Attention! Please read: A cry for war.

[Darren]

Invading hoardes and the Baie can not stop the Captain from accepting the role as a justicar against the kindred kind. Too many murders, too many blatant acts of violence.

Starting at the barracks, then working its way through all of Myrken, there's been an active hunt for the Vampire-race that inhibit the properties of Myrken starting at exactly 12:00 AM on Sunday morning.

There's been a large group of soldiers from the Order of Straka already preparing the reprocussions from the vampires, and diplomatic resolutions are being made to calm the people and the minds of those in charge of businesses or they may be in harm because of said action. Protection and guard patrols have tripled, and the border patrols have also doubled. The Baie also kept on the watch of, to ensure it does not try to get an upperhand during this hopefully short lived inquisition.

All citizens are cautioned to not interfere with those helping with the hunt. There will be no true reprocussions, except possibly a day or two in the Gaol. No one should interfere with the Order's hopes to rid everyone's city from the beasts that haunt it.

All people are advised to report any vampire activity immediately, and that hired vampire and demon hunters are to remain vigilant at all times.

Also, the homes of the Governor and the four councilors, as well as those who have important relations to the well-being or running of the city have been given veteran, highly trained guards to help protect them from any reprocussions.

The Captain wishes the best for all.

[Undertaker]

They hunt what they do not understand, they hunt for the follies of one, and stereo type the rest.. Hunt hat you don't understand, fear what you don't undertand.. it makes no differance.. there will always be those who stalk the darkness.. There will always be that fear within the hearts of mortal and immortal alike.. The cry for war will not go unanswered.

[Kobra]

The rain brought winds of change...

He stood before the gaping socket of weathered stone that might have passed for a window, when this old monastery had still held those of the Faith.

From behind, it appeared as though the empty eye had finally earned a pupil - the tall black slit of his silhouette.

A tall frame clad in black; the ink-hued coat contrasted sharply with the icy translucence of his flesh. He watched the sun's demise. Another night.

"It is perfect, Mister Hanenvi, I shall take it."

Behind him, the estate merchant boggled, wondering what manner of man would choose to live in such a huge, cold, empty -

lifeless

As if he read Hanenvi's mind, the foreigner turned; his red lips arched beneath the flow of his moustache.

"Memories are a cherished thing in any place of home; are they not?"

Frost-guarded glaciers, those eyes; they narrowed, they gleamed, they drank in the ambience of this old and ruined place; touching the cold walls, he could smell the suffering of the men who had tormented themselves here for God, denying their instincts for the sake of faith.

Faith and instinct were rare bedfellows.

"This is an old place; in its veneration there are memories still. I am girt here by the echoes of that which has passed before; here, then, I am content. Make ready, goodman Hanenvi. I shall be wishing to move my ... furniature herein."

Hanenvi bobbed his head, and mopped his brow; something about the implacable calm of the foreign nobleman disturbed him. But he cleared his throught -

"Your lordship, a letter for you."

Paper slithered and creaked.

The ice thawed.

The Captain has declared an open hunt upon all members of the Vampire race. As of the noon of Sunday, the war is consummated.

"Beautiful," he murmured, as though he were gazing upon a work of art.

"M'lord?"

"Begone, Hanenvi. You have your task."

After the merchant's hasty departure, the other sat down, closing his eyes, until the sweaty smell had faded from his nostrils. He would abide no distractions from the pleasure of this moment. His pale fingers opened the letter again.

the war is consummated

A shudder passed through the old man. Joy, black, miasmic and insurmountable, flooded his ageing veins.

Padding pawsteps drew his attention; his spidery hand left his side in punctual time to rest upon the silvery back of the alpha wolf. His pack; his friend.

"...Mardusch, no longer shall the game be played behind the masks of conceit. I shall make such art as will bring tears to the eyes of maidens and send grown men to their knees."

Rising to his feet, the coat of black and crimson rustling about him, he lit a candle - the only light in his abode - and placed his seal upon a letter...

[Kobra]

An enigmatic letter delivered to Captain Kanashia...

My dear friend,

I am delighted to hear of your resolution to make a long-awaited stand against the vampire race.

