Mayday Plays - Vegas by Night Ep. 3 - "Canaan"

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

The Coterie has been given the keys to Naked Street, but the place is a fixer-upper. Everyone hunts for a meal, gaining satisfaction in their own unique ways.

Good morning, Kindred, and welcome to Vegas by Night. Made a role-play as Vampire the Masquerade Chronicle. We want to thank you so much for your continued viewership and for all the wonderful feedback we've been receiving on our Patreon Discord means a lot. I want to warn you up front that COVID is a bitch, so if I sound at all weird today because of that, promise, so bear with me. If you have missed out on any chapter of Vegas by Night, don't fear. You can still check it out on Spotify, Twitch, VOD, and our YouTube channel as of right now. And if you're wondering how you can get more May Day in your life, you can catch

our stream here every other Saturday for our main show. You can follow us on all major platforms, as well as Spotify and SoundCloud for podcast-friendly recordings of all our major shows and streams. And finally, you can donate to us on Patreon, join our Patreon Discord. The Discord is really where we've had the chance to build a great little family around the content we've put out. We have patrons who have joined each other's games and played in some hosted by ourselves. We've started a Deadpool on which one of us will die first in the respective games. We've debated the most vile pizza toppings possible. Oh my god.

And have all fought over who can make the most marketable emote of Eli's hippo dog possible. In addition to all that craziness, you get an opportunity to listen to exclusive Patreon content behind the scenes information. And even better, you get to talk to the people who love May Day and have made May Day. So consider checking it out. Many of you have already watched it through, but the doom to repeat season 2 debrief is available now on demand. And we'd love it if you gave it a listen on YouTube, Twitch, VOD, or any available podcast and service. We have an Orpheus debrief on the way soon detailing and answering all

the questions put forward by the fans of the show, as well as the cast members themselves, who keep a lookout for its release. Other than that, please check out our Delta Green campaign, Doom to Repeat, which was just recently nominated. Yet again, two different podcasting services have reached out and selected us for an award show. So I believe the first is in New Zealand. The other is in Minnesota. Minnesota got it right the first time. Minnesota. So keep an eye out for how that goes for us. Check in on our D&D campaign, Ashoka, and our Old World of Darkness campaign using the Orpheus system, all of which are available on all

major podcasting platforms, YouTube and our Twitch. Before we get started today, I just want to remind everyone that Vampire of the Mask great to get dark setting and as such, there are content warnings for any watching who's be advised that there may be violent themes, plenty of adult language and the exploration of some very dark subjects. Please take care of yourself and be aware. We don't want you to hurt yourself by consuming our content, but we want you to be here and engaging with us. So you take care of yourselves. So we'll begin. Humanity was cursed, but a curse takes time to shape. Lost in the desert, the

broken brother, Cain, marched for years in search of an answer to his affront to God. With no punishment given, Cain sought his own demise to atone. There in the wastes, a sorceress named Lilith took pity on God's cast off. With a calling heard only to herself, she bid Cain to join her flesh and named them wed together. Cain agreed. Soon, Cain grew covetous of the woman's power and asked that she bless him with it. But the bloodletting of Cain into the sacred basin only made for an event we call the awakening. Four angels appeared before Cain, each with a curse, the punishment he had been waiting for. My God,

Michael, who made Cain to fear the flame, Raphael, who made Cain to fear the dawn, Uriel, who bid him drink only blood, eat only ash, and Gabriel, who in pity cursed him to seek the light and mercy of God as an only respite, a concept he called Golconda. In his misguided anger, Cain left Lilith the next morning, blaming her. We were cursed to find no comfort and warmth, no haven in the dawn and no taste in the bread. But much more than this, we were cursed against those that might steer us right, poisoned against love by an undue pride. We will plague everyone foolish enough to come close, sully anyone we once lived

for, and break anyone that would think themselves our savior. We will kill our darlings. Welcome to Las Vegas by night. But next. Welcome back. Let's introduce our cast. My name is Caleb James Miller, and I'll be your storyteller today. I think I'm Aaron, and I'm here. Who are you playing dumbass? Oh, I'm Enoch. That's me.

Oh, geez. I'm Allegra, and I'm playing Mal. I'm Amanda, and I'm playing Allison. I'm Eli, and I'm playing Niles. I'm Sergio, and I'm playing Burroughs. Hey, folks, I'm Vince. I'll be playing Regal. I'm Zach, and I'll be playing Sybil. Beautiful. And to start off today,

session, we have a recap prepared by Burroughs. Dear Lord, can a vampire go to heaven? I know what the legends say. Double H has filled me in on all of it. Still, I'm not convinced it's all through. Because if you made man, and Cain was once a man, then surely his transformation was also part of your plan. The way I figure it, to you,

we're like opposite sides of the same coin. I think when someone is embraced, it's a second chance. A new life. A different life. Better in some ways. Worse in some ways. Better in some ways. Worse in others.

Shit, after all I've been through and seen, for some reason, you still see it fit to keep me around. Like there's something left in me to do. Some noble good. Not something selfish like in the old days. I'm talking about something that brings glory to you. Maybe it'll come with the help of my new friends. Lord, thank you for them. My coterie.

Double H is fine, but he's stuck in the past. These kids, they're modern. Got themselves modern sensibilities. To be honest, I envy them. They're ambitious, full of piss and vinegar. They remind me of me. Well, before I peaked, before the stress and the drugs, the divorce and the heart attack.

Before it all nearly killed me. Well, before I actually died. Lord, I know I've heard a lot of people in my past. My bride. My daughter. My mama. Like Cain, I'll never have the luxury of seeing my family again. Cursed to ramble on as the Ravnos must.

But you have given me Vegas. This time, it don't feel like a cage. But like a home. Because I got a new family here. My Lydia, Casey and the girls. People I care about it, who care about me. I thought about them tonight. Well, they think if they saw me at Italy, see them.

I'll tell you what, I went in cocky. It was a chance after all to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers. The primogen they're called. I'd done this kind of thing before a million times. I met rock stars, Hollywood stars. Hell, I met the president. In another life. I could command any room.

Lord, you should have seen shaking in my boots, sweating like a pig. Back to the matter is the primogens of Las Vegas are nothing less than monsters. Gaunt and diseased and human and insane. They looked at us like toys. Offered us deals. I would make the devil blush. I just wasn't ready. I was so hungry and a part of me, the human part of me wanted to run.

I nearly did. Standing at that bar of never felt so far from your presence. But then I remembered my Bible verses. Deuteronomy 31 6. Do not fear or be in dread of them. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you. And at that moment, I was at peace. I knew what to do.

I walked out on that cross and I did what I'm best at. What I know you put me on this earth to do. I entertain them. I put on a big show and I let them laugh. The prince. He made us watchman. Guardians of the city against the inhuman. Your ways are mysterious Lord, but I know now I am exactly where I need to be.

Because you know, you know what I want from this life. A chance to prove that I still got a soul. I do believe a vampire can go to heaven. Hell I got to. Because if not, I'm just like them. Incredible job. Incredible job, Sergio. Thank you very much.

So good. Beautiful folks. That means that there is nothing left but to start. Let's start off by declaring our hunger. This is the same hunger we should have started chapter two with. So whatever we ended chapter two with hunger wise, just go ahead and recount for us what you all are sitting at currently. We'll start just alphabetically.

Aaron, where are you sitting? I got zero, which seems impossible, but that's what my sheet says. Okay, well, we'll take it. I got to. I have a one. Got it. Two. I'm sorry.

What do we need to do? I got to I got to. Okay. Two for a girl. One for me to. Okay, so we are not at all at the mercy of our hunger quite yet, but maybe some of us are halfway there. I will give an opportunity to recover some health back.

As I realize, I've royally fucked you up recently. And I worry for your survivability for what's going to happen to you next. So if anyone would like to expend rouse checks to heal aggravated damage, the opportunity is there for those of you who have done it before. It's the same thing we did after session one. And if you need to remember how to do that, let me pull it up right now. Can we say that I'm not hungry because I get all the food I need right here? Disgusting, but sure.

I mean, it is very much likewise. She got a bonus on her roll because of that. No. Also, I gotta say, I hate the fact that when you pointed to your left in Twitch, it looked like you were pointing at me and I'm mad about it. Because Amanda is on your other side. So a character can mend one aggravated damage by rousing the blood at the beginning of a night, rousing the blood three times can mend one aggravated damage.

So is there anyone that would currently like to remove some aggravated damages? We start off our session. Amanda, that makes a lot of sense. So Amanda, is there anyone else rolling for aggravated? I'm doing good. So Amanda, if you could roll three rouse checks, you're just going to roll one dice. And Rick, if you're doing this as well, one dice. If you succeed, your hunger does not go up.

If you fail, your hunger rises by one. You're going to do that three times. One 10. Two successes, one failure. Okay, so your hunger rises by one. Miguel, Amanda, you have one 10. What are the other two? Two and four.

Okay, unfortunately, your hunger goes up by two, Amanda, meaning you're at three. Ray, Ray, are you at three, two? Uh-oh, I am indeed. Okay. Well, with that out of the way, you're standing on the edge of your kingdom from some 60 floors above the world on the echelon hotel and casino, half built. The neon is easiest to see from this balcony.

The sounds of Vegas never quit and the backdrop is more alive than you ever will be. If you were capable of a deep breath, this would be one compared to what you just filed out of. You rubbed elbows with a small fraction of the elders that run the cabal of Las Vegas and they picked at you like carrying birds to the rib cage. But out here, there is an error of possibility. There's a promise of haven, of membership. I'm an exclusive club you've been offered to join. The words of Aloysius Grant echo in the foyer of a dead mind.

In truth, I'm not entirely sure whether he even cares if you say yes to it at all. It's all already been decided. Santos was careful to slip Enoch an envelope with additional information. On that envelope, Enoch is an address. It reads Lucky's 1018 1st Street, which you recognize would be a part of Naked City. I'm sorry, when you say Enoch, do you mean me? Yes, I do. Enoch, Enoch. Okay, okay.

This is no doubt the address of the new property. He's still generously gifted to you by the Malkavian cremogen emerald. Located just on the edge of what they've named as your new domain. The new generation of Naked City. The offer feels bigger than you can understand, but you brush that off. There's a second address to, you know, to a place called the Lonely Hearts Chapel. Underneath in Cisco's Skrull are the words, come here when you're ready to work. Punctuated by a smiley face, the same as on their volo tie.

With all this in hand, I release Las Vegas to the new generation. You're all free to the world. Well, if we're all done parting, I gotta admit, maybe we can have a little celebration of our own. You want to take a look at that strip of land we've been gifted? That'd be kind of cool to ride through. Yeah, let's go review our new domain. I gotta head back. Where?

Back. Where I live. Which is where? None of your goddamn business. Oh, okay. Oh, I don't understand. We just, we just pulled that shit off so well. You don't want to celebrate?

What's there to celebrate? Are not death death? We didn't get our heads torn off. All right. Yeah, not on, not all night. I gotta get back, but I'll, I'll go with you. That's still young. Does he think you got a choice?

It's Vince laughing. No, it's just going to kick your ass. Okay. Yeah. I think I'll start leading Raigel down the stat, down the stairs. Yep. It is another long walk down those 60 flights and largely without lit backing, but you guys do start that climb.

Alice, do you have something for me? No, on the way down, if the hunger's getting worse, I'm going to start like notifying E knock in a way, like rhythm. Okay. Let it be known to anyone behind E knock and Allison E knock is being heavily gripped by his lover as Allison presses those long painted fingers into the side of his chest there. You feel extremely uncomfortable as always.

Yeah. This couple's always uncomfortable in your eyes. So this does not strike you as unfamiliar behavior, but it is noticeable. Mal definitely fell to the back so that they could investigate the 12th floor again. But seeing those two doing their thing, I think I kind of just slip into the shadows a little further and try not to focus on it until we get to the 12th floor and then I'm going to veer off and kind of do a lap.

Understood. We'll assume that you guys start working down the floors. When you arrive on the 12th, it looks as it did the first time you walk through when you saw that picture of oblivion, that strange shape in the center of the room, moving out onto it as you sort of peel away from the group. It's enough, you know, raucous noise between the seven of you unless you're moving in complete silence, who knows, but the attention is enough that you peel off very easily.

It's like a sombre, that natural sort of shade about you helps with any sort of Irish goodbye, but you pull through into the 12th floor and the work lights fizzle for a second as that familiar sound turns on and the heat of it shoots off this big pool of light that inhabits a huge amount of the working room. As far as you can see, there's no form returning. Whatever that was, whoever that was, if that truly was her or him or them, they're gone now. And instead there is this sort of eerie quiet that pools into corners and the landscape

is largely dark from the privacy fencing that comes through in the additional buildings behind it. You're standing in an empty room now. I kind of put my hand in my pocket and room my thumb over all the beads of the bracelet and then slowly put it back in the film canister, pop the top and catch up. OK. You touch to those beads hoping that by some magic it will bring something forth, but nothing does.

Just an eerie superstition and the beast that is moving through you whispers in the sort of way that coats your body that starts in one portion. But then you can hear that voice rambling through your veins. It's only a dream. It's not for you now. It's only a dream. Burroughs, you had something for me. Yeah, I think, you know, once once I get Rygell kind of walking down the stairs, I might pull

back to Sybil. And as we're kind of walking, you know, she's really the only person that has kind of reacted to the success of of this evening. And I think I'll kind of walk alongside and be quieter than Burroughs normally is and say, listen, couldn't help but overhear your conversations up there with the others. Sorry about your sire and all this. I know it's probably a lot. You know, no one's ever apologized for.

I don't know how to respond to that. I could tell no one was apologizing up there. That's for sure. Yeah, it's I really didn't know if I was going to be able to walk down the stairs. Thank you. But also, I mean, part of why we survived is because you decided to, I guess, grandstand the Elysium, which I would, I just, if you if you could, it did work today. And I am grateful for that today, but don't do it.

Again, ever. But thank you. I do appreciate the apology. It's a lot of guys going to Fox, not to hunt. But if you want to take charge next time, I did tell everyone you are the brains of the operation. Yeah, you did. You did. I think you are.

You got your head on straight. You know what you're doing, keeping us on task. I really am just trying to get comfortable. Most of what I wanted to accomplish was accomplished tonight. So until we have our next orders, I'm not a very good person to rely on for instruction. I think it's hilarious that that's where we find ourselves. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't.

Well, I'm mostly telling you that I'm mostly talking to you about this because I know from experience. I also lost my side. I've been a long time ago, but just know you got a friend in me, OK? Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, your sire, did they leave early or was it? I guess in my situation, it was really, really quick, really quick. Like the sun wasn't in the sky between this and them.

Oh, no, I had some time to spend with him. Got to know him. Yeah. His name was Maharishi Pay Makalir. But he was eventually taken. For us, just the mention sends a flurry of flame through your body, like muscle memory. Maharishi is somehow toting through all of you and you have memory, stark memory of watching him feed for the first time suddenly. Burst into the forefront of your mind.

It taught me the little I could know of my clan, but yeah, you wasn't long for this world. Well, I mean, he probably lived for hundreds and hundreds of years before, but you get what I mean. I've learned a long time ago, you don't cross the Camarilla. That's all. Exactly. Exactly. I think we'll walk on. Yeah, I think she like, claps her hands and says, if we are going to celebrate tonight, I don't know how everyone's feeling, but I think maybe drinks all around.

Yes! I have a feeling there will be drink aplenty. All right, for the rest of us, we can. You know, not everything I say is a double entendre, right? When you stroke your beard, it seems like it. Stop being an asshole. Or something. We're going to the club, right? We're going to the new club.

