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And so it came to pass that Alexander's call to the Sanctum was answered. A dozen of the city's more prominent personalities showed up, and several of the lesser, largely unknown younglings came to hear his address. The decor was restored, the site lovely, and staff friendly. Everything seemed to be pointing toward a pleasant evening.
As the evening's business began, Alexander made a plea for jubilee with Marcus and his courts--and elimination of all debts owed to or against Marcus in Necropolis, that a new chapter... Nay, a new era of kindred enlightenment and camaraderie might flourish in the city. With the greatest sense of hope, Alexander announced his resignation from duties as Marcus' seneschal, and named Tasha as his successor, as someone closer to Marcus' own will and vision. It was just as Alexander began to explain the new security features he had ordered for the Sanctum in order to keep it safe, he and Tovi received calls at their emergency phone numbers. Their domain was under attack. Swearing great doom and damnation on Al Kavian, who had been in attendance, Alexander and Tovi fled to secure their home.
With one of the city's great halls under attack, Kavian addressed those at the Sanctum--and promised them a great display of anarch power: He had a bomb in the building that would destroy it utterly, and it was due to explode in a quarter hour. Most in attendance fled. Some--notably the Tremere and Tzmisce present--worked to stop Kavian's mad plot. Tasha and her ghouls attacked Kavian directly, whilst the Tremere worked to secure his dead man's switch. Ancient enemies put aside their centuries-old differences and tried to save something greater than themselves, showing even in the last minutes of Marcus' sanctum that the lines drawn between the kindred are at best, just smoky, imaginary lines.
With Kavian's head lonely for its body and the remains quickly crumbling into dust, the others fled. Like a fist from Hell itself, a wall of force, and then of flame punched out from somewhere deep beneath the Sanctum proper. A massive explosion, channeled and focused from being deep in the bowels of the complex ripped through the structure, shattering windows in the adjacent buildings and causing the Sanctum and the parking structure it existed beneath to buckle, crumble, and collapse inward on itself.
Fortune would have it that precious little involvement or attention came from the mortals. The loss of life was relatively small. A fire team returning to its station from a charity even across town was in the area when the explosion occurred, and had already secured the crisis scene when the other police and fire arrived. The investigation into the explosion was handled quickly, and ruled that old subway tunnels in the city had collapsed, giving way to a large, unknown cavern beneath. This allowed for a relatively minor natural gas leak to build up and build up for years, and finally, spectacularly, and lethally explode. Those first responders from ladder 47 have since had some issues with their memories; most remember fighting the fire, but the details are hazy and some have begun to question the consistency of their stories. Their ailments, officially at least, are attributed to being on the scene right after the blast, and their exposure to fumes of the burning natural gas, mixed with the various chemicals and compounds that would have been present in or around the parking structure.
The masquerade was maintained, if only just. In one vast, fiery strike however, it was shown that the jyhad was still very much in play in the City of Necropolis.
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