Dominique activates the fetish, which glows white and points towards the west north west. She tells people to step sideways. Amazingly, there is only one failure. Once the pack is assembled, they run in lupus towards the direction the fetish is pointing. Passing through a grove of trees, they find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Moonflower peeks and sees that they are in suburban Australia somewhere - everything is a bit misty.
The pack travels onward, along a dusty path, through light brushland. The amount of weaver seems to be increasing, and shows no real coherence. As they travel on, they come to a point where the path is seriously blocked. Some brief discussion and Moonflower again peeks. The area they are in seems to correspond to a new housing development, which apparently used to be a school. After some brief discussion, Mikal takes the lead, walks into the web and gets stuck.
What follows is the most amazing example of how not to fight pattern spiders. In a desperate attempt to stop the game from dying in the first hour, Keziah stops playing with the moths and rescues the pack from certain doom. The GM shakes his head and resolves to teach people how to use rage.
After that Keziah has vanquished the pattern spiders, our brave pack continues in lupus form, to the sound of raspberries from the Weaver kin behind them. The fetish leads them on when they come to an area where the forest appears to have been smashed to pieces. Trees are knocked over or simply shattered where they stand, with no obvious reason for it. A quick scout around and a peek reveal that this location corresponds to the newly built Western Ring Road, where bulldozers are still finishing off the secondary construction. It also reveals a slow running, churned up creek with a presence in both the Umbra and the Realm and some rather terrified glade children in the a small grove of undamaged trees.
Dominique attempts to communicate with the Glade Children and manages to grasp that they are afraid, and of something in the real world. She peaks and sees that the bulldozers are coming this way. People are informed, and a quick plan is developed. Moonflower will leap out of the Umbra and use Control Simple Machine to stump the bulldozers while the legal types bullshit them construction dudes. Keziah, Moonflower, Mathias and Mikal attempt to step and execute this plan. Once Mikal has had "stepping" explained to him, they move out.
Moonflower activates her gift, but it seems that the bulldozers are fairly set about their job and nothing happens. Keziah runs forward and lays down in front of a bulldozer, which bemuses its driver, because its stopped and he's having a coffee next to it. Moonflower adapts her plan and joins Keziah, while both chanting "Save the trees!" and "Free East Tibet", confusing the poor bulldozer operators. While this inexplicable behaviour continued, Mathias, pretending to work for the same company that was doing the bulldozing, found the foreman of the job and explained that an environmental group had informed the company (Whatsit Landscaping and Construction) that they were going to file a suit over the trees they were about to bulldoze, citing rare breed of possum or something. The company felt that a change of the plans would be far easier than fighting any legal battles, so if he could stop the bulldozing for the moment, and move on. Mathias also said the word 'beset', which seemed to impress the foreman. Mikal chose that moment to arrive, pretending to be from the heritage council of Victoria, and managed to provide a good backup of the Mathias' story. The bulldozers turn and go the other way, everyone steps back into the Umbra and the glade children look a little less panicky.
Now that they have scored a decisive win, the pack fall to squabbling over which direction to take. The stick is thrown into the air and lands in the creek, pointing upstream. Keziah sniffs the creek and says that they is some taint, although faint. Traveling upstream, the taint gets stronger, a homid taint, of something never-alive. The pack continues on in the Umbra, occasionally peeking into the real world to see how things are going there. The taint starts to become thicker. In the real world, the creek is churned up and starting to develop and oily sheen. In the Umbra it is churned up and tainted.
After some hour of travel, the creek passes through a small, steep-sided gully. In the Umbra, one side of the gully has a cave mouth set into it, slightly above the creek. It looks like the mouth of hell, worked stone - but soon into the tunnel it reverts back to a cave-like appearance. Moonflower and Angus peek, revealing that in the real world a pipe maybe 3 feet diameter comes out of the gully and is pouring the oily sheen into the creek. The pack seems to feel that they have discovered the source of the taint. In the Umbra, the sludge pouring out forms into a blob. Gradually the blob starts to separate. Keziah pokes it with a stick. The blob starts to eat its way up the stick. Keziah drops the stick. The blob thing is now a gelatinous blob, about the size of a hiking sock filled with jelly. Perhaps overestimating the threat such a thing could present, the pack spend a panicked couple of minutes yelling "get it!" as it tries to crawl into the underbrush. They flick it into the creek, and then onto the beach before someone thinks to hit it with a stick. It breaks up almost immediately.
