V5: Stolen 1.02

Vampire: The Masquerade

Stolen

1.02

Missing

Antha, Ravnos hustler

Cherie aka Carmilla, Nosferatu VTuber

Frank, Hecata homicide detective

Isabella, Malkavian academic and seer

Linda, Lasombra newly Embraced divorced store manager

Maebh, Gangrel courier

Saint asks Antha to keep him informed of whatever ‘small’ favour Dr. Rhodes asks.

Antha and Isabella get a wave from the balcony.

Isabella withdraws but Antha heads over.

Colette Forbes and Laurence Reed, harpies, Malkavian and Toreador, talking with a small, slight figure in a porcelain doll mask, the Nosferatu Cherie but known online as Carmilla.

Colette Forbes and Laurence Reed

Colette chats cheerfully with Linda, inquiring where she might be comfortable relaxing of an evening - and hunting, as Laurence adds.

Maebh is uncomfortable with the noise and sudden switching lights. Cherie asks if she’s too warm in those layers, she asks if she should be.

Isabella takes a call and approaches. Dr. Rhodes has a request.

Cherie inserts herself into the group. Taking out her phone and telling someone she’s going live tonight.

Linda looks perplexed. Cherie explains Vtubing. Linda looks perplexed.

Linda second-guesses the Uber driver on the ride back to King’s College.

It being after one in the morning, campus security let them in.

They are approached by a man in dark street clothes, a hood concealing a dark wooden mask. He removes it to show a face that looks freshly dead, and introduces himself as Frank Bloom. Linda worries she might end up like that, Cherie seems unconcerned. Asking what he does, he works in homicide. She says she does true crime videos, and when he looks alarmed she says she also helped bring a crooked MP down.

Rhodes greet Bloom politely and Cherie suspiciously.

A student from one of the groups tutored by a protégé of his has been missing three days.

He uses the computer at his desk, reluctantly.

Cherie suggests he should change his password and he peers at her over his reading glasses.

Martin Compton, third year, of interest to one of Rhodes’s people as he’s studying Early Modern history.

They should be able to access the security room, the camera recordings should go back that far. Though the campus has a number of blind spots.

Cherie looks over Martin’s social media, and spots a familiar face. Claire Davies, mortal descendant of Samuel Novak, a Venture banker and childe of the city’s Seneschal, Henry Forrester. The kind of person deemed off limits even when based in another elder’s domain.

Then she steps out and takes out her phone. “Sorry for the bad model quality, we’re doing this on the go.” And she finds a suitably moody picture of Claire to send stream followers to find.

Bloom also knows Novak, a rival of Joseph Milliner, head of the city’s Hecata investment group. He calls in a marker to arrange a meeting with Novak the following evening.

Joseph Milliner

Security footage shows Martin leaving the last class he attended on Wednesday, heading to a café with Claire.

Maebh sends her magpie to look over the café, and the group walk to Martin’s flat.

No sign of forced entry, but it has clearly been ransacked.

2XP