Nick decides that work and regular pay are more important than gaming, so he doesn't show up. However, both Tim (Shepherd) and Bruce (Cyrus Billings) appear, and the show goes on with Chris at the helm as always.
Shepherd finally gets his shipment of a dozen HK G11 assault rifles in. He's like a kid with a new toy as he describes them to Cyrus, who initially sneers at them as "plastic gadgets." They use caseless ammunition and suffer no penalty for firing three round bursts. Shepherd offers three of them to Cyrus (one to use, one for backup, and one for accidents). Cyrus' objections to them prove to be superficial enough that he accepts them unhesitatingly.
|
Weapon |
Difficulty |
Damage |
Range |
Rate |
Capacity |
Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HK G-11 | 6 | 8 | 200 | 20 | 50 | 3.8 kg |
Cyrus is unable to spy on Angel thanks to his promise to Lucas, so the job falls to Shepherd. Shepherd steals a beat-up car and uses it to drive the streets of San Antonio near Angel's known hangouts. To ensure that he gets useful information, he spends a lot of money purchasing camera equipment (including night-vision and telephoto lenses and a scanner to digitize the photographs).
Shepherd stakes out three promising-seeming areas. One is a decrepit section of public housing that is explicitly run by Angel's goons. The second is a cheesy bar that Angel's people seem to use for drug sales. The third is a house in a (slightly) nicer neighborhood that Angel is supposed to use as a Haven. The house is well-equipped with security devices, including sound-sensitive lights.
After five evenings of taking photographs, Shepherd doesn't manage to see Angel even once. He does manage to identify three individuals who are probably Angel's ghouls. He makes this determination based upon his and Cyrus' comparison of the photographs to their memories of those folk that Angel brought along to his various rendezvous at the Lackland Dump.
Hoping to learn something useful, Shepherd selects one of these individuals and follows him for a week. He discovers that the fellow only does illegal things during the day, if at all. All Shepherd sees him do is have a lot of low conversations with suspicious-looking individuals in sleazy bars and dark street corners.
Shepherd does manage to establish that all of Angel's suspected minions are equipped with cellular phones, even down to the level of mortal runners. His final conclusion is that Angel is probably lying very low for some reason, especially considering that none of Angel's gang members seem to have any contact with their boss.
Shepherd, frustrated by his inability to track Angel's ghouls during the day, makes an appointment with Prince David to ask permission to create some more ghouls. His request for an audience is granted. He is given an appointment at 20:00 on November 30th.
Cyrus, unable to do anything against Angel until Angel does something against him, elects to try and follow Beezel around for a while. Fueled by the idea of tracking Beezel by scent, he contacts Vincent and persuades him to steal something belonging to Beezel. Vincent, despite his deep-seated cowardice, manages to nip off with one of Beezel's shirts. Cyrus uses this item in an effort to train his ghouled rat-pack to recognize Beezel by scent. He hopes to use them to follow Beezel into places he can't go. Unfortunately, it turns out that the rats really aren't able to recognize scents with any particular ability.
Cyrus chooses to follow a slightly different plan. He buys a cheap used car for $1200 and a couple of soft-sided cat carriers for his rats. He then stakes out the Tremere Chantry to wait for Beezel. He amuses himself during the long wait by feeding his rats crackers and live crickets.
After a short time, Cyrus determines that Beezel drives a Mustang with the license plate "BEESTE." He follows Beezel into the parking lot of Harvest Guaranty Savings & Loan on the Northwest side of San Antonio. The building is eight stories high, with a three-story parking garage adjacent, despite the lack of other development in the area. Though the building is closed, there is a scattering of cars in the parking lot and a few lights on. The passenger side window on Beezel's car slides down, and someone passes a package to the building guard. Cyrus debates sending one of his rats into the building, but doesn't because he can't think of anything useful the rat could do. He elects to continue following Beezel instead.
Beezel drives off to I-410, then onto a side highway towards Goliad. The area turns pretty much rural. Beezel eventually turns into the parking lot of a farm-equipment store. He opens up the gate and heads inside. Cyrus drives past, then sends out a half-dozen rats to check out the place and to look for "two-legs" in the area. The rats report back after about fifteen minutes to say that they haven't seen anything. Cyrus then transforms into a bat to check the situation out on his own. To ensure that Beezel doesn't get away, he details a couple of rats to watch Beezel's car. The rats are instructed to go back and hit the horn on Cyrus's car if they see any two-legs moving around.
After several minutes of investigation, Cyrus sees an arm sprawling out from underneath a tractor. The arm doesn't move for a while, so Cyrus has one of his rats check it out. The rat reports that the arm is attached to a still-warm body . Cyrus lands to see it himself, and discovers that it belongs to a security guard. Cyrus leaves the body alone and goes back to watching Beezel's car.