Now a decision must be made about how to follow the trail of sludge. After a few minutes discussion, Dominique uses her gift of lambent flame and all trundle through the increasingly toxic gloop. After ten or fifteen minutes travel, the pack emerge into a small depression, filled with toxic gloop and banes. The banes are like stronger versions of the gelatinous sock, so the pack once again believe they were doomed. The banes are holding down and slowly corrupting quite a large wyld spirit. Moonflower peeks, noticing that in the real world the depression is part concrete, and there are corroded barrels laying in an open sewer. In addition, it smells like a cross between metal, oil and petrol.
In the Umbra, discussion erupts over what to do. Some members of the pack favour calling mortal authorities to deal with the mess. Others try to experiment a bit more. Angus, having not learnt the lesson of the terrifying gelatinous sock, pokes at the banes with a stick. This time, unfortunately, it has a bit more threat value. The bane flops out of the gloop, looking like a balloon-animal seal. Angus tries to hit it with his stick, but it somehow snarls at him and he flees for his life. The bane turns and flops back into the gloop.
Eventually Angus is retrieved and discussion continues. An eerie voice from above says "You are defenders of Gaia - twat them." The pack wade in. Highlights of the battle against the banes include; Dominique looking for the bottom of the puddle without closing her mouth; Mikal trying to make a strategic retreat and regroup and bounding 25 feet out of the sludge as Moodai, the pack's new totem hands him Leap of the Kangaroo and heals him; Moonflower, the ragabash showing the combat wombats how to fight banes and doing 9 levels of damage in a single blow before anyone else had actually hurt the banes; Angus swiping a bane only to have it duck - Angus proceeds to punch the Wyld spirit which turns that part of itself to titanium - Angus takes 7 levels of damage after soaking and enters "the zone", beating banes to death with the wet end of his now shattered hand,wrist,arm and shoulder. Eventually the banes are driven off or destroyed. Angus realises he should be dead and sinks beneath the sludge. Moodai bounces down and talks to the pack, healing those in dire need of healing. Angus opts not to take his battle scar, as the GM rolled 19 out of 20 on the evil battlescar chart.
The pack returns with their new totem to the caern. There is much rejoicing, as Chris McNeil breaches a cask of Fianna brew he was saving. Everyone who feels so inclined gets extraordinarily squiffed. During their unconscious period, the pack all dream the same, badly scrawled thing: They stand at the edge of a a small lake, pure and clean. Out of it rises a skull, vaguely wolf like, dripping water back into the pool. The water becomes blood and it stops dripping as flesh starts to form on the skull, followed by fur, features and a body. The form is nearly complete when a clawed hand comes from out of the edge of the dream and slices across its throat - the being stumbles back, blood spurting. A round rock falls from the sky, smashes in the head of the being, and carries the body into the water with an enormous splash. The waters turn putrid, splashing up and obscuring the lake. The waters clear, and the perspective has changed, and now the view is high above a rancid and toxic land. Each dreamer flies over a landscape of vast metal towers, twisted walkways and stairs, machines on the rooves belching fumes. Bane swarm everywhere. The towers fall behind, and now they fly over a garden full of people being tortured. The flight continues, speeding up, over an evil forest of giant trees, following along a black river which stems from a fountain spewing black putrescant liquid into the air. The flight continues to increase in speed and starts to fall, passing over a strip mine surrounding a toxic lake. Finally, skimming along the ground, the dreamers fly towards a Gothic cathedral, looming into the sky... the doors open, revealing the Darkness Eternal, and the dreamers fly inside... and everyone wakes up screaming.
In the evening, each of the challengers is told to change to Lupus form, and is blindfolded. They then have a 'spirit-cam' bound to them, followed by a spirit of confusion. They are driven for many hours, into the country of Victoria.
