Kasumi has to go back to work today, but the others spring out of bed fairly early and plan their plans. Step one is to trot to Preston to check out the fat-man's house. They stop nearby and step sideways, then approach his house. Nothing with teeth and tentacles leaps out at them, which is a good sign. There appears to be no one home, so they step inside, steal his washing up gloves and prowl about. His name is Joseph Ridgeway... ah, Ridgeway Trucking, he is presumably the owner, or closely related to said owner. The check his house out for supernatural influences, but find very little. He's had some visitors within the previous week. He has a budgie. He has a model trainset. He has some dvds and a normal looking tv. They find some banking information - he draws a salary from Ridgeway Trucking, and its not inconsequential, but neither is it giant. More tellingly, he seems to have taken a pay cut in the last 6 months or so - bank statements do not reveal why, but there's some thought that perhaps the business is slowing down.
Sense Wyrm is brought to bear across the site, but there's only a slight bit more than what they've come to recognise as the basic background noise of living in the city. There's nothing that says he is a servant of dark powers intent on the destruction of the world, which is a bit confusing and disappointing.
Ridgeway turning out not to be the spawn of Satan, they opt to go to the trucking place and try to find and track the drivers. There's some sense that the dumping might just be for the monies, but even still they need to stop that noise.
"Pants down, tentacles out!"
They make some plans so they have vehicles handy, and can track two seperate guys without having to make snap decisions. They get there about 3, and spy from the Umbra for a while. Sinead peeks and does well enough to read. Guy #1 is 'Dave'. And there's a locker with 'David Picker' on it, the only David in the area. He's fairly non-descript, white guy in his late 40s. He doesn't sense of much wyrm really. Guy #2 is going to be doing a run to Sydney this evening - they opt to not follow him. His name is 'Tom'. There are two Thomas' on the lockers, so they are not 100% which one he might be, tho "Tom Yen" is probably not him, so they reckon he's Tom Bell. He also has no overwhelming evil apparent about his person.
Dave seems to be doing make work and looking at his watch a lot, and at 4 heads out to his car. Most of the pack have pre-emptively gone back to their vehicles in readiness to follow him, but Sinead and Finn have been spying, so they now run back and step. Well, Sinead does. Finn can't seem to work out what is going on with the Gauntlet. Sinead is starting to wonder if she has to rescue him when he sheepishly appears.
Dave drives out and heads off through the very warm Melbourne afternoon. He doesn't seem to notice the tails, or even be looking for them. He ends up at a suburban house on a two lane mainish road. The pack drive past, find somewhere to step and head back. The house features a couple of young teenage boys watching tv, a woman that is presumably his wife, a shed out the back - it looks like a normal suburban house. They sense for Wyrm and don't get any awoogas. There's no hooker murdering basement or anything; but there is fishing gear in the shed, a dog in the backyard (also not wyrm tainted).
All normal looking. All of them. Clearly there's something going on, the dumping is obviously not above board (happening on a Saturday early in the morning, etc), but they need to find the evil mastermind behind it. They could follow when they do the pickup? Well, that'll be Friday night. Anything could happen between here and there. Anyway, just to confirm they decide to check out Dave's house the next day when the kids are out and totally not when they've been kidnapped by the pack as a way to get him to fess up. The kids go to different schools - one in late primary school and one at secondary school, so if they watch from 8.30am-ish onward, there should be a short bit of time at least while the house is empty.
In the meantime they decide to go check out the hit by a car wyrm speed guy. Its tricky to visit a hospital through the Umbra - very weavery - so they opt to walk in the front door and say "I am here to visit Wayne Buxton because I called the ambulance for him". Which Sinead now does. She asks at reception where he is and they say that he's already been discharged; they can't say when or whatever. Rather than push the issue and pretend to cry, they opt to go back to the caern and do themselves some Questing Stone.
A few rites later and they find themselves outside of what is probably a rental place in Kensington. Weatherboard, old house, unmowed 2 square meters of grass and 3 fixies chained to the front porch. It looks like a student share house frankly. Sinead knocks on the front door and its opened by a short girl with glasses in her early 20s. Sinead says that she's looking for Wayne? "He's a bit unconscious right now". Sinead tells the truth - found him, called ambulance, wanted to make sure he was ok. The girl asks if she wants to leave a note and invites her in. Sinead scopes the place out with sense wyrm just out of caution, but there's nothing here that attracts her attention. Another guy opens a door, looks at her, then shuts the door again - his thick rimmed glasses and bad cardigan says that he is the source of the bikes. The girl is Melanie, and she says Wayne had no idea who rescued him, so he'll be chuffed to hear from her. Apparently he's broken his wrist and hit his head pretty hard, but he got some drugs from the hospital, and is out cold. Sinead leaves a basic note with her name, just wants to know if he is ok and leaves her phone number if he wants to contact her.
They go back to Dave's house, and find that its empty at some convenient point. They look around and ransack his paper work. Stuffed into a shelf in the shed with his fishing gear, they find an envelope with a number of grubby $50 notes in it, coming in at a total of about $800. Presumably this is the pay off from Ridgeway? ("We're going to steal the money and fill the envelope with poisonous spiders").
Having pretty firmly established that the three guys are not part of the main wyrm-stuff conspiracy, and given they cannot find any more obvious leads, it seems like its time to go into a more aggressive mode. The pack plan to confront Joe in some fashion and shake him down for the information. They toy with a number of plans, including being a policeman or other authority figure or leaving a barrel full of horseheads in his bed, before going with plan A, which is to sneak into his house at night with half the pack in glabro form and threatening him in as frightening as way as possible.
The plan is that Will will stay in homid, and use truth of gaia and persuasion gifts on him while the others pin him into his bed in glabro form (them, not Ridgeway). To add some terror, they pull the power from his house as well. Rather than taking their chances of coming through the umbra and having to dedicating hoods and gloves, they opt to get Kasumi to pop the front door with her gift.
They even plan what they are going to ask ahead of time - egads, these are no human roleplayers! They want to keep the initiative and not have any awkward moments during the interrogation. They want to know who is getting him to dump things, how do they contact him, where does the pickup happen, when does it happen, how much do they pay him.. that seems to cover it. ("no one hurt the budgie!")
They decide to take another day of observation to check that nothing weird happens in the meantime.
Nothing really happens during the day. He does nothing particularly unusual during his Wednesday. His secretary's name is Charlotte. He drinks a lot of bad coffee with sugar in it.
At 2am, the 5 garou sneak up to the house. They pull out the fuses and flip the mains switch. Kasumi Open Seals the door and they silently move into Joe's bedroom. Each of the glabro garou grab a corner of his bedclothes and pin Joe down and Will throws cold water on his face and then asks pertinent questions in a low, deadpan voice.
Joe seems pretty forthcoming with his answers. He gets a call from a guy called Chambers telling him that there's a pickup this weekend. He doesn't know what company Chambers works for. He drives a truck to go and get the barrels from a warehouse off Mahoneys Road - he roughly knows the address, but isn't sure if its 45 or 49. ("Becc, you have to stop bringing as much sugar, no one can concentrate for more than 3 minutes in a row"). He doesn't know the number, but its in his phone on the drawers there. Tillie grabs his phone (thinking to turn away with the bright light so it doesn't illuminate her face) and looks it up. Occasionally the glabro packmembers forget they shouldn't talk and growl some sort of question in a barely intelligible snarl. Will asks who else knows about the dumping - Ridgeway lies and says no one, but the gift does not reveal that this is a lie, suggesting it hasn't worked. They hope nothing else is a lie, but Will follows up with asking about Tom and Dave, and Ridgeway says they don't really know what's going on. Why is he doing it? Just for the money, because the business isn't doing that well - its $5K a time. Will suggests that he forgets about all this. In future, if someone contacts him, they strongly suggest that he says he is not interested. Joe agrees nervously,
They leave without any real fanfare, then step and peek back to watch what he does. He stays nervously in his bed for a little while and then he tries the lights. Oh. He stays there for a bit longer, and then stumbles into his kitchen and gets a big knife, stumbles around, gets some pants... stumbles out to this fusebox and turns his power back on. Goes in. Shuts the door. Locks the door. Puts the chain on the door. The spends the next few hours awake, Really awake. Its almost like he's been horribly traumatised by something recently.
They try googling the phone number, but don't find it out there, suggesting its a private number or otherwise obfuscated (not a business number of some sort). They contemplate ringing the number and saying that "Ridgeway is no longer interested in doing business with you, but we could be interested in an ongoing job", but that could be fraught. They opt to at least check out the handover location and see what they can see there while its still dark and all. Kasumi and Finn decide they have other commitments early, but Sinead, Finn and Will are up for it,
They break in to the warehouse via the Umbra and look about. There's a large loading bay inside. There are empty offices that look relatively new, but smell quite musty as if they've been closed up for a bit. They hunt about for wyrm taint or chemical smells, and they find a bit of it in the loading bay. There's a little smudge that might have been a spill during transfer from one truck to another? They can smell Joe Ridgeway and a few more smells of humans as well as a rat smell. There's no smell of Tom or Dave here, suggesting Joe handles all of the pickup details.
Possibly finding the owners will give them some more information. Best bet is doing a title search with the council, which will have to wait til tomorrow and will cost a bit of money ("that's ok, we're about to come into $800"). There's no signage on the outside of the building other than a for lease sign (another option they can follow up), and no cameras either. ("Damien used to breed budgies" "To each other, just to be clear").
("Well, Warrnambool's right on the coast, and Tasmania doesn't do a good job of blocking the wind". "I just like the idea of offering that up as criticism, as if you were disappointed in the land mass")
Kasumi goes to work, Finn goes to some classes. He runs into some people that he knows from last year, and catches up a bit before the class launches off.
During the day they do a title search through the department of planning, owned by Rning Development Company , a business in Adelaide, and they own all 6 warehouses in the little fake court that the transfer has been occuring in. They seem to buy up cheap industrial land and put up cheap concrete warehouses around Australia. The other five businesses are a mix of nothing particular noteworthy.
The real estate agency is called Brady, Tullis and Lau. They are a commercial real estate agent with three offices in Melbourne, one near Tullamarine and the other two on the north side of Melbourne. They handle warehouses and shops and such, no rental houses at all. ("We should kill them." "Are they wyrm tainted?" "Who cares, real estate agents").
The pack bug Kasumi and get her to make a call to the agents. ("Do you care what I say on the phone?" "Don't mention we're werewolves"). She pretends to represent a pet food, etc business that is looking for a warehouse and was wanting to speak to someone about the property in Thomastown. She gets put through to Candice Tullis, who is more than happy to speak to a prospective tenant. "What's the warehouse been used for previously, we have to ensure there's no chance of contamination?" "Its never been rented, its a new property, not had a tenant". Tullis offers to show her around the location tomorrow, Kasumi says she has to consult with her boss. Tullis doesn't give her mobile number, instead says to call reception.
The pack figure this either means they don't know that Chambers is using the site, or that they have some private arrangement with Chambers to let him access it. Tillie wonders why the owner (presumably) is answering initial business calls about a site, that's a little odd. Maybe its because its a commercial property? Will is keen to try the "turn it off and see who screams" method of solving the issue of who is responsible by killing people until the dumping stops. In essence tho, either someone is using magic to open the doors or has the keys. Given the owner is in Adelaide, it does suggest that despite their mundane face, the real estate agent could be involved. ("where's hamish?" "goh". "Where's jess's car?" "goh". )
Kasumi suggests they could text Chambers ("hey baby, wassup") or ring from a public phone and see what happens. Or maybe send him pictures of strippers. And arrange to meet him at a strip club. They proceed to slander Chambers and his sleeziness. Tillie points out it could be a lady, except Ridgeway said "a guy". Tillie rings from a public phone and a male voice, fairly well spoken says "yes" "Can I speak to Greg please?" "Sorry, wrong number *click*" and hangs up before she can even get another couple of words out. They could ring up repeatedly and try every first name they can think of until they get one that matches so they can questing stone, but that might... might... raise some suspicion.
After a meal at Carmel's and some discussion, they decide to break into the agents this evening once its late enough. They scope the closest one of their three offices. Its a large double story office. Its not super there in the Umbra - an outer shell really, but not a lot of internals. So there's two crinos holding up one person in homid who is peeking. Will peeks as the others carrying him around. Its dim inside, but he's done sufficiently well at defeating the gauntlet that he can see make things out ok. There's noone in the offices - meeting room, kitchen, etc downstairs, and individual offices upstairs. They can find Tullis' office without much grief. There's nothing on her desk about the property, so no convenient folder of information left laying where they can see it. She keeps a neat desk, not much crap on it, or sundries.
There is also a Brendan Lau's office here, and they seem to share a PA. Lau's office is much the same, a little bit more messy. There's a photo of him and kids on the desk (no wife). The pack look about for business cards - there's a stack of ones on the front desk for people that work here, which gives them Tullis' phone number. Will checks around for alarms - there's a keypad and some motion detectors, but they appear to only be aimed at the entrances and all. Figuring this means they can break into the offices, they lift Will up into the air and he steps into Candice's office.
While he is stepping, Sinead and Finn peek and look around. Sinead notices the giant wall of photos that Will somehow missed. Candice is apparently a brunette executive-bitch with hair pulled back tightly. Will appears and flicks around her office - he looks through her rollodex, and finds weirdly that she only uses it for personal contacts, not work ones (possibly some sort of computerised system for that). Will is about to ditch it as a lead when he spots "Rudi Chambers" in the personal list. It is not the same number that they have, it might not be same guy but make a note anyway. (Dr Rudi domestic abuse, or alternative to rohypnol)
Will uses sense wyrm to see if anything has tentacles, but it appears to be just a normal human kind of place. Despite some thoughts of leaving a dead budgie in her drawers, he steps back through the Gauntlet. Sinead leaps towards where Will was yelling "NO!" as Will appears on the non-existent 2nd floor and plunges into the ground. Despite a moment or two of gritting his teeth, he fails to freak out and kill everyone.
When they get back to the car, Sinead's phone has a message. It says "hi Wayne here. Sry took while 2 ans msg, stong painkillers. Just wanted 2 say, ty for calling ambulance. Hope didn't put u out" Sinead replies with "That's fine, hope you are better, did you want to get a drink sometime?" There is no immediate response. They continue with their search, Questing Stone with Rudolph Chambers. It leads them off to the east, and after a couple more rituals, they are in Eltham, looking at a, well, Tillie says its a mansion, and its hard to disagree. There is no sense of wyrm from the road, so its not some horrible wyrm hole. The house is set on about an acre, with gumtrees along the front fence line, and an automatic gate. (the big rancher, dammit, can't find Gus Mercurio ads but rotate your owl
The pack find somewhere quiet and step into the Umbra. Not much of the house exists in the Umbra... the jacuzzi for some reason and a couple of walls. Tillie can't get peeking happening, so Finn has a go. He can sort of vaguely see, but not well. Its a house... with a guy... watching a tv. Will gets a better ability to look around. It looks and smells like this guy is the only one living here tho there are scents of other people from a few days to weeks ago. The guy sense of more wyrm than they are entirely happy about - its an order of magnitude stronger than Ridgeway, though he has no tentacles visible. Its not insta-stomp but they need to do something about it before long. There's two nice cars in the garage, the furniture is all pretty flash as is the Art on the walls. He has no pets, but he does have a wine room and an entertaining room. Best guess is that he's about 40, but they can't super see him well. There's some speculation that the real estate woman was his girlfriend. There's photos around, him mostly, one of them in Paris.
They try and smell the scent of the chemicals - there is a faint lurking scent on his work coat and briefcase that are both on a table near the front door. Its not exactly the same, but they do smell chemically. Eventually he turns off his tv, has a shower and goes to bed. They decide that Kasumi should step in and creep about the place using her gifts and the advantages their totem give them. It take a bit to sort the gauntlet out but she gets there eventually.
Kasumi sneaks effectively (and the GM rolls 3 1's this time). She opens his laptop and fires it up. She accesses his email and a lot of the emails are from people at Rainbow Inc. She finds his email signature - Rudolph Chambers, Divisional Head of Marketing, Rainbow Inc, a division of Rainbow International (Frankfurt, Osaka, Pittsburgh, Melbourne). They appear to make toys. Sinead thinks they make sex toys. None of the emails are coming from Candace. It looks like work email only - there doesn't seem to be much stuff out of that class. Kasumi tries to look for "the stuff" or "the product" to see whether they are emailing about the dumping, but no luck there.
