Claws of Wisdom Chronology

May 2000

Monday 1

Corey eventually gets out of the shower and heads off to Uni, as does Abby. Bob returns to his normal lurking at the caern and Krieg to his dojo. Cole rings Abby and says that he has received some phone calls from Gina, and need to make a trip - he'll be back as soon as he can. Freya, on the other hand is off to the Happy Apple fair that her school runs every May 1. Even though she's not teaching there any more, the other teachers and fete organisers have nagged her to come along, so her and Jordan go along. Its a fairly big event, with a bouncy castle and fairy floss and so on.

Its towards the end of the day when Freya is wandering about the place having left Jordan watching the same puppet show for the third time. She is taking a shortcut between two tents when her dress catches. She ducks down to free it and there is a splintering noise from above her. She looks up and sees a knife buried in a wooden pole just near where her head would have been. Quickly looking around, she sees a short person in darkish clothes duck behind the tents. Freya goes to pull the knife out of the pole and finds that it is almost too wedged to move. And its a butter knife. Sensing Unnatural reveals that stainless steel is of the weaver, as are the dice. Freya hunts about the fair for a bit, and finds that kids generate more unnatural auras that she though. However, after about 30 minutes she has found a potential suspect. A young girl, maybe 12, apparently part of a magic act "The Amazing Andy" seems to match the brief glimpse she sort of her assailant. Of course, the fact that there is a ringing sense of Mage magic about the girl is a bit of a giveaway too. Freya contacts as much of her pack as she can and tells them to come and see what she's found.

Corey, Abby and Bob show up not too much later, but miss the Amazing Andy and his loverly assistant Polly (apparently the 12 year old's name). Freya did get to see the act, and on one small occasion she sensed more magic than before as things moved of their own accord. She also finds a small gold and jade pin that senses a bit weird at the next stall along - apparently part of an estate sale recently. It has a faint gaia sense lingering to it. Odd. The rest of the pack show up with fairy floss and ask what is going on. Freya hands them a flier for the Amazing Andy, complete with contact details and a website advertising his magic act for schools and parties. Bob sniffs about in lupus and can mostly just smell sticky human spawn, but does get a scent for both Andy and Polly. He is sniffing about the van that they are packing their magic tricks into when a large steel toolbox slams into the ground centimeters from his head. Polly's face comes out after it and she looks unimpressed. Bob stands there and looks at her with his patented "what the hell?" look. When he shows no signs of leaving, Polly yells "BAD DOG" and a force like a steel bar slams into Bob, scudding him backwards about 8 feet. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, Bob flees. While this is going on, Corey has been using control simple machine to win prizes. When they return to the car, he gives Jordan a Pooh Bear bigger than she is.

Freya goes home to drop Jordan off and organise for someone to watch over her. The rest of the pack follow Andy in their sept car. Andy drives out to Mooroolbark without dropping Polly off anywhere and they pull up at an old weatherboard house, get out and unpack their stuff. The pack stop nearby and check things out - it looks like they both live here. They watch from the car for a while, and Freya shows up after about 15 minutes. Abby peeks and can see ti tree and sort of swampy land. They are outside the presumed 'safe' area of the umbra, and she is a bit worried about the land attacking them. There sees to be nothing lurking and waiting for them, and they can see Polly's house, so the pack move into the Umbra as a whole. They try and peek back but obviously there is some sort of evil curse going on. What subtle powers the evil has.

While the pack guide her around the floorless umbral representation of Andy and Polly's house, Abby peeks. It seems that Polly lives here, and maybe Andy is her dad. Abby can't see well enough to read, but she can see that Polly is making dinner and doesn't seem to notice the Umbral pack, so they ransack her room looking for evidence of occult leanings. Polly has a copy of Harry Potter, but she also has a bit of a library of fantasy and horror stories. There's a schoolbag and uniform piled in one corner, but Abby can't determine the school (its too murky). The most occult thing in the room is a dreamcatcher - apart from that, its frighteningly normal. An apple on the desk senses a bit of mage magic. There's a candle or two, but no occult symbols on the wall, no cats strung up by their full attention, no bottles of dragon blood, no eye of newt. There's not even a pointy hat.

By this time, Polly and Andy are sitting and eating. The tv is on, but they are not paying much attention to it, both appearing to be off in their own worlds. Abby tries to look under the floor, but can't see anything, so Freya steps under the house and uses faerie lights. There's not sign that anyone has been here for years. Abby tries to think of something to awaken and ask what its seen. After rejecting the apple, they decide to awaken the spirit of the mirror. Once this is done the mirror floats free in the Umbra. Bob asks it to show them Polly and stuff she does, so it starts showing her asleep in bed. This seems to be a Kevin-Costner length film, so they get a bit more specific. The mirror shows them scenes of Polly apparently lighting and unlighting a candle without touching it, Polly floating the apple around and Polly asleep and floating 6' above the bed and having some sort of nightmare. Much head scratching. Kreig shows up, having finished his classes and he scratches his head too.

Abby peeks again to make sure that the magic mirror isn't doing anything weird in the realm like reflecting the Umbra. It doesn't seem to be, but while she can actually hear in the Realm, Abby wanders around and gets more information. Apparently Polly goes to Ringwood Secondary College. She tries to find evidence of other residents of the house, but the major scents are only Andy and Polly. Checking out photos reveals pictures of a woman that superficially looks like Polly, but there are no recent photos of her. The furniture and the contents of the house look a bit bare and secondhand, as if Andy doesn't have much money. More sensing of unnatural. There are no mystic objects of power around the place, and Andy's magic show equipment is all mundane pull-roses-from-ears sort of stuff.

Rather than approach her today, the pack decide to wait and check out the school tomorrow. They suspect that she must have a master of some sort teaching her, or perhaps a little cabal of high school students. Either way, they will wait until tomorrow before investigating further.

Tuesday 2

Although they had originally planned to observe Polly at school, Freya stymies that by pointing out that its actually still school holidays. So the pack sleep in, and check out the school grounds at a tolerable time of the morning.

They start by looking around the park to the north of the school, looking for chalked pentacles and similar evidence of occult activity. Or Polly's scent anyway. Bob eventually finds it with the help of Heightened Senses, and it seems that Polly doesn't walk to with the other kids back from school - she walks up to the next station after Ringwood. Odd and she takes a different route from the other kids that do the same.

The pack head back to the school and consider how to scope it out. Abby is of an age where she could pretend to be part of the school, but they decide to try peeking from the Umbra first, and seeing if they can discover Polly's scent. It takes some time, but eventually they find Polly's locker. Its a bottom locker, and it appears to have had rotten fruit crammed into it, as well as urine sprayed on it. All in all, the pack are picking up the picture that Polly is perhaps not well liked at her school. Fortunately for Polly, it seems mostly empty - a couple of school textbooks and some paper on a shelf. It just looks like an assignment although its hard to see in the dim light and while peeking. However, the inside door of the locker has a rough pentagram drawn in black texta, with 'spooky!' written across the bottom.

Claws of Wisdom look about for other evidence. There seem to be more people around now than there were before, kids as well. Bandpractice apparently. Freya vaguely recalls that Ringwood Secondary college is known for its music programs. The school is all one story, except for space underneath the stage in the theatre (incidentally where the band practice is happening). Poking about there also uncovers Polly's scent. There is a room for stacking chairs, which has been opened, and some of the chairs removed (see band-practice). A space is left around the edges of the chairs and at the back, which is where there is some evidence that Polly has been here. There are other scents too, fainter. Freya takes a chance and switches to lupus and steps into the Realm to get a good scent of the area. There is a faint, faint glimmer of magic here, but not specifically anywhere. Polly's scent is the strongest human scent, and the other scents seem to be older, maybe by months (its a fairly still, undisturbed spot, so they will last a long while). All of this evidence seems to put the kibosh on the teenage cabal idea.

Freya returns to the comforting Umbra, and idly suggests checking to see whether Polly is at band practice. Yes, surprisingly. She plays the flute, apparently, and is ok. Taking advantage of this, Claws of Wisdom run back to Mooroolbark and see if Andy is out too. Apparently he is, so they ransack Polly's house. Carefully. Really. The mirror looks ok, even though it is still awakened. Polly has a school diary in her bag (she's in year 7), and did the usual school kid of making lots of entries to begin with, and then tapering off over time. However, none of them are particularly personal - no "Master Merlin showed more mysteries today. My magic mounts in might!" or anything. There are entries about a month ago with just say "Dream" for a couple of nights in a row. Further investigation reveals the same thing a month before that. Actually, its only 28 days before. And it matches up with the Ragabash moon, which, coincidentally begins tomorrow (Wednesday) night.

Other items of investigation include the fact that Polly has definately gone through menarche. The woman in the photos around the place seems to be called Mel, or Melissa, and it does look like she might be Polly's mother. However, the lack of photos from the last 5 or so years (the youngest one they can find is the one in Polly's room, dated 1995) is a bit odd, and the pack start to look through Andy's stuff too. They find a collapsible file in his top cupboard, and in it a bunch of interesting stuff - a marriage certificate for Andrew Garret and Melissa Bury in 1986 and a birth certificate for Polanna Garret (1988), and a death certificate for Melissa Garret in July 1996, with cause of death listed as "TB". Other items of interest include paychecks for Andy from Wonga Park Mobil service station and a booking diary which he uses for the Amazing Andy magic show (three bookings or so a month seems to be about it).

Back to Polly's room, looking for other occult influences. There's a dream catcher at the window, a Harry Potter book on the desk, and that's about it. There's no sign of incense, chalk, or whatever that might indicate occult studies. The pack spread out through the house to try and pick up anything like that around the place. There's a faint smell of mull on some of Andy's clothes. Kreig finds Andy's stash in a rosemary spice jar. Corey looks at it and says "That's rosemary". Krieg looks crestfallen. There is a faint scent of some sort of incense stick on the curtains, but its not possible to pick what it is. Bob finds in Polly's room a pair of bed socks, crusted in dried mud. The mud smells the same as the faint scent he got from Andy and Polly on the Monday, and pretty much the same as the fields out the back of their house smell. Its not fresh, nor are there muddy tracks on the carpet - they might have been there for a fortnight or so even.

The pack carefully put everything back where they think it was, and head off for the moment, having got enough information to want to think about for a while (plus Polly might be back at any time). Abby suggests watching things tonight, so they head back to Melbourne and get some sleep or teach classes or whatever.

The pack arrive at Mooroolbark about 8.30pm. Andy and Polly are watching generic 1hour drama show. That is, Polly is watching it and Andy is slumped in a chair in front of the tele. He seems exhausted and is nodding off a lot. Eventually he says that he's going to bed and that Polly shouldn't stay up too late. She nods, but there seems to be a bit of tension going on. Peeking into her room reveals that stuff has been moved since the pack left and they theorise an argument between Andy and Polly about her privacy. About 15 minutes after Andy has gone to bed, Polly creeps up to his door and listens. She heads back to the kitchen and makes a coffee strong enough to make even Corey wince, with lots of sugar and milk, then returns to her tv show. At 9.30, it finishes. Polly glances at the television and it changes channel, scudding backwards a couple of inches as it does (it has pushbuttons for each channel). The pack gah a bit and sense for magic with 3 awoogas. The tv moves back and forth a bit before its in the right spot, not with any finesse. Polly slurps her bitter, bitter coffee and then at 10.30, goes into her room. She sits at the desk and reads. It is suggested that the 'Dream' that she recorded a month ago was not a fun one and that she's trying to stay awake.

Wednesday 3

  Polly is carefully watched from outside the house in the Realm. She sleeps fairly solidly, until about 3am, when she starts to twitch and moan a bit. Kreig tries to sense unnatural on her and gets a distinct mage sense, although one that gutters and flares like a candle. He also gets another sense, a bit deadlands and demon like, but one that is mixed with a feeling on the Bunyip. He makes "Gaa" sounds and passes that on. They watch Polly for a while and after a particular violent jerking, she wakes herself up. She looks around and looks sad, gets up, goes to the loo and eventually goes back to bed. Figuring that that's probably it for the moment, they scope her a bit more mystically and then go home to get some rest.

About midday, the pack gets back together and has a bit of a think about what they have seen. There is some dicussion about whether Polly might be a werewolf and a mage or bunyip kinfolk or something and people cover things like the Baptism of Fire ritual and what happens to people who go through first change without being found by the Garou (they go mad). The general feeling is that they don't have enough information, and that they should look into mystical ways of trying to identify exactly what Polly is. Kreig suggests Alex Urosevic, who is a philodox and probably knows the Scent of True Form gift. Everyone but Kreig goes to the zoo and finds Alex. Its school holidays and there is a fair number of people around the place. Alex checks his watch and says that he could come with them now if they'd like. Someone thinks to check to see where Polly is and find that she's not actually at home, but is somewhere a bit further out of Melbourne.

Claws of Wisdom and Alex travel out to where Questing Stone says that Polly is. Alex doesn't say much on the way, and when he does talk he's fairly quiet, which reminds people of Cole, although not for reasons he'd be happy about. They follow the ritual to Lilydale Lake reserve, and then wander about looking for Polly. There are a fair number of people around the place, families mostly, so the pack mingles nicely. Polly is eventually spotted, sitting on a bench in the shade with a book. Alex heads down towards her from behind, intending to just stroll on past, while the rest of the pack take cover. As Alex goes past her, Polly's head snaps up and she watches him head away very suspiciously, grabs her bag and her book and heads the other way along the path, looking back and all around. Claws of Wisdom figuratively hold up newspapers or pretend to be looking at their watches. When Alex returns, he has a bit of a frown. He says that she is definately a mage, but that there is something else there as well - almost like she was kinfolk too, but not precisely. They ask whether she might be a Garou on the verge of first change and Alex looks unsure but doesn't think so. Freya rings her friend Gwen and asks her if she has time to do some genealogical research for them. Gwen is given the details and heads to the State Library.

People sit and watch Polly from the Umbra for the rest of the afternoon. Its pointed out that Polly only seemed to notice Alex when he used the sensory gift near her, so maybe they should not do that for the moment. She is jumpy and paranoid for a while, and stays away from people. Her bag seems to be full of library books, and she sits in the shade and reads until about 4ish when it starts to get cold. In the meantime, the Garou cycle around a bit - Kreig, Freya and Alex head back to Melbourne to do classes, help research and visit family and plan the overthrow of nations, and head back later in the evening.

About 8pm everyone except Cole is back and trying to work out what to do now. They decide to keep watching Polly and see what happens. They have only been watching for a few moments when the power suddenly goes out and Polly freaks completely - its a clear night with no moon and the whole house is plunged into absolute darkness. Peeking people can hear her scream and babble about dreams and its going to happen and its coming. She's not making a lot of sense, but the paranoid Garou sense around a bit. Abby uses Sense Unnatural and starts gibbering about an evil coming, impending doom and darkness, but no one else can sense anything. Abby gets a sense that whatever it is isn't here yet, but that it is coming from some obscure distance, perhaps a spiritual one rather than a real distance.