Aquinas comes back in the early afternoon and says that the dumped material is a byproduct of polymer production. People split up to try and trace down some information. Moonflower looks up plastic factories in Melbourne and is swamped by nearly 1,000 entries. She bravely continues on. Mikal and Dominique look up Emma Teesdale and share with her the story of their communal dream. She confirms what they had worked out, the second part seemed to be Malfeas, while the start did seem to indicate a possible rebirth of the Bunyip. She doesn't seem very hopeful about it. She suggests they talk to their totem, as he was once a bunyip totem. Moodai says (after being bribed with apples) that he thinks it is time that there was reconciliation, as do other spirits, but the bunyip are still angry... The pack spend the rest of the afternoon squabbling over a pack name, tossing up between Habeas Corpus, Normal is Relative, Misfits of Gaia, Reclaimers of Innocence, and a thousand other silly options. Eventually a decision is made.
Moot that evening. Opening Howl and Chimera is summoned. The new pack is asked to stand forth and give a recitation of their Rite of Passage. Mathias obliges and gives a reasonable description of the Rite. The spirit-cams are then summoned again and they give a blow-by-blow viewing of what happened on the challenge. Mikal is asked whether he is pack leader, and he affirms his leadership of the pack called Infinite Paths. Or Path. Or something. Infinite Paths is told to continue to investigate the dumping. They mention that the EPA were called. Cossack says that it could make things awkward.
The rest of the moot proceeds. Kirsty Surfs-the-Train complains about animal vivisection and experimentation at the Uni. Cossacks says that unless there is Wyrm involvement, the practice will not be interfered with. Aquinas reports an increase of wyrm-tainted drugs on campus. Nadine Holloway reports that there have been some minor break-ins at the zoo, for no apparent reason and she is looking into it. Emma sees some people creeping around the cemetery, and sends Infinite Paths to check it out. They scare some drunk students by pretending to be security guards. The Hand of Lore is praised for cleaning out a Weaver infestation in the Royal Botanical Gardens. The Moot ends with a Revel, running through the Umbra.
The site is appraised, and it is decided that the pack should watch mostly from the Umbra, in pairs, and only at night, as the dumpsite is too obvious during the day. Angus goes searching through his stuff at home, and gets some binoculars, a directional mike and some cellophane, and sets up somewhere to watch from 100 metres away in trees. Watches are set, and people do some preparation. Mathias remembers something and runs off to set paperwork in motion to save the trees near the Western Ring Road.
Just on dusk, Dennis comes out of the house. Angus tries to smack him in the back of the head and knock him out. Dennis leaps to his feet and smacks Angus in the nose. Angus nearly frenzies, and he and Dennis struggle at the front of Dennis' house. In fact, to be completely clear, the only thing that stops Angus being caught in a citizen's arrest, despite the fact he is an ahroun and is spending rage, is that he is slightly stronger than Dennis, who can't seem to pin him. Dennis calls for help from his housemates, who start running for the front door. Mikal starts up his car and drives slowly past, lowering the window and pointing the shotgun at the problem. As Dennis' housemates hit their front door, Angus punches him out, picks him up and runs for Mikal's car - Mikal pops the boot, Dennis is thrown in the car, Angus dives in the rear drivers' side door as one of Dennis' housemates tries to dive through the passenger window of Mikal's car but knocks himself out. Another successful plan executed by Gaia's chosen.
They race to Spencer Street, and pull up in the car park. Dennis is made to look like he is on a buck's night, and Mikal and Angus frogmarch him into Spencer St Station.... where they find part II of their plan has a slight snag. The plan was to load him onto a train to Perth. Which doesn't leave for 2 hours. So they wait in the toilets of Spencer St, occasionally smacking Dennis in the head as he comes to. Eventually the train shows up and they gaff him into the toilet, and leave.
Mikal asks everyone to watch over the site that day/night to make sure the EPA hasn't dropped a new agent into the area. No one finds anyone, but they keep looking.
The pack convoy of cars travel to Ridgeway Trucking and scout the place out briefly. Keziah, Angus and Dominique step into the Umbra to scout things out. Moonflower stays in the car while Mathias and Mikal suit up and stride into the main office. The two lawyers encounter the witty repartee of Charlotte, Mr Ridgeway's personal assistant and door bitch from hell. They insist on seeing Mr Ridgeway and she won't let them in without an appointment. Mikal slams down Baz and Kev's wallets, $800 and leans over the desk towards Charlotte. She sees she will talk to Mr Ridgeway. She goes into the office.... from outside, Moonflower sees Ridgeway jump out a window and waddle/run to some cars. Mikal bursts into the office to find it empty and the window open. Mathias runs back out the door and sees Ridgeway running and Moonflower trying to give chase. Ridgeway reaches a maroon ford falcon and unlocks it. Moonflower makes sure the door handle won't work using control simple machine as Mathias smacks into Ridgeway. Mikal arrives shortly after, and the two of them 'encourage' Mr Ridgeway to come for a drive.
