Ornature

[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony is not of a height with any of the others here. He's still growing, his frame still filling out: the boy is only fifteen, after all. The brown, grizzled Crinos looks over his shoulder at the two newcomers. Garou he doesn't know, Garou he doesn't recognize from the moot. He still has a friendly expression for them, though in light of what they're about to try to kill, it looks a little strained.

"I'd like one, please," he says to Asha, as he reaches a clawed paw out for one of the talens she's handing around. "I'm Dreams in Summer Snow," he adds to the two of them. But he's quiet, after that. He doesn't want to chatter too much, not right now, and there will be time for introductions later.

He hopes.

[Ghosts of the Present] As they ready themselves, they can hear movement down in the cave. The sound of clacking claws and armor plates shifting about below.

[Bone-Grinder] He was ready for a fight, black fur blended beautifully into the darkness. The massive beast carried a heavy sledge in one hand and it lurked behind one of the entrances the beasts might come down should they charge into battle. He hears the sound and he shrugs to himself at Asha's plan if she wanted to make herself the target he didn't care as long as something was drawing their attention away the surprise part should be easy.

[Rain of Brass Petals] "I can come up with something," she says, "the goal is to close the rift that's been torn there. I have faith that I'll be able to handle this with help."

She stops, and introduces herself to Asha, "Rain of Brass Petals, cliath, theurge, and member of hte Squad of Ultimate Badasses. I like the plan, let's make it happen."

She waits, now. Something is moving beneath the surface.

[Waking Dream] Lila has this to offer. A story, although brief. "Not long ago, there was another Wyrmhole the garou of this Sept faced -- and conquered; I saw how it could be closed: fill it, because it is hungry, or - " her mouth quirks " - bite it. Because it cannot get away. If it comes up."

Now they're prepared. These five. Five is a good number. They get into position: ready to enact their plan. Lure out, surprise, vanquish: close.

[Kalaratri] Asha offers Dreams in Summer Snow one of the discs; and shows the Garou how to break it, just so. She stands still as Waking Dream introduces her, acts as her herald. All those names: and another, deep inside her head, and turns her head slowly as each of the rest of the Garou introduce themselves. "Listen," to Dreams in Summer Snow. " - if you can heal, and heal well, hang back. We need that. I can't heal you except with talens. It's not as good. Hear me? We protect the theurge and the healer." This direction, backed by all her pure breeding, is given to Simon. She doesn't direct Lila, the fostern, but there is a confidence in her when it comes to battle. It is what she was born to do.

"Anyone else?" she says, offering the talens around again before tucking them neatly away, inside her bag. Then, just as surely, she begins to change. She shifts through Crinos, right straight into hispo, her ruff bristling.

Two things happen: she is surrounded by a glow, and by this certainty - this sense of rightness.

[1. Lambent flame; 2. Inspiration - gives all allies an auto sux on any willpower rolls]

[Dreams in Summer Snow] [Soak talen!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 7)

[Ghosts of the Present] Maybe it was luck, but right now, as they heard the clacking of claws on earth and stone, and the movement of armor plates, a shadow from the waning moonlight forms in the mouth of the cave. Slowly a large figure begins to emerge from the cave.

Something looking much like a hound, it seems a bit more hunched over than normal hounds. It's large body is covered by a thick, serrated carapace. It sniffs at the ground, then slowly, its head rises to look upon the garou there. Teeth bare and a low growl comes forth.

[Kalaratri] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Bone-Grinder] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Ghosts of the Present] Ooralath +1 +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Waking Dream] + 7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Dreams in Summer Snow] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Rain of Brass Petals] 8+1d10
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Ghosts of the Present] OK here we go
Waking Dream
Asha
Bone Grinder
Brass Petals
Summer Snow
Ooralath +1

Declare in reverse


Ooralath declare:
1a) Chomp Asha
1b) Chomp again

[Dreams in Summer Snow] 1a: Claw Ooralath, -2.
1b: Claw Ooralath, -3.

[Rain of Brass Petals] actions!
1a: fire an arrow
1b: reload!
1c: FIRE!
1d: reload.

[Bone-Grinder] 1a: Smash Ooralath!
1b: Smash Ooralath!

[Kalaratri] Asha: 1a. BITE; 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. All on Ooralath.

[Waking Dream] Lila: 1a. CLAW; 1b. CLAW. All on Mistah Ugly, aka Ooralath.

[Dreams in Summer Snow] [1a: Claw! 7, -2 for split pool. Diff 5 from flanking.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Dreams in Summer Snow] [Damage! +3.]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Dreams in Summer Snow] [1b: Claw! 7, -3 for split pool. Diff 5 from flanking.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Dreams in Summer Snow] [Damage! +3]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Kalaratri]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Kalaratri] (ack! I wa just starting my transcript! did not mean to roll!)

[Waking Dream] [1a: Claw, yo. 7 , -2. Diff 5: FLANK. Coggies totally share the same mind, mang.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Waking Dream] [DMG: 7 (st) + 2 (suxx) = 9]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Ooralath soak Stam 3 + 4 dice armor
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Waking Dream] [1b. Same! -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Waking Dream] [DMG: also same!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak 7 dice
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] [Dice pool: dex + hispo + brawl + ancestors + perun = 13] 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Kalaratri] Damage: +7
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Kalaratri] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] It seemed their tatics were sound. Before it had a chance to react, Waking Dream, Asha, and Summer Snow brought the Ooralath down quickly. It's body ends up landing in a thud on the ground with a low, pitiful whine.

1 down, 3 to go.

[Kalaratri] The beast falls. Asha - glowing - pulls away from the corpse, snarling. Then, quite deliberately, the Silver Fang fixes her jaw over the beast's next or shoulder and begins to drag it away from the mouth of the cave, pulling it through whatever brush there is, just a but further - out of sight, out of mind.

In her feral and warforms, she is pristine. She is now-white; and she glows, now, covered in a flickering suggestion of fire that makes it difficult to look at her full one. With a shake, she rids herself of the blood from her fur, snorts to clear it from her nostrils, and plants her paws shoulder width apart, indicating that the others should return to their flanking positions, waiting for the next thing to be drawn out from within.

[Bone-Grinder] He growls a little at the dead thing. His sledge hammer still hefted he simply stays in position ready at a moments notice to lash out and strike anything that might follow the beast out.

[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony's strikes were spot on. For someone whose heart is soft, who doesn't have the kind of Rage that one of his auspice should, he at least can put some conviction behind his blows when the mind takes him. Unfortunately, he can't put any strength behind them, it would seem, and the creature falls to the more experienced Garou instead.

As instructed, Dreams in Summer Snow moves back into flanking position.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Alethea keeps her bow drawn, and she waits. There will be more coming soon. They'll have to investigate soon enough. Asha's a glowing beacon. The Fury and the Shadow Lord are both dark enough that they fade into the background with little effort.

The Fury's eyes hurt a little. Now, she's staring at a different lantern, and if she looks directly into ASha for too long, she might see spots. So, she doesn't. She just waits.

[Waking Dream] Her claws are blooded, bloodied; each strike was true. Asha drags the corpse away; she does not need help. There is no victory howl. Not yet. Waking Dream is a silent thing, already in position, watchful of the Others, but more watchful of the Foul Hole. The next enemy.

[Ghosts of the Present] It wasn't long. Again they heard the clacking of paws on stone and earth, the clattering of carapace armor. A snort here and there. Step by step, the other Ooralath came forth, looking for it's hunting companion. This one was easily bigger than the other. Probably older, more experienced by its size. It pauses just inside the mouth of the cave, and crouches down, growling low. The scent of blood in the air catching its attention. It lets out a foul roaring, which was soon answered, deep in the cave, by a louder roar of something much much bigger.


((Same inits))
Declare
1a) Chomp Asha cause she's so pretty
1b) Chomp again

[Dreams in Summer Snow] 1a: Claw!
1b: Claw!

[Rain of Brass Petals] (1a: shoot!
1: reload
1c: shoot
1d: reload!

[Bone-Grinder] 1a: Hammer Smash
1b: Hammer Smash

[Kalaratri] [1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. RAWR. YUM.]

[Waking Dream] 1a: Claw!
1b: Claw!

Tradition: it's what Galliards like. Tried and true.

[Waking Dream] [7, -2, diff 5 (flanking)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Waking Dream] [DMG 7 +2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Ooralath 2 soak stam 5 + 4 armor
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Waking Dream] [1b! -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Waking Dream] [DMG!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Kalaratri] Damage: 17 dice rolling in two groups!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] Group 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1b. -4!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Kalaratri] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1c. -5
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 3

[Kalaratri] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone-Grinder] [Dex+Melee+Totem+Crinos = 9 -2 = 7 Dice Diff 6 -1 for flanking?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Bone-Grinder] [Str+Crinos+Totem = 8 +3 For sledge = 11 +4 = 15 diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone-Grinder] [1 less dice than last time!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Bone-Grinder] [One less dice than before!]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Once more into the fray the gaians went. And once more, before it had a chance to fight back, the ooralath was brought down by the Gaians.

This time though, their victory was disrupted by a deep roar from within the cave. A low slithering sound heard making its way to the cave mouth.

[Kalaratri] One more time. The beast is felled; and Asha shakes herself with a spray of blood from her maw, from her gleaming silver paws, pads forward and drags the corpse from the mouth of the cave, feels the dead-flesh give beneath her teeth, pulls the kill aside. She barks singular warning to her allies an pads into place again, crouching back, reading to spring at whatever comes.

[Waking Dream] Rage, see - Rage is both dark and bright. That sound, that challenge, rumbling from the deep: it sparks on Waking Dream's Rage, and she is prepared. Watchful. Witness.

[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony didn't even have time to act, this time. He waits, ready, in his spot.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Something growls in the darkness. something roars and slithers forth. Something makes sounds, and she holds-

She stops herself from being ready and, instead, takes a different sort of offensive stance. This time, the Fury starts to prepare for a ritual. This time is different. She doesn't know what it will do, but it might help...

[Bone-Grinder] Simon growls to himself when he hears the the sound in the distance and his weapon is dropped and he decided to shift his form to something a little better suited for a surprise attack. So down to hispo he goes, shifting into the darkness to ready himself to leap out at whatever was approaching.

[Stam+Primal Urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7)

[Ghosts of the Present] They didn't have a chance to trap it in the mouth this time. Not thoroughly. What came out, made each Gaian step back for a moment, and look in both admiration and fear. Scales of once crystalline blue now turned black, scarred and grotesque, it easily was larger than any thunderwyrm they have ever met. But it was obvious this once beautiful spirit had been corrupted and twisted by the wyrm. Green ooze drips from its maw and hits the ground with a sizzling sound. Its wings, as it spreads them, are torn and ripped, unable to fly as it once did. Its eyes burned with green balefire as it looked down at the bait - the glowing form of the Silver Fang. Something about it says that it was never meant to be here, let alone be found once more.

Its tail whips around behind itself and it seemed to laugh at the little Silver Fang. The dragon wyrm was a sight to behold and to fear.

[Ghosts of the Present] Declare
1a) CHOMP ASHA DAMMIT
1b) Chomp again

[Dreams in Summer Snow] 1a: Claw!
1b: Claw!

[Rain of Brass Petals] [1: try and cleanse? Rite of Cleansing, maybe?]

[Bone-Grinder] 1a: Climb his fat ass
1b: Bite into his neck
R1: Bite it's neck Again!
R:2: Bite it's neck Again!

[Kalaratri] [-1 WP - Resist pain. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE; Rage 2: BITE.]

[Waking Dream] 1a) Claw! - I'm sorry, once beautiful creature.
1b) Claw + WP. - This is better for you.
R1) Claaaaaaaaaw. - Also, you offend my Holy Righteousness.
R2) Claaaaaaaaaw. - And that has made me angry.

[Waking Dream] 1a: Claw, yo. 7 , -2. Diff 5: FLANK
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Waking Dream] [DMG? 7 + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Dragon wyrmling soak Stam 7 + 4 dice armor
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Waking Dream] 1b: Claw, yo. -3 Diff 5 + WP.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]

[Waking Dream] [DMG: 7+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Waking Dream] [DMG: 7 + 4 (suxx) = 11]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1a. BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Kalaratri] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1b. BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Kalaratri] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Kalaratri] 1c. BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Kalaratri] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ghosts of the Present] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Bone-Grinder] [Climb that bitch Simon!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Bone-Grinder] [Bite his ass er neck! Dex+Totem+Brawl+Hispo = 10 - 3 = 7 Diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Bone-Grinder] [Str+Hispo+2 Damage bite +1 for extra successes]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Kalaratri] Mindy's roll!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Waking Dream] [Lila: Guys? Let's take this back. And celebrate.
Lila's Brother: O.O All that in my car?]

[Roman Turner] Dust flew, weeds shot out in a spray across the cracked pavement next to the small lot as oil spewed in the air with each ragged chug of the obviously second, third hand mower. And there he was as the sun was setting, pushing the contraption in a pair of cut off shorts, sporting the whitest legs on the planet and of all things, cowboy boots in a pink skin tight tank top that said "Juicy" on it. And yes, a straw hat.

[Kora] It was a warm, bright summer afternoon. Some weekday. Some day when ordinary people are off working, looking out at the sky through the warehouse's big doors or through the slatted lights of he drawn blinds at the office. They are not ordinary people, though, and the rhythm of the week means as little to them as the cycles of the moon means to humans.

Now, close to dusk, the city is shutting down - traffic is low out here in the ghetto and people on the safer streets gather on their stoops to swat at mosquitoes and gossip, lulled by the constant drone of cheap air conditioning units.

Roman does not have the whitest legs on the planet, but Kora's not showing off her own. Instead, she's dressed in worn jeans and a black t-shirt, snugly fitted to her lean frame, with the word PIXIES across it in white letters. Roman makes a turn and finds the tall Fenrir standing at the gate, her left hand wrapped around a slat, eying the young man and his get-up with a certain skepticism. Her usual smile is absent, and that suggests tension - in her body, in her mouth, held in such a line.

"Fate-yuf - " she calls out, low and controlled when he is close enough to hear. The formality of deed-name and suffix suggest that this is more than a social call. The tight body language, all stark, does much the same. "When you're done, I'd like a word."

[Roman Turner] He was a little surprised to see Kora on his next turn in the small dust choked yard. It wasn't until he let go of the handle on the mower and the engine sputtered to death that he could hear her. A little current of stiffness flickered through his body language with the sudden formality of Kora's speech. A little current that was quickly subdued behind a liquid smooth touch to his brim.

"Sorrow-Yuf."

He replied while wondering exactly what she thought of his get-up. And for a moment he wondered if the response he was trying to get from Sparrow had instead turned and bit him on the ass because Kora was SO not suppose to see him like this. Oh well when life handed you lemons, you squirted them in someone's eye, right?

"I have time of course. And simply L O V E the shirt. Maybe you can tell Sparrow where you shop when we are finished?"

For a moment devilment shown in his eyes before it was pushed down and he waved her towards the stoop.

"Offer ya water or a pop?"

[Kora] Kora glances down briefly at her lean torso. The word: white letters on black cotton, is so familiar by now that she hardly sees it. For the sparest moment, Roman's needling draws the corner of her mouth up, the right-most corner. Her eyes flicker him up and down once more, then she offers him a supple shrug, " - I don't. Shop, I mean. It's a band t-shirt, though. If Sparrow wants, I'll have Trent find her one. I'm sure they sell them on the internet."

