Turnout this week is fairly erratic: Jade is off trying out Castle Falkenstein, Gareth has found other things to do, and Charlene is in the Twilight Zone. Tim (Shepherd), Nick (Vincent Cray) and Bruce (Cyrus Billings) all manage to put in an appearance.
Tim distributes background for his FUDGE In Nomine one-shot, and everyone agrees that this will be next week's game.
As the session opens, it is late on Thursday, August 6th. The bulk of the group are sitting in a car, watching the foundations of the Palomino glow in the darkness. Shepherd, who was consumed by Rotshreck in the earlier parts of the blaze, is not currently available. Both Konrad Chase and Elizabeth Triem have also vanished on their own errands.
Vincent and Cyrus manage to locate Shepherd hiding in a ditch off Lungfish Avenue. They calm him down and get him into Cyrus' car.
Sometime around 02:30, Cyrus' Svengali calls him again. He tells him that as usual, if Cyrus wants to see something interesting he should head up to Austin and go to 1414 Oltorf, about three blocks away from the Texas School for the Deaf. He should be there no later than 21:00. Cyrus mumbles, then asks him if he'd like to go see some movies. Svengali declines, then hangs up.
After they take Svengali's call, the characters decide that they're bored. Cyrus suggests having Vincent go and Dominate a movie theater manager, so they can watch movies. It takes Vincent about an hour to locate the manager of the Northwest 10 cinema. The characters parlay this contact into several hours watching recent movies. Everyone agrees that the scene of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover coughing up geritol really is the high point of Lethal Weapon 5.
As the characters are heading away from their movie night, Shepherd calls them aside hand hands out some revolvers, one to Cyrus and one to Vincent. He tells them that the guns are loaded with phosphorous bullets that will inflict aggravated damage. He also cautions that the bullets will destroy the guns very quickly, possibly after as few as three to five shots. The revolvers have the following stats:
|
Weapon |
Diff |
Damage |
Range |
Rof |
Shots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revolver | 6 | 4* | 12 | 3 | 5 |
After some debate, the characters decide to follow Svengali's advice at least one more time and make the drive out to Austin. 1414 Oltorf appears to be a moderate-sized house across from an HEB. It has several trees out front, and a single car in the driveway. The whole neighborhood looks fairly economically challenged. Cyrus notices that the Austin Police Department has some of their more comely female officers out on the street nearby, running a prostitution sting.
Shepherd Obfuscates and heads over to the house while Vincent and Cyrus wait some distance away in Cyrus' car. Vincent, betraying his typical bottomless courage, Obfuscates himself in the front seat. Shepherd spends some time skulking around, peering into windows, until a little Subaru hatchback shows up. The driver proves to be an attractive woman, whom Sheperd recognizes as one of the Austin Toreadors. From down the street, Vincent recognizes her as the Toreador Cathy, who normally is seen dressed in mime's whiteface and a top hat.
Cathy pulls a gym bag out of the hatchback, then heads up to the house. The door of the house is opened by an Asian gentleman perhaps 50 years old. With tremendous agility, Shepherd tries to slip in behind the Toreador. The reality doesn't quite measure up to his hopes, as he gets his coat stuck in the door as the Asian gentleman closes it. He waits until the other two get out of sight briefly, then extracts himself from the door.
The house is clean and well-maintained, but all the furniture appears to be the cheapest possible. Cathy and her companion head upstairs, which has been converted into a single large room and equipped as a gymnasium. Most of the fittings are pretty typical, save for a few items clearly intended for martial arts practice.
Shepherd watches the two of them practice for a while, deducing that Cathy is really fairly skilled. He also determines that the old Asian gentleman is mortal, and pretty darn good (Shepherd estimates that the Asian master could beat the snot out of him, at least up until Shepherd shot him). He calls up Cyrus on the cellphone and fills him in. Cyrus advises Shepherd to clear out.
The characters retire to the safe house they established some time ago in Southeast Austin to talk. They quickly enter into a short but painful conversation on how worthwhile it would be to take over Austin or San Antonio. After a bit, the topic diverges into actual techniques for either taking over cities or currying favor within them. Cyrus spends most of the conversation acting as the agent provocateur, suggesting one unworkable plan after another. When he finally notices that the others are shooting his ideas down for a reason, he switches from unworkable plans to obvious ones.
Midway through the conversation, Grandma (the old woman Shepherd ghouled to get access to the house) walks into the room, much to the characters' surprise and chagrin. She comments that someone's been tracking dog poop through the house, and asks all the characters to check their shoes. A rapid frenzy of shoe-checking ensues, by the end of which it is determined that none of the characters have stepped in anything. This leads the characters to the paranoid (but obvious) thought that there is someone in the house, spying on them with Obfuscate. Brief panic ensues until someone realizes that Grandpa (the old woman's husband) is also around. A quick check later and the culprit is found.
