The Vampires of San Francisco

In the next major plot beat, we’re still looking for the Englishman, but while poking around Elysium and the Prince’s court, Sebastian–the Malkavian primogen–intercepts us and mentions how he’s heard of some guy hanging around Land’s End, with an implacable English accent and waving a sword around. Sebastian indicates he has a long history with his guy and would love for us to handle things for him, and is predictably oily and simpering as he does so (classic Sebastian). We’re like, yeah alright, and head out there the next night.

We head to the ruins of Sutro Castle, at the edge of the city, and, as promised, stumble upon a man with an English accent and a sword. But while THE Englishman was a distinguished gentleman with a rapier, this man is a bombastic force of nature with a broadsword, and I–a long term resident of the city–am the first to realize who he is, seconds before he announces it to us himself.

It is Emperor Joshua Norton the First, Ruler of these United States and Protector of Mexico, and he’s as Malkavian as the night is long.

He may be a raving madman, but he’s not a raving killer, and we realize that Sebastian’s lead is a bum one. Figuring Sebastian was misinformed, we debate what to do next….

…Moments before a trained hitsquad jumps from the trees and tries to kill us all.

Fuckery ensues (which at one point involves people falling off the edge of the ruins, a fact which I later noted while visiting the area in real life, saying outloud to Chris, “Is this where Paul threw that bitch off the cliff?” without any regard for nearby joggers who might overhear).

After defeating the assassins with the help of Norton, Norton reveals he has long been Sebastian’s enemy–in fact they’ve been jockeying for the Malkavian Primogenship in the city for years–and this whole thing must have been a setup from him to kill his rival and remove some annoying assholes on the side. We’re all frustrated by this…

…But Paul is furious. He declares that this shall not stand, we need to make a counter hit on Sebastian in revenge, and even though it is an hour until dawn, we need to do so RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW. We know Sebastian is in his private club, Salome, hidden under the Yacht Club, and right now he’s probably settling in for the day and waiting to hear on the results of the hit, so he wont be expecting this at all. We all pile into Paul’s Tesla and head over there (which includes an amusing bit where Paul pulls his Tesla into a station at 4 in the morning to buy a container of gasoline).

We arrive at Salome dangerously close to dawn, and unsurprisingly it turns out that while the attack is a surprise, Sebastian is not completely unprepared. A battle breaks out, though it ends when Paul throws a lit container of gasoline to Sebastian’s face while the rest of us G. The. F. O. The club explodes and we stumble away, finding shelter in a nearby yacht moments before dawn hits.

Or, rather, all of us do, except “Elizabeth,” Jim’s new character, a teenage Malkavian as cluelessly irritating as Norton is insane. She avoids the battle and breaks into a house on Marina Green to try and sleep for the day, but that goes tits-up and she murders a family of three to do so.

(Ok, so, realtalk guys: I just haven’t been having the time to go back and fill-in the missing backstory. However, I’ve been collecting more readers (*waves*) who have been asking for, at the very least, a summary of what the hell happened in this big blackhole of the plot. As I said, we don’t have recordings of most of these early ones, and I don’t have time to listen to the ones we do have recordings of, but going on notes and memory/internal oral history, here are at least some details on our story’s evolution:)

So, as I recall, the part of Chapter 3 that’s been written up ends with me one-shotting a werewolf in a single punch. Alejandro and his men are understandably surprised and infuriated by this, but fuck them cause we all pile in a van to escape. Alejandro reveals himself as full-on Tzmitsce by morphing into his Zulo (aka, Costco Monster) form to try and chase us down, but I drive him away with a shotgun I find in the back of the van.

This shotgun, incidentally, was loaded with dragonsbreath, which is my first exposure to it–in game or in real life–and I immediately know that I need approximately all of it.

But as we outpace Alejandro and his men, we discover something else in the van: a teenage girl, tied up and unconscious, and somehow during the subsequent shock and arguing we realize she is tied up with silver. Realizing she is a werewolf–and me secretly suspecting she’s the wolf I met at Tesseract–we all flee back to Paul’s house in Portola Valley to figure out what the hell to do with her, and what to do next. The werewolf eventually comes around, identifies herself as “Sophia,” and is understandably freaked to shit. Most of the group wants to take her back to the city to turn into the Prince, but I object, because he’ll undoubtedly kill her and, as I say, she’s just a kid. Secretly, though, she reminds me of my long-lost sister, Isabella, and werewolf or not I just can’t let her be surrendered to an imminent death.

During the course of all this arguing, Issac makes a power-play, trying to Dominate all of us and take over the coterie for unspoken Tremere reasons. Elsa and Paul struggle to resist–one succumbs, I can’t remember who–and fighting breaks out, but I resist completely and stumble back, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. The three of them crash off into another side of the house, leaving me alone in the garage with the werewolf. I hesitate a moment, staring at the frightened girl while listening to the distant sounds of destruction, then calmly swagger over…and snap Sophia’s silver chains.

She immediately bursts into full-werewolf form, looming over me, breath heaving, but doesn’t attack. I stare back calmly. She asks why I let her go, I shrug and say, “Girl, I got no problem with you, but I got a biiig problem with that asshole down the hall.” She stares another moment, then disappears, and much fuckery later the whole drama ends with Sophia tearing Issac in half.

And thus was the death of Jim’s first character.

We part on awkward, if neutral, terms, and Paul, Elsa, and I head back to the city, while IRL Jim comes up with a new character.

I get back to the Tesseract campus, thankfully with no werewolf on my tail (lol). I meet up with Paul and Elsa and report on what happened. They, unfortunately, weren’t able to find anything of interest themselves, so we sit back and consider our next move.

That’s when we realize Isaac is missing.

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