Chapter 4:
Hooray
For (Umbral) Hollywood
(04/07/01, 04/23/01,
04/28/01)
Shortly after discovering the existence of John Crowley, the cabal
received a visit from a vampire: Clarice, the very pissed-off Prince of
Atlanta. It seemed that when Wan and
Kyler destroyed the computers in the Syndicate office, they had wiped out some
important vampire-related information.
Now, she was out for their blood (pun intended). After considering the situation, everyone
decided it would be a good idea to leave town for awhile until things blew
over. Out of the blue, Marcus announced
that he had connections at Horizon, and that we would be able to stay there for
awhile if we wanted to. Everyone agreed
to the idea, and we set off into the Umbra, bound for Horizon.
After a rather lengthy journey, the cabal reached the back entrance of Horizon
and began a lengthy trek across the wilderness and toward Concordia. Along the way, Jennifer encountered an
adorable furry creature and put it on her shoulder. She showed it to Kenley, who was equally bewitched and put one in
her pocket after a number of the critters began emerging from the woods. Of course, the furball grew enormous teeth
and bit Jennifer. She blew its head
off. Kenley shot the one in her pocket
(making her gun explode in the process), and Saxon stomped one on the
ground. Everyone tried a number of
methods to dislodge a fourth from Kenley’s leg before Jennifer pried it off
with Wan’s Swiss army knife.
Upon arriving in Concordia, Marcus vanished. Saxon got to know the Seat of Life, convinced her to become his
mentor, and procured living arrangements for everyone in the Shard Realm of
Life. Kenley conned Maria into giving
her some Tass to buy a new gun. Jennifer
and Ripple, frustrated by their lack of proper currency, started looking around
for ways to make money. After looking
around for awhile, they heard about a Cultist working on a sexual role-playing
rote. He was looking someone to go to
the Hollywood Dream Realm in the Umbra and collect “the essence of Hollywood.” He would pay a large amount of Tass if the
mission was completed. Jennifer and
Ripple agreed to the job and enlisted the help of the rest of the cabal. Then, everyone set out for the Hollywood
Dream Realm.
Jennifer, Kyler, and Ripple immediately split off from the rest of the
group and started heading toward the HOLLYWOOD sign. Soon it became clear they would never reach it, so they picked a
random building and entered it. They
walked into “Blade,” and Kyler had to take over the title role in order for the
three of them to get out. Meanwhile,
Teal found himself sucked out of Horizon and into “The Exorcist” (he vaporized
Linda Blair with a bolt of Prime energy).
Similarly, Kenley found herself in “Snow White” and set about seducing
the seven dwarves. Saxon and Maria
ended up in “Casablanca,” but Saxon blew his lines and was replaced by Humphrey
Bogart. Maria then found herself in
“The Twilight Zone”—literally. Saxon
got his wish to be in an action movie when he showed up in “Predator.” Wan went from “Evil Dead 2” to “Friday The
13th” to “Vampire Hunter D.” Jennifer
ended up in “Scream.” Ripple killed Norman Bates in “Psycho,” then
(appropriately enough) became Ripley in “Aliens.” Kyler became the title character in “Mary Poppins” and escaped by
killing the little children. Jennifer,
Kenley, Kyler, and Ripple then ended up in an episode of “Neon Genesis
Evangelion,” during which Ripple nearly went crazy. After an interlude in “From Dusk Till Dawn,” Teal shifted to
“Highlander”—during which Saxon and the Predator fell from the sky. A battle ensued between the Predator and
Connor McLeod, and the Predator blew up the entire parking garage with his
self-destruct button. Ripple became
Gumby and seduced Pokey, and Kyler became Ernie on “Sesame Street.” Kyler’s next “scene shift” took her into an
office where a studio executive type yelled at her for causing so much
chaos. He asked her what she wanted. She said, “The Essence of Hollywood.” He gave it to her and kicked her out. Back at Horizon, she collected the payment
but never told anyone else she had gotten it. Jennifer and Ripple later argued with her about it, damaging their
friendship almost beyond repair.
After Hollywood, things started getting really weird. Unexpectedly, Clarice showed up in Horizon,
still trying to track down Kyler and Wan.
They managed to evade her, but she ran into Maria instead. By now desperate to get rid of John once and
for all, Maria befriended Clarice, thinking she could somehow banish him. Clarice was indeed able to send John away—by
Embracing Maria. Apparently deciding
she’d caused enough chaos in our cabal, Clarice took off, leaving the cabal
with a brand-new Lasombra vampire on their hands.
Around the same time, Joe proposed marriage to Kenley, and she
accepted. The two of them also became
curious about the Umbra outside of Horizon and decided to find a way to explore
it. With some help from Kyler and
Jennifer, the two of them began building a spaceship to voyage through the
Umbra and take the interesting route back to Earth. After a lot of convincing, everyone decided to come along for the
ride—except James, Kyler, and Teal, who decided they preferred Horizon to
Earth. Everyone said their goodbyes,
boarded the ship, and set a course for home.
The cabal soon discovered that navigating through the Umbra was a lot
harder than it looked. Before long,
they had become almost hopelessly lost.
Five days after setting out, their Quintessence batteries already needed
refilling. Shortly thereafter, they arrived
at a strange planet with large stores of Quintessence available, and were
attacked by a giant squidlike thing in space.
After a lengthy battle, they managed to chase it off and descended to
the new world.