8598/Search for The Ancient

Search for The Ancient
Date of Scene:	31 July 2019
Location:	Bludhaven Cemetary
Synopsis:	The Scoobies discuss a search for a powerful, ancient vampire's blood to perform a ritual to protect Xavier's.
Cast of Characters:	Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Captain Britain
Tinyplot:	Blood of the Ancients

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Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers had gathered as many Scoobies as she could at this odd hour of the night, in the middle of a graveyard no less for a very important mission. Well, to her it was important, and to many other people it was too, even if it wasn't necessarily directly related to what they usually did. Her wound had healed up from the other day and she was all too eager to go searching in the cemetary for something very special. But of course, she had to explain to the others what this was all about.

Having texted as many allies as she could find, Buffy then proceeded to wait in said spooky graveyard on a picnic bench, lit up by a nearby streetlamp. She was eager to get this special mission started, but she was just as eager to bump ideas off the others as well. Dressed in a pair of blue jeans, white tanktop and black leather jacket along with her usual supply of stakes and a small backpack containing other slayer paraphernalia, she waits at the bench for the others to join her.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow had spent her day doing.. Willow things. Which generally involved convoluted explanations and a few side stories to boot. She'd been out when the text came in, but had made a special trip home before coming. She leaves her laptop at home, but she does bring her satchel filled with other odds and material ends she might need, including the special something she'd made that extra trip for.

When she arrives, she whispers as she pads along into the graveyard and to the picnic table. "Why are we whispering?" LIke she wasn't the one who had started it.

Captain Britain has posed:
Whenever Brian was called into patrolling Sunnydale, he frequently did it sans costume. Captain Britain wore red, white, and blue. Even if the shades were somewhat muted, it stood out. Plus, if he had to pursue someone, or something, it was a lot easier for Brian to follow, than Captain Britain. So when Buffy had asked for help, he came out of costume. Many of the Scoobies already knew he had something special about him, so the risk was a minimal.

Arriving in the cemetery wearing a black t-shirt, since it was summer, as well as blue jeans, a brown belt, and brown shoes, Brian was trying to fit in, and not draw any undue attention to himself. He probably could have gone with one shirt size larger, as this one was a bit tight across his chest and around his biceps. Apparently this was his idea of stealth.

Being late to the party, he whispered behind Willow, "we're being stealthy."

Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers has been waiting for a few minutes, but not too long. When Willow and Brian show up, she smiles, relieved to see them there..But she's also a bit disappointed to see that some of the others are missing, particularly Spike who's usually on patrol at night. But maybe he's patrolling eslewhere tonight. "Hey guys!" she smiles ands waves to them as they come over.

"Well, guess it's just the three of us tonight, but that's alright. I just wanted to discuss something with you. c'mon take a seat.." she motions towards the picnic table she is seated at. Not exactly the war room where badass meetings are concerned, but there's probably a very good reason why they're meeting out here, in the middle of the night, in a spooky graveyard.

She clears her throat. "Soo the reason why I called y'all out here, is that I need your help. It's a bit of a complicated matter, involving a secret place that I have sworn to protect, and a spell that will require the blood of a very special and very ancient vampire as one of the ingredients to protect this place. I'm afraid I have been sworn to secrecy so I can't reveal more about the whereabouts of this place, however, I was wondering if any of you could help me brainstorm ideas for where I could find such a creature."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow happily takes a seat at the picnic table - the seat part, of course, because Willow - and frowns at Buffy, "Uh.. Okay. I know they're evil, but isn't it weird to use the blood of an evil thing to protect a thing? Isn't that counter-rpoductive?"

Other than they were always looking to kill innocents for their rituals, so maybe it really would work out for the best.

She rifles through her satchel to pick out a couple of items - sage, d'uh; a lighter - for the sage, d'uh; and a bag with flattened.. cookie like shapes in it, dotted with what one hopes are chocolate chips or raisens, but could honestly be anything.

