Holistic Approach Chronology

February 2000

Thomas gets up the next day and spends some time peering about the Fitzroy police station. He eventually finds that the cop in question is Constable Alan Carmichael, and he doesn't seem to have yet reported his missing pistol. Thomas heads to the local Legal Assistence place and drops Carmichael's names and some details with the people there.

Kimu receives a message.

Thursday 3

Thomas is asked (sent) to Hidden Green to get some stuff for Moonflower from Elaine RDI. He's walking through the Uni on the way there and spots Melissa, and asks if she wants to come along too. They are walking through the Uni, and Melissa is fairly distracted, noticing the other people about her age wandering about. She pulls herself together though, and they stroll down to Collins St. While they are waiting for Elaine, some of Steel Hunters, Scott, Tanya and Claude show up and come and chat to them. They are introduced to Melissa, and the fact that she has joined Holistic Approach. Claude asks "What did you do to deserve that, dear child?" and Melissa just looks at him like he's from another planet. Scott asks about Peter, and he and Tanya ask some questions while Claude makes snide remarks, without quite crossing the line into rude. At the end of the story, Claude says "Well, its a good start I guess - getting one Garou back after all the ones you managed to lose". It is at this point that Melissa shifts to Crinos and punches Claude off his feet in one smooth move.

As Melissa shirtfronts Claude and slams him repeatedly against the ground, she snarls out "I lost both my parents and my life. John and Thomas have both saved me from being killed, and all I have left is this new life, and my couple of friends, and all you can do Mr safe-at-home-on-new-years is run them down. You're.. you're... indescribable!" She puts the boot in a couple of times and then walks back next to Thomas. Scott looks at her with raised eyebrows. "Did you have something to say?" Scott says "Not particularly." Claude drags himself off somewhere into the caern as Elaine comes out from that same direction, looking back at Claude and looking confused. She looks at the various faces of the Garou gathered and obviously decides to say nothing. She gives Thomas the stuff and some instructions, and the two Garou head off. As they get into the lift, Scott tells Melissa to drop in whenever if she wants to learn about some Glasswalker stuff. In the lift Melissa looks like she's going to explode, but as soon as they get outside she bursts into tears and grabs Thomas. Thomas, familiar with dealing with emotional teenagers as he is, manages to be a bit more empathic than "there, there, be comforted". Melissa gets control again and says "thank you". The two garou head back to their own caern.

Friday 4

Thomas is standing on a wide plain, a primodial landscape of black rock, erupting volcanoes and streams of lava. He is with Bartholomew Wise-in-the-Ways-of-the-Wyrm, who says "Hard to believe its the same place, isn't it? Would you believe that's Hopping Mouse Hill?" Bartholomew jestures at a large hill. "And Lake Albracutya is down thataway" he says pointing towards the rising plume of ash. Thomas is understandably a bit confused and they chat a bit disjointedly. After a bit, Bartholomew says "Anyway, what you wanted is around the other side of the hill. I'll catch you later." Bartholomew waves and heads off away from the hill. Thomas walks that way and climbs to the top of the raw rockpile. There is an occasional bit of grass growing, but it looks stunted and not well. Looking from the top of the hill reveals glowing red lines to the south and some greenery off in other directions. It has the look of a serious amount of newness. Thomas considers heading off towards the greenery, because he can't see anything on the otherside of the hill, but decides to walk down there first. Near the bottom he finds a fissure leading into the hill. Feeling that this is probably what Bartholomew meant (there's nothing else of note here), he heads into the darkness. Weirdly, he can sort of see the thin gap that leads down into a cavern.

The cavern is a little bit like the fae cave, only not wet. There might be aboriginal pictures on the wall, but he can't make them out very clearly. And he can't go over to look because rather than a floor, the bottom of the cave is a great pit, dropping away into the darkness with no apparent bottom. Thomas can hear something shifting down in the pit. The darkness fills his vision and he wakes up.

Deciding he's not getting any more sleep tonight, Thomas waits for the rest of the pack to wake up and then gets them to meet him from breakfast in the caern. He explains his dream and the decision is made to ring Bartholomew to see why he is screwing with Thomas's head. Bartholomew is at home, but doesn't know anything about the dream - or so he claims. Thomas explains in detail, although a bit obfuscatedly. Bartholomew replies in kind, explaining that he knows of a place that sounds like the place in Thomas's dream, but its in the Blue Mountains. That place is connected to a pet rock that Bartholomew owns, which is a bit like the rock that Dominique used to have. Bartholomew offers to go and look at his place, in case Thomas' dream is about it, and then get back to them. Thomas agrees and says that they'll wait until he gets back before they go and look for Hopping Mouse Hill. A map is procured, and the Hill is found to be in the Wyperfield National Park, vaguely near Mildura. Brett asks why Thomas is dreaming about Mildura 10000 years ago, but no one is quite sure.

The thought occurs that Hopping Mouse Hill might have something to do with the Dancers, and Peter is fetched and brought to the caern. He says there's nothing familiar about it, but he's willing to come and see what he can see. Brett asks if they got to show Peter the rock from Coode Island, and they haven't, so while Bartholomew is off going to his special place, they take Peter to see the rock.

Having reminded the GM that they have moved the rock to a the outer bounds of Melbourne, the pack head off towards south Knox. As they are driving along, John's phone rings and Graeme's voice says that Barthomolew just rang back for them, if they could give him a call that would be appreciated. John does so and Bartholomew tells them that it might be educational if they actually came with him to his place. Bartholomew suggests driving to a place called Crookwell, where he'll have someone meet them. He's expecting them in about 10 hours, which gives them time to try this experiment before heading that way.

The pack find somewhere out of the way to step sideways and enter the Umbra. They take Peter to the rock and ask him if he has any immediate impressions. He looks a bit unhappy about the rock, but can't recall anything to do with it ... except maybe its too small? Like when you go back to an old house and find that all the cupboards are lower than you expect? The pack consider this in the light of the fact that the rock looks like it has been severed from another part. They push Peter and ask about smells or sounds and he looks unhappy. Peter comments that he's just as worried about giving them false information because he's trying too hard as he is about not giving them enough information. Like he doesn't like the rock, but then they told him that it was wyrm-like and so he might just be projecting. The pack understand and tell him to take his time while they back off and don't put any pressure on him.

After half an hour or so, Peter comes and joins them. He says that he didn't make any more connections other than the "too smal" one. Sorry. He looks a bit down, and when they offer to take him with them on a long cramped car trip, he mysteriously declines. He must be the traitor! The pack head back via the caern, drop Peter off and zoom away up the Hume.

Eight hours later they pull into Crookwell on dusk and stretch their legs (well, everyone but Darren). Its a small town, maybe 1,500 people, with a fair number of people on the street on this warm February Friday night. Not having seen anyone leap to their feet to greet them, they decide to kick back in the main pub (where-else are the Fianna going to look for them?). The pack get a counter tea and generally get strange looks from the locals (Who are those weirdos?). Pool, darts and lounging about, ducking out every now and again to see if anyone is hassling their car. Brett takes Darren a bone only to find that Darren is sulking in the Umbra. Kimu decides to go for a walk in lupus around the place after being advised that being in homid might not be the best idea.

The publican calls out last round and the pack start to wonder if they might have missed something when Darren points out that there is a maddened bird hammering into the Umbra pub. The spiritual warriors of Gaia hang their heads but rub their full tummies. They all shift into the Umbra and are harrangued for a while by a rather irate magpie which has been trying to get their attention for about 2 hours. It flies off, muttering to itself about the vagaries of garou and why it botheres to even try in the face of such mediocrity blah blah blah.

After running through the dark, dark Umbra for several hours, the magpie flies up to Bartholomew and rants and squawks in his ear. He settles its feathers and thanks it for its help. He chats with the pack for a bit and then tells them to follow him in lupus. Bartholomew's lupus form is an old red wolf, going greyish at the muzzle, but he can put on a fair pace. The pack and Bartholomew make good time into the mountains, over hill and dale (ow!) before Bartholomew stops at what seems to be a blank cliff face. He pulls out a palm sized stone that looks awfully familiar to the pack and says that this is the Waiting Stone. In homid now, Bartholomew holds it up to the cliff face. Aboriginal-esque designs suddenly become visible, even in the faint near-Ragabash moonlight. As the pack watch, there are a number of flickers, light clouds passing over the sun. Each time, the patterns in front of Bartholomew change and shortly there is a passage into the rock. John does a quick check and sees that there is a similar passage in the Realm. Bartholomew leads the way into the cliff.

