Erich Reinhardt, Storm's Teeth: October 2013

descent.

[1. There is no post order, but please only post once for each post I make unless I tell you otherwise.

2. Post in 15 minutes or less, and declare/roll in 2 minutes or less. "In 15 minutes" means 15 minutes from my post, not the last player to post before you. If you miss your roll it will be skipped. If it is a soak roll and you miss it, that means you take full damage. So... this is really important.

3. You are free to multi-task, so long as you can abide by the above strictures. If you repeatedly miss 'deadlines' I will ask you to leave your other scene out of respect for my time and the time of our fellow players.

4. This is both a physically and psychologically risky scene for your characters. If that makes you go 'eep!' I will not take it personally if you want to bow out.

5. Please PM now with your personal phobias, triggers, or off-limits themes. If you're uncomfortable with anything in the scene, IM me once (outside of the chat). If you become uncomfortable/distressed due anything occuring in the scene, please tell me immediately in an IM. (If none, no need to tell me 'none'.)

6. Please PM me now with any merits/flaws/traits I should be aware of (moon bound, phobia, nightmares, etc.). If none, no need to tell me 'none'.

7. Keep track of your own health and tempers!

8. Ask questions in the AIM chat. If I don't answer after a few minutes, ping me once in PMs here. In review: AIM chat for chatter and questions, IMs for personal distress, Jove PMs for questions I have not answered within a few minutes.]

Erich

[berserker! perfect balance! strict carnivore!]

descent.

[For clarity and posterity: the following characters are present but are being cinematic-NPC'd. Don't post IC for them, don't ask to roll for them. It means they get a Get Out Of Death/Dismemberment FREE card, but if a situation should arise where you need to switch characters, IM me to request it. You get 1 switch. No back-n-forth.

- Keisha / Still Waters

- Ingrid / Dances With the Hurricane

- Avery / Reverence of Dawn

- Not sure if Milton would be going down here but what the hell.]

descent.

When the Great Alpha cracked the bone, Javed Anubis-Sight stepped forward and led the revel. These past several months, the revel has been one of the most needed portions of every moot. There is so much grief cradling the roots of their rage these days; there is so much tension giving new life to their joint madness. They spend themselves, many down to the last dregs of their fury, their will, and their spirits, and in that utter exhaustion they feel a measure of relief, a flicker of something that a few of them might recognize as peace.

It was so, one week ago, under the full moon. It is halved now, and in the days between that night and this night, Cold Crescent has been gradually emptied, piece by piece. Rebuilt shrines have been dismantled and moved to homes or rooftops or other places that might be kept sacred by individuals. Equipment has been boxed, cleared out. The Den Father wedges youngsters who have been abandoned or orphaned into corners of his own house, on air mattresses or cots brought from the sept. The uppermost floors are almost completely empty, not just of people but of even furniture. One of the last things to go is the little chirping fetish in the elevator. One of the last things left is the awakened challenge floor, because people are trying to figure out how to move it, or if they even can, and whether they must send its soul back to slumber to do anything at all.

Tomorrow night, judgement will be passed, finally and completely, upon the leaders of this sept that did not even last a decade, this sept that has failed because its leaders failed.

Even among those who choose to go into the depths beneath Cold Crescent tonight are divided on what that judgement should be. Eight tribes are represented, at least four packs, and there is no dearth of differing opinions. Yet they go in united: each pack follows one of their own, and they in turn follow one who was willing to shoulder the responsibility for all of them. Not everyone is or can be equally comfortable with that. But this is war.

No one said it was comfortable.

With layouts given to him by the Shadow Lord kinfolk Eva, Javed takes his own packmate and several others down to the graves. The graves have not been exhumed; like the challenge floor, there is still discussion as to what to do with the garou and kin who are entombed here. It is undisturbed, and one figure still lingers here, kneeling over her little sister's grave.

Raspberry Sky has lost weight, and the pink has faded from her hair. Sometimes people bring her food; others say she is breaking the litany and to let her die. She is not mad, though, just heartsore, just lost, and those of her own tribe and her own pack keep their faith in her, even if they cannot keep this endless vigil at her side. She is alone, in her long skirts and bare feet in the darkness, and perhaps those whispers she is giving to the night are prayers.

She looks at them, when they come down. She scans her eyes over them and she knows. Her head turns, her eyes going to one of the darkest corners of an already dark place.

"There is no ladder," she says, her voice rasping. "You will have to fall."

The cover of the hole is heavy and mostly covered by dirt, but it is not difficult for garou to move. When they remove it, looking down through layers upon layers of concrete, they see a dimly lit darkness. Whatever light is down there is a faded, undulating glow, colorless in the way that white light seems colorless but is everything, all at once, blurring to a pale haze. There is no buzz of electricity down there. The light, whatever it is, has another source.

And Raspberry Sky was right: there is no way down

but falling.

Anubis-Sight

The metis has not been comfortable with the dismantling of Cold Crescent, and in fact he has instead thrown himself into patrols. He does not agree with it and yet there has been no opportunity to voice his opposition, as busy as they have been with planning things. He honors the decision of the Great Alpha but he will not participate.

He listens to the Theurge when she explains, and nods silently. He is already in Crinos as they descend to the graves and while he does not recognize her, he recognizes her distress. He offers no comfort; it is not his place, nor his duty. He has other things to do.

And so he helps lift it open in his prodigious Anubis-headed form, and then with a look around he drops down. He directs the effort, and he will go first. If something immediately waits he can likely take damage better than the others; they can get further into scouting after the fact.

And so he stops, scrapes his claws against the cover of the hole to sharpen them, and

Falls.

[Razor claws]

Echoes of the Lost

Tamsin and Hector came to collect Thomas today. They didn't joke about jumping in through the window this time. Hector looked grim like he does not normally look grim and then they set off they-three towards the Spire Sept that is no longer a Sept.

He knows grief. He also knows the loneliness and vastness of it. He does not know Raspberry Sky. He tugs Thomas along if the newest river-runner with mercy coursing through his veins tries to linger. But her words hit his ears and he keeps moving until they reach the covered-up hole.

Anubis-Sight is already there. Hector cannot help him in his human skin and he would turn to catsup at the bottom if he tried. He shifts up into his warm form and he joins the Silent Strider at the slab and helps him move the thing.

He doesn't fall. He jumps.

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe is there with her pack, or most of it. Winona had to attend to family business, and Phoebe wasn't about to stop her sister, no matter how it pained her to do this with one less. Desert Oracle exists so that these Theurges may be better able to do their duties. But, she has Keisha and Sophia, and three is a good number.

And she has prepared her sisters for this. It's "only" recon, yes, but in this place? With its mine of nightmares upon nightmares? It's spirits unknown even to Theurges such as her own great-aunt? Phoebe is going to take precautions. Each of them - herself, Keisha, Sophia - are covered in a white-ish paint. She applied it herself, making the very specific markings. They are not Furies, but they are pack, sisters, family and more than family. And most importantly they are not Ahrouns. They are spirit talkers and healers and summoners and banishers. Their place is not on the frontlines. Hopefully they won't need the bone paint.

She follows Anubis-Sight down in Homid first, but flows upward into her tall, skinny Crinos form. She waits just a bit, then leads her own pack down after the Ahrouns have gone.

She goes to the edge of the hole, takes a breath,

and jumps down.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

You could call her crazy, and you might be right. You could call her distant, and removed and, in those times when she falls victims to the curse of her blood, you would be correct. However, those Greyish-Blue eyes of hers have gazed into the very void of oblivion, they have seen unspeakable horrors, been witness to things she still cannot describe but she can remember every single vivid terrifying detail.

Sophia wasn't here because she was a great hero, she wasn't here because she stood ready to fight to the bitter end, she wasn't here because they needed solid advice from a theurge (her Alpha could handle that and communicate it better to boot!), she was here because something ancient is slumbering under this building, something ancient, something that had been sealed away long ago, and these garou were about to go poking around to see what it was! They needed someone who could stare into the mouth of madness and return relatively intact.

She comes with them, curious eyes always delighted to take in new scenes and situations, but she lingered when she caught sight of the mourning woman. She knew death and mourning as many other garou could not, and she also knew compassion. She gave a soft smile to the woman, but she knew that she could not make it better. Accepting death was a personal journey, one which some people could never get over, so all she could do was share a knowing nod of her head before passing into the darkness.

She would have waited her turn, of course, but once the leader had entered, she would shift to her hispo form to make the leap, four legs are better than one, and the nimbleness of the form allowed her to react to whatever damage might come from the fall... What is better is she would recover from any damage that might follow in a matter of seconds. So into the darkness she went! Without the tiniest concern for what lay down there. Her only concern, was for those who might not be making it back.

Erich

It made Erich angry to see the Sept emptying out, little by little. It made him a little frantic, too, a little desperate. He tries to spend time here in the Cold Crescent nowadays. Whenever he can, he tries to reverse that slow retreat: stubbornly raises their little shrine to Volcano higher and higher, stubbornly helps keep the graves and the borders. Stands in the way of those moving out, sometimes, glaring at them, sometimes demanding to know why they're running away.

It doesn't do much good. People are, in fact, running away. Or retreating, at least. Moving their things out. Moving out, in general, leaving this Sept to fall to whatever fate it might.

Perhaps it is a little irreverent, but Erich has his dinner in hand when he shows up. It's chicken strips from Popeye's. A lot of them. He's dipping them in honey mustard sauce as he follows the troupe into the basement, crunching and munching away. Now and then he offers the bag to Charlotte. When he passes Raspberry Sky,

he leaves the bag by her, his somewhat greasy hand dropping briefly to squeeze her shoulder.

Anubis-Sight is the first down the hole, as is proper. As the only other Ahroun here, Erich is right on his heels, dropping down through that gap in his own birthform. A young man, fair of hair and skin, clear of eye: tall and athletic and well-muscled, hopping fearlessly feet-first down that hole to land far below in a tight crouch.

"Oof," he says on impact. And then looks up to help the rest down.

[resist pain! -1WP. city running! -1R.]

Charlotte

Rite of Summoning. Going for totem strength, spending at least two hours so -2.

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas' eyes sweep over the graves, linger on Raspberry Sky for a moment when she speaks, and then his attention shifts back to mostly rest on Javed. It would be a lie to say that that eerie, colorless light doesn't unnerve him a little, that he is really comfortable with stepping out into space like that. Thomas loves things like not stepping off into the depths of places with no real idea how he's getting back up to the surface, he likes sunlight and starlight, and he likes only wondering a little if he's going to wake up the next morning. If he manages to wake up on enough mornings, he might eventually be transformed into someone most alive when leaping out into the unknown, shrouded in unnatural light, and with no idea if he'll be alive after his next breath; but right now, it's only duty that binds him to this mission. To Thunder. Gaia. This new Sept. To this perhaps-almost-maybe pack.

And so he follows Hector. To the edge. To hispo. And then down.

Furious Lament

Tamsin waits for their fearless leader who she does not know half so well as she likes (can you see it in her eyes? The way she measures those who've come: looks at them and records their names in her mind makes notes about how they're standing what their demeanor is how solemn this rosary cataloguing of allies is) or one of the other fosterns to lead the plummet. Tamsin in fact lingers only because she wants to see how they all go: Do they do it eagerly and with delight or do they do it grimly and with clear purpose? Do they laugh and joke like it's a party? Tamsin probably joked at first when they gathered up joked with those she knew except mayybe Avery because she is in awe of Avery.

The point is that she waits; she waits and she watches because otherwise how is she going to know how to tell it how is she going to know how to say:

They fell one by one;

they had no more hesitation than a star falling does;

they fell like spears;

except for that one guy, he tripped and held his nose like he was jumping into water.

Eventually, though: a war-shaped Fianna leaps too. Hector can hear, of course, over the fog-given totem-voice singalinging: For Gollum! Well not for him! Shit! I just want to find Gollum and have a riddle contest!!!

Charlotte

Wits + Enigmas to convince the Death's Breath to shadow them in the umbra and warn them of threats from that angle.

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Charlotte

They gather upstairs in the now-emptied out corridors of what once was a Sept without a Caern and is now a building without a Sept and Charlotte and Erich are up there for quite some time, and Charlotte is waiting and quiet and still and young and frail looking and blazing and she remembers the day they arrived that chirping spirit in the elevator and how they found Melantha here. They stayed though not long Charlotte does not like the place and never did but Charlotte feels the loss-of-it in strange and haunting ways.

Hours she spends on the summoning ritual, with all of the strange and exacting implements necessary. The wooden bowl full of water; ashes sprinkled across the surface from a fire Charlotte kindled that morning with wood she gathered from the forest near the tinyhouse. Green wood, still have living, which spat and kindled and sizzled and eventually burned, as all things do. Breathed across the surface and -

- they may well have a shadow in the umbra.

Downstairs, Charlotte flickers a glance at Raspberry Sky. Gives her a worried little look that does not quite devolve into a smile. Follows Erich quickly and surely and takes a singular moment to reach for something, then -

- down she goes.

[Gnosis roll to activate healer's torque fetish.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (2, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

descent.