Moonflower walks back to the car and sits down. She peeks to check in the Umbra. She can't see the people who stepped. She looks in the real world. Not there either. Moonflower headbutts the steering wheel, then tries to headbutt her packmembers out of the gauntlet. She knocks Dominique and Keziah out, but then gets stuck herself.
Meanwhile, Ridgway makes several fairly abortive attempts to run for it, but Mathias and Mikal keep him under control. They take a short drive around Thomastown and chat to Mr Ridgeway. After some fairly obscure threats, Ridgeway spills his guts. Apparently he has been dumping for 6 months, at 2 monthly intervals. He receives a phone call telling him to meet the people at a abandoned and condemned warehouse next to Pipeworks. He drives a truck there, and it is filled up. He gets $2,000 a time. Normally they occur in pairs about a week apart. He doesn't know who any of the guys are - there is a guy in a suit who is always there, and some heavies, which rotate. Ridgeway is encouraged to signal them (Mikal favours an 'X' taped to the window with a lamp behind it) next time he is called - they will be watching. Ridgeway is dumped at his business and everyone else is picked out of the gauntlet. The pack settles down to watch Ridgeway for a few days.
People head off to the site where Ridgeway picks up the gloop. They spec the place out - its basically a concrete box with a set of offices at the front and loading bay. There's really nowhere to hide except in the offices, and they will not offer a great view of the loading bay.
Christine Elliot rings the pack up and asks what they should do with Kev and Baz, as Kev has people who will come looking for him. There is some hum and haring, but the pack asks her to wipe their memory. She agrees, and says they won't remember anything about the dumping, including being asked to do it. She will also deal with the truck. As a last note, she mentions that Cossack wants talk to Mikal and Angus. They trot back to the sept and Cossack chews them out for their behaviour with Dennis Newman. They are told next time to be more subtle and less aggressive.
Ridgeway starts out to get a truck, while the pack hits panic mode. They assemble in the factory just before the first truck turns up. Angus is across the road in his car. Mathias is nearby, ready to follow someone as well. Mikal and Moonflower are hiding in the offices, firearms ready. Having obtained and dedicated a fairly spiffy radio tracker from Hand of Lore, Keziah and Dominique are waiting in the Umbra.
The first truck turns up, not Ridgeway's. It is an unmarked, 5 tonne truck, and reeks of Wyrm. A red sports car turns up as well, and a slick suit gets out. Three thugs get out of the 1st truck. They wait for Mr Ridgeway while having a smoke. Ridgeway turns up, in a slightly smaller truck. He looks a bit nervous. The three thugs start unloading their truck while the suit tries to make small talk with Ridgeway, who looks increasingly nervous, apparently waiting for some sort of surgical strike.
Keziah steps out of the Umbra and sticks the radio transformer to the truck. Dominique is watching her through the gauntlet when Keziah's face takes on that particularly panicked look. Dominique steps out of the Umbra, grabs Keziah and steps back in. Keziah licks her face a lot.
The unloading finishes and Ridgeway drives away with his envelope of money. The sports car zooms off, followed subtly by Mathias. The truck follows, tracked by Angus with the radio tracker. Angus drives back to Ridgeway's offices. After Collette tries to exercise her power, he gets in to see Ridgeway and takes the money 'for evidence'. Mikal calls up Marion Perry and gets her to drive the truck away.
Meanwhile, the red sports car has driven into a place called Rainbow Inc. (Rainbow Inc., making quality toys since 1950) Mathias drives past, and whips out the binoculars. The suit drives into a car park with a name plate - Rudolph Smith. Shortly afterwards the truck pulls into the same area, followed by Angus. Mathias looks into the Umbra and is somewhat surprised by the strong Gauntlet. He can only see vaguely and the site looks almost exactly the same in the Umbra. Pattern spiders are swarming over the place and other spirits can be seen.