With the implicit invitation, she pulls open the gate and lets herself in. A few long strides take her past the dusty yard, the cloud of exhaust from the mower hanging in the air. There's no hesitation in her when he offers hospitality. She takes it. Listen: "Coke would be brilliant, yeah."

She's at the stoop, now, her hands in her hip pockets, one foot planted on the bottom-most step, pale hair drawn back, dark eyes sure and direct. Underneath it all, she's tired.

And furious.
We cannot forget furious.

"Thanks for the hospitality."

[Roman Turner] "Not a problem Miss Kora. It's what I folk are suppose to do. Ya just take a load off and I'll be right back."

With that he ducked inside and just when she thought he had to get lost in the tiny rental, he was back out in jeans and a clean if rumpled tee offering her a cold can of Coke.

"Pink ain't really my color."

His way of explaining the change of clothes. After he handed off one can, he cracked one open for himself with a pop and fizz before hunkering down on the stoop.

"Now, that talk?"

All the while he was trying to figure out what he had done that got back to her.

[Kora] "It's just Kora," the Fenrir returns before Roman ducks inside. When he's back, she accepts the can of Coke from him with a sort of easy grace that speaks to the animal underneath her skin. She's taller than the young Gaian by good several inches, made taller again by the heavy black boots she wears, even in the middle of the summer, but despite the invitation to sit, she's not done so when he returns.

Pink ain't really my color, he explains, and she flicks him a look, up and down Another night, and she might respond to that. It's not another night. Inside, she opens her can of Coke and takes a drink. This is formal, too: offered and accepted.

"You've heard of the Eagles since you've been here, yeah? Silence-rhya was their Alpha. He kept the territory after his last packmate died, here in the Green. You've been on the other side, you've seen the trophy poles and glyphs north of the Caern.

"Except he's left, right? Called away to be a Warclaw, and his pack dead. War-Handed and I claimed the territory he left behind; set to remaking the spirit-pacts, chasing out the Wyrm that had come creeping around in his absence."

Throughout the little speech, Sorrow's dark eyes are fast on Roman's young face. His youth does not phase her. She's nearly a decade older than he is, but they're ranked the same. Like as not, they've been Garou for about the same length of time. Late change, hers.

[Roman Turner] He took a sip and rubbed his nose as if he had a sudden tickle as she spoke.

"I heard of the Eagles and seen the area on the otherside. Heard of Silence-Rhya of course. Never met him though I got a brief look at him last Moot. I didn't really realize you and your's had taken over the old Eagle turf, but it seems like a wise and needed move."

He rubbed his nose again and pushed the brim of the hat back as he tilted his head back to look up at her.

"Mind if I ask something? War-Handed, where is he? You mention him but I ain't seen him about."

[Kora] Most Fenrir around here are pure-blooded. Look at them and you remember the heroes of the past; the great northmen, bloody-handed and terrible, spilling the guts of their enemies across the snow. Not Sorrow: she's just a girl, a young woman, who would be pretty except for the rage, the animal inside her. Dark eyes and pale skin and pale hair, a generous mouth usually turned into a faint curving smile is flat tonight: taut.

"War-Handed," she said the name easily first. Past-tense, hear that? Now she has to stop herself from spitting it. The Coke can in her left hand crinkles under the pressure of her fingers. Her right hand, in her pocket, is curled into a white-knuckled fist. She releases both. It is deliberate, the letting-go.

She starts again. "War-Handed has left. He's run off; abandoned the pack and Maelstrom and the territory. Our other pack-mate is too far away, and I cannot keep the totem. I expect Gut-Song to follow War-Handed anyway, even should he return." This is all evenly spoken, recited nearly. These are the facts, and her focus is briefly lost; then recovered. Her dark eyes fix again on Roman, and this time do not waver.

"I have no pack. I'm alone and Hermodr is gone. I cannot hold that territory alone." The soda pops and fizzes in the can, singing nearly silently against the aluminum. "I've come to ask your help. Run with me. Learn the border; fight with me. Hold that land against the darkness. That's why I've come to you, Fate-yuf."

[Roman Turner] Very soothingly he spoke.

"Careful of the can or you'll end up wearing that Coke. Life happens, strange things happen to folk. Sometimes it don't make sense to those of us on the outside. But I can tell ya this. I done fought with ya a few times now. I like the way ya work. Sparrow and I are family and in a sense, that makes us a mini pack here in this city. I will run with ya. I'll learn. I'll fight alongside you Sorrow-yuf. And most important? I don't run out on my folk. Only way you will get rid of me is if I up and die."

[Kora] There's something sharp in the way her dark eyes remain on his face; or rather - something - astute. The Skald watches him with this attention, closely observed, that could be scouring but is instead simply: aware. The corner of her mouth twitches upward, but the spare expression does not reach her dark eyes.

"Thanks for the warning," she says, with no small amount of irony, tipping the can at him in toast before she takes another drink, long, clearing her senses of all but the taste of the soda, sweet going down. Then, straightening, she pulls her foot back from the bottom step. " - and thank you for the pledge. Find me sometime - at the Cabrini Methodist Church. Or just cross over at the edge of the territory. The bird-spirits - sparrows or the scab birds - should let me know you've come. I'll show you around."

There is the faintest easing of tension in her spine; in her mouth, in her dark eyes - in the sense of fury about her tonight, nearly incandescent. "Thanks for the Coke, too." She tips it upward again, and takes another sip.

[Kora] transcript!
to Kora

[Roman Turner] He rose with her with a salute of his can.

"I will. And Sorrow-yuf? You can let the tension go. I don't give my word lightly. Me and mine are strong, stubborn and they grow us straight and true where I come from. You have more shoulders to share the load with now, it makes the carrying easier. Relax, take a long soak in a hot tub of bubbles with a beer and just soak in the extra shoulders idea."

[Kora] "I'm Fenrir," she responded before turning to go, a huff of laughter in her voice that did not quite reach her eyes, and the briefest " - we're allergic to bubble baths. And ease. I'm glad to know it, though. I'll see you soon, yeah?"

With that, she finished off the can of soda and offered the empty back to him for recycling, then turned to go. Maybe there was a certain easing of her posture - the stark line of her spine and shoulders. Maybe that was there, after all.

[Fiona Sullivan] (places?)
to Casey Steward, Iona McNevin, Kora, Marc de Vogue, Rory

[Rory] (all kinda surrounding Rory who's seating on a random bus stop bench. :) She's not uncomfortable with that AT ALL. hahahaha. )
to Casey Steward, Fiona Sullivan, Iona McNevin, Kora, Marc de Vogue

[Iona McNevin] Iona felt around her pockets and pulled out some paper and a short pencil. To Rory, Casey and Marc, they all receive a slip of paper with her number on it. "I be needin' tae get back tae work on tha forge. Should any o' you need me, just gimme a call."

She kisses the top of Rory's head, trying to make her feel better, then heads out, waving to them all. "Have a good evenin' tae ye ahl."

[Casey Steward] Casey seems distracted his eyes upon his personage as he rummaged through his coat pockets, he either misses, or ignores the other man's nod as he pulls out a lighter, and a single, bent over looking cigarette which he sticks between his teeth and goes to light it, having to flick the miserable little lighter five or six times, shaking it a few times as he swears in gaelic under his breath, before the thing finally caught and ignited the tip of the dilapidated cigarette.

He snorts, and then coughs when Marc makes mention of Iona being a beauty in a sea of darkness...not because it wasn't true...but because the man had heard the line just a few times before from french tourists going after Irish beauties.

"Aye nae heard tha one before, I swear all people can do is compare the lassies to Island's which aint tru at all nae true at all.." He says more to himself then to anyone else as he watches the trueborn talk, and the frenchman waggle his tongue, he then takes a drag off the cigarette before watching Rory fold in on herself, and shake his head.

[Casey Steward] "Wee bit o a callin than ain't it?" He says as Iona tells him about just how long she's been involved in forging, in pounding iron and steel into shapes, and forging one's will and imagination into something tangible....not really Casey's usual bit.

The Iona continued to try and give Rory encouragement to make her less...withdrawn, something had obviously happened between them and others, and it was certainly something to look into later.

Then the fancy car rolled by, full of its fine leathers and master crafted parts and Casey couldn't help himself but sigh and look unimpressed. When the man got out...it didn't help much either, a frenchman...great, just what he wanted to see today.

The tall blonde haired man speaks french, probably trying to be impressive, Casey just retorts in the same language. "Aye, I'm sure it is for ya." Before starting to rummage through his pockets.

[Casey Steward] "Good ta see tha ol custom's alive an well then." He says in response to Iona's explanation though he still seem's somewhat skeptical as he looks her over, leaning this way and that as he stuffs his hands in his pant's pockets, it seems he's trying to imagine the woman infront of a hot forge all day.

"Don bite ma head clear off lass, but ya jus' don' seem tha.....build for tha job." He says innocently enough. "No tha I don believe ya a course, I'm sure I'd not wan ta be on tha other end of tha 'ammer."

He then looks back to Rory and shrugs towards Iona. "Sound's like somethin of a sweet deal there Rory, don ya thenk?"

[Rory] (watches Casey's instant replay. hahaha.)

[Casey Steward] [Sorry bout that...had some technical difficulties:P]

[Casey Steward] [Bottom most post in the most recent]

[Marc de Vogue] He accepts the slip of paper from Iona and nods. “Thank you Iona.”
Then watches her interact with Rory before leaving. A thoughtful look as he watches her go. His voice is low when he speaks again.

”It was a mere play of words on the meaning of her name, not some island in specific, and nothing but truth when regarding her beauty.”
The tall young kin retorts to Casey.
“I have never been to Ireland myself, but I do hear it is quite lovely.”

His gaze goes back to Rory, and then he shrugs his shoulders and takes a seat beside her on the bench, head turned to look at both Casey and her with just a slight turn of his head.
“Anyway Rory. I do not know how your people deal with matters such as these, but for myself, it would be unthinkable not to show my gratitude. I have been wracking my brain to come up with a fitting thing since we parted ways last, but I have not yet found anything suitable that would show my gratitude.”

[Fiona Sullivan] Just what the city needed - more blonds with rage.

Fiona moves along the sidewalk, the scuffed soles of her boots eating up pavement as she walks, a predator's grace revealed through the sleek, yet muscled curves of her frame. Head held high, blond hair falling across her shoulders to curtain the sides of her face. Bright green eyes swimming along the terrain to drink in the details of the city, of the buildings and street signs, mapping out her location in the back of her mind.

Bits of flesh are exposed to the cool air, the dull gray sweat jacket riding up the flat plane of her stomach when her arms lift upward, allowing hands to brush over her brow as fingers comb hair out of her face. Freckles paint across her cheeks and nose, sun-kissed skin burns hotly as if still radiating from the sun's warm on a summer afternoon. A constant broil of heat always surrounding the woman.

Motion flits across her peripheral, a gathering of people at a bus stop. Nostrils flare as she breathes out sharply, sucking in a deep breath and holding it for a second before releasing it again. It causes the silhouette of her chest bound tightly in a tee shirt to bounce as it rises and falls when she exhales.

[Rory] Iona hands her a piece of paper, and she glances at it without comprehending what it is other than vague shapes in a certain order. A phone number, likely. She simply tucks it into the front pocket of her backpack, and then falls very. very. very. still as Iona... kisses her.

she blinks, and then ducks her head again, that blush creeping along her skin, her freckles standing out in sharp relief of the sudden color under them. She hugs the music box tighter to her chest, and tries to remember how to breathe as she's left alone with not one, but two pure bred kin nearby. Then Marc sits down next to her and... well.

Nervous doesn't even begin to cover it.

She swallows, hard, and peeks up at him, before a quick look includes Casey as well, and then she finds something very interesting about her... knees. "You don't teed noo..." She would have helped anyway, and she doesn't understand why he wants to pay her back.

[Imogen Slaughter] They are a mismatched group, the Child of Gaia, the Fenrir and the doctor. A teenager, a twenty-something blonde, a redhead in her thirties. They have no obvious connections, at least not to a human who might look at them. No reason to ever associate. No possible point of conversation.

In the human world, they would have never known each other. In this world, however: The kinwoman, slight and slender, carries, incongruously, a bucket. It does not make her stand out - at least no more than she might otherwise.

Imogen is not particularly a woman suited to these surroundings. Though she wears plain attire, jeans, a corduroy jacket, a nondescript dark blue t-shirt, her skin is too pale, too fine. Her hair is too vibrant. Her body is too well cared for, and her spine is too straight.

She would stand out anyway.

The rage of the Skald does nearly as much as Imogen's poise and beauty might. The rip-snarl-shred of burning ozone, the weight of it on a Garou on the night of her birth-moon.

Poor Roman - well, his youth makes him stand out. That and his stetson hat. Not much call for those here in the Windy City.

Imogen speaks, with rapidly unravelling patience, a cutting glance directed toward the Ragabash Child of Gaia.

"The bucket is not that heavy, I can manage it just fine on my own."

The bucket contains the remains of a rag, turned red and grimy with things better left unmentioned. A copper-and-salt smelling crud has gathered at the bottom of it along with a slime of dirty water, still pooled from when the bucket had last been dumped out, a few blocks away.

[Casey Steward] Casey took the paper and pocketed it, with a smile to Iona. "See ya round smithy." He says with a lightheartedness towards his own Tribesman before turning his gaze back to Rory and Marc who sat upon the bench now, forcing the woman to begin to.....not breath?

Casey shook his head and gestured to Rory with his right hand, the hand with the smoke in it. "I think ya migh be wan'in ta be standin up there lass an give yur self some aire before ya dun go an pass out on us." He says honestly, trying to get the woman a bit more comfortable.

He takes a moment at that to look around, and notices three other people of note, the man in his hat, the woman beside him....and the blonde, but nothing seemed out of place, so the man turned back to Rory and Marc, and took another long drag from his cigarette. Before speaking once more.

"I mean...less tha's your kinda deal o course."

[Roman Turner] "I know ya can carry it, I can see ya carrying it, and it ain't right. What's wrong with a man being a man and helping a pretty lady?"

He rolled his eyes with a look to Kora for help, infact behind Imogen's back he mouthed.

"Do something, will ya?"

Meantime he kept pace with Imogen, just itching to take the bucket from her.

"Ya showed your muscles Miss Doctor Slaughter Ma'am. I see them bulging and all lady nice and all, now it's my turn."

[Kora] Sorrow's rage is nearly incandescent tonight; no matter her will, no matter how easily she wears it under ordinary skies, under ordinary moons, on ordinary nights, when she was shadowed by the rage of her tribesmates. Tonight - it is bright and it is heavy and it is liquid, a slow-moving liquid, mercury. Roman cuts a glance behind Imogen's back and mouths at Kora; she looks back at him, her dark eyes sheened with reflected light from the streetlamps.

Do what - she mouths back at him, exactly?

Kora stands head and shoulders taller than Imogen, and a good head taller than the young Gaian. She is does not cheat her height, not does she shorten her stride, but she is walking slightly more slowly than she might were she alone. Her hands are in her pockets, and she cuts that sidelong glance only once, just briefly, meeting Roman's eyes without offering him aid in his quest to be a gentleman cowboy helping a pretty lady carry a bucket of blood and solvent residue through the streets of a depressingly impoverished neighborhood, toward a particular bus stop where an equally oddball trio have gathered.

"The city's running limos, now?" she asks, when she marks Marc's vehicle near the bus stop. Her pace slows from a distance, and her attention sharpens. On this night, under this moon, her attention is almost a physical thing. To Imogen, to Roman, "I've seen the redhead at the full moon; the others, though - "

Her rich voice is laced with suspicion. There is blood under her fingernails. There is blood between her toes. Otherwise, she's clean.