Nothing lies in wait for Javed. No spikes, no spines, no thorny bushes to flay him. No pit of snakes; no arms of the devil. He falls to hard ground, uncovered concrete, and though he feels the shock and the thud when he hits. Wolf after wolf, black-furred to silvery white and every shade in between comes after him, and they are alike enough tonight, unified enough tonight, that they find a rhythm in this already: one falls and moves aside, the other comes down, moves aside for the next. Tonight they are one pack, with one alpha, and though they carry a multitude of totemic blessings and living responsibilities in with them, they are all this evening

a pack of war.

One by one, they all see what lies before them. The blueprints were clear about the levels beneath the ones known to everyone, but even so they were not sure what they would find down here. What they find is that they have dropped onto a concrete floor that stretches across the entire footprint of the building. There are structural roots, of course, enormous pillars here and there, but by and large the entire center of the floor is gone.

The hole is enormous, and ragged, and the edges are charred and black. It is as though someone decided to make the floor below a double-height room and just smashed through the intervening ceiling-floor. Then cauterized it. Up from that hole glows the light, shifting and volatile, and all around the jagged edges of the hole are...

spent fetishes, spent talens, hanging bits and pieces of what must have once been powerful spells of binding and awareness and Gaia knows what else. Symbols are painted everywhere in materials both mundane (paint) and not so mundane (don't ask. don't look closer. don't touch it.) that the Theurges and the Uktena and possibly even the others can tell on sight are protective charms, are alarm bells, are even just prayers of hope and strength. Over the years, many...

many,

many garou have tried to make a difference down here. And maybe they have.

They have another drop, if they choose to go down. And now it begins to feel like a journey into the underworld, layer after layer, level after level, going deeper into the darkness, finding new and more lonely circles of hell.

It seems that the one just beneath them, though, is the termination point. (But it always seems like the end is just past where you're at, doesn't it?) Beneath them is another simple floor, not concrete but earth so dark and so deep now that it is almost black, and out past the points where they know the walls of Cold Crescent stand there appear to be tunnels leading outward, radiating from this place.

This place. Naturally formed, there from the beginning, before Cold Crescent, before Fentress, before the airport, perhaps as old as the city and perhaps as old as the caern,

though no one living knows how old that is,

the birthplace of nightmares.

It looks like water, but even dark water at midnight reflects whatever light is above it. Even dark water allows you to see an inch or two into its depths, but this pool reflects no light, shows you no secrets. No wind moves over the surface, and yet all the strangely shifting light they see by seems to emanate from it. It is enough to cross the eyes and muddle the brain, to comprehend light from utter lightlessness; it begins to feel like one's thoughts are turning inside out. One's spirit squirms. One's skin crawls.

descent.

[Perception + Alertness from everyone please]

Anubis-Sight

[[Per+Alert]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

Furious Lament

[Are we alert like a wily Hobbit Thief, Miss Hall?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

Erich

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Per+Alert]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Charlotte

Perception + Alertness

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Echoes of the Lost

[-1G activate heightened senses and hope nobody brought a flashlight

per + alert]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 5, 5) ( success x 2 )

Siren of Persephone

[percept+alert]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

descent.

[Though there is no wind, the surface of the water down there does appear to move sometimes.]

Erich

Erich's skin crawls to see that hole. That blasted-out, charred pit in the underbelly of their Sept. He is standing close to Charlotte, and close behind Avery-and-Javed. He has been homid this whole time, a young man in a hoodie and jeans, but now,

now,

he shifts. He drops forward, four paws hitting the floor. A big wolf -- a huge one -- a direwolf, a throwback to prehistoric days when men huddled around fires and prayed to angry vengeful gods to survive the year, survive the season, survive the night. Dappled-grey, thick-furred, the Erich-wolf licks his chops and goes to the edge of the chasm.

Then, unless someone stops him -- he hops down.

Echoes of the Lost

After the first drop Hector lingers in his war form that he might withstand another bigger drop if it comes and he lingers still so he can collect the one to whom he is bound and the one who is not yet bound through Fog. Once they join him he melts back into his smaller longer-haired human skin and walking with his eyes squinted like everything grew louder when they left the light above.

If he were alone Hector might have just jumped without saying anything. He isn't alone and he kind of doesn't want his kid to grow up hearing "Yeah and then your dad jumped into some weird water-looking hole that made everyone else's skin crawl and was never heard from again no you're not allowed to go to prom."

So he turns to Tamsin and says out loud, "If common sense says we shouldn't keep on jumping down--"

And then Erich jumps.

"... aw, fuck."

Down he goes.

Siren of Persephone

The warpack nears that hole in the ground, that pit to a deeper pit to a dark, inky liquid. Phoebe, ranking Theurge and Alpha of a pack of Theurges, cautiously steps toward that edge, but stops several feet from it. Maybe more. As far back as she can be and still look down and see that water. There's a reason why she balked a little, backed off and basically said No no guys seriously Javed's got this when it was suggested she might lead them down here on this investigation. Things like her. Things find her entrancing. Spirits, good and bad, wander closer to the Fury for a look, a sniff, a nibble. She edges closer but not too close to that edge.

A shiver ripples through her fur, starting at her shoulders and working its way down her spine, clear to everyone who may happen to be looking her way.

And when she sees Garou preparing to jump down her eyes widen and she says, "No!" Hopefully they stop.

The mission was to see what was down here, check the locks, et cetera et cetera. Siren turns to Anubis and asks, "When do we stop, Anubis-Sight-yuf?" That call was his as leader of the warpack, after all.

Erich

[wits + ath: DO I STOP IN TIME]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Charlotte

Charlotte hits the concrete floor with a whooomph seconds after Erich and seconds before someone else comes after. She falls into step beside her packmate, silver-white against iron-gray. The lingering scent of his chicken strips is in the air around them. Grease and meat hit some primitive, animal part of her brain and but then that reaction dissolves into something else, entirely. Charlotte-wolf pads forward at Erich-wolf's flank and her tail held cautiously straight, her body posture forward and alert. Whatever frailty she seems to have in her human form is not translated into the body of a hispo. They are monstrous creatures, primeval in their immediacy and their intensity and, so too, is she.

Alert now; the great head bends toward the surface of...

...whatever that is below. The theurge whuffs a warning softly to the rest. The gist of it is given to the other garou in chuffs and whines and the bastardized loup-garou of which she is capable in direwolf form.

Erich hears Charlotte familiar in his mind.

See it? Down there. Moves beneath the skinned-surface like a swimming-shark. Surface bulges where it moves like something living-in-belly, does not break.

If Erich, er, stops before jumping, then so does Charlotte. Otherwise guys THAT IS HER PACKMATE and he's not going down there alone.

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas looks down over the edge and the fur on the back of his neck starts to stand up and his lips twitch, baring just a little flash of fangs. He watches the water ripple, tries to follow it for a few seconds, and then Persephone is warning and people are preparing to jump. Or jumping.

IF they stop, he stops, waits. Looks to Javed.

But if they still jump...let's not even play. He follows Hector. Sea monster or no sea monster. Lake monster. Whatever. It doesn't matter.

Furious Lament

The insinuation of movement on that dark and lightless water makes Tamsin snort. The insinuation of movement on that dark and lightless water the way it unsettles something in her like her skin's just beginning to peel off emptiness between skin and muscles shed this weird feeling crawly runupspine feeling makes her lean over, or she is going to lean over, is leaning over, 'til Hector calls her back, and she laughs at him, the sound more guttural because of this-shape war-shape thing, and she says, "Your goal here [to take very literally] the name Echoes of the Lost [punk]," or she starts to say that, has backed away from the water and gone on toward the edge of the burned-out hole the one the ahroun and her alpha already fell down, impatient cliaths, and she gives Thomas her maybe-packmate-one-day-soon a look and

over that totem link says, Hector, you and Erich hold tight for a second; listening to the Fosterns, [Jesus Christ] Gaia Wept

or instead

they stop when Phoebe lifts her voice and she just waits by the hole, looking off down this tunnel or that, but dragging her gaze back to that water.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia moves through the darkness with her eyes and ears attempting to keep track of what was going on around them. Equally she pays attention to the information her nose tells her about the past in this place. The deeper they delve the more she confirms her suspicion. This place was a prison. Something was sealed within this place, long ago, for a reason. Who? Why? These are things she could not hope to know, for it was not her ancestors who might have been responsible for this, she could only imagine this was the work of the Pure Ones, and something told her they would not be forthcoming with answers about this place even if they did know, which they might not when one considers its age.

So for now curiosity seizes hold. However she does share communication with her Alpha across their bond. "If what lays within is too dangerous to be stopped, it will need to be contained..." she says. The message she shared with her alpha was simply a statement of fact, if they couldn't fight whatever is in here, they would need to find a way to reseal this prison and lock it away so that it could be dealt with when they were ready!

She looks down into the hole, and she can feel her heart sinking, not out of fear but because she knew that whatever was down there was likely something an entire tribe, or three, struggled with for centuries. So reason made it difficult to believe they would simply waltz in there and fix the problem in one night.

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Oh that roll was for activating the Bone Paint!]

Anubis-Sight

The metis looks around as the others drop to join him and as they do, his one eye narrows. Of course, the large hole in the floor catches his attention first, though he does not draw closer until all the others are down. They move as one, act as one. Many parts of one being. This is how they will survive and win...as one unit.

He frowns as he looks over the surface of the 'water,' his Crinos lips draw back and his teeth bare at it.

~HT~ "Now would be the time to be ready for anything," he says in the most unnecessary statement he will ever say. "What do we see?" So said because, of course, he sees little.

And then Erich moves to jump down, and Javed's eyes go wide. ~HT~ "Wait. We should all know what we jump down into. No surprises. But once we know...then yes, we go down."

What, are they just gonna sit up there and stare at it? That'd be effective.

Erich

Erich-wolf's forepaws have already left the ground. He's midway into that smooth powerful push-leap when not one but several voices call for him to stop.

So he aborts -- awkwardly balanced on hindlegs for a moment before his forepaws come down on the very edge of the gap. He makes a low sound, a sort of disgruntled keening in his throat, turning on his haunches in a full three-sixty before coming to a stop. Claws on the edge. Head peering over.

Echoes of the Lost

Erich manages to stop.

Hector isn't one to not jump off a bridge just because everyone else is doing it once he's committed to following everyone else jumping off the bridge.

Yeah he still jumps. At least Tamsin is still up at the time to transmit intel?

[FOG HELP.

dex + stealth +1 because fog]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Echoes of the Lost

[Time. Top. Whatever.]

Anubis-Sight

When Hector jumps, Javed growls, but doesn't hesitate.

"We follow."

And that's exactly what he's doing. They move as one, live as one, and possibly...Gaia dammit, Hector...die as one.

Erich

...and now Erich-wolf is making this sort of high-pitched excited-frustrated-anticipatory whine, like your dog when you take him to the beach and he sees other dogs playing in the surf but he's still stuck in the car.

When Javed gives the word, Erich practically bursts off the ledge, leaping down into the void. And into that funky water.

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe calls out for a halt, they should have at least a loose sort of battle plan. Hadn't Erich said his last mission was a bit of a clusterfuck? And now he leads a charge. Or rather, he leads a leap. Stops, of course, but the others?

Phoebe turns to Javed. Who growls. Phoebe lets out something that sounds like a sigh, maybe sort of is, but.

They are a pack tonight. They move together. She looks to her packsisters, speaking over the link formed by Themis.

Drop together after Celduin and the Falcons.

And then, she too leaps down.

[sure why not let's all be scary-glowed]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas has caught glimpses of the movements of the thing down there. But he is, beyond anything or anyone here, going to follow Hector. Even into unknown depth-monster lairs. The most consideration he gives is trying not to land too close to where the surface is rippling.

Furious Lament

Hector can't, or simply doesn't, stop himself from leaping; Thomas has chosen his leader, and plummets. Tamsin stays at the edge of the hole, as demure as any Fianna-blooded monster can be, and she peers down, eyes bright in the dark, until Javed growls: We follow.

What about this, Heck?

The war-pack mighty went down a hole

and they found there another hole

and Echoes of the Lost went down that hole

like an asshole

and his leader followed with a growlowlowl

with a grrrowlowl

with a growlowl we follow

It's not her best, but she's jumping down another hole as she makes it up, her totem-voice thick with laughter. Tamsin: is enjoying herself. She is enjoying being unsettled and uncertain and scared and in a huge pack and not knowing what's next and and and and secrets and

Furious Lament

ooc: ahem, it's not her best SONG

Charlotte

Charlotte-wolf is not as committed to the physical-motion of jumping but she is close behind her packmate and claws scrabble and -

we follow

- there is a moment at the edge where Erich is making that whining noise and Charlotte-wolf is wuffing softly and jumps.

[Gnosis to activate clear water talen. She has not taken it or used it yet, just activating. ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 5 )

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Death wasn't a big deal... it wasn't death that had Sophia concerned for her fellow trueborns, it was a fate far worse than death that concerned her. However, the crescent moon knew that they needed her, and so she went where she was needed. This cavern was ancient, but so too was the blood that coursed through her veins.

She does as Phoebe orders, and soon enough she was leaping alongside her packmate. Curiosity growing every second... She wanted answers, she wanted to know what they were dealing with!

descent.