"I brought us treats! Only... okay, Spike and I aren't so good at baking as you are, Buffy." Still, she offers them with a happy grin. "They don't taste too bad." Emphasis on the 'too'.

Captain Britain has posed:
Spike's burner phone was likely out of minutes or data. At some point, assuming of course Buffy insisted on keeping the vampire with a chip alive, well, upright, Brian would have to arrange for some kind of plan for him, and anyone else in the Scooby Gang. It was peanuts to him and would solve problems like that.

"We three, we happy three, we band of... sisters," he said, paraphrasing the St. Crispin's Day speech. He took a seat at Buffy's urging, and listened intently. "And you shall have it," he chirps when she asks for help, before he lets her go on. "Where to find the blood of a very special and very ancient vampire? Besides Dracula, I imagine?" Since Dracula was known to have a home in Bludhaven. It was a very weird world in which Brian now lived. "Ooh, treats," but Spike helped, so Brian eyed them carefully, "he didn't season them with blood, did he?"

Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers smirks at Willow and shrugs, "Hey, you're the magic expert, not me. Anyways, I don't really know why these people told me that they need evil blood. I guess that is a little odd, but, it was one of the ingredients. Since we would be saving a large number of people, I think it's important that we help them. Either way, at least we're not going out there looking for the blood of an innocent virgin to fulfill the ritual, right?"

She does raise a curious brow at Willow when she pulls out the cookies, wrinkling her nose apprehensively, "Waaait, you and Spike...Baking cookies?" she can't help but chuckle a bit at this. "Well, at least you're less hostile towards him than Oz, who thought the idea of me even considering dating him was absurd.." whoops, she didn't mean to let that slip out. "I mean, not that we are, even remotely, of course! That was a joke.." she quickly backtracks, trying to cover all bases.

She does try one of the cookies, and discovers that it actually isn't half bad. "Mmf. These are pretty good actually.." she grins. But back to important matters at hand. "Well...There are a number of vampires. There is Dracula. Or at least the sexy, mysterious guy from Transylvania, who didn't seem as powerful as rumour would have it. Not sure where I'd even find that guy..There is a woman whom I suspect of being a vampire, although I'm not sure just how old she might be, heck, I don't even know her name yet..Annnd there is Spike." Whom she is rather reluctant to harm, especially after he's been trying really hard to woo her. Which is kinda sweet, even though she's been keeping him mostly at arm's length. Mostly.


"Have any of you heard of any rumours of new vampire gangs in town?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow really frowns now, "Wait, what people? Buffy, why are we just helping people we don't know and getting them vampire blood?" Because she already knew a /whole/ bunch of things a person who knew what they were doing could do with that, and all of them were bad. Except maybe that one scrying thing. But even then you kind of had to know what you were doing, and Buffy was not that. Like she'd just said, Buffy was for stabbing and slabbing, Willow was your generic all things magical. With a side order of force lightning.

She really really liked that force lightning.

"You gotta be careful, Buff. People know what you can do and they'll have you do their bad stuff for them and help them make it easier to do bad stuff. I don't know. I have a bad feeling about this."

Willow, not really a pop culture geek, has no clue what she's just done. If she'd just followed it up with 'It's a trap' she'd likely have summoned the rest of the gang totally by accident.

When the cookies are found to be passable, she flushes with pride. "Really? Spike helped. He's not very good." Neither was Willow, but at least Willow was the one who insisted wet go in one bowl and dry in the other. "But what is 8 ounces?"

She looks to Brian, first to see if he takes a cookie, and secondly to see if he's heard of any vampire gangs. She, herself, hasn't. "No blood in the cookies. We weren't sure what kind of suggar, so we put in both? Oh! And chocolate chips."

Captain Britain has posed:
This was proving to be an interesting conversation in more ways than one. If Brian had a reaction, he was keeping it to himself for now. Buffy was the resident expert on vampires, and Willow on spells, so he was listening, absorbing, but had little to contribute so far. Though the slip regarding Spike did seem to answer a few questions he had. And Buffy described Dracula as sexy. Just how many vampires had she dated anyway, he began to silently wonder.

