Holland by Night

The Coterie of York is being chased by an invisible and deadly foe. Will they survive or perish in the assault? The coterie has to move to Russia to be safe. Who shall say if they are.

The Gangrel Gatske Sylstra has joined the ranks in the fight. They're gonna need the firepower.

Date in World of Darkness: Monday 2nd of June 2003
Played at: Arjan

A new Prince
Even though the night started out rough with those persitent Assamites doing a hit and run on our resting place at Anowans haven, the new Prince's ceremonial ushering into office just marginally improved it by immersing us in the sticky goo that is Kindred politics.
The railway museum where the ceremony took place was teeming with the usual lot of Bourgeois harpies, but fortunately some other, more productive, kindred around who would listen to my warnings. I talked to several, and most of them did not even know of the Sabbat threat that was moving towards the city.. pathetic. Elisabeths suggestion to skip town for a while is looking all the better, with the Assamites and Sabbat running around here.. I prefer to deal with things one at a time, two major problems in one go is a recipe for an early rest.

Jack, Annowan and our new stray tag-along Goche (or however it is spelled) mingled somewhat as I was warning people, and apparently there is a Nosferatu who can get us some Visa's for our planned trip to St. Petersburg. We talked a little and agreed on a deal, he was only slightly interested in the happening in St. Petersburg, but would look into it. He also would supply us with the necessary Visas, and a ghoul or two to tag along. I wonder why he is so considerate.. probably after a boon of sorts, or just information hungry.
The new Prince is asking all kindred to do some sort of medieval pledging. Typical.. trying to give herself a stronger position by calling on the old feudal system.. some Kindred really should grow up to the modern times, and at least accept that the industrialization took place.
But for what it's worth, I did do her lil pledge.. if it keeps the power structure stable enough to withstand a Sabbat attack.

Shelter for the day was found by Jack, a shed near a petting farm for crying out loud. But the more unlikely the place, the less likely the Assamites will find it.

Preparing
We visit Joseph Ptazinski (the Nosferatu who is arranging our trip) at an old building in the center of York. He tells us a little more about the happenings in St. Petersburg: A Kindred called Pavel was shred to pieces along with 10 of his ghouls during the period of eternal twilight. He also mentions that there was another odd incident in Moscow, where eight mortals were killed, with 3 sacrificed on an alter in an Orthodox church, perpetrators unknown.
One of his ghouls, a Stevastian Volowdja, is going to accompany us to St. Petersburg where he will drop us off. Travel is by train, a 2 day trip with one transfer. Our visas are the regular tourist visas, valid for 3 months, and will be heading back 2 weeks from now, or whenever we contact Joseph. We set off the next day.

The journey
The trip was pretty uneventful, but I was told that there were some issues at the Russian-Finnish border. Drunken custom officers.. nothing new there. We woke up in a depot outside of the station. The frosty atmosphere here reminds me of the olden days..

St. Petersburg
We quickly decide to go introduce ourselves to the local prince, a man I met before a long time ago. He is called Nicolai Vasilievski, and one of the few princes I can generally get along with. (even though he is a bit of a stuck-up Ventrue sometimes). When we got to the Elysium where the Prince holds his court, we introduced ourselves. Luckily Nicolai recognized me, and things go rather smooth for a first meeting in, say, 80 years? We also met another Kindred who came to introducing himself, a Dutchman from Utrecht by the name of Val Tempest, claiming to be here to study the same incident. He suggested he could help us out. While I don't generally like a new kindred tagged onto us, he said he had some expertise on the matter of occult.. I guess we'll see how he works out.

Extra information
When we told Nicolai that we were planning to investigate the killings, he was very interested and eager to help out. He switched to Dutch (which we all understood - imagine that) and gave us some more information on the incident. Apparently it happened 5 years ago, in 1998, when Victor Pavel traveled from Russia to St. Petersburg, searching for a mystical item. He searched the Hermitage and some museums. He also visited the local Tremere chantry. He was resting in the ground by the shore of the Ladoga lake, when he was attacked and shredded.
Nicolai didn't know any more details, but suggested visiting the Nosferatu near the Warschau train station.

The lakeside
Postponing the discussion about our new addition to the group, we first set out to investigate the site of the incident, a small stretch of lakeside shore at roughly 30 minutes ride from St. Petersburg.
The shore was empty and full of rocks. As was expected, nothing at the scene indicated anything had happened five years ago. After a good inspection I had a gut feeling that there was something peculiar at a certain spot, and I started digging. Meanwhile Goche started kra-ing to the seagulls overhead, and Jack and Val were searching the beach as well.
Ofcourse my gut feeling was right on, and I found a dark-red coated stone, bloodied some time ago. Jack asked if he could look it over and went into one of his phases when he got the rock. Mumbling about huge monsters during the day, who dug up bodies and chopped them up. And then something, in russian. "Forgive me, little mother, I have not been able to find it"
After he snapped out of it, he told us a tale about werewolves and a vampire, presumably Pavel, who fought here and that those words were his last. Puzzled about this all, someone, I don't remember who, mentioned that it sounded like it had something to do with Baba Yaga, a russian fairytale myth.

We went back to the city and Val tried to get into the chantry.. apparently he is a Tremere, but not a very influential one at that, because we were told to shoo off come back later. Dawn was coming and Val could stay to sleep, but we preferred our own accommodations.
So with little time left, we quickly looked for a cheap hotel. We found one, but they refused to let Goche in, because of her.. hygene problems. After some cleaning up on her part (she still smelled a bit) and some coercion on my part, we got us a room.

Old crones
Rise and shine.. We met up with Val again and went to visit the Nosferatu group at the train station. It was old and in obvious decay, a stiff breeze making the night a good deal colder. As we went in, no one came out to greet us or ask what our business was here. Slowly we approached a door to the inside of the building.. Something was moving about inside. In a quick peek inside I just glimpsed a body turning to dust, and a salty tinge in the air was spreading. I cautiously went in, with Val holding watch. I saw another pile of dust further in a hallway, and a presence was moving about.. unseen. I tried to corner this entity but could not.. Then Val murmered "little mother" in russian, and suddenly an old and ugly crone appeared in the room. She asked in a voice spiked with dread: "What did you say?"
Val slowly told her that we were looking for her. The old crone, who was constantly leaking salt all over the place, replied slowly that she had been looking for her as well. She began to tell a tale of a certain person called Goetka, who lived 2000 years BC and worshiped a goddess. One night appeared the goddess came before her as an old crone and embraced her into a life eternal. Goetka was worshiped and lived a long life, but after a while she wished to die, cursing the life she was forced into, and all those who were as well. She has been looking for that old crone, Baba Yaga, for 400 years now, and wants to meet her again.

She gave us a small ragged tour-book, saying that it might help us find her. Inside a few names were marked. The Hermitage and the Michaelowski Castle. And then as suddenly as she had appeared, she disappeared.

Presumably the old hag was Gutka, once embraced by Baba Yaga, some ancient Nosferatu. If what she had said was true, she was ancient as well. The rest of the station was empty, except for piles of dust and salt. Running late in these short nights, we rushed back to our hotel room, arriving just in time.