| 21 Mar 2002 |
| 11 Apr 2002 |
| 25 Apr 2002 |
| 09 May 2002 |
| 16 May 2002 |
| 23 May 2002 |
| 30 May 2002 |
| 06 May 2002 |
Freya is wandering through the city when she spies the front page of "The Truth" - "A Monster Stole My Beer". She stares at the picture for a few moments, grabs a copy and demands the others meet her in the caern.
She shows everyone the paper and there is much "Ya what?" from the Garou. They all head out to the Gordvale Arms and try to sense anything in the area. Nothing really shows up, so Cole heads inside and tries to start up a conversation about it. The guy behind the bar rolls his eyes and says that Dan's a wanker, and just 'lost' the beer, either on purpose or by accident. Cole drinks his beer and heads out.
While Krieg and Bob walk around in the 'park' behind the pub, trying to sense anything, Cole and Freya drive through the drivethrough - fortunately it is Dan who comes and asks for their order. Cole asks some questions about the gargoyles, intimating that Freya's a reporter and Dan looks around nervously and says that he has a break in 30 mins, he can talk then, but not now. They drive over into a sort of carpark and wait.
Dan comes over after about 30 minutes or so and talks to them. Freya has finished hitting Cole, and manages to intimate that she is researching a book on urban legends that are true. Dan explains what happened - he was packing the fridge over there and he turned around and there was this big grey thing with wings sitting on the pallet. It threw some of the light beer away and then took off with a couple of slabs of beer. Everyone here thinks he's nuts or lying, but the girl that interviewed him said that other people around the place had seen it too. Freya gets her name, in case she wants to pursue that further. Truth of Gaia says that he's mostly telling the truth. Freya asks if they can see the light beer, and Dan looks a bit shifty and then says sure. Krieg and Bob see him out of Freya's sight, kicking the crap out of some light beer. Freya declines this kind offer once they have told her about this. Bob tries to get close enough to sense, and gets a faint, faint dusty, cold deadlands sense around the spot Dan indicated, but nothing firm.
The pack cruise around town, looking for evidence of gargoyles, demons and mages. They try a general sense of the unnatural, but its mostly weaver and wyrm, not unexpected in an industrialesque suburb. Cruising a back street north of the main shopping district, someone suddenly yells to stop the car. Everyone piles out to look at the image spreaypainted on a wall - its a stylised gargoyle, wings spread and mouth agape. It looks fairly new - Bob reckons about a month, tops. More searching of the walls of the back of the shops for similar, or other occult graffiti reveals a few pentacles, but they look yon standard heavy metal wannabe stuff. Freya tries to find a cat or something around the place to chat to, but they know what she is and aren't having a bar of it.
They cruise around a bit more and spot a couple more graffitied gargoyles, but no people to go with them. The pack drive up to the top of the shopping centre and try and sense into the sky, but no go there either. They call it quits for the evening.
Freya opts to spend the day chasing animals, desperate to get some use out of her speak with animals gift. Quizzing pigeons leads to some information about the big flappy things, but seagulls just straight out lie or make stuff up about aeroplanes in a desperate attempt to get a piece of the seed-action that's happenin'. On the plus side, she now knows that truth of gaia works on animals too. The most information is gleaned from rats, perhaps due to the pack's association with Bonegnawers. Two rather shady rat gangsters tell her about the kids what spray paint the patterns, see, in exchange for chocolate and her not telling the hamster about the deal. They also tell the pack that the same gang has recently done over a few establishments, including a music store in town.
Freya decides to try a different tack and heads to the newspaper offices. After much making big eyes at the woman reporter who wrote the article, she manages to get put in contact with one of the witnesses who has also reported seeing the big flapping thing in the sky. Her name is Vera, and she sounds like an old dear. Freya picks up Abby and the two of them head out there. Vera is about 70, and lives in the same house she lived in since 1931, when she was married. That was during the depression, and there was a terrible row with the council about how .... and have you seen these pictures of her daughter... and she's doesn't want to complain about the people across the road, but they're coming and going at all hours, and Mrs McGilly, who's bedridden, bless her, is kept up all night by the racket... and young people today, with their skateboards and.... Despite being trapped by Vera for nearly 2 hours, Abby and Freya manage to pick up that she was up at 4 in the morning (cos of her trouble) and was on her way to the loo, and saw the big winged thing jump from her roof to the next house out the back, gliding along. She heard some kids running along too. She reported it to the police, but they said it was some sort of giant fruit bat.
When everyone else shows up, Freya brain dumps everything she has found out. The pack decides check out the music store that was robbed. They examine it first from the Umbra - there's not much to see, it having been done a week or so ago, but there's a faint deadlands sense in the area, especially around the alternative cd shelf, but also on a window up high above the ground.
Given they are feeling a Deadlands kind of sensation, the pack wander past a cemetary. They are cruising around the rather spooky Umbra and peeking and sensing - there's a general faint deadlands sense, but there are no well lit and heated tombs, men in black capes or zombies. They've been there a while when they spot a couple of teenage boys spraypainting the side of a sort of mauseleum. Nothing particularly strange, but the two are painting a sort of stylised gargoyle, like the one they saw earlier.
Pissing about occurs trying to sneak up on them and sense, but basically some of the pack are heard, some are suspected guard dogs and the two kids head off - the only sense of them they get is a faint deadlands sense, but it might be from the surrounds. However, on the plus side, one of the kids scent is familiar from the first gargoyle grafitti the pack saw. They decide to follow these two (Macca and Poz) and see where they go, which turns out to be a party at what turns out to be a squat.
Kreig, Freya and Abby scope the place from the Umbra while Cole and Bob keep watch outside. There are about 20 or so people drinking and munching crap around a fire in the barrel out the back of a mostly empty house. They are mostly in the 17-23 age range, but there's a couple of guys who are maybe 30. Most of the attendees are male (about two thirds). Krieg can sense a vague deadlands or wyrm taint about the place, but can't pin it down - some of the party goers have a higher amount, some lower. Sense Wyrm changes the balance of taint - one of the older guys stands out as being more wyrmy, although he's less deadlandsy. Oddness galore. Cole suggests that he should grab a slab and waltz in and just be there in the realm, and after some persuasion, Freya agrees while she pokes about underneath the house. Doesn't seem like anything is down there.
Cole returns, and despite some suspicion on behalf of one of the squatters, he settles in and looks about the place. There's no signs of anything mystical or particularly strange or supernatural. The sense of deadlands floating about the place is about it.
Krieg is peeking and hears a sudden shouting at the rear of the yard, somewhat concealed by ti tree bushiness. He gets there to see a large samoan teenager (Remy) pushing at Macca (who is a weedy little bogan) and yelling at a young lass named Trudy. The content of the conversation revolves around Remy's current belief that Macca and Trudy could perhaps be carrying on some sort of illicit relationship of a physical nature, although its expressed more as "you fuck, I know you're fucking my fucking girlfriend." Macca's response is a fairly predictable denial, but Remy doesn't seem to be taking this too well, and they are shouting and pushing while Trudy tries to break them up.
Meanwhile, a crowd of people are starting to head that way - except Cole, who is watching, and a young gentleman he's been introduced to as Davo. This individual runs to the edge of the house and yells up at the air "Throw that fucker out!". Back at the fight, Kreig is calmly watching when he sees an honest-to-god-no-foolin' gargoyle descend out of the sky, grab Remy's shoulders and fly straight up, disappearing over the fence as the rest of the crowd reaches Macca. Macca looks a bit shocked, but recovers well, yelling "And fucking stay out!", and generally trying to claim credit. In the Umbra, Freya starts to give chase - the gargoyle doesn't go very far, but drops Remy into a driveway a house or two over. Remy reacts fairly predictably - "waaaargh [fading]", and the gargoyle lands on a nearby roof. Freya tries to climb up close enough to it to ... do something, but it takes off again and flies back to the party, landing on the roof once more.
