The pack suddently wake up. It's dawn, they're all a bit damp and cold so they wander back to the house. Bart is cooking them breakfast when they arrive. They sit down to eat and Bart tells them that there is only one spirit that he knows of that could be described as an avatar of Gaia, and its a spirit they are familiar with. The pack scratch their head and Bartholomew says that its the caern totem from the disputed caern at Lake Eyre. The pack think hard and Bob suddenly says 'the tree thing' - Bob reminds people that they went to a caern where the Red Talons and Get of Fenris don't agree on whose caern it was, and there was a Nexus Crawler and stuff. Bart nods, and suggests that they should maybe go to the main Flinders Caern at St Mary's Peak and talk to Carla, the Get Jindabyne Councellor, rather than straight to the caern, where they would probably have no joy. The pack sigh and prepare for a long car trip.
[emma's version, cos she mispelt things on purpose :)]
Look.
What?
A brown hill.
Oh.
The pack stop the night in Broken Hill for the night. Everything goes normally except Krieg ends up in a brawl in a pub.
After hours and hours of driving they finally arrive at the Flinders Ranges. They have to pull over and walk the rest of the way to get to the sept. They leave the car at Wilamena Pound, an exclusive health resort and begin walking towards the Caern. After a while they step into the Umbra so they can do the 'Hello' howl. They sit around in the umbra and wait for a reply. The area is all short and scrubby in the umbra and the mountains are more intense than in the realm. After a few minutes the howl is returned and a bunch of garou come barrelling up the gorge. When they get closer they all change to Crinos, except for the one in front who changes to Homid. He comes a bit closer and challenges the Claws of Wisdom, saying they're trespassing. They're quite hostile and Freya tries to explain the situation without provoking them futher. The unnamed pack ask Freya if Carla knows they're coming, Freya replies that she doesn't. The pack tell the Claws of Wisdom to stay put and not to move or they'll be killed and most of them run off up the gorge, leaving a few of the Crinos to guard the pack. Everyone sits down and waits. The guards arn't overly hostile. Luckily someoine had the forethought to make Cole wait in the car.
After about 30 minutes someone else shows up. Kreig knows him vaguely. It's Geoffrey the Caern Warden, Freya introduces the pack and tells the tale. Geoffrey listens and then tells the pack to follow him. He leads them into the gorge and tells us to wait by some rocks. He wanders off and after a few minutes Carla turns up and invites the pack to sit down. She asks what she can help with, and is generally much less confronting than the rest of the Garou here. Freya explains the situation again and mentions that Bartholomew thought that she might be able to help. Carla nods and says that she would like to help but is not in a position to simply let the Claws of Wisdom into the Caern as it is still disputed by the Red Talons. She goes on to say however, that if the matter of the Caern ownership was resolved.... she might be able to help them visit the Caern spirit. The Claws of Wisdom look rather taken aback by this and express their suprise at being asked to help in this rather delicate and ongoing matter.
Carla says that she might be will to accespt the pack as mediators in discussions between the Red Talons and the Get. Freya is hesitant and asks if they couldn't get one pack from each tribe to take over the Caern. Carla says that this is unlikely based on past attempts at reconcilliation. Abby asks why the Caern is in dispute in the first place. Carla explanes that the Red Talons captured it from the Bunyip, but after the protectorates were established, it was part of the Get of Fenris Territory. The Red Talons refused to relinquish the caern.
The pack are still unsure why they would be appropriate - Carla says that they are known to both herself and to Mamu, and that their ongoing interactions with the bunyip lend them a certain amount of spiritual signifigance - of course, that may work against them when it comes to the Red Talons, given they started the War of Tears. Abby scratches her head because she thinks a Fianna started it. When people are still a little unsure, Carla suggests that if the negotiations were favourable, she would also support them in an issue on the Jindabyne Council that does affect the Get. The pack mentally make bemused noises over the link at the obvious bribery.
Freya suggests meeting at the caern tomorrow. Carla is a bit bemused by this rush; she says that there is one slight formality to be taken care of. She couldn't simply offer them up on behalf of the Get without testing them to see if they are fit. Carla says that the pack will first have to demonstrate their competency by fulfuiling a short test. The pack prepare themselves to be thrown into some sort of disgusting Wyrm pit. Carla says that she wants to know why Huros Bathes-in-Blood of the Grinding Stone Sept killed Hans Dieter, another Get of Fenris at Grinding Stone. Carla explains that Hans was killed earlier this year and she is concerned that the matter is causing some dissent amongst the Get at the Sept. She cannot interfere directly, because it is not a Fenris sept per se. She suggests that as outsiders who are familiar with the Sept, and friends with Malajimbarra, they may be able to find out the reasons. The pack agree, and Carla suggests starting with Blood Claw, the pack that the Claws of Wisdom rescued from the gauntlet last year (while finding the caern that became Scars Atoned).
Carla wishes the pack luck and gets someone to open a moonbridge so they don't have to drive all the way back to Victoria. The pack give her strict instructions to look after the car as it doesn't really belong to them (oh yeah, and get Cole from the car). She assures them it will be safe. The Gatekeeper opens a moonbridge and the pack are beamed down to Grinding Stone, arriving face to face with Anastasia Evenhand, Malajimbarra and [gulp] Huros. Freya greets them and says that they're here to see Blood Claw. The pack is pointed in the vague direction of the pack. As they're wandering off they notice that Anastasia seems very distant from the other two sept elders and when invited to hang out with them declines and walks off on her own. Odd.
The pack walk up and down some hills, eventually finding sitting around on a rock platform that overlooks a lot of the national park. Blood Claw ask what The Claws of Wisdom want, Abby reminds them of the favor that they happen to owe the pack. Blood Claw look skeptical.. yessss? Freya explains that they need some sensitive information. Blood Claw are impatient and tell the pack to get to the point. Abby takes over and tells them that they want to know why Huros killed Hans. Mark, Blood Claw's packleader says that he's not in the habit of discussing sept matters with outsiders. After a bit of mental discussion about how the honourable way out here for Blood Claw, caught between the mutual obligations of a favour owed due to past actions of the protagonists and the tightly woven loyalty that a pack of Garou often have towards the social organisation that is a Sept is to have their arms torn off, Freya challenges them. They choose unarmed combat, two against two. Kreig and Freya stand forward to fight. They're fighting Mark and Giovanni, they decide to be in Glabro form (to even up the healingness) but are not allowed to use any gifts. After lots of punching and blocking, Giovanni falls over knocked out cold by Freya, and then Freya joins the slugfest around Mark and Krieg. Eventually Mark gets enough of his face kicked in to surrender, which Claws of Wisdom wisely accept.
Once Mark is can speak again, Freya reasks the question. Blood Claw say that they don't exactly know. The Get explain that at the sometime around the end of March Huros definately killed Hans. There was no witnesses but Huros claimed that Hans was a traitor trying to undermine the sept for his own gain. Truth of Gaia said that Huros was telling the truth, but obviously he wasn't telling all of it. The sept elders weren't exactly satisfied, but although Huros was asked more questions, they didn't challenge him. The Heralds of War were definately pissed - although they really didn't like him that much, they couldn't exactly approve of a random killing of a packmate. Blood Claw themselves aren't happy about Get killing Get in such a way. Even Gaia's Rage, the Black Fury pack, has reacted to the situation - they don't hang with anyone at the Sept any more, and keep pretty much to themselves in the north west part of the park. Mark things that Sveta put the hard word on Penny about things and got her to agitate on behalf of the Heralds of War (both Sveta and Penny are Shadowlords, although Penny is in the pack of Black Furies). The Claws of Wisdom put that info together with Anastasia's behaviour and ruminate. The Claws of Wisdom decide to go and talk to Malajimbarra as he has helped them in the past. They thank Blood Claw and wander back down the hill.
They find Malajimbarra and ask if they can talk to him about the killing. He's a bit hesitant until Freya explains the whole story, including being asked to look into things by Carla (I dunno, maybe he was worried about Huros slaughtering the nosy Fianna or something). Malajimbarra takes the pack for a walk into the picnic ground and asks them what Mark said. Freya tells him. Malajimbarra explains that the sept elders decided not to push Huros at the time because they were worried it would cause a severe fragmentation in the Sept - they thought Blood Claw would side with Huros, and so on. Grinding Stone is a heavily tribally oriented Sept. However, things have been going on for 6 months and some packs have hardly been seen since after it happened, so perhaps that was the wrong decision.
Abby asks if they have talked to the spirits in the area which may have seen something. Malajimbarra says he hasn't because to do so would have been seen as a challenge to Huros's authority at the time - things were balanced on a knife edge for a week or so. Bob wants to ask a memory spirit, however they always demand a high price for information. Jumps-in-Puddles and Abby suggest bird spirits maybe? Malajimbarra thinks for a minute and then says that while a single spirit will have forgotten what happened then, perhaps an Animal Father (one of the uberspirits of a particular type of animal spirit) might be able to coax a collective impression out of them. He suggests Wattle Bird, as there are a lot of wattle birds in the area. Malajimbarra leads the pack to a path near the creek - its just a common pathway through the bawn, so Huros and Hans weren't meeting anywhere special. Malajimbarra begins a summoning ritual.
After a couple of hours a very unremarkable wattlebird rocks up. Malajimbarra explains that they need to know something that its children may have seen last autumn. The Incarna says it will ask and over the next couple of minutes the area is swarmed with wattlebirds. They're eveywhere.. taking up every branch of every tree, making a whole lot of noise. Cole is covering his head, worried about being shat on. The birds suddenly go quiet and stare at their totem. After a while the spirit says that last autum one came from Anakie (nearby town) and one from the sept. The one from Anakie was killed by the one from the sept. The pack ask about other bits and pieces - Abby asks if any spirits were around but left, and they say that a spirit tied to the dead one left. It was a spirit of anger. Kreig says that Hans had a lot of tattoos, and might have had a tattoo fetish to give him more anger - the Incarna says that his children probably would have noticed if it was a Wyrm spirit (so that probably rules out a wyrm tainted Hans as being the reason he was killed). Wattlebird says that when they came here, the one from the Sept was mostly angry, but a little bit scared, while the one from the town was not particularly emotional. The one from the town became angrier and the one from the town got quite scared, and then they fought.
Malajimbarra and the Claws of Wisdom thank the birds for the information and the birds leave. The Claws of Wisdom decide to find the pack Gaia's Rage so that they can see Penny - Malajimbarra gives them vague directions. They're wandering through the Caern for a while howling to see if they can find them. There is a return howl and after a bit Athena Tirebass, the pack leader comes to meet them away from the rest of her pack. Freya asks if they can talk and asks about Hans and Huros. Athena shrugs and says that its an internal Get matter, why would they care what the macho morons with claws do? Freya asks if she can speak to Penny, and Athena shrugs and calls Penelope over. Freya (activating Truth of Gaia) asks about Hans and Penny shrugs. Freya says that someone suggested the Sveta put the hard word on her and that's why Gaia's Rage haven't been part of the Sept. Penny looks unimpressed and says that while she respects Sveta's abilities as a Garou there is no love lost between them. She can tell them she thinks that Sveta was going to challenge Huros over the incident and Ivana Howls-the-Storm, the master of the challenge, stopped her. Penny speculates that she thinks Sveta was just using that as an excuse while the sept was in a bit of turmoil though, because she wants to be a caern elder and have more political power. None of what Penny said rings particular true or false to Freya, but it seems internally self-consistent at least.
The pack finish talking to Penny quite late at night and decide to drive home to the cemetry as it's only an hour and a half away. When they get home, Cole gets Winston to do an internet search to see if they can find out which white supremecy group Hans was a member of. While Winston is busy doing that, the pack start to discuss how they might be able to find any more useful information about Hans and Huros - nothing seems to evident from what they know now. They conclude that the best people to talk to at the moment would probably be their sept elders as they might know some of the history behind this whole saga.
After they grab something to eat, the Claws of Wisdom mosey on down to the sept to talk to Cossack and Graeme. Cossack welcomes them back and listens to their questions. It seems that Cossack knows quite a bit about Huros, probably because he's been around so long. He tells the pack that Huros was originally from Definance to the Wyrm - the Get sept where the pack had been to see Carla. More interestingly, he was actually a pack mate with Carla in the beginning.
When that pack broke up, Carla became a sept elder at Defiance to the Wyrm and Huros went on to become the Caern Warder at Grinding Stone. Someone hypothesises that maybe Huros became Caern Warder at Grinding stone to compete with Carla, as it is unusual for an Ahroun to have that position. He just turned up one day at Grinding Stone and challenged for the position - this isn't too unusual for a Get, but the Fianna in Claws of Wisdom are a bit surprised. However, Huros has been Caern Warder for about 10 years and has done well during that time. Abby says she understands that Carla can't talk to him on one level as she can't interfere in Sept matters, however why can't she talk to him as a friend? Who knows - maybe they didn't seperate on good terms?
Bob asks what else had happened at Grinding Stone before the killing? Graeme thinks back and says he thinks that another Sept member died about two months before that - Rakes-The-Earth who was from the Blood Claw pack. The Claws of Wisdom look suprised by this and Cossack is quick to add that Grinding Stone, a caern of War, has a much higher turn over than other septs, so a few people dying in quick sucession isn't too out of the ordinary. He also says that Blood Claw got a new member after that - Eric Koehler , who the pack met today.
The pack wander away to consider everything that they have learnt, and try to work out empiracally why Huros might have killed Hans, and then been so weird about it. They think about the questions - why was Hans trying to undermine the Sept for his own gain? What would Hans gain or benefit from doing this? Who else would have been in a position to benefit from this? Who else would have been able to help Hans undermine the Sept?
Ok, Hans was a rank 1, its not like he could be a Sept elder. Maybe he was working with Sveta - she is a political animal, they know that, and even though Hans was rank 1 and not really able to make his presence felt to the rest of the Sept, he might use any information to help Sveta advance. There has to be some reason that he wasn't in the Get of Fenris pack after all - like Penny, he probably had problems with the rest of his tribe, or really likes the Shadowlords. There was some suggestions that Sveta was planning to challenge one of the Elders soon anyway, and might have been going to use Hans' death as an excuse - maybe Hans found out something that could be of unfair benefit in a challenge?
More questions - Why is Huros not being completely honest? Is he scared of something? He's a rank 4 Get of Fenris Caern Warder, for Gaia's sake, what an earth is he going to be scared of? Its unlikely to be a physical threat, so maybe its something personal? Hmmm. The Get and the other Grinding Stone members are mostly country folk, so it might be something that violates a conservative ethic. Its unlikely to be drugs or anything akin to that - as Caern Warder, he doesn't leave the Bawn and rarely strays even far from the caern centre, so the oppurtunity isn't really there. Skeleton in his closet? It would have to be something bad, like cowardice in battle, or letting a Dancer get away or something. ("Maybe he has a Dancer in his family, eh Kreig?" "Shu'up"). And it would have to be fairly certain that only Hans knows, otherwise there would need to be more deaths.
Maybe Huros is gay? Cossack said earlier that Huros has kids, but isn't too close to them. Not that having children is an absolute vote against that. Maybe its something old? Well, maybe not, because Huros and Carla used to be in the same pack, and anything that happened before Huros came to Grinding Stone would probably be known by Carla. So its more likely to have been something in the last 10 years.
How would something personal undermine the Sept though? The Sept is the community of Garou looking after the caern, and Huros was sworn to defend the caern. Maybe it would be something that would reshuffle the power, or change the balance of tribal people in the Elders? Huros both highly values his honour and the caern, if Hans threatened these things that might make Huros scared. But how could Hans use that to undermine the Sept? Its pointed out that Truth of Gaia tells that what Huros believes to be the truth, not an absolute truth. So maybe Huros regards himself as a quintessential part of the sept, and blackmailing him would be undermining the Sept. Or maybe just changing the balance of power would destabilise things enough to be a threat to the Sept.
It feels a bit speculative, but the pack think that they have highlighted the most likely suspect - Hans discovered something personal, and recent, about Huros that might threaten the balance of power in the Sept. They try and remember stuff about Hans that might give them a place to start. At about 3 in the morning, the ever-patient Winston finally finds some information about Hans for them - he finds photos of a "National Action" event where Hans is in the background (can't miss those tattoos). There are at least two good photos of Hans which Cole prints out. They can try taking them around to Anakie, Meredith and Durdiwarrah (the towns around the caern and bawn of Grinding Stone), and if they can find an 'office', maybe to the white supremecists that Hans hung with too.
On Monday morning, Abby goes to the One Nation office in Anakie and pretends to be a red neck interested in joining the party. She makes a lot of racist statements and the staff get a bit nervous and eventually hustle her out the back to photocopy leaflets. While she's out the back Abby finds an anti-immigration notice on one of the corkboards, it doesn't have a phone number, only a PO box, so she pockets it and goes back to photocopying.
Later on in the morning, Abby goes into the tea room for a cup of coffee and hears a woman (Barbara) complaining loudly about immigration. Abby butts in on her conversation and eventually gets the address and phone number of an anti-immigration group. Abby checks it against the flyer she got from the noticeboard and discovers that they are indeed the same group. The address is in Sunshine. Abby calls the number and asks about meetings, the guy who answers the phone say that they will be meeting on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Cole, Jay and Bob are terrorising Anakie trying to find people who knew Hans. Cole decides to pretend to be an insurance investigator looking for Hans whilst Jay decides to be an old friend. It's lunchtime in Anakie and Jay is in the local pub, he order a steak and chips and strikes up a conversation with the Publican. Jay tells him that he's looking for an old friend of his - Hans. The guy sitting next to Jay at the bar overhears the conversation and butts in, saying he knows who Jay is talking about. He introduces himself as Phil and Jay and Phil move over to a quieter table in the corner. Phil's obviously had a few, but makes no argument as Jay orders more beer.
Phil is an electrician who used to work with a carpenter called Tony. Tony had a girlfriend but thought she was playing around, and he convinced Phil to come with him to help spy on Tony's house one day. Tony pretended he had a job to go to in Meredith, and they drove off, but came back to Anakie and parked about 90 minutes later. About another hour after that, just as Phil was about to say it was time to go, they saw a guy come out of Tony's house. Tony went in and she was a bit worked up - emotional looking. Tony and her started a fight, and Phil made his excuses. Apparently Tony had it out with her about it and the girlfriend ended up leaving town, which really blew Tony away, cos she was pregnant. From the description that Phil gives, the guy sounds like Hans - covered in tattoos and such. Jay asks about the girls name, and Phil says he thinks it was Jane or Janet - she wasn't from Anakie, but lived on a farm somewhere the other side of the National Park or something.
Meanwhile, Cole is bluffing his way around the town pretending to be a lawyer from Levi, Fitzgibbon and Scott. He is telling everyone that he's looking for an heir to a fortune and that heir is Hans. The guy at the milk bar said he'd seen him, but not since Christmas, he tells Cole that he is fairly sure that Hans hangs out with a bunch of hippies in the national park. Cole thanks him and wanders on. After about 2 hours of harassing the locals for information a police car pulls up beside Cole and asks what he's up to. Cole explains and the policeman says that he has actually seen him - on Australia day in Meredith this year, in a bar brawl. Cole thanks the policeman and continues on.
The pack mentally try and fit this to their current theories about Hans and Huros, but decide its insufficient data. Cole and Jay eventually meet up and decide to drive to Meredith as that's where all the leads seem to go. They start asking people again, a few people have seen him and know who they're talking about. No one seems particularly fond of him, the C word is used a number of times in connection with him. They ask around at the pubs and also at the post office. Jay asks at the post office about Hans - the post office guy starts chatting about how his son got beaten up by Hans and how most people in town thought he was a total prick.
Meanwhile Abby has decided to go to the local hairdresser - because if anyone would know the gossip it would be the hairdresser! She goes in to get a hair cut, pretending that she used to live out here and go to the local school (close enough, her family actually come from another 100kms west of here) asking questions about random people. A period of hideous "ohmigawd" and "i knowww" sort of conversation ensues and eventually the subject gets around to 'Tony' - she heard that his girlfriend was pregnant to some other guy, her name was Jane or something? The hairdresser is happy to gossip and says she thinks the girls name was actually something like Joan or Jana. Abby realises she's talking about Jana Jett, one of the Black Furies from the sept.
The troops reunite in Anakie and have a bit of a think. What could Hans have known about Huros' personal life that involved a pregnant Jana? 'Oh bugger' is the mental opinion drawn - what if it was Huros' kid. Bob does questing stone to try and find Jana. The stone points to the national park. The Claws of Wisdom go to the Sept, as the early dusk throws the deep valleys into a velvet twilight. They eventually find Athena and Abby tells her that she wants to have a chat with her as she knows some stuff. Athena is standoffish and wants to know what Abby thinks she knows - Abbys says that she's knows about the pitter-patter of little feet quite close to home. Athena gets pissy straight away and changes to Crinos and asks Abby to leave. Abby quickly does her most persuasive best to not be throated by the cross Rank 3 Fury, and manages to convince her that things can't be hidden forever. Athena changes back and demands of Abby why she wants to know. Abby explains about Carla. Athena doesn't see how anything could be any of Carla's business. Abby says that because Carla is the Jindabyne Council member - there is more staring back and forth. Abby gently asks what happened. Athena says that Jana miscarried. Bob knows that miscarriage is rare except if the child is a metis. Cole asks Athena if Hans is the father, Athena gets instantly defensive and says why would you think that that weedy whiney shit of a man would have anything to do with them. Cole backs off. From behind, the pack hears someone walking up. They turn to look and see Jana walking towards them. She softly tells Athena to leave, Athena is reluctant but Jana insists.
Abby starts talking to Jana and Jana starts crying. Abby asks where the child is and Jana says that she doesn't have a child. Cole keeps muttering about Nazi fucking and Jana changes to Crinos and leaps towards Cole. Cole backs away and apologises. Abby asks him to leave and he does. Jana changes back and Abby explains about Alex and Carla and why they need to know. Abby then goes on to say that she doesn't want to get Jana in trouble and wants to know what Jana would like her to say to Carla. Jana says she would like a day or two to think about it. Abby thanks Jana for talking to her and the pack return to Melbourne.
Figuring they can take a day out to get their shit together, the next day Abby, Jay and Bob are wandering down Lygon street when Bob's keen hearing picks up a strange sound behind them. The pack turns in time to see a buff woman behind them pick up a chair off the footpath and try and attack them with it. Someone recognises her as Kathryn Bess - one of the Black Furies from Jana's pack. The three of them manage to pin her against a wall whilst Abby tries to calm her down. Eventually Kathryn manages to get a hold of herself and they move away from all the curious spectators.
Kathryn apologises and says that she happened to be in Melbourne, and saw them and Jana has left the Sept and no one knows where she is. Abby manages to convey that that wasn't what they meant, and that if someone seemed forced to leave their pack under duress she'd be mad too, but that's not what happened - Jana asked them to give her a day or two. Kathryn accepts this and leaves, apologising once more.
The pack go back to the Sept, and Bob uses Questing Stone to find Jana but gets no response in either realm...interesting, although she could be in another caern or something. The pack are just bumming around the Sept when Joker approaches Freya and informs her that Graham and Ends-the-Quiet want to speak to her. Freya goes over to Graham's house and walks in to find Malajimbarra talking to Graham and Ends-the-Quiet. They greet her and Malajimbarra asks her to shed some light on something for him. He then proceeds to enquire about what exactly happened with Jana and why she left their Sept. Freya says that she will just get the rest of the pack as she wasn't actually there for part of the discussions with Jana. She wanders out the door and pretends to call the rest of the pack on the phone whilst really just yelling at them over the link. They arrive promptly and Freya starts to tell Malajimbarra the story. She delicatly says that Jana was upset about personal problems but that they don't know anything definate. Frankly Freya all but waggles her eyebrows and points at the 'mating' part of the Litany, with comic relief from Cole, but doesn't actually come out and say anything. Malajimbarra seems to accept this explanation and thanks Freya and the pack and leaves.
When he is gone and definatly out of ear-shot Graham turns to the Claws of Wisdom and says "What the fuck?". Hrmm.. No getting anything past him. The pack quickly explain that it's a very sensitive issue and they don't really want to be responsible for spreading it around. Graham tells the pack that they're skating on thin ice. He then says that the pack should relax and hold off for a couple of days before speaking to anyone about the situation. The pack agree.
Cole has to go out and buy new rugs as Quiney got a bit of a thing for rugs with green in them while the pack were away and ate them all. Well at least that was Winston's explanation when asked why some of the rugs were missing and others had bite marks in them. Nothing else of any real interest happened while the pack were away so everyone just catches up on sleep and domestic kind of tasks.
At about 8pm on Wednesday, Freya gets home from the beach with Jordan and goes into the living room. Something feels weird...she has the distinct feeling that theres someone else in there. Sure enough.. Huros is sitting on her couch in the dark. Freya jumps a bit, luckily Jordan went to her bedroom rather than running into the whirling blades of the rank 4 ahroun. Huros says that they should talk, obviously wanting to know what happened to Jana. Freya gives him vague details about their quest to help a friend who is in Harano whilst frantically calling for her packmates over the link. While she waits for everyone to turn up, she explains the whole story (Sydney, Alex, Dreams, faces). Huros doesn't say much and leaves after the story is finished. The rest of the pack arrive about 5 minutes after he left, and Brad shows up a few mins after. Freya assures them she is okay and they all sit down to eat dinner. While Brad is doing the dishes the pack decide to send a wind spirit to Malajimbarra to tell him that Huros is coming back and knows what has happened.
Sometime after dawn there is a tapping at the window in Freya's lounge room where most of the pack crashed. Abby sleepily looks out the window and sees Malajimbarra in the back yard. She wakes the rest of the pack and they all go out. Malajimbarra thanks them for their warning and informs them that things are rather tense at the sept but that they've done the right thing.. It's better that things are out in the open. The pack ask him wether they should go to the Black Fury sept on Kangaroo island to look for Jana but Malajimbarra says that it would probably be best to just wait and see if she turns up.
Near the end of that day, Bob is snoozing in the sun behind Elvis's memorial when Malajimbara suddenly appears beside him and taps him with one foot. Bob's eyes snap open and he leaps to his feet.. Attempting to pretend that he wasn't actually asleep. Malajimbarra tells him to get the rest of the pack. Bob wanders off 'in search of the pack' and summons them over the link. They all arive within 10 minutes or so. Malajimbarra informs them that there have been some developments. The Black Furies at the sept called a sept meeting and threatened to leave unless the Elders were more forthcoming about what has been going on. Commands-the-Waters confronted Huros over it, who has now also left the sept and resigned his sept position. Commands-the-Waters gave Huros an ultimatum and instead of telling her what has been going on, Huros decided to leave. The pack are a bit worried about what they should tell Carla in light of all this. Malljimbarra says that he doesn't think telling her would be detrimental to the Sept. He thanks the pack once again for their help and leaves.
The pack go to Graham's house and fill him and Cossack in on what has happened. They then decide to go back up to Carla's sept to tell her what they found out. A moonbridge gets opened for them and they request a meeting with Carla. Carla turns up and asks the pack what they have done and what they've found out. Freya once more tells a very delicate, edited version of the story to Carla. Carla wants more information. The pack fill her in on what the situation really is. Carla seems impressed by their ability to gather such interesting information and tells the pack that she accepts them as mediators however they still need to convince the Red Talons of the same thing. She tells them to go up to Mamu's sept - The Shattered Wheel sept to speak to Mamu. They can't moonbridge there so they decide to drive in the fourwheel drive to the nearest town - Boulia. They bid farewell to Carla once more and set off on their looooong journey into the heart of Queensland. A whole 12 hours.
The pack have been driving for hours. Everyone is getting rather sick of playing eye-spy..it's not very challenging when you can read other people's thoughts, nor when the only thing you can see is sky and ground. The whole journey from Wilamena pound to Boulia takes 12 hours, they still have about 4 to go, Cole asks if anyone wants to play travel scrabble.. The pack just look at him.
