We all manage to make it: Tim (Shepherd), Bruce (Cyrus Billings) and Nick (Vincent Cray). The start of the game is slightly delayed by the fact that Starcraft was more gripping than gaming.
All of the characters have unusual dreams with a number of common features. In particular, in all three dreams the sun has been gone for the past 30 years and vampires rule the world.
Cyrus finds himself as the head of a pack of savage predators, ghoul and Kindred. They stalk the world, masters of the wastelands, hunting and slaying as they please. Cyrus, no longer recognizable as human in either mind or body, finds this existence to be deeply satisfying. His constant hunger enriches the hunt. The decadence of the Last City holds no attraction for him. He has not gazed upon it's towers in a quarter-century.
Shepherd gazes out over the boardroom. He gazes across the plush chairs and the flawlessly varnished table to gaze at his simpering undead advisors. He takes satisfaction in the knowledge that his pack is the most powerful in the city, challenged by none. He turns to the bay window and looks out over his domain, the mazes of grimy buildings disappearing into the low-hanging smog. He folds his unnaturally long bone-white arms and smiles.
Vincent's future finds him a warped and twisted creature. He lurks through the shadowy corridors of the Chantry, never seen save in his enveloping Tremere robes. When he speaks, it is in the voices of the dozens of innocents whose lives he has consumed. All the other Tremere of the Last City hate him, but he holds the threads of their souls between his hidden fingers. He feels a forbidden joy within his desiccated heart, for he holds the secrets to fell even Perceptor Shepherd. Only Cyrus falls out of his sphere of influence, as the beast-creature has not been seen for twenty-five years.
Cyrus gets a phone call from Logan, one of the Austin Toreador. They arrange a meeting at 22:00 in Austin, at the Capitol building. Logan assures Cyrus that the Capitol is an Elysium, and that he will be able to gain access simply by going to the front door and telling the guard who he is.
Cyrus gets to Austin about an hour early. He kills time by hunting along the Drag. His efforts are fairly successful, netting him 4 blood and the rusty .22 he takes from a luckless mugger. At the appointed time he heads over to the Capitol, where the guards let him in after he signs the visitor log. After a brief wait, Logan appears to meet him.
Logan proves to be a youngish vampire in stylish clothes with the clear signs of a highly dissipative lifestyle about him. He tows a wraithlike woman who has obviously partaken extensively of intravenous drugs behind him. During the walk to Logan's private office, the woman whines that they are walking too fast. She also attempts to wheedle Logan into giving her another fix. Logan's harsh responses provide vivid witness to his lack of regard for her. By the time he and Cyrus reach the office, Logan is sufficiently annoyed by her presence that he leaves her to wait out in the hallway.
With Cyrus settled down in one of Logan's comfortable chairs, Logan explains his problem. Angel has called him several times to complain about some insane Gangrel bothering him. Logan goes way back with Angel, and would like to help him. Unfortunately, Angel was quite vague about exactly what this Gangrel has done to upset him. It took Logan a reasonable amount of effort to even discover that the Gangrel in question was Cyrus. He looks to Cyrus to provide some clarification on this matter.
Cyrus does his best to be diplomatic. He gruffly notes that he doesn't know what he might have done to get Angel so mad. However, he has heard from normally reliable sources that Angel has been trying to hire hit men to off him. While his source claims that Angel has thus far been unsuccessful, Cyrus is sure that sooner or later Angel will find someone willing to take the job.
At this point, Logan proposes a deal. He offers to get Angel to stop hiring hit men to use against Cyrus. In return, Cyrus will cease any behaviour that may be annoying Angel. Cyrus agrees to this bargain after a certain amount of bickering that leaves Logan looking a touch frazzled. At one point in the negotiations, Logan complains to Cyrus that he sobered up just for the purpose of having this meeting, and will be very displeased if it doesn't turn out well.
As Cyrus leaves the office, he notes that Logan's girlfriend looks none too good. Logan explains that she's only been like that for about two months. Pretty soon she'll be all used up and he'll have to find someone else to pre-process his heroin for him. Cyrus nods sagely and heads back to his car, firmly convinced of the decadence of the city-dwelling Toreador.
