Sympathy For The Vampire

Murphy and Holster left for a hunt, but Murphy came back to get some backup.

*Jaime, Callum, Ronny, and Belle grab extra supplies while Murphy runs down into Holster’s room, presumably to grab something to help. This ends up being a bottle of whiskey and a bag of blood. He also finds a bandelier of stakes, and an unmarked vinyl record, marked “In case of emergency” in Holster’s handwriting. It looks like it hasn’t been played, though it is very old.*

Equipment Gathered:

Murphy: Bandelier, unmarked record, wooden stakes, whiskey

Belle: silver knife, general weapons

Callum: general weapons

Jaime: salt, general weapons

Ronny: general weapons

### Hit the Road

*Murphy explains in the car ride to the **Hotel DuPont** that he and Holster went to investigate some missing persons cases. Keith, the manager, was killed by a monster. Holster saw the blood for too long and told Murphy to RUN. Murphy came back to the sect to get backup.*

* The party discusses what the best way is to trap Holster
* Jaime tries to volunteer himself as bait, Murphy, Callum, and Bellewant to use magic to trap him
* Everyone makes stakes

### The Hotel DuPont

* *This fucker beeg, and very very empty*. Big ol liminal space. There is a hallway to the side that Murphy and Holster went through. Murphy takes us to the **Ballroom** first
* Murphy locks the door

#### The Ballroom

* Callum sniffs, and doesn’t really get a trace on where Holster went. He’s worried about the power in the hotel, since it’s dark out. Murphy advises the party to follow the exit signs to get out
* Murphy looks for a record player in the ballroom. It’s a big beautiful ballroom
* The room is very pristine
* Murphy stays in the ballroom in order to magically barricade it while the rest of the party heads off to find Holster.

*Off the hallway there is a green room, and a lounge with a piano. The party rounds a corner. There’s white marble. Christmas decorations, and muffled music plays through **The Shops***

#### The Shops

* In the middle of the hallway there’s a pool of blood
* Callum sniffs the blood, and tracks where it went to the end of the hallway. There’s an inset hallway at the end, where a light can just be seen
* The lights are off in most of the stores, but there’s a noise coming from the store on the farthest right side.
* They enter the shop, there’s some shuffling behind the reception desk
* Jaime picks up a tiny nutcracker and HUCKS it to the back of the store
* The shuffling stops, and a sharply dressed female figure stands up, with mottled and dead skin, there *fucking zombies*
* Jaime closes the door a little too loudly, the zombie notices
* Belle uses magic to bend the handles together, but doesn’t fully succeed. It makes a very loud creaking sound, The zombie begins slamming its head into the glass trying to get to the hunters
* The hunters retreat to the hallway
* Jaime calls Murp to tell him there’s :sparkles: zombie tomfoolery afoot :sparkles:

* Murphy leaves the ballroom, the doors reverberate when shut
* The entire party hears a groan coming from the stairs to the second floor, behind them
* Murphy and Belle go to investigate the zombie locked inside the store, Jaime Ronny and Callum watch the hallway

**Monster: Undead Zombie of Some Kind:** Fire, Decapitation. Destroy some integral part of the body and it will stop moving.

* Murphy shatters the glass door and tries to decapitate the zombie
* It works, but the glass *shatters*. The zombie ain’t down yet
* Murphy swings his sword again, *completely* misses, and the zombie puts its head back on its body and stares him directly in the eye
* Ronny, Callum, and Jaime are hyper aware of the fast approaching shuffling
* Murphy BOLTS, and Belle shoots a wave of fire into the store. Jaime runs over, and slips on the marble, catching his hand in the fire blast as he falls.

* The sounds at the top of the stairs materialize into TWO ZOMBIES
* Jaime hoists Belle up on his shoulders and Ronny pulls out her rifle
* Murphy, from down the hall, takes aim at the zombies on the stair
* One of the zombies comes down the stairs, targeting Ronny
* Ronny shoots the one on the stairs, and then it locks eyes with her
* It looks her in the eyes, and she freezes
* Murphy shoots the zombie that Callum threw
* Jaime shoots at the zombie that caught Ronny’s eye, then catches Jaime’s eye.
	+ He gets a primal shot of deja vu terror, specifically the fact that he knows this sense of fear, and does not know why he knows it
* Belle shoots some FIRE at “these two bitches”
* Both zombies are caught in the cone of flame, one goes down immediately, the second one tries to flee before dying
* Ronny’s sleeve gets caught in the fire
* Everyone recoups

### Regroup

* Murphy goes over to one of the zombies, the one with an entrance wound, and figures out that its been shot, and begins to try and pick around inside
* Callum heals Ronny
* Murphy fishes out a small bullet casing from the body (ew ew ew ew ew)
	+ Holster carries a much bigger gun than the gun that shot this bullet
* Callum’s healing spell backfires, and alerts something under the ground to our location. Below and behind us.

