Wherein the True Seekers discover a lost house, a lost contact and a Lost Cub.
Steve is walking in the city when he spies a newspaper front-sheet that reads "I Was Robbed By A Gargoyle".
He buys the newspaper in question (the National Enquirer) and reads the story. Apparently, a drive-through bottle shop attendant named Bill Mulligan saw a "gargoyle-like creature" steal three cases of beer from the fridge and then fly away. Police in the area (Dandenong-ish) have received several reports from people who have seen "something large" flying around at night.
Steve tells Lachlan about it, and the two of them troop out to Dandenong that evening. They go to the bottle shop and speak to Bill. The description of the creature, minus a few artistic embellishments, could be that of one of the gargoyle demons. It stole two slabs of Vic and one of Cold. Steve and Lachlan buy two slabs of Vic and one of Cold, then head for the nearest park. They spend the rest of the night drinking beer and staring up, hoping to see a gargoyle. By about three in the morning, the beer has all gone, so Lachlan carries Steve to the car and they drive home.
Lachlan calls the rest of the pack together (apart from Steve who is "convalescing" into the toilet) and tells them about the news story. They decide that it might be useful if someone with Truth of Gaia speaks with Bill, so everyone troops back out to Dandenong. Unfortunately, being the morning, Bill is not at work. They hit the local phone book and find Bill's address. Going around there, they find Bill asleep. A quick umbral search through the house reveals nothing, particularly not the remains of two slabs of Vic and one of Cold. The True Seekers decide to return in the evening.
That evening Lisa, Naomi and Lachlan drive through and speak with Bill. It appears that he believes what he is saying, apart perhaps from some of the aforementioned artistic embellishments. The pack splits up. Steve wants to scan the area with Cybersenses and climbs up a pylon. The rest head for the nearest police station. Lisa walks in and poses as your typical strange-flying-object spotter while Vilna watches from the umbra. The police make out a report then add it to the file in the filing room. Lisa joins Vilna in the umbra and both of them step into the filing room. As Lisa watches the door, Vilna picks the filing cabinet lock. Lisa then memorises the dozen or so sites where something was seen. The files are returned and Vilna attempts to re-lock the cabinet. Unfortunately, the paper clip he was using snaps off inside the lock. So he removes the lock from the housing, dismantles it, removes the offending item, reassembles the lock and replaces it in the housing. He and Lisa then step sideways, and the filing cabinet is still unlocked.
The True Seekers mark all the sites on a Melway, but can spot no pattern to the locations. They head for the approximate centre of the cluster and look around in the houses in the area, but come up with nothing. They decide to head home for the time being, and stop to pick up Steve from his pylon. Steve has had no luck either. As they are driving away, Lisa spots something that causes her to pull over and walk back up the road. On a graffiti-covered fence, a gargoyle-ish symbol has been spray-painted. Lisa and Naomi decide to head back anyway, as Steve and Vilna go looking for more graffiti.
They find several other examples of the gargoyle motif, which Vilna feels are not all done by the same person. So now, Steve and Vilna start following the local youth around, as they hang out at the train station and at 7-11. Eventually, they are rewarded when two guys duck into an alley and one begins spray-painting a gargoyle motif on the fence.
Continuing to follow this guy, he leads them across some back paddocks to an isolated and abandoned home, where a bunch of other young people are hanging out. After a while of not much happening, a guy of about 17 walks in, closely followed by an honest-to-goodness gargoyle demon. No one in the house seems surprised, although they all act wary around the thing. The guy, whose name is Dave, and the gargoyle walk into another room, and Dave starts going through his bag. He pulls out a few car radios, but the True Seekers notice that he has two crystal spheres in there as well; remarkably similar to the crystal spheres that contain gargoyles that the mages used when encountered previously.
Dave heads back out to the others and tells them that they are going to knock over the CD place. Vilna follows the group as the leave while Steve rings Lisa, tells her to get back over there, and waits for her to turn up.
