Tim (Shepherd), Nick (Vincent), Bruce (Cyrus), and Doug (Pallis Toter) are all present. The Other Chris has joined the group, playing Perrin of the Ventrue.
Perrin
Perrin is a 13th generation Tremere who was Embraced by Nick Macron five years ago in Detroit. He is a very quick study, with substantial Intelligence and good skill in the occult. He has also managed to learn a substantial amount of Thaumaturgy (five dots). Upon his Sire's recommendation, he is being moved to the Chantry in San Antonio to learn more under the tutelage of the Tremere Beezil.
Beezil clearly considers this to be an important step, and is a master of Occult with much to teach Perrin. One of his significant specialities is the creation of homonculi to use as spies and light-duty servants (typically hands holding eyeballs or little winged people). Beezil inroduces Perrin to the San Antonio Chantry, which is located in a disfunctional church.
Despite his mastery of the Thaumaturgy Discipline, Perrin is low-ranked among the Tremere in San Antonio, ranking above only Vincent. Beezil points out that Perrin should regard Vincent (who is on the bottom rung of the ladder) as an enemy, but doesn't explain why. Beezil explains to Perrin that Lucas (Beezil's main rival) has his own protege Vincent working on some kind of project. He then tells Perrin that he wants him to get involved in this project, "to make sure it happens the way it should." Beezil finally promises that Lucas will introduce him to Vincent and have Vincent show him around the city.
All the characters, excepting Cyrus Billings, took the information they had gained from the Pharmaco facility in Austin to track down an individual in San Antonio named Bruce Turner. Bruce was living in the outskirts of San Antonio, and using Animalism to train sociopathic chimpanzees to use guns and act like Nazis. Strangely, he didn't detect as a vampire. The characters learned that he also possessed Vicissitude, and then killed him.
After killing the monkey-trainer, the characters attempted to lure in some of his accomplices. This effort was partially successful, in that several of his accomplices responded to the characters' lure, but that all of them were subsequently killed.
The last contact the characters had with Cyrus was a brief phone conversation. Cyrus claimed that he was "busy", and the sounds of gunfire and Hispanic yelling were audible in the background. Vincent immediately assumed that Cyrus was back in Chiapas.
Vincent starts off by trying to locate "The Package" (the accomplices' body) that Pallis had dealt with. Pallis tells him that the "Package" has been disposed of, and that the remnants have been delivered to the Prince. He then calls the Prince's man Sattler to ask if he could have a piece of the "Package". Sattler responds that he hasn't received any such pieces. Vincent starts to call up Pallis again, but is interrupted by the appearance of Cyrus.
Cyrus gets in touch with Vincent soon after his return from Chiapas, meeting him in "the usual place" on the Riverwalk. As he walks into the bar, he interrupts Vincent's harangue against Pallis over the fate of their one lead's body.
Vincent tells Cyrus that the characters have one other lead: a list of phone numbers. This list includes:
Cyrus opines that the best plan is to investigate the two businesses. He and Vincent decide that Acme Actors is the place to go.
Acme Actors is in a small brick building near the San Antonio downtown. There is little parking nearby. The place is closed (it's open until 21:00). Cyrus decides to break in. The characters locate a side entrance down an alleyway adjacent to a large drainage ditch. Cyrus picks the lock (with two successes) and the two of them sneak inside.
Neither Vincent nor Cyrus find anything at all suspicious inside the building, except for a computer system with a listing of all the actors who work through Acme Actors. Vincent prints out a list while Cyrus continues his frutless search. The characters leave as soon as the list is printed.
After their departure from Acme Actors, Vincent gets a call from his mentor, Lucas (Cyrus sggests that Vincent should "shut that damn thing off" when the cellphone rings). Lucas informs him that he must show a recent arrival, Perrin, around the city.
Perrin and Beezil were in Lucas' lab when he called Vincent. All the time, Beezil was wandering around, picking through papers and apparatus until Lucas was nearly driven to distraction. After Lucas drove Beezil out of the lab, Beezil proudly showed Perrin some odd gewgaw he had managed to palm.
