letter to the regent [attn: joey!]

[jamie]

Someone never bothered to learn the Rite of Introduction.

A letter written on plain paper in bold black ink and sealed with red wax arrived at some point in the midst of February.

Regent Hill,

I am István Jákob Virág, also known as Stephen Andrássy, progeny of Peter Laszlo Konstantin Gabor and apprentice of the fourth circle. I am most recently of Chicago, Illinois, and will have moved to Denver, Colorado by month's end.

If you would find it convenient to meet with me at a time and place of your choosing, I would be beholden to such.

Regent Antonescu sends his regards.

Sincerely,

His signature is nigh unto illegible. It could be either his proper name or his alias. Either way - the letter is signed. It does not burst into flames or otherwise self-destruct upon her having read it. She will have to choose to keep or destroy the artifact herself.

[Joey]

István gets his reply to that letter he'd shot out into the ether of his clan's infrastructure. It sets a date and location for the meeting that the apprentice had requested of his new regent. That's all that comes other than her personal signature and wax seal holding it shut.

It survives for him to set aside as a keepsake should he be the sentimental type, just as his, not bursting into flames or crumbling into fairy dust. There would probably be little point, though, as the impersonal letter isn't even addressed to him in its salutation. It has an address and, as previously mentioned, an exact time for his arrival there. The latter is too close to its arrival to allow for continued correspondence in this manner.

Here is where the ritual might come in handy.

Research before embarking on the journey will show it is a twenty-seven floor office building housing a number of different organizations, corporations, and not-for-profits. That's exactly what he finds when he arrives, because Google Maps never lies, a parking structure adjacent. Through the large windows of a vast lobby he can also spot a swank cafeteria with a coffee house and artisan sandwiches amongst other establishments on its food court. But they're all closed.

There's a security guard sitting at the front desk waiting to field visitors. They have their brief exchange before he is allowed passage.

The elevator is waiting and it takes him to that upper floors, twenty-two out of twenty-seven marked out on its buttons. The floor is dedicated to Ives, Sullivan and Company, their reception area a half-octagon around the elevator all sheathed in glass, the company's name in gold lettering painted to hover where the translucent surface curves behind the receptionist's empty desk. A large compass as tall as the newly arrived Tremere is set into the plush carpeting he steps onto as he walks out of the elevator.

Later research, because much of the clan's world (and survival) revolves around the word, will reveal the company publishes academic texts in numerous languages and also reproduces and translates antique, antiquated and ancient texts for use in academia, with offices throughout the world - at least two on every continent. In the United States those offices are here, in Denver, as well as in Boston. New York remains out of its extensive network.

The receptionist's desk is a low glass table with spartan accoutrements (a sleek telephone with a headset charging next to its handset, a thin tablet computer sitting on a steel easel, and a wireless keyboard) except for the rakish man sitting casually on its edge and facing the elevator.

The lone rider on the welcoming wagon has combed and parted and kept by product hair that still manages to look messy at its sides and at the wavy and wispy sideburns. A mustache and a soul patch and a bit of stubble continues that trend. He wears a suit with no tie and its collar open enough to show the ribbed white tank top underneath. Tattoos don't just peak, they sprout and strangle like overgrown vines from under the linen cuffs of his shirt past his jacket and around his neck, even dotting his face, writing in Thai and English and Chinese here and there on the scrolling. Some seem the nautical skin-paintings of a well-traveled sailor, though with his age that might be common of a recent embrace with a former predilection for rum and pin-ups.

He's definitely dead. Undead. A vampire like the Tremere who just walked off that elevator.

“Jeremy Cabot, apprentice of the fifth circle,” of course he is, “and assistant to Regent Hill,” keeping his hands folded together over the bend in his lap. He doesn't rise at Istvan's arrival, though he does smile. There's a calculation in the expression, but isn't that what clanmates of the Pyramid do when meeting one another? He's no doubt matching appearances, a book's cover, to reviews passed between other apprentices further up the hierarchy and gossip from further down. Putting a face to a name and a reputation.

“A pleasure to be the first of the house to welcome you,” continuing in the same thick South Londoner's accent he'd introduced himself with.

[ Scene was continued in chat. Clipping posted for flavor. ]