Claws of Wisdom Chronology

March 2002

Friday 1 - Galliard waning

There's still no sign of potential mage intruders at either location. Some of the pack start to wonder if its worth their time, so they cut back to only 2 people at each location while the others head back into town to get things done (Abby only). They also speculate about getting merlin spirits to keep an eye on the location.

Saturday 2 - Galliard waning

About lunchtime, Melissa tentatively asks if the pack have to stay at the sites. They ask why. She says that she was having a chat with some of the Steel Hunters and because its a galliard moon they were talking about galliards, and how the Claws of Wisdom galliards were better than - Bob interrupts and says get to the point, and Melissa says that she sort of challenged Scott to a galliard competition. The others says that she should have asked first, and she points out a little sulkily that they never ask her. They ask what Scott set the challenge as and Mel says that Scott wanted to make it "who could get a recording contract" but she said that Tanya already had one - everyone mentally says "get to the point!" and Melissa says that Scott challenged them to a kareoke competition.

Cole is already in the car and revving the engine, but the others are a little less convinced. They bargain via Melissa with Scott about the details of the challenge. Its a combination good singing/staying sober kind of competition. They'll drink after every singer and each pack member gets to sing three times. There'll be some handwaving about Freya and Bob. Bob is not entirely keen, but the others are either keen, think its funny, or don't mind too much. Melissa passes on that they don't have to pay for the drinks, and Cole yells at the others to get in the damn van. They sigh and call a couple of Merlin spirits to watch the house at Mooroolpark, and the hotel at Murrumbeena.

9 o'clock, the pack rock up at 'Nicks', which is off a lane off Flinders St. Its not very big, and apart from the Steel Hunters and the barman, its empty. Abby toys with using her Resist Toxin, but opts to not do so. Scott nearly talks to Bob, but manages to change his point of address to Freya, and welcomes them. The barman looks very confused. The Claws of Wisdom win the toss and Abby gets up first. There is much "wooing" from the Steel Hunters as Abby belts out "Respect" doing a more than respectable job (so to speak). When she finishes, everyone sculls a saki. Scott gets up next and sings "We Belong to the Night" very badly. Everyone drinks and the sake takes the pain away. Kreig gets up to do "You make me feel like a Natural Woman" and makes a horrid, horrid mess of it. Bob can't help howling at the appalling noise and more than one of the garou are sitting there trying to not Frenzy at the cacophany. Cole gets up in the end and punches Kreig before he can finish murdering it, mutter something about "Carry".

Adam is next from Steel Hunters, and he's already drunk, judging by the wobbling. He chooses to sing "Hungry like the Wolf" about as painfully as Scott. Sculling at the bar. Cole does an introduction for Freya - "everyone here appears to be single", "sex is a very romantic thing" - to the sound of the Steel Hunters laughing and the Claws of Wisdom hang their heads. Freya sighs as the others drag him off and launches into Bad Moon Rising, but the music is the 'lounge' version and she's a bit off.

Ben, who isn't really old enough to be here, sings "Land Down Under", and does a pretty good job (ie: he hits the notes that are in the song). Everyone drinks again and no one looks really entirely sober, although Cole is better off than others. Jay gets up and does "Werewolves of London", an obvious choice, but a good one. Pity that his performance isn't. People help out by howling at the chorus. Adam slowly falls off his chair and lays on the floor. Ben puts his head down and snarts to snore. Claude stands up and heads for the toilet and doesn't emerge. Scott and Tanya look at each other and shrug. Abby is looking unfocussed, as is Melissa.

Follows-the-Moon likes the sound of "Monster Mash" and does pretty well. Everyone shots sake. Tanya straightens up and says "I'm just going for some fresh air" and goes outside, from where emits some genteel splashing. Cole says that he'd like to do a sing-a-long, given he's the oldest one here other than the spinster (pointing at Freya, who hits him). He says he's doing a song from his generation - Jim Henson's "Munumana" song. Cole leads the soberest garou into a singalong, bouncing around on the stage, ala the original Muppets depiction.

Scull! Scott goes to see what Claude is up to in the bathroom, Abby slurs "no cheating by healing". Scott returns and says that he doesn't believe that Claud will be performing this evening, leaving him very disappointed in his pack (given only two of them are even standing). Scott says he will take Claud's spot, and the Claws of Wisdom agree. He gets up belts out "Born to be Wild" (*cough* Wyld), and is really, really bad. Scull again! Abby nearly pukes on Cole, who jumps backwards and elbows Melissa in the stomach. She was looking a little green to begin with and the sudden blow to the abdomen leads her to projectile vomit into the back of Cole's head. Warm sake-infused vomit drains down the back of his collar and down his back, dribbling across his kidneys.

Cole wanders away to clean himself up, while Melissa stumbles away, holding her lips shut to the toilet. Abby should be next, but she's comatose. I guess its Krieg's turn... he spends a while flicking through the book - oooo "Dogs of War"!. Ugh.... Jay sculls his booze, and the head follows a perfect parabola all the way to the ground. He manages to keep it together and not change to lupus form. Next up should be Adam (unconscious), Ben (unconscious), so its Follows-the-Moon who says he has heard this one, so he'll sing it - Khe San. He mangles it, but no worse than drunk yobbos at country pubs. Cole and Scotta are the only ones who seems even faintly sober, and he starts demanding to know whether the drinks are watered.

Freya steps up and sings "Time is on my side", doing ok. Scull! Scott decides to sing "Sunglasses at Night" - its a horrid song to begin with, but manages to make it worse. Cole does an instrumental, pretending to sing the trumpet line of "So What?" by Miles Davis, but his genius is unappreciated by the cretins in the audience (Jay in particular wants the bouncing ball to show the words). Cole slurs that they should do this regularly, and the barman quietly says "no way". Scott murders "Lola" - the song, but possibly by sympathetic magic, anyone called that. Krieg gets up and sings "Yoda", but its comes out just like "Lola", and Cole objects, looking for the knob to change the station. Follows-the-Moon sculls his drink and then sits there, balanced precisely on his chair.

Scott sighs and goes again, with "House of the Rising Sun", but ends up just reading the words out. Everyone still alive drinks. Cole gets up again and does "On the Road Again" - not the original, but the one chord version, in male contralto. It sinks in that Freya is on stage too, staring at him. He makes some comment about Maid Marion, and she slaps him off the stage. Freya does "Cat's in the Cradle" while no one pays any attention. Cole and Kreig organise to do "I got you babe" when its Krieg's time, but in the mean time there's another sake to be faced.

Scott does "Jack and Diane" while Cole yells "Boo" through most of it. Cole is insensible, but on his feet. Krieg weaves in his seat, but makes it up to the stage, dragging Cole and moving his jaw to the words. Scott does "Beds are Burning" with the same flair that he has performed all night. Freya does "Don't dream its over" poorly - she doesn't have the voice for it. Scott mumbles "damn, that makes it me" and then says "drink first". Krieg drinks a bit, then hides under the safe table and whimpers. Freya does "Neverending Story" to a mostly unconscious audience. Scull! Scott can't pick up the shotglass, and says "Sod it, you win" and puts his head down on the bar.

Of course, this leaves Bob and Freya with a whole room of unconscious werewolves, trying to figure out how to get them all home. In the end, it takes three trips to get everyone back to their appropriate caerns.

Sunday 3 - Galliard waning

The victorious, but extremely hung over pack members come to the next day, not feeling the best. Only Freya got away completely scot-free, so it takes a while before they're all feeling together. Bob goes back to his bin to get something out of it, and finds that Hell Hounds seem to be sitting in his alley - Amy and Shu Leung on his bin, the others on boxes around the place. He asks them to get out of his way, and Amy declines. He asks what they want and she says "nothing". Bob decides to strategically withdraw, and there is sniggering behind him as he leaves. He decides to scout out some of the nearby alleys for a replacement bin, just in case they never leave.

The pack decide they should really get back to their watching after discharging their familial requirements. Bob heads to Abby's and tells her to get Hell Hounds off her bin. Abby wants to know if that's an order from her packleader. Bob grumbles and says yes. Abby isn't too happy, so Bob says "I guess I crash at here then" - last time he swam in the duck pond so Abby isn't too happy about that. They squabble a bit mentally and Bob says "Why don't you be pack leader then?". More squabbling about Bob's behaviour recently and Abby's lack of respect for him and Bob says "I quit then". The pack have managed to pick up on the last bit mentally and Bob votes for Cole. Cole also votes for Cole. Abby doesn't want to do it really, but will in preference to no packleader, and definately in preference Cole. Kreig says that he is happy to do it too. There is some discussion between the two of them; Abby says that she has no objections to Kreig as a garou, but thinks that right at the moment having a metis as packleader doesn't send the best signal. They discuss some more in a fairly friendly and equitable fashion and it comes down to a rock/paper/scissors competition - both recognise that other is equally competant and so random is not a bad thing. In the end, Krieg wins and is accepted as packleader by the rest of the pack.

So, there's a certain amount of mental shifting as people readjust to there being a new packleader. They resume their stalking of potential mage visiting locations. ,/p.

Monday 4 - Philodox waning

Bob and Freya are at Andy's place, while Kreig and Jay head out to the hotel. They're spying from the Umbra and don't want to be in the exact location, so they trundle around the place, checking out people in cars going past and generally keeping watch.

About 3pm, wandering through the open grassland near Andy's place come a couple of kids, throwing a frisbee back and forth. Bob scans them out of habit, and finds a strong magic, demonic, deadlands and wyrm sense out of them. The two figures look like they may be putting on the kid act - the sunglasses, baseball caps on backwards and brand new clothes don't look entirely legit. Freya starts the ritual to wake up the mirror so they can look through into the deadlands while Bob looks on - mentally they give people a head's up. The hotel people leap out of the Umbra and into a car and head towards Mooroolbark. The others wait in the city and see what happens.

