Claws of Wisdom Chronology

September 2001

Saturday 1

Melissa sleeps in till nearly midday, and she is fairly groggy once she does get up. She does normal teenage stuff during the afternoon. Her parents speak to her about a french tutor, and she assents fairly lacklustrely, and says she'll ring later. Obviously not having much in the way of plans for the Saturday evening, Melissa does some school work. The Garou switch places and make sure to keep up on their sleep. Late at night, Melissa's mum has gone to bed and her dad is asleep in the lounge. She sneaks into the bathroom to find the sleeping tablets are gone - the garou were watching when her mum took them into their room. Melissa looks pretty upset and distressed - she can't even hit the booze, cos its in the same room as her dad. She goes to bed, but it takes a long time before she sleeps.

Sunday 2

About 3am, Claws of Wisdom are watching Melissa toss and turn in bed when she changes through crinos (making the bed creak alarmingly) and into lupus. She still is under the covers though, and still appears to be asleep (and immobile). Freya decides that maybe they should wake her up, and so shifts to the Realm in Melissa's backyard. Once there, she uses her Mimic gift to make a loud, loud siren sound in the backyard. Melissa doesn't really stir, but it certainly wakes up her dad, who heads out and has a look around while Freya scuttles into the shadow of their garage. He goes back inside and turns things off before going to bed.

About 30 minutes later, Melissa's eyes open and she jumps down onto the ground. She sniffs about and then heads for the window. Unable to deal with it in this form, she changes to crinos and opens the window before shifting to homid and swinging out and dropping onto the ground. Back to lupus and, while the Garou ready themselves to jump her if necessary, Melissa runs around in her backyard in lupus. Fortunately she is showing no signs of intending to leave, although she does sniff where Freya was an awful lot. Eventually she finds a sheltered spot against the house and lays down to sleep. Her form shimmers and she shifts back to homid. Its not long after that before the now extremely cold and naked Melissa wakes up, and freaks out. She tries the doors, but they are locked, so into the garage she goes. Melissa finds an old blanket and a ladder. Trying to hold onto the blanket and not shiver, she puts the ladder up on the side of her house and climbs up to her window, kicking the ladder down with a quiet clatter. She puts on some clothes and then heads outside to put the ladder back in the garage. Shivering in her kitchen, Melissa makes some coffee, and tries not to cry. Once she's scoffed a load of coffee, she seems to make an effort to calm herself down - she grabs a walkman and some sneakers and goes for a run. Guessing from her direction that she is heading for the Botannical Gardens again, Freya and Abby head there toot sweet, and try the "running with my dog" schtick again. Melissa seems even more wide-eyed and nervous around Abby than before, but she's also obviously enthralled by the wolf as well. Freya asks if Melissa wants a drink - she was going to grab something from nearby and sit and drink it, but its awkward with Abby. They grab a coffee and sit and talk about stuff, Freya exuding calm reassurance.

Melissa eventually goes home, and tries to keep her sanity. She rings Abby's number mid Sunday afternoon, and they chat about normal study stuff. Abby manages to enveigle herself into coming over that evening, and the two of them run through Melissa's french study for a couple of hours. Abby is being supercalm and reassuring, and arranges to come again later in the week, as Melissa has something due on Friday.

The pack try and work out what to do about Melissa, especially for the following night, which is the Moot night - with the Full Moon Killer still out and about, they don't really want her wandering the streets. Krieg is a big fan of Plan B - kidnap her and confront her with what she is - it would be a lot easier. Cole demands that this is plan Omega. Options are suggested - some sort of talen that stops her changing, something to keep her in a deep, deep sleep. Sanctifying chamomile tea. Smacking her in the head and dragging her away. Shut /up/, Krieg. Drugging her food. All of them have some side-effects and the pack talk about it in depth.

The decision is finally made to bind a spirit into her that stops her changing. While Freya wanders away to summon a weaver spirit, the rest of her pack run and hide. No, not really. They watch Melissa, and shortly after Freya has begun the summoning, she gets up and wanders about in lupus form in her room. She then changes to homid and opens the door, wandering downstairs, where she changes to lupus again, and sniffs all about the lower floor of the house. Abby twigs from the way Cole is describing where she's going that Melissa seems to be sniffing about where she was tutoring her earlier. It might be that on some level, Melissa realises that Abby-tutor is the same as Abby-wolf in Gardens.

Melissa eventually wanders up to bed and seems to go quiescent. Freya's summoning has proven sucessful, and a large spider-ish spirit, somewhat mechanical looking, with a faceted body arrives. The spirit is bound and it seems to understand what is expected of it. It moves to the umbral location corresponding to Melissa, and starts to lay webbing or a cocoon down. Eventually the webbing and the spider merge into where Melissa is, and sensing unnatural reveals a strong weaver sense from Melissa. The pack organise watches, and then head off.

Monday 3

Melissa gets up at her normal time, but seems to be in some discomfort, as if her joints hurt. She speaks to her mum and says that she suspects she's coming down with flu or something, cos she's been tired all week and now everything aches, so she's going to stay home. Her mum doesn't look too impressed, but Melissa points out that she hasn't been sick all year, and she's going to bed, dammit. This she now does.

The pack watch during the day, but Melissa mostly sleeps. They leave her watching tv late in the afternoon and go to prepare for the Moot. Cossack starts the Moot with the Opening Howl, and the sept thanks the various spirits with Inner Howl. The various packs tell what they've been doing of late - Claws of Wisdom have a lot to relate, and take a while. Cossack asks them to take on caern duty for the next week - they should be able to do that and handle Melissa at the same time. The packs are told to try and keep an eye out for the Full Moon Killer, but no one is really expecting to make any headway with that. Stories and songs, Revel and sleep.

Tuesday 4

"WAAARGH!" "Dammit! I thought you were sleeping over there." The pack awaken from their Malfeas dream again, inadvertantly startling septmates.

The pack eventually wake up and get on with life, which mostly involves the caern and Melissa. Apparently she's taken today off too, still feeling suboptimal. They decide to take the weaver spirit off her now, and Freya thinks that a Rite of Cleansing will be better than trying to undo the Binding - she can do that from the Umbra while Abby distracts Melissa. Abby turns up at Melissa's house for her 4.30pm tutoring lesson, which prompts Melissa to swear and leap out of bed (some of the Claws of Wisdom are peeking) to the intercom. Although Melissa says that she's really not feeling up to visitors and she has an extension on her french assignment, Abby wangles her way in by asking to use the loo; she stands in the toilet tapping her feet while her pack try and do a cleansing to get rid of the binding and not accidentally destroy the umbral house.

About dark, Bob says that he has to go away for a bit. He's a little reticent about where he's going and why, except to say that he will be out of mental range. Cole finally asks if he's going to visit family and Bob says yes. The pack biff him for being weird about something so non-bizarre. Cole gives Bob his phone. About 8pm, Bob fades out of the mental link.

