PURGATORIO.

 —   ⟡   —

9:00 PM

Here is the thing about mutually assured destruction, there’s a seduction to being devoured by a ruin of your own design. 

FALLACIA presses a heart-shaped promise to her tongue, locking eyes with VINDICTA as she swallows the wonderland snare. EAT ME, it says, in sugar-coated pink. Only PERFIDIA dares to take a matching confectionary from her outstretched hand. INFAMIA gives a derisive shake of the head, bemused at the magnitude of their audacity, even now. VIOLENTIA watches her flit away, the trajectory of suspicion constricting as the Moons fall into orbit with each other.

“It’s what killed Hamlet. So potent it can poison you in a touch, seep through your skin.”

Do you feel it? The coiling in your gut, the stirring of trepidation lurking in the shadow of your breath. Is it the restlessness of antipathy, or a thing touch more fatal than mere foreboding? Is that a tremor in your pulse? A lure of sickness tickling at the base of your throat? Can you be entirely certain of the origin and handiwork of everything you have let past your lips in the last twenty-four hours? Perhaps even more. You’ve looked it up. Consumption of a devotion made from 10 to 16 milligrams of processed aconite root is fatal.

How lethal is a half drop swallowed quotidien over twenty-five days and counting?

INVIDIA shrugs, stepping forwards to accept his own illicit communion. VINDICTA’s hand shoots out before he can catch himself, hand fisting in INVIDIA’s shirt. Instinct. An urge, still, to protect. For his efforts, he receives a scathing dismissal, a look that could silence a guiltier man at execution. INVIDIA shakes him off and reaches for the pastille in FALLACIA’s hand.

Accusation hovers on INFAMIA’s lips, bracing himself to blow wide this diabolical conspiracy. 

And then, DESIDIA saunters from stage left, plucks one of FALLACIA’s pastel hearts, ADORE ME, and consumes it.

How romantic is that, mon cœur? It makes me want to poison him, and then myself.

As far as slow-acting poisons go, betrayal is the toxin that bequeaths lovers an infusion of little deaths.

—

DEUS dawns on Berlin, arterial and flooded with savage spectacle. Europe’s largest music festival, the pilgrimage of nearly a half million disciples around the world paying homage to hedonism in the city on sin. Hosted in De Untersagt, a valley of open expanses situated in the eastern fringes of the town, DEUS holds within its gates over a dozen stages and music scapes constructed from the ground up and dreamed in monstrous reverie. This year’s theme, SACRILEGE, paints the sky vermillion and the surrounding waters in oscillating shadow. An unholy consecration of blasphemy, leather and chains, bared flesh and depravity, congregating here in a second coming of Gomorrah. 

—

10:15 PM 

AZAZEL summons FALLACIA and PERFIDIA to the LOTUS stage, an amphitheatre blaring with smoke and high-octane neon, swallowed in spasmodic beams of blinding light. By the bar, AZAZEL presents FALLACIA with a tantalising, indecent proposition. He lays out his offer along a ruinous, serrated edge, a Faustian contract that cuts both ways no matter how you sink the knife. FALLACIA, in their crosshairs, cants her head as she eyes their hushed exchange from a distance.

“I’ve received word from our little ghost in the machine. I’m here to help speed things along.” AZAZEL leans in, hunger dancing in his eyes to see two people burn from the price of a single, abominable secret. Tell her the truth now, and I’ll give you the key to the only revelation that will save her. 

“Don’t,” he says, raising his voice so FALLACIA can hear, “And I’ll gladly watch as the others eat you both alive. In fact, I’ll even help them do it.” 

—

10:30 PM

In the GARDEN OF MADNESS, behemoth severed angel wings rise over the open, circular stage built over the water. The wings, scintillating in technicolour fire above the audience, frame the stage and shooting flames igniting with the electronic pulse and beat of the performing DJs. In the brief reprieve between sets as the stage falls dark, ACEDIA and SUPERBIA are recognised at the edge of the crowd. A shout of ACEDIA’s name, and a ripple of phones, recording, snapping candids and livestreaming to a live audience spanning thousands of watching eyes, hungry for shame and circus spectacle. 

It’s her — it’s Soundarya Sunar! Soundarya, over here!

PRODITIO slides in front of ACEDIA, hackles rising as the throng gathering around them closes in. The cries of the mob summon carrion-feeders, photographers and paparazzi scenting opportunity in the air, descending upon them. VANAGLORIA bares his teeth at one of the vultures surging in, hand flashing out to obscure their lens. 

Isn’t that Nazrin Atem-Sharif? 

Soundarya, look over here! Soundarya — 

Nazrin! Miss Sharif, did you have anything to do with your fiancé’s death? 

Miss Sunar — were you having an affair with him? Were you planning to take him for yourself?

Is it true you slept with De Cervantes before you killed him? Was it for the money? Did you — 

SUPERBIA, rising to her full, statuesque height, rounds on the wayward reporter, hand lifting as if prepared to strike. INVIDIA, fast on her heels, grits out a warning. Not here, not now. Don’t feed them exactly what they want. 

We know what you did to that girl, Hadrian! And to the child. Why did you kill them? 

INVIDIA’s vision goes blank. And then it bleeds violent red. 

—

11:00 PM 

tw: vomiting

At CASA CIELO, the heavens float upon vivid LED projections above the an open warehouse design. On one of the various first floor balconies suspended around the 5-ton holosphere where the DJ performs, VIOLENTIA shakes herself from the wave of distraction tugging them into oblivion. IRA ducks her head towards her, concern flickering across her face. VIOLENTIA’s mind races, resisting the simplest explanation. They’ve all been thinking it. Fingers pressing against pulse, mouth suddenly dry despite the abundance of water they’ve consumed. No amount of denial can assuage the prickling dread. 

VIOLENTIA stumbles, spilling forwards across their own feet. INFAMIA’s arm flies out, barely catching her from swaying over the perilous edge of the balcony. DESIDIA watches the colour drain her, torn between the urge to help and the awareness that the slightest attempt from them would be met with merciless contempt.

IRA’s eyes go dark beneath the feverish neon.

Seeing VIOLENTIA doubled over like this, a pallid deathlessness seeping across her features, sends an sickening lurch of déjà vu plummeting to the base of her stomach. She remembers it as clearly as any other sin committed in the dark, Julian hunched on the fringes of the party, crumbling under the weight of mortality stripped from him by ichor and poison.

History is a snake eating its own tail, devouring all that lies in its path. 

VIOLENTIA sways, locking eyes with INFAMIA, and then IRA with a grim curve of her mouth.

“How long do you think we have?”

—

10:15 PM 

The CAGE, the smallest of the enclosed stages, is an uncontested highlight of the festival. Rebuilt from razed earth by a hand-selected producer, the CAGE has been resurrected as an 19th-century neo-gothic church. Helical spires and steeple soar above the horizon, stained glass illuminated in pulsating, vivid light, facade bathed in an unearthly crimson. Inside the hollowed out church, an altar carves through the center of the crowd onto the stage as the ambulatories, embellished in oscillating neon, reflect LED hellfire on each screen. 