A short sloping passage ends in a fissure plunging straight downwards. Bartholmew uses some gift and creates a tube of silver light down the middle of the shaft. He suggests changing to crinos form and climbing downwards, taking the lead. Thomas decides that he's way too acrobatic to need to use his talen arm, and also plunges straight downwards. Bartholomew manages to dodge to one side as Thomas falls about 30 metres straight downwards, slamming quite hard into the broken rock floor. As the others slowly descend, Thomas slowly heals. They jump the last bit down into the cavern, and manage not to mock their packleader, too much. The cavern is much like the one in Thomas' dream, only it has a floor of broken (smashed?) rock and dirt. The walls are covered in aboriginal pictographs, some of which are familiar, some are new. Bartholomew explains that the cavern was used by the Bunyip to contain a Wyrmbeast, much like the Uktena are rumoured to do (sideways look at Kimu). During the War of Tears, it was rumoured that the Bunyip were keeping a beast chained somewhere in the Blue Mountains, but no one was sure where (sideways look). By the time he found the Waiting Stone and found the cave, it was empty.

Brett explains about awakening the pictographs at the fae cave and Bartholomew blinks a lot. Kimu makes some sort of noise that might be interpreted as disapproval. Bartholomew says he hasn't thought about it, but others might have tried it (looks at Kimu). Kimu says that he has heard it can be dangerous, and should only be tried by trained professionals, which frankly this pack ain't. Bartholomew shows them the pictographs while he thinks about it. He points out the ones that are similiar to patterns found at Scars Atoned and says that they may be wards to keep the Wyrmbeast dormant, implying that there may be a Wyrmbeast under Scars Atoned. (Oh good). Someone says that would follow at the fae cave, as they were trying to keep Nlaloonjurrie caged. Oh good. Alternatively, says Bartholomew, they are there to make it impossible for the Wyrm to find and free its creatures, implying they are some part of a defense to hide the specific location. However, without constant attendance (sideways look at Kimi) and the proper rituals, the emanations from the Wyrm beasts eventually destroy the bindings. The Uktena (look) have found some and perform their own rites, but there are probably others. Its sort of clear that Bartholomew has had some interactions with the Uktena which were frustrating.

Bartholomew's willing to try Awakening the walls. The possibility that one of the paintings will come alive and attack the garou in this dead end cave at the bottom of a long hole is raised. The pack and Bartholomew carefully examine the walls mystically, but can't find anything that stands out as being particularly eerie. Some of the pack step back and get ready to run as Brett wanders about singing to the walls. At the end of the ritual, there is a sort of flash, and the paintings take on a renewed vibrancy. Three figures start to move, a stylised figure, a circle surrounded by dots and a spiral pattern. They move towards a central point. The figure gets there first and then the spiral moves over the top, obscuring the figure, then the circle of dots covers them both. The figure reappears over the top of the circle which disappears. The images all move back to their previous location and fade a little.

Bartholomew and the pack discuss the images. Bartholomew believes that the figure is some sort of mountain/storm spirit. The spiral might be the wyrm beast and the circle the cave. But it might be that the figure was the wyrm beast and spiral was some sort of wyldling used to trap it and the circle was a downward view of the theurges performing a binding ritual. Bartholomew uses this to explain why the garou have had so much trouble interpreting Bunyip glyphs - its not just a matter of not knowing the language, its the whole mindset and how they represented objects in picture form. Combine this with a less Triat-oriented outlook on the world than the northern hemisphere Garou have and there are some real problems in puzzling out the legacy of the Bunyip. In any case, he's happy to use his first guess as a reasonable approximation, because he's seen the same figure used in other contexts which indicate that it wasn't a wyrmbeast.

The next step is probably to check out Hopping Mouse Hill. Bartholomew offers to come with them, and from there to see the fae cave, which he hasn't had time to come and look at. The pack agree and decide to split up to go with Bartholomew and to run back to Crookwell, and then meet in Mildura. On the way they ring back to the caern and let Ian know what has been happening. Brett is left as the only driver in the pack's car although Melissa finally badgers him into letting her drive cos she's still on her 'L's. After a couple of white-knuckled kilometres Brett makes Melissa pull over and get out of the drivers seat, making up some sort of story about the bad New South Wales roads affecting her driving.

In the other car, John talks to Bartholomew about the Bunyip and what sorts of things he knows. Bartholomew is surprisingly not exactly enthused about returning the Bunyip. He feels that by focusing on something which might be impossible, the Garou are wasting effort that would be better spent finding a new equilibrium with the spirits of the Dreamtime. He doesn't oppose Holistic Approach's investigation of the Bunyip - at the very least they may be able to help lay the angry Bunyip spirits to rest, and at the best they may be able to help forge new links with the Dreamtime spirits. But he doesn't see the Bunyip returning. In fact, he says that they would not have been able to deal too well with the humans even if the War of Tears had not occured. Their culture had not changed for millenia, and they have been unable to adapt, like so much of the natve fauna. The European Garou have been forced to get used to adapting because of constant dynamo of their human cultures.

The two river stones are compared too. Bartholomew says he found the Waiting Stone years ago. The Cracking Stone was found amongst some loot in the first mage stronghold that Infinite Paths found. Both of them are covered in similar carvings, mostly wavy lines, but they are not the same. Bartholomew suggests that the carvings might be meant to represent water, especially running water, which makes sense in the context of getting into things - after all, water gets in everywhere eventually, or through cracks. He says that this is just his best bet though - it might mean something contextual to the Bunyip who made them.

Saturday 5

Pulling into Mildura, the two groups meet up and grab some breakfast and consult maps on how to get to Hopping Mouse Hill. They decide to drive to the edge of the National Park and run the rest of the way.

A few hours later they arrive at Hopping Mouse Hill. As it turns out, there is a track that goes past the Hill a few hundred metres away. Its very easy to see because of the large tour bus sitting by it, depositing what seem to be a number of older tourists out into a large camping ground. Ignoring the genocidal members of their pack, the Garou slink into the Umbra and sneak about. Peeking on the campers reveals that they are indeed retirees setting up for an overnight stay at the camping ground. Their guide warns them about snakes and other dangers and mentions some walking tracks about the place. Also, keep an eye out for hopping mice, which make their homes about the hill. The campers set up and get organised before some of them head off on short walks. The pack paranoidedly sense through all of them, but none of them are particularly wyrm-ridden. Weaver, yes, wyrm, no.

The Garou resign themselves to lurking in the Umbra and decide to look about the place in the spirit world. Instead of the dry mallee scrub, the Umbra is a temperate forest. The Garou get the feeling they are tolerated, but not accepted and decide not to push it. They find, with effort, the spot where Thomas thinks the gate it, but are a little worried about the passage appearing in the Realm where the grey army are marching back and forth. Not having really slept, they decide to kick back until night and nap.

The campers do their thing, eating about dusk. Holistic Approach are expecting them to go to sleep about dusk, and are a bit disgruntled to notice that they are bringing out... telescopes. The guide is overheard commenting that tonight is a good night for star watching because the sky is clear and dry and there's no moon. The Garou sigh, and wait for them to become wrapped up before returning through the dark, dark umbra to the hill. Figuring that night will hide any indiscretion, they whip out the Cracking Stone and thrust it against the rock. No go. They frown and discuss things some more. Brett looks at the ground and sighs, pointing out that a lot of loose sand and soil has blown up against the rock face and they are probably standing above the entrance. The garou change to crinos and start digging.

After a short while, they uncover a scoured rock face which looks to have once had paintings on it. Brett holds up the Cracking Stone and activates it. He feels an opening appear and knows that he can pass through, but the rock face remains the same. The Cracking Stone gives him a sense of a passage through the rock and he passes this on to the others. John is overcome by his curiosity and leaps through. The rock is sort of viscous, but he can breath and can sort of sense which way to go - its more a smell sense than a sight sense though, and its a bit wrong. John emerges into open, if stale, air, but can't see anything. He uses faerie lights to try and get a sense for where he's ended up. All he can tell the others is that its very, very big, and there are paintings on the wall. Oh, and the floor is all smashed up. The others follow through. Thank goodness no one is claustrophobic.