Once the binding is lifted (and this is checked), Abby heads off and they return to watching the situation. Later that evening, Melissa is again sleeping restlessly and changes form. And again. And again. Again. She spends a good 4 minutes smoothly moving from form to form, much to the detriment of her bed and sheets. Melissa suddenly sits up and heads straight outside and over her fence, persued by Abby and Kreig. Abby gets into the Realm in lupus and catches up with the lupus Melissa - she seems to be heading for the Gardens, which is cool by them. Kreig is a bit slower getting through the Gauntlet, and follows along.

Melissa and Abby are nearing the Gardens when Melissa suddenly changes to hispo, runs out across Anderson Rd and leaps the fence in one smooth bound. Abby yells and chases, also leaping the fence in one bound. Cars screech to a halt and a guy gets out - he seems to see Melissa in hispo form and starts yelling about huge dogs. Other people only really saw Abby, and so they're not so sure. Krieg, who has found somewhere to change to homid runs up asking if people have seen his dog. They says that it leapt into the Gardens. He sighs and follows. Abby in the meantime has led Melissa away and tried to explain that big wrong, being big is bad. She sort of seems to get it. They run around the gardens chasing possums. Krieg spots a security guard about 15 minutes later and alerts Abby before slipping away into the Umbra. Abby takes Melissa to the edge of the lake and gets her to look in as they slip into the Umbra. Melissa eventually gets tired and goes home through the Umbra

Wednesday 5 - Saturday 8

The pack establish a routine; people at the caern, people watching Melissa. Abby continues to teach her French, Freya and her dog Abby meet her a couple more times at the Botannical Gardens, and various members of the pack run with her at nighttime. Melissa seems more relaxed and coping in general, and they keep her from more than scratching the Veil.

People learn various gifts and things while they are at the Sept a lot. Bob returns on the Thursday and shrugs when people ask where he was.

On the Saturday night, Melissa seems to sleep a lot more soundly and doesn't change form during the evening. Claws of Wisdom try and decide how to cross that final boundary.

  After much talking, they decide to let things progress for the moment - it will be a ragabash moon over the next weekend, and that is probably a good time to inform (not confront, no no) Melissa about what is going on. In the meantime, Abby continues to tutor her, Freya and Abby meet her in the Botannical Gardens and the Garou stalk Melissa from the spirit worlds.

Monday 10

Late that night, Cossack asks Bob to run a message up to an aquaintence north of the caern. As Bob is returning, he hears a strange noise from some bushes - he sticks his head in and sees that there is a little dog there, obviously hurt. It whines and tries to lick at Bob from where it lies. Bob looks left and right and then uses his healing fetish to mend the damage - the dog appears to have had a broken back leg and various contusions. Bob senses and there is an odd wyrm-taint about the dog - not on it specifically, but lingering around. The dog has a little medallion thing with writing on it, and numbers on the back. Bob mentally calls Freya from the caern both to read and use her gifts. Freya drives up and meets Bob and Fido, apparently, from the collar. She speaks to Fido in her car. Fido says something hit him. It didn't smell. He was at home. It hurt a lot. He doesn't remember how he got here, or know if here is near home. He likes Bob, because Bob made the hurt go away.

In the meantime, Bob follows Fido's scent - he appears to have dragged himself to the street along the fenceline of the empty lot on the corner, and the smell of blood and fear and pain is easy to follow. However, it just stops in the corner of the property. The wyrm sense sort of clouds there, but its not too strong. Bob checks over the fence and in the Umbra, but no go. That's odd, think the Garou. Krieg is called from watching Melissa, and he heads over. The Wyrm taint is quite weird, and alien almost, somehow a little metallic. Its nothing that he's sensed before.

Abby heads over to cover for Krieg and finds that Cole has gone home instead of watching Melissa. She chews him out a bit. The Garou ponder the weirdness of it all, and the possibility that its a trap. They decide to ring the mobile number on the back of the name tag tomorrow morning.

Tuesday 11

About 8.30am, Freya gives the number a call. The phone is answered by a guy in a car, who pulls over to talk to her. He gets her number and shortly she gets call from Caroline Botham, who says that Fido apparently got out last night but they don't know how. Freya gets her address, which is in Pascoe Vale, miles from where they found Fido, and drives out there with the dog. Caroline invites her in and says that Owen will be so happy - her and Stanley's son, who is at school at the moment. They watch Fido run around the backyard, apparently unconcerned by being back.

In the meantime, the Garou scour the place from the Umbra. The backyard is fairly plain. There's a bit of a patio made of grey pavers outside the kitchen door, a tin shed on one side of the yard, a couple of scrubby trees/bushes and a rusting swing. The same strange wyrm sense is about the place, along the back of the house, and concentrating on a spot on the pavers where there might be a slight blood stain.. right next to a shovel. The shovel is carefully sniffed - it has a faint scent of a male teenager upon the handle, as well as the appropriate smells for the adults that live here. Searching around the yard Bob finds a pair of footprints and that same teenage smell, apparently from someone who has jumped the fence.

Freya heads off from the Botham house having had a cup of tea and generally talked to Caroline. Bob looks in on the house next door and quickly finds that the teenager is there. Fido starts barking (yipping next door) and this kid bursts out and picks up a clod of earth, and throws it vaguely over the fence at the dog, who runs away with its tail between its legs. Aha, think the garou.

This teenager is apparently Martin, and there is a female scent in the house which is probably his mum. Martin has a distinct unpleasant wyrmtaint to him - not supernatural amounts and not the same as the alien one, but still significant. He seems to be trying to sleep, a crumpled Coles uniform next to his bed leading the Garou to suspect he might do nightfill. Cole heads off to scope the surrounding Coles once they have a surname (Bence), and eventually discovers that after many hours of investigation that Martin works at the local Coles, despite the protestations of the deli workers. He leaves $50 for Martin, bemusing the desk worker.

The pack watch Martin for the day. He's a fairly grumpy fellow, and spends part of his day websurfing, spending a lot of time on rotten.com . His mum comes home eventually and they have an argument about dinner, which Martin eventually wins and they go to McDonalds. As the night goes on, Martin eventually gets ready for work. At 10.30pm, a beaten up kingswood pulls up and some guy also in a Coles uniform gets out and knocks on Martin's door before returning to the car. Martin follows out shortly and they drive to work, tailed by Cole. Apparently the guy is Tony, and he is not noticably tainted. Neither is much else at the Coles in question other than Martin (who apparently has collected the $50 and just pocketted it, not having the faintest idea why it was given to him).

Freya gives some thought to assaulting Martin in the bathroom at Coles and threatening him with pain if he attacks the dog again, but her packmates persuade her that the lack of windows mean that it will be a serious Veil-type problem. So, some of the Garou go home, and others watch on.

