Darkness Unvailed

Ok, to get something up on the sight, I will start in on night twenty one, early. We played through about half last week and I hope to get through night twenty two this week. As life has gotten in the way, Gracey’s player will not be at the sessions for a few months so that she may learn something.*

The group starts at Paul’s place, as this has been the crash pad for the last few nights. They all meet in the living room to go over what to do next, as they have been very busy rounding up Vern loyalists for the old regime. To date, they have brought in Dalia, Damon, Aaron, and Carman. Christian starts to talk about taking some time off again to take care of other things, but the group still thinks that finding and eliminating others that are loyal to Vern should come first. Victoria, looking over the list of names that they have, figures that the next person to locate should be Zetta. The information they have on her comes from all of the files that they have procured over time.

Victoria leads the way, telling the others that they have four addresses to check out. A short ride later, they find themselves at a downtown Manhattan building. Gaining entrance via picking the front door locks, they head upstairs to the apartment number from the file. With another quick pick, they send Hugh and Paul in first, to check out the safety of the place. A quick check of the place results in a resounding “nobody home”. The rest enter the apartment to check it out. It’s a smaller place with just four rooms: living, kitchen, bed, and bath. Though lived in, the apartment does not have any clues to finding Zetta. Paul, after looking around, notices a fine piece of oil work in the wall, in the living room. Victoria and Christian take note of a nice statue, that upon a closer look, is just a fake plaster copy. Feeling this stop a bust, they head out for the next address.

With a longer ride over to Queens, they make it to the next place, but not without notice of a number of kindred from the area. This address leads them to an abandoned two-story building. Gaining entry through the broken doorway, Paul and Victoria lead the search through the building. On the main floor, they find that the place seems to have become a dumping ground for some kindred, as a few of the apartments have bodies stacked in them. Many of the bodies look as though they are from the vagrant population, but a couple of them are dress a little too nice for these parts. Victoria seizes the chance and quickly goes through their pockets. Victoria finds out that one was Nelind Hughes, by way of his credit cards and that the driver license is missing, as well as all the cash. The other body belonged to Andrew Mason. Again, no license or cash, just credit cards remain. Looking though the business card collections from the wallets, Victoria finds one for Missie Larance on Nelind and one for Lt. McNaily on Andrew. Asking the group about the names, no one recalls hearing Missie’s, but Paul tells Victoria that he does recognize McNaily. Victoria quickly puts the wallets back and the moves on. Looking though the building, they find that a few of the rooms have been converted so that no light can get into them and that they lock from the inside. Going into the basement, they find a few interesting things. One: a few of the rooms seem to have been the sites of many fights sometime not long ago. Two: that the sewer has access from inside the building. After spending a little more time looking around the basement, they head up to the second floor to see if they can wring any clue out of the place. On the second floor, they find one more room rigged not to let light in, and access to the roof.

Paul leads them up the stairs to the roof. Leaving the stair behind, they all feel the presence of another on the roof. Paul quickly scans the roof for it. Paul sees the stranger just in time for him to look up from his meal. Paul yells at him to stay put, but he just jumps over the side. Hearing a loud clang, Paul figures that he had jumped onto a fire escape. Paul takes off after him with Hugh following behind. They a make it down the escape ladder with out a problem. The stranger starts running down the ally, dodging trash all the way. Paul makes ground on him with Hugh starting to fall back a bit. Close to the end of the ally, the stranger trips and this gives Paul the chance to pin him to the ground. Hugh though, found a bag of trash that did not get out of his way and has fallen short of were Paul is. With the stranger pinned to the ground, Paul asks him why he ran. “Fear” sums up the statement quite well. Paul, berating him for his background, starts with his name. “Luis, Luis Rolon”, comes the weak reply. Next on Paul’s list is “what covenant?” Luis tells him, “Sanctified, sort of”. This makes Paul boil with anticipation for the next answer. “Who is your sire?” comes down for Paul. Luis, with a hint more fear tells him, “Andrew Mills”. Not the person Paul was hoping for. Hugh, being able to collect himself, makes it to Paul and Luis, just in time to hear this. Seeing the excitement in Paul, Hugh tells Paul what he knows of Andrew. Though Paul is still on the edge, he tells Hugh to grab hold of Luis so they can get him back to the group. Hugh and Paul, each grabbing a leg, drag Luis around the building and up the stairs to the roof, where they see what the group would like to do with him. The talk is short and, on point, they tie him up and throw him in the trunk. They head out for the next address a little heavier.

This one strikes them as strange once they enter the Brooklyn building. Sensing and seeing Kindred and humans in one place mingling with familiarity is strange. A few of them who have heard stories about this place know what they have entered: The Orphanage. Victoria comments to Paul that this would be a strange place for a follower of Vern’s to hang out.

This is were we ended up for the night as time ran out on one of the players. I have some fun for next time if I can keep my end of the deal up. Here’s to hoping for a good time.

Well, we pick up the game from were we left off on the next week.

Victoria shows the rest a picture of Zetta, so they all knew who to look for. Paul looks it over and decides that he should talk with one to the kindred in the place. Paul walks over to the nearest one and waits for him to finish his current conversation. Paul questions this vampire if he has seen Zetta recently. He informs Paul that Zetta has been known to stop by for short stays from time to time, but has not been in recently. Paul asks him if he would let Paul know if Zetta come in while Paul is there. This kindred agrees to let Paul know if Zetta shows up. After some debate the group takes the elevator to the top and works there way down using the stairs.