At about 10pm they arrive in Boulia which is basically a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Carla was unable to tell them the exact location of the Shattered Wheel sept but had said that it was somewhere to the southeast of Boulia. Cole begins grumbling when this piece of information is shared with the rest of the pack. Abby snaps at him to shut up, the sooner they start looking the sooner they'll find it. They begin running south in the Umbra in lupus form. On the way they discuss proper Red Talon etiquitte so that everyone is clear on just how they should be behaving when they get there. Cole is of the opinion that they should be sealed off in a dome if they want to reject modern society.
The pack have about 20,000 km2 to search. The decide to howl as they run so that they can try and narrow the search area down. They run for most of the night without any response. Towards dawn Freya does Call of the Wyld to try and boost the distance that the hello howls can be heard at, but as shes in mid howl she stands on a sharp rock and the howl is cut short by swearing over the link.
The next night the pack try once more. Bob is running along looking for scents but all he can smell is dirt and the occasional lizard. Abby tries call of the Wyld and is a bit more successful than Freya. They're still in the Umbra, Kreig reminds them that they're in the weird part of the Umbra. Once he says that everyone else notices that there is definatly a weird sensation... Kind of like things are staring at them. Weird stuff keeps happening also, people keep tripping over rocks that weren't there a second ago and every creek they cross is full of huge leeches. They are definatly getting the impression that they are not wanted.
After about half an hour more of running and howling, the Claws of Wisdom hear a reply hown from the distance. They adjust their position in the direction of the howl and keep running. After another half an hour they see a bunch of Red Talons spread out therough the trees, there are 7 in total. One of them approaches the pack and introduces himself as Runs-Before-Walking and his pack the Far Waters. Freya introduces herself and the Claws of Wisdom and says that they seek council with Mamu. Runs-Before-Walking looks skeptical but tells them to follow, some of the members of Far Waters flank out around them.. Not totally enclosing them but close enough so that the Claws of Wisdom know exactly who has the upperhand.
They run for a couple more hours, Cole complaining loudly over the link and everyone else warning him that he has to be on his best behaviour. They reach a clearing and Runs-Before-Walking tells them to wait. The Claws of Wisdom sit down. 2 guards are left with them.
Towards dawn Runs-Before-Walking returns with Mamu and another garou. Mamu comes over, his behaviour is very very dominant, he is definatly in charge. He introduces the other garou as Follows-the-Rains the Master of the Rite at the Shattered Wheel Sept. He asks what business the Claws of Wisdom have with him. Freya explains what has been going on and that they want to resolve the issue of the disputed Caern. Mamu looks wary, at this point another Garou comes limping up, he looks like a metis - one of his paws is deformed. Mamu tells the other garou that he wasn't invited, the other garou says that if these (indicating to the Claws of Wisdom) are the ones that he has been talking about them maybe he should try.. Mamu cuts him off and takes him aside.
From their position the Claws of Wisdom can see/hear what is going on. Mamu is angry at him and wants him to go away. The crippled Garou is subservient but very insistent, and Mamu is angry and dominant. They argue more, Mamu looking like he's about to throat the other; Follows-the-Rains looks uneasy and starts heading over there when Mamu snorts loudly and sits down a distance away, obviously resigned to the fact that the other Garou isn't going to leave. The Crippled one limps over and introduces himself to Freya as Crook-paw, a metis ragabash Red Talon rank 3. He has a russian accent. He tells Freya that he wants to talk about the Bunyip. He explains that he travels around the world explaining the Red Talons to other Garou. He confirms that Freya is a Galliard, Freya nods and Crook-paw asks her to tell him the story of the War of Tears. Freya tells the story very eloquently. At one point Crook-paw interupts and asks Freya if it sounds like Red Talon behaviour - seeking revenge and having sisters (the Red Talons are more about pack). Freya says that she is not sure but the reference to having a sister could simply mean packmate. Crook-paw concedes that that might have been the case and asks her to continue. the story.
When she is done Crook-paw asks her again if she thinks it sounds likely that a Red Talon would be carrying a klaive? The Red Talons oppose Weaver objects. In fact, none of the story sounds very much like Red Talons. It is at this point the Cole becomes very disruptive muttering about revisionism and this and that. Freya tells him to be quiet but he persists. Eventually Freya gets really angry and pulls rank on Cole telling him to be quiet or she'd attack him. Cole keeps saying 'But..But' so Abby and Jay sit on Cole to keep him quiet, his jugular held precariously between Abby's teeth.
Crook-paw begins explaining the Red Talons to Freya and the rest of the Claws of Wisdom. He says that what is often skimmed over in tales about the War of Rage is the spiritual chaos that encompassed the entire Dreamtime. Garou stories are often verified by contact with more eternal spiritual beings to help make them more accurate over time, but because of the turmoil that engulfs the Umbra at this time, and the lack of contact with the native spirits, they are left with a lack of clarity. Maybe the stories about Wyrmbaiter had become confused in the period after the war - maybe the other tribes felt more comfortable assigning their sins to the Talons, who will not argue back, nor tell their own stories.
The Red Talons do believe there was a Talon called Wyrmbaiter, and that he was instrumental in the lead up to, and the fighting during the War of Tears. Crook-paw tells them how centuries before the Australian conflict, the Red Talons went to the New World with the other European garou and were involved in the various battles there - some of them fought with their European bretheren, others fought with the Pure Ones (Wendigo and Uktena). What they observed in this fighting was that caerns were being put in danger during the squabbling, and they began to fight to protect the caerns, especially those of the Croatan (an Amerind tribe who were wiped out).
Crook-paw tells them that when the Red Talons came to Australia, they fought against the Bunyip because they knew the European Garou were stronger and would win - and they wanted to make sure than the caerns would be safely returned to the Bunyip. The other tribes would probably not return any caerns they took, so the Talons fought to claim as many caerns as possible, occupying them until the Bunyip returned. Unfortunately the Bunyip were all killed, although Crook-paw intimates that just as spring comes once a year and the ice comes and goes, the Bunyip may still return.
It is a very intersting slant on the story, not one that the Claws of Wisdom have heard before. Crook-paw leaves on one final note - for 100 years before the War of Tears, the Bunyip were more elusive than smoke, impossible to find or contact. Yet within a few years of the beginning of the war, they were all dead. He mentions this as something to consider on their journeys, thanks them for their time and leaves.
Mamu comes back over and asks why he should accept the pack as mediators as they are humans. Freya says that not everyone in the pack is human, Mamu looks distainfully at Bob and Jay. Mamu says that the pack need to prove that they have an understanding of the Red Talons before they will be accepted as mediators. He tells them to go and speak to Runs-Before-Walking. The pack head off to find Runs-Before-Walking again. He tells them to follow him and they start running again, causing Cole to complain again. Eventually they stop at the edge of some scrubby bush in the Realm. In front of them the clear area of land there is a small encampment of people. There is a couple of large landdrovers and a weird thing going into the ground. Freya says that it's a drill. Runs-Before-Walking tells them that Mamu wishes these humans to go and never them nor anyone like them come back. Far Waters will wait nearby while they do this thing.
The pack sit down and discuss how the hell they can get rid of what look like a bunch of prospecting geologists. The most common suggestion is to fuck with the machinery. Another suggestion is to fuck with the actual samples that they are getting out of the ground so that it looks like there is nothing of interest in the area. None of them really know much about geology, so some of the pack peek and try to overhear what is going on. It looks like this is site 2 of 6 that they will be checking over the next fortnight or so, depending how lucky they are. The first site was pretty worthless, but they seem hopeful about this one. They have a GPS and other bits of equipment, and appear to be contracted out to a large mining company. There are 6 geologists, two landrovers, their drill and some camping equipment.
The pack first decide to attempt to mess up the drill to slow progress down. Abby tries Jam technology. She isn't very successful but the engine does suddenly stop, returning quiet to the desert, except for the swearing of the guy with his laptop. The gift doesn't last for very long and within seconds everything rumbles back to life. The drill however isn't faring so well, there is smoking and strange noises pouring from it. There is lots of yelling and swearing from the group of men as the geologists race over and turn it off. Whilst they stand around trying to fix the drill, some of the other geologists examine the samples they've been taking from the ground. This seems to have been the worst thing that could happen, and the drill is jammed, and will take hours to fix.
Hours later, the scientists get the drill unjammed and start pulling samples up. The Claws of Wisdom listen closly to see what they think of them. Apparently some of the redder ones look very promising. The geologists wrap the samples up and place them carefully in large metal boxes which are on the trailer attatched to the LandRover. The geologists decide that they will pack everything up and head to the next site tonight and then worry about what to do tomorrow.
The geologists drive to the next site and set up camp. The Claws of Wisdom follow them and spy from the Umbra. They have a fire and some food and look like they've settled in for the night. The pack discuss how they're going to carry the offcuts of rock back from the second site so they can do the swap. Abby suggests tying them up in vines, but looking around there are really no vines to be seen. Eventually they decide to wrap it up in bark to keep it secure and carry it carefully between the sites.
The Claws of Wisdom run off to the second site and wrap the rock in bark. Once they're wrapped them together, they start lifing them up and walking carefully back to the third site. This is going fine until Jay, who is not really used to walking carefully in homid form, drops the offcuts he was carrying. He picks them up and most of them seem okay. However, as he is picking them up, Cole calls out Freya's name, causing her to turn around and smack Jay in the head which causes him to drop everything again. All of them break this time so the pack are left with 8 instead of 12. Freya almost frenzies at Cole but manages to restrain herself, although she does twitch somewhat. "Nice pendant, cool, calm pendant".
The pack make it back to the camp with no further mishaps. Freya, Kreig and Jay go in to swap the samples over. They assume the geologists are sleeping as there are no lights on and the fire has been put out. The 3 pack members creep as stealthily as possibly into the camp and manage to swap the samples with the offcuts they brought back from site 2. The pack celebrates quietly and then go to sleep.
They wake up a few hours after the geologists and can see that three of them are manning the drill and the rest are looking at the samples. The men looking at the samples seem to be a bit confused about the samples they're looking at and the pack overhears them saying "I'm sure these looked better Barry", "Yeah me too George". However they can't explain it so they just assume it was dust or something.. Yeah.. They decide that they're probably not going to find much at this site so at 2pm they start reversing the drill to look at the samples. They seem happy with some of it, so the pack have to think of another way to switch it.
The pack discuss calling up a rock elemental to help change the rock in the area so that the men don't find anything. They try to work out what a rock elemental might want, Bob remembers that they like veneration of rock so they decide to offer it promotion and veneration of rock. Bob, helped by Freya and Abby begins the summoning ritual. It goes quite well and after a while they hear a rummbling from deep in the Umbral earth. Suddenly the ground errupts and an earth elemental appears. He is a huge dragony looking thing with a deep rumbling voice. He asks what they want with Gortak. Bob explains that they would like him to change the rock in the area so that it's not interesting to geologists. Gortak says that it might be possible but he needs something in return. Bob offers veneration of rock and Gortak thinks for a second before requesting that they free one rock each, each moon and return them to the ground or to those who would venerate them more. Bob agrees and Gortak says that he will help.
Abby uses Jam Technology again to stop the drill. This time the guys running the drill are faster off the mark and stop it before it starts up again, to the melodic sound of the laptop user's cursing. Kreig wants to make a phoebes veil talon so that he can put it on the ground so that Gortak can change the samples unnoticed. This however would take some time so he abandons the idea. The pack mess around with various options of how to put the samples on the ground, like breaking the table and so on.
Back at the camp, Bob suggests calling up a sandstorm so that the geologists have to stop for the day so they don't get to look at todays samples before the pack can change them over. He summons a whirlywhirly spirit. and binds it so that he doesn't have to do anything for it in return. The spirit is a little grumpy at first but when Bob tells him that he can make as much destruction as possible around the camp the spirit is happy to oblige. The wind spirit creates a whirly whirly over their camp and the tents fall over and dust covers every surface. The geologists are startled and make a mad dash to cover over the equiptment. Paper goes everywhere, the geologists shake their heads and decide not to assay the samples until tomorrow. Some of them make bets as to what will go wrong tomorrow.
The pack waits until it's dark before they switch the samples over. Gortak moves all the interesting minerals out of the rock (pretty coloured bands move down the samples) and then Abby and Freya lead Gortak to the next site as he is quite slow so they have to get there before the Geologists do.
In the morning the geologists assay the samples from the day before and decide that there's nothing much there. They decide to pack up and go to the next site, adding that if they don't find anything there then they'll leave because there probably won't be anything at any of the other sites either. Gortak has already changed the rock so the Claws of Wisdom watch for long enough to see the geologists decide that the whole area is useless.
They run back to the Red Talons and informs Runs-Before-Walking that they suceeded. Far Waters and Claws of Wisdom run back to where they met Mamu and Crookpaw last time, and Runs-Before-Walking goes and gets Mamu. Mamu is told of how they decieved the stupid monkeys, and he says that he is satisfied - he will come to the Caern discussion and that it will be held in 3 days at the setting of the sun at the disputed caern. The pack thank him and mentally make some calculations - gah, they don't have time to even sit. They sprint back towards Boulia.
So... much.... running.
Late that night they get back to Boulia and draw short straws for who gets to drive. Its Krieg. They drive south.
Early in the morning, they pull into Etadunna. Most of the pack decides that they would be best served by crashing rather than driving all the way to meet Carla. They discuss sending a wind spirit to tell Carla of the meeting. Kreig decideds to drive on, and volunteers Cole to come with him. The rest of the pack crash at the hotel.
Krieg meets Carla and tells her about the deal, and then crashes. He get up again at midday and drives back, participating in the mental conversation the pack have about how they are going to try and sort this out. They think about a few possibilities, and try to come up with counterarguments to the arguments that the two tribes will raise against those.
Come late afternoon and everyone is back together. The pack heads west out to where they know the caern is, approaching through the realm. Within sight of the caern, they are approached by Miles and Raging Storm. Miles is his normal charming self, and refuses to let Freya and her ragtag pack any closer to the caern. Freya says that there is mediation going on this evening, and they are needed at the caern. Miles retorts that he is aware of that, but he doesn't see Carla here yet, so until Carla arrives, his job is to prevent anyone getting access to the caern. Frankly, he seems trying to challenge Freya to start a fight. As things start to get a bit narky, the Red Talon guard pack, Head Hunters, arrives. Their pack leader, Flies-like-a-Stone, ignores Miles and speaks to Freya. He states that they are not permitted to enter the caern until the tribe leaders arrive and that their understanding of the needs of duty is appreciated. Although he's fundamentally expressing the same thought as Miles, his body language is sufficiently different to make it clear that he is not doing it to be annoying. Freya agrees and stares at Miles till he backs off a bit.
As the sun touches the western horizon, both Mamu and Carla turn up with entourage. Carla has brought Alison Nedenis, the Master of the Rite at the Defiance to the Wyrm sept, as well as Sons of Hati, a Get pack. Mamu has brought Follows-the-Rains, Crookpaw and the pack Far Waters. Freya starts things off by subtly complimenting the wisdom of the the two leaders in wanting to end the stand off.
Claws of Wisdom ask why each tribe claims the Caern. Carla points out that the caern is within the Get protectorate. Crookpaw, who is speaking for the Red Talons, says that the Get finagled to get the boundaries moved after they were originally formed, and the caern fell within Red Talon territory. Carla counters that each tribe had to make sacrifices and that while it was unfortunate that the Red Talons lost access to the caern, it was a council decision. Crookpaw says that the Red Talons are the only true heirs to the Bunyip, and as such have a premier claim on the caern. Carla scoffs somewhat at this hollow claim of holding the caern for a dead Tribe of Garou.
The Claws of Wisdom suggest sharing the caern between the two tribes. There is a fair amount of resistance to this idea - there is always the possibilty of insiders taking over a caern, a much easier prospect that taking it by force. There is some resistance to the idea simply because the Talons (and all Garou to some extent) don't like not having a clear hierarchy. While the sept leaders are autonomous, its traditional to look to the leader of the Protectorate to at least check policy (for instance, the Garou at Scars Atoned tend to look to Bret at Rippling Waters for matters that are beyond the caern/sept) and if the caern is shared, it would be unclear to whom they should look. The pack suugest the addition of Garou from other tribes to try and stabilise out the mix - Carla seems ok with that, but Mamu and the Red Talons are noncommital. The possibility of forming a sort of seperate protectorate just for this caern is brought up, but both leaders look askance at the possibility.
Claws of Wisdom bring up the caern spirit itself - the spirit should have some say in the Sept that forms to protect the caern. Both tribe leaders give permission to perform the rites to summon the caern spirit forth, and so everyone splashes into the swampy Umbra. The assembled Garou watch as a large aboriginal woman appears to slowly approach from within the caern tree. The spirit does not respond positively to Freya's polite questions - she likens picking between the tribes as deciding between a pair of bullies, one who held down Freya's child and the other who slit the child's throat. Abby quietly reminds the pack that spirits live in an eternal Now, where the actions of 100 years ago are as fresh to them as this instant. Freya lets the spirit fade back into the tree.
The Garou take a break from their discussions. Each tribe pulls away to their own camp, leaving the Claws of Wisdom to sit and think for a bit. They're starting to put together a plan when Carla comes to talk to them. She brings up the offer she made initially - help with fighting the Dancers, her vote on the council - and the pack look unimpressed. They talk about the Talons' claim. Carla thinks that they are using the "waiting for Ngalyod" line as a convenient explanation for why she should give up the caern - she doesn't give it any more due consideration than the Uktena and their "heirs to the Bunyip". Frankly she fairly much thinks its a joke. The pack ask if she'd agree to give up the caern if the Bunyip did return. Carla says that, their efforts aside, she doesn't see the Bunyip tribe returning. The pack press her and say that they can get the Red Talons to agree to give up the caern in return for her promise to relinquish it to the Bunyip, would she agree to that? Carla looks bemused and says "yeah, sure, fine.". They query a bit further and ask whether she'd allow other Garou to challenge for Sept positions other than the Sept Leader, and she is a bit more cautious, saying that within reason that would be permissable (no rank 5s, that sort of thing). The pack head towards the Talons, leaving Carla a bit disconcerted.
The Claws of Wisdom speak to Crookpaw and explain. He says that they should wait while he speaks to Mamu. They watch as Crookpaw speaks to the Red Talons' leader - its a repeat of the discussion they watched between Mamu and Croopaw when they first met. Crookpaw is submissive but insistent, as Mamu becomes more angry and dominant. The Get have noticed the ruckus and are watching. Crookpaw breaks off and returns to Freya, suggesting that she speak to Mamu and make the offer herself. Freya changes to lupus and speaks to Mamnu - she says that the Get will pledge to return the caern to the Bunyip on their return if Mamu will allow them to be its guardians. Freya says that the Talons will also be permitted to challenge for the positions of honour in the Sept. Mamu looks angrier and angrier as she speaks and he suddenly leaps for Freya's throat. The rest of her pack go on knife-edge guard as Mamu bowls her over and grips her throat, ready to react if it goes further. Freya keeps her eyes downcast and behaves submissively, the other Garou at the site all freeze in place. There is a tense 5 or so seconds before Mamu lets go. He growls out that the Talons accept and walks off.
The pack take a minute or two to make sure that things are all calm and then walk back to Carla. Freya says that the Talons will accept. Carla looks at her disbelievingly. "/That/ was a yes??". Freya nods. Carla says "Ok - er, give me a minute" and walks back to talk to Alison, who also looks a bit bemused. There is a raucous "woohoo!" from the Get camp, and the Talons are looking a bit confused.
While Carla is working out the details, Krieg spots a flash of light out in the desert. He points it out to the others - who point out that it looks like a moonbridge. Krieg and Jay head out there to see what's what. As they sneak closer, they see a mixed group of Garou heading their way, and recognise the Ngalyod pack. Fujiko raises an eyebrow when she sees Krieg and asks what's is happening. Krieg says that they are here to mediate between the Red Talons and the Get. Fujiko reacts - first time ever - rather surprisedly. She says they came out here to see if the two tribes had gone to war. Krieg tells her that they have actually sorted it out, and the Talons are going to relinquish their claim to the caern. Fujiko reacts again, disbelievingly. She suggests that they could come and see what is happening here, and Kreig says that's probably ok. Fujiko sees Mamu (grunt) and Carla (sure) just to check and then the Ngalyod pack stand nearby.
Eventually Carla and Crookpaw come to meet the pack again. Crookpaw declares that the Talons will relinquish their claim on the caern if the Get of Fenris agree to step aside for the Bunyip when they return. Carla says that the Fenrir will agree to do so - she binds not just herself to the deal, but explicitly says that she binds all future Get of Fenrir council members to the same agreement. Crookpaw accepts, but says that if the Get renege on this agreement, the Talons will spare nothing, and no one to retake the caern. Freya speaks for her pack and says that if such a thing were to happen, they will too will take arms on behalf of the Talons. The Garou set off to formalise the agreement before the caern spirit.
Leaving some of the Head Hunters and Raging Storm behind to keep an eye on the realm, everyone else squelches through the Umbra to the caern tree. Alison Nedinis and Follows-the-Rains start the caern opening ritual. While this is being performed, the rest of the Garou stand silently. About 3/4 of the way through, members of both guardian packs appear, coughing and shaking dust off themselves. The Claws of Wisdom overhear them saying that a big dust storm blew up in a short time, and its no fun out there now. Abby points out quietly that dust storms typically come up when the sand and dust is heated by the sun, and its about 4am right now. Krieg tries to get a sense for what might be causing the storm - he can only really sense the caern, a mix of Wyld and Gaia.
The caern spirit, Imberombera, reappaears within the tree. Carla tells her what is happening, and the spirit stoically accepts the situation. She adds that although she was indifferent to which tribe won the discussion, its not to say that she did not care. Carla tells the spirit that the new Sept will be formed as soon as possible, most likely on the next full moon (about 18 days away). Given the nature of the caern, she will be opening up membership in the Sept to all who would like to join, especially such tribes as the Black Furies, Children of Gaia and Red Talons. Crookpaw speaks briefly to the garou and caern spirit, saying that the Red Talons will remember the compact.
Drederich, one of the Sons of Hati, calls people over and indicates that there is something in the Realm that might interest them. The dust storm appears to have gone, but in the process of sweeping past, it has uncovered some large flat rocks near the caern. Said rocks seem to be marked, and on closer inspection it becomes clear that the markings are similar in nature to those found at Scars Atoned, the trod in Mornington and at the cave that Bartholomew showed them last year. Alison says that she has seen similar marks at other Bunyip caerns around the Get protectorate. The Garou take it as a mark of the reactivation of the caern. (Jay only).
As the Fenrir start chatting amongst themselves, the Red Talons leave with nary a goodbye, except for Crookpaw. Freya asks Carla if they can speak to the caern spirit and she agrees. Bob speaks for the pack (yay spirit speech) and explains the whole situation from "Remember when we were here last year and you gave us a bone?" to "and then rat said we had to find the Living, Still and New faces of Gaia". The spirit considers what Bob says and then leands forward out of her tree, pushing one giant finger into his head. When the spirit retreats, Bob can see/sense a golden line leading from his head off into 'darkness'. It doesn't point in any particular direction, nor is it providing any sort of 'tugging' that might lead them somewhere. Presumably they need more than one point of reference to follow it.
The spirit retreats and the pack turn from the tree, nearly tripping on Crookpaw. He asks if they are aware of the magnitude of Mamu's sacrifice for them? The pack say yes and Crookpaw points out that he only made such a concession because he has some measure of faith in them. The pack try and remember who told them off for Sydney, but don't recall Mamu saying anything at all. Crookpaw says that he must now leave, but that they should remember the things he has told them. They wish him a good trip.
After a while, Carla approaches them too, and says that she is still amazed that Mamu accepted such an odd compromise. The pack tell her that maybe there are things she doesn't know about the Talons that she should, causing Carla to look a bit bemused. She says that she remembers what she has promised them, and offers to get them home, and get the LandRover back to Sydney. They accept gratefully, not having looked forward to another long trip. So, as dawn's gentle blush stains the eastern sky, the pack get a trip to Defiance to the Wyrm, and from there, get moonbridged back home to Sleeping Green.
Claws of Wisdom say hi to Ian and Ends-the-Quiet and point at the bit of ground that they are going to crash and sleep on. The Elders nod and watch as the pack collapses.
The pack, and primarily Bob, are woken suddenly by Joker playing a trombone in Bob's ear. Just before Bob kills him, he says that Cossack and the other Elders would like to see them now. As they are getting theirselves together, Bob says that he had a repeat of the dream they had at Bartholomew's house last month. He was in the tunnells beneath Preston and cleaning out goo, but the tunnel keeps heading downwards, and it still covered in glop. The sense of danger starts to increase as the tunnels get darker and darker. Eventually, Bob finds himself in complete darkness and with a sense of increasing danger, and is just standing there. A motor starts next to him, like a truck or a bus, and then another, and another. Headlights come on, with Bob at their focus, and start heading towards him. Just as they are getting quite close, the lights become gargoyle eyes and the gargoyle swoops past. Yay, think everyone.
The pack get together and sit in Graeme's kitchen as he makes them breakfast. They tell them everything that has happened since they left for South Australia (Red Talons, geologists, negotiating) and about the thread in Bob's head. The next step would presumably be to look for the Still Face of Gaia - and the best option is to go back to Carnarvon and talk to Monash and Grek. They talk to Cossack about the dream, and he says that they've had people checking things out, but there's nothing building there. Emma suggestst that it might be more symbolic than that, and reference to the Mages maybe? Cossack says that he'll get the Get of Pennington to look at it, and Claws of Wisdom should continue with what they are doing.
The pack swing via Jindabyne and get cornered by Darius, who asks about the negotiation at Lake Eyre. He, too, seems fairly flabbergasted, but most curious about the Red Talon attitude to the Bunyip. The pack move on and arrive in the warmth of Carnarvon. Once again, they catch Garou Elders up on their exciting adventures. Spirits are sent to find Grek, and the Claws of Wisdom kick about in the warm Queensland sun wile waiting. Grek shows up about dusk and the pack now tell the story that they are all too familiar with. The Elders seem impressed with the unfolding of events.
Grek says that the next part of their quest would be to find the Still Face of Gaia. He isn't sure what they might be, but suspects that it would be found in the Shadowlands - the Umbra of the Dead. The pack say "huzzah". Grek suggests that it would probably be for the best if they had a guide, and says that he will come with them. The pack express a more enthusiastic huzzah. However, Grek says that the ritual that the Silent Striders use to get to the Deadlands requires the sacrifice of a sentient being. Er, say the pack. Grek clarifies that this is one of the reasons that the Striders do not lightly perform their ritual. The being need not be willing - they would most likely choose a fomor or similar evil to be the centre of their ritual. As there is no real difference where they start, Grek says that he'll come back to the cemetary with them tomorrow.
They all moonbridge back to Melbourne and let Cossack know the real deal. He says that he might be able to help them out. The Scryers are currently looking into some of the Full Moon killings - it turns out that some of the months where there were two killings, one of them was a copycat - using knives. All three people killed were women, and all three of them worked on Hampton St, Hampton, so the Scyers are lurking in the area to see if they can spot the responsible party, who seems like the ideal choice for their special party.
So, off go the Claws of Wisdom, and meet up with the Scryers, who have been sitting in cafes sensing Wyrm on people as they go past, and are frankly way jumpier than Garou should be from all the coffee. Georgina explains that the only link they can find between the three women is that they worked in various shops here - one was a Real Estate agent, one worked in a florist and the other in a cafe. Two of them were in their 20s, one was 41. One of the 20 year old was asian, the other two were caucasian. Frankly, it all looks kind of random. One of them was killed down at the beach, the other in her house in Glen Waverley, the other in a car. The police had just plonked the cases together with the Full Moon killer as being random killings. So the Scryers have been hanging out in the street during the day and checking nearby houses during the evening.
