“Hey New Guy,” Cora said, “let's go to Vegas!”

I almost did. I mean, well … Vegas. And someone would've had to keep an eye on our resident psychic heartbreaker, right? But then I thought about the times I'd run off on other big Accord schindigs, and I remembered how awful they were- and in Vegas, it'd probably be awful and I'd wind up broke, so I decided to stay in Houston. And lo and behold, Vegas was a real shitshow, albeit one I didn't see firsthand, so you're gonna have to ask Cora or Father Frank on exactly WTF happened.

Me, I at least had the excuse of important Cell Leadery stuff to do.

Namely, the fact that the local RQ was climbing towards 700- which would be a Bad Thing. Like shit I'm gonna let myself be known as the Cell Leader who let Houston get Quarantined, so I started last Saturday night's schindig with two basic directives: 1) Don't fuck up the local RQ with reality-breaking shit, and 2) Let's go kill some Servants.

Ethan really liked this plan. I'm not quite sure what to feel about this.

So, acting on some intel we got from that Stain guy, we found a dead drop that Lester Rothstein (that half-vampire bitch guy we've been chasing for entirely too fucking long now) was using. Courtesy of some tracking by a whole shitload of sneaky invisible people, we tracked down Rothstein's safehouse.

So we barge in- at which point a van full of Reaper mercenary bastards show up. This went about as well for them as one could expect. And again, this is where I kind of scare myself because I'm getting used to getting in firefights. What the shit.

Not that I did any fire-fighting myself- I was busy trying to crack open a secret trapdoor to Rothstein's hidey-hole. I'm versatile! Kind of.

Seriously though, I only caught a little bit of the actual fight parts, but it was a nice reminder of how fucking scary you jerks are. Like, “yeah, go ahead and shoot me because your puny human bullets have no effect.” Makes me glad you're on my side.

But yeah. We barge down into Rothstein's hidey-hole, and take him down- I even managed to grab some weird glass ballerina figure that he tried to break when we came barging in. I have no idea what this thing is, but it looked haunted and important. I stowed it in the citadel vault, so, Jacque or somebody Mad Scientisty should go do stuff to it, or something.

As if that wasn't enough, as soon as we captured Rothstein, a countdown on his laptop started. And there was a Tear. Great. Thankfully, you guys were able to close the Tear right before the countdown hit zero- because once it did, the whole house went up in fire. So, uh, I guess that saved Ash some trouble?

But yeah. Either Rothstein saw us coming, or maybe it was a setup. Not that it matters, as we still kicked a lot of ass and took some prisoners, even- Rothstein and one of the Mercs are at the secondary citadel, in the brig. Apophis, Dr. Jones, Penny, Sasha- they're all yours. Find out what they know, and then finish them off. Is it less fucked up to order someone killed if they're a Servant? Probably. At least, I hope it is, because I'm not feeling too torn up about it, and that still kind of scares me. But not much? I'm conflicted at not being conflicted, which probably means I need another drink.

So yeah. We wound our way back to the Citadel, mostly victorious. And apparently when I ducked out to take a call, some Changeling dude named Joe showed up? Jacque said he sold us a jar of that Black Metal stuff, which … is good, I guess? I still don't know what the story behind shit is, but having some handy is a good thing, right? Sasha, Ellen the Sharkgirl, can you find out what this dude's deal is?

But yeah. That was about it. Kind of quiet, once you look past all the bullets and murder?

Oh, and on more pleasant stuff, next month's October, which means we'll be having our Third Annual Cavalry Monster Mash. Bring booze and candy. Wear a costume. It'll be fun.

(We'll also probably have to chase off Goblins in hockey masks but some of you think that's fun too).