Sept of Sleeping Lore

Chronology - September 2011

Thursday 1st September - Theurge waxing

Kasumi gets a call from Ion. "Ms Umina, do you have the time to come to my office?" She agrees to head there relatively quickly. When she arrives, its very quiet - unlike last time there isn't a crowd here, just Ion. He gets straight to the point and asks what her interest is in this address, just off Bridge Road. Kasumi looks blankly at him and then realises that's where Huey Nguyen was. Kasumi says that they were tracing a dead informant of the caern's and it led back to Huey. Ion is a little bit takenaback and asks for details - Ion asks her to convey his apologies to Cossack as he was unaware that Petrou was an informant for their sept, and he interefered in business of Ion's. ("Oh yes, he doesn't care that the guy is dead" "You kill people for religious reasons. With your bare hands"). Kasumi confirms that Petrou had not found anything about the mages as far as they knew, but the pack wanted to confirm that that hadn't led to his death. Kasumi pauses and asks about the boxes in the roof, but Ion has no idea what they are talking about.

That night Melissa is slipped more tea and also the pack dedicate her some pyjamas so that they don't get exploded. Kasumi lurks with Sinead in the realm while Finn and Tillie are in the Umbra. About 2 in the morning Sinead says "er... that was an explosion". She thinks it was a few kilometers away, but she definitely felt/heard it. The pack opt to split up and try and see what it was.

They follow Sinead's directions until they can see a column of smoke. They can't get real close because of emergency vehicles and police redictring them away from it, and instead opt to park at Albert Park and move into the Umbra. The Umbra near the epicenter is full of fire and weaver spirits battling it out and so the garou need to take some care. When they peek they find that its a little street that has two buildings on fire and one that is on fire and half collapsed.

Finn tries to sniff - he can smell chemicals and fire. Sensing shows wyld, weaver and wyrm, which is not a surprise because of the destruction and so on. There's no mage tinglings here, despite the pack's growing fear. Sensing for wyrm from the Umbra suggests that the collapsed building might have a bit of a lingering wyrm sense, perhaps akin to the kind of taint to that found at Marriott's and Clarke's - its not as strong, unpleasant but not something they'd normally waste time on cleansing.

The pack stop and observe. The fire goes out at a rate that they would expect - it doesn't appear to be magical. At least one person from surrounding buildings are dead, and others are injured sufficiently to go to hospital. 50 or 60 people from the surrounding area are being evacuated. Some specialist cops show up - possibly bomb squad?

Friday 2nd September - Theurge waxing

The next morning the papers have more details -

Explosion kills 3, injured 15

Gang connections suspected.

POLICE today were not ruling out connections with the escalation in gang warfare and the suspicious fires last night in connection with the massive explosion that destroyed a series of buildings in Hotham St, South Melbourne, late last night.

The blast came with no warning and began a raging blaze that took 3 hours for firefighters to extinguish. Three bodies have already been found amongst the rubble, but only one, a Mr J. Ranton, has been identified. Mr Ranton was the owner/resident of the shop at 14 Hotham St, and it is believed that he was killed instantly when the side wall of the residence caved in from the explosion.

The other two bodies were found within the destroyed building next door, and their identities are unknown at this stage.

Bill Hughes and the hole created by the blast into his house

Also injured were a number of nearby residents. Mrs K. Lierdski, a neighbour, claimed that it was only coincidence which saved her. "I'd just gone out of my room to let the cat in when the whole house shook. I ran back to my bedroom, but I couldn't open the bedroom door." Mrs Lierdski's house had been struck with a section of roof from the destroyed residence.

Mr Bill Hughes may have also lost his home. "I think I must have heard the initial explosion in my sleep and woken up, because the next thing I remember is hearing the whole house ring like a bell and having something hit me in the chest." Mr Hughes was initially taken to hospital, but was later released after his minor injuries were treated.

Experts have suggested that approximately 200g of a plastic explosive was detonated in the rear residence of 18 Hotham St at approximately 2:15am last evening. The device is believed to have been triggered by a radio signal, but police have not yet ruled out misadventure.

In a press release this morning, Detective Warren Boanes said "Obviously a device of this magnitude is of an illicit nature, yet it is not yet clear whether the two unidentified men killed were responsible for the device, or simply its victims."

Several other suspicious fires were attended to by emergency services during the evening, and first reports suggest there has been more than one death involved. A fire in a retail establishment in Thornbury gutted the initial site of the fire and severely damaged buildings adjacent. Unofficial reports suggested that human remains had been found within the initial site.

Additionally another fire occured on Gertrude St in Collingwood at a resteraunt where the proprieters were known to have connections to organised crime. Witnesses reported an explosion shortly before the fire and while official sources have yet to comment, its understood that cries for help were heard from within the venue before emergency services could arrive.

("When there's drugs in your room and your house goes kabooms, that's a meth lab") The connections between the fires and the explosions seem a bit tenuous - or at least the full detail of connections isn't being reported. The pack looks suspicious - perhaps someone is trying to decoy potential investigators from the Full Moon killer fires? Its possible that its just tabloid journalism.

Saturday 3rd September - Philodox waxing

Melissa spends the weekend with the pack - its a bit of an effort to get away from her parents and not be studying, but on the other hand this is the first time she's shown some signs of life since the events at the camp and so they don't protest too much.

At some point Emma does theurgey things with Melissa and comes back and suggests that she is most likely to be a Glasswalker. This triggers a conversation about maybe taking her to Hidden Green for a time... but not right now. That Sept is smaller and may make some amount of claim to Melissa but that's not something they need to worry about just yet. In the future, she will need to talk to them about Glasswalker stuff at some point and be recognised by Cockroach. Assuming she wants to try and stick with that assessment...

(Melissa looks something like this: http://www.kurtbrownphoto.com/wp1/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Wolf-0459.jpg) ("There's an easy way to tell if she's a bone gnawer or a glasswalker - we tip a bucket of cockroaches on her, then a bucket of rats, and see which one she dislikes most") ("We're not getting our bond back. I had a nightmare and kicked a wall down" "That was Will, not a wall").

They check out the other fire sites and find that while they were slightly wyrmy, it doesn't seem particularly obvious what they were - no scent of methlabs for example.

Late on the Saturday , Melissa is on her own with Will and asks him some questions that have obviously been on her mind after talking about forms. She says that she woke up after one night covered in blood. A lot of blood. A LOT. He asks when and she says "um, mid Augustish." Ah, that would have been about the Ahroun moon, which makes sense. Will says "Maybe you killed an animal." It doesn't sound like he's being reassuring, but frankly he thinks she's run through a homeless guy. She's not pleased about the possibility she's killed someone's pet, but asks if someone's dog might have attacked her? He asks if she has any clothes with the blood on, he might be able to confirm? She doesn't think she has anything. He says he'll look into it, but he does remember when they were tracking the Full Moon Killer, it was pouring with rain for a few days. He makes a mental note to look up missing persons.

Sunday 4th September - Philodox waxing

(Due to massive power spikes, my phone was killed, taking the recording with it, so this is old school by memory. HaHAHA. Sorry)

Sinead heads to work, figuring she'd better check in occasionally. Will heads off to the University library to look up info on missing persons. He finds that it might be hard to pick up any signal of people that Melissa might have killed given about 30 people a week are declared missing. About 25 of them are found within a week, but that other 5 might never show up again. (Yes, WoD numbers. About double actual). He decides to cruise through the papers and see if he can see anything like "mysterious knives" or gorey deaths in August.

Finn heads to the caern to talk and think about what to do about his agreement to learn a dream gift. He contemplates seeing if its worth going out to Fianna territory to see if they can help him interact with the fae, but decides closer to home will be more sensible - a chimerling or some of the dreams-made-spirit are probably the better option. Perhaps he could try and trade some of his dreams to them? He's dissuaded from giving all his dreams for a fortnight to a spirit on the grounds he might have a psychotic break. Maybe 1 a week for a while? Assuming spirits want his dreams, anyhow. More thought required.

Tillie is at home alone when there's a knock on the door. She opens it cautiously and finds Irena standing there. Tillie lets her in and does the human greeting ritual of offering coffee - nescafe without milk, which Irena politely takes and holds without drinking. Irena gets to the point pretty directly - did Tillie blow up her stuff? Tillie blinks a lot and says "what". Irena says that her pack members were in the Umbra around the site of an explosion Thursday night, she is just checking in to ask if Lost Prophets are getting involved. Tillie says no, they were just nearby when it went boom and checked it out, and Irena seems fairly content with that. Tillie says that things seem to be getting rougher and perhaps a little out of hand, but Irena says that it just shows how desperate Ion is getting - she knew he was on the back-foot when he started this, but this just shows how desperate his position is. Irena politely excuses herself, putting down the still full mug and heads off.

Kasumi tries to investigate events in August that Melissa might have had a hand in. She finds that the escalating gang war tends to push almost everything else out of getting reported, and that it started about the middle of August too.... wait.... uhoh. It does seem to have suddenly got violent in the days after the full moon - its not a smoking gun that what Melissa experienced was somehow connected but its certainly something to consider. Kasumi rings Tillie and talks, and Irena's claim that Ion started is considered. They decide that Kasumi will approach Ion and speak to him.

She rings and arranges to come to his office. Unlike last time there are people here busily engaged in various tasks even though its a Sunday. Ion takes her aside and asks what she wants. Kasumi says that she's curious about what started the current state of things with Irena - Ion says she slaughtered some of his men the moot night, after they had an argument at the Moot. Kasumi queries about details, and whether he was sure it was Irena and Ion's face shuts down. Kasumi takes a gamble and says that they have found a lost cub and there's some possibility that she killed someone on that night. Ion gives it some consideration and admits that he did not look into things too closely given the timing of events; Irena denied being involved, but it had definitely been a garou frenzying. There is some non-commital conversation and then Kasumi flees.

The pack get together and discuss things over dinner. Will realises that he's been looking at the 2010 papers all day and storms off to not frenzy and kill someone. They decide that they need to have a word with Irena about things, so Tillie and Kasumi ring and arrange to meet her in a cafe near Flagstaff Gardens. On the way Kasumi spots a newspaper "crime accountant kingpin exposed" - further investigation (ie: reading) says that Maurice Visbord, a figure known to police but never charged, has had his personal accounts hacked and details delivered to several media outlets and the Federal police. The details seem to expose the illegal activities of somewhere around a dozen known organised crime figures (as well as Visbord himself).

The two Garou meet Irena who offers them coffee in a totally unironic turn around. Kasumi puts the paper down and makes a reference to it and Irena frankly looks smug. Ion's tactics are old and unnecessarily violent, there are new ways to get the best of people. Tillie says that they are, however, burning up assets in both cases at a great rate. The topic turns to the root cause of the current war, and Irena says that Ion exposed an operation of hers after an argument. They says he says that she started it by killing some of his men after an argument, and Irena shrugs and she had nothing to do with it. Tillie mentions they've found a lost cub, and she had a 'bolognaise' event, and its not impossible that these events are connected. Irena is more interested in this new garou than Ion was and asks some questions about tribe and such, but doesn't seem to leap at the chance to end the conflict.

The pack consider the possibility they are reaching the edge of "messing with the other sept", and have some concern about interfering further, with their suspicions and no facts. Finn says that he'll get the dream invasion gift and they can confirm... wait... many people have gifts, maybe someone else could do it. Cossack, for instance, is a Galliard at a sept where the totem is the Lady of Dreams. Hmm. They decide to go and find the Sept Elders and catch them up to what's happening and ask him if he could check. Cossack ums and ahs, and says that he's happy to help reassuring Melissa of what she experienced, but that is his aim, not interfering between Ion and Irena. He's fine with conveying information in a bipartisan fashion to anyone who might be impacted. Tillie frankly would be happy if they killed one another.

The slight snag with the plan is that Melissa will be dreaming anything that Cossack is looking at, and given her propensity for sleep walking, they probably want to take steps to keep her in a protected situation at least in terms of the people around her. The tea might help, but he wants the Lost Prophets on site ready to catch her if she frenzies by dreaming about frenzying. They're surprised to find he doesn't need to be on site as well, but its more a spiritual approach. Maybe they should take her to the Mage house. Cossack says that seems poor - don't overload her with information, like "sometimes we have to hide the bodies of 20 people" ("What if you died temporarily, can I dedicate your body then?") ("That's when they reach spirit death").

Will suggests getting Melissa to fall asleep in the car. Everyone stares at him and reiterates the "frenzy" possibility. After some thought, the pack opt to take her to the abandoned caravan park at Sunbury where they ended up after the first mage house, and watch some movies in an abandoned caravan. Graeme says that's probably ok and gives them the keys for the gate ("You can't stroke Becc's Evie without her permission") but suggests they check it out tomorrow just to make sure that its suitable.

Monday 5th September - Philodox waxing

Newspapers: No more explosions, however the accountant kingpin hanged himself while he was in police custody. The investigation is already under way.

The pack spend their day checking out the caravan park. Its more decayed than they remembered, and its clear that people have been here regularly. Will stitches up holes in the chain link fence with more wire. They find one caravan that's in reasonable nick and make plans to show some movies.

Melissa is called and given the run down (come to an isolated caravan park so an old homeless guy can ransack your dreams). She seems ok with it after they explain why.

Late that night, Melissa slips out of her house (as demonstratedly easy as it is) and meets the pack. They drive off to the other side of the city for a Twilight marathon and wait for Melissa to pass out. Once she's out they call Cossack and say he can go now. Melissa doesn't frenzy, or even change form, though she does twitch and move around a bit while dreaming.

Tuesday 6th September - Galliard waxing

At 5am, Cossack calls and says "it is safe to wake her up now" They kick Melissa awake - she doesn't remember anything, and she falls asleep on the way home. They drop her off, then return to the caern. Cossack is there and tells them what happened - she was wandering around in hispo form, and some guys near a van saw her, pulled guns and shot her, she frenzied and killed them. The dreams were a bit tricky as she was dreaming about something that had happened while she was dreaming, but he thinks that their suspicion was right.

The Lost Prophets toy with what to tell Melissa and also Ion and Irena. They don't really want to freak Melissa out, but she does remember some of it, but maybe they should keep the murdering talk down until she's finished her VCE. They opt to go with "yes, there was a fight, no you didn't instigate it, and they shot you". They chat to Melissa that night and she's still not very enthused about the outcome despite the benefit of 'knowing'.

The pack ring both Ion and Irena and confirm with each of them that their new Lost Cub friend was the actual perpetrator when some of Ion's guys were killed. Both of them take that information without making any commitments about what to do with it.

Sinead goes to bed with a headache and general malaise. She's not sure what's brought it on, but possibly just having to deal with annoying Shadow Lords. However, she wakes up in the middle of the night with a great pressure inside her head and pushing her down on the bed. The ceiling vanishes and visions erupt across her field of view - glowing green eyes staring out of the night, looking for something; Tillie in a car (passenger) and being thrown through the windscreen; the sound of the ocean lapping against something oddly; and something indefinable moving through the night sky.

Wednesday 7th September - Galliard waxing

Sinead wakens and makes enough noise that Kasumi hears and comes in to find her bleeding profusely from the eyes, ears and mouth. After establishing that it seems to be mostly cosmetic and it seems to have stopped, they wake up the rest of the pack by turning up at 5.30am and bullying them to come and talk to Elders.

Sinead explains that she has a gift that gives her potential visions of the future for, er, reasons. Not all gifts are downside free, which is probably the reason for the blood and the headache and the horrible night of sleep. She explains the visions she saw and Tillie objects to being in a car crash in the future. They think about the visions and wonder if the thing moving through the sky might have been a mage, and the glowing eyes being Dancers looking for a mage? Emma says to be wary of literal interpretations - its symbolic connections to events happening now, not necessarily an absolute fortelling of precisely what's going to happen. She says that water often indicates change? Odd sounding water tho? It definitely wasn't sand, it didn't have the hiss. She suggests that they should keep it in mind but not freak out. ("This is Jesus, Kent")

Will thinks that the thing in the sky is the Mages? Tillie thinks its a gargoyle or a dragon. Emma says that sometimes the portents are signs of things that have happened, rather than things that are going to happen. Kasumi asks about the carcrash - maybe its symbolic of a sudden, unexpected disaster that the whole pack experiences? Or a trip is cut short in a disasterous way? ("The glass is shattered, and we have to walk; Glass Walkers. Don't let Kasumi drive." "This is getting close to being racist" "Its a war between the Shadowlords (night, shadow) and the Glasswalkers") Maybe it was connected to the not-Tillie in the Atrocity Realm? Sinead isn't sure how much she 'saw' Tillie vs knowing it was Tillie, and doesn't really remember much about scars and stuff.

Maybe the water was like Rippling Waters? The water does move weirdly. Scars Atoning? Only that water doesn't move properly. And there's sand in both places, and she's pretty sure it wasn't the sound of water on sand. Someone drinking from it? No, it was moving water. Finn suggests maybe not trying to circumvent the Moot dream this time? Emma says these sorts of visions are the sort of thing that come in sets - it might be stronger or clearer later. Does she have a bath at her house? Some people have luck clarifying the visions being in contact with water, ideally submerged. Tillie asks if they can bring it on and Emma looks a bit unkeen. ("Spa?" "At that point its one of those painting but instead of playing poker we're in the spa").

The upcoming murder-a-thon on the full moon comes up and Emma says that the Sept is looking at its options still.

That night, Kasumi is coming home from the city; she's walking a couple hundred metres from her house and she hears whimpering. She looks around and finds that there's a small dog under a bush whimpering. Her inner Tillie says "sense wyrm!" so she does a quick check with Sense Unnatural - there's a faint sense of wyrm, nto on the dog, but in the area? She approaches and the dog doesn't try and get away - it sort of wags its tail a bit and whimpers. Kasumi channels her gnosis up and uses her Mother's Touch gift. The dog appears to heal up normally and sits up, nuzzling her hands. She checks its collar and finds a disc with its name 'Squire' and a mobile phone number. She rings it and ("hello, yes? This is Dog") a female voice answers. "I found a dog Squire with this number on it?" "Oh he must have got out" Kasumi gets the address and she says that's a really long way away. He must have got out somehow. Does she mind if they come and get him? It'll be about 15m. Thats fine. They hang up and Kasumi rings Finn and says "OMG get her right now with your gifts". Finn makes it in 10 minutes once he finds his helmet ("Why was it on Will's couch? " "He was eating cereal out of it" "Time makes fools of us all")

Squire is happy to talk to this friend of nice-lady even if he smells of wolf and cornflakes. Squire says he was sleeping in his place and then something hit him, and hit him more and then he was here and everything hurt. Finn asks some questions, but Squire really doesn't know how he got here. He seems keen to go home, but whether that eliminates his owners as being responsible or not is a bit unclear. He's certainly not a pedigree dog, no one is trying to steal him for that. Finn finds somewhere a bit out of sight and says he's going to be a wolf now and then changes. Squire is very taken aback but doesn't freak out. Finn sniffs about and can smell 3 human scents. He can smell a blood trail from near the road to under the tree (maybe 6 feet all up). Was he hit by a car? Is the dog sleepwalking? Something flying and dropped? Hmmm. Finn decides to head off before the owners drop by and tries to find any sense of Squire's scent anywhere in the area.

When a car pulls up in a couple of minutes, Kasumi sort of waves the dog at it. A guy in his late 30s steps out and says "hi!" Kasumi tries to sense him but there's not much in the sense of supernatural scents. Kasumi uses her full name and slightly flustered the guy does the same - Stanley Botham. Squire leaps across to him and does the wiggly tail thing. They talk - Stanley says he has no idea how such a small dog managed to get away since they fed him 3 hours ago all the way down here from Pascoe Vale. Maybe down the creek? Stanley says that their son would have gone nuts if the dog hadn't been there the next morning, he's had the dog since he was born. Stanley says thank you a lot and leaves. Kasumi peeks just to check there's nothing with the Umbra - nothing really leaps out.

Finn comes back and shrugs - no scents of Squire anywhere in the near area at all. They call the pack and give them a run down - there's nothing really obviously their problem, but Kasumi and Will want to chase it down a bit. The others come past with the murder van and they questing stone to find the Bothams. The ritual leads them to Pascoe Vale and past a house on a street with the car that Stanley drove in the driveway. ("And plums shall block out the sun")

Sinead senses wyrm from the street and get a ridiculous number of successes. The house does have a very faint sense of wyrm, but its weird and odd. The house next door, however, has a much stronger sense of wyrm - its more familiar, a shitty personal sort of wyrm. The pack drive on, and find somewhere to step and return. The Umbra is full of weaver stuff where houses stand, but only the occasional bit of realistic looking ephemera indicate some sort of spiritual event.

Sinead peeks into a suburban house, renovated in the last 5 years or so. There's a man that matches Kasumi's description, and a woman about the same age. The dog is in the family room and there appears to be some sort of rigged blockage to keep it out of some of the rest of the house. Sleeping in the house is a young child, so their story checks out.

The backyard is a bit manicured - they can smell the three residents and the dogs and a fourth smell that is much fainter. It seems to only come over the fence occasionally, from the "more wyrm" side. There's a slight blood smell on the dog bed that's just out of sight of the windows. Its probably dog blood. There's a gate leading out to the front yard snibbed but not locked.

They decide to go next door, it seemingly the more important to their interests. The house is more run down than the Botham house, with a crappy hatchback in the driveway, and mostly lawn and trees, not gardens. Inside, there's a middle-aged woman (in her 40s?) and a guy in his late teens or early 20s who matches the smell. Mother and son is their best guess. ("He may have indeed teleport-kicked the dog several suburbs"). His room is on the dog-side of the house. His shoes don't smell of dog, and neither do his.

They sense wyrm on the people in the house - it seems likely that the young guy is the source of the wyrm, a sort of low grade crap person taint. The older woman senses just like most people. They smell in the car, just in case - no, no dog smell there, and given the dog was injured it'd be obvious. There's still something off about the Botham house, but its a very off-note sense - like seeing herbs and smelling tires instead, its discordant in and of itself. While they are hanging about, the young man goes out the back for a cigarette and the dog starts barking. "Shut up!" and he lobs a chunk of dirt blindly over the fence. He doesn't seem surprised the dog is there, which maybe puts the blame for attacking the dog and driving it away not on him.

Did a gargoyle do this? There's no sense of magic or demonic and no signs of claw marks on the roof. They sense for wyrm around the Umbra. The jerk-guy sense is not as obvious in the spirit world, but the weird sense of wyrm is in the Umbra - still very faint, and not pinpointed on anything but there. Speculating that it might be something like the shielded mage house, they do some test pits while Sinead summons their totem. None of the digging brings up anything that they wouldn't expect.

Boobook arrives and lands nearby. Sinead explains their issue with the hurt dog, and the strange wyrm sense in the area. He sits for a moment and then says that it is an alien sense - it is not of the penumbra. It is from far away - the pack speculate that it might be deep umbra, or a far realm? Faerie? The abyss? They ask him to try and get a sense of magic in the area, and he takes to the wing. There's a scent in the Umbra, but it feels like Will is smelling is a shadow - he's not smelling something directly, he's smelling the effect of what's been here. Boobook returns and says there is no folded-in space here like the other places.

Frankly, its starting to look like something bizarre came here, went through the gauntlet, kicked the dog, carried it 5km and dropped it, then left. The gauntlet is a little lower here than they'd expect, but its not massively or suspiciously so. They cruise around the Bothams, just in case they missed a small altar to an alien god or anything that might have called something from beyond.

Lost Prophets give up and head back to the caern. They find Graeme and Christine chatting, and Graeme's able to point him to Cossack. They brain dump at Cossack who agrees it sounds like something might have come through. They're talking about the guy next door when Kasumi says something about maybe he was possessed; Cossack pauses and says yes that's a possibility if he's sufficiently a dick. It'd give a bane or something an in toward posessing him, and that can be step one of becoming a fomori. Possession is more like a whisper than giving super powers like being able to kick the dog 4 suburbs. Will wonders if there was maybe a Moon Path that started there somewhere and the spirit came down out of that?

The pack head back to the original location they found the dog in the Umbra and check it out. There's definitely no scent of Squire in the Umbra. Sensing of wyrm, for a brief moment Sinead thinks she feels the alien sense, but then it is gone.

Thursday 8th September - Galliard waxing

("Moot, bitch! Get out the way!") Finn decides to summon the dream spirit that he needs to interact with at the Moot, or rather asking Sinead to do so. He finalises the chiminage that he wants to offer - one of his dreams once a week for a moon. The rest of the pack consider if there are gifts they should seek out at the Moot as well.

("Gunna need most of your blood" "Like...my personal blood, or some of my stash" "Rite-eous")

Kasumi's phone rings ("I hate Ion, how can I help you?") and a number she doesn't realise. Its a small child's voice asking if she was the lady that returned her dog. He says that he's worried about Squire going missing. There's no way he escaped. Kasumi asks if there's any way someone might have let him out. "Martin might have" "That's the guy next door?" "Yes, he doesn't like Squire. Um, I just wanted to say thank you for bringing him back." Kasumi says that if he goes missing again, Owen could call her and she might be able to find him again. "Bye" *click*

The pack find this endearing, and wonder whether its appropriate to just go punch Martin. Alternatively, maybe cleansing will help a bit. ("you cannot ridgeway a 5 year old" "Yes I can, it'd be real easy") (10m distraction about the odd coupleness of Kasumi and Sinead) Figuring they may as well, the pack organise a night watch before cleansing at dawn. Will spends his time looking for the start of a moonpath that something alien might have come down. However, the search for the end of one is almost counter to how the Umbra works and he doesn't have a lot of luck. He does find it centreing to wander about in a quiet, contemplative fashion. Tillie and Kasumi struggle with the gauntlet to try and peek.

Owen is asleep, his parents are knitting a magazine about food, or whatever normal suburban people do while watching tv. Squire is in the back yard, apparently intact. Maybe... maybe it was just one of those weird things? Martin had a go at the dog, it was trying to escape and suddenly something something moved through another world ("The Umbra?" "Hopefully not cos that might suggest Squire is kinfolk, and frankly he's about 2 foot long and that's not very dignified")? Weird things do happen like this sometimes, when circumstances are exactly right. Will contemplates trying to replicate the circumstances and Tilly says he should lay down while she hits him with a shovel.

Next door, Martin is having a shower, and his mum is reading a magazine in bed. She turns her light off and lays down. He gets out and gets dressed into some sort of uniform-esque clothing but Kasumi can't really make things out. A car pulls up out the front and judging from Martin's reaction, honks a horn. Suddenly thinking that maybe Martin got someone else to drive the dog, they opt to follow him - Kasumi steps into the Realm once he's gone and finds his surname is Berkeley. She does a quick sniff about and finds one item of clothing with Squire's smell, faint with the passing of 3 weeks or so - its a jumper, not shoes and it doesn't have blood on it Tilly, Will and Kasumi step out somewhere quiet and Will does a Questing Stone ritual, which leads them to Coles, where it appears Martin does night fill.

They spot the car that picked Martin up parked up the back. Kasumi changes form to lupus somewhere really quiet and wanders over to the car. She pops the locks with her gift.... oh bum no hands. Will, who has been watching, wanders over and opens the car door as he walks past. Kasumi can smell Martin, and another male, prob early 20s, smokes, eats a lot of shitty junk food, has some scent of intercourse on him from the last two days.... but no dog. Dammit. Its not as offensive a bunch of scents as it might be to a human, being in lupus. ("i wonder if its because their sense of smell is so good, that every smell brings information; but with humans, their sense of smell is rubbish it can just do good/bad - 'youll get sick' 'that's poop, don't eat it''" "That sums up what our sense of smell has evolved into - that's poop, don't eat it") ("Bigamy and suicide sounds like a great bandname")

This is all really odd, but they're running out of things to investigate for ideas. Tillie's still worried that Martin is becoming a fomori or is getting posessed - they could cleanse him or kill him, she's happy either way.

They decide to go ahead with the cleansing - back to the house and do some preparation. Kasumi peeks and sees Owen's window is open, and he is not there anywhere. Squire is still asleep and seems intact. They check out Owen's room - his door is shut, but window is open. His scent fills the room, making it hardto find a path. There's no scent of him on the ground outisde the windows under the window. Did he get stolen by something? Is he... not right? They try lifting Will up to sniff up the window in case he's really Peter Parker? Maybe he didn't go out the window at all? They check the house, he's not in the toilet or something obvious. He hasn't leapt across to the fence. Did he open the window and get sucked out by the vacuum? ("It turns out the trebuchet was inside you all along. " *clunk* *whachunk* AAAAAAAAA").

They're not 100% sure how old Owen is. They thought he was a primary school age kid, but the uniform in his room is a high school. Has... he become a werewolf? That would be cool? Maybe he's going to wake up under a bush bleeding to death as well? They'll ask the dog - but that means waking Finn up. Tillie makes the call, and they decide to wake Sinead up and get her to check around where they found the dog. She grumpily does this, and can't find any signs of an injured child.

The pack suddenly realise they could questing stone him, and decide to get on with that. Before they leave, they try sense wyrm - that alien sense is stronger and in Owen's bedroom. Hmmm. Questing stone gives no response for Owen's name. Hmmm. They try in the Umbra, just in case. Still no response. This is sort of the response you get when its not the right name. Or whatever happened to Joe Ridgeway. Tillie tries the gauntlet round his window, but there's no one there.

Tillie says the last time she lost something she just had to think really hard about it and walk for a month. Kasumi rings the caern to ask about what's going on but gets the less than helpful Ian - "What kidnaps children?" "Fairies? Paedophiles? Clowns? Me?" She explains what's going on and Ian says either they have the wrong name, its dead or they're shit at this. Kasumi just keeps ignoring him and trying to be sensible, saying they think its whatever teleport kicked the dog yesterday and Ian is a bit nonplussed by that, obviously not knowing what she's talking about. Dead is not necessarily an option, they've Questing Stone'd dead people succesfully before. Tillie grabs the phone and tells him they're coming in. Ian says he's going out. Kasumi grabs the phone back and asks about faeries and who might know something. Ian says "your packmate, or the other two septs you've wangled your way into".