So, the pack split up and start scoping people in shops. Being quite close to Christmas, they don't stand out too much, and there are a lot of other shoppers to check out as well. The Claws of Wisdom have sense unnatural which helps them scan across the steeenking humans. They find an amazing amount of variation in the various taints of people working in shops, just cruising on the street, down at the beach and at the train stations, but no great spike of wyrm that you'd expect with a serial killer.
As the shops close up, the pack sit on the beach and think about how else they could check things out. Abby suggests building sites nearby - there's a lot of unit-building going on, so it might be someone only passing through very quickly. They note that down to check out tomorrow. It might be someone who's only in Hampton once a month even - that's going to make it impossible to find anyone now. Couriers or post office workers? Sales reps? Someone who's normal most of the time and doesn't show enough taint?
They decide to enlist the help of their pack totem in searching during the night. The Scryers head off into quadrant 3 to continue their house-to-house as the Claws of Wisdom call Merlin. Merlin says that he will try to sense what he can from the air, but that they might be best to try to call on the power of the moon, in the form of a Lune spirit. The pack have dealt with Lunes before, but not during the Theurge moon, which makes them a bit exciting. Bob sets out to summon a Lune and ask its help in exchange for loverly Gnosis.
The spirit turns up fairly quickly, and is strange. It seems a bit spooked and weird, but relatively friendly. They ask it to search around for anyone with a significant amount of wyrm taint and it agrees.
About 6am, the spirit finds Bob and tells him about the whispering as moonlight slides across shadow. Oh, and that one of the weird monkeys on fire out the front of the big glowing place has a strong sense of wyrm. The pack scratch their heads for a bit and look around. Ah, Coles. Where there are shelf-stackers having a smoko outside.
The pack descend on Coles. While some keep an eye on the exits and entraces, some go inside. Pinging for wyrm taint pretty quickly resolves into a Mr H. Allen, a 5' 8'' ish weedy, scrubby guy with bad hair. The pack confirm that no one else also shows up as dangerously tainted, and also that Mr Allen is actually corrupted, not just tainted. Huzzah. Checking the roster shows that H stand for Hamish, and a quick check in the local phone book also shows a H Allen living not too far away. Some of the pack stay and watch Allen while the others check out the house.
Allen lives in the back of a pair of units on a single block. His car blocks the driveway of the flat. Kreig and Jay step inside. Well, Jay does, Krieg steps into the calm gentle gauntlet. Jay looks around, trying not to touch anything. Allen lives on his own, no girlfriend or housemate. Other people have been here, but not for a while. Crap everywhere, not a clean person. Jumps-in-Puddles is looking for the bowie knife that was probably used in the killings when he spots a bunch of videos in the laundry cupboard. Feeling that this is odd, he grabs one and puts it on. Ew. Snuff porn, although happily not homemade. Erk, Jay is pretty sure that its not faked. He puts the unmarked videos back and spots the knife in the space under where they were stored. Figuring that's enough evidence, he looks around for Krieg, and finding him Gauntletised, heads back through, grabbing Krieg on the way.
The others watch Allen as he knocks off at 7.30, chats to other fellow shelfstackers for a while and then goes and sits out the front of a cafe, observing the traffic go back and forth with a mate. The pack decide that given that his flat is nice and secluded even from his neighbours, they'll wait till he gets home to grab him. Krieg and Jay decide that they can best do it alone - Krieg decides to hide in the cupboard in his room and knock Allen out when he arrives. Jay can't find anywhere else to hide in that room, but the linen cupboard is good and sufficient.
Allen heads off home about 8.15. He steps inside as Garou secretly watch from the Umbra, and kicks off his shoes. Allen walks into the kitchen and starts sniffing. Those Peeking think "huh? Oh. Er, he can smell Krieg". Allen checks his bin and socks, then walks into his bedroom. He sniffs various parts of the room and then heads for the cupboard. As he opens the cupboard, Krieg hits him twice and Allen folds up and drops like a rag doll.
Allen is handcuffed ("Are you sure you dedicated them?" "Yeah, its written down" "Weirdo. Remind me next time you're seen by police") and wrapped up in a blanket. Jumps-in-Puddles or Bob are closest to his physical appearance, and no one wants to let Bob drive, so Jay and Krieg hurks the body out to the boot of Allen's car and Jay drives off. They take Allen to one of the Sept's kinfolk and Cole stays there to kick Allen in the head occasionally, while the rest of the pack go and talk with Grek.
Grek says that the ritual is done at night, so they'll have to keep Allen under wraps till then, then bring him to the caern. They ask some basic questions about the Shadowlands - Grek says that he is hoping to find some people to talk to whilst in the Realms of the Dead, and for the most part they will be within an area that sort of like the Penumbra in the Umbra - it will mostly match to the Realm as they know it around Melbourne. He seems a little unkeen to share tribal secrets with them, but tells them that it should mostly work like the Umbra they are familiar with - the Rite will help translate a lot of what they perceive. They find some additional bits and pieces to take with them and dedicate them.
As dusk arrives, the pack decide that a generic "sorry" kind of Rite of Contrition might not hurt, so they perform that nicely. Allen is brought to the caern, and 'subdued'. The Rite must be performed in the Realm, so Grek tells the pack to guard the perimeter while he does the secret tribe stuff. At the appointed time they approach and he cuts Allen's throat. The pack are told to grab hold and step sideway, which they do.
Instead of the normal timeless moment shifting between Material and Spirit realms, then sensation the pack experience is a languid, nauseating sinking sensation, as if the cold dirt suddenly parted and absorbed their bodies into the ground. The pack is suddenly wrenched 'sideways' and thrown about before suddenly being ejected out of the ground. Abby is a little dizzy, but manages to keep her head enough to realise that they were literally spat out of the ground into a small, semi-grassed clearing amidst gum trees, at night. Freya and Jay are laying on the ground and shuddering, but manage to pull themselves together in a minute or two. Cole and Bob are in a much worse state and loose their lunch. Krieg, who was perhaps the worst off, catches both lunches and is reduced to a quivering, convulsing heap.
While half the pack are talking to Gaia, Freya, Abby and Jumps-in-Puddles look around, trying to figure out where they are. Hey - Grek isn't here. Oh, great. Wonderful. Freya starts a Questing Stone to find him, but there is no response. The Realm in which they find themselves looks like a bushland setting, rolling hills, light forest. It night, but there's no moon, nor stars. There is no real movement either, which is a bit spooky - no night noises, no scents of creatures moving about. Off in the distance, comes a strange coughing, howling noise which sends chills through the pack - the howl of a Bunyip. Another sounds, further away, in the same general direction. Then a third, closer, in the same quarter. A forth and a fifth also echo across the otherwise silent Realm. Bob, who has recovered by this point, expresses the belief that those sounds are not the ones made by someone who wants to invite them to tea - they are hunting howls, and have an insane edge to them.
Something causes the pack to glance behind them, and a Bunyip stands there in crinos, eyes rolling and with no sign of anything sentient hiding inside. It leaps for the pack and they try to grapple it rather than slice it. Abby keeps an eye out for anything else approaching while Jay,Bob and Freya leap on the Bunyip. Freya tries to use her Calm fetish, which has some effect on the Bunyip, but doesn't stop it frenzying. Abby spots a couple of people coming their direction, but slowly. The pack try hold the frenzying Bunyip down and get a sense for what is up - Sense Unnatural reveals that the Realm they are in has a whack of demonic/deadlands kind of sense, and reasonable chunks of Wyrm and Wyld too. The Bunyip spirit is mostly Wyrm and Wyld, with a little bit of demonic. The coughing howls are approaching, and its taking three pack members to disable one Bunyip. The pack decide that they have no choice, so they rapidly shred the Bunyip they have pinned. It shreds like a spirit and when they kill it, the sustance disolves into a black and grey smoke, shot through with red highlights. The smoke drifts away.
The pack try and figure out what to do. Eventually slow poke people are close enough for Abby to sense and see them - ugh, they are just like the realm - oh, and they look dead. Yay, zombies. That's it, there's no help there, they decide to run for it and see what other options present themselves. Everyone is basically able to run at this point, so they leg it across the landscape.
The howling grows closer, mostly because Jay runs like a girl. The pack are absolutely flogging themselves - given that they haven't slept since the day or so before, except some brief napping beforehand, they are lucky to still be moving. Two of the Bunyip are closing, and so the Claws of Wisdom decide to find somewhere defensible. Their best bet is a ring of fallen trees, so they head for that and prepare for the inevitable. The Bunyip run maddened into their field of vision and almost jump from a lupus to a crinos form. Abby plunks a couple of arrows fairly definitively into one of them before the spirits are on the pack. A frenzied few moments later, and two greyish mists drift away. The pack heal the damage they have taken, and continue their escape.
The Claws of Wisdom run for a couple of hours, the hoarse coughing howl of the Bunyip always behind them, and closing. Their pursuers are only a couple of hundred metres behind when the pack run down a grassy valley and splash across a small river. Ahead, another howl rings out, but this one is not insane, and seems more a "over here" sort of call. Given that the first spirit chasing them just erupted from the forest line on the ridge, it seems like a plan to the pack. They run the direction of the call and find themselves heading to a plinth (mesa, butte) atop the nearby hill. There is a flickering light, like a fire, on top of the stack of stones, and so the pack flick to crinos and start climbing. About half way up, the howling stops, and they can see lupus Bunyip running aimlessly across the meadow they just fled across.
The pack finally reach the top of the pile. Its quite wide at the top, and inhabited by both a small camp fire, and an aboriginal man. Freya thanks him for his rescue, and he flows from homid to Bunyip Crinos form. Someone makes gah noises and mentally says "that's the same Bunyip as was in Sydney". The man flows back to homid and speaks - his voice is low and sad (and hard to hear in a crowded room). He says that as they helped him, he felt an obligation to help them. He wishes to seek oblivion through forgetting, and that he is unable to continue this process while he feels that he owes them a debt.
Freya asks how he came to be here. The spirit (for the purposes of this Narrative, let us refer to him as "Watcher") replies that he and his tribe have been abandoned and cast into this Hell by Gaia and Ngalyod (the Rainbow Serpent, not the pack). Most are mindless Raging spirits, made only of Rage - this force of anger allows them to sometimes reach the Umbra and Realm where they destroy everything until they are weakened and return. Some few like him are different, and seek only to forget. The Claws of Wisdom ask what he remembers of Sydney and their interaction with him.
The Watcher remembers virtually nothing about his life or his people before the War of Tears. He explains that he lived in a time when th e existence of white men was only a story, and the presence of the other tribes was unknown. It was during this time that the Watcher died, and chose that his spirit would be bound into a fetish, an didgeridoo used in rituals. As he slumbered in the fetish, he felt the great tide of darkness and death and spiritual chaos that was the War of Tears. Later, after the tide had passed, he was possessed by strange Garou who awoke him from his slumber and questioned him on the ways and rites of the Bunyip. This alien tribe of Garou sought to set themselves up in the Bunyip's place, and to learn their many secrets and powers. Although they learned little from him, they were fairly well versed in Bunyip lore. The strange Garou could make little use of the fetish he was in, simply because he chose to deny them his power. He slumbered for long periods, although he was awakened occasionally to be questioned.
At the last, he was possessed by a Garou whose heart was dangerously close to the Wyrm, and he was gripped by some fear and anxiety. This Garou performed a ritual which released the Watcher from the fetish. However, the ritual also flung him far across the umbra and bound him into a bone fragment. He leapt from the bone and found himself in a place of angles and solid water and light. In his confusion, fear and rage he killed those who were there, then tried to flee. However, he was still tied to the bone fragment. He would attempt to escape, then would slumber in the bone to regrow his strength.
The Claws of Wisdom interrupt and speculate that it was Cernonous who called the spirit to be reborn, but that doesn't quite gel with what the Watcher is saying. They try and remember exactly what transpired. After some discussion, they ask the Watcher to continue.
At this time the Watcher felt the efforts of the corrupted ones. They were attempting to corrupt him and turn him to the Wyrm. He felt a strange new power flowing into him, up from the Deadworlds, which helped stave off the corruption. There was also an alien totem nearby, which channelled it's power to him which also helped. After a time the efforts to corrupt him ended, but he could still not escape; was still confused and enraged. The Gauntlet was also unbelievably strong and suffocating, and he felt that he was screaming while buried underground. Soon after, he felt that he was back in the possession of those who had possessed him since the War of Tears. However, the Gauntlet weakened and he was able to call out. Other Bunyip heard his call and came. The bone shard was broken and the Rite along with it. He was free and immediately fell, soon after finding himself here.
There is some head scratching and attempts to assign blame. Abby was packleader at the time, and she says that Christine gave the bone to her, but then she had to give it back to Inanna at the Council, who then gave it to Tjinderi of the Uktena. Oh.
One of the pack notice a strange disturbance in the air which heads for Freya. Watcher seems undisturbed by the disturbance, which wibbles its way over to Freya and around her. She is somewhat disturbed by the sensation, but nowhere near as much as her pack are by watching her. The wibbliness does not sense of anything, and seems to be not so much something in the air around them, but something behind the air, as if the air was a poster and there was something wobbling it. The wobbliness descends slowly to the rock, and the rock flows up into the shape of... Freya.
Unusually there are no cries of "Doppleganger!" from the pack, who look a bit bemused. They sense the creation and find a whopping lump of demon and some wyld and wyrm. They speak to the double, as it slowly changes pigment to match closer to Freya. Its an exact copy, but its still made of stone. The creature says "hullo" and the pack chat for a bit. It says that its not from here, but here is the most akin to its nature. It says that it likes to take physical forms (especially new ones, which is why it chose Freya, because it hadn't seen her before). It asks why they have so many holes. They blink a bit and give an ok answer. As it moves around, it seems to morph other bits of matter into its form - the fire, the air, and so on. They ask about this place - it remembers this realm appearing, "a short time ago", but doesn't know where it came from or how they can leave - it can't go to the material realm without someone there opening a gate for it. Duh, say the pack, its just like the gargoyles, which the mages give forms.
The wibbly thing stays for a while, and then decides its bored, wobbling away, leaving a stone Freya behind. Odd, say the pack, and return to the Watcher. He says that he does not know how they may leave here either, but he has only been here for a year or so. Others have been here longer, and may be able to help them. He suggests that they wait and rest for the moment, however, a suggestion that is accepted happily by the pack.
The pack wake to find that day has come, sort of. There is no sun, but the sky is lit in a morbid sort of grey light which is close to daylight. The Watcher sits by his fire. However, over the edge of the plinth is quite an odd noise - a sort of slapping, thudding noise. A quick glance over the edge shows a that during the night, a bunch of zombies have collected. Watcher says that they are more essentially part of the realm than he, and although his place keeps the others from finding the pack, it doesn't stop the zombies (who can't seem to get the coordination to actually climb).
The pack try to think how to get down. They carefully consider the fact that they are 10 metres above the zombies and atop a hill, and decide that a running leap is the way to go. They pretty much leap off all together. Kreig is full of such boundless agility that his leap takes him the furtherest. Ha ha ha, thinks he as he sails over all the zombies. Crap, thinks he, when he realises that there's nothing to break his fall but him. Crack, go most of his bones. Krieg lies in a ball of pain at the bottom of the hill, waiting for everything to knit back together. The others crash down amidst the cold and pliant flesh of the living dead, and manage to bash their way out of the fray, pick up Krieg and run for it. Watcher, whom the zombies ignore, catches up with them shortly. Unfortunately, about the same time, the faint mad howls begin about the same time.
The pack run for a time, fending off zombies and trying to ignore the approaching howls. They notice suddenly that the terrain has changed from rolling forest to scrubby plains. They look at Watcher. He looks at Abby and says that she is taking them somewhere. Abby declines that honour and says she's not doing anything. Watcher shrugs. They continue on cautiously - an hour passes and the pack notice something on the horizon. As they travel, it becomes clear that it is a rock pile, like the one they saw on the Eastern Freeway. As they approach, Krieg can sense fae and warns the others. Within the circle, two aboriginal women sit face to face. They ignore the pack until Abby sighs and steps into the circle. The rest of the Garou can still sense her on the mental link, so they follow. Abby addresses one of the women, who melts. A wibbliness moves away from her. Abby sighs and addresses the other, who happily maintains bodily integrity.
When the woman talks, she seems distant and disjointed, and her tenses seem to wander. Abby has obviously met her, or something like her, before and she gives the pack a run down ...
|
...Abby straightens up, and notices for the first time the circle of menhirs. She cautiously approaches them, still fairly squiffed from the beer she's been drinking. The circle has a central pillar, and facing her is a red-haired woman, who looks at Abby and says "I will have always seen you, running with the night in your hands. You are going to have killed the moon." This makes Abby blink a lot and start to try to sober up, or at least make a reasonable effort to pretend. She asks some questions of the strange woman, but there is no response. A voice from further around the pillar rumbles "You have been going to stand in danger of losing yourselves." Abby comes into the circle and glances around the pillar to see a large female crinos, also with her back to the central stones. Abby steps around the pillar further and sees a thylacine. It speaks without moving its mouth - "You have a darkness within you." Abby tries to ask other questions of the rather annoying enigmatic spirits. The thylacine points left and says "Your path lies this way". Abby hrugs and heads that way. Each of the spirits indicates that she should continue. Each time she travels around the central stones, the light grows a little fainter. After 3 times, Abby comes upon an archway, leading into the stones, that wasn't there before. |
The others notice that one of the walking dead is standing just outside the stone circle, blankly staring at them. Others are moving across the desert towards them, so the Claws of Wisdom decide not to hang around too much longer. Abby starts to move anticlockwise around the pillar, and the woman's eyes shoot open - she says that before Abby trod the path of the day of life, but this is the path of the dead and only the dead may pass. The pack growl and then they run back into the grassy desert and soon hear the sound of pursuing howls. Once again they mysteriously move from the desert back into bushland. However, this is more the high mountaint kind of terrain, and Watcher seems to know his way.
After running for a time, the Watcher leads them into a copse (thicket/spinney/stand) of trees. The howling dies away again, and the pack see a body length bark bundle in a tree, in the style of burial of some aboriginal customs. The Watcher goes up to the bundle and addresses it. Although the bundle doesn't move, the body inside answers. The Watcher explains to the Sleeper about the Claws of Wisdom predicament. The Sleeper, however, doesn't seem to care. He doesn't see why he should help those responsible for the extermination of his tribe. Freya tries to explain what they are doing and what they are trying to accomplish. The Sleeper is rather rudely sceptical, and Abby says that if he won't help they can't leave, in which case they may as well stay here, which Watcher agrees with. The Sleeper says that they should see the Fisher (not Fissure). They thank him and leave.
As soon as they leave the Sleeper's presence, the mad howls start up, this time closer than ever. The pack run on, but it becomes clear that the Bunyip will catch them, so they stop and obliterate the three spirits before continuing on. The geography changes again, to ti tree and swampy area. The air starts to take on a salty, seaside kind of smell, and the ground beneath them becomes sandy. Eventually the pack clear the top of a grassy dune and see a long sandy beach in front of them. On the beach is a dugout canoe, and in the waves is a tall man, apparently spear fishing. The pack call out and he raises a hand and wades in. The Fisher is tall, taller even than the pack, and he had a number of silvery fish at his waist. He greets Watcher and the pack, and seems fairly neutral to their presence.
Watcher gives a brief precis about what they are doing here, and then the pack give a longer shpiel. They also ask Fisher about the fish - these are the first non-zombie, non-bunyip life the pack have seen. The Fisher points out that there would be little point in being a Fisher without fish, which makes the pack believe he's creating them. The Fisher seems to have accepted that the Bunyip are dead and gone and that these things happen, which provokes some angry words between himself and the Watcher in a language the pack does not understand. The Fisher says that he can take them back to the Shadowlands, those parts of the Dead Umbra that are most like the Penumbra. From there they should be able to find their friend, presuming that he is still in the area.
The Fisher gets the pack to help push his canoe out from shore. The pack thank the Watcher for his help and wishes them good luck. They move out past the breakers, paddling strongly. There's really only room for homids, so there's lots of hands. The land has disappeared behind them when the waters start to grow calmer. It also starts to get misty. The further they go the calmer and mistier it becomes, until visibility is almost zero and they are paddling across a sea of glassy stillness. The Fisher says that there may be some trouble further out, as things inhabit the borders between the realms. The pack say "Now you tell us!", but they didn't have much choice anyway.
They are paddling through the glassy sea when a large wave, as if of something huge passing beneath them, slaps into the side of the canoe. Some of the pack are knocked about, most they mostly manage to not come adrift. The Fisher suggests that they stow the oars - no one wants to be stuck out here with no propulsion. As they do that, a thing crashes into the canoe - it seems to be like a whale, except that it's head is a mass of tentacles, eyes and grinding teeth. Freya is knocked clean out of the canoe, while most of the other pack spend a moment or two getting their legs and torsos back into the body of the craft. The thing grabs Bob and flings him away far off into the mist, while Jay goes it with the fae sword. Freya swims towards the thing and Abby upsets it by carefully thunking it with arrows. Cole moves up and yells at it as loud as he can before starting attacking the whalething with an oar over Jay's shoulder. Jay is getting entangled in tentacles, but manages to keep his sword arm free. The thing seems to have been confused by Cole's yell and some of the eyes on stalks just look at him. Krieg gets Abby, who has moved back and started paddling backwards with the Fisher, change form to make a counter weight, then tries a flying leap to get on top of it. Freya starts clawing as much as she can in the water, and Jay manages to free himself and is about to start hacking when Krieg lands unsteadily on the thing and tips over backwards, landing on his back amongst the mouths and tentacles. Jay readjusts his thrust and skewers it anyway. The creature is starting to smell awfully bad as the pack continue their assault. Krieg flips himself up onto his feet and starts slicing at the top of the creature as it suddenly gives up all bodily integrity and starts to dissolve - he disappears into a large lump of demonic slime and its some time before the pack can pull him out... or, more specifically before he's clean enough before they'll let him back on the boat. Order is restored and Bob is found, and they paddle onwards.
Ahead, the mists begin to break up, and the sound of breakers becomes readily detectable. The canoe is carried on the waves forwards until it is beached on a sandy beach cove. The Fisher says they have reached the Shadowlands. The Garou thank him and help push his boat back out to see, waving until they can see him no more, and then look around. They are at the bottom of a 30' or so tall bluff, covered in shoreline vegetation. The sand is whitish, and disappears gradually into rock shelves where the bluff curves around to meet the sea in both directions. Freya does a Rite of Questing Stone for Grek and finds that she does get a sense of where he is, sort of along the shore. It would be a bit awkward to travel along the shoreline, so the pack scramble their way up the acclivity.
At the top they find the body of an apparent homeless old guy. Kreig checks to see how long he has been dead and finds that his hand goes right through the corpse - in an illusary way, not in a gooey blood and brains kind of way. Odd. They trek through the brush and come out onto a road, part of a mostly ordinary suburban scene. What isn't typical is the bodies scattered around the landscape. The bodies are of all sorts of people of all ages. Some it is unclear why they died. Others are particularly vivid, like a young man, his broken body suspended in mid air with a spray of blood from his mouth frozen in the air. The Claws of Wisdom marvel at the wonders of the universe and then move on. As they move further, the layout of the land begins to look familiar. The pack think that where they are looks like Richmond or Burnley. The direction they are getting from the questing stone, if they are correct about their location, would be towards the Melbourne Cemetery.
As they travel, they see some fairly bizarre sights, like the infant, blue in the face and with wet clothes, suspended about two feet off the ground. They also see a young woman almost cut in half, perhaps by a car. As the near her they see a familiar vibration in the air, moving towards the woman. The vibration moves into her, and she sits up. The pack move on, but woman calls out to them. They stop and wait for her to approach them. She walks up to them, apparently unconcerned about her protruding viscera. She says that their friend is looking for them and sent her (it) and others to look for them. The pack ask her what their friends name is, but she says she doesn't know. They ask her what he looks like, but she says that all of them look alike to her - he has two long bits here, two long bits here, a round bit here, stuff like that. They ask her where he is and she offers to take them to him.
They follow the woman mostly in the direction that Questing Stone indicates, but she seems to be drawing steadily off to the right a bit. As they get near the approximate Exhibition Gardens, the Garou ask her where they are going, and she points to what looks like an older version of St Vincents and says their friend is in there. The pack look a bit askance, but head inside as she holds the swinging doors open for them. However, just inside the light goes out as the woman's body spreads out thinly and closes over the doors. Oh goodo, think the pack, belatedly sensing for wyrm taint - oh yeah, her and three or four other sources in the room. It turns out that they have walked into the emergency rooms of the old St Vinnie's and demons have inhabited the images of those that have died here over the years and warped their forms to be more dangerous. The pack defend themselves against the oncoming cadavers, and hear something more significant moving deeper in the hospital. Cole decides that enough is a enough, and rips a cigarette machine off the wall and bodyslams himself through the demon blocking the door, the door, a sign out the front of the hospital and fairly significantly into a broken down tram across the road. The rest of the pack dodge and weave and follow out the hole. Once they are clear, Cole hurls the cigarette machine back into the darkness and they start to bolt.
However, Jumps-in-Puddles is a little slow off the mark and is hit by return fire - the cigarette machine comes flying out of the building, followed by a rather macabre voltron-like construct - random bodies have been stuck together into a sort of centaur-like single being. The pack evaluate the situation, run back and grab Jay and then bolt for the hills.
Hours later they stop and get their breaths back. They have definately lost the creature, but they also lost the sense of where Grek might be. Freya does another Questing Stone and feels a pull into the near distance. Another wibbling pattern descends to the body of a young man who looks like he died of a drug overdose. He moves towards the pack and says their friend told him to find them. When asked, he points in the same direction as Questing Stone indicates, but Cole beats him to a pulp with a fence post anyway.
The pack go 'that' way. The scenary looks like North Melbourne, and they are heading for the cemetary, which makes sense. They walk in through the side gate and to the centre of the caern. Even from a distance, they can see the body of Mr Allen floating there above the ground - he is the only strongly coloured thing in a grey and dull landscape, and as they get closer, prisms of light seem to curl off him. Sitting near Mr Allen is Grek, who seems inordinately pleased to see them.
Grek says that he appeared here without them, and decided to wait. He also sent off several demons (the strange vibrating entities are demons, ala the ones used by the mages) to look for them. He thought they might still be in the real world, but he didn't go back because if they were then they were safe. The Claws of Wisdom tell him everything that happened. This is all highly significant, and Grek says that there has never been any claim that anyone had reached the abode of the Bunyip, although it seemed likely that they were here somewhere. In case they are separated again, Grek tells the pack how to get back. Mr Allen's body is their gateway back to the real world. If they touch his body and attempt to step sideways they should end up back in the real world. In case they're worried, the gate is not open, allowing anything passage back, but is only useable by those who came through it from the other side.
The Claws of Wisdom say "Okay, what now?". Grek says that there are entities on this side which he can talk to who might be able to help them in their quest. He wants to take them through a passage to one of the Deadworlds, a place they call the Museum. It seems to be a place where destroyed artefacts accumulate. It is also a relatively benign place, and would give the pack an opportunity to rest. He says that the passage is from a church that burned down on Toorak road. Grek leads the pack away from the cemetery and head south. They make their way uneventfully to Toorak and go into the church. In the rooms at the back of the building, Grek passes through a door that leads into a long hallway. The hallway is far too long to be contained by the dimensions of the church. The passage winds along, twisting and turning, climbing up and down stairs, but there is only one way to go. Eventually the passage ends at a door. Everyone troops through and they find themselves in a large room. The room is entirely covered with blue Persian-style rugs. The rugs adorn the walls, cover the floor and hang from the ceiling. The only thing that isn't a rug is a classical marble statue which stands facing one wall. Grek says this is a good place to rest.