There is some thought about maybe binding a spirit to the gargoyle, and tracking that, but it will take a while to summon a spirit whose name they know. Meanwhile, in the Realm, Davo has given Macca a significant look and he's stopped boasting about chasing Remy away. The party has lost a lot of oomf, and people start fading off. Poz, Macca, Davo, Trudy and another 20-year old called Misha all start their goodbyes and head off. As Davo leaves the driveway, he turns around and whistles, and the gargoyle takes off, following them. It leaps from roof to roof, or just flaps about. Cole subtly heads off after them, like a shadow in the darkness. The rest of the pack follow in the Umbra.
The kids walk for some time, out of suburbia and onto the flats surrounding Dandenong Creek, horse agistments and the like. The road becomes a dirt road and still they walk. Cole has to hang back a fair way now because there's not much cover, but the kids don't seem to have noticed him. As they approach a large hedge-fence, they veer off the road. They head towards the rear of the hedge and disappear. Cole follows after a few moments and finds the hole that they disappeared through. Rather than follow though, he suggests that the others investigate from the Umbra. This they now do.
The hedge also appears in the spirit world, so the pack are forced to get past it. Much chainlinking later, and they just jump the thing over the gate. It takes a few moments for eyes to adjust to the darker area inside the hedge, but Krieg says that he can sort of make out a house. No, its gone. Oo, back. Gone. Back. They approach cautiously, to find that there is an umbral house, but that the west end of the structure disappears and reappears in patches, and depending on the angle you look at it from. When its gone, the area appears to be empty, a blank lot, but when it reappears, its an old weatherboard house. This, rather understandably, makes the pack a bit nervous about approaching it, so they move down to the east end of the property. Peeking reveals that the material house doesn't appear and reappear.
The Umbral house appears almost in entirity in the Umbra, down to the locked doors. A little Cracking Stone gets rid of that problem though, and the garou wander in and explore. Peeking folks see all five kids in a sort of family room, slumped in chairs and all, watching a dvd. There seems to be power, and also water. The material house is full of a loads of relatively new looking electrical goods, stacks of cds and the remains of a couple of slabs of beer. The gargoyle is curled up in a corner, and the five of them seem to be ignoring it. Claws of Wisdom decide to explore while everything is calm. Cole is told that its safe to come in, and he slips and slides through the gap, coming out behind a shed. He can't see inside the shed, but its all locked.
The house is explored. The western wall is covered in fractal-like patterns which extends across the ceiling and the east-west walls. They are not complete, however, and seem to have almost have been left part-way-through rather than having been left at a convenient stopping point. These patterns exist in both the Umbra and the Realm - the Realm is also populated by some minimalist furniture - a bed and table, one chair. Everything is covered with a thich layer of dust, except where people have obviously recently been walking or laying. The southwestern bedroom is the most interesting - footsteps move across the floor to a bedside table which has been knocked over. The dust has been disturbed in a fairly large area around the table, and there are fragments of crystal or glass laying on the carpet. Looking carefully at the glass, it doesn't look like a vase or anything - someone suggests it might have been one of the spheres that mages used to release gargoyles last year. The only other thing of note is a set of footprints isolated from the main track, seemingly made of ash (as though someone had sprinkled ash in a footprint pattern).
Cole asks Bob to come and help him with the shed, so Bob brings the Cracking Stone and they open the door. The shed is full of furniture, covered in sheets and heavy with dust and cobwebs. They find a small inscription near the door, with some greek-esque looking symbols on it. Abby is told, and she says she'll come look at them in a bit. In the meantime, the pack want to get in under the house, and see if they can find a basement again, like the last house. The access door is on the disappearing part of the house, so they're not too game to touch it, so Abby kicks a hole in part of the skirting on the outside in the Umbra, and Bob, Freya and her crawl under there. Looking about finds a brick wall about half way through the house. There is another access door, but its locked from the other side of the wall. Kick. Ok, its open now. More crawling around under the house. Bob isn't paying attention, and whacks his bottom on the underside of the house. There is a flash of light and Bob yells a lot, but manages to not jerk his head up and hit the floor. Healing magic is applied and they continue.
While crawling under and about, they find a sort of brick column underneath the west wing. It would be about the right size for a sort of ladder and access tunnel, so they decide to head upstairs and try and see if they can find where it joins to the floor. About this point, it looks like the kids are packing up for the evening. They are stretching and yawning and so on. People peeking see Davo take a hanky-wrapped package out of his bag, remove two faintly glowing globes and check them before putting them back in his bag along with a handful of music. Much choking noises from the Umbra. When the kids leave, Cole once again follows at a safe distance.
Even though the house is now empty, the pack opt to try and find their way down in the Umbra. Prying up of carpet reveals more swirly fractals, but also a trapdoor in the centre west bedroom. After finding a curtain rod or something to open the door, they peer down to see a ladder leading into darkness, with the fractal patterning all over the walls of the shaft descending. Freya sends some faerie lights down there, and judges that the bottom is 20 or 30 feet away. The pack ever-so-cautiously creeps down the ladder, taking care to not touch the walls. When they reach the bottom, they find themselves in a large, stone rimmed room, replete with spell circle in the middle, and fractal patterns pouring down into outside of this circle. Peeking says that there is an equivilent space in the Realm, so Freya steps sideways and has a look. There is indeed. She can hear a sort of hum which cuts off only 20 seconds after she appears in the Realm. Figuring this could be bad, she wanders around looking for it. This primary room has two doors leading from it - one to a small storeroom with lots of shelves and cupboards, the other to what seems to be a smaller spell room, although the circle here is incomplete. There are also a pair of metallic double doors on the far wall. Dreading the inevitable, Freya opens the doors and light streams out. And cold. Yep, its another refridgerator, and seemingly full of people again. Some of the people have stab marks, others do not, but they all appear to be quite dead. Freya relays this to the others.
Meanwhile, Cole is following along at a safe distance. As the kids travel, some of them peel off, but Cole continues to follow Davo and the gargoyle. Eventually Davo goes into the side gate on a corner house. Cole manages to reach the fence in time to see him jump in a window. Waiting a few moments, Cole steps to the Umbra and peeks - he can see the gargoyle coiled up at the end of the room, and Davo's bag dropped fairly casually next to the bed.
Figuring that they should probably clue in the Sept, Freya rings back and gets Ian Shatterglass on the phone. She relays that they've found this stuff, and Ian is his normal laconic self, although he agrees to tell Emma about it.
In the meantime, Cole watches Dave and the gargoyle by peeking occasionally. He looks about the house too, and finds that there are 2 adults and one younger child, none of whom seem strange - presumably Dave's family. At 8.30, Dave's mother bursts in and yells at him about his lateness in arriving, using that damn window to get in rather than the door like a human being, how he treats this place like a hotel and how while he's in her house, he'll obey her rules. She slams the door and leaves. Although the gargoyle sat up when she opened the door and looked alert, she didn't seem to pay it any mind. Dave appears to have slept through the whole incident. Shortly afterwards, the rest of Dave's family leave to take his little brother to a football game.
Emma arrives at the house around 9.30am. She is suitably impressed by the structure and unimpressed by the bodies. Emma comments on the fact that the site still has power and water, despite the fact that its obviously not been occupied for over a year. She asks the pack to find out what the sitch is, because ideally the Sept would like time to study the structure - although there are bodies involved again, this time there are no live people in the fridge - under the circumstances, she feels that they can stay missing while the Sept learns more. Claws of Wisdom decide to deal with the kids and the gargoyle first, and Emma agrees. She heads back to the city.
Given that Dave's parents are out, the pack give some thought to launching an attack. One of the arguments, as incredulous as it seems a bit later, is that during the day, neighbours might be home. They decide to wait for the moment, feeling that they have no time pressure. The pack does some preliminary planning - they find a bolthole the gargoyle probably can't follow them down, and get a feel for the area. The guards switch around - Abby and Cole go to the house, while the other three watch Dave snore and toss and turn.