[Marc de Vogue] ”Nonsense.”
His gaze goes to Casey for a moment, offering the man a smile.

“I know my people would never let me live it down if I did not offer you at least something. Now…”
He looks back to Rory, offering her that dazzling smile that is like the sun.
“Tomorrow, remember where the car dropped us off last time at the hotel? Meet me there in the lobby tomorrow, say around noon? I am looking at a more permanent residence, but until I find one, I still have a room there. A friend told me of a place with a good view that serves excellent lunch. “

“Let me treat you to a meal, and we can talk further about this. I would not want to disappoint my people, and I hope that you will give me a chance at the very least.”
He places a well-manicured hand on Rory’s knee, fingers tapping gently as he smiles.
“I shall leave you to this... pleasant young man now, unless you want a ride somewhere?”

Marc stands up, stretching to his full height of 6’4, looking to Casey, then to Rory. Then the others draw near, and Marc finds his attention drawn. Kora, Imogen and Roman, and on the other side, a busty blonde straight out of a mans fantasies. they are all given the top to toe look, appreciative smiles for all of them (including the young cowboy, Yum!)

[Rory] She blushes bright as Casey points out her lack of breath... and blushes. Of course. As always. It really does seem to be her default reaction to just about any situation. "...I'm ok. Shus... jy."

And completely messing up her words, though she doesn't notice it at all.

He asks if she remembers the hotel, and she nods, her color deepening. She remembers. And finally she simply gives in, as she doubts he'll let her turn him down at all. "Alright." She'll meet him tomorrow, and they can talk. She can't risk his disappointing Ms. Katherine anyway... she's already a disappointment to Lukas.

He stands, and she follows his gaze toward the three coming down the street - The Doc, the boy who's mower she fixed, and Kora. A brief meeting of the gaze, and quick lowering of her own. Submissive, always.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen casts Roman a glance full of narrowed eyes. A look cool enough to crack snow. "You will find that life is full of disappointment and hardship," she informs the Ragabash, ignoring the obvious sidebar occurring behind her back.

"Start by accepting this one."

Kora speaks of things marginally more important than bickering with a teenager, and the kinwoman's gaze flicks toward the fancy car, then the gathering of Garou and kinfolk.

"Rory," she supplements. The redhead. "I believe. As fer the others, I've not met them."

[Fiona Sullivan] The street is filling up quickly, sweltering with the presences of wolves that begins to send the sheep running. If any normal human, beat it the random drug pusher, vagrant or wandering prostitute had thought to step out onto this particular stretch of sidewalk, they will quickly encounter the unknown forces that growl quietly at them from behind human masks. An instinct in the back of their minds will keep them away, sending them turning on spiked heel or boot and walking off into another direction, or seeking another route as they made their way through the neighborhood.

But not here, not now. Not even when Fiona was coming up one direction towards the bus stop and slowing down, not when Kora and Roman were flanking the small red-haired woman that carried a bucket filled with blood and solvent residue.

[Roman Turner] He could easily vanish behind Kora with his smaller height, that and his ability to blend in when he wanted. Still Roman walked next to Imogen, making faces at Kora behind Imogen's back. Mouthing.

I don't know.

Feeling helpless because the pretty doctor was so danged stubborn she reminded him of a particularity stubborn mule, albeit a pretty mule.

Kora mentioned the people ahead and the limo and for a few seconds Roman looked that way before muttering.

"I seen lots of limos in this city, danged fools ain't got no sense when it comes to pollution and fuel consumption. As for the folks, I think I seen one of them before, ain't seen the others."

[Marc de Vogue] (Limo? Bah! That is no limo! Check the gallery for a visual. )
to Casey Steward, Fiona Sullivan, Imogen Slaughter, Kora, Roman Turner, Rory

[Roman Turner] "Life is full of disappointments, but sometimes life is sharing a load and helping those we care about with something simple, like carrying a dang stinking bucket."

Adding sweet as American Honey.

"Ma'am."

He even had the gall to smile cheekily.

[Kora] (That car looks like a limo to my character! :) )
to Casey Steward, Fiona Sullivan, Imogen Slaughter, Marc de Vogue, Roman Turner, Rory

[Roman Turner] ((Poor pimp-mobile! LOL! ))
to Casey Steward, Fiona Sullivan, Imogen Slaughter, Kora, Marc de Vogue, Rory

[Casey Steward] "Aye lass, I gathered tha much, but ya really shouldna..." He pauses mid sentence and then shakes his head. "No ma place ta say I suppose, ya do wha ya wan'." He says with a shake of his head before he put the smoke back in his mouth and took a moment to look up and down the street once more.

It looked like they were being corralled, three from one direction, one from the other, he'd seen this situation more then once, hell more then twice, he'd seen it far more often then he cared to. So he backed up, and kept backing up till his back met the wall behind the bus stop and watched as they came. Not much he could do at the moment about it.

His eyes are...admittedly drawn to the blonde who walks alone, it was hard not to be even if his own innate journalistic testicles were itching, warning him of approaching danger, or maybe it was just the heat.

[Rory] She really shouldn't.... and she closes her eyes, and swallows hard, and suddenly unfolds her legs to stand. "...i shouldn't. I know... sorry..." Some words are easier, and then come in a rush as she clutches her little music box tighter to her chest, and grabs her pack in her other hand, and takes a step toward the alleyway, where she knows she can simply disappear...

She shouldn't.
She can't.
She's not allowed...

But there are others coming, and she hesitates, not wanting to leave him alone to face them... torn by indecision, she shifts her weight from foot to foot, green eyes bouncing from Marc, where he's getting into his car, Casey who's put his back against the wall, and the others - Fiona, and the Doc and Kora and Roman...

[Kora] "In a neighborhood like this," Kora returns in response to Roman's concern about pollution and fuel consumption. " - someone driving a car like that is asking to be jacked." Her voice is still low; it's a cool night, and the presence of Garou has driven away any humans who might've considered this bus stop. They've moved on, wandered further down the street to some other stop; decided to take the cross-town rather than the express. Decided, perhaps, that they do not need milk for the baby tonight anyway.

Kora is dressed with perfect practicality, in jeans and a black t-shirt, in shit-kicking boots, her pale blond hair drawn back from her features in a loose knot. Look: her hands are in her front pockets, but they are curled into fists. She swings her legs easily, a long stride slowing now as the trio approach Rory and Casey and Marc on the bench.

"Rory, yeah?" says Kora, her gaze dropping back to the mule in the center of the shifting ink blot of Garou. She lifts her attention over Rory's shoulder, marks out Fiona; the wariness has not left her body. Instead, a flicker of a look at Marc. If he looks her top to toe again, she'll bare her teeth.

Humans might call it a smile.
Wolves would call it a warning.

[Rory] (adds)

Her flight is brought to a speedy halt as Kora mentions her name. She nods, and keeps her gaze lowered, never liftin farther than somewhere along the Fenrir's jawline.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen is the slightest of the trio. The one without rage, the one with a heavy dose of pure breeding, her blood singing of Fianna memories, and history.

She adjusts the fall of her coat as she approaches, her step easy, restrained, even.

"Hello Rory," Imogen greets the Metis easily, but not kindly.

"New friends?"

It is not that she did not hear Roman's dig about sharing a heavy load. It is that she is now ignoring it entirely now that they've approached the other group. The bucket remains hers.

[Fiona Sullivan] Fiona stops dead; all movement halted with the growing presence of other wolves. Thick lashes flutter low over green eyes, a shiver runs through her body, raising bumps along her flesh as it became feverish. A slight tick forms in the line of her left jaw as the muscles tighten, teeth gritting together. The softest of growls break loose from her throat as the tiny hairs on the back of her neck raise up.

It is a warning of sorts, a threat issued out in the direction of Kora and Rory. It did not matter if the blond Fianna was the stranger wandering into another's territory. Her heart begins to hammer wildly in her chest, blood pulsating in her veins as her breathing grows labored. The flat planes of her stomach dipping in with each flare of her nostrils as air exhales out of her nose.

She blinks once, slitting her eyes to pass them over the other's ignoring Roman as he didn't present the biggest threat to her. The two male kin pulled into her line of sight as she focuses on Marc first - snorts softly, then to Casey and snorts again.

[Marc de Vogue] The gathering of Rage made Marc look around. But not nervously. No, if anything, it made him stand a little taller, made that smile widen just a bit more, as if he enjoyed the sensation, enjoyed the dark sensation it washed over his skin as it set his nerves on fire. He drew a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment, and then he shakes his head a little.

When his eyes open, he seeks out Rory, and that smile is as warm and friendly as always for the metis, as if she was the center of the universe. It is a strange thing for the shy creature to be under such appreciative focus.
“I will see you tomorrow for lunch.”

His clear eyes go to Casey as he puts his back to the wall under the assault of rage.
“It was a pleasure meeting you. Next time, I certainly do hope you have found some manners to be civil, even to strangers who have done you no harm or insult. I would think that is the least one could expect in company such as this.”

“Goodbye Rory. Take care of yourself.”
And with that, the young silver fang moves over the road, away from the rage and the sensation of it. He opens the car door and slips in. The engine starts with a low growl before settling into a muted roar. Marc looks back to the bustop, to the approaching people, then offers a slight wave of his hand, aimed at Rory before he takes off, peeling away from the curb and vanishing down the street.

(It is 4 am, time for the Swede to sleep! Thanks for the scene!)

[Roman Turner] "Hey, Lawnmower fixer! Howdy Miss."

He touched the brim of his hat with the shadow of a nod to Rory before he turned his attention to the others gathered here. What an odd collection. Of course with his boots, dark blue stiff as a board Wranglers and the tee that nearly matched eyes the blue of faded denim all topped by the stetson, he probably looked just as odd to them. Sweet sixteen and as out of place looking in the city as they came. Fresh scrubbed face that had nothing but peach fuzz on it and a bit of flaking blood along the jawline that he'd missed earlier. He was a little less than five and a half feet in height, making it easier to slip behind Kora and go unnoticed most times.

The car was soon claimed and pulled off, leaving one less to keep an eye on, which was good considering the way one seemed to be rumbling in her chest.

[Casey Steward] Casey chuckled and shook his head at the frenchman as he told him to find some manners. "Oh, I got plenty in stock for tha likes of others, jus no for tha likes o ye." He says as he waves to the man, over exagerating the motion to add just a hint of sarcasm to his voice as the kin climbs into his fancy car and takes off.

His eyes then go to Rory, who had tried to slip into the alley and then to those around them. He expected much the same show and he smiled in her direction, encouragingly. "Buck up lass, I don't think they gonna hurt ya. They ain't the enemy righ." Its a question just as much as a statement, and he hopes she answers it quickly.

Especially given the look the blonde was giving him, he wasnt quite certain if he should be excited, or terrified. But he pushed off the wall somewhat...it never paid to appear preylike around predator's after all.

[Kora] Rory bends her head low, Rory shows her throat, Rory offers the Fenrir utter submission without a thought - to avoid another beating, to live inside the boundaries defined by her station, by her breed, by her birth. Kora looks down at her, her fine mouth drawing flat across her the sharp planes of her pale face, curling at the corner in response to this submission, and not pleasantly. Then Roman pipes up, and touches the brim of his Stetson; this is all a sketch in the corner of her peripheral vision, but it is enough to draw the sharp line of her attention upwards.

Sidelong, as Marc slips into his "limo" and waves with particular directness at the mule, before taking off down the street.

"If so," she says, appending to Imogen's question as to whether these folks were friends of Rory's, " - that one should find a ride more appropriate to the neighborhood, or he's going to make himself an easy target for the cursed ones. You," her dark eyes cut to Casey then; the tension remains in her frame; it sharpens her gaze and makes her skin seem all the paler. " - wouldn't be quite that foolish, would you?"

Another flick of a glance toward Fiona, all but growling down the street. Kora squares her shoulders, but says nothing to the stranger, and does not approach her.

[Rory] She watches Marc go, and then Imogen says hello, followed by Roman, and both get the shyest of little smiles. She answers Imogen with an introduction of sorts. "Casey." and a point toward the car. "Marc." It answers Casey's question - at least those three are friend.

But the other...

But of all of them, it is Fiona that gets the most sudden and unexpected reaction. She growls. She dares growl and threaten in the streets that Rory calls home. She drops the backpack at Casey's feet, and takes a step toward the other Fianna, her hands held loose and light at her side.

A low snarling growl starts at the base of her throat. She is Bogeyman. This is HER place. She stands her ground. THIS is a different Rory. This is the warrior, the full moon, the antithesis of the shy retiring hiding woman of a few moments ago. This is the Garou [uncomfortably] nearing Fostern.

The low growl rumbles up into a single word as she takes a step forward on the street of her territory, deliberately making a point.

"Mine."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen arches an eyebrow slightly, as Marc departs, at Casey's shot in the other's direction. The bucket she carries has a certain smell. Anyone familiar with blood would recognize it. One does not easily forget such an odour.

Imogen, too, turns her head to look at Fiona, growling down the street. The kinwoman's gaze narrows, resting upon the Garou's frame.

Rory steps forward to guard her territory. The eyebrow arches higher.

[Fiona Sullivan] The shyness that had been displayed in Rory vanishes all of sudden. Where she shows instant submission to Kora, it changes suddenly as Rory adheres to the blond's threat and rightfully stands up to protect what is hers. An eyebrow arches high atop Fiona's brow, surprised at the change. She rolls her shoulders forward, head lowering slightly to tilt her face to the side at other Fianna.

Green eyes on Rory, and to Rory alone. Tension bleeds out of Fiona as quickly as it had sprung, she crinkles up her nose, the slightest of smirks peeling at the corners of her mouth.

"Yours." She says simply.

[Roman Turner] He had no idea what the hell was going on. The growling, the sudden standing up and claiming and, oh man, folk sure were weird here. Yup, this was the time to do what he did best. He had slipped in closer to Imogen, on the other side from her shooting arm. He knew better than to get in the way of that of a woman and her sidearm. And he looked towards Kora, taking his cue from her.

[Casey Steward] Casey had seen the switch in the shy redhead like a thunderbolt, one moment all was calm and quiet, the next there was a flash, and things might start burning..or exploding. The man's hand went quickly to his coat pocket. But then Fiona accepts and the tension bleeds out of her, not rising to the challenge.

He then turns his gaze on the much, much closer Fenrir who stood over him, asking him if he was anywhere near as foolish as the man in the fancy car and he shakes his head with a smile. "Nae lass, I know how ta blen in an disappear like fog on the banks in tha early morn."

He says as he gestures to his dirty, sand blasted leather coat, worn out jeans, and a black t-shirt which reads 'Press! Tell me everything!' He does his best not to look worried, but he hadn't been this close to this many trueborn since he'd left Ireland.

[Kora] There is something strange going on here; something strange and primal - and the odd little trio, the redhead, the young cowpoke, and the feral, twenty-something blond are not part of it. They stand apart, arrayed oddly, watching as the sports car zooms off into the night, its brake lights winking against the darkness. Imogen holds a bucket of blood. This goes unremarked by all. Roman darts from the kinswoman's right side to her left, knowing where she holds her gun. There is a moment of sharpening tension; Rory goes from utter submission to a feral snarl of challenge. Fiona - backs down. Or something; crinkles her nose and smirks.

In the space of those spare moments, Kora took an unconscious step or two forward, putting herself between both kin - Casey and Imogen - and the Garou facing off. Then the subtle challenge is over and Kora looks back down, sidelong, at Roman.

