I started the campaign where we left off last time – Dyl’s character heading back to the Chantry with Jing Wei, after both went to examine Dyl’s sister. Dyl’s sister has been bitten in a mutual dream they’d had, and had manifested a festering magical wound in real life once they’d awakened. Jing Wei went to Dyl’s family’s place to examine the girl, and her prognosis wasn’t good – if they didn’t find a cure quickly, the girl would die. Dyl asked if there’s anything she could do, and Jing Wei extracted some of her blood.
Dyl grabbed Alex for a cigarette when the got back to the Chantry, and Alex told her Garwood Marshall had been looking for her – he wants both Alex and Dyl to go undercover for him at the upcoming Succubus Club event. Alex teased Dyl for her attraction to Marshall, and revealed that she no longer possessed a strong urge for food, sleep, or sex, which weirded out Dyl, who is a creature of desire. Alex also revealed she can hear screaming throughout the Chantry that no one else can.
While discussing the creepiness of the Chantry, Alex showed Dyl something Dyl hadn’t seen before but recognized immediately – the souls of the werewolves that tried to “save” Dyl from the Tremere, who were still stuck in between worlds, in eternal torment by banes as they endlessly struggled to pierce the Veil and break through to the Chantry. It wasn’t a sight that Dyl enjoyed, especially when she opened her third eye and saw the full torment the Garou have endured.
Alex headed to her room, and Dyl headed upstairs to explore possible cures for her sister. In the library she encountered an exhausted Kyrissa, who Dyl dubbed “buttmonkey” for being everyone’s research bitch. Kyrissa insisted she wasn’t a buttmonkey, but proceeded to help Dyl find the books she needed to research dreams and Umbral creatures, good and bad. It turned out Roreca had a tome Dyl needed, so Dyl emailed Roreca asking if she could borrow the book.
Dyl also informed Roreca of something else that Dyl had discovered - that Alex and she have been dreaming of the same things, both the appearance of angels and of a giant monster beneath the streets of an urban setting. While Dyl was studying and emailing, Kyrissa found another tome for her – the mostly-translated works of a dream-travelling monk, which Kyrissa worked out a deal for the Chicago Chantry to borrow from the Tremere library in Milwaukee.
Before Dyl left the library, she requested a copy of Alex’s song lyrics, which according to Lord Wainwright are, along with her music, prophesies of the end times. Dyl went to her room and got ready to go meet Marshall, getting a text from her boyfriend Kamel while she was getting dressed. She agreed to meet him later, and then stopped by Alex’s room to acquire MP3s of her supposedly-prophetic punk music, which she attempted to listen to on the way to Marshall’s closed-jazz-club lair.
At the club she realized Marshall’s home projected a magical field that made you feel like you were in the wrong place and should move along. Marshall himself invited her in, however, playing up the “vampires must be invited in” stereotype. He offered her wine, and when she turned it down, offered blood instead, which she accepted. Drinking the blood made Dyl feel inspired, and she realized she was imbibing the vitae of musicians, taken at the height of their careers. In Dyl’s case it made her want to dance.
Marshall accepted Dyl’s offer to dance, and for the next hour they got lost in the music, moving through several dance styles from the barrio to Harlem. Marshall impressed Dyl with his learned dance moves, and Dyl impressed in return with her natural agility and rhythm. For a brief moment, each forgot their cares as members of the Tremere organization and immortal predators, and just enjoyed the feel and swell of the music.
Dyl realized Marshall didn’t really need to have her over for the scant information he offered on her undercover mission, and wondered if this was a date. Before anything untoward happened, however, their time together ended, and Marshall waited with her against his BMW before she left in her cab to meet Kamel. He was still waiting at the coffee shop for her, reading while he waited. Dyl covered his eyes and surprised him, laughing and teasing him when he jokingly guessed she was some girl called “Shiela.”
Dyl told Kamel about her surprise dancing date with Marshall, and Kamel said it was fine because he trusted her. He talked about the great time he had at his faith meeting that day, only briefly sidetracked by Dyl’s inquiry about the lack of active women in the organization. Kamel had apparently had some sort of religious breakthrough, and although some of the impact went over Dyl’s head, she appreciated his excitement and interest.
Dyl received a text from Jing Wei to return to the Chantry. Dyl hurried back, and Jing Wei demanded more blood from her, making it with other ingredients to form a paste, which she chanted over on the way back to Dyl’s family’s house. Dyl made sure to memorize the sigil that appeared on Jing Wei’s mortar and pestle, and was ordered by Jing Wei to make sure Dyl’s parents didn’t interfere when they arrived at their place.
Dyl went in first, slutting up her attire and lighting a cigarette in her mom’s kitchen. This had the desired effect of starting an argument with her mother; this distracted her while Jing Wei treated Dyl’s sister with her Thaumaturgical mixture. Dyl and Jing Wei then left quickly, hurrying back to the Chantry before dawn. Dyl stopped in to talk to Alex again, noticing she’d been writing in her journal. Alex told Dyl she’d thought of her offer of co-dream-travel, and decided she wanted to try it. Dyl suggested the next day.
Returning to her room, Dyl got a call from her mother just as Dyl was drifting off to torpor. Dyl’s mom said her sister was getting better, and apologized for fighting earlier. Dyl and her mom reconciled, although her mom continued to question how Jing Wei was able to heal Dyl’s sister so quickly of such a grievous wound. Dyl counseled her mom not to question God’s will, and then after she got off the phone slipped off the sleep, musing on the concept of the Tremere as instruments of God’s goodness on Earth…