[the oneiroi] [the oneiroi]
to Sorrow
The Lila-creature, Lila-monster, had brushed herself across wounded-Sorrow, and then: then it was well, then it was as it should be. Sorrow-wolf, wolf-Sorrow snarls, lopes the rest of the way to the apartment, bounds up to the door, spins and regards the darkness, uncompromising. Waking Dream coalesces out've the darkness a moment later, similarly alert, wary, readied --
But nothing's coming for them again. Whatever they killed lies dead, so Lila takes her human-shape, says " - we'll cleanse after."
Kora opens the door, goes inside. And: they're in a foyer, a little hall. There is a revolving door. There is a regular door next to the revolving door. There is a cat-spirit with the face of a very, very pretty young man purring in and out of the pizza-slice section of the revolving door open in the lobby that door would (apparently) take them into. It looks at them, cocks its head. Feline.
[the oneiroi]
to Sorrow
Kora: has a healthy distrust of both doors. This place is clean, is purified; it's also dangerous. The revolving door feels like more of a trap. There's something very disconcerting about the lines of the hall: about the sounds she hears that shouldn't be.
[Sorrow]
to the oneiroi
This is what she says: to the cat-spirit, standing in the revolving door, purring in and out of the slice that opens into the lobby. "I'll give you three strange words if you tell me where the key is. Three more if you tell me which door the other Garou took. And a song, if you tell me what's on the other side of the revolving door."
to Sorrow
[the oneiroi] The cat-spirit -- Tom-cat spirit, really, as the galliards will have ample time to observe when he flicks [like a gold-fish, sinuous] around with his tail lifted high -- affects disinterest. But his head is canted toward the Fenrir. It hunkers down, suddenly, staring fixedly at a spot on the floor in the V of the revolving door, then pounces, bats at nothing [or is it? (a shadow)] for a time, delicate, finicky, then goes into a frenzy of washing its paw with a human tongue, smoothing back his hair. Finally, after a goodly amount of time has passed, it rubs sidles up to the revolving door's glass and rubs its shoulder against that, glancing [seductive (suggestive)] through the glass at Kora, prrowls, "Deal."
to Sorrow
[Face of Death] The Godi comes back, rests his hand on Adam's stomach, suffuses it with the soft glow of Mother's healing touch. Joey releases her hold on the Fury's hair, lets it fall gently against the girl's back before she steps around the Theurges to study the stairways.
She remembers this room, this puzzle. It's been a month, though, and her memory is imperfect. Down is the way she went last time. She looks that way, thoughtful, then turns to look at the others. Stairs going up, stairs drawn into the wall.
Rope ladder, Adam had said, and Joey looks up. And she frowns, wondering if Adam meant Go this way or Caution!
She stands there looking at the rope ladder, and she waits for the Theurges to catch up.
[Face of Death] [WPowah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [percept + occult!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7 (Failure at target 7)
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands with her hands on her hips, watching the Tom-cat spirit as he turns away, bats away a shadow crawling across the floor, and begins grooming himself with the cool intensity of a feline. There is a certain sort of patient she has, underneath the rage, over and above the rage, a certain interest in things that carries her through moments like this one, where she is standing in a strange ghostly building with her darker memories still stark in the forefront of her mind - a certain patience, a certain way of watching the world and seeing it with the sort of clarity only outsiders seem capable of affecting. See here:
- she is watching, Sorrow, and her eyes are still on the Tom-cat spirit as he turns back to her, prowling, and makes the deal.
Sorrow smiles. "Three words for the key. Strange ones: scrumbunctious. Gardyloo. Liripoop. Those are your three words for the key. One is a smart little trick you can play. One is a word for a wild child, too much sugar, too little space to play. One is a warning cry. Those are your words for the key.
"Three words for the door the other Garou took. Strange ones: hoddypeak. Anabiosis. Verticordious. Those are your three words for the door. One means, to return to life after dying. One means, a fool. One means, to turn the heart away from evil. Now," Sorrow pauses, cuts a sharp, singing glance back at Lila, then looks back toward the Tom-cat spirit. "Are you ready for your song?"
to a brick, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] Lila [Waking Dream (Doomsday)] is standing in that sort've stillness she seems to have mastered. Animal stillness, preternatural. Her thumbs are hooked through her belt-loops, and, although she may not [probably does not] understand what the Tom-cat spirit is saying, she understands what Kora is saying, and is listening to the exchange with an [poised (for grace)] alertness, a dreaminess that means: she is listening, observing; she is ready for whatever is to come. Kora gives her a glance, and she, her gaze shifting from Kora to the Tom-cat spirit, nods slightly.
And ah, the Tom-cat spirit. What is he up to? He prrs through Kora's answers. He prrs through the words, but makes that sound cats make, hunters, clickclicking in the back of their throats, questioning, when she explains what the words mean. He stares, fixedly: a predator. His shoulders bulked. They're garou, and garou are to be wary of, even if you're a spirit.
There's no answer yet. He's ready. He'll answer her all at once or not at all [or not at all? (best make it a good one)].
to a brick, Sorrow
[Sorrow] "And a song," Sorrow smiles, a half-bright smile, right back at the Tom-cat grooming himself. clears her throat, and begins to sing The Owl and the Pussycat - in a low, sweet voice, the remembered strains of the nonsense poem turned into a child's song.
" -went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money,
wrapped up in a five pound note..."
- sings Sorrow, the words, all the words, quiet and low. The loveliness of the puss, the charming little voyage to the end of the world, the proposal, and on and on. She sings the whole thing, all the lines, delighting particularly in the runcible they use for their mince and slices of quince, and lingering on the dance, at the end
"...and hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon."
When she is done, Sorrow falls silent, watching the Tom-cat spirit, staring, watchful, alert.
to a brick, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] [Doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[the oneiroi] [+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[the oneiroi] [+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 8)
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit's eyes are blue as Ireland [yes, blue (not green)] and there are tears in them. Tears that fringe his pretty, pretty soot-thick lashes. He sniffs them away by the time Sorrow is done with her song, her bit of children's nonsense, and yowls, as if his throat were neither human or cat, was neither spirit of flesh: was, instead, some middling thing, some thing it Hurt to be, some Thing that was amused to be so wounded.
And then its eyes slit, and it presses through the window, melts between the panes-of-glass, walks through the revolving door, winds through the revolving door, as if the door were made of the edge of twilight, and really had nothing at all to do with Him.
Then, waits. Waits, right there, lamp-eyed, in the V between (what is apparently) the lobby and what is (apparently) the foyer. Says,
You are on the other side of the revolving door. You, daughter of Fenris, and she, daughter of Unicorn.
The garou took the plain door. They did not want to revolve. Almost, the No Moon was drawn in by those who wanted her to come. I give you that information as a gift: your throat is songbird,
it licks its lips,
sweet. A beat.
The key is in the attic. And the key is in your pocket. The key is tattooed on the left foot. That's where the key is.
to Sorrow
[Sorrow] Sorrow's smile quirks, quicksilver and wry. She inclines her head neatly to the Tom-cat spirit, and gives him a pale-handed, half-smile. "If you tell me," quiet, neat, " - who it was that wanted the No Moon to revolve through the revolving door, spirit," she pauses, brief, "I will tell you which definition belongs to each of the strange words. If not," a faint incline of her pale head, "I thank you for your gift, and bid you fair hunting - I hope," another pause, still and implicit. " - it is not for me and mine."
She waits long enough to determine whether or not the Tom-cat spirit wishes to make another exchange. If not, she steps back, looks to Lila. "They went through that door. He says the key is in the attic, in my pocket, and tattooed on the left foot. Though, I didn't ask him what the key opened. And we are on the other side of the revolving door.
"Oh, and Joey was nearly drawn through the revolving door, by someone who wanted her to go. So." - a twist of her generous mouth, " - let's take the plain door." Barring other responses, take the plain door she does.
to the oneiroi
[Blood Summons] To look at him, the task he had just undertaken was taxing, difficult, gnawing away at him as he moved his fingers in a pattern that was inspired by dreams. Whatever he's doing, it does something to him. His shoulders slope, then straighten as if to combat the image of pain with an image of strength. His breathing is audible, the only sound besides the creeping-downward of the ladder, and when it's over, when he's reached the end of the hall and the downward path has turned to shadow and that red trail has worked itself into the walls, he coughs.
Illusion gone, he reaches up to scrub at his face, fingers briefly trembling.
"C'mon," he says, heading towards the stairs.
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit turns to display his, er, Tom-cat spirithood again and sashays back into the lobby. Eventually, eventually, he disappears entirely -- just fades into a smear someone should wipe off'a that posh glass door before one of the guests [there can be no guests here]. Apparently, he doesn't need the definitions -- not from Sorrow, not right now.
Lila listens to Kora when she explains what the Tom-cat spirit just said. Her green-as-spring eyes are touched, briefly, by something wry, something half-amused. She does not nod. She says, and, thoughtful, this: "They -- the Oneiroi? -- They knew that Joey was returning to keep her bargain and to re-claim her eye. Do you think that they didn't want her to? Or that they wanted her to, but alone -- and easier to deal with?"
But even with this bit of wonder, Lila isn't for going through the revolving door, after the man-faced Tom-cat spirit. Instead, the plain door. When Kora opens it, what she sees is:
Adamidas, kneeling on the floor. Blood, in front of her, clotting her hair, on her fingers. She seems fine.
Blood Summons, his fingers against a wall scrawled over with drawings of stairs. The wall is splintering, and there are cracks between the drawings: through the cracks are space [windows (doors)], and from his fingertips, there's a line of red, not-red-as-blood, red-as-dirt-baked-by-the-sun, leading upward. There is a ladder, descending from what might have been a ceiling. Which Kora is, apparently, standing on -- along with Lila, once she comes through. Her hair is falling toward Blood Summons, Adamidas, and Joey, who is looking at Blood Summons carefully, and following.
There's what looks like it might've been a staircase down at some point, a smear of shadow. There is white-as-a-cat's-cream milk solid staircase, and that's what the red-red road from Blood Summons's fingertips is drifting up.
The floor is coming apart, there are cracks
splinters, drifting.
to Sorrow
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity: Don't Laugh!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 8
[Face of Death] [dex + ath (ability aptitude for super athleticism?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8
[Sorrow] Wits!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Also wits?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... we could pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting... stars..." she's singing. It's quiet, and her voice cuts out. In and out occasionally, until words come back and come to life. She uncurls from herself, legs infront of her. She had curled up in a ball, and for now she was nervous... She wonders when the next hit's going to come.
"I... could really use a wish ... right now..." singing is cathartic. Realistically, it's the breathing.
The Fury stops, listens to the air. Something crackles, and she tries to reach out to Kora, tries to pull on the connection they had shared earlier. However, now? She isn't shaking, she's uncurled from herself, and she is waiting.