The seventh floor is little more then a hostel with about 30 beds for anyone to use. Though all of the windows are closed off. The sixth floor is deferent do to the facts that some of the floor can get light and some of it is being used as a game room with a pool table and TV. The Fifth floor has a small section divided off for the stairs and the elevator, while the rest of the floor appears to have been turned into a worship space. Moving down to the fourth floor they find, another floor with beds and a game room. Though this room does not have a pool table instead, there are a few table set-up for chess. On the third floor they find more beds and an area made into a cafeteria with working kitchen. Moving on again the find themselves on the second floor. This one contains many rooms that all seem to have desks in them, though most of the desks do not appear in use, some are and a few have been neglected for a long time. Back on the main floor they find that the floor is much more then the reception area and a few offices. Taking the stairs down one flight farther they see a basement area with many discarded items from the many people that have passed though. They push on one more flight to get into a subbasement. Though the path here does not look well used there have been people down here. Two spaces have been made to do interrogations in, and off a ways is a sewer entrance. After they have explored the entire building finding little of interest Victoria asks them to go onto the next address on the list.

The group makes it to the Manhattan address. Victoria picks the lock in the door and they all enter the building. They all pass the “taint” check. They see in front of them a long hall with two large kindred standing at the other end blocking a door. Victoria walks over to them to ask one of them if they know Zetta. One of the large kindred stares at her, then states, “Go away”. Victoria turns and starts to walk away from them. Paul asks her, “Where are you going.” She responds with, “I’m going away from them.” As Victoria continues to walk back down the hall, Paul asks what she was going to ask them about. In reply Victoria tells Paul that she wanted to know if they new Zetta. Paul yells out to them, “Hey Bevis and Butt-Head do you know Zetta?” Both of them stare right at Paul and tell him to “Go away”. Paul turns and leaves with Victoria. Christian and Hugh both pose the question and are dismissed in the same matter. Once the whole group is outside, they start and a new plan for dealing with this. They all enter the building again to find six kindred now in the hall. (I call out xp for the group to shut them up as they whine that I hand it out regularly. I don’t, but they shouldn’t complain about it.)

Victoria stares at the smallest of the six and asks, “Where is Zetta?” He responds with the fact, she has not been here in a few days. Victoria asks, “Is there anyone else here?” The response is, “Yes.” Victoria asks, “Who are you protecting?” Only gets a blank stare. Victoria tries one more time and asks, “Bring us who ever you are protecting?” This gets no movement out of them. They leave the place again, to go out to the SUV to get Luis. With Paul taking hold of Luis, Hugh straps some explosives to him. After much chatter about weather or not this is a good idea, which includes talk of fleas, airplanes and the sewer. They disarm Luis and put him back in the SUV, and leave the place heading back to Paul’s. They get there with a short amount of time to talk over what their plans are. The day passes with them all safe at Paul’s.

We roll on into the next night.

I have add a few more nights on the timeline. I should be switching over the the edited with in a few days. I also almost have night twentytwo done so that should be up soon.

Here is more that have been gone over…

Night Five

Ok, I am going to try to get another one of these nights out, soon. I hope to be caught up with the game, so these show up shortly after the night we play them on. So, here we go…

On this night, everyone was at the game and we start with them awaking from their daily rest. (I like this way of starting, as it gives the players a little time to settle in to their characters.) I start by giving everyone the information that they found last week, which I finally figured out, it was not all complete, but it was a good start. They also found out more about their sires. This wasn’t real complete, either. Paul and Christian have some discussion, over the phone, about what to do with the body they “found” yesterday. Gracey called Victoria, to see if she had any plans for the night or if she heard anything from Paul. Hugh was bored, due to having nothing to do, so he heads down to a firing range to indulge his interest in firearms and explosives. Victoria starts to go through her sire’s computer to see what has happened to his money, in recent times. About this time, Hugh’s player gets informed about what happened last week. Paul feeds some more, by playing with his food in his “study”. He invites Christian over, about this time. James gives Paul a call to invite him out to meet with his contact, from the city, at a club called “Blue Lighting”. They find out this name later. They enter to talk with this contact and give him the information from the blueprints that they found yesterday. Hannah figures that it is time for her to relax in her hot tub. Gracey thinks watching TV would be fun. (This, to me, is a good thing. They finally know that these characters are people and have lives.) When they enter the club, I give them a short description of the place that includes the fact that the place is heavily populated by males. (I wish that I could have done it with a straight face. It did cause a short laugh session.) James tries to explain that this is not the normal meeting place, which Paul doesn’t buy, right away, but he slowly goes along with it. Victoria calls James, shortly after he made it to the bar, and tells him about some addresses that she found on her sire’s computer. They take a seat in the club and wait, a short time, for James’ contact to show up. As soon as James’ contact, Kelvin, shows up, James makes apologies to him for Paul’s behavior. Of course, Paul is a little defensive about it, but lets it slide, for now. Kelvin, being less then enthused by his job, figures that he can get to it, tomorrow. James orders a drink for Kelvin, sits down, and talks for a while. Gracey calls Paul, about this time, and wants him to tell James to give her a call. (Though it may have had more to do with OOC info, she did have some in-game reasons.) Paul calls Hannah, to hear a female voice he can stand. Then, he makes some comments that are offensive to the club patronage. Kelvin makes note of the apology, made earlier, and leaves the table. This gives people in the club reasons not to like him anymore. Christian spouts out a comment that would make someone of “that persuasion” mad and gets smacked for the trouble. James goes to the “bathroom” to get away from the table. This sets Paul off with some more comments that get the attention of others in the club and the floor manager comes over to the table to tell them “You’re out of here!” This doesn’t impress Paul, so he continues to sit there as the three bouncers show up at the table. Two of these guys pick him up off of his seat and start to drag him out. Paul, of course, finds this rather unsettling and fights back. The last one hangs by the table, for a short time, until Paul starts to get the advantage, in the ensuing fight. This brawl goes through a few stages of Paul pushing them around and then the bouncers team up on him, all the time moving Paul closer to the door. I give James the chance to hear the cops coming, he does, and starts to try to talk Christian and Paul, who is still fighting the bouncers, that is time to leave. They do make it out of there in time to avoid the cops. While all this was going on, Hugh has progressed to putting C4 on the targets, instead of just shooting them. Gracey had gone out for a walk. While in the limousine, James starts to chastise Paul about his behavior. Paul makes excuses. Gracey’s Player thinks to ask if she can walk to any of the address from the files and I told her, “no“. (More due to not having anything in mind for any of them other than the location.) Christian calls Gracey after he gets dropped off and finds out what was in the files. They decide they should meet to go over it, the next night. Then, Gracey calls Victoria, Hannah, Paul, and Hugh to set up a time to meet the next night, to go over all of the collected information. Paul and Hugh start to talk about what to do with the body. Hugh’s first idea is to blow the body up. They all agree that they will meet up the next night. Gracey and James finally talk and James rips into her about how she could have passed her information on through the other people. Paul drops everyone he has in the limousine off, and heads home to talk with his sire. Dianna gives him the marching orders to find who is trying to help the old prince back into power and tells him to mull this over.