At about 11.30, Dave wakes up, stretches, etc. He heads out into the kitchen and the gargoyle follows him. Dave makes breakfast and flicks on the tv. Feeling that this is too good an opportunity to let slip by, Claws of Wisdom leap into action. Cole is called back to Dave's, where she will peek from the Umbra. Bob waits outside on the roadside in lupus in the Realm. Freya crouches down in glabro outside the window in preparation to step sideways. Kreig goes inside and does the same. On the given signal, Freya and Kreig step. Freya materialises in the Realm, crouched down out of sight. Kreig doesn't... and still doesn't. Cole, who is watching Dave, gives a little eep and says that his parents are home and he's sent the gargoyle to his room. Kreig appears and gets a garbled "Get it and go!" from his pack. He grabs the backpack and opens the window, jumps out and closes it, and then he and Freya run for it, leaping the fence.
Back at the house, the gargoyle is sniffing the air heavily, and looking alert around. Dave realises something is up, sees his backpack is gone and orders the gargoyle to get his bag back, pointing out the window. The gargoyle goes straight out the glass, causing Dave to curse and his parents to come running. Cole reports all this to the rest of the pack, so Freya (in Glabro form) and Bob and Kreig sprint along the road towards their hiding place, drawing a bit of attention from passersby. The gargoyle crunches down onto Dave's back fence, which draws attention from them somewhat. Kreig skids to a halt, yoiks the two gargoyle spheres out of the bag and throws it back to the gargoyle. They then pelt off.
This seems to work - the gargoyle retrieves the bag and flies back to Dave's. Most of the people on the street don't seem to notice it, but one or two have hysterics. The garou stop outside their hiding place, a drain shaft out the front of a community centre while Cole reports what is happening - Dave is being seriously chewed out by his parents for not only breaking the window, but claiming that someone threw something through it ("The glass is all on the other side, what do you think we are, stupid?"). The gargoyle is on top of the shed roof, buckling it a little, but keeping a distance. The Garou take a breath of relief and Freya goes into a public toilet at the centre to change back to homid (the 7' over muscled woman drawing a lot of attention, even as human as she looks in glabro).
Feeling that they should get these balls back to the Sept, but not wanting the gargoyle to follow them back - they are most concerned about its sniffing - Krieg and Freya split up. Kreig and Abby find somewhere to dedicate the spheres, while Freya drives somewhere quiet with Bob and does the same. Kreig and Abby step into the Umbra, intending run back in lupus to the Sept, but the sphere doesn't appear to have come to the Umbra with them, despite the Talisman Dedication rite. Abby peeks back and can't see it. The two of them get a bit antsy and step back into the Realm. A bit of searching finds the sphere only a short way away down a slope, and seemingly unharmed by its short fall. They warn the others about the problem and then make their way back to the Sept the long way, splashing through Eumemmering Creek for a while to try and shed Kreig's scent.
They leave the spheres with Graham, explaining what's going on, and then head back to Dandenong. Dave has been grounded, and isn't happy about it, berating the gargoyle under his breath. He finally gets the back back, but notices the loss of the spheres almost straight away. Much swearing. He makes some calls during the afternoon when the parents are out, calling Anna and Poz and asking if they know where Misha was this morning. The pack laugh to themselves, as it seems that Dave has jumped to the wrong conclusion.
The day passes uneventfully. That night, Cole is watching the house from the Umbra when the kids start to show up. Trudy and Macca show up first and amuse one another in one of the bedrooms, and then Poz and Anna seperately. They ask whether Trudy and Macca got weird calls from Dave this afternoon about Misha, but shrug when the response is negative. Poz brought some KFC with him, and they get stuck into it. What depths evil knows.
Dave waits until his parents are asleep at about 10.30 and then goes out the window, obviously intending to go to the house. The gargoyle follows along, mostly flying around him in leisurely circles above the trees. As Dave heads out onto the flats, the pack decide to act. When he's sufficiently away from suburbia, they leap out of the Umbra. Well, Kreig and Abby do, Bob and Freya will be a while. Kreig knocks Dave down and then slaps him senseless. The gargoyle notices instantly, and comes winging down. As it zooms past, Abby leaps onto its back, grabbing its wings and jumping onto its back. The gargoyle slams into Krieg, but despite the almighty crunch, it doesn't knock him down, nor throw Abby off. Before the rest of the pack make it through the Gauntlet, the two of them tear the thing to pieces, and it collapses to the ground and oozes a black oil. They grab a couple of the brittle bits, pick Dave up and head out into a field. The cows which occupy it know a bad thing when they see it, and all move up the other end of the paddock, lowing somewhat. Abby spots a figure a distance away, heading away from them and towards the house and alerts Cole. The rest of the pack veer away from where they were heading, to keep privacy.
Dave is blindfolded and tied up and being held by two glabroen. They heal him and bring him around, and then proceed to interrogate him. Freya's Truth of Gaia and the mental link make this a fairly easy process - Dave lies, Abby says that he's lying. He tries to call for the gargoyle, but Abby says they've disposed of it, which really freaks him out. In short order they get Dave's story - he broke in one day, accidentally dropped a globe and the gargoyle came out. He ran away, but it followed and did what he told it, so he kept it. They demand Dave stay away from the house, which he agrees to readily. His bonds are loosened a little and then he's dumped in the field while the pack head for the house, where Cole says that Misha has arrived and is telling them he thinks he saw some people beating Dave up.
The pack head over to the house and see what's up. The kids discuss Dave for a while and how weird he's being, and when Dave doesn't show up, they head off home. The pack split up and follow them through the Umbra, and find where everyone but Poz live. In the meantime, back at the house, Dave shows up, looking a bit freaked. No lights! He eventually looks inside, and finds that his friends aren't sprayed all over the landscape as he expected. Dave heads to Pozza's house, where he wakes up the whole place and gibbers insanely about people beating him up and all. Eventually he goes to sleep.
The pack keep an eye on the house to make sure the kids don't show up. So far so good. Figuring that they can't really make enquiries about the house on a Sunday, they meditate, and catch up with their mortal life.
Freya heads to Greater Dandenong Council offices and makes some enquiries about the property. Realising she doesn't know what the address is, she puts in request forms to figure out the address from the location, and is told that it will take a day or so, and then a few days to get the name and contact information of the owner.
The pack decide to do their thing. More meditation and the like.
Now having got the actual lot number (Lot 115, Smith Rd), they decide to circumvent the long bureacracy and use their Umbral skillz. Word. The pack show up at the council offices about 10pm. As well as the normal weaver spiders, there are an assortment of other spirits with a strong weaver sense to them - geometric shapes and other oddities. Claws of Wisdom have seen similar spirits before, usually in any place where a lot of information is stored, or where extremely weavery concepts (like government) are given a physical form (like council offices, or government departments). The spirits are basically harmless though.
Abby awakens the spirit, and Freya, who has been practicing her computer lore, has a bash at trying to convince the spirit to fess up the information. Obviously she's been reading Umbral Computers for Garou, as she does quite well, and finds that the property is owned by a Martin Jackson, address in Olinda, all correspondance sent to a PO Box in Endeavour Hills. It seems that Mr Jackson aquired the property (or at least the file was last updated) in February 2000 (about 18 months ago), and has paid the rates and any other fees by cheque each time. Kreig guesses that the house has been empty for at least a year.
To the Realm, where Bob and Abby do questing stone rituals for Martin Jackson, with no result. Perhaps its a pseudonym or a made up person. They decide to head out to Olinda and see what's at the address that was listed. When they arrive, its about 11.30, and they can see lights inside a fairly normal looking semi-suburban house. Two cars in the drive, etc. Stepping sideways is fairly easy and when the pack peeks back, they can see a middle-aged couple sitting in the lounge - the guy is partially bald, maybe 45 or 50, thin with white hair, looks a bit like Malcom McLaren (a comparison totally lost on the players), the woman in the same age bracket, blondish. Sensing Unnatural reveals a medium strong sense of magic about the man, but not as much as they might expect if he was a mage. The pack suggest that maybe he's not very good. Looking about finds that this appears to be Martin Jackson - his powers obviously extend to blocking Questing Stone! He must be killed!