Dave's group and the gargoyle head back into Dandenong, with the gargoyle flitting from roof-top to roof-top. They arrive at the back of a Brashes shop, whereupon the gargoyle rips the back door off it's hinges. As the alarm goes off, everyone rushes in and grabs lots of CDs. With the police sirens growing louder, the group rush off into the back streets.
They make there way back to the abandoned house and crow over their haul. Lisa and Naomi have arrived and have been brought up to date. At around three in the morning Dave and the gargoyle leave, and the True Seekers follow. Dave eventually arrives at an ordinary suburban home. He climbs through a back window and falls asleep on the bed inside, as the gargoyle curls itself up in the corner. A quick check though the house locates two adults and a boy: presumably Dave's family.
At ten in the morning, Dave's mother bursts into his room and starts berating him. She doesn't seem to notice the gargoyle in the corner, which leaps up when she enters then settles down again. She gives him a few more choice words then leaves. Dave did not actually wake up during this incident.
Soon afterwards, Dave's mother leaves, leaving Dave alone in the house. He wakes at around noon, shuffles off to the bath room, then goes to get some breakfast. With the True Seekers having reached some sort of consensus, Lisa and Naomi step sideways into Dave's room while Vilna and Steve keep an eye on Dave and the gargoyle. Naomi takes the two crystal spheres from the bag and attempts to step sideways, with Lisa ready to catch them if they don't go through. They don't, so Lisa catches them and puts them back into the bag. Meanwhile the gargoyle is scenting the air and getting agitated about something. Lisa decides to act, wrenches open the window, shifts to lupus and runs out with the bag in her mouth.
Dave and the screeching gargoyle run into the bedroom as Vilna and Steve step sideways. Dave discovers the bag is missing and orders the gargoyle to get it back. The gargoyle launched itself out the window in pursuit of Lisa. Steve and Vilna run in and grab Dave. Vilna suggests that Dave should order the gargoyle back. He does so. Naomi has also stepped sideways in the garden and runs after Lisa, and passes the gargoyle going the other way. Lisa has made it to the car and is hiding inside.
Steve hides near the window as Vilna stuffs Dave into a cupboard and drags the bed in front of it. The gargoyle lands in the window, crouching on the sill. Steve grabs it and tries to pull it inside. Steve goes flying out the window and lands on the ground with the gargoyle on top of him. Even so, Steve and Vilna manage to kill the gargoyle, which begins to dissolve.
As people stand around discussing, Lisa is the first to hear the approaching sirens. When the others hear them, Vilna tears Dave out of the cupboard and demands, fairly tersely, to know where Dave found the spheres. Dave gives them an address. Vilna and Naomi leave the room and step sideways while Steve shows Dave the remains of his gargoyle. Steve then leaves and steps.
From the umbra, Naomi, Steve and Vilna watch the police arrive and bang on the door. When Dave answers, the police demand to know what all the screaming was about. They appear to be acquainted with Dave (big surprise). Dave says it was just the television. The police go through the house but find nothing particularly suspicious. They leave after giving Dave a warning. Dave wanders aimlessly around the house for a while. Maybe he's in shock or something.
The True Seekers head for the address. It's several miles away on a fairly disused road. There are no other houses near by. The block is large, surrounded by a high fence. The grounds are full of long grass and blackberry patches. The True Seekers scout around the house. It seems undisturbed except for a broken window in the back door. Steps into the umbra and go inside.
Observing from the umbra, they notice that the place is well furnished but everything is covered with dust. The interior walls, floor and ceiling are covered with the mystic runes that the True Seekers observed at the mage's house in Westmeadows. However, in this case, some of the surfaces are only partially covered and one or two are completely blank. There are several fairly recent sets of sneaker prints in the dust, starting from the back door and moving through most of the house. There are three furnished bedrooms and three vacant bedrooms. In one of the bedrooms, several pieces of furniture have been knocked over and the dust has been severely churned up. There are also fragments of crystal on the floor in this room. The only other thing of note are three isolated sets of footprints seemingly made from ash, as though someone sprinkled ash in the shape of a pair of footprints (as opposed to shoe prints). There are no tracks leading to or from the ashy footprints.
