Tamsin
[Um. Middle school crushes. I WILL TOTALLY GIVE YOU THIS FOR REAL. Dude named Adam Thomas who was this nerdy guy who was really into film and kind of pretentious and arrogant but 'chill' at the same time with backswept brown hair. Book characters from LotR. Probably Faramir. >.>]
There are no useful merits. *g* Only Elvish and the language of Numenor. There is 'Persuasive' as a Manip specialty, but y'know.]
Twilight
Avery Chase and Calden White attending the New Year's Eve concert put on by the Denver Symphony Orchestra in Civic Center park, which was teeming with people. Downtown is still packed as the last of the evening's fireworks are just a fading, ashen afterburn in the sky and the vendors are packing up and the stage lights are off and the crowds pick up their lawn chairs and blankets, pack up their picnic baskets and trash and coolers and children and head back through the darkened streets searching for their cars.
Instead of heading back to 19th and Arapahoe, though, they head south after the concert, just another couple among hundreds, among thousands in the warm, dry evening air.
John Pauling's Dessert Restaurant. That's where they're headed, because Calden couldn't quite believe the name or because Avery heard about the creme brulee or the baked Alaska, an access point for the Cherry Creek Trail. And after the dessert, well - somehow the evening is balmier after the first crush of the crowd has retreated from the city and the Cherry Creek Trail will take them a bit of the way across town before they have to emerge back into the city for the walk back to Avery's place.
---
Hector, Tamsin, and Jack are here for wholly different reasons tonight. They did not go for the Symphony, and they did not go for the fireworks, though they they were there, hunting through and haunting the crowd, because Tamsin espied a large man with tattoos she recognized from one of the press photographs in one of those Denver Post stories she hustled out of one particularly flattered research librairian.
He sat away from the symphony, eating a fucking Italian sausage and then another and then another and then a funnel cake and then popping two beers and drinking them and contemplating the cans but throwing them away, all littering as he sat on the steps of a building not far away. Sometimes texting someone with big meaty fingers and watching the crowd without watching it. When the crowd started moving, streaming away, he remained behind for some time, watching the people move with hooded eyes. If he missed the trio of Garou taking turns on point, hanging out in the crowd, speaking Elvish and dreaming of Adam Thomas's braces, well -
- they do have Fog as a totem for a reason.
Later he headed south, and maybe they say Avery Chase through the crowds by then - her breeding is a bright thing and the Garou can all sense it against the darkness - but this particular tattooed thug paralleled her path rather than following directly, stood on a corner a block away eating the heel of a Subway sandwich he pulled from the trash, then considered tearing into the paper (he is so hungry these days), then stood on a corner at least a block away from the dessert bar, frowning at the emptying streets.
It is some time before he moves again and now it is harder to follow him without being seen. Easier to do so from a distance because the crowds are smaller here, lighter. Because they can see him from a block away, crossing in the streetlights, bending down to a cheap old Buick idling in the middle of some street. Jerks his head and someone hands him a weapon that he makes some pretense of concealing. He can mostly hide it underneath his leather jacket, and that is why the bastard is wearing a leather jacket when the temperature has yet to dip below 80 degrees.
And lo, he heads down toward the Cherry Creek Trail.
Just not by the access trail.
Twilight
[EVE OF INDEPENDENCE]
Avery Chase
They seem to be doing this a lot lately. Actually going out. Being seen in public. The solstice party, the gala, now this. They walked here from her condo, but they are not walking back. The Dessert Ranch. Someone in a beach chair by Avery's blanket had talked about it, and so: they go. Her arm through his arm. Her hand resting on his elbow. Strolling.
She has no idea that Hector and Tamsin are here. Truthfully, she has not met Hector at all, and Tamsin only the once, and neither of them invited her to the Civic Center Independence Eve Celebration, and it's polite to dance with one who brought you, so naturally her attention has been slanted in Calden's favor even when there were explosions going off overhead. And she hasn't seen Jack since she heard about his near-death. Heard about: she was not there. She could not have helped him if she was.