Bob tries to circle around the kids and see if there is anyone else around the place as well, but although there are people in the neighbourhood, there's no one obvious or standing out. The kids head down the grassy sward, vaguely heading towards Andy's house. They are not talking to one another at all, which is a bit of a giveaway. One of the kids grabs the frisbee and piffs it towards Andy's - there is a surge of magic and the frisbee carries a long way and happens to land right in the middle of the burnt out location. Bob follows them as they poke about the ruins and finds that they are inspiring little surges of magic; they are checking out the location where Andy was burning in the mirror, and also where Xanthipides was doing some magic. They also spend some time out where Polly was doing things, but that seems a bit more aimless.

Freya finishes her ritual and the mirror activates. She can see into the shadowlands and notices the ground is a bit chewed out. Its a bit subtle, but this time she notices that the ground in the area seems a bit ... tugged. It seems to relate to where Polly was standing. But in the meantime, there are indeed shadows leading from the kids back southwest. Freya and Bob run off following the shadows. Freya looks around after concentrating on the mirror and realises Bob is gone - he leapt a log and landed in a swarm and got caught up in some vines and then there was a snake spirit and by the time he sorted himself out, he couldn't smell Freya for all the stinky mud. Oh well.

The shadows seem to be straighter in the less urban deadlands and so Freya is able to cover a long distance in a more organised fashion. The shadows start to move, shifting across the landscape, and then they snap out. She turns round and heads back to Andy's place and meets Bob on the way. They quiz the merlin spirit to make sure that the strawkids moved and not the people they were tracking, and it shows them where there are now two straw dummies under a nearby bridge.

Kreig and Jay show up and much Melways consultation is done. They get a second line that is almost perpendicular to their first line, crossing somewhere around the Burke Rd/SouthEastern Freeway intersection. They decide that if they are quick, they might be able to get to the mages when they look at the hotel. Everyone leaps in the car and they head back to Murrumbeena. Abby finds Graeme and says that they seem to have a triangulation on the mages. Graeme is suspiciously not overenthused - he says that he definately wants them to follow up, but points out that there's no reason to rush straight in. The mages aren't expecting them, so there's no need to whip the sword out and sprint into the area. Take a deep breath, check it out, he'll let people know so they are ready to react. When the others arrive at Murrumbeena, it appears that the mages have already been here and gone - the merlin spirit bound up here says that someone came about an hour ago and poked around. That was probably simultaneous with the events at Mooroolbark. They follow the scent and find a straw dummy in the Murrumbeena station toilets.

Nonetheless, they do have a reasonable bracket of space to check out, and a much better idea of where they might be. They check out an in-depth map of the area, and find a lot of possible large buildings it might be. There's a number of private schools, the Harold Holt memorial swimming pool, churches, the Coles Myer building, nursing centres, lots of parks, a blind institute building, and a shopping center, as well as many houses - the mages ability to hide their emanations means they could be anywhere there.

While they are planning things, Jay twitches a bit and realises Xanthipides is contacting him. Xanthipides says that he's finished with the pendant, and ... is this a bad time? Jay says that they're really close to finding the mages, and Xanthipides says "Oh! bye!" and is gone. Er.. oh, if they are close to the mages, he might have thought that he was making them into a beacon. Jay goes and finds a telephone box and calls Xanthipides' mobile. Xanthipides says that he was just contacting him to say that he's finished with the pendant, and did they want it back. There is some discussion and they decide to get together and chat, and swap stuff - the pendant could be very useful. It'll have to wait till this evening.

So, later on (after Abby trying to wangle an invite to go along), Jay meets Xanthipides in a cafe. Jay passes on that they've got the location of the mages down to a very small square of space. Xanthipides passes back the original pendant, and shows him one that he made - he's not entirely confidant that it works right, but sometimes it reflects everything back at you, even the detecting magic. The garou decide to not take the chance - Xanthipides says that he'll keep working on it and see if he can figure out what's wrong. Jay asks if he has any other advice, and Xanthipides says that they should consider the possibility that the mages have taken over a block of apartments - in fact, that might be ideal to their needs, and there are a lot of those sorts of set ups in the area. Other than that, they'd want somewhere a bit private, a bit quieter. He warns that they'll possibly have other guardians than just the wards, and possibly even normal people, like paid security guards and things.

Jay asks if he can come with them, but Xanthipides says that he's been forbidden explicity from doing so - Jay, prompted by the yelling of his pack, asks by who, and Xanthipides indicates it was their mutual friend, the gatekeeper, has said that he's not to get involved in person. The rest of the pack are trying to figure out who the hell she is. Xanthipides speculates that she doesn't want him getting captured and her interests being noticed, or a sympathetic way of affecting her with magic. They finish up and he heads off to get icecream.

The Claws of Wisdom visit the caern, Graeme says that he's contacted some of the other Septs, and some of the other packs are waiting in the caerns to moonbridge in, and the Hell Hounds are waiting nearby. Bob mutters darkly about his bin. The pack decide that they want to search out the major buildings before organising a more systematic search. They give Abby the pendant because the mages seem to find her most easily, after some debate about whether it should be given to Bob as he uses the mirror. So they try parklands, railway stations and around the old brickworks. They're pretty good at organising a search through an area quickly and thoroughly - passing the Sense of Unnatural around and the mental link help. They are searching in the Umbra to make it less likely they'll trip a ward. In the Realm there's a lot of pipes and tunnels off the creeks and the linear park.

They head up to the Coles Myer building and Abby, Freya and Bob go in first. The other four begin to suspect something may be up when the mental link goes a bit strange and the roaring begins.

   Inside the building, Abby and Bob are somewhat surprised when Freya suddenly changes to crinos form and takes a swipe at Bob. She seems to be frenzying at them. Bob opts to run for it out the door and hopefully into the arms of the rest of his pack. Frenzying Freya tries to swipe him as he leaves, but just knocks him along a bit and he runs through the door. The others outside look inside to see Freya swinging around to clout Abby.

Bob appears back on the mental link once he is hiding behind his braver and more shapeshifting-permitted pack members. He senses unnatural and finds that there's a tingle of magic around him, but the building just senses of weaver. Krieg powers up his Might of Thor gift as Abby runs out of the building and ducked around the corner. Freya, still frenzying runs straight past her and into Jay, who grabs her arm. Bob jumps up and grabs Freya's calming fetish with his mouth, pulling it off the thong. Abby leaps on Freya from behind as Kreig runs up and smashes his fist into Freya's head. The rest of the pack shudder as there's the sound of bone breaking and Freya's head flops to one side, but she keeps frenzying. Kreig grabs her and the combined pack is sufficient to pin her down. Bob attunes to the fetish, but it seems to be undercontrol. Freya is still snarling and snapping so they headbutt her until she stops and changes to homid.

Kreig grabs Freya's head and lines it up to as close as he can before healing her - no one wants a packmember with a kinked neck. They sense her before bringing her around and find a fading sense of magic while Bob activates the mirror quite quickly. However, not having hands means that the activated mirror stays on the ground. Abby sighs and picks it up, and looks around - she sees houses and all that have been bulldozed, but the coles myer building isn't there in the shadowlands (not having been destroyed). Abby sneaks slowly up to the door, and as she gets within a couple of centimeters away, the mirror clouds - there's something there, but its not visible, more like static or something. She waves her hands through the doorway, and is about to wave the mirror inside when someone points out that waving it inside the building may break it.

Bob is all for charging in with tinfoil helmets, but no one wants to go craaaazy again. Cole, who is still near the shopping center, says that he'll call the Sept and let them know what is going down. He runs to the public phone (all the mobiles being left back in the car) and makes the call. In the meantime, others start doing a perimetre walk while someone peeks. Just as they reach the first corner, Cole and the peeking person spot a police car drive up Toorak Rd and pull up in front of the main doors. Then a window opens high up and automatic gun fire rips out into the night. People in the shopping centre start screaming. One of the cops is hit, and the other drags him behind their car while yelling into his radio. Bullets keep pinging off the concrete, and then the window slams shut.

Cole is half yelling mentally and half out loud, having trouble getting Graeme on the phone. He manages to convey the basics and asks them to listen on the police scanner. The pack have a look through the mirror, but apart from people that were killed at the nearby intersection and an old bridge that was pulled down and a bunch of houses that have been replaced - nothing suuupernatural. Sensing unnatural continues to stubbornly only show weaver. They run back and scan the police, and they too, seem mostly normal. The pack are totally bemused about what the hell is going on.

They continue their circle to see what was up, while Cole relays the police scanner information - its mostly about what's going on now, who'd have thought. Bob peeks into the car and finds that the cops showed up because of reports about a forced door and someone creeping into the building. Why on earth the mages would summon and then shoot at police in response to a possible intruder is beyond the pack.

Other police show up and start evacuating the shopping centre and the car park. Cole is getting moved on from the phone, but activates his beneath notice gift and relays that Graeme has contacted other packs and is sending backup. The pack are worried about mages escaping - considering there are underground carparks, Gardiner's creek and all, that might mean that there are other tunnels. The sound of a helicopter becomes louder as the pack watch.

Abby, Bob and Melissa head down to the creek to make sure no one is escaping that way, but they can't see anyone suss, or sense anything that's up. Cole does the same across the spectators but says that he can't find anyone weird, and now he's being moved off by the police. They three garou at the creek see a few tunnels leading back toward the building, but none of them see like the sort of thing that anyone would be able to move down with crawling on hands and knees.

