| 29 Mar 2000 |
| 05 Apr 2000 |
| 12 Apr 2000 |
| Conquest |
| 26 Apr 2000 |
| 03 May 2000 |
| 10 May 2000 |
| 17 May 2000 |
| 01 Jun 2000 |
| 08 Jun 2000 |
- only 2 days after the pack left. Cossack is disturbed about Mathias' fate. The pack ask why he didn't give more precise instructions, and Emma says that doing so would have set your preconceptions about the Umbra, and that it is often different for every group that goes there. The pack is directed to have a bit of time off to recover. Before they leave, Dom quietly tells her pack that Lysander told her that she was actually pregnant, and to Lord Reegus. She will probably be able to run with the pack for another six months, but then she is thinking of staying at Rippling Waters for the last trimester.
Brett heads home and has a shower. He starts to feel a bit wrong, and senses unnatural - wyrm taint, faintly coming through his taps. He starts to investigate, calling Thomas and John over as well. They proceed to search all around, but aren't able to find what it might be. Brett does a Rite of Cleansing, and that seems to clean it all up. He calls back to the Sept and mentions it, and asks if there might be leakage from the Preston problem. Graeme says he'll look into it.
Dominique is heading home and sees someone leaning up against a lamppost ahead of her, wearing a hawaiian shirt and smiling. She walks up and says "what?". The guy is wearing sunglasses and has a rather fixed smile, and senses strongly of Magic and Demons. They have a brief discussion about why the mages helped them, and how they knew. The hawaiian man indicates that they were just concerned citizens, doing their bit to help keep things a little calmer in the city. The item was a bit too much of a wildcard. He asks what happened to it, and Dom says that its gone for good. The mage seems happy with that. They have a few more brief words, and then the figure becomes a straw doll again.
The pack assembles early in the day and there is some discussion about what to do now that they have no packleader. Everyone seems to feel that they need a leader, so a challenge is devised - John and Thomas want to be leader, so Dominique goes off and hides somewhere in the realm, within the CBD. Her scent is hidden via the same somewhat worn out fox spirit, and off she goes, mentally singing "Girl from Epanema". Thomas asks about the city, checking with people who might have seen her and following up leads. John tries to trick Dom by leaping up in crowds and yelling, and mentally listening for the break in the song. After a few hours, John finds Dom first - she was hiding in the tunnels between Flinders St Station and Degraves St, under Flinders St.
Christine comes looking for John during the day, and finds him with the rest of the pack at the caern. They are still unsure what to do with Patricia and she talks to the pack for a while; they could take her to Arcadia, they could try and wipe her brain, or they could bring her into the Kinfolk society. Eventually they hit on the idea of 'encouraging' her parents to move to the country, oh, somewhere around Warnabool for instance, and asking the Fianna to keep an eye on Patricia. Christine is happier with this solution than the others as is the pack.
That evening, the pack find Cossack at the caern and ask him if they can help with the mopping up - they're feeling ok now, and want to help out. Cossack gives them an evaluating look and agrees. He asks them to take Melissa out too, to help instruct her in Garou ways.
The pack gets handed a lot of buckets and some sponge talens, and off they go to Preston. The problem has been divided up into sectors and each sector is given to a pack to handle. Nadine Holloway is coordinating the cleanup, and she tells them that there have been some big clear patches, and vague signs that rats or something have been consuming the tainted, gloopy liquid. There's only a little surface stuff left, they'll just need to finish it off and then move underground - it has been seeping into drains and pipes. Brett mentions the wyrm taint in his pipes and Nadine says that she spoke to Graeme about it, and about all they can think of is to clean faster. She cheerily sends the pack and Melissa out just as the Steel Hunters come back in with a full load.
The pack spend a considerable amount of time sucking sludge up and getting rid of it. Melissa is overthrilled by the task at hand - "for this I skipped studying?". The continue for some hours before spotting one of the anomalies that Nadine mentioned. An area maybe 50 yards across is mostly clean of wyrmgloop. Investigating further leads to the discovery that the ground in the very middle of the clear patch is extremely tainted. Much use of the sponge talens and cleansing rituals occurs around this spot and the wyrm toxins disappear. The pack try to work out what exactly was attracting the wyrmness. The ground is extremely hard, despite being soaked through with wyrm goop. Someone changes to crinos and starts to dig away at the rocky ground. John notices that the wyrm stuff is starting to flow towards this spot again from outside the 50 yard boundary, and its flowing up hill. The digging proceeds faster. Eventually a humanoid figure is uncovered, about 6 foot tall and all blocky. Dom's best guess is that it is an earth elemental of some sort. It is a little tainted still, but not corrupted, so they opt to clean it off and awaken it. The spirit is quite thankful and volunteers that it has been there since before "the world went hard" so there is a bit of interest in its knowledge of the bunyip - sadly lacking unfortunately. The elemental mentions that he has a brother further down in the ground, and the pack work to dig it up and awaken it too. The elementals offer to help by erupting corrupted soil to the surface, making it much easier to clean.
The pack continue on their, somewhat more efficiently with the help of the elementals. As they travel, it becomes clear that the gloop has already done an considerable amount of damage - many spirits are tainted or straight out deformed. The pack stray into an area where busy weaver spiders seem to have uptaken the gloop into themselves to create more web, and it has gone badly. Weaver webbing, random and dripping a black oil is strewn in big piles or poor fencing indiscriminately around the place. The pack find a number of largish spiders too, all displaying different levels of taint. They opt to try and corner the spiders one by one and do for them after consulting with Nadine. The combats are short, sharp and fairly unpleasant, even for the Garou - Dominique ends up blind for a while, and Thomas impales himself on a spikey spider as the spirits demonstrate their new wyrm-corrupted abilities. They opt to leave the last two spiders for another pack, having taken and given a beating for a few hours.
After resting at home, the pack are back onto sludge duty. Melissa is not with them, because she has an exam the next day. They spend the night hunting around and cleaning, finding another couple of patches that seem to have been cleaned randomly.
John is wandering along an alley between two rows of houses when he spots something odd. A child's bike, left up against the tin wall of someone's yard. Just looking at it, he can tell that it is not ephemera, but a material bike. He calls Thomas and the others and they snuffle around, trying to detect weirdness. It doesn't seem to have been dedicated. Scents reveal a male and female scent, children probably. The scents are not in the Umbra, only on the bike. Stepping through to the Realm, the male scent is in the alley. It is followed and leads to what seems to be a normal house. Kids inside, watching tv. A girl's bike in the garage. Parents. The pack look around a little warily, using all of their senses to find out if any of them have any occult connection, but to no avail. They opt to leave the situation unchanged.
The rest of the night passes without too many incidents. Nadine tells everyone that about half a night's work is left on the surface, so some of the packs can move undergound and start cleaning the many tunnels under Preston. Whee, think Holistic Approach, as they are nominated. Everyone heads home for a shower. Brett is wandering down his driveway when Andrew, the kinfolk who owns the house he lives behind, comes out and asks him whether he could take a look at something. Brett follows the nervous Andrew inside and finds that the dishwasher has exploded, and there is a black-grey soap scum everywhere. Andrew says he put it on and went to bed, and when he got up, it was like this. Brett senses for wyrm taint and gets 2 awoogas. He tells Andrew that its one of 'those' things and he'll fix it. Andrew scuttles off to work while Brett starts sensing and calling the rest of the pack, who grudgingly get out of bed. Much investigation of pipes and sensing of wyrm reveals a bane lurking in the Umbral manifestation of the house. Water is cut and pipes are rended in the Umbra and Realm. Finally the little hairball and soap scum bane is caught and squished. The pack cleanse the house and the granny flat that Brett lives in and everything feels clean afterwards. The all go and collapse in bed.
Into the tunnels! What fun! Armed with buckets and yet more sponge talens, the pack move through the Umbral reflections of storm water drains, sewerage tunnels and suchlike. The Umbral instances of these areas are fairly large, cinematically so, whereas the material pipes and tunnels vary a lot. The black goop is slowly oozing through the tunnels and is faintly luminescent, providing enough light to see by for the Garou.
The pack have been squelching along in pairs for the night, always within a few steps of each other. Thomas bends down to clean up a particularily deep pool and the centre of it suddenly rears up and takes on the form of a small, greenish lizard, with the lower half still unformed and goopy. It tries to bite him and he backhands it, splashing it everywhere. A few more appear, and the pack dispose of them quickly. They relay this information back for the other packs, whose response is basically "whacko".
Sludge sludge. More of the little lizard things, and some of them are more well-developed, making it clear that they are very small versions of the Green Dragon, the spirit which created this mess in the first place.
