Chapter 8: The Center Cannot Hold

(Originally played 2019-03-23)

Janet and Rebecca were called to meet Geisel and his secretary Rachel in the Koga building's terminal room. There, they were informed of someone on a Silver Lake bulletin board system spreading a conspiracy theory of “Parasites" - whose description was of vampires in all but name. Rebecca also met with Koga Shuko, who gave her both a poppet of her own, and a medical report on Ilsa that noted some anomalies in her blood.

The two neonates went to the public library, where they found a list of likely BBS numbers, as well as a card with the alias of one of the posters. From there, they went to the new wave club, Cyber 8. Searching through the BBS, they discovered that someone had not only noticed Janet and Sharper's luring away of a mortal meal, but had spotted someone entering and leaving the SLU steam tunnels. As they left, they were confronted by Greta Simonova, the Toreador who Janet had severely injured on her first mission. They alerted Geisel to the potential breaking of the Masquerade, and he directed them to hide out in a flea-pit hotel on the edge of town. They arrived there, and settled in for the night as best as they were able.

Chapter 7: Sharp Distance

(Originally played 2019-03-15)

Janet and Sharper, wishing to satisfy both their bloodlust and their lust for one another, went to Java Wava (the coffee shop near SLU campus). There, they were able to lure a young man away, surprise him in an alley, and tear him apart while gorging themselves on his blood. From here, they took the human's remains back to the Magsmen house and were finally able to consummate their relationship.

Meanwhile, Rebecca took Julia along to show her how to find a likely target to feed on without losing control. They met a young woman named Juno in the library, and went to eat and talk with her, inviting her back to their dormitory afterwards. While there, Julia attempted to feed on Juno, but the latter apparently mistook it for a romantic advance and turned her down. Just before Janet arrived to check on them, Julia attempted to reach Juno again; Juno responded by bending the space of the room so that everyone inside was yards away from her - even Janet running at full speed.

Juno vanished, and Max came running up from the basement, apparently alerted to the event by an unusual device. After learning what happened, he quickly organized an evacuation of the Mu Alpha Gamma house, sending everyone to the steam tunnels underneath the campus.

Shortly thereafter, an impromptu clan meeting was held, with Max, Dani Chudnovsky, and Koga Shuko serving as the judges. The witnesses to the event were questioned, and it was determined that the Brujah would have to find a new haven and organization somewhere else in the city.

Chapter 6: The Hunted

(Originally played 2019-03-08)

Janet, Karen, and Rebecca were sent to visit Dani Chudnovsky of Clan Nosferatu in the steam tunnels underneath Silver Lake University. An attempted negotiation between the Nosferatu and the representatives of the Camarilla clans was taking place shortly, and the three neonates were sent to act as intermediaries. They were met by a deformed, incredibly ancient Nosferatu, then by Chudnovsky herself. As she explained the conditions prior to Koga Shuko assuming the status of Prince, she outlined a set of conditions for the negotiation to take place - giving them a written copy, with strict instructions to deliver it only to Koga, and only in person. After securing their word on this matter, she gave them the name and address of the hunter: Davis Rooney, living on the edge of town.

They went to the address, and found a condemned building secured by a new lock on the ground-level entrance. Climbing up a fire escape afforded Janet access, and the party split into two groups to try and catch him by surprise. Though he wielded an ultraviolet floodlight and a heavy crossbow, they were able to kill him after a brief but fierce battle; they brought his severed head to Geisel. After Karen and Rebecca left, Janet was given a poppet made by Koga Shuko, which would allow her to resemble a living human for a short period of time; two others were mentioned as waiting for Karen and Rebecca, as a reward for taking down the hunter.

Chapter 5: Thicker Than Water

(Originally played 2019-03-05)

In the Mu Alpha Gamma house, Janet and Rebecca spent some time talking with Sharper. As he explained the structure and purpose of the Camarilla to Janet, Rebecca revealed that she was not only familiar with its goals, but actively opposed to some of them. The revelation that she was an anarch, on the run from her abusive sire, came as quite a surprise to the two Brujah, and some time was spent discussing the ramifications of this.

