[UmbralSquash2] [Sorrow]
The door opens. There is nothing at which Joe may throw the chair - just a belfrey with a lopsided, leaning bell and two birds - one dead-eyed, sleeping, the other circling the room wildly. The air is sharp with its raucous demands, and Kora watches the flying bird, her pale head darting to match its precise movements before it dives out through the broken window. The sunlight cuts through the gloom here, but there are shadows too, rich and deep, the sharp contrast between shadow and light is blinding.
When she is sure of her surroundings, Kora walks into the Belfrey, circles it carefully, pausing once to look out of the broken window for the scab-bird, then continues until she stands before the bell. "It wants its brother fixed," she says, as she circles to stand beside the bell, beside the sleeping, echoed, empty bird. "Wants it enlivened, awoken."
[Joe Holst]
Joe's form fills the doorway soon after Sorrow paces across the belfry- blue eyes flicker from the sleeping bird to the other, still heard but unseen outside the window.
"Sah.." He says it while narrowing his eyes, sweeping the tip of his tongue along an eye tooth thoughfully. A new battlescar dapples one side of his neck as he leans forward to look out of the window, then back to the bird. He continues to pace around the room, watching the still, sleeping form of the 'sick' weaver bird.
"Bells warn.. bells.. mark time..." He grunts quietly, scowling in thought. "Buh what couldt put it ta sleep? Ahmean.. if it was jus' da building bein' abandoned, why aint da uddah one asleep? Or is just dis one da bell an' da uddah one-" He points to the window. "Sumpfin' else? Like.. one da shell an' one da hammer?"
[Sorrow]
Sorrow gives a sharp whistle, then, in the direction of the broken window. To humans, such a whistle - means, hey you! come here! It's the sound of doormen in New York and Chicago summoning a cab, or friends gesturing to friends across the expanse of a park, To weaver-birds -
- well. There is a sharp whistle, and then she calls out after the spirit in its language, lifting her quiet voice, "Hey. Hey. We'll fix it, if you come and tell me who you are. Tell me what happened. We'll make a deal."
[UmbralSquash]
*The brassy beat of wings, hollow and light. Perched on a stone buttress outside the window, the smaller weaverbird rests wary. Untrusting, one beady red eye cocked to Kora, then to Joe in turn. A copper beak clicks as the Scab-Bird natters.*
FixItWakeItUpDeal.
*Nervous preening, grey feathers impossibly light for something that looks as though its made of metal filaments. One eye ever on the pair of Fenrir*
[Joe War-Handed] For a moment the bullish youth stares hard at the bell, his face pinched in concentration as he summons what little he has been able to glean about the Umbra and its varied residents. His lips move now and then though no sound escapes his mouth. All the while the dull metal of his torc murmurs and shimmers balefully. Lent a hard, knife- edge sort of light here in the umbra. It ripples and twitches like a living thing, the shine from its curve also seems fixed on the bell.
Once Kora whistles for the bird outside, Joe's chin swings toward the window, then back to the bell. He listens to the half- understood croon and grunt of the bird and garou talking, and doesn't even fidget- just waits for the translation. Once given, he nods solemnly to the bird.
"Ahmean it couldt be as easy as fixin' up da bell again an' ringin' it... right? Owah issat boyd not da bell?"
[Sorrow] "I could be wrong," Kora says quietly from where she stands at the window, looking out at the bird resting on a flying buttress, framed against the brilliantly light webs of the heart of the weaver's domain downtown, where the skyscrapers erupt against the sky, metal and glass wrapped in thick webs that sing with ordered electrical impulses, with the constant workings of pattern spiders, all banked in a sort of drifting smog of pollution, of information, of - stuff, nameless, the shining, hazy promise of modernity. " - about the bell thing. Though if they are related to the bell, fixing it up in the real world might be enough. Like caring for an oak sustains a glade child."
The edge of her half-smile, so familiar by now that it seems almost backgrounded, so easy and assured. "Maybe they're just birds, yeah? I'm not a theurge," the Skald continues, a glance back over her shoulder at her Alpha. "That one," she continues, nodding out the window at the preening metal bird, " - just said, FixItWakeItUpDeal. If it's just sleeping, we might wake it by giving it a little taste of ourselves," she continues, musing. " - that's what Kemp-rhya and I did in the park, for the unicorn gaffling we tore from the trap the cursed ones set. It was injured, we gave it gnosis, and it revived - healed itself a bit with every sacrifice, yeah? Except it wasn't completely out of it, like this one."
The commentary is quiet, low. The Skald's dark eyes are fixed on the bird preening outside the window. And says, in the language of the spirits, " - hey, what are you?"