Kasumi pokes around a bit and finds that he has a private ISP and email, and it automatically logs him in. There are some emails there from Candace - they are not particularly racey, rather kind of casual and indicate a long term friendship. (Organising a dinner with a mutual friend in town, etc). Nothing in the last two weeks, and definitely nothing about either illegal dumplings or dumpings. She rifles through his jacket and gets a business card, listing an address in Wiliams St in the city. Despite psychic urgings from her pack, Kasumi refrains from changing his background to either goatse or astrosloth, and steps back into the Umbra.
Tillie suggests that the Williams st address is probably a city office and they want a manufacturing plant so they might have to follow him in the morning. The others point out that they can look that up now and don't have to follow Chambers. They could go straight to the office even and try and find that address (some side discussion about dangers in the city spirit world, especially in relation to giant weaver spiders and gauntlets). They head back to their cars, and the physical world, then look up Rainbow. It turns out that their prime manufacturing area is in Laverton north. Its about midnight, and some of the pack are toying with going home, but given its still ridiculously hot (over 25C), they figure they may as well go look.
Out they drive, contributing to the pollutants in the environment and incidentally furthering their opponent's cause. The Rainbow site is a little way seperate (~600m) from the nearby industrial areas, across fields of thistles and rocks. (A bit like this site, but with better security). Its less our secret base, and more that they inhabit an area that had been developed first, and no one has filled in the gaps yet. Big sign out the front. Rainbow Inc, manufacturor of fine toys, a division of Rainbow International. Sinead continues in her belief that its a dildo factory. There's a large well lit carpark behind a chainlink fence, with a number of buildings behind, offices and some sort of plant. There is a wyrm taint here - its a non-specific sense of badness from inside the complex, nothing pinpointable from out here on the road. They go to peek and find that the gauntlet is ridiculously strong, as strong as the city. Finn manages to peek, while both Tillie and Will are now wearing the "I botched a peek roll" hat.
In the Umbra, there are factory-worker-like spirits milling about the place. The reflection is very similar to the look of the facility, which you do find in high gauntlet area. They consider their options - bluffing their way in tomorrow, shorting out the power now ("I did mean an already dead possum, for what its worth"), or climbing up the outlet pipes where they tip all their poisons out into the river ("Ok, that's probably not a really good idea"). They decide to back off a bit until the gauntlet is back to a reasonable level and then step.
AS they approach, it is easier to make out the spirits milling around. They are almost like worker spirits - vaguely humanoid wearing an approximation of blue overalls - doing the same repetitive task here, and then moving over there and doing something else. This is unusual - sites where the work is this mindnumbing tends to not have any spiritual reflection, it just doesn't engender that sort of response in the Umbra.
They sense wyrm and find that there is a miasma of wyrm taint everywhere through this very weavery area. Some of the workers have black stains on them that are a strong wyrm taint, but so does random bits of the structure. They don't seem to be banes, though they might be banes that can hide their natures. It seems to be something akin to the sense that they got from the dumped materials.
They contemplate burning it down in the Umbra or in the realm. Considerations such as being mobbed by weaver spirits or causing lots of people to lose their jobs hold them back for the moment, and instead they try and hone in on a potential source for all this corruption. They are trawling around the site and find a coke machine that has a significant spike of wyrm. The sense from the coke machine gives them almost a rancid feeling in their stomach. And so does a handsoap dispenser in the women's bathroom, though it senses more like the dumping place.
They keep looking around until they open a door and a gust of foul stench wafts out. They have found an office that has black liquid running down the walls, pooling on the floors and dripping from the ceiling. Its well beyond taint and into wyrm corruption. No one bothers to sense wyrm. Sinead peeks and can see "David Struthers, Managing Director" written on the door. Ah. In the realm, its a lovely office, overlooking a little sad garden that seems to connect to a kitchen in another part of the site. The corruption is not the sort of level that you get from someone thinking "I know, I'll save money by dumping chemicals" - this is an active supernatural influence. There is some speculation about how the wyrm corruption around would affect the people working here - things like the coke machine and the soap are things that people touch every day. ("you put the wyrm in the coke machine, and drink them both up").
The pack think about what to do next. It seems not unlikely that this sort of corruption might exist at the other sites that Rainbow function at, so they will need to pass the word along to other garou overseas. Will says they will need to hunt down David Sutherland and deal with him, which leads to some discussion about making sure that they get the right guy because they actually want "David Struthers". They head back to their cars and call the sept to report in. They get Ian Shatter-Glass on the phone. Kasumi says they've found a lot of taint and corruption in a chemical plant, and they know who is responsible, and they want to kill him. Ian laments their situation, exclaiming that it would be so easy if only they had 5 large werewolves there who were competant. What do they want? Kasumi says that are at Laverton North if something goes wrong. Ian writes that down sarcastically. Kasumi says the guy might be a fomori? Ian replies that there are five of them right? Get on it. He hangs up.
(brief OOC distraction about taking people into the Umbra. can't dedicate a live person. structural damage it is. Discussions about the litany and whether fomori count toward litany breaches - surprisingly, not about the veil, but about eating them. Its pointed out that there are often other considerations that take priority. Even with resist toxin. Overall GM response: if you have ended up in a place where this is the best option you can take, you have made some poor decisions further down in the tree)
The pack contemplates how to approach whoever is causing this. They could poison him (raw tofu and honey, heroin, bullets, etc). They could burn down the building, but there's some concern that they will be releasing toxic plastic making smoke over Melbourne. They want to stop Suntherland... er Struthers, try and get word out about this company and find out where their products are ending up, because they might be tainted too.
While they are watching, they see a hatchback pull into the car park. Two people get out and wander about - it looks like some security firm is employed to do the basic door checking over night. Kasumi is in favour of following them and leaving dead budgies in their beds, but wiser heads prevail despite a call to name their pack the budgie smugglers.
The pack opt to go home and try and sleep in the horror heat, and approach this issue with clearer heads the next day.
Sinead gets a message midmorning from Wayne - "still kinda recovering from being hit, will message you next week" - which they find suspicious for no real reason other than an expectation of teenage licentiousness.
The others opt to wait til Kasumi is out of work. Its hot and they don't want to sit in their car in the sun, nor don't want to follow him around in the Umbra because of all the weaver crap everywhere. They spend the day planning with what to do with any potential dead bodies that might crop up in the next couple of days. Generally the sept is in favour of making the body go away rather than to try and fake evidence or bury wyrm corrupted individuals in the caern cemetery or put them in a grain silo. Tillie wants a long term plan on the grounds it might keep coming up. They could ditch them into the ocean off the surf coast and hope sharks (not weresharks) solve the problem.
Its late before they get together, and Questing Stone their way towards David Struthers. Numerous rituals lead them roughly to a new looking house in Yarraville, in the shadow of the Westgate bridge. ("I would like the record to state I do not want to kidnap a child"). Its 'architect designed' - big two storey place with weird angles, lots of glass, etc. Big fence around it, underground parking. Its clearly very new. Tillie senses for wyrm taint, and finds that there is a distinct sense of it from the otherside of the road and down 30m. Finn peeks to try and see what is in the Umbra before they step - the new house is not there, but there are two 1930s-looking houses that lie on the same block. There's no roiling clouds of wyrm pouring off things. They move to a secluded spot not far from this house and step, then return.
Finn suddenly yells at everyone to stop. He spots a distortion as they were approaching the house. Its an extremely thin, almost ice or glass-like barrier, faintly greyish black. Finn happened to be looking in the right direction as it occluded something on their approach and noticed the change in light, but it is otherwise extremely hard to see. It matches up to the walls of the new house in the realm; in the umbra it passes through trees and through the old spirit version of the housees. Tillie thinks its either an alarm system or ward, or maybe an illusion. The realm house certainly has a security system (key pad, etc).
They toy with trying to figure out if its a general spirit alarm or a specific garou alarm or what. There's no break at the door or anything. Its hard to be sure it has a top, they can't get up high enough close enough, but they suspect it might. It would almost be impossible to see it if they dug up from underneath. There's some concern that there's a wyrm pit underneath the house hidden by a shield to make it seem harmless, but the lines of the shielding and the actual house do match up. They opt to not wait til Monday and stalk the guy, but throw a rock through his shield. Tillie lobs it, and It appears to go through the grey/black ice stuff and hit on the umbral house. They wait for a response, peeking into the Realm at the same time. Nooo response.
The pack goes all precise. Sinead bleeds on a rock and Will lobs it to see if that will do anything. (after contemplating peeing on it and licking it.. not in that order). While they are contemplating, suddenly everyone says "Tillie should be alpha." Aaand suddenly they have a pack leader. Nothing seems to happen with the rock, neither in the Umbra or the Realm. The pack considers calling the sept ("We threw a rock at it. Then we threw blood at it. Now we're out of ideas"). The pack contemplate the nature of the symbolic nature of the thing - the crystaline look to it suggests a deliberate, planned nature rather than something evolved or grown.
They opt to call a friend. Kirsty answers the phone, and Tillie gives her the run down. "That's fuckin' weird. I'll get a theurge" Chris McNeil calls them back and says Kirsty says there's something weird there. They tell him more detail and he is taken aback when it becomes clear its the size of a house, now just a rock. He has no idea what it might be, and offers to come and see it. In about 30 minutes, Chris, Kirsty and Barry Heaton turn up, which seems like overkill, but what the hell. Chris looks while the other two hang out. ("Barry's studying to be a vet" "Awesome, can you look at this rash for me?"). Finn has to point it out to Chris, but once he has, Chris says its... "I have no idea. don't touch it" He agrees about their summation, it might be a ward or an alarm
They ask Chris for advice. He says "don't start a big fire, that big industrial thing there is the petrol cracking place". Chris suggests the Cleansing ritual - it might get rid of it, but it might trigger things too. The unnamed pack says they don't know cleansing. Chris looks baffled? How did that happen? Everyone looks at the theurge. Sinead says that before she came here she was with her family, and they were fuckwits and since then its all been "Go here and do this". Chris encourages them to learn it. Not just Sinead, but some of the others too.
Kirsty wanders about kicking down umbral fences so they can move around the site to do the ritual while Will laments the lack of rune carving and general bleeding involved in rituals at this sept. ("Rubber strap. Jar of vaseline. Hot wax. Baby oil. Time for the constant head."). The pack prepare for anything surprising while Barry hangs with them and his packmates howl and trace circles around the black ice. At the end of the ritual the garou howl, and the crystaly stuff frosts over, and shatters. Pieces come down onto the ground and evaporate from both sides of the house, scattering all over the umbral house inside it. There's no sudden reveal of awful wyrm pit or anything. Will peeks (not well) and notices that a moment or two later lights come on inside the house.
The pack speculate outloud what to do now. Kirsty says "didn't you want to whack this guy?" "yes". "ok, whack this guy". They wander through the Umbra, dragging along Will while peeking to see what he is doing. They sense wyrm and find an active wyrm sense, not just a passive feeling. There's a man wandering through the house, shuffling along in pyjama bottoms. He wanders to the kitchen. "he's getting a knife!". He gets a pot. He puts some water in it and puts it on the stove. "Its a spell!". He puts on some two minute noodles. He shuffles around a bit. He shuffles out of the room and opens a cupboard. He's pouring something... maybe booze? They really can't see very well, its all a bit approximate. Will has a sneaking suspicion that the guy might be able to see them, so he tries to do something scary in the umbra that might make him jump. He draws on his ancestral skills, but because he's not watching in the umbra and the two houses don't match up, when he lunges forward, he smashes his face into an umbral pebble mix wall that isn't there in the realm, and nearly frenzies.
Once Will has been calmed down, Finn peeks instead and gets a much better idea of what is happening. The guy is shuffling around with his eyes half down. Frankly it looks like he's sleep walking. Maybe the ritual stuffed up something wyrmy? The guy has poured three different drinks, and not very accurately (spillage) and put them down again in different rooms. He knocks one of them over as he walks around in the dark. He heads to the laundry and ransacks through his cupboard for cleaning stuff. The pack is confused. Maybe he's possessed rather than a fomori? Maybe he's sleepwalking while part-cleansed? Struthers is cleaning glass. Swiping at things anyway, and dropping bottles as he goes. They sense these things on the grounds they might be like the coke machine or soap machine, but there's nothing specific. They contemplate stepping out and talking to him while he's asleep - Sinead suggests that instead of Ridgeway-ing him, they do it quietly and gently. Tillie says if that's going to happen then everyone else will be in crinos in another room.
Struthers wanders back to the kitchen, and they follow. Finn can smell something a bit weird (vaguely through the gauntlet), almost a weird caramelly smell. Its not noodles. Wait, the noodles are not boiling. Wait, the gas jet is not on fire. Waaait, that smell is gas. Oh. oooh. Struthers grabs a texta and writes on the wall "I know you are there. Come and talk". And he sits up on bench, kicking his heels. They all vote no. Finn says "he's looooking at meeee" and Struthers underlines "come and talk". Finn shakes his head and makes a beckoning motion to the guy. Struthers leans over and hits the sparker on the stove. Fire burgeons out and Finn cannot help himself flinching away, losing his concentration on the physical realm. Out in the Umbral street, someone swears loudly. Kasumi peeks instead. Everything is on fire! Everything! Even Struthers, who is dancing around in the kitchen pouring alcohol all over himself is on fire.
In the Umbra, various spiders start to come out of the walls, and fire motes start to appear in the umbra. The umbral house starts to smoulder and the pack decide to retreat to the outside air. Struthers, despite being badly charred, stumbles toward his front door, scattering burning things further, falls to the ground, crawls a bit, then stops moving. The Get of Pennington members check that they are ok, and they are pointing and explanining when something enormous winks into existence in the Umbra where Struthers' body fell in the realm. It is a giant bag, laced on the outside with tendons and covered in warty protrusions, and greeny yellow in colour, atop a 10' tall black chitinous shell and pointed legs. Its about 25' long, it has no face or head.
The garou leap into action, but this creature is really fast. The thing leaps for Finn, who dodges out the way. The skin seems softest, so the pack concentrate there. Tillie leaps into its path and hands out an astonishing amount of damage to the bane, and is sprayed with acidic pus for her troubles. All 8 garou attack with great gusto, tearing holes in the bane while it stabs at them with its barbed legs. Tillie's attack has drawn a lot of attention and she starts to look quite ragged before Sinead heals some of the worst damage. Kasumi takes a flying leap to land on top of the bag part of the bane and claw away from up there. Kirsty smashes into the side as does Barry. Finn does a leaping rake across it and lands deftly on the far side, but doesn't do any damage. The spirit is looking extremely ragged when it suddenly winks out and vanishes. Sinead peeks to make sure it hasn't manifested in the realm, as that would be bad, but it does not appear to have done so, nor has the dead guy got up again. Sinead scans some of the bystanders to the fire, and none of them have been possessed. Chris says that he thinks it has used a reform charm and reappeared somewhere safe (for it) in the Umbra, but he approves of their double checking. Tillie has some brand new scars, but Sinead does heal the vast majority of the acid damage.
They compare notes with Chris and suggest that another cleansing is done to get rid of the tainted muck now sprayed all over the place. Also there's an entire factory out there, especially the coke machine. Chris sighs and agrees, but says that Sinead will have to come with them to the factory and learn as they show her. They do the rite here and she pays attention to what they are doing, and then chats with Chris about some details before everyone else whines that its hot and they want to go home. In the meantime, the out of control fire burns down the entire suburb. No, not really.
Some review of what happened with the wyrm spirit. It was clearly not a fomori in the usual sense if at all - while they've been told that banes can extricate themselves from a fomori bonding, its neither fast nor consequence free. And while banes and other wyrm spirits can possess people, its less what they saw with Struthers, and more a "monster on my shoulder whispering things" sort of deal. Perhaps that spirit was unusual, or rather less comforting, extremely powerful.
The pack have a bit of a sleep in after their long night. Finn and Sinead get up at some point and go vote, noting the extremely busy city. By midday, however, the BoM is issuing storm warnings for extreme thunderstorms and by 2.30, the whole thing has hit Melbourne extremely hard. Hail goes for about 15 minutes across the caern, and it rains good and hard for hours. Chunks of the city flood, outside events are disrupted, public transport is ruined and everything turns to chaos. Member of the sept are asked to help out in a few places where some of their contacts are in need of help. In the evening, the news is full of people being injured at Moomba, the roof at Southern Cross station collapsing, and election polling sites being flooded out and damaged. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Victorian_storms).