A brief, assessing glance at Casey then. "That is rather more neighborhood appropriate, I grant." As if - what happened had not just happened. As if the thread of this conversation had been continuous throughout. Her humor is subsumed into her body; it does not read as humor, not on a night like this one. "You're okay here, right?" - she continues, a dark flickering glance at Casey, "because, if so," a jerk of her head toward Imogen and Roman. " - we need to get going."

[Rory] The other Fianna lowers her gaze, bares her neck, tilts her face, and the tension bleeds away. Rory is a contradiction - fearless, yet impossibly shy. Strong, yet instantly submissive to those she knows are of higher station [..everyone..], to those she respects, to those who are simply better than she is. Yet here, in the face of a new one clearly challenging her territory, who came up with a growl in her throat and clear threat - the rage in the lean metis is undeniable. She holds her gaze steady on the other as the smirk curves Fiona's lips, and tips her head, slightly.

"Mine." Acknowledgment, confirmation of Fiona's submission.

Then a simple demand. "Who are you."

[Roman Turner] Boy howdy he was ready to leave the Twilight Zone they had passed in to. From one trip in to the zone to another part of it, what a night. All he was waiting for was a change in body language that told him to make like a sheepherder and get the flock out of there.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's gaze moves to follow Kora as she steps between them. Little expression shows as she notes the protective, unasked for act. Merely stillness of the face, of the body.

Roman moves to allow the kinwoman a free shot, if it should become necessary, assuming that it would, guessing that it might. Two Fianna face off.

She watches the entire scene with an expression much like that. Remote, as if she were watching a play. Reserved, as if this did not affect her at all. She might even be bored.

As it is, Fiona acknowledges Rory's claim and Rory begins the usual: demands of name, rank, tribe. Imogen's heard it all before. Kora asks Casey if he's alright, and Imogen turns to glance at the kinfolk, her expression unrevealing as she waits for his answer.

[Roman Turner] "My turn to carry it."

Persistent is what he was. Barely speaking the words like he thought maybe Imogen would think it was her inner voice or something.

"Fingers gotta be getting sore by now and ya might need a free hand. Wouldn't want to splash yourself."

[Casey Steward] "Aye, Aye no worries here lass, ya can move on, you an your pals and yer...yer fine lookin bucket there." Oh he had noticed the smell of blood, but it wasn't a smell that particularly got to him anymore. He glanced briefly at the red liquid held within and then back to the faces of those around him.

"I'd certainly hate ta be whoever' tha all came from then. I bet he deserved it even." He says with a light laugh, not a nervous one, but one that was meant to disarm, to make others laugh with him. "Mayhaps sometime one a ye can tell me tha story."

He asks, before looking briefly over to Rory and Fiona, before returning his gaze to those around him.

[Fiona Sullivan] The blond does not move from her position, she does not raise her head any higher that it already is, nor does she level her gaze with Rory's. The other had become a contradiction - a surprise to Fiona, who in turn expected the redhead Fianna to simply back down. Her breathing quiets down as she swallows the desire for confrontation, the itch to fight. Shackling her beastly tendencies down with each intake of breath.

Her heart no longer thrums in her chest, no longer pulsates wildly in her throat. Rory demands a name. "Fiona Sullivan, Strength of Nehmain. Child of Danu. Full Moon. Cliath." it all rolls off her tongue easily, the main focus of her attention was Rory and not the others, they were only shadows that played at the corner of her eyes, their voices a whisper in her ear, though, she can't quite make out what they are talking about.

[Roman Turner] "It's spoiled fruit punch. Had a wild shindig a few blocks back in the back of a limo. Broke down, fridge went out, had to hike it. Can't leave the goodies behind, you understand. Though a good time was had by all. We gotta go. People to do, things to see."

Explaining the bucket in the weirdest way this side of the Mason-Dixon line.

[Kora] "Sure," Kora says, quiet, noting the man's breeding. She can smell it, sharp and nearly as pungent, as promising as Imogen's blood. She lifts her chin to his t-shirt, then, " - as long as you don't mean to print it someplace, I'll share it with you. You'll owe me a beer, though."

Then, with a faint, curling shrug, Kora jerks her head across the street, and starts around the pair of Fianna, giving them a certain berth. When Roman makes his offer yet again, Kora looks down at Imogen, at the bucket in the kinswoman's hand. "Give him points for persistence, yeah?"

[Rory] She tips her head, slightly, listening. Then nods. "Rory. Tongue Twister. Cliath Fianna Mull Foon."

She doesn't seem to notice her mistake in her words as she studies Fiona for a moment more, and then relaxes, and steps back, lifting her fingers to tuck her curls behind an ear, and moving back toward the others.

She catches Roman's explanation of the bucket and she wrinkles her nose, slightly. She doesn't apologize for the way she acted, as any of them would have done the same. She simply makes her way back to Casey, and her pack that is still resting at his feet, offering those leaving a shy smile.

[Kora] -- Roman's explanation of the bucket, though, draws the first edge of a genuine smile across her mouth. Kora barks out a sharp laugh; low, brief and sharp .

"What he said," she confirms, the suggestion of laughter still woven into the weight of her words.

[Casey Steward] "Nay, nay no publishin, sharin amongst folk maybe, but no publishin." He grins at the mention of beer and nods at the idea, lips briefly licked by a tongue as if in anticipation. "Tha sounds wonderful, canna wait ta see ye again." He says as she walks around and out, Roman gives his explanation, and Casey arches a brow before laughing.

"I giv ya poin's for tryin fella, but tis a wee bit harder than tha to fool tha press."

He says with light joviality before looking back to the two women who had been staring each other down. Rory was headed in his direction, and he bent to pick up the pack and offer it too her.
"So ya are both of tha Tribe than?" He asks lookin from Rory to Fiona in the distance. "Saint's alive tha's a coincidence."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen, too, smirks at the explanation of the bucket, which she has, one must note, not handed it over to Roman, despite his persistence.

She's said barely a half-dozen words since arriving. Of them all, it would appear, the kinwoman is the most reticent. From what he's heard, the Irishman can make a few guesses about her, should he so choose. The British accent is a many layered thing. The woman is from the south of England, her Cornish accent still ever-present in her voice. She is educated - an expensive education, to boot. There is a bit of 'pony and pims' to the way she speaks, though it is by no means perfect.

"A pleasure," she says toward Casey, though she had not offered her own introduction, stepping away, nodding to Rory in farewell. As she takes her leave, she offers Roman a bone - "Tell yeh what," she says, as she starts away. "Next time, I'll get yeh a bucket all fer yer very own. Alright?"

And with that, the trio takes their leave.

[Roman Turner] "I want a shiny new one, metal, not one of them plastic ones."

And he was off with the other two, still chattering away.

"Good metal bucket lasts years, won't crack if ya leave it out in the winter and won't fade from the sun."

[Kora] (thanks for letting us crash the scene, guys!)

[Fiona Sullivan] Fiona has not moved. She watches quietly as Rory introduced herself before making her way back to Casey. She straightens up, rolling her shoulders back to ease the tension still built up. Her head sliding from side to side with a pop of vertebrae that rolls down her spine. Hands tuck into the pockets of her sweat jacket, an eyebrow arched as she swings her attention to the others.

[Imogen Slaughter] (thanks for the RP, folks!)

[Fiona Sullivan] (welcome)

[Roman Turner] ((Thank you and night!))

[Casey Steward] [Thank you! later!]

[Rory] That pack? Weighs considerably more than it looks like when Rory handles it, and it weighs Casey's arm down as he offers it back to her. Rory picks it up as if it's nothing, and slips an arm through one of the straps, slinging the pack around to her back.

"Sorry."

Shy, again. Though not quite so badly she's forgotten to breathe. Yet.

[Sorrow] It is evening, and late. Cooler than it had been over the weekend, when the only way to survive in the heatsink of the city was to turn on the air conditioner or open up a fire hydrant - when kids made money selling cold water on the streetcorners, turning .25 cent water bottles from the dollar store into a small profit center, pulling them glistening from a slurry of ice and water in a battered old cooler.

So: late, evening. The house that Sparrow and Roman share is dark. There's no one home. Garou have more to do than spend time at home, puttering around the living room, watching old episodes of Iron Chef - Japan on the DVR. Garou have more to do, and a greater sense of territory: so that Kora, who is waiting for Sparrow, waits not on he front porch, but leaning against the wrought-iron fence that outlines the small area of their territory.

The evening is cooler, not cool, and the day was warm. Her dark t-shirt is damp with sweat, clings to her line of her torso, which suggests a lean sort of strength that lives in her body, under her skin. She has no pure breeding to mark her out as a once and future hero to other Garou, just that animal grace and the passing familiarity from the Caern, from the last moot, from a fight or two on these dark streets. There is no mistaking that she is waiting at the gate, outside the gate, a lean slouch against the fence. She has an animal patience about her, a hunter's sense of time: which is to say, she is waiting with a predator's ease, casual and sure. If there is a tinge of (well-) controlled fury to her body language, there is only the merest hint of it from a distant.

[Sparrow] It's cool tonight.

She's taken care of the lawn as best she can, and she does take care of it. The dark-haired female spends her time outside when it's cool, namely because she needs to keep her shirt on. She lives in a neighborhood; there's a family a few doors down. She stays out when the kids are home.

There's a monster who lives on their street; she's pretty. The dealer three doors to the left as suspiciously disappeared. Funny how these things work.

Timing is strange; the Child of Gaia, with her bright blue eyes and her dark hair and nice tan, is spending time on the porch. There is a person coming to her gate. The female stands, a little over five and a half feet tall. She's wearing a tee shirt and a skirt. She's wearing boots. She's wearing bracelets- the outline of those little bird tattoos can be seen through her tee shirt.

"... it was Sorrow, wasn't it?" she's trying to remember her name.

[Sorrow] "Kora," the Fenrir woman corrects, her voice low and rich. They are in the human world, wearing their human skins. Were this another night, she might offer Sparrow the edge of a neat little half-smile.

Tonight, though, there's something different about her, like a string under her skin has been pulled, and there's a sharpness to her voice and a tension to her posture that suggests - fury. Held back, contained inside her skin, but rage nonetheless. They're a handful of feet apart, maybe more.

Kora has her hand on the edge of the gate, and lifts her chin. This is a question, because they are animals and there is the matter of territory. "Mind if I come in?"

[Sparrow] "Of course," she says. She smiles, and her teeth are bright and white and straight.

Sparrow is friendly enough, serene enough, but there is always rage there. Always nagging and whining beneath the surface. There is always, always something there that negates that Gaian breeding. Unicorn isn't known for her full moons, but there one is.

"Do you want anything to drink?" she asks. The fence is easy enough to open. Just there for show, it seems. Or, rather, it's just not locked right now. The lawn is immaculate.

[Sorrow] "No," says Kora to the offer of a drink; the response is curt as her offer to the name. It's not rage in general that one senses near her; her control is greater than most of her tribe. This is rather more specific; but she hears the curt note in her voice, hears it as a dissonance in her head. Hears it jangle against her senses and corrects it, " - no thank you."

She pushes and the gate swings open; look - she turns around and closes it too, pushing it until it latches behind her. Only when the gate is closed and latched does she turn around and stride down the walk, up the steps onto the porch.

"I've met your cousin, but you and I have not been formally introduced. I'm Kora Eyjólfsdóttir to my kin, she who offers sorrow to the Nation, cliath Skald and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland, pledged to Maelstrom now for some moons. Lately," here is the fury, her generous mouth like a slash, " - of Aesir's Call. We followed Truth-in-Frenzy-rhya until he died."

Her hands are in her front pockets now, as if to corral them, and although there is a hip-slung sense to her body, these easy, elegance to it, she does not cheat her height by an inch anstands a good head taller than Sparrow, blonde where the younger Garou is dark haired, pale-skinned where Sparrow is tanned. There is a certain extra whiteness to her tonight, evident when Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands. Evident if Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands: her knuckles are strained white. Her fingers are fisted in her pockets.

"This isn't," she says, all quiet, "exactly a social call."

[Sparrow] She is fairly observant. Not horrifically so, but observant enough that she looks down... looks at Kora's hands and notices her tensions. Notices the rage, notices...

"Come inside," she says, and the female heads to the front door. The woman opens the front door and pushes it to the side. If Kora follows, eventually they end up in her living room.

There's not a lot of furniture.

She listens to the words. To the negations. Followed. Lately of Aesir's Call. White knuckles and memories.

"What seems to be the problem?"
What can I do?

[Sorrow] Kora follows. She glances around the living room briefly, and not with the eye of the connessieur. The home is better than any place she has lived since she returned to the states, but her interest in the surroundings is detached, passing. She looks because they are in a room, and because she is a creature who looks at things.

When Sparrow asks what the problem might be Kora quirks her mouth at last. The right corner rises, and there's this direct look, a subtle suggestion of humor, already passing. Her mouth has a natural curve to it. She always looks as if she is smiling a secret smile. Thus, the flat line into which it settles requires moment; requires tension. It is not thoughtless, though there is no thought behind it.

"You've heard of Silence-rhya and the Eagles, yeah?" The rhythm of her speech remains, but her voice is sharp, all clear. " - who claimed territory in Cabrini, north of the Caern along the river corridor, the Caern's flank, essentially, and held it even when they disclaimed loyalty to Maelstrom."

[Sparrow] All clear, all crisp, and yet this Child of Gaia is so relaxed.

She nods, and doesn't say anything. No need- of course she's heard of Silence. Of course she's heard of the Eagles, abou the territory they've claimed. Of course she knows about the totem.

Eagle. Something just... out of her reach.

Eagle isn't here anymore, not represented. And it's been here since hte beginning. Something about that makes Sparrow... concerned. Disheartened. She only nods, though. There is no need for words.

[Sorrow] "Silence-rhya maintained some of the territory after the deaths of the remaining members of his pack," Kora replies. She's a Galliard, she's a Skald. Her voice, even touched as it is with urgency, with an underscore of fury that is both still and open, is rich and evocative. "Sandman-rhya was his last true packmate. The borders of the territory are clear; and Silence-rhya scoured it of the Wyrm when he returned ranked Athro.

"Now," she continues, her voice quiet, "he's Warclaw, called back to Stormhammer, and the territory left abandoned. When he left, we started exploring it and reclaiming it. It's what Kemp would have done; it's necesary. That territory is a direct line of defense for the Caern. More, to let it fall to the Wyrm after so many have died to protect - " There is a low scoff, here. Contemptuous of any churl who would be so base as to - what? abandon their obligations to the dead, let something fall to the Wyrm. Something.

"Now War-Handed has abandoned tribe and pack and Sept. I cannot hold the totem; our remaining packmate is away on a quest and may never return. Hermodr has fled; I alone cannot hold that territory.

"I've asked your cousin to join me. I have no pack, not now. I have territory that I cannot hold alone. Join me: run with me. Protect the land that the Eagles and their kin carved out of the city and died to protect. You have no reason to believe in me or follow me except that: these lands should not fall.

"I fought with your cousin. I fought with you, once. You've heard me sing the dead to Valhalla. This is all I can offer you by way of troth."

[Sparrow] "I've seen you fight," she says, "and you've carried the dead to Valhalla. You've done your duty, and you've done it well... and you've given tribute in ways that I know would honor those I hold dear."

It's her concern. She's not talking about herself; she's talking about her cousin. that, if her cousin dies, she trusts Kora to send him off. If she dies, she trusts Kora to send her off. She made a good impression with Wrath- a male that had no right to be as important to Sparrow as he was. She takes a moment.