Much watching of Polly and Andy, who are dealing with a lack of power by lighting of candles and the usual methods. Andy is reaching across the bench to turn something off at the power switch and he knocks a big bowl of fruit onto the ground, smashing the bowl. Polly freaks again, but doesn't scream. She seems to be having trouble breathing, and is looking around very nervously. Kreig senses around again and starts to get the feeling that maybe Abby wasn't entirely hallucinating about something coming. The Umbra starts to get an uncomfortable feeling too - a wary malevolence, and a very disconcerting feeling of being watched. It doesn't seem directed at the Garou precisely, but it is still affecting them.

Andy goes to bed as the Garou grow more nervous and Polly is sitting on her bed in the dark, banging her feet on the bed, and looking more and more like Ms Soon to be Hospitalised 2000. There's still no power in the Realm, and the darkness is only broken by stars in the Umbra - both realms sport a cloudless, moonless sky. There is much speculation and sensing and wondering what the hell is going on. Almost everyone can feel the evil thing building to the east now - it seems to be a wyrm tainted thing of fear and the night and similiar notions, but it also senses of the Bunyip and something other that they haven't met before.

Peeking people wave madly at everyone else and say that Polly has got up and is heading out of the house. They follow and try to not get attacked by the Umbra. Polly heads out the back, across her yard, over the fence and across the slightly squelchy ground. Sensing Polly picks up Mage magic, faint bunyip and demonic sense, like the night before (when she was presumably dreaming). Sensing forward to where she is going implies that the whole far side of the valley is tainted by whatever evil is out there. Polly stops near the edge of the ti tree in the Realm, but the Garou are in the thick of it in the Umbra. She seems to be looking forward and waiting for something.

The Garou are mooching in the Umbra, unsure what to do, when there is a sucking sensation on their spirits and an enormous spiritual concussion. Several of the pack are effectively concussed although there is no physical noise. There's no sense of what exactly just happened - Kreig senses on Polly through the Umbra and finds a fading sense of magic, as if she had just done something. Much scratching of heads and then about 15 minutes later, the same thing happens - this time Kreig is watching and Polly seems to swell slightly with the gathering spiritual wind and the sense of Mage magic rises along with the other mystical feeling. However, the immense discharge causes Krieg to stumble and stomp peeking.

The pack try and figure out if they can see anything in the Umbra where Polly is looking. Freya lifts Bob up above the ti tree. He cannot see the far side of the valley, even with heightened senses. He can, however see the light from a fire amongst the ti tree in the direction that Polly is facing, maybe another 15' further on (compared to the valley which is 500m across). However, they decide to leave whatever it is the hell alone. The pack try and figure out what is happening, and speculate - Polly is obviously collecting power in some way and then .. sending it to the Wyrm thing? Trying to push it back? Polly's in the realm, presumably she can't directly affect the Umbra... can she?

Corey decides he's had enough and steps sideways into the Realm near, but behind, Polly. There is another sense of gnosis being drawn from the area, but this time the Garou have to fight to keep their own store of gnosis as something drags the energy together, although it is easier for Corey in the Realm. This time they manage to get a sense that the energy is being pulled to Polly and then definately pushed out towards the Evil - Corey notices the grass in the Realm lays down towards Polly as the burst goes out. Kreig tries to get a sense for whether the evil recoils, but he's too far away.

Abby starts getting frustrated with their lack of information and the arguing over options. Everyone decides that the Umbra is way too unpleasant to be in, and so they step out in the grassy field near Polly. Kreig creeps forward and at an angle so as to be in front of Polly but not in the line of fire. People see his bum stick out of the grass as he sneaks towards the line of trees (Kreig only) and disappears. They discuss whether to approach Polly or not and eventually Abby is for it, Freya is not against it, but Bob and Corey wave and start heading for a respectable distance. Polly seems to suddenly draw her breath in and look about into the darkness, pull energy to her in a ragged, painful way and then lance it out in a direction not entirely unlike that which Kreig headed in. Polly then falls to her hands and knees, looking exhausted.

Abby approaches her from behind, not stealthily, but not making an obvious noise either. She speaks as she gets near Polly, who jumps about a foot, and ends up on the ground looking at Abby. Abby says that they are here to help and Polly says "No, get away! I hate you! You killed the wirrenun!" Abby makes more conciliatory statements, but Polly just panics. Something hits Abby and knocks her flying back. Freya is heading towards the two of them when she sees Abby go flying, and then leap forward again in crinos form, apparently intent on eviscerating Polly. Bob and Corey hear the noise, scream to a halt and start running back the other way. Freya hits overdrive and reaches Abby before she's reached the ground, and pushes the calm fetish up against her. Abby suddenly snaps her arms wide and rolls awkwardly to the ground, crashing out her hole length above Polly and onto the ground.

Thursday 4

The others come barrelling up but see that there is no gobbets flying, so decide to hang back a little. Freya and Abby try and have a discussion with Polly, but its a little broken up - Polly hates them because they are monsters, but she can't tell why she knows this, its just everytime she closes her eyes, she sees them killing and murdering people. Abby tries to explain its something that they didn't do, but their ancestors did, and Polly reiterates that she sees them - Abby, Freya and so on, not just random people. Abby tries to explain that they think there is an old spirit affecting her here, and a corrupted old Bunyip spirit out in the hills. Polly's mouth moves but a different voice says "It is the Killer of Children". They ask Polly about it, but she seems to have no comprehension that she said anything. A bit more back and forthing as Abby says stuff about kinfolk, spirits, the umbra, the bunyip and so on, Polly mostly stares back at her uncomprehending. The Garou reiterate their desire to help, but Polly says that they are just feeding it - they are angry and scared and it gets stronger, like when the other one went out there. "Which other one?" "I dunno, he went that way!" and waves somewhere towards where Kreig went.

Abby tries to suggest they can help some more, but Polly snaps and just tells them the most help they can be is to leave her alone to keep it back. She turns and faces out into the night and pointedly ignores them. The pack have a quick discussion and then decided that they can maybe fight it directly. They head out across the valley at an angle from where Polly is facing, more or less following Kreig's trail (like that's hard). About 10' into where the ti tree starts in the Realm, they find an unconscious Kreig, in crinos form. He doesn't seem particularly hurt, but they try to heal him anyway, as they can't seem to bring him around. Thinking that this can't be good, Freya offers to drag him back to the car while the others continue (Freya only).

Abby, Bob and Corey deeper into the darkness. The night is almost palpable ahead of them, like a dark fog. As they approach the darkest shadows, they almost seem to drain away as if the darkness thinned at their approach. Another enormous concussion rings out near them, stirring trees and causing another burst of spiritual tinnitus. Much wandering about and trying to get a better sense of what the darkness might be - sense wyrm reveals a strong association with fear and anger, but nothing more specific. Sense Unnatural confirms a strong Wyrm sense, a moderate sense not unlike the Bunyip and some lesser sense of the Deadlands.

The Garou decide to summon a spirit to maybe give them a better sense of what they are facing, having worked out that they need to know more about this darkness to effectively face it. They decide Merlin is probably appropriate and Abby starts to summon their totem while Bob watches. Corey gets bored and wanders away for a while (Corey only). Merlin shows up after a short time and they explain what is going on. They ask if Merlin could see what he could see about Polly and the spirit they seem to be merged into. He flies off and returns in a short period of time, reporting that the girl child is what they call a mage, and - a screaming, roaring sound starts up not too far away, and Bob and Abby realise that Corey is frenzying. They check with Freya... hey, where is Freya. They cautiously head the direction that Freya headed, avoiding the angry, angry Garou. Just at the edge of the ti tree, they find Freya unconscious with Kreig on her legs. As they reach their two pack members, another concussion rings out from Polly and the frenzy sounds cease.

Freya is brought around (although Kreig is still out) and she says she's not sure what happened - her husband was here and he was mad, and then she doesn't remember anything. They drag Kreig into the long grass near the back of Polly's house, avoiding Polly and then head out (in a group) to find Corey. This they do in the Umbra, where Corey is upside down in a tree as if he was thrown there by some great force. The tree is fine though. They bring Corey around and he mumbles something about cockroaches again. Much conferring about what the hell to do. Everyone's feeling a bit tired and a bit frazzled so tempers flare a little. Someone suggests that perhaps the bits that they can see of the spirit is just a sort of aura, and they need to find the centre. They kind of have a name, so Abby tries Questing Stone for the spirit (while standing in the middle the purported aura). She begins the rite, and about two thirds of the way through, her voice changes and she almost seems to be singing in a male voice, very much like the one that Polly used earlier. Corey is a bit suspicious, so waits behind her with his dagger hilt ready to conk her one, but the others want to wait and see what happens. After about 10 more minutes, Abby stops and says "wow." The others tell her what was happening and she relates what she saw.

Nighttime, blackest part of night. Figures moving across a landscape, dark silhouettes in the night, singing or at least chanting. Her point of view left here and raced forward to a point and then stopped, and the landscape there was somehow intense, like it was a landmark. Figures again and racing forward, stopping at another point. This is repeated several times, with a sonorous singing behind it. The view races forward again to a rock face, painted with an immense circle on it, crisscrossed with several lines and containing other designs and paintings. Figures around the rockface. Sunlight strikes the top and the light grows intense. Then she was back here.

Abby is fairly sure that she can follow the trail that she was shown, or at least will be able to find the landmarks as they are strongly imprinted on her mind. She's all for taking off immediately, but the others want to perhaps go by car, or at least deal with Kreig. They head back to the car and try and work out what to do with the large furry gentleman. Abby cracks it and says she's taking off, running off across the valley. (Abby only).

The others stash Kreig in the back of Freya's car, covered with tarpulleins and hope that he looks like luggage. They run off after Abby and find her not too far away, grinding her teeth and trying not to frenzy. She mumbles something about the spirit playing games and trying to pretend to be her father. They suggest that rather than running through it and being supseptible to its influence, the whole pack should take cars and see if they can follow the trail. This they now do.

About 30 minutes of slow, winding driving later and Abby yells for them to stop. They are just on the otherside of Lilydale where a small creek crosses the highway. This was the first place that the images stopped. She points in the direction they should go and they keep driving. The second point is more obscured by urban development and takes a while to find, and the sky is lightening as they head off for the next spot. It takes another 1/2 hour of back and forth driving to find it, and Abby is not entirely sure that she has the right spot - if she does then the next landmark is across fields and farms and not along roads at all.

The pack decide to try and find something to do with the cars. Freya remembers the number for the Sept of Reconciliation, which they are near, and rings them. She eventually gets Isis Healing-Hand on the phone and arranges to leave their cars with some kinfolk from that sept. They drive the cars to an address they are given and catch some sleep. When they wake up, Kreig comes around too, but is a bit vague.

   Following the trail that Abby has had embedded in her brain takes a few hours of cutting across grazing land, wineries and rocky scrub. Eventually while following a blackberry-ridden gully they find themselves up against a chain link fence (oh no!) while the sounds of heavy machinery drift over the hill on the far side of the fence. Following the boundary along in lupus form, they can eventually see trucks and bulldozers working away at a rock face. Abby points at a large pile of rubble on the right hand side of the cutting and says that's where she saw the circle. This could be harder than they thought.

Slipping into the Umbra, the pack examine the area from closer up. The site appears to be a quarry for Gordon Stonecutters, and they are plowing through the granite rock face at quite a pace. Large chunks of rock are being cut away and placed in heavy trucks, but the rubble and chips are also being collected and taken away.

However, in the Umbra, the original rock face still exists, and very very faintly a circle can be seen traced out on the eastern face, maybe 10 feet in diameter. A few discoloured patches indicate other paintings, but they have faded out and are not distinguishable. The faintest supernatural senses linger on the spot - wyrm, bunyip and a touch of deadlands. The pack theorise that the spirit was corrupted or tainted or something and the Bunyip bound it to this spot, and the presumed destruction of the material binding/rock face allowed the spirit to be released. Or maybe it was there, and something wyrm-related happened, tainting it, and releasing it. Kreig, in the Umbra, begins to search through the rubble in the Realm in the hope of being able to detect bits of the old paintings. Freya spies on the mundanes in one of the portables - the foreman (Stewart Gordon) and his PA (Gavin).

Corey decides that the work here is going to need to be stopped in some fashion and steps into the Realm to start messing with the bulldozers. He uses Control Simple Machine and selects the ignition on one of the bulldozers. Much stopping when it should start and starting when it should stop later and the workmen eventually give up on it in disgust. Meanwhile, Abby has awoken an old tree spirit on top of the hill. They speak to it about the area, and it lets them know that it knew the spirit was bound there, and it had been for more seasons than it can count. The spirit was held there because it was a calm place, stable bit of rock, unlikely to crumble and because it faced the sun. Claws of Wisdom ask whether the spirit was always of the wyrm and there is a long pause and the tree spirit replies that it has always been evil as the Garou understand it. The pack poke around for a bit more, but eventually sucumb to Corey's plan to mess with the mundanes some more.

Abby performs the spirit awakening rite on a bulldozer. The spirit starts to become more substantial and then is horribly crushed and disconnected from its material home as the material bulldozer moves towards the exposed rock face, but the spiritual one plows into the Umbral hill. After a short time the material bulldozer breaks down for indeterminate reasons and the pack repeat the process on a couple of the other vehicles. By this time its nearly knock off time and the foreman, who's been looking more and more hassled as things go wrong, tells the workmen to go home. He stays until about 6pm and then he goes off too.

Freya relates what she's discovered from observing paperwork and all from the Umbra - Gordon Stoneworks, they have a property/business location closer into town, the price of this stone is amazingly expensive, Gavin likes two sugars in his tea. Kreig and Freya step out into the office and start ransacking things once Gordon is gone. Freya yanks a bit hard on a file drawer and the whole kitkaboodle comes out onto the floor, spreading paper everywhere. Oh dear. The two of them start trying to get it all back in order, but its not in any easily discernable pattern, so its going to take a while. On the plus side, they can read things as they put them away, and the find out that Gordon Stonecutters started surveying the site sometime in February, applied for and got the mineral/quarrying rites from the Federal government in March and didn't start work until just recently, in the week after Easter. This doesn't exactly match up with Polly's dreams, which started in February, but hey.

