[Missed beginning. Lila is hitchhiking. A truck stops. The trucker gets out. Spooky lady commands shadows!]
[murder] [soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] 1c bite.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] [soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1a bite
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1a -2 -4 wound penalty.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] 1b -3 -4 wound penalty +WP
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 5 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] R1:
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[murder] [Dmg!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] [Soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] R1
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] [Soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[murder] 1a: BITE
1b: BITE
R1: CLAW
r2: CLAW
[murder] [cleanses palate]
[murder] [etalap sesnaelc]
[Trucker] There is a lonely stretch of road somewhere in Illinois, south of Tekakwithwa Wood. North and west of Chicago. The blacktop is lined by great stretches of dark fields, quiet now, huge metal irrigation system arching fields which bristle with new growth, quietnow, unused. The sky is clear, but the air smells of earth and damp, wet. Green things, growing. The moon is dark, and there are a thousand thousand stars in the sky, so many more here, on the dark stretch of road, than in the city.
The city.
It is a many-mile hike back to the city. The two-lane road is empty. There hasn't been a car by for hours. And then, headlights sweep, an 18-wheeler heading down the road.
[murder] Lila, then: sun-kissed hair, wheat-ripe, waving; glints in the headlights like gold [fever, recapture some've that ol' 49er spirit yo]. The small [creature (monster: hero)] is on the side of the road. When headlights lance through her, she sticks out a thumb. Going-my-way-sir?
[Trucker] The truck passes her; keeps going, going, but slowing. The brakelights flash red-white in the gloomy, bathing her features crimson. Airbrakes pull, and there's a long sigh like someone waking up from a pleasant dream that is expelled by the machine. Then the white goes out. The truck stops, some twenty feet ahead of her, over on the shoulder, the blinkers flashing now, warning any oncoming traffic - hey, hey, I'm here.
In the air, drifting back - a low shout. It's not male. It's female. " - you need a ride, there, honey?"
[murder] This is sad, but this is also true: a female voice is a reassurance. Don't expect the [same kind've] trouble from a(nother [let's pretend]) woman. Lila's an old hand at hitching rides and she calls back: " - yeah. heading into the city. Don't care where I get dropped off, long as it's closer to civilization than this. Do you mind?" And as she calls back, she approaches, treading the edge of darkness easily, bouncily, until she's standing so's she can look the truckdriver in the eye and take her measure. There are some people Lila doesn't take rides from.
[Trucker] "It's ain't no problem, sweetheart." The woman is mid-50s, something like - older but not old, yet. Her face has something open, not sunshine like Lila, not sunkissed, but open - round and goodnatured and wholly forgettable fair face framed by a mediocre black dyejob. Nice eyes, those, though lit ghastly from below by the dashboard lights. Lila can see the the face through the open passenger's window, leaning over, hand braced on the passenger's seat.
"I ain't goin' all the way in, but I kin getcha closer - " is what she promises, smiling, already moving out of the field of vision. "Mind," she continues, cautions, disappearing. There's a click. Something on the other side, a latch being undone. " - I gotta come over and jimmy that lever on that door fer ya. There's a trick cain't no one but me master."
The engine idles, indolent. The driver's door swings open, and after a moment, feet drop heavily to the blacktop.
[murder] [HAH. Do you mean me well? Are you a good person to take a ride from? *begins the dice-rolling fest!* Percept+Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] [Not only do I mean you well, I will feed you delicious apple pies! Manipulation + Subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] It's not enough - that brief glimpse of the truckdriver - to give Lila any insight into the sort've woman who's driving on highway whatever at whatever o' clock in the morning of whatever day, stopping for a young woman (she could be in college [could be, isn't]) who is, for whatever reason, all on her lonesome, this long, dark stretch of darkness.
But no warning bells go off, and Lila exhales. Says, head canted just so, listening to the woman while she regards the darkness under the truck, "I'm not going anywhere. Name's Lila, by the way. What's your name? Have you been on the road for a while?"
[Trucker] "Been on the road since sundown, sweetheart. Mostlike a little earlier. It was raining then, so cain't hardly tell." Footsteps on the blacktop, circling the front of the cab. The trailer is unmarked. There are no advertisements, no signs warning of radioactive materials, no "HOW AM I DRIVING?" stickers, no offers of employment, nothing - a plan trailer, and a plane truck. The woman circling, well, her shadow is in view before she is. Her shadow is long, definite, for all that there is no moon and no streetlamps, just the ghosthaze of the headlights glowing in the darkness.
