I’m glad to see the thread is after my own heart. I’m pretty sure I’ve done the Pyotr story first every single time I’ve played this game. Now, the game manual actually gives a title to each story which isn’t ever used in game, but I quite like most of them. This one is a little spoilery, but it’s too good to not include, so join me for…
Adventures of a Lovesick Vampire
So, we have a little bit of advance knowledge of what’s up with Pyotr, but if your mind is already churning thinking about what it could be… you’re probably at least slightly off. There’s a few twists and turns in this adventure, so let’s get right to it!
…Well, after a quick recap, in case anyone happens to read these out of order since they’re not interconnected. So, Mike Callahan is worried about Pyotr, our vampire pal and designated driver. He’s asked us to go to the guy’s home and check on him, and try to bring him back to the bar. So let’s just step outside, and turn to the right a bit to find our truck

_It’s not this jeep, it’s the pickup to the left of it. We can just hop in and drive, and since we’re on this mission…
You hop in your truck and drive a couple miles down 25A to Pyotr’s place.

And here we are. There’s… a lot of luggage out here. More than necessary for just a vacation. In fact, if we turn to the left…

Oh no… that pun name is so painful… Oh, also, Pyotr is moving! Where could he be going to? Let’s see if this truck has any more information…
York-Easter is the premier international overnight shipping service. This is one of their proud fleet!
International!? Pyotr, where on Earth are you going!? Maybe the driver will know, but first let’s get a look at him.

Although this driver, Phillip Oscar Thigdury, is the senior driver in the York-Easter Fleet, he still has acne that makes him look like an adolescent.
Which is why, everywhere he goes, they call him…
Ready?
I’m really not
Phil O. Thigdury, the Acne of Da Fleet!
(Oh, God, stop him before he puns again!)
Okay, this one took ages to figure out. The best thing I can find, which is still not even that great, is that this is a huge stretch of a play on words for “Thrill of victory, agony of defeat.” It would explain why the description itself is warning us how bad of a pun it is, but thank goodness most of the puns in this game are better quality than this. Let’s just… talk to the guy.
You try to strike up a friendly conversation with the driver by commenting on how late he’s working. “Do you see anybody working?” he asks
Then his brow furrows. “You’re not from YE, are you?” After you assure him that you don’t even know what YE is, he explains that York-Easter has been cracking down on the drivers for every little violation, and he never knows when he’s being spied on.
You ask him about Pyotr. All he knows is that the owner is supposedly in, or on his way to, the Transylvanian Alps in Romania, and that he’s having his stuff shipped there overnight at tremendous expense.
Transylvania!? Pyotr, why didn’t you tell anyone before moving all the way back home!?
Alright, I feel I should interject here for a moment. While our friendly neighborhood vampire is a pretty important part of Callahan’s Place, within the actual stories he only really played a major role in one, and his vampirism was… less literal than the game takes it. In the stories, he actually has a genetic condition that makes it so his main source of nutrition is filtering other people’s blood through special glands in his teeth. Of course, this is rarely mentioned and the books basically never talk about Pyotr’s home or life beyond what brought him to Callahan’s, so the game took some liberties with the whole vampire thing. Personally, I think it makes for better story here, so I’m alright with it.
The tall crate to the left of the truck has a few options, but nothing that matters or is too clever, so let’s just move on to the house.