The rest of the packs move underground as well, and a number of pre-cleared areas are found. The Garou are working in a regular pattern to make sure they don't miss any of the sludge, but these cleared areas are irregular, and not totally cleaned. Melissa joins Holistic Approach some more, having finished some more of her VCE exams.
"Sludge and a bucket, sludge and a bucket, they go together like sludge and a bucket." Despite that musical interlude, spirits are reasonably high amongst the garou, as they are making good time through the sludge. The two earth elementals are still helping Holistic Approach, pushing any tainted earth out through the walls of the tunnels.
Thomas and Dominique find another large cleared patch. They start to sniff around and see if they can determine what might be doing it, and Thomas faintly picks up a scent, masked mostly by the slime it is mixed with. John, Melissa and Brett catch up and they all move along, following the scent. It travels some distance, up 'waterfalls' where the tunnels have broken, and through patches of slime. Thomas and Dom are leading the way, and as they come around a corner, they are confronted with the sight of a man laying in the sludge, and making slurping noises. He looks up and the pack recognise him from one of Mathias' descriptions - he was one of the BSD's which attacked Mathias in the city.
oo, er, cliffhanger
Thomas leaps forward to attack and the Dancer rolls to one side and then disappears. Dom stamps where he was, just in case, and then her and Thomas leap through the Gauntlet. Brett howls out warnings, hoping that other packs will hear and come running, and the three of them hear howls in a couple of different directions, in both the Umbra and the Realm - and then different howls, eerie and mad. Some of those are closer, so they try and set up an ambush by lurking against the sides of the tunnel and using faerie lights to attract attention. Everything is going to plan - they can see a figure coming up the corridor to where all the conflict began - except that figure stops and suddenly hundreds of the little green lizard things form up from the gloop in the tunnels where they are. John makes an executive decision and all three plunge through the Gauntlet.
In the meantime, Thomas and Dominique appear in the Realm, in the much smaller tunnel and bolt off after the first Dancer. Thomas's gifts allow him to race off ahead of Dom, and in a matter of seconds, he has caught up with the Dancer, who is in hispo form and standing at the end of the smaller tunnel where it intersects with a larger one. Thomas tries snapping and snarling, and gets a flash of hot flame for his troubles. The Dancer starts to make a run for it, but Thomas hamstrings one leg and it stumbles into a larger tunnel. Dom catches up as Thomas leaps out after the Dancer and slams it into the far wall, just as it fades back into the Umbra. He curses a lot and asks John, who has just appeared from the Gauntlet, if he can go after it; John says yes.
John and Brett wait for a short while to see if the Dancer follows them into the Realm. Dom is standing at the junction when a large hispo form leaps from the tunnel near her and changes to crinos. John, Brett and Melissa start sprinting as fast as they can towards Dom. The Dancer attacking her is fast and Dom is surprised. John and Brett are still sprinting towards Dom when the Dancer punches its claws through her chest, glances off her heart and through her spine. Dom collapses downwards as her sight goes black. Red fire sparks and begins to fill the huge sucking chest wound and Dom's body opens its eyes, filled with more roaring red flame. As Brett leaps out of the tunnel and onto the Dancer, Dom rolls to her feet in one smooth move and starts tearing at her foe. John leaps out of the tunnel just behind Brett and after getting in a punch or two, the two of them simply try and dodge the screaming, roaring, snarling half-flame crinos form as it tears pieces off the now desperate Dancer. Every chance they get they are Mother's Touching Dominique, trying to bring her back from the zone. The Dancer dodges Dom and starts to run, flicking something out of a pouch as it does so. The thing it drops smashes on the ground and a gargoyle forms up out of the sound and broken bits of golden glass. Dom, still raging at this new enemy, dispatches it before it manages to even get it bearing. Brett summons up the last of his gnosis and empties it into the healing gift as Dom falls to the ground. Brett and John rip the healing talens and fetishes from Dom as she shifts back to homid and empty them of gnosis in a desperate attempt to bring her back. Melissa has been watching this all fairly wide-eyed - she has not seen any Garou (or anyone) killed before and is in a bit of shock.
Thomas winks into existence in the Umbra and looks about - the body of the Dancer he crushed is currently being carried by yet another Crinos. He attempts to leap at it, but the new Dancer looks at him contemptuously, and snarls "stay". Thomas is rooted in place, and can't move for nearly a minute. He finally shakes it off and asks John whether he should give chase. The rather mad John says "yes" and Thomas leaps after his enemy. Speed of Thought is your friend, and in short order, he can see the other crinos ahead of him. It drops the Dancer it was carrying and he and Thomas start trying to kill one another. The Dancer is faster, but Thomas has the fae armour, and the added protection starts to show itself as Thomas slowly gets the upper hand. The Dancer suddenly changes its point of aim and cuts the throat of the Crinos it was carrying, then steps out of the Umbra. The Get of Pennington find the rest of the pack and are quickly caught up. They leap off to follow Thomas, and he is greeted by them as he too steps sideways. There is no sign of the Dancer he was following, and it is guessed that the Dancer is taking longer to step. The Garou spread out in a circle, and when the Dancer appears, all leap to attack. However, the Black Spiral Dancer reacts first and pluges its claws into its own head and into its brain. The Garou try and heal the damage before the spirit can escape, but are too slow. The body slumps, dead. It suddenly flashes an oily black and leaps to its feet, apparently posessed by a spirit. The Garou fight the oily, featureless crinos shape, quickly dispersing it through sheer numbers.
All retreat back to the caern with care. Dominique is still unconscious, but is breathing. Emma and Ends-the-Quiet take her into the centre of the caern to do what they can. Cossack and Ian debrief the pack and try and learn what happened. Cossack commends them for their fighting ability, but recommends that they stick together a little more tightly - if Thomas and Dominique had both gone through, or both stayed, it might have ended better.
By early morning, Dom is awake again, but feeling poorly. She seems to have burned out the wolf within during the time when she was dead, and cannot change form, nor summon rage. Discussion ensues, and it is decided that once she has recovered enough to be comfortable moving, she will go to Rippling Waters and stay there for a time, watching over Patricia and getting they more fae-aware Fianna to help with her pregnancy. The rest of the pack is told to rest and recover.
The pack rests and recuperates from their encounters.
On Thursday Cossack finds John, Brett and Thomas and enquires after their health. They're ok, so Cossack asks the three Garou to take Melissa out again and return to the mopping duty in the tunnels. Off they all go and find Nadine, who is coordinating things in Preston. She tells them that there has been no further direct sign of Dancers, but there are still big blank patches around. There have also been some encounters with large green dragons in the tunnel, up to 6 feet. Some of them have shown some evidence of having bane charms, so the four of them are told to take care.
Off they go, sponging and bucketing around. The earth elementals return to their company, having also spent the last few days resting and helping out the other packs. A few hours pass and Brett spots something odd - a hole about a half a metre across leading downward from the tunnels. Goop is dribbling slowly down the hole, which seems to have been bored rather than part of the rest of the tunnel system.
The four Garou form a mop and bucket parade as Thomas moves down the hole in glabro form, mopping as he goes along, and passing the sponges back and up the hole. The pack and Melissa proceed down the curving tunnel, noting the way it winds back and forth, and around in a spiral. After a time, Thomas can hear a sort of slithering sound and an irregular splatting sound. They move even more cautiously, and after a few more metres, the tunnel opens up into a wider chamber of some sort. John sends faerie lights into the space to try and light it up. Thomas looks down from the top of the now faintly lit chamber and sees a mess of writhing green lizard bodies amidst a seething pool of black gloop. He relays this back along the line and the small tunnel suddenly seems a lot more crowded. Looking down, a larger lizard surfaces and swallows a small one whole. The pack decide to fall back and see advice, after blocking the flow of any more goop down the chamber entrance.
They run back to Nadine who listens for a while and then asks if the dragons can reach the shelf where the tunnel comes out. Thomas says no and Nadine hands him the umbral shotgun. They ask whether the sept would like to study the situation and Nadine sort of shrugs and indicates that she'd prefer to see it all cleaned up as soon as possible - they have enough samples around the place to study it in depth later. So back to the lip of the chamber goes Thomas and the rest of the pack. Thomas attunes to the fetish and starts firing into the pool. About an hour later, and totally deaf, the pack look down and find that all the movement has stopped. Thomas fires once or twice more into the muck for good luck and then they pull straws for who has to go down into the pool to start soaking it up.
Finishing the pool takes the early part of the evening before the four of them manage to return to the normal sludge slopping.