Bartholomew uses his gift again and lights the cavern up with a faint moonlight glow. It is pretty much as Thomas dreamed it, except that instead of the pit leading down into eternal darkness, there is an expanse of smashed rock, as if it was hit with a huge concussive force. Brett uses Sense Unnatural in the chamber and is swept away by the pure, pure wyrm sense, but he can tell that it is only a lingering echo of something. There are also a couple of niggling different senses at opposite ends of the cave. He starts heading around looking for them with Bartholomew. The others peer at the paintings, looking for similarities with the other sites. Fairly soon they find a circle surrounded by dots and another stylised figure. The figure is surrounded at waist height by rings or a plane or something and looks vaguely familiar. The rest of the paintings are remeniscient of the other sites.

Brett follows his senses to the first glitch in the overall wyrm sense. Its a small figurine of a human (or maybe of the figure on the wall) sitting in a niche in the wall. It senses of Weaver and a slight Wyrm. Brett leaves Bartholomew to examine it and moves to the next glitch. In another niche he finds a flat river stone, covered in intricate patterns. It looks similar to, but not the same as, the Cracking Stone and the Waiting Stone. Discussion about the objects ensues, and Bartholomew points out that they are both fetishes. He doesn't see any harm in attuning to them, as neither of them sense of strong wyrm, and the figurine at least is pretty much exhausted. The figurine is chosen first. It empathically tells them that it is called the Bane Lock and its job is to act as a tether to the wyrm beast. Its absolutely drained of gnosis - the emanations of the wyrm beast have beaten it down. The other fetish is called the Silent Stone and it is intended to do pretty much what the other two fetishes do - open things, specifically wyrm wards.

Brett and Bartholomew join the others in examining the pictures. Melissa is asked to stop playing with the rock passage. Brett says that the figure is familiar, but he can't pin it down other than its associated with Scars Atoned in his mind. Discussions ensue once again - is the cave still the home of the wyrmbeast, or has it gone? If so, what can they do about it? Is it safe to awaken the pictures? They decide to check the paintings carefully again and see whether any of them appear to be dangerous. The walls themselves are permeated by this pure wyrm sense, but it doesn't have a point source anywhere, so the feeling is that the wyrmbeast is gone. So why did Thomas dream about it now? Did it leave on the night he dreamt of it?

After discussions and some cautioning from Kimu, they decide to spirit awaken the walls again. Brett performs the rite, but muffs it about half way through. Everyone trapped in the cave metres underground permeated with wyrm taint look at him in horror, but nothing explodes out of the walls or anything. Brett gives it another go, concentrating this time. Once again, the paintings take on a greater depth than they had before. A 5-limbed swastika kind of thing starts to move towards a clear point in the walls. The figure with the odd rings (which undulate weirdly) starts to move and reaches the point first, followed by the swastika thing. The figure disappears. The circle of dots rolls over the top of the presumed wyrm beast and obscures it. Then the figure appears again, leaving no circle or 5-limbed thing. The pictures all revert back and some of the life fades out of them. Brett says he's worked out who the figure is - its Jirrawan, the totem of Scars Atoned, which means that the 5-limbed thing is most likely to be the wyrm beast. The pack consider their next move.

   Darren tries to get a Sense of the Prey, but has no luck. He points out that the gift really doesn't work against strong spirits. They take a poke about in the Realm. The cave is much the same, except a little more dingy and worn. The niches that the fetishes were in in the Umbra have some odd carvings about them - John suggests that they could be intended to funnel the energy of the fetishes into this world as they look a little bit like they fan out from the centre. They poke about at the broken up floor, trying to see if they can find what happened to it. More broken rock. More. More. 6 crinos make a concerted attempt to move enough rock out of the way to find the bottom, but the smashed up volcanic rock seems to go on forever. Ah, say the pack, I guess we know where it went when it left. Thomas spends 5 minutes looking at the 5-legged painting before giving a short strangled shriek. He points out that the dream he had of the caern being crushed by a giant hand from underneath had five fingers too. There is a brief silence. Melissa says it sounds kind of weak, and its noted down just in case. Figuring there's not much to be learned in the cave, they head outside and see what else can be seen.

Sniffing around tells Kimu that there haven't been any other beings in the Umbra, although some of the hikers came past recently (today). The retiree tour seems to have gone to bed, judging by the lack of sounds from that direction. The scents that he can find are about a month old or less and only are animals and similar spirits in the Umbra. John heads off with Darren to start summoning an earth elemental to follow the path downwards, Thomas, Melissa and Kimu look for spirits to chat to and Bartholomew and Brett compare the differences between the Waiting Stone, the Silent Stone and the Cracking Stone. Kimu's search leads him to a Gaffling Blue tongue lizard spirit which is a bit remote but polite. It suggests that he talks to a nearby spirit which has been in the area for ages, and directs him around the hill. They trundle around there and finally spot the spirit in question, a tree spirit. It is awake and relatively helpful. In a voice like the wind through leaves it responds to Kimu's questions - it has been here since it can remember, a while ago something terrible appeared in the hill and then it passed beneath. Kimu tries to qualify which direction it went and the spirit repeats that the spirit passed beneath - it seems to mean something treeish and particular by the phrase. It definately went under the ground, as the spirit says it was not of the sky. The terrible thing appeared only a small number of rains ago (less than 5, more than 2).

Brett and Bartholomew are spending time on top of Hopping Mouse Hill and trying to get a feel for each of the fetishes. Although the three fetishes seem to have the same spirits within them, they have been flavoured by their wielders and creators to some degree. The Silent Stone is the least dynamic of the three of them - it has a feeling of being even more still and calm than the Waiting Stone, which implies a sort of active alertness to its surrounds. The possibility exists that the Silent Stone was made by Jirrawan, given that he is a spirit of calm. They don't know who made the Cracking Stone, and the Waiting Stone was associated with the lightning and storm spirit, but there's no certainty it had anything to do with the creation of the key.

John calls out to an earth elemental who might be nearby and listening. He performs the ritual for an hour and a half when he suddenly realises that the whole land is watching him and he sours the rite. The others all perk their ears as the wind picks up and the faint watchfulness of the umbra becomes something much more intense. "Ooops" says John over the mental link. The gauntlet starts to wobble. John tries to call the caern but his phone grows legs and runs off. Brett can see clouds building up to the south as an intense blackness, lit by the occasional lightning blast. The area cools and the wind picks up. "Shit" say the pack. Brett and the other homids run for the tour group while John performs a Rite of Contrition, hoping to mollify the anger. Brett manages to wake the guide up and alert him of the danger (we were hiking) to his group. People are woken up and told to grab anything not waterproof and get on the bus. The rest of the pack think about making a run for the cars, but they are about 50kms away and the speed the storm is approaching means that it will beat them. Follows a less than pleasant evening. The pack decide to hang about near the bus and try and give that pesky Veil a fighting chance, distracting spirits which wander out into the Realm away from the tourists and trying not to get crushed to death in the meantime. It rains, it pours. Lightning strikes near the hill (but not on it), branches are nocked from trees, water and sand gets in eyes and fur.

Sunday 6

Morning dawns fresh and clear as the pack and Bartholomew reach their cars. The vehicles are dug out a bit and then they drive to Ouyen to ring the sept. They get there exhauted and stop at a petrol station. Melissa volunteers to go and see if she can find out when it rained last. Thomas rings the caern and fills them in on details. Graeme is unsurprised that it was them in the Wyperfeld Nat. Park - it made the news. They tell Graeme about the cave, the missing Wyrmbeast and other details. Melissa comes back and tells them that its rained last night, and about 3 times since about Christmas. The guy wasn't too sure. It occurs to people that about then was when the Dancers attacked. Except they didn't, leading to a mystery as to why they didn't follow up. The theory is put forward that the whole attack was a distraction so no one noticed the Dancers releasing this beast and it fits the facts a little too well for comfort. They ask Graeme if he could ask about the other caerns to see if anyone noticed something big other than the attack on NYE, and tell him that they are going to go to Scars Atoned on the way home.

