Luba

She was born in 1879 in Poland. There she lived a quiet life as a housewife and herbalist. She was a sort of healer for her area, dealing mostly with healing the injured livestock of the local farmers. Her husband was killed defending their land against the germans in World War One.

It was when she was nearing her fifteith birthday, she was taken by a passing witch and inducted into the ranks of the Gangrel vampires. At first, she did not want to believe it. But the job was done, and the witch eventually convinced her to turn away from her mortal self and embrace a new life.

The witch taught her a few of the things she needed to know to survive. Primarily it was how to take in the earth as a bed to hide away from the harming rays of the sun. She was also introduced to the very basics of the art of 'Spoiling'. But her sire departed soon afterward, to leave the childe to depend on herself.

Fend for herself, she did. First living off whatever animals she could find; she grew adept at speaking to them and getting them to do what she wanted. Later, when her appietites grew towards people, she perfected her animalistic abilities towards scavenger birds and pirds of prey. Ravens and Owls were her favorite helpers. World War Two rolled across the landscape. She spent much of the time hiding on the edges of towns. It was then that, clutching her few belongings, she braved a water-crossing to the New World.

She originally landed in New York. But the climate did not suite her. She began wandering southwards. She stopped wandering in Florida. The swamplands gave her ample places to hide, and yet the thriving people did not immediately discount her for her appearance or abilities. During this time, she awakened her sire's blood within her, and became a Vedma witch. She began working on the magics of her blood, eventually producing the effects of Zagovny that she still practices today. She also began trading secrets with the Ordo Dracul; she shared her occult knowledge from the old world, and they helped her develope the power of Spoiling. It soon became apparent that she could help them in other ways, since she often could find things, or make the lives of a rival very discomforting.

But this was not to last. Not long ago, a well-to-do vampire had used his political clout to get her to leave, eventually convincing another gangrel to pass the word to her. She recieved the message and quickly found out her network of friendly people had begun to realign themselves in relation to her. She decided to move far away, in hopes that she could find fresh people to re-establish herself with.

* * *

She ended up in Saint Louis, trying to ply her trade. The local Ordo Dracul initially welcomed her to their ranks. it was in trade for her knowledge of Spoiling with one of them that she learned her Auspex. But not all was to remain well. They wished her to speak their oaths of fealty and meld her to their cause. She refused, and thus was cast out from their gatherings.

As Luba approached the ice cream stand, Victor Alaunt came out of a small car nearby. "Alder Luba. You called--and I have come. As I swore."
Entering the place, he also sharpens his eyes to pierce the darkness (Auspex 1). "Alder--I do not know what your knowledge of the spirit is, but I have met it twice, and this much I know--it can warp the perceptions, making you see it as other than it is, or see and hear things that it wants you to percieve. Also... it collapsed a wall in the past, so..." He glances at the dilapidated room. "I would be very wary right now..."

The weathered brick peered back at the lonesome moon through a mottled skin of dirt and neglect. “Isaly Ice Cream”, it said on the top of the three story building in aged script.
It hadn't served a single cone in perhaps seventy years.
Surrounding the abandoned building was brand new chain-link fencing, topped with cyclone razor wire and a patrolling security guard ...at the moment he was in the alleyway, focusing on the gastronomical delights embodied in a double bacon galaxy burger with extra cheese and a chococcino.
Such barriers would hardly fetter such capable Kindred, but how would they choose to breach them?
The place had a lonely feel about it, a desolate feel.
It felt, empty.

Luba eyes the fence and then Victor. She already had an idea on how to pass the fence, but having another here meant her witch powers shouldn't be used lightly. Then she closes an eye and gives him a piercing gaze; she realized he was wearing a coat. A new plan began to form beneath her tangled mop of hair, but first she should see if the other had plans. "Do you have a way to enter zis fence, child? A way for us both to pass?"

Victor eyes it suspiciously. "Not really, no." He looks at Luba. "Perhaps now might be a good time for me to ask for a general idea of what your plan is...?" He coughs. "If you don't mind sharing it, of course."

"Heh heh heh.." She gives him a rasping chuckle. "Luba knows many zings of how ghosts are defeated. Zis one, we will look for her reason to stay. If we had a priest.." she shrugs, "We might try something else."
"Now child. I will go to zis sherrif over zere, and make make him go away. You open ze gate, yes? When ze sherriff come back, we be gone."

