Later that evening, the pack is bumming around at Carmel's, when Steel Hunters, from Hidden Green, show up. Mathias knows them a bit. They invite themselves to join the pack, and start hassling them about their Rite of Passage, and their pack name. Eventually matters come to a head, and Scott challenges them to a race, to find a fetish that Felix, the sept leader, dreamt of. The Steel Hunters have just discovered that it is in the museum somewhere, and were heading back that way, when they saw Infinite Paths.
People move to the museum. They are looking for a crescent moon, made of silver. In the Umbra, the museum looks pretty much the same as it does in the real world (where it has been closed so that it can be reopened in the new site. If this makes no sense to you, consider that it actually has happened. We don't understand either). Steel Hunters will start from Russell St, while Infinite Paths start from the main entrance. On 7, everyone rushes in.
Inside the museum, there is a lot of weird shit, but people tend to only see it out of the corner of their eyes. They split up into three groups, one peeking, one in the Umbra. Up, down, around, running like crazy, dodging the security guard spirits and each other. Dominique briefly considers waking the spirit of the tyrannosaurus exhibit, but manages to resist. Moonflower gets a nose full of dust.
On the top floor, Dominique and Mathias find a computer terminal. They awaken it while everyone else is searching, and run a search through the catalog. Only one item matches the parameters, and it is stored in subbasement 2, room 45, drawer 4.55. They run down towards that way, telling Mikal that they know where it is. He and Keziah run through the place, yelling "Found it", until Steel Hunters start chasing them. This thin pretense is quickly punctured. The rest of Infinite Paths are on the top floor when a bane squeezes its way through a window that is open, and buzzes along the corridor. Somebody scrags the first one, but another and another come in and spread out. They are 18 inches high, with wings and grabbing claws.
Mikal is chasing one when it flies off a balcony. He leaps off after it, catches his foot on the edge of the ballistrade and spins downwards, smashing into glass cabinets. The bane gets away as Scott comes running, demanding to know what is going on.
Meanwhile, in subbasement 2, Mathias, Dominique and Keziah have reached the right room. Mathias and Keziah tentatively step sideways while Dom waits in the Umbra. They search through the drawers and find the item, listed as being from a celtic dig. Keziah notices that this drawer has a fresh scent on it, although most of the others do not. Mathias grabs the crescent and steps sideways. The crescent moon falls towards the ground, but it caught by Keziah. This is a good indication that the item is not a fetish. Keziah opts to dedicate it and take it anyway. She starts the rite.
In the Umbra, Mikal has his shit together and runs down towards the basement, where he saw the bane go... in subbasement 2, Dom is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a small, clawed and winged bane, and then as surprised by its disappearance. Scratch one bane as it gets caught in the gauntlet. Mikal chases another two into the subbasement, shoots one, and then shoots Dominique. The remaining bane goes into the real world.
On the dusty floor, Keziah is about finished dedicating the crescent moon when the bane appears and grabs it, trying to make a break for freedom. The bane is chased around, but is eventually blown away by the now materialised Mikal and his shotgun.
Both packs leave the museum and look at the not-fetish. Adam Shergol examines it closely and says that it has never been a fetish. Steel Hunters suggest going to their sept to ask questions of Felix, and Infinite Paths cautiously accepts. They head off to 101 Collins St. Once they have passed through the caern security, the pack is introduced to Felix Bertrand, Drago and Christopher Rourke. The situation is explained and Felix says that Adam is right, and it has never been a fetish, even though this is exactly what he dreamed about. Mathias and his father make small talk, while Felix asks for clarification of details from people. Eventually the senior sept members head off and Scott points out that even though Infinite Paths found this crescent first, no one has found the fetish yet, so the challenge is still on. Infinite Paths look a bit sour for a minute but then agree. Christine turns up to take them home as Scott tells them they will meet at 7pm at the museum again.
As the pack head off home, they discuss how to cheat on the challenge without getting caught. Christine rolls her eyes and walks away. They decide to wait till tomorrow.
After a couple of hours of getting vague senses of where the fetish is, they eventually zoom in on a house in Hawthorn East. The people that live their seem to be moving out, as there is a moving van out the front of their house, with furniture being loaded. Keziah runs inside in lupus form while Angus chases her yelling "bad dog". She gets two scents - a male one corresponding to the scent she smelled on the drawer of the museum, and a female one, corresponding to the woman now in front of her, yelling "get out" at the dog in her hallway.
Some Umbral reconnaissance finds that the house is currently rented by A. Thackery and S. Rider, and that they are moving to B* Court, Glen Waverley (or at least that is where the van is going). The pack decides (after being razzed by the GM) that this should give them a big enough headstart, and so head back home to await the night.
At 7pm, all assemble on the steps of the museum. All run into the museum. Steel Hunters split into two groups of two and half head up and half head down. Infinite Paths become the antonym of their name and head straight through the museum and into their cars, waiting for them on Russell St. They drive out to Hawthorn East and do a quick questing stone. The pendant is out from the city another 15kms. Mathias does a quick umbral reccy of the house and sees the guy there packing stuff into boxes. Ok, say they, lets rock.
They head for Bimberdeen Court, assuming that the woman has gone to the new place. Except the lights are out. Umbral searching of the cubby-house that corresponds to the house does not reveal the pendant. Questing Stone rites reveal that it is back somewhere near The Glen. Moonflower waits in the car, Dom in the Umbra, while everyone else heads for The Glen. Much scoping out of the shopping centre, including gnosis pinging for the fetish. No results at all. The pack scratch their heads and head back to Bimberdeen. Dominique spends an hour and summons a hunter spirit, who looks spookily like the Bush Tucker Man. She sends him out on a hunt.
Eventually the pack decide to drive back to East Hawthorn, where they find that there is a police car out the front of the house. Sneaking in to the house in the Umbra reveals that the guy has had the shit kicked out of him. He gives a good description of Scott Rosen and Tanya Muller. Eerily, he doesn't say "Yeah, they were after the silver pendant I stole from the museum - doh!". They find out that this is in fact Arthur Thackery and that the other person who lives in the house is Susan Rider, who is at a party in Glen Waverley. "DOH!" yells most of the pack. They rush out to Glen Waverley, but it seems that the party is winding down. Not a few people are talking about the maniac that attacked poor Susan and stole her pendant. Keziah snuffles about and can sense Scott's scent. "Doh!" yells some of the pack.
The pack members that decided to go back to Hidden Green, where Steel Hunters are waiting with the fetish. Scott is gracious in victory, and concedes that the junior pack found the fake fetish first. He also says they were surprised that Infinite Paths didn't win, as they were at Thackery's hours before he and Tanya got there. Moonflower makes a comment about at least they didn't traumatise anyone and Claude says that he was a thief, and deserved what he got. It becomes clear that Thackery worked at the museum, and was swapping (good) fakes for the original works, using the confusion of the closure to cover his tracks. Steel Hunters will be following this up afterwards.
Angus has, in the meantime, fled from the scary newspapers and is hiding in the gauntlet which corresponds to the staff toilets at Carmel's. The woman walks back across the park, across the road and into Carmel's - she appears to be looking for someone. She eventually sits down near the staff toilet door.
Mathias has grown tired of waiting for his soon to be toy and heads back - he knows she's cheating with Angus, and just trying to make him look stupid. He follows Moonflower and the woman back to Carmel's and watches as Moonflower sits down to confront the woman. Moonflower's eyes suddenly go wide, and she's breathing hard. Everything goes red in Mathias-land, and as the woman and Moonflower leave the cafe, Moonflower gives him a really smug look of "nyah nyah". Mathias frenzies, and leaps towards Moonflower, who dodges. Moonflower starts running for the door with the woman of her dreams as Carmel, tired of all this broohaha, smacks Mathias in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Dominique is sitting quietly at the caern with Keziah when Graeme Cachia comes running and tells her to get to Carmel's before Carmel decides to redecorate the cafe with Garou fur. The two of them ring Mikal and run towards Lygon St. In the meantime, Angus is dragged out of the gauntlet by Carmel, and tossed a bloody Mathias, whom he heals. Once the pack is assembled, they run off after Moonflower. Finding the house that they went too, a somewhat annoyed Mathias smashes the door down with a single blow. Inside are Moonflower and woman, going for it in the hallway. Mathias hauls Moonflower off the woman and hurls her into another room. Dominique follows her in to keep her under control. Mathias and Angus then try and knock out the woman.... who unfortunately uses her ability on Mikal. Mikal, under the influence of this, and also under having certain intolerances that had only just come to light, proceeds to try and smash his pack to pieces.
Joining in the fun, albeit briefly, the two well dressed young men whom Angus encountered in the street step in the door and start emptying guns into people. Keziah bounds up to them in a friendly fashion, slashing one across the chest and eventually throating the other in the street as he tries to run away. Eventually, Mikal and the woman are subdued to the melodious sound of approaching sirens. Angus flees out the back with the woman's limp body, Dominique heals Mikal a bit and drags him into the Umbra, Mathias and Keziah step sideways and Moonflower runs out to the back to make sure Angus got away before stepping in the Umbra.
Those of the pack not hiding under woodpiles or out of willpower get together quickly to try and decide how to cover this mess. An ambulance pulls up and takes away goon #2, who is slowly bleeding to death on the front path. Finally a plan is decided upon. Mathias and Moonflower step sideways under the house, into the Realm. Keziah keeps an eye on the two young constables that are near Angus. Dominique waits until the two M's are in the Realm and then starts to summon a water elemental. Moonflower speaks to the spirit of the gas line and encourages it to unscrew. It starts to spew gas out. Moonflower and Mathias step back into the Umbra. Once there, they peek back into the Realm and wait. Eventually a couple of forensics guys turn up. Mathias is looking nervous by now, but finally one of the police starts smelling the air. He says "Can you smell gas?" He and his companion check the stove, and then decide that it might be time to step out and call the fire department.
"Finally", says Mathias. He steps back into the Realm and grabs the shotgun. It doesn't smell like there's enough gas to trigger an explosion yet and if the fire department show up, they might quickly disconnect the gas. He briefly toys with firing the shotgun into the floor, in order to punch a hole. He releases the safety, but then his self-preservation kicks in - maybe the muzzle flash could perhaps ignite the gas. He tries to punch a hole, but that just alerts the police that someone is still inside. One of them starts to run inside, but others stop him. Mathias steps out of the Realm. He and Moonflower move to the Umbral kitchen. Moonflower peeks and tries to encourage the sparker on the gas stove to spark. She and it have a clash of wills and Moonflower comes off second best. Mathias rolls his eyes and steps back into the Realm. The smell of gas is quite strong now. Grabbing his mirror, he prepares to step sideways, smacks the sparker on the stove and is blasted by fire and concussion as he heads for the Umbra.