We're going home. Well, I thought we'd drive around Naked Street. Take a look. Is there a club there? You got us on Naked. If you get hungry, there's probably a homeless person or two. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Naked Street? Yeah, that's what was gifted to us.

Is that... Look, I've never been to Vegas. I've never been outside of Arizona until like four months ago. Poor thing. Yeah, great. Do people walk around Naked? Yes, absolutely they do. Yes, of course. Burroughs, Sybil.

And I believe... No, that's about it. Burroughs and Sybil, you're the locals here. Oh, you know what? Regal would know this too. Regal would absolutely know this. The three of you know that Naked City has literally named that for what Allegra or Mal is explaining here. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Naked City is where all of the call girls, show girls, and sex workers lived, who worked on the strip. And so it became notorious for being an area where you could find beautiful people lounging by hotel bars and pools, completely nude.

And that was the sort of vibe that Naked City gave. But now it has become a sort of bastardized way to describe a portion of the city that's been completely neglected. It's Naked now because half of it is construction far below the poverty line, inundated with gangs, notorious meth country. Like, it's a terrible place to be now. So you could take the optimist's choice of saying that Naked City is its way because the beautiful Naked people. Or you could take the reality of it. And Vegas forgot about this place a long time ago. Make Naked Street Naked again.

That's what we're going to do. Yes. We're going to take that slogan back. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being Naked, obviously. But God, could it not be you two? Who else but us? Don't, don't act like you don't want to see that. I truly would like nothing less.

You have never left Arizona. You have no say. On Naked Street. Until a few months ago, I've been other places since then. You found me in Colorado. Ergo, I've been more places. Colorado is Northern Arizona. And you were in a box.

So what did you see? More than you know. Well, at least I was in a car. And I saw it. I didn't stay in the box the entire time I was in Arizona. Oh, that's embarrassing. You know, fuck, I hate, oh, I hate you. And now, like, for the first time, acts like a full child

and just like disappears into the shadows. Since the unseen. Burroughs, you know that you have the keys to the shuttle van that Santos brought you over with. He made it clear when he gave the envelope to Enoch that he wasn't able to come with all of you. The keys are in hand. He only asked that's dropped off to the McCarran Airport

following some dereliction of duty, basically, whenever you're done with the damn thing. But you know that it's parked right out here on the bottom level as all of you start to level out at the bottom of the echelon. And it's ready for driving. Well, I don't know how it became the driver of this coterie, but let's do it. Let's go.

I mean, I can drive, but I didn't want to get your wheel all covered in blood. Sorry. Why don't you drive, Allison? I'll throw over the keys. Hell, yeah. Oh, oh, you should be good. Let's catch the keys in between the missing fingers

that you blasted off during the last day. You know what? Yeah. They circle out to the nub just fine. They, like, started to regenerate it all. Are they like a weird, like... The nature of kindred healing is that it happens incredibly fast. Even aggravated damage heals, you know, fast,

but it is the actual re-evaluate like the recreation of being essentially. And the majority of the healing will be done during the death process when you guys go to sleep at the end of the night, aware of that whatever happens to a kindred in that sleep that is death will accelerate that healing. So for the time being, you can see that there are sort of

moving, coagulating cells at the stubs of those blasted off fingers. Is it like Deadpool baby lake thing where you get like baby little fingers coming out? Not quite as fast as that, but you can definitely see that the cells are recreating. The bone is starting to piece itself back together shard by shard by shard.

Is it weird that I'm kind of turned on by that? No. Right. We need to generate some sort of fine system or like a swear jar. What do you mean? I like that idea. Like a horny jar just to.

No, horny jar is going to get too full. I think we do something like every time we lose a limb, we owe something, oh, a dollar or something. Oh, we're just going to spray bottle and just squirt them. That'll just make it work. That's only going to help us out. Okay. My God.

So like a dismemberment jar. That's where we're at. I like that one. Does it count if we, do we have to put a dollar in if we dismember somebody else? Ooh. I think it's within the coterie. You have to get dismembered.

If we dismember another member of the, I'm sorry, I just want to be absolutely clear on the dismemberment. Technically they've lost the limb and they have to put in a dollar. Would that be double? Because someone in the coterie also did the dismembering within the coterie? Yeah.

Watchmen, we shouldn't charge each other for killing things, but we should charge each other for hurting each other. So if you- Like a dick bump? Like a dick punch? That would be considered hurt and it would be fine. Definitely. There is this sort of juxtaposition of 60 floors above you,

seven of the most influential minds of Las Vegas deciding the next action that will change the huge ramifications of everything that comes into a city's politics. And then 60 floors below the intricacies of the removal of limbs is being debated on our score sheet. It's all about the goat. New generation babies. So the new generation piles into that car.

The drive in the naked city is not very far. It's a short ride past the stratosphere. And if you're trying to envision where Naked City sits, it's basically everything north of the stratosphere. There's this sort of angular pocket of neighborhoods that extends out as far as the arts district right behind the stratosphere. The area of Vegas was named in part for its reputation for housing the call girls, like I said, but it's equally named for the utter lack of support from the Las Vegas proper.

It was what started as cheap strip employee rentals charged to workers of the strip. And then in the 1970s, the workers gained enough money to buy into housing there. But the impoverished housing created an opportunity for crime to breed. And in the 80s, a Cuban transplant gang fleeing Del Castro's reign soon took over the atmosphere and became notorious for their crime. There were years where there were as many as 30 gang killings by specific gangs themselves. The area is notorious for its terrible atmosphere for its neglected status and for some of the most gristly things that have come out of Las Vegas.

In the early 90s, when the stratosphere was being created, the locals would know that everyone thought that that would solve naked cities issues, that the stratosphere would step in and make sure that the surrounding area was as big as the strat was. The unfortunate status of it is that like vampires, they have no interest in the host outside of sapping it for its blood. So the stratosphere was only interested in mocking over the graffiti that surrounded the area. It was the only change to the community that came with the new building. And in 92, when a three-year-old child was stabbed in the middle of the street on a walk through Vegas, naked city became immortalized as notorious for being unsafe.

It stayed that way, largely an unfiltered area where you do not want to be caught late after night. Driving through here, you're presented with a city that festers in the shadow of a cruel god. The stratosphere is this huge tower that looms over everything as you drive past it. But driving through naked city makes all of this history feel present. The buildings are decaying like broken molars. Construction shuts off entire streets and access roads. Dirt roads are just as prevalent as the highway and run directly through main businesses and connect through to main streets. And eventually, though, it bleeds into what is called the northern section of naked city called the Arts District.

It's the piece of the forgotten block that still bites back. Here, there's artwork along every wall, paved and painted roads, artisanal bars, art installations, the last dying effort of a local to save the dying land. That is where you find the establishment that's been located on Enoch's envelope there. But driving through naked city, you're getting an awareness that you were gifted domain, but that domain was a piece of shit. You've been given one of the worst areas of Vegas to own. Arts District is nice though. You say piece of shit, I see great opportunity.

Think of it. We could start like a vampire DIY show. How to renovate your domain. I'm just going to reiterate because we just left the part where the prince said be cool, basically. No strong presence. Like strong presence. But like for other vampires, you know? I get very frustrated that they are just not getting us. Like they're just not getting it. Yeah, you're just not on our level, man.

Like a vampire internet? Yeah, vampire internet. I'll get right on that. Look, the place is a dump. I'll admit that, but it's our dump. And maybe even better, it's secluded. Nobody's around. Nobody's asking questions in naked city, you know what I mean? Burrows gas. Pretty much do whatever the hell we want. Now, I think that there's got to be like some gangs around here, right? Yeah, we get them under control.

Step one, when you walk into prison, go punch the biggest guy in the face. That's not correct. Step one, we are the new landlords and they need to pay rent. We could take two birds with one stone, go say hi and have a little lunch too, a little dinner. There's nothing like having humans do all the bitch work. So, that's all there's to it. And Allison sure does have a way of making them cooperate. You guys are having this conversation. You pull up to a stoplight just before the arts district.

And from outside the left of your panel, then you can see a man who is like half dressed, his pants are falling sort of so low on the thigh that you can see these broken hold out boxers. And his arm is sort of looped up to his chest. He looks completely lost for himself and he's sort of wandering around the corner there in this abandoned sort of parking lot that is broken up with these weeds and everything there in the center of the parking lot. He just vomits, induces this huge vomit in the center of the parking lot. And your kingdom is sort of exposed to you yet again. A lot of lost souls for us to save. This mind is broken. He says the mountain is. Not yet.

Should we tell him to clean that up? He does look lonely. He looks lost. Easy pickings. I just leave him alone. I second that. All right. Well, we've done the drive. Anybody want to take a walk or are we done for the night? There is the location of the bar that you've been given by Amaric. If you'd like to see that there for sure.

There are also many of other places in Naked City. If you'd like to tell me what you're looking for, I can tell you whether it's there. But are we heading to Lucky's then? Yes. Question really quick. So we have Lucky's, which is the bar. Is. Was there like a hotel? I can't remember that was under construction or. For you to.

Yeah, what's available for us. Are we. Are we talking about what's available in Naked City or what. Oh, Naked City's got all sorts of stuff. What are you looking for in particular? Is Allison scoping out the scene crew? I'm looking for like a home base for us. Okay.

But where were we to go? You've got the bar that was gifted to you by Amaric. There are plenty of sort of art installations and studios in the arts district. Further south closer to the Strat there are like motels, apartment complexes and hotels. Because a lot of people will stay there instead of staying at the Strat. Because they want to get things cheaper. But just to put these things in perspective for like Vegas. If you're staying at the Strat, you're paying probably something like $40 a night for your hotel stay.

Cheaper than that are people looking for like $10 stays. So the place that you're in is not at all nice. These places are just designed for people who are trying to find somewhere in a bed down for the night so they can go spend all their money in actual Vegas. If people think the Strat is too nice, then the people you are dealing with are not exceptionally rich people. Just so you know. But yes, hotels, motels, apartments closer to the Strat, up towards the North, art installations, bars. Actual social places that you could go to. There's a pretty nice local bar called the Velveteen Rabbit.

There are installations. There are warehouses. There's commercial districts. All manner of things. All manner of things. And I'm sure some of them are for sale if Allison is of that mindset. I think we'll probably stop at the club you mentioned first, Lucky's, and kind of scope that out. Yes.

Good first step. Let's see what we've got. Okay. You eventually find your establishment, Lucky's. It is sort of on a back road. So imagine that first street is like a main street and you have all of these front facing businesses. Yours is a much larger building that sits behind the main facing. So if there are three little bars and shops and things right behind there is this massive, much bigger complex that you'd have to drive through off an access road and then back behind.

But moving back behind on the access road, you find this squared off asphalt parking lot that's hounded in by the street facing structure. So you're sort of boxed in on three sides except for the access road. Your bar is quietly tucked on the back road of that main street. It's a large structure. Most likely it was originally zoned for either office housing or a commercial front and just judging from the sheer rectangular size. But now the outside bears this really big, cheesy neon sign that proudly pulses a stark pink and green light. It spells out Lucky's and it punctuates with a big flashing shamrock. There seems to be some sort of fencing that the previous owners attempted to put up while they were selling the property.

But you can see that a whole 10 foot section has been completely knocked down. There's no doubt from a drunk driver or a crazed local. Outside the building, though, is a set of maybe 16 motorcycles, two sedans, all parked adjacent to the building on the other side of the fence, so away from public property. For a largely untouched property, as Santos described it, at least something seems to be happening here. There are two individuals who are standing outside of the bar as you sort of pull up off the access road. One of them is a beer gutted tall individual with a gray ponytail that peeks out the back of a motorcycle helmet tight against his big jowls. And the other is a woman with exposed biceps, who's tawny and muscled, aged by years on the road. They smoke cigarettes and you can see the sort of dull glow off their lips and they tamp them out by the sides of their bikes.

Yeah, I kind of see our, just to know our area and tell. Let's see what it looks like inside. Girls, funny you say that, give me a wits and awareness. I think that's the word, right? Whatever a vampire perception is. Oh, that's not good. Yeah, who knows who these guys are? You're on mute.

I had my theories, but I'm not sure. Would I recognize anybody? You know, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and give me a wits and awareness. What's an awareness? Do better than me. That's one success. Hugh has warned you about these guys.

The vest on the back of the beer gutted individual has this skull. The skeleton skull that is being pressed in by this very large boot. And that's sort of the iconography on the back of that vest. And above in this sort of angled text is the concourse. And under that it reads Las Vegas chapter. Maybe we shouldn't tussle with the locals. I can. I can just look at them and they can, you know, I wouldn't do that.

This is our presence. This is our land, though. So at some point we're going to have to discuss it with them. Do we though? They're going to come in. They're going to pay money. They're going to drink. It's a cover.

I'm talking mostly about if they think they own this place or something, you know. Exactly. That is to get cleared up for sure. Is there anything wrong with them thinking that though? There is not. That's great. The building is largely condemned and was bought through that previous owner. By all intents and purposes, no one should be on the property if that needed to be cleared up.

I mean, look. Oh, so it's not. It's not like an in operation bar. It is not in business. This was bought by. Got it. And from the way that it was described in Elysium, it was a property that he had done nothing with. And this fencing area was set up by the sort of like real estate broker to keep people out.

But this 10 foot section has been marred down to the floor, either by a car or by, you know, snippers against the chain link, whatever it may be. Definitely not legal. What they're doing. I say we just ask them to give us a tour. Birdie over there is freaked out by something about them. Do you want to share with the class? I was just told not to mess around with these guys.

And I just prefer that would be the way we handled our evening. Why not mess with them? Hey, Caleb real quick. Was there any connection between these guys and what Regal had been looking into previously? You. That's a good question. Let's decide it with a roll. Go ahead and give me intelligence and investigation.

We'll follow this. Would my specialty come into play here? What's your specialty again? Public corruption. Yes, absolutely would. So any time your specialty comes up, folks, make sure you add an extra die to your pool. It's representative that this is what you train for. That's five successes.

Five successes. Six. Yeah. Okay. Excuse me. An overwhelming success. You know of these guys, the conquerors, they've been around for a while. You don't know of any direct connections to your captain.

But you know that you were investigating it at the time of everything going wrong. And in those investigations, you were able to connect a lot of the same dots around the conquerors and they were among the next things you were looking into. So for example, to put this in better terms, a lot of really good hits in your battleship game were right next to the conquerors. They may have protection. All right, so they're a little more complicated than we thought. Yeah. They're just not going to appreciate the Camarilla just rolling up here like most of you guys just telling them where to go and what to do. And I thought that was the point.

No, wait. Just let us know. Info is important. See? Do they know about us? Do they know about us? Kindred. Kindred.

Well, I imagine you guys are going to just start spouting out that you're Camarilla, right? Naturally. Do you know? No. They don't need to know. You know, the more I think about it, flattery gets you farther, I think. If anything, we might want to take a day or two, come back, take a night or two, excuse me, come back, maybe offer them something, be nice, presence, you know, some butter them up. Like I said.

Is there stuff nearby that we can observe that could help us, like, extend an olive branch? Like, because I see they have motorcycles, so I know we're dealing with. Are there any olive trees nearby? Yes, that too. No olive trees, as far as I can tell. You're looking for things that might mediate the situation between you and them? Yes. Well, from what you can tell, odds are they broke into this place to squat, and squatters are.