The helicopter is hovering around the building as an abulance shows up with extra police. Its looking like an exciting siege situation. More police still - apparently they are waiting for the SOG while also getting the plans for the building, although there are now people around in lower the car park as well as near the main entrance. They still speculate about what the hell the police are up to - keeping the garou from entering the realm while calling something to deal with the umbral threat? Is it a distraction from somewhere else? Bob is all for storming the building, rather than creeping around. Jay wants to wait, Freya thinks they have back up coming. Kreig is starting to think being packleader isn't the glamour job that it seemed to be.

Bob, still peeking, hears the screech of brakes on the freeway and then the sound of metal on metal. Then someone jumps the concrete barrier and drops the 15' into the creek, yelling all the way down. Then more figures appear at the edge of the fence, a little more cautiously, and in a group its easy to recognise the Hell Hounds. They drop down into the creek and run upstream to find somewhere to step.

30 seconds later they appear in the Umbra and head toward the Garou they can see. Sean is all ready to kick ass, but Abby suggests caution. Amy asks where everyone else is, and when they point, she heads off to find Kreig, commenting that Graeme gives poor directions - all they got was "you'll be able to see it from the freeway".

The pack scope the buildings out some more. They decide to see if the ward extends to other areas than the foyer - specifically trying to come in through the underground car parks, which have an approximate umbral correspondence. They bring the mirror around to the cave entrance and sneak it closer, and closer... and closer. And it suddenly goes cloudy about 1 or 2 feet into the edge of the car park. They quickly peek, but they would be visible if they stepped out here, because the car park is lit (only in the Realm), and the police are definately watching the mouth, and in the car park itself.

Krieg gives the mirror back to someone else in his pack, and starts sensing unnatural and creeping into the cave - given the side effects of his gift, he's now the weakest, and presumably least dangerous if he frenzies. Kreig starts to sense a vague feeling of magic, very faintly. He continues to creep in. Eyes of the Cat compensate for the darkness - argh! BANES! He runs back out of the darkness as he's chased by a cloud of banes out of the darkness. The pack close and engage in some exciting biffo with these twisted bat things that swarm around them. Abby howls out a call of the wyld, strengthening their sense of purpose. The banes slice and bite at them, but are being cut out of the air without too much hassle. A couple of times they crash into garou and disperse, but without any obvious effect. Kreig grabs one of the banes and raids it for its gnosis, figuring he can deal with the taint later.

As the last bat thing is busted, the Hell Hounds come leaping down off the edge of the old quarry cliff, and they are disappointed when all the enemies are killed. They sigh and head back to the main doors again while the Claws of Wisdom head back into the cave like opening. There is still a sense of magic, and some sense of wyrm, but that could be Krieg. They move cautiously across to the steps that lead up into the main part of the building. There are a couple of police watching over the elevator in the Realm. Bob tries to smell to see, but Kreig is there like a giant lamp. They pull torches out of the Bag of Shadows and use them to look around - they don't work so well, but its better than nothing.

Where the stairs lead up in the Realm there is a gap in the Umbral wall. It seems to lead up about the same way as stairs wood, but its all rough. The lift shaft is kind of blocked, so the faux stairway seems to be the way to go. Cole says that some serious looking guys have shown up in black vans, wearing stuff like kevlar jackets. They seem to be consuting with the senior police who are in charge of the situation. They use the same plan - Krieg goes up the stairs first, followed cautiously by Jay. As he reaches the top of the stairs, Kreig drops off the mental link and turns to leap down the stairs - Jay runs for it out into the safety of numbers, followed by frenzying Krieg. The pack leap on him - his weakling state means that 5 other garou are enough to keep him under control with only a few blows on his fellow packmembers. However, after a few minutes, he doesn't seem to be slowing down and the calm fetish doesn't seem to be helping either. One of the garou senses him and finds the same wyrmness as the bat-banes had. The pack mutter darkly about spiritual rabies and start putting the boot in until Krieg is mush (Freya: "We'll have to punch him out, we can't cleanse him." Bob: "I concur"). That explains the evaporating bats.

They drag him well outside the carpark and do a Rite of Cleansing, around Bob and Kreig, hoping that will get rid of whatever is affecting Krieg and make sure the same won't happen to Bob. At the end of the ritual, the sense is gone, but the howling seems to draw the attention of approaching Umbral garou - the other packs appear and start to head over.

   While they are meeting and greeting the other packs - The Alternative, Blood Claw and The Scryers, with The First Wave still to come - Cole says that the SOGies have arrived. The garou opt to wait and listen - the extra information might be good. They enter from all sides of the building and are scouting about when there is the sound of gunfire from inside the building. Cole says its hard to make out, but it seems as if the police hit some resistence in the tallest building on the third floor. There seems to be one dead woman and threats to kill all the hostages if the police continue.

The Garou idly consider the umbral building and wonder if they could climb it. Not really - its a shiny smooth monolith of glassy blackness. They chat some more about what to do, and decide that they need to check to see if the crazy making effect is only on the ground floor. Freya espies an outside door on the 2nd level of the far east part of the build and so they form a 'plan' - all the garou will rush in there. Actually, the plan is for one or two to go in to check, and then everyone will follow.

The various Garou leap or are thrown onto the building and run across the smooth surface towards the doors. The mirror is still active, but when they check it there's nothing in it until they get close to the walls, when it clouds once more. Bob runs up to the door and uses the Cracking Stone to open the door (eventually). Suddenly the surface that everyone is standing on fractures and becomes a flat plain of incredibly sharp sharps of obsidian-like glass. The sound of its crackling increases and the shards get sharper and higher.

Kreig runs into the building and pauses in a tearoom. He doesn't seem to freak out or start smashing things. He does a Sense Unnatural and senses Weaver and Wyrm and Demons and Magic and Deadland (oh my). Everyone outside is starting to make "OW" noises and really wants to get inside. Seeing as how Kreig seems mentally ok, they pack in the door. And that's when the screaming begins.

Jay flips out, as does Sings-for-the-Spirit and Aquinas Scales-in-Balance. They start to attack the other Garou, who leap on to them and try to pin them down. Bob runs further down into the building, being in lupus and fairly defenseless, and peeks quickly. Abby crashes Sings-for-the-Spirit against the wall as Freya and Krieg grab Jay. Christine hooks Aquinas around the throat, out the door and away. Melissa runs into the gap, and tries to help pin Sings-for-the-Spirit. Bob peeks and it looks like a normal office corridor.

However, it appears that the evil magic is not just a borderthing, but also pervasive within the building as Abby flips out and claws Melissa across the throat, bludgeoning her out the door at the same time. The rest of the pack freak out because Melissa's clearly about to die. Bob realises he's in deep shit and flips into the Realm. Kreig spins and crashes through the window, hoping to be able to get to Melissa in time to do emergency healing. Freya continues to crush and headbutt Jay until he is unconscious.

Mark from Blood Claw leaps in over the prone Melissa and kinghits Abby. It doesn't slow her down much because she's frenzying and she slashes him across the stomach, knocking him back. Sings-for-the-Spirit snarls and slashes at Freya. Giovanni leaps in and smashes Abby with a club, and she staggers briefly, and then freezes in place, made of stone. He wears an attack from Sings-for-the-Spirit, but manages to hit him with the club too.

Krieg is on the ground, being chopped up by the ground and sees Ingrid Gruber over Melissa. She picks the prone garou up and leaps over the edge of the building, following the others who were stuck outside when the frenzying began. Krieg spots Giovanni hauling stone Abby outside and helps him with that, and then with the injured Mark. Freya drags the bleeding unconscious Jay out the door and lobs him off the edge. Sings-for-the-Spirit statue is lobbed off as well. Freya does a quick look around and realises Bob is missing.

Meanwhile, Bob is caught in the gauntlet. He struggles a bit, but with not much luck. Bob senses the approach of a couple of weaver spiders and tries to command them to help him. One of them comes his way and cuts his arm off, and starts spreading it into the weaver structure. Bob squeals and demands that it stops that and reattaches the arm, which it does, but he feels like its taken some of his gnosis when it removed his arm. He commands it again and the spirit cuts him free and into the realm.

Bob appears in a corridor much like any normal corridor. He glances at his arm and sees that he has metal-like stitching all around the cut that holds his arm back on. It seems to work... Oh well. Bob idly considers getting into the air conditioning but its not really possible. He toys with the idea of changing form, but decides to wear the punishment. He sniffs and smells about the place, and can finds that there arne't many scents other than normal day to day things. He can't hear gunfire or talking or anything like that. He tries sensing and finds the same sort of mix - wyrm, weaver, magic and deadlands. Oh, and something demonic just passed through the walls. Bob follows the sense and the wall ahead of him starts to deform and a leg steps out of the wall, apparently made of the same stuff as the wall. He waits until it has mostly extruded into a human shape with 4 arms and then runs for it. He tries to lose the demon in the maze of corridors and cubes.

While he's running along, Bob notices that the outside walls are shimmering in a kind of odd, greenish tang, but he is unable to get a good look as helicopter search lights sweep over it. Bob is trying to find somewhere to hide when he hears the PA kick into life and an American voice says "Exactly /what/ did you think you were doing?" Bob barks a couple of times and the PA voice says "Yes, very funny. There's a phone on the desk near you, press 0". Bob sighs. "Patience is running a little short today, we're not in the mood for games." Bob barks again. The voice says "Fine." and the PA goes dead. Bob hunts around for a whiteboard and markers - he can use monkey tail to write if he can find something. In the meantime he can hear things coming through the air conditioning with lots of legs.