Keziah, watching from some distance away, is impressed by the sudden half-vapourisation of the house. Dominique finishes bargaining with the water elemental, and it agrees to stop the fire from spreading. Angus uses the distraction to do a runner back to Mikal's house, pretending that the fomor was his drunk girlfriend. Everyone flees the scene back to Mikal's.
People attempt Rite of Cleansing on the fomor, and it seems to work, putting her bane side to sleep for a while. Mathias is all for gutting her on the bathroom floor, but Dominique talks him out of it. They ring the caern. Graeme makes some brief enquiries about whether that large "caboom" they heard 15 minutes ago was the pack, and Mathias explains what happened and that they have the fomor. Graeme talks with someone at his end briefly and says "I'll send Emma around". Emma appears, listens to the story, and nods a bit wide-eyed, and takes the fomor away in a blanket. Everyone collapses in a heap.
Emma turns up during the day and says the fomor was deliberately set upon the pack. She was approached by a man with a buzzy voice and told to get Mathias and Angus killed. She is addicted to cosmetics from a wyrm-ridden company called Siren, which gives her her powers while eating away her soul. The buzzy voiced guy promised to supply her with more cosmetics if she did as he directed. She didn't know about the guys with guns. The Sept will deal with Anton, as a hospital is a little bit sensitive to deal with.
Angus gives a little scream at 4pm and runs off, presumably to meet his girlfriend.
The other two suspicious looking characters are identikits made up from witnesses at Ridgeway Trucking. Mr Joseph Ridgeway seems to have disappeared, and their are signs of foul play at his house. These two turned up three weeks beforehand pretending to be Federal Police. The constables thank them both for their help and head off.
Mikal calls Mathias, picks up Keziah and heads around there, picking up a paper on the way, while Moonflower goes to the Sept of Reconciliation to warn Runs-Down-the-Prey. Mikal shows Mathias the 4 page spread of corporate assassinations in the Sun (the newspaper, not the big ball of fusing hydrogen), including the two identikit images, and tells him what happened during the morning. Mathias rings his dad, who is less than impressed at the identikit picture. The paper talks about the deaths of 6 corporate bigwigs in the last year and tries to draw links between them all, and then link in Joe Ridgeway, who disappeared sometime after Wednesday. Keziah attempts a Rite of Questing Stone on Ridgeway and gets no response.
Someone theorises that there is a cleanup job going on, so Mikal fixates on Rudolph Smith and grabs Keziah. They eventually find Smith, assault him in broad daylight and beat him to a pulp. But its all for his own good as they perform a rite of Cleansing on him. I'm sure that 6 month stay in hospital will teach him a lesson. And I'm sure that the papers won't go apeshit with another attack on a corporate identity. From the same company as the last guy who died. Wow.
Moonflower, in the meantime, speaks to Phillip Bates, the ritemaster at Reconciliation. He sends one of the guard pack off to find Runs-Down-the-Prey. The lupus comes along and speaks to Moonflower. She warns him of the police search and he says that he will avoid the homid for a time. He thanks her for her concern and flows back to lupus before running off. Moonflower drives home, catching a paper on the way and making nargh noises.
When she returns to Melbourne, Mathias gets in contact with her. They go to see Ends-the-Quiet who does a Rite of Questing for Joe Ridgeway. There is no response. They ask Ends-the-Quiet what that could mean, and he says that either Ridgeway has changed realms, or that he might have been eaten, or his name could have been erased. None of these options really appeals to them, so Mathias, Moonflower and Dominique go out to Ridgeway's house. In the Realm, it has "Police Tape: Do Not Cross" strung along the front of the house. They drive around the corner and step into the Umbra. None of the houses appear in the Umbra, although there is considerable weaver manifestation. Mathias peeks and they move through Ridgeway's house. There are signs of a struggle of some sort along the hallway from the front door, and into the kitchen, where there is a very small puddle of dried blood.
Further investigation reveals puncture marks in the plaster of the walls and floor down the hallway, as if something dug in a claw or something and pulled itself along. Mathias sniffs his way through the house. Ridgeway's scent is strong, but there is another scent at the doorway, a male human, but faint, covered by the smell of brand new clothes. This scent comes up the hallway and then disappears where the clawmarks start. Moonflower senses for wyrm sense, and can pick up faint after-echos, which start where the other scent stops as well.The general feeling is that something came and ate Ridgeway. They all go home.
That night, Mathias and Dominique are sound asleep when the door-buzzer goes off. Its Dominique's mum, who has been to see Phantom and watched most of it from the bar. She's sloshed, and asking to crash on the couch. The two of them are kind enough to endure her drivel but Dominique gets suckered into going shopping at the market tomorrow.
Mathias runs back into the lounge, trying to find somewhere to gain some cover while still seeing what's going on. The gargoyle cruises through the window and slams into him, and starts punching and clawing at him. He gives back as good as he gets, but it grabs his head and starts slamming it into the floor...
Dominique has finally managed to get rid of her mother and has headed back to her apartment. She looks a little surprised at the crowd out the front. Some of the crowd say that some guy is about to jump or something, and they are standing about in the rain for the excitement. Dominique has a precognitive flash and runs to the elevators and screams up to the twentieth floor. She runs down the hallways and lets herself in. It seems as if a bomb has gone off. She can't see Mathias, but she can hear something rifling through their bedroom. She turns the lights on. The rifling noise stops and a glass-smashing noise happens a lot. Dominique precedes into the room. She finds a near-dead Mathias laying on the floor, next to a stony ichor-dripping arm. There is ichor on the roof, and all around the flat. She rings Angus and gibbers down the phone at him while laying her hands on Mathias to heal the worst of his damage.
A group of firemen burst into the room, survey the damage and hustle Dominique and Mathias down to an ambulance. Angus shows up and shakes his head a lot as he sees them being treated before zooming off to hospital. Angus rings Mikal and Moonflower, wanting to obviously spread the misery. They all assemble in the hospital casualty waiting room where Dominique and Mathias provide a reasonable facade of being dazed and confused. Eventually they are released on their own recognisance, and all leave for Mikal's house.
It appears that this isn't a day for one-off events. Mikal's house has also been ransacked. Angus rolls his eyes and heads back home where he finds that Rhiannon has fallen asleep while bacon was cooking. Meanwhile, people search around for Clues. It appears that the perpetrator entered through a second story rear window (on account of the frame having been torn out) and may have been looking for something small. Inquiring minds think of the fetish what they were recently looking for. Moonflower rings Hidden Green and talks to Scott who says that they haven't had any problems before grabbing Dominique and going to the caern to get someone who can help. They return with Emma, who looks over the house with a troubled expression and says that she will get back to the pack as soon as she can. Much shrugging occurs and Mathias and Dom go looking for somewhere to stay overnight.
Dom and Mathias go and visit their building manager, a Mr Edmund Sunderland. He is less than happy about the whole situation, but as there are no criminal charges being pressed, there's nothing he can do about it all. The windows will be replaced within a day or so, and the carpet will be replaced tomorrow. They bum around the flat, trying to tidy up. Mathias is on the phone to someone at the Sept about the lack of gargoyle arm when there is a knock at the door. Dom answers it to find a tall, thin, aesthetic man in a big trenchcoat and gloves. He introduces himself as Sullivan Dane, a member of homicide. He asks to poke around a bit, saying that there have been similar events in Sydney and Perth and one of them involved a death. He pokes about where Mathias fell (and the arm was left) and at the window sill. Dom and Mathias follow him around nervously. When he leaves they go to Russell St and check out his credentials. He seems to check out. Dom and Mathias give up and go summon an owl spirit for a talen to detect wyrm.
That night at the Moot, things proceed as normal - Opening Howl by Cossack, Inner Sky where the caern totem is summoned. Various sept matters are brought up. Nadine says that the zoo breakins have stopped, but she has no idea why there were happening. They are still investigating, and she has temporarily secondered Keziah to help. The Scryers say that they have investigated the wyrm-drugs and it turns out the dealers were bane-possessed. They've all been killed and it seems to have cleaned up.
Mathias stands forth and gives a summary of the Rainbow Inc situation, but manages to say "in our fight against Gaia" about four times before sitting down all red-faced. Mikal stands up and is somewhat better explaining about the enticer fomor. He also says that he has stepped down as pack leader and Moonflower is now leader. Moonflower gratefully accepts. Kirsty stands up and starts to declaim again about the animal vivisection. Moonflower says she is supported by Infinite Paths. Cossack slaps her down hard, telling her that the matter has been decided on. Kirsty storms off before she frenzies. After an awkward few minutes the moot continues.
Most of Infinite Paths opts not to engage in the Revel. Dominique and Mikal do, however. They are in Northcote somewhere when they find a materialised sewer bane. After being indecently assaulted by it, they manage to cream it. They are standing there dripping in sewer goop when a man jogs past and says "hi". The only remarkable thing about him is the fact that he has about $2,000 taped to his otherwise naked body. Dom and Mikal follow him home, try to sense for wyrm and then assault him in his own house before attempting to steal his $2,000. Another glorious win for the defenders of Gaia.
That night, the pack has the dream about the Bunyip again.
A bare moment after Udo leafs, Graeme Cachia wanders up to see them. He wants to know where they were during the Revel last night and what they did. Everyone looks at Mikal and Dominique who quickly cough up that they were in Northcote. Graeme says that last night a human was killed on his doorstep by 'unusual weapons'. They have a 'friend' in the Coroner's office who said that it looked odd. Apparently the guy's name was Tony Staley and he lived in Sunshine. Using their eerie and mystic powers, Infinite Paths look him up in a phone book, find the address and trot off there. On the way, they do their usual 'check and see how many pages we appear on in the paper today' ritual and find that the surviving gunman from the Enticer fomor debacle has died in hospital.
