Nothing we've heard from the last few people we've talked to has told us anything particularly useful beyond simply having names and foci to work with.
Those are something, but at some point we need to translate this into actionable specifics and do something about them.
Wether that's hunting her personally, cursing her cult interns, or casting summon feds by telling them where Sandra is and how she's a terrorist who's going to destroy the continent's biosphere in the name of the most illegal of aliens, whatever.
There are good plans and bad plans, but perfect later will probably end worse than messy now.
… well Daedalus would find a way to screw this up somehow, but the general point holds.
Thats not actually true.
=
Talking to Jacob confirmed to us that Sandra had organic mindwhammy capabilities, as thats on the scale of what you need to make a fine thrall. Previously all we knew was that she could subvert a magical ritual machine.
Thats given us a fuller picture of her capabilities thus far.
===
Talking to Kate House told us many, many things:
1)
That Sandra is self-funding by murdering rich people and enthralling their kids to loot their estate.
If you missed it, Jacob's parents conveniently died in October, then Jacob started giving Sandra money.
That means she doesnt have the financial backing of a greater conspiracy behind her unlike others we've seen.
Kattrin sure as fuck didnt have to murder mortals to fund her attempt on Arawn in Chicago, and neither did Eiko's akuma. The the Red Court could afford to spend money like water to back Madrigal's plot.
Sandra is out here on shoestrings.
If she doesnt have anyone throwing a couple million spending money her way for mundane shit, she doesnt have anyone providing her backup soldiers besides any she has stolen, suborned or summoned.
Which means if we get in a magical fight, we're looking at the mindcontrolled or summons.
=
2)
Identified the primary street pharmacist of this conspiracy.
Told us where his primary street lab is supposed to be on campus, and even warned us of the defensive measures around it.
He didnt pick a place with a reputation for being haunted for nothing.
=
3)Redflagged the other 3 members of Sandra's inner circle as having received much more extensive mods
When the social butterfly describes the alleged drug dealer who runs a drug lab on campus as a lovable scamp who might not be entirely cut out for academics, but the other threes are outright called weirdoes?
You know there's something seriously wrong with them.
Im still trying to figure why Sandra warned Kate House so comprehensively about the Whampires(beautiful people) and Rampires(protect your drink in these places) in the city.
===
When we scheduled our appointment with Harrowmont we committed to healing up fully. None of the information we've gained seems to indicate that things are dire enough that we need to move now. We have 34 hours to derail Sandra's plan spending 2 of them to heal is the wiser choice. Otherwise we're one point of damage from regaining the penalty we spent several hours healing away.
I generally agree that we're probably not going to get much more information out of the students, but unless we want to try and deal with Silk over the phone it still the best use of our times while we're healing.
[x] uju32
^^^
The reason we're healing here, in Las Vegas, instead of going back to Sanctuary boils down to it allowing us to keep an eye on things while doing so. We have a reliable timeline we're working on, and there's been no indication that its changed.
Seriously though, 34 hours was it till the continent is turned into a desert and tentacle Tim shows the whole city that trick he learned with his suckers last eon.
I feel bad for Sandra's victims, but is now the time to be arranging for their long term care or walking down aimless call lists? Especially since they clue Sandra in to exactly what we're doing supposing she picks up on the weird calls to her people.
Could we at least get some backup going or try to do something to delay her?
We have no immediate urgency to run out on the streets that override the imperative to heal up completely first.
And if we have to heal first, we can also make phone calls.
It literally costs Molly nothing to pick up the phone and ask Arlene to check in on the dude, get him out and undo his mindwhammy. And once he is in Arlene's hands, he might tell her stuff that we might want to know. Or she might find stuff in his home that we might want to know. Its IC for the person we're playing.
And these types of sidequests have an impact on our final XP rating.
Sandra already knows that Molly is in town, and that she brought an infamous magical investigator with her(seriously, Dresden has a Reputation for that shit).
She already knew she was on a clock when she saw us on the Strip. None of this shit is news to her.
1-dot alchemic recipe (that's 1 XP, I think?) to ignore one level of wounds + buy alchemy 3 and
Regeneration potions, which will heal Agg, are either Alchemy 3 or Alchemy 4.
Lore of Awakening 3 will also allow Lash to heal Aggravated damage, assuming she's allowed to buy into that Lore.
If we have to fight something that is seriously threatening, we still have our Shintai.
If we hunt down Sandra now, the odds are lower that we will have to fight the Sin-Eater, the Dragon or a now-unbound Outsider after the Sin-Eater is dead.
We've used shintai once in this story already against Iku-Turso.
DC for activating shintai next time has gone up. And Im not betting on only having to use it once.
We are already super able to heal lethal damage. It this was just lethal damage it would have been gone a long time ago.
It's why I put that vote for full attack. I really did not expect agg damage from a black vampire and a stone statue. Agg damage is supposed to be rare.
In WoD, Vampire claws and fangs deal Agg.
So do werewolf fangs and claws. Mages do aggravated with a bunch of damage types, from fire to acid and more exotic shit (Ramirez's entropy shield does Agg, for example). Some fomori powers can deal Agg damage.
Mortals throwing molotovs and using flamethrowers do Agg.
So do Dragon's Breath rounds and explosive/incendiary bullets. So does acid. And radiation.
Dismemberment usually counts as Agg as well.
He clearly was connected to her in some way, I doubt she didn't know he was there.
Her knowing he was there doesnt mean he works for her, or that he shares all his information with her.
Or that she always knows where he is or what he is doing.
That's at best speculative. We know that in his mortal days he was the one who discovered the exaltation-keeping statue. Keeping an eye on it makes sense. And there are signs of impending apocalypse that supernaturals are picking up. So, he could well have come to the city completely independently from Sandra, simply alerted by prophecies and portents to the opportunity.
Cobbler rolls in styling a couple weeks ago, throwing around resources and weight, making splashy deals with Charon and committing high profile murders of significant Whampires. Meantime, Sandra comes in quietly last year, registers as an undergrad, murders humans to steal their money and covertly suborns the Shadowkillers.
Their M.O is too different to be part of the same plan.
They probably knew of each other; the Strip ambush on us when we were leaving the Venetian suggests that Cobbler sent her notice of Molly being in town after our meeting at the canals, allowing her to preposition assassins.
But they werent in the same conspiracy.