Holy…! The door has quite a lot of options. Most of them are simply one line responses with “The door is (blank)-proof.” but a few of them are interesting. Let’s look at these:
Kick in
You’re not exactly David Carradine
Remove hinges from
The hinges are on the inside (Of course they are, Jake)
Slide under
You must be thinking of that game, “Plastic Man’s Crosstime Saloon.”
Deliberately ignore
You ignore the door. The moment your head is turned away, you think you see it open out of the corner of your eye. But when you look back at it again, it’s closed
And finally, Talk To
There isn’t any way to get you to open up at all, is there?
That’s right.
I was beginning to suspect as much. Thanks anyway.
'Salright.
Well then. Let’s just… move on? There’s some newspapers here, since Pyotr hasn’t been around to take them. Jake wants to pick them up, since a pile of newspapers attracts burglard, but he gets scared off by a bug. We can, however, try to read them.
Don’t read in the dark, it’s bad for your eyes*
*The next time somebody tells you not to read in the dark, tell them you heard in a computer game that it’s actually perfectly OK to read in the dark. They’ll really respect your knowledge.
That sounds like a bad idea, but I’ll keep it tucked away. Let’s try the crate on the ground that says… Spider Girl?
Look
Ooh, according to the writing on the side, this crate is carrying a “Spider Girl”
Open
Don’t let the Spider Girl out. She might bite.
Knock on
You rap on the crate
Pyotr?
No response
Spider Girl?
Still nothing.
Spider Robinson?
I mentioned, Spider Robinson appeared in the stories, as himself, so Jake knows him. He’s not in this crate though.
Anyone?
Okay, fine.
And let’s try to take it.
As you struggle to lift the crate, you consider Callahan’s reaction should you return to the bar with a big box of Spider Girl instead of your friend Pyotr. Somehow, you doubt he’ll be satisfied with that, so you decide to leave it there where it is. Besides, you’re aggravating your hernia.
Alright alright, let’s move along. There’s only one important piece of luggage around here.

This steamer trunk. Let’s go through the motions with it.
Look
The steamer trunk is bound with bolts and straps and a hasp in front, looking as if it would take a long time to open. One wonders why the lock in front wasn’t enough. If it contains something of great value, why leave it to the tender mercies of the shipping company?
Open
The driver belches a warning at you to stay away from the boxes.
Knock On
You knock on the trunk.
Pyotr?
Not only is there no response, but the thing sounds hollow. The driver arches an eyebrow at you, shakes his head, and returns to his sandwich.
…Hollow? Why would you lock an empty trunk with so many different devices? There must be more to this than there seems…
Get in
The driver seems on the edge of 'urling that sausage-and-onion sub right at you; better not fiddle with the luggage 'till he’s out of sight.
We can also mess with the bolts on the front, but the driver stops us there as well. We’ll need to get him to leave…
There’s also a window here, we can Look at, Open, Close, Break, or Enter it. None of them do anything except for Open.
The window seems to give just slightly.
Aha! Let’s try it again!
The window definitely gives a tiny bit, but it’s stuck, as if it’s been painted shut.
Come on, Jake, put your back into it!
Putting a little elbow into it, the window finally slides uneasily open a few inches.
Aha! Now we can try to use that phone! …Unfortunately, it’s too far to reach. We’ll need something to grab it…