Everyone takes the daily rest and is safe, for another few hours of their unlives. It was a short game night that we had done a lot in. I found my self hopeful that the game time will start to be used better. (Well, you can hope in one hand…)

Night Six

In further efforts to get caught up with the game, I am going to try and get this out quickly. Again, not everything stays in the order that it happened, though I do try to keep it close.

We all meet for the gaming night and chat for some time, then get down to the business of playing. They all awake from their daily rest and start with the chatter. After this, they decide to meet up and review what they have found so far. Paul sends out the limousine to pick everyone up. (Damn Limousine.) As they pick up Gracey, the last of the group, they start to discuss what they have found and what they have been told that they need to do. They go over all of the information that I had given Gracey from the files and what Victoria discovered from Robert’s computer system. As some of the information overlapped, they made a plan to check out a warehouse that they found out Victoria “owned”. This was not whole-heartedly accepted by the group, but it was something to do, so they all went along with it. The limousine pulls up in front of the warehouse and everybody piles out. They go over to the closest door, only to find it locked. They all talk to each other about how to get in, as Hannah steps over to the lock and picks it, quickly. (Who would have thought the school teacher would be the best one a picking locks? The only thing scarier was the fact that her player got involved in the game. Not for too long, though.) This prompts the crew to enter the building. I have them a do a “taint” check, and, of course, Gracey has to be the one to fail it. Gracey goes running back to the limousine and Hugh goes after her, because Paul told him to go get her. As I am telling them of the other vampires in the warehouse, Victoria gets the bonus of knowing that Robert is in here with them. Gracey, meanwhile, doesn’t want anything to do with going inside of the warehouse. Paul gives Gracey a call, not paying much heed to the taint feelings that he is getting, to tell her to get out of his limousine. She does this, as Hugh gets to the limousine and attempts to get her back into the warehouse, with the rest of them. A short struggle later, Gracey is calling a cab to get away from this place and Hugh starts to head back to the warehouse where the rest of the group is now being held by some very unhappy elders. (See the “Meeting of Donald Riddel, Robert Bonnell, Riley Corgan, and Reed Veits” for more details.) Robert tells Hugh, as he is entering, to shut the door. Though the dominate fails, just being told is good enough for Hugh. He shuts the door. The cab for Gracey shows up. As she getting in she yells at Hugh to see if he wants a ride. Hugh declines the offer, preferring to wait for the rest of the group. After a little conversation and a bit of a hug, the elders let everyone go, with the admonishing that they do not look any further into the power struggles of the New and Old prince. Gracey takes the cab to a club to try to sort things out. Once at the club, another vampire was already there. She tries to get nearer to this one to see what he is doing, but he always stays just out of reach. After this little walk around, she decides to go home and call everyone. These conversions go over poorly as every one basically blows her off and is pissed because she left, save for Hugh, who doesn’t care, one way or the other. This is upsetting to Gracey because she wants everyone to be her friend. The group, at this point, has given up on the whole “go on a mission” thing and thinks that it would be great idea to just travel around the city looking for something else to do. As this degrades into idle banter, I hurry the night along and they all retreat into to their havens for their day’s rest and another few safe hours of unlife.

Night Seven

Ok, so I took a few days off to rest my wrists. Sue me! This night we got some more hooks out there and a few mysteries added to the mix, though it wasn’t planned that way.

