The whole collection wanders in and sits around talking about crappy sales jobs and drinking the Kool-Aid until Chris arrives to take charge. We are: Bruce (Jack Rowell), Chuck (Derek Stone), Paul (Allen MaCavity), Tim (Byron Ignaciou) and Dan (Kemal Ataturk).
Kemal Ataturk was originally a shipowner from Turkey. In the latter stages of his life, he ran crude oil up from the Suez canal and into the Aegean Sea. This all ended when he was Embraced by a Nosferat who fell afoul of his various enemies shortly afterwards. He arrives in Houston knowing only that he must find the Prince. He arrives in Houston clad in a stylish suit, traditional headdress, and huge 80s-esque sunglasses. He follows normal channels and gets an audience with Prince Simon Bradford.
He is ushered into the presence of the Prince and explains that his Sire was killed recently, and that his Sire had some claim to Jon Galliard's former territory. The Prince breaks normal procedures and gives Ataturk the other characters' phone numbers, telling him to get in touch with them on his own, so they can settle whatever claims he may bring on their own.
Byron Ignaciou hunts to heal his aggravated wounds. He is convinced that the Sabbat are going to attack at any time, so he sets up some arms caches. Each is a storage locker holding some clothes, a couple of guns, and a motorcycle.
Kemal Ataturk calls Allen MaCavity and arranges a meeting with him at a local coffee shop. MaCavity ensures that the rest of the group accompanies him, along with all of their guns.
Ataturk is still dressed in his nicely-cut business suit accessorized with the large turban and the huge sunglasses. The only visible part of his body is his long, wart-encrusted nose. He explains that his Sire was one of Jon Galliard's cronies. His Sire also had many enemies, and was being hunted. To protect himself, he managed to get permission to create several Childer as allies. Ataturk was the last of these allies, but his Sire ran afoul of his enemies and was slain before he could really explain the situation.
Derek Stone is somewhat less than impressed by Ataturk's story, as it sounds very convenient.
At this point, Allen MaCavity gets a phone call from Scourge Jeffrey Harper. He introduces himself just as "Jeffrey" and seems very suspicious. He asks MaCavity to answer some questions to confirm his identity ("Were you in a junkyard yesterday?"). Once "Jeffrey" is satisfied that he is talking to MaCavity, he tells him that his people have done some work on the cellphones they captured from the gangsters last night. He thinks that he may know where the gangsters are, though maybe not for very long. He wants to meet with the characters at a Dairy Queen outside the city to discuss his information and an action plan.
The characters find the Scourge at the Dairy Queen in Hempstead. He tells them that he thinks the surviving gangsters are hiding out in an isolated farmhouse ("Just to the left of the middle of nowhere.") based upon their cellphone records. The town is actually fair-sized, and features a Sheriff and several deputies, but the area in question is nothing but farmland. The nearest neighbor is almost 2 miles away. Harper hasn't been able to find any record of ownership, or any tax records, or a phone number for the farmhouse.
During the conversation, some additional suspicion of Kemal Ataturk arises. Derek Stone wants someone to verify that Ataturk's Sire was recently killed, and that he might have had some offspring that would have survived the Sire's death. He calls Dmitri Meloft on the sly and gets some of this information confirmed, including that Ataturk's Sire was killed. Meloft doesn't know if Ataturk's Sire had any Childer, though Ataturk's claim that he is a recent Embrace might let him skate that.
Scourge Harper is able to provide the characters with some maps of the property. He can tell the characters that the house is a two-story structure built in the 1950's, probably wood-frame (unless it was brought over from France stone by stone). Derek Stone's assessment is that the open area between the silo, the barn and the house will be a killing zone as soon as bad things start happening. Jack Rowell suggests that because the characters could care less about breathing, they might be well-advised to approach through the fish pond, underwater.
Scourge Harper says that he has about fifteen guys he can dedicate to the assault, though he admits that he'd prefer not to lose any of them if he doesn't have to. In answer to Stone's request for a diversion, Harper points out that he has his armored van and notes that it could be driven down the main driveway. He and Stone decide that all of Harper's men should be motorized, either in the armored van or in his three minivans. One minivan is to the north, one is to the south, both a couple of miles out. The armored van and the third minivan will come in along the access road.
Harper and Stone hand out night-vision devices and comlinks to the characters that don't have them. This arouses substantial interest among the Dairy Queen staff. Scourge Harper reassures the characters that he will deal with the problem ("Dominate!").
Kemal Ataturk suggests that today's efforts should be reconnaissance only, and that any attack should happen later. Jack Rowell disagrees, arguing that Scourge Harper has already pointed out that these guys are pretty cagey, and that they might not be there if the characters wait to hit them. Scourge Harper provides some more specific information: he has already hunted the renegades down twice, with little success. One time they noticed one of Harper's vehicles sitting around a little longer than normal and they were gone in a day. The second time, they didn't move because Harper attacked immediately, getting one of them at some cost. They did stand and fight when they had to.