[Trucker] Then: there she is. She's no more than 5'6", 5'7", and that's with the aid of a pair of cowboy boots. Ordinary, mildly overweight, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a vest with western fringe, which shadows over her breasts and hides some sort of stain there. Mustard. No - ketchup, or marinara sauce.
She is smiling that smile, which is a nice smile, a sort of half-moon thing, neither large nor small, just pleasant, perhaps forgettable. "Real good to meet you, Lila. You kin call me Earlene."
Which doesn't mean it is her name. Maybe it's the last name she remembers.
Stillness, then - from her. A moment when she half closes her eyes, breathes in, says, quiet, " - I just love the smell of the earth after a rain, don't you?"
[Sense Gaia! ]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[murder] "The edge of twilight - " and this, then, is half-dreamy; sounds more-than-halfway dreamy " - well. I find it obscures the lines you'd normally read, the divider between the map of day, the map of nighttime hours." Earlene follows her shadow around the front of the truck, and Lila looks up and over, shifting her weight from one hip to the other [sweet (honey-bee)]. Her eyes are focused, clear; inquisitive. Maybe a shade more possessed than you'd expect a blonde college student to be in a place like this, but that's just the truth of the world: things aren't the way you expect them to be.
[Percept+Alert?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Trucker] So: Lila sees things. Lila sees: dark under Earlene's names, and blood on Earlene's breast. Not marinara. Blood. Lila sees: the way the Earlene's shadow moves in snippets, stuttersteps, like it were an independent thing, sharper and deeper than Lila's, and Lila hears, from inside the trailer, the scritch-scritch-scritch of some living thing. Scritch-scritch-scritch of some hopeless thing.
Earlene, meanwhile, flashes Lila a mild little smile. She pads forward, a new sort of wariness hidden beneath her body, that knowledge lively in her head. It's nearly impossible to read the tells, particularly in the darkness, but Lila reads them.
"Sounds like poetry, honey," says Earlene. "I ain't no poet, though. C'mon. Kin getcha to the next interstate."
[murder] [man, you are so normal. i'm not wise to you at all. manip+subt. prepare to mock.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] [are you on to me tasty little girl!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] This is one of those clear moments, a moment so clear, so lucent, that the Galliard who's half-miraculous with her insights into people can see just what's wrong here. This is also one've those moments where her expression doesn't change, doesn't cloud up with the sure knowledge that Something Is Wrong. Lila looks dreamy, still, and wide-eyed, and she offers Earlene a half-serious twist of a smile - "I wouldn't say that. The way you say 'cain't' is kind of poetic. There's a rhythm there, sure, but true - and yeah, I like the smell of the earth after rain. So what's this trick with the door?"
And Lila, Lila doesn't seem particularly wary at all. Easy, easy prey. Stays, though, away from Earlene's shadow, stays, though, back until Earlene goes for the door.
[And we'll -1g for Luna's Armor now, I s'ppose, since Snap-shift'll be on its way! Survival+Stam?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[murder] 6 +
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[murder] [hypothetical: RAR]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Trucker] [Order: Earlene: 13
Lila: 7]
[murder] [Snap-shift to Hispo -1 rage.
1a. BITE evil trucker (in the back? hah. not with that 1).
1b. BITE evil trucker again.
R1. Not v. creative - bite again?]
[Trucker] [Earlene:
1. Wyrmhyde!
2. Shadow smack
3. Shadow smack!
** additional actions go off with rage attacks.]
[Trucker] There is a moment that is balanced. Earlene looks at Lila, Lila looks at Earlene. They are on the side of the road, on the side of a nameless road, flanked by fields, growing things. The earth smells good, fresh, recently turned, new-sown crops bristle. And then Lila is enveloped in a shimmering haze, and Earlene, Earlene snarls, drawing in on herself, coating her pale skin with a think, bracing layer of shadow -
- she hopes.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 8)
[murder] 1a chomp! -2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg +suxx-1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1b. chompchompchomp! -3.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [appropriate musical interlude dmg.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Shadowsmack!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] [eep!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] [Rage: chompity, no seriously. you hit me with a shadow.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [i-have-had-e-nuff-with-darkness-being-sentient-and-attack-y dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Trucker] What happens is: shadows coat the woman's skin, making it inky, living, livid. The direwolf bites the shadowskinned woman and comes away with a mouth full of smoke and ash, a mouth full of memories, a half-hundred dying memories, the skein of blood - real blood, hot blood - faint beneath it. The shadows rise up, surround her, the arms are solid things, long reaching, wrong, and they leave beneath a faint sulferous odor and a terrible, cauterizing sense of cold where they break through the silvercage of Luna's gleaming armor.
[Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] The shadows come alive again, foul and smoking, the dull, dark song of it.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[murder] [eep!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] [eeeek?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] [only +1 diff. not that it makes a difference! hah!]
[Trucker] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[murder] 8+
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Trucker] [Order: Lila: 17
Earlene: 15]
Earlene: 1a. SHADOW WEAVE
b. RUN AWAY.
2. SHADOW SMACK.
3. SHADOW SMACK.
[murder] -1 WP, Resist Pain!
1a. Grr, bite!
1b. Grr-rrr-rrr, bite!
R1: Bite
R 2: Bite!!
[murder] 1a. -2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[murder] 1b -3
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Trucker] Then: the direwolf lunges, surges forward, snarling, has a mouthful of shadow and a mouthful of bloodspray and the shadows livid over the one-human woman's skin begin to dissolve, dissipate, dripping down like water beading over oilcloth, a great arc of blood, the deathblow sudden, snarling, hot in her mouth. She turns in a widening gyre -
- and finds the shadows still too dense, too livid, too alive, moving independent of the woman who employed them. The corpse has fallen, but her living shadow remains, wavering, unpinned from its place in reality - moving.
[Earlene is dead. 1a. and b. forfeited as x.x. Next up rage actions!]
[murder] [rage 1: o noes. shadows. bitechoo!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)
[Trucker] soak?
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[murder] [soakedy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] She has a mouthful of shadow, it is cold, vividly so, burning in the back of her throat, burning cold as it goes down, blistering her mouth. She has a mouthful of nothing, burning her, as the shadows dissipate and the darkness dissolves, becomes an ordinary darkness rather than an extraordinary darkness, on a lonely two-land road in the middle of nowhere. There is, still, still, still (it is seconds later; this happens in less than an eyeblink. The moon has not moved and the engine still idles, coughing now and then as air enters the mix of gasoline.) - the scritch, scritch, scritch of something, nails against metal, inside the trailer.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] [mrr? percept + alert or PU, same pool!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 8
[murder] [wits+enigmas, more gnosis for me?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[murder] [guts-not-dangling-out-now? gaia's breath rolling gnosis yeah? yeah?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Inside the trailer: a handful of humans. Two still living, three more dead. Traumatized, crying, scritch-scritch-scritching against the wall of the trailer. They are in cages, and the interior stinks of feces and urine. Stinks of fear, stinks of death. The dead humans have been eaten.
- some of the living ones have, too.
Still, Lila is a Child of Gaia. She can heal. She knows others who can heal, too.
Maybe there is hope for the remaining two. Maybe.
[murder] The war-shaped wolf, massive, monstrous, beast-savage's eyes catch the hazyglow from the headlights and turn -- briefly, briefly -- hunter's moon radiant. There is no moon in the sky; the creature works its jaw, because this - this biting the dark back down to something natural - is a strange feeling, eldritch. Huffs, she, regarding Earlene, the pieces of Earlene, the truck. Ears prick, big bad wolf, monster, and she listens to the sound of things [human things (Earlene looked human)] inside the truck for a moment, for two moments, and as she does, she calms herself ( - easy - ) and re-connects to the part've being garou that's wonderful. Reverence. Then, an exhale -- and the creature shifts, glabro, hulking woman-beast, still-monstrous, cautious -- and digs out a talen [Gaia's breath], reverences that, too. Re-knits, almost entirely. Listens, again. Then -
Lila'll, still cautious, wary, staying low, don't-see-me, open the back of the truck and peer inside. Lila'll see this: the handful of humans, the quick and the dead. The foulness -- the wrongness. Then: frowningly, unhappily, she'll shift-down, clamber into the truck, come close, holding her breath. Lila, she's a Child of Gaia. She can heal, if that's Gaia's will -- if Gaia wants these humancreatures to live. Breaks her heart, but she makes soothing noises, shh, shhh, shhhh, police're on their way, shh, and maybe they won't want to be touched,
but maybe they won't be able to flinch away far enough, maybe, maybe they'll be soothed.
And after Lila's tried to heal them, whether that's failed or not, Lila'll cleanse the whole damned truck, humans still inside (I heard a sound; I'll be right back) that they be cleansed, too.
[murder] [Do the humans get healed, outta curiosity, mang? -1 g]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]
[Trucker] [Stamps finished!]