We get there and have to wait for the last player to show up. He had to make an unexpected stop to help someone on the side of the road who had car troubles. The pain of living in Minnesota. Everyone gets settled in and I start the game, like normal, having them awake from their daily rest. A couple of quick feeds and off into the night we go. Victoria thinks that there could be more information on Robert’s computer and goes digging into it. (A great roll with her Computer + Intelligence and I need to come up with something, quickly.) I fill in some of the blanks that I had left last week and gave her some more information about her sire’s business dealings, throwing in addresses that may matter later – an address to a bar that will come in to play later in the night and in the game, hopefully. After a phone call to James to discuss the information, she has the bright idea to copy of all the e-mails that he gets and forward a copy to another e-mail to hide the fact that she is looking at them. (Damn! I should have made that roll harder for her.) (I, also, finish giving out addresses that others had found, to fill in more of the blanks that I had left. Though I do make a few mistakes on the continuity of the information that I give, at this time, it gets corrected later in the night.) This leads James and Victoria to get together at the bar, at the address from the information. Gracey and Paul talk some about the information Paul got from his contact. Paul pawns that off until later, not wanting to repeat himself for the rest of the group. Christian and Hugh talk about what to do for the night and end up waiting to see what ideas Paul has for the night. Christian talks to Paul and gets some of the information out of him. Gracey has been calling around, trying to make amends for leaving the other night. After a lot of talking, Paul, Christian, Hugh, and Gracey all plan to get together so that they can help quell Paul’s curiosity. Victoria and James arrive at the bar and figure out that this is where they met Hugh. They go in to take a better look around, to find that the crowd is not that different from the last time. About this time, the limousine starts its rounds to pick up everyone who is still at home. With some more investigating, they find a locked door that doesn’t seem to belong where it is. They check it carefully, smelling gunpowder. Victoria then picks the lock and they proceed to go down into the basement of the bar to find a firing range. As they enter the range, the others enter the bar. Using a “taint check” all but Gracey enter without a problem, though Paul does go back to bring her in. Due to the timing, Victoria and James disappear into the basement shortly after the others enter, so they can’t find where that “taint” feeling came from. Paul, Christian, Hugh, Gracey, and Hannah stay in the bar looking around at what is in there. Gracey finds the dart board and attempts to convince the two drunks to let her play. About this time, Victoria and James are looking around at the range and decide that they need to talk with Hugh about this place. They head for the bar. Feeling the others, James is a little hesitant about entering the bar, until he hears Gracey’s voice, through the door. Hugh tries to keep Gracey from causing a scene in the bar by talking her out of playing darts. Christian, using Dominate, tells one of the guys to let her play while Paul just tries some good, “old fashioned”, intimidation on the other and they give Gracey the darts and go off drinking. As James and Victoria enter the bar, they say some hellos and ask Hugh to go outside, to talk. They get outside and he tells them that this is a place that he comes a lot to blow off steam. This NPC that I had added as a lark the night they meet Hugh makes another showing. This was one of the things that had brought Paul back to this bar. (It is just something to add some fun to the game and, who knows? One night she might end up dead.) James, Victoria, and Hugh enter the bar again, to get the rest of the group, and to go to another place to look for some clues. After a short decision, they all go outside and fight about not taking the limousine to this other address, as it would draw a lot of unneeded attention. They do end up in two cabs and make their way to the address that ends up being the building where Hannah’s haven is. (Though Hannah didn’t know it was her place, until I spilled it to her, after they were there and thinking about breaking in.) They get to the address and start to take a look at it and mention that they may need to break in and Hannah pipes up with “why don’t we use my key?” They all stare at her and she goes, “you never asked.” They enter the building, go up to Hannah’s haven, take a quick look at her place and then have her show them to her sire, Thomas’ haven, on the top floor. Hannah takes Victoria to his place and she picks the lock, enters the apartment and heads straight for the office and the computer to check it out and see what she can find. Not finding too much, she sets-up another e-mail forwarded and leaves it alone. (At this point I really start to think that I should not have sent them the link to THE CHRONICLES OF MICHELLE at http://www.forumchronicles.dk/ . That damn gazebo keeps popping into the conversation.) [It will probably never go away] They start to talk about going to break into another place, but time is running out. (The game night was just about over, so I didn’t want to start too much.)

Every one goes home in the cabs and they are safe for yet another night. I do answer a few questions as to how XPs get awarded and used. Then, we talk about when we might do D&D next and if the other vampire players would like to play that. With a little more chatter, we all collect our things and head for home.

Night Eight

We start the night with our normal amount of bullshitting and quick snack that seems to last about a hour to a hour and a half, which I don’t mind, but would like to see it cut down a bit, if possible, so that maybe we could get more than one night in, during the night of play.

So, like most gaming nights, they all wake-up to start the night. Victoria checks the e-mail traps that she set up and got that information. She didn’t get too much new, just a few more pieces of the puzzle that doesn’t yet make much sense to her. Gracey gives Paul a call and sets up “going out” for the night. They head back to the club that they went to, the first night. While this conversation was going on, Victoria gives Christian a call about a few of the e-mails that she read. She asked about Andrea Willson, who sent an e-mail about a problem at her club, “Orange Ranger”. She also talks about an e-mail that Robert sent to Donald to have him kept on a tighter leash. Christian, a little confused at this, told her that his sire doesn’t believe in computers, so how would he get this e-mail? Paul and Gracey meet up at the club and start to talk about what is going on around them. Victoria, after getting off the phone with Christian, calls James and talks about how Thomas is, most likely, having some financial problems and asks him out to a club. Then, Paul calls Christian to come to the club with him and Gracey. In the middle of that call, Hugh calls Christian, to see if he wants to do something, tonight. Paul and Gracey talk at the club some and Gracey inquires about the wet bar. Paul takes her out to the limousine to take a drink. James and Victoria decided to go check out “Orange Ranger” and when they get there, they have a bit of a surprise. (They have to make Taint check.) This made them perk up and take notice. James sees the vampire; to him, a good looking girl. Victoria also sees her, but notices that she is not what she appears to be. They get a table and talk about more of the details that they have collected, during the past night. Gracey and Paul head back into the club. Gracey is loosened up from a few spiked glasses of blood. About this time, Christian and Hugh show up. They found each other and talked shortly. Then, Gracey, after some convincing, gets Paul to go onto the dance floor. These two make quite a pair, heading to the floor, and get a number of looks. (Both have the Striking Looks merit.) (After a bit of OOC talk, they all start to get back to the game.) I tell Victoria and James more about the Vampire that is in the club with them. Christian and Hugh talk some about what a pair Gracey and Paul make in the dance floor. The best comment made was: Christian said “What a pair those two make,” to which Hugh replied, “Just like brother and sister”. (Read Hugh’s background you will see why that was so funny and right in character for him.) Gracey and Paul will end up talking the night away on the dance floor. (Hannah, although the player was at the game, there was little input from her.) After spending some time at the club talking, Victoria and James decide to check out one of the other addresses that they have. With a short cab ride to a difference warehouse, they go in and have a look around. This is the one they had blueprints for, although they did not bring them with, they do notice that the office area is not as big as it should be. They start checking it out. Victoria takes a crack at the computer system and finds the shipping and receiving logs, but not much else. After some searching, they find the spot in the office where there should be a door, but isn’t. They rip down the drywall and find a steel wall behind it. They give Hugh a call to see if he will come out and help get through the wall. Hugh asks Christian to see if he wants to go with, Christian, in turn, asks Paul if he wants to do this. Paul makes the observation that it getting close to sunrise. This sets Christian off into not being included yesterday. Paul tells Hugh that he won’t be responsible for taking Hugh there and not being able to take him home. Hugh takes stock of all of the options and takes a cab to the warehouse. While this was taking place at the club, Victoria finds a torch to try and cut though the wall. After a few checks to see if they can find a way of using it out, they start to cut through the wall. This is a slow process for Victoria so when Hugh does get there, she only has a four inch slot in the wall. Hugh takes stock of what they have, as Victoria continues to cut through the wall. (With way too much OOC about what the effects of a small amount of C4 and the Acetylene tank would do to the wall.) In the end they don’t try to blow out the wall, but they do make a big enough hole to see through and see the body of a vampire in a room that seems to only have a sewer entrance. They couldn’t tell who it was but end up leaving it in shambles and going home. Thus, we ended the gaming night with Paul dropping off everyone he had with him and the rest making it home on their own, safely.