Cyrus waits around for several hours, but Beezel's car doesn't move. A couple of hours before dawn, Cyrus drives out to a nearby Whataburger parking lot to drop off his car, then walks back to the equipment dealer to watch until daybreak. He tells his rats to hang out in the nearby dumpster and enjoy themselves, but to be back at the car by nightfall. When the sun starts to rise up, Beezel's car is still parked in the equipment dealer's lot. Cyrus ends up spending the day underground in a hillside overlooking the parking lot.
Cyrus walks back to his car, collects his rats, and puts the key into the ignition. The car promptly blows up. Predictably, Cyrus is completely unharmed even though the passenger compartment is engulfed in flame. All of Cyrus' rats are burned to a crisp. Cyrus falls into Rotschreck and runs off, trailing flame and smoke.
By the time Cyrus recovers and heads back, the wreckage of his car is surrounded by people. An ancient-looking fire engine and several Sheriff's cars stand in the background. Cyrus thinks back to his experience with the North Dakota Highway Patrol and reflect that unless the local sheriff is extraordinarily dedicated he isn't likely to get much evidence from the wreck, and isn't likely to follow the case up too much. Cyrus slips back into the bushes, transforms into a bat, and flies home.
Cyrus returns to his apartment and immediately notices that someone has been there. Several items have been moved around, as if someone searched the place and then tried to put things to right again. Bearing the events of the last few hours in mind, Cyrus calls up Shepherd and tells him to get himself over, and quickly.
Shepherd quickly determines that someone did break in, by picking the lock on the back door. The two of them proceed to dust the apartment for fingerprints. They are able to find two sets of unknown fingerprints, both of them left by fingers that appeared to have been damaged by acid or razors. Cyrus immediately speculates that they might have been left by Nosferatu. He takes the prints to his "friend" at the SAPD to get them run through the police database, compensating the fellow for his efforts with money borrowed from Shepherd. He also asks his friend to get him the case reports for any car vandalism incidents in the last couple of weeks, seeking to learn what the police think about his own particular problem.
After four days, Cyrus' "friend" reports that the first set of prints wasn't too good, and came up with fifteen possible matches. The second set came back with only one match, but an impossible one: they were left by Felipe Sanchez, who died in a burglary attempt ten years ago. He also comes back with a pile of police reports on car vandalism incidents, including Cyrus' car bomb incident. The report is vague, stating only that the car was destroyed with some kind of incendiary device. As an added bonus, it lists the car's owner's name, and states that he had sold it recently, but didn't remember much about the buyer.
Cyrus spends some time getting access to police archives to research the events surrounding Felipe Sanchez' death. He learns that the man died in a robbery attempt ten years ago. He had been trying to burglarize the home of Joe and Trina Rose at 1201 Circle Tree Drive in Castle Hills. The couple were away for the holidays, but their son and his girlfriend had stayed behind. Felipe had gained entry to the house and placed several objects in his bag when the son surprised him and shot him several times.
From his records, Felipe had quite a history of B&E work. He was also fairly successful at it, as he managed to support a wife, a girlfriend, and five children up until his death. In the process, he accumulated rather less of a prison record than might be expected, another testimony to his skill.
Cyrus relates all this information to Shepherd, hoping that something will ring a bell. Unfortunately, nothing does. While it is fairly obvious that some Nosferat Embraced Sanchez prior to his death, the printed record offers little information as to who.
The day of Shepherd's appointment finally shows up. Shepherd shows up early and waits very impatiently for 20:00 to come around under Crask's watchful eye. Finally, the appointed time comes and Shepherd is shown in to the Prince's audience room. Shepherd makes appropriate respectful gestures, then requests permission to make three ghouls. He justifies his request based upon the service he and his coterie mates have rendered the city in fighting the Sabbat. He admits that he hasn't got anyone specific in mind, as he felt he should ask permission before going "shopping."
The Prince notes that this would give him a total of five ghouls, really quite a lot of people to keep track of. Shepherd bravely states that he is ready for this kind of responsibility, and sketches out his plan to recruit them using Dominate and long vacations. Prince David sees fit to grant Shepherd permission to create one additional ghoul. Shepherd thanks Prince David for his wisdom and departs.
Shepherd heads over to the Yucca Hills Technical College, disguised as a student. He tries making conversation with the students to try and identify an instructor who would make a good ghoul. He is looking for someone who is widely knowledgeable but still fairly practical. He spends several days searching, but finds nobody.