Meanwhile Corey is leading the pack in an effort to really mess with the mundanes. In Crinos form they are picking up and moving the broken bulldozers, diggy things and trucks and making a pattern of them on the flat in front of the rock face. Corey seems in his element, brining chaos to the normals. Bob is a bit bored with it all though, and starts wandering about the site. He happens to be near the gate when he sees headlights stopped in front of the gate and a figure opening the gates. Bob runs back, but the car is faster and he only manages to yell to Freya and Krieg to flick the lights off. Fortunately, all the others saw the headlights coming and dove for cover around the place. Freya and Krieg scoop the remaining files up and dump them into the cabinent any which way and step. The car screeches to a halt when the lights illuminate the bulldozers and all. The car driver gets out and walks up towards them a little, and the pack can see its Stewart Gordon. He runs back to his car and nearly spins out doing a U-turn and driving away. Corey laughs and says now they put everything back. Outside the gates Gordon stops and locks them up, and then only goes a bit up the road before pulling over with his lights off. Bob sneaks closer and can see him making a frenzied call to the police before slipping down in his car and keeping an eye out for the miscreants to leap the fence. The pack also rig the file cabinet up to collapse when its opened such that the files will all be messed up (after being dissuaded to rip open water coolers or start fires).

The others have tidied up the evidence, including footprints and all, well before the police arrive. The cops pull up on the road when Gordon turns his lights on and they have a discussion about what happened, then move into the compound. There is a certain amount of disbelief happening when the police see all the bulldozers neatly parked at the end of the flat and they ask a rather annoyed Gordon to take a breath test. Gordon says that he thinks he saw someone in the office too, and so the police check in their with him. Gordon puts his hand on the filing cabinent and gives a little tug on the drawer - inside there is a sound of one of the rails collapsing and all the files sliding down onto the bottom of the cabinet. Gordon visibly droops when this happens. The two policemen wander about the site, spotting some strange dogs when the pack don't make themselves sufficiently scarce, but not seeing a) any signs of moved bulldozers (they're not even warm) or b) signs of entry to the office. They suggest that Gordon was working too hard, and stressed and should get some sleep. They'll try and organise for someone to come out and dust the cabinent and places for fingerprints, but it looks like a mistake. Or perhaps a prank by some of the workers? Gordon is told to go home. He doesn't look too sure of himself either, and agrees, heading off home.

Friday 5

   The pack tidy up a bit more, cleaning fingerprints off stuff and generally making things look normal. They then consider what to do, deciding that perhaps they should head back to Melbourne and enlist some help in trying to capture the spirit. Kreig suggests going back to see what Polly is doing, Abby wants to go to Boronia to check out Gordon's main base of operations. Eventually they decide to leave the stonecutters until later, and to head back to Sleeping Lore to ask for advice, calling via Polly's.

By the time they run back to the cars its about 2am - it was much quicker out than in. Leaping into cars and heading for Polly's. As they pull up out the front, they all sense one of the concussions, which would indicate that Polly is still active, and indeed after Corey has looked into the Umbra to make sure they are not going to get eaten alive, they step into the spirit realms and observe Polly's empty room. Checking out the back of her house reveals Polly apparently fighting the spirit still. However, she is sitting on her knees, with her palms flat on the ground and shivering. Polly's complection is distinctly grey and she frankly looks exhausted. The pack step back into the Realm. Freya goes to Polly's house to try and make some food (really quietly) while Corey goes to a nearby Sev. When they touch Polly she flinches away, but there is no other sign she knows they are there - she doesn't responsd to her name or other speech. Kreig tries to use his extensive medical knowledge but it basically just looks like exhaustion rather than any specific wounds. Freya returns with some sugar water and a blanket, and they try and make Polly comfortable. Corey comes back with chips and coke and starts happily munching away.

Abby attempts to contact the spirit they feel is posessing her, basically conveying that it is killing Polly through its actions, that her body can't sustain this sort of expenditure of energy, that it should realise that they are trying to help and the terrible things done to its people were done ages ago and by someone else. A voice from Polly says "Stealers of secrets, thieves and murderers". Abby starts to get a bit annoyed with the spirit, and says that it is being unreasonable and short-sighted and they are trying to help. The possibility that maybe the spirit isn't entire comes up - the garou have all met ancestor spirits before, and some of them are a bit limited - maybe its something like that - a memory or an echo - effectively a ghost. Claws of Wisdom start to feel another sucking at their spirits and then another blast emanates from Polly, incidentally taking gnosis from Abby. It is a ragged blast and Polly sags afterwards. Sensing shows that it has a definate effect at keeping the darkness away.

The universe shudders a little as the GM and players reconcile a difference in their mental pictures of the Umbra, and the pack decide that now is maybe the time to see what was causing the firelight amongst the ti tree. The whole pack creeps forward and peeks ahead. In the dying embers of a campfire they can see an aboriginal man, heavily painted once, but now covered in sweat.

  The spirit looks up at them and says in spirit speech "Just kill me then". There are protests from the pack that they aren't here to kill anything, but to help, but the spirit is having none of that. He would look exhausted if he was human. Sensing reveals a sort of bunyip presence, a touch of deadlands and a faint wyrm. Very odd. They have a fairly confrontational conversation. The pack maintain that they are only interested in reconciliation, in making up for their ancestors' stupid mistake and sins of the father and all that. However, the spirit seems to be hard to shift in his beliefs, as the victims of a genocide might perhaps be expected to be. He accuses them of collecting secrets like weapons to use on others, of killing his family, telling his children their ways were wrong, of killing his dreaming. They protest and point out that they saved the Scars Atoned caern, but the spirit counters that they defeated an evil that they brought with them. They countercounter by indicating the darkness waiting on the hill, pointing out that it is evil and it was here before they were. The spirit tries to explain that it is part of the world, and the wirrenun (there's that word again) didn't lock it away like the garou undoubtably will, they bound it. Bob, who is getting a better impression of what the spirit means, gets connatations of being locked into certain limited behaviours rather than made to Slumber. The spirit sort of conveys a bit more about the Killer of Children, like it had its part in the world, and that its all their fault that the humans broke the words to release it.

The pack try and get through to the spirit that they are trying their utmost to help. The spirit rather sarcastically demands the return of the wirrenun. They mention Jirrawan, but there's no recognition there. The spirit tells them that they have lost control of their kin, that the humans ravage the land, they release that (jesturing into the darkness) and the garou fail to notice - they do not know what they should be, and are instead like overpowered children. They say they don't know what to do, and the spirit tells them that they should simply know, that the spirit world and Gaia calls out to them in a million ways, but that they are too busy listening to their inner voices, in worrying about self, to ever hear it. Abby and a couple of the others take him literally, and back off a bit to try and listen physically to what is around them. A bit more acrimony flows back and forth about the Garou not reining in the humans, and Abby points out that the aboriginals came in and wiped out the megafauna and fundamentally changed the climate by starting fires. The spirit just sort of stares at her and says he has no idea what she is talking about.

There is some conversation about forcing Polly to fight the Killer of Children, but the spirit denies forcing her to do anything. She is supposedly simply responding to a need, a necessity, that the Garou are ignoring in their arrogance. Some comment about Polly showing more courage than all of them, as she fights the spirit without their knowledge or their physical/spiritual strengths, compared to the garou who run about showing off how good they are, but just feed the spirit their rage and fears.

The pack try again to see if they can manage to hear the inner voices that the spirit is talking about, spiritually opening themselves to the world around them. Perhaps not the best idea given the ultimate evil floating about in the nearby spirit worlds, but still. Abby tries it and gets the impression that there is something between her and the world, a sort of barrier. Some of the others try it as well, and sense the barrier too. They all also sense a something or someone else, nearby, straining to hear the same way as they are. It is somehow closer than the outside world, but still seperate from the individual Garou. Someone suggests trying to listen as a pack. They have to bribe Corey with beer to make him go along with it, but they all throw their heart into it in the end. Each member of the pack garners the same impressions - a sense of spiritual seperation from the world around them, a weaker seperation from the members of the pack, and another presence seemingly doing what they are doing. However, there is something missing, some way in which their efforts are incomplete. Oh yeah! Cole... a mental note is made to try this again, with Cole's presence. Where the hell is he, anyway.

The Garou return their attention to the now, and find that it is almost dawn. The fire has smouldered to ashes, and the spirit looks distant in some fashion. The darkness that has been boding on the horizon moves away in a fashion that is almost a spiritual direction rather than a physical direction - which answers the question of has Polly been there the entire day as well. They glance about and see that the spirit is fading and sense that he is moving away in a similar means to the darkness. Its last words are "return the wirrenun". Much fear and confusion. Freya checks on Polly and finds that she is unconscious in the field as the sky brightens. The pack organise to get her inside and into bed without waking her father, and then head back to the caern to tend to their own need for sleep.

They rock back to the caern and find Graeme and Cossack at Graeme's residence. Graeme fixes them breakfast while they relate everything they know and think that they might have to do in the next day or so. Frankly, half of the pack are nodding off in the middle of the conversation. A few suggestions are brought up, such as maybe getting Reconciliation's help, as they are involved with some of the local aboriginal associations, and well, basically all this is happening on their doorstep. They also decide to go and ask Malajimbarra if he knows anything about all this, or whether he'd been keen to help them. In the meantime, they catch up on some sleep.

About lunchtime, the pack get back together. Freya has managed to get a fuller family history from Gwen, back to Polly's great-grandparents. There don't seem to be any obviously aboriginal names there, but you never know. There is some talk about why Polly was called, and whether there were aboriginal mages, and maybe wirrenun is not the bunyip, but some other mystic group. Someone points out that given the size of the spirit, its a bit weird that it seems to be attacking only through the space Polly and this spirit occupies.... very weird, actually. Something to think about. There is some more discussion about how to maybe bind this spirit, but they figure the pack can talk and walk. They find Ends-the-Quiet, who is happy to open a Moonbridge for them to Grinding Stone. They pass along through the shiny gate and find themselves atop the mountain that the caern is situated in. The pack are met by Huros Bathes-in-Blood and Malajimbarra. They ask to speak to Malajimbarra, and he agrees, but makes no movement to head off and speak privately. With a bit of nervousness, they recount their tale of the last few weeks in front of both caern elders. Huros asks some probing questions along the lines of "why didn't you kill it on the spot?" and they seem to answer to his satisfaction. Malajimbarra listens avidly, but points out that he is actually from the Northern Territory, and doesn't have the local background so he doesnt' know anything specifically helpful - he agrees to come with them though and look at some of the material they have found, and perhaps he will be able to help them nut some stuff out.

Figuring Polly needs her rest, they save her until last, and check out the quarry site (Stewart Gordon has apparently taken the day off. Wonder why.) which is pretty quiet. Malajimbarra looks at the pattern on the umbral quarry wall, raising his eyebrows at the large collection of smashed weaver spirits piled up nearby. The pack speculate that the easterly facing was probably because of links to the dawn, given what happened at dawn this morning. Malajimbarra doesn't think that the patterns will give up their secrets quickly, and they should start thinking about ways to bind the Killer of Children the Garou way. The pack look a bit uncomfortable and mention the things the spirit said last night, and Malajimbarra points out that they don't really have the leisure to experiment at the moment - they need to stabilise the situation before being able to perhaps take the time to work out how the bunyip performed their own remedy.

They check out Stewart Gordon at home, and sense wyrm on him this time. He is faintly tainted, although not especially. He has a nice house just to the north of Mt Dandenong, with much stonework in evidence (suprise). They are still unable to turn up any paperwork about the explosion, although Gordon does have a license to use explosives. Nothing in the preliminary information about the site says anything about aboriginal paintings, or artefacts. Odd that no one, in the quite extensive notes, noticed a thing. The pack check out the main retail site for Gordon Stoneworks, but there's nothing notable there. They start considering exactly what they are going to do this evening, and how.

   Finally they take Malajimbarra to see Polly. Peeking from the Umbra, it looks like she is still in the same position they left her in so many hours ago. Andy is not home, so Freya and Krieg (eventually) step into the Realm and make sure Polly is actually breathing. She seems to have big black circles under her eyes, and her breathing is shallow, but regular. Malajimbarra uses his eerie Uktena powers and declares that Polly is indeed a mage, although there is a strange feeling about her too, connected to her magic. The pack evaluate Polly's appearance and pretty much feel that she isn't going to survive another night of fighting the Killer of Children. So.... what to do?

Although the pack would prefer to follow the lead of the Bunyip and rebind the Killer of Children in the same manner (not exactly in slumber), Malajimbarra points out that they don't really have time to learn how to do that - it would be better to bind the spirit their usual way and then spend time learning about how they can bind a spirit in the way that the emanation suggested. However, to do that may require some time and cause a bit of a ruckus, and so it would be best done some distance from humans. Which brings up the question of just how can they get the spirit to be where they want it to be, and stay there long enough to be bound?

They have a bit of a think about what the spirit might like. The emanation told them that it needs off fear and rage - Corey suggests that he frenzy a lot to keep it distracted, but no one else is up for that. Making some sort of bait talen is eventually hit on as an idea. Malajimbarra suggests that it is probably best if he goes to Reconciliation, and enlists their help in finding an appropriate site to bind the spirit to, and to get help binding the Killer of Children. Abby agrees to summon and bind spirits, but feels that she should probably find another spirit and ask it for some gnosis. The plan is worked on some more first, and eventually it is decided that they will summon and bind a fear spirit to act as an attractor for the Killer of Children, and then one of the pack will run like hell with it. A bit more thinking refines the plan so that they have a relay race instead - Corey and Kreig will swap half way. Corey will use one of the calm talens and dive for cover as they swap.

As it is reaching dark, the pack start getting ready for real. Abby decides to summon Brook, that being a familiar spirit to her (anything but duck again). She performs the summoning next to one of the more major streams in the Umbra and after an hour or so there is a change in the sound of the water flowing. Abby can hear a voice in the multitude of trickles and gurgles. She addresses the spirit and asks that it replenish her spiritual energy. Brook asks in its watery voice what she will offer it in return, and Abby asks what it wants (oh dear). Brook asks that she serve for a month, working to purify Brook's brothers near Abby's caern. Abby agrees and Brook commands her to drink from the waters. Gurgle gurgle. Feeling much more confidant about spending half the evening dealing with spirits, Abby begins summoning a spirit of courage to help herd the Killer of Children. While she is doing this, Kreig receives a phone call. The caller says his name is Owen Widdess, and that he's calling about a location for their party tonight. Kreig blinks for a moment, but works out what he is talking about. Owen gives them a location and a Melways reference, which is within the bounds of the Yarra National Park.

Freya wanders around the fields, looking for something appropriate to bind the Fear spirit to. She finds a possum skull and figures that it will do nicely. Abby's summoning is complete, and she can see a shimmering, faint figure of a large celtic warrior, red hair, blue woad. It has a somewhat penetrating voice and asks why she has called it. Abby explains and it seems keen to help, but wishes that Abby provide some token service for it. They agree that Abby will refuse to sucumb to fear or cowardice this evening, demonstrating only courage. The spirit hangs about in the Umbra while Abby begins the final summoning for the day. Kreig heads off in preparation to the halfway point, having spent a while studying a map to find the easiest way to get there.