Vincent, Cyrus and Shepherd drive to the Tremere Chantry, which is located in an old, disused Spanish church. The entry hall is decorated with a collection of ersatz occult objects that distract Cyrus for at least two or three minutes until Lucas brings Perrin in. Introductions follow.
Lucas explains that Perrin is one of Beezil's students. The characters respond to this news by making rude comments about Beezil. Before the group leaves, Lucas makes a point of reminding Vincent and Perrin that the Tremere Clan meeting will be at 19:30 on the following evening.
Films 'R' Us is located just off Loop 410, near Marbok Road. It is on the edge of a business park composed primarily of brick buildings. Films 'R' Us is in Building 3, which is unique for it's two-car garage.
As the characters watch the building, the metal door of the garage opens and a brown delivery van drives out. Shepherd uses his Auspex to verify that the driver is not Kindred. There are two cars and another van visible inside the remainder of the garage.
The characters follow the van. About fifteen minutes after the pursuit starts, Cyrus spots a smallish lump on the road. He swerves around the object, then executes a bootlegger reverse to put the headlights on it. It appears to be a landmine. Cyrus pulls around and continues to follow the van. Some moments later, the characters hear an explosion behind them.
The characters decide to try and shoot one of the van's tires out. Cyrus accelerates to close the distance and give them a good shot, but manages to drive over another mine and lose the front right tire. The characters' car spins out of control and goes into the ditch. Shepherd manages a heroic pistol shot to blow out one of the van's tires, but the van continues on. By the time he gets out a rifle and rushes to the road, the van is gone.
Cyrus determines that the car did hit a small land mine, and that the explosion shredded the tire. Cyrus and Shepherd both pump up their strength to lift the car out of the ditch while Vincent and Perrin change the tire (in their suits). During this time, an ambulance and a fire engine head in the opposite direction (probably towards the site of the earlier explosion) and several cars hit or nearly hit the new, deep pothole in the road. All told, it takes about 30 minutes to get the car out of the ditch.
The characters rush to the film company to try and prevent any of the people still inside from eliminating evidence. The trip takes twenty minutes.
The characters are discussing their options in front of the building ("Okay, Perrin, why don't you use your mystical powers to open the door") when the garage door suddenly starts to open again. Cyrus immediately rolls underneath the door, to encounter a number of vehicles with engines starting and headlights on (one van and one car). He fails to see any available cover, so decides to rush for the hood of the van with claws extended as a reasonable compromise. The driver responds by flooring it, even though the metal garage door is not completely raised. The van destroys the garage door, but Cyrus takes no damage despite being trapped between the door and the van. Meanwhile, the Shepherd Obfuscates and opens fire on the oncoming vehicles with a silenced, flash-suppressed gun. He manages to shoot out the front tires on the car.
A rather bloody firefight breaks out. Highlights of the conflict include:
After the violence ends, Shepherd calls Crask to admit to another bloodbath. Crask tells him to head to a clinic about five minutes with the casualties. Crask will meet the characters there to "smooth over" treatment of the gunshot wounds.
Perrin and Vincent take the gunshot victims to the clinic where Crask deals with the doctors (claimig to be a detective who has already reported the gunshot wounds). After Crask takes control of the gangsters (with suitable explanations from Vincent about the importance of ensuring that the captives stay alive, and some suggestion that Pallis may be a leak).
Meanwhile, Cyrus and the Shepherd spend some time investigating Films 'R' Us. Cyrus moves the van back into the garage, and takes a short look inside. The van contains a large quantity of film equipment and a dead monkey (wearing a swastika). While Cyrus and Shepherd are moving the damaged garage door out of the way, several police cars show up at the edge of the property. Shepherd, concerned by this development, calls Crask and learns that the cops are his people, intended to ensure that nobody else shows up on the scene.
