truemane
    UNDER A BLOOD RED MOON  
  Part TWO: Into the Wilderness   
 
 Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost. 
-The Inferno, Canto I.  Dante Alghieri  
  Chicago, IL
Late September, 1993  


After the Moot ends, the Garou settle in for a what rest they can manage before the clarion of war was sounded. The plan was for Team Silver to travel to Chicago by Moonbridge at the break of dawn while Team Alpha set out for the Wyrmhole. The Theurges of the Sept felt that, despite it being sealed from the other side, they might be able to open a bridge to the Windcatcher's Caern. This would allow them to enter the city silently and possibly solve the mystery of what happened to the Sept.

But the next day's dawn saw a sky filled with black roiling clouds, the peals of distant thunder, and the air filled with rain. Out here, in the forest, the it was little more than a constant cold drizzle with a cold wind. But they could see that the skies above Chicago were were darker still, with swirling winds and a steady downpour.

But the Umbra was in a far worse state. The very air of the Spirit Realm glowed red and everywhere wind-spirits howled and shrieked. In Chicago they could see a massive pilar of swirling red clouds extending from the ground to the sky, where clouds poured from the top of the funnel. Lightning poured from the maelstrom in a constant stream and the occasional burst of thunder assaulted ear and head and spirit all at once.

Jupiter was still caught, but his struggles escape were tearing apart both spirit and the mundane worlds.

After several hours of discussion and planning, it was decided that Team Silver would have to enter Chicago by the roads, even though the roads were almost certainly being watched. The Elders asked Bleak Hammer to reconsider their position on abandoning Team Alpha, but they refused, saying that it was more important for them to 'observe' the assault on the Kindred than the Wyrmhole.

The Stormwardens piled into Danica's vehicle and started out for the City. Their instructions were to meet a Kinfolk named Susan at the Lincoln Park Zoo, follow her to a safe house and then make contact with a Glass Walker named Kelly Patterson.

Easy enough.

But the first question was: how to get there? There was some fear that the main roads would be the most watched, the most heavily defended. But there was also the fear that the back roads might suffer the most from the storms. And possibly offer better opportunities for ambush by the agents of the Wyrm.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
I try to avoid ending posts with this sort of soft landing, but I wanted to get the thread started before too much time had passed, and it is an important decision I didn't want to make for you.

Feel free to add in your post any special preparations you make or special gear you bring.
 
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 


The plans were made and the orders were given. It was time to roll out into town and do what had to be done, for Earth Mother, Nation and Tribe.

Gathering what they needed and saying their farewells and 'good lucks', the Stormwardens piled into Danica's big, heavy-set muscle car. Once inside, Danica grinned over at whoever was riding shotgun.

  "Backroads, I reckon,"   she stated,   "don't want to give any leach watch-outs eyeing the highway a lead to our girl at the Chicago Zoo, do we?"  

Key in the starter and voltage to the ignition breathed growling life into the twin-turbocharged V8 engine, the roaring grumble of the awakened cylinders heard and felt throughout the car through the rumps and backs of the four garou seated within its body.

  "See this?"   the Galliard beamed, reaching into her glove box and withdrawing a dark-blue-and-red jewel CD case.

  "Soul of a New Machine, from Fear Factory! Dropped last year, ****in' wicked mix of styles!"   her grin wide and enthusiasm infectious, as she pushed the CD into her cars stereo and moments later the subwoofer in the middle of the backseat  blasted to life .

  "Yeee-haw!"   Danica whooped and grinned, gunning the engine and spinning the back of the car around in a semi-circle that threw up a wall of dust before thundering off down the road.
Kaworu
-  That's all very nice and stuff  - Samuel was sitting in, trying to keep a straight face, seemingly not "deeply touched" by either the music nor the car -  but we need to focus. Are you trying to go into the City by a less travelled road? It seems reasonable, but can have its own drawback... eh  - he waved his hand dismissively -  still better than Vampire's attacks, I suppose? 
Kish
"Back roads, I think," Meghan says. "Anything we encounter there is more likely to be actually looking for trouble, not just existing and being in our path."

 I should probably actually feel a lot less confident than I do that we can handle any trouble the vampires give us. 
MrAbdiel
For Caliban, roads are things traversed by foot on long thoughtful pilgrimages; marvelling as the collaborated smell of the flora in one place changed to another once a river was crossed, or once one umbral realm yielded to another. He offers no advice on the route taken to get to the city - he understands that heading in on foot is too slow, umbrally or otherwise, for the tight schedule they're keeping; and it exposed them to witness more than the car did.

Caliban is miserable in the car. He sits in the rear passenger seat, quite still, hands clasped in his lap. The old wolf has adapted to life without eyes by mastering his other senses, but being in a car takes most of those away from him. His sense of touch is muted by the engine's pulse through the seat; his hearing only able to listen to crushing roar of passing wind through a rolled-down window or Danica's choice of music which - open minded as he tried to be - was incomprehensible to him. Umbral things flicker in and our of his awareness as they rip by and he can barely register them. Scent alone is left for him, and that through only his homid nose, and only through the air conditioner cycling in from the outside. Hot asphalt. Petrichor. Leaded petrol smoke. For Caliban, being on a road trip was like being in a submarine, peering up through an olfactory periscope for a snapshot-sniff of man's constructed world.