Because Kora and Lila will be here. She believes it with the fervor that she believed her sisters would return. She'd been right then too.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Sorrow, what happened? Are you both alright?
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] There are certain rules in the world. Certain ways the world is meant to work, certain words that lose all meaning when the rules are are bent like putty, turned inside out - when up and down lose their essential core meaning, little else can cohere. " Shit - " this is what the Skald says, with feeling, when she finds herself upside down, rightside up, standing on the ceiling which is the floor, to which her feet are sticking, her long hair spilling down toward the floor, blood in her head, behind her eyes, roaring in her ears as she struggles to make sense of the back-wards for-wards space in which she finds herself. Change from her pocket rains down on those below: three quarters, two dimes, seventeen pennies, 1 2-Euro coin, and 3 50 Croatian Kuna pieces scatter over Blood Summons, Joey, and Adamidas.
Sorrow suppresses the urge to vomit as her interior senses go wrong. Her gorge rises, and bile burns in her mouth, in the back of her throat. She crouches, tries to jump to the ceiling which is their floor, and simply hits her floor, which is their ceiling. Jumps again, and finds herself with the same results as the first time, standing on the ceiling/floor, her long hair working its way loose of its moorings, streaming down toward those below.
There is a short, sharp whistle from above them, where Sorrow and Lila stand on the ceiling. Sorrow begins walking toward the ladder at the end of the hall, where the ladder sinks and the white stairs rise, stops when Adamidas' voice comes into her mind.
[Sorrow] We're above you. On the ceiling. Or the floor.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The galliards have the same immediate reaction to finding themselves standing on the ceiling: disorientation, dizzyness; Lila crouches, fingers digging (knuckles, white) into the ceiling (ground: don't fall!). Things plunk out of her pockets. A house-key, a pebble, a scrap of paper with a phonenumber on it, in her jeans when she dedicated them, well-laundered. Her shirt skims up her belly, her ribs; catches on the curve of her breasts. Her hair streams upward [downward: like a rope (to hang by)]. " - Hell - " is what the Galliard says, with feeling, an underscore. Duet.
Her pupils dilate. While Sorrow begins to walk toward the ladder at the end of the hall, Lila stays crouched on the ceiling, trying to regain some semblance of balance. She takes a deep breath.
Then: " - hey. Adam, Joey, Blood Summons! What's happening?"
Literally. What is happening. What should they be doing. What.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [ooh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] To look at him, the task he had just undertaken was taxing, difficult, gnawing away at him as he moved his fingers in a pattern that was inspired by dreams. Whatever he's doing, it does something to him. His shoulders slope, then straighten as if to combat the image of pain with an image of strength. His breathing is audible, the only sound besides the creeping-downward of the ladder, and when it's over, when he's reached the end of the hall and the downward path has turned to shadow and that red trail has worked itself into the walls, he coughs.
Illusion gone, he reaches up to scrub at his face, fingers briefly trembling.
"C'mon," he says, heading towards the stairs.
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit turns to display his, er, Tom-cat spirithood again and sashays back into the lobby. Eventually, eventually, he disappears entirely -- just fades into a smear someone should wipe off'a that posh glass door before one of the guests [there can be no guests here]. Apparently, he doesn't need the definitions -- not from Sorrow, not right now.
Lila listens to Kora when she explains what the Tom-cat spirit just said. Her green-as-spring eyes are touched, briefly, by something wry, something half-amused. She does not nod. She says, and, thoughtful, this: "They -- the Oneiroi? -- They knew that Joey was returning to keep her bargain and to re-claim her eye. Do you think that they didn't want her to? Or that they wanted her to, but alone -- and easier to deal with?"
But even with this bit of wonder, Lila isn't for going through the revolving door, after the man-faced Tom-cat spirit. Instead, the plain door. When Kora opens it, what she sees is:
Adamidas, kneeling on the floor. Blood, in front of her, clotting her hair, on her fingers. She seems fine.
Blood Summons, his fingers against a wall scrawled over with drawings of stairs. The wall is splintering, and there are cracks between the drawings: through the cracks are space [windows (doors)], and from his fingertips, there's a line of red, not-red-as-blood, red-as-dirt-baked-by-the-sun, leading upward. There is a ladder, descending from what might have been a ceiling. Which Kora is, apparently, standing on -- along with Lila, once she comes through. Her hair is falling toward Blood Summons, Adamidas, and Joey, who is looking at Blood Summons carefully, and following.
There's what looks like it might've been a staircase down at some point, a smear of shadow. There is white-as-a-cat's-cream milk solid staircase, and that's what the red-red road from Blood Summons's fingertips is drifting up.
The floor is coming apart, there are cracks
splinters, drifting.
to Sorrow
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity: Don't Laugh!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 8
[Face of Death] [dex + ath (ability aptitude for super athleticism?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8
[Sorrow] Wits!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Also wits?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... we could pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting... stars..." she's singing. It's quiet, and her voice cuts out. In and out occasionally, until words come back and come to life. She uncurls from herself, legs infront of her. She had curled up in a ball, and for now she was nervous... She wonders when the next hit's going to come.
"I... could really use a wish ... right now..." singing is cathartic. Realistically, it's the breathing.
The Fury stops, listens to the air. Something crackles, and she tries to reach out to Kora, tries to pull on the connection they had shared earlier. However, now? She isn't shaking, she's uncurled from herself, and she is waiting.
Because Kora and Lila will be here. She believes it with the fervor that she believed her sisters would return. She'd been right then too.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Sorrow, what happened? Are you both alright?
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] There are certain rules in the world. Certain ways the world is meant to work, certain words that lose all meaning when the rules are are bent like putty, turned inside out - when up and down lose their essential core meaning, little else can cohere. " Shit - " this is what the Skald says, with feeling, when she finds herself upside down, rightside up, standing on the ceiling which is the floor, to which her feet are sticking, her long hair spilling down toward the floor, blood in her head, behind her eyes, roaring in her ears as she struggles to make sense of the back-wards for-wards space in which she finds herself. Change from her pocket rains down on those below: three quarters, two dimes, seventeen pennies, 1 2-Euro coin, and 3 50 Croatian Kuna pieces scatter over Blood Summons, Joey, and Adamidas.
Sorrow suppresses the urge to vomit as her interior senses go wrong. Her gorge rises, and bile burns in her mouth, in the back of her throat. She crouches, tries to jump to the ceiling which is their floor, and simply hits her floor, which is their ceiling. Jumps again, and finds herself with the same results as the first time, standing on the ceiling/floor, her long hair working its way loose of its moorings, streaming down toward those below.
There is a short, sharp whistle from above them, where Sorrow and Lila stand on the ceiling. Sorrow begins walking toward the ladder at the end of the hall, where the ladder sinks and the white stairs rise, stops when Adamidas' voice comes into her mind.
[Sorrow] We're above you. On the ceiling. Or the floor.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The galliards have the same immediate reaction to finding themselves standing on the ceiling: disorientation, dizzyness; Lila crouches, fingers digging (knuckles, white) into the ceiling (ground: don't fall!). Things plunk out of her pockets. A house-key, a pebble, a scrap of paper with a phonenumber on it, in her jeans when she dedicated them, well-laundered. Her shirt skims up her belly, her ribs; catches on the curve of her breasts. Her hair streams upward [downward: like a rope (to hang by)]. " - Hell - " is what the Galliard says, with feeling, an underscore. Duet.
Her pupils dilate. While Sorrow begins to walk toward the ladder at the end of the hall, Lila stays crouched on the ceiling, trying to regain some semblance of balance. She takes a deep breath.
Then: " - hey. Adam, Joey, Blood Summons! What's happening?"
Literally. What is happening. What should they be doing. What.
[Sorrow] transcript!
to Sorrow
[Rain of Brass Petals] [ooh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] Cent pieces and other bits of pocket memorabilia rain down from the ceiling, and Blood Summons looks up. He squints, as though he's about to holler at the two Moon Dancers to knock it off and get down from there; Kora tries, twice, to jump down, and winds up back on the ceiling regardless of her efforts. They both look as though they're going to be ill.
He picks up the house key and the scrap of paper. Everything else stays where it is.
"Up the stairs," he tells Lila. "Stay away from the ladder."
Which turns out to be easier said than done. The hall is against them, churning almost, and they have to mind gaps and pieces, have to navigate their way towards the stairs. There is no grace in the way the Godi walks--prowls--but he keeps himself ahead of the Rotagar. Once he hits the first step he pauses. Looks up.
He doesn't say C'mon again before he takes the next step.
[Face of Death] Joey silently watches the Godi work, watches the way he solves the puzzle of where to go. Head canted to the side, a dog's show of interest, curiosity. This is different from the way she watched the rope ladder descend. This is curiosity with the knowledge that if she just waits long enough, the answers will be shown to her. And sure enough, they are. The path for them to follow lies open. A corner of Joey's mouth quirks, a ghost of a smile that vanishes like smoke when Blood Summons coughs.
Her dark eye is on him now, intent and intense, studying the lines of his face, listening to that cough. She watches him and she knows that the pain she sees is not from injury. It's not something she can fix with a gourd or the blessing of Bear. That doesn't make it any less real, but then. They're Fenrir. Joey's not about to take the gnarly old hobo by the hand, stare up into his face and ask him How are you feeling? He's standing, he's fine. For now. Joey keeps her eye on him, though.
Then coins are raining down on her from the ceiling. Joey starts, takes a step back. "Ah!" When she looks up, her mismatched eyes go wide. Dark blonde brows rise in her face, then constrict in confusion. What's happening? A question aloud echoed in her own thoughts.
Disorientation tries to claim her then. Seeing people up on the ceiling, watching the floor, the hall splinter and shift. Joey forces her mind off the problem of Lila-and-Kora-up-thair, like that guy in that movie she saw when she was a kid, the one with the maze. Grinning a little, Joey starts to sing under her breath as she makes the crossing to the stairs. It helps her focus.
How you turned my world, you uh. Precious thing!
You starve and something something me
Da da da da da I've done for you
I move the stars for no one!
And she's at those very white stairs. That's when she looks up again, looks for the Galliards.
[the oneiroi]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Rain of Brass Petals] "Try walking down the wall," she calls up. As though this is the most logical thing to do. You're on a ceiling, just walk down!
She cocks her head to the side. There are things she knows about the umbra, and she knows that the rules of the physical realm do not always apply. She knows that you can sometimes walk in places that don't quite seem... right. She follows along, and once the motion stops the hall-
Falls apart. Her eyes phased out, unfocused briefly, only to refocus on the stairs.