As they walk, she talks idly about the display, and the music, and in general, focuses most of her energy and attention on her companion for the evening. The proper term is 'escort', but that word has soured connotations these days, and she avoids it even in thought. If she is noticed, it will have to be by one of those lovely tribes who are not quite so shining. Despite everything going on in the city, Avery Chase is unafraid. Avery Chase refuses to be caught dead in the throes of paranoia. And that's coming from a woman who actually is quite fine with white after Labor Day. But paranoia is never fashionable.
[Perception + Alertness]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Hector
Tamsin already knows how Hector feels about cities in general so she can safely extrapolate from previous conversations how he feels about this particular city on the eve of a massive holiday celebrated with fried food and explosions.
By the time the tattooed fellow rose and commenced to move he has suppressed whatever was causing him to scowl throughout the festivities. They watch him and they watch him pull things from the garbage and he glances over at Jack more than once like to ask if that's anything they ought to be concerned with. At one point he makes an uck sound low in his throat. He hasn't met too many Bone Gnawers in his life but he's heard stories, see, and maybe there's some sort of a barometer for weirdness based on what one pulls out of a garbage can and puts into one's mouth.
Watching him accept a weapon through the window of an idling car and then mosey on down the Trail brokers a different reaction.
"Aw, man," he says, like that was the straw that ruined his night.
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Jack
Jack has turned his leather cut inside out so as to walk amongst so much of the populace with some semblance of anonymity. It hides the tag that says his nickname and the other patches that, depending on the audience, say more about who he is.
He'd been sorely tempted to lean back and enjoy the blasts of manmade thunder and light above, but after Tamsin pointed out a person of interest, he'd split his attention as discreetly as possible.
He'd considered augmenting his senses with the boon of his breed-spirit, but what with humans predictably still setting off their own stores of loud and bright explosives, he decides to rely on his own abilities instead.
The threadbare black hood of his sweatshirt is pulled up over his head, casting his unfortunate face in shadows that make it more disturbing. The zipper of the sweatshirt is open and he wears no shirt underneath thanks to the damn heat. This reveals a pelt of black chest hair that waterfalls down his abdomen, thick as one might imagine a cave man's or maybe a Russian national on a beach, knots and swells of muscle obscured by the sheet volume of the thicket. His duck canvas welder's pants breath a bit better, hanging low under his hearty gut, and his jackboots thud against the sidewalk under the stout Bone Gnawer's weight.
When he notices all the man is eating a tension takes the edges of his jaw, knuckles protruding sharply as his hands become fists, and he begins to walk a little bit faster when he sees that the man is following that pillar of Garou breeding and her kinsman escort for the night.
But not too fast. They are scattered in the crowd, but eventually walks to rejoin them from where they'd spread out their eyes and Rage. He is a step to the side of Hector, at his flank, and just a hair behind him.
If could be seen as deferring to their alpha. It could also be seen as nipping at his heels to goad him on into leading.
[ Perception + Alertness. Specialty: Uncanny Instincts ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Calden White
Calden, sadly, is never fashionable. The closest he's gotten thus far was the gala, and even then his tuxedo, although tailored, was quite a long ways from trendy. Even in this heat, he's in jeans. He's in a buttondown. He's not in boots, though, and his sleeves are short.
There's a bag over his shoulder -- a small duffle, the sort of thing folks in the city carry to their workouts. He has a blanket in there, which is a little grass-stained. He also -- finally, he learns! -- has a handgun in there.
And Avery's on his arm. So: it's a good night.
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Tamsin
Tamsin fits well into a crowd - is puzzle-piece that connects in a city, just so, in spite of her breeding and heritage - and she is good at it. Maybe because when Gaia made Tamsin, the spirits saw fit to gift her with a liar's tongue and a performer's commitment to obfuscation and illumination only when commanded. Tamsin's better at people than she is surroundings and situations, it's true: when she first spied mister tattooed litter-bug dude-there's-a-trash-can-right-there you-just-took-a-fucking-sandwich-from-it-holy-shit-let's-go-kick-his-ass-now-guys there's been a splish of shock and an adrenaline jab and a 'guys' all low-voiced and urgent. Then again, maybe she fits in just because how couldn't she: hair in side-dutch braid, two-day-worn David Bowie t-shirt, an American flag sticker on her left cheek under her eye from who knows where.
