[Siege] (Disclaimer:
1) First off, thanks for being here guys. I'm going to try and make things as engaging as possible. I tend to post long winded things so if there's any confusion, by all means ask me a question. It's preferable to posting while confused. Just makes things easier. That said all questions, ask me in chat? If there's something you believe is relevant but not to others (I.E - Stats, merits/flaws of note etc.) IM Me.
2) I'm noting this here and now because I don't agree with it: The latest Rule concerning taking hits will not apply for this scene? This does not mean you can't attempt to do it, but it will be handled on a case by case basis and not as a general rule. If you have a problem with this, speak up now and we can talk about it. Otherwise-
3) This is a combative scene and, like all my scenes, has risk to it. That said, I prefer to have scenes that can engage characters and I don't believe purely dicing, does that. So feel free to experiment or ask me questions if you're stuck for something to do. I won't give you answers but I will ask you for a roll of some sort or another and depending on sux, give you some clues or ideas. Don't count on this though, it's less a crutch and more an answer to helplessness.
4) That's about all. Enjoy yourselves.)
[Siege] The Chicago evening is brisk, some might think cold, others simply cool depending on where you grew up. The sky, though, is clear and the heat of the day has been devoured without the cloud cover to keep it safely stored. The Half-moon hangs in the sky, a waxing philosopher mediating the mind. Calm and collection are the orders of the evening and with it, comes the balance of necessity. The demand for answers that settle grudges and old accounts.
This night, a call for Alphas goes out. A circumstance both momentary and abrupt. It is something of gafflings that find bodies painted with the authority of Leaders, tiny things that whisper and flutter and flit out of harm's way at a moment's notice. Respectful of rage, they consistent of little more than the dander off of dandelions, giggly and elusive and most irritatingly, just out of reach.
So fitting then that they are the messengers, whispering stories of a small space somewhere in the city in the midst of a collection of old derelict buildings too far down the city reparation list to be anything more than a squatter's live-in, though the variety of holes, decay and outright stench that lingers on the peripheral of the area is a test of even those of humanity's desperate.
It is a street that is rarely, if ever used by traffic, in a small cul de sac that was made not out of planning design but quanrantined construction. Old lots with crusted over ice puddles burying rotten vegetation are interspersed by construction sites long since abandoned, the 'Construction in Progress' signs staring faded and broken, on bent and gnarled chainlink fences.
The centre of a cracked and pothole ridden intersection is this evening's stage, touched by broken street lamps (not a working one for nearly three blocks in three directions, the fourth a dark maw over the lake) while the Hovel of Cabrini five blocks over seemed, unpleasantly, like a bright point. Here, they find Linus:
The Godi is dressed in a half-coat, cargo pants, black convorse sneakers and a scarf and hat that cover all but his eyes. He is standing in the middle of the intersection, hands tucked into pockets, not bothering to pay much attention to the individuals who are arriving and approaching at their leisure, regarding something in the intersection's middle ground. The exact middle, to be honest:
It is a piece of steel rebar, hung with the drip frozen remnants of some animal's skull. Scattered around the embedded bar, jutting from the concrete itself, are the broken shards and pieces of something red and visceral, while the lay of those pieces on the ground is circular and spiraling. Confusing, were one to look at them for too long. The skull itself is askew, almost looks as it if might topple off the bar at any moment, were it not for the frozen clutch of ice around it.
He stares, head tilted off to one side a vaguely wide cast to those dark brown eyes.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She is what she is.
It's hard to think of her as a pack alpha sometimes, namely because Adam seems to have her head in the clouds and her feet only barely on the ground. This is who she is. It isn't an accident, it's the result of unwavering dedication. She listens to the spirit. She hears, more accurately, if she listened better she might catch more in their message and what-have-you.
She hears them, so she goes.
----
It doesn't quite matter how she gets here, but she takes the shortest route. She arrives, and her boots fall and hit surprisingly calm and even and confident. Most importantly, they are urgent. She arrives, and in the middle- the direct center- there is a skull Her hair wild and tangled and looping in waves and strands and curls. Her eyes are dark and intent.
She looks at Linus, but she doesn't really see him.
She looks at the pile of bone remnants, and the Fury crouches. Her lips purse together, "how long do you think this was here?"
[Siege] Linus brief response is simple:
"Not sure. No one comes down this way, not even the mortals." He doesn't stop staring.
[Burnout] He isn't on an oven. Thank god.
He actually woke up in a bed this evening, a real god damn bed with blankets and pillows and all. His bed to be precise, and upon waking up he found a blond fenrir banging her fist on the door telling him to do what he had already just fucking done -- wake up. There is nothing more annoying than being told to do something you are already god damn doing.
At the table he gets the call. He's eating cereal, at night time yes. He doesn't even finish the bowl, and refuses to clean it and Joey starts preparing to throw him into a wall. Trouble, he says, and she grins. The Vanguard like trouble.
In the green-machine they go, the awakened car with Hunter riding shotgun, Joeys bag of his and her goodies in his lap. They park up a minutes walk from the location and hoof it. Hunter becomes glad of this choice once the condition of the road becomes clearer.
"Adam." He calls out when he catches sight of the two Theurges. "Oh.. you look familiar." He grins to Linus.
[Sorrow] Sometimes she takes the bus, tucks her narrow-shouldered frame into the seat just behind the rear exit and turns her pale face to the dark reflections of the wide windows, watching the still, dark shape of the city roll past, serenaded by the low rush of the heaters, the back and forth patter of low-level drug dealers or mid-level whores or the gossip of elderly women with heavy black handbags and the sort of firm, wide brimmed hats that only church ladies. Mostly, though - Sorrow walks.
That's what she does now; an easy, long-legged gait that says that she is used to getting about on her own two feet. She is dressed for the weather - a dark wool coat, buttoned up to the neck - dark jeans, Doc Marten's wrapped about shanks with laces that were once multicolored, but are now simply white with salt.
"Hey Li," says Kora, low-key when she arrives. Her dark eyes are on the piece of rebar, and she circles it the way a carousel horse circles the organ at the center of the ride, on a fixed sort of orbit. "Adam."
When she reaches his side, she gives him a brief, familiar bump of her shoulder - a quiet sort of affection embedded in the gesture. "How'd you find it?"
Her fine mouth is thinned in consideration as she frowns at the remains spiraled around the rebar, written into the broken skin of the earth. Feels the vague, half-remembered feeling of nausea, the rising gorge when she looks too long. Instead she glances up, frowning at the skull, her dark eyes narrowed in thought.
[Sorrow] Per + Occult!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
to Siege
[Siege] "That'll happen in this city." Is Linus equally simple response to Hunter. He continues to stare, somewhat narrowed in gaze now.
"...Mmmm, spirits in the area are somewhat...reluctant to vacate their hidey holes. That and the Hrafn I have on our front Lawn have been getting bold in their curiosities. Ranging a little farther out than I had expected." Kora's shoulder bump is received with a flicker of feigned annoyance and a murmured 'Watch the suit' followed by an adjustment of his threadbare clothing.
"Pointed it out to me, an hour or so ago."
[Killswitch] There was a time when Joey Oliver would have thought this was cold. Not just cold, but beyond cold. She would have made a colorful comparison between this night and a witch's tit, and somehow worked in something about sno-cones and tunnel snakes.
Tonight? Tonight it's just cold, and hardly requires anything heavier than jeans and a hoodie layered over something warm, a wool ball cap over wheat blonde hair keeping her body heat from completely escaping her. Her clothing is dark, meant to help her blend into shadows and fulfill her role as scout. Or lookout. Or whatever. Except for her scarf, which is bright orange. It hides the lower half of her face and the scars on her throat.
She circles around the gathered, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, messenger bag bouncing gently against her hip, dark eyes on the rebar, the skull, the spiraling mess around it. She doesn't greet the ones she knows, not yet.
"Anybody looked over the Gauntlet yet?" she asks. And it's then that she nods to Adam, eyes crinkling in a smile, and then to Kora, slightly more serious.
[Siege] "...Yeah. Clean as a bell..." The way Linus' features narrow beneath the scarf, which he pulls away from his stubble flecked chin and mouth, says that isn't normal. Not when something so obviously wyrmish is infront of them.
"Relatively speaking...Nothing out of the ordinary, I mean." A glance up at Joey, brow perked as his gaze takes in the brief hint of Heroes. "Bone~Writer. Cliath, Godi to the Last Watch by the way..."
[Burnout] [wits+engimas]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 5, 6 (Failure at target 5)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] He's standing outside in the freezing weather smoking what from the sidewalk looks like a long, thin cigar when the call comes. Gafflings make valiant attempts to get his attention in nonconventional manners, but Howard's vision leaves something to be desired; he misses things, regularly, because he has grown so used to his world being flat and gray that an object changing color, writing appearing in the snow, doesn't grab him anymore. Changes in light, maybe, or a whisper on the wind, these things will make him pay attention.
This particular gaffling is insistent, however. A call has been sent out, a call for the leaders of the city's packs, and Howard scowls. Without a body slumped over the oven to kick him in the ass and spur him to action, with Patrick not yet back from work, there isn't much keeping him from telling the gaffling to fuck right off and continuing on about his evening. He stares through his sunglasses at the lit windows of the home across the street, its owners camped in front of a glowing box that would blind him were he right in front of it, and takes another drag off of the blunt.