With a little chatter, we all head home for the night with yet another night gone. Well, hopefully, I can get more posted, soon.

Night Seventeen

Everyone wakes up for the night. Hugh looks around the place and lets one of the servants know that he was leaving for a while. Gracey wakes beside Paul and tells him, “good evening.” Paul smiles and kisses Gracey and tells her he is going for a shower. This allows her to get dressed and check her cell phone for messages. Not finding any, she goes to the living room to wait on Paul.

Victoria, waking in her haven, checks on what has been coming into her e-mail box. Most of it is junk, of course, but there is a message from Riley to have her call back to set up a meeting. She makes a call to him to find out what he needs a meeting for. Over the phone, he tells her that he needs to talk with her and her new “friends”. Riley gives her the chance to set the time and place for this meeting. Victoria goes with “Altered Currents” bar, sometime after midnight. Riley tells her that he can make it and hangs up. After getting off the phone with Riley, Victoria calls Paul. Not getting an answer, she calls Christian. After letting Christian in on the plan, she has him try to call Paul while she calls James, Hannah, Gracey, and Hugh. They are short conversations, because they all just agree to it. Gracey checks to see if Paul has heard the news and if he is willing to give her a ride. (This involves conversation that does not have anything to do with the game.) Paul had found out that Hugh was no longer at his place and thinks to see if anyone else has called him to tell him.

(At this point in time, Hugh’s player and I were off role-playing himself talking with his sire, so the rest of the players got off on a tangent that included, but was not limited to, more than one animal impression. It had nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with the fact that my players have sick and twisted minds, and sick and twisted views of the Hugh character. They also joke about the recording and how I get to laugh at it when I play it back and hear it. They crack a few jokes about the fact that they get more done without me in the room than they do with me there. Sometimes I wonder if that isn’t true. After about five minutes of this, we get back to the room with the normal amount of heckling. This is why having the night recorded is so much fun. Damn people and wanting dates, October 26th.)

Gracey feels that they have time for a quickie and Paul doesn’t disagree, so they take care of that and then get cleaned up again. Paul finds his package that he had been waiting for. (I was giving him the information about what was in it while the rest of the group talks about the ride over, as one of them got to ride over on a motorcycle this night. It degenerates into conversations not fit for this web space.) After wrapping this up, Paul and Gracey head out to pick up Christian. Victoria arrives at the club and takes a seat at a table near the back. The rest of them arrive shortly thereafter. I ask Gracey what she was wearing, as a way of passing a little time, as a switch into the Riley persona.

(They go off on a tangent about this for about five minutes. Then I call a taint check for when Riley enters and starts towards the table. One of the players fails this check as she rarely engages in anything other then combat while we play I had hoped that this would provoke a reaction. It did not.)

I give the players a short description of Riley. Riley is a tall figure with hands like claws and dressed down in jeans and a flannel shirt. Victoria greats him, followed by the rest at the table. Riley makes notice of each, in turn, with respect paid to those he had any regards for. He also makes mention of the fire at the “Shit Hole” and how this is beginning to be a bad habit for the group of them. Paul figures out some of the back story given away by Riley’s actions. Riley starts to lay out what has been happening in the past few days after court. He starts with the facts that Vern has been drunk with power, and that the Invictus feels that he must be stopped. To that end, and to that end, only, they have teamed up with the Carthians. This distasteful arrangement means that they need everyone’s help. One of Vern’s lackeys, Dalia Pestage, needs to be found to lead them to Vern. The problem is that she has left her known hang-outs and is in hiding. Most of the Invictus and Carthians have bigger problems to deal with, or they are too well known to try to find anything out. This and the fact they have been hanging out so much, is why Riley was sent to get them on her trail. Riley doesn’t have a lot of information on Dalia to give them except that, as part of the sanctified, she has done a lot of business for Vern and they hope to get more information about her. Dalia, an older looking woman, is heavier set (5’4” and about 140 pounds). Riley tells them about her old haven and that she has been keeping offices in the same office building that this mess started in and this was the last place she was seen at. Riley makes it a clear point that she is needed alive, although, anyone with her is expendable. This makes Paul happy, as Paul asks questions to clarify the point as the rest agree with the course to find Dalia. Riley hints that they don’t have reliable information about all areas of the city. They start to talk with each other, but Riley gets bored with them and walks off into the club looking for someone. Paul feels that he needs to feed before going on with the task at hand. Paul does ask Victoria to find out if Riley has any more information that he did not want to share with the whole group. Riley talks to Victoria about the time table that has been worked out. Riley also talks about how they are working on putting Vern under control, rather than destroying him. Riley discusses Victoria and the group’s “knack” for finding things that they were not supposed to. Victoria tells the group about the limited time and that they should head on out to Dalia’s haven.

Paul tells her to wait, just a short time, for him to take care of business. He goes out on the floor and starts to dance with the “toys“. This makes Gracey a little uncomfortable. After Paul gets back to the table, they head out to the townhouse.