Eight hours sleep in a motel in Ouyen does a lot to restore people. Except Thomas, who dreams about Hopping Mouse Hill again. This time there is no Bartholomew and the cave is exactly like the Hopping Mouse Hill cave. Again with the bottomless pit of darkness and something horrible at the bottom of it. The pack and co pile in their vehicles and head to Scars Atoned. They meet with Marches-the-High-Road and start to discuss the situation. He stops them and calls Jane Redfeather and David Thewlis to come and join him and gets Holistic Path to start again. After giving their "NYE attack = distraction" theory, Brett asks whether Scars Astone noticed anything on New Years, and David tells the pack that the caern was the subject of a light attack from banes, probably just enough to keep them alert and possibly distracted. He promises to talk to the other Fianna septs in the Gariwerd Protectorate and ask them if they noticed more. The pack suggest talking to Jirrawan about the matter given his apparent involvement and Marches-the-High-Road is a bit leery to do so. He explains that Jirrawan doesn't volunteer information about the Bunyip or about events pre the rescue of the caern very much. Brett says that this is not Bunyip related really, but Marches-the-High-Road is still doubtful. He agrees to call Jirrawan and see if he will respond.

Marches-the-High-Road performs the ritual and after a short time, Jirrawan comes forth from the rock and walks to the shoreline. The Ritemaster gives a brief explanation of why they have called on him, and then Brett gives the full details, from Thomas' dream through to Hopping Mouse Hill, seeing the image of Jirrawan, the Bane Lock, and so on. As Brett runs out of air, Jirrawan says "Do you have the other?" Brett holds up the Silent Stone, which gives a weird pulse like an electric fence. Jirrawan turns and returns to his stony home. The Sept elders shrug, eloquently conveying "I told you so". Brett suggests that perhaps the Silent Stone was more important than the Bane Lock, as opposed to the other way around (which he previously thought). Some more discussion about why the Silent Stone would be left inside the cave, if it can be used to get out. Its pointed out that the Wyrm Beast didn't need it to get out, but other things might have needed it to get in, so by locking the key inside the safe, they made it a bit secure - of course, this only works if the Bunyip have another way to get in.

The concept of "passes beneath" is chatted about a bit more. Kimu asks about people who knw about tree spirits, and someone suggests Sandra Norton from Rippling Waters. A moonbridge is opened, and the whole troupe go through, including Marches-the-High-Road and David. Sandra is not far away and while she approaches, Holistic Approach make mental contact with Dominique and fill her in. Her only response is "Do you ever bring good news?". Sandra, a rather gaunt and haggard looking woman, is introduced as the Keeper of the Land and head of the Tower Hill reforestation process. They explain to her the whole situation and she suggests that the phrase means that whatever it was has gone beyond the deepest rock and stone into what would be the mantle in the physical Realm. "So its gone then?" "Um. Maybe not. Some things can survive down there." "Oh". Speculation is engaged in - if the spirit did not break up in the spiritual centre of the world then it is probably resting down there - it might even be 'native' to that place inasmuch as it could be said to be native to anywhere. If it is in a sort of Slumber, it will probably be there for some time.

Back to Scars Atoned and from there back to Melbourne. Bartholomew comes along as he wishes to check out the fae cave. They spend some time brain dumping at the sept elders and talking over the situation. Graeme passed the information on about a possible distraction, but as far as he has heard back, it was really only the Melbourne Septs which were given proper attention on NYE. Maybe the Dancers didn't want to draw too much attention away from their distraction in Melbourne.

Kimu is all for going and telling the Jindabyne council this Friday about the bunyip and wyrmbeast information they have found, but the pack is less than enthused about the prospect. They suggest letting the Fianna tell Fingal who can tell the Council. Kimu tries to pursuade them that it would look better if they were proactive about working with the Council, but no one really cares.

Some discussion about the fetishes ensues. Kimu suggests taking them to the Uktena, because they do have a certain amount of knowledge regarding Bunyip materials. The rest of the pack (not at all thinking the words "Worldwide Uktena Conspiracy") disagree and throw around a couple of names of Theurges that they know to take them to.

Monday 7

The pack take a day off, taking Bartholomew out to the fae cave and leaving him there. Brett checks on the Glade children and finds that the Kinfolk in question who was buying the property has been around. There have been some discussions about him using the front room for storage and having a door put in between the two parts of the shop that can be locked. The kids seem to be ok, he seems to be ok with it. John catches up with Peter, who has been hanging at home when not at the caern. He also goes to the University and convinces a academics to let him see seismology records for the area near Hopping Mouse Hill. A day's research reveals that there were a number of small quakes around Christmas and New Years - nothing that they can point at definately and say "that's the wyrm beast" but enough that suggest that it may have been released about that time.

Tuesday 8

Thomas has another dream about Hopping Mouse Hill - more darkness, things moving down in the underdark. The pack decide to head back out there tomorrow to see what else they might have missed.

The pack decide to see if anyone knows anything about Bane Locks. The Elders at Sleeping Lore have no idea, so they decide to show it to Malajimbarra at Grinding Stone. A Moonbridge is opened and they meet Ivana Howls-the-Storm and Malajimbarra near the centre of the caern. The pack fills in the details of the Hopping Mouse Hill cave and associated adventures and then ask Malajimbarra if he could determine anything about the WyrmBeast from the Bane Lock. He says that he has seen one or two of them before, and they are crafted specifically for each WyrmBeast that is bound with it. Someone comes up with the rather cunning plan of wondering whether or not the nature of the wyrm beast could be discerned by examining the Bane Lock in detail. Malajimbarra agrees that perhaps something could be discerned, but it would involve a long research project and he would need to have the Bane Lock left in his posession for much of that time. (Kimu mumbles something about told you to take it to the Uktena). Brett decides to hold onto it for the meantime, as they are going out to Hopping Mouse Hill the next day and it might be important to have it there.

Wednesday 9

The pack head out to Hopping Mouse Hill again and arrive to find no tourists (phew). Brett uses the Silent Stone to open the gateway, and it feels and looks just like the Cracking Stone. Having brought sketchbooks and cameras, they look around the Umbral and Material versions of the cave. After poking around a bit more looking for clues, John spends a few hours summoning an earth elemental while the others make copies of the paintings as best they can.

The elemental arrives (a sort of generic humanoid shape) and John explains what they would like from it - basically to follow the path under the hill and to talk to other elementals all the way down and ask about whether they felt the wyrmbeast pass by and when. The elemental heads downwards and the pack settle in to wait, continuing sketching and photographing.

Very early in the morning, the earth elemental returns with news. The smashed rock tube heads straight downwards - yay say the pack - until it turns that way - uh oh say the pack - which turns out to be south east, ie: towards Melbourne - oh bum say the pack. However, after a distance the trail ploughs into the magma and the elemental was unable to follow. It wasn't straight - the spirit that made it seemed to be avoiding some of the more powerful elementals at the bottom of the world, but it generally headed in a parabola towards the southeast. They ask the elemental about time, but basically the rocks only just noticed it (There's a hill there?).

On hearing this happy news, the pack cheer wildly and then go back to sleep for a few hours.

Thursday 10

At dawn everyone arises and has one final wander around before heading back to the caern. Brett is wandering up a rough bit when he feels something slip out of a pocket. He lunges for it and only manages to knock it away. Its one of the opening fetishes, and it skuds away down the hill. Brett gives rapid chase and is about to leap for it when it suddenly drops away over a cliff, and lands bunyip designs upwards, shattering like (and I thank Kyle for the analogy) a half baked chocolate cake. Brett makes "ga" noises as the rest of the pack come running, and as he watches, black, oily muck starts to bubble out of the cracks in the fetish, flowing faster and faster, and starting to cover everything in goop.

