Both Tim (Shepherd) and Gareth (Karl Norel) have come up with good excuses for skipping the game, so the group today consists of only Jade (Konrad Chase), Nick (Vincent Cray), and Bruce (Cyrus Billings).
The characters spend about a month recuperating from their battle with the Sabbat pack. Vincent, as usual, retreats back into the Tremere Chantry to learn more useless Thaumaturgical rituals. He manages to pick one up that lets him walk through a wall he has previously prepared. Strangely, the "occult preparations" necessary for this ritual include cutting a hole in the wall. With this ritual firmly in mind, he hires (and subsequently Dominates) a contractor to put a concrete wall up across the basement, cutting it into two separate halves, one reachable only through magic.
Cyrus, who had been severely wounded in the fight, spends some time healing himself up then tries to determine if his sensitivity to fire has diminished enough to let him continue to learn Firewalking. To his delight, he finds that he has faced down enough flames in the recent past to continue his efforts to learn the skill. He makes three more Self-Control rolls in the next three weeks, accumulating two more successes towards the total of 25 he needs to learn one dot of Firewalking. He now has 20 successes accumulated.
Konrad, ever mindful of his own safety, spends the first part of the month turning his haven into a large booby trap. By the time he is finished, his efforts would make the Viet Cong tunnel-diggers proud. He then decides to learn more about the city. He spends a fair amount of time snooping around, trying to learn who (to the level of names) is in control of the San Antonio police department, mayor's office, and so on. His strategy is to use Obfuscate to follow Sattler (one of the Prince's lieutenants) around. After a week and a half of tailing Sattler, he determines that Sattler's normal strategy towards dealing with law enforcement is to use his Disciplines to make them believe that he is some kind of upper-ranking detective. Depending upon who he is talking to, he looks like different people and comes from different departments (Konrad sees him passing himself off as being from both Homicide and Internal Affairs).
Cyrus gets a call from an unknown caller, inviting him to "a very unusual meeting." The caller tells him to show up at the Lackland Base Dump at midnight. The actual meeting is supposed to start at 02:00. The caller warns that Cyrus should not make himself obvious during the meeting, and does not object to Cyrus bringing others along. Cyrus promptly calls everyone up and persuades them to come along. He fills them in on the way to a cheesy Mexican restaurant about five blocks away; the group walks the rest of the way in.
The Lackland Base dump is just across the highway from Lackland AFB. It is a colossal landfill boasting an immense rat and seagull population. It is also still in operation. Because of it's proximity to an Air Force base, the Prince has decreed it to be in Elysium: any gunfire or obvious fighting there will probably have sorry repercussions upon the Kindred involved. Knowing this, Cyrus brings no firearms and Vincent and Konrad bring silenced weapons.
The characters sneak in over the fence, bypassing the fixed cameras at the gate. The characters note that there is an office trailer near the gate. Several construction vehicles, including five bulldozers, are parked some distance away.
Cyrus talks to the rats, and learns that a van showed up about an hour before the characters did. The van drove through the landfill. A man periodically got out, opened up the back doors, closed them again, then drove on. Cyrus immediately suspects that the landfill is lousy with Obfuscated gunmen, even though Vincent (with his Auspex 3) insists that he cannot see anyone hiding around. The rats also complain that there have been more dogs and snakes around. They have lost a large number of their companions to these creatures.
Around 02:00, a Cadillac shows up at the gate. It drives in, then stops near the construction vehicles. Five Hispanics, including one dressed like some kind of professional, get out of the vehicle and almost immediately produce a series of rather impressive weapons. The characters, covered by Konrad's Obfuscate, try to sneak down towards them. This effort is marred by the fact that Vincent steps upon a creaky board halfway down, catapulting himself into a heap of rubbish with a large amount of noise. Thanks to Obfuscate, the Hispanic guys don't actually see anyone, though they do debate what might have happened to make so much noise. One of them, clearly bored, gets out a .22 rifle and fires about a dozen shells into the slope.
Examining the group around the car, Karl concludes that the respectable-looking one is a local Brujah, but doesn't know which one. He also notices that the respectable-looking Brujah also has a diamond set into his tooth. Cyrus confirms this, and points out that the two guys with him are gang members belonging to the Barrio Warriors, a local street gang. Both of them have long rap sheets, but only for minor stuff. Vincent, who managed a tremendous Camarilla Lore roll, concludes that one of the gang members is a Malkavian Archon. Later reflection suggests that the Brujah is Angel, and the gang members are his ghouls.