Having stepped into the real world, the True Seekers search through the house but find nothing else of interest. Naomi is looking for an entrance to a basement and soon finds one. There are stairs leading down into darkness, but the switch at the top turns on the light. The house still has power for some reason. Everybody goes down and find themselves in some sort of Spell room, with an incomplete mystic circle on the floor (incomplete as opposed to scuffed or broken). Two doors lead out of the room. One leads to a small storeroom. On several shelves are various jars and pots and boxes, containing chemicals and herbs and other things - everything from Basil to gold dust to the flayed face of a murderer.
The second room is another Spell room, also incomplete. There is also a large metal door in this room, like the door to a refrigeration room. The door is cold. Steve opens the door and finds almost twenty decaying human bodies lying inside the cold room. Some have been obviously cut up, others appear to be simply dead. Vilna examines the bodies and judges by the state of decay that they have been dead about a year (assuming that they have been in the cold room the whole time).
Having found all that they can, the True Seekers head outside and call the Cemetery. Cossack says that Ends-The-Quiet will head on over to check the place out. Everyone hangs around until he arrives, then they all head home to bed.
That night, the True Seekers hope to find out who is paying the power bills for the house. They enter the Telecom building through the umbra and chat for a while with the computer. Eventually they discover that the house is owned and paid for by a Dandenong real-estate company, M. Jackson. They decide to visit the place in the morning.
In the morning, the True Seekers troop back to Dandenong. Lisa enters the office and speaks to one of the agents. She says that she is interested in a certain property (guess which one). The realtor checks her computer and says that they are not "holding" that property. Lisa leaves.
That night they enter the office through the umbra and Vilna chats with the realtor's computer. He eventually finds an empty file corresponding relating to the house. He then goes and chats with the manager's computer (the manager being Mr Martin Jackson). His computer contains a file on the house, and it seems that the power bills on the house are payed by Mr Jackson from the company account.
Having found Mr Jackson's address, the True Seekers troop around to his house. From the umbra they do a thorough scan of the house and the Jackson family. The only thing unusual is a strange magical sense coming from Mr Jackson. The sense is different from the sense the True Seekers associate with mages.
The True Seekers are watching Mr Jackson in shifts when Steve gets a call from Graeme, who says that the sept wishes to "acquire" the mage house, so that they can examine it over the long term. Despite Steve's confusion, he eventually understands what Graeme means, and tells the others.
They decide to first find out who actually owns the house. Steve and Vilna head over to the Dandenong Council office to check the files. Observing from the umbra, they note that there are two security guards who perform regular rounds. When the guard at the computer terminal heads off, Vilna steps sideways and switches the computer on. He then steps back into the umbra and chats with the computer spirit. Eventually he finds the appropriate file number and heads for the filing room.
Vilna decides to take the five minutes to step sideways, and arrives in the real world - directly into the beam of the security guards torch. The guard is unarmed, but tells Vilna not to move, then radios his colleague to call the police. As they move out of the filing room, Vilna jumps the guards torch, sending it rolling down the hall. A frenzied bout of grappling follows. Steve, who has noticed what's happening, finds a nearby room and steps sideways. He botches and winds up caught in the Gauntlet. Looks like Vilna is on his own.
Meanwhile, Vilna has switched to glabro form which doesn't help him as much as he hoped. The second guard runs up and they both grapple Vilna. After a prolonged bout of truly awe-inspiring mediocre dice rolling, Vilna finally manages to break free, punches one of the guards out and flees. He has a bit of a break because the other guard is tending to his wounded fellow. Vilna discovers that because he had his 'mirror key ring' in his hand when he stepped sideways, he then dropped it during the scuffle with the guards. Vilna dashes around looking for the nearest toilet. He finds it just as he hears the sound of approaching sirens.
Editor's note: actually, the line "You hear the sound of approaching sirens." would have to be just about the most common line used in this Werewolf game.
Anyway, he decides not to risk helping Steve just yet, and instead runs through the umbra to get the others. He arrives at the Jackson place and tells them what happened. Naomi and Lachlan accompany him back to the Council building.
