[Vanskapningur] (I don't have rules! The rule is: there are no rules. Mei is trying to help me get into an AIM chat since they are not working for me. I want to keep this nice and crisp and clean, with some good RP and some mean little monsters. I'll post a setting scene shortly. Please PM me any flaws. I reserve the right to overrule the dice for both cinematics, efficiency, and whatnot, but I will not overrule dice in order to mess with your character. Y'all can join the chat, and I will come in when my internet allows. Hah.
I will get a post up in a minute, and then you can get your characters into place. :) )
[Vanskapningur] The afternoon is warm and grey and humid. Were it not for the moisure saturating the air, it would feel like spring, like May - everything lush and green, still in the first blush of new growth. In the park proper, amidst the sculptures and tourist draws, the well-tended roses bushes are in full bud, though not yet full bloom. This is a between time for the city's plantings - the bulbs have finished, the tulips defeated by an early-April heat-wave, the daffodils done. Except for the dogwoods, the flowering trees that dotted the landscape like paintstrokes in some impressionist's painting have dropped their petals. The trees are fully leafed out now, but the leaves still have that bright green of early growth.
The humidity, though, saturating the air makes everyone lethargic, and the gray skies promise thunderheads on the horizon. It has been drizzling on and off all afternoon, and peridically the sky just opens, in a sudden, warm spring shower that floods the air with the scent of rain, that musk-scent promise of it, faint always, but rich underneath, loamy with promise.
There are tourists, of course, amidst the fountains, on the plaza, staying close to the parking lots, watching the skies as they dark out for pictures in front of the bronze statues. They do not venture deeper into the park; they do not wander through the well-tended copses of trees meant to mimic groves, they do not follow the paths that skirt the lake until it tucks itself into the Chicago River, which cuts through the middle of the great city like an old scar.
The river - and that is where we are today, on the river, where the banks sink, with jogging trails both lower down the bank, and high on the shore, paved but not well-tended, mostly empty today, on a gray with the promise of rain on the horizon - better to run on the treadmill in the gym than along the water, which was so polluted at the beginning of the century that the Corps of Engineers engineered it to run both ways, into and out of the lake, to control the flow of filth into Lake Michigan.
[Roman Turner] He was diehard so far. He hadn't given up boots, nor jeans so dark and stiff that they looked like they were fresh off the rack after a good starch and press. Wrangler's for sure, good ole sturdy inexpensive Wranglers, just like back home. Only difference was, he wore a tee that clung to him with moisture. No hat, he'd learned what was normal back home made him stand out here. So chestnut colored hair was darkened today with moisture where it clung to his brow. Cheeks were flushed from the humid heat and what little pleasure he could find was on the banks of the river where now and then his arm drew back to flick forwards. A small splash followed by a second and third and ever so often a fourth as he skimmed stones.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen is away from the tourists. Some distance from the crowds on a swath of green lawn leading up to the river. She sits on the tails of her summer jacket - short sleeved, tailored to her slender body, and long enough to tuck beneath her without removing, her back against one of the still flowering trees.
She has a book in hand, and does not seem to mind the threatening rain - though that may be due to the umbrella resting on the grass at her side, not a devil-may-care attitude. In fact, what she minds is that this is not the ocean. There is no salt in the air.
Still: A moment's repose. She turns a page, the wind stirring a few strands of hair into her eyes. She brushes it back with one hand before dropping her fingers to pluck a petal which has drifted onto her pages with the breeze, dropping it on the grass.
A splash some distance away draws her attention - she sees the turned back of a Garou, skipping stones in the water. It - or some stray thought - makes her brow furrow.
[Blood Summons] Places like this are the closest servants of the Wyld can get to their master without hiking outside of the city, even if places like this are so elaborately planned by civil engineers that they more closely resemble the imagining of what wilderness is than it resembles wilderness itself. Wilderness has no order. There is nothing but a fight for survival out in the woods. There is no natural order in the city parks: just order.
He's not here because he's trying to get closer to Gaia, or because he's trying to escape his own thoughts, or because the way the river snakes between the beds is particularly lulling. Nobody stops him to ask him what he is doing here. Nobody really wants to spend too much time looking at him. There's danger in spending any amount of time looking at him. He has the lean look of someone who's just gotten out of prison, of someone who would easily fly off the handle. Anger crackles underneath his scarred-and-tattooed skin even if, at the moment, it isn't threatening to break free of its leash.
The humidity in the air has turned his hair into a rat's nest. He looks wild. When Imogen catches sight of him, she will not think this is abnormal. He always looks like this.
There's no cigarette in his hand, yet, as he meanders along the path. He, too, finds his eyes falling upon the teenager flinging stones into the dirty water. Recognition is slower than notice.
[Imogen Slaughter] Perception+Alertness, specialty minutiae.
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 7)
[Blood Summons] [Alertness+Perception: HAIL KAHSEENO]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] He lacked the kind of rage that crackled the air. Infact, his rage was such a small thing that Imogen had guessed him as Kinfolk much to his horror and embarrassment. So far the city had been one big noisy, stinky, overcrowded place as far as he was concerned. He'd gotten the most release from this in putting some order to the weeded yard of the small home he shared with his cousin.
Percep+alert diff 4
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 4)
[Vanskapningur] The surface of the water is still. The current glides underneath it. There's trash on the banks, and mud on the lower path, closer to the waterline, from some recent high water. The trash is everywhere, the most closely one looks, tangled with the verdant vegetation on the steep slope near the water's edge, which has not been cut back at all this spring. The parks workers don't like this stretch of the river, away from the city, where the flow cuts back towards the lake, where the current grows dangerous when the underwater locks are turned to make the river flow back toward its source rather than its outlet. They pass along rumors, jokes between themselves with a dark edge that they do not consider unless they are alone along the riverbanks.
