Paul (Allen MaCavity), Chuck (Derek Stone) and Bruce (Jack Rowell) comprise the player population, while Chris is the unchallenged master of all. Tim (Byron Ignatiou) issues some vague promises about showing up later on, then comes through on his promise. Nobody knows what has become of Ray (Raphael Tiber Giovanni).
It is now almost the morning of Wednesday, February 21st and the characters have just finished wrecking the remains of Malcolm's apartment looking for clues. Byron Ignatiou and Raphael Tiber Giovanni both vanish into the lessening darkness. Jack Rowell takes the two books and the (possible) Sara Packard painting off to his basement apartment for temporary keeping.
The next evening Derek Stone starts out by hunting. Jack Rowell and Allen MaCavity swiftly copy him. After that, the three of them gather in a local Starbucks' to discuss strategy. Jack reassures the other two that the Sara Packard painting has been put into a large steel box that Jack puts in his closet.
Their imaginations fired by Derek Stone's rhetoric, the characters decide to try and locate the plantation house described in Malcolm Carter's old notebook. Some research uncovers the identity of the structure. It is a two-story plantation house, built before the Civil War. From Carter's notes, there is some indication that the original owners practiced the mystical arts and came to a terrible end. Subsequent owners have gone through several cycles of attempted restoration followed by loss of money. The current owner is a Houston stockbroker who finds himself unable to do anything with the property until he agrees to restore it under the auspices of a local historical society. The society in turn has not been able to arrange funding to restore the place.
Derek Stone tries investigating the current owners and isn't too successful. Jack Rowell shows him how it should be done. The original builders were wealthy French family who migrated to Spanish-held territory in 1801. They were quite well-to-do, and used their money to build a plantation house and purchase a number of local serfs (Indians) to work their fields. Though they actually appear to have come from France, they had good lineage, making them local aristocracy by default. This information is little more than what Jack was able to find among the historical society brochures. He researches a bit more and is able to determine that the original inhabitants were secretly Jewish. Beyond that, they were practicing Qabbalists.
At the time of the original construction, the entire area around the plantation was swamp, with only a small area of elevated land upon which the house was placed. The local folklore of the time was rife with tales of mysterious "mud men" running around the grounds. All these stories tended to keep the local Apaches away, though they did raid several other local settlements. The family was considered to be spooky and weird. Some of their descendants went to fight in the Civil War (the historical society describes them as "Loyal Texas Sons") and didn't come back.
The house is north of Houston, some distance away from the city proper. Only twenty acres of the original plantation remain as grounds around the house (most of it swamp). The rest of the original plantation has been turned into developments, strip malls, gas stations and several Starbucks.
Sadly, the characters' ideas about investigating the place are derailed by the recognition that Malcolm Carter's original journal reported nothing there except a bunch of spirit impressions. No mud-men. Or qabbalists.
The characters' next idea is to hit the Texas City guys again. They speculate that the two survivors from the Sabbat days might be Sabbat sympathizers. This theory is put down by the fact that Nosferatu spies observed both Texas City and Houston for a decade prior to Prince Bradford's conquest, and none of them ever spotted the two surviving Texas City kindred as having anything peaceful to do with the Sabbat. Even more telling, there were originally eight kindred living in Texas City. Six of them fell to Sabbat guns and blades during the occupation.
The characters spend a week or so investigating, ultimately achieving nothing. Though in that time Allen MaCavity teaches some Auspex techniques to Derek Stone.
Derek Stone attends the latest meeting of the Ventrue Board. He notices that while Narda Cash is still showing up, her onetime associate Susan Jackson is no longer there. The other members of her entourage are much quieter, and seem to pay more attention to their surroundings. Even Narda is paying more attention, and asking relevant questions.
A touch of venom passes across the table when the Scourge asks Narda where Susan Jackson has gone. Narda simply glares back, much to the Scourge's enjoyment. Dmitri Meloft shows no visible pleased reaction to Susan Jackson's possible demise. Derek Stone files away this tidbit with interest: that the Scourge might have had something to do with Jackson's disappearance.
Derek Stone also learns a piece of good news. One of the other Ventrue reports that the Nosferat Sally has been located, though she will be out of commission for a while. She appears to have stumbled onto a Sabbat blood feast in the sewers. A hand-grenade fight ensued. Though the Sabbat did not actually find her, she was injured badly enough to be pushed into torpor. From the sounds of the report, Derek deduces that the fight happened several days before the characters' last fight with the Sabbat.
The Brujah Tommy Watkinson (known to his associates as Nickels) calls Jack Rowell. He says he needs to talk to Jack and his entire circle of friends. Jack arranges a meeting with him at the Starbucks on Westmoreland (Jack emphasizes that he means the one on North Westmoreland, on the right side of the street). The characters notice that it is strange that all of the Starbucks in Houston are open 24-7, even though there are never any customers around after about 22:00. The meeting is set for 22:05. Nickels is given assurance that there will be a quiet table there, where he can show them really disturbing photographs.