Brett wakes up with a distinct panicky-adrenaline feeling clutching at his heart. He quickly checks and finds both fetishes are fine. The rest of the pack also are woken, and everyone but Thomas was in the same dream. They remember being around the hill and Brett yelling. Thomas, on the otherhand, had a far more intense dream - he was in darkness with the sound of rain far above. He started to sink deeper and deeper and the sound faded, to be replaced by a pulsing, like a heartbeat. He looked down and he held the Bane Lock, which was pulsing to the same beat. There was a strong wyrm and weaver sensation to the Bane Lock. He keeps descending and great heat starts to well up. Eventually there is just the heat and the pulsing. He starts to feel a strong, pure Wyrm sense and a sense of slumber. An eerie, exultant howling starts. The howling grows louder and suddenly John steps out of the darkness. He is covered in blood, as if he had been immersed in it. He steps back into the darkness and the howling stops. All that remains is the pulse.

They discuss the significance of the dreams. Thomas seems to remember dreaming about John and blood before, but can't remember when. The idea that the fetish stones might hatch is toyed with, but no one wants to incubate one. They look around the hill for the spot that Brett dreamt of, but they can't find it. The general feeling is that the dream was allegorical, but they can't think what it might have meant. The pack head on back to Melbourne after ringing the sept and letting them know what the current situation is.

The pack are coming into Melbourne when John's phone rings. It's Emma, who is uncharacteristically short "I can't talk just now, but you and your friends should grab a paper right now." and then hangs up. John looks bemused, but passes the message on, so Brett swings the van into a petrol station and they get a newspaper. In fairly short order, the topic of Emma's concern becomes fairly apparent. They swing on over the top of the city and stop somewhere near Thornbury, and then run the rest of the distance in the Umbra.

The site in question is a weird mix of 1850, 1890 and 1920 architecture. There is a sort of general store on the corner, and a stable/mechanic on Dulong St behind it. The High St frontage next to the store is some sort of factory/fitters and turners judging by the internals. However, more interestingly to the pack are the many weaver spiders around, and the even more banes floating through the place. The banes are emotive kinds of things, and are floating about the place. John peeks while the others keep a careful eye out for the wyrmlings. The site in the Realm still includes the general store, but it has been shortened somewhat. The rest of the site is a large open space full of equipment obviously for the construction of the hostel. Glaringly obvious is the carefully sectioned off area with the three people carefully excavating what appear to be bones. Behind them are a group of journalists interviewing a business woman. Despite a sudden paranoia, there is no sign of Arthur Thackery. The banes appear to correspond to some of the people on the site, but even as the pack watch they drift apart and the banes aimlessly wander about.

The digging people include two males, one older, one young and a young femme. The older male is probably Prof. Darren Clark and the other two look like research students. The bones have not been fully excavated, although some minor bones seem to be missing. There are three homid skeletons and what seems to be a Thylacine skeleton, all of them seeming intact except for a finger bone. The female research student is working on the thylacine and the other two are carefully clearing away the dirt from around the homid bones. There are a number of other places carefully marked that have been excavated too, and some samples under a tarpaulin labelled things like "woven grass/fabric" which look like lumps of dirt to the Garou.

John is told to drop back and a bunch of banes suddenly realise the pack is there. They come sweeping in towards the garou and are torn to shreds in moments, including one that gets caught by a weaver spider. Now a bit more confidant of their ability to clear them away, the pack are about to wipe them all out when they decide to call back just to check what Emma would like done, and what they are supposed to be doing. Emma is still busy so they chat to Graeme. He says that they should take extreme care here (and he doesn't even say "Sydney" once!) given the possibilities. They mention clearing out the banes, and Graeme can't see any reason why not, although he does recommend not getting too over enthusiastic. They ask him to get Emma to call them asap. Claws flying, teeth biting, general combatty mayhem later, and most of the banes have been dispersed or scared away. However, many of them seem to be way more attracted to the site than they should be - its a weird situation in the first place that there are so many, and there are banes coming and going constantly, but they seem to run away from the garou to about 100 or 200 metres and then sort of circle. The circling is approximately around the dig site, but not to any great degree of precision.

This is unusual behaviour for banes, even at the best of times, so the pack watch for a bit. They slowly return to the site and start following people about again. The pack chase them off, and they fly just out of reach. Kimu and Brett perform a rite of cleansing around the excavations and that makes the banes even more skittish of the site. Much observation.

Some time in the afternoon Emma finally rings them back. Frankly the pack isn't quite sure what they should be doing - there's no specific breach of the Veil and the humans are coming up with their own theories on how a thylacine might have ended up here. Emma chastises them a bit and points out that they have been given a possible chance here to learn more about the Bunyip and about the original inhabitants - chances which are very hard to come by. Plus, there's the whole thing with the banes. The pack grumble a bit and then start to think how they could get involved. However they should be cautious about how they approach the situation, and not do anything too rash (and she doesn't think "Sydney" either).

Brett asks Emma if they have many connections with the Wurundgeri group and she says not really - that's more an area that Reconciliation have concentrated on. Aha, says Brett, and gives them a ring. He gets Liam Boylan on the phone and explains the situation. Liam says ah, and says that he'll make some arrangements and see what he can do, probably for tomorrow am. The bones are examined closely. They don't sense of anything in particular, but that's not surprising given how long they've been there. The area senses of Weaver and Wyrm, probably matching up to the spiders and the banes. The bodies don't seem to have been disturbed, almost as if they were actually buried (no scatter from scavengers, etc). The only ones missing have probably been taken for sampling. Most of the other objects that have been identfied and put on the table are personal objects and none of them sense of anything supernatural either. The researchers are taking more photos than would have thought been possible, all the while the construction workers are continuing at the east end of the site.

The possibility that there are more bones under the ground occurs to people, so they try and figure out if they can summon an elemental to find out. However, keeping Emma's warning in mind, some of the pack are concerned that doing such a thing might count as inappropriate interference. John posits that a powerful enough elemental should be able to tell from a distance whether there are not earth things in the earth there without disturbing the site. After some humming and harring, they agree, sending John a distance away to do the summoning. (squish bane). John figures he should take a few hours, so Darren and Kimu go to keep guard while the others watch the site.

It gets to 6pm and the construction crews have all headed off. The researchers seem to be packing up too - a giant tarp is set up over the site and big halogen lights are set up. A security guard shows up from Midian security with two dogs. Summers heads off, looking fairly haggard. The researchers head off, the site is closed off and the dogs are released (release the hounds!). Brett, Thomas and Melissa decide that they would be better off in the Realm rather than having to constantly dodge banes and be up to 5 minutes away from any emergency, so they step and climb up onto the roof next door. Brett uses Scent of Man to stop the guard dogs from paying any attention to them, and while the dogs whine a bit and act a bit weird near the area, the guard doesn't seem to care. The glare from the halogen lamps makes it a bit hard to see the entire area, but most of it is well lit.

Hours of fairly dull time go past. The guard dogs make a bit of fuss in the north west corner of the site and the guard goes to look. That's right behind the halogen lamps, so no one can see exactly what's happening. Darren is called to come and peek from the Umbra, and Brett tries to go around to the east to see what's happening. He jumps down from the roof and sneaks along. However, he's concentrating too much on the guard and doesn't notice the person in front of the site office until they notice him and bolt. Brett gives chase on the grounds that they're running. The person hits the fence and goes over it pretty quickly, with Brett a bit behind. He has trouble getting over the fence and by the time that he lands on the far side, the guy is a long way up the street. Brett opts to follow him later and jumps back over into the compound. He notices that there are spray painted words on the site office now - "Koori heritage for Ko" - presumably Brett interrupted the sprayer midsentence. Darren meanwhile is peeking and can see the guard is just chatting to someone at the fence from the corner shop. The guard wanders back to the site office, curses a lot and rings it in.

Friday 11

About midnight, the guards change over. John finishes his summoning a little after midnight and speaks unto the earth elemental. It might be able to do as he asks, but it will have to be a bit closer. John gives it directions and says he'll meet it there. An hour later and the elemental arrives. They ask it to see if there is anything under the ground near where the bones are. It sinks into the earth, but comes up almost straight away (for an elemental) and says there is something strange and twisted about the ground. The pack ask what. It says it is strange and twisted. They look blankly at the giant humanoid so it says it will show them. It sinks into the ground heading towards the site and reappears quickly off to one side. It repeats the experiment a few more times and it becomes clear that there is indeed something strange and twisted about the ground. Kimu leans in close and uses Sense Unnatural on the ground and there is indeed a faint Wyld sense to the area. They ask if the elemental can sort of tell them where the strange and twisted area is, and it agrees, sinking into the ground.