But he had been miserable before, and misery wasn't so miserable once you got a handle on it. He spends most of the trip thinking, thinking, thinking; meditating on the mystery of their task.

 
 Spoiler: Stuff to do on the way 
Caliban will ask if someone can procure for him some clothes like the clothes they wear in Chicago. At present, he sticks out like a sore thumb in the group - a rumpled old man in a tattered poncho amidst three modern young adults. This might involve someone rifling through a Goodwill bin for him or buying him a somewhat tasteless Chicago Blackhawks jersey from a gas station. Just enough of something to make him look less like a homeless man stalking the youngsters, and more like their shut-in grandpa being taken out of the retirement village for the day.
 
truemane
 THE BACKROADS 

The pack piles into Danica's car and sets off for the city.

The rural roads are narrow and poorly kept. The forest and trees creep right up to the edges of the pavement, looming over, blocking the sun and sky. The pelting rain covers the windows and makes the interior of the car feel cut off from the world. Isolated. The nearby/far-off drone of engines and honking horns of vehicles on the highways just contributes to the feeling of being out of time and space, being separate from the 'real world.'

Although the rain doesn't seem strong enough (or have been going on long enough), water is already pooling beneath the trees and making large muddy puddles beside the road. In some places the water has already covered the road completely (in some cases, hiding large rents in the asphalt that could have damaged the car severely if she had not been paying attention).

They also see a number of fallen trees and branches both beside and long the edges of the road (again, despite the wind not seeming strong enough to merit).

Creeping along, being alert for dangers both mundane and spiritual, they make slow and steady time. What should have been a 2 or 3 hour trip stretches well into its fourth hour with Chicago feeling no nearer.

Near the halfway markl, just outside the small town of Burlington, the road takes a sharp turn through a thick patch of forest and turns from asphalt to dirt (which, as far as any of the Garou were aware, there were no dirt roads anywhere near here).

They pass an old wooden beat up wooden sign with chipped and faded paint that says "Motorway B."

(which, perhaps needless to say, matches no one's memory of any of the ways into Chicago)

Within a few moments the forest becomes thick and dense and looms so close to the road they form an arch above.

Then dirt road ends and they're on hot-top again. The road widens and flattens out.

And then there's a sharp blind turn...

...right into a large tree blocking the road.

The ground on both sides of the road is a sodden mire.

Just up ahead there is a small clearing and what looks like a decrepit gas station. Two old pumps. A store housed in a sagging old building. The sign says OPEN but it doesn't look like this place has seen a customer for some time.

Just outside, beneath the building's old awning, are four men sitting and smoking cigarettes. An older man and woman can be seen standing just inside the store.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 

BananaPhone, please make a roll for stopping in time not to hit the deadfall (Perception or Wits + Drive unless you think something else makes more sense). Three successes is a complete safe stop. Anything less and there might be some damage to the car. Because you specified you were driving carefully, go with Difficulty 5.
 
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 


Danica drove with the practiced confidence of someone who had driven through her fair share of backroads. She took the turns easily, she remained alert and, perhaps mercifully for her less inclined passengers, she turned her music off once the asphalt turned to compressed dirt.

It was perhaps a good thing she did, as the Shadow Lord was quick with thw break when they rounded the corner and almost compressed the face of her car into a fallen log. Suspiciously, a group of four strangers loitered around a saggy old gas station down the road, but within viewing distance.

  "Ambush..."   Danica immediately remarked, eyes straight away scanning the sides of the roads and the trees - including looking up at their tops.

The Shadow Lords image shifted in the spot, the tinted windows protecting the Veil as she changed into her Glabro form.

  "Everyone out,"   her deeper, more gutteral voice uttered.

  "Someone help me with the log; other two, keep watch."  


OOC:

 
 Spoiler 
Rolled a reflexive 'perception' roll and got 0 successes.
 
Kish
Sensing no threats yet, Meghan gets out of the car and, considering the situation, shifts to Glabro.

She considers helping Danica with the log but decides she should be on watch.

 
 Spoiler: OOC 
Roll to shift:  (9d10)[ 4 ][ 3 ][ 2 ][ 2 ][ 1 ][ 6 ][ 4 ][ 9 ][ 9 ](40) 

An awful roll but goal achieved even so.
 
Kaworu
Samuel tried, while being inside of a car, to turn into Grablo too... the problem was, he was never particularly good at changing his physical form. He closed his eyes, frowned in confusion and irritation, and... still nothing happened.

- Eh... - he sighed - Please, gimme half a minute - he explained irritated.

When he finally did grow in size and strenght, he left the car and joined his friends - So, what are we doing? - he asked.
MrAbdiel
Caliban jolts forward with the sudden stop, mashing his face into the back of the passenger seat and bending the frame of his sunglasses. He breaks into a coughing fit in the confusion of the moment, but gathers himself as Danica gives the rundown. Ambush. Log. Watch.

