The last movie Temper saw was Red Dawn, and she thought it was a documentary. 

But Lefleur doesn't believe in things like the Illuminati and the Bildeberger Group running world affairs. Although Temper was spookily accurate about vampire venom being the secret ingredient of Coca Cola. I think Maya must have read Temper's blog. And Lefleur probably thinks he's smarter than he really is, since he just lies about everything. Temper should just run him over with her Schwinn. Or fall in love and then punch him to bypass his Inhuman Recovery.

I really need to put some lovebirds in there to do physical harm to Lefleur. That would be funny. I also need an NPC friend of Temper's who's some late night radio talk show host / conspiracy nut. Maybe have him stumble onto some real supernatural event going down.

So the cops show up, right in the middle of John's divination ritual. Lefleur, however, answers the door, telling the cops that John can't come to the door, he's in the shower. He's definitely trying to give the impression that the two of them are gay. This really annoys John's player: it's okay that everyone thinks he's crazy (vampires are real, and I'm fighting them!) as long as they think he's straight. Heh, that's funny. Lenny listens in, but makes himself scarce once it's clear the cops are involved.

Lefleur challenges the cops' legal right to be there asking questions and detaining them, but the pair can be held for twenty four hours without officially being charged with anything (I think-LF's player is a law student, I'm sure he'd tell me if I got something wrong). They do need a warrant to search the house, however, which the lead detective Griggs gets surprisingly easily from the judge. Almost suspiciously easy. They search the house, take John's gun, and arrest both Lefleur and Whitfield, dragging them to the police station.

The police interrogate John and Lefleur, asking about their relationship with the domestic terrorist, criminal, and overall 'person of interest' Temperance Smith. Here we have a nice social conflict between Detective Griggs, who thinks that this entire situation is fishy, and the dynamic duo of Lefleur and Whitfield. Griggs has overall Good social skills, and starts off just trying to hammer John (in his mind, the weak link of the pair) with attacks, revealing all these crimes that Temper is suspected of, threatening John, etc. However, Lefleur and Whitfield, through a combination of Rapport and Deceit, change the Detective's tune. Griggs in particular is concerned by the irregularities involved in their arrest, thinking some larger game that reeks of politics is afoot.

He agrees to let them go before the twenty four hours is up, insisting that he's going to keep an eye on them. If only he had time to match the ballistics of John's rifle to some of the bullets found in Jimbo Hill's body. That would make for a much different conversation. Meanwhile, the two wild cards of the group, Lenny and Temper, make a plan to get Lefleur and John out of prison. Temper blowing up the wall with C4 was briefly considered, but the less obvious plan involved Lenny sneaking in with his chameleon cloak and passing out escape potions for the trio to escape police custody. It turns out that the first priority was to recover the tracking spell locator, and rescuing the pair was the secondary objective.

As John and Lefleur were being released, John's personal effects were given back to him. His wallet was missing all of its money, however, and his copper blasting rod was gone! Where could it be? Using his Wizard's Sight, he scanned the station, looking for anything out of the ordinary. No sign of his focus item, but it was clear that one of the police lieutenants was a vamp saliva addict. Rather than confronting him or somehow slipping him some antivenom to clear his mind, John and Lefleur left him to meet up with Temper and Lenny (preferably before they blew up the building or something), leaving his focus item behind. This really surprised me; if I thought he was just going to leave his item behind, I would have thrown him a FP or something. I guess he didn't want to attract any attention in the police station. Weird though. To ditch the detective trying to follow them, John hexes his car and they make their escape, stopping somewhere along the way to load up on there illegal weaponry (although Lenny still prefers the solid bat swing to a real weapon).

The four meet up, now able to use the tracking spell to hopefully find the sinister Rothchild, kick his ass, and find out where the rest of the vampires are. They use the tracking spell to find a small winery and bottling plant, where they bust in ready to kick ass. They find a few workers addicted to vampire saliva there, and one Red Court vampire. In exchange for his life, he agrees to tell them everything he knows. The vamps are set up like terrorists, in separate cells, to reduce the risk of being found out. The vampire only knows where a few others are, but evidently Rothchild knows where they're all at. He's key to the entire thing.