Corey warms up for his run while Abby finishes summoning the fear spirit. Feeling that she should just get on with it (or not wanting to know what sort of chiminage a fear spirit would ask), she binds the spirit firmly into the skull. Its about 2hrs 45mins after darkness now, and Polly has come outside at about 3 hours after dark the last two nights. The Garou are ready to rock and roll.

   The Garou wait - Kreig has moved to the halfway point, Corey is on the eastern side of the area where the spirit has manifested, and the other garou are spread out in the field in the Realm. The back door to Polly's house bangs open and she falls out the door, stumbling and nearly falling, wrapped in a blanket. She makes it to the back fence and tumbles over the barbed wire. As she heads out across the grass, the garou feel a change in the Umbra nearby - the darkness returns, flowing out from a great distance away, yet appearing in one spot. It flows over the nearby hill and starts heading for Polly when Corey activates the fear talen. From his point of view, the dark cloud billows in on itself and he feels himself as being the centre of its attention. He rather sensibly bolts as fast as he can. The others also take off, chasing after the spirit.

Corey is pounding along their pre-determined path at a fair clip. He drops into that energy saving gait that wolves have and spends his time warning the fear spirit that the darkness is closing in tighter and tighter (as if it wasn't scared enough). He sees a couple of cars swerve during periods where he is near roads, but no one seems to have their brains exploded. In the meantime, Freya and Bob have fallen behind from the chase, while Abby and the courage spirit (yelling war cries and running in homid form) are right on the tail of the Killer of Children.

Corey comes tearing up to the changeover point, and can see Krieg there, ready to start sprinting. The Killer of Children is less than 50 metres behind him, so Corey leaps to Kreig and switches the talen to him. There is a brief second of two as Kreig attunes to the fetish and then takes off at some speed. Corey grabs his backpack and dives off the side of the truckstop, activating the calm talen and taking cover. The blackness sweeps over him like a tide - he can't tell if the hammering of his heart is due to the run or the terror that wells up. Its totally black, with shadows jumping out the corner of his eyes and adrenaline coursing through his veins. Out of the darkness directly above him a face forms, with cruel eyes and a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth - Corey suddenly knows that the spirit has been toying, it follows because it wishes to, not because it is compelled. It is several minutes after the shadow passes before Corey is able to move (with the assistence of half a can of VB). As he runs back up to the truck stop, he runs into Abby, who is belting in at some speed. He says that the changeover went without a hitch, but that he is afraid the spirit is just playing. The two of them discuss it in short bursts as they run, but there seems to be nothing they can do if that's the case, so they stick to the plan.

A short while later, Bob and Freya reach the switchover point. They have fallen quite away behind, so they check to see if they could use Kreig's car. Fortunately, the backdoor has been left open, so they can get in without bricking a window. Unfortunately, neither of them has ever hotwired a car before. Bob has seen Corey do it a few times and gives Freya directions. The ignition cover is broken away and Freya follows Bob's advice for which wires to cross. There is a bright flash and suddenly some of the insulation is on fire. Freya was blinded by the light and it takes a few moments to put the fire out with one of Kreig's shirts. Freya tries the other wire, but she can't even get a spark out of it. The car alarm starts up, breeping noisily. They get out, Freya pops the boot and disconnects the battery, but the alarm appears to have its own power source, and it continues to scream out. Feeling that perhaps this is not their ideal way to travel, the two of them take off. This time they find their stride and head off across country at some speed.

Abby and Corey are following along behind the Killer of Children when it starts to veer left much earlier than it should. They are unsure whether Kreig might be lost, or panicking, or whether the spirit has decided to change direction on its own. Abby instructs the courage spirit to try and herd it back to a more easterly course, but the darkness continues to veer. Abby tries to use call of the wyld to hearten Kreig, but even the spiritual oomf that gift normally provides is swallowed by the darkness. Abby tries to just make herself heard by normal means, and this is a little more sucessful. They sprint through a farm, past a house where the lights are on but very wan. Corey slows to look through the windows and sees that there is a man in chair, sitting bolt upright and starting blindly at the wall - Corey decides he doesn't have time to check to see if the man is dead.

The chase continues for an hour. Kreig begins to speed up and circle around the site that they have selected while the rest of the pack heads straight for the spot chosen. Freya and Bob catch up with the other two, having cut across country and they all reach the gorge at the same time. The rock face is solid stone, and some preparation has been done by Malajimbarra, who is there. Also present is the pack Sons of Luna - packleader Julio Beats-the-Heart, Owen Widdess and the two theurges and twins Liam and Wilfred Boylan. Introductions are hurriedly made and Malajimbarra instructs Abby on what she will need to do as part of the binding ritual. Corey and Freya go up the north side of the gorge to see what they can see. The darkness seems to fill everything to the south.

Kreig comes running out of trees and leaps down the gorge, breaking his leg and the fear talen at the same time. He rolls on the ground with gritted teeth and says that it was right behind him. Freya yells down that she can feel the darkness surrounding them like a ring around the spot they have chosen to bind the Killer of Children. Her and Corey split up and go opposite directions to see if the ring is complete, which they quickly find it is. Malajimbarra and co begin the binding ritual. Freya tries to cut through the dark at the 'back', figuring that if that was the last place it joined together, it will be the thinnest. She takes off in lupus form, bolting through the brush. As she leaps a log, a smell like rotting flesh hits her nostrils, and then her front legs plunge into the bloated and decayed corpse of her daughter. Unable to stop herself, Freya's own weight drives her chin along the ribs, gouging up flesh from the ribs and forcing it into her mouth.

At the gorge, Corey perceives all the darkness flow together into single point, forming a humanoid figure at the top of the wall they intend to bind the Killer of Children into. The figure is has no features, and it is just darkness congealed. However, a sort of inhuman laughter emits from the figure and the entire rock face shatters, raining dust and fragments down on the 4 ritualists. Corey then hears Freya start screaming off in the direction she ran. He jogs that way and finds her shredding chunks of her own flesh off, scratching and scraping at her arms and face. He attempts to use the calm talen, but it wasn't having any of that. Corey sighs and falls back to his Ahroun nature, heading downstream along the top of the gorge to find somewhere he can jump and then cut around behind the figure.

Meanwhile back in the gorge, Abby is challenging the Killer of Children with all her might. It steps over the edge of the rock face and walks down the face parellel to the ground. It seems to be concentrating on the others Garou with Abby. Bob suddenly runs screaming into the night down the gorge. Malajimbarra is speaking in an unknown language, and the Sons of Luna seem to be similarly affected. The Killer of Children seems amused by their preparations, and tells Abby that they are not fit heirs to those who imprisoned it. She dares it to come and challenge her directly, because she is not afraid because she is surrounded by her pack, and she is Garou. The Killer of Children laughs again and says that it told her once that it is everything they hate about themselves. Corey leaps across the gorge, seeing Bob go racing by beneath him. As Corey races towards the gorge, Abby tilts her head back and puts everything she can into a Call of the Wyld... but it merely reverberates back as if to mock her. Abby falls to the ground, twisting and collapsing, and she makes eye contact with Julio, who seemed to be caught in his own nightmare. Julio tips his head back and screams an undulating howl, eerie and otherworldly. The figure warps and twists and then flows from the head like a liquid, cascading down over Julio and encasing him in darkness.

Freya snaps out of her nightmare and realises where she is, and what she's doing. She begins to hobble towards the gorge edge. Bob also trips and falls, trying to work out what he's doing way out here near the road. He spins and bolts back into the gorge. Each of the pack feel a strange pull within them, like a half-forgotten scent leading them somewhere. Abby snaps and frenzies, slamming into the black shell around Julio. The sound of the rite of binding begins again as Malajimbarra and the Boylan twins work out what is going on. Corey plows off the gorge edge and joins Abby, using his knife to carve huge chunks of blackness away from the almost impervious spirit ephemera. The same keening howl is still pouring out of the space where Julio is standing, encased in the Killer of Children. Freya hobbles up to the edge and calls out for Kreig to throw her the healing fetish, because she is basically pissing blood out of everywhere. Bob comes running up the gorge and thinks he sees movement at the top of the small rapids that are the east side of the small grotto they are in. Freya has a better view now that her wounds are healing, and she can see a number of small, faceless humanoids making their way along the creek. They seem to be scouting, but also to be drawn forward against their will. Bob and Freya realise they look almost exactly like the things they fought at Scars Atoned which were digging up the blue beret corpse.

Its not entirely clear whether they are being drawn forward by the same howl which has crippled the Killer of Children, or whether it has summoned them, as they do definately sense of wyrm. Feeling that they'd rather these little nadubi didn't disrupt Malajimbarra and the twins, Owen, Kreig, Freya and Bob launch an attack. The manifested spirits are armed with spears, but also seem to have spines like a platypus - very like a platypus finds Freya when she is scratched by one and the shallow wounds start to burn. Freya and Bob are tired from their days of activity, and start to flag after a while, but they are prevailing over the nadubi, reducing them to charcoal when they are killed. Between the four Garou, they manage to discorporate the wyrm creatures, although both Bob and Owen are badly hurt.

The binding ritual seems to take hours as Julio continues to undulate and Corey and Abby frenzy. The other garou stay out of their way as much as possible, but more wyrm tainted spirits continue to converge on the area, requiring them to continue to fight. Finally the rite comes to an end and the Killer of Children fades like dark before the dawn. Julio, Corey and Abby all collapse, and none of the other Garou look too well. Freya checks that Julio is still breathing, and although he is grey, too grey, he seems to be breathing shallowly. Reconciliation is contacted and they send out Gaia's Balm to help take the wounded to the caern and to help secure the Killer of Children to its new prison.

The garou are taken to the caern in the Umbra and their wounds are treated, and the story is related to the sept. Antoinette Cloak-of-Mourning moves amongst them, seeing to their comfort. She stops in front of Bob and says that a darkness moves to his heart. She can remove it, but she requires a favour in return. Bob agrees straight away, and Antoinette places her hand over his heart - it shines with a pale white light and Bob can feel a burning within him as if something had eaten its way from his wounds towards his heart. Owen appears to be suffering from the same poison and Antoinette heals him also. The pack are told to stay the night in the caern - their Sept has been contacted and reassured about the pack's safety. They gratefully collapse.

Saturday 6

The pack stir not too late in the morning and make preparations to go. Malajimbarra appears to have been and gone, returning to the site where the Killer of Children has been bound. The pack decide that they should see to Polly and head to Mooroolbark. When they pull into Polly's street, with a sinking feeling they see a police car out the front of her house. The pack slip into the Umbra, although they have to chivvy Abby into moving, as she just wants to stay in the car. Peeking reveals a couple of uniformed police and a very upset Andy. By peering in on the conversation, they manage to pick up that Polly was not here when Andy came in late last night, but the back door was open. Andy called the police then and there but they were unable to do anything at the time. He called some of Polly's friends, but they hadn't seen her either, so he called the police again this morning. The police ask sensible questions about her favorite locations, and so on, while Claws of Wisdom make their way into the field out the back of Polly's house. Questing Stone is unresponsive in a very strange way - a positive response to her name without showing her direction.

Abby lays down in the grass and watches the clouds as Bob uses his Heightened Senses gift and tries to follow Polly's scent from where they knew she was. Polly's scent heads in pretty much the same direction as Corey sprinted away the night before. After bullying Abby into coming with them, they follow the scent. Polly probably wasn't moving very fast, and seems to have doubled back a few times and maybe fallen over. However, her trail leads through Lilydale Park - where the pack have seen her before - and to a carpark, where it just stops. Feeling that this is not just lucky chance, Bob sniffs around. He smells cars. He also smells two human scents which are about 12 hours old, both male, both not too old. Someone brings Sense Unnatural to bear and there is a faint lingering sense of Magic, but it might have just been Polly. More sniffing about shows that Polly's blanket (which she still miraculously had) is stuffed in a garbage bin nearby, and has the scent of one of the men on it. Bob notices that the tree above where these scents are strongest is a bit off looking - closer inspection shows that all the leaves on one particular overhanging branch are crinkled as if they had been exposed to heat - not burnt with black bits, but dried out and warped. More sniffing - Bob's opinion is that the two male scents got in either side of the car and Polly in the back maybe? Its impossible to tell if she was scared, as even the blanket is sour with her sweat from the night before. The pack sigh and throw up their hands - it is suggested that perhaps they should make an anonymous tip off to the police about the blanket and then let the professionals do the investigation for them.

Sunday 7 - Saturday 13

  Claws of Wisdom spend the next couple of days resting after their hectic week. Cossack asks them to take over guard duty on the Tuesday, and they take advantage of the chance to learn gifts and rites. Kreig goes to Adelaide for a few days and comes back all gifted up. A couple of Uktena spirit specialists visit Reconciliation along with Malajimbarra to examine the Killer of Children, and rumour has it that they are worried that the binding may only last until the next dark moon. Abby is out of it and apathetic for a few days, but is taken to visit Reconciliation by Carmel, and comes back feeling a bit better (Abby only). Cole returns with a story about being blackmailed by Gina for days to steal random stuff from people and then take it to his rock in the Grampians and destroy it.

On the Saturday, Krieg and Corey are at the caern while the rest of the pack do some work at the zoo. The zoo is having a special day because one of the bears has had a baby and today is his first day in public. The place is fairly packed as its also a nice day. Lots of kids and families running around the place. Abby is approached by a somewhat panicked looking kinfolk who says that they think that one of the wolves in the enclosure might have gone through first change. Might? Yes, he's not there. There? In the enclosure. Erk, say the pack. Where's the trainer? We don't know, says the kinfolk person. Help? The pack agree and head to the wolf enclosure. They duck into the building at the rear, and Bob changes form to lupus, sniffing around. He scents the wolf and realises that its the omega wolf of the pack in the zoo. The others ask what his name is and the best Bob can manage is "Joker". Boding, suggest the other garou, and try a questing stone while Bob sniffs around. Joker's scent leaves the cage, but goes faint really quickly as he heads for the door.

Questing stone isn't really much use - Joker just isn't as good a name as they need. They try questing on the trainer's name, and the stone says that he is around the back. Bob had just activated Heightened Senses at this point and followed the faint scent trail around there, so they quickly check it out. The trainer is indeed there, naked and tied up with some of his clothes. He's got a nasty bump on his skull, which the pack heal. Questions reveal that Joker probably has his zoo uniform, although not shoes or underwear. Corey and Krieg turn up, having been called by Nadine to come and help, and leaving the Hand of Lore at the caern to guard things, and the pack takes off, following Joker's scent and trying to avoid all the kids. They are moving past a short deadend path when they spot a kid watching the kangaroos intently from a sort of hidden bit at the end of the path. Although the scent keeps going, they break off and head that way, creeping up. The kid starts making an effort to climb the fence as they get within about 6' and Abby says "what do you think you are doing?". The kid jumps about 400 metres into the air and starts protesting that he wasn't doing anything, certainly not climbing into the cage. They chase him off with some vague threats and the kid runs away at speed.

