Hellhound!

“How dare you desecrate the world with the devil’s sign? You shall all be banished from this sphere and cast into the fire of hell where you belong! Demon worshipers!” – “AAAWWW Enough already you crazy fool!”, screamed Ian and raised the young man of the ground and threw him down the hole in the floor. From down below a battery of insults could be heard from the priest, but Ian could not be bothered, for he was looking at the symbol that had been painted on the downside of the manhole cover and had provoked the violent reaction by the otherwise shy and reluctant young man. But he had no time to make anything of it, as suddenly the small boy ran back into the warehouse, and up the steps and with him came another wave of hot air. The boy started to bark and growl at them. But this was not the bark that a small child would emulate. It sounded like a giant dog and chilled the two vampires to the bone. The air around them started to really heat up now and it seemed like the boy was the source of the sudden increase in temperature. The doctor had also returned to the warehouse and ran up the stairs to join Ruthven and Ian, who looked like they had just come out of a sauna. It must have been thirty-five degrees Celsius by now and the temperature was still rising. Victor, who was unsettled by the odd behavior of his new protégé, tried to appease the boy. “What’s wrong? Nobody wants to hurt you. Calm down.” But the boy answered only with more severe barking and snarling noises and the three vampires could see how the floor around him started to glow in an orange tone. Ruthven, who had no intension of bursting into flames, drew a handgun out of his jacket and aimed it at the child. Even though he was making all those abominable noises, he had still the look of a scared little kid on his face. The Ventrue was just about to fire a shot, when Victor notice him and yelled, “What are you doing?” Ruthven jerked his arm as he fired the gun and hit a box sitting on top of a medium-rise wall behind the boy. The box was blown of the wall by the impact of the bullet and a loud splashing sound could be heard.

“You have no idea what you are up against, boy! You will pay for this! Do you hear me?” The pounding voice of Steward O’Leary was still resonating in David’s head. He had finally managed to overthrow the dominant personality of the insane priest and regain control of his actions. He tried to figure out where he was and in the darkness he couldn’t see much. Once again he regretted that he never paid attention during the Auspex teachings of his sire. The only light came from the hole in the floor and as he looked up he suddenly noticed that he must be standing in a round chamber, about as big as the platform above, as he could clearly see the whole disk. The platform was resonating in a dimly red light, as if it had been heated in a blast furnace and on the inside David could clearly discern the rest of the drawing that he had previously seen on the manhole cover. It was a large devil’s trap in the shape of a pentagram. ‘So that’s why the boy couldn’t leave the platform before we opened up the manhole’, he thought to himself. It suddenly dawned on him that the ramblings of his most insane personality must have had a point after all. The boy really seemed to be some kind of a demon.

Ruthven had in the meantime gotten an idea that might save their skins and so he yelled to Ian, “Hey Brunswick! There seems to be an opening to the waterfront behind that wall. Try to smash the little bugger into the water! Use your hammer!” The Brujah enforcer jumped into action and ran over to the boy. Next to the child, the heat was unbearable. If it hadn’t have been for his superior resilience, he would have fainted immediately. As he swung his sledge hammer, the skin on his hands and face started to blister and the end of his jacket caught on fire. With as much force as he could muster up under the circumstances he threw his hammer against the chest of the boy, who flew several meters and landed next to the mid-high wall. As if nothing had happened the kid stood up and climbed up on the wall. He turned towards them, spread his arms and started to his demonic bark again. The temperature had risen to an unbearable level and Ruthven saw no other way out than to shoot again, but this time with full intend to kill the little devil. He took aim and fired, hitting the child right in the chest. The moment the bullet impacted with the boy, a darting flame burst out of his chest and he fell over backwards into the sea. Seconds after the splashing sound, plumes of steam rose from the water and a loud fizzling could be heard. But this victory gave the three vampires no time to rest easy, as the whole building started to rumble. It felt like a strong earthquake and the roof panels started to come lose and crash to the ground. “Quick into the hole!”, yelled Victor and the three lunged towards the circular opening in the floor. One by one they jumped in, and not a moment too soon, as a giant metal panel crushed to the floor and closed the opening above them, burying them underground.

That’s it. This is how far we have played in the first session and I hope you enjoyed the read, as much as I enjoyed writing it all down. Quite a cliffhanger isn’t it? Well you will have to wait, same as we players, but I promise that I will continue the story as soon as we have finished our next session. Big thanks to my three fellow players and the game master Ben, who thought of this impressive story.