"Well fuck-a-doodle-doo," Howard says, unimpressed, and clomps off down the street.
==========
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has met him--which turns out to be everyone but Hunter's packmate--that he's the last goddamn person to show up, and he shows up slowly, ambling, weaving actually, as though he's just come from a mosh pit or a punk rock show instead of his own home. As usual he is dressed like a drunk, color blind hipster, his clothes mismatched and lacking any semblance of aesthetic sense, the colors loud and the fabric tight, his black aviators in place. He stumbles up behind Hunter as Linus is explaining that nothing is out of the ordinary, and bumps into the Bone Gnawer with his bony upper body.
His head turns in the direction of the rebar, with its gory accoutrements, and he drops his gaze further to spit between his boots.
"That is disgusting," is his assessment of the decoration Linus has found.
[Killswitch] [wits + enigmas: diff 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Burnout] [rerolling dif 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] [Rituals+Wits: NO ONE LAUGH]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] [Go ahead and botch you skinny little shit I know where you live.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8 (Botch x 1 at target 9)
[Sorrow] Next step: mess up the boy's hair, just for the flicker of feigned annoyance, that undervoiced watch the suit bullshit Linus throws out. The shadows out here are deep, but softly defined. They each cast a half-dozen small shadows against the broken pavement, wavering among the the never-finished construction projects on the dead-ended street. The city's glow gives them all a sickly orange pallor, and the half-light of the half-moon shines down from the open sky. Only the brightest stars show through the light-haze, and Jupiter there, riding the moon's shadow.
"Cursed ones attacked one of my kin while she was looking at a rental house not far from here," Kora says, low voiced. She gives Hunter and then Joey brief, direct looks. For the former - well, the tempered anger of their brief encounter last week is gone, half-forgotten. She breathes out a half-laugh, dry rather than humored, favors him with the first edge of an expressive half-smile. The half-smile remains for Joey, but there's a stillness in her dark eyes as she glances at the Rotagar. "Welcome back."
Quiet, those words, and not without feeling. Another flicker, this one to Adam. Low, still, irony so subsumed into the tone it seems a function of place rather than person. That they are meeting here, like this, around a piece of rebar topped by a skull, embedded with patterned viscera. "You too."
"Anyway. Drew wanted to rent a house, she was attacked by cursed ones. Barely got away with the aide of Bone Gnawer. They killed the theurge, between them, but the rest of the pack followed Drew and the Bone Gnawer into our territory. They attacked, and we killed them all. Four more garou and a kin, maybe a cursed human. Their path though - " Kora glances up, narrows her eyes against the expanse of abandoned lots, derelict squats, the dark, still street. " - from the house Drew wanted to rent, their path definitely brought them by here."
Kora shoots a direct look between the theurges, three of them. "Does this look like a ritual to you? Something like that? Or an offering of some sort?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "I don't know this ritual," she remarks, and her voice is distracted. Her eyes narrow and she stands to look at it more carefully, "I've seen something similar... but... this is disrespectful. It's a farce of something I've seen crones do."
She straightens up and looks up. There are people there, now. She blinks, and the theurge looks almost startled by the new addition of differing presences. Her attention shifts from those gathered. Joey, Kora, Hunter, and back. Her hands are in her pockets.
"This-"
That is disgusting.
Her eyes flicker to Howard. She raises a brow, recognizes the other theurge, "-this might have something to do with divination, or having some kind of connection. Like I said, the only thing I've seen similar to this isn't my knowledge to have. If it's a connection, it could be to honor something or get that sort of close connection that a ritual is supposed to foster."
[Burnout] Hunter knows what looms out of the darkness behind him, what horribly inhuman hipster seeks to take him by surprise. He can tell because he can smell him. And if he can't smell him, then he can smell his clothes or his dirty curly jew hair. But he doesn't turn around or call out when Howard does what he does best, make a nuisance of himself and state the obvious. He's busy, looking at things.
And he's not looking at what is right in front of them, he's looking at what is right in front of him. The two are very different, despite the fact they stand side by side.
He step closer, reaches out a hand and thinks about prodding it but doesn't follow through. When he speaks he sounds confused.
"It's frozen." He says.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] The Skald wants the Theurges' expert opinions on what this could mean, what could have happened here to have caused someone to leave this adornment jutting up from the middle of the intersection.
"Or maybe someone's just takin' the piss," he says, cramming his gloved hands into his pockets.
It's frozen.
"Oi! Conan!" he says, trying to get Linus's attention. "You see anyone hangin' around when you turned up?"
[Siege] "I will fuckin' perforate you with a flexi-straw, Rite~Wrecker..." Linus responds with a scowl at Howard, sneer creeping onto his features. "No one around. Spirit or otherwise. 'Cept my Hrafn and he went off, soon as I got 'ere."
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... what?"
She can't even wrap her head around what Howard just said.
[Killswitch] Joey turns her attention back to the skull on a pike, glued in place with ice, but not before her attention is caught by the tall skinny kid...with the...what? She stops in her circuit around the group to stare at the Theurge in the aviator sunglasses, dark eyes narrowed, head held at a slight angle as she watches him. After a moment, her head gives a near imperceptible shake, and she stops to simply study the skull.
Kora offers her a smile of greeting, warmth and stillness. Joey merely inclines her head, silent for the moment. "Drew?" she asks, surprised. "Roscoe?" But otherwise, she doesn't interrupt. She just reaches into the pouch of her bag and pulls out a small compact mirror, flicks it open.
It's frozen.
"Hey, what kinda animal's got four horns, anybody know?"
[Peeking: gnosis diff 8 -1 (shiny)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Siege] "...Nothing that I know of." Linus absently mentions to Joey's question, leaning forward after that murmur to examine the side of the frozen skull where the four notches above the temples, that begged the Rotagar's question, sit.
"...S'Ritual, alright but I don't get it. Even if it was, the Theurge that could have done it, is dead. S'fuckin' dead site. Nothin' I've ever seen before..." It's obvious this is irritating Linus. Not knowing, honest as he is about it all.
"Rhyas of varying degree. What's the call here? Cleanse 'n go or...?"
[Burnout] Nobody seems to be paying any attention to him when he says that it is frozen. They skip right past it, ask about horns.. actually that was his own god damn pack-mate. Though he isn't surprised, none of them probably keep half a close eye on the sky as he does. Winston, winston would know. He'd understand.
"It shouldn't be frozen! I mean, ain't been no rain or nuthin' last couple'a days.. "
He shrugs his shoulders, steps back and gives Howard an elbow in the ribs. Whatevs.
"The fucks all this shit about? Why you here? Thought this is the last place you'd be... got your phone books on ya?"
[Sorrow] "What's frozen?" Kora returns, a sharp-eyed look swinging away from Adamidas to Hunter as he nearly reaches out to poke it. Strange how the pair echo each other. The Skald is - well, moving again, circling the rebar at a healthy distance, outside the spiral splattered pattern on the pavement, not looking at it precisely. Just looking around it. Then Hunter clarifies, and Kora's mouth curves with something like - recognition. "Even if it's cold enough, the sun's warm enough to melt snow from the pavement, yeah. You think whatever's connected is still somehow - inside it, freezing the offering?"
"You said divination - " Kora murmurs low, a brief glance at Adamidas, another, more humorless now, for Howard. "Were they looking for some sort of connection with the land here? Hoping to pull some dark thing from the place through to the surface? Could that be how they found my kinswoman?"
When Joey asks what sort of animal has four horns, Kora steps a half-step closer, still careful not to cross some invisible line she's inked for herself on the ground. Her attention rises, sharpening on the crown of the skull, generous mouth curving into a thoughtful frown, looking to see if she can identify the marks Joey saw.
[Killswitch] Though Linus tells her what he saw on the other side, Joey takes a looksee for herself, satisfying her own curiosity. What she sees makes her frown, an expression shown purely in her brown, slightly hang-dog eyes, but it's not the worried sort of frown. Just thoughtful. That's right, Joey can be thoughtful. She closes the compact with a snap and looks around.
A step or two bring her to her Alphas side. "Joey, Laughs in the Face of Death, Killswitch, Fostern Rotagar o' the Vanguard." She looks up at Hunter, brow quirked. "Could be part'a whatever ritual needed a fuckin' mythical critter's skull on a spike," she observes.
"It's frozen," Joey answers Kora, and she walks right up to the skull on a spike and points out the clutch of ice that holds it in place.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Kora's glance goes unnoticed; he's being elbowed in the ribs, though not sharp enough to garner a yelp or retaliation. He, too, steps back, ducking his head so Hunter can keep his voice down, as though either of them know the first thing about manners or etiquette or How To Behave Around Amazons and Vikings in general.
"Yeah," Howard says, low, "in my trousers. Some fuckin' gaffling showed up and I had nothin' better to do. Are you stoned, too, man, why're you havin' a spaz over it bein' frozen? It's fuckin' January. That's what happens. Shit freezes."
[Burnout] "Well I mean, it ain't fuckin' cold enough to be still frozen, not like that--" and he points at the skull lodged in ice. "Somethin' is keepin' it cold ye?"
