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An Introduction

Before I begin, this is the way the world ends. Or rather, the world as we know it. In this world, vampires rule the nights and shapeshifters own the days. The cities are choking on their own filth, the skies are clouded with pollutants and traditions and ways of either the side, vampires or garou, is becoming decadent and inefficient. Garou rage savagely against forces they shouldn't be fighting and vampires try to fight unfathomable enemies. Their world of Darkness has become darker, and their lives are about to be forever changed.
The Past

Boston - Early Summer '99

The city of Boston stands divided. Garou roam the edges of the city, waiting for wayward and stupid kindred to cross their boundaries. The kindred inside the walls of Boston are divided as well. The city, recently taken back by the Camarilla, is being populated by new faces, most of them from other Camarilla cities. While the battle for Boston was fought from the shadows, many brave Brujah kindred were slaughtered on the front line by the vicious Sabbat. When the battle ended and the blood stopped flowing from the shadows, the Brujah were denied their right to special privileges and divided from the Camarilla whole to form an anarch territory north of the city. The few Brujah left and the remainder of the five Camarilla clans began to order their newly-taken metropolis.

Years of Sabbat ownership had done much to tarnish one of America's oldest cities. The streets are clogged with refuse, both human and inanimate. The air is full of choking smog and no place seems clean. But still, Camarilla immigrants came, despite rumors of lupines on the fringes of the city. However, the more vampires there are in any given city, the more chance of infighting becomes.

In three weeks, the entire deputy department under the rule of Sheriff Hedge disappears. Five kindred in all are missing. A socially stunted coterie is put in charge of finding them. Composed of a multitude of clans, they set off to find the fates of the Deputies. After several life threatening encounters and the discovery of one still unliving deputy, Hedge is revealed to be a Sabbat turncoat. In the hunt that ensues, Hedge disappears to an unknown fate, never to be seen again. For a while, things seem to go back to "normal." But nothing stays the same forever as a red star rises above Boston...

Streets of Fire
Mid-Summer '99

A week after Hedge's supposed demise Boston heats up again, literally. Three fires break out in one night, destroying two kindred havens and one Ventrue investment. No kindred perish, but one, a clanless kindred named George manages to escape with the assistance of a Ventrue firewoman. He has no knowledge of how the fire started and no one cares to investigate the torching of his haven as he is Caitiff. However, the arson continues. By day no less. Three more fires erupt in various areas. Two more fires burn down more Ventrue moneymakers, with a third destroying parts of Cambridge University, a Toreador owned establishment. The daytime fires baffle kindred throughout the city. It is obvious that kindred havens and establishments are being put to the torch, but kindred involvement from any die seems unlikely as three of the fires broke out during the days. All clans are suffering as a result of the fires and no one seems to be sure where the blame is to be placed.

Concerned for the safety of his city, Prince Morrow begins to look into the matter through the eyes of the same coterie that rooted out Hedge as a Sabbat traitor. After the eigth fire of the recent arsons, the coterie delivers a video tape showing a group of people with at least one kindred present, that may be to blame for the recent outbreaks of arson as seen from the security tapes of one of the last few Brujah establishments in the downtown area. The tape works its way into the hands of the Scourge as well. The Prince dismisses them, thanking them for their contribution and then releases the Scourge to seek out the supposed "arsonists."

Shortly after the main coterie's audience with Prince Morrow, Dr. Milton North finds himselfas usual at Boston University. He takes a break from his studies to get away from his work for a moment when he has a "episode". Malkavian madness grips him tightly and shows him a grand design of people dancing in spirals. And at the center, there stood a man, or rather, not a man, but a being, tall and broad, hair long and twisted. Milton doesn't see the man's face, but what he can see is the eyes; deep red. And his smile the color of fresh blood. After the vision, he finds himself on the floor, surrounded by worried students and faculty. In anattempt to gain his composure, he goes somewhere else to sleep that night.

Trouble seems to follow him. People continue to dance sporadically. He takes the Red Line to get to his "haven for a day," only to see something else, and this time it's for real. He sees a subway worker pulled into a hole for a fraction of a second with his kindred sight, and immediately gets off the Red at the next stop to investigate. He finds nothing but a cloud of dust and a forbidding hole. He wishes to look no firther, letting the authorities handle it whe they arrive. He follows knowing that he will remain unseen and protected by Boston's finest. After all, he may be undead, but he is an old man.

Inside the hole, they find three bodies, all beaten severly, one very pale. The police begin investigating. A little too closely for North. The cop beging his "special inspection" looking for bite marks and weilding a silver cross. He reports back to the coterie immediately.

