The room is full: Nick (Vincent Cray), Charlene (Elizabeth Triem), Bruce (Cyrus Billings), Gareth and Jade. Tim (Shepherd) assures us that he will show up, just a touch late (an hour and a half). Both Gareth and Jade are playing new characters: Karl Norel and (former) Gunnery Sergeant Conrad Chase. Both of them are recent arrivals to San Antonio, and have only recently been extravagantly welcomed to the city by Prince David, who treated them with rather more respect than half-drowned sewer rats when they introduced themselves. They took this to be a good sign after examining some of the other locals.
A onetime CIA "mechanic", Karl was chosen as a Brujah after his Sire noted several Ventrue spies paying too much attention to him. The Brujah, doubtless assuming that Karl would be slavishly devoted to him afterwards, Embraced him as a way of denying him to the Ventrue. He didn't quite live up to this ambition, and has since become something of a freelancer. His is also intensely interested in weapons (he possesses a ghoul who frequents gun and knife shows on his behalf) and all things German.
He is a fairly recent arrival to San Antonio, and has a house out in the Hill Country where nobody is likely to look for him. He shows up knowing the names of three local Brujah: Laura, supposedly the most political of the local Clan members; Bill Hansen; and Angel.
A Vietnam vet and a former friend of Karl's in life, Conrad is a Nosferat primarily notable for two things: an amazing amount of Obfuscate and a Sire with few inhibitions about dealing equally with both Camarilla members and Sabbat. This makes him a touch unpopular, but he doesn't worry: whenever he gets into an untenable conversation, he simply vanishes from sight.
Conrad arrives in San Antonio knowing the names of two local Nosferatu: Nigel, the Primogen, and Faceless, an important lesser member of the Clan.
A week after showing up in town, Karl calls upon Laura, whom he imagines to be the best Brujah to start talking to. After a brief interval of rather touchy phone tag, he manages to actually speak to her. They arrange a meeting at a construction site of Laura's choosing. She cautions him to not show up with anything scary, as then she won't speak to him. When he gets there, he is to go to the foreman's trailer and speak to the people there. He elects to take the subtle approach, and drive over in his flashy Mercedes SUV.
At the construction site, Karl has a highly intellectual conversation with a thick-necked goon who clearly spends his free time biting roofing nails in half. The goon makes a phone call, and moments later Laura appears. She is not tall, but extremely striking with flaming red hair and white pale skin. She is also, notably, smoking an exotic-looking cigarette in a long ivory holder.
Laura assures Karl that she checked him out thoroughly, and is fairly convinced that he's not going to go on a killing rampage. She then invites him to "what passes for a Brujah rant around here." She gets into a late-model Cadillac and drives to Lady Bird Johnson Park, a somewhat dilapidated park for the disadvantaged youths of the city that is currently playing host to most of the city's Brujah: Al, Angel, Doug, Felicity, Frank, the Hansen brothers, and several others. Karl spends time trying to engage in "networking", to develop political connections. He does manage to get several phone numbers, but their conversations are largely chest-thumping rhetoric. Karl also learns that Frank James (allegedly of Frank & Jesse James fame) is the local Primogen, and seems to get along with Laura tolerably well.
Finally, Karl learns about two local coteries: the characters' coterie, which is advertised as consisting of Vincent, Cyrus, Shepherd, Jeordaine, and possibly Elizabeth (who may not be a member: she doesn't seem violent enough), and another group consisting of Karen (the leader and a Tremere), Frank Ketchem (Brujah), Terry (Brujah), and Travis (Gangrel).
Conrad starts out by calling Nigel, the Nosferatu Primogen. The phone is answered by a snooty-sounding English type who starts out suspicious and doesn't get much better. He finally gets himself invited to show up at the Northwest entrance of the San Antonio Zoo, where he will have a chance to meet Nigel.
