Mayday Plays - Vegas By Night | Episode 27, "Ultio Mea" | Vampire: The Masquerade

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

The Silver dollar casino has been knocked over but can the kindred of NGen tie off any loose ends before it all for nothing? CAST Amanda as Jackie Santana (Banu Hakim) Eli as Niles (Caitiff) Lev as Mal (Lasombra) Zakiya as Sybil Geier (Gangrel) Sergio as John Burrows (Ravnos) Vince as Raguel (Salubri) Caleb Miller as The Storyteller -- 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp & https://mayday-merch.printify.me/prod... 💵 Patreon: / maydayrp 📰 Join our newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXo... 🟠 Soundcloud: / mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: / maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: / maydayrp 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: / maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: / maydayroleplay 🔵 Facebook: / maydayrp Thanks for your support!

Good morning, kindred, and welcome back to Vegas by night, Mayday role plays. Vampire the Masquerade Chronicle. Listen, it's been a great time coming back to all of you since our break, and things have only been ramping up since we returned. We have the very successful heist of the Silver Dollar Casino last session, and now it's for the inevitable loose ends that will escape in this session. Thank you all for being here. If you're not familiar with season one of Vegas by night,

don't fear you can still check us out on all major platforms. If you're looking for May Day outside of our streams, please take a look at our fully produced pre-recorded content, such as Doomed to Repeat. It's where we really shine, and we love for you to have an opportunity to listen through. If you haven't already, please consider giving us a like and a subscribe

or even a five-star rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It really does change a lot for us. It means that we're suggested to a lot more people across all of those platforms, and that would just grow our channel substantially. So consider it for us, please. In addition, you can join our channel Patreon and get access to our community Discord. The Discord is really where we've been having a chance to build a great little family around the content we put out. We have patrons running games. We have May Day members running games.

and Sergio is building this bizarre empire of a hex crawl that sprawls across a huge amount of distance that you could get in on essentially today if you come join us in the Discord. We'd love to have you. We'd also like to give a shout out as well to our handler-level Patreon contributors. It's because of all of you that we keep doing this, that we're able to push the boundaries to improve upon things in every direction that we see. but we're making some technological changes to our setups in the next few months, and a lot of that is special thanks to you directly. So please thank you, Advance War Sammy Bimblewart, Brandon C., Cameron S., Jonathan M., Kirby's Double, Matthew J, Moira, Oge Pan, R.V, Ren, Tony D., Vince K, and Kai H.

Thank you all so much. Now, I'd like you to please be advised that there may be violent themes, plenty of adult language, and the exploration of darker subjects, including car crashes, vehicular manslaughter, torture, and intimidation, and technological horror is how I'm going to codify it. Please take care of yourself and be aware. Last one's always the worst one. Yeah. Gotta say the worst for last.

Humanity was cursed. Artemis, the first child of Ventru, understood this in her creation of Sparta. She was one of the first Ventru to draw the line in the sand and separate the beast from the man, manipulating the philosophy of a new human mind, the hopes and dreams of prey throwing darts at the meaning to oblivion. Artemis harnessed likeurgis and his words to warp a people to her image. She used this new philosophy to design the perfect prey to sit beneath her shade, the Spartan. A horrifying war machine built an idol worship to their new goddess, Artemis. She ruled from the temple they made in her honor, and she ingrained herself into the cogs of this new mortal machinery,

the system by which these humans had first turned on their kindred superiors now became a weapon to be wielded from within. Artemis, in the guise of their benevolent war-wreathed goddess, set her Spartans in the site of new civil war. The Brujas and their first revolutionaries in the center of Athens. It was here that blue-blooded hubris was made permanent in the empty hearts of all ventrue. her thirst for power and her jealousy to that lowly clan lounging in their agoras sowed the seeds of our first brouha war and in that same breath opened her empire to fall we will wear mortal life like a coat against the rain hood up we will travel in the utility of their little lives we will take the smallest of their problems and solve them in a breath and in return they will erect staff statues in our name and allow our true form to light. Eventually, though, that institution too will rest,

and the flecks of us left in the aftermath of our folly will be carried on the wind to new worlds, to new statues. We will hide among them. We will live forever. We will watch you die. We will kill our darlings. Welcome to Vegas by night. That one was awful.

Okay, let's introduce our cast. My name is Caleb James Miller. I'm going to be your storyteller for this session. Jackie Santana. Hey, my name is Eli, and I play Nile's Ames. Hey, I'm Lev, and I play Mal. What's up? I'm Sergio.

I play Burroughs. Hey, folks, I'm Vince. I'll be playing Regal. Oh, my God. You did it. Guys, that was phenomenal. It only took there being one less. person. Yeah. If we can keep this energy when Zach comes back, like, if we just do that again

next time, oh my God. Also, Zach is fine. They're just not here. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks a little bit like a, look like an immemorial. Zach's okay. That's, uh, that's the style. Uh, yeah. Vitz was like that a while, so, you know, we would at least put RIP if they're, yeah, yeah, I would have put slash decease on it, In Torfer. You guys have my permission that if I do die, you can keep me on the screen with a little RIP under it. I'm totally okay with being remembered that way.

Everyone's going to be fine. We're going to play games together forever. We're all going to live forever. Mortals is bad. Immortality is scary. Anyway. Beautiful. Everyone shut up.

Let's play vampires. This week, where we all live forever, right? Exactly. This week, we have a recap from our. back out. We do. Uh, standby. Oh, sorry. Okay. Here we go. All right. So we hit the silver dollar casino. That's why we're here and the shape that we're in with what we have. That's why I had to leave like I did to make sure the codery could make it back out with their un-lives intact. We didn't do this entirely of our own accord.

Niles owed the Anarchs, and this was the only way they could get out from under their thumb. Burroughs has a personal vendetta against the Putanesecas that's been spiraling out of control since he stuck a katana in Champaign's face. No, I wish I was kidding. But in the Coterie's mind, this was a way to kill two birds of one stone,

fulfill Nile's obligation to the anarchs and curry some favor with them, while framing the Putnescas and hopefully getting a blood hunt cold on their entire rabid pack. Anyway, it didn't take long for things to spiral out of control once everyone was on the X. The coterie set off a smoke grenade in the kitchen, hoping it would be enough to scare any kindred on site into evacuating. It wasn't, but the fire that got started up back there a little later certainly helped sell it. Guns and knives came out. Burrows got stuck in an elevator with the guy running the show, a Ventrue named Adon, who pulled a disappearing act.

after Burroughs hollowed out his skull. Niles went toe to toe with the pit boss. Sybil backed them up, and Mal and Jackie tried to find a way into the casino's vault. It was chaos. There's something going on there, Moker. It's a small casino compared to just about any other

on or near the strip, but the security was like nothing I've seen before. They had an on-call tactical response team in-house from an outfit called Rock Security. Once they showed up, things went from bad to worse, and these guys are good. I got tangled up with a few of them in the tunnels underneath the Silver Dollar, trying to secure the Cotteries exit route. That's a big reason why I look like this.

They're well-armed, they're well-trained, well-organized. It didn't do them much good after a while, but they gave us a run for our money. No pun intended. Things got even weirder after Jackie finally helped everyone get into the the vault. Adon has a thing for ancient Rome and the Bible. Makes me think the silver dollar might be a reference to Judas or something. Lots of hard stone floors and archway statues. There were three people down there, flayed and crucified with their blood being drained into basins from these spigots in their sides. Jackie got the impression the blood might have been

sacred somehow, like it would be more powerful if it was used for blood magic. Then there were the numbers etched into a back wall, DCLXVI, 666, the number of the beast. There was music, too. Burroughs recognized it as back and all from Samson and Delilah, somehow managed to make the whole scene even creepier than it already was. We rated the Volt's contents as per the plan. We found almost $2 million in cash, an envelope with Watch Your Step on it, the WS and D.E. capitalized, that's got to mean something, right? We also found some keys, a briefcase, a suit, a cane tipped with a crown, that's got to be Ventrue

iconography, and a VHS tape labeled Teresa's. We managed to get away using the tunnels underneath the silver dollar after Burroughs destroyed the security footage and Jackie and Mal left signs of blood magic behind. Burroughs left his Put-Neska tale, too, a guy named Marco, all in the hopes of pinning this on the Putinaskas and the Akata. The pit boss stayed honest for a bit somehow, but none of us were in any condition to try to take him down. He turned back, and I'm as certain as I can be that he didn't follow us here. Jackie helped pick up on Adon's trail using blood magic, so she, burrows and Mal are trying to track him down.

I'm not entirely sure where Sybil went, but hopefully she'll be back soon. Anyway, thank you for letting us lay low here. We'll just spend the day, and tomorrow will be on our way. We have to figure out what to do with this money. Not to mention everything else we found. Most of us just need a chance to get back on our feet. Hopefully, Burroughs, Jackie and Mal are able to put an end to aid on, because between him and the pit boss,

they've probably seen and heard enough to compromise this whole, pin it on the Putin-Neska's plan. Maybe once the dust has settled a bit, Jackie and I can come back here to talk about this book we got in Louisiana. But I'm worried after tonight, that might be the least of our problems. Beautiful. Thank you. We take ourselves from down in that blooded pit that Raquel meets his maker in, and we zoom that camera out and above from that sewer system to the streets of Las Vegas,

high on a crow's vision, until we lock back in on Baby Blue whipping into the Fremont Street, portion of that open corner outside of the silver dollar. Inside, we have Burroughs, Mal, and Jackie, hot on the trail. Jackie, you have an integral sense, this red string of fate, the blood-scented loss of Aidan's life, as you can trigger through all of his movements in the last few days, including his most recent, which threads off away from Fremont in the direction of the strip. You all have come together into this car. I release the scene into all of you in that driver's seat. It is not long before this target will be away from all of you,

and it is a matter of time and importance. What happens now? Burroughs was a little anxious running up and jumping into the car, but now after slicking his hair back, that calm reserve has returned. Only signs of tension being his white knuckles holding on to the steering wheel and his foot firmly planted to the floor of the vehicle. And he turns to Jackie in the passenger seat.

It says, that candle better be leading us to the promised land, sister. Where do I go? What do I do? You're, um, Jackie's gonna kind of, uh,

you'll see Jackie kind of like almost have like a weird glaze in her eyes because she's actually, she physically is seeing like this white trail. And as I would say in real time, she'll be like, left, right, left. Other left. Right.

Left. You think that she will be doing that. Right, kind of almost in a glazing a little because she's so focused on that. There is this trance that takes over Jackie as the drive begins. Go ahead, Jackie, continue. While you're doing this, you're going to notice I'm taking, Jackie, I'm taking other components out. And she's putting things in little vials, little glass. You're going to see her take out kind of like those little torch.

You see a lot of people in drug using those for lighting up. And, uh, damn, Jackie, I didn't know you like to get wet. This is the, I want to stop, look at you and be like smirk and be like, that's the least you don't know. And I'm going to, um, what I'm, I'm like, I'm going to hold this and I'm going to extend it to you, Burroughs. So you can see it. I'm like, have you ever heard of? Fire and the blood. Get to the point.

I'm a little focused right now. Yeah, keep going. When we get within sight of this, make sure I have to see this guy. And I'm going to show you this vial that has a little bit of blood of this silk. I need to see him and I can stop him. And then you're going to see me robotically put it in my hand

with my torch, but I'm going to still keep giving you directions. Burles is going to look back using the rearview mirror, look back at Mal who's sitting in the backseat and be like, all right, listen, here's my plane. I'm going to give him the old cop style, smash him from the back. And if that doesn't work, you think you can hop in there and do a little something of your magic? I can hop in there or I can pull him in here. Ooh.

If I can see his shadow, I can get him. I like both those options. If he's on the strip and we're fuck. If he's on the strip, we can't touch him technically. If you get him in the car, I can keep him incapacitated. All right. All right. Let's aim for that then.

So we both just have to see him. Is there a, is there a, they lose a convertible, right? Yes. I'm going to. Oh, God. I wish Zach was here for this reference. I'm going to full Emmett Cullen style stand up in the back seat, hold on to the back headrests and look, keep an eye out for Aidan.

Beautiful. We need the first composure plus driving role of the night burrows as you are following those robotic instructions that almost seem to place themselves in between thoughts that Jackie are explaining you. You know, the left and the right of it all experiences on either side of her explaining of the fire and the blood as you whip and move baby blue in and out of the streets. Five successes. With five successes, you are. very easily making your way through the city in the direction of the strip. Fremont is not far from the location you're moving towards, and it's not as though he's located on the strip yet. You're gaining.

The problem is at the end of this stretch of success, your car whipping into new lanes, and you're driving around and through aggressively throughout these lanes of Las Vegas traffic, you're starting to realize the closer you get to that strip, the more and more it bogs down. The traffic is building and Las Vegas at this time of night is perfect for getting stuck, for finding yourself in gridlock. So what I'm asking here is the three of you are starting to see that for Burroughs' perfect driving, it's caught you up to the traffic.

But to intercept that white line that Jackie is perceiving, That is, she's tracking through. You're going to have to cut this traffic somehow. Find some way around this in an effort to catch up. Jackie, with the speed that he's moving, can you tell if he's in a car or if he's on foot? Jackie, you search yourself for an answer like that. You can absolutely roll me a wits plus, let's call this blood sorcery, wits plus your blood sorcery.

