Doug (Himmler), Little Chris (Perrin), Tim (Shepherd), Nick (Vincent Cray) and Bruce (Cyrus Billings) all show up.
The characters enjoy six weeks of downtime after returning from New Braunfels, where they didn't manage to talk to Duke Don.
Perrin negotiates with Isaac to learn Necromancy. Isaac originally came from Haiti, and dresses somewhat like a dangerous Haitian gangster. He also has sapphire false teeth. Isaac agrees to teach Perrin over a two-week period.
Shepherd spends some time speaking to doctors in the hospital he works at, trying to gain one of them as a contact. After four weeks of trying, he increases his Contacts by one, having persauded Dr. Benjamin Pierce at the San Antonio State Hospital (SASH) that he is trustworthy.
Vincent arranges a meeting with one of the lawyers from Volksberg & Partners who gave his candidate a $50,000 illegal contribution. He tries to Dominate her, but she turns out to be quite strong-willed (Willpower 9), and resists his control. She stalks off, and orders him to never contact her again. Vincent is convinced that she is working for another Kindred interested in discrediting his candidate. Trying to arrange some kind of defensive information, he uses Dominate to make one of the junior partners of Volksberg & Partners into a Contact.
After being rebuffed by the lawyer, Vincent conceives a number of hair-brained schemes to eliminate her. He even goes as far as getting Shepherd to obtain a "questionable" gun so he can have a vagrant shoot her. He also entertains the thought of having someone drink a bottle of vodka and run her down. Finally, he decides to simply give the money back and accept the fact that Volksberg and Partners are not going to be his political allies afterwards.
Cyrus spends several weeks hanging out around Otto, doing minor tasks and drinking a lot of Horsehead Beer. He learns that Louis uses his vending machines (scattered across much of the state) as an excuse to travel around and gather news and check on other Gangrel. Considering that the Sabbat are fairly active right now, Otto considers it important for Louis to have help, so Cyrus spends several weeks traveling across the state with him. Otto points out to Cyrus that Louis' actual job is something of a secret, and shouldn't be shared with non-Gangrel.
Otto also tells Cyrus that two Sabbat messengers were recently intercepted in West Texas carrying a message for a Ventrue in San Antonio. Otto is suspicious of this information, as intercepting Sabbat couriers is almost unheard of, and intercepting Sabbat couriers with useful information is even rarer. Again, Otto advises Cyrus to not let anyone else know.
Cyrus uses the balance of his time learning the basics of Animalism on Otto's ranch. After the end of this session he will have sufficient experience to purchase Animalism 1.
Himmler infiltrates one of the San Antonio Animal Control shelters and makes one of the supervisors into a ghoul. The man will happily give him access to the animals for blood, and cover up his depredations afterwards. He will be able to withdraw up to 10 blood from the shelter, provided he uses it not more than once a week or so.
Vincent finds that he is no longer getting any mail or courier items. Some investigation reveals that someone has put in a change-of-address form, redirecting everyone to a nice house in west San Antonio, occupied by Eric and Susan Bendel.
The characters all get together to check out the Bendel's residence (using a rental car). They find ath the place is a sturdy red-brick house on the end of a dead-end lane in a new subdivision. Their house is surrounded by a chainlink fence. Shepherd checks the place out with Obfuscate while the rest of the characters wait in the car. He returns and reports that there are cameras and floodlights attached to motion sensors around the house.
Vincent approaches the house while Perrin and Shepherd hide themselves nearby. Vincent talks to Eric Bendel, who checks with his kids. He tells Vincent that the kids have been putting it back into the mailbox so the mailman can get them. Vincent insults Eric Bender, then stalks off plotting ways to extract venegance upon the Bendel family. On his way back, he checks the mailbox and finds several pieces of mail still in the box for him.
Vincent's servants ensure that future mail will be sent to the proper address.
On the way back from the Bendel house, a large van drives up next to the characters' car and opens fire with a machine-gun. Shepherd's Auspex alerts him to the problem a moment before, and he responds by ducking down. The gunmen in the van rake the front seat of the car, inflicting massive damage upon Cyrus and some damage upon Perrin. Shepherd blazes away at the van with his pistol, determining that it is well-armored and basically immune to bullets. Cyrus manages to knock the van off the road, but loses control of the vehicle and plows into oncoming traffic. In the ensuing wreck, the characters all take gruesome injuries, especially Shepherd (who wasn't wearing his seatbelt, and was actually thrown clear of the car).
Cyrus, Perrin and Himmler rush across the road to see what happened to the van. Cyrus and Himmler find one injured man crawling out of the van. While Himmler investigates the van, Cyrus slaughters the injured man and drinks what blood he can from the corpse (4 points). Himmler forces the back door of the van and finds an arsenal plus three badly-injured gunmen. At this point, Shepherd (who smelled gasoline inside the van) drags the two gunmen in the best condition away from the van and performs first aid to keep them alive.
Meanwhile, Vincent deals with the witnesses ("nothing to see here, please move along") using his Dominate powers. In the process, he takes a few points of blood from a husband and wife who stopped to offer assistance.
An ambulance appears to deal with the accident and offer aid. By the time they show up, Cyrus has sunk into the earth, Himmler has set fire to the van and Obfuscated away, Vincent has Obfuscated into the night, and Perrin has remained to help Shepherd. Shepherd talks to the paramedics, explaining to them what is wrong with all the victims, and convinces them to take both him and Perrin to the hospital. By the time the van catches fire, there are four or five different emergency vehicles on hand. Unfortunately, when the van ignites, Shepherd is overcome with Rötshreck and flees into the woods before he can be taken away in the ambulance. For at least an hour after the van catches fire, ammunition detonates in the van.
