Alessandra stopped applying her eyeliner when she heard Misha's voice through the intercoms, the older vampire pursing her lips at the mention of Victor being in trouble. She sighs and finishes up her eye makeup prior to getting dressed, throwing on a simple short black dress and some heels. She slips the rapier Sorrin had gifted her in its sheath, taking it just in case, before heading out to meet with the others in the garage.

She folds her arms across her chest while waiting for the others and looks to Misha with a look of concern. "Misha? What's going on?"

Sorrin gets the call and stands up from his desk at the office, Lup flinching his ear in the direction of the phone to listen. Once he gets the details from Misha, he states, "I'll meet you guys there." and delegates the remaining of his work to an employee.

Within 20 mins, Sorrin arrives at the location Misha sent him and starts looking for everyone. Spotting Misha and Aless, he waves and walks over with Lup.

Alana raises an eyebrow, finishes getting ready in cute black casual attire, and heads towards the garage calmly, stretching slightly and waving goodbye to Harold. 

"I received a call from Victor a leetle while ago. He sounded deestressed and I just realized thet he has been away for hours - longer than normal." she recapped. "I hef the feeling that he is in a seetuation that ees over hees head. Come." she said, gesturing to the truck. "I hef hees location. Let us see what has heppened, ya? He deed not sound like heemself, but i'm afraid I don't have any other details."

(Since this is the beginning of the Chronicle, everyone starts at 1 Hunger and if you wish to rouse, please do so now.)

THE CRIME SCENE
SCENE ONE

Victor: Something bad happened here. The square spiral of concrete steps bottoms out in a cold pit of spent cigareete butts, beer bottles and flattened paper cups. You are at the bottom of the stairs, laying on a concrete slab. It smells like mold and ash and piss down here. On the other side of this dead-end stairwell a corpse sits up, with his back to the wall. His skin is dry and taut, stretched over his face, split and rotten at the cheeks, at the brows, at the chin. His eyes are empty slits. The front of his green army coat is soaked, almost black, with blood and ash that have run out from his torn throat.

Between the mummy-like corpse and you, the concrete floor is sticky with blood. A toppled public ashtray has spread crunchy sand into the gunk. Where the ashes fall out of the corpse's clothes, it all makes a gritty, nasty paste. Even from here you can see, snagging the split limp lip of the corpse, a pair of yellow fangs. That body was a vampire. Dried lines of thick, ashy paste run down from your mouth. Gooey lines of dried blood stretch lip to lip. Your hands are crusted with blood and flaky ash.

The killer is clear - it's you. But..who is the corpse?

You can hear hurried footsteps coming down to the bottom floor. It's Misha and the others. When she gets to the bottom, she stops - partially in shock, but relieved you are OK.

"Veector!" she breathes. "O, paren'. Chto, chert voz'mi, proizoshlo zdes'...?"

Victor tries to wipe the blood and ash off his face, something that proves ineffective with his hands being covered in those same substances, which only serves to heighten his distress. He stands up, using the wall as support as he wobbles unsteadily, like he's on a ship. "S-Someone hurt Lena. I left the castle, I must have frenzied and..." he points at the dead vampire, his hand shaking as he does so. "I don't even know who that guy is. I didn't mean to do it. I'm sorry." He grows increasingly desperate as he begs his friends for forgiveness and assistance. "They'll kill me if they find that I did this! We have to get rid of the body!"

Misha looked around rapidly at the scene, then back upstairs quickly to make sure no one was coming. It was quite a mess. "Ees ok, Victor." she said, helping him up. "Lena? Who ees Lena? What happened to her? Ees she ok? Come. No one touch anything." she suggested. 

(Posting the challenges when I get home)

"She's a mortal that I like. Sometimes I talk to her, took her out to dinner once, nothing too serious though. Some muggers attacked her, she's alive, but apparently that was enough for the Beast to take over." He said, while allowing Misha to help him. "Don't worry about her right now, we have to get rid of the body."

Sorrin looks over the scene as a whole, taking a few steps towards Victor to join Misha in checking if he was okay...but then he spots the corpse. Additionally, he notes the fangs and his body tenses, and he lets out a curse, "De naiba…." He bends down to double check and lup comes over to get a good whiff. A few checks simply serve to add to the confirmation that the man wasn't human, "He was Kindred....damn it...." Sorrin nods to Lup and commands him to look for a scent, while he starts going through the man's clothes for a sign of identification.

Alessandra's lips thin as she scans over the murder scene, her hands going to her purse to pull out surgical gloves to hand out to the others, other than Victor who... well... "What a mess..." She murmurs under her breath, taking out some baby wipes and handing them over to Victor. "Something to clean you up..." When he takes them, she slaps on her gloves and takes a look over the body, quickly identifying them as a kindered. "What a mess indeed..."

Victor takes the baby wipes that Alessandra gives him and cleans his face and hands.

CRIME SCENE: CHALLENGE

Goals: Find out who the victim is, and what happened here.
How: The key actions here involve a simple investigation of the scene, identifying evidence and developing what detectives call a "theory of the crime".
Mechanics: Based on the actions listed below, the coterie needs to achieve 6 margins of success total against the "Investigate" action DV listed below to move on to the next scene within 30 minutes of time. Anyone can attempt the actions below, but only the player with the highest margin of success will be counted towards the DV of that action. 

Actions:
Investigate: What clues can we find? Roll Wits + Investigation vs DV2. Unlocks clues. Each roll equals 10 minutes of time. Margins of failure reduce margins of success in "Investigate". Margins of success add to the pool of 6 needed.
Obstacles: "Someone's coming!" We have to deter mortals. Roll a Social (DV2) or Physical pool (DV4) of your choice. Margins of failure reduce margins of success in "Investigate". Margins of success simply deter the mortals away.
(Optional) Lore: Is this Torpor or Final Death? Roll Intelligence + Occult vs DV2. Unlocks information. Does not effect "Investigate" or "Obstacles".