When Phoebe yells, it echoes. Through and through the air all around them, stale and earth-scented as it is, and down below,

the surface of the water that is not water, black and lightless yet source of light, bulges upward as though in answer, surging but not breaking, pressing as though against some kind of film. It is as Charlotte says: something living-in-belly. That pit, that mine as the once-Warder of this place called it, is pregnant with something that none of them have to wonder about: is it evil? Does it mean harm?

The Beloved Horror finds and calls allies from this place, or did once: they know that nothing in there can be good.

So down they go, to the edges of that water that is not water, and the surface reverts as normal, as though whatever swims so near to its surface is diving into the depths again.

descent.

[Perception + Alertness, hearing-based, diff +2]

Anubis-Sight

[[Per+Alert]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[Do you hear Gollum a-creeping, Miss Hall?]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 6) ( fail )

Siren of Persephone

[percept+alert]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Per+Alert]

Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Echoes of the Lost

[good thing i got this heightened senses -2 diff thing going?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Per+Alertness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Erich

When that water bulges like that,

flexes and heaves in response to Phoebe's call,

a penny -- copper bright and hard and rattling -- drops in Erich's brain. His eyes pop wide. He gives a little hop on his forepaws.

That's the gateway! It's a little yip, as quiet as he can keep himself. That's gotta be the gateway they were talking about, that spits out monsters if you call! Don't make too much noise!

Erich

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Charlotte

Per + Alert

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

descent.

The echoes of Phoebe's shout eventually fade away, swallowed by the darkness surrounding them. They hear only the movement of air from the passageways between themselves and the graves, which seem like a pit most of the time, but would feel almost like sunlight by now.

In the movement of the air they also hear something like a soft thump overhead.

Echoes of the Lost

His eyes fly up towards the space they just vacated before he tilts his head and turns around to look.

Before anyone else can say anything Hector pulls a preemptively disgruntled face and holds a finger up near his lips. The effect would be more accurate if he weren't baring his teeth. It's more of a yo shut the fuck up! than a shh.

Anubis-Sight

He snarls, looks up. ~HT~ "Someone is coming from above. Prepare."

The pool is completely forgotten now, and he looks up to await whatever death is about to fall from the sky.

Because he's not ready to believe it's anyone or anything that will help them. If it is, then it doesn't hurt to be ready.

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe, her attention on the water because she fully expects doom to bubble up like the Creature of the Black Lagoon and shamble toward them, flicks her ears back toward Erich. Then, her head turns toward Javed before she takes a few steps back and looks up, claws flexing. Ready.

Erich

Erich hears it too. Most of them hear it. The big direwolf wheels, turning to face the source of the sound as squarely as he can.

And he steps forward, too. Close to Javed, shoulder to shoulder. Tail to the rest of their warpack.

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas, who can't hear anything coming for himself, isn't about to argue with Javed or Hector. He goes quiet, tearing his eyes from the surface where the thing was stirring to focus on the opening they came through.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia looks at the thing, she gazes, she ponders, she questions. She could guess at what was happening before her but she couldn't quite figure out what it was. She simply tries to put it together in her head. Something was being born in this place, something was being created... Had the Dancers initiated this birth? Had they infected it with a tainted catalyst in order to corrupt it before it had time to regain it's strength? Was the creature before them "Of the Wyrm?" Well... There was one way to find out for certain.

That is when she hears a dull thud in the distance, overhead, and her eyes glance upwards. She is about to inform the others but Javed does so for her, which allows her to focus on the more immediate task of figuring out if this creature was, indeed, a servant of the Wyrm, or if, perhaps, it was simply an ancient creature the Wyrm was hoping to corrupt and exploit in it's weakened shape?

[Sense Wyrm! Per+Occult! I am gonna set the difficulty at 6 but the ST can adjust it as she sees fit!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5) ( fail )

Furious Lament

The Tamsin-monster goes quiet too quiet as a ghost not that she's making much din or racket though really monsters leaping from level to level they can't be quiet they're weighty they're stones; the point is she goes quiet when Javed says something comes from above; quiet when Hector huffs that warning, and she backbacks away circling in order to come at whatever from this other angle, flicking an ear toward the water, and now - now maybe when because of what she's seeing - she remembers to bolster herself against noxious fumes and toxic sludge slime beneath me and slime up above, but her attention is halved at best.

[Hey, right, Resist Toxin on!]

Charlotte

Charlotte does not hear it; but the pack turns and wheels as a group and so does she. Then she turns back. Ears flat and wary.

Sense Wyrm - Per + Occult

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Willpower Roll! :( ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Charlotte

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Charlotte

Beloved Horror..

Charlotte is sure of it. There is something absolutely revolted in her mind-voice. Erich can hear the act of will it takes for her not to puke.

Erich

[i]What? Here? NOW?[/i]

Erich

What? Here? NOW?

Charlotte

Wyrm above. More than -

she can quite comprehend.

- who else comes for this?

Erich

For a beat Erich's ears twitch to no sound at all. Then he snaps his head around and whuffs to the others:

Someone's coming. Might be Beloved Horror. His eyes meet Charlotte's. There's a sense of certainty, of trust, of his weight thrown behind his packmate's, when he adds: Charlotte thinks it's them.

He turns to Javed, then. Tension, taut as a wire, just beneath the surface:

Do we fight or run, Rhya?

Echoes of the Lost

So everybody shuts the fuck up and that's great and all but from where they stand they still can't see the thing. Javed tells them to prepare and Hector glances back to make sure his people are where he can see them and then joins Erich in closing ranks around Javed.

Which looks kind of ridiculous because he's in his human skin and the other two aren't.

Hector gives that up right quick and grows up-up-up into his war form again.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

The wyrm was coming, that is what she understood... It was coming, and OMG was it coming. The weight of its presence makes her physically ill. Her pack mate can likely see it, or perhaps even sense, the way she tenses up and finds herself confronting a powerful wave of something... But she doesn't look at the pool! She doesn't look at the creature under that black membrane, she looks in the direction they came from. The wyrm was coming, and she makes that known to her pack mate. "Wyrm creatures, coming, quickly..."

There was going to be a battle tonight, it would seem, but that battle would not be between the garou and the creature in the pool, not yet anyway, it would be with whatever was coming for it, or them it really doesn't matter whish they were coming for!

Anubis-Sight

He looks at Erich as he draws close, then Hector. And around to the others. They are Cliaths and Fosterns, and their enemies are impossibly strong.

~HT~ "We find the widest ground to fight, and we take a stand. They cannot gain access to the portal. If we absolutely must, we enter the portal ourselves." Because really, where else are they going to run to?" "Ahrouns in front."

Siren of Persephone

[ing+enigmas+Themis]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1

Charlotte

Charlotte's eyes meet Erich's. Her ears are flat. There's a whine in the back of her throat that she suppresses as he shoulders ahead of the rest of them, shoulder to shoulder with Javed. The dire-wolf shifts; changes to Crinos. Emerges into the highest of the warforms all gleaming silver-white. Palms the clear water talen already simmering with a humming, quiet promise and gives it to Erich-wolf to drink of there is time.

Her ears flick as Javed determines that they will stand here and fight here. Another small vial of water. Another hum of spirit beneath her skin.

[Her OWN clear water talen.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 9) ( success x 3 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas twitches a little when Erich says it may be Beloved Horror. He remembers fighting just one of them, his claws sliding harmlessly over Jeremiah's thickened hide, the way he could breathe fire. Seriously. Fire.

But their odds are their odds. They have greater numbers. Fosterns. No few Theurges.

And so he moves on Javed's orders. They'll stand. If it is Beloved Horror.... Well, there's hardly an avenue of retreat anyway.

Siren of Persephone

"Treads the Ashen Path says the same," says Phoebe after Erich, and she moves back a little further if she can, but then she stops. Glancing at the bulge of the filmy liquid, wondering if maybe, maybe? If the creatures in there are not of the Wyrm and not of Gaia, if they're things the Spirals can control, maybe?

But no. At least it looks like that ripple is going to stay down for a bit. Maybe.

Javed's words snap her attention back to him, and she tilts her head back upward. And she takes a few steps to the side as well. Because though she and her sisters are better together, perhaps it's not best to have all their possible healers clustered together in a group. Phoebe circles around slowly, not quite joining Tamsin because she will not give Tamsin's position away, but to the outer edge of their war party.

Furious Lament

Do we fight or run, Rhya? asks Erich, and Tamsin is tense, too, tense at the mention of Beloved Horror coming, coming from what, tunnels, coming the way they came? coming, maybe, but truthfully: she is excited, too - absolutely excited, almost (bloodthirsty) happy, even thinking on the stories she knows of Beloved Horror and their fire and their unstoppable might and well so what.

This. This is questioning: Celduin can [try to] misdirect [Fog, Lights] at the [right] time, let them hear one thing while we say another Two Tongues?

(Do we have your permission to try to be tricksters, sir.)

Circle, circle, until - she looks at Hector, then slinks over to Thomas.

Erich

[gulp! clear water talen.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 4, 7) ( success x 2 )

Furious Lament

[Tamsin lies to Hector over Totemphone.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Echoes of the Lost

[... we're breaking up the band.]

descent.

The Wyrm is coming.

Ahrouns in front.

Slowly, or suddenly, they turn their heads to look up. They do not see the faces of Black Spiral Dancers coming down upon them. They hear the last few thumps of bodies falling downward. They hear sniffing. They hear a low, low little laugh.

Raspberry Sky's body falls in front of them, inches from the edge of the pool. She is covered in gravedirt and blood. Her heart has been torn out.

Is there a more poetic way to say that?

At the cauterized edge of the hole they went into, they see human faces lean out and look down at them. But many of them know: the Beloved Horror is just as dangerous in homid. Some are smirking. One has such cold, cold eyes. The darkest of them, the Alpha, the voice in all minds, cocks his head as he examines the twelve garou who stand below him. Not between him and his goal. They are no threat to him, and all of them know it.

"You will do nicely,"

and give him this: he does sound genuinely grateful.

Erich

[I AM QUITE UPSET. rage roll!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Charlotte

The waiting is the worst part. What else can they do but spread out and wait. Breathless, pulse pounding, the darkness tangible and firm and strange and terrible, the earth a great wound, open to the levels above. The graves and What Lies Beneath.

Charlotte and Erich drink their talens. Little vials of water from the mountains near the tinyhouse. It all seems so... absurd, so small, so futile when Raspberry Sky's body comes pinwheeling out of the sky, her chest torn open, her heart

- gone.

Charlotte bristles with rage. Her own seems such a small furnace and they are mere humans above but just as dangerous; more dangerous than any of them. Certainly more dangerous than Charlotte. The Crinos is craning her head up and back, looking at the smirking faces of Green Dragon's own. Looking beyond them at the roof of the natural crack in the earth, the mouth of the mine -

- remembering the dead.

The dead whose names she does not know. The dead whose faces she cannot remember. The dead buried amidst the earth and the concrete. Not merely the body on the concrete before them.

Her own dead, too. The spirits that whisper in her ear and crowd all around her. The nameless and voiceless and open. The lingering, the endless, the gone. The mad, the glorious. The righteous, the fallen. One more familiar than the rest, Heart of Winter, she invites to share her skin.

[Ancestors roll: ancestor ally - Heart of Winter]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Echoes of the Lost

See: he didn't know her. He didn't stop at the graves to comfort her. Hustled Thomas his big-hearted not-quite-a-packbrother past her. Now she's dead and her body is the thing thumping down towards them and once it hits the bottom Hector's eyes go wide and you'd think he's upset like Erich is upset but he's not.

He's thinking. He's remembering.

He quotes someone else when he opens his mouth and speaks the High Tongue:

You're a monster now, but you can't help it, it's just what you are.

And can't think of anything but blood and war and tearing in this form so he melts back into his human skin. Talk fast Hector:

"Their alpha is a No Moon. Fern killed a No Moon. First of the kill to the greatest in station, they need sacrifice to keep themselves strong, Kelly told us - " Someone heard about this: Ingrid and Keisha and he went into the apartment to investigate. " - shit. Where's their spirit-talker?"

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe moves around the side. Sophia will already know this, because Keisha told them her thoughts, her ideas. That the spirits of the Beloved Horror may be slumbering inside their bodies, making room for the green fire inside their hollowed out, dead meat bodies.

Her head is lifted, but she lowers it a moment, and she speaks quickly to the others.

"If you know the rite to awaken a spirit, use it on them."

Maybe, just maybe, she can explain to the rest of them later.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia watches the scene unfolding. She saw the corpse fall and there was a slight inward smile. The woman was lost, mourning, her death was likely something she longed for and Sophia understood her soul was now at peace. Where it tore others apart it comforted Sophia to know, in a way... Death was not necessarily something to be feared.

Then Sophia hears her Alpha give a command, and she doesn't understand, but she doesn't even remotely question. She was told to begin the rite of Spirit Awakening and she would! Immediately!

Erich

Erich actually gives a little bark-yelp of surprise and shock and horror as Raspberry Sky's body comes thumping down to their level. His head snaps up and there,

there above them, gloating and smirking and standing over them like they've won or something: the Beloved Horror itself. And deep in Erich's chest, cradled by the hard arches of his ribcage, buried under layers of fur and muscle -- somewhere deep inside him his great heart gives a heave. Transmutes grief and shock to pure, raw rage.