They search around the house from the Umbra. It appears that Jackson works for Dandenong Real Estate (aha!) in Dandenong. The couple are Martin and Kerry, and they have three kids (16,12,10), none of whom are Polly. Under the house is a bike, a washing machine and two matresses. While Jackson seems to have some official papers at home, they are in the main bedroom, which is where the couple have ajourned to for sleep by this point.
The pack decide to rumble the real estate agents. When they get there, they are a bit bemused to find that the place is covered in weaver spiders. The strip of shops is all new, and it seems that the spiders haven't finished calcifying the place. Freya, Abby and Bob decide to go in, and look about. They find that its quite a large REA, and handles commercial properties as well as residential. It seems that Jackson is one of the senior partners, and has his own office. Waking up and talking to the computer doesn't reveal any information on the property - there's no entry for a Smith Rd property. There is a large filing room, with many cabinets, as well as seperate cabinets in Jackson's office. Once the security system has been awakened, bound and ordered to turn off, Freya and Abby head into the Realm. Due to a series of appaling rolls to step sideways, the whole pack ends up in the filing room, as Bob unlocks the cabinets with the Cracking Stone.
Despite Krieg's efforts to make a huge mess with the files, they do plough through them fairly quickly, and find... nothing. There's no evidence that the REA handles that property. Much sighing and heading to Jackson's office to go through his files. Nothing there either, but Abby does find the chequebook that was used to pay the rates. It also appears to be used to pay any other things connected to the house - electricty and insurance and water for instance. Abby notices something weird about the dates - they are always written on a Friday. The handwriting on the stubs matches other samples of Jackson's around the place. They decide to call it a night.
People do their normal things while planning what to do. Bob and Cole follow Jackson around for the day - the spiders are very active during the day, and so they opt to not spy on folks from the Umbra. However, Jackson comes out of the office on several occasions, to evaluate a property and to show clients around an existing holding. He seems to be a nice guy, relaxed and not too smarmy. They decide to send a letter from non-existent solictors to Jackson suggesting that they have clients who might want to buy the property, and see what happens. Freya drives around until she finds somewhere that have spare post office boxes for rent (Darling), and writes up a faked letter.
Other than that, the pack continue to keep an eye on the mage house and get on with their lives.
Freya bravely faces the post office, and sends her letter. The life of the Garou is fraught with such danger!
Bob hangs out at Jackson's post office box while the others keep a mental ear out. Jackson shows up at about 5.45pm, just before dark. Bob thinks that he can detect a certain slack-faced zombie nature to Jackson, indicating that he might not entirely be himself. Sense Unnatural reveals a brightening of the magic sense.
A cunning flaw in the plan of "watch Jackson" is exposed when Bob realises that Jackson is driving off, and everyone else is an hour away. However, by dint of guessing which way he's going and sprinting, Bob manages to find Jackson at work before he leaves. From the Umbra, Bob dodges spiders and peeks to see Jackson putting the cheque book away with a rather wooden expression. Jackson shakes suddenly and relaxes into his normal face, picks up his jacket and heads home. Bob looks around a bit, and finds the remnants of the junk mail that was in Jackson's post office box as well as Freya's fake letter all in the shredder. Speculation from the pack that the mages are controlling Jackson to do their boring scut work, and he knows nothing really. They decide to see what will happen if Jackson gets a call about the property from the 'police'. Freya hangs at the local station listening to voices so she can mimic them while Abby looks around the offices and nearby buildings for mage taint (in case they need line of sight, or some sort of token to control Jackson). She finds nuzzink.
Bob and Abby are stuck with the guard duty late that night at the mage house. Bob is patrolling and peeking when he smees some people approaching (due to some appaling rolling, he can only smell through the gauntlet and has used Scent of Sight to get more info - the combined sense is hereto referred as smeeing) (the game paused here as Andy related a story about a guy with a weird neurological disfunction so that he 'saw' taste - apparently spicy looked 'pointy' to him, and taste in general affection the shape of food. Anyway). Two, no, three of the kids - Misha, Poz and Anna - slip through the break in the hedge. Bob alerts Abby and they follow along as the kids surreptiously seem to observe the house (all Bob can smee are blobs about the right size). The kids creep along the back hedge, and then seem to move a bit more confidently around the front. They mill at the driveway a bit, and then head for the back door.
Feeling that they'd rather the kids went away, Bob and Abby consider letting them in and then breaking Dave's arm (after all, they charged him to stop his friends coming back), but decide on the simpler plan. Bob takes them through the gauntlet in crinos, and so when the three teenagers open the dark door into the house that their friend has told them has been reclaimed by the owners and where they saw the scary demon and which is dark, dark, dark after midnight, Abby leans forwards from within the house, in crinos form and roars. The results are fairly predictable. Poz seems to keep his shit together enough to drag Anna away with him when she seems likely to fold up into a ball, but Misha goes right through a trellis and slams into the hedge, desperate to get as far away as he can in as straight a line as possible. Another glorious victory for the defenders of Gaia.
Haven't learnt from yesterday's situation (that being the central requirement for intelligent life) with only one person watching Jackson, the pack are ready this time. He is actually at work on the Saturday morning, and so while Kreig and Bob watch the mage house in case it all goes pear shaped, Cole and Abby watch Jackson from the Umbra while Freya makes the call.
She basically uses Mimic to pretend to be from the Dandenong Police, and asks to speak to Martin Jackson. She's put through and exchanges some pleasantries. They get to business and Jackson asks her for the addres of the property. As soon as she says "lot 115, Smith Rd", Jackson goes all wooden, but somehow spacey. It only lasts for a moment, and he says "Hello?" down the phone. This back and forthing goes for a while - "Smith Rd" is ok, but Jackson says that he doesn't think they have any properties there. He asks for the exact address again and when Freya gives it, off he goes. Cole relays back to her what's happening, and also senses for magic, getting the same 'brightening' that Bob noticed yesterday, but no sense that it is being caused by something external. Eventually she gives up and he hangs up in puzzlement. The pack consider their options.
Freya idly wonders if it would be possible to do a Questing Stone on the deeds to the property. They know it is sometimes possible to find objects with the ritual, if they have their own specific name, so she gives it a go. Surprising the pack (and the GM), she gets a response, leading her back into the city somewhere. The pack stop in Fitzroy and she tries the ritual again, and gets yet another response. The trail leads... to Emma Teesdale's house. Feeling a bit "ya what?", the Claws of Wisdom tentatively knock on the door. Emma answers, looking a little surprised to see them, and when they explain, she looks bemused, and lets them in to keep following the trail. It leads them to a storage room, filled with boxes, and specifically to a dust-covered box. Emma checks the label and says that its one of the boxes that they got from the mages who tried to steal everything last year - it was different from the others, but seemed to be mostly just mundane crap, nothing eerie about it. The box is pulled out and the contents are sorted through carefully. Tucked inside an atlas of Victoria is indeed the deeds to the property on Smith Rd. Emma starts to laugh and says that obviously the mages that attacked them were the ones from Dandenong, and because they were all killed, that's why the house is still unfinished. That makes life a bit easier.
Emma and the pack talk about things a bit longer. This new theory does mean that their effect on Jackson was either very long term, or that someone has renewed it - Emma suggests that unless anything contested the effect (people asking questions about the property, cheque account running out), it might not have taken too much energy to maintain the spell. Emma will ask Christine to mess with the Council computers so that one of the Sept kinfolk appears to own the house - if Holistic Approach could cleanse Jackson and steal the cheque book and key to the post office box, that would pretty much do it. Cole makes some comments about wanting a Sept job so that he can stay home and just tell people what to do; Emma pats his cheek and sends them on their way.