Meanwhile outside, Krieg checks out Melissa. Ingrid has managed to keep her alive (probably by sacrificing permanent gnosis). Krieg and everyone with healing patches folk up and tries to decide what to do while relating Bob's adventures. The moon finally peeks its edge over the horizon, rechanging the garou.

Bob finds a whiteboard. But there's no pens. THERE'S NEVER PENS! Bob nearly frenzies, but keeps it together and eventually finds one and makes it back to this board, being pursued by demons as he goes - he's nearly captured by the caterpillar thing that burst out of the air vents at one point. He writes "Soree, canot talc, can rite" and the PA kicks in again before the demons burst into the room. The voice says "Okaaaay. Aright... well. What exactly are you doing here?" Bob uses the eraser to clean it and then writes "Loooking for u". "Well, I guess you found us. Alright then. *click*". Demons start charging towards Bob. The wall-demon appears to have found a fire extinguisher and runs towards Bob waving it at him.

Bob runs for it, dodging the demons and ends up back in one of the tranverse corridors that leads back to the tea room. He glances right and sees something way down the corridor and into the next building. It moves and he realises that it is a huge obdisian crinos and its running towards Bob at an enormous speed, demolishing the corridor as it goes. Bob hits the tearoom door and unlocks it with the cracking stone as he can hear the abomination chasing him. He runs out onto the smoker's area and staggers as the ground flashes green and burns him. He manages to regain his feet and sprints towards the edge. A helicopter spotlights him as he runs straight over the edge of the building. Bob hits the ground at some speed, breaking at least one of his legs and nearly frenzying once more. The spotlight moves off him as he runs off, and snaps back to the door he came out of.

   Bob runs further along the street and notices there are police in the various houses along Toorak Rd - they react to his presence but don't shoot him or anything. He finds somewhere sufficiently covered and steps sideways, and then returns to his pack.

There is a brief discussion about hostages - the garou are split 50/50 between people who don't care and people who think they should take care, but then its pointed out that the "hostages" might just be strawmen or something. Cole reports that the police effort to negotiate isn't going too well - they make phone calls and get some response, but its not very coherent. The police are waiting on a psychiatric consultant to help them with the process.

Plan B. They consider summoning spirits to help them rout the mages from within the building, other options being apparently denied to them. Abby suggests a cleansing ritual - even if it can't get rid of everything, maybe it can shut the mages magic down for long enough for them to assault it. Various theurges look intrigued and start to have a think. Christine says that she doesn't think it'll work, but she asks about the Uktenna ritual that saved the caern two months ago. Bob points out that a) that means looking to the Uktenna for help, and b) it only works at caerns from what the guy said. Christine says it'll need something that strength. Susan Rejenoir suggests that maybe cleansing, but with the help of a spirit with mystic tendencies to add strength to the ritual? Its considered.

Mark mentions that the Claws of Wisdom have been to the dead lands before - could they go back and come around all the mage defenses from within the demonlands. Krieg says that unfortunately the last time they went that way, they got jerked off in to the bunyip homeland or something, and it took ages to get back. Also someone had to die to start the ritual. Abby toys with the idea of being able to step through the Chandeen Mirror, but without any firm idea of how to do it, or what it would do, that may be not such a good idea.

The idea of summoning a large spirit to help with the cleansing seems to be the most useful idea. Kreig suggests a couple of other spirits as well. Freya suggests summoning a fire elemental and let nature take its course. If they get a big enough spirit, it will effect fires into the realm as well, but the idea of wrecking the umbral building appeals to them. The garou poke at the building a bit, and there is a warning tingle that suggests that the wards work on the walls too. Abby smashes at the glassy black substance and finds herself a couple of metres back from the wall - the effort she put into hitting the wall was returned to her and she effectively knocks herself backwards. Irena says "nobody shoot the building". They scratch at the glass and it scratches, but tapping it with the fae sword bounces it back. It seems that above a certain amount of force, its returned. Cole, who has returned from the police starts lobbing rocks at the building - part entertainment, and part seeing if it would wear down the wards.

Cole suggests maybe they don't need to cleanse the whole thing - maybe some sort of tinfoil helmet spirit can help protect the garou in the Umbra, and from there they can make their own havoc. It would mean doing one per pack, probably. No one can think of a spirit offhand either, which is a shame.

It comes down to two options - nuke it or cleanse it. They prefer cleanse it because that might mean more chance of prisoners. And they can always go back to option B later. Asimov is in favour of blowing it up, he has a tin of plastic explosives with him. There is some discussion about the "going crazy" effect with explosives there, but he thinks that it would require too much preparation. Annnyway, back to the idea of supercharging their ritual. There are spirits that could just add gnosis, or spirits would might know mystic stuff that will strengthen the ritual itself. The plan is to summon spirits that could help them with their own mental strength and to regenerate their rage stocks. They put their collective spiritual heads together.

They decide to summon Lunes to help restore their rage, Starlight to help them maintain a mental strength (suggested by the Children of Gaia) and Bear to help with the ritual (suggested by the Get of Fenris, and eventually convincing everyone else). The packs seperate out and start summoning - the Claws of Wisdom opt to pull down lunes one at a time while First Wave calls Starlight and everyone else calls Bear.

Half way through the ritual everyone feels a wave of spiritual revulsion. Some of the ritualists lose their place but the rituals keep going. The garou standing around not performing Rites look around and try and figure out what was going on. Sensing suggests that there's no change from the mages, even though they would be the expected prime cause at the moment. Krieg says that the reactions started from the city side and spread out, and didn't seem to have any attachment to the mages; although it might have been some sort of wave at the mages that they were close enough by.

Cole heads off to the nearby station and eventually steps sideways into the Realm to call the caern. He gets Graeme on the phone and they felt the same effect, and it seemed to come from the city too. He says that he'll send someone out and see if they can see anything particularly. He tells Cole to wait near the pay phone. When the phone rings again Graeme says to get their asses back to the caern - the Wyrm beast has surfaced in the docklands and its chewing its way through the city. Cole pretends the line is breaking up, but Graeme just says NOW.

The Claws of Wisdom drop their rituals and tell the people from Hidden Green - 'The Alternative' also break off and head back to their own caern. They run back to their car, which is fortunately outside the road block and speed back to the caern at an enormous rate. When they arrive, the caern is all het up and ready to go. Graeme says that Nadine is down near Spencer St somewhere when she rang in. They have a rushed conversation about what to do - the images at Hopping Mouse Hill suggests that they might need Jirrawan's help to lock this thing down. While they are chatting, a Moonbridge opens, and Malajimbarra arrives. The pack relate what they saw in the cave, but Jirrawan was unresponsive when they talked to him. Abby suggests that a different spirit might be possible while they bind it, but Malajimbarra says that it'll take more than just any spirit and a binding ritual. Cossack says to take the Bane Lock, have a look around and see what they can see or work out - if they still have no idea, then the caern'll see if they can Moonbridge the Claws of Wisdom through to Scars Atoned and talk to Jirrawan. The pack grab the Bane Lock and make sure they have the Silent Stone and head down there through the Umbra.

Even before they arrive they can see Weaver creatures streaming the same direction that the pack are travelling. They hear the sound of a building collapsing ahead of them and run around a corner to see Nadine standing back and watching as a dust cloud expands out. Weaver spiders are throwing themselves into the cloud - as it slowly clears the pack can see emerging from within a large entity, maybe 15 (4 or 5 stories) metres high and 40 metres across. Its black, and seems, from a distance, faceted. Its moving slowly forward across the Umbral road, and behind it leaves a tear in space - with a ripping shriek, the reality behind it is shredded leaving a greyish space that hurts the eyes. Reality slowly reasserts itself behind that, but its still disturbing. Weaver spiders are throwing themselves at this thing, but they seem to vanish, almost boiled away, and the dust seems to be being vacuumed into the Wyrm Beast.

Freya attunes to the bane lock, and realises the spirit within it is much more enthusiastic than it was. Krieg stops her from activating it just yet so he can sense and make sure there's been no change - indeed it is just pure pure Wyrm. It seems to be spinning. Nadine says that its path is slowly curving from where it was - it came up near the docklands - but she's not sure where its heading - it was going toward Sleeping Lore for a bit. Freya activates the fetish. And there seems to be no change. She wonders if they have to touch it to the Wyrm Beast to activate it. They suggest a few things and then someone notices that the Beast is heading towards them rather than sideways like it was.

Er... Freya starts running away. They try and think what to do with it now. Towards the mages? Out to Jirrawan or the country? Its definately following Freya now. Although its not moving very fast, its still dangerous as hell. Cole peeks as best he can into the Realm at night. He can't make much out, but the lights are out near where it was. There's traffic and all and there doesn't seem to be much change - Cole suggests that maybe its only a danger in the Umbra, but Krieg makes eek noises and reminds them of his dream about the city disintergrating and people melting to sludge.

Freya suggests trying to make it double back on the area that its already destroyed. Its hard, because of the rubble and nature of the city. They speculate about being able to turn off the fetish, but they don't know how to do that. They keep moving along the path and find that they are heading downwards - oh, this is the tunnel it came out of. Oh good. They try and lead it away from the people as best they can until they can decide what to do when someone notices that the Wyrm Beast is increasing in speed.

   The land the pack are moving across is all broken up and covered with crap. They speculate about turning the bane lock off, but there's no convenient switch. Kreig suggests going into the realm with it, but they aren't sure it wouldn't follow - that would be bad. Abby suggests heading out somewhere more isolated and they figure out that they could take the shortest path through Footscray and Yarraville and into the western plains - that would only mean dragging it through 2 or 3 km of suburbs before they would be out in the open grassland. (It means destroying the GM's grandmother's house, but hey).