They cruise past (police tape) and park some distance away. Angus remains with the car while the others head in to Tony's place through the Umbra. As they approach, Dominique notices a number of small rage spirits buzzing around where Tony's house is in the real world. They scout in and find out a number of things. Firstly, Tony was killed on his doorstep, more or less, as there is a big pool of blood. His front light is on, so it was done at night. Inside, there's a lot of mess - he's a bachelor, so its impossible to tell if he's been robbed. Tony works for Coles - looking around finds a payslip and it seems he does night fill. Angus performs a Rite of Questing Stone, then gets out of the car and looks for a new stone. There is no sense of Wyrm at all in the house.
They give up on Tony's house, not having found much and head back from the caern. Once there, Angus has a new stone and does Questing Stone again. This time it works and Tony Staley is said to be in South Melbourne somewhere. The pack takes the sensible option of stepping in the caern and running to the morgue while the GM leaves to get some expert descriptions of the place.
The Office of the Coroner is gothic Umbra - a tall mausoleum-like building, all of bluestone, covered in gargoyles (eek!) and similar statuary. Inside, there is a smell of death, not quite like the same smell at Mikal's house, but similar. Dominique fully awakens the computer system spirit while the others search around. Tony Staley is not in his drawer, and a brief search leads to the Homicide Autopsy room, where he is being dissected. There are a number of small bottles and plastic bags with samples in them next to him. The only discernible contents are some hairs, thick, black and coarse. There is a brief listing of Garou who they know who are black. About ten of them. Including Kirsty, who did leave the moot in a huff. Naaaah, is the general feeling. Once the computer is fully awake, Dominique and Moonflower interrogate it (INGRES? It is of the Wyrm,aaaagh!). Tony apparently came in about 5am. Some samples are upstairs now.
Mikal and Mathias go upstairs to look about. They find some plaster casts of bite wounds (oh dear) and some 'bodily fluid' samples. Looking around reveals that this area is not only quite busy in the Realm, but has motion sensor alarms. Hrm. Back to the autopsy room to try and listen in. The general feel is that Tony was attacked with a combination of weird knives and a large dog. Nothing terribly Veil-breaking is here. They glance into the observation room and notice that a certain tall man called Sullivan Dane is watching the autopsy. As they watch, he shakes his head and leaves.
People compare notes and decide there's not much more to be done here. They head back to the caern and fill Graeme in on what they could find. He seems fairly satisfied with their work. Emma sticks her head in the door and says "ah there you are." She has been working on the whole gargoyle/break-in thing. She has some bad news. The thing that attacked Mathias and the break in were both the same sort of creature - a demon. She has had little experience with them, but knows that they are always linked with Magi. Everyone looks a bit rattled. Emma asks them if they are finished with Graeme (burp) then she would like them to drive to the other septs to warn them and find out what they know. They say "ok".
Brilliantly confounding the GM, the pack split up - Moonflower, Angus and Dominique go to Reconciliation while Mathias and Mikal go to Grinding Stone. The drive to Reconciliation is fairly calm, and when they arrive they are greeted by Runs-Prey-to-Ground. As Moonflower not only is pack leader but has spent some time here, she introduces Runs-Prey-to-Ground to the rest of her pack and explains that they are enquiring about demons. RPtG, being a simple Get, goes and gets his Sept Leader and Ritemaster. He leads the pack to a secluded space and asks that they wait in the Umbra. After a few moments, he returns with Antoinette Cloak-of-Mourning and Phillip Bates. They are filled in on the situation. Antoinette looks serious as Phillip says that he knows very little although he encountered Mages in his youth. They thank the pack for their warning and suggest that Malajimbarra at Grinding-Stone might know more. People are invited to remain in the bawn if they wish.
Meanwhile, heading for Grinding Stone, Mikal drives the the car park where it is traditional to stop when one is heading into the caern. The sky, which has been greying up, is starting to look seriously storm-ridden. They peek easily through the Gauntlet and then step. Both are surprised by the sudden strength of the Gauntlet and it is nearly 5 minutes before they appear in the Umbra, where a storm is raging. Moodai, who is with Mikal cowers under his coat and says that something is wrong. Mathias glimpse something ahead in the rain and points it out to Mikal. Three thylacines stand there, looking at them and then slowly fade.
The two of them run along for a while, while Mikal howls out a greeting that is nearly lost in the storm. Moodai sticks his head out and says something is wrong here, but Mikal misinterprets the use of the word 'here' and a chance for a gain in honour is lost in the ambiguity of the English language, as he and Mathias run on.
They are suddenly face to face with Sveta Dotashkoi and the rest of Heralds of War - Sveta is aggressive and on edge (could it be the storm). After some snapping and snarling, they are brought to the centre of the caern, to meet Huros Bathes-in-Blood. Mathias, who has never met him, is taken in by his obvious charm. Huros questions them (is this your fault) and they sensibly just say they were passing through. Huros gestures to the Heralds of War and Sveta tells Hans to stay here and guard them. The two of them observe that the caern is in a bit of a turmoil, apparently not just to do with the storm. Hans, obviously a sensitive and caring individual, snarls at them when they ask what is wrong, but says that one of their packs has gone missing. Mathias and Mikal look at each other and shudder.
The two of them are approached by a short, gnarled and weathered aboriginal man. He is Malajimbarra, the Rite Master for the sept. He listens to their tale of demons and Magi with an impassive face. He looks at them a bit appraisingly and says he can help, but only if they put themselves in his debt. Mikal agrees straight away, and Malajimbarra changes to lupus form and runs north. Mikal and Mathias follow. After many hours of running, they reach ger:Const, or so says the sign on the shack. Inside is another aboriginal man, whom Malajimbarra seems to know. They yammer at each other in some sort of barbarian tongue, and then the man says to tell him of what happened. After they have done so, he is surprisingly unhelpful in a specific way. He tells them that demons come from the Dead Worlds, and they are as varied as the spirits of the Umbra. They usually can only enter the world through the doors provided by Magi, and not all are evil. Magi usually work in covens, of 1, 3, 7 or 13 as they are stronger this way. Mikal asks him for names, and the man says he has no names. Mikal stares into his eyes and can see further and further and can feel himself being sucked away, deeper into the Ab - [thud] as Malajimbarra thumps Mikal on the shoulder and glares at the man. They head back.
Meanwhile, at Reconciliation, Angus is chatting to Rain-Falls-Up, a Child of Gaia Theurge. Angus wants to bring his girlfriend through the Veil so he can tell he who he is. Rain-Falls-Up promises to think on it, and ponders into the distance. Angus returns to his pack-mates and they head back to Melbourne, as it is getting dark.
While running back, Malajimbarra, Mikal and Mathias (what is it with the sodding 'M' names), pass through the same 'here' as before. Moodai (see, another one!) jumps off Mikal's shoulder and looks more agitated than before, running back and forth. Mathias sniffs around and can scent recent Garou spoor. Malajimbarra is looking around when he swears and disappears. He returns, holding Mark Sutherland in his arms. He disappears four more times, returning with the members of Blood Claw, who were stuck in the Gauntlet. The say that they were stepping through when the Gauntlet suddenly increased in strength a hundred-fold. Mathias glimpses a Crinos form thylacine through the trees and quickly points it out, but as soon as anyone else looked, it was gone (its behiiiind you!). Mikal goes off to one side and performs a Rite of Contrition (whatever we did, we're sorry!) and receives a brief vision, a flash of a dark pool in dark cave - quite possibly the same pool as in the dream.
All return to the caern centre, where Huros is now in glabro form and advocating total war against ... the storm, presumably. Command-the-Waters (sept leader) is not around to calm things down, and everyone is starting to get caught up in his Rage. It just seems to make the storm worse. Mikal and Mathias go off to one side and chat to Moodai. Conversation runs along the lines of "What is wrong? They are angry. Why? Because something is wrong. Argh. Who is the they? The land, the sky and the spirits in between." Mathias asks if they can help at all. The decide to donate large hairy chunks of Gnosis to Moodai to strengthen him enough to try and get through to whatever is causing the storm. Mikal performs another Rite of Contrition, and the storm abates a little where they are.
The other three members of the pack have reached Melbourne and are somewhat concerned by the lack of Mikal and Mathias. They tell Emma what they found out and then head off to Grinding Stone. Driving there, the storm has grown, even in the real world. The gauntlet is oscillating between non-existent and too thick to pass through. Angus is doing about 60 around the roads near the caern when Dominique spots a very, very large wombat. They stare at it for a bit as the gauntlet rises again and it remains in the real world. The gauntlet drops and rises again and the gpht is gone. They drive on, more cautiously
When they park, Moonflower tries to howl, but ends in a coughing fit. Angus tries it on, and it rings out over the storm. They head cautiously for the caern centre and are met by Night-that-Screams, a Shadowlord Lupus. He takes them to see Huros, who is getting extremely pissed off. Malajimbarra is talking to him when a Moon Bridge opens and Ivana Howls-the-Storm and Commands-the-Waters come through. Commands-the-Waters takes one look at Huros and takes him aside. Ivana says that they were at the Sept of Rippling Waters and that they are experiencing a similar phenomen. Huros and CtW come back - Huros is still advocating an offensive, but will wait until something physically threatens the caern. Malajimbarra notices Moonflower et al and takes them to see Mikal. Much information is swapped around. Suddenly Moodai hisses loudly and leaps from the rock where he was sitting into the nearby trees and starts heading west.
The pack runs for 6 hours, almost due west, crossing numerous roads and passing by towns. It is nearly 3am when Moodai slows, and then stops, just at the edge of a gravel turning circle. He indicates the chainlink fence and guardhouse ahead and says "I must leave you here. The choices you make must be your own." He vanishes from the Realm.
The pack shifts into the Umbra and checks the situation out from there. In the Umbra, the land around them is lush native bushland, very similar to what appears in the Realm. The storm has passed while they ran, leaving an eerie stillness. Moonflower peeks through the Gauntlet as the pack move into the area behind the fence. As they approach, she can see a sign that says "Edridge Technologies, Pty Ltd". On the other side of the fence is a small guardhouse, where a young man is picking his nose and watching television. They decide that he is of no immediate interest and follow the road.
The asphalted road has no corresponding appearance in the Umbra, so Moonflower is guiding Angus and Mathias while peeking. They follow it for a couple of hundred meters when it comes out onto a large graveled courtyard, maybe 200 meters a side. This area is at the top of a slight knoll that they have been climbing, and in the Umbra appears as a clearing, with only a few, sickly looking trees. Small amounts of weaver web is being created by spiders between the trees. In the Realm, the courtyard is surrounded by buildings on the north and west sides, and bordered to the south by a two story apartment-like complex.