While the characters watch, the Brujah calls someone on a cellular phone. A short, heated conversation follows: "What do you mean, you're not coming? No, they're not ours… Screw you too!" The Brujah and his henchmen get into their car and drive off.
The characters, speculating that there are Obfuscated Sabbat all around who had been planning on meeting with their local contact, elect to leave quickly. Along the way, Vincent's Auspex convinces him that he is in danger. Moments later, snakes attempt to bite both Cyrus and Vincent. These attacks are not too successful, though when Cyrus and Vincent hit them, they break into dozens of minnow-sized snakes. Cyrus' snake drains away a point of his blood before disintegrating. Cyrus does try to talk to his with Animalism, and fails to discern that there is actually a snake there.
The characters make it out of the dump and quietly retreat home.
Konrad decides to try and learn something about Angel's behavior, considering that he may be a Sabbat plant. He contacts Faceless, who arranges a rendezvous at a local Wal-Mart. While Cyrus waits in another part of the store as backup (looking at ski masks), Konrad locates Faceless disguised as a man in a trenchcoat. Faceless is doing a very poor job of appearing interested in different brands of potato chips.
Konrad makes his request: he wants to know some of Angel's hangouts and havens. In exchange for his information, he tells Faceless about the Sabbat pack that probably still has three members at large in the city. Faceless provides a number of addresses that are purported to be popular hangouts for Angel's gang members, including one bar they hang out at and three addresses they sleep at. Faceless suspects that Angel sleeps with his gang members. He notes that Angel makes a lot of money from drug sales, and that three or four years back Angel and his coterie took a trip down to Mexico to get a lot of drugs to sell. They returned with a lot of drugs, but lost four of their coterie in the process. Angel's one surviving coterie mate is a Toreador currently in Austin. Those coterie members that didn't return include a Toreador, a Brujah, a Malkavian, and a Nosferatu.
The characters drive around, looking for the black Cadillac. They find it at the second address. They drop off Cyrus, who finds a good place to hide and watches the place until dawn. At dawn, he sinks into the ground, planning to emerge at exactly dusk the next evening. Unfortunately, he sees nothing.
Meanwhile, Vincent tries to research the snakes that attempted to attack him and Cyrus earlier that evening. He identifies a ritual that creates a small, rather fragile creature from the caster's vitae. Normally, these creatures are used as spies, though in some cases they can steal others' vitae and bring it back to the caster.
Around 21:00, Cyus sees Angel and his escorts emerge from the house, get into the Cadillac, and drive off. Cyrus calls Konrad, who proceeds to tail the car to the strip club favored by Angel and his goons. Vincent picks up Cyrus.
While Konrad is still tailing Angel, Cyrus gets another call from his mysterious "benefactor", who tells him: "Be on FR241, four miles east of FR441, hide in the bushes and you'll see something really interesting go by, going 'thmp thmp thmp thmp.'" The characters decide to have Konrad hide there, while Cyrus and Vincent wait in Cyrus' car at a Qwikie Mart four miles down the road.
Konrad sees and hears nothing between about 21:00 and 23:00. Around 23:00, he hears a gang of about forty guys (including about fifteen women, and a good mix of ethnicity) jogging along a dirt track behind the farm road. They're all wearing grey jumpsuits, and chanting a marching song. Konrad follows them for about five miles, until they reach a walled compound. Konrad notes that there is a guard with an M-16 at the gate to the compound, and several barbed-wire fences around. He can also see several prefab buildings within the compound, all of which could be assembled within two weeks. Konrad's impression is that the place is probably not a real military site.
The characters immediately start to speculate: perhaps they're looking at a secret Sabbat training ground; perhaps this is some kind of Malkavian joke; perhaps this is a group of local survivialists. Everyone quickly realizes that more information is necessary.
Cyrus looks for any sort of police report involving the area, and comes up empty: there are few crimes in the area, and most of those involve locals. Nobody has reported or complained about strange training complexes.
Vincent looks up the ownership of the land the compound is on. He finds that it is part of a huge parcel of land, owned by a writer named James Johnson. Based upon the property taxes on the parcel, he's either making a lot of money from his books or he is independently wealthy. He has only owned the land for a year. Vincent looks up some of Mr. Johnson's works, and find that they all have titles like The Care and Feeding of Rifles, The Joy of Guns, and so on. Konrad has actually read one of Mr. Johnson's books, and found it a bit light for his tastes.
