The pack are leaving the house when Kanau appears and tells them to go the Grinding Stone sept. Kanau leads them through the foggy night, when three thylacines emerge from the mists. They stand for a while, watching the True Seekers before fading into the mists. The True Seekers rescue the Blood Claw pack from the Gauntlet, which is much higher than it should be. Talking to Huros and Malajimbarra, they find that for the last week and a half, the umbra has been turning against the sept, animal spirits attacking, the spirit land rising up, the Gauntlet trapping them. When Huros hears of the thylacines he advocates war against these unprovoked attacks. Ivana Howls-The-Storm returns via Moon Bridge from the Sept of Rippling Waters at the Tower Hill Caern near Warrnambool and reports that they are suffering similar problems. The True Seekers and Malajimbarra persuade Huros not to do anything as yet, although he promises that he will defend the Caern, come what may.
Kanau leads the True Seeker west towards the source of the problem. Ringing their sept, they find that the hairs found at the crime scene have gone missing from forensics, replaced them with innocuous hairs. They meet Kanau at the end of Selkirk Rises Road, Map 75 F7, who points them ahead, then leaves. They move north and find a guarded, fenced-in compound belonging to Egridge Technologies. Scouting through, the True Seekers find labs and greenhouses with many plants. They went to Skipton to sleep for the day. Report back to the sept and ask for info on Egridge Technologies.
Come out into several caverns with aboriginal pictographs on the walls, possibly concerning Garou. The last cave is large, with a sandy beach disturbed by recent human shoe prints and a still pool of water. Something dangling from the roof to the water with a luminous umbral presence. They swim out to a PVC pipe that sucks water up from the pool. Questing Stone reveals the compound is directly overhead. Head back out the tunnels. Near the entrance, they hear a thylacine howl back in the caves. The True Seekers trek back to the compound and search for a basement. They find a basement containing diesel generators, water pumps and a weird device draining the luminescence from the water and producing small phials of Gnosis. They go back to the cars and drive a short distance, then ring the sept. Emma says they will bring Garou from their sept and the sept of Grinding Stone, meantime they should stop the draining of what is apparently a caern. Lisa and Steven enter the caves again, and Steven climbs the pipe in Crinos form until it breaks. Everyone then guards the entrance.
Two guys from the compound come to the cave to check it out and are perturbed by the many giant footprints in the sand. We then spend an excruciating half hour as Lisa and Steven decide what they're going to do, and then try to remember why they wanted to do it in the first place. Eventually, Steven utterly terrifies the two guys, who knock themselves out while sprinting through pitch-black tunnels. Lachlan and Vilna see a helicopter fly from the north and land at the compound. The True Seekers run over there and see five guys in fatigues, carrying assault rifles and grenades guarding the helicopter. A sixth guy in fatigues similarly armed comes out of the compound talking to a boffin. Sensing indicates that the six guys are Wyrm ridden, possibly fomori.
The True Seekers decide to wreck the generators and grab the Gnosis phials. Having done so, they then try to work out how to nobble the copter. Vilna eventually drives a car through a hail of bullets at the copter, and steps sideways doing 45 kph. He hangs suspended in the Gauntlet for five minutes before flying into the umbra and hitting a spirit tree, crippling himself in the process. Steven and Lachlan launch an attack on the six guys, resulting in a very messy combat, wherein Steven was blinded by a fomor secretion and ran around like a headless chicken being shot in the back a lot, Lisa stepped into the Umbra at the same time that she was incapacitated by a three round burst at point blank range, and Lachlan dragged a dead fomor under the copter, pulled all the pins on his grenades and ran like hell. Once everyone was in the Umbra and healed, peeking revealed a burning car and helicopter, four dead fomori, two had disappeared and everyone in the building running for the carpark.
Having secured the place, the True Seekers wait for re-enforcements. Soon, Cossack and Emma turn up, along with Commands-The-Waters, Malajimbarra and the pack Gaia's Rage. They decide to wait for the Rippling Waters sept to arrive: Bret Hutchinson, Leaps-In-The-Light and the pack One Phone Call. Everyone then troops down to the Caern. While the Theurges are doing mystic stuff, Cossack and Commands-The-Waters say that the Jindabyne Council should be informed of the Caern. Bret is less than enthusiastic. The Theurges claim that the Caern has been critically drained and will fade in less than a week. This decides the issue; the Council will be informed.