[Killswitch] [Curiositah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] "Yeah," Howard replies. "The temperature. My fuckin' balls have retracted back into my body, I'm pretty sure that means water's gonna freeze, mate. Christ..."
[Burnout] "You ain't got no fuckin' balls mate."
[Sorrow] "Shut up before I geld you both."
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Howard is drawing a breath to retort when the Fostern Skald threatens to geld both of them. He struggles not to laugh, as though they're in the back of a schoolroom and not out on the street attempting to figure out what happened here. Once he thinks she's not looking, he leans in and whispers to Hunter, rather loudly considering he's going for stealth, "How's she gonna geld me if I haven't got any balls?"
[Killswitch] She's already this close. Linus said the place was a dead zone. She saw the other side, knows there's not much recent to cause mischief over here.
"They don't got anythin' to geld, Kora," she says. Pulling her hand from her pocket, she reveals a bit of an argyle pattern on what has to be an arm warmer. She taps at the ice with her fingernail, and straightens.
[Burnout] Hunter raises an eyebrow at Kora as if to say he'd like to see her try, but his lips don't move except -- "OI JOEY!" But Howard is not so quietly whispering in his ear and he shrugs his shoulders.
"Geld ya' fuckin' vagina shut or somethin' I don't fuckin' know. What's a fuckin' gelding anyway?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "The head," she says, and looks from Hunter and the pike then to Kora, "it's cold, but with the sun and the fluctuations in temperature there is-"
A moment-
"Yeah, what he said, it's not cold enough, and it's not going to get cold enough, to freeze it solid unless there is some kind of spiritual or supernatural intervention. Could be because of spirits of winter, something corrupted- like an ice hunter or Atcen, but there's no reason they would come down this far. Wendigo's brood aren't fans of this, and I'm not sure that even corrupted ones would be okay with the city."
She turns and looks at Howard. Her attention is direct and her voice is sharp.
"Shut. Up. Stop whining about being cold and humor us. You're a theurge, quit being linear," and to the rest of them, "orders of the day, back on topic. Let's focus."
She inhales, "I don't know what they could be looking for, but it is a possibility, to answer your question, Kora. It's completely possible."
[Siege] ...the Boys bluster and charm as is their want.
...the Girls (Elders) twitch, snap and stare in curiosity.
...And a Rotagar reaches out with a shrug and a tap of a slim finger.
The Ice around the skull cracks visibly and the head of the creature, whatever it may be, tilts slightly and sags. The rebar finds the eye socket with deft anti-climactic ease and the skull goes sliding down with a back and forth plunking that ends half-way, sticking on a lump of ice clutching to the bar's centre.
[Siege] "...Well...That was exciting." A bland, richly sarcastic response from Linus, eying the thing they're gathered around.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Howard looses a high-pitched snort when Linus claims that was exciting, then sniffs, hawks whatever it is ends up resulting from his efforts, and steps back from the group. He doesn't deem the situation worthy of a parting shot, perhaps, or perhaps he recognizes that attempting to argue with a woman is pointless. There are three of them. And Linus. He's outnumbered.
"'Linear,'" he says, sounding perplexed, before he starts off on a decided nonlinear path back the way he came, sticking to the trudge tracks he'd already kicked into the snow blanketing everything in sight.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... I don't think that's a good thing."
She looks at the skull.
[Burnout] "Jooeeeeyyy." He says with that tone like what have I told you about touching things! He comes to stand beside her as Howards leaving and the Ahroun calls over his shoulder to the fianna. "Say hey to pat pat for me, oh and bridge was writin emo poetry bout you in the part earlier! I'll stop by later."
Then he looks at Joey, What did you do JoJo??
[Burnout] [part/park]
[Killswitch] "Huh."
Joey straightens, and she watches the skull topple downward. Before it gets all the way to the pavement, the Rotagar turns her gaze skyward. No, not really skyward, just up, looking at the buildings, or for higher ground, some place where she can look down at the guts spiraling around the spike.
Howard starts trudging away. Joey turns her head in that direction, brows lift. "What's'a matter, gotta change yer tampon?" she asks.
Then, to Hunter, she says, "I'm gonna get me some height. Shut it," she warns him, complete with narrowed eyes. At least she's not the shortest person present tonight.
[Killswitch] [wits + enigmas: diff 8]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Burnout] [per+street]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 9, 10 (Failure at target 7)
[Burnout] [OH COME ON]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Burnout] Hunter has to keep a grin out of his lips when Joey says she needs to get herself some height. But he doesn't say anything, he just holds his palms out like No no, I'm good I'm good..
"I'mma keep ya' company." And together they look for a vantage point.
[Sorrow] Kora flickers a glance in Howard's wake as he starts to march away. She watches him move, her dark, sure eyes lingering at some point certain between his shoulder blades as he begins to retreat, a singular figure through the dark, still night. There's a frisson or irritation obvious in her mien; maybe it's the crude language. Maybe it's something else entirely.
"If this is a ritual that that dead theurge enacted," Kora says, her voice enough to carry to Howard until disappears behind some sound-blocking object. " - or some connection she established, and it's still active, or whatever she summoned is in there somehow, keeping the offering frozen, waiting for her to come back. Will a rite of cleansing drive it out?" Her attention touches directly on Adamidas, here as Joey and Hunter go off for some perspective, Kora glances up, nods something like acknowledgment.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "If there is somethign bound in this object via spiritual means, exorcism would drive the spirit itself out. A Rite of Cleansing would remove the taint from it, but I don't see how that could really hurt."
She takes a step back and looks at the details of the scene. The spiraling fragments, the broken skull. The Fury removes a willow branch fro her bag, and glass clinks together as she rummages through. She holds two vials, and she inspects one carefully before going for the other. Tears and truly Pure water look alike.
She inhales, and looks at Kora. The female starts her ritual.
[Sorrow] " - Wait." Kora interjects as Adamidas draws out her implements for the ritual. Pure water, a willow wand, whatever she means to use. The Fenrir lifts a chin in the direction of the Vanguard, seeking high ground. "Give them a chance to get a look at it from high up. If they don't have anything else for us when they come down, we can do the ritual. We're stronger together."
[Siege] Linus has only recently taken up the reins of the Rite of Cleansing. He knows the Ritual himself but is quick to nod at Adam's superior Rank and experience. He steps into place, settling onto his haunches as the Elder Theurge begins to draw on the Spirits to assist in removing the Taint that surrounds the Rebar.
Kora interjects quickly, interrupting for a moment and Linus offers a vague grimace. His hand is reaching inside the folds of his clothing, slipping over something along the flesh. A surreal and impossible moment later and the long length of a half-headed spear slides into view along the Godi's arm. He sets the butt on the ground but doesn't rise. Waiting, it would seem.
[Killswitch] The Vanguard go to find themselves some height advantage, Joey falling easily into the lead. She's smaller, lithe, athletic. She finds the nearest fire escape, hardly needs her Alpha to boost her up to the ladder, which comes clattering down. It's the most noise the Rotagar makes as she begins to climb, up and up.
She stops at intervals, Hunter behind her, to look out over the intersection, the spike, the skull. The Garou moving about or standing still, looking on. The only difference from her view at ground level is that the angle is different, but there's something else.
Rather than answering her alpha's non-vocal query, she asks him, "D'you feel that? The air's not as heavy here." She climbs a little higher, enough to note an increased change before looking back at Hunter. "I don't think we're gonna find anything else up here, bro. Everything's centered on the skull. Or the spike, not sure which."
[Rain of Brass Petals] She is ready to start and she's-
Interrupted.
The female stops, and looks at Kora. Her head cocks to the side, and her jaw tenses. The female stops her ritual, and takes cold air into her lungs. The Fury takes a step back. Her eyes don't narrow.
"If removing the taint from this area is important, it must be done, and while we are stronger together, we have to weigh the importance of the act to the time frame we in which it needs to be performed. If you believe that waiting is advisable, then I'll wait."
She goes on to inspect the scene more closely. Adam focuses on the skull in particular.
[Burnout] Hunter keeps an eye on Joey more than he keeps an eye on his surroundings. He lets her go first, navigate the way while his mind is on other matters. The air isn't as heavy she says, thinner perhaps.. and it changes noticeably with a slight increase in height. Whilst not unnatural, most peculiar at this height.
He pauses for a moment after Joey has finished talking and given her opinion on the matter. Green eyes peer around him then focus back on the Rotagar. "C'mon." He says, though the joking Gnawer that left the ground a minute earlier does not return. He looks rather more serious all of a sudden.
Joey gets to repeat what she told him up the top, for everyone elses benefit. Hunter chimes in at the end that he noticed graffiti, like this place was far more active than they were lead to believe. That maybe the place was vacated rather than abandoned completely.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... wait, what if this is a beacon? Like a territory marker... I heard the Eagles had carcasses hung up in their old territory's perimeter... And heads make wonderful warning signs. If humans don't come through here, and the spirits aren't big fans, there's a chance that this could be surveillance equipment."
She pauses.
[Killswitch] "On this side, though?" Joey asks, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and shifting slightly side to side. "And so obvious? There's better ways to watch a spot than a big fuckin' skull in the middle'a the street."