Roughly ten minutes after midnight, a guard dressed in a silly-looking "Welcome to San Antonio Zoo" uniform shows up and starts speaking to him. He uses his Mask of a Thousand Faces powers to make himself look like he did before he became a scaled freak. The guard asks him to stand in front of a group of cameras, then escorts him through cages of frenzied animals to a small blockhouse where they are met by an incredibly-ugly butler whose attitude brings to mind Ernest Borgnine dressed up as James Bond.
The interior of the blockhouse represents a dramatic contrast to the outside: it is furnished as a late Victorian mansion. Conrad enjoys a long conversation with Nigel, primarily upon the sort of exotic matters that interest only the Nosferatu.
Vincent takes Cyrus, Shepherd and Elizabeth aside to tell them some disturbing news. He relates that he found a list upon one of the Sabbat bodies that contained all of their names, plus those of Jeordaine, Brain and Remo, and brief comments on each of them (Shepherd is described as, "A good lunch"). The fact that the characters were heading to El Paso is also noted. Vincent makes the obvious conclusion that there is a Sabbat mole somewhere in San Antonio. The characters debate who it could be for a time. Obvious suspects include: Isaac (who knew the characters were going to El Paso), Beezel (who may have found out, and who would probably like Vincent dead), Remo (who is just a psychopath), Screamin' Joe (who pulled the information about the El Paso trip from Shepherd's quivering mind), or Otto (who would really be a good choice for a Sabbat mole, and who Cyrus asked about El Paso). The characters don't come to any conclusions other than that they should be more paranoid than usual.
Vincent also mentions that he found a second list during his search, a list of surviving El Paso Camarilla members. He mentions only that the list exists, but doesn't describe exactly who is on it.
Elizabeth returns to her haven to find a lot of mail. Considering the amount of time she's been away, this isn't surprising. What is surprising are the two large packages among the overdue bills and credit card offers. After a certain amount of paranoid investigation, she determines that they are not, in fact, bombs. Rather, they contain a large quantity of hair care products. Baffled, Elizabeth realizes that she is blonde, and that Remo has a penchant (some might even call it a psychopathic compulsion) to collect blonde scalps. She swiftly concludes that Ian Cambridge, the Toreador currently pursuing a vendetta against her, has probably launched Remo at her. She responds by investing in a large quantity of black and brunette hair dye.
Later that week, Elizabeth is out hunting when she starts to get twinges from her Auspex. Looking around, she spots a young man with a suspicious bulge in his jacket pocket. She flees, just as he pulls out a huge, menacing squirt gun. Sadly, she is unable to evade him. When he gets into range of her, he squirts her in the face and hair with an obsessive (and possibly Dominate-inspired) fervor. Tiring of these antics, she knees him in the groin and takes away his squirtgun. After she apprehends him, he denies everything.
Minutes later, she realizes that the squirtgun contained hydrogen peroxide, and that her hair is now blotched black, blue and white. She goes home to re-dye her hair and complain to Shepherd about the actions of his Clan-mates.
Conrad calls up Cyrus, whom he knows from back in the DEA, to let him know that he's in town and wants to meet a few people. Cyrus arranges a meeting between Conrad (and his friend Karl) and the rest of the characters at Woozy Louie's Bar & Grill at 20:00.
Vincent turns over his collection of Indian mummies to Isaac, and gives him a brief trip report. In return, Isaac tells him that he suspects that Vincent's earlier failure in the exam to advance to the next Circle in the Tremere was probably connected to a ghoul who stole a sample of Vincent's blood with a special ring just before the exam. Isaac tries to reassure Vincent that if the blood hasn't already been used, then there is probably only enough for a single ritual. Isaac isn't too bothered by the fact that Mendoza was eaten by a Black Spiral Dancer, but is quite curious about the fact that the characters were able to simply walk out of the Dancers' hive. Isaac allows Vincent to keep the Wards Against Lupines he gave him for the trip.