Hours go past and eventually the elemental returns and says that it is a sort of cone shape, but the fulcrum of the cone is blurred and the strange and twistedness is mixed in with normal earth there. There is a brief measuring of the distance between Preston and here and wondering if they maybe have found the Dancer hive, but that's disregarded. Some more discussing what might be happening - perhaps whatever the 4 bodies were killed by whatever caused the twisting effect? They ask the elemental a few more questions and then John asks if there are spaces down there. The elemental says yes, and they are not natural. Aha, say the pack, and ask it to go down and follow them and see if it can find one that comes to the surface anywhere.

Given that the elemental was summoned to be able to detect things from a distance, it manages to stay close enough to the surface for the pack to follow it across the umbra. Eventually as it approaches dawn, the elemental surfaces and says that the space just ends. The pack peek and find that they are on a golf course. They ask how deep the space is, and the elemental says that its only about as far below as they are tall. Change to crinos and much digging later and they have a large hole in the ground, which leads down into a tunnel of some sort. People drop down and check it out. Its about 7' across, and just sort of ends here after digging through dirt and stuff. Some grass roots hang down from the ceiling, and Brett estimates its less than a couple of weeks old. Its also not extraordinarily stable - its not dry and crumbly, but poking at it makes bits fall off the roof and walls. John peeks and finds that there is a space under the ground in the Realm corresponding to the end of the tunnel in the Umbra. After convincing Kimu to convince Keiteki to come along, they decide to follow the Umbral tunnel and see where it goes or if there's anything exciting down there. People choose some rather minimal forms as the tunnel is not very big. It is suggested that the metis burrow gift might account for the hole, but there's no claw marks or anything.

After about 45 mins travel the tunnel has moved from carving through dirt and into rock, and it suddenly ends. There's nothing to peek into, finds John who is now much more aware of the pressing, close rock all around them. Much hmming. Brett uses Sense Unnatural and finds that there is a source of Wyld back about 10 or 15 metres, so they move back there and check things out. The wyld feels like the stuff that was in the dirt around the bones. Peeking reveals that there is a small space in the Realm just near that location, about the size of a homid. After some serious persuasion, John is convinced to step into the gap in lupus form and look in it. Its totally enclosed in rock, and there are no objects or patterns on the wall. John leaves asap.

They trundle back down the passage to the open end. John scents on the way and realises that there is a distinct other scent here, of a Garou. Its Kirsty. He passes this on, and Darren and Brett mumble something to the effect of they'd worked that out. There's a brief bit of staring, and then they continue. Reaching the end of the tunnel and peeking suggests that the tunnel in the Realm is a storm water drain or something very similar. Darren uses Scent of the Prey and the trail makes the strange twist that says they went through the gauntlet. The pack step through and follow the mystic trail, which leads to a bigger drain with daylight coming in through the end. The trail leads this way too, out into the sunlight of a lovely February day. The drain empties into a creek which seems to be the edge of the golf course. There's not yet anyone playing. They follow the path a bit and it leads along the creek bank for a few metres.

Brett decides to go and find Kirsty and ask her about the situation, just in case it was her. The others speculate about what the hell is going on - did something escape from under there? Was it connected to the Wyrm beast from Hopping Mouse Hill? What was with the wyldness? The thought that the bones were maybe in that space way under ground occurs, and that they were holding something there (in a mystic sense), and that they were spat to the surface as a warning, but of course there's a building there, so... yeah. Maybe someone took something from the site where the bones were before it was reported and that let something escape from the tunnels? "Which smells like Kirsty?" "Oh yeah." John and Kimu follow the mundane Kirstyness around on the golf course a bit. It leads to a corpse of trees and peters out. Oh well. Everyone heads back up to the bones, where construction has started for the morning and Summers has come in, looking pretty tired. The banes have returned, and one of the construction workers is being hassled by a couple of them. He keeps casting glances over at the archaelogical dig, but doesn't actually do anything.

Brett goes to the caern and finds Ken Xavier, who says that Kirsty was crashing at Carmen's house. He goes there, waves hi to the people behind the counter and finds Kirsty in the lounge, sleeping on the couch. He sits for a time, not wanting to wake her particularly. Eventually he goes and gets a coffee and finds that she's looking at him when he comes back. They discuss stuff, and Kirsty is suitably confused. Brett surreptiously uses Truth of Gaia while he's talking with her, and he thinks she is telling the truth about not having the faintest idea what's going on.

Brett mentally contacts people and tells them about Kirsty. Suspicions about "is this the real Kirsty?" aside, it is suggested that they should look about the place with her, and she agrees kinda readily. Leaving Melissa and Kimu at the bones site to watch from the Umbra, they all troop down there. The golf course is in full use now, so it could be awkward to try and get about the place. Darren tries to snuff in the Umbra looking in case the trail John and Kimu were following went into the spirit realms. He casts around and finds a trail, and uses Scent of the Prey to follow it. After a couple of hundred metres, he finds that the trail breaks up in the characteristic way that they have received when people have been using hiding gifts. Uhoh is the general feeling. Kirsty and Brett arrive and they poke about the place. Kirsty says that it doesn't smell that much like her, but everyone else says it does, so she looks a bit downcast. Darren turns about and tries to follow the path he found back the other way and it meanders all over the place before also breaking up, without going anywhere near John and Kimu's trail.

This suggests that someone is laying down false trails for them. With the ability to hide from other gifts. In the Umbra. The pack are starting to get that Black Spiral Dancer feeling, and try and work out why they would be a) digging tunnels under the ground near possible bunyip remains and b) laying down scents of Kirsty and c) laying down false scents. Kirsty adds a (b i) - where the hell did they get her scent from to copy it. The general feeling is that she is one of the garou that is commonly through the city, and it might have been possible to pick it up - the Dancers obviously know a lot more about them than they are happy about - the attack on the caern and on the disparate Garou is cited, for a start. They decide that its time to talk to the Elders.

Leaving Kimu and Melissa at the bone site, everyone troops off to the caern, and tries to find Emma. She's at the University, so they chat to Cossack instead, catching him up on the situation. He thinks that the whole thing is starting to look like a distraction and Thomas agrees, but Brett thinks otherwise. Cossack suggests it really looks like they are trying to waste the garou time by making them chase around in circles... which throws some doubt on the thylacine bones in Thornbury. They ring Emma at the Uni and catch her up as well. She says that all the bones are at the site still, and no testing has been done on them. Oh, except for the ones the police still have. General opinion is that it would be easier to steal the ones from the site. Cossack is still concerned that they are being distracted away from something, but unless it was Hopping Mouse Hill, he can't think what. It is suggested that maybe its Kirsty or Emma that are being distracted, but Kirsty says that she wasn't really doing anything focused. Emma wasn't doing anything special.

Everyone tries to come up with new ways of investigating the site. Given the general undergroundness of the last few weeks, it is suggested that Darren learn the Burrow gift. Brett pushes the idea that there are more spaces under the ground, maybe one for each of the bodies discovered? He looks at his watch and runs off, grabbing Kimu on the way to meet the representatives from the Wurundgeri group. Thomas goes with him and sticks with Melissa while John and Darren summon a rat spirit to learn Burrow from.

Brett and Kimu arrive at a coffee shop in northern Melbourne and meet Andrew Creek and Jackie Smith. Jackie is dressed in a pseudosuit and looks fairly neat, whereas Andrew is in jeans and a top. Andrew doesn't have the smae poise that Jackie has, and several times during the conversation he looks as if he's about to say something in an outburst, before Jackie restrains him. Brett introduces them as a group who are interested in perhaps helping secure the tribal interests in the site, feeling that the possibility of the bodies being used as a macabre showpiece in a hostel lobby is profane. Jackie asks some questions about exactly what Brett might be able to do for them, and when he alludes to being part of a fringe group of heritage loonies, she tells him that it might be better to do this the legal way. Brett makes his case a bit more and Jackie gets up and gets a newspaper and comes back with it. The front page is a photo of the site office with half-completed grafitti and and article that basically says "Investment people try to be nice, look what the ungrateful natives do". Brett says that he knows about that, he was there last night. Jackie looks a takenaback, and asks "why?" Brett says that they were keeping an eye on the situation, to make sure that nothing happened. Jackie suggests that they would rather that Brett and the rest of his 'they' would stay out of it, and let the Association resolve things legally and properly. Jackie and Andrew leave.