Go ahead and roll me a wits and insight. Let's see if I can give you this information. Oh, shit. Oh, I got three for wits. She got three for wits. Okay. I will say that you guys are parked sort of in this parking lot that is specifically designed for the bar itself. Yeah.

It's late at night. We're saying probably around two in the morning. Three successive, one's a 10. Three successes, one's a 10. Okay, so three successes. You know that squatters are either looking for temporary housing or somewhere to get fucked up in. This could be one or the other. Maybe they're staying here for a couple of days because they're hiding out from something.

Or even better, maybe they're up there doing math. All right, so we come back with good news that this is going to be a new party joint that they're welcome to. And we can give them a sanctuary. We don't know who these people are. I think we should, if we want to extend an olive branch without causing problems, we should offer an alternative for them to stay. But we don't know anything about, like, we shouldn't just affiliate ourselves with these people. I can do some digging.

Give me a night. All right, let's take a night then. Perfect. Also, what motorcycles are they, Caleb? Caleb doesn't know much about motorcycles so they're Harley's. I like giant Harleys with like the A-Panger motorcycles. They got those big hangers. Some of them are like the two-person joints with the big old fat butts.

Thank you. But yeah, there are a bunch of bikes. It's just a bunch of motorcycles. The cars look just like cars, too. Well, I need to take baby blue in for some repairs. So at some point, I'd like to get back to that beautiful car, man. It is beautiful. I'm going to head out.

Yeah, same. I can meet with you all tomorrow night. Back here. Baby. Yeah, give me a few hours and I'll see what I can dig up on these guys. We're in a bus, so are we doing drop-offs or? I'll walk. How far is it, Caleb?

You are in the north part of town. You are going to the very, very south part of town, probably 40 minutes, but you could Uber. 40 minutes driving, that is. All right. You're trying to go essentially down to the very peak of or the south peak of Vegas out by Sloan and basically the canyons that break off. So you're going a lot farther than anybody else. Got it.

If you wouldn't mind, maybe just drive 20 minutes south towards Sloan. It dropped me off. Mal just gets out and starts walking. Okay. Okay. Well, never mind. I'll walk. I got to talk to Mal.

Listen, I'll see you guys back. Okay. So before we begin to detach, I just want to put down two different group goals we have so far, just so that I'm aware. One is to come back to this place tomorrow and get ourselves into a mess with these conquerors. Right? And then the second is to eventually somewhere down the line, go and see about your mission with Cisco at the Lonely Hearts Chapel.

Just that before we start splitting off, before we take some time between each other. So Mal and Regal, you guys, we're going to have a conversation. Go for it. Okay. Stay. Not yet. I was in a boss. Yeah.

That's not green. Why? It's a drainage ditch. It's like a sewer tunnel. Cool. No, thanks. Awesome. I mean, my plan was to just bust into one of these buildings, honestly.

You're welcome to do that with me, but I may be a monster. I'm not going to sit in some shit like a rat. No, no, it's not. It's not like an active drainage tunnel. There's not like rivers of shit. Like a small amount of shit at the very base. Maybe it smells like shit, but it's hot. No, it's Vegas.

Everything smells like shit. That's fair. Okay. If you want to not smell like shit. And they just like point up to one of the buildings. Yeah. I got to see a guy about a book. Nerd.

Okay. Have fun, Pasta. Cool. You good? You all right? Oh yeah. This is everything I ever wanted. You good?

We'll find out. We'll hear another. Well, if I don't see you tomorrow, I'll know you're dead. Yeah. I'll be back tonight. I'll be back in a minute. Come back again. Just.

I really love our conversations. They just really just filled me with just this utmost feeling of being appreciated. Like you're just a ray of sunshine. Yeah, I can fuck her. In your shit hole. If you decide you don't. You want to eat rats in a shit hole.

That's not an actual shit hole. That's me assuming that I'm going to find anywhere in any of these buildings, but like I'm pretty sure I can. So. Yeah. Is there anything else you needed? You seem concerned. Oh yeah.

Well, I'm I just I know just making sure you're good. You've been through a lot. Just like something. I don't know. And this whole thing is just not sitting great with me working for this prince. Honestly. Yeah.

I don't like it in somebody's pocket. Oh no, I'm ready for that shit to be done. Yeah. Why are you nice? All these other fuckers. Are. Scared or. Full of bravado or horny as fuck.

Or manipulative. Or horny and manipulative. All of the above. Burrows doesn't seem bad. I do like hearing him saying it was nice. Don't tell him I said that. Or I'll pull your teeth out. I will not.

Because I. It's all I got left to who I was. Who you were is dead. It's not for you anymore. We don't get anything that we wanted. We're never going to get anything that we wanted as people. So why the fuck even try? Because I feel like the other end of the spectrum is like those two.

And I'd rather just. Hang out until sunrise than be like that. They're monsters and I'm not going to be a monster. You don't have a choice. Well. That's the that's the beauty of it in it. That's a struggle. You ever hold a Golconda?

A what? Golconda it's a. When you're alive you do any looking into Buddhism Nirvana stuff like that. Busy otherwise not looking for spirituality but. It's like me. It's like Nirvana. It's where. You finally quiet.

What my teacher calls the beast. And you can. Be as close to a person again as. If you were when you were alive. And people you love. What's that? Can you see people. Yeah.

Yeah. For gal that voice in your chest speaks up for just a moment. Whispering familiar tone. You can be human again. You can be you again. You have to give yourself over. I got some work I need to do all like this. And when that's done.

I can. Maybe I can look into that. I admire your blind faith. It's not blind believe me. You asked my teacher. It's not blind. I guess you do have an extra eye so. But.

Nice. Don't do that. That was stupid. Yeah. Look I just just. You've obviously got a story. And when I was alive I like stories. So.

You ever want to talk you know where to find me. I promised you would look out for you. I promise we'd look out for each other and I intend to follow through on that promise. I keep my promises to. Even the ones to keep. I'll keep it. Hell yeah.

That's all I can ask. And if you need help with anything you just. Please. Just. Ask. Yeah. You too. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anything like. Yeah. Look I know it's not ideal. That's it's just. We can be like roommates or whatever.

I mean like obviously. I'll get you a different. Part of the building because like I don't want to be that close to you. But. Fair. I wish it. I mean you could probably take a shower or something.

Yeah. I don't know. No. Uh. I'm going to tell you something. No. This is outside of the van. Far away.

They're sort of walking. Down through naked cities. Getting an idea of your domain. There was something in that. Briefcase that. Was familiar. And I need to figure out what it means. Hmm.

When I died. I had a vision I guess or an experience or something. I was in temple. And I was talking to my rabbi. And. There were. Gates. These giant doors.

And. That's what I saw in the. Engraving. Something like that. And I don't know what it means. I'm not. A book person. But if you have books to look through.

I'll. Help you. I don't know. If you're not extra eyes or I mean. You have three. But if you want two more less cool eyes. I. I may hit you up tomorrow.

I want to look into these conquerors a little bit. See what I can find about them. If you're. Down for some old good old fashioned investigative work. Just let me know. Sure. I'll. Sneak around in the shadows.

I might actually be good at that. All right. I'll see you tomorrow. Have fun pasta. I. Oh shit. Right. Got it.

No. That's the thing. Thank you. Bye. You're so weird. Okay. So. We have these two.

Sort of diverging from the path here we have. Sergio you're making a move with boroughs to go get baby blue fixed up. Guess when we're going to Casey. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. That leaves. Four of our other.

Outcasts for other members of the new generation of bacon city. Does anyone else have plans for the night as it looks like everybody split. Don't have to but you know you can stay together if you'd like to. I think as soon as we get back to where we parked at the airport I'm going to hop out. I'm going to go send spoons off to go fly off and report back but I'm going to start just heading out. Okay. Quietly.

Okay. Do you have a destination in mind. I'm probably going to slowly start making my way back to the warehouse. Yeah. Because it is early enough. Yeah. Understood. What about our kingsters.

We are looking for a place to actually rest up heal and we got to eat. Now. See so you're trying to find what a club a bar. I think the best case like near our motel. Yeah. Yeah. Like that shifty motel we found. Okay.

That's a desperate people there. Okay. All right. So you're going from the motels close to the stratosphere. Got it. Sybil. I think I don't really have plans for the night but before Niles completely fucks off. I think she's just going to, she's sort of resigned to the fact that every conversation

she starts with Niles is her creepily standing behind them. And just saying and our car. Please don't do that. I'm sorry. You're not going to like one day when I'm not going to be up to you sneaking up behind me. I think I will find the honesty refreshing. I'm not an anarch.

They were the ones who found me first. So we're not going to have problems. I don't know, Sybil. It seems like you want to have a problem. I don't want to have a problem. I just want to make sure that you're not going to be one. We just got this group together. I don't think we need to do any sort of trade in or anything.

I think me getting from Colorado back to Vegas as a testament that I have my shit together a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I get that you're kind of like scared or whatever because of whatever that is up in Elysium and I don't want to ever go back there. But yeah, I'm fine. Okay. Okay. It's not just, it's not just, I'm not just messing with you for the fun of messing with

you. I just, I want this group to succeed. And if I see something that might take away from that that I can control, I'm going to control it. That's cool. I don't really care if the group succeeds or not. I just know that there's strength in numbers and that's all I'm here for. Okay.

So, yeah. Okay, fine. They're going to eat you whether you do right by them or not. So. Not if I eat them first. I don't think you're in a position to be eating at all. Not yet. Not high enough.

But we'll get there. Maybe. Have a good one. Beautiful. I think that begins what is eventually a full sort of diversion for everyone in the party here. We're going to go to individual threads. And I think before we go to those individual threads, let's take a 15 minute break, come

back fresh. We're going to start with Regal and then work our way on the table for what happens in the night in between, my friends. So we're going to take a 15 minute break. Please bear with us. We'll come back and we'll see how I can hurt Regal. Oh, damn. Okay.

Welcome back everyone to Vegas by night. Hopefully you had a good break. We're coming back into some individual stories we're telling with our kindred here today. We are going to start with Regal. The coterie has essentially split from each other after realizing that their new domain is a shithole and that their new haven is taken over by a local biker gang. They've decided that they're going to take the day to accomplish whatever they need to as individuals and then recap together to take down situation inside of Lucky's Bar.

In the meantime, Regal, you have traveled south down into Sloan to a familiar place, a place that you've spent most of your time here in Vegas since you've become a kindred. In a series of drainage ditches that litter the outside of Las Vegas and lead into the storm drains and storm tunnels that then lead into the sewers of Vegas. Where you know has hosted a homeless population for long before you were kindred, you used to move through these areas with your beloved helping the homeless population and tending to their needs and trying to make sure they were taken care of. In the winters, Vegas gets cold enough that people will house up inside of the tunnels

and create pockets of communities that usually get routed out by Las Vegas police. But for the time being, the mole people of Las Vegas were a thing you were very much aware of. For you though, you never expected to become one of them. Now you're staring down the sort of rusted ladder that leads into the hole in the ground that will eventually tunnel through into the area that you most associate with your creator, with your sire, mo-cur, the angel who saw fit to make you what you are. How is Regal feeling this night? How is Regal feeling about the group? You've just come off this tense situation where you've been given domain and seeing Elysium.

Where's your head at? There's absolutely just a pit in his stomach with knowing what they have just gotten themselves into. Being for all intents and purposes on a leash with the prince, being in his pocket. Yeah, he gave us domain but everything comes with a price tag. Still not knowing the full extent of what a watchman entails. After seeing some of the stuff going on in Elysium, the need to take a shower, that feeling of just needing to cleanse oneself of what you just witnessed is definitely present. Just trying to make sense of everything, trying to make sense of these people he's with

and the different personalities and where his place is with them and vice versa. Staring down this ladder, you know you have a ways to go. You've been warned before, Regal, you've been told by mo-cur that this area is so well guarded as a kindred for a reason that multiple steps have been taken on both sides. From mo-cur and the kindred of Las Vegas to ensure that he stays exactly where he should. He's told you in the past that his existence is something of a secret kept only by the most powerful of the city. You got the understanding, maybe the vibe that there is a toss up on whether even someone like Prince Aloysius Grant knows that this man is here. And so with that, that warning is placed especially in your entrance into the tunnels.

You've been instructed to take three lefts, a single right, and then straight at the intersection. But the impression of this direction was done in such a way that mo-cur had you carve it repeatedly into the walls of the drainage ditch you'd spent your time in until you'd memorized it, that you could recant it half a second, that you could repeat it back to him. And he warned you in hushed tones in this that any mistake, any wrong term would prove fatal, immediately fatal. So what is the process here moving through these tunnels? Yeah, just constant repetition, almost muscle memory at this point. Just remembering the directions he carved into the wall and then moving in that same direction, like three lefts, straight, straight, straight, straight.

Just constantly remembering it to himself. His mind will start to wander, as it usually does, and consider what maybe mo-cur meant about instantly fatal, should he deviate from the path. Is this an allegory for, you know, their mutual, pursuit of a gold conda? Is it just, you know, or is it quite literal and should he step off? He's going to eat it. So yeah, just stays focused and constantly just three lefts, right, straight. On that third left, as you're repeating those directions and you've gone through essentially two cycles of them, you've become a little closer to your destination. You can feel yourself in familiar parts of this dark and completely blackened, drainage tunnel where the water still drips and moves about your ankles and you can feel it sort of dredge past you.

The smell is in no way pleasant. It's a fetid still water. There is a level of animal feces like walking through a zoo through here and there is rats that climb across the walls and the desert breeds special insects, types that must survive the harshness of an environment like this. It's a very large scorpions and spiders and camel spiders and all matter of many legged animals moving towards this sort of dredge of water that continues through. And every so often you can hear skittering. For example, out in front of you, this rat scurries through and takes a right to where you take a left. And you can hear the moving along the walls for as far as you can expect to the other end of the tunnel and then you can hear end completely drop off the squeak of this animal as it exits. But moving forward, could you give me a give me a composure and insight?

Let's make that resolve an insight. Excuse me. I was going to say he's going to scream at the rat. One success. Okay. You stopped yourself just in time. There's something inherent that flares up in the body that tells you to sit still. And you can see that down that pathway where the rat has sort of disappeared through on the other side as this. Imagine you're in like an H intersection in the byway that the rat is just taking goes into another main line.

This is a guttural sound of humming almost like low as it starts to grumble through and echo around the rims of this domed out drainage tunnel. And you can start to feel a sort of rumble under the cobblestone flooring of the water underneath. Your whole body starts to vibrate a moment and you can feel the rush in your ears as a sort of wet squelching begins to drag against the walls of the hall on the other side. And while it is completely dark and you can see well in it for a moment, the main way intersection past the H becomes entirely enthralled in darkness. Some gelatinous analogous shape begins to take over what that was and roll through climbing over itself and then back again with that low as it begins to drag and appeal this low fleshy sound that claps against the walls moving forward. And your whole body stands completely still. Go ahead and give me a dexterity plus stealth. Two successes. Two successes is enough. Whatever this is, it rolls through you and the vibration begins to leave.