As soon as they get to the townhouse, Hannah goes right to the door and picks the lock. As they enter, Paul takes charge and tells Victoria to see if there is a computer around. Gracey follows Victoria to the office. James is asked to watch the back door while Hannah is told to keep an eye on the front. Paul and Christian find the door to the basement to take a look around there.

Victoria boots up the computer and starts to look at files. The first information that she finds looks garbled and doesn’t mean anything. As she works harder to find things, she starts to pull out financial records with listings of a hotel that was acquired recently, just outside of the LaGuardia airport. The records also list four purchases in Queens. She finds maintenance records for the apartment building they had stopped by many days ago.

Gracey goes to work on the file cabinets, getting them unlocked quickly, finding only empty file folders. Looking over the folders and other papers in the room, she finds that they come from many of the different hotels in town. She takes notes of them. Gracey noticed that a cabinet is missing. During this inspection, she finds a package of files, like those that she needed to return to Enos, an other Kindred. It also contained two video tapes that she starts to look for a player for. Finding the camera with a dead battery, she starts off to find Paul in the house.

Paul, Christian, and Hugh find the door to the basement locked and take a quick look to see how to get through the door. Hugh feels that a good shoulder blow will do the trick. Hugh backs up a step and hits the door, sending it down the steps and into the door below, opening that one, also. In the basement, they find two sparingly furnished rooms. These rooms look like their only use was interrogation. Upon closer inspection of the rooms, they find a few clamps, a hammer, a badly dented aluminum bat, fragments of a wooden bat, and a large knife. Paul looks to see what else may be in this basement, pulls up a block of the floor and reveals sewer access.

Gracey finds them downstairs and asks Paul if he can play these tapes at his place. It will not be a problem. She also mentions that it is getting late in the night. Paul places the block back and they head out. Gracey asks to stay with Paul, and Hugh heads for the Carthian safe house.

Victoria leaves the office, after doing what she could with the files, and starts to look over the rest of the house. Looking through the house, she finds that it is well furnished and kept. She also finds an open wall safe and a few paintings that could be valuable. Looking through the desks in other rooms, she finds keys that don’t fit anything in the townhouse. As she discovers this, she sees that everyone is heading out. She looks at the time and leaves with them.

Like most of the time, I allow them to make it back to their havens with time and settle in for the day.

A lot happened on this night, and more is coming soon.

Night Eighteen

We start night eighteen the same night we played through night seventeen, so everything is fresh in their minds as to what happened. Well, on with the show.

Gracey and Paul both wanted to see the tapes first, as they fell asleep yesterday morning, though this evening, they wake at the same time, so their was no sneak previews for either of them. Paul gets out of bed and heads in for a shower, as Gracey gets dressed and heads out to start the tapes. Gracey pops the first one into a player and starts to watch it as soon as Paul gets out. The tape is a dub of a poor quality recording. (Or as I put it during the game, a “crap-tacular” security camera tape.) As they watch the tape, most of it is really boring. They cannot tell what part of the city it comes from. After getting most of the way through the tape, they get a call from Victoria. Gracey leaves to take a shower, while Paul talks with Victoria, on the phone. While still on the phone, Paul puts in the second tape and sees a drive-by shortly after hanging up on Victoria. The car that was attacked explodes and, on the tape, you see someone get out, fall, and turn to ash. This makes Paul go back over the first tape a little closer. As Gracey returns to the room, from her shower, she asks about what she has missed. Paul tells her about the second tape leading him to take another look at the first.

Victoria wakes and feels that the files she got yesterday should prove to be a good challenge for the evening. As she pours over them, they start to make sense to her. She picks out that these files are a plan for getting rid of the Carthians within the city, by taking out the leader and fueling the in fighting until they are no more. After working this out, she gives James a call. Within this call, she goes over the plan that she found in the note and tells him they should check out Dalia’s offices. James agrees and they plan on getting the group together. Victoria calls Gracey, to no avail. Next, she calls Paul and goes over the plan with him. They talk about the tapes as they have not gotten anything out of it. Victoria decides to meet Paul and Gracey at Paul’s.

Hugh wakes at the warehouse the Carthians have been using as a safe house. He spends time listening to the crowd and looking for his sire. Though some of the night passes in this way, he gets a call from Victoria and leaves shortly thereafter.

Christian, feeling a little cramped, doesn’t talk with anyone and just takes some time to go out to a few bars. This plan doesn’t work very long as he gets a call from Paul to meet up at the office building they met at originally.

Victoria arrives at Paul’s and is informed about what was on the tapes, along with Gracey. The first tape contains a car crash with a Kindred getting out and walking into a building across the street. The second tape has the drive-by recorded on it. After hearing this, she gives James a call to let him know that they are going down to the offices tonight. Victoria tells James that she will get a hold of Hugh and Christian and have them meet up, there. Victoria tells Paul to call Christian, Gracey to call Hannah, and she will call Hugh. The calls go well. They all arrive, a short time later, at the office complex.

Victoria starts to find out if anyone has a plan for entering the building. Gracey asks “why not just walk in”, as the last time she was here it wasn’t a problem for her. Paul reminds her of the “run down the hall” incident, and she informs the group that is not the last time she was here, much to the surprise of the group. Victoria goes over the facts about how the building is controlled by the prince and Gracey didn’t have a problem. This fact hits Victoria as interesting. Paul thinks the best place to start looking is in the basement, as a joke. (Why he goes there I don’t know, though it does prove interesting again.) Gracey starts heading up to the second floor for a look at these offices, when Victoria starts to convince the group that the basement is the place to start as the last offices were bare of information. Gracey starts talking about how long before they meet back here, when Paul steps in and talks about how splitting up the group might not be a good idea.