Meanwhile, in the caern, John finishes his summoning of Rat. A largish rat shows up and runs around him for a while before settling on a tombstone. John asks the rat nicely if it will teach Darren burrow, but there seems to be a bit of a problem centred around the fact that Darren is a Silverfang. When John says please, the rat asks what Darren will do for him. A ritual combat is offered in Rat's name, but rat says that he sees the Silverfangs beating on his children enough, thank you. The rat counteroffers that if Darren agrees to let... her (points at Kirsty who happens to be walking past) beat the absolute snot out of him without frenzying, he might teach Darren Burrow. Darren refuses point blank. A bit of back forth goes on before John offers to tell the rat a story of the whole custard episode. Rat looks skeptical, but listens. John's story is well constructed, but not so well presented. Rat is a little unsure, and finally says that if John agrees to tell that story at the next Moot, and practice it a bit in the meantime, he'll teach Darren the gift now. John agrees, Darren sighs and agrees and Rat zots Darren the knowledge of the gift.

Mentally the pack consider their options. The general feeling is that they should wait for dark and really scour the construction site for more clues. In the meantime, most everyone seems in favour of getting some sleep. Brett and Darren flake out in the caern, Thomas goes back to his flat, and John heads to his place that he shares with Peter. When he arrives, however, the door is open. Quick investigation reveals that the place has been trashed - stuff is kicked over, there is blood in places and walls are cracked and there's a damn big hole in the floor on the side of the house that overlooks the Maribynong River. John alerts everyone and they immediately assume the worst, especially seeing as how there are several Garou scents in the place overlayed with the smell of Yarra water. Thomas puts 1,000 clues together and starts smacking his head. John does a Rite of Questing Stone as the others start kicking up a fuss and gets a response from the south, somewhere near Flinders St.

The pack assemble in the caern and accost Cossack and tell him what has happened. He tries to put the brakes on their enthusiasm and says that he would prefer that they could confirm a location before rushing off all tooled up. They sigh and put down the assault rifles. Cossack asks them to go and look around and get a firm location and then to come back and not do anything rash. He doesn't say 'Sydney' or 'reconnoiter' even once. Holistic Approach are reasonably het up and he reassures them that he will make some calls

They zoom down to the Alexandra Gardens to get a better feel and John thinks that they should head west a bit now. Somewhere in a dark alley in South Melbourne (not really, its only 3pm) they do another Questing Stone and Darren gets a distinct and precise feeling from beneath the Arts Centre (the spire marks the spot). Kimu tries to sense magic at the same time, and gets a faint but distinctive feeling from the area. The pack ponder whether maybe the Mages are pretending to be the Dancers for some reason. They ring back to the caern and Cossack gets them to return and prepare a bit. They arrive to find almost all the Garou from Sleeping Lore arriving. Brett starts to make some suggestions for how each pack should be assigned, but Cossack justs holds up a hand for him to wait for a moment and a moonbridge opens. And another. And another. In the end, 40 or so Garou are assembled from Ripping Waters (Spear of Tulu and Dominique), Grinding Stone (Blood Claw), Reconciliation (First Wave and Sons of Luna), and Hidden Green (The Alternative) as well as all of Sleeping Lore (Daughters, Scryers and Holistic Approach). Because it was their find and Peter who is in danger, Holistic Approach are being given the chance to make plans.

The assembled Garou consider the possibility of who exactly they might be dealing with. It would appear to be the Dancer, but there's a chance it might be the mages. The general feeling is that either way, if they plan for it being a Hive and its not the Garou can extemporise. Given the location, the Garou are obviously going to have to make some sort of distraction so that they are not set upon by police. Suggestions start out dangerous and get more so. Asimov is all in favour of blowing things up. Holistic Approach are surprised that there is someone more gratuitously destructive than them. Eventually they decide to go a three prong route - firstly by dropping the Exhibition St bridge extension (still under construction) onto the Jolimont lines and disrupting traffic at the corner of Flinders and Exhibition St - secondly by rolling a truck on Princes Bridge - and thirdly by randomly shooting at the police building on St Kilda Parade. Feeling that this will keep the various emergency services off their back long enough to get the job done, they turn to planning out the job. Spear of Tulu and Sons of Luna are intended to be reserve packs only, there to provide backup if necessary. Which leaves 6 packs as well as Nadine, Ian, Christopher Rourke and Ion Apostolovna. Feeling that the Umbra is probably their best bet, Blood Claw, Scryers, Holistic Approach and The Alternative plan to enter the building from the Umbra while Daughters of Mnemosyne and First Wave come in through the car parks.

Other suggestions are made, but most of them would require summoning a spirit, and this takes more time than people are willing to wait before the job is done. Everything is planned to begin at 5.30pm, to cause the most confusion. Darren asks if it would be possible to mentally link everyone, because howling and/or radios aren't going to help particularly. Mae looks thoughtful and says she'll be back in a bit. Details are sorted out, Mae comes back and grabs Ends-the-Quiet and he performs the moonbridge rite. Jane Redfeather comes through and says "hi" to people. Jane and Mae explain that she can solve their communication rite, because she can put the pack leaders in contact with each other and hold them there for a time. She declines to explain exactly how this would work, but it is done. Holistic Approach have a quiet word with Emma and Melissa and Kanau and Melissa is formally adopted into their pack. Dominique will be at the Sept and will be able to relay information back to the everyone else as will the reserve packs.

Everyone seriously tools up. Holistic Approach check their various weapons (2 fang daggers, umbral shotgun, Mr Pointy, Thomas, assault rifles) and decide they probably have enough for the moment. Other packs conduct private battle rites and also check their weaponry and then everyone heads out. The Umbral packs wait in the Alexandra Gardens while those starting in the Realm go to the carparks underneath the apartments next door. Some of the Garou peek to the Realm and await the signal ("What's the signal?" "A loud boom and screaming" "The usual then."). Tension builds as 20 or more Garou shift about. People peeking report the sound of a large explosion and the Garou bolt for the Arts Centre. They hit the Umbral reflection of the complex and run inside without encountering any spiritual defenses, heading for the lowest part of the centre (the stalls). Christine reports that they have made it through the carpark and dealt with the glass doors in their own subtle way. There are some fomori amongst the attendants and staff, but they are being dealt with.

A quick check through the centre reveals no gaping pits into hell, so the Garou drop into the stalls and start boring through the concrete with their suddenly very popular Metis packmates. They cast about, not going straight down and Darren is the first to punch through into empty space. He appears in a tunnel about 7' in bore, and with the soil faintly glowing a wan, sickly green colour. Asimov punches through into the same tunnel a bit further down. The tunnels exist in the Realm, but all four packs decide to stay in the Umbra. They divide up - The Alternative and the Scyers go in one direction and Holistic Approach with Blood Claw in the other. Everyone but Darren in Holistic Approach is in glabro so as to have shoes. Darren comments that the green stuff burns, but not bad enough to be too stressed about.

They haven't travelled very far when their progress is interrupted by gunfire. Darren is shot by an unknown figure with some sort of semi-automatic and returns fire. Brett demonstrates once again why you don't run at the man with the hightech projectile weapon, but before the Dancer can cut his throat Darren picks him off from afar. Brett is healed to a point where he starts to regenerate and Mark Sutherland catches up with them and finds out what was going on. Mark bemusedly looks at them and then stabs the Dancer in the head, pointing out that the Dancers regenerate same as the Garou and you shouldn't assume.

The Garou set out again. There seems to be more goop coming out of the walls and floors than there was before, and its starting to seriously sting the eyes and skin. The two packs arrive at a split in the tunnel, and each pack takes one direction. Christine reports that they haven't found a mundane way into the tunnels, so they're just going to step and come down the tunnels and then split up - the Daughters will head towards Blood Claw and Holistic Approach and First Wave will follow the other packs. Aquinas and Tony Cho Mi let everyone know that they are starting to hit some resistence. Holistic Approach head left and trundle along. They reach a side tunnel and quickly duck up it - it seems to be weird weaver stuff in the Umbra and airconditioning or something in the Realm. The pack start to believe that they are going the wrong way, but decide to clear it out just to be sure.