Finn tries the unnatural sensing gift to see if he can recognise the sense here as fairy, but as he'd never sensed fairies before, he can't really say yes. He can see what other people mean by alien sense and all tho. Maybe they could go to Rippling Waters for the next Moot? Finn says that fairy don't sense of wyrm, but they can end up with a wyrm sense. This alien is definitely a wyrm thing.

Since Finn is here, they send him to wake and talk to Squire. Squire is very suspicious that Finn is here in his space, but gets over it when they say Owen is gone. Squire sniffs and keeps saying "here?" He goes to the back yard and starts scratching at the back door like crazy. Did anyone else come? No? What about Martin on the other side of the fence? Grrr. No. He barks! Bark bark bark bark! I bark! Bark bark bark bark! Grrr. Finn tries to take Squire for a walk, but Squire is baffled by the concept because its night time. Owen bed. Night. Bed. Bed.

Friday 9th September - Galliard waxing

Everyone returns to the Umbra and nuts out what to do. Tillie and Sinead head back to the caern to talk to an Elder, but sadly find Ian. They explain; Kasumi find dog and picked it up ("her dating history is not of interest to me"). (I fuck dogs). Ian stops mocking them eventually and asks questions. "Did the dog eat the kid?" "Can you hit it?" "What do you want from me?" "Ideas" "Couldn't you have rung, then I could hang up on you again?" "Have you succesfully questing stone'd the kid at all?" "No, but we did the parents successfully" "Kid was normal during the day?" Ian suggests maybe waiting for day time and seeing what happens? Alternatively he suggests going and bugging Emma - either now or at dawn, depending how urgent they think it is. They opt for now, in case Owen is nearly dead in a ditch somewhere.

Will keeps an eye on the Realm while they are gone. About an hour before dawn, when he sees something move across the backyard. Its a flying human figure, not very large - it coasts across the backyard and toward Martin's side of the Botham house. Will's describing it to his packmates as it gets closer - wearing child's pyjamas, all grey and sunken skin. It floats to Owen's window and perches, and then changes, skin filling out and gaining colour; and its Owen. Kasumi says "Oh noooooo", and relates something that happened to her in Japan:

Owen hops into bed and pulls up the covers. Will senses for unnatural and finds everything tastes of garlic, really strongly. He sighs and decides that they should give it up and ring Tillie, so off they go to find a way into the Realm.

Tillie and Sinead knock on Emma's door in the pre-dawn light. After about 40s, they can hear someone moving. After another 20s, Emma looks dishevled in a dressing gown. "How urgent is it?" "8 out of 10?" "How long?" "10 minutes" "ok, come into the hall and keep your voice down" "Why, who else is here?" "None of your damn business"

They give her the short version, but Sinead's phone rings. Tillie answers it and finds its Kasumi, who gives her the news. Maybe its something faeish? but there's still no unknown signal. So its a fomori or something? Emma says there's no Big Boffo Book of Wyrm things to consult - while there are common banes and common forms of fomoris and the like, there's a whole wide world of weird out there that comes to visit sometimes, and the sense of wyrm was definitely alien. Sinead makes a face and mentions her dreams the other night - something indefinable moving through the sky.

A voice from upstairs says "Em?" and she calls "Just a minute" up there. She says "Assume fomori, don't get killed, don't get caught". Tillie wants to try and capture it for info and Emma says its worth a shot, but it probably won't get them very far.

The pack get together and compare notes. Is this something weird that's followed Kasumi from Japan? They could try asking Fujiko of the Ngalyod pack, in case it is, but maybe it was more associated with the radiation weirdness in the exclusion zone. Maybe his family has been to Japan, and that's how they got here? Will lunges at Owen in the Umbra to see if he'd jump - can he see them? It seems not, or he's a stone cold badass, or he's not looking right now. Owen gets ready for school and just does normal kid things. Much to their surprise, he seems to be in high school - he doesn't seem big enough. Its also not the local school, its Thornbury, a few kms east. Odd. His mum drives him off to school.

(*singing* "Hanging out with, Kasumi time. She always wears the same, outfit its kinda weird"). The pack decide to split up into following Owen (Will and Tillie) and researching (Kasumi and Finn) and getting stoned (Sinead). Kasumi goes to look up changelings and undead children. While the house is empty, Finn breaks in and looks about. There's no signs that they've been to Japan, or anywhere else recently. He also finds stuff that suggests Owen is 14, even tho he looks 11 tops - did he get swapped out at 11?? He tries to see if there's some weird single object that might have made all this happen. There's some signs this isn't the first school he went to - he went somewhere else last year. ("Or inexplicable murders!" "They don't normally just move you schools when you do that"). They find corredpondance with a localler school, chronic bullying problem, school didn't do much about it, parents took him out. Would that have turned him into fomori? It certainly could have provided the starting spiritual wound that gave a bane an 'in'.

Kasumi finds that her research about children and weirdnesses, and finds that most stories are around kids being about 3 or 4 and becoming obviously changelings, or around 13 or so. So mundane psychology says "when you realise your child is not the same as other kids" or "when they go through puberty".

Owen goes to school and is lightly tormented. He's certainly alone at his school; he's not pushed down stairs or beaten but he certainly isn't getting socialised. He does not eat food, he throws it away. He doesn't drink and he doesnt't go to the toilet. He doesn't blink enough. ("On a schedule?"), tho he does get flushed and a bit sweaty. Maybe he's just crazy.

Ok, so they want to catch him that evening. A net? Lurking below the window sill? Do they want to catch him for interrogation? Kasumi suggests sending Boobook or Tillie can send her spirit out as a raven to follow him. Someone else could run through the Umbra with a peeking homid to guide them. ("Chec, I need to start videoing this") ("What if we build it a tiny zeppelin")

The pack use the day to talk to Boobook and ask for his help in hunting the flying Owen at night. He's able to help somewhat in return for a donation of gnosis from the pack. Sinead (powered up) and Kasumi will drive while Tillie lays unconscious in the back. In the Umbra, Finn (powered up) and Will be ready to leap into action following from the spirit world. ("Before I go to sleep, you will not draw dicks on my unconscious face" "Why are you looking at me!" "You are the only one with a history of dick-face-drawing")

That night, Owen goes to bed at 9. His parents watch tv until about 1030. By about 1130, all the lights are off. At about 1150, Martin's idiot friend with the overpowered car turns up and honks his horn - Martin leaves with him. At about 1230, Owen kicks off the covers and heads for the window. He changes as he opens the window and floats out over to the fence.

Finn follows in the Umbra, Tillie remains still in the realm in her non-materialised spirit form, just in case the fomori can perceive her. The pack look around and make sure he's not joining some sort of youth-zombie gang in the sky, but they're pretty sure there aren't any, nor any banes swarming in the sky. Finn senses unnatural on Owen and confirms that there's a lot of wyrm and some small amount of wyld, but nothing unknown that he might think is fae.

Owen drops into Martin's yard. Finn gives chase, Tillie moves to another spot. Owen tries Martin's back door and finds it open. He drifts along inside and closes the door quietly. He floats through the house and eventually gets to Martin's room, where he lands. He looks through Martin's drawers and stuff. Finn can see more or less well but even still he can't quite see what Owen grabs out of Martin's drawer. He pockets it, so it can't be huge.

Owen floats back out of the house and back into his own house. He floats over to Squire's bed and sits on the dog. Squire struggles, but Owen is sitting on his chest and squeezing his throat. Finn tells Will, but otherwise waffles about whether to intercede. Tillie figures her body is too far away to get back her quickly. Squire stops struggling after a minute or so. Owen drags the floppy corpse into the air and down the side of the house, dropping Squire down. He takes out the thing he took from Martin's house, which turns out to be a heavy folding knife, and starts cutting Squire. He's not stabbing or chopping, he seems to be doing delicate slicing. ("We're monsters"). Finn twitches as his rage rises, but doesn't frenzy or leap forward.

The pack idly wonder if this is ritualistic, but Finn cannot feel any rising tide of gnosis. There's no banes in the umbra instantiating with the surge of essence from horrible acts - maybe the fomori is consuming the energy? After a moment or two, he flies off and gets a gardening glove, presses it up against Squire, and uses that to make a handmark of blood on the fence. He takes the knife and drops it onto his shed and then washes all the blood off in Martin's garden. Then he flies back to his window, goes back into his room and goes back to bed.

The pack are clear that he's setting Martin up, but not on why. They consider their options. They decide to send Kasumi in to sneak Squire's corpse away, if only to mess with the fomori and see what it might do. ("If we attack him, he'll turn back into a normal child and yell, and we'll look bad" "lose 1xp for ruining my fun") ("The red talons were right" "We're getting on wid bidness")

Kasumi sneaks back in after a bit of time - she's got some gloves on and a couple plastic bags stuffed into her pockets. She decides to deal with Squire's corpse first... wait, he's warm! Argh! He's bleeding! She Mother's Touches the dog and its wounds heal quickly. He barks and Kasumi grabs him and runs back out to the car. The others see her approaching and look baffled because Squire is clearly struggling. ("Muzzle swap!")

Will peeks and tries to use his Scent of the True Form gift (garlic) and Sense unnatural (garlic), and gives up. Finn keeps watching as Kasumi returns to clean up and dig under a fence to make it look like Squire has escaped - the second that Owen stirs, he's ready to mind speak her. ("If this was a human, we'd be horribly gaslighting it. But because its a monster, its kind of funny"). She leaves the gate open as she heads off instead of digging a hole.

The pack decide to sleep in shifts in the Umbra and see what happens the next day. In the meantime Sinead and Kasumi take Squire home to add to their menagerie. Gus isnt' well impressed. ("Finn, you'll get renown if you resolve this dispute fairly and honourably"

Saturday 10th September - Ahroun waxing

Martin comes home about 6am and goes to bed, not aware his knife has been stolen and he's been framed, then unframed. Owen's dad gets up first, and goes outside to look for Squire. Squire does not reply. He heads out to look for him, and is unable to locate him. Stanley notices the gate, swears, heads back down the side and onto the decking. He notices he's got weirdly coloured mud on his feet, scrapes them off, gets the leash, keys and his phone and heads off out the front.

Stanley searches the immediate neighbourhood for Squire, without any luck. He looks up the council dog catcher number, but they don't answer this early on a Saturday. Owen wakes up about 9, and his dad breaks the bad news ("the side gate was open for some reason"). Owen looks confused for some reason, and reacts in a slightly stilted way. His parents explain that it'll probably be ok, someone will probably take him to the vet. Owen goes outside and sees that all the cleanup has gone on, and frankly seems confused, and deep in thought. ("It has both 'Bring the Ruckus' and 'Bring the Ruckus in B Minor'") ("When I was 14, I was waiting *very* patiently for jpgs to load").

Owen only eats and drinks when his parents insist, but he does chew and swallow. He plays video games a bit; he rides his bike around the neighbourhood a bit. Owen mostly does kid things, but there's not a lot of passion in any of the tasks.

At about 3pm, he liberates his dad's phone and goes off somewhere and gives Kasumi a call. Kasumi, having guessed this way going to happen, has moved to the Realm not far away. ("Oh I feel bad for him, he really doesn't have any friends" "I don't think he's calling to ask if she wants to hang out"). Owen says that his dog has gone missing again and he doesn't know why. Have you seen him? No, lies Kasumi, but he did get a long way away. She suddenly realises the dog was dropped the first time by Owen. Owen asks if she sees him to give a call, because he's worried.

The pack consider their options - tomorrow night is the Moot, they want this sorted before then, but that means acting tonight.

Owen goes home, sneaks the phone back and goes about his sham of a day. After dinner, he tels his parents he's going to go out and look for Squire on his bike. They're a bit unsure, given its fairly dim already, but he looks sad, and they say not to go to far and make sure his lights work.

He does not do this - he heads sort of straight down to where the pack has been stepping, but this seems to be paranoia. The pack are following in the Umbra. He is cruising along the bike paths near the freeway. He isn't moving very fast, and he seems to be looking at the odd dog-walker or pedestrian intently as he approaches. There aren't too many people travelling along, and its not well lit. He's not looking for the dog, because he's not looking under bushes and places you might expect a run away dog might go. Will is peeking and he tries some gifts again - more garlic. The pack cannot figure out what he's doing. Kasumi goes back to get the van, just in case they need to capture him or make a get away.

When its proper dark, Owen turns home again. The pack consider their options. If they are going to track and capture him, they want to be able to see again. They want restraints, and maybe want some way to keep the parents out of it. More thinking.

The pack contemplate many plans - basically they want to follow Owen but if he doesn't go any where, its a kidnappin' time. They've got various options - Magic sacks, tricking the parents into leaving (to get Owen, to get the dog, to go for a romantic dinner), something spiritually enchanted to grab them (a night hag or something), ("once the evil kid is gone, they can have their dog back"). If they are looking for a spirit to paralyse a fomori, maybe a night hag? A stone spirit? Spirits of silence? The ghost of christmas future? Will suggests a blue ringed octopus and that captures everyone's imagination, in part because of the GMs horrified expression.

Will and Sinead head to the beach to summon and bind a blue ring octopus spirit while the other splan. They need somewhere to take Owen when they've paralysed him. ("No one wants an octopus beak to the bra" "Very few people..."). There's some thought about keeping bleach and other cleaning gear in their car, possibly in green bags to avoid suspicion. They call the caern and chat to Emma for a bit. She says she has an option to help them with interrogation, but its expensive ("is she putting us up in an AirBnB?") in terms of time and material. She can start now, if they are definitely snatching him, and await them. She will need to buy some things and go and do somethings, so if they cancel, let her know straight away. She gives them an address near King Lake.

Meanwhile Will and Sinead find a piece of driftwood to act as a talen, and Sinead starts summoning. Will is wandering about keeping an eye out when he sees the ocean behave very oddly - it retreats back some distance and rears up almost into a humanoid shape before running into the shore toward Sinead, yelling "STOLEN!". He moves between the spirit and Sinead to try and block it, but the ocean comes with it and they are both hit by a waist-high cold ocean wave. Sinead's ritual is spoiled, and the two garou are knocked around and tumbled about. Sinead can feel tendrils grabbing her and trying and drag her, but not very effective. The wave retreats and the two garou move up to the inland edge of the beach, coughing and spluttering.

Sinead is baffled as to what it was, Will suggests using her Name the Spirit on the ocean and seeing if she can figure it out. Its the Ocean. It appears that the ocean is mad with her. ("I like the ocean, what did you do?" "Did you culturally appropriate the ocean? " "yeah, i'm wearing kelp underpants".) Sinead tries to think if she's missed any chiminage, but no. There's something niggly at the back of her brain. Its not something she's done - oh. Wait. The major interaction she's had with the ocean was... taking Mrs Stack to the beach. And at the end of that, Mrs Stack said something about "taking what the waters gave her" - the gift of visions. She talks to Will about it, in rough at least, and he suggests that maybe if she's got a spirit's ire, it might be worthwhile doing a rite of contrition to try and make a temporary truce? ("Can you tel the ocean "I'm sorry you're offended?")

Will performs the ritual, apologising for the any offence his packmate maye have offended, without commiting to an actual admission of fault. ("We should get a Jim's cleaning franchise" "you could just put a sign on the car" "yeah, but we could do with the money"). Sinead starts the ritual again, and finds that it comes a lot more easily now. A blue ring octopus leaps out of the water and wants to be her friend. (~~ I'm happy to help out the garou, they never call on meeee, cos I'm little and live in the seeaaaa~~). She speaks to the spirit and it is keen enough to be bound to the driftwood, but they have to bring the wood back to the sea. ("no throwing it into the river on the grounds that 'oh, it'll get there eventually' "). Will and Sinead bind the spirit together. The trip home is a bit awkward "What did you steal from the sea?" "I didn't steal anything, this woman gave it to me!"

In the mean time, the others have got some stuff like chains and gags and have a plan for attacking the child. Kasumi is going to sneak in with the wood, and paralyse Owen. The others will be ready and Tillie will be watching in raven form. Kasumi activates her gifts and steps from the Umbra to the Realm. She leans forward and touches the driftwood to Owen and activates the talen. There's no immediate effect - did it work, or is he still asleep? She waits. trying to see if he's breathing, but foiled by the doona. After a couple of minutes, he shrivels and shrinks to the fomori form - his eyes open... but he cannot seemt o move. Tillie flicks back to herself and tells people to go. The pack sneaks into the backyard and waits for Kasumi to slide the window open.

Kasumi pokes him and he doesn't move. She lifts up the fitted sheet at the bottom of the bed, and bundles Owen up, passing him out to the pack in the street. She makes up a bag of Owen's stuff - clothes and his Gameboy and money and stuff that makes it look like he's run away rather than he's been kidnappend. ("fuck yes scored a gameboy") The pack take Owen to the car and wrap him in chains locked togehter. Tillie goes to put in a gag and sees that Owen's teeth are more like shark teeth now. She opts to not car - if he strangles because of the 'venom', then also good too.

They drive off and call Emma, giving her a heads up about what's happening. She's glad they haven't made a giant mess. She says to bring hm up. Will uses his garlic gifts again but just finds that Owen is a fomori. He's pretty sure that Owen is still alive.

The address that Emma gave them turns out not to be a house, but just a clearing on a track. Emma is here and has clearly been doing some sort of ritual preparation. They drag Owen out and say that they think he's been dead for a while, that's why he's so little. Will wants to know how he became this sort of fomori. Emma says that she needs to complete this ritual, which will involve stealing gnosis, er, contributions of gnosis from the pack. She makes the pack stand in particular places and tells them to hold still. Owen needs to go in the middle. Will tries to compare this to everything he knows - he thinks she's channelling Chimera, but he's not sure how. (NONAGON!)

Emma completes her ritual and the pack feels odd - its slightly off-putting. Its a short moment before they realise they've lost their contact with Boobook. Emma seems to have cut them off from the spirit world. She says to kill the fomori and then they can question it. A short 13 year old is pulled into pieces by 5 garou. A billing cloud forms up above Emma. It attempts to flee repeatedly but cannot get away - Emma launches a binding ritual and it is caught by her ritual. She completes it, and says that they should ask their questions now. ("accusing st Peter of being a hipster")

The pack quickly confer (in game time, at least). They try and phrase their questions and check for logic problems. They want to ask what its plan was, what was it doing with Owen specifically. Sinead suddenly asks whether it was a coincidence that the dog went 8kms from Pascoe Vale and ended up basically right between Kasumi's tram stop and their house. It seems a bit ludicrous in the light of everything they've discovered that it might be a coincidence. So, what did Owen want with them. ("The man with the Buzzfeed voice... 'one shocking plan you won't believe'") ("where did you come from? Where did you go?")

("what's your super weakness?" "It turns out, blue ringed octopuses") Finally they're ready to go - Will asks the questions. ("Hey fuckass") "What is your plan?" "We come to consume. We come to consume *you*" Its a plural you, but somewhat specific - it might mean pack, sept or tribe. "Who sent you?" It fights, and they can tell Emma is forcing it to answer. "No one sent, we were called". "Where are thos that called you?" The one that provided the way here is somewhere in the city (it seems to not know), but what called it was something inside you (which, once it was aware of, made it want to come). Is it the dream? Is it wanting to eat a wolf man, like the ones in Japan wanted to? "What is the name of the thing that called you?" "It has no name, but you would call it 'Raicho'". Argh. That was the name of the girl in Japan. "How many of your kind are hunting us?" It fights answering, and it takes Emma more effort, but eventually it says "7" ("Including yourself?" "is that your last question?" "ummm no"). "How are you hunting us?". Emma is looking a bit grey, and has to fight its thrashing - it clearly doesn't want to answer. "We gather strength. Many will overwhelm, We will find you. The nothing that is something inside you calls to us, and we will consume it." Emma says "kill it!" Five garou tear the bane to pieces as it tries to escape the bubble Emma has created. ("it has no treasure type")

Emma disperses the bubble while the pack bury Owen's body. The pack vaguely consider the things the spirit said ("is it possible some kind of wyrm parasite got on us?"). Kasumi wracks her brain about the surname of Raicho so they could questing stone her. She messages her mum in Japan, just in case she remembers ("Remember those grubby kids who I dumped you with who disappeared and I said 'don't worry about it'? Do you remember their surname? lol, luv Kasumi") as they were in a refugee camp and its unlikely anyone official will remember it. They get Emma home, Will offers to get her a kebab on the way. the way home.

Sunday 11th September - Moot Night

Kasumi decides to go to the caern and chill out there and see if she can't get the name back. It seems unlikely Questing Stone will work ("its has no name"), but what the hell. The meditating is not coming well, but Ends-the-Quiet comes and talks to her about what she is doing. Kasumi relates the whole stories to him and suddenly goes "Ah! Etsuko!". She runs off and tells Sinead who has been napping. Sinead does the a Questing Stone in both the realm and the Umbra to no resposne. So either that name no longer applies, or it hasn't touched the ground in a really long time. (Given they float, its not totally stupid).

Will heads for the ocean and releases their octopus friend. Everyone else checks in on Owen's house just for sanity checking from the Umbra. They get there in the early afternoon and find that there are more visitors than they expected. There appear to be 4 uniformed police and 2 detectives. That seems lot of response for one missing teenager after 12 hours - it certainly doesn't gel with Will's research about how many missing teenagers there are a year. Especially when it looks like he packed a bag and then left. Kasumi peeks to get a better impression of what's happening -

The detectives are asking questions like "did anything strange happen this week?" and Stanley talks about how their dog showed up in Brunswick on Tuesday and now he's gone missing again. The nice detectives get Kasumi's number off Stanley's phone. Has he had problems at school? yes. Any friends? no, not really. How does he get around? We take him to school because its over in Thornbury. Bike, mostly. Is it gone? No. Is there anywhere he'd like to go? Is there anyone in the neighbourhood you don't go on with? Stanley explains about the neighbour and not liking the dog barking. The police will be speaking to him as part of a door to door. The questions are pretty straight forward, but its still a ridiculous level of response. Kasumi tries to sense for anything strange, but there's nothing more than a faint wyrm about one of the uniforms.

The cops all go outside and the detectives give instructions to the uniformed police - two of them should go door-to-door and ask questions with this photo, especially next door, and ask especially if they saw him with anyone. There's some obscure "should we add him to the list?" "Not yet, because we're not sure if he fits the profile". There's no explanation. The other two should wait here for the forensics guys. One of the detectives is about to ring Kasumi when he says "No, actually I might do some lookups back at the station first"

The pack fixate on returning Squire now so they go home, get the dog, get him to roll in dirt and muck and scruff him up and then let him go near home. Squire does, with Finn's instructions, despite nearly getting hit by a car. The family is very confused when Squire just shows up.

Forensic people show up and *they* do notice the large bloody patch underneath Owen's window. ("Its just dog blood" "yeah, but they don't know that"). They take a lot of samples from the source on the ground, and look around.

The pack consider their options. Tillie and Finn go to find Cossack and brain dump while the others go peek in on the police from the Umbra. They find that the two detectives are headed to the Russell st police station, and as they have has issues with weaver spiders there before, they find some bits of spiritual authority to bluff their ways in. Kasumi starts peeking at the caern, and Sinead and Will help her make her way to the CBD.

Tillie and Finn locate Cossack at a pub with sticky floors. They bring him a whiskey. He clearly has spoken to Emma about things this morning. He's mostly keen on talking to everyone about it this evening at the Moot - he doesn't have any immediate thoughts. Tillie talks to him about Possum as a way of tracking bad guys - Cossack agrees that its certainly one of the prime spirits they might deal with, but there are potentially issues (Dreamtime spirit for a start). Bats also possible, but they're very seasonal.

Meanwhile, in the city, the rest of the pack is walking up and down the corridors looking for their detectives. There's more spiders than usual, and the werewolves have to bluff their way through a few times to not be blocked. Kasumi starts heading into a potentially likely area when the other two tap her on the shoulder a lot. They can see the two large armored spiders blocking the corridor ahead. They swap info - the area does look locked and newly secured perhaps? The pack try to authority the spiders, but they just go on edge as if they are about to attack. The garou back off a bit for a think. Fight them? Could be hard if other spiders show up? Bind them? Go back for reinforcements?

Will looks about to see if they can go around. The corridors don't allow for it, but he thinks outside the box. Or at least outside the building. He reckons that they could climb out here and then along the outside of the building and then back in. Kasumi doesn't want to stop peeking, which will complicate things, but they could help her out. What's the worst thing that could happen? Probably dropping three or four stories, breaking bones and frenzying with the Full Moon.

Despite Kasumi being a dead weight, the other two, in glabro manage to get her from one side to the other without dropping her, though there is some scraping her across the stone and stressing her out a bit. She even manages to not stop peeking, despite being able to see homids way below her in the realm.

They scramble back in the far window and see it was worth it. Oh. Oh dear. ("Kasumi has hung out with all of us for long enough that she almost certainly swears in English" "yeah, especially Tillie" "Why do I get pointed out?" "Cos you're a filthy bogan" "That counts as a challenge, I believe"). There's a big map setup on the wall with 8 locations marked out. Each location has a number of children listed as being missing. There are about 35 of them, scattered across Melbourne, including the school Owen goes too. All of the children went to secondary colleges. They disappeared after school or on weekends. The last person seen with them was another child - its mostly the case that no one knows who that was. ("Seven monsters for seven schools") In the cases of after school cases, they were in the same uniform, so its presumed they were kids from the same school. Not all the descriptions are the same, though some of the ones from the same school are similar.

There's a strong feeling that the police have only just picked up on this pattern in the last week or so, for a variety of reasons. Lots of resources are being tipped onto making it go away. There's about 20 desks for detectives. One guy seems to have been in charge up to a point but then there's a note saying he's on permanent leave. The pack take note of his name. There's some notes about possible links between them all, but frankly its almost a random sample of kids. Most of them are in the first few years of high school, but there are some outliers. The pack get a sense that maybe there's some sort of ring - a group of people doing trafficking? Using kids to trap other kids? There's no specific ethnicity, or socio-economic status, just a age span. There's one Catholic school, the rest are state schools in varying suburbs. Mix of boys and girls - some are known 'troubled', some weren't reported missing straight away.. both of these made spotting the pattern hearder. Owen is not on their list because he "packed his bags" before vanishing.

The two detectives they saw earlier are here, as well as 4 others. Kasumi scans for unnatural, but finds nothing. One of them is running searches for a Kasumi Unami... oh. Foreign immigrant, permanent residency, car got stolen once, owns a business. Probably nothing particularly suspicious there.

There are big notes about not talking with the media or public without some of the police communications unit being involved.

The pack contemplate going to the schools, and seeing if the fomori kids are new kids at the schools, or if they can spot them. Kasumi suggests getting some of the other packs to help. They want to Questing Stone the most recently disappeared kids, on the grounds that the names are more likely to still be usable, versus the older disappearances. Kasumi is worried about the 17 year old outlier, and wonders why they don't match the rest of the sets.

They go with the last one - Lisa Tan - it leads them to a lot between rail lines near Northcote. There's a shed that has padlock. There is some sense of the alien wyrm that they picked up at Owen's house. The pack back off a bit and head to the Umbra to investigate from there. In theory, anyway. ("I am not trying to get you all killed" "FAKE NEWS!"). Tillie manages to smell, and can just make out death and blood, but can't really see.

The pack throw their collective hands up in the air and just burst in in the Realm. Fortunately its not full of floating evil children. Its pretty grotty and generally unused looking. Its full of mostly mechanical stuff (" - covered in blood"). However on shelves at the back they find two new looking plastic tubs (" - full of blood ") with two people stuffed inside them. They are slightly shrivelled and drawn - clearly dead. There's an inch of liquid that sloshes about a bit as the pack pull the tubs out on their wheels. The garou figure this is probably Lisa and Chris Tan - they are both wearing the same uniform. They have obvious wounds that look like chewing. Not bitten and chunks taken away, but more gnawed, around the neck and on Chris' abdomen. Lost Prophets deploy their sensing gifts - these are dead humans, not on their way to being fomori. They sense of wyrm - the same alien sense that Owen emitted. There does not appear to be any further supernatural influences. Sinead thinks they've been here for a couple of days. The pack slide the buckets back in ("slosh slosh").

The pack decide to head back to the Moot. As the moon rises, the Elders start the Moot with the Opening Howl and the prayers to spirits. Totems and other spirits are thanked for their assistence. Cossack talks about the stuff the Sept is doing. The Get of Pennington were chasing around some students at the halls of residence ("no one puts baby in the Umbra!") making some sort of pickup artist group (heading for rape gang). One person vanished, but the rest have just all been scared back into behaving themselves. No fomori or anything wyrmy involved, they were just dickheads. The Scryers spent a lot watching the caern, but also chasing non-wyrm related - people being terrible with front companies.

The Lost Prophets cover their month - resolving the gargoyles, and finding Melissa and her connection to Irena and Ion, cleaning up the wyrm stuff around the mob war and now floating evil Owens. The latter, not being resolved, gets the most chattering. Tillie wants another pack to help them chase up some of the dead kids, because there's lots of schools to investigate. Will challenges to have his Glory recognised, Sinead for honour and Kasumi for her Wisdom. Ken from Get of Pennington challenges from Rank 2 ("Do a barrel roll!"). While Ian considers challenges, other Sept business is brought up. Emma is going away and won't be around for about 10 days. ("yes I ordered a tindr-uber") Chris McNeil will be taking over her job while she's not here but he might need some help.

The topic of Ion and Irena comes up - while no one really knows what's happening, it did go quiet after Lost Prophets spoke to them. Christine says that she's had more contact with them in the time since too.

Talking about tracking mages and the Full Moon Killer comes around again - the Sept has not yet made a decision. Their top contenders are Possum or maybe Fruit Bat. Wind spirits can't really concentrate well enough to do anything.

Emma prompts Sinead about her visions - Sinead tells the story about her face orifices and how they all bled and ruined their pillows. She tells the Sept about the things she's seen and there's a bit of conversation about what they might mean. No one has anything particularly insightful to say.