He's had plenty of time on the drive to familiarise his right hand with the topography of the door, and he lets himself out into a brief stumble on the mudslick surface - all the same, back on to Gaia's glorious soil, in the still air, in the quiet of this shaded place. It's like coming up for air, though the threat of violence hangs acrid in the air. Hearing the bones clicking in his companions shifting to Glabro, the old Strider elects to remain in his homid form and keep 'watch'.

He draws in a lungful of petrichor-rich air, smells the cigarettes, the body odor, the sullen ache of old, wet timber; and he and listens.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Rolling to take in the scene, especially hidden suspicious features. Caliban's  Scent of Sight  means he can track reasonably visual elements with smell - like the people nearby - but obviously he can't read signs and so forth. But his sense of smell and hearing are good, in fact they offer -2 to difficulties, on this Alertness+Perception roll.  (7d10)[ 5 ][ 4 ][ 10 ][ 6 ][ 6 ][ 10 ][ 10 ](51) . Speciality "Spatial Awareness" may apply.
 
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 

Noting that Meghan and Samuel were getting out and keeping their eyes on the surrounding tree-line, Danica kept the engine hot and the headlights on as she moved over towards one end of the fallen tree trunk. She was already a tall and physically fit girl, but in Glabro she shot up to 6'7" with rounded, defined shoulders and thick arms. Meanwhile, the moonlight caught in the yellowed, plaited hair of her single, blonde braid behind her head.

When Samuel asked what he could do, Danica didn't say anything to him. Instead she just clicked one of her fingers in his direction to grab his attention, and then gestured to the part of the tree to which she was moving. The signal was clear: help her move this fallen tree. The less they said, the better.

When they both got into position, they could hoist one side of the tree up and swing the whole thing down 90 degrees to the other side of the road.
Kaworu
Samuel just went with Danica, eager to be useful. He was moving kinda unskillfully, being too big for his usual manner of existence. He had big muslces, body mass and shoulders and it was obvious he wasn't used to being this enormous.
truemane
 DANICA AND SAMUEL 

The tree is both large and awkward. Thick, sharp branches stick out from all angles making it almost impossible to get purchase. And every branch is covered in a thick carpet of deep green coniferous needles. But these needles are long and curved and sharp, almost like thorns.

Even the broken base of the tree is an insane mess of razor sharp splinters, with hordes of slightly-iridescent insects teeming about in the cracks and crannies.

It was going to be a real job moving it without tearing their hands and arms to shreds.


 CALIBAN 

The old Strider has walked uncounted miles in his many years, through a great many strange places. This is one of the strangest. The information he gets from his various remarkable sense tell an odd, conflicting story.

This place is a real place, but shifted slightly out of spiritual alignment somehow. The conflicting influences, perhaps, of Jupiter and the Wyrmhole and the reality-warping charms of the Ring of the Raccoon.

The result is they are no longer entirely in the Mundane World. But neither are they in the Umbra. There's a third, darker pull here. Something that smells of wet soil and dry rot and soggy forgotten dreams.

If Caliban had to guess, he'd say that somehow this place has been pulled partly into the Shadowlands, the near-realms of the dead.


 MEHGAN 

Standing back from the car and watching, Mehgan is struck by a profound sense of silence. Perhaps it's just a 'hangover' from the Danica's music blasting in the car, but the air here feels thick and enveloping. There are no animal sounds. No sounds of leaves or branches rustling in the wind. Even the sound of the rain has bled into a background hum that could almost lull someone to sleep.

The overall sense is that this tiny clearing here in this forested area is all on its own, spearate from everything everyone. Isolated, somehow.
Lost.

As Samuel and Danica size up the (wicked looking) tree, and Caliban scents the air, Meghan sees two of the men stand up and amble over, out from under the awning and toward the edge of parking lot. Nothing in their scent or movements or facial expressions indicate anything more than the good-sense wariness small-town people have of outsiders.

One is tall and lanky, with large, almost childlike eyes. The other is average height and husky with a large belly and the pinched, sharp gaze of a lifelong bully.

"That's a serious deadfall, there," says the husky one. "There's a phone inside if'n you want to call someone. Can't imagine old Rory's got much else going on today."

The lanky one nods. "I think Arnie," he gestured to the man standing inside the store, "Might have a tow cable on his truck out back. We could go ask."


 
 Spoiler: Caliban 
These are normal people. Whatever is happening here has nothing to do with them. They may not even be aware of it. However, the air all around them has the flat, bitter, acrid battery-acid taste of some kind of malevolent spirit activity. They are normal, but something very NOT normal is happening with them. Or near them. Or behind them. Or to them.

All your senses scream out that there is terrible danger nearby.
 
Kaworu
-  Hm...  - Samuel hadn't had any real solution to the problem the tree was -  Maybe... we can turn into Crinos and tear it apart? With our claws? Or maybe... you think somebody has a chainsaw we could borrow...?  - he was not convinced himself.