Just before dawn, Thomas notices a slight change in the muck ahead of him. Preparing for another lizard manifestation, he is somewhat surprised at the appearance of a long black worm, well camoflagued in the muck. Grabbing it causes it to disintergrate and fall to pieces, leaving Thomas with goop everywhere. Brett notes another worm moving along ahead of them, and then another. They call John and Melissa, and wait for them before deciding what to do. In the end, they opt to kill all but one of the worms and follow that one. It sludges along the corridor they are cleaning for about 20 metres, and then starts working its way into the wall. The elementals are called and asked to find out what was behind this part of the tunnel. They return after a while and report that there is about a 50 metre across opening, filled with the black crap. The pack ask the elementals to open a hole into the space, which they reluctantly agree to do. The earth is moved around and a crinos-sized tunnel is dug towards the big space, stopping a couple of metres away from the sludge. A smaller window is opened from that point into the space, above the level of the slime.
And lo, the garou gazed out into a big open space, full from one side to the other with the faintly luminescent wyrm toxin. In the middle of the pool, a huge column rises up out of the slime and twists its way to a whole in the ceiling. The whole column is gently throbbing in a rather unpleasant organic fashion. Attempts are made to try and work out what corresponds to this location upstairs and the first access point comes out in the local army depot, causing some sense of panic in the pack. They check back with Nadine again and she says that they should confirm that the army depot is above the pond. In fact, after some investigation, it becomes clear that the cavern is in fact underneath the Hilltop Nursing Home. Investigation reveals that the nursing home is made up of a few older houses with new buildings joining them together. It seems to be a facility devoted mostly to the care of old people, judging by the people asleep in various rooms. The pack try and find where the column might be coming up into the floor, and in one of the older houses, they find a set of stairs downwards into a basement. In the Umbral basement, there is a large grating with many many black worm-things rising up from the darkness, cascading across the floor and into the walls. From this close, it is clear that they are pumping upwards and into the walls. The pack opt to search around before acting against this manifestation of the wyrm.
John is convinced that the entire structure is corrupted by the wyrm, and is muttering to himself about fickle dice. Looking around some more, the pack notice some points where the wyrm things are coming out of the walls - into the pantry and some of the kitchens, and into the central pharmaceutical cabinet. Where the 'heads' stick out of the walls in the Umbra, they are slowly dripping the black slime the sept has been cleaning up for the last few weeks. There does not seem to be much buildup of the slime, and it's unclear where it might be going. There is no evidence of any material manifestation. They look around for a bit longer and then decide to cut the worms off at the source. Down to the basement again, as the various inhabitants of the hospice start to wake up for a bright new Saturday.
Brett takes to the worms with the fae sword and it quickly cuts them off. More start to form up out of the grating and he continues to cut them up as they appear. The existing worms start to visibly deflate without the pumping provided from below. John is at the top of the stairs and peeking while Melissa guards him in the Umbra. A bare minute or two after they have engaged in their surgery, a nurse comes walking through the kitchen rapid and unlocks the basement door. She trots down the stairs and people sense wyrm for many awoogas. The pack are going to leap out and smack her when her eyes go a bit strange and she looks around a bit oddly. The pack realise that she is in fact looking at the various people in the Umbra carefully as well as the drain. She starts back up the stairs and the pack follow, looking for somewhere they can step out unnoticed and deal with this wyrmling. She strolls to the main medicine cabinet and chats with the duty nurse before opening the cabinet and resting her head on a shelf briefly. In the umbra, all the worms start puking the black slime out at a great rate, but it does not pool or run away - it seems to just vanish. The pack surmise that she is tainting all the medicines, a point of view that is backed up by the use of gifts. The nurse is grinning at open air as she starts her rounds.
As the nurse goes to visit Mrs Jenkins, she seems keen on leaving the door open and commenting loudly that there are a lot of people about for this time of the morning. Mrs Jenkins gets her rather strongly wyrm tainted medication and the pack decide they can't allow all the humans here to be poisoned. They move to the bathroom that sits alongside Mrs Jenkins' room and step sideways. When John, Thomas and Brett appear (sans Melissa), they see the nurse go into the next room along, leaving the door open. The three of them slip out of the bathroom and into the room behind her. She spins and grins at their approach as John slams the door shut. Thomas punches her in the face and she rocks backwards a littl without loosing her smile. John slips around all this combat and starts turning the mattress over, so this room's patient can't see what's going on. He tips the poor guy mostly over, as the human starts to shout and then flips the whole mattress up as he changes to Crinos. In the meantime, the nurse is keeping Thomas and Brett busy and chatting as she dodges them. She asks "Where are they?" and gets no response. She then says "I can smell them on you - where's Dominique?". John hits her from behind with claws, but the ribcage just doesn't give. Brett quickly checks with Dom who is just awake, but has no idea who this is. "And Mathias? Where is he?" Brett says "Safe" and then hits her with the sword in the abdomen. The wound closes over almost as he inflicts it and the nurse suddenly pukes black, burning goop all over Thomas. Brett and Thomas finally get their shit together, and as the poor human patient yells for help, Thomas punches her in the stomach, and Brett decapitates her with the sword. Blood spurts all over the room and over the two Garou. For a few moments, all the sound is quiet, and then the human starts yelling again. Brett grabs a few pillows and blocks the door so none of the quickly spreading pool of blood leaks out the door, and the three of them have a quick psychic discussion about what to do. John is about to just step out of the room when Brett reminds him about Melissa, who is presumably still coming through the gauntlet.
Thomas grabs a pill bottle and hurls it out a window and goes out with it, heading out to the street surreptiously, and then to a phone box to ring the Sept and let them know what is going on at the nursing home. Meanwhile, John gently suffocates the poor human to unconsciousness and then shifts back to homid form and steals his clothes. Brett starts mopping up the blood and notices a really rank smell. The nurses' body is starting to deliquiesce, and smells really badly. He uses the blankets and sheets in the room to mop up the black liquid seeping out of the body and the fairly impressive amount of blood on himself and the walls. John slips out the door and mimics what he thinks the poor guy they've assaulted would act like when going to the toilet. He steps out into the corridor and finds a nurse right behind him. She falls for his deception, but glances into the room he has come out of, spotting Brett and a redish taint to the room. Brett wedges the door and the nurse rattles the handle a little before heading off (presumably to get an orderly or something). Brett waits nervously inside the room, and John nervously inside the bathroom. Melissa appears from the Umbra, and John grabs her, and steps (as Mr Darebin's clothes all fall in a heap on the ground), and Brett does the same in the room.
John and Melissa appear and Thomas says they were about 30 seconds. Brett is not responding to the pack link and John starts to say something when a foot long claw of some sort impales itself through the bathroom wall. Melissa and John head for the window as this claw cuts the wall to pieces. They start running off towards Thomas as one claw and then another come through the same window they escaped through in homid form. As they reach the far gate, a bloated, veined and pus filled sack is pulled through the small window and starts moving towards them. Once it is fully clear of the window, John and Melissa can see that it is about 15 foot high, 20 foot long and apparently just a huge bloated sack milky-green sack, covered in veins and blisters, and with multiple insect like legs attached to it. John describes it over the pack link and Dominique starts to gibber something about David Struthers and not to touch it if they can avoid it. It leaps towards John and Melissa, who, not having learnt caution, or been able to hear Dom's mental voice, lashes out at the bane. For her troubles, she is sprayed in a caustic muck, which causes her to fall down in pain. John runs back to help her and dodges the long sharp claws on the legs, as Thomas leaps back through the gauntlet and runs to the hospital, still clutching the Umbral shotgun. Melissa and John are trying to dodge the stabbing legs as Thomas runs through the gate and empties the shotgun into the bane. This gets its attention and it starts heading for him. He shoots it again as Melissa leaps up and rakes it with both claws as it runs past. A greasy black liquid cascades out of the wounds and Melissa falls to the ground screaming and rolling around, totally covered in the liquid. John rushes to her side and drags her back towards the buildings as the bane chases Thomas, who sensibly fires once more and runs for it.