Wednesday 12

Martin returns home at 7.30, lifted home by Tony, who hoons off. He falls pretty much straight into bed. The peeking Garou look about and scratch their head. Maybe he's being posessed? Freya can hear a weird squeaking noise, from under the Botham house, and investigates in lupus in the realm. She finds Fido, who has apparently been sliced up with a knife or other sharp implement. Much confusion reigns - they were all watching Martin all night. Another scouring of the site suggests to the Garou that Fido was hurt around midnight, which is the same as last time, but Martin was definately at work. Fido is healed, but remains unconscious.

The site of the attack was right outside the door of the underhouse access, also underneath Owen's window. The wyrm sense of alien metalness is also strongest there, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere (not being a real scent, it has no 'direction' per se). Cole looks around and finds that there is a knife on top of the shed. Scent on it is Martin's again, and it has blood on it. It hasn't been put there, its been thrown on top of the shed and slid down point first. The pack are now really confused, but decide that its all Martin's fault somehow. When Fido comes around, he is questioned again - all he remembers is something hit him. He thinks it was bigger than him, but smaller than Stanley. But it had no smell.

Freya and Kreig decide to form the RSPCA attack corps. They get suits and bang on Martin's door. He opens it and looks annoyed and sleepy. Freya accuses him of assaulting the dog next door and that people have said that he has been abusing it. Martin says she's got the wrong person, although Truth of Gaia reveals that that's not entirely true. Martin manages to close the door before Freya can quite wedge her foot. She starts yelling accusations about the dog and Martin puts on heavy metal. Freya opens the fuse box next to the door and pulls the power. From inside the house comes "Fucking bitch!" and the sound of running feet. Martin rips the door open, forgetting about the chain and leaps out with a baseball bat. Krieg pulls it out of his hands and gets a kick to the crotch for his trouble before Freya punch/pushes Martin back down the hall way. The two of them pounce on him and Freya makes it clear that she's not happy. Martin is spitting and snarling and threatening to call the police. Ignoring Cole's cries to get his $50 back, the two Garou leave.

Martin does call the police, but his attitude means that they don't seem inclined to believe him, especially when he starts swearing. He also calls a few mates and says that some big guy just came and kicked down his door.

The Garou watch during the day, but Martin doesn't do much. He certainly doesn't take out his annoyance on the dog next door. The garou hang about. They sense Owen directly when he comes home, not having the chance to do so before, but he seems normal. Much headscratching.

Night falls and Martin goes to work, but the pack wait and watch the yard. Cole and Bob are in the yard, hiding behind the shed and bemusing Fido. Freya and Abby wait in the Umbra with Kreig. Freya has a thought about what might be happening; she ran into some weird children while she was in Ireland, but she doesn't know how they'd get here. Kreig is watching when he hears some stirring from inside Owen's room. Owen has got up and moved to the window. He opens it and crawls onto the sill, where his skin seems to shrink and take on a ghastly grey shade. The wyrm sense from him is exactly that from the previous events. Owen launches off the sill and into the sky, apparently intent on flying away. Abby and Freya leap through the Gauntlet, while Cole launches himself at the flying child, grabbing it by the thigh with his teeth a good 10 or more feet off the ground -

- and just hanging there in midair. Bob flips to crinos, and takes a huge leap, crashing down on top of the child. Now they are both hanging there while the child twists and turns, trying to bite Cole. Cole changes to hispo, and this is the (large) straw that breaks the donkey's back. The three of them crash to the ground, and Cole makes a wooshing sound as the others land on him. Between them, Bob and Cole manage to pin the little wyrm thing. Then it changes back into Owen, and draws breath to yell "Mu-", but Cole is too fast, and covers its mouth with one hand. Owen changes back into the zombie thing and starts trying to bite Cole's hand, but it can't quite get purchase.

The rest of the pack materialise in various places around the house. Krieg senses on the kid and says "fomori" and is fairly certain about it. The others get some rags and stuff them in Owen's mouth, and tie him up with an extension cord from the shed. They scarper, and ring Emma (waking her up) from a distance away. Freya tries to explain what's happened, and Emma sighs and suggests taking Owen out in the country rather than into the caern to be examined. Abby expresses some doubts about children becoming fomor because they're not evil, unlike adults who have made the choice. Kreig and Bob don't agree. While they are waiting for Emma, Freya tells the rest of the pack the whole sordid story from Ireland...

Emma rocks up and tells them to follow her, which they do, out to a remote field north of the city. Owen is tied to the bumper bar and people try to question him to no avail. Abby argues that he's just a kid, and cleansing might work. Emma looks doubtful, but agrees that they are welcome to try. Freya and Bob do so, and at the end of the ritual the taint on Owen has lessoned, but not gone. Kreig still says "fomor". They look a bit distressed. Emma says that once a bane has fused with a human, its inordinately hard to seperate them, even if it is possible. The only times she's heard of it done required a pack to quest for a year or more to find a way of doing it, and it was done for a loved one. She says that she can at least try to get some answers, and squats down in front of Owen. After a few minutes of extreme effort, Emma forces some answers from Owen - basically it came because Rachael called, and she is here because of Freya.

On a hunch, the pack try a Questing Stone for Rachael McEwen, but without any luck - Emma suggests that it might be that she's been a fomor for long enough that there's nothing of Rachael left. Figuring there's nothing more they can do, Krieg kills Owen, and the pieces of the corpse (which remains in its ugly mode) are scattered over a great distance and buried. The pack return to Melbourne and Emma returns to bed. They discuss what to do, and its decided to settle in and watch Owen's for a bit.

Thursday 13

Owen's parents apparently notice he is missing at about 8am. In short order, three police arrive, a bunch of uniformed bobbies and two plain clothes detectives. Feeling that this is perhaps a bit out of proportion for one missing 8 year old, they watch avidly. It seems that the police are suffering a bit of a problem with missing children - no one is explictly saying that the Botham's child is just one of hundreds, but there is a very intense feeling about the situation. The bobbies wait until forensics turn up and then two pair start door knocking and asking questions. The police speak to Martin, and they take a statement about the strange people who attacked him yesterday (he has a winner of a bruise). The pack are a bit concerned by all this, and try to find where all the evidence is going, and who is in charge. Apparently its all being run from Russell St police station, so off they go.

The pack show up at the Umbral police station on Russell Street, and are a bit disturbed by the amount of weaver activity. The sharpeyed members of the pack spot a number of slightly more martial looking spiders hidden amongst the weaver webbing and formed ephemera. Bob approaches one of them and it asks for ID. He looks a bit blank and tries "Sergeant Grey?". This leads to a bit of a pause and then the spider asks "What's your number?". Bob tries "3", that being the biggest number he's comfortable with, but the spider apparently doesn't agree, and moves to attack. Bob sensibly flees. Freya is caught a bit flatfooted, and ends up completely calcified before Abby rescues her and they leg it. After beating each other to get the weaver stuff out (despite Cole's loud protests that there must be a better way), they decide to come back at night and try again.