With Cyrus busy in Austin, Vincent sets about creating his trap for Beezel. He methodically creates a false history for the Aleppo Crucifix, an artifact dating back to the earliest days of Christianity. The piece is made of gold and silver, with rubies inlaid in the four points and a blue sapphire placed in the center. He fabricates some notes, apparently drawn from old Hebrew documents, attributing it the ability to hide it's owner's "true intent" from others, along with English translations and annotations suggesting that this may have something to do with auras.
Vincent's trail is assembled with the aid of several of his underworld contracts. It starts with a bill of sale from an auction held by the old Communist Hungarian government in Budapest. The apparent purchaser is the Flora Hewlett Siddons Museum in Houston. This connection is cemented by a shipping order showing the transfer of the Aleppo Crucifix from Budapest to Houston and a museum inventory listing the Crucifix as a surplus item. From there, the object was purchased by a Houston oilman, as documented by a phony receipt. The end of the trail is in 1998, with a publicly-reported robbery of the oilman's mansion. Vincent ensures that there is evidence that Angel was responsible for the crime: he fakes up a photograph of Angel and some goons loading trucks with the mansion in the background.
Vincent assembles all this information very carefully, placing it into a leather valise. All the while, he maniacally thinks, "I MUST have the crucifix… I MUST have the crucifix…" He hopes that this will be enough to fool Beezel's psychometry and convince the Tremere into trying to get the fictional Crucifix for himself.
With Vincent's documents done, the characters get together at the garage to discuss their plan. Vincent also has Shepherd and Cyrus go over his notes to see if they can see any problems. They find none.
The characters develop their final plan for the documents. Over the next two weeks, Vincent will "study" the documents in the Chantry library. At point during that time, Shepherd will show up at the Chantry door acting worried and excited and demanding to see Vincent. Shepherd's actions should imply to all observers that Cyrus has done something bloodthirsty and cleanup must be done quickly. In the excitement, Vincent will "forget" the documents in the library, among his other books and papers. He will be gone for some time, enough to allow Beezel plenty of opportunity to find the valise and learn about the Aleppo Crucifix.
For a change, the plan works essentially as the characters intended. Unfortunately, when Vincent tries performing Psychometry upon his documents to verify that Beezel took the bait, he gains only images of Bill Drucker (the untidy Tremere) and his hypnotic nose hairs looking through the stuff. From what he can tell, Drucker is no more than idly amused by what he finds. This revelation is something of a disappointment to the other characters.
At the next weekly meeting of the local Tremere, Vincent notices that Karen is missing from the group. Nastasha explains that she asked for permission to investigate things near El Paso, in particular the events leading up to the death of her ghoul, Martin Krebs. Nastasha predicts that Karen will be gone for several months at the very least.
Shepherd has previously decided that his fellow Malkavian Maxwell must die. In part, this would help make Shepherd look better in the eyes of his (more than typically) insane Sire, Screamin' Joe. He starts tracking his prey by calling Maxwell's answering service. It swiftly develops that the woman on the other end of the line doesn't really know much about Maxwell or his doings, and in fact suspects that the whole "Good Guys Against Evil" thing is some kind of fraternity or social club. Shepherd does nothing to disillusion her, but does have her pass a message along to Maxwell. When Maxwell calls back, the two of them arrange a meeting at a local Elysium.
At the meeting, Shepherd mentions the documents Maxwell sent him about Screamin' Joe's history. Maxwell is baffled because he doesn't know anything about any documents. He further notes that by GGAE rules, he is bound to destroy any documents he comes across after he has memorized them, so sending them along to Shepherd would be right out.
After some additional discussion, Maxwell finally admits: "I've been pulling your leg; I don't belong to the GGAE, I just had a lot of fun pranking you. I'm just a guy with a gun who likes to shoot people. I really don't know anything about your documents." He also explains that when he was trying to recruit Shepherd, he was just playing Top Secret. He had been playing AD&D before that, but now he is playing X-Files. He confides to Shepherd that he suspects X-Files will be a lot more painful than the previous two games. Shepherd finds this hard to believe, as he already knows that the local Nosferatu beat Maxwell up many times when he was given to lurking through the city sewers armed with a submachine gun.
Shepherd, always the suspicious type, proceeds to read Maxwell's aura with his Auspex. He learns that Maxwell is definitely both a vampire and crazy. He also manages to pick up that Maxwell is basically pretty confident, but has been getting more and more worried as the conversation progresses.
Each character gains three experience points.