Celduin shadows the man, apart and then together and then apart again, and at some point Tamsin notices who it is the man seems to be shadowing, and then at some point after that she notices her kinsman, and something in her goes flat: like a shadow-sheet come down on the sky, darking it up: Oh no way.
"Hey Jack you know this area? Think one'a us should try to sneak again." She's impatient, too. Very impatient now that it's not just somebody who can fight back [rage back] in the line of fire, see.
[But is she, ahahaha, alert? +1, because no]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (2, 2) ( fail )
Twilight
Tamsin: is that Faramir back across the street, near the trash can Dude They Are Following ate food from?
Twilight
Hector and Jack see things that Tamsin doesn't:
They can follow down the access trail (easier, quiet, they know whom they follow but not what's down there) or they could try to follow the one headed down the trail, through the brush.
Or Tamsin is sure she saw Faramir across the street. :)
Avery Chase
So: she can be forgiven, just this once, for not noticing so many things about her surroundings. It's a summer night and she has her gentleman caller on her arm and that's lovely. They're going to get ice cream, which is also lovely. She's smiling and bright and she doesn't even see the other garou swirling around each other, noticing things she is either not noticing or willfully ignoring.
Until she can't. Until that rustling sounds too purposeful and that shadow falls too long. She slows her steps a bit and looks over her shoulder. Her steps stop entirely when she hears the song being whistled, and her arm remains in Calden's but she stares at the person whistling, direct as you please. The worst that can happen is that she looks a bit rude. But she will not take another step with him, or that song, at her back.
Hector
He stands and puts his hands on his hips so he at least looks like he's thinking before he goes rushing off. Makes a hmm noise for good measure. This would be much easier if they could convince Fog to let them communicate without their vocal cords but Cliaths can't be choosers.
"Alright," he says. "Jack, make sure the Fang doesn't mess up her shoes. We're going this way."
Before he starts off Hector glances back at his packsister. And it's a good thing he does because she seems a wee bit distracted. Hector takes her wrist and pulls her in the direction he wants her to go all c'mon c'mon c'mon, more exuberant than possessive.
[dex + stealth! +1 stealth because Fog.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Tamsin
Tamsin is very, very serious about Work. If she were going to pursue a more mundane career than storytelling killing-machine wot defends the Earth against the incursions of an unstoppable, unceasing, force of Evil, she'd probably be accused of intensity by those who worked with her, and they'd likely sound surprised about it: as if other things about her lead them to believe she'd be other than she is. Is that David Wenham? Her jaw just unhinges slightly and she stares wide-eyed over by that trashcan over there, like just by widening her eyes she can make those features actual confi--and she probably missed a world of things, until Celduin--or Hector, taking her wrist--draws her attention back and she blushes a color that'd inspire a kid with a box of crayons to choose fuschia. Then she pales, because that's what Tamsin does. "Meetcha soon," she tells Jack, "when there's naught but haze and fog, right," a wink, and then she tugs her wrist out of Hector's grip and plays follow the leader.
[dex+stealth+Fog.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Calden White
Of course it's Avery that stops first. That turns first. No one would ever call Calden's will weak. But amenable, agreeable, accommodating: these words could fit. Whatever the words chosen, the truth is he doesn't have Avery's iron sense of right and wrong, that resoluteness that -- not so very long ago -- compelled her to stand in a room full of brainwashed pseudozombies. And stare down the mistress of that facade. And speak against her. When it comes to Avery, law does not, in fact, stand mute in the midst of arms.
So: she stops. But then so does Calden. He doesn't tug her on, hurry her away. He turns with her. And after a beat, he straightens his arm. Her hand slides from his forearm. He reaches across his body to bring the duffle bag before him, a shifting of that weight under the front pocket is more easily accessible.