Everyone else eventually assembles near the site. There is some brief discussion and everyone decides to leave things for a while and catch some sleep or look stuff up. Mathias looks up the Registered Business Listing for Rainbow Inc, and is swamped in information. Rainbow Inc is a German-based company which creates plastic toys. They have a 10% share of the market in Australia, rivaling Mattel - Moonflower does a quick scan of the nearest toy store and finds that they do not make any specific types of toys (ie: they make lots of different types), and also make parts for other companies to assemble and sell. The Managing Director in Australia is David Struthers. After looking through the prospectus, they find Rudolph Smith too - he is a Vice President of Special Marketing Projects.
That night the pack assemble nearby. Squabbling occurs for 15 minutes before Moonflower gets fed up and steps into the Umbra, followed by Keziah, Mathias and Dominique, leaving Angus and Mikal to argue about where to get a helicopter to scope the place out from the air while the GM looks at them like they are from Mars. In the Umbra, the many active spirits are much more sluggish. As they approach the site, Moonflower is scoping the place out for umbral security, or some indication that they were expecting intrusion through the umbra. It seems that there are security systems, but they are reflections of the real world rather than deliberate attempts to guard the Umbra.
The four garou wander around the site, trying not to attract attention. There are occasional worker-drone spirits, but most remaining spirits are pattern spiders. They are very relaxed and sluggish. They try and detect wyrm. Keziah says that there is wyrm taint on nearly everything and corruption on random things around the place - walls, trucks, air conditioning outlets. Having scoped the place as much as possible from the outside, Moonflower uses Open Seal on a door, and they slip into an office area.
Wandering through reveals corruption from ducts, on vending machines, on the photocopier. They eventually find Rudolph Smith's office, which indicates that he is either very highly placed in the company or boffing the MD. There is nothing incriminating on his desk or in his office. After searching around they find the MD's office - or at least the door. The door is protected by a spirit of the keypad lock. Moonflower tries Open Seal and Control Simple Machine, but the spirit just looks at her. While it is distracted by looking at her, Keziah bites its head off.
In the Umbra, Struthers' office is luxurious, to say the least. However, it is also dripping with wyrmslime. No one needs to even sense for wyrm, it is so obvious. Peeking into the real world indicates that it is exactly the same, except without the slime dripping down from the roof and running down the windows. The four of them decide that enough is enough, and its time to go. Heading out one corridor, Dominique and Moonflower bump into each other and are knocked into pattern spiders - everyone freezes. The two pattern spiders seem to be checking them out, and as they move slowly past, the spiders don't seem to be sure what to do with them. They get 10 feet from the spiders and then run like hell back to the car. Once there, they explain to Mikal and Angus what they saw. It is decided to get some sleep and then tomorrow to think up new plans.
During the day, a number of cunning plans are toyed with. People sit in a car near the main gate of Rainbow Inc, watching the site. Dominique and Mathias travel through the Umbra. Dominique steps out under Struthers' car and plants the tracking device and then glides back into the Umbra. Angus trots back to the Sept and informs them what is going on. Emma says that they seem to have a handle on it, keep going the way that they are. Angus bribes his totem with fruit and stuff. Moodai seems happy with the offerings, but cautions Angus not to ignore his earthly children.
Meanwhile, back at the plant, 5 o'clock rolls up. A large number of people seem to finish and leave. At 6 o'clock the majority of those left also finish up. Over the next hour people (mostly executives) finish and leave. Rudolph Smith leaves around 6:45pm. By 8 o'clock, the only people left are Struthers and the guards. Struthers leaves at 8:30 and drives home, followed at a distance by Infinite Paths. It appears Struthers lives by himself in a three bedroom house, in a newish estate in Essendon. After a drive past Sensing, Keziah is only prepared to say that he has wyrm on him, she couldn't get a clear look.
In the Umbra, the estate has only a minimal presence. Some houses appear in part, most of the area is light scrub, not very healthy. Struthers' house is odd - it is only when you get close that you can see that it does appear - but the structure seems to be made of a translucent oily surface. The pack peer through it a bit, but can only see more scrub. The house reeks a bit of Wyrm. Everyone looks at each other, shrugs and decides to come back in the morning.
