Regroup (RP)

- Benji -

"Benji? Benji? What's a Benji when its at home?" Eadwig mutters, peering at you with little recognition. "Why does it think it can bring demons into our home?" He definitely seems to be implying that they think your rats are demons, or something of the sort. "Lock it up." Eadwig orders the guards, if he heard your request to see Alasdair he shows no sign, but he seems a little disconnected from any actual 'conversation' going on.

The, now large, group of guards prompt you to start moving back the way you came, it is possible they intend to lock you up with the people you met earlier? Hungry as you are, this could be bad news for them.

What do you do?

Realising that arguing with Eadwig is useless, Benji allows himself to be shepherded along a little ways until he realises that they probably intend to lock him up with their humans. Uh oh. He stops in his tracks suddenly. "I don’t think this is a very good idea," he tells the nearest guard. "I’m hungry and hurt. If you lock me in with those humans… well, it won’t be very nice for the humans, I fear, and, more importantly for you, you won’t have humans much longer."

- Benji -

"You don't think we thought of that?" The guard says, slightly changing direction in a way that highly suggests they had not thought about that and are now reacting to put you in a cell of your own.

You hear the quiet whimpering of the prisoners well before they hear your group approaching and fall silent. After the guards lock you up and leave, the prisoners call out to you: "Hey! What's your name? Are you new here? Do you know if anyone will come looking for you?"

The nearness of the human's, and your injuries, and the unknown amount of time you have spend down here, are all making your Hunger rage at you to rip the doors off and go to town. The doors, however, are strong, reinforced steel, they are prison cells fit for a vampire... or a demon.

What do you do?

Benji quickly regrets his decision. The smell of humans so near, yet completely out of reach, is unbearable.

What on earth did he warn the guard for????? He could have been in there with them, drinking his fill, but now he’s stuck here, starving. And it’s not like it would have mattered! They’re doomed anyway! If anything, it would have been kinder to put them all out of their misery.

A whimper escapes his throat, like a starving dog begging for food, and he sinks to the floor of the cell, wracked by hunger.

It’s difficult to think through the Hunger when it’s this strong, compelling him to snarl and snap and claw at the door of the cell, no matter how useless he knows it to be, but he forces himself to sit still, curled up on the floor in the far corner of the cell, his head buried in his hands.

He wishes he could sleep— how long was he walking for? Days?— but he couldn’t possibly with the Hunger raging so fiercely inside of him.

He wonders how long they intend to keep him down here? Forever? He realizes he needs to think up an escape plan, but… well, he’s never been especially good at thinking up plans, even when the Hunger isn’t driving him up the wall.

After a little while, one of the rats pops its little head out from inside his coat and looks at him expectantly. He blinks at it, wondering if Eadwig was right about the rats being demons. Either way, he should probably send the rats away before he gets too hungry. They don’t smell like food but, if he’s down here too long, he might find himself compelled to try it anyway, just to try to soothe the Hunger for a moment…

He pulls the rats out of his coat and places them all in a row on the floor of the cell in front of him. "Do you… do you think you could go find help?" he asks them, hopefully. They had seemed interested in following his orders earlier. Perhaps they can help him now. "Without getting caught by those vampires or their alarm?"

- Benji -

The rat trio seem thrilled at the prospect of helping, and honoured that you would ask them. Paganini immediately runs off —the bars presenting no impediment to their coming and going— but then slinks back 'tail between their legs' (or would be, if that were possible for a rat) to disgusted looks from Tchaikovsky.

They look to you for more guidance, not really having a concept of 'find help', nor knowing how to get out past what looked like an alarm system specifically for detecting demons. If you can give them a more concrete order, maybe they can achieve that?

What do you do?

"No, no, that’s alright. Thank you, Paganini," Benji consoles the rat. "Perhaps I should have been more specific…" He furrows his brow, trying to come up with a plan. The alarm is a major obstacle for the rats. If they’re going to help him they need to find a way around it… "Okay, first things first, I think I need you all to look for an alternate path to the surface. That is, a way out without passing through that alarm thing. This is a maze and you all are rats, so that should be right up your alley, yes? Once you’ve found a way out, I want you to come back here."

- Persephone -

"Yes?" Henry answers his phone a bit brusquely, he sounds harassed and concerned. "Who's this?"

What do you do?

- Benji -

The rats ... or demons, or whatever they are... listen intently, they definitely seem to 'understand' your words and instructions. When you are done they nod and then scamper off...

They have been gone a long time, and you are getting hungrier and hungrier with each passing hour. At least there are no alarms. Eventually you hear the sound of approaching feet and doors being opened and closed, you have visitors, it seems.

"Benji." Alasdair says warmly, slipping in and sitting down on the floor with you as though it were a couch in his lounge. "So good of you to visit. How long has it been?" He sounds very sociable, especially for someone holding you prisoner, his questions also sounds like more than just a greeting, like he needs reminding that you met up just the other week at Arundel Castle. Being down in the constant-dark has made it hard for you to tell time, how much more must it affect those for whom it is perpetual.

The cell door was not locked behind Alasdair when he came in, but you can sense the other vampires waiting outside in the corridor.

What do you do?

