Canticles of the Prophet Zachariah:
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Notes by Anthony
“Sorry, listeners. Had to step away from the microphone for a few hours. That wasn’t an easy night to relive. I’d keep you in suspense, but given you’re hearing my voice, you know I woke up eventually. Still, I gave everyone quite the scare. Rose had witnessed the last few minutes of our interrogation, though I did not recall seeing her. She called for Asa and Ben, who tried to wake me. No dice. I was on the train to dreamland, and no one was punching my return ticket just yet.
“Gwen staked George and assured an angry Asa that my collapse wasn’t due to some devious Tremere magics. Ben and Asa carried me inside and lay me down on a table in the part of the Temple we call the Kitchen. They were freaking out, but Joan and Cedric calmed them down. Apparently, this happens sometimes when the Derangement gets to be too much. The Malkavians held hands in a circle around me. Even Comet joined without complaint. For all that he dislikes me, none of us would leave a Malkavian to suffer their madness alone. Class consciousness, as my Political Science professor would call it.
“Asa couldn’t enter the Cobweb, but he could see it with his third eye. You know how spiders can make tunnels out of their webbing? It looked kind of like that. It formed a circular tunnel linked all of them and then the threads stretched down to me. The description reminded me a bit of an Einstein-Rosen bridge, which for those listeners who haven’t brushed up on their general relativity recently, is the tunnel that connects two different locations in space to form a wormhole. Perhaps the Cobweb is the Malkavian version of the Tremere’s pocket dimension?
“Time for speculation later. While they babysat my unconscious body in a way that totally isn’t embarrassing for me to think about, the rest of the gang got stuff done! Asa studied the notes that the mathematicians from Gallaudet University left and figured out how to pilot the Temple. It’s still solidly in the theoretical stage, but at least he has a general idea of how to move ourselves in time and space. Gwen went to Ashûr’s room and practiced her spooky necromancy rituals.
“Meanwhile, Rose explored Vait’hara Tuii’s Chambers and found a werewolf pelt. She can’t do psychometry, which the Kindred call “spirit touch,” so she couldn’t read the history of the pelt on her own. However, we’d used the “Disciplines” console to enhance my powers of Obfuscation and hide the Temple for days at a time. Perhaps we could use it to augment our own sight and strength? Rose didn’t wait for a committee to debate the merits or safety of giving Irad more blood while they waited for the sun to set in the material plane. She took the pelt to the Control room and sliced her hand on the Disciplines console, opening her eyes to see all that Caine would have. And let me tell you, listeners, he sees a lot.
“Oh, but before we get to that, one more thing happened that I only found out much later. While Gwen and I were interrogating George outside the Temple, a letter appeared in front of Rose, seeming to slip through some dimensional rift. Jinx, apparently, had a change of heart in the two nights since her attack on the Temple. She asked for Rose to meet her away from the Temple, away from her “new friends.” Jinx promised they would just talk. Rose was hopeful but suspicious, so she asked Asa to use “Spirit Touch” on the letter and sense any emotions Jinx had left behind.
“Asa felt Jinx hug and kiss the letter, whispering: “I’m sure my pretty flower would not betray me.” Jinx seemed to have trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t, but she did genuinely want to meet Rose and had no intention of hurting or betraying her. Jinx does love Rose, even after everything. I don’t blame Rose for feeling the same. Love doesn’t go away when someone hurts you, or you can’t be with them anymore. It just hurts more.”