The characters show up that the Starbucks' to find Nickels there, dressed in a nice suit and looking quite professional. After some quick introductions, he explains that he is a deputy to Sheriff Tanner. Nickels mentions to the characters that it is his understanding that the characters run a street populated with prostitutes on the edge of their territory. He has talked to Sticks, who claims that he has monetary rights over the street while the characters have feeding rights. Nickels is looking for two young ladies who recently vanished from the area. He produces photographs.
Jack rather flatly tells Nickels that he recognizes one of the pictures: the two women were among those that Jack picked up and dropped off for Clayton Burrell to consume. Allen MaCavity pretty much up and agrees with him. Nickels takes the news very badly, even after Jack tells him where the bodies are buried. He threatens Jack with his office as a deputy to the Sheriff and stalks out, even after Jack points out that he has started to suffer physical changes because he no longer thinks the way Nickels does. Nickels is clearly now an "enemy."
The characters spend some time engaged in their own projects.
Jack Rowell starts working on a new scheme to commit real estate fraud. He wants to arrange Federally-guaranteed mortgages for some distressed properties through a (patsy) real-estate developer. The mortgages will include additional money for repair and improvement, most of which will go into the pockets of Jack and his conspirators. He will then arrange for rents to be set high, maintenance to be (even more) deferred, and the excess to be skimmed off as well. The money gets filtered to Jack through dummy companies as "maintenance" and "consulting" fees.
He finds that he needs to develop three patsies for the scheme to work: the developer, a property manager, and someone in the HUD bureaucracy. Jack does his best to find candidates who are on the cusp of honesty anyway, so he can keep his use of Dominate as minimal as possible. He finds this surprisingly hard, as he's already used up much of his existing supply of dishonest real estate developers.
Allen MaCavity spends his time invisibly wandering around Texas City, paying particular attention to the Warehouse of Death. He initially sees nothing more exciting than a few ghostly apparitions flitting around in the alleyways. After a couple of days wandering around, he finds that he is able to see something much more interesting: most of the homeless derelicts who wander through the area appear to actually be zombies. Several of them even carry around and drink from bottles of cheap liquor. Curious, MaCavity follows one of them until the creature walks into the liquor store next to Uncle Nasty's Sex Shack and Day Care Center to buy a new bottle. The clerk pays a lot of attention to the creature, but only because he looks like a street person. Even more unusual, MaCavity sees several drivers pass by obvious zombies, but give them no particular attention.
As a final detail, MaCavity notices a couple of apparently clueless white kids breaking into the Warehouse of Electrical Death, one of them armed with a heavy crowbar, the other equipped with some sort of digital camera. They spend some time working at one of the doors, trying to pry it open. Eventually one of the bums shows up and asks them for change. This scares the kids quite a lot. They react badly, and the bum reacts by mauling one of them. The other one runs screaming. MaCavity is again confused, as it seems to him that the passing cars should be able to see (or at least hear) everything that's going on. He does notice that the zombie has no aura, though the apparitions did (most of them are terribly, terribly bored).
Derek Stone decides to talk up Kallista Traunt, the Tremere "witch" who appears to have great control over HPD Precinct 5. Though his early conversation with her didn't go all that well ("Why aren't you working with us, bitch!"), she eventually warms to him. Though she continues to think of him as some sort of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, she does betray a willingness to work with him (and the characters).
When he's not talking up Kallista, Derek spends time with MaCavity learning Auspex. By the end, he has new respect for MaCavity's ability to teach, but new hatred for his ability to use the same old tired "do you feel threatened" joke over and over and over.
Byron Ignatiou magically appears on the scene. He spends his time going to Meditation classes, learning Blind Fighting (it's easy for him to find people willing to beat him silly while he wears a blindfold), taking sparring lessons, and hanging out at drag racing tracks looking for promising racers. Finally, he hires a private investigator to keep tabs on Kate and Cody Flashman.
Not satisfied with the results the investigator can find, he spends time in Elysium asking other vampires for information about the two, trying to hit up the Toreador he hasn't managed to offend. He understands that his inquiries are guaranteed to get back to Kate and Cody. His efforts towards this goal are hindered by his amazing lack of social skills. He does learn that Kate Flashman has an identity she uses to sell real estate, while Cody Flashman owns a gallery in one of Houston's wealthier districts. They have money, but in a relatively untouchable form. Both of them suffered a certain loss of face some time ago because there was an attack on Elysium soil that hasn't yet been resolved. Even the details of the attack are rather strange: Kenneth Vaughn was meeting with some Brujah at the Houston Museum of Science when a guy dressed in little more than a penis sheath and some mud jumped out from a side passage and stabbed Kenneth with a spear.