The keep moving along and find that their tunnel heads up and seems to end in a t-intersection. Darren sticks his head out and then yoiks it back as autofire rattles along and chips bits of umbral concrete off the wall. The pack drops back and Brett goes down on one knee and aims at head height ahead. The mouth of their tunnel explodes in flame as some sort of molotov cocktail hits the far wall and starts spreading thick noxious clouds of smoke and flame into the tunnel. Darren uses Create Element to blow it back into the tunnel where the Dancer presumably is, but autogunfire rains down out of the flames. Brett takes his shot on faith and squeezes the trigger. The gunfire stops and a crinos body falls down into the flames, and starts to burn, changing to homid as it burns. They wait until the flames die down and look around - it looks like their tunnel comes out into a drainage pipe under a carpark. Ok, definately the wrong way. Mark mentally lets everyone know that they have found something interesting.

Holistic Approach head back to the split and down the other tunnel. It heads downwards and wobbles about a lot. Mark and the rest of Blood Claw are waiting at the end of the tunnel. The Alternative and The Scryers hit more resistence and start a running battle. Christine says that there are fomori with guns where they are, they'll be a few minutes. Blood Claw are standing around a hole that leads downwards, complete with a spiralling kind of ridge around the outside. Despite some close spiritual inspection, it doesn't appear to be a gateway down to Hell or something. The Garou plan to head down it, but Darren offers to clean out the bottom by blasting flame down there. He leans over and make woomfing sounds at the bottom of the hole. Apparently there is someone at the bottom, because he swings into view and fires a shotgun up the hole, causing Darren to get knocked back with a huge hole in his head. Kimu leaps to the rescue with the healing fetish while Thomas combat dives down the hole and bites the nasty man with the shotgun in two before he can fire again.

benji's sport commentary

Thomas is standing in a small ante-chamber kind of thing and the rest of the Garou come down to meet him. A quick glimpse around the corner reveals a large chamber, lit by huge burning braziers and with a pit or something in the middle. Eventually all the Garou are assembled and ready to attack. Consulting with the other packs says that they are approaching, they think. A voice calls out from around the corner "Pitiful ones, see what we have..." Another quick glimpse says that Peter (in homid) is being held captive on the other side of the chamber, between two Dancers. The Garou decide that there's nothing they can do immediately and go with Plan A - vis: leap out to attack. The Dancers either side of Peter immediately tear him to pieces. John frenzies and sprints towards the other size of the chamber.

The battle quickly becomes a total frenzy of gunfire, screaming humans, roaring crinos and general chaos. John is moving at full tilt towards the Dancers that killed Peter and dispatches one of the others as it approaches him in about 2 seconds. His pack try to lay down some covering fire or covering bodyslams as sense dictates. Kimu uses his tentacles of shadow to grip one of the Dancers and try and drag it back into the fires - it doesn't really suceed, but the constant grapple-break free keeps that Dancer out of the battle - right up to the point where both Melissa and Thomas realise it was the one that nearly killed Dominique and rush towards it. Ingrid Gruberman is knocked down by a shotgun blast of silver. One of the fomori bursts into a searing flame and rushes the Garou only to be crashtackled by Eric Kohler, who continues running until they both disappear into the pit in the middle of the Hive. Mark moves swiftly towards some of the Dancers and uses his greater reach and speed to commit gross butchery. The Garou continue to pick off targets from a distance, dropping behind into the antechamber to heal if necessary. The Dancers have no such luxury and seem to be trying to carry the battle to the Garou. More homids and crinos come out of side passages and the battle is fundamentally even. One of the Dancers is obviously fundamentally sick of being shot, and activates Jam Technology and the battle becomes a lot shorter for some of the fomori who suddenly have no guns. The battle is still about even when The Alternative, the Scryers and First Wave pour out of some of the ajourning caverns and slam into the flank of the Dancers.

John has reached the far side of the pool, killing a Dancer and at least one fomor along the way when he is engaged by a fomori, a Dancer and one of the Dancers that killed Peter. Thomas and Melissa are busy putting the boot into the Dancer that Kimu has been bitch slapping, so Brett and Darren do the running bodyslam thing, with mixed sucess. Brett recovers and chops off arms, but Darren is damn near killed by the other Dancer who appears to have silver claws. He sensibly backs off and lets the frenzying maniac and the man with the sword handle things for a moment while Kimu rushes up with the fetish. One of the Dancers at the far end of the cavern stamps its foot and the whole cavern starts to shake and rattle as if something was coming up from underneath. Everyone is having a hassle keeping their balance.

The battle is turning fairly monumentally towards the Garou as they crush, kill and destroy their way through the Wyrmspawn. Sheer force of numbers is making a real difference as well as the frenzying Garou. As John closes in on the other Dancer who killed Peter, the two wyrmGarou step sideways. People nearly follow until they peek first and see the entire chamber is full of the caustic green liquid. They watch as the two Dancers swim towards the pit in the middle of the chamber and disappear down it.

The Garou have carried the day, and with the notable exception of Peter, no one has been killed. There are numerous injuries, some of them quite severe. The fitter Garou amuse themselves by chasing the remnants of the fomor and Dancers down through tunnels and killing them while the reserve packs come through to help with the wounded. Eric Kohler is fished out of the pitpool, badly burnt, but alive. Some Garou have suffered burns and shots from silver, one or two have been injured from other supernatural damage.

Saturday 12 - Friday 18

With the hive neutralised, the umbral slime has dissipated. Most of the Garou return to their own Septs over the next few days, after the Hive is cleansed and purified and then filled in. Amongst the debrie is found a fetish collar that keeps a Garou in their breed form, presumably what stopped Peter from fighting baack. The Garou also find a large green and purple rock, with one side smooth as if it had been sheered off - it does seem to match the rock found underneath Coode Island, except being a bit larger. Emma returns one day from the site and sighs, saying that she knows what Peter heard when he describe it as "rain a long way away" - the sound of applause in the auditoriums far above.

The mortal world is a bit unsure what to make of the attack. Explosions, shooting police, gun wielding maniacs in the Arts Centre. It is all chalked up to Millenium fever like New Years Eve, and senior officials go on record as saying they expect more of the same as the year continues.

Although the Garou do not have time to follow it up, the mortals involved in examining the remains in Thornbury continue their own investigation and eventually it is revealed that the bones are fakes - they are made of bone all the way through, with no internal structure. The police samples are apparently missing, and no one can be found to confirm who exactly did their sampling. Ms Summers has egg on her face, but manages to brave it through with a laugh. Some speculation is engaged in as to who might have faked it, but no one comes forward. It is blamed on University students.

On the Wednesday, Thomas is approached by a strawman. He contacts the others and cautiously proceeds with the conversation, which the strawman opens by saying "What the hell was that all about?".

Thomas: "Revenge"
Strawnman: "Revenge? For what, a poor performance? You were attacking the others, weren't you?
T: ... "for a very poor performance :). we didn't interfere with anything you were doing did we?" He smiles politely.
S: "What happened to our agreement? I thought we had decided to solve this issue together?"
T: "We had a ... 'situation' and had to act quickly" S: "Really... and you didn't even think to mention this after the fact? T: "I figured you'd notice, and contact us soon anyway." S: "Lets just say that it does not inspire confidence. T: "not inspiring confidence would have been if we didn't come out of the arts centre" ... "as it stands, it was not an end, just a step on the path, don;t worry, there is still lots to do"

The Moot on Friday begins in a quite muted fashion. Petrov is cremated and honoured with a Gathering for the Departed Rite even though he was not strictly speaking a member of the Sept, or even a full Garou. Cossack names Peter Ends-the-Darkness. A number of the senior Sept members from the other septs attend this Rite and then return to their own caerns for the Moot. The rest of the Moot becomes a wild wake, with many toasts to Peter and to the bravery of the Garou. Many tales are told of the fight and of the wicked Wyrmspawn.

Holistic Approach have their normal Moot dream, although a little muzzily for some of them.

Sunday 19

"Full Moon Killer strikes again".