Yeah some sort of random encounter that spirals into a sidequest, maybe. That sucks though...
Fakedit: I tried to summarize concisely, and instead wrote a mostly-complete description again. I'm okay with this.
Last session, our ventrue and my mekhet and my ghoul were captured by a couple of hunters, one of whom was definitely Blade. We were extraordinarily inebriated and also on some drugs. It was *supposed* to be a safe party place for vampires, but we did make a bit of a scene.
(The ventrue-malkavian, thinking herself to be an ancient Babylonian named Lilith, wrote those character in blood using 6 people as canvases)
I just can't be concise, can I?
So I'll warn, this session was especially sober and chilling. I won't even share everything that happened, because some of it was pretty fucked up. (And while I was sober then, I am not now.)
We surrendered and were taken as hostages in the hunter base. (Not the one we slaughtered earlier, a different one). Kayla (psycho gangrel) wasn't with us, which kinda sucked for her player. Basically sat things out until the later hours.
They tortured us, frankly. But first they took my ghoul aside, Alex, to... rehabilitate. She tried to bluff and lie, but she was too new to all this.
They brought her to a room full of other ghouls, all bound to gurneys. Damn them, they were actually saving ghouls. Understand that the hunters are largely psychopathic killers, but they were spending a *lot* of resources on this. Probably recruiting most survivors, but still. Everyone is grey in WoD.
Ghouls are addicted to vampire blood like a supernatural drug. And as thralls, they are supernaturally in love with their "regnants". Two of the ghouls were straining against their bindings, desperate to find their "love". The rest were writhing in the throes of serious detox.
Once the orderlies left, one of the ghouls... got free of his restraints. It wasn't pretty. At the time I assumed he was just jonesying for blood, but I'm not sure. His (gangrel?) regnant had died, he had felt it deeply. He freed Alex so she could lead him to, well, us. He wanted vampire blood, sure, but I think mostly he just wanted blood. And gore.
Particularly considering what he did to- no, I'm going to skip ahead.
...
Alex was a clubgoing labtech, she had no idea how to use a shiv. Or a gun. And yet she had to... Terrified and in shock, all she knew was she had to find Jake. Particularly once her ghoul "friend" collapsed in gore, whispering a final curse to the last hunter guard. Who also fell, bleeding profusely, but still alive. Begging Alex to reconsider, offering a way out of this nightmare. Crawling towards her, grabbing her.
The gun kept going "click click click".
Uh, right. Sorry, it was just... yeah.
Anyway, Alex rescued Ventrue Amanda - currently "Frankie", a mafia hitman.
seven humanityFrankie had been under interrogation with a red-hot poker... Well, at first. When Alex arrived he/she was staring into space, describing hot dogs and girls and icy cold days, as the interrogator lay whimpering on a ball on the floor.
~malkavians~
(the player did an awesome job at monologuing, at considerable length, a seemingly innocuous description of Frankie's supposed life)
Together they rescued Jake, who...
Jake was alone in his cell, staring at a revolver with a single bullet. Large crispy holes in his torso and arm, but no blood in the room.
I could say more, but not just now.
Things proceeded quickly from there. Jake gave Alex some blood to heal her bruises and anemia (I skipped over some of what the bastards did to "rehabilitate" her). Since it was still morning (Jake was only awake through force of will) we needed to enlist the other ghouls. Alex lead the way.
Except, first, we checked out the other two cells. One had a mute vampire who signaled a willingness to help. The other... A sound of crashing, growling, and banging was all we could make out.
So IC we had to assume it was Kayla lol, our gangrel
Still, we were very aware that a frenzying vampire will kill friends. So Alex lead Amanda and the vampire down the hall, back to the ghouls. Jake stayed behind, caaarefully opened the final of THREE maglocks, and fled into the shadows at a dead run.
"Do you look behind you? It'll-" "NO" "It'll uh, take an action..." "No I keep running".
It wasn't Kayla
If you know WoD, you can guess what it was.
And it's not like fucking Twilight.
We reached the ghoul rehabilitation room as alarm klaxons resounded through the base. And screams, and gunfire, and primal roaring.
We freed the ghouls and fed them (they were so hungry). Jake gave an inspiring speech, promising them blood and a return to their loved ones (IE their vampires). "There will be blood!" This was met with a roar. ... From outside the room (I was actually confused for a moment, heh).
But no, it had seen Jake's "tear in reality". Which was tiny, Jake still only has 1 blood potency and is mostly humane, but the RNGoddess was grinning.
The ghouls shoved gurneys against the door as Jake and Amanda desperately searched for anything useful. Mostly looking for silver, or drugs, or anything... The RNG gave Jake an extraordinary success. With his trained auspex-senses, he found a way out. A hole in the floor hidden behind some things.
But how deep was it? We weren't sure. So, uh
Amanda found a ghoul, a teenager who claimed his girlfriend's powers let him survive things. She fed him a generous amount of blood and, uh, he jumped into the hole.
...
...
......crunch
~~7 humanity~~
and yes she made the morality roll again (helped that he volunteered, ghoul-insanity aside)
So we tied sheets together and made a rope.
The ghouls made it down fine, us vampires fell lol. We're both unathletic as all hell.
Which actually knocked Amanda into torpor. Jake *barely* held on. The ghouls picked Amanda up and together we hurried down the tunnel... The gunshots had stopped, and there was grinding and howling from up above.
Turns out the teen-ghoul survived, he was just barely conscious. We took him with us, escaping into... ugh, the sewers. Turns out the Nosferatu (who fancy Mekhet Jake kinda despises, but tries to play nice with) had been monitoring this hunter base for a while via tunnel.
They knew about the ghouls, but didn't care. They even knew some vampires were stupid enough to get caught, and didn't care.
But to be fair, they did let Jake finally sleep the day away (in their maggot-ridden trash pile).
And helpfully hinted that Jake should kill the "extra" ghouls, as demanded by Camarilla law.
yeah...
But yeah, we escaped the hunter base. Yaaaay~
Then Kayla did some freaky shit that I can't even begin to describe properly. She already *did* the hornet thing, this went even farther. It was getting early in the morning in real time, too. Basically... well, there was a bit of a standoff at our haven afterwards, and it sorta looked like this:
TL;DR
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/03/19/episode-1107-heartfelt-reunion/except instead of her sire Juan (the pirate) being there, Jake's high-humanity sire was. So Jake and his sire kinda just left, along with ghoul-Alex and Amanda's unconscious body.
After cleaning up a trail of sewage, that is.