After he is finished speaking to Isaac, Vincent is summoned to speak to Natasha. She enquires what exactly he learned during his trip, to which he gives her a copy of the list of surviving El Paso Camarilla members. She acts somewhat disappointed at the news that all of the Kindred on the expedition came back. She also asks very closely why exactly Vincent returned so quickly. Specifically, she wants to know what went wrong with the expedition. Vincent's response, more or less, is that though they expected the Sabbat to be all over the place, the characters didn't expect that they would discover them so quickly. Natasha becomes suspicious when Vincent notes that the list was taken from the body of a dead Sabbat member, and asks probing questions about whether or not the list might have been meant to be found. Vincent assures her that it wasn't.
Natasha also requests that Vincent write a detailed report on his expedition, including all sorts of useful and embarrassing information that she would like to know, including information about Vincent's coterie mates. She points out that one of the rules Tremere members must follow involves not withholding information from your superiors. Unfortunately, she was forced to… remind… one of the other junior members of the Clan of this while Vincent was gone. She notes that the important thing is not that she had to give this warning, but that she should never have to give such a warning to Vincent.
Finally, Natasha tells Vincent that two new Kindred have come into town, a Brujah and a Nosferatu, who may have both been involved in things that sound like assassination, though both of them deny it.
All of the characters get together at Woozy Louie's Bar & Grill. The other characters get their first look at Karl Norel, a six-foot-tall guy in a nice suit, and Conrad Chase, who currently looks like a short guy with a military crew cut and neatly-pressed clothing. Of course, the fact that Conrad has Obfuscate 5 indicates that he can pretty much look like whatever he wants. Interestingly, Vincent shows up to the meeting looking very much like he has been weeping, possibly as if he had been making a large number of Conscience rolls over the many deaths he has caused.
Early in the evening, Shepherd gets a twinge from his Auspex. He looks up to see a Hispanic woman carrying a long flowerbox approaching the table. Just as she pulls a large-caliber automatic weapon from the flowerbox, Shepherd fast-draws a gun and takes a trick shot at her gun. Several other characters' danger senses trigger, though most of them conclude that Shepherd is the problem. Shepherd fires quickly, at which point most of the other characters realize that Shepherd is being delusional and shooting at some luckless diner at the next table. While the more cautious characters use Obfuscate to vanish from view, Vincent and Cyrus restrain Shepherd. Shepherd briefly continues to blaze away at phantom enemies before Cyrus wrestles him to the ground, hitting a diner, a pile of glasses, and a moose head mounted on the wall.
By the end of it all, Cyrus pulls out his port-a-stake and stakes Shepherd for easy transportation. Conrad takes advantage of his Obfuscate 5 to conceal everyone from sight. Vincent heads in to the restaurant while cops start to show up, and swiftly persuades a couple of waiters that all the mayhem was caused by a Hispanic gunman who ran out of the restaurant right after the shooting. He also convinces a couple of cops outside that they just saw the shooter head out around the corner of the building.
With cleanup fairly complete, it becomes quite obvious that the root cause for this whole incident is Shepherd being a psychopath. Cyrus and Vincent zip Shepherd up into a body bag, take him to a deserted warehouse, and unstake him very carefully (with Shepherd both handcuffed and restrained by Cyrus). As the other characters file in one by one, Cyrus, Vincent and Elizabeth do their best to re-educate Shepherd on how to properly respond to delusional threats. In particular, they try to convince him that the answer is not to pull out guns in crowded restaurants and start blazing away. Shepherd answers with the highly-convincing line of argument, "Some Malkavians are really crazy, but most of us are really very normal. We just see things sometimes." The next couple hours are fairly touch-and-go for Shepherd, but Cyrus, Elizabeth and Vincent are finally convinced that he is safe to let out into polite society again.
Afterwards, Shepherd apologizes profusely to everyone involved, especially including the two new characters.
Shepherd tries to help out Elizabeth by getting Remo off her back. He reasons that Remo is basically Dr. Brain's errand-boy, so he gets in touch with him and asks Brain to get Remo to back off. Brain's response is, "How grateful would you be?", clearly angling for some kind of favor. By the end, it isn't entirely clear exactly what Brain can do, much less if he's going to actually do it.