Whatever that was begins to dissipate and the fat squelching sound of whatever its pads against the walls of this tunnel begin to dissipate and that low hum is all you can hear as it starts to move back through the drainage tunnels. You know that this is maybe as far as the tunnels reach. Mokur is on the farthest west. You know that somewhere past the east as it's been described to you is a little strip, as they call it, the Nosferatu community, and whatever that was must be what's in between. Following your directions you eventually find what you know to be Mokur's lair, this sort of padlocked rolled through door, sort of the big wheeled handles on the front of a hatch almost that serves as like an auxiliary tunnel in case Vegas floods too much. And it often does. Vegas is notorious for being so low to the ground and sort of filled up in the basin of water that when rains do come through the infrastructure sort of taken over by it. But this one has been sort of used as an alternative purpose for Mokur to keep himself in. Is there anything you do to prepare yourself on the other side of the store? Probably not particularly. He just, I think, again, reaches into the pockets of the hoodie and make sure that the objects are still there that he was sent to retrieve the book and then the little scroll in case of the resin, correct? Yes. Yeah, and then he sticks a deep breath and opens her up.

Moving the hatch through, you come into the room and you find your sire is still completely shaved at the head. All of those tattoos climbing down his body, these sort of hatch marks of different language and etchings and runes and symbolism that comes through his old language that has been marked across his entire emaciated, thinned out body. You can see that he's still shirtless the whole way through and his eyelids even tattooed over with the scripture. And then at the halfway point, he wears these sort of cover all robes that extend out like a skirt over the pants themselves. But today, you found him as you usually do when he is without activity. He is sort of pressed into a portion of the rafters, which is this long elongated corrugated steel piping that extends down from the room itself into this large basin, which he keeps refreshed, as you know, the constant flow of horse blood. But he has sort of restrained himself to the pipe with these barbed sort of wires that have kept him constrained entirely above maybe four feet above the ground itself. And he lays there almost Christlike a bit over you with his head lulled down to his chest. And you can hear sort of the low mumblings of him underneath. Okay. He as if he's been awoken from something, some meditative stance, he looks up and finds himself and breaks from the chains there and drops down into the basin, sort of cascading the two of you and this

gout of blood as it begins to to wave across in this wash of water that is fended out some. But he he stands up he says, Regal, you've come back to me. I have. I found I got the items that you needed. You have done well by your name. Give me the items and comes up to you. He puts these bloodied hands on your wrists and sort of casts over and allows you to put the display in the book in his hands. There was something else. Hmm. I was I was taken in New Orleans by the Prince's men. Good.

It is as we should have had it. This was by design, Regal. I hope that this did not bring you strife. Well, we went to Elysium. He gave us domain. I'm now in a coterie. I'm now we're watchmen. I don't even know what that means. Mo Ker looks completely unsurprised. Fact he nods in a way that you're familiar with as if he's already planned this all out. This is good. This is exactly as we have planned ordained. You have been given power in a puppet King's court. There was there was a briefcase that wasn't Denver. One of the coterie members opened it and there were things inside Mo Ker.

There was a spearhead. There was a ceramic disc. There was Roman and Aramaic. Hmm. Eyes with black irises and then star shape Crescent moon of a bearded man bulging bleeding eyes. And it says I am the door.

Hmm. Do these words mean anything to you? These images? I remember when I died, I saw the Ark where they keep the Scrolls of Law. And they opened or were going to open and my rabbi had been there and he was gold was an insects were leaking out of him and Yeah. It means something.

I don't know what. Well, I assume that is an answer for you to find them. I will not keep you from it. This is yours to solve. The pursuit of Golcanda is in answering the kindred's most questioned. Listen, you have done well by me. And you kept level in a situation where many would have lost their heads. You have gained the Prince's favor, you think.

For now. Yeah, it's going to be hard keeping it. Good. You must keep it. In fact, you must bring yourself as close as humanly possible. If Golcanda is to be achieved, we need the Puppet King in our court. You understand? So get close to him.

Stay close to him. Be valuable to him. Kiss the man on both cheeks. Um, Bugsy wants to see me as well. Do you know anything about that? I do. I figured it was only a matter of time before the feted Prince of Las Vegas pulled himself through. Now you must go to Bugsy and you must suppose yourself before him.

Neil, do whatever you would see fit, whatever he would see fit. And whatever he asks of you, see to it that it is done as quickly as possible. Okay. Golcanda is reached in many different forms, fashions. Some deny themselves the blood like you and I. They go as long as they can without eating before letting the beast out. But others, there are some called butterflies. Do you know of them?

I do not know. People who believe that if they masquerade as human long enough that they might find a life where that curse is removed. Acting as human as possible. Reading human, being human, singing human, anything social to bring themselves about to a state of living. Eating like a human. Eating like a human, yes. Anything that you can bring yourself about. The other of course is much more dangerous but has been seen as a pathway to Golcanda in the past. The children of salvation, do you know of them?

No. They believe that you can never truly bring human back. Going that direction is fool's errand. Instead, you must soldier forward rather than backwards. They believe that, well there is no curse, that there is only a demon living in the souls of every kindred. And that demon has been diluted by the embrace. So no one truly can exercise him until he is whole again. And there is only one way to make those whole.

It is an act called Diablery. Do you know of it? That's where kindred drains another. Drains everything that they are. Eats everything until the beast is satisfied. You become that kindred. You gain their knowledge, their power, their feelings, their being. And it is believed to be as close as you can to making the demon whole. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, I think it's just another... Yeah, if the children of salvation believe you need to consume other kindred in order to satisfy the demon and then cast it out. Yes. And eating the other, you then bring yourself closer to exercising the demon by making him whole. And following there is a ritual to bring him forth from the body, effectively curing your curse. Making you human, Rigel. What do you believe? I'm a warrior, like you.

We believe that the only true path to Gokanda is in eliminating all disbelievers. Anyone who would cast against the ideas of following light. Cain was given Gabriel as a gift. Gabriel descended to him and said, it is by the light of God that we are made whole. And that is the only way. By removing anyone who believes in a life outside of Gokanda, we light the path. We must create a world in which you and I are the only ones left. Even the good ones?

If they cannot be brought to our belief, then they are to be fodder at our knees. There is no possibility for light to shine through the shadow of a tower. To understand my meaning. We, uh, we need to drag him into Gokanda, kicking and screaming, or we wipe them out. You have a way with words, Rigel. You are to report to Bugsy, and you are to draw his second as close to us as possible. Darma, do you know the masked beauty? Dare we met her in Elysium?

Good. I believe she can be a benefit to our cause. You are to bring her as close to your fold as possible. And when conversation has been met, and you feel as though she is trustworthy of us both, you will bring her here, with you. Yes. Okay. I, uh, do you know the little Sombra? Yes. I know of the ministers.

Have you been privy to the new crowns? They're not in Las Vegas, outside of the sheriff, as far as I know. There's one with us. On the coterie. That is very interesting. What are your beliefs of the sceptred individuals, the controllers of the church? Well, I don't know much about the rest of them, but the one I met, they seem, uh, they can be reached. You are already grown soft enough to bring your friends into the fold.

What's the point if we don't try? Fine. Just like Dharma, if you bring them to a level of understanding, you are to bring them here, and they will undergo the naming. And they order. Anyone named, I will spare. Okay. The, um, the sheriff is following them, keeping tabs on them. I don't know if that's going to compromise anything we have in motion.

Lasombra always stays by their own, especially in a situation with the Camarilla. Currently, they are the most hated clan amongst the ivory tower. They were previous to the Sabaton, the rulers of a fascist organization within our culture. The manifest clan of our end. It is right that they should stick together. Otherwise, they'll lose their heads. Uh, can you tell me what those items were? This is a sacred piece of script that I believe to be related to a piece of the book of Enoch.

The other is a poetry book. All right. Um, we'll go see Bugsy. Don't take the sewers. Find an alternative route. I think you understand why. I do. Uh, can I, can I eat?

Before I go. Depends. I smell of you beast's blood. Did you eat while you were out? I did. He comes up to you and he takes some of the blood from beneath you both and he claps both palms onto your face so that it streaks down. And you can see that his eyes sort of glaze over for a moment. You have fed well enough.

You know that it is part of our creed that you starve the beast. I would not have you gorge yourself in my presence. Oh, I was shot. Okay, the inquisition they have weapons they have. It was unlike anything it was. It sure as shit wasn't like when under hill fucking shot me. Do you think them more important than a holy warrior? More powerful.

I'll tell you what, it felt like it for a minute. The sooner you learn to starve yourself, to quiet that voice, to disallow it any control over your being, the sooner Golconda will come to us both. And if you cannot stomach a few shots through the ribs, then I shudder to think what will happen to you in the days coming. We are to wage a holy war on the breath of this city, to level it to its ground. And if you do not have what it takes, I have named the wrong individual. I'll earn it. He swipes that palm against your face. Allow yourself a few laps, nothing else.

He'll, uh, he'll drink and move on. Beautiful. So, leaving Malkur's chambers, I assume you're going to try to meet up with Bugsy? Yes. Okay, all right. We will return to this. I'm just going to take a temporary step away, let's get in with somebody else here. Sure.

Mal, how we doing? Uh, Mal is just kind of wandering Naked City, picking up any fliers or, you know, like, notices sucked to different boards, the more colorful the better, putting them in their back pocket. I mean, even like, trash blowing along the ground, and kind of letting that guide them to a build, like the trail of detritus lead them to a building, any building that looks like it's easy to sneak into. Okay, yes. So, we're looking for prime real estate in Naked City. Um, let's go ahead and give us a intelligence plus awareness to see if we can find anything worth taking in. Two of these. Three of these.

Oop. One, two. Uh, three successes, one of them has a little fangs on it. Okay. One of it has little things on it. If both of those have little things on it, let me know. Okay. That one is just going to stand.

So, three successes. Um, you're walking through Naked City and you do see there's a lot of, like, questionable locations. Are you looking for, uh, uh, sort of populated areas? Are we looking for people who are living there as well? Or are we looking for something individual? Are we looking for an apartment? What's the vibe? Um, something, something, uh, individual.

Like, ideally it's probably like a busted old casino or a fucked up hotel or like a condemned apartment building. Okay. You bring yourself to an apartment building that you think looks all but destitute. There's maybe one car parked outside of it. Um, it's peaked back behind these access roads. Um, and, uh, it looks pretty much, uh, undisturbed. And you could probably get away with this place. Um, but it's too late for that.

Yeah. It's pretty much, uh, undisturbed. And you could probably get away with this place. Um, but it's just in this instant that you are moving back behind the alleyway to get a really good view of the, the building itself. To, to check every portion of it that you see her again. She's standing right there in the center, completely made of these coalesced shadows. These built up pieces of oblivion, the same shadows that you've been moving yourself in and out of. And she is standing almost like she's been caught.

She looks to you with this sort of shock in this expressionless black face and these pools of, of Icar that, uh, pass for her eyes. And she looks to you as though she's been playing out after dark and you've come to pick her back up. Hi, kid. She freezes maybe 30 feet away from where you are now. You can see she's almost playful in the way that she knows she's been caught. You gotta come in or are you just gonna keep playing outside? You know, it's dark. It's not safe.

Looks as though there's no response. She keeps that sort of frigid stare in at you, ready to move at a moment's notice. It's similar to what happened on the 12th floor of that small stair down. And you know that maybe the second you move forward that she's going to disappear again. Who knows when? Uh, I think Mal is trapped between their, their human older sibling instinct of like, I'm in a mess with my little sibling. And the, uh, kind of terror of this oblivion thing, whatever it is, taking her away again. So I think they're going to try and crouch down and still smiling, kind of shoot forward and try and catch her.

She crouches with you, almost playing to your approach. Go ahead and give me a dexterity in athletics. Let's see if we can catch her. All right. No, I just want success. Okay. Unfortunately, you move through and you sort of skirt on the uneven ground of this back alley behind the apartment complexes. And as your knees scrape against the bottom floor, you reach out your arms around her and just like before her inky black sort of falls in around you and then disappears completely.

Give me a wits and awareness to try and keep her in your peripheral. That's okay. Four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five successes. Five successes. You keep your eyes immediately on her. She has ported maybe 30 feet from where you are and just sort of collapsed up from the ground into being again. But this time her hands are around her face like she's laughing at you. She's sort of undulating this weird weight form is sort of moving through her.

She's never quite still the entire time, but she's laughing. And there is this revered sort of echoed laughter from a child that is bouncing off the walls and it's undeniably her laugh. It is passed through like it's coming from deep in the ground, like it's moving through gravel to be there, but it is undeniable how much it echoes the memory of her. I think Mal knows that there's no way this is real and there's part of them that's just screaming to stop because when it ends, it's going to be awful again. The beast is already speaking up again. It's not real. It's not for you. This was never for you was for her.

She's dead. She's not dead. She's not dead. She's fine. And I think to prove that she's fine, Mal's going to dart forward again and like not even trying to catch her, just trying to chase her. Go ahead and give me a dexterity athletics. Let's see this. Two successes.

Good stuff. You collide in through with the wall behind her and you can feel your shoulder sort of spark with what would have been pain, but instead is just sort of this this feeling of the decompression of your muscle against the being. And you can feel the sort of trash cans that have lined up against this area sort of collide in on each other as you break through and you're sitting in fucking garbage. But you can already see her. She's ported up to a low balcony off of a rooftop just in front of you. You think maybe eight, 10 feet in the sky there and she is sitting on the edge of the balcony pointing and laughing at you. You fucking stinker. I'm going to.

I'm going to look both ways down the alley to see if anyone is near or is coming or can see me. There are a few cars going down the main pathways, but nothing in this alley. You're alone, say for a few lamp lights of the street lights overhead. I'm going to take a running start and try to like ping pong my way up. And as I do it, I'll activate the shadow cloak. So it looks if anything, it just looks like a shadow popping up the wall. Got it. Yeah, you sort of position one foot off the other jump to an auxiliary wall and then leap through in this parkour maneuver and you find yourself on the rooftop right by her.

And it almost feels like that time she's going to allow you to stay with her as she doesn't dematerialize just as you get up close. The second any movement is taken on top of that rooftop. She disappears again right in front of you. Go ahead and give me one last wits and awareness. Let's see if you can keep a bead on her. One, two, three, four, five, six. One success. It doesn't matter if I have a skull.

No, unless it was no successes. Yeah, if it was only a skull, that would be an issue. Okay, then just one success. Okay. Yeah, you find her. She's now on the other side of the main street. So you've come out back to a busier street you can see on sort of storefront on the other side. She's playing in the sort of rain puddle that is settled into the rooftop of a shopfront on the other side.

How populated is the street? There's a few cars going by. It's like 2 30 in the morning. It's it's not much. How wide is this? We're talking like a traditional. This is farther away from the strip. So you're not dealing with like a huge six lane or anything like this probably fits two cars.

I'll. I'll try and jump it. Okay, let's jump it then. Do you have anything to help you out with that? Do you have celebrity or I have lethal body and prowess, which I think makes me a little stronger, but I don't think it necessarily might help with the fall, but will not help with the jump. Let's see about athletics and dexterity here. Let's see just how far you can fly. I'll try to time it so that it's not when a car is going by.

Okay. Just to say that out loud, the GM doesn't. Why don't you? Two successes. Two successes is enough. What does this look like as you're leaping literally, you know, tall bounds. I mean, you're a full Superman as you're leaving the rooftop of this apartment complex and joining the other side of the street some 20 feet away, 30 feet away. I think his childish as Mal was earlier with Enoch and Allison and the rest of the whole, the whole party, I think in this instance, it's a different kind of childish.

Like it like almost an innocence and a delusional happiness like they never they never really got this. So it's it's a chance to have something even for a second. Okay. Yeah, you glide through the air and it is great moment. It's the closest maybe that some kindred come to feeling alive. The wind sort of whipping against you as you become this this dead bullet moving through the sky and you collide with the the storefront sort of rolling onto your shoulder and then coming back up to a standing position. By the time you're already there, the puddles pushed off by your body and she is already gone. But you can see her.