Debris bobs along in the current, too - broken tree limbs, floating tires, discarded cups from fast food restaurants. Bras, a pair of Chuck Taylor's tied at the shoelaces, leaves and detritus and green algae in the still pools, where the waterline curves down to the shallows. Glass bottles and aluminum cans and crack vials all amidst the tangle.
[Vanskapningur] Blood Summons notices both Imogen and Roman, the disordered growth of the shrubs at the waterline, uncut all spring. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble.
to Blood Summons
[Roman Turner] It looked more like a dump to him than a river bank and it made it harder to dig around and find flat stones to throw. He had to be careful not to cut himself on something. Though sure enough as he cocked back his arm to make a throw, that bra got his attention.
"Well I'll be....."
And that became his target.
[Vanskapningur] Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
to Roman Turner
[Vanskapningur] Imogen sees all.
(Everything that Roman saw - )
Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
)
- and there's a severed leg in the thorny bramble, the curl of dead-white fingers over the thorned vegetation, as something pulls itself up from the depths.
[Vanskapningur] Imogen sees all.
(Everything that Roman saw - )
Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
)
- and there's a severed leg in the thorny bramble, the curl of dead-white fingers over the thorned vegetation, as something pulls itself up from the depths.
to Imogen Slaughter
[Vanskapningur] ACK! IGNORE THAT.
[Roman Turner] He grunted, frowning as he gathered a few more rocks and sent them towards the bra. His face tilted up and his nose crinkled as a look of disgust flowed across a face with those still smooth curves of youth. And the first thing out of his mouth after the grunt was.
"Dang if it don't smell dead here."
[Roman Turner] dex+ath
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] Her attention had been turned toward the Garou skipping rocks, but as the next rock skips, her eyes follow the step. Her furrowed brow becomes less a reaction to abstract thought and more specific.
She frowns, her weight rolling forward, moving toward the balls of her feet, one hand setting her book down as the other slides beneath the fall of her jacket.
She cannot remember the damn boy's name.
"Turner," not quite right, but maybe close enough, "Get out of the water."
She is on her feet now, striding forward, her gait long, purposeful.
[Blood Summons] The usual filth that comes from residing within the confines of the Weaver's domain notwithstanding, there isn't much about the afternoon that jumps out at the Godi. He notices the shock of red hair that comes along with Imogen's appearance, notices the teenage Ragabash sitting amongst the discarded glass and condoms and Christ knows what else, and it's towards Roman that the taller, meaner-looking Garou walks.
Right about the time that he says it smells dead here, that Imogen tells him to get out of the water.
"Surprised you ain't got a needle stuck in your ass," he says, looking around in vain now.
[Vanskapningur] The stone Roman launches toward the bra bobbing on a deadfall with the current is a good throw; he knows that as he launches it, as he sends it slinging from his fingers. It's one of those throws that will skip four or five times over the surface of the water, skimming it like an insect, the surface glistening with wet even in the gray light. Except there's something in the interim that sends it off course, some submerged rock, some obstacle that catches the underside and sends it up in a short arc rather than out in a long, skimming line.
[Roman Turner] If it had been Sparrow yelling at him, his first words would of been along the lines of he wasn't in the dang water.
Instead his reaction was to pause to twist his upper body back towards the source of the yell, because sure enough, he was a Turner. His arm was still cocked to throw.
"Huh?"
That was his reaction. Then he spotted Blood Summons, whom he had only seen at the Moot that he could recall.
"What needle?"
Which had him trying to look at his ass while mumbling.
"It against the laws here to skip rocks or something? Did ya see that last throw? Freaky currents here."
[Imogen Slaughter] The glance Imogen casts Blood Summons as she passes him is blistering - scathing.
"There is something cursed in the water."
Her gun is in her hand now, the black metal heavy in her pale, slender hand.
"Turner -" this is likely all the time she has.
[Roman Turner] "I didn't do it!"
His hands were up as soon as he spotted the gun. Crap, she was going to shoot him for throwing rocks in the water.
[Vanskapningur] Something rotten, says Roman. Blood Summons approaches, too. The statement jibes something in the feral part of his brain, underneath the conditioning of the highermind. He smells it too, when he is closer. Flesh-rot. Meat left too long in the sun, without benefit of refridgeration. The undercurrent is there, present. Too insistent to be a moldering hamburger that somehow escaped notice of the city's stray dogs and homeless population, without the sort of full, wretched bloom that would come from a whole human corpse in decay.
[Roman Turner] He was small town, dead smell meant a horse, a cow, dog, cat, rat, something below human level. Maybe a run over possum or coon? And right then his thoughts weren't so much on the way the stone skipped wrong or the stink, it was on the rage right close to him and the gun in the woman's hand. City folk were down right touched in the head.
[Blood Summons] The look Imogen gives him would have peeled his skin off in one sheet if he were human. As it is, he just narrows his eyes at her, at it isn't until she explains that there's something cursed in the water that he figures out why this kinswoman is shooting daggers at him.
"Shit."
Within moments, she's pulled a handgun from its holster. It doesn't look natural in her hand, regardless of with how much ease she holds it, but he hasn't got a lot of time to sit and consider the aesthetics of weaponry when wielded by diminutive Kinfolk.
Turner -
I didn't do it!
He scrubs at his face, then tells the Cliath, "Get behind me."
[Vanskapningur] There is something cursed in the water; something white-fleshed like a fish, something strange, something dead. Something human-handed grasping the strong, thorny strands of the briar rose to pull itself up from the shallows. There is no blood where the thorns pierce its flesh, just a certain rotting sort of tearing, the way dead skin sloughs away from a burn.