[Joe War-Handed] Joe nods, and rapid fires a mutter back at Kora. perhaps they thought of the same thing at the same time- but perhaps Joe just has a gift for redundancy.
"Ask it who it is, what it is ta us, an' who it soyves. I dunno if I wanna go wakin' up weavah spirits..."
[UmbralSquash2] *The cavernous belfry resonates with a brassy undercurrent, a barely perceptible sound wave that seems to sink into the bones and vibrate the pair of garou from the inside out, sensation banished by movement only to build again in stillness. Before them, the metallic sheen of the bell is lacking, corroded, salt crusted upon a rusting surface. The fat grey bird is little more than an echo, an impression easily overlooked atop the decaying bell. Its animated compatriot natters, chitters, metal beak clicking as it stirs restless outside the window, hopping closer with a wary glass eye shining pink in the sunlight. All too happy to chitter.*
Scab-Bird!Scab-Birds!LikeTheBell!MakeADeal!FixIt!CleanIt!WakeItUp!
*A ruffle of dark grey feathers sounds off like knives sharpening against one another, the spirit catching an updraft and streaking through the arch of the shattered window, rising to the rafter to peer down at the Fenrir.*
[Sorrow] "It says it's a scab-bird," Kora remarks, cutting a look back over her shoulder toward her Alpha. Her half-smile has deepened in response to the spirit's chittering. Then the creature takes flight, and the Skald tips her pale head backward, watching the arch of its flight, unreasonably reminded of Edgar Allen Poe's raven as the scab-bird settles on the broken spine of a rafter. " - and you're right. It likes the bell; it wants the bell cleased and fixed, awoken. Its broodlings like the bell, and want it repaired."
--
Kora lifts her face again, careful not to stand directly beneath the spirit just in case scab-bird spirits are anatomically correct, and does as her Alpha bids her. "Tell me who you are, and who you serve. Are you Gaia's children? Will more of your broodlings come it we restore the bell?
[Joe War-Handed] Surprise flashes across Joe's face as Kora translates. He'd.. guessed right? That's really all it is? This takes Joe a while to absorb. He'd delt with Ancestors who demanded a particular battle be fought. Delt with the harrowing pseudo- realities of the Battlegrounds... the formidable creature would never have imagined a solution so simple as cleaning up a bell.
He squints at the bell, at the dormant bird atop it... with a glance between Kora and the fluttering scab- creature, he steps to the windows, letting his attention glide out across the rooftops, the streets or ghosts of streets he can dimly see. An idea slowly matures in his head, and Joe's face moves slowly back to the bird. Something measuring in his expression.
He is frozen for the space of several seconds, then crosses to the opposite side of the broad tower as though something had just occured to him.
[UmbralSquash2] Scab-bird!
WardTheApes!Gaia!Gaia!MakeADeal!AskGlkckrfuffCornHair!Explain.GetTheRain!CleanIt!Fixit!WakeItUP!
*The Scab-Bird launches off the point of the broken rafter, diving with shrill enthusiasm between the pair, circling and twisting in a way that defied gravity entirely. Debris rises off the ground as the spirit stirs a wind current within the bellfry, a wind to whip hair and tug at clothes like an insistent child.*
[Sorrow] While Joe studies the view of the streets from the belltower, Kora's pale head darts and dives in time with the winging bird. Her loosely bound hair is easily pulled from its moorings by the little wind dervish stirred up by the chattering, winging, diving spirit, and the complicated mass of the knot is soon on the verge of collapse, falling down her neck toward her back, errant strands whipping across her throat. Somewhere in there, she laughs, sudden and low.
"They're Gaian. It says that they Ward the Apes, which sounds like Cockroach's brood. It wants the bell cleansed, awakened, and fixed. If there are more of them, I bet we could convince them to watch the territory, bring us word of anything they see moving in - yeah? in exchange for cleaning the bell, and maintaining it. Hell," she continues, her voice quiet, " - maybe it wants to hear it ring."
Lifting her dark eyes to the bird, she briefly asks - "Are you Glkckrfuff?"
[Joe War-Handed] Joe may not appear to be listening. At the moment he is a bulk cast against the roiling Umbral sky, framed in by the gap where a window was.
When Sorrow's velvey voice slides across the space between them though, Joe's hands scrape from the windowframe to fall at his sides, and he nods before turning around. He eyeballs the bird for a bit, leaning back against the broken sill before his attention moves to Kora.
"Dats what I was t'inkin... boyd'sd make handy lookouts." He pauses, sucking his teeth as he looks back at the dormant bird.