So, that evening, when they return, they can see that the weaver activity has lessened, but not stopped. They can spot at least one guardian spider hanging about, but they decide to give sneaking a shot. Everything is going well until Abby sneezes and attracts their attention. Two spiders come down one on each side of her in a corridor. Feeling that breaking anything will just draw more attention, Bob and Cole run around the long way as Freya fills the corridor in crinos form. Abby is almost calcified and Freya returns the rescuing favour. Freya is starting to get somewhat calcified when Bob and Cole appear from behind the spiders and start putting the boot in as well. The two spiders flee via their reform charms and the pack clear each other out of weaver ephemera.

The enemy vanquished, the pack look about, squinting through the high Gauntlet. Eventually they find a room with a big board map and photos of kids. This seems to be the ticket, and they investigate. The Claws of Wisdom find that this is the headquaters of the task force that has been set up to investigate the missing 30+ ("30 fomori!!!") children. There is a large map, with eight sites marked, each with a line to a group of kids photos. Each time the child has gone missing after school or on the weekend, and they were last seen playing with another child just before they disappeared. In most cases this other child hasn't been identified, but in two cases they have - one of the children was the next one to disappear, but the other is still safe and sound at home. They peruse the information on the boards and try to get an idea for what the hell is going on.

The police are drawing blanks and going insane - literally, one senior officer has retired already. There doesn't seem to be any linkage between the students except the school and the method of abduction. There are a few extras where the facts don't quite match up, and Owen's disappearance has been added to that list. The pack note down everything they can and head back to the Sept.

They find Emma, Cossack and Graeme up late in Graeme's kitchen, and get invited in while Graeme finds enough chairs. They explain the situation, and everything they've found and no one looks happy. Cossack asks them to take this up as a priority, and suggests that perhaps they should rush things with Melissa and get her brought into the fold so that's not hanging over their heads too. Abby says she has a tutoring session tomorrow, they'll try and get it done then. Freya proposes giving Melissa some nice "trust us, we're werewolves" kind of dreams tonight to lay the final preparations into her subconscious, and when no one objects, off she goes.

Friday 14th

Abby goes to classes and thinks up strategies to approach Melissa with. Cole does some work, and the others decide that they'd rather not get involved with 30 potential flying zombie children without full support and find something else to do.

That early evening, Abby has a 5pm appointment with Melissa. The lesson starts innocuously enough, but the topic turns to pressure as the year is getting closer to its end, and Abby says that she was having these weird dreams where she was an animal or something. Melissa's reaction is basically "glarp", and there is much wide eyed discussion about what the hell is happening. Melissa keeps asking what is going on, and Abby keeps being just a bit too vague, without actually giving any facts - just saying she knows why Melissa wakes up naked in the back yard is not really particularly reassuring, but she tries. Freya feels this is going to go badly and steps into the toilet with the calming fetish ahoy. Abby and Melissa keep talking, and Melissa is starting to back away. She goes into the kitchen and cuts herself to see if she feels pain. Ow. Yes. She is distracted briefly by something and when she looks back, Abby is in lupus form. Melissa stares at her and then faints.

When she comes around, Abby manages to convince her that its not all a dream. By some judicious hypnotic talking, she gets Melissa into the Umbra, which is a bit of a clincher. The rest of Claws of Wisdom come out at that point and Melissa eventually says that its either a winner of a dream or real, so she'll go along with it. They go back to the caern, and introduce Melissa to Emma and other Elders, after giving her a brief rundown on the situation. Emma does mysterious theurge things and returns, saying that Melissa is a Glasswalker Ahroun.

Saturday 15

Now that Melissa has been at least part indoctrinated, the pack decide to see if they can questing stone the missing kids, in case it takes a while for the names to fade. They start with the children in Middle Park, and Freya and Bob get similar responses from Questing Stone rituals. They head down that way and do the ritual again for Carla Taines. The Questing Stone leads to a house down a quiet street with a large white brick fence and high iron-paling'd gate. The address niggles at Freya's head and she looks on the information they copied down - this is Carla's house. Investigation from the Umbra suggests that Carla is buried under fallen leaves at the front of the house. This strikes the pack as odd - surely police would have looked there with dogs?

Further Questing Stones show that Herman McGuire is somewhere underneath recently planted roses in the middle of an arterial road in Middle Park, and Andrew Fairbrother is either next to or under a large compost bin in his parent's house. The pack try digging downwards in the umbra to get low enough to sniff at Andrew, or at least the earth about him, and this sort of works - a smell of rot is slowly seeping through thr earth. This is a disturbing trend. The kids have a very faint taint about them, but they are not of the wyrm - they probably won't rise from the grave or anything. The pack decide they'd really like to know how the kids died, and so try and find Sean Burry. Apparently he is buried under heavy equipment in his parent's shed. The pack check the house, and find that Sean's parents are not home, and show signs of not having been there for a time, so they opt to try and look at him now. After some careful lifting and digging, they uncover the top of Sean's body. He seems to have been bitten repeatedly by sharp pointy teeth. Best guess is that they were all the same person, but its hard to tell, given the state of decay. The disturbed dirt is carefully replaced and the shed is put back the way they found it.

   The pack decide to try and find all the kids. They move to each school and do a set of Questing Stone for the kids from that school. Moving down the list, they manage to identify where all the kids from Kew, Bentleigh, Richmond and Thornbury (having already found the Middle Park kids). Each kid is buried either in his parent's yard, or in a nearby garden if the parent's don't have one. Most of them are a foot or two down below the ground - there's no scent of the people who buried the kids, which suggests that it is the floaty kids. The scent of the buried child is quite faint. The Garou are getting more and more edgy as the day rolls on.

About dusk, they decide to take a break and have some food. For obvious reasons they decide to eat at one of the pack's houses, given that the topic of buried dead children will come up. They have some speaks about what to do with the bodies - are the bites sufficiently strange to be a problem to the Veil? Are they able to let the parents know what's happened? Its possible that they could maybe burn the corpses, but disinterring them is going to leave traces. The conversation turns to how they can track the fomori down and not just chase bodies. Cole suggests that they should keep an eye on the one kid that was identified as being the last kid that was seen with a missing child - Jeff Watts. He thinks its a trap, but that its also their only real lead. Its agreed that they should at least go and look - they're up to the Glen Waverley kids anyway.

When they get out to Jeff's house, they find he lives in a court near the Police Academy. Cole parks a distance away in the Realm, but everyone else steps into the Umbra. The house is on stilts at one end, so to peek, someone has to sit on a crinos shoulders, so this they now do. Jeff is sitting in the lounge with his parent's, watching a video. Sensing doesn't reveal anything strange about him, but the same applied to Owen, so they decide to watch him. However, they probably don't need to have everyone here, so Bob and Freya head off to try and find the missing kids. Noel is buried over the back fence of his parent's house, in the next house behind. They step out into the ti tree on the fence line and move the leaf litter aside, and the Freya (in her leather gloves) digs down until she has found Noel's body. It is in quite a significant state of decay, but she manages to detect at least 4 different sized bites in the many wounds all over him. Shit, think the pack. Noel is reinterred and Freya washes her gloves off on a tap.