LILITH and AMADEO, are lying in wait at the back of the church when VINDICTA arrives. The investigation into Julian's death is far from over, and LILITH, masterful criminal litigator that she is, laid the bait to lure the prime suspects into a false sense of security. VINDICTA is granted with a choice: an immunity deal, contingent upon his full and absolute cooperation with DOMINGO. Ah, but there's a catch, of course. You see, this is less of a plea bargain and more of a hostage negotiation. Of the people they have approached with the contract, one has flipped and the other is in negotiations to fold.

Find one exploitable weak point, and the whole thing comes crashing down.

Who? VINDICTA demands. Who betrayed them?

INVIDIA? One or both of the twins? God forbid, IRA or INFAMIA?

LAZARUS lets a wry smile unfurl across his face. “Whoever you think they are, the moment they—or you—reveal you've dealt with us, you’ll paint a target on your back. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” 

LILITH, serene in the moment before triumph, the taste of victory close enough to savour, slinks forwards to bend and murmur in VINDICTA’s ear: “In case you needed any assurance for your silence — Mr. Kotecha sends his regards. He asked us to convey a message: he’s coming for everything you took from him, and he won’t stop until you watch all of it burn.”

—

11:30 PM

INVIDIA corners VINDICTA on the outskirts of the hollowed church, the surroundings illuminated in vivid red. A confrontation not meant for the ears of any other save for the only one who knows his sin by name. He reaches into his pocket and slides something out from his pocket, shoving it against VINDICTA’s chest. An employee ID card, attached to a torn lanyard, logo fraying at the seams. 

“How the fuck did a news outlet owned by her family find out?”

VINDICTA sways, knuckles going white with a lurch of nausea. 

“Enough.” IRA, rage tempered by urgency, snaps, steps into the scene with INFAMIA by her side, DESIDIA curled around a pallid VIOLENTIA. 

“We don’t have time for this, and you might not either.”

—

12:00 AM 

The centrepiece of the festival, the mainstage, is a leviathan that has grown and evolved from its debut to become the largest and most elaborate stage of any festival across the globe. Here, in the cynosure of debauchery and glorious vice, is where LUXURIA will perform in the hour before the headlining act. He plays his audience as a maestro would an orchestra, ramping up the delayed gratification with each minute crawling forth in feverish culmination. It is bachannalian and sybaritic, the abandoning of civilisation—the masks and shame swallowed to live and move through the world—at the altar of Dionysus. 

Smoke pours from the stage, the lights dimmed to a scarlet burn framing the stage like neon hellfire. Out of the darkness, LUXURIA rises on an elevated stage, suspended on wires invisible to the eye. Divine and divinely damned, a floodlight from the heavens above to reveal the stigmata painted on his palms, the crown of gilt thorns from the last temptation curling in his hair. An inversion of holiness, sheathed in leather and dazzling blasphemy. 

He raises his hands to the sky, the obscenity of the act moving through the crowd, compelled as a sea of worshipping acolytes bearing witness to the Second Coming.

The stage behind him flares, lights erupting as the tension hits culmination — 

And then — 

Darkness. A blackout snuffing lights, speakers, stage and enveloping the audience in complete nothingness. Confusion breaks out amongst the crowd, those suffocated in the nosebleed rows of the front consumed in heat and frenzy, begin to drown. Panic, searing and white-hot, seizes at the mind, the fight-or-flight need to get out, burning through any consciousness of the audience around them. A fist flies into someone’s face, the crunch of bone giving beneath brute force igniting kindling. Another goes down, crushed underfoot by the swelling rip tide of the crowd, the reverberations of a human stampede accelerating to catastrophe. 

The LED screen upon the stage goes white, a piercing crackling of technical interference screeching through the open air stage. 

The crowd shudders, hands surging to cover ears, winces rippling across sweat-streaked faces. 

Then, the video begins to play.

Like something out of a dream, woman rising from sea foam obscurity, AVARITIA appears on camera. Even recorded on a front-facing lens, she is resplendent. The shadows beneath her eyes amplified across possibly one of the largest screens to ever grace an audience 70,000 strong do nothing to diminish her arresting, striking beauty. 

She attempts a smile, wan and drawn. 

“Hi. It’s me, Carina.” So captivating in her innate charm. So helplessly commanding of one’s instinct to adore. 

There isn’t a soul that doesn’t know her name, her face, the vision of her splashed across magazines and ads, inundating every platform and media that worships at her stilettoed feet. A third of her audience of 40 million followers have tuned in to the stream, the blinking number in the corner of the Instagram live skyrocketing with every heartbeat that passes. 

“I’m here because… because I have something to confess. It’s been a long time coming.” 

Carina inhales, and if you could see her hands, they would be trembling, manicured nails digging red-raw into her skin. 

“I never… I never knew my mother. But from everything people tell me, she would have raised me to be kind. And courageous. So that’s what I’m doing.” Lourdes Evangelista, a Hollywood siren dead before her time, in the act of giving birth to a daughter that would go on to become one of the most recognised faces in the world. “My mother had a best friend who raised me like I was her own daughter. She was everything to me. She loved me like I was her own flesh and blood.”

And here, the tears brimming over her eyes, crystalline stars gathering in her lashes, begin to fall. “She was — the first person to ever love me, and I broke her heart. I slept with her husband, the love of her life, simply because — because I could. I — I didn’t mean to betray her. But it doesn’t matter what I meant to do, or what I felt or what I wanted. I ruined everything for her. Just like I do to everyone that I love.”

Her shoulders are shaking now, tremors wracking through her slender, delicate frame. 

“I did it to my own best friend. To Nazrin.” A startled, broken laugh, dazed and devastated, shatters against her lips. “I betrayed my own best friend. The media has it all wrong—it wasn’t Soundarya or Geneviève anyone else. I slept with Julian De Cervantes, I had the affair with him.”

She lifts her gaze to the camera, eyes locked with the speechless audience, compelled to silence. 

“But I didn’t kill him. My friends and I… we may not be guilty of murdering Julian De Cervantes. But the things we’ve done… the people we’ve hurt. Ruined. Killed.”

Seventy thousand pairs of eyes drawn in with the single, trembling inhale of a breath. 

“We might as well all be guilty.”

Carina’s eyes flicker from the camera lens to something just out of frame, a nanosecond movement belying the fear of one held at gun-point. She lifts something from her lap, eyes drawing downwards as she begins to read. 

“▇▇▇▇ — Perjury and falsifying of evidence that caused an innocent person to be arrested on charges of embezzlement.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Fraud and forgery of priceless art.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Extortion and blackmail against those working within the ranks of their own family business.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder, obstruction of justice to cover-up the contract killing of a law enforcement agent.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Second-degree murder and obstruction of justice, against their own family member.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Identity theft, fraud and obstruction of justice, a lifetime of concealing their identity unbeknownst to their family, and the public.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Violation of privacy, the illegal use of technology to commit data breaches and surveillance.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Multiple counts of identity theft, fraud and forgery.”

“▇▇▇▇ — Vehicular manslaughter, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to conceal their own crime.”

“▇▇▇▇ — First-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter, and conspiracy to commit the murder of a woman and their own unborn child.”

“▇▇▇▇ — First-degree murder, against their own blood.”

