The pack-to-be have spent the day at the Sept, undergoing various preparatory preparations. Many of the rest of the Sept have wandered in around dusk, and there is a current of excitement through the crowd.
Cossack stands forth and waits until he has everyone's attention. He is holding onto a wrist thick stick about 2' long with carvings. He speaks about the Rite of Passage being an important transition from childhood to adulthood amongst the garou. The assembled garou will travel through the umbra in a state that makes the attractive to possible totems, and those totems will present certain situations to them to judge their character.
He presents the stick to Sinead, and says that it is a fetish that will guide their paths through the Rite. Sinead attunes to it and garners a sense that it will do... what Cossack said really, guide them. She activates the fetish and it draws the new pack onward through the Umbra to the west north west. They travel through the parks and gardens that form part of the Sept bawn before entering the areas of suburban housing.
The Umbral mists thicken and surround the pack as they run. They appear to have entered an airt, a spirit path away from the immediate penumbral reflection of the physical world. There's no telling how far it might take them. As it turns out, its less than an hour before the mists clear again, and leave them on a flat, scrubbing bit of landscape. Right near them are a few tree spirits, heavily burdened with weaver web. The landscape is otherwise pretty uniform - they check out what seems to be a baby's room floating on its own and a couple of minor collections of weaver material. Will cannot seem to get his peeking mojo on, so Finn takes over. He says they are in some sort of new housing estate, all the same. The baby's room seems to be a house with a baby - presumable they are super enthused about having a kid. They return back to the trees and find that in the realm there is a small walkway from the end of a court through to another court - its probably designated a "park" in the maps, but its really only a few metres wide by double that long.
The trees, as best as Finn can tell are not well - dropping, missing a lot of leaves. The spiritual trees and the physical trees don't line up exactly, nor do either group form any sort of mystic circle. Two of the spirits are spirits of dead trees, all of them are eucalypts. They notice the metallic sound of weaver spiders moving around the trees, adding to the web already festooning them - the web is replacing or supplementing the trees as the spiders snip bits of tree spirit off and reshape it into precise, ordered parodies of trees, with branches carefully spaced the same distance apart and the same number of leaves at the end of each twig. The pack decide that they have been brought here to stop this from happening, and so they take steps.
The five garou change to crinos and start wrecking web. The spiders react predictably. Tillie and Kasumi smash the spirits hard and are partly calcified for their trouble. Will smashes his arm into a hollow in the tree and gets stuck as a pattern spider closes in on him. Finn hauls him out of the tree with minimal cuts and splinters. Sinead boots the spider coating Tillie in web away into the distance. Kasumi tries to curbstomp a spider but finds they are pretty difficult to stomp. Finn annoys one of the spiders by flailing at it and gets completely calcified for his troubles. Will dodges and claws at a spider that is trying to stab him in the face with its sharp front legs. Sinead pulls one off a tree, beats it against the stump a bit, then flings it away. Tillie continues smashing with great gusto, and before too long the pack are victorious against their enemies. They pull the rest of the webbing off the trees as best as they can, decide their work here is done, and reactivate the fetish.
This time the fetish pulls them off more easterly. The mists close once again, transporting them through the Umbra. They clear on a dead plain - hard packed dirt covers most of the area, with the odd bit of dead grass clumps. The ground feels weird, very dead and kind of sticky at the same time. There's a weird sense of potentiality about the place as well, but it is difficult to put into words. nearby are some 60s-looking buildings. Finn checks the Realm again, but cannot make out much - its dark, but there are lights nearby. He can see the buildings, they seem a bit newer than their umbral reflection. The pack are standing on ashphalt, but it seems too wide for a road. There's a white line down the middle tho - several pack members say "its an airport!" at the same time. That does seem to descibe the buildings they can see pretty well. No idea which airport other than its a city one and probably not Tullamarine.
Not seeing much else nearby, they head over to the reflected buildings. They have a distinctly retro feel to them, and also an extremely bland and weavery nature. However when they find a door to use, 'weaver' is not the word that springs to mind. A gust of fairly putrid air escapes - it smells oily, yet wet and mouldy at the same time. The spirits in the building are mostly mindless weaver spirits going about the same pointless activities, but they do seem to be glitching a bit and perhaps a bit wonky. Despite a desperate urge to not smell anything, the garou manage to track the scent as being strongest coming out of the air conditioning vents. The vents would be... exciting to get into, even in lupus form, so they decide to start from the other end. To the rooftop!
The roof - well, multiple rooves really - are a mess of piping and random bits of roof top rubbish. The pack use their combined noses and deep knowledge of air conditioning units to find what they think is the intake for the system. Even with the air rushing past them into the bowels of the building to the deep whommm of a ... fan (definitely not a heartbeat), they can smell rot, mould and decay in ways that are not natural. The vent is filled after a few feet with black feathery material that builds up until it blocks the intake maybe 10 feet below.