"Pahts uh dis deal gotta include an understandin' dat in exchange feh fixin' da bell, deah brood gotta accept dat dis is owah territory again. Fenrir territory. We aint necessarily friendly wit dem apes out deah." He swings his chin toward the broken window. "An' owah own totem aint a Weavah totem. If dey'll accept dis, soyve us as lookouts an' spies innis territory, we'll show 'em respeck an' maintain deah bell. Hell." He shrugs. "Ring it tew."
[UmbralSquash2] *It would appear conversations are not private in the presence of a scab-bird. Claws scratch a metallic spark across the rusted frame of the busted out stain-glass window as it perches, faint wind dying down. The spirit's head cocks so far sideways it looks as though it might snap off and roll across the dust strewn floor. It natters in a tone that seems to compliment the ever present brass ring of the bell. Words punctuated with sharp hops.*
Roaches!QUID-PRO-QUO!QUID-PRO-QUO!
WakeGlkckrfuff!ItsGlkckrfuff!
*Taking off once more it veers towards the grey echo of the far larger, fatter scab-bird. Too enthused as it tries to pull up too late, skidding across the surface of the bell. Rust and salt corrosion flakes up, an ugly powder cloud bursting into the air, coating Gaian and spirit alike. When the choking salt haze has cleared, there are scratch marks skidding off behind the bell, and a sudden and distinctive lack of chattering.*
[Sorrow] "The bell is called Glkckrfuff," Sorrow clarifies to Joe, just before the scab-bird goes skidding across the surface of the corroded bell. The great cloud of metal shavings and particles puffs up into the air, coating her skin, filling her lungs with her next breath, setting her coughing. She hasn't been sick in years, not since before her first change. Here she is, though, coughing up a lungfull of spirit dust in the forgotten belfrey of the spiritual reflection of an abandoned cathedral. Waving her hand in front of her fast until the cloud of dust and corrosion has cleared away.
" - and it understands everything we're saying. It seems ready for a quid-pro-quo. That's Latin, you know. It means something-for-something, like the exchange you suggested."
She turns back to the spirit then, silent now in the aftermath of the collision, speaking again to the bird in its own language. "You heard him, right? We're Get of Fenris. That is War-Handed, my Alpha, cliath Modi, and I'm Sorrow, cliath Skald. This is our territory. We're taking it now that Eagle has gone. What we take we hold as Get of Fenris. Our totem's one of Fenris' own, not Roach's, and not the Weaver's. If you accept this, and will serve us as look-out, we'll repair and maintain your bell, show you the respect you give to us, honor the pact we make."
[UmbralSquash2] *Perhaps the bird found those terms acceptable. Perhaps it did not. It was difficult to tell, as the smaller scab-bird now lay sprawled on its back behind the bell, wings limp and transparent, body as salt speckled and suddenly inconsequential seeming as the portly bird perched more regally, - if just as lifelessly- upon the rusted bell. Without the clatterclick of the raucous spirit's tinny words, the low brassy vibrato of the Belfry's memory seems as oppressive as the monkey faith it tolled for.*
[Joe War-Handed] "Oi! Yew awright?" Joe's arms unbuckle from around his chest and the burly Modi zips across the small room- apparently thinking the bird had knocked into something on the other side of the bell. White teeth flash in a childish smile painted across a murderous face.As he passes, sky colored eyes track Kora's lips closely as she speaks. Joe nods as she says it all again, one arm the size of a bridge girder braces against the bell and he leans over the thing, expecting to see the crumpled metallic form on the ground, just past the marks of its skid across the massive bell.
"...ya know.." Either forgetting that the bird understands, or not caring- "We gotta make shuwah it knows dat ringin' da fixed bell don't bring da Apes back- like, dat one an' t'uddah aint da same t'ing-"
"Ah, fuck."
[UmbralSquash2] [Feel free to roll Wits or Int/Enigmas, whichever's highest!]
[Joe War-Handed] War- Handed straightens, and looks at Kora.
(I have Enigmas! Well, well.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Sorrow] Sorrow tracks in Joe's wake as he runs across the room to find the second spirit as lifeless as the first, knocked out by its collision with the bell. Drained, perhaps, by the run-in. She comes up behind her Alpha a handful of seconds later, lifts her chin looking over his shoulder at the still and silent spirit sprawled across the floor, bumps him, faintly, from behind, just the physical comfort, the pleasure of pack, diminished though it is with the absence of their brother.
"I don't think there's any more dealmaking, boss." Kora says low, behind his shoulder, looking back at the bell now, and careful of it in a way she was not before. "We've gotta fix the bell to wake them up. Maybe we should step across, see what its counterpart looks like." There's a quiet pause, then - musing, thoughtful. " - hey, you know anything about metalworking?"