Well, that should do just fine.
The '87 Ford CA series was the only one to come with a factory-installed coathanger antenna. This has the clever advantage of making it very unlikely that anyone’s going to try to steal it.
You pull the antenna out of the hole. There goes your high-fidelity sound system.
Alright! Now we can hook the phone closer to us! Let’s see who we can call… Our options are “911,” “0,” “info,” and “KL5-3972.” 911 gives us an odd joke about gun control that I legitimately can’t tell what stance it’s supposed to be taking and don’t really want to include. Here’s the rest in order.
You dial the operator who angrily barks that service is supposed to be turned off at this number. She swears to the heavens that she’ll have the service off within 2 - 4 hours come hell or high water, or her name isn’t Operator 12. Then she hangs up on you.
Ouch. He already got his phone line cancelled too… Let’s try info
Thank you for using ATCI. What city?
It’s somewhere on Long Island, I think. York-Easter Van Lines.
I’m sorry, I’ll need a city.
What if I don’t know the city?
Then you don’t know the number, either.
Ouch. Well, the last option is… our own phone number?
This is Jake. If you don’t mind talking to a machine, leave a message. Otherwise, try me again later.
Hey, me, this is me. Just enjoying being in two places at once. I should be home soon, I don’t think I’ll be too much longer. Bye.
Jake, that’s not how answering machines work. That recording is not you in another place, you should know this, you dork.
Well, it looks like we need to find some other number to call. In fact, let’s look at the moving van again. The ramp is retractable, so it doesn’t drag along while driving. If we push it up, it reveals a bumper sticker!
The bumper sticker says “How’s my driving? Call KLondike 5-0931.”
Aha! There’s our number! Let’s try the phone again!
York-Easter Van Lines. “Don’t Strain on Your Next Big Move; Think of York-Easter First!”
I’ve never heard of your company before.
Well, I don’t see how that could be. York-Easter is the biggest in town.
These jokes are gonna keep coming as long as we’re dealing with this company…
I’m surprised there’s anybody in the office this late.
York-Easter is always open, sir. How may I help you?
I’d like to register a complaint about one of your drivers.
Aha! This is how we’ll get him out of here, at least for long enough for us to investigate.
I see. Well, we’ll be happy to contact him immediately if you can give me the license number of the truck.
I’m sorry, I didn’t catch it.
Well, I’m sorry, sir, but – and this is a very big but – I can’t be sure which of our drivers is at fault without knowing the license number.
But should this ever happen again, you can find it mounted on the rear.
Thank you. I looked at the bumper sticker, I should’ve looked at the license plate, too. I feel like an ass.
Quite all right, hindsight is 20-20.
With that, she hangs up.
Well, crap. Jake’s right, we should have looked at it, but we still can. It’s right above the driver, let’s take a look.
The truck’s license plate, hard to see in the dim evening light, is YEVL 117. It appears to be a New York plate.
_now then, let’s call again, and jump to asking about the plate.**
Did you have the license plate number, sir?
Yes, that was YEVL117.
Just a moment, please.
Okay, we have that driver, sir, and what was the problem with his driving?
He was weaving all over the road.
Oh, dear. Did he appear drunk?
No, he was eating.
Tsh, tsh. We’ll contact him immediately.
Thank you.
And the call ends. At this point, nothing will happen until we wait for the company to call the driver. We can make this happen by interacting in any way with any object, but instead let’s use a feature not mentioned yet. If we hit the “W” key, we wait. Just one tick, to let something happen.
The moving man’s beeper goes off. His jaw drops open, his mouth full of sandwich. He says something that sounds like “Ul thip!” and walks around into the truck’s cab to call into his dispatcher.
Ah beepers. Back in the day where the closest to a cell phone you had was someone texting you a “Call me ASAP.” Now that he’s gone, let’s fiddle with that steamer trunk!
All the options with the trunk are the same, but now if we pull on the bolts…
The bolts slide out a half-inch, and there is a soft but significant click.
Huh? Well, maybe we can open it now?
The front panel swings forward along a concealed hinge along the base. Goodness, how disillusioning.
Of course, that’s why it has all the pointless locks! This trunk is made for a magician, with a secret mechanism to lock a secret door. Well, let’s climb inside I guess.
With the driver out of the way, you’re able to step into the trunk and pull the front closed… and it clicks shut. You spend about a minute trying to figure out how to get out again when you hear the moving man return and angrily finish loading up the truck.
That includes the trunk you’re in. You spend the next 24 hours or so being buffeted about, subjected to freezing temperatures, dropped, and generally treated like a piece of meat.
As you do, you constantly say to yourself…
Jake Stonebender… to the Florescu!
That… That’s Pyotr’s last name, just so you know. I didn’t remember that at first, but it gets mentioned soon. And after that line, the scene shifts.

Confidence and power, as if you could easily stow away on any ol’ tramp steamer or freight train.
Excitement, as you realize that you have discovered a new, very inexpensive way to travel anywhere…
Panic and nausea, as you realize that you’re halfway around the world with no money at all, not even the number of a nice credit card lady who can make travel reservations, get you replacement credit cards, or send you prescription refills.
Jake apparently forgot the sweet twenty-one bucks we have on us!
But mostly, you feel a surge of anticipation as the truck you’re in slows down, the tires crunching and popping on gravel, the possible sign of a driveway rather than another loading dock. You duck back into the trunk as the driver sets the brake and turns off the engine.
Sure enough, although you can’t make out the words , the voices outside the truck have familiar inflections of finality and relief. None of the voices sounds like that of your friend, Pyotr.
The trunk you’re in is unloaded. Awhile later, when you stop hearing the sounds of people in the immediate vicinity, you cautiously emerge from the trunk.
We made it! But who would be talking to the mover besides Pyotr himself?
I was going to knock and inform you that you could come out, Master Stonebender, but I was afraid I might give you heart failure.
Ah! An unknown voice! We spin around 180 to see who it is.

