CbN015: Be Our Guest
General Summary
September 2nd, 2017
The night seems dark and still as a sleek black van makes its way through the winding streets of Chicago. Inside, a group of vampires sit together in tense silence, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly light. The Coterie is making their way to The Confessional, a place they usually go to hide from the world and feel some measure of peace.
Tonight however, it’s very different. The car feels like a claustrophobic box of anxiety and fear of things to come as they bring with them guests that are more than a little dangerous. The Lost Boys exchange wary glances as the significance of the situation they’ve found themselves in weighs on them like a heavy shadow, threatening to engulf them all.
They each take an unnecessary deep breath as they ponder who exactly they’re bringing to their home and what the future may have in store for them. They seem to now be officially deep in the city’s politics and elder vampire’s schemes.
Deep breath out. Game on.
At the Confessional
As they all step out of the car they notice Elliot has hired two bodyguards who stand outside. There’s a small crowd of disappointed partygoers nearby who they all decide to ignore. After everyone goes in, Clem pulls Elliot aside for a moment. She tells him he should go home early today, not trusting what the new vampires might do. He refuses, pointing at the two ghouls they have with them and how dangerous it might be for the coterie to go to sleep around them. It takes a while, but after some more back and forth he begrudgingly agrees to leave early and they head inside. As the group gathers and their guests sit at the bar, they take a moment to discuss how to handle the guests' accommodations. They decide to have everyone sleep together in the crypt with the exception of Mary, who the two vampires haven’t even seen yet. Elliot will take her to her haven for the night with The Book before he heads home. The group breaks and Clementine stays back with Liliana and expresses her concern about “the Malkavians”. She thinks they should keep an eye on them as they seem prone to getting into trouble. Liliana doesn’t seem too worried and reasons that it’s normal to have things to do outside of the coterie but that as long as the group comes first everything should be fine. Clementine doesn’t seem convinced but lets it go."Hmm, alright. Maybe it’s nothing."
She then heads over to one of their guests, Sierra Van Burrace and has a brief conversation about Sierra's intentions. The delegate is very closed off but polite, insisting on calling Clementine “Ms. Montano”. When asked why, Sierra explains that she must show respect to the loyalty “the first of her line” had shown.
"Perhaps there’s something to learn from the Montano way."
Clementine sees the opportunity to make a new ally in a like minded Lasombra and offers Sierra a Minor Boon as a show of good faith. Sierra seems surprised but graciously accepts.
CRONE ATTORNEY AT LAW
Elliot drops Mary off at a spot near her haven. She is careful to not let him see exactly where it is. As she approaches the building she sees police cars nearby. She rushes to the building to find Elizabeth and an IT guy called Mark near the entrance. Apparently a cyber attack happened and the business’ servers were hit, they lost a lot of data. Concerned, Mary tells them she’ll help as much as she can and heads inside with Mark who seems very stressed at the whole situation while Elizabeth stays outside with the police officers. She spends hours digging into who could have done this and trying to retrieve the data the firm has lost. Her blood boils with righteous fury; she cannot let this go unpunished. She recovers the data in the first few hours of the night to Mark’s delight and then moves on to trace where the hack could have come from. After a long time, very well hidden under many layers of fake code that are more annoying than hard to decipher, she discovers a message and an username:It’s almost as if the person wanted to be found and was just wasting her time. Mary grips the mouse with intensity, “I’m going to get you, mother fucker…”"Fuck you Cammie Cunts! You and all in the tower will burn!"
-Hurricane
They're Fucked
While their guests retire for the evening, Maude heads towards the phone in the backyard. They pick it up and hear the usual static and random voices rush by for a moment before everything clears out a bit and an old man’s voice chimes in. He doesn’t seem to be able to hear what Maude says but he lets them know something very simple: Mary is in danger. They rush back inside and as soon as they tell the rest what they heard, Clem gives Liliana a meaningful look as if to say “I told you so” to which the gangrel just sighs and grabs her car keys. Liliana and Maude head to Mary’s place while Kim and Clem stay back with the guests. They call Elliot on the way to get an address, but unfortunately he doesn’t know exactly where it is. They arrive at where Elliot last saw Mary and Maude uses the cobweb to find her the rest of the way. They spend a while listening to any little vibration or whisper from Mary to get a sense of which direction to go, Liliana driving slowly as they guide her. It’s a little over two hours before sunrise when they find Mary still glued to her computer. As they yell at her that they need to get the hell out of there, Mary rushes to put all the data she can into a collar full of USBs, grabs The Book and follows them out all the while asking what the rush is."I talked to your dad, you're in trouble, we have to go," is all Maude says.
As they’re making their way back to the church in Liliana’s car, Maude notices something very disconcerting.
"I can't do my Bane impression! We're fucked.” They say in horror, “WE'RE FUCKED, GUN IT LILIANA WE'RE FUCKED!"
Back at the Confessional
They get back to The Confessional and find their guests deep in torpor, the two ghouls they brought with them playing cards nearby. Maude engages in conversation with the humans and even plays a few rounds of cards with them while the rest find corners to go to sleep. Clementine settles next to Mary for the night and they talk about what happened for a bit. Mary seems very stressed and concerned about the whole situation. First the phones and now this? This is not right.The Next Day
At 9 AM on Saturday morning Elliot heads to the Confessional way earlier than usual. With him is his boyfriend, Marco. He followed Clem’s instructions and left earlier but he never promised not to arrive early. They are greeted with the sound of the security door beeping and the bodyguards, Josh and Brad, only just returning to their posts. Elliot asks them where they were and they mention going to get food. Kim rushes upstairs from the crypt as Elliot and Marco head inside. She tells him Malenkov is gone as well as the two guys that were with him. Elliot rushes to the security cameras in the crypt. He finds that early in the morning the ghouls put Malenkov in a thick traveling bag, went to talk to the bodyguards, who left soon after, then took Malenkov upstairs and left using a moving van. Kim calls her police contacts to try to get a hold of where the van could be, she spends a big amount of money in order to get results quickly. Marco is confused by all that’s going on, Elliot had left him upstairs before rushing down to the crypt. He sneaks to the still beeping security door and catches a glance of Elliot, sitting by the computer downstairs. Next to him is someone that looks to be unconscious and Elliot is talking to them and stealing glances from time to time. “You are so beautiful.” Elliot whispers. Marco backs away. Outside, the bodyguards are finishing their breakfast. Josh spots a guy walking towards them from across the street, it looks a bit odd, like he wasn’t there a second ago and suddenly appeared. "Dude, did you see that?" Josh asks. Brad looks where Josh is pointing but sees nothing. Blinking, confused he asks,"What?"
Report Date
26 Feb 2023