There are two arms and a head, everything has the usual arrangement of human limbs; the slope of the shoulder, the long curved line of the back is bare and deadwhite as it skims the surface of the water. The flesh is not rotting, not precisely - the scent does not come from the thing crawling up from the water, but from the treat it left behind, the broken femur, bits of fleshy, rotting thigh still attached, hidden in the tangled thicket the way a dog buries a bone.
The flesh is not rotting, but it has been - nibbled away in places, down through layers of epidermis and fat, down to the hard white glisten of bone. Clothing shrouds the corpse, old and rotten as the leg it planned to retrieve and eat -
- until, until, until it found more delicious, living fare laid out along the riverbank like a buffet. Something in them, something in each of them calls to it, and old ache, deep and abiding, instinctual, hungry.
Roman has his back to the waterline, then - turning to look at Imogen. Imogen has her weapon unholstered, pointed down at the waterline. Blood Summons is striding toward the cliath, get behind me - and there are more ripples in the shallows, beneath the duckweed, underneath the water's surface.
[Imogen Slaughter] (three round burst)
(HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (damage!)
(HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 8 (Failure at target 8)
[Roman Turner] He didn't see what was coming out of the water. What he saw was Imogen with the gun coming his way. He saw Blood Summons between him and Imogen. And Blood was saying get behind him. Did that mean he wanted Roman to take the shots coming or did behind mean duck where he was?
"DUCK!"
That was his warning and he was pulling on resist pain cause he knew his dive towards Blood Summons was going to be too late.
[Vanskapningur] The gunfire is like this: rat-a-tatat. The sound is astonishingly small when measured against the expanse of the river near its mouth. Roman is diving toward Blood Summons, imagining the bullets are intended for his own body - but the shot is keen and accurate; it sings through the air by his flank, not hitting him, but the once-human thing crawling up the riverbank. The bullets catch the thing solidly in the chest, the dull thud of dead tissue. There's not blood, but rather a sort of whining sigh that might be a strangled cry of pain.
[Vanskapningur] [And now we go to inits!]
[Vanskapningur] Thing-on-land. +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Imogen Slaughter] (+9)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8
[Vanskapningur] Thing-in-water A.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Roman Turner] +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Vanskapningur] Other things in the water. +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Blood Summons] [Reflexive: Snap-shift to Crinos
+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Roman Turner] He still didn't know what was going on because he was facing the wrong way. He hit the ground in a roll after his dive towards Blood Summons. Feeling all over his body for the shot that surely hit him.
"HA! YA MISSED!"
[Vanskapningur] Order:
Imogen: 17
Blood Summons: 17
Roman: 12
Thing-on-land: 11
Other things in the water: 10
Thing-in-water A: 7
[**Notes: charging down the steep slope to attack the thing on the land from the slope will require a dex + ath roll dif 5 on four legs, 6 on two legs, cannot get more sux on an attack roll than sux on the dex + ath roll. Alternatively, can jump into the shallows, but would be open to attack by Other Stuff in the water that hasn't emerged yet. Alternatively, can wait until the things are up the slope and chomping at you. Alternatively, can throw stuff. :) ]
[Imogen Slaughter] "You bleedin' idiot, turn around and face the wyrm!"
Her ears are ringing. She has thirteen bullets left.
[Vanskapningur] Declarations:
[Thing-on-land: 1. CHARGE UP SLOPE. 2. Bite Roman - he looks tasty! 3. Bite Roman again!]
[Other things in the water: 1. crawl into position in the shallows.]
[Thing in Water A - 1. CRAWL OUT OF WATER ONTO BANK; 2. STINK.]
[Roman Turner] Get a clue, look back.
Snap Shift Warform
Swipe at it if allowed.
[Blood Summons] [1: Activate Soak Talen.
R1: Block for Roman.
R2: Block for Roman.]
[Imogen Slaughter] (Target: Thing in Water A!
split actions
3 round burst - SHOOT!
1 shot )
[Imogen Slaughter] dex+firearms-2+3
Fire!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (keep going? sorry, was watching for you on AIM!)
to Vanskapningur
[Vanskapningur] Keep going! (grins)
to Imogen Slaughter
[Imogen Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] ThingA soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Imogen Slaughter] shoot 2!
(dex+firearms -3)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3
[Imogen Slaughter] damage!
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [Gnosis: SOAK TALEN]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Vanskapningur] Again, the sound of the gun is oddly anticlimatic out here, at the edge of the water, where the vast expanse of the river and the green tangle along the banks cushions rather than echoes the sound. Imogen stands at the top of the bank, calmly holding her weapon, changing aim from the dead thing crawling up the bank to the dead thing emerging from the dank green waters. Three bullets hit, a sharp, staccato burst; then one more - this one hits the Thing in the eyesocket, exploding what remains of the mummified organ like a stone dropped into a bowl of half-frozen jello, then continues through the skull. The exit wound sends a spray of bone fragments out behind the skull. There's no blood, though - no blood at all, just a certain sharp stink in the air, and a spray of foul water.
Blood Summons pulls out his soak talen; there is a supple hum of energy in the air as he employs it. Roman turns around, spins when Imogen demands that he turn and face the Wyrm - snapping into warform as he goes, to find himself face to face with the skittering corpse-like creature streaming water and algae, all but naked except where shreds of the rotted clothes remain behind, fingers and toes and other appendages nibbled at, half-eaten by the hungry things of the Chicago River.
[Vanskapningur] [That brings us to the end of the round for initial actions, - Roman can swipe the thing crawling up at the end of regular actions and then we are on rage actions.]
[Roman Turner] ((change action to kick instead))
His reaction was....it was on him! It was nasty! Kick it in the balls!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 2
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Roman turns around, flares into his warform, sees the once-human thing skittering towards him, and unleashes a kick with such force that some half-rottened portion of the monster's genetalia is detached from the body and plops, soft and ugly and white, admidst the tangle weeds. The thing does not react as a human might, however, sinking to its knees in pain. it is inexorable, surging forward, opening its hungry maw, sensing the health and life and vitality in the garou - nothing of the threat.
