Only a short time after you've gone through First Change, you are approached by Kirsty Surfs-the-Train. She says that she has offered, as a philodox, to help teach you some of the important things about your auspice.
She drags you out to the edge of the city by public transport. On the way there, she doesn't say much, so you get a good chance to observe her. Kirsty wears a mix of leathers and tattered, torn clothes, stockings, etc. She has at least 6 piercings that you can see, and that's without dropping below the neckline. Tattoos and designed scars adorn her arms and obviously extend across her body. All in all, she gets the same reactions from people who get on the train as you do - people definately look for another seat. After a while, you realise that you're ignoring all the outside adornments, and that she has the same expression, looking out on all the suburban devastation, as you've been told you have.
When you get out the end of the line, Kirsty leads you away a bit and then into the Umbra. She makes sure you can change to wolf, and speak enough Garou that you can run and talk.
"I know you, ok. We've met once or twice before, not caern-wise, but before. I've done a few favours for BigYellowBroken", (she says it as one word), "in the last few years, and they've reciprocated. So, I sort of have a rough idea of the sort of things that you've been doing, and if I were you, I'd be keeping some of the more active stuff quiet from the rest of the Sept.
Cos, y'know, they say that they're all into saving the wilderness, but they all live in the city, and spend 90% of their time there. Like, they do the anti-wyrm thing, and they have a good way with all the kinfolk and spirits, but they don't ever do anything about the forests. They don't seem to understand that you take the fight to the people causing problems in the first place, you don't just sit and react to what they do.
So, anyway, they'll get all snooty if you say that you've been doing the tree-spiking and sabotaguing equipment, because it might put some people in danger. It will be all 'well, protesting is fine, but this endandgering some of the workers is out' without thinking about what the hell you're trying to actually accomplish. I certainly don't set out to get anyone killed, but I'm not going to let the company's win because of it."
Kirsty is obviously getting worked up about this, and she seems to be partially talking to herself. She is, however, putting on a fair turn of speed as well, which means you pretty much have to keep your breath for running.
After a couple of hours, she slows down. You're in the midst of old growth forest, somewhere in the Great Dividing Range. She leads you a bit further on, and you begin to smell oil and sawdust. Not too far away, you start to encounter a wide belt of devastation. Trees that were obviously unsuitable for whatever purpose the loggers wanted them for have been left where they were felled or knocked down. Kirsty looks really pissed off.
"This whole area is supposed to be protected, but there is logging just over this hill. Someone is going to make an official complaint tomorrow, but the usual thing will be said - we misread the map by 20 metres or so, sorry. But I think tonight we might just push the forest back 20 meters or so the other way."
Kirsty changes to crinos and begins to gleefully shove bulldozers over and then drag them up to the edge of the ridge. "Grab something and break it. Having weakened trees apparently fall on them is good too, so they can't move the dozers before the press get here - if you move one of them near a fallen tree, then pick the tree up and drop it on it, it works quite well."
[Assuming that you join in, the night goes fairly well. Much damage is done to the offending company's equipment. Over the next couple of months, Kirsty takes you around with her, usually within Victoria, but occasionally interstate - the pyramid of bulldozers in WA was a favorite, because the company in question couldn't get them back without explaining why they were there... and they were 500 metres from the plantation they were meant to be knocking down. It's not always loggers either - anyone who wants to degrade the forest environment is in for it.
As time goes on, you realise that Kirsty's wild mood swings and sometimes weird behaviour in the city is not apparent when she's on a rampage against those people who are putting the forest in danger. She really does care for what she's protecting, and having that focus seems to make her calm, or at least coherent.
The two of you were out the week before the last moot, somewhere in Gipplands where idiots with utes were having "who can pull down the biggest tree with their car" competitions and spiking their preferred competition ground with car traps. Kirsty was all but skipping around, laughing at what she thought their expressions would be like....]
Kirsty stops suddenly in front of you, with an odd look on her face. She suddenly lunges forward and kisses you rather passionately, half knocking you off your feet....
Brett arrives home to find Kirsty asleep on his couch. He doesn't wake her, but in the morning (after amusing themselves) she asks if he'd like to come out with her on Sunday night. There's some people logging old growth in Gippsland, and she wants to put a stop to it. Brett agrees, and says that he'll have to let his pack know.
Getting organised to head out into the Bogong highlands takes a while, and you can hear the fun and games that the others are involved with, near Christian for some time. Eventually Kirsty and some other random ferals pile into a combievan type of arrangement and head out towards Healesville. The mental link doesn't cut off, it just kind of dribbles away - it becomes an empathic thing, and then attenuates away, like a smell that you become accustomed to.