What to do once they get it out there though? They could go into the Realm and get a car, but that would mean leaving Freya or someone with the fetish. Hopping Mouse Hill is about 800km away - probably not practical. Someone remembers that they had the other option of going to Scar's Atoned to speak to Jirrawan. Oh yeah. Cole and Melissa head back to the caern to pass on what's going on while the others think about it. The pack realise their path is going past Coode Island and get some ironic amusement out of the prospect.

The Claws of Wisdom decide they need to speak to Jirrawan and aren't too keen to send Cole there, so someone has to head back while the others drag the Wyrm Beast onwards, ever onwards. Jay and Abby head back to Sleeping Lore and moonbridge out to Scars Atoned, while the others try and get a decent lead, sprinting forwards far enough to see if the bane lock has a range, but not so far that they lose track of it.

Everyone mentally yells at Cole when he starts explaining what happened and just makes stuff up - "er, it just started following Freya, we didn't do anything". Jay and Abby show up not far behind and let Cossack know the truth. They decide that plan B is probably worth going for right now. Abby notices that Melissa is being a bit weird and drags her off to one side, but they come back after a very short time and things still seem a bit awkward.

Jay speaks to Cossack in the meantime about when the Wyrm beast arrived, but the Sept really knows nothing more than they do - everyone felt that same unpleasant spiritual feeling, but that was the only warning. Its a bit too coincidental that it just happened to arrive now, but its not clear as to whether the mages summoned it or not, or even where the Wyrm beast was going - it looked like it was coming for Sleeping Lore, but it was slowly curving through the city and might have been going for Tooronga. The Chandeen Mirror comes up and Bob veers off from Kreig and Freya and wakens the mirror up.

The garou head towards the normal moonbridge location, and Abby subtooly pulls Cossack aside to chat to him. They all come back together where Ends-the-Quiet is waiting and Abby looks disgruntled. Ends-the-Quiet opens a Moonbridge to Scars Atoned and Jay and Abby go through into the calm, cool dimness of the cave caern. They explain the situation to the Sept Elders - they are aware of the Wyrm beast, having helped track it, but the last couple of hours are a bit unclear. Abby explains - Bane Lock, following, destruction. So... about the help that Jirrawan gave the Bunyip to bind this thing in the first place?

Bob, having woken up the mirror, runs back to Krieg and lets him look through it. In the deadlands, they can't see the creature, but they can see the houses in its wake as they collapse. There's a distortion about where it is in the Umbra - it might be air, being destroyed and sent to the shadowlands. They peruse the effect a little more closely and it becomes clear that its not the houses it is hitting that are becoming apparent in the lands of the dead, its only the houses at the edge of the swathe of destruction that are appearing. Everything that is hitting it is just gone - it might be being absorbed, and gaining energy from all the ephemera.

Although the three garou are a fair way ahead of the beast now, Krieg points out that Bacchus Marsh is not that far ahead of them, and the terrain there is not as idyllic for running. They don't need to panic yet, but they should keep it in mind (as a ghostly voice suggests that they should aim for a specific grove of willows along Werribee River). They watch as the Wyrm beast passes across the top of a low hill that they crossed a while ago - well, not so much passing across and ploughing straight through without even slowing down.

Marches-the-High-Road performs the ritual to wake Jirrawan and after a short time, the humanoid figure appears in the far wall and wades, ripple-less, across the lake. Marches-the-High-Road explains briefly the situation but passes the talking stick to Abby and Jay. They give him the rundown - beast appears near their city, destroying not just stuff but also 'reality', they checked it out, activated the banelock, now its chasing Freya and they don't know what to do. Jay adds some detail as they go along. Could he help? Please?

Jirrawan's attention leaves the two Garou and he appears to be facing the wall, and it seems like he is concentrating on something far away. Jay and Abby hear a faint noise echoing from within the tunnels leading out into the outside world. It becomes a bit louder, and they can hear a strange coughing noise off in the distance, and its clear that a couple of the other Sept members here also do. Its sounding like the noise that the Bunyip... make... oh. The noises continue, some closer than others. Green Choking Grey speak to David, the Sept Elder, and head down the tunnels. Everyone else tries to hear what's happening. Abby tries to call upon her in-depth linguistic and empathic knowledge to figure out something about what they are saying. Someone smiles on her and she has a sudden insight that they are not closing in for the kill, but instead the bunyip are ... discussing something. Arguing, sort of. She can't tell what they are debating about, just that they are. She passes that on. There's at least a half dozen voices, and it goes for a while. Green Choking Grey come back and say that they went all the way to the end of the tunnels and they couldn't find the sources.

The voices stop and all the echos die away quickly. Jirrawan looks at Abby and says "Bring it here". She clarifies that, but he means to the caern. Jirrawan also wants the lock and the key, and from the context that they are used in, he means the Bane Lock and the Silent Stone (there is a brief diversion as the pack boggle again at having the key locked inside the safe when they found it). Jirrawan heads for the wall, and when he merges back, the Sept elders look at Abby and Jay with a great deal of concern. They discuss what to do - they are just hoping Jirrawan has a plan, basically.

Jay and Abby take their leave and head back to Sleeping Lore and pass this on mentally and to the caern elders. They start making plans for what to do - its possible to run the whole way there with only a medium amount of hassle. But if the Wyrm Beast keeps increasing in speed, it may be going fast enough to catch them before they get there. They speculate about organising a relay race of some sort. Krieg comments its a shame there are no Silent Striders in their Septs, for their going-fast gifts. Jay suggests just talking to spirits then - spirits might be able to give them a gift, or actually carry them, or maybe make a talen to briefly lend them power?

They speculate about spirits - wind spirits? Krieg says no, they spin and wobble everywhere. How about a Roc (no, not a rock)? Pegasus? Griffin? All of these spirits have issues - either hard to contact, or specific bans that might make them difficult to interact with. Fast spirits to give them fast gifts/talens? Emus? Cheetahs? They are just burst-speed, not the sort of long term stamina they might need. Peregrine is an option - they might be able to convince Merlin to help them talk to a peregrine. And that's an idea - maybe Merlin can do his mists/teleport thing to help them? Although he's been unkeen unless they really need it, this might count as "really". Freya suggests maybe contacting Stag, the Fianna totem.

They lay out their plan. They'll summon Merlin and chat to him first, because he is easy to summon. Then Abby will summon peregrine and Freya stag, leaving Bob fresh and ready in case he's needed at Scars Atoned. As this will take at least an hour, they will drive out south of Ballan and perform their rituals while Krieg, Cole and Jay run now. They meet up and switch the bane lock to Krieg, and the Wyrm Beast doesn't veer to follow Freya, so it sounds like it is actually the fetish. In the meantime, Melissa stays at Sleeping Lore until she can't sense the pack on the mental link, and then will move to Scars Atoned to be a contact point.

So, while the more mystic pack members begin their ritual, Krieg, Jay and Cole run like the wind. The creature is now moving at a brisk jog, and they are forced to move into the distance-eating lope that the lupus form is perfect for. They opt to travel as fast as they can to try and get a lead ahead of the creature so that if they hit broken terrain they don't get in trouble with loosing too much time. They are forced to detour around Grinding Stone as wide as they can, which means going just south of Bacchus Marsh.

Meanwhile, Merlin is called to the remainder of the pack in the Umbra. They talk to their totem and he agrees that this is a dire time and he may need bend his best efforts towards helping them. While Abby summons Peregrine, Bob goes looking for a falcon feather to bind the peregrine to in order to make a talen. Bob finds one with help from Merlin, dedicates it and brings it back. Freya calls upon her tribe totem a distance away from all this. She finishes her summoning and in a nearby grove the shadows resolve into the broad antlers of Stag. She speaks respectfully to the spirit and asks for his help in running from an ancient evil that pursues them. Stag asks what she offers for his help and Freya, who has had time to think about it in the car, says that she will mark her skin with the Fianna tribe symbols in Stag's honour. Stag agrees and Freya binds the spirit to herself - a very strange process that makes her much more preternaturally aware of the world around her.

Abby finishes her summoning and peregrine descends out of the moonlit sky. Abby asks peregrine for his help in defending the world from the forces of the wyrm by inhabiting a talen and lending his speed to the Garou. She says that she will spend time meditating on the nature of peregrine for 3 hours a moon for the next 6 moons. Peregrine looks at Merlin and there is some sort of communication. Peregrine instead instead that she take the time to consider her actions and not act without thinking. Abby queries time and the spirit suggests it will be satisfied if she makes the conscious effort for a time. She agrees and the spirit is bound to the feather.

They are heading near the bawn of Grinding Stone when a pack make themselves obvious a distance ahead. Its Gaia's Rage, the Black Fury pack from Grinding Stone and they are obviously waiting. Athena and her pack run along with Kreig and give him some directions - obviously they are familiar with the lay of the land. They provide the garou the best possible path, and then peel off and watch the Wyrm beast to make sure it doesn't head for their caern.

Although the garou were pulling ahead of it for a long time, there reaches a point where it ceases falling behind, and then it starts slowly gaining on them. The mental link returns as they approach Merlin and the others. The three Garou break into a sprint, but Cole sprawls badly as they are coming down a steep rocky hill. He veers north to recover, making sure he's not in the path of the creature. Meanwhile, Freya is ready to go, and runs up to speed, and takes the fetish from Krieg. The three garou peel off and move a couple of hundred metres aside as the Wyrm beasts passes at a run. Its far from a comforting feeling as it passes.