(Bite! -2 for wounds.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [R1: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Block!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Bite 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [R2: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Block!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 6, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +4 (suxx).] [B]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] The human thing snarls at Roman, teeth flashing white - not human teeth, these, inhuman, broken, sharded, double-rows like needles in the mouth, hypodermic, slender, deadly - gleaming - hungry, charges for the Ragabash once, and again - both times the Fenrir blocks the block, deflecting it with a hurled arm, an open hand-paw, the second time deflecting it with force enough to make contact with the thing in a vibrant backblow.
[Summary: y'all: okay!
Thing-on-Land: 5 Lethal
Thing-in-water A: x.x
Other things in the water: fine!]
[Vanskapningur] Order:
Imogen: 17
Blood Summons: 17
Roman: 12
Thing-on-land: 11
Other things in the water A and B: 10
[Vanskapningur] And: rolling for the other things in the water: A!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Vanskapningur] Other Thing B!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Vanskapningur] Other thing in Water B: 1. DEAD THING IS MINE. WANT. GRAB CORPSE. 2. swim AWAY.
Other thing in Water A: 1. WANT DEAD THING. See live things. CRAWL UP FROM WATER. 2. STINK.
Thing-on-Land: 1. BITE BLOOD SUMMONS. 2. BITE ROMAN. 3. BITE BLOOD SUMMONS. C'mon guys! I AM HUNGRY!
[Roman Turner] Claw the thing
[Blood Summons] [Reflexive: -1WP, Activate Resist Pain.
1a:
1b:
1c:
R1:
All bites on Thing-on-Land.]
[Imogen Slaughter] The smell of rotted flesh and rotting seaweed makes her nostrils flare. The reaction is instinctual. She is not even aware of it.
Ten bullets remain. There is a beast closer to her, but the Garou are there.
Something moves in the water. She takes aim there instead.
(declare:
split actions.
three round burst - thing in water a
fire - thing in water a.)
Nine-eight-seven.
Six.
[Imogen Slaughter] (dex+firearms-2+3)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Imogen Slaughter] (damage!)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Imogen Slaughter] second shot: HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] damage.
HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 9 (Failure at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1a: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp! -3 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +1 (bite) +0] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1b: Chomp! -4 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +3] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] how dead is I?
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1c: Chomp! -5 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +2] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Ignore those, apparently the thing's dead as a doornail.]
[Vanskapningur] The two human-things emerging from the duckweed are just as dead and bonewhite as the monster that is now attacking Fate and Blood Summons - and although there is something warm, living, hungry above, the two monsters in the shallows both dive for the fallen corpse of their fellow Thing. One wins the narrow race, and grabs the corpse, greedy, hungry, snarling at its fellow-who-lost.
The second monster-in-the-water - humanesque, female, Imogen sees, rather than male. The shape of the face, the cut of the jaw, the slender length of the hands as it reaches for the brambles at the water's edge to hall itself up and out of the stinking Chicago river - leaves the corpse behind, emerges from the water, duckweed strung through the dead curtain of its hair, and is hit twice, a burst of three bullets across the chest as it rises from the ground, and a forth that smashes into the temple, shattering the skull. The corpse falls backward with a silence splash into the water.
Blood Summons swipes at the walking human corpse on the land; the first swipe glides off the toughened skin, white as the moon, tough as old shoe-leather. The second swipe severs the left leg entirely from the body. The once-human thing staggers, reeling, the smelling their blood, their flesh, their skin, their warmth, their righteousness, hungry for it, hungry for it all - that old hunger, endless as the outter reaches of space, cold and impossibly dark - all unfulfilled. Staggering, sidewinding, the corpse collapses to the trampled grass of the bank. There is no blood; just the faint smell of rot, river water, and duckweed.
Meanwhile, below, in the murky shallows, the last thing grabs the corpse of its fellow, to swim away.
[Roman Turner] Things happened quickly. One, two, down. One was swimming away with a body.
"YEHAW!"
He leapt after the thing taking the body with every intention of clawing it in a bronco ride.
[Roman Turner] dex+ath jumping!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] The look on the monster's face seems almost beleaguered as the Ragabash leaps after the escaping creature, whooping as he goes. That beleaguered quality dissipates, quickly, as Blood Summons, too, jumps down the slope and into the river.
[Roman Turner] His powerful leg muscles bunched and he launched right through the air for the thing in the water like a damned fool. One arm rose, claws flashing as he brought it down in a stroke.
Attack
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity (+1): Jump!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +2] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] how dead is I!!!!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Vanskapningur] The dead white thing slithers through the water, its back silvergleaming, deadwhite, cutting through the dark waters. The pair of Garou - first Fate, then Blood Summons - leap from the bank into the waters, tear it to pieces, the dead flesh comes away in their claws white and flaky, like fish, then sloughs off into the water.
They can feel things, cold, deadwhite, slithering in the murk at their feet, and even warformed they are up to their waists in milky green duckweed, choking the shallows. The monster thrashes, spasming, its kill in its hands, its mouth wrapped around the dead flesh - and then is torn in half, like a wishborn, and it is impossible to tell which Garou will get to make a wish on the cold corpse, so equal are the pieces they have in their claws.
[Roman Turner] The moment of craziness passed quickly when he found himself face to face with Blood Summons. Both heaving for breath and both holding parts of dead things.
"Ewwww."
His swished his clawed hands in the water quickly like trying to get the crap off and waded for the shore with lots of sounds when things squished between his toes.
"Nasty."
