Chronicle One: The Awakener

The orphan mage, Sebastian Duvalier, under heavy pressure to leave New Orleans, takes his motorcycle North, to find his cousin, Katrina. He stops somewhere in North Carolina to rest, only to find that the town does not like outsiders. Seeing that it is late, he stays anyway. The town guardian is big and ugly and instead of asking him to leave again, asks him to dinner. Sebastian does his best to politely refuse. Later, he meets a group of professional Streetfighters at his hotel. Sebastian is introduced to the biggest one (if a bit slow), Kahn; their leader, Leander; the leader's girl (and tough as nails), Siren; a sneaky-looking Blade; the beautiful Lotus; and their manager, Fernando. It is warm out then, as it is late spring (1996).

Sebastian accepts an offer to play football with them on the beach and has some beers with them. They are all surprised when Sebastian is able to keep up with all of them. After the game, Kahn and Lotus accept Sebastian's offer to smoke some of his weed. Afterwards, he goes for a walk with Lotus. Out on the beach alone, they start kissing, when suddenly, what was once a shark, rises from the ocean in the form of a wereshark; Sebastian recognizes the voice as the town guardian—who apparently is a little bitter. The two humans try and fight the monster. Lotus gets stunned and Sebastian gets knocked around, totally outmatched by the anger and power before them. However, he is able to reason with her and convinces her to stop her attack. Reluctantly, she moves away, turning into a human and moving down the beach. Lotus awakes, groggy, and Sebastian tells her everything is okay. Her haze lets Sebastian explain away what she thought she saw; Sebastian tells her it was a mugger that came out of the water; she doesn't want to believe a simple mugger could get a jump on her, but he tells her it was just the element of surprise. She accepts this. Smiling, this time they go to the hotel.

The group of streetfighters, The Harbingers, are traveling to Rochester for a tournament and Sebastian happens to be going there to meet Katrina, so they all head northward together

.

*           *           *

 

In Rochester, when Sebastian goes to his cousin's chantry, he discovers that she is a Hermetic mage. There, he meets the others in her cabal: Connor, an Akashic Brother, a Virtual Adept, and a Euthanatos. As he makes himself comfortable, Sebastian starts smoking a bowl of weed and they assume he is an Ecstatic. He shakes his head, telling them he is an Orphan. The Euthanatos puts out the spark with his magick. Sebastian tries to re-light it, but has no success and puts the weed away. Katrina reminds them all that others are still coming. Jesse D. Edmond, a Child of Gaia; Rebecca, an elder Brujah; and Rebecca's ghoul also show. An elder Dreamspeaker; a Fomori, Anthony; and a Mummy (though no one knew who the latter two were), also show up before the gathering is complete. They have sources that tell them that some demon is going to sacrifice the city as part of his plans. They have to go to the Streetfighter competition to speak with one of their contacts. Connor decides to enter the competition; the rest of the cabal decides to scout the crowd. They are on extra alert, since a Technomancer cabal is supposed to be there also.

After Connor's (unsuccessful) fight, someone tries to grab Katrina. Connor tries to fireball the assailant, drawing on the incredulity of some of the streetfighters' abilities, but botches nonetheless, and disappears in a flame of paradox—gone to have a little chat with his avatar. The others move. Sebastian finds one of the enemies and pushes him into the bathroom, drawing a knife to his neck. He yells out and people start looking, so Sebastian says he is a federal agent, but trouble begins brewing regardless. Sebastian pushes him into a stall, and tries to get information from him, but he won't talk, so Sebastian slits his throat. Right then, the cops start busting in. Sebastian climbs into the rafters and disappears into the ceiling. Coming down in a different place, he escapes pursuit. Eventually, Sebastian finds the others, who are chasing the enemy. He and the Virtual Adept wind up in the rafters of the arena, chasing one of the Technocrats. Yet, they find the same guy that Sebastian had killed. Yet as they engage that one, another of the same man appears. They finally figure out that they must be clones. But the one with Katrina is elsewhere. The others followed him until he disappeared into the sewers via technomagick. They realize that they will have to find a way down there.

The cabal all gears up and heads down into the sewers. There were monsters down there, Tzimice-manipulated creatures, but the cabal manages to take out any they encounter. They split up at a fork, (Sebastian, the Akashic, the Adept, and the Euthanatos in one group; the Child of Gaia, the Brujah and her ghoul, the Dreamspeaker, Fomori, and the Mummy in the other) and continue on. Sebastian's group run into some Black Sprial Dancers, one creating six arms to sprout out of Sebastian's back, ripping his black leather jacket. Yet, triumphing against this evil, they continue on. But in the mean time, they do a lot of bickering, as the Tradition mages fight over protocol. Finally, by the time they meet up with the others, the ghoul is dead. Sebastian goes through his pockets to look for anything useful, when Connor knocks him over, asking if he doesn't have any respect. Sebastian, a pragmatic, is confused; he asks if the Ghoul will really need anything any more. They both appeal to Rebecca, who says they should simply move on.

The bickering continues and finally Sebastian gets sick of it. Instead of involving himself in the Tradition mages' argument, he takes charge. Rebecca (the elder Brujah), Jesse (the Child of Gaia), the Fomori, and the Mummy, follow him. As they get down into the laboratories of their enemies, finally the Tradition mages realize that they need to move. Those up ahead came upon armies of creatures arrayed against them. Everyone is nervous, even the Tradition mages who had caught up finally. Everyone but Sebastian, that is. He could see with his spirit sense that they weren't real and ran right through them; the legions disappeared as everyone realized this.

Past these illusions, and row after row of cloning tanks, they find the final battle: Black Spiral Dancers, more monsters, and the arch-enemy: the Tzimice, Malevolous. The cabal fights, and wins, but Malevolous turns to escape. Even as his teammates rout the monstrosities, even Sebastian, using the extra limbs he is temporarily cursed with, can not catch the arch-fiend. The cabal is able to return to the clone tanks and destroy them, before Malevolous self-destructs the base. In this battle the Mummy and the Dreamspeaker fell (even today, none of those there realize that the Mummy will eventually [or perhaps already has] return to this world).

Still, they have to fight the demon who is behind all of the madness in his own umbral realm. The Virtual Adept knows how to get there. In this realm, the rules are different, but using the Virtual Adepts's powers, they find both the demon realm and Katrina. The Akashic, Connor, and Katrina's love for each other became the catalyst for their damaging the demon, while the combination of the Euthanatos, the Virtual Adept, and Sebastian, combining their own unique powers, finish it. Yet, because of their lack of cooperation, Katrina perishes, falling down a chasm created by the dissolution of the realm in the creature's final defeat. The cabal's only consolation is in rescuing an elder Celestial Chorus member, Evander, who had been the captive of the demon.

Later, gathered at the chantry and after short conversation, Rebecca, Jesse, and Anthony leave. The Virtual Adept, the Euthanatos, and Connor, decide to continue on a cross-country mission with Evander. At this time, Sebastian knows that he needs to leave this cabal, to think about what had happened, and why, and to find his own path.