Leaving Gaia's Rage and One Phone Call to guard the site, everyone heads for the Grinding Stone Sept. The True Seekers will go with Bret and Emma to the Crackenback Caern because it's all their fault. The Moon Bridge is opened and they step through. At the Crackenback Caern a storm is raging. The Silver Fangs of the Crackenback sept are not happy about this "invasion". Lisa, because she knows all their masonic handshakes, speaks to them. Eventually they get to see Darius Winchester, who agrees to assemble an emergency meeting of the Jindabyne Council.
Bret speaks to the True Seekers, saying that the Silver Fangs will use this failing to damage the Fianna's claim to the Gariwerd protectorate. Bret wants the True Seekers to claim the right to revive the Caern, as they seem to have some mystic connection with the Bunyip, and to do so in the Fianna's name. This will stop the Council from interfering in the Gariwerd protectorate as well as bolster the Fianna's right to control it. In return, Bret promises to make the True Seekers effective members of both the Sept of Rippling Waters and the sept that will arise to protect the new Caern. They agree.
The Council questions the True Seekers and Bret closely. Darius urges that the Ngalyod Pack be sent to save the Caern. Lisa steps forward and claims that right for the True Seekers. Darius objects, and a vote is held. Darius Winchester and Tjinderi Knowing-Smile oppose the motion, Carla Grimmson and Mamu abstain, all other Councillors support it. The True Seekers are told they are to go to the Umbral realm called the Scar and retrieve a Gnosis battery believed to be held there. The Ngalyod Pack say that the scar is an industrial nightmare zone, where shifting form is much harder. Fights should be avoided if at all possible. The True Seekers return to the Melbourne Cemetery Caern.
Next comes the most difficult and dangerous part of the whole mission: getting past an ordinary 10-foot-tall chain-link fence. Bringing to bear the combined intelligence and abilities of a pack of Garou, The True Seekers make several attacks on the fence, only to be driven back with heavy losses. Having taken a hint from the sarcasm of the GM, they just climb the damn thing. They manage to sneak into the factory and scuttle about, discovering that the factory also dismantles the product that it makes. Following the only lead they have, a pipe running down a manhole, the True Seekers go down into the lightless tunnels and follow the pipe running along the side of the tunnel.
The tunnel enters a chamber, with two more tunnels bearing pipes. The pipes connect and run down a larger tunnel. Hearing the strange warbling scream again, the True Seekers are all ready to duke it out with the Wyrm spawn when a wall of noisome Wyrm effluent pours down one of the tunnels. The True Seekers run like hell the way they came. Soon the liquid subsides, leaving no residue. They travel on down the larger tunnel. They enter a stretch of tunnel where numerous other pipes open off the walls. While moving through them, many shapes leap out of the holes all around them. The shapes turn out to be escaped spirits (although the pack blows rage before they realise this) who take the True Seekers to see the rest of their group. A Falcon spirit speaks to them, and says that they will help steal a battery if the True Seekers will use a battery to revive the spirits in a factory, wreck the joint, and then help any spirit who so wishes to leave the Scar. The falcon also says that the source of the warbling scream is probably a Nexus Crawler. Having decided to stick it out anyway, the True Seekers agree to the deal, so everyone heads off for a Central Processing Station, where the Gnosis from numerous factories is stored in the batteries.
Exiting the tunnels in a slum area, they can see that the CPS is a small but heavily defended building with no nearby cover. Tactical discussions begin, and it is decided that attacking the transport carrying the batteries from the CPS would be wiser than attacking the CPS itself, although no-one knows exactly when the transport will come. It is also decided that Binding two of the bladed guards would be useful. The Falcon says that the best time to grab a guard would be during the shift change, when they herd the workers. Everyone settles down to wait for the next shift change, in about ten hours. While waiting, Steve and Naomi spend four hours trying to change into Crinos form. Fortunately nothing much else is happening. When the shifts change, the True Seekers and the spirits sneak up on guards and jump them, while Naomi performs the Rite of Binding on them. She soon finds herself with two surly but obedient heavies. Everyone then settles down to watch the road and wait.