When they arrive, they find several police officers checking out the filing room and talking to the guards. One of the guards is giving a pretty damn accurate description of Vilna. One policeman is checking out the computer. On the screen is the address and file number of the mage house. Apparently, as Vilna was chatting with the computer spirit in the umbra, the data was appearing on the screen in the real world. Vilna has another chat with the computer spirit, and asks for the files of various completely random addresses. The police all gather round and watch the computer throw a little tantrum. One of the police comes back with Vilna's keys and the file on the mage house. It turns out that the owner of the house is one Mr Martin Jackson. The police decide to check out the house and call on Mr Jackson in the morning. Having failed to find how the intruder broke in, all the police leave except for two cops who remain parked outside.
Naomi takes the opportunity to rescue Steve from the Gauntlet, then everyone makes there way back to Mr Jackson's house. The True Seekers decide that since it was Vilna who landed them all in it, Vilna should be the one to inform the sept. Fortunately, Graeme was half expecting that his simple little request should turn into a major debacle, so he doesn't take it too badly. He suggests that the pack should take whatever steps necessary to protect the house and to send the police off on the wrong track.
The True Seekers head for the mage house, and Vilna suggests that he could summon as spirit of illusion to disguise the true nature of the house from the police. The rest of the True Seekers find a large tree beside the road and push it over to block the road, giving Vilna the time he needs to perform the rite. The police find the road blocked, and have to go the long way around to approach from the other direction.
Meanwhile, Vilna has fucked up (again), but recovers nicely to summon a spirit of domination, which will convince everybody that the house looks completely normal for at least a year. The police arrive and check the place over, but find nothing suspicious. Eventually they leave. The True Seekers head back to Jackson's place.
The True Seekers follow Mr Jackson to work, where two plain-clothes police are waiting to see him. They ask him about the house in question, but as soon as they mention it, Jackson's eyes glaze over and he stares blankly ahead for several seconds. The police are fairly non-plussed, but ask him again, which provokes the same reaction. This goes on for quite a while with the police growing more and more frustrated. Finally they leave in a huff. The True Seekers are listening from the umbra, and overhear the police talking on the radio. They think that Jackson is covering up something.
The True Seekers split up. Vilna and Naomi go to watch the mage house, Lisa and Steve stay to watch Jackson, Lachlan and Calvin head for the police station. At the police station, Lachlan finds that one of the guards is working with a composite artist on a very good picture of Vilna. He also spots Vilna's keys, but decides to leave them where they are. The police do not seem to be putting a high priority on this strange case, as the extent of the crime was really just breaking and entering and assault.
The True Seekers regroup and decide to try to extract what information they can out of Mr Jackson. Owing to his odd lapses, and because they don't actually want to threaten him, they decide to bind an appropriate spirit into him.
First, they decide upon a cunning plan to isolate him. The True Seekers find out which commercial properties Jackson's is holding, then locate an appropriately isolated and enclosed one - a former carpet warehouse. Lisa calls in on the agency and says that she wishes to purchase some commercial property. Jackson deals with it personally and Lisa outlines her requirements which, by some outrageous coincidence, just happen to be met be a property held by the agency - a former carpet warehouse. Jackson offers to take Lisa out there to view the site.
When they arrive, the True Seekers jump on Jackson. They gag him and pin him down while Naomi summons a spirit of memory, in the form of an old man with lots of bits of string tied all over him. He deals with Naomi and agrees to be bound into Jackson. The idea is that he will be able to retrieve any memories that Jackson has concerning the house, and will also be able to reconstruct Jackson's memories so that he forgets the little details, like being grabbed by a bunch of lunatics.
Once the spirit is inside Jackson, the True Seekers begin questioning him. All he can tell them is that about a year and a half ago, he was visited at his office by a man. The man simply told him the he would pay all bills concerning this house, and that he was to disguise the fact by hiding the payments in other accounts. Jackson was apparently not even aware that he effectively owned the house. He never saw the man again, and can only give a vague description (which could theoretically fit one of the three mages the True Seekers killed).
