Revisiting the Baron
Soren was not the only individual to play to Fred's masochistic Madness. One of the Nephandic individuals who had tormented Fred and others at the Lamplighters' Estate found Fred's place of employment, the Bloody Baron, and lured her into a game in his search for someone he had reason to believe Fred knew. Fred played along for her own sake while stonewalling Nomios' search for intel on the whereabouts of a chantrymate, but in his frustration he sought to rip the information directly from her mind. Fred took a chance and cut the silver thread that tethered his mind to his body while he was within her mind, turning herself into a cage.
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Fred reached out to Benji, who contacted Susan, and Soren arrived as well and brought them to a warehouse near the river. There, Fred was unconscious and trapped in a sigil circle to prevent Nomios from reaching out to any of the other Nephandi in the area, while the Nephandus' body was transported and the group attempted to figure out how to get him out of Fred's body and back into his own. Thomas aided to that end, ripping Nomios from Fred's body, through his, and then shunting him back into Nomios' own body.
However, Benji and Soren's mutual antagonism came to a head - and to blows. Benji threw a punch; Soren reflexively drew magic; and Thomas intervened and rendered Soren unable to function through aggravating a pain shard that was buried in the Hollow One's Pattern from an encounter years before with a pain-spirit. Benji and Thomas took Fred elsewhere; Phoebe and Josette were called to take Nomios someplace where he could be kept 'on ice' while they collectively figured out what to do with him; and Susan called Miguel to help deal with Soren - which ultimately led to a mindscape and Soren taking on a Wonder that limited his ability to use magic beyond a sensory level.
Some time later, to keep his cabalmates out of trouble during a planned investigation based on intel drawn from the captured Nephandus, Tripp brought Kara, Fred, and Micah to the Bloody Baron. It was supposed to be a night to relax, with Tripp and Kara keeping the fractured Fred and the whimsy-afflicted Micah away from stress and out of the rest of the chantry's hair during a delicate operation, but it turned into a nightmare. Vampires breached their own protocol of secrecy and attacked the patrons of the nightclub in a deliberate and hostile takeover attempt.
Tripp and Kara directly engaged the hostile vampires - both almost dying in the process but standing resolute. Micah was helped out by the Hollow acolyte Emily, who worked at the club; but Fred lost what was left of her mind in the attack. Under pressure, she snapped - and in her transition into full Marauder, she leveled the building. Everyone inside was lost - vampire and Sleeper alike - as was Fred. Kara had managed to get Tripp out of the building, but he was bleeding out - and the rest of the chantry's members were preoccupied. . .