[Sorrow] [Int + Enigmas!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
[Joe War-Handed] A furrowed brow- likely shared with Kora- then the pensive look sweeps to the bell. Joe's hand withdraws gingerly from the huge thing.
"Metalwoykin? Not sah much.. But... I don' t'ink..." Joe rustles from foot to foot, thinking.. as though the motion were a pumping process, moving thoughts around inside the bullish kid.
"Yannow." He looks up to Kora. "Yew mentioned sumpfin' abaht feedin' a gaffling some gnosis.." He thrusts his chin at the bird. "Mebbe.." His face screws up in concentration before his gaze returns to Sorrow's face. "...we oughta jus' try dat foyst? I t'ink mebbe da boyd was tellin' us ta wake up da uddah boyd." He shrugs, sheepish at his referring to them both as 'bird'
[Sorrow] "Look - " Sorrow says, the revelation is slow in coming, like fitting a puzzle back together after you've gone about it entirely the wrong way and ended up with a backwards, unconvincing rendition of fireworks that looked absolutely right before the last few pieces went into place. "Maybe we were wrong about the bell. I think we should still fix it up so they don't keep knocking themselves out with the rust. Maybe we just need to clean them off."
This is musing, as she circles the narrow room, her footsteps leaving impression on the flaked salt and rust coating the floor. "I don't think that'll do any good if they're still covered in that iron sediment. They want rain - water, right? I have Gaia's Breath talens, with water spirits bound inside." Sorrow goes still, considers for a moment, and her occasionally seen messenger bag sighs into being. She opens the flap, reaches in, and pulls out her last two talens, handing one carefully to her Alpha, keeping the other for herself before she returns her bag to its place against her body, in spirit. Kora carries her poetry and talens the way others carry their blades.
"So - what if we use them to wake up Glkckrfuff and his friend there?" She pauses, sinks to her haunches, holding the gourd over the spirit to whom they had been talking, waiting briefly to ensure that her Alpha agrees with the plan. If approves, she breaks the gourd, activates the talen, and lets the water wash over the nameless scab-bird with whom they had been negotiating.
[-1 Gnosis!]
[Joe War-Handed] The talen looks incredibly fragile between vicious seeming hands, but Joe holds it carefully as he considers. His gaze moves from Kora to the birds, and briefly out the window. Stone-Tooth had tried to teach him much more about the spiritual side of things than the boy had actually been able to grasp.. but eventually he nods and holds the gourd out over the fatter, more regal bird.
"Couldn't hoyt.. if nuttin' else mebbe dis one heah couldt tell us sumpfin' a bit moah like, coherent." Joe giggles in the stacatto, high pitched squirrel language that seems as much a part of New Jersey as grit and the Sopranos, and cracks the gourd open.
(-1 gnosis)
"Dis place is gonna be so badass..." Muttered almost to himself. To look at him- the joyous stance and somewhat dreamy expression, Joe already sees the place as a fount from which fear will flow from the pack to the Wyrm.
[UmbralSquash2] *Even this mirrored image of the physical realm proved itself an enigma to the two proud get who'd made to claim this area as their pack's territory. Spirits alien and difficult to comprehend, without a Godi to interpret for them, it was more than language that had balked the garou as they tried to fathom the demands of the metallic scab bird. Gourds are cracked, water in its purest form shimmering blue, falling in thick raindrops on salted feathers, purging the flakes of rust and the powdered salt from the two strange spirits. Feathers ruffle, flick water off, bodies become more substantial, and glass bead eyes blink rapidly. The larger bird preens a moment, before pumping its wings with such force that both Get find the floor far beneath their feet, garou caught in the air a moment, propelled by a massive updraft, only to settle back on their heels just as abruptly. The water raises into the air currents before craashing back to the ground, trickling between cracks in floorboards, dripping to the floor beneath, and the floor beneath that, and lower still, going to wherever water spirits care to go. The fat bird perches atop the rafter and trills in a hollow metallic voice.*
GlkckrfuffThanksGet!Tomorrow.Clean!Tomorrow.QuidProQuo!
*Another blast of air tears at clothing and pushes with enough force to make anyone wary of windows, before the scab-bird spirits are testing their wings and diving through the window. To return tomorrow.. apparently. Trust a weaver-bird to have a schedule.*
[Joe War-Handed] (Very cool. Thanks Squash! Can we assume Sorrow and Joe grab Drew and a whole lot of steel wool and tarnish remover until tomorrow?)
[Sorrow] (thank you! this was awesome. modi and skald bumbling around trying to make deals with the spirits...)
[UmbralSquash2] [yar! post a closing, or don't bother- crashout, and go to bed. whichever suits you both!)
