There are no safe mental spaces

Lottie and Julius take the Staten Island ferry, while being followed by the Nosferatu Primogen. Sneaky Prince. AltLottie comes out to play and she, along with Julius, agree that killing Jeanine is bad.

At Theo's, he looks as the dagger and says she's seen both Jeanine and Charlotte with it. Frankie agrees to sign a formal complaint against Jeanine. As the two Brujah leave to find their Primogen, another car T-bones them and tries to run them off the road and shoot at them. Theo gets some shots off before Frankie gets them out of the way. (This will have “interesting knock-on effects” says the GM.) After all, if the unknown assailants shoot back with the Tommy guns they're sporting? Heads probably go splat, which is bad for vampires. Failing to find Don Cerro, they end up at ... a house where we know from previous (way back near the beginning of the campaign) that Charlotte has two apartments in? And Theo has a key?!

Staten Island smells funny. Following a scent, the Malkavians find Jeanine in an inn, looking ... poorly. Tommy the Fool tries to get a room, but they take Jeanine up to the room she already has, where Julius pricks her finger. Jeanine has somehow become Thin-blooded?! How the fuck is that even possible?! This complicates things enormously. What to do? AltLottie suggests skipping town. Julius declines.

Ice trolls are dicks

We were in Runvid's Cairn, about to disrupt some runes on gholem-type statue things. We succeeded, and they didn't come to life when we passed a certain point on the map. Instead, we found a room with a tomb, and a shield on the wall. A shield that, as it turned out, gives out bolts of lightning when you touch one of the rocks on the burial mound thing.

After various unsuccessful attempts at disabling the lightning trap (we later found out you're not supposed to be able to) we gave up, and left. Turns out the forge thing was best left alone as well, so Murmei was right to insist not to become a blacksmith. Of course later he took the skill anyway, because it meant he'd be able to patch up Knightlight himself.

We continued our journey and came across the Fortress of Solitude. Despite his previously flawless negotiation tactics ("hi, let's be friends!") Murmei was unsuccessful with the ice trolls, who decided the party would be best eaten. The party disagreed, almost wiped, but finally took out the lot of them, and got a fancy magic spear in the process.

Turned out there was a ginormous wolf creature, who had apparently eaten a dragon previously, guarding a big door inside the ice cave. Elindra talked to it, but it wasn't being helpful either. Apparently there's a portal to another realm behind the door, and the ice trolls want to take over this world, but so far they haven't come very far ... and besides, they're also trapped inside a big bubble you can't simply walk out of.

At any rate, we got out of there, found a treehouse, rested up, and we left off having found a couple of dead ice trolls and a dead boar, and the air was getting chilly again ... to anyone not wearing a cold immunity ring.

Oh, what's a noble ball?

So Mother Dearest has arrived, and there's a ball to celebrate and everything. Two thirds of the party used said ball to scout from the rafters or from the floor, trying to find clues about the owl mask guy.

The remaining third was introduced to the two options of potential spouses. One was a merchant's daughter and thought adventuring was beneath a noble, plus she was terribly boring. The other was an alchemist and right up Murmei's alley, because she also didn't mind nobles adventuring.

Soooo ... end result: owl mask guy wasn't found, and Murmei's now head over heels in love with what is obviously Miss Trappy McTrapface. Fortunately the other two party members decided to be suspicious of Miss Too Glaringly Perfect, 21 and still unwed.

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy

After levelling up (level 8, wooh!) we somehow got into a discussion about Cthulhu and tentacle porn and found out that yes, the internet will provide if you do an image search for Cthulhu dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl. Uh. Like you do?

Anyway. In actual gaming terms we went to the market, and most of the party pretended to be slaves belonging to Gorbash, who in turn pretended to be a Rakshasa. We found Alistair and his Shemarrian assistant/slave in a cell down at the slave pens, so that's good. That we found them, that is, as that's what we were there to do.

A couple of brothers, whose other brother we may have previously disposed of, recognised Booker. And then the setting off of explosions ensued ...