But the darkness encroaches toward Shala as well. She sees the city in dreams, still standing but barren and lifeless as a still born child. She hears the howls of creatures not wholly human. Green lights fall from the skies and beasts crawl from the sewers to flock around a strange, forbidden silouhette of a man. But he could be no mere mortal. His eyes are like fire and his grin drips with blood.

She wakes from the dream, shaking the fear from her body and goes to the children she has al but adopted, known to the neighborhood as the "They." They are hungry, buying, or rather trying to buy, hot dogs from the local kiosk. There she meets James Murdoch, the mortal police officer who has begun to suspect that vampires walk the earth. After checking on the They, she discovers that a crackhead has taken residence in the squat she once called her haven. The building still stood despite the recent arson, and after the blast, Leon moved in. Leaving the cop and They behind, she investigates her former haven. It is dirty, squallid and inhabitied by a creature that was once Leon. She finds the basement wall ripped open; a tunnel leading into darkness within the wall and there are bones, old bones, amidst the wreckage. A cold air fills the ruins of the basement and she continues upward.

When she finds Leon, he is all but changed into a twisted mockery of humanity. He lies prone on the hard wooden floor. A burned out television with a missing tube holds a waxy green fire that burns like fire but generates a cold aura, spilling strange light upon Leon's plague wracked body. His skin, once deep brown is now sullen and grey. Boils cover his chest and arms, his eyes are bulbous and yellow. He begs for death as worm like creatures spew from his mouth. Shala, sickened and scared to death delivers death to the wretched creature. And then she sees his face; the man from her dream. She bolts from the former haven, but her dream follows her; haunted by it, she sees the man's face peering at her from every shadow until she arrives at elysium that night.

When Elysium gathers, the coterie decides that the Barrens situation must be investigated. Krieger, a newcomer Gangrel named Kendall, Shala, Nicholas, and Dr. Milton North set out to investigate. However, another investigation is under way beneath the city streets.

Daniel has awakened in past nights to find his warrens abandonned and fortified. Alarmed that he is now the only remaining member of his warrens, he goes to another antechamber on the other side of town to find a few other scared, huddled Nosferatu, equally puzzled by the seemingly mass exodus that has occured. He takes three other Nosferatu with him to investigate the warrens. They find from animals nearby that something or rather a group of somethings has gone through the warrens raising all sorts of hell. Disturbed that he could have possibly slept through this, Daniel sets out to the hidden escape routes to the Harbor. He finds huge pools of blood mingling with stagnant sea water. The remains of a corpse are found as well; a hand, missing a few fingers is unearthed at the low bottom of the muddy harbor. After taking the hand, they continue to the upper layers of the warrens; the Red Line.

They come across the hole that Milton found the night previous, following it deeper than Milton dared to, finding a precipice at the end of it that drops into unknown darkness. Daring to go no further, the small group of Nosferatu return to their last and only line of defense to plan what must be done.

Meanwhile, the rest of the coterie has come to the location of Shala's former haven. They investigate it thoroughly, finding the place changed. Leon's body is missing, but vestigal husks of the worm creatures remain along with a few chunks of ragged flesh. The kitchen at ground level has lost all of its knives. A child's body is found in a closet on the second and only stable floor, the cause of death most likely starvation. The basement proves to be the most interesting however. The fissure in the wall is now caved in and a path has been cleared in front of it. Milton stands puzzled in the center of the blast site and claims that no mundane explosion could have caused the destruction they see there. There is also the matter of the bones they find. A skull with prominent fangs is found, a sigil carved into its forehead. A bone flute lays nearby as well. Shala, spooked, decides that she no longer wants to be near this place. She wonders if she was really the true owner of it and walks out to Nicholas' car. They collect the eveidence from Leon's room, the TV, the chunks of flesh and the worms and head back to Nicholas' haven.

On the way, they come to the conclusion that no elder will believe what they've just seen. They decide to lay low at Nicholas' haven until they can sort this whole thing out. On the way they find a black and white patrol car by the side of the road. It's lights are on, but there is no sign of the cop driving it or anyone pulled over on the side in front of the black and white. The lights on the road are out. When they pull over to investigate, they almost run over the body of Adam, the deputy.

He is incoherent, babbling doomsday speeches, speaking of a man named Arliman. He tells them of coils, horrible coils and before he blacks out into unconsciousness says the word "spirals." North begins to wonder if he is going absolutely mad and Shala once again becomes uneasy. Meanwhile Nicholas has been scrying in a nearby puddle to see what happened. He sees adam pulling over a car to deliver a ticket. He looks up at the sky and drops. Nicholas looks up and sees in the sky a star. An uncharted star at the edge of his vampiric sight. It glows sickly red and he feels him self slipping away...

