Hello there, folks. Been a while since we've been able to get our Chronicles game together due to some scheduling wonkiness. As it is, we played this past week and had to do so without John. But here's hoping we can ease back into a proper rhythm and wrap this story up so we can play other things.
So where we left off, Stills -- who is still pretty ravaged from his fight with the shadow owls -- has walked Josh up to his suborned Infrastructure to recharge, and left him there to fiddle with it and make that work. (Will update this if John and I work out something else he went off to do after this, but we just assumed Josh was messing with that while people were doing other things.)
As Stills walks away, he catches a notification on his phone that he'd missed before, one that came up during the fight: Otis has been trying to reach him. He calls back and it turns out that Otis has had some trouble hunting (he tried changing up his routine so as not to 'overfish' his usual spots and it didn't quite work out for him) and was hoping he could catch Stills before he 'goes out drinking for the night.' Stills says he's just topped off, but he could take some more.
So they meet up on the road to Mount Morris, which is what kinda sorta passes for a town right next door to Morgantown. It's practically just a series of wide places between trees connected by a road, and part of it has space for a car dealership and a truckstop by the highway. Anyhow, they meet up any decide to go out into the woods to 'do this old school.' Stills has to explain his remaining wounds[0] to Otis. Otis makes the obvious Hitchcock reference, and Stills doesn't get the reference because he's old. Otis then has to explain who Hitchcock is, and half-jokingly explains movies in general, and when the subject of vampire movies comes up Stills grumbles about the idea of vampires learning how to be vampires from them.
But they're strolling along the road looking for victims. They spot a dirty redneck, smelling of booze and other things, walking the other way while Stills walks hidden in Obfuscate and Otis hides out in his shadow. The guy's on the other side of the road, coming the opposite direction, and Stills uses Nightmare to frighten the guy towards them. He grabs the guy, spending some blood in the process, and drinks from him -- and then pukes it back up, because his bloodline has trouble with that. So he drinks some more and manages to keep it down. He finds himself a little woozy, though, because there's not only alcohol in the blood but also some meth (welcome to West Virginia, folks). He has to explain his new condition to Otis, that this is something he inherited from his sire and thought he'd gotten past. But thanks to having to double-dip, he's drained the redneck to death, and just dumps his body in the woods.
So about now-ish, as they're headed back towards town, Stills gets a text from Humfrey summoning him and his allies to the club. Stills, conscious of his face, is like 'Now?' and he receives in reply four texts: "R," "T," "F," and "N." So he texts Weaver, telling him to meet himself and Otis at the club. Weaver asks why. Stills just replies with four texts: "R," "T," "F," and "N." Weaver pretends not to get it. They go back and forth a bit -- Weaver is annoyed at Stills for Nightmaring him, and Stills is annoyed that he had to take a swarm of shadow owls to the face for Weaver.
But they get to the club, where Humfrey is waiting for them. He explains that he's just gotten word from his sire Francis (via the 'Prince Justin doesn't know about this' plausible deniability channel) that someone from the Invictus who outranks him is poking into Prince Justin reclaiming Morgantown, and will likely be demanding that Derrick be brought to him alive. As Humfrey wants Derrick dead and dealt with, he wants Stills and his people to get rid of him ASAP. Stills says he could handle having to bring Derrick in alive, but the orders are to kill him before they're not allowed to, so be it. Humfrey asks Stills about his messed-up eye, and Stills explains the shadow owls.
During the conversation, Humfrey glances at his phone. He's just gotten a text from Leland, asking him to send the guys to him once Humfrey's done with them. So as Humfrey is basically done with them for the moment, he sends them along.
So according to Leland, Duncan Rush has found something. He's hanging out a local no-tell motel, waiting for them, room number whatever. Stills says he's going to be glad when this whole mess is over, and there's some shared grumpiness on the subject from Otis and Weaver as well.
So they head to the motel and Duncan shows them in. He says he's found something, looking into the history of the particular strix that Derrick ate. Namely, there was an old ritual of sorts, something like a warding circle, that the area's indigenous peoples used to ward off the strix, and he's found a way to recreate an effective version of it. He's got detailed diagrams of symbols that need drawn, and where. There's just one trick: To make this work with the Hungry Shadow, they'll need blood. Special blood. They need mortal blood, but a bloodline that's been cultivated and influenced by vampires for at least a few decades. Preferably what most blood banks define as a 'unit,' a little more than a pint -- that'll be enough to draw the symbols while having enough for wiggle room if something goes wrong, a symbol has to be redrawn, whatever. Doesn't have to come from a ghoul family as such, but just a human family line that's been in proximity to vampires long enough would probably be enough.
He says he could call a guy who knows a guy and maybe borrow an Angustri[1], but it'll take about a week. He says they could go looking for some Alley Men[2] and maybe get lucky, but that might take as long. He says he'll keep looking for alternatives, but he gives them copies of the diagrams and sends them on their way.
Of course, Stills knows of a bloodline that would work just fine -- his own mortal line, representatives of which do live in the area. But as he's willing to move heaven and earth to avoid having to resort to that, he goes back to the club to ask Leland if there are any ghoul families in the area. Leland doesn't know any off-hand, mentioning that there's a line of bodyguard ghouls the Invictus keeps that are all muscular and borderline-deformed, like human pit bulls, but this is more of an Invictus subject than a Carthian subject.