The pack poke about and ask questions. Apparently there is one of every item that has been made and destroyed - each of the hanging rugs are slightly differen. It is all kept by an entity called the Curator, which is who he wants to see. The paack suspiciously look for an overall pattern in the way the rugs have been laid out, but frankly its just aesthetically pleasing. Despite Cole's molestation of the statue, which turns out to be demon possessed, the pack kick back and relax.
Having rested, Grek and the rest of the Garou head off through the Museum. They pass through a seemingly endless parade of rooms, halls and corridors. The whole place is filled with a vast array of artefacts, from the mundane to the bizarre. One hall contains nothing but different models of bar fridges, another contains a dizzying selection of roof tiles, a third contains an assortment of prosthetic limbs. You get the idea. Grek says that the Curator tends to the realm, arranging and sorting the items - he's hoping that it will be able to help them find what they're looking for. Grek says that if they come across anyone who isn't a demon, then it will be the curator.
After walking for a time, they enter a hall and spy two individuals silently facing each other. One is a swarthy male, dressed in seemingly ancient Egyptian garb. The other is a Caucasian female, wearing a severe suit, glasses and her hair in a bun. Grek says that this is the Curator - both of them, apparently. They approach the Curator, and Grek offers greeting. He briefly explains what they are looking for, and wonders if the Curator could help. The Curator looks at each other/itself for a moment, then the woman says that it may be able to help, but would like the group's help in a small matter. The pack variously sigh, grind their teeth and look resigned, but politely ask what they can do. The Curator suggests that it might be easier to show them.
The Curator leads them away through more halls and rooms. After a time, a buzzing sound can be heard which grows louder as they proceed. They finally pass through a door into the biggest hall the pack has seen so far. The hall is maybe one hundred metres high and five hundred metres to a side. The ceiling is an arching glass canopy, beyond which the grey sky can be seen. Hanging from the frame of the ceiling are numerous small one-man prop planes. One of the planes, however, is up and running. As they watch, this plane flies erratically around the hall, climbing and diving and dodging the hanging planes. As is swings past in front of them, Abby manages to get a clear view through the cockpit windows - sitting in the pilot seat is a portrait of a Pope. The arms of the portrait have extended from the surface of the canvas and are piloting the plane. As the pack dissolve into giggles, the Curator asks if they could perhaps get the plane down, without causing too much damage. They could retrieve the plane, but it would probably result in substantial damage to it.
The pack consider their options. Cole is all for dogfighting with another plane, but Freya disagrees. In the end, they opt to try Abby's Jam Technology gift and then see what happens. The pack spread out a bit and wait for the plane to zoom past as level as possible. Abby activates the Gift and the buzzing engine suddenly stops. As the plane glides onwards towards the wall, two of the pack, in crinos, leap up and grab the landing gear, weighing it down to the ground and then doing a staggering stop to bring the plane to a halt. When they look in the cockpit, the manic looking Pope is frantically hammering the controls. Inside the cockpit, they can see that immediately behind the portrait, a strange vortex is hanging in the air - the source of power for the plane. Reaching into the plane, they take the Pope into custody, and across to the Curator. The Pope appears to be coming along quietly, with his canvas arms dangling down in front of him. When the reach the Curator, the woman reaches out and flicks the portrait. There is a flash of movement as the demon is ejected from the portrait and rockets across the hall, disappearing through the far wall. The Curator reaches out and pushes the arms back into the portrait, until it is just an ordinary portrait of Pope Innocent VII again. Leaving the hall, the Curator says that the best place to look for what they seek would be in the Necropolis. Grek seems to understand and tells the Garou that he will explain later.
| Intermission - Pope Innocent VII (Cosimo de' Migliorati), pope from Oct. 17, 1404 to Nov. 6, 1406, was born at Sulmona in 1336. He was made papal vice-chamberlain and archbishop of Ravenna by Urban VI and cardinal priest of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, bishop of Bologna and papal legate to England by Boniface IX. He was unanimously chosen to succeed Boniface. The election was opposed at Rome by a considerable party but peace was maintained by the aid of Ladislaus of Naples, in return for which Innocent agreed not to come to terms with the antipope Benedict XIII, except on condition that he should recognise the claims of Ladislaus to Naples. Innocent issued at the close of 1404 a summons for a general council to heal the schism, but the council never assembled, as the Romans rose in arms to secure an extension of their liberties and finally, maddened by the murder of some of their leaders by the pope's nephew Ludovico de' Migliorati, compelled Innocent to take refuge at Viterbo (Aug. 6, 1405). Later, recognising the pope's innocence of this outrage, they made their submission to him in Jan. 1406. He returned to Rome in March, and, by a bull of Sept. 1, restored the city's decayed university. He died on Nov. 6, 1406. |
Grek thanks the Curator and leads them back through the halls into a room full of 18th Century pulpits and so on. As they travel, Freya realises Cole is pilfering freely from exhibits. They have a discussion, and Grek says that the Curator has let people take objects before, but it would have been better to ask. Cole ends up taking a 6' great sword and hand gun with 5 bullets - each one different, but they seem to fit the gun.
After much walking, they pack arrive back in the room of rugs, and pass once more through the corridor, emerging into the burnt out Church once more. Grek immediately leads them east. As they go he talks about the Necropolis, another of the Dead Worlds. Although Necropolis is a misnomer, it is the name which has stuck. It is thought that perhaps the Necropolis is connected with the interconnection between life and death: all death comes from life, but all life thrives on death, even if only in the mundane fashion of feeding on the dead. The Necropolis is full of "life", but it exists by it's own laws. When things are first born they exist in a start of almost total decay. As they age, the process of decay reverses and when they "die" they appear to be fully formed. Apart from that it is much like the real world. Abounding in "life" as it does, the Necropolis is one of the most active of the Dead Worlds. As such, it attracts more demons that other places. The demons seem to relish to variety of forms and the constant change. In some places powerful demons have set themselves up as kings and tyrants. Other demons oppose these tyrants and aid the residents of the Necropolis in the constant demon-inspired wars that go on. Grek says that he knows of a passage into the Necropolis that lies outside of Melbourne, heading towards Healesville. The passage should take them to a place near a city where they can get help.
The Claws of Wisdom and Grek are on the outskirts of Melbourne, moving along the Maroondah Highway, when they spot movement up ahead. Getting closer, they see that it is a figure moving about on the road. It is the bloodied figure of a woman, moving aimlessly about in the middle of an intersection. She appears totally oblivious to their presence. Grek says that sometimes the emanations that appear in the Shadowlands when someone dies are not inert. They seem to have some sort of motivating power, and can make their presence felt in the real world. The woman probably died in a car crash and became a ghost. The intersection in the real world would be haunted, although what that might precisely entail Grek can't say. Some ghosts are more aware than others, and a few act as they did when they were alive.
Leaving the intersection behind, they head on. Eventually, Grek leads them off the road and into some trees. He reaches a patch of thick scrub, and drops down into lupus form and starts pushing under the scrub. The others follow, with Cole in homid form trying to drag his sword through backwards.
After moving through the scrub for a time, they emerge into a forest that is definitely not where they were before. While they wait for Cole to join them, they take stock of the situation. At first glance it appears to be an ordinary forest in the middle of winter. Birds are singing and insects fly around. However, looking more closely at the trees, it becomes apparent that the large and old trees appear sick and dying, with drying leaves and peeling bark. Younger trees look worse, little more than dried, leafless wood. A nearby sapling is a crumbling husk. As they stand there, a sloughing, bloated rabbit hops merrily along, munching on the brown grass. They move through the forest. As they go, they come across a fallen tree. It's the liveliest thing they've seen in days, with bright green leaves and fresh sap. However, it appears to be ever so slightly transparent. Grek explains that when a thing "dies" here it fades away. It used to be theorised that perhaps there is some correspondence between something dying here and something being born in the real world, and vice versa. This theory is no longer viewed as being very likely.
Eventually they leave the forest behind and find themselves in gently rolling hills. Up ahead they can see a walled city. As they move towards the city, they pass by herds of rotting cattle and sheep. Ahead they hear the sound of pipes playing, and find a small skeleton sitting on a fence post playing a set of pipes. The boy doesn't seem to be too concerned by these bizarre-looking strangers. He just keeps playing and watching them as they pass. As they near the city they see more people. Outside the gate the find a row of long stone slabs. Lying on top of several of the slabs are people without a touch of decay. Most are old men and women, although a couple are much younger, but equally untouched by decay. All are transparent to some degree, but some are virtually invisible.
Grek leads them through the gate. Several men seem to be guarding the gate, but don't hinder the garou. Standing just inside the gate is a rough stone statue. Its head turns to watch the party pass. They are now surrounded by throngs of the living dead. A few of the very young children run screaming when they see the small group, but most of the citizens seem only curious. Grek leads them up through the city to a large building at the top of the hill. Two guards at the door challenge them as they approach. Grek says that he wishes to speak with the Council. The guards seem reluctant, until Grek says that he wishes it by the terms of the Compact. The guards allow them to pass, and two other guards lead them into the building and down a hall.
Passing through a door, the Claws of Wisdom and Grek enter a large room, seats line the walls of the room, and most of them seat an old man or woman. Frankly, this is the healthiest-looking bunch of people the pack have seen since they arrived. Admittedly, they are all touched with a degree of decay, but nothing that pancake make-up wouldn't conceal at fifty yards on a dark night. Amongst the chairs there are also a few rough stone statues standing.
One of the men stands and approaches the group. Grek greets the man as Mauselous, and he the man seems to know Grek as well. After a few introductions, Grek tells Mauselous what they are seeking and asks whether anyone can help them. There is much murmuring amongst the Councillors, but none of them seem to know anything. Then one of the statues steps forward and speaks. It says that the demons have their own stories and legends. One legend says that the Dead Worlds spill from the nightmares of the sleeping Leviathan. The Leviathan is generally referred to as female and is often portrayed as a source of creation. There is supposedly a passage leading to the place of the Leviathan through a chasm in the Necropolis. An ancient Silent Strider named the chasm Atropos Well. This all sounds fairly promising.
Grek asks if anything is known about the location. The demon says that it is said to lie on a mountain that lies on the other side of the domain of the Manyfold Lord. Grek says that he knows the way, and thanks the demon for his help. He asks Mauselous if perhaps they can rest here for the night and head off in the morning. Mauselous agrees and offers them quarters in the Council building. When night falls, the pack find out one good thing about the Necropolis: it has a moon. They drink in the moonlight and replenish their sorely depleted rage. A few of them go out into the city and stop at a tavern to have a chat with the locals. They limit themselves to drinking water, and learn a little bit about the city and the people. Then everyone hits the sack.
Grek approaches Freya early in the morning and says that there is a slight problem. He needs to leave them for a short time to repay another debt. He doesn't look happy, but says that he shouldn't be long, and as long as they head towards the sunrise, he should be able to catch up with them in a day or so. Grek gives them a rundown on the lay of the land. If they head towards the sunrise, they should pass into an allied and adjacent realm by the end of the day. That domain borders the lands of the Manyfold Lord. The two realms are embroiled in a war. The Manyfold Lord is one of the demon tyrants, and a servant of one of the Nether Kings. The Nether Kings are the most powerful of demons who rule seriously ugly and demented worlds. The Silent Striders believe that Set, who cursed their tribe thousands of years ago, was a Nether King. Most of the tyrants in the Necropolis are only agents for one of the Nether Kings. The mages that the Garou are having fun with in Melbourne are probably dealing with one of the Nether Kings for their infernal power. However, all this is hopefully academic. Grek suggests not running into the Manyfold Lord and keeping their engagements with his servants to a minimum. He is hoping to rejoin them by then anyway. Freya asks about the war and whether they should assist, but Grek says that there's probably no direct help that they can provide their own task is fairly important as well, so stopping and getting involved in set battles is probably not a good idea.
The pack set out shortly after meeting Mauselous again and thanking him for his help. Grek leaves at the same time with a demon-statue, heading north as they head east. After several hours moving quickly through the forest, the trees begin to thin out again. Up ahead, the group can hear the faint sound of voices. Creeping closer, they see that there is a small patrol of men having a rest. Listening in on the conversation, the men seem to be discussing fighting on another border, and the general direction of the war. It sounds like they have already crossed into the lands adjacent to the Manyfold Lord's demense. The pack decide that that discretion is appropriate, and slip around the company.
The pack avoid other 'human' presence as well, skimming through forest and glade rather than going near towns or villages. Occasionally they spot castles and forts atop small hills. As they day passes along, the tone of the land goes from pleasantly rural to war zone. The damage is at first subtle, but as they travel the smell of burning starts to pervade the air. They spot occasional burnt out farms, and then villages. The pack move as cautiously as speed allows.
It is almost dusk, and the pack are moving through some light woodland when from ahead they hear the sound of metal clashing on metal, shouts and screams. They creep up to the edge of a ridge and look down on the battle. Groups of soldiers, brown shirted like the humans they have seen all day, and grey shirted new ones, are strugging in the small valley below. From this far, it is impossible to see faces, but the pack can clearly hear the sounds of combat, and can also see that some of the grey soldiers seem demon-ridden. They are also defeating the brown-tunic'd soldiers slowly, but inexorably. Freya says that Grek recommended that they avoid the war and tells her pack to keep low. As they skulk northwards, the sounds of the battle grow more shrill before ceasing suddenly and decisively.
The pack cross the shallow ravine that seems to be the border between the lands and sneak across a mile of low grass before making camp in thick woods. Cole puts his carboard mansion gift to good use and builds a relatively pleasant shelter for all to rest in over night.
Just before dawn the party awakes and heads off. All through the morning they run, skirting wide around villages and hiding from the occasional patrol. However, at midday, the pack notice a bird circling far above them. It seems to be following them. The pack split up and hide in woods, which seems to shake the bird for a time, but its back again by midafternoon. They can't seem to lose it this time, despite Krieg's attempts at pyrotechnia.
As the pack are crossing from one grove to another, they hear a rumbling sound begin out of sight. Horsemen round a corner and thunder towards the pack. Some of the garou make it to the shelter of the woods, but others are caught out in the grassland. Battle is enjoined. Some of the soldiers are demonposessed, oh, and so are some of the horses. The Garou are hard pressed at times, but manage to dispatch or drive off their enemies. In the process, they discover that the demons, when disincorporated, can repossess other combatants. Fabulous. The pack flee into the woods once the demons have fled and the humans are killed.
The pack run for the rest of the day without being molested further. When the moon rises it has moved on to a Theurge crescent, which seems to match up with the Claws of Wisdom's count of the days since they left the really real world. They bask in the light and reestablish their rage.
The pack keep heading east, but also making efforts to try and stay relatively hidden. Cole keeps telling people that they are being followed, and that the shadows are full of demons and that that tree is looking at them funny. Everyone ignores him until about lunchtime when a couple of other pack members hear a howl behind them. The howl is just a noise, almost devoid of information - just as if someone human had yelled "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" with no intonation.
Deciding discretion is the better part of valour, they sensibly run for it. However, the noise comes again and again, and seems to be slowly closing. Both Bob and Jumps-in-Puddles are very edgy and don't like being prey in a chase. The pack try to make their scents harder to find - doubling up streams and so on - but Kreig is still very stinky. They debate tarzanning from tree to tree, but the forests are all dead brittle wood, and probably won't take that sort of abuse, even in homid.
Despite their cunning, the howls slowly close up on the pack. Its an hour or so before dusk when they reach the end of the forest and reach the edge of a large plain. On the far side of the plain they can see what looks like a fairly significant wood, providing a lot of cover. But that means crossing the plain, and the river that winds across the middle of it. The far-sighted amongst the pack can just see a smudge on the horizon that might be mountains.
They try to work out if they can ambush their pursuers. Although the plain is just grass, its fairly long - in lupus form they would be concealed easily enough. They mentally slog out the details as they run - it turns out the river is surrounded by marshes and swampy mud, so it will help hide their scent and if they stop in long grass just on the far side of the swamps they should be able to surprise their opponents before they get their bearings.
Glancing back shows that the chasing party is just leaving the forest as the Garou are about 1/3rd of the way across the plain. Large hounds, like hunting dogs, but obscenely stretched lope into the long grass. As they watch, some of the hounds leap off the ground and through the air before disappearing back into the grass. Oh good, probably demon posessed. Krieg giggles a bit and waits until his pack starts into the swamps and then uses Create Element to start a fairly significant grass fire on this side of the river - the smoke will help their ambush.
The Claws of Wisdom prepare their ambush and wait for the dogs. Freya managed to conceal herself such that she could observe the hellhounds and relay to her pack what is going on. The hounds slog through the mud and water and reach the far side of the river, and begin to chase through the dry sussurating grass. The Garou leap out of hiding and in a matter of moments the first four dogs have been cut into pieces or flung back into the river badly injured, despite their unexpected ability to breath fire.
Someone spots horsemen thundering up from the south across the plain. Apparently the fire has distressed them somewhat as they are not heading straight for the pack. The final four hounds close in and the pack send them to the same land of pain as the first four - demonic wibbling rises from the corpses and heads south. Figuring they can't do anything about the non-corporeal demons, the pack bolt for the forest after Krieg puts out the fires on this side of the river.
The chase is hard, but the Claws of Wisdom make it to the forest with a couple of hundred metres to spare before the riders get to the sudden edge. This forest is more overgrown and verdant (if that's the right word for a dead-looking forest) than the woods they have been running through - there's no way horses are going to make it through here, and indeed the riders pull up and look uneasy. They don't seem keen to dismount and follow the Garou into the forest, which is odd, given their apparent disregard for the possessed creatures bodily wellbeing up till this point. Bob uses his Heightened Senses to listen to the demon riders talk - they seem to be suggesting that the forest is a prohibited area, but they don't say why. The pack shrug and move in deeper.
This forest is not just choked with vegetation, but the wildlife is common - birds, bugs, small mammals - and make it quite a pleasant place to travel through. The pack follow animal trails through the underbrush until its dark and they find somewhere sheltered and hidden to spend the night. Feeling a bit uneasy, the Garou set watches.
Bob and Jay are on watch when Bob realises that all the animal noises have stopped and he can hear a faint rumbling sound. He tries to get an idea where its coming from, but its pitched too low. The noise grows and seems to be coming from off to his left. Jay wakes the others and they all hold as still as they can. Sensing in the direction of the noise reveals a huge sense of demonic and wyrm. A doe shoots out of the forest and bolts away. The pack decide to wait and hide instead, and hope that everything will be fine.
The noise grows and is punctuated by the cracking, crashing sound of trees being destroyed. One of the pack has a clear view of the oncoming evil as it breaks from the forest: it seems to be a giant wheel, more than 10 feet across, made up of human bodies. The heads are at the hub of the wheel, and all the head have been amalgamated into a single orb, with eyes and mouths pointing in all directions. The bodies then radiate out, forming the spokes of the wheel. The bodies have been twisted and meld into one another. The rim of the wheel is made up of feet, which sort of kick out, helping to move the wheel along. From near the hub of the wheel, twisted arms keep elongating out and retracting back, grabbing at trees and branches and pulling the whole thing along. Of course, all the bodies in the wheel are also in varying states of decay, so the whole thing presents a really nice image. This thing rushes along at great speed, crushing small trees and bushes in its path. The arms are also tearing up and splintering trees as it goes., so it is cutting quite a swathe of destruction. The entity stops near the Garou and peers around, eyes opening and closing as it examines the area. Suddenly it leaps back into motion, apparently chasing the deer that fled so recently. It is soon out of sight, and some time after that, the last rumbling sound of its passage fades away. Everything is quiet for a time, then the normal forest sounds return.
The pack wonder what the hell that was, figuring no answer is going to be reassuring. They lay back down and try and rest before dawn.
As soon as they can see, the pack take off again, heading for the false dawn. Once again they get a weird sensation of being followed. Tired of putting up with this, the pack keep an eye out behind them - when a white shape appears behind them, ghosting along their trail, they lay in wait for it to approach. Surprisingly though, its Grek. The pack and Grek compare notes - Grek says that he was following them, but a grass fire slowed him down. They ask about the horrid conglomerate that they saw - Grek says that it was more than likely the Manyfold Lord himself, as from what he could gather from people he spoke to, this is his private hunting reserve. Grek says that he had a dream the night before of a prophetic nature - although he doesn't want to give details, he is worried time is running out, although he's not sure who for, them or maybe Alex? Either way, he suggests they get a move on.
The pack run out the far side of the Manyfold Lord's hunting reserve and into sparsely wooden countryside. They can definately make out the shapes of mountains to the east now, which Grek says is hopefully their destination. The mountains slowly grow larger, and foothills become visible. However, far above them they can also see a spiraling bird, and only a short time after the pack spot trailing horsemen - probably about 30 or so of them. The slowly rising terrain is not exactly suited to horses but the Garou have been running for days now. The pursuers are gaining slowly but inexhorably. The Garou decide to just run as fast as they can for the mountains rather than trying anything to loose the pursuit.
It is early afternoon, with the mountains close ahead when the Claws of Wisdom spot the cavalry unit closing in from behind them. Someone pings them, and estimates that most, if not all of the riders are demon ridden. Although they have run fairly constantly for several days, they find the last bit of energy for another run. They estimate that they will reach the foothills ahead of the cavalry. Sure enough, the splash across a stream and head up into the first of the wooded foot hills. Looking back, they see that the cavalry has reached the edge of the stream. There, they hesitate for a time, milling around a bit, before splashing through the stream and charging up the hill. The pack look around for stuff to roll down at the horsemen - Krieg creates a large boulder and rolls it down onto the lead horseman, knocking him off the horse and crushing him. The others are continuing to struggle up the slope after the Garou, so they pack takes a stand.
However, they notice that something strange seems to be happening. As the soldiers gallop up the hill, their bodies seem to be twisting and roiling in a strange fashion. As they watch, one of the soldiers bodies stretches backwards, like a sheet in a strong wind. Suddenly, the demon itself bullets out of the host and flies backwards down the hill. The host himself collapses off the horse, a twisted mass of flesh. One by one the same thing happens to all of the demons. All of the demons seem to be expelled from their hosts and flung back out of the hills, leaving their twisting and mutilated hosts behind. The Garou stand, blinking for a moment, and then realise that a small group of men are coming down the hill toward them.
The men don't seem to be freaked out by the giant wolf things facing them, but they are cautious until they find out what the pack are not working with the Manyfold Lord. Apparently they are outlaws who have escaped from the clutches of the Manyfold Lord and found sanctuary in these hills. The leader introduces himself as Trag and invites the pack back to his camp and explain their 'quest'. Some of his men head down the hill and start making makeshift litters for the twisted ex-demon hosts that have been left behind. Trag says that they can provide some help for the still living men.
As they walk, Trag asks them about their travels across the lands to the west, and then when the garou ask, tells them about this area. Although they don't know the cause, demons seem totally incapable of entering this region. This has so far made them completely safe from attack, as demons can't enter, and they don't seem prepared to send unpossessed soldiers into the hills, for fear that they would probably defect.
After travelling through the hills, the group reach a camp of stone buildings. It seems to be a significant village, not just a hunters camp - there are rotting livestock and skeleten children around the place as well. Trag invites them to avail themselves of the camp's hospitality, which the pack do. A few hours later, clean and a bit rested, they gather around the fire in the long house fire. Much talking and telling of stories is done, and the pack explain they are looking for the Atropos Well. This leads to much staring from the humans, and the Claws of Wisdom look at Grek, who asks if there are strange places in the hills about. The hunters tell them about a pool where water flows in reverse, and about a couple of other odd places, including a spring where the wall may or may not make a woman's face. None of it sounds very likely, but barring any other leads, they ask if someone could take them there tomorrow.
They spend the rest of the evening telling news and giving information. The outlaws seem to be quite happy living free of demon influence, even the more benign demons who don't go around possessing people. They say that they make raids into the lands of the Manyfold Lord, encouraging people to escape with them. After a time, the Claws of Wisdom go to bed, glancing at the loverly moon on the way passed.
Bob's dreams are disturbed by the same dream as last time - descending into the darkness, beset by a sense of Wyrm all about, motors growling in the darkness, headights rushing, becoming gargoyle eyes, with a sense of urgent danger through out.
Despite Cole's best efforts to stay asleep, he and the others are woken early as the campsite wakes up ("baaaaa", "muuuum, Delf stole my ball!", "mraaaaa!", "woof!"). While Freya goes looking for a replacement questing stone ( a) she needs a new one, and b) maybe they could Questing stone for the well with a native stone) the others hang about and try to think about what they are searching for. Basically they are looking for the Still Face of Gaia, or more specifically an avatar of Gaia. Gaia is strongly associated with life and fertility. The pack go and chat to some of the locals - two of the hunters in the village are around, repairing equipment, and the pack chat with Pel, who seems to be their unofficial leader. They talk for a while about various places around the village lands, and Pel mentions a near-by region where the outlaws hunt for food, as game is particularly plentiful. This could be a place to look. Pel says he could show them the way, and get some hunting done while he's there. Freya returns and they all head off.
By mid-afternoon, Pel has led the pack to the lower slopes of a mountain that are particularly densely vegetated. Of course, all the vegetation is brown and grey, but still, it seems a particularly alive place. Animals of all kinds abound, with birds filling the trees and all sorts of ground animals bounding everywhere. Bob pings the area and gets a strange sense. In addition to the usual ambient Deadworlds dense, there is another sense he can't quite make out, even though it seems maddeningly familiar. Freya makes use of her brand-new Questing Stone and performs the ritual excellently - the sense of "Atropos Well" pulls heavily towards the top of the mountain. The pack ask Pel if there's much up that way, and he says there is a small pool, but no one likes to go there because the cave make strange noises. Pel says he'll make camp here - if they come back before he returns, they should wait for him here.
The pack set out up the side of the mountain. They find the stream that Pel mentioned fairly easily and follow it up and along. As they go, Bob keeps sensing. The other sense is getting stronger, and Bob realises what it is: it is a Gaia/life sense. He had trouble identifying it because of it's strange combination with what is almost it's opposite sense.
About half way up the slope, they find that the stream is flowing out of a narrow waterworn crevice in the rock. They scramble past the mouth and find that the stream has cut a ravine into the mountain. The Garou follow it along - it looks like the stream floods occasionally, but the vegetation quickly re-establishes itself. The ravine broadens out slowly, and eventually becomes a low walled glade. In the centre back wall a waterfall fills a shallow pond. Its damn cold, but clear. The pack investigate around. There's no cave behind the falls, no runes on the wall. Cole tries to envision what this area looks like from above, but only sketches out vaguely freudian images. Krieg eventually spots a small fissure concealed behind a rock outcrop. It looks like the only way to proceed, so Freya sends faerie lights sailing down into the darkness and the pack follow. The fissure is a bit tight occasionally, but seems to slowly curve to the left as it proceeds.
The crack opens up into a large cavern. The faerie lights aren't able to cast enough light to find the far side, but the pack can see the gaping hole in front of them. There's a lip maybe 10' across and then the ground disappears. The pack investigate a bit - the hole is apparently deeper than they can discern. Oh good. They are looking around further when something causes a weird shift in their vision. The cavern is suddenly revealed, but in an odd kind of black and white way - they perceive the information as vision, but given the appearance of the faerie lights, its probably not coming to their eyes. The cavern is revealed as being a large domed space. In the centre of the floor is the open maw of a shaft, over thirty feet across. On the far side of the cavern, they can also see a lump of something on the floor. Moving over to the object, they find that it is the dead body of a man. He was of middle age and apparently of Middle Eastern descent. He is dressed in a simple tunic of rough cloth. There are no signs as to how he died. Freya attempts to sense him, which reveals that he is carrying several items of spiritual power; probably fetishes. Freya sees that under him is a spiritually active pair of nunchakaks or something - she picks them up - and flings it away suddenly. The sensations of hate and annihilation are strong enough to leak through even when not attuned. He is wearing two tokens around his neck. One is a gold medallion engraved with hieroglyphics, the other is a chunk of amber on a leather thong. He also has a rough hessian sack closed with a draw string. Grek examines the items, and eventually gives in to the Claws of Wisdom's curiousity. He says that the gold medallion is probably a powerful Silent Strider fetish that may have been what killed the him - which suggests he might be a Silent Strider. Such amulets augment certain of a persons abilities, perhaps making them supernaturally strong or intelligent. However, they also induce Harano if worn for too long. Since the man was wearing it when he died, he may have slipped into Harano and simply laid down and died. He also thinks that the amber broach is a Monkey Puzzle, a fetish which makes mundane people think that one looks like an ordinary person, regardless of one's actual current form. Grek plays with the bag, and pulls a wrapped cheese out of its previously empty innards. He says he thinks he knows what it is, but does't want to experiment further. In his opinion, the flail (oh, not nunchakas) has a spirit in it that has been bound too long and has become insane. He will take it and ensure it is disposed of properly. He also wants to take the dead (presumably) Silent Strider with them - given that the only way out is down, he has a suspicion that they will not be returning this way.
