As we where on our way to leave the Ventrue feast we all got invitations to the Silk Road establishment. The name give you a feeling of something smooth, oriental and mystical. The reality is quite something else. I´ve met a lot of horrific things, and knowing I´m becoming one myself, I believe this is the worst so far.
It´s always nice to get an invitation. So we all walked the streets until we stood in fron of a heavy bronce door. From the outside it looked closed but as we closed in the door flung open and a narrow eyed kindred scanned us and let us in.
The bottom floor functioned as a taverna. Lightly clad women met us and made clear they where here for us. A bartender saluted us. The first thing that hit me was the strange smell of something musky and sweet. Like camfer or honey. Not much. Not even sure the other refelekted over it. It became more concentrated the closer we came the stairs up to second floor. The man who let us in bid us follow him one floor up.
I didn´t wish to surrender to the God of Opium
He told us that up there we could get all that our desires wished. Men, women, children, animals… The humanity that is still left in me made me feel sick. And as the narcotic odours thickened I walked down again. I now understood that the smell was of opium and other drugs noone realy wish to get i contact with. I hadn´t realised that I had already become poisoned at the Ventrue happening as I drank the blood of one infested with false happieness. That feeling had followed me since and now became more clear. The others stayed. I´m not sure what they did. I know Gabriel must have felt as in heaven.
Down in the taverna I found Olav, one of the kindreds I helped getting to Malachai, after our adventure in the Tremere chantry. We had been talking some during the latest half year. I wellcomed his still inocent face. We sat down and let a couple of ladies join us for some small talk. I still feel uneasy paying for it, but as we just talk I can feel them relaxing some. What horror have they not met? And how short may their lives not be? I wished I could set them all free.
The group soon joined us. Rupert had a hard time understanding the fact that Olav was without eyes and still alive. Olav has a ghoul who follow him around being his eyes. But maybe he´s got another ways of finding his way. I can sometimes feel like I don´t need my eyes. My hearing and smelling are so enhanced I can nearly orient just with those two sences. My tactile sence is also sensibilicised som much that I can feel small vibrations of people walking around me in a dark room. Maybe I can learn how to enhance them even further.
Anyhow. I introduced Olav to the others. A gangrel in their midst made at least the tremere guys feel unruly.
The stay came to an end. I don´t wish to return.
The animals at the amphitheatre already had the mark of death in their faces long before starting to fight.
When we walked home some of us passed an amphitheatre. Some sort of animal fighting was going on.
I heard the name Barons gangrel shouted at a dog and Obertus cats being spat at a flock of cats. The poor dog died as the cats flew over him and made him look like minced meat. I wonder who The Baron and Obertus are?
I returned to my haven. This night my dreams didn´t give me a rest.