This seems not right, but at the same time, no one wants to drop down into it. For one thing they don't know how deep it is. Finn sends some of his faerie lights down into the vent, and finds that it gets too thick to even see them after a not especially long distance. They opt to use the Tillie-flame-thrower. She draws on her gift and makes a burst of flame a bit into the black mess. Nothing catches fire, but it does make a rank smoke that is pushed down into the system and a number of glowing ember points. Then she notices something is oozing up the sides of the intake, and takes a step back, warning people.
Something made of foul vapours, irridescent goo and feathery growths boils out of the vent - almost certainly a Bane, a Wyrm spirit. They leap in and start smacking it with righteous fury. The pack lash away with claws bright and sharp, while the bane uses its charms to fling garou across the roof, or to try and suffocate them, leaving burning wyrm taint scalding noses, throats and lungs. Despite being composed partly of vapour and foul miasma, it is apparently vunerable to garou claws, and before long the 5 werewolves manage to tear it into disgusting pieces.
The pack activate the magic stick and are once again drawn into the umbra. The mists close once more and they are lead onto another airt. They run for a while when suddenly the mists open up, as if they have suddenly stepped into a bubble. Mist swirls around the edges of what looks like a crossroads. Their dirt path is the major route, but there is a gravel roadway and what looks like a dirt track, or maybe a path left by animals also crossing at the same point.
Low standing stones decorate the top of the small rise where the tracks come together, along with a sign post. The signs are blank, just with arrowed ends pointing along each direction. Will checks out the stones, and sees they've been scratched at, probably with claws. The scratches form no words or coherent symbols, its more like someone can scratched them in passing. Finn peaks, but can see only stars above, nothing around - they are well away from the penumbra where there's a correspondance between the realms.
Tillie smells around the place and finds that the scents are slightly off. They are muted, like a television version of a site. This is odd, because the umbra often has more intense, more real smells. Everything is a bit damp, fresh dew smell tho. It smells of the right things, just not strongly enough. She changes to lupus and starts to dig. Kasumi calls out, and the moonlight through the dew brightens, many coloured drops growing brighter until all the coloured lights flow together into a vaue humanoid shape.
Will says "I am Will Jackson, philodox cub of the get of fenris. This is my pack." The spirit doesn't react immediately, it continues to kind of pay attention, but not responding. Tillie coughs and points out that although she's been digging for a minute, she's not making any headway through what is apparently fresh dirt. Something's up. There is some speculation about this being a spiritual representation of crossroads, all crossroads. But which way to go. They try and work out if the spirit is blinking in any sort of signalling fashion. Sinead thinks its not, but also suggests that it might be an ephiphling spirit, a spiritual of some sort of concept.
The spirit drifts toward the pole a bit. "What is this place?" asks Will.
They get a response that its a "crossroads." In a literal sense, and a symbolic;
they need to figure out which way to go in some way. "What direction
should we go?". The spirit indicates it will tell them if they can guess
a riddle challenge. They agree and the spirit asks:
I know of one, high in the heavens,
two horns she wears on her hallowed head
A wandering witch, a wild warrior,
a heartening harpist, half-hidden huntress
a dark descryer, yet bright lord's twin.
The pack consider things for a few moments and decide they are pretty sure the answer is 'the moon'; the various bits seem to almost match to auspices. Sinead conveys their answer and the spirit says she is correct. Suddenly the whole crossroads vanishes and they are still within the airt, fog everywhere. There is some speculation that that the whole vision was some form of projection from a spirit and not real even by the vague standards of the Umbra. That would mean a significantly strong spirit was involved. Oh well, once more along!
The mist clears more slowly this time. They find themselves in a scrubby landscape, a mix of bushes and small trees and open sections of glass. There's a smell of fresh running water nearish. Peeking to the realm reveals a similar looking landscape except for the presence of blockish looking buildings off in one direction. They head that way. The buildings don't appear in the Umbra strongly, but in the Realm they are pre-fab warehouse kinds of things. Some weaver stuff appears in the same location, but its pretty sketchy - obviously no one has strong feelings about any of the buildings here. They check out the relatively expansive area of grass that they arrived in. It looks like it is the sort of difficult to manage open area that you call a "parkland" and count towards your council's open space. They are signs that people move through here, but they aren't extensive. There's a creek running up the center of the area; in the realm its a bit greener around the creek, in the umbra there are actual plants there. Its not astoundingly healthy, and is running quite low. On the otherhand, its February. There's rocks visible in the realm and the odd shopping trolley
Finn is peeking and reporting back to the others as they help him move about the Umbra. Will spots an encrustation at the edge of vision, some sort of mound with a black crust. Tillie noticed the umbral creek has a bit of a rainbow sheen as they move across it, like oil spilt on it. It also has a not entirely good smell. It could just be an industrially smell, but they are in the Umbra, so ... Tillie suggests that they should try and follow up the creek. Sinead tries to get an idea of what the stain is, but its pretty faint. They check out crusty mountain first.