The pack reexamine the hole. Bob lobs the cheese down the hole, but there is no sound of it hitting anything. Freya sends faerie lights down, but they either get too far away or the hole is deeper than their effective range. They take a look at the surface - its rough stone and could be climbed - its just not clear how deep it is. The pack sigh and figure if they can climb down they can climb up, and slowly lower themselves over the edge to begin climbing down the rough walls of the shaft. The shaft has many hand-holds and small platforms on which to rest briefly, so the descent is not too arduous. It is, however, extremely long. As they go down, people periodically drop bits of rock down the shaft, but they don't hear it hit the bottom. So they just keep climbing down.
After an interminably long time climbing down, the pack notice that Jay and Bob are having real issues with climbing, compared to Cole, who is having an easy time of it. Maybe its not being used to homid form, but Krieg isn't having any problems. They continue for a while, but Jay and Bob continue to slip and start to have really hassles keeping close to the wall. Someone in the pack stares for a few moments and then sighs - the shaft is curving towards the horizontal and both the lupus happen to be on the 'roof' side. Everyone shuffles around a bit closer to Cole and proceed.
After quite a long time, the shaft veers away from it's vertical descent until it is moving almost horizontally. The Claws of Wisdom walk down this passage and enter a very large cavern. The first thing they notice is that the cavern doesn't seem to be comprised of rock, but rather of some uniform grey substance. They also notice that weird protuberance and shapes are all over the walls, floor and ceiling of the cave, regularly and irregular. As they stand their, an immediately recognisable demonic vibration rises up through the floor of the cave.
This demon is apparently huge, completely surrounding the pack and continuing to pour forth from the ground, rising up above their heads and filling all the space around them. The pack pings the demon and gets a massive demonic sense, but no Wyrm sense. Soon the demon has filled the entire cavern, and has sunk into the walls and ceiling. The cavern seems to animate, and the walls and ceiling begin writhing and flailing. In front of the pack, a rough man-shape forms out of the floor, and the demon speaks, demanding to know who they are and what they are doing here. Freya gives the demon the lowdown, to which the demon replies that it is the guardian of what lies beyond, but the Garou are not those against which it must guard. It has no objection to letting them pass. They ask the demon what it is guarding, to which the demon replies that if they've come all this way without even knowing that, then they are probably ill-prepared. It says that through the passage lies the Sundering, a fragment or echo of the moment when creation fell from harmony and balance into disunity and discord (in Garou terms, when the Weaver went ga-ga and the Wyrm went mwa-ha-ha-ha). The demon sends them off in the right direction.
Crossing the vast cavern, the pack find a tunnel sloping down. They head down it, but as they go they become aware of a scream of pain and despair and loss. However, this scream is not a sound, but they can feel it in their souls. The further forward they travel, the greater the scream becomes, threatening to swamp them with fear and despair. Jay snaps and heads back up the tunnell, and the others are having real problems continuing. Someone else gives way too, and Freya decides that its better for all of them to return to the top of the tunnel.
The scream is barely noticeable in the immense chamber. However, with their strange monochrome 'vision', the pack can see that the demon continues to animate the very bones of the earth, forming patterns, pictures and even tableaus - half the cavern has become 'water' and waves roll against a beach, all made of the native rock of the cavern. Freaky, think the Garou and get on with things. Freya pulls herself together and performs a Call of the Wyld, drawing on the togetherness of the pack and their singularity of purpose. Suitably re-enheartend by the mystic reminder, the Garou head down the tunnel once more.
This time, despite the soul-rending screams of despair, they manage to prevail to the very end of the cavern. They step out onto a platform that projects out from a limitless cliff-face of grey. Beyond the wall is a dark void, filled with the tearing scream. The only thing that marks the void is a bright point of light ahead of them, although they have no idea of how far it is or how big it might be. As they stands there, the Garou feel a strange disjoining sense, almost a doubling of each of themselves. Krieg sticks his hand out and feels his spiritual power being drained. They call out into the void, but the sound seems to be crushed by the darkness. Bob moves to the edge of the platform and throws the retrieved cheese. It arcs out and then falls away, only it seems to be falling down at an angle.
They ask Grek for some advice - he says that he has never been anywhere like this - which should give them some idea of the significance of their quest - and is not sure what they could or should do. He says that spiritually, its their quest and he is only able to help them past obstacles. Some of the pack decide that the ongoing screaming in their souls and the sense of gnosis being pulled away and the general deadend lookingness of it all is too much and head back to the demon's cavern. The others sense the area, and gain the sense of the deadworlds, but also a sense of Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm. There is also a maddening hint of a strange fourth sense, which may be the Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm in balance. In the direction of the light, they get a strong sense of Gaia. Freya asks Grek to hang the insane fetish out into the void - he asks for a few minutes to think about it while the pack experiment a bit further. Freya sends faerie lights out into the void, and they are sucked into nothingness. Grek agrees to use the fetish; he holds one end swinging the other away out into the void. The whole pack sense the spirit being drawn from the fetish and torn into nothingness. That decides it, they are heading back.
The demon cavern is still a riot of activity. The pack speculate about climbing back up the shaft, as well as suspecting that its a moonpath-like airt through this realm. Freya calls out to the demon and speaks to it about the Sundering. It suggests that as creatures of both matter and spirit they might be particularly supceptible to the sensations within. Abby suggests bleeding off all their gnosis before going down there, but Grek cautions that that might be too much and not enough, and dangerous. Freya asks the demon if it can traverse the place is guards and it says yes. They ask for its help, but the demon wants to know why it would help them. Freya offers to demonstrate various forms for it, but this doesn't impress the demon much. It looks at Jay and says if that one will share of its experience of forms, it will help. Jay says that's cool by him. Freya agrees to this deal. Jumps-in-Puddles is suddenly overwhelmed by reliving his 2 or 3 years at high speed, as if all his memories were dragged out and played like superspeed film. For an instant, the other pack members see echos of what goes through Jay's mind in the labile materials around him.
The rest of the cavern ceases its motion and a Jay-like homid form rises out of the ground in front of the pack, followed by what seems to be a drinking fountain. The demon says that they must drink as much of the liquid rock as they can - a fountain appears for each pack member, and the demon exhorts them to consume as much of the grey, cold, tasteless slurry as they can. Each of the Garou can feel the liquid settling into their stomachs and then spreading out like a cold tide into their torso and limbs. When they literally cannot another drop, each of the Garou turn robotically and start walking. They descend down the tunnel once more, and the screaming rises once more. However, they feel isolated from the despair and the loss, and don't go screamingly crazy as their limbs walk them down the tunnel.
The pack do not stop as they reach the platform, but just step out off the edge into the void. oon the platform vanishes behind them, and they lose track of time and space as they sail across the void towards the light. For a seemingly long time the light doesn't vary, but then it grows suddenly larger and surrounds them. The next thing any of them, are aware of, they are on their hands and knees on a stone floor, retching up grey liquid.
This process takes a while, as they can feel the liquid pulling back from their every extremity into their stomachs, from whence they can chuck it up. All in all, it's a pretty miserable five minutes of anyone's life. Finally it is over, and they all collapse onto the floor, back in control of their bodies. When they finally work up the resolve to actually give a damn, they look around and see where they are. They seem to be lying on a cobbled stone floor, forming a large platform surrounded by the familiar void. Away across the floor they can see a mahogany bar, with a row of bar stools in front of it. Behind the bar are glass shelves with rows of bottles and cans. There is a lone figure sitting on the corner stool.
Everyone gets up and moves towards the bar. As they approach, they see that they figure is a woman in her twenties, dressed in a grunge/punk style, with ripped tights, Docs and a leather jacket, along with a few piercings and tattoos. As the Claws of Wisdom move up, she says hi and invites them to have a drink, although they'll have to serve themselves as the service here sucks. The pack aren't quite grasping what is going on and ask where the bar is, what city, where she's from, trying to crack the facade, but dissuaded by the look on the GM's face, they decide to go with the paradigm with which they have been presented. Krieg tries a Scent of True Form on the woman and measures his length on the hard slate floor. Although he reverts to crinos in the process, she doesn't seem to react particularly. Bob tries Sense Unnatural, and finds that everything is Gaia, even things that normally would posess a Weaver or Wyld component. Nuff said.
Cole finds a cigarette machine, but has no change - he thumps it in frustration and a pack falls out. Experimentation says that the same thing happens when he whacks it once or twice more. The others either proceed to get stuck into drinks or ask the woman questions. She says her name is Gai and she notes the didn't have too many problems getting past the bouncer. They glance over at the pile of grey go they all vomited out and find that the goo has become a featureless cylinder. Gai seems happy to chat, but although she answers their questions easily enough, the pack find that she has a knack for turning the conversation to themselves - Gai asks them about themselves and what they do for a living, where they grew up and so on. She seems quite friendly and happy to chat; its not that she's avoiding their questions, but she just appears to be genuinely interested in their lives. When Freya has a drink and reverts to crinos too, she still doesn't react.
Jumps-in-Puddles sidles over to the pile of goo, which morphs to take his form once again, and asks what it sees. The demon says that it is fairly sure that it is not seeing what they are. Jay sidles back and rejoins the conversation. Cole tells Gai that if she could just sign his cigarette packet, he will make sure that the Jindabyne Council know that she approves their taking a position on the council. She looks at him weirdly, but humours him. Its just a slewed squiggle, but he puts it carefully away.
Gai tells a little about herself, saying that she had a pretty fucked up childhood. Her parents were hippies with some sort of modern relationship. There was her mother and father and her mother's boyfriend. It seemed to work all right for a while, but then it went to shit. Her father had some sort of mid-life crisis, because all his esteem was wrapped up in his work, so he chucked in his job and went off to express himself. The mother's boyfriend turned out to be a pervert who started abusing her. As for her mother, she was an alcoholic pill-popping schizophrenic, in and out of institutions all the time, so she couldn't do anything about her boyfriend abusing her daughter. Gai says that she can't really complain, and that she turned out not bad, all things considered. Freya asks if she thinks that her parents might work things out and get back together. Gai says that children always live in hope of everything magically working out, and the family getting back together. Stranger things have happened, but she's not holding her breath. Someone also asks if she has any siblings. Gai says that she's not aware of any, but living with hippy parents, who can say what they got up to.
After a few more drinks, the pack asks Gai if she has seen a friend of theirs; a Marion Perry. Gai says that very few people stop off here, but she does know a lot of people. Gai pulls out a battered address book and flips through it, until she finds what she's looking for. She offers to give them Marion's phone number, and writes it down on the back of a coaster. Cole takes it, and its just gibberish - he passes it to Bob, who is once again briefly detached from the pack link. Bob experiences a vertiginous senstation and the thread in his head suddenly grows, extending from the first point to the second point. From the second point it extends again, but fades as it goes. It doesn't indicate a particular direction.
Suggesting that they should perhaps be going, the True Seekers ask Gai if there is another way out of here. Gai says that she can show them the back door if they don't want to leave they way they came in, and points off into a corner that now has a door that wasn't there before when Bob looked around. Everyone says goodbye, with much hugging and they troop through the door...
...and find themselves in an alley somewhere in the Deadlands. Probably somewhere in Australia. They poke about for a bit and work out that they are in what is probably Clarendon St. The pack shrug and head back to the Cemetary. On the way there is a lot of "wow, we met Gaia!" kind of conversation, and it seems to have really made an impact on the pack. When they arrive at the Caern-analog, they find the multichromatic Mr Allen floating in midair and Grek reiterates that they just have to touch the body and step through - which Cole does immediately.
The others decide that they want to Questing Stone for Polly. It takes about 10 minutes to perform the ritual, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. They decide that its probably time to get the hell out of here and step through. The sensation is like rising out of a particularly distressing dream, dizzifying and nauseating. The pack appear in the Umbra at the caern. As the last of them appear from the Shadowlands, Mr Allen's body immediately decays and putrifies, leaving nothing but a nasty stain. They find that Cole has been made to wait where he was by Barry, who was guarding the body, and psychologically tortured ("Why did you come back alone? Maybe you broke it? They've been 5 minutes longer than you, maybe they are stuck there forever!"). Barry seems glad to see them all and tells them that its actually very early on...
...which seems to suggest that time flows mostly the same in the Deadlands. It also leads the pack to suggesting that unconsciousness is a good plan, so this they now do. Freya tells everyone to stay in the Sept, but Cole creeps away home. Everything is quiet and calm, which is worrying. More worrying is finding all of the statues apparently inert and inactive in his studio. Figuring he's much too tired right now, Cole stumbles into bed.
Relatively early the next morning, the pack get together with the Elders and Grek at Graeme's house. He cooks them breakfast while Cossack encourages them to tell everything that happened, from the point where they left this Realm a week or more ago. They have to restart the story several times as more people arrive, and want to hear the part about the Bunyip especially. Cole realises that the cigarette pack is gone, and swears to himself before deciding that he'll fake one. Monash End-to-the-Darkness shows up and the whole story is told again. Once they have finally got through everything, there is a detailed discussion of everthing that happened, particularly everything to do with Gaia and with the Bunyip. This is all information of some significance.
The subject comes around to the fetishes they found. Grek wishes to take the Strider Amulet, to learn certain things - he explains that they are Silent Strider fetishes, and dangerous to boot - they boost certain attributes, but at the cost of burning out and Harano'ing. He says that he will leave the Monkey Puzzle and the bag with the pack. Cole asks why Grek gets to make these decisions and people mentally mention the litany, especially the bits about "for the greatest in station". Cole acts up a bit, and all notice Grek gritting his teeth. Cole certainly has been annoying the hell out of him all trip. Nadine escorts Cole outside and has words with him about this sort of behaviour when they have guests. Meanwhile Grek experiments with the bag and seems satisfied that his guess was right - it is something called a Bag of Shadows, which is useful for carrying items through the umbra as well as concealing items. When an item is placed in the bag and the bag is activated, the item "disappears" and cannot be found. The only way to retrieve the item is by reaching in and activating the bag again. If you don't know what's in the bag, then you pull out items at random until it is empty. Reaching into the bag, they pull out a woollen jacket and a parchment scroll, covered in hieroglyphics. Grek says that he will also take the scroll and let others examine it. The bag and amulet need to be left to charge in the caern.
As the higher rank Garou talk, it becomes clear to the pack that it is expected that they will be taking off to the Deep Umbra to find the New Face of Gaia tonight. The Claws of Wisdom put their hands up and say that if its ok, and even if its not, they want a break. People have family they haven't seen and Christmas is in a few days, and dammit, they are tired. Grek says that he is concerned about time - his dreams and Bob's both intimate a certain urgency, although he is uncertain who for. Freya says that they have been on the go for some time and they know nothing about the Deep Umbra - rushing off to some alien part of the universe seems like a bad idea, considering. Grek is about to say something when Cossack butts in and says that a day or so delay is probably a good idea - for a start, the rest of the Sept need time to make the talens they discussed last time. Grek looks a bit miffed, but backs down. He says that he will be coming with the pack, at least as far as the Anchorhead, a realm between the umbra and deep umbra. The pack say that they need more information before they are happy to go anywhere, and Cossack suggests that they go and catch up with their mortal lives for now, and they can talk later.
Bob heads back to his bin (Bob only), Jumps-in-Puddles wanders off into the city (Jay only), and Cole goes back home (Cole only). Kreig heads back to the dojo, and starts working out how to untangle himself from Greg and the business. Freya heads home to find Brad and Jordan very happy to see her, but very disappointed that she won't be there for Christmas. Brad and her have one of those kinfolk-Garou talks that happen from time to time. However, once they have got over their not-fight, Brad does point out that they've all been invited to Rippling Waters for the summer solstice moot. Freya decides that her pack can do without her for an evening and they organise to head out for a celebration of the new summer (Freya only). Abby spends some of the night on the phone to her parents, being nagged by her mum to come along to Christmas, regardless of whatever silliness those Bonegnawers have got her doing, and explaining to her dad what they've been doing ("we met Gaia!"). And so the pack productively spend their evening.
Recovering from their various nights, the pack are back at the Caern by midafternoon, and hold Grek down and eat his brain. No, not really. But they do quiz him about the trip they are about to make. Grek says that he intends to reach the Wyld Reaches by journeying to the Aetherial Realm. Cole guesses that that's a place where intruders are constantly hit by lightning and small lizards are force up their nostrils. When the rest of the pack ask why he has this opinion, he says that the rest of the Umbra is unpleasant and dangerous, why should this be any different?
Fortunately for all, especially the small lizards, the Aetherial Realm is the sky - it is the country on top of the clouds. Grek intends to go there by climbing a high mountain in the Umbra - Mt Macedon is probably high enough. Cossack lets the Claws of Wisdom know that the Sept is going to help them out by performing a sacred hunt - the Garou will call an Engling to the Sept and spiritually chase it down and destroy it, consuming its delicious gnosis. All very spiritual and majestic. From there the Claws of Wisdom and Grek will head out into the sky.
When evening approaches, representatives of the packs at Sleeping Lore bring the Claws of Wisdom weaver talens that they have made. The thought is that as the Wyld reaches tears them physically, mentally and spiritally to pieces, these talens will help hold them together. Maybe. Each of the talens is different, made by a different Theurge at the Sept, and there are enough that each packmember can probably coax 6 uses out of them.
The pack opt to leave the Bag of Shadows and the Monkey Puzzle at the sept - its not likely they'll need them, and it means that the fetishes can recharge.
Emma Teesdale leads the sacred hunt ritual - an Engling is called and appears in the traditional shape of a large stag. Emma speaks to the spirit and it agrees to be their prey, bounding off through the Umbra. The Get of Pennington and the Scryers keep pace for a while, but pare off, leaving the Claws of Wisdom to run on. They eventually bring down the spirit and tear it to shreds, absorbing its Gnosis. Grek does not partake, but waits until they are ready and then runs off towards the north west. The pack run for a time under the Umbral moon, slowly rising up out of the plains and into the hills. After a time, the Umbral mists close, but they still continue upwards.
The mists clear abruptly - the pack are standing on the edge of a plain of what seems to be clouds. The sky above them is seemingly close enough to touch - a midnight blue in colour, stars are brighter than they have ever seen them before, and they can see nebulae and shooting stars. The moon is enormous and incredibly bright, lighting the whole vista with a silver light as bright as daylight in the Realm. The Aetherial realm is also inhabited - the sky is alive with birds, bugs and wind spirits. Anything that flies or is associated with the air can be seen here, filling the air with bird song, shushing wind and the buzzing of insects.
Grek leads the pack once more. The squishy-looking clouds are quite solid to walk, and indeed run on. When asked, Grek says that he is taking them to the Orrery - a location in the Realm from where they can get more advice on where to go specifically. Cole mumbles and bitches to himself as they travel, getting dirty looks from Grek and kicks from his pack. Merlin appears above the pack, alternatively landing on packmembers and flying above them. Freya greets him and he gives a shrill cry.
The pack seem to be headed towards stacks of clouds that look mountainous from their current location, accompanied by their totem and any number of other avian spirits. It seems that as Jay runs along, the clouds darken underneath him and faint rumbling can be heard - probably his tribe totem, Father Thunder. Understandably, no Rats, Stags, or Fenrir appear.
Despite the solid appearance of the cloud realm, it does bear some resemblence to the more mundane clouds the pack is used to - at times the landscape seems to move about, and at one point they arrive at a gap between two cloud-plains, making a fairly deep looking chasm. Grek suggests that they jump the gap, leading to some disbelief from Cole and skepticism from the others. Grek says that even if they fall, it is not dangerous, just annoying - the descendee will have to find their way back to the Aetherial realm. The obvious solution of going around is raised, but Grek says that there is no guarantee they will join back together instead of getting wider. Despite the dour mumbling, the entire pack clear the gap easily and run on.
Hours of travel lead the Garou to an ever-steepening path that leads towards a castle-like shape atop a mountain peak. Arrr. As they get closer, they can see that the castle is not exactly Euclidian - its almost like an escher picture, with floating towers and faery-like bridges. At the point where the path ends in a castle wall, a middle aged man stands, seemingly waiting for them. He is pale skinned, with dark hair, flecked with silver. He speaks, "Greetings Grek of the Silent Striders, and to you too, Claws of Wisdom. I am Altair, sept leader of the Stargazer Orrery. You are welcome here. Before you enter our Sept, you must answer a riddle". Cole starts to object to what he sees as unnecessary bullshit. Freya tells him to shut up. Cole keeps objecting. Freya, the packleader, tells him to shut up. Abby tells him to shut up. Cole keeps objecting. Abby comes within microns of losing her temper and Frenzying - Cole senses this flood of Rage and loses it himself, fortunately Fox Frenzying rather than raging at his packmates, and fleeing into the distance. Merlin peels off and follows Cole. While this is all going on, Grek looks annoyed and Altair just raises his eyebrows - Krieg surreptiously uses true form on Altair and finds that he is Garou. Mostly.
Freya apologises for Cole, and asks for the riddle. Altair asks...
- appearing within a large courtyard. Altair leads them through the building, seeming to randomly touch walls and disappearing each time into a new room. As they walk within the building, Freya asks how Altair knew who they were. Altair says that their reputation is spreading - one cannot perform the actions that they have reputedly done without word slowly making its way through the Garou community, even to a Sept within the Umbra.
Altair finally leads them into a large room where the entire hemisphere is a glass hemisphere - the sky is magnified and brought even closer than it was outside. Altair sits on the floor and indicates that the rest of the pack should do the same. Grek and the Claws of Wisdom explain their quest. Altair says that they are obviously a pack with significance and a spiritual destiny. As such, they are going to start attracting attention soon, if they haven't already. The pack question him on this, and he says that the pack seems to be an important but unknown element, and the more they reveal the nature of their importance, the more the forces of the Wyrm will be taking an interest in them. Oh whacko.
Another Garou enters through the wall with Cole in tow, saying that he showed up at the main gate and was disturbing their meditations. Freya tells Cole that he's going to cop it when father gets home and in the meantime, sit in the corner. Grek and Altair talk about looking for a Wyld Anchorhead - a gap out into the Deep Umbra - and Altair says that he can help them reach one of the Wyld Anchorheads, but can tell them little of help about the Wyld of the Deep Umbra. He asks that they keep what he is about to tell them to themselves if possible, and they agree. Altair explains that if one can reach the aerial level of the Aetherial Realm, which is where the bird spirits live, then one can fly. The pack will need to fly up through the aerial level, steering towards, but not directly to, the lunar realm of Phoebe. Then fly towards the most vibrant and colourful part of the sky, which is the Wyld Reaches. Once in the Reaches, search for an Anchorhead realm, which can be spotted by their atypically high level of Weaver influence. Once they pass the Anchorhead, they're on their own.
Grek and the Claws of Wisdom thank Altair, and Grek suggests they leave now rather than waiting her - the day's delay obviously sits a bit wrong with him. Altair leads them out of the observatory, through some more walls, and out through the floor of a wide stone platform with no walls. Looking down, they can see that they are high above the main structure of the Orrery, seemingly hanging in mid air. All around spirits of birds and insects soar and swoop, and nearby clouds are dark with roosting spirits. Altair wishes them good luck, as one by one they lift slowly from the platform and climb into the sky.
The Claws of Wisdom and Grek settle in for a long upward flight.
The pack find that while they can't actually sleep, they can kind of get into a restful trance as they concentrate on going higher and higher. Which is just as well, because once the Orrery has sunk into a speck, nothing much changes. There is no day or night in the Aetherial Realm, and time in the umbra generally is fairly dubious, so the pack have no idea how long they are travelling. Phoebe (the moon) slowly grows in size.
Staring at the moon is blinding, but does show that the surface is covered with many twinkling lights - Bob says that they are lunes, or moonlight. Its fortunate that someone is watching them, because there is an odd flash and a sense of something rushing at the pack. Some members are faster to react than others, and the pack ends up scattered across the sky - they think that people have been swept back the way they had come from, but they can't see anyone. Fortunately Merlin is still with the pack and is able to help collect everyone together.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the pack can start to see the thronging colours that indicate the way to the Wyld Reaches. They stop heading straight for Selene and turn towards the multichromatic nebulae.
As used to driving through the Australian outback as they are, this is still more tedious. It requires strong focus to keep moving, and it is hard to make out any actual movement.
Far ahead of the pack, the two lupus spot something like the Milky Way becoming clear ahead. The others can't see it, but Bob keeps watching. As they travel further, it looks more like a stream of stars pouring across the sky. Its quite pretty. Its also closer than they first thought, as they can make out individual points of light, which are increasing in brightness faster the clouds of colour behind them are growing.
Its the only thing to watch, so people get to see the bright, white stream flow across the sky in a band ahead of them. Bob uses his super powers and sees that they aren't stars, they are reflective, and shaped like tadpoles, with the end facing them round and bigger. The pack decide that discretion is in order and start flying sideways to go around the phenonomen. Bob spots that the edge is defusing slightly and then says that some of the things above are chasing them.
They are moving faster than the lights when some of the lights start to grow rapidly. Bob says gah, and that they are enormous weaver spiders, and they were ballooning like baby spiders do. The pack are free of most of their pursuers, but a small fraction are going to catch them. A tense pursuit goes on for about half an hour before the approaching spiders are close enough for the pack to see the trails of webbing behind them, being used like a hang glider and guiding the weaver spirits along. The Garou have the bright idea that if they cut those threads, the spiders will probably drop like stones, so they leap to it!
A couple of minutes of leaping from spider to spider, being calcified, chopping with swords, nearly dropping spiders on packmates, dodging gigantic metal claws and general mayhem later, the pack are relatively safe and free of their metallic assailants, who spin a new parachute and continue on their way, far below the pack. Onward!
The transition from space to Wyld is frighteningly sudden. One moment the clouds of light and smell were on the horizon, and the next, the pack is moving through misty, gently chiming clouds of Wyld energies. Strange lights, smells, touches, tastes, sounds, thoughts, feelings, changes in temperature and so on surround them all. There is the hints of wyld spirits moving around them, but ignoring them. One nebula reflects the pack perfectly except everyone is flipped male-female. Grek says that they now need to find an anchorhead, which should be easy - the only weavery thing in a sea of wyld.
Bob is leading the pack, heading this way and that. Even more so than when they were travelling, there's no way to tell how long things take, but eventually the mists clear and the pack find themselves looking at a large cube. No, wait, an octogon. A dodecahedron. A pyramid. A sphere. Although it keeps changing shape, its definately very weavery. Grek leads them on, touching the outside of the shape and disappearing. Each of the pack does the same.
Inside is much, much larger than the outside. A rectangular space filled with a soft golden light, and replete with the floating cubes of various sizes, the Anchorhead is also home to a large number of banes clustered up the far end, which come pouring down towards the pack from above. Abby starts picking off random banes with arrows from her quiver while the others prepare to be attacked. Kreig meets the first wave with gusto. Too much gusto, it turns out, as he spins off the ground and out into space. As the banes attack, more of the pack come unstuck from the ground, and float aimlessly though space, making it much harder to hurt the wyrm spirits. Eventually Freya crashes into one of the floating squares and finds that it provides gravity, but perpendicularly down in relation to the square - she's now 30' above her pack and upside down from their point of view, but its all good for her.
