The Created

Wednesday morning, July 16

In STRIKE FORCE HQ in Philly, there was a lot of gossip going around. Captain Lassard officially resigned from STRIKE FORCE, so that he could stay, and retire, with Colleen Thomson. They were planning to settle in Philadelphia. This, of course, meant that the STRIKE FORCE Commander position of the New York wing was now vacant. Whoever would get this position would be promoted to Captain.

Sledge, Reggie and Leon put their names forward (and presumably many more in New York). Lieutenant Prospero did likewise.

Reggie and Leon got an answer back straight away. They had interviews scheduled for Friday.

Sledge didn't.

Wednesday night, July 16

Ebony checked out the target warehouse on the corner of East Albert Street and Webb Street in Fishtown. It wasn't actually a warehouse but just a garage. But it was certainly surrounded by a group of heavily armed men. She didn't dare venture any closer, but just confirmed it was some men, with some dogs.

She went back to Defacto, and managed to wheedle out of him a bunch of incendiary grenades.

"In case you wondered," he added wryly. "They won't work on vampires."

Thursday morning, July 17

Mina's veil-aware lawyer Carole Christie got all the STRIKE FORCE charges dropped for Colleen.

Ebony mentioned to Prospero and the group that she was working for Defacto as part of a deal with Oberon. When she relayed the Fishtown address, he pointed out that this was the very "warehouse" where the Morte Christe bikers picked up the heavy weapons for their attack on the STRIKE FORCE Protective Custody apartment a week ago. And this garage was already owned by Defacto.

"Why would he want his own garage destroyed?" Ebony asked no-one in particular. Not that Defacto knew that Ebony knew this place was owned by him.

The garage was still being studied by mundane CSI and forensics. They were the heavily armed men (and dogs) that she had seen last night.

Prospero arranged for them to finish up today, before sunset, so that Ebony could burn the place tonight to maintain her cover and impress Defacto of her diligence and resourcefulness.

Sledge Hammer pondered Ebony's situation.

"Let me get this straight, Ebony," he said. "You are Mina's ghoul, yet Oberon gave you (and Theo) the cursed anti-ghoul rings, and Oberon wants you to get in with Defacto, to infiltrate and tell Oberon what is going on, but in secret you work for Mina. So you are working for all three of the vampire nobles of Philly, against each other."

Ebony nodded.

"How can this possibly not turn out badly?" said Sledge.

"Let's start a sweep-stake!" said Reggie. "As to how long Ebony will survive. I say four days."

"I say four weeks," said Leon.

"Two weeks," said Sledge.


Thursday night, July 17

With the police all gone, Ebony turned up at the Fishtown garage with her incendiary grenades and some containers of petrol. She took along Theo to do a Sixth Sense sweep, just in case.

Sure enough, Theo spotted a tingling source. Luckily, it was still early nightfall and they managed to get Siri to visit to pin-point the source. It was under the concrete, in the middle of the slab floor.

So Ebony hired a concrete cutter, Siri cast a Silence spell, and Ebony cut a rectangular slab from the concrete floor, then dug down. There was a skeleton there, lying face down, but it was made up of different bones; about ten different creatures.

Siri was still hanging around, so she cast some more spells and revealed that it was a Created creature. This is another type of veil creature of the type like Frankenstein's monster, or a Jewish gollum. Despite being a skeleton, and despite probably lying there since the concrete floor had been poured (forty years, give or take), it still had a "life spark" (revealed by Siri's spell).

Ebony put the created's skeleton safely in her car, then ignited the grenades and the petrol, and razed the garage entirely.

Then she took the skeleton to Mina's place, for storage and safety. To confirm Siri's life spark detection, Mina's veil detector "mushroom" showed its own little coloured dot where the skull was stored.

Just to be sure, Ebony asked Mina to split the bones up into four separate containers. To stop anything reforming.

And then, feeling a bit wan, Ebony took up Mina's nightly offer of a drink of blood. Mina happily cut her wrist and dribbled the delicious blood into Ebony's mouth.

Mina's knowledge of the Created was scant. So she searched through her contacts and got hold of a Doctor Thom Donald. He knew a lot about the Created, and he would be in Philadelphia tomorrow night.

Ebony went and reported to Defacto. He was very impressed she had burned the place.

Ebony then went and reported to Oberon. She did mention the created skeleton.

Friday midday, July 18

Reggie and Leon drove to New York. They went to the STRIKE FORCE HQ there and were both interviewed for the position of STRIKE FORCE Commander of New York.

Leon did not have much STRIKE FORCE experience [ one STRIKE FORCE merit dot ].

But the interviewer was quite impressed with Reggie. He was a STRIKE FORCE Corporal [ three merit dots ] and he knew the STRIKE FORCE Constitution pretty well.

Friday night, July 18

Doctor Donald arrived at Mina's abode. Ebony was already there. He had a look at the Created's bones and confirmed Siri's magic. He said that he could reskin and reanimate the creature if they so wanted.

"We will think about this," said Mina.

Ebony's cell rang. It was Oberon.

"Bring me those bones."


[ Abu's hieroglyphics analysis, roll 13, need sum=20: week1(19-25 jun)=6, week2(26jun-3jul)=0, week3(4-10jul)=3, week4(11-18jul)=6 ]