Benji perks up, excited, as Alasdair enters the cell, certain that this means his friend has come to clear up the misunderstanding and let him go. "Oh! Alasdair! It hasn’t been long at all. A week or so, maybe? Anyway, I’m so glad to see you! There’s been some sort of awful misunderstanding. I was lost in the tunnels and then I ran into some of your guards and I thought they might bring me to you and then you could help me to find the way out but then some sort of alarm went off and Eadwig came and then they locked me in here and I’ve been so hungry and I think my ribs are broken and— oh, it’s been absolutely terrible, Alasdair! Thank goodness you’re here!"

- Benji -

"Oh. So you didn't come to talk...?" Alasdair looks crestfallen that you did not come visit him and stumbled upon his lair by accident. "Eadwig tells me..." He pauses and you can see him thinking, trying to translate what Eadwig 'told' is always a bit of a mind-bender. "... that you tried to sneak demons into my house. What's that all about, then?"

Alasdair knows you are friendly with Jacob, and you don't think he approves of this sort of thing. Your friendliness is unusual, but Alasdair seems particularly vested against this form.

What do you do?

- Persephone -

"Oh, yes. Of course. Persephone." Henry says when you identify yourself. "So you are alright? I was worried. At least..." He does not finish his thought, but, if you knew more details of how the evening went down, you might suspect he was want to say: "At least Emma had the decency to let me know she was ... still alive.".

"Yeah, why not." He says when you invite him out for a drink. He sounds casual, but there has been plenty of time for him to look at a class registry, or even just think about it, and learn that you lied about being at school with him.

Henry gets the name of the place and will show up in about 5 minutes, it seems, wherever he was, he was close-by to both your place and Emma's.

What do you do?

- Persephone -

"Oh, yes? Why's that?" Henry asks in a neutral tone which probably covers 'for which part' more than indicating a denial that apologies are owed.

Despite what happened, he still showed up tonight. Something brought him here, he was nosing around the Ivy Club in search of power, you may have an in if there is anything you can offer him as compensation for losing out on that opportunity, you will just have to figure out how, and how it benefits you.

What do you do?

- Persephone -

"So it's true, what I saw." Henry mutters to himself as you talk about 'what you can do'. He has been trying to deny the transformation he witnessed "it was dark. I was far away. I didn't see clearly." and so on, but, coupled with Emma's outright statements, this denial is become harder and harder.

When you admit your feelings and vulnerability about 'the awful things that happened' he reaches out a hand and rests it on yours consolingly, not interrupting your flow.

"Don't be too hard on Emma." He says morosely. "She can be a bit ... I don't know ... self-centered, but many of the things she said about me were probably true (or at least in part). I can understand that she has a grudge against me, I was a ass, I treated her like garbage when we went out. But we were both young, and I have tried to make it up to her. But she makes it so hard. But I am not giving up on her." He sounds genuine, you can believe his intentions.

He does not have anything to offer on the topic of Emma getting out of your sticky situation and then just having a relaxing weekend, but, depending on how much extra detail you might have let slip, he also does not see what she could have actually done to help you. He confirms that he called the cops, but that they stood down when Emma showed up and assured everyone that everything was OK. Based on Emma's say-so, the hotel assumed you were also alright and did not cooperate with the cops' flimsy requests for your details (the hotel presumably still have your luggage).

"What are we going to do about The Ivy Club?" He asks, steering the conversation in that direction without your prompting, he may be leery of an all out assault, or obvious breaking of the law, but he is in for any retribution against the club and against Chaudry in particular once he knows the man who was at lunch is significant.

"Who are your people?" He asks, definitely interested in your scheme to wrest power and wealth from that source.

What do you do?

"Friends of mine," Benji explains. "I didn't mean any harm by it. I didn't even know they were demons until that alarm went off."

- Persephone -

After it became clear you two were going to have a civilised conversation —he was unsure for the initial part of the meeting— Henry enquires about what you are drinking and orders a fancy version for himself. "Maple smoked old fashioned." He says to the server —slipping him a tip to get service at the table. His drink arrives with some fanfare, they bring a plank of wood to the booth, set it on fire, then place the glass over the top of the fire, smothering it and capturing the smoke, at the same time they mix and ice the drink, then quickly flip the smoke-filled glass and decant the cocktail into it, displacing the smoke.

Henry shrugs off your accusation of his nobility.

"What did he do to you?" He asks when you hesitate, the horror evident in his voice. "Did he...?" Of course his mind would go there.

When you say that his associates 'serve' Chaudry, Henry seems skeptical. "That was not the impression I got, that one time I met him." He says. "Though, I seem to have missed a lot of clues, it would seem."

The talk of 'weapons and demons' makes Henry uncomfortable. He likes to think of himself as a 'manly man', but he has never used a weapon against another person before —just a little duck-hunting and such— and is uneasy with what you may be suggesting.

He seems unimpressed, and possibly even disappointed with your credit card, he has a fair bit of money, and you make it sound a lot like you are a 'kept woman'. That is not what he is looking for. Possibly he still thinks he can get a better deal if he gets a chance to negotiate with your patron (lower case 'p').

When you invite him back to your place —not mentioning your sister's party— he is sorely tempted. But he takes a sip of his smokey drink to steady his nerves before saying: "Maybe that is not such a good idea?" He does not sound at all convinced and it would not take much for you to change his mind... but he is probably right, it would be unfair to Emma to sleep with her ex, in fact that may even have been part of the reason she was a little snippy with you after the bonding experience you both had at the spa earlier? Even when she is not around, Emma is cock-blocking you and dominating the conversational landscape.

What do you do?