Although the pack is slaughtering the banes, there are lots of them. Jay glances up to see where they were coming from, and spots an odd square-fractal pattern on the far wall where they were. The pack continue the fight, but are running low out of Rage when Jay points out the pattern seems to be generating Weaver spiders. The spiders pour down the outside of the rectangle and begin calcifying the banes that Abby had crippled with the arrows. As they approach the Garou, the werewolves leap off the surface, at which point the spiders cease to care. So, finishing off the few banes that are giving them grief, the pack watch as the spiders bundle up wyrm spirits and drag them back to the pattern. Eventually the last spider disappears back into the fractal squares.
Grek and Claws of Wisdom move to some of the floating cubes nearer the pattern by a series of jumps and the word "Wheeee!". The pattern is incredibly complicated, with squares overlapping squares to form squares that hurt the brain. Grek says that this is the Anchorhead itself, and this little weaver realm is just a plug. He asks if they are ready to continue - the pack check they still have all their Weaver talens, they have their destination firmly in mind ("New Face of Gaia") and they have an almost suicidal disregard for their own skin - check. Grek begins the ritual that will let them leave all they know of Gaia, passing them braids of copper, hair and ivy as he does so, which will lead them back to the Anchorhead from the other side.
As Grek chants and touches them all, the pattern begins to change. Squares slide past one another, and some of them get smaller or larger. Squares begin to become cubes and the pack gain a sense of distance in the flat pattern below them. The distance increases and they can perceive a way through the pattern and beyond. Grek's ritual reaches its climax and the pack almost hypnotically leap from the cubes they stand on, and head into the pattern.
The immediate impression is of no sound but not silence, no sight but not darkness. They can feel a connection from their token back to a point, although the Anchorhead does not seem to exist on this side. They also find that their thoughts immediately start acting in a strange fashion, with random, disconnected thoughts entering their heads. Bob, on the other hand, is "seeing" something. The existence around him is "contoured" in many dimensions, but it seems to make some intuitive sense. He feels that she knows the way to go. The Claws of Wisdom form a chain with as many people touching Bob as possible, and they move (somehow) "forward". Bob is aware of an independent shifting in the contours in the direction they are going, and she realises that it is a Wyld spirit. He leads the others around the spirit. The others have only a brief and subliminal impression of the spirit, a sense of something which is different from the not-sense they are feeling.
They go further and further into the Wyld. The further they go, the stronger Bob's sense of direction becomes, the more it makes sense to him. The others are losing coherence, and start to use the Weaver talens providing blissful periods of calm. The calm does not last for long, and each time it lasts less time that the previous. Occasionally Wyld washes over one or the other member of the pack, sweeping away the effects of a talen, and plunging them into incoherence. Kreig is the first affected, but manages to grab one moment of lucidity and use his next talen. Later, Cole is hit by a wrenching sensation, twisting him about .
The Claws of Wisdom reach the point where they have used half (or more) the talens they have, although Bob has not been using any. They are about to pass the point of no return. The have a quick conference during a moment of lucidity. Figuring that Bob can drag them back fast enough, they opt to plunge onwards, after distributing Bob's talens out to folks. Things are becoming clearer and clearer to Bob, while the others can feel their minds ripping away from their moorings.
Then Bob stops, knowing that he has arrived - he senses a dip in the local contours of potential, and something at the bottom of that dip, almost like an amphitheatre. They move down into the centre and all of the Claws of Wisdom become aware of a sense-object near them. It is an object, although they cannot "see" it, and is reminiscent of a heart-beat, although they cannot "hear" it. They all get a sense of deja-vu. One of the pack reaches out to the heart-beat. There is a brief sense of the trance-state the pack uses to listen to the world, and then the outer walls fade like ice in hot wind.
Blue waves washing on a sandy beach, gum forests, snow falls on rocky mountains, shimmering heat-haze on a vast red desert, deep green wet jungles, kangaroos, wombats, cockatoos, flies, lizards, fish.
Cicadas and birds singing, wind in the trees, the crackle of bush fires, rushing water, rain and thunder, silence, unknown animals calling.
Salt spray and sand, dust and smoke, flowers and eucalyptus, blood, animal scents.
Hard stone, cold points of snow, soft wet clay, tickling of long grass.
Awareness of point of view. Slowly increasing, becoming aware of self and other. Many self. Motherhood. Death. Hope. Hunting. Fury. Some self partakes of certain concepts. Concepts collect into sequences. Memories and desires.
Gradually, the pack reassemble their psyches from a 'pool' of experiences and points of view. It is hard, and the job is incomplete, parts of the pack left behind in the super-experience that they all partook of. They are able to recall most of what they sensed, the sensations of sight, sounds, smells and so on, as well as an overriding sense of a heartbeat.
All of the pack seem to share Bob's previously unique view of their environment. Nothing appears to have changed - perhaps the whole experience took no time at all. A tiny Wyld spirit is trundling past Bob, and he reaches out to it. It says hi, and Bob finds that he can speak with it, which is unusual (for unusual read impossible). The little Wyld spirit seems fairly bemused about the matter too, and tells Bob that he is very close to the edge of anything that can be called anything. The beginning of creation as it can be understood. (Of course the problem is that describing it as having an edge in any understandable fashion suggests at least an attenuated understanding of what lies on the other side of the edge. One cannot define the parameters without an understanding of what constitutes not existing within those parameters. So you can understand the notion of approaching the edge, but the idea of the edge itself in this place is inconceivable. Not that Bob really cares). It asks Bob why they are there, and when Bob answers with nouns and other pesky concepts, the spirit splits in two in order to pursue the different ideas. When Abby chimes in, it splits to speak to her as well, and so on. Eventually the space is full of thousands of chattering Wyld spirits, but as the pack stop following the tree of questions, the spirits merge back together, and eventually the topic of Bob's thread comes up. The little spirit also asks whether he wants it to finish the thing in his head - you know, the little gold thread. Bob says sure, so the little Wyld spirit slips through his head and completes the thread.
Bob thanks the spirit as the thread stretches and fills his mind, turning
independently. The thread starts pulling his back the way they came, and
the other Claws of Wisdom grab onto his hand and each other. They are
moving back across the Wyld, faster and faster....and faster and faster....
and faster. And faster. Faster, faster, faster.
Faster!
Faster!!!!
Faster!!!!!!!!!
Anchorhead??!!?!?!??!!?!
Freya manages a brief glance of the geometric shapes of the Anchorhead as they explode out into the Wyld Reaches, but there is no sign of Merlin or Grek. They seem to be getting faster and faster, being pulled down. Ahead is the pearly white shine of Phoebe's light on the clouds of the Aetherial Realm, rapidly growing. They cover what felt like weeks of travel time in minutes. The pack yell as they slam into the clouds.
When the mists clear, they are floating slowly but purposefully through mists; the mists of the Near Umbra. Descending down through the mists, tress begin to appear as they enter the Penumbra. They come to a stop, no longer propelled by the thread in Bob's mind, but Bob can still feel a sense of direction. They wander through what appears to be a rain forest in the penumbra. They're not sure where exactly, but Abby puts forth the possibility that they are in Carnarvon Gorge, where this all started. They keep following Bob's sense
The Claws of Wisdom hear a call behind them, and they turn to see Indira Songs-of-Sorrow (sept leader of the Web of Dreaming Hands) coming towards them. She seems very surprised to see them, but wishes them a Merry Christmas for yesterday...
...and asks what's going on and what they're doing here. The Claws of Wisdom say that they'll explain a bit later, but that she should come along with them. On the way, Cole tries to convince Indira that Grek is dead, and if they see him again, its really a doppleganger. Dissuaded by the blows to his head that the other pack members administer, Indira doesn't believe him. Freya says that they are not sure about Grek, and gives her a quick rundown of where they were 20 minutes ago and what's happened. Indira chuckles a bit, but refuses to share the joke, telling them that they've come so far that she doesn't want to spoil the surprise.
Bob's trail leads into the Realm and along a dirt/gravel road. The road leads to an A-frame house set into the edge of the rainforest. The pack are heading towards the house when a man comes out of the house - he looks like a park ranger, beard, shorts, boots. He looks at Indira and then at the pack and says "hi". Indira introduces the individual Garou by their human names and says that this is John Lawrence, one of the sept's kinfolk and a ranger for the National park. Indira asks if Alex is here still, and John says that he's upstairs with May. Indira indicates the pack should move on.
Bob's thread-sense leads onward and upward, and down to the end of a hall, where John knocks on the door and sticks his head around, saying there are visitors here. The pack flow into the room, where Alex is sitting quietly with a young woman who is carrying a very small baby. Bob's thread sense leads him to the baby and vanishes, and the pack mentally say "Ahhhh". Freya thinks the baby is about 2 weeks old. They make some light conversation with the confused kinfolk, and Alex asks to speak to the Claws of Wisdom outside. In the corridor, a rather more open-than-usual Alex apologises to them all (especially Jay) for what he said and did when he last saw them. He couldn't see past Marion's death, it just filled his mind. Having had Roberta (the baby) around has seemed to put it into a bit of perspective for him. He says that he wants to make it up to them if he can, but that he is going to stay at Carnarvon Gorge for a while to help the Stargazers with their work. Freya accepts the apology and starts to explain why they are here. Indira suggests that they wait till tonight, and that John and May should be there too.
The pack spend the afternoon flaked out in the warm Queensland sun, where nothing is trying to kill them, and all physical constants seem stable. They do notice some oddness - Cole finds that he seems to now be right handed when he used to be a southpaw. Krieg no longer has the strong musty smell associated with him, but instead a strong floral scent. Its still fairly overwhelming, but it smells like flowers instead - a different flower to each person. The other seem to have come off fairly scot free from their adventure.
Late in the afternoon, Monash comes to find Freya. Her and Abby are swimming in a sunny pool. Monash says that he would like her to speak to Cole about what he is saying about Grek being dead. He has apparently spoken to a couple of Garou at the Sept, some of whom respect Grek if not like him, and they were quite upset. The two Fianna sigh and promise to deal with it. Abby picks up a sharp stick and asks Freya's permission to deal accordingly with Cole. They find him sunbaking in a quiet glen. Briefly quiet, as Abby rams her splintery stick into Cole's foot. There is a short, painful conversation about how Cole is going to stop lying and apologise this evening, to which Cole agrees, possibly only cos Abby has another stick. She yoiks the stick out of his foot, causing him to yell some more.
That evening, all of the garou who spend time at the Web of Dreaming hands caern gather. Some of them are looking with less than love at Cole. Freya makes Cole apologise, but he apologises in such a way to cause his pack to nearly kill him. They drag him off and leave him under a boulder, and argue for a while about why lying is bad, and how his behaviour is hurting all of them, and how they thought they were his friends.
The Claws of Wisdom return to the fireside, and the entire story of the quest is told. It is told for Alex, who was totally unaware that anything was going on, particularly on his behalf, and for May and John, whose daughter the Claws of Wisdom were looking for. The results of their quest seem to indicate that Marion's essence has been reborn into Roberta, which means that she is definately Garou, and after some brief calculations, probably a Theurge.
The pack arise the next morning. Those of them who found that they felt incomplete after the merging in the Deep Umbra are feeling some better, but there's still a sense that they left some of their spiritual essence behind. They chat and decide its probably time to go home and get their affairs back into some sort of order. They find Monash who says that its probably worth their time to go back via Sydney and tell people what happened. He also suggests that the Jindabyne Council will want to speak to them - they'll meet next month around the 15th. Monash walks with them to find Indira, and Alex intercepts them, asking the pack for one more favour. He is going to stay here and help the Stargazers continue their task, but he would appreciate if they could take a letter to Christine and Georgina at Sleeping Lore. Freya agrees and he thanks them again for everything.
A Moonbridge is opened and the pack become Trouble Magnet once again. They catch everyone who is around in Sydney up on the whole story, skipping some of the more sensitive bits. The pack are proferred more alcohol as the day goes on, and it becomes clear fairly quickly that Fleas-from-America has consumed more than is entirely good for him. Nonetheless, they polite refuse an offer to stay at the Rocks caern for the Moot, and decide to head home instead.
When they arrive, Cossack and Ends-the-Quiet are waiting for them. Cossack takes one look at Cole, who is half a step away from vomiting, and tells them all to go grab some sleep before the Moot at dusk. The two lupus drag Cole home via taxi and leave him to sober up on his couch. Bob wanders off and puts on some of Cole's clothes, continuing his "who's the alpha now" subliminal campaign against Cole, while Jumps-in-Puddles tries to learn how to make coffee from beans.
Freya goes home and finds the house dark and shut up - Brad and Jordan have gone to spend the Christmas break with her family. She chats to them both, but tells them that its a Moot tonight so they should stay there, and come back tomorrow.
Abby goes home and starts her campaign to use up all the hotwater that she can get her hands on by showering for hours. However, she's watching some of the water fall when she realises it isn't... its floating slowly downwards. The air is starting to fill up with water as the fine spray coming out of the shower head slows and floats mid-air. Its starting to get a bit exciting in the breathing department, so Abby shuts off the shower and opens the window (cue swirls of floating water drops being swept outside) and hides.
At about the same time, Krieg is checking out his car in the long term parking. It looks all good, so he puts the key in the lock to get inside - as every part of glass in the vehicle clouds oddly and starts to leak dust. As Krieg watches, chunks drop out of the windscreen and land on the seat, vapourising into fine glittering powder. He takes a few steps back, and the slight breeze teases up little whirly whirlies of dust. Figuring that it is probably not good for his health to breath the dust, Krieg heads off, mentally letting folks know what's happening. Abby chips her experience in then too.
While Kreig is ringing around for a Windscreen's O'brien that's open over the Christmas break, Bob senses unnatural. There seems to be a high amount of Wyld clustering about him and Jay and Cole. Whacky. Bob keeps playing the playstation game about driving through the city, but he gets arrested again. Instead of just flashing 'Busted' up on the screen, the police arrest his character and drag him to the police station where he is fingerprinted and put in a cell. Bob can still use the controls to walk backwards and forwards, and the game still seems to be going. He powercycles it and the game starts with his character getting out of bed and having a shower, shaving, and so on. This is too weird, so he turns the tv off and suggests that a rite of cleansing before the moot is a plan.
Jay finally works out how to run the coffee grinder at this point, unfortunately without closing the lid, so he sprays beans and powder all over the kitchen, and the noise wakes up Cole. The pack do their own thing for a while, then get together at the caern. Bob leads the Rite of Cleansing and walks around his pack howling. He feels like he has Gnosis to spare and uses some of it to burn off the Wyld taint. Other pack members make loud noises as they sense their own reserves being burned away. That was weird. They try experimenting but can't seem to replicate the process - maybe it was something left over from all the exposure to Wyldstuff.
The moot begins! Opening Howl! Inner Sky! Removing The Ear Plugs From Cole Who Is Hung Over!
The Claws of Wisdom are invited to tell the tale of their great Quest. They begin with Monash's arrival, seeing Alex, talking to Sydney, becoming Bone Gnawers, visiting the Homeland and the Legendary Realm, learning of the three Faces of Gaia from Rat. They tell of travelling to the Living Face, and helping the Get and the Red Talons and sorting out the dispute around the Lake Eyre caern. Then of travelling to the lands of the Dead - of their detour via the bunyip hell, of the Museum, the Necropolis and the Many Fold Lord, and finally the Atropos Well where they met the Still Face of Gaia. The final part of their story is travelling to the Aetherial Realm, to Altairs Orrery and into the space between stars, out to the New Face of Gaia and back to Roberta.
The story is a very powerful one, even if the pack need practice telling it - life & death, quests and strange knowledge and the cyclic nature of the story all speak to something within the Garou. At the end of the story, Cossack stands up and performs the Rite of Recognition upon the whole pack, and says that for their efforts the rest of the pack is recognised as Rank 3. There is much rejoicing and pestering of theurges to learn Gifts. Emma gets Chris to summon a weaver spirit to teach Cole reshape object, causing him to cackle a lot. Other matters are raised, Freya gives Christine Alex's letter and more stories and songs are told. Most people at the Sept knew Alex and are joyous at the news of his revival and Marion's spirits return. If only they could tell Peter.
Revel, revel, the place is a mess. Or something. The pack join the ritual slaughter of wyrm and then return to the caern before heading home for some sleep (Cole only).
The pack are flying along through thick, dark clouds. They descend through
the murk and find themselves flying over a landscape of vast metal towers,
twisted walkways and machines belching fumes and smoke. Banes swarm
everywhere as
they continue to move on, now flying over a garden filled with people being
tortured and a forest of evil trees. The view follows a black river to a
giant fountain that spews black muck high into the air. Over a strip mine
surrounding a toxic lake, the pack fly on. They are still descending when
ahead appears a Gothic looking cathedral. The view flies onwards as the
doors open and reveal infinite darkness inside. The pack flies
into the darkness ...
...standing in the tunnels under Preston, so recently full of the residual
taint of the Green Dragon. The tunnel is clean, but unlike the ephemeral
storm water drains you have grown so familiar with, this tunnel heads down.
The darkness grows, smothering all light and sense. Far ahead, two
lights(?) appear, and a deep growling begins, carrying with it a sense
of impending doom. The growling becomes
a rumbling engine sound and the lights move towards you, headlights
pinning you in the glare. They rush towards you and the sense of danger
rises out of comprehension - the lights become the glowing
eyes of a gargoyle, flying past - DOOM.
ARGH!
Members of the pack come to some level of consciousness at their various homes, commiserate about the dreams and then lie there vaguely conscious. Abby hears something scrape in the other room and rolls out of bed. Out the window, she barely sees something inelegantly leap over the back fence - but inside, in the half dark, she spots something pale sticking out from under the door, which turns out to be an envelope, which turns out to contain an audio tape and a piece of paper. Abby blearily looks at the paper - its a Vic Police incident report, photo copied and written on. She looks at the clock and drops the stuff on the table before going back to bed for 3 or 4 hours.
At 9 am, having got up and got breakfast for 6, she calls her pack and gets them grumpily up. She tells them about the envelope and the tape - the incident report is about a truck crash in north of Melbourne last weekend, and it has two names circled - John Henke, who was the investigating officer, and Gerald Coulton, who owned the truck. When everyone rocks up she plays the tape again:
Its all pretty weird. Bob checks out the door - using his spider senses he can smell a low-teens male near the door. Who's been to Macdonalds. And eaten pickles. The scent comes from the back fence, that leads out onto the back alley. The kid crossed the fence in two different places coming and going, and his scent leads back to the road. A couple of steps along the trail the way he came and Bob can start to smell something strongly astringent, and he turns off his powers. After a few more steps, he doesn't need them to smell that something like concentrated antiseptic has been sprayed all over the area near the edge of the road. A bit of sniffing around suggests that the kid was walking along the road and detoured into the area of no scent and then came out. Cole suggests that someone gave him $20 to drop off a package, but that they could check the nearby macca's and see if they can match the scent.
Meanwhile, Freya has knocked on Aubrey's door and asked to borrow their net connection to look up Coulton Pty Ltd. It turns out that the main interest of said company is the Coulton Fine Furniture concern, which seems to be found in High St Armadale.
The pack have a bit of a discussion about who might drop this info off - killing the scent seems to indicate that they know who (what) they are dealing with, but the sneakiness says that it has to be someone with a reason not to approach them directly. Hmm
They decide to leave the kid for the moment and concentrate on other matters. While Bob does questing stone for Snr Cnstble John Henke, Krieg and Freya head off to visit the furniture shop. The gods are unkind to peekers this day, so the whole visit is fraught. They find the shop - its a large commercial venture which backs onto a small street which runs along the railway. There is a significant yard at the rear with a garage and an existing truck (large than the crashed one). The two Garou try and figure out who is here - there are three staff, two on the shop floor and one guy out the back, none of which seem to be Coulton, nor Wyrm tainted. It doesn't look like they have a roster - its too posh a shop for that. Even the smallest bits of furniture hit $300.
Meanwhile, questing stone leads the Garou to the Bell St police station which no one can peek worth shit - pesky police and their authoratarian symbolic representations increasing the difficult to reach from the realms of spirit to those of matter. Anyway. After a few attempts, Jay manages to be able to see what's going on, and with a bit of sounding out, he manages to find Jo-h-n Hen-keh, who is standing by a coffee machine and talking with other police. Curiously, he is wyrm tainted, more than your average bear, but not approaching fomori - about that you'd expect from a dodgy policeman. They watch Henke for a time, then he collects a younger police officer (Cooper) and they go on patrol. The Garou scoop up Jay and run along after them.
Freya figures they need to find Coulton and does a Questing Stone ritual. Cruel, cruel fate. The glorious packleader will now be looking for another semi awakened stone spirit to help her with the ritual. Bob sighs and tries it from Carlton, and gives her enough of an accurate fix to find a G Coulton in the whitepages, in Kew. They drive there, cruising past the house before finding somewhere to step sideways. Its a nice double story place with garden, and when they peek back from the Umbra, its even nicer inside. They find one middle aged woman, one 10 year old girl and one mid-40s man, who is pacing backwards and forwards with a phone to his ear, making lots of faces and angry jestures. He's written some stuff down on the pad on the desk, but they can't read it. Some experimenting with trying to get a better sense for the realm reveals that they are numbers, and after the last call, he stops and adds them all up. It comes to about 29000. The pack put that together with their suspicious evidence - Coulton must be voice B on the tape, and he's trying to get $50K together by 'this weekend'. Why was the truck or the crash blackmailworthy though? Freya knows there are only a couple of police impound lots, and she contacts the caern - Chris suggests that its probably at Williamstown rather than Heidelberg or Dandenong.
While Freya and Krieg are heading for Williamstown, the others are watching and often listening to Henke and Cooper. Henke is a yob, and Cooper seems easily bullied - about cricket, about coming out tonight to see a mate of Henke's play in a pub. They stop for lunch in a fish and chip shop and don't pay - the owner doesn't look surprised. Generally Henke reveals himself as a less than ideal human, but they at least have two methods they can run into him - they know he'll be at Bridie O'Reilly's tonight, and at the Boxing Day test on the weekend. After a few hours, they return to the copshop.
Freya and Krieg get to Williamstown and look about the place. Its quite large, with a big shed broken into walled sections and a large yard as well. The only entrance is through the shed and past the manned offices (with officers in them). There are cameras about and the occasional patroller. Freya finally manages to get a good view from the Umbra to the Realm, which is just as well, cos Krieg sucks and has a headache. She manages to find 'their' truck - its had a fairly serious whack on the left side, windscreen is fractured badly, panels beaten in, and there is a tear in the crate-bit. Fortunately this makes it possible to see inside the truck. Freya can make out a number of crates in the back of the truck, filled with padding, and *Gasp* furniture. A couple of crates have been broken, as have their contents. She wants to step in, but the others persuade her to not do so yet - have a look around and wait until Abby gets there to act as a scout from the Umbra.
Henke is boring the others, so Jay and Bob run off to Sunshine, where questing stone says that the driver of the truck, Jamie Emery, is while Abby heads to Williamstown. While they travel, Freya looks about the place. She finds that there are 5 employees of the police force here. Two of them are in the office doing paperwork and sitting in front of pcs. It looks like the office is manned 24/7, but that its not open to the public - the only members of the general public that are here are being escorted by police officers. They look for a visitors book and find that its a written one, and not on the page that might reveal when their visitors Man A and Coulton were here. Abby finally arrives and the three Garou move back to the truck.
Freya steps through and moves quietly through the truck. At one point someone sticks their head in, and Abby warns her to hold still. Poking and investigating reveals that some of the damaged furniture is quite badly broken. Oh, and this set of drawers has two shotguns tapes to the back. And there's some ammunition taped behind this bit here. Oh whacko. More poking about reveals at least 6 shotguns and appropriate ammunition, and there might be more in the undamaged crates. Well, that provides an answer to exactly how Coulton is being blackmailed. Now, who is Man A? Its definately not Henke - doesn't sound like him, and Man A referred to John as a seperate entity. Freya steps back into the Umbra through the Gauntlet. While she is travelling, Abby uses her peeking powers to look about - the glovebox has been emptied, which is strange. She can smell the driver, and two faint scents which might be Man A and Coulton. However, she can't sense anything of the tape recorder that recorded the conversation, nor of whoever might have put it there. Maybe it was in a different vehicle that is gone now.
Bob and Jay arrive in Sunshine and find that Emery is a 50ish guy who seems to live alone in a small house. He's watching the cricket and having a beer, and the Garou are lucky enough to be there as his lawyer rings. They run over Emery's story, er, statement. It appears that Emery was driving from Sydney, with a delivery for Melbourne to the store. He left at 8am, but stopped in Wangaratta for a Christmas drink with a mate. The lawyer mentions the amphetamines found in the glovebox, Emery seems willing to change his statement to make himself appear in the best light - he says that he got them from someone in a truck stop in Gundagai, not someone he knew, and he didn't use them. The lawyer finishes off the conversation, and it looks like he's being paid by the company - that is, Coulton and co. Another suspicious thing - why wouldn't they just drop him like a hot potato.
Abby gets a summoning a wind spirit so they can get it to turn the pages of the visitors log. Meanwhile Bob and Jay run back to Melbourne. Although they questing stoned for Coulton on the way, he is no longer in Richmond, but back in Kew, so they run on.
Abby's wind spirit shows up - a whirlywhirly. It picks her up and wheels her around with enthusiasm before finally calming down enough to have what they want to do explained to it. The pack wait until someone is opening the door and ask the spirit to whirl itself into the Realm. Page! Page! Page! As the two office workers try and sort out all the whirled about paper, the pack read the Visitor's Book from Umbra. Dammit! There's no official visit for anyone to see the Coulton truck. Either they didn't come here, or there's more than one bent policeman. Curse.
Jay and Bob finally make it to Coulton's. Coulton is just finishing a phone call, writing down an address in Hawthorn and goes to head out when his wife catches him on the way. She says they have the dinner tonight, and he says he'll only be twenty minutes. She tires to argue, but he doesn't stop moving, leaving her fairly narky with him. The two lupus give chase. Coulton goes to the house in question where a bunch of smelly hippies are reassuring him that Dave will be back in a few minutes, he just had to go to the ATM. There is a faint smell of mull, which gives them a clue as to why the hippies might owe Coulton cash. Dave takes his own sweet time as Coulton looks more an more agitated. He finally arrives, Coulton snatches the cash and jogs out to the car. Hippies ask each other what's stuck up his arse.
Coulton speeds back to Kew, and by the time the lupus catch up once more, he is in the shower, rushing to get ready for dinner - a suit laid out on the bed, and his wife's dress seem to suggest its important, or at least formal. His other daughter (14) has arrived home too. As the two lupus watch, a baby sitter and pizza show up. They try and read the invite, but its closed and there's no opportunity to step in and read it.
The others give up on Williamstown and head back over to the caern. They figure if Coulton is out and his study, isolated from the rest of the house for the most part, is empty, they can spy on him. A frisson of imminent doom runs through all the Garou. They also toy with the idea of following Henke, but figure that they know where he'll be all night, so there's no rush.
The pack try and figure out how to know where they're going, when Freya mentally suggests looking on the fridge for instructions for the babysitter. Aha, there's a note saying that they'll be at the Windsor Hotel until midnight. Coulton and wife head off, followed by the increasingly fit lupus in the Umbra. Someone has the bright idea of peeking in the caern and travelling to the hotel, on account of that being about 400 times easier than peeking in the middle of the CBD, so this they now do.
Meanwhile, Freya and Abby move out to Coulton's. The study has large bay windows which look out onto the back yard, but they can close the curtains once they are in the Realm. The plan is that once they have spied on the place from the Umbra, taking note of any security setup, Freya will step and Abby will keep an eye on the three fems in front of the tv. Freya steps into the calm, calm Gauntlet.
