(The Vanishing) Three Hundred Bucks

[Jacque]

A gentle flick of his wrist followed the stowing of his cell phone. "Looks like we have places to be," he offered to his ghoul.

He grabbed a few things and talked through a loose plan before making his way to the car garage.

Two kine. Two SUVs. One of them injured with a breach. Remote location. In and out.

One of his herd drove the first SUV with Jack as passenger. His ghoul took the second and followed their route described in the text.

Seryna
Equipment: Burner phones for each w/ push to talk; Jack's overcoat w/ Rolex, expensive suit, tie pin, cuff links, money clip with a grand in cash. Colt M1911A1 holstered in back + 1 extra clip

[Jacque]

bookkeeping for blush

[Seryna]

Jack and his crew arrive on the scene of a van quickly. The van has some damage to the right bumper and is missing the rearview mirror on the right side. There is a woman standing outside the driver side door, anxiously scanning the road. She is five feet, six inches tall and is physically fit. She has dark brown shoulder length hair swept in a high ponytail. There is blood on her hands.
The back door of the van is open. A man is leaning over a woman who’s sitting within. His left hand holds a cell phone. His right hand is pressed to the neck of the woman who’s sitting in the back of the van.
The woman appears groggy and out of it as she sits in the van, one hand on her neck. Her neck has a bandage applied, yet it is already soaked with blood. She looks upset, but is not crying or hyperventilating.
What does Jack do?

[Jacque]

Shit, three people. He's not entirely sure what made him think they'd only encounter two, but it was too late now. It wasn't impossible to deal with, just less of an absolute cakewalk.

Push to talk as they pull over to park: Make sure the child locks are engaged.

With that, he exited the vehicle to assess the scene, "Heard you all needed a ride! What happened? Did you get sideswiped or something?" He motions to the damage on the vehicle as he moves closer to the victim.

[Seryna]

Two hours earlier this evening, a deep rumbling began to shake the streets of east Sacramento. Those who resided in California recognized the signs and several began to react to reduce the impact. Yet as the earthquake intensified, questions could be raised. Sacramento was farther from the San Andreas fault. How was this earthquake so intense? News reports begin to come in of a failure of structural supports in Folsom, trapping some residents in their homes. Some other reports from around the city report similar occurrences.
Jack had passed several ambulances and police cars while enroute to the location. As he speaks, the woman standing outside approaches Jack’s window, imploring him.

“Will you drive us to the hospital? We need help!
We were following somebody while calling the cops because of what we saw them do earlier. They parked and we followed them. I was filming and they pushed me. I…” She blinks rapidly, appearing to try and hold back tears.
“-I don’t know what happened... I found the van and Nancy bleeding on the floor. Some freak bit her. Nancy was saying the pretty, seductive woman told her she had to stay here. Not get involved. We had to carry her into the van. We tried to drive to the hospital, but the some of the big guys were racing after us."

[Jacque]

Jack listened as the woman shared the details of what transpired- at least what the kine would rationalize it to be. This was careless at best for a Kindred...

"All that on top of the earthquake?" The Lord emphatically shook his head, "Doesn't seem like your night but hopefully I can make it a little easier. Put Nancy in that car..." the Lord pointed to the other vehicle, "...and you two can follow it with me."

"Let's see where the closest one would be..." the Lord uttered under his breath as he discretely sent off a text.

[Seryna]

"I will stay with her. She doesn't seem to be herself." The woman says to Jack as she helps her friend half carry her friend to the vehicle that Jack indicates.
"No, its been a shit night. Those biker freaks really," The man pauses and seems to regroup. "Thank you." He says to Jack, looking sincere.

The man moves to the driver's side of the van, ready to follow Jack off to the hospital. The woman helps buckle in her friend. Nancy seems to need help as her head rests against the window, her body slumped. The woman who has not introduced herself will attempt to sit next to her friend.
What does Jack do with these three?

The night is full of sound. A medical helicopter flies by overhead. A few police cars are driving back and forth on the main roads. The sirens being off suggest that perhaps emergency services is getting the aftermath under control.

[Jacque]

Annoyance slowly washed through the Lord's mind. He had given clear instructions yet... nearly everything was contrary to his direction. Plus... the man. It seemed he intended to follow in his own vehicle which beckoned the question- why the hell did they even need a ride then?

He could already tell the situation would spiral without some direct intervention and he already had a list of loose ends to deal with from the short time he had been there.

"There's no sense in trying to push that damaged van to the hospital, just ride with us and we'll bring you back out here once things are settled and Nancy's been checked in." He looked to the woman who wanted to stay with Nancy, "I'm sorry but given the information you've told me I really must insist. If you are pursued again I'd rather give her the chance to break away to the hospital since she's hurt." If nothing else, he put the finality of their situation on display, "My vehicles, my rules." ​

7 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2022-09-08 18:27:35	Jacque rolls 14 to oratory to follow instructions (Pre+Per+SL+dev+1 EQ (transportation)) (10 Again)	4, 6, 10, 1, 5, 5, 10, 8, 4, 3, 10, 2, 10, 7, 4, 9, 1, 8	7 successes

Given they claimed to need the ride I gave the roll a modest +1 EQ bonus. Feel free to remove if it wasn't warranted. Oratory would be be versus the highest Resolve+Composure of the two kine.

[Seryna]

"I'm Nicole." She introduces herself to Jack as she steps out of the car. She looks as though she would say more, yet she looks over to the man.
"Matt, what are you doing?" She sounds exasperated. Matt has been rummaging around in the glove box and closes and locks it with a key on his key chain. The man referred to as Matt offers both hands up in apology.
"Sorry, forgot my wallet. Had to update your sister when I was in the back with Nancy... okay, I got everything. Ready to go." He walks towards the car that Jack had indicated.

The woman looks back to Jack as she begins to follow after Matt.
"What hospital are we going to?" She questions Jack as she moves towards the car. She scrutinizes the driver for a moment before opening the passenger side door. Matt is already settling into the back seat.

[Jacque]

"Alex," the Lord responded in kind.

"Hard to say for sure. We'll head towards UC Davis and if we find out it is too overwhelmed we divert to another," he smiled, hoping the answer was satisfactory. He held the back passenger door open for Nicole, allowing her to settle in behind Matt before following himself. The back seats were arranged in two benches, with the middle facing towards the back instead of the traditionally forward.

Once inside he began to ask, "You mentioned you were recording some people and some person bit Nancy? Did you manage to get that freak attack on the video?"