The last of the guards has been killed, the batteries taken and the two Bound guards ordered to stay with the transport and tell everyone "They went thataway!", when the barricade starts making rending noises and floating into the air. Because it was part of the original plan, and certainly not because it might be the Nexus Crawler, everybody runs like hell for the tunnels. However, owing to a new understanding about the nature of a certain flaw, the group splits up. Vilna, Lachlan and some spirits head for the factory above ground, while everyone else heads through the tunnels. The rendezvous is reached without incident, and after a bit more tactical discussion, a frontal assault is initiated, beating up the guards at the gate and kicking open the main doors. Lachlan defiantly throws the battery to the floor, which cracks the concrete and bemuses the guards. Without missing a beat, Steve blasts the battery with the shotgun about eight times before it cracks open, releasing a wave of energy. The faceless grey humanoids all morph into a plethora of colours, shapes and sizes before turning on the guards and trashing the place. The Falcon calms everyone down and explains that the True Seekers will take anyone out of the Scar who wishes to leave. After almost being killed in the rush, they all step sideways with the spirits, appearing by the vast wall of web. The spirits immediately zoom of in all directions (they don't even say thank you), while the True Seekers seek (as is their want) for a Moon Path. Having found one, they head for the Melbourne Cemetery as fast as they can.
After arriving back home, at around eight in the evening, and explaining the situation to the sept, everyone goes through a Moon Bridge to the Tower Hill Caern. Once their, everyone loads into real and Umbral cars and heads for the new Caern. Descending into the main cavern, a short and tasteful ceremony is conducted, at the conclusion of which the True Seekers rip one of the batteries to bits.
The energy wave rolls round the cavern and disappears, everything goes still, and then a giant stone figure detaches from the far wall and wades across the pool, without making a ripple. It identifies itself as Jirrawin the Cave Spirit, and although obviously not happy about the slaughter of the Bunyip, it feels that the time for division has past. It is also fairly grateful at being revived, and welcomes the formation of a new sept to guard the Caern. Having fulfilled their side of the deal, the True Seekers are now members of the Sept of Rippling Waters, and also of the Sept yet to be formed. Cossack suggests that they should not abuse this trust, but divide their time between the three septs. They therefore go back to the Tower Hill Caern to join in the celebrations and general booze-up, purely for diplomatic reasons of course.
The duel begins. Lisa, having insisted on unrestricted though non-terminal combat remains in Homid form and allows Lachlan to pound her into the ground, shattering her jaw in the process. This acquiescence on her part does not go down well with the rest of the sept, nor does the healing of her battle scar. Lachlan thus becomes the leader of the True Seekers. The harmonious True Seekers head for the new Caern, for a week of volunteer guard duty. Over the week various rituals are taught and learnt by various Garou. The first night, when each pack member sleeps, they have the dream of Malfeas again.
Everyone returns home to try and catch up on their lives. Lisa and Lachlan find their back door ajar and their television and stereo gone. Because Lachlan has such a close relationship with his stereo, they use Rite of the Questing Stone and track it down in a flat in St Kilda. Figuring "What the hell", Steve and Lachlan shift to Glabro, Lisa shifts to Hispo, and they break into the flat, pretending to be the police. The dozen or so people inside don't question this assertion much. They get their stereo back, and because it's better quality than their old one, the also grab the TV. Another glorious victory for the defenders of Gaia.
Naomi tells the pack about the warning in her dream (at the Caern, which should be fairly safe). The pack decide to go and check out the new Managing Director of Rainbow Inc. The sites spiritual presence is declining, and there are no blatant signs of Wyrm infection. Nothing special registers about Steve Marshall, but the True Seekers decide to follow him home. Lisa nicks off for the day, and the pack meets again around five. Marshall lives in Kew with his wife, their 2.3 children and a dog - all very suburban.
Using Heightened Senses, Naomi picks up the scent of an old woman that came to the door. The scent also extends up and down on both sides of the street. Lacking any maternal instinct, Lachlan calls his mum in desperation. She turns up, provides provisions for the baby as well as basic instructions on maintenance, and then insists on cleaning the house to stop the baby getting fleas. The True Seekers decide to name the girl Sere (pronounced Sarah), as in "serendipity". They also rapidly exhaust their avenues of investigation, but there is nothing on the news about a missing or abducted baby. They decide that in order to better protect Sere, everyone will crash at Lisa and Lach's place. That night, everyone tends to notice Lisa's bad dreams.
Watching the three original suited dudes, they make a point of not discussing their days activities. First one and then another of them leave, till only the apparent leader dude of the three is left. Around midnight he staggers out and goes home to his concrete monstrosity in Reservoir. Fairly soon all is quiet inside. The True Seekers decide to steal the guy's mobile phone and page through the memory, ringing all the numbers until they find one that's answered by an old woman. Lachlan sneaks inside and swipes the phone. However, many of the mobile numbers are turned off, and no old woman answers the other numbers (although many sound like they were probably asleep when the phone rang). Having made a copy of all the numbers, Lachlan returns the phone to the house, although not to where he found it.