[Burnout] "Ain't no fuckin' camera, JoJo's right ye.. I'm thinkin' more like whoever put this here is clearin' this area for somethin' they got plans for it, maybe already had plans and fuckin' gone and done em too. Clearin' it a peeps, clearin' it a spirits.. "
[Sorrow] "I do." says Kora to Adam, a flickering look that rises, following what she can of the Vanguard's progress until they disappear into the shadows of the abandoned building, only the brief clang of the fire escape against the asphalt marking their progress upward.
From on high, then might see her pale face a wash, turned, chin lifted in their direction. Certainly, they can see the spear Linus has produced from the depths of his person. Kora listens to Joey's account of the thinner air above the earth, then her dark eyes find Hunter's features. She notes the change, the mantle of seriousness that has settled over him. "I'm Kora," she tells him, for they have not previously been introduced. "she who offers sorrow, renders bone, Skald and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland before I pledged to Maelstrom."
When Adamidas proposes an alternate theory, Kora flashes her a thoughtful look. "Like that pack was starting to claim territory here? Or - literally, their eyes. A spiritual guarddog of sorts. Maybe their drove those folks out, and were lairing nearby." Then: Joey. Kora makes a noise of agreement low in the back of her throat. "She's right. Silence's trophypoles were all on the other side. Though I'm not sure it matters. We're still doing the rite, yeah?" says Kora, low-voiced to the Vanguard pair. "Cleansing it. Driving whatever's in, out."
[Rain of Brass Petals] The right half of her upper lip twitches upward for a brief second, she might reveal a canine, but does not instead. The female regards who she has, what resources she has to work with, and she nods once down. Solid. Comfortable.
"Alright," she announces, "shall we?"
She's ready.
[Burnout] "Yeah, me and JoJo gonna get on guard, don't like this. We'll join the howl, but doin' it in ready for'a fight. This things here for'a reason, safe ta' say whoever put it here won't like us messin' with it."
He looks at Joey, their totem bond stronger now, stronger than it has ever been.
You know what to do, don't skimp on the trimmings.
He reaches for her bag, a cloth, a badge -- sheriffs badge today. He clips the badger onto his jacket, slowly wraps the bandager around his upper right arm. And then he's shifting, up up up and down down down but he doesn't continue to a normal wolf. Hunter Matthews stops prepared for a fight.
[-1WP Resist Pain
-1G BB
-1G +2 SoaK]
[Killswitch] Joey angles her head, watching the other Fosterns interact. How easy it is to fall on old habits. Though they three females are equals, Joey slips back, and she watches.
"Right," she says, and she looks at Adam. She pulls a bit of broken concrete from her bag, holds it tight in her hand and closes her eyes a moment. "Let's do it do it."
Stepping back, she shifts, up and up, and then down. Grey-furred and wolf-formed. Hispo.
[-1G Soak, -1WP Resist Pain]
[Sorrow] "I agree," Kora says, a wry twist of her mouth and a look toward Adamidas, then Linus. " - whatever comes out of there is like as not to come out fighting. Be ready, okay?"
This is all quietly spoken, still and direct. Then, like the others Kora shifts - past Crinos, all the way to hispo. Another great beast, brown-eyed, gray-furred, no purity to mark her flanks and withers, just the burn of memory in her eyes.
[-1 WP Resist Pain, -1 Gnosis Trollskin.]
[Sorrow] Stamina + primal urge
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)
to Siege
[Sorrow] Ancestors -> brawl.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]
to Siege
[Killswitch] Once she's shifted into her preferred combat form, Joey tilts her head to Kora. Her ears flick forward, then lower back, and there is some emotion in her liquid dark eyes as she looks from one fostern to another and finally to Linus.
"If something comes, I follow the Ahroun."
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Rite of Cleansing, ladidaaaaaa]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Killswitch] [what is this i don't even]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Killswitch] [doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Siege] Linus rolls his head and turns to look at Adam again as the gait of the moment shifts in place. He nods and settles back to await the Rituals beginning.
* * * *
And it begins.
The thrum of Adam's movements, slow and steady as the Pure Water and Olive branch dance in unison. Practiced, easy and comfortable. A slow circuit is made of the skull and entrails surrounding the Rebar, droplets of water cascading off the branch and Adam's fingertips as the unhinged Fury slowly ascends from her starting place to complete the circle once. Twice. A third time. The air seems to charge as the others settle into place to watch, eyes darting occasionally to regard their surroundings which fail to shift or change much.
The seeping touch of the umbra creeps through the gauntlet, as Adam's call parts the strands of the gauntlet. White smoke, the penumbral fog, seems to permeate the area, digging long slender fingers of oxygenated purity into the ground around the landscape. Howls rise from the throats of those standing around, electrifying the area with Rage and chasing at the Taint...
...And yet as the Howls continue, the punishing force of the Garou's voices joining with Adam's mystic intent, the rebar vibrates duly, dislodging the skull completely and sending it clattering to the bottom. The white smoke seems to diminish and thin, but not vanish, peeling outward from the centre of the intersection to the broad boundaries without.
...And no sooner has it touched the curbside, spread beyond and wafted past the corners of the first buildings, then does one begin to suspect. Hairs creep on necks, curiosities are driven into the ground and something malicious takes effect.
The air vibrates around the Garou and suddenly, the frozen ground seems to leech upward with a startling crackle. Linus' features suddenly slacken as he crumples to his knees, gaze frosting over with something blue. The Spear topples to one side, in slack fingers and he sits there staring at the rebar and skull.
The cloud around them seems to cringe.
And the buildings at the corners seem to haze over and waver, like heat passing between the eyes and distance. The Graffiti on the various walls, obscure and shadowed by the lack of plain light, suddenly flares with symbols hidden among their dense population. It forms a broad square and the smoke that reaches those distant symbols and the invisible lines that connection them across each street suddenly recoils...blanches even...
And all at once they fathom. A dead rite at the centre. Something of intrigue. Something dangerous that they couldn't resist. Within the boundaries of another. A Pit trap.
A dead Theurge's last laugh.
The air grows crisp, bitter and cold and the warping sensation of the air seems to push at the Gauntlet as the binding in those symbols begins to weak and unravel...
[Rain of Brass Petals] She continues, and she knows the motions of the ritual, and all of it is performed with careful, attentive accuracy. There are things to be said about Alethea Adamidas, and at the moot she has told them all that she considers herself a healer above all things. that said, the woman is a stronger ritualist, a better priest than she is a doctor.
She continues through, and the world reverberates and cracks and the white smoke, the smog, the whole thing seems t yield and reveal. She Fury inhales, and continues her ritual. There is something dangerous here, her muscles are tense and her stomach doesn't feel tense or uneasy or concerned. Because she has a task at hand, and she knows what she needs.
It had been the light dangling in front of a gaping maw. And like good prey, they followed.
The spirits are stuck, they are caught mid ritual. Being only half flesh, the Fury recognizes the same thing. She can't stop. Not without dire consequences. Her jaw tenses, but she continues the ritual. She has to maintain the ritual, she has to keep going. It's a trap.
Adamidas smiles.
Well played.
The bitter expression fades, and she perserves. The ritual continues.
[Sorrow] There is that eerie silence as the binding written into the symbols in the broken asphalt begin to waver, slowly unweaving. Linus' eyes turn - bright and sharply blue, the frosted iridescence of a glacier's heart. Sorrow is howling, throat open, raw-voiced, animal now in time with Adamidas' ritual until the world - sharpens - changing. Linus falls forward, his spear sliding from nerveless fingers and Sorrow half-snarls, stalking forward on soft, sure feet to stand over him.
- then it touches her, too. The great beast goes still, just breathing. Her eyes are are yellow-brown in this form, but they are also glazed with blue the color of hoarfrost on an ice-strewn winter's morning. She is still as a stolen breath - unmoved, unmoving.
[Killswitch] For a moment, Joey's howl falters. When Linus falls. When the air flickers. Something is coming. Something's about to be let loose.
The howl falters, but then it strengthens. To say that Joey Oliver is a tomboy would be the understatement of the year. She's got a foul mouth on her, acts more boyish most days than she ever comes near her own gender. But despite all that, she has the voice of an angel.
They can hear it in her howl, as she lifts her muzzle to the sky and lets loose. Powerful, yes, but strangely melodic. She lifts her voice, and her ears flatten back against her skull.
[Burnout] The rabbit springs the trap and it all falls down around their ears. Hunter can't say he is surprised. He has had a bad feeling about it ever since he went up for a better view, saw that graffiti. This is deliberate, this is planned, calculated. He hoped it was for a plan that didn't involve them, hoped that they were unexpected additions to the equation.
They aren't. They are the equation.
His eyes swivel, scanning the symbols.
"They are coming.", he snarls with his shackles raised. He looks monstrous with the blood red flag wrapped around his front right leg and shoulder. He jaws drop with saliva.
"Form up around Rain of Brass Petals!" He steps quickly to one side of her, Joey to take the other and Kora... Kora.. His Green eyes find her, and the Godi. Frozen.. freezing..
"Sorrow!." What was 5 now becomes three, with one still trying to complete a ritual.
Just you and me JoJo. He grins, wolfish, fearful yet unwavering. Tell me what the weather says?