The process of rebuilding Jackson's memory will take about a week, during which time he will be pretty vague. The True Seekers will have to watch over him for that time. Over the week, only two things of note happen. Firstly, the domination affect on the house mysteriously ends about 364 days early. Secondly, the GM in a desperate bid to conclude what should have been a minor travail, hands on the problem of acquiring the house to an NPC, Christine Elliot.
Michelle Leaps-Beyond-The-Reach-Of-The-Wyrm moon bridges to the cemetery and invites the True Seekers to accompany her back to Crackenback to speak with Darius. Despite everything that common sense tells them, they go with her anyway. At Crackenback, Darius tells them that the Jindabyne Council has decided to add a Garou to the True Seekers who would ensure that the Council was kept informed of all Bunyip related matters. Darius has decided to move before the Council and introduce a Garou of his choosing, which would mean that the True Seekers would be able to legitimately refuse anyone the Council choose on the grounds that they already had a council observer in the pack. Darius points out that the Council's choice may well be in the camp of those councillors who are opposed to continuing investigation into the Bunyip. The True Seekers agree, and Darius introduces them to Glenn Colbert of the Silver Fangs. They all head back to Melbourne, where Glenn is made a part of the True Seekers (the poor fool!).
Cossack asks the True Seekers if they would find someone for him. He has lost track of a Mr Yesif Petrou, one of his contacts. Yesif was using his street connections to help Cossack locate the Black Spiral Dancers; asking around if anyone had seen anything odd on the streets (apart from the True Seekers). Cossack gives the True Seekers an address in Yarraville.
They head over there and scope out the place. There is a barking German Shepherd chained in the back yard and the back door has been forced. The house is full of quality stuff, like stereos and videos. Sniffing around the house, Naomi encounters three fairly recent scents distinct from Yesif's scent. They apparently came through the back door and left through the front door. There are signs of a struggle in the front room. While Naomi is sniffing for clues, Glenn is asking the neighbours if they've seen Yesif recently. They haven't, and can't tell him much apart from the fact that the dog keeps barking. Meanwhile, Vilna is taking one of Yesif's stereos out to the car.
Various people use Questing Stone and find a faint signal to the north. They follow and wind up in the long term car park at Melbourne Airport, where Naomi sniffs out Yesif in the boot of a car. We then get involved in a long discussion on "how to get two cars out of a long-term parking lot with only one ticket if you don't won't to pay full price". Basically, it involves driving the first car out and around to the entrance, getting another ticket, backing out of the entrance, passing the ticket through the fence to a waiting accomplice, then driving the second car out. Despite what some people may think, you can't use the ticket you've just got to find out how long the car with the body has been parked there.
Once in a secluded spot, the True Seekers go over the car and the body. Yesif looks like he's been beaten to death. The car yields little else. Naomi speaks with Cossack and says that it just looks like some human deal. Cossack says that owing to what Yesif was looking into, they should investigate more, just to be sure. In order to determine whether or not it was something fairly mundane, Calvin uses his criminal contacts to learn what he can.
One of Calvin's contacts gives him something useful. There are these two rival criminal-type families, the Marriotts and the Clarks. Recently, the Marriotts had some big score going, when someone informed the Clarks about it, who stepped in and stole it from the Marriotts. It is rumoured that the Marriotts "dealt" with someone over the matter. Yesif was connected with both families and was known to be a grass. His contact also tells Calvin that everyone on the street is uneasy, and that something is going on. The True Seekers decide to have a look at the Marriotts.
From the umbra, the True Seekers watch one of the Marriott houses. Naomi sniffs through the gauntlet and picks up traces of the three scents she detected in Yesif's house. In fact two of the guys are present in the house.
Knowing that she has criminal connections, the True Seekers decide to contact Irena Sliviak of the Sept of Hidden Green. Unfortunately, the very person they don't want to speak with, Ion, answers the phone. He says that he will pass on the message. The True Seekers then decide to contact Sliviak directly, and manage to wrangle her mobile number. She says that she will meet with them.