I will get a post up in a minute, and then you can get your characters into place. :) )
[Vanskapningur] The afternoon is warm and grey and humid. Were it not for the moisure saturating the air, it would feel like spring, like May - everything lush and green, still in the first blush of new growth. In the park proper, amidst the sculptures and tourist draws, the well-tended roses bushes are in full bud, though not yet full bloom. This is a between time for the city's plantings - the bulbs have finished, the tulips defeated by an early-April heat-wave, the daffodils done. Except for the dogwoods, the flowering trees that dotted the landscape like paintstrokes in some impressionist's painting have dropped their petals. The trees are fully leafed out now, but the leaves still have that bright green of early growth.
The humidity, though, saturating the air makes everyone lethargic, and the gray skies promise thunderheads on the horizon. It has been drizzling on and off all afternoon, and peridically the sky just opens, in a sudden, warm spring shower that floods the air with the scent of rain, that musk-scent promise of it, faint always, but rich underneath, loamy with promise.
There are tourists, of course, amidst the fountains, on the plaza, staying close to the parking lots, watching the skies as they dark out for pictures in front of the bronze statues. They do not venture deeper into the park; they do not wander through the well-tended copses of trees meant to mimic groves, they do not follow the paths that skirt the lake until it tucks itself into the Chicago River, which cuts through the middle of the great city like an old scar.
The river - and that is where we are today, on the river, where the banks sink, with jogging trails both lower down the bank, and high on the shore, paved but not well-tended, mostly empty today, on a gray with the promise of rain on the horizon - better to run on the treadmill in the gym than along the water, which was so polluted at the beginning of the century that the Corps of Engineers engineered it to run both ways, into and out of the lake, to control the flow of filth into Lake Michigan.
[Roman Turner] He was diehard so far. He hadn't given up boots, nor jeans so dark and stiff that they looked like they were fresh off the rack after a good starch and press. Wrangler's for sure, good ole sturdy inexpensive Wranglers, just like back home. Only difference was, he wore a tee that clung to him with moisture. No hat, he'd learned what was normal back home made him stand out here. So chestnut colored hair was darkened today with moisture where it clung to his brow. Cheeks were flushed from the humid heat and what little pleasure he could find was on the banks of the river where now and then his arm drew back to flick forwards. A small splash followed by a second and third and ever so often a fourth as he skimmed stones.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen is away from the tourists. Some distance from the crowds on a swath of green lawn leading up to the river. She sits on the tails of her summer jacket - short sleeved, tailored to her slender body, and long enough to tuck beneath her without removing, her back against one of the still flowering trees.
She has a book in hand, and does not seem to mind the threatening rain - though that may be due to the umbrella resting on the grass at her side, not a devil-may-care attitude. In fact, what she minds is that this is not the ocean. There is no salt in the air.
Still: A moment's repose. She turns a page, the wind stirring a few strands of hair into her eyes. She brushes it back with one hand before dropping her fingers to pluck a petal which has drifted onto her pages with the breeze, dropping it on the grass.
A splash some distance away draws her attention - she sees the turned back of a Garou, skipping stones in the water. It - or some stray thought - makes her brow furrow.
[Blood Summons] Places like this are the closest servants of the Wyld can get to their master without hiking outside of the city, even if places like this are so elaborately planned by civil engineers that they more closely resemble the imagining of what wilderness is than it resembles wilderness itself. Wilderness has no order. There is nothing but a fight for survival out in the woods. There is no natural order in the city parks: just order.
He's not here because he's trying to get closer to Gaia, or because he's trying to escape his own thoughts, or because the way the river snakes between the beds is particularly lulling. Nobody stops him to ask him what he is doing here. Nobody really wants to spend too much time looking at him. There's danger in spending any amount of time looking at him. He has the lean look of someone who's just gotten out of prison, of someone who would easily fly off the handle. Anger crackles underneath his scarred-and-tattooed skin even if, at the moment, it isn't threatening to break free of its leash.
The humidity in the air has turned his hair into a rat's nest. He looks wild. When Imogen catches sight of him, she will not think this is abnormal. He always looks like this.
There's no cigarette in his hand, yet, as he meanders along the path. He, too, finds his eyes falling upon the teenager flinging stones into the dirty water. Recognition is slower than notice.
[Imogen Slaughter] Perception+Alertness, specialty minutiae.
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 7)
[Blood Summons] [Alertness+Perception: HAIL KAHSEENO]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] He lacked the kind of rage that crackled the air. Infact, his rage was such a small thing that Imogen had guessed him as Kinfolk much to his horror and embarrassment. So far the city had been one big noisy, stinky, overcrowded place as far as he was concerned. He'd gotten the most release from this in putting some order to the weeded yard of the small home he shared with his cousin.
Percep+alert diff 4
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 4)
[Vanskapningur] The surface of the water is still. The current glides underneath it. There's trash on the banks, and mud on the lower path, closer to the waterline, from some recent high water. The trash is everywhere, the most closely one looks, tangled with the verdant vegetation on the steep slope near the water's edge, which has not been cut back at all this spring. The parks workers don't like this stretch of the river, away from the city, where the flow cuts back towards the lake, where the current grows dangerous when the underwater locks are turned to make the river flow back toward its source rather than its outlet. They pass along rumors, jokes between themselves with a dark edge that they do not consider unless they are alone along the riverbanks.
Debris bobs along in the current, too - broken tree limbs, floating tires, discarded cups from fast food restaurants. Bras, a pair of Chuck Taylor's tied at the shoelaces, leaves and detritus and green algae in the still pools, where the waterline curves down to the shallows. Glass bottles and aluminum cans and crack vials all amidst the tangle.
[Vanskapningur] Blood Summons notices both Imogen and Roman, the disordered growth of the shrubs at the waterline, uncut all spring. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble.
to Blood Summons
[Roman Turner] It looked more like a dump to him than a river bank and it made it harder to dig around and find flat stones to throw. He had to be careful not to cut himself on something. Though sure enough as he cocked back his arm to make a throw, that bra got his attention.