They ascend the rise and poke at the black crusty ground. Its a bit ashphalty, and the ground under it is dead. Finn reports that he can see a newish looking freeway that corresponds to the area - he thinks that they are in Narre Warren? That seems to match up ok. ("Let the record show I am giving the GM the finger"). The freeway is not the best in terms of wyrm taints - the pollution from the cars, the ashphalt surface, none of these are good. But it was a fair distance from where they arrived out of the airt and the sense of taint is different.
They decide to check out the creek of greasy taint. None of them have the Rite of Cleansing, so they cannot take an immediate steps to rid the area of wyrm influence. They contemplate stepping into the physical realm, away from the very weavery freeway and new construction, but decide to remain in the spirit world. They head upstreamish. Same sort of environment, occasionally random bits of weaver crusted on things wihtout a physical correspondance. The park isn't used as much of a park that often. They spot the odd naturae spirit - bats, possums, plants, etc - passing through the area. This discolouration in the water gets stronger, and its discolouring the creek in general. In the physical world there is an obvious increase in taint, and the occasional floating lump of foam caught on shopping trolleys.
At some point the physical creek has been dug in, bounded by concrete and bluestone walls. At the same point on the umbra, stone walls are broken by a gothic looking entrance to a cave, corresponding to a 8inch pipe. Out of both the pipe and the umbral brooding cave is dribbling some sort of pollutant, occasionally with lumps in it. While they are discussing whether to go in or to send fire down there, they notice that the flow starts to dribble off and then stops. Fearing that something knows they are there, they back righto off. Finn's faerie lights are sent down the pipe. Something is moving, something almost slithery, like a seal made of gelatinous oil. The pack head up the embankment above the pipe so that they are well above where the pipe empties.
As it approaches out of the pipe, it starts to look more like a sock full of poison jelly. It flops out of the pipe and thrashes around. That's less threatening that originally thought. They decide to hang onto things like gnosis and instead drop on them from above. Tillie lands on the sock thing and it bursts like a water balloon, staining her from the knees down. ("You're not going in the car"). Sinead says that its like a recently created bane (wyrm spirit) - the pollution they can see is actually spawning these creatures.
The pack decide that they really need to go through the tunnel. On the plus side these things seem easy to destroy. Tillie points out that if there's a bigger one they will be stuck inside a small tunnel, but they push on regardless. Will sets up the marching order to make sure that the two end garou are the most frenziable, so that there's space for the others to run. The goo burns their feet as they walk along - its a prickling which becomes a scalding sense. Fortunately their fierce regeneration stops it from being a problem.
The tunnel only goes a couple of hundred metres with a few small bends in it before opening up into a open-roofed, steep sided valley. There is a pile of black goop here, with a spinning sparkling cloud-like sphere in the middle. Thick tendrils of goo rise up and throw themselves over the ball. Some of them are immediately shattered or vapourised or given some extra velocity or made a bluey-green colour, but others are more persistent and the sphere darkens in those places. As the tendrils rise up and fall, they splash into the goop, and its this sloshing around that sends a stream of chunky gunk down the tunnel they just emerged from. The thing in the middle is almost certainly a wyld spirit. The tendrils seem like the sock-slug-eel thing but much more significant.
The pack leap in and attack, smacking the eel-like tendrils. The banes attack almost immediately in return, spitting sticky and burning goo at the garou in a huge spray, attacking by bodily smashing into the werewolves, sliming them and other unpleasantnesses. Finn tries to cower the enemies with a loud call of the wyld. The pack try and keep within reach of one another, and to reach the wyld spirit in the middle of the pool. One of the banes confronts Sinead in some sort of spiritual way and she immediately frenzies, and starts pounding on the spirit in question. The pack revise the "within reach" part of their plan. ("Its not cheating if you're in Thrall of the Wyrm").
Damage is being handed out on both sides, the garou are finding these banes pretty hard going. Sadly the garou with the ability to heal others is the one in deep frenzy. Suddenly lightning arcs out from the wyld spirit, hitting mostly the banes, but also some of the pack. Tillie considers setting the whole place on fire but worries that the goo is flammable and the whole pack will also burn down. Between the banes, the wyld spirit, howls from Finn and screaming from Sinead, goo flying everywhere, its a bit of a madhouse. Will cannot seem to convert a hit into any sort of damage on the banes. There is a woosh, and then Tillie is short one bane opponent that was there a moment ago.
The coherent members of the pack start to find that their sense of what is going on becomes a bit more refined. They can somehow identify the body of the banes from the generic ephemeral black goo, and they have a sense of it being a sort of solventy material - the sense of smell conveys much of the information, but also their vision has changed. Finn has a sense that there is more here than the obvious tainted material, the pollution, there is also something behind it on an emotional level. Some sort of wyrm-tainted intent. Sinead shreds her opponent into a hundred pieces and then moves to the next thing in the target rich environment, which fortunately is another bane.