Thomas howls as he runs along, stopping occasionally to shoot the bane thing. John uses Mother's Touch to heal Melissa and tries to scrape the black goop off her. Thomas hears howls a way ahead, and picks up speed. He looks back and the bane is gone, then looks forward to see its putrescent form ahead of him somehow. He opts to use his momentum and leaps gracefully over the creature, scoring big gouges in its upper as he flies past. Thomas runs on towards the howls, but the bane turns and flees back the other direction. Thomas meets up with the Scryers and describes what happened. Moonflower goes pale and agrees with Dominique that it sounds much like the Struthers situation 18 months ago. They run back to the hospital and find John and Melissa. Melissa is taken out of the area by Chases-the-Car and John, and Chases-the-Car remains with her. The two packs follow a trail of destruction through the Umbral reflection of the hospital and find the the grill is missing, leading downwards. Nothing can be seen below - a black cloud seems to fill the space below the grill. Moonflower and Aquinas remain here with handguns while everyone else heads downwards. The Daughters of Mnemosyne show up as everyone starts to troop back down into the sewers. The elementals are asked to make a window again and the big cavern is revealed, complete with black cloud above it. No sign of the bane. The remaining bits of wall are removed, and the black gloop gushes out and past the assembled Garou. The bane rears up out of the draining cavern and heads for the opening through which its sea is being drained. The Garou get ready to face it, and it suddenly disappears, reappearing out in the corridor. The assemled sets of three packs fall on it in a flying gobbity sort of way, tearing chunks out of it (and suffering the effects of the pus) before it suddenly disappears again. Searching reveals no evidence of the bane, and after an hour the feeling is that it used a reform charm to escape, and is probably in Slumber for some time.
Holistic Approach and Melissa head back to the caern. Given their ability to fall into trouble they are told to guard the caern for the next week while others finish the cleaning operations.
Guard duty at the Sept while the remainder of the gloop is cleaned away.
Melissa spends the week with the pack, recovering after her near death experiences in the last week or so, and revelling a little in her freefom. By Saturday, its become clear to the pack that Melissa has taken on some sort of infatuation with Thomas. Maybe its the fact he's a rather buff and attractive 22 year old. Maybe its the hint of danger around him. Maybe its the mystery. Maybe its the fact he saved her life, but whatever the reason, Melissa is being subtle in the way that only a 17 year old can - poking fun at him and trying to tickle him, brushing against him, always seeming to be sitting next to him at Carmel's. Thomas waffles a lot and tries to ignore her.
John too has his woman{John} troubles. Brett kind of does, but of a different nature. Kirsty, his mentor, has hit on another tangent and is now avidly against global warming. She harrangues everyone about not driving if they can avoid it and minimising green house gas output. Brett spends a lot of time learning summoning rituals. Dominique heads off to Rippling Water by Moonbridge, and there are a few fairly extended goodbyes.
On Saturday, the pack are lurking about at the caern when a Moonbridge opens. Ends-the-Quiet greets the strange Garou who arrives and then signals to the pack to attend him. They do, and the stranger is introduced as Michelle Leaps-Beyond-the-Reach-of-the-Wyrm, Seneschal to King Darius of the Silver Fangs. She says that she would appreciate if they could come with her and discuss a fairly urgent matter at the Crackenback Sept. Despite calls of "its a trap!", the three of them agree and a Moonbridge is opened to Crackenback. Stepping out into the fairly calm day, Michelle leads them down towards some small log cabins. On the far side of them is a blond haired man in a suit, and a very, very feral looking homid or small glabro. The pack are introduced. The suit is Lord Darius, Rank 5 ahroun of the Silver Fangs and the man with the hormone problem is Darren Michaels, or Ghost, a rank 1 ragabash metis of the Silver Fangs. Darius invites the pack to sit while he explains why he has asked them here.
At the last waxing philodox moon, the Jindabyne Council met and discussed the problem of Mathias Rourke and Dominique Lalor and the Bunyip. The discussion was held in the light of the discovery of Nlaloonjurrie, the interaction with the Uktena and the dumping of Mathias in Erebus, although at the time, the Council was not aware of Dominique's condition. The eventual decision reached was to appoint an observer to the pack of the Council's choosing. Based on the general tone of the last meet, the observer was most likely to be someone ooposed to further investigation of the Bunyip. Darius would like to suggest to the pack that they accept Darren into their pack at his recommendation, as an observer. Darius believes that Darren has many skills that will be of use to the pack, and to the Sept. In addition, they could legitimately refuse a Council observer on the grounds that they already had one within their pack. There is a brief telepathic conference and then John asks if they could be left alone with Darren for a time. Darius agrees and says that he will return in an hour.
John, Thomas and Brett chat with Darren for a while about his reasons for joining the pack, how much he knows about their history and if he knows what has happened to Dominique recently (let alone all the other pack members who have died). Darren explains that his Metis deformity means that his homid and lupus forms still strongly show the nature of the Garou and he is unable to pass in mortal society as such. His previous pack recently broke up, having completed their aims, and he is truly interested in the progress of this pack. Another brief conference, and the pack agree to accept Darren, as long as it is ok with Cossack.
Whoosh, back to the Sept. The pack chat with Cossack, who checks to make sure they are not being pressured into this, and also mentions that they might want to check that Kanau agrees to this - something they had forgotten. Kanau is summoned and after a brief mental chat with Darren regarding his past record of ends justifies the means, seems happy enough with his addition to the pack. Cossack agrees to perform the Rite of the Totem tomorrow. Both Brett and Darren make it clear that they intend to challenge for Rank 2 during this Moot.
Brett and Thomas show Darren around to all the other Elders as John looks at his watch and goes to betray them all to an outer darkness. (No, not really {John only}).
Watch out for the Moot! Yes, its that time of the month again. The Sept assembles and the Moot begins. The spirits of the Sept are summoned and greeted and a Rite of Totem is performed to accept Darren into Holistic Approach. There is a brief burst of static and then Darren's voice in their heads and vice versa. The Sept makes a fairly raucus noise, which is fairly confusing to the Silver Fang, used to the solemn processions and rituals of the Silver Fangs. Melissa is called forward and the Rite of Wounding is performed, and she is praised for her bravery at the Nursing Home. She blushes a lot. The Moot continues, and Brett challenges for Rank 2. Ian says that the job of a philodox is to be the balance between all things, and Brett has been concentrating too much on the material world. If he completes his study of the Rite of Summoning and gains a basic understanding of the denizens of the Umbra, the Sept will recognise him as adren. Darren also challenges the Elders to recognise him as rank 2, after telling them fairly succinctly of his previous pack. Nadine hands him a padded stave and indicates the log suspended 10 feet above the ground. A large wading pool is dragged underneath the log, and Graeme and Ian fill it with custard as the slightly culture shocked Darren looks on. The terms of the challenge are explained - gifts may be used, but not to directly attack the other. Nadine leaps up onto the log gracefully, and stands in combat readiness. Darren gets up to the top of the log and the two of them face off. The battle is fairly even and in short order, both of them fall off simultaneously and into the custard. Nadine indicates that they should get back on the log. Now it becomes interesting, both because both combatants are covered in custard, making it slippery and because 75% of the rest of the Sept are chanting "custard, custard". Nadine uses a gift to cause the log to wobble around a lot, but Darren keeps his feet. More blows are exchanged, and Nadine's finer sense of balance takes its toll. Darren is dropped on his back in the custard. Nadine crouches down and watches as other Garou all run in, and tip the pool up, Darren out, and custard all over Darren while cheering wildly. Darren nearly loses his rag, but fights and attains control. Nadine jumps down and waits for the noise to dim. She says that the Sept recognise Darren as rank 2, as he has demonstrated his grasp of the need for restraint - a necessary characteristic in a city Sept. Darren nods and agrees with the wisdom of the challenge. He is rained in custard again in celebration.
The Moot settles down a bit, and Cossack brings up the main issue facing the Sept - Black Spiral Dancers. He covers the events of the last few months, and basically says that it is the considered opinion of both city sept's elders that there is definately a Hive in or near Melbourne. He then asks for suggestions in how to find and destroy it. Suggestions are made and most of them are incomplete of themselves. It is as hard to detect the Dancers as they hope it is to find the caern. Brett suggests asking for help for other sources, and mentions Sullivan Dane. Emma says that he first appeared and they did a background check, he seemed totally normal. Brett counters with the results of his Sense Unnatural at the beach, and thinks that it should be at least investigated. Cossack agrees, although he suggests that Holistic Approach should approach (haha) the possibility with caution. John wants to create a faux caern, or to make some impression that there may be one in a false location, but the general feeling is that it isn't too practical - problems with either requiring too much spiritual energy, or being too far away to be noticed are the main issues. John is encouraged to think about it though. Other options are mooted, but none of them are particular insightful. The Get of Pennington will keep an eye out for the Dancers who were moving through the streets, Christine volunteers herself and the Daughters to work with Hidden Green to help look for monetary weirdness. Christine also mentions to Holistic Approach that she is administering some of Mathias' holdings in the mortal world and that they should talk to her if necessary.