Let's go. Check our mouth. A success, I believe, with a four. Okay, four successes. You feel confidently just by the way that the wavering of that thread moves. It feels as though that it is fast but steady. It signals to you that you think he's in a car. Burroughs sees the traffic coming and just decides it's not good enough to hope to break through it.

he's going to turn suddenly into the first kind of alleyway or off road that he can, you know, side road. And he's looking for a way around. He's hoping that maybe the traffic is slowing eight on down. Beautiful. Okay. So you're looking to use side streets, anything, going through parking lots off the side of these big buildings off of the strip.

Burroughs, there's a lot of walking around town. He knows a lot of the side streets and byways. Perfect. Give me, let's call this a wits plus driving as you are. employing that clever attitude in the back of Burroughs' mind. Can I use being standing up in the back of the car as a way to help him like spot spaces, like spot extra spaces? Sure.

Go ahead and give another dot there, Burroughs, as Mal is calling that out. Mal, what does that look like as Burroughs whips around into a side street and now all of a sudden you guys are driving through a parking lot. You're not supposed to in through a weaved, a break in a chain link fence. Tell me what that looks like. Mal is just like surveying all the spaces around them and usually like darker spaces are a little bit harder to, um, to be, to be seen and usually are a little bit clearer because people don't want to get caught up in the shadows. So I think I'm just like calling out where there's where there's nothing more than more than when there's something in the way. Like, okay, go left, go left. And then, and then, you know, yeah.

Four successes. Beautiful. With four successes, we continue to have a great. time catching up to this thread. In fact, Jackie, you are starting to see this thread is shortening between. You're whipping around this additional parking structure as Burroughs is coming back to the main road and you're starting to realize that he must be a block on the other side of these larger buildings as you guys are just short of being main street of the strip, one street off of the strip. You're all entering prom. territory for the prince's domain and the instruction that you are not to cause any trouble in

these places. But you're damn close. You're a block away. Turn a corner and find the right turn, and you could be in the same vision as wherever it is that Adon is driving. Can I ask a question? Just because I'm personally not super familiar with Vegas itself. The strip just counts as the singular, like the singular street that is like where all the shit is. And if we're like, like you said, if we're like a block off of it, it doesn't count as the strip or like. Now,

your awareness of Vegas coming from, from out further, you know, from your first time in Colorado, right? Out to this location, you're a little less verse to the others, right? Give me an intelligence plus, let's call this academics to,

see if you can remember in the back of your mind as you come through Vegas. Or you could trade that for streetwise if you think the mall is more streetwise. They're both awful for me. So I'm going to roll my two hunger dice and got two successes. Okay. With two successes, you would know that locals consider a lot of this area, this huge high traffic area to be the strip. Where you are is not necessarily on the actual strip, Las Vegas Boulevard.

But you are absolutely. in the territory. Imagine more in the same way that people will speak of downtown L.A. Lots of L.A. is downtown L.A. without actually being a part of downtown town. Exactly. We're going to be tight, but as long as we move fast

and we don't stop too long, I think it's going to be okay. Jackie, open the glove compartment. He's around the corner, by the way. He's around the corner. And open? Yeah, you open it and you see a wooden steak. And I'm going to say, hand it to Mal. Do that instantly. I'm going to grab it, hand it back to Mal.

Oh, okay. Beautiful. I'll, like, stick it in the back of my pants like it's a gun. All right, hold on. And, you know, like a parent instinctively, I reach behind grab Mal's leg and... There is a big, wide bearing, because, of course, you're driving those old rectangles of decades past,

and Baby Blue does not exactly have the most beautiful turn radius in the world. But damn is it cinematic? As Mao swings across the edge of the window, hand back, protecting mom there with burrows. And you guys whip onto essentially the main strip. And you are found into this basically gridlocked traffic. But you guys are moving at a much larger speed coming into this. And you can see immediately down,

down the pike, just a few car lengths away from you, maybe six. There is another car driving just as fast as you are and weaving in and out of these cars that are trapped in the middle of the strip. You can see that there are all of these drunk passerbyes that are on the main strip there that are getting clear out of the way as the car picks itself up onto the sidewalk to weave around back into the street and push through a red, light. They're in a panic just as much as you are

in a pursuit. What's the movement? Burroughs, you've got to be careful. This car is really recognizable and if we get caught chasing on the strip, we're fucked. I put the full, I put the pedal to the metal and I keep that. Burroughs, as you

hear that from Mal on the back of your ear, really recognizable. You're fucked. Driving like this in the middle of the strip, that little fire in the center of you. That fire that you feel like you had before you were even what you are now. But now it's even stronger.

It's bigger. It's a bonfire in you, Burroughs. You're loving everything that Mal has given you. You're living off of the fact that you're driving your powder blue convertible right down the strip and saying, fuck you all kill who I want. The beast is

alive and speaking inside you, riding your body like a fucking Harley. What's the moon? high off of the lick of Niles's blood too. Yeah. Beautiful.

Seeing this kind of maniacal energy that's coming off of Burroughs, I'm like a fuck and I'm gonna drop shadow cast and just kind of like, not around the car as a whole, but around us just enough to like swirl and

kind of obscure who's in the car and maybe like even the sides of the car a little bit. Not enough to kind of break the excuse me, break the masquerade, but enough to like just make us harder to see, like maybe like people are chain smoking and like, it's just a little bit of a blur.

Got it. So give me a rouse check as Shadowcast is brought through as you're trying to make this very dark charcoal hotbox in a convertible here. Hopefully they're just thinking you're smoking the weirdest cush they've ever seen in their lives. Yeah, that's the goal. I think Shadowcast, does not require, oh, it does require, I'm sorry.

Shadow Cloak is the one that doesn't need a roustache. Oh, God. And that's a failure so I get hungrier. Okay, so you are hungrier. I also want you to make a composure plus subterfuge role. That is essentially to keep your power at a level that would be friendly enough to the masquerade that anyone looking on is not going to think. Look at that powder blue convertible wrapped in shadow.

Okay, two successes. Two successes. Two successes. We'll take it. Okay. You managed to keep it within that car. And it's, you know, lovely enough, the most visible person is you out of the looming Batman fog that is embroiled in the center of your convertible. Do you want to tell us a little bit what this looks like, how Mal makes this happen for us?

Yeah. So the cloak kind of drips off of them like Icar, so that they're kind of, Um, this is the worst comparison ever, but it's the best one I have at the moment. You know those Barbie doll cakes where, where you have like a Barbie at the center and then they built a cake around it to look like a dress? That's kind of the vibe except for its mal and just like dripping shadow. And I, I think as much as they're trying to make it masquerade friendly, I think they're also trying to make it close enough to like a Vegas spectacle that people will be like, oh, cool,

what the hell is that? But Mao can't be. And also the fact that Mal can't be recorded, I think is they're using to their advantage to try and, like, do some kind of weird amalgamation of like, this is a performance art piece. And also, like, no one else will be able to see it because art is, art is unknowable. And like, you can't repeat art or whatever. I think, I think Mal gets really in their, like, high school art kid headspace of like, I'm, this is, this is art. We're like, fucking around. But this is art. And I'm going to kill these people. And it's still going to be fucking art. These people on the side of the strip are pointing it out. There are even cell phones that come out. But you think you're selling the performance well enough

that maybe they'll believe the idea of an art piece driving 65, pushing 70 miles per hour down the strip, weaving around these cars. It's definitely a spectacle. We'll see whether it's a spectacle that brings the Second Wingquisition or not. Inside of the car, Jackie, you can still see that thread and it's getting closer and closer so close now that that little violin string

onto Aidan's existence starts to thrum as if he had a heart it would be beating causing the vibrations along the string. You guys are a couple car lengths away. You need to push the distance to get neck and neck. How are we doing it? Burroughs, if you can, get tighter in there. Mowis, can you grab him? How close do you need to be for us to grab him? I got to see his shadow. He's going to fall through it. All right. Let me get up next to him, and I'm just going to try to maneuver around a couple cars see if I can get up at least behind him or beside him.

Beautiful. Burroughs, what kind of driving is this if you had to categorize? How is it that you're pushing forward? Is it aggressive? Is it full of cleverness as you're pulling off the side again? Are you daredeveling? You're looking for, you know, the fast and furious watermelon cart that's conveniently shaped like a ramp. What are we looking for here?

Burroughs, now that he knows that the allies are able to get Adon out of the car, he's really just using speed to get as close as he can. He was planning to ram the car, but now he's just trying to get close enough for them to do their work. Beautiful. I think composure's gone out the window. I think this is Dexterity Drive, baby. You are locking in. It's just like when you perform your one of purpose,

one of mind, and you're pushing 70. Three successes. Three successes. Would you like? I push myself burning some willpower to do it. Understood. Okay, with that expulsion of willpower, you can see Mal again, looking down at him, there is this adrenaline

rushing through that dead corpse. You know for a fact that all of you cannot really hold on to anything, but somehow Burroughs is holding on to that white knuckle pheromone as his hands wrench around the wheel, and you all drive faster than fast. But it's successful. You wheel past again through another red light, and you meet towards what is essentially getting close to the edge of the strip,

on towards New York, New York, on towards the Camelot at the end. You're getting close to where the rubber meets the road, but you are now within a few car lengths. I would say two to one, ramming speed, ramming location. You can see the corner of his car, which is this black escalade, perfect, pristine, clean, ready for transport.

And the thread, Jackie, directly leads to the passenger seat from what you can see as it wavers and moves and tracks into that right-hand side of the car. He's on the passenger side. Wait, the passenger, that means somebody's with him. That's right. Okay. We just need to, Mao, you just need to cast shadow, correct? Yeah, I just need to see a shadow to pull him through. Don't, don't hit him, I think.

If we want to get out of here, I don't think don't hit him. But there's somebody there with them. They're going to see. I know how to cast, I know how to get a shadow lease on him. just get side by side and we'll, that's it. All right, all right. And I'm doing that. Okay, you pull right up in essentially weaving this, this car in front.

You come up so close to the bumper that it causes them to peel out and get out of that situation until the two of you meet on this road. The wheels rubbing up against each other is the two of you, both cars are parallel to each other on this road, peeling down the strip. What's the move here now that both cars are parallel? You need a shadow. Jackie's going to turn to mouth. You need a shadow, pulls out her cell phone, turns the flashlight, and flashes it right on, Aden. So a little shadow will appear on the back of the seat. Okay. So you're as soon as it.

If I can read this correctly. Yeah. Got it. Jackie is reaching over Burroughs, pushing through to the other side. Yes. Okay. And you're trying to get some sort of a. shadow through the tinted windows of that passenger side.

Any little bit, because I'm going to go on that high bright setting and just mainly shine it on that face. Okay, give me, let's call this wits plus athletics to get the perfect angle on this. Two successes? Actually, I'm going to burn a willpower for that. Okay. Make sure you're not re-rolling hunger die. Nope. Okay, that's a lot better.

Three successes. Three successes. You get close, Jackie, you get the light in there, and for half a second, the shadow on the other side is materialized, and then it dies before there's anything to do with it. That light, the speed of the two cars at near 70 miles per hour, as you're both having to weave around and break every law you can on street level without breaking into each other. It's just not enough to keep anything for you to have long enough for Mal. As of right now, it is not creating a shadow on the other side, heavily tinted window on the side of a reinforced escalate. It's too much. I'm going to, okay, I'm on Burroughs. Well, what, what did it work? What happened?

I'm so sorry. I'm going to kind of stand on you a little, like kind of lean over you more, and I'm going to punch the fucking window. Okay. Beautiful. So this is what I need. Simultaneously, Burroughs, you feel as this. tiny woman scrambles up on top of you as you're driving through. You've been through this before in Vegas, but under much different circumstances with a woman in your lap. I need from Burroughs to make a composure plus drive roll. You're going to be a disadvantage for the person in your lap, so you'll remove one die from the pool.

Jackie, you are going to make a brawl plus strength roll. Okay, that's better. I'm going to hold on to the back of Jackie's pants just so she doesn't fall out of the if something bad happens. Understood. Are you prioritizing that or the shadow? The shadow. I'm prioritizing the shadow because Jackie can take a fall,

but ideally I don't. I would rather have neither happen. Got it. Okay, we'll hear from Burroughs first. Burroughs has... Four reduced to three. Four reduced to three. Three successes enough to keep the car in motion.

It is whipping and skidding across that reinforced side. Yeah, at this point, I don't even think I'm really trying that hard. I'm definitely like bumping into them a little bit. bit. Baby Blue is going to need some bodywork after this as you've traded paint and you can see the flex of her on the side of this escalate, but you're keeping steady, even with the woman in your lap would not be the first time. Jackie, what do you have? I got like crazy critz. I got six. Six? Oh, bitch. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I got like everything critted. Oh, my God. Jackie, described to me what this looks like as you break that window. I'm, uh, Jackie.

Because I'm stomping over you, Burroughs, I kind of clock out. I'm actually, I'm getting closer to my target. I'm actually getting bloodthirsty. I'm actually like, you're right there. You're right there. You're right there. You're motherfuck up. Boom.

And I just like, it's the bloodthorceiness of everything. And I just, I, my prey is right there. Okay. With a critical, I am going to roll in the coffin here to determine whether their car is distrusting. enough to perhaps cause them to veer off the road. John, do you have any energy left to, you know, if people start coming around, you can... I can go all night, or what's left of it, at least.