Off to the next house, Elana's. Questing Stone says that she's probably out the back of the house, and Bob, having a rough idea what he was looking for, spots the azalea bed. The two of them step out into the Realm in the middle of the yard and take a step towards the flower bed when Freya spots someone running from the small playground down the driveway. Bob takes off it pursuit straight away - Freya takes a second and sees that the figure is probably adult sized rather than a child and then also runs after them. The figure has made it about 1/2 way down the driveway when Bob reaches them. As Bob leaps up to knock them down, they twist slightly backwards and bright light erupts from their hand, but Freya and Bob manage to close or avert their eyes and don't get dazzled. The figure slams to the ground and swears in a female voice as stuff goes flying from her hand to skitter along the concrete tracks of the driveway. While Bob and the woman slap scramble about, Freya changes form into lupus in the darkness - only to have car lights sweep above her right where her crinos form would have stood a second later. She heads down and investigates the objects - one is a camera, explaining the bright light, and the other is a white stick, a bit like those used by blind people - but looking carefully reveals a thermometer on the end. Cole starts his car and drives a bit faster than ideal towards the scene.

The woman breaks free from Bob's gentle ministrations, grabs the camera, and makes a break out across the road for a car. Freya and Bob give chase, but the woman tries to hit Freya with the door as Freya tries to slam her into the car. Bob also tries to tackle the woman and stop her getting into the car. Freya grabs her jacket but it just tears. The woman leaps mostly into her car, and Freya makes an effort to stop her by bodyslamming. There is a distinct snap sound and the woman screams loudly, pulling her now broken left arm back into the car. Lights come on in the street, especially the house where the car has just pulled in. As the woman tries to pull the door shut with her arm, Bob leaps into the car, and unfortunately uses that arm as a foothold. Her arm shifts and the bones tear out her forearm, spattering blood all over the road and surrounds. Fuck, think the pair - Bob is sitting on the now unconscious woman's lap and uses his healing fetish to try and mitigate some of the damage, while Freya crouches behind the car door and flips straight to homid. The woman is shoved over into the passenger seat (well), and Freya leaps in and drives off.

They meet Cole in the car park of Shepard's Bush Park. They ransack the unconscious woman's wallet and car. Her name is apparently Michaela Thomas, and she lives in St Kilda somewhere. She has a credit card and a bank account at the ANZ, and... oh bum. She's a journalist. She has a press card and a bunch of business cards from various people working at The Age and other publications. She doesn't appear to be a photographer, just have a camera. Oh, and a load of film in her bag. She has some notes on the missing kids, certainly more than has been released to the public, and with a bit of detail on Elana. Hoorah. There's a lot of discussion about what to do with the camera and the film within it - it looks like she's only taken 2 photos on the current roll, but some of the others in her bag might be used (they're all out of packaging). Cole tries to get rid of his fingerprints with an oily rag from Michaela's boot. She starts to stir and Cole grabs her camera and starts to run for his car, but Freya objects and they stop to quickly discuss it - only to see Michaela getting out of her car and blurrily staring at them and trying to yell. They run for Cole's car and zoom off.

Meanwhile, back at Jeff's house, he's gone to bed, as have his parents. About 30 minutes later, Jeff slips out of bed and creeps out to the kitchen. Abby, who is peeking, alerts the others there might be a problem. Jeff opens the pantry and takes out the cocopops, and starts eating a handful or too, which makes Abby giggle a lot and say that its not as bad as she thought. Jeff puts the cocopops away and creeps to the back door. He opens it, steps out and shuts the door quietly. His face and body shrivels away and he rises straight up in the sky and then heads northwest. "Shit!" is the general feeling from the pack, and Cole puts the pedal down and tries to see if he can get there early enought to try and follow Jeff. Unfortunately its dark in the sky (ragabash moon) and the street lights make it impossible to see anything as small as a 10 year old. Cole makes a call to Gina and manages to pursuade her to take off in the right direction and see what she can see.

Sunday 16

  The pack try and figure out their next step. They really would like Jeff to lead them to the rest of the kids, but he could be out killing more children as they talk about it. The decide to see if they can catch him on the way back. Cole breaks into a Disposals store and spends 10 minutes dedicating a net. Ropes and weights are tied to it in places to make it easier to throw.

Back to Jeff's house and peeking, only to find that sometime in the last couple of hours, he has already come back. Hmm, think the pack, we could grab him now, if we're careful. The first obstacle is the parents - they are sleeping in the room next to Jeff's and both doors are open (its not like they are worried their kid might be kidnapped or anything). Bob wonders if he can summon a spirit of sleep and starts trying to do so in the Umbra, with quite some sucess. The spirit agrees to keep these two asleep if the pack agrees not to wake anyone else up for a week. The pack counter with "anyone human" and the spirit agrees. It is bound into the parent's bed and sense unnatural reveals the slight glimmer of spirit magics about them.

While Abby and Bob go outside the house and move to step sideways outside a convenient window, Cole peeks and watches and Freya waits, Krieg steps sideways. Using his martial art goodness, he sneaks up to Jeff's bed and attempts to knock Jeff out with a single blow. This doesn't seem to work, but it does cause Jeff to shrink and zombify. Cole relates this and he and Freya leap through the Gauntlet, while Kreig tries to punch Jeff again. However, Jeff shoots up and flies across the roof, avoiding being captured. Kreig leps for him as Freya and Cole appear, and there is a bit of a minties moment as Kreig and Freya get in each other's way and Jeff flees out into the lounge. Cole throws the net on the bed, the time lag in the gauntlet left him a little behind events. Krieg gives chase while Cole jumps back into the Umbra and flips to lupus, hoping to take the highroad and cut them off.

Freya has the presence of mind to grab the net and take off after Krieg. Jeff pauses in the lounge as Krieg comes a-runnin' up, and seems to assess the situation. He wheels in midair and smashes through one of the lounge windows and out into the open air. Krieg, with great presence of mind, and no self-preservation leaps straight out the window after him, and amazingly manages to snag one of Jeff's feet in mid air, swinging about the place as Jeff stops suddenly. Kreig changes to crinos to try and weight Jeff down, but Jeff starts biting and snapping at him with his nasty, sharp, pointy teeth. Meanwhile Freya is heading for the backdoor when there is a cold wind across her back - she glances back and sees the somewhat woozy looking father with a baseball bat, readying to have another shot. She puts the pedal to the metal and moves to and out the back door while Jeff's dad is still recovering from his first swing.