The characters search the building. The find one locked room containing a collection of WWII-era German weapons (rifles, submachineguns, etc). The rest of the building includes a large number of Nazi uniforms. There is also a room containing many cages suitable for holding chimpanzees. The only obvious sign of "vampiric influence" is a photograph of Bela Lugosi in an office.
Cyrus spends some time looking for survivors, and finds none. However, he does find three labeled film canisters: "Lucas", "The Hardy Boys", and "The Scary Old Author." Meanwhile, Shepherd locates files on the computer detailing about a dozen local vampires, including Screaming Joe ("Lethal: Do not tease"), the Hansen Brothers ("The Hardy Boys"), Terry (14-year old black youth, "Rapper"), Douglas Floyd II ("Slim", a Gangrel), Cyrus ("Violent, grows claws", and a photograph of him shooting someone pressing a button), "Disappeared" (photograph of Jacob, the exiled Ravnos), Shepherd ("Pacifist: unwilling to kill"), Maxwell (Malkavian, dressed like an 11th century wizard wannabe in front of a Stop 'N Go), Don (Duke of New Braunfels, photograph from a book dust jacket), Karen (one of the Tremere), and Lucas (Vincent's mentor). Most of the files include information on where the vampires spend their time. Several minutes after the characters start looking at the files, a password dialog appears and little happy faces start to bounce across the screen. Shepherd pulls the plug on the computer. Shepherd decides to take the whole computer with him when he leaves.
Taking a piece of warning from the many surveillance photographs, the characters spend some time searching for cameras in the building. They find a large number of them and disable them, though they do not successfully locate the final destination of the images.
"Scary Old Author" is footage of Don in his haven, wearing a smoking jacket and hammering away on a typewriter. Two chimpanzees armed with machine guns burst in and attack. Don wins. His final comments have clearly been dubbed over as "And let that be a lesson to you, Nazi bastards!"
"Lucas" shows Lucas performing surveillance in a hotel room, interspersed with footage of Nazi leaders. Chimpanzees and a gorilla rush in, and a fight ensues during which Lucas and the chimpanzees yell badly-dubbed dialog at each other.
"The Hardy Boys" features the Hansen brothers breaking into a bowling alley, interspersed with shots of the Pentagon. While the Hansen brothers are bowling, they get attacked by a number of chimpanzees. The actual fight is intercut with footage of a "wounded" man in a GI uniform (actually the gangster whose blood was boiled by Perrin) being tended by a blowsy woman in a nurse's uniform. One of the characters realizes that the woman is also featured in one of the photographs in the office.
After watching the films, the characters happen to notice a film marquee for a cheesy-looking feature entitled "Nazi Chimpanzees v. Allied Vampires." By this time, all of the characters are convinced that a Malkavian is responsible for the whole situation, most likely Screaming Joe. Shepherd acts upon this suspicion by calling Screaming Joe and asking him about the film ("Nazi Chimpanzees v. Allied Vampires"). Joe uses a Dominate power to make Shepherd believe that he has nothing to do with the film, and to make Shepherd convince everyone around that Joe would never do anything like that.
After Shepherd's conversation with Joe, Crask shows up with several men dressed in windbreakers marked "SAPD" on the back. He explains that they are his police, and that they know that the characters are both police and vampires. With his help, the characters are able to break into the room containing the video recorders for all the surveillance cameras.
Crask takes possession of the films, the photographs, the computer, and the surveillance videotapes. He does allow Shepherd to take a box of potato-masher grenades he found in the armory.
There are no further Nazi chimpanzee attacks. Eventually, Crask returns the "Lucas" film to Vincent, who in turn gives it to Lucas. Some weeks later, all of the characters are invited to a special screening of "Nazi Chimpanzees v. Allied Vampires", an Ed Wood Jr. film, at a downtown theater. This attempt pretty much falls through, owing to the objections of Don, the Duke of New Braunfels.
From all the Prince's men could tell, "Ed Wood" was a lone lunatic with a beret who loved making deranged WWII films and who could Obfuscate five people. They (obviously) haven't managed to find him.
Each of the characters gains 5 experience points. About two weeks will pass before the next session.