People split up for stories and talking to Theurges about gifts, and challenges are resolved. Cossack tells a story of a garou called Catriona Rage-like-Thunder. No one is sure if she was a Shadowlord or a Black Fury or a Fianna - different tribes have been accused that she belonged. The story goes that she was spurned by a lover and left her pack and Sept, but while she was off on her own she forged a totem bond between herself and a storm spirit. But the storm spirits will was stronger than hers, and she became almost part of the storm - where she went, storms were soon to follow.

Cossack's point is that these sorts of bonds should be formed between near equals - when a pack is bound to a totem, its a _pack_ to one spirit. When one individual interacts with a spirit on these terms, they are at risk of being overwhelmed. A Sept has a combined authority based on all of its members. And the Litany is part of how they gain and keep some of this authority to interact with spirits. Binding to the Litany helps strengthen their position when dealing with spirits, especially those who are associated with particular tribes. However the Litany is not all there is to life - it has nothing of kindness, and barely anything of compassion.

Finn asks Sinead to summon a spirit called Sanya to help him learn the Dreamspeech. The spirit arrives after an hour or so. When she talks, her voice appears to come from a long distance away, and with a bit of an echo on it. Finn explains his need and offers his dreams for a night once a week until the next Moot. ("You realy don't want to sleep in the wet spot when its bin juice" "Nah mate, its like fucking in the ocean, its romaaantic" ) The spirit agrees to his deal - she reaches out to touch him and then says "Who took the other dream?" Finn is baffled. The spirit says there are dreams missing - a space has been left. They ask if the spirit can tell if the rest of the pack is missing dreams - it says that Sinead has extra dreams, she dreams the water's dreams. The others are checked in return for donations of gnosis - they have normal dreams as far as the spirit can tell. The spirit is unable to tell them anything further about the missing dreams, just that there is a space. The spirit cannot help them further, but maybe Chimera could?

Kasumi is challenged to answer a riddle

In former days, my father and mother abandoned me Still
lacking breath of life or being
The one began, a kinswoman kind, to care for and love me
Covered me with her clothing, rapped me in her raiment
The same affection she felt for her own.
Until by the law of my life's shaping,
Under alien bosom I quickened with breath,
My foster mother fed me thereafter until I grew sturdy for flight
then of her dear ones, her daughters and sons,
She had the fewer for what she did.

Sinead is to help Chris fill in for Emma - if she summons and negotiates with spirits on three occasions the Sept will recognise her honour renown. Will is challenged to fight two sept elders - Ian and Nadine (both Ahroun). They are armed, he's not. They are not to use their rage, nor change into crinos form. He is allowed. He can use gifts, as will they. If he frenzies, he loses. Winning conditions are when the elders say he wins. The elders go off and return with switches with ribbons on the end. Nadine looks baffled, wwhile Ian swishes. ("hit me with your ribbon stick")

The fight is not extended - Will breaks Ian's stick and tries to punch Nadine repeatedly while she hits him in the leg, face and ear. Nadine stumbles out for a moment or two to regain her equilibrium and not frenzy. Will tries to dodge around a bit, but both the elders try to flank him on opposite side, and he defaults to just raw punching. In the end he punches Ian hard (to death) and Ian frenzies - the rest of the Sept dogpile on him to stop it going badly. When Ian is unconscious, Nadine says that they were looking for more tactics from him, using the situation or environment to his advantage rather than just raw force.

Kasumi is asked for her answer to the riddle and she ventures "Cuckoo"? Which is the right answer. Nadine leads the revel and most of the Sept rampages across the landscape. (http://web.archive.org/web/20051225014246/http://www.twinkiesproject.com/turing.html).

The pack decide to work with Finn's new powers and see if they can get more insight on the pack dream. He attempts to draw on his new Dream gift as the others go to sleep, and instead slumps unconscious.

Monday 12th September - Ahroun waning

WAAAAAARGH.

The Lost Prophets all wake up and yell at Finn for falling asleep. ("Kasumi's Ass is a fetish"). They head to the caern to find Christine, but Graeme intersects them and says they have another Full Moon Killer attack. This time it was in Elwood near the creek. The pack head down there and opt to not be seen on the site again right after, but peek from the Umbra.

Finn can see a burnt out car, and two police officers standing at the blocked gate. Finn says he can smell petrol and fire retardant mostly, but there's some blood smell. Tillie also peeks and both of them use their sense gifts - there's wyrm and magic. The wyrm is a mostly 'murdered'. The car itself has been burnt out, but not nuked into a burning puddle. The pack considers it - the fires have been getting smaller, and less supernatural?

There's no clear impression about what the dead person in the car might have been doing from the site - its not anywhere right near clubs or anything particularly exciting.

The pack decide to go with their usual modus operandi - they get the police to investigate and read their brains. To the morgue! The body is pretty charred - the police are assuming its the car owner as he is missing. There are some signs on the body of violence before death - skull fractures and rib fractures that suggest he was hit hard and then maybe bent hard over the door. There was glass inside in a way that suggests it wasn't from the fire. He's got glass in his wounds. Its not strange knives, but its someone with a lot of strength. ("Oh i'm so full of chicken").

Back to the caern, brain dump at elders and find Christine. They compare their lists and poke at the best way to split them up. ("If they're dead, you're lucky. If they're alive, they'll be evil"). Eventually they come to a division of labour that seems to make some sense. Scryers go and investigate the Thornbury missing kids first while Lost Prophets go to McKinnon.

While Will starts to Questing Stone for Hua Tran, Kasumi gets a call from the police asking for Miss Umina. The callee is a Detective di Bernardo and he wants her to speak to her in person. He has some questions about a case that he is investigating she might be able to help him with. She agres to come to him in Flinders St station at 9am. ("this one van keeps driving past all the sites, the ones on the news, and the ones not on the news" "We don't even need 'this van keeps driving past primary schools'"). Will has to do the ritual a couple of times to be able to precisely hone in on her. The stone leaves him to a park, with garden beds. There's no where really to shape shift and check, but they do spot a chunk of bed that looks like maybe its been recently disturbed. Tillie senses for wyrm and thinks that she can sense a death-related taint. Just in case they are both here, Sinead has a go at finding Gideon Carmody - but the sense of him leads off and away.

This time the ritual leads to a front yard of a nice house, with brick and bars fence. While they are contemplating what to do, Kasumi's phone rings again and Christine asks to talk to Tillie. They've done the first two, and both of them are buried in their parents' houses (well, in the ground at that address). They're hidden, but this is odd. Is it vindicitiveness? Convenience? Did they start burying them there and then decide to move to tubs in sheds? Will they eventually be returned to the yards? Maybe they put them in the tubs to ripen, then bury them and they rise again as evil floating children. The Scryers haven't dug them up or anything, but they're sure there's a body there. They decide to build up a bit more data and keep looking

They sense for the next kid from McKennan, who went missing a month ago, to find that Questing Stone brings them to some garden on a road divider on North Road. It takes a few passes to be sure but the sense is definitely there. They opt to drive off and go into the Umbra, and investigate further from there. In the Umbra, Will peeks and finds that when the council put in these plants, they also fertilised them, so the smell is hard to pick out, but he's pretty sure there's a body under the plants too.

Its a bit weird that the fomori can get bodies into the ground so quickly - this would be a hard place to bury a whole body. Maybe its not a whole body - just the head? ("just the feet?") They're not sure how much has to be there for questing stone to work? ("evil feetless demons stomping around." "Thats why they can fly, no feet").

("Incidently, the answer to the proclaimer's question - it gets them to about Poland")

Its the end of the school day and there are kids everywhere, heightening the sense that the pack should be doing something. Tillie has the thought that maybe all the missing kids are food or experiments and the fomori, like Owen, haven't disappeared. They have found the missing kids in a couple of differnt situations - is it maybe that each fomori has their own preference for dealing with the corpse? Are they moving them after a bit? That might imply that the pack could lay in wait somewhere.

They opt to check out that latest missing child from Black's Flat, and Questing Stone leads them to a half-built, and possibly abandoned house in Glen Waverley. It looks like construction has stopped for a few months - chain link fence at the front, with plastic sheeting behind it, and a couple of obvious cameras on the 2nd floor. They run off and find somewhere to step, then come back and look from the Umbra. There's no real Umbral manifestation of the house, so they can wander more or less freely. Its about 3/4 finish on the side - bathrooms, kitchens and stairs are missing, and everything is a bit unfinished. Its clearly been broken into at least once or twice.

It smells not good - from upstairs is a scent of death. Tillie gets Will to boost her up so she can hunt around. Upstairs in one of the bedrooms, there is a bit of the plastic sacking off the fences laying on the ground and two bodies are laid out on it - probably Vikas and maybe Adele?. The window in the room has been wrenched and damaged to allow it to be opened; its pretty sheltered from view from other houses nearby. The bodies have been chewed on the neck and abdomen. There's not enough goo here tho - there's blood around, but the corpses are a bit drawn and reduced (or exsanguinated, perhaps). Sense of wyrm shows the same alien sense that Owen exhibited, but also a chunk of "I've been moidered". The pack opt to throw Will and Tillie in the air so he can step sideways into the realm and use his scent of the true form gift - the corpses don't seem to be proto-fomori, but instead gently decaying human corpses. He tries to sense for unnatural - the corpses don't have anything, but there's a faint sense of wyrm lingering about the room. Will changes to lupus and tries to pick up a scent of the attacker off the corpses. There's nothing that isn't overriden by rotting children. Will was watching CSI last week and they had something about bruising on bodies that hadn't been moved - he moves some of the clothes aside and finds that they do have a bruised look at the bottom. They're clearly not completely drained of their juices. Maybe... maybe they are coming back and finishing them off slowly?

He shifts back to homid and ransacks pockets gently - he finds Vikas has a student card from his high school but not much else. Tillie thinks that the kids weren't killed here, or they were killed oddly. The wounds in the stomachs aren't all the way into the gut, but just in the fat and maybe up the wall. They would have bled like crazy, but there's not a lot of blood on the plastic. The pack decide to back up a bit and give the Scryers a call.

Christine says that they've found 2 more bodies - Jacqueline Evans and Callum Maynard. Breaking with tradition, Jacqueline was not buried at her parent's place, but in the back corner of a park. But Callum was at his parent's. They'll check out the last one from Horfield, and Sinead suggests maybe checking to see of Jacqueline's parents don't live in an apartment or something? They agree to do that and then they'll call it a night.

Will speculates about whether they should lay in wait and kill the fomori that brought the bodies to this Glen Waverley house, or whether that will tip off the others that someone's killing them. Given they aced Owen two nights ago, the cat might be out of the bag already anyway.

They put off the decision for a bit and go hunting Narelle Kelly, leaving Kasumi and Will just in case the killer comes back. ("... what I do have are a very particular set of skills....") Questing Stone takes them to a house not far from the abandoned one. There's a car in the drive and lights on. The sense leads down the side of the house, but they can't see down there from the car while driving past. They find somewhere to step back into the Umbra and come back, peeking well - they establish quickly this is the Kelly househould and that Narelle appears to be under the house, more or less next to the access door, possibly partly sealed. There are two adults and two children in the house, the oldest one is missing. There'a a brittleness to the atmosphere in the house, but there's nothing that suggests that the death isn't yet another fomori death.

Smelling through the gauntlet, there's no scent on the door or nearby area. It might just be that the shrivelled up children don't leave a scent. Sinead tries to spy in the missing girl's room, but there's nothing that seems obviously out of place from the Umbra. She can see some photos, with names hand written on them - they're mostly print outs of phone photos on paper. There's about 5 or 6 repeated individuals in the photos, but none of them are some of the also missing kids. Elsewhere in the house there's some cards from the Victorian Police, along with a letter. ("No, not a condolence card" "So, your daughter is probably dead...") Its sort of a "as discussed" letter, summarising things that they might have been told in person

The pack head back to the abandoned house and look at their options for when (if) the fomori comes back - maybe someone can block from outside while some of the pack attack from inside. There's a bit of pointing out about Cossack's litany speech at the Moot - which again was a bit weird and out of place ("it was the sermon topic" "maybe its more like OHS, and we have to review all the policies every year"). It came out of stories about spirit interaction - given the sept is looking to make a big deal with a spirit soon, maybe Cossack was pre-empting any potential fuckups.

Having made a rough plan to enact later, they reckon they still have enough time for at least some of the pack to at least roughly check out where the other people have been buried. While they are looking about, Christine rings again and says that they've found another parental burying, and also the one in the park? Its across the fenceline from her parents, who are in a place with no garden, just decking.

The pack consider the different methods and timings - maybe its just a personality thing? Some stuff themselves full, others draw it out for a bit? Maybe opportunities don't come up all the time? They did spy on Owen cruising the neighbourhood and they weren't sure what he was doing - maybe he was hunting?

A couple of hours of further investigation shows that both of the remaining Black's Flat kids are buried in their parents places. They double check back with the people at the abandoned house that their parents aren't living next door or something.

Shortly after 11, a figure flies in over the trees, keeping to the house lines. It certainly appears to be a shrunken child in dinosaur pyjamas, and it flies up to the window. Lost Prophets leap into action! Sinead's plan is that some people will go upstairs, grab it and bring it down where there's more space for everyone to grab and/or ruin it. People activate their various combat gifts. Will and Tillie are thrown up in the air and step, everyone else steps downstairs. Fortunately no one stuffs up the timing or the stepping.

Will leaps forward and grabs the fomori by the neck. His fangs bite into muscle but its not flesh, its like an ashy putty ("I just want you to go back and play 'i don't mind putting it in my mouth"). He pulles away and chunks of flesh and bone come away with him. Sinead leaps up from downstairs into the stair space. Tillie grabs its ankle. The fomori twists around and bites at Will ("1 2 3 4, I declare a biting war") with its nasty sharp pointy teeth. ( Drinking milk in movies). Sinead runs up and tries to curb stomp without the curb but doesn't have much luck. Tillie, Sinead and Will drag it hissing and biting toward the stairwell, and Finn jumps up and grabs it, dropping down and pulling Will down with them. Kasumi leaps up and helps pin the fomori down. Will spins and tears its throat apart, and the head rolls around the room, still biting and snarling before it stops moving.

Ah, now the cleanup. Not only do they have a horrible fomori body, but the two other ones got a bit smooshed about while the fight went on inside the room. ("Mop mop mop"). Tillie's in favour of buying an industrial meat grinder for this and other circumstances. In the end, they opt for a temporary solution. The pack sneak all three bodies (despite Sinead's ineptitude) out to the car and drive off, and bury them in Lysterfield until they can think of somewhere better.

Its about 2am before they finish, so the pack heads back but decide to go to the Sept before collapsing asleep. They find Cossack up with Ian, totally not conspiring against them. Cossack agrees that they are probably going to have to get rid of all the bodies - maybe fire is the answer as most of the supernatural stuff is flesh wounds. Especially if they can find a responsible person (ie frame a patsy). It does depend on the state of the bodies when they finish - if the bones are cracked and gnawed, that's another bigger problem. They need to know that before making plans. Cossack would the pack to try and figure out if they're interacting - maybe they get released to make their own way?

Cossack is keen to provide closure for this whole event to stop everyone looking further for more evidence. Its clearly more than one person so this whole arrangement is going to be a bit complicated. Will suggests pinning it on some crime families they don't like. Cossack hmms and says to leave it with him, and he'll arrange for something. The Lost Prophets have enough problems with perpetrators and corpses.

Tuesday 13th September - Galliard waning

Tuesday morning, Kasumi shows up to meet her police appointment. Detective di Bernado arrives with Detective Gormley. ("I have a neck I just don't have it with me"). He escorts her to an interview room, and offers coffee etc. Gormley just writes notes while di Bernado asks questions. He asks about her residency status and her previous job, but mostly as ice breakers ("it was syphyllis. terrible syphyllis") He then moves on to ask some questions about a dog she found. He checks with her about returning the dog, and prompts about further contact? She says yes the child rang to thank her, and then again the next day saying the dog had run away? But they were a way away, so she doesn't quite know why. di Bernardo ask if she gets more calls from Owen, could she call right away? Even its a missed call? Thank you for your time. There's no explanation about the questions or anything. Kasumi rolls with it.

Questing Stone, looking for kids from Port Melbourne. ("If you look up unpopular apostle, you don't get a lot") Three of them are in houses, probably their own houses. The one that is not is Andrew Fairbrother, and he is in a sealed bin on top of one of the apartment buildings in the lcoal area. There's some chatter about what the fomori want. When they interrogated Owen, he wanted to eat *them* but its not clear if these dead kids are food or if they are being ritualistically killed. Its weird that there's all this effort to put them in or near their homes. Are they just seeking vengeance? There's a lot of that in their behaviour ("Well at least two data points").

Christine rings and they chat about it - they talk about having killed dinosaur pyjamas last night, by basically waiting by the bodies til it turned up. Christine says they're going to look at the Cremorne ones. She's noticed that they're all August tho - none of them are September. Moved on? The Scryers'll keep an eye out for anything out of place. There's some return thought about new kids at each school and whether the fomori might be moving on to new schools - not sure how they would arrange that. Owen moved, but that seemed to be for other reasons. They add it to the backlog of things to follow up, and remember that there was also the one kid in Black's Flat who was last seen with a known child. They need to follow up on that known contact.

The Lost Prophets decide to chase the St Patrick's kids. The first trace from Questing Stone for Mary suggests that she is in a nearby golf course. They find somewhere nearby to do the ritual for Kate and its strongly suggesting that she is in more or less the same location. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InycO9GoI1s)

The pack decide to stake out the railway shed instead of the golf course. Firstly they check it out at day time and see if anything has changed. There's still wyrm sense here, the weird alien sense. There isn't another body, nor is there one less body. However, one of the buckets is not full of goop, and the corpse is much more shrivelled than the other day. ("evil ibises drinking bin juice"). "I'll be a raven, what will everyone else be... in the car". The pack set up to try and track flying children. Will and Finn go into the Umbra, Sinead and Kasumi plan to track the spirit raven that is Tillie while her body is in the back of the car. ("why did you get this rite, you cannot ever remember someone's name")

Christine calls again while they are planning. She says that the Scryers have located the first 6 kids, but the 7th does not repsond to Questing Stone rituals. That's Con Archimid - Tillie suggests that they try and find his parents and check the place out at all

Late that night, Kasumi, peeking from the Umbra, spots someone fly into the airspace, then land and go into the shed. Tillie, on the other hand, in raven form in the realm, notices 3 figures fly in, two seperate and remain in the sky and 1 land and go into the shed. The one going into the shed is another shrivelled child, probably male. He pulls out one of the tubs and takes out a corpse, taking it outside. The second one flies out of the sky, surprsing Kasumi a bit. They wrap the body and fly into the sky, up to the third one, which Kasumi now spots. They don't zoom off into the sky, but stay about double house high and move off. The umbral parts of the pack head off in pursuit ("Onward, noble steed!"). Raven-Tillie takes off and the car starts and the physical pack take off.

The three formori do not fly far before dropping down into a suburban back yard. Kasumi is still peeking and gets Will to follow them into the yard. Despite fears that it might be a ritual thing, there just are two strong fomori with shovels making a hole under some ivy. The third is floating in the sky, watching the two digging. Because the corpse is dehydrated and drained, and wrapped in a blanket, the hole isn't as big as the pack was envisioning it had to be. They're digging in sort of out of the way parts of the yard.

Once the body is covered up again, the children fly up again together, seem to converse about something, then fly off together. Convenient! The pack go back to chasing. ("follow follow follow follow the dangerous child"). They are flying at somewhere between walking and running pace, and they seem to following the roads as a guide? The people driving manage to not crash into anyone else though there is probably some honking on the way. The people in the Umbra manage to keep observing and running to keep up as well. The kids fly out east for some time, getting to about Nunawadding, and change direction somewhat, angling across houses. The peeking people can follow, and Tillie-raven can follow, but the people in the car lose sight of Tillie.

The kids head lower to some buildings in what looks like a park. No, wait, a primary school. No, wait, its covered in grafitti, its clearly abandoned. Tillie suddenly sits up in the back seat of the car, and gives the drivers direction on how to get there ("They're in the abandoned primary school" "How did this suddenly go all scooby do?").

Kasumi continues to direct Will through the school, peeking into the Realm. The school is surrounded by chain link fencing, and most of the classrooms have boarding over the lower windows. There's light coming from one of the inner-courtyard classrooms. The school appears in the Umbra, so the two garou have to come in through doors and buildings. There's chairs, and some hand held DS kind of electronic toys and some other random toys. But there's also signs of gore and yuck, handprints on pyjamas and ragged bits of clothes with blood on them. There are five children hanging in the room, each of them shrivelled and grey fomori. One of them is Raicho, causing Kasumi to twitch and growl. Three of them have obviously just appeared and the garou catch a brief conversation about where Jeff ("Wake up Jeff!") and Owen are. It sounds like Raicho is in charge. "We need to make sure there are enough of us".

Everyone catches up and regroups in the Umbra. Tillie senses for Wyrm but finds nothing. Must be the wrong kids. No, wait. The pack plan to step in between the kids and escape path through the windows, making them seem a bit power rangery, all in a line. The pack bamf in through the Umbra all together and immediately start to tear the fomori all to pieces. Tillie claws chunks out of one of them and finds the flesh is more like putty than flesh. Raicho attempts to flee. Will and Sinead rend one of the fomori each, clawing off great chunks of flesh. Finn lunges to one side to avoid being attacked and returns the favour with his claws. ("she's crossing the distance, she's going for speed"). Kasumi closes in on Raicho and attempts to slam her into the wall to little effect. Tillie claws again, sending lumps of flesh flying. Kasumi tries to grab Raicho and grabs her by the shoulder ("SEMPAI THIS!"). Will tears the rest of the fomori he is facing to pieces.

Tillie smashes the fomori she is facing into paste ("you overkilled it by 7 health levels"). Sinead strikes her opponent again; it is still flopping about, connected by only thin strips of flesh. Raicho goes Kasumi's throat and Kasumi finds her gnosis being bled away with the blood that gushes away. Will leaps over to grab at Raicho, but can't get a grip. Sinead and Finn are attacked, and bleed gnosis away as well as the nasty bite wounds. Finn returns the favour by smashing the fomori around. Kasumi staggers over toward Sinead to get healed. One of the fomori children snaps toward this use of gnosis and attacks Sinead ferociously. She's badly injured, and nearly frenzies. And also loses more gnosis ("Ah cunt").

Tillie grabs Raicho out of the air and pins her down. Finn smashes the final blows into his opponent. Sinead heals Kasumi up. Raicho attempts to fly up, taking Tillie with her; its not the smooth flying that they exhibited before, but she and Tillie do rise. ("Grab her Will!" "I challenge!"). Finn drags Tillie down and that stops it.

Kasumi tears off chunks off limb in revenge for Sinead. Raicho tries to wriggle out of Tillie's grip, slowly shredding herself as she goes. Sinead, gushing blood, smashes the last fomori that isn't pinned into mush. ("You go get chains from the car. You hold this. Kasumi, you come punch her in the stomach repeatedly to make yourself feel better").

Although they discover that chains are only useful when what you're chaining up can't fly, the pack do manage to secure her. The pack toy with options for torturing Raicho for information. Given the amount of effort that Emma put into getting 5 or 6 questions out of Owen, that's unlikely to be an option. Raicho is screeching Japanese words for consume. They could look for a seriously strong spirit to compel Raicho into replying to their questions. Its a bit hard to torture creatures that have no actual sense of pain.

They review the information that Owen gave them - there's something within them (specifically them or maybe the Sept) that attracted their notice. What is in them ("The nothing that is something inside you") the spirits want to consume. No one sent theses spirits, they were called. The one that provided the way is in the city and they would call it Raicho. But its the thing inside them that made it want to come once it knew about it. Thinking about it, the deep umbra spirit and the deeply radioactively tainted area that the first children came from are both weird things.

The pack decide to rip Raicho to pieces and close the book on the whole situation. They ransack through the broken corpses for evidence. They find two phones - one smashed, but not ruined (step below smart phone). The other is an entry level smart phone - it seems to have belonged to 'Edward La', that smooshed kid. He doesn't have facebook or twitter, but does seem to have myspace. His activity has died off in the last month - less smsing and such. The messages he has sent have been stilted.

The pack look about the room and try to decide what to do with chunks of fomori children. ("we're going to dig a hole, and bury the bodies, then burn the hole"). Oh and the other 30 bodies, or as many as possible. They tarp these guys up and then call the Sept. They get Ian on the phone, it being midnightish. Tillie says "So I solved a problem" "Excellent! [hangs up]" She rings back "God you're a massive dickhead". He hangs up. She rings back and gets his voice mail message "you've called Millers drycleaning service, we're not open right now, but if you leave a message we'll call you back in business hours. Beep." Tillie leaves him a message about having made too much pasta. Its all al dente. We al dente'd it back all over the room. Ian calls them back in two minutes. "Don't you have a railway shed you can put them in?" "yeah, that's a good idea." "Oh good! [hangs up again]"

They give up on Ian. They consider their options - anything they do will need to be temporary. Maybe they could use the railway shed, but someoen might notice. Maybe... this time... they should use the mage house fridge? They know its hermetic. ("You know how you always make too much pasta? Well we made about ... seven people's worth."). They ring Ian back and he says um, yeah, sure, just don't summon anything there and make sure they are really really dead. ("You can tie me up and cut me into pieces, put me in the freezer so you'll never be alone")

("You're not getting a connection to the hive mind... what, you need it for _school_? Stupid ai government." "You can connect to the house hive mind, you don't need the state one" "Aw, but Kieran's in the house hive mind. Its bad enough he's touching my stuff, now he's thinking my thoughts.")

Wednesay 14th September - Galliard waning

The Lost Prophets catch up with Graeme and Cossack during the day, along with Christine and Aquinas. They talk about things, like the missing missing kid - Kasumi suggests trying to questing stone Con in the Umbra, just in case. Cossack says that he's talked to Hidden Green about the situation - the two septs can make a crime scene to kill the "responsible people". They might have to spend some time backfilling evidence over time. Drago from Hidden Green is of the opinion that there should be at least 5 people, and that they should set it up as a good working structure, but then one of them had a crisis of confidence. The Alternative (Tony's pack) are going to do the tricky evidence setting up bit; the Lost Prophets and the Scryers are going to do the digging up 30 bodies and bring them to a given spot. The fomori kids will not be part of the big evidence planting. They might have to dedicate some of them - some of the bodies are going to be pretty hard. The Scryers will do about 10, leaving 20 for the Lost Prophets to slog through. They start thinking of ways to get the hardest ones like in the road, or the golf course. Graeme would prefer to miss one or two if they are just too hard, but Cossack is unkeen. Cossack says that it would be ideal to not leave evidence of the excavation, at least at a prelimary investigation. Will suggests having some earth elementals to help with that might be good, and the Sept agrees.

("This neighbourhood has really gone downhill since the wasps") ("I've got Blur of the Milky eye, its like babbies first invis") Sinead misses out on day one of the child hunting because she needs to fulfill part of her challenge by helping summon a spirit for the Get of Pennington. The Sept makes them some magic shovels so they can save their gnosis for child dedication. And off they go.

The pack start their planning - if they need distractions they have some options. "A photographic shoot?" "starting fires" "stealing dogs" Its going to take a while, so they get started.

Half way through Wednesday, the police have a press conference announching the missing children. People go crazy - 36 children including 6 that disappeared the night before. That gets the pack names. ("That gets us NAMED?" "No, names" "Oh"). They release the schools that children are vanishing from. Its the big news item on all the papers and websites and tv and radio. Schools institute a "pick up only" rule which leads to chaos,

Sinead learns about duck spirits and considers the significance of the spirit that the Get of Pennington will need - its the spiritual aspects of duck that they want to channel, the aspects specifically around empathy and caring for one another. They also want to affect a small community, its going to need to be spread over a bunch of humans. She considers some options - doing something to help communities, especially communities they were originally from. ("Do you know garou deliberately edit witchopedia to ruin stuff?"). She eventually decides that the Get of Pennington should offer to work in a volunteer group that makes up packs of stuff for people in need in the area.

Thursday 15th September - Galliard waning

There's been a bit of mob violence randomly picking on people who were "hanging at schools" - funny looking people, and mistaken identity has put a couple of people in hospital.

By Late Thursday night, the pack has developed a bit of an MO ("No, I want to shake it up - this time, without looking. " "This time, nude" ) The last of the Black's Flat houses is a bit of a cakewalk - its a dark backyard and the family has moved away (temporarily?). The pack step out into the dark back yard and take six steps when they suddenly realise that they are not alone in the back yard. There's a silhouette of a person back toward the driveway.

The unknown person bolts toward the front of the house. Finn gives chase, followed by the much faster Kasumi and Will. Kasumi tries to bodyslam, but just staggers them a bit. Will slams hard into their knees and knocks them sprawling, smashing their face into the concrete driveway. The figure drops some stuff they were carrying, and it goes flying. He's now sure he's facing a woman. ("Luckily, there's a grave nearby" "I thought you were going to say 'we could heal her'"). Tillie senses for wyrm but doesn't find much ("less than a real estate agent, more than a primary school teacher"). A female voice goes "ow christ". Finn picks up the thing she was carrying and finds he's got some sort of metal stick? Kasumi tries to pick her up and drag her backward into the backyard, but instead tears off her shirt and dishevels her underwear. She finds this quite annoying in the galliard moon, and starts to respond to rising rage. Will starts angrily whispering at her "Who are you, waht are you doing here?" Tillie steals the stick from Finn and finds its got a meter or something taped to the end. The woman rolls over and kicks Kasumi hard in the shin, prompting another surge of rage. Kasumi opts to head to the back of the yard while griding her teeth and trying not to frenzy and now ITS TOO DARK TO STEP ANYWAY! She tries to dig her phone out of her pocket while not flipping to crinos. Tillie is trying to be a concerned citizen. Will tries to scent of the true form her, and thinks she's human. The woman scrabbles for something off the ground where she fell, wheels back and a camera flash goes off right in Will's face. Finn tries to grab it out of her hands. Will, functionally blind, decides that's enough of that, and uses his Jam Technology gift. Kasumi has just got herself to a state when she can actually step when her phone stops working, it jams on with a still of her looking angry and none of the buttons are working. This the final straw. She half changes to crinos and crushes her phone. ("Can I tick Rage?"). Tillie decides she's had enough of this shit and punches the woman in the face, knocking her out.