Very late that night - well, dawn the next morning - Bob and Freya perform a Rite of Cleansing around Jackson from the Umbra. They pump a lot of gnosis into the ritual, and it seems to remove the majority of the magic taint about him (although he does sit bolt upright in bed at the howling part before drifting back to sleep). They decide to keep an eye on him and the kids for the next day or so to make sure there's no hassles there. The stolen goods in the house are given to the sept to sell off.
Fairly early in the morning, Cossack finds Bob and asks if Bob and the rest of his pack have finished with the house for the moment. Apparently Cossack has misplaced a contact of his, one Mr Yesif Petrou. Petrou has been looking into the Dancer stuff for Cossack, in a way; Petrou knows nothing supernatural, but is looking for evidence that might point the way of the Dancers. Questing Stone is fairly inconclusive, so Cossack gives them an address in Yarraville.
Bob yells for the rest of the pack to join him. Abby says she has a class, she'll catch them later. Cole says that Cossack must really hate this guy. Out to Yarraville they go. Scoping the house from the street, the blinds are pulled, and a dog is barking out the back. They find somewhere to step into the Umbra and come back to peek and look at things - the houses in this street are all fairly old, and so appear in the Umbra, although there are weaver spirits all around too. Peeking and searching show that Petrou has a number large boxes of expensive consumer items which they suspect do not belong to him. It also shows a set of three scents which lead into the house from the back (via a jimmied door), past some broken furniture and to the lounge, where there is a knocked-over shelf. There's no one home, but there is a large german shepherd out the back, looking a bit starved and barking like there's no tomorrow. The pack step into Petrou's house, shutting the back door, and proceed to look around.
Apart from the knocked over furniture and the jimmied door, there is a small bloodstain in the lounge as well. Petrou appears to live alone, and to be a bit of a reader. The pack find a ledger in his bedroom written in some sort of code - all they can tell in a couple of minutes of looking at it is that its probably not a simple letter transposition code. The back-of-truck stuff in his lounge is all still sealed, and looks to be all nice stuff.
Freya goes out with some food and calms the dog down. She talks to it about what it saw and so on - apparently some Bad Men came into the yard, but he was tied up. He can't really describe them, except as big. The dog hasn't seen Him since then, and it was a few nights ago. He likes the food. He likes Freya. Can they go for a walk? Where is He? Walk now? No? Now? No? Now? No? Now? No? Now? How about now? Now? Freya says they have to go now, but they'll come back later and the shepherd gives her big puppy eyes, causing her to swear off using this gift ever again.
A Questing Stone is peformed, and they get some sense that Petrou might be north somewhere. Following the ritual leads them to... the long term car park at Tullamarine. Ew, think the pack. Bob runs into the carpark in lupus form and sniffs about - bingo. Dead thing smell and somewhat similar to Petrou's scent. The pack ring Cossack, who says that they should check the body out; he gives them an address to take it to, and says that they should drive the car into the garage. This they now do.
Popping the boot isn't pleasant, but it isn't the gross activity that Cole was worried it might be (its been cold). The body inside the boot is probably Petrou - he's been tied up and gagged, and by the looks of it, beaten to death. Kreig does a perfunctory check and finds broken limbs and what looks like a depressed skull fracture. He'd guess that Petrou was beaten with thin poles of some sort - maybe something as thick as a baseball bat. A rough guess says a couple of days old. Cossack is rang again, and sounds more annoyed than upset. They query his relationship with Petrou, and Cossack says that it was a business arrangement of sorts, rather than a friendship thing. Petrou was a fence, selling stuff off, and he once stole some of Cossack's stuff. After Cossack got it back, Petrou worked for him occasionally, in preference to having his knees broken.
Considering what Petrou was looking into, Cossack would like them to follow up anything they can. They tell him they're a bit sparse for clues, and ask whether Petrou said anything to him last time they spoke. Cossack thinks for a minute and says that he thinks that Petrou said something about 'Clark' recently, but he doesn't remember exactly what - it might be that he was talking about a guy called Ian Clark. Freya remembers something about the guy from the newspaper, and says that its a start, and rings off. They check the ledger that they stole from Petrou and find a 10,000 figure towards the end of the ledger, so it might be a goer. They drop the ledger off with Abby to puzzle through, and head to Freya's to look through newspapers. Indeed, the name Clark does appear in the papers occasionally, usually in context of "associate of" and "known to police". It seems that Ian Clark, and his sons Scott and Adrian, might just be at the heart of a tidy set of scams and illegal opperations. Flicking through the last four weeks worth of papers, Freya notices that their names have cropped up a bit recently. In fact, it seems that there seems to have been a bit of an increase in the number of violent crimes in the last fortnight or more; mostly against other criminals, rather than random passersby.
'Odd', think the Garou. They opt to going and scope out Clark's house, which is apparently in Wheeler's Hill. Questing Stone for Scott confirms that and soon the Garou are staring at a monstrosity in concrete - three stories high of grey brickness, with pink window sills and corner turrets, surrounded by suburban garden. Bob trots around the court that the house is situated in, and finds that while many scents lead in and out of the house, none of them are the three from the other site. Some of the scents that lead into the ugly, ugly house also lead into two other properties around the court. From one of those two properties, it seems that a gentleman is watching the grey castle-like monstrosity.
They head into the Umbra for some surveilance. Around the house are a number of weaver spiders, but they seem deformed - limbs missing or in the wrong place, or mindlessly laying out the same weaver stuff. Some of the wever ephemera looks a bit messed up too - decayed or rusted perhaps. Peeking into the house in question, its all decked out in the worst possible taste. Inside is an older and younger man, Ian and Scott by the looks of them (photos in the newspaper), and a woman about the same age as Ian. They are talking about various scams and illegal activities, as well as "that prick Marriott", which gets them a "language!" warning from the woman. The pack give some thought to bursting in and ridding the world of a couple of gangsters, but decide to hold off for the moment.
They head back to Yesif's place, and scour it for clues. Bob finds a bunch of cardboard boxes in the ceiling, all carefully taped up, but with nothing in them. There's no scents to suggest that they were used for anything other than the contents printed on the outside, and they've been here for a couple of months. Cole suggests that perhaps they were the same size or volume as something else Petrou had or wanted to measure. The pack shrug and look around for more stuff. Freya has a thought regarding the coded ledger and looks around for a book or something that might have been used as a code. She finds a copy of "Dinner at the Homesick Resteraunt" which has some phrases underlined. Taking it back to Abby's it seems that the first letter in each phrase has been used on an entry to encode it. And lo, the name associated with the 10,000 incoming to Yesif is indeed associated with one "I.Clark"
They wonder about the name Marriott a bit - it appears in Petrou's ledger too - an S, a D and a G. Consulting the paper's once again, it seems that S Marriott is probably Steven, and his name appears more than once in connection with various criminal activities, along with a Gordon and a Danielle. Questing Stone says that Steven Marriott lives in Balwayn, or is it at least there right now. Freya stays home, but the others all head out there for a peek around. The house is on an acre block, about half way up a hill, and over-looking a small valley. It is surrounded by thickly treed gardens, and has a high fence at the front with a gate and intercom. The pack check the place out from the Umbra. The house only partially appears - some framework and weaver mess in the trees and surrounds, although the trees do seem to be there. The shadows are thick and dark under the trees and overall its not a nice place to be. However, the brave Garou face danger to spy on the humans.