Freya heads across the landscape at speed, preternaturally aware of the land in front of her. She leaps and bounds the simplest way that she can see, gaining on the Wyrm beast without straining herself. She runs through a grove of trees and finds that instead of slowing down, she is able to gain some speed until she runs out the far side. Obviously Stag's gift is affecting her sense of perception strongly.

The others regroup and jump in a car for the next relay location where Abby will activate the talen. The plan is to go there with Abby and then get Bob to go on to the Sept with the Silent Stone. Cole grabbed his mobile before getting this car, and so he makes some calls to Scars Atoned and organises to have multiple cars so that they can drive Bob on, and still have people to wait for Abby in case things go wrong. As Merlin is with Freya, they lose some of their more detailed mental link with each other, although they have a basic empathic sense.

Freya is finding that despite her spirit-augmented running powers, the beast is catching up on her. Slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, the gap between them closes, not helped by the rolling nature of the landscape. She calls out to Merlin who is flying with her when the beast is 200m away, but he does not respond. The beast closes closer - she can hear the tearing, ripping sound as it travels closer and clouser. It almost not a sound, but a sensation. Freya manages to stifle her rising panic as the area around her grows misty and her senses are briefly disoriented and she nearly stumbles as she runs out into moonlit countryside. The creature is now over a kilometer away, and Freya puts the pedal to the metal.

This process repeats, and when the mists clear, Freya senses the others on their mental link. This probably means she's within about 10 minutes sprint of the others, and they consult about meeting up. Abby warms up as she sees Freya crest a hill and come loping down towards the road. They match velocities and hand over the fetish, and Abby activates the talen, speeding away. Freya swerves out of the way as Abby zooms off.

The rest of the pack get in the car and Kreig mentally contacts Melissa and lets her know that they are on their way. She says that Bob is already here and has (grudgingly) given the Silent Stone to Jirrawan. The Garou speed their way across country roads, ditch the car at a nearby kinfolk farmhouse and run for the sept. They pass through the long, painted tunnels and emerge into the white sand cave. No one really knows what Jirrawan has planned, although he has emerged from the wall and waits, waist deep in the pool. The Sept elders are getting very nervous about this, but there's not much they can do.

Meanwhile Abby is sprinting across the countryside. Where the others were aiming for a long distance stamina run, she's sprinting and giving all the speed she possibly can. Not only is the creature speeding along behind her, but she knows she has to swing around and come at the long tunnels that make the entrance without being cut off by the Wyrm beast. Despite her high speed, the blackness is gaining on her. Merlin uses his powers and the mists gather around Abby and move her further on once, and then again. None the less, the creature is slowly gaining. Abby tries to channel the rising panic she feels at being chased by certain doom.

There is only one more chance to use her talen when Abby starts the wide swing around to come at the caern the right direction. Because she is only running her normal lupus pace, it catches up quickly, but as she hits the entrance, she activates the talen and accelerates, sprinting into the darkness. The Wyrm Beast plunges into the ground, obliterating the rockpile at the mouth of the cave. Abby is leaping and flipping between forms, making the fastest trip through these tunnels ever, followed by a wall of sheer blackness.

Meanwhile in the caern center, the ground starts to tremble and dust sifts down from the ceiling, growing stronger every second. Soon the walls start to crack and bits of rock start falling from the ceiling. The rumbling sound gets louder and louder, and the shaking gets stronger. Abby mentally yells that its right behind her but is almost entirely concentrating on the run through the darkness. There are places where she needs to climb and other places where she has to crawl in lupus, and she is leaving skin and hair behind her. The only light is a dim glow from the paintings along the walls and she is navigating by memory alone.

The waters in the caern start to tremble and lap on the beach shore. The Garou start to draw together and get ready to do whatever they can, although that's probably nothing. Abby comes sprinting into the cave, dripping blood from innumerable scrapes and gashes. Just behind her is a wall of nothingness, ploughing through the rock. Abby runs to Jirrawan and hands the Bane Lock over. Jirrawan holds out the Silent Stone in one hand and the Bane Lock in the other as the Wyrm Beast advances towards him. The cave is filled with a new sound, a great cracking and rending sound, that drowns out the roaring of collapsing rock. As the sound grows, everything around everybody seems to double-up, like two identical images slightly out of sync. It doesn't effect any of the Garou or Jirrawan, but it does effect the cave and the Wyrm Beast. The cracking/rending sound reaches it's peak, then rapidly dies down. The doubling effect also starts to fade. However, both images of the Wyrm Beats start to fade. The sound dies away, and the two cave images merge back into one. The Wyrm Beast fades away and is gone.

Jirrawan takes the Bane Lock and pushes it to his chest. The stone sinks into the rock of his torso and vanishes. With his other hand he crushes the Silent Stone and dust pours from his fist, causing Kreig to shudder. Jirrawan moves back across the pool and merges with the wall. Everything is quiet again, except for the rumbling of settling stone.

The native Garou to the Sept seem appropriately shellshocked. The vast majority of the caern and its surrounds have been fairly significantly reorganised. The pathway that the Wyrmbeast came in along is still settling, but even now they can see that it is open to the Umbral sky within a couple of steps from what was the centre of the cave caern. Water from the lake is pouring into the shattered boulders and rubble at the end, but even as the Garou watch it appears to find a new equilibrium a couple of feet lower than it was.

Marches-the-High-Road notices the Claws of Wisdom standing around a little sheepishly and suggests that they still have a big night ahead of them and other matters to handle - would they like to Moonbridge home now? Krieg agrees and in a matter of moments they head for Sleeping Lore. The pack is met by Cossack and Ian, who listen to the short description of their activities ("Wyrm beast gone, caern still there, Jirrawan strange") and give them a rundown on what's been happening in the meantime while walking them to their car. About an hour and a half ago the Coles Myer building fairly comprehensively blew up. The Garou that were still there were negotiating with Bear and weren't too close to the blast (as well as being in the Umbra), but the building is categorically destroyed in the Realm. Cossack says that he wants them to go out to the site now and see what they can see - its probably that the mages somehow effected an escape, but their insight would probably be valuable.

They get into the car in various forms. Kreig finds his phone and finds a missed call with a number that he doesn't recognise. He checks voice mail and find there is quite a long message, but its quiet. Bob grabs the phone and bends his amaaaazing powers towards listening to the dead air. He finds that its far from dead - he can hear the sound of a fight, and howling and screaming ... a particularly insane kind of howl that they've associated with Dancers before. The rest of the pack check out the number and Freya finds that she's got it in her phone. Its Kreig's new house. But he hasn't been there much, leaving... Petrus.

The Claws of Wisdom spring into action. Abby runs back into the caern and lets Cossack know they have another crisis (that makes 3). He agrees they should deal with this now and they zoom out to Kreig's place. They park a block or two away and approach cautiously, some of the pack in lupus and sniffing, others in homid ready to leap into crinos at need. There's no signs of emergency services as they get closer. Cole peeks into the Umbra, but doesn't see a cloud of banes or anything about to leap down on top of them, nor anything else that he wouldn't expect. Bob's heightened senses are still active and as they walk down the alley/drive to the house, he can scent blood faintly on the air, along with stagnant water - a scent that they've matched to the Black Spiral Dancers before. Its a few hours old. There's no lights on, and no sound, nor smoke drifting up. Sense Wyrm doesn't reveal any immediate danger.

Cole lobs his jacket in the door when its unlocked, but it doesn't burst into flame, nor does any trap spring. So, pack move in and find the place is trashed - it looks like there's been a running fight. There's a few splashes of blood, but nothing arterial, nor gobbets of flesh. There is the scent of manky water stronger inside as well as damp places. Furniture is overturned and they find the phone off the hook. It appears the Dancers burst in through the floor and the back door, and they would guess about 4 or 6 of them. They can smell Petrus' scent heading out the back door and through a smashed bit of the fence, heading down toward the creek.

Abby grabs some of Petrus' stuff and starts a questing stone rite, while the others keep looking about. There's no messages written in blood nor on the answering machine. Abby gets no response, so Bob checks and does the ritual too, and gets no response either. The pack smell the blood but can only tell that its Garou blood. Emma and Cole head into the Umbra to do the ritual there.

Kreig looks around and doesn't think anything has been stolen - there's not a lot here because they've only just moved in. Kreig tries to block up the hole they've left, because he'd rather not have to deal with burgulars too. The others presume that the Dancers have kidnapped Petrus - taking him into the Umbra maybe? There are probably gifts or fetishes that will help that.

Jay follows the scents cautiously down to the creek and finds that it goes as straight as it can down to the water and then into the Moonee Ponds Creek. There were some signs of blood loss on the way down there. Jay runs up and down either side of the creek trying to see if they leapt out of the water at some point. He heads into the realm and quickly does it again just to see if they moved in to the Umbra. He isn't able to find scents although there's the hint of some splashing.

Bob gets a response from the Umbra to his Questing Stone rite! It pulls to the south, but in a sort of muffled, strange way. The rest of the pack all head for the spirit realm and follow Bob's lead as far as the rite travels. It passes slightly to the west of the zoo towards the city, but peters out about Victoria Parade. Bob does the ritual again and it leads through the city to Flinders St - as they travel there, they have to deal with Weaver creatures that still seem to be stirred up from the passage of the Wyrm beast.