Amazingly Temperance doesn't kill the vampire, so the vampire escapes, as the Magnificent Four move to intercept Rothchild's next appointment in the middle of the night. Just as he's getting out of his car at another small local bottling plant, the kidnap van pulls right alongside him. Rothchild barely has time to call for help before he's grappled; he was trying to reach inside his pocket for some vial, but Temperance stopped him from pulling it out. Then two vampires appear at the windows with submachine guns and open up. Lefleur and John drag Rothchild into the kidnap van, Lenny takes cover, and Temper opens fire

After securing Rothchild with plenty of duct tape, John heads out of the van into cover, activating his air shield. Lenny moved up to the windows where the vampires were firing from, using a few hits from his baseball hit to disarm an attacker. Temper fired off a few bursts of suppressive fire on the other hand while Lefleur drove the van right through the doors of the bottling facility, surprising the hell out of the two vampires and getting himself stuck. John moved up to grab the disarmed vampire's gun, while the disarmed vampire, now very pissed about the whole baseball bat to the wrist thing, drops his flesh mask and grabs Lenny through the window, pissed. Lenny, now certain he was dealing with a nonhuman, responds with some of his trademarked Universal Solvent to the face. Ouch. John manages to finish off the vampire with a close range burst from its own submachine gun. A close ranged gun fight occurs between Lefleur, Temper, and the second vampire, quickly resulting in another dead vampire.

Lenny and Temper decide to exercise their core competency of Smashing Stuff to start breaking all of the bottles in the plant, to disrupt the vampire saliva distribution network. Lefleur and Whitfield, meanwhile, interrogate Rothchild, forcing antivenom down his throat. Rothchild starts telling them how horrible it was, being a slave of the vampires, but Lefleur sees through the BS and quickly elicits the real story from the vampire saliva addict. He was afflicted with a terminal illness and worked with the vampires as an expert, in exchange for a second shot at a life. Despite being addicted to their feelgood saliva, he entered into that partnership willingly. The plan was to addict most of the people in New Orleans with venom, allowing the Red Court to essentially run the entire thing. Pretty scary.

And then Rothchild tells them that one of the best ways to insure the spread of an infectious disease is to neutralize those who would treat it. John, always the self-centered one, figured this meant him, but Rothchild clarified: it was the convent affiliated with the Fellowship of St. Giles that treated the saliva addicts. Temper, now joining the conversation, pipes up that she meant to investigate them. Sure you were, Temper. And that's where it was likely you could find Maya Stevenson and her vampiric scourge of baddies. Surprisingly, John and Lefleur agree to let Rothchild go, especially since that without becoming a vampire he was dead soon anyway. They don't bother to mention to Temper and Lenny Rothchild's full complicity with the vampire plan, his involvement in the likely death of a dozen nuns, or his other sins, so they let him go as well. Where's the justice here?

The now-damaged kidnap van drives off to the convent, where they meet with a Sister outside the place, as is typical. John uses his Sight to determine that she's addicted to Saliva; Temper grabs her while the others force antivenom down her throat. Maybe they should just get a tranquilizer gun instead loaded with antivenom. She starts weeping, telling them how horrible it was, and how evil Maya is. True dat: She wrote my universe's equivalent of the Twilight books. She tells the story how the vampires used threats and lies to breach the threshold, then overcame the sisters, turned some of them and addicted the rest. A few managed to retain their humanity as just Infected, but it would only be a matter of time.