1) First off, thanks for being here guys. I'm going to try and make things as engaging as possible. I tend to post long winded things so if there's any confusion, by all means ask me a question. It's preferable to posting while confused. Just makes things easier. That said all questions, ask me in chat? If there's something you believe is relevant but not to others (I.E - Stats, merits/flaws of note etc.) IM Me.
2) I'm noting this here and now because I don't agree with it: The latest Rule concerning taking hits will not apply for this scene? This does not mean you can't attempt to do it, but it will be handled on a case by case basis and not as a general rule. If you have a problem with this, speak up now and we can talk about it. Otherwise-
3) This is a combative scene and, like all my scenes, has risk to it. That said, I prefer to have scenes that can engage characters and I don't believe purely dicing, does that. So feel free to experiment or ask me questions if you're stuck for something to do. I won't give you answers but I will ask you for a roll of some sort or another and depending on sux, give you some clues or ideas. Don't count on this though, it's less a crutch and more an answer to helplessness.
4) That's about all. Enjoy yourselves.)
[Siege] The Chicago evening is brisk, some might think cold, others simply cool depending on where you grew up. The sky, though, is clear and the heat of the day has been devoured without the cloud cover to keep it safely stored. The Half-moon hangs in the sky, a waxing philosopher mediating the mind. Calm and collection are the orders of the evening and with it, comes the balance of necessity. The demand for answers that settle grudges and old accounts.
This night, a call for Alphas goes out. A circumstance both momentary and abrupt. It is something of gafflings that find bodies painted with the authority of Leaders, tiny things that whisper and flutter and flit out of harm's way at a moment's notice. Respectful of rage, they consistent of little more than the dander off of dandelions, giggly and elusive and most irritatingly, just out of reach.
So fitting then that they are the messengers, whispering stories of a small space somewhere in the city in the midst of a collection of old derelict buildings too far down the city reparation list to be anything more than a squatter's live-in, though the variety of holes, decay and outright stench that lingers on the peripheral of the area is a test of even those of humanity's desperate.
It is a street that is rarely, if ever used by traffic, in a small cul de sac that was made not out of planning design but quanrantined construction. Old lots with crusted over ice puddles burying rotten vegetation are interspersed by construction sites long since abandoned, the 'Construction in Progress' signs staring faded and broken, on bent and gnarled chainlink fences.
The centre of a cracked and pothole ridden intersection is this evening's stage, touched by broken street lamps (not a working one for nearly three blocks in three directions, the fourth a dark maw over the lake) while the Hovel of Cabrini five blocks over seemed, unpleasantly, like a bright point. Here, they find Linus:
The Godi is dressed in a half-coat, cargo pants, black convorse sneakers and a scarf and hat that cover all but his eyes. He is standing in the middle of the intersection, hands tucked into pockets, not bothering to pay much attention to the individuals who are arriving and approaching at their leisure, regarding something in the intersection's middle ground. The exact middle, to be honest:
It is a piece of steel rebar, hung with the drip frozen remnants of some animal's skull. Scattered around the embedded bar, jutting from the concrete itself, are the broken shards and pieces of something red and visceral, while the lay of those pieces on the ground is circular and spiraling. Confusing, were one to look at them for too long. The skull itself is askew, almost looks as it if might topple off the bar at any moment, were it not for the frozen clutch of ice around it.
He stares, head tilted off to one side a vaguely wide cast to those dark brown eyes.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She is what she is.
It's hard to think of her as a pack alpha sometimes, namely because Adam seems to have her head in the clouds and her feet only barely on the ground. This is who she is. It isn't an accident, it's the result of unwavering dedication. She listens to the spirit. She hears, more accurately, if she listened better she might catch more in their message and what-have-you.
She hears them, so she goes.
----
It doesn't quite matter how she gets here, but she takes the shortest route. She arrives, and her boots fall and hit surprisingly calm and even and confident. Most importantly, they are urgent. She arrives, and in the middle- the direct center- there is a skull Her hair wild and tangled and looping in waves and strands and curls. Her eyes are dark and intent.
She looks at Linus, but she doesn't really see him.
She looks at the pile of bone remnants, and the Fury crouches. Her lips purse together, "how long do you think this was here?"
[Siege] Linus brief response is simple:
"Not sure. No one comes down this way, not even the mortals." He doesn't stop staring.
[Burnout] He isn't on an oven. Thank god.
He actually woke up in a bed this evening, a real god damn bed with blankets and pillows and all. His bed to be precise, and upon waking up he found a blond fenrir banging her fist on the door telling him to do what he had already just fucking done -- wake up. There is nothing more annoying than being told to do something you are already god damn doing.
At the table he gets the call. He's eating cereal, at night time yes. He doesn't even finish the bowl, and refuses to clean it and Joey starts preparing to throw him into a wall. Trouble, he says, and she grins. The Vanguard like trouble.
In the green-machine they go, the awakened car with Hunter riding shotgun, Joeys bag of his and her goodies in his lap. They park up a minutes walk from the location and hoof it. Hunter becomes glad of this choice once the condition of the road becomes clearer.
"Adam." He calls out when he catches sight of the two Theurges. "Oh.. you look familiar." He grins to Linus.
[Sorrow] Sometimes she takes the bus, tucks her narrow-shouldered frame into the seat just behind the rear exit and turns her pale face to the dark reflections of the wide windows, watching the still, dark shape of the city roll past, serenaded by the low rush of the heaters, the back and forth patter of low-level drug dealers or mid-level whores or the gossip of elderly women with heavy black handbags and the sort of firm, wide brimmed hats that only church ladies. Mostly, though - Sorrow walks.
That's what she does now; an easy, long-legged gait that says that she is used to getting about on her own two feet. She is dressed for the weather - a dark wool coat, buttoned up to the neck - dark jeans, Doc Marten's wrapped about shanks with laces that were once multicolored, but are now simply white with salt.
"Hey Li," says Kora, low-key when she arrives. Her dark eyes are on the piece of rebar, and she circles it the way a carousel horse circles the organ at the center of the ride, on a fixed sort of orbit. "Adam."
When she reaches his side, she gives him a brief, familiar bump of her shoulder - a quiet sort of affection embedded in the gesture. "How'd you find it?"
Her fine mouth is thinned in consideration as she frowns at the remains spiraled around the rebar, written into the broken skin of the earth. Feels the vague, half-remembered feeling of nausea, the rising gorge when she looks too long. Instead she glances up, frowning at the skull, her dark eyes narrowed in thought.
[Sorrow] Per + Occult!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
to Siege
[Siege] "That'll happen in this city." Is Linus equally simple response to Hunter. He continues to stare, somewhat narrowed in gaze now.
"...Mmmm, spirits in the area are somewhat...reluctant to vacate their hidey holes. That and the Hrafn I have on our front Lawn have been getting bold in their curiosities. Ranging a little farther out than I had expected." Kora's shoulder bump is received with a flicker of feigned annoyance and a murmured 'Watch the suit' followed by an adjustment of his threadbare clothing.
"Pointed it out to me, an hour or so ago."
[Killswitch] There was a time when Joey Oliver would have thought this was cold. Not just cold, but beyond cold. She would have made a colorful comparison between this night and a witch's tit, and somehow worked in something about sno-cones and tunnel snakes.
Tonight? Tonight it's just cold, and hardly requires anything heavier than jeans and a hoodie layered over something warm, a wool ball cap over wheat blonde hair keeping her body heat from completely escaping her. Her clothing is dark, meant to help her blend into shadows and fulfill her role as scout. Or lookout. Or whatever. Except for her scarf, which is bright orange. It hides the lower half of her face and the scars on her throat.
She circles around the gathered, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, messenger bag bouncing gently against her hip, dark eyes on the rebar, the skull, the spiraling mess around it. She doesn't greet the ones she knows, not yet.
"Anybody looked over the Gauntlet yet?" she asks. And it's then that she nods to Adam, eyes crinkling in a smile, and then to Kora, slightly more serious.
[Siege] "...Yeah. Clean as a bell..." The way Linus' features narrow beneath the scarf, which he pulls away from his stubble flecked chin and mouth, says that isn't normal. Not when something so obviously wyrmish is infront of them.
"Relatively speaking...Nothing out of the ordinary, I mean." A glance up at Joey, brow perked as his gaze takes in the brief hint of Heroes. "Bone~Writer. Cliath, Godi to the Last Watch by the way..."
[Burnout] [wits+engimas]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 5, 6 (Failure at target 5)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] He's standing outside in the freezing weather smoking what from the sidewalk looks like a long, thin cigar when the call comes. Gafflings make valiant attempts to get his attention in nonconventional manners, but Howard's vision leaves something to be desired; he misses things, regularly, because he has grown so used to his world being flat and gray that an object changing color, writing appearing in the snow, doesn't grab him anymore. Changes in light, maybe, or a whisper on the wind, these things will make him pay attention.
This particular gaffling is insistent, however. A call has been sent out, a call for the leaders of the city's packs, and Howard scowls. Without a body slumped over the oven to kick him in the ass and spur him to action, with Patrick not yet back from work, there isn't much keeping him from telling the gaffling to fuck right off and continuing on about his evening. He stares through his sunglasses at the lit windows of the home across the street, its owners camped in front of a glowing box that would blind him were he right in front of it, and takes another drag off of the blunt.
