Amadeus Lazarus (sanguinemagic) wrote in nybynightic, @ 2021-01-26 16:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | activity type: log/thread, character: amadeus lazarus, character: micah lucciano |
Today it housed an additional guest in the form of the sheriff. Well, ex-sheriff almost, in the current circumstances nothing was certain anymore. Someone who was currently pacing the length of Micah’s room, looking pre-occupied.
Micah couldn’t blame him. Everything was stacked against them. Too many of them, too few of their own kindred left. The ones they had gotten with the explosion were the most influential of the city, which meant that their access to resources were cut too. Alone, separated from the rest of the outside world and fighting a battle against a coordinated SI—their chances didn’t look good to begin with.
Regardless, Micah massaged his temples from where he was seated at the desk. “You know, I do have a free chair,” he told Amadeus with a pointed look at said chair across from him as he continued to scan the city’s location maps.
"Hmm," came the noncommittal sound from the Tremere before he stopped his pacing and looked at the chair and then at Micah like he was wondering where both had suddenly come from.
With a sigh that just a bit overly dramatic—just a bit mind you—Amadeus finally sat down in the chair. "Ugh. I hate having to be this idle. The fact that it's been so quiet does not help matters either." No more attacks from the SI so far. No up rival from within the Camarilla or from the Anarchs. All of which he was sure was going to change soon enough. Right now it was like the whole city was holding its breath. Sooner or later it was going to exhale and when it did they were going to have a problem.
His attention flicked to the maps in front of Micah. The SI was not only too well coordinated, but too well embedded and hidden within the city. "I take it still nothing?"
The map was displayed on the tablet in front of both of them, with potential locations marked out and different other areas of suspicious activity. There were others too--areas that had cameras installed, that Micah could directly view recordings of. They might have taken out the prominent figures of Kindred New York. But they couldn't take out the years of groundwork that all of them had put into the city. It was simply a matter of time. And as of now, being in the relative dark, they had the advantage of surprise.
"They hit us hard with the explosion. They would have thought that they got us all." Micah's meaning was clear as he looked up from his tablet to eye Amadeus and his barely suppressed impatience. Their enemies were complacent now. "It's only a matter of time before we get our opportunity to strike back."
"In the meantime, the city is completely leaderless. A few have stepped up to see to the needs of the rest of the city's Kindred but we can't stay hidden forever, mole or no mole," Amadeus pointed out. It was almost as if the SI had just managed to kill off every ambitious Kindred they had.
That and no one wanted to be the one who dealt with cleaning up the mess or preparing for the war before them.
"I did reach out to see about tightening the security of the NET so that we can try and get word out without it being seen. Otherwise, we're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way and that may be too slow of a warning."
Micah had considered this. What Amadeus was saying was true. Their communications were now the major problem. Even amongst Micah's own contacts, everything had to be encrypted, and getting news across was taking far longer than was ideal.
Setting the tablet aside momentarily, Micah regarded Amadeus closely.
What he was considering was something that he wasn't necessarily keen on. But they were running out of options. "There are other… less conventional ways." Granted, there would be risks involved too. And there would be difficulties regardless.
"We have the Malkavians."
Amadeus arched an eyebrow at that. It was a suggestion that he was surprised to hear just because of who one of those Malkavians best suited for such a task was. It was of course a task that would take more than one but given the way they were connected it was one of the quicker ways to spread information. Especially given Julian and Connie's unique talents.
"We do." There was a pause before he added "and we have blood magic."
The Tremere had ways of communicating. They had been using them long before the arrival of the telephone or the internet. Ways they normally kept to themselves but if they were to survive some secrets would have to be shared.
Besides, it wasn’t as if Sethius was around anymore to stop them from doing so.
Micah nodded, allowing for that. Them being the Kindred that they were, they had options and avenues available. It was part of what made the SI so hellbent on exterminating them in the first place.
"Both avenues that we can explore. Should explore. At this juncture, we need all the resources available to us." Micah's brows furrowed, thinking about the days ahead. His brows had formed an almost permanent impression in the last few days. "It's a trying time for us."
That was almost an understatement given the fight ahead of them to not only hold on to the city but to pull out the weeds that had grown up in it. Amadeus supposed when he had agreed to be Sheriff that he had agreed to be a damn gardener.
Still, he looked at Micah considering for a moment. "Are you sure you want to do this? Fight for this city?"