As well as the house, there is also a small cottage/bungaloe at the back of the property. It looks like a few people are dossing down in there, more than fit comfortably. A young man is walking around the grounds, as if on patrol. Inside the house there are more bivouacs, and more people. It looks as if the place is on alert. Steven Marriot is there, giving instructions to a half dozen people, including someone that looks very similar to him - possibly a brother. The instructions seem to cover such topics as breaking and entering, protection rackets, illegal gambling, and so on. There is also some small time drug running mentioned. General sensing says weaver predominate, but a significant amount of wyrm taint. Bob is bored and starts saying that they are wasting their time here, they should just tell Cossack what they know and get over it. He is ignored mostly as they look around some more. Some of the younger gentlemen staying over at this slumber party seem to be carrying firearms in a fairly familiar fashion. Abby tells Cole to stop looking at her like that. Cole complains that the Litany doesn't say anything about looking and Abby makes threatening noises. Kreig tries another sense in the Umbra and finds that there is still a pervasive wyrm taint, a sort of corruptive one. Bob senses a little that way too, and Krieg starts to realise that he's never really trusted Bob. What does he do with all that spare time, when he claims to be just sleeping around the caern? Krieg never has any free time, he's always having to work or do Garou stuff. Mutter. Mutter mutter. Etc. Despite all these frictions coming to the surface, the pack decide that there's nothing more worth noting here and head off.
On the way back to the caern, they decide to check out Danielle Marriott, just in case. She lives in a nice area of Malvern, in a recently renovated house. Peeking is much harder here, but they manage to get a rough idea of the layout of the place. It is luxurious, thick carpets, paintings on the walls, nice stereo, etc. Danielle is apparently stretched out on a leather couch reading a book on artworks. Cole checks her collection, but the only title he can make out is by a critic who hates his work ("The brother said 'It is both original and good; but the bits that are good are not original and the bits that are original are not good', and when I told someone else, they said he'd ripped that off another brother - shee-it, where does he get off saying that ...."). Eventually Cole's diatribe is interrupted and he is made to peek around some more. He's not sure, but there might be traces of cocaine around the plan. He finds several firearms in Danielle's cupboards - a shotgun and two large-calibre handguns, all which smell well maintained. They also find some recreational restraints in her bedroom, but it doesn't appear she has a regular partner. Danielle goes to bed, the pack head off.
Abby isn't happy about not having got a sense of the Marriott house in the Realm (from the Umbra it was hard to pin down), and so she and Kreig and Bob head back out there while Cole goes home. Bob hangs out in the car while Kreig and Abby creep into the Umbra, mindful of the darkness and wyrm taintedness. The two Garou peek and try to find somewhere that they can stealthily step out, in lupus form. Kreig says he's found the perfect spot, a little special garden in one corner. Its dark there and the little moonlight that remains won't give them away. Kreig carries the two of them through into the Realm, crouched low down to the ground. They scope out the immediate are to ensure they haven't been seen. Its about this point that the sprinkler system turns on, and the jet that is underneath Krieg's hindquarters sprays icy cold water all over his privates. Kreig, fairly understandably perhaps, screams like a girl. Abby leaps about a foot in the air and hears yelling coming from the bungaloe and sees lights come on inside the house. They move to step sideways again, but Krieg's 'perfect spot' has no moonlight, so they can't see their mirrors. The two of them bolt for somewhere sufficiently well lit. Bob, in the car, puts his chin down and looks mournful.
Abby sees guards heading their way and puts on a turn of speed. She reaches a well-lit part of the garden and moves into the Umbra. Kreig is a bit slower and the guards are there and pointing at him, so he can't take the chance with the Veil. Instead he rushes to the front of the house as fast as he can. There are people pointing guns at him as he runs, but they're not shooting - they seem to be looking for intruders that are with this 'dog'. Kreig runs into the front enclosed garden and steps.
Bob is waiting for them to get back when he realises that they've been gone a long, long time. He sighs and heads towards the house, thinking more and more murderous thoughts about Kreig. Bob can see all the hubhub, and finding Kreig's scent is simple enough. Yep, stuck in the Gauntlet. Given that Bob had to give up some of his own gnosis to save that ungrateful, idiotic, smelly metis, he's not willing to try and rescue them both. Instead Cole is woken up and dragged out to Balwyn at 3am. After a bit of messing about, both Kreig and Abby are dragged out of the gauntlet, and Kreig is solidly berated. They all go home and try to sleep.
The pack decide that they are very concerned by the weird mood swings and the darkness they were sensing at the Marriott's and so swing into full strange mode (maybe it was the lack of sleep). While Freya goes to the State Library to look up various newspapers to get a better idea of what's going on, the rest of the pack try and figure out ways to see if the Marriott's are pawns of the Dancers. Cole and Kreig do a drivepast in Cole's ice-cream truck, but they suspect that there may be problems if they use said vehicle too much - its not exactly non-descript. Several plans regarding black spiral dancer heads and spirits and such are thought of, but discarded in the end for a more surreal approach. Printing t-shirts that say "team spluck", they pretend to be part of a Melbourne Uni scav hunt team. Having done this, they find someone doing surveying and steal their theolodites. Having done this, they buy some reflective tops so they look more the part, and head out to Balwyn. This entire sequence is enacted only to allow Cole the chance to sketch the house out with pencil, which he does by joining with Kreig in pretending to be surveying the street. They attract a little bit of attention from the Marriott house, but basically manage to pull off the part (hand signals can be any old random shit when you've got telepathy, given they didn't think to have walkie talkies). Cole sketches out the house on pencil and then they head off.
The picture is anything but reassuring. In Cole's image, the trees about the house are festooned with some sort of bat like creatures with suggestions of big eyes and ears, hanging bloatedly from the branches. The house itself contains something not entirely formed, a suggestion of blades and edges and evil lurking in the structure itself. This, they feel, is bad. The plan - dinner.
Cole invites Emma and Cossack to dinner along with the pack. They all have a loverly meal and then nearly lose it again when Cole brings out the picture. They chat with the Elders about what it all means. Emma gives them a brief rundown on Umbral/Realm mechanics - that bad actions in the Realm encourage corruption in the Umbra, which encourages bad actions in the Realm, which... and so on. It works the other way around too - good intentions and actions will brighten the Umbra, which will incline people to behave better and so on. She would guess that the Clark's behaviour is drawing enough corruption to the location to start causing the spiders to be corrupted - the area is a newish suburb, and so would have more spiders to soak up the wyrm than say, Balwyn, where this taint appears to have created or summoned the bloated bat things. Freya has found that there has been a sudden (in the last 3 weeks) increase in the number of violent crimes in Melbourne - mostly commited upon the bodies of other individuals "known to police". Emma suggests asking Ion or Irena for help, but Cossack shakes his head at her and there is a quick interchange of some sort between them - Emma shrugs and they return to the topic at hand.
The pack theorise that the extreeeeme darkness under the trees is preventing them from seeing the bloated things, and wonder how they could make it bright. Cossack suggests using a Lune to light things up - its a galliard moon so they will be very helpful and energetic. Emma offers a moonstone - a semiprecious stone associated with Lunes - to bind it into. Bob and Abby head off to the caern to do the summoning while the others prepare for a fight. A couple of hours later (after a discussion with the very long and enthused Lune), they are back at the Marriott's. Bob activates the talen, and the grove of trees is lit up brightly by the overactive spirit within the stone. Revealed in the pearlescent light are a large number of bloated sack-like ticks, hanging from the trees. The pack proceed to butcher them - apparently the wyrm spirits are defenseless apart from their "bad-thoughts" charm. Abby's bow and arrows are particularly effective, each arrow screaming as it flies at the bane.
Once these have been disposed of, the pack try and see the thing in the roof. They don't have much luck seeing anything, but there is a hint of brittle sharpness to the weaver stuff all around the house, so they opt to perform a rite of cleansing around the site. As the final howl of the Rite fades, bits of the weaver-ephemera that is the house structure drop away, crumbling to dust as they fall towards the ground. The end result is that the blade-ness they were perceiving before seems to be gone, so Claws of Wisdom pronounce it good, and head home.
