Plot:Viral Vampire Video/NPCs

Marcus Avery

Marcus Avery was a 19-year-old media student at Prospect University, the kind of clever but anxious kid who threw himself into creative projects to feel like he mattered. He found a battered “hunter’s journal” near an abandoned church on the west side and, assuming it was fiction or part of an RPG, used it as inspiration for a staged Halloween vampire attack video. With two friends, a phone camera, and some surprisingly solid editing skills, he scrubbed the metadata and posted it anonymously, never expecting it to go viral. When it did, he panicked — convinced strangers were following him, watching him, tracking his movements — and retreated to his dorm room in Weaver Hall. Before he could explain himself fully or hand over the journal, Marcus was shot through his fourth-floor window by an unseen sniper, leaving behind a mystery far bigger than the prank he thought he was pulling.]

Username: Augur_1837

• Account Age: 4 years
• Karma: Medium-high (lots of posting, lots of arguments)
• Bio: “Media is a puzzle. Everything means something. Follow the patterns, not the lies.”

Augur_1837 is exactly the kind of online theorist who makes entire subreddits groan when he shows up — obsessive, deeply convinced that every piece of media is a coded message, and absolutely certain that he sees patterns everyone else misses. His posting history is a mix of breakdowns of movie trailers, predictions about unreleased shows based on filming permits, and long threads about “hidden triangles” in advertising campaigns. With recent events he's started connecting the dots in new and possibly dangerous ways.

Holland Alley

Holland Alley is a narrow service corridor tucked between two old warehouse-converted offices four blocks north of campus. Since the viral video dropped, the alley has become a pilgrimage point for bored students, influencers, urban explorers, and Fantasy fanboys. The flickering orange streetlamp from the footage still buzzes overhead, turning the place into an accidental landmark. On the south wall, exactly where the camera would've faced, a stark black rectangle of paint has been rolled onto the bricks. Over it, in sweeping white gothic calligraffiti, someone has tagged “Sic Luceat Lux.” Fans claim it’s part of the show’s “symbolic marketing campaign.” Others think it’s an artist’s statement. The Court knows it’s neither — but the more foot traffic gathers here, the worse the Masquerade risk becomes.

Prospect Freight Terminal- East Yard

This isolated stretch of abandoned freight track sits two miles east of the city center, where rusted cars and derelict engines rest like forgotten carcasses. The viral fandom has jokingly dubbed it “The Highlander Railyard” after rumors spread that a sword fight took place here. Mortals have no idea a body was found — decapitated, branded, and ripped open — only that police tape briefly appeared and disappeared within hours. The gravel still holds scuffs from a struggle, and the scent of old iron lingers in the cold air. The small hideout between two freight cars, where the first hunter’s diary was uncovered, remains largely unnoticed except by those with reason to search. If fans ever start poking around here, trouble follows fast.

Echo Bridge

The shootout happened beneath the aging Ramsgate Underpass (aka Echo Bridge), a concrete bridge carrying commuter traffic over a narrow service road. The acoustics amplify every sound, so the gunfire and the inhuman howl that followed were heard from campus to half the southern district. To the public, police have blamed the incident on a “drug-addled transient armed with a weapon.” The reality: officers fired into something that didn’t stay down. The asphalt is still stained where dark fluid hissed on contact. A few bullet impacts remain visible, already photographed and analyzed by amateur sleuths convinced this is part of an elaborate marketing ARG. It’s only a matter of time before people start filming TikToks down here trying to reenact the “zombie shootout.”

Mission San Isidro

Mission San Isidro sits forgotten on the west side of Prospect, a deconsecrated Mission-style church boarded up nearly three years ago when the parish dissolved. Its sun-bleached stucco walls and cracked terracotta roof tiles blend into the rundown neighborhood around it, yet the building shows almost no graffiti or vandalism, as if people instinctively avoid it. The old bell tower is rusted shut, the courtyard overgrown, and every entrance has been sealed with warped plywood and rusted nails. Despite its abandonment, the structure feels strangely intact, untouched by the decay that swallowed the surrounding blocks. Local rumor claims the interior is still furnished, as if the congregation simply walked out one afternoon and never returned.