Cyrus is driving one evening soon after he finishes investigating Felipe Sanchez when he suffers another car bombing. This one is a mid-sized bomb affixed to the driver's side wheel. It shears the wheel clean off, sending it spinning down the road. Cyrus takes no damage from the blast, and slews the car into the median without much trouble, discovering that someone has also cut the brake lines in the process. A cop shows up after a bit, but Cyrus manages to persuade him that the whole thing was an accident brought on by negligent auto repairs.
He has the car towed to a garage he knows about to get the damage repaired. The repairs cost $500 of Shepherd's money and take two days to effect.
Shepherd and Cyrus decide they've had enough of getting shot at. They get prepared. Fedoras. Ski masks. Ray-ban sunglasses. Big overcoats. A stolen car. Really nice assault rifles. Loaded down with all this gear, they lie in wait for Beezel outside the Chantry. During this time, Shepherd warns Cyrus, "While you're in this car, think only happy thoughts." After some hours, Beezel's car drives by. The characters note that his windows are tinted so it isn't obvious that it really is Beezel inside. They follow him as he drives west on I-410 to a shopping mall, then gets out and goes to a club called the Hippodrome.
Shepherd suggests that he could pop Beezel from where they are, but Cyrus suggests a different plan. They stop off at the local Circle K to buy sugar and a funnel, then Shepherd pours sugar into Beezel's gas tank. To confuse the issue, he uses Obfuscate to make himself look like a 14 year old punk with baggy jeans. The deception is necessary, because Beezel's car alarm goes off as soon as Shepherd touches the gas cap.
Beezel emerges from the club fairly late, in the company of a visually impressive woman. Shepherd notices that he's wearing a shirt that can't be buttoned above the navel. He only manages to drive about fifty feet before the car sputters to a miserable stop. Beezel fools with the engine in a rather clueless manner, then calls a tow truck. The woman who came out of the club with him isn't impressed, and walks off.
The characters drive off into the darkness to return their car.
Cyrus gets car-bombed a third time. He actually finds the device when he inspects his car at the repair shop. It is a large device, wrapped in bubble-wrap and tucked underneath the driver's-side seat. Cyrus has the thing in hand when a voice behind him says, "Beezel wants you dead." Cyrus whips around and throws the bomb towards the speaker just as it goes off. In the aftermath of the explosion, Cyrus sees a badly-injured figure holding a remote staggering away. Cyrus yanks out a pistol and shoots the bomber once, quickly verifying that his target is Kindred. Unfortunately, the would-be assassin vanishes from sight. Cyrus, eager to avoid invisible ambushes, warns Shepherd by cellphone then flaps off as a bat.
In the aftermath, Cyrus concludes that even though the bomb did more damage to his attacker than it did to him, it couldn't explain the disfigurement Cyrus saw, suggesting that the assassin was Nosferat, obviously hired by Beezel.
Shepherd and Cyrus gear up again with a backpack full of stuff from Cyrus' trunk, assault rifles, heavy clothing, and another stolen car. This time, Shepherd chooses to steal a fairly old Trans Am. They spend Friday the 12th hunting to fill their blood pools, then strike out to target Beezel on the 13th.
The characters determines that Beezel is no longer driving his Mustang. His ride is now a beat-up Ford truck. He leaves the Chantry around 22:30 and heads out towards the same equipment manufacturer he drove to some days ago.
The plan is very simple: Cyrus will drive up towards Beezel's truck, then turn off all his lights. He will then pass Beezel on the right, to give Shepherd a good opportunity to fire upon the truck. As an added detail, Cyrus will try to blind Beezel (who is probably using Auspex) by shining a flashlight in his face.
The execution is slightly more flawed. Cyrus drops the flashlight as he slews to the side. The silly thing gets wedged underneath the brake pedal. In the confusion, Cyrus veers into the back quarter of the truck. He only barely manages to keep the Trans Am on the road. Shepherd opens fire on Beezel in an impressive blaze, inflicting 11 levels of damage and making the horrifying discovery that the truck has an armored cab. Shepherd also learns that the tires are solid rubber.
Over the next several miles, Cyrus keeps the Trans Am up close to the truck while Shepherd sprays hundreds of rounds of ammunition into Beezel's tires. Eventually, the tires give out and the truck staggers off the road. Cyrus brings the Trans Am to a quick stop up on the road. The characters watch as the truck doors open, but nobody emerges. Shepherd, fearing that Beezel may have Obfuscate, sprays the truck with autofire bursts twice. This strategy appears to have little effect and other drivers are approaching so the characters call it a drive-by and head off into the night.
Cyrus and Shepherd each get five experience points. Both Cyrus and Shepherd are convinced that Beezel has been hiring assassins to bomb Cyrus, and are actively working to see the whiny Tremere dead.