You stop via Healesville to meet a few more people on the way. Another Garou joins you - Melissa Freedom, a 40 year old environmental activist, and also a Child of Gaia (Galliard, 3). The bus winds its way down towards Sale and then out to East Gippsland. Its expected that you will stop in a town or two for a break and food, and then go out to somewhere between Orbost and Cabbage Tree Creek that night.
Basically the report is that Neware Logging has strayed outside of their designated area into old growth forest, and are just butchering away in areas which are near and in Errinundra NP. The plan is to make it clear to them that all the machinery that is out of their licensed area suddenly is not working any more, but in as subtle as way as possible - breaking wires, not filling the petrol tanks with honey. If you do anything illegal, keep it subtle and small. Some people are going to take photos, and its expected that the whole thing will hit the media. Technically even being near the site without a permit is breaking the law...
The trip is fairly unnoteworthy, although surprisingly traffic filled - it looks like a lot of people are travelling for Christmas, which is the following Friday. You stop in Bairnsdale to stretch your legs, grab some food and keep going. There are two cars, with 10 people in all: Kirsty, you and Melissa, Ben and Fiona (fee), Kevin, Tim, Anatol, Gwen and Wendy. Anatol is the photographer, the rest of them range from the weird looking Ben and Fiona who are friends of Kirsty's from Melbourne to the army-disposals-camping-gear equipped Tim.
The vans are parked out of sight near the national park carpark, on the far side of the park from the logging, and people prepare to head over that way, in small groups "to make it harder to be spotted". Melissa and the two of you head off alone, flip to lupus once you can't be seen and head into the park away from the tracks. Melissa peels off on her own, scouting ahead, while you and Kirsty head around to the north.
Scouting around reveals that there is no one here, and that a lot of the equipment has been pulled back into the compound, but its also clear where bulldozers have been driven through, and individual trees have been felled, and dragged out into the logging area with winches. Melissa joins you again, and by the time the others jog through the NP, you've got everything mapped out - they have a logging licence for an area near the national park, but they have strayed over to the otherside of the road repeatedly. In some places they've found small, hard to reach areas and felled trees indiscriminately within that area, destroying the niches.
Everyone puts their heads together to try and plan out how to nobble them quietly and get enough evidence to take it to the media. Most of the equipment is within the bounds of the compound, but some of it, the stuff that would be hard to move, or that is hidden away from the roads is still out and about. You decide to nobble that equipment first. Ben and Fee are in favour of taking distributor caps and such, Tim wants to put honey in the tank. Both of these have the unfortunate sideeffect of looking like sabotage, and not very subtle either. Because the plan includes taking evidence to other people, the general feeling is to do things which nobble them without being easily blamed on "greenies breaking our stuff"
Kirsty and Brett slip away into the Umbra while the more mundane members of their party try and perform acts of sabotage that look like mundane wear and tear. Kirsty spends hours summoning an earth elemental to bog some of the heavy tractors and bulldozers that are off site. Brett wanders around causing general mayhem, trying not to annoy the somewhat malevolent feeling spirits. When the elemental arrives, its not too happy and Kirsty spends some time placating it. Evenutally it agrees to help bog the bulldozers.
When they move back into the Realm, Anatol has got a lot of photos, and Melissa is chewing out Gwen for trying to break into the office. She was apparently just curious, but has done some minor damage to the windowsill. Kirsty spends some time talking to Fee, while Brett looks for something else to screw up. He finds a backhoe thing and lets loose the park break and pushes it down the hill. Unfortunately it starts to swing around to the right and crashes into a ute that was parked under cover. Melissa spends 5 minutes yelling at Brett for doing something so destructive and unsubtle, managing to communicate in garou tongue at the same time that he will have to fix it later.
More general tweaking of stuff is done and then the whole group heads off. The Garou drop behind and Melissa eventually indicates they should slip away. They return to the compound and change to crinos, lift the backhoe up and shuffled it along to a spot near where it was that it might have realistically run backwards down hill from and into a car. A bit of subtle scuffing of dirt and then pushing it back down the hill again leaves a slightly more realistic situation. They all head back, but half way there, Kirsty realises she hasn't got her backpack. Her and Brett head back for it, leaving Melissa to run on ahead. When they return to the compound, Kirsty fishes it out of a barrel, where it was obviously deliberately slowed. She gets a thermos out of it and carefully unscrews the lid. Starting with their special backhoe friend, Kirsty pours thick, oily, very strongly Wyrm tainted goop out of it and into the fuel tank. Brett asks what it is and what she is doing, Kirsty says that it is some of the glop cleaned out of Preston, and she's hoping to get the Silverfangs in the area to get off their arse and actually do something about the loggers, by planting evidence of Wyrm taint. She finishes and carefully closes the thermos, and off they run to catch up with the others. The two vans seperate and find camping grounds to sleep at, and then head back to Melbourne the next morning.