The characters agree that they will approach through the pecan grove, from the northwest. Scourge Harper's men in the armored van will move in along the access road when they hear the sound of gunfire.
Kemal Ataturk spends an extra half-hour obtaining a minibike, with the hopes of using it for a quick, cross-country getaway. He suspects that things are going to go very badly. He also scouts a nearby farmer's land to try and find a good place to go to ground. He finds that the farmhouse is built with a pillar-and-lintel foundation with a nice, dark crawl space. Solid partitions cover the approaches from all directions except under the porch and one access hatch.
It takes the characters about a half hour to get into position in the pecan grove. Kemal Ataturk gets into position at the north edge of the property first, and waits for the other characters to approach. The characters find that the fields are covered in dry brush ranging between thigh- and shoulder-height.
MaCavity scouts forward with Obfuscate. He moves into the silo, finding that it contains only rotted grain and dust. The floor seems solid, made of either concrete or packed earth. He tries to determine if the silo is being used as a lair, and concludes that there is enough dust and grain inside to hide a body, though a psychic message from Byron Ignaciou reminds him that silos blow up fairly easily. While he inspects the place, he hears someone moving around above him. Moments later, he sees a cigarette butt fall from somewhere high in the building. He sees two sets of iron rungs leading up, both of which look like they should support his weight. MaCavity sneaks up, and finds a sniper looking through a series of loopholes cut in the building wall. MaCavity quickly deduces that the sniper is not one of Harper's men. He also determines that he doesn't have anything that can take the guy out silently.
MaCavity retreats from the silo to report his discovery to the other characters.
Kemal Ataturk sneaks up towards the barn, taking care to keep the grass from rustling. The only thing he hears inside is the hum of a generator. He uses his Discipline powers to create a zone of silence and sneaks into the barn through the back door. The other characters see a bright light, but hear no noise: the barn door was mined. Ataturk is only mildly injured. He finds three sedans and a half-dozen motorcycles, plus a motion detector on the front door. He sets to disabling all the vehicles by disconnecting the batteries.
Meanwhile, MaCavity returns to the silo to find the sniper talking on a radio. MaCavity decides to tackle the guy and disable him with a pin. They scuffle for a while, then MaCavity wins the struggle and manages to bite him. He drinks down five blood points. By the time MaCavity finishes, the sniper is no longer moving. He reports his success to the other characters.
The back door of the house opens. A guy looks around, then closes the door again. The characters still back at the pecan grove start sneaking forward. Stone and Ignaciou head towards the back of the house, while Rowell moves to the edge of the fish pond. The pair headed towards the house are intercepted by a gunman who pops up from the grass behind the house. Ignaciou ramps up his Celerity and heads towards the back of the house, dodging through the bullets. Ignaciou's return fire drills right through the gunman, putting him thoroughly down. Stone simply runs and reaches the back of the house.
Scourge Harper follows Stone and Ignaciou. The other characters hear a colossal explosion, and see his body flung up into the air. He lands with a boneless thump. The characters are somewhat concerned until they hear him say, "Don't worry, I'm okay!" in rather shaken tones.
Ignaciou sees one window broken by debris from the explosion. He shoots it open with his assault rifle, then leaps through. Stone follows him. MaCavity notices this activity from his perch on the silo, and rather fortunately manages to determine that the flitting figures down below are his friends.
MaCavity and Jack Rowell see another concealed gunman pop up and shoot at Scourge Harper, who is still downed. They gun him down. Okay, I'll admit it: MaCavity is really the one who guns him down - Rowell's shot inflicted a paltry two levels of damage.
Derek Stone and Byron Ignaciou move into the house proper. About this time, Ataturk shoots the power line to the house out and all the lights go with it. Stone and Ignaciou put their night-vision goggles back on. Their efforts to sneak are crushed when Stone knocks over a piece of pottery on the stairway. A sentry upstairs fills the air with automatic gunfire, wounding Stone.
Jack Rowell moves along the row of pecan trees until he reaches the closest covered approach to the house.
The three characters acting as snipers see another gunman pop up and throw a grenade at Scourge Harper, who is trying to sneak through the window Stone and Ignaciou used. Harper is blown into the house by the explosion, though once again he stands up. MaCavity shoots the gunman, who falls down.
Harper, Stone and Ignaciou make their way through the house, shooting gunmen as they go. The mortal gunmen they encounter oppose them in a less-than-professional manner with assault rifles and grenades. Stone searches through the first-floor rooms. He finds a library with a cot in it. A biker-type is lying on the cot, apparently not breathing. At this point, Ignaciou arrives on the scene and stakes the guy.