A plan was quickly devised, sticking to their strengths: BLOW SOMETHING UP! Temper and Lenny were going to climb onto the convent's roof, lace it with explosives, and at sunrise, expose all of the vampires to sunlight (and explosions, and shrapnel/falling rubble, whatever), then hit them with everything they had in one brutal assault. It was a good plan. Unfortunately, the Sister pointed out how the vampires would quickly suspect trouble if she didn't return quickly. She was clearly scared, but was willing to go back and pretend to be addicted; she did ask for a poison from Lenny (one WITH an antidote), which she took. If the plan worked, then Lenny could give her the antidote; if not, then at least she wouldn't be tortured, and any vampire who fed on her would also die. So they sent the poor sister back in, where she tried to fool the vampires. I actually tried to compel Lenny's aspect Works In Theory for some weird potion side effect to come up, but he paid me off. Jackass, ruining my fun. I guess Lenny draws the line at experimentation when poisoning nuns.

Into the nunnery she went, and I rolled her Deceit. It came up at -1. A quote from the table: "Everyone knows how good nuns are at lying." Yeah, not very. The game was up. Lenny and Temper were up on the roof, planting explosives, when Temper saw Tim the Sniper come up onto the roof, laying down and being very sneaky. Temper turned on her flashlight, clearly illuminating the sneaky vampire for all to see. Other vampires had approached the stained glass windows while Tim went to the roof. Tim's snipery ambush ruined, battle quickly opened.

It was chaos. Raven came out of the convent with his katana, ready to fight John. He used some maneuvers, including a successful untrained Intimidation to put a maneuver on him, then attacked, dealing lots of stress to poor John. Which is kind of sad, since Raven is an embarrassment to vampires everywhere. Other vampires unleashed streams of automatic fire on the two guys on the ground, mainly Lefleur, who was busy trying to line up a shot on Raven. Raven managed to throw his trenchcoat over John's face, really pissing him off, before John fried Raven with lightning. Raven was rolling exceptionally well, however, and managed to survive. As he maneuvered for another katana assault, Lefleur shot him in the back. Raven's last words were of disbelief; he couldn't believe he was killed by LEFLEUR instead of someone badass. Then more automatic weapon fire came pouring out of the convent (you know, this might be the first time in the history of the english language that the prior sentence has been written .

Meanwhile, on the roof, Temper turned herself into a monster scorpion and went after Tim the Sniper, who started using the patented Lefleur shuffle to move zones every round to give his slower attackers a -1 penalty on their attackers. He would aim at Temper, then fire, then aim, then fire...he inflicted quite a bit of stress. Lenny tried to stick him to the roof with really sticky glue, but it didn't quite work, since Tim is just too dodgy. Any time any vampire not named Tim climbs up to the roof, Lenny blows them to pieces with explosive flasks. At one point, two vampires come out onto the roof gingerly carrying holy water, which they then chuck at Temper. The burns! And Temper's Armor 2 and extra stress boxes, it does nothing! Take that, incredibly cheap Catch on your defensive powers! Temper, of course, doesn't know it's holy water; she thinks it's flesh-eating acid. Then Lenny blows up those vampires too.

Both Temper and Tim are inflicting some major damage on each other, with Tim inflicting a Grazed consequence on Temper. It's not often I get to put consequences on Temper. Then Temper finally catches up to Tim, getting a solid hit and causing the cry of "Use the clamps" to spring forth from the table. Really, that should be one of her aspects: the Clamps. Temper cuts off Tim's leg, causing him to stumble backward and fall off the roof. Goodbye Tim the Sniper.

Lefleur and John are returning fire; John, having already used his air shield ring this session, keeps throwing up powerful blocks and then spending more magical power to keep it running. It takes several of his actions, but on the other hand, he is mostly invincible for most of this fight. Evocation needs errata kind of badly, especially since that anyone with half a brain will just use one Element for just about everything, just buying up Control/Power in that one thing. Spirit works pretty well in that area, but John uses Air. His lack of a focus item is hurting him though, offensively, and he's not sure whether or not he wants to start blasting the inside of a convent with massive lightning attacks. Then four vampires jump out of the church, grab Lefleur, and pin him to the ground then smash his head against the pavement. Ouch. Lenny, ever vigilant during his own battle atop the roof, throws down some bottled sunlight, causing the vamps to escape and run shrieking back into the church. Go Lenny.