* Murphy’s gonna CALL the sect. I missed what happened here

#### The Basement Stairs

* Callum notices a flickering light down the hall of the shops, and assumes this must be the basement.
* Murphy opens the door, takes the keys, and descends the stairs.
	+ Belle gets off Jaime’s shoulders
* Fluorescent lighting, but still pretty dark and dim. Think the tunnels under the engineering buildings
* Callum takes point, looking for the ping that he noticed in the magic reverb

#### The Storage Room

* Full of Egyptian decorations, replicas of statues
* Appears to be a storage room for wedding planned for a couple weeks from now
* This is where the ping should have come from
* Callum looks around for where the creature that should have been in here would have gone
* Notices a presence in the back of the room, tells the party
* Ronny and Jaime push over some boxes, Jaime finds a scarab necklace
* Murphy identifies this as an Egyptian artifact, programmed to commune with the dead, but the magic has gone wrong
* Murphy asks the stone where it has been….

*His vision vignettes in, and the slideshow of the life of this stone begins. All the way back in Ancient Egypt, then the scarab was stolen off a sarcophagus. It’s then in a museum, then it’s stolen, transported on an airplane to the DuPont hotel, and then two hands carrying the box. The slideshow ends. Murphy is not able to tell how long the necklace has been separated from its owner.*

*At the end of the hallway, a shambling, teetering figure steps into view, blood pouring down the side of its neck. Suddenly, Holster slams the figure to the ground, biting its neck. He looks up, locking eyes with Jaime, Callum, and Belle before darting off down the hall. The three pile into the room, yelling at Murphy to bar the door. It makes a loud sound, and attracts the newly made thrall at the end of the hallway. (**Break.)***

#### Basement Hallway

* Murphy finally explains the record, the hunters try to decide what to do
* Identified the zombie outside the door as **Keith**, the manager, returning for revenge
* Murphy directs Belle to douse the zombie in fire as soon as he opens the door
* Belle flames the zombie, then looks in the hallway, Holster ZOOMS by on the ceiling, leaving the basement
* Jaime tries calling Holster, with no luck
* Jaime is holding the **velvet box**
* Exit the basement, lock it behind us

### The Plan in Action

* Callum does a sniffy, and finds a bloody handprint with little scratches. He smells iron and scotch, definitely Holster
* Murphy goes to the green room, and finds a modern record player. Whew!
* Murphy begins to bar the doors, Jaime plays the record
	+ *Ain’t She Sweet starts playing. I am sad now*
* The record is too quiet, the hunters decide to try and get a hold of the sound systems somewhere
* Murphy takes off to try and find the system while the rest of the party tries to find Holster

* Wide room, elevators to the rest of the building, concessions tables to the right
* The wall turns into curtains halfway down the left hand side, there’s a hallway down there
* Jaime pushes the curtain behind and finds **The Theatre**

* Murphy finds the PA system, hooks up the record player, announces that he’s gonna play some music

### The Second-Floor Theatre

* Jaime and Callum hear the PA system crackle to life
* At the crackle of the PA, Holster comes stumbling out from behind the curtain, the hunters are beginning to prepare to run
* The music begins, and Holster begins to come back to himself
* Ronny and Belle run off to get Murphy, while Jaime and Callum watch Holster
* Murphy sets a bottle of scotch next to Holster, he slowly comes to

*Holster is very out of it, and starts shifting back and forth between normal and unhinged. He’s muttering about how he’s killed a man, and how he’s irredeemable. Jaime wraps his hands in his jacket, trying to hold Holster in his normal state. Belle starts to talk to Holster and tries to talk him down. She says “because monsters don’t regret their actions”. He finally comes back into himself. Jaime helps Holster up, Belle gives him her staff to walk, and the whole crew gets back in the van. They talk on the way home after a few hours.*

```
	*“Well Murph? Do you think I’m crazy?”*

```

 *“No more crazy than you were a week ago.”*

*The crew starts razzing him for liking Micheal Jackson, and then they ask for his “Holster Life Highlights”. General conversation, much lighter. The hunters get him talking about Irene, the love of his life, his fiancee. She loved to dance, she loved to write, she wanted to write historical fiction. A wonderful narrator. When Holster got vamped, he left Irene, because he didn’t want to hurt her.*

*Murphy told the sect that Holster got to the bodies after he had already gone off the rails.*

*The hunters return to the sect. Jacques is there, but no one sees him. Murphy returns the taken items to Holster’s room.*

*Belle and Callum talk, Belle thanks Callum for healing Ronny and Jaime. A friendship has been formed!*

*Murphy walks into his office to see **Jacques** sitting in his office chair. Jacques explains that he’s the backup that wasn’t needed. Murphy tries to keep up the airs of “peership” among the hunters, but knows it’s an act, and he is very much above them.*

*Murphy gets the **scarab necklace** back. He emails Samantha.*

### A Day Later...

* Callum goes into Holster’s office. They gonna have a little chit chat
* Holster doesn’t understand that Callum just wants him to talk, and process. This is weirdly wholesome but also not quite. They discuss how they remember things when they lose control, like watching things on a TV screen
* Holster plays the piano for Callum, Callum joins on the bass, they play Smooth Criminal together. I am soft