Also, he was sure there was some spiritual activity going on, forcing them to give up on going into Chicago as much as the figure in the back desired. He suspected Jupiter, but this was all to obvious to say aloud.

-  Crinos...?  - he crooked his head, looking at his friend.
Kish
Hearing Samuel say a word that humans shouldn't hear, Meghan rushes to speak over him. "We might take you up on that," she says. "The tow cable would certainly be helpful."
MrAbdiel
Caliban, hands on the car to guide his steps, moves to the log where Danica and Samuel consider the obstruction. Reality is warping here. For a gut freezing moment, he wonders if they are in the lair of a Nexus Crawler - but that's impossible. The trees would be turning into milk, and the ground into fire and hornets and poison. This was too subtle - like a fae trick, or a willworker's trap. He groans lowly, uncomfortable not knowing his space, and orientation. A North Star spirit once taught him a gift to know north at all times, and it had guided him well over the years; but in the umbra, even by degrees, it was no solid guide.

Hearing Meghan moving off to engage the locals, he hisses lowly to his other confederates, with urgency in his whisper.

 "We are in terrible danger. In some manner of... umbral lacuna. The gauntlet must have become so thin the realms are merging, because of the conflicting spiritual forces... I can't tell what it is, though. The humans up there have been dragged in, too; unware of the realm shifting around them. It... feels like the Dark Umbra, but not quite. I may be able to summon a spirit to help us on our journey - but for now, be wary. We are in a spirit place - everything around you will have meaning that may help us. And we should not let any of us get caught alone." 

He snaps out a collapsible white cane from his satchel, and uses it to probe the ground as he follows after Meghan's voice toward the steps, and the men waiting there.

 "And a... glass of water, if it is not too much trouble." 

He doesn't need to drink, terribly - but testing the hospitality of these fellows strikes him as a good way to engage and test their intentions.

 
 Spoiler: Secret GM business, do not peek 
Hey Truemane, I'm not sure what we're about to encounter, but if we get out of it alive and with the car in tact, I was thinking Caliban might summon a Gridlock Beetle (p126 Umbra: The Velvet Shadow) to help us get past any additional obstacles and make up time on our journey. It's the perfect spirit to allow us to avoid deadfalls and potholes and speeding tickets.

If we that ends up being possible, I figure it's a good chance to get Danica a fun moment of glory with her car since I'm sure there's not a huge amount of driving in this or any module. Maybe a the Gridlock Beetle is influenced by the  Ford Chicago Assembly plant  and has the form of a  1989 Taurus SHO .
It's a performance car that never really caught, so maybe the spirit would accept chiminage of racing Danica to Chicago with a wager of Glory, or something like that? Up to you. Doesn't matter until we solve this current situation, however!

Anyway, back to our present spiritual crisis!
 
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 

The Shadow Lord stood with her hands upon her hips for several long moments as she considered the problem before her. Maybe if they had some nylon, flat rope they could pass it underneath the bladed tree and Samuel and her could 'lift' it that way.

But, Meghan had the easiest solution: just use the tow-cable.

Nodding once at the Child of Gaia's suggestion,   "for the best,"   was all she said, as Danica turned back to her car and stalked towards it. She emerged from within several moments later with the plastic-wrapped flexible steel wire. Taking one of the hooked ends and tossing it underneath the tree to slide beneath it to the other side, the Shadow Lord then moved around the jagged, vicious end of the fallen lumber, grabbed the hook, and threw it over the trunk and back to where she had been standing.

Then, she returned to her former position, hooked the, well, hook, against the tow cable and tugged it to form a noose about the tree's top.

  "Right, Sammy, let's get this thing hauled..."   she said to the Glass Walker, taking a double grip of the plastic-coated steel wire and getting ready to drag the newly nasty tree 90 degrees and off the road.
Kaworu
Samuel did, as he was told. In fact, he was afraid of the "Dark Umbra" stuff Caliban mentioned - but he felt like he had no knowledge and no power to react to any of thet news in a meaningful fashion. A tree on the roadway was something he could deal with, both cognitively and physically. A place infected with the powers of Death? Not so...
truemane
 CALIBAN AND MEGHAN 

For a single, strange moment, the two men look at each other in silence. And then they turn back.

"Go on up the house," the lanky one says, "And Rory'll find you some water and get you some help if'n you need it." He waves to the other two men under the awning and they stand and start coming down the drive.


 DANICA AND SAMUEL 

The two men watch as Danny gets the cable out of the car. "That's good thinking, girlie," says the heavy set one, "Not often you see such a lovely lady with so much common sense." And he winks at her. "Now let us help you out of this mess. That tree's a big'un."

And they both start approaching, walking in an oddly hypnotic lockstep.
MrAbdiel
  "Thank you, sirs."  

The Arabic burr in his English covers the oddness of the formality, some; and once the cane becomes a hazard up the steps, he places a hand on Meghan's shoulder to complete the illusion that he needs her visual guidance.