Finally, John has had enough, and throws down some Fate Points to launch a two zone evocation attack, making every vampire inside extra crispy. Seizing the advantage, Lefleur runs inside to finish off more vampires, where he gets attacked by two other vampires from another zone. They finish him off, Taking Him Out, and then drag him inside further inside the convent. Poor bastard. By now, Lenny and Temper are done on the roof, and they climb down to continue the ground assault and recover Lefleur. John follows, his evocation air shield now out of juice.

As they head deeper inside, Maya strikes from ambush, hiding in a corner and waiting for John to walk by. She's sneaky, and she's damn good with that shotgun of hers. Maya hits John for 9+ stress from ambush at close range, now giving him a minor and a moderate condition from the shotgun blast. More vampires run out into the hallway from the cells, some dressed in habits. Temper fends off the vampires with claws and tail while Lenny whips out more bottled sunlight. John responds with an absolutely devastating evocation attack against Maya, but she dodges some of the blast, ending up only horribly injured. Just like John. She fires a second shotgun blast point blank into John; many other players would simply accept being taken out at this point, but not John's. Instead. John takes the severe consequence of Punctured Lung and loses even more stress. Although he really shouldn't be able to talk, he quips "I've thought of an ending for your next book. All the vampires die, forever." Then takes a second minor mental consequence and roasts poor evil Maya (John's taunt made her roll like shit, not that it would have mattered). The other vampires flee from the sunlight and aren't seen from again. They'd like to go after them, but let's face it, the group isn't in much condition to. Except Lenny; he cheerfully points out that he's fine. Untouched, even. Thanks Lenny.

And with that we ended the session and the adventure, with a massive, massive fight against Maya and her cronies. Maya spent most of the fight finishing off and turning any nuns that she could, just to make it a completely hollow victory. The Sister they sent in: she died (but took two vampires with her b/c of the poison). I'm not going to tell if she died because of the vampires, or because of that massive two zone evocation John threw out. So the group finds Lefleur in another room (they didn't kill him b/c of professional courtesy: he is a vampire, after all) and evacuate, right before one of Maya's customary firebombs burns the convent to ruins. I know I considered having Maya run away, but she had a long invested in the plan, and she had stripped away most of the group's stress and item uses. She wasn't going to have a better chance than this, so she took it and failed.

Everyone got a skill point and a point of refresh from reaching this milestone. Lefleur increased his Intimidation to Superb, grabbed more Incite Emotion powers (now including fear, so he can attack dudes/ugly women as well as hot chicks with his mental attacks Lenny just banked the refresh, and Temper increased her Fists to Superb and got even more strength for her scorpion form.

Regarding Lefleur: In a way, he's the odd man out of the group. John's a Warden who fights monsters. Temper is a Denarian who wants to use her evil powers to fight monsters (and other bad guys). Ignatius beats up scary dark monsters with nothing more than a pair of metal sticks. And Lenny is some nut who'll use any excuse to blow something up (like monsters). And then he'll gut them for alchemy components.

LF, on the other hand, is less motivated by fighting monsters and often more motivated by personal gain. His Trouble is basically Sometimes Does the Right Thing, implying that he more often does not do the right thing. Just kind of interesting. Anyway, the final scene with Lefleur was essentially put together to let him use his top skill to solve the situation, his Superb Deceit, instead of the violence we more typically see as the final solution to problems (every Dresden book tends to end with a big fight saving the day). So he beat up Machete Dan socially instead.

And Elli the Changeling Sylph Assassin, is pretty damn badass. She was built as a PC, with Superb Guns, Great Athletics, Stealth, and Deception. So she attacks at 5 and defends at 6; add on Supernatural Speed, Inhuman Toughness/Recovery, Wings, and Glamor, and you get an incredibly mobile ranged attacker who can do some neat tricks as well. Against most melee opponents, she's basically unbeatable: staying in the air and retreating two zones every turn while constantly shooting. She was designed to be the kind of enemy that Lefleur couldn't just beat and had a hard time running away from, to add some real teeth to this "price on his head" aspect of the adventure. She's the Boba Fett to the other Greedo hitmen. Against some of the more combat focused members of the group she'd be in real trouble, but she's smart enough to avoid picking fights when Lefleur has backup from his bodyguards (who happen to work for free).