One of the banes shatters into glass like shards as the wyld spirit defends itself again. Sinead runs out of internal anger and splashes down into the liquid in homid form. Tillie gives some thought to throwing her out of the pool into the surrounds, but decides to concentrate on more shredding. Another swooshing sound and a vanishing bane, but this time the pack spot an owl spirit landing on a tree before tearing the bane to pieces.
The garou push the attack good and hard, and the banes start coming apart in splashes of black goo. Eventually they quell all the wyrmlings. The wyld spirit breaks free and conveys a sense of appreciation to them. Also blue. And the sense of cold ice on their ankles and the smell of earthworms. It floats away.
The pack haul Sinead out of the pool, and tend to the worst of the wounds, keeping one eye on the owl spirit. It eventually flies down and says it has chosen them for its children. Its name is Hunts-the-Lost but that is its secret name that they may not share with others. They may refer to it as Boobook to others. Boobook will return with them to the Sept now. Once Sinead is revived, and they are right to travel, Boobook flies off toward and the pack follow.
It turns out that they were somewhere off to the north of the city, and nowhere near Narre Warren. It takes about an hour at a fair pace to return to the Sept, and when they arrive at the cemetery all the spectating garou have headed home - not unreasonably given its about 4am and not far from dawn. Seeing lights on, the pack stumble into Graeme's house and find him and Cossack sitting and chatting. They give the two Sept elders a run down on events and say that they have been chosen by Boobook. Cossack and Graeme exchange a significant glance and someone queries them. Cossack says that Boobook is a native spirit, and that's a little unusual. Right now tho, they all look like shit and should go have a shower and get some rest.
The pack awake with screaming in their respective sleeping locations. Tillie, Will and Finn are at their share house, Sinead is at the caern and Kasumi is at home. The three colocated garou compare notes and find that they all shared the same horrible dream (thus the simultaneous shrieking) - they could small and taste things, and when the darkness came pouring out to consume them, they were well aware that they were doomed.
Its just after 8am. They are not going to go back to sleep after that dream. The pack reassemble at the caern, and compare notes with the other two. Waaagh for all! Will is planning to speak to Ends-the-Quiet about their dream, but they actually find Emma and Cossack first in the Umbra and give them the low-down. After a short bit Emma takes notes - she says she has some ideas but she'll consult the bones or something before going into detail. Cossack finishes the Rite of Passage and formally greets them as a new pack of the Sept. He also recognises their Renown, including their activities on the Rite of Passage, marking them all as first rank garou of the sept. (OOC: go over the benefits of their totem - -2 on all stealth rolls, 2 gnosis to pass around per story and a pack gift of Sense Wyrm, which can be transferred by looking at another pack member). Cossack unofficially gives them a heads up that they will be expected to tell the story of their rite of passage at the upcoming moot, so they might want to plan for it.
They discuss the details of the dumping zone. Cossack would like them to keep looking into it, figuring out who is doing it, why, and making it stop, which conveniently matches what they had planned anyhow. Tillie asks whether someone with the cleansing ritual could come by at some point to make the tainted ephemera quiescent and Cossack says he'll see who is free to come out and do it.
They sort out transport - a limitation on the pack resources is that they really only have one car, Kasumi's company Prius (as well as Matilda's motorbike, and Finn's petrol engine bicycle). The five of them cram into the car after a brief argument about who gets the front seat. Kasumi makes them listen to her strange j-pop the entire trip.
They cruise around the industrial estate, which, being a Sunday, is dead as a doornail. Its relatively new, all pre-fab concrete and all industrial. They spot one security firm's hatchback, and two learner drivers (bunnyhop, bunnyhop) in the entire area as well as businesses such as James Print Technology, Williamson Bros Removals, Intech Drywall Systems, Comtech Engineering. They have no idea what half these places do - most of them are a sign and a rollerdoor.
The culvert that the barrels were dumped into is next to an empty block. The drain comes out into the open air where they emerged from the gothic tunnel in the Umbra, travels the length of the empty block, then goes under the road before continuing off to the north as an open channel. They check out the barrels carefully - there are no labels, icons or other identifying marks. The ones at the bottom are rusted out and somewhat crushed by additional ones landing on them but the ones on top do not appear to be weathered at all and seem recent. The stuff they leak is very similar to the umbral material (sans creating spirits) - its a oil-like black material with a strong chemical smell associated with it.
Some of the pack change to lupus in private, and sniff around. They are fairly sure that a truck has backed in and the barrels just lobbed off the edge. There is a lingering faint scent of people in the empty block, but not very identifiable. Tire marks in the dirt are pretty fresh as well - maybe two days since people dumped the last barrels. Maybe something like a five tonne truck?