They ransack through her pockets ("Why not, someone's already torn off half her clothes"). By the light of the frozen camera they can see her name on the license is Gabrielle Thomas, and also she has a press club card. Oh. She's a journalist. ("Called it!"). They really don't want attention drawn to the idea of there being something at the house to look into - they've still got 8 more bodies to go.

("Glazed") There's some chance that the journalist has seen them appear from the Umbra, so the pack have some concern about Veil things. Tillie has some further concern about the fact she's been poking about in the yard might make other people start poking about in backyards, and that would turn up lots of counter evidence to what they've been trying to construct. Finn wants to use persuasion gifts to get her on side, the others are pretty concerned that its too much of a risk. Tillie suggests faking a car accident to explain all the damage and spirit to mess up her memory. Kasumi counter suggests a "mugging". If they pretend to be a random passerby, they'd probably want to call an ambulance. They could fake it like someone was breaking in and that's who mugged her? ("if there's anything this whole thing has taught me its that you can bury bodies in a backyard and no one will even look")

They decide to go spirit plus mugging. Sinead starts to to do a quick summoning of an epiphling spirit of memory. ("Barbara Streisland"). She opts to forego chiminage and instead just bind the spirit. Finn thinks of an alibi as to why he was wandering through the wilds of Glen Waverley - walking from the Wheelers Hill Hotel to the station to .. get a cab. Yeah. ("Please ignore this jar behind me marked 'Finn's Dreams' sealed with lead, and filled with sparkly lights"). The others, including Kasumi who has calmed her shit right down, get the body out from under the grass pile and into their car.

Sinead does an excellent job of summoning and the spirit is quite chuffed when it arrived. It appears as a dusty old man, tied with pieces of string all over him. She thanks him for arriving and respectfully says "get in the sack". She binds the spirit to the journalist (it does not fight) and commands it to remove the memories she has for an hour or so from before now.

The pack have taken her wallet, phone, camera and thrown her stick away. They figure now is the time and then sigh and return her phone so that Finn can call 000. He explains what he's found (unconscious woman in the stret) and they ask him some basic questions about what's happening and then his name - he gives his name. They say that there's someone coming. They ask if he can stay. They ask him some further questions, and perhaps referring it to the ambulance staff. The ambulance shows up with lights - but not sirens - going in about 10 minutes. He says that he vaguely heard someone and they ask him to wait for the cops. The cops show up and she starts to come around. The ambulance guys speak to the cops and then they come and talk to Finn - they take a brief statement. He says he saw some people run off from roughly here toward a house on the opposite side of the street. They ask where he was going to and he says the train station. They point out that its 2am and there's no trains and Finn explains he was going to the taxi rank because he forgot his phone. They ask if he's going far and offer a lift; he takes them up on going to the station. The others stare from the Umbra as he disappears away from the scene.

The cops drop him at Glen Waverley and sit and wait. Maybe they are wanting to make sure he can get further. However as Finn doesn't have his wallet, and its prepay time, he has to resort to his gifts to convince someone to drive him all the way into the city with no money. This works, and off he goes back into Carlton. ("Offer him a wristy!") ("Sorry Tillie, I couldn't return to the digging up of kid bodies and carting them to the mage house, it would have been suspicious to the police").

The others decide that enough is enough and they're calling it a night. They take this 4 to the mage house and head home.

Friday 16th September - Galliard waning

During the day on Friday, the pack decide to check the misc kids just in case there's anything they've missed. Will and Sinead swap questing stones. The first, Fleur Collins, is on Flinder St steps. People are giving the kids on the steps a funny look - the kids that have gone missing have disappeared after being seen with other unknown kids. Tillie walks up to her and says "Call your mum!" and walks off. Peter Dees is in a culvert out next to a railway line in Upper Ferntree Gully. It looks like he might have got hit by a train and knocked down into a ditch, in a spot that's really hard to see. He's not buried, just laying there in leaf litter. They make an anonymous call from a pay phone. Simone Deighan appears to be in a storm water drain. They check from the Umbra (by digging a hole) and they're pretty sure that she hasn't been chewed on by evil fomori (but yes to 'by rats'), and she isn't one of the floaty kids. She is a bit waterlogged and covered in silt and leaves. They decide to be bastards to some council worker and report it as a blocked drain. The last kid, Petko Kalev, appears to be 2500km away, in Queensland or soemthing. The pack shrug.

More incidents of mob justice - various parental groups have been attacking people they think might be responsible for the children going missing - gay paedophiles, random homeless people, that ethnic group, etc. Someone gets killed when a group of guys stomp their way through a camp next to the Yarra.

Later on the Friday, there's a bit of a get together with Tony from the Alternative. Basically on Friday, they need Lost Prophets to get all the bodies and take them to an address in Sunshine. However they need to steal a white non-descript van to do this transporting. The Glass Walkers will mess with the road cameras to hide their number plate. The pack decide to use Kasumi's Taking the Forgotten gift to take a van from a business for a weekend - they can just return it before Monday and it'll never be noticed its gone. Kasumi ragabashes the whole thing neatly. ("Writing 'ignore me' in the dirt")

The pack split up and while one half are collecting the last of the kids, the other do a run of of dead school children to Sunshine, then take the last lot over.

Saturday 17th September - Philodox waning

Melissa sees Will as he's walking through the caern. He asks how she's going and she says she's been learning many things. Melissa says she's got a question. Before Will and the others found her, school stuff was not going well, and it was suggested she could take a year off and come back to it. She's less freaked out now, but all this stuff (jesturing around the sept) seems more important, ans she's trying to decide what to do. Will suggests that now is maybe a good time to finish her schooling, before she has lots of responsibilities at the Sept. Its going to be a while before she has to be a fully fledged member, and its good to have skills that are of help in the mortal world too. He thinks she should stick it out, but she's not immediately convinced. Melissa says she sort of assumed she wouldn't need a job, she'd be doing what they do - what have they been doing in the last week or so, she hasn't seen them around? [flashback to digging up mutilated child corpses] Will declines to be precise in the specifics. Melissa says that learning, like, how to read random books written to be dissected seems like a waste of time. Will says that money is still pretty useful - he has to load boxes for cash; because sometimes you just need cash. Melissa asks if Will finished school? ("Bloody crow eaters, crossing the border. Stealing our women. Gettin' our jobs." "Watching our musical theatre") He says yeah but his first change was really disruptive, and he had to, um, change states. Other people also usually have a change like that. So she's lucky that way. ("So when you said '90s thing' you meant '1890s').

Will mentions that the Sept is pretty big on learning as being of value - they hang out at the uni pretty strongly, Emma is a staff member, Aquinas and allegedly Finn are students. More learnings valued.

Melissa says that Nadine told her she'd be bouncing around learning things from most of the Sept - what sort of stuff might Will be teaching? Responding to the psychic mockery from his pack, Will says "Rule #1, the Litany" and starts giving her the philodox angle.

Sunday 18th September - Philodox waning

Overnight, in Sunshine, there is a large fire and explosions in the early hours of the morning at a warehouse. In the burnt rubble, four adult bodies, an unknown number of children's bodies were found. A fifth death at a nearby carpark has been unofficially linked to the event. The papers are jumping to the conclusion that its the missing kids.

Monday 19th September - Philodox waning

The police make a statement linking to two events - the person in the carpark killed themselves, leaving a message in which they claimed responsibility for the fire and the deaths. They stated they were part of a ring of people that had kidnapped, sexually abused and killed all the missing children.

The pack do a bit of a check on the journalist Gabrielle Thomas, and find she's at home (St Kilda) having spent a couple of days in hospital.

The sept is reasonably pleased with the pack's efforts; even though they weren't doing the complicated evidence planting - which The Alternative will be doing for the next couple of weeks - they did manage to resolve the whole situation without much trouble.

Tuesday 20th September - Philodox waning

Sinead gets asked to interact with a vervain spirit, which the Scryers needs the help of, in the process of making a fetish. They are looking to make iron pieces to make a defensive fetish. Sinead wanders off to have a think.

After a couple of hours Sinead awakens the vervain spirit and negotiates that the Scryers should harvest the plant leaves they need ritually - they should harvest it when neither the sun nor the moon is in the sky, and put it in honey.

Wednesday 21st September - Theurge waning

At 2am Tillie suddenly finds herself really awake. Suspicious, she checks the Umbra (nothing) and senses for wyrm - there's a sense that there's something toward the front of the house. She heads that way, kicking Will and Finn awake as she goes. She peeks through the curtains. There is a figure in the middle of the street, facing the house. She senses wyrm on them - oh, yes, yes indeed. They're loaded with wyrm. She turns around to talk to Finn and Will and finds them still in bed. She heads back and gives Will a flick in the ear and turns Finn's light on.

They stumble up the front and Finn senses through the door for unnatual influences - he can sense the wyrm Tillie noticed, but also another sense which is not familiar to him. He wrenches the door open to confront whatever it is - and there's no one there. The pack, paranoid, look into the Umbra and also behind them. (well Tillie doesn't). She checks through the window again just to make sure its not a magic window. The three of them do a bit of a check - Finn closes the door, changes to lupus and then slips outside again. He can smell water - stagnant water, and ocean water. ("What's this cupboard full of doorknobs?"). It doesn't move off from the middle of the road - its a lingering scent there, but nowhere else. He looks up just to check there's not something looming. ("Perfectly normal wolf dog" "No, that block of flats has always had a gargoyle".) Finn looks around the neighbourhood, but no other signs of whatever or whoever it was is apparent. ("I can't believe you just opened the door." "I did say 'shazaam' at the same time").

(The pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon) ("My lupus name is now 'Shazam'."). Tillie worries that their nocturnal visitor was the Full Moon Killer - but the extra sense that they got from the site is a bit concerning. Almost every tribe has vanishing gifts, though they are concentrated in the Ragabash area. Mostly the connection is the stagnant water smell. The pack decide they should workd up the Sept Elders but decide to be a bit surreptious about how they approach the caern by going into the city and to Maccas first.

They find Graeme and ruin his breakfast. He checks Tillie didn't just dream it. ("we came here via Hidden Green"). Graeme agrees that its a bit disturbing - whoever it was seems to know where they live. Unfortunately he doesn't have a lot of suggestions - the amount of information they have is a bit too limited. They should probably world up the rest of the sept tho. Will asks about spirit watching the house - the problem there is it can highlight that the house is worth looking at. Tillie asks about cameras, and that's probably worth trying to do. Will decides to check in with Melissa, in case she's been abducted. They message her - its either her or someone able to mimic her sms style. ("I'll just hide amidst these three-wolf-moon shirts").

Graeme lets them know that Emma is back today, and that on the Friday, the Sept will be doing a equinox ritual (theurge moon). They aren't required to participate, but they are encouraged.

Kasumi and Will go off to get a camera for their house. The others settle down to try and meditate at the caern and regenerate their gnosis. Most of the pack sink into an effective meditative state, but Finn struggles to find his inner balance. He's trying for the second time when he spots a weird looking owl-troll thing, about 8 inches high with fuzzy brown feathers and bright orange eyes, staring at him from a couple of feet away. "Hello" "Hi... are you the one I called Bill?" "Do I look like a Bill??". "Can I help you?" "Oh that's very nice - do you have anything I can drink?" "I have some whiskey, but you'd have to come to my house. " "That's very forward of you".

From behind it wanders out a 2 inch high donkey. Finn asks if its his donkey, which the donkey objects to. "Do I look like I belong to him?" "I don't think he's very bright tell you the truth". The donkey moves to where Finn is and asks him to move. He does, and it keeps eating the grass where he'd been sitting.

"What are you doing here, just sitting?" Finn says he was trying to meditatte and the caern and he's interrupting. "That's rude - I think you were snoring, asleep. Humph". Finn apologises and asks him to stay and offers a drink. "Milk. Goat by preference?" Finn says they don't have goat and it says it can smell goat. Finn offers his flask, "Ah, bit early in the morning.ouldn't take it. It'd be rude." "Well, I was rude to you so -" "So you were" and he snatches it off Finn. The creature seems unimpressed actually, and asks if the flask is iron. Finn says yes and it wanders behind a tombstone making spitting noises. Finn takes the moment to ask the donkey if it wants something - it says no. Finn asks if they're here for a purpose, and the donkey says no, they were wandering and it was soft here so they came. The donkey says it doesn't smell like his sort of place, but he does like the grass.

Finn introduces himself. The donkey says he can call him Dob. The owl thing calls out "not his real name!" from behind a distance away. Finn says he was expecting that and says that he knows they don't like to share their real names. The owl thing says he'll share his name, its Argyl. Argyl? No, Fargyl. Fargyl? No, Trargyl! Trargyl? NO, Dradargyl!. Dradargyl? Oh nevermind, just call me Argyl.

The creature asks what there is to do here? Finn says they solve mysteries. It looks unimpressed. Does Argyl know anything about dreams? He might. Stolen dreams? Oh, no. Not at all. Wrong guy. He didn't look like me, he was much taller. With a hat. That was, ah, Dragtool, my cousin. Not me, no, nope. I wouldn't deal with stolen things. I'm offended that you would suggest I would do anything like that. I'm going over there. There's another one over here, I'm going to them. He wanders off, and Finn picks him up "Argh I'm being manhandled!". Finn offers goats milk in return for telling him what its goin on about? "No, I don't know what you mean, she's not telling the truth. It was the other guy. He took her dreams because he thought they were shiny" "Why did someone ask to take dreams?" "How do you know?" "Spirit told me?" "No, I wouldn't trust them. Help! Help! Thief! He's stealing people's dreams! Now let me down or I'll turn you into a goat!"

This sort of babbling goes on for some time. Finn tries to bargain with them to tell him what's going on. Eventually he makes an offer good enough for them to stay while he goes off to get honey and goats milk. He dedicates them and brings them back to the caern again. ("The bread becomes me"). He gets back and Dob and Dargyl are arguing about something ("it was green"). "Shh, just pretend you're a normal donkey" "baaaa" "I know you're not a normal donkey, donkeys don't baaa and they're not 2 inches tall". Dargyl is a little bit overwhelmed by how much honey there is in this honey container but they manage.

Finn brings up the dreams questions. Fargyl admits he might have taken one or two dreams, but she wasn't really using them. Finn asks "she?". "We weren't formally introduced. She was just laying there and her dreams were laying about and so I took one or two she wasn't using. " "Why did you take my dreams?" "That's a vile calumny, I've never seen you before today. Oooooh. Oh, I understand now. No, I didn't take any of your dreams. I've never been here before and I'd never seen you before." "Who was she?" "I don't know, I just found myself in dire need of some dreams. " "What did you do with them?" "I traded them with Phil. Phil wanted some dreams because he had a flute I really wanted. So I traded them and got the flute. But then ... ah... um, I don't know how to say his name, lets call him 'Rock'. Rock came and took the flute, and I wanted it back, but Rock is very big. And then the flute was gone for a while, but it turns out Rock can't play the flute and through it away and I got it back." ".... oh".

Finn asks about the woman and describes Sinead. Dargyl says he doesn't think so; the woman was long. Long along the ground. Long way from this end to that end. Glad we've sorted it all out. Its been a fine day, but I should probably be moving on. Finn keeps trying to describe Sinead - "she has metal in her face" "Oh I'm terribly sorry, is she a friend of yours? That sounds terrible. She should see someone about that." "Did Rock want to open things?" "No, he was just wandering around the forest". "Its been lovely but I should be go" "Could you put me in touch with Phil?" "No." "No?" "No we're not speaking any more. Well, it turns out that some of the dreams I gave him weren't really dreams. They were hopes. Terrible mistake to make." "Did she lose blood in the process?" "Not... while I was there." "So yes?" "No." Long awkward pause. "Oh! I hear someone calling to me! Yes, I'll be right there!" He starts to leave and Finn picks him up by the head.

There is some more confusion, including asking why Finn has a lake in his house. Finn finally thinks to sense unnatural on the creatures, confirming his certainty that they are fae.. however this gives him the first sense unnatural of fae that he's been able to do, and it matches - somewhat - the sense of whoever it was out the front of his house last night. Finn immediately accuses Targyl of having been at his house, creeeping around and looking in the window, which he denies loudly. This just makes Finn more suspicious. He tries to negotiate for Datargyl to tell the truth - he asks for some wee bit of a luck, and he'll ask three truthful questions. Finn stares at him for a second and says "no, answers". "Helpful or truthful?" "Both?" "hmmm. The rest of the goats milk, and a bit of luck for three truthful and helpful answers"

While Dob takes bites out of stones (only wee bites) Finn tries to formulate his questions. "Who was lurking out the front of my house at 2.30am yesterday?" "I told you, I've never been here before - so, I don't know is the most helpful truthful answer I can give" Dargyl says that its soft here, that's why he came. Maybe someone else did too? Finn tries to explain about the physical realm, where the humans are and Argyl just seems confused. Finn tries to think of a second question while Argyl and Dob complain about how long he's taking. "its a trap, I'm going to be here forever". They start to hum over the top of Finn thinking. Finn asks how he might find the thing that was outside the front of his house? "Did you smell it?" "yes." "Are you good at smelling?" "yes" "I'd follow the smell". Finn says that that's not practical. "could you tell me something who might?" "Not really. Dob and me are a team? And we're ... umm... " "Explorers" "Right. We go places first" "Then what happens?" "WE... er, go somewhere else?" There's some arguments about whether he's asked three questions or not, and Finn offers the rest of the honey. "More than anyone could need, I'll live like a king! A King covered in honey! GOLD!" There's some more confusion. "I'll give you this - " "yay" " - if - " "awww." "you can help me find somewhere I can ask someone else". Argyl suggests going to a place with a lake and a bunch of Fianna who sound like him and asking them questions. Its not entirely clear if he actually had Rippling Waters in mind before Finn suggests it, but Argyl says it sounds like just the thing.

Argyl and Dob wander off to explore the Cemetery while Finn wanders off to find his pack and explain. Everyone else looks pretty confused especially when Kasumi conflates fairy bread with the story. The main point is that what visited the other night was a fairy. He suggests they go to Rippling Waters to ask for more information. Tillie suggests that it was after him and therefore she no longer cares and he can move out. Finn points out that his name is on the lease because [singsong] someone doesn't have a real identity.

("A furmancer is like a necromancer for fur" "it doesn't matter how you take 'furry wizard' its not a good thing"). The pack decide they should word up Graeme and the other elders that there are two little fae, and possibly one big one, hanging about the caern. And that they are going to do a road trip to Tower Hill. They do this ("Finn got faeries in your sept"), and Graeme blames having more than one Fianna here. He clearly iterates that the heavily wyrm tainted thing that turned up to their house is some sort of fairy? Better than a Dancer, but not good. Graeme tells them to Moonbridge out to the Sept, there's no need to drive.

The pack find Ends-the-Quiet and Sinead asks if she can do the Moonbridge ritual. She does, under the careful observation of the Stargazer, and she performs it well, greeting Kookaburra and asking permission to travel. The pack walk three steps through the Moonbridge and find themselves in the Umbra on the central island at Tower Hill, facing Russell Cole, the gatekeeper. ("I've been eating that bread. You didn't tell me you'd dedicated it")

Finn asks if they can speak to Leaps-in-the-Light and Russell says that he's around the back with Bret, waving vaguely the right way. The pack find the two Elders - Bret says "That was quick". The pack look confused. Bret says he just sent them a message asking if they had time to come down. Finn says they're here for something unrelated, and Tillie asks what the message was - was it about fairies? Bret looks troubled and says 'yes'. He gets them to explain first, which Finn does. They check no women have been sleeping next to the lake and getting her dreams stolen.

Bret's turn - since the last moot they've had a bunch of low fae staying around, more than usual. They've been babbling about something called the Book of War, and something terrible happening connected to it. A few days ago, they worked out that it was a person, and earlier today they worked out that it was probably Tillie. Apparently something is going to happen to the Book of War, and it has to do with someone who has woken up? They were pretty panicked. The Lost Prophets ask why Tillie is the Book of War, and Bret says they spent a lot of time thinking it was a real book and getting into very confused conversations. But once they'd established it was a person, they spent time trying to work out who it was. Today one of them mentioned that whoever it was had tried to drown a spirit here.. and that made them think of Tillie.

So. Fae at their end, fae at the Fianna end. Tillie asks about 'soft'? Leaps-in-the-Light suggests it might be the equinox, something about it making it easier for the fae to be around. That's sort of reassuring because it means that it'll be short term, probably.

Bret says that normally fae can't stay in the mortal world - the low fae seem to not have the same level of problems, but serious dangerous fae have a limit. Its possibly the equinox and... whatever woke up I guess... that might have led to this.

Tillie wants to talk to more coherent fae than the low fae. Bret winces and says that its possible (Kasumi, behind Tillie is making throat chopping motions), but he'd recommend having a really good reason to go. It can be confusing and difficult to navigate. Time can be weird in that Realm. He says don't rush into the decision - plan for it, take stuff to offer as gifts to help negotiate your way through. Will asks about an intermediary step - maybe talking with other low fae that might be about.

Kasumi asks what they actually said about the 'Book of War'. Leaps-in-the-light says they were pretty adamant that bad things were going to happen to - or around - them. Will says that sounds like some fairy nonsense right there - "bad things will happen, you should go talk to someone in Arcadia... ha aha now you are stuck in Arcadia, which is a bad thing!". Are there ex-patriot fae they could talk to? Noooo says Bret. He says that Arcadia Gateway is the first place that you reach of the fae lands - you can get further into the lands of fairy from there, but as non-Fianna, he strongly recommends they do not. Arcadia Gateway is a realm of its own, its not just a doorway. Its the place where fae lands touch the umbra.

Tillie asks what Bret would do if he was she. He says that he would wait and see if the problem goes away on its own. If more low fae show up in Melbourne, try and see if they can convey any further info. He would panic - this just happens sometimes. The pack say they'll stockpile some fairy stuff like honey and goats milk. Will's keener on wrought iron fences. Bret says that making them avoid you is ok, but pissing them off is a bad idea. The low fae are difficult to stop - they can get places and do whatever they want and make your life pretty miserable. Kasumi queries if this is low fae, what can the high fae do? The Fianna says that the limiting factor is the fact that they can't usually conceive of the same idea for more than 15 minutes.

Lost Prophets ask about when things all started - the last Moot, so about 10 days ago. That's when they turned up more active than usual, and they didn't fade out. They mostly show up at night time. Bret suggests not staying here - they might get more coherent information from the fae closer to the source. He'd worry more about the wyrm nature of whatever turned up.

Will asks if there could be no wyrm and its just a fae messing with them? Bret looks at Leaps-in-the-Light and says "yessss? They could?" but he thinks there'd need to be some value in doing so for them. Above "it was funny".

The pack get some ideas for things to take to the low fae to bribe them or to keep them away, and then head back to Melbourne.

Tillie demands Finn makes up a song for the fae, and they argue about how you can't just turn creativity on like that. (http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/my-muse-is-not-horse.html) Will goes and finds some iron metal in the form of jewellery. People shop in various places for random crap to bribe low fae with.

Will gets home and finds a large goanna on his bed. He stares at it for a moment or two and then uses his Scent of the True Form gift on it - it appears to be a goanna. Not trusting his garlic-detecting powers, he also tries sense unnatural - there's maybe a tiny something lingering around it, but nothing obvious. It seems very lethargic, but that might just be the cold.

Will rings the caern and gets them to send Finn here. Finn looks at it and blinks - he tries sense unnatural too, and cannot get more than maybe the ghost of a tickle. Will changes form in another room and smells about - goanna smell is very distinct and he can smell it from the lounge to the middle of their hallway, where it appears to just stop, outside of Finn's room. Despite some eyeing off of Finn and his denial he did it, it doesn't seem likely he's pranked Will by putting a goanna in his bed. Will steps into the Umbra, but can't see or smell anything out of the ordinary.

Finn tries to talk to the goanna, but its really sleepy. It says it walked here. Where from? Over there. How'd you get there? I walked there. It doesn't seem to grasp that its somewhere unusual. Finn toys with putting a blanket on it to get it warm but remembers that it isn't warm blooded and this won't help. He grabs some mince out of the freezer and defrosts it slowly for the goanna. It crawls over and starts smacking into Finn looking for the meat smell. At one point it rears up and claws him badly trying to get it. Once the mince is on the ground it spends 10 minutes trying to eat mince with no lips. Mince goes everywhere. It wants more, and when Finn says its in the fridge, the goanna tries to get into it, scratching the crap out of it.

Finn tries more questions - it apparently came from somewhere where it was grassy and with trees and it walked and it came to this cave. The goanna has no idea that anything discontinuous happened - it was walking about and it came here, and it seems nice here. The goanna wants to go out the back, so Finn lets it out. They watch as it heads to a sunny spot and debate calling the RSPCA, but call Tillie instead. She's baffled as much as they are. Generally the feeling is that this has to be fae related, but how?

Will touches it with the iron pendant, but other than suspicion that he's doing something weird, there's no reaction. ("go for the face, his PRETTY FACE"). Rather than dealing with the RSPCA, Tillie calls Nadine and asks if she has a minute - Nadine sounds a bit short, and says not really, but what is it? Tillie explains they have a goanna in their house and Nadines says to join the queue. Its not just goannas, and its not just them. She doesn't know what's going on, but this is not the first "we've got a wild animal in our house" call that's come in today. ps: try not to hit the emu on Alexandra Parade. What should they do with it? Is it a problem, and contained? yeah its in the backyard. You know they can climb right? She says she'll add them to the list, but it might be a while.

The pack decide that they should try and get it back inside. After much messing about luring it in with meat and then having it claw the crap out of Will, they eventually get it into the bath and hope it'll quieten down.

There's some speculation - maybe 'soft' means low gauntlet? This isn't an animal spirit though. But maybe its walked in somewhere soft and then out again near their house, but the nearest place goanna's live is going to be a way away.

The pack listen to the news, and find talk back radio talking about it - its not *Everywhere*, but there's been a more than 10 instances of random animals appearing. So far its been things that are native to the area (no salt water crocodiles and no cassowaries). There's an interview with a biologist enthusing about a gull that has been spotted near Sandringham. There was an emu and chicks in the middle of Alexandra Parade.

Later in the day, a frazzled pair from the zoo shows up and take the goanna away, much to the bemusement of the pack and their neighbours.

Friday 23rd September - Theurge waning

The pack spend the day setting up a faerie shrine/honey trap. Will makes fairy bread and dedicates left over Christmas baubles. Sinead dedicates skittles and glitter. ("this is why global warming is happening - winter spirits being syphoned away from the northern hemisphere") ("He's got a big fly swat. By which I mean tennis racket. By which I mean shovel"). Finn dedicates fancy honey with comb in it.

Finn gets a phone call about lunch time from an unknown number. It turns out that its Gabrielle Thomas, the reporter. She is mostly ringing to say thank you for his efforts. She doesn't remember exactly what happened, and she has a question - did he see a blue toyota sedan anywhere when he was walking? She's got some memory loss from that night, and she cannot remember where she parked. Finn has no idea really, but he wishes her all the best. The call ends and then he thinks "how the hell did she get my number?" He saves hers to his contacts just in case.

The equinox ritual starts early evening. Everyone is keeping an eye out for low fae behind them. Almost all of the Sept is there. Emma is leading the ritual and gives some background - the ritual draws spring energies to the participants, and then they wander off and give their energy to locations that need some more gnosis. (and that was the point where the players spent the next 15 minutes making "sowing seeds" jokes as the sugar sinks in. "I'm gunna browse through tindr" "Its more for bits of landscape" "It does landscape mode too *swipe*".)

Emma has premptively dug a hole, and lined it with leather to make a symbolic well. Pack totems appear - Boobook lands on Tillie. The ritual begins with symbolically connecting the water in the well to all the dark waters of the world. Seconds later, as most of the Sept is looking outward to defend themselves from low Fae, the waters start to froth and foam. A figure forms up out of the water, points at Sinead and yells 'stolen!' before dispersing in spray. Many wet garou give Sinead the eye. Emma comes to talk to Sinead, saying she'd assumed they'd fixed that while she wasn't here. Sinead repeats that she didn't steal anything - the other packs are baffled. The Elders let everyone know what happened - the ocean appears to think that Sinead has stolen a gift. People are still baffled, so Cossack tells this as a story.

Many moons ago, Mother Stack was the rite master for the Sept. The sept called upon an ocean spirit to assist them in a task. However, a month late, the spirit stole some of her kinfolk away from the shore, and demanded she served the ocean in return for them. She came to the sea, and agreed to remain until the spirit told her to leave if it would release her kin. It did, at which point she took a deep breath of water, drawing the spirit within. Trapped in her lungs, they both sank to the bottom of the bay. Mother Stack told the spirit that as it was within her, when she died she would take it into death as well. The spirit told her to go, releasing her from her obligation, but she then forced it to give her a gift as well. The spirit was forced to agree, but demanded that if she grew old and did not die in combat, that when her time came, she would return to the ocean. Sinead was kind enough to assist her in this last task earlier this eyar.

Tillie asks why the ocean thinks Sinead stole something then. It seems that spirit of Mother Stack lingered for a time, and returned to shore to give Sinead the gift of prophecy that she forced the ocean to give her. The ocean spirit seems to think this was cheating. Emma says that its up to Sinead to take care of this - its up to her how she wants to handle it. Somewhere on the spectrum between paying the ocean for the gift and telling it to go fuck itself or you'd ruin it. Tillie suddenly remembers she spoke to Mother, or Mrs, Stack on the phone while trying to find Harry Fox. ("Its a dick I found in the ocean" "That's a sea cucumber").