The Revel is led by Nadine and is fairly fierce as the Sept's frustrations are worked out on random passersby. Brett is on his way home through the light rain when he hears a faint whimper in some bushes. A very badly hurt dog looks up and licks at his hand when he comes close - it has been bleeding badly, and has at least a broken leg if not other injuries. Brett calls on Mother's Touch and the wounds all quickly heal. The dog is fairly impressed and barks happily before licking Brett's face all over. He mentally calls for some help and Darren heads that way through the Umbra. Brett finds somewhere quiet and changes to lupus form and follows the scent along. The dog was badly hurt, but seems to have come some distance. The scent leads back to a corner of an empty lot, where there is a slight wyrm taint. Darren investigates in the Umbra, and finds nothing - the dog scent is in the Umbra, as is the wyrm sense. They decide to get some sleep for the night. Brett takes Fido back to his place, and Darren goes back to the caern.
Darren thanks the rest of the pack for warning him about the Malfeas dream after waking up in a cold sweat, and they act suitably sheepish. Brett checks Fido out some more and finds a phone number on his collar. They give Moonflower a ring and get her to use her reverse phone book on the number. It turns out to be a house in Pascoe Vale, some distance from where the dog was dumped. All head out there.
The house looks fairly mundane, even in the Umbra, where it appears to be about 30 years older than its material reflection. Peeking and sniffing reveals a house occupied by a couple and their nine or ten year old son (Stanley and Caroline Botham, and their son Owen). It looks like a nice enough place, and unoccupied. People step through and steal pre-worn clothing. Fido is presented with each item and wags his tail harder and harder each time. Brett concludes it was probably not any of the family that kicked the hell out of him. Brett changes to lupus again and leads Fido into his backyard. Fido runs around a bit and is generally happy to be there. He barks for a while, which leads to a next door neighbour sticking his head above the fence and lobbing a rock in Fido's direction. Fido cringes and hides. "aha", think the pack and move into the next house.
The potential perp is peeked upon. He is a 17 or so year old, who appears to live at home with his mother. Peeking and finding letters and such indicates that she is probably Margaret Bence and he seems to be Martin Bence. The two have a brief squabble as he goes back inside and into his room to watch a video with some food ("you treat this place like a hotel"). Martin has a not insignificant wyrm taint upon him (taint, not corruption), and doesn't seem to be the school-attending type. He bludges the afternoon away until tea, when he badgers his mother to go to McDonalds. Darren and Brett follow, Thomas and John turn his room upside down. Martin owns a computer, and searching it quickly reveals a lot of fairly unpleasant photos from alt.tasteless and similar sources, mostly of animals being hurt. Under his bed is a stack of porn of varying quality and a whole lot of unlabeled videos. They find some payslips from Coles. Nothing in his room is particularily wyrm tainted. They step back into the Umbra.
More observing of Martin as he returns. Brett looks out in the backyard and finds that there are weird stains on a concrete slab in the yard, like blood, but old. Margaret goes to bed, and Martin starts getting ready for work. "aha" think the pack again, and plan to kick the crap out of him as he walks to work (assuming that he, being 17, can't drive). At 10.30 or so, there is a horn outside, and Martin goes outside to meet Tony (who is not particularily wyrm tainted). Tony drives them both to Coles, where they do night fill for many hours. Nothing there is more tainted than Martin, so they rule that out as the immediate source of the corruption. Brett and Thomas amuse themselves by undoing the work that Martin does and getting him in trouble with his supervisor. Eventually the night ends, and the Garou follow Martin and the yawning Tony back home. Martin bids goodnight to Tony and goes inside. Someone sticks their head over the fence to check Fido and finds that he is hurt again. Damn, think the pack and check the place out. Fido looks like he has been kicked and maybe broken a rib. All of them are in the Umbra as the night becomes day. Those who are peeking can see that Owen's window, which backs onto the yard, is open, and his room is empty. A quick mental check is done of the fae-stolen children and Owen's name is not on that list. Darren sniffs from the Umbra and finds that Owen's scent goes from the bed to the window, fading out as it does, much like Frrr's did at the colleges. That mental list is checked again. Someone is looking into the Realm outside and sees something very weird which they start to describe - it is Owen, floating out of the sky, but all shrivelled and corpse-like, with pointy teeth. Brett, John and Darren make "gaaa" noises as Thomas suddenly Frenzies and leaps through the Gauntlet.
Thomas leaps ineffectually at the sky, and then up onto (through) a roof nearby for height. The shrivelled Owen reacts by starting to float up and away, but Thomas leaps off the roof (smashing more tiles) and slices him on the way past, and drags him down a bit. Thomas looks around for something to throw in his frenzy, and tries to uproot a hills hoist. The rest of the pack leap through the gauntlet. John and Brett arrive pretty much straight away, and are about to act when they see Thomas leap a phenomonal 40 feet up out of a nearby yard and descend like Heaven's fury onto Owen, bearing him to the ground. They run over as Thomas starts roaring and howling in victory, and pulling chunks out of Owen, who hisses and snaps at Thomas with his pointy teeth. Brett grabs a shovel and swings wildly at the bits of Owen he can see... unfortunately smacking Thomas in the head with the flat of the shovel. Thomas doesn't even budge. John is looking in windows, hoping no one wakes up, wondering whether to try a cold hosing down to break the Frenzy. Thomas ploughs his hand into Owen's face, and rips it off, hurling it into the sky. Owen stops moving and Thomas scatters the rest of his enemy in crinos-hand-sized chunks, howling and roaring. Eventually he stops and gets control of himself. Looking around, he sees John and Brett rhetorically tapping their feet and saying "Well? Now what?". The only coherent bits of Owen that are visible are his feet and knees, because Thomas was sitting on them. He picks them up and flings one in each direction. Darren appears and is grabbed and told to step again. Thomas is shoved into the Umbra and Brett and John do a quick look-around before deciding that discretion is the better part of not totally wrecking the Veil and leave.
The surrounding humans have woken up and are now looking around in horror with much screaming and similar loud reactions. Its only a short while before the police show up. John decides to cut their losses and heads back to the caern. They are met part the way by Keziah and Jacynta, who were sent by Ian, wanting to know what the hell the noise was. The two fems take in the gobbet-sprayed pack and decide that they don't really need to know that well. They escort the pack back to the caern, where they meet Ian. They explain in brief to the increasingly disbelieving expression on Ian's face. He nods at John's decision to leave, and tells them to clean up and rest, then to come back to the caern later. They decide this is a good plan.
Brett and John go home and crash. Darren stays at the caern. Thomas sits up and watches tv in a fairly unseeing way. He notices that the 9am news has the 'incident' in depth. As does the 11am special. And the 12 o'clock update. And the 3pm update. And most of the ads for tonight's current affairs shows include the phrase "The special no parent should miss." The police are being guarded due to the horrific nature of the event and are following leads. Currently they suspect a chainsaw or similar device may have been used in the attack (would explain the noise and the chewed up edges of flesh). No details are being released at this time. No comment on whether this is related to the other missing children over the last two months.
About 4pm, the pack get together. Thomas tries to explain exactly why he felt the urge to kill, kill and kill again...
Thomas and his friends are staying in a small campsite outside a couple of kilometers outside a small town in outback Queensland. He is taking a bucket to the nearby creek when he hears the sound of young children crying. He moves that way, more silent than shadow, and spies two young children sitting on a bench near some playground equipment. He decides to find out what is happening.
He makes a lot of noise and tramples his way onto the path, to make sure the kids see him. They are looking his direction as he moves over and introduces himself. There is a young boy of about 10 who was crying, and a young girl of about 12, who is sporting a rather impressive bruise on the side of her head. The young girl says her name is Rachel, and her brother is Michael. When asked what the hell they are doing 5kms from anywhere, Michael says that they ran away from home because their dad hurts them, and Rachel tries to shush him. Thomas asks if they would like something to eat. Rachel agrees and they go back to the campsite.
The rest of the ferals give Tom a dark look when he turns up with two strays, but set out to make the kids comfortable. Many faces go dark when they see the bruises. Brett (the feral's leader of sorts) talks to Thomas about what he is intending to do. In the end it is suggested that they take the kids to the cops tomorrow. Rachel, who has been eavesdropping, tells Thomas that the only cop in town, Joe, is her dad's friend, and last time they just got in more trouble for telling people. The children drop off to sleep, and the ferals discuss what to do. No outcome is agreed on, and Tom decides to slip away for a little spying.
A couple of hours walk later, and he comes to a small weatherboard house. All the windows are open, and he can hear the sound of a television. He peeks around until he finds an open window or two - yep, looks like a 12 year old girl's bedroom. He can see inside, where a large slob in his shorts and singlet is sitting and watching tv - there are a couple of beer cans around, and he seems to be asleep - there's no sign that he's noticed the kids are gone.