She's on the other side, maybe a block away just on the edge of your peripheral vision just the edge of everything that you can see. She's standing outside the structure of a church that you can see far off here, maybe a block away from where you are now, and she's waving big hands. The church is very large. I mean, we're talking maybe 80 feet into the sky. It's a big, big building gothic in nature. It's rectangular and sort of the buttresses that are made with reliquary motifs sort of Pearson to the Vegas skyline still part of naked city farther off to the east. Excuse me, the west west of naked city. Looks like that's where she is. She's this little figure right outside waving her hands.

I'll stick my hands in my pockets like a like a casual person walking down the street and I'll make my way down the street on the opposite side from her. And when I pull up parallel, is this the place? You scamper down the rooftop, you move forward through, you find yourself a block past and move right up to her. Ask her if that's the place and right outside, you can see that there's a sign that reads, let me get through here. There's a sign that reads Saint Catherine of Siena's Catholic Church, but there are letters that are faded and removed from the marquee. There's a chain link fencing with the privacy screen that's covering the property and condemned signage lining the sides. And the gothic architecture forms this big stark rectangle that just sort of sits plainly out of the neighborhood. Looks to be very well funded at some time, but this is this has been long discarded since the days of it being a refined institution.

But she stands there, she's still waving her arms. I'll, I'll jog across the street. I know she's gonna jump again. She doesn't go far. You get to where she is and she jumps up to the double doors just behind the privacy fence. And she's knocking on the door. Don't wake anyone up. It's late. What are you doing? Still not. Okay, here. I'll open it. Quit. You move over to the other side and the door after you've scampered past the fence, the door is unlocked for whatever reason.

Easy to get into it sort of swings open these big like cherry oak doors that are massive and they sort of scrape against the concrete of the steps up to this place. And the wood is sort of splintered down the center. And there's even this sort of viewing slap for giving out to to alms through the door itself. But moving through, she's now in the center of this room, this massive church that is inside. There's these discarded broken down pews. There's knocked over cabinets and these old lonely pillars that are starting to crumble onto the concrete flooring. Where the rugs have sort of been broken and molded through. It's an eerie quiet. Every step inside echoes through this old place of worship. And the altar in the center stands unused, split down the middle by this fallen piece of ceiling.

There's a second floor and doors off either side into auxiliary rooms. And then there's also a basement level set of stairs that's off past the confession rooms. The oblivion girl joins you again standing right there in the center in front of the altar and her head sort of can'ts to greet you. I think this is the first time Mal remembers her transforming a different time into someone else. And I think they, in this like backdrop of religion that's never been a comfort to them, I think that that kind of all washes back. And they're watching her more carefully now as they kind of inspect the room. The vision of her is sort of disparaged by that memory. The memory the day before you left was sitting in a church like this of knowing what was on the other side of the pew.

The conversation that was had, the person this could be. And there is this air, this uneasy tension within you. Taking a few steps into the room, more shadows start to coalesce. Moving behind the columns, behind the pews, behind long stretches of the broken down stained windows. And as you approach, they become analogous shapes that take form around you that resemble poor manifestations of people. Long faces with broken limbs and extended wispy black oblivion bodies that all begin to reach and move slowly around the corners of the room and all seem to be surrounded by the idea of you and the oblivion girl. They're all sort of watching.

Go ahead and give me a resolve plus insight. I think three successes. Three successes, okay. You get the feeling that they are not inherently malicious. There is an air of they are sizing you up as much as your sizing them up as they are sort of surrounding you in this weird sort of focal on who you are. Unconsciously, Mal kind of just closer to the oblivion girl and just kind of watches, even though it could change and even though she could change, it's still the more important value to keep her safe from them. Is this familiar sound that reminds you of the static that broke through on the cell phone the time that you guys tried to call each other and baby blue? That starts to resonate across the swarm of these creatures of this shadow community as they start to hum in static that fills your ears.

And it feels as though the oblivion girl is speaking in that same tongue, but her jaw is distending and moving and breaking and then moving up and sort of trying to replicate speech but not understanding how. It is grisly to see is the shadow sort of break and then come back and then just join off to the right and she is trying to tell you something as she starts to shudder over to the basement steps. I still have my shadow cloak up so I'm going to try and extend some of the little viney tendrils and put her jaw back up and hold it there and keep her whole and keep her. You find that you can sort of mold the portions that she is made of almost and assist her in fixing her own jaw there. She still is trying to give you this garbled speech that is coming out as static. Think like if you've ever heard a ghost box, it is like the sort of hampered amalgamations of radio waves that are trying to bounce off of all of these individuals, but they all start to move towards the basement. This is the way. This is the way. And I'll kind of keep my shadow around her and start going toward the basement. Okay, looking down the set of stairs, the darkness truly looms. The only amount of light is in the few cascading beams for broken stained glass windows above the main chamber.

They illuminate the face of a door. Its glass window at the top has been broken in and then bolstered with two by four boards from your side. The door itself looks heavy like an old oak. At the bottom, someone has barricaded the parish chairs against the door itself. It looks like someone was desperately trying to keep something in. What did you find? I'll look down at her and see and kind of try to, can I try and imitate the static? Sure. Yeah. Go ahead and give me. What do you, what do I roll for that?

I don't fucking know. Give me oblivion and composure. Composure. There it is. No successes. God bless. Yeah, you sound like a fucking maniac. You sound like that. Yeah. All of the shadows look at you with like a, what the fuck are you doing?

They all look worried between each other like something's gone wrong. Some of them phase in and out. No, sorry. They start to build longer, bigger shadows around you. Look, I'm trying. It's, I'm still sort of living, you know, it's not entirely my fault. That's when it happens. There's a shake at the handle deep below those stairs.

A shake that starts subtly like someone trying to open the door. And then violently begins to shake even harder. Someone demanding entry until then it feels like a weight is pressed against the other side of that door. And the entire oak structure begins to shake against the barricade and the chairs start to move themselves. Some of them lifting a few inches from its place against the door. And there is this shuttering tackle against it. Like someone is running their shoulder as hard as they can into the other side. And the shadows shake and, and shutter and scream in that static so much so that it's impossible to hear.

It's ripping your ears and they all disappear, say for the oblivion girl. And the door continues to shake rapidly off its hinges. It pushes until you feel like it's going to break, like you're going to see whatever's on the other side. Back upstairs, back upstairs. I like start shadow shoving the kid up the stairs. The oblivion girl, she disappears from your eyes. She's back on the altar. She's behind it, shuttered down, crouched and hiding.

Door continues to shake. I back up. I don't take my eyes off the door lest it break. And I take the stairs slowly backwards up the stairs until I'm in front of her at the altar again. Just watching. Okay. Okay. You come up to her and it is the first time that she allows herself to be there for any longer than a few seconds.

She seems to be comforted by your presence and looks up to me. I contact with you directly. She looks terrified. And as you stay there for a moment comforting her, go ahead and give me a charisma plus persuasion to keep her around. She successes. Okay. You try your hardest and she does stay for a few more seconds. There is a sort of waning cry of that static from her as she is covered herself into this fetal position, hugging her knees.

It's not going to get you. It's not going to get you. You're up here. It's down there. I don't, I don't even know what it is, but it's loud and... You can hear that shaking still down the set of stairs. Go, go, go upstairs. You can go upstairs.

Nothing's going to hurt you. I won't let anything hurt you. You give her permission and she vanishes completely. But left in her stead opened to a prayer book right underneath. You can see that the sleeve itself is exposed and it's a set of scriptures inside the number one heading, prayers of protection and scripture. And that is the door, the page that is opened here. And any sort of cursory knowledge or cursory movement through the page itself would give you the information that's open to prayers of protection against evil. For a second, I consider ripping that page out and keeping it with me.

And then I think better of it because even though I don't really find any comfort or religion in this space, there might still be a power that I don't understand. And instead I tap the book really quick to see if I can touch it. Yeah, you can touch it. Absolutely. It's just a stupid fucking bug. Even at that, I leave the page. Is the door still? The door is quieted finally. And with that, we're going to pull away from now.

Okay, burrows. I think we've got a card of fix, don't we? We certainly do. Okay, so we pick up Baby Blue from McCarran Airport. I'll pick them up and I know that Casey doesn't like to stay late at work. As soon as the day's over, six o'clock, whatever, they head home. But they do like to get up real, real early to do all the accounting and all that kind of stuff. So I know that around three, three thirty, they will probably be at the mechanic shop.

Right? You would also know that you have a set of keys just in case of emergency that Casey gave you a weeks ago when she was worried that she wouldn't have anyone other than her husband to look over the place if anything went wrong. So in an effort to keep you around and to watch over the place in case she needed to be with Alice and Tricia, you were given an extra set of keys to a repair shop on the east side of town called Exclusively Motors, which you know Casey has run herself for the last ten years, basically. I'll head on over and pull up, pull up to one of the bays and see first if she's there. Right. So you pull up. It is a portion of town that is sort of like a fully fenced off area that is then sort of alleywayed in. So you come up and you put the keys into this padlock that opens up the rolling gate and you pull through to the open floor plan

where you already see some of the six cars that Casey's been working on and where she's been stationing them. The industrial bay doors have been brought down in front, but you can see that there's a healthy glow in the office section of the repair shop, which you know because you've annoyed her this way many times before. That means she's already here. I think I'll pull up, give a honk and then head towards her office. I have to imagine that Burroughs has a honk that like no matter what, she already knows he's here, right? Right, right.

It's like a double honk or some kind of pattern that she knows. And you know, BB Blue is an old car. It has a particular kind of sound. Yeah. As you hit that beeper, you can see that two more lights come on in an additional room immediately after a few seconds of response. And then you can hear the door latch get hit and the automatic industrial gate start to lift off the bay doors. And you know that this is your signal to drag BB Blue into the light there. Top's down. So as I pull in, I look for Casey and when I see her, I'll say, how's it going, girl? Good to see you. You get this vision of like a mid 30s, close to late 30s woman who is conventionally beautiful but has been hardened by her position.

Position in life really. She's grown up poorer for as long as you've known her. And that's always been her plight. But she's sort of pulled back these curly red locks into this bandana that she ties tight at the top of her head. And she wears these blue coveralls that sit cuffed at the boots. She looks incredibly tired and already upset. But you know that this is typically just her face. This is her default. And she likes to play it up when she's around you and act like you give her more help than you do.

But she looks at you and she says, from the looks all this, it looks like you got into some trouble. Yeah, you could say that. New job hazard. But it seems to be mostly cosmetic. It's why I brought her in. Maybe you could just replace the hood and the tail light and the front light. Right. It's as simple as doing just hours of work for you, right? You know I'm good for it. You know I got the money at some point. Yeah. You know, you're the only gospel singer I know who's prone to gun shots.

The bullets in the side of the car. And she goes over and she thumbs through from where the SMG has bored through the side of the baby blue. I don't think this was some of the old church bitties, right? No, no, it wasn't a church bitty. Look, you know, sometimes when you say the truth, the Lord's truth, people get a little upset. And let's just say you should see them. She smiles and laughs at you. And it has always been you.

It's classic burrows, but she is so fallen in love with it that it is like a portion of that infectious personality she could never let go of. She looks at you and she says, I swear if you were anybody else, I'd hate your guts. It's good to see you, John. And she sort of opens the door for you from baby blue and she puts her hands out for a hug. Yeah, I'll get out, give her a hug. So it's been it's been a good long time stuff. Senior, how are the girls? Well, Alice is good.

She just started soccer, but her lungs are given a hell of a try with everything. But her coach seems optimistic. She thinks it might be good for I told her that's not how the human body works. But, well, you can't can't tell Pee Wee coaches anything. Well, tell her to take it easy. You know, she doesn't need to be impressing anybody. Are you kidding me? She's already telling me about how she's got to show you how she juggles.

In fact, and she goes in and she pulls out her phone and she comes up to you. She gets real close and puts her shoulder to yours and brings it up close to your face because she knows you're old as shit. And opens a little like like like a little real level clip of little Alice, who is maybe six, seven years old with the same big bright red hair as her mom. She is able to kick the ball three times before she pelts herself in the face and both mom and her start cracking the fuck up. And then the video ends, she said, she's getting way better. She only hits her face like two out of three times now. She's a little angel, that's for sure.

Yeah, she misses you. She keeps asking when when Big John is going to come back. Well, I'm back in town permanently now. So yeah, let's let's organize a dinner or something. It's one of these nights. Yeah, I'm sure Bill would love to see it again. He loves drinking beer with you. Really?

Sometimes I don't even know Bill notices I'm there. Well, Bill likes the beer. Of course, yeah. He's he's Helen a half himself. I'd be lost his job piece of shit. And she says that jokingly, but she's had trouble with Bill in the past. Yeah. No, no sweat.

It looks like I'm going to be the breadwinner for a couple of weeks here. But well, don't you worry, I'll have a little talk with old Bill. I'm sure we can find something for him. Oh yeah, you're going to take him on gospel tour? Maybe I'll make him one of those guys that hands out the ties and offering bags, you know, I would not trust him with that bag of money. You met my husband before. Man gets too much in his eyes about taking taking things he thinks deserves to him.

Yeah, listen, speaking of money, I'm a little tight right now. But if you start working on these repairs when you can, I'll be good for it. Just give me a couple of nights. You wanted to do pro bono work. I just told you, Bill's not working and you want to keep baby blue here. You know, I'm not going to be able to give back to you for some time. Not tell you bring me the money. Well, I'll bring you the money.

That's for sure. Just just do what you can when you got the time. Really appreciate it. Now you turn right by me. Of course, I'm going to take care of you. But bros, I don't know how long I can keep going like this. I keep thinking that things are going to get better and that the world's going to give you something. That you work hard for that reason.

You're justified in thinking that the world's going to give you something for what you've earned, right? But they never do. They just give you more work. Well, girl, I'm telling you right now, things are going to look up. Things are going to change. I can feel it. It's in the wind. Something came up at work.

Something good for me. And anything good for me is going to be good for you. You know that. Yeah. I don't know why what angel blessed me enough to put you in my life. You always remind me of my dad. I swear you two would have got on like a house fire. It would have been terrible.

I like hearing stories about him. He seemed like a good man. Listen, I want to show you something. There's a particular injury to Old Baby Blue. If you follow me and I'll kind of lead her to the front of the car. Oh, God, you're in the business of fixing cars now. She follows you. You know, I don't know everything, but I know my way around cars.

I had plenty of them at my time and I'll pop the hood and I'll point to something kind of in the back, you know, something that's going to force her to kind of lean in a little bit. She pulls down these reading glasses. She had pricked up into her hair the same place as certain bandana and she sort of leans forward. She's a smaller woman, think like five foot three. So she has to sort of pick herself up over the hood of the car and she's looking through. She says, I don't see what the hell you're talking about here. What's going on?

And she sort of gets directly into the position you're looking for. I'm next to her and as she's outstretched, I look at her throat and just very gently put my hand on her shoulder and go in and I'm going to bite her. The beauty of this is that as small and slender as she is, that jugular vein shows up so nicely on her. And the big stretch, she has to take strains enough that you can see the pulse of blood in it and your vision starts to tunnel and your whole body becomes embodied by that flame, that flash fire, that house fire she referenced with her father there. And there's only one thing you can do and before she can even think, she's and then completely wrapped into the absolute pleasure of the coursing of her blood into your mouth

and you can feel that hot, sticky, familiar feeling. Her blood is fiery. I think that's why you fell in love with this relationship to begin with, why Casey became so important. She tastes how your beast feels. She is the same flavor of restlessness. She is the same wandering spirit. She's a rolling stone and soon you're sapping every piece of her that you can. And how deep do you drink of Casey?