Victor nods. "Seems as sound a means as any..." He strolls around the fence, looking for a gate of some kind.

From the second story window, formless eyes watched the progress of Victor Alaunt as he made his way around the dimly lit perimeter. A dark cloud passed in front of the moon just as he approached the hinged double gate, perhaps just large enough for the coroner's truck. Denied the stolen light, darkness crept over the abandoned building like a biblical plague ...even the insistent buzzing of the mercury vapor street-lamps seemed to diminish slightly as he approached
...and was that the soft click of a padlock he just heard?
Perhaps it is his senses playing games with him.
Perhaps the gate has simply been unsecured before he arrived.
Regardless.
The padlock was hanging unfastened from the clasp.
Surely, fate was smiling upon them.

Victor stares at the unlocked padlock both incredulous and slightly unnerved. "Oh Mother of Fucking God." He shuts his eyes and begins to rub his temples. "I think we're expected..."

Luba shuffled around the building from the other way Victor had taken. It would be no good to give the cop the idea she had come from the direction of the gate, would it? She gave a mumbled string of general dislike for uniformed peoples everywhere while she made her way to the edge of the alley housing the policeman. At the corner she waits breathlessly. Whas that meat actually cooked before he ate it? The smell wafting down the bricked alley was making her nauseous. She takes a breath of filthy air before moving out; she'd need it for speaking.
Around the corner she moves. Quickly she trundles to the car, with the swaying gait only someone with short legs and arthritic knees could manage. After a moment she gives a yell and keeps it up until she's clamoring at the door of the car. "He-ey!" You zere! call your peoples! Down ze road - one more street over - you can still hear ze screaming! Someone in trouble!" After the first or second broken sentence, she's nearly pounding on the policeman's door if he hasn't already moved to disembark from his meal and pay her the attention she's yelling for.
A little while later, with the local security on his way, Luba shuffles around to the gate.

The intrepid pair stood before the chain link gate, peering into the grounds of the abandoned building. Scores of footprints could be seen in the small islands of dirt that floated in a sea of lanky weeds. There was a musty smell, like freshly overturned earth and chalky stone that permeated even what remained of their mortal senses.
Yellow crime tape hung limply across a gaping hole in the wall of the building, clearly knocked out in recent weeks.
Did either of them read the paper? Had either heard the rumors of Islay?
An excavation had taken place here.
It had been a graveyard.

Victor stares at her. "Are you sure you wish to go, Alder Luba? I am fairly certain the enemy knows we are here..."

Luba gets the papers, alright. But she doesn't read them. All she sees are snippets of last years news as it's blown from building to street to car to weedy lot. But then again, you need to read english first - something Luba hasn't put a whole lot of time towards in the last several decades.
She surveyed the overturned earth and the hole in the building. With a faint smile of rememberance, she breathes deeply to take in the smell of damp soil and musty bodies. it reminded her of her home, a century ago and two seas away. She smiles distantly to Victor, which turns harder and more malignant as she is pulled away from the moment and towards the present. "Yesh child. From what Luba has heard, zis zing has much hatred of our kind. Are you ready to not walk out of zis building?"

Victor sighs. "Frankly no, but I've never let concerns like that stop me before." He forces a smile to his face. "Well, 'lay on Macduff, and damned be he who first cries enough..' etc." And with a cautious glance around the place he heads in with Luba.

She chuckles hoarsly at his comment and bobs her head before pushing the gate open wide and shuffling inside the premesis. If unmolested in their trek across the yard and to the building, she aims to enter through the gaping maw of the building. The dark and forbidding hole in the sagging building where the yellow tape flutters feebly in the cold breeze.
The eyes of birds are usually quite sharp. And so she does what comes naturally to her in the recent months and sees with their eyes. What takes the effort is hearing like a fox. This she pauses in her walk so as to activate. (Auspex 1, sight/hearing)

