For a dramatic change of pace, everyone shows up: Tim (Byron Ignaciou), Paul (Allen MaCavity), Bruce (Jack Rowell), and Chuck (Derek Stone). Chris is in charge, and he doesn't let anybody forget it.
To start off the day, Jack Rowell spends 10 experience points to learn Dominate 3. He chortles over the fact that he will now be able to play even more games with the lives of the puny mortals.
Over the last six months, the first of Jack Rowell's development grants have started to come in. The first offers a total of $250,000 in matching funds to convert a vacant lot or abandoned building into a neighborhood park. The second provides $50,000 to fund a "midnight basketball" program.
Jack Rowell decides that there are several easy ways to divert the midnight basketball money, particularly since any actual activity would happen at night, ensuring that anyone who came by to see how the program was going could be easily co-opted through appropriate application of Rowell's esoteric mental powers.
The park project is a bit more complicated, as Rowell needs to find a source of matching funds to get the money. He uses his contacts at the GHPHDA to obtain this money. He finds an abandoned building that he can get the city to seize for non-payment of property taxes, and then arranges for the city to sell it to the Carter Arms Public Development Corporation for $1. He selects a small, minority-owned general contractor (called, as luck would have it, Sanford and Son) to do the work, with the idea that he will be able to use Dominate to own the contractor's entire management structure.
Finally, Rowell decides to simply skim about 20% off the top from both projects. The money is siphoned off through false invoices submitted by dummy companies set up by Rowell's lawyer. As the game begins, both projects are about two months along.
Jack Rowell makes a point of wandering through the building slated for demolition before the crews arrive. He uses his Dominate to recruit a number of the local homeless people, in the process telling them to get out of the building. He gives them pagers and latent instructions to obey anyone who pages them. He hopes that they will be a useful source of blood or low-grade goons in the future.
Once he is finished with the locals, he asks his various friends to join him in searching the place in detail. The characters manage to find only one unusual feature: a discolored patch of concrete in the basement. It is clearly not the same age as the floor, and has visibly bubbled up. A rotting smell surrounds the area. Byron Ignaciou uses his Potence to break the thing up. The characters find about a dozen rotting corpses in a compartment underneath. Some of them have obviously suffered broken bones, gunshot wounds, and other signs of trauma. Their clothing is in tattered shreds. A quick search determines that none of them are carrying any identification. Jack Rowell asks Allen "Aura boy" MaCavity to look for auras and is disappointed to find that MaCavity doesn't have enough Auspex.
Several characters try to guess how old the bodies are. The general conclusion is that they are about seven years old. Everyone deduces that this probably has something to do with their erstwhile patron Jon Galliard. Rowell claims that he doesn't want his two "educated" ghouls to work on this (they look visibly disappointed), so Ignaciou suggests bringing in Malcolm Carter the nervous Tremere. Ignaciou suggests that Carter might have either the Psychometry power or the interest to do a newspaper clipping search from 1992 to 1995, looking for a series of twelve disappearances. After agreeing that this seems like the best strategy, the characters bring out a skull in a bowling ball bag for him.
Malcolm is interested enough in the skull to agree to look at the situation, but he points out that he would be able to gather more information at the site. The characters take him there, making a point of mentioning that the site is restricted, and they're giving him a lot of trust to let him see the place. He seems pleased. He paws the bodies around, and finds out that the dead bodies weren't good people (pedophiles, etc.). He is able to determine that they were brought down here and shot. Some of them believed that they were going to get a great reward in hell after this, but others felt that they were going to die. He is also able to determine that a couple of the folks doing the killing felt that they were really doing a good thing.
Jack Rowell theorizes that this is evidence of one of Galliard's housecleaning projects. Malcolm Carter offers an alternative theory involving Infernalists, commenting that, "Houston is just lousy with those guys." Byron Ignaciou likes this theory, but Rowell hates it.
Both Derek Stone and Byron Ignaciou are rather interested in the things the local Toreador are doing, either to mock them or to plan on assassinating them. They start asking questions, and rapidly learn about the Porter Gallery. The place is an exclusive, Toreador-backed gallery that opens every three months with a new artist's work. The gallery then deals exclusively in that artist's work until the next opening. Depending upon the success of the chosen artist, traffic through the gallery can vary between heavy and tumbleweed.
Another Toreador community activity is the Tuesday Night Magic Club. This is currently something the Toreador do monthly for light entertainment. At one time, the custom was started as a way to make fun of the Tremere, but at this point it's not much more than a social occasion. The big transition occurred when the Sabbat took over the city: any Toreador who were actually dabbling in magic were either killed or driven underground, and they haven't seen fit to resurface. The Club meetings are particularly popular among the younger Toreador.