Having sorted that out... well, sort of... the Sept opt to refill the well and restart the ritual. This time there is no interruption from the ocean. Spiritual energy is raised up from the depths via the well and flows to and around the rite participants. The pack can feel energy building around them. Tillie nudges Kasumi to shut up and stop talking as she's muttering in Japanese. Sinead flicks Finn's ear because he's talking during the ritual as well. Will is babbling about how to deal with the ocean... but Tillie notices he's not talking. The ritual builds to a climax (if the players won't stop, neither will I), and then finishes. The Lost Prophets wait for Emma to be free while dealing with cacophany of thoughts in their heads. Kasumi can't seem to stop broadcasting her internal monologue. The others can seem to keep things to themselves, but it takes some effort. ("it turns out every phrase you use appears in a song Finn knows.")

While they are waiting, the pack notice the Get of Pennington trying to swat a glowing light. There's at least one low fae buzzing about. Emma ends her ritual and Tillie asks if she's meant to be able to hear her pack's thoughts. Emma says that this isn't a side effect of the ritual; and is giving their totem the eye. The Lost Prophets ask Boobook if he did this. He says he did - they need to be more of a pack, and this is the next step. Tillie asks if he could turn it down a bit - tho it does fade. Will shifts to lupus to see if it stops him thinking things he'd rather not share, and he finds that the sense is more empathic when he does, and less verbal. Emma suggests they should go complete their part in the ritual and see if the effect fades with the discharging of that energy.

The pack actually split up to do this (and test to see if there's a distance limit). Finn goes to his frog pond. Tillie goes to Flagstaff gardens. Will heads to the St Kilda foreshore. Kasumi finds a garden. Sinead goes to light up the floral clock near the war memorial. They find that being this far apart doesn't seem to affect this new ability, and that it works from the Umbra to the Realm as well. Flashes of emotions come through, but mostly its just thoughts, not pictures or anything. They cannot hear their pack totem's thoughts.

When they reassemble, Boobook is still there. They ask a few more questions as to why Boobook chose this gift, but the totem is not particularly forthcoming. He does say that it is his gift to the pack, and it will last as long as the pack.

The pack give him their usual greasy and head for their faerie trap. There are a couple of low fae around the place. The little glowing ones are only roughly defined - as they move they blur. They don't seem interested in engaging. Finn tries to attract them with faerie lights, but he just realises how similar there are. However, closer to their trap, they find a stumpy tail lizard that has two heads, and 8 legs - one head is up one way and up one end, with four legs at its command, and the other head is upside down and at the other end with its own four legs. It keeps rolling over and running off in different directions while carrying on an argument with itself.

The pack try to attract it over to their stuff with sugar and fairy bread. No? Goats milk? MILK? Ew, you people are mammals. You disgust me. Apparently it wants rocks - well, one head does, the other is demanding they don't feed it. It'll go badly for everyone - he'll eat all their cups and probably their house! Tillie asks what she should call them - apparently Cup and George. There's lots of ongoing arguments. Tillie says she'll give her coloured polished rock to whoever will tell her about the Book of War. George wins in the end, and eats the rock, but chokes a lot and then stops breathing. Just as the pack starts to wonder if they killed George, he looks at them, obviously hoping they think he's dead. Tillie demands to know what they know. George swallows the rock and it comes out Cup's mouth. Tillie asks more about the Book and bullies the fae into replying. Cup and George apparently know the Book is about. And there's something to do with the ocean? Tillie asks if it knows where the Book came from? "No.... why, do you ? TELL ME". There's something to do with the night and the ocean and the Book of War. It genuinely seems to not really know much. ("it turns out that its just a real lizard"). Who was talking about the Book of War? Sam. Sinead senses wyrm and finds nothing - Finn senses and determines lots of fae and some wyld. Will is sure this is a fairy.

Tillie tries to bargain with Cup instead. Cup agrees that if they stop giving George stones, it'll tell when it knows. "The book of war is something to do with books.... and war". Close enough, says Tillie and feeds it honey. All he knows is he heard that the Book of War will be here and someone wants to talk to it. Cup didn't want to ask because they were big. Bigger than them. Tillie says help and Cup runs off, then digs straight into the ground.

Figuring something might be coming for Tillie, the pack opt to stay at the sept over night. They manage to talk to other low far, and the garou get the feeling that the low fae are worried for, not about, the Book of War. Tillie asks how you open it, and the fae says she must be stupid, because all the pages are on the outside. None of them seem to twig that Tillie is the Book. Disturbingly they find at least one in the Realm too - a sort of doe with faintly glowing eyes. Kasumi points out that the low fae are so worried and so keen to be here (at the Sept) that the problem isn't going to be here.

Saturday 24th September - Theurge waning

The pack wake up with the mental speech much more firmly under control. They can send when they want to, and not when they don't, mostly.

Kasumi is in the city on Saturday. She's heading back to the caern at the north east end of the CBD when she hears some weird noises down one an alley. She listens for a second and there's a distinct punch/grunt noise. She slips down the alley, and takes a moment to activate her Blur of the Milky eye gift before moving further along. The sounds are coming from down a branch lane, and she sneaks down there further. Around a corner is a dead end, and a homeless guy punching up another homeless guy. She senses unnatural and finds there's a lot of wyrm on the guy punching. She mentally lets her pack know what she's doing and they start heading her way.

Kasumi finds a bottle, and starts stealthing along the lane. She spots two more guys leaning against a wall and watching the beating. They're grotty as hell, wearing 6 layers of clothes and a beanie. She senses unnatural again, and finds they all all more wyrm than anything else. The guy being beaten is not looking well, his head is lolling and he's just being slammed against the wall. Kasumi tries to sniff in homid, but can only really smell bins.

Kasumi opts to retreat slightly and changes slowly to hispo. She then heads quickly around the corner and heads for the fight. One of the guys leaning against the wall glances her direction, and realises she's there. He flickers slightly and suddenly she's staring at a large, black furred crinos. "WAAAAAA" she says over the mental link. Kasumi continues her forward moment and bites the crinos heavily. The second one changes to crinos, and runs his claws down the walls, sharpening them. The first claws her heavily down the shoulder and ribs. Kasumi decides that discretion is the better part of not being murdered, and turns and bolts.

She careers off the walls, and heads for the bigger alley. As she sprints out, still in hispo, Kasumi spends a point of rage and changes form instantly as she hits the main road. She keeps sprinting, dripping blood everywhere as she goes and turning heads. She sprints around the corner and heads up toward the caern. As she sprints along, she glances behind and sees no one is following. It occurs they could be cutting back up the next major road and about to ambush her, so she screeches to a halt. People are there and staring at her, and Kasumi says "Oh, hai, I'm looking for Latrobe street, for a zombie.. festival... film. Where is Lonsdale Street?" She manages to convince them that she's fine.

Five minutes later, 4 other lunatics come sprinting down the street and screech to a halt with Kasumi, bundling her along. Sinead heals some of the worst of the damage and they follow the blood splatter along back the way she came, ready for the worst. They call the Sept and give them the basics of "Dancers, alleyway." Graeme asks if they are sure that it was Dancers. Will suggests reinforcements. Graeme says he'll call.

The pack look sideways to see if they can't see Dancers scarpering through the Umbra, but Finn can only see Weaver and Wyrm spiders moving around - the city spirit landscape is in constant motion. AS they approach, Tillie uses her Chameleon gift and fades from sight, taking point. As she approaches, she can smell sewerage from a distance. She rounds the side branch and can see sewerage running down the drain in the middle. Its not a wave, but its clearly pouring out of the extended lane way further up. Tillie creeps through it and finds that every single visible pipe has been smashed, causing water and shit to flow everywhere. She can see a guy slumped on the ground in an inch of slurry up the far end.

She warns the pack that there's no Dancers here, just shit and an unconscious guy. And a lingering Wyrm sense, strongest at the far end. He doesn't have his own sense of wyrm. She lifts him up and out of the poop after confirming that he's not dead.

("you could show him the pleasant regard of gaia" "The grudging acceptance of Gaia". "Maybe I could heal him and then punch him a bit")

The pack drag him out into the alley (vs the lane) and while squabbling over their back story, Kasumi heals the guy completely of all his wounds, including the skinned knees he got earlier. ("I'll talk to the ladies, you can talk to the shit covered hobos") Will speaks to the guy, remembering a bit belatedly to use his Truth of Gaia gift. His name is Derek Wright, and Will gives a fake name. Kind of. Derek's really not sure who the guys were - they just grabbed him and were asking if he'd seen some chick. Tillie hides her face. Who were they looking for? Some tall brunette chick with lots of scars. Tillie saunters away. Apparently this isn't the first person they've attacked - he's heard of at least two more people that were just grabbed and beaten to find out where some chick was. Derek assumed that this chick owes them money, but its a shit description - tall, dark hair, walks funny. Will offers to take him to hospital or something, but the guy just ask if he can have $10 for a drink, cos he has no money (lie).

Tillie is looking at the Lonsdale end when the light is blocked by Scott Rosen. ("Scotttttt"). She heads down and sees that Scott is looking disappointed because all the action is over. Tillie gives him the news tho that there were three Black Spiral Dancers, and they've been punching up homeless people asking for someone who matches Tillie's description. Scott says he thought that was parents; and yeah, that had been happening, with people thinking it was homeless people stealing kids. Scott gets Ben to write stuff down, like Tillie is happy to be bait, if they are loking for her. The pack walk the long way home and talk about what might be going on. They have various theories about alliances between fae, Dancers and Mages, or wyrm tainted people with fae fetishes or magic abilities.

When Lost Prophets reach the caern, the Get of Pennington are obviously on alert. Cossack, Ian, Emma and Graeme are waiting for them at Graeme's house. Tillie gives them a short description of what they found out. Cossack is baffled why people would punch up people living rough to find Tillie - its not like her known associates are people on the street. Will asks if maybe they just know she spends time with Bonegnawers? Tillie ventures that there might be a hive - the Elders look skeptical, but Will says they don't want to underestimate (like Sydney people). Cossack says three Dancers don't make a hive, but they do make a pack. Hopefully they're just passing through. Maybe they could canvas folks living on the street and ask where people have come to beat other people up and try to build up a map of places where the Dancers have been assaulting people? There's a suspicion that Lost Prophets don't have the relationships to make that viable - Cossack says he'll start asking.

The possibility of Tillie being bait is raised - Cossack isn't super keen, but it might work. He's more ok with traps and lying that she'll be there. But leave it as a backup plan. The possibility of Tillie being bait is raised - Cossack isn't super keen, but it might work.

More animals have been appearing, and more sept members have seen more low fae. It doesn't eliminate the possibility it was the equinox, but neither is it reassuring. Kasumi tries to look up "Book of War" to see if its a known myth, but no luck. Tillie tries to think of ways to track the Dancers - a lot of the ideas that they've tried on the Full Moon Killer come to mind, but they've not been too useful. They could summon a brolga and try and ask if someone's been using brolga to hide them? ("we'll pay you double"). Dreamtime spirits are not real cooperative at the best of times tho.

Generally the pack are hanging at the caern when Finn realises that he's seen 3 helicopters zoom over heading east in the last 5 minutes. He looks that way and can see them hovering a few kilometers away, obviously circling. The pack decide to check it out - Kasumi peeks now as everyone else runs through the umbra. They head along Alexandra Parade, which is banking up pretty heavily - more than seems right for a Saturday night.

They head out onto the freeway, which in the Umbra is like a giant scar cut out of the landscape. There's now no traffic coming back on the inbound side. The round the slow corner heading outbound and notice two things. In the middle of the freeway, is a giant pillar of red stone, and large single rocks in a circle around it, covering 8 of the 10 lanes of the freeway. It appears to be in both the realm and the umbra. Police are trying to direct traffic into the far outside lanes to get past it. The pack stare at it for a moment and then bring their senses to bear. It senses of fae most strongly, then wyrm, then wyld. The wyrm sense is quite strong and of a corrupt nature, but its fading as they investigate.

Tille sniffs to try and pick out what might have happened. ("don't go into it... just walk around outside a couple of times"). She can smell the pollution from the cars (symbolic in the Umbra) but she can also smell a faint... stagnant water smell. Oh. Its being carried down here from the overlooking cutting edges. The pack run back toward the city a bit then up the edge of the cutting to get to the top. The scent has been laid down on the edge of the cutting in the Umbra that overlooks the ring. They follow it down the hill - the scent loops weirdly, around trees and bushes and then continues up the hill. At the same time its appears to have been laid down at speed.

Will puzzles at it and then says "oh crap". Its not one person, despite the single scent. The scent is faked and identical, but multiple people have laid it down. The pack groan and wonder if the Dancers are living in the Yarra or just using it to travel. They check the other side of the river to see if they've come in from there, but there's no sign that the garou can pick up in a couple of hundred metres either side of the scent they followed.

The pack head back up to the rock stack. Will thinks that the scent of stagnant water was laid down in the Umbra going up from the river, and that they didn't come back down the same way. They peek and find that the scent appears in the Realm too. Kasumi is able to direct the rest of her pack to follow it, but they find it heads back toward the river and vanishes into the smell of the Yarra.

Emergency services have been deployed but they are mostly just staring. The pack approach in the Umbra and look for markings on rocks but they cannot see anything.

("First it was fake news, now its fake jews" "I want to replace every single tv show where people are smoking with a penis." "Do Mad Men first" "wouldn't it flop around when you they moved?" "Well, i was thinking an erect penis, but sure.")

The pack stare at it a bit longer, without going into the circle of stones. ("The helicopters circle around widdershins and vanish"). Finn says he knows Oggham - which might be relevant - really just looks like scratches, so he can't be sure that they're not written all over.

The pack throw some rocks and sticks into the circle, and it doesn't vanish, explode or appear in the realm. The rocks in the realm appear to be identical to the ones in the Umbra, but when they scratch the Umbral ones (easily, as the stone is soft), the marks don't appear in the realm. Lost Prophets link hands and move into the circle ("does everyone have their buddy").... and nothing happens.

They check out the centre rocks - they look weathered, like they have worn together in this spot. Will wonders if they've been pulled from somewhere like the animals, but no one is sold that its a kind of stone you find in Melbourne. It certainly doesn't match the rock that makes up the cuttings in any way. It looks more like desert rocks than stuff native to Melbourne.

There's no smells here that they wouldn't expect to find on a freeway. Tille decides to climb it - she gets a boost up onto the first level from her pack, scrambles up the next one in glabro, and then the last in homid. There's nothing on top that wasn't around elsewhere. She sense wyrm again, but doesn't really get a clear sense. From up here things look a bit... egg like. The pack look concerned and poke about and cannot confirm or deny the egg theory. Will wonders about summoning Fianna spirits to teach them about fairies, but it does seem easier to just go and talk to Rippling Waters again. That's a point, they maybe should word people up.

Kasumi and Will step out in the parkland above the freeway. Kasumi calls Graeme and chats for a bit. Graeme says he'll call the Fianna. Suddenly the two of them are lit up by a helicopter spotlight. ("let the record show I am flipping off a helicopter"). Despite psychic calls to fake making out from the rest of the pack, the two garou decide to try and move away, casually, without showing their faces. ("Do you have powers?" "I do" "No, but I could convince them to buy me lunch"). The light follows, possibly because they are looking for people responsible for this inexplicable weirdness. Will tries to casually convey that he's just a guy who was going to his car, but realises that Kasumi has vanished. He manages to lose the spotlight under an oak tree enough to be happy to step sideways. Will peaks through the gauntlet and sees a cop car show up 2 minutes later, with a big spot shining around the area where he was.

In about 20 minutes, Aquinas and Sings-for-the-Spirit bring Leaps-in-the-Light and Mae Fischer from Rippling Waters to see this new tourist attraction. Both the Fianna are somewhat flabberghasted, and then the pack start catching them up with the stagnant water scents as well. Leaps-in-the-Light says "so." about 4 times before managing to get a coherent sentance out. He says that sometimes areas of spiritual significance are marked by a stone circle, or a natural stone circle becomes a site of significance. Circles spontaneously appearing in the middle of a freeway is new to him. He suggests that whole conversation about equinox and minor fae is probably now totally irrelevant - they have a big fairy problem (A big fairy-problem, and a big-fairy problem).

The senses of fae and wyrm are fading compared to how strong it was when they arrived. All the garou try and confirm that they're not eggs, but don't think of anything really categoricaly. There's some conversation about how many they were swapped with something else? Why were the Dancers (probably?) involved? Mae says that although the Fianna have the most knowledge of the fae, they're not the only tribes - the Get (looking at Will) and possibly the Dancers have their own interactions

How do they tidy this up? Frankly, anything they do will just add to the overwhelming weirdness, its probably better to let them lie. Tillie asks if they could summon something to tell them how the rocks got here or where they came from? Leaps-in-the-Light suggests maybe asking the rocks themselves - spirit awakening? The pack decide to go with that, and then ask about whether they'll need chiminage. Leaps-in-the-Light says it should be fine, he's just going to stand over there for no reason. They talk briefly about how Sinead is already hated by the oceans, lets just add rocks to it.

As Sinead does the ritual, she realises the whole site has its own, single spirit. Its made of rocks, so it heavily partakes of the nature of stone, but it seems more than that. Sinead does the formal introduction thing (Theurge Fostern of the Bonegnawers). She asks what to call it and it conveys that it has no name. When did you come here? I've always been here. How did you come to be here? There was an event. What sort of event? I don't know - I was created by the event and became conscious of my own existence then. What is your purpose? To mark the event? What was the event? I don't know. In short, it appears to be the significator of an event that it was not in existence to witness. People are concerned that there was an event so significant that it just created this thing.

Did something come through? Did something go away? It doesn't remember anyone before the garou. Could the Fianna tell if this has been a gate? Mae says yes, but most of those things linger. She wonders whether maybe there was something up on the surface level once? They are deep in the cutting just here, the original surface has been obliterated. Is this a scab? There's some contemplation about using the Cracking Stone on the central rock. Leylines? ("Paradox backlash?"). In the realm, emergency services have some large cranes and are chaining up the boulders and moving them out the way.

Everyone heads back to the caern to chat to the Elders there. Leaps-in-the-light says that their threat level should be at 'deeply concerned'. He says that its possible this was a last hoorah of something leaving, but it might be there's something else going on. He is happy to be on alert at Rippling Waters

The pack wander about looking for low fae to try and get more information. They find a 6-limbed brown bear about 2' high in the Umbra. It was just kind of scratching on a tree. "Do you mind?" "Did you see where the rocks came from?" "What rocks?" "on the road" "There's no roads here. ARe you trying to trick me?" "No, it was over there, and we think the fae did it." "Ah. The fae did it".

Tillie toys with just dragging it to the rocks, but they opt to bribe it with honeycomb instead, despite the bear claiming that's racial stereotyping. "how far away is it?" "About 10 minutes" "... you have to travel in time to get there? I didn't know you could do that" Eventually they explain what they mean. It wants to make sure it can come back. And it also wants a brown leather shoe. The pack agree that they will get one, but later - honey now, shoe later. And it has to tell the truth. About the rocks.

They take the bear to the site through the Umbra. He seems a bit freaked out. They ask lots of questions and he is confused. One at a time. How did they get here? I don't know. Who could have made them? Patrick. Could we speak to Patrick? No. How could they find him? He lives underground. And he could really only do small ones and slowly. The bear keeps looking up at the sky nervously. He says that he's not that interested in shoes really, he'd just like to go back. Is what did this still here? Are they sure? What's Patrick? Its a name. ... WHO is Patrick? He's a little gmome guy the bear knows. ("ok, so we're looking for a giant gnome"). Finn tries to find out what is worrying him? Nothing. Can I have a hat? Can I have your coat? He hides under Tillie's coat. Why are you hiding? Because... there... could be something in the sky. He really wants to go back right now, its much nicer back there. He drops to 6 legs and bolts, quite fast.("so the fae are scared of this, but that could be because its dangerous or because they think that its a 40' gnome.") ("Can we cracking stone Tillie?" "And all the scars open up" "And the blood forms writing" " 'Fuck you' ")

Sunday 25th September - Ragabash waning

Sings-the-the-Spirit comes to speak to Sinead. He wishes to get a gift from a Jade spirit and Emma said that she should contact the spirit for him. The gift is a minor gift, which allows him to get a sense of balance in the area between the triad. Sinead knows jack about jade, so she spends the day doing some research. She knows jade is used in chinese medicine, so she heads to the state library to try and find more out about that. Maybe if she handles some for a bit - she tries to find a tiki for sale along Swanston St too.

Will spends some time teaching Melissa about the Litany ("The first rule of fight club is don't fuck other people in fight club"). His pack torture him via their new mental link. Don't screw up caerns. Fight the wyrm. Then come the middling ones.

Finn goes to the uni library to look up middle management fae. He finds a bunch of likely candidates that are going to be more helpful than the low fae but not as fightening as the princes of the fae. He finds some options, but many of them seem not good - the White Ladies, Puck (or a puck-like fae like a brownie), a leprecaun ? Any sort of specific creature (such as trolls or brownies, vs generic low fae) might be what they could look for, whereas something with a known name might be a bit too powerful. He tries looking at other cultural fae and gets caught up in a wikipedia tree for the afternoon - the line between fae and spirits is likely to be a bit blurry when documented by people. He has a look for australian fae - things that don't stick to the rules and don't get punished. Maybe ? He gets the sense that he'd have to travel to them.

Kasumi checks in on their journalist friend - she didn't work on the gargoyle story (that was "a correspondant"), but she has written for the Age before and had a hand in some tv media. She seems to be between jobs.

While looking up stuff about tikis and how they work, Sinead thinks that this is probably not a bad thing for Sings-for-the-Spirit to do - wear it all the time for months and months at least. There's some little rituals like not flipping it upside down as well that might make for a good chiminage.

Monday 26th September - Ragabash

Sinead dreams of things, of geese, custard, cabbages and kings. More specifically she dreams of something indefinable moving through the starry night; of glowing green eyes burning in the night, looking for something; the sound of the ocean lapping oddly; Tillie being thrown out of a car window when the car crashes into another car, and a sense that she is in extreme danger. This last dream morphs into hearing Tillie's voice in her head, swearing constantly. Sinead sits up and realises her head is covered in blood. Tillie has no time for this, just fucking wake up.

Sinead sleepily kicks Kasumi awake while Tillie says they need to come help her now, and to bring a boat. "Where are you?" "I'm in the ocean!" Tillie says that she's clinging to a buoy in Port Phillip Bay, and she's not sure which direction she should be swimming. The two packmembers are suitably confused. No one can mentally wake Finn or Will, so Kasumi rings Will. He's also confused when Kasumi asks if he can drive a boat. On his arm is written "yur cunts" in texta. This is more confusing. He wanders into Finn's room and kicks him hard. Finn is snatched out of a dream with fairy maidens and is looking at a penis. Wait, its a penis on Will's face. Kasumi asks if everyone has been drinking, this is so confusing.

All through this, Tillie is cursing about being cold and wet and how there are sharks. She tells him to read his fucking arm and come get her. The pack look up the nearest marina they could grab a boat with an engine from and head down there.

As they head down to the bay, Tillie tells them what happened to here in the last 6 hours or so:

The rest of the pack head to Mordialloc and find someone who is renting out fishing boats. He takes a look at their ID, does a brief safety check and seems ok with Will's grasp of how the process works. Sinead opts to not go out on the ocean where the ocean may wreak its revenge and instead waits on shore.

Finn and Kasumi takes turns steering while Will does the questing stone thing ("good point, we have magic") to close in on Tillie. It takes a while to get used to trying to the rite on the water, but after about 30m Tillie can see them coming and the quality of the cursing increases.

The pack discuss what to do now - Tillie wants to check in, but the others would like to go and look at this cave if they can make it. They compromise and Tillie calls, giving Graeme a run down of how weird her night was. Graeme is a bit non-plussed. He'd assumed that the pack had over-matched to the description of the woman that the Dancers were looking for, but this says it was actually right. He wants to know why the Dancers are looking for her, and brings up the other visions they've had about this woman - the Atrocity Realm stuff for a start.

Is this woman a changeling? A garou? Who knows! Graeme asks about their plan. Tillie wants to use her hair to track the woman, Graeme isn't sure that'd work, but he'll word up Emma. Will speculates as to whether the Dancers have some sort of fae-slaves and now one of them has got out and away? Tillie's really hanging out to try and get some spirit help with the tracking.

They take the boat back to Mordialloc and collect Sinead to head down there. On the way, they chat about whether Sinead should come in the ocean and at all. ("you're a member of our pack, and we'll die to protect you and all, but I don't know if we could fight the ocean" "I'll fight the ocean!" "I don't know if we could fight the ocean and win, I mean"). She drank a glass of water before and it was ok, but this is swimming for some distance under the water in a cave. She does need to sort it out and soon, but maybe right now is not the time. The others can go swimming and she'll wait, and Kasumi will stay with her, holding Tillie's new toys.

They park as close as they can, and then scramble along beach and rocks until they're forced into the water to get around to the place where Tillie thinks the cave is. They dive down to confirm it a few times, then change to crinos, take a deep breath and dive down to the entrance and into the cave. There's no branches, and having the ability to talk mentally to one another and the people on the beach helps keep everyone's heads. Eventually the three garou breach the surface in the cave.

Unlike Tillie's last visit, she cannot see - its stone motherless black in here until Finn uses his Faerie lights gift. He finds that the individual lights do not disappate like usual, and after a moment or two there are 4 or 5 coloured glowing specs moving around the cave, providing enough light to see by. They splash out over the rock ridge and shake off a bit. Sensing only shows a sense of fae, fairly strong. Sniffing doesn't show any more than Tillie and a scent like Tillie but not.

The cave is not a big one. Given the way the water is behaving and the air quality is, its not hermetically sealed, and there's probably cracks through the rock out to the daylight world. They're not sure exactly, but they must be at or above water level outside.

Finn looks around at the pictographs. Some of the images look like ones they've seen before at both Scars Atoning and at the cave that Bartholomew took them to. There are geometric patterns and designs, humanoid figures in a variety of sizes, and animals of different sorts. He keeps a look out for mirrored figures, in case there's something that speaks of identical people. There's one largish figure that appears several times - they are dark with white dots on them. There are some smaller figures that appear in about 2/3 of them, and smaller still figures that appear in about 2/3 of the pictures (so, 1/3 with just smaller figures, 1/3 with both, 1/3 with just the larger figures).

Will peeks while Tillie kicks herself for not thinking of that, and finds that there is a space in the Umbra - there's a cave about the same side, with a dirt floor and the smell of forest rather than ocean. A tunnel leads out on the opposite side to where they came in, with faint daylight filtering down through it. He uses their Sense Unnatural gift and finds its even stronger fae there. The pack start to suspect that its a gate into faerie land.

Sinead calls back to the Sept and gets Graeme. She gives an update about what they've found. Graeme says general caution says don't go through, but needing to know what on earth is going on says do - they really need to know what's happening and stop it. He gets her to tell him where they are exactly and then asks what their next step is. He suggests that sticking their toes in. ("send the Fianna first" "I have a name!" ) Don't over commit. Maybe listen to Finn. Unless they would do better with a bit of preparation.

Sinead wants to go too, which means maybe they need to work out her issues with the ocean. ("The ocean can blame you for everything. Its *your* fault america has lost its way"). They wrack their brains on how to deal with the spirit - offering a small amount of chiminage like giving something back to the sea that was taken from it? ("sink the spirit of tasmania!") ("you know that he's a superhero?" "Who?" "Harold Holt... because his initials are both H" "Are you suggesting that he's Aquaman or something?") ("This isn't sinead, this is just a sinead made out of seaweed. Its even got dreadlocks" "man, some effort went into this"). Tillie says that they don't really want to do anything for the spirit - they more just want to acknowledge it deserves respect. Its more like doing a long summoning to get the spirit onside - not quite praising, but spending effort on time on politely inviting the spirit to come to them. ("Its a spirit version of 'yeah but nah'")

An ordeal? half drown in the ocean? Cut her foot on rocks? Blood as an offering never goes astray. There's some danger that the spirit would just go "yoik" at that point. This gives them the shape of what they want to do tho. Summoning for a long time, blood and gnosis on the shoreline, and then contrition? Maybe while she's doing that, the others could go back to Melbourne and get their faerie gifts? Finn suggests he could get a penny whistle to make music ("I've been to the school - they've got recorders. I now know what the pipers that surround Azathoth sound like"), Sinead's got her bag of stuff and the others could retrieve their fae magnet things. Will toys with bringing iron weapons, but there's a sense it won't set the right tone.

The pack minus Sinead and Kasumi head back and get their stuff and brain dump at Cossack, Emma and Graeme. Finn organises to send a message to Jane Redfeather at Scars Atoning to pass on the info about the pictographs. Tillie really wants to track Brr with spirit help, but the same problems apply to tracking Brr - who can fly and has no real name - as does to the Mages or the Full Moon Killer. If she was stuck to the ground, super tracking powers would help. They could try spirits that hunt the air, but the hair is no help there, and they'd need somewhere to start. Tillie suggests something more like ancestor spirits? Emma takes the hair and the leather and says she'll think on it further.

Sinead sets up somewhere to sit on rocks and do her summoning (in the Umbra). She spends a good 6 hours at the edge of the ocean, calling to the spirit. At the end of that time the spirit forms up out of the ocean into a humanoid figure standing 20' foot tall, knee deep in the ocean, with foam riding across its surface. Waves pass up it and down the other side. It does not speak, but waits for Sinead.

''Spirit of the sea, I have to come to acknowledge your power and your wisdom and the good you do as a protector of Gaia. I have come to acknowledge the wrong that was done to you, but to also refute your claim that I have stolen something from you. I have a gift given to me freely and rightfully.''

"The gift that was given was not hers by right to give to you. It must be paid for."

"I did my duty by Mother Stack and the Sept. I returned her to the sea, which was her obligation to you."

The Lost Prophets shift behind Sinead, clearly ready to defend their packmate. ("I'm up for it, I am willing to punch the whole sea. Right in the mouth"). Sinead offers part of her own essence as a gift to the spirit - not as payment, but as part of the recognition of its standing. The spirit does not answer, but does take the gnosis and disappates. The pack decide to take this as a yes, it has accepted Sinead's threat-pology.