"Well I'll be....."
And that became his target.
[Vanskapningur] Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
to Roman Turner
[Vanskapningur] Imogen sees all.
(Everything that Roman saw - )
Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
)
- and there's a severed leg in the thorny bramble, the curl of dead-white fingers over the thorned vegetation, as something pulls itself up from the depths.
[Vanskapningur] Imogen sees all.
(Everything that Roman saw - )
Roman notices both Imogen and Blood Summons. He can tell that the green growth along the waterline, has remained uncut all spring. This is odd, as the rest of the park is very well-groomed. He notices, too, the still, green-algae covered shallows at the base of the slope from which Roman is throwing rocks. There is a darker thicket there, a thorny bramble. That is more than a season's growth, that thicket - briar rose and other things tangled up. There is a scent in the air, too. More than just the humid wash of the foetid river, more than the green intensity of the algae skimming the surface. Something rotten.
And, as he sends the rock skimming along the surface of the water toward the floating bra, it bounces oddly, as if it had hit a rock beneath the surface. Throw another one at the rock, and the rock is not there.
)
- and there's a severed leg in the thorny bramble, the curl of dead-white fingers over the thorned vegetation, as something pulls itself up from the depths.
to Imogen Slaughter
[Vanskapningur] ACK! IGNORE THAT.
[Roman Turner] He grunted, frowning as he gathered a few more rocks and sent them towards the bra. His face tilted up and his nose crinkled as a look of disgust flowed across a face with those still smooth curves of youth. And the first thing out of his mouth after the grunt was.
"Dang if it don't smell dead here."
[Roman Turner] dex+ath
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] Her attention had been turned toward the Garou skipping rocks, but as the next rock skips, her eyes follow the step. Her furrowed brow becomes less a reaction to abstract thought and more specific.
She frowns, her weight rolling forward, moving toward the balls of her feet, one hand setting her book down as the other slides beneath the fall of her jacket.
She cannot remember the damn boy's name.
"Turner," not quite right, but maybe close enough, "Get out of the water."
She is on her feet now, striding forward, her gait long, purposeful.
[Blood Summons] The usual filth that comes from residing within the confines of the Weaver's domain notwithstanding, there isn't much about the afternoon that jumps out at the Godi. He notices the shock of red hair that comes along with Imogen's appearance, notices the teenage Ragabash sitting amongst the discarded glass and condoms and Christ knows what else, and it's towards Roman that the taller, meaner-looking Garou walks.
Right about the time that he says it smells dead here, that Imogen tells him to get out of the water.
"Surprised you ain't got a needle stuck in your ass," he says, looking around in vain now.
[Vanskapningur] The stone Roman launches toward the bra bobbing on a deadfall with the current is a good throw; he knows that as he launches it, as he sends it slinging from his fingers. It's one of those throws that will skip four or five times over the surface of the water, skimming it like an insect, the surface glistening with wet even in the gray light. Except there's something in the interim that sends it off course, some submerged rock, some obstacle that catches the underside and sends it up in a short arc rather than out in a long, skimming line.
[Roman Turner] If it had been Sparrow yelling at him, his first words would of been along the lines of he wasn't in the dang water.
Instead his reaction was to pause to twist his upper body back towards the source of the yell, because sure enough, he was a Turner. His arm was still cocked to throw.
"Huh?"
That was his reaction. Then he spotted Blood Summons, whom he had only seen at the Moot that he could recall.
"What needle?"
Which had him trying to look at his ass while mumbling.
"It against the laws here to skip rocks or something? Did ya see that last throw? Freaky currents here."
[Imogen Slaughter] The glance Imogen casts Blood Summons as she passes him is blistering - scathing.
"There is something cursed in the water."
Her gun is in her hand now, the black metal heavy in her pale, slender hand.
"Turner -" this is likely all the time she has.
[Roman Turner] "I didn't do it!"
His hands were up as soon as he spotted the gun. Crap, she was going to shoot him for throwing rocks in the water.
[Vanskapningur] Something rotten, says Roman. Blood Summons approaches, too. The statement jibes something in the feral part of his brain, underneath the conditioning of the highermind. He smells it too, when he is closer. Flesh-rot. Meat left too long in the sun, without benefit of refridgeration. The undercurrent is there, present. Too insistent to be a moldering hamburger that somehow escaped notice of the city's stray dogs and homeless population, without the sort of full, wretched bloom that would come from a whole human corpse in decay.
[Roman Turner] He was small town, dead smell meant a horse, a cow, dog, cat, rat, something below human level. Maybe a run over possum or coon? And right then his thoughts weren't so much on the way the stone skipped wrong or the stink, it was on the rage right close to him and the gun in the woman's hand. City folk were down right touched in the head.
[Blood Summons] The look Imogen gives him would have peeled his skin off in one sheet if he were human. As it is, he just narrows his eyes at her, at it isn't until she explains that there's something cursed in the water that he figures out why this kinswoman is shooting daggers at him.
"Shit."
Within moments, she's pulled a handgun from its holster. It doesn't look natural in her hand, regardless of with how much ease she holds it, but he hasn't got a lot of time to sit and consider the aesthetics of weaponry when wielded by diminutive Kinfolk.
Turner -
I didn't do it!
He scrubs at his face, then tells the Cliath, "Get behind me."
[Vanskapningur] There is something cursed in the water; something white-fleshed like a fish, something strange, something dead. Something human-handed grasping the strong, thorny strands of the briar rose to pull itself up from the shallows. There is no blood where the thorns pierce its flesh, just a certain rotting sort of tearing, the way dead skin sloughs away from a burn.