(James’ player makes a comment about what happened several thousand years ago when the group split up. A veiled D&D reference as we had all just about died last week in that game, as a result of someone not following the group. It took a bit for everyone to catch on, but eventually got a laugh out of it.)

Victoria continues on about why the basement may be better, and with Paul supporting her, that is were the group starts to explore. They head down the familiar path to the basement, asking Victoria what they are looking for. She stumbles around until she finds a place where the hall should continue, but does not. Gracey studies the wall to find some seems. Hugh talks about shouldering it down, but Gracey holds him up. About this time, the security guard finds them, but they see him first. (They start to go over plans on hiding, with the sneaky Tremere and obfuscate. It only gets funny for a short time, then they get back to the game.) The guard shines his flashlight at the group, blinding them, and asks them what they are doing down here. Paul repeatedly tells him to get the flashlight out of his eyes as the guard asks, again, why are they down here. At this point Gracey starts towards him making full use of the light. This makes the guard quiver just a bit, whether it is from someone walking up to him or having a damn good looking chick head his way, she doesn’t know.

Gracey’s player, still a little new to how things work in Vampire, asks if the flashlight would hurt her, I tell her only if he hits her with it. James’ player makes a snide remark about the question, and a speaker falls on his head from the entertainment center behind him. This gets laughs and remarks about “that’s what you get for making cynical comments“.

The guard asks her if he can do anything for her. Gracey starts to bluff about having a meeting somewhere in the building. The guard announces that they all need to leave, unless they have business in the building. Hugh turns his back to the guard to see if he can find a way to open the door, and finds the mechanism, but doesn’t know how to open it. Christian, through this, catches the gaze of the guard and tells him they need the door opened. “Can you help us? We need to get something from behind it“. The guard happily walks over and opens the door for them, tells them to have a good night and walks away. Hugh tells Gracey to go first and she retorts that he is the man and he should go first. They fight back and forth over this for a short time before Christian tells them that he will go first. Christian walks in, does not look around, turns, and comes back out screaming. Victoria simply tells him “that was funny”, and they all enter the room. They find themselves in a planning room.

Right here, we stop for the night as it was late and I need time to prepare for this room as they were not supposed to find it until later in the game. We pack it in and head on out for the week. We come back the next week with a bit of bullshitting before we get back to the game.

As they pass through the Doorway they see a set of double doors that opened in on the planning room. The room contains a large central desk with an assortment of half-open filing cabinets. One wall contains a map of the city subway system, with a faint route marked on it. Gracey starts to check through the filing cabinets, finding two video cassettes. Victoria takes a look around the room for any passages that are hidden. As the group continues to look closer at the top of the desk Victoria realizes that the map on it is for the sewer system. The strange thing about the map is, there are a few different marks in different parts to the city. Along with the sewer map, is the title and blue prints for Elmwood Estates. James and Victoria talk over some of the information that they already had gathered to see if anything jumps out at them. After finding out about Elmwood Estates, James takes a look through the files. James finds information pertaining to The Orphanage and how Derrick Coverstone has set up a stronghold around it. While James is running through the files, Victoria takes a closer look at the map on the wall. She can follow a route on the map finding that it goes through many abandon subway tunnels and over to New Jersey.

James, Gracey, and Victoria keep looking over the desk and files for anything else. Victoria stumbles across a business card for Lt. McNaily and starts to show it around. When she shows it to Paul, he starts to tell them about what his PI had found on him. That this Lt. has been slipping recently, not getting most of his cases to close, also that he was in charge of the investigation on the assault on the welder and the warehouse fire. The odd part of his recent behavior is that he and a couple of his officers have been hanging out at places owned by Donald Riddell. Victoria sees that in one of the files are plans for using the two warehouses as a launching point to try and take over the docks area. Also within that file is a copy of the letter: “To His Holiness”. After sharing this information with the rest of the group, they decide that Vern needs to die.

With one more quick check of the room, Gracey heads to the second floor offices with the rest of the group following her, as they now have a healthy respect of being separated. They take a back stairwell up to the second floor. Once there, they find eight doors running down each side of a main hall for a total of sixteen. Gracey just walks down and checks randomly the third door on the left side of the hall. The unlocked door leads to a small reception area with two offices behind it. The place looks like it has been empty for about a month and is only furnished with some cheep desks and chairs. Next, Gracey checks the fourth door on the right to find it locked. James, after seeing that Gracey is down the hall, takes the first door on the left, finding it locked. They start to discuss what is going on and James sees that Gracey is about to pick the door she is at and stops her so they can do this with some sort of plan. James has them check each door to see if it is open or locked, before trying to open them. They find, with all this searching, an adult daycare facility, an office and file room, a small meeting room with extra tables and folding chairs at the back, and a large conference room with copies of most of the files on kindred within the city that are very detailed, save for the LS. In another of the offices they find some antique furniture, but little else. The next one they go to has antique furniture and is nicely decorated. In the one of the desks are some of the LS files that were missing. They check Pete Ares’ file, getting information about how he had controlled the Queens area in recent times. Also, they go over Carmen Oster’s files. The last office on the left turns out to be more of a reading room for someone. Victoria opens the broom closet and checks it over, finding it a solid room. The last room they check, on the right, had been converted into a large room with four desks in it. In the desks, they find more LS files, one of them being Dalia’s. The file gives them more information about Dalia’s habits and hang outs. Dalia had started to invest in the hotels around the airports and also the Yellow Cab Company. Dalia’s file had some old subway plans and information on how to redevelop them.

Gracey talks about calling around to hotels to see if she can find Dalia that way. Paul talks her out of it, as it would serve to drive Dalia farther into hiding. This prompts them to go back down to the planning room and check the two maps against each other. Victoria rips the map down and takes it with her. About this time, the night has mostly slipped away and they all head home.

End of this night’s work as I take a minute to gather the next part of this mess and start on the next night with them.