This is Pyotr’s family butler. His name is never actually given to us, but it comes up in some descriptions later. He’s… Chives.
Are you all right?
Yes, but..no, I mean.. I’m confused.
I’m so sorry. Perhaps you didn’t know we were expecting you. Master Pyotr informed us you were coming.
He did.
He did?
Yes. I believe his exact words were, “A man named Jake Stonebender has done something very ill-advised. When he arrives and gets out of my Substitution Trunk, treat him with utmost respect but inform him that his trip was unnecessary.”
I am then to make arrangements to have you sent back to America immediately…first class, of course.
He did.
Huh. Well, if he knew me well enough to know I was coming for him, he shoulda known me well enough to know I wouldn’t leave without him.
What?
That’s okay, I know what I’m talking about.
Of course. Well, Master Florescu anticipated you would refuse to depart for at least awhile. Feel free to have a look around, and make use of Master Florescu’s trap and driver if you wish. Let me know when I can make your return reservations.
And now we’re free to move around! Just so you know, Pyotr isn’t psychic or anything. As Jake said, he just knows his friend so well he could predict that he’d find a way to follow, and put the pieces together to guess that this would be how. Now, this update has been pretty long already, but the next one is likely to be about the same length so we’re gonna push on a little farther.
Yes, Master Stonebender?
Where is Pyotr?
I’m not precisely certain.
Can you give me an idea?
There’s not that much to do downtown anymore, and therefore, not many places he’s likely to be.
After all those documentaries were made about this part of the world back in the 30’s and 40’s, tourist travel dropped off nearly completely.
The Master’s family nearly went broke.
What line of business were they in?
Torches.
They’d get the villagers all in a flap about someone with a deformity, or someone whose house got hit by a lot of lightning, or just anyone with a castle who liked to work in his attic, see? So whole one of the Florescus is out there agitating, the rest of t
It cuts off there. Maybe a programming error, maybe a mistake in the script that wasn’t caught? Either way, that’s kind of a shitty business? The Florescus are vampires, too, so it seems like a weird choice.
And the torches, see, they don’t last more than ten minutes, then you need another one. And ten minutes is nothing, a good mobbing goes at least an hour, sometimes three if there’s women and children.
This is how they made their fortune?
Couple of good mobbings would set them up for a year. But they got these mobs going sometimes once, twice a week, all year round. Do the math.
Honestly, it’s no wonder Pyotr moved to America and ended up with some pretty awful habits, if this is the family he left behind…
What an original way to make a fortune.
No, actually they were copying something the Hearsts had been doing in the United States for a long time.
Time for my History degree to come in to play! “A long time” is a weird way to put it, if the 30’s were nearing the end of the Florescus’ industry. William Randolph Hearst didn’t really start doing Yellow journalism until 1900 or so. If the Florescus were copying him, and he had already been going a long time, they likely didn’t start until the 20s, maybe even the early 30’s. A pretty short-lived enterprise, but I guess if they were as successful as Chives says, that’s all they needed.
Oh, well, when the movies started coming out, business boomed, for awhile. Then they started running low on people to mob. So they had a cooling-off period, and then they just started getting used to the eccentrics. It got harder to work up a good murderous froth about the fellow next door just because his bed had a lid on it or he had party lighting or something.
Wait, so… The movies started coming out in the 30’s, which cause tourists to stop coming and the town to close most of its businesses, but simultaneously that was when the Florescu family had their boom? I’m probably over-analyzing this, but the timeline really doesn’t make much sense, and it’s probably because they didn’t expect people from 30 years in the future with too much time on their hands to be reading into it this closely.
They tried to establish a business in the United States, particularly in the South, but it never took off to the extent it had here. Now Taiwan makes just about every torch in the world.
This… Okay, I’m gonna stop. Talking to Chives is just about the most confusing thing possible, and Jake regularly hangs out with aliens.
This has been very informative.
You’re welcome.
Thank you.
Okay! We have other options to talk to Chives about, but instead let’s just ransack the place and move on. If we turn left…