The news about the strange fire at Yarraville where a David Struthers died is basically pushed off the tv news and only appears as a couple of paragraphs in the papers. The pack cut it out and add to their scrapbook (no, not really)
Over the next week, Sinead and Finn learn the Rite of Cleansing by doing - Chris drags them around to all the sites that they have identified as in need of cleansing and teaches them as they do the ritual. The Rainbow Inc site is cleansed repeatedly; Chris expresses some surprise at the strength of the gauntlet at the site - its way beyond what it should be. He thinks the weaver spirits are symptomatic rather than a cause as they don't appear to be spiders. The coke machine and handsoap are cleansed easily. Struther's office is left to last as its the strongest place.
Struther's ruined house is cleansed. The contemplate the dumped barrels before they are removed. They can't really afford to pay for it, and the EPA is too toothless to do it. Maybe they could just take it back to Rainbow and dump it there - they probably have some way of dealing with the chemicals. They give some thought to dumping it on Chambers.. and in fact decide to do that. They cleanse him over night and dump barrels at his house with a typed note to clean up his mistakes or suffer the consequences. They resist the urge to buy him a pet so that he can grow to love it before murdering it. ("Sooo many puppies" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwMuuhEPaBU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeny9I7pYAU) The pack plan for stealing the monies back from the two Ridgeway drivers, although the reckon that Ridgeway himself will need all his for therapy from now on.
Cleaning up the rest of their Rainbow leads, they go to Toys'R'us and look for Rainbow products. They seem to make components for other people's products mostly, but they can find the icon on the cardboard packaging. Despite Tillie's attraction to the my little ponies, they sense for wyrm across products (that kid, yes, but toys, no). None of the items are wyrm tainted, but there is something about them. Its almost like an echo rather than a presence. The pack speculate that perhaps there was taint but now its gone? Something from the tainted site? Its less like a remnant and more like a hollow. They buy something and take it into the carpark to be destroyed (and not to spirit awaken it first) but there's nothing hidden in the toys like a seed. They take it to Emma at the Sept, and she's equally baffled as to what is going on. Maybe its just a tiny bit of taint with the aim to add a little bit of evil to kids each day. Tillie has the idea that because they defeated the bane that was possessing Struthers, that de-activated the wyrm goo in the toys.
As part of their brain dump back to Sept Elders, Cossack performs a rite of recognition for the pack to recognise their whacky exploits. ("We don't get any renown for restraining ourselves from kidnapping children or murdering budgies? The standards are higher than you might think"). Will is asked to pass the word back to Get septs about Rainbow inc so that it will make its way back to Frankfurt. Graeme says he'll try and pass the word back to Pittsburgh, but it'll be more a grapevine than a direct word back.
Once Sinead has got a taste for rituals, she starts learning the summoning ritual as well. Finn starts going to the gym as regularly as he can and quizzes Tillie for lore at the same time. He runs into Marion a fair bit at the gym too, as she is there the same sort of weird times that he is.
On the first Tuesday, Graeme finds Will and says that the Sept need that car back. Also a driver. Graeme gives him an address and says "this guy needs some errands run for a couple of days - he'll have a lot of things for you to do". Will meets Mr Casetti, a 70-something year old mostly bald Italian man with a cane who needs Will to pick up a boot load of ham. Mr Casetti yells that Will drives too fast. No, not that way! That will go past Cassini's house, I cannot be seen there! Idiot! Stupid! You drive too slow! That is not how you juice lemons! We go to my daughter's house, you will wait in the car! (Its still 30+ every day this week). Not those grapes! they are not ripe, they will sour my stomach! Will develops a significant eye twitch but resists the urge to frenzy tho he does yell back at Casetti, who bursts into a rant half in English half in Italian about disrespect of young people today.
During their time learning from the Get of Pennington, Sinead and Finn notice a tension amongst the 6 members of that pack. Its either post a big argument, or there's one about to start. Things like turning up and finding two of the other pack aren't really talking to one another. Sinead asks Chris about it, in case it was her causing it. He doesn't exactly brush her off, but he does instruct her to "don't worry about it" in a very direct sense. A day or so after that, Sinead notices that its not happening when she's around any more - its a deliberate effort on behalf of the other pack to be less awkward in her presence.
Aquinas finds Kasumi one day and asks about the car crash guy and what they've found out. She says they he hasn't got back to them. Aquinas stares at her a bit and then says that they'll follow it up then.. as much as they can a week late. Kasumi says they've been busy with the plastic dumping. Aquinas points out that he queried how busy they were when they said they would handle it.
Cossack finds Tillie and says he wants their pack to do a week of guard duty. She agrees pretty readily - it means that two pack members will be around all the time, and the rest can be summoned quickly. Given that they hang out around the area most of the time anyway its not a real stress. (Super Gran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtymNiYlSD4)
Georgina finds Will and says that Graeme said that he was looking for some work. She says she's doing a show, and it needs some stagehands. It doesn't pay well, and its short term, but its cash without questions. Its about a week of work, 5 hours of heavy lifting a night. Will says that it sounds workable, and thanks.
One night Tillie and Finn hear fighting in the caern in the Umbra. They creep toward it, and see quickly that all of the Get of Pennington are there - Chris and Kirsty are fighting in glabro. She taps Barry on the shoulder and asks what is going on. He says its pretty much what it looks like. "Who's winning?" *smack!* "Kirsty". Chris is knocked out and Kirsty is agreed to be pack leader now. The pack give the two garou the eye a bit until they leave and then there's some discussions amongst them. A day or so later Kirsty comes to find Tillie, and asks for her support to get the Sept to act against animal vivisection. Tillie agrees pretty casually, which seems to surprise but please Kirsty. When Tillie tells her pack, they are less than pleased - opinions are mixed, but Kasumi says that they should be concentrating on wyrm things.
When Wayne does not get back in contact with Sinead, they decide to go to his house and check it out just in case. He's there, and not still fucked up on drugs as far as they can tell. (Its only been a week so he still has a cast on it). He doesn't seem to have any particular taint on him - even the amount from the drugs has faded. In the Umbra, they can smell that other garou have been here - presumably Aquinas and his pack. Ahh. They decide to face up to their stuff up, and find Aquinas. Tillie apologises for dropping the ball on that topic - is there anything they can do? Will continues his monologue in the background about not being able to get any renown if they don't show up the other packs. ("Don't admit fault!"). Aquinas accepts her apology, but they've mostly sorted it at this stage. But, they do have a big long list of people that need to be cleansed. He gives them a list and Sinead and Finn get to spend the next few nights finding people and cleasing them. Tillie gets the low down on what was happening - apparently banes possessing dealers and tainting their speed. But there was a weird effect where the person who had bought it couldn't remember how they go it - they'd be people who might normally buy speed, but in this particular instance they couldn't recall the details, even under duress.
The pack are hanging out at a cafe in Lygon St eating gelato that evening when a large hand falls on Tillie's shoulder. The hand belongs to an enormous blonde man who is grinning. On the other side of Tillie a guy in a suit sits down - Tillie has met that guy once before, he's a Shadowlord at the other city sept or something, but she doesn't remember his name. "Can I help you?". The blonde guy says he hears that you young people have finally found yourself a pack? He introduces himself as Scott Rosen (crunching handshake), pack leader of the Steel Hunters of the Hidden Green Sept - he points at the suit and says "Claude" and over his shoulder at two other people watching and says "Tanya and Adam". Tanya is dressed in jeans and white shirt, Adam in cargo pants and tshirt. Uncomfortable pause. "So how did it all go?" "Why?" "Well, just wanting to say hello to other garou in town. I hear you're having some trouble thinking of same name?" There is some sniping back and forth and veiled making fun on the verge of turning a bit narky. ("Are you guys flirting?" "I think we're about to come to blows" "Its hard to tell the difference"). Claude tries to steal Will's pizza, and Will grabs his hand dead in the air. Claude makes some reference to "first choice to higher in station" and Will disputes that. Claude says he understands how the Get have trouble sharing - food, breathing space, that sort of thing. Some small talk about the storm - Scott reckons that it was a bit tainted, some of the spirit guys thought it was a bit tainted. They know nothing? He maybe should ask someone senior in their Sept.
Meanwhile back in the caern, Kasumi and Sinead are awkwardly making small talk.
"So what are you guys up to since you... did... whatever you did on your rite of passage?" "Oh what have you mean doing?" "We're looking for a fetish for our sept leader dreamt about... and well, if you're not busy, how do you feel about a bit of a friendly competition?". Scott basically challenges them to a, er, challenge. They know the fetish is in the Melbourne Museum - just not exactly where. If they feel up to the challenge, perhaps the... unnamed... pack could meet them in the Umbra at the museum at say, midnight? And it could be a bit of a race - first to find the fetish wins. Just to see who's best. Behind Scott, Adam hangs his head in a "oh no" sort of way. The Sleeping Lore pack point out that the Steel Hunters have an advantage, and Scott says if they don't want to particpate, he'll understand they're not up to it. The pack try and negotiate a head start, and Scott says "oh that's a noble story - how the.. whatever your name will be... pack took up a challenge with the renowned Steel Hunters, but only as long as they have a five minute headstart".
Scott makes a counter offer that the pack see what they can do instead. They're looking for a red gibbous moon thing. Adam says "Gold. Its gold". Scott gives him a look and continues "Gold gibbous moon amulet thing. We know its in the museum somewhere. And that's the end of our advantage. So if you show up, all good, if you don't, well, there's not much shame in declining a challenge offered in good faith, is there? Hope to see you there!"
The pack head back to the caern, and tell Kasumi and Sinead what happened. Kasumi sighs and says she knows Scott, he is very blustery. The garou talk about the situation a bit and wonder if they are being setup to fail. Kasumi tries their website to try and figure out if its a known object (no luck), or if they have a blueprint. She finds a map but its only of the public areas. They recall that Emma is an archaeologist at the uni and she might know some stuff about the museum. They tell her. She winces a bit when they mention Steel Hunters and all. Emma says she is concerned about lots of what they just said - she asks for details, and says that she is concerned about them breaking and entering the museum and getting caught. Emma asks why they said yes? Tillie says she hasn't, they just go the details, but she does want to show them up.
Emma says to show caution - they are interacting with another sept and they need to be on their best behaviour. Also don't get arrested. Basically she suggests that they shouldn't let Scott chivvy themselves into doing stupid things for no reason. She points out there is security through the building. There are archive areas on the site, unless its part of a display it will be in there somewhere, or off site at other storage locations. If it is a fetish, it is important to retrieve it especially if its in danger.
The pack chat about security - although Will and Kasumi suggest that it might be that once you're in the room (via the Umbra), then you're inside all the security, the others suggest that things that could be described as "priceless" might have a higher level of security than that. Will asks Kasumi if she can use any of her glasswalker powers to deactivate the technology in the area, and she says again that she can't do that. His only alternative plan is a more Shadowlord one, that they should let Scott get it then murder him, but that seems less than ideal.
Despite considering not bothering to be involved, being incredibly suspicious of the Steel Hunter's motivations and thinking about going to the aquarium instead, the pack decide to play. Will wonders if they shouldn't go to the Steel Hunter's sept and check its ok - the general feeling is that if they are that worried, they shouldn't get involved. Their major concern is about security at the museum, then their ability to find the thing. There's no real fetish radar, and its unlikely to have a glowing yellow exclamation point above it. ("If you bound a bane into your crotch, you could have a tainted taint"). Is there any way fire could help them with their search? Maybe if they start a fire, the security guards will leave? They contemplate summoning a spirit to help them find it? Maybe a gibbous moon spirit if it is a gibbous moon shaped object? Sinead suggests actually given it is a theurge moon at the moment, that might be a better spirit - theurge moons being associated with things like rituals like fetishes and also with dreams like what the other sept leader had about the fetish. That seems like a great plan except that they don't have that ability. They give some brief thought about what chiminage to offer (no, not silver, that's a dangerous idea) and then knock on Emma's door and ask her to do the summoning for them. She listens to their argument (its this or burn down the museum) and chiminage to offer and agrees, leading them into the Umbra. Sinead watches intently as Emma performs the ritual, looking for pointers.
An hour later, a brighter line of moonlight cascades down from the moon, and surrounds the pack. The lune communicates empathically rather than with actual words. Sinead explains to the spirit that they need help tonight finding a moon-shaped fetish from the Umbra. She offers her dreams - more specifically to make a dreamcatcher from silver (coloured!) wire, mirrors and white quartz and to put it in her room where she sleeps most days to honour the spirit. The spirit indicates that it is mostly positive to this request, but manages to convey that it would like each of the pack members to contribute some of their spiritual energy as well. Everyone agrees. The spirit emotes positively and fully; it zooms around the pack for a while.
Emma delicately suggests that they do not ask the lune to investigate the museum until the challenge has begun - it would not be in the spirit of the process to do otherwise. Some private discussion about sticking to the unspoken rules of the challenge vs being an evil shadowlord and picking on the technicalities. ("Hamish, don't throw sand at other people!" "ok!" *hurl sand at himself*) Also, for what its worth, causing Scott to frenzy and running away is not a viable method for honourably participating in the challenge. Harrassing them a bit is fine to get an edge in the challenge, but actually putting people in danger seems perhaps dishonourable. Will wonders whether they would keep the fetish if they find it. While that might be argued to be a valid approach technically (and certainly something you might expect at a more competitive sept), it doesn't really gel with Emma's "don't antagonise people for no good reason" directive. Tillie demonstrates her Shadowlord nature by suggesting that the Steel Hunters could buy it back for a favour. They are still deeply suspicious of Scott's motives. ("The best case scenario is that they win, and hold it over our heads for the rest of time. The worst case scenario is that we get arrested." "I think the worst case scenario is we burn down the museum with us in it").
They pack run off to the Museum. The spirit lurks around them, subtly illuminating the ground around them with brighter than should be moonlight. In the Umbra, the new Museum building is very shiny and weavery, but there is an odd fresh smell and the occasional excited spirit rushing past as well. The unnamed pack is met by Scott and the other... five... members of Steel Hunters - Ben and Follows-the-Moon are introduced, and Kasumi and Sinead are introduced to the Steel Hunters. Sinead takes this chance to shake hands with Scott and Claude, intending to use her Scent of Sweet Honey gift as soon as possible. Scott seems happy to see them, and reiterates the terms of the challenge - at midnight they rush in and the first ones to find the fetish win the challenge. At midnight, the Steel Hunters sprint into the building. The unnamed pack saunter in after them, and when they head inside, Sinead asks the spirit to go hunting. It shoots off.
The pack saunter around the museum, waiting for the spirit to return. They hear the other pack sprinting about the place from time to time, crashing through doors to open them. Will, leading ahead in lupus form, picks up Sinead's smell crossing the corridor ahead of them. Which is weird, because she's behind them. Clearly the Steel Hunters are messing with them. They find some of the doors are jammed shut as well - Tillie uses "ahroun magic" to open them again. Hypocritically for people that have cursed the other pack with bugs, they bad mouth Steel Hunters for trying to mess with them as well.
They examine the museum some more - its clearly a place of order (categorising and defining things) but also meant to be somewhere that inspires wonder too. This is reflected in the Umbra by the shiny weavery nature of the walls and other surfaces, but they do get little frissons of what sort of feels like excitement - fresh air, or sparkles, or something like that. They briefly contemplate looking at the room full of dinosaurs and such, but decide to leave that to the way out, and stay focussed.
The spirit returns in a short time and expresses it cannot find what they have asked for. This seems odd - maybe its not here, or the thing is hiding or it can't go places that are dark? So they decide to concentrate on the archive area, and walk around with the lune. The random howls from the other Steel Hunters mostly stop tho the pack think they hear an "uhoh", and then spot a lupus sprinting madly along a high balcony from a distance.