"Well fuck-a-doodle-doo," Howard says, unimpressed, and clomps off down the street.
==========
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has met him--which turns out to be everyone but Hunter's packmate--that he's the last goddamn person to show up, and he shows up slowly, ambling, weaving actually, as though he's just come from a mosh pit or a punk rock show instead of his own home. As usual he is dressed like a drunk, color blind hipster, his clothes mismatched and lacking any semblance of aesthetic sense, the colors loud and the fabric tight, his black aviators in place. He stumbles up behind Hunter as Linus is explaining that nothing is out of the ordinary, and bumps into the Bone Gnawer with his bony upper body.
His head turns in the direction of the rebar, with its gory accoutrements, and he drops his gaze further to spit between his boots.
"That is disgusting," is his assessment of the decoration Linus has found.
[Killswitch] [wits + enigmas: diff 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Burnout] [rerolling dif 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] [Rituals+Wits: NO ONE LAUGH]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Failure at target 8)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] [Go ahead and botch you skinny little shit I know where you live.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8 (Botch x 1 at target 9)
[Sorrow] Next step: mess up the boy's hair, just for the flicker of feigned annoyance, that undervoiced watch the suit bullshit Linus throws out. The shadows out here are deep, but softly defined. They each cast a half-dozen small shadows against the broken pavement, wavering among the the never-finished construction projects on the dead-ended street. The city's glow gives them all a sickly orange pallor, and the half-light of the half-moon shines down from the open sky. Only the brightest stars show through the light-haze, and Jupiter there, riding the moon's shadow.
"Cursed ones attacked one of my kin while she was looking at a rental house not far from here," Kora says, low voiced. She gives Hunter and then Joey brief, direct looks. For the former - well, the tempered anger of their brief encounter last week is gone, half-forgotten. She breathes out a half-laugh, dry rather than humored, favors him with the first edge of an expressive half-smile. The half-smile remains for Joey, but there's a stillness in her dark eyes as she glances at the Rotagar. "Welcome back."
Quiet, those words, and not without feeling. Another flicker, this one to Adam. Low, still, irony so subsumed into the tone it seems a function of place rather than person. That they are meeting here, like this, around a piece of rebar topped by a skull, embedded with patterned viscera. "You too."
"Anyway. Drew wanted to rent a house, she was attacked by cursed ones. Barely got away with the aide of Bone Gnawer. They killed the theurge, between them, but the rest of the pack followed Drew and the Bone Gnawer into our territory. They attacked, and we killed them all. Four more garou and a kin, maybe a cursed human. Their path though - " Kora glances up, narrows her eyes against the expanse of abandoned lots, derelict squats, the dark, still street. " - from the house Drew wanted to rent, their path definitely brought them by here."
Kora shoots a direct look between the theurges, three of them. "Does this look like a ritual to you? Something like that? Or an offering of some sort?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "I don't know this ritual," she remarks, and her voice is distracted. Her eyes narrow and she stands to look at it more carefully, "I've seen something similar... but... this is disrespectful. It's a farce of something I've seen crones do."
She straightens up and looks up. There are people there, now. She blinks, and the theurge looks almost startled by the new addition of differing presences. Her attention shifts from those gathered. Joey, Kora, Hunter, and back. Her hands are in her pockets.
"This-"
That is disgusting.
Her eyes flicker to Howard. She raises a brow, recognizes the other theurge, "-this might have something to do with divination, or having some kind of connection. Like I said, the only thing I've seen similar to this isn't my knowledge to have. If it's a connection, it could be to honor something or get that sort of close connection that a ritual is supposed to foster."
[Burnout] Hunter knows what looms out of the darkness behind him, what horribly inhuman hipster seeks to take him by surprise. He can tell because he can smell him. And if he can't smell him, then he can smell his clothes or his dirty curly jew hair. But he doesn't turn around or call out when Howard does what he does best, make a nuisance of himself and state the obvious. He's busy, looking at things.
And he's not looking at what is right in front of them, he's looking at what is right in front of him. The two are very different, despite the fact they stand side by side.
He step closer, reaches out a hand and thinks about prodding it but doesn't follow through. When he speaks he sounds confused.
"It's frozen." He says.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] The Skald wants the Theurges' expert opinions on what this could mean, what could have happened here to have caused someone to leave this adornment jutting up from the middle of the intersection.
"Or maybe someone's just takin' the piss," he says, cramming his gloved hands into his pockets.
It's frozen.
"Oi! Conan!" he says, trying to get Linus's attention. "You see anyone hangin' around when you turned up?"
[Siege] "I will fuckin' perforate you with a flexi-straw, Rite~Wrecker..." Linus responds with a scowl at Howard, sneer creeping onto his features. "No one around. Spirit or otherwise. 'Cept my Hrafn and he went off, soon as I got 'ere."
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... what?"
She can't even wrap her head around what Howard just said.
[Killswitch] Joey turns her attention back to the skull on a pike, glued in place with ice, but not before her attention is caught by the tall skinny kid...with the...what? She stops in her circuit around the group to stare at the Theurge in the aviator sunglasses, dark eyes narrowed, head held at a slight angle as she watches him. After a moment, her head gives a near imperceptible shake, and she stops to simply study the skull.
Kora offers her a smile of greeting, warmth and stillness. Joey merely inclines her head, silent for the moment. "Drew?" she asks, surprised. "Roscoe?" But otherwise, she doesn't interrupt. She just reaches into the pouch of her bag and pulls out a small compact mirror, flicks it open.
It's frozen.
"Hey, what kinda animal's got four horns, anybody know?"
[Peeking: gnosis diff 8 -1 (shiny)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Siege] "...Nothing that I know of." Linus absently mentions to Joey's question, leaning forward after that murmur to examine the side of the frozen skull where the four notches above the temples, that begged the Rotagar's question, sit.
"...S'Ritual, alright but I don't get it. Even if it was, the Theurge that could have done it, is dead. S'fuckin' dead site. Nothin' I've ever seen before..." It's obvious this is irritating Linus. Not knowing, honest as he is about it all.
"Rhyas of varying degree. What's the call here? Cleanse 'n go or...?"
[Burnout] Nobody seems to be paying any attention to him when he says that it is frozen. They skip right past it, ask about horns.. actually that was his own god damn pack-mate. Though he isn't surprised, none of them probably keep half a close eye on the sky as he does. Winston, winston would know. He'd understand.
"It shouldn't be frozen! I mean, ain't been no rain or nuthin' last couple'a days.. "
He shrugs his shoulders, steps back and gives Howard an elbow in the ribs. Whatevs.
"The fucks all this shit about? Why you here? Thought this is the last place you'd be... got your phone books on ya?"
[Sorrow] "What's frozen?" Kora returns, a sharp-eyed look swinging away from Adamidas to Hunter as he nearly reaches out to poke it. Strange how the pair echo each other. The Skald is - well, moving again, circling the rebar at a healthy distance, outside the spiral splattered pattern on the pavement, not looking at it precisely. Just looking around it. Then Hunter clarifies, and Kora's mouth curves with something like - recognition. "Even if it's cold enough, the sun's warm enough to melt snow from the pavement, yeah. You think whatever's connected is still somehow - inside it, freezing the offering?"
"You said divination - " Kora murmurs low, a brief glance at Adamidas, another, more humorless now, for Howard. "Were they looking for some sort of connection with the land here? Hoping to pull some dark thing from the place through to the surface? Could that be how they found my kinswoman?"
When Joey asks what sort of animal has four horns, Kora steps a half-step closer, still careful not to cross some invisible line she's inked for herself on the ground. Her attention rises, sharpening on the crown of the skull, generous mouth curving into a thoughtful frown, looking to see if she can identify the marks Joey saw.
[Killswitch] Though Linus tells her what he saw on the other side, Joey takes a looksee for herself, satisfying her own curiosity. What she sees makes her frown, an expression shown purely in her brown, slightly hang-dog eyes, but it's not the worried sort of frown. Just thoughtful. That's right, Joey can be thoughtful. She closes the compact with a snap and looks around.
A step or two bring her to her Alphas side. "Joey, Laughs in the Face of Death, Killswitch, Fostern Rotagar o' the Vanguard." She looks up at Hunter, brow quirked. "Could be part'a whatever ritual needed a fuckin' mythical critter's skull on a spike," she observes.
"It's frozen," Joey answers Kora, and she walks right up to the skull on a spike and points out the clutch of ice that holds it in place.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Kora's glance goes unnoticed; he's being elbowed in the ribs, though not sharp enough to garner a yelp or retaliation. He, too, steps back, ducking his head so Hunter can keep his voice down, as though either of them know the first thing about manners or etiquette or How To Behave Around Amazons and Vikings in general.
"Yeah," Howard says, low, "in my trousers. Some fuckin' gaffling showed up and I had nothin' better to do. Are you stoned, too, man, why're you havin' a spaz over it bein' frozen? It's fuckin' January. That's what happens. Shit freezes."
[Burnout] "Well I mean, it ain't fuckin' cold enough to be still frozen, not like that--" and he points at the skull lodged in ice. "Somethin' is keepin' it cold ye?"