Thomas creeps around to the next window, but stops when his feet sink into the ground - odd, in the hot, dusty summer. He looks around carefully and finds that some of this ground has been recently turned over. He scrapes back the soil, and finds a recently deceased child, buried a couple of inches below the ground. He scouts around and finds a few more. Gak, thinketh Tom, and he heads back to the ferals. He finds Brett and explains what he found, and they both agree that its time to call the cops. First thing in the morning.
Tom heads off at first light, straight back to Rachel's place. He is lurking nearby when he hears Rachel's dad come out of the house, yelling the kids' names. He goes back inside, making dire threats. Tom makes a break for the house and leaps into Rachel's room in glabro form. He can hear the guy talking on the phone to a 'Joe' (presumably the police). Tom starts to formulate a plan. He picks up a drinking glass, and once the guy is off the phone, knocks it around in Rachel's room. Her father responds fairly normally, obviously thinking she was hiding, or something. He is somewhat surprised when a 200kg, 7' tall guy grabs his arm and throws him back into his house, and then more surprised when said guy slaps him in the head, knocking him out. Not as surprised as Tom, perhaps, but there you go. Tom continues to improvise.
Expecting the police at any time, he ties the unconscious guy into a chair. He then rushes out to the garden and uncovers the freshest corpse and lays it on the guys lap. Mmm, smell that juicy goodness. Tom then proceeds to bring the guy around. Rachel's dad appears to express some surprise at the rotting corpse on his lap, and initially seems to think it was Michael. He does, in fact, express considerable surprise at its presence, and is adamant in his statements that he has nothing to do with it. Tom is starting to get a bad feeling. He smacks the guys in the head again and runs off, back to his hiding place. Twenty minutes later a police divvy van pulls up, and a policeman (presumably Joe) saunters out, and into the house. Five seconds later, Joe sprints out the door of the house and to the car, grabbing what is probably a radio. Tom seems to feel that it is time he should leave.
He returns to the campsite, to find... noone. Its a very Marie Celeste situation - the fire is still burning, food sitting open, etc. Tom changes to lupus and sniffs around. It becomes readily apparent that everyone has gone up a walking track. He runs after. The track winds around for a while, but starts heading up to a lookout of sorts, a flat rock platform. Tom can smell blood, and he starts to sprint. As the path reaches the top of the platform, there is a thin trickle of dark liquid running down it. It is blood. Tom sprints out onto the platform... the remains of his friends lie everywhere. None of them are moving. They have all been scratched and bitten, or thrown from the platform. Blood pools in crevices and runs down in a constant stream from almost everyside. Tom is in Crinos and howling utter despair.
There is a laugh from behind him. Floating a good 8 feet above the platform is Michael, although quite dessicated, and with rows of nasty sharp teeth. "Hello Mr Wolfman", sayeth he, before diving at Tom and trying (fairly sucessfully) to bite and scratch him. When Michael bites, Tom feels his gnosis drain away. He manages to grab Michael by the upper leg and smash his head agains the rocks. This doesn't seem to slow Michael down much, so Tom continues to beat his head against the rock until Michael's skull cracks, and he suddenly stops moving.
Tom is left starting at the carnage. From beyond the edge of the rock platform drifts up Rachel, also dessciated. She is smiling. Tom leaps and tries to grab her as she floats towards him, but he misses, landing just at the edge of the rock... and then Rachel hits him in the back. Tom falls over the edge and manages to twist, catching one hand on the rock, spins... and plows all 500kg of his weight onto the nasty, sharp, pointy volcanic rock just below the edge. He slips...
Thomas finishes up and tells them that he was found by a search and rescue squad and treated for shock and near drowning. He never found out what had happened to the girl, Rachel.
The pack meet with Cossack who sighs a lot at the story and fairly brusquely tells Thomas to maintain a better control of himself before leaving. After watching the various news reports on television, they follow up a couple of leads. First they pack heads to Owen's house, which is deserted. The roof above Owen's room is fucked - having a 500kg crinos leap onto tiles doesn't do much for their structural integrity. Owen's room is fairly normal - lego, sporting equipment, kid stuff. The only supernatural glimmer is from the window ledge, a sense of wyrm which is fading slowly. Brett notes down the details about the sporting teams on the theory that all coaches are bastards. Looking about the back yard reveals that the police have done a fairly good job of cleaning up. Hey, what's that white stuff? Oh. Its plaster of paris. All over a spot that looks suspiciously like where Thomas came plunging out of the sky. And left footprints. John sighs and sets the hose up to slowly flood the back yard, and hopefully eliminate such forensic evidence.
The pack then head to Pascoe Vale Primary school and scour it for clues. There is a notice saying that the school will be closed Tuesday (today) and Wednesday in mourning for Owen Botham. They cannot find any taint or strange emanations, so give it up as a bad idea. Its off now to Brunswick CIB to find any evidence that needs to be consumed, er destroyed. At Brunswick, it quickly becomes clear that none of the evidence is here - its all been moved to Russell St.
So, to Russell St police station we go. After peeking and hunting around, the pack manage to find a conference room and some offices that seem completely devoted to one particular situation. And looking around, my what a situation it is. According to the information in a big board at the end of one of the rooms, no less than 38 kids have gone missing in the last 7 or 8 weeks. 39 now, including Owen, although that information seems to be only loosely being affiliated with the case. The big board has a huge map (150K) on it, with lines drawn from 8 locations to collections of photos. Each of the photos is of a child, some young, some teenage, each with a date and a name. The dates seem to be chronological for each area, and the first dates in each area are also chronological - in other words, the disappearances started in one location, then started in another, without stopping at the first place, and so on. There are also 5 photos down the bottom without lines - one of those photos is Patricia. Another name that is recognised is Misha Kovalev - one of the children it was thought taken by the fae.
There is a certain amount of paperwork attached to the walls and on surrounding tables as well. Examining that reveals that many of the children were last seen with another child, although there are a number of exceptions. In almost every case, that child has not been identified - the two exceptions are noted, although in one case, the child who was the last seen also went missing a few days later. There are four detectives working on the case, and their names are noted too. The pack decide to see if they can find the remaining child who was seen with a disappeared child, this apparently being their sole remaining lead. They call via the evidence lockers on the way past. No sign of Thomas' footprint cast. On a hunch, they call by Sullivan Dane's office. Its fairly plain and unadorned. Its also packed and not very big. There are no supernatural powers at work, at least as far as the pack can tell.
Out to Glen Waverley. They go straight to the address of the child (taken from the paperwork) and look from the Umbra. Their bed is empty, and they are nowhere to be seen. The pack think aha, and settle down to keep guard.
Shortly after midnight, Darren snaps out of his funk and asks why they are not using Questing Stone to find some of the children that are missing. They opt to go to the last child that was missing, Lisa Tan. Using Questing Stone, and only blowing up one stone, the pack find her. She's underground and very dead. Lisa has been buried in a playground, under some tanbark, and is covered in little bites. Having dug her up via a handy lupus, they opt to make an anonymous tip off to the police. Two uniformed police rock up a bit later, search around and then call in fairly frantically. In the space of an hour, police have cordoned off the area, and dug Lisa up. There is a certain amount of backpatting, and off they go to see who else they can see. Chris Tan (no relation) is the next missing child, and Questing Stone leads to a house in a nearby street, and finally to a rosebed. Digging reveals a hand. Sniffing reveals no particular smells. They opt to leave the hand exposed, but can't try their "I was walking my dog..." anonymous trick in someone's backyard.
The pack go back to Glen Waverley and find that Jeff Watts has landed. He is sound asleep in his room, and not smelling of wyrm or anything unusual. Many suspicious looks are cast the GMs way.
During the day, the pack keep an ear out on the news. The police are not being very communicative, much to the obvious irritation of the journalists, but some information has come out - they have found one of the bodies, that of a young girl. Prelimary forensic results are unclear. Really, really unclear. The pack head out to a park near the school in Bentleigh where the kids have been disappearing from. 6 kids return 4 positive questing stones, all near the school. The (wildly varying) directions are noted down on a map.
That evening, the pack head out to Glen Waverley, and stalk Jeff Watts some more. He seems to lead a normal life. School, home, tea, homework, shrivelling up and starting to fly... Thomas and Brett have spent the time waiting for Jeff to metamorphose lying in wait in strategic locations. As John tells them that he is flying off they start chasing him in lupus form, around cars, down streets and along. However, Jeff seems to be a bit cautious, and is trying to be unnoticed - not that he's seen the Garou, but perhaps the exploding Owen has made the zombie-children a bit nervous. After only about 10 minutes, they have lost him, last seen flying northwest. Much cursing. Instead, the pack choose to body chase around Richmond. So out they head and as John does Questing stones, Brett and Thomas chase them up, overcoming numerous obstacles to remain in lupus form. The bodies are starting to all seem to be buried at their individual parent's houses, except when that isn't possible, and then they are buried in nearby parks. The all have been chewed or bitten and are generally mangled, and then have been buried under leaf drifts, or tan-bark or compost heaps. They leave some of them unearthed in totally nonsuspicious and sudden ways.