Kreig is being shredded by Jeff when Abby and Bob appear a mere step or two away. Jeff tries to leap away, but Abby leaps up and grapples him in mid-air. Jeff's dad happens to glance out the window as he sees his son going past the 12' high window, only to be replaced by a giant wolf thing. He has a little lie down. Bob heals Kreig, who is nearly dead, and then watches as Kreig leaps into the battle again. Freya flings the net over both Abby and Jeff while Krieg grabs Abby's legs and tries to pull her down out of the sky. Abby has Jeff's head in a firm, but no damaging grip with her jaws, but he is not showing any signs of recalcitrant behaviour. In fact, Jeff starts shoving his head back and forth in Abby's mouth, causing chunks of flesh to shred off. Abby is frantically wanting to crush Jeff and cut their losses, but the others still want to capture him. Jeff is now starting to grind off bone chips from his own skull - there is no blood, but Abby can taste fomor dandruff and some of the material is scattering all over the chewed up ground. She decides "sod it" and crunches down on Jeff's skull just as he pulls free - she smashes off a good third of the back of his head, but Jeff is still biting and scratching her. Figuring she may as well let go, she drops, and all four of the Garou haul on the net, and try to pull Jeff to the ground. Bob is using his mouth and loses his grip on the ropes, burning his mouth. Jeff wraps himself in the net, trying to pull it from their grip, but just tangles himself. Freya glances left and sees that she could try and tie the rope to Jeff's house, and starts doing so, while the others hold on and stop Jeff from getting away.

   With a bit more messing about, a lot of hissing from Jeff, and Cole's appearance, the Garou manage to pin him in the net and get him away towards the caern via a circuituous route. Some folks stay and watch the arrival of the constabulary. At first a few uniformed cops show, and they take a quick look, and get the two parents out while trying not to touch anything. They make some fairly frenzied calls and soon a whole cavalcade of police arrive.

Members of the pack watch as the police take in the gobbets, smashed window, and so on, and then get to taking samples and measurements of everything. They have blood and fibres from the broken window, gobbets of flesh from who knows, hair, footprint casts, bits of bone chips, blood stains on the concrete and so much more that they will definately be busy for a long time. Oh, and they found the temperature thingie from Elana's house and are now going around and digging up the kid bodies. Whacko. Some of the Garou go and get some sleep. Jeff is delivered to the caern, where a sleepy Emma says that it will be a day or so before she is able to finish her preparations.

About 6am, watching pack members see the police tow a car into the court where Jeff lived and bring some sniffer dogs to it. It looks familiar. Oh yeah, its the journalists. The dogs are then led out the back, where they sniff around for a bit and then start barking excitedly as they run up the steps and along the corridor, traitorous canines that they are.

About 9am, Cole gets a knock on his door and some rumpled looking policemen ask him to come and answer some questions. He does so, and is kept waiting for hours before being interviewed by Patrick Faithful, who is a federal detective. Someone sighs and says he was around the site earlier, but they didn't recognise the name. Cole does - its one of the two gentlemen who interviewed him after the baby business. They don't ask any specific questions, but ask why he was in Glen Waverley last night, and in such a hurry. Basically it seems to be one big "we're watching you" exercise.

While this is going on, the people listening to the police radios hear two interesting items: one, a homeless guy has been found badly mauled on the bank of Merri creek, covered in weird bites, and there are some veiled references to the 'other buried treasure' that was found last night having the same sorts of bites. And two, there is some discussion by one of the senior detectives, being told that the police have detained a live kid they found last night whilst looking for the buried dead ones. There is some confusion about what happened there - some reports mention multiple children, but they've only detained one. The pack check it out after Bob goes to see Elaine RDI and borrow a fetish off her to make it easier to get through the spiders. Its a fetish pass-card and works a charm; the spiders ignore the pack completely.

The child in question is Phillip Hicks, and his parents (looking very hung over) are Robert and Anne. Phillip was at Chris Tan's house, with his unburied body, and he seems like a grubby little kid. Looking over people's shoulders, the Garou can see that a his parents have both got community service for domestic disputes previously, and theorise this is how the bane got a hold of Phillip, if that is what he is. Phillip seems perfectly normal. The police and the child psychologist ask him some careful questions about what he remembers from last night. Phillip says that he's not sure - he went to sleep early and then the next thing he remembers good is the policemens (sic). He does sort of remember a tall lady, with really dark hair, who spoke funny. The police ask if he knows anyone else who spoke funny like that, maybe on tv, and Phillip says that she sounded like Jimoein. The pack grind their Umbral teeth, as this description matches Freya quite well, but she wasn't there - makes it sound like Phillip is deliberately setting her up.

The police advise his parents that they want to hold Phillip in protective custody in a nearby hotel - they agree, and ask if they could stay with him. There's a bit of humming and harring, and the police says that for tonight, it'll just be Phillip, and they'll see what they can arrange on Monday. The pack sigh and wonder how to get him.

While they are here, someone checks to see where all the samples taken today went. Some of the ones that require analysis have gone to the VIFM in South Melbourne or to the Walter Eisner institute, but some of the others have been stored here at Russell St, and for others, experts are being called to look at them (especially the footprints).

   The Claws of Wisdom are still hanging around the Russell street police station discussing (arguing) what to do with the huge mountain of evidence that the police gathered from Jeff's house. Some of the pack don't want to break the veil by messing with the evidence but the others think that the evidence the police have is far more veil breaking and that a trade-off has to be made.

The most popular idea of the moment is to step into the room where the evidence is kept and either contaminate or replace the blood samples and the hair. There is talk of either tampering with the video cameras, becoming invisible using Phoebe's Veil or even stopping time so that the evidence can be manipulated. However, the wise pack-leader Freya decides that perhaps the pack should consult the elders on this one as its a bit out of their league. Everyone agrees that perhaps that's the best option.

Freya sets off to talk to the elders, whilst she goes there is still talk of creating fire in the evidence room, setting up the guard and shock horror... blowing the place up. The rest of the pack decide to watch Philip at a nearby hotel. The only problem is that 98% of the hotel doesn't exist in the Umbra, the only bit that is there is the skeletal outer matrix of the building which seems a bit unstable and gently sways in the breeze. It is decided that Cole will climb it.

After one unsuccessful attempt at climbing the umbral "building" (which results in Bob winning a bet and Cole getting a sore butt), he does manage to scale it onto the 8th floor where Philip is eating and playing playstation and being minded by some policemen. Kreig joins Cole up the "building" so that he doesn't get calcified by spiders whilst he is peeking. There is various discussion of stepping into the building, however this is dissuaded by a reminder that god knows where you'd end up if you did step. So Cole just has to attempt to be patient and watch Philip until something happens.