In the real world, Moonflower peeks to see that every room has some sort of security system - she looks closer and decides that they are only movement detectors. They seem to be expertly laid, pointing at doors, and with plants or similar things in the dead areas that they can't see. Struthers is definately a bachelor - there is no sign of another presence anywhere in the house.
Once the house has been fairly intensely scoped, it is decided to wake up the spirit of his computer and interrogate it. After a couple of abortive attempts, Mathias binds it to his will and it spills its guts. However, it only holds mundane information - accounts of the company, upcoming projects, some project manipulation software, draft correspondence, a travel diary. Struthers seems to be a competent user, but not a recreational one. They get the computer to tell them all the passwords that Struthers uses, and then check the real world to make sure that there has been no real-world response.
Moonflower trundles off to the State Library and starts looking for information about Rainbow Inc. She is swamped, but continues on. Keziah goes to her current home and continues to shred the fluffy toy that Angus bought her. She seems to appreciate the psychological effect this has on the humans she lives with. The others continue to watch Struthers' and his house, and Keziah rejoins them in the evening. Struthers' comes home at around 8, goes out and gets a video. He comes back and watches his video. Both times Keziah tries to Sense Wyrm, but gets a nothing. He goes to bed.
Meanwhile, Struthers drives to Toorak, and stops out the front of a large house. He gets out and goes inside, welcomed in at the door by another man. Mathias, after a brief encounter with the gauntlet, spies on him dimly from the Umbra, where the house appears as a relic from the Sullivan's. Struthers seems to be socialising with the couple who live there. He eventually heads home, and is boring all night. Discussions are had, and it is decided to act after they have been to the construction plant, and seen what Struthers does late at night when he stays back.
Once they at at Rainbow Inc, the pack run away again, and find somewhere non-scary to step from. Once they have pulled various pack members out of the Gauntlet, they run back. The spirits are quiet, obviously taking the weekend off marauding. Trotting around the site in the Umbra reveals that they toy production is not wyrm-ridden in an active way - they are plastic, which is inherently unhealthy, and Keziah is still getting an echo off of the toys, but the production is not bane-haunted. Looking at the plastic-creation process though, shows that there is wyrm taint within some of the machinery, and that the by-products are actively wyrm-ridden, as they are extremely toxic. Keziah also spots random wyrm taint on things again - food vending machine, air conditioning vent, rail for stairs... Infinite Paths try and think of what might be going on - they can't find a part of the toy production where wyrm is removed to produce the echo, which is the current theory. Other ideas are tossed about such as they might be a focus for wyrm corruption, or they might absorb and concentrate wyrmness from bratty kids. Nothing is resolved, except to wait for Monday
By 6pm, nearly everyone is gone, and the spirits are settling down a lot. The pack waits until 7pm, then starts to get a bit itchy. They send Angus and Mikal over the walls to get a look-see through Struthers' window and see what he is doing. He's not there, although his briefcase is, and his computer is still on. The others move to the production area, where Struthers is wandering around, touching bits of equipment. When he touches it, Keziah sees it turn black, and then fade back to normal. Struthers has a bit of a shadow in the Umbra when he is doing this. The pack seems to feel that Struthers is the man they are looking for.
Oh no. Now they have to decide what to do about him. Suggestions such as frontal assault are tossed up and rejected. Getting him at home seems to be a bad idea too - crowded housing estate. Eventually the plan it hit on that they will awaken and bind the spirit of his car, and get it to 'break down' about 1km from the site, still in no-man's land. Then (good gaia, long term planning), they will interrogate Struthers and take the appropriate steps. Angus moves his car away from the spot. Mikal, in a move that was to prove less than optimal, leaves his car there. Dominique and Mathias will wait in the Umbra, in order to control the car spirit, while Keziah lurks out of site in the real world, wearing the crinos. Angus and Moonflower change to glabro, while Mikal retrieves his shotgun and a balaclava from his car.
Eventually Struthers leaves the site, and drives home. Right on schedule, his car suddenly loses power and he coasts to a halt at the side of the road. 3 Garou leap out of concealment and accost Struthers, as he tries to ring the police. Moonflower jams the button on his phone. Mikal taps on the window with his shotgun and says "Good evening."