I only want to slake one hunger. One hunger is enough. One hunger is enough for any one person to feel the ramifications of what you've done as you pull away. The blood sort of flexed down into John's stubble. You can feel the haze that is set in over her. She looks up at you. I'll kind of grab her and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy. Take it easy.

Don't be there for a second. Sit her down. She looks faint and lost like she doesn't know where she is. And she sits down. She says, John, when did you get here? Oh. It's all right. It's all right.

Maybe you've been up too late. Listen, you can work here about these repairs later. I'm going to park the old baby blue around the back. Why don't you get home? Take a rest. Maybe eat some breakfast before the day begins. Right. Thank you, John.

I don't know what I would do without you. I feel so lost. I got to stop coming in so early. What was I doing? You were working hard. You were working hard, girl. You're a hard working girl. And listen, I appreciate you too.

You're important to me too. We're going to get all through this together. Just remember that. You mean so much to me, John. So much. Help her out. You help her out. Yeah.

She's sort of cradling herself into your embrace and sort of resting her head on your chest. She looks up at me and she says, did you, did you, never mind. She looks like she's about to ask something that she's afraid to know the answer to. She swallows that back up and you walk her into her office and back into her deck chair. There's some program on the TV in the corner

where she was watching a game show over the rush of paperwork. She was going through and she sits down and in this day, she can't stop looking at you. And it is that same love that the waitress at the arcade gave you. It's the same love that Lydia and her son even gave to you. It's that same love that gravitates towards everyone who knows of you, everyone who feels your kiss. She doesn't know how to ask for more, but she wants it.

John, if it was up to you or at least the fire in your belly, you could take everything that she is. I don't need everything. I just need a little. So I'll give her a pat on the cheek. I'll say I'll be back in a couple of nights and to keep your head up. Okay, John, I'll take good care of baby blue and I'll give you a call on your landline when he's ready. I'll just look at her and say my girl talking about my little girl.

I'll start making my way out. She touches a hand to where you touched her, kissed her, took her and watches you leave smiling the whole way through like a fucking house fire. And you leave Casey's, Casey's exclusively motors. Is there anything else left in the night for one, John Burroughs? There are two somewhat small things I want to do. First one is as I'm walking around, I want to find a place that makes placards or trophies or signs, something that I can.

I need something commissioned and I know it's late, but maybe there's maybe you are in the perfect city for this. Are you kidding me? There's no such thing as too late. And Vegas, you can have anything put on a fucking t-shirt. Go ahead and give me a intelligence plus street wise or insight, whatever's bigger for you. That's good. Okay, I'll do street wise and I'll do insight and you said what? Whits. Three successes. Yeah, you absolutely know the place.

It's just off Fremont. It's a little closer to Anarch territory than you like, but you're a new Camarillo. They probably don't even know who you are. I'm going to go in. I'm going to have something commissioned that I will reveal to the group the next time we're all together. I will have cash on me. So I may have had cash to pay Casey, but I didn't use it, but I did use the cash for this. We'll put an arbitrary amount of the baby blue was in the thousands probably given the cosmetic damage and vintage vintage like vintage car.

Yeah, but this is definitely something you can get by with like a couple, like a hundred to $200 for sure. So I have something commissioned and I leave there. I still have a few hours in the night. Burroughs is walking around looking for inspiration. He's looking for a sign. You know, he, he, he managed to survive Elysium. He managed to, you know, even, even though the coder, he didn't love the technique. He thinks he made an impression on the Primogen and still he's looking for that connection to God.

He's looking for that, that sign that there's something, you know, he's got ideas in his head, but he's still just kind of wandering the streets of Vegas looking for something. So what? I think that you're right off Fremont Street and there's no better sign than the huge LED tunnel that forms itself over the main Fremont Street experience. And I think maybe that Burroughs takes that for a sign himself. Moving through all of these people, a lot of them buskers, a lot of them people trying to sell themselves off the side. There's all sorts of stores and smoke shops and bars and all sorts of things across this domed out area that makes up the main thoroughfare of Fremont Street. And it's walking through this area that you come by a very sorry little site. Sort of petitioning himself out to people along everywhere in the Fremont Street experience handing out these little brochures and set up with this sort of fold out plastic table.

You might buy a target for like 40 bucks with this very cheap white banner that looks like it might have been petitioned from the same signage store you just walked out of for maybe 30 bucks, not nearly as much as you'd like. There's this poor sort of clip art on the side of this banner of juxtaposed pictures of crosses of churches of a little angel with a halo that you can definitely tell is like stock footage pictures from PowerPoint probably or something like that. There's this big plastered QR code off the side and then like 30 times magnified so much so that it looks blurred and pixelated like GoFundMe link that has been like quick linked into Las Vegas church experience. And there is this sort of planes clothed jeans and the sensible little boots he's wearing to appear more youthful. This black dress shirt and the priest's collar across the front there and these purple vestments layered over. He's far too young to be in charge of a church if he is. He looks like maybe not even 30. He is passing out these brochures and calling out things like don't you want to be saved. Don't you want to see this world change. Don't you want to be part of that experience Vegas.

We can sin in Sin City all we like as long as we go back to God at the end of the day folks. He's going out to pass out these little pamphlets. Burroughs is used to these kind of street preachers and normally he doesn't pay him any mind because they always they always go with the easy route the fear route. You know you're going to hell you're sinner you're a bad person this guy he's different he seems to be friendly almost seems to be enjoying himself and the sheer fact that he's up this late is impressive to Burroughs and I think he'll approach. He points you out as soon as you do step through you're an obvious character it helps to point out the character in the crowd. He's wearing some rings himself one of which is a big gold cross on his middle finger. But he points you out and he goes oh you look tired I bet you kill for a nice place to stay in rest somewhere that's quiet am I wrong. You look like a man who knows how to sleep.

I sure do pastor I sure do you got a place for me. Oh I got a place for you have I got a place for you stop you stop you come on you think I got a table out here like like it's nothing like I'm not I'm going to give you nothing here. I'm going to feed you to God come here come here sweetie. And he picks himself up onto the the table here and he sort of displays his like diorama and you can see that in big bold letters it reads out the midnight mass initiative. Now listen Vegas we got a great life here. Lord has done miraculous things for Las Vegas and it has become a bed of humanity. A point of civilization that none can give give mock to know no one can put down what we've been able to do here but it's not perfect. Not everyone has been saved not everyone can be saved but we are not doing enough.

Don't you think sir what's your name sir. You can call me boroughs and I'm looking over the brochures and you know kind of almost myself. Midnight Mass huh. The brochure itself is like sloppily put together. It's got good information probably too much information but it's got like over set text and pictures that are grainy and clearly just grabbed off Google images with no thought for resolution and it gives a lot of information. It gives a lot of information for what he's trying to do here and it seems as though he's trying to start a series of churches or church gatherings that meet in the middle of the night. You see I realized something my ministry here in Las Vegas and that's that the church needs to expand. We are doing great on on the days Sunday morning.

Hell we kill. We are the hottest show in Vegas. You forget the the husbands. You forget Siegfried and Roy. You forget Lady Gaga. You know but there's one category I think that we're missed now and that's the night man. I mean Mr. Burroughs when was the last time you got to see the will of God in a full on mass by a preacher that wasn't half asleep past eight o'clock. So I'll tell you what you're preaching to the choir.

I've already done my research and there is not a single church with over the thousands that are in Vegas that are open past midnight. Some 24 hours but no masses no masses. Now you must be stealing straight off my brochure and he smacks you on the shoulder with it. You stealing my information John Burroughs. It seems more like we're kind of on the same page. That's all to two ships who happen to see each other in the night. Oh man. If we don't dock it would be a lost opportunity my friend.

Now you are a man of God. I'm reading this. You could say that. I've come to find the Lord after being far away from him for a long time. A servant of Jesus Christ my man. I need people. You see most people think I'm one of the crazies and I don't blame them. I'm out here on Fremont Street.

Of course I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy but I believe in what I'm doing here. I believe in the Lord. I believe in what we're doing here. The world needs ministry. They need to know that God loves them. As much as they love Cavorten and all the things they get up to on the strip with the planet Hollywood and all that. But I just want to tell people and I...

Well I got the gumption. I don't got the selling point. Well, gumption gets you pretty far. Someone with a lot of selling power can help you. Listen, why don't we want you close up shop and I'll walk you home. Talk about a little bit more. Oh you... You are so of lack mind my friend.

It is a good Samaritan off the streets of Fremont. Oh man. Okay, well he starts to pile up his things and sort of port them together under one arm and he starts to break down the table. He says, I'm not far. Fact of the matter is I could give you a ride there. I don't know that I could give you a ride back but you're welcome to stay at the church with me. That'd be nice actually. That'd be mighty nice.

Yeah, sure. I'll ride with you. All right. He sort of escorts you off Fremont Street and you walk. I'll help him with his stuff. And as we go as we get into his car, I'll start bringing up thoughts of my own. Thoughts of maybe... I'll talk about my past and how I've always been a fan of gospel music.

Maybe we could do something that's a little more suitable for Vegas. Almost like a show, a kind of gospel show where you preach and I sing. Do something big, something that'll draw all the lost souls to us. Yeah, you know what? That sounds an awful lot like what I've been pushing myself towards but had no merit to make. That make sense? You sound like a man with a vision, Mr. Burroughs. I mean, you know a lot more about this than I do.

I mean, you look like a hell of a show yourself. Well, you know, it just comes from years of being a singer on the road. You know, you just kind of... You get an idea for what's going to draw the people in and I think with the combination of the good word, I think we'll have a lot of success. No shit. You were a singer, huh? You one of them touring fellows?

What? You ran gospel or country? You look like a country star. A couple of different things. Yeah, some country. Saint Gospel mostly is a kid but... Well hey, you ever make it big? Anything that charts the tops?

No, no, no. I've been mostly touring and singing for other folks. I've been just about everywhere but yeah, I'd like to keep things humble. I'd like to keep things low-key. Ain't nothing wrong with singing just for the audience of God, am I right? Exactly, yeah. Yeah. All right.

Well hop in and he sort of piles the table and everything back into the sedan. Very cheap, probably 10 years older than any modern make car and he drives you back to this humble little wooden pastor church that is called the Church of Good Saints. It's kept out in this sort of wooden inscribed sign that looks like it's been sign painted off the front there. He pulls up into it. He's the only car parked in the lot. It is glorified the size of a fast food restaurant.

It's a small-ass church with a little gathering area that he walks you through into that probably would sit 30 people. Before he gets out of the car, I'm going to stop him. Okay. And I'm going to say, listen, I realize I've been talking up a big game, but well, you haven't heard me sing. Well, I didn't want to ask it felt uncouth to make you. No, of course.

It's just you and God, huh? You got a big plan. I'm asking a big favor to be a part of this thing. At least I should do is prove that I know what I'm doing. Well, hey, you play the Oregon. I can tickle the keys a little. Yeah. Oh, well, I asked about the Oregon, sir.

He laughs and he opens the doors to the church. He says, well, how about you show me? You give full on performance. We can do a little drive around and he walks down the sort of carpeted area of this very dated little 30 person church. And there is indeed an old sort of beat up Oregon in the corner that he shows you to and he wipes down the dust and you can see it kicks up a mighty amount of dust and turns on the singular lamp that sits over the tabernacle and you're sort of illuminated by that half

light. I'll make sure that he's close when I come and sit down on the on the Oregon. Yeah. I think he's a very buddy, buddy guy. He sits basically next to you on the on the pew if you let him. I think I'll let him. Yeah, for sure. And put my hands out.

So it's been a little while as I begin to sing, I'm going to activate presence. OK, so that he is just kind of enthralled by me and start to play. And I sing. When I think of how he came so far from glory came to dwell among the lowly such as I to shame and such disgrace on Mount Calvary take my place. Then I ask myself this question. Who am I? Who am I that the king would bleed and die for?

Who am I that he would pray not my will? My Lord, the answers I may never know why he ever loved me so that to an old rugged cross he go for am I? I want to look him right in the eye as I finish that last line. He is transfixed, just hopelessly drawn into you and he's speechless. He has been quick with his words all night, but he has nothing to say. We kind of stare at each other awkwardly for a moment. And I see in this man something I don't see in a lot of people.

It's something I see in Lydia. It's something I see in Casey. It's a connection that I didn't know I had until the moment I saw locked eyes on with him. And before he can say anything, I grab his shoulder. I grab his neck and I take a bite. It is seamless. He even accepts it transfixed in that moment. He sort of bears through and you bite in chomping through.

It's the first time feeding off of him, so it is messier. It is uncomfortable. It's kissing on the first date. It is a new learning of this man's body, but you can feel the thick muscles in his neck separate, tangle, and then snap across as the blood starts to flow and you slap up every moment of it. Bleeding through into your mouth. How much are you drinking? I want to slake enough.

I really just, I only have one hunger left, so I'd like to go to zero, but I do want to do it to the point where I feel like he goes unconscious. I don't want to have to explain too much to him. Right. Yeah, this is easy to do, especially with your kiss. You slake that through. And by the end of it, he looms and moves so hard that you think that maybe he's about to drop, but you ease him down onto the organ and he falls fast asleep.

I will pick him up, lead him to a pew or whatever kind of seems the most comfortable place to sleep, and I'll lay him down and I'll put a hand on his kind of chest. And I'll say, Pastor, we've learned his name is Dudley. Dudley. Yes, I forgot to give his name. It's all good. I'll say, Pastor Dudley, you're part of my family now. I'm going to take care of you and things are going to be good from now on, I promise.

And I will kind of walk away from him. Does it seem like the church is somewhere I could actually stay for the night, or do I need to get out of here? You absolutely do believe that this is somewhere you could stay. And it's not as though the crosses have any real effect on you. No. As far as you've seen. I'm mostly worried about the sunlight.

There are windows, but there is auxiliary rooms. He has a parish office with a bed that you think you could probably blot out the windows and you would be OK or sleep under the bed. There's also you can check for an addict or a basement. Yeah, I'll look for an addict because I'm worried. I don't want him to see me in the middle of the day sleeping. Right. OK, go ahead and give me a.

Wits plus. Awareness. All right. Two successes. You absolutely find an addict in which there's this sort of crawl space and area in which you can. You can post up for the night. There's no windows except for one and it's easily barricaded by a lot of the sort of church decorations and accoutrements. He's kept up here.

You think you could sleep here for the night? I'll say my prayers and I'll go to bed. Awesome. Beautiful. Make sure you adjust your hunger appropriately and zero for the night. All right. OK, we will go to Niles Niles. Let's pick up with you.

Hi. Hello. Hi Niles. Hi. What's the plan? I need to get back to my living situation because I need my. Bag that I use for hunting. And then.

Yeah. That's that's the start. OK, it's easy to get back to the warehouse. Inside you find all of your things. You also find spoons who has come back from a cursory purview of the city. He sort of lands immediately on your shoulder and clicks through these little crow cants to look at you and it seems as though from his report. He didn't find anyone looking for you. Not yet.

OK. So I'm going to. Yeah, I'm going to stroke spoons for a little bit to thank him for doing that. But I'm going to grab my bag and my little skateboard and I'm going to start heading somewhere through the streets. OK. What is the destination in mind? I'm looking for probably a crowded area somewhere like a bar or something like that. I'm looking.