Victim: maybe the point of Ghost Dad IS that he's an obvious hallucination. Use your imagination.

Last night we had our second session of Blood in the Streets, and Lenny's player (Scipio,, I guess) couldn't make it. Some shit went down. Temper  headed back to "her" home (actually a vacant house she's squatting in), noticing that Jimbo's gang was driving around her neighborhood. It seemed like they were looking for someone. I wonder who?

Temper figured they'd find her sooner or later anyway, so she went into her house, grabbed all of her guns and explosives (well, okay, not ALL of them; that would take several trips), then fired her AK into the ground, drawing a lot of unfriendly attention. She tried to sneak away into the night, cutting across yards and hopping fences, trying to force them to chase her on foot.

Instead, some of Jimbo's boys had radios, and they signaled some of their friends to circle around. Eventually, Temper found herself surrounded, basically trapped. So she retreated to a house she hoped was empty. Then she laced that place with explosives, turning it into a deathtrap if she ever used her radio detonator. Unfortunately, she was stuck in the house with the explosives. No way out.

Jimbo called out for Temper to come out so they could have a face to face chat. Temper said nothing. So then all of Jimbo's men opened up on the house with automatic weapons fire, sending bullets flying throughout the structure. Fortunately, Temper was taking shelter in the bathtub, if you can believe it. Then one of Jimbo's buddies had the bright idea of burning down the house, so a few makeshift Molotovs were assembled outside.

Temper heard someone else inside the house, but didn't hear any sound of anyone actually entering. No doors opening, no crunching of broken glass. So she sneakily approached whatever was making that noise: it was a ghoul. A huge, very scary ghoul with a big damn axe. The same ghoul, in fact, that helped her and John out when they fleeing the burning mansion of the vampire count. Temper used her stealth to disarm the ghoul of her axe, just as the molotov cocktails started to burn down the house. The ghoul with the axe offered Temper a choice: leave with him, or burn to death.

Temper chose the option that didn't involve burning, and at the ghoul's request, handed him back his axe. He then used it to cut a hole through reality, leading into a dark, scary, swampy forest and left through the Way. Temper's dead father then appeared in front of her, warning her not to trust the ghoul. At all. Temper is at least sane enough to know when she's hallucinating, so she ignores Ghost Dad (actually her Fallen Angel) and she follows the ghoul.

The ghoul tells her that they're in the Nevernever, in Faerie, and that she would be quiet. And if she hears hounds, to RUN. While their walking, Temper tries to get a read on the ghoul, learning one of his aspects: More Than Just a Merc. Which implies his concept is something like Ghoul Mercenary or something. He leads Temper around, then cuts another hole in reality and tells her to get going. Before she leaves, he insinuates that the Reds are Jimbo's secret backer. Soneillon/Temper's Dad warns her again not to trust the Ghoul. Here's where John's player postulates that the Ghoul is actually a good guy! Right...

After Temper's little adventure, the trio agree to meet up at a Waffle House, to compare notes and come up with a plan. And because, you know, this is a group game. No one talks about Temper's little espionage expedition of the last night. John says he's going to track down the Man in Black who bought all of Lenny's stuff; he assumes the MiB also bought stuff from the other alchemist in town, Lenny's old partner. I don't think we even have a name for yet, thanks Lenny. Or at least not one I've heard yet. Lefleur wants to get some more info on Machete Dan, thinking about framing Daniels for some crime, preferably Walter's murder. Or at least the sudden rise in gang violence. Temper is very skeptical of this plan, and wants to find more about Jimbo and his new ally/puppetmaster.

