The room is full of people: Ray (Father Ezekiel), Nick (Vincent Cray), Tim (Shepherd), Charlene (Elizabeth Triem), Jade (Jordaine), and Bruce (Cyrus Billings).
The Gangrel Primogen Otto calls Cyrus, to ask him to get Father Ezekiel to call Cindy
The Malkavian Maxwell arranges a meeting with Shepherd, at "a place where you can feel out of place, and less sophisticated than myself, but where you will still be happy just because you're around me." They finally decide upon an upscale Italian restaurant. At the restaurant, Maxwell (whom Shepherd recalls as having spent several years scurrying around the sewers, convinced that they were full of very hard-to-kill monsters) shows up horribly overdressed, wearing a tuxedo. Maxwell offers a tremendous deal: in exchange for leaving the forces of the Evil Empire and joining Maxwell and his cohorts in the Good Empire, he can provide safety and substantial cash incentives. As a side benefit, the "experience points" are much better in the Good Empire than in the Bad Empire. Of course, Shepherd would have to kill his superior officer, who goes by the name of "Screaming Joe."
Shepherd's response to this offer is less than tremendous, so Maxwell spends a half-hour annoying him. Meanwhile, Shepherd does his best to try and understand what exactly Maxwell is talking about.
Not much of a conversation so far. She offers to be helpful if necessary, and asks about his recent trip down to the border. He comments that he was attacked by the Sabbat, but isn't really sure. Cindy is incredulous: "You were attacked by the Sabbat, and you're not SURE?" The conversation swiftly goes downhill from there, until Cindy gets Shepherd's phone number and calls him instead. Cindy then gets some confirmation about the Sabbat attack from Shepherd. Shepherd, for his own part, urges Cindy to talk to Cyrus about this issue.
Everyone does their own thing for a couple of days. Father Ezekiel continues to hunt in the manner to which he has become accustomed, by summoning stray animals and sucking them dry. He begins to notice that his haven is becoming rather scary, as it is festooned with the rotting remains of dozens of animals. In an effort to mitigate this situation, Father Ezekiel carts the bodies out into a pit behind his haven.
Shepherd gets a long letter on nice paper from Maxwell, urging Shepherd to join the Good Empire. The first few pages of the letter are fairly cogent, but by the time Shepherd comes across the graph showing how much better the experience points really are in the Good Empire he recognizes that Maxwell's prose has taken a severe turn to the strange. Maxwell also promises, among other things, that "as a Player Character, you will have more control over your actions than you do now as a Non-Player Character." Shepherd quietly pushes the letter away.
Elizabeth Triem and Jordaine attend a Toreador affair at one of the Austin Elysiums, the Museum of Very Tiny Things. It is quickly obvious to both of them that none of the attendees are paying any attention to the very tiny things, except as an excuse to chat with each other. The attendance includes: Denise, Logan, Matthew, and Ian Cambridge, all of them Toreador from Austin.
Ian brings Elizabeth and Jordaine to the side. After a brief interlude in which Jordaine realizes that Cathy is listening in on the conversation and drives her away (by attacking her), Ian tells them about some love letters he wrote some years ago, to a female Kindred he now bears a rather deep hatred. They are polite, but turn his commission down. At the end of the conversation, he tries to use his Dominate to force them to not talk about his problems. Both Elizabeth is unimpressed by his powers, and shrugs them off easily, but Jordaine is affected and finds himself unable to discuss the matter.
Shepherd and Vincent decide that they want to go to Austin and spy on the Toreador. Before heading off, they use Vincent's money to purchase some surveillance gear. What they can't get through Shepherd's ghoul Don (and his gun store), they attempt to get from the Brain. Initial attempts to get in touch with the Brain are initially interrupted by fires and explosions in the Brain's laboratory ("Oh God! No! Hey, call back in fifteen minutes! Click"). Once he gets in touch with him, Shepherd is forced to spend a fair amount of time convincing the Brain that he's really looking for are wiretaps and tracking devices, not a five-kilowatt Brain Wave Monitor. The Brain provides a half-dozen simple wiretaps, a half-dozen more advanced versions with limited recording capability, and several trackers for vehicles (each is about fist-sized, must be mounted by hand, and has a range of about 20 miles). In exchange, Shepherd agrees to provide a favor to the Brain.
The Brain also tells Shepherd that there will be "tea time" tomorrow at 20:00 at Belle's. He cautions Shepherd to wear something that isn't too attractive to cats, and that is preferably fairly thick and resistant to claws. The Brain briefly asks if Shepherd has "Malkavian Time", but quickly decides that he does not.
The Toreador Valerie Hoth calls Elizabeth to inform her of a Toreador gathering in Austin on the next Friday (Elizabeth happens to know that Valerie is one of Pilar's Childer, and acts as one of the Prince's enforcers). Valierie emphasizes that Elizabeth should wear something "formal", and to not bring anybody who would "subtract from the overall climate" (which is to say, who would embarrass the Toreador).