I'm looking to find where kindred might be lurking about a little bit. OK. There is the bar in which you originally found you. You know to be in our territory where a lot of kindred are on display. You also know that he warned you against feeding in his territory. But currently that's the closest place you know outside of feeding in Camarilla territory. I rather ask forgiveness from you than permission from the Camarilla. So I'm who knows.

I might not do anything at all tonight. So yeah, so I'm going to go to that bar then. OK. It is a place called Apex and it is a bar and club. It is mostly like a think like motorcycle club. It's a dive bar with like these long displays of a bar seating and then against the back wall are like penny slots for like habitual drinkers to sit down and throw their money through. Local joint. And there is a man at the front of the door playing bouncer tonight and he checks you through for weapons or anything like that.

He's big hulking dude. Doesn't flag you for anything. Does give you a second glance because he's seen you around here before. But inside there's plenty of people through who knows who is of the undead. Niles is going to like Niles has been wearing like this oversized like flannel shirt. But when he gets in there he's going to take it off and you can see that like Niles is just covered in like littered in tattoos. But the most notable one is the Viper one that's just coiled around her neck and just like sitting there. But yeah she's going to just perch somewhere and try to just scope out the area and see if there's anybody worth even pursuing or just to see who's around.

Right. Let me get a composure and awareness composure to keep your predator instincts from showing to anyone who meets eye contact with you. One success. Okay. You notice one individual that you think has that smell of the beast with you. Do you have sense beast with with animalism. I don't think you do. I don't.

This is the closest you can get without sense beast of you can see that he is eyeing you up in the same way that you are eyeing him up. There is the meat of this gaze and he's a tall white individual bald head with this big bushy beard. Maybe six foot five tall individual obese probably close to 350 pounds. He's tied some of the chin goatee straps into a little like beads and he's sort of staring you down. Maybe you could feed off this individual. Maybe you have the right guess. If I get up and walk across the bar is he his attention following on me. It is definitely a situation where two primal cats have seen each other across from the Sahara.

I'm going to look him in the eye give him a smile and then I'm going to try to see if that will be enough for him to follow me out of the bar. Yeah. He go ahead and give me manipulation plus persuasion unless you think that you are being more seductive in your attempts in which place you can give me charisma and persuasion. No. I'll do with manipulation. Okay. That's three successes. Three successes.

That'll do it. He picks himself up the second you do. There's a back door out the bar in which he follows you through to the other side and the start coldness of the air coming through Vegas at three o'clock in the morning hits both of you as the door sort of sections back behind you. The two of you are maybe a foot apart two feet apart as you get into the back area. It's a parking lot. No one out here alive just cars parked and it looks as though no other bouncers have taken up the back door. Is there any part of that area that gets really like dark and shadowy where you couldn't really see. You're sort of in the darkest portion besides taking him into an adjacent alleyway the next property over.

There's sort of this overhang over the back door and then a fencing area with their sort of garbage laid out. So you're in already a tucked in sort of area. Okay. I'm going to look around for just a moment just to make sure if I can like spot spoons or somebody just because I imagine spoons is going to keep watch for me. But I'm going to use this attitude. And I'm going to try to take a very monstrous stress looking shape like it's an attempt to look like an animal like a beast. But it's not quite looking that it's it's gangly. It's bill it's taking on some of that build of the sheriff from Colorado because I've kind of adopted that into it.

But I'm trying to get large big and just scary to the guy. Go ahead and first give me an animal is a role. Let's get intelligence plus animalism to successes. Okay. Now let's get an attack from you using this attitude. So let's get a strength plus brawl as you go in against this guy. How is how is this strike against him as you sort of mutilate yourself into this form look. It's it's trying to be quick but also like a fish and I'm trying to subdue him.

I'm not trying to I'm not trying to to really brawl with him. Right. You're trying to get him into a grapple so you can get what you need. Yes, exactly. For successes. Damn. Okay. Yeah, you managed to surprise him before he can surprise you and you can see the fear in his eyes as he realizes what he did.

There's a flare of his canines as the things begin to show. But before he can even make a move, this gelatinous amalgam of flesh rips across and grips him into this elbow hold where he immediately starts to claw in at his neck as you have complete control over him as this sort of costume of another person you've put over your face begins to shed form and bubble gurgle across your your skin. You have him in control. Is there another move? I'm going to go and into my bag and reach out and grab like a blood bag as well as some tubing. I'm going to like jab it into his neck and I'm going to try to harvest some of his blood. Let me get dexterity.

And do you have any sort of specialization and taking blood? Like what? What's your specialization for brawl? You get something for your predator fiber. Kindred. Okay, so let's do that. Dexterity brawl plus your specialty in kindred. Okay.

Another four successes. Another four successes. Damn. Yeah. You manage to fill up that blood bag like it's nothing. The blood starts to flow in the vitae clumps into this coagulated mess as these sprawls of like almost like symbiote matter of these tendrils of dried thickened vampire blood begins to fill the bag. You definitely get enough for one full bags left. But there is something that happens the instant that coagulated blood fully engorges out into that bag as you can hear the cause of spoons overhead.

And you know for a fact that he's calling for danger to run. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And you can hear heavy footfalls on the other side of the door behind and you can hear what you could only assume is maybe the racking of a shotgun on the other side. Do I have enough time to cloud his memory? I don't know. I think that's open to interpretation, don't you think? Does Eli have enough time to cloud his memory? Let's give it a good old fashioned wit plus insight.

Let's see what you think, Kyle. What's first insight do I even have? Oh, I haven't. That's one success. With even that one success, the beast inside of you. Run, get out while you can. We can't get caught. Run screaming inside of you. Fuck it, I'm gonna run.

So what do you do with this big hulking fucker in your grasp? You know the second you let go, he's gonna have enough time to come after you. Can I rip his throat out just because then he can occupy his time with that? Sure. You can always rip his throat out in this game. Strength plus bra with your specialization in Kendrick. Three successes. Beautiful three successes.

Yeah, there is a gout of fucking blood. It's the vitae begins to drip not into the bag itself, but open onto his shirt as you feel the skin begin to flay back and the exposed neck bone, the hyoid cavity right there is exposed to the world there. It is enough that he grabs to it and picks himself up and you are fucking busting it, I'm guessing. Are you getting on the skateboard? What's the plan?

I'm running. Yeah, I'm running. I'm trying to get back into a regular shape and then I'm getting on that board and I'm fucking pushing. Go ahead and give me a dexterity plus drive and let's take a minus one to the pool since your form does not lend itself to being dexterous. Okay, I got nothing to drive.

So just dexterity. That's the one success. Oh, one is not going to be enough to get you away from the situation. You start to peel yourself out. The one cascading back against the wall and holding to his throat is picking himself up just barely, but the door gets fucking kicked through jack booted open as a racked sawn off shotgun picks itself up

and poises itself as the bouncer who clocked you outside, catches you in the back and takes a shot. Ah, please. Go ahead and give me a dexterity. Well, you gave me your dexterity and drive. It was one, right? Yes, it was one. You take three points of superficial damage

as you can feel a slug exit the chest and come out the other side as there is now a neat little hole expounded by the pellets who have just pushed through your body as you're flying away. And he is absolutely clocked you. He's racking the shotgun again and the other one looks poised to run after you. Let's give you another chance to get away.

Run, please. Same thing, dexterity. Same thing, dexterity and drive. No successes. You can feel the uneven ground of Las Vegas as you work against you as the gravel gives way to the skateboard and you fall to the ground. It picks up off the dirt and he begins running full force,

both of them after you. The first one, the one with that gout of blood still dripping from his throat is going to reach down, try and grip you up by the ankle. Shit. I'm sorry. Let me get a dexterity brawl to keep him away from you. I think it's dexterity.

That's three successes. Three successes, damn. Yeah, you managed to kick his grasp away and he's still so preoccupied with what you did to him and what's happening here, he stumbles over himself and grabs, just barely has your ankle for a moment, but you managed to, so pull yourself through,

vicissitude removes the ankle from his hand entirely, forming yourself into a stump and then re-gravitates into your body and pulls you away. The other with the shotgun runs up close and tries to get a point blank shot in at your face. Not the face. Not the face. Give me a dexterity,

well, a dexterity athletics to get yourself away from this situation. Dexterity athletics. Dexterity alone, I guess. That's one success. That's rough. Yeah. Yeah, he's gonna be so mad.

Okay. There is a huge burning sensation as you can feel the beast go crazy inside of your body as the muzzle flash gets too close to you with that fire and the pellets embody the left half of your face as you can feel some of your skull cave in and come out the other side. There is a powder as your cheeks flex past

and you can feel your cheekbone exposed to the cold air of Las Vegas. You take one aggravated damage as he blows away half of your face, Niles. Niles, you're in a bad point. A really bad point. You need to get out of this situation as it's your action.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What to do, what to do, what to do. I need to... Get out of there. Yeah, I need to get out of there. Can I get maybe spoons to maybe intervene and distract them and I can get duck into an alley and try to get away?

Sure. Let me get a dexterity plus athletics and then for spoons I need an animalism plus brawl. That's two successes for the athletics roll. Good. Good. And then you said animalism plus brawl. Yes.

That's two successes for spoons. Okay. Spoons dives down faster than you have ever seen him. He's kind like mad, so upset at what's happening to you. He is a flutter of feathers as you can feel some of them start to cascade around you. He starts pecking in at the face of the shotgun wielder and biting through peeling flesh.

You can see some of it removed from the man's face as spoons is doing absolutely everything to keep you alive. Your two successes will go up against the necklace man. If he succeeds against your two successes, you are kept with these two individuals and we see what happens. If he fails, you have enough time to get away. Okay.

A pool of four and he's rolled no successes. Miles, you're free. You're running away. You beat feet. You find everything you can to pick up your board and get onto the main affair and get going. Unfortunately, you were running so fast and so far, there's no telling what's happening to spoons

back with the other two. We're going to make two rolls. Two rolls that will decide the fate of a crow against two of the apex predators of this world. A pool of four, one success and the second pool. A pool of three, one success to preserve spoons. I need you to make an animalism plus brawl and you need to at least meet two successes.

Otherwise, spoons is in danger. I got two successes. Okay. Okay. You feel the connection to your families still there, but for a brief blip, you need to make an animalism plus brawl and you need to make an animalism plus brawl

and you need to make an animalism plus brawl and you need to make an animalism plus brawl and for a brief blip, it lessens like a dip in the meter. There's something in you connected with spoons that you feel heartache for a moment more than you've ever felt and you know that the only friend you truly have in this world

nearly just died for you. It is a block later that spoons lands on your shoulder, clipped through on one wing, burned off one side, missing some of that appendage, feathered through so that you can see some of the crow's skin underneath and worse for wear. He's hurting, but he comes up to you Niles

and he presses his little beak against the exposed cheek of you and just nuzzles in and cause like he's never caught before. It is a panic, a fear. You've never heard him like this, but he's alive and you are too and you can hear him saying that. He's so thankful you're here. He's so thankful he's yours.

I'm like holding him. I want to get tucked away somewhere where we can be like alone, quiet, like crowd somewhere. What if I gave him some of my bite? You could. I want to remind you Niles that your food comes far and few between. Maybe you need every ounce you need, but you could.

The question is, is the bird more important or are you and the voice inside of you is telling you exactly what you know what to say? I need the blood more than Spoons does. So as much as I want to give it to him, I can't. He can'ts his little head at you

as he can see that you're battling through this dilemma and you can see that he sort of blinks through and picks up his maw and closes it a few times, clicking his beak. It's almost like he knows. He understands. He moves in and touches his beak to yours as if to tell you it's okay.

I'm going to hold him a little bit tighter and then I'm going to gently stuff him into one of my pockets. I'm going to put the coat back, the jacket back on and tuck him into where he usually nests. Understood. Niles, if that's okay, we're going to pull away from you unless you have something quick. That's it.

I'm really realizing how I am completely unable to make a 130 call in any existence of my own. So I'm trying to rush through the other two here. Sybil! I don't... Okay. If you don't have anything, that's totally okay. If your night is super chill, that's okay.

I think this night is chill. There's things that I can do, but they don't have to be done now. You do receive a text message. Oh. The text message... Let me bring it up for you. Excuse me. You receive a text from F.

That is a picture of the mascot of a local burger chain. It's a little blue whale in a pair of shades looking over some cards. It's geo-tagged with an address. You've been here before. You know that F likes to do his drops this way. Way more clandestine than it ever has to be. But you know this means that he would like you to stop

by Whale Burger and do your pickup. I go get something to eat. Actually, I don't... If we're not in the shuttle or baby blue, I think she's in the work van. Okay. You take the circus circus shuttle, which is plastered with this little cartoon clown

and the big top iconography for circus circus. The lights are off, so thankfully no one asks for any sort of transport. You know that circus circus people are maybe the last people you want to deal with after a night like this. But you pull up to Whale Burger, which you can see inside is nearly empty.

It carries some serious, and every single Whale Burger does serious Waffle House vibes. There are two lost individuals sitting at a booth in the corner on some sort of vision quest, half lit in the dying fluorescence where they are having conversations in two complete different directions

to people that most likely are not in existence. There is a cashier of maybe 17 years old in a blue and white striped uniform and a dumb hat, and trash littering the whole room as another employee begins to take out these bags, smoking a joint in his free hand as he goes out to the dumpsters to knock them out. But you do see on the last booth in the back

is a Whale Burger bag, grease stained at the bottom to the point that it's near see-through, and you know that typically that's for you. Okay. She just walks through and tries to be as cordial as possible. I think this is dirtier than she'd like it to be,

so she's maybe overcompensating by being friendly to people in the Waffle House in the middle of the night, and she goes for it. Yeah, you walk in and you're nice to everyone. The crack heads in the corner do not actually respond. The 17-year-old just sort of dips their head to you and says, yeah, have a good night.

You do notice that there is the sort of line cook behind into this sort of grayed out industrial kitchen is sort of peeking out his head the second you come through, and he has this frayed, sort of shorn, flat-top hair white with this big grin that eats his whole face. He looks fucking manic. His eyes are big and wide and wired like he's been up for 2,000 years,

and he picks you up out of the crowd the whole time, and he mean-mugs you the whole time that you are in this Whale Burger, just sort of peeking through the chef's place. Smiling at you. Hello. Hey. Having a good night? Yeah.

Sounds good. You too. Whale Burger's half off. Bogo offered you two for one. I already got mine. I'm good. Thanks. Good stuff.

Have a good night. I think somebody left something for you, huh? Yeah, yeah, I got it. Whale Burger, we're all good, man. You enjoy your night. Are we good? Yeah. Good.

Sort of picks himself back up. He starts flipping these burgers again. Does not leave your sight. Still flipping the burgers, plays equal attention to these greasy flips immediately to you. I've never seen this man before. Never. What's your name?

What's your name? Anthony. People call me grease. Grease. What's your name? He's fucking shouting. It must be loud in the kitchen or he has no concept of volume. He's sort of shouting through the 17-year-old.

Oh, God. You can call me sip. Did you come by in that circus, circus truck? Yeah, that's mine. So what, you like work for Circus Circus? It's implied, yeah. What's it like? It's a circus.

It's boring. Driving, it's a van. It's a casino van, I don't know. What's the rest of it like? He gives it a big grin. Her fucked up shit happens driving Circus Circus. All sorts of fucked up shit happen in the city, huh? Sometimes.

I think somebody left something for you on that table. Yeah, I still got it. I'm gonna... You take care. Hey, you date? Do I date? Yeah, you date? Yeah, I guess.