“For their crimes, the terrible acts they’ve committed —”

The loudspeakers explode with a cataclysmal scream, the video cuts out and the world descends once more into darkness. 

—

1:00 AM 

You awaken from oblivion, the sleep of tortured dreams wrapped around your throat, calamity-sweet. 

Your hands are warm, wet with fresh blood. 

Your mind drifts, struggling up through the torrents of cloud and smoke, clutching at air. You try to remember how you ended up here, what you were doing, who the blood on your hands belongs to you. 

Nothing.

The sin is the same. 

The sin is in doing nothing, feeling nothing, remembering nothing. 

—

1:15 AM

At the CAGE, in the abandoned husk of the church, profane ode to final impenitence that it is, the hour of judgement falls swift and violent. The condemned, the guilty, the damned, they tear into each other with stunning, cataclysmic ease. Forsaken by god and the devil, they are left with nothing and no one but to blame but themselves. A profoundly godless thing, under the auspices of sacrilegious ground, knowing what they do of each other, and reckon with their own unforgivable sins.  INFAMIA and IRA, the dual blades of justice and vengeance, advance on the twins. 

“What did you do them? What did you give them?”

INVIDIA chokes out a laugh, disgust and contempt for a friend he’d once considered worthy of loyalty belying disbelief. 

“They’re not going to tell us shit. Why would they?”

“Tying up loose ends.” VIOLENTIA scours FALLACIA’s face for any sign of movement, any feint at contrition. “That’s what this, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t poison you, darling.” FALLACIA smirks, insolent to the every end. “What would be the point? We both know you never had the gall to kill Julian. You weren’t even a contender.”

“They’re lying.” VANAGLORIA observes. “One of you managed to let slip something they weren’t supposed to know.”

PRODITIO’s eyes dart to INFAMIA, and then VINDICTA. There’s only one thing, of course, that could have catalysed this act of retribution.

“And you,” PRODITIO says. “Extremely convenient for you to escape the guillotine by pinning it all on them, isn’t it.”

“Your agreement with Allegra. Your casual accusations against myself and Bellamy. Your avoidance of any questions about Dante.” INFAMIA lists, turning towards VANAGLORIA. “What have you been lying about, Hector?”

In a moment of miscalculation, VANAGLORIA hesitates. From behind, at the precise bearing where an assassin’s blade would meet its mark, AZAZEL steps out onto the rostrum. 

“Will you tell them, or shall I, beloved?”

VANAGLORIA tilts his head back to the ceiling, as if in invocation of a higher power. 

“Murder, extortion, fraud and identity theft. If there’s a place reserved for me in hell, it’s right beside all of you.”

Here, lit by revelation and the sins they’ve concealed beyond their covenant of blood, they look upon each other in dawning understanding. What made their undertaking to destroy Caesar all the more unforgivable was not that they had done it to save each other, but to protect their own mortality. 

Before anyone else can take the stand to cast judgement, an unholy collision shatters through the church, echoing to the rafters and vaulted ceiling. The crucifix at the pinnacle of the altar crashes into the ground, cypress and gilded bronze splintering into dismembered fragments, a head severed from the body, the cross broken in uneven trinity. Underneath the sanctuary, upon the raised platform of the ciborium, an apparition rises in transcendent flesh and bone.

It is FEROCITAS.

A resurrection. Not from death, but from purgatory itself. Deus ex machina. 

“Are you done fighting over which sinner deserves judgement more?” Blazing fury ignites the pyre at her feet, dark curls wreathing her face in wild flames. Her voice rings out, echoing from the predella dais, a requiem of savage castigation. “Save the hypocrisy for later. We’ve got someone here who needs more than just prayers.”

She turns. From the altar to the passageway leading to the annex, they follow her through the church to the entrance of the sacristy. At the door, she pauses, her hand rising to knock a deliberate, syncopated beat against the wood. Some coded, secret warning for safe passage. She pushes open the door handle.

There, inside, knees pressed to the floor in genuflection, smeared in blood like a lamb that fought against the slaughterhouse knife, is DESIDIA.

—   ⟡   —

OOC: EXODUS.

GAMEPLAY.

Threads between individual characters and smaller groups can take place as usual in the ACT 2, SCENE 4 channel. 

The whole group thread that explores the direct aftermath of the characters discovering DESIDIA will be posted there as well, with cues for interactive gameplay and writing.

EXODUS.

The censored names in AVARITIA’s video are not censored in-game in real-time. The next plot drop will reveal which characters were named and exposed, with the rest being cut by audio and static interference.

I. MOTIVE:  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the madmen, the martyrs, the artists, the obscene, the saints, the monsters all die for: obsession. Immolation is the worst way to go, but at least when your body's ablaze you're promised the imminent mercy of death; When it's the mind that's set alight, you maintain that sick agony indefinitely by burning yourself for fuel. That's what obsession boils down to— A vicious excess of energy turned inwards, autocannibalism, bitten with teeth and licked with flames.

Sutton Detlie, ever insatiable, never stood a chance against the violence of her own appetite.

We'll begin with the obvious: The whole world knows who Sutton is. We know she’s no stranger to violence, to impulse, to the shirking of consequence. Who could forget that time she, high on a cocktail of drugs one shudders to think of, put her Rolls Royce through the front of a Monegasque boutique, then proceeded to get out and browse until the police arrived? Who can forget the startling ease with which she alluded subsequent charges? There’s not a world out there where a jury wouldn't believe she could have crashed Julian's skull in as mindlessly as she did her car through that shop window. No doubt the press is already eating up any mention of her as a glamorous killer, capitalizing on the fascination with the glitteringly macabre, like the scintillating image of the femme fatale dolled up in warm red lipstick and cold blue blood. Our thespian must know murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke, and is it not lust that predicates her fame? The people's lust for her and her lust for them, one and the same.

As we move onto her defence, we again find grievous fault: there’s only so much her wildness can account for in this case. Despite the defendant’s claims of always operating on the whims of impulse, there’s a distinct method to some of her madness— Especially in the way she’s spent the aftermath of Julian’s death oscillating between the locations of each member of this macabre clique. At most, she’s spent a few months without trailing into the same city as a compatriot, swanning around a constellation of clubs and galas prime for the purpose of  ‘bumping into’ a former friend. Not even years later can they be spared the consequence of her rampant obsession.

Once more we return to the crux of the matter: Obsession. The fervent promise of inchoate chaos. Sutton never relinquished her bitten-nail grasp on her comrades. Though anything so incriminating as a suggestion had been meticulously wiped [REDACTED], we have witness testimony to the frequency of her access to not only [REDACTED], but to those of the posthumous prince himself. [REDACTED] with more care and devotion than one would imagine this near-feral woman capable of. 

It comes down to this— Sutton is immoral, addictive, and unstable. The lengths to which she goes to keep these comrades within her grasp is so extreme that something as commonplace as murder (no doubt with the expectation that the dead cannot abandon us and cannot escape the infernal closeness imposed upon them, victims tethered permanently to their killers by that golden thread of heinous violence) seems comparatively tame. After all, here she is, half a decade later, reunited with all those she refused to let go of, both living and dead. Here she is, with all of them yet to escape her. Here she is, stained to the marrow with guilt.