So Stills gets in touch with Humfrey and asks him -- in addition to other things, Humfrey's a Notary, keeping track of Invictus business is literally what he does. Stills then quickly says he knows that Humfrey will have an immediate answer that comes to mind, and that it's not the one he wants. Regardless, Humfrey does give him the address of his great-great-great-grandson, and Stills is like "Not that," getting a curious look from Weaver. Humfrey then mentions that the Sheriff of Charleston knows someone who breeds Bulls[3], but you'd have to ask him directly for one of those. And then there's a branch of the Crassus family[4] that the Invictus and Carthians have been fighting over just outside of Pittsburgh, and right now the Carthians are winning that tug of war.
Stills says that if they're going to deal with Derrick, he needs one of the Crassus, and he says that they're going to need permission to offer the Carthians the full claim to the family in exchange for borrowing one for a while. Humfrey says he'll have to talk to Prince Justin about that. So he calls Justin up, and explains the situation. Justin has to make a few calls, but he'll get back to him. He wishes Humfrey -- and, by extension, the player characters -- happy hunting, and points out they they 'don't have long.'
Meanwhile, while they're waiting, Stills asks Humfrey for an address where he can contact the Crassus so he can open up negotiations as soon as possible. Humfrey gives him the address (which is out in Jefferson Hills, an affluent area just outside of Pittsburgh), but suggests not to begin any negotiations until he hears anything.
Stills and the others get on the road -- now, it's really late already. It's almost 2:30am by the time they get to the Crassus' McMansion. Humfrey gets a call back from Justin, informing him that he can't do this quickly (and he can suspect why there's the sudden rush) and suggests that if Humfrey has someone waiting to hear back, they might have to go to a backup plan. Humfrey points out that there are backup plans he may not have fully approved of ahead of time or properly scrutinized. Justin just says that he can 'do whatever he has to, as long as it's not wrong' -- one of Humfrey's own catchphrases, turned back on him to suggest he trusts Humfrey's judgement.
Humfrey passes all this along to Stills, then 'accidentally' turns his phone off for a few hours (probably the rest of the night at this point, actually).
So the group is parked outside the Crassus' estate. It's late, the lights are off. They need to get someone to open the door so Stills can get in. Stills hides himself with Obfuscate, with Otis in his shadow, and Weaver goes up to the door and knocks. Someone turns on a light, and asks through an intercom what Weaver needs at this hour. Weaver explains that his car is broken down, and his phone's dead and can he borrow a phone for a moment. The guy inside says he needs a minute, and comes back a minute later saying he's already called a tow truck for Weaver and that it'll probably be there in an hour or so.
So much for getting the front door open.
Weaver goes back to the car as Stills sneaks around back and climbs the fence around the pool. He texts Weaver to drive his car away and not come back until the tow truck has come and gone, and Weaver drives a street over and finds a place to sit. Stills manages to climb up to a second-story balcony, bypass the alarm, and pick the lock to get inside.
Stills and Otis sneak into a bedroom to find a young man and woman asleep in a bedroom. Stills tries to find something in the bathroom that could hold a pint of blood, but nothing's handy and he doesn't want to risk something going wrong by spending more time sneaking around the house. He floats the idea to Otis of capturing them in the Beast's Lair, but this stands a non-zero chance of getting one or the both of them killed.
And it's in that moment that the group realizes that they only need one of these people anyways. They snoop through the dresser and determine that it's the guy who lives there, and the girl's probably just staying over. Stills grabs him, using Obfuscate to hide the guy as well so his struggles go unnoticed while the vampire drags him into the bathroom and closes the door. The man demands to know who Stills is, asks if Stills knows who he is, and without waiting for an answer threatens to have him 'skinned and held out for the sun.' Lovely.
Stills chokes him out and while he's unconscious, decides to just haul him out the front door. But he gets down there and there's a guy with a gun waiting just inside the front door. It's at this point he gets a text from Weaver, who's just noticed that there's a private security vehicle out front and there are people with flashlights checking the area in front of the property.
They consider ways to get rid of the guy at the door so he can slip out, cloaked. He uses Nightmare to make the guy at the door think he's getting a nosebleed. The guy rushes to the kitchen, thinking his nose is gushing, and calls someone to come in and cover him for a few minutes. Of course, within seconds, the illusion is gone, but by then one of the guys inside has opened the door and Stills manages to sneak out with his captive in tow. Also, on the way out, he swipes the security guy's gun.
Outside, he overhears someone talking into a radio about sending somebody to search the neighborhood while they secure the house. Stills asks Weaver where the car is, because turning the headlights on is going to get everyone's attention at this point. Weaver tries to creep the car forward enough that Stills will notice the movement, and he does. Stills rushes over to the car and, by spending some extra blood, manages to cloak the car long enough to get them out of there unseen. As they drive away, they see cop cars with flashing lights coming back the way they came.
They've got a plan on what to do with this guy now and cover their tracks, but as we were ready to leave off there I'll leave that for the actual implementations and not hopes and dreams.
[0]-- Stills, as you'll recall, fought a swarm of shadow owls that ripped him a new one. Resilience kept him functioning, and he healed the damage, but some of the superficial physical damage is just going to have to wait until he goes to sleep and 'resets' during the day.
[1]-- A ghoul family of Roma descent, maintained by the Ordo Dracul.
[2]-- Sort of a family of vampirism-tainted, mentally-unstable, vampire-hunting homeless mortals. Functionally a ghoul family as well.
[3]-- The Bulls are a ghoul family -- as mentioned (and implied by the name), a line of humans bred for muscle (with vampire blood enhancing the process), and are very disproportionate with regards to upper-body muscle.
[4]-- These are one of those politically-connected families, like the Kennedys, and they're very well kept-up in vampiric society but have a tendency towards Caligulan levels of decadence.
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