Shortly thereafter, Rebecca split off and went to find Julia while Janet and Sharper continued to flirt with one another. In the room she shared with Julia, Rebecca spoke with the younger Kindred, who was still struggling to come to grips with her undead nature - not only because of what she had to do to survive, but because of the rage and bloodlust that came over her when she fed. Rebecca offered to teach her in a more hands-on, compassionate way than Max had done, and provided space for Julia to share her own repressed anxiety and grief, even as she reexamined her own.

Chapter 4: The Trap Opens

(Originally played 2019-03-01)

Janet and Rebecca set out to stage a third attack. They traveled downtown and chose a rock club, Psych Out, as the best location for another target. After Rebecca lured a target outside the club and drained him of some blood, Janet came along and brought him to the hospital.

After giving vague answers to the doctor's questions, Janet went outside, met with Rebecca, and called Geisel to update him on the situation. There, they were confronted by a mortal man in dark clothes who made clear that he knew what they were, then fled on a motorcycle. Upon returning to the Koga building and delivering this news to Geisel, he sent them up to the top floor to meet with Koga Shuko himself.

They entered a room that seemed to be a recreation of a Japanese garden, blooming and somehow sustained despite being entirely indoors. Rebecca was enraptured by the beauty of the space, and Janet met Koga, who displayed mastery over mind-reading in addition to his power as a sorcerer. Based on the information he gleaned from Janet's mind and from a note the hunter had given her, Koga said that he would start the process needed to find the man. With this, Janet left and took Rebecca with her.

Chapter 3: The Masks We Wear

(Originally played 2019-02-22)

Neonates Farah and Janet were summoned before Victor Geisel and met another young Kindred, a Toreador named Rebecca Montagne. They were instructed to stage another attack to draw out the suspected hunter, but this time to target someone whose death would be noticed. On the advice of their fellow Kindred, they went to an upscale cocktail bar, The Blue Room, to seek out a wealthy and well-connected victim.

Before arriving there, Rebecca made a call to one of the mortal members of her herd, Kyra; she brought her younger sister Ilsa along, and they went to the cocktail bar after Janet sneaked into a clothier's shop and stole a new dress. At The Blue Room, Janet set her sights on a well-dressed but slightly boorish man in his early thirties. While she departed with him, Ilsa found a young man of her own, and Rebecca made plans to meet back with Kyra later.

The thirty-year-old man brought Janet to his home, a large but oddly furnished mansion uptown; the walls were hung with rare masks of different sizes and origins. When he made an advance, Janet surprised him and began drinking deeply from him; she let Rebecca in to finish the job, until they were both startled by a sudden blast of loud music from a speaker somewhere in the house. The two neonates departed, and took one of the masks with them.

Returning to the Koga building, Janet presented the mask to Geisel, who identified it as being of Aztec origin. He and Janet discussed the ethics of killing the man - especially in light of Janet's suspicion that he may have been a serial killer, due to a strange tarp being found in a garbage bin in the mansion. Rebecca met back with Kyra and ecstatically fed on her.

Chapter 2: The Tiger Trap

(Originally played on 2018-10-12)

Two of the neonates (Janet and Karen) were invited to Geisel's home, a dark-stained Dutch Colonial with sackcloth curtains over the windows. Geisel demonstrated his ability to stomach solid food, a skill gained after decades of practice, while explaining the recent news: a fanged and clawed skeleton had been found on the roof of Our Lady of Sorrows church, kept in place by an iron spike in its chest. The task at hand was to draw out the suspected “hunter" by attacking the living in obvious and suggestive ways.

At the Magsmen's fraternity house, Janet was introduced to an even younger neonate, a former pre-medical student named Julia Hodgman. The three managed to partially drain a jogger in the park, but Julia nearly killed the man in her zeal to drink his blood. When Janet and Julia returned to the house, Julia hit Max in her rage before calming down. Janet talked with Sharper after learning that he was incapacitated; his leg was broken after he made a snide comment to Greta, the Toreador that Janet had punched, about the injuries sustained to her face. During this conversation, Janet made her attraction to Sharper clear, and he hinted that he might reciprocate.

At the cabin in the woods, Karen talked with James about the situation with the hunter. He showed her a set of ornately carved, varnished wooden stakes that he had once taken from a hunter he killed many years earlier. After going out to hunt, Karen returned and spoke with one of James' clanmates, a German man named Hans.