Micah looked up at that, regarding Amadeus squarely. It was a question that should have crossed his mind, did in fact. But regardless, the outcome was the same. "As opposed to?" Leaving, possibly. For greener pastures. In other cities that the SI had not overrun. But at the cost of losing it all. Of having to build it all from scratch again.
But for Amadeus to have the mettle to ask this question, he deserved an honest answer. "I've been around long enough--as I'm sure you have as well--that I know that nothing worth fighting for is ever easy." Perhaps they could make it out of this alive. Perhaps not. But if he left, then everything he had fought for to date would have been for nothing.
He paused here. "Are you?"
Amadeus looked at Micah as he considered his answer. As he decided how truthful he wanted to be with the Ventrue. To admit things that could be otherwise left upside and unknown.
"I was going to give it all up. After wrapping up things surrounding the death of Alex Kain I had said I'd give everything up and leave the city. Then everything else started happening on top of it."
As much as Ariel had insisted it had been too late, it hadn’t been. Amadeus would have found a way if he had wanted to. He didn't owe anything to anyone else to be held back. All the reasons not to leave had just been excuses.
"Now though they've tried blowing me up and that's not something I take lightly. So it looks like I am."
Micah gave a wry grin. He should have known. It was an answer that suited Amadeus. For as long as he had known the Sheriff, and he had known the man for quite some time, Amadeus had never shied away from conflict. On the contrary, were it not for the responsibility on his shoulders, Micah rather suspected that the Tremere would actively go looking for it.
"Revenge is as good a reason as any." It was, at the very least, a reason that had resonated with Micah from time to time over the many centuries.
"Of course if I thought this city was giving me a headache before, it's about to get even worse." Something that Amadeus was not looking forward to. Multiple things kept happening at once to deal with and he was starting to get really annoyed with it all.
As if he hadn't already been annoyed with it all.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper before passing it to Micah. "I stopped by where the Justicar was staying and grabbed some things. Like his notes and his laptop. I'm having the laptop looked into to see if, what, and to whom he may have been updating so if anyone comes knocking because the SI blew him up we'll know what all they know. This page of his handwritten notes I thought you’d be interested in knowing."
In a way, it was just as well the Justicar was dead even with the potential problems it was about to cause them. The Justicar himself had been about to be a problem since it seemed Lucian had just been at the top of his list of problems to take care of. The sheet Amadeus passed Micah showed how close he had been to figuring out why Julian could do the things he could do.
Reading the note handed to him, the furrow between Micah’s brows only seemed to get deeper. It wasn’t that people were unaware of who or what Julian was. It was simply that prior to this, prior to Dorian, when Julian had been masquerading as normal in the fog of anonymity, he had been able to escape the attention of powerful people in powerful places. Now, it seemed, everyone with the slightest bit of power was keenly aware of Julian’s abilities. And even Micah’s foreboding presence by his side wasn’t enough to deter that kind of attention anymore.
“Thank you,” Micah said simply. For handing the information to him. Presumably, this was the only copy. But Micah couldn’t be sure if the Justicar had already given any verbal updates to anyone he had been in contact with before the explosion. And if that were the case…
“I don’t suppose he’d like the idea of being sent away to a different city until this all blows over,” he mused aloud. Micah knew as well as anyone that the answer to that was a resounding ‘no’. But it didn’t stop him from pointing the obvious way out of this situation regardless.
Amadeus had to give Micah a small smirk at that. "Maybe before." Before Micah. Before Julian had developed a stronger sense of self with Dorian gone. After all, Dorian had managed to send Julian to another city. Amadeus very much remembered what he had been like when he first got here and he was not the same Malkavian bow that he had been then.
"You could always try knocking him over the head and having him dragged out but we both know he'd just come back." And that the moment he was away from Micah’s side there was going to be others out there who'd be looking to grab him up for themselves.
And therein lay Micah's headache. When he had liberated Julian from Dorian's grasp, part of it had been simply because he could--because Julian was a talented Malkavian worth more than just being a doormat for Dorian. But he hadn't foreseen this. Not the fact that Julian would grow in the way that he had in his abilities nor the way he--Ventrue Primogen--would care what Julian thought.
He did sigh this time. It was just one problem after another.
"Tempting, but the headache that would cause me would be even greater than the one I have now," he said wryly.