Byron Ignaciou resolves to show up to as many of these events as he can, and to party crash the ones he's not invited to.
Derek Stone's interest in things Toreador revolves predominantly around the contract he holds to kill the Toreador Luciana. He learns that she is a Toreador Elder who is supposed to be showing up in Houston for a social event sometime in the future. The event is something of a private party, the sort that Ignaciou knows he is not going to be invited to.
Byron Ignaciou and Derek Stone also learn about the sad story of Susan Jackson. Susan Jackson is a 12th generation Toreador who decided that the Ventrue Narda Cash was too stupid to live, and resolved to make her life unpleasant. Cash took some issue with Jackson's behavior and resolved to make the Toreador see the error of her ways. At one time Susan Jackson was a vicious shark in the Toreador pool. Now, she is a Blood Bonded thrall to Narda Cash, pigeonholed as one of Narda's pets, and robbed of any status in Toreador circles.
Byron Ignaciou calls up Scourge Jeffrey Harper to say that the characters are planning on venturing into the Texas City Boneyards. He says that he wants to make sure that the characters are not going to interfere with any of the Scourge's operations. Harper indicates that he has no objections to the characters doing whatever they want around there. He does suggest that the characters shouldn't go there alone, and should meet with him first.
The characters meet with Scourge Harper at the DMV downtown. They find him in the parking lot, waiting in one of his vans. The driver takes them around the town while they talk.
Harper tells the characters that he hasn't been to Texas City since the characters took out that gang of diablerists, and doesn't have anything going down there. He does provide some useful information about the area:
The characters initially decide to head down to Texas City the next evening. Their plan is to go equipped with maps and video cameras, and look through all the disused dock complexes for signs that they've been used. Byron Ignaciou's fascination with the idea that vampires don't need to breathe creates some delay: he insists that the characters bring underwater flashlights and facemasks. This prompts the characters to buy a lot of useful-seeming stuff for the journey, consuming an additional day for preparation. Ignaciou buys a truck and a camper shell to hold it all.
Three strip clubs to the north and the Galveston Bay to the east border the mysterious section of the Boneyards. Aging warehouses, fronted by two dock complexes pushing out into the Bay, dominate the area.
Byron Ignaciou drives his truck with Derek Stone riding shotgun. Jack Rowell ("I can't drive!" "You can't shoot either, so you better drive.") drives a sedan with Allen MaCavity riding invisible shotgun beside him.
It doesn't take long for several of the characters to conclude that someone is using the docks. They're not using the mechanized equipment (all of the valuable machinery was removed years ago), but there are abundant signs that the stairways up from the water to the quays are seeing regular use. There is also plenty of evidence that someone is using the docks quite a bit.
Convinced that there is something to be found in the water off the docks, Byron Ignaciou gears up in his facemask and heads for the water. He finds that the water is very murky, probably not from natural causes. He finds no crates, but does locate three submerged cars. Each vehicle has a body in the trunk, leaving little doubt as to why they were originally sunken underneath Galveston Bay.
Ignaciou is investigating the body in the third car when, much to his distress, it animates and attacks him. The creature takes away his flashlight and turns it off, then grapples him. It is only by the skin of his teeth that he gets away. His attempt to stake it is not successful, but not because he didn't hit: he went right through it, with no effect. He returns to the surface, panicked.
The rest of the characters are more than a little skeptical about Ignaciou's breathless report that, "Horrible undead monsters are lurking in the cars!" Jack Rowell makes a point of acting like a horror-movie victim and goes down the stairway to the water level to demonstrate that, "There's nothing to be scared of." He spots a body floating in the water. Ignaciou follows him with some trepidation, covering the water with a gun. While the other characters pull the body in with a grapnel and rope, Ignaciou videotapes the area. Once the characters get the body back to the docks, Ignaciou inspects it and states that it is from one of the first cars, and isn't the one that attacked him. Rowell still doesn't think there was anything going on down there. Ignaciou points out that everyone here is a Vampire, and that all the characters should know better than to claim that there aren't terrible, unnatural things in circulation out there.
The characters next address the question of whether or not they should try to videotape the docks? Ignaciou argues that unknown forces watch the area. He states that if the characters put in some video cameras, and they'll be gone in a day. The characters decide to go back home, review the tapes they made, and take the head of the body they fished out of the water to Malcolm. They triple-bag the body because it stinks.
Malcolm is none too happy about the characters' latest request to play mystic coroner, and once again says that it would be much better if he had a chance to look at the site of death. Ignaciou, still shuddering slightly, tells him, "You don't want to be at the site of death." Malcolm finally agrees to go to the characters' building scheduled for demolition and check out the body. Sadly, he is unable to learn anything from it.