(Spent one superdog to focus. Six margins of success)

Victor was able to stop panicking and focus on putting together a more complete chain of events so that he could start to work his way out of this. He turns to his friends. "Thank you for coming to my assistance, let's get to work." He borrows some crime scene gloves from Alessandra and requests that she and Misha aid him in his investigation. 

Alana moves to be on deterrence duty, warding off and persuading any humans with her awe and charming skill. She'd even lead a few away for a picture if they'd like. 

Dv2 - success with 3 margin (without awe) success with 5 margin (with awe).

Goals: Find out who the victim is, and what happened here.
How: The key actions here involve a simple investigation of the scene, identifying evidence and developing what detectives call a "theory of the crime".
Mechanics: Based on the actions listed below, the coterie needs to achieve 6 margins of success total against the "Investigate" action DV listed below to move on to the next scene within 30 minutes of time. Anyone can attempt the actions below, but only the player with the highest margin of success will be counted towards the DV of that action. 

Actions:
Investigate: What clues can we find? Roll Wits + Investigation vs DV2. Unlocks clues. Each roll equals 10 minutes of time. Margins of failure reduce margins of success in "Investigate". Margins of success add to the pool of 6 needed. SUCCESS
Obstacles: "Someone's coming!" We have to deter mortals. Roll a Social (DV2) or Physical pool (DV4) of your choice. Margins of failure reduce margins of success in "Investigate". Margins of success simply deter the mortals away. SUCCESS
(Optional) Lore: Is this Torpor or Final Death? Roll Intelligence + Occult vs DV2. Unlocks information. Does not effect "Investigate" or "Obstacles".

CHALLENGE PASSED. RESULTS:

The victim is a Caucasian male vampire. It's corpse is dried, curled and gray like burnt paper, around torn flesh from the jaw to the collarbone - his throat was torn or bitten out. The corpse's chest is split like a spoiled pumpkin, the flesh having shrunken, and the insides have fallen like ash between rotten ribs. He is dressed in a green army jacket, worn-out jeans and black work boots. He had brown hair. Both the killer and Victor's clothes are ruined with blood and ash - they must have been tangled, grappled together, when the victim was finally slain. Based on small blood splatters and a kicked over ashtray, the fight started upstairs, at street level, and sprawled down the concrete stairwell to the bottom. The victim's face, though shrunken and slashed beyond recognition, still sprouts rough brown hairs - had had a beard. His teeth are yellow, like a coffee-drinkers, but otherwise unremarkable. His skin is black in long serpentine shapes from his elbows, up his arms and across his back. They're tattoos, barely visible in the dried and rotten flesh, of the stylized and so called "tribal" variety that's popular these nights. Inside the corpse's left boot is a brass colored key, like a house key, on a simple metal ring. There's something inside the corpse, too. It's a silver pendant, round and carved with a Celtic knot, on a cheap and busted gold chain, stuck to the inside of the body and tangled up in rough straws of dry gristle. It must of come free in the fight and fallen into the body during his death.

Alana was able to keep a small group of semi drunk young adults away from the scene long enough for them to leave and take another route.

Now you must decide what to do with the body. The next challenge will be posted very soon.

"Okay, I'm beginning to put things together. I attacked this guy, we fought, pretty intensely, but obviously I won, which really isn't much of a positive in this case. Now we have to get rid of the body and quick. We've gotta destroy all of the evidence that this ever happened." 

"Easier said than done," Alessandra tsks, standing up straight. "Set him on fire and risk going into a frenzy again, or drop him in a vat of acid. Unfortunately, it'll take a day or so to have that delivered to the house, so it's your choice."

"Oh **** me." Victor uttered upon hearing about his options, or lack thereof. "Well, frenzying got me into this, so let's go with acid, unless someone else has any ideas."

"Why not bring him to the house? You've got a big place, not to mention it's isolated."

THE EVIDENCE: CHALLENGE

Goals: Clean up the crime scene, hide the evidence, protect the Masquerade.
How: Take actions to find a way to dispose of the body. Chose an approach below, or come up with your own.
Mechanics: Based on the action chosen listed below, or a plan of action you choose yourself, the coterie needs to achieve 10 margins of success total against the DV listed below. Anyone can attempt the chosen actions below either by themselves, or with help. This is an extended action, so each attempt will equal 30 minutes of time. You must scrub down the stairwell first and only have 30 minutes to complete this task. If this is failed the Chronicle ends with consequences. Once the stairwell is clean the timer resets and you have 30 minutes to pick a plan and implement it within the time limit, or you will be caught. The Chronicle ends with consequences.   

(Required) Scrub down the stairwell! Wits + Strength vs DV3. Do it well and don't miss a spot.
(Optional) Hack up the body? Strength + Melee or Strength + Medicine vs DV4 to know how to chop or where to do it.
(Optional) Bury the body? Intelligence + Streetwise vs DV3 to pick a spot that won't be found, or Strength + Stamina vs DV4 to bury is deep.
(Optional) Have the body taken care of. Presence or Manipulation + Streetwise vs DV4 to convince graveyard hospital personnel to do your dirty work.
Or any other plan you guys come up with, in which I will determine the pools and the DV.

Complications:
Passerby's will reduce success levels by -1 to -3 depending on your choice.
Surveillance will reduce success levels by -2 to -4 depending on your choice.
Good visibility will reduce success levels by -2
Poor choices or thoughtless plans will reduce success levels by -1 to -5