Soon after, they are all sitting around in a nice little establishment off Collins Street. They tell Irena what is going on, and she says that she will have a look into the matter for them.
Meanwhile, they head out to have a look at the Clarks. They look around one of the Clarks places but find nothing supernatural or suspicious.
Irena calls the True Seekers and tells them a few things. Firstly, that Yesif was definitely killed by the Marriotts (which they knew). Secondly, that the one who told the Marriotts that Yesif was the grass was a Mr Huey Nguyen (which they didn't know). Thirdly, that Mr Nguyen is an associate of Ion Apostolova (which they didn't want to know). This just leaves the question as to whether it was all a tragic coincidence; that an associate of Ion's fingered Yesif, who just happened to be one of Cossack's contacts. Or whether there was intent on Ion's part. When the True Seekers ring Cossack, he says that he would definitely like to know.
It is getting on towards morning, so they decide to leave it there for the night. As Vilna and Glenn are biking home along Brunswick Street (Glenn crashing with Vilna for the time being), Glenn spots a Garou in crinos form going through someone's rubbish bin. Vilna screeches to a stop and drives back. The Garou is one that Vilna hasn't seen before. They start heading down the alley on foot, whereupon the Garou bolts. Vilna slips into lupus and gives chase. Glenn attempts to do the same a few times, finally makes it to hispo and decides not to push his luck any further.
Vilna catches up with the Garou as it runs out on to Nicholson Street. As the few cars around veer wildly, Vilna attempts to hamstring the Garou. For his pains he receives a foot to the face which breaks his jaw in a whole heap of places. By the time he has recovered, Glenn has caught up with him and the Garou has disappeared into the Exhibition gardens. The give chase, following the distant screams of early morning joggers. They run out into the intersection of Rathdowne and Victoria Street, but see no sign of the Garou. Sniffing around, Vilna finds a track which leads into the intersection, then abruptly ends. As Vilna steps into the umbra, Glenn calls the sept to let them know what they've found. Vilna does a quick circle in the umbra but finds no trace of a scent.
Naomi declares that she feels that she is less suited to lead the pack at a time when knowledge of human behaviour is required. Actually, she's just sick of taking responsibility for a pack of misfits. Regardless, she hands over pack leadership to (gulp) Lachlan. Lachlan is unopposed for some reason and becomes pack leader again.
The True Seekers decide to track down and observe Huey Nguyen for a while. Questing Stone leads them to Richmond, to a small warehouse full of clothing. Huey appears to be a middle-aged Vietnamese man. Unfortunately, most of the conversation is in Vietnamese, so the players don't learn much.Two Vietnamese men come up the street and into the warehouse. Both are bruised and bleeding, one seriously. Everyone in the building gathers around them and there is a great deal of animated discussion. Soon, one man goes to the phone and makes about six or seven rapid phone calls. Within ten minutes, cars begin to arrive at the warehouse, all full of men.
Steve, who has remained in the real world in a car down the road, calls the police and tells them about a mob forming. By the time about thirty young men have gathered at the warehouse, two police cars drive up to the loading doors. Inside, the two wounded men are quickly spirited out of sight. The police walk in and chat with Huey in English. The police just make sure that their presence is felt. After speaking with Huey and having a cursory look around, the hang around the front for about five minutes before driving slowly away. Huey speaks with the men at the warehouse, who leave more subdued than when they arrived. The two wounded men are also taken away. After most people have left, Huey makes a phone call. Naomi, with her %#@*$ eidetic memory, remembers the number. Huey is speaking in English. He relates what just happened and says that they will be moving out again tonight.
Lachlan and Glenn decide to go and talk to a few people while the rest stay and observe Huey. Lachlan rings Tanya Muller and asks if they can meet. Tanya says to meet her at the Punters Club. They arrive and go to a quiet table near the bar. Lachlan relates to Tanya what has been happening recently. Tanya says that there has been increasing tension between Ion and Irena for months now, but that about a week ago, something happened which caused them to go to war with each other. Although the sept is trying to end it, they won't act positively without a breach of the Litany or a threat to the Sept or Caern.