Back to following the scent, as it leads through clouds of other scents and into a quieter part of the zoo. Corey is some distance ahead, and he turns around to see that he has been cut off from the rest of the pack by a large gaggle of japanese tourists, who swarm Bob ("cute wolf on leash"). They are insistent on having photos taken with the friendly wolf, and when Abby tries to say that they have to take the wolf back to get some food, they misunderstand and feed Bob icecream. Figuring that only aquiesing to their desire to have photos taken is going to get rid of them, Freya takes a photo of Bob and some young women. Unfortunately, she forgot that Bob was using his Heightened Senses gift and he is now fairly significantly blind and somewhat pissed off. Eventually they shake free of the tourists and continue on their way.

The pack have a couple of the zoo intercoms and a message is broadcast from the kiosk near the main gate. The young lady who is working there says that she thinks that the person they are looking for is here. He is trying to get an icecream, but doesn't seem to understand about money. She is going to just give him an icecream to ensure he doesn't get angry or anything. She gives them a brief rundown - dirty blond hair, a silly grin, about 15ish, in badly fitting zoo uniform. Garou and kinfolk alike converge on that area, slowly cutting down the number of places he could be hiding, while trying to not panic or bump the tourists clogging the place. Claws of Wisdom are heading down near the waterbirds exhibit when they see Joker about 50 metres ahead of them. A woman is agitatedly waving her hands at him and then moving away down a joining path. Joker follows, wobbling slightly on two legs and disappearing behind some bamboo. The pack sprint down towards the place he disappeared. They are making much better time than Joker, but he had a bit of a lead. Just as they see the woman standing in the middle of the path and looking more than a bit baffled, the sounds of a homid barking emanate from the lake shore. Joker is apparently chasing a pelican back into the water. Abby grabs the woman as a young kid runs up saying "mummy, mummy" and assures her that although he seems a bit strange, Jo...seph is harmless and part of their community spirit in employing people who are mentally disabled but still capable of helping out at the zoo and would she like to come this way with her child and take a break in the.... the woman is hustled away as the rest of the pack approach Joker. He looks at them and seems about to run away, but changes his mind and slumps down a bit. Claws of Wisdom lead him away from the rest of the zoo.

The woman whose child was upset is reassured and sent on her way (apparently the kid was feeding a pelican and it started to get a bit aggressive, so she went for help) without much stress. Joker is returned to his enclosure, and the incident is smoothed over.

Wednesday 17

Moot night! The Moot begins as normal as the Sept howls out to the sky, and then greets and thanks all of the spirits of the caern. The first item of business is presenting Joker to the Sept (he's chosen that name for the moment) - Joker is a lupus ragabash of the bonegnawers. It seems that he actually went through first change a few weeks ago and had been practicing in the night times. In any case, he will be taught the ways of the Garou over the next year or so, and then will probably stay at the Sleeping Lore Sept.

A moonbridge opens during the Moot, a rather unusual occurence, and Julio and the rest of Sons of Luna emerge. Cossack doesn't seem too surprised, and greets them. They wait off to one side of the Moot. Cossack asks Claws of Wisdom to talk about the Killer of Children and Polly and so on, which they do, explaining about everything that happened from start to finish. Julio steps up at that point and asks Cossack's permission to tell his side of things, which is granted. Julio sings a song in the garou tongue, of a brave and courageous pack of Garou who fought a dark enemy, and of their pack leader who refused to surrender, taking strength from her pack. When he is finished, he bows to Claws of Wisdom, and the rest of the Sept applaud. Cossack performs the Rite of Recognition for the Claws of Wisdom while Ends-the-Quiet opens a Moonbridge for the Sons of Luna to return home. When Cossack is finished Bob and Abby challenge for rank 2. Ian considers them each. He asks Abby to perform a Fianna song and she performs adequately. The Elders talk for a time and then agree to recognise her as rank 2. Bob is asked to create a talen of his choosing as a demonstration of his grasp of spirit lore and practice.

The other packs also let everyone know what they have been doing over the last month, and some renown is recognised. The Moot continues with stories and songs. Kreig talks to the pack and gets them to summon Merlin, and ask him to try and keep an eye out over the city for the activity of the Full Moon Killer. The Moot builds up to the Revel, and the Garou explode out across the Umbrascape. Claws of Wisdom participate and then return to the Sept to sleep. They once again experience the flying-over-Malfeas dream.

Thursday 18

Maybe the Full Moon Killer took the month off.

Saturday 20

No such luck - a small group of homeless people were found butchered and burned in a docklands warehouse. Checking it out reveals the Full Moon Killer's scent, even covered by the burning flesh and petrol stench.

Sunday 21

Abby is at home late at night, getting ready to actually make some of her Uni classes, when there is a knock at the door. She opens it to find Michelle Leaps-Beyond-the-Reach-of-the-Wyrm at her door. Michelle asks if she can come in. Abby, worried about the doppleganger that approached Freya a few months ago, agrees, but senses like mad. Michelle seems to be a garou. Michelle says that she is here on behalf of Darius Winchester, the Silver Fang Jindabyne Council member. Darius would like to meet with her and her pack about a matter which concerns them all. Michelle is not too forthcoming ("It wouldn't be appropriate") but says that she is staying in Melbourne tonight and Abby should let her know in the morning if she is interested.

Michelle heads off, and Abby calls the others, who come over. They discuss things, and Abby says that Michelle also intimated that Darius was perhaps a bit concerned that the pack might believe that his opposition to their taking the trip to the Scar was personal, rather than a matter of wanting the best chance to revive the caern in question. The pack decide that they are fine with the idea of meeting Darius, although there is still some concern about dopplegangers.

Monday 22

About 10am, Abby rings Michelle (at the Hyatt) and says that the pack would like to meet Darius. Michelle says that she will pick them up in an hour. The garou assemble at Abby's place and Michelle turns up with a rather comfy 8 seater van. The pack get in and she starts driving off, although for a while they wonder why she isn't Moonbridging to Jindabyne. When Michelle starts heading out the Calder, Freya decides to put her new Truth of Gaia gift into action and asks where they are going. Michelle says that Darius wanted to be a little bit discrete about this meeting, and so she is taking them to Echucha (apparently true).

They arrive a few hours later in the paddlesteamer carpark amidst a light drizzle. There is a mercedes parked a handful of spaces away, and the door opens as they get out of the van, and Darius gets out. A couple of the pack glance into the car and see another person in the passenger seat, but can't see who it is before the door closes and the tinted windows hide them. Darius lights a cigarette and heads their way. Abby formally greets him (as you would the rank 5 ahroun) and he replies in kind. He comments on their recent adventures and also reiterates the implied hope that they did not take his preference for the Ngalyod pack personally. They exchange some small talk and then Darius gets to the point. He has a proposal for them regarding the Bunyip, and possibly returning them from extinction. The pack ask him a few cautious questions, and Darius says that he is really just hear to present the proposal on the behalf of his friend. However, his friend wishes to remain anonymous until the pack has agreed to help. All he can say is that they will be relying on the apparent connection the pack has with the Bunyip, and that they will want to test this connection. He also swears that he will not be asking them to do anything dishonourable. Abby asks if they could go aside to talk about it briefly, and he agrees.

Claws of Wisdom are still concerned about this doppleganger thing because of the questions asked about Scars Atoned, but Freya theorises that the duplicate Mandras might have even not been malicious - it could be Darius' friend trying to find information anonymously if it is connected. In short, they are willing to trust his word that they won't be being asked to do anything really dodgy - they can always say no. The pack return and say that they are willing to at least listen, and keep the matter to themselves. Darius looks pleased and moves back to this car. He opens the passenger door and speaks to the person inside. They emerge from the car, and it is -

  - Cernonous, one of the Children of Gaia representative on the Jindabyne Council. He's about 40ish, and wearing a tweed jacket and pants. Darius leads him back over and people are introduced. Cernonous explains that he wants to make up for the crime of genocide that the other tribes commited on the bunyip. Abby pulls him up on the 'other tribes' stuff and Cernonous contends that neither the Children of Gaia nor the Glasswalkers partook in the War of Tears against the Bunyip. There is much internal skepticism, but they politely let him continue. Cernonous has a plan for restoring the bunyip and he wants Claws of Wisdom to help. Someone points out that they seem to have some recent contact with the Bunyip - specifically at Grinding Stone when they rescued Blood Claw, and sort of with the recent events surrounding the Killer of Children. Cernonous says that all of these issues have been raised at the Jindabyne Council, and it is this possible connection which he hopes will help him. However, he does want to test the pack.

Cernonous explains that following the genocide of the Bunyip, strange umbral disturbances were noted, packs were attacked by maddened animal spirits and Garou would sometimes disappear. The effect is more prevalent the further away from settled areas you travel. Some of these disturbances were linked with storms and there were some dubious sightings of Bunyip after this time. The first substational confirmation was at Grinding Stone, and this also seemed to be linked to a storm. Basically Cernonous is suggesting they travel out into the outback and try and find a disturbance and see if a bunyip is at the heart of it all, and then see what happens. Even if it goes poorly, there will be 7 Garou, and it shouldn't be too dangerous. Claws of Wisdom ask if they can talk amongst themselves for a while.

Corey is not too sure that this is a good idea - he's unsure as to why exactly they need the Bunyip anyway. The others talk about needing them to restore the land, because the European Garou are not sufficiently connected to it. Abby says that she thinks they should do it, but she doesn't believe they can restore the Bunyip directly - it would be more in the nature of a spiritual attempt. The others are for the proposal in lesser or greater amounts, so the pack go back and talk to Cernonous. They agree to come along and try this test. Abby relates what the emanation told them about not listening to the world around them, and their experiments to try and be more connected to the world around them, and he agrees that it might be something worth trying while they are all together and away from other distractions.

Darius and Michelle head away in the sedan while the pack and Cernonous pile into the van and drive off towards the northwest. People chat on the way - Freya wants to know why they are trying New South Wales/South Australia area and Cernonous implies that if other Garou see them, the influence of Darious will probably keep them from talking too much. Corey asks why all the secrecy and Cernonous says that some of the tribes - specifically the Uktena and the Red Talens - and individuals probably wouldn't agree with what he is trying to do, and they would interfere.

Much driving during the day. Towards sunset, the pack drive past some guys replacing powerpoles. However, in the process they seem to have knocked down a large bird nest, probably a wedgetailed eagle nest. Mindful of their totem's instructions to help protect all predatory birds (Corey expresses his disinterest again in their totem, and Abby threatens to feed him his feet if he keeps going on about it), they pull over, confusing Cernonous a bit. Trotting back to the power guys, Abby starts babbling on about being part of a research group from the university, looking at the habits of predatorial birds and they've noticed that the nest is a Wedgetailed Eagle nest and she was wondering if they could perhaps... the guy that seems to be in charge just looks at his watch and says that they've got 30 minutes of light left, could they please get on with the job.

Freya takes a poke at the nest. Its been damaged, but its not unrecoverable. She tries to sort of put it together, but it just looks worse. Someone comes along and helps her put it together. Deciding that she's jack of the workman guy, Abby and Kreig start climbing the new pole that they've put up. The guy freaks out a bit and runs over, demanding that they get down. Abby goes on some pinko commie lefty green rant about restoring the nesting site, and the guy is adamant that she shouldn't climb the pole, its too dangerous. He won't let her use the cherry picker either. When Abby starts getting that look in her eye, the guy sighs and says "You'll just climb it when I'm gone, won't you?". Abby agrees so the guy says that he'll do it when they've finished their real work. This happens, and the pack shout them a beer, improving everyone's mood.

The pack pull into some one horse town and arrange for somewhere to crash at the pub. The bar is full of older people - the pack suppose that the town is shrinking as younger folks move to the big smoke - who regard them curiously, but without much of the expected bigotry. Once its dark, the pack slip away to a nearby national park, attempting to once again contact the world outside themselves. The pack tries to meditate and drop onto a trance, but there's always some distraction or another. They move somewhere where moths don't attack Freya, where Freya's not sitting on a painful rock, where Freya... and so on. They manage each time to get the sense of listening, but being seperate from the world around them, as well as the extra voice listening in the same way, but don't seem to make any new breakthrough. Pushing towards the Other gently seems to reveal a presence unlike that of their pack, maybe a different sort of mind, but striving for something nonetheless. Sometime after midnight, the pack is as one trying to overcome the sense of being seperate from the world; they internally experience a sensation akin to being within bubbles, being able to sense one another and the 7th presence all attempting to reach outwards. Abby is wondering how Jordan is... Bob is suffering from an inexplicable urge for beer... at some point during the process, the barriers between the members of the pack have faded away, and they can empathically and telepathically feel one another. Realising the connection is enough of a surprise to snap them all out of the trance, but when they return to the hereandnow, they find that they can still hear one another's thoughts, and faintly feel one another's emotions. They decide to not reveal this to Cernonous just yet, feeling it could be a very useful thing if no one else knows about it.

Tuesday 23

The pack grab a short amount of sleep, then get up for a hearty country breakfast before going back into the car. Driving, driving, driving. At various points, people are peeking, and Cernonous comments on the discontinuity between the Realm (scrubby bordering on desert) and the Umbra (temperate rainforest). There are also many strange animal spirits around - spirits of animals which have been extinct for millenia. This phenomenon is also less prevalent nearto human populations.

Towards midday, they are driving northwestish when people who are peeking notice a distinct lack of animal spirits. A bit later, things are getting darker in the Umbra, so the pack pull over and step into the spirit realms. Some of the vegetation is moving as if it was being blown around by a wind, even though its fairly still. The umbral geography is still mostly temperate rainforest, thick canopy - but that doesn't explain the dimness of the light. Kreig climbs a tree, and notices straight away that, although it is still middayish, the sun is on the west horizon. On the eastern horizon, the moon, still full, rests. Some distance away is a storm, all stacked clouds and wind and maybe rain. Feeling that this is their baby, the pack and Cernonous take off towards it.

As they approach, someone climbs another tree. In the Umbra, the storm appears to be growing - it looks like a thunderstorm, but its very circular in nature, centred around a spot about a mile away. Kreig's keen eyes also manage to pick out something weavery about that point, so he peeks into the Realm. In the Realm there seems to be a small town next to a river, and a rather large duststorm heading towards it (ala the Mummy). The Umbral storm doesn't seem to be moving, so the pack close (in the Umbra) to a couple of hundred metres, to see what they can see. Sensing the various things around reveals a lot of wyld, some wyrm, and a pinch of demonic. Bob attempts to further classify the Wyld and thinks that its a stormy, destructive kind of influence. As they close on the town, it starts to rain and the winds pick up, whipping the vegetation around.