His eyes flick past the whistler for a moment. There is someone else out there, and Calden does not recognize him, either. That does not make him feel any safer at the moment.
Avery Chase
[Activating Resist Pain juuust in case. -1WP]
Jack
Jack's acknowledgement of Hector's orders is to follow them without even a nod, veering off from the two Galliards. His arms cock as he speeds up to a slow jog, though once he's reaches that access trail it's simply a brisk stroll.
He might as well be whistling, the way he nonchalantly heads down the path, though the way he veers back and forth it keeps him to the corners and behind the other obstructions that are large enough to obscure his stalking - is he pretending to be drunk?
But instead of whistling, it's instead a whispered curse that comes out of his sun-chapped and lick-plumped lips. One meant to raise a fog to rival the lingering smoke of fireworks above.
[ Blowing a WP for Resist Pain. Manipulation + Stealth + Fog to stalk. Blowing another WP for that. Curse of Aeolus roll coming up. ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Jack
[ Curse of Aeolus. ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Jack
[ 1 die for that stealthiness. Cause the alpha's player says so. ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Avery stops. Calden stops with her, turns with her. And so it is a chain reaction: behind them, just emerging from the access path: a big man, burly, fucking oversized. Taller than Rabid Jack Rabbit (whom they do not yet see, who is coming down the path behind the hungry, bald, white stranger covered in tattoos that speak to his time in some sort of aryan nations prison gang but oh, now he is reformed. Now he is on fire with his love (or some fucking thing) for a terrible god who mismade his first world. Needs some help ending it so a new one can begin again.
Except: there's an itch under his skin and mostly he's just hungry and he's whistling that song without realizing he's whistling it. Whistling it because he likes the song and he likes her her skin and her eyes the way her mouth mouths the way she says things that spike and sizzle and burn in the meat he calls a heart.
Avery stops and Calden stops and Calden is finally fucking armed because there is not a Shadow Lord nearby to lend him a weapon (no: because he has seen hell in a way he has never seen it before and knows how close it is) and The Big Dude, the Hungry Dude is chewing threw something else, a fucking energy bar, fiddling with the weapon he is half-concealing with his leather jacket.
He's more of a weapon than any gun but when they stop, the two in front of him, he shoves energy bar and wrapper and all into his mouth GLOMP and smears chocolate across his ugly face and (hey, there's a fog rolling in and it gives him the creeps a bit that's weird and right now it is crawling up from the creek like tendrils and lapping at the stranger with the gun - ) pulls out the weapon. Smiles. His teeth are rotting and black. Somehow he still chews through everything.
He pulls out the weapon and holds it like a toy but he knows how to use it. HE holds it like a toy because he doesn't need this shit.
"Kin do this nice," he grumbles at Avery and Calden, lifting his chin upward, beyond them, toward the bridge where (if they look) they will see the top edge of an SUV illegally parked on the overpass, a man with his arms hooked over the frame. Or two men.
And there was that shape further down the path.And that rustling in the grass slanting down somewhere closer but behind them.
"Or not-nice. I like not-nice, but choice's yours."
His breath stinks. Fucking rotten as sin.
He has not noticed Jack behind him.
Neither have Avery nor Calden, not yet.
--
They have seen Hector and Tamsin scrambling down the embankment as quietly as they can, walking slantwise across the steep slope and shadowing the rat-faced man. And the rat-faced man well, once he glances back at both of them, frowning, clacking his teeth together, sharp with warning, like they're just a pair of kids maybe coming down here to smoke weed and make out. There's something gross about his skin, the way it peels with the movement of his suitcoat, a weeping ooze.
Soon enough ratface emerges, fifteen or twenty feet beyond them, scrambling down from the bank, gets the bald, hungry guy's attention or tries to, tries to give him a significant look up the slope but baldie is pretty focused on Avery and Calden right now.
On Avery.She wants Avery.So he wants her, too.
"Pick not-nice. That's the one you oughtta choose."