All right. There is a big upheaval in the car as it skids into the center divider where those decorative trees are lined up along the strip there, but he manages just barely the driver on the other side of Adon through that cracked window to keep composure and to stay on the road. He comes back instead and veers in to the point where the two cars are pincered into each other while driving at those incredible speeds. And if it was not for the composure on Burroughs' side, they might have flipped each other at these speeds. Jackie, you pierced through that window. The tinted reinforced glass shatters over both people.

And you can see that in the passenger side, Adon, with that daylight in his head still, is completely incapacitated in the side seat. He does not seem to be, at this point, awake, cognizant, or alive. Burroughs is noticing that, and he's also trying to get an eye on the driver as well. Who the hell is driving this thing? Yeah, who's the driver? I'm going to see that he's a capacity and look towards the driver, and I see. The driver looks to be a member of rock security with one of those body armor vests on, but underneath just a traditional black suit, white dress shirt.

He is a shorn head individual with black shades on, and he is white knuckle gripped to the car. If you'd like, one of you could make some sort of indication into the inside of this human being, but of course you are driving at huge high speeds it could cause a disruption in what you're trying to do now if you're too worried over this driver. I don't care enough. Go ahead.

The only question of, I recognize he's human. Is he human to lose? Is he human to lose? We're going to perceive that Jackie is looking further into it. Give me a wits plus awareness. Okay, yeah.

Two successes. With two successes, you believe that this individual is most likely immortal. You can tell by the sweat on his brow, the white knuckle in his hands, that he is a chauffeur, a ghoul, maybe a confidant of Adon, who is trying desperately to save this situation. But with the amount of time taken for Jackie to lean in and get that perception out of it, as Burroughs is trying to keep composure, he panics seeing Jackie staring him dead on, and he makes a desperate play as he whips the wheel of the car as hard as he can into Baby Blue. And he's going to make essentially a side ram into the car itself.

So what we're going to do is, Burroughs, you can set an intention. He's going to set his intention. We'll roll against each other. whoever has the better margin for success dictates what happens here. So what are you doing the second that you recognize that this is happening, Burroughs? Burroughs. That Mal needs a light. And Burroughs...

I was just going to say the strips bright and the strips bright and the window's broken. So I think I might have a light. There doesn't seem to be any indication from our storyteller that that's enough. I would say that you can see there is a lot more share. in this car. Okay. My intention then is to break the car just enough to basically avoid getting hit by the car. And then I'm going to turn on my flash, on my brights just to ensure that there's some light in there. Perfect. Okay. So we'll call this a dodge and we'll accept that the lights are thrown on and bright. So go ahead and give me a wits plus driving. Three successes.

Um, the driver is extremely unlucky. You win by a margin of two. You manage to dodge out of the way. The bright saran. The shadow is heavy inside of the car. You can see it easily, Mal. You are bringing Aidan back over to the other side. Yeah, the shadow just kind of turns into a,

like a mouth almost and just closes over him. And when it, when it opens again, there is a man, uh, like in Mal's arms that they just kind of like drop to the ground and then sit back onto the seat. Beautiful. So in the middle of Vegas, middle of the strip, heavy night. A lot of people watching this art exhibit, a shadowed hand moves out from a powdered blue convertible,

becomes large enough to engulf a six foot two man, drags him out through a window, and back into another car. Oh, yes. Let's make a roll. against the world. He technically gets a role to resist as well, and I have to roll for it. He is incapacitated. He is going to automatically fail that role. Cool. Great. I just wanted to make sure we were playing by the rules.

Okay. An undisclosed result has just occurred. We will find out at a later date. Aidan is ripped out of that shadow back into the car. The escalade peels out and away the second that that ram does not work. And he pulls onto a side road, driving far away from the strip as that individual is packed into the back of your car. You're still going 70 in the middle of the strip. And you can hear in the distance police sirens begin towards the rear of you. I don't know. This is enough. That person is getting away. Go. Get off the road. Get off the road. Get off. We got to get off the strip.

We got what we need. They saw us. No, they didn't. We have a mask on and Mal took care of at least that, but we need to get off the road. We can deal with that one or at least follow him if that's the case. Just get us off the strip. We need to get off the strip. I get us off the strip.

Okay. Burroughs you are fighting your beast speaks back to you the entire time as you try desperately to listen to your friends, that bonfire you is speaking against again, you're just going to let him go. You just, you just got to let him go? Is he, is he at least, what's going on with him? Why isn't he awake and pestering us? I don't know, I don't care.

Do you want me to stake him now or not? Yes. Go, okay. I just, as soon as I'm sitting in the backseat and no longer a Barbie and a cake, I push the, push the steak right through his heart. The steak enters into Adon's heart, and there is little change to his incomprehend, incapacitation but as it firmly sets it is almost now bizarrely like a key and a lock you feel as though it finds purchase in this empty cavity in the middle of his

chest but not in a way that feels human not in a way that feels as though it's purchased with flesh now you feel as though this key in a lock has found purchase in another world, in another reality, the one that makes more sense, or maybe less than this one. But you believe pretty firmly that this has staked the individual. Okay. I think he's down. I've never done this before, but I think he's down.

It felt weird, but I've never done this before, so I don't know. Breathe or don't breathe, but pretend to breathe. Burles looks back, you know, to the body once or twice, and then just, unsatisfied, turns back and continues after that van. He's got to get rid of this. He's got to get rid of this person. That beast in the back of you is so proud of you, Peros. It is speaking. That's my boy. That's my fucking boy. The stallion rides. The stallion fucking rides. Go ahead. He succeeded my rouse check for Umbers clutch, by the way.

Beautiful. Thank you for telling you. I realized I owed it to you. Um, let's get a driving. plus composure from you, Burroughs, as you are trying to catch up to this escalade and run it off the road. That's five successes. Okay, as it begins to move into the local streets, you keep at it. And what starts as a police chase, essentially,

between the two of you, catches up to enough that you are now perfectly behind him, again, driving just behind your front to his bumper. Nobody fucks with the, The king and I'm just going to, I'm going to bump them. I'm going to, what's that term when they hit somebody from behind? The fish tail? Yeah, yeah, you go.

Oh, you're a pit maneuver. There we go. I want to wreck them. All right. You're sending them to the pit. Guy, give me a wits plus driving. He's going to roll the same thing back to you. We'll go for margin of success.

Burroughs is pulling up. He bumps it once. It's not enough. He pushes. He digs in with his. willpower five successes as I ramble. Let's go. With a margin of three, you hit the back of his car and the added weight of baby blue,

which I've ascribed to plus three, two, you have a damage of six essentially. You fish tail him, you pit maneuver perfectly. He finds himself slaloming in that car, struggling basically to keep himself on four wheels until it truly does get out from his hands, and he drives directly into a street lamp off of the side of the road by a gas station. The imposing street lamp crushes the inside of the escalate to the point that the front of that car becomes a V inclined into the driver's seat.

If Adon was still there, he would be smashed like pancake into the backseat as the passenger side no longer exists. But the unfortunate driver is tossed through the front window out of his seatbelt and across into the street where you watch Burroughs personally as he slides face first across the street and burns into a pool of blood and a mass of limbs dead in the middle.

There's no way he's getting back up from that. Flown feet from the car. Blue street just like a blue street just flies, run. past it. Burles watches it, looks back, just kind of composes himself and slowly lets go of the gas,

drops to 70, 60, 50, 40, back to normal. Beautiful. And as if it never even happened, he just starts cruising the streets again. Lovely. What I need from all of you, or at least, yes,

let's get from all of you, I need a stealth plus, I'm sorry. Dexterity plus subterfuge. This is assisted in the persona of your car here as it tries to avoid the pursuit of police. Police response was slow on this night, but it's not impossible for them to catch you.

I only had one dot, one success. I got a critical, five. Damn, we're killing it on crits today. Dude, I don't know what's happening. I'd love these dice. Does Shadowcast do anything for us? Yes, I'll say that you all can roll an additional dot if you would like. So if you want to roll one more die.

I'm at two now. Okay, so Burroughs does not change. We have one additional success. That puts us at eight total successes. You are over majority. The cops are searching and they're searching violently. It's definitely going to end up in some publication. But it doesn't seem as though they have any law come.

where you are. They're going to find the crash before they ever find someone who caused it. And you guys begin to drift off into the last dying hour before dawn. It's getting close to the margin that you guys can even survive, but you're alive, you made it out, and you think you might be in the clear. We're going to take a 10-minute break here, and then we'll come back and we'll deal a little under Vegas with the Mokker group. Very good stuff, guys. Down in the bowels of the sewer system that runs under Las Vegas connecting to the abandoned maintenance and flood tunnels

that litter under the city, there is a group of individuals who have no idea of the awful, awful vehicular homicide that just took place. instead down there among mocker's livelihood two of you missing one of you are recovering from everything that has happened in this past night but we left you at about three in the morning arriving at moccur's at least two hours before dawn was there anything the two of you wanted to accomplish here here and moccur's trappings after you've informed him with your lovely recap, um,

that you two would like to accomplish before the next night, or rather maybe you could save it for the next night. Who knows? I don't think we're going to make it to where we need to go tonight. Not going to lie. Uh, Niles is just like up against the wall, holding a wound, um, bleeding. Very common for Niles. Uh, very, very common. Um, Can we stay down here?

Yeah. Yeah, it'll be fine. And Regal is as far away from Niles as he can be, so that way the smell of the salubri blood isn't wafting in their face. Okay. Are you good? I... Comparatively speaking.

I am. okay um all things considered uh I would be better if I wasn't

bleeding but it's fine what about I realize like rebels just like probably just all

um bloodied what about you oh no I'm fucked up um not good What happened?

All I mean, there were besides the firefight underneath the silver dollar. That did most of it. Thankfully, I was able to break off and walk them through some surprises I got from Greece. That took enough of them out that I was able to finish it up. Sibyl was in rough shape. And I offered her something to keep her going, and it got a little out of control. You did what? In retrospect, it probably wasn't a great idea.

But she was in worse shape than I was, and I needed to keep her on her feet until you'd get out of there. Um, why do you do that? Do what? Why do you keep offering things you shouldn't be doing? That's a good question. Have you ever considered maybe you shouldn't? Yeah. Yeah, Mo Kerr made it clear that it's something that we're, I guess, prized for.

But I think part of me, thinking about it, part of me, wants you all to know that at least someone out there thinks that you're worth the risk. I don't think that's as comforting as you hope it to be. Probably not. We are in this together for better or worse. I mean, everything we do together like this, it just throws us closer and closer together to the point where where one of us starts, I mean, we don't end. You know, it's we're one organism now.

And we're just going to get entrenched deeper and deeper and deeper the farther down this whole we go. And we've got to be willing to sacrifice for each other because if we're not, we're not going to make it through this. I get sacrifice to an extent, but if you don't make it out the other side, what good was the sacrifice. Naively, maybe hoping it could demonstrate that we can be better than what we saw at the bottom of the silver dollar. I mean, you saw that shit, right? It did. That's what happens when we let this shit run unchecked. And what, Regal, you're going to try to put things back into

check for something more ancient than you? Doesn't your sire do some shit, too? Seenum in the box? Yeah. We're all guilty of, of, we're all guilty of some shit. I don't know how to answer that. What I have understood about a lot of things is that, like animals, kindred have nature and we are set to follow that nature. And those who try to go against their nature usually don't make it long. Is there a part of you that thinks it might be worth the risk? To what defy nature? It'll be better than what they say we have to be. I would love to believe that to be possible.

But I know firsthand that the longer it goes, the harder it gets, and you're going to make a choice at some point that's going to fall in line like the rest of them. It's a matter of time. Between you and me, I don't think I'm going to make it that far. Well, then you're lucky. That door's got to stay closed, Niles. And I don't think

me coming out the other side of keeping that door closed is a possibility. Salot said it himself. I mean, what I think was Salot that I have to quell the beast on the other side of the door and I don't know how I'm going to do that

I don't know how we're going to do that I don't I just don't see a happy ending in this but if it means keeping that door shut then that's it the only way to quell a beast is to be a beast I'm hoping there's another way Gulconda you know

I don't know what that means It is when you were alive, I mean, even now, I mean, you heard of Nirvana, right? Like the Buddhist thing. Paradise. Not so much paradise, more a state of being. Ascension, rising above one's base desires and being above that which traps us as human. Golkanda's kind of the same. It's just for us.

Niles, I can make myself less hungry just by thinking about it. Must be nice. But to me, that means it works. If you embrace Galconda? Yeah. If you try, yeah. I'm not here to proselytize or try to convert anybody. That's not what I'm here for.

But, you know, faith is one thing, right? There's no evidence. There's nothing observable. That's why it's faith. but if I can, if I've gotten to a point where I just think about it and I can literally will myself to be less hungry, is that not proof that there's something there? I think it's just proof that you have a level of discipline that rivals others. They may be right. Belief is just a vehicle for that.

I know nothing but hunger at the end of that. of the day. And no amount of thinking about it changes the fact that I wake up every night hungry. There's nothing in this universe that satisfies that. Such as our condition. None of us asked for this. I know you didn't. Yeah. Listen, um, I know we got to take like a beat. Um, Yeah. Before we move all this stuff. But how's Mokor doing this evening? Is he in a happy mood?