The pack explore around. The buildings to the west look like offices, while those to the north has more of a industrial look to them. The pack finds a main reception, and notice that the buildings are split into A, B, C, Al and Be blocks, as well as Support and Stores. The apartment block is marked 'Residences'. Moonflower finds a directory board, and points out that many of the names in A block have Dr or Professor in front of them, as do a number of the ones in B block. The security of the building is examined - there is a small camera in the main reception, to which Moonflower is lifted up to. She looks at it and decides that it is of the type that are in huge banks and are randomly sampled.
The pack wanders through the Umbra in the locations that correspond to C and A blocks. Mathias and Angus notice that a breeze has sprung up, and they can faintly hear a moaning sound. Moonflower doesn't notice this but does notice that C block is a cubeville, with each little area having a computer and shelving - the books on the shelves are most commonly botany and genetics books. Drawing on her knowledge of the Science faculty at Melbourne, she estimates that these are cubicles used by Graduate students and research assistants - many of the cubes are individualised by stickers, football scarves and photos.
A block seems to be the senior management. The moaning sound is getting louder, and seems to be directional. As they guide Moonflower around the offices, Angus and Mathias suddenly find themselves at the edge of a wound-like gash in the ground. The source of the moaning sound appears to be the breeze across this hole. By the light of a burning Dominique, they can see that the whole is maybe 5-10 metres deep, and is set in volcanic, sharp, black rock. It doesn't look natural, but neither does it look worked. Mathias is lowered down by Angus and finds that at the bottom is an obviously worked tunnel, leading gently downwards. After the GM has thwapped players for saying "Oh no, a 10*10 corridor", the rest of the pack climb or are helped down the shaft. They trot down the corridor, which slopes gently downwards, and doubles back on itself twice.
The worked stone floor gives way to white squeaky sand, and the corridor opens up into a huge natural cavern - the light from Dom does not illuminate far enough out to see the far side. People look around. Mathias notices that the water is faintly luminous, and they turn Dominique off to get a better look. There is a distinct green glow from the water, as well as in a line leading up about 40 feet out in the lake. Dominique is reignited, and Mathias changes to Crinos, stepping out into the freezing cold water. He swims out to the luminous line, noticing that the water glows as he waves his arms through it. When he gets to the line, he can see that the Umbral water is flowing up towards the ceiling. The flow isn't severe enough to pull him up with it, but it is noticeable.
In the meantime, Moonflower is playing with the squeaky sand and smacks her head into a rock outcropping. Angus comes over to see if she is ok, and notices that the wall there is covered in aboriginal pictograms. Once Moonflower has stopped rubbing her head, the two of them examine the pictograms. They are definately involving Garou of some sort, possibly bunyip. The picture seems to show a number of Garou protecting a large man, maybe twice the height of the crinos forms depicted. Moonflower advances the possibility that the 'man' might be a representation of a landscape feature (its a dreamtime thing, you wouldn't understand).
Mathias peeks where the water is rising up and can faintly see that in the Realm the water is being sucked up a tube into the ceiling, made of some sort of plastic. He continues swimming out to the far wall of the cave. It is probably 100 feet or so in diameter, and he can't touch the bottom of the water on this far side. There are pictograms on this side of the wall as well, and Mathias follows them around the edge of the cave, and back to the beach. Moonflower peeks and sniffs into the Realm. She can smell homids and their clothes and devices, relatively fresh. She can also smell old burnt rock smell - following that around leads to a shaft cut into the rock in the Realm which corresponds to the one they came down in the Umbra.
The pack rejoins Mathias after his swim on the far side of the cavern, where they find further tunnels, although these ones are definately natural. The pack follows them along, reading the pictograms that are all over the walls. Moonflower shortly realises they are reading the story backwards. They travel along for maybe 600 meters and exit the caves from under a large rock formation, which has "Danger, Do Not Enter, Falling Rocks". Some more looking around is done. At some point, the possibility that the caves are a caern is brought up. There is much "urg"ing from the other pack members. As the sun rises though, everyone starts to feel like death, so they kip down for a few hours.
Moonflower tests for eerie wyrm stuff, but only gets the faintest of faint response. Much theorising is done, working out where the water is going - over the gardens? No. As cooling fluid? No. As experimental mineral water? No. Eventually one of the pack finds the steps leading down to the basement underneath the support area - they can see mostly generators, but also some gas tanks.
As Edridge shuts down for the day, the pack formulates a plan. Moonflower will shut down one of the cameras, step into the real world and hack their computer system. Meanwhile, Mathias will step onto the stairs leading down to the basement (can't step into the basement as it has no Umbral presence). Mikal will watch Moonflower. Angus will watch the security screens, and Dom will watch Mathias. Someone counts down "3 2 -" Angus realises that he has botched peeking so badly so many times this day that he can't do it. Dom and Angus swap places. Mathias points out this means no one is watching him. Oh well. "3 2 1".
Moonflower steps into the real world and hammers away at the computer for an hour. It seems that the system is running some sort of mainframe, an NT server and a Unix system, and everything is a real mess. She slogs through it all, coming up mostly with publications, research notes, 100 reasons why Picard is sexier than Kirk, purity tests, and the like. She can't seem to crack anything more interesting. Mathias, in the meantime, is creeping down the stairs. The basement is, indeed, full of generators, some of which are diesel, some of which seem to be running on experimental fuels based on some of the gengineered plants above. There is a cage full of gas thingies attached to tubing which leads all the way through the buildings. At the far end of the underground chamber is a door marked "DANGER! DO NOT ENTER! 200,000 volts!", which is alarmed. Mathias sensibly goes to get the others.
Mikal is sitting and dreaming of steaks, lovingly brazed and then scoffed - he hasn't eaten for 24 hours. Moonflower thwaps him on the back of the head - while he was supposedly watching out for her in the Realm, the chief of security had come past doing her rounds. Luckily Moonflower had heard her and stepped before the chief noticed. They rejoin the rest of the pack.
There is discussion of what they have found. Moonflower and Mathias step back out into the basement and Moonflower checks out the door. Aha, thinks she, tis but a simple contact alarm. She finds a length of wire and attaches it up, opening the door. Inside is a large amount of switchboards and transformers and current smoothers, etc etc. At the far end is normal internal door. Mathias and Moonflower cautiously enter the room. In stacks in one corner are conical flasks filled with faintly glowing water. In the other corner is a pump and bottling system, heavily alarmed with fault alarms. In the opposite corner to the door they entered through are a pair of heavy steel doors, angled like tornado cellar doors, and locked from the inside. Moonflower undoes the bolt and opens them - a man-made corridor, gradually heading downwards.
The Pack reassembles upstairs and tries to decide what to do. Mikal, after mentioning that the security chief, Linda Dellaharpe, seemed to make a 'check-in' phone call while they were down there, is all in favour of burning the place to the ground, but the others want some more information first. They split up. Mikal is sent to Mingay to ring the caern and let them know what is happening. Mathias and Dominique go back down the gash-shaft to wait and see who might show up. Moonflower and Angus wander over to the residences and start scanning the staff for wyrm taint.
The residences are a three-storey building. They run around the ground floor and find that no one senses of wyrm.. until they try Rebecca Twist, one of the senior researchers. She is tainted, but not strongly. Moonflower tries to reach up to the top floor, but even standing on Angus' shoulders, she can't quite get up that high.
Down the shaft, Mathias and Dominique are staring at the machine and twiddling their fingers. Dellaharpe comes into the room. They both make aha noises. She starts the machine up, checks that it is ok, and then leaves. They sit around for a bit longer before the same evil idea enters their mind at the same time. Dominique performs spirit awakening on the machine and Mathias binds it. When the machine awakens, its spirit is extremely odd, half biological looking and half machine. It seems to be be fairly focused on its work (Take the water from the pipe, put it in the bottle, cap the bottle and put it in the case), but Dominique manages to act as a translator for Mathias as he gives it orders ("Hello", "Hello, take the water from the pipe, put it in the bottle, cap the bottle, put it in the case", "We want you to stop", "Why? Take the water from the pipe, put it in the bottle, cap the bottle, put it in the case", "Because it is time for you to rest." "ok [slump]"). In the Realm, all the fault lights come on. After 5 minutes, Dellaharpe returns, with a large gun and cautiously looks inside. When she sees that it is all clear, she presses a reset button. All the lights come back on and the machine starts up again (take the water from the pipe, put it in the bottle, cap the bottle and put it in the case). Mathias orders the machine to stop. It does. Dellaharpe resets it again. The machine stops again, after 30 seconds. Dellaharpe leaves.
Mikal has run all the way to Mingay after chomping his way through a rabbit on the way. He gets close to the town and changes into homid. He walks into town, into the pub and gets a beer, then saunters over to the blue phone. He calls Graeme up, and fills him in (spirits going nuts, Edridge, cave, pictograms, gnosis water, others say it might be a caern). Graeme disappears for a minute and then returns saying that they should knobble it and wait for backup. click. Mikal shrugs and heads back out of town. On his run back, a fairly large helicopter flies overhead, towards Edridge.
Angus and Moonflower join Dominique and Mathias. They natter for a bit, and then Moonflower and Angus head back up out of the cave to Wyrm Sense the security team. They head for the security room, where there is the junior member of the group, very much on guard, with his weapon out and looking curiously out the window. Moonflower glances out the window and freaks. A large troop-helicopter has landed in the compound, and there are a number of men in fatigues with guns standing around it. Her and Angus run out there, and she senses wyrm on them. Angus helps stop the blood nose and brings her around, and she kindly informs him that they are very wyrm tainted. They lurk around the site and listen to the conversations.
Moonflower and Angus gallop over the Umbral territory and reach Mathias and Dominique before the troops taking the long way around do. They reach a quick plan. As the three guys travel down the tunnel, they will jump them and scrag them as fast as possible. They run down and surround the guys in the Umbra, and step. Mathias and Dominique are through instantly, and start jumping up and down on these guys. They have M-16's, which makes life exciting, and only one Crinos can fit down the tunnel at once, which means that Mathias leans forward and scrags the guys while Dominique waits around behind him, hoping that Mathias stops all the bullets. Mathias picks off the point man and another of the fomor, but the third guy seems to be regenerating as he fights and still no sign of Moonflower or Angus. Meanwhile, just around the corner, Angus and Moonflower materialise, and crash into each other. Moonflower sorts herself out first, runs up behind the remaining fomor, and tears its spine out.