Struthers: What do you want?
Mikal: Are you of the Wyrm?
Struthers' head snaps around and he looks at Mikal. He tries to start the
car, but Mathias (peeking), orders the spirit not to start. He tries to
go the passenger side door, but Keziah bounds out of the scrub, in
Crinos form. He starts smashing the window, and it actually cracks.
Errr, say the pack. Angus smashes the window in, over Struthers, and
hauls him out of the car, bending him backwards around the midstrut
of the car. Angus suddenly goes pale, then quite red, and seems to
have same trouble with his balance. Mikal shrugs off his coat and gives
it to Angus, who half-wraps Struthers in it, while Moonflower grabs
Struthers by the throat. Keziah, in the meantime, leaps on top of
the Merc and starts trying to pin Struthers inside.
Struthers is fairly firmly pinned when headlights appear on the road, maybe 150meters ahead. Struthers starts to struggle more, when Mikal makes an executive decision, shoves the shotgun into the car and shoots Struthers at point blank. The results are fairly predictable. They are yelling at each other when Struthers starts to shrink, almost dehydrating. The approaching car starts to speed up, obviously noticing something. It is about 30 metres away and a spotlight suddenly lights up the scene. Mikal wheels, shoots the spotlight out. Angus grabs the two spent shells, throws them in the car, and with Moonflower's' help, flips the car. All step sideways, Angus grabbing the fallen jacket as he goes. All of them will take 5 minutes to pass through the gauntlet.
In the meantime, the Umbra has become an exciting place. As Struthers dehydrated, he did a very good MiB imitation in the Umbra. A large, veined and spiked bag of pus and gloop emerged from the shadow-body in the Umbra. It stomps about on spiked legs for a bit, before charging at Mathias. Dominique smacks Mathias on the head to get him to stop peeking, and leaps to the attack, clawing at the bag of pus. She is sprayed with toxic slime for her troubles. Mathias stops peeking and tears off a leg. The baggy thing spins around, but its hard to tell which way it is facing, as it has no head. It moves suddenly and disembowels Dominique, who falls to the ground. Mathias takes this badly, grabs it by two legs and tears it in two, spraying himself in toxic gloop, but destroying the bane.
The rest of the pack appear, and look a bit surprised at the carnage. Angus heals Dominique and then she returns the favour. They try to tidy up the smashed up car spirit, but it is a bit of a writeoff. Peeking, they note that the car with a searchlight was a security guard, and he has called the police. They arrive, with an ambulance, and start searching around. They are taking down car license numbers. Well, Mikal's car license number. They also find Mikal's (non-dedicated) balaclava. Oh dear, he says. Thinking quickly, Mikal gets the pack to smack him on the back of the head, which they do with relish. He then steps sideways into the boot of his car. A policeman notices this, and his boot is popped. They haul him out and to the ambulance. While he is treated, they take a brief statement - Mikal's story is simply that he went out to his car, and that's all he remembers before he woke up in his boot. His story is a bit suspicious, but is holding up... right up to the point where the police take a swab of his arms, looking for cordite. Oh, says Mikal, to himself. The pack, in the Umbra, all smack themselves in the head.
Mikal is taken to the Williamstown hospital, and checked out. They eventually send him home, with a warning to make sure he is available to police. They are keeping his car, and other items - including the box of shotgun shells in his car, and the light pistol taped to the bottom of his chair. Once they get home, the police take a statement from Moonflower, who has made it home by now. She says that Mikal left earlier in the night, she didn't notice anything amiss.
The remainder of the pack have, in the meantime, decided that they should act fast to do something about Mikal's police record. They find the nearest CIB, Williamstown, and drive nearby. Angus waits with the car while Keziah, Mathias and Dominique step into the Umbra and check out the police station. They discover about 8 people manning it overnight, that the information is temporarily being stored in an 'evidence' room, which has no external access but does have camera, watching the door. A number of plans are put forward, but eventually what happens is Dominique awakens the spirit of the camera, Mathias binds it and orders it not to see him. It agrees. Mathias steps sideways, finds the evidence and then tries to decide what to do with the small plastic bag containing the swabs. He eats it. Evidence destroyed, mission accomplished, he steps back out in the Umbra.