But full of slightly uncomfortable vampire. And maybe a spider. Because Mark's an asshole.
Anne also got a steam cleaner and cleaned the entire Winnebago on the pretense that she wanted every trace of leech out of our house, but also probably because with two bachelor's living in it, she was afraid that if she turned on a black-light it would look like a Jackson Pollack painting (because we make Guardians of the Galaxy references). Kade then found Mark the next day to give them a choice of different missions to go on. Our choices were either going with Apocalypse Creed (the super macho Incubi) on a mission to kill a bunch of demons infesting an oil rig, go with Dr. Richard Thaddeus Block (our nerdy Incubi scientist friend) to investigate something that the Doctor was interested in, or take a highly lucrative mission to literally stand around at a vampire court to pad out numbers to make the Regeant of Chicago look more competent (with a 98% chance that none of us will get hurt to boot).
Now, Mark is greedy, self serving, and likes making Lenny uncomfortable. Also fighting demons Doom style is totes not his bag, and following the Doctor around would be tedious. He decided that the team would go stand around vampires for fun and profit. Additionally, he didn't clear this with Lenny and Anne and just informed them that they were off to see vampires. Lenny was sad and uncomfortable, Anne talked to Kade about it and found out Mark had been given options and was sad they couldn't go kill demons. Secretly, both knew that this was the best mission (because it involved the most money), so they drove off to Chicago.
Since road trips aren't complete without fast food, they decided to stop along the way. Since they were in a Winnebago and going into fast food joints is for plebs, they had to find a drive thru that could accommodate the Winnie. The first place they found was a White Castle in Ohio, pulled in, ordered, and then waited in the drive thru. And waited. And waited. Lenny knocked on the drive thru window, and after nobody could be seen inside after ten minutes, we finally got impatient, Mark could only sense one life form inside, which he remarked wasn't unusual given the nature of most fast food workers. They pulled around and went inside, because things seemed fishy.
Please note: the following tale of terror is hardly the most horrible thing to have ever happened in a White Castle. In fact, it isn't even the worst thing to happen in a White Castle's bathroom. They're called "sliders" for a reason, folks.
Inside the White Castle, everybody was dead. We could tell, because their organs and blood and body parts were literally all over everything. Mark was disappointed that he wasn't getting dinner, Lenny went back to the Winnie for a shotgun, Anne pulled out her gun and started slowly walking behind the counter. As Mark decided to get himself a Sprite from the soda machine, he heard a sobbing from the bathrooms, let Anne know, filled up his drink, and followed her towards the bathrooms with Lenny's backup.
There was someone in the stall in the womens' room, but she wouldn't open the door. Mark used his telepathic command abilities to make her open the door, because he was #over #it, and we found a terrorized female cashier who was probably around 19-20. Mark called 911 while sipping his Sprite and having a cigarette on the front sidewalk, Anne comforted the girl, and Lenny told the rest of the disgruntled people in the drive-thru that they weren't getting their orders today. The officers showed up, and Mark decided that the girl's non-verbal state was annoying and just decided to read her surface thoughts to tell the cops what happened.
Fleshies, in the Colt Regan universe, are tall, emaciated, genderless naked human bodies with no eyes or noses, mouths full of razor teeth, and hands and feet with knife sized claws. They generally work like feral fast zombies, aren't sentient, and aren't super graceful. Everyone in the White Castle had been killed by a fleshie that was a graceful, intelligent killing machine. It creeped Mark the fuck out, he asked the officers where the nearest Pizza place was, Lenny called Kade and let him know about the incident, we left statements, then drove down the road for really good New York style pizza.
Fleshies are kinda like this fucking thing from Pan's Labyrinth, just with more rage murder and less hand-eyes.
After that, we got to Chicago with no incident. We met our contact at an arcade pub and were quickly ushered into the back where we met a vampire who was an actual Mafia stereotype. He was even watching The Godfather. He was nice, slightly threateneing, explained that the Regent of Chicago was meeting with some random even higher up vampire (I play Mark, and Mark isn't so big on details like this, so I forget them too), and the Regent wanted to appear more impressive so she basically wanted us to stand around, look fancy, and pad out her retinue.
The vampire we met with (he was called The Head of Fraternity) also asked Lenny about who made Lenny, and Lenny was an awkward baby vampire, because he's not really good at the whole vampire bit, because he was dumped before his ex girlfriend bothered telling him about it and he's been too busy playing video games since then to find out. We were told to visit a tailor on the house, given hotel rooms (and told not to go nuts with room service), and Lenny spent most of the night playing arcade games at the video arcade. Mark ate a packet of nuts and left a note that he'd gone nuts with room service.
The next day, we visited a very nice tailor. Lenny got a suit, Mark got nice clothes, and Annabelle got a red, sparkly flapper stripper dress. We waited until dark, and decided we didn't want to roll up to a fancy event in a Winnebago. Lenny suggested we call an Uber. Mark said it'd be driven by a hipster vegan who'd pass out from low iron or something and kill them all. We took a yellow cab instead.
In Mark's mind, this is secretly a gluten free death trap.
The vampires present (and our protagonists) were dressed in oddly 1920s reminiscent clothes, because the vampires in Chicago are pretty much the actual Mafia (because probably most of them started it or something). One of them had a scary sith mask, and since Mark does things like this, Lenny explained via a telepathic three way call Mark set up that the scary dude was called an Ebon Gladius. Mark said it was a good porn name. We continued on to meet the other group of important vampires and stood around silently while they exchanged pleasantries.
Most of said pleasantries went way over our heads, because we're not vampires. Something about an alternate dimension beyond the Wyrd, and "we need to investigate" and "we need to send someone expendable." They decided to talk to "Bathory" who was evidently the head of their group or clan or whatever. Vampire politics in Colt Regan are hush hush to the uninitiated. Of specific interest to Anne was the moment when she was offered as a snack to the visiting vampires. We figured that was the 98% chance none of us would be harmed moment. We were right, and luckily the visiting vamps decided they weren't hungry. Incidentally, Mark figured out that she had a crush on Kade by snooping in her surface thoughts during this time. That ammunition is sure to resurface later.
The "Bathory"mentioned is most likely Elizabeth Bathory. Google her. She's cool.
Afterwards, we met the Regent, and she exchanged pleasantries with us in a harsh, nasal, New York accent. Evidently one of Lenny's sketchy cousins is in the NY branch of "the family." She then showed us her hat trick where she disappeared into her reflection in the car mirror when she said farewell. We saddled up the Winnebago, and then we headed back to Centralia.
Back in Centralia, we found Dr. Richard Thaddeus Block who waved a photo of the creeptastic fleshie that Mark had seen in the fast food girl's memory. Evidently, the non-existent (possibly erased from existence) former science lab he'd worked for had been imprisoning it. It was a noted serial killer, and it usually let one victim live, but that one victim always committed suicide later, potentially under some sort of mental control. Mark feared for his life, Anne flirted with Kade more, and we ended the night with Dr. Block offering Mark some pills to deal with his fear. Mark declined, let the Doctor know about his addiction, but the fact that there are drugs in the building may raise it's ugly head again.
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