The blue-light, moonlight white stairs. The kind of white that makes her eyes hurt, but she doesn't want to look away. For a second, a brief one, she is in genuine awe. She shouldn't find it beautiful, but she does.
[Sorrow] There's a moment where Sorrow puts her foot on the wall, experimental, as if she might walk across it. It doesn't work. The wall is like any other wall; she can feel that from the moment she puts her foot there, that lack of balance, the lack of rightness. Once, she shakes her head back toward Lila, mouthing, quiet, that it won't work. If Blood Summons, Joey, or Adamidas are looking up, they will see the Skald's vague hand gesture of acknowledgement, the pale hand evident through the curtain of her pale hair. The stairs, not the ladder.
She walks and walks, doing what she can, along the way, to secure the other contents of her jeans, less heavy than the change, less likely to fall out, upside down, to the ceiling/floor upon which the others walk.
[Sorrow] [Per + Alertness!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Per+Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Sorrow] [Per + Primal-Urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Sorrow] "Hey," when Sorrow is close to the stairs, she stops, her wide mouth twisting into a sort of narrow frown that does not sit well on her open features. She cuts a glance over her shoulder at Lila, gestures toward the milk-white stairs, spun from some child's idea of the heart of a star, the spirit of a pearl. " - I'm pretty sure that the whole gravity thing will go normal when we get there. So. Be ready to hop or jump or something. I mean: be ready for it. Okay?"
Then, Sorrow cautions closer, testing her sense of the rightness of the world for the place where gravity itself begins to fall away, ready to jump, ready for the world to reverse itself.
[Sorrow] Dex + Ath
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8
[the oneiroi] [ditto]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 7, 8
[the oneiroi] Lila has adapted to this whole walking-on-the-ceiling thing by now and there is something [a shadow (mischief)] that wants to take away the solemnity of this quest and have her tying knots in Joey's hair, in Adam's hair. The green-eyed galliard says, to Adamidas' suggestion: "No." And she touches the wall, briefly. High up, from Adam's point of view. "From here, it's just a wall. You're walking on the ceiling." Kora is at the edge, where the ceiling falls away into more stairs, and she hesitates -- warns Lila, over her shoulder, that there's about to be a change.
Lila was oblivious. Lila isn't entirely sure Kora's not wrong, actually, and she gives Kora a thoughtful, doubting look. But readies herself anyway, just in case. By the time the two moon-dancers get to the stairs, well: they do drop off the ceiling, gravity rights itself from them, they come un-stuck -- and it's only because some niggling sense of something-is-wrong-here touched Kora that they don't both go sprawling, breaking their necks on the stairs, a most ignoble way for a garou to die. Indeed, they both drop with a show of athleticism. They aren't cats, but they could almost be.
Then: it's just -- up the stairs, right? Up the stairs, all together again. And the further the garou go up, the colder the air (snap [the moon's teeth]) gets. The stairwell is dim but it isn't too dark to see. There are no spirits. They walk up one level. Then there's another to go. he building is too-tangible, too-real, too-pure, but it is just a building. Except: there are green-things, green-spirits, growing in the cracks; there are bat-spirits, hanging in the dark-corners; there is a lone rat-spirit, bright-eyed, which watches them pass. They walk up one level, and it gets a little dimmer. The stairs, they get a little less white. They walk up another, and they are going around corners. There are doors to various floors, but none of them is the one: Blood Summons feels that in his fingertips, the ones that're still stained red.
Dimmer, until it's a dim that Joey remembers. This is the same half-light twilight she met the goat-spirits in last time.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [oooh, what's this?. Per+alert, diff 10]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 10)
[Blood Summons] [Alertness+Perception]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Sorrow] [Per + Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[the oneiroi] [L]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 (Failure at target 8)
[Face of Death] [percept + alert!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)
[the oneiroi] Outside the apartment building, Laughs in the Face of Death and Waking Dream had seen them first.
Inside, Blood Summons and she who offers sorrow do. They hear the faint [distant (dim, too)] din of some crowd -- five, six, seven, nine -- of things making noise around a bend. They see, too, the movement of shadows, sleek, long-limbed, shadowing the garou's shadows, subtle, darker-than-they-should-be, an-overlay. Seven extra shadows, pretending to be.
to Blood Summons, Sorrow
[the oneiroi] [Soak this, Adam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Sorrow] There's a trick to falling off the ceiling, onto the stairs. Sorrow falls; Lila falls. Neither of the Galliards go sprawling, both sort of tumble to the stairs, find themselves standing with the others, watching the floor-that-was-their-ceiling breaking apart behind the little group. Some part of Sorrow would like to go retrieve her chance. Not the quarters and the dimes, not those, bu the Euro and the Kuna, which have been in her pockets for quiet literally years, long enough that they have come to define the pockets of whatever pants she is wearing as her pockets. One 2-Euro coin, 3 50-Kuna coins. These things and a handful of others make her human. Everything else, everything else makes her a monster.
Monster, both of them, have faint traces of shadow blood on their mouths from the battle-without, with whatever shadowed through underneath the wings of the night. Dead now, and neither injured. They walk up the stairs, and fall into a kind of formation. Sorrow gives Joey a thoughtful look as they climb, glances at Lila once before they reach the highest height, asks, " - the Oneiroi wanted you to go through the revolving door, didn't they?" she pauses, waits for confirmation. Then: "Why didn't you go?"
Question.
---
Then, later, they are at the top of the stairs, and "Hey." calls out, stomps her feet in the direction of the creeping shadows. "Those shadow-things are back. They're trying to be sneaky." - says Sorrow, frowning, chin rising as she searches for the light-source, so that she can shorten her own shadow, make it small, narrow, curl it back in upon itself. That sort of thing.
She's also prepared to start singing Happy Birthday to you shadowman, Happy Birthday to you. She hasn't started yet, not quite, watching for any reaction to her stomp.
[Face of Death] They go up and up and up, around bends and past doors, none of them right, none of them the place. Joey doesn't know what they're looking for, exactly. At least not beyond the jerk she gave her eye to a month ago. She moves steadily, almost tirelessly. It takes a long time for physical exertion to really start to wear on her muscles. Before she was a warrior of Gaia, before her change, she was an athlete. Could've gone pro if she wanted. Could've done a lot of things.
Kora gives her a thoughtful look that Joey doesn't quite notice. Or if she does, it doesn't make her whip her head around, challenging or questioning or drawing attention to it. Not until a question is asked.
"Hm?" is her first reaction. She keeps her left hand out, letting it drift close to the wall on her blind side as she looks at the Skald. "Adam said she'd follow me through it. It sorta...distracted me. Brought me back to my senses. Then I remembered I didn't go through it before."
The hall starts to get dim, and Joey comes alert. Not that she wasn't before, but this, now, is focused. Like the twisting of a camera lens, the adjustment of a telescope. "This is," she starts, but stops, not knowing what exactly this is. It's not where she met the goat man before, that was down. She doesn't know for certain that this is the place.
The shadows are back. Joey notices it at almost the same moment Kora stomps. She looks around for a light source as well, while her right hand reaches behind her to unzip her bag, unsheathe her black-as-night baseball bat. Unlike Kora, she's not looking to make her shadow smaller. She's looking for a light fixture to break.
[Blood Summons] [Wits, yo]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Rain of Brass Petals] Inhale.
It's slow, and it's rhythmic. She inhales. She tastes the air, feels the area grow dim. They go up and up, and the lights go out. She is moving with quiet wonder, footsteps are light. She isn't tense. She isn't unfocused. She is keyed in...
... to something else entirely. The others are noticing things. Different things, and she is focusing on something else.
Exhale.
The stairwell is dim but it's too dark to see. There are no spirits. They walk up one level-
[and it fucking hurts and it burns, and she's never been aware of her organs before. No one ever really thinks about them. Not until something hurts, not until your liver or your kidneys are being torn into. She's felt things literally squeeze her heart before, but this was differed. This was clawing, gnawing, more than an ache. Searing fucking pain]
Her footsteps stop. And for a second she doesn't walk any further. She closes her eyes tightly, she tenses her jaw, and the only sound she makes is half of a mewl. It's not a moan, it's not a whine or a moan or even a screech. It's not a whimper.
In... hale...
Because Black Furies don't whimper. Because she doesn't want to let on that she is injured, that things are getting worse. She lets out a long, ragged breath.
Ex... exhale...
The Fury straightens up, clenches her jaw, and keeps going. Kora says that they're back. The shadows. The ombrushhel. She inhales, and this time, lets out a long, loud scream. It's not in pain. It is, in its own right, fucking terrifying.
Wounded animals can be vicious.
[Blood Summons] The metis is the first one up the stairs by design, not because he is herding or because he is rushing but because that's where he wants to be: it has nothing to do with being expendable, but rather protective. Almost possessive. The five of them have already gone through the underworld together, have survived far more strenuous conditions than this. Blood Summons seems more at ease now that they're all in the same place, now that he can see all of them, even if he still seems somewhat rattled from whatever extracting the truth from that puzzle had done to him.
He's a terrible actor, a horrible liar, but he's also Fenrir. He does not dwell. He keeps moving.
They reach the top of the stairs, and it is he and the Skald who notice the shadows first this time. A low growl, noticed more as a vibration in their ears, along the backs of their necks, leaves his throat. He quickly takes stock of the others, his gaze lingering particularly long on the flagging Fury Theurge. Without a word, he slings his knapsack around the front and rummages through its contents until he comes up with a small healing gourd. He pushes it into Adam's hands. She knows what to do with it. He doesn't do it for her. This night is draining him, has drained him, and it's not over yet.
The female Fenrir are looking for a way around the shadows, are looking to protect themselves. Blood Summons has had just about enough of lurking around.
When he speaks, he does so with his shoulders back and his head up. When he speaks, it isn't in English.
[the oneiroi] [L: ?!?! Mother's Touch, again? -1G]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 2)
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Rar? -2 (oww)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]
[the oneiroi] [Shadows, resist!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] I am Blood Summons, son of Fenris, second-rank spirit-talker of the Nation.
Niceties out of the way.
We've come to fulfill a bargain made between Laughs in the Face of Death and the oneiroi. Which of you leads?
to a brick, Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Blood Summons] [Leadership+Charisma]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7
[Blood Summons] [COME ON]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10 [WP] Re-rolls: 1
[Blood Summons] [The ST says one more time!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 9
[the oneiroi] [Doom Spirit +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [Doom Spirit+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [B]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [staminaaaaah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Face of Death] [gnosus!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 2)
[the oneiroi] This, then. This Other thing, which melts around the corner of the stairs they just came up, which steps through a door that [was never a door (is never a door)] they couldn't swear was there before, although it looks plain-as-day, although it looks mundane. He -- It? but male -- is a lean-creature, svelte. Looks human. Looks very human, looks to be somewhere in his thirties, late twenties, eyes the colour of dusklight lancing through fog, soft and gray and warm as a promise. No shirt, no scars, no road-maps of pain and anguish, just careless, callous musculature and skin honeyed from sunlight. His ears are hidden by his unruly hair, and he is smiling faintly. There's a furrow, between his eyebrows.