Mikal has reached the compound, and is spying on the helicopter. There are two guys circling it, with M-16's and a pilot sitting inside. He steps into the Umbra, runs over to where the helicopter is and steps out into the interior. The pilot spins his head and freaks - something connects inside Mikal's mind and he freaks out at being enclosed, straight out a door. Once outside, he recovers, but is facing a nasty man with a gun. One punch and nasty man with a gun isn't so happy any more. Mikal sees the second guard come around the corner and leaps back into the helicopter with the first nasty man. He evaluates his options as the first nasty man turns to smoke, and leaps at the pilot, who has got out of his seat and has a pistol ready. Bang!. And it all goes black.
In the tunnels, Angus and Mathias have grabbed guns and have headed down to the cavern. Moonflower and Dominique are trying to cause as much damage as possible. Moonflower has two grenades taken from the naughty wyrm tainted soldiers. Dominique is watching her in the Umbra. Moonflower wanders all the way up to the room with the machine. She pulls the two pins and stands there, holding the two grenades, ready to step as soon as someone shows up. Tick. Tick. Tick. Out in the generator room, she can hear a PA system kick into life. "The people in the tunnels, we have your friend, the large blond gentleman and we have silver. Surrender now or we kill him." Moonflower is torn. She signals to Dominique to step into the Realm as she won't have heard the PA. Dom does. Moonflower starts to explain the situation to Dom, but is interrupted by the PA, which does a much better job. They decide to try and gain the element of surprise. Moonflower will step and let the grenades falls, once Dom has already gone. In the confusion caused by the explosion, they will leap into the security room, and try and save Mikal. Moonflower steps into the Umbra.
When she appears, 5 minutes later, Dom just points silently into the Realm again. The grenades are on the ground, puking out smoke of some kind. Angus has joined them, running up the cave to see what is happening. They make a move to continue the plan when they all hear someone howl out the Anthem of War. They look at each other and then back up the shaft just as Cossack sticks his head over the edge of the shaft, followed by Emma. Cossack makes some noises about "can't you stay out of trouble?", and grins. Infinite Paths are hauled up onto the surface. The 'backup' that Mikal was promised has turned out to be Cossack, Emma, Commands the Waters, Malajimbarra, the pack Gaia's Rage, Bret Hutchinson, Leaps-in-the-Light and the pack One-Phone-Call. They have attacked the fomor and ferectoi with gusto and rescued Mikal.
The packs start summoning a spirit of slumber to bind to the area so all the live-in staff thinking they had a really weird dream about gunfire and people screaming etc etc. Everyone else troops down to the cavern. The theurges start doing some rite while other people kick stones around the cavern. Infinite Paths are close enough to overhear a conversation between Cossack, Commands the Waters and Bret - Bret doesn't want the matter to go to the Jindabyne Council, but the other two do. Mathias and Angus speak up, saying that they think it should also become a Council matter. Bret looks annoyed. The theurges stop their rite and approach the bundle of people. Leaps-in-the-Light says that it is indeed a caern, but it is critically drained and may fade within the week. This decides the matter - it goes to the Council.
M'lady leads the pack to a slab-hut type of cabin. "I hope these are satisfactory", she says, turning away before the pack has a chance to respond and walking away. The hut is cold, and dusty, but it is dry and there is firewood. Angus starts a fire, and the pack chats about what they are going to do and say to the Council. Time passes and they all go sleepybyebyes. Only an hour or so later, Bret knocks on Dom's window and asks to speak to her pack (after the GM makes a serious braino). When they are woken up, he says that Darius is going to make a serious attempt to have the Ngalyod pack rescue the caern. He wants Infinite Paths to claim the honor of doing so in the name of the Fianna - their claim of having found it, combined with the fact that it is in the Fianna protectorate should tilt the Council favorably towards the Fianna. He offers to make them members of the new Sept that will be formed around the caern. Moonflower and Mathias argue with him that they want what is best for the caern, and don't care about territory. Bret tells them that the council will sit and squabble over the ownership of the caern until there is no choice but to send the Ngalyod pack because they are the only pack close enough to get the job done in time. Someone asks whether this means there is a way to save the caern, and Bret says yes, but he promised Darius he wouldn't pre-empt a Council announcement. Moonflower tries to be idealistic about the Council while Bret tries to tell her about Real Life. Bret says that he will also make them members of Rippling Waters if they will do this - he is convinced enough that this is the right thing to do. The pack says they will have to talk to Cossack, and Bret says he expected that, and will speak to them just before the Council. He leaves and they all go to sleep.
Next morning, the pack goes looking for Cossack. They find Cossack. They explain Bret's offer to Cossack, who looks impressed. He says that he thinks Bret is right, and the caern should be the Fianna's - Bret's offer is generous, as it would be possible that the Fianna would get the caern anyway. Cossack says he doesn't think it would be a bad idea to accept, but he hopes that Sleeping Lore will come first in their mind. Mumble mumble Emma mumble Moodai mumble. The pack decide to summon Moodai.
They grab some fruit and marshmallows from the hut and summon Moodai. He comes quickly and starts scoffing fruit. They ask him various questions about Edridge and the storms. Moodai says that its not over yet, the caern is not safe. Someone asks him why they were sent to fix things. Moodai says it is because he was chosen by the others and then he chose them. What others, say the pack with a growing feeling of dread. The others, says Moodai cryptically. "I was chosen because I had come across". "Come across?" "From where the others are." "And that would be?" "In the Dreamtime" "..gaarg".
Council members Moonbridge in during the day. Shortly before midday they are all assembled and the Council is called to order. As people assemble, Bret catches Moonflower by the arm, and looks at her queryingly. She nods, and Bret says "When Darius suggests the Ngalyod pack, step forward then. Its been organised.". The council take their seats around the horseshoe shaped marble table. There are thirteen chairs, eleven of which are filled, one is for the Bunyip and the remaining one has been thrown out of the way by Mamu, who squats in Crinos form. The Ngalyod pack stand stoically behind the Council. Everyone else stands in front.
Commands the Waters is called forth, and she gives an account of the storms at Rippling Waters and Grinding Stone, their weird nature and the sounds and tracks of thylacine spirits, as well as the fluctuating gauntlet. Malajimbarra is then called forth, and he speaks of Blood Claw, who set out to find the problem and then disappeared a short time later. He tells that Mathias and Mikal came to warn them of other threats and in the process of finding information, he discovered Blood Claw in the gauntlet, as Mathias saw a crinos bunyip spirit. He ends by saying that the two members of Infinite Paths set their totem to finding the problem.
Moonflower is recognised and she says that the Galliard of their pack will speak for the pack. Mathias tells the Council about lending some of their spiritual power to Moodai, who then took off into the bush, leading them for some six hours into the darkness. Edridge. Caves. Pictograms. Machine. Experimentation. Security. Helicopter. Battles. Mathias finishes and there is a brief respectful pause. Then the Council start to barrage the pack with questions.
At this, Mother Pasta erupts to her feet, shouting abuse in Italian, and the rest of the council start yelling to be heard over her. Vlad says "Speak a civilised tongue to me, Urrah", which sends Mother Pasta into further apopolexy, and the rest of the Council breaks into angry recriminations. Moonflower tries to be heard over the yelling, but she is ignored. Cossack rubs his face resignedly, and Bret mouths "See?" to the pack. There is a brief lull in the screaming and Monash End-to-the-Darkness says "While you all squabble here, I remind you that there is a nearly destroyed caern at stake here!" Fingal manages to yell "Impudent pup! How dare you remind your betters of duty when your entire tribe allows its caerns to falter!".
The cacophony continues until Darius draws his klaive and blasts lightning into the sky. He looks somewhat annoyed, but says "I propose that the Ngalyod pack be sent to save the caern and claim such an important Bunyip site for the Jindabyne Council." Mathias responds immediately with "We challenge for that right.." and then leaves sufficient pause that everyone thinks he means a fight with Darius ".. on behalf of the Fianna". "By what right do you think that you may do this?" "By right of discovery?"
Fingal pipes up with "Vote.", which is echoed by the other Council members. Darius looks somewhat disgruntled, but agrees. Darius and Tjinderi vote to send the Ngalyod pack, Mamu abstains by saying "Homid posturing, all know who is best for caern", and Carla also abstains. All the others vote to send Infinite Paths. Darius looks disgusted and Fingal looks triumphant. Cernonous stands and says "Infinite Paths, you are to go to a realm called the Scar. We recently received word that the wyrm things of that realm are collecting the Gnosis they drain from spirits into physical batteries. Retrieve at least one of these batteries and this should be sufficient to restore the caern." Fujiko of the Ngalyod pack speaks up for the first time "The Scar is an industrial nightmare, and you will have to be cautious. It is Weaver gone mad, shifting form is hard and passions are stifled." The Council breaks up, and Darius storms away.
Peoples moonbridge home to Sleeping Lore. Angus suddenly remember he hasn't been home for 4 days, and gave Rhianna no warning. He takes the cowardly custard option of staying at the caern until they go to the Scar. Moonflower asks around the University about Edridge and hears that one of their postgrads went to work there, and he has said only good things. Mathias starts looking at a possible buyout, and is spoken to by Christine, who says that it will need to be a group effort. Mathias agrees. People rest and recover.
Dominique and Mathias try and work out what sort of talens might be of use in the Scar. Graeme finds Mikal and offers him the use of the Umbral Shotgun, a Sept Fetish that requires no shells. Mikal and 'Bessie' hit it off immediately. The rest of the pack sense the psychic resonance and shudder a lot. People meditate and try and prepare. At dusk, they set off in the Umbra...