Just as they get to that point, a huge Diprotodon charges out of the underbrush and makes every effort to crush Abby beneath its feet. She manages to leap into a tree and avoid being crushed by what is basically a 3 tonne wombat. Freya tries the same, forgetting that she is in lupus form. Sensing says that the diprotodon spirit has the same feeling as the surrounds - wyld, wyrm, demonic. The wyrm sense is an anger/fury kind of taint. Abby's scrambles up the tree while the diprotodon slams repeatedly against the base of it, causing her to shoot backwards and forwards across the sky. Kreig changes to crinos, and leaps onto the megawombat, attempting to pin it or something. It rolls to crush him and Corey leaps onto its stomach ("I forget when he's like that, all 5 ends are pointy"). Kreig and Freya subdue the gpht by using calm fetishes and talens, but it takes a while. They all scramble up trees as more of the things start hammering around in the undergrowth. Feeling that their fetishes aren't going to be up to the task of calming the entire area, Freya starts a contrition rite.

She's about half way through the rite when a 15 foot goanna lumbers through the underbrush and starts to climb her tree. Bob finds he's being swarmed in bullants which start to bite. As much as she wants to be goanna food, Freya recommands running like hell. The pack head for the town, as that appears to be the centre of the problem. They encounter a rather mad kangaroo that just bounces in at the pack from hundreds of metres away (stupid spirit charms) and tries to attack Abby again. While they are subduing it, or at least wrestling it to the ground and then deciding what to do, some guy appears about 20 feet away, looking surprised. Before the pack can do anything about it, he is attacked by crazed animal spirits. As far as the pack can tell, he's just some random human, so what the hell is he doing in the Umbra? Kreig yelps and peeks, finding it insanely easy. The storm has hit the town in the Realm, obscuring everything with thick red sand. However, he is looking for megafauna in the realm - and he sees a large goanna thing lumbering away. The animal spirits render the human to pieces and shortly afterwards an almost mummifid corpse erupts from the ground and starts lumbering around.

  Figuring that they should at least try to protect the Veil, the pack find somewhere vaguely private to leap into the Realm, finding it insanely easy to step. A few steps later and they can see the giant goanna again. Several people leap onto the materialised spirit. Krieg sees a young girl, maybe 10 standing and staring at the giant dog things and the giant lizard and, well, generally freaking out. He leaps forward and grabs her, stuffing her into a nearby garage and slamming the door. Meanwhile, the rest of the pack have tried to crash tackle the lizard. Freya tries to step and take it back into the Umbra, and that takes Bob and Abby with them too. Perhaps this is not the best place to be fighting a gigantic angry, angry lizard, and Abby lays down with a tattered abdomen. Bob and Freya seem to do enough damage to scare it, for it then runs off very fast. Abby is healed, and they return to the Realm. Mind you, the Umbra is wet, and the Realm is dusty, so all the pack are now muddy.

Corey and Cole decide that they should try and investigate at the local hotel. The others trundle around trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Corey notices that the townsfolk are also collecting there, including the ones beating something like a giant ground sloth to death on the front porch with chairs. They go inside, where some people are crying, some people are obviously hurt. Corey pulls a couple of beers, joining someone else, who frankly looks in shock. There is a tap on his shoulder and he hands them a beer. Except its a zombie. Looking left and right, Corey leads the zombie outside and tears it to pieces.

Meanwhile Krieg has found another human, crouching down and looking fearfully around the corner of a milk bar. He suggests going and finding somewhere safe, and the guy says he's going nowhere. He promptly disappears, and Krieg peeks. Yep, there he is, freaking out. Krieg gives chase, and its some time before he manages to catch the guy and step back to the Realm. Krieg is suddenly running down a hall way of a house, and there's a loud smash from the other side of the wall. Peering around a corner, it seems as if Kreig's new friend has ploughed straight into a fishtank and knocked himself out. Oh well, at least it explains the dampness from the Umbral storm. Krieg lets himself out.

The others pass by the pub. Cernonous suggests that he stay here and try and help the humans while the others continue to see if they have some connection to the Bunyip. They split up into two groups of two. Freya is moving about trying to help people when she becomes aware that something is circling her and Kreig. Whatever it is stays sufficiently far within the dust that she can't precisely make it out. Kreig tries to sense unnatural; there is a point source of Wyld-Wyrm-Demonic out in the storm, but it is so like the surrounds that its impossible to say what it is. They guess that it is a Bunyip. It suddenly lunges in towards them and it seems to be a bunyip alright, and in hispo-equivilent form. It also doesn't seem to be in the mood for talking as it lunges for Freya's throat. Freya is pinned down briefly, before Krieg lifts the bunyip off her. The others, including Corey, come running through the dusty streets, trying to home in on the encounter. Krieg uses the last calm talen on the bunyip, there is some more struggling and it runs away, leaving the two of them fairly shaken.

Corey is down near the river when he too senses that something is starting to circle him. He also tries to ping it, without much luck. It lunges in and attacks him, grabbing him around the throat, but not quite pinning him. Corey breaks free, but is slammed to the ground. He is knocked out. Bob, who was heading towards Corey, spots the Bunyip circling him shortly afterwards. When it lunges, he decides that its time to go, and shoots off at great speed. Eventually he finds the unconscious Corey, who is not, much to everyone's surprise, dead. It occurs to Bob that the Bunyip are behaving in an odd way - throating people is certainly not the easiest way to kill them, and the Bunyip have left Corey alive, if hurt. Everyone agrees to meet back at the pub.

The pack struggle back there and heal up their various wounds. Cernonous is helping treat the hurt, and Cole is helping move people about. Abby suggests that perhaps a Rite of Contrition is in order, and the others cautiously agree. They head off again out into the storms and find somewhere a bit remote. The wind and dust is getting worse, however, so they might be in someone's front lawn for all they know. Corey and Freya participate in the Rite of Contrition. They are maybe 3/4 of the way through when Bob and Abby are aware of a circling Bunyip. This time it appears to be in thylacine form. It is circling somewhat menacingly just out of sight.

The Rite is nearly complete when it charges in. Abby interposes herself between the Bunyip and the ritualists, and it leaps at her. She has the sudden thought that the previous behaviour was all dominance games, and rolls with the bunyip onto her back, exposing her throat and trying to make eye contact at the same time. Abby's mind is suddenly filled with a multitude of images, all run together, faster than she can catch them all. However, she manages to remember some of the images: she sees a storm raging across the outback; a vast reptilian eye opening in darkness; the Cracking Stone lying on the sand, when the ground opens up and swallows it; a new-born baby sprouting fur and claws; the Melbourne Cemetery ripped up and ruined, with the surrounding buildings in flames; a rainbow arcing across the sky; and rain washing away the blood that covers a forest of ghost gums.

  The Rite of Contrition finishes and the Bunyip spirit fades away, becoming like the dust that still swirls around everywhere. The storm is starting to slow, and the pack opt to wait for a while. They do all change to homid or lupus form. Freya is idly leaning against something when it moves, dipping down, and cascading dust off it. Its a plane wing. The dust is starting to settle now, and they can see that its a small dual-prop plane which shows signs of not exactly having been parked with care. Its a Flying Doctor plane too. They check it out - the side door has been left open, and everything is covered with a thin layer of fines. However, its fairly clear that the pilot probably made a controlled landing into terrain - there is blood on the cockpit window which looks like someone smacked their head into it, and the cockpit is a bit torn up. There is some fur, covered in blood, scattered around the place.

The pack start having horrible suspicions like maybe something attacked the pilot midair. They ask Cole mentally if there is someone at the hotel that smells like [this], and he looks around for a bit before finding someone. Cole senses unnatural after the more suspicious pack ask him too, and says that he thinks that the guy, who is incidentally an aboriginal, is a garou. Much speculation about maybe he is a bunyip (yikes!) or went through first change in the plane when he was attacked or maybe the Bunyip spirits weren't here for the pack at all. Cole says the guy is hurt, maybe they should come and talk to him. First they try look about a bit more. There are definate claw marks in some of the seats, but they seem like something has leapt at the pilot, not the other way around. The cockpit isn't smashed to pieces either, which it would presumably be if someone went crinos in the confined space. However, all the spirits that they have dispatched in the material realm have all dematerialised, leaving no remains - yet there is fur here. So they head off.

People are starting to head back through the town, but they don't pay much attention to the odd mix of strangers. Claws of Wisdom meet at the pub and find Cole and their friend. He's about 25, and the blanket he's in appears to be quite bloody. They use their healing gifts on the guy and he starts to stir a little. Cernonous joins them and says "ah, I know him. His name is Jacky Gecko." Jacky opens his eyes and looks a bit confused. The Garou go aside and chat for a bit. Abby introduces herself formally, and Jacky does the same - he's an Uktena Galliard, and he seems to heard of them. Bob cautiously asks if what he's heard has anything to do with fire. They talk a bit about what's happening - Jacky was flying south when a dust storm came up and he tried to make an emergency landing. Something appeared in the cockpit with him, maybe a giant possum, and started attacking and then he crashed. He doesn't remember much more. The pack says that they just happened to be passing through. Jacky looks a bit weirdly at Cernonous and them together but says "ok".

The rest of the day is spent helping the townspeople get their town back together. Emergency services turn up after a while and the Garou decide to make themselves scarce. Jacky stays behind to help with things and try and convince people that it was all hallucinations caused by the white noise from the storm. That doesn't explain the missing people, but hey. The Umbra has returned to placidity, and the sun and the moon to their normal locations.

The Claws of Wisdom head back to their van and dig it out. As they are driving, they tell Cernonous what happened - storm, attacked, dominance games, visions. He says that he is now reasonably convinced of their link to the bunyip. Cernonous explains his plan. He is an expert geneticist at Sydney University, and, after a vision granted to him by Gaia, he hit upon a plan for cloning the Bunyip. This causes a certain amount of "Yer what?" from the pack and a discussion about what they know about cloning, which is nearly bugger all. Cernonous claims that his methods are a mix of science and spirituality, which is why he hopes to suceed where normal cloning would fail. In short, he's hoping that the science will be sufficient to create a material form which will reinforce the spiritual side of matters of calling a bunyip spirit to inhabit the body. This is the simple explanation, of course.

Abby and Corey are of the opinion that it won't work, but for different reasons. Bob and Freya ask if this isn't perhaps a too weavery method to return the Bunyip, and therefore inappropriate. Cernonous cautiously explains that this is why he wants the Claws of Wisdom to aid him - he feels that through them, the Bunyip and other native spirits will make it clear that what he is doing is either what they wish, or not. The act of helping him partially becomes a spiritual journey or quest, and as such the spirits connected with it are able to influence things or make their opinion clear. The pack are not convinced, but agree to continue helping - they ask what the next step is.

Cernonous requires a sample on Bunyip DNA. His plan is to get the Claws of Wisdom to find it. Some discussion about the truth of DNA, wolves, humans and thylacines (an entirely different branch of the mammal family for 60million years, after all) occurs, but isn't really resolved. Cernonous wants them to go and talk to someone called Bartholomew Wise-in-the-Ways-of-the-Wyrm, who has appearently spent his life collecting information about the Bunyip. He's a Fianna too. They should conceal their true intentions from him, as Cernonous is unsure of his (potential) opinions on the cloning quest, but speak to him about battlesites where Bunyip were known to have been killed. The pack take this oppurtunity to ask why Cernonous was being a bit weird around Jacky, and Cernonous replies that Jacky was for many years the protege of Tjinderi Knowing-Smile, Jindabyne Council member for the Uktena. He feels that the Uktena have a craving for Bunyip secrets, and regard themselves as sucessors to the Bunyip. He doesn't think that they would take kindly to having the Bunyip return suddenly. Other tribes would also be opposed, but for different reasons. (No one looks at Krieg at all).

They spend the night in some dinky outback town in New South Wales. Freya tries to contact Jordan with her new-found psychic powers. Corey studies like a mad thing. Cole breaks into the local hardware store and liberates some paint. Returning to his room, he focuses his gifts and tries to represent the bunyip he saw - what he paints is a thylacine with the storm raging around it, and somehow boiling off it, sand merging with the fur and being energised with the rage of the Bunyip. The others sleep or rest.

Wednesday 24

They continue to drive, playing I-spy. Towards the middle of the afternoon Cernonous tells them that he'll be leaving them at the next town. He's arranged to be picked up, and he'll leave them the car. He feels it would be better to not let Bartholomew know that he is involved at this stage. Some of the pack seem a bit uncomfortable with the sneaking going on, but Cernonous reassures them that he doesn't want them to do anything they are not comfortable doing.

They pull in at a two horse town and switch drivers around. Cernonous waves them good bye as they drive in the Blue Mountains. Its about an hour before dusk when they pull up at a ramshackle house in the hills. There's an old guy there, in workboots and denim, looking like an old Kym Gyngel with a very thick bush accent. They make some introductions once they have established that there's no one around to overhear and Bartholomew says that he was planning to come and chat to them sooner or later anyway. He invites them in and settles them down. Abby explains that they are on a sort of quest, trying to find out more about the bunyip - the topic of Scars Atoned comes up, and Bartholomew asks some questions, leading to Abby telling the story again, because he'd only heard it secondhand. Back to the sort of quest - ideally they'd like to find spots where there were battles and Bunyip were killed (getting an idea for how they died before trying anything else, perhaps), but not where there are existing Septs, because, well, because they don't want to step on toes.

Bartholomew hmms a bit and says he'll need to consult some notes, and in the meantime, they should make themselves at home and make something to eat. Its just on dark when he comes back with a page of notes. Before he gets to discuss them though, a magpie flies in through the window and lands on the table. Bartholomew says to send her on up and tells the pack they'll have a visitor. The figure trudging up the path to the house turns out to be Jane Redfeather, the Master of the Challenge from Scars Atoned. She seems a bit surprised to see them here and says that she's actually here to talk to Bartholomew about some of the pictographs on the walls at the Cave Caern. Bartholomew says that he was concentrating on the imagery that was common to the caern and a number of other locations. He stops and asks if anyone is in a rush. When they say nope, he offers to show them something to demonstrate the difficulties they face in understanding the bunyip. All agree, so they head out to the cars and drive off into the moutains for a few hours. Pulling up in a carpark for a national park, they get out, change to lupus and run for another hour or so. Their destination appears to be a rock face covered in abstract aboriginal artwork. Bartholomew returns to homid and takes something out from his pocket - with a bit of a jolt, Bob realises that it looks just like the Cracking Stone - a palm sized piece of river-worn stone with wavy lines on it.

Bartholomew holds the stone up and appears to be concentrating. The wall flickers, as if a cloud had passed over the moon. And then another and another. Each time, the designs change slightly - when the flickering stops, a passage into the wall appears, surrounded by artwork. Bartholomew passes out torches he brought with him and leads the way down into the mountain. The tunnel they enter is not very long, maybe 30 feet, and it is tilted slightly downwards - its hard to tell if it is natural beyond the doorway Bartholomew opened, or fashioned. At the end is a slight enlargement of the fissure and a hole leading downwards. Bartholomew says that they need to climb down here - its about 30 metres, and you need to do it in crinos form, but its not a strenuous climb. He heads down first, slowly disappearing into the darkness. They can just see him at the bottom, and he waves the next person down until all the garou are in the room.