They can see, when they look very closely, that his pupils are slit like a goat's. Joey recognizes him. When he speaks, he speaks so they can all understand him. Not just the theurges, but the No Moon, the Galliards, too. His voice is warm, sun-on-sand, falling in dusk-old stripes:
'We've' come to fulfill a bargain made. What are the rest of you prepared to offer? Remind me what the bargain is -
The look he [It] gives Joey, solemn
- remind me what you think you're owed.
[Face of Death] [percept + subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 10, 10
[Rain of Brass Petals] [behold the might of her tiny, tiny perception pool!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 9, 10
[Sorrow] Perception + Empathy
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8
[the oneiroi] [L: ?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 Re-rolls: 1
[the oneiroi] Sorrow, Rain of Brass Petals: this is what they know, looking at the goat-eyed spirit, looking at the svelt-man-who-isn't-a-man, who is looking at Blood Summons. They know this: that it is pleased to hear his name. They know this, too: that it is determined to get more out've this deal than it got last time [that it is ready to keep (something [a pet])]. They also know this. That it is assiduous in its dislike of Adamidas, that it was pleased to hear how she yelled: how it'd terrify others, although it is blatantly unafraid. Of her. They also know that -- maybe -- it is worried.
to Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow
[Face of Death] Something happens. While the Theurges are bargaining with spirits in tongues the Rotagar can't understand, pain lances through her blind eye. She doesn't cry out, doesn't make a sound; she's Fenrir, made of stronger stuff than that. There's no sound beyond the sibilant hiss of a sharply drawn breath, surprised. She squeezes her eyes shut, fights to keep from wincing. Fights to keep from clapping a hand over the pain in her eye.
Then it passes. Joey stands for a moment with eyes closed. Then she blinks once, slowly. Again. The Rotagar blinks two perfectly functioning dark brown eyes with which to watch the goat man from before appear through the door she can't be sure was there before.
She watches him with her full range of vision. Now she could throw a ball, have it hit exactly where she means for it to go. She can tell, more or less, how far away each of her companions is from herself, knows that if she reaches her hand out so far, she'll touch Lila's hand.
She uses this new-found - returned - perception to study the goat man closely. Joey doesn't know his name, doesn't know if he knows hers. She doesn't know what Blood Summons is saying to it/him. She waits for what sounds like a lull in the conversation, though. Waits until there's space to drive a wedge in.
"Our bargain's paid an' finished. You got my eye's attention for a month. The people here got left alone." She looks to the Fostern Godi here, respectful. Waiting to see if he'll cut across her, tell her to back off and stand down.
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands still, watching. Her hair is loose, all akimbo, while around her head, down her back, the fine strands feathering away from her generous features. Her dark eyes are clear, her hands tucked into her jeans. She is crouching, low, studying the shape of the shadows now, whistling under her breath as she watches down the hallway - when the Other appears. When he melts around the corner and steps through a door that was/is never a door.
There is a moment when she is still, watching him, her dark eyes half-lidded, intent. Flicks him a look up and down, then glances back to Joey. Stillness again. Her attention cuts to Blood Summons. She's quiet. For the moment.
[Rain of Brass Petals] It is what it is- another spirit. Bob converses with him, or had conversed with him. She knows how these deals go down, she knows what may or may not happen. He speaks in a voice that they all can understand. A voice that sounds smooth and warm. Spirits of terror and desire- spirits of dreams and nightmares.
[It's a spirit of terror there's no reason that it should be afraid of her. Blatantly, unafraid. She's aware... but maybe... maybe it's woried about something else?]
She doesn't say anything, doesn't broadcast messages, she just watches the man with the goat's eyes. She looks over his features, over the curve of his jaw and she crosses her arms across her chest. The gourd is pocketed, in that she is very, very sure that she might need it soon. Or before she leaves, assuming things don't go well. Her attention turns to Blood Summons, and it stays there.
She's going to learn something.
[Blood Summons] ["Empathy"+Perception: I WANNA ROLL STUFF TOO]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 4
[Blood Summons] *STORMS OFF*
[cricket] [zOMG, what a dramallama.]
[Blood Summons]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 8
[Blood Summons] Joey looks to the Fostern. He does not cut her off, does not tell her to shut up and let him handle this; he lets her answer the svelte not-man without interrupting, and when she's finished, Blood Summons clears his throat. It's a tic, perhaps, or a charm. It never does anything. Regardless of what language he speaks, which group of people--spirits--is able to understand him, his voice remains craggy.
There is worry, maybe, in the goat-man's body. He reads spirits better than he reads humans, has better luck understanding their motives and wants and desires than he does with creatures of flesh and blood. It makes some sense. He spends more time with spirits than he does with humans and Kinfolk.
[Blood Summons] You want attention, yeah? These people here, they can't give it to you, and we have none left for you. You have to find someplace else to feed.
to a brick, cricket, Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Face of Death] Joey is fully aware that she's holding a bat. She knows that there might be a chance that wielding a bat, a modified club, like some modern day caveman, could possibly get her what she wants from the spirit. Generally, though, one does not bring a weapon to negotiations for peaceful reconciliation. She doesn't put it away, nor does she hold it with the intent to strike. She has it just in case she needs to make some noise. Her bat, after all, is no longer her weapon of choice in a fight.
Attention is on the Godi, though. He's the Alpha of this expedition, the leader, the one they look to for advice and guidance through this strangely off Umbral reflection of an apartment building. Attention shifts to the spirit. For the moment, Joey just has one question.
"What's your name?"
[the oneiroi] They got left alone, the goat-man says, quiet. The emphasis is subtle. This, after Blood Summons has said his piece. Put down his: what? His ultimatum. Then the not-man's eyes widen, a caricature of innocence: Why?
[Blood Summons] There is a bristling of Rage underneath the Godi's skin, driving up his spine. It doesn't show in his face, stops just short of revealing itself in bared teeth and a gravelly growl, but there is electricity in his voice, a warning, a threat of violence that is so rarely seen in this creature even though he has the inner anger of a Moon Dancer. Even when he has been thoroughly annoyed, he somehow manages to keep his temper. He keeps it reined in now. It isn't about to overwhelm him.
"These people are ours," he says, dropping the Gift when it becomes obvious that it's no longer necessary. "This building is ours. You have no business here. We are not going to negotiate with you any further: leave, or we'll drive you out."
[the oneiroi] [Doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Sorrow] There is an urgent hint along the connection Adamidas shares with Sorrow. Connect us all. Me. Blood Summons-rhya. Lila.-rhya. Extend the connection.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The spirit's gaze slipped from Blood Summons to Joey, stayed there for a moment, for two moments. Then it slipped back to the Fostern Godi. There, it stayed, and look -- look how still it is staying. While it stays still, the [nine times nine (nine blooms: blooming wyld)] shadows which have shadowed their shadows, the shadows which are surrounding them, flatten, grow darker, and there is a thick [scrape it away with your thumb-nail: it could be wax, congealing; could be clotting] silence from below-the-stairs they're standing on and above-the-stairs they're standing on.
Meanwhile. This: when Blood Summons says leave, or we'll drive you out -- this. Lila makes a sharp gesture with one hand. Then -- then: drifts closer, closer to the theurge. There's a knot of tension at the nape-of-her-neck. Well, why would she like that idea? This is Lila: tranquil, peaceful -- Unicorn's daughter. She brushes, just so, against the theurge, want to say something, wait, wait.
The goat-man tilts his head, smiling now: blood-curdling smile, lovely, but terrifying: Why not? Are you too afraid to negotiate, Blood Summons? Do you think you'll get a lesser bargain than the No Moon did? Why can't we have attention here? What's a moment of your time worth?
[Rain of Brass Petals] There's urgence there. She looks at Lila, focuses as best she can and tries to open the same link between herself and Lila as she had with Sorrow. The theurge looks a little spacey for a second, eyes simultaneously unfocused and too focused. She shakes her head. Connects where she can; considers herself a communicator. Conduit. Conference call. She goes one at a time.
Lila is there, and she tries to meet the gaze of the Fostern Godi and the Rotagar.
He looks at the Godi, clears her throat in hopes of getting his attention or something. She doesn't say anything, though.
[-1 wp. Welcome the the conference call, Lila!]
[Rain of Brass Petals] If he'll look over here for a minute, I can... I don't want to force the connection. If he severs it I don't know what'll happen to all of our connections and communications, she replies to them
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] This place, this building is pure. It is purified. Now that the Oneiroi are not feeding on the residents, they are feeding on the Wyrm. We saw the signs of the battle outside. They are slowly reclaiming the space from the Wyrm. They've made progress in one month. They could do more. The price last time was the Rotagar's eye, but if all they want is attention - the Skald's mindvoice is neat and calm, direct and clear.
- attention we can give them. I'm a Skald. I will bring them one story a moon. I will take one story a moon away, if they like. I will sing them a song once a moon. I will tell them a story that no one has ever heard before. I can offer, to start bargaining, to come listen to them once a moon. If, in exchange, they continue their work, fighting the Wyrm, leaving the humans on the other side alone.
Sorrow says this to both Lila and Adamidas quickly, surely. A glance at Lila. I'll make the bargain. I'll take the consequences.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[Face of Death] Joey waits, quiet. Why? the goat spirit had asked, before Blood Summons threatened. The Rotagar's mouth quirks to the side, her brows furrow.
She steps forward now. Not beside the Godi, but to the side. A little behind. Leaving him still in front.
Then, as if the angry outburst hadn't happened, Joe tilts her head slightly.
"Don't you wanna be called somethin' other than, 'hey?' Hay is for horses, and you're not horses." A slight grin, tugging at the corner of her mouth that doesn't quite resolve into a full expression of mirth.
"What'd it take to get you guys to leave these people alone longer?" she asks, a simple query. "You want attention. What'll a minute of our time get us?"
[the oneiroi] Yes - This assertion is very nearly ringing. Mellow. You and I are of the same mind, she who offers sorrow. I will come one moon and sing them a lullaby; I will write a tale about them - I will come and talk to them if that's what they need. If they'll accept it. I'd rather not do this: drive them out -- without more cause.
Beat. Blood Summons is direct. I believe he's -- a pause, half-sorrowing: shh. -- looking at the violent part of this puzzle.
to Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow
[the oneiroi] [PAUSE. everyone out!]