John is in the Realm when his phone rings. Graeme is on the other end and says that he and Cossack would like to speak to them. Voosh, off to the caern. They let the two Elders know what they are doing, and Cossack goes a little pale. He points out that the forensic evidence is not in any way normal, and that it is less than preferred for the police to get their hands on 30 fomori-slain bodies, drained of blood but otherwise not badly hurt. Other than that, they approve of their approach. Graeme suggests that retrieving all the bodies and bringing them to the Sept to be disposed of is probably a good option. The pack collect shovels and garbage bags, and back to Richmond they go.
A couple of bodies are scooped up and quietly put into the car they have borrowed for the purpose. They are cautiously beginning to dig up a body in a park in Richmod when Darren catches a sound or motion from a nearby playground set. He creeps closer and closer, catching the odd strange smell, and pulling his hood up. He is peering at the slides when a huge light goes off and blinds him. The others drop their shovels and run towards the confusion. In a fairly suspiciously short time for just normal people who can't spend rage, the pack are chasing someone who has slipped out of a tunnel amongst the slides and climbing things. The someone is carrying some sort of stick, like a white cane or something. Thomas bodyslams them to the ground and pins them as a camera goes flying from their hand. John seems all set to try and strangle them, or at least smother them, but Brett grabs his jumper and wraps it around their head instead. Brett pulls their wallet out of a pocket, and goes through it. Video card, bank card, license, aha, her name is Gabrielle Thomas. That's a familiar name to some of the pack. Brett keeps looking and finds a press card. Ah, says John, that's right, she wrote that article on Mathias - oh. Darren, still part blind, suggests disposing of her, but the others object to random murder. Thomas grabs her camera and takes the film. Brett suggests taking the batteries too and piffing them, which Thomas does.
So, Brett strikes up a conversation while Darren digs the kid out and into some garbage bags. Mind you, this is after 2 minutes of total silence as she is held face down in the cold cold earth. John picks up her stick and finds that it is a probe with a thermometer on the end. Just the thing for finding decomposing bodies. Brett asks her what she is doing here, and she says she could ask the same of him. This sets the tone for the whole conversation. Despite her precarious position, Gabrielle seems keen to try and bargain. She lets Brett know that she has access to certain contacts in the police, in return for not publishing anything until they say its ok. Brett implies that they are a group who are not happy with the police's record at finding these children. Gabrielle seems to equate this to a vigilante group, and takes a stab in the dark, states that they are the same group that that Rourke fellow was with. There is a telling pause, and Brett tries to disemble. Brett lets her know that there is something unpleasant happening, with a group of people responsible for the disappearances and that they have unsavoury aims. Gabrielle asks if he means a cult and Brett says that they are not in a position to throw the word cult around in any public way. Frankly, it sounds like he's claiming to be the Inquisition. They backandforth a bit more, and work out some deal where they will give Gabrielle information to help her story if she doesn't reveal their presence. She wants a contact point and Brett says that they have her mobile number. A cunning plan is enacted which gives the pack time enough to scamper before Gabrielle gets clear of the bindings she is in, leaving her stamping her foot and then leaping protectively towards her camera and cursing a lot when she tries to load more film.
After watching Gabrielle call her police friend (Justin, presumably the one who is assigned to the case) and their efforts to sift through a hole looking for a body that is gone for a bit, and then following her home, the pack returns to their bucket and shovel fun. They visit two more sites on the way home. At the third, they Questing Stone for Nycholas Cox, and find that he seems to be moving. This causes some distress and they pick up the speed. Eventually they trace the disturbance in the force to a suburban house. John and Brett sneak through the Umbra while Thomas and Darren wait in the Realm with the car. Peeking through the Umbra reveals two rather suspicious looking children doing something in some nearby dirt, in the back corner of the backyard. Thomas and Darren are alerted and creep along through the houses either side of the house of interest. John is watching and reports that one of them is starting to rise into the air. Thomas leaps the fence and comes down on top of it, pinning it to the ground. A brief scuffle later and they have one captive, wrapped in garden hose, and one smashed body. The ground is dug up and Nycholas is examined carefully to make sure that he isn't about to leap up and away.
Off they go, back to the car. John looks around and notices a small figure drifting away from them, about 100 metres away up in the air and increasing in height. Fuck, think the pack. They devise a cunning plan where Darren would stay behind and watch for pursuit, foiled only by Darren tripping as he leaps out of the ute, catching his foot on the wrapped up child, dragging it out and onto the road, and dislocating his shoulder. All pretense at stealth is dropped and they all go and meet Emma. She takes the corpses and the live one and promises to make sure that they don't get away or return from the dead or anything.
People lurk about during the day, after watching the news ("Oh, look, two more kids disappear") doing stuff. John researches vampires. And then he gets off the net and does some historical research. Darren lurks at the caern. Thomas goes to find Melissa, who is sparring with Ian. She sees him, says "Thomas!" and looks his way, so Ian clouts her in the head and knocks her out. He looks at Thomas and shrugs. Thomas opts to come back later. Brett lurks about with Kirsty, trying to understand this whole honour thing.
At dusk, they head out to Jeff's house, to see if they can try trick number 2. Kanau is summoned and asked if he could follow Jeff through the Realm. He demands strength from the pack, who contribute happily. Zap, Kanau materialises, confusing birdwatchers worldwide. They settle down to watch. Jeff does his shrivelling trick after his parent's settle down and flies off, Kanau in pursuit ("Hey Jimmy, ain't I seen that bird before?" "You're right Benny, its following us - loose it!"). The pack follow.
Kanau begins to circle somewhere over Burwood. The pack home in and find that he is above an old school, scheduled for demolition. Cautious examination reveals 8 little zombie children in the class room, including Rachel. Thomas is sedated. They seem to be playing with toys and such, all in one classroom. Brett advocates ringing for backup while Thomas basically continues his theme of "we can take 'em!". John agrees with Brett and they ring the Sept. Graeme suggests contacting Daughters of Mneomsyne for help, so John rings Christine and they have a chat. Within an hour or so, all four Daughters show up, spoiling for a bit a biffo. The plan - to circle the children, step out all in one go and butcher them. Seems simple enough, although Thomas is complicating it by demanding that he gets to kill Rachel.
"One, two, three, step". The Garou appear and find that one child has wandered out of their perfect circle. Brett spins and waves the pointy fae sword at it. The battle goes according to plan. Not the Garou's plan, but someone's. Thomas engages Rachel and is put down by her in about 8 seconds. Darren demonstrates Mr Pointy, aka Thorn, his fang dagger to the surrounding Garou by dispatching three of the children in about 5 seconds with single blows. John is helping Thomas with the healing fetish, leaving himself open to attack, but Darren disembles his attacker. Keziah leaps at Rachel, and Rachel hits her. Those familiar with Keziah shrug and forget about Rachel as Keziah's somewhat heightened revenge tendency swings into action and she tears Rachel to pieces. In about 15 seconds, its all over, and no one stabbed anyone they weren't supposed to.
They head back to Emma's house and find that she has a plan to interrogate the child they captured. She has summoned an Incarna and convinced it to make a small pocket realm around her house. She will kill the fomor and hopefully capture the spirit. This is done, and the spirit is bound as it starts to form - a collection of mouths and a sense of nothingness. Emma commands its obedience, and it says it was from the Deep Umbra (fairly unusual), and that 'Rachel' called it to serve. She provided the beachhead they required to come to this place. Some more questions are asked which seem to indicate that they have grabbed all the zombie fomor now. The question is asked why she and how she followed Thomas all the way from Queensland, and the spirit says that there is something it finds incredibly attractive within them - a nothing, as if nothing were something. The point is made that Thomas had this before he joined the pack, who all have it now (woo, spiritual VD). The spirit cannot explain what it is, apart from that vague sense of substantial nothingness. The Daughters kill the spirit (before it can reveal more about their evil plans. No, not really).
Sleep during the day, digging bodies at night. Gee, the news seems full of the sudden disappearance of about 10 kids. Wonder why. If you're under 15, welcome to the police state as parents recommend that all children are locked in big steel boxes to keep them safe.
In a sudden changearound, no more children disappeared over the Friday night. The papers are full of speculation, but little fact. Lisa Tan was buried today, except that the Sept went and nicked her body and replaced it with another one a day or two ago. Oh well.