The door opens. There is nothing at which Joe may throw the chair - just a belfrey with a lopsided, leaning bell and two birds - one dead-eyed, sleeping, the other circling the room wildly. The air is sharp with its raucous demands, and Kora watches the flying bird, her pale head darting to match its precise movements before it dives out through the broken window. The sunlight cuts through the gloom here, but there are shadows too, rich and deep, the sharp contrast between shadow and light is blinding.
When she is sure of her surroundings, Kora walks into the Belfrey, circles it carefully, pausing once to look out of the broken window for the scab-bird, then continues until she stands before the bell. "It wants its brother fixed," she says, as she circles to stand beside the bell, beside the sleeping, echoed, empty bird. "Wants it enlivened, awoken."
[Joe Holst]
Joe's form fills the doorway soon after Sorrow paces across the belfry- blue eyes flicker from the sleeping bird to the other, still heard but unseen outside the window.
"Sah.." He says it while narrowing his eyes, sweeping the tip of his tongue along an eye tooth thoughfully. A new battlescar dapples one side of his neck as he leans forward to look out of the window, then back to the bird. He continues to pace around the room, watching the still, sleeping form of the 'sick' weaver bird.
"Bells warn.. bells.. mark time..." He grunts quietly, scowling in thought. "Buh what couldt put it ta sleep? Ahmean.. if it was jus' da building bein' abandoned, why aint da uddah one asleep? Or is just dis one da bell an' da uddah one-" He points to the window. "Sumpfin' else? Like.. one da shell an' one da hammer?"
[Sorrow]
Sorrow gives a sharp whistle, then, in the direction of the broken window. To humans, such a whistle - means, hey you! come here! It's the sound of doormen in New York and Chicago summoning a cab, or friends gesturing to friends across the expanse of a park, To weaver-birds -
- well. There is a sharp whistle, and then she calls out after the spirit in its language, lifting her quiet voice, "Hey. Hey. We'll fix it, if you come and tell me who you are. Tell me what happened. We'll make a deal."
[UmbralSquash]
*The brassy beat of wings, hollow and light. Perched on a stone buttress outside the window, the smaller weaverbird rests wary. Untrusting, one beady red eye cocked to Kora, then to Joe in turn. A copper beak clicks as the Scab-Bird natters.*
FixItWakeItUpDeal.
*Nervous preening, grey feathers impossibly light for something that looks as though its made of metal filaments. One eye ever on the pair of Fenrir*
[Joe War-Handed] For a moment the bullish youth stares hard at the bell, his face pinched in concentration as he summons what little he has been able to glean about the Umbra and its varied residents. His lips move now and then though no sound escapes his mouth. All the while the dull metal of his torc murmurs and shimmers balefully. Lent a hard, knife- edge sort of light here in the umbra. It ripples and twitches like a living thing, the shine from its curve also seems fixed on the bell.
Once Kora whistles for the bird outside, Joe's chin swings toward the window, then back to the bell. He listens to the half- understood croon and grunt of the bird and garou talking, and doesn't even fidget- just waits for the translation. Once given, he nods solemnly to the bird.
"Ahmean it couldt be as easy as fixin' up da bell again an' ringin' it... right? Owah issat boyd not da bell?"
[Sorrow] "I could be wrong," Kora says quietly from where she stands at the window, looking out at the bird resting on a flying buttress, framed against the brilliantly light webs of the heart of the weaver's domain downtown, where the skyscrapers erupt against the sky, metal and glass wrapped in thick webs that sing with ordered electrical impulses, with the constant workings of pattern spiders, all banked in a sort of drifting smog of pollution, of information, of - stuff, nameless, the shining, hazy promise of modernity. " - about the bell thing. Though if they are related to the bell, fixing it up in the real world might be enough. Like caring for an oak sustains a glade child."
The edge of her half-smile, so familiar by now that it seems almost backgrounded, so easy and assured. "Maybe they're just birds, yeah? I'm not a theurge," the Skald continues, a glance back over her shoulder at her Alpha. "That one," she continues, nodding out the window at the preening metal bird, " - just said, FixItWakeItUpDeal. If it's just sleeping, we might wake it by giving it a little taste of ourselves," she continues, musing. " - that's what Kemp-rhya and I did in the park, for the unicorn gaffling we tore from the trap the cursed ones set. It was injured, we gave it gnosis, and it revived - healed itself a bit with every sacrifice, yeah? Except it wasn't completely out of it, like this one."
The commentary is quiet, low. The Skald's dark eyes are fixed on the bird preening outside the window. And says, in the language of the spirits, " - hey, what are you?"