YOU [FUCKERS], he bellows up at them. WHAT DID SHE EVER DO TO YOU. She wasn't anything but nice and kind and sweet and you killed her sister, you broke her heart, you left her a shell mourning by the graves day after day after day and that wasn't enough for you, no, you had to come and finish the job, and you couldn't even give her the dignity of leaving her where she lay,

YOU [FUCKERS], I WILL EAT YOUR [FUCKING] HEARTS.

The others: they are preparing, they are planning, they are thinking, they're trying to figure out how to survive. Erich? He's just screaming, trembling with rage, red at the edges of his vision, screaming up at Beloved Horror.

Who probably just laugh.

Or stare, impassive.

Anubis-Sight

He looks up at the face of the Alpha, the rest of the Beloved Horror. The body is just that for now...a body. They will mourn her later, or join her now. He looks up into what is very likely his own death.

He only has one eye, but that eye doesn't blink. He will face death as he faces everything...with honor, and fighting to the end.

Hector explains, and Phoebe gives orders of the spiritual nature. His eye remains locked on the enemy.

There are worse ways to die. "Give the Theurges time to do what they need."

Oh come on...you know you want to say it. He hasn't seen Angel, so he can't mean the reference. But then, maybe it's just fate that he echoes the words. "I would like to fight a dragon."

Eh, close enough.

Siren of Persephone

[EDIT!]

"Theurges, we summon Incarna of Water. Together we shall cleanse this blight."

Siren of Persephone

[that should be instead of the awakening suggestion, and i'ma stop posting now]

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Raspberry Sky, or her body, falls. Thomas looks only long enough to see that she is dead, then looks up at Beloved Horror again. He did not know her either. Even if he did, now is no time for mourning.

Now is the time for defending Theurges, who might be able to help them stop Beloved Horror. Might. Thomas...well...he would not like to fight a dragon. But if there are dragons here...he will fight them.

Furious Lament

Tamsin is Fianna. Raspberry Sky's body falls; heartless. The creatures around the edge of the wound look down; they, too, are heartless; Hector grasps at a thought, elusive - the theurges back-away, begin to try - Javed plants himself more firmly, one eye ragged looking up Tamsin takes this in takes it in and Tamsin is Fianna and y'know what Fianna are right? Right? Fianna are hearts are passion that's what Fianna are and they are stories and Tamsin as Erich begins to bellow as Javed delivers his line quiet oh there is no more quiet no no Tamsin who simmers dark that Tamsin:

she howls her challenge; howls it like it's the last howl she'll ever howl; howls it like it's the last story she'll tell:

[HOWL! And even though it is squandering WP, we will add it in.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

*Sophia corrects her ritual to that of a rite of summoning!*

Charlotte

She seems more luminous, after. More luminous, more settled-in-her-skin. Her madness is ebbed or it is another sort of madness, a deeper madness, a rather-more-calm madness, that still has the Crinos' head lilting back, looking up and up and up. Holding an image sharp and immediate in her head. Holding it and holding it and keening for it. Reaching for it.

Erich can feel the subtle displacement in his packmate as her ancestor joins her in her skin, and Charlotte-Heart-of-Winter begins a Rite.

What she holds in her heart is his death. The wrongness of it. The hollowed-out wrongness of it. The end-that-came and made him less than he ever was. What she sings to him is another song: a promise-of-redemption, or revenge.

Charlotte is -

- calling -

the graves; and those that lie in the graves. The graves as-yet untouched.

Starting with Champion of Honor.

And Wind-on-Concrete, whose sister,

is now dead, too.

[So... Rite of Summoning starting here.]

Siren of Persephone

[dlp!]

First, to the Theurges she's not bound to:

"If you know the rite to awaken a spirit, use it on them."

And across her totem link:

"We summon Water while they Awaken the spirits and the others hold them back. Together we shall cleanse this blight."

Echoes of the Lost

[i just want to roll ancestors for shits and giggles]

Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (6, 9) ( success x 1 )

descent.

In six or so years, the Cold Crescent has buried many beneath its known levels. Garou and Kin. Everyone from cubs to some of the highest-ranked of the nation. Some of the bodies in those graves are still so agonizingly new to the earth, their spirits so recently returned to the homelands. Many of them died burnt by green fire, by the claws of these children of Green Dragon. There are souls laid to rest in those graves who are of Falcon, of Owl, of Thunder, of Fenris, of Cockroach, of Stag, of Uktena, of Pegasus -- and so many more. Some have followed the same totems as the packs who stand at the mouth of hell now.

All dead.

All for nothing.

No one has said specifically when they first encountered the Spirals who call themselves the Beloved Horror. They have killed many. They used to be twelve. They recruit heavily. They have literally sold their souls to become more powerful, to give themselves over more fully to the corruption and destruction they are a part of.

Hector calls them the monsters they are. Talks to those around him, and they don't hear because

YOU FUCKERS.

She didn't deserve that. Jesus. When River of Clouds was found slaughtered she led the moot with a pop song, clapping her hands and calling everyone to sing, to come together, to be a family. For Gaia's sake, quite literally, she tried to inject some hope and unity into the septs at a time when almost all they could feel was death. The night her sister died she healed Jack Law-in-War back from near-death because that was what she did. That was what she always did, who she was. Fostern Theurge of Rat or not, she wasn't a hardass.

They broke her.

They left her a shell.

The Beloved Horror begins to laugh at Erich. I WILL EAT YOUR FUCKING HEARTS.

And oh: they laugh louder.

At Javed's side, Avery glows. With moonlight that does not touch this place, with purity that somehow survives in this place, with righteousness and strength that redeem her from her tribe's madness. She looks at him as he tells her, and others, to give the Theurges time.

It pains her to think she may never see Calden again. Or her father. Her brother. Visit her mother's grave. Give Charlotte the present she was going to give her after tonight. It grieves her deeply to think of all the lives not lived, the ones cut short, the children unborn, all the things that have not been because of those creatures above them.

Give them time, Javed says,

and when Avery turns back to the Beloved Horror, she does something no one here has ever heard her do and she just.

Begins.

Screaming.

Over and over again, the shriek that comes from her throat echoes like a banshee's wail. It is no lecture of righteous wrath, it is no warning, it is no judgement but a warcry, one that rises and rises and resounds from the walls, turning back in on itself to

mingle with the sound of one of the purest voices that any of them have ever heard, a challenge so beautiful it sounds like a poem, it sounds like a dirge, it sounds like dire warning to the Spirals above who are so high above her, so much stronger, so much meaner,

but they stop laughing.

And among the garou below, the crescent-moons begin to gather power among themselves, within themselves, around themselves. They call on things seen and unseen, known and forgotten, and at the core of every ritual lies only hope, only hope, and there is so little of that.

Those of other moons ready themselves with fang and claw, sword and resolve. It is, beyond those threads of hope,

all they have.

The Beloved Horror

descends.

descent.

[Another rage roll for Erich. -1 diff.]

descent.

[Due to Tamsin's incredible howling (and the fact that even the Beloved Horror took pause at the sound of it, and the general sense of resolve and honor that all of you are showing), everyone will take +1 die to all actions (not WP or soak rolls) for the remainder of the scene out of the sheer fact that they are holding nothing back.]

Erich

[ack! rage!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

descent.

[Cinematic Rules:

1: I'll tell you what you need to roll and when.

2: If you have ideas or reminders for me, tell me in the AIM chat!

3: Primarily, write what you want your character to do OOC or in very quick IC posts, with OOC clarifiers if necessary.

4: If I don't tell you to roll something, it means you don't need to.

5: Trust me, trust each other, stay relaxed. In some ways it's actually harder to play fast and loose with fewer rules, so thank god we're all super mature people who put our imaginary friends in lethal situations for fun and profit.]

Anubis-Sight

Everyone has their part to play in this. The Theurges must summon and banish, work their spiritual arts. For the others...they must buy them time. And truth be told, this is a moment Javed has been waiting for. He doesn't get the chance to really unleash his Rage; he holds it back, behind his veil of honor. There is so much there. And along with it more "normal" anger, buried down and mingling with it into one tangled ball of hatred.

Erich loses it, and while Javed does not...from the roar that bellows forth from him, he might as well. And he...waits. He does not charge ahead unless Erich or the others are in trouble. He's buying them time, and that means

KEEP THE THEURGES SAFE

So he moves to block, to intercept, to prevent anyone from getting to them. Others have seen him do this before...take blows for the sake of others. That is his plan...to protect the rest, as much as he wants to rend. Tear. KILL.

[Holding actions to block block block, then 2 rage points toward attacks on those he blocks attacks from.]]

Siren of Persephone

A thrill travels up Phoebe's spine when she hears them. The screaming, the howling. She stands a little taller, and lifts her muzzle up to the level above them, and she lifts her voice in a ululation to Water. The Platte is not so far, and water has ever been a friend to the Fury.

[Phoebe stands with Sophia so that by their powers combined they are Captain Water! Phoebe sings for the summoning, hopefully with a wall of other Ragey beasts to keep the Spirals from being drawn to her captivating charm or whatevs.]

Erich

It's debatable whether Erich hears the orders barked out by Javed, by Phoebe. It's arguable whether he hears Avery, shining-wonderful-not-really-perfect-but-close-enough-dammit Avery, start screaming like that. Iteration upon iteration, like a madwoman, like a banshee, like a berserker out of Erich's own cold north,

or an eagle out of the sky.

It's uncertain, even, whether or not he registers that change in his packmate. How she stands differently, how she even smells a little different. It's hard to say if he registers any of that, because

standing over him, with their smug faces and their smug smirks and their smug hands still bloody from his friend's lifeblood,

the Beloved Horror. starts. laughing at him.

Erich loses his shit.

There are days when he just decides to. When he throws up his hands and goes fuckit and lets loose the proverbial hounds of war. This is not one of them. This is not voluntary, it is not a choice.

This is sheer frenzy: that last furious threat-promise twisting away into a bare-toothed, glaze-eyed snarl. He snaps at the air. He claws at the ground. He trembles, he shakes, he gnaws at his own forepaw in frustrated fury before he simply

launches himself upward, claws scrabbling for the edge, those terrible teeth of his snapping shut like a steel trap at whoever,

whatever might be in reach.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

The first step in summoning is penetrating the gauntlet, if everyone is working together then Sophia will recommend leading, she has certain... Advantages that the others present might not have. So her focus becomes less on this world and more on reaching out to the next world in order to temporarily sever the veil between them, and open a path to the spirit world through which the spirit might be summoned.

She was a distant creature, sometimes she seemed like little more than a dream who passed into and out of lives as a spirit might, and other times she lingered, sullen and dark, overtaken by powerful waves of emotion. She didn't understand humanity as many did, because she was never really human, her earliest memories have intermingled with lives she has never seen or lived, the continuity of her life was one that stretched outward across the expanse of time itself... Glimpses of history, memories forgotten to history. She was young, and simultaneously ancient, in many ways she related better to the spirit world than she did to that of the mortal world. It was why she did not fear death, she understood it, from the youngest of ages she understood that she was simply a part of something that has stretched across the expanse of time itself and for this reason she seemed calm and collected while beginning her summoning. If death took her before it could be completed then it would take her, and that... Would be the end of her tale. It would be a wonderful story to share with her house. A story where courage was shown, but not necessarily at the point of a spear (Not for her anyway). She will not allow herself to fall victim to the beast of War's plan!

Did it matter that she was about to attempt summoning one of the most powerful beings in existence? Not really... Not to her, it was all just part of this life. Was this even her life? Sometimes it was hard to tell... Honestly, it wouldn't have mattered to her if it was. She's never spoken to a god before... There's always a first time for everything! "I hope she's nice!"

[Sophia will summon water... Pierce the gauntlet, then call upon her ancestors before joining the summoning ritual!]

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas isn't really used to dramatic quite-possibly-last stands yet, so howling at oncoming death instead of just grimly staring it down just didn't occur to him. He comes from a place with more grim resolve and pouncing things from behind with no damned howling to serve as a warning.

But once Tamsin and Avery start it up here, Thomas joins them. At least until it is time for biting something. There really isn't an ambush option to ruin. And, maybe this howling at things like you're immortal thing helps.

[Pounce and bite the first thing that breaks through or somehow circumvents the front line there.]

Echoes of the Lost

He's one of the last left in his birth form when the terrors come down the drops for them nothing left to say or shout so soon as his waning-moon packsister throws back her head and looses that warsong from her throat but he waits until the last second like to show them he's not afraid even in his flimsy stupid human skin he's not afraid.

Lost maybe and drifting out here with no clue what he's doing half the Garou he's known buried a thousand miles away but he's not scared he has his pack with him and his people with him and his ancestors at his back.

The screams and the shit-lost of the people come with standing with the people but they do not scream and lose their shit alone.

[snap-shifting to hispo then splitting/rage-dumping actions. background goal is blocking attacks meant for theurges but free-will mode is on so if he can get to their theurge his prime objective is to attack her.]

Charlotte

All dead.