I rest my case.

II. MENS REA:  Though she's always considered herself the protagonist of every story, it’s a postlapsarian conceit Sutton’s picked up to cast their cabal of conspirators as victims while relegating Julian to the role of the devil. It certainly wasn’t how she saw things before that fateful, pitch-choked night, and it certainly wasn’t how Julian must have seen the situation before his demise. Puppet-master that he was, he wasn’t immune to falling into the machinations of others. Cruel as he was, he wasn’t infallibly the perpetrator. 

He once, in a text Sutton was never supposed to see, described her eyes as beady, unsettling, too watchful. He called her a viper, said if she bit her own tongue she'd die. And once, he openly addressed not just the recipient of his message, but also Sutton, knowing full well she had swapped her role from cynosure to audience.

Even if he delighted in watching his friends twitch to his tune in agony, like frogs forced by electricity to dance, Julian loved them. After all, what had they ever done to him? Why should he care about their concealing of corporate espionage, fraud, murder cases, what have you? It’s Sutton who wronged him personally by prying, and so it was Sutton he no longer wanted orbiting him uneasily like the others; Instead, he sought to cast out the starlet from his gravity entirely when the time was right, as God did the wisdom-tainted Eve from Eden. Not only that, but to ensure she’d never learn so much as a banal, irrelevant detail about him ever again, nor any of the others in his fold. And Sutton couldn’t have that, now could she? She loved him, loved them all, too much. She could willingly suffer any humiliation of his, but she could not and would not tolerate having their attention torn from her greedy chokehold. 

Even a brilliant mind follows a thread that strings together logical leaps, a trail that tethers them irrevocably to their plans— Sutton’s played enough Christie characters to know. Instead, she waits for the whim to overtake her, a glowing bolt of providence to strike, whatever form it may take. Maybe Julian pauses for a moment too long at the top of a staircase, just long enough to be shoved, or perhaps he winds up alone too close to the Toledo steel swords displayed on the walls, or maybe he, in a misguided moment, asks Sutton to share her drugs, to which she responds with too much generosity: all that matters is that the moment be A. non-routine, and therefore unplannable, and B. orchestrated completely of his own volition. No concealment, just letting the chips fall as they may, trusting fate’s indifference to carry her through. 

—   ⟡   —

OBJECTIVE 01 : EXODUS.

PRODITIO.  INFAMIA.  VIOLENTIA.  VINDICTA.

IT LINGERS ON THE TONGUE, INSIDIOUS AND SLOW, AMOST LIKE POISON.

It begins with an insignificant detail. A tell. 

The infinitesimal flicker between candour and deception. Truth diverging from all the myriad realities that spill forth from stained lips and blood-bruised knuckles. Even in those handful of seconds when gravity bowed under the pressure of a 6-foot-one soon-to-be cadaver, 170 pounds of sinew and ligament and arteries suffused with Macallan 1926 and a panoply of prescription pills and hallucinogenics — it was the fissure of heartbeats between dead and alive that killed him.

The touch of mortality curling around his bare ankle, garotte tightening across his throat, as he drowned. Coup de grâce: a drop of pure aconitine. 

You see, the night that Julian De Cervantes died his cardiovascular system was so inundated with a melange of liquor, narcotics and amphetamines that he could not drag himself to shore. Succumbing, instead, to the still, fathomless depths of a pool he had dived ad nauseam, a pool he had swum laps in every morning that he had stayed at Castilo de Cervantes.

The body first witnessed by INVIDIA, FALLACIA and ACEDIA was not a body that had drowned, but one that had been poisoned. 

One could argue that the kiss of death had been sealed with venomous conviction. 

The hand of fate, the touch of god, manoeuvred into place by the meticulous orchestrations and design of mortals. Something was rotten in the heart of Verdamme, and the rot has persisted, corroded, eating its way into the hearts of those bound by terrible providence.

PRODITIO gathers the threads in her hands, interconnections tied by finger and thumb, and she pulls.

—

LOCATION & TIME: UNDISCLOSED, UP TO DISCRETION OF PLAYERS.

“Isn’t it strange — coincidental, even — that as the noose tightens around our assassin, the investigation is all but dropped?” 

INFAMIA, unequivocal: “We don’t deal in coincidences, and neither do you, Amirah. The time to play coy has come and gone, speak plainly.”

“If only because you three are the only ones who I can be certain won’t be hanging for this crime.” The look on PRODITIO’s face remains light-hearted, innocuous. There is no doubt of her ability to adapt, evolve, should this ever prove otherwise. 

“Your faith in us is as as touching as always.” VIOLENTIA smirks, red lips curving with a hint of unbidden fondness.

VINDICTA: “There are no assurances that the Detective isn’t merely feeding us false information with LILITH as his mouthpiece. We know Julian was murdered, we we know how he was murdered. The one remaining question is who.”

PRODITIO lingers in the beat of apprehension that follows, lashes half-shaded across a glint of something predatory. A scent of blood. “Then, boys and girls, it’s time we catch ourselves a killer.”

It is a bleak and hazardous quest to hunt for a murderer amongst your own friends and former classmates. Not for the faint of heart, or those easily deceived by feints of misdirection. Step one: Assemble your evidence. Step two: Identify your suspects. Step three: Confront the murderer. Peculiar, is it not, to be on the other end of an investigation into a sin you were all almost guilty of committing. Nonetheless, the truth remains that one of you is lying. One of you took the fate of your god into their hands and dealt the finishing blow that stripped him of immortality. One of you plunged the last dagger into his heart and allowed the rest of you to risk damnation for it. It’s high time they paid the price. 

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄:

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎, 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐀, 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐀 & 𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐀 — As a group, come to a decision amongst the group about who you think is guilty of poisoning Julian on the night of his murder. 

Choose the right person, or people, and confront them with the evidence of Julian’s poisoning.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒

You can confront more than one person. How you choose to confront them, and who is involved in the confrontation, is entirely up to you.

A HINT: “Beyond academia and esoterica, they were artists, authors, poets, thespians, dancers. Alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements: pride and envy and greed. / They reveal themselves not to the world watching, but to the silent observer, blinking, whirring, red and waiting.”

—   ⟡   —

OBJECTIVE 02 : EXODUS.

SUPERBIA.  ACEDIA.  LAZARUS.  VANAGLORIA.

WHAT SEPARATES THE WOLF FROM THE SHEEP IS NOT A MATTER OF GOOD AND EVIL. WE ALL HAVE TEETH—BUT ONLY SOME OF US ARE WILLING TO USE THEM.

FRIDAY, 9 JULY 2021  ⬩  12:40PM  ⬩  VILLA DEL MAR.

In the aftermath of salvation, the fallen queen rises from her makeshift dais to greet her usurper. The shaft of light from the heavens above reveals a path to freedom for our wayward conspirators, but the game within games within machinations is far from over. SUPERBIA, the object of her obsession, the fixed constant of loathing and revulsion that sent her spiralling into oblivion. What would you do, if you had no god to fear recrimination from? What wouldn’t you do. What wouldn’t you destroy to reclaim everything that was once rightfully yours. 