[Joe War-Handed] Joe nods, and rapid fires a mutter back at Kora. perhaps they thought of the same thing at the same time- but perhaps Joe just has a gift for redundancy.
"Ask it who it is, what it is ta us, an' who it soyves. I dunno if I wanna go wakin' up weavah spirits..."
[UmbralSquash2] *The cavernous belfry resonates with a brassy undercurrent, a barely perceptible sound wave that seems to sink into the bones and vibrate the pair of garou from the inside out, sensation banished by movement only to build again in stillness. Before them, the metallic sheen of the bell is lacking, corroded, salt crusted upon a rusting surface. The fat grey bird is little more than an echo, an impression easily overlooked atop the decaying bell. Its animated compatriot natters, chitters, metal beak clicking as it stirs restless outside the window, hopping closer with a wary glass eye shining pink in the sunlight. All too happy to chitter.*
Scab-Bird!Scab-Birds!LikeTheBell!MakeADeal!FixIt!CleanIt!WakeItUp!
*A ruffle of dark grey feathers sounds off like knives sharpening against one another, the spirit catching an updraft and streaking through the arch of the shattered window, rising to the rafter to peer down at the Fenrir.*
[Sorrow] "It says it's a scab-bird," Kora remarks, cutting a look back over her shoulder toward her Alpha. Her half-smile has deepened in response to the spirit's chittering. Then the creature takes flight, and the Skald tips her pale head backward, watching the arch of its flight, unreasonably reminded of Edgar Allen Poe's raven as the scab-bird settles on the broken spine of a rafter. " - and you're right. It likes the bell; it wants the bell cleased and fixed, awoken. Its broodlings like the bell, and want it repaired."
--
Kora lifts her face again, careful not to stand directly beneath the spirit just in case scab-bird spirits are anatomically correct, and does as her Alpha bids her. "Tell me who you are, and who you serve. Are you Gaia's children? Will more of your broodlings come it we restore the bell?
[Joe War-Handed] Surprise flashes across Joe's face as Kora translates. He'd.. guessed right? That's really all it is? This takes Joe a while to absorb. He'd delt with Ancestors who demanded a particular battle be fought. Delt with the harrowing pseudo- realities of the Battlegrounds... the formidable creature would never have imagined a solution so simple as cleaning up a bell.
He squints at the bell, at the dormant bird atop it... with a glance between Kora and the fluttering scab- creature, he steps to the windows, letting his attention glide out across the rooftops, the streets or ghosts of streets he can dimly see. An idea slowly matures in his head, and Joe's face moves slowly back to the bird. Something measuring in his expression.
He is frozen for the space of several seconds, then crosses to the opposite side of the broad tower as though something had just occured to him.
[UmbralSquash2] Scab-bird!
WardTheApes!Gaia!Gaia!MakeADeal!AskGlkckrfuffCornHair!Explain.GetTheRain!CleanIt!Fixit!WakeItUP!
*The Scab-Bird launches off the point of the broken rafter, diving with shrill enthusiasm between the pair, circling and twisting in a way that defied gravity entirely. Debris rises off the ground as the spirit stirs a wind current within the bellfry, a wind to whip hair and tug at clothes like an insistent child.*
[Sorrow] While Joe studies the view of the streets from the belltower, Kora's pale head darts and dives in time with the winging bird. Her loosely bound hair is easily pulled from its moorings by the little wind dervish stirred up by the chattering, winging, diving spirit, and the complicated mass of the knot is soon on the verge of collapse, falling down her neck toward her back, errant strands whipping across her throat. Somewhere in there, she laughs, sudden and low.
"They're Gaian. It says that they Ward the Apes, which sounds like Cockroach's brood. It wants the bell cleansed, awakened, and fixed. If there are more of them, I bet we could convince them to watch the territory, bring us word of anything they see moving in - yeah? in exchange for cleaning the bell, and maintaining it. Hell," she continues, her voice quiet, " - maybe it wants to hear it ring."
Lifting her dark eyes to the bird, she briefly asks - "Are you Glkckrfuff?"
[Joe War-Handed] Joe may not appear to be listening. At the moment he is a bulk cast against the roiling Umbral sky, framed in by the gap where a window was.
When Sorrow's velvey voice slides across the space between them though, Joe's hands scrape from the windowframe to fall at his sides, and he nods before turning around. He eyeballs the bird for a bit, leaning back against the broken sill before his attention moves to Kora.
"Dats what I was t'inkin... boyd'sd make handy lookouts." He pauses, sucking his teeth as he looks back at the dormant bird.