The wiley pair made their way through the trampled weeds and peered into the gaping maw of the old brick building.
Somewhere inside the sound of slowly dripping water (that was water, wasn't it?) tapped a slow rhythm in the heavy night air. The moon remained shrouded behind dark clouds, as if seeking a safe haven this eve.
Luba saw it first, the gaping sinkhole inside. Victor needed no special gifts of the blood to smell the musty, overturned earth.
Intrepid, they ducked beneath the yellow plastic crime scene tape and made their way carefully inside.
Luba raised a cautionary hand, grasping Victor's sleeve as they approached the sinkhole. It was a fair drop down, and would not be pleasant even for the undead.
About the room equipment lay unmolested: some shovels, a few iron prybars, several lights on tripods, a few tables that seem to have been used for skeletal triage, and everywhere ...dirt. A moderately large excavation had taken place here.
Things from below had been brought above.
The water. It had stopped dripping. If they were alert, they would notice that there was no longer any sound to be heard.
Their world was as silent and cold as a graveyard.

As they step inside, Luba feels the surrounding gloom like someone holding their breath expectantly. She sniffles noisily and wet her lips before tugging on Victor's sleeve. She points to the horribly yawning hole in the floor with her outstreched hand. "Look zere child. We go down."
As if on cue, there is a single hoot from an owl outside. With the noise of her rustling cape, Luba turns a little to look outside the building. If Victor had known her very well, he'd realize the call of the owl now had her spooked. But then he'd know how evil an omen the owl's call was, as well.
It was then that time seemed to stretch like taffy. The background sounds faded away, giving the feeling of some opressive weight settling on their shoulders. Luba looks back to the hole with a decided frown.

As the unearthly silence begins, Victor looks around the dilapidated building, an uneasy frown on his face. "It's here...."
His eyes fall on the pit. "Well, at least it's earth..."

"Yesh.. It is earth. And zat may still not be enough."
She starts shuffling towards and around the hole. With a vague wave to summon him, she speaks. "Come child. Find some way down zis place. Ze mortals here are messy, so zey may leave zere own ways for us to use."

Victor, keeping himself on guard, looks around for a bit of rope, or a ladder...
Of course, given what happened the last time he'd crossed paths with the spirit, he wasn't sure climbing down the pit was a good idea. "Perhaps, I should go down alone..." he notes. "I might be better able to keep myself from falling..."

She snorts derisivly at the comment as she scrutinizes the area. "Falling down is not my concern, child. It should not be yours, either. It is getting back to ze outside zat should worry you."

Victor sighs. "A nasty fall can still kill us, even if it is significantly less likely to. And the spirit..." He shuts his eyes. "I've seen it bring down a wall. So, perhaps, one of us should go down, and the other stay up here, holding the rope..."

"Fine, fine, fine... Would you like to go first?"

Victor bowed, as he found what looked like a sturdy bit of rope. "Delighted, of course." He began to busy himself with unfolding the rope, tugging on it, checking for splits, and the like. Do not let yourself get spooked. The spirit likes to lead people to its own pre-arranged traps. And since we're practically leaping to our dooms of our own free will, this might be unbalancing it a bit--making it so certain it's got us that it lets itself get overconfident...

Luba is not a sailor, and does not have their instincts when it comes to lines So she cocks her head to the side and gives a puzzled look when she spies Victor looking over some rope he had found. She then shakes her head a little, They mutter behind my back that I'M crazy.., and looks over the edge of the pit to the inky darkness below.

Having checked the rope, Victor uncoils into the pit, and then hands the end he was holding to Luba. "Well, Alder, I am off. 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done--etc.' " And with that he begins his descent.

After Victor repels down the pit, Luba begins her tortured descent. Need we mention Luba's lack of physical skill, or her constant worry of a vouyer? (She's a proper woman, after all, by her own standards. And she is wearing a dress.) But she does descend the rope, muttering in her home language all the while.

As Luba makes her way down, Victor looks around the pit, eyes sharpened to see in the darkness. Occasionally, he takes a sniff at the air as well. (Auspex 1)

The sinkhole was deep but not nearly as far as it had appeared from above. Kindred feet gratefully touched hard-packed earth after perhaps eighty feet of hand over hand rope work.
It was dark. Deathly silent. The air was still and heavy.
A few feet away from them a knurled knob slowly turned. Would either of them hear the nearly imperceptible hissing sound that followed?

Luba is not used to the modern conveniences of running water, indoor plumbing, or natural-gas cooking. So the sounds of escaping vapors didn't trigger in her a more usual, "modern" response. The very sound was faint to her blood-enhanced senses, and thus was unconsiously put aside as unimportant.
Instead, upon reaching the bottom of the pit, she licked her lips again and looked around with a nod of her head.