After the rest have departed in a flurry of relief and exhilaration to prepare for their flight in the afternoon, LILITH beckons SUPERBIA for a private aside. 

“Playing the angel has never suited you. I, for one, don’t believe any of it.” Without the rest there to temper her, SUPERBIA’s striking face twists into a mask of calculated abhorrence. Her own guilt, perhaps, twisting in her throat with the taste of venom. 

LILITH, serene and implacable in both triumph and defeat: “We both have better uses of our time to spend them retracing the same old, tired habits so I’ll keep this brief.”

She comes bearing a message. Revelation: The vesting period on Julian De Cervantes’ family trust is coming to an end. On 15th July 2021, ten years after the De Cervantes Trust was established in the name of the heir to the De Cervantes empire, the trust and all its assets and holdings will be released to the beneficiary. 

Here was a legal challenge for one of Verdamme’s brightest minds before her fall from grace: what happens to the discretionary trust of a family with a net worth of $178 billion when its sole heir and successor dies? 

SUPERBIA, in her glorious, blazing ascent to the top of an empire that she would have ruled at Julian’s side, bet against god himself with the incendiary hubris and fatal daring of a tried and true conqueror. The merger between the Sharif Group, one of the world’s largest luxury hotel chains, and Revirem, the multinational investment arm of the De Cervantes’ corporate interests, was successfully signed four months after Julian’s death. In a note of pyrrhic irony, the date of completion would have been the same day of the wedding of Julian De Cervantes and Nazrin Atem-Sharif. If he had lived, of course. 

In their conspiracy to slay their unholy tyrant, SUPERBIA enters into a gambit of wealth and dominion with VANAGLORIA. Their family conglomerates, perfectly aligned with a common goal, entered into an arrangement. With SUPERBIA at the helm as king and fearless leader, VANAGLORIA became the architect of their mutual ambition. Shedding their skins as acolytes bending to a dictator’s will, they built their own version of paradise — better, stronger, more spectacular and divine than they could have ever dared imagine under the rule of tyranny. Fat cats and chief investors from the largest global investment funds eating out of their hands, billionaires and tycoons wining and dining them from here to Babylon. They were untouchable. Invincible. Godhood in the form of a $80 billion deal to build 1,000 hotels and resorts around the world over the next four decades. A lifetime of immortality in the making. 

“The date has been set for the settling of the De Cervantes trust. In a week’s time, the beneficiary, or beneficiaries, with gather to revisit Julian’s last will and testament. Naturally, you would have assumed that your attendance would be required.” LILITH pauses, soaking in her apprehension, her fear, the flicker of doubt already corroding through her veins. 

“On behalf of the De Cervantes family, I regret to inform you that your presence will no longer be required.” 

To see SUPERBIA’s face play out before her eyes, on a loop, cycling through time and history, LILITH would have surrendered her kingdom all over again. 

The guise drops, regality and supremacy excised in a supernova of rage. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I promised you that one day I would make you beg.

“In our discovery of new information pertaining to Julian’s will, it appears you are no longer in the running, so to speak, to inherit his fortune. We have reason to believe he appointed another beneficiary. One that is not you.” You, the woman who overthrew him and conspired to kill him, who walked across his grave to claim his throne and empire. You, the woman who will pay a thousand-fold for taking all that was mine from me. 

I should thank you, Nazrin, for giving me this chance to repay you for everything you did to me.

“How did this happen? Who —”

“I’m afraid that’s all I can say for now. As you are no longer under the purview of the De Cervantes family office, the rest is confidential information. Attorney-client privilege.”

When everyone that once loved and worshipped at your feet has abandoned you, too, what will you beg for?

—

LAZARUS slips from the shadow cast by the elaborate Andalusion exterior of the Villa Del Mar, falling into seamless step beside LILITH as she heads to her car. “That was awfully restrained of you. I’m almost impressed.”

“Oh, but the best is yet to come.” LILITH turns her face to the skies, the midday sun blazing above, and for the first time in years, she feels the warmth spread through every inch of her soul. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

“You’ve set things into motion with the other two?”

“Yes. They’ll find their own little surprises waiting for them in Babylon.”

LAZARUS glances across at LILITH, an imperceptible slant of something in his eyes that reminds her of another face, another time. “First round is on me then.”

—

9:00PM  ⬩  HOTEL BABYLON : RUBICON SUITE.

An emergency meeting between the former Riot Club brings to light a crumbling alliance. SUPERBIA, brimming with barely-restrained rage and indignation. AVARITIA, listless and drawn, pale as moonlight beside the burning sun flare of her better half’s wrath. LUXURIA, gone with whim and wind, hurtling into premature debauchery at the altar of his only worship. VANAGLORIA, unusually silent, mouth pressed in a thin line as a thousand questions and lines of interrogation battle for his focus. ACEDIA, hesitant and watchful, eyes wide open as she watches her most beloved friends bleeding out at the hands of their own fatal flaws.

“She’s fucking with us. She has to be. In what world would Domingo suddenly drop the investigation into us?”

VANAGLORIA: “They’re buying time. Lulling us into a false sense of security to get us to drop our guard.” 

ACEDIA bites her lip, gaze flickering between the volley of rapid conjecture. 

“She’s toying with us.” A muscle pulls taut in SUPERBIA’s jaw. “We can’t take this lying down — I am not going to let her ruin everything. Not after all I’ve — all we have done to preserve this.” 

For those listening carefully, it would appear the king is no longer talking about merely a conspiracy sworn under the covenant of sin. ACEDIA’s brow furrows, and she opens her mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by the shrill ringing of the door bell.

SUPERBIA’s head whips to the door. AVARITIA, closest to the entrance, moves to open it. A hotel attendant stands outside with a trolley covered in pristine white cloth. On top, a a silver domed cloche. They enter, apologising for the interruption.  

SUPERBIA frowns. “We didn’t order room service.”

“Entschuldigen Sie.” The attendant comes to a stop at the center of the room, five pairs of bewildered eyes fixed on the domed plate. A white gloved hand reaches for the the handle of the dome —

ACEDIA’s breath dies in her throat.

On the uncovered dish lies a small package and a folded note, a single line written on it:

To my only regret.

–

The group of you were entwined before time and treachery eroded the bonds of loyalty that spun you in orbit around your tyrant king. You were the first and last to sever the ties to Caesar’s humanity and condemn him to execution. What was left when all was said and damned? A consortium of infants terribles so far beyond the point of reproach, you couldn’t see what you had become before it was too late? Or a gathering of broken, haunted souls, irreparably damaged by what you had done and doomed to languish in a perdition of your own making. There is a choice to be made: endure, or perish. Move forward into the relentless unknown, or be destroyed by your past.

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄:

𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐀 & 𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀 — Discover who is behind the change to Julian’s last will and testament.

OOC: This can be done by interacting with those in the group, particularly LILITH, LAZARUS and AZAZEL, OR by interacting with the locations in the hotel.

𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐀: Open the package and the note, and find out who is behind the gift you have received.

You can choose to reveal to the RIOT CLUB what is contained within the note, or seek out others to unravel the mystery behind the gift and the note.