All for nothing.

Charlotte is in there, somewhere. Wrapped up in her warskin and surrounding by the steadying presence of her ancestor, whose spirit and touch Erich has felt before. Encountered before, though fleetingly. A glimpse of old, old wisdom in the brief gleam of Charlotte's pale eyes; a certain warmth to her hands. A certain eldritch distance at twilight, at sunset, as the earth returns to the cradle of darkness, as night descends, as the moon rises.

She feels him frenzy; the snapping concussion of his rage as it ignite and then explodes, fills the space he inhabits, devours him.

The air down here is damp and cool. The scent of Raspberry Sky's blood atomized in the damp, rather fetid underground air.

They move like fire. There's this chaos, the endless, wild scream that Avery unleashes and she inhales. Stands so goddamned tall in the midst of them. Flames ignite around her, this coruscant glow that limns her in glory and the Crinos is still summoning, calling, howling. Her claws open, etching glyphs for ancestors, honor, spirits, vengeance into her own skin.

Calling them.

Calling them,

one and all.

Champion of Honor.

Wind on Concrete.

Raspberry Sky.

Circuit Runner.

- and on, and on, and on.

Every name she heard; every nameless one of them. All dead.

But not,

she hopes,

for nothing.

[Lambent Flame. Continue Summoning. Howl a bit or whatever as part of summoning.]

Furious Lament

Tamsin does not cease howling, just because they descend: why should she? The challenge won't end until they rip out her throat, and even then: howl, breathe, and howl -- she stays behind Hector, but only for now, fixing her gaze on the enemy, the foes, and certainly every story they know for now says that this story they're living will be a dark one, that the thread of hope is small, but it is still a thread, and it is a bright thing, and darkness is a passing thing, she knows, she knows, so --

The ahrouns are in the front; and Hector. Javed says protect the theurges; Tamsin will - fall? - doing this, and Hector can hear her, over Fog, hear her under the sound of her own true physical-world voice, hear her delivering a message to their absent packmate:

Beloved Horror is here; tell Forgotten Question. We're twelve; we're enough, but tell them in case -

[Tamsin wishes to call up Faerie Lights & annoy/blind one of the BH, if possible; otherwise, she will protect the theurges (esp. Charlotte! :D) by bite-claw-rage-bite-claw as necessary, hopefully with flanking. If there's a tricky attack-angle, sign her up for that!]

descent.

[Phoebe and Sophia, roll the Rite of Summoning with whatever mods you get from ancestors/whatever else you've added. Don't forget the +1.

Charlotte, same deal!]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[I will Roll Ancestors to see how many dice I got first!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Charlotte

Rite of Summoning (Wits (mystic intuition) + Rituals + Ancestors + 1

Dice: 9 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

descent.

[Meanwhile:

Erich, roll me 4 frenzy!fun attacks! Because he's frenzied he loses the +1 from HOPE AND LIGHT AND CHALLENGE AND RESOLVE. Sorry. :[ [rear attack, -2 diff]

Javed, roll 3 soaks. +1 does not apply here. Sorry. :[ But it DOEs apply to the 2 attack rolls I want you to also roll for me. :D [attacks will be flanked, -1 diff]

Thomas, roll me 3 attacks of your choosing, including a +1 to each. [flank attack, -1 diff]

Hector, 2 soaks and 2 attacks! [frontal attack, no mod]

Tamsin, is Faerie Lights a roll? Roll it if so! Also roll 4 attacks of your choosing. [rear attack, -2 diff]

Siren of Persephone

[Summon: wits+rituals+1, diff 8 I think for Incarna (or whatever Kai says)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Echoes of the Lost

[soak #1!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Summoning! Wits+Rituals+3+1 And everyone else is so +WP Rolling diff 8, feel free ot change successes if diff is 9]

Dice: 10 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Echoes of the Lost

[soak #2!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Attack 1: Bite! (8+1) -2 Diff]

Dice: 9 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 7 )

Echoes of the Lost

[attack #1! +1? +1! i don't think i specified. he's biting.]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Furious Lament

[Faerie Lights roll! Wits + Enigmas + 1 -1 Diff 'coz Fog.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 1]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Echoes of the Lost

[attack #2!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

Furious Lament

[Er. +1]

Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (3) ( fail )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 2]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 3]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Attack 2: Bite! Because really, let's not overthink this. (8+1) -2 Diff]

Dice: 9 d10 TN3 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 8 )

Erich

[Erich: frenzyattack 1! -2diff.]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 12 ) Re-rolls: 4

Erich

[Erich: attack 1 dmg +1 (totem) +11]

Dice: 21 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 9 )

Erich

[Erich: frenzyattack 2!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2

Erich

[Erich: damage 2!]

Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

Echoes of the Lost

[damage #1, +4]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 6 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Attack 3: Bite! (8+1) -1 Diff]

Dice: 9 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 5 )

Echoes of the Lost

[damage #2, +6]

Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

Erich

[Erich: frenzyattack 3!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 8 )

Erich

[Erich: damage 3!]

Dice: 17 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 7 )

Erich

[Erich: frenzyattack 4!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 9 )

Erich

[Erich: damage 4!]

Dice: 18 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 9 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 1 -1 razor claws, -1 flanked]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 17 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 2 -1 razor claws, -1 flanked]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 )

Furious Lament

[Tamsin. Roll #1. Bite! +1 die -2 diff.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 17 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Furious Lament

[Damage Roll #1]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[Bite #2]

Dice: 7 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Furious Lament

[Damage #2]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 9 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Dmg 1]

Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Dmg 2]

Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )

Furious Lament

[Er, Action #3, Claw!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Dmg 3]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 )

Furious Lament

[Damage Action #3]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Furious Lament

[Action # 4, bite again!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 6 )

Furious Lament

[And last damage]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Furious Lament

[The forgotten dice!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

descent.

Reverence of Dawn

[Bite #1. Dex + Brawl. Rear attack. Fangs of Judgement and Eagle's Beak Active.]

Dice: 9 d10 TN3 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 9 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP]

descent.

[Damage]

Dice: 19 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 10 )

descent.

Reverence of Dawn

[Rage Bite #1]

Dice: 9 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 11 ) Re-rolls: 3

descent.

[Damage]

Dice: 21 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 12 )

descent.

Reverence of Dawn

[Rage Bite #2]

Dice: 9 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 9 ) Re-rolls: 2

descent.

[Damage]

Dice: 19 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 9 )

Anubis-Sight

Keisha

Come on, Beloved Horror spirits! WE LOVE YOU COME BACK! (No we don't love you, AT ALL, but come back anyway)

Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Charlotte

Rerolling 10s!

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 ) Re-rolls: 1

descent.

[1]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

descent.

[2]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

descent.

[3]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

descent.

[4]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

descent.

[5]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

descent.

[6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

descent.

[Erich, Thomas, and Tamsin, roll me 1 soak each!]

Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Soak!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Erich

[soak!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[Soak-y Soak.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

descent.

They drop down below, five of them, all but the lithe blonde with black lines scratched across her face in eerie tattoo. She stays above, and her eyes drift to the pool below. She stretches out her hands, and begins to chant.

As they fall, the Beloved Horror take war-shape, and they go right into the garou. They're not stupid. They did not come this far by being stupid. They go right for the Theurges. They go right for the singer, the sacred, the time-lost, the peaceful.

And in doing so, they gladly show their backs and their sides to the warrior, the berserker, the judge, the storm over the sea, the swordswoman, the children of fog. They do not care. And in seconds, there is no line to defend, there is no battle drawn, there is only the fray.

The first of the dead to rise in answer to Charlotte's call is Raspberry Sky. Her body does not move but her soul turns a sharp corner from its path outward into the homelands. She looks back and sees the Beloved Horror. She sees them and knows them. She sees the face belonging to the last kindness she received while living lost to frenzy now, and she sees what was done to her body.

Javed can see it. The Theurges can see and feel it. The ripple of faintly violet-hued light that shimmers through the air, lurching towards the Beloved Horror. Overhead, the very graves begin to tremble as bodily memories, even if those bodies are mere bones and dust, begin to call back the souls that they once housed. Up there, Circuit Runner remembers her death. Up there, Wind on Concrete feels her sister with her for the first time in months. Up there, the mate of a Shadow Lord kinswoman stirs in his long sleep. Brothers and sisters under all the totems to pass through this sept begin to wake, shuddering to the summoning of the Silver Fang who stands at the mouth of nightmares.

Outside, overhead, across a small courtyard, a hand crafted from bronze

moves slightly.

Two Fostern Oracles call upon the rivers, and that river roils and turns. They call, in one of the filthiest places among the filthiest enemies, for the cleanest avatar they can think will answer to them. They are powerful theurges, and they are bending everything they have to this.

They are the center of the storm that is coming, but they may as well be shielded. Between them and the Beloved Horror are two bodies, both dark and strong and resolved. One has a child coming. You would never know it. He doesn't hold any more back than the metis beside him does.

Nor any more than the garou who are now behind the Beloved Horror, tearing at them so savagely that blood begins to splash across the dark earth,

from both sides.

One of the Black Spirals starts screaming, clutching at their head. Their eyes are wild; they claw at their own skull. Around them is a deep mauve aura, a glow from the female whose heart still sits heavily in their belly. Raspberry Sky wreaks her own kind of vengeance.

It feels like drowning, what Sophia and Phoebe are doing. Every chant, every breath, every note of song feels as though they are being steadily submerged, deeper and deeper, until even the sounds of screams and howls seem distant. They are shadowed by protectors; they cease to see the eerie light, cease to smell the blood that begins to coat the air for everyone else. They are ensconced in a silent darkness of their own, pure and holy but very, very far away. They do not feel death. They do not feel time.

A blessing begins to come down upon them, familiar and yet alien, and they can sense

whoever She is,

She does not like this place.

Keisha is not so lucky. She is calling for things she cannot see and cannot touch and has no way of reaching. She is straining, and she is alone in this, clinging to scraps of hope that it might work, it might work, please please please Gaia let it work please, please, her soul bending to the begging, pleading with the goddess and the spirit world alike, drawing on every resource she has, searching the realms above and below for that which has been sent away,

or sent to sleep,

or shaved away to almost nothing.

come back come back come back come back

til it becomes hard to tell who she is begging. Who she is supplicating to.

They are not the only Theurges working, though. Je'nash stands above still, and her eyes are glowing faintly, and her hands are glowing faintly, and behind them all, the pit begins to engorge from beneath, and through the filminess of its surface they see something white and scaled and half-hidden by watery shadow move, twisting and writing, pulsing like a heartbeat, trying to get out.

Thrashing once, hungrily.

Little baubles of light, gold and green and even a bit pink and reddish-brown and earthy and blue and neon blue, begin floating up from the Fianna. Sprites lift out from her fur, leave her claw-tips, and float upward to the Spiral crescent-moon, dancing around her playfully,

dashing suicidally into her eyes, swarming around her like bumblees, darting in and out, so close to her cornea that she flinches back, stumbles, stops chanting, drops her summoning for a moment, spitting and thrashing at the little lights.

Below, Tamsin is not watching. She is lunging in. She is not afraid. The Fianna are not afraid to die, no matter how much they love life.

Or perhaps it is just: none of them have any room now for fear. Or doubt.

The strongest enemies that any of them have ever faced bear down on them,

but they are not trying to kill them. Or they would be dead.

They come close. Javed and Hector take the worst of it, taking wounds meant for the Theurges, who the Beloved Horror only wants to stop, even if it means losing their delicious heart's blood. Erich and Thomas are not far behind, but only one of them actually notices the pain, actually feels it. Even Avery and Tamsin find their fur bloodied, though not as fully soaked -- they have not realized yet that Tamsin is blinding their theurge, and Avery just seems untouchable, covered in silver light that rests on her like armor.

But she is not. Not to these ones.

On the horizon, Keisha senses a glimmer. They are here. The souls are right here, in these bodies, but they are small and shredded and withered, shaved into almost nothing.

In the depths of their ritual, Sophia and Phoebe both hear the question, soft as a wave.

All they must do is tell Her their need.

descent.

[Net Damage to the Beloved Horror:

Avery: 14

Erich: 19

Tamsin: 14

Javed: 10

Thomas: 10

Hector: 9

Damage for the PCs:

Charlotte: Full Health

Phoebe: Full Health

Sophia: Full Health

Keisha: Full Health

Javed: 5A

Hector: 5A

Erich: 4A

Thomas: 4A

Tamsin: 3A

Avery: 3A

Other NPC'd PCs: No less than 1A, no more than 3A. Do what you like with that!]

descent.

[The Theurge up top is temporarily blinded by Faerie Lights but that won't last. And she's trying to call something from the pit. Fun!

Charlotte has lots and lots of dead allies rushing her way. Raspberry Sky is already incapacitating one of the Beloved Horror.

Phoebe and Sophia have jointly summoned an Incarna who really, really does not like what's going on and is on their side. They need to let her know what to do, though.

Keisha needs to roll another Summoning. She's found the slivers of the Beloved Horror's spirits, but there are pieces missing. She has a keystone to work with now though; -1 diff on that roll!

Erich is still frenzied.

