothetical scenario Frankie was horrible first and she’s much better at it.”
GM: “Julottie = Fantastic, epic, intricate plans. Shite snap decisions.”
GM: “She’s laying on something hard and cold.”
Player: “Is it Julius?”
“Jeanine: the gift that keeps on giving. Of course she has a pocket apocalypse in a kitchen drawer.”
To be continued!