I don't know if I've ever seen Mokur happy. Pleased, maybe. Content enough to have a conversation. Yeah. Would you say that's accurate, Caleb? Yeah, Mokur received your information. He enjoys being abreast of what you're doing. And he saw the silver dollar as the first step in many to a tower falling.

So he seems to be in pleasant spirits. Yeah, he liked, he appreciated our work. So he's in as good a mood as any. I wish that gave me comfort. I think I need to ask him something. thing. Okay. I can hang back. Could you at least walk me over there? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Come on. There is a help them up. Then yeah, go walk over to Mokker. There's a long walk through the winding mazes of these access hallways, essentially, until you arrive at the hatch that you know,

the Mukur has made his environment. You do have to navigate Niles through the hallway into that hatch, which has been criss-crossed with this serrated barbed wire that makes up a lot of the verticality of the hallway, such that that the two of you have to wade through into that beginning pool of blood and stay low, below, and follow as Raquel finds the correct path, which Niles, you'll notice that Regal has almost memorized at this point. Yeah, lead them up. Through two, there is a chamber door that then is unsealed, essentially, and pushed back.

And as you do, new old blood begins to fill the, hallway in equal parts as the pool begins in that center. And this big basin into the center of this service hatch has been filled with that irony smell of old, old blood. And you see within the wading pools of it, there is movement, movement of rags along the surface, which then you realize is mokur laying horizontal along the surface of the blood. Then his bald head picks itself up as though he was face down into the pool. And he pivots and swirls himself around to regard the two of you.

He is eerily unspeaking for most of this, as he is almost animalistically staring at the two of you without words. Moker, Niles, wanted a moment to speak with you. I'm going to nervously shuffle to the front. I am going to

keep my gaze low. And just start off with a simple hello. Before there his discussion, you will join me in the basin. And he picks up a hand that is dripping almost in curtains of blood along his side. And he extends out a palm to invite you into the center where

the water gets deeper into this pool of blood. I look at Regal just for reassurance. It's fine. Okay. I'm going to step in there. And you begin to immerse yourself in. How far deep are you going? McCur is clearly at the back of this room, which is essentially eight feet deep,

like an eight by eight cube, essentially. I really would like to just only go hip deep unless I'm told otherwise to come closer. Okay. It seems as though he allows that as you immerse yourself in. It feels decidedly slimy, old, congealed, coagulated in places that shouldn't. And again, there are these criss-crossing lines of barbed wire and debris and sharpened metal across the entirety of this room, even past that 8x8 basin. But he regards you with almost as sort of morbid curiosity.

as he meets your eyes. He is unblinking. I've wanted to ask this the last time I came down here and saw you. But I look, and I look back at Regal, didn't know if it was a good question to ask in large company. A few months ago, in our territory, we found a man who was strung. up branded with the number 13. I crossed paths with this man prior to finding him in that stasis. And I don't know what that means. I don't know too many people who are as knowledgeable.

You seem to be the right person to ask. In this moment, death is a message to your great. Prater persona. And numbers, they hold great divinity, power in their significance. This man who you have touched was sent because you had touched. You must discern for yourself the significance of this message. It lies predominantly in the numbers. But before those answers will reveal themselves to you, I invite you to gaze into the future.

I invite you to find an answer for yourself. Are you open to the process? You mean you're going to show me? I'm going to help you see. Okay. if it helps because the only thing in the back of my mind

is that someone tried to send a message specifically for me and I want to know why and let us find out you will go to the bottom of this pool you will sit the bottom of this pool

you will wait for my appearance and then we will wait for clarity. And he begins to drop himself low enough that his bald head disappears below the surface of the blood. Even though I know I can't breathe, I think Niles is going to still take a breath, mainly because of all of this stuff that we're waiting in. But they'll take, I guess a deep breath and sink as well underneath all of this blood. Are your eyes open as you're going to the surface, or are you just swimming down to the bottom eyes closed?

Eyes closed. Okay. It is mostly texture, then, as you are wading yourself past some of the debris that makes up the inner of the slimy, congealed, lost blood. And it is a push and a pull as you are trying to weave yourself down to the debris. bottom and you realize that it's much deeper than you at first intended or at least first thought but eventually you reach the bottom unsure of just how far you've swam down but enough that you feel a solid ground concrete underneath and you can feel your legs kicking the bottom of this

concealed blood pool do you open your eyes here or are you trying to get an awareness of your surroundings past that? I think at first no, but I think if time lingers long enough, I would eventually feel the need to open up just because I don't know what my surroundings are, and I feel threatened. It takes those few moments before that survival instinct kicks in, and your eyes flood open, and you are in a world of red. you see nothing but that dark black red and it is clouded and almost imperceptible down here past the darkened shapes of these forms you find yourself swimming through and you find yourself opposite

another who is sitting cross-legged on the concrete of the ground his hands placed firmly into his legs in this very solemn, almost monkish position, as he is almost uniquely mirrored to you, parallel to your body. Is there anything you'd like to do? Am I in a position to be able to speak if we're under all the water? If not, Miles is just going to wait there. I assume you could try. I don't think there would be effective communication, just because of the gurgle of water. the difficulty of the vocal box. Then Niles is just going to sit there and maybe look around wondering what is this going to be. Has Niles ever meditated before in their lives?

I don't think so. Maybe once or twice kind of in contemplation, but not in the active practice of meditation. Okay. Can you tell me what the process is of Niles trying to get on that level, of trying to find a meditative space as they're sitting across from Mo Kerr all the way down here. I think it's an attempt to emulate how Moorkeur is kind of in his own position, but like individuals who are on the beginning of the journey of spirituality, it's always just like the constant like peek over, the looks to left and right,

trying to close your eyes and visualize. But I think after a while, it's just like an attempt to take a deep breath in and just like and try to settle the shoulders and try to empty the cup and the mind. Beautiful. Okay. Could you give me a composure? Plus, if you have anything in the auspics, if you don't, it's okay, just roll composure.

Two successes. Two successes. But only two dice that I have for that. pool. Understood. Rogel, how long do you wait at the threshold of this door? Part of me wants to go down to the bottom to sit with Niles. Okay. The other isn't sure if it would be appropriate if this is like a journey for Niles and Niles

alone. But would Rangel have insight into what Mo Kurs like, practice would be in this point, like, would it be just for the two of them? And would Ragel's presence be disruptive? Raquel, you have a history of meditating with Mokker. You know him well enough. And you've been through this process. You remember it as a deeply personal experience.

Yeah. So in that case, yeah, Raigel is just going to kind of take up a position there at the edge of the pool and almost in a posture resembling Mokers, just sit cross-legged there at the edge and just wait and I'll maybe even meditate himself. In that meditation, every so often you check in to see if they're going to surface.

You all came down here to speak with Mokur around the same time at 3 in the morning, 3.30. You are starting to feel your body fall into death before they have even come up. It is 4.45 before Niles surfaces again as you are fighting the black in your eyes as your body is leaving again. But down there in the pit of this basin, Niles, eventually you drift off. and you wake up in the back of a trailer home in a familiar bed that you share with someone close to you. And you are living in a moment you've had before, one that hurts tremendously, one that you thought you had forgotten.

standing over you is a familiar individual an individual that is haunted you for everything that has been your second life that individual stands over you and repeats to you break your arm again I would like for you to make a resistance role

at this time you're going to roll resolve plus intelligence. You need to roll six successes or better. You said resolve and intelligence? Yes, correct. I, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't succeed. I only have three dice in the pool.

Oh, but all three succeeded. Your body wants to resist. Everything that you have is telling you to. But the words are like honeysuckle, in your blood. They're sweet, even though they hurt. Describe to me, show to me what happens as Niles performs the command. I think it's, with him standing over it, it's just a look of pleading in a hope that he's not being serious.

but at this point they know that he is and no amount of begging is going to change his mind and not following through on it is far worse than the breaking of an arm

so I think Niles is going to like being in like a laid down position get up to like their knees they're going to like shakily grab their arm and with enough applied force and pressure still looking at him with pleading in the eyes they're going to break the arm there's a snap a break the bone exposes out of the arm

you look into his eyes you can see it out of the peripheral the huge break from your body is vitay splays forth over it. And the second that you catch the ivory on that bone and the glint of pleasure in his eyes, you are transported again. Instead, you can hear the rush and roar of water behind you and below you. And you are looking out at a magnificent view. You are standing at top what you can immediately perceive to be some sort of dam in the middle of the night. It is a lot. It is a a cloud-filled sky, it is cold against your body, as the wind whips against you. And you are noticing that your body is different. You are a very familiar form, your second form, one that you're more

familiar with in the context of castles. You are Casimir here again. But in modern nights, looking over what you assume to be this decade, you can hear that rush of water as it is overwhelmingly loud. Kneeled before you and nearly hanging off the edge of that dam is a man with frayed, patchy hair, in a wild poof where it does not bald, and around small glasses at the edge of his nose. he is pitiful, he is pleading, and he is begging for his life. You turn to your left and you left and you make eye contact with a woman that sends tingles down your spine, a woman that you recognize well, the taller, beautiful, as you know her, Niles, Lada, standing with a mirrored person in her hands as well. again at the edge of the dam, the two of you parallel looking over.

There's more emotion than ever between you as it floods through your body, the steely gaze that you make in her direction, and in a flash the two of you as if in sync, grip the neck, excuse me, grip the necks of your hostages, snap, break, tear them free, and lift the bodies back over the dam into the water below. Just then, behind you, there is a voice. He speaks and says, and so the rod touches the river.

And you wake back up in that pool of blood, opposite Mokker, feeling the pressure of sleep, becoming oh so close to your body. The visions have left you. And you're back on this plane. I think it's an instinctual push from the bottom of the pool to a surface, something normal than what that was. And a panic that animals do when they feel cornered. You find Raquel at the top and the threshold barely hanging on to wakefulness himself. But you are back and you are back where you left.

I think Niles is trying to get out of this pool and trying, yeah, trying to not be here. Yeah, Regel immediately reaches out of hand to help pull you up and out. I'll take it, but I immediately flinch you off after I get sturdy. Yep. Is, did McCurr surface as well? Mokur is still at the bottom of the pool, as far as you understand it. Niles would like to retreat somewhere. Regal will let them go.

I assume with this being so close to dawn, this ends the night for the two of you. Yes. Going back to the rest of our N-Gen, is there anything that anyone would like to accomplish before dawn following the vehicular homicide we perpetrated? or are we leaving this to rest to regroup for the next night? You got a safe place to call for the night. I know a couple hotels. If we can make it back to the church, we can chuck him in the basement.

All right, let's do the church then, if you got any objection, Jackie. Personally, I think we should just leave him to bake so we don't have a body. because I'm just letting you know I'm here like as I'm just this this I just want to say this I'm very much against this I know you two really want to but please understand from my point of view this thing yes I said thing is witness occurring in evidence and frankly it is an unnecessary risk so I don't necessarily want to keep him. I just, I think that we can't watch his, we can't watch his demise. We can't ensure that it's done. Fine. We can't ensure, look, if we, if we could stand out in the sun

and watch him burn, yeah, for sure, we can't. Wrap him to a fucking roof. Out in the middle of the, out in the middle of the, we've already committed a fuck ton of, fine. I, I, I, I, we don't, the, we can, we got to bring it to the group. What if we just bring it to the group? Fine, fine, that is fair. Just get us... Jackie, I'm on your side, and I think that... I also agree with Mal, though. We ran out of time, but we did good tonight. So let's just take one night, one single night,

and then we'll figure it out tomorrow. It's not good. Fine. We put him to sleep, that's better than nothing. Burroughs is going to turn and head in the direction of the church. It is a... A quick drive of Vegas is smaller than you think. And finding the church in local native Vegas is pretty easy.

Mal has to move across some of the chain link fencing of the abandoned property to get you a spot to park Baby Blue. In the back. Put it in the back. You got a cover or something? There's some like, there's a dumpster we can roll in front of it. Maybe cover it with some junk. It's better than nothing. We can pull some of the pews out too if we have time. Just make it look like trash is back there.

Now that I'm calling baby blue trash, you know what I mean. I don't know what you mean. Fucking tired. I'm gonna grab Aidan's body then. I'm gonna grab Aidan's body. Probably like fireman position, make sure that stake is. And I'm just gonna go into the church. Where do you want me to put him, Mao?

There's a, there's a basement. Like you go through the big place. It's obvious. There's a big fucking hole with stairs. Burroughs kind of almost ritualistically, you know, decommissioning a war vessel takes the, takes a little screwdriver from the glove compartment and takes off the license plate from the front and the back, if that's the way it works in Vegas.

And we'll walk inside the church with the plate. As we're walking in, Mal's going to lean over and go We're going to have to change baby blue, I think Yeah, I'm thinking maybe a new paint job will help Different rims Yeah, maybe something other than some dice Hanging on the...

What are you thinking, cherries? Cherry's good, especially if I painted candy apple red. Two fruits. There's a joke in there somewhere. Yeah, there's a fruity joke there somewhere. Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder. We fucking did it, man.