[murder] [and the other!? -1g]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[murder] [soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] 1c bite.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] [soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1a bite
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1a -2 -4 wound penalty.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] 1b -3 -4 wound penalty +WP
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 5 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] R1:
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[murder] [Dmg!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] [Soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] R1
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] [Soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[murder] 1a: BITE
1b: BITE
R1: CLAW
r2: CLAW
[murder] [cleanses palate]
[murder] [etalap sesnaelc]
[Trucker] There is a lonely stretch of road somewhere in Illinois, south of Tekakwithwa Wood. North and west of Chicago. The blacktop is lined by great stretches of dark fields, quiet now, huge metal irrigation system arching fields which bristle with new growth, quietnow, unused. The sky is clear, but the air smells of earth and damp, wet. Green things, growing. The moon is dark, and there are a thousand thousand stars in the sky, so many more here, on the dark stretch of road, than in the city.
The city.
It is a many-mile hike back to the city. The two-lane road is empty. There hasn't been a car by for hours. And then, headlights sweep, an 18-wheeler heading down the road.
[murder] Lila, then: sun-kissed hair, wheat-ripe, waving; glints in the headlights like gold [fever, recapture some've that ol' 49er spirit yo]. The small [creature (monster: hero)] is on the side of the road. When headlights lance through her, she sticks out a thumb. Going-my-way-sir?
[Trucker] The truck passes her; keeps going, going, but slowing. The brakelights flash red-white in the gloomy, bathing her features crimson. Airbrakes pull, and there's a long sigh like someone waking up from a pleasant dream that is expelled by the machine. Then the white goes out. The truck stops, some twenty feet ahead of her, over on the shoulder, the blinkers flashing now, warning any oncoming traffic - hey, hey, I'm here.
In the air, drifting back - a low shout. It's not male. It's female. " - you need a ride, there, honey?"
[murder] This is sad, but this is also true: a female voice is a reassurance. Don't expect the [same kind've] trouble from a(nother [let's pretend]) woman. Lila's an old hand at hitching rides and she calls back: " - yeah. heading into the city. Don't care where I get dropped off, long as it's closer to civilization than this. Do you mind?" And as she calls back, she approaches, treading the edge of darkness easily, bouncily, until she's standing so's she can look the truckdriver in the eye and take her measure. There are some people Lila doesn't take rides from.
[Trucker] "It's ain't no problem, sweetheart." The woman is mid-50s, something like - older but not old, yet. Her face has something open, not sunshine like Lila, not sunkissed, but open - round and goodnatured and wholly forgettable fair face framed by a mediocre black dyejob. Nice eyes, those, though lit ghastly from below by the dashboard lights. Lila can see the the face through the open passenger's window, leaning over, hand braced on the passenger's seat.
"I ain't goin' all the way in, but I kin getcha closer - " is what she promises, smiling, already moving out of the field of vision. "Mind," she continues, cautions, disappearing. There's a click. Something on the other side, a latch being undone. " - I gotta come over and jimmy that lever on that door fer ya. There's a trick cain't no one but me master."
The engine idles, indolent. The driver's door swings open, and after a moment, feet drop heavily to the blacktop.
[murder] [HAH. Do you mean me well? Are you a good person to take a ride from? *begins the dice-rolling fest!* Percept+Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] [Not only do I mean you well, I will feed you delicious apple pies! Manipulation + Subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] It's not enough - that brief glimpse of the truckdriver - to give Lila any insight into the sort've woman who's driving on highway whatever at whatever o' clock in the morning of whatever day, stopping for a young woman (she could be in college [could be, isn't]) who is, for whatever reason, all on her lonesome, this long, dark stretch of darkness.
But no warning bells go off, and Lila exhales. Says, head canted just so, listening to the woman while she regards the darkness under the truck, "I'm not going anywhere. Name's Lila, by the way. What's your name? Have you been on the road for a while?"
[Trucker] "Been on the road since sundown, sweetheart. Mostlike a little earlier. It was raining then, so cain't hardly tell." Footsteps on the blacktop, circling the front of the cab. The trailer is unmarked. There are no advertisements, no signs warning of radioactive materials, no "HOW AM I DRIVING?" stickers, no offers of employment, nothing - a plan trailer, and a plane truck. The woman circling, well, her shadow is in view before she is. Her shadow is long, definite, for all that there is no moon and no streetlamps, just the ghosthaze of the headlights glowing in the darkness.