After hunting around, a Moon Path is found, leading to the Scar. The trip there is uneventful and the pack stops at an infinite wall of Weaver-encrustation. The decision is made to go through in two groups after everyone changes to glabro in the Umbra. Moonflower punches a hole in the membrane by 5 successes. The other group follows more slowly. They all appear on a crumbling concrete and metal balcony which protrudes from a block of flats. Nothing can been seen through the thick, choking air, but industrial noises pulse through the smog. There is a low, solid beat which resonates in everyone's sternum, almost like a heartbeat. The pack move inside - the room is plain, with no decoration. All the furniture is bolted down, and austere. The pack flees downstairs just as there is a loud warbling shriek from somewhere in the distance. Almost immediately afterwards, a set of sirens go off. As the pack hides near the entranceway of the flats, an army of gray, pallid-looking humanoids trudge towards the flats. They are driven towards the block that the pack came from by tall, black demonic guards with blades for arms. Another army of humanoids trudge out of nearby flats and are driven away into the smog. The pack follows easily.
The army is driven into a large factory, puking black sooty smoke from chimneys at both end. The factory is surrounded by a high chainlink fence. The pack finds a spot where the guards can't see them and leap the fence, while mocking their parachronical doubles. They creep through the factory, having very little attention paid to them by anyone at all. All the workers are collared and many are chained to the machinery they use. Dominique swipes a collar and plays with it. It seems to have no latch, but when the edges are placed together, they seal. It only seems to require a sharp pull to reseperate them, but all the workers wear them with no attempt to remove them.
After much creeping around, about the only thing that the pack can find that looks like it leads away from the factory is a set of pipes, one of many that disappear down manholes. Angus pries up the manhole and disappears down the ladder. At the bottom is an access tunnel of some sort - it leads in two directions, but after pressing his ear against the tube, he determines which direction that it is flowing. Angus signals for Moonflower to come down and discusses things with her. The break a seal on the pipe and a thick black goop flows out. They decide to go this way and see where the pipes go. While Angus is calling to the others, a large rat-like thing runs up and bites Moonflower on the bum. Her and Angus start to attack it, and find that it is some weird cross between a rat and a scorpion, having six legs and a poison tale. It is taken out as Mathias leaps out of the ladder-well and on top of it. The pack come down the ladder and kick the corpse out the way.
They travel down the access tunnel and other ladders come down to it, bringing their own pipes to join onto the one that Infinite Paths are following. After an hour or so, their tunnel appears in an artificial glory hole as several pipes all come together. The pack are regarding the situation - three tunnels come together at about the same height as their own, there is a 10 or so foot drop into the chamber and another single tunnel leads off in almost the same direction they have been following - when the warbling, ear-piercing shriek echos through the tunnel again, and a wall of noisome wyrm emanation flows down one of the other tunnels. Infinite Paths flee back up their tunnel a bit to watch the black gloop fill the chamber and then flow away down the lower tunnel, leaving no residue. The plan is to run as fast as possible down the lower tunnel and hope that they don't get washed away, or preferably not to get swamped at all.
The pack head down the lower tunnel at a reasonable pace. Pipes start to appear, not just running along the corridor, but also leading into it. Some of them are leaking the same black goop as washed down the tunnel. The pack is moving along at a good speed when movement appears from all sides. Infinite Paths leap into a defensive ring before realising that the things coming out the pipes are spirits - mostly naturae. Dominique speaks to a parrot spirit and it manages to eventually convey that they are all escapees, and are trying to help other spirits escape. The parrot will take them to their king. Much hiking through pipes begins. Dominique asks what the warbling sound is after it shrieks out again and the parrot says that the king says that it might be a Nexus Crawler. The mood drops.
Much time is spent observing the site and thinking about how to gain access. Someone suggests attacking a transport rather than the CPS itself, which is fine except there is no idea how often they come in or out. The pack creeps as close as they can to the CPS and plans. The eventual plan is hit upon to wait for a transport to go out and return, but if it takes more than a day or so, they'll try another plan. Moonflower will use Control Simple Machine on the axle of the transport and then she and Mikal will provide a distraction from behind the truck using their firearms. Once the guards start to head for the two of them, Mathias, Angus and Dominique will attack from the front and add to the confusion. The pack members spread out and await their chance while the spirit horde does the same and acts as messengers. Eventually a transport goes out, with about 12 guards in it. The entire pack amuses itself by changing form. 6 hours later they are all in Crinos form.
The transport returns and all is in readiness. It drives past and Moonflower hits the breaks. It swerves a bit, but the driver keeps control, bringing it to a stop. He gets out, as do four guards with guns from the back of the truck. The guards start to spread out as Mikal rolls onto the road behind them with Bessie. He shoots one of the guards and the rest react by looking that direction. Fortunately only Mikal's head is sticking out. Unfortunately, the guards are good enough shots to blow it clean off. Mikal has a little lie down as Moonflower tries to unjam her gun. The rest of the pack see this happening, and try to make the best of the distraction provided. Mathias runs up to the cab and attacks the remaining guard in the cab while Dominique takes on the driver. Angus executes an amazing daredevil dive in glabro form, through the window and into the guard in the cab. Moonflower rolls on to the road and pulls the trigger on her gun, only to have it jam again. She rolls out of sight and starts cleaning it. Mathias and Angus do for the guy in the cab while Dominique and the driver pretend that they can't see each other.
As guards start to leap out the back, Angus sits up straight and starts the transport. Mathias leaps clean over the cab and comes down on the driver, finishing him off with the help of Dominique. Moonflower rolls back onto the road, fires her gun and misses, pulls the trigger and it jams again. She flings her gun 200 metres away and Frenzies, heading for the combat. Mikal comes to, now in homid form, with a very faint Moodai on his chest. He spends some few seconds getting his shit together and trying to avoid his headache. Angus starts backing the truck up and off the road, nearly clipping one of the guards and knocking the ones in the back off their feet - except one guard who attacks him through the metal cabin. Mathias starts in on the guards who are out of the van and gets munched quite badly as Dominique plays "miss the guard". Mathias enters the Zone and starts butchering guards, but bits of him are flying off left, right and centre - one guard hits him in the crotch and he doesn't even blink. Mikal runs up and attempts to help the combat by emptying Bessie into Mathias. Angus breaks off the blade that sticks through the cabin, leaps out and then over the truck, killing him in a single crush. Dominique cleans off a guard who starts running away before being mobbed by the naturae spirits.
Mathias is up to guard 6 when he decides to get revenge on the nasty man with the boom-stick and nearly cripples Mikal. However, the tide of the battle has turned and the guards start to drop by the second. In a space of 30 more seconds, all the guards have been killed. Mathias suddenly realises that he is dead and collapses. Moonflower leaps into the truck and finds three batteries. Mathias is healed up, including (at his insistence) his battlescar. The truck is recovered and everyone piles in. Angus floors it towards the nearest factory. They drive through the chainlink fence, through the doors and over two guards. As the trucks screams to a halt, a battery is thrown out and two crinos try and break it. 2 minutes later they finally crack it and the gnosis washes out in a brilliantly coloured energy burst, causing all the humanoid workers to morph shapes. The guards are swarmed over and eventually everyone is calmed down. Infinite Paths step sideways with two batteries and the longest paper chain of spirits ever. When they appear in the Umbra, the spirits scatter and the pack look for a Moon Path.
Whoosh, back to the cemetery, where it is late Sunday night. Once there they are congratulated and the everyone Moonbridges to Rippling Waters. At Rippling Waters, cars are procured and a convoy proceeds to near Edridge. All trudge into the cavern and a short but tasteful Theurgic ceremony is performed, at the end of which Infinite Paths shred both batteries. The gnosis booms around the caverns in the Umbra, causing weird jumping shadows and reflections. Eventually it all settles down and goes quiet. In the lull, there is a grinding sound and a huge man shape detaches from the far wall, walking across the water without a ripple. Every Garou hears the voice in its head, saying "I am Jirrawan. The time of mourning has ceased. Now must come the time of restitution. It begins here." Jirrawan looks at Mikal, who happens to be holding Moodai. "Are these the ones you have chosen, little cousin?" Moodai's response is heard only by Jirrawan, and Jirrawan's demeanor is one of surprise. Leaps-in-the-Light then starts the final ritual asking Jirrawan to bless the formation of a new Sept. Other theurgy things are concluded and Jirrawan says that he will return to his rest until the Foundation Moot in three weeks.
Bret announces loudly that this night there is to be a celebration at Rippling Waters and all here are invited. People trudge back to their cars. Emma drives Infinite Paths back in a Tarago with cossack. On the way back, Cossack catches them up a little on events in Melbourne. The forensic evidence taken from Tony Staley's body has disappeared, and been replaced with innocuous hairs - and not by their sept either. Rainbow Inc has a new MD, a Steven Marshall. The Scryers are currently working with Hidden Green to combat a wyrm-based attempt to gain control over the state government. And possibly most relevant to the pack, last Friday was a slow news day, so a certain current affairs program played a tearful message from a mother who has 'lost' her son, an Angus Delanie. Angus starts headbutting the seat in front of him. The trip back to Rippling Waters is filled by the pack and Cossack discussing how to resolve Angus' problem - however, no real resolution is reached.
When they all reach Rippling Waters, Cossack and Emma claim duties back at Sleeping Lore and Moonbridge out. Infinite Paths head into the caern centre. People are setting up a celebration. Things are starting to kick off when Bret calls for silence. "Infinite Paths have restored to us a caern long lost. In return, the Fianna offer them membership in the Sept of Rippling Waters and in the sept that is yet to be formed - do any dissent?" There is silence. "Will Infinite Paths accept?" Moonflower says "yes". Bret turns to the lake that is the centre of the caern. "Tulu, we seek your blessing" Raucous laughter rings out through the Sept and the lake churns. "And done!"
The celebrations start in earnest. Various members of the pack overhear discussions about the need for a new sept, who will become part of it, the need for guard packs in the meantime. Mathias is asked to tell the story of their trip to the Scar. He remembers it all clearly, but the Fianna ale has made his lips all numb so he has to concentrate on telling it a lot. Dominique on the other hand is not sought out and while people are polite, they sometimes drift away after strained silences. Some of the more obviously native Irish Fianna shy away from Moonflower too, but the Australian-born Fianna sweep her up. When everyone finally slumps unconscious, they dream of the Bunyip and the black lake again.
Angus goes to the police and explains that he went camping, and wasn't kidnapped. The police are unimpressed, but his disheveled clothing pretty much agrees with that claim. They tell him (after letting him sit around for hours) that if he goes off again without notifying anyone, they will charge him being a public nuisance. He nods soberly and then leaves.
