Liam looked from man to man and then shrugged. "I'll do it," he said, rolling up his sleeve again. "She's not going to be well disposed towards any of us, least of all to Mickey. Get ready to pull me off of things go bad."

"And maybe move the grenade," he added as an after thought.

Counts as 5 successes against DC 7 or less, presuming autos from Potence. I also presume she has Potence, so they may just end up canceling each other out.

22:49, Today: Liam O'Farrell rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness 3rd ed system with a target of 6 with rolls of 9,4,7,3.  Strength Check, Potence 3.

[She also scored 7 successes total, out of dumb luck.
* Storyteller rolled 4 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness 3rd ed system with a target of 6 with rolls of 8,9,10,7.  Contested Strength (+3 potence)]

Hasan deftly pocketed the grenade, taking a moment to inspect the makeshift pin. He stood close by in case the struggle got out of hand. Mickey reached for it, too, but Hasan was quicker.

"I'll just keep quiet, then," Mickey said. In his stealth garb and face mask it would be difficult to identify him at all.

The moment Liam's vitae slid down her desiccated throat, the mummified form sprang to life with a sickening crunch. The cables snapped almost immediately, and she slid her cuffed hands underneath her body, dislocating her shoulders for a moment in the process. She wrapped her dusty fingers around Liam's arm, and clung to him like a limpet. When he had given sufficient vitae to begin abating her feeding frenzy, he found it difficult to wrest his grip from her. Indeed, she had taken more than her fill by the time he pried himself loose.

Mickey immediately offered him the drinking spout from the camel-bak. It was warm and close to spoiling, but he wasn't picky at the moment.

[-7 BP. There are 5 BP in the pack.]

When Liam had replenished himself, the Nosferatu's mind had cleared. She looked around at her masked captors, utterly unafraid. "Let's have it, then," she said dryly.

"It's 2020 (2021?)," Liam began. "You've been torpid for a decade, give or take. Kiesinger still controls the city up above us but the walls are closing in a little tighter every day. The masquerade is dead. The mortals know about us, or at least enough do that it doesn't matter any more. The fugue has been upended by a worldwide pandemic and the Tremere are looking to cut and run."

"Why don't we start with that."

"My name is Liam."

[Roughly August 2020]

Her face was expressionless as Liam spun his tale, but his first name clicked in her head and her eyes sparked. She studied him a moment. "I know who you are, Liam O'Farrell," she said finally. "I'd be a pretty shitty intelligence officer if I didn't. I'm Petunia Fong, but everyone calls me Petty."

"I'm also pretty sure you're telling the truth," she added. "Because I know you're a better liar than that. So let's pretend for the moment that I believe you. Why're you coming all the way down here to wake me up?"

“I didn’t,” Liam confessed. “At least not initially. I came down here looking for Lloyd Douglas. Lloyd was a friend.”

“I didn’t find him though. But I did find you.”

“That was a few nights ago. It took me some time to figure out how to get you out. You weren’t going to fit the way I got in.”

“As to why I came back - its simple, really. I want you to tell the Nosferatu what happened here, what the Camarilla did to you. Lloyd deserves that much. But more to the point I want the Camarilla to finally pay a price for their crimes. They’ve run up quite the butcher’s bill over the years and I intend to call in the tab.”

Petty frowned a little, and shrugged. "Lloyd and I didn't get along," she said. "Up until I lost the cameras, it was pretty chaotic. I don't know what happened to him; I'm sorry."

"So the Nosferatu don't know what happened here?" she said incredulously. "That's quite a revelation. I'm nobody important, but I think they'll listen to me. Especially if I can access the camera archives."

She looked at the hulking computers, now silent. "Any chance we can get power to the servers?"

It'd be a short trip through the conduits back to the breakers. He'd switched them off to cover his tracks on the last trip, but he knew exactly where to go.

"So far as I know, the Cams fed them a lie. You're the only witness. We found the footage and started uploading it last time I was here. I can get the power back on."

"I ah, also found your ipad. I took it just in case I couldn't get back before they sealed the tunnels. You can have it back."

He looked at Hasan and Mickey. "Is turning the power on going to cause a problem for the others, do you think?"

"The official story is that Jacob Holloway and Hasan Al-Rashid infiltrated and bombed the Warrens, killing everyone inside," Mickey clarified.

At Liam's question, Mickey shrugged and looked at Hasan. "Don't look at me," Hasan said. "They didn't tell me shit about how they wired this place."

"Unless they're working on these computers, they shouldn't even notice," Petty said helpfully. "They're on their own breaker. But if you've got the footage already, we can skip it. Once upon a time, I could control the entire compound from here. But most of those hardlines are cut now, so there's not much I can do that might be helpful down here."

"We were transferring it out over a cellphone," Liam offered. "It was slow going. I can't speak to how much we data we managed to upload before we powered down. I'll get the power on and then make my way to the other team. The radios may be shit in the tunnels, but with the stone we can stay connected. Hopefully they're making equally good progress and we can get the hell out of here soon."

"Nice to meet you properly, Petty."