That smirk of Amadeus' grew. "Sucks doesn't it? Caring. Things are so much simpler when one doesn't." When age and a push farther and farther from one's humanity made it seem impossible to do. To feel any sort of stronger emotions. Then to have all of that ripped back open and suddenly things were complicated once more. Messy even. Something Amadeus knew well.
"And don't try and deny that you don't. I've known you too long to think otherwise."
Micah made a non-committal sound, denying Amadeus the satisfaction of having a verbal agreement. The Tremere was already gloating far too much for Micah's liking.
Instead, he returned to his tablet, monitoring the activity he spotted on sixth avenue, thinking it was something, only to find that it was nothing suspicious after all. "I won't deny anything. There's simply nothing to deny." But of course, in Micah's book, not giving it a label was the way he had been handling things so far. "But let me know if anything comes up with the laptop."
Amadeus gave a snort at that. He wasn’t buying that for a second. He waved away the comment about the laptop, not about to fully let things drop just yet. Micah didn’t think he was getting off that easy did he?
“I will. And since there’s nothing to deny, then you won’t object if I borrow Julian and have him go into Elysium for me to see what he can find out. We still have a mole to deal with that I’d very much like to have a talk to.” The dangerous gleam in the Tremere’s eyes said it would not be a friendly chat nor one the mole was likely to enjoy.
Micah raised an eyebrow at this, though fortunately even if the act itself was distasteful, Micah was also relatively confident of Julian's ability to handle himself in such a situation. "You'd have to speak to him about it," Micah replied, matter-of-factly. "He makes his own decisions." As if he didn't always report to Micah all the same.
“Roman has also reported that there’s a problem with the Anarchs. Seems they keep getting picked up on petty charges but they disappear once he gets them out. Now some are not even making it to the station or jail at all.”
The whole thing smelled of SI.
"I can have someone look into it." Along with the multiple other things that he was already investigating. In actual fact, it wasn't as if Micah hadn't heard things about this, but the Anarchs were not high on his priorities what with everything else going on.
Really all Amadeus could do was give a nod to that. He hated having to lay low like this and not be able to look into things himself. Even if Ariel was trying to step into his shoes and look into things while the real Sheriff was ‘dead’, it wasn’t the same. Amadeus was too used to being out there and looking into things himself. He had always been hands on with the job.
“There’s one more thing we should consider.”
To which the look Amadeus gave Micah as he looked at him was in fact considering and went on for a moment before he continued on with what he meant. “A Prince can rule without a council but a city can not survive without a Prince. Soon the vultures are going to start circling once word gets out.”
There was a notable pause.
Of course, it was something that had crossed Micah's mind. The lack of a Prince in the city was a sizeable hole that nothing else could replace. But Amadeus and Micah were both doing their best to fill the very large spaces of the ones they had lost in the explosion. And it was about all Micah could do just trying to keep everything afloat.
After a good few minutes, Micah did sigh. But he picked up his tablet again, returning to the mountain load of work that still remained to be done. "We're doing the best we can. It's one step at a time right now, Lazarus."
He was overthinking things, Amadeus knew that. He was focusing on all the problems they had laying before them and he knew it was because it was easier to focus on them than other things in his life that kept creeping up to the surface if he didn’t.
But Micah was right. One thing at a time. “I’ll speak with Julian. See about getting his help in finding this mole. It does us little good to do the best we can if our every move is being fed back to them.” Amadeus stood up to go find Julian and leave Micah to go back to his work. He was about to step out the door when he paused and looked back at the other Elder.
“When it happened, in that moment, did you think of him?”
Micah had been about to immerse himself back in his work. To focus on the countless problems at hand. But Amadeus' question stopped him short--as the other Elder no doubt intended it to.
He resisted throwing a paperweight at the ex-sheriff's direction, telling himself that physically maiming the only other Kindred elder he trusted in the city right now was not a good idea. No matter how much he wanted to for the Tremere daring to keep teasing him about Julian. Instead, he simply growled, "You've made your point, Lazarus. Now get out and find someone else to taunt before I decide to take my chances with someone else far less capable than you are at picking this city back up off the ground."
There was an actual reason behind Amadeus’ question. One he didn’t want to go into any more than Micah wanted to go into any feelings he may or may not have for Julian and so the Tremere didn’t press or point out that he was being serious this time. Instead, he raised his hands in mock surrender before he slipped out the door to hunt down the Malkavian in question and see about catching a mole.