Mathias and Dominique get home to a number of messages, mostly mundane. Christine Elliot contacts Mathias and asks him to instruct his people to co-operate with her in the buyout of Edridge, which has just become a bit more complex. One of their senior researchers has just had a paper published and that has attracted attention from other investors, so the price is going up fast. Mathias rings his staff and gives them clear instructions.
Mikal drives off to get some secondhand gardening tools. Moonflower goes straight home, and finds that she has been broken in to, and a lot of their easily transportable electronic goods have been stolen. She nearly rings the police, but Mikal comes home and says that he would prefer that no more police attention was drawn to their house. Moonflower rings Angus who comes along. They consider using Questing Stone to find the lost equipment, but don't have a name. Moonflower is running over stuff lost in her head... tv, stereo, windows box, linux box... linux box... hey, thats got a name. She explains to Angus that her computer has a unique name, and he should try Questing Stone on that. The ritual does indeed work, and leads them to a feral house in St Kilda. They scout through in the Umbra, and find their stuff. The plan is hit on to burst through the back door and try and intimidate them off. Bursting occurs and Angus swings a punch at the hippy at the sink, who dodges and puts the boot in. The situation quickly deteriorates, Moonflower is shoved into the pantry and locked in, Angus is being hit a lot but not taking any real damage. Angus starts spending rage and Moonflower changes to glabro in the pantry before leaping out. They drives the hippies off and take back their stuff. Another glorious victory for the defenders of Gaia.
The rest of the day is fairly uneventful - the pack is assembling at the caern when Graeme comes to meet Moonflower. He tells her that she has someone wanting to speak to her, and they are asking permission to open a Moonbridge. She asks who it is, and Graeme says "Vlad". Moonflower spits her coffee everywhere, but says "ok". When Vlad comes through, he takes her aside and says that he would like to apologise to her pack and their totem for his comments at the Council. They were deliberately spoken to excite and incite the Council to real action rather than long debate. Moonflower accepts the apology and then watches Vlad leave through the Moonbridge before shitting herself. The pack finally assemble, Moonflower tells them what happened and then they all drive off to the new Sept.
On Sunday night, the pack returns to Melbourne and their boring lives. Angus goes straight home and tries to start making things up to Rhiannon. Moonflower goes to speak to Kirsty about the vivisection issue and some options they have thought of to bring the issue to the notice of the University student population. Kirsty looks thoughtful and goes to speak to her friends about a petition.
When Moonflower returns to the Sept, it looks like a bomb site. It seems that the Scryers had found some of the senior conspirators in the Wyrm/Government problem. They were busy cleaning out those possesses and tracing banes when some lead them to Williamstown in a warehouse. Chases-the-Car found a huge stack of explosives in the warehouse, just in time to get everyone one before it exploded, destroying banes, demons and all the evidence. The politicians are out of it, and Wyrm activity is declining. Aquinas says he thinks it might have all been an elaborate smoke screen.
Dominique has a dream.
After a bit, Angus walks upstairs and wakes Rhiannon. She looks at the baby, looks at him, and then rolls over back to sleep, demanding that Angus "make it go away". When he sits there for 5 minutes in shock, she turns back over and says "It hasn't gone away, has it." Angus confirms that it wasn't a dream. Rhiannon gets up, get approximately dressed and says "I'm getting some milk. You call the police." She sniffs. "And change that kid." Angus starts to vaguely do that, and discovers about $50,000 in twenty dollar bills under the blankets. He decides to just sit there. When Rhiannon comes back, she sees the money and drops the milk, which explodes all over the floor. Some time is spent staring at the money and saying "we should called the police". Angus gives up and rings the rest of his pack. They are less than enthused about a) the time and b) the reason, but mostly get together. Due to some confusion, Rhiannon now believes that the child belongs to a "Michael", who is a friend of Angus.
Angus arrives at Mathias' house shortly before Mikal. The pack try and work out what to do and eventually hoist Moonflower out of bed to come and talk to them. Some examination is done of child and note, both visually and nasally. There is a faint smell of a woman around the child (well, duh), who looks vaguely southern European. The blanket around her is fairly high quality, and is locally made (Tarano Woolens, written on the tag). They agree that they are not set up to take care of a kid, and head for the Sept to foist the problem off onto Graeme. He is as baffled as they are, but agrees to find some kinfolk to take care of the little girl, after finding Ends-the-Quiet and getting him to check to see if she is Garou or kinfolk.
In the meantime, Infinite Paths head back to near Angus'. Mathias goes to lupus and sniffs around the front door and down the street. He can smell a scent that he can only describe as "grandmother", which comes from a spot down the road to the front door and back to the spot. Mikal, in the meantime, is driving around looking for a speed camera. His theory is that the mother, after depositing the baby, would have driven away at speed and might have been noticed by the police. He completely fails to see one, but he does see the same car about 6 times, doing apparently the same thing he is doing. He checks it out - a Ford Laser, fairly non-descript, with three guys in suits inside. Immediately, he leaps into action, assuming that they are mafia hit men. Mikal parks them in, and exchanges witty banter ("What are you doing?" "None of your business" Window is wound up).
Mikal returns to the rest of the pack and tells them that there are three guys wandering the streets, probably Family men. They try and figure out why 3 guys in suits automatically mean mafia. Lots of heads are shaken. Mathias takes Mikal away to see what these three guys are while Angus hatches a cunning plan. He will give Dom and Moonflower his keys while he takes Rhiannon out to shop, etc. They can wait inside for these three suits, who are probably real estate agents, to wander around and visit them. He walks up to his house door and knocks. Rhiannon opens with "Look, I told you.. oh, sorry. Where are your keys?" "errr. Must have left them here somewhere." Rhiannon asks about the child, and Angus tells her he gave it back to Mikal and gave him a strong talking to as well. Angus and Rhiannon leave after a half hour and go shopping. Moonflower and Dominique let themselves in and continue their investigation inside - nothing funny in the Umbra and nothing around the front inside of the house.
Mathias and Mikal have found the three suits, who seem to sitting around and having lunch. Mathias steps and will take 5 minutes. In the meantime, one of the guys notices the same beatup Kingswood that hassled them earlier. He gets out and wanders over. "Why are you following us?" Mikal gets out. "I want to know what you're doing." They try and stare each other down, and the suit waves his finger at Mikal before fleeing back to his car. Mikal stands and watches before getting back in. In the meantime, Mathias has appeared in the Umbra and is peeking back into their car. They are eating *sniff* garlic. "Hey, Tony, what was that all about?" Streams of loud italian. More italian. Mathias groans "Oh no." They switch back into English and while they are talking Mathias sniffs and feels about the car. In the boot is a toolbox and spare tire. The car smells like a rental, but doesn't look like one. The guys are talking about how what they are doing is a waste of time and Tutti is going to catch them. The guy in the back with a briefcase tells them to cut it - they said they will do it and they will. Mathias checks out the briefcase - it smells of cold metal oil and gunpower. Uhoh.
The guys get out and walk along the street - Mathias follows in the Umbra. They walk up and down the street. "Hi, we're from Foster First National, and we were wondering if you were interested in perhaps selling your property? No? Do you know if anyone else is in the immediate area, or whether someone has recently left?". They often don't get all the way through the shpiel, but don't seem too worried. If there is no answer, they note down the address. If someone says that people nearby have left, they note down the address. They then get back in their car, drive a block or two away and do the same thing. Eventually they give up and head off. Mathias is confused. Mikal is bored.
Moonflower and Dom give up waiting for their knock on the door and head off to the state library. They start looking up robberies of more than $50,000. They find there were about 20 in the last year, still unsolved. In Victoria? About 7. In the last three months. 2. One of them rolled a Coles, the other robbed a bank on Christmas Eve, after all the shops had deposited all their money. Moonflower scrapes the bottom of her idea barrel. She tries to find out who the previous owner/tenants were at Angus' house, because they think it might be that the person who dropped off the baby thought they were still living there. No go. She also goes and looks at the blanket the kid was brought to them in - the label says it is "Tarano" and it was made in Australia. She does a search for that and finds that it actually is distributed only from one retailer in Templestowe.
Moonflower, Mikal, Dom and Mathias do a conference call to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Moonflower and Dom decide to try and summon a spirit of some sort to trace the child's mother. They sit and think about it for a while. Mathias, having overhead a name in the car (Antonio Mariscotti) does two different types of Questing Stone - one with the rite and one with the White Pages. Questing Stone is successful and he is in the north of the city, but checking the White Pages there are two A Mariscotti's - however, the feeling from the rite is that he is at neither of them. In the meantime, Mikal goes and visits Hidden Green. He is met in the elevator by Claude Foucault, part of Steel Hunters. He asks Claude about someone called 'Tutti' and crime families and wants to know if they know anything, as Infinite Paths are investigating something about it. Claude says he will ask and sends the elevator down again. Mikal goes off to practice axe throwing.
Moonflower and Dom talk to Graeme and ask if he could get the kin family to bring the child back - they want to do a summoning rite, and bring a fertility/motherhood spirit to the kid and trace back to her mother. Graeme suggests that maybe doing that in a cemetery would be awkward and says to go and see Nadine. Nadine says "Cool" and takes them to the zoo nursery. Dominique starts her summoning ritual. Moonflower will bring the kid back around 10pm, as thats when Dom should be finished.
Mathias has decided to track Mr Mariscotti to wherever he is, which turns out to be a pasta resteraunt in Reservoir. Mathias goes in and while having a good meal, keeps his eyes and ears open. The resteraunt owner and manager both seem to be quite friendly with a private party who are in the rear seating area. A lot of them are wearing suits and most seem to speak some amount of italian... or sicilian. The name "Tutti" comes up a lot, and occasionally "Antony" - although that name is followed by an uncomfortable silence. Mathias calls in a few times with Moonflower, finishes his meal, leaves a good tip and heads back to the caern.
Angus, over dinner at a resteraunt, brings up the subject of moving house with Rhiannon. She doesn't seem too enthused.