While Tanya is talking, a man flies out of the band area and hits the floor. Scott Rosen strides out after him, grabs him and drags him back inside. A few minutes later, Scott comes out again and plonks himself down next to Glenn. After introductions are made, Scott asks Glenn about himself. Glenn makes the fatal error of mentioning that he's from the country and has never Slammed before, so Scott grabs him and drags him out to see the band. By the time Lachlan and Tanya have finished speaking, Glenn is back covered with sweat and unable to heal himself, being in breed form.
Leaving Tanya and Scott, Lachlan then calls Tony Cho Mi, Irena's pack leader. He agrees to meet near his Caern. Tony tells them much the same as Tanya did. He also says that Irena has been trying to solicit the support of her pack in the matter. Her claim is that Ion initiated hostilities with an unprovoked attack against some of her operations, and that she is simply acting in self defence.
Meanwhile, back in Richmond, all the cars which left earlier have turned up again. After a loud and heated discussion in the warehouse, all the people run out and into their cars. They drive off in different directions. Steve and Vilna pick one and follow at a discrete distance. They drive fairly slowly and certainly don't seem to be taking any sort of direct route. They are driving along the street when they suddenly veer and park. All four men leap out and start running up the road. Steve drives past and turns down the first alley he finds. Steve and Vilna step sideways, then move back and peek into the real world. They see that two men have walked out of a pool hall. When they see the four men running up the road, they bolt; turning and racing down the alley, over the top of Steve's car. The four men follow closely. The two men reach a tall chainlink fence (gasp!). The first makes it over, but the second is grabbed before he can make it. He is dragged down and beaten up by the other four. When they have finished, the four saunter back over Steve's car, smashing in his rear window in passing. The man who climbed over the fence climbs back and helps his severely wounded friend. When they have gone, Steve and Vilna drop into the real world and drive back to the warehouse to where Naomi and Calvin are still watching.
Lachlan has decided to call Ion, who says that he can see him at the Arts Centre. Lachlan and Glenn hang around in the foyer until Ion comes out during Act II. He is with a woman Lachlan feels is familiar, who Ion introduces as Susan Rider. Ion sends Susan away before chatting. He claims that Irena started the whole unpleasantness when she butchered (ie. claws and teeth) three of his men totally out of the blue. Ion asks Glenn if he would allow Ion to speak with Lachlan privately. Glenn wanders off. Ion and Lachlan speak for a while, then Ion goes back into the theatre. Lachlan and Glenn head off to rejoin the others.
Having rendezvoused, much discussion is engaged in. The question seems to be whether or not Yesif Petrou was killed accidentally in the course of an underworld battle, or whether it was deliberate. The True Seekers go through a few of the usual channels to find out if the phone number that Huey rang was one that they knew of (ie., Ion's), but no luck there. Eventually, Glenn rings the number (a mobile number by the by) and is answered by...Ion. Lachlan also mentions the woman Ion was with. Naomi remembers that it was a Susan Rider who had the fetish that the True Seekers were challenged by the Steel Hunters to find more than a year ago.
They decide to do a bit more observing. Steve and Lachlan remain at the warehouse and follow Huey around, Naomi and Calvin stake out the Marriott's main house in Pascoe Vale, and Glenn and Vilna watch the Clark's main house in South Yarra.
It is Glenn and Vilna who hear the unfamiliar howling coming from the botanical gardens. They quickly move there and watch from the umbra as the same unknown Garou they chased last night runs around in lupus form, chasing possums up into the trees. Vilna moves away and drops into the real world to call the others, as Glenn decides to approach. Switching to lupus form, he enters the real world and trots up in an amiable wolf fashion. Soon, Glenn and the young female Garou are both chasing possums into the trees. After a while, the two head down to the lake for water. As they are drinking, a passing security guard yells out at them. The Garou disappears into the umbra. Glenn follows. In the umbra the Garou trots away towards Punt road. After leaping a few fences, it arrive at the back of a large house. A window on the second storey is open. Facing the window, the Garou steps back into the real world. She then switches to Crinos and leaps to the window. Glenn enters through the umbra and moves upstairs. In the bedroom he finds a girl in her mid to late teens asleep on the bed. There is dirt tracked in from the window, and her nightdress lies in shreds on the floor.