Perrin makes it to SASH in the same hospital as the two wounded gunmen from the van. He has quite a bit of trouble, as the staff takes one look at him and decides that they must give him medical attention no matter what. He finally convinces him that he is okay, and will see his own doctor tomorrow. In response the hospital staff make him sign a form stating that he will not hold them responsible for not providing aid.
By the time Perrin gets out of the hospital, Vincent shows up and uses Dominate to alter the cops' memories and clean up the situation. He is generally fairly successful at convincing them that he and Perrin were merely innocent motorists who got into a car accident.
Vincent Dominates a nurse into waking up one of the surviving gunmen, despite her assertions that this would be a risk to his life. The gunman, obviously deeply under the effects of painkillers, claims that "God sent me to shoot at the car." Vincent is unable to learn anything more, even after he told the gunman that he is doomed to burn in hell.
Shepherd wakes that evening with only one blood point remaining. He calls upon Don, asking him to bring back a large dog. When Don returns with the dog, he is unable to control the creature once it senses Shepherd's presence. Shepherd shoots it with a rubber bullet, then drags it back into his sanctuary and drains it dry. He only barely manages to maintain control of himself during this process.
Around midnight, Cyrus emerges from the ground wounded and famished. He attempts to find animals to feed from. His initial hunting efforts are pathetic, but do him lead to a couple trying to repair their car. He spends Willpower to avoid tearing them apart, and staggers off towards Sea World, where he runs into the petting zoo and kills all five llamas and three goats.
Moments after Cyrus finishes butchering the animals, the security guards appear. Cyrus attempts to flee into the darkness, but one of the guards sees him running. He makes his way to a nearby gas station, where he calls Vincent (to write an Animal Control report passing the incident off as a coyote attack) and Otto (whom he asks to bring some coyotes).
The characters learn that the car accident from yesterday was reported in the media as an altercation between two drug gangs, one of which was slaughtered to the man. The other fled on foot into the hills, despite the fact that their vehicle had also crashed. The whole petting-zoo incident will be reported as a coyote attack.
Shepherd goes to SASH to check in on the one surviving gunman. He finds that the man is still unconscious. He tries to find the man's personal effects, but quickly determines that the police have them. He does notice that the man has a strange tattoo of a cross with a sword and a shield on his arm. He persuades one of the guards to let him look at the man's personal effects. Among more mundane items, he finds a small gold cross that burns his hand when he touches it. Even after he touches it, it's presence makes him uncomfortable.
Vincent is attempting to relax with some paperwork after having helped Otto clean up after Cyrus' petting zoo problem when he gets a call. The caller doesn't give his name, but speaks with a deep, masculine voice. He says that he has noted that Johnathan Ferrance has a problem: a large, bloodsucking leech attached to his back. Vincent offers no comment in response. The caller finishes by saying that he thinks he'll vote for the pedophile.
The Shepherd reasons that the witch-hunters that attacked the characters the night before may be somehow linked to the witch-hunter who attacked Cyrus some months ago. He remembers that the Brain had been investigating the previous attack, and calls him up. The Brain is not particularly glad to hear from Shepherd, especially as the subject of the $2.5 million Brain feels Shepherd owes him comes up rather rapidly. Brain admits that he managed to get a fair number of psychonoelectronometric readings from the area, but that he will need hair and skin samples from Cyrus and the other victim before he can provide much useful information.
Brain and Shepherd arrange a meeting, but Brain specifies that he doesn't want Vincent (the Dominate expert) or Cyrus (the dangerous lunatic) to show up. Shepherd immediately asks Cyrus and Vincent to come along to the meeting as backup, and provides headset radios for everyone to ensure that they'll know when to come in. The characters decide to drive Cyrus' surplus police cruiser (loaded with the normal array of equipment, as purchased last session). Shepherd, Perrin and Himmler are all wearing reinforced clothing, and Cyrus is wearing a flak jacket.
With their preparations all in hand, the characters head to the Smith & Wesson Hat Company, a hat store (predominantly of Western regalia) in downtown San Antonio. After about fifteen minutes of waiting in the store, a stereotypical white-haired 1950's scientist dressed in Western garb (blue jeans, shit-kickin' leather boots, metal belt buckle) strides up and say, "How da ya do, pardners? They call me the Brain. Let's amble over to the saddle area and talk."
Brain starts out by asking Himmler and Perrin if they're really sincere about paying off their debt to him. Himmler says that he is, but Perrin says that he only showed up because Shepherd asked him to be. Brain asks him to leave.
After Perrin leaves, the Brain asks for any of four things to cancel the debt:
After he makes his request, the Brain thinks for a moment, and then takes out a small device from his pocket. He waves it near Shepherd, and it beeps. Brain exclaims, "You're bugged!", to which Shepherd admits that he has an active cellphone in his pocket. The Brain is horrified, and starts to talk about how the Reds are everywhere. Shepherd disconnects his cellphone, triggering a minor debate in Cyrus' car on whether or not the other characters should rush in and slay everyone in sight. They eventually decide not to, especially since the radio link in Shepherd's other pocket continues to transmit.
The Brain talks for a while about how important the scientific attitude is, and belittles Shepherd's suggestions that one or another of the characters teach the Brain Protean or Thaumaturgy.
Himmler asks if the Brain could teach him to be a scientist. The Brain responds that next summer, he's going on a sabbatical to White Sands Missile Range to study radioactive giant insects. He asks Himmler if he's good with bazookas. Himmler claims that he is, so Brain agrees to let him come along.
Each character gains five experience points. Cyrus spends ten experience
to gain Animalism 1. Shepherd gains an additional point of Conscience.