The characters, particularly Vincent and Shepherd, want to go to Austin to spy on the Toreador. To prepare for this, Shepherd suggests that setting up an advance base in a place like Buda would be a good idea, but he knows nothing about who is in charge of Buda. He goes to Sattler to ask him about who runs little towns near larger cities in Texas, Buda among them. Sattler provides him with some information, then uses Dominate to find out exactly why Shepherd is interested in the information. Shepherd proceeds to spill his guts, saying that he and his coterie want to find someplace isolated to live that is away from Kindred politics. Satisified with this answer, Sattler again uses Dominate upon him to prevent him from remembering that Sattler displayed any interest in why Shepherd was asking these questions. Sattler does, however, say that he will put in a good word if Shepherd (and his companions) really want to permanently move to Buda.
Elizabeth goes to the Toreador ball on Friday, wearing the same large sapphire necklace she wears whenever Jordaine wants to hide cameras and listening devices on her person. He places a camera behind the necklace, set to be under his remote control. He ensures that it is off when she enters the party. While she drifts about the party, he camouflages himself in his van and monitors the camera. They learn that there is exactly one Ventrue living in Austin, one Vincent LeTreck, who has been in residence for only a few months. Everyone else at the party is a Toreador, most of them Austin. Jordaine dutifully records them all, though he gets little of lasting interest.
During the party, Elizabeth talks to Prince Pilar, who sounds her out to learn if she would make a good retainer. Elizabeth tells Prince Pilar that she witnessed Ian striking Cathy in the Museum of Very Small Things. The Prince thanks her. About a week afterwards, Ian is exiled from the city of Austin.
Vincent, Shepherd, Ezekiel and Cyrus spread out over Buda to find their dream house: an old house occupied by a few people as possible, preferably people without large extended families. Vincent leads the effort, and is incredibly successful (7 successes in a Perception+Etiquette roll). He finds a house in Del Valle occupied by an old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Davis, whose only son is in the military and not expected to be back for over a year.
Over the next three days, Shepherd heads up every day to feed the old couple (whom Vincent has Dominated into cooperation) his blood, ghouling them. Meanwhile, Cyrus purchases a junker automobile (through a want ad, as opposed to through a police auction) and caches a supply of "useful" items in a dilapidated storage shed out behind the house. He mostly uses Vincent's money for this project. When he learns about them, Mr. Davis is quite happy to use Cyrus' tools around the house.
To keep unfortunate questions to a minimum, Vincent persuades the Davis couple that all the characters are their nephews.
Mike is a messenger for Prince Pilar. The characters decide to follow him around to learn something about how Austin works. The first step in this process is to place a tracking device upon his car; Father Ezekiel uses his new trained spider-monkey ghoul to place the device.
Cyrus spends the next two weeks following his car, learning that Mike teaches classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a small art academy downtown. He is surrounded by a large number of mortals, many of whom take his classes. On the third week, Mike does not teach his Tuesday class, instead driving to San Antonio. He briefly loses Cyrus and Vincent, then stops and ducks into a building on the Southeast side of town. Vincent tries to use his shotgun microphone to learn something about the building, but finds nothing. The characters write down the address, then continue to follow Mike, who heads back up to Austin. Back in Austin, he visits Prince Pilar's mansion.
In the fourth week, Mike drives a long distance to Dallas where he meets with Ian. The characters are unable to learn exactly what the subject of their conversation is.
After four weeks of trailing Mike, the characters give up. Vincent gets in contact with Lucas, to try and learn what is in the building Mike visited in San Antonio. He learns that the building appears to be a four-apartment building, but has been converted into a single fortified dwelling inside. Lucas tells Vincent that the place is occupied by Doug, one of the Brujah with a reputation as hired muscle. Lucas' opinion is that being seen publicly with Doug would be bad for Mike's reputation. Lucas also praises Vincent for his work, and promises, "An extra gold star next to your name."
Ramon is a former bullfighter and another of Prince Pilar's lackeys. From what Vincent knows, he spends most of his time at the Prince's mansion, but also has some kind of safe house out East of Austin. Father Ezekiel and Shepherd watch the safe house, while Vincent and Cyrus watch the mansion.
That Saturday night, there is clearly some kind of affair at the Prince's mansion. Many cars arrive, stay for about an hour, then depart. Vincent and Cyrus see Denise arrive and leave, but are unable to recognize anyone else: their cars have tinted windows. The characters record every license plate they see. The next evening, Vincent does a bad job of tinting the windows on Cyrus' car.
Two evenings later, on Sunday night, a big truck labeled Gardening World appears leaving the mansion. Moments later one of Ramon's cars, a small Fiat, drives off. Cyrus and Vincent follow. Ramon stops near Sixth Street, allowing Cyrus to place a tracker on it. The characters then sit back and wait for over six hours. The car never moves. Cyrus and Vincent remain there until morning, whereupon Cyrus sinks into the ground and Vincent drives off. Meanwhile, Shepherd and Father Ezekiel see a car pull up to Ramon's safe house and stay there. They make the unsurprising conclusion that Ramon owns several cars, and isn't at all shy about leaving them various places around town.
Vincent attends the weekly Tremere meeting on Tuesday, and finds out that Ian Cambridge has moved into the city.
At the end of the session, most of the characters are regrouping at their safe house in Buda, having failed to make dramatic leaps in knowledge about the seamy underside of the Austin Toreador. Each character gains five experience points.