The pack obtains an empty bottle to get a sample from the barrels with, with the aim to pass it onto Aquinas to figure out what it might be. They cruise the estate to see if its someone local ditching their stuff. It takes a few hours on a fairly hot day, but at the end of it they are 95% certain that the material being dumped is not being used or manufactured in the estate. There are a couple of places where whatever they are doing is producing too strong a smell of its own to be 100% sure. While travelling around, Will experiments with their new totem-giving Sense Wyrm gift - while there is a sense of wyrm about some of the industrial places (especially the more obviously used for lots of processes rather than just as an office and store room ones, like a photography place and an electroplating place, which they take note of to come and check out later), none of those sites sense as strongly of Wyrm as the dumped goo. It might be that the fact that it is being deliberately left adds a spin to the wyrm-ness beyond the background level of 'unpleasant artificial chemical'?
In the umbra, the slime is stirring again. The pack head out to the grasslands, shift to the Umbra, and come and check it out. It is forming banes of about the same strength as the jelly-sock thing that they defeated with gravity, but it speaks much of the danger of just leaving the taint here. They smash up the minor banes quickly and easily - even the ones hiding in the slop are easy to find with their new totem gift. Moving the physical source of the goo might reduce its spiritual strength, but that might be something they do in combination with the cleansing ritual. Tillie is in favour of finding whoever did it and blowing them up as a more permanent solution. Sinead thinks they should wait for them to come back and use their truck to remove the barrels, then blow them up. People discuss the likelihood of the people doing the actual dumping being the criminal mastermind behind the whole thing and its seems less likely unless its some sort of very hands-on evil. They could probably borrow a truck from the sept to get the barrels out in the meantime. Possibly plans are discussed. The final decision is to try and see who is dumping it, follow them back along that trail as far as they can, then do any sort of revenge or interrogation.
They arrange for an extended bit of surveillence. Kasumi stays with her car and Tillie and Sinead, and the others, muttering about being holy warriors of the earth goddess and shouldn't have to put up with this, catch the train back to the caern. They find Aquinas and hand him over a sample, and he says he'll check it out tomorrow at work ("don't get it on your genitals. Look what happened to Sinead." "That's a cow mask. Take it off". "MOOOO"). Will and Finn chat to Graeme about borrowing a car for a bit - mostly just while they are stalking wyrm things. They get the keys from the Sept for a crappy 80s gemini that needs hitting with a hammer to start.
Christine rings Kasumi and asks about Cossack and cleansing. She gets the details, and gets Kasumi to take a photo and send it to her. After that, Christine rings back and says that they'll show up about 10pm, once its good and dark.
The others come back and bring food at some point, and they all wait. Its pretty warm and not much fun. To cover their presence, they merge with the people teaching L platers to drive. Eventually Hand of Lore - Christine, Georgina, Alex and Marion - come past to get some cleansing done. There's some brief chatting about the pack's rite of passage. They opt to do it in the Umbra, so both packs troop out to the grassland to make it easier, then come back into the web area. Marion doesn't participate (not knowing the ritual), but the other three circle around the black pool and howl as they go. The goo starts to bubble and react to the noise. After 10m or so, the sense of wyrm does drop off pretty sharply, though not to zero.
Will asks Kasumi and Christine about the secret glasswalker control over all technology before they disabuse him of the notion. He asks about CCTV and they all sort of hope that there isn't any, given that its been 6 hours of them lurking in the estate. Christine and Georgina look around at the various sites along this stretch of road while Alex and Marion kick back and chat. The Glasswalkers come back and say there are a few places that have CCTV and a few more that say they do but its just one of the fake cameras. They checked them out, and the only one that looks at the road much compared to just looking at the properties they are meant to be watching takes stills every 30s or so, and so you'd be lucky to get the right truck on shot.
The pack organise a watching rota, some of them head home to sleep, others observe the site overnight.
At about 7am, people start filtering in. It becomes quickly apparent that no one is surreptiously coming in during the day and dumping chemicals - there are just too many people around to be able to do it. Which means that any dumping is happening at night or on the weekends. So the pack change their plans so that they get a break during the day from watching.
Aquinas gets back to them late in the day and says that the sample is a by-product of plastic production. It is not only toxic, but its probably carcinogenic as well. There are approximately 1000 factories in Melbourne that make plastics, so its not going to be possible to track it by who might be producing it.