While wandering around the spirit lurks at a spot and expresses some confusion. ("yeahnah - the most emphatic 'no' you can get in Australia"). The pack peek - its dark. Oh. There's some really faint exit lights and the like, but they aren't really any help when peeking through from the Umbra. Maybe some drawers? They speculate - if its there, how long will it take to get it out? Oh yeah, don't have to dedicate a fetish. They try and get more info from the spirit - maybe its a past sense? Perhaps it was here? Kasumi is chosen to head to the realm on the grounds she has ragabash powers. Finn keeps peeking. Kasumi hasn't appeared after a couple of minutes when Finn says that he can see something clinging through the furniture, about the size of a cat. It seems unlikely any of the staff would leave their pet there, so they take steps(tm). Finn leaps through the gauntlet in hope that he will get there before Kasumi while Sinead takes over peeking.
Synchronicity - they appear at the same time, and move slightly. All the fluroscent lights start to fire up - they are probably motion sensor based. Now Finn can see the thing that was moving on the furniture - its about possum or cat sized, it has wings and has skin all the same colour, kind of a stoney grey. And it leaps at him. Sinead reports on the exciting events she can make out - "oh its not a cat. Its kind of stone grey, like a small gargoyle. Oh, its going them". Tillie and Will leap through the gauntlet together in response, leaving Sinead to peek on her own.
Finn gets a stone monster thing to the face - it has bulgy eyes, a vaguely humanoid shape and most importantly pointy teeth and claws. ("Maybe this is what the fetish is in danger from?" "Maybe its inside the creature?") Kasumi leaps to help and then another one falls out of the air conditioning vent to attack her, but misses. Finn punches the creature in midair, which seems to damage it, but also hurts his hand - it is like hitting stone, so calling it a gargoyle is not inappropriate. Kasumi grabs one by the legs and neck, pinning it pretty well.
Will and Tillie appear in the realm and evaluate the situation. Finn is swerving out of the way of little demonic thing attacking him, and Will snatches it out of the air, pinning it. Now that the two stone things are pinned, the garou are able to easily dispatch them. When they are pulled apart, the bits of creature crumble a bit at the edge of the breaks, but they are left with a frozen stone shape that is kind of hollow. ("Like many things it dies when its head is pulled off"). They can hear more inside the air conditioning - Tillie and Will wait for them, while the others hunt through drawers and look for the fetish.
Will can hear one coming closer through the air vents, but others further away. Its not like aliens with hundreds running through the vents toward them, its more like individual ones hunting through. Will waits in glabro with a hand either side of the vent and as the next monster sticks its head through, he snatches it by the neck and pulls it right out. He tries to communicate with it (Finn tries beast speech too), but it just struggles to try and escape, so he pulls the head off this one too. ("Does security know these things are here?");
Meanwhile in the Umbra, Sinead tries to get more info out of the spirit. It still conveys here but not here, but its no more precise than that. Her best impression is that it used to be here but isn't now - at least with this being a new building, its not like its been 60 years ago.
Finn and Kasumi pull out drawers one at a time and look at the items that are laid out there. Zip... no. Zip... no. Zip.... no. Kasumi is getting a good idea of how the layout is happening and is moving through drawers faster. She stops because she can hear a lupus run down the corridor, and then a beep and a series of human footsteps. The steps skid to a halt. Kasumi jestures wildly to Tillie to pin the door, which she does by changing to crinos and gently leaning against it. They hear beeping, and then something pushes the door. Then beeping again, and pushing. Then steps run off again.
Figuring they are on a time limit now, they pick up the pace - Kasumi pulls out a drawer and spots a gold gibbous moon. She looks at the card entry associated with it. Its a greek item. From Greece. She tries to attune to it, but has no luck. She checks the drawer for more of them, but this is the only thing in this and the next two drawers that matches the description. Its definitely not a fetish - maybe Steel Hunters have been here and replaced it already? There's no smell of Steel Hunters here, but someone has accessed this drawer in the last week or so - a male scent, which also exists in this room in a couple of other places.
Maybe its a spirit that has gone dormant? Seems not too likely, but the best way to give it gnosis might be a rite of dedication anyway, and if this is a fake that will allow them to take it anyhow. Finn starts the ritual sitting down against the drawers. The others here a lupus howl... wait, that one was in the realm. Oh dear. The others try and be ready for things going wrong. Another gargoyle thing sticks its head out of the air conditioning, so Will grabs it. He has it pinned and is demanding it cooperates when another one drops out of the vent onto his head. Kasumi leaps to help as the monster cuts a big slice across Will's forehead and blood and a flap of skin fall into his eye ("its not a real session until Andrew botches a roll"). Kasumi tries to haul it off his head, but its all caught in his hair and fur. Meanwhile, in the Umbra, Sinead chooses the pina colada.
Will whirls around the gargoyle he has by its tail and smashes the one on his head with it. Sadly being hit in the head with a lump of stone is a bit stunning, as well as loud. Tillie sighs and gets Kasumi to guard the door in case of guards, then grabs the gargoyle on Will's head. She can't seem to pull it off - its way slipperier now its all covered in blood. Will changes to crinos and starts to try and grab the one off his head but there's so much blood and madness now that he's not having an enormous amount of luck.
New footsteps in the corridor, and beeping of the swipe lock. Kasumi leans against the door solidly as a guard pushes against it. "Who's in there!" while Will is trying not to yelling, and wrestling with two gargoyles (muttering: "its in my hair! i can't seeeee!"). Finn is distracted by all these shennanigans and loses control of his ritual. He opts to start again, trying to concentrate. There is a warbled sound - like a guard on a radio. There is some thought of just flipping to lupus and running for it. Tillie wrenches the stone creature off Will's head, taking chunks of skin and hair with it. The two combat wombats manage at this point to pull them to pieces, leaving them with yet more mishapen pieces of stone.
The guard is yelling about being in room D, and being sure there's people here, but its clear that he's being told to go somewhere else in the building. Finn's ritual continues - at least its dedication and mostly internal. In the Umbra, Sinead can hear more howls - arrooo, aroooo, woooo! - so presumably the Steel Hunters are causing havoc. Suddenly the door bursts open and Scott runs in - "AHA! Oh hi." Scott is swarming in spiders, running across his face and on his jacket. His eyes go a bit pearly and he looks a bit surprised at whatever he can see in the Realm. "Just a minute" and he heads back out the door in the Umbra. She can hear some whispered conversation and then "Why are they dedicating it?" The door opens and Scott and Adam stick their heads in, peek and then stop. Scott says "see?" and they look baffled and close the door again.
Will opts to head into the Umbra and get Sinead to patch up his head. Sinead is a bit shocked at his appearance "Where are the others, and where is the rest of your face?". She tries to bully him into being Mother's Touched at the threat of being omega in the pack but he refuses, so Sinead just pokes the wounds. Ben comes skidding around the corner, saying "Sooooo oh they got here first." His pack look at him accusingly "What!? It was hard to find". Everyone stares at Will and finally Sinead heals him to stop it. Claude shows up with a swarm of mosquitos, scratching and swearing in french, which seems to amuse Scott.
Tillie brings everyone into the Umbra, and they point out that this golden thingie is not a fetish. There's confusion all around. Scott asks if they are trying to fake the Steel Hunters out. Everyone is caught up on why Will is bleeding and other recent events. Adam asks to have a look at it, and says that its exactly what Felix described. Tillie grabs it back and puts it on, but Sinead asks to borrow it and shows the spirit. The spirit emotes that that is not the thing, and they can't seem to make it understand the question "did it use to be?"
Adam says that they should take it back and see Felix. The two packs head back through the gauntlet somewhere safe and head for the Sept of Hidden Green, which is at 101 Collins St. The Steel Hunters appear to have special swipe cards and combinations for getting into the building and using the lift to a particular floor. The lift takes all 11 of them all the way up to a very high floor. Sinead asks why there's no lift music. Tanya says Scott killed it.
When the doors open, it is into an arboretum. Grass, trees, moist humus smell, the sound of water and the rustle of alive things. There is also a large greyish white crinos figure waiting for them as the door opens. The garou has only one functional arm - the other is barely vestigal and his spine is twisted into a hump. Scott introduces them as "the pack without a name" from Sleeping Lore, and this new garou is Robert Red-Dust-Plain, the Keeper of the Land at the Sept (rank 3 Metis Ahroun Child of Gaia). Robert flows to homid form and welcomes the pack, though its clear in his expression he doesn't know why the fuck they are here.
Scott gives him a rundown and shows him the golden pendant. Robert says he'll wake Felix up, and goes to a well hidden phone to call him ("Scott's here, kind of with the fetish, you should come up"). Lift comes up and opens, revealing a tall man in his 40s, wearing black satin pyjamas and a dressing gown. He is introduced as Felix Bertrand, the Sept Leader (Rank 4 homid theurge Glasswalker).
Felix is given the lowdown, and he confirms that it is the item that he dreamt of, even down to some of the scratches. Felix goes off to do theurge things for a little bit. There's some idle chit chat while they awkwardly wait. ("Tout est araignée"). When Felix returns he says that this is not now nor has it ever been a fetish. They talk about the whole event - Felix thinks that the stone things were some sort of materialised bane, but does agree that they were clearly hunting the fetish. Or the not-fetish anyway. The lune that the packwithnoname had got to help them seemed to think maybe the fetish had been there, and someone appears to have made a copy.
Scott says they can keep looking, its under control. Felix says he's going back to bed then. The lift opens and Christine Elliot emerges. She says hello to Felix and then gives the pack the eye. Will asks if the challenge is over, and Scott says that technically the challenge was to find the fetish and as no one has, technically its still on. Tillie makes some disparaging comments and Scott says he understands if they have peaked and now want to go home and rest with some warm milk or something. Will says that as a philodox, he would judge... Scott to be correct, leading to some greasy stares from his pack members. Scott suggests they could take it up after dark tomorrow - they probably shouldn't go back to the museum right away anyway. Christine's expression is briefly horrified. Scott says that its on, tomorrow after dark, unless they pike, er decide to not to continue. ("no one should be more concerned about my bowel movements than me").
In the lift, there's a certain amount of sighing from Christine. ("Christine's a philodox" "So she will agree that the challenge isn't over". "Oh, sorry, braino, she's a theurge." "So she will agree that you are a traitorous fucker"). They ask what the problem is and Christine says that the two septs are very close to one another, and interfering in another Sept's business tends to be .. unfortunate in outcome. Tillie points out that they were invited, and Christine understands that. Its not that what they are doing is bad, it just has the potential to go badly. Tillie says that's because she's going to tear Scott's arms off and feed them to Claude. Christine suggests that they don't speak ill of other Garou outside of their pack. Her main concern seems to be that they don't cause friction - a lot of effort is spent making sure the two septs coordinate things and don't clash, and she'd like to make sure that effort is not wasted. ("All I'm hearing is 'as you were, but next time don't bee them'"). Tillie says she'll do the best she can to not unnecessarily antagonise them. Christine says that their sept is quite relaxed, but other septs and tribes are a bit more insistent on formalities, and even that can be a problem.
Christine drives them back to Sleeping Green, not home. Oh. Graeme, Cossack and Ian are waiting for them in Graeme's kitchen ("Oh good, mum's told us off, and now its dad's turn") and adding 5 more people makes it very tight. The pack give the a brief rundown of what they encountered. Cossack gives them a bit of history - 20 years ago, there was a lot of issues with the relations between Hidden Green and Sleeping Lore. There was a lot of antagonism, a lot of ignoring each other, a bit of fucking each other's shit up, a lot of missing stuff because there wasn't coordination. In the time since, a lot of effort has been put toward making it work. He says that he knows Scott invited them in, and its all in fun, but don't stuff up 20 years of work. "Yesss Mr Cossack". "Stop that". They're not in trouble, but don't make "got into a nasty fight with another sept" the second thing that they do as a new pack. Once that has been explained, they're asked for a more indepth description of what happened.
Graeme asks about the thing they fought - they're calling them gargoyles for convenience. He asks about what was left behind, and points out that blood, fur/hair, rubble and warped rock left in a room where there was possibly some sort of breakin, and definitely a theft is perhaps the sort of evidence that builds up. Its not that they Absolutely Need to Fix It right now, but this is the sort of evidence that can start to link the pack up with lots of different strange events over time and they should be aware of it in the future.
Finn decides he has had enough for the night and goes home, but the others think that if they can slip the fake pendant back tonight easily, it might help remediate some of what the Elders were talking about. They get back there and peek from the Umbra. All the lights are on! There are police cars! There are policemen in suits! There are other people that might be museum officials. There are people wondering about trying to figure out how the dogs get in. There are people looking at video of some teenage boy sprinting along (good work Ben!). They don't appear to have twigged that anything was stolen as far as they can determine - the overheard bits the pack catch suggest that the feeling is that it was a prank, not really criminal. There is a guard in the room that they took the pendant from - it appears that people have investigated and taken stuff (like gargoyle remains), and left a museum guard to remain. There's a lot of greyish dust left behind, but its not the same volume as all the bits they left behind, so it hasn't all disintergrated at once but it might be on the the way.
The pack contemplate a number of deceptive options like tricking the guard, possibly as Kasumi poses as a museum staff member. They contemplate cleaning up after Steel Hunters, but decide to leave it to the other pack. They don't have a lot of "cover our tracks" powers ("summon a bleach spirit!") so they decide not to interfere much. They opt to wait and see if the activity dies off, and after 30 minutes things do seem to be winding down. There are two cop cars stationed nearby, with cops in them ready to go. The guard in the room is relieved and the security go back to their normal routine, though presumably with a bit more alertness than usual.
Once they are satisfied that the guards will not be there for a bit, Kasumi bamfs into the room from the spirit world. The lights come on as soon as she moves. She replaces the pendant carefully, and then bamfs out. Nope. Deep breath and calm. She tries to find her spirit nature and suceeds this time, returning to the spirit world. Another succesful plan executed.
After a long sleep-in, the pack reassembles at the Sept and discuss whether, in the light of the concerns of the elders, they should continue. The feeling is probably, so they consider their options. They can't questing stone the fetish (no name for a start), but they could try and get a name for the scent that had been in the room and in the drawer, and go from there. Its really their only lead at this point, but Tillie isn't keen on how tenuous it is. There's some thought of going back during the day and following the smell, but that's dangerously close to cheating. Maybe they can get a spirit to track the smell through the museum and then out and beyond? They realise during discussions that at no point did anyone sense wyrm on the gargoyle things at all. They need to do that as a matter of course really, its a habit they should build.
The opt to go and talk to Ends-the-Quiet about the gargoyles. He is, as usual, in the Umbra and in lupus form. They give him a rundown of their issue. He agrees that assuming that they are banes is perhaps not right. The description ("mobile stone") is outside of the normal fleshy forms that banes make for themselves when manifesting. Tillie expresses some concern that this is the second unusual thing that they've encountered - the Struthers-bane thing was not normal either, and she's worried about a pattern of new or unusual wyrm things. Assuming that the gargoyles are wyrmy. Ends-the-Quiet suggests that as the apocolypse approaches, there are more and more wyrm things. Will says that while they were mindless, they were also looking for something, and being directed - that suggests something or someone sentient behind them. Ends-the-Quiet suggests that perhaps someone has forced a spirit into a material form? Perhaps a bane, perhaps an elemental shaped according to their preconceptions? Perhaps its another Garou after the fetish? (some brief thoughts that maybe Steel Hunters are setting them up, but that seems ludicrous).
So, the pack shows up at the museum at 9pm and Steel Hunters show up a moment or two later. Scott seems happy they showed up, and says that Claude thought they weren't coming. Tillie says that to show there's no hard feelings, he should shake hands with Sinead. Claude gives them a disgusted look. They establish the rules for the challenge are the same and GO! Steel Hunters run off - the pack yell at Ben that he should watch out for cameras and then run off themselves. The pack run to the archive room and Sinead peeks well. She picks up the scent they found last night - its a bit muddled bcause people have been in and out, but they can track it. They opt to not take a chance and to try and follow it along versus leaping from her to the desks and things and trying to find it there.
Will remembers to peek and sense wyrm - there's some sense of wyrm on the dust, but its not very strong, or super active. Not what you'd expect from a bane at all, so that's another nail in that theory. Maybe a bane put into a normal statue? Lets look at garden warehouse places - next it might be evil gnomes.