Everyone gets +1 WP because they aren't DEAD yet and +1 Rage because they might be and Erich gets another +1 Rage because the Beloved Horror isn't filling his tummy with their tasty hearts yet.]

Siren of Persephone

Chaos. Frenzy. Fury. Battle crashes and clashes just off to the side, but it's another wave that Phoebe is focused on, her spirit lifting even as everything else gets drowned drowned drowned out, swallowed by the water.

By the Water. Water which can be so difficult to command as jaggling, Water who is so angry.

Phoebe lifts her head, her eyes green-brown-gold in this form. And she asks, "Will you expel the Dragon from these vessels? Please?" she asks again, just shy of pleading because oh Gaia this has got to work.

[Phoebe begs! Please to be exorcising the Green Dragon! If successful, she'll sacrifice some Gnosis to Water as thanks and then maybe help Keisha with her summoning?]

Anubis-Sight

He's bleeding and nearly broken and you know what? Good. Javed is perectly content with that fact, because it means that the Theurges are not bleeding and broken. His job is not to survive this, necessarily; it is to enable the others to survive so they can accomplish what they must. If he falls, then there are the restless dead coming down (and from behind, Raspberry Sky) that can take his place. Perhaps, though it would make his skin crawl to do so, he can join them.

And so he spits blood in the face of the Beloved Horror and continues to act as a phalanx, ready to unleash all of his wrath at his utmost.

[[Blockety blockety block, and 3 Rage for ALL THE ATTACKS]]

Anubis-Sight

[[Oh yeah, and Keisha rolls summoning stuff but Kai already covered that.]]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia knows she does not like being here, Sophia knows she does not care for this place. Why would she? Why would she ever want to be drawn into such a filthy and wretched place? Yet she came, she sensed their need, and she came to aid them, she came to help them wash the blight from this place and, with any luck, perhaps spare whatever this unborn creature is from falling into the hands of the Wyrm.

She knows the price for summoning a creature of such power will be high, she knows it might very well cost her life, if that is what the spirit chooses to take, but that does not concern her in the slightest. She answers the creature's call. "I accept whatever price you deem necessary for the request my Alpha makes of you, and I apologize for leaving so quickly but I am needed." She says as she moves to join them, those who had bought them precious time, they had risked much to buy them that time, and they needed her now.

[Sophia is going to try to heal someone... Javed! No... Hector! Possibly Javed and Hector if she can split healing talens too!]

Erich

There are Spirals, stronger than any Erich has ever faced in his life, and they are bearing down on the Theurges like a freight train of destruction.

There are the spirits of the dead, old and new, and they are flooding this strange subterranean horror show.

There is a god in their presence, the very incarnation of Water, and

Erich is aware of none of this. He is aware only of the smell of the prey, the acrid blood in his maw. Blood and tendon and bits of bone but no, no, no heartsflesh yet.

Not enough: he lunges again, claws digging in, teeth snapping.

Echoes of the Lost

Javed and Hector are shredded after that first wave. That's fine. They don't mind being eaten.

This brilliant narrative post brought you to by 3 o'clock in the morning.

[same thing as before: splitting and rage-dumping for to block for the theurges and then attack anything up in his grille.]

Furious Lament

The Fianna-monster does look up, once; looks up to mark them; looks up, and see - see here? They'd never think it, the humans she interacts with, the kinsmen and the kindswomen, even other garou who hear her speak: um, and so sweet, and so nice, and so human: but there is something in her that loves this. This, fighting; fighting, biting, clawing, tearing - this, not the actual act of the bite, the taste of blood, no no no not that, but the fighting for, the using Rage as it is meant to be used, being bolstered by that righteousness -

oh, she loves it; that fury holds her; it is why she is here. Here where all places = here. And so -

[Tamsin is going to keep on pertecking those theurges! Use that rage, chomp chomp. Again, if there's possible trickery, she's gonna use it.]

Charlotte

The dead are coming. The trust is that the ritual the Silver Fang started continues; in her blood and in her bones, in the glyphs she slashed into her own hide. In the eerie, unbounded howl rising to echo through the footings of the once-Sept above. Charlotte can feel them; Heart-of-Winter knows how they sleep and how they wake. She is one of them. Not here, no: but she has lived and she remembers her death, is startled back into persistence every time she slides into her descendant's skin.

And the battle rages. Still Crinos, the Silver Fang reaches and pulls more talens into her huge clawed hands.

[Splitting action three ways. Spending Gnosis on all three healing talens: 1. Heal. 2. Heal. 3. Heal. Order is: Javed; Hector; Erich; Thomas; Tamsin. Switched up if Sophia heals one of her targets first.]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Oh should also Declare Sophia is intending to spend Gnosis on both those talens! So it is said ahead of time!]

descent.

[Javed:

+4 from Sophia = 1A

Roll me 3 Soaks + 3 Attacks

(Attacks get the +1)

Charlotte:

Still Full Health!

Just healing like a mofo!

Hector:

+4 from Sophia = 1A

Roll me 2 Soaks and 3 Attacks this time.

(Attacks get the +1)

Erich:

+4 from Charlotte = Full Health

Roll 4 Attacks. No +1. :[

Rear (-2!)

Tamsin:

+3 from Charlotte = Full Health

Roll 2 Soaks, 2 Attacks.

(Attacks get the +1)

Flanking (-1!)

Thomas:

+4 from Charlotte = Full Health

NPC now!

Phoebe:

Still Full Health!

Roll Summoning with Keisha!

(Take the +1!)

Sophia:

Still Full Health!

Healing like a mofo!

Keisha:

Still Full Health!

Roll Summoning with Phoebe!

(Take the +1!)]

Furious Lament

[Soak #1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 1]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 2]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Soak 3]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 1: -1 Razor Claws]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

descent.

[Correction: Javed gets 4 attacks]

Anubis-Sight

[[Damage 1]]

Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 2: -1 Razor Claws]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 3: -1 Razor Claws]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

Anubis-Sight

[{Damage]]

Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 9 )

Anubis-Sight

[[Attack 4: -1 Razor Claws (With WP Action Grip]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 10 ) [WP]

Anubis-Sight

[[Damage]]

Dice: 19 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 10 )

Echoes of the Lost

[soak #1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Echoes of the Lost

[soak #2]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Echoes of the Lost

[chomp #1]

Dice: 11 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Echoes of the Lost

[damage #1, +4]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 8 )

Echoes of the Lost

[chomp #2]

Dice: 11 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

Echoes of the Lost

[damage #2, +6]

Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Echoes of the Lost

[chomp #3]

Dice: 11 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )

Echoes of the Lost

[damage #3, +9]

Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )

Erich

[tak 1!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 1

Erich

[dam 1!]

Dice: 17 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 12 )

Erich

[tak 2!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 11 ) Re-rolls: 1

Erich

[dam 2!]

Dice: 20 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 11 )

Erich

[tak 3!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1

Erich

[dam 3!]

Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )

Erich

[tak 4!]

Dice: 10 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 11 ) Re-rolls: 3

Erich

[dam 4!]

Dice: 20 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Furious Lament

[Soak #2 >.>]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Furious Lament

[BITE. BITE BITEBITE. #1.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[Dmg!]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[And bite again! With justice! And willpower!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

Furious Lament

[And damage!]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )

Siren of Persephone

[wits+rit+1]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Anubis-Sight

[Wits+Rituals+1, -1 diff]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Siren of Persephone

Water is asked for a favor, given something in return, and Phoebe and Sophia move on. Treads the Ashen Path goes to heal, Siren of Persephone does what she can to help Still Waters call the ~~rocks soulds of the Black Spiral Dancers back from wherever they've been hiding all this time.~~

~~But the Fury is distracted. She knows, she knows she should be focused, get this done, break their power and make it possible for the others to kill them, but~~

her skin itches. Her fur twitches. Her nostrils flare. There is an anger the Black Fury, so kind, so laid back, who is so much more interested in chilling out with a pile of pot brownies or sharing a bowl than arguing. That anger is a blemish burning in her heart.

They're right. there. The monsters, the curs, the foul disgusting beasts who have wreaked so much horror on this city. And on her family. She tries to focus, tries with all her might, but there is a part of her that wants to RAGE. That cries for vengeance. For cousins. For aunts. For uncles. All lost to these creatures. For her great-aunt who had to watch her entire line, the line that led to Chara Stavros, be swept away. Had to watch their family cleaved in half. Their spirits do not come down from above, because Stavroses have never been buried in this place.

~~No, no. A low growl vibrates out of Siren of Persephone's throat and past her grit teeth. She must do this first. Break their backs so she can taste their blood on her tongue at last.~~

~~Because all good things come to those who knuckle down and get the job done first.~~

~~Siren of Persephone~~

Water is asked for a favor, given something in return, and Phoebe and Sophia move on. Treads the Ashen Path goes to heal, Siren of Persephone does what she can to help Still Waters call the ~~rocks~~ soulds of the Black Spiral Dancers back from wherever they've been hiding all this time.

But the Fury is distracted. She knows, she knows she should be focused, get this done, break their power and make it possible for the others to kill them, but

No, no. A low growl vibrates out of Siren of Persephone's throat and past her grit teeth. She must do this first. Break their backs so she can taste their blood on her tongue at last.

Because all good things come to those who knuckle down and get the job done first.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

People were healed, their wounds controlled for the moment. The immediate threat of death was behind them so she took the time to return... She had left her Alpha to deal with Water, she had left so that those who had been fighting to protect them could recover from their wounds, but when that had passed she returned to speak with the spirit, as it would appear Phoebe had moved on to something else, and she needed to be certain someone clarified what they were requesting of her. They also needed to make sure someone said they were sorry for... Doing other things!

"You who wash the filth from our bodies, and the tears from our eyes. You who brings life to our forests and fields... You whose very essence is the heart of all life on this earth!" Yep she's got Science 1 Bitches! She knows all about those sexy sexy hydrogen bonds! "We stand before you with no right to anything... But we beseech you, to sever the connection between these monsters and the beast that controls them... Do this and we offer you in return anything that you might deem a worthy price. We know your time is precious and ask nothing more... Help us so we might end this blight, and we will do all we can to repay you!" She did not ask water to fight for them, she did not ask water to drown their enemies, or cleanse the blight from this room. She knew they only needed one thing from Water, and asking anything more than one favor from an Incarna was more than enough!

Anubis-Sight

Keisha

There is so much going on right now that makes Keisha's skin crawl. Few have seen the Theurge when she gets around dead things, and of those few that have, none are here. She has likely spoken with her packsisters about this, how her vow to honor life by not taking it doesn't extend to the undead, who are mockeries of the force she considers sacred. But none have seen the way she really loathes them. The raising of Raspberry Sky and all the others...it feels wrong to her on the deepest level she can imagine, even if for the right reasons.

And that's just the start. That belies the pool of nightmares behind them all, what is essentially Green Dragon in Spiral forms trying to raining bloody death upon them to get to that nightmare pool, and so many of her friends and allies nearing death, coming back, nearing it again.

And yet the gentle multi-racial priestess of Themis holds. Because she knows how important this is, to save--well, pretty much everyone. And so she has thrown her ritual tools that she brought with her down, and laid out a circle in which to call to the spirits of the Beloved Horror, coax them awake. She knows where they lay, and she calls upon her power granted by the Goddess, commanding them to come forth as Water tries to floods the essence of Dragon away.

She works in her Crinos form, smaller than that of the others here, though it is not the form she works best in. She is so human for a Garou, after all. And as she calls to the spirits, her dark eyes flash with primordial, wild power. For a moment she's forgetting all the chaos and war around her. There is only her and the spirits, as she trusts the others to keep her, her sisters and Charlotte safe. And as she pulls on those spirits, commands them to awaken, she exults in the spiritual pull she commands, becomes a Wild Child again. If only for that moment.

descent.

Several heartbeats pass, and the cliaths and fosterns do not die.

Where he stands, Th'nak'vis closes his hand harder around Ingrid's throat, lifting her from her feet. Her sword is still stuck through his belly, and her hand is wet with her own blood but she still tries to keep her grip on it, though it slips. Though she thinks, for a moment, that this is the end. His eyes are hard on her face, and the pleasure she can read in them as unimaginable strength closes her airways is

obscene.

The one they call Ikkal'yat, the purported father of the stolen/rescued/adopted infant, seems as shriekingly mad as Erich is right now. His skull is filled with Raspberry Sky, who tears through his psyche and his viscera at once, tears at him with boundless rage, boundless pathos. So he claws at his own head, and he releases gouts of green fire that scorch Milton's flesh, that catch on Tamsin's fur.

Their omega wolf is snapping at the Theurges, chasing them around as the two silver-furred females heal their friends, their allies. They have broken from their duties as summoners and serve now to keep everyone alive for another few seconds, another minute, pouring out their souls to do so.

Sometimes

he licks droplets of blood from their fur before he bites at them, coming so close that there is death in the eyes of Javed and Hector when they intercept him, throwing him back. Each grabs a limb and yanks; each opens up hard lines in the omega's body, tearing him like tissue paper.

