The Elysium of April Fool's Day, 1997

Session Three of the Chronicle "The Crossroads"

"A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s hell!"

- Thomas Fuller (1608–61), English cleric.

Rumours heard

The Prince: Isabella Munroe of Clan Ventrue.
The Seneschals: Ibrahim of Clan Tremere,

and Mercy Will of the Followers of Set.
The Harpy: Morty Skagnelli of Clan Toreador.
The Sheriff: Mister Spelling of Clan Ventrue.
The Keeper of Elysium: Tivon Boutros of Clan Ravnos.

The Primogen Council

Elysium was held in a hall across the street from St. Michaels Cathedral on the night of April the 1st, in the Year of our Lord 1997. The Kindred of Toronto gathered with a certain amount of apprehension this night, for the significance of the date was not lost on the Children of Malkav. And it turned out that their fears were well justified, for as Lucien Hawke, a Toreador Anarch said the following evening "I experienced the most chaotic Elysium ever... including when the Sabbat ran the city."

There were several Malkavians visiting for the occasion, but it could be that others besides the Kindred population were aware of the significance of the evening, for early on it was rumoured that a group of Changlings were visiting this night's Elysium as well.

Whatever the case, the chaos began early in the evening, when Jonathan MacClaren of Clan Malkav thought he saw his sire, an anarch named Smith, at Elysium. Smith was infamous for torturing his victims, as well as brainwashing them and leaving them with false memories. He was also a known diabolist, and a wanted criminal within the Camarilla. The Kindred who MacClaren believed was Smith had already dominated two Malkavians that evening, and had been escorted to the door by the Sheriff, and was being questioned by him when MacClaren frenzied upon his supposed sire and tried to Diablerize him. The Diablerie failed, but Smith died anyway.

Spelling, the Sheriff, was outraged, and said that he would slay MacClaren for this breach of the Traditions. MacClaren was then brought into Elysium for Prince Isabella to decide his fate. Isabella seemed not to care that Smith was dead, and she ruled that since Smith was an anarch, he was not under her protection, and because Toronto was not at that point a Camarilla city, she was not bound by the Treaty of Thorns. And so MacClaren was released.

Soon after, Shamus, former Prince of the Domain, brought a gift for Prince Isabella and Dieter, the Tremere Regent, in the form of a burned corpse. Shamus said that the body belonged to a Kindred claiming to be the infamous Baker, who blew up a large portion of Berlin, home of Dieter's sire, in his mad scheme to start Gehenna. Because of his actions, Baker was Blood Hunted by the Camarilla.

Shamus happened upon this alleged Baker while visiting the Domain of Waterloo. Shamus became embroiled in this monster's scheme to slay the Prince of that city, and when the attempt failed, Shamus recovered the body from the ensuing fire to insure its destruction. Dieter and Isabella wished to confirm that the corpse was indeed that of Baker, and so the body was placed in a closed booth until the proper tests could be run later in the evening. Both Isabella and Dieter assumed that the body would not be touched in the meantime.

However, Callisto of Clan Brujah, a former Keeper of Elysium, felt that this was a rash assumption to make. She apparently assumed that the body was that of Smith, and being a member of the Elysium's security team, she convinced Lucien Hawke, a Toreador Anarch, to help her move the body to her car outside of Elysium. Both Callisto and Lucien planned to have the body Spirit's Touched by Alixander Wheelwright-Rook of Clan Toreador, to acertain how it met its demise.

But Shamus quickly discovered that the body was missing. Enraged, he quickly discovered who had removed it, and confronted Callisto and Hawke while they were back in Elysium to fetch Wheelwright-Rook. Hawke blamed Callisto for the removal of the body, and when Shamus asked her for her reasons for such an act, she responded in the spirit of the evening by saying "Finders, Keepers."