Victor on the other hand, is familiar with modern conviences, and remembers that sound very well... and hearing it now, gets him nervous.
"Oh, damn..." He glances at Luba, clearly unnerved. "Luba! Take cover NOW!" And with one sudden motion, he kneels on the ground, and touches the earth, muttering to himself. "I am the land--the land is I--joined by blood--bonded by time..." And with that he melds into the ground... "( Protean 2)

As Victor sank into the hard-packed earth, the preternatural bubble of silence that clung to them collapsed with an almost audible pop. The sounds of the world around them rushed into the sinkhole: the wind as it whistled through the broken teeth of the building above, the faraway squeal of a fan belt voicing its dry displeasure and the beat of a nearby mortal's heart.
The rope they had descended from fell to the ground at Luba's feet, a pile of coarse hemp entrails.
A sudden crack filled the air as the blood-red light of a road flare pierced the darkness, illuminating the face and beard of a bedraggled beggar standing above. Long, wiry shadows danced along the bottom of the sinkhole.
“The Pale must Die”, he rasped hoarsely as he lightly tossed the flare into the pit. If one's eye followed the flare as it tumbled downward, one might see an odd assortment of propane tanks neatly stacked about ten feet away ...stolen from a yard here or a balcony there, perhaps.
The flare would never reach the ground.

This is the second time the witch has lost a familiar to one of those cursed explosions.
The moonlit night was quiet. The mistress had asked him to fly with her and to watch over her. He liked watching her curious ways. All people were curious to him. He wheeled overhead as she walked. Why didn't she just take flight and fly with him?
She stopped at one of those big boxes and looked around. he landed on the top of it and watched her. Soon another human joined her and they made noises at eachother. This new person made him think of the day-hawks, who's talons are sharp and fly much faster then we owls do. But the day-hawks can't hunt at night. They can't pluck a bat from flight on a moonless evening.
The mistress moved around the building and made some noise. She seemed upset at a metal can. What did it do to her? Wait. Did I hear a mouse in the field just outside this box? Ahh. the mistress moved back to the new person and they entered the field. Wait mistress! There's a mouse near you! I can see it! Agh. They didn't stop to eat. Maybe wwhen they aren't looking, I'll try to get some lunch.
They sure are taking some time, aren't they? I can hear them making more noises inside the box. Maybe I should see what the mistress is doing? Maybe she would like that. He took to the air, feeling the chilled night air under his wings like a comfortable blanket.
Ah! There's the mouse! The ghost owl struck the round without a sound of warning. Only the satisfying scree of the dying mouse as his talons pierced it's deliciously warm flesh. In a flash of white, the owl was back in the air and soon roosting back on the building's rooftop. After such a satisfying meal, He preened his feathers.
The mistress sure was taking a long time. What is she doing? maybe that new person is doing something bad to her? Oh no! I think he is. He seems like the kind of person who would do bad things to the mistress. As if to answer the thought, the building shuddered. In alarm, the owl gave a great leap and was in flight. But it's flight was cut short.
The windows gave a great exhalation of debris, followed by gouts of fire. Bits of brick, fragments of glass, boards and splinters were given a short life to do as they please. And some pleased to strike the fragile night bird.
***
Did Luba survive the explosion? With the sudden light as the flare popped to life, chaos and pain would reign in anyone's mind who's sight was as amplified as Luba's to combat the pure darkness of the sinkhole. Luba's natural inclination to such situations is to seek shelter; usually the shelter her Protean gifts allow her. But she is also a very tough little lady; mentally and physically. She had recently completed a deal with one of the savage offshoots of the Vedma - His knowledge of Resilience for her knowledge of Protean. Would that have been her refuge? Would it have saved her?
So the question remains: Did Luba survive? The old homeless lady who's only care in the world are her birds and the sharing of knowledge. The self-described "Witch of St Louis", "Witch of Florida", "Layer of Hexes and Curses". Who's various titles in various social circles have included "Earth Witch", "The Unblinking", and "That crazy bag lady". The cranky old lady who's stare makes the Gangrel pause, and who can whisper into the dragon prince's ear at will?
- The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are them: whither are they vanished?
- Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath in the wind. Would they had stayed!
Who's going to find out?