Let the floodgates open; let the game begin.

The bloated, the decadent, the conceited, have lived in death for far too long. There is no room amongst we wampyri for weakness, nor complacent self-indulgence. Let them taste misery and humiliation; let them know fear. Let only the true predators survive.

As to you, dear Captain, I welcome the challenge from a worthy man. Let us compare our accomplishments when the game has ended.

Regards,

{-D-}

[Darren]

A reply was sent to the capable "D"...

A good morning to you, my friend. I do hope the night served you well when the hunt began? I can assure you the Order was quick to do their job.

Steel met protean claws and fellow blades in quick, heated strikes and parries against one another. Two guards and the Captain took up arms against a vampire and his two ghouls who tried to attack a small group of merchants leaving Myrken Wood.

The two-swords of the Captain were wielded fluidly by ambidextrous hands, and were quick to serve justice to one of the ghouls by cleaving him in half at the waist.

I can only hope that all our efforts against the kindred kind can be fruitful. Already they have made attacks, and they were quickly taken care of. I wish Lucian and one of the many Prince's had listened to me when I told them to take their kind and leave. Arrogance is such a waste of words.

The two guards accompanying Alexander was handling both the second ghoul and the vampire itself. A strike, and a parry, a duck and a hiss as blade met flesh. The Order would not have went unscathed, one of the grounds was wounded in the encounter, but it was only minor. The ghoul was quickly dispatched by the uninjured guard, and the Captain quickly striked against the vampire.

I wish you the best of luck, and that you rest well when you do. The nights are long now, and the days too short. I expect good things, D.

The creature easily blocked away at the attacks of the two longswords with his one, but he could not hold out forever, and finally succumbed to the Captain's blade with a quick slash to the throat. Their bodies would be disposed of.

One.

[Rattrap]

"You ready for this, Robert?"

"Are yeh kiddin'? I'm itchin' to go out and lop heads off."

"You're brutal, you know that?"

"Yeh damned right! I'm gonna ****ing nail the bastards into the ground they cheated out of their bodies oh so long ago!"

"Well. I suppose that's all there is to it, then, isn't it?"

"This looks like it's gonna turn into a war."

"...so be it. Let's go be soldiers, then."

"I'll follow yeh to death, Tom."

"I won't be leading you, Robert. It's a shared decision."

"Fine, then. Let's give the Devil something teh regret."

[Lucian]

The vampire stood atop the highest peak of devil ridge. A tempestuous rain had begun to fall over the land, and Lucian stood in the middle of it, allowing his body to be soaked.

And he laughed, quite loudly, for his plans were coming around as planned. Now, the war was one, and the blood of innocent and the weak would run freely. His chuckle increased, and like a demented Robert Ripley, he would offer all the pain and suffering up as a sacrifice to his grim gods.

The turmoil would ensue, and Lucian would sit back and admire the savage brutality the order and his kind would wreak upon one another. The weak, bastard claness vampires would be weeded out, thus also taking a much-hindered thorn from his side.

As the wind whistled past his head, Lucian wiped back the soggy clumps from his eyes as he peered out into the storm-filled, night time sky. He would revel within this moment for days to come, but this was only the beginning -- the rest of his plans would come forth in due time.

With a smirk, Lucian began to step down the jagged crags of rocks atop the mountain, as rain mixed with the waterfall that ran alongside the pathway in which he walked ... and into the darkness of a small rat hole, the now-mist form of Lucian descended, into the depths of his lair, for he now had much to plot, to make sure the second half came to be....

[Darren]

The end of the war was nigh. Before innocents were slain, Alexander would again, at midnight of Monday (not two days after the fact) the war on the entire vampire race would end. There was too many lives at risk.

Instead, it was scaled down, to a lower event. The vampires Varian and Lucian had, unlike many others, committed crimes against the town of Myrken. There would be a demand of their heads, by the Captain of the Order of Straka. This would be much easier to obtain, and cause less bloodshed. It would help, still, that unrest in the kindred nation would also lead to the two cainites quick downfall.

Also, after this mess is over, Captain Alexander Kanashia has promised a feast and ball to take place to commemorate, in hopes to bring a little peace back to the lives of the guardsmen, and the civilians. It would truly be a good celebration.