John meets with Etienne Moiret, the Power Hungry Houngan and new Freeholding Lord, checking to see if he knows anything. Moiret plays coy at first, but is willing to deal. Someone did buy all of his antivamp venom, and Moiret is surprised that it wasn't actually a rep from the Council. He wants a favor from John in exchange for what he knows, but is willing to take some of John's cash. Go Resources 4! It turns out that the MiB has some name that I've forgotten already. It wasn't really important.

John takes that name to his "buddy" Vince the Sleazy PI, who quickly finds out a lot more. He also mentions how the police would be very interested in his actual association with Temper (he still has those photographs, I believe), and extorts John for more money. John takes the blackmail surprisingly well, putting Vince on retainer. The MiB is actually an expert in infectious disease from the CDC, staying at some hotel in town. And also that he's not here on official business, and one of his coworkers was "exsanguinated" quite recently. John thinks that maybe this guy is here to help. He isn't.

John tracks down his hotel room, sliding a piece of paper with an eye drawn on it under the door, then using a thaumaturgy spell to spy on the room. It's empty. No dead body like John was expecting. He waits until the MiB shows up, then tries to talk to him. The guy isn't opening the door, though, so John just talks to him through the door, saying how he's a Warden fighting the vampires, or Stage Two Infected if you please. The guy is evasive and tries to keep John talking. During this time, he sends a text to a buddy of his, who does...something. Hotel security arrives, escorting him from the building, and John approaches his car. Fortunately, his wizard sense tingles and explodes the carbomb underneath his Rolls-Royce prematurely, probably saving his life. Then the cops show up, taking John in for questioning about the attempt on his life.

Part Two to come.

At the party, we had John's asshole brother Roger making the rounds and talking to people. It became apparent to some (but not John) that Roger was basically badmouthing John while using his house. John also introduced his friends to Roger, which strained his politeness when meeting some of them, especially Jack Ellis the mechanic. Roger was less than impressed. Temper didn't end up wearing a dress made out of duct tape or camouflage, so she actually made a pretty decent impression pretending to be with one of the charities. Lenny took the time to network, but he came across as a little pushy or predatory (he also left fliers under everyone's windshields!). He was able to drum up some business though, mainly with his anti-aging potions.

Lefleur and John arranged a meeting with Machete Dan, with the greatest High Concept ever devised: Bloodsucking Lawyer. I know I've already mentioned it, but it's so awesome. Enter the social conflict, with Machete Dan being all pissed and throwing a lot of Intimidations around. Lefleur and John gang up on the poor RCV, and eventually get a Concession, with Machete Dan saying that as long as the money's good he'll call off the hits. It may take some time to call off the hits, though. Success for Lefleur? You know it's not going to be that easy. At one point, I have Machete Dan throw like 3 or 4 Fate Points at Lefleur, but the attack still did didly. I couldn't roll above average at all.

Meanwhile, Temper and Lenny have a discussion: how to tell if a Sex Vampire is controlling someone. Lenny has the best answer: does that person LIKE the WCV? If yes, then the vampire's probably in control. Lenny is evidently blinded by the finery, however, and misses all the subtext. So that's when I throw a Compel at Temper for her paranoia, and she sneaks upstairs and starts looking at all of John's stuff, trying to find some way of contacting John's superiors. Temper is convinced that Lefleur is manipulating John; it's understandable. I don't see why John's always helping Lefleur either. PCitis? Then she remembered that at one point John used her cell to call his boss, so she uses that, reciting the code he used to get in touch with Morgan. John's player attempts to argue this point, saying he kept all of this information secret, but in reality he wasn't; he was right next to Temper when he made that call (Temper held the phone while he talked from inside a circle, IIRC). And in any case, I never recall him acting all paranoid either, so he was just trying to edit circumstances after they happened (and let's face it, John is not a subtle or paranoid guy).

So, Temper calls up Morgan going through the switchboards (it's an older code, but it checks out ), meeting a very pissed off Morgan. He sounds busy. Like, killing vampires busy. Temper warns Morgan that John might be controlled by the White Court, playing on his paranoia. Morgan tells her that he'll check it out and to never call again. What a charmer.