Brain passes Shepherd along to Remo, who apologizes.
All through the month of August, the Post Office delivers a series of very unfortunate messages to several of the characters.
Near the end of August, Sattler calls Cyrus and asks him to report for an audience with the Prince. The Prince informs Cyrus that he has received a very questionable note. The note is anonymous, and accuses Cyrus of being a diabolist. This is backed up by a series of extremely bad photographs that purport to show Cyrus diablerizing another vampire in El Paso. The Prince questions Cyrus very closely about why exactly he was in El Paso, and whether or not he diablerized anyone while there. Cyrus, unable as always to resist others' mental powers, answers each question truthfully.
Finally satisfied with Cyrus' answers, Prince David lets him go. However, he cautions him that there may be Archons showing up to ask him the same questions. They may not, he points out, be as gentle as he was.
Sure enough, three 101-year-old Brujah Archons show up within a couple of weeks to interrogate Cyrus very harshly. They ask questions like, "How long have you been a diabolist? How many Camarilla Kindred have you killed?" They also inflict a lot of damage. By the time they are done, Cyrus is only barely able to crawl away, which he does.
Cyrus spends a few days being low profile afterwards.
One fine day, Shepherd gets an envelope with an El Paso postmark. Even though his Auspex danger sense is extremely active, he opens the envelope and is horrified as it bursts into sunlight, inflicting five levels of aggravated damage upon him and plunging him into Rotschreck. Some time later, Shepherd comes back to his senses hiding in the back room of the gun shop, burned to an inch of his life.
After Shepherd spends some time healing himself back, he asks Vincent about rituals that can accomplish this sort of trick. Vincent tells him that some witch-hunters have powers like that, though he doesn't know of any Thaumaturgical rituals that can "store" sunlight.
On the last day of August, a news report appears in the San Antonio paper that a man named Darren Steinburg was shot to death by police the previous morning in Waco. The man bore a surprising resemblance to Vincent, and was accused of running a pedophile and child prostitution ring. The news report states that he survived multiple gunshot wounds and was able to injure three policemen. He only died during the trip to the hospital. Vincent also hears about this from one of his aides, who got the story off the bulletins from the Waco Daily Times-Picayune.
Vincent immediately rushes off to Waco to introduce a lot of disinformation into the offices of the Waco Daily Times-Picayune and to attempt to ensure that he isn't pegged as the guy in the story. Fortunately, he also discovers that even in Waco he's not as famous as, say, Charles Manson. Most folks don't recognize him on the street.
Near the end of August, Shepherd gets a phone call from someone purporting to be Cyrus. The voice on the other end of the line says, "Hey, Shepherd. This is Cyrus. I've just finished doing something horrible. I need you to help me clean up. Bring some body bags, some gasoline and a fire axe. I'm at… (pause, sound of door opening)… the corner of Twelfth and Utalong."
Shepherd instantly believes this, and springs to action. He gets in touch with Vincent, arranges for him to show up on the scene. He also calls Cyrus back to assess the situation. Oddly enough, "Cyrus" answers, and reports that he had some trouble hunting. The guy screamed, and he had to kill him. Then the cops showed up, and he had to kill them. The situation just sort of snowballed from there, up until there were a total of six bodies. Shepherd proposes bringing in Sattler and Crask, to which Cyrus says, "No! Don't get them involved!" Shepherd hands the phone over to Vincent, who asks Cyrus what he wants to do. Cyrus's plan is to cut the bodies into small pieces, put them into the body bags, put those into the police cars and dump them into a lake. Then, burn all the buildings to get rid of the bloodstains.
While all the frantic preparations are underway, the real Cyrus is actually tinkering with a new shotgun rack in his garage, blissfully unaware of all the panic. His own cellphone remains silent and dead.