Behind the grand architecture of destruction, there is method to the madness. While the conspirators behind the demise of Julian De Cervantes are chasing their own tails, you are playing a more malignant game. Remember: the greater the risk, the greater the ultimate triumph over those who would ruin you. Domingo has extended an open hand, and you will take your common ends to justify the means. A false lifeline in the form of carte blanche self-preservation. Bring him a cooperative eyewitness who will expose the group, and he will open the gates of the investigation to you. Break the weak link, and the rest will come tumbling down.

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄:

𝐋𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐔𝐒 & 𝐋𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐇 — Identify your weak links and choose a maximum of TWO people to offer the immunity deal to. The basis of the immunity deal requires the person to act as a cooperating witness for the murder investigation, they must confess their role in what happened to Julian.

Prevent the immunity deal from leaking to the group, by any means necessary. 

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒

Share your information with AZAZEL to pool your resources and discover what he knows about the suspects amongst the group.

You can embellish and adapt the details of the immunity deal to suit whichever person you choose, in whatever manner you like. 

If anyone in the group that is not offered the immunity deal finds out about its existence, this will result in an automatic LOSS. Be sure you have the means and methods to keep your witness silent.

—   ⟡   —

OBJECTIVE 03 : COUP DE GRÂCE.

IRA.  FALLACIA.  AZAZEL.  PERFIDIA.

YOU SLICED ME LOOSE AND SAID IT WAS CREATION. I COULD FEEL THE KNIFE. NOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO HEAL THAT CHASM IN YOUR SIDE, BUT I RECEDE. I PROWEL. I WILL NOT COME WHEN YOU CALL.

FRIDAY, 9 JULY 2021  ⬩  12:00PM  ⬩  PRIVATE VILLA.

In the time that you have descended back into the realms of your former playground kingdom, the world has not stopped spinning. The cocoon of surreality, layered in warped sentimentality and echoes of the past, taunts at the senses. Turns days and weeks into a year and then another, rippling backwards and forwards through the patterns and recurrences of time. None of you are the people you were before you stepped across the threshold of Castilo De Cervantes. You aren’t even the same people that conspired to kill a man under the guise of justice and necessary survival.

“This is a rather spacious villa for only two people, isn’t it?”

IRA, hostility incarnate, gazes across the lounge room to where AZAZEL is sprawled in a seat opposite her, and considers the risks of disposing another body in the midst of a murder investigation.

“Ah, right. There used to be three of you. What happened to Detlie?” AZAZEL cocks his head, a con artist’s charisma obscuring the levelling of steel perception. “Scared off by the big, bad ghost of Julian past, was she? Or was it you that ran her off?”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t know about, Killesso. Lest you want to risk losing your tongue.”

“You say that like threatening bodily harm isn’t what passes for flirtation around here.”

“And what the hell is she doing here?” 

FALLACIA blinks at her, slow and guileless, mouth curved canary sweet. “Apparently Azkari has something he has to say to the both of us.”

“You’re going to want to strap in for this one, sweetheart.”

AZAZEL weaves a story: Once upon a time, there was a girl with a father who loved her and a family that hated her for existing. Or: a girl whose father hated her and a family that loved her more than anything. How does that old nursery rhyme go? Two went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water. One fell down, and broke their crown. They fell into an endless slumber, and the other came tumbling after. You know how the rest of the story goes.

IRA, so breathless with rage she feels she could choke on it: “Spit it out.”

“As the enterprising investigative journalist I am, I’ve recently come across a number of very interesting leads. Two in particular.”

FALLACIA remains silent, unwilling to rise to the bait unlike her counterpart.

“Someone — and I won’t name names, got to protect my witnesses, you understand—” AZAZEL flicks IRA a knowing look. Some names do not need to be said to wield power. “—thinks that you might have something to do with what happened to your sister.”

“And as for you.” AZAZEL tilts his chins towards FALLACIA. “Your brother will be none too pleased by what my sources have to say about what you’ve been doing behind daddy’s back. To put it lightly.”

The first crack in the armour: FALLACIA’s gaze hardens into flint. 

“Now, for the fun part.” A grin rises to AZAZEL’s face, bright and feral, full of bared teeth. “I could go down the route of killing two little birds with one stone. But that would be ever so mundane, and my beloved readers deserve nothing but the best.” 

He offers them a choice: the first person to spill the other person’s secret to him will be saved.

“Ah, but wait, there’s more! If you’d prefer to save your own soul by sacrificing another, I’ll take any secret you can give me. Everyone here is free game, after all. I hear our dearly departed Caesar used to make quite a killing out of blackmailing you for loyalty.” 

AZAZEL’s finger hovers over the button of mutually assured destruction, a single press will trigger both articles to be published tomorrow, first story hot of the press of the 24-hour news cycle. But you should know better than anyone, scandal lives forever. It is the only thing that never dies in the eyes of the media, the millions of eyes around the world feasting upon ruin and disaster every minute and second of the day.

“You have 48 hours to bring me someone’s head, or it’s the guillotine for both of you.” AZAZEL straightens to his feet, brushing his hands of the cataclysm he has dropped ever so carelessly in their laps. 

“To the victor go the spoils.”

—

10:00PM  ⬩  HOTEL BABYLON : FLOOR XXII, PARTHENON SUITE.

What do you do when you are faced with the possibility of complete annihilation? Well, if you’re FALLACIA, you do what you have always done. You lie. You spin a truth so compelling that even the Devil himself would want to believe it. FALLACIA fabricates a tale from her carefully stitched simulacrum of reality for an audience of one. PERFIDIA.

AZAZEL, she says, is colluding with IRA to ruin them. A targeted media blast against their family and corporate dynasty. In 48 hours, they could stand to lose everything — one single mistake and their father will exile them from the kingdom they have reigned with careless abandon. FALLACIA looks her brother in the eye and does what she must for their mutual survival. That is a lie she saves for herself.

“You have to find out what she’s hiding. You’re the only one she would ever reveal it to.” FALLACIA allows a sliver of vulnerability to cut through her dark eyes, a bearing of soul to the only person in her life who sees her for what she is. One last, little lie, to keep them safe.

She speaks it in their mother tongue, a hushed oath: 

“Please, Soohyuk. For me. For us.” 

—

11:00PM  ⬩  HOTEL BABYLON : GROUND FLOOR, BAR LIBERALIA.

They meet at their old, familiar haunt in Hotel Babylon, the bar where they revelled and drank, vascillating between provocation and hunger. Always just out of reach, circling each other like panthers fresh from the kill. PERFIDIA smiles as IRA slides into the seat at the empty bar beside him, an expression none but her have ever seen strike both shadow and light across his face in such a way.

“What are you thinking about?” PERFIDIA asks, head canting towards her. “You always have this look on your face when you’re planning something.”

IRA counters: “I could say the same for you.” 

“Is it a scheme? If so, you know I’m always here to lend a hand.” You can trust me.

“That depends.” Can I?

“Whatever you want, ask it.” 

At the brink of annihilation, standing at the very abyss, IRA weighs her options as PERFIDIA watches, waiting for her to reach for his hand, or the knife clasped behind his back.