Being in the pack leader's immediate zone of protection had another function - it allowed him to split off enough of his own concentration to draw in a breath through his nose, and see if he could sniff out Wyrm spirits complicating this spiritual quagmire.
Kaworu
Samuel tried to get the rope around the tree, preferably in a way that would not hurt his hands.
Kish
Meghan goes along to the store with the men. She is oblivious to any danger, for the moment, though her form remains larger and hairier than her Homid form--if only because she doesn't want to shapeshift in front of them.
truemane
 CALIBAN AND MEGAN 

It's not smelling. It's not a physical thing at all. But all the same, partly because that's how he navigates the world, and partly because he was part wolf, and partly because it was the simplest and most direct metaphor, he thought of it as  sniffing for the Wyrm. 

And the very moment he opened his senses he was overwhelmed by it. The stink. Great Gaia the stink of the Wyrm was everywhere. In the air. In the soil. In the rain. And in these people. He is still convinced that they are not directly involved, but something is very much involved with them.

Psychomachiae. Possessing entities. He was sure of it. Riding them like skin suits. They might not even be aware of it.

Yet.

And then his sensitive ears were split with horrendous noise and his body was torn with pain.


Meanwhile, Megan, following along beside Caliban toward the house, had just enough time to register that the frumpy old lady standing inside the dirty store-front window was standing strangely before she saw the shogun in her hands and then the dishwater daylight erupted in a bright flash, and ear-shattering boom, and the sound of shattering glass.

One of the two men vanishes above the waist in a massive spray of blood and bone. The other throws himself out of the blast radius and comes up onto his feet with shocking agility. He stands and starts toward them, the irises of his eyes black and his face slack, mouth agape. His hands open and close rhythmically.

 
 Spoiler 
Caliban and Megan, 6 Lethal Damage (pre-soak).

Roll initiative and declare actions.

The humans up here have an 8 to initiative. Anyone who rolls higher (Dex + Wits + 1d10) can go before them.
 

 SAMUEL AND DANICA 

As Samuel and Danica approach the tree with the tow cable, trying to work out the best way to attach it without destroying their hands, the air is split by the sound of gunfire from the house.

The very moment the two of them look to see what happened, the two men (already close) rush forward with an entirely unexpected burst of speed and grapple with the two Garou, pushing and pulling them toward the tree.

They are only pudgy, middle-aged, out of shape mortals, but their grips are like iron and they seem to be acting with adrenaline-fueled strength. And they pull and grab with absolutely no regard for their own safety. They will almost certainly go into the tree with the Garou. But they don't seem to care.

Out of the corners of their eyes, Samuel and Danica can see the iridescent insects swarming up onto the branches closest to the struggle, as though eager to make contact.

 
 Spoiler 
Danica you are being grappled with 6 successes. If you don't escape (or resist), you will be pulled toward the tree. You have maybe two chances before the worst happens.

Samuel, you are being grappled with 5 successes. Same deal.

Roll initiative and declare actions. These two have 9 initiative. Anyone who gets higher can act before they do.
 
Kish
As an explosion that would have left a human close to death very slightly singes Meghan, she reacts to the changed situation with the supernatural speed of Gaia's favor, her body swelling and growing hairy as her claws emerge. She briefly disputes targets before concluding both that she doesn't absolutely know the old woman wasn't aiming at these, and that a shotgun is, as she has just demonstrated, less threat to her than many supernatural attacks. Her claws blur with speed as she slashes at the clearly inhuman "man."

 
 Spoiler 
Spending three Rage points, and attacking the "man" four times if he's apparently alive for all of them. If he's clearly out of commission while she has actions left she'll charge after the woman with the shotgun.

Attack One:  (8d10)[ 9 ][ 8 ][ 4 ][ 3 ][ 8 ][ 9 ][ 1 ][ 5 ](47)  Base damage (will roll more in OOC if she scores more than marginal success): [rollv]7d10p/rollv]
Attack Two:  (8d10)[ 4 ][ 8 ][ 4 ][ 8 ][ 5 ][ 6 ][ 2 ][ 2 ](39)  Base damage (will roll more in OOC if she scores more than marginal success): [rollv]7d10p/rollv]
Attack Three:  (8d10)[ 2 ][ 9 ][ 5 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 8 ][ 4 ][ 9 ](46)  Base damage (will roll more in OOC if she scores more than marginal success): [rollv]7d10p/rollv]
Attack Four:  (8d10)[ 2 ][ 7 ][ 9 ][ 3 ][ 5 ][ 7 ][ 9 ][ 4 ](46)  Base damage (will roll more in OOC if she scores more than marginal success): [rollv]7d10p/rollv]
 
MrAbdiel
A crescent of lead shot catches him in the side, ripping a flap in his poncho, rending skin and flesh beneath; splattering blood on the doorframe behind him.

 Careless!  Foolish!  Fight!  Live! 

Ears ringing, blood flying, the impact smashes the breath from his lungs; but the old blood boils, and his form is buckling and warping even before his back hits the floorboards. His pained spasm while shifting leaves an interesting smear of gore on the floor, but it happens quickly -  crinos  was the form to which he was born, and to which his body most naturally sought to return.