[Blood Summons] [*whistles*]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Sorrow
The Lila-creature, Lila-monster, had brushed herself across wounded-Sorrow, and then: then it was well, then it was as it should be. Sorrow-wolf, wolf-Sorrow snarls, lopes the rest of the way to the apartment, bounds up to the door, spins and regards the darkness, uncompromising. Waking Dream coalesces out've the darkness a moment later, similarly alert, wary, readied --
But nothing's coming for them again. Whatever they killed lies dead, so Lila takes her human-shape, says " - we'll cleanse after."
Kora opens the door, goes inside. And: they're in a foyer, a little hall. There is a revolving door. There is a regular door next to the revolving door. There is a cat-spirit with the face of a very, very pretty young man purring in and out of the pizza-slice section of the revolving door open in the lobby that door would (apparently) take them into. It looks at them, cocks its head. Feline.
[the oneiroi]
to Sorrow
Kora: has a healthy distrust of both doors. This place is clean, is purified; it's also dangerous. The revolving door feels like more of a trap. There's something very disconcerting about the lines of the hall: about the sounds she hears that shouldn't be.
[Sorrow]
to the oneiroi
This is what she says: to the cat-spirit, standing in the revolving door, purring in and out of the slice that opens into the lobby. "I'll give you three strange words if you tell me where the key is. Three more if you tell me which door the other Garou took. And a song, if you tell me what's on the other side of the revolving door."
to Sorrow
[the oneiroi] The cat-spirit -- Tom-cat spirit, really, as the galliards will have ample time to observe when he flicks [like a gold-fish, sinuous] around with his tail lifted high -- affects disinterest. But his head is canted toward the Fenrir. It hunkers down, suddenly, staring fixedly at a spot on the floor in the V of the revolving door, then pounces, bats at nothing [or is it? (a shadow)] for a time, delicate, finicky, then goes into a frenzy of washing its paw with a human tongue, smoothing back his hair. Finally, after a goodly amount of time has passed, it rubs sidles up to the revolving door's glass and rubs its shoulder against that, glancing [seductive (suggestive)] through the glass at Kora, prrowls, "Deal."
to Sorrow
[Face of Death] The Godi comes back, rests his hand on Adam's stomach, suffuses it with the soft glow of Mother's healing touch. Joey releases her hold on the Fury's hair, lets it fall gently against the girl's back before she steps around the Theurges to study the stairways.
She remembers this room, this puzzle. It's been a month, though, and her memory is imperfect. Down is the way she went last time. She looks that way, thoughtful, then turns to look at the others. Stairs going up, stairs drawn into the wall.
Rope ladder, Adam had said, and Joey looks up. And she frowns, wondering if Adam meant Go this way or Caution!
She stands there looking at the rope ladder, and she waits for the Theurges to catch up.
[Face of Death] [WPowah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [percept + occult!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7 (Failure at target 7)
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands with her hands on her hips, watching the Tom-cat spirit as he turns away, bats away a shadow crawling across the floor, and begins grooming himself with the cool intensity of a feline. There is a certain sort of patient she has, underneath the rage, over and above the rage, a certain interest in things that carries her through moments like this one, where she is standing in a strange ghostly building with her darker memories still stark in the forefront of her mind - a certain patience, a certain way of watching the world and seeing it with the sort of clarity only outsiders seem capable of affecting. See here:
- she is watching, Sorrow, and her eyes are still on the Tom-cat spirit as he turns back to her, prowling, and makes the deal.
Sorrow smiles. "Three words for the key. Strange ones: scrumbunctious. Gardyloo. Liripoop. Those are your three words for the key. One is a smart little trick you can play. One is a word for a wild child, too much sugar, too little space to play. One is a warning cry. Those are your words for the key.
"Three words for the door the other Garou took. Strange ones: hoddypeak. Anabiosis. Verticordious. Those are your three words for the door. One means, to return to life after dying. One means, a fool. One means, to turn the heart away from evil. Now," Sorrow pauses, cuts a sharp, singing glance back at Lila, then looks back toward the Tom-cat spirit. "Are you ready for your song?"
to a brick, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] Lila [Waking Dream (Doomsday)] is standing in that sort've stillness she seems to have mastered. Animal stillness, preternatural. Her thumbs are hooked through her belt-loops, and, although she may not [probably does not] understand what the Tom-cat spirit is saying, she understands what Kora is saying, and is listening to the exchange with an [poised (for grace)] alertness, a dreaminess that means: she is listening, observing; she is ready for whatever is to come. Kora gives her a glance, and she, her gaze shifting from Kora to the Tom-cat spirit, nods slightly.
And ah, the Tom-cat spirit. What is he up to? He prrs through Kora's answers. He prrs through the words, but makes that sound cats make, hunters, clickclicking in the back of their throats, questioning, when she explains what the words mean. He stares, fixedly: a predator. His shoulders bulked. They're garou, and garou are to be wary of, even if you're a spirit.
There's no answer yet. He's ready. He'll answer her all at once or not at all [or not at all? (best make it a good one)].
to a brick, Sorrow
[Sorrow] "And a song," Sorrow smiles, a half-bright smile, right back at the Tom-cat grooming himself. clears her throat, and begins to sing The Owl and the Pussycat - in a low, sweet voice, the remembered strains of the nonsense poem turned into a child's song.
" -went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money,
wrapped up in a five pound note..."
- sings Sorrow, the words, all the words, quiet and low. The loveliness of the puss, the charming little voyage to the end of the world, the proposal, and on and on. She sings the whole thing, all the lines, delighting particularly in the runcible they use for their mince and slices of quince, and lingering on the dance, at the end
"...and hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon."
When she is done, Sorrow falls silent, watching the Tom-cat spirit, staring, watchful, alert.
to a brick, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] [Doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[the oneiroi] [+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[the oneiroi] [+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 8)
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit's eyes are blue as Ireland [yes, blue (not green)] and there are tears in them. Tears that fringe his pretty, pretty soot-thick lashes. He sniffs them away by the time Sorrow is done with her song, her bit of children's nonsense, and yowls, as if his throat were neither human or cat, was neither spirit of flesh: was, instead, some middling thing, some thing it Hurt to be, some Thing that was amused to be so wounded.
And then its eyes slit, and it presses through the window, melts between the panes-of-glass, walks through the revolving door, winds through the revolving door, as if the door were made of the edge of twilight, and really had nothing at all to do with Him.
Then, waits. Waits, right there, lamp-eyed, in the V between (what is apparently) the lobby and what is (apparently) the foyer. Says,
You are on the other side of the revolving door. You, daughter of Fenris, and she, daughter of Unicorn.
The garou took the plain door. They did not want to revolve. Almost, the No Moon was drawn in by those who wanted her to come. I give you that information as a gift: your throat is songbird,
it licks its lips,
sweet. A beat.
The key is in the attic. And the key is in your pocket. The key is tattooed on the left foot. That's where the key is.
to Sorrow
[Sorrow] Sorrow's smile quirks, quicksilver and wry. She inclines her head neatly to the Tom-cat spirit, and gives him a pale-handed, half-smile. "If you tell me," quiet, neat, " - who it was that wanted the No Moon to revolve through the revolving door, spirit," she pauses, brief, "I will tell you which definition belongs to each of the strange words. If not," a faint incline of her pale head, "I thank you for your gift, and bid you fair hunting - I hope," another pause, still and implicit. " - it is not for me and mine."
She waits long enough to determine whether or not the Tom-cat spirit wishes to make another exchange. If not, she steps back, looks to Lila. "They went through that door. He says the key is in the attic, in my pocket, and tattooed on the left foot. Though, I didn't ask him what the key opened. And we are on the other side of the revolving door.
"Oh, and Joey was nearly drawn through the revolving door, by someone who wanted her to go. So." - a twist of her generous mouth, " - let's take the plain door." Barring other responses, take the plain door she does.
to the oneiroi
[Blood Summons] To look at him, the task he had just undertaken was taxing, difficult, gnawing away at him as he moved his fingers in a pattern that was inspired by dreams. Whatever he's doing, it does something to him. His shoulders slope, then straighten as if to combat the image of pain with an image of strength. His breathing is audible, the only sound besides the creeping-downward of the ladder, and when it's over, when he's reached the end of the hall and the downward path has turned to shadow and that red trail has worked itself into the walls, he coughs.
Illusion gone, he reaches up to scrub at his face, fingers briefly trembling.
"C'mon," he says, heading towards the stairs.
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit turns to display his, er, Tom-cat spirithood again and sashays back into the lobby. Eventually, eventually, he disappears entirely -- just fades into a smear someone should wipe off'a that posh glass door before one of the guests [there can be no guests here]. Apparently, he doesn't need the definitions -- not from Sorrow, not right now.
Lila listens to Kora when she explains what the Tom-cat spirit just said. Her green-as-spring eyes are touched, briefly, by something wry, something half-amused. She does not nod. She says, and, thoughtful, this: "They -- the Oneiroi? -- They knew that Joey was returning to keep her bargain and to re-claim her eye. Do you think that they didn't want her to? Or that they wanted her to, but alone -- and easier to deal with?"
But even with this bit of wonder, Lila isn't for going through the revolving door, after the man-faced Tom-cat spirit. Instead, the plain door. When Kora opens it, what she sees is:
Adamidas, kneeling on the floor. Blood, in front of her, clotting her hair, on her fingers. She seems fine.
Blood Summons, his fingers against a wall scrawled over with drawings of stairs. The wall is splintering, and there are cracks between the drawings: through the cracks are space [windows (doors)], and from his fingertips, there's a line of red, not-red-as-blood, red-as-dirt-baked-by-the-sun, leading upward. There is a ladder, descending from what might have been a ceiling. Which Kora is, apparently, standing on -- along with Lila, once she comes through. Her hair is falling toward Blood Summons, Adamidas, and Joey, who is looking at Blood Summons carefully, and following.
There's what looks like it might've been a staircase down at some point, a smear of shadow. There is white-as-a-cat's-cream milk solid staircase, and that's what the red-red road from Blood Summons's fingertips is drifting up.
The floor is coming apart, there are cracks
splinters, drifting.
to Sorrow
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity: Don't Laugh!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 8
[Face of Death] [dex + ath (ability aptitude for super athleticism?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8
[Sorrow] Wits!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Also wits?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... we could pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting... stars..." she's singing. It's quiet, and her voice cuts out. In and out occasionally, until words come back and come to life. She uncurls from herself, legs infront of her. She had curled up in a ball, and for now she was nervous... She wonders when the next hit's going to come.
"I... could really use a wish ... right now..." singing is cathartic. Realistically, it's the breathing.
The Fury stops, listens to the air. Something crackles, and she tries to reach out to Kora, tries to pull on the connection they had shared earlier. However, now? She isn't shaking, she's uncurled from herself, and she is waiting.