This response pushed Shamus over the edge. After coming so close to final victory over Baker, his enemy had seemingly escaped once again. He attacked Callisto, breaking both her legs, and in true Brujah fashion, she responded with an equal number of blows. But before the clash could escalate further, the overworked security force separated the two combatants, and Shamus was punished for his outburst with a loss of status. Everyone who witnessed the conflict knew that had Callisto chosen not to retaliate, Shamus' punishment would have been more severe, but due to his madness, Shamus was able to ignore his status loss.

But chaos reigned elsewhere as well. One of the visiting Sabbat pack had accused a member of Clan Tremere of assulting him, and Tivon of Clan Ravnos, the recently promoted Keeper of Elysium, had declared the Tremere guilty. As punishment, Antionette of Clan Lasombra, the pack leader, was allowed to twice wound the offender. This outraged Dieter, the Tremere Regent, who said that the Sabbat complaint was "inconsequential". He said that Antionette was "Lasombra filth", and that he was appalled that Tivon, a longstanding member of the Camarilla, had accepted the Sabbat version of events.

But a Tremere had been wounded. He needed blood to heal, and Tivon found a donor for him. However, after a few minutes the Tremere began to act strangely. It turned out that the donor was also one of the visitors who claimed to be a Changeling. Deiter was outraged when he discovered this, and seemed to feel that the consumption of Changeling blood explained his wounded Clanmate's behaviour, but others believed that the donor had merely indulged in large amounts of illegal narcotics before his arrival at Elysium.

But meanwhile, Shamus's quest for the missing body continued. Using Lucien's cell phone after Alix mentioned that the anarch had made a phone call, Shamus redialed the last number and found out that Sergei, one of Slicer's finest Nosferatu, was now involved as well. Apparently the body had been given to him, and Shamus confronted him with this fact. However, this was initially a fruitless course of action, as Sergei had been tainted by the alleged Changeling blood which was floating about as well. But after much persuasion, Sergei finally lead Shamus into the sewers to find the body. But when they finally arrived at the body's last know location, it was no longer there. It was only through immense self-control that Shamus did not frenzy. He left the sewers and made his way back to Elysium.

The final entertainment of the night came from Martin, Isabella's unreleased childe. He had apparently gathered evidence linking Shamus to the death and diablerie in December of Angela Giovanni. Shamus claimed that Oichi, another of Prince Isabella's unreleased childer, had commited the crime, and that he had helped Isabella cover up this fact, although he had not been involved in the diablerie itself. Isabella herself confirmed this story, and when it became public just a few weeks previously, had personally destroyed Oichi to satisfy the Traditions.

But for some reason, Martin was not satisfied with this story. He felt that Oichi had been innocent, and that Shamus was the true culprit. Shamus had admited that he was tainted with diablerie, but claimed that this was a result of his diablerie of Mirth, Baker's childe and minion, who Shamus slew during the recent events in Waterloo. It was generally accepted that this was the fate of those blood hunted by the entire Camarilla, and that Shamus' actions were well within the law.

But Martin rounded up a mob and confronted Shamus, recently returned from the Nosferatu warrens. Martin accused Shamus of making Oichi take the fall for the Diablerie of Angela Giovanni, which Shamus denied. But Martin could not accept this, and suddenly frenzied and attempted to stake him. Shamus defended himself, which caused someone to yell "Shamus is frenzying!" At this point, others joined in the attack, including Tivon, Enzo of the Samedi, and Uberto Giovanni, who had obviously been taken in my Martin's accusations.

At this point, Shamus realized that the tide was turning against him, and so he transformed into a bat, and fled. The whole incident caused such an uproar that the Prince herself was forced to physically intervene to restore order.

All in all, it was certainly an eventful evening, and Shamus later admitted that after he had returned to his haven on Centre Island to lick his wounds, he saw humour in the evening. And he realized that he had been April Fooled. Lucien, Callisto and Sergei had run him on a wild goose chase and he had fallen for it. He resolved to have his own tricks next time...

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