Cyrus' Svengali calls up again, and asks him, "What did this evening's lesson teach you?" Cyrus manages, after much prompting, to recall that some time ago Cindy was apparently beaten up by Ian Cambridge, a Toreador who got exiled into San Antonio for the deed. Svengali gets tired of talking to Cyrus, and continues the conversation with Vincent. He interrogates Vincent on his interpretation of the events, then after Vincent is only able to blurt out that Cindy must be a much better fighter than most might expect, explains that Cindy has both a lot of Potence and has clearly been practicing for a long time. She obviously intended to lose the fight she had with Ian, possibly to set him up (anticipating that he would be exiled for his actions).
Svengali then offers to meet with the characters, so they can talk about what they've seen. He tells them to meet him in Brackenbridge Park in about three hours. He tells Vincent that he'll need to use Dominate to get into the park, and that he shouldn't be too upset if there are a lot of cops around. The characters agree to the meeting.
The characters stop by a Wal-Mart along the way to pick up dry-roasted peanuts and some binoculars. At the park, they find no rangers, but they do find a single police car and a couple of teenagers. Cyrus bypasses the police car (and the barricades meant to keep people out of the park after hours) and pulls into a lot near the stables. He then lures in a couple of squirrels with Animalism and promises of nuts, then gets them to agree to be perimeter guards. After an hour or so of conversation, he manages to get enough of them to cover a reasonable perimeter.
While Cyrus is talking to squirrels, the police car drives up. Vincent notices that there are two handcuffed people in the back. One of the officers walks up to see what Vincent and his compatriots are up to. Vincent promptly Dominates the man into believing that they are supervisors from the Parks Department. The cop believes this, though his partner appears to have some problems with this story. The two of them drive off with their captives.
Moments before 03:00, Vincent persuades Cyrus to call down a bird so he can cast an Eyes of the Night Hawk ritual and see through the bird's eyes. Vincent gets out his "magical birdseed" and casts the ritual. After that, Vincent spends a lot of time strutting about with his eyes closed, making low chirping noises.
Around 03:00, another police car shows up. The officer asks Cyrus to get out of the car and show his identification. Meanwhile, Shepherd uses Auspex to determine that the officer is actually a vampire, and Vincent uses Dominate to determine that the officer is really quite impervious to mental control. The other officer in the car also proves to be a vampire. Shepherd notices that when the second vampire gets out of the car, it rises up as if a huge weight was removed from it. By this time, most of Cyrus' squirrel sentries are going crazy ("Bad things! Bad things! We eat now?")
The first officer suggests that everyone should go over to the stables to talk. He introduces himself as Cyrus' Svengali. In the stables, the roughly dozen horses present do not panic (as they normally would in the presence of five Kindred), almost as if someone with Animalism were deliberately keeping them calm. Along the way to the stable, Vincent surreptitiously pulls a camera and takes a snapshot of Svengali.
The stone cop moves around the stable, moving bales of hay to reveal complicated electronic devices that emit a low hum when turned on. Svengali explains that they are white sound generators.
He then asks the characters what they've gotten out of his suggestions. Shepherd speaks for everyone when he suggests that the Prince of Austin is plotting to invade San Antonio, training troops in the north, sending scouts into the city, and having Pierce Brosnan lookalikes shoot up Brujah-financed drug labs. Svengali and his associate chuckle and pass gibes among themselves. He then offers some interpretation on the events the characters have seen:
Svengali explains that he was telling the characters these secrets simply to demonstrate that he knows a lot, and that if he's willing to just drop these secrets he must know much more things. He offers the characters an inside track of information, in exchange for certain tasks (violence, kidappings, information gathering, etc.). He points out that in his position he is always going to be watched, and for that reason needs subordinates to do his dirty work for him.
The characters agree to his offer. In particular, they agree to having a sort of "working friendship" with him: he will answer their questions as they come up, and they will do tasks for him, as they come up. Neither side will worry overmuch about the balance, unless someone feels terribly cheated. He explains that if the characters wish to come and see him, they can do so at the zoo. This pretty much leaves no doubt that Svengali is actually Nigel, the Nosferatu Primogen (which he explicitly admits). The other Kindred is Grendel, another of the Nosferatu who is immensely large and who supposedly only rarely comes out of the sewers.
Vincent decides to ask a question, to check the depth of Svengali's information. He asks who the two Kindred who left the Dickinson Cancer Research Center and flew out of the city. Svengali says that the two of them were flying to Houston. One of them was a Brujah named Donner from Wichita Falls. He had performed some actions that made him need a new face. His companion was a Ventrue from Houston who knew that the Ventrue Travis was quite able to reshape Kindred features by breaking and warping the bone and tissue, then healing it back into place. Vincent notes that he saw them using Sabbat powers, Dementation in particular. Nigel comments that he hadn't known about that, and thanks Vincent for the information.
At the end of the meeting, Nigel asks Vincent to come up with some Ghoul and Lupine wards for him. He also notes that he'll let the other members of the characters' coterie about this relationship in about a month. He then asks Vincent if it is true that the characters went to El Paso to look for diablerie victims. Vincent sputters and denies this story, whereupon Shepherd spills out the entire El Paso story. Finally, Nigel comments that if the characters are interested in some "extra credit", he's always interested in information about lupines (which he hunts) or large, dangerous animals (which he'd like to hunt).
The characters end by bidding Nigel goodbye. Each character gains three experience points.