Avery Chase
It's unlikely that Avery will ever have the skills that the members of Celduin possess in such strength. She is not the sort who hides, she is not the sort who sits quietly, who investigates and then goes and spreads the news. When faced with the evil she stands up. When faced with danger she turns to look it in the eye. She is a beacon down here, tall and beautiful and it's a good thing the moon is so thin because otherwise she would be radiant in its light.
She thinks she's alone with Calden right now. That it's her and him and this man who whistles that song, and then she takes a breath or sees a flicker of shadow and she sees one face she recognizes and another she can guess at. It takes effort not to smile, and
that is effort Avery doesn't waste. She smiles at the itchy, hungry man who is fiddling with a gun. Avery does not like guns, not one bit, but she doesn't flinch when he pulls it out. His teeth are blackened and she smiles, oh she smiles like a princess greeting the people on her sixteenth birthday, waving from the balcony. She unwinds her arm from Calden's and takes a single decisive step forward in her pretty sundress and her comfortable-for-the-park flats. He looks up and past her, and Avery quite comfortably glances back, but she also notices the fog rolling in, and if those men have guns if they have sights if they have anything it will soon be difficult for them to harm her. Or Calden. And the truth is, she trusts him to get down if he needs to.
Her pale eyes swivel back to the man before her.
Pick not-nice. That's the o--
Avery lifts her hand, palm towards him, forestalling him, interrupting with a cold, clear, firm: "That's enough." Her hand lowers to her side. She stands so tall, so bright, a vision of perfection among the Garou, her breeding a gleaming, brillaint thing.
But perfection, to a werewolf, is something different than princesses and queens, priestesses and radiance. Perfection, to a werewolf --
"When I am finished," she says I, she does not give away Tamsin or Tamsin's friend, "I will take your head as a prize and keep your skull as a gift to present to one of the mystics of my tribe, should one prove deserving of the honor. Your skin, however: of that I will take the largest identifiable piece that is left, and I will have it delivered to whoever your master is."
Avery's smile comes back. "'Nice' is an archaic word for 'precise, tidy, neat'. I think my way sounds quite nice indeed."
Her dress and her shoes both tear apart, sudden, as she shifts. Scraps of fabric flutter to the sidewalk. She is lovely in homid. She is glorious as a direwolf, all white fur and blue eyes, bared teeth, a burning growl.
[Also activating Fangs of Judgement. -1WPAnd -1R to snap-shift to hispo]
Avery Chase
[I can spell brilliant. It's B-R-I-L-L-A-I--fuck.]
Jack
Avery does not know what rallies to her banner just at the edge of the fog. It's almost as if Jack was waiting on blast-furnace-breath for the word from that Silver Fang of his moon, dripping with the promise of prestige to come and the mantle of Queen held on shoulders square and strong despite its weight.
Maybe because of it.
And he waits for this moment. He waits for her answer. He waits for her word, her decision, and as he waits becomes the Dog of War they finally unleash. The prehistoric wolf that skirted the edges of the largest villages. The reason Man first congregated in its cities around its fires, not even knowing Garou like Jack also walked amongst them, stalking the gutter as easily as the darkness beyond the trees.
He is cloaked in fog and has advanced as close to his prey as he will dare before shifting from unseen death to death in gruesome incarnate. And he is rallied under that banner of Avery's by more than just words. No, no Queen. Or at least not just one. As she takes the form of Warlord, his jaws lash out from that fog to beset the tattoos man from behind.
[ 1 R to Hispo. Will formerly declare the rest after init is established. ]
Calden White
In that single step forward, the line between the husky gentleman with the blanket-in-a-bag and the well-heeled blonde in her pretty sundress becomes evident, obvious, indelible. All at once it becomes clear that it is the smaller of the pair, the apparently weaker, the half that society dictates must be weaker,
who is in fact the stronger. The wolf in apeskin.