"There are always newcomers, I did hear one phrase, not sure if it's connected, but a vampire I killed said something about Carpe Noctem, or latin for seize the night. I have yet to ascertain its meaning." After Buffy takes one, he does too, but mostly because he was hoping to hear an answer to whether or not blood was involved in the cookies. He takes a bite, and chews it, and smiles, and says, "thank you Willow, they are very good."

Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers shakes her head. "Don't worry Wil. I'm well aware of that..These people are...I know I can trust them." she frowns, wondering just how much information she can reveal, while still keeping Xavier's school's secret intact. "Okay. Do you know Wanda Maximoff? The Red Witch? She is an accomplished spellcaster from what I know, and she is a GOOD person. She is working on a massively powerful spell that, in the long run will protect a large number of innocent people, many of them children. I'm sorry but there is nothing more I can say, without revealing their identities, and I DID make an oath of secrecy to protect them.

She munches on the cookies some more, smiling at the thought that Spike had made them, although she does glance rather anxiously towards Brian out of the corner of her eye, wondering how much -if any - it might have bothered him, knowing that Spike was trying to make moves - albeit unsuccessful at least so far - on her too.

For now, Buffy decides not to go into that territory, there are more important things at stake. "Why would there be blood in the cookies? More importantly, where would Spike even GET blood?" she seems almost..Edgy at the idea that Spike might have done something evil to the cookies. But she relaxes a bit, assuming, hoping that this is all in jest. Tonight, Buffy seems to be a little on edge for some reason.

Buffy does arch a curious brow at Brian, "Carpe Noctem? What's that about? I think we should do some patrolling later tonight and get some more info out of the vamps. I need to know more about this Seize the Night..If that's an organization or some code for something bigger. So if we do find vamps tonight, don't be too eager to kill them before we get more info out of them."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Everyone had kind of heard of Wanda Maximoff. Which really did bring to mind, why did she need them? Other than Buffy. Because, yeah, Buffy was really kind of singularly special... okay, dually special, but it wasn't like Faith was a hugely known thing, so really the other word sufficed. "Okay, I guess." Even if she wasn't sure if the tables were turned Buffy wouldn't want more.

She settles back to listen.

Captain Britain has posed:
"Chip or not, Spike's a vampire, and they like to consume blood. If not human blood, then he must be consuming pig, cow, rat, or some other animal's blood. Besides, he's a total arse." Yes, Brian has met Spike. He's not a fan. Amusing as he might be on occassion, Brian simply did not trust him.

"I can't say," regarding the Carpe Noctem phrase, "it was the vampire's final words. For all I know, it was literally what he wanted to be remembered by. However, things are rarely that simple. Until I know more, I'm keeping my guard up."

Buffy Summers has posed:
Buffy Summers frowns a bit as Brian starts criticizing Spike. "Ok fine, so he's a vampire, but he's also an ally of mine..And a friend." she clenches her hands, unable to look him in the eye as she says that. Is she feeling..Guilty about something? "And as for blood, he's getting pig's blood from the butcher's although I will occasionally acquire some pig's blood for him when he is unable to." She narrows her eyes. "And he is NOT to be staked."

As for the strange statement that the vampire uttered, Buffy just nods. "Well, it could be nothing, or it could be something. What's important is that we find whatever information we can about this, or any other big wig vamps in town. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for any rumours you might hear, and remember, don't kill any vamps outright, without getting some more information out of them. Keep an eye out for if there is a spike in vampire numbers, or more dead bodies. You know the drill."

"Tonight, I wanna do a patrol and look out for those red flags. I wanna see if we can find clues about any more powerful vamps out there. I really need to help Wanda with this spell.." And maybe she just wants to impress her a little, but more than that, there are a lot of lives that need to be protected, and this spell would help grately.