Because Kora and Lila will be here. She believes it with the fervor that she believed her sisters would return. She'd been right then too.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Sorrow, what happened? Are you both alright?
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] There are certain rules in the world. Certain ways the world is meant to work, certain words that lose all meaning when the rules are are bent like putty, turned inside out - when up and down lose their essential core meaning, little else can cohere. " Shit - " this is what the Skald says, with feeling, when she finds herself upside down, rightside up, standing on the ceiling which is the floor, to which her feet are sticking, her long hair spilling down toward the floor, blood in her head, behind her eyes, roaring in her ears as she struggles to make sense of the back-wards for-wards space in which she finds herself. Change from her pocket rains down on those below: three quarters, two dimes, seventeen pennies, 1 2-Euro coin, and 3 50 Croatian Kuna pieces scatter over Blood Summons, Joey, and Adamidas.
Sorrow suppresses the urge to vomit as her interior senses go wrong. Her gorge rises, and bile burns in her mouth, in the back of her throat. She crouches, tries to jump to the ceiling which is their floor, and simply hits her floor, which is their ceiling. Jumps again, and finds herself with the same results as the first time, standing on the ceiling/floor, her long hair working its way loose of its moorings, streaming down toward those below.
There is a short, sharp whistle from above them, where Sorrow and Lila stand on the ceiling. Sorrow begins walking toward the ladder at the end of the hall, where the ladder sinks and the white stairs rise, stops when Adamidas' voice comes into her mind.
[Sorrow] We're above you. On the ceiling. Or the floor.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The galliards have the same immediate reaction to finding themselves standing on the ceiling: disorientation, dizzyness; Lila crouches, fingers digging (knuckles, white) into the ceiling (ground: don't fall!). Things plunk out of her pockets. A house-key, a pebble, a scrap of paper with a phonenumber on it, in her jeans when she dedicated them, well-laundered. Her shirt skims up her belly, her ribs; catches on the curve of her breasts. Her hair streams upward [downward: like a rope (to hang by)]. " - Hell - " is what the Galliard says, with feeling, an underscore. Duet.
Her pupils dilate. While Sorrow begins to walk toward the ladder at the end of the hall, Lila stays crouched on the ceiling, trying to regain some semblance of balance. She takes a deep breath.
Then: " - hey. Adam, Joey, Blood Summons! What's happening?"
Literally. What is happening. What should they be doing. What.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [ooh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] To look at him, the task he had just undertaken was taxing, difficult, gnawing away at him as he moved his fingers in a pattern that was inspired by dreams. Whatever he's doing, it does something to him. His shoulders slope, then straighten as if to combat the image of pain with an image of strength. His breathing is audible, the only sound besides the creeping-downward of the ladder, and when it's over, when he's reached the end of the hall and the downward path has turned to shadow and that red trail has worked itself into the walls, he coughs.
Illusion gone, he reaches up to scrub at his face, fingers briefly trembling.
"C'mon," he says, heading towards the stairs.
[the oneiroi] The Tom-cat spirit turns to display his, er, Tom-cat spirithood again and sashays back into the lobby. Eventually, eventually, he disappears entirely -- just fades into a smear someone should wipe off'a that posh glass door before one of the guests [there can be no guests here]. Apparently, he doesn't need the definitions -- not from Sorrow, not right now.
Lila listens to Kora when she explains what the Tom-cat spirit just said. Her green-as-spring eyes are touched, briefly, by something wry, something half-amused. She does not nod. She says, and, thoughtful, this: "They -- the Oneiroi? -- They knew that Joey was returning to keep her bargain and to re-claim her eye. Do you think that they didn't want her to? Or that they wanted her to, but alone -- and easier to deal with?"
But even with this bit of wonder, Lila isn't for going through the revolving door, after the man-faced Tom-cat spirit. Instead, the plain door. When Kora opens it, what she sees is:
Adamidas, kneeling on the floor. Blood, in front of her, clotting her hair, on her fingers. She seems fine.
Blood Summons, his fingers against a wall scrawled over with drawings of stairs. The wall is splintering, and there are cracks between the drawings: through the cracks are space [windows (doors)], and from his fingertips, there's a line of red, not-red-as-blood, red-as-dirt-baked-by-the-sun, leading upward. There is a ladder, descending from what might have been a ceiling. Which Kora is, apparently, standing on -- along with Lila, once she comes through. Her hair is falling toward Blood Summons, Adamidas, and Joey, who is looking at Blood Summons carefully, and following.
There's what looks like it might've been a staircase down at some point, a smear of shadow. There is white-as-a-cat's-cream milk solid staircase, and that's what the red-red road from Blood Summons's fingertips is drifting up.
The floor is coming apart, there are cracks
splinters, drifting.
to Sorrow
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity: Don't Laugh!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 8
[Face of Death] [dex + ath (ability aptitude for super athleticism?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8
[Sorrow] Wits!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Also wits?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... we could pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting... stars..." she's singing. It's quiet, and her voice cuts out. In and out occasionally, until words come back and come to life. She uncurls from herself, legs infront of her. She had curled up in a ball, and for now she was nervous... She wonders when the next hit's going to come.
"I... could really use a wish ... right now..." singing is cathartic. Realistically, it's the breathing.
The Fury stops, listens to the air. Something crackles, and she tries to reach out to Kora, tries to pull on the connection they had shared earlier. However, now? She isn't shaking, she's uncurled from herself, and she is waiting.
Because Kora and Lila will be here. She believes it with the fervor that she believed her sisters would return. She'd been right then too.
[Rain of Brass Petals] Sorrow, what happened? Are you both alright?
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] There are certain rules in the world. Certain ways the world is meant to work, certain words that lose all meaning when the rules are are bent like putty, turned inside out - when up and down lose their essential core meaning, little else can cohere. " Shit - " this is what the Skald says, with feeling, when she finds herself upside down, rightside up, standing on the ceiling which is the floor, to which her feet are sticking, her long hair spilling down toward the floor, blood in her head, behind her eyes, roaring in her ears as she struggles to make sense of the back-wards for-wards space in which she finds herself. Change from her pocket rains down on those below: three quarters, two dimes, seventeen pennies, 1 2-Euro coin, and 3 50 Croatian Kuna pieces scatter over Blood Summons, Joey, and Adamidas.
Sorrow suppresses the urge to vomit as her interior senses go wrong. Her gorge rises, and bile burns in her mouth, in the back of her throat. She crouches, tries to jump to the ceiling which is their floor, and simply hits her floor, which is their ceiling. Jumps again, and finds herself with the same results as the first time, standing on the ceiling/floor, her long hair working its way loose of its moorings, streaming down toward those below.
There is a short, sharp whistle from above them, where Sorrow and Lila stand on the ceiling. Sorrow begins walking toward the ladder at the end of the hall, where the ladder sinks and the white stairs rise, stops when Adamidas' voice comes into her mind.
[Sorrow] We're above you. On the ceiling. Or the floor.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The galliards have the same immediate reaction to finding themselves standing on the ceiling: disorientation, dizzyness; Lila crouches, fingers digging (knuckles, white) into the ceiling (ground: don't fall!). Things plunk out of her pockets. A house-key, a pebble, a scrap of paper with a phonenumber on it, in her jeans when she dedicated them, well-laundered. Her shirt skims up her belly, her ribs; catches on the curve of her breasts. Her hair streams upward [downward: like a rope (to hang by)]. " - Hell - " is what the Galliard says, with feeling, an underscore. Duet.
Her pupils dilate. While Sorrow begins to walk toward the ladder at the end of the hall, Lila stays crouched on the ceiling, trying to regain some semblance of balance. She takes a deep breath.
Then: " - hey. Adam, Joey, Blood Summons! What's happening?"
Literally. What is happening. What should they be doing. What.
[Sorrow] transcript!
to Sorrow
[Rain of Brass Petals] [ooh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] Cent pieces and other bits of pocket memorabilia rain down from the ceiling, and Blood Summons looks up. He squints, as though he's about to holler at the two Moon Dancers to knock it off and get down from there; Kora tries, twice, to jump down, and winds up back on the ceiling regardless of her efforts. They both look as though they're going to be ill.
He picks up the house key and the scrap of paper. Everything else stays where it is.
"Up the stairs," he tells Lila. "Stay away from the ladder."
Which turns out to be easier said than done. The hall is against them, churning almost, and they have to mind gaps and pieces, have to navigate their way towards the stairs. There is no grace in the way the Godi walks--prowls--but he keeps himself ahead of the Rotagar. Once he hits the first step he pauses. Looks up.
He doesn't say C'mon again before he takes the next step.
[Face of Death] Joey silently watches the Godi work, watches the way he solves the puzzle of where to go. Head canted to the side, a dog's show of interest, curiosity. This is different from the way she watched the rope ladder descend. This is curiosity with the knowledge that if she just waits long enough, the answers will be shown to her. And sure enough, they are. The path for them to follow lies open. A corner of Joey's mouth quirks, a ghost of a smile that vanishes like smoke when Blood Summons coughs.
Her dark eye is on him now, intent and intense, studying the lines of his face, listening to that cough. She watches him and she knows that the pain she sees is not from injury. It's not something she can fix with a gourd or the blessing of Bear. That doesn't make it any less real, but then. They're Fenrir. Joey's not about to take the gnarly old hobo by the hand, stare up into his face and ask him How are you feeling? He's standing, he's fine. For now. Joey keeps her eye on him, though.
Then coins are raining down on her from the ceiling. Joey starts, takes a step back. "Ah!" When she looks up, her mismatched eyes go wide. Dark blonde brows rise in her face, then constrict in confusion. What's happening? A question aloud echoed in her own thoughts.
Disorientation tries to claim her then. Seeing people up on the ceiling, watching the floor, the hall splinter and shift. Joey forces her mind off the problem of Lila-and-Kora-up-thair, like that guy in that movie she saw when she was a kid, the one with the maze. Grinning a little, Joey starts to sing under her breath as she makes the crossing to the stairs. It helps her focus.
How you turned my world, you uh. Precious thing!
You starve and something something me
Da da da da da I've done for you
I move the stars for no one!
And she's at those very white stairs. That's when she looks up again, looks for the Galliards.
[the oneiroi]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Rain of Brass Petals] "Try walking down the wall," she calls up. As though this is the most logical thing to do. You're on a ceiling, just walk down!
She cocks her head to the side. There are things she knows about the umbra, and she knows that the rules of the physical realm do not always apply. She knows that you can sometimes walk in places that don't quite seem... right. She follows along, and once the motion stops the hall-
Falls apart. Her eyes phased out, unfocused briefly, only to refocus on the stairs.
The blue-light, moonlight white stairs. The kind of white that makes her eyes hurt, but she doesn't want to look away. For a second, a brief one, she is in genuine awe. She shouldn't find it beautiful, but she does.