Meanwhile at the Sept, Cossack and Graeme give Freya a hard time about screwing things up royally. Freya is apologetic and understands their criticism as it was a pretty big fuck up. Eventually Freya is able to ask what the pack should do about all the evidence at Russell street, the elders quite firmly say that the Claws of Wisdom shouldn't go near Russell street as they may mess it up more and should instead concentrate on finding the other kids and dealing with the one they captured. Freya agrees that this would probably be a better option, but expresses the fact that really the pack is at a loss of how to find the other kids, especially Rachael, as questing stone shows nothing. Emma says that later on she will attempt to get the thing inside Jeff to talk so that they may be able to track Rachael down and expresses the need for some of the pack to assist her in this.

At some point Merlin is summoned to see if he could track Rachael down, he wasn't sure (whingeing from Cole) but said he'd give it a go (lots of talk of aeroplane engines from Cole). He would require a donation of strength from the pack, as to search he would need to be within the Realm.

Meanwhile the rest of the pack are hanging around the hotel waiting for Philip to do something, however he is unobliging and prefers to watch tv and eat. Freya lets them know what happened with the Elders and that Emma is going to talk to Jeff and will need some help. It is decided that Cole and Krieg would remain at the hotel and Freya, Abbey and Bob would go help Emma as they were the ones with the most spiritual/magical gifts and experience.

When Emma calls they head off to the Caern. Emma has decided that she will bind the creature into another small realm within this one so that it can be contained. For this to occur she requires gnosis from the pack members. She does the rite and an opaque bubble forms around them (Freya, Abbey, Bob, Emma, Merlin and Jeff). Weirdly, Krieg and Cole find themselves cut off from the pack mental link. Once the bubble was formed, Emma asks the pack to kill Jeff, which they do with some gusto. The pack reduce Jeff to small pieces. Once he is a dead, a dark cloud starts to appear within the Umbral bubble, and Emma and the pack quickly bind the spirit.

The cloud finally resolves into a dark patch, with nasty sharp pointy teeth emerging to speak when it communicates. The pack ask various questions, which Emma sometimes has to force an answer to. The pack ask what it is, and the spirit communicates a sense of extreme hunger, a total desire to consume, but it has no name - it apparently comes from the Deep Umbra (very unusual) and names aren't applicable. However, it knows which thing they regard as 'Rachael' and says that Rachael called it here. It came because it was hungry and Rachael managed to convey a thing here that was very attractive to its hunger. The pack assume that this is gnosis for the moment. They ask how many others there are, and it says that 7 remain. It won't tell them where to find Rachael, and it is forced to admit it doesn't know. They go back to why it came when Rachael called it, and it says that there is something within them (but not in Emma) which calls to it. They ask what it is, and the bane says it is nothing, as if nothing was a palpable something. It doesn't know what this thing is, or what it means, just that it hungers for it. They ask if the spirit posesses the children or if it merges, and they gather that its a merger - the spirit continues to consume the spirit of the child from within, and unless it is fed, it will consume itself. It eats life, or something equivilent. The bane keeps repeating "I'm hungry". Abbey gets a bit annoyed at it and threatens it when it doesn't answer the questions properly, it doesn't care. Eventually they twat it, and it dies, possibly permanently.

They talked to Merlin and he said that now he'd seen the bane and had contact with it that he could probably find Rachael for them, or at least sense where the spirits are. Merlin also confirmed that he knew what the bane was talking about, but that the nature of his perceiving is in what he is. When he came to tell the pack that Blood Claw were trapped in the Gauntlet at Grinding Stone (last year), that in itself was his perception of the thing which the bane spoke of. Being a spirit and all it entails means that there is no gap between what he does and what he knows: he does not know something and therefore act according to that knowledge, but responds like water flowing down a hull. However, this is not universal and identical for all spirits. The nature of the perception for the bane from the Deep Umbra was apparently a desire for and attraction to the quality. All very deep and spiritual. There is some speculation whether the quality was related to the mental link, and their meditations to listen to the land, but it is all a bit ephemeral.

Its getting late and they've had a big day - some folks watch Hicks, others get some sleep.

Monday 17

Starting early, the pack decide to try and track down the other fomori which the bane told them about. First of all they try questing stone, with no luck. They then decide to try it on Phillip Hicks to see if it can find him as he is definitely in human form, however alas it comes up with nothing.

So there is much discussion on how they are going to find the children and they eventually decide to go around to each of the schools where the kids disappeared from and look at all the class lists to see if any of the names match. They split up into groups and do this. It takes bloody forever and although they find some of the names on the lists a quick questing stone reveals that they are just coincidences as in each case the stone gives them the location of the child. Meanwhile Phillip Hicks is being watched by Cole and Joker, he still isnt doing anything interesting, his parents have rocked up and are staying in another room down the hall.

The pack decide to keep checking a couple of the schools using the class lists, however by this time its darkish and most of the schools have motion detectors - its more effort than its worth to cut around them, so they give it up for a night, and hope that Merlin has some luck overnight.

Tuesday 18

The pack split up and cover the rest of the schools. There's no luck - it looks like Jeff was a glitch in the system, and all the other kids that are hunting are from places other than the school they are hunting at.

Abbey gets frustrated with the lack of success and the time its taking to get absolutely nowhere. She remembers the talens they were given in Sydney to track down the Black Spiral Dancers and wonders if they could possibly make something similar that could track down these particular fomori. They think about it for a bit and decide that it would be possible but they have to work out what kind of spirit they need. They spend a bit of time discussing the types of spirits that could work, weaver spirits, wind spirits and birds spirits all crack a mention. With the help of their fabulous knowledge of spirit lore they finally decide that a bird of prey spirit would be perfect.

They call up Healesville to find out what sorts of Birds would be in the area and decide that a Kestral spirit would be reasonable. They then discuss what they could offer it for being bound, they decide on offering to plant its favoured nesting trees to revegetate the area, as well as working at Healesville with the Birds of Prey. Bob expertly summons the spirit and makes a deal, the Kestrel is a little unhappy about being bound into the plastic compass because its man-made object but is cool with it in the end. The binding works well.

After much perusing the map, the Claws of Wisdom decide to start somewhere equidistant between some of the schools and near where the guy was attacked on Saturday night, which ends up being near Fairfield. They activate the talen which gives them a vaguely easterly direction, so they drive to Kew and do it again, it then gave them a south-western direction. There is a certain amount of head scratching and consulting maps. The talens only have approximately 4 charges in them so the pack decide to split up with one group staying in the first location and the other going to sort of a Richmond area. They then use both talens at once to hone in on the location. Although both bindings fray and the spirits are freed, it gives them a rough triangulation around Hawthornish. The pack then go in that direction and hunt around the neighbourhood.

They have been looking for about 30 minutes when Merlin reports that he has sensed a similiar alien-wyrm sense to that of the Banes amidst some darkened, but heavily weaver area. By following his directions, the pack end up in a sort of office/warehouse area. They decide to scout from the Umbra - although the area is strongly weaver, the spiders are quiescent at night.