Furious or not, he is bullet bit, and shy for the wound. His ears pick out Shreds-Leeches doing as the Ahroun do, and he is glad for her quick response - but there are more skin-rider spirits outside, and perhaps more nearby. Who knows how dense a hive of scum they had fumbled into? No sense in holding back. Best, now, to make war on them all.

Rage, tempered by wisdom, drives him to act swiftly. He rolls into whatever meagre cover the furniture provides from the gun-wielding puppet, first. Then, with the huge wolven hand slick with blood from the wound at his side, he slaps his palm against the boards and releases a ragged howl...

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Completion of post pending roll outcomes.

Healing:  (6d10)[ 1 ][ 4 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 4 ][ 2 ](20) 
 That's a botch on the healing. Caliban won't be able to regenerate until he rests out of combat. 

Battle Mandala Activation, at -2 dice from wounds. Int+Occult, Diff 6 'cuz of elephant. 1 gnosis to activate, so I'm down to 3/4 rage and 5/6 gnosis.

 (5d10)[ 5 ][ 7 ][ 5 ][ 9 ][ 6 ](32) !

Battle Mandala activates with 3 successes, so a 150ft Radius. All spirits (except Elephant) within that radius lose 1 Essence per turn. It lasts until the end of the scene, or until Caliban leaves the radius.
 


... and a great shimmering web, visible only to eyes that perceive gnosis,  spreads out from his bloody handprint to cover the walls, the boards, outside and down the steps to the car and the log and beyond. Every inch of the pattern seems to dance with tiny, lambent hieroglyphics capturing tales of Clever Owl, and his victories.

This did nothing for the wound at his side, which did not begin to close as quickly as he would like - but one crisis at a time.
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 


When the two men initiated an approach, yelling out to Danny and Samuel, the tall Shadow Lord waved a muscular arm in dismissal.
  
"Nah, we're all good, that's close enough fellas!"   she yelled back. But, when they continued their approach, Dannys shoulders tensed in anticipation - but it wasn't enough.

The two rushed forward with surprising speed and alacrity, catching the Shadow Lord off-guard with the swiftness with which they moved. No sooner had she gotten herself ready to receive the charge than did steel-strong arms wrap around her body, bringing those pale, pallid features right up in her face with the putrid scent.

What was surprising, however, was the power each brought with them. The flabby one in particular, eyes devoid of any humanity or reason, compressed himself against her with the power of a Crinos in one doughy package.

And then Danny heard the shotgun blast from across the road.

Reaching deep within herself, the Shadow Lord drew up from within her soul the skin of the wolf. Already towering in her Glabro form, Danica morphed into the war-figure of the Garou; her limbs extending in an instant, her shoulders deepening and growing as her short, black fur coated her entirely; her face elongating into the wolfmans facial muzzle, filled with a row of pearl-white teeth that snarled and beneath those burning, golden eyes of the Shadow Lord's massive Crinos dimensions.

Locked together, the man had nowhere to run as he was given an upfront expression as the air thickened around them, carrying a primal weight that harkened to a much darker time of human historyy one more primordial and terrible. A low growl rumbled from Danny's throat like a purring truck engine, resonant and vibrating with ancient, unspoken power that blasted the mans courage to smithereens...


OOC:

 
 Spoiler 
As mentioned and rolled in the OOC area, Danny is:

- Got 13 on her Initiative.

- Spending a Rage point to instant transform into Crinos.

- Spending a rage point for an extra action.

- Her 'main' action is using her gift  True Fear  on the man grappling her. The difficulty is the targets willpower, which I don't know. She rolled: 8, 6, 3, 10, 6, 9, 3, 1, 8, 7, 8, 3. Assumedly that's 7 to 10 successes.

- Her second action is using  True Fear  again on the one grappling Samuel. She rolled 6, 7, 1, 2, 9, 4, 3, 1, 7, 5, 9, 2. Assumedly that's 5-6 successes.
 
Kaworu
This was bad. Very bad. Suddenly, there was violence and anger and danger in a place, that was so quiet and calm just a few seconds ago. One of his friends got hit with a blast of a weapon, and second turned into her full, Crinos form.

Samuel tried to feel the primal rage and turn into Crinos too, but sadly, it didn't worked. Only after closing his eyes and reaching his deepest, most primal reserves of Rage, was he able to turn.

Well, he always felt awkward for a Garou. Now though, it could cost him his life.

His form elongated and bulked, his shoulders more broad, his head a those of a wolf, his fur silver and long. He was scary, he felt angry, and he was as his best physical opportunity to defend from attackers.

He didn't attack yet. He supposed the mere sight of Crinos should render the folks into delirium. If not... well, then he had other options in front of him. Anything but killing though, the people probably were under spiritual influence and weren't that nasty by themselves... he hoped.

 
 Spoiler 


I spent 1 point of Rage.
 
truemane
The response was swift.

Meaghan tears into the attacking man, striking him four times with her massive razor claws. In the final moment before his life leaves his body she sees only confusion and fear and sadness in the man's eyes. And then, when he dies, the air around him fills with a cloying, suffocating, polluting malevolent presence that immediately focuses on her, and she can feel it pressing against her mind, trying to find a way in.