They decide that they need to get a better idea of where they are going rather than just following this slighty weird feeling of Petrus' presence. Freya and a couple of the others head at right angles from their current path out to near Jeff's shed while Bob and the rest head a kilometer further on to the Shrine. The two ritualists do their magic again and this time the feeling is back towards the city for Bob and along the Yarra for Freya. They mentally discuss it and figure that their feelings cross somewhere in the Arts precint - somewhere near the Concert Hall or the Arts Centre.

The two half packs cautiously approach the site. There's no sense of Wyrm or impending doom as they sneak along. There's also no incriminating scents or signs of Petrus or anyone else. The Umbra is full of an odd mix of Weaver (from all the city & buildings) and Wyld (from all the performances). The wyld isn't really strong enough to break or warp the weaver, but it is enough to make things a little lighter in mood than it might be further up South Bank or in Flinders St. Krieg tries to think whether Petrus might have got away and run here to find someone, but no one comes to mind.

Bob does the Questing Stone ritual again and the sense pulls downwards. They sigh and head down as low as they can go in the buildings - beneath the Gallery are car parks, beneath the Concert Hall they get into the steam tunnels underneath the stage, but in both places they can't seem to get any further, despite the Questing Stone sense pulling further underground than that. The pack consider their position - this might just be the Hive, but they can't sense anything. Bob points out that this was exactly the same as in Sydney, and Abby agrees. Krieg says that he doesn't think they'd be able to questing stone Petrus in that case. They toy with calling the other packs up, but in the end decide to investigate further. They are seriously thinking of digging their way into the ground with Kreig's gift, but remember that when they stuck their head out over the Yarra there were storm water pipes leading into the river. The figure this is a better plan.

7 wet garou later, they creep into the biggest tunnel. They can't smell anything other than rank water - slightly salty and very very murky. Thin pipes (hand or arm size) lead off the tunnel and probably come down from the surface near roads - even in the umbra they smell of petrochemicals and wyrm. Sense Wyrm is somewhat beset by the overall wyrm sense. Sense Unnatural seems clear other than Wyrm and Weaver that they pack would expect. They head further in, slogging through the water that slowly gets shallower. It gets dark and they fetch the torches out of the bag of shadows. Krieg uses his Eyes of the Cat gift to try and make out what's ahead.

Far up the tunnel there is a sudden bright flash and an enormously loud noise. Jay and Freya fall to the ground, screaming as silver rounds puncture their bodies. The gunman is maybe 90 feet further up the pipe. Cole grabs a torch and steps suddenly despite the difficulty gauntlet. Kreig throws caution to the wind and runs as fast as he can up the pipe, blocking most of the pipe in crinos form. In the meantime, Bob heals Freya up somewhat while Abby pulls an arrow out of her quiver, yells "Down!" at Kreig, and fires blindly into the dark. Then she drags Jay backwards into what cover she can find.

Kreig leaps up again and keeps sprinting. He can see at least one Crinos shape, so its almost certainly Dancers. Kreig activates his Silver Claws gift (which the GM forgot he had) as he sprints in. He is about 15' away and can see that the gunman is aiming right at him when Cole appears from the Realm about 5' further on and there is another gunshot. Cole falls to the ground with a sucking chest wound, taking Krieg's normal role as ablative armour, and Kreig leaps over him.

The others notice that the water around them has gone extra oily and disturbing suddenly. This is not reassuring. Kreig leaps in and swipes at the gunman, who throws the gun down and pulls a dagger while ducking away. Another figure comes out of the darkness and strikes at Kreig's back with claws, but doesn't manage to get through the armor. The knifewielding Dancer stabs Kreig in the chest, mostly glancing off Kreig's ribs but drawing blood, but Kreig's shiny claws smash through his chest and tear out his heart, dropping the garou in a single blow. The others start yelling that its time to step and run the hell away. Cole creeps along as best he can through the horrid water trying to get to where the gun is, but having dropped his torch to keep his entrails in, he's not having a lot of luck.

Kreig spins around and attacks the other Dancer despite the cries of his pack to just leave. The corrupt garou dodges to one side but Krieg catches his arms and smashes through it with the claws. The arm comes completely away, but it doesn't feel exactly right to Krieg - there's not the expected cascade of significant amounts of blood, and as far as Krieg can see it still has two arms. The Dancer lunges at Kreig's throat with mouth agape but doesn't do more than scratch Kreig while Krieg tears an enormous hole on its chest. The Dancer staggers back and Krieg follows it up by decapitating it.

Its at this point that the water's surface leaps up as if it was struck by rain, and the air fills with lots of small banes. All of the Claws of Wisdom leap sideways into the Realm. They stagger into the dark tunnel and start heading back towards the outer world. Krieg tries to heal Cole and fixes most of the damage while Bob does the same on Jay. They have a brief discussion about whether that was the outer guard of the Hive, but folks think that there should have been a stronger, more coherent response. Its pointed out that dropping that automatic gun was not the act of a sane individual - expecting coherency may not be sensible.

Kreig mentally contacts Cossack, and tells him what happened. Cossack seems frustrated that the pack didn't think to approach a bit more cautiously, or ask for help, and may have spoiled any chance of surprise the Garou might have had. He'll contact the packs waiting at the Coles Myer building and get them to all come to the nearby gardens. Freya uses her Ley Lines gift to throw off the pursuit of any Dancers that decide to come and chase them.

Cole is all for nuking the site from orbit, but the others want to wait. The others packs show up, along with Bear and spirits. They try and get an idea for how many exits they are looking for - its a daunting thought. There are so many storm water tunnels and sewerage pipes just in the realm that the Dancers could get out damn near anywhere. However, their real aim is the Hive, so stopping fleeing Dancers is their second task.

Cole suggests doing something wyld and unpleasant again, and some of the other garou are for it, but the local Glasswalkers aren't happy. They could opt to summon various spirits to help them out, but that takes a while, and the Dancers will presumably be doing the same thing, so it won't be as much an advantage as usual. Their real advantage is 30 garou assaulting all at once. Someone suggests that they could not piss about with all the tunnels (and ambushes and boobie traps) and just dig their own way straight into the Hive. The only flaw with this plan is that there are only two Garou with the Burrow gift - Asimov and Krieg. There's no reason they can't combine the plans though - two packs could dig their way in while the others raid in through the pipes.

The Garou have some weaponry and all from the nearby caerns. They have the umbral shotgunss and some automatic silver weapons. Although these are fun, its pointed out that every one of the Garou comes with their own set of ginsu knives, and gifts often screw up technology, but its rare that anything could stop them from changing form. The Scryers show up with a bunch of healing talens for all the garou.

The plan is formalised. The Scryers will stay in the realm, armed and ready to keep people informed of anything bad, and possibly mop up scragglers. The Claws of Wisdom and The Alternative will dig parallel shafts straight towards Petrus, while the Hell Hounds will look for a way into the area from the south, and Blood Claw and The First Wave will find ways in from the river. Hopefully 30 odd garou will be a sufficiently overwhelming force to stomp their way through the Black Spiral Dancers.

The packs run off to their appointed locations. The Claws of Wisdom and The Alternative find the deepest location they can (in the steam tunnels). Bob does a Questing Stone ritual to get a firm idea of where Petrus is and points forcefully downwards. At the appointed time, all the Galliards howl, using the Call of the Wyld gift to rally and pussike up the troops. . The two metis start boring their way through the umbral concrete and deep into the soil beneath.

The packs are not boring straight down, but at a slight angle. It takes more than a few blows to get through the ephemeral concrete, but once through that, the garou are crunching their way through dirt for a time. Kreig is concentrating on that when his claws smash through some stone-like substance - within the thin shell is a faintly glowing green liquid, filling the pipe about half way. It senses of wyrm, and as it wafts, it stings the eyes a little - it seems to be some sort of ephemera rather than an actual creature. Its seems to be almost pulsing, as if something was pushing it along.

Further up the pipe, there is a yell and Asimov falls into the liquid, having hit the pipe a little lower than Krieg. He isn't happy and says it stings the skin, but he doesn't seem to be mind controlled. Asimov is helped back up into the pipe and Krieg mentally checks with the other packleaders. The Hell Hounds have hit the goo, and also a couple of Dancers - they ended up coming through a grating. The First Wave says that they are coming in through garou-dug tunnels - they alternate between the Umbra and the Realm and its taking a while, so the two digging packs should slow down. Blood Claw have hit banes and some of the goo as well. Kreig suggests that rather than stopping or slowing down, he and Asimov broaden the tunnells as they go.

More digging, and the after a time, the ground becomes wet (no surprise) but then it also becomes stingy. When they hide it from their light sources they can see that the dirt has a faint glow. It looks like the same stuff is seeping through the ground itself, not just in tunnels. They toy with going back to the non-full tunnel. The garou with Resist Toxin aren't suffering too much, but the others are getting pretty uncomfortable - it feels like a chemical burn. They opt to dig down a bit further and see if they can find a way out.

Kreig punches through a tunnel shell again, and liquid starts to well up and out. They start backing up, but Abby says that the others all said that the goo wasn't in the Realm tunnels and they did match up. The pack shudder, but widen the hole and plunge into the burning goo and then step, finding it much easier than it was near the surface.

The arrive in a dark tunnel suddenly lit up by auto-gunfire from both directions. The pack dive for cover and snuff their own lights. People are pinged but not seriously. The gunfire to the left is a rifle of some sort, the otherside is a shotgun. Cole crawls up the corridor toward the rifle. Krieg and Abby just run the same way as Freya goes the other direction. Another random burst of fire rings through the tunnel, but everyone lucks out. Kreig wrenches the gun away from the guy while Abby mashes the guy with claws. Both shooters appear to be human, or at least homid. Freya claws out as well and shotgunner falls down with pathetic gurgling sounds. The guy that Krieg and Abby are attacking falls down, but at the same time an ultrasonic alarm goes off, near defeaning everyone in the tunnel, hurting their ears. Abby stomps on the guy until the noise stops.