Its nearly nighttime at this point, and the pack debate whether to go now, or be about when the doppleganger is active at night. They decide to go for it now.

Tillie and Finn go first and then Sinead and Kasumi with Will coming up behind. When they surface Sinead says that she's heard the way the water laps in here before - it was the strange water sound in her dream. They review some of the other images - something moving in the night, green eyes looking for something, Tillie in a car crash being flung out the passenger side window and a sense that Tillie was in danger. Some of it fits their current situations, but its a bit vague.

The pack sigh at the vagaries of omens and fortunetelling and check the Umbra. It looks the same - packed dirt floor, faint light coming down the opposite tunnel. The gauntlet feels low. They head through to the spirit world.

The first impression is smell - its definitely a foresty smell, but not an Australian eucalypt smell. More European in smell, like an oak forest. It smells sort of summery? ("That's a good sign."). The pack sense before they roll out - definitely fae, some wyld, not really any Wyrm (only what they bring with them).

The cave curves gently to the right. It emerges at the base of a grass-covered hill, surrounded by dense oak forests. While the pack watch, they see a couple of low fae gamboling through the branches, but there are also what seem to be normal birds and maybe animals flittering about. ("maybe we should head back, having dipped our toe. Then lord it over the Fianna. 'we can go to arcadia whenever we like nyrnyrny.' I can tell ya, but it'll cost ya").

("at least you got onion juice in the wound") Xena: warrior priestess tramp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnCNe3i8D6Y) The pack cautiously look around the hill. They sniff to make sure Brr didn't come back here after dropping Tillie, but there's no scents in the tunnel or outside in the sunlight. In fact, there's no recent smells in the tunnel at all. They go up to the top of the hill and see that the sun is on one horizon, now designated 'west'. However the sun is bright and blue, and there's shadows below them like it was midday. In the other direction, is the moon - in the Realm its a ragabash moon, but this is a full moon on the horizon. The landscape is like an endless sea of forest, though they would guess there's up and down terrain based on the canopy.

The Lost Prophets head out, trying to concentrate on the destination they have in mind (middle management fae). The pack opt to head such that they keep each one on each side of them. ("We need to test the local laws. I pinch Will, does it hurt? What if I do it again?"). They find animal tracks leading through the forest, and small creeks. The trees are mostly large oaks with space around them, but there are stands and thickets of more tangled trees. The occasional low fae goes flying through, as well as birds and animals.

After an hour or so, Will suspiciously turns around to sniff their trail and finds that despite the fact they travelled together, their scents soon branch apart into different directions. Will's goes off there... Tillie's off here. And Sinead's just stops. This... implies they cannot follow them back home. They can't see the sun through the heavy foliage either. None of their gifts suggest a good direction to go.

("What are the chances that anyone who took genetic samples off you might have cloned you?" "DAMMIT CERNONOUS!") ("What if we stop a low fae and ask it? " "Are those little jerks don't know anything" "My impression of all of the low fae we've spoken to is they know nothing, but they don't want to admit they know nothing" "They'll just take us to a really large low fae")

The garou decide that short of any other ideas, they'll ask one of the passing low fae to take them where they want to go. Finn tries to attract some by playing on his tin whistle. He's showered in small twigs by tree spirits - its unclear if this is applause or criticism. ("are you not entertained!") ("you shoul have played bring the ruccus"). Some of them just pull faces at the pack or laugh and run away just out of reach, but eventually they get the attention of a sort of deer-centaur woman, about 2' high. (this kinda thing: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b1/61/82/b16182c6d9a6f839714a223e5eea527f--girl-drawings-deer-girl-drawing.jpg). She seems vague, but kind of helpful - or at least willing to listen. Tillie says they'll pay her to take them where they want to go, or answer questions. The deerlady says she knows the answers to lots of questions, which causes the pack to pause for a quick consult about what they actually want.

"Do you know anything about the Book of War?" "ummm. I don't think so" "Do you know someone who might?" "I might?" They offer honey and she looks a bit unsure. How about the tin whistle? Only if it makes a noise on its own, she doesn't want to have to do something. Finn says she could convince the wind to do the blowing and she thinks about it. We have something shiny? Do you have something brighter than the sun? No? Oh. They have something sparkly tho. Oooo, sparkly. How about for the sparkly thing, she tells them how to get where they want to go? It has to be useful information - or they can ask clarifying quesitons. Three proper questions that she can answer - ones she can't don't count. Ok, deal.

Deerlady is pretty taken with the sparkly. "How do we get to the person that can help us?" "Follow him *points at Finn*" "Um, but I don't know where I'm meant to go." The fae looks at Finn and stage whispers "is he broken?" to Tillie. "What makes you think he should know?" "He's a Tuatha da Fionn, right?" Blank looks all around. Will says "he's broken, we need more help." Finn says "I'm not a lord, I'm a shapechanger." "yeah, just follow the stag." Finn looks confused. "Where would we find the stag?" "In.. the.. forest... ?" "This forest? " "Yes?"

The deerlady asks if they are done, and Will says yes and she starts to run. Tillie manages to get her to stop before she's totally gone with her shiny thing and asks how they get home. "How'd you get here?" "Through a hill with a hole in it" "Back through that then?" She doesn't seem to know where their hill is, and runs off wooping.

Will's a bit nervous about whether they are going to encounter STAG or even an incarna of Stag, but the others are keen. They stares at Finn to encourage him to think of Stag (presmably). Finn concentrates pretty hard, and can hear clopping of hooves - he opens his eyes and can see a white stag some distance between trees in the distance. The rest of the pack cannot see if, but Finn is really really certain its really really there. With no other option easily available, the pack opt to trust that their Fianna ('I HAVE A NAME') is guiding them.

The stag stays 50 or 60 metres ahead, visible but not close up. If they pick up the pace, the stag accelerates as well, staying the same distance ahead. It feels like its taking random turns - the rest of the pack feel like they're zigzagging or going in circles, but Finn is pretty certain. ("I'm the alpha, or we stay here forever")

The forest suddenly clears - its dark, green, thick leaves and then suddenly a clearing. They are on a road, cobbled and quite wide. Finn says it looks Roman to him and his archaeology partial degree. The sun is at one end, and the moon at the other. Stag has moved down toward the sun end, and it makes some more steps then looks significantly at them. When they start that way, it shakes its head in a deer-ish way and bounds back into the forest.

The pack take off - despite the fact that they are basically facing the sun, it doesn't leave them blind within 15minutes. Their shadows seems to move as they walk, pointing more and more angled as if the sun was moving. The landscape changes from a midspring freshness to a more full summer smell. Sensing just shows more fae. The forests turn into woods, and then fields appear in the woods, some with plants some with livestock. They start to see buildings on the horizon, and it feels like they are rising, even though there's no obvious slope. The pack can see people working fields and wrangling livestock, but then can hear the sound of horses trotting down the road.

Four horsemen head their way along the road, trotting along with lances with pennants snapping in the wind (yellow and green). The pack have a quick consult and Finn is pushed forward to talk. They slow down as they approach the pack and the lead rider comes forward to talk. The horsemen are clearly not human - their features are not right. They are all very symetrical and pretty, with slightly extended ears and high cheekbones. "Greetings Fianna, what brings you to our lands?" Finn is a bit surprised that he's so quickly recognised, but introduces himself and the pack formally, and the spokesman says he is Lord Tristan. Finn says they are seeking answers to fae actions in their city, and Lord Tristan says that they should continue up the road to Tir Na Nog where Lord Lysander will be pleased to receive them. Finn thanks him for the advice, and Tristan and the other riders head on. ("They're beautiful fae. I assume they just think we're all deformed. 'Ah, its the deformed people again, those poor fuckers'")

Armed with this extra knowledge, the Lost Prophets get their stories, er, priorities sorted ahead of time as well as anything they could offer as gifts or as bribes, and continue on. ("Maybe she's just a brony?" "Or brolga... oh dear" "Bridget?" "I sincerely hope not") ("I'm just a bit worried we'll say 'the low fae says that our world is softer' and they'll be all 'softer you say? lets get everyone together and go!').

("He's more machine than man now" "He'd have to have sex with a bucket") Buildings become more prevalent, mostly wood and thatch. The castle becomes obvious from a distance - its quite tall, and chaotic - there's no single architectural vision. The road passes through hedgewalls, there are wide lawns, and more soldiers, and people dressed in fine clothing walking around the place. The road leads toward the castle proper now and reaches a drawbridge across a moat and leading into heavy stone walls with portcullis, and two guards with halberds.

The pack are stopped and questioned about their business here. Finn says they are looking to speak to Lord Lysander, and they are directed around the castle to the Games Garden. The area around the castle is more ornamental than the castle itself. Its almost like a stylised view of what medieval castles are like. They ask for directions as they go, and no one demands favours for anything ("sexual or otherwise." "Will, stop offering") - the pack grow deeply suspicious.

Lost Prophets approach a living chess game - no one is being tortured horribly, it seems to be quite civilised as different fae take the role of pieces in the game. Someone has a word in the ear of one of the players. Eventually this player wins and there is some polite clapping. The winning player heads their way, followed by his entourage. He greets the pack and Finn speaks on their behalf again. "I am Finn of the Fianna, and we wish to speak to Lord Lysander" "I am Lord Lysander, and as a member of the Fianna you and your pack are most welcome. Please accept our hospitality - we shall find you somewhere to freshen up and we shall speak". ("ha ha, you're going to end up wearing pantaloons" "Or a skirt" "What's a skirt." "Its like pants, but with only one leg" "how do you not flash people?" "wear underwear?" "What's underwear?" "... doesn't that chafe?" "I regenerate constantly, I never chafe")

The pack are led to a suite of rooms including bathing and food - Finn recommends they don't eat just in case they get stuck here forever. Or at least until they establish their circumstances. (http://sciencebimbo.tumblr.com/post/153258843647/mindmadeofmagicandmusic-somehowbreathtaking/embed) There's a wide variety of apparel, but the pack opt to ask if their clothes could be made cleaner, except Finn who is rocking a doublet and hose. They summon their attendant again and head to see Lord Lysander. Will carefully susses out some matters of etiquette to which their guide says that garou that visit are known to have their own strange rituals and customs, and some stay and blend in, others keep to their own rules. As long as they don't clash with Lord Lysander's rules, its fine. ("You're shapeshifting barbarians, basically").

As they are led through the courts, as well as the blond, pale fae, they spot some dark haired but pale individuals, as well as a couple of maybe middle-eastern looking individuals; but the court seems to be mostly nordic looking. Lord Lysander is standing when they come in, and he invites them to sit at and explain why they are there.

Finn tells the story as they know it - from the mysterious figure to the Book of War (but not mention that its Tillie ("I don't want anyone to try and read me." "or write on you")) to the low fae being in the caern to the pile of rocks and then the figure again and how she looks like Tillie, and how they appear to be working with the Black Spiral Dancers, and finally the cave and Brr's starry eyes. Lord Lysander listens carefully and attentatively. He is surprised by the mention of fae activity, especialy in the city - the mundane world has become anaethema to his people, and they cannot stay long. He asks for them to speak to his scribe, Berabolas, who may be able to find more about what they describe. In the meantime they are honoured guests - tonight they will feast in the pack's honour, and tomorrow a hunt.

Before the pack get a chance to ask about whether that will trap them in faerie land forever, the ground groans and out of the stone floor rises a stone archway, with a large, heavy set door within the curves. The stone is carved intricately. The garou look surprised, but the fae seem to take it in stride. Finn asks anyway, politely enquiring what the fuck is that. Lord Lysander says that is the Arcadia Gateway - it is what the castle is here to defend, against any who would assault Arcadia proper. No one has passed through since the majority of the fae left. The gate travels of its own will - Lord Lysander knows where it is, but it moves as per its own desires.

Finn asks if he is able, if their hospitality extends so far, if he might visit the library. Lord Lysander says he is welcome - they will be taken to visit Berabolous in the libraries. The pack are clearly dismissed at this point.

As they return to the rooms, the mental argument about whether they can eat anything or not reaches a climax and Finn asks their attendant whether it is acceptable for them to eat at the feast - it is known that humans sometimes are cap....tivated by fae experiences such as food and it can be difficult to return. The attendant says that as they have been invited to a feast in their honour, it would be inappropriate for the fae to hold them to any obligation. There's no outrage at Finn's question, and their attendant says that other realms might not hold to such straightforward behaviour.

As they get to their rooms, Kasumi compulsively pulls her phone out and looks at it. Nope. She turns it off. And as a precaution, removes the battery, and hopes it returns to normal when they get back. ("oh yeah, you've got a weaver device in a wyld realm. Its like 'suck it, physics!'")

Finn meets Berabolus, who is a sprite about 4' tall with straggly hair and a vague manner. He says that the story sounds vaguely familiar, and he will see what he can see. Finn heads towards the library proper, and is most disappointed to find that hardly any of it is in languages he understands. He speaks to another librarian, Beltammino, who is about 8' tall troll with craggy skin. He is happy to help a guest of Lord Lysander's.

("we *are* the only true werewolves left - everyone else is drifting toward 'pussy'"). Finn has a set of questions - what causes stone circles to just appear? They don't. Oh. Well. He relates what happens. ("I appear to have bitten off a chunk of tooth. Oh. yep, yes i have. Well"). Beltrammino says that circles are put around something to mark a sacred or different place - either they make something that is already sacred or they delineate a place that someone(s) wants to make sacred. However, given that the fae or fae-like being that Finn described has been at large in the world, its possible that it is a natural reaction from the world itself to a large amount of fae magic being unleashed. Finn asks about magic and learning things about fae magic - Beltrammino says that there are fae sorcerers who know these things, but he isn't one of them and it needs a lot of study.

Question 2. The Book of War. It seems like 'no' there's not a huge prophecy known about this. There's an indian holy text called that but its only because its about a war.

Question 3 of 5. Stolen dreams. Its not their area of expertise, but they take Finn to see a sidhe called Melita. She appears to be somewhere between a physician and a magician. She examines Finn a bit and says that she can sense that he has been interacting with the low fae, possibly traded some of his luck away? That's about all she can sense of glamours placed upon him. If another fae took his dreams away, it was either done some time ago or very subtley. Are their fae more likely to take dreams? She suggests that it would have been someone with some skills at glamour, a sorcerer or magician, rather than an artist or knight.

Question 4 of 5. The claw marks (scars) on his back that he got during his first change. He's always thought they had some connection to faerie but no one was sure. Melita looks at them, and looks at them with some instruments. She says they look familiar; they are the same size and style as marks she's seen before left by Red Caps. However, all the other times she's seen them they have been on corpses. They are persistent hunters once they get the scent, and are known to not let people go.

Question 5, um, Brrr. There's not a lot of information about starry eyed cave dwelling clones in the Tir Na Nog library - there's some 'maybe' but really nothing leaps out.

The pack put their head together about what they could gift tonight at the feast. They have a tonne of trinkets, but it's all a bit plastic and glitter, more suitable for the low fae. Tillie just wants to kill something for them, and Finn says that's sort of not a bad plan - not the killing directly, but maybe a martial display? No, wait, they could act out the story of The Lost Prophets and their adventures while Finn narrates it? Briliant! They spend a couple of hours correographing it, with Finn in charge bullying people into doing it his way. ("I botched! Its ok, I spent a willpower" "Tillie... you can... be a tree"). ("Grandma, what big cock you have")

The sun stays place, but the skies dim, shadows lengthen and stars appear. Lanterns and candles are lit and eventually an attendant comes to take the to the feast. Kasumi has ambushed someone to help them dress for the event ahead of time - those packmembers who will be acting out fights have opted for things easy to shed so they can shapeshift.

As they approach they can hear noise and smell delicious foods and wine. They enter a hall lit by fires and faerie lights and lanterns. They are announced as they enter, and led to a high table, spaced out amongst some faerie nobles. Polite conversation abounds. Tillie is the most uncomfortable she has ever been while Kasumi is enjoying the polite conversation. ("Don't mention the door! I think I mentioned it once...") Will and Finn appreciate the fine wines. Foods keep coming, a variety of dishes. The cutlery is silver, and the garou pick it up and act a bit surprised, but can manage except for Tillie who goes back to using her fingers.

Kasumi finds herself between two fae lords - Regus, fair haired and pale skinned, and Yanos, dark haired and eyed. They are paying her a lot of attention. A lot. Kasumi twitches and tries to be polite but no. ("NO THANK YOU OCTOPUS"). Regus ups to the ante and talks himself up further, but Yanos seems to get the message - he remains interested in this unusual lady from an unusual group of people, but pressuring. ("Its a pee-souper"). Regus is a central part of Lysander's court, a trusted advisor, and master of the hunt on several occasions. Yanos, on the other hand, does answer questons about himself, but also is asking Kasumi about her life in the mundane world. He has done things and knows some magics. ("I'd be all taking photos of my fae wife, and sending them to ireland").

Fae lords get up and perform poetry, some in honour of their guests. Fae ladies sing, and some of the less noble fae entertain guests with jungling and other antics. The Lost Prophets ask for a bit more space (Tillie changes into crinos to demonstrate how much) and launch into a theatrical epic of their adventures, with Finn talking and 'acting' from the others. There is tragedy and comedy and bravery and fights. The pack play to their audience well, and keep the whole immense haul entertained for nearly an hour. ("An hour seems too long" "Shut up! Its my vision!")

The feast seems to be over after the garou performance and people are moving around a bit more than before. Sinead finds herself hanging with sluagh and knockers, Will with the boggans and pooka, who are impressed with the story of how they rescued animal spirits from the Scar (even if they were all birds). There's a rabbit pooka calling herself Cherie who seems very taken with Will and the very affectionate. Finn finds himself with artists and musicians, jamming in the corner. Kasumi leaves with Lord Yanos, for a tour of the grounds - they walk side by side and talk ("Glamour me, glamour me like one of your french orphans"). They talk about the castle and its mission to guard the gate to Arcadia - Yanos explains that he was not initially part of this court, but served a different faerie lord elsewhere, but he thinks that Tir na Nog has an important mission. He was a member of Tir Calleach - the winter court. She gets the impression there are other fae realms not behind the door - which shows up while they are walking about. At one point Kasumi sees Sinead sitting on her own in a garden seat, chilling out with her self and her marajuana.

Tillie speaks to Lord Lysander and thanks him for his hospitality, and returns to their rooms. ("I'm convinced that David Bowie didn't die, he just faked it before people started asking questions... like "why don't you die?" ").

As the evening progresses, the combination of the amount of fae wine that Will has drunk and his evening's activity mean that Will loses his ability to not speak over the mental link while in a heightened state ("That tail is tickling my balls!", "Jump! Jump! Jump!") Finn has the wherewithal not to invite musicians back to his rooms when he's sleeping next to Tillie, and ends up slumped unconscious in his room eventually.

Monday 26th September + 1 - Ragabash?

When they wake up, Sinead does not appear on the mental link. This is disturbing. Tillie finds where she was and sets off a sniffing to try and track her. Apparently Sinead headed out of the castle ("She was probably trying to get away from Will fucking the Easter Bunny") and out toward the forests. It doesn't go straight, it wanders about a lot. She relays things back to the rest of the pack and Finn sighs and goes looking for Lord Lysander. Finn finds a mass of fae getting ready to go for a hunt, and makes his way down through the mass of horses and people to speak to him.

They exchange pleasantries and Lysander asks if the pack are joining their hunt? Finn explains that Sinead has wandered out to the forest, and they wish to borrow a guide? Lysander suggests that they could look for her while they hunt? While the pack mentally hope that Sinead isn't the quarry, Finn says that Sinead as looking to participate. Lysander looks at the increasing light and says they were hoping to begin soon? She should be fine in the forest, there are not many dangers. Lysander sends for the guards overnight who report that one of the garou left the castle a few hours before dawn, and shapechanged into a wolf not far down the road. Finn reiterates that they do not wish for Sinead to be the quarry and Lysander loudly announces that as a favour for their Fianna guests, today's quarry will be boar rather than stag. ("lose the bow, get the boar spear").

The pack shrug and decide this is the best option. They try and get ready for the hunt, and work out if they are going to ride horses. The horses are not keen on Tillie - they seem to recognise her as a wolf, even in human form. She just shrugs and goes in hispo. ("Bunnikins. Cottontail" "I feel like this is against the litany. And you've done a bad thing" "Disrespecting those of Gaia" "Are the fae a part of Gaia?" "I was thinking my packmates actually").

The hunt is fairly successful - between the practiced fae and the raw fury of the garou, even the mean giant pigs don't stand much of a chance. Will and Tillie opt to try and practice some of their lupus tactics. Finn goes apart a little from the others once they are in the forest proper and tries a call of the wyld to get Sinead's attention - he sense some level of response, but its a bit limited. More of a response from a wolf, not a person. ("She's in den" "being Sinead, its an opium den") Finn is showered in sticks. (http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1062598/Little#5a13d4_1062154)

At one point, the group of hunters the werewolves are wandering through forest when a flock of ravens fly down and perch around, cawing roughly and staring at everyone. Finn says they are saying "there they are. She sent us. There they are. Watch them" One of the knights says that they are Lady Marianna's spies - several of them make noise and curl rocks at the ravens, who take off again, whirl around and then fly up through gaps in the canopy. The pack ask who Marianna is and the fae nobles say that she is the ruler of Tir Calleach at the other end of the road.

Lysander suggests they might check various known wolf dens for Sinead, and leads them through the forest. The first has only wolves, but at the second one they find Sinead in lupus form sitting in the sun on part of a pile of rocks. Other wolves are there and they stand up on guard.

The pack try a few ways to get Sinead to come over to them - Finn tries animal speech, but the wolves seem mostly oriented on defending their home against these other wolves and shiny guys on horses. They try mentally talking to her - but there's no plan, so really its just four people talking over one another in her head.

Sinead can hear some people in her head babbling. And there are some wolves her intruding. She doesn't put the two things together to make sense of the world.

Kasumi asks why Sinead is sleeping in lupus - that's not right. Is this really Sinead? Finn leans back and tries and Howl of the Wyld to pull his packmate back to her. Some of the other members of the wolf back stop growling and start standing near him with kind of a "yeah, this guy" body language.

Will says "remember pingers and techno?" and the others start mimicing techno music in their heads. He decides to just move forward in hispo, not in an aggressive way, but in as much of a "just move, ok" sort of body language. There's snapping and snarling and pretend biting at his face, but he's at least double their size and isn't acting actually aggressively. He backs off a bit in a sort of "I could, but I'm not sort of interaction".

Sinead dreamily stares at all of this without really much of an opinion about events.

Tillie senses wyrm just to be sure - there's nothing clinging to them at all. In a similar vein, Will tries scent of the true form - they are indeed, wolves - though there is a little bit of something fae at the end, which might just be they've been eating brownies.

After some gentle mockery from the player, the Lost Prophets stop using magic and shouting to persuade Sinead. Tillie just calls her to come over. Sinead wanders over and stares at her. Tillie tries to persuade her into changing into homid but just gets "meh" back from her. She doesn't seem inclined, even though she does seem happy to come with them. The fae knights shake their heads at the strange customs of the wolf-changers.

As they walk back, the rest of Lost Prophets suddenly realise that they've been through this before, kind of - Sinead appears to almost be sleepwalking, like Melissa was. They can't seem to get her to wake up more than she is though. Its not that this suggests Melissa was fae tainted, just more than Sinead is not quite awake.

They head back and unite with other hunting parties and head toward the castle. There is boar galore. Its clear that the castle inhabitants hunt like this a lot as the dead pigs are very efficiently dealt with and the glorious hunters head off to bathe or whatever. Lost Prophets head back to their rooms and try to remember what Sinead likes about being human. ("not just pingers"). ("get the bard in here with his lute, he can lay down some fat beats"). Sinead honestly just stares at them. ("Look me, I'm people" "I've got pants on and an insurance claim"). ("do you remember the litany? because I don't if you don't"). Sinead rolls around in her stuff but doesn't seem incline to change form. Will tries to show by doing, and changes from lupus to homid.

This fine example of pack unity is disrupted by a messenger asking them to join Lord Lysander. They follow and head to the same room as previously. He says that Berabolus has indicated he has some information for them. Berabolus bumbles into the room, a 4' high sprite with insane hair. He drops all his notes at least once, but Lysander is very gracious about it. Eventually he starts in on the information about repairing the ornamental horse fountains in the eastern rose garden. Its a good minute or so before someone realises that there's not going to be a sudden supplying of context, and that he is talking about entirely the wrong topic. ("I genuinely thought they wanted us to do things with horses").

With Finn's help, he manages to find the right scrolls. He found a transcription of a story - that once upon a time, a powerful Unseelie Fae was causing confusion in the mundane world amongst humans and animals. Garou of the Bunyip tribe managed to contain her and then place her in a prison which they buried at a trod where other fae could not reach her. The pack want to know what a trod is - apparenty its a faerie gate. They're not quite sure what the connection is ? Berabolus says that the Fae was described as of the night and with stars on her body. There's some confusion - the woman they met is out and about. But maybe she's only imprisoned during the day? There's no explanation why she looks like Tillie, and no connection to "Book of War". Berabolus says that there was no name given, but there was an epithet - "Queen of the Night".

The prison does not sound like fae magic, but more like Bunyip magic. Lysander suggests that if they are able to re-confine her to the prison, they should bring it here and he will ensure that it is kept safe. They ask about Seelie vs Unseelie - he says that his court is Seelie, and the Unseelie are creatures of winter. Lysander goes on to say that without the prison, they may not be able to contain her. Berabolus says that there is one mention that she may be Elder fae - all of the known Elder fae have passed through the gate to Arcadia Veritas. Well, that's reassuring. The pack are a bit nervous about the fact she's referred to as 'Queen' when even Lysander isn't called 'King' or 'Prince'. Tillie wants to know why she looks like Tillie. Will says maybe its the other way around? That's just raises _more_ questions. (It's your metis deformity).

Will asks about cold iron chains - Lysander says that it might help limit her power if she was bound in iron, yes. Without knowing how the Bunyip tribe bound her, that might be the help they need. ("Will, we're going to need you to do some bunyipiing. " "I've got bunyip blood *on* me, not *in* me"). Tillie asks how they navigate the forest and Lysander says that Stag ("Stank? I meant 'stag'") guides honourable Fianna through the realm. Tillie just wanted to check this wasn't a one-shot deal. Finn asks if Lysander actually wants an Elder fae brought here? Lysander says that being in their world weakens fae - in such a state he will be able to make preparations. There's some talk about how she escaped - did the prison wear down? Did someone let her out? Tillie still doesn't want to be the Book of War but it seems more and more like maybe its not some prophecied name, but just an epithet the low fae have attached to her for some reason? ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htxZZKv4pMw")

Will asks a couple more questions about how to tackle this Elder Fae - Lysander suggests she will be strongest at night, and in winter. ("Oh good, its spring." "When we left it was spring"). Kasumi is becoming increasingly concerned about how long they are spending here, and the others agree they should go too - back to the realm and work out where to go from here. ("Only the strongest wolf-rabbit hybrid will survive" "And I'll eat the rest").

They pack up and head off with guides that Lysander provide. Sinead is still not really responding to the mental link in anything coherent and refusing to change to homid form, so the others take her stuff along. Lysander sees them off along with an escort of 4 knights. They head down the road and the seasons reverse as they travel - from deep summer back into spring before heading back through the forest for a few hours. They can see the hill in a break in the first, and the knights bid them farewell ("and make sure we leave").

Into the hole travel the, er, 5. They follow the curve to the chamber with all the paintings on the inside. They peek to make sure noone is lying in wait, and find that its pitch black with a single scent of the ocean. The Lost Prophets take another look at the paintings. There are distinct sections - though everything runs together and there's no firm boundaries, there are some central ideas with other things drawn around them. The big figure with white dots all over it is the centre to one, with animals and people drawn around it in all sorts of orientations. There's another copy of that figure with other figures drawn around it in a ring - smaller than the central figure, but larger than the other people and animals, and with no distinctive features other than a black silhouette. The animal and people figures outside of the ring are oriented with each other, but the ones inside are still chaotic.

Another seperate node has another copy of the dotted figure, but smaller, the same size as the surrounding figures. Across the top of that image is a spread of white dots, with a thread leading to or from the spread toward the dotted figure. Finn suggests if that spread is stars (it looks a bit like the Milky Way?), then maybe its a shooting star? Kasumi wonders about comets? Does that suggest the prison and or the Elder Fae's release is a timing thing to do with comets in the sky?

Tillie mentions that she smelled like someone sleeping rough, not like someone who has been living in a sea cave. Maybe someone is controlling her ? Maybe its a nighttime/day time thing. Tillie has a niggle about returning her to Lysander and prison, or whatver they have in mind. On the otherhand, maybe they could use her as bait ("You can take the girl out of the shadowlords...")

The images certainly look like ritual of some sort - maybe they had some control of her, and someone's found the controls. There's more examination of the paintings. Something about shooting stars is still niggling at Kasumi, but she can't quite realise it. ("is she a triffid?").

They all step out - Finn makes faerie lights again to illuminate the cave. ("You were good at it last time." "You must be desperate if you're complimenting me about it" "Ok, you were ok at it last time, I GUESS" "That's better"). Kasumi turns her phone on, but gets no signal. Tillie senses for wyrm or anything else that might indicate someone else has been here - seems clear. They swim out, dragging Sinead and check Kasumi's phone as a matter of urgency. It appears to be....

Tuesday 27th September - Ragabash

The Next Morning about 8am.

So time went a bit faster in the fae realm than it did in the Realm.

They get back to the car and ring the caern. Ian answers and says "Who'se this? who? Oh that pack that went into faerie land and disappeared for 10 years" "We have a phone with a clock" "Fucking weaver." Graeme steals the phone back and asks how it went. They brain dump and Graeme says that things are not calming down. Last night there was a lot of what he'd describe as "crimes of passion". Like. Lots of them, comparatively. ("It'll be my retelling of how I got you to be in a play about the stories of our adventures").