"Likewise," Petty said cheerily. "I'd shake your hand but some jackass tied me up."

"Oh," Hasan said absently, producing his katar and cutting her bonds.

Free of her cuffs, Petty stretched, and ran a hand over her bald head. "Do whatever it is you're doing, and let's get the hell out of this place, eh?"

"I'll be a few minutes. Sit tight."

Liam took a breath (largely unnecessarily) and let go of his form altogether. Moments later he was coasting through the conduit along the long, largely featureless path back.

Cal and Pockets had found the pillbox. When Liam materialized, only Cal was visible. He was braced against the open half-wall, with a taut climbing rope around his waist. One end was tied securely to the heavy control panel, and the other stretched over the wall and down towards the camera. Cal regarded him silently, sweat running down his brow.

When Liam looked down, he could see Pockets suspended upside-down, working on a tiny hole on the rim of the camera's housing with a pair of slender tools. It looked like incredibly delicate work.

"Do... you want me to take the weight off?" Liam offered quietly. "I can hold it."

Cal shook his head. "Can't risk jostling her," he whispered.

They stood there awkwardly for a painful half-hour, watching Pockets work. From this perspective, Liam couldn't see much, but finally Pockets put away her tools, and silently hooked the wires that now trailed out of the hole into the port on Cal's commandeered phone. Finally, she took a tube of industrial adhesive, and affixed the phone to the wall just above the camera. Then, she signalled for Cal to haul her back up.

Finally, Liam was able to lend a hand, and hoisting her up was a quick and smooth affair. With her feet back on solid ground, she shuddered jerkily, and gave a thumbs up.

She addressed Cal first. "I'll give you losers the instructions on how to patch in, and I'll be sure to use small words. Reception down here is dogshit, so don't expect good bandwidth. If you want a stable feed, stick to one camera, capische?"

Then, she turned to Liam. "Well, that sucked ass, but it's a good thing I'm awesome. Ready to get the fuck outta here?"

Liam grinned. "We're all good here," he said through the stone beneath his tongue. "Pockets and Cal are done."

"We'll meet you back at the entrance if Petty has everything she needs. I'll take the long way back with these two."

"She put some stuff on a stick, and then hit some sorta killswitch," Hasan said. "Hard drives are all fried. We're already headed back." There was a pause. "She says don't forget to kill the power."

After a short trip back to the breakers, Liam was ready to follow the pair back to the exit. This would be a simple affair, as all Cal needed to do was reel in the fishing line to retrace their steps.

"We didn't run into too much trouble on the way here," Pockets said. "Most of the traps had been dismantled for weapons a while back." As they walked, she gestured to a dismantled explosive trap in the rafters. "We, uh, came upon some pretty grisly scenes down some of the wrong turns."

"I expect," Liam said grimly. "I admittedly didn't spend much time in the halls once I found my way into the conduits. I don't think its likely I'll ever find out what happened to Lloyd, but at least their story will get told."

"When the fascists are out of power I'm coming back down and going through this place with a fine-toothed comb," Pockets said. "Provided I'm allowed to." She glanced meaningfully at Cal.

"Don't look at me, kid, I only work here," Cal said. "That kinda decision is waaay above my paygrade." He turned his attention to Liam. "How'd it go with your VIP?"

"Her name is I'm Petunia Fong. She goes by Petty. We bonded her as a precaution, but she seems pretty willing to assist us without the added motivation. She pulled all the data she could off the servers and killed the rest."

"You haven't seen a nosferatu yet. At least, not one that wasn't a pile of ash. They look... different. Becoming a vampire twists their bodies almost beyond recognition. It can be a jarring experience for first introductions. But she seems pleasant."

"Mickey warned me already," Cal said. "They're Max Shreck-lookin' ghoulies. He also said they're pretty mistrustful, especially of authority. Does she know you're working with the government yet?"

"I left soon after waking her. We started the discussion about all that had come to pass during her torpor but we're far from finishing it. I don't know what Hasan and Mickey told her besides, but I'm guessing not much."

"Plenty of us are gonna work for the government by the time this is all over," Pockets said. "But if she doesn't know you were the one who killed the Masquerade, keep it that way. Even if she doesn't mark you for it, there are those that will. Especially when things start to get messy."

"Y'think things're going to get messier than this?" Cal said, gesturing around him.

"Bet on it," Pockets replied.

"You have no idea," Liam concurred.

"I'll keep that close to my chest for now, though. You're right. Very few Kindred are going to agree with my decision, at least at the outset." Rick certainly hadn't.

"They've been living this way too long. And in our world you don't get old by blindly putting your trust in other people."

"Hopefully I change some minds along the way."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:26, Sat 01 Jan 2022.

"For what it's worth," Cal said with a smile. "You're nothing like what I expected. If vampirekind was gonna make a first impression, they'd be hard-pressed to do better."

"Mind the tripwire," Pockets said, pointing it out as they rounded the corner. It was easy enough to step over.

Liam chuckled. "I'm not sure if that makes me a good vampire or a bad one, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same," he said, stepping over the wire.