The scent has two directions from his room - Sinead follows one and Will follows the other. Sinead's scent thread leads them out into public areas of the museum, and from there up some back stairs toward some office areas. Will's goes back to the public areas and wanders about a bit before heading to the cafe part (harder to follow with all the food scents) and moves toward the far end of the museum. While they are following it around, they hear Tillie's howling, with a sort of summoning tone to it. The garou with Tillie look confused, but Kasumi howls back. So, Tillie howls "no I'm here" sort of howl. Tillie howls "come here!". Tillie howls in more aggro way. Tillie howls "ignore that shit". Kasumi is really concerned about which Tillie is which. Tillie howls something that conveys "cut that shit out or I'll cut you". Ah, that's the right one - Kasumi and Will keep hunting scents. ("check we need a password").
Sinead heads towards a desk that has a strong scent on it. From looking about the desk they gather that the owner is Arthur Thackery, and he appears to be a conservator of some sort. Part of the staff, not an admin guy. Tillie howls "get your butts here or I will put you in the ground", which Kasumi correctly assumes is the real Tillie. They all get together. Will senses wyrm on the desk - there doesn't appear to be any. ("I had a dream about zombies and they were all pooing"). Despite an urge to try and mess with the Steel Hunters, they decide instead to go straight out of the museum. They find somewhere to step and do a Questing Stone for Arthur Thackery. The ritual leads them about 10km eastish, so they leap into Kasumi's car and head off.
A few more performances of the rituals lead them to a house in Hawthorn. Its an older area - not quite terrace houses, but older long and thin houses (this kind of area - Hawthorn). Sinead peeks on the way past and finds nothing significant. They find somewhere to step and find that the houses are sufficiently old that the two worlds match up pretty closely. Everything looks pretty normal, no pools of wyrm stuff, and no giant pillars of tentacles into the sky.
Someone peeks, and they find a guy in his late 30s packing. Not in a "my good they are coming for me!" sort of way - it looks like he's moving house. He's got curly hair and is a bit light on for chin. He's a touch more wyrmy than usual, but not a huge amount. They sniff about - there's a second smell here, a female one. She's clearly living here but does not appear to actually be here. Stuff is all messed up, large boxes half full of things, empty shelves, etc as they appear to be moving. ("Why is he leaving now?" "Maybe he's already replaced everything else in the museum, its all fakes". ) There are no pets.
They could sit and watch, but the Steel Hunters are probably not far behind so they can't really take too long. People try and think of sneaky ways to deal with the guy - distract him out and then look around? Pretend to be mormons? Beat one of the pack and tell him that her husband beats her? Distract him outside then lock the doors? The major problem is that half to two thirds of the house is packed already, and given he's doing something dodgy, its probably also hidden. ("we should start a fire nearby...") They try and find out the name of the woman living here but no one can see well enough through the gauntlet. In the end while Finn keeps an eye out for surprise arrivals outside, the rest of the pack step into the kitchen, sneak up on him with a green bag, hood him with it and pin him to the ground. He struggles and yells a bit, but is somewhat muffled by the bag and a large glabro hand.
Will activates his persuasion and truth of gaia gifts and says "We need to talk to you about the pendant you took from the museum". Arthur stops struggling and yelling. He tries to disemble a bit, but the details of the pendant put an end to that. Arthur folds under 10 seconds of threats and says that he doesn't have it. They push him about where it is, he says he can get it. Tillie starts to crush his arms back but slips a bit. Thackery adjusts his position a bit but doesn't try to escape. Will says "this is how it will work - you will give us the name of the person that has it, tell us how to find them, and you will not hear from us again. If you lie.. " Tillie in glabro - "You and your lady friend will never be found again". Arthur gets less sure about his position. He says his girlfriend Susan has it - he can call her and get her to bring it back. She's just at a party. Will asks if someone asked him to take it, and he says puzzledly "no". Why did he take it? Just for the money - there's a guy in Brisbane who would buy it. Arthur apologises if he took something that belonged to them. Will asks if there have been other things, Arthur says no, which is a lie. ("don't lie to me Anthony" "ARTHUR!" "Now you know why Adam said 'gold!' constantly"). They press him on it and it turns he's taken a few things and replaced them with fakes.
They steal his phone and ring 'Susan'. A voice answers with loud music behind. Arthur asks when she's coming home. She says she's having a good time and wasn't going to go for a while. Arthur says its an emergency - he's locked himself out of the house. Susan seems less than impressed and grudgingly says she'll come home as soon as she can before hanging up abruptly.
The pack tie Thackery up mostly with his own packing tape and a blanket and put him into a spare room on a wheely chair tho there is a brief dalliance with the idea of putting him a packing crate and making Ridgeway take him to Brisbane.
In an effort to not jump any random person coming down the road, they look around for photos of Susan and find that they have not yet packed them. She looks younger than Arthur, maybe late 20s when Arthur is late 30s, and a bit more stylish in the photos (less scruffy). Other than that she's a generic blonde white woman. Finn lurks in lupus out in the street waiting for the arrival of Rider.
Will suggests that she will be expecting Anthony (ARTHUR!) out the front of the flat, so they need a narrative when she arrives that won't make her too suspicious. In the end they opt for light off, front door locked (partly so Susan makes some noise with keys on arrival and thusly gives them a warning), no sign of Arthur as if he has gone to the shops, and Will and Tillie will wait either side of the door. If she turns around and leaves without going in, or manages to bolt away from her assailants, Finn can be waiting behind her to chase her into the house. A flawless plan!
Kasumi has some questions for Thackery, so her and Will take Thackery's gag off, and asks him some questions - he seems pretty cooperative. He made that thing because he'd studied it, and kept photos to use as a reference. Thackery burnt the copies of the photos after he'd made it. He doesn't think that it would stand up to close inspection - he's made a cosmetic copy not a precise one and things like isotope levels and metal purity will show it to be modern if anyone looks. Why has Susan got it? She found it, didn't realise it was stolen, and wanted to wear it, they had had a fight already that night so he just said yes. The pack consider him whipped. They mess with Thackery a bit, doing things like reading out his new address (also in Brisbane) in a threatening way.
Meanwhile, in the Umbra and still peeking, Sinead hears something unusual. Its a whispering sound. Voices whispering. She figures that its probably Steel Hunters and says "I know you're there". She hears a thump. She says it again louder. Someone says "fuck it" and Sinead can hear a running scrambled approach. Sinead stops peeking, glances at Scott and Tanya, shoves her mirror into her own face and steps into the Realm, flipping them the fingers as she leaves.
She appears in the corridor, and swears. She tells Tillie what's going on. Tillie peaks and can see Scott's butt as he moons her. ("oh look, taint"). She can see Steel Hunters moving around - some go out, some appear to be peeking around. When they've looked about, they head outside. The unnamed pack consult about what is likely to happen - if Steel Hunters see their preparations, they will probably draw the conclusion that Rider has what they want, and take steps. Then it might become a bit of a tussle. In a terribly prophetic statement, Tillie says "how hard can it be to get a pendant off one girl?"
As she's now in the Realm, Sinead starts a Rite of Questing Stone to get an idea of where Rider might be. Finn is watching from the other side of the street when he sees a car pull up, and a young woman emerge, slamming the door pretty heavily. She starts walking down the road angrily toward the house. Finn bark/howls "here" in garou tongue. The rest of the pack hear that, as does Rider - she slows down a bit and cuts off the road and onto the footpath, then speeds up, walking quickly to her door. When she goes in the light Finn can see a shiny pendant around her neck. He then spots a bit of a flicker further down the street, and can see people appear in a shadow. They start to sprint toward Rider. Finn runs onto the road, using the cars as cover, and attemps to intercept by surprise leaping the cars.
Will, having heard the howl, looks out the front window to see what is going on, but can't see much with trees and other houses blocking his field of vision.
Finn picks up speed and then leaps when he judges is most appropriate to crash tackle. He leaps smoothly and lands on his feet... right in front of Follows-the-Moon, who lowers one shoulder and just ploughs through Finn. Ben swerves slightly and keeps running.
Kasumi spots Finn running down the street and assumes something has gone wrong. She opts to rely on the latent xenophobia in Melbourne to not be well recognised as a Japanese girl and runs out the door in homid onto the street. Will sighs, takes off his shirt and wraps it around his head, makes a mental note to dedicate a balaclava, heads out into the street.
Finn tries to take after Ben, but has trouble regaining his balance after being firmly slammed. Kasumi can see Ben sprinting along the street toward the womans he assumes is Rider and yells "look out! run!". Rider, rather predictably turns to look at what is behind her. Ben actually slows down a bit when this happens, not sure what to do. Kasumi runs toward Rider. Follows-the-Moon bowls Finn over as she runs past and toward the confrontation. Kasumi reaches Rider, says "sorry!" and attempts to grab the necklace, and instead tears half of Rider's shirt off. Will spends rage and sprints down toward this impending disaster. Tillie changes to lupus and heads out the door too. Kasumi grabs at Rider again, who leaps back out the way. Finn tries to dodge around Follows-the-Moon to catch Ben. Follows-the-Moon takes steps to stop this happening, and leaps on Finn, pinning him nose-down into the ashphalt.
Will grabs Rider's pendant and then tries to break the chain (botch #1, and 30s of uncontrollable laughter from the GM), but it is surprisly resilient, and instead he pulls Rider's head down such that her head intersects Kasumi's nose. Will rips the pendant off over her head rather than taking the chance that the next screwup will decapitate her. He shoves the pendant in his mouth and everyone cheeses it, including the Steel Hunter members who only just made it through the gauntlet for the ends.
The pack make it back to their car and decide to discreetly leave the suburb. While Kasumi drives, Will attunes to the fetish. There is a shadow spirit bound within the crescent moon, and when activated, it will thoroughly hide people at night - sight, sound and smell - for a short time. He gets a sense that the spirit has been dormant for a while. Now what to do with the fetish? There is some mumbling about maybe keeping the fetish and making Steel Hunters come and get it from Sleeping Lore, but Finn reminds them about the "non-agitating" part of every discussion they've had with the Elders. In the end, they decide that the socially acceptable in-your-face-ness would be to take the fetish back to Hidden Green before Steel Hunters make it back.
They are heading back along the Eastern freeway, and drive under Chandler Highway when Finn and Will spot something moving along the bottom of the bridge. It drops off the bridge, spread wings and soars towards the car. They yell that there's a gargoyle, and Kasumi tries some evasive manuevers against a thing she can't see. Something smashes into the roof and it dents in by more than a few inches as she swerves into the far left lane (fortunately they are in a traffic lull on this side). Tillie sees the shape bank wings and turn to come back again - its much, much bigger than the things that attacked them at the museum, a bit larger that a person, and then a huge wingspan. Kasumi yells as another thing flaps ponderously up out of the valley next to the freeway. People are yelling to stop so they can get out. Will demands guns. Kasumi yells at Will to step sideways as he has the fetish, they will get him later. He grabs his mirror and shifts.
Kasumi tries for an emergency stop off the side of the freeway but the car slides. The gargoyle that came up over the edge of the freeway flies straight at the car. Just before they hit it, its wings flare and it stops dead in the air. Kasumi gets a good view of it - stony, like the things from the museum; better formed, more detail, especially teeth and claws - and then the two impact with great force and airbags. Tillie smashes her head into the seat in front of her, but everyone else is cushioned by the car's safety gear. The impact is far more like they have hit a pole than a thing flying in the air, pushing the engine back and wrapping sides inward.
A couple of cars on the other side of the freeway swerve into emergency lanes with their brakes on hard. The traffic behind them is catching up fast. The gargoyle wedged in the engine is dragging itself out with a screaming of metal. Tillie pops her door and gets out. Finn figures discretion is better part of valour and heads into the Umbra. Kasumi's door won't open and she opts to follow Finn into the Umbra, or rather the gauntlet (botch #2). Sinead's door is stuck too, but she follows Tillie out on the back passenger door. The other gargoyle is winging its way back to attack again.
Tillie runs and leaps over the edge of the bridge without really looking. She hits two large tree branches and splashes into the Yarra ("Close your mouth!"). Sinead decides to do the same, with a gargoyle right up her ass. It swipes her as she climbs over the edge of the barrier, knocking her off balance and over the edge (botch #3). Tillie is just wiping mud off her face as Sinead plunges onto her head (botch #4), knocking them both into the river. Once they recover, Tillie looks up and can see one of the gargoyles perched on the edge of the bridge, looking down to try and find them. Seeing as how they have laid down a reasonable baseline for the upcoming police interactions (people crashed the car and were seen running off), Sinead tries to take them to the Umbra, but can't seem to concentrate. Tillie grabs her by the arm and does it instead.
Will appears in the Umbra doing about 100km/hr without a car. He drops and his feet catch, and he starts to somersault access the landscape. The umbral freeway is like a giant scar across the landscape, with the black ashphalt-material like scab. Its covered in scummy, vaguely oily water. Feet, head, ashphalt, rank water, side, sliding, head, flip, crash. Ow. Will lays there for a moment or two, waiting for the various contusions to heal up a bit before looking to make sure that he's not about to be pounced on by something in the umbra.
He peeks back to the Umbra... or not (botch #5). Finn appears and they compare notes. Finn can peek, so he has a look around - he can see an empty car, and no sign of werewolves. Other cars have pulled up on their side of the road, and people appear to be on mobile phones. There are no signs of gargoyles either.
In the Umbra, they both hear a splash and then swearing from down the hill in the river. They look over the jagged edge of the umbral freeway, and see Tillie and Sinead hauling themselves out of water. People are worried about gargoyles (given there's no sign of them in the realm) and scan around, but can't see signs of them. Given there's no sign of Kasumi, Finn tries to hunt about in the gauntlet for her. The others are watching when suddenly he vanishes (botch #6). Will sighs and calls Tillie and Sinead to come up the slope.
They decide to send Will to the Sept, given its not too far away, and get some help (using the excuse that they need to know about the gargoyles urgently). In the meantime, Sinead peeks around and tries to find Kasumi and just general keep her eye on what's happening with the car.
At the Sept, Graeme listens with growing horror to Will's story before calling Emma. She catches up with him on the way back to get the car, and he gives her a run down of what happened too. She seems alarmed by the increase in gargoyle size, and from their apparent non-entry to the Umbra. On arrival, Emma rescues Kasumi and Finn from the gauntlet.
They chat with Emma as they head back to the caern and talk about the fact they were ambushed. There is some brief concern that Steel Hunters are involved, but something something accusing the other pack of wyrm taint is bad. Emma is worried that what they are facing are demons. She doesn't know if they are fire and brimstone sort, but that was what the theurge she was with called them when she ran into them once, many years ago. She remembers it being humans that make them - Tillie asks about werewolves and Emma says she's really not sure. She wants them to take the fetish back to Sleeping Lore for the moment, and then sort out getting it to Felix (possibly through the Umbra if the gargoyles aren't there).
At Sleeping Lore they brain dump, perhaps glossing over the assault on Rider in the street, but otherwise letting people know what happened. Graeme calls Hidden Green, tells them there was an intervention on getting the fetish back somewhere and sorts out transferring it later. Emma wants the pack to travel to some of the other Septs nearby and ask the theurges there questions - Grinding Stone (where Tillie and Will have spent some time prior to coming to Sleeping Lore) to speak with Malajimbarra, and Reconciliation at Healesville to speak to Phillip Bates. The pack ask some questions about these septs - Malajimbarra is an Uktena, and Reconciliation is a mix of Children of Gaia and Fianna.
That trip can wait til tomorrow - now is the time to establish an alibi for Kasumi and her car. The plan is to go to some venue in Richmond with Sinead and call the cops from there "my car has been stolen". They don't make it all the way when her phone rings and the cops are ringing to ask if she knows where car is. Kasumi maintains plausible deniability - "I'm just getting to it... oh its not here". She gets picked up by the police and has a good alibi about where she was and when she got there and delivers it casually.
The rest of the pack head back to Hidden Green and gloat, I mean, confirm that they have the right fetish and all. Scott concedes that they won both times, though if someone hadn't crashed into the door when they tried to grab Sinead, they would have had the drop on the pack. He's keen to do it again another day. The pack dump what happened to them on the Eastern Freeway and chat to Robert about it, and Emma's statement about them maybe being demons. Robert knows nothing about them, but says that he will talk to Felix and Stephanie Cusak (their Master of the Rite) about it; if they find anything out at the other Septs, please relate it back to Hidden Green.
The pack borrow a tarana van and drive off up into the hills. Their sept elders instructions aren't particular indepth - drive up, pay to get in, wander around until someone approaches you, you'd like to speak to Antoinette or Phillip, be nice. Will is a bit confused about this being the accepted way to approach the caern and sept; he's more used to howling in the Umbra from well outside the bawn, but Cossack points out that given there is so much human traffic that - like Sleeping Lore - they've got methods for dealing with it, and by paying for entry, it is a form of respect for the site.