—

Folie à trois. What is madness if not repeating the same thing over and over, expecting a different result? You have always been on diametrically opposed ends of a battlefield, waging war for the slightest chance at victory. Now, however, apocalypse hands in the balance. You could destroy your enemy in one fell swoop, or cast another into the abyss to save yourself. What you stand to win is nothing in comparison to what you stand to lose. Lie, cheat, deceive, and you might just escape to sin another day.

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄:

𝐈𝐑𝐀 & 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐀 — Find out either the other person’s secret or the secret of another person in the group, via each other or any of the other people in the group.

OOC: The 48 hours of AZAZEL’s ultimatum extends beyond the current plot drop, as long as your character hears the other person’s secret for themselves, this will count as a WIN.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐀 — Discover the truth behind AZAZEL’s ultimatum, from either FALLACIA, IRA or AZAZEL himself.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒

You can interact with AZAZEL to discover more about the other person’s secrets — expect to sacrifice something of equal value in exchange.

You may want to consider finding out what secrets HOTEL BABYLON is hiding. 

—   ⟡   —

OBJECTIVE 04 : OBLIVION.

DESIDIA.  INVIDIA.  AZAZEL.  LAZARUS.

9:00PM  ⬩  HOTEL BABYLON : GROUND FLOOR, BAR LIBERALIA.

After the fall comes freedom — or merely anaesthesia to soothe an open wound. Since his confession spurred by FEROCITAS’ catch-22, INVIDIA has persisently avoided VINDICTA. Evading his gaze, deflecting any subtle attempt to gauge his mood or state of mind. Truth be told, he can no longer tell if it’s him avoiding VINDICTA or the other way around. In the hours after he had revealed what he had done, all he had felt was hollow. Gutted. A numbing sensation ringing from within his bones, drowning out any hope for catharsis or release. 

Behind the empty bar, INVIDIA pours himself another glass to nurse alongside his ghosts. DESIDIA approaches, less than a spectre and more akin to a shadow haunting a stage. The echo of an off-stage death carved out in skin and flesh. 

“I know why I feel like death warmed up,” INVIDIA says, pouring his new companion a glass of water in a stroke of kindness. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s nothing.” DESIDIA drifts, so bloodless and pallid that they seem to float across the ground to the bar, drawn like moth to hungry flame rather than any conscious movement. 

INVIDIA cocks a brow. “Is that so? Sounds about bloody right. Nothing is wrong, everything’s fine and we’re all mad here.”

DESIDIA shakes their head, drained of energy but insistent. “You wouldn’t understand.”

INVIDIA, expression laced with pity, with sympathy, and beneath it all, a dauntless flicker of abandon. “Try me then.”

The thespian says nothing as he takes his phone out of his pocket, finger sliding languidly across the screen. He pushes the phone across the bar counter towards INVIDIA.

What he sees sends his stomach plummeting through zero gravity.

Dozens of messages, the last timestamped from merely an hour ago. 

𝗦𝗨𝗧𝗧𝗢𝗡 > 𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗠𝗬, 𝟳:𝟰𝟴𝗣𝗠. 𝗬𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁, 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂?

𝗦𝗨𝗧𝗧𝗢𝗡 > 𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗠𝗬, 𝟳:𝟰𝟴𝗣𝗠. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗺.

“Why the long faces? Aren’t we meant to be celebrating all of you being exonerated of a murder?”

LAZARUS steps into the bar, an uncanny expression on his face balanced between amusement and macabre levity. AZAZEL saunters in behind him, unspooling himself into the seat beside DESIDIA and propping his chin upon his open hand. 

“What’s the matter, darling? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“This entire fucking hotel is cursed if you ask me, wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was full of ghosts.” INVIDIA drawls, filling another two glasses out of habit more than intent. 

LAZARUS drops down into the other seat, a subtle, conscious movement that boxes DESIDIA in. Across from them, INVIDIA watches with narrowed eyes.

“Whatever you’re… dealing with, perhaps Azkari and I could be of service.” LAZARUS offers, sanguine and potentially even sincere. 

“That’s awfully generous of you. But why —” INVIDIA tosses back half his glass in a single flick of his wrist, “— the hell would we trust either of you?”

LAZARUS falls quiet as he seems to weigh INVIDIA’s demand, feather of truth against a fistful of raw, bloodied heart.

“If the two of you truly had nothing to do with Julian’s murder, then I’d say, you have nothing to fear.” Their fingers drum against the surface of the bar, pulse-like. “Not from the law. Not from god.”

Only from me.

“Besides,” AZAZEL says, low and smooth as sin, “We couldn’t be any less trustworthy than the so-called friends who offed dear old Caesar and let you take the blame for it.” A facsimile of a shudder, a ripple of satin and vice. 

“If that were me, I’d be wondering which of us is going to wind up with a knife through the back next.”

Though you have taken center stage and the role of cynosure in moments of grand spectacle or shameless hedonism, neither of you have ever led the charge for the group’s more machiavellian pursuits. Your hands may not be pristine, scrubbed clean of blood and sin, but in the conspiracy of Julian’s death, you are above reproach. You have seen the way your friends disappear from rooms, heads tilted towards each other, silent glasses and unspoken pacts. What you know is this: you, the guilty by association, do not deserve to hang for anyone else’s crimes but your own. 

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄:

𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐀 & 𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐀 — Between the two of you, decide whether or not you will reveal Sutton has been messaging the both of you to LAZARUS and AZAZEL. Any other information you choose to share with them is entirely up to you, you may reveal as much or as little as you want in order to get their assistance.

—   ⟡   —

12:00PM  ⬩  DAY 25.

𝐈𝐍𝐓.  𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀 𝐃𝐄𝐋 𝐌𝐀𝐑.

LILITH, the vision of an archangel sent from on high, stands before them. She smiles, magnanimous as she grants them deliverance.

“Domingo has asked me to inform you all that the authorities are taking the investigation in another direction. He wanted to express his gratitude to those who were particularly cooperative in sharing key details about the incident.” Her gaze settles momentarily on VANAGLORIA, a glimmer of dangerous premonition poised in the split-second levelling of their eyes. 

“Another direction?” INFAMIA, the only one as well-versed as her in the language of criminal prosecution, counters. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that information. You should know the rules as well as I, Mr Levesque.”

“Why question it?” PERFIDIA shrugs, a pragmatist by trade. The only laws any of them need answer to are those that they can bend to their will. “The detective knows how to reach us if he has any further questions. We’re all desperate to ensure the murderer of beloved friend is brought to justice and condemned.”

IRA’s focus, blinkered and unwavering, remains fixed on the target. “We’re free to leave then? Just like that?”

“We’re key eyewitnesses to the incident and he’s letting us go with no other explanation?” VINDICTA says, steel in his composure despite the cool detachment of his line of questioning. 

“Now, now, let’s not overlook the gift horse so generously bestowed upon us. This is a fortuitous turn of events.” LUXURIA stands, palms outstretched with a flourish, the air of a prophet preaching to the masses. “Exonerated of our alleged crimes, liberated just in time for a sojourn into the city of sin.”

His attention flicks to LILITH, a morningstar smile illuminaitng his face. “And you, of course, harbinger of our salvation, are more than welcome to tag along.”

“How gracious of you, Dante. I may only be keeping the seat warm for your missing passenger but I gladly accept the invitation.”

A ripple of shock ricochets through the group, heat-seeking and precise as a bullseye. 