"We will help you protect that land. And we will help you," she says.

There's silence.

"I can't give you much more than my life," it's really all an ahroun has.

[Sorrow] There is nothing bird-like about Sorrow. She tops Sparrow by a head, and has a lean sense of leashed violence about her tonight. The storm inside her that is not grief; that is - instead - a subscapular sort of rage, livid underneath not just her skin but her bones, all around inside her.

Still, Sparrow responds in kind with the stark formality of Kora's offer and that writes a flicker of surprise across the Skald's features. Her dark eyes track the Gaian's face, her mouth, linger there as the former speaks, then rise to her eyes. How strange; this echo of the past in a sparsely furnished living room in the middle of a clapboard house in a marginal neighborhood of a modern American city. How apropos.

Here is the ghost of a smile; not easy, but eased, if only just.

There are dark circles under her eyes. Kora is [i]exhausted[/i]. That ghost-smile wipes it all away, though. Makes her clarified, somehow.

"Thank you," says Sorrow. She means it. She says the words as if they were words that held meaning rather than a passing placeholder. "Find me at the Cabrini United Methodist Church. It's abandoned. Or, come closer and cross over. The bird-spirits - sparrow and scab - will see you and tell me. I'll start showing you both around."

[Slaughter] (per+alertness! HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10 Re-rolls: 2

[Sorrow] The 12,000 block of North Larabee Street is quiet, modest brick buildings and quiet, shuttered shops are topped by slumping apartments that cater to the city’s lowest wage-earners, community college students, girls just out on their own, section 8 vouchers in hand, a baby on either hip and WIC certificates coming to them the first of every month because she’s pregnant again. The high-rise ghettos of the Housing Authority are a concrete block background, of course – a dozen blocks away – but the ruin of the neighborhood is still everywhere apparent. Like most such neighborhoods, North Larabee once had a thriving population, poor but never hopeless – working class, immigrants from Eastern Europe, or African-Americans moved up the from the south to work in the city’s sprawling industries, its abattoirs and its factories, its stockyards and railroads.

The jobs have gone, and so has most of the promise of renewal, a better life, something more than this bleak streetscape of concrete and crumbling brick, the modest prosperity of a former age slowly falling to ruin.

There are three for-profit businesses on the block – a bodega on the corner that sells cigarettes and cheap wine and cheaper beer and – cheapest of all – mouthwash that will, for a dollar a bottle – get you trashed if you actually swallow the swill. There is a check-n-go on the opposite corner, surrounded by forbidding iron bars. And, half-way down, a strange throwback to another age: Egglan’s Butchery, is etched into the concrete lintel over the door. This is the most solid building on the block, all brick, with two stories of living quarters above the shop for the family. There was once also a bakery and a greengrocer on the street, but they are all long gone, shuttered since the 1960s and Urban Renewal.

Egglan’s must have been closed at some point too, as there is a sign in the window that says: “REOPENED. COME IN.”

Little starbursts of construction paper announce the week’s specials – HOMEMADE BRATS. GROUND CHUCK $3.99/lb. SCRAPPLE. – in windows that seem dingy, somehow, despite a good cleaning earlier in the afternoon. Perhaps it is in the way that the arms of the stars are yellowing with age. YES! WE TAKE FOODSTAMPS! seems a necessary promise in a neighborhood like this one. Still: impossible to know how a place like this survives in a neighborhood whose largest employers are the methadone clinic and the illegal drug trade.

--

Nighttime, the street is quiet. The buildings here are commercial; were commercial. Most are shuttered and dark. The street’s residents have no personal stoops on which to sit and so much of the streetlife that marks a hot Chicago night is absent, drifted to the smaller streets lined with rowhouses or little clapboard homes that on either side.

There are some kids on the corner, outside the bodega. Drug dealers: by now, she knows every sign, how they look when the die. What tattoos to look for, to identify the particular gang. Otherwise: quiet, dark, the butcher’s shop is closed up tight, the lights off. There’s no suggestion of light from the windows in the living quarters above the shop, but a certain flatness – a sort of lack of dimension – to the background reminds Imogen of blackout curtains. There are iron bars that can be pulled down over the picture windows, but the owner hasn’t bothered to do so. The front door seems simple, and a side door opens onto a wooden stairwell tacked onto the side of the building, part-way up, at the second floor, the sort of make-shift entrances and exits added on to most of the street’s commercial buildings, to turn what once would have been family living quarters into a warren of cheap apartments that only a slum-lord could love.

There’s a service entrance out back, and greasy dumpster beside it. She knows that much. Her informant retrieved a human-like foot from the depths of the dumpster, when he had been hoping – simply for some hotdogs.

[Slaughter] She parked her car, a nondescript cheap and ancient Volvo well past its last legs, several blocks away. It is one of her many calculated risks.

Dangerous to walk far in this kind of neighbourhood, especially for a woman.

Worse still for someone to see her plates and remember them. To somehow trace it back to her, and begin to wonder why she might have been out here. Worse still for it to have been the wrong person with the wrong sympathies, who begins to connect the dots.

So she walks, her gun a comforting weight at her back, her jeans worn, her corduroy coat unmentionable. Her shoes are flat, treaded, the brand and price impossible to guess.

She avoids the boys on the corner - crossing the street half a block up. She remains half in the shadow of the buildings as she approaches, her gaze lifting upward to note the darkened inky windows. She takes in her surroundings, the street, the blocks surrounding it before stepping into the alleyway.

She carries gloves in her jacket pocket; it is not often she has the time for this forethought, and in a small way, she relishes it. The control.

The latex deadens her sense of touch, but it is a familiar sensation for her.

The greasy dumpster is her first stop, though she glances at the side door. She lifts the lid carefully, her nose pinching to the smell of garbage, rotted food before taking a look inside.

[Sorrow] The alley is strewn with filth. The dumpsters here are old, battered and rusting. The contracts are up for several, and they overflow with household trash, tossed there by the unfortunate residents of the upstairs apartments or dragged there by someone who doesn’t want to pay the city’s sanitation fee, who elects to transport and abandon his garbage rather than carry it the curb and pay for a sticker affixed to the garage door or telephone pole. This one, though – the dumpster behind the butchery – is not even half-full. It is newer than the rest; even in the dim, dull light that spills more from the sky than from streetlights, the constant, ugly glow of the living city reflected back from the raw orange clouds, that much is clear.

A year, or two old – more or less – and moved into place rather more recently than that, if the sharp grooves in the long-neglected asphalt are any indication. It is smaller, too. Small enough that Imogen needs only a single step up to look inside. There’s a loop for a lock, she sees, to keep the contents closed, but the metal there has been sheered off – by the neighborhood’s homeless, no doubt, the better to access the contents.

Blood: she knows that smell, even when it has gone over, gone off, rotted and grotesque. She finds blood, butcher-block paper, viscera and fat, glistening strips of it, strips of skin peeled back from the meat beneath like wrapping paper, like ribbon stripped with the blade of a scissors until it curls back on itself, an undifferentiated pile.

Sorting through the leavings, carefully gloved, breathing as she has learned to breathe through her mouth rather than her nose – though the smell insinuates itself anyway, back of the throat – she finds underneath the superficial layer of cheesy fat and stripped epidermis loops of hacked viscera, half a liver. The top joint of a small finger, the nail intact, chipped enamel still evident – painted crimson.

The night is quiet around here, the alley dark and empty. Just the roar of traffic, the call and response of a baseball announcer on the radio.

[Slaughter] Her contact left a cinder block out, at the base of the dumpster. This made her smirk, nearly smile as she stepped up to it, stepped onto it, leaning in to peer into the open lid and into the hideous refuse of the butcher.

She does not express disgust very often. Not about this. The remains of a human body no matter how abused or dismembered it is, no matter how decayed.

She's become inured to it. Numb to it. It barely even registers.

Her gloves are quickly smeared with blood and half digested food. She carefully sorts through loops of intestine, moving some to the side, coiling the rest together. The liver she studies briefly, feeling its surface for the pebbly hints of hyper tension, checking its fatty residue, the colour of it, the health of it.

The finger she studies a little longer, turning it between two fingers. This she bags, and pockets. Her gloves she removes, bagging and pocketing as well. Another set of gloves retrieved and pulled on before shutting the dumpster lid, closing it slowly to minimize the noise. She steps off the cinder block, leaning down to pull it away from the dumpster and against the wall. The concrete scrapes against asphalt, loud to her ears.

Next the door, listening at it for sound, her eyes running over it to study the lock, the apparent security.

[Sorrow] There are no clothes. Nothing precisely like clothing. There is butcher paper, there are reams of butcher paper and a length of bloodspattered white sheets; an old apron, crumpled, a bottle of Tide and another bottle of bleach, both empty. There are wadded up towels, both paper and cloth.

There is a singular paper hat, of the sort one expects to see perched on the head of a laughing shopkeeper in a Norman Rockwell original rather than anywhere in the present day.

She finds and shuffles aside today’s newspaper. Someone read it, took it apart into its constituent sections, turned them over. Left the classifieds open, a handful torn out. The help wanted ads are entirely intact, as are the cars for sale, and the services offered. It’s just the lonely hearts ads that are missing, and the “rent a room” section above the apartment listings. Difficult to be that precise when you are standing on a cinder block, leaning over a small dumpster full of offal – but she is given to precision; she looks for the flaw, the thing cut out. Sometimes, she finds it.

--

Then she steps down from the dumpster, stowing away a small finger in a small bag, pulls her step away from the dumpster, which is loud – and maybe she’s still then, listening, waiting to see if anything inside has heard it. That’s a human instinct, split-second. Maybe she has trained it out of her body. Maybe it was never hers, even if she recognizes it in strangers.

The service entrance: double-doors, made of forged metal and old. There’s nothing to suggest that the place has a modern security system superimposed over the old one – iron and iron. When she glances up, she sees that there are iron bars here, too – that can be pulled down for extra security when locking up at night. No one’s bothered to do that. There’s just the lock, the deadbolt.

From here: only silence.

[Slaughter] She is not quite accustomed to this. The steps she is taking, the way she is seeking out rather than simply waiting. It does not fit against her skin quite yet. It is an imperfect fit.

So, perhaps, she stands there longer than is strictly necessary. She contemplates her options for longer than she needs to. She allows precious seconds to pass by.

After a moment, she steps away from the door, steps back from it, her jaw tightening, easing and then tightening again. She'll head back to her car and move it in front of the alleyway, despite her earlier qualms. A shift in priorities.

Disposal of the body, and its damning marks. Before someone else decides to look for a hot dog.

[Sorrow] This isn't right. Here she is on the threshold, alone. Here she is in an alley, a weapon at the small of her back, gloves on her hands. Someone's finger in her pocket. Here she is - in the quiet dark of a quiet alley - straining at the door for sounds of something within. Ready to -

- what?

She lingers longer than necessary; her priorities shift and become familiar. Dismembered corpses in a dumpster in an alley. Human flesh beginning to rot, a murder, a corpse. Before she edges away from the service entrance, though, she hears what sounds to be the scratch of a phonograph - the needle shifting over grooves - and the faint strains of an old country song inside.

--

The rest of the work is uneventful; it fits over her skin the way the gloves do, familiar. Perhaps it deadens her sense of touch just a bit. This is what she does. When she's leaving, though, she sees one of the upstairs windows open.

Like the lonely prairie - while a cowboy dreams...

- and hears that record again, as if it had been playing over and over and over and over while she worked.

[Roman Turner] "He followed Sorrow's example, only he picked up what remained of poor Greenie to gently cradle in his hands, carrying the remains back to the stoplight.

"Mighty sorry for your loss. He was a good Greenie and will be sorely missed."

[Parlour] The wailing had continued, unabated throughout the combat. It was an unending thread nearly an octave above the deeper sounds of snarls and growls of wolves and spirit. It continues for several seconds after the absolute silence of the bane's death and then stops, abruptly.

The red-light gremlin, its chest puffed and back straight, eyes glistening bright and red, flashing in rhythm, it's toneless chant continuing on:

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."

The amber-light gremlin is curled, its back facing out, into the middle well of the traffic light. Its back is hairless, its spine clearly defined through its thin skin, each knob visible. They can see it shift sinuously as the gremlin uncoils, turning to its other side before rolling up to a sitting position, it's slender knees hooked over the edge of the well. It wraps small hands on either side, leaning forward to look down at the bane's body at the base of its home. "Hee." It says softly, its mouth widening, the edges lifting up into a wide, manical grin. "Heeee." It says again, before leaping to its feet.

"Hee," it cackles, bouncing in place, clapping its hands, its orange eyes flashing and blinking with joy.

A bane shrieks again, this time with an answering call.

They can hear a steady, rhythmic staccato clacking. A whirr. A click. At their feet, around their feet, small spiders scurry forward toward the dead bane. Here and there a larger spider, its head topped by a small swivelling light joins them. The bane disappears beneath a wave of spiders.

In Fate's hands, Greenie is limp, half masticated and nearly bloodless. Shards of bones stick up from its ribcage, the red of its organs already fading, framed in the grey of its rent skin.

[Roman Turner] "Tell him we're mighty sorry about his little friend. If he wants, I can try burying him."

He turned slightly so the body wasn't so visible because it might stir up the screaming again. It also gave him a chance to watch behind them in the direction of the pizza parlour.

[Rain of Brass Petals] "You're going to want to get ready, we're going to be dealing with a mess pretty soon and if we don't have a good position we'll be fighting from all sides," she says. She warns, "this could get bad fast."

She looks at the gremlins,, clears her throat and straightens up. They had been looking for something to give them light in the pizza place. This, however, changed tunes. Changed targets. Changed focus. The Fury spoke up.

"We're sorry about your friend, if you want? We can bury him? What would you like for us to do?"

[Sorrow] Sorrow pads away from the corpse of the bane, lifting her great paws with a feral delicacy to avoid the swarming spiders, flicking away any that come to close. Some half-dozen feet away, closer to the pizza parlor than the stop light, the massive wolf pauses, her tail low with caution, her ears swiveling, lively and alert, watching for the onrush of banes, listening to the call and response as their inhuman cries spark out against the darkness.

Close enough to Roman for conversation, she shifts again, her frame folding itself into the upright, formal warform. When she stands straight again, she is nearly nine feet tall, iron-furred, with gleaming yellow eyes - nothing like the human woman she is most of the time. Her gaze flicks back to Adamidas as she suggests thast they get ready, then to Roman. "When we go in," Sorrow says, quiet to the young Child of Gaia. "Sneak if you can. Come at the foe from a blindside, from behind. Use your stealth to advantage. Understand?"

[Roman Turner] "Yessum."

He nodded once. His pink tongue swept across his sharp teeth as he spoke softly in the high tongue.

"We keep standing around, we're gonna have a stampede coming this way. I'd hoped whatever is inside would get curious enough to come out. Ya want I should look for a back way in or something?"

[Sorrow] "We don't have time for that," her voice is a deep growl in this form, low and sure. She keeps it quiet, this conversation, as she glances back toward the pizza parlor. "And I'd rather we not get separated, now. Let Adamidas make a deal for some light, and we'll take the front door as easily as the back."

[Roman Turner] "Yessum."

[Parlour] The amber-light gremlin is cheering on the spiders at the base of the lamp-post.

"BIND HIM. GET HIM. EAT HIM," waving its wimbly arms about over its head. It takes a moment for it to hear Rain of Brass Petals.

It blinks, wide eyed toward the wolf-monster-man-thing. Its head cocks.