People try and get on with their lives a bit. Darren busies himself becoming more familiar with the caern and sept. John kills time, Brett goes researching Ms Thomas, his friend the reporter. Thomas, on the other hand, encounters Melissa. Melissa asks him if he'd like to come to the movies. Thomas says yes, and she tells him its for 2.30pm at the Greater Union cinemas. Ah, thinks Thomas, a chance to disuade her of her ongoing pursuit. He arrives at the requisit-t-t-te location on time and finds that Melissa is there with 4 of her school mates. Oh look, two fems, two mels. Oh, that makes 3 ... er, couples. Um, yes. Oh good. Only idle chitchat is engaged in before the movie starts, but Thomas is definately aware that he is the centre of attention. During the movie, Melissa somehow contrives to sit next to him after somehow contriving for them all to sit up the very back. She makes no moves on Thomas per se, but does spend some of the film with her head of his shoulder. Thomas is desperately broadcasting friendly but not "interested", but is fighting not only Melissa's roaring hormones, but his own. The 6 of them go to Lygon St after the movie for food. Conversation turns to what to do after year 12. The general feeling is that they will of course go onto Uni. Melissa looks uncomfortable and sort of agrees, looking a bit lost. Thomas presents a counter argument that they might want to take some time off and wander around, and starts telling stuff about his life as a travelling vagrant. By the end of the night, he's given them food for thought. The suggestion is made to go out to a club, and Thomas begs off, as his packmates are impatiently tapping their feet back at the caern so they can go out digging up month old bodies. Melissa, who had been trying to get him to come along, suddenly realises what Thomas' "obligation" is and agrees to see him later.
Another fun night with Mr Shovel and Dr Spade. The last of the bodies is collected up, bagged and dragged back to Emma's. The pack breathe a sigh of relief.
...except Brett, who has agreed to meet Gabrielle today. He turns over a couple of options, including almost deciding not to tell her anything, but in the end opts to go to her flat and see what she's up to. She's not actually there, so they questing stone for her - she's a distance away, maybe down on the foreshore. Ok thinks Brett, and steps into her apartment. He uses her phone, after turning caller id off, and rings Gabrielle's mobile. After some sniping about trustworthiness, they chat for a while, and Brett intimates that the group of malfeasants which was kidnapping children has gone on a rampage in a sort of act of desperation. But they've been stopped now, and it won't happen again. Gabrielle seems fairly unhappy with this outcome, and doesn't believe that the man on the other end of her phone won't return the bodies, once she's grasped that they are all dead. Gabrielle badgers Brett to give her something she can work with, because her deal with the police means that she gets some insider info on this case, but that she has to give anything she finds straight to the police. Brett says he can't give her anything, and they argue about that for a while, with Gabrielle taking the high moral ground of "You can't just wave the situation away like that" and Brett taking the opposite stance of "How can you stop me, nyah nyah". Brett continues to intimate that he is part of the Catholic Conspiracy, sorry, church. In the end, Brett gives her the location of some of the children not involved in the zombieness and hangs up.
Early in the morning, Dom is called to Rippling Waters from her new house nearby. She heads down there and finds that Monash End-to-the-Darkness, the Stargazer Jindabyne council member is waiting for her. He tells her that he is calling in the debt that Infinite Paths incurred in September 1998 by accidentally summoning a lightning incarna near Rockhampton. Dom grudgingly says ok, but points out that she's not at her best - she still cannot change form, and it is as yet unclear as to whether she will ever be able to, or whether she has burned the rage out of her soul. Monash says that it should not be that arduous a task he needs performed, and that they should go to Sleeping Lore for the rest of her pack. They arrange a Moonbridge with Leaps-in-the-Light and zwoom to Melbourne. Once there, Dominique summons the rest of the pack, who are slightly surprised at her sudden reappearance. She fills them in on the debt, and on Monash's appearance.
Once the pack assembles, Monash says that he has a problem in the far north of his Protectorate. At the Undara crater, a group of humans has been poking around, and there have been some oddities. Nothing specific, and all the available Stargazers are caught up on other duties (there are only 7 or 9 of them). He wants them to go and see what is happening. He doesn't have much information, but doesn't expect it to be particularily dangerous. They agree that to do so, and mention that this satisfies the debt that Mathias and Dom incurred. Monash agrees. They tell Cossack where they are going and Ends-the-Quiet opens a Moonbridge for them to the Crackenback sept. There is some interaction with Garou there, and another Moonbridge is opened, this time ending in a warm, damp environment. Thomas finds it familiar, and also that his tattoo is itching like mad. Monash tells them that they will have to drive from here to Undara, and leads them off in lupus form for an hour or so to a farm, where there is a ute waiting. He checks to see that they have everything they need and waves goodbye.
About 11am, the pack roll in, having slept in fits and starts and in the car. The last 20 minutes have included lots of warnings about this being a world heritage area and that they should stay only on the marked paths. Signs about falling rocks abound as well. The Undara site is centred around a large building which functions as a general store and a ranger's station. There are two rangerovers in the carpark with University of Southern Queensland stickers all over them. A middleaged woman comes out as they pull up and greets them. Her name is Evie, and they tell her that they just want to do some sightseeing. She says that they can't really see the best bits until Friday or Saturday, as they need to go with a guide. They say that they want to stay anyway, and she says to come in when they're ready and hire a tent. They glance around and see some tents in a group already. While they are booking tents from Evie, another man comes into the shop, on crutches. His name is apparently John, and he's with the research group. His ankle is bound up, but not plastered, and he ruefully admits he twisted it while falling down drunk.
The pack look around the site for a while, and chat to John and Evie. It seems that there are 15 people here from USQ, 10 3rd year students, 2 research assistants, Chris and Brad, John, who is a lecturer in biology, Gordon, another spelunker and Anna, a geology lecturer, and the permit holder to come caving. There is also an Arthur Thackery here, a tourist who has managed to convince Anna that he could take John's place, and is currently off with the rest of the party. They see his car up the other end of the carpark. The umbra here is much heavier rainforest, and definately exudes a feeling of menace. There is also a constant sound, somewhere between a grumble and a windy sound, coming from the direction of the caves. The pack kick around in the area, doing tourist things, until they hear the sound of approaching students. The geology party come back with near empty backpacks and lots of things to talk about. They do normal people stuff, like showering and preparing for food. The two RA go off with the evening's alcohol order to the nearest town. As the night progresses, the pack are invited over as the group settles in for a night's drinking. They get to meet people like Anna Quixton, who is a lecturer USQ, specialising in volcanic action. They speak to this Arthur fellow, who doesn't look the hiking type. He says that he's from Brisbane, was just up having a lookaround when the chance came up to explore the area. The group starts to break up at about 10pm, planning to be back up and about at 6ish.
The sneaky Garou, on the other hand, decide that they should take a look down the caves for this "oddness" that Monash described. They start to sneak out of the campsite, but Dom's weakness kicks in, and she loses her balance and kicks a metal plate into someone's tent. She pretends to be going to the toilet while the others sneak off, and then catches up with them in 1/2 an hour. They sneak about in mostly lupus form, following the scent of the spelunkers along a path and then down into a lava tube. The tubes are enormouse, almost big enough to drive a semi down, and the scent trail is fairly direct to begin with. After a bit, they find one particular scent has diverged from the main group and headed down a side passage. It only goes a short distance and stops in front of some aboriginal paintings. The paintings are of humanoid figures rather than being abstract designs, and seem to show a hunt of some sort. The figures are all elongated, and seem to be male. The pack returns to the scent trail and follows it along some more. The group have done a lot of walking and it takes some time. Ahead, the pack can see a glow that can only be moonlight. They head that way, following the scent, emerging into an area where the roof has caved in, and wild things have grown like mad in the fertile soil. Sniffing around, they find a place where flecks of the ground has been dug up, and flecks of black material are mixed in the with the dirt. Investigating closer, it seems as if the black flecks are charcoal, and carefully removing some of the churned dirt, a layer of charcoal is found, as if from campfires. There are marks of other small excavations, but nothing as churned up.
Returning back the way they came, someone spots movement far ahead. Rushing up to that spot, the pack can smell a weird scent. It seems to move about and then go up to the wall and stop. Using sense unnatural, Dom can see that the walls are shimmering, as if they were made of water and something had been dropped into them. The shimmering slows and stops, and those who know much about spirits wrack their brains for what it might be, other than earth elementals. Dom mentions that she has heard about spirits called Mimi which are long thin humanoids, living in rock. They decide to head back to the camp, where Brett's tent has been kicked down by something. Maybe it was a wallaby. All sleep.