Meanwhile while Krieg decides that they are close enough to where Henke is going to be that its worth him wandering over there, Abby waits for Freya. Finally she realises that their glorious pack leader is stuck, and by trial and error, manage to free her from the weaver and they both end up in the Realm. Listening seems to suggest that they aren't rumbled, so Freya closes the curtain and turns on an unbright light. They decide that they need help here, so Bob is told to come to Kew, and Cole to go to the Windsor.
Once this interchange is done, Jay and Cole continue their surveillence. They are watching some sort of charity dinner. Coulton is on a random table, not in the centre of attention, but there. He's a little heavily into the red to be honest. While they are Cole is watching, Jay spies movement in the Umbra - not a weaver spider, but a black crinos. Its Ion Apostolovna. He and Jay speak politely about why Cole is spying on him. Jay says they are watching Coulton and Ion looks surprised. Apparently he knows Coulton, who works for him from time to time. The conversation continues and they tell Ion about the guns. Apparently Coulton is not bringing guns for Ion. Ion manages somehow to manipulate the conversation such that he seems to be assigning the job of figuring out what is going on to the pack, much to their rank 3 disgruntlement.
Ion returns to the Realm, coming out of the male toilets in a tuxedo. He slowly moves over to Coulton and speaks to him - Coulton goes pale when Ion appears over his left shoulder and loudly invites him and his wife to a party at Ion's house after this dinner. Its almost like he's speaking to an invisible audience.
Bob arrives and he and the other pack members examine Coulton's study. Using the cracking stone, they open the safe and drawers, finding about $29K and the notes that Coulton's been making regarding getting as much together as he can. They don't find any guns or drugs, and the majority of what is here is legitamate business stuff.
Figuring that the only two pack members that could go to a fancy do and survive are Freya and Cole, they organise to make themselves look pretty while the rest of the pack keep spying on Coulton. Rather than coming in together or dedicating their evening wear, Cole strolls in first, carrying a horrid bit of gauche art. However the Sebastian-Cabot-Buckingham-Palace-looking-Butler apparently has strict rules about allowing invitation only entry to Ion's party, and he eventually makes Cole stand to one side. After a couple of minutes, Ion walks past the front door and notices Cole. Cole says that he has no invite, and Ion apologises, instructing the doorman to allow Mr Coleman and any of his guests to enter. Cole says that a Ms Pinkernicky will be along after him, and gives the egg-art to a random staff member.
Cole saunters in, and Freya follows behind, sighing and saying her name is Pickernick or whatever. Obviously the staff don't believe her, but wave her in anyway. While Krieg and others watch from the Umbra, Cole and Freya bilk the party. Coulton is already here, and drinking more than he maybe should. He looks unhappy. His wife, Diana, looks perfectly happy. There are a few Garou here as well - Tanya from Steel Hunters, Christine Elliot of the Scryers, and surprisingly Irena is here. Tanya (dressed in her normal jeans and jacket, compared to everyone else in high formal) seems happy to chat to Freya, who expresses some surprise about Irena being here. Tanya says that things calmed down again after that little flare up. ("did you have to bring your clown?" "he was the only other one in my pack with a suit").
Cole spends his time causing trouble for his packleader, telling the waitstaff that she is incontinent and worse and that they should make sure she doesn't drink anything with a high glycemic index, and so on. Ion takes Coulton aside for a time, for a private chat - a hint which Krieg ignores, listening in. Ion tells Coulton that he is glad to know that the ... unpleasantness which dogged their particular society has passed, and he would hate to think that anyone was doing anything that might upset the delicate balance. Gerald doesn't know of anyone upsetting the balance does he? No? Good. Well, Ion is glad that they had this little chat. Couldton goes back out and sculls two more martinis.
Jay, who is listening to all this with amusement, suddenly asks if they would be able to get their hands on enough money to top Coulton up - that would let them see what he was originally intending to do with the guns. Cole and Freya duck into a bathroom to be able to discuss it without any fuss - they are spotted by some guy that gives Cole thumbs up. The pack bump heads and decide that they could maybe ask Christine if she could cover them. The two material Garou slip out again and Freya speaks to Christine, who wants to know if she'll get the money back. Freya thinks yes, so Christine says that it shouldn't be a problem - she'll have $25K ready for them tomorrow about 9.
In the meantime, someone has recognised Cole - they attended an exhibition opening earlier in the year. Soon a small circle is chattering away to Cole about his art - the original guy knew his stuff, but these people are just talking to be heard. Cole is rescued by Tanya coming up and seductively sprawling on him - the two of them run off from the loser party and catch some good music in Richmond (completely forgetting why he was there in the 1st place).
Having worked out they can rescue Coulton, the pack then debate how they'll do it - pretend to be police, either federal or internal affairs? Could Freya, who Coulton probably saw at the party, pretend to be a federal police officer? Maybe. Alternatively they could just give him the money and say they want to buy a share of the merchandise? Or they could just give him the money and just mess with him until he dies?
Its decided that Freya and Cole were too obvious last night and that it should be one of the other pack members who speaks to Coulton. The other five vote Abby as the most intimidating, and decide her and Kreig should wait for Coulton in his study. The night is spent alternatively sleeping and keeping an eye on the Coulton residence.
Although Coulton's daughters wake up early to play with their Christmas presents, and Diana gets up around 8, Gerald does not appear to have stirred when Freya drives around to Christine's house. Elegantly dressed as always, Christine leads Freya past a sleepy looking Georgina (another member of the Scyers) and into a working study. She takes a wad of cash out of the safe and says that its right on $25K, in mixed notes. Christine checks that it will come back and Freya reassures her it will.
The pack decide that they don't really need to meet Mr Coulton face to face. Freya dedicates the slab of cash and leaves it on the desk, then returns to the calm blue Umbra. They wait - Kreig, Abby and Jay in the Realm, in Kreig's car, Freya, Bob and Cole watching the Umbra. Eventually about 11am, Coulton awakes. He goes from asleep to panic in 0.4seconds and sprints downstairs after a brief "why didn't you wake me?? / You looked so tired last night i thought you needed the rest" conversation with his wife.
Coulton jogs into his study and closes the door. He takes about 5 steps, sees the pile money, says 'fuck' and then his phone rings. Abbey, aka Ms Johnston, says that she assumes that he has found their contribution to his current dilemma. Taking advantage of their hidden Umbral observers, Ms Johnston continues to slowly wind Coulton up, telling him that they wish to puchase a part share in his delivery and that the $25,000 on his desk should be sufficient. There is much oblique threateningness and confusing of Coulton. He eventually agrees to their 'deal' and Ms Johnston says that she'll call him again soon.
Coulton sits at his desk and counts the money in front of him. As promised, its $25k. He sits and holds his head in his hands for a bit, then makes a decision - he grabs a briefcase, empties the contents out and puts the new $25k in, as well as the same amount from the safe, and heads out the door. The Umbral Garou watch and follow. He ignores the questions from his family, goes to get in the car, then stops and looks around - Abbey wonders if she's pushed the paranoia too hard - and then goes down the street to a small kids park. He sits on the chair, suspiciously watching a car go past before making a call. The Umbral garou try and get into position to hear, but its hard - Coulton's not staying in one spot. They can make out what is being said, but not the voice.
Coulton says "its me, I've got it" and the male voice tells him to wait and they call back. Ten jumpy minutes later the phone rings again, from a home number. The voice says to go to the Cricketer's arms, go into the male toilet, second last cubicle, and pass it under the wall into the last cubicle. Krieg takes off now and heads that direction so that they can be there already when Coulton arrives. The Umbral garou watch Coulton go straight to his car and decide that they should go too.
Kreig and Jay find somewhere to stop and go to the toilets at Richmond to step. They carefully climb their way out of the tangle of weaver structures and head back to the pub in the Umbra. The pub is crowded, because the boxingday test is finishing today. As they watch from the safety of the spirit world, Henke arrives. He looks around, gets a beer and watches the cricket on the tv, and the door whenever it opens. Cole pulls up and finds somewhere to park. Freya leaps out of that car and goes over to Krieg's.
Eventually Coulton arrives and Henke moves into the men's toilets, putting his beer down on the bar. Coulton follows a few minutes later, taking a rather full looking paper bag with him. As Krieg watches, Coulton goes into the right cubicle and pushes the bag under the wall. Henke says "Got it". Coulton gets up and leaves, with nary a polite word. Henke returns to his beer and argues with the bar staff who took it away to get another. He then makes a call on his mobile, saying that it went fine. The voice on the other side apparently gives directions, cos Henke then says righto and finishes his beer, taking off to a nearby car.
In the meantime, Freya tries to find Coulton so they can follow him. Concentrating on the many winding one way streets, she nearly runs him over as he was heading back to his car - fortunately, he was distracted too, and thinks its his fault. Abby slips out of the car and follows Coulton on foot, eventually giving Freya enough directions to end up parked behind the van that's parked behind him. He just seems to be sitting there with the windows down and ABC fm playing.
Krieg and Jay follow Henke's car from the Umbra. Krieg is tearing along as Henke heads south along Punt Road. He is oblivious to Jay's "Krieg. Krieg. Krieg! KRIEG!" until he freefalls off the edge of the bank and into the Yarra, there being no bridge there in the Umbra. However, by this point Bob and Cole have caught up and manage to drive after Henke towards the south. Jay and Bob give chase in the Umbra.
They arrive to find that Henke has only been here a couple of minutes longer than they - from the Umbra, they peek out into a home in Elsternwick. Henke is sitting in a room with a man of about the same age, balding and overweight and a fairly frumpish woman. They are having tea. The man appears to be Bryan and the woman Lorraine. A bit of scouting finds a surname - Webber. Bryan Webber appears to be Man A on the tape, huzzah. They are engaging in chit-chat - the feeling seems to be that Henke used to be posted with Webber maybe? Lorraine certainly conveys that they've known each other for a while. Eventually she heads out and Henke passes the brown paper bag to Webber. Webber counts out $10K and gives it to Henke and puts the rest in a locked draw. They chat a bit and then Henke heads off, with Bob and Cole following him. Webber makes a call.
Coulton's phone rings and he winds up the windows. The Garou curse and get Webber's side of the call relayed. He tells Coulton to go ahead and get the truck, it'll be cleared with the guys on the desk. Webber hangs up and makes a call to what is probably the Williamstown depo, saying that someone will be coming to get a vehicle with the license plate of Coulton's truck. Webber settles down to watch cricket with a beer.
Coulton takes off and heads out to the shop, not to Williamstown. The Garou 'ah' and realise he'll need someone else to drive the truck back. Some of Claws of Wisdom laugh evilly and suggest that while he's doing that, they could go and get the truck, but they decide that discretion is better than humour in this case. Figuring Webber's doing nothing, Krieg and Jay run back along Nepean to meet with Freya, then the Garou drive out there to plant a spy in the truck. They get there in plenty of time, and Freya decides to defy heat stroke, and steps into the truck in lupus, inside one of the unbroken crates.
Coulton arrives with a driver and they get the truck with a minimum of fuss. The rest of the pack follow along behind as the truck follows Coulton's car. The truck drives back to Armadale with its load of wolf, guns and furniture. When they arrive, Coulton, still kinda jumpy, stops Tony (the driver) from unloading - he has to, um, ascertain how much damage has been done first, and the insurance guys might want to look at it as is, and so on. Freya tries to step into the Umbra and fails - she doesn't seem to be able to muster the appropriate amount of spiritual centredness to step sideways in the fairly suffocating atmosphere of the crate.
Coulton, not suspicously at all, gives all the staff the day off - its hot, its holidays, there won't be many people around, they can have a paid day off. Once they are all gone, he closes the shop up and sits in his office, and makes a call - the Garou are unable to be exactly where he is, and only hear Coulton's side, which is "Its Coulton. Yep, its here. Now is good. Right." He then sits at his desk with the radio on. Figuring this is a good time, Kreig steps into the truck and pries Freya from the crate, then he carries her into the Umbra.
Cole and Bob give up following Henke, having spotted where he stashes the money in his house, and drive to somewhere near Armadale via Cole's house, picking up Winston, who can actually navigate. Meanwhile, there is much waiting. Eventually a late model commodore drives up and parks in the yard. There is apparently some sort of buzzer, because Coulton gets up and heads for the back, unlocking the door and watching the four guys get out. He asks where Yeager is, and the driver says he sent them. They spend some time moving crates around in the truck, and then taking out all the guns and ammunition. There's 10 autoshotguns and ammunition, and the new gentlemen load them into sports bags and stow them in the car. At one point Coulton is told that he's late and he says there were hassles in Sydney. At the end of this, they give Coulton an envolope and say "$30000." Coulton nods and sees them out.
Figuring that the guns are the more pressing target at this instant, the pack leap into action. Cole heads along High St towards the shop, but gets stuck behind a tram as the guys go on past. Figuring if he doesn't go now he might lose them, he pulls a sudden U-turn with much squealing of brakes and complaining from under the blanket in the back seat. Cole is a fair way behind, but manages to keep them in sight, losing them just as he gets stuck at lights on St Kilda Rd and they roar on through to Kings St. However, Freya and co have finally got to a car and caught up, picking them up nicely just at that point.
Now that they have two cars on the tail, it becomes a simple matter. The guys with guns take the Westgate bridge and continue out towards Werribee. They get off between the western treatment plant and the zoo, and head out of town. Cole peels off and goes to park in the zoo car park, making sure Winston is hidden. Freya follows the car and sees them park with other cars at New Western Panelbeating and Mechanics. They pass the location back to the others and Cole slips into the Umbra while Bob runs across the open fields. Given the openness of the terrain (flat and swampy), Freya drives on a fair way before parking her car. Krieg takes her into the Umbra and Abby takes Jay.
The Umbra is much the same as the realm, but with some bushes, not just cleared fields. The strip of mechanics, truck repairers and heavy machinery hires that their site is at the end of is obvious across the Umbra as a straight line of weaver structures. They head there and meet with Cole, who peeks. They find the car but the guns are gone. Some sneaking and sniffing later, they find that three of the guys went to the workshop, and the guns are probably stowed there.
They have a quick look about the place - there are 6 bays for working on cars vis panel work, some with partially disembled cars, and 2 for working on the mechanical side of things. There are about 12 guys here, some working on cars, a couple just hanging about and burning rubbish in a drum. There are also a couple of petrol pumps and Cole categorically says whatever happens, there will be no fire. Cole's professional opinion is that this is a chop shop - they take stolen cars and rework them, or ship drugs in compartments behind the seats. While they are looking at some of the purported reworked cars, someone across the yard calls "Yeager!". A fairly heavy set guy comes out of the mechanical bit and into the office. The Garou scramble to hear the call, but only get there in time to hear "- rings again, it'll all be up to you" and then a click.
Yeager puts the phone down and steps outside the office again, and continues chatting to the guy he was talking to about the car they are working on. The pack are all suspicious like. They are looking about when Abby spots a shimmering to the south. Various people try to sense for supernatural events, but its too far away. The shimmering brightens, looking like an oil slick, and then fades. The pack can see movement heading their direction, but its quite hard to make out - only when the movement reaches the road bordering Yeager's can they see a mass of eyes and mouths and sense that the creatures are banes.
The pack spread out and prepare to attack - various gifts are used and people spread out a little, while Cole demands to know what is going on. As the banes attack, Cole hears the phone ring and sees Yeager dive into the office. He leaps through the gauntlet after him. Meanwhile, the pack engage the banes - swiping claws cause the floating eye balls to pop and spurt goo. Freya and Jay are both frozen in place when all the eyes suddenly look at them and reach into the flee or fight reflex. The mouths close and start to bite and tear at the paralysed Garou. Abby shreds one of the pesky things and leaps to help Jay. Krieg is briefly shocked into immobility, but shakes free of it.
In the Realm, Bob bolts across the fields to get closer to the action. Cole appears behind Yeager and flips to Crinos. Yeager grabs a handful of papers off the desk as his body twists and starts to develop plates and spikes. Cole grabs his arms and goes to headbutt Yeager, getting a scratched sternum for his trouble from some of the spikes. Despite Cole's grip of doom (which would pin an olympic wrestler), Yeager pulls one arm free as more plates slide out of nowhere and over his skull. Cole decides enough is enough and drives his claws at Yeager's neck.
Meanwhile, in the Umbra, the pack are slowly destroying the banes. Giving up on their eyeball attack, the wyrm spirits are biting and munching on the Garou as they slice and crush. Jay is badly hurt and rescued from the fray by Abby. The spirits are eventually shredded to nothingness and the pack take stock.
Cole manages to find the single point of weakness in Yeager's exoskeleton and tears his head clean off, spraying the room in ichorous fluid and dropping Yeager's body to the floor. Glancing out the still open door, he sees a number of men running his direction - one of them fires a shotgun, but the pellets just ping around the office. Cole slams the door shut and uses his new Reshape Object gift to drag concrete from the wall across the door. Krieg and Freya erupt into the already close quarters of the office and marvel at the amount of goo. As Cole finishes dragging concrete across the doorway, Freya goes out the window and Kreig drags a filing cabinet across the door.
Shotgun blasts start to hit the office door, puzzling the guys with the guns somewhat. Kreig pushes the bookshelves covered in files in front of the window on the northwest side while Cole starts to dedicate Yeager and the papers he tried to escape with. Freya changes to Glabro leaps on top of the building and sticks her head over the edge of the building to see what's going on, without perhaps thinking what the reaction of a lot of jumpy men might be at that point. She manages to pull her head back as the edge of the roof disappears in a hail of shotgun blasts...
Bob sprints past the front of the building in lupus to draw their fire, getting shot in the ass and not being able to heal. He dives into the Umbra and changes, then heals Jay - who, now all better, peeks to tell people what's going on. He sees that the guys have worked out that there's a window on the far side and about 6 of them are headed around there with guns. Abby decides to go and find out if there are still guns in the workshop, so Freya runs along the roof and drops off the end before diving in the open window. In the meantime, the men with shotguns are trying to blow the bookshelf out the way. Cole is chanting as fast as he can, and Krieg is trying to keep his head down and search the place. He finds a vial that senses of wyrm, full of some sort of oily liquid.
Abby appears in the workshop and ransacks it. Freya finds a hidden compartment in a cupboard and an automatic rifle with two clips which she throws to Abby, who laughs maniacally. Abby flips the rifle to full auto and sticks the gun and her head out the door of the workshop. Looking along the front of the building, she can see the guys still trying to get in through Cole's warped door. One loud burst of fire later, all of the guys are either dead or crippled on the ground. Jay reports that the other guys stop firing and seem a bit shocked. Two of them run for it. The other two work out that the fire came from the workshop and creep down the outside of the building. Jay reports this to Abby, who sets herself up behind a bench and waits for them to come into view. They do, she empties a 3-round burst into each of them, they fall down.
Now not under any threat, Cole, shaking his head in disbelief at the carnage ("they were of the wyrm!") finishes his ritual and grabs the stinking wyrm carcass of Yeager into the Umbra. Krieg grabs the fire extinguisher and sprays the whole place down to make the job of forensics a bit stranger and then changes to lupus before leaping out the window with the vial of Wyrmness he found. The others head into the Umbra from the workroom.
While Cole has a look through the wallet in Yeager's pants, Abby looks at the papers - the first thing she recognises is her address, with Aubrey's name listed. The second is Freya's address. The third and so on are names and addresses of various people with oddly familiar surnames - surnames of the Garou at the sept. It seems to be four page list of all of the kinfolk from the Sept of Sleeping Lore.
The pack head with all speed back to the caern, avoiding the increasingly loud sirens. They arrive back and find Cossack with Graeme, and show them the list. "Holy mother Gaia" is about the mildest swearing they both use, and Graeme calls Nadine to come over straight away. The pack relate the story, from the guns through to today's fraca. The Elders are peeved, but not with the character's. Cossack says that the list doesn't include all the kinfolk, and it does include people who are associates of the sept rather than family. Most annoyingly, it includes people who have no real idea what is going on, and they are going to want to move everyone, at least in the short term. This could be awkward ("Hi there, I'm a werewolf, and your name was found on a list in the hands of dangerous criminal types in the service of a cosmic entity of evil known as the Wyrm, so we're going to have to move you for your own safety").
The Elders need a little bit of time to discuss things - they tell the pack to go and speak to their own immediate family and get them hell out of dodge, if possible. Freya rings Brad and Abby rings Aubrey and each tell their respective kinfolk that now would be a good time for that surprise holiday.
When they come back to the caern, the Elders have people there from every pack and give them a quick run down. The plan is that while Claws of Wisdom try and track down who Yeager was working for, the other packs will go to the various addresses and try to see if there is active surveillence going on still, and maybe try and trace that. To the wolf-car!
Either Jay or Bob has the bright idea to look for a phone exchange spirit and the others think this is a good idea. They head for the local Werribee exchange and find the spirit is awake in the Umbra already. Its badly making thousands of connections, but is happy to speak to them. None of them think to check what this is doing in the Realm, but ce la vie. They ask it for the numbers that called this phone number (Yeager's). It says no one called that number at the times. They ask again in a different way and it says that that number received two calls, one at each time they expect. Where from? No numbers dialed that number. This goes back and forth for a bit before they finally work out that it has a record of Yeager's number being called, but no one called it - and that might be the case if someone called from the Umbra. Some experimentation says that is indeed the case, and a visit to the next exchange along reveals that while it put the call through to the Werribee one, it has no idea where it came from. A deadend, but one that does suggest these people had access to the Umbra - that, plus the banes, is beginning to tilt them towards a certain amount of Dancer influence.
The pack head back out to Hoppers Crossing, to see what the police have dug up. They get off a freeway entrance later and stroll back through the squelchy Umbra. When they arrive, the place is swarming with police. Who'd have thought? The pack watch as junior forensic police are picking up cases from Abby's exciting play with the gun after photographing them. The more senior guys are staring at the office, somewhat perplexed. Apart from the foam everywhere, there is a shotgunned door, but the filing cabinet up against the back of it is not more than scored. That's not even mentioning the large piles of dead people carrying said shotguns.
The pack notice the police have the day roster and have been crossing people off - there are three names unmarked, Albrecht Yeager, Anton Polides and Michael Stapleton. Presumably the other two are the gentlemen that fled the site when Abby opened fire the first time. While Freya wanders back to the car to questing stone them, Jay and Bob sniff from the Umbra while Abby escorts them, following the trails of scaredness away from the site. They both head along Duncan's Rd and into Werribee, and then split up. One heads for the train station and then his scent disappears - despite a discussion about the people who work the cameras keeping the sex scenes from public transport, the pack decide to not bother with the cameras. Meanwhile, the other heads to the edge of a suburban street and then disappears - presumably someone picked them up. Freya's questing stone is a sucessful for Stapleton, he's somewhere to the north west, but there is no answer for Polides. Someone else does the ritual to, and again, no answer - disturbing, because it means he's probably either dead or in another realm.
Scouring the site reveals a couple of oddities. The water cooler senses of Wyrm, much the same as the vial that Krieg found, and it has a slightly oily look to it. Disturbing, if the employees have been drinking it. (OOC: 10 minute discussion about how water coolers work and how they could design them better). Krieg hears the police mention a home address for Yeager - its just down the road near the beach. While Freya, Jay and Bob head off to the northwest to look for Stapleton and ask him questions roughly about the head and shoulders, Krieg, Abby and Cole go to Yeager's house. They park near the shore and walk back through the Umbra. Police have arrived before them, and are scoping the place out. They can't see Yeager, and radio back that he's not here before sitting in their car watching the place.
From the Umbra the place has a miasma of Wyrm taint - nothing pinpointable, perhaps leaking off Yeager himself. They find a computer and Abby begins to awaken it. However, it just seems to contain normal business stuff and some random games and porn, nothing out of the ordinary. They do get the home addresses for everyone who works at the panelbeaters though, which could be useful. The peeking scout warns people that the police are here and they stop playing with the computer spirit. The previous officers had mentioned the computer and one of the newcomers goes straight to it, and asks pointed questions about why it is on, and why they looked at stuff. The officers in the car say it was off when they came through and no one came in. There is much confusion, especially when some of the file modified dates are in the future. The computer guy gives them a dirty look and checks it a bit before turning it off and starting to pack it up.
Meanwhile, Freya and co continue their Questing Stone path. It leads them to Bacchus Marsh of all places. Bob's questing stone gets fed up with him, so he borrows Freya's. It says that their quarry is in the middle of an orchard. They park the car and the two lupus sneak through the late afternoon to find the scent in question. It leads them to a ramshackle old house, with most of the paint flaked off, and some empty windows. Bob ducks into the Umbra as Freya sneaks towards them from the car and peeks. He finds the vic^H^H^H man wrapped in a blanket with a baseball bat and a backpack, snuggled into the corner and looking out an east window.
They decide to question him. Jumps-in-Puddles and Bob will run in as guard dogs, and Freya will follow to question him. They step out of the Umbra and into the dark corridor. Bob and Jay run in - unfortunately wolfy toenails clicking on bare planks warn they guy, and he swings his baseball bat at head height. Bob leaps gracefully over it, and swings about to attack. Jay grabs the guys arm and tries to pin him as Bob grabs the other arm. Unfortunately Stapleton tries to pull out of Jay's mouth and tears his shirt and flesh, gushing warm salty blood into Jay's mouth. Jay decides to not frenzy and runs outside to calm down. Fortunately, Bob grabs Stapleton around the throat and steps on his crotch with pointy claws and he's inclined to stop struggling. Freya, using Mimic to disguise her voice as someone on tv, questions him.
In short, ignoring the multiple swearing and semicries for help and mercy, Stapleton was approached by Yeager about 3 weeks ago and asked if he wanted in on a big job. Stapleton had been working there for about a year and had done some minor things - beat up some guy in South Melbourne, smashed up a car in Preston - but Yeager was talking about whacking some people. Stapleton doesn't know who, or when, but he knows that the guns they got in today were meant to be part of the job, and that Yeager expected them last weekend or something. Freya feels that Stapleton's attitude to killing people is weirdly blase - perhaps the wyrm stuff in the cooler was affecting them. Despite Bob's calls for blood, Freya decides to leave him quivering and damp-panted in the shack. They all leave.
The pack reassemble at the caern. They made the news! The lead story! The police make a statement about the days events. They believe that about 3pm today, a confrontation between criminal elements took place in an establishment belonging to a person or persons whom police have suspected to have engaged in illegal activity. The aforesaid confrontation resulted in several casualties before police arrived on the scene. Those who were injured during the days proceedings are under police custody in hospital, and will be helping police with their enquiries as soon as they are deemed fit to do so. The police are also seeking a Mr Anton Polides (photo), a Mr Michael Stapleton (photo) and the owner of the establishment, Mr Albrecht Yeager (photo) and are seeking assistence from the community in their apprehension. It is advised that members of the public do not approach them, as they may be armed and dangerous. The police decline to speculate at this stage as to the causes of the confrontation.
Ion calls Freya, and speaks to her about Coulton. Apparently he has made a runner to Sydney with his family. Ion would prefer that he was a useful tool still, so he asks if they have anything further they need from Coulton to ask via Ion - he will try and find out what Coulton knew from Yeager as soon as possible. In the meantime, Hidden Green are doing the big kinfolk moving too, just in case there is more than one list.
The Elders have now started moving all the people who can be told about things and can move themselves. The plan is to spend the night summoning and binding spirits to the oblivious that can't be moved, and then tomorrow helping people that can be. The pack have a couple of hours to kill, so they decide that $40K might be useful in getting people to move. Out to Elsternwick, where a certain B. Webber and his wife are watching tv. The pack play with a couple of potential plans (like stealing his car) before they decide to go with plan b - setting things on fire. Krieg uses his Create Element gift to call fire out of nowhere, around a stick-like tree near the Webber's power cabling. It takes a couple of goes, but eventually he has a nice blaze happily crackling away. In a fairly short time, the Webber's react accordingly, rushing out to try and put it out. In the meantime, Bob steps into the realm, uses Cracking Stone on the locked drawer where they know the money is, steals the money and heads out the back door. Another fabulous plan executed flawlessly.