Waving the article about the logging camp being turned over by journalists and the link to government corruption, Kirsty turns up at your house and leaps on you... hours later, she also mentions that she has heard that the other evidence they left has been noticed and that it will be followed up by the SilverFangs.
This news seems to cheer Kirsty up so much that as the moon wanes she only barely seems to start suffering from her normal black, black moods. Capitolising on this, you take her out to Reconciliation and chat to some of the Children of Gaia there about finding some mystic way of helping Kirsty throw off her mania. Antoinette takes an interest and you are graced with her presence for a time. She has an enormous physical presence and seems to almost shine within. Antoinette mentions that the Silver Fangs have a gift with which they can throw off the worst of their tribal curse, and while it would be hard (read impossible) to get their spirits to teach it to a Bone Gnawer, it gives them a place to start. Antoinette does mention that all the external help in the world won't help out if Kirsty does not develop her own internal strengths. In all, fairly hopeful.
After he finishes making suggestions for how to get information out of Peter, Brett goes looking for Kirsty. He runs into Chris McNeil, who is uncharacteristically unhelpful. Basically he says that Kirsty was much worse than normal, and was running very close to breaking the Veil. Her pack went to bring her back to the caern to rest for a bit and she resisted. Basically he doesn't explicitly spell things out, but he's obviously pretty unimpressed and feels that Kirsty can help herself out of this one. Brett asks if Chris minds if he goes to keep an eye on her and Chris halfshrugs. Brett decides to go and check with Cossack, who he finds in the city. They chat for a bit about the situation and Cossack says that Kirsty, apart from the bruises and contusions she inflicted, also basically accused her pack of being wyrm tainted, so he can see their point. However, Kirsty will only get worse on her own, so he's willing to raise no objections to Brett taking off to find her as long as he keeps in touch with Holistic Approach. After arranging this with Thomas, Brett gets Marcus to do a questing stone for Kirsty and he pinpoints her location to being somewhere northwest of Shepparton. Brett looks on a map and fingers a number of potential places.
After hitching north to Shepparton and then towards Echuca for a bit, Brett heads into bushland, changing to lupus on the way. He approaches the first likely place he thinks Kirsty might be, and gives out a sort of "are you there?" howl. There is no immediate reaction, but eventually he can hear a sort of grudging "over here" response. The sounds comes from across the Murray, so he jumps in and swims across, finding Kirsty's scent and following it along until he finds her, naked and in homid form, covered in dirt and crud. She's muttering to herself and scattering something plastic around. Brett approaches unaggressively and while talking, trying to project calm. It seems that Kirsty is scattering used shotgun shells around a duckhunter camp, and as Brett holds some of them, he can feel that there is some silver left in them. Presumably they are leftovers from the attack on the caern. Brett helps her without asking why and tags along as she moves around the area, twitching and muttering to herself. She pours some of the wyrm goop out of the special thermos into a fireplace and stirs it in with ashes. Sometimes she forgets that Brett is there and jumps when he moves or talks. Brett can see a number of scratches and worse unhealed in her skin, and not all of it is self-inflicted.
Eventually at the end of the night, Kirsty heads for a rocky niche. She climbs up the far end and lays down. Brett tries to approach to heal some of her wounds, but she snaps and snarls and won't let him closer. He eventually lays down to sleep in lupus at the end of the cave, not blocking it, but in such a way that he will be woken if she leaves.
They sleep through the day, and when Kirsty awakens she seems a bit more with it. She doesn't mutter to herself, and lets Brett get close enough to heal the infected wounds. The tour around the area, cleaning up some sites and making others look like people have been here and being suspicious. At the end of the night, Brett suggests that they should probably head back to Melbourne now, and that they might call in at some of the logging blockades between Shepparton and Melbourne on the way back. Kirsty nods silently.
They wake up late on Tuesday and start making their way back south via hitching and running. Some clothes are obtained for Kirsty and they stop by some of the anti-logging places on the way back to Melbourne, checking how things are going and offering support and some immediate help. They eventually make it back to Melbourne very early on Wednesday morning.
Brett spends a lot of his time at Reconciliation working on the ritual to help Kirsty out. Kirsty is also working with him, and learns it at the same time. Drawing on the knowledge the Children of Gaia have regarding the Rite of Comfort, they manage to create the Rite of Twinned Strength.
Isis Healing-Hand and her pack, The Middle Way, help out with interacting with spirits to create the ritual. On several occasions, Brett catches Isis looking at him and Kirsty with a faint frown. She doesn't look away, but sort of half shrugs as if to say its not her business.
What spare time Brett has that isn't spent at the Glade or Reconciliation is spent at Grinding Stone, learning with Malajimbarra. The two different styles of dealing with spirits are not exactly compatible, but they do highlight the differences in the spirits that each tribe might interact with.