We fucking did it tonight. It was pretty fucking badass. Look, that was really, like, I know we fucked up and we did a lot of, like, weird bad shit that's definitely going to bite us in the ass. But holy fuck. There's always a little bit of fucking up, but we fucking got them. I know those Putiniskos are going to be

spinning their heads tomorrow, trying to figure out what the hell happened. I can't wait to see the look on their faces. I mean, your driving was fucking... I've never seen anything like that. That was amazing. I was in the zone, baby. Yeah.

That was... Yeah. I know we fuck up a lot, but... Hey, listen. From now on, our fuck-ups are just going to... Are going to lead to just more glory. I'm telling you, good things are coming our way. That's never been true in my life, but I really hope you're right this time.

He kind of looks around the church one more time. Cusick's in here are really nice. Yeah. Well, we'll get it up and running at some point. Mal, are you going to hear... What? Do you have a mattress or anything around here? A mattress?

I just, like, gesture out to the pews. Take your pick. Fucking savage. Oh, I have a bed. Where? You don't get to know? When are you going to come snuggle with me? No, absolutely not, but I'll be under it.

Oh, fine. I guess it's the bed. best protected from the sun anyway. Come upstairs and I'll lead them up to the priest room that I sleep in. Yeah, Burroughs follows and go ahead, finish your thought. No, I just, I throw like my art project that I've been working on. I kind of throw a blanket over it so they can't see it. Burroughs, you know, joins you guys upstairs and looks around in the room that he almost lost his,

you know, second life and just like, uh, let's, Let's make sure we move this desk against the door, just in case. Oh, yeah. You're going to, I'm going to start taking, you'll notice I'm taking a vial of feathers and blood out. I'm going to be mixing and burning stuff, and I will be drawing circle around this bed frame. It won't make much sense maybe to you because I'll be quietly putting that. And right before it completes, I'm going to be like, stand in the circle, close it, and we should be. be able to, it'll alert us if anything tries to come at us during the daytime.

Cool. Did you, you shut the basement door, right? Okay, I just want to make sure. I'll step in. If we lace long ways, we can all fit on the bed. If you want to, you can. I'm not inviting you to. I'm just saying if you want to, it's there.

And then I, like, throw myself down sideways on the bed so that I'm where the pillows usually are. I'm like legs hanging off Burles lies down and uses you as a pillow of your lap Jackie has this generally would rather sleep is it like a big bed with a gap underneath

that's you I don't think the gap's that high it's pretty like the bed frame's pretty low and Mal hasn't jacked it up or anything so it's like I don't know like Jackie's looking low and she's like it's too low so the look between Mal and Burroughs and I'm just going to go ahead and cuddle right behind burrows and I'm just be like,

I'm just, beautiful. We will leave all of us to another night of rest. Remember that if you would like to heal any damage in the middle of the night, that is absolutely up to you. Superficial goes away regardless. Excuse me. Aggravated health damage, if you'd like to restore one level,

Costs you three rouse checks. Would anyone like to make some fun rouse checks to get some aggravated damage off their backs? All right. Go for it, Vince. Let me know the kuchamonts, the results there. Yeah, two successes, one failure. Okay, so you will be one hungrier than you usually are when you wake up in the night. Anyone else?

I only took superficial damage. so I'm fine. Okay. Yeah, ditto. Well, then. I think it was only Sybil and Regel that took hell of damage. Sybil is definitely doing their own healing wherever they are post VHS. That means that all of you wake up the next night ready to move.

I know that there was, Mal, do you have something for me? I'm so sorry. I forgot how willpower goes away. Willpower at the start of assignment. session restore amount equal to composure or resolve. So if you guys would like to, you could roll for willpower restore as well. Yes. And I don't believe any of you have aggravated willpower damage.

I believe it's all just superficial. Both mine are good. Thank you. Anyone else? You good? Good. Okay. Niles and Raquel, there was an expectation to take a lot of these things to bubblegum mansion. Is that happening first, or is this grand, group meeting at the church happening first?

I would like to get us to BubbleGun Mansion, Regel and I, but I would also would like to send word that maybe Bubblegum Mansion is the most ideal place to meet for this grand meeting, and then try to get the three to come out to us somewhere outside Vegas City limits. So on the way to Bubblegum Mansion, a call is put into Burroughs, Jackie? I'll call Burroughs. Okay, Burroughs, your phone rings almost first thing waking up the next night into 8 p.m. Burroughs kind of, you know, bleary-eyed looks at the phone, sees that it's Niles's number. Talking to the latest millionaire of Las Vegas, how can I help you?

It's good to know that you made it out alive. Yeah, we made it out alive. All three of us, plus one, one Adon. Oh. you got him yeah we got them steak down in the the bottom of mal's church fun well regale and i are moving to um bubblegum mansion want to meet us there burles kind of sits up and starts shaking the others if they haven't already started coming out of their stupid uh yeah yeah yeah we can meet you there, uh, but might take a minute just to, just to, uh, get a different car, but we'll, we'll be there.

That's fine. I need a minute anyways. See you there in a bit. Yeah, yeah, see you there. Hang up. We got our marching orders, kids. I can't they pick us up. That's actually a good idea. Maybe, maybe I'll text them that. I'll text back. Hey, yeah, how you pick us up? I'll just put a K. No.

Wait, Nile's only has a fucking bike. We're not going to fit on a bike plus a dead body. It can get an SUV. I'm kind of still sleeping on burrows. So is Niles going to a rent-a-car spot? Like, how's that work? Where are we getting this car? Niles doesn't cash in their flashback from the heist at all.

I was going to cash the flashback to set up a, secondary vehicle to unload anything that we got from the silver dollar and take it there. So we do have like a white van or something like that, like an unmarked van. No seats in the back, but you don't need seat belts. I don't think so. Yeah, I'll be pulling up with a little unmarked

white van. I think this is covered in blood at the same time. About 40 minutes later, a horror film pulls up in a panel white van with Raquel in the passenger seat, and they throw open the side for all of you. Jesus, fuck. Can you shower? Yeah, I went for a swim.

Let's not talk about it. Yeah. In the back, we're going to get pulled over for that. Get your ass in the back then. Well, then fine. Somebody else drive. I don't want to drive anyways. Burroughs

All right, fine You insist Or Regal, I don't drive very well I don't know All this van needs is some free candy Written on the side of it Everyone just know what we're up It's the best we could do in a short notice

I don't have a car salesman guy Jack is gonna open the back of the door I'm gonna I would say like Aidan is still like that kind of body I'm just gonna Obviously take a quick scan No one's around him just go heave ho.

I stay with Jackie in Shadowcast. To hide. And I'm fine. To hide the body. Because I remember the fact that I have to declare my haven and then they observe me. And we weren't as careful last night. So Mal has woken up more careful. Beautiful.

Yeah, that handsome corpse that Adon has left slams into the back of the panel van. and those neck bobs around and that body sort of falls like a sack of potatoes. Beautiful human being when he was alive, beautiful human being when he was unalive, but now he is sort of reduced to this pitiful form before you. Burroughs piles into the front seat and we drive out to Bubblegum Mansion. It is a beautiful night in Las Vegas. And as we approach winter, it's starting to get bitingly cold out for all of you. The winds that pick up around this area and that desert cold sets in quick,

especially driving this out from the city. But you're not driving top down anymore, so at least there's the inside of this Pamorvan. It's not long before you arrive at Bubblegum Mansion with little to know. drama. Just fall behind me. Yeah. Yeah, it's my place. Don't get comfortable, though.

Burles will park the car and step out and be like, God, I think it's growing. It's gotten bigger since I last saw it. I did a little bit of repairing, though, so it's not as sticky. Niles, do you want to describe to everybody the state of affairs around Bubblegum Mansion? lately has anything changed? What's the vibes, the aesthetics?

The biggest change was that the last time everybody was here at Bubblegum Mansion, there was a lot of those like tendrils of the pink bubblegum. But Niles has kind of cleaned up the yard. So a lot of it has been kind of maneuvered in more ambushy like ways. So a lot of it is now kind of under the under the paths that we're walking in, tried to kind of make it at least on the surface,

not a masquerade violation as much as possible. You can definitely see some what looks to be some types of repairs done to the roof that's been kind of caved in. So as much as possible, it looks like a very old rundown mansion. And at least there is one solid path that we can kind of walk through, seems safe, almost inviting even for the, for one who does not know what kind of lurks around here.

But Niles is like specifically walking on the pathway to avoid where they know they have laid things underneath all of these stepstones and things until we get to the front door. and I will open up the front door and bring us into at least the foyer. You can see this just giant hole all the way to the top to the ceiling. And then you'll see although that bumble gun tendrils at the top of it, like a little web all the way up there. As we're walking, I think Burroughs puts a hand on Regal's shoulder and says, I heard you took out like 17 dudes down there in the, down in the tunnels while we were upstairs. Yeah.

Damn, man. I didn't know you were a soldier. No, I just got lucky, man. I just got lucky. Greece helped me out. Had some surprises waiting for him. Greece helped us all out. Glad to see everybody still in mostly one piece.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Drop the body of Aidan. Like, into, like, on the board. Well, everyone that matters. Except them. Kick him.

Good job. He doesn't matter. Snagging him. Yeah. Well, we might be in trouble the way we did it. Why do you say that? Let's get inside first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are your, these little, like, bubble gum tendrils? Is it like a spider that, like, if someone, like, plucks on them, you can feel it? Because I know for a while, Lotta could like, did you like, did you take that like spider sense, you know? You'll never know. Boring. Is this what it's like talking to me? Yes.

Yeah. Fuck. That's not going to change anything, but damn. Wasn't expected to. Burroughs finds like an old, you know, Victorian chair or, you know, some, some crappy piece of furniture that's here and dust it off, puts it down, it kind of sits down, and makes kind of like a kingly,

you know, kind of show of it, relaxing. What's on the itinerary? Jackie's going to, again, towards Adon, be like, listen, I've already, in my head, judged this thing. So, in my head, he's good as dead. So, but obviously,

there's other opinions, and I'm not going to kill him and have you all jump me. So what would you like? Are that afraid of us, Jackie? It's more of the, I don't want to create even more issues. We got to admit Jackie has a point. You know, the longer we hang on to this guy, unless we get some bright idea, the worst things are going to be.

We, we've got it. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, I only wanted to hold on him for the night just so we could make sure he was dead. I don't fucking care about keeping him. I just didn't, I wanted to make sure that he didn't slip away because someone tracked us or some other fucking reason. I just want to make sure he's gone if he's gone.

No, we need to end him. And if we end him in a way that nobody can find him, all that does is so more chaos in the Camarillo and the Ventrue, right? Because now they're looking for him. They're looking for a body. No body. He could have just moved to a different city. It's going to keep them looking in different directions.

Let me get his clothes at least. Don't do that. Well, why, what? Well, okay, before I say that, what are you planning on doing with said clothes? I want to have his clothes, and if I can find a good way to stuff him in the trunk of a Putin-esque car, I feel like that's something. Okay. That's all I'm thinking. No, that's a good idea.

What do you think I'm going to wear his clothes? Or like some weirdo? No, no. Well, for a second, maybe. What are we planning on doing with the money? Look, the two biggest pieces of evidence we have linking us to this are the money and the body. If we want to sell this, we make that money show up in Putin-esque hands. There is no way a single person in the city is going to believe that somebody willingly gave up $2 million.

It's $2 million. And I have like $300. I know. I'd be so sick to not. How hard do we want to sell this? I did that in life. Especially if things didn't go as smoothly last night as I'm being led to believe by Mal here, the more evidence we have to back us up, the better.

I'm going to pull out my phone. Did anyone check the news on anything like that? Yeah. Yes, I did. All of the news sources. I have them directly to my. Jesus Christ. You know, you know what?

If you should actually take, you should actually learn to know what's going on. I literally can't. I literally can't use technology, Jackie. As I'm like scrolling to the phone, I'm looking through like Las Vegas today. Local news, Las Vegas Daily, the bugle, all of that. LVLN. You're going straight to the Las Vegas. Sun where once upon a time you could have seen Rodgel.

Instead, you're seeing a bunch of bit reporters instead. Give me an investigation plus wits just to aggregate all of the local news in Las Vegas, see if you can cherry pick anything that might worry you. What was the first one? Wits and what? Wits plus awareness. Thank you. I'm sorry, wits plus investigation.

Excuse me. Wits investigation. That should be a solid pool for you. No, we're going to burn our will. power. There went the cricks. Okay, four. With four successes, you find that the aggregate news sources, the most popular story running

right now is that there was an increase of gang activity on the strip last night when a gang hit apparently was perpetrated, a chase between two rival gangs is what they're selling this ass. Noted in those. articles though are the appearance of a baby blue convertible matching the make and model of baby blue and the other is of a black escalate I'm turning the phone around I'll be like I think you need to actually permanently retire baby blue and it does not seem as though anyone got footage there's like some

tic talks and like social media presences from people like getting the wild shadow art piece on the back of the gang followers. There's another baby blue fucking whipping past one of the cameras. But outside of that, none of them seem to ID any of you very well. Not enough to get you killed, you don't think, with those four successes. Burroughs is kind of looking out a broken window and then says, well, I mean, so be it. I lost my Lydia.

I can lose my baby blue. just to guarantee this goes through. To get back to the first question, I'm willing to give up my share of the money if it means anything. Appreciate that. I don't need money. So same.