The half-moons of the Beloved Horror are another story. They are older than the rest, distant, their heads emptied out. Be'li'xa's soul is so small and frail in Keisha's keyed-in thoughts that she can barely sense it; D'stok's is stronger, but Green Dragon's influence is not weaker for it. They come relentlessly, and they hurt Javed and Hector all over again, biting deeply. Be'li'xa stabs Hector in the side with horns grown from her forehead, curving like a ram's, sharp as knives.

Meanwhile:

Erich is going insane. He can almost hear the heartbeat of that head-clawing rapist infected with Raspberry Sky's soul, and he

lunges.

Perhaps it is best that Charlotte is only half-present right now, that she is busy, that she is rushing from friend to friend to help them. Perhaps it is best that no one pays too much attention to Erich at first, to the hunger and rage in his eyes, as he is leaping on Ikkal'yat and this time the Dancer has no comprehension of the fire he can summon, no power over it. This time, the Dancer does not grow his thickened skin and horns. This time, when Erich bites him, he draws blood. He draws so much blood. Tamsin does see. And Tamsin joins him, grabs an arm in her jaws and drags the full-moon Spiral to the ground, and Hector sees his packsister and joins her, pinning a leg, and they are tearing, they are slicing with their teeth, and Erich is digging his fangs into his enemy's chest, creating a cavity, creating a hole. He grabs bone in his jaws and yanks, tearing, snapping, hungry for that beating, still-beating heart.

Above them all, they hear a scream. It is not the scream of a Spiral who is receiving in many ways the payment for his sins, but Je'nash. She has set the faerie lights afire, burnt them to nothingness, and she has begun her chanting over the pit again, but it does her no good:

the dead have come. Restless, implacable,

vengeful,

the spirits come for her.

They are dim glows in most cases, not even shaped as wolves or men or monsters but vague auras. It does not make them weaker. They come for her, and the fire goes out. They come for her, and rush in through her nostrils and her ears, enter her through her eyelids, under her fingernails, slip under her skin, a hundred of them. The guardians come. Champion of Honor comes for the one who broke him and he sends her off a fucking cliff for what she's done.

The cavernous levels they are in resound with the howls of the dead, the wailing undulations of the vengeful and avenged. When Je'nash hits the ground she lies twitching, not dead but unable to move but to do as the spirits command of her,

clawing her body inch by inch towards the portal that still roils, still surges, aching to be freed, to be opened.

Phoebe goes to Keisha.

Keisha sees her and knows: they have help. And as soon as she meets her Alpha's eyes, she can see the blessing of Water still resting on her, still resting on Sophia. She can almost feel it in the air, the unseen goddess, the ineffable entity that does not rule or represent but is Water, who is going to war against Fire for them.

For her and Phoebe now, so they can do their other work.

Maybe they clasp hands. Maybe they watch each other's eyes. Maybe they just know, as packmates often do, what the other is thinking.

Keisha begins to call their names. Phoebe's power flows into the ritual through her voice's song, as it always does, lifting Keisha's upward, outward, empowering it even further. All around them, the Beloved Horror begins

to flinch.

There is a roar that does not come from the pit.

Or the mouths of the Horror.

It comes from the Dragon, a visage that rises in aura from his beloved. He is Fire, and he is Corruption, and he is Strength, but he is not purity or cleanness. He is not wholeness. Water does not come flooding here; it does not need to. The essence of Water itself, all Water, is simply here. And it is already in them, pushing that which is corrupt out.

Th'nak'vis convulses, once, and Ingrid sees his eyes flash as his hand loosens just enough on her throat for just long enough for her to kick him in his fucking skull. He drops her, and she grabs her sword, slicing it out of him

even if the wounds heal themselves shortly after the blade has left him.

Be'li'xa's soul comes back the easiest, and Keisha can feel it when it happens. It almost begins to help Water push Green Dragon out, but she is fighting it, and yet the two rituals are working. They are working, and the Spiral falls to her knees, helpless -- for a moment.

The same cannot be said of F'yet'cha or Ikkal'yat. They are being torn apart. They are being killed, and if Erich does not snap out of it soon, he is going to wake with the heart of another full-moon in his belly.

Je'nash's very skin is rippling over her bones and muscle as the spirits of the dead wreak their havoc on her. She is being forced to claw her way to the pit, but she will not get there. No, she won't, because her packbrother D'stok is grabbing her, yanking her back, holding on even as both of them are being torn apart inside.

As all of them are being torn apart inside. By Water. By Dragon.

By these Cliaths, these Fosterns, who have not yet died.

descent.

[Net Damage TO the Beloved Horror:Erich: 20Javed: 15Hector: 10Tamsin: 7

Damage FROM the Beloved Horror:Javed: 6AHector: 5AErich: 6ATamsin: 6APhoebe: Full HealthKeisha: Full HealthCharlotte: 3ASophia: 2AOthers: No less than 2A, no more than 4A.]

descent.

[Net Damage TO the Beloved Horror:

Erich: 20

Javed: 15

Hector: 10

Tamsin: 7

Damage FROM the Beloved Horror:

Javed: 6A

Hector: 5A

Erich: 6A

Tamsin: 6A

Phoebe: Full Health

Keisha: Full Health

Charlotte: 3A

Sophia: 2A

Others: No less than 2A, no more than 4A.]

descent.

[Th'nak'vis: Convulsing but otherwise shrugging most things off. Including a sword through his midsection.

D'stock: Twitching and holding onto Je'nash but also shrugging off a lot.

Be'li'xa: Very incapacitated as Green Dragon leaves/her soul comes back.

F'yet'cha: Verge of death thanks to Javed and Hector, primarily.

Ikkal'yat: Pretty much dead/dying while Erich tries to eat his fucking heart. Raspberry Sky, Tamsin, and Hector helped a bunch.

Je'nash: Clawing her way towards certain doom. D'stok is holding her back. Full of dead spirits.]

Furious Lament

[Erich! No! Don't eat hearts! That's what THEY do!! No frenzy no! Char + PU! + PB! + Extra Die!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

descent.

[Erich has +2 WP]

Charlotte

Impossible to know where she is or how or why; the battle rages. The dead descend. The pregnant immediacy of water near them, the river raging, the river roiling, the river. The Silver Fang opens more talens. Crushes the fragile gourds in her great handpaws and scatters the dust over the other Garou. Can hardly be stopped to know or to think or to do; just heals. One by one by one.

[OOC: Gaia's breath: 1. Javed; 2. Erich; 3. Tamsin. If someone heals one of them first, she will heal Hector. Rolling the first, spending Gnosis on the others.

Reflexive: asking that Death's Breath spirit she summoned earlier for a gnosis top-off.]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Water delivers on water's promise, and Sophia looks on proudly at what is happening, but their leader appears... Well... He appears unaffected. She allows water to do as water pleases, and once more the Theurge moves to join the battle, this time to assist Ingrid, and to make use of the last of her healing talens. She might not be able to fight like the rest of them but that didn't mean she couldn't do her part in this battle!

[-1G and -1G... Using a Moon Sign on Th'nak'vis! Using a Gaia's Breath on Javed! If there is a next round she will use tooth and claw!]

Erich

[recover from frenzy?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Furious Lament

Erich burrows; he burrows and burrows, locked in that frenzy; caught by it, and Tamsin, Tamsin is a galliard, Tamsin is the poet's moon, isn't she, isn't she even now, furious and blood-drenched, simmering-not-boiling angry, oh yes, and Tamsin the galliard, she speaks to Erich when he keeps burrowing, speaks to him quickly in the old tongue again, tries to call him into remembering himself:

remembering that it is they who consume hearts

who have swallowed that dark meat down

who let it burn in their bellies where they rot corrupt bad

bad don't better remember

-- and there is a brief spark-thought for the absent packmate, brief spark-thought:

the dead are helping

we've killed some;

[just in case (just in case)]

and then she spins lashes-out and her goal is STILL to protect the theurges because it's working, isn't it? She howls for the joy of how it is working and see this is the story

and

[So. Main goal: still protect the theurges. But. Then bite bite bite rage! While Fianna-ily making noise. As usual, she WILL take the tricksy angles if she can- ]

Erich

Ah:

there it is. Hot blood. Twitching muscle. Cracking bone, the sudden contraction of collapsing lungs, the wheezing breath rushing from the adversary's mouth. Blood-bubbles, weakening hand-paws pushing, batting, failing.

There it is:

that quivering, convulsing heart, the last spasmodic squeezes of an ill-spent life. He can smell it, the slavering, glaze-eyed monster Erich has become. He can smell it and it smells like fear, it smells like hunger, it smells like victory, it smells like vengeance.

He is biting, he is savage, he is horrible: he has a paw planted on the Spiral's snarling face, or perhaps it is a screaming face; he is muzzle-deep in the Spiral's chest, his teeth are crunching crunching grinding crushing and little flecks of blood are everywhere, jetting from severed arteries, oozing from all those surfaces laid raw. He is almost patient now. He is relentless, he is dogged; he is gripping some stubborn jut of bone in his teeth and shaking it, stubbornly and furiously, whipping it back and forth in his teeth, back and forth and back and forth until finally

something gives,

something pops,

the sternum comes free and he whips it aside. Storm's Teeth turns back on a monstrously smooth swing of his shoulders; lunges in and closes his jaws around his prize. The musculature of his neck tenses. He rips that shuddering heart from its moorings on the great vessels of the chest,

crushes it in his jaws,

and --

and awareness flickers back to his eyes. Storm's Teeth spits that fetid chunk of muscle back out. Crams it into Ikkal'yat's dead face, for that matter, and then roars at him for good measure. Backs off the body of his foe, then; swaying a little, terribly wounded himself.

He does not pause. He does not falter. He looks about. Takes stock. He makes his slow way toward -- toward Je'nash and D'stok, the two of them locked in a stalemate of life and death.

Erich helps. He plants a paw on D'stok's head, shoves him face-down into the floor, slams those bloody teeth of his shut on those ever-vulnerable joints of the neck.

descent.

[Ikkal'yat, Ahroun of the Beloved Horror: x_x]

descent.

[Tamsin: roll me 4 attacks and damage, quick as you can, no diff mod, +1 to the attacks]

Furious Lament

[1]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Furious Lament

[dmg]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Furious Lament

[2]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Furious Lament

[dmg]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )

Furious Lament

[3 + wp]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Furious Lament

[dmg]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Furious Lament

[4]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 4, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )

Furious Lament

[dmg]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

Anubis-Sight

The metis drips blood from his black fur, the baleful gaze of his one eye set in a jackal-like head glaring out in a stare more animal than man. Gore-flecked lips pull back and snarl with every wound taken, every wound delivered. How he's held together at this point, who really knows? But he is, and he has a look of malicious glee as the Beloved Horror fall to pieces under the weight of the Theurges.

There are Spirals to kill.

First is F'yet'cha, grabbing that head and pulling fiercely to separate it from the body, aiming to put the creature out of its Wyrm-ridden existance. (No putting out of misery. That would be a merciful thought, and there is no mercy here.) And then he turns to Be'li'xa and goes to rend her..

And then throws more of his Rage into an all-out charge and assault on the Alpha, coming to help Ingrid against him.

[[Attack on F'yet'cha, Attack on Be'li'xa, and then 2 Rage attacks on Thak'na'vis.]]

descent.

[sophia roll me a soak]

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe and Keisha are as yet undamaged. Far be it from the Theurge to willfully try to change that, at least for herself, but as soon as it seems their work is done the growl that's been steady in her throat rises to a roar and she twists away.

When she first approached Keisha to form this out-of-the-ordinary pack she told the Theurge that Gaia gave us all claws but she made some sharper than others. Phoebe's claws are not very sharp.

That's why Gaia gave her teeth.

[1/R/R bite on whomever is closest!]

Siren of Persephone

[forgot to mention, -1R to snapshift to Hispo!]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Shit am I soaking?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Siren of Persephone

[WP]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

descent.

Erich spits Ikkal'yat's heart into his face. And thus the last surviving full-moon of the Beloved Horror dies. He is falling into his homid shape as his spirit leaves him, and as Raspberry Sky leaves him, and it is Rasperry Sky who continues -- and finishes -- the work that Tamsin began.

She embraces him. Not his body nor his bloodied muzzle but something deeper than that, touching him spirit to spirit the way that she might have even been able to in life; she calls him out, tells him it's over, he can come back now, come back, even after he has roared in the dying Spiral's face. Even as his packmate comes alongside him and crushes a gourd into him, healing him yet again, drawing him back yet again.

Voice, touch, and spirit reach to him at once and return him to himself. And no: because he is an Ahroun and a Shadow Lord, he does not falter. He walks to the beta of the Beloved Horror and bites his neck.

D'stok is losing Green Dragon, but he has not lost himself. He rears, throwing Erich backward, letting go of Je'nash, whirling on the garou again. He is dripping with wounds, covered in them, and he lunges to release green fire, but

chokes on it.

So instead he roars, slashing at Erich's front, leaving raking claw marks that undo the careful work that Charlotte has done again and again. It is a last-ditch effort, though; after that, D'stok runs.

Tamsin stays on the Theurges, the sisters who call spirits back to their homes. It is working, and so Tamsin guards them, but the Beloved Horror feels the changes being wrought inside of them. Each one has released their last breath of fire; each one feels, as so many garou have felt when they can no longer hold their totem,

abandonment.