He snaps out of it and tells the coterie to put Adam in the car's trunk. They do and they drive home silently to the tudor style home that Nicholas sleeps in by day. Nicholas reports his findings to the Primogen of Clan Tremere and David LaMornay calls a conclave of the Tremere Clan at dusk the next evening. But before he can hang up, David tells Nicholas that spontaneous rioting has begun in the Barrens. At about the time Adam saw the red star...

The Dogs of War
Late Summer '99

The Tremere begin to Gather in the Chantry to discuss the findings of Nicholas. Many from nearby strongholds arrive, including the mysterious John Constantine, the well-respected sire of Nicholas. Antonio and LaMornay palaver with Nicholas over his findings. Neither the occult library of Mornay, nor the fragments from the Book of Nod that Antonio posesses can find any reference to a being known as Arliman. Nicholas leaves the confrence, noting the reclusive Emmerson's absence. In these past few nights, Emerson has become obsessed with something behind the closed doors of his laboratory and rabid speculation has begun amongst the neonates and ancillae of the clan. But, as the Tremere make idle speculation above, a new terror is about to emerge from the sewers below... and into the world above.

While Nicholas gathers information about Leon's Apartment and the events that occured there, Shala waits at elysium with the rest of the coterie. When she hears the mental whistle from one of her ghouled animals, she rushes to the window to see where it's calling from. She finds it in the alley below, injured. She rushes down to it, trying to glean any information she can from the wounded animal. Is sputters in wolf speak, telling her of children and orange things out in Pine Tree Park. At this time, Shala's bat arrives, telling the coterie of trouble in the Park and Azrael's involvement in it.

They arrive at the park swiftly to find Azrael's circle abandonned and screaming coming from deeper in the woods. They stumble upon a scene of madness as darkened forms appear from the darkness. In the fight that ensues, they discover their attackers are feral creatures, wielding sharp claws, wicked fangs and impressive levels of vampiric disciplines. In the spot earlier mentioned as cursed by the local Garou, they find Azrael fighting three of the creatures at once. After a lightning fast confrontation, they defeat many of the creatures and what little was left of them ran off into the darkness, with Shala in hot pursuit. After taking the blood from one of the creatures Krieger assumed were vampires, he finds only mortal blood, despite the earlier assumption that their opponents were vampires. He begins to collect the bodies amassed in the deep woods as Azrael tells of the creatures.

In the two-hundred years he has been kindred, Azrael had never seen anything like the feral beast-men who attacked him. He knows they were not Garou. He knows they were drinking blood. But he never sensed the vampiric beast as he knew it. He begins to ramble, his need for blood rising. One of Shala's canteens feeds him, but his wounds do not heal. They lay him to rest within his circle and promise to come back in four nights to aid him when he returns from the earth's embrace. As he sinks into the earth, Daniel and North realize who the creatures were. They all wear eight-mile orange, reflective vests. They all have city sanitation or subway maintenance uniforms. It all clicks as they realize these are the bodies of the missing crewmen from the subway incident a few nights ago. Thry go about hiding the bodies in the van they arrived in and carry them off to Krieger's haven to be burned in his furnaces, all except for one.

Meanwhile, Shala has chased the beast-man to the edge of the forest. Deciding that she has to kill the creature before it breaks the Masquerade, she chases it beyond park boundaries and into the streets. She almost has it as it darts across the street. She chases after and is almost struck by a passing cab. The driver sees Shala's wounds and runs out to help her.

"Jesus Christ! What the hell was that thing you were chasing?! Did it hurt you?" he says.

"It was a rabid animal I think. I was trying to run it down," she says.

"The hell it was! It was wearing boots and clothes for Christ's sake!"

"Look, I'm really hurt," Shala says, a dark urge taking hold of her. She needs blood. "That thing tore me up. Take me to a hospital." As she says these words, she sees a familiar car turning down a side street. She recognises the driver to be James Murdoch. She continues with the dark plan forming in her mind as she sees him drive away.

Shala gets into the back of the cab, knowing that she will not go to the hospital. There will be no reporting of the creature. The Masquerade will not be breached by her inability to capture the fleeing creature. The cab driver will speak to no one.

The cabbie hears the plastic and metal mesh tear behind him. He swerves instinctively, but he is dead before he knows it. Shala's claws rip into him from behind the seat and mesh. He loses control of the vehicle and the cab smashes into a lightpost. The driver is thrown forward, his skull hitting windshield with deadly force, lacerating vital arteries and veins. Momentarilly stunned, Shala feeds from his dying body out of her base need of human blood that the night's battle deprived her of. She feels the impact of what her desires have brought her to. She has murdered a human in the name of preserving the Masquerade. 'It had to be done,' she thinks as she stumbles away from the cab and back into the deep woods, her conscience plaguing her until she finds the few members still at Azrael's circle. The Cabbie becomes just another casualty in the shadow war of the Kindred...

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