They are standing on a floor of large slabs of broken rock, sharp edged and smashed up, mixed with piles of earth. Bartholomew shines the torch around the walls and the garou can see that the walls are covered in paintings, faded and missing in places, but showing evidence that the Bunyip were once here. Someone asks if its a caern, but Bartholomew shakes his head and says that when the world was created, there were many great spirits roaming free. When the wyrm became the corruptor rather than the balancer, its brood were also sent mad. These great Wyrmbeasts wreaked havoc across the world until they were captured and put into Slumber. They could not be destroyed, but they could be chained down. This cavern was one of the places the Bunyip used to keep a Wyrmbeast in Slumber - the Uktena have found some of the others - Jane nods - and perform their own rituals, but there may be other sites where great evil is dormant. The most terrifying part of this is that without constant renewal, the emanations of the Wyrmbeasts eventually break down their wards and they will become free, like the one here did. The existence of this cavern was hinted at before the War of Tears, but the exact location wasn't known. It wasn't until he found the Waiting Stone - Bartholomew indicates his CrackingStone-esque fetish - that he found the cavern, and by then it had already gone. (There is some brief mental exchange amongst the pack to the extent that the Cracking Stone might have its own cave. eep!).

The point of this trip was, however, that some of the pictograms on the walls, and on the broken bits of rock on the floor, are very similar to those found on the walls of the cave caern, and around other sites tended to by the Bunyip. Bartholomew doesn't know whether the symbols were intended to keep the Wyrmbeast dormant, which might imply that there is a Wyrmbeast under the Scars Atoned caern, or whether they were part of a defense system intended to prevent the Wyrm from locating the Wyrmbeasts, which would imply that they are just part of the Cave Caern's defenses. The pack start to wander around and poke at stuff while Bartholomew explains. Krieg tries to Sense Wyrm and gets a ringing headache, although he can tell that its just an echo. Bob is a bit more cautious and uses the Sense Unnatural gift - strong wyrm, some weaver sense, neither of which have a point source. The cavern is quite wide across and Bartholomew says that it was probably made this wide to accomodate the spirit within it - a scary prospect. More peering at pictures - they are quite faded and damaged, but it is possible to make out similar designs to those from Scars Atoned, as well as new ones - figures, geometric designs and some abstract imagery. Bartholomew says that although he has investigated the site repeatedly, about the only association he can make is that one of the larger figures may represent a storm or mountain spirit. Bob or Abby try and get a feeling for the site - they get up high and look down on all the broken rock, and suggest that all the rock was broken in one go - it just feels that way, rather than having been bored away at.

Everyone trundles back to the surface, and Bartholomew closes the doorway. The trip back to Bartholomew's is a bit muted. Jane decides to head off when they get back - she was passing through and has to get back to Victoria. The pack settle back into their seats and Bob pulls out the Cracking Stone. They discuss it with Bartholomew a little - he's faintly surprised that there are such similar fetishes. Side by side, there are subtle differences in the patterning on the stones, but they look similar enough to be casually mistaken. They ask where Bartholomew got the Waiting Stone from, and he is a bit evasive, but says that it came from nearby. The Cracking Stone, however, was in a box in the mage house at Airport West, so its impossible to say where it originally came from. They chat that maybe its a key to another Wyrmbeasts, and some possible ways of finding that chamber, but there's not much to go on. They also talk to Bartholomew about the Killer of Children - he'd only heard the edges of what actually happened. Abby puts forward the theory that the Killer of Children was a Wyrmbeast, but Bartholomew disagrees - while it was a powerful spirit, it wasn't the sort of pure elementalness that the Wyrmbeasts are. More discussion about the binding itself, and the word wirrenun - Bartholomew has heard the word, usually in the context of shaman, but not always in a way that would suggest Bunyip garou. Its all rather confusing.

Anyway, back to what they came here for. Over a beer or two, Bartholomew says that he knows of three spots which might satisfy their needs. The first is in middle Queensland, near a town called Clermont. There was an aboriginal encampment amongst the volcannic peaks there, and some settlers, including Garou, descended on them, finding that there were Bunyip in the encampment too. That's about all he knows. The second place is actually a caern. When they start to protest, Bartholomew says that there isn't actually a Sept there - its a disputed caern, between the Get of Fenris and the Red Talons. Originally the caern was held by the Talons, but when the Jindabyne Council was set up, along with the tribal boundaries, it fell within the Get of Fenris protectorate. The Red Talons refused to give it up, and now there is no sept there, although he understands both tribes maintain a presence of sorts. The third location was in Western Australia, near a town called Mullewa - a Black Fury pack was trailing a single Bunyip when it met up with a few more. There was a fight and the Bunyip were killed. A few months later the Fury pack disappeared in the desert.

Bartholomew glances at the time (about 3am) and suggests that they sleep on the matter for the moment and decide what to do in the morning. The pack agree and find places to crash.

Thursday 25

In the morning, Bartholomew is awake before the pack. He cooks them breakfast as they chat, and then tells them that there's been a Bunyip related disturbance near the SA border, in a town called Fiddle Dee, and he's going to head out there. Claws of Wisdom um and er a bit and then tell him that it was them out there - there was a storm when they were at the town and a Bunyip was around. Abby gives him the reduced rundown. Bartholomew says that he'll go out there nonetheless, and says that they are welcome to stay here and have a think before they decide what to do - he'll see them later. Off he goes in his beatup landrover.

Although Corey is nervous about his impending exams, the pack decide to visit one of these sites. The closest one is probably the Queensland site, so they'll give that a go first. They head into a nearby town and make arrangements for their mortal lives and then head off in a driving trance.

Friday 26

Its late in the evening when the pack, tired and grouchy and sick of being in the car with each other, drive into Clermont and find somewhere to stay overnight.

Saturday 27

Feeling a bit more refreshed and human (well, some of them), the pack get together and scope out the town. Bartholomew wasn't able to give them much detail, other than the camp was near some of the volcannic plug ranges that dot the area. This is too vast a space to search on foot, so they try and cut down the search space. Clermont appears to be the shire centre, so they head there to poke about. The civic centre includes a tourist booth sort of arrangement, and its open, so in they go. The old dear behind the desk is more than happy to tell them everything, along with handing out pamphlets. Pretty much the major event in the town history appears to have been the floods at the start of the century, causing them to have to move the whole town up hill about a kilometre ("here's a pamphlet").

The pack head down to the site, and check it out. Its pretty much been turned into a touristy area, down near the river. Large poles declare that certain spots were the post office, or the local pub or the house of the mayor, or the cemetary. They wander around for a bit in the cemetary, using various gifts, but nothing really shows up - maybe just a faint glimmer of a shadow of a feeling. Oh well, back to the library to do some reading. They find a lot of local history material, but Freya finds out lots from the grade 5 posters stuck on the wall. Basically there was an assault, which led to the deaths of a number of the "local natives". It happened nornortheast of the town, within one of the subranges (they note down the location). Two months later there were charges laid against several local men, but due to a lack of precise information about who committed what, they were only jailed for a period for assault. The natives in question were buried in the town cemetary.

The final flooding happened less than a year after this, and the pack is beginning to suspect a link between the two events. They now have a close approximation of the site, so they drive out there and see if they can find it. Eventually they do, or at least the hundred year old remains of what seems to be a site in the right place. Atop a small rise is a flat space, a short distance from a moderate sized creek. Again, sensing reveals the faintest glimmer of a sensation, just at the edge of perception. Cole wants to stay and sketch the site out, so Krieg stays with him while the others go back and look at the new town cemetary. They look about and eventually find a memorial marker, with a list of names on one side and what happened on the other three. However, there's no actual gravemarkers here. Bob, Abby and Freya wander away to find somewhere quiet to do a questing stone or 3, now that they have names. This process leads them back down to the old town site, away from the cemetary marker, all pretty much to the same location. They debate what to do.

Meanwhile back at the campsite, Cole has finished his sketching. The image of the campsite seems to be an older one, with vague bodies lying in the dirt. However, the primary focus of the picture is a figure in the foreground, probably on its knees, seeming to beseech the sky. Smoke sifting up from the burning campsite merges together into a column - if you look at it in the right way, the column could perhaps be a huge humanoid figure, looming into the sky. Cole and Krieg return, and the pack kick around until night time.

Once the town has gone to bed, the garou creep around down through the old cemetary. They talk about what to do. Bob has been looking at making a Death Dust talen, but that won't cut it across 100 years. However, he's been learning about Death spirits, so they have a starting point. Although the original plan is to summon a death spirit to talk to the dead people, a lack of common language and the difficulty of doing this makes it a bit impracticle. However, a Death spirit should be able to tell if any of the buried bodies are bunyip, so they try and work out what chiminage to offer. Abby does the summoning and the others hunt down and kill a rabbit (and not a cute little lambie :) or two as part of the ritual. When Abby finishes, the whole neighbourhood shimmers and changes. A figure approaches from a distance, and where it passes, graves and headstones appear. When it arrives, the pack can see grave markers around them with the names of the murdered aboriginals. The figure is cowled and speaks quietly. It smells like dusty decay. The death spirit speaks to Abby, and asks why she called it. She explains and it asks what they will do in return. Abby says that their holy place is a cemetary, but some people do not treat it with the appropriate respect. The pack will work to change this so more people have the correct frame of mind. The spirit agrees that this is sufficient. It moves from grave marker to grave marker, pausing briefly in front of each one. At the end of the circle, it returns and tells the pack that none of those buried here are of the Bunyip tribe. The pack sigh and thank the spirit.

Sunday 28

After sleeping in a while, the pack all get in the car and head for South Australia, via Birdville. The trip gives them a chance to talk about exactly how they are going to find the caern they are heading too. Bartholomew told them there was no Sept, but there are guardians. Sneaking up isn't an option - they don't know exactly where it is, just that its somewhere near Etadunna. There is some discussion about the typical Get or Red Talon that would be around the place. Krieg knows nothing about the site, so he's no help.

Monday 29

Its late on the Monday when the car pulls in to Etadunna - basically a pub, two churches, a railway station and a crossroads. They collapse into the pub and get some food. The local constable is having a beer at the bar, so they try and behave a bit.

Immediate physical needs seen to, the pack get back in the car and drive off west (just because). After 10 minutes or so, they pull over and step into the Umbra. The theurge moon shines prettily in the sky as Claws of Wisdom howl out to see who's out there. Abby attempts to make it a detailed howl, but her packmates drown her out. Giving them a dirty look, they listen for a response. Far away, further to the west, a howl echos out. However, its not a friendly howl accepting howl, but rather a territorial warning. Given the terrain in the Umbra (temperate forest intercut with swamps), they decide to head that way in the Realm, ignoring the implicity "go away".

Jogging through the spinifex, the pack head away from the road at a slight angle. They are jogging at a reasonable pace when the dirt around them shifts and spills as 5 lupus rise up out of the ground (in a physical way, not in a magical way). Abby immediately announces herself and her pack formally, and starts to describe why they are here. The alpha of the other pack says that he is Flies-like-a-Stone of the pack Head Harvest, and the Claws of Wisdom will leave. Abby starts to explain again and this time Flies-like-a-Stone interrupts with "leave!". "But-" "Leave!" The two pack members lock eyes and try to make the other Garou back down. There is a tense minute or so before they both look away at the same time. Flies-like-a-Stone says that they are neither welcome or permitted and should leave. He does, however, adjust his body language in such a way to lead Abby to continue to argue her case.

Abby tries to argue that they are here on a spiritual quest to return the bunyip, but this doesn't seem to impress the Talons, even when she suggests that lessons in extinction might apply to them also. Flies-like-a-Stone intimates that he is not comfortable with their homid nature of their pack, obviously not having much time for Bob either. Abby tries to name drop Darius' name, but there's only a slight wavering before Flies-like-a-Stone says that Darius is neither his alpha, nor someone he would expect the Fianna to mention. After some arguing, Flies-like-a-Stone drops back a bit to take...advice from his pack. Claws of Wisdom huddle for a while too, remaining mostly in lupus.

Flies-like-a-Stone returns and simply says "No, you will leave." Abby twitches a bit, but doesn't frenzy - Flies-like-a-Stone basically argues that he has been told to keep all away from the caern until it it returned to the Talons to keep - how does he know that the pack are not working with the Get of Fenris, given the presence of Kreig. Abby starts to answer, but a loud abrasive voice says "Why would work with a bunch of ugly, ragtag Fianna like this?". Another pack of Garou, mixed in form, step out of the Umbra. The man with the voice tries to crush Abby's hand while introducing himself as Miles Korrin, pack leader of Raging Storm. Now there is a three-way argument as Miles basically accuses the Talons of getting this pack and their flimsy "bunyip" argument here to reinforce their claim. Hackles rise, but noone is frenzying. The Get spread out amongst the Claws of Wisdom, but the Talons stay behind their pack leader in a group. Some of the Get leer at Freya, while others look at Cole a bit oddly. Miles basically tells Abby that if she wants to get to the caern, she'll have to go through him, then continues to argue with Flies-like-a-Stone.

While Flies-like-a-Stone and Miles are arguing, Abby has a brief mental conversation with her pack. They come to the conclusion that that was close enough to a challenge, so Abby goes to Crinos and tries to punch Miles in the head. He dodges back and flows into Crinos form, but Abby is a bit too fast for him and uppercuts him into the air, and down again in homid. There is a brief tense, silence, broken when some of the Get laugh. The metis member of the Get pack grabs Miles by the leg and runs yelling off into the sandy underbrush. The Claws of Wisdom start to head west, but Flies-like-a-Stone intercepts them and points out that he is still not permitting them to enter the caern, even given their treatment of the Get.

Abby starts arguing again. Some of the pack start to feel a bit uncomfortable and edgy. Sensing around reveals a certain amount of Wyrm taint that wasn't here before. This is not good. The Fenrir are still mostly messing about, although Miles has come around and is pounding his metis packmate. The Talons are edgy too. Freya peeks and sees a cloud of some sort of bug flying through the night sky. Sensing reveals that they have a strong wyrm sense to them - Krieg gets a feeling of 'corruption'. Abby is informed and she tells Flies-like-a-Stone, who orders them to wait there - if they brought the wyrm, he will kill them. The Get are told and they leap enthusiastically into the Umbra, swatting the bugs. Once Head Harvest have run off, Claws of Wisdom also go into the Umbra. The bugs are about the size of a homid thumb, black and with lots of chitinous bits. They don't look natural, and they emit a rather annoying buzz as they fly past, which they are doing in a disturbing volume, all heading west.