[Sorrow] There's a moment where Sorrow puts her foot on the wall, experimental, as if she might walk across it. It doesn't work. The wall is like any other wall; she can feel that from the moment she puts her foot there, that lack of balance, the lack of rightness. Once, she shakes her head back toward Lila, mouthing, quiet, that it won't work. If Blood Summons, Joey, or Adamidas are looking up, they will see the Skald's vague hand gesture of acknowledgement, the pale hand evident through the curtain of her pale hair. The stairs, not the ladder.
She walks and walks, doing what she can, along the way, to secure the other contents of her jeans, less heavy than the change, less likely to fall out, upside down, to the ceiling/floor upon which the others walk.
[Sorrow] [Per + Alertness!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [Lila: Per+Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Sorrow] [Per + Primal-Urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Sorrow] "Hey," when Sorrow is close to the stairs, she stops, her wide mouth twisting into a sort of narrow frown that does not sit well on her open features. She cuts a glance over her shoulder at Lila, gestures toward the milk-white stairs, spun from some child's idea of the heart of a star, the spirit of a pearl. " - I'm pretty sure that the whole gravity thing will go normal when we get there. So. Be ready to hop or jump or something. I mean: be ready for it. Okay?"
Then, Sorrow cautions closer, testing her sense of the rightness of the world for the place where gravity itself begins to fall away, ready to jump, ready for the world to reverse itself.
[Sorrow] Dex + Ath
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8
[the oneiroi] [ditto]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 7, 8
[the oneiroi] Lila has adapted to this whole walking-on-the-ceiling thing by now and there is something [a shadow (mischief)] that wants to take away the solemnity of this quest and have her tying knots in Joey's hair, in Adam's hair. The green-eyed galliard says, to Adamidas' suggestion: "No." And she touches the wall, briefly. High up, from Adam's point of view. "From here, it's just a wall. You're walking on the ceiling." Kora is at the edge, where the ceiling falls away into more stairs, and she hesitates -- warns Lila, over her shoulder, that there's about to be a change.
Lila was oblivious. Lila isn't entirely sure Kora's not wrong, actually, and she gives Kora a thoughtful, doubting look. But readies herself anyway, just in case. By the time the two moon-dancers get to the stairs, well: they do drop off the ceiling, gravity rights itself from them, they come un-stuck -- and it's only because some niggling sense of something-is-wrong-here touched Kora that they don't both go sprawling, breaking their necks on the stairs, a most ignoble way for a garou to die. Indeed, they both drop with a show of athleticism. They aren't cats, but they could almost be.
Then: it's just -- up the stairs, right? Up the stairs, all together again. And the further the garou go up, the colder the air (snap [the moon's teeth]) gets. The stairwell is dim but it isn't too dark to see. There are no spirits. They walk up one level. Then there's another to go. he building is too-tangible, too-real, too-pure, but it is just a building. Except: there are green-things, green-spirits, growing in the cracks; there are bat-spirits, hanging in the dark-corners; there is a lone rat-spirit, bright-eyed, which watches them pass. They walk up one level, and it gets a little dimmer. The stairs, they get a little less white. They walk up another, and they are going around corners. There are doors to various floors, but none of them is the one: Blood Summons feels that in his fingertips, the ones that're still stained red.
Dimmer, until it's a dim that Joey remembers. This is the same half-light twilight she met the goat-spirits in last time.
[Rain of Brass Petals] [oooh, what's this?. Per+alert, diff 10]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 10)
[Blood Summons] [Alertness+Perception]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Sorrow] [Per + Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[the oneiroi] [L]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 (Failure at target 8)
[Face of Death] [percept + alert!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)
[the oneiroi] Outside the apartment building, Laughs in the Face of Death and Waking Dream had seen them first.
Inside, Blood Summons and she who offers sorrow do. They hear the faint [distant (dim, too)] din of some crowd -- five, six, seven, nine -- of things making noise around a bend. They see, too, the movement of shadows, sleek, long-limbed, shadowing the garou's shadows, subtle, darker-than-they-should-be, an-overlay. Seven extra shadows, pretending to be.
to Blood Summons, Sorrow
[the oneiroi] [Soak this, Adam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Sorrow] There's a trick to falling off the ceiling, onto the stairs. Sorrow falls; Lila falls. Neither of the Galliards go sprawling, both sort of tumble to the stairs, find themselves standing with the others, watching the floor-that-was-their-ceiling breaking apart behind the little group. Some part of Sorrow would like to go retrieve her chance. Not the quarters and the dimes, not those, bu the Euro and the Kuna, which have been in her pockets for quiet literally years, long enough that they have come to define the pockets of whatever pants she is wearing as her pockets. One 2-Euro coin, 3 50-Kuna coins. These things and a handful of others make her human. Everything else, everything else makes her a monster.
Monster, both of them, have faint traces of shadow blood on their mouths from the battle-without, with whatever shadowed through underneath the wings of the night. Dead now, and neither injured. They walk up the stairs, and fall into a kind of formation. Sorrow gives Joey a thoughtful look as they climb, glances at Lila once before they reach the highest height, asks, " - the Oneiroi wanted you to go through the revolving door, didn't they?" she pauses, waits for confirmation. Then: "Why didn't you go?"
Question.
---
Then, later, they are at the top of the stairs, and "Hey." calls out, stomps her feet in the direction of the creeping shadows. "Those shadow-things are back. They're trying to be sneaky." - says Sorrow, frowning, chin rising as she searches for the light-source, so that she can shorten her own shadow, make it small, narrow, curl it back in upon itself. That sort of thing.
She's also prepared to start singing Happy Birthday to you shadowman, Happy Birthday to you. She hasn't started yet, not quite, watching for any reaction to her stomp.
[Face of Death] They go up and up and up, around bends and past doors, none of them right, none of them the place. Joey doesn't know what they're looking for, exactly. At least not beyond the jerk she gave her eye to a month ago. She moves steadily, almost tirelessly. It takes a long time for physical exertion to really start to wear on her muscles. Before she was a warrior of Gaia, before her change, she was an athlete. Could've gone pro if she wanted. Could've done a lot of things.
Kora gives her a thoughtful look that Joey doesn't quite notice. Or if she does, it doesn't make her whip her head around, challenging or questioning or drawing attention to it. Not until a question is asked.
"Hm?" is her first reaction. She keeps her left hand out, letting it drift close to the wall on her blind side as she looks at the Skald. "Adam said she'd follow me through it. It sorta...distracted me. Brought me back to my senses. Then I remembered I didn't go through it before."
The hall starts to get dim, and Joey comes alert. Not that she wasn't before, but this, now, is focused. Like the twisting of a camera lens, the adjustment of a telescope. "This is," she starts, but stops, not knowing what exactly this is. It's not where she met the goat man before, that was down. She doesn't know for certain that this is the place.
The shadows are back. Joey notices it at almost the same moment Kora stomps. She looks around for a light source as well, while her right hand reaches behind her to unzip her bag, unsheathe her black-as-night baseball bat. Unlike Kora, she's not looking to make her shadow smaller. She's looking for a light fixture to break.
[Blood Summons] [Wits, yo]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Rain of Brass Petals] Inhale.
It's slow, and it's rhythmic. She inhales. She tastes the air, feels the area grow dim. They go up and up, and the lights go out. She is moving with quiet wonder, footsteps are light. She isn't tense. She isn't unfocused. She is keyed in...
... to something else entirely. The others are noticing things. Different things, and she is focusing on something else.
Exhale.
The stairwell is dim but it's too dark to see. There are no spirits. They walk up one level-
[and it fucking hurts and it burns, and she's never been aware of her organs before. No one ever really thinks about them. Not until something hurts, not until your liver or your kidneys are being torn into. She's felt things literally squeeze her heart before, but this was differed. This was clawing, gnawing, more than an ache. Searing fucking pain]
Her footsteps stop. And for a second she doesn't walk any further. She closes her eyes tightly, she tenses her jaw, and the only sound she makes is half of a mewl. It's not a moan, it's not a whine or a moan or even a screech. It's not a whimper.
In... hale...
Because Black Furies don't whimper. Because she doesn't want to let on that she is injured, that things are getting worse. She lets out a long, ragged breath.
Ex... exhale...
The Fury straightens up, clenches her jaw, and keeps going. Kora says that they're back. The shadows. The ombrushhel. She inhales, and this time, lets out a long, loud scream. It's not in pain. It is, in its own right, fucking terrifying.
Wounded animals can be vicious.
[Blood Summons] The metis is the first one up the stairs by design, not because he is herding or because he is rushing but because that's where he wants to be: it has nothing to do with being expendable, but rather protective. Almost possessive. The five of them have already gone through the underworld together, have survived far more strenuous conditions than this. Blood Summons seems more at ease now that they're all in the same place, now that he can see all of them, even if he still seems somewhat rattled from whatever extracting the truth from that puzzle had done to him.
He's a terrible actor, a horrible liar, but he's also Fenrir. He does not dwell. He keeps moving.
They reach the top of the stairs, and it is he and the Skald who notice the shadows first this time. A low growl, noticed more as a vibration in their ears, along the backs of their necks, leaves his throat. He quickly takes stock of the others, his gaze lingering particularly long on the flagging Fury Theurge. Without a word, he slings his knapsack around the front and rummages through its contents until he comes up with a small healing gourd. He pushes it into Adam's hands. She knows what to do with it. He doesn't do it for her. This night is draining him, has drained him, and it's not over yet.
The female Fenrir are looking for a way around the shadows, are looking to protect themselves. Blood Summons has had just about enough of lurking around.
When he speaks, he does so with his shoulders back and his head up. When he speaks, it isn't in English.
[the oneiroi] [L: ?!?! Mother's Touch, again? -1G]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 2)
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Rar? -2 (oww)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]
[the oneiroi] [Shadows, resist!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] I am Blood Summons, son of Fenris, second-rank spirit-talker of the Nation.
Niceties out of the way.
We've come to fulfill a bargain made between Laughs in the Face of Death and the oneiroi. Which of you leads?
to a brick, Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Blood Summons] [Leadership+Charisma]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7
[Blood Summons] [COME ON]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10 [WP] Re-rolls: 1
[Blood Summons] [The ST says one more time!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 9
[the oneiroi] [Doom Spirit +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [Doom Spirit+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 6)
[the oneiroi] [B]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [staminaaaaah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Face of Death] [gnosus!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 2)
[the oneiroi] This, then. This Other thing, which melts around the corner of the stairs they just came up, which steps through a door that [was never a door (is never a door)] they couldn't swear was there before, although it looks plain-as-day, although it looks mundane. He -- It? but male -- is a lean-creature, svelte. Looks human. Looks very human, looks to be somewhere in his thirties, late twenties, eyes the colour of dusklight lancing through fog, soft and gray and warm as a promise. No shirt, no scars, no road-maps of pain and anguish, just careless, callous musculature and skin honeyed from sunlight. His ears are hidden by his unruly hair, and he is smiling faintly. There's a furrow, between his eyebrows.