Konrad, who eschews information-gathering in favor of direct action, spends his time making three pounds of C4. He hopes to use it to blow up the training compound, regardless of who might own and use it. He also sets up a number of small, prepared charges to blow up poles and fences.
The next night, Cyrus gets yet another call from his Mysterious Caller, informing him that if he goes to San Antonio Medical Center, at the corner of Floyd Curl Drive and Baboon Drive, he will see a very interesting experiment. The characters follow the same procedure as the night before: they send Konrad in on foot to investigate the medical center (which he swiftly determines is the Flora M. Dickinson Cancer Research Center) while Cyrus and Vincent wait in the distance in Cyrus' car.
Konrad breaks into the building and spends some time wandering around until he finds a door slightly ajar, with voices inside. He slips inside and sees two guys playing cards. He waits about twenty minutes, then leaves in disgust after nothing happens. He finds a good location to watch the building, then waits for five hours as nothing continues to happen.
Finally, after about five hours, the elevators turn on and rise from the basement. Three guys emerge, head out to the parking lot, get in a car and drive off. Cyrus and Vincent follow them to the San Antonio airport, where two of the men get out and head in. Cyrus drops Vincent off to figure out where they are going. He determines that they are bound to Houston, on a flight that will get in with just enough time to let them get under cover before the sun comes up. He listens in to their conversation, but learns really very little. He does manage to determine that both of them are Kindred, but probably not diablerists. A bit before the flight leaves, one of them notices Vincent and starts paying a lot of attention to Vincent. Even with several attempts to Obfuscate to safety, they continue to follow him. Eventually, Vincent gives up and stops to talk to them. They act understantably suspicious, but the conversation is limited to a number of low-value-added "What do you want?" comments, alternated with futile attempts to use Dominate and other Disciplines upon Vincent.
Vincent finally calls Cyrus and asks him to come by and pick him up. Cyrus, who by this time had managed to follow the car off onto the freeway, turns about to come back. As Vincent speaks to Cyrus, a bystander walks up to Vincent, pointing at him and chanting, "Vampire! Vampire!" Vincent, confident he can take control of the situation, tries to Dominate the bystander. Unfortunately, the bystander changes his chant to, "Vampire! He's using his evil mind powers on me!" As Vincent withdraws from the area, the original chanter is joined by an array of additional bystanders, who form a phalanx and march (slowly) towards Vincent. Vincent flees through the airport, eventually stealing a cab and driving out of the airport with a security guard in pursuit. He does spend a moment to contemplate that people seem to be able to finger him even when he is Obfuscated.
Desperate, Vincent escapes from his cab and runs (Obfuscated) into a dumpster, where he hides. He curls into a foetal position and waits. Outside, he hears someone say, "Vampire! Vampire! He's in the dumpster. Let's burn it." A moment later, the voice says, "No, let's not burn the dumpster. There's valuable garbage in it." Vincent elects to stay in the dumpster, with the comforting, valuable, garbage. He contemplates staying there for several days.
While Vincent is driven mad by obsessive passers-by, Konrad heads down to the basement, where he finds a series of surgical theaters. One of these looks like it has been recently used, though by whom and for what are none too clear. He also determines that there is some basement space he cannot account for and cannot find a route to.
A couple of hours after he arrives in the basement, he hears the elevators descending once again. A moment later, all the lights turn off. The two security guards (wearing night vision goggles) from before emerge from the elevator and walk around, checking the area out. He speculates that they must be quite good at using night vision. After watching them walk around for a bit, he decides to take the stairs up to the first floor. The stairwell door is locked, so he is forced to pick the lock. He encounters one of the security guards hiding on the stairs. A brief gun-and-knife fight ensues, by the end of which Konrad cuts the guard apart. Konrad elects to escape the building after this, though before he does he encounters the second guard and bludgeons him to death. As he leaves the building through the front door (using the guard's keycard), his impromptu disguise as a guard breaks down and someone shoots him from a hidden location. He responds by turning on Obfuscate fast & furious then running for cover amid a pattering fall of gunfire.
Once out of the building, Konrad waits for a while, trying to figure out where the gunfire came from. He finally finds the gunman, and punches him to death. Unfortunately, the gunman was holding a grenade with the pin pulled in his hand, causing Konrad disappointingly small amounts of damage. Konrad manages to escape.
It isn't clear how much experience everyone gets, as nobody thought to ask. The characters are generally scattered across San Antonio, still in the metaphorical grips of their mystery caller.