While they are waiting around, the pack discuss if they will have a packleader and if so who wants to be, and how to resolve that (one person, rotated pack leader, one leader for war, one leader for peace, no packleader, etc). They also chat about packnames. It turns out to be easier to think of silly ones - You Obviously Like Owls, Owl Exterminators, Hooters ("we can get t-shirts!"), Hung Parliament - but some more sensible ideas also come up - Children of Boobook ("boring"), Lost & Found, Bisclavret or Shadow Parliament. They consider the attributes of owls, the nature of their pack
Figuring that weekends are the most likely time for dumping, the whole pack has stayed there on the Friday. Very early in the morning, barely after dawn, they are rewarded for their insight with the sight and sound of a plain-sided five tonne truck driving down the street before backing into the empty lot. As it passes the hidden Tillie, she notes down the rego. There is a sense of wyrm about the truck - they are too far away to get any precision, but its akin to the dumped barrels. As they watch, two guys get out while chatting and go to the back of the truck. They unload two barrels with a trolley and free-roll them over the edge of the culvert with a crash. The pack wait until the truck trundles off and casually follow it in their two cars (despite entertaining the possibility of truck surfing and having to start the gemini with a hammer).
The truck drives for about 15 minutes back toward the city. They turn into Ridgeway Trucking - a large compound with a chain link fence and sliding gate on a corner, and park the truck. The pack park one car past the site and one before and observe the drivers getting out and heading into an office building. The site is fairly large, there are a few trucks in the courtyard at the front, an office wing and a large warehouse/garage with a closed rollerdoor. Its not a new business. It doesn't appear to be open beyond the fact that there are a few of cars there and the gate is open - no other people around, main door closed, etc.
There's a discussion about whether Kasumi could come back during the week as a "Toyota representative" selling electric trucks or something. Tillie suggests they burn the place down, but less pyromaniac heads suggest that the trucking company is just dumping it, not producing it, so perhaps there is more of a chain of responsibility to follow.
In just a minute or two, the two guys come out, get into cars and drive off. They get the plates of one of the cars, but the other goes the other way. There's still one car left in the lot - in a sort of staff carpark. In a minute or so, the lights in the office go off, a fat white guy in shirt and jeans comes out of the office, and locks it. He gets into the car, drives it to just outside the gate, closes and padlocks the gate. The pack dithers while this goes on - a little bit unsure about how they should approach their first case. They get a closer glance at him as he drives off in his white falcon, he appears to be late 40s or early 50s.
Kasumi and Finn stay on site while the other three follow in their car. Finn gives Kasumi a boost over the barbed wire fence on the side street face of Ridgeways, and then stands around looking completely casual. ("What's the name for when you're a pack leader but not really?" "Shadowlord"). There's sort of a little courtyard and smoker's shelter. Kasumi uses Open Seal to unlock the door and slip inside. She checks around the office for any sort of records that might be useful - work schedules, pick ups, emails? Its a very simple computer system, and a few old pcs with a dialup sort of connection. The pickups are not always clear as to what the company might be doing? "Nexus Industries" for instance could be anything. There's some clues when looking at the volume or types of materials and how large a truck it needs, but it'll take a while to stripmine information from the data. There's no thumb drives here, but Kasumi can plug her phone in to copy info off their system and prints a couple of things as well.
She finds a written log book on the front desk and looks at it for Friday evenings, figuring that's when things will be happening. There's nothing obvious like "picked up evil chemicals for dumping", but she does notice that the truck that they have the rego for has not filled in the log book for today's delivery (no real surprise). There are also discrepancies in the odometer for last Friday night and the Monday morning, when the pack think the last dumping happened. Looking through the log book, that same truck has a similar discrepancy on other weekends as well - not every weekend, but about 4 or 5 times in the last few months and the same distance each time, which is about the distance between here and the site in Craigieburn.
Meanwhile the others follow in the car. The driver seems to be glancing in his mirror a bit, enough that he looks jumpy, but not showing signs that he has spotted his actual tail. The falcon drives down to Preston, drives off the main roads and into suburbia. Will contemplates kidnapping him from his house. The others don't think its that pressing to attack him. The car eventually pulls up into a smallish orange/pink brick corner house. They now know where he lives. Its not super well maintained (garden needs weeding, roof has a weed growing in the gutter) but its not unlived in. To the Umbra! They drop the seats in the car below the door edge and eventually step into the spirit world. Its an old area so the houses are very similar in the spirit world as in the realm. They head into his house and peek around. His spiritual house is there, but there's not much decoration or interiors. Will is still keen to leap out and interrogate him, but Tillie advocates caution (and not fire this time) - she's really identifiable if he makes a police report for instance, and there's no super rush. They can see and smell in his house, but not well enough to read. There are no other strong scents other than this guy nor signs of other people living in the house. He has had some visitors but he's had more beer.
The guy is making coffee. Keys and stuff like phone are on a round table in his kitchen. He has a blue budgie. The house has two bedrooms, but one of them is partly taken up by a toy trainset. He turns the radio on in a suspicious fashion. Will reiterates his urge to grab him and get info from him. Tillie once again points out how identifiable she is to police and how much of a lack of rush they are in at this point.
OOC: "we are not the greatest pack in the world, we are just a tribute pack"). a brief essay about questing stone, garou tongue as an aid to memory and being able to describe scents
The pack contemplate their options. They decide to not burst in and grab this guy for the moment. There's some discussion about how to run plates - there are spirit ways to do it, but they are not available to the pack. They could try and break into vicroads to access their database, but decide to keep that for another more urgent instance.