Fine, whatever. As long as we're all not dead. Again, fine. We still have civil bankroll on us a little bit, so. We do have the club. You still will give me a job at the club? Yeah, 100%. Okay.

And it's for the best then. So how are we getting... How are we getting rid of Adon? Let him burn. Yeah, probably the simplest thing. I'm so happy. So are you going to stake him in the front of my lawn and just leave him there for the sun?

Oh, I just ride them out if we need to in the middle of desert. You all have an understanding there's the alternative as well, beheading causes of a vampire to die at almost immediate. I think it's how I can do the deed. Anyone got something sharp? I can have no problem. I have something sharp. You got claws.

I have something better. I'm going to call spoons. Okay. Go ahead. I'm just going to whistle and look up. Following that whistle, anyone looking vertically can see up through that massive circular hole. And it becomes readily apparent why Niles has not made a mention of fixing that particular facet of the repairs.

As the spider web ligament at the very top begins to move almost like a spider in its web, you can see a massive vibration, a stepping in as pressure applies on it. and then some sort of a take-off as wings take to air and a buffet of wind slices down that hole, enough that although you feel momentarily pushed away, as through one of the openings in that web, this monstrosity pokes its head first before the rest of its pterodactal dragon-like body begins to fly itself down. It is razor-sharp, almost serrated beat down to the front, elongated in more ways than you have ever seen it. It doesn't even resemble spoons whatsoever. It is sort of a sawed bird in full extension, and its wings almost fill this entire foyer as its huge talons land sharply onto the floor.

behind Niles. Actually, could they drop, like, right on the, like, upper level from where the staircases are? Oh, absolutely. Just make just this sickening crunch on the wood of just how big it is as Niles, as it kind of, like, towers over and Niles is standing there with the back to spoons. Absolutely. Yeah, Burroughs takes a step back. Holy Lord, you've been busy, Niles. What the fuck?

That's, what the fuck? That spoons. spoons. Hi, baby boy. This is probably self-evident, but can spoons eat whatever's left? I think he's hungry, so yeah.

Dinner time, baby. I think then that's when Niles is going to call spoons down to the ground, so when Spoons jumps down, then another, like, thud and you could feel the ripple, the vibrations of Spoons. Um, before the, the bird gets to work, Burroughs kind of takes a step forward and tells Niles just to hold for one second.

And he's going to bend down next to the body of, uh, Adon and kind of pat him on the face and say, you're a right, kid. You had nothing to lose and I had everything to lose, but you underestimated the guy that had everything to lose. See you in hell, buddy. And I'll get up and walk away. Don't forget to take his clothes. Yeah, yeah, I've removed the clothes. Stripping his clothes, slapping him along the face,

meeting his eyes, burrows. It strikes you something you hadn't realized in that elevator, something you hadn't realized, really until now. This Adon must have been maybe 20, 21 when he was termed, a baby virtually. Barely out of high school. That perfect. delicate little face as you slap it.

But you take those clothes away and you step free from the target zone. Miles is going to look at Spoons and tell him head first. You can have the rest and just let Spoons devourate on. Spoons rears back and cants its head for a moment, moment as it regards the commands and buffets back its wings as It postures in this predatory stance. It comes back and it roars out this awful screech as it opens its jaw wide. And you can see these serrated, huge, monstrous teeth that are knife sharp, each one of them,

and all too many of them for a bird's mouth. And in one feral chop, you can see as this V section of Adon's check. is removed and you can see into the chest cavity almost opened like a can of beans down the center there and the head is removed immediately and before anything can be done about it. Adon follows the path of final death. The steak is removed. He is killed for the last time and his body begins to rapidly decompose and becomes that of a corpse that is maybe a year or too old sitting right down there in the remains. Spoons looks to Niles for the queue on whether they can have more or not.

But that desiccated corpse that now begins to smell in this room is reaping of something that has been in the ground for maybe a few years. I just give Spoons the non-rength. the okay to finish what he started. There is this lurching, writhing movement as spoons picks him up perfectly, rising him vertically into the air and then spoons him back into his gullet one inch by inch by inch until Adon slithers down fully into its throat. And you can see the bulge along this bone, encrusted, long neck of spoons until the body is gone completely.

Burroughs has watched the head be removed. And then when that happens, he turns, leaves the mansion, like, walks out into the courtyard area. And, like, he's looking up in the sky and almost as if he's been holding his breath this whole time just lets out, like, an incredible sigh of relief. probably kind of buckles over his hands on his knees and then when he sits back up again he's cool as a cucumber Niles will just pet spoons on the on the bill after he eats him there's a strange coup as that bird still the same crow you knew so many days ago he has the same bizarre mannerisms for anyone who has known Niles that long

still takes love the same way and kicks his head into each pet. What is this feral monster is just a bird again? This is, and this is spoons. This is your spoons. Yep. To whom did you diabolize this, emisi? Hmm. I, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Good to know you're always on your game.

Jackie. It's okay. It's what I unfortunately do, but I'm not one too. I'm not passing judgment on you today so don't even worry. Oh good. Not that I wanted your judgment. Hey don't worry you're not. Let's just bring it down a couple levels kids. I'm not upset. It's not me. It's just interesting to know. You come near me, I will make sure that every drop of blood fucking crows of your mouth. You are understand. I just make a bite, like that little, like, air chomp. And the second that that air chomp goes off, spoons regards very slowly, devastatingly

slowly in the direction of Jackie and just cance his head. We are in this too deep together to start threatening each other. I'm not. I just, why, I just said this. I know a boundary when I see it. I have no interest in eating you or anybody. Good. Good.

Good. I hear somebody say something about food and I'm walking back in. Honestly, we could definitely, I'm getting a little peckish. As I look at spoons to rent, unintentionally. You good, Burroughs? I'm good. How can I not be good? So far everything's coming to going according to a quarter and plan.

I feel great, man. We should all feel good. We accomplish something. Mal, you feel good? Mal, you feel good? Sure, yeah. I feel weird that we made this decision without Sybil. I don't know where she went.

She would let us know if she wanted us to know where she's at. She'll show her. Yeah. Niles, go ahead and make me an intelligence plus awareness. Uh-oh. In fact, I remember Sybil telling me she wanted A-Dodon dead. Okay, great. Well, then, cool.

just wait for her to come back. Two successes. A big part of your plan, or at least your half of the plan, was ensuring that when you guys got away, everything you took with you became yours. You're doing inventory, and everything's here but the VHS. Sible did take something, I guess. What?

VHS is missing. VHS. Do we really need a VHS? What, aren't they using, like, projecting things right into people's eyes these days. I mean, you don't know VHS. Maybe it's what's on the VHS that matters, not the thing itself. I mean, do we need to be careful about that and make sure that it gets planned to do?

Because if it's gone from the vaults. Sybil took it. She probably went to the Nosphorat, too. Well, I trust Sybil. No, no, no. I'm not worried about it. I'm no, no. So what do you think, Jackie?

What do you think about the next step? No, honestly, yeah, let's just get this done and over with and resume a normal routine. Oh, didn't you know, this is normal routine. Oh, God help me. Yeah. Aren't you have you joined us? I am half in. I am definitely a guest spot in your coterie.

And I am definitely an ally questioning that choice. You're also a conspirator in this coterie now. Yeah, I could feel that as I look directly at spoons. I'm looking at you in spoons and I'm like, oh, I believe I'm now completely in this. Oh yeah. Yeah, there's one way out, but not real. Hey.

Well, look, you know, Burles is kind of spinning the keys of baby blue on his hand. I know what I need to take care of tonight. Who wants to volunteer to get that money somewhere needs to be? I can go places quiet. How does that work with objects? Like, you can... I don't know, actually. Huh.

Can I, like, do an experiment with my abilities? Sure. Caleb. I want to try and I'll take, man, what do we even have? I'll just take one of the bags of like the junk that we took. And I'll kind of drop. I start to like settle and like sort of try to flat Stanley myself down into a shadow. And then as I do, a surge of hunger kind of makes itself known.

And I take stock. I may not be in a position to safely do this right this minute. What's your hunger at? And it's two rouse checks. I, you know what? I think, um... So go ahead and make me two rouse checks. Okay.

All right. I should say I can run very, very fast to the point where I can't be picked up so I can't. Is there anything you can't do? You keep saying all these things you can do. I can run. Look, my job is to literally sneak up on people, judge, and execute them.

All right? What do you think my job is? I have one success and one failure. Okay, so you're one hungrier, but you do become that little lick of shadow. And I'm holding on to that. the bag in the hopes that it'll... Become small like you? Yeah.

Mal is holding it. Mal becomes perfect black shadow in front of you. And just like they did outside of the silver dollar casino, they shrink into the floor and this duffel bag sits over a pool of shadow as this very tiny shadow Mal is trying desperately to hold onto the bag. Jack is going to really laugh for the first time. It was worth a shot. Look, I tell me if this is a terrible idea.

I'm sure nobody will hesitate. I never had a chance to meet the Hakata to present myself to them. And Bo Kerr is interested in blood magic, blood sorcery. I could just go and seek. audience. I'm a novelty. It'll distract them enough for a salubri showing up on their fucking doorstep. You shouldn't definitely probably not go alone, probably with some backup I think you should come with. Oh, I'm definitely gonna go there, yes. But that will hopefully cause enough of a distraction or a ruckus for Mal to maybe get in, drop the money off by

champagne's bronze bowl. I like that idea. I think there's something working there. All team play. As I come out of the shadow, I'm really fucking hungry, though, so I need to eat before we do any of that. That's what I'm saying. We got time on our hands at this point. I mean, we need to do that, but if we need a night or two, that's no big deal. Honestly, maybe that would be the best just to give it a day to breathing room,

recuperates. Talk to Sybil about that tape. Well, the tape is irrelevant at this point. I mean, here's the thing. Aidan was the favored son of the Ventrue Primark, right? Primogen. They're not going to waste any time hunting. All right. You know what I mean? Like, they're immediately going to be out there looking for anybody that they think is responsible. That's fair. Asking questions.

The sooner we offload this money, the probably easier we all can breathe. Let's get some dinner first and then handle this. Yes. Oh, here's an idea. Dumb idea. It's what we're best at. I mean, maybe we don't even have to drop off the money. I mean, physically would be good, but what if we just identified if Champagne's got

offshore accounts or any accounts? accounts in general and we make a sizable deposit, dominate a bank clerk. That sounds even smarter. I love that. That's great to actually. I know we kept this three out freak around for a reason. He not. He doesn't show up on camera, which means Mal.

Hi. Yep. It's got to be me and what, boroughs? I think that'd probably be for the best. All right, one thing at a time. Let me, let me do a funeral pyre for Baby Blue and then we'll go do that. All right. Burles is going to, yeah, start walking over to the car, the white van.

Okay. Is the intention of drive back to Baby Blue? Yeah. Is anyone coming with? Can I come with you? Yeah. I mean, I think we're all going back to the city at least. Yeah?

We drop the kids off. Right. I'm going to particularly, like, Ragel would be like, we'll make sure we got everything covered so you're safe and got it territory. That's if we go that route. Yeah, that's true. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, I'm, I've been getting a little too hungry and I'm having a hard time concentrating.

That's okay. We'll see if we'll mull it over. Niles, we're good to leave the money here for the time being until we decide what to do with it. It'll be watched over. Okay. I don't want to get a call with it. Okay. All right.

I'm going to say goodbye to Spoons. Watch him ascend back up to his little nest. Spoons does very lovingly run his beak along your face. And it's very clear that there's this abject feeling of loneliness that he feels wonderful to see you again. He's almost overexcited. I almost I'll be back. As you're leaving to join. the panel band. You do feel that fabulous sight as you're seeing through spoons for a moment as he

watches you leave, a weird out-of-body experience as you can see yourself opening and moving through the door. And there is this supreme, unending sadness at the thought of this. And as the door closes, he messles himself up into a little ball in that nest of ligament and all of you pile into the car. Driving back to Baby Blue, it's an easy drive into Las Vegas. On the way over, Jackie, you do receive an email that you've been waiting on. An email from Uzoma. The Usama expresses his pride in you, Jackie, for pursuing the leads you're providing and for engaging in excellent information into what you're investigating. He encourages you to continue writing as you learn more and to keep him as informed as possible.

He also informs you that he was indeed able to look into the location of a Shreknet. 2.0 DevKit. And he believes that he might have sourced one through the coercion of one of his Nospheratu contacts in the States. He makes it explicitly clear to you that he nearly had to kill for this information. There is a long description of the intense amounts of interrogation employed to get this information. Yeah. He describes a little bit of.

location in Las Vegas called the Fontaine Blue. It is an abandoned hotel that has seen much financial ruin, shifting ownership, and a series of mysterious backers and owners over the last 40 years. It never came out of development hell, and the building was never completed. But he believes that there may be a private data sanctuary somewhere in the hotel used by previous Nosferatu contacts within Las Vegas that would house a possible dev kit. He expresses supreme concern over your safety in pursuing it and warns you that the Dev Kit is highly valuable. I will not stay there forever.