[Killswitch] [Curiositah!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Heir of the Ruined Day] "Yeah," Howard replies. "The temperature. My fuckin' balls have retracted back into my body, I'm pretty sure that means water's gonna freeze, mate. Christ..."
[Burnout] "You ain't got no fuckin' balls mate."
[Sorrow] "Shut up before I geld you both."
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Howard is drawing a breath to retort when the Fostern Skald threatens to geld both of them. He struggles not to laugh, as though they're in the back of a schoolroom and not out on the street attempting to figure out what happened here. Once he thinks she's not looking, he leans in and whispers to Hunter, rather loudly considering he's going for stealth, "How's she gonna geld me if I haven't got any balls?"
[Killswitch] She's already this close. Linus said the place was a dead zone. She saw the other side, knows there's not much recent to cause mischief over here.
"They don't got anythin' to geld, Kora," she says. Pulling her hand from her pocket, she reveals a bit of an argyle pattern on what has to be an arm warmer. She taps at the ice with her fingernail, and straightens.
[Burnout] Hunter raises an eyebrow at Kora as if to say he'd like to see her try, but his lips don't move except -- "OI JOEY!" But Howard is not so quietly whispering in his ear and he shrugs his shoulders.
"Geld ya' fuckin' vagina shut or somethin' I don't fuckin' know. What's a fuckin' gelding anyway?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] "The head," she says, and looks from Hunter and the pike then to Kora, "it's cold, but with the sun and the fluctuations in temperature there is-"
A moment-
"Yeah, what he said, it's not cold enough, and it's not going to get cold enough, to freeze it solid unless there is some kind of spiritual or supernatural intervention. Could be because of spirits of winter, something corrupted- like an ice hunter or Atcen, but there's no reason they would come down this far. Wendigo's brood aren't fans of this, and I'm not sure that even corrupted ones would be okay with the city."
She turns and looks at Howard. Her attention is direct and her voice is sharp.
"Shut. Up. Stop whining about being cold and humor us. You're a theurge, quit being linear," and to the rest of them, "orders of the day, back on topic. Let's focus."
She inhales, "I don't know what they could be looking for, but it is a possibility, to answer your question, Kora. It's completely possible."
[Siege] ...the Boys bluster and charm as is their want.
...the Girls (Elders) twitch, snap and stare in curiosity.
...And a Rotagar reaches out with a shrug and a tap of a slim finger.
The Ice around the skull cracks visibly and the head of the creature, whatever it may be, tilts slightly and sags. The rebar finds the eye socket with deft anti-climactic ease and the skull goes sliding down with a back and forth plunking that ends half-way, sticking on a lump of ice clutching to the bar's centre.
[Siege] "...Well...That was exciting." A bland, richly sarcastic response from Linus, eying the thing they're gathered around.
[Heir of the Ruined Day] Howard looses a high-pitched snort when Linus claims that was exciting, then sniffs, hawks whatever it is ends up resulting from his efforts, and steps back from the group. He doesn't deem the situation worthy of a parting shot, perhaps, or perhaps he recognizes that attempting to argue with a woman is pointless. There are three of them. And Linus. He's outnumbered.
"'Linear,'" he says, sounding perplexed, before he starts off on a decided nonlinear path back the way he came, sticking to the trudge tracks he'd already kicked into the snow blanketing everything in sight.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... I don't think that's a good thing."
She looks at the skull.
[Burnout] "Jooeeeeyyy." He says with that tone like what have I told you about touching things! He comes to stand beside her as Howards leaving and the Ahroun calls over his shoulder to the fianna. "Say hey to pat pat for me, oh and bridge was writin emo poetry bout you in the part earlier! I'll stop by later."
Then he looks at Joey, What did you do JoJo??
[Burnout] [part/park]
[Killswitch] "Huh."
Joey straightens, and she watches the skull topple downward. Before it gets all the way to the pavement, the Rotagar turns her gaze skyward. No, not really skyward, just up, looking at the buildings, or for higher ground, some place where she can look down at the guts spiraling around the spike.
Howard starts trudging away. Joey turns her head in that direction, brows lift. "What's'a matter, gotta change yer tampon?" she asks.
Then, to Hunter, she says, "I'm gonna get me some height. Shut it," she warns him, complete with narrowed eyes. At least she's not the shortest person present tonight.
[Killswitch] [wits + enigmas: diff 8]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Burnout] [per+street]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 9, 10 (Failure at target 7)
[Burnout] [OH COME ON]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Burnout] Hunter has to keep a grin out of his lips when Joey says she needs to get herself some height. But he doesn't say anything, he just holds his palms out like No no, I'm good I'm good..
"I'mma keep ya' company." And together they look for a vantage point.
[Sorrow] Kora flickers a glance in Howard's wake as he starts to march away. She watches him move, her dark, sure eyes lingering at some point certain between his shoulder blades as he begins to retreat, a singular figure through the dark, still night. There's a frisson or irritation obvious in her mien; maybe it's the crude language. Maybe it's something else entirely.
"If this is a ritual that that dead theurge enacted," Kora says, her voice enough to carry to Howard until disappears behind some sound-blocking object. " - or some connection she established, and it's still active, or whatever she summoned is in there somehow, keeping the offering frozen, waiting for her to come back. Will a rite of cleansing drive it out?" Her attention touches directly on Adamidas, here as Joey and Hunter go off for some perspective, Kora glances up, nods something like acknowledgment.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "If there is somethign bound in this object via spiritual means, exorcism would drive the spirit itself out. A Rite of Cleansing would remove the taint from it, but I don't see how that could really hurt."
She takes a step back and looks at the details of the scene. The spiraling fragments, the broken skull. The Fury removes a willow branch fro her bag, and glass clinks together as she rummages through. She holds two vials, and she inspects one carefully before going for the other. Tears and truly Pure water look alike.
She inhales, and looks at Kora. The female starts her ritual.
[Sorrow] " - Wait." Kora interjects as Adamidas draws out her implements for the ritual. Pure water, a willow wand, whatever she means to use. The Fenrir lifts a chin in the direction of the Vanguard, seeking high ground. "Give them a chance to get a look at it from high up. If they don't have anything else for us when they come down, we can do the ritual. We're stronger together."
[Siege] Linus has only recently taken up the reins of the Rite of Cleansing. He knows the Ritual himself but is quick to nod at Adam's superior Rank and experience. He steps into place, settling onto his haunches as the Elder Theurge begins to draw on the Spirits to assist in removing the Taint that surrounds the Rebar.
Kora interjects quickly, interrupting for a moment and Linus offers a vague grimace. His hand is reaching inside the folds of his clothing, slipping over something along the flesh. A surreal and impossible moment later and the long length of a half-headed spear slides into view along the Godi's arm. He sets the butt on the ground but doesn't rise. Waiting, it would seem.
[Killswitch] The Vanguard go to find themselves some height advantage, Joey falling easily into the lead. She's smaller, lithe, athletic. She finds the nearest fire escape, hardly needs her Alpha to boost her up to the ladder, which comes clattering down. It's the most noise the Rotagar makes as she begins to climb, up and up.
She stops at intervals, Hunter behind her, to look out over the intersection, the spike, the skull. The Garou moving about or standing still, looking on. The only difference from her view at ground level is that the angle is different, but there's something else.
Rather than answering her alpha's non-vocal query, she asks him, "D'you feel that? The air's not as heavy here." She climbs a little higher, enough to note an increased change before looking back at Hunter. "I don't think we're gonna find anything else up here, bro. Everything's centered on the skull. Or the spike, not sure which."
[Rain of Brass Petals] She is ready to start and she's-
Interrupted.
The female stops, and looks at Kora. Her head cocks to the side, and her jaw tenses. The female stops her ritual, and takes cold air into her lungs. The Fury takes a step back. Her eyes don't narrow.
"If removing the taint from this area is important, it must be done, and while we are stronger together, we have to weigh the importance of the act to the time frame we in which it needs to be performed. If you believe that waiting is advisable, then I'll wait."
She goes on to inspect the scene more closely. Adam focuses on the skull in particular.
[Burnout] Hunter keeps an eye on Joey more than he keeps an eye on his surroundings. He lets her go first, navigate the way while his mind is on other matters. The air isn't as heavy she says, thinner perhaps.. and it changes noticeably with a slight increase in height. Whilst not unnatural, most peculiar at this height.
He pauses for a moment after Joey has finished talking and given her opinion on the matter. Green eyes peer around him then focus back on the Rotagar. "C'mon." He says, though the joking Gnawer that left the ground a minute earlier does not return. He looks rather more serious all of a sudden.
Joey gets to repeat what she told him up the top, for everyone elses benefit. Hunter chimes in at the end that he noticed graffiti, like this place was far more active than they were lead to believe. That maybe the place was vacated rather than abandoned completely.
[Rain of Brass Petals] "... wait, what if this is a beacon? Like a territory marker... I heard the Eagles had carcasses hung up in their old territory's perimeter... And heads make wonderful warning signs. If humans don't come through here, and the spirits aren't big fans, there's a chance that this could be surveillance equipment."
She pauses.
[Killswitch] "On this side, though?" Joey asks, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and shifting slightly side to side. "And so obvious? There's better ways to watch a spot than a big fuckin' skull in the middle'a the street."