Meanwhile Kasumi grabs the keys off the hookboard and checks out the truck. The front door locks behind her as she exits. Annoying. She checks the truck for phone numbers or notes in the Melways or similar bits of info that Bill and Ben might have left behind. She gets a good scent for both guys that were in the truck this morning, but can tell that other people take this truck sometimes as well (so not allocated trucks to specific workers). Kasumi returns inside (unlocking the door with open seal).
The pack reassemble about 8 o'clock at a nearby location and compare notes. They think that the dumpings have been going for between 4 and 6 months based on the discrepancies in the odometer. The other discrepanices could indicate multiple dump sites or other reasons for it. Finn suggests they could get a job there, but as none of them have a current medium rigid license, that seems less likely to work out. They have the option of scaring him, browbeating him or other interrogative plans. They could watch his house for a bit, or break in during the week when he's not home. They could also get the names of the drivers if they spy from the umbra.
They consider the possible outcomes of interrogations as well - he knows almost nothing, he knows some key things, or he's a fomori. Presumably their totem-given gift would reveal a fomor, but they haven't exactly got the manual for it, so they'll have to wait and see. ("kicks off his shoes, takes off his belt, lets all the tentacles down").
They also have dropped chemicals to pick up, but there's a thought that if they are going to dump again A) the pack don't want to have to clean up twice and b) it might tip them off. Tillie is in favour of taking a truck from Ridgeways and loading all the barrells up and then dropping them off at the responsible person's house.
There's some chat about pack names again - the moot is tomorrow, and they toy with just choosing something vs waiting until they can think of a good name. "Its never Lupus" is the most popular suggestion of the day. Tillie continues to complain about the similarities between pack names and band names.
Some chatting about packleader too, but they don't come to any firm conclusion
Sinead has work in the afternoon. Kasumi is going back to work Monday. Will contemplates looking for a job. Tillie says she's going to the gym and making themall come with her. Well, Finn anyway. So they head off there to sign Finn up for a strength building course. Both Will and Tillie go to the same gym (as does Marion), its an old converted shop that has 24hr access, run by a guy named Glenn (now) who used to be a cop.
MOOT!
Everyone is in the Umbra. The moot starts with an Opening Howl, the sound drifting across the spirit world. The entire sept howls together in a ritualistic fashion, greeting the Sept totem, Chimera. Other pack totems are summoned and thanked for their help and patronage over the last month. Boobook, the new pack's totem is welcomed to the Sept formally. Cossack asks about a name and packleader and the pack says they do not yet have one of either. The spirit and mundane worlds are ritually joined by Greeting the Sky. These spiritual, ritual parts of the moot go for about an hour or so, led by Emma Teesdale, but partly conducted by other garou at the sept. None of the pack have been invited to take a roll.
More mundane items are taken up. Cossack asks for the new pack to tell the story of their Rite of Passage, and so the new pack become to focus of attention. Finn has been practicing the story and checking out with his packmates as to whether what he is saying suits them, but a little bit of stage fright and perhaps some overthinking makes it not his best performance. The rest of the sept cheers at the appropriate bits, especially at their victories.
Emma takes some attention and she talks about the dream that the pack had. She says that it sounds like a place called Malfeas also called the Lair of the Wyrm. It is a subrealm in the Umbra that has been totally corrupted. Some legends says that it is where one of the heads of the wyrm lives, others say that it is a reflection of a realm where the wyrm has won. Either way, not a good fun thing to dream about as a group. Finn says he hopes its not a prophecy, Emma says that it might be a warning. Who caused it? It might have been their totem, or new packs have been known to be sensitive to portents and emanations just through being spiritually raw from the ritual.
Cossack says that he wants them to keep following up on the dumping. Other packs talk about things - Aquinas says there has been an increase in wyrm tainted drugs on campus, they've been working with the Get of Pennington to track it down. Nadine Holloway, one of the Sept Elders who works at the zoo says they've had some odd breakins and some animals stolen from the zoo, but no obvious reason. Will asks about the animals, its been a random selection of mammals and reptiles including a couple of meerkats. (nooo). Hand of Lore is praised for removing a Weaver infestation from the Royal Botannical Gardens.
Cossack asks if there are other things people want to talk about, and Kirsty Surfs-the-Train stands forth. She raises the issue of animal experimentation at the uni - judging from the expression on the faces of some other sept members this is not the first time its come up. She is passionate about it, but no actual evidence that there's wyrm influence involved, which seems to be a sticking point on official Sept involvment. It goes back and forth a bit, Cossack finally says that she is welcome to act as an individual on the problem as she sees it, but unless there's some evidence of Wyrm influence the Sept will not act. She starts to argue, and he gives her a Look, and she is quelled somewhat.