Her escort -- her companion, if she prefers the term -- does not follow her. Not this time. Not that step. Calden stays where he is. As Avery is raising her hand, interrupting, he is unzipping the front pocket of the bag in a swift, unbroken pull. As she is detailing the fate of the fallen, he is reaching in.
She shifts, silent, instantaneous. The scraps of her clothing fall to the ground. Whatever sound they make is buried: the dufflebag hits the ground too with a dull, soft thump.
This is the form he first saw her in. That thought occurs to him. He reaches out with his free hand, buries his fingers in the thick fur at her shoulder. Just for a moment. Then his hand falls away.
Whatever sound Calden's handgun makes when he chambers the first round is buried, too. Reverence of Dawn growls: bone-searing threat.
Hector
The fact that he manages to guide Tamsin around behind Rat Face without doing something to give them away isn't because he's the next Solid Snake. He does consider himself to be pretty solid but the only reason he manages to hide half the time is because the ceiling of his sneaking ability stops right around After-Dusk Basement Power Outage.
But they do sneak around. He owes Fog some praise-singing later.
By the time they've all congregated the glowing hero at the center of it has started speaking and no one is paying attention to them and Hector has pulled Tamsin down into a crouch so he can attempt to pantomime what he wants to see happen here. It amounts to pointing at Rat Face and making overly animated shadow-puppet biting motions with his hand while silently om nom noming.
Duh.
[LOL rolling to shift to Hispo because I have nothing better to do.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Tamsin
Tamsin pretends that she is just a kid, see. Just a human-thing, not a creature of rage like a white-hot radiance that itches and scrabbles for purchase and command. The rat-faced man gives the Fianna and Uktena that look like Not Here, Brats, and she doesn't drop the pretense by grinning, shrugging, giving it all up; maybe she slows, like, see, I'm stopping, but that's all and of course she doesn't. There's something wrong with his skin, and the Other Ones were poisonous, right, so she thinks you think I haven't drunk more dangerous than whatever you've got under your skin mister then you have not met Glen Cohoe's homemade, and she doesn't finish that thought, but she wills herself more resistant. Tamsin's been focused on the rat-faced guy. There's fog, cold and clammy and eldritch wreathing Hunger now, and there's her kinsman and the Silver Fang (trust in heroes [and men] or trust in nothing), and she doesn't need to look. She has faith, or has forced herself to pretend she has faith, and it all amounts to the same thing. Tamsin: she's been staring, and when he flicks that meaningful little glance up that-a-way she follows it but only for a second. Because, see. Because: Avery speaks.
And that, my friends, will be worth re-telling, and there is ab-so-lutely no more reason to wait. She moves sideways away from Hector and --
burns up that rage. Shift. Monster. Wolf.
[Also 1 R to Hispo. And Resist Toxin on! Which I think is auto now w/ out wp spending?]
Calden White
+5 :|
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Jack
[ Initiative: 1d10 + 8 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Hungrydude: +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Hector
[-1R to Hispo!
+9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Ratface +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Twilight
That Dude No One Is Paying Attention To Down The Path +7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Twilight
Bridge Guy 1 +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Twilight
Bridge Guy 2 +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Tamsin
[+8]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Avery Chase
[+9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Avery - 19Hector - 17Jack - 16Bridge Dude Who Likes Salsa Dancing - 15That Dude No On Is Paying Attention To (THDNOIPAT) - 12Tamsin - 11Bridge Guy w/glasses 10Ratface - 9Calden - 8Fatboy - 8
Twilight
Trying this again:
Avery - 19
Hector - 17
Jack - 16
Bridge Dude Who Likes Salsa Dancing - 15
That Dude No On Is Paying Attention To (THDNOIPAT) - 12
Tamsin - 11
Bridge Guy w/glasses 10
Ratface - 9
Calden - 8
Fatboy - 8
Twilight
Fatboy: 1. PUKE on Avery and Calden. Rage 1: CHOMP Avery; Rage 2: CHOMP Avery.
Calden White
Calden: 1a. shoot fatboy! b. again!
Twilight
Ratface: 1a. Yodel. 1b. Claw Hector!
Twilight