"It should return to the web," he says, his voice high, almost child like. "Everything returns to the web."

Fate feels a tickle up his leg. A small spider moving through his fur. There's a bane crawling out from between the spaces of the shadow buildings, its body low to the ground, each stride of its many legged form careful and slow.

(perception+primal urge everyone!
intell+spirit lore [wyrm or weaver] if you have it)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [per+primal urge: eh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Sorrow] Per + Primal Urge
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] Per + PU
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] Rain of Brass Petals has no way of knowing at what the bane is slinking - them or the spiders.
to Rain of Brass Petals

[Roman Turner] He looked down at the climbing spider and repressed a shudder as he lowered the small body of Greenie to the ground and shook the spider from his fur before stepping away from the body. Most of his attention returned to the bane crawling out from between buildings.

"Ding dong, Avon calling. Here comes the welcome wagon. Fuller Brush man. Bible salesman. Gonna try and sell us a Kirby."

[Parlour] The bane is hunting, its body low to the ground, almost slithering across the concrete. It does not make a sound as it slowly inches forward, claw over claw over claw. Its eyes, bale-fire green and burning are slits, its tail low and lashing.

Danger promises itself in every motion. But the bane is headed for the spiders, not the Garou.
to Roman Turner

[Parlour] The bane is hunting, its body low to the ground, almost slithering across the concrete. It does not make a sound as it slowly inches forward, claw over claw over claw. Its eyes, bale-fire green and burning are slits, its tail low and lashing.

Danger promises itself in every motion. But the bane is headed for the spiders, not the Garou.

Sorrow can see the bane's head turn, slightly, a glance toward a nearby building. There's another bane, in the shadow of it, its green eyes blinking, slowly.
to Sorrow

[Roman Turner] "Bane coming, there with the green eyes. Coming right this way, though it seems to be heading for the spiders. Dang if it ain't gonna get nasty here right quickly, ya might tell them spiders."

[Rain of Brass Petals] It should return to the web.
Everything returns to the web.

"Put it down," she says. She can think things through, and she can be fairly smart from time to time. However, this was a city. This was a city and she had no idea what happened in a city. As much as she talked to concrete and glass, they didn't give her much in the way of knowledge of urban spirits or what she meant. Then, she said it a little late.

She looks over and Roman is putting the gremlin down.

Adam is clueless in terms of what's going on around her. No idea what the bane is creeping up on- she's too busy thinking about what the spirit had said.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Then?

"They're coming for the spiders, you need to hide. It's not safe," she tells the spirits. She tries to warn "we'll try to get rid of them, but we'll need your help because we need to be able to see. Can you help us?"

[Sorrow] Sorrow adds her support to Roman's warning, almost wordless in this moment.

Then, she tips her massive head across the street - to something standing in the leeside shadow of a waiting building, eyes glaring balefully from the shadows. "There's another one, there. They're in communication. Some of those spiders have lights. If you've not already made a deal, tell them that we'll fight with them if they will illuminate our fight."

[Roman Turner] "Best make it quick cause they are building up courage in numbers. I don't knowing they seem to be working together."

He shifted his weight from hind paw to hind paw, getting ready.

[Rain of Brass Petals] "We'll fight with the spiders, beside them, and help, if they'll light the way. All we need is to be able to see."

They're building in numbers. Make it quick, she hears. She relays the information as best she can, and words are tinged with a definite sense of urgency.

[Parlour] "Fighting is futile" the spiders speak, many voices blending into one. Or perhaps one voice distorted as it were many. The Garou cannot tell. No spider turns to face them. No spider acts any different than the rest. They all hear the voices or voice, disembodied and disconnected. "Fighting creates chaos of order. Shatters concrete, breaks glass. Tears skin and bone and spills blood.

"We abhor the chaos," The spiders suddenly shift outward like ripples after a dropped stone, leaving behind a small grey bulge at the base of the lamp post curled and misshapen, attached to the ground like it were a moth's cocoon. "We deny its existence.

"Fighting is futile."

[Parlour] The spiders speak in English. The language of Humans, who bring cities across the world like a plague.

[Roman Turner] "Then you die willingly? You will let them slaughter your people and not do a thing about it? Death is change."

Meanwhile he began drawing on a gift. Persuasion as he spoke.

"The way to keep order is to stop senseless deaths among your kind. Help us this one time and for a bit, make some order from the senseless."

[Roman Turner]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]

[Sorrow] "I cannot think like them." Sorrow says this quietly to Roman and to Adamidas in the high tongue of the Garou. There is no English in her now; there is, however, a certain subvocal frustration that skims through her body with the assertion of her rage in the air around here. They have no modi with them: but they have a Fenrir. Her chin rises in the direction of the parlor. " - and there's nothing left of that corpse by now. If we kill another, and throw it into the parlor, though, the spiders with the lights will follow."

[Rain of Brass Petals] "Fighting brings purpose," she says, "it breaks glass so you may mend it. It shatters concrete so you can make it stronger. It creates chaos so you can bring order again... but if you all die, you can't bring order, you can't make the concrete strong, you can't keep the glass clear... there will only be chaos, and no one to bring that order back..."

She stops, and looks to Sorrow. She nods, "it's what they're programmed to do... I think that this is a good idea."

[Roman Turner] Oh he liked that thought, it earned Sorrow a big toothy smile.

"We got two targets, closest one wins."

[Parlour] "We bring order to chaos. We do not bring chaos so that we can bring order. We bring order, we bring order, we bring -" the closest bane lazily reaches out a claw and swipes a claw at the nearest spider. It sizzles and spurts electric blue sparks as half it body is rent away, turning unevenly on its remaining appendages before over-balancing and falling over. "-order." The chorus continues unabated.

"There are billions of us. We do not die out. We bring order."

The bane is a half dozen feet away, gathering its feet beneath itself to pounce into the centre of the spiders. Greenie had been laid down only minutes ago. Now, as spiders begin to fan out, disappearing across the concrete, they can see the remains of the gremlin, spun into the concrete.

Above, on the intersection light, the amber-light gremlin hums happily. The red-light gremlin continues it's never ending drone.

In the real world, the redlight flashes interminably.

[Sorrow] "They're together. Sharing signals," Sorrow remarks, still low. Her massive head lowers minutely, indicating again the second bane watching the creeping-firstin the shadow of the building. "We'll take the closer one, but be wary and watchful." This last is to both Adamidas and Roman. Then, to the later. "If you can come in from behind, do so.

In a moment, she is melting into her hispo form, her body sinking to the calcified concrete sidewalk, her head low, her paws sharp, ready to pounce.

[Sorrow] Bite Bane!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] He hadn't noticed just how close that bane had gotten. It killed one of the spiders and the others acted like nothing new there. Hive brain with a kind of we will live forever god complexes. How did one reason with that kind of brain?

"Insane in the main brain."

Spider down, bane way too close and he was going to move in to position to keep the other one from diving in to the fight that was about to happen. At least it might slow the second one to give the others a chance.

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Rain of Brass Petals] [8+1d10!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Parlour] The bane is plucking spiders off, in batches if they're small enough. In singles if they're not. There must be a hundred at least, and for every one which is consumed, another joins the horde.

They begin to swarm the bane. They do not fight, they said. They make order from chaos. The bane is chaos.

They make order from chaos.

The bane's skin sizzles, zapping a spider from its flank, sending it sprawling, its body shuddering and shaking from residual energy frying its innards. Sorrow crashes into the beast. Her teeth find purchase, but do not break the flesh. As her feet hit the ground, the bane snarls, whirling on her and charging.

(+6!)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Victor Oseragighte] (( Pardon, open or closed? ))
to Parlour

[Parlour] Icknag init +6!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Roman Turner] Inti. +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Parlour] The swarm + 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Parlour] Sorrow 18
The swarm 16
Rain of Brass Petals 13
Fate 9
Nergl 9
Iknag 8

Iknag - 1. LEAP - swift flight
2. Bite Sorrow

Nergl - RAR! BLAST SORROW.

[Parlour] (correction - Iknag is biting Rain of Brass Petals.)

[Roman Turner] The Bane went for Sorrow and so in true tag team fashion, he leap for the back end of the Bane.

1a claw
1b claw

[Rain of Brass Petals] Actions!
1a: shoot Nergl
1b: Shoot Iknag (jerk)
1c: Shoot Nergl
1d: Shoot Iknag (true shot! -1 rage!)

[Rain of Brass Petals] (action chaaaange!
just shoot Nergl, poor nergl.)

[Parlour] Swarm.

Calcify the bodies of the fallen spiders.

[Sorrow] Sorrow: 1a. Bite; 1b. Bite; Rage 1: Bite; Start with Nergl, move on to Iknag when Nergl is down.

[Sorrow] 1. BITE. -2
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b. BITE -3
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Parlour] (Nergl: -4)

[AWatchfulCrow] ((Mind if I watch?))

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] (I don't!)

[Sorrow] (I don't mind!)

[Parlour] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] Nergl -8

[Roman Turner] 1a claw
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1 b claw
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [okay! Pewpew!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [okay, come oooon damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] Blast Sorrow - damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] Sorrow tears into the bane which lets its rage focus and explode over the Fenrir's skin. She feels the heat, but does not burn.

Rain of Brass Petal's arrow finds it mark, but only just. It grazes the things appendage, leaving the smallest of scratches, a contrast to the great rents in the beasts skin from the Skald's teeth.

Fate's claws miss, then hit, but leave no mark. The bane screams its pain as another moves faster than the eye can see. It is on the Black Fury in an instant, it's claws bared.

(Rage actions!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] (uhm. ignore that roll.)

[Sorrow] Rage: BITE NERGL
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 6, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak?
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] Iknag claws Rain of Brass Petals!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] Iknag does damage
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Oww!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] Sorrow lashes out with teeth and fang, tearing another bite of rancid flesh from the bane. It howls - but stands still, if only barely, ichor raining on the concrete.

The other bane strikes out, tearing into Rain of Brass Petal's side, leaving a burning trail of pain along her ribcage. Blood wets her fur.

The spiders communicate in clicks and clacks as they swarm about their own fellows leaving small calcified piles. As the ichor leaves smears on the concrete; smaller spiders swarm beneath the bleeding bane, studiously beginning to tidy up, even as the mess occurs.

[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Parlour] Nergl + 6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Roman Turner] Init +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Parlour] Iknag +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Rain of Brass Petals] [8+1d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Parlour] Rain of Brass Petals - 15
Fate - 15
Iknag - 15
Sorrow - 12
Nergl - 12

[Parlour] Nergl: Blast Sorrow!

[Sorrow] Sorrow: 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE; Rage 1: BITE - Nergl first, then Iknag.

[Parlour] Iknag: Claw. Incite Frenzy on Rain of Brass Petals.

[Roman Turner] It looked like Sorrow had things under control and arrow woman wasn't going to be able to shoot in hand to hand combat range. So he had to make a quick choice which meant breaking off to try and get to Iknag to help Rain before it was too late.

1a claw
1b claw

[Rain of Brass Petals] [actions! -1 rage to hispo (toodles bow!)
1a: Icky, be bitten!
1b: bite again
1c: seriously, if you ain't hurt yet, she deserves to Frenzy.)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [action?
1a: dex3+hispo2+brawl2= 7 - 1 (oww) - 3 (split) = 3 dice, diff 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [damage! str2+stheno1+hispo3+hispobite2+0= 8, diff 6!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 4, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [With feeling, this time?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Again?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [ANGRY HARPY SOUNDS!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Rain of Brass Petals] [...]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Parlour] mommy
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1a claw Icky
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1b claw icky
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] eek
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] CLAAAAAAAAAAAAW
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] da DAMAGE!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Soak?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Parlour] Incite Frenzy
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Sorrow] 1a.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage! NERGL.
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] urk
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] x_x

[Sorrow] 1b. BITINGS.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]

[Sorrow] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soakings!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Sorrow] RAGE: BITINGS.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak'em!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Parlour] x_x

[Parlour] The world is full of blood and snarls and ichor and the smell of foetid bodily fluids. Fate turns from Sorrow and the other bane, leaping forward to sink his claws into the Fury's target and attacker. He tears flesh and rips strips of skin away, staining his claws with blood. Rain of Brass Petals sinks her teeth into the bane's body and tears out a piece of its flank while the beast shrieks, lashing out with its claws.

When its claws connect it -

there is no pain. No realization of the connection, no realization of the damage. She does not hurt. She sees red. Red like blood, red like passion, red like anger.

It pulsates, a living breathing thing pounding inside her skull and she feels no pain, even as a howl tears through her throat. The Black Fury does not carry much rage beneath her skin. She does not frenzy often.

She frenzies now, her mind utterly over taken, the rage vibrating in her skull and down her spine. Blood splatters the ground from her wounds and she feels none of it.

Fate had done his best to try and avert this. But now, he is just a target.

--

Sorrow strikes her target - and even as her claws connect, she has a sense that the bane had been nearly dead. It falls like a bag of cloth to the ground, limp and lifeless, twitching once, and then stilling. Behind her, she hears the Fury's rage screaming, the bane's mocking chitter. She whirls, and in one step, is there. Teeth sink into rotting flesh and meat tearing the beast apart. Blow after blow connect. The bane staggers, then falls, still.

They have two corpses on the ground.

Rain of Brass Petal's mind clears abruptly, as if a veil had been lifted. Her throat is raw, but she does not remember making a sound.

[Roman Turner] He had tensed when Rain went nutzo and in the blink of that realization Sorrow stepped in and ended the problem. He swallowed hard and though he was still a bit worried about turning his back on Rain he reached for a dead bane.

"Quick! Into the Pizza joint with them!"

[Sorrow] Sorrow lifts her head, snarling, ichor dripping from her maw. Her teeth are bared, her fur spattered with Rain of Brass Petals' blood and ichor from the banes they have run to ground. To Fate, she barks - Grab a [broken thing] - half lifting the second of the banes from the matrix of concrete underfoot to offer it to him as if it were a gift. Then, knowing his tribe, almost as an afterthought - or, rather, a thought as she takes in Rain of Brass Petals' wounds. Can you heal?

He is already there, reaching for the corpse of the bane. She is shifting into Crinos, shaking her fur when he grabs the corpse of the bane, examinin the blood on Adamidas' skin more closely.

In Crinos, in the high tongue, "Can you heal yourself?"

[Roman Turner] He frowned having missed the injury to the BF mostly because he had been slightly weirded out by her howling.

"I can touch her and hope it works."

[Roman Turner] He dropped his hold on the bane's body to turn and lay his hands on Rain, calling on his gift to heal. (mother's touch)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 10 (Success x 3 at target 3) [WP]

[Sorrow] When Roman indicates that he knows how to heal, Sorrow nods once. She reaches down and lifts the corpse of one of the banes before it can be covered again in a weltering slew of constantly-moving spiders, holding it carefully in her arms, ready to stamp out any that come near to her. There is a moment then when her head is low, she's leaning forward, concentrating internally, calling on the depths of the past to live in her in the present.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]

[Parlour] Fate reaches out and touches Rain of Brass Petals, his great clawed paw resting on the curve of her clawed shoulder. A faint blue glow passes between them, the colour softer than a spark. It settles in the Fury's wounds, the sensation tickling beneath the skin, itching ferociously as flesh begins to knit together.

It's imperfect, the healing. There are still weeping wounds along the Theurge's flank, the bright red of fresh, oxygenated blood swiftly seeping into the inky fur, matting it together,

Sorrow calls upon her ancestors, reaching out with her spirit toward the past. Someone answers her call, and she feels the conscious of another settle itself within her skull. The feeling is discomforting, the way a part of her mind, her self must shift to give room to another.