They can see, when they look very closely, that his pupils are slit like a goat's. Joey recognizes him. When he speaks, he speaks so they can all understand him. Not just the theurges, but the No Moon, the Galliards, too. His voice is warm, sun-on-sand, falling in dusk-old stripes:
'We've' come to fulfill a bargain made. What are the rest of you prepared to offer? Remind me what the bargain is -
The look he [It] gives Joey, solemn
- remind me what you think you're owed.
[Face of Death] [percept + subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 10, 10
[Rain of Brass Petals] [behold the might of her tiny, tiny perception pool!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 9, 10
[Sorrow] Perception + Empathy
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8
[the oneiroi] [L: ?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 Re-rolls: 1
[the oneiroi] Sorrow, Rain of Brass Petals: this is what they know, looking at the goat-eyed spirit, looking at the svelt-man-who-isn't-a-man, who is looking at Blood Summons. They know this: that it is pleased to hear his name. They know this, too: that it is determined to get more out've this deal than it got last time [that it is ready to keep (something [a pet])]. They also know this. That it is assiduous in its dislike of Adamidas, that it was pleased to hear how she yelled: how it'd terrify others, although it is blatantly unafraid. Of her. They also know that -- maybe -- it is worried.
to Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow
[Face of Death] Something happens. While the Theurges are bargaining with spirits in tongues the Rotagar can't understand, pain lances through her blind eye. She doesn't cry out, doesn't make a sound; she's Fenrir, made of stronger stuff than that. There's no sound beyond the sibilant hiss of a sharply drawn breath, surprised. She squeezes her eyes shut, fights to keep from wincing. Fights to keep from clapping a hand over the pain in her eye.
Then it passes. Joey stands for a moment with eyes closed. Then she blinks once, slowly. Again. The Rotagar blinks two perfectly functioning dark brown eyes with which to watch the goat man from before appear through the door she can't be sure was there before.
She watches him with her full range of vision. Now she could throw a ball, have it hit exactly where she means for it to go. She can tell, more or less, how far away each of her companions is from herself, knows that if she reaches her hand out so far, she'll touch Lila's hand.
She uses this new-found - returned - perception to study the goat man closely. Joey doesn't know his name, doesn't know if he knows hers. She doesn't know what Blood Summons is saying to it/him. She waits for what sounds like a lull in the conversation, though. Waits until there's space to drive a wedge in.
"Our bargain's paid an' finished. You got my eye's attention for a month. The people here got left alone." She looks to the Fostern Godi here, respectful. Waiting to see if he'll cut across her, tell her to back off and stand down.
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands still, watching. Her hair is loose, all akimbo, while around her head, down her back, the fine strands feathering away from her generous features. Her dark eyes are clear, her hands tucked into her jeans. She is crouching, low, studying the shape of the shadows now, whistling under her breath as she watches down the hallway - when the Other appears. When he melts around the corner and steps through a door that was/is never a door.
There is a moment when she is still, watching him, her dark eyes half-lidded, intent. Flicks him a look up and down, then glances back to Joey. Stillness again. Her attention cuts to Blood Summons. She's quiet. For the moment.
[Rain of Brass Petals] It is what it is- another spirit. Bob converses with him, or had conversed with him. She knows how these deals go down, she knows what may or may not happen. He speaks in a voice that they all can understand. A voice that sounds smooth and warm. Spirits of terror and desire- spirits of dreams and nightmares.
[It's a spirit of terror there's no reason that it should be afraid of her. Blatantly, unafraid. She's aware... but maybe... maybe it's woried about something else?]
She doesn't say anything, doesn't broadcast messages, she just watches the man with the goat's eyes. She looks over his features, over the curve of his jaw and she crosses her arms across her chest. The gourd is pocketed, in that she is very, very sure that she might need it soon. Or before she leaves, assuming things don't go well. Her attention turns to Blood Summons, and it stays there.
She's going to learn something.
[Blood Summons] ["Empathy"+Perception: I WANNA ROLL STUFF TOO]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 4
[Blood Summons] *STORMS OFF*
[cricket] [zOMG, what a dramallama.]
[Blood Summons]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 8
[Blood Summons] Joey looks to the Fostern. He does not cut her off, does not tell her to shut up and let him handle this; he lets her answer the svelte not-man without interrupting, and when she's finished, Blood Summons clears his throat. It's a tic, perhaps, or a charm. It never does anything. Regardless of what language he speaks, which group of people--spirits--is able to understand him, his voice remains craggy.
There is worry, maybe, in the goat-man's body. He reads spirits better than he reads humans, has better luck understanding their motives and wants and desires than he does with creatures of flesh and blood. It makes some sense. He spends more time with spirits than he does with humans and Kinfolk.
[Blood Summons] You want attention, yeah? These people here, they can't give it to you, and we have none left for you. You have to find someplace else to feed.
to a brick, cricket, Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Face of Death] Joey is fully aware that she's holding a bat. She knows that there might be a chance that wielding a bat, a modified club, like some modern day caveman, could possibly get her what she wants from the spirit. Generally, though, one does not bring a weapon to negotiations for peaceful reconciliation. She doesn't put it away, nor does she hold it with the intent to strike. She has it just in case she needs to make some noise. Her bat, after all, is no longer her weapon of choice in a fight.
Attention is on the Godi, though. He's the Alpha of this expedition, the leader, the one they look to for advice and guidance through this strangely off Umbral reflection of an apartment building. Attention shifts to the spirit. For the moment, Joey just has one question.
"What's your name?"
[the oneiroi] They got left alone, the goat-man says, quiet. The emphasis is subtle. This, after Blood Summons has said his piece. Put down his: what? His ultimatum. Then the not-man's eyes widen, a caricature of innocence: Why?
[Blood Summons] There is a bristling of Rage underneath the Godi's skin, driving up his spine. It doesn't show in his face, stops just short of revealing itself in bared teeth and a gravelly growl, but there is electricity in his voice, a warning, a threat of violence that is so rarely seen in this creature even though he has the inner anger of a Moon Dancer. Even when he has been thoroughly annoyed, he somehow manages to keep his temper. He keeps it reined in now. It isn't about to overwhelm him.
"These people are ours," he says, dropping the Gift when it becomes obvious that it's no longer necessary. "This building is ours. You have no business here. We are not going to negotiate with you any further: leave, or we'll drive you out."
[the oneiroi] [Doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Sorrow] There is an urgent hint along the connection Adamidas shares with Sorrow. Connect us all. Me. Blood Summons-rhya. Lila.-rhya. Extend the connection.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[the oneiroi] The spirit's gaze slipped from Blood Summons to Joey, stayed there for a moment, for two moments. Then it slipped back to the Fostern Godi. There, it stayed, and look -- look how still it is staying. While it stays still, the [nine times nine (nine blooms: blooming wyld)] shadows which have shadowed their shadows, the shadows which are surrounding them, flatten, grow darker, and there is a thick [scrape it away with your thumb-nail: it could be wax, congealing; could be clotting] silence from below-the-stairs they're standing on and above-the-stairs they're standing on.
Meanwhile. This: when Blood Summons says leave, or we'll drive you out -- this. Lila makes a sharp gesture with one hand. Then -- then: drifts closer, closer to the theurge. There's a knot of tension at the nape-of-her-neck. Well, why would she like that idea? This is Lila: tranquil, peaceful -- Unicorn's daughter. She brushes, just so, against the theurge, want to say something, wait, wait.
The goat-man tilts his head, smiling now: blood-curdling smile, lovely, but terrifying: Why not? Are you too afraid to negotiate, Blood Summons? Do you think you'll get a lesser bargain than the No Moon did? Why can't we have attention here? What's a moment of your time worth?
[Rain of Brass Petals] There's urgence there. She looks at Lila, focuses as best she can and tries to open the same link between herself and Lila as she had with Sorrow. The theurge looks a little spacey for a second, eyes simultaneously unfocused and too focused. She shakes her head. Connects where she can; considers herself a communicator. Conduit. Conference call. She goes one at a time.
Lila is there, and she tries to meet the gaze of the Fostern Godi and the Rotagar.
He looks at the Godi, clears her throat in hopes of getting his attention or something. She doesn't say anything, though.
[-1 wp. Welcome the the conference call, Lila!]
[Rain of Brass Petals] If he'll look over here for a minute, I can... I don't want to force the connection. If he severs it I don't know what'll happen to all of our connections and communications, she replies to them
to Sorrow, the oneiroi
[Sorrow] This place, this building is pure. It is purified. Now that the Oneiroi are not feeding on the residents, they are feeding on the Wyrm. We saw the signs of the battle outside. They are slowly reclaiming the space from the Wyrm. They've made progress in one month. They could do more. The price last time was the Rotagar's eye, but if all they want is attention - the Skald's mindvoice is neat and calm, direct and clear.
- attention we can give them. I'm a Skald. I will bring them one story a moon. I will take one story a moon away, if they like. I will sing them a song once a moon. I will tell them a story that no one has ever heard before. I can offer, to start bargaining, to come listen to them once a moon. If, in exchange, they continue their work, fighting the Wyrm, leaving the humans on the other side alone.
Sorrow says this to both Lila and Adamidas quickly, surely. A glance at Lila. I'll make the bargain. I'll take the consequences.
to Rain of Brass Petals, the oneiroi
[Face of Death] Joey waits, quiet. Why? the goat spirit had asked, before Blood Summons threatened. The Rotagar's mouth quirks to the side, her brows furrow.
She steps forward now. Not beside the Godi, but to the side. A little behind. Leaving him still in front.
Then, as if the angry outburst hadn't happened, Joe tilts her head slightly.
"Don't you wanna be called somethin' other than, 'hey?' Hay is for horses, and you're not horses." A slight grin, tugging at the corner of her mouth that doesn't quite resolve into a full expression of mirth.
"What'd it take to get you guys to leave these people alone longer?" she asks, a simple query. "You want attention. What'll a minute of our time get us?"
[the oneiroi] Yes - This assertion is very nearly ringing. Mellow. You and I are of the same mind, she who offers sorrow. I will come one moon and sing them a lullaby; I will write a tale about them - I will come and talk to them if that's what they need. If they'll accept it. I'd rather not do this: drive them out -- without more cause.
Beat. Blood Summons is direct. I believe he's -- a pause, half-sorrowing: shh. -- looking at the violent part of this puzzle.
to Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow
[the oneiroi] [PAUSE. everyone out!]
[Blood Summons] [*whistles*]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
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