"Pahts uh dis deal gotta include an understandin' dat in exchange feh fixin' da bell, deah brood gotta accept dat dis is owah territory again. Fenrir territory. We aint necessarily friendly wit dem apes out deah." He swings his chin toward the broken window. "An' owah own totem aint a Weavah totem. If dey'll accept dis, soyve us as lookouts an' spies innis territory, we'll show 'em respeck an' maintain deah bell. Hell." He shrugs. "Ring it tew."
[UmbralSquash2] *It would appear conversations are not private in the presence of a scab-bird. Claws scratch a metallic spark across the rusted frame of the busted out stain-glass window as it perches, faint wind dying down. The spirit's head cocks so far sideways it looks as though it might snap off and roll across the dust strewn floor. It natters in a tone that seems to compliment the ever present brass ring of the bell. Words punctuated with sharp hops.*
Roaches!QUID-PRO-QUO!QUID-PRO-QUO!
WakeGlkckrfuff!ItsGlkckrfuff!
*Taking off once more it veers towards the grey echo of the far larger, fatter scab-bird. Too enthused as it tries to pull up too late, skidding across the surface of the bell. Rust and salt corrosion flakes up, an ugly powder cloud bursting into the air, coating Gaian and spirit alike. When the choking salt haze has cleared, there are scratch marks skidding off behind the bell, and a sudden and distinctive lack of chattering.*
[Sorrow] "The bell is called Glkckrfuff," Sorrow clarifies to Joe, just before the scab-bird goes skidding across the surface of the corroded bell. The great cloud of metal shavings and particles puffs up into the air, coating her skin, filling her lungs with her next breath, setting her coughing. She hasn't been sick in years, not since before her first change. Here she is, though, coughing up a lungfull of spirit dust in the forgotten belfrey of the spiritual reflection of an abandoned cathedral. Waving her hand in front of her fast until the cloud of dust and corrosion has cleared away.
" - and it understands everything we're saying. It seems ready for a quid-pro-quo. That's Latin, you know. It means something-for-something, like the exchange you suggested."
She turns back to the spirit then, silent now in the aftermath of the collision, speaking again to the bird in its own language. "You heard him, right? We're Get of Fenris. That is War-Handed, my Alpha, cliath Modi, and I'm Sorrow, cliath Skald. This is our territory. We're taking it now that Eagle has gone. What we take we hold as Get of Fenris. Our totem's one of Fenris' own, not Roach's, and not the Weaver's. If you accept this, and will serve us as look-out, we'll repair and maintain your bell, show you the respect you give to us, honor the pact we make."
[UmbralSquash2] *Perhaps the bird found those terms acceptable. Perhaps it did not. It was difficult to tell, as the smaller scab-bird now lay sprawled on its back behind the bell, wings limp and transparent, body as salt speckled and suddenly inconsequential seeming as the portly bird perched more regally, - if just as lifelessly- upon the rusted bell. Without the clatterclick of the raucous spirit's tinny words, the low brassy vibrato of the Belfry's memory seems as oppressive as the monkey faith it tolled for.*
[Joe War-Handed] "Oi! Yew awright?" Joe's arms unbuckle from around his chest and the burly Modi zips across the small room- apparently thinking the bird had knocked into something on the other side of the bell. White teeth flash in a childish smile painted across a murderous face.As he passes, sky colored eyes track Kora's lips closely as she speaks. Joe nods as she says it all again, one arm the size of a bridge girder braces against the bell and he leans over the thing, expecting to see the crumpled metallic form on the ground, just past the marks of its skid across the massive bell.
"...ya know.." Either forgetting that the bird understands, or not caring- "We gotta make shuwah it knows dat ringin' da fixed bell don't bring da Apes back- like, dat one an' t'uddah aint da same t'ing-"
"Ah, fuck."
[UmbralSquash2] [Feel free to roll Wits or Int/Enigmas, whichever's highest!]
[Joe War-Handed] War- Handed straightens, and looks at Kora.
(I have Enigmas! Well, well.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Sorrow] Sorrow tracks in Joe's wake as he runs across the room to find the second spirit as lifeless as the first, knocked out by its collision with the bell. Drained, perhaps, by the run-in. She comes up behind her Alpha a handful of seconds later, lifts her chin looking over his shoulder at the still and silent spirit sprawled across the floor, bumps him, faintly, from behind, just the physical comfort, the pleasure of pack, diminished though it is with the absence of their brother.
"I don't think there's any more dealmaking, boss." Kora says low, behind his shoulder, looking back at the bell now, and careful of it in a way she was not before. "We've gotta fix the bell to wake them up. Maybe we should step across, see what its counterpart looks like." There's a quiet pause, then - musing, thoughtful. " - hey, you know anything about metalworking?"