Lefleur noticed Temper head upstairs, though, and alerts John to this whole development of Temper sneaking upstairs. They find Temper in John's bedroom, with his sock drawer strewn out over the floor. John wonders what the hell is going on, and Temper counters with a lame lie about checking for bugs. No one believes her. At this point, John's player asks for a Compel on his Band of Brothers aspect, as Temper leaves the party at John's request. He says that the Compel is for him NOT stopping Temper and making her tell the truth. WTF? I'm not exactly sure what he had in mind other than somehow restraining Temper and torturing the information out of her. Which, quite frankly, wouldn't really work. In any case, he doesn't get a compel for acting like a rational human being and letting Temper leave.

So, Temper leaves the party early. On her way out, she passes a woman waiting outside the mansion, who asks her if she's seen someone of Lefleur's description. It's Elli the Changeling Assassin. Temper notices that the woman is packing twin pistols, but doesn't care; she tells Elli about Lefleur being there. Temper just misses the excitement of finding the vamps spiked the wine.

After having a glass, John and Lenny discover that the wine is laced with vampire spit. I made a mental attack on everyone, and no one was hit with a single consequence, damn it all (they all only failed by 1). Save the rest of the party, some of the richest and most influential people of New Orleans. Uh oh. And everyone is drinking it, save a few. Roger seemed normal (I don't think Roger actually drinks), and Jack (who brought a cooler full of beer) was just Jack. John, realizing danger, asks Jack to help get everyone home for some reason. So he essentially makes the same speech from Batman Begins, insulting everyone until they leave. What a jackass.

Also, kind of stupid. He was worried that the vampires would all bust in through the windows and start shooting, I guess. I mean, they just hit some of the richest people in NO with addictive saliva. That's called winning, in my book. They were actually with the catering staff, spitting into all the wine then. And John sends them home, easy prey for more saliva. Maybe John should take Egocentric as some kind of Aspect.


Roger bitches at John for his actions, his friends, and everything else, leaving in a hissy fit. So the rest of the group, Lenny, Lefleur, and John sit in the mansion and wait for the vampires to attack. And wait. And wait. They realize the vampires aren't coming to attack. Temper, about to leave, comes back after she sees everyone leaving. She wonders where everyone was going, and why. John explained the vamp's actions, and it's clear that Temper thinks John is an idiot. They hear sirens, and Temper flees around to the back to leave that way, hopefully avoiding the police.

Then the cops show up, to ask John some questions about his known association with Temperance Smith, domestic terrorist. They wonder if he's somehow funding her organization or something. John denies everything, including Temper being at his party tonight. Doesn't know her, hasn't heard of her. The FBI guy tells John that he'll be back. John: "Yeah, I know " This is where I threw a Compel at John for his Band of Brothers aspect, since he was defending Temper against the police.

While she makes her way through the back way across John's monster yard, she heads into the small woods at the back of John's property, walking her Schwinn. She's naturally sneaky, so she sees a group of mercs in full camo, NVGs, and M-4s heading towards John's place before they notice her. The fact that one of them is playing his iPod may also have something to do with it. She calls up John, warning him of the danger, then makes her way home again.

The mercs try to sneak up to the mansion, hoping to kill Lefleur, but they find Lenny, John, and Lefleur waiting for them. With a magical blinding flare, a few precise gunshots, and the overall insanity of Lenny the Iron Alchemist, the mercs are driven back and take their wounded with them. Those guys were schmucks; Pure Mortals with no FPs. They were actually the remnants of some of Walter's private army of security personnel, wanting to collect on Lefleur's contract.

However, the gunfire draws the cops back again. Damn it. The quick-thinking Lefleur sets up an impromptu firing range in the backyard, so the cops find him and John shooting at cans. The cops are pissed, and tell them to stop firing their guns in the middle of the night in a residential zone. They'd clearly like to arrest John, but they don't really have anything they can make stick. Lefleur's Epic Deception rolls help smooth things along as well.