A couple things to grab over here! The painting isn’t important, but the box in front of it is.
An ornate box painted with glossy colors.
Well, let’s take it.
I suppose it’s natural for people who travel in boxes to be a little grabby of other people’s possessions.
I’ll return it.
Umm…what is it?
One of the Master’s magic tricks, I believe.
In fact, it is! Another item we pick up here explains, it’s a box to be placed on an assistant’s head, and when you open the door in front it appears that they have no head! All the items we pick up in this room, like the box we came in, are related to stage magic. It turns out Pyotr is quite a magician, a hobby I can absolutely get behind. Fun fact about Babs, she looooooves stage magic. Speaking of, the two chalkboards on the ground are another trick, the spirit slates!
A pair of old-fashioned schoolhouse-style wooden slates lie here.
You take the slates
Will that be all, or are you still browsing?
I’m still browsing.
Chives, after that long, confusing, and really terrible story you told us, we’ll do whatever we like around here to help Pyotr, including borrowing his tools. Now, let’s turn back to the right, past Chives, and see what we can find.

What’s this book here?
A large book is sitting open among the effluvium of Pyotr’s life.
_That… is a weird comment. Either he’s misusing the word effluvium, or really insulting Pyotr’s stuff. Anyways, let’s take it.
You close the old book and take it. Chives watches you out of the corner of his eye, but says nothing.
That’s better, Chives. We can either Thumb through or Flip through it, giving us explanations of two different tricks. We’ll look through it later, but one of those tricks is the headless box we grabbed. One last spot to look in the house, a bit more to the right.

A box! We can try to take it, but it’s kind of broken and will probably fall apart if we do. Let’s just open it instead.

J-jackpot! Okay Chives, I’ll let you talk again, what’s this box!?
Excuse me.
Sir?
What are these?
Palming coins, sir. The Master uses sleight-of-hand to make these appear out of thin air.
Really? How’s he do it?
Sleight-of-hand.
Oh, right.
Ah, just palming coins. Well, we might as well grab a few.
You take a handful of the palming coins.
Are you a magician, sir?
No.
Oh. I couldn’t help but admire the way you make things disappear.
Ouch. Well, let’s get out of the manor. Let’s turn back to where we were originally facing basically.

Here’s the last stuff to look at while we’re at the manor. That’s the trap and driver that Chives mentioned we have access to. Let’s have a chat.

Good evening. Are you the one I talk to about…
Drivin’? ‘At’s me, sir. I’m the Driver. Would you be wantin’ me services?
Definitely.
That’s just fine, sir. I’m just a little surprised, is all.
Why’s that?
Well, you and Master both arrivin’ in boxes and all, I figured you’d be, y’know, takin’ it on the wing, so to speak.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, sir.
No, I’m not like that.
Oh. Okay, sir, I believe you sir.
Were you wantin’ to go somewhere now, sir?
Hoooo, wow, what a weird place to put in this… joke. To my knowledge there aren’t any gay characters in the Callahan’s series, but it never made this type of joke or anything really anti-gay. This, on the other hand, is… It kind of goes against the whole idea of Callahan’s Place, where everyone is there to help out everyone. (Except anarchists. Spider Robinson had… kind of a thing about anarchists) Well, let’s just… move on
Let’s go downtown.
Straight away, Sir.
The trap trundles townward.
The rough dirt road gives way to cobblestones, and presently, the driver reins the horses to a stop.
Ere we go, sir. “But Lord! how everybody’s looks, and discourse in the street is of death, and nothing else; and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.”
At’s Pepys, sir. But 'e puts such a negative spin on it.
That would be Samuel Pepys, since most people probably don’t know, talking about the Great Plague of London. A pretty damn reasonable thing to be negative about.

Nufing, sir. 'Ats Snafu, sir. Situation normal, all f…
That one’s military slang. SNAFU, “Situation’s Normal, All F-ed Up”
I know, but… this is normal?
Well, not entirely, sir. Everybody’s a bit spiffed up for the weekend, y’know. Got their best bib-‘n-tuckers on. Anyway I’ll be waitin’ right 'ere. sir, when you’re ready to push on.
You’re just going to sit here?
Oh, got me magazine and me Corn Nuts, I’m good. 'Ave fun, sir.
You step down out of the trap and start to look around.
The magazing he’s reading is “Trap and Driver” by the way. Possibly the weakest pun that doesn’t require extensive research to understand.
And now, next time, we get to explore downtown Transylvania! There’s quite a few places to go and things to do down here, including the two places right in front of us, “Starbucharest’s” and “Wereworth’s.” I’ll be back with that before long, so stay tuned.