They are wild, chaotic, lost in this, and they fight madly, incoherently. They are not unified. They were six and now they are five. With D'stok running, they are four. With their totem gone, they may as well be nothing at all. Be'li'xa is the one who limps towards the Theurges and the Fianna, her eyes wild, her little smile evident even in crinos, but her claws are brittle and stick in Tamsin's fur, dragging through the blood-soaked hairs. She wants to at least kill one of them. She wants to at least die with some

what would you call it, Be'li'xa?

Honor?

But she is, in fact, dying. She was never one of the strong ones. Green Dragon left her first, left her easiest, abandoned her to give greater strength to the others. Her own soul is so shattered that its return only weakens her further, and she looks more pitiful than terrifying, and maybe it occurs to Phoebe or even Tamsin to spare her, oh, spare her, poor thing, maybe we can cleanse her.

She is one of the ones who corrupted Kelly. She is one of the ones who ate the hearts of their human victims. She would have put any one of them on a pike to save herself.

Tamsin feels Hector at her side, coming back to her after Erich leaves the corpse they held, and then: Celduin does not spare her. Celduin destroys her, and with her all the corruption she has caused. They kill the thing that took the young theurge cub and told him he was just another monster. They kill the thing that urged Fern to feed her hearts, to find her victims, to give up her own soul. They kills the thing that seems

almost grateful

to finally die.

Ikkal'yat is a corpse, his chest cavity erupted and his shredded heart lying on his human face.

F'yet'cha lies dying, twitching, every breath bringing a new mouthful of blood. He is not far enough gone to die and return with his rage; he is not well enough to even move. He lies dying until the Silent Strider, looking like a god of Death itself, comes to him and digs his claws into the omega's skull. Tightens. Twists. Pulls. Part of F'yet'cha's spine emerges with his head, dragged out and thrown to the ground. Now he, too, is nothing but a corpse.

Be'li'xa lies in crinos in death, eyes open but sightless, neck broken and neck torn open.

D'stok has run. And it is Ingrid, perhaps one of the fastest among them, who goes after him, only to lose him in those tunnels that he has traveled many, many more times than she has.

At the edge of the pit, Je'nash is released, and the ghosts drive her to the dark surface. But she is not of Green Dragon's anymore, and her touch is both Water and Death now. She puts her hand on the black surface, and

calls.

It is not a word that any of them know, and it is not a word that any of them can bear to hear.

Th'nak'vis looks at the moon sign that Sophia throws down. Of all of them, he alone still clings to the tail of Green Dragon. He alone is strong enough that the totem has not completely abandoned him. He

laughs at her, balls up one warformed fist, and hits her across the side of her head, knocking her to the ground, caving in a part of her skull. The ground beneath them begins to shake, putting some of the garou off their feet, making others steady themselves rather than lose their balance. The Theurge he just struck has blood to spit out of her mouth, has wounds that would kill a human in minutes, but her body will heal them, her body will survive, albeit with a struggle.

Th'nak'vis is surrounded by twelve garou. His pack of six has dwindled to three corpses, a coward, and a witch. And yet he stares at them, unafraid, untouched, sneering, growling back in their faces as the earth shakes all around them

and the blackness of the pit surges

and the surface splits

and a white-scaled tentacle erupts from it, reaching up and swinging around, reaching for them. The air feels wrong suddenly, filled with a silent noise that fills the skull with pain, that makes the bones tremor. Water has done her exorcism and departs instantly, retreating so quickly it is as though she was never there. The dead shriek as one and leave the bodies they are inhabiting, running for the homelands, running for the peace that they momentarily surrendered in favor of vengeance. They run.

And as it turns out, the Beloved Horror is running, too. Je'nash freed from the ghosts. Th'nak'vis untouched by the moon sign. They are bolting, while Ingrid chases D'stok and Javed kills F'yet'cha and Celduin kills Be'li'xa, while Sophia spits out a molar, while Keisha and Phoebe feel Water release them and move to fight, to help, to do something. While Charlotte calls on the spirit that is trying to run also, asking it for a gift, and it thrusts Gnosis at her before it, too, bolts from the area.

The first thing Phoebe's teeth make contact with is that tentacle. And it makes her mouth burn, like licking a battery.

descent.

[Je'nash and Th'nak'vis are running, as D'stok did, splitting up in 3 different tunnels.

Bigass tentacle is bigass and terrifying and all the ghosts and spirits are bolting, but it also flinches and shrieks (?!?!?!) when bitten, like it is trying to retreat.]

Furious Lament

No! Javed, Hector, or Avery could call her back; they could, they could -

They could call her back to fight the tentacle; the thing from the pit, reaching, reaching - but they will have to call her back.Because Je'nash who was ghost-ridden, Je'nash who the spirit of Champion of Honor flung down from a cliff, who was harried oh yes harried by faerie lights, Je'nash who touches the water and summons up this tentacle-thing: she flees

and the Fianna follows, follows THAT ONE, seething, teeth gleaming limned in blood,

calls on fog calls on it calls on it to fill the tunnel that twisted creature tries to escape down,

and she wants to kill it kill it killit

anything

just - kill

Erich

There's a moment of bewilderment that Charlotte can feel across the totemlink -- and perhaps it is a relief that she can, once again, feel Erich's presence there, sane and not-unhinged. Then, with a short snarl of frustration, Storm's Teeth wheels away from the whatthefuck that just erupted from the pit.

The Dancers run. He gives chase. There are three of them, and only one of him. He would have liked to tear D'stok's spine out. He thinks Je'nash could really, really, really benefit from being dead. But of the three of them, Erich knows who is important, who is the lynchpin, who may very well begin this cycle all over again if allowed to escape.

And so:

he plunges into the tunnels, chasing Th'nak'vis into the dark.

Siren of Persephone

The first thing Phoebe's teeth connect with is that huge tentacle. The second thing is, too, and the third. Again and again, that skinny Theurge who not so long ago was just so clumsy. You wouldn't know because she was careful, slow, precise with her steps so that her long legs didn't tangle together like a newborn giraffe. She's a little better now, a little more balanced.

She bites and it burns and that doesn't matter. Unless she someone stops her, she's going to keep biting in hopes she can cut through the thing, leave it squirming on the ground beneath her paws.

Charlotte

Charlotte plunges after Erich.

She will not leave him alone.

Anubis-Sight

The Strider loves ripping heads off. Yeah, it's probably best that we not think about that too much. He doesn't.

And as much as he would love to continue ripping, that giant tentacle emerges and the jackal head snaps that way. Phoebe is already biting down and--let's face it--they have to stop it, before it wreaks havoc on everything.

~HT~ "The Pit! Drive it back!." The words may not reach Erich and Tamsin, and even Charlotte is running off. Those that remain...they have to do this.

And he launches himself at the tentacle, razor-sharpened claws not yet dulled, ripping and shredding.

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia felt the pain of the creature's fist, she felt her skull fracture, even cave in a little in places, if it was enough to break bone like that it was enough to cause her to whimper, and to drop her on the floor in shock. She lays there a moment or two, but she is rising soon enough to realize that the leader of the Beloved Horror was fleeing, and... Oh look the thing is awake!

They still had no real clue what it was... They had no clue what it could do to them, what it even wanted, or if maybe, just maybe, it was possible to stuff this genie back in the bottle? They had to try something...

So she tries to give it an order! "Go back to sleep!" [Attempting Command Spirit on the thing!]

descent.

Celduin and the Desert Oracles fall on that tentacle. Whatever their other focuses, whatever else they think of, they fall on it to destroy it. Bloody Hector, enraged Tamsin, stalwart Thomas lunge for it, tear at those heavy scales, and the Oracles whose joint summonings made any of their survival possible just fall in, shredding, biting, clawing at the thing in a rage. The Falcons, too, shining white and glistening black, throw themselves onto that heavy muscle, standing between the edge of the pit and the rest of the garou as they know that in battle any second one of them may fall

or be pulled.

The tentacle flinches and retracts, letting out strange screams from no visible mouth as it is abused. It does not bleed, but it makes those sounds that begin to sound the way blood looks when it drips or sprays from a wound. It is not a spirit, and it does not answer Sophia's command. It is not of her realm. It does not care for her spiritual gifts.

Baklava Republik goes after Th'nak'vis, though. And Milton goes after Ingrid and D'stok. Fog swirls into existence within those tunnels, but it does not seem to help... the garou, at least. The Beloved Horror used to call this place one of their homes. The Beloved Horror, even what is left of them, are all near-elders or elders in fact. Even Ingrid's stealth and Milton's attention cannot find them. Even Erich's rage ends up unspent in the darkness, where no sound or scent or hope remains to lead him to

that

fucking

bastard.

Back in the lower levels, the tentacle is slinking away, writhing as much as it can from the jaws of the garou. Its one arm is as long as six of their crinos-formed bodies; yet it seems almost... larval. It is young and those scales come off too easily. It was called. It was not expecting to be hurt like this. And it retreats, finding not food or sustenance -- whatever sustenance that is -- but pain. It begins to slip back into that split-open membrane between this world and something else entirely, thrashing away from the garou after knocking several of them against the concrete walls and pillars, after knocking Avery into a pillar and flipping Keisha over, after making Phoebe's mouth erupt into burns that hurt more even as they begin healing, that leave a sour taste in her mouth. It was far from harmless, and they are worse from tangling with it.

But it, like the surviving members of a pack that a week ago seemed unkillable, runs from them.

The light from nowhere and nothing remains, shifting. The membrane re-seals. Untroubled by the guardians who used to watch over the mouths and exits of those tunnels, the last three members of the Beloved Horror escape.

And the corpses of three others,

and the re-closed portal,

and redemption of the dead,

cannot wash the sting -- the fear and the rage -- of that truth from any of their hearts.

Furious Lament

[No way man no sting/fear/rage. We're gonna try to be galliardy one more time and do a SUCK IT howl. But pretty. With the last of the WP. + 1 die from earlier. Blah.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Well.... Maybe it didn't care for her command, but... It retreated back into it's home, and for the moment that was all that Sophia cared about. Whatever this thing was... It was not time to confront it, or deal with it. It was time to celebrate their temporary victory. It was time to share the information with the other Garou. It was time to discuss what should be done with this strange creature, and return when the decision had been made... Hopefully that would be soon!

When the battle finally seemed over Sofia stood ready only to look after the wounded, and to learn what price water sought for her aid. She would never dare to go back on her pledge! Not to an Incarna! Those things would keep here here... After those were settled she would take her leave.

Siren of Persephone

[Pheeb's also howling, let's see how this goes: charisma+performance+1]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Anubis-Sight

No howling from the Strider. Which is not to say that he doesn't feel the exultation of the victory (and it is a victory, if not a complete one). He doesn't smile, but that they all survived and three of their undefeatable enemies did not...it is victory by any possible definition.

He howls during the moots, he howls when entering a new city. Once a battle is done, he lets others do the howling and tends to cleanup. Always back to duty, this one. And is, after all, clean up to do here.

Siren of Persephone

Phoebe lets go of her hatred, just for a little. The Beloved Horror has been halved again and weakened, their totem gone away far away wherever green dragons slither off to. And this thing, this larval monster thing that is not spirit but something other, something their eldest Theurges can't name and have not heard of, it's here, it's a threat, it has to be dealt with.

And so they do, some of them. They work together to hack and bite and tear away at it, driving it back beneath that membrane, sending the kaiju back to whatever portal world exists between this one and the next.

For a moment, Phoebe stands there, watching the surface as it settles, and a few more moments she concentrates on something else. And then, and then? Light. It ripples through her fur, bright and multifaceted, shining from her jet black fur. The Wyld, it flows through her body, healing her, and those burns? Well, probably they disappear, or at least lessen a little.

Then she lifts her head to join her voice with Tamsin's, and it is all at once relieved and joyous. They've succeeded, sort of. Three escaped, but surely they'll be found.

[-1G for Wyld Resurgence, pretend this went before the howl I am so out of it, heals 3B or 2L, can drop a WP to heal an Agg instead, though]

Erich

Into the dark. Into the dark. Into the dim, the distance, the strange echoing bends and curves of tunnels uncorrupted minds cannot hope to understand.

Released from the grips of his frenzy now, Erich feels the burn in his lungs. Feels the ache in his muscles, his legs. Comprehends, though does not quite feel, the wounds tearing themselves open again on his side. He chases, he chases, he chases, and as fast as he runs it seems that bastard,

that fuckface whose heart he is going to chew to shreds one day,

is faster. Is getting away from him. Is gone.

Erich slows. He stops. Charlotte comes up behind him and he turns, anger glittering in his eyes, savagery dripping red from his jaws. He looks at his pack-sister and he steps into her, rubs his head and the side of his neck roughly, forcefully against hers.

Then he turns. He bellows into the tunnels, as loudly as he can:

"THREE DOWN, THREE TO GO. KEEP RUNNING, YOU COWARDS, BECAUSE WHEN I CATCH UP I'M GONNA EAT. YOUR. FUCKING. HEARTS!"

Erich Reinhardt, Storm's Teeth

Saturday, October 26, 2013

raspberry sky :[

eat your fucking hearts.

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