The pack spend the night summoning and binding guardian spirits, speaking to kinfolk, and helping them pack and move. Occasionally they return to the caern to recharge gnosis and generally zone for a few minutes. The Scryers are currently on guard duty and bring food and drink when they can. The pack split up for most of the time - half in the Umbra, half in the Realm, depending on what they are doing.
They are visiting a young kinfolk by the name of Evan who is fairly aware of who they are, but is lacking a phone. He's packing some stuff up for a trip with the help of Jay, Krieg and Abby when Krieg spots two policewomen coming up the pathway. Himself and Abby leap into the Umbra, but Jay is a bit slow and is seen as the two constables come in. They don't knock or anything, and are fairly brusque about asking where Evan is. The older one comments on the packing while the younger one just moves through the dingy old house. Those members of the pack that are up to date on the kinfolk situation vis a vis the police know that Evan often deals, mostly pot. Evan is in the kitchen and looks a bit surprised to see the police. Apparently they have an eyewitness that says that Evan was selling to a teenager in Smith St. Evan is fairly adamant in his denial, and the police mention that they'd be upset if they needed to talk to him and he wasn't there. Jay cuts in and says they're going camping for New Years near Albury. After a number of subtool threats and such, the police leave, and the pack hussle Evan away.
Freya is going to be escorting about 50 kinfolk out to the Western Districts, where the Fianna have agreed to put them up for a while, so while she is finalising her details for that, the others go and retrieve the rest of the money - out to Henke's house in Coburg, and like that - step, dedicate, yoik, step - its gone. Henke is probably at the cricket. As they pass back through the caern, Barry Heaton gives them a hoy. He asks if they are going out west - the Get of Pennington have mostly got to go east, but they have one guy out at Essendon, Marc, and want to swap. Abby says "sure" and gets the details.
They wave goodbye to Freya and hello to Melissa, who is joining them for the current emergency. (Joker is off with the Get of Pennington). She seems pretty happy to be helping out, and hanging with Bob and Abby, if only because they're not crawling through the sewers, cleaning up black goo. She pesters Cole about his choice of music, and whether she can drive, and tries to not sit next to Kreig. Fundamentally, she's a teenager who has super powers, and is loving it.
They trundle out to Marc's place, which is a flat in Kensington. They knock on the door and a mid-20 year old guy dressed in camo pants and a hippy-esque wolf t-shirt opens the door. He seems happy to see them and asks them in. Abby tries to explain that he needs to leave, and he says that he knows all about it, but he wants to stay and fight with them, not get all protected and stuff. Abby says that its - Marc knows karate, he can fight! Kreig says that they can't take the - Marc has a mirror, look! In case they need to step sideways or something. Kreig says they can't protect him - Marc says he knows karate. Kreig gives some thought to showing him real karate while Abby rolls her eyes and changes to crinos. Marc is very impressed and wishes he could do that, but he could be support - he runs off and comes back with a set of headsets. Bob, noticing the lame pen-drawn bonegnawer totem tattoo on Marc's arm, is trying not to hurt himself laughing in the Umbra at the fan boy. Abby tries to explain that there might be Dancers involved, and Marc says he knows. This generates a bit of suspicion, but the pack seem to have underestimated the power of gossip amongst their kinfolk. Marc says that he has silver bullets, which really makes the pack suspicious - Abby says that they are looking for a traitor, how do they know its not Marc? Marc is hurt and emphasises that he's on their side, and the bullets are just in case the Dancers attack. They eventually get him to agree to go out to where Freya is, and to help organise some of the kinfolk who are about 13 into a sort of pack (yes, and teach them karate).
Claws of Wisdom take their turn guarding the Sept itself, and flaking out. Abby catches up with Barry and hits him. He is apologetic, but Marc is Ken's cousin, and there's no way they would have been able to get rid of him. During the night, the pack talk to some of the elders - they are worried that there might have been a list of all the Garou out there too - how else would someone know who all the kinfolk are? A lot of the people on that list only have the Garou of Sleeping Lore in common, so there's no other way that they would get the list. This is a little disturbing, and they get the Claws of Wisdom to pass the word to be on the lookout to all the Garou.
The pack go out again about midnight for more spirit binding and such, along with Melissa some more. Apparently she wants to get into Arts at Melbourne, and is hoping to study as well as hang out at the Sept. She gets to see Cole's statues and thinks they are gorgeous. Given this is the second night without really a lot of sleep, come dawn the pack are fairly bushed.
Woo, New Years Eve! At dawn Cossack gets everyone together in the Umbra and congratulates them on their efforts - they've moved nearly 300 people and warned or spirit protected another 100 or so. He points out that the Claws of Wisdom have raised the possibility of the Garou being in danger as well, so although he knows people have plans tonight, he doesn't want anyone going more than 15 mins drive from the caern and mostly sober, and wants at least one representative from each pack to stay at the caern. Jay elects to stay at the caern - he doesn't really know enough people to bother with a party anyway. He'll be kept company by Carmel Iremonger, Chases-The-Car, Aquinas Scales-In-Balance and Sings-For-The-Spirit.
The others have plans - Bob is going to a rave with Kirsty and some of the Get of Pennington, Cole has a selection of parties to choose from, and decides in the end to go to his agent's do in Brighton, cos the quality of the company will be better. Krieg is staying home, and finds when he gets there that Greg has invited a small number of people over to watch the fireworks from the second floor. Abby has a couple of invites from Uni friends, but toys with staying at the caern before deciding to go to a party only a couple of blocks away. In the meantime though, sleep seems to be in order.
Bob dreams... he is again in the tuennels under Preston, and they are still coated with the taint from the Green Dragon. He descends into the ground further and further. The tunnel gets smaller, and more corrupt, and the darkness becomes absolute. In the distance, two lights appear, followed by a growling sound. Bob progresses and the growling becomes the sound of engines rumbling. The lights suddenly rush forward and become the glowing eyes of a gargoyle -
Bob erupts from his bin, ready to kill someone, or run, or something. His heart is palpitating and its all he can do to not change to crinos in the middle of the alley. He tells the rest of the pack that he had the same dream, and the sense of DOOM was imminent, but most of them are sleepy.
Abby is woken by her phone. She sleepily answers it, but is unable to make sense of it for a while. It turns out that Melissa has been grounded for New Years and is less than impressed. Apparently she forgot about a dinner with her grandmother last night - her parents woke her up just now and they had a fight and it got a bit out of hand and now she's been grounded for tonight of all nights. She wants Abby to speak to Cossack for her, and tell her parents what's going on - not now, obviously, but when the current crises is over. Abby agrees and goes back to sleep with the phone off the hook.
That night, Bob heads out with Kirsty, Chris, and Marcus. Barry decides to not go at the last minute, and stays to keep Carmel occupied. The venue is in a field out west of town, and the music is pretty cool - its a mix of local folks, mostly doing dance and techno music. Bob has been there a whole 5 mins before someone offers him eccies, but he decides to stay straight for the night like Cossack asked. He decides not to use magic wolf powers to pick up.
Abby trundles off to her party. She knows the people renting the house, and a chunk of the rest of the people, but its a big get together and there are whole bunches of drunk people she doesn't know there. She finds a group of language folks and hangs with them for the most part of the night.
Kreig comes downstairs after a shower and realises that some of Greg's guests have shown up early. Hooray, it includes Peter, Greg's policeman friend who Krieg hasn't seen for a couple of months. Peter is here with a *cough* friend, Rebecca, who he met a couple of days ago. They chat and Peter expresses some surprise Krieg isn't teaching any more - he says that personal business has meant that he might get pulled away at any time, so its unfair to his students, and to Greg. Krieg's planning to move out at some point, and he and Greg will talk about what to do with the space upstairs.
Bob's really getting into the music, its very... wait. He senses unnatural and finds that there is a wyld-like vibe to the music, and its catching up a lot of people, especially the somewhat medicated ones. Kirsty is very into it too. He tries to pin down what it might be, but its sort of an aura above the whole group playing the trance music at the moment and in the crowd as well. He notes the name of the group on stage and goes back to enjoying his night.
Cole has a pina colada.
Abby is watching some scruffy looking nits as they cluster around the punchbowl and giggle lots. Some other people are beginning to behave oddly as well, and the scruffy ones are laughing at them too. A voice beside her says "I think they've spiked it with acid or something". Its a PhD student from the linguistics department, Andrew. Abby sort of knows him from around the department. Andrew suggests that the party is not to either of their tastes, and some friends of his in Prahran are having a much quieter get together - does she want to come along? Why the hell not, says she. Andrew asks if she has a car, and when she says yes, he seems happy. Damn, he was just using her! However, he is good company on the way down and doesn't abandon her at this new party - its a group of about 15 people standing and yakking with wine. Abby's night starts to improve. As the night progresses, the party moves close to the window facing towards Albert Park, where there will be fireworks.
Bob, on the other side of the city, is watching and dancing to a particularly beat-intense DJ. As the countdown above the stage drops to 5 seconds to go to midnight, the beats get faster and louder, and at 1 they are augmented by a lightshow amidst the crowd and more heavy percussion. Bob rocks back, suddenly in pain in the arms. He looks down and sees blood as it starts to be clear that people are running and screaming, and there are gentlemen with heavy automatic guns firing at him and the other Garou.
Simultaneously, Cole is on the balcony of the Brighton Baths, having verbally bludgeoned his way up there during the evening. The count down drops to 1 and then everyone cheers, then screams as the huge windows facing out onto the bay all suddenly shatter to the sound of gunfire. Cole runs to the edge of the balcony, then dives for the concrete floor as at least three people with automatic weapons cut loose at him. The smell of blood is suddenly on the air as the humans around are hit by the randomly sprayed bullets. Cole heads for the balcony over the ocean, but doesn't jump until he sees one guy come up each of the stair cases to the balcony. He leaps over the edge, catching a railing just below the floor line. He's not the only one to have this idea; a bunch of humans are swimming desperately for the rocky pier. Unfortunately, the guys with guns aren't too stupid either - they sneak up to the edge of the balcony some distance from Cole and open fire as he hangs there. Thwarted from his plan of throwing them over the edge, he drops, but is hit by a number of burning, burning bullets on the way down. Cole is very thankful for the Resist Pain gift once salt water swirls its way into the bullet holes left in his side. He stays under the water and swims out to the open ocean.
At the caern, Jay is wandering about in the south east Umbral corner of the bawn when he sees lots of pretty lights start up, all around the fenceline. Figuring this isn't good, he heads north and tries to find someone else to ask. Barry and Carmel appear in the Umbra a bit ahead of him, and start running towards the centre of the caern, flagging him on the way. Carmel has a significant gunshot wound in one shoulder, and Barry says that there are people with silver alloy weapons on the east side of Lygon St. They find Graeme already has the weapons cache open. He gives the two Get of Pennington weapons and asks if Jumps-in-Puddles needs anything. Jay declines, waving the fae sword about. Graeme looks pissed, and says the caern is under attack - he wants Jay to go back down towards the Swanston St corner and stop whatever just came through the fence. And tell the rest of his pack to get back here now - don't fuck about pretending, just tell them right now. This Jay now does.
Back in Deer Park, Bob throws himself bodily into the crowd of humans, who are, quite reasonably, panicking. He hears gunfire, feels the sudden jerks as people around him are hit, and smells blood, but isn't really up to facing anyone with high powered weaponry head on. Bob heads for the stage, trying to get up high enough to see what's going on. In one quick glance behind him, he spots Kirsty, in Crinos form and groans. She's bleeding, but kicks at one gunwielder and pastes him. Now the humans are really panicking, and the vast majority of them want to be elsewhere. Bob makes it to the stage in time to see Kristy and Chris in crinos form, and Marcus in glabro - Marcus uses one of the appropriated guns and shoots out all the lights. Jay's warning comes to Bob about then and as he runs towards the others through the near-empty dance area, Bob sees Kirsty grab something off her ear and fling a bird into the air, which flies off at speed. Bob passes on the message and the Garou run for the cars, stopping only to heal Chris.
Kreig leaps to his feet while everyone cheers in the New Year, and says that he has to, um, empty the snake. With that awkward excuse, he leaves the party and runs up to his floor. Peeking out the window, he spots a small knot of gentlemen on Russell St apparently looking at his front door, which is locked and buzzered - they'd had people hit the buzzer all night, but that happens often in the city, so no one had paid much attention. Krieg grabs the armor and shuffles into it, throws a trenchcoat on top and heads upstairs. The trapdoor should be locked, but isn't, so he heads out onto the roof. Jay's message reaches him about now, and Krieg swears and changes to lupus. He takes a running leap off his building, over a gap and between two cars in the multilevel carpark next door. He flips back to homid and runs for his car before screaming down the ramps and up Russell St.
Abby is wrapped up in the cheering and the toasting and the chaste cheek kissing when her pack start yelling bloody blue murder. She is making a discrete exit when Jay passes on his warning and instead opts for the dramatic exit - she snogs Andrew the snog of his life and says "call me", then runs for it. She has made it to her car when Cossack's voice in her head asks how long it will take her to get to the caern. When she points out that she's in Prahran, Cossack seems a bit pissed that she's not in Carlton where she said she'd be. He instructs her to get Melissa now, and try and meet up with Cole - they are safer in groups.
Cole scrambles out of the Bay and apologises to some distraught penguins. Once he gets back to the carpark at the end of the pier, dripping wet in a lime green tuxedo with a spreading bloodstain, he surreptiously breaks into a bright red hotted up Commodore. Channelling Clarence ever so briefly, he manages to jumpstart the car, and squeal his way out of the carpark, nearly hitting some distraught people in evening wear fleeing the carnage next door. Cole floors it and heads out onto Nepean highway at a great rate of knots. He spotted by a police car, but manages to cause them to have to squeal to a halt in Elsternwick while he accelerates away.
Jay jogs through the cemetary, trying to keep a low profile. Towards the southeast gate, he spots a gargoyle tearing headstones up and flinging them around. After a brief consultation with Krieg, he changes to lupus and sneaks up on the distracted demon, then flips to Crinos and makes his best effort to cut it in half. Jay takes a couple of nasty claw wounds, but manages to put a significant hole in the demon as well. It leaps into the air as Jay is smacked in the chest by burning, burning ammunition from a sniper on the far side of Lygon St. He manages to not frenzy or pass out, but is seriously fucked without help. The gargoyle seems to find other prey nearby, judging by the sound, and although bullets spung off the nearby stonework, they can't seem to hit him.
Bob leaps into the car, followed by Marcus. Chris is driving and he leans on the horn and just goes straight. They hit at least one person, hopefully not too heavily, and make it onto the road leading to the freeway at a waaay too far speed. Krieg, heading up Russell St, is in much the same situation. He swerves back and forth and screams towards the caern.
Abby heads for Melissa's, only a couple of minutes drive away. When she gets there, concern is raised by the roaring sound of a frenzying Garou combined with frantic sounding automatic weapon fire. Abby runs up to the front door, which is ajar, with the handle smashed, when a smashing sound above her resolves into the sight of a human in a ratty trenchcoat slamming spine first into the ground. Abby leaps towards him, intending to question him or something, but a second sense says that she should suddenly slide sideways as Melissa, in crinos and frenzying, leaps out and onto the body, squashing it into paste, then beginning the process of tearing it to bits. Abby sighs and rushes inside to see what's up in there. She finds Melissa's dad dead in the lounge (shot), a dead scruffy guy on the stairs (disembowed and kicked down the stairs), Melissa's mum on the landing (dead) and a decapitated scruffy guy on the stairs. Abby grabs the guns, and heads out the front door. Melissa is still there, and its too dangerous to shoot her with the guns, so Abby changes to crinos, rips the dining room table leg off and smashes Melissa in the head with it until she goes down with a distinctly lopsided skull. A few moments later, Melissa shifts back to homid, covered in blood and to all appearances, dead. Abby throws her in the boot, the guns in the back and leaps into the car, stamping on the accelerator. She can't seem to get a hold of Cole, who has disappeared off the mental link.
Cole has been speeding along the highway when he sees a pedestrian step out in front of him. He goes to slam the break, touches it enough for the car to start to spin, realises that the pedestrian is floating a good foot off the ground, with long, spindly clawed hands and some sort of cowl, and floors it instead. Time seems to slow and stop as the car reaches the figure, which turns and reveals absolute blackness in the cowl, and a certain stoney texture to the surface. Cole's reflexes kick in, and he rips the rear vision mirror off the roof and dives into the spirit world. About five minutes later, he appears above the swampy marsh of Balaclava in the Umbra, still moving at about 140kms per hour. Through an amazing display of athletics, skill and sheer Gaia-gifted luck, Cole misses trees, rocks, and all manner of obstancles other than water before finally slamming to a halt against a tree and winding himself. Stumbling to his feet, he peers back through the Realm and finds that his erstwhile car has effectively been sheered in half. He tells Abby he's ok, and limps away to find somewhere subtle to step back to the realm to steal another car. One carjack later, and he's crusing in a sweet four wheel drive up Punt Road. He starts to become aware of Freya on the mental link, in a sort of empathic way - she seems panicked.
Krieg manages to make his way up Lygon St with only three or four minor collisions, and one or two stunned pedestrians. He continues past the edge of the caern, looking for where the shooters are sequestered. Unfortunately, while observing the flash of gunfire from atop and within some "abandoned" houses along the caern edge, he fails to spot the 10' tall golem-like demon in the middle of the road, and comes to a sudden stop. Krieg leaps out, and grapples the demon, shifting to Crinos at the same time. He knocks the demon down, but its much, much heavier than it looks, and protected by nasty, nasty purple lightning that burns when he hits it. Its at this point that the aforementioned shooters open fire, peppering Krieg with shots, just as the fallen demon grabs him by the ankle (more burning lightning). Krieg manages to move to the Umbra seconds ahead of his imminient death by silver shot.
Jay feels a sudden rush of wellbeing and energy well up from the ground, knitting together his wounds and leaving him feeling considerably better. Cossack's voice in his head tells him that there is something wyrmy and huge coming up Swanston St, and Jay is the only Garou in position to meet it - get down there now. While Jay runs through the caern, random gunfire follows his progressing, pinging off angels and tombstones, making the low metal fences ring. Jay leaps the fence and sprints down Swanston St - unsurprisingly, everyone who was in the area 10 minutes ago has fled. In the distance, the sound of approaching sirens. Jay sprints down the middle of the road and gets to Elgin St. He can indeed see something coming up the street - maybe its a tram. Oh, no, its a semitrailor, and its moving fast. A bright overhead light shows that the truck is being driven by a gargoyle. Jay flips to crinos, figuring the Veil is the least of his problems at the moment, and tries to drag a car out from the curb and push it in front of the truck. Unfortunately, he seems to have chosen a heavy car with the parkbreak on. A superhuman effort swings it in front of the truck just as it reaches him, but the truck sends the car spinning off into the parked vehicles.
Abby does a handbreak turn off Hoddle St, pursued by any number of police, and floors it onto Alexandra Parade towards the caern. Driving through red lights with the horn held down, she can hear the sounds of battle even back here. As she drives past Nicholson, she can see the flashing lights of a police blockade ahead. Abby tries to increase speed in her beatup car, and as she gets near the police, she tries to dive across the divider. Unfortuately, the abused suspension gives up the ghost, and she slams the car down on the engine, causing it to protest quite loudly. A last minute swerve takes her up a sidestreet, where she has time to leap out and grab Melissa and the guns, just before the police open fire. Abby runs with Melissa slung over one shoulder towards the caern.
Bob and co come screaming down Flemington Road. Chris seems to have an almost preternatural control of the car. And the cars around him. The joys of being a rank three homid. Bob is noticing an increasing number of cars that seem to have been hit by something heavy, which is a disturbing tendency. Chris swears and veers up a smaller road, taking a short cut to the caern.
Jay sprints after the truck and leaps onto the cab. He tries to climb up the side, but is finding it hard work, made harder by the gargoyle smashing the drivers' window and punching him repeatedly in the face. He eventually is knocked clear, and hits the ground, rolling along as the truck continues. Chasing helplessly after it, he watches as the truck hits the roundabout at the end of Swanston St, and the cabin jerks into the air, and off to the left. The truck starts to jackknife, momentum carrying along almost off the ground. With an sound so loud it can only be heard in the bones, the truck hits the low bluestone wall, catapulting the iron grating atop it far into the caern.
In the sudden silence, the pack clearly hear Freya's mental shout - "HELP! I've been kidnapped by someone who knows!"
The pack catch Freya up on their own events, and promise to come find her as soon as they can, then turn their attentions back to the battle.
Kreig appears in the Umbra only to find his situation has not really improved. He is now amidst a cloud of stinking, oozing, shlurping banes, all clustered around the outside of the caern and hammering at the wards. He thinks briefly of leaping back into the realm and taking his chances, but decides instead to hammer his way through the banes in a single leap into the caern. Its not the most elegant solution and he ends up half impaled on the fence before slumping down on the other side, laying in the caern grounds but crippled.
In the Realm, Abby runs through the sudden silence of gunfire from her Jam Technology gift, leaps the fence, drops the unconscious Melissa and tells Krieg where she is, then pissbolts for the crashed truck. Her Gift cuts out again and she has to crouch low to dodge incoming fire. Meanwhile Cole is speeding along Alexandra Parade towards a police barricade that has already been made jittery by the arrival of Abby.
Jay senses and realises that its the tanker part of the crashed vehicle that is so amazingly wyrmy. This suggests bad things. He heads for the cabin, intending to make sure of the driver, but glances at the gap between the cabin and the tank. He sees a lot of extra wires and what looks like the clay stuff humans give their young to play with. He's not sure, but he thinks it looks like its been added onto the truck, so he mentally asks his pack. There is much swearing from the various Garou and mentioning that its a bomb and Abby says that she's getting there as fast as she can. As Jumps-in-Puddles considers the arrangement and whether he could cut it free with the fae sword, the gargoyle leaps out of the cabin and lunges at him, flying up and banking before swooping down again. Jay rather elegantly swats it with the sword, making the demon swing wildly before hitting the truck and flipping over the back. Jay leaps after it and there is a fierce, but brief battle - scratch one demon. To the west, there is an immense explosion, shaking the ground and darkening the sky.
Jay leaps back to the truck. He finds a large box that looks like its been added on, and all the wires go into it through holes in the metal. He gives serious thought to cutting it free with the sword and running off with it, but Abby screams that she's nearly close enough. She channels her gnosis and releases it throughout the area, hoping that she is close enough and it will be strong enough to shut down the timer. There is another, smaller but significant explosion to the north, and the Garou pray to Gaia. Nothing seems to explode before she gets there and keeps energising the gift. Jay cuts the box free from the truck with the fae sword as Abby runs up to the smashed fence, concentrating on her gift. He flings it as far and hard as he can back down Swanston St. There is a pause as the box tumbles and rolls off into the sky, broken by a deafening explosion that kicks shrapnel in all directions as the detonator leaves the range of the Wyld gift.
Meanwhile, Bob and the rest of the Get of Pennington have jumped Royal Parade at some speed, much to the detriment of their stolen car. The first explosion was much closer to them, and blew windows out of the nearby houses. Marcus reckons it was the west gate, and Chris is driving across parkland to get there quickly. The car is suddenly deluged in a disgusting rain of black oil, making it impossible to drive any further. Chris squeals to a halt and the four of them leap out, changing to Crinos. Ahead they can see a small squad of humans running towards the west gate, so they give chase. Bob bites at one of the humans and gets a chunk of kevlar caught in his mouth so he can't close it. He tries clawing instead, and mostly butchers the human next to him. Unfortunately the other humans now have a clear shot, and Bob is smacked to the ground by burning, burning aggravated bullets.
Cole finds his stolen car suddenly adorned by a bullet hole. Apparently the police in the roadblock are unhappy about the way their night has gone and don't appreciate adding more combatants to the fray near the cemetary. He ducks down and zooms up the footpath, smashing the window of the Dan O'Connell, taking out a bin, but still going with his head down in the footwell. When he looks up again, its just in time to turn left and follow the road around. Black, oily goo starts to rain down just as he arrives where Jay and Abby are picking bits of metal out of their pelts.
Krieg, in the meantime, has been reenergised by healing strength from the caern. He runs to where Abby left Melissa, and steps into the same cover. He heals Melissa and looks up to see the same golem-like demon he was fighting entering through a hole torn in the face, followed by more guys with guns. He figures that they have to take steps and the two of them run towards the invaders. Krieg smashes at the golem, but more purple lightning cascades across it with each blow. The gunmen don't seem inclined to permit this sort of thing either. Krieg manages to leap to one side such that one of the gunmen is blocking the shot on the others, but takes a significant shot to the chest. Melissa creams one of the guys, and picks up his gun. The demon swipes at Kreig, but the blow glances off. Kreig strikes the man who shot him several times, and leaves him for dead. It doesn't look like the gun-wielding fomori are able to use Rage, which is probably just as well. Melissa opens fire at the remaining immediate gunman, but it just goes everywhere, richochets more dangerous to Kreig than to the gunman. Kreig concentrates on the demon while Melissa is left to divest the remaining gunman of his shotgun and intestines. Kreig tries to keep dodging the heavy, but ponderous blows from the golem, and to ignore the flashing purple lightning that accompanies it. Eventually the lightning goes out, burnt out or whatever, and Krieg finishes the huge construct.
Bob seems to have been left for dead by the men with guns. He can hear continuing gunfire, both closer and further away, and the sounds of Garou frenzying, specifically Kirsty. Where he is laying, black goo seems to be congealing, and its cold, very very cold. Surreptiously using his healing fetish, Bob manages to get all his bits back in working order, and leaps up to help. The black goo has obviously bunched up around him, and small globs is still attached to his fur. However, men with guns are more concerning, so Bob leaps into the fray, helping Marcus slaughter more of the humans. The Garou seem to be getting some gunfire support from the northwest, but its hard to making out more than muzzle flashes, and the fact that the human attackers are the ones being shot.
Graeme's voice echos into people's minds, and he says that they should be prepared for the arrival of Dancer's - this is just softening up. The sense of the caern warder is gone again, and the pack mentally confer. They decide that Jay and Cole will fall back to the caern centre - they are both hurt badly enough to need help. Krieg is also hurt and will do the same while Abby runs to join Melissa in exchanging gunfire with the combatants across the road.
Cole and Jay are running back, clutching weapons and trying to keep under cover from the gunfire. Cole manages to catch site of two gargoyles, plunging at the two of them, and leap to one side as they swoop past. Jay is lucky and is missed as he stands there looking surprised. Cole grabs one of the guns he has, flicks it to auto and pulls the trigger until it goes click, which no appreciable effect on either of the demons (hooray for white wolf's combat system). He flings the gun after the bullets, then rips the sword out of Jay's unmoving hands. As the demons swoop, Cole cleans one of them up, chopping it out of the sky, and sending the ichorous remains crashing into headstones. The other swipes at Jay, who leaps aside. As they return for another swoop, Cole is struck, but manages to knock the demon out of the sky. It skids to a halt 5 metres away, but Cole is on it before it can recover, and smashes it into stone and demonic bile.
Abby reaches Melissa, who has used up the majority of her ammunition with very little effect. Abby finds another clip or two on the dead bodies, as well as a shotgun full of silver. She puts that aside for when the Dancers attack, and concentrates on picking off snipers. Its not simple, nor is it safe - both of them get hit on a couple of occasions by richochets, if not direct shots. But they manage to either drive off or kill all the shooters around the east gate. More gunfire continues to the northeast, both inside and outside the caern.
Bob realises he is temporarily free of opponents, but that the black rain is becoming a black tide, flowing into the caern through the hole in the fence. The coldness is draining his gnosis away, and when he peeks, Bob can see that the caern ward have gone dark, and a cloud of banes is cascading into the caern.