What does she know? What has she done? What, exactly, was the fearless, indomitable FEROCITAS so afraid of that she would rather run than face destruction?

“Excellent. Then it’s settled.” LUXURIA, still poised with a circus ringleader’s unflinching sangfroid. “Our jet leaves at three. We’ll see you on the runway.”

—   ⟡   —

𝗦𝗨𝗧𝗧𝗢𝗡  >  𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗣 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗧, 𝟮:𝟱𝟵𝗣𝗠.

𝖧𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝖺 𝗌𝖺𝖿𝖾 𝖿𝗅𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍, 𝖽𝖺𝗋𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌. - 𝖲. 𝖷

—   ⟡   —

6:00PM  ⬩  DAY 25.

𝐄𝐗𝐓. 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓, 𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍.

Upon touching down, the whirlwind of exhilaration and disbelief at your newfound freedom settles into the veins as adrenaline. There’s a restlessness laced through the air, the tension of antebellum skies before thunderstorm strung with premonition. LUXURIA takes his bow on the tarmac, pressing a card into SUPERBIA’s hand.

“This is where I take my leave, children. Rehearsals and preparations for the show, you know how it is.” His mouth curls conspiratorially at DESIDIA before flashing them all a wolfish smile. “The next time I see you all, we’ll be dancing in hellfire.”

“Dante, wait —” DESIDIA cries out, fingers shooting out to grasp at a shadow already darting out of reach, sauntering into the fog and ellipsis of a film noir.

Before he disappears from sight across the darkened horizon, LUXURIA whirls, a surge and flash of dazzling, radiant life, and winks at DESIDIA as if the words are already tucked into his lips. Here’s looking at you, kid. Equal parts blessed and cursed with that irrepressible streak of master showmanship, the resplendent theatricality of an old god rediscovering the world anew.

SUPERBIA turns the small card over in her hand. 𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐋𝐎𝐍, it reads, in a familiar, antiquated script.

“You remember it well, don’t you? I thought it was only fitting.”

Before any of you can think to pin him down and interrogate his madness, LUXURIA makes his exit, heading straight for the SVU waiting on the tarmac. Sacrilege and profanity aside, you know, of course, exactly why he chose this place. In a way, all stories eventually come full circle. And in a way, you always knew this one would end exactly where it all began.

Hotel Babylon, the stage of the last moments you spent in Paradise before everything fell apart.

—   ⟡   —

6:30PM  ⬩  DAY 25.

𝐈𝐍𝐓. 𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐋𝐎𝐍 : 𝐋𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐘.

If Verdamme was Eden, then this was your Babylon. And like Verdamme, Babylon came with its own wickedly macabre history. Constructed in 1894, the historic landmark’s exquisite Baroque Revival exterior conceals a disturbing origin story. The world-renowned architect, Varró Zoltán, was discovered dead in the presidential Rubicon Suite the evening before the grand opening of the hotel. Authorities never found any indications of foul play — it was as if upon completion of his life’s magnum opus, Zoltán saw to it that he would be forever immortalised in body or soul within the hotel. 

Rumour has it that his body was buried on hotel grounds; those fond of ghost stories and conspiracies claim that his business partners ordered his execution and vanished his body into one of the hidden catacombs allegedly concealed in the underground levels of the hotel. 

Of course, Babylon’s infamous provenance was precisely why Julian loved it. It was why you all loved it. This was a hotel whose illustrious guest list included Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, Charlie Chaplin, countless U.S. Presidents and European Prime Ministers. It was a place that felt at once historic, a perfect preservation of time and antiquity, and endlessly full of promise. 

Berlin was a favoured hunting ground for the group, beloved for its nightlife and the way that music was worshipped like religion in the underbelly of its streets. Abandoned factories, commercial buildings condemned for demolition, deserted 19th century mansions — anywhere they could was a shadow to fill with sound and splendour, a club could spring up overnight, its doors yawning wide to swallow you whole.

Hotel Babylon, situated on the fringes of the thrumming heart of sin city, was the ideal linchpin for your wild adventures down the rabbit-hole. Countless, vivid nights of amphetamine-bright glory and hedonistic extravagance began and ended in the penthouse suites of the hotel. You would stagger home at eight in the morning, bass still pounding in your throat and eardrums and ribs, and find breakfast room service awaiting your return. Wherever you went in Berlin, or even to its neighbouring cities in Prague, Budapest and Amsterdam, all roads inevitably led back to Babylon. Castilo de Cervantes had always been Julian’s dominion first and foremost, his kingdom where law and decree were codified by his will. Babylon, however, belonged to all of you. A lawless, unruly promised land where the semblances of civilisation were left at the door, abandoned in place of chaos and sin, self-indulgence and relentless excess. 

Clustered in the deserted lobby of the hotel, overnight bags and luggage clutched in your hands, you can almost taste the Jägermeister and Gauloises on your tongue, the scent of jasmine and bergamot and cedar wood stains wafting through the air. The hotel itself is exactly as you left it — save for the fact that it’s entirely empty. 

Not a single sound or soul to suggest any other proof of life.

“Well, this is bloody creepy,” INVIDA mutters under his breath, eyes scouring the lobby and plush seated lounges of the hotel’s entrance area. 

Babylon housed only 79 rooms, including the presidential suite that took up the entire thirteenth floor, and the two penthouse suites on the twelfth. In all the times you had spent here, tumbling in through the doors as a motley group fresh off various private jets from around the world, or in smaller coteries of threes and fours, it had never been empty. 

“Is it closed?” VIOLENTIA asks aloud, arching her head to peer down the corridor leading toward the antique elevator. 

“Wonderful. So our would-be rockstar has vanished into the aether and now we’ve found ourselves in a deserted hotel for the weekend.” IRA shakes her head, reaching for her phone to start Googling the nearest hotels.

“The Rubicon has always been ours. I’m sure if the hotel is deserted, they won’t mind if we help ourselves.” PRODITIO saunters forwards to the empty concierge desk, leaning across the counter. On the wall where thirteen rows of keys should be hanging, only nine of them are hanging from the hooks.

“Odd, isn’t it?” FALLACIA says, drawing to a stop at her side. “An empty hotel, no staff to be seen — but only nine keys hanging on the wall.”

ACEDIA pauses at the edge of the concierge. There’s a mug on the surface of the desk half-empty, tea leaves drifting on the surface as if someone had left it there only recently. 

Had the hotel been closed and consigned to be demolished? It was in pristine condition; there were no signs of dilapidation or wear and tear to indicate it had fallen into ruin in recent months. In the low light on the lobby, the keys glint from their hooks on the wall, zig-zagging their way down the rows of empty hooks. One for nearly every other floor of the building. 

“It’s not quite the grand homecoming we’d be expecting, but I’ll take this over trying to barter our way into a 5-star at this time of night for sixteen king suites.” In one fluid, graceful motion, PERFIDIA leaps up onto the concierge desk and over to the other side. He plucks the two keys beneath the gold engraved plagues for 𝐑𝐔𝐁𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐍 and 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐍, dangling it from his fingers as he turns back to the group. 

The cut of his smile could have been the same that bit into the apple of Eden. Blood-red and forbidden.