The pack find the appropriate building, which is an unoccupied (for lease) office building. A quick peek reveals six fomori children, including Rachel. The children are all sitting around playing with toys (including hungry hippos) that are scattered around the room. Rachel however is sitting on a chair watching them. The office building looks like it was built during a building boom and was quickly abandoned during a recession. At one stage it looks like there was a fire inside. The pack search around and find the kids had most likely broken into the building through a bathroom window.

The Claws of Wisdom sit in the Umbra and decide what the hell they should do. Obviously, being the Claws of ignit..err Wisdom two of the first suggestions made included the words fire and explosives. However they decide that would perhaps be a bit too stereotyped and instead decide to call in the assistance of another pack from the Sept given the trouble they had containing Jeff. So Freya calls up the Sept and gets Nadine on the phone (fairly unusual). They chat, and Nadine says that Kirsty is here and might be able to help - she seems up for it, and Nadine promises that the Get of Pennington will be there soon. There is some talk about tooling up, but given the brooha recently, Nadine says to not use firearms unless they absolutely have to.

When the Get of Pennington arrive, the kids are still playing in the office building. The Claws of Wisdom explain the sitation and they plan their tactics. Kreig decides he'll create rock against the door into the bathroom so they can't get out that way. Abbey grabs her bow and arrows and they discuss the possibility of dropping down from the ceiling ontop of the kids, however this is impractical seeing as there's not a lot to stand on as there is a fake ceiling which would definitely not hold a Crinos. The Garou decide to pair up so that every two werewolves will take on one child. Kirsty pairs up with Bob, Krieg, Bob and Carmel on Rachael, Freya with Ken, Abby with Barry and Marcus with Chris. There's enough room that they can all touch and step as once in place behind the kids.

Wednesday 19

   The pack leap out of the Umbra and catch the kids almost entirely by surprise. Within a few seconds, half of the kids are already destroyed. However, the Garou are somewhat depleted themselves, and the injured fallback to allow their healthier and more rageful packmates space to attack. Rachael falls to the claws of three Garou, and in an amount of time that the pack have no right to expect given how their previous battles with the floating fomori children have gone, their wyrmspawn are all dead and bits are still hitting the ground.

The Get of Pennington check that everyone's ok, and then head back to the caern while the Claws of Wisdom clean up. They roll all the goopey, boney bits in the carpet and take the carpet to a nearby factory's industrial furnace and after lots of random button pressing they manage to burn the evidence. They also wipe the brains and blood off the walls and windows with some bleach and also wipe all the finger prints off the door handles and other surfaces. Its a couple of hours before dawn and the tired pack head back to the caern. They are half way there when Freya remembers about Phillip Hicks and they all run to the hotel. Apparently there was an 'incident' - Phillip killed both his parents before being 'subdued' by the two police officers. Between observing at the police station and looking at the hotel room, the pack piece together that about the time they attacked Rachael, Phillip changed and went nuts. Judging from the bullet hole heights along the corridor, he was probably flying at the time. Apparently the two officers are on indefinate leave. They quickly check the morgue, but it appears Phillip reverted to humaniform on death, so that's not too bad. They note the details and head back to the caern to talk to the Elders.

Although Cossack is glad to hear that things are cleared up, he is clearly unimpressed at the mess that has been made, and suggests that they go out to Rippling Waters for a few days, if they can manage it. When the pack start to make noises about being busy, his face says that it wasn't really a suggestion. Cole says that if the federal police are watching him, he really shouldn't leave, and Cossack agrees. Krieg says that he has classes to teach, and if misses them, it will be more noticable still. Freya points out that her packmate lives in the same place as he works, so as long as he stays in, it should be ok. Cossack grudgingly agrees, and says that they can moonbridge down to Rippling Waters if they want - he has spoken to Bret and he is amenable to their attendance.

The pack pack up (haha) and leave their lives on hold, heading down the coast to Tower Hill.

Thursday 20 - Tuesday 25

The majority of Claws of Wisdom spend a relatively calm period in Victoria's Western plains. Abby visits her family, as does Freya (along with Jordan, and on the weekend, Brad). They sort of help the Sept out a bit, and renew friendships, but also do tourist things as well. Kreig visits for a while, but Cole remains in Melbourne the whole time (Cole only)

On Tuesday, they receive a message from Cossack asking them to return. They do with a bit of trepidation, but he doesn't have red hot irons or anything. He does, however, have a job for them - the Sept was forced to ask for assistance in messing with the evidence left after the incident in Glen Waverley, and one of the people who helped was Ion. The Sept owes him a favour or two, and he has asked for the Claws to fulfil part of it. Cossack adds that he hopes that they will fulfil the task Ion has for them in a way that reflects well on the Sept.

With some trepidation, the pack head there, mentally asking for Cole to join them. He says that he can't - his girlfriend, Siobhan is in hospital. Although there is some brief disbelief, it turns out that he is serious. She didn't wake up this morning and seems to be in some sort of coma. The pack send their condolences and offer to come and help when they can.

The pack drive on over to Ion's lush Toorak mansion and when they pull up they see a car in the driveway being loaded with luggage. Ion comes out and seems glad to see them. After exchanging some pleasantries, Ion says that he is going on a holiday, and wants them to clean his house. Spotlessly. There is a bit of teeth gritting, and he shows them around, explaining what he would like done. Once he has gone around the house, Ion says there is one more thing - they are not to change form, or use any of the gifts granted to them as Garou, but instead should approach this task with humility. Perhaps they will gain a better grasp of their special natures and responsibilities. There is a bit more gritting of teeth, but Freya nods and the others don't object (although they are suddenly glad Cole is not here). She asks if there is going to be anyone else here, and Ion says that he has given his staff a holiday also, but that there will be some people housesitting, and he expects that the Claws of Wisdom will be able to fulfil their chiminage despite that. Freya asks who is staying, at which point a screeching of tires is heard out the front. A quick glance out the window reveals Steel Hunters, Scott boisterously at the lead, coming in and rampaging through the house squabbling over who gets which room. Abby smiles a bit forcedly, and offers them all a bear.

Wednesday 26 - Sunday 30

Over the next 6 days, the pack's temper and resolve is repeatedly challenged. Steel Hunters certainly don't cut them any slack - pool parties, general mayhem and one small fire are just a small part of the antics that the Glasswalker pack get up to.

Despite the many temptations, and the waxing moon, the Claws of Wisdom manage to keep their cool, and to stay in their homid forms. They also manage to find enough time to slip away to the hospital where Siobhan is being observed. The doctors are baffled - its like the higher brain functions have just turned off. There's no physical damage, so Mother's Touch isn't going to help. The pack remember that there has been some weirdness with Siobhan before, so Kreig tries Scent of the True form at some point, but he does not sense anything about her. None of their other gifts register anything out of the usual, but Questing Stone behaves very differently to normal. They test other coma patients, but they don't have the same problems. All very strange.