John performs a quick Thaumaturgy ritual to locate the vampires, using some of their spit as the symbolic link. Clever bastard. This is one of the few Thaumaturgic spells John's ever used. I don't really know how the rules work myself, I really need to read up on them. Like, seriously. When my NPCs use them, it's basically just plot magic. He finds them, using a map of the city and some triangulation, so him and Lenny suit up and drive towards the vamp's location. It is ass kicking time.

Lefleur, meanwhile, takes the opportunity of the cops to sneak away from John's mansion, heading to yet another hotel room. He meets a pretty girl at a bar, seduces her, then brings her back to feed from her. During the night, he gets a call from Machete Dan. Remember Walter's briefcase full of irradiated money? That's half of Lefleur's payment. And the Machete Dan is pissed off, and spends twenty minutes telling Lefleur exactly how he's going to kill him. Machete Dan really has anger issues. There's another Compel thrown at Lefleur.

Lenny and John find the vamp's hideout, a catering place. The very same catering company that did his party. Now things begin to make sense. Lenny breaks the window, and the two let themselves in, finding some vampires there. Led by Maya's lieutenant the Goth Poser Raven Darkblood, who was nearly killed by John their last battle. Raven starts saying something threatening, but John just raises his copper rod to blast him. It's on! And it's over quickly. Raven and another vampires charge towards the front of the building, but John had set up his magical defenses before entering, and Lenny defends with his trusty baseball bat. The other two try their hand at automatic weapons fire, but it's even less effective.

John makes like Thor and calls down some lightning, frying the two vampires in the back, ruining the store and setting it on fire. No compel here, I think; this is just what happens when you throw like 15 dice of evocation around in a building. Shit gets messed up. Lenny then melts the vampire in his face with some solvent, leaving Raven. Raven's number is clearly up, so I suggest a concession where Raven runs and escapes. Lenny and John are having none of it, though, demanding that Raven tell them everything he knows.

Instead, we compromise. Raven runs across the street into an alleyway, bragging about how the party was just the beginning, and the vampires are going to addict a whole lot more people to their Kiss. Then he trips over some garbage cans and falls, causing John and Lenny to laugh at him. He does manage to escape though. They search the burning catering place, find some unconscious people who have been clearly hit with addictive saliva. The answer is clear: haul them out of the building and put them into the kidnap van. John's player is excited that he gets to experience the thrill of using the kidnap van, since he missed out on it last time.

And that's where we ended. It really seems like the party is fragmenting, with John pissed at Temper for thinking he's somehow being influenced by a vampire, and Temper not trusting Lefleur (or John now). We also had a discussion over who the "wildcards" of the group were, the ones who do the unexpected things. Lenny and Temper's players insisted that they weren't the crazy ones. They totally are though, and that's fine.

About splitting up: I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. Unfortunately, it's necessary. In any group with good, interesting characters, they're going to have different motivations and goals. And they're going to split up to cover more ground (not an automatic death sentence like it is in D&D ) I guess the important part might be to make sure that they're all together for the big scenes (not that it happened this time). But that single initiative trick worked pretty well though.

The other thing is that we get distracted easily, and love making fun of each other. So the other players are involved in the scene just as the peanut gallery. With Compels and everything, I would imagine that most Dresden games are going to be very entertaining to watch as well.

Man, one thing I should have put in my session report. Before the duel, I'm telling John's player how everyone is getting set up, and I use the boxing analogy how you've got "Jack [Ellis] and Morgan in your corner." As I say this, I start laughing, because it sounds like I'm referring to Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan.

Yeah, that briefcase full of cash is full of cash that's been reported stolen from banks, and has radioactive dye. Not a huge problem for Lefleur given the success of his real con, but he's gonna have trouble spending it.

It's not spellcasting, it's just a supernatural ability. It costs -2 refresh. And hell, Faeries seem to glamor practically everything. I say no way it costs stress if it doesn't say it does in the rulebook.