By the time the characters assemble in the disaster area, they have become a bit suspicious, especially considering that they all know that Cyrus is terribly afraid of fire and that he already has most of the equipment he requested in his trunk. However, they called him back and he answered the phone, and time is clearly of the essence, so they continue on. Vincent theorizes that Cyrus may have finally cracked and gone over the edge, so stopping him may become extremely important.
Conrad shows up on the scene, and finds that the building is a large Quonset hut. He slips into the building under Obfuscate. He sees things that make sense: a couple of darkened police cars, a private security truck, a bunch of cut-up bodies, and someone covered with blood who looks a lot like Cyrus. Conrad and Karl scout the area, and find multiple possible ambush sites and a booby trap on the back door. However, Conrad is unable to find anyone else waiting to do an ambush. He suspects that they may all be using Obfuscate to stay hidden. He also determines that the front door is apparently not monitored.
Shepherd finally calls Cyrus on his secure, "El Paso" phone. The real Cyrus answers, and points out that he's been in his garage, working on his car all night. After the situation becomes clear, Cyrus agrees to head over, "breaking speed limits." He estimates it will take ten minutes to get there.
Vincent talks to the impostor Cyrus, telling him that they'll be on the scene in a few minutes. He explains that they're being delayed by the need to hunt down some body bags. The characters decide that they want to wait until the real Cyrus shows up. Vincent starts casting his "invisible fire" ritual, so when it becomes necessary to ignite the building and everyone inside, it won't be all that obvious.
Conrad uses infrared binoculars to see an invisible heat source floating about three feet off the ground, in a good ambush location.
The group moves in, pretty much Obfuscated except for Cyrus (who can't Obfuscate), and Conrad (who is already inside). As the group approaches, the Cyrus impostor hears some kind of message, pulls an assault rifle from under some debris, and gets ready near the front of the building.
While the group prepares to attack the building, the "abandoned" security vehicle starts up, turning on it's headlights and heading towards Shepherd and Vincent. Cyrus, sneaking around the back of the building, sees the truck pull away. While the other characters swiftly notice that the vehicle's driver appears to be invisible, Cyrus rushes up and attempts to slash the truck's rear tires. He discovers, much to his dismay, that the truck has solid tires. All he manages to do is to chop a sizable chunk out of one of the rear tires. The characters quickly determine that the truck is disguised by some sort of weird-ass Chimerstry effect.
Within seconds, wide-scale violence breaks out between the characters and some number of Sabbat Kindred. Highlights of the fighting include:
When the characters compare notes later on, they decide that the total force arrayed against them consisted of several Sabbat, probably from the same pack that had fought them before: one Nosferatu, one Malkavian, one Tzimisce, three Brujah (the false Cyrus, the truck gunman, and the sniper), one Ravnos (the truck driver), and one Tremere, whoever is the sniper.
Cyrus helps Shepherd get up while Conrad heads back in to make certain the impostor Cyrus is still staked. While Conrad carts the impostor away for eventual delivery to the Prince, Karl and Cyrus feed. Karl rips up a gas station clerk, then destroys the surveillance tape & ignites the station. Cyrus is marginally more subtle: he hunts down a wino and sucks him dry, then tries to make it look like a common stab-and-rob incident.
The character managed to capture both the impostor Cyrus and the Ravnos as captives, staked. To Vincent's discerning eyes and palate, both are diablerists. The characters appoint Cyrus and Conrad to turn the bodies over to the Prince. The two of them take some measure of flak from Sattler, and get minor congratulations from the Prince. Prince David does ask why Shepherd and Vincent did not show up with the other characters, to which Cyrus responds that they were extremely badly hurt in the fighting: Vincent set his own head on fire, while Shepherd took the main force of three grenade explosions (Cyrus modestly notes that he was standing next to Shepherd at the time, but suffered comparatively little harm due to his near-indestructibility). Cyrus assures the Prince that both Shepherd and Vincent would be happy to present themselves to him if required, but that they would prefer to heal their injuries first. The Prince appears to accept this line of reasoning.
Everyone gets five experience points.