On the way out to Healesville, the pack discuss garou society and how much more formal it is likely to be. They decide that now is the time to decide on a name - after a bit more squabbling (and nput from Hamish - "Adventure Team!" - and a side vote for "Its never lupus" or "We're owwwwl exterminators"), it comes down to a decision between Claws of Luna and Lost Prophets There's more love for the latter in the end, and so the Lost Prophets are born.
They arrive, and find that being a warm day in March, there are quite a number of people already arriving. They queue up and pay to get in, then wander around looking at animals - all of them are telling Finn that its hot, and they're hungry. Eventually they are approached by a guy in a staff uniform who asks if he can help them. They say that they're here to talk to see Phillip or Antoinette and he leads them away out of the public areas before introducing himself as Liam Boylan (Homid Fianna Theurge Fostern (rank 2)). Tillie does a semi-formal introduction of herself and her pack. Finn also makes a point of introducing himself as a fellow Fianna, which seems to bemuse Liam a bit. Liam raises his eyebrows at the variation of tribes in the pack a bit, but asks politely what they are hear for. The pack say that Cossack sent them here to talk to their Rite Master about some things that have happened in Melbourne. Liam says that Antoinette will be in the Umbra, and he'll take them to see her and then see if he can find Phillip.
Woooom to the spirit world, and then Liam leads them through rich smelling woodland and marsh to a gazebo (oh no!). A woman in the gazebo is introduced to them as Antoinette Cloak-of-Mourning, a Homid Child of Gaia Philodox Elder (rank 5) and the Sept Leader. Antoinette is quite tall, has long grey hair pulled back and is wearing a simple robe, but she has a distinct presence. She welcomes Lost Prophets to this Sept, and she says says that she notices their pack totem - pointing above them where Boobook has appeared - is the same spirit as one of the Sept totems here, making them even more welcome. Antoinette says is glad to see more contact, and better relationships between the septs - not that their relationship with the Cossack is poor. How can she help them?
Kasumi takes the initiative and gives her the run down about stone monster things which Emma thinks are demons. The rest of the pack chime in with detail and the story of the challenge and the fetish is told piecemeal. Antoinette says the fetish sounds like one that is called Phoebe's Veil. Another garou approaches - his skin appears to be hanging off him, grey and pallid, his eyes are partly clouded, and he is missing most of his hair and one ear, and having trouble walking. Antoinette introduces him as Phillip Bates (Homid Shadowlord Theurge Athro (rank 4)), their Rite Master, and introduces Lost Prophets and why they are here. Phillip listens impassively to their story (Finn covers all the details pretty well, and even manages to skim over the various stuff ups) and then asks questions in a broken voice: did the creatures leave any remanants; was there anything inside?. He says that he encountered humans that summoned these sorts of things at a jesture which they referred to as mages, but the creatures he fought were formed from whatever was at hand (including of a fire) rather than having a carved form. He does not know much more, this was a once-off encounter some decades ago. Sinead asks how they clashed with the mages and Phillip says there was a hole in the gauntlet that spirits were coming through, and the mages seemed interested in that - there weren't any survivors to ask details of. Why would they be interested in a fetish? Maybe its just spiritual power, even if they could not access the fetish directly. Will says "check, kill the problem". Phillip suggests that Malajimbarra might know more as the Uktena are known for their knowledge of various occult matters outside of the scope of the garou and spirits. The pack confirm that they are going their next. They thank the Reconciliation garou and head to Grinding Stone (after conceding to Kasumi's demands to feed the wombats and take photos of koalas, and giving Finn a chance to buy an owl t-shirt).
On the trip back across Melbourne to Grinding Stone there is some discussion about spirits and instances of over-arching spirit entities such as their boobook versus Reconciliation's boobook. They are both the same spirit but also different instances of that spirit - only theirs is likely to be called "Hunts the Lost", for instance. There is also Boobook, the overarching spirit father of all the boobook spirits. (Who is likely to be part of the brood of Owl, who is part of the brood of the Bird Animal Father, and so on). (distracted talking about dreams - "I'm so fucking majestic!" - Martian Successor Nadiesco, fuck those 6 fish in particular).
Tillie and Finn also give people a rough rundown of Grinding Stone before they arrive - its founded around a caern of Strength, there are 3 packs, one of Black Furies, one of Get and one of Shadowlords, the sept leader is Commands-the-Waters, a rank 4 lupus Silver Fang ahroun, and she manages to hold the very disparate packs together and keep them focused ("a subtle mix of psychology and extreme violence"). Neither of them have had much to do with Malajimbarra - Tillie spent some time with the Heralds of War (Shadowlords) and Will with Blood Claw (Get of Fenris) but neither of them were inducted into much of the daily life of the Sept (as they were still regarded as cubs). Even more so that at Reconciliation, they need to speak when spoken to, and otherwise keep their heads down.
The pack arrive just in time before someone is murdered in their game of "I spy" and pull up in the Brisbane Ranges national park's carpark. They find somewhere quiet and step, then howl to let people know they are hear. After a time they are approached by a 40 year old european woman and a nordic looking guy in just jeans with lots of tattoos that Tillie recognises as Sveta Dotashkoi and Hans Dieter from Heralds of War. They wait expectantly and Tillie says she is the pack leader of Lost Prophets. Sveta says "really. What do you want" - its less a question than a demand. Tillie says they are here to speak to Malajimbarra. "What about". "Demons". Pause. "Come this way". Sveta leads on, and Hans waits for them to pass - but as Kasumi goes to pass him, he deliberately crashes into her and tells her to watch where she's going. ("Are you a 'knob'? Tillie has told me about 'knobs' - she says all shadowlords are 'knobs'").
The Umbral hills are even steeper than the sudden rocky bushlands of the physical realm - they travel along steep-edged valleys, pushing their way through the undergrowth. They head toward a particular hill, and the pack can start to feel a rumbling under their feet. From a distance, they can see the hill looks like it moving - as they get closer its clear that there are constantly rocks falling down the side, from gravel size slides to body size boulders rolling down into the side of the hill and crashing into the underbrush at the bottom of the valley. They start to ascend this hill and spot several times that these chunks of rock are being pushed out of the ground, accompanied by the grinding, rumbling noise.
They finally reach a clearing of sorts near the top of the mountain and find a small number of Garou there, occupied with various tasks. Sveta leads them straight to a blond guy staring their way and says this is their caern warder, Huros Bathes-in-Blood (Homid Ahroun Get of Fenris Athro (rank 4)). Huros is of middling height, in his late 30s and has lots of tattoos, scars (deliberate and otherwise) and an angry look for them. Sveta says that they are here to ask Malajimbarra some questions. Huros asks who the pack leader is. Tillie formally introduces her pack members and herself. Huros asks what they want and Tillie says they are here to talk to Malajimbarra about demons. Huros says he will decide if they get to speak to Malajimbarra, explain more.
Now she has been invited to do so, Tillie gives more explanation about the demons and what they encountered. She says they've been to Reconciliation as well, and subtly compliments Griding Stone when she suggests that everyone said that Malajimbarra was the guy to ask. Huros looks at Sveta and says "Why are you still here?", and she leaves with her packmate. Huros asks some questions about events, mostly centred on whether the demons pose a threat to Grinding Stone, whether they might have followed Lost Prophets here. Tillie says that they were chasing a fetish and that it is now protected at Hidden Green. Huros seems satisfied and directs them to Malajimbarra, further around the mountain.
They find Malajimbarra crouching in front of a declivity in the side of the mountain. He is looking their way, and says that he heard them speaking to Huros (despite it being some distance away, and the noise from the caern is not muted particularly). He waits for Tillie to do the formal greeting (with extra doses of respect) and then does the same (Homid Uktena Theurge Athro (rank 4)). Malajimbarra is an aboriginal guy in his 50s, broad across the face with grey hair and beard, with a fair number of tattoos that seem to be be all linked together. Tillie tries on the flattery again, indicating everyone so far has said to come visit him. Finn tells the story of everything that happened, and Malajimbarra asks questions. He's interested in whether there were any humans around (other pack, security guards the first time, there might have been someone on the bridge where the gargoyles leapt from) and whether they were wyrm tainted at all (they forgot to check). So its unclear whether the demons were being directed, or were following instructions. They tell him Phillip's information as well. Malajimbarra appears to be considering something, and then says if they will put themselves in his debt, he will provide them some information. Tillie asks for a moment to discuss and they step away a bit - Kasumi says they're not really asking for a favour, she's a bit taken aback, but Will says that this matter doesn't really affect Grinding Stone and they are asking for help from a Sept elder. Finn points out the information might cost Malajimbarra in some fashion. And owing people favours is generally how things get done between garou - it tends to be more immediate (do this and i'll do this) than "in my debt". Tillie decides that its probably fine, and it shows good will to go with it.
They tell him yes, and Malajimbarra says "follow". He changes to lupus and leads them away roughly north, running for at least an hour and a half through the spirit world. He changes to homid and leads them into the physical realm in the middle of a bush landscape. A short walk brings them to a run down wooden shack, maybe 10' long, with a scattering of other artifacts around. The broken sign above the door says "ger:Const". Malajimbarra heads inside and cautions them to watch the gaping hole in the floor. He bangs on some bits of metal and squats, waiting. ("you must throw one of your packmates into the hole" "Will" "Oh i thought it was Sinead for sure" "hey!" "I honestly thought it was going to be the lowest strength" "no, its captain botch over there").
After around 10 minutes something appears to be ascending out of the pit, and in a few moments it becomes clear its a human figure climbing up. Its a naked aboriginal man, who, when he scrambles onto the floor, has eyes that are both completely black and strangely compelling. Will subtley senses for Wyrm, and finds some, but not a corruption level.. less active, more like exposure. The figure is a bit shorter than average and cleanshaven, more or less. He speaks to Malajimbarra in a language none of the pack know and Malajimbarra replies - they back and forth a bit and then Malajimbarra says to explain what they have seen.
They go through the story again, trying not to make eye contact. When they finish, he speaks in mostly clear english, saying that the ones that bring the demons here, they reach into other worlds. These ones reach into the sky where dead people go - you would call it the shadowlands or dark umbra. They can bring entities across and give them shape - they have no natural shape except what is given to them. The pack ask if it is ghosts, and Black-Eyed Nudist Guy says that they weren't ever people, they are things native to those worlds. Demons is a reasonable name for them. Tillie wants to know how to find them, he says that he does not know - they may be obvious to her, as like all unusual beings, they will cause a disturbance. They will work in groups, to increase their power. More speculation about why they wanted to the fetish - drain it of its power, the fact that it was a shadow spirit? BENG says they may not be able to reach to the true spirit world, and so a spirit bound into the physical realm might be the only way they could get access to such a creature. He doesn't really know either. Tillie wants to know how to defeat them, but there's no special way, they are just humans. Will asks about the beings they bring through - can they work independantly? BenG says that there are a wide variety of beings, same as the spirit world - some are evil, some are not, some are smart, some would require active direction. The stronger they are, the harder it would be to pull them to this world against their will? Is there any sort of material that would be a threat to them specifically? He says they have no form, so nothing that has a form will hurt them. They do not feel pain, and cannot be destroyed (only banished), so they will probably fight until their physical form is destroyed. They could in theory be taken or sent or summoned to the spirit world, but it would require someone who could access both those worlds to do so.
Where would they find them? They will seek places of power, places of significance. The places may not seem significant to them, it will depend on the nature of the humans in question. The pack start to worry about, say, a caern in a cemetery. Its certainly worth mentioning to the elders. BenG mentions again that they will work in groups, that might make them obvious ("any people in groups of 3, wipe them out". "We'll start with pub bands". "First they came for the three-pieces. Then the guitar bands." "First they came for the the ska bands, but I said nothing because I don't like trombones...." ). BenG says something to Malajimbarra, who replies, and then he starts down the murder pit again without saying or acknowledging goodbyes.
On the way back, Malajimbarra says unless they have any particular need to go to Grinding Stone, they could perhaps just go back to their car (just for practical reasons, not because he hates them). They give Malajimbarra their thanks and split up around the edge of the the national park.
Back to Sleeping Lore! They brain dump to the Sept elders about all the adventures they have had, and their new pack name. Malajimbarra didn't say "don't mention BenG", but they decide to exercise some discretion and not mention where he was while still conveying where the information came from. The elders agree that it sounds ungood. Its sort of good that no one appears to have had an ongoing clash with them - it suggests that their aims and the garou aims don't clash constantly either. They might be able to establish some sort of relations, or they might never clash again rather than turning it into a totally war. On the other other hand, they seem to be a bit gungho about attacking people in a deadly and public fashion. There's some talk about coordinating it with Hidden Green - groaning - via Christine - hooray.
Will wants to be try a few places like morgues or places with gargoyles or university necromancer cults to try and find these guys. Graeme says that how are they going to spot possible mages when they get there tho? The pack are still keen to try and seek it out, Cossack is happy for them to make it their problem and try and work out what's happening. Lost Prophets speculate about cemetaries in general (and Victoria Market that used to be a cemetery) or other places that might be associated with death? Murder sites? Old Melbourne Gaol? The trick is still going to be working out how to detect that there's something special about these places. Will wonders about using the fetish as bait? It might just bring gargoyles not mages. On the other hand, they could suggest it to Scott and seeing if they go for it. Hi-larious. Ask Boobook? Owls and their associaion with occult and death might work in their favour? Summon demons themselves? The conversation turns to garou and death knowledge and someone says Silent Striders, and Tillie says that she knows a Silent Strider she could try and contact, which leads to everyone giving her the eye. (Finn speculated on buying mindspeak )
The pack looks into some occult dead places while Will looks for a job as a bartender or a bouncer or something. He manages to score some work at a place in Bourke St called Paladins on a preliminary basis with cash in hand. He is collecting glasses to begin with, and is getting shifts randomly to begin with.
Kasumi gets a courtesy car (another Prius) and hides it from her pack. Where the police were a bit "oh yeah, stolen car", the company is a bit suspicious as they reckon their antitheft measures are pretty much up to date. Kasumi is asked some probing questions, to which she professes ignorance.
In the week, the pack chase up ghost stories in Melbourne, finding places where there are famous ghosts. They also look for significant deaths, recent and older - things like where Squizzy Taylor was killed, the Russell St shootings, and so on. In most of these cases, the association with death remains, but they have also become associated with other impulses, such as fame and curiosity for the older deaths and ghosts. They check out the old Melbourne Gaol, which turns out to be extremely creepy in the Umbra. Much of this investigation is done whenever at least three of the pack is free, due to spiders.
They check out the morgue - its a weird combination of technology and gothic architecture, like CSI meets Dracula. The morgue is less a place where people die, and more a place where dead things are. They are not sure if that is good or bad - are they looking for things of death or things of dying? Same with cemeteries - its rare for people to actually die in a cemetery, but it is where dead people are put. The spirits in these places are more or less what they would expect, not just spirits of death, but of calm, loss and rememberence. Hospitals? They are a bit concerned about the amount of weaver activity at hospitals, so Lost Prophets are being cautious - also the active weaver spirits consume new spirits being formed, like death spirits from mourning.
Retirement homes are also checked in passing, but also Kew Cottages - was Kew Asylum. Given that was close to where the big gargoyles attacked them, they check that and Fairfield hospital out as well. They aren't sure if there was someone on the bridge directing the gargoyles - its only been a couple of days, so they try and see if they can pick up a scent, but all the foot traffic has obliterated it.
Other places - abbatoirs? No one said it had to be human death. Black spot intersections where people have died? At most of these places, they can't pick up a solid sense of wyrm - there's some taint here and there, but nothing obvious, nor any sign of obvious glowing magic or anything. They don't have any way of sensing magic or death things, but at least they have a baseline sense of what these places are like. They roughly plan to do a semi-regular check around at these places to make sure nothing develops there, but the list expands every time they think about it and their time isn't infinite. They start to make a list of things kinfolk could look at, or Hidden Green could maybe do too.