We should go out sometime, you look like a good time. Oh my, I'm okay. You sure? I'm positive. Greece is a good man to know in this town. Keep you safe. Safe from what? Circus.

And that last moment sort of clears his eyes in looking at you. It's like unspoken code. Okay. Enjoy your meal. Bogo. Two burgers, same price. It's what Bogo means. I'm gonna look in the bag.

Okay. You go over, you get the bag. It sort of distances you from Greece in this interaction. You're in that section that is like closer to a fast food restaurant, restrooms, things like that. And inside is exactly what you would imagine are four full bags of blood. Blatant, obvious. They're not covered up except for a couple of napkins off the top.

And the second that you touch the bag, you get another text to your phone. It reads from F. It says, this is the last one you pay for. I want to know more. And I think I've earned it. And then he double texts you with a GIF of grandpa Munster from the Munsters. Fuck.

Okay. Fuck. Okay. She's gonna, at that, I think she's suddenly over this. Yeah. Have a good night, Greece. And walks outside. You sure you want to go out for that date last offer?

I'm real good. I'll think about it. You got an Instagram? Not allowed. Of course not. I'll be back. Bogo. He lets you go.

Okay. We will pull away to our kinksters. Let's see if we can kink in 15 minutes. I'm still processing that shit. I'm proud of you. Process away. So the kinksters, you said you wanted to motel for the night. You want to eat some people.

Oh, I didn't say some people. I don't know what that means. Him. It's scary. She wants to get her husband. I think we, I think that there's some other things we'd like to do before we just like crash though. Yes.

Because it's still pretty early in the evening. It is absolutely. For you, it's probably 2.30. We've got about till 4.45. So I think for sure we want to start doing some like hardcore DIY work on the bar. Well, we can't go in. Oh, we can't go in there yet.

You can. If you put yourself in front of the bikers. Oh, that's right. Let's go about the area. Yeah, like what's, what's, what's like around like the bikers? Like, like what's, what's the environment like? So nearby, there's a bar called Artifice, which has a lot of gears on the outside and a graffiti bar off the, off this brick wall.

There's an art installation off the opposite end. So if Artifice is the front building, then the back building behind you is an art installation where they're showing a series of statues, one of which is like put off in front of the art installation. Can we go to the statues? Can we do the statues? Oh, to the left is a drift store. And then to the right is a liquor store.

All right, we can go. Let's go look at some fucking statues pulling up to the art installation. It is pretty obviously a studio in which they showcase this art here. It is called the downtown space or Naked City Studios, basically. But those dual names work with this sort of marquee where it says the works of, what's your name? Sorry. One second.

Take your time. I will. The works of Lydia Esper. Lydia Esper. And Allison, go ahead and roll me a. Let's call this intelligence plus craft or intelligence plus influence, whichever you would rather do. Okay.

Where's influence? It should be under your advantages. So if you go down to, I think it's the second page. Sorry, she's buffering. It's all good. Yeah, we do not see a stat called influence. Well, that's not good. It's your big background.

It's the one you took like five points in. You remember? Oh, under there. Yeah, there you go. Oh, yeah. The one that has, you know, five dipole. Yeah. Plus my two.

Okay. Okay. That's a nine. Okay. Fuck nine successes. Holy shit. No, no, no, no. Oh, it is a nine.

Okay. Three. I got five. Nope. Six successes. Three of which are Chris. Okay. So 10 successes.

Yeah. You know, Lydia Esper. In fact, when you were alive, you had met her once. She was an indie film star. Huge on the indies had made like big waves at cans and many film festivals notorious for very highly artistic dramatic work. And she was just extremely close to breaking it out onto the mainstream scene and becoming like, you know, the next

Avengers, damsel in distress or whatever it might be. When she disappeared off the face of the planning, it was like a Naya Rivera situation. She went on vacation. She never came back. She went out to the Maldives on, on a cruise, essentially like her own private liner. And she just never came back and think like Natalie Wood.

A lot of people believe that she, she was killed out there. She died out there. Something terrible happened to her. But the works of Lydia Esper are on display here at the Naked City Studios. And it seems to be like posthumous works of art that she had done in her free time, which in meeting her at one of those, you know, many influencing events that Allison had been a

part of, you never knew her to be an artist. This is a new detail. Oh. You know her. Yeah. Before you. There was a before me. I know.

That doesn't make any sense. That's okay. I'm going to. Is how packed or busy is this area? This area is fucking dead. It's not even security or something like that. It does not look like there's any sort of security outside of maybe some CCTV cameras on the outside of the installation

itself, but this is also Naked City. So the last that we had, you guys were standing outside of Lydia Esper's installation at Naked City Studios. You had this stolen clavicle bone for which you took off of the body of an SI agent we unfortunately disposed of in chapter one. And right now, Allison, you are sort of musing to your, well, your lover on what the next step is in your installation.

Okay. So. See how right now we're on a certain level. Imagine. Another on top of it. So we assemble the actual foundation phones. Then we're going to get tissue. And then that'll be like some kind of sick flesh column.

No, it's going to be living art. Well, I'm living. So it's dead. Of course. I got to assemble the pieces together. I thought you were trying to ask me to do like a Frankenstein type of situation. That's not.

You're not getting it. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You don't talk. Okay.

That's all I say. Enoch, if you attempt any sort of conversation, just let it know that it will be subject to a willpower test. Good man. Good man. As I was saying, Frankenstein was just looking at a scientific algorithm that doesn't exist.

I'm an artist in my own way. I'm not trying to bring it back to life. I just want to show humanity as it is. Fucking rotten piece of flesh meat. You can talk now. Oh, thank God. I understand. What did we learn?

I learned to not jump to assumptions about. Yeah. That's it. I learned to listen to just what you're saying and not do not. Yeah. I'm sorry. I still need you. You got to help me.

But you don't interrupt an artist. You don't take the paintbrush. Do I go on your computer and I interrupt all your notes? All the time. That's because. You're smarter than me. We'll get there. I'm sorry.

I know. I'm sorry. How are you going to make it up to me? Oh, no. What do you want? Well, I'm going to take my weird bloody stump and I'm going to like gently like go on the crest and be like. Right.

I think you, we should play a game tonight. Yeah. I think we're missing something. Like what? I don't. As if we saw the liquor store outside. What else? There's those bitch ass bikers.

I so want to be taught a lesson. Too soon. Too soon. Is it? What if how just think about how impressed everyone's going to be when they come back in the morning and we've already dealt with all the problems. Well, we got to check the other bar. Why?

Didn't you want to know any like locations for your little thing? Your private thing that we don't discuss? Yeah. Well, I thought we agreed that it would be in the basement. Well, we don't have the basement right now. Well, that's what I'm saying. Let's get rid of the bikers so that I can have the basement. I want to take my nubs and like put it under his chin.

Beautiful. In what capacity is this a good time to act out? Really pissing me off tonight. Sorry. Oh, you're pissing me off. Let's go. We got to get you some. We need some extra.

Some extra? That's our party favors. Go to the bar, collect some party favors and then go back to the motel. I'm very unclear as to what you mean, but I'm excited to find out. The bar artifice just off the side of Lucky's is still open. It is in last call and there are two individuals inside. One is a female bartender behind the side there. Who is cleaning up each of the areas and the other is a overweight individual.

And he is sort of sitting in the back of the bar and a booth himself nursing a beer. I'm looking very selling in his position. Are any of the eyes on us? As you guys walk into the artifice, both both individuals look directly at you. Like unabashedly. How do they react to her bloody stuff? Well, the intricacies of Allison is that her presence makes everything feel exceptional. So even the allure of that stump is multiplied.

Both of them just sort of look in awe at both of you. Like you are the most interesting thing that's come in all night. I'm going to go up to the bartender, lean very forward, girls out and be there too. Last call. Yeah, we're just closing up. Can I get you something for the road? What's your favorite drink? I like IPAs myself.

Oh, so you're boring. Do you always talk to people like that? You know what? Stay quiet. Oh, it's a neat little trick. He has his youth. That is better used elsewhere. Listen, can I get you a drink?

I can't keep you around because I gotta close up. To get you a drink and opposite myself. Okay. Is this one of those we saw you from across the bar? We liked your vibe things because I'm going to need to be a lot more drunk than that. Caleb, I'm going to interrupt and do maximize. Okay. And I'm just going to say relax.

You can, there's not even a contested role here. You can feel as she just completely falls into this utter calm as she looks at the two of you. She looks on cloud nine as though she's never felt this way before. Can I just pause a second to point out that the buttons on my suit are undone to like here. And I'm just kind of like stretched out over the bar like this. Yes. And Enoch is a beautiful man and she is sort of caught between the two of them. She looks amenable to the situation, especially more so now when you've sort of brought her into the thrall.

Listen, I don't usually do this, but yeah, I guess you could buy me a drink and we could close up and I guess you just came at the right time. Oh, that's what I thought. I'm going to go ahead and leave some money and the gentleman at the end of the bar. Right. I'm going to go to you. You can talk now. Go, go invite him. Hey, buddy. He looks up like terrified that you two spoke to him actually.

He's like shocked that you even knew he was there. I'll do that. Hither. Yeah, you go over here. We're buying around for everybody. He sort of bumbles himself up and he takes his beer and he comes over. He says, what's up? How's your night going?

It's going good. It's going fantastic. Getting better now. Actually, oh, after we finish up here, would you guys like to continue this party? Back at our motel? What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to. Maybe. Yeah.

Now, listen, before we go any further, you got to tell us what's the deal with those bikers next door? What do you mean? I haven't seen any bikers. You haven't seen any bikers. Interesting. Are you local or just passing through? I've never been on vacation. I'm staying with a friend.

I've never been to Vegas before. The bartender speaks up. She says, if you're talking about the conquerors, they took over. They took over a lucky, maybe two weeks back. They've been coming periodically. They get roused up, a little drunk, a little high, but they're mostly good. They haven't caused any issues. No gunshots yet.

Sloppy, but efficient. Yeah, I guess so. If you run a gang. And the bigger guy goes, so are we going to do this or? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, this is happening. I brought protection, so we're good. Oh, you're not going to need that.

What do you mean? I missed it. What do you say? We can have protection. Oh, isn't that funny? No, I got it. It's just a little too late. So the two of you get the sense that these two are absolutely amenable.

We're taking them back to that motel that we saw earlier. I believe we can take them back to the motel and we can imagine all of the torrid, torrid things you did to these two people. My only question, did you keep them alive afterwards? Yes. And how much did you? Barely. You could pretend to.

I'm not going to have them walk out of there, but they are at this point 90% alcohol. Both of you, do me a favor and roll your willpower plus resolve. Let's see if you can stop yourself from taking every drop. Oh, I hope we fail. Wait, willpower plus resolve. Okay. Willpower and resolve. Remind me where resolve is.

Oh, I should be under mental. This could be better, but it also could be worse. I got three successes. Both of you having three successes means you're in control of your beast and you do not murder two innocents. You leave them pleased, well suited to lingering for the two of your touches for the rest of their lives, most likely. And they will never see us again. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, apparently.

I'm going on. We're going to take their driver's license, get the info. And I'm going to hand them back, take their money. And I will go to the bartender be like, we'll keep in touch. Okay. Yeah, she takes down your number and everything. They seem very amenable to giving you everything. They give you their social security numbers, if you like.

Also. Routing numbers. Yes. Access to all bank accounts. I'll say you guys earn close to $2,000 off this exchange. Amazing. Is it during possible during this whole interaction? Yes.

You would have been asking questions of the area. Yeah. To the bartender. Yeah. Is there anything you want to know in specific? Two birds, one stone. Yeah. Well, you know what?

You can send me a list of what you asked her and then I can get you that information. Well, here's one thing we want to ask them for sure. We want to ask them if there happens to be any abandoned churches in the neighborhood. There's one. Yeah, where's that at? Off the west side. It's called St. Catherine of... It's called whatever mouse church was.

Hold on. Yeah. Let's see. We don't know that. We don't know that. Metagaming. Allegra. Let me find it.

It is called St. Catherine of Siena's Catholic Church. Oh, that sounds perfect. I'm definitely noting that. If you were to rate it on a creepiness scale from zero to ten, where would you place it? It's been abandoned for close to a decade because the Archdiocese of Las Vegas disbanded its church when they found out that two of the priests were touching kids. So creepy. You mean to tell me that they finally did some accountability?

Oh, no. They just didn't want to pay for the church's reputation anymore. They built a new one across town. That sounds right. With this, we are drifting away from the motel for just a moment. Enoch and Allison, you guys are having this conversation after the heated, bloody abyss of what has happened between you and the bartender and the sad sack that you slept with. Something happens at the window of your room.

What? There is the landing of something that sounds almost like a bird connecting with the glass itself. No. And then there are six more of them colliding sort of on the other side. And when you move the curtains aside to get a sense for what you're looking at, you find that there are six to eight grasshopper-looking insects that have flown in and collided against the side of the window. Not a plague of locusts again.

Sybil, driving the circus circus shuttle back through the strip, you two have to turn on the windshield wipers as two huge locusts appear on the front windshield and collide, breaking and dying on impact. What the fuck? Mal, you hear what sounds like hail, like raindrops, as all of these bodies are flung against the side of stained glass windows as you see the splat of insects that are colliding with it. Regal, you can hear buzzing in the storm drains. In amongst your time here with Mokur, you can hear the movement of insects throughout the tunnels,

something you've never heard in such a full force yet. Niles, in your return to the warehouse, it is full of these floating, buzzing, flying creatures that have not been able to break out from the inside door they found themselves in with, and the buzzing is driving you insane as they all flutter and flip about. Burrows, as you pick yourself up in the attic for the night, you can hear from outside that singular window the collision of many different little insect bodies. They fill in force across Las Vegas, and soon it is enough to blot out the windows. Sybil, you have to pull off to the side and park the car because you cannot see through

the sheer level of filth that is made by the corpses of these locusts. Niles, you can feel them crawling on you now as hundreds have filled in this warehouse in through some broken glass, and all of Vegas outside as you can see these windows is a flurry of what is effectively a locust rain. A swarm is outside of the motel enough that you can hear the buzzing of those beasts in through the crack in the door, and now the same happens as these vibrations cascade over Las Vegas. You are effectively trapped in by these insects, and it goes on for what feels like an hour, two hours, until it starts to dissipate, dissipate.

Wherever you are, that's what you're in. We're going to leave it here for today's session. Wow. I can't help but feel like this is somehow my fault. No. I have a suspicion. What we're going to do. Get real biblical around here.

Yeah, a little bit. Definitely the church episode. Good, good shit. I know so much about churches. Yeah. That was great. Yeah, thank you guys. Thank you everybody for tuning in, for watching through.

Thank you for running it while you are feeling ill, Caleb. Oh, yeah. Hopefully I'll be in full effect for what happens next, because what happens next is a doozy. Oh, thanks goodness. Yes, yes. Thank you everybody for sticking through with us even after our little technical difficulties. Yeah, thanks. Hopefully you got a lot out of it.

Everyone did a really fantastic job with their character moments. I hope everyone feels like they got something. Oh, yeah. So fun. And hopefully next session we can go through the process of freeing luckies and taking back a little piece of Vegas. Yeah. Every single one of those bikers.

Please do. There's a lot of them. 16 of them at least. Yeah. Just on the bikes alone. Two Saturdays. But what if instead we just kept playing? What if it's absolutely.

He's going to. You're a slave to him. Yeah, that's right. We'll do it. We'll do it next time. Thanks everyone for joining us. Yeah, thank you guys so much. Thank you all.

Bye. We will see you guys next time.