There are two arms and a head, everything has the usual arrangement of human limbs; the slope of the shoulder, the long curved line of the back is bare and deadwhite as it skims the surface of the water. The flesh is not rotting, not precisely - the scent does not come from the thing crawling up from the water, but from the treat it left behind, the broken femur, bits of fleshy, rotting thigh still attached, hidden in the tangled thicket the way a dog buries a bone.
The flesh is not rotting, but it has been - nibbled away in places, down through layers of epidermis and fat, down to the hard white glisten of bone. Clothing shrouds the corpse, old and rotten as the leg it planned to retrieve and eat -
- until, until, until it found more delicious, living fare laid out along the riverbank like a buffet. Something in them, something in each of them calls to it, and old ache, deep and abiding, instinctual, hungry.
Roman has his back to the waterline, then - turning to look at Imogen. Imogen has her weapon unholstered, pointed down at the waterline. Blood Summons is striding toward the cliath, get behind me - and there are more ripples in the shallows, beneath the duckweed, underneath the water's surface.
[Imogen Slaughter] (three round burst)
(HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (damage!)
(HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 8 (Failure at target 8)
[Roman Turner] He didn't see what was coming out of the water. What he saw was Imogen with the gun coming his way. He saw Blood Summons between him and Imogen. And Blood was saying get behind him. Did that mean he wanted Roman to take the shots coming or did behind mean duck where he was?
"DUCK!"
That was his warning and he was pulling on resist pain cause he knew his dive towards Blood Summons was going to be too late.
[Vanskapningur] The gunfire is like this: rat-a-tatat. The sound is astonishingly small when measured against the expanse of the river near its mouth. Roman is diving toward Blood Summons, imagining the bullets are intended for his own body - but the shot is keen and accurate; it sings through the air by his flank, not hitting him, but the once-human thing crawling up the riverbank. The bullets catch the thing solidly in the chest, the dull thud of dead tissue. There's not blood, but rather a sort of whining sigh that might be a strangled cry of pain.
[Vanskapningur] [And now we go to inits!]
[Vanskapningur] Thing-on-land. +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Imogen Slaughter] (+9)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8
[Vanskapningur] Thing-in-water A.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Roman Turner] +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Vanskapningur] Other things in the water. +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Blood Summons] [Reflexive: Snap-shift to Crinos
+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Roman Turner] He still didn't know what was going on because he was facing the wrong way. He hit the ground in a roll after his dive towards Blood Summons. Feeling all over his body for the shot that surely hit him.
"HA! YA MISSED!"
[Vanskapningur] Order:
Imogen: 17
Blood Summons: 17
Roman: 12
Thing-on-land: 11
Other things in the water: 10
Thing-in-water A: 7
[**Notes: charging down the steep slope to attack the thing on the land from the slope will require a dex + ath roll dif 5 on four legs, 6 on two legs, cannot get more sux on an attack roll than sux on the dex + ath roll. Alternatively, can jump into the shallows, but would be open to attack by Other Stuff in the water that hasn't emerged yet. Alternatively, can wait until the things are up the slope and chomping at you. Alternatively, can throw stuff. :) ]
[Imogen Slaughter] "You bleedin' idiot, turn around and face the wyrm!"
Her ears are ringing. She has thirteen bullets left.
[Vanskapningur] Declarations:
[Thing-on-land: 1. CHARGE UP SLOPE. 2. Bite Roman - he looks tasty! 3. Bite Roman again!]
[Other things in the water: 1. crawl into position in the shallows.]
[Thing in Water A - 1. CRAWL OUT OF WATER ONTO BANK; 2. STINK.]
[Roman Turner] Get a clue, look back.
Snap Shift Warform
Swipe at it if allowed.
[Blood Summons] [1: Activate Soak Talen.
R1: Block for Roman.
R2: Block for Roman.]
[Imogen Slaughter] (Target: Thing in Water A!
split actions
3 round burst - SHOOT!
1 shot )
[Imogen Slaughter] dex+firearms-2+3
Fire!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] (keep going? sorry, was watching for you on AIM!)
to Vanskapningur
[Vanskapningur] Keep going! (grins)
to Imogen Slaughter
[Imogen Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] ThingA soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Imogen Slaughter] shoot 2!
(dex+firearms -3)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3
[Imogen Slaughter] damage!
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [Gnosis: SOAK TALEN]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Vanskapningur] Again, the sound of the gun is oddly anticlimatic out here, at the edge of the water, where the vast expanse of the river and the green tangle along the banks cushions rather than echoes the sound. Imogen stands at the top of the bank, calmly holding her weapon, changing aim from the dead thing crawling up the bank to the dead thing emerging from the dank green waters. Three bullets hit, a sharp, staccato burst; then one more - this one hits the Thing in the eyesocket, exploding what remains of the mummified organ like a stone dropped into a bowl of half-frozen jello, then continues through the skull. The exit wound sends a spray of bone fragments out behind the skull. There's no blood, though - no blood at all, just a certain sharp stink in the air, and a spray of foul water.
Blood Summons pulls out his soak talen; there is a supple hum of energy in the air as he employs it. Roman turns around, spins when Imogen demands that he turn and face the Wyrm - snapping into warform as he goes, to find himself face to face with the skittering corpse-like creature streaming water and algae, all but naked except where shreds of the rotted clothes remain behind, fingers and toes and other appendages nibbled at, half-eaten by the hungry things of the Chicago River.
[Vanskapningur] [That brings us to the end of the round for initial actions, - Roman can swipe the thing crawling up at the end of regular actions and then we are on rage actions.]
[Roman Turner] ((change action to kick instead))
His reaction was....it was on him! It was nasty! Kick it in the balls!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 2
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Roman turns around, flares into his warform, sees the once-human thing skittering towards him, and unleashes a kick with such force that some half-rottened portion of the monster's genetalia is detached from the body and plops, soft and ugly and white, admidst the tangle weeds. The thing does not react as a human might, however, sinking to its knees in pain. it is inexorable, surging forward, opening its hungry maw, sensing the health and life and vitality in the garou - nothing of the threat.