Leaving the Get to swat huge numbers of them out of the air, the pack head after the Talons. Corey suggests that this is the way to the centre of the caern, and that there will be other Garou there. Someone else suggests that this is it - there is no Sept. The bugs are heading west at some speed - sometimes they stop and chew holes in tree spirits, but mostly they are passing overhead. Kreig ignites some of them with his Create Element gift, and they burn up quickly. They pass some of the Talons, clearing bugs off a tree, and head slightly uphill. As the small rise tops off, they can see that at the head of the rise is an immense tree, easily hundreds of metres tall and almost as wide. Presumably this is the caern, not just because of the size of the tree, but because of the growing cloud of bugs wheeling around its upper reaches. Corey sighs because he can't just swat bugs. Krieg tries more bursts of flame, but more bugs fill the hole as they burn up. The whining noise of individual bugs has become more a droning sound, growing deeper and more dissonant as more bugs. Bob suddenly makes an erk noise and says it sounds a bit like the noise they heard in the Scar, which they were told was a - the cloud suddenly turns in on itself, sprouting appendages, tentacles, spikes and armoured sections and becoming one solid black nightmare, the droning becoming a sort of spiritual tearing... a Nexus Crawler.

  Claws of Wisdom make a sort of 'erk' noise and then burst into action. The Crawler is floating about 20 feet off the ground, so some of the pack head up the caern tree. The others leap up at the bane and try and slash it. The Red Talons are doing the same, and from the sounds of it, the Get are approaching.

Kreig takes a running leap out of the tree and lands on top of the Crawler. Bob and Freya leap across at it, grabbing hold of tentacles and other protrubances, clinging to the side. Corey leaps up at it, slicing magnificently with his fetish knife. Abby leaps upwards, slashing at the softest looking places on the spirit. Bob and Freya start slamming away at the putrid flesh while Krieg attacks from above. When the pack open a wound, the edges writhe, the banebugs seeming to form from the tattered flesh and scramble around to link up with one another again. More bugs cascade into the creature, bulking it up further.

Krieg is about to strike yet another blow when down suddenly swings around and is now in the direction of the sky. He flies off, up into the air, and comes crashing down in nearby trees. Some of the other Garou howl with pain as gaping wounds open up with no apparent cause. Corey gashes a huge hole, using the powers of his dagger to make it wider still. In return a blast of some sort of foul energy knocks him to his knees, killing the vegetation around him. Freya and Bob are confronted by mouths opening randomly in the Crawler's body and biting them. Freya drops off, gouging holes in the spirit on the way to the ground. Corey is hit again by another blast after cutting a gash in to the spirit. He crawls off somewhere to lay down. Krieg leaps up and slashes the spirit, and lands agilely again. One of the Crawler's eyes turn towards him and he feels very strange. The rest of his pack basically see Kreig melt, dribbling onto the ground in liquid form.

Incoming bugbanes peel off and form up around another centre, seeming to start forming another Nexus Crawler. The pack concentrate on the original bane, leaving the Get to take the newcomer. Abby leaps on top of the Crawler and hammers great blows into it. The universe shudders again and she too melts, dribbling across the top of the Crawler and raining down on her pack below. Bob decides that he would be better healing Corey, and drops agilely to the ground. The others packs are also taking a hammering, several members badly injured and not moving, as well as at least one Garou frenzying. The holes torn in the spirit are becoming slower to heal and more jagged, but they still regenerate closed in a matter of seconds.

Bob runs over to Corey and uses his fetish to close up some of Corey's wounds. Unexpectedly, Corey doesn't frenzy. However, the spirit isn't happy about him, and he feels a wave of odd magic pass through him, reversing his vision left right as well as light and dark. Undaunted, he leaps to the attack. Abby feels a rushing sensation and reforms into a more solid state. She spends a moment or two getting her head together and then leaps into it again. Although they are badly wounded, the two packs are also doing considerable damage to the crawler - wounds are no longer closing, but dribble dead bugs like sand. Abby leaps on top of the crawler, and it tries to swipe her off. The Garou all simultaneously slam the Crawler, and it loses coherency, returning to a swarm of wasplike bugs. Of course, Abby was on top of this cloud and she plunges to the ground, landing on the suddenly more solid Kreig.

The packs check with each other and their wounded comrades. No one has been killed, miraculously, although it was a close call for a number of them, including Corey, who has a new bunch of scars to show off. Claws of Wisdom help heal a couple of the fallen Garou. Abby talks to Flies-like-A-Stone and suggests that today's victory was because they worked together instead of bickering. Flies-like-a-Stone agrees, and Abby tries to press the point, suggesting that they should work together more often. Flies-like-a-Stone offers Abby a chance to join with his pack to destroy the nearby town of homids. Abby erks. Flies-like-a-Stone continues, pointing out that the road carries cars and trucks vomiting poisons into the air, the railway was built from steel torn from their mother. Abby ers. Flies-like-a-Stone basically says "I didn't think so". Abby has the distinct impression that some of his pack are laughing at her.

Miles has noticed this interchange and starts heading for the two of them. Freya and Krieg try to head him off at the pass by engaging him in conversation about the Nexus Crawler. Miles says that his father fought one once, all on his own. Freya looks a bit shocked and asks if he won. Miles says "don't be stupid". What strange people the Get of Fenris are. They only suceed in delaying Miles for a bit, but he at least arrives after Abby's awkward moment.

Abby tries to be polite and respectful, but Flies-like-a-Stone tells her that she fights well, but she flaps her mouth too much like all homids. What does she want? Abby sighs and asks if they could be allowed to investigate the caern for a while as part of their link with the Bunyip. Flies-like-a-Stone looks at Miles who says she's welcome to waste her time for all he cares. Flies-like-a-Stone looks at Abby for a long moment, and then says that they may stay until the dawn. He jestures a pack member forward, saying that this is First-to-Bleed and she will watch them while they are here, specifically to ensure that any ritual done does not endanger the caern or offend the spirits.

Claws of Wisdom internally sigh, but thank the two pack leaders. They poke about, trying to remember why they came here. Oh that's right, for Bunyip remains. Freya asks one of the Get if he's been here for a while, and he launches into some sort of story about attacking the Red Talons a while ago, showing her battlescars. However, he's never seen remains of the Bunyip or whatever. They check out the caern in the Realm. Rather than a magnificent tree, it is instead the only tree for some distance. It doesn't look very well, actually, seemingly barely alive. However, hanging from the tree are bits of twisted and plaited bark, with what look like bones attached to them, or belts of skin. Feeling that this is what they want, they also feel that stealing it would be bad. Thinking about how to contact the caern totem, Freya suggests performing the moot rite along with a basic summoning. They check with First-to-Bleed, who thinks for a moment, and then offers to perform the Opening of the Caern rite instead.

The pack accept and move into the Umbra. First-to-Bleed does the Rite and faintly within the tree, a glow appears, gradually brightening until the tree is full of the image of a 15' tall aboriginal women glad in a loincloth. The woman looks unemotional, yet there is a feeling of ineffable sadness about her. The spirit asks who calls it, and the pack nudge Bob forward. Bob says "I do", and disappears from the mental link. The spirit talks to Bob for a few moments; Bob reiterates that they are looking for the Bunyip and have been visited by their ghosts. The spirit says her children are gone, and she is in pain. Bob tries to keep it short, basically saying they need a token of the Bunyip to take to their caern. The caern totem says it does not believe the want to, or can bring back her children. Hoever, if they will let her return to her sleep, she will gven them a token. Bob says "ok" and the spirit heads back "into" the tree.

Neither the pack nor First-to-Bleed heard the conversation, and they are not sure how the resident Garou will take to them removing a token. They step into the Realm again, and as they look at the tree, one of the woven bark ropes undoes and a bone drops to the ground. Abby explains to First-to-Bleed that this is what they have asked the spirit for, and she seems to accept their reasoning. They head back, say goodbye to the two pack leaders and say that they have found what they want and now need to return home.

They run back to their van. Bob sees it has a ticket, and boggles at the concept, there being nothing man made here except for the road and their car. It turns out that its just a note from the local copper, who saw their car and wanted to make sure they were ok. They pile in, and decide to drive home to Melbourne before deciding whether or not to continue working for Cernonous. Several of the pack have reservations about all the sneaking about, and are not happy about having to lie to other Garou. They want to go home and rest.

Tuesday 30

By driving all night and switching drivers repeatedly, the pack don't crash. They drive back to Rippling Waters (its sort of on the way) and are welcomed by the Fianna. The pack tell about killing a Nexus Crawler (oh yeah, and we had some help) and generally get fed. Once the immediate need for food has been satiated, the pack retreat to the caern and sit to meditate for a time.

You sit in a circle at Rippling Waters, communing with the caern and drawing the sense of being alive into yourselves. As always, each caern has its own sense of feeling - the cemetary has a depth to it, almost a sleeping feeling of hidden depths. Scars Atoned is still, a sense of purity to the serenity.

Rippling Waters, by comparison, feels quite alive - a skittering, bouncy energy ripples back and forth across the caldera, flipping spray off waves, playfully tossing the trees about, teasing your fur into strange patterns.

So it is twice the shock when you feel yourselves suddenly pulled down into the depths of the lake surrounding the caern centre, down out of sight of the moon, quickly down into the cold, cold depths.

In the absolute darkness, images flicker across your vision; you can see a black storm raging across the outback; a new-born baby sprouting fur and claws, spattered in blood; a rainbow arcing across the sky; and rain washing away the blood that covers a forest of ghost gums; and more, too fast too comprehend.

The images cease, and faint glow centres itself in your vision, and a noise begins, growling, snarling, screaming. The glow becomes a low, square cage, silvery bars. You are facing one side of the cage. The noise comes from within, where something batters itself against the bars. Flickers of a tail and claws within, screaming, almost human, but so very feral.

Beyond the cage you can see the vague outline of a figure, crinos in shape, too dark to make out in the dim, pale light. A feathered mask, like one worn to a masquerade ball, adorns its face - the mask is beautiful, decorated with soft, coloured feathers. The crinos is frozen in the process of reaching towards the cage.

On your left, another dim figure lurks. A white mask is all you can really see of the figure. The mask is a frowning face, more angry than sad. In its left hand is a dagger, glinting in the faint glimmer. The crinos also is reaching toward the cage.

On the right, a third figure. Like the one on the left, it wears a white mask, veritably glowing. This mask depicts a similar face, but with a smile - not a terribly reassuring one however, but one with a hint of avariciousness. In the figure's right hand is a staff, still bearing leaves and roots. It too, reaches for the cage.

The howling and snarling becomes louder and louder, and more frenzied. The bars of the cage are slammed against again and again, but the cage remains still. Even the door you can see in the side of the cage that faces you does not yield to the repeated blows from within.

Dark liquid begins to leak from within the cage and across the floor, cold on your feet, chilling you to the bone. It rises, filling this place, sending icy tendils of cold up your legs.

Eyes open. It is just dawn, and you are cold and stiff. The howling continues, coming from the eastern edge of the Umbral crater - Garou singing to the sun in ritual.

Wednesday 31

The pack stumble off for breakfast and coffee, and then into the car (which is looking about as worse for wear as they are), discussing their shared vision on the way - everyone seems to feel that the thing in the cage was the bunyip. Abby feels the feathery figure was the pack, and general discussion suggests that Cernonous is one of the figures, probably the one with the staff and the weird smile. Maybe the three figures are Weaver, Wyld and Wyrm? Good, neutral and evil?

The pack drop in at the caern and say hi, meeting Alex and Marion at the edge. Marion warns Krieg that Peter is a bit narked, as is Greg. The two members of Hand of Lore keep going on their patrol, while Claws of Wisdom go to the caretaker's house. They tell Graeme they're back, but they're going to catch up with life for the rest of the day and debrief with the Elders later. He seems all cool with that.

Freya collects Jordan and spends the day with her at the zoo. She also tries to meditate with Brad when he gets home, but to no avail. Corey and Abby check in with Uni and exams and studying. Kreig tries to rebuild his clientelle and stop Greg from going apeshit. Bob blows some leaves off his favourite laying spot and goes to sleep.

Early evening, they get together with Cossack, Emma and Graeme, and braindump what's been happening. Emma is a bit worried about the vision of the masks, as people traditionally hide behind masks. Cossack and Graeme are a bit so-so on Cernonous' argument that the Claws of Wisdom won't suceed if they're not meant to - there's some argument for it when you're talking in the Umbra, but its a bit thin. Abby and Corey for once agree that its very thin. Emma says that Cernonous is usually pretty down to earth and reliable, but that Darius is obsessed beyond a healthy level. What it comes down to though, is that they will need to speak to Cernonous, because only he has the answers to the questions that the pack have. Abby calls him and he says he can be in Melbourne in a short while.

Cernonous gets to Abby's cottage in a couple of hours. Cole blurts out that they have the bone. Abby starts by saying that the caern spirit gave them the finger bone because they killed a Nexus Crawler... and then they start at the other end of the story. Once they have covered everything that happened, they start explaining why they have doubts about the whole process. Abby is suspicious about the cloning process, but Cernonous reiterates that he is sure that his visions related to this, and he hopes that the restoration of the Bunyip will be a balancing force to help reconcile the land and the Garou. Abby suggests that there might be better ways to achieve that same goal, to which Cernonous says that he would certainly support other methods of achieving that aim, but that this is his way of attempting to help. There is concern that Cernonous is doing this to assuage their (the Garou Nations) conscience, rather than as something that will help. Cernonous reaffirms that he feels that this is the right thing to do, to provide a physical focus to restore the Bunyip. Freya asks about the goals of the spirits he will be calling and whether they could be said to be sane, to which Cernonous doesn't have an answer that satisfies the pack.

Corey points out some of the material in the genetics text book that he borrowed and read today, but Cernonous says that he will not only be using physical means to bring the cloning about, but spirit magic. Abby asks about physical difficulties, and Cernonous says that the Children of Gaia have rituals to help minimise that possibility, and with any birth there are dangers. Freya is still concerned about spiritual interference, but Cernonous rebuffs her by saying he will take every precaution - he has had quite some time to prepare the process and won't be rushing into it. Krieg too is unsure that this is the correct way to make restitution, although Cole is all for it - he feels it might be part of his destiny.

Questions are asked about how the child would be gestated and raised, and Cernonous drops a bombshell by saying that he was hoping that Freya would be the host mother, as she already knows about his experiments and is demonstratably also fertile. Freya blinks a lot, and they discuss the possibilities of birthing rituals and how it might work, and what would happen after the birth. Cernonous is all for a family environment to raise the child. He manages to reassure some of their questions by going into some detail - he has been preparing and studying the problem for fifteen years (unlike the GM). In the end, the pack ask for some time to rest and think about what has happened, and Cernonous agrees. He takes the bone to run tests and ensure that it is a suitable sample, and asks that they get back to him and let him know what they want to do.

Its late, they sleep.