The other characters listen to this description and conclude that the assailant is the spirit Malcolm Carter described as The Spearman. Malcolm's diaries also mention an incident in which the Spearman appeared at a circus and went bananas in the Hall of Geeks, killing one of the geeks and injuring a handler.
Byron also starts accumulating a spare stock of refrigerated blood. He changes his hunting style, deliberately gathering about twice the blood he needs and bleeding himself of the excess, pouring it into a bottle and keeping it in a refrigerator in his haven. He spends some time investigating shelf life, and develops a hoard of twelve blood points.
Towards the end of March, each of the characters gets an invitation to meet with the Prince on Saturday the 31st. He wants them all to show up at his downtown office at 22:00. There is mention of some sort of party, but the invitation specifically indicates that servants, retainers or other guests are not permitted.
Jack decides to show up with a good suit. All of the characters are made to wait in the lobby until they can be sent in as a group. They notices that Prince Bradford has set up a boxing ring on the sixth floor of his building. There are a lot of people present, but all of them seem to be mortals as the characters don't recognize any of them. Eventually, a weaselly little assistant brings the characters in to the Prince's sitting room for some cigars. The characters wait with their cigars (unlit) in a massive tableaux of an office, studded with mahogany and leather, until the Prince eventually shows up.
The Prince starts with a quick discussion on the characters' hold upon the Carter Arms fief. He notes that it is quite small, perhaps too small for the characters' group. Also, the Prince mentions that the current political situation may soon require that Kindred are only allowed to feed within their specifically-deeded territory, a requirement that may be disastrous to the characters.
The Prince says that the territory redistribution will happen soon, and will happen through voting. He suggests that there will be significant "compromise" in the process, compromise that might otherwise be thought of as bribery, extortion and so on. He imagines that it will be three to nine months before the process starts. He does not think that the characters' territory will cease to exist, unless they do something terribly inept. However, he has another proposition. He offers the characters Texas City as a fief, as a part of the city of Houston.
However, the Prince says that he cannot offer the territory to them outright. The characters could lobby for the territory. More important, the Prince believes that the current inhabitants will meet terrible ends in the next few months, though there will never be any formal resolution to their fates. With them out of the way and the characters already in effective control of the territory, their ability to gain formal possession would be substantial. Needless to say, the characters should show intense interest in the area, and set up residence there sometime after the current residents depart. Should all this happen, the Prince promises to throw his voting behind the characters.
The characters thank the Prince, except for Byron Ignatiou, who starts talking about specific ways to off various Texas City Kindred until the other characters hush him up. Byron refuses to be silent, and continues talking about the various occult mysteries that he has learned about from either Malcolm's writing or his own experiences, including The Spearman, The Crowd, and the Spoiled Milk Killer. The Prince acts politely interested in these developments, urging Byron to send Malcolm to the Prince to talk to him on this. Byron speculates that Malcolm's job within the Tremere might be looking for ghosts. The Prince feigns interest.
The Prince turns to Jack Rowell and asks him about Nickels' dismay. Jack expresses some intellectual regret at his overly-blunt response to Nickels' inquiry. The Prince emphasizes Nickels' value to the community, and urges Jack to tread upon eggshells around him. He mentions that Nickels went through a lot of personal expense and effort to liberate Houston, and that his satisfaction is important. Jack nods to indicate that he understands the gravity of the situation.
The Prince now addresses Allen MaCavity, saying that he understands that MaCavity is now claiming to be Malkavian. He asks the other characters what MaCavity's insanity is. Rowell says, "We don't know." Ignatiou says, "We've figured out it's not fear of frogs, fear of bodies, etc." For his own part, MaCavity indignantly claims that just because he's Malkavian he's not necessarily insane.
The Prince finally turns to Ignatiou and asks him if he is willing to join in this plan. Ignatiou says that he is, but expresses concern that this might interfere with the characters' ongoing search for the Mad Bomber. The Prince notes that the Scourge regularly brags to him about the big stack of paperwork and evidence he possesses, and how it is leading him to the Bomber. Derek Stone notes that the characters were originally responsible for recovering those documents, at fairly substantial risk. Ignatiou agrees, commenting, "A whole fortress collapsed on me when I was getting those!" The Prince nods knowingly and comments that this is how kindred society often works.
The Prince ends out the conversation by asking all the characters what their Willpower is, and whether or not they have any merits like Blasé or Iron Will. The characters suspect that the Prince may have Dominated them into not revealing anything of his promise to anyone.
The session ends in late March with the characters plotting ways to eliminate the Texas City kindred. Each character gains three experience points.