Allen MaCavity and Derek Stone review the tapes the characters made of the Boneyards. Both of them are convinced that they can see a walking corpse in some of the scenes. They are easily able to convince Byron Ignaciou that they are right, but Jack Rowell doesn't buy it. Ignaciou proposes taking this information to Harper, saying, "I'm going to tell him I found a walking corpse!" Rowell objects: "What!?! I'm going to tell him you dropped your flashlight!"
The Voodoo Lounge is a somewhat mysterious place two blocks north of the characters' territory. Allen MaCavity has been curious about it for some time, and decides that now is a good time for him to Obfuscate his way into the place for a look-see. He heads out without bothering to inform any of the other characters.
MaCavity is easily able to get into the place under Obfuscate. He finds that it is an array of rooms. The first few chambers are scattered with people experimenting (or maybe not really experimenting any more) with drugs and deviant sex acts. The inner rooms contain a voodoo temple. The temple incorporates some Christian artifacts, but in a subordinate position to other, pagan idols. He sees that seven or eight thick-necked guys guard the area. Beyond the inner rooms are several sealed doorways that he is unable to get through. Most of the temple members are of variable ethnicity, and fairly young. He guesses that the place looks like it could be supporting itself through sales of different drugs.
MaCavity waits in the temple until he sees one guy approach, make a short prayer, give a cash offering, and then run off to have fun in the outer rooms. From what he can see, this is a typical activity in the place. He doesn't see anybody go into the sealed rooms in the back of the building, though he can tell that some of them are being used from the sounds of muffled conversation inside. Even his Auspex isn't enough to let him make out the words.
MaCavity waits until he sees a couple emerge from one of the sealed rooms. The woman is dressed like a Haitian priestess. The man is solidly-built but conservatively-dressed. The two of them go into the temple, where the woman starts performing some rites. She speaks the rites in Spanish, with some French thrown in for good measure. The woman splashes chicken blood around on the altar. Through most of the ritual, the man had been standing passively nearby, but he starts to shake (as if in a seizure) when the blood hits the altar. After a moment he recovers, thanks the priestess, then looks directly at MaCavity. MaCavity decides this is a very bad sign.
The man beckons to MaCavity, and MaCavity walks towards him. MaCavity reverses his course after the man makes an attempt to grapple him. He tries to evade the fellow by making himself look like the priestess, an attempt that is quickly abandoned in favor of dodging. He continues with this strategy for a while, losing his Obfuscate in the process. He makes a break for the door out, but is eventually overwhelmed by the guards. The guards place his arms into manacles. The only bright spot is the fact that he doesn't hear the words, "He is terribly relieved to not hear the words, "Get me a stake!"
Once he is securely bound and the exterior door is chained shut, the leader walks up, tells him that he has been very annoying, and coughs a stream of black viscous goo into his face. MaCavity does his best to avoid swallowing it, but it almost doesn't matter: it burns him incredibly badly. He takes five levels of aggravated damage to the face, and is blinded instantly. MaCavity does his best to pretend to die. This is more difficult than it sounds: his burns are excruciating, and his unnatural existence prevents him from simply slipping into unconsciousness. In his mind, the ordeal goes on for hours and hours. Eventually, the leader tells the guards, "Dispose of that." MaCavity is thoroughly duct-taped and thrown into the trunk of a car. Horrible hours later, the car stops. By this time, MaCavity has managed to get some play into the manacles. He is taken out of the trunk. Somebody cuts into his torso with a knife. Chains are wrapped around his body. He is dumped into deep water. The two guards doing the work talk shop all through the process, making him think that they actually do this sort of thing fairly regularly. As the waters close over his head, MaCavity rather glumly realizes that he will forget this entire episode, as the whole thing is just far too traumatic for his Derangement to handle.
It takes MaCavity a long time to free himself from his bonds and get out of the water. By the time he has surfaced, his derangement has already caused him to forget the events that got him blinded and thrown into the water.
Hearing cars driving by, MaCavity finally manages to flag down a passing motorist (most folk who slow down quickly realize that he doesn't have a face and speed up again). MaCavity persuades the guy to throw him some money, to make a phone call. Someone else stops and helps him while he is looking for a payphone. He borrows the guy's cell phone and calls Rowell. Rowell eventually figures out what's going on after he tells MaCavity (whom he doesn't initially recognize) to hand the phone to the other driver. Rowell intervenes, alters the guy's memories, and arranges a couple of derelicts in nice clothes as food for MaCavity.
The session ends with Allen MaCavity desperately injured, but totally unable to tell any of the other characters exactly what happened to him. Each character gains four experience points.