A couple more heavy crinos blows and the world is short two unpleasant gentlemen. Best bet is that they were fomori. In the middle of the tunnel appears huge forms, and a moment of panic occurs before they realise its The Alternative. They can hear screaming and gunfire echoing from somewhere else in the tunnels - they are not sure how far away they are. In the darkness, Bob notices that there is a faint light coming from the direction that Kreig and co went, almost like firelight. They investigate and find that there is a shaft heading downwards about 20'. There's firelight indirectly lighting the bottom of it up, and it seems to be coming from the same direction as Bob thought Petrus was. The pack consider the likely possibility that its a trap, and Abby drops the body of one of the fomori down there to see. Nothing happens, except a meaty splat. They consult with Tony Chi Mi, and he agrees that there's no reason to not keep digging that direction to make their own entrance rather than use the existing tunnel.

   They head down at an angle cautiously. Bob stops the progress at one point, saying he heard something - he listens again and can hear a gravelly voice yelling "Gaians - look what we have here!". The pack think about it for a minute and figure that the voice is probably talking about Petrus. Abby asks what they should do if the Dancers want to negotiate. Tony shrugs and says that destroying the Hive is more important than one garou - no negotiation. Kreig sighs and says that he has to agree.

Kreig breaks through a wall and stops. He looks through the gap and tries to see if anyone noticed that he made a hole. He finds himself looking into a fire-lit cavern with a number of Dancers to the ready. Their tunnell seems to intersect the cavern about 10' off the ground. There are large firepits with flickering flames - one of them appears to have green fire and Krieg sighs and mumbles something about balefire. Other people take turns looking through their hole - they count at least 8 dancers, including some that have Petrus up the far end of the 200m wide cavern. Freya spots a Dancer clinging to the roof as well. None of the Dancers appear to have noticed their small entry hole, but they do appear to be generally on-guard, with weapons ready. They also spot a gash in the cavern floor - a pit-like chasm that they really can't see down. Everyone has bad feelings about the hole. There are a number of caves leading away from this cavern too - some big enough for crinos, other only big enough for lupus.

They look closely at Petrus and see that he's in homid form and in a submissive position. A large Dancer in crinos is holding a sword near his neck while two others are guarding him. Kreig does a mental check with the others - Amy screams "not now!" and Kreig gathers they are fighting; Michael says they've run into a bunch of fomori and it will take them some time to get there; Mark reports that they have issues with banes pouring out into the Realm and will be there as soon as they can; Christine says nothing is happening on the surface. It sounds like they are all going to be slow - the two packs are probably strong enough to use surprise to attack these guys while the other packs are holding back their reinforcements.

They toy with what to do - Cole's all for using the rifle to blow the guy guarding Petrus away. Kreig thinks about creating rock all around him, but that would be nearly impossible. Krieg opts to mental speak to Petrus - he can make contact, but its all blurry and not very coherent. It feels like he's maybe been drugged? One of the Dancers next to him snaps his head around and looks about, and the other yells out "Gaians! Stop! We know you are there, and if you do not stop, we'll just kill him!". Rushed discussion - can they dig around to where they are holding Petrus? Not really - it would take 30 mins, and their limited surprise probably won't hold out that long. While they are talking they notice that a couple of homids with guns come out of one of the tunnels and consults with some of the waiting Dancers. Ahah, think the garou.

They decide to widen their front so they don't have a choke point here where they want to break out. Krieg digs quickly along the edge of the cavern to make a thin shell of rock that the Garou could almost all smash through and leap in. Cole will stay at the hole and try to pick off the guy over Petrus.

Cole aims carefully and takes his shot. The Dancer at the far end stumbles backwards as the bullet intersects with his chest and the other Dancers look around to see where the shot came from. Garou slam into the wall with mixed success - some of the packs burst through with a shower of gravel, others bounce off and then run out the holes the other have made.

The battle is joined! Some of the Dancers run toward the incoming Garou, others seem inclined to call forth mystic powers. Abby fires a shot at the crinos on the roof and hits them, and they fall agiley to the ground, then runs toward Abby. The Dancer that Cole shot rights himself and in a single overhead blow splits Petrus to the waist. Krieg finds himself riding a flare of black Rage that he manages to suppress then heads left where he sees another, previously hidden Dancer. Abby fire another arrow at the oncoming Dancer but it misses. Bob jumps down to join the fray, followed by Jay who goes after Krieg. Cole shoots at other Dancers from behind the wall. Tony and Yvonne burst out and sprint to the right as the members of Claws of Wisdom head mostly left.

Kreig smashes the Dancer with his silver claws, but at the same time the shotgun unloads with enormous force into his chest, knocking him to the ground with a gaping hole where organs should be. Jay cops a face full of Krieg's acid blood, but manages to get it off himself before it burns face and eyes. Freya engages the garou that Cole shot near the chasm and tears its throat out and breaks its neck in a single blow. The Dancer that Abby and Bob are attacking is attacking them with both claws and a disturbingly animate whip.

In the center of the cavern, hovering above the pit appears a hideous wyrm spirit - superficially crab like, it also also bedecked with tentacles and covered in horrid green slime. Its tentacles begin grabbing the roof and floor to anchor itself in space.

Freya is struck by the other Dancer but manages to roll with the damage. Jay heals Krieg of some of his damage with a talen, and combat healing. Cole tries to use Mimic to try and fake the voice of the Dancer that was talking before, in order to convince the Dancers to drop their weapons ("Drop your weapons, the gaians have trapped them"), but it just seems to confuse them slightly (not to mention the GM, who wasn't sure what "them" referred to).

Bob bites at his opponent as Abby drops her bow and slashes with claws. The Dancer tips its head back and howls a horrid squealing sounds and Abby immediately frenzies and starts trying to destroy the Dancer in front of her. The Dancer that killed Petrus drops his sword and grabs some sort of flail made of bones and teeth, running toward Freya.

The Alternative slam into a pack of crinos Dancers and the blood and fur begins to fly, but sheer force of numbers is on their side. Cole starts shooting at the materialised wyrm spirit, but the bullets have no appreciable effect. Kreig and Jay run to back Freya up against the approaching Dancers. Humans run out of the corridors leading into the Hive area, some with guns, other with melee weapons. Abby smashes the Dancer in front of her into paste and, still frenzying, runs over towards one of these groups of homids. Melissa turns from attacking the Dancers to defend their rear against these attackers as well.

Bob leaps into the attack against frenzying Dancers for a blow or two. The wyrm thing starts to attack the garou with green slime contacted tentacles, but they don't appear to have much strength individually although the slime burns. Jay cuts one of them free of his leg easily with the sword. It slices at another garou with its pincer-claws, but they manages to dodge. Bob veers near the materialised spirit and tries to use his exorcism gift against it, but there is resistence. He mentally asks someone to find the theurge that summoned it and splat them while he keeps trying.

Kreig smashes another Dancer with his silver claws but doesn't kill it, and he is distracted as the flail wielding Dancer runs into that battle. The wyrm spirit attacks others with claws and tentacles as Bob summons up all of his spiritual authority and abjures the creature - it vanishes back into the Umbra (much to the dismay of the GM).

Krieg and the huge Dancer face off. Krieg's claws tear away chunks of its head, but its flail seems to bite into Krieg when it hits, and tears away chunks of flesh as he pulls it back again, leaving gaping wound. Despite the silver claws, the Dancer does not appear to suffer in the ways that others have - in fact, a shadow flicked across the crinos face and seemed to absorb some of the silvery light.

Freya kills the remaining Dancer within arm's reach and it falls to the ground. Jay and Freya notice that one of the other fallen Dancers is filling with red fire - rather than wait for it to go into a Death Rage, they pick the body up and fling it down the now clear the chasm.

More than half the dancers have fallen, and the Garou are tearing the incoming humans to pieces. Some of the humans seem more like a military group than random insane people, and they open fire on Kreig, Jay and Freya, but are not able to do more than nuisance value. Kreig strikes at the crippled Dancer again and tears out its throat.

Other figures run in from the left, and for a moment the pack worry about Dancer reinforcements, but its Amy and Shu Leung from Hell Hounds, quickly followed by the rest of their pack. One of the remaining Black Spiral Dancers who had stayed back from the battle grabs something off his belt and looks at it, and then steps sideways. The Alternative bring down the final Dancer that attacked them while Melissa and Abby kill humans with single blows. Abby tears opponents to shreds before coming out of her gift-inspired frenzy. Tony and Irena close on the gun weilding humans who start becoming paste pretty quickly.

The remaining Dancer steps sideways - someone tries to see where, but finds that the Umbra is full of green slime in the dark. One of the Dancers is spotted swimming down the chasm in the spirit world, but ther other is not obvious. Kreig decides that discretion is the better part of valour and he and Freya throw the body down the hole before it has a chance to go into death frenzy.

The sound of battle from other corridors becomes immediate and both the First Wave and Blood Claw erupt from these side tunnels driving fomori and materialised spirits before them. The collected Garou strength makes short work of the remaining Wyrm creatures.

The sound of battle stops and the Claws of Wisdom suddenly feel a strange loss. Cole sees Bob take an uncertain step and then collapse, as he disappears from the mental link. The pack rush over and find that Bob is not breathing, nor does he have a heart beat, but there is no sign of any injury. They try to sense him and find a fading sense of Garou. Nothing the pack can do seems to help, and finally Kreig suggests that perhaps Rat has taken Bob back.