Dominique finishes her summoning, and the earth rises up in front of her, forming a vaguely humanoid figure, not unlike the primitive fertility worship-statues. It has a bulbous head, arms, legs, stomach and breasts, but no identifiable features. Dominique presents their request (find this child's mother) and it sits and thinks (while the GM gets the giggles). It agrees on the condition that Dominique pay it homage. Mathias starts to giggle while Dom just looks a bit confused... the penny drops and she says "I will help plant a grove of trees where none now stand.", desperately trying to think how she can avoid having to get pregnant. The spirit considers this, and then agrees. It walks forward and touches the child and then sinks back into the earth. Moonflower, peeking, sees it shoot off like a wave in the earth. They take the child back closer to the caern, but not into it and wait. After two hours of speculating that the spirit was going to come back and say "in a 6' deep hole", the spirit returns and says the mother is on the land near the sea. Dominique asks if the spirit could take them there, and it agrees for a donation of gnosis. Dominique agrees, and the spirit moves close to her and sticks its finger in her ear (no, not really). Dominique can now sense the location of the mother of the baby. Moonflower takes the child back to the Sept while Mathias gets his car. Zoom, off they go south, following Dominique's instructions.
Mikal is considering giving up for the evening when his phone rings. It is Claude. Claude says that one of their people will meet with him to talk, 8am at Collins St, downstairs. Mikal agrees, packs up and goes home to sleep.
Around Patterson Lakes somewhere, Dominique's sense of the mother starts to get a bit blurred. She moves into the Umbra, where the sense is much stronger, and slodges through the swampy land in the near-absolute blackness of a ragabashian Umbra. Mathias peeks while Moonflower drives on. They pull up after an hour or so in Carrum. Dom has a quick look around through the gauntlet. There is a man sitting in a back room with no lights on, watching television. The woman is upstairs, and Dom can't see that high.
Moonflower parks around the corner and steps into the Gauntlet. Mathias and Dominique catapult her out and into the Umbra. The three of them search through the house, Dominique carrying and Mathias peeking. Mathias finds a woman upstairs asleep in a double bed, with another guy. Dom's comment of "oo, kinky" earns her a number of stares. Searching around, there is yet another guy in a single bed, asleep. Alarum bells start to go off in people's minds. In the room with the single bed, there is a holster slung over a chair. The house is searched for personal items. There are none, beyond clothes. The theory is put forth that the house is safe-house and both of the guys not in the bed are federal police, protecting the woman. Much discussion is had about what to do when the guy on the couch's phone rings. Couchguy picks it up, "Nope, all quiet." and hangs it up again, goes back to channel surfing. The three pack members settle down for a cold, damp and swampy night of watching the house. At around 4am, the guy on the couch switches with the guy in bed, and the phone rings a few more times.
Mikal's pack sits squelching in the midst of a mosquito ridden swamp and trying to nap in the back of Mathias' car, where the phone rings. Dominique picks it up and has a brief chat with Mikal, telling him where they are. Mikal heads that way. The people in the house start to awaken and move around. After a brief time, they know that the woman's name is Mia and the man's name is Antony. Mathias chokes a bit as he recalls the pasta-resteraunt's reaction to the name Antony, and says that they aren't protecting the woman, they are protecting the man. The two other men in the house refer to them as Mr and Mrs Pantoliano, so they now have a full name for the mother. Mikal arrives, and tells them of his meeting, while they fill him in on what's going on here. There is some speculation about what they do with the baby. The could
Graham listens to the story with increasing disbelief. When speculation about Ion reaches a point where it is litany-breaking, he cautions the pack about speaking with people outside their own members. Graham says that he will have the child brought to the Sept - if either Ion or Irena (assuming she knows about it), wish to retrieve the child for their own end, they will be more cautious about it if the child is directly under garou supervision. In the meantime, if Graham makes an obvious decision, it will be moving the issue to a sept level - he would prefer that the pack resolve this on their own.
Infinite Paths go off to Mikal and Moonflower's house to look up the previous occupant of Angus' house. They do a quick search and find that it used to belong to a B & L Kellett. Looking in a current White Pages reveals there are no longer any B&L Kellett's, so they might have broken up or moved interstate. Mikal and Moonflower have a disagreement about what to do which blows up quickly into a full scale staring match, which is broken by Mathias who says that this is getting them nowhere. Moonflower limps off into the backyard and vanishes. Mathias and Dominique head back to Carrum while Mikal goes to Angus' house. After smuggling Angus out of the house, they do a rite of questing on Tutti Pantoliano, which reveals that he is in the eastern half of the CBD somewhere. Mikal goes there to try and find 1 50ish year old Italian man that he has never seen at about midday on a Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in Carrum, the two younger (but not youngest) Pantoliano's are catching up on their reading. At one point Mia breaks down and starts to cry, Antony is trying to console her - the discussion was previously about Maria. Aha, thinks Mathias, a baby name. Nothing much else happens all day.
Mikal gives up his pointless search and instead goes to spy on the pasta resteraunt, leaving a message with Mathias to say what he is doing. He steps into the Umbra and completely fails to be able to peek. He gives up and steps back into the real world and has a pasta meal at the resteraunt. One of the suits in the laser pass him by, but doesn't seem to notice him. Mikal eats and leaves, heading out to his car. He is crossing the car park when two guys start running out of the car park towards him. He makes a break for his car, but they catch up. One guy grabs him around the mouth and shoves something sweet smelling over his face. Mikal starts to change to glabro while spending a rage point to burn off the woozy feeling coming over him. The second suit scoops his feet off the ground and they start running towards the resteraunt when Mikal changes to crinos form. The guy that was holding his leg starts screaming and running away. The other guy starts biting Mikal's ear. Mikal uses leap of the kangaroo and disappears off into the distance. When he returns, a large crowd has gathered and a couple of suits ask him about seeing a huge dog. He says no. They say ok. He leaves.
Angus goes home to try and continue abasing himself to Rhiannon who is actually showing some sign of being less annoyed with him. Mathias confers with Christine Elliot about Edridge, and beats on his staff until they agree to work with him.
Mathias makes it to the house a few seconds ahead of the banes, peeks and mindspeaks Moonflower "waaaaaaaaagh". They eventually work out what is happening and attempt to step sideways. Moonflower will be 30 seconds, Dominique and Angus step gracefully into the Gauntlet. Nevertheless Mathias makes fairly short work of almost all the remaining banes, but a few, seeing their compatriots shredded start flying off to the northwest as the others appear. After pulling various people out of the Gauntlet and then healing those who need it, the pack sprints off after the banes.
Several hours later, Angus and Mathias are gaining on the banes, having left their pack miles behind. They are running through a bare patch of the Umbra - small, not healthy looking trees, the occasional weaver thread. Suddenly the banes in front of them disappear in a large flash of colourless flame. Angus and Mathias skid to a halt and check the area out. No one seems to be around. Mathias throws some sticks forward over the spot where the banes disappeared. No response. He probes forward with a stick and gets a large painful burn for his troubles. Apart from the wall of fire produced, there is no indication this area is special in the Umbra at all. Angus peeks and finds himself staring at the wall of a house. In the Realm, the house looks like a rental. One rented by a paranoid. The house sits alone on its block, with long, green and brown grass all around. Every window is shuttered with steel shutters. Mathias and Angus suppose that the boundaries of the house match the boundaries of their wall of fire and trace it out in the Umbra.
A near-collapsed Dominique and Moonflower finally catch up with the rest of their pack. Some general investigations are carried out. It seems that they are in Westmeadows, in Koala Cr to be precise. None of the pack seem to notice that they are a bare spitting distance from where Joe Ridgeway was dropping toxic waste, but thats ok, because the GM didn't either. Mr and Mrs Smith have some rather cross letters from a number of utility providers in their letterbox - the first letter is date stamped around the first week of February. Moonflower rings back to the Sept and gets Ian Shatter-Glass on the phone - his attitude seems to be "oh, thats interesting. When you know what's going on, come back and tell us."
The pack are lounging around in the Umbra and trying to figure out what to do. Mathias and Dominique spend some time chatting while the others are off investigating around. Various probes are made at the walls of the house. Mathias digs down and tries to see if the field goes below the level of the ground. Smell of burning hispo. Yes. Moonflower steps in the realm and walks up to the door, ringing the door bell. Smell of burning homid in the realm and colourless flame in the Umbra. Mathias finds a crowbar and tries to use it to open the backdoor. Flash of wall and burning skin. Whatever this flame is, it conducts. Some discussion over whether Garou could do this - Dominique and Mathias know about the Rite of the Hidden Glen, so yes, probably. Angus toys briefly with the idea of leaping up and hoping that there is no roof to the ward, but decides against it.
Dominique makes a tube from something and pokes it over the line Mathias has drawn previously. It still looks the same. She changes to lupus and smells down it. The smell belies what her eyes tell her - it smells damp and musty and shadowy - like the underneath of a house, actually. More discussion based on this new information. Angus declares his intentions to shield up and ram the house in the Umbra. People sigh a lot but stand back and are ready to help him. He decides to ram where the backdoor should be. Charge! Thud. Flames spring up all along the wall that Angus rammed and then fade. He puts out his clothing, and takes another run up. Charge!
Angus slams into the door and colourless fire runs explodes all the way around the house. The smell of burning Angus pervades the area, but is somewhat over ridden by the rank and Wyrm-ridden gust of evil that pulses out of the hole that he has made. In the Umbra, a floating hole can been seen, as well as some of the edge of the doorframe. It leads into a kitchen, normal except for the terminally fried Garou on the floor and the evil occult symbols drawn in a brown, crumbling paint. With a second to spare, Dominique jumps through the gap and lays her hands on Angus. People follow through the hole. They look around the walls and floor and don't look very happy. Dominique guesses that the symbols on the walls are wards. Response cometh "Well, duh". Someone performs a Rite of Cleansing on the door which does very little. Dominique starts hearing a voice, calling her, rescue it, darkness. She carefully mentions this to the rest of the pack and they all start to decide to leave.
As they are getting their shit together, ready to drag Angus outside, when something cowled appears behind Mathias and swipes at him with long, tapering claws. Moonflower leaps from the house, carrying the homid Angus. Mathias holds the thing off while Dominique runs out the back door. The cowled one looks like a shadow of a traditional cultist - it has a cowl that seems to be of skin, its chin and mouth are visible under the edge, but no further face. The hands are long and spindly and inordinately sharp. It has no feet, but seems to fade away about a foot above the ground. Mathias provides a fighting retreat, hoping that the thing cannot follow outside. Bzzt, wrong. It nearly disembodies Mathias, but Moonflower howls in panic and it disappears. The pack communally sighs. Moonflower suddenly shrieks and peeks. Nope, it didn't step into the real world, it is gone. Angus is still unconscious and has no hair on his left arm and shoulder.