It all started when BloodlustV was a bluepill and working as an assassin. He was suddenly selected to kill off someone but it turned out to be his childhood friend Nicole Richards. After declining the job, three men were sent in his place. They were known as the Apostles - a group of erasers under the Machine's authority. After they thought they had killed her, she returned after being helped by Zion. She later became Blood's assistant known as xArtemisx. Not too long later though, she was killed by Tranta after a Sentinel attack.
Blood spent the next few years working on trying to find out who was responsible and finally found them, the Apostles. He used his "favor" EPN owed him for help he provided them with during the Libertas Verus incidents and had them help him take them down. The first to fall was Dropfree, the first-mate of the crew. He fell by the hands of Gien in the Zero One Construct but that was only the beginning.
He then moved on to Zynios, having some operatives keep watch on him, and eventually going directly to him having a technician disable his emergency jack-out procedure. After that he suddenly fell dead leaving some people confused but Blood just carried up not giving it much thought. It was later determined Zynios was killed by someone referred to as "Boss" in his dying note found by the investigator Bifrous.
Blood then turned his sight on Velaios, as he was the final one left.
There was a problem, though: More murders suddenly started taking place before Blood got near Velaios leaving Bifrous baffled. He had found evidence of a serial murderer he dubbed the "Hollow Present Serial killer" as they left an empty present at the scene of all the murders as well as making sure they left no evidence behind. Such a trite title for a series of deaths like these is..wrong.
A bluepill, who we had previously been informed had a possible clue about this situation, was later murdered by Machine security.. My scans at the time indicated Tranta was in the area..
However, there were finger prints left behind on some pistols recovered - some were from Velaios while the others were from Tranta. This forced Tranta and Velaios to meet in Datamine to discuss the matter further but they were ambushed by Blood and his men before much could be discussed. Thus, Velaios went into hiding leaving Tranta being the only person to know of his location and the start of Tranta's "Games".