(Bite! -2 for wounds.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [R1: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Block!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Bite 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [R2: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Block!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 6, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +4 (suxx).] [B]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] The human thing snarls at Roman, teeth flashing white - not human teeth, these, inhuman, broken, sharded, double-rows like needles in the mouth, hypodermic, slender, deadly - gleaming - hungry, charges for the Ragabash once, and again - both times the Fenrir blocks the block, deflecting it with a hurled arm, an open hand-paw, the second time deflecting it with force enough to make contact with the thing in a vibrant backblow.
[Summary: y'all: okay!
Thing-on-Land: 5 Lethal
Thing-in-water A: x.x
Other things in the water: fine!]
[Vanskapningur] Order:
Imogen: 17
Blood Summons: 17
Roman: 12
Thing-on-land: 11
Other things in the water A and B: 10
[Vanskapningur] And: rolling for the other things in the water: A!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Vanskapningur] Other Thing B!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Vanskapningur] Other thing in Water B: 1. DEAD THING IS MINE. WANT. GRAB CORPSE. 2. swim AWAY.
Other thing in Water A: 1. WANT DEAD THING. See live things. CRAWL UP FROM WATER. 2. STINK.
Thing-on-Land: 1. BITE BLOOD SUMMONS. 2. BITE ROMAN. 3. BITE BLOOD SUMMONS. C'mon guys! I AM HUNGRY!
[Roman Turner] Claw the thing
[Blood Summons] [Reflexive: -1WP, Activate Resist Pain.
1a:
1b:
1c:
R1:
All bites on Thing-on-Land.]
[Imogen Slaughter] The smell of rotted flesh and rotting seaweed makes her nostrils flare. The reaction is instinctual. She is not even aware of it.
Ten bullets remain. There is a beast closer to her, but the Garou are there.
Something moves in the water. She takes aim there instead.
(declare:
split actions.
three round burst - thing in water a
fire - thing in water a.)
Nine-eight-seven.
Six.
[Imogen Slaughter] (dex+firearms-2+3)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Imogen Slaughter] (damage!)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Imogen Slaughter] second shot: HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Imogen Slaughter] damage.
HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 9 (Failure at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1a: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp! -3 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +1 (bite) +0] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1b: Chomp! -4 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +3] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] how dead is I?
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [1c: Chomp! -5 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +2] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Ignore those, apparently the thing's dead as a doornail.]
[Vanskapningur] The two human-things emerging from the duckweed are just as dead and bonewhite as the monster that is now attacking Fate and Blood Summons - and although there is something warm, living, hungry above, the two monsters in the shallows both dive for the fallen corpse of their fellow Thing. One wins the narrow race, and grabs the corpse, greedy, hungry, snarling at its fellow-who-lost.
The second monster-in-the-water - humanesque, female, Imogen sees, rather than male. The shape of the face, the cut of the jaw, the slender length of the hands as it reaches for the brambles at the water's edge to hall itself up and out of the stinking Chicago river - leaves the corpse behind, emerges from the water, duckweed strung through the dead curtain of its hair, and is hit twice, a burst of three bullets across the chest as it rises from the ground, and a forth that smashes into the temple, shattering the skull. The corpse falls backward with a silence splash into the water.
Blood Summons swipes at the walking human corpse on the land; the first swipe glides off the toughened skin, white as the moon, tough as old shoe-leather. The second swipe severs the left leg entirely from the body. The once-human thing staggers, reeling, the smelling their blood, their flesh, their skin, their warmth, their righteousness, hungry for it, hungry for it all - that old hunger, endless as the outter reaches of space, cold and impossibly dark - all unfulfilled. Staggering, sidewinding, the corpse collapses to the trampled grass of the bank. There is no blood; just the faint smell of rot, river water, and duckweed.
Meanwhile, below, in the murky shallows, the last thing grabs the corpse of its fellow, to swim away.
[Roman Turner] Things happened quickly. One, two, down. One was swimming away with a body.
"YEHAW!"
He leapt after the thing taking the body with every intention of clawing it in a bronco ride.
[Roman Turner] dex+ath jumping!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] The look on the monster's face seems almost beleaguered as the Ragabash leaps after the escaping creature, whooping as he goes. That beleaguered quality dissipates, quickly, as Blood Summons, too, jumps down the slope and into the river.
[Roman Turner] His powerful leg muscles bunched and he launched right through the air for the thing in the water like a damned fool. One arm rose, claws flashing as he brought it down in a stroke.
Attack
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3
[Roman Turner] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Blood Summons] [Athletics+Dexterity (+1): Jump!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Blood Summons] [Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Blood Summons] [Damage: +2] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Vanskapningur] how dead is I!!!!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Vanskapningur] The dead white thing slithers through the water, its back silvergleaming, deadwhite, cutting through the dark waters. The pair of Garou - first Fate, then Blood Summons - leap from the bank into the waters, tear it to pieces, the dead flesh comes away in their claws white and flaky, like fish, then sloughs off into the water.
They can feel things, cold, deadwhite, slithering in the murk at their feet, and even warformed they are up to their waists in milky green duckweed, choking the shallows. The monster thrashes, spasming, its kill in its hands, its mouth wrapped around the dead flesh - and then is torn in half, like a wishborn, and it is impossible to tell which Garou will get to make a wish on the cold corpse, so equal are the pieces they have in their claws.
[Roman Turner] The moment of craziness passed quickly when he found himself face to face with Blood Summons. Both heaving for breath and both holding parts of dead things.
"Ewwww."
His swished his clawed hands in the water quickly like trying to get the crap off and waded for the shore with lots of sounds when things squished between his toes.
"Nasty."
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