Cole is almost home when he looks left and sees a crinos going through a rubbish bin. He steps on the brakes and skids to a halt at the lights before reversing back. In plain sight of the street, a crinoid figure is ransacking through bins out the back of a pizza shop. Cole mentally lets the others know and Bob and Krieg take off his way. Cole slips out of the car and creeps towards the crinos. Observing from an obscured location, he can see a sort of mottled-brown crinos - no bat ears or other weirdness. Sensing doesn't reveal anything unusual other than a slight Garouness - no wyrm, for instance. The crinos moves off down the alley, and Cole tries to get a feel for tribe - he thinks maybe Child of Gaia, judging from the numerous hints and all. Cole follows but is in no mood for being beaten to death by another garou, so he stays a fair way back. The strange Garou is about half way down the alley when it hears or senses something and looks around sharply. Cole ducks behind a handy dumster bin, but it probably saw something. When he looks again, the crinos is in lupus form now, and running down the alley.
Cole gives sort of chase while Krieg tries to circle the block and cut them off at the pass. Bob heads back to where Cole first was and scents the strange Garou - its definately no one he knows from being around Melbourne. Cole has made it to lupus by now and is trotting along following the strange garou's scent. Krieg sees the unknown garou streak out across the road (causing a car to swerve) and into the Exhibition Gardens. He angles across to give chase, but loses them in the gardens. Cole and Krieg meet up and try to follow the scent - it leads them through the gardens and into Victoria Parade where it just stops. When they finally make it to the Umbra, they cannot find the scent there. How mysterious! They sleep.
What with one thing and another, the pack are mostly busy during the day. They drift into the caern after dusk and let Graeme know how things went and about the strange Garou. He looks a bit concerned, but makes it all their problem. Yay being an elder. Freya is last to arrive, and Emma intercepts her as she comes in the main gate. Emma says that they should probably talk to Ion and or Irena, given how deep into criminal pies they have their respective fingers. Freya queries her about Cossack's apparent reticence about doing so, but Emma says that he's a bit too sensitive about appearing to interfere with the other Sept - apparently there was some bad blood in the 1980's or something. If she or Cossack asks it sort of takes on the appearance of an official sept-to-sept enquiry, but she feels that if its Claws of Wisdom, then its just a sensible line of inquiry.
Freya agrees and meets up with the others and fills them in. They decide that Ion is least annoyed with them after the whole baby business last year, so Freya calls Hidden Green. Unfortunately, its just the person she doesn't want to talk to who picks up the phone - Irena. Ion apparently isn't at the Sept, but Irena agrees to take a message for them. Not that they don't trust the Shadowlord or anything, but they do a quick Questing Stone - it seems Ion is in Southbank somewhere. Freya feels that perhaps it might be best to contact Ion directly, so she gets his number off Graeme. It goes straight to voicemail, doh! She leaves another message and the pack try and think of what to do about what's obviously happening. They go to the Russell St police station and find that the place is an absolute warren, and there are many, many people about the place - there are a couple of very large investigations going on. However, eventually they find someone to spy on, and after awakening his computer and binding it, they find that the police are left a bit baffled - they have no problems doing the police thing on individual crimes, but the overall pattern seems to indicate a mob war - but with no specific sides.
About 9.30, Ion rings Freya back, and agrees to meet her about midnight in a cafe in Southbank. The pack snuffle around a bit more, and at midnight, meet Ion. Well, after a discussion about why Cole isn't allowed to come, Abby and Freya meet Ion while Bob and Krieg lurk about at a nearby bar in case things go wrong. Ion turns up a bit after midnight and after ordering coffee and food, asks them what they want. Freya explains that they have been looking into some stuff connected with various criminal elements, and they've noticed a certain amount of animosity between said elements. Ion nods and says that Irena has finally decided to mount a challenge against his authority. Abby mentions the disturbing wyrmness to it all, and Ion says that he is aware these are not nice people, and he takes steps when it becomes necessary, but he prefers to fight battles he can win and not chase every bit of minor taint. Freya drags the conversation back to the thing about Irena - Ion says that she was the one that initiated things, not by challenging him directly, but by personally butchering some of his associates about 3 weeks ago - he's obviously a bit pissed about it, although trying to keep himself under iron control. He goes on to say that despite her initial gains, he is moving to crush her soon. Freya and Abby thank him and leave, muttering about evil wyrm tainted Shadowlords.
They decide to talk to Irena too - a quick phone call and she says that she'll meet them out the front of the caern if they want to drive her home. Kreig and Freya go to meet her while Bob and Abby sod off. While Krieg drives, Freya questions Irena, remembering truth of gaia this time. Irena agrees that there is a struggle on between the two Shadowlords, but she doesn't think it could be dignified with the term "war". She claims, however, that she didn't start it, Ion did when he interfered with a shipment she had coming in, and turned it over to the Customs department. Truth of Gaia says that she's telling the truth. When Freya mentions the wyrmness and how their fight is possibly intensifying it, Irena shrugs and says that she'll clean it all up once she's won. Wow, that's twice Freya has basically accused other Garou of letting wyrm stuff invade areas under their control, and still she has her lungs. Irena seems fairly confidant that she'll win - after all, if Ion moved against her, he must be worried, right? They eventually drop her off and head back to the caern.
After discussing stuff a bit at the Sept, and wishing that they'd used Truth of Gaia on Ion, folks go home for the night. Freya is driving along Alexandra Parade when a dog runs out in front of her - much screeching of brakes as she tries to stop. At the loud unpleasant noise, however, the 'dog' changes form into a Crinos. There is a moment of staring and then the crinos garou runs back across the oval and away from the river. Freya ditches her car on the verge and finds somewhere hidden to change to lupus, yelling for her pack as she gives chase. The scent trail leads across the oval and to the back of private houses before turning along the fence line and back to the river. The scent changes back to a more lupus one before it reaches the road, fortunately. Freya follows as the scent moves along the road and the bike tracks next to the river, back towards the city. She sniffs carefully at the trail and mentally tells the others that they are following a female. Freya meets the rest of her pack at the corner of Anderson St, next to the Botannical Gardens. Abby runs and Kreig drives ahead, while the rest of the pack follow the scent, which stops suddenly up about 60 metres along the jogging track next to the Gardens.
Abby doubles back to find the scent while Krieg stays in the car ready to zoom ahead if necessary. The rest of the pack look left and right and then step into the Umbra. Its much marshier there, and hopefully they can find a scent. Much sniffing about reveals nothing however. Bob peeks back to see if the person is stuck in the Gauntlet, but nope. While he's doing that, he sniffs around in the Realm - and finds their scent on the inside of the fence. Taking a good look at the situation, it seems quite possible that the lupus has taken a running leap over the fence, and that's why their scent stopped. Abby catches up with the rest of the pack as they move back into the Realm inside the Gardens.
The scent runs all over the place - over the bridges and around the lawns, along paths, through a lake and so on. Kreig thinks about it and then works out that the lupus they are chasing will have gone to Prahran market! Of course! He's a genius! Off he drives. The pack keep following the scent, and eventually it stops at a lake edge. They circle the lake again, but there's no scent. A brief think says "duh, the lake is reflective" and they head into the Umbra, and take up the scent again. Eventually the Garou spy the lupus in question running about chasing possums. Cole creeps around to cut off escape paths while the others try and think about how to approach. They opt for the safe and open policy of using persuasion gifts and trying to be friendly. A little howl of "hi!" and some friendly body language leads to Freya, Bob and Abby chasing possums back and forth with this unknown garou. Someone bothers to tell Kreig Holmes about this, and he heads back.
The garou is fairly much an adolescent, and doesn't seem to grasp the lupus language very well - Claws of Wisdom start to consider the possibility that this is a lost cub. They want to get her under control if that's the case, and so Abby takes the first steps by running some distance away and laying down before changing form. Although Freya is close enough to use her calming fetish, the sight of Abby moving to homid form is still enough to frighten (not panic) the young garou and she runs off. Cole moves to the gate that she is heading for, and when she gets there, she looks at him a bit and then changes direction. The pack follow along behind, but some of what she is doing seems a bit irrational. Cole tries to Mindspeak her, but finds that her mind isn't what he expected. He realises that she's actually asleep, and is sleepwalking (trotting) - she's reacting to things that only she can see and hear, and it seems that she's sort of had a nightmare turn. They drop back, and split up - some in the Umbra, some in the Realm, and follow her.