Ísólfur Baldvinsson crackes his knuckles in her mind, baring his teeth in pleasure. He's not a name she recognizes, but she can guess, when she's given the sense that her gender will be over looked, that he is from some time ago.

The banes are on the ground, and the amber-light gremlin is crowing at the bounty that's been laid near the base of its home. Its very own wyrm pole. The spiders have begun to gather, but they are more cautious now. Slowly, they begin to crawl over one of the corpses, climbing over legs and limbs, spinning their web at the farthest points. They chitter and click softly, working in perfect rhythm. The Garou have a few minutes before it is too late to implement their plan.

Above them, the red-light gremlin continues to intone:

"stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."Fate reaches out and touches Rain of Brass Petals, his great clawed paw resting on the curve of her clawed shoulder. A faint blue glow passes between them, the colour softer than a spark. It settles in the Fury's wounds, the sensation tickling beneath the skin, itching ferociously as flesh begins to knit together.

It's imperfect, the healing. There are still weeping wounds along the Theurge's flank, the bright red of fresh, oxygenated blood swiftly seeping into the inky fur, matting it together,

Sorrow calls upon her ancestors, reaching out with her spirit toward the past. Someone answers her call, and she feels the conscious of another settle itself within her skull. The feeling is discomforting, the way a part of her mind, her self must shift to give room to another.

Ísólfur Baldvinsson crackes his knuckles in her mind, baring his teeth in pleasure. He's not a name she recognizes, but she can guess, when she's given the sense that her gender will be over looked, that he is from some time ago.

The banes are on the ground, and the amber-light gremlin is crowing at the bounty that's been laid near the base of its home. Its very own wyrm pole. The spiders have begun to gather, but they are more cautious now. Slowly, they begin to crawl over one of the corpses, climbing over legs and limbs, spinning their web at the farthest points. They chitter and click softly, working in perfect rhythm. The Garou have a few minutes before it is too late to implement their plan.

Above them, the red-light gremlin continues to intone:

"stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."

[Parlour] yikes. Let me repost that.

[Parlour] Fate reaches out and touches Rain of Brass Petals, his great clawed paw resting on the curve of her clawed shoulder. A faint blue glow passes between them, the colour softer than a spark. It settles in the Fury's wounds, the sensation tickling beneath the skin, itching ferociously as flesh begins to knit together.

It's imperfect, the healing. There are still weeping wounds along the Theurge's flank, the bright red of fresh, oxygenated blood swiftly seeping into the inky fur, matting it together,

Sorrow calls upon her ancestors, reaching out with her spirit toward the past. Someone answers her call, and she feels the conscious of another settle itself within her skull. The feeling is discomforting, the way a part of her mind, her self must shift to give room to another.

Ísólfur Baldvinsson crackes his knuckles in her mind, baring his teeth in pleasure. He's not a name she recognizes, but she can guess, when she's given the sense that her gender will be over looked, that he is from some time ago.

The banes are on the ground, and the amber-light gremlin is crowing at the bounty that's been laid near the base of its home. Its very own wyrm pole. The spiders have begun to gather, but they are more cautious now. Slowly, they begin to crawl over one of the corpses, climbing over legs and limbs, spinning their web at the farthest points. They chitter and click softly, working in perfect rhythm. The Garou have a few minutes before it is too late to implement their plan.

Above them, the red-light gremlin continues to intone:

"Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."

[Roman Turner] "Quick! Grab hold and move them!"

He did exactly that, he reached down, grabbed the body the spiders had started on and pulled.

"Mine! Yeehaw! Come and get it if ya want it!"

His goal was to race it towards the pizza joint to toss through the dark opening.

[Rain of Brass Petals] It's imperfect, but it does what it needs to do. It keeps her in relatively good condition, and good enough that she can do what she needs to do. The Fury regathers her things, but also grabs a body, or... well... what was left about it.

She follows Roman's lead and heads on.

There's work to be done.

[Sorrow] Sorrow is - in this - a step behind them, another consciousness settled over her body and her mind. When she moves - the massive, war-formed Fenrir - moves as if she were larger than she already is. She picks up some portion of a corpse, wrenching it from the concretization already beginning - and throws it over her shoulder as if the body part of the dead murder-spirit were the haft of a massive hammer, some great-axe large enough to be wielded by a Crinos Garou. The gesture is remembered, is long-dead, and gives the other inside her a sort of pleasure, this bone deep satisfaction that glows through her skin.

Between the lightpole and the pizza parlor, Sorrow/Ísólfur breaks off pieces of the bane and leaves them behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest, like a trail of stones, all white, beacon and lure to the spiders they required for this portion of their plan. By the time she has reached the entrance to the parlor, she has none of her corpse left. Smaller chunks stretch out between the stoplight and their target.

"One half through the opening," she tells Roman and Adamidas as she arrives. Her voice is no deeper, but she is more curt, " - and one inside. When it's light enough to see what we are doing, we go in."

[Roman Turner] He nodded and drug his dead thing to the opening to drop half in and half out, then turned and waited for Rain to take one end of her burden.

"When the time is right, we throw on three."

[Parlour] The ragabash wrenches up a body, limp appendages hanging low and unbalancing toward the ground, smacking against the Child of Gaia's legs, the ground, dragging, catching. The flesh smells awful, rotten and congealed, sticky and stinking. Clumps of blood and flesh stick to Fate's fur, and he can taste the foetid smell with every breath.

Sorrow grabs another half of the body and in her mind, her ancestor scoffs, disgusted with this turn of events, though he's not bothered to find out the entire context. From where he sits, (metaphorically speaking) it is only that his descendant is grabbing tainted creatures and running toward a blackened edifice with them.

He murmurs approbation in her ear at her tone. The others are not Fenrir, after all.

--

The spiders scurry after them. A few of the quicker ones latch into fur and onto skin, climbing up the Garou and leaving little pinpricks of pain where the many legs dig in. They say nothing, they object not at all. They act like mindless drones, intent on their duty.

[Roman Turner] He shook off what spiders he could, a shake of the leg, flinch of the shoulder, toss of the head.

"Mine! Get your own!"

Till he managed to get the body to the opening to toss down half in and out. Now he could do the icky dance, the heebie geebie dance before grabbing the other end of Rain's dead thing, ready to toss it in.

"Nasty. The things I do."

[Rain of Brass Petals] "Nothing's going to get that smell out," she tells Fate. She takes one end and one... two... three- flung when they needed to fling it. She didn't like to think about the smell.

So, she didn't think about it, she just relished the unpleasant. LIved it as an experience. The Fury watched as the body sailed wherever it went.

She is waiting.

She is watching.

She's been practicing being still; maybe it would pay off.

[Roman Turner] He knew the thing was above before, so he was watching through the opening, leaving room for the spiders.

"Watch for movement."

Flicking nastiness off his fur. His muzzle was crinkled, the lips curled back to show sharp teeth. It smelled worse than falling in the pig wallow.

[Sorrow] Sorrow shakes off the spiders when and as she can. Think: dog and water, clearing its coat of the wet. The pain is no more than a passing sensation - a nudge, an awareness of things on her skin - while the crawling sensation of weaver-things, of the droning hive-mind crawling over her is sharper, more unpleasant.

In the wake of her makeshift pack, she brings whatever remains she has and throws them, too. Through the windows, shattering the spun calcification of the glass spirits if there are any living in the windows. Then, she steps closer, standing aside and looking up into the darkness, ready, waiting - all alert and tense, the sense of anticipation sharp in the back of her mind, the world narrowed to the immediate necessities of action.

[Parlour] They throw the banes, the corpses landing solidly, with an unpleasant splash of viscera and blood. One inside. One in the doorway, half in, half out.

Sorrow throws bits of body parts through the windows - they are but empty holes. No weaver spirits are touching the building.

There are spiders in their wake on their backs legs windmilling in the air, dislodged by the Garou. More come, scurrying and they begin over the body. What becomes immediately apparent is they are not crossing the threshold.

The Garou must all have a moment of uncertainty. Distrust that they might have failed in their plan.

--

The spiders consume the parts outside the building first. As the Garou stand there, waiting, they have all the opportunity in the world to study how the spiders do their duty. How they dissolve the body and bind it to the concrete. They see the silk ejected from spinnerets near the rear of the grey almost metallic spiders, they can hear the hiss of the bane's skin as flesh, smell it begin to burn, the stench like sulphur, like rotten eggs. They can hear the slice of teeth through flesh, the sound of mastication. They can hear the sound of regurgitation. Those spiders which do not spin, chew and vomit up the remains, leaving behind an ashy residue behind, settling into the concrete.

When what is left outside the building has been consumed, bound and attached to the concrete, the spiders stop at the threshold, chittering at each other in their mechanical language. Slowly a spider breaches the invisible wall, climbing over the body and into the building. It makes a sound, a sharp staccato pattern. A single beacon of a light breaches the darkness inside.

It is followed by another spider. And another, and a another. They swarm over the body, large spiders and small, and begin the process again over what is left. The bane deeper in the building is barely touched, but they bring light into the building. They can see the shafts of it, the inner walls of the building. At this angle, they cannot see the ceiling, nor much else. Only that there was more light now than there was before.

[Roman Turner] He looked up towards the ceiling when the spiders finally crossed the threshold. And then he reached for blur again.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 10, 10 (Failure at target 8)

[Rain of Brass Petals] She can only barely the bane. Only barely. Sound, she knows, can be deceiving.

"... you don't have to aim bane arrows," she says, and it's quiet, "they hit the nearest bane, and they usually make some sort of noise or screech or something. We might be able to draw it out of hiding like that, but we run risk of attracting more banes if we do that."

She informs the other two garou with her, and the Fury waits for an okay.

[Roman Turner] "I can go in as bait. lure it in to the open. Course if I were it, I'd be listening right now, or sneaking up behind."

Itchy feet had him moving towards the big open front window so maybe they could go in different ways and avoid clogging the door.

[Sorrow] Sorrow glances from Roman to Adamidas, then back to the darkness, now cut briefly by banded shafts of light. They have the sparest part of a second to make the decision. "I like the idea," remarks Sorrow, low-voiced. " - even if it doesn't make a sound, we can follow the arrow's flight path and know where to go. Go on."

She glances sidelong at Roman, shakes her head. "No. She looses the bane-arrow, we go in immediately. There's no bait here. If you can use stealth without your gift, do so."

Then, to Adamidas: " - are you ready?"

[Parlour] The spiders crawl over both both banes now. They move quickly, their beams criss crossing, shifting, moving, creating incomprehensible patterns on the walls.

Something hisses in the building, something scrapes against concrete.

Nothing heads toward them.

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Ehem: pewpew!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Roman Turner] His ears flickered with Sorrow's orders and then swiveled towards the sound inside.

"I'll go right."

[Rain of Brass Petals] Inhale.

It is a standard talen, it's nothing special to the Furies, but special enough to her. She's made these before, and will no doubt make more of them when she goes home (if she goes home, always a thought, there).

An arrow is retrieved. Obsidian head, solid shaft, good craftsmanship. It's funny, because Adam is terrible at making things. These, though? This particular talen?

It's a piece of art.

She doesn't even aim. She just pulls back her bow, and fires. The Fury waits, she lets it go, and wonders where it will go now...

It could veer off. They could have an ambush on their hands.

Or, they could just have one irritated bane. She doesn't think too much on it. The theurge exhales.

[Sorrow] "I'll take the door. Rain-of-Brass-Petals-yuf," the creature's voice is gruff and formal. "You have the left window." Sorrow positions herself - herself and the other inside her - in front of the door, her head swiveled toward Adamidas, following the path of the arrow into darkness, ready to charge the split-second after it is loosed.

[Parlour] Rain of Brass Petals does not even aim. She just fires into the building. The arrow flies straight and true - and then it veers upward, as if it were jerked up by an invisible string. It soars upward into the ceiling.

The building shudders violently, the walls cracking and dust raining down. The spiders scatter as a splash of blood hits the floor, hissing with heat. They move through the blood to return to their duty, leaving tiny pinpricks of blood over the floor.

The shrieking of whatever is in there is enough to deafen them, to set their ears to ringing.

But they know where it is.

[Roman Turner] Quick as grease through a pig he was through the door and to the right, slithering off in the dark to try and get on the far side of where the arrow and shrieking told him the bane was. His orders had been to try and get behind it, so he was.

[Sorrow] There is a moment where the air is split by the loosened talen-arrow; the obsidian head, the solid shaft, whatever spiritual bargain went into the making of it: loosened from the bow, no aim except to pull and loose. Sorrow can feel the reflexive awareness of the arrow's passage in the air around her. She plunges through the front door sideways, charging for the target - a low snarl of challenge on her muzzle. She does not know whether it comes from her own mouth, or the memory of the ancestor riing in her skin.

[Rain of Brass Petals] She takes a little bit of cover, she stands by the window, and readies an arrow. She knows where to shoot- up. It veers upward, onto the ceiling. The Fury growls, it's a sound of quiet displeasure. Up, she thinks.

Down. She asserts.

Teeth are bared- white against dark fur- and she stays calm. Alethea wonders if she's aiming blind, if it is exactly where she thought it was. Thirteen.

[Parlour] Blood rains down on them in heavy droplets, already slowing. The blood is boiling hot, just enough to scald, but not enough to burn. The heat inside the building remains them of an oven. Hot, humid and unrelenting.

The beast is above them, and as they enter, they realize simply how 'above' it is.

It is the above. They can see in the dim lights that there appears to be no end to the beast, its body expanding out over where the ceiling would be. It concaves toward the centre, a gathering of sickening flesh and bone, long arms that branch out into two appendages, each topped with nasty looking pincers that snap together sharply. It has no definable head, only a great maw, rimmed with teeth.

It begins to lower itself from the ceiling, its body uncoiling like a slinky stretches.

It heads toward the floor. It heads toward them.

(and initiative)

[Roman Turner] +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Rain of Brass Petals] [8+1d10!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Sorrow] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Parlour] Main bane: +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Parlour] bane part A (claws and pincers 1 and 2) +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Parlour] Bane part B (claws and pincers 3 and 4) +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Parlour] Roman: 15
Main Bane: 13
Adam: 12
Bane Part A: 12
Sorrow 9
Bane Part B: 7

Bane Part B:
Pincer Roman

[Sorrow] Sorrow: 1a. Claw; 1b. Claw. 1c. Claw! Rage 1: Claw!

Beginning with Bane Part B. Moving to Bane Part A. Moving to main bane.

[Parlour] Bane Part A: Pinch Adam! Through the window if she doesn't come in.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Ehem!
1a: Shoooot Bane Part B
1b: Reload!

[Parlour] Main Bane: BITE SORROW

[Roman Turner] 1a claw B
1b Claw b

1r claw b

[Roman Turner] 1a claw b
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] I SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1b claw b
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] So-didlee-oak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] "Wish I had a snow cone machine!"

That was his battle cry.