For those of you who want it, here is a post of the edits that Ken has just made. If you check on the web site, for the next few days at least, you will be able to find the changes. Enjoy.

Night Two

Ok, time for night two of this little ordeal of ours. Some events might have changed places, as I could not find the order of them happening on the recordings and I am trying to go by the in-game nights, not the play nights.

We arrive at the gaming location and do the weekly life update. Although this night was a little different, as one in the group had his birthday the day before. There was a nice meat and cheese tray on the table, as well as a tin of mixed nuts. Last time we had played, I was totally unprepared for the game. This time, I had a start on some ideas that could be interesting during the game. The characters all gather at Paul’s sire’s home, via the limousine. (I am starting to not like that choice. Later, it starts to show how bad of a choice it was.) They talk about the fact that they have not seen their sires for a few nights (That’s my fault for not having them ready). Then, the choice is made to go back to the office building and investigate the explosion that chased them out of it, yesterday. They return to the building and find it intact. They all enter and start back to the office where they had the meeting. They take a quick look around and find little that seems out of place, in the office. Most of the group; Paul, Gracey, James, Hannah, and Victoria, head downstairs to see if they can find the source of the explosion. Christian starts to wander the halls on the upper floors to see if he can find anything. (He will not, because I have little idea what else would be there). After looking for a while, he heads back down to the limousine.

They find themselves in the basement were they can hear some work being done. They search it out and see a couple of welders repairing a steam line. They sneak by the welders, to look in the area for anything else out of place. They get to the end of the hall where there is another set of stairs leading up and out. (As marked by the EXIT sign.) James (The one person who has played some V:tM in the past.) tells everyone to be still and quiet. He then activates “heightened senses” and takes a look around. James notices that a door in the hall seams to be out of place. They all wander down to this door and Paul is the first to barge in. (Paul and James both do a Predator’s Taint check as they enter, and pass.) They enter and find a storage room with a staked vampire in it, along with some boxes. James starts to look around the room and finds some evidence of a fight. Paul calls out to Victoria and Gracey to come take a look at the room. While they make up their minds to come into the room, James has found a few boxes with addresses on them, taking note of one that is from a residential area in town, with a familiar name and a piece of cloth with M M written on it. Victoria enters the room. (She passed the roll.) Looking around, she does not see much, other than a beat-up, staked, vampire. Gracey attempts to enter the room and starts to run away, screaming (Rolled Failed), down the hall, drawing the attention of guards (Er, I mean – welders. I kept calling them guards during the game, when they were, in fact, the welders from earlier.). Well, James takes off after her, the other two try, but aren’t quick enough and get caught by the welders. Victoria glares at one of them and commands him to sleep (using dominate, of course). This guard (welder) goes into a dazed state. Paul jumps the other guard (welder) and proceeds to beat the piss out of him. Before he kills the poor guy, Victoria yells to him that they need to go. They meet up with Christian, James, and Gracey at the limousine and head on out. In the limousine, James tells them about the address and the cloth, so Paul has the driver go to that address.

At the apartment complex, James gets out and looks at the buzzer panel. He finds one with the name he thought he knew, M. Manson, and got buzzed in without a word. He goes to the apartment number and checks the door. It’s unlocked. He enters the apartment just in time to have some young lady start screaming at him. With a few quick words, he backs out the door and goes down to the limousine. They head back to their havens, via the limousine, and while doing this, they talk about what has happened to them, so far.

Ok, that’s one more night down; a few more to go. At this rate, I might get them done before we stop playing vampire. 🙂 . Still kind of wordy, though. I had hoped to compress more, but I still like including as much detail as I feel does justice to the game.

Night Four

So, here it is: Another wonderful gaming night! Well, Hugh didn’t make it this time – had something to do with being the “best man” at a wedding in Las Vegas. Anyway, we start them off at home, just waking up from their daily rest. A few more of them decide that it would be a good night to feed. Victoria, Paul, James, and Christian all feel it is time to go on the hunt. I give them their respective rolls and tell them what they get. So now, with that over, they all decide that going back to the office building would be a good thing to do. So there goes the limousine, out and about, to pick every one up and take them back to the office building. They all waltz right in and go up to the meeting room that this all started in. They all start to look around the office. (Wits + Larceny) This let them find the hidden filing cabinets and they gained what little information there was, off of the desk blotters. A quick Dexterity + Larceny check for one of them to pop open the file cabinets and Intelligence + Larceny or Intelligence + Investigation, which gives different information. The Larceny roll could produce other information sources. Those needed an extraordinary success that no one got. They discovered files on various people, including their sires, a few other key players, and some building blueprints with addresses. (See NPC page) This was good enough for most of them, but Paul decided that he needed to do one more thing . He enlists the help of Christian and heads for the basement, as the rest of them take files out to the limousine. Once down there, they grab the body that has held some fascination for him and drag it out a side door to the limousine. Into the trunk it goes, which makes the others in the limousine ask them what they think they’re doing. He placates them with something to the effect of “it’s my limousine. If you don’t like it, walk!” In the limousine, they talk a little about what they found in the office. (What little I could tell them as I did not have much of that information ready, yet. Does there seem to be a pattern forming?) They head for Paul’s place. When they get there, Paul find his sire, Dianna and asks if she knows who the body is. She informs him that it is Jeff Orbrock, the prince’s first childe. Then, she goes on to tell him that he needs to take care of that trash. Paul asks Christian to help him move the body into the garage to hide it. After that, they all go inside to talk some more about their findings at the office. James calls in a favor from one of his contacts (City Engineer), to see if he can discover who the owners of the blueprints are. This, of course, leads to leavening a message, due to the time of night. Gracey talks the rest of them into giving her the files, so the she can read them over. (I still don’t have a clue why this worked, but hey – I’m just a storyteller.)
We run out of useable time in the evening, so I “call it” with them all getting rides home from the damn limousine. A little chatter later and we head for home, ourselves.
’till next time.