As she sleeps, Glenn uses Dreamspeak to find out more about her, and to hopefully push her towards the cemetery. He sees images of her nightly rambles, including the night before when she was chased by some sort of mutant giant lizard. He also finds an image wherein she is roaming along an alleyway. She is in Crinos form when she encounters three men unloading boxes from a truck. On seeing her, the three pull guns and start firing. She is hit and frenzies, ripping the men to bits.
The rest of the True Seekers have arrived by now, and Glenn tells them what he has discovered. They return to the cemetery and inform Cossack. He says that the girl, who's name is Melissa Lindridge by the way, will have to be brought into the fold. Since the True Seekers found her, they can do the job.
The True Seekers call Ion and Irena in the morning and arrange to meet both at the Union Lawn at Melbourne University. Each is, of course, ignorant of the fact that the other is going to be there. When they see each other, both stop dead then advance more cautiously. Once they are together, Naomi explains about the lost cub and the inadvertent deaths of Ion's three men. At this point, the True Seekers feel that they can ask directly about Yesif. Ion says that it might have been Yesif who grassed, but it was useful to get rid of him as he was more in Irena's camp than in his. The True Seekers leave Ion and Irena to sort out their own differences. That afternoon, the True Seekers follow Melissa in the umbra as she heads home from school. She doesn't go straight home, but instead heads for the Botanical Gardens, where she sits and reads and listens to music. The True Seekers have decided to make her transition as gentle as possible. Glenn and Naomi get the ball rolling with Glenn walking his "pet" wolf Naomi in the park. Melissa seems hypnotised by Naomi and gets talking with Glenn, who she feels she has met before.For the next week, the True Seekers talk with her each afternoon until she has met all of them. Each night they run with her in lupus.
A mistake? Well, who can say? That afternoon, Melissa is talking with Lachlan, Steve and Vilna when they introduce her to their friend Naomi and her "pet" wolf Glenn. Melissa is looking decidedly shaky. Of course, having Lachlan whispering "One of us. One of us. One of us." into her ear doesn't help. As Lachlan keeps saying that it was hard for all of them when they first found out and that they are there to help, Melissa falls to the ground and shifts to Hispo form. The True Seekers leap on her and hold her down as she howls and screams. Grabbing one of their mirrors, someone shoves it in front of Melissa's face. She vanishes. Various people do likewise or run like hell. Soon, everyone is in the umbra, waiting for Melissa to appear. As soon as she does she flips to lupus and runs off howling. The True Seekers run with her, keeping pace with her, moving beside her, not making her feel that they are chasing her, until her frenzy dies down and she stops.
They tell her a bit about her nature and persuade her that she should go with them to the cemetery. She agrees. It is at this point that they remember the little scene in the Gardens. Steve runs back to the place and finds several police men talking to a group of animated witnesses. They have... let's see... Melissa's schoolbag with her name and address and all that happy stuff, and her shredded uniform lying on the ground. Never mind. The True Seekers take Melissa back to the Cemetery and introduce her to other members of the Sept. As luck would have it, it is the night of the full moon. Melissa gets to sit back and watch as a whole bunch of Werewolves celebrate the return of a lost cub. Emma Teesdale determines that Melissa is a Glass Walker Ahroun.
Cossack decides that, given the nature of Melissa's abduction, it would be best if she were returned to her family as soon as possible. As an urban Sept, it is fairly normal for new cubs to remain with their families while being trained. It is decided that Melissa she return and claim that the whole incident was just some sort of joke. Melissa agrees and the True Seekers return her to her home. When they get back, Cossack tells them that the Gnosis battery they brought back from the Scar is decaying; that all the gnosis inside is slowly leaking out. So, for a while, the sept is going to have no shortage of gnosis. The True Seekers decide to have Kanau stay with the battery and absorb it's power, in an attempt to further empower their totem.