[Trucker] Then: there she is. She's no more than 5'6", 5'7", and that's with the aid of a pair of cowboy boots. Ordinary, mildly overweight, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a vest with western fringe, which shadows over her breasts and hides some sort of stain there. Mustard. No - ketchup, or marinara sauce.
She is smiling that smile, which is a nice smile, a sort of half-moon thing, neither large nor small, just pleasant, perhaps forgettable. "Real good to meet you, Lila. You kin call me Earlene."
Which doesn't mean it is her name. Maybe it's the last name she remembers.
Stillness, then - from her. A moment when she half closes her eyes, breathes in, says, quiet, " - I just love the smell of the earth after a rain, don't you?"
[Sense Gaia! ]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[murder] "The edge of twilight - " and this, then, is half-dreamy; sounds more-than-halfway dreamy " - well. I find it obscures the lines you'd normally read, the divider between the map of day, the map of nighttime hours." Earlene follows her shadow around the front of the truck, and Lila looks up and over, shifting her weight from one hip to the other [sweet (honey-bee)]. Her eyes are focused, clear; inquisitive. Maybe a shade more possessed than you'd expect a blonde college student to be in a place like this, but that's just the truth of the world: things aren't the way you expect them to be.
[Percept+Alert?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Trucker] So: Lila sees things. Lila sees: dark under Earlene's names, and blood on Earlene's breast. Not marinara. Blood. Lila sees: the way the Earlene's shadow moves in snippets, stuttersteps, like it were an independent thing, sharper and deeper than Lila's, and Lila hears, from inside the trailer, the scritch-scritch-scritch of some living thing. Scritch-scritch-scritch of some hopeless thing.
Earlene, meanwhile, flashes Lila a mild little smile. She pads forward, a new sort of wariness hidden beneath her body, that knowledge lively in her head. It's nearly impossible to read the tells, particularly in the darkness, but Lila reads them.
"Sounds like poetry, honey," says Earlene. "I ain't no poet, though. C'mon. Kin getcha to the next interstate."
[murder] [man, you are so normal. i'm not wise to you at all. manip+subt. prepare to mock.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] [are you on to me tasty little girl!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] This is one of those clear moments, a moment so clear, so lucent, that the Galliard who's half-miraculous with her insights into people can see just what's wrong here. This is also one've those moments where her expression doesn't change, doesn't cloud up with the sure knowledge that Something Is Wrong. Lila looks dreamy, still, and wide-eyed, and she offers Earlene a half-serious twist of a smile - "I wouldn't say that. The way you say 'cain't' is kind of poetic. There's a rhythm there, sure, but true - and yeah, I like the smell of the earth after rain. So what's this trick with the door?"
And Lila, Lila doesn't seem particularly wary at all. Easy, easy prey. Stays, though, away from Earlene's shadow, stays, though, back until Earlene goes for the door.
[And we'll -1g for Luna's Armor now, I s'ppose, since Snap-shift'll be on its way! Survival+Stam?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[murder] 6 +
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[murder] [hypothetical: RAR]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Trucker] [Order: Earlene: 13
Lila: 7]
[murder] [Snap-shift to Hispo -1 rage.
1a. BITE evil trucker (in the back? hah. not with that 1).
1b. BITE evil trucker again.
R1. Not v. creative - bite again?]
[Trucker] [Earlene:
1. Wyrmhyde!
2. Shadow smack
3. Shadow smack!
** additional actions go off with rage attacks.]
[Trucker] There is a moment that is balanced. Earlene looks at Lila, Lila looks at Earlene. They are on the side of the road, on the side of a nameless road, flanked by fields, growing things. The earth smells good, fresh, recently turned, new-sown crops bristle. And then Lila is enveloped in a shimmering haze, and Earlene, Earlene snarls, drawing in on herself, coating her pale skin with a think, bracing layer of shadow -
- she hopes.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 8)
[murder] 1a chomp! -2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg +suxx-1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] 1b. chompchompchomp! -3.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [appropriate musical interlude dmg.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Shadowsmack!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Trucker] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[murder] [eep!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[murder] [Rage: chompity, no seriously. you hit me with a shadow.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) [WP]
[murder] [i-have-had-e-nuff-with-darkness-being-sentient-and-attack-y dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Trucker] What happens is: shadows coat the woman's skin, making it inky, living, livid. The direwolf bites the shadowskinned woman and comes away with a mouth full of smoke and ash, a mouth full of memories, a half-hundred dying memories, the skein of blood - real blood, hot blood - faint beneath it. The shadows rise up, surround her, the arms are solid things, long reaching, wrong, and they leave beneath a faint sulferous odor and a terrible, cauterizing sense of cold where they break through the silvercage of Luna's gleaming armor.
[Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] The shadows come alive again, foul and smoking, the dull, dark song of it.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[murder] [eep!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] [eeeek?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[murder] [only +1 diff. not that it makes a difference! hah!]
[Trucker] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[murder] 8+
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Trucker] [Order: Lila: 17
Earlene: 15]
Earlene: 1a. SHADOW WEAVE
b. RUN AWAY.
2. SHADOW SMACK.
3. SHADOW SMACK.
[murder] -1 WP, Resist Pain!
1a. Grr, bite!
1b. Grr-rrr-rrr, bite!
R1: Bite
R 2: Bite!!
[murder] 1a. -2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[murder] 1b -3
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Trucker] Then: the direwolf lunges, surges forward, snarling, has a mouthful of shadow and a mouthful of bloodspray and the shadows livid over the one-human woman's skin begin to dissolve, dissipate, dripping down like water beading over oilcloth, a great arc of blood, the deathblow sudden, snarling, hot in her mouth. She turns in a widening gyre -
- and finds the shadows still too dense, too livid, too alive, moving independent of the woman who employed them. The corpse has fallen, but her living shadow remains, wavering, unpinned from its place in reality - moving.
[Earlene is dead. 1a. and b. forfeited as x.x. Next up rage actions!]
[murder] [rage 1: o noes. shadows. bitechoo!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[murder] [dmg?]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)
[Trucker] soak?
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[murder] [soakedy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trucker] She has a mouthful of shadow, it is cold, vividly so, burning in the back of her throat, burning cold as it goes down, blistering her mouth. She has a mouthful of nothing, burning her, as the shadows dissipate and the darkness dissolves, becomes an ordinary darkness rather than an extraordinary darkness, on a lonely two-land road in the middle of nowhere. There is, still, still, still (it is seconds later; this happens in less than an eyeblink. The moon has not moved and the engine still idles, coughing now and then as air enters the mix of gasoline.) - the scritch, scritch, scritch of something, nails against metal, inside the trailer.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[murder] [mrr? percept + alert or PU, same pool!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 8
[murder] [wits+enigmas, more gnosis for me?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[murder] [guts-not-dangling-out-now? gaia's breath rolling gnosis yeah? yeah?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trucker] Inside the trailer: a handful of humans. Two still living, three more dead. Traumatized, crying, scritch-scritch-scritching against the wall of the trailer. They are in cages, and the interior stinks of feces and urine. Stinks of fear, stinks of death. The dead humans have been eaten.
- some of the living ones have, too.
Still, Lila is a Child of Gaia. She can heal. She knows others who can heal, too.
Maybe there is hope for the remaining two. Maybe.
[murder] The war-shaped wolf, massive, monstrous, beast-savage's eyes catch the hazyglow from the headlights and turn -- briefly, briefly -- hunter's moon radiant. There is no moon in the sky; the creature works its jaw, because this - this biting the dark back down to something natural - is a strange feeling, eldritch. Huffs, she, regarding Earlene, the pieces of Earlene, the truck. Ears prick, big bad wolf, monster, and she listens to the sound of things [human things (Earlene looked human)] inside the truck for a moment, for two moments, and as she does, she calms herself ( - easy - ) and re-connects to the part've being garou that's wonderful. Reverence. Then, an exhale -- and the creature shifts, glabro, hulking woman-beast, still-monstrous, cautious -- and digs out a talen [Gaia's breath], reverences that, too. Re-knits, almost entirely. Listens, again. Then -
Lila'll, still cautious, wary, staying low, don't-see-me, open the back of the truck and peer inside. Lila'll see this: the handful of humans, the quick and the dead. The foulness -- the wrongness. Then: frowningly, unhappily, she'll shift-down, clamber into the truck, come close, holding her breath. Lila, she's a Child of Gaia. She can heal, if that's Gaia's will -- if Gaia wants these humancreatures to live. Breaks her heart, but she makes soothing noises, shh, shhh, shhhh, police're on their way, shh, and maybe they won't want to be touched,
but maybe they won't be able to flinch away far enough, maybe, maybe they'll be soothed.
And after Lila's tried to heal them, whether that's failed or not, Lila'll cleanse the whole damned truck, humans still inside (I heard a sound; I'll be right back) that they be cleansed, too.
[murder] [Do the humans get healed, outta curiosity, mang? -1 g]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]
[Trucker] [Stamps finished!]
[murder] [and the other!? -1g]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
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