Ignaciou asks Harper, "You have any explosives, Harper?" Harper responds, "Just the three grenades I got off a guy out there. I don't know what the white one does." Ignaciou: "Why don't you just hold onto that one, and we'll take the other two." They throw two grenades upstairs and then rush up behind them. Sadly, the grenades don't do much beyond breaking all the windows on the back of the farmhouse. Stone tries shooting the gunman at the top of the stairs, and his heartbroken when his gun jams (it turns out that there is an entire bush stuck in the firing mechanism from all his crawling around outside earlier). The gunman's return fire is equally ineffective. Ignaciou manages to shoot past Stone to fell the guy. A second gangster shows up, orders Stone to "Run away!", and gets shot by Ignaciou for his trouble. Ignaciou reasons that the newcomer is vampiric and tries to stake him. The vampire responds by going into Frenzy and trying to grapple Ignaciou. This lasts until Ignaciou is able to inflict eight levels of damage upon him with a stake. Ignaciou hears his spine break.
MaCavity fires several shots at a gangster trying to get away. He hits and injures the man but does not stop him. He eventually loses track of him.
The characters are able to account for all of the gangsters except for the Obfuscator. They have a total of eight bodies, plus two staked vampires (though the one Ignaciou staked on the cot is pretty weak).
Harper has one of his minivans pull up. He drinks from a canteen while Rowell takes charge of the situation, ordering Harper's guys to assemble and bag the bodies. Harper's guys search out the more incriminating objects. During the search, Derek Stone manages to find a tripwire bomb by setting it off. Everyone behaves a lot more carefully afterwards. Harper puts on a new suit and takes care of the cops when they show up at the mouth of the access road.
The characters come up with: two white grenades (Harper has one of them), ten fragmentation grenades, a dozen AK-47's, a dozen large-caliber pistols, all the knives they can carry, a dozen cellphones, and a garbage can with a dozen cellphones in the bottom.
MaCavity determines that the vampire staked upstairs was a diablerist. The characters universally resolve that Harper should be the one to turn the body over to the Prince. Scourge Harper is confused that the characters are willing to give him credit for anything.
The characters conclude after some investigation effort that someone outside the gangsters' little group actually set up the place before the gangsters arrived – the portable generator, tripmines with wires in the yard and in the barn, and other defenses are substantially more sophisticated than the gangsters are capable of. This opinion is cemented by the discovery of a note discussing the local defenses, apparently left for the gangsters by their mysterious patron.
Kemal Ataturk visits the farm next door and picks up their dog with Animalism. He only barely manages to convince it to help him find the Obfuscating vampire. It takes him about forty-five minutes to bring the creature back. The tracking attempt shows that the Obfuscating vampire went to the farm the characters approached through, then (probably) stole a vehicle there. Byron Ignaciou eventually thinks that the vehicle might be new enough to have a GPS tracking system on it. It turns out that it does, and is located in Hempstead by a sheriff's deputy in the parking lot of a hotel, near a truck stop and a restaurant.
Jack Rowell and Byron Ignaciou go to hit the hotel. Harper and MaCavity check the diner. Stone and Ataturk wander among the trucks at the truck stop. Nobody finds anything.
By this time, it's about 05:00 and everyone rushes home to avoid the terrible, terrible sun.
The following evening, Scourge Harper asks, "How do we cover up the fact that Bradford is dead?" Rowell comes up with a cynical plan: Make sure that only people who didn't see the dust of Bradford's corpse go to the Prince, except for Harper, who needs to take credit for the victory at the farmhouse. Specifically, Ignaciou must stay away. If the Prince asks, the characters can legitimately explain that he was badly hurt, and is out hunting. Harper and the "blameless" characters will then explain to the Prince that they didn't hear from Bradford for a while, found the gangsters, and attacked them on the thought that they might have Bradford as a captive. They didn't find Bradford, but they did find a vampire gangster who shows signs of diablerie. All indications are that he was responsible for sucking Bradford dry.
The characters see the Prince only after they go through an additional level of security. After everyone gets disarmed at the Prince's skyscraper they are asked to walk in front of a glass booth on the 5th floor and stand there for about a minute.
Jeffrey Harper does a creditable job of explaining the situation and turning over the bodies. The Prince is stoic in his pain. He asks who was paying the gangsters. Rowell explains that the characters (and the Scourge) don't yet know, but there are some pieces of evidence to go on. The Prince expresses sorrow that Bradford was killed in a junkyard only after he started to show some interest in improving his unlife and engaging in activity that would increase his status.
This is the end of a story, so all the characters recover their Willpower. Beyond that, each character gains four experience points. Several characters are forced to make Humanity rolls. Everyone succeeds except for Kemal Ataturk, who fails and loses a point of both Humanity and Conscience.
Byron Ignaciou buys Stealth (3 points) and Perception. Derek Stone buys Dodge, Dominate 2 and Fortitude 2.
Six months of downtime will follow, to be resolved at the start of the next session.