Finn spends some of his time at the gym, still building up his strength. One quiet morning, he is approached by another somewhat weedy guy who asks him for help on the weights. They get to chatting a bit, and Finn finds his name is Peter. Peter is mates with Glenn, who owns the gym, but he's mostly here because he was in a car crash a while back and the physio wants him to build up some strength again. Later that week, being a bit suspicious he asks Tillie if she knows Peter, but she answers in her usual antisocial fashion. He's with Marion leaving one day and points out Peter to him - she hasn't seen him before but Finn notices she's definitely checking him out now.
Will is out working late, and the others are hanging out the front of Carmel's place. Sinead is facing down the street when she sees the hottest guy she has ever spotted - awesome tattoos, dyed hair, making eye contact with her as she approaches. The others notice her trailing off conversation and staring and turn around. They each spot something different - Kasumi sees a Japanese guy in a suit, but just rumpled enough at the same time to be perfect; Finn sees the hottest red haired scottish girl coming his way in a short skirt. Tillie sees a blond woman approaching, bit heavily made up, and cannot figure out why Sinead is staring. She says "what?" and tries to get their attention but they are really focussed. The blond woman comes up and stares at Kasumi without - from Kasumi's point of view, the Japanese man says hello and asks if she could give him some directions as he is new here. Sinead starts to fume about why her perfect man is ignoring her and focussing on Kasumi perfectly. Finn's girl is smirking in a nasty fashion and ignoring him on purpose to focus on Kasumi. She's fucking with him on purpose! Everything starts to go red for Finn, and he grabs her arm and yells.
Tillie is still confused as to what is going on, this woman is silent and her pack mates are clearly about to lose their shit, even tho they are not speaking coherently. Tillie pushes Kasumi off her chair into traffic (no not really). Finn realises that Tillie is on his side, and what he should do is grab the girl and go now! She's responding to that! Its what his ancestors would do! Yeah, that'll show her! Sinead sees Finn grab her guy's arm and ... he's jealous! he's going to start a fight!
Meanwhile Will is covered in beer from the ankles down and being yelled at by drunk idiots. Man, this is the worst night he's ever had. I bet the others are out drinking coffee and having cake. Wait till he tells then what a shitouse night he's had. Someone spills a pina colada on him.
Sinead leaps on Finn, or at least that's the plan, but she gets all tangled up in chairs instead. Kasumi gets up and tries to apologise for her xenophobic pack member while yelling at Finn in Japanese that she thought he liked her. Finn drags the girl away, but Tillie catches up easily enough and scruffs him. Bloody Metis! She's cockblocking him! She's too big to take like this! So Finn changes to glabro. Sinead's perfect guy says "Wait, Sinead, help!" and she grabs a fork off the table and lunges at Finn. Tillie needs Finn to not be in glabro form any more so she punches him in the head, but doesn't really connect properly. Kasumi is wailing and chasing after the whole shamozzle.
Various people on the street are looking at this noise and fury.
Sinead forks Finn in the leg. ("Is that lethal?" "You've got a fork in your leg, yes" "Woman, I have a pipe in my lung!"). Finn realises he can show the redheaded what an awesome man he is by punching out Sinead, where fighting Tillie is going to be too hard. His punch is straight on, but there's not much oomf behind it. Kasumi runs past and drags the blond woman up the street, yelling in Japanese. Tillie has had enough of this shit, and she picks up a chair by one leg and smacks Finn with it down onto his knees.
In the meantime, Will has met some girl called Michelle who says she comes here a lot and she hasn't seen him before.
Sinead decides to take advantage of the semi prone Finn and knees him really hard in the head. Kasumi is wondering about the practicalities of jumping this guy in the back seat of a Prius, and apologising for her friends. Finn is yelling at Tillie "why can't you let me be happy!" as he punches her again. Tillie takes it on the chin and she smacks him again with the chair.
Sinead glances around and realises that Kasumi has left with her guy. With a cry of "come back here you fucking whore!" she turns and sprints up the street. Two random guys are running down toward Tillie and Finn - can't tell if they're coming here to help or join in. Kasumi starts to apologise to Sinead for whatever is going on, and throws herself on the ground when Sinead is clearly still upset (fuck, fuck whore!). Tillie feels a stabbing sensation in her back. She glances behind and see a guy in a suit, with a suspicious newspaper over one hand... with a hole in it with smoke coming out. She's been shot. There's another suit coming right behind him. This has turned the situation from strange into surreal. Tillie continues her spin with the chair in her hand and smacks them both hard, sending one of them flying into some other chairs and tables, and possibly sending another guy scudding under the furniture. Tillie also spots Carmel running up from her cafe toward the ongoing disaster - she wields a fire extinguisher and brains the standing suit.
Sinead opts to leap Kasumi and run toward her guy, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him down the street. Finn realises Tillie isn't looking, she's not even faintly taking him seriously! He punches her in the back, which is right where the gunshot wound is. Tillie nearly frenzies from the pain. One of the random guys leaps on Finn's back, figuring him for the aggressor. Tillie decides that she needs to follow the fleeing packmates, grabs the gun off the ground and sprints off. Carmel smacks Finn hard in the head with a fire extinguisher, which shocks the guy on his back a bit.
Sinead drags her guy out into traffic and into an alley off Lygon st, she knows just the secluded doorway. Tillie sprints over Kasumi who sits up a bit confused. Tillie runs into the alleyway and can hear some moaning from behind a skip. She sees the blond woman with her hands all over Sinead. Kasumi makes it to the front of the alleyway, where curious people are glancing down there.
Meanwhile, Michelle has left with some guy. Oh well, another week.
Tillie jerks the woman away from Sinead, revealing a certain amount of pointy teethiness that wasn't there before. They are more like shark teeth than human teeth. The woman is pinned, Tillie yells "its a demon" at Sinead, who is not interested in Tillie's opinion of the situation as she is hurting her new friend. Sinead yanks him back to herself and returns to the grinding against the wall. Kasumi hears "demon" and suddenly snaps out of her funk.
A small group of people are now staring down the alley and pointing next to Kasumi. Kasumi says "I've already called the cops" in a pretty convincing fashion. Some of them start to move off, but one or two are still trying to see what's going on.
Tillie smacks the sucubus or whatever it is in the head with her brand new pistol, knocking her out. Sinead reacts in a totally expected fashion ("YOU ARE WHY I CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!") and despite nearly getting tangled in her underwear around her ankles, she body slams into Tillie. Tillie smacks Sinead in the head with the pistol. Sinead takes another step back and then slams Tillie hard into the far wall. A doorhandle goes into Tillie's gun shot wound and she hits her head; Tillie is stunned to near unconscious, but manages to not change to crinos form.
Kasumi runs down the alley way, yelling something about glamours and the like. She can now see that its a blond woman, not a japanese guy. Sinead is trying to drag her man away and Kasumi gives her a slap, confusing her somewhat. Kasumi yells "she's a woman" but Sinead looks down and can see evidence otherwise. This distracts Sinead somewhat and she falls to her knees. Kasumi takes this chance to kick Sinead right in the temple, knocking her out.
And now a recap:
Kasumi tries to bring Tillie around, hoping her metis healing powers will have fixed enough damage. This actually works, and the groggy Tillie is brought up to speed. Tillie grabs both bodies, lifts them and runs. They get far enough away from the crowd to split up - Kasumi goes to get her car and meet Tillie.
Sinead's phone starts to ring while Kasumi is getting her car. Its Carmel, who sounds unimpressed. She says the cops are here, and the goons and Finn are unconscious. She is getting the feeling the police know who the two suits are. Tillie isn't any immediate help, and Carmel hangs up. Tillie takes this moment to sense for wyrm and indeed the blond shows up as a fomori. Kasumi shows up and they put the unconscious woman in the boot. Tillie makes the call to ring caern and gets a fairly unimpressed Graeme. There is some swapping of details - Tillie has been shot, the others are unconscious. Except Kasumi. Oh and Will's at work. So, Sinead really. And the fomori.
Graeme gives them an address in Brunswick to take the fomori and meet Ian there. ("Does my house have 'dead fomori storage' written out the front?"). Ian is already there, and gets them to bring the fomori in, and put her in the bath. He then dismisses them fairly directly. Sinead is still unconscious which is starting to get disturbing. She has a sense of wyrm about her too, which might be enough to be causing some issues. If only Sinead wasn't their healer. And cleanser. Its ok, so's Finn...
Finn wakes up in a cell. He has a bandage on his head. He doesn't know how he got here. There's another guy across from him that is so drunk he's definitely wet himself.
Will finishes work, pocketing his cash and strolling back to Carlton. Not the best night he's ever had, but at least he got paid.
Tillie and Kasumi take Sinead to Emma's house, who heals her. They ask if she could cleanse Sinead, and Emma rather shortly says she is going back to bed. ("you might want to untaint your taint. and vice versa" "The wyrm? in my vagina! Its more likely than you think!") Sinead and Kasumi compare notes - they can remember why they did things, all emotion driven, but they cannot remember why they felt those things so strongly.
Early in the morning, the cops take a statement from Finn about what happened. Finn, who has been working on said alibi, said he was hanging out with a red head girl that he just met (Sarah) and then someone started a fight. He got hit in the head, and was a bit dazed, and couldn't figure out who was hitting him. He doesn't really know what was going on. Sadly, most of the damage has healed, so his story isn't the most coherent. They do release him with a "you'd better ring your mum" postscript. When he gets his phone back, he has 6 missed calls, 5 from his mum and 1 from Tillie, but they all convey "when you get home you are so dead".
In the papers the next morning is an article about an inexplicable brawl on Lygon st at 1 in the morning. The narrative is confused, but there is a description of Finn (distorted somewhat) and a couple of young gentleman "known to police" and a gun found and "quick action from a cafe owner saved the say" tho police are all "don't take matters into your own hands" and cafe owner may still face charges of assault.
At the caern the next day, Graeme is a bit unimpressed with everyone. There's only so much they can do about mind control, but those people who were not under the influence need to think about perhaps getting all the fracas away from public sight before trying to resolve things. Ian says that the fomori - who couldn't remember her name - was addicted to some wyrm tainted cosmetics (Siren Inc) that the caern has seen before, and that "a man with a buzzy voice" found her, gave her some cosmetics and pointed the four of the pack out to her and told her to ruin their day (get them to fight each other). She hypnotised the two goons to act as backup and hopefully to get them alone and shoot them. Its concerning that someone is out to get them enough to know their appearance and haunts. The Elders suggest that they might want to help Carmel out in return for her help too. Sinead is not sure if she still has a job.
Finn is released early in the morning without being charged. They suggest that they will be talking to him again, so make sure he is available. They give him back his phone and the phone messages from his mum are far, far scarier than anything the police says. He calls her back and she yells at him some more, Harry Potter style.
Post incident review. Will thinks that the buzzy voice guy does not sound like a mage, but the mages have been able to find them out of the blue. But if its mages and they are interacting with fomori, then they can go. On the other hand, they have plenty of other enemies, including other werewolves? The biggest concern is how easy they were to find. Maybe they should behave like they are being watched ? Should they avoid the caern? Remain in the Umbra more if they can?
The newspaper has some information about the guys who shot at them - one of them is "Anton Fortenescu", but both of them are 'known to police'. The Sept is following up on the cosmetics that created the fomori as much as they can - they are imported randomly from China.
They speak to Emma a bit about resisting mind control. She does say that the rage burning so close to the surface in the garou is part of the problem - their passions run so high that its not as hard as you might think for various wyrm powers to fan it into an inferno. Practicing their sense of control is really the only way to help overcome this.
Later that same bee, Will is hanging in the Umbra when Ends-the-Quiet approaches him, along with a homid garou that Will does not know. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molasses_disaster). Ends-the-Quiet introduces him as Sparky, he wishes to see Matilda. Its a moment before Will goes, oh yeah, Tillie, my pack alpha. Will greets Sparky formally, and waits for the same, which means he finds out that Sparky is a rank 3 philodox homid Silent Strider. Will steps out and calls Tillie. "WHAT. Oh, right, cool, I'll be there soon" While Will is waiting, Graeme wanders up - as he approaches, he clearly recognises Sparky. They have an awkward conversation. "how's Sydney." "Fine. How's Melbourne" "Fine... What are you doing here?" "Tillie said she wanted to talk to me. Josephine Brereton said to say hello" "Yes. Of course she did. I have to go". Will looks baffled at this demonstration of characters having history before the game began.
Tillie shows up and they go off for a chat. "Pack leader?" "yes." "Pack. Leader??". "Yes..." "*Pack* leader?" "Shut up". They have a chat about death things, being a Silent Strider and all. Sparky says that its not really his area of expertise, but he knows some bits and pieces. He suggests that he should hang around for their moot tomorrow night and pass what he does know along to their whole sept? Also, he used up a favour moonbridging down here, so she'll have to get him back - hope she's in the good books. Oh. Oh no. More catching up is done, especially about last night, but also about Sydney and things. They chat to Sparky about finding out about the fomori - he says that if they'd been quicker off the mark or it wasn't from such a busy place, they could have scent-tracked her back to see if they could find where she'd found the goons and maybe the buzzy voice guy. Could try any security cameras in the area? They don't have access to that sort of resources. He says that sometmes its more efficient to let the police collect info and then steal it from the police. They don't have access to that sort of resources. Sparky suggests getting one of her pack to learn Spirit Awakening seems to be a high priority then. He says this isn't the worst disaster he's seen, and related anecdotes from Sydney.
As part of their plan to figure out how people are finding them, some of the pack lurk in the Umbra and peek while others go about their day - the aim is to see if anyone is physically observing them. No one is made apparent in the few hours they give it a go, but they probably need to do it a while to confirm. The alternative is magic ways of watching them, which are difficult to stop.
Moot! Opening Howl, summoning the totems, Greet the Sky, symbolically joining the two realms. Cossack points out that they have a guest, and formally greets him on behalf of the Sept. Sparky sort of winces and also formerly introduces himself as Sparks-to-a-New-Flame, an Adren (rank 3) Homid Philodox of the Silent Strider tribe. Cossack says that he is here to give some informtion about the dead, which leads to a long discussion about demons and mages and amulets oh my. Most people had heard roughly, but giving them the full detail, as related to the challenge.
Sparky says that he isn't an expert, but he's picked some stuff up. He thinks of the shadowlands, or the dark umbra as the umbra under the umbra. You can get there accidentally sometimes from the spirit world, especially if there's been a lot of death in a place. Generally the tribe thinks that even garou souls go there for a time - there is some polite disagreement from Ends-the-Quiet, who thinks garou souls are reborn straight away. Some of the bone gnawers start to pass out from boredom. Continuing - there are things there that are native. It seems to have a wyrm/weaver/wyld nature, so its all still part of Gaia, and is suffering from the impending Apocolypse and is wyrm tainted, like everywhere else. There are some gifts and rituals to do with death, but he doesn't know them - there are subgroups within the Silent Striders that know more.
Will mentions they've been looking at places where death is associated. Sparky thinks their list is good - he wouldn't have thought of abbatoirs, for instance. The only thing he can add in is massacre sites, out in the country. This leads to a discussion about Bunyip and going out into the country and disappearing garou. The elders seem down on the idea of losing random packs to environmental hazards on a 'maybe'. There are also hazards where umbral horrors might lead you to bad places in the umbra which aren't the shadowlands. Sparky offers to let someone know that they'd like to know more too.
Matters move on. Aquinas says that the wyrm tainted drugs have been dealt with (bane possessed dealers, people forgetting where they had bought the drugs from). Kirsty stands up. Tillie quietly says "fuck". The Get of Pennington wince a bit. Kirsty brings up the animal experimentation stuff again, saying that it would make a real difference to real things, not just killing a few squidgey banes in a self congratulatory fashion (looking at the Scryers). Some sept members start to argue with her. Kirsty says that Tillie agrees with her and they should do something. Everyone looks at Tillie, who says "she's not wrong". Georgina says that animal experimentation isn't a good idea, but just that the Sept has limited resources and they need them for wyrm things. Tillie says they volunteer to look into it. Cossack gets people's attention and says that it has been brought up before and the Sept made a decision, and without a change in the circumstances, there's no change to the decision. Kirsty starts to argue. Cossack orders her - "Sit. Down." Kirsty appears to be on the verge of frenzy. Will says "make it a challenge or sit down". Sparky turns and gives Will an incredulous look ("Philodox"). Tillie moves to crinos form while taking a step back. Kirsty keeps arguing - Cossack gives her a Look. Kirsty loses it - numerous sept people are on the first step to jumping on her - turns and frenzies across the Umbral caern. Varous people look at the remaining Get of Pennington. Tillie asks if they can help, Carmel says they've helped _enough_ this weekend thanks. Chris and Barry take off after Kirsty, though the whole sept can hear her still roaring.
Awwwwwkward. Nadine tries to get things moving again by talking about the zoo breakins - they stopped, about 1/2 way through March. They didn't find perpetrators or a reason for it. People speculate about the mages, but there's no proof. Someone asks about microchipping, and its pointed out that lions generally don't escape, and even if they do, its pretty clear where it came from ("Hi my name is Leo. I am a lion. If you find me, RUN"). Maybe it was because they put in tighter security, it stopped being viable? Talk about the giant storm on March 6th - it had a distinct mystic signal, with no small wyrm component. Again, "mages" is the blame option of the day, but no one has been able to find out much about it - no source, no obvious goal? Scryers & Hidden Green are following it up ("oh yeah, storm lords". "You mean shadow lords?" "oh yeah, wrong universe"). There was a certain amount of election chaos, because rooves fell in and big boxes full of paper ballots got damaged.
General bane activity is up. They mention the fomori from Friday night ("I wasn't the one getting taint on my taint"). Renown is recognised across the sept. Finn tells his story of what happened in the challenge - the idea is good, but the presentation not so much. He isn't exactly being heckled, but there's a bit of near-smirk.
The pack talk to their totem about helping find mages. He says he can help, but they need to demonstrate need. He sets the a task for the pack - 2 members must learn sense wyrm by the next moot without assistance from other garou (which will involve summoning and bargaining with spirits). The pack agree.
Kasumi learns plug and play, but unfortunately over-gives to the net spider in question, offering to twitter to it every day. Finn and Will want to learn gifts, and so Emma summons a peregrine falcon - Will learns scent of the true form (in return for only eating food he has hunted for a week, and leaving a share for peregrine) ("Do I have to catch something for each meal or can I only, freeze them or something" "you can freeze the rats") and Finn learns mindspeak (in return for learning, and learning how to mimic, peregrine bird calls) Sinead learns Spirit Snare.
At some point Tillie overheads Sparky talking to the caern Elders about some stuff. Cossack asks for details about things happening outside their caern. Sparky says that things are the same - Fingal is dying, Grek is wandering, Mother Pasta is about the same. The stargazer kid seems to be doing alright though. Tillie asks him about it a bit later and Sparky says that he was talking about Jindabyne council members, the leaders of each of the tribes. Tillie doesn't really know much about that, and he shrugs and says that they don't really impact things day to day.
Revel! Running out and beating up wyrm things out in the surrounding area. Nothing of any particular note happens while they are doing so.
You cannot see the others, but there is a sense that they are there. You are flying along through thick black clouds, scummed with dirt and filth. You descend through murk, flying over a landscape of vast deformed metal towers, twisted walkways and machines belching fumes and smoke. The air chokes and burns in your throat. Foul banes swarm everywhere, leaving nothing but corruption and despair behind them. The industrial area gives way to a garden filled with people being hideously tortured and maimed, and then to a forest of evil and brooding giant trees. The woods break at a putrid smelling black river, flowing toward a fountain, shooting black muck high into the air. You pass over a strip mine that surrounded a roiling toxic lake. Descending toward the vile landscape slowly but surely, the skyline ahead is defiled by a blasphemous Gothic cathedral. Its abhorent towers grow closer as you descend; the iron-bound doors swung open revealing an infinite darkness inside. As you fly towards its, the darkenss billows forth and draws you within -
WAAAAAA. Everyone wakes up at Tillie and Finn's house, yelling. They compare notes and find they each had their own version of the same dream again.
Graeme wakes them up and asks about where they went on the Revel the night before. They say north and he says "ok." One of their kinfolk in police communications says that they've had someone show up killed with "strange knives" in North Melbourne (west of the caern). Well they didn't go that way. But Kirsty did last night when Frenzying. Not that anyone says anything out loud. Graeme wants them to go and look at what's happening. ("NightVale")
They check out the news websites in case there's something there about some sort of animal experimenter being killed. For example. There's a brief mention of a brutal murder at the north melbourne community centre park, but that's the extent of details. They toy with asking the other packs, and not just the Get of Pennington, where they went last night, but decide that they would rather not. (Murder per se isn't a litany breach - 'strange knives' could be said to be breaking the veil)
The pack go to the caern, step and peek (Will botches again) and then head to the site. There are cops there, the area has been cordoned off. There are a couple of forensics people poking around. There are several big splashes of blood, right next to the playground. In the Umbra, there are small motes of death and murder pinging around, fading now. Finn is instructed to check for badges, but they are all numbers but not names on the cops. The forensic guys have VIFM environment suits with surnames on them - Naismith and Jones. They are searching, and with cameras.
Finn sniffs through the gauntlet. Mostly blood. He tries to track where the blood's owner has come from, and he seems to have walked up from the city side of the park, following the park. The dead guy's scent has a faintly dusty and cardboard component. He'd been eating something like a donut on the way recently. Finn tries to hunt around for a victee smell at the murder site. There is .. no scent of Kirsty here. Not that he was looking for that. There is an odd smell though - probably male, and a bit like stagnant water. It has some components that make Finn think its either a human who walks dogs or a garou smell.
They follow this smell the direction it seems to be strongest, and it leads away from the caern, but it fades out in a weird way. Maybe into the Umbra? but there's no corresponding scent in the umbra, so probably not. Unless they went into a different part of the Umbra like Sparky was talking about. In the realm it doesn't disappear instantly, it fades out over maybe 5 or 7 steps - that isn't how they'd expect a scent to go in those cases. There are Ragabash gifts to hide scents, or they might have changed form? Rat people, dissolving into rats! With more sniffing the scent disappears strongest elements first.
Back the other way, it leads to a corpse of trees not more than 30 metres from the playground, where it appears to have lingered for a time. It would be hard to see someone crouched down in here. There's no sign that the scent entered this group of trees, nor a scent in the umbra. The strongest element is still the manky mud or water scent, like a swamp? There's a creek not far away, under the raised freeway, but its not a moving water scent. The smell of blooood is still the heaviest smell in the area.
They look about for spirits they could beat around the heads and shoulder to ask questions of, but there's not a lot. They continue to listen to the officials here - they get a first name for "Jo Naismith" and "Tom Jones".
Some speculation about who this guy might have been - working in a factory or something? The attacker was almost certainly a male werewolf, and probably well after anyone might have come out of a frenzy that started in the Moot. Not that they have a specific person in mind or anything
Further speculation about how the smells might have been messed with - something like the fetish they found that worked on vision is an option. They can think of a number of spirits that might help with that straight away - fox, water spirits, etc. They're pretty sure that its a supernatural fade out, but it could maybe have been something like a pushbike or pogo stick.
They take their information back to Graeme, and compare notes. (mocking Queen of the Damned, and "Wait, the ultralight guy from Mad Max is the Mouth of Sauron??"). Graeme says that maybe the stagnant smell is a pretend smell? The fact that it was the dominant smells that faded out first makes him wonder that they weren't being faked, and the faking ended rather than the strong smells were masked first. There's some discussion about the difficulty of tracking any garou that might decide to wander into Melbourne and make trouble - its not like a country caern where you can work on maintain some borders. He's not happy about it being near the caern - he would like them to follow it up a bit more. Don't go mental about it, but make sure there's nothing obvious that might be a problem. Tillie says they can't access the police databases, Graeme asks if he should get someone else to do it, they decide to run down to VIFM and see if they can just spy from the Umbra and get some info.
They get down to South Melbourne and eventually manage to navigate the gauntlet. By luck, someone is examining the body as the pack get there (not autopsy, but maybe a second opinion). Its not Wayne - its a guy in his late 20s with dark hair. He has been seriously clawed, probably across the back then up the front. The cuts are perhaps more slicey than they would expect with raw clawing - perhaps it was gift-enhanced? The corpse has a bit of wyrmness about them, an amount that would make them perhaps look for a contact source, but not so much that might make them kill the person on the spot.
They grab a newspaper and flick through it looking for information about the killing, but are distracted by seeing the name 'Ridgeway' instead. There's a short article about how a Joseph Ridgeway has gone missing since Thursday night, under fairly suspicious circumstances ("Wasn't us!" "it could have been us, he might have finally gone mad from the trauma"). Door was open, signs of a struggle, and he was not home. While Sinead is doing a questing stone for Joe, Tillie keeps looking for the dead guy - she finds his name is Tony Staley. No response on the questing stone for Joe. Weird... is it just because he's dead? They try Tony Staley and get a response that indicates that he's in South Melbourne somewhere, which matches what they expect. They try the Umbra just to cover their bases - no go there either. ("no one wants to see your 'spare inventory slot'")
They go to Ridgeway's place in Preston. They cruise past and see no lights on, then park and head back via the Umbra. It looks a bit different when they peek, but its hard to be sure how exactly. The budgie is either still alive or glued to the perch. There's no one in the house, so they opt to step into the realm and have a proper look around.
First item of business is to feed and water the budgie. The wander about and have a smell. There are some recent scents in the last day or so that don't belong here (one male, one female). His hallway has been lightly trashed - carpet runner pulled up, some furniture badly dragged along a wall. There's a faint blood smell, right where the main corridor and kitchen meet - its a smallish stain, maybe palm sized, but more than a blood nose. There's a slightly stinging smell associated around that spot and back up the corridor a bit. Its an organic smell, a bit acidic and maybe a little like pus. Oh wait, a bit like the thing that Struthers became. Oh. He wasn't meant to be back for months, according to the theurges. They check out the rest of Ridgeway's house - there are holes in the corridor, and long scrape marks. This suggests that the bane manifested in the Realm and came for Joe. Ohhh. When did Ridgeway vanish? The day before the fomori came for them out of the blue. Ohhhh. Maybe it took his body and he was the "man with the buzzy voice". Maybe its cleaning up the people that led the pack to it? Ohhh dear. They hunt through their notes for information on the other people that were involved.
They go back to the car, ring the caern and brain dump at Ian, who is interested but doesn't really offer anything more than his interest. They investigate Rudolph Chambers, who is not at home. His house smells like its been shut for a few weeks. Questing Stone suggests that he is an enormous distance away off to the north. Its almost like someone killed his boss and dumped the illegal dumping barrels at his house and he ran off overseas in a panic. They check out Candace Tully and find that she's in hospital. Apparently she was in a car crash on Saturday, and has been unconscious since. Suspicious much? They consider visiting and decide that its no really required. Presumably her car is in an insurance compound somewhere.
(fwiw: Amanda Palmer would have been 14 when Good Omens came out)
Checking on the two truck drivers, neither of them appear to be in strife at all. ... yet. They try and work out how the bane appears to be following the trail - it wouldn't be particularly easy. They went to Ridgeway (& drivers), Tully, Chambers, then Struthers. But the trail wasn't really physical - some of those people weren't even approached by the pack directly.
They decide to find Emma at her university office and consult with her about Questing Stone and what it means to get no response. The rite cannot find someone in another realm. It usually finds dead people for a time at least - the recently dead and buried with some form of rememberence will be found for some time. She's thinking of months. If he was burnt up in a furnace, eaten, or otherwise destroyed, that will confuse the ritual. The bane thing did have a sort of acid fluid in it? Posession wouldn't remove the name straight away either, there'd be some lingering sense of the name still being associated with them.
They talk to Emma about why the bane appears to have come back so quickly. Normally spirits don't use the Reform charm unless they have no option as it takes a lot of essence and can leave them Slumbering and vunerable in the Umbra. Maybe it cut and ran early for some reason? It had already burnt its human disguise at that point. It suggests that the bane is powerful or possibly smart - neither are good signs. Maybe it Reformed somewhere pre-prepared fallback position with lots of essence. Alternatively, maybe its not the same spirit - its a spirit from the same brood without being the same individual.
Finn suggests that maybe there's some association between their dreams of Malfeas and these banes - they seem to be co-located in time a bit. Its something to keep in mind as things progress. Is it possible that Tony Staley was killed by the bane? As a way of making trouble for the pack again? Could a bane have possessed a werewolf? Emma says it has happened - the more in touch someone is with their spirit nature the less likely it is to happen. But this bane is pretty sneaky, maybe it has plans within plans (especially given its attempted trap of fire at Struthers' house).
The pack heads back out to where Tony was murdered and try to get a better sense of the wyrm in the area. (botttchhh agaaaaain.) There is a miasma of wyrm taint around the murder site - the sort of thing they would expect when someone's been killed, rather than "there is something here of the wyrm". Its also around the corpse of trees that the killer lingered in. Obviously the trees are evil. The phrase "Black Spiral Dancers" comes up, but its a big jump from "some wyrm taint" to "Dancers" - all of the Garou find themselves in need for cleansing from time to time, for reasons varying from "I got wyrm taint on me" to "I had to kill some passersby for litany based reasons", so having some taint on a probable werewolf isn't entirely unusual.
The papers have a bit more info on Tony that evening - he was 28, he lived not far from where he was killed, he was a shelfstacker at Coles in the city and heading home from work when he was brutally murdered for no apparent reason in a savage attack with strange, possibly home made weapons. Police suspect gangs. No known next of kin.
The garou find out where he lived, and head that way to check it out from the Umbra. Its a terrace house in Kensington. He appears to share the house with another guy, who is there. Tony's room is a bit sparse - he doesn't seem to have a lot of stuff, probably deliberately rather than because he can't afford it. (booootccccch). Sinead peeks and senses for Wyrm - not really.
Just to cover their bases, they head out to Rainbow Inc. Its pretty late by this point, and the car park is empty. It looks the same as the last time they left it. The gauntlet is still very high. Peeking to the Umbra doesn't show any particular sign of corruption, but Finn senses for wyrm to try and confirm. Its still fairly low after all their cleansing rituals a few years ago. There's no sign of the return of the Struthers-bane.
(20 minutes of distractions about salt, bible, dolls and douche juice)
They decide to go to the hospital in the Umbra and observe Candace Tully. To avoid some of the weaver spirits and their security, they dedicate some flowers and lanyard - providing a symbolic "we are allowed to be here" for a hospital environment.
They manage to peek, and find Tully. She's not in ICU or anything, she's in a shared room with one other patient. She's not in a coma, but she isn't awake. She's hooked up to an IV, appears to have some sort of head bandaging, and probably a broken arm. She has a normal level of wyrm taint (for a REA). Nurses come in, check instruments and leave again. She regains consciousness for a bit, and speaks to a doctor and a nurse. She seems a bit out of it - though they can't hear, they can see her attention span wander. They can't read, but they can vaguely see a picture of her chart which marks her head and arm and abdomen, so it might be she has some internal injuries too ("doctor's handwriting is hard enough to read from the same realm" "yes, but when peeking from the Umbra, it all becomes clear"). Looking closer, she might have been operated on. She has a big bruise across from one shoulder down across her chest. They toy with pretending to be from the TAC or her insurance company to try and interview her about what happened. But if she's had abdominal surgery, she's not going anywhere in a hurry.
Finn gets a message on his phone from a classmate (Kevin) who lets him know that there is an essay due for one of his history subjects due Thursday and classes seem to be handing out work for the easter break (next week) - he might want to show up to some classes this week. For a change. Finn checks his timetable and says he should probably go now. ("Pining for the fomori!") ("Elinor! you are not full of wasp eggs!")
The others head back to the caern. Sparky comes and finds Tillie and sees he needs to go home. ("surely you can stride home." "har har") They find Ends-the-Quiet, and ask if Sparky could moonbridge back to Sydney. Despite Tillie's concerns about perhaps being in the poo, Ends-the-Quiet seems fine with the process. While Ends-the-Quiet performs the ritual to open the bridge, Sparky drags Tillie aside. He mentions that Cossack, despite his lack of apparent interest in politics within the sept, is keenly aware of politics outside in the garou world. Its not a warning, its just Sparky letting her know that he is not oblivious - Sparky agrees with most of Cossack's plans and all, but he just wants Tillie to be aware. ("Alright, see you later... pack. leader" "let the record show I am giving Sparky the finger"). Ends-the-Quiet finishes the ritual and a silver portal thing appears in the Umbra. Sparky heads off - six steps and they can't see him any more. (brief rundown on moon bridges and how they work).