[Parlour] I biteses you!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Parlour] I hurtses you!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] (Sorrow's being attacked. Roman gets attacked later! I'll start specifying in my posts though, sorry!)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Pewpew! dex3+crinos1+archery4= 8 - 1 (oww) -2 (split) = 5, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Damage: shinybow5 + 4 (oww!) = 9]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Reload!: dex3+crinos1+archery4= 8 - 1 (oww) - 3 (split) = 4, diff 6. 2 succ necessary to reload]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] Pinch Adam! (+1 diff for going through the window)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 7)

[Parlour] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Oww!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1c. -5
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Per + primal-urge
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] The concrete does not appear to be taking damage from the blood and the spiders have walked through it without damage. Blood has fallen on her fur and she has not felt any pain.
to Sorrow

[Parlour] Biting does not seem to pose any risk.
to Sorrow

[Parlour] Pinch Roman!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1r claw b
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] bane b x_x

[Sorrow] Claw - Bane A!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Parlour] The heat in here is oppressive. It causes their fur to stick to their skin. It causes their breath to come short and come hard.

It is unpleasant. Like soup. Heavy, liquid soup.

The spiders eddy about the bodies, which are half masticated by now. Shadows of what they were. Grey and fading.

The Child of Gaia strikes first, tearing into the bane with claws, causing blood to rain down on him, hotter than human blood, hotter than human blood. It is unpleasant, searing the skin, leaving it raw, but in the moments of battle, they feel none of it.

Fate tears into the beast and the beast lowers its weight and closes its teeth on Sorrow's shoulder. Blood spurts from the joint, feeling paradoxically cool after the bloody rain, the heat of the building.

Rain of Brass Petals lets loose an arrow which flicks into the beast's hide. A droplet of blood beads on its edge, and drips slowly down, bright as scarlet. She does little damage.

The Fenrir, with her ancestor riding in her skull lashes out. She tears into thick, fatty flesh, rending it open at the joint. Fate's next blow severs the arm at the joint where it falls, lifeless.

Sorrow's remaining attack hits, but draws no blood. In her mind she can hear her ancestor, berating, without patient, angry and impatient.

[Sorrow] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Rain of Brass Petals] (8+1d10)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Parlour] (+6)
Bane A
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Roman Turner] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Parlour] (+8)
Main Bane
(insane in the membrane)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Parlour] Adam: 16
Roman: 13
Sorrow: 12
Main Bane: 10
Bane A: 9

[Sorrow] One of the arms has fallen; Sorrow can feel her ancestor inside her, berating her weakness, frustated by the limits of her lowly skill, her sex, her body, her claws. The others can hear her snarl of response - first at the blow that lands, which she does not feel - and then at the blows she lands, which do nothing to the carapace of the bane.

Heal him - she barks to Adamidas, as she reorients on the arm threatening the theurge. And Use your teeth! to any who use to listen.

[Parlour] Bane A: pinch Adam!
Main Bane: Electrocute Sorrow

[Roman Turner] He had blood flowing down through his fur from his shoulder, but like Sorrow, he couldn't feel it yet. Sorrow orders to bite the thing and for a moment his stomach flipped and his lips curled back and he groused.

"Dang it, didn't bring floss."

[Sorrow] Sorrow: 1 rage - shift to hispo. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE.

Beginning with Bane A ! Moving on to mainbane if Bane A goes down!

[Roman Turner] Heal Sorrow

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Action: OHSHIT!
1a: ruuuuuun to Roman (running's hard!)
1b: Heal Roman!)

[Rain of Brass Petals] (Int3+medicine3 = 6 - 1 (oww) - 3 (splitting actions is hard!) = 2, diff 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 5 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Roman Turner] Mother Touch Sorrow!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 5 (Success x 3 at target 3) [WP]

[Sorrow] Bite: 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage 1a.
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Parlour] eek. Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] BITE: 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Parlour] x_x

[Sorrow] 1c. MAINBANE! -5
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) [WP]

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] Electrocute: Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Sorrow] Rage: RAWR.
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] They are not pack, but they move like one. Act like one. Fate spins on a heel, heading for Sorrow. Rain of Brass Petals dives through the window of the building and runs for Fate.

Paws touch fur. Gnosis is offered up and a blue pallor fills the wounds. The itching sensation is maddening, unpleasant as skin and bone knit faster than it ever should.

Roman still bleeds from his wounds, but they are half closed, the flesh half-knit. The blood does not pump out as quickly as it did. Sorrow's wounds are gone as if they never were. The beast lashes out, attacking the pinching arm, the deadly weapon. She tears at it, once, twice until it comes off clean beneath her claws, smashing to the ground. The Fenrir Modi in her mind howls his satisfaction.

Seconds later, she lashes out again, and though her claws find purchase, they draw no blood. It is the sound of her ancestor's displeasure, his berating, that fuels her fury as much as the frustration of failure.

They are not yet done.

[Roman Turner] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Initery! 8+1d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Parlour] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Parlour] Sorrow: 13
Main Bane: 13
Roman: 11
Adam: 9

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Healing... someone. Holding action to MT whoever gets Massive Ouchies]

[Roman Turner] Shift hispo

1b bite

1r bite

[Parlour] nom Sorrow!

[Sorrow] Sorrow: 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE!

[Sorrow] 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Failure at target 5)

[Sorrow] 1b. -4 HAIL. KAHSEENO.
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1c. -5 HAIL HAIL MIGHTY KAHSEENO.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage! O HAIL TO THEE KAHSEENO.
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1a shift hispo

[Roman Turner] 1b bite main pain
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] ooopsie bite
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] bite Kora!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [action!
-1 rage (yay hispotime!)
1a: bite!
1b: bite it AGAIN!, all at +1 diff]

[Rain of Brass Petals] [dex3+hispo2+brawl2= 7 - 2 (split) -1 (oww) = 4, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Ow, my pride.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Rain of Brass Petals] [str2+stheno1+hispo3+hispobite2+1=8, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] RAGE: 1 BITINGS.
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] da soakses
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1 r bite
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 3

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak-iocity
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] The floor beneath their feet is slick with blood now. Their's and the creature above. The banes on the floor have been masticated, have been calcified until they crumble, until they are beginning to sink into the concrete. In a day, if anyone comes here by the umbra, they will find no sign of it left. If the building still stands, if the floor were clean, they would never even know that the banes had been here. A perfect reconciliation of chaos.

This is their duty, the spiders. As the banes destroy, or even as the banes die, they mop up the mess, return it to the grey of order. Clean straight lines. Right angles. Sharp edges. The more the banes destroy the more the spiders clean up.

They're beginning to climb the walls now, slowly, working their way over the cracked surfaces. Their head lamps do more to illuminate the ceiling, to illuminate the walls. They can see now, the bane for what it is - a hideous conglomeration of gluttony. They can see the seams where two banes became one. Where three became one. Where they once combined and now, there are but gaping holes of dead flesh and bone. Blood drips and pours from the cavernous wounds. They're all soaked in it.

In ten showers, they will not quite feel clean.

Sorrow and Fate, they sink their teeth in. They have success but not as much as they need. Their teeth strike bone. They get caught in the thick hide. They cannot quite get the purchase they need to tighten their jaws. The beast strikes out, aiming for Sorrow's midsection, but though the teeth graze her skin, it does not break the flesh.

Rain of Brass Petals lunges, her teeth snapping. The hide does not give. None of their blows draw blood now. They can hear a rumbling, a deep sound like a cackle. The beast is laughing at them. Taunting them in a twisted, vicious and mocking tongue, though none can understand the words.

The spiders are beginning to reach the flesh. Carefully, they begin to pick at the edges, testing the waters.

[Rain of Brass Petals] [I'm skeery! 8+]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Parlour] The swarm +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Parlour] Bane +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Roman Turner] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Parlour] Sorrow: 19
Roman: 16
Adam: 15
Bane: 14
The Swarm: 10

[Parlour] The Swarm: Calcify the bane
Bane: Spit

[Rain of Brass Petals] [okay! Let's... ummm... hmmn, maybe biting it's the best idea.
1a: bite
1b: bite AGAIN!]

[Roman Turner] 1a Bite
1b Bite again

[Sorrow] Sorrow is a massive direwolf, all grayfurred, soaked in scalding blood, hot enough to groove its way through her fur in long, passing rivulets the way rain would, were it falling. She snarls - not challenge, not a call to battle - just snarls like a beast and lunges again for the murderspirit as it gathers itself to spit.

[1a BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE Rage 1: BITE.]

[Sorrow] 1a. -3!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage'!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Parlour] eep. Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1c. -5
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Parlour] Mei kicks the bane
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1a bite
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1 b bite
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [I'm going to bite you now.
dex3+hispo2+brawl2= 7 - 1 (oww) - 2 = 4, diff 5
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Oww. str2+stheno1+hispo3+hispobite2=8, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Parlour] soakers!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] *channels Ripley* "Did I.Q.s just drop sharply while I was away?"
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Damage: Channel Xena: AAAEEEYIYEAYAYAYAYAYA!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Parlour] It unhinges its jaws, the thing. The bane. The beast. The aberration.

They're tired. Hot. Injured. Fatigued. It's been a long, bloody night.

The thing has a tongue, a great wide flat thing, oily black inside the cavern of its mouth. It lifts it to display two small glands on its underside. Small being an overstatement. Small is relative. This thing is huge. What it spits is large wads of clear liquid.

(everyone roll 1d10, please)

[Sorrow]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Rain of Brass Petals]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Roman Turner]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Parlour] (Adam and Roman, please roll soak. 4 potential agg, each)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [O_O]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Rage: BITE!!!!!!!!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] They tear at it and more blood falls, more ichor, more flesh. The floor sticks with the heat and their fur is beginning to harden, clumping together with their own blood, with sweat and dampness. Still, it is not enough. Not nearly enough.

The beast keens, shuddering as the spiders begin to crawl over its flesh, slowly spinning their thread, slowly beginning to turn the edges grey, starting to eat away at its bindings to the ceiling.

It is badly wounded and dying. Shredded and somehow, tenuously still clinging to the ceiling even as it trembles and shakes, as its life blood pours to the floor. It lashes out. Spits bile at them. It hits two. Rain of Brass Petals takes the full brunt of it. It eats through her skin, eats through her flesh, down to the bone. It bares her ribs, the connective tissue. It sears her with the pain.

Fate takes a blow of his own. Shreds his skin and flesh raw, exposes the fatty layer, yellow and thin.

The next few blows by Fate and by Sorrow do absolutely nothing at all. The air is soup. The beast is dying, but it is not

quite
dead.

[Rain of Brass Petals] [9+ 1d10... please]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Roman Turner] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Parlour] The swarm +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Parlour] The Bane +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Sorrow] [+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Parlour] Roman: 17
Sorrow: 14
Bane: 14
Swarm: 13
Adam: 10

[Rain of Brass Petals] Adam: bite iiiiiiiiit
rage: seriously. Om nom nom.

[Parlour] Swarm: Calcify
Bane: Bite Kora!

[Sorrow] There is a low wuff of rage as the acid spit rains down on them from the ceiling above. Sorrow surges forward, bristling, into the space between Rain of Brass Petals and the murder-spirit clinging to the ceiling. The Black Fury is not fallen, but she is badly wounded and Sorrow barks and claps her jaws, bares her teeth, shoulders herself in front of Adamidas to draw the bane's bite.

1a. BITEBITEBITE. 1b. BITINGS. 1c. AM BITING. Rage1: yes, am still biting.

[Roman Turner] He howled in pain as his fur and skin sizzled. Sheer will power had him moving for Rain.

Mother's touch

[Roman Turner] mother touch Rain
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Sorrow] 1a. BITE. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Sorrow] 1a. DAMAGE.
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b. BITE -4
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Parlour] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Parlour] Sorrow's teeth snap at the bane, but only find dead hide. Her next bite tears at the beast near its unhinged jaws, half ripping the great mass that seems to be its head and body both. The beast shudders and goes still. The building itself shudders, dust shaking from the walls, several spiders falling to land face up on the ground, their legs moving uselessly.

The bane is limp now, hanging heavily from the ceiling, its full, flaccid weight beginning to bow the concrete structure. Blood oozes, falling slowly from above, and the temperature begins to cool, degree by degree. Something above them cracks.

The spiders scurry, the largest focused on the body, beginning their frantic work as the building shakes around them. The smallest begin to swarm the walls, climbing over each other in their haste as they begin to create webbing over the cracks, as they begin to spew a sticky substance into the corners to try and support the building's weight.

A building which creaks wildly, shuddering dust over them all, a fine layer to add to their sticky mess of blood and flesh, both their's and the wyrm's.

With their shredded skin and oozing wounds, their bloodied and matted fur, they look nearly as bad as the deceased bane does.

Certainly, they smell the same.

The building creaks again, showering blood and concrete dust and spiders to the ground. One of the larger arachnids crawls among its fallen fellows, carefully flipping them over. Those that are righted, return to work immediately.

[Rain of Brass Petals] [sta2+stheno1+hispo3+rituals3 = 9 - 2 (oww) = 7, diff 7. Strength of Purpose!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Roman Turner] "Run!"

That was his warning as he tried to get them out the door before the ceiling fell on them.

"She's gonna splat!"

[Rain of Brass Petals] She inhales, slowly.... and tastes the air, and remembers.

When she comes back, when she exhales the foetid, disgusting air, she remembers why she is here. Why she fights. Why she performs rituals, because Stheno reminds her in times like these. There's blood on her fur, there's mats and acidic saliva and filth caked in too many places.

There's corruption lingering in the air, and she-

"This building's going to give," she muses, shortly after Roman spoke. And it's musing until-

"I don't know what it'll do in the real world."

Her eyes widen and the female runs-

"We'll cleanse from the outside!"

Because her concern isn't getting out of the building, it's cleansing the building.

[Sorrow] Head for the alley Sorrow barks, herding behind them, her teeth bared, her fur slick with blood and ichor. The ancestor inside her skin and mind is briefly satisfied by the ultimate triumph that he is quiescent as to her many failures. She nips at their heels if they try to linger behind her, surging out of the building only when the other pair have exited, shaking her massive body outside to free herself of the clinging muck, the filth, the ickor, the blood, the sense - the bone deep sense - that there is something wrong with her skin.

They will all need a cleansing after bathing in the murder-spirit's hot blood.

[Roman Turner] He was good at following orders, even when muscle, tendon and bone shown through the burned openings in his fur and flesh. If he could out run the stink, he would.

"Shower, need a shower. Smell like the hog wallow."

[Parlour] Outside, they can see the effects of their battles, a stirred up atmosphere from the one they first entered. The spiders are moving in droves, a moving carpet of glittering and light grey, chittering and chirping to themselves as they climb up the walls and through open windows, as they run along the foundation.

Banes are moving as well, but not toward the building. They move to the holes the spiders have left in their scurrying focused attention. A bane clutches the outside of a building and it reaches up a clawed finger to slowly run it across the glass that coats it. The sound is screeching, irritating. Then, suddenly the glass shatters.

Another bane lies prone on the ground just along the edge of the spiders' path. It picks arachnids off, one by one.

The stop light is entirely empty. Amber-light, even the stoic, never swaying red-light gremlin, both are gone, the wells empty.

A bane screeches. Two more answer. One, wide-winged and long bodied, soars up above, its dark body light by Luna's bright and all-encompassing light.

[Roman Turner] It was time for them to scram and regroup for the next battle of their own choosing. Besides, he knew they are all going to hurt when gifts wore off and he was flat out gnosis.

[Sorrow] The city is endless; the corruption and calcification enduring, unending. What territory has been carved out from it has been carved out with painstaking exactitude, with blood and sweat, enduring. Sorrow takes a moment to surve their surroundings - the gathering spiders, the banes creeping into position in their wake - and barks to the other Garou.

East - it is more of snarl. Eagle territory.

They will find a place to cross back there; to regroup, to heal, to recharge themselves for the next battle, and the one after that, and so on, until the last: until the end of days, or until their end of days.