Moot moves on to other matters - the pack ask Emma about learning some new gifts. She seems ok with the idea, and summons the appropriate spirits. Will asks for a philodox gift called Fangs of Judgement, taught by an ancestor spirit. Emma says "figures. Of all the philodox gifts, you want the hitting one". Kasumi learns a Ragabash gift, Blur of the Milky Eye. Finn learns a galliard gift, Beast Speech.
At one point Emma looks up, and then looks over a distance, with her eyes turning pearly white. "There is.. a group of people coming through the cemetery. You (points at the new pack) go sort that out." Off they trot through the Umbra before peeking and trying to find the people that Emma told them about. Will sees deeply into the Realm and sees there are 4 guys. Well, actually hear them first. The sound of drunk students rings across the gravestones. They are walking along the ashphalt paths, curving slightly toward the main gate, stumbling somewhat. They check for wyrm taint, and they come up clean, but they are realll drunk. Its the night before semester starts, they are going to regret this tomorrow.
Plan A is Finn appears and acts drunk, trying to distract them about coming to a new party. He stumbles in and says "hey! its you! you totally should come to this party this guy I know is having!" The random guy he's claiming kinship wiht says "nah, we can't man, Jacko puked in his underpants and then put them back on, we've gotta get him back to his room." And he points at the college they can see. Finn tries to persuade him to come out the side gate, and he says that they're going the straightest way, cos whenever Jacko sits down there's a squelching sound. This isn't appearing to work, so Will goes with Plan B, which is to step out of the Umbra and pretend to be a guard, and Finn will encourage that belief. However when Will steps out he suddenly can see Tillie... wait, did that not work? No, he has stepped, but he is now peeking into the Umbra. He points vaguely in the direction he thinks Finn was and sticks with the plan. It seems to work, and Finn bolts toward the side gate, getting the others to follow him, while Will points in random directions, unwilling to move because he knows there's a lot of headstones around. He goes back to the Umbra and can see the Realm again. And he can't stop. Oh dear. Another enemy of Gaia defeated! For some reason they get no renown for this. Tillie rattles Will for a bit to try and fix his vision before the GM points out that full moon means diff 4 on a frenzy roll.
The moot continues, rising in martial tone as stories and songs build the up to a crescendo, until the whole Sept is on the verge of frenzy. They launch into the revel - Ian Shatter-Glass leads the sept around the cemetery howling before the various packs split off and storm their way across the landscape looking for wyrm stuff to wreck. Someone notices the Scryers don't zoom around, but instead head back to the centre of the caern. Will wittles on and on talking to them, because he can't hear them, but you know he could report on what's happening in the physical realm while his packmates make rude jestures and ask if any of the other packs want a spare philodox. Eventually his spiritual confusion rectifies itself. The pack head across the spirit landscape, taking out minor banes that they'd normally just ignore, and generally improving the place vis-a-vis amount of wyrm taint. They don't frenzy, but its a similar mental state while maintaining control.
The pack are wandering somewhere out in Royal Park in the realm when they spot some feet sticking out of a bush. Kasumi is in lupus form and she gives him a smell. She can smell blood, but not booze, but his sweat is funny. He isn't just under a bush, he's *in* the bushes. She has a quick glance over and it looks like he has a broken arm. Will senses of wyrm, and finds the guy is a bit higher than normal, but it seems localised into his pocket.. where there is a small baggy with something crystaline in it that senses appreciably of wyrm. Aquinas mentioned earlier they were having trouble with wyrm tainted drugs on campus, and a quick search of his unconscious person gives them a wallet and student id - he is Wayne Buxton, a 3rd year commerce student. Tillie reckons its speed or some other amphetamine. Tainted speed.
They debate what to do with him and the drugs. They decide to make an anonymous call to the hospital and call an ambulance. Tillie hides in the bushes while the others wait for the ambulance. The ambos ask questions about what they did and how they found him, nothing super suspicious. They check the guy out on the spot and confirm he has a broken arm. They then ask if the pack were driving along here? No? Did they see a car speed off? Because it looks like he's been hit pretty hard by a car and knocked into the bushes. Will contemplates telling the ambos about the speed but figures they'll do bloodtests before giving him anything. Hopefully. They decline to leave names, but ask about maybe making sure the guy is ok in hospital which seems an odd combination of disinterest and concern.
Once the excitement is all over, they head back to the caern, giving random cats wyrm speed on the way ("fuck you from the canine family"). No, not really. They chat on the way - it was a 50 zone, but whoever hit him was going faster than that. People contemplate whether there has been a spate of hit and runs, but cannot think of any notable mention of any in the papers or whatever. Back at the caern Aquinas is chatting with his pack mates when they show up. They give him the details of their encounter and he says they'll chase it up. The pack say they'd be interested in doing it and Aquinas looks surprised and said he thought they had their own thing to deal with. The garou say they can handle both, its not fulltime at the moment, and he shrugs and says sure.