Okay. You're going to you probably everybody will notice like Jackie actually kind of smiling in a way that's like very almost

in a kiddie way like I pleased somebody. You're going to notice like almost like you've never really seen this actually like yes um they're gonna compose and uh they're they will update briefly on new information really quick but because we're i'm only type out on a phone i can't use my computer give an update um i have an update on the dev kit uh and i will reiterate a lot of the information back to everybody else about the dev kit

with the Nosferatu. Now, I'm, if anyone is interested, if you want to, I definitely would like to talk to Bugsy and see if I could get a little leeway or anything like that. But has anyone know this area, does Blue Fontaine Hotel or has anyone been by it? I think I've driven by the Blue Fontaine once or twice, yeah. Okay. If you're a Las Vegas native.

You can roll for me a, I'll call this wits plus academics or wits plus politics, widths plus streetwise, whatever way you would like to perceive this is your knowledge towards that. So apply wits plus whatever knowledgeable category that might make sense for you. five successes. Yeah, zero for me. You know this pretty well, Regel. You actually investigated this back in your living days, at least primarily.

A friend of yours was working predominantly on the case you were assisting. It didn't make a lot of sense when the Fontaine Blue was put in. It didn't make a lot of sense when it went through so many changes as it did. and every year it was announced that it would be opening, it was pushed back another year. And it didn't make sense that in 10 years, five different people became sole shareholders of the property. It has been routinely used as a point of money laundering of illicit activity. And you think it has been purposely made abandoned for a very long, long time. It strikes a bearing resemblance to the echelon, the casino in construction by Lucius, the Ventru Primogen.

But in regards to comparisons, the echelon one day truly will be done. The Fontaine Blue, you don't truly believe, was ever designed to be completed. It's gone through development hell for decades. I'll relate that all. I'm going to, uh, Raquel, would you like to, could you help, uh, would you like to help can, ask, ask, ask, will you help me, uh, investigate this property a little bit since you know this place a little bit better than I do?

Yeah, sure. Thank you. We got to catch up on things too, so. We just need to decide if we want to do this under Bugsie's nose or try to get him on board. All I know is is that if this is as important to... It's not for right now. We have other things, but I just wanted to ask if we could actually... Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. And with that, driving back into Vegas, you arrive at the church. Baby Blue is parked in the back. Panel van is parked out front. What's the plan here at game? Burroughs takes a step out and then turns to everyone and says you know what I you know what I'm thinking I could burn baby blue but I could also just drop it off in Pudaneska territory

with the keys in it and I can file a police report say it was stolen that's police report is like legal it works in works in fucking court and stuff I'll go with you so that no one can get a video of it being dropped off later All right. Niles, you coming with me still? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I would like to. All right, well, let's give the old bitch one last ride. Are we all piling into Baby Blue, or is it Burroughs Mal Niles?

I actually really need to start eating, or I'm going to start pulling some stigmatist. So Jackie's going to be like, I will, I need to get some something. something to eat and I have some back at the club so if anything I will be there and Raquel if it's okay with you all I'm going to go down to

Little Vegas so I'm going to have a talk with not about the Fontaine that's a problem for another time but I want to see if they can get us some information on Putin-esque bank accounts if you just give me a second I can come with you I just really like need to now

do your thing. So as Raquel gets out of the car, I'm going to just kind of grab him by the arm and pull him off to the side. You're going to, you're going to come back, right? Oh, yeah. Tonight? Yes. We got some catching up to do, too. Okay.

I just, you disappear sometimes and you don't fucking tell us anything, so got to keep an eye on you or whatever. I'm sorry We'll talk later While Mal's doing that I'm also going to look at Burroughs as we get to the car When we lose the shadow I need to talk to you about something Ooh some secret between just you and I

Yeah All right I like secrets, yeah sure All right Matt let's hurry this shit up Yeah yeah okay whatever I do I gotta eat question. Regal? Yeah.

So on the ride back, like, because obviously this, this came up, it's now at the front of Regall's mind, the number 13 associated with this body. Right. Can I make some kind of a cult check or like, because I know numbers have significance in Judaism. I know there's, you know, could I see if it rings any bells on either the occult or the religious side? Sure.

Give me occult plus intelligence. I can ask. absolutely do that. Stand by. That's three successes. Three successes. You were a good church-going boy when you were alive, and you're a good church-going boy when you're dead.

It does come back to you, both in Judaism and in Christianity, basically in the Christ myth. 13 is largely associated in significance to the Bible, the Christian Bible, to Judas Ascariot. 13, the 13th apostle was believed to be Judas, the betrayer. And the number of 13 is usually attributed to portents of danger and portents of betrayal. With this now at the forefront of my mind, after like I see Niles and Burroughs maybe create some distance indicating the conversation is over, I'm going to go to Niles and say, do you have just like two seconds?

Yeah, if Burroughs doesn't peel off in Baby Blue. Burroughs is probably running the engine already. Yeah, I'm like doing like old church pews off of it because we had like covered it in trash and stuff. Yeah. Well, I'll look at Niles. I'm like, how much do you want to discuss the body in front of everybody? I'd rather. No first before I share with the class.

That's fine. I was given it some thought. So 13, right? Like, I wasn't there, but you said 13 was on the body. It was? It's got a lot of meaning and a lot of religions. Judas Ascariot, right? The one who betrayed Christ, 13th apostle.

betrayal. So someone's sending a warning of betrayal? Either that or marking him as a betrayer. It doesn't answer why they would leave them for us to find in our own territory. And why would an Uber driver just taking me somewhere be considered a betrayer when I said very little to them? So two things. Was it like a gift? You know, I don't really know how Kendrick give gifts, to be honest.

So if it was a gift, cool. He may have sold you out to the second Inquisition. Interesting. But we haven't seen the Sequent Inquisition here. We have in the tunnels underneath the transport. yard. But why would the second Inquisition care about whether or not I'm

roaming around Vegas? You might have just been collateral damage. They're just looking in a kindred operations period. This guy sold you out. And that's even if we're going with the gift angle. I mean, again, if he's just an Uber driver, what's, yeah.

So yeah, we got two angles. You're right? It was a gift to you. This guy betrayed you. This is what we do to traders. Here you go. we're looking out for you, or on the other side, it's, hey, we know you're betraying us. This is your warning to stop. While I have a laundry list of people who are not very particular of me, I don't know anybody so flourishy. I don't know.

It seems like that's the only way we do things here in Vegas. You saw I was underneath that fucking casino. Yeah. This imagery keeps coming up, Niles. I mean, 666, crucifixions, flayed bodies, Rome, Cain and Abel, Keeper. So something biblical at work, I guess. They love their imagery.

Well, either way, I don't think I'll be taking Ubers anytime soon, so. Just something to think about. I'll add it to the list. If you need anything else, you'll let me know, right? Of course. We're in it together, right? Waiting in the blood. I feel like you're mad at me when you say that.

Yeah, I mean... I'm not mad. I just... It's fine. It's whatever. It's unsettling as fuck. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

It's fucked up. I thought I had my own problems, but yeah. That's a whole different problem. You're a... All right. Do-de-l-l-l-l-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, I shouldn't. And I shouldn't keep

waiting. We'll talk more about it. Yeah. I'll stick with Jackie. Yes. Have fun with that. We'll give a look over at Jackie and then walk towards the car.

I'm going to hug Mel when I walk past them. Oh. Gross. What is this? But you feel their arms. Like really tight center on you for a second. Yeah. Yeah.

Disgusting. I know. luck, bye. Be safe. Don't let, you know, ladies watch magic. And that is the only reason I haven't tried to fight her physically. That's good. We need to start trusting each other, get the message around. I trust you. Thank you. I trust Niles. I trust Burroughs. I trust Sibble. We'll work on it. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I'll see you later. Yeah. Yeah. As Mal finishes saying that she trusts Burroughs and they're a about to walk up to the car.

Burroughs rolls forward a little bit, doing that thing where they've got to, like, chase after the car for a minute. Come on, kid. I'm helping you here. Why are you fucking with me? I'm in a good mood, baby. Come on. All right, all right.

I'll clamber in the front seat. One team packs into the last time we'll ever get into baby blue. And the other piles into the panel van to get a bite to eat and to see a man about a bank account. We're going to take a quick break, then we'll be back to handle those two events before we close out for the evening. We'll see you guys in about 10 minutes. Burroughs, you're driving baby blue, perhaps for the last time. Where is it that you're taking Niles and Mal on this little drive of yours? I think Burroughs is going to head in the direction of where he believes

just out of town really, just out into the desert. Not so far that it's out of the jurisdiction of the Las Vegas police but he's looking for kind of like those on ramps and off ramps, just kind of like these mini bridges that often

kind of pass through cities or towns. And as he's driving, he's just kind of like, you know, looking at every aspect of it kind of soaking the car in and he'll point out to to Eli. You know, you got to push in the,

the cigarette lighter twice to get it to actually ignite. And he'll look back at Mal and be like, you know, I think I got a playboy in the back of the chair there in the, in the compartment there. I rode around and pull it out of the seat pocket. This is from like two years ago. Yeah, well, I got to keep up. this long.

Because they got great articles in there. Oh, they do, do they? And I start thumbing through. Please, please remind me what the good articles in here are. As it like, yeah, as it pulled out. A lot of good years in this car. This thing pretty much got me through being stuck with double H for all those years. So an end of an era.

End of an era. Yeah. Yeah, I seem to run into that all the time. Any last words you guys want for this car? Anything, any good memories you have of it? I mean, I remember the ride out to Colorado. That was the first time we ever rode into Baby Blue. We picked up Mal.

Yeah. And things were a little simpler. Remember Allison getting her fucking hand blown off in here. Oh, shit, yeah. I think I'm still finding pieces of them. That's a good one. Maybe it's for the best. Yeah, it's definitely for the best, especially if it means us getting out ahead.

Where'd you get it anyway? Some local guy that, you know, had a bunch of them and gave me a good price because I gave him a big smile and a wink. I can tell you for sure, Casey, my girl's going to be real pissed off that I don't have it anymore, but I'll just get something new. new new or new to you new to me yeah the new cars look like shit they all look like eggs and stuff I'm not even

blue again different color oh I'm thinking I go back to what I like to do which is have maybe black red maybe gold subtle not ostentatious at all exactly

totally your style burrows you know pulls up onto one of these ramps, and before the big cement block caves come, he just looks to everyone and says, all right, jump out. I'm going to turn real hard on the wheel,

leap out the driver's side, and just the car is aiming for the cliff to go off the side. This fucking asshole. Yeah, jump out of the car. Could everyone make dexterity plus athletics, as you're told, at a moment's notice to vacate the vehicle? It's only fair. I really got to take a dot in athletics at this point.

Oh, well, three successes, though. Two successes. Messing critical. Okay, yeah. Mal, there is this weird compulsion that sets over you as you tuck your shoulder and roll as the three of you get out of the way of this car that then continues to speed off towards those barriers

is that without the lack of wheel starts severe to the right. But as you're sitting in the asphalt of this turn on, this ramp up, right? You're filled with this sense of despair, almost, this emptiness that has come on through you in the past, this reminder that everything returns to nothing, even baby blue. I like to think just because of the incline and really not going that fast, it very unceremoniously just kind of like clunks over the side and then like just comes to a very abrupt stop. And it's obviously, you know, somebody's going to notice it and someone's going to call the cops and Burroughs, you know, kind of signals them to let's get the hell out of here.

Yeah, it rolls through sort of rectangular nose dives into the dirt there off the side. and it'll be left for the others. Are you guys walking back or are we calling an Uber? I wouldn't like to not catch an Uber. All right. You got weird luck with those Ubers. It's a second Inquisition network. You just like to talk to me a lot and I hate nothing more.

Yeah, the one that we took the silver dollar had a lot to say. Real fucking curious. Yeah, I have I have a weird suspicion about it Well, we can look into those suspicions But I got to stop at the police station And file a report All right, I'm going to peel off so I can find some fucking food

I'm gonna go I guess if you guys want to find me I'll be at Caleb Canaan Okay, I'll find you there Okay Take care of yourself Yeah, yeah You too

Didn't you want To go with I probably shouldn't say Well I was going to say Did you want to go burrows So he doesn't show up any police station cameras No I think him showing At the police station cameras was fine

It was when we were going to the When we were going to the car Yeah Yeah Ignore me And if we were leaving the car Like in in Pluton-esque territory Ignore me

I'm an idiot No no no you're fine So Niles and burrows are walking To a police station Mal is peeling off To go get a bite at Club cana Not mal you can say that you've satisfied blood down to one hunger because obviously it's very easy for you to feed at club canaan you can imagine for yourself what that's like for the two of you you're walking to the Las Vegas police department yeah okay it takes a while from where you are you're sort of on the edge of town but eventually without any assistance from ubers it takes considerable longer, but you arrive at the foot of a police station.

It feels wrong to be here, given the nature of the both of you, not just being dead, but also being assholes. The cops are not exactly your friends. And you can see many of them driving away in their cruisers. Some of them are on lunch outside. It feels like you're an enemy territory. But before we get to the police station on the walk there. I think there's a little bit of silence, but I think Niles is finally going to speak up and say,

you trust me right. Now when you say it like that. Sorry. I'm like buried in my phone trying to find the address for the police station. I just, uh, do you trust me enough to say something to you? even though it might be hypocritical for the thing I ask from you after. You know, back in the day, I used to get real pissed when people close to me would give me their honest opinion. But I realize that's a mistake.