She trots through the Umbra into the suburban bits of South Yarra and steps sideways in the backyard of a nice two story house near the top of the hill. Eventually one of Claws of Wisdom can peak through the suffocating gauntlet and sees a young, naked and grubby girl sprawled on a bed, twitching a bit. The roof outside her window looks like its taken some damage from, oh, I dunno, a crinos jumping onto it a couple of times. This is definately their bunny, so they look about to find out more about her. There are two other people in the house, presumably her parents. Looking for identification, they find some bills and all and discover that their hosts are Graeme and Wendy Lindridge, and their daughter is Melissa. Melissa is about 17, and goes to Wesley College, and is finishing her VCE. There is a note from one of her teachers dated about 5 weeks ago commenting that Melissa seems to be moody and loosing focus at school, which would be a shame given her good grades until this point, only a few months to go, etc.
The pack decide they have to get this under control before Melissa breaks the Veil. Thinking of how they might contact her, Abby looks at her books and discovers that she is studying french language amongst other subjects, and wonders how she could insinuate herself into Melissa's life as a tutor.
Claws of Wisdom institute a stalking routine, er, I mean observational rotation to keep an eye on Melissa. When she wakes, Melissa is a bit distressed to find that she's all dirty and all. She looks fairly upset, and it takes a few minutes to get control of herself. However, she does manage and starts to get ready for school. Abby and Bob, who are on perv duty first, follow her as she goes to a tram and then heads to school. They are quite curious about the reactions of others, and they find that while Melissa is relatively well-liked, a lot of people seem to sort of be passively avoiding her - they don't 'see' her until she's close and so on. A quick consideration of human psychology says that most people have real problems dealing with mental illness - and frankly, it probably looks like Melissa is going insane. Melissa seems to have her own concerns though and doesn't pay much attention to other people. She does seem to have a few close friends, mel and fem, and they look concerned. They watch as Melissa goes through her school day - the morning consists of English Lit, Maths and French. Abby evaluates her French skills and thinks that she isn't too bad, but tutoring might still be a go.
Freya grabs some sleep between dawn and about midday, and then heads to the caern. She finds Graeme and finds out that Emma is probably in her office in the Uni. Off to there then, where Freya explains everything that's happened in the last 24 hours - Ion and Irena fighting, both saying the other started it, and the lost cub. Emma rolls her eyes at the antics of the Shadow Lords. Freya asks if they have a modus operandi for bringing in lost cubs, and Emma says basically its "you found them, you bring them in". She'd recommend against old styling it though - kidnap and torture is probably not their style. Emma agrees that stopping the Veil breaking activity is a primary goal - if they can do that, they are welcome to take their time with contacting her directly.
Freya wanders away, mentally conveying this information to her pack. They discuss stuff and all are suspicious that perhaps there is a third party deliberately starting Ion and Irena off. Freya rings Ion and gets a secretary - after a bit of back and forthing, they arrange a meeting in his office. She gets there to find Ion in a nice comfy office near the Sept. Remembering to use Truth of Gaia this time, she says that she spoke to Irena too, and that Irena says that Ion started the upscaling of their disagreement. Ion scoffs. Freya asks exactly why he thought it was Irena who killed his agents, whether he had actual evidence. Ion looks a bit concerned and says that he had just cut Irena off from a particular deal, and assumed that she had lost her temper and acted accordingly, it being a full moon and all. He didn't think to check. Freya says that they are worried that maybe a third party was involved. Ion writes down the address where it happened and says that he can't get away this afternoon, but he would appreciate it if she could let him know if she finds anything.
Freya collects Bob and drops Kreig with Abby - a quick glance at Melissa shows her eating lunch and looking fairly distracted. Freya and Bob go out to the location that Ion has given them, which is a back alley behind a row of factories and warehouses in Fitzroy. One side of the alley runs along the factories, the other side has a dilapidated fence seperating the alley from some junk land. Bob activates his Heightened Senses gifts and sniffs about. His amazing sensory powers send him back in time, and after much runnin back and forth, he can smell blood and gunpowder and the scent of a garou. More sniffing, and finding protected scents under eaves and against fences, and Bob finds that the scent is actually Melissa's. Much "ya what?" from the pack, but they feel that it does kind of make sense - she's been "odd" for 6 weeks, if she was running about in crinos, people with guns might have shot at her, and so on. Hmmm. Now, what to do about it.
The pack decide to get Irena and Ion together, and tell them, and let them sort it out. They opt to try and minimise the discussion on Melissa by saying that they have it all in hand. Freya makes calls and gets Irena and Ion to meet her in the Fitzroy Gardens at 5.30pm - enough people to stop them going each other, but not so many as to be impossible to talk. In the meantime, its back to Melissa-vision for Bob and Freya, while Kreig runs off to give some classes. Abby heads off to organise a letter drop advertising her talents as a VCE tutor in a rather specific area around Melissa's house.
Melissa's classes in the afternoon are biology and english. She's not a top student, but she's no dummy either. However, she's obviously distracted. Some of her teachers don't care, some care but seem to have their hands full with a class of VCE students, and her literature teacher makes an effort to draw her out a bit, but with no luck. Once school has finished, Melissa doesn't, unexpectedly, head home, but catches a tram up towards the city. She gets off at Domain junction and heads for the Botannical Gardens. The pack follow along and watch as she settles down on a somewhat isolated bench with a walkman and a book. They come up with a Plan.
Somewhere out of sight, Abby (who has returned) changes to lupus and Freya and her step into the Realm. They wander through the park with the old "just walking my dog schtick". Freya throws a stick somewhere near Melissa, and Abby breathlessly bounds up to grab it, and then wanders over near Melissa, who puts her book down and appears to be unable to tear her eyes off the 'dog' in front of her. Abby, quivering with excitement, drops the stick in front of Melissa and plays the "I've just met you, but I love you; throw the stick"-attention-slut ploy; Melissa falls for it and throws the stick overhead, obviously hoping the disturbing looking canine would go away, but Abby brings it right back and makes puppy eyes at her. Freya catches up and there are some introductions and all. Melissa seems fascinated by Abby, but a bit jumpy at the same time. After a brief conversation, Freya and her dog head off.
Freya looks at the time and grabs Bob and flees. They make it to the Fitzroy gardens before time, and stand around waiting for the two Shadow Lords. For full dramatic effect, Ion and Irena arrive at almost exactly the same time - there is a brief standoff as they are about 40m away, but then they approach Freya. Freya and Bob explain that the incident which triggered their current strong disagreement was not in fact of Irena's doing, but the work of a poor confused lost cub who they have taken under their wing. They explain their theory on what happened, and there is much sizing up of the other from the two opposed Garou. Once the situation is explained, there are a few tentative words of a truce between them, but Ion pushes the issue of the lost cub a bit. Freya is firm about their mentorship, leaving Ion to make vague comments about reparations. Freya and Bob leave them to sort out their differences.
Melissa heads home from the park before dark, and goes out with a friend from school to see movies at the Jam Factory that night, accompanied also by her unseen watchers. At her house, her parents have a chat about getting a french tutor, waving the pamphlett about, and agree to talk to Melissa tomorrow. When Melissa gets home, she kicks about, looking at the clock until her parents go to sleep. Once this happens, Melissa creeps into the bathroom and takes some tablets out of a bottle in the cupboard. Kreig can't really see well enough to read it, but he suspects sleeping tablets. Melissa washes them down with a belt of whiskey and then creeps up to bed. Apparently this does the trick - the watchful Garou observe her sleeping the sleep of the dead all evening.