[Burnout] "Ain't no fuckin' camera, JoJo's right ye.. I'm thinkin' more like whoever put this here is clearin' this area for somethin' they got plans for it, maybe already had plans and fuckin' gone and done em too. Clearin' it a peeps, clearin' it a spirits.. "
[Sorrow] "I do." says Kora to Adam, a flickering look that rises, following what she can of the Vanguard's progress until they disappear into the shadows of the abandoned building, only the brief clang of the fire escape against the asphalt marking their progress upward.
From on high, then might see her pale face a wash, turned, chin lifted in their direction. Certainly, they can see the spear Linus has produced from the depths of his person. Kora listens to Joey's account of the thinner air above the earth, then her dark eyes find Hunter's features. She notes the change, the mantle of seriousness that has settled over him. "I'm Kora," she tells him, for they have not previously been introduced. "she who offers sorrow, renders bone, Skald and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland before I pledged to Maelstrom."
When Adamidas proposes an alternate theory, Kora flashes her a thoughtful look. "Like that pack was starting to claim territory here? Or - literally, their eyes. A spiritual guarddog of sorts. Maybe their drove those folks out, and were lairing nearby." Then: Joey. Kora makes a noise of agreement low in the back of her throat. "She's right. Silence's trophypoles were all on the other side. Though I'm not sure it matters. We're still doing the rite, yeah?" says Kora, low-voiced to the Vanguard pair. "Cleansing it. Driving whatever's in, out."
[Rain of Brass Petals] The right half of her upper lip twitches upward for a brief second, she might reveal a canine, but does not instead. The female regards who she has, what resources she has to work with, and she nods once down. Solid. Comfortable.
"Alright," she announces, "shall we?"
She's ready.
[Burnout] "Yeah, me and JoJo gonna get on guard, don't like this. We'll join the howl, but doin' it in ready for'a fight. This things here for'a reason, safe ta' say whoever put it here won't like us messin' with it."
He looks at Joey, their totem bond stronger now, stronger than it has ever been.
You know what to do, don't skimp on the trimmings.
He reaches for her bag, a cloth, a badge -- sheriffs badge today. He clips the badger onto his jacket, slowly wraps the bandager around his upper right arm. And then he's shifting, up up up and down down down but he doesn't continue to a normal wolf. Hunter Matthews stops prepared for a fight.
[-1WP Resist Pain
-1G BB
-1G +2 SoaK]
[Killswitch] Joey angles her head, watching the other Fosterns interact. How easy it is to fall on old habits. Though they three females are equals, Joey slips back, and she watches.
"Right," she says, and she looks at Adam. She pulls a bit of broken concrete from her bag, holds it tight in her hand and closes her eyes a moment. "Let's do it do it."
Stepping back, she shifts, up and up, and then down. Grey-furred and wolf-formed. Hispo.
[-1G Soak, -1WP Resist Pain]
[Sorrow] "I agree," Kora says, a wry twist of her mouth and a look toward Adamidas, then Linus. " - whatever comes out of there is like as not to come out fighting. Be ready, okay?"
This is all quietly spoken, still and direct. Then, like the others Kora shifts - past Crinos, all the way to hispo. Another great beast, brown-eyed, gray-furred, no purity to mark her flanks and withers, just the burn of memory in her eyes.
[-1 WP Resist Pain, -1 Gnosis Trollskin.]
[Sorrow] Stamina + primal urge
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)
to Siege
[Sorrow] Ancestors -> brawl.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]
to Siege
[Killswitch] Once she's shifted into her preferred combat form, Joey tilts her head to Kora. Her ears flick forward, then lower back, and there is some emotion in her liquid dark eyes as she looks from one fostern to another and finally to Linus.
"If something comes, I follow the Ahroun."
[Rain of Brass Petals] [Rite of Cleansing, ladidaaaaaa]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Killswitch] [what is this i don't even]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Killswitch] [doom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Siege] Linus rolls his head and turns to look at Adam again as the gait of the moment shifts in place. He nods and settles back to await the Rituals beginning.
* * * *
And it begins.
The thrum of Adam's movements, slow and steady as the Pure Water and Olive branch dance in unison. Practiced, easy and comfortable. A slow circuit is made of the skull and entrails surrounding the Rebar, droplets of water cascading off the branch and Adam's fingertips as the unhinged Fury slowly ascends from her starting place to complete the circle once. Twice. A third time. The air seems to charge as the others settle into place to watch, eyes darting occasionally to regard their surroundings which fail to shift or change much.
The seeping touch of the umbra creeps through the gauntlet, as Adam's call parts the strands of the gauntlet. White smoke, the penumbral fog, seems to permeate the area, digging long slender fingers of oxygenated purity into the ground around the landscape. Howls rise from the throats of those standing around, electrifying the area with Rage and chasing at the Taint...
...And yet as the Howls continue, the punishing force of the Garou's voices joining with Adam's mystic intent, the rebar vibrates duly, dislodging the skull completely and sending it clattering to the bottom. The white smoke seems to diminish and thin, but not vanish, peeling outward from the centre of the intersection to the broad boundaries without.
...And no sooner has it touched the curbside, spread beyond and wafted past the corners of the first buildings, then does one begin to suspect. Hairs creep on necks, curiosities are driven into the ground and something malicious takes effect.
The air vibrates around the Garou and suddenly, the frozen ground seems to leech upward with a startling crackle. Linus' features suddenly slacken as he crumples to his knees, gaze frosting over with something blue. The Spear topples to one side, in slack fingers and he sits there staring at the rebar and skull.
The cloud around them seems to cringe.
And the buildings at the corners seem to haze over and waver, like heat passing between the eyes and distance. The Graffiti on the various walls, obscure and shadowed by the lack of plain light, suddenly flares with symbols hidden among their dense population. It forms a broad square and the smoke that reaches those distant symbols and the invisible lines that connection them across each street suddenly recoils...blanches even...
And all at once they fathom. A dead rite at the centre. Something of intrigue. Something dangerous that they couldn't resist. Within the boundaries of another. A Pit trap.
A dead Theurge's last laugh.
The air grows crisp, bitter and cold and the warping sensation of the air seems to push at the Gauntlet as the binding in those symbols begins to weak and unravel...
[Rain of Brass Petals] She continues, and she knows the motions of the ritual, and all of it is performed with careful, attentive accuracy. There are things to be said about Alethea Adamidas, and at the moot she has told them all that she considers herself a healer above all things. that said, the woman is a stronger ritualist, a better priest than she is a doctor.
She continues through, and the world reverberates and cracks and the white smoke, the smog, the whole thing seems t yield and reveal. She Fury inhales, and continues her ritual. There is something dangerous here, her muscles are tense and her stomach doesn't feel tense or uneasy or concerned. Because she has a task at hand, and she knows what she needs.
It had been the light dangling in front of a gaping maw. And like good prey, they followed.
The spirits are stuck, they are caught mid ritual. Being only half flesh, the Fury recognizes the same thing. She can't stop. Not without dire consequences. Her jaw tenses, but she continues the ritual. She has to maintain the ritual, she has to keep going. It's a trap.
Adamidas smiles.
Well played.
The bitter expression fades, and she perserves. The ritual continues.
[Sorrow] There is that eerie silence as the binding written into the symbols in the broken asphalt begin to waver, slowly unweaving. Linus' eyes turn - bright and sharply blue, the frosted iridescence of a glacier's heart. Sorrow is howling, throat open, raw-voiced, animal now in time with Adamidas' ritual until the world - sharpens - changing. Linus falls forward, his spear sliding from nerveless fingers and Sorrow half-snarls, stalking forward on soft, sure feet to stand over him.
- then it touches her, too. The great beast goes still, just breathing. Her eyes are are yellow-brown in this form, but they are also glazed with blue the color of hoarfrost on an ice-strewn winter's morning. She is still as a stolen breath - unmoved, unmoving.
[Killswitch] For a moment, Joey's howl falters. When Linus falls. When the air flickers. Something is coming. Something's about to be let loose.
The howl falters, but then it strengthens. To say that Joey Oliver is a tomboy would be the understatement of the year. She's got a foul mouth on her, acts more boyish most days than she ever comes near her own gender. But despite all that, she has the voice of an angel.
They can hear it in her howl, as she lifts her muzzle to the sky and lets loose. Powerful, yes, but strangely melodic. She lifts her voice, and her ears flatten back against her skull.
[Burnout] The rabbit springs the trap and it all falls down around their ears. Hunter can't say he is surprised. He has had a bad feeling about it ever since he went up for a better view, saw that graffiti. This is deliberate, this is planned, calculated. He hoped it was for a plan that didn't involve them, hoped that they were unexpected additions to the equation.
They aren't. They are the equation.
His eyes swivel, scanning the symbols.
"They are coming.", he snarls with his shackles raised. He looks monstrous with the blood red flag wrapped around his front right leg and shoulder. He jaws drop with saliva.
"Form up around Rain of Brass Petals!" He steps quickly to one side of her, Joey to take the other and Kora... Kora.. His Green eyes find her, and the Godi. Frozen.. freezing..
"Sorrow!." What was 5 now becomes three, with one still trying to complete a ritual.
Just you and me JoJo. He grins, wolfish, fearful yet unwavering. Tell me what the weather says?
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