The pack is 2/3 of the way home when Kasumi's phone rings again. Its Graeme asking how far back are they? Could you please turn around and go back to Frankston? Because on the beach there, they have a problem. Its not a bolognaise problem nor a giant circle - it sounds, from the descriptions of the police attending, that it might be a crinos that has washed up on shore.

As they speculate wildly ("Its Brr!" "Its another Tillie clone!" "Its just Tillie!") the pack drive at speed back to Frankston. They find the beach easy enough - there's a small crowd of about 50 people and a few uniformed police, and on the shoreline a large blue tarp over something .

They park in the car park and surreptiously slide down out of sight and move to the spirit world. After a sequence of appalling rolls to peek, Tillie finally manages to get a glimpse of the realm and they go exploring. It very definitely looks like a crinos form garou under the blue tarp pinned down, which means that its probably a metis werewolf. Its hard to ID them - the corpse has been in the water for a while, and nibbled by fish and beaten on rocks. On the plus side, this means they probably won't actually be alive enough to suddenly burst back into activity and start frenzying. Tillie senses for wyrm and finds the corpse has a high level of corruption, suggesitng that maybe its a Dancer?

There appears to be two suited police and 4 uniformed police. This is a seemingly high number, but the delerium has probably prompted some level of panicked response at this point. Oh crap! One of the uniformed police is Peter, Marion's boyfriend. He'll definitely recognise Tillie and Finn, maybe Sinead and probably not Kasumi and Will. One of the detectives appears to be on the phone to someone and is talking about how the people coming to get the corpse are going to be here in 20 minutes.

The pack opt for the fastest summon and bind ever. Sinead starts to do the most brevitous summon she has ever done, calling for a butterfly spirit to come to her. About 10 minutes into the summoning, Tillie realises the police are sending a helicopter to pick the body up. Will and Kasumi go to the Realm with their ruining-technology gifts. ("I'll use taking the forgotten"). Will looks at his options for Jam Technology and helicopters, and figures that he doesn't have to crash it hard; it wouldn't take much of things being wrong before people will be unkeen to take off with a potentially misbehaving helicopter.

The cops are encouraging people away down the beach because of wind and sand issues. Will tries to position himself so there's not really a policeman in front of him so he can get as close as possible when he goes to set his gift off. The chopper approaches and slows, the starts to head downward to land on the beach not too far away. ("its ok we can fly after it in the umbra with our owl powers").

In the Umbra, numerous butterflies approach Sinead and flutter about her. She hears a multitude of voices from the cloud. "Thankyouforcomingineedyoutomakethislooklikeabear, getinthesack" and starts binding it to the corpse. A cocoon starts to form around the spot in the Umbra. ("A bear with butterfly wings" "Maybe we do have the wrong totem").

As the chopper comes down, sand comes up and most people move back with alacrity - will steps up with Kasumi's phone as if he was taking a photo and activates his gift. The helicopter comes down fast, and the pilot jerks at the controls trying to make it go up, but they won't respond either. The chopper bounces along the sand, slowly drifting toward the ocean. The crowd becomes aware that something is going wrong partly because of the helicopter, but partly because the various phones and radios and things all go mental. Suddenly the gift wears off as the helicopter makes it to the edge of the water, and the pilot pulls up hard suddenly. Now the chopper starts drifting toward the crowd. The police start moving the crowd fast and away from the imminent disaster - Peter appears in front of Will, who manages to mime getting sand in his face and turning away. The copter flies up into the sky sharply, spraying spray and sand on the crowd. Phones and radios are full of angry shouting. The chopper drifts over further up the beach and lands, and the witnesses can see the pilot slump into his seat in relief.

All but two of the police (including Peter) head for the helicopter. Will looks smug. Tillie follows in the Umbra, and listens in. The conversation is pretty tense - the two pilots are a bit shaken, and say that the controls jammed, which can happen on the older models. They need to do a full flight check before they take off, it'll be at least two hours if not longer to make sure its not going to happen again. They need to find a different way to get their corpse to the city.

The senior policeman gets on the radio again and tries to organise another chopper. He can have a truck. There is some back and forth about how big his corpse is, and what sort of truck would be ok to transport it. There's apparently still an argument going on about where to take it. He directs the two uniformed police to go and get everyone off the beach this time - he thinks to get them to check to see if anyone was videoing the landing, in case they could get a copy to see what is going wrong.

Finn opts to peek (badly). He finds a cop and uses his mindspeak gift to put an idea into his head. "Take it to the zoo". But Finn starts to extemporise on the fly and adds things like "its a good idea, you'll get a promotion". The cop says "what?" and there is a confused conversation amidst the officers of the law. Eventually someone does talk to people about taking it to the zoo - the zoo apparently isn't interested though, due to the contamination issues. If they can't take it to the zoo, can they take it to a university? no? Argh. He has another argument with someone about how they cannot take it on an open bed truck. Now he's been told to take it to quarantine near Melbourne ports - and he has a truck, but its a 10 tonne moving truck. ("We could volunteer our truck. 'look, i'll show you, it'll fit *crinos'"). Sinead wants to pull some more weird action movie shit and steal the truck too. It sounds like the pack have some time to plan. ("maybe we just write 'sinead' on it, and summon the sea"). ("its not evidence if its on fire"). But they don't.

The truck arrives and the driver looks a bit disbelievingly at the officers in charge. He says he can back it up along over the foreshore reserve on the corner where the car park exits, but they'll have to stop traffic. The cops play paper-scissors-rock to see who gets to do that vs who gets to help drag the corpse up the beach to where they can load it on the truck. ("Can we scent of sweet honey the corpse? " "Is there anyway we can pull this off? Not for any reason, just its funny"). With much beeping and a certain amount of bumping over big lumps and gutters, the truck gets as close as he can to the beach. ("You should push the accelerator down now").

Meanwhile on the beach, the cops have pulled the tarp off and are looking a bit oddly at the creature on the beach, which looks pretty clearly like a bear at this point. They get some gloves and load it onto the tarp, then drag the tarp up the sand as close as they can to the truck. There's a certain amount of decay-related issues. It leaves a stain on the beach. ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3jFTzhdZF4")

Kasumi takes the chance of all these shenannigans going on to use her gifts to let lots of air out of the rear tires of the truck.

Because the way the truck is angled, its lift won't go all the way to the ground. It takes all of the cops and the driver to lift it onto the hydrolic lift. "Why aren't we taking this to the zoo?" "SHUT UP". The lift struggles to go upwards.

There's a discussion about where he's going from here - he's going to head down the freeway to Melbourne Port, where quarantine are going to hold onto it. Kasumi heads for the Umbra so she can step out into the truck. Two of the cops are going to escort the truck. "Why does a dead bear need an escort?" "Shut _up_. The way today has gone..." Everyone else heads for the murder van so that they can be ready to follow the convoy.

Kasumi dives through the Umbra. Well, saunters. The truck gets ready to go quickly. It becomes clear to her pack that she is not coming through fast, which means she is in danger of appear in midair after the truck has gone. Will leaps out and jogs down the footpath toward the truck as if he was just jogging in the area. The truck moves slowly up each bump/gutter. Will gets close enough to trigger his gift, focused on the truck. However, on the other side of the road, a car going 60km/hr finds it can't turn to follow the curve, mounts the curb and hits a street sign. On this side of the highway, something similar happens as it goes over the divider. Behind it many other cars would like to push their brakes, but without much luck. In short there's a multicar series of crashes as all the cars find themselves unable to change state. The cops start to run toward this increasingly messy situation.

Meanwhile, the truck driver finds that his accelerator and clutch won't go down, but his handbrake won't come up. He's wrestling with the controls of truck when the gift wears off and suddenly everything works, and the truck stalls. Which is the point where Kasumi appears and is hit in the head by the backwall of the truck. She doesn't frenzy. Suddenly all the car brakes work too, and screeching tires add to the chaos of all the cars coming down Olivers Hill and into this pileup.

The driver gets out and tries to talk to the detective in charge, who is frankly staring at this mess with a disbelieving expression. "Just go. Go. before something else happens." The truck starts again, and heads off with Kasumi trying to relate the left-right feelings she gets as it drives. Will contemplates jogging back the other way ("its fine, I found my contact lens!") but decides to wait for his pack to come past again. Unfortunately as they go to leave, they realise the car park exit is right into the chaos of the wyld-inspired car crashes. They are stuck waiting for the cops to try and direct traffic around all the prangs in the 2 righthand lanes. Tho there's some thought of just driving around the mess, but cooler heads prevail and they wait for one of the cops to wave the out of the carpark.

The truck travels along for a while, and the partly deflated tire is audible but not too bad. However after a turn or two, he starts to accellerate hard it becomes really obvious and after a minute or so the truck starts to slow down, and the noise fades. It speeds up and it comes back, and then the truck and slows, and then stops. Kasumi can hear a lot of cars zooming past, and the driver get out and curse. She relays this all back to people by the mental link.

The rest of the pack are driving about and trying to get an idea where the truck went. Tillie is looking at the map and trying to guess, and just says "he's probably on the freeway" and they head that way. Its not far down the stat of the freeway before they can see the truck pulled over and the driver working a jack. Will pulls over while Sinead lingers in lupus, and Finn, who has had enough of this day decide they cannot be bothered with this shit. Will goes out to offer his extremely charming help ("i'll help you on the way to the gun show. oh yeahhhh....") while Tillie ducks in and out of the Umbra to appear in the back of the truck. Although Tillie clomps around in the back of the truck, Will manages to cover for her. Tillie and Kasumi dedicate the corpse while Will cheerfully works the jack and the tireiron. Kasumi takes them both to the spirit world.

The pack decide to take the corpse to their house, wrapped in a tarp in the murdervan. ("Grand theft ursa"). They take it into the Umbra again and send Kasumi to ring the caern. The butterfly spirit's efforts are pretty good, and it looks like a bear to the pack as well, so they get Sinead to undo the binding. The spirit asks that in return for the help it provided that the pack cleanse it of the taint that it gained from being bound to the corpse.

Will addresses the spirit once it is unbound and asks if he might call upon the spirit by name in the future. They negotiate and the spirit agrees that Will can call on it if he is always transformed out of his breed form, and presents a gift of essence. They agree and the spirit whispers its name into his ear. ("I feel that if he was a gentleman, he absolutely would put it in his mouth"). ("Was that a deed name or a steed name?") ("Doorsill?") ("She's concatenated 'butcher' and 'supermarket' and calls it the 'butchmarket'") ("What is that? " "Butterfly proboscus" "ew").

Now that they can see what the creature really is, the pack examine it to try and get some idea of what's going on. ("PROBING DAY") Its definitely a dead werewolf. They have six fingers, which adds to their understanding this is a metis ("have we seen someone with six fingers before?" "Did a 6 fingered man kill your father after he made a sword?"). They sense heavily of corruption, which given they are dead, adding to the possibility that they are a Dancer (or have fallen to the wyrm, even if they don't have the membership card). They've been killed by a garou - there are wide claw marks along the back and a puncture into the heart, with broken ribs and all.

The pack think its been in the water for weeks, and its swollen, distorted, nibbled and a bit abraded, but the garou don't think that they recognise them. So that's 3 that attacked Kasumi, this one, and the Full Moon Killer. ("One more and its a Hive"). ("CAn we ask some of the other Septs if they've killed Dancers?" " ''Of Course we Have!'' " "I mean recently." "And then littered. We're looking at you, Grinding Stone"). Cossack and Nadine show up about this point so they raise the possibility that one of the other Septs did it, and Cossack says he'll chase it. Lost Prophets run over what they've worked out and the Elders agree with their evaluation ("You don't have a bed, but the dog gets an automated food dispender"). ("My dad has the world's most comfortable couch, he's like ''this was a mistake. I hardly ever sleep in my bed now'' ").

If not the other Septs, was it killed by Dancers? Brrr? Tillie says that she doesn't know if Brr is a garou, because they talked about changing into a wolf and she didn't know. Is this Brrr? If this was Brrr, she'd look like Tillie tho, so this isn't. The corpse was found close to the cave really, but its definitely crinos claw marks. ("It'd be more useful the other way around - giant crinos with tiny human hands"). ("To be fair, _my_ dick isn't out in crinos").

Water seems to be featuring heavily in Dancer things in Melbourne. There's this corpse, the stagnant water smell and that the Dancers that were near Brr came in and out of the Yarra. Dancer totems to do with water? Cossack says there's some known.. swamp totems that are Dancer totems - whipporwhill and willow o' wisps, reputedly.

Cossack is also cocerned about the proximity to the trod - Kasumi wonders whether the corpse has been in Arcadia for no time which was 20 years. Cossack says they did have Dancers about 20 years ago, but they were dealt with ("Where did you put them? " "Oh we found this cave where time didn't flow properly").

Will wonders about what Brrr dug up? Her and Tillie found a piece of leather or something in the sand. Maybe part of a strap? It could have been a worked fur that the fur has come off?

Tillie reiterates her worry about taking Brrr back to Lysander. Cossack is pro getting her out of Melbourne completely, but Tillie is resistant, tho she admits that's because Brrr looks like her. That's something they need to think about too. Did the fae give the back any ideas on how to capture/contain Brrr tho? ("yes, be a bunyip"). If the bunyip bound her there, maybe the fur was a bunyip fetish or something? If yes, given it didn't sense of much, it'd been there a long time and weakened heavily. Cossack says that maybe they should talk to the Fianna. Tillie wants to find her before they make decisions - who is she during the day? or night? ("Clearly it was circus folk")

Finn contemplates the paintings in the trod - they're different from the cave caern, where the paintings go down under the sand, they only start at waist height. Maybe there used to be more and multiple really high tides took them out? ("I don't really want to go messing about in time"). Maybe they could wake it up? Cossack's face goes a bit grey - "So, about that not interfering in bunyip things and the Jindabyne council." He's not saying no, but maybe hold off. ("Begrudingly older? ''ONE DAY''). ("i'm just going to assume that one day she's going to want spaghetti." "I'm the one with hands, I make the spaghetti. I see more a 'rash of spaghetti thieving in Italian resteraunts'' "). Lets talk to Fianna first - he'll send some messages to them too.

Cossack tells the pack to cleanse the corpse then burn it - there's not much else they can do at this point. They do this and then get some sleep.

They wake up early in the evening. Sinead finds herself in homid form, and now can't work out if she'd just dreamt about going to faerie land. The last few days seem like a dream. ("Now I've got images of Tillie in a dancer suit, trying to infiltrate a Hive"). ("I can wear anyone's skin I like. You, give me your skin"). Finn snaps awake and is aware that there is a gift being used on him, or around him - he can sense some level of essence swirling around. He wakes everyone else up and hunts around the house. There's no particular taint of a particular member of the triad to it. Its not specifically on him, its more the place. Will sleepily looks in the Umbra - there's no obvious spirit out of place there that he can see. Kasumi calls the caern and asks Graeme about whether someone was gifting at them - he says not him, but he'll wander about and ask. Tillie can't see anyone lurking on the road. ("Boo boo doook").

Sinead summons their totem, and Boobook responds quickly. Kasumi asks if he could go to Tillie, as there is a gift being used on them there. Boobook shows up and they explain what happened and ask if he can tell anything of it - he says that it was a gift (not a ritual), and it was a gift of scrying. Could they follow it back? No, he does not know of a way. Maybe they should investigate some more spiritual defenses on the house? ("punji sticks on will's bed"). Maybe its just one of the other Septs, having contacted them today about things Lost Prophets did. Graeme rings back and says it wasn't anyone from their Sept.

The pack head to the caern and chat with Elders again. Cossack says that Hidden Green and Griding Stone haven't been throwing Dancers into the ocean, dead or otherwise. Police are baffled about the events at Frankston this morning. A moonbridge opens and Leaps-in-the-Light and Mae Fischer (from Rippling Waters) appear to join the discussion. Finn relates the story ("places everyone!") of what they found and what happened. The Sleeping Lore elders want to stop the fae effect across Melbourne, then get rid of the Elder Fae. Leaps-in-the-Light says that iron will have a significant effect - iron affects fae like silver does werewolves. Iron collar? Iron maiden?

Summoning doesn't work on them, neither does binding. Gifts sometimes don't work. Punching works - punching with iron gauntlets is best. Bunyip magic clearly worked at least once. Tillie is in favour of talking first, and maybe convincing Brrr to come with them or do what they want. But that isn't perhaps workable during the day, it'd have to be at night. Maybe they could ask around if someone's seen someone that looks like Tillie sleeping rough? Well, that's what the Dancer's were doing.

Emma says that she's been thinking about the hair and Brrr. She thinks that if Brrr is related to Tillie - and it seems inexplicably strange that a Fae Queen looks like Tillie just because - then there are familial spirits that might be able to help them find Brrr, or find stuff about her? She wants to get some more sense of who Brr is tho - because if she's a fae, she looks like Tillie for reasons other than a blood relationship. ("Maybe its just Tillie all along, and there's no Brrr")

Maybe they could speak to Bartholomew Wise-in-the-Ways-of-the-Wyrm? He's a Fianna who researches Bunyip things, he seems perfect. Tillie will give him a call. Leaps-in-the-Light has an idea on how to reduce the fae influence across Melbourne, but he needs to go back to Rippling Waters and check with people about whether its practical.

Wednesday 28th September - Theurge Waxing

Tillie calls Bartholomew and gives him a rundown of what's going on - fauna, cave, fae, Elder Fae, bunyip rituals to lock said fae into something. Bartholomew says that it can be hard to pick fae out of bunyip stories when your base worldview is full of shapeshifters and people being turned into rocks and stars. Things like mimi and min min lights look a lot of like fae from a Fianna point of view, but those are things that garou have encountered directly. He's not very familiar with their specific story, but this area is where a bunch of discontinuity happened with indigenous culture because of Melbourne's sudden population growth. Meteors tho, that's often magic, often indicating that someone has died either from magic or someone of importance. He'll have a look through his notes and see if there's anything related - don't hold their breath, but he'll call back if he finds anything. ("white people have to go and sit at the *back* of the sky")

When passing through the caern, The Elders tell the pack that Leaps-in-the-Light has proposed doing a ritual at Sleeping Lore that will draw on the power of Chimera and Stag, and hopefully draw all the fae influence to the caern rather than leaving it all over Melbourne. It involves getting a Wyld Stone from the Aetherial Realm, which the Spear of Tulu has been sent to get - they'll be back in a couple of days hopefully. ("They're actually just going to Cranbourne to steal the meteors there"). ("We could have gone to the sky... if we had wings")

Will is getting a burger and glances at the newspaper in the shop. "More kidnappings!" There is a front page article suggesting that there have been more children taken from their houses overnight. The followup article suggests that there might have been two seperate groups working to kidnap children because the majority of the kidnapped children all vanished in one set of circumstances, but another group were taken from their beds more or less in one night. ("Argh that was us"). Although police have linked the two, the article lists a number of points where the evidence is a bit strange or circumstantial. Will glances at the byline - oh good, its written by the journalist they assaulted, Gabrielle Thomas.

What's prompted this is that two children vanished from their houses the night before with no signs of struggle, but not sign that they packed and left - there were there at 10pm, and not there in the morning. ("I'll follow this up as soon as I have my burger"). The article lists names and suburbs, so Will steals the paper and takes his burger, eating and mentally wording up his pack as he goes. ("Why do you have a german accent?" "Because she's making fun of you" "Because she's talking about sex" "And everything I've seen with sex in it, people had german accents")

They speak to Graeme, who has hammered a horse show above the door. "They keep ruining my kitchen, it seems to keep them out". Graeme sighs at their news and says its theirs. There's a bit of "maybe they're just dating" but its pointed out that one lives in Melton (Malcolm Curry), and one in East Burwood (Patricia O'Brien). ("In fair Laburnum, two houses, etc"). Will tries to Questing Stone Patricia but he flubs the ritual and the earth elemental inside his stone leaves, shattering the rock as it does so. Sinead does the ritual instead, but gets no response. This is starting to look bad - more evil floaty children? She steps sideways and does it in hte Umbra to be sure, and still no response. Ditto for Malcolm - nothing in either realms. They opt to drive out to East Burwood and check it out.

However, when they arrive, no one can peek well. Sinead gets a clear enough vision to be able to roughly sense, but can't find any wyrm here. There is a fae sense - low key and not any particular entities. Maybe there's been some low fae here? Otherwise... hmm. No one can sense properly either. Tillie senses for wyrm in the Umbra, but there's no alien sense about here, which is good. There's a fainter fae sense in the Umbra. The rough house appears in the Umbra - just weaver marking out the structure. No one can smell either. The pack decide to give the other place a go, and so leap in the car to drive to Melton.

Malcolm's house on a main road and so they cruise past and drive by sense. Again, its a little light fae (.4 to `1mm fae). They find somewhere to stop and sense 20m away and come back. Kasumi peeks and sniffs, or rather botches, following with the theme of the day. There's a strong carpet cleaner smell that she gets a double nostril of. She can tell that there's no one home so she steps out into the Realm with Will. They can sense no alien wyrm sense anywhere, but there is a faint fae sense, strongest in the male child's room. Its not specific, its very faint, and everywhere like a scent. Its not individual like it was laid down by a particular individuals - its just very everywhere. Kasumi thinks they should go to the cave or the rocks on the freeway to see if the kids have gone that way. Tillie senses in the Umbra, and is 100% sure that anything nefarious in the Umbra within 50m she'd be aware of.

There's no scent of Brrr, which is good. But they get scents of all the people who live here. Malcolm's school bag is still here, and the older sister appears to also go there. Kasumi peeks through the curtain and is a bit doubtful on being able to walk around out there without being seen by a neighbour. In homid anyway - she could be ok in lupus. She slips out ther door and tries to get a scent. Unfortunately theses kids spend a lot of time out here, playing and rolling and generally being here, and so she cannot pick a reliable scent trail out of it. She sniffs the window sill specifically - ah, yes, there's a recent scent here, but she can't track it. Will suggests trying the front driveway - nope, no scent. Maybe unnatural senses? Oh, that works a bit - she has a faint fae sense to try and follow. Its more a cold-hot sort of being able to track it, but she wanders down a side street and into a park. The sense starts to get stronger as she wanders through the park. Its not green and lush, its just red ground with scrubby grass and a playground in need of maintenance.

So when there's a sudden appearance of green grass and mushroom circle and a spike of fae, it catches Kasumi's attention. Its a much stronger fae sense, with a bit of wyld. When the rest of the pack show up in the Umbra, they can see a similar space. The pack have the horrible feeling that this is some kind of fae gate that is where Malcolm has gone. They contemplate stepping through somehow now in the middle of the day, but choose to wait for evening instead. While they're waiting for night to fall, they drive back to the other side of the city to Patricia's house again and see if it senses of fae too. ("if have to suck a dick, i'd like it still to be attached to someone." "Alive".)

They examine the house from the umbra and find the fae sense is concentrated between 3 trees in her back yard. They are european trees, one of them is an oak. Finn knows that there are trees associated with fae, one of them is an oak... um... no idea what the others are. Sinead toys with awakening the trees, but there's some fear that fae stuff would make that bad. Tillie, peeking, sniffs and finds a female scent that goes from the house straight to the trees and does not appear to emerge - it matches the smell in the only child bedroom in the house. ("don't fat shame yuor pack")

Given this faerie 'circle' is in private, it seems more ideal to go through here. Once its dark, the strength of the fae sense increases, but it ebbs and flows a little over time. They decide to wait for midnight at least to make it a bit less obvious. In the house, Patricia's parents and her grandmother are waiting for some news. The rest of the time is spent waiting and seeing if another fae comes out of the circle, or the kids pop out on their own. No luck - when the clock chimes nothing has come in or out, and so the pack move into the circle of dark green grass, and then step.

They appear not in the suburban Umbra where they've spent the last few hours. There's no sign of a moon. There are stars, but the pack don't really recognise them. The forest is thick - they have appeared in a small circle amidst the trees. The trees are similar to the ones they've moved through but not just one or two of them - they are thickly leaved, not just a small amount of spring growth. There are small glowing fae moving through the forest. Tillie starts trying to sniff for children. ("Hooftoolpoof's are excellent finders")

Tillie heads up a tree to see what she could see. She spots various low fae as she heads up to the top, but nothing much else. From the top all she can see is dark tree canopy. Endless dark forest. ("Mars is bright tonight" "Is... is it getting bigger?" "'Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar'")

Finn tries to call Stag like last time. Its not really a deer-like forest - its much denser, and with way more underbrush. ("Maybe Fenris is here" "That explains why there's no moon"). Will changes to lupus form, and finds its as easy to change here as it is in the Umbra. He can find Patricia's scent, but its not just here to there - it moves back and forth through the clearing and into trees and so on many times. Its not just the same every time either - it seems to change subtley, with the newer scents being most unlike the original one they followed to the trees. It also takes on a forest-esque component. It does seem like she's been here a while maybe.

They contemplate a couple of options and then go for the simplest one - Sinead calls out "Hey! Patricia!" ("What's her name?" "Patricia. Still") Some of the low fae come to the disturbance and staring at the pack. Something a bit larger is moving through the forest towards, but circling the pack. Its suddenly crashes onto branches in the tree below Tillie. Will uses scent of the true form on it - huuuuuman. probably. but he reserves the right to change his mind. He calls out. "are you Patricia?" "Yep. Who are you?" "Will. We came to find you. Do you want to come home?" "No" ("Well, *dustshands* we're done"). Finn tests the physics, trying to see if she was flying. He illuminates her with faerie lights as well so they can see who they are talking to. ("this is also part of testing the physics"). They can see a girl in the tree about 15' in the air. She's wearing only shredded pyjama pants and mud and stuff. They ask if she's seen Malcolm, but she doesn't know who that is, and there aren't any other people here. Well, not people people - that one turned into a wolf, and that one is making lights. Who are you?

They ask her questions - she followed some lights out of her room and to here. What does she eat? Food.. berries, stuff. And she could swap things for some food from the other people. Tillie asks if she misses anything from home and she jumps a bit, clearly not knowing she was there. Maybe chocolate. Patricia starts walking along the branch without hanging on - not in a no-gravity way, but in a freakily good balance way. They try a different tack and talk about how there's other kids going missing, but Patricia thinks that might be a good thing. Maybe they want to get away? Maybe its crap where they live? Is it crap where she lives? Yes. And this is awesome.

They would leave her here but there's some concern that she's ensorcelled. Sense unnatural says there is some fae energies about her - being applied maybe? Its not strong, but its more prevalent than the back ground. Will asks about how she learnt to get in the trees like that. She made a deal with a squirrel for her shirt and he showed her how to jump. Oh. Good. The pack toy with cleansing to remove some taint? It can kind of work. Tillie tries to bribe her with sparkly stuff to show her the most in charge 'person' Patricia knows; she says there really isn't anyone, its not like being home where there has to be an adult in charge, telling you what to do and not do all the time. The pack are getting a vibe. Anyone more powerful? Idunno. A town? There's only forest. And its always night. Its not very big though - you go that way, and you come back that way. Maybe its just full of tricksy magics like the Arcadia gatway when they went the first time.

Will tries to ask her if she'll hold still while they do a spell on her if they give her stuff. She says he's creepy. They try and logic her into sitting still for it instead and she's not keen. She doesn't trust them. "We'll let you punch Will?" "You're not selling it. " "Oh, that's the funnest thing I can think to do". Patricia says that if they could tell her how to shapeshift, she might be up for it, but Will says he doesn't know how to teach her. Frankly the veil is getting a bit of a punching. They try some more options for convincing her - shiny things and chocolate. The topic of time comes up and they say she's been gone for a day and a half out there ("Like Narnia?") and people have already missed her. Patricia doesn't believe them, but Finn says "you know how lots of kids went missing not long ago?" "Yeah, the school went totally mental and we were all getting constantly watched all the time and no one can do anything. But I'm here" "But your parents don't know that"

Tillie says maybe they could make it not shit at home? She could teach Patricia how to fight, or Finn can teach you to sing? Will has... talents. Sinead could cover your parents in bees? They ask about her parents a bit, trying to figure out how much is her parents being terrible and how much she's a whiny teenager? The pack sensed wyrm around the house, and there wasn't really anything, so its unlikely to be feeding puppies to the wyrm. ("Can you be socially angry?") Could they get a low fae to teach her to do something annoying to her parents? ("That's a curse - in Australia, if you can summon spiders, someone might die"). Patricia seems to think she's more of a hassle to her parents than a cherished love one - even not missed as much as its annoying to have to deal with her being gone. "Don't you miss your friends?" "No, they go to another school, so I don't get to see them any more" . The pack offer to fix it - Patricia doesn't seem to understand why they care enough to do that. Also she thinks its extremely cool here. They are unaware of how cool it is here. She demonstrates her new-found agility. Tillie agrees that that is pretty cool. Boys? ew!

Further questioning suggests that maybe the school thing is the real reason that she's cross with her parents. The pack try to convince her that if she says she ran away because of the school her parents might take it more seriously. ("Maybe we can get her a gymnastics scholarship from the school she wants to go to?"). Patricia says "you get me 8 chocolate bars... and I will come back. But if its crap still, I can come back here" Its not 100% clear she knows how to get back. She asks them how to come back and they are also not 100%. She seems less keen to come along then - Finn manages to fake her out.

Patricia jumps out of the tree, and lands on the ground. Tillie more or less falls out of the tree but just doesn't care. They assembled and touch Patricia, and Tillie steps everyone through. The pack appear, and it is still dark, which is frankly a concern. Kasumi's phone says they've been about 3 minutes. They give Patricia a jacket straight away and sneak out of her backyard and down the street to their car, as there is an immediate concern about being caught there with her looking like she's been lost in a swamp. To the 24 hour kmart!

Kasumi dishelvles herself, and slumps into the shops without looking at any cameras and pays in cash. She buys some clothes and baby wipes and a hair brush and some chocolate and comes back out to the car. ("If anyone takes interest, we'll pretend to be smoking a bong in the car"). They sit in the car while Patricia eats the chocolate. She complains the light is a bit bright from the car lights and all, and the pack noticed there's something a little bit odd about her eyes - a little bit too big? Maybe its just a short term thing from 6 weeks of no sun? Will asks if she traded soemthing to be able to see in the dark? Patricia says no...