[Lucian]

Or so the good captain thought....

For, if he had truly known the two Cainites at large, he would know that they were accustomed to having their backs against the wall when it came to the others of their kind inhabiting the realm. It was just the nature of the beast.

Captain Kanashia thought the blood shed would end with just declaring war on Lucian and Varian. But perhaps what he didn't know of the Tremere, or any threatened animal, was they were their most deadly when they were backed into a corner.

No, this could quite possibly be the worst mistake the good Captain has made to date. For certainly Lucian would look to thin the threat with covert attacks, much like the blaze at Alexander's manor a few weeks back.

Certainly now, more than before, Lucian was threatened, but that would be where the libertine would be his most dangerous. Word spread quickly like wildfire within the realm of Myrken Wood, and upon his informant telling him the news as soon as the sun had set, Lucian merely cracked somewhat of a grin.

So, the good Captain wanted to direct all his forces upon two vampires. It almost made the Tremere's ego sing. Marvelous. Alexander would have the war he craved so desperately....

But he wouldn't like the outcome.....

[Kobra]

Clasped in the dark, in the earth.

Stirrings

A white and jaundiced thing shrouded in clods of moisture; damp rain, the smell of cool soil. Thick and cloying all about; the musty grave-earth clinging to naked porcelain flesh.

Destiny is not a stranger I welcome with open arms.

A fetid leech sapping the nutrients of the great Mother, even as in motion it cannibalised her children, those it once called kin.

But it is a familiar one.

Translucent veins running beneath sheets of white skin; drawn taut over a framework of gaunt, wire muscle. Flesh shifting; blood pumped thick and congealed through lifeless veins, driven by the slow thunder of a soulless heart.

Drowned in the earth...

To many, being buried alive is among the most terrifying of fates. To this, it is a nightly ritual; to this, it is a rejuvenation of a different kind. A caterpillar coccooned; the pupal membranes the monstrosity's very skin, sagging and stretching and shrinking about the bloating, pumping tissues beneath. The flesh shrivelling back from bloody nails; the ringlets spilling from shrunken skull.

The war, your child, lies stillborn.

A slow hiss, dry and malevolent, rattles in the dark.

"Captain, you disappoint me."

Murmured to none but the beetles crawling through the well-travelled soil. A blasphemous whisper only for the profane creature that uttered it; a wolf in sheep's clothing and man's skin.

"This will not do."

He emerged; he bloomed, he sprouted. Pale limbs unfolded from the earth, from that cross-section of the ground enclosed within the four wooden walls of a large box. His body rose, resplendant in its nudity, soil running like water from his flesh - like the droplets from a duck's back, leaving not a speck to tarnish his immaculate mask.

Hard white face; hawkish nose, sensuous red lips. A gentleman's moustache; a devil's goatee. White ringlets clasping in rivers of supple silk cheeks that belonged on the bust of some haughty barbarian conqueror. Eyes - mirrors to the soul of an arctic wolf, stolen by this maleficent fiend.

The black coat with the lining of crimson velvet, taken from its stand, slung about his shoulders; he dressed in silence, and took unto his head the tall black top-hat; to his hand, the ebon cane.

Ruby eyes. Much like his own, filling with red as though their capilliaries had burst within them. The wildest fancies of men would not conjure such fury to the eyes of imaginary devils of the Pit, as smouldered now behind the impassive mask of this single old man.

The war would continue, with or without the breathing men.

Tonight, he would throw down the Gauntlet.

[Darren]

The end of the kindred-mortal war (if it can even be called that) has been ended with evidence of Lucian's demise. A hard-one victory, but one that is most-deserved. The Order, and mortal kine alike, are out of the affairs of the kindred in Myrken. For those freelance and private hunters, may their souls and weapons be guided.

The hunt on Varian as well has ended, with a deal struck by him and the Captain Alexander. A rather anti-climatic finish, but there will be more to come, more information to spare, and more to the story.

Is Lucian really dead? Is the prince true to his word? Can the Order trust that the kindred menace is over?

For every vampire, there is always a hunter.