Meanwhile, Danica's battle cries fill the morning air, echoing off into the forest. The two men accosting her and Samuel stop dead in their tracks for a moment, their bodies rigid with terror. Their eyes, however, remain cold and black and dead and unafraid. And after a moment, they start moving again.

But then....

Then Caliban strikes the ground and the ground around him alights with the bright blinding glow of all complex sigil. And the power of the Battle Mandala radiates out all around him.

And each of the remaining upright humans falls to the ground and the air all around them fills with the oily presence of the psychomachiae. Their cries of pain and anger are high and sharp and piercing and overwhelm all other sounds.

But they seem unable to possess their hosts while the Mandala binds them.

Mehgan feels the presence retreat from her.

They are, however, still present. And while the Mandala is hurting them, its effects are not instantaneous.
Kish
 Spirits. I may have just killed an innocent and salvageable human.  But Meghan pushes that concern aside as they are still facing a deadly threat.  Claws won't work, nothing solid. Go into the Umbra to fight them?  While she hopes Caliban's power is enough, she looks around for a mirror in the shop and, if she doesn't find it instantly, runs back to the car.
MrAbdiel
Caliban 'smells' the oily radiance of the banes as they are ejected from their hosts. Fortuitous - the mandala was a powerful gift, but it does not, under most circumstances, have the power to exorcize; only to make voluntary ejection a better alternative than slow destruction of the hostile spirit. Perhaps the great storm enhanced the power of the mandala; perhaps noble Elephant's grace had loaned extra strength. But it did not serve a warrior to dwell on a good turn; only the next steps.

What now to do, against such foes? The old wolf's mind raced. Warriors were prey for the Ahroun and the Galliard; dilemmas and matters of reasoned insight belonged to the Philodox. But spirits were the Theurge domain, and his companions would likely look to him for direction. The moment the banes abandoned their hosts, Caliban became the pack's alpha.

Limping with the agony of his wound, he took a stumbling step toward the now fallen woman and snatched up her firearm by its smoking barrel. He followed Meghan outside, reuniting the pack.

 "Stay with me,"  he croaked in the Garou tongue,  "for they must seek to kill me to break the mandala. Let them spend their strength to manifest and fight; or else slowly burn." 

Better the banes manifest for the pack to pounce, than the pack slip into the umbra to be pounced by the banes.

 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
Action: Pick up that dropped shotgun. Can't have granny wake up and panic fire again, in case she's still alive.

Move out to the rest of the pack, and speak. No rolls required.
 
Kaworu
Samuel was silent for a brief moment, but then began explaining his plan, even though there was not much time or thought put into it.

- Em, guys? Maybe we should just jump into the car and go away the way we came fom? I would hate to kill these people. They are seemingly possessed by dark spirits and do not know what they are doing - or that they should be afraid of Garous. I would really hate to hurt them. Wouldn't getting in our car the second way be more preferable?
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 


The Galliards senses remained sharp as her towering Crinos form snarled the two assailants into submission, prompting their spectral possessors to reveal their true form and temporarily exit their unwilling hosts.

Drawing close to the others, her backs to them and face fronting against the enemies around them, Danica uttered her gutteral words in the Garou tongue, as it was the only one through which she could communicate at length while wearing the skin of the Gaian war-form.

  "Without moving the fallen tree we're going nowhere,"   she said succinctly, her words like thunder.

  "Manifest the banes and destroy them; we leave, they re-inhabit these homids!"  
truemane
 THE PACK, UNITED 

Standing with their backs together, the pack faces the malevolent spirits. In their un-bound form they are like black roiling clouds of oil and soot: thick and undulating, with filth radiating from them into the air around them. It is almost impossible to tell where one leaves off and another begins. But if there is one per human vessel, the massive cloud contains six psychomachinae.

Parts of the cloud coalesce into three vaguely-humanoid figures: nearly eight feet tall and impossibly thin, with multiple long, segmented insectile limbs tipped with long razor talons like rusted blades. Their faces each dominated by an enormous tooth-filled maw pulled back into a horrid grinning rictus. Tiny eyes peek out, set deeply into their grey, spongy, other-worldly flesh.

All three of them converge immediately on Caliban with a sudden, eerie speed, hissing in pain as they strike. Their many limbs strike out with a flurry of attacks, blades and talons swirling.

Another portion seems to drift off, out of the bounds of the mandala (but whether it flees or stays is hard to determine).

 
 Spoiler: OOC General 

 All:  the Battle Mandala does not move once established. So it's 150 feet in every direction from just in front of the store. That encompasses the driveway and stops just short of the car and the fallen tree. If you've pulled up near the car, you're very near the edge of it. If you're nearer the center of the Mandala, you're about 150 feet from the car.

 Mehgan:  you were able to find a mirror in the store, torn from a display for sunglasses.

 Caliban: 
-Attack one: 3 successes, 4 damage (aggravated)
-Attack two: 3 successes, 5 damage (aggravated)
-Attack three: MISS!
-You're welcome to declare dodges and/or blocks in response.