[Sorrow] [Int + Enigmas!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
[Joe War-Handed] A furrowed brow- likely shared with Kora- then the pensive look sweeps to the bell. Joe's hand withdraws gingerly from the huge thing.
"Metalwoykin? Not sah much.. But... I don' t'ink..." Joe rustles from foot to foot, thinking.. as though the motion were a pumping process, moving thoughts around inside the bullish kid.
"Yannow." He looks up to Kora. "Yew mentioned sumpfin' abaht feedin' a gaffling some gnosis.." He thrusts his chin at the bird. "Mebbe.." His face screws up in concentration before his gaze returns to Sorrow's face. "...we oughta jus' try dat foyst? I t'ink mebbe da boyd was tellin' us ta wake up da uddah boyd." He shrugs, sheepish at his referring to them both as 'bird'
[Sorrow] "Look - " Sorrow says, the revelation is slow in coming, like fitting a puzzle back together after you've gone about it entirely the wrong way and ended up with a backwards, unconvincing rendition of fireworks that looked absolutely right before the last few pieces went into place. "Maybe we were wrong about the bell. I think we should still fix it up so they don't keep knocking themselves out with the rust. Maybe we just need to clean them off."
This is musing, as she circles the narrow room, her footsteps leaving impression on the flaked salt and rust coating the floor. "I don't think that'll do any good if they're still covered in that iron sediment. They want rain - water, right? I have Gaia's Breath talens, with water spirits bound inside." Sorrow goes still, considers for a moment, and her occasionally seen messenger bag sighs into being. She opens the flap, reaches in, and pulls out her last two talens, handing one carefully to her Alpha, keeping the other for herself before she returns her bag to its place against her body, in spirit. Kora carries her poetry and talens the way others carry their blades.
"So - what if we use them to wake up Glkckrfuff and his friend there?" She pauses, sinks to her haunches, holding the gourd over the spirit to whom they had been talking, waiting briefly to ensure that her Alpha agrees with the plan. If approves, she breaks the gourd, activates the talen, and lets the water wash over the nameless scab-bird with whom they had been negotiating.
[-1 Gnosis!]
[Joe War-Handed] The talen looks incredibly fragile between vicious seeming hands, but Joe holds it carefully as he considers. His gaze moves from Kora to the birds, and briefly out the window. Stone-Tooth had tried to teach him much more about the spiritual side of things than the boy had actually been able to grasp.. but eventually he nods and holds the gourd out over the fatter, more regal bird.
"Couldn't hoyt.. if nuttin' else mebbe dis one heah couldt tell us sumpfin' a bit moah like, coherent." Joe giggles in the stacatto, high pitched squirrel language that seems as much a part of New Jersey as grit and the Sopranos, and cracks the gourd open.
(-1 gnosis)
"Dis place is gonna be so badass..." Muttered almost to himself. To look at him- the joyous stance and somewhat dreamy expression, Joe already sees the place as a fount from which fear will flow from the pack to the Wyrm.
[UmbralSquash2] *Even this mirrored image of the physical realm proved itself an enigma to the two proud get who'd made to claim this area as their pack's territory. Spirits alien and difficult to comprehend, without a Godi to interpret for them, it was more than language that had balked the garou as they tried to fathom the demands of the metallic scab bird. Gourds are cracked, water in its purest form shimmering blue, falling in thick raindrops on salted feathers, purging the flakes of rust and the powdered salt from the two strange spirits. Feathers ruffle, flick water off, bodies become more substantial, and glass bead eyes blink rapidly. The larger bird preens a moment, before pumping its wings with such force that both Get find the floor far beneath their feet, garou caught in the air a moment, propelled by a massive updraft, only to settle back on their heels just as abruptly. The water raises into the air currents before craashing back to the ground, trickling between cracks in floorboards, dripping to the floor beneath, and the floor beneath that, and lower still, going to wherever water spirits care to go. The fat bird perches atop the rafter and trills in a hollow metallic voice.*
GlkckrfuffThanksGet!Tomorrow.Clean!Tomorrow.QuidProQuo!
*Another blast of air tears at clothing and pushes with enough force to make anyone wary of windows, before the scab-bird spirits are testing their wings and diving through the window. To return tomorrow.. apparently. Trust a weaver-bird to have a schedule.*
[Joe War-Handed] (Very cool. Thanks Squash! Can we assume Sorrow and Joe grab Drew and a whole lot of steel wool and tarnish remover until tomorrow?)
[Sorrow] (thank you! this was awesome. modi and skald bumbling around trying to make deals with the spirits...)
[UmbralSquash2] [yar! post a closing, or don't bother- crashout, and go to bed. whichever suits you both!)
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