So hit me with it. What you got to say? You know what? I'm going to cut you off. And I'm going to say, I'm sorry for licking the blade of your blood, if that's what you're upset about. Thank God. You're hyper-aware at the very least, bros. Hey, I'm becoming more empathetic.

I feel like empathetic is the wrong word here, but let's move on. Yes, I've noticed since the lemia, a curiosity. And I just as an individual to an individual would like you to stop doing that. What's a harm in it? what's the harm in it? Yeah, I get a hell of a rush. I mean, everybody seems to freak out every time I do it. I mean, look, let me give you some context here now.

As I've been in a hole with a crazy person for the majority of my kindred life, so I don't have a big perspective on this kind of stuff. Somebody tells me that you ate somebody, and every time I lick some blood, I feel great. So I don't know what's bad about it. It's just something you don't want to just have a part of your life. all the time. I mean, yeah, sure, you get the little rush, but you've seen how hard it is for me to survive. There's a tipping point in which you can't come back from and just a little spark of curiosity.

You know, for that, it's not worth it. Burroughs is like quiet You know it's just our footsteps as we walk And he realizes something And he turns to you and says You know what Before my second life I always prided myself

And not doing drugs And not getting that addictive personality But uh I see now how it happens Because sometimes you find a drug that is good enough To make you addicted to it And uh Well you're

That paté is it in my continuing attempt to broaden my horizons, I hear what you're saying. I mean, look, I look at your life and I do see that you got some troubles. And so I don't want that. And if you're telling me I shouldn't do it, well, then I won't. Okay. Yeah, I just don't want you to be like me. and you have the choice to

not and I would rather you choose not now that I understand how dangerous it is I hear you loud and clear the follow up to it is I need your help with something and it does require me to eat from you like Burrough stops in his tracks what

girl are crazy what are you talking about that's why I said not to you forgot the second part. Oh, yeah. Remember empathy. We do not judge, we listen. Yes, go ahead. Continue.

I, from my understanding of it, I have inclination to be able to develop things from the people I eat. You say you're like a sponge. Something like.

that I guess. My Sire said that that is a way that I can be stronger than I am. And I've noticed after the many months that you and I have been whatever this is, you have a particular skill I'm interested in. Is it my roguish good looks? Unfortunately not. You have a way of controlling people. with my roguish good looks yeah yeah but beyond that the the kindred application of it to dominate others i want that well what does this entail you you got to just bite me you just want some of my vatic i need you to show me how you do it and then i need to have some of your blood from the tap. And I know the last time I fed on you was not a good thing. And there's a lot of consequences for me eating from you again. But I think it's necessary for me to have a little bit

of control for the things I need to do. All right. Well, what does this exactly mean for me? I mean, I'm coming out of this unscathed. Do I get something in return? I mean, I can do a favor for you. I don't know. That comes down to you. I mean, you really don't necessarily benefit from it, not to a greater extent, but. Now, did I ever tell you I had a child once, kid, little girl?

No. I never got to, I never spent much time around her before she became much of a person, but she was a good kid. I tried to be a good daddy, but, uh, well, I would be dishonest if I wasn't, uh, looking you in the eyes and not admitting that you kind of remind me of her. I don't know why. Maybe it's your dark hair or I don't know. Maybe I just, I'm just projecting, but the point is, I do this for you. Yeah, sure. You can owe me something.

I just hope that... I just hope that this means more than just a transactional relationship moving forward. It'd be nice to know what you're getting up to, what you're thinking about, what you care about. I don't know. I want to know you more as a person, not just a member of my coterie. You play your cards close to your vest. I have to. It's...

I was told not to trust. anybody because people will hurt you and that's really the only reason why um if i if i tasted your vat i wouldn't be able to learn anything from you would i i don't i don't know i don't really know how it works i just i just know the results on on my end we've we've we've i think we've reached like the police station by now and I look at the sign. I'm like I got an idea. Follow me inside and I'll lead

Niles in. Try to find somebody at the front desk. There's a woman behind the front desk in full uniform. She has a cup of coffee in one hand, Manila folder in the other and she's also

over the folder typing on the keyboard in front of her, but she does look up as you approach. Hello, officer. I'd like to report a stolen vehicle. Absolutely. We're just going to have to get some paperwork from you. We'll have to process. Let me get you a form. Do you want to speak to an officer about this? How recently was the... Pretty recently, yes. I'd love to speak to somebody in particular. And as they're looking down, whatever, I'll turn on blush of life, become a lot more human-looking.

Got it. She puts this form in front of you where you mark down the make and model and another scene. series of details about the car itself, the incident of the crime, et cetera, et cetera. I don't touch the paper, but I compel her for me to fill it out. And say, hey, honey, can you do me a favor and just take down the details? I'll look at Niles, make sure they're paying attention as I do this. I will be watching. There is this shuddering white cycle of her pupils as they cite. cycle back and then violently shake almost in seizure across.

And then she comes back to reality, to that regular response. She says, why don't you two go take a seat? It's been a busy day. Let me fill this out for you quick. And then we'll get you in with an officer. Sounds good. And she points towards an open area and sort of bench waiting area. And she says, I'm going to make sure it goes real quick for you.

I'll turn to Niles, kind of ignoring the officer after that and say you need more of an example than that? No, I think I got it. All right, I can compel the detective we're going to speak to. I mean, if you want to show me another example, I'll never say no, but if you feel it's not appropriate. 15 minutes later, she comes back with the clipboard. She's noticeably more nervous now. In fact... That was fast for you?

15 minutes? Sorry. There was a different conversation we had to have. If you could just follow me, please. Yeah, I'm just busting your chops. Come on, girl, let's go. She seems to be a little more serious this time around. And two new officers have moved to the front doors,

the police station. And it seems as though an escorting officer is coming with you. The detective is in a separate room, and they'd like to speak to you about this incident immediately. And she walks you through and the two of you into a separate room. It is akin to an interrogation room, single steel desk in the center, two chairs on either side. A detective on one side, he pulls out another for Niles from the corner. He is flipping over the clipboard.

And that escorted officer and the woman that came from the desk, essentially they open the door, escort the two of you in until the two of you have entered the room, she does not leave. The escorted officer comes in, stands by the door and the detective on the other side. I'll look to Niles. Burroughs is slow, but he's not dense, and he's starting to realize there's something fishy going on.

Yeah, I'm looking at all available exits. The detective across the way is looking directly at you, Burroughs, and you can tell he is putting on a front. He is cool and collected, and he gives you a big flashy smile, but you can tell under the veneer of it that these two men are aware of what they've caught. It's a fisherman giving away that they're trying not to pull too hard on the rod. The detective across the way says, so you're the big driver we've been looking for. baby blue powder convertible. You don't forget a car like that,

especially when it goes 70-75 down the road. You claim this... You must be a mind reader. I was coming to report that vehicle being stolen. So you're in here to tell us that you're the owner of this car. And last night, it was stolen from you, and then ended up on the news in the same night. Yeah, exactly that.

I was off taking care of some business. and next thing I know the vehicle's gone around, I don't know, 6 p.m. that night. Okay. Niles is here to corroborate with me, right, Niles? Yeah, we were together, and when Burroughs went to leave, the car was gone. So he looks to that escorted officer and then back down to the two of you. So you didn't get any look at anyone who stole the car? you weren't there when it was taken oh wait a minute wait a minute if i know correctly i'm not

supposed to be interrogated here i hadn't done nothing wrong but what you guys got us in for i'm just looking for the information on your stolen car sir i want to make sure i can get it back for you well i guess i'm trying to understand why i'm suddenly being told i'm guilty about something what happened with baby blue there's another crime perpetrated last night matching the vehicle and make and model of your car and if you have you had had nothing to do with it, then maybe the person who stole your car did. That's a conversation. It makes perfect sense. Somebody stole the car as a getaway. That's wild. Right. So what time last night did your car go missing? You know, me and Niles, we were up in the club. We just had this

big opening, you know, there was a little drinking going on. I'll be honest with the officer. So, you know, the hours kind of blend into one, but I don't know, I left the club midnight, one in the morning and the car was gone. Just taken out of the parking lot? Must have. I mean, I didn't have my keys on me, so maybe somebody from in the club took him. I don't know. Go ahead and make a charisma plus subterfuge role for me. I'm going to...

Burroughs feels that little bit of sweat starting to form in his armpits and he kind of chills out burning a willpower, two successes. There is a shift in the room. The detective who was trying to put on the front, sitting back in his chair, writes himself and sits forward. Do you have a lawyer, Mr. Burroughs? Sure, I got a lawyer, yeah, man.

You might want to give him a call. Am I being detained, or can I go? You're being detained. Burroughs, there's... Burroughs looks a minute. in the eye and says, are you sure about that? And I'm going to cast cloud memory on him. Beautiful. Is there a resistance to cloud memory? How does that work as a contested role? Find out right now for you. I don't think there's a contested on a mortal.

Okay. Yeah, I'm almost positive. It just happens with. Let me double check. This went from zero to a hundred real fucking quick. Zero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. He is an unprepared mortal, and so it just happens. So essentially you are removing the memory of having met you in this regard, right? Are you compelling at all or changing the discussion that's been had here? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I think I'm just kind of very quickly dismissing what he's saying is like, listen, you're making a big mistake.

You need to let me go and I'm allowed. you have no evidence against me and I think if you want to find me you know where to look okay I'll plead the fifth got it give me a manipulation plus your points and dominate Niles again you're seeing that power emanate from Burroughs

and the detective seems again receptive to that power five messy critical oh my God yeah your compulsion comes and you think you're a fucking god at this point, Burroughs. Take that however you like for the rest of the scene. The detective falls a little bit into his head, his eyes roll back.

The escort police officer behind all of you peer in a second. But by the time the detective pops his head back up, it's calm. And the detective looks between the two of you and back up to the escort. He says, I think we're done. here. Damn right. We've done here. Maybe we all got a little hasty here.

I'm going to look into your lost car. Is there a number I can reach you at? Is this okay? And he taps on the clipboard where you've listed the phone number. Yeah. Yeah, you can reach me there. Perfect. I think it's best if we just call it square until I have more information.

Appreciate you all that you do. You guys are the real heroes. Get up and start walking out the room. Thank you. I'll put my hand over Niles's shoulder, like supremely confidently and walk out the police station. The escort opens the door for you, walks you back to the center room, and the door out to the world is yours. As we're taking the steps down outside and making a turn, kind of whispering to Niles, Is that enough or what?

I see the vision. Damn right, you do. Ain't nobody fucking with us in this town. And he's almost like lost in his own thought at that comment. So where do we do this? I guess anywhere. Almost like, you know, almost romantically, like I'll take Niles and pull them into like an alleyway, you know, kind of holding their shoulders, just bringing them close and then I'll just open up my my wrist to them.

I look at it for a moment. There's hesitation always, but Niles is going to take a drink, however much it is to be able to build, dominate for, to satisfy the requirements to earn dominate. With this knowledge of new domination, it enters into your body

through the vitae taken from Burroughs. Burroughs, his blood tastes almost like he feels smoky and powerful, fiery, overbearing, but it's quick onto your tongue and it's satisfying and even more it's intoxicating Niles. And you too, Burroughs,

you feel something different in this. You've offered your wrist to many before. Usually people you plan on feeding on later. This is euphoric in a way

that feels controlling. You feel the same domination you did over the detective before. In fact, that power, that I'm the shit energy that's pumping through you right now,

there's this instinct in your mind immediately as Niles finishes the last lap of blood that you should tell Niles what to do too. Maybe you should give, go for. Burroughs, you know, lets them finish and then as they're kind of pulling back, he grabs them, you know, kind of by the face, holding them like a, like you should a romantic partner or something like that. And he just gets so close, you know, within the the air of his breath, you know, touching their lips and says, baby, I hope you, I don't regret doing this. But, uh, but it's done.

Yeah, I won't let you down. I'll let him go, almost a little bit too rough. And, uh, just turn, turn back to the night. We got a whole night ahead of us and Burroughs is on to talking about, oh, you know what? I know a good Chinese restaurant around here. We should go check out. Yeah, Niles will, like, I think give a little space for a second, but then immediately, like, follow and catch up with Burroughs and just, yeah. Niles, as he is mentioning the Chinese place and moving past you and sort of returning to the burrows he always is, that blood is still seeping into your chest.

and that moment shared just an inch off of his and you realize that in the back of your mind, you're hearing something repeated over and over again as that blood riles through your arms and you feel sick to your stomach, break your arm again. With this, you know that a bond has been formed between you and Burroughs. I think it's just like walking with Burroughs,

Burroughs is just talking, but like Niles is like rubbing the arm they've broken multiple times before and just like a nervous thought about it but just listens to Burroughs just drone on about

things but knows that they need to keep quiet because that's what they've been always told to do. The camera pans away joining the skies of Las Vegas as the neon takes to the sky, the clouds overhead, promising soon rain will come to the meadows.

And as Niles walks just a few paces behind burrows, something changed between them, something new but familiar. We are going to end our session here and return in two weeks to find out if we can sell some money to a bank account. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Man. Hell of a session. Yeah, that was a daisy. Really good, guys.

Thank you so much for being around. That was awesome. We got so much done here. I promise we'll start with Regal and Jackie going to see Bugsy about procuring some numbers. And then we'll have the rest of Vegas to look after now that we've cleaned up some loose ends. Thank you all so much.

It was awesome.