However, while at Grinding Stone, Brett becomes aware of a certain... tension.. in the sept. The pack Gaia's Rage keeps themselves apart from the rest of the sept to a large degree, and only seem to respond to Anastasia Evenhand or Commands-the-Waters of all the Elders. Several times conversations stop until Brett passes, and he is definately aware of being the outsider. If he asks, he receives polite blank looks from the sept members.
Shortly after coming back from their long quest, Kirsty asks Brett to come with her again, once again to Gippsland. Brett feebly mentions the visions that he saw in the Atrocity Realm, but Kirsty just shrugs and says its up to him - but its the last of the black goop she kept.
They drive out east - Kirsty says that she's had word that a logging company is driving a new road through "trash" forest to get to their logging site - where trash equals low, tangled brush that is the home to a lot of wildlife. The trip leads them all the way out to near the border of Victoria and New South Wales. They ditch their car in a town and go wolf. Laying low until nightfall, its easy enough to find the camp by the scent of destruction.
It turns out that the camp is occupied - the workmen are staying here in small caravan/ute things, so Brett and Kirsty have to creep around. Brett only wants to treat the machinery which won't leak - that vision still haunts him despite alternative arrangements.
Brett is moving around one of the vans when a glowing light leaps out of the brush, and tackles Kirsty, roaring and knocking her to the ground (and the flask flying). Brett rushes to help and realises that the attacker is a garou, with nice white fur, glowing in the darkness. Oh good, probably one of the Silver Fangs. Brett is trying to be nice and not use his claws, but his opponent feels no such compunction (not to mention using rude words like "Wyrmspawn"). However, with one good crashtackle, he puts the Garou down on the ground, and with Kirsty's help, they punch their opponents head in. The Garou is finally knocked unconscious, and starts to revert to homid form. There are noises coming from the mobiles as various workmen wake up and start to wonder what the hell that noise was. Brett looks at the face of the older woman who appears ahead of him, and find she looks familiar - a bit like Dominique really. Er... hopefully its just an inbred Silver Fang thing. They pick up the body and run for it, dumping it somewhere in the shelter of a tree. Kirsty swears as she remembers that she dropped her goop flask.
The plan is for Kirsty to double back and get it, and then for them to split up and make their own ways back to Melbourne. Brett suggests 'fessing up, but Kirsty doesn't think that this Miss Prissy is going to come looking for any skanky bonegnawers anytime soon, so they should just scamper. Brett spentds the rest of the night hiding his scent by the usual tricks of water and Umbra, and makes it back to Melbourne by mid the next morning.
Brett is lurking about the grove, and he realises that Brad and Kylie seem to be trying to get him aside to talk to. Kylie says that she thinks that she's pregnant and wants to know if Brett knows where to go to arrange an abortion. Brett asks if she's thought about all her options - adoption, for instance - and Kylie is a bit taken aback. She says she hadn't thought about it, but figured that it would be best to terminate early. She thinks she's about 2 months pregnant, but isn't 100% sure. Brett says that she should take a couple of days to think about it, and then get back to him.
While Brett is pretending to not know that the SilverFangs are here, he continues to peek watching the humans. The sensation of being bumped brings him back to the Umbra, and he finds a youngish looking silver wolf staring at him. She says he should return to his leader now, which Brett does. As he leaves, he sees her expression change and she seems to be sniffing at his scent.
Brett heads away from the caern and out as far from the city as he feels safe to do so. He ends up in the dandenongs, meditating. While he is tranced up, he feels Kanau come to him. Kanau tries to convey some of why the Litany must be obeyed - he suggests that the greatest gap in the fractious Garou nations is that between homid and lupus garou, and the Litany is an attempt to bridge that difference in natures. The conversation is a bit stilted - between Brett's anger about the whole situation, and what he sees as the injustice the sept has done to Kirsty and the fact that Kanau is not human, there is a bit of a communication gap.
Kanau attempts to convey that it is the nature of homids to argue and to reason through every situation, but it is the nature of lupus to want a firm and established power structure and set of traditions. The litany is a midpoint of established rules for the Garou to unite the two seperate thought patterns, and without it the Garou nation does not exist. It is a needful thing to accept it whole, and not to quibble the details, such as mating definitions. Brett does not exactly agree to do so, but agrees to consider the Litany.
Late in the day, Brett speaks to Scratches-at-Fleas, who calls him Bites-at-Treads. Scratches-at-Fleas makes it clear that he will perform the ritual, but he is inerested in Brett's side of the story. Brett makes it clear that he thinks that the Sept let Kirsty down by not trying to help her, but just accepting that she was not stable, and that their relationship is based on his efforts to support her. And that he will stop the physical relationship, but not to be Kirsty's friend. Scratches-at-Fleas seems to accept that, but suggests that they should be fairly obvious about the former. Perhaps considering the words of Kanau, Brett chooses to be locked into his lupus form for the duration.