Tillie steps out and makes a call to the caern. She gets Ian, and tells him they found one of the missing kids. "Excellent!" He hangs up. Tillie waits 20 minutes to wait him out, but he's clearly not going to call back. She calls him and tries to explain what's going on. "yes? and?" Tillie says she doesn't want to take her home. "God no, what's wrong with you" And she doesn't want to take her to the caern. "Fuck no, what's wrong with you. Just put her back where you found her." Ian clearly just doesn't care what they do with her. Tillie says there's something odd about her. "How odd?" Not.. .really that odd, really I guess. Ian says "just do what you think is best." "I just wanted to make sure we did a good job" "I always assume you do a good job, I don't understand why you keep calling" *click* Tillie rings back. "Whaaaat?" "No you don't" *click*. 2 minutes later she's text "Fuck you. I do."

The pack try and convince Patricia to come to their house because she's filthy. Patricia thinks she could just say she fell into the creek. Will says its important that regular people don't know what's going on and Tillie says you can't talk about them. Frankly its all a bit barn door closed after the horse has broken the Veil. She's in the know, she has to keep it quiet. Patricia is a bit doubtful on the whole idea - Tillie reiterates that they can help her with her things, but she has to do the right thing too. They ask about what schools are involved in this whole issue - it turns out that Patricia wants to go to the local high school but her parents have put her in a selective school. The pack say that she should say she just ran off for a couple of days because she was SO sad. Keep it simple. I guesssss. The story could be believable I guess? She needs to fall in the creek a couple of times tho. Will is very convincing about keeping it all on the QT. Even if his gifts don't work. (Thou shalt not kill)

They drive her to a park ajoining the creek that runs vaguely past the back of her house. Patricia says this better work or she's going back to faerie land. They say to give them at least a week, they need to deal with a few things before they come back. The pack drive off, and step and jog back and peek. Patricia doesn't arrive for a few more minutes, and she spends a few minutes staring at the trees and staring at the house, clearly trying to make a decision. She lets herself in, which wakes up her grandmother on the couch, who wakes up her parents. There is release of emotion. The police are called, and they send some people around.

Her parents ask some questions, and Patricia sticks to the script (" and not 'I gave my shirt to a squirrel'"). Her mum asks who belongs to the pyjamas and Patricia says they are hers - before it starts a fight, her grandmother makes chopping motions. They ask how she got so muddy and Patricia says she fell in the creek. Frankly she seems muddier than she was before, almost theatrically so. The police arrive and take some basic notes - they seem satisfied that she's just a runaway. They speak to her in private for a moment or two, and seem satisfied that nothing more untoward has happened and suggest she could come in tomorrow to give a statement.

The pack decide its time to get to Malcolm. Over to the other side of the city while Sinead puts the excess chocolate into her magic bag. They swing past Malcolm's place and check that its not saturated with wyrm and they just missed it next time (5 minutes of babbling about how the bag is a gate into Jirrawan's cave) but it seems to be a fairly happy household with no hidden horrible secrets. They go to the mushroom ring park, check watches (3am) and step inside the circle.

Once again they appear in a forest - this one is different from the last one. ("no there's not a caterpillar smoking a hookah"). Its still nighttime, but there is a low moon just off the horizon. Its a much more open forest and warmer. There is a small child in pyjamas in the middle of the clearing jumping up and trying to grab lights. They call for him and he jumps. They ask why he's here, and he says he was just trying to grab the lights. Finn offers to make some lights for him if he comes. How long has he been there? 4minutes? The pack want to hustle him back as soon as possible from faerie land. Oh we're in faerie land? Wow! Tillie tries to impress on him that he can't tell anyone anything about them or about faerieland while Kasumi points at her watch urgently. Malcolm wants Finn to keep doing the lights and he says he can only do them here. ("It works in the realm." "*stage whisper* I know, but I'm not going to tell him that").

The pack step and appear and its dawn. They send Malcolm home saying its time to go, and try to impress on him very hard to just say he woke up and had gone out and he was lost and totally don't mention people. They wait til he's gone and dive into the Umbra. They peek and find him heading home pretty quickly, calling out for his parents. He explains what happened and is vague, and frankly it looks like he's been roofied. Then what happened? He met some people and they said go home. Where were you? um, in the park? Frankly the reaction of "take him to hospital" seems perfectly normal and thus this is what they do. ("make sure to remember to take the chocolate out of the bag or next time you go to do a ritual you'll be like 'oh no chocolate on everything!'")

Thursday 29th September - Theurge Waxing

"What happens in faerie land, stays in faerie land"

The pack head home via the caern. Bartholomew calls Tillie before she's managed to get her head down. He says that he has a story from Victoria's western plains about a nearby group of people that fell under the influence of a spirit (maybe) related to the night that was encouraging people to behave wrongly. But a group of shamans and warriors came and dealt with it. That's it though - it was a really skimpy story probably 2nd or 3rd hand. He'll keep looking, but that was the most obvious match he found quickly.

Kasumi gets a call before she hits bed about a work emergency, and has to run into the city to placate a client for the day. ("You should take your GM hat off, you're giving me ideas").

Will is pretty deeply asleep shortly after midday when something hits him really hard in the chest. He flings it away and bamfs into crinos, on the verge of frenzy, kicking the couch backwards. Tillie and Finn are woken by roaring and a female voice saying "Will! Will! Will!" Tillie springs awake and is across the room, in homid, and out the door before she's really awake. Finn bounces out of the room and is blocked by Will's ass, filling the entire corridor. ("you can see my charisma 4" "tell me what i can see dammit!" "nothing you'll ever forget").

Tillie sees the bunny fae from Arcadia cowering down as Will nearly swipes her, but stops, baffled. ("are we under attack or not, all I can see if Will's hairy ass"). Cherie bounces to the other end of the room, near the back door, away from Will, eyes wide open. Tillie tries to be comforting and calming while Will gets his shit together.

"Will! I'm here! I found you! It was hard, but I found you. You're right, its really soft here. " "How did you get here?" "I found Will! Normally you need something that they've given you, but Will gave me something. And now I've found you I can come here whenever I like!" ("BUNNY BOILER") "Hey! I've found you. We can do stuff!" Will mumbles something about going out somwehere and the others stare at him and mentally shout "bunny girl!" at him. Tillie takes a look at Cherie and tries to work out how human she is. She's got a slightly odd mouth and nose, but its human and odd, but a twitchy bunny nose. Her ears stick up out of hair that could pass for human. (A bit like a harelip). Her eyes are brown and the colour fills most of the socket. Tillie says that she's not a rabbit, she's a hare - a bit more concerning when it comes to symbolic meanings. ("Are you a sub??"). With a hat, and sunglasses - and some clothes - she could go out with Will. Tillie tries to wake up Sinead and get her to bring some of Kasumi's clothes. Will offers Cherie coffee and then decides that would be a bad idea.

Cherie says she couldn't bring clothes, it was easier to leave them behind, but she'll wear whatever. Its really metally here. Everything is metal. Yuck. What's this? What's a fridge? Hey, its cold in there. She tries some of Finn's juice, but isn't really a fan. Will tries to convey that humans aren't allowed to know about the fae. Or werewolves. Did anyone else come back with you? "No one. Not yet. I could show them the way though." How did you get here again? "Its soft. I had something of yours." She stares intently at Will - despite the slightly innocent bunny-girl vibe, its a much... earthier look than he's expecting. ("its not hair and toenails, but I'm sure it'd do the trick").

The pack distracts her with the tv while they mentally mock Will . ("to put this in mundane terms - you're the 25 year old guy who went to an 18 year old's party and slept with one of them who is now madly in love with you. And you thought you'd never see her again, it was just a one night stand but now she's turned up at your house. She asked around and found out your name, and looked you up in the phone book. And even though there were 25 people in the phone book with your name, she called all of them. And then when none of them were you, she figured the last one would be you so she showed up at your house and is like 'hi I found you!. It was really hard because you didn't leave your number or your name! But its ok, cos I found you. So now we can hang out!'") Maybe Cherie could help them find Brrr? What are hares good at? ("Oh I can tell you" "Not that."). Finn double checks the doors and find that they're not open or anything - it looks like she just bamfs in. Tillie confirms that in lupus - her scent is just about the couch and kitchen. She doesn't smell of Melbourne - she has a smell of forest, and woodsmoke. There's a house smell, but its not their house. Sinead senses wyrm and finds that she doesn't have any really; if anything, less than this house in Carlton. Sinead shows up and sneers at Will, throwing him some clothes. Cherie seems disappointed to find the clothes are normal, they're not enchanted or anything. Cherie is up for pants and shirt ok, and a hat covering her ears/lack of ears.

Will and her go for a walk. She seems confused by many things, such as cars and plastic flowers. And why she shouldn't jump up onto a balcony to see something interesting when its 10' above the ground. Will explains that she has to pretend to be a human. Will tries to raise the topic of "something of his again" and Cherie gives him the "go on, ask" eye again. Will cuts to the chase - "you're not pregnant are you". No, she's not, but it becomes clear that she has indeed tracked him by his ... essence. ("You should be more careful with your fluids" "I seem to have left all my electrolytes in your daughter" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiTjXby61Y).

Tillie calls the Sept and gets Graeme on the phone. She gives him a heads up that Will's friend has turned up at their house. He is a bit shellshocked and says that he'll tell Emma. Finn says they need to get this turned down, and Graeme agrees - the Get of Penington had to deal with a troll under a bridge that had eaten 3 cyclists, and it pounded seven kinds of hell out of Barry. So yes, they need Spear of Tulu and Leaps-in-the-Light back soon. In the meantime, keep the bunny girl busy - or ask her about trying to find Brrrr if she's amenable.

Meanwhile - "why are their nets in the sky? Are there really big fish that drop out of the clouds? ARAAAGH That thing is grabbing them and sailing along and it makes a great big noise!" Will and Cherie are getting avoided on the street. ("I'll cover for us. ''we're realy high!''" "Sorry, she snorted 6 marawanas"). ("Dont let her near electrical cables, that's all I'm sayin') Will tries to prompt Cherie for some help with starry-eyed Brrr - she seems to know about the Elder Fae because the court people were talking about it. Cherie doesn't want to find the Elder, she's dangerous. Will says they have to find her and stop her. Cherie is baffled that they want everything like this - too many people and metal and bad smells everywhere and no trees. She senses there are rabbits nearishby but they don't feel well. So why not let the Elder turn everything upside down, it'd be better then. Will is frankly struggling with coming up with counter arguments. He says there's oaths they've sworn to not let things get too out of hand. Cherie says "ohhhhh, you're stuck on geasa? Boring. Just like the court people. They're boring, they're stuck with geasa." Her counter argument is that they should just have some fun while the Elder makes things softer. They could have some fun - Cherie could teach Will a cles? He doesn't know that that it, and she says its a trick, she can show him how to jump a long way. It sounds a bit like a gift? Not here maybe? Cherie is very disappointed with Will and baffled at his reasoning. He tries to talk her around, but she says everything smells bad and yells at a passerby that he smells bad. They should just let the Elder go and then lots of her friends could come back and everything would be much better.

They end up a greengrocer when she touches and tastes a lot of things, trying to put them back when they taste bad. Will follows her around trying to stop her from just eating stuff. They need to trade for it first. Oh, what do they want? Will says he'll sort it out. Hunh. What do you want? Will says if she continues to pretend to be a person for him, he'll cheerfully buy her food. "Oh ok." She moves off and there is a 6 year old staring at Will, clearly having heard what he said. Will and friend are getting the eye from all the staff.

While the pack try and convince Will to get an iron Prince Albert to get rid of her, Will tries to convince Cherie maybe she should go back to Arcadia because its not that good here and they're going to try and get rid of the Elder Fae. Cherie says she doesn't want to go home. "Do you want to go to a hotel?" "What's a hotel?" "Its like a house you borrow with a bed that doesn't have my housemates around it" "Sure." Off they go.

Emma comes to visit. Emma asks if Cherie has come here to get Will, or because she could? Did anyone else leave... anything ... there? No one is 100% sure - they had all sorts of stuff, and hair just falls out? Emma says that she thinks it'd have to be a gift. Not really anything physical.. tho Sinead isn't 100% how her night went. They need to get this sorted. They can't hurry up the Spear of Tulu, but there is the other tack that they asked Emma to chase up; the hair that Brrr gave Tillie. She thinks the simplest explanation for their similiarity is that there's some connection between Brrr and Tillie. Emma suggests that they go out to Reconcilliation and talk to the Children of Gaia there about ways to chase it up. ("Should we take anything?" "Bring the hair." "The hair or the hare?"). ("I don't want to give her more tho, she might give it to someone else" "Ew". "Like facepaint" "EW")

They head back to the Caern and moonbridge to Reconciliation. Mandras meets them, with a couple of Fianna from the Sept, and they listens to the basic story. Both the Fianna wince at the events that are going on, and Mandras says that its probably best to speak right to Antoinette. ("The Get of Fenris are all ''winter is coming'' and the Fianna are ''you're fucked''). They find her sitting quietly in a small shelter in the Umbra. She listens to their story and thinks briefly.

Antoinette says it sounds like they are suggesting that Tillie and Brrr are related. Tillie says they look almost identical - its like looking into the same mirror with different cracks. Antoinette asks if she maybe looks like Tillie because she's met her - and that she's actually the same creature that immitated Mandras tricking Tillie a year and a half ago? They talk about the possibility - this is well before anything fae-related came up, and whoever it was seemed to be mostly interested in the bunyip side of them finding the caern. They've also had the Tillie that wasn't Tillie in the Atrocity realm - was that Brrr?

Antoinette doesn't discount the possibility that her and Brrr are related, but thought they should talk through the previous encounter. They talk through the possibility that Brrr had been enslaved by someone else for her shapeshifting powers and its only now that she's escaped? That might explain the Dancers looking for someone that looked like Tillie?

Antoinette suggests investigating the possibility of a familial link with the help of Unicorn ("oo ponies"). Tillie is for, but Antoinette says that Unicorn may ask her for a price personally. ("We promise that our next pack member will be a diversity hire") ("we could go to... Scotland?") The Lost Prophets mentally consider suggesting they could owe this or another Sept a favour without asking for any payment, to strengthen the links between garou septs? It certainly sounds like a thing.

("Don't be stupid, lasagne is clearly an underwater creature") ("what can we give unicorn?" "virgins?" "don't be stupid") ("I've touched more boobs than you" "They have to be connected to count") Antoinette goes to speak to Phillip, the Master of the Rite, about summoning Unicorn as the pack tweak the details of what they want to offer as chiminage. Phillip summons Unicorn over about an hour while the garou politely wait. A white unicorn emerges from the umbral mists. It glows faintly. Phillip greets the spirit and offers thanks for coming when called and explains that Tillie has a request. Tillie awkwardly explains that they want unicorn to find the owner of this hair in return for a favour. Antoinette politely interrupts and explains in more detail- and the potential fillial connection with Brrr.

Unicorn says that she will attempt to discern if there is a connection, but if there is, she wants Tillie to commit to healing Brrr. Tillie tries to determine what sort of healing Unicorn means, but it sounds like the spirit means physical, mental and spiritual. If there is no connection, then to offer of a service to Unicorn is acceptable. Tillie hmms and hars and assents. Unicorn takes the hair, and is stabbed lightly in the palm ("that's going to leave a scar") and takes the blood.

Tillie is swarmed with images - flashes of her life now at the sept and with the pack. The images go backwards through Sydney, Sleeping Lore, Grinding Stone, being a biker in New South Wales, first change, horrible childhood in Tasmania. The images progress backward into time she does not recall. The landscape changes - for a brief moment instead of cold southern forests, its warm, brushy desert-like environments. Suddenly its dark, and warm, and there is another heartbeat there with her.

The images move forward instead of backward, and Tillie is seeing Brrr's life. The environment stays the warm, sandy/rocky landscape, with glimpses of oceans and cliffs, water courses and orange/yellow soil. She's still a metis, and there are other garou ("what's my name!" "FRANCIS"). The images are flickering forward fast, and its difficult to spot specifics. All the garou she sees are women, implying Black Furies. She's the member of a pack, in a desert. There's a crash, and Brrr is shot out through the window. She is captured by other garou. She's tortured, cut mostly to pieces, tainted with foul rituals. She sees her other pack members killed. And suddenly the thread snaps.

Tillie almost frenzies as she returns to her own body - the last series of images were extremely upsetting as Brrr is tortured by presumably Dancers. Antoinette touches her and much of the immediate anger drains away.

Meanwhile, in the city, Will and Kasumi get a flash of extreme rage from Tillie that fades away. They are concerned but unable to contact the rest of their pack.

Tillie relates what she saw - Unicorn says "as agreed" and leaves the garou to discuss. Emma says that that puts a lot of things in context really. There's some talk about what happened - was Brrr killed, or was she made to convert to a Dancer. Given what they saw in the Atrocity Realm, with Tillie-but-not, the second looks to be likely. She was working with a fomori to kill people. But maybe she was actually killed and the dead garou was dumped in a gate to the winter court of fae, and that meant that her body was there to be possessed by the Elder Fae. Or maybe she was turned and then the Dancers discovered the Elder Fae? Can a fae posess someone? Control maybe, but no posess. They don't really know what the shamans did to make a prison for the Elder Fae. They mightn't have been able to destroy her completely, but trap her spirit somehow. Finn suddenly says "Wait. Did the bunyip somehow make a fetish with the Fae Queen inside?" Or is Brr a fetish? Or is the cave?

So maybe she gets tortured, turned to a Dancer. She joins a pack that hear about this Fae queen, and they go to find it, stumble in, and Brr ends up possessed only at night? The Dancers were certainly looking for her? Tillie thought they were trying to fuck her up, but it might just been that they were beating other people up.

Tillie suddenly realises that she knows her sister's name. Its Brenna - she heard it over time as people spoke it in her visions. Brenna Kennedy? Maybe. They probably want to talk to the Black Furies. ("'You can delete my phone number, but you can't unsuck my dick' and then its a video of a seagull vomiting up an entire hotdog"). They could talk to the ones at Grinding Stone? Emma suggests perhaps talking directly to Wungala Rose, the Fury Jindabyne council member - she will be more able to speak to lots of Furies. Sending a message rather than going to visit seems to the idea. Emma says thank you to Antoinette and suggests that they should go home and pass this info around, so off they Moonbridge

Back at Sleeping Lore, the mental link re-establishes and everyone is full of questions. Emma gets Cossack and Graeme together with the pack and information is traded about. Cossack checks that the answer they have fits the problem - Brenna was a Dancer or Dancer-esque garou and somehow got tangled with the Elder Fae. The exact mechanisms of how aren't necessarily important. Tillie mentions that they've committed to healing Brenna, and Cossack looks unimpressed. Tillie shrugs and says that was the price. Sinead goes off to try and questing stone Brenna Kennedy in the hope that its the right surname and all. No love tho - they don't know if they have the right surname, whether she even responds to that name any more and whether she touches the ground enough to be found with the Rite?

Finn says maybe the cave was sealed until the Dancers show up with a Cracking Stone ish fetish? Its a possibility, that's the sort of thing you'd expect these fetishes to be able to unlock. ("its one of the places you shouldn't have to go twice." "I'm looking at you Bilquis"). ("I don't want to summon any incarnae or anything, but maybe we could get some help from Gemini?")

Cossack says they will send a message to the Furies with minimal context - they can supply it later when they get context. Emma frowns and the Lost Prophets are a bit confused, and it gets worse when Kasumi and Finn spot weird significant glances between Cossack and Graeme. The pack try and call them on it, but the Elders put their foot down and refuse to talk right now.

Meanwhile, Will is shacked up with Cherie in a hotel. Cherie says that at night, she reckons some of the others will want to come here. She thinks it would be fun, and doesn't understand why Will wants to stop the Elder fae from getting rid of all the stupid iron. Cherie sighs and says "fine, what will you do for me if I don't help the others come through?" "What do you want?" "You should break your stupid geasa, and come hang out with me for a year". Will opts to use a call to contact a friend for ideas. "It'd have to be something pretty good - the kudos for showing people how to get back to the Mundane and play would be pretty high". Will looks stuck, Cherie says she's going to play with the inside rain while he thinks.

("Fridge. Fridge! Not freezer") ("She's yoko-ing the pack, Will") Maybe they could convince her to hang off for a week - sounds like it might cost them less and a lot can happen in a week ("'A rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet', 'yiffing by any other name is still fucking disgusting'). Will tries it out - he says he'll take her to a huge party if she doesn't let anyone else through for ten days. She looks unimpressed, and he talks about the rave. ("its a rave, tell anyone you like you're a bunny faerie"). She says she wants to go to a party. Aaand see some musicians. And go out in the country. During the ten days. Will tentatively agrees and she drags him into the shower. ("Alright, I made an ag.. agree.. ahmmmmm. I'll get back to you")

Finn gets home and finds a phone message from Tom, a uni guy who he's been talking to about forming a band. Tom wants Finn to come to the Gasometer on Saturday to see a celtic punk band - they're the same kind of deal, so maybe they can steal ideas. Finn checks with his mum that they're free Saturday and the garou just stare at him. ("i'll put my faerie defeating job on hold to come see a band with you"). Finn and Tom sms abit and agree to come along, possibly with some friends and Eva, Finn's potential bassist. ("or try and play records on the toilet I guess").

("We;re just inventing homoerotic storylines for you and Andrew.") ("he fucked it." "And he did badly on this roll") While at home, Finn and Kasumi sense that someone is using a gift on them again, the same scrying gift as last time. They try to keep a straight face and only talk mentally about it. Tillie senses for wyrm and finds none particularly. Sensing unnatural suggests that there's a little bit about the couch - perhaps where Cherie appeared earlier.

(We had trouble starting. "She's already at least 2 handfuls", "get it out!" "I'd put you in a silver cage too, if you were this annoying" "You get a couple layers, and get a rubber band" "Or just have sex with my knees" "her knees go backwards tho." "noooo officer hops!" http://oglaf.com/fancy/).

There's some more speculation about how to find Brrr. Tillie isn't quite pleased about the vagueness of the Elder's messages, feeling that without some sense of urgency, they won't get much of a response quickly. They could try contacting Pegasus? Well, three of them could. Maybe. Maybe Tillie. Who isn't really cut out for spirit negotiation.

The pack contemplate about how to heal Brr, assuming they can find her and not kill her and un-fae her. Maybe Unicorn again? Redeeming a Dancer seems like the sort of thing stories get told about - they put their heads together and compare notes. Between them, they know 3 stories which involve the redeeming of a Dancer. The first, the original tribe totem (not an avatar, the totem) helped them come back from the Wyrm. The second involved taking them to a realm in the Umbra called Erebus, where people can have their taint burned away ("there's just a void"). There's some recollection of "lake of molten silver". This ... sounds unpleasant. The third story is a personal redemption - someone retrieved a packmate from the wyrm, through years of questing through the umbra. In the first and last cases, the individual died, just they were redeemed to Gaia first.

Maybe they should get some chains - something like iron and silver? Chains seem like a good way to capture her without death. Tillie says she'd love for Brenna to come voluntarily. Kasumi goes to Bunnings for chain, and lots of it. ("Feel free to buy a dog collar and a toilet seat at the time, just to throw them off").

Sinead tries a night time questing stone for Brenna Kennedy, but gets no response still.

(We had trouble continuing. "Will hasn't fucked the sea yet" "hey baby, show me your clam" "I dunno - I've been naked in the sea, sure, but...") ("- its a gecko bra" ".. I tune out for 3 seconds"). ("wouldn't a suit made out of geckos use a lot of geckos? " "Have you ever seen 101 dalmations? Because geckos are a lot smaller than puppies" "1001 geckos" ) ("Aha, role reversal! you cam to the human world and were put to sleep for 100 years") ("Rohypnol?" "Ketamine") ("maybe she could become a youtube sensation")

Will tests leaving Cherie in the care of the electronic babysitter. The pack ask Boobook to scan from the air to see if he can spot the Elder Fae.

About an hour after this, the pack become aware that Boobook has spotted something and he is following in the air. ("its actuially a glory hole for Tillie to dick punch people" "I've spent the whole day dick punching people, look at my knuckles"). They try and give chase in a car, but after a short time the sense they get back is no longer very coherent. Finn identifies it as more like when he's interacting with animals. There's a real drop off of sentience. After about another hour they are able to locate him up a tree in the Umbra, being an owl. Sense unnatural shows a very strong Fae influence over the normal feeling of their totem. They try to talk to him, but his responses are very animalistic. It seems like the Elder Fae has reduced him in some fashion, which is concerning. The pack convince the boobook owl to comeback to the Sept with them. Tillie scouts a bit, but there's no immediate sign that anything happened here.

At the Sept, they summon him and convey some gnosis, and Boobook is somewhat restored. He indicates that he will be unavailable until the following nighttime, but manages to let them know that he wasn't even close by and she noticed him. This matches with the images in the cave and the story from Tir na Nog - she had some chaotic effect on people and animals.

Will returns and finds Cherie has indeed been hypnotised by the tv. Victory!

Friday 30th September - Theurge Waxing

Will brings Cherie back to his house and installs her in front of youtube and the tv. ("He had a straw, trying to get his gift back").

Spear of Tulu return with Leaps-in-the-Light and Bret, bringing back the wyld stone, which looks like a normal stone except for the floating and the slowly shifting rainbow colours. The ritual Leaps-in-the-Light knows should be done at sunset, with some preparation during the day. It needs the effects of Chimera along with Stag's help. It should attract all the fae to the caern, where hopefully they will be contained, and minimise the fae influence across Melbourne. Lost Prophets takes the chance to try and draw some gnosis from the caern. ("you are absorbed").

The pack ask if its going to affect Cherie? Bret suggests not saying anything to her and using her as a test. Graeme doesn't want her at the caern. Will checks in on Cherie and she's watching tv. He comes back two hours later and she's fucking some guy on Will's bed couch. Will says "what's this?" and the guy looks panicked, but Cherie grabs his head and says "don't look at him, look at me, aren't I the most wonderous thing you've ever seen?" and starts riding him again. The guy seems hypnotised. Will throws them both out the back door and into the yard. Cherie doesn't seem to care if they are outside, and just grabs the guy again. ("if you came home and someone else was having sex on your bed..." "That would never happen" "Challenge accepted!")

Cherie comes back in, Will tries to explain to her why she shouldn't glamour the humans. She seems disinterested, even when he says that its part of not telling people about her. There's a faint "can i have my clothes?" from outside, and he throws the clothes out and says "get out!". From the shower, Cherie says that she was magicing him to follow Will's stupid rules - otherwise he would have noticed her ears. Will says that maybe if she keeps doing it to people, they'll eventually realise. ("I didn't want the rest of my sandwich, dou want that too?"). He decides to stay there and watch her when the ritual kicks in.

Late in the day, other Garou come to visit - Scars Atoning sends Nick and his pack Wild Rovers, and Reconciliation sends the Sons of Luna, including the two twin Boylan bothers. They are mostly here to watch the ritual as its not done often, and they are curious about the effects.

At dusk, Leaps-in-the-light starts the ritual. He puts the wyldstone at the top of a cairn of rocks (in the caern) and walks around the stones chanting in garou tongue. After a time, the pack can see two other figures moving around similarly, Chimera and Stag.

As the garou watch, lights start to appear, and movement becomes apparent. Squealing starts in the distance. A lot of low fae are appearing around, fighting with each other and annoying the garou. ("Will 'the ruccis' Jackson"). A glowing pixie thing crashed into Finn and accuses him of being in its way. When he argues it flies around and starts tugging on his hair. He tries to stop it, and it says its fixing his hair. The other members of Lost Prophets can see that every time it does, his hair changes colour. Emma says she'd like the Scryers and Lost Prophets to wander about outside of the caern and see what the effects are - are they contained to the caern, or spilling out everythwere.

Meanwhile, Cherie seems pretty distracted by something. She says she can hear something. Like someone saying her name? She tries to get on with the game, but when Will goes to make food, she gets up and heads out the front door. Will catches up with her and asks where she's going. She says that he was the one that said she should go out here.... .What's going on. Will spills the beans about the ritual to call the night queen and she says "oh. no." and heads back inside. Will passes these details on.

The others find that the low fae are mostly in the Umbra not the Realm, which may be a problem in the long run. Outside the caern boundaries tho, the numbers drop off very sharply, so the ritual seems to be helping there. As the pack head along Lygon st, they find that people are being very... effusive? Its a Friday night, and everyone is pretty up. People are friendly and energetic and a bit loud. Festively? A little out of control? Might be overstating it a bit. Some of the pack notice some odd flowers growing in one of the gardens - a purpley, blue fleshy flower on a stalk. They have a pretty rich perfume. The pack don't really recognise them - a bit like Angel's trumpets, but pointing upward. They don't sense particularly - but there is a general fae sense everywhere. Its less complicated than it was before, but maybe stronger? Finn remembers that some plants are associated with the fae - and some of them help against fae. Foxglove... that's worth a try. Awakened or sanctified foxglove might help protect them. (http://www.theforestfairy.com/flowers-that-attract-and-welcome-the-fairies-into-your-garden/)

Will convinces Cherie to come for a walk and surreptious magic detection. They make it to Studley Park, which is she is pretty happy about - but yes, the caern magical effect extends at least to here without noticeably diminishing (studley park: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-37.801803,145.0068014,16z) (vs Anakie fairy park "The name is believed to be derived from 'Anakie Youang', an expression in one of the local Australian Aboriginal languages, meaning 'little hill' or 'twin hills'. The nearby Brisbane Ranges National Park contains three hills known as The Anakies, as well as Mount Anakie." )

Everyone reports back - generally the feeling is that the ritual isn't having a full effect, but it is definitely limiting the actual fae. Leaps-in-the-Light shrugs - eh, close enough. Hopefully it'll suppress the Elder Fae, all the Veil breaking low fae and may stop stuff like random circles opening up and taking children.

• Interlude 2010-2011
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December
• January
• February