 All:  Due to the squishy initiative, and the fact that this is your first battle as a PACK, anyone who wants to spend actions to block or interpose themselves between Cali and the Bad Guys, I'm open to it.
 

 
 Spoiler: Danica 

You hear a voice in your head. Not just a voice, not just hearing: you feel a vile  intention  slide into the deepest recesses of your divided spirit, like the drip of black ichor. It finds welcome purchase in the dark, dark nest of Wyrm-taint at the core of every Garou. And what the voice (intention) says is this:

  RULE.

You are the strongest. You are the smartest. You are the most cunning. The pack should be yours. All victory and all glory and all praise should be yours. Forever. Take it. Take it now.

NOW.  

And Danica is overcome with black rage and blind ambition and she knows... she KNOWS that if she were to strike at Meghan now the pack would be hers to do with as she liked...

OOC: You can roll Willpower or spend a Willpower point to resist the urge to attack Meghan and take over the pack. Either way, it will count as an action (so either a Rage action or halve an applicable dice pool).
 

 
 Spoiler: Samuel 

You hear a voice in your head. Not just a voice, not just hearing: you feel a vile  intention  slide into the deepest recesses of your divided spirit, like the drip of black ichor. It finds welcome purchase in the part of you still conflicted over your role and duty as a Garou, the dark, dark nest within you that still hasn't let go of being a human. And what the voice (intention) says is this:

  RUN.

This is not your fight. You are not built for this. You are out of your league, our of your depth. Let the others handle it. The fighters and warriors and bloodthirsty thugs. They don't even want you here. They don't even like you. They wish you had never come with them. They wish they have never been cursed with your incompetent presence. So why stay and die for those that hate you?

RUN.  

And Samuel  is overcome with fear and shame. He knows that, if he runs now, he could make it out alive. No one would ever blame him, ever judge him. It was him or them...

OOC: You can roll Willpower or spend a Willpower point to resist the urge to attack Meghan and take over the pack. Either way, it will count as an action (so either a Rage action or halve an applicable dice pool).
 
Kaworu
Samuel heard the voice inside of him. It was terrible, listening to it. It was so, so shameful. Why was the voice telling him all this? Was it really true?

 They are my friends  – he told himself sternly –  They are my friends and I like them. And I believe they like me, too. That’s all that matters, innit? 

He felt his purpose ringing in his head. All at once, everything was clear. He was him, and the voice no longer mattered.

He moved forward, closer to the center of the mandala protecting him and his friends. It was all he thought of doing right now, to get closer to the place of safety.

 
 Spoiler 


Hm, I’m spending 1 WILLPOWER.

Is moving counting as an action? If so, I spend also 1 Rage.
 
BananaPhone
   Danica Radec 

Danica hissed a guttural sneer as the dread phantom pushed into her mind through its psychic tendrils, the inky extensions attempting to coil around her grey matter and turn her into a living puppet the way it had the unfortunate humans occupying this land.

They promised power, they promised influence and position. But like all tempters, their words were lies.

What they had not counted upon was the foundational, deep-seated arrogance of the Shadow Lord. A self-confidence so stirring and resistant to external influence that it would be roused to reject it without even a conscience effort by the Galliard herself. But when she  did  turn her focus to ejecting those lurid temptations, when she put her mind to assessing their Wyrm-blighted offer in full, she found it wanting, false and built on a base of sand.

   "You forget one thing,"    Danny's mental voice shot back across the psychic bridge established between Bane and would-be victim.

   "You cannot give me what I already have."   

The malign touch of the Bane was ejected from the Galliards mind with a deep-chested, throat howl, the massive Crinos almost 'swiping' at the black specter as she shoved herself between it and their Theurge - its razor-like claws plunging into her body instead, but to little visual effect.


OOC:
 
 Spoiler 
Danny rolled 4 Successes on her Willpower roll, roll  here .

Assuming Kish is okay with it, Danny was also going to Spend 1 Rage point and take Attack 2 on Calibans behalf, rolling 5 successes on her soak, roll  here .


I  think  that's all the actions she can take.
 
MrAbdiel
As the group coalesces around him, he jukes away from one spirit's manifesting talons - and toward two more, though the Ahroun and Galliard intercede with wrath and grace to take the blows and pour on their own attacks.

He shifts his footing, sniffing the air as he does to track his foes manifested and manifested.  But since we have engaged the Wyrm,  he thinks,  we may as well press them to blather.  Spirits, like humans, were not immune to blurting out more than they should say, when provoked.

 &lt;Petty wyrm-specks!&gt; , he barks in the impenetrable lupine argot that is the Garou's linguistic onramp to the Speech of Spirits.  &lt;You thought to ambush the fangs of Gaia? You have destroyed yourself!&gt; 
 
 Spoiler: OOC: 
The hits are graciously taken by Meghan and Danica.

Caliban uses Evasive Action for three successes to 'dodge' the next hit on him.

Caliban begins sh!t-talking in Spirit Speech as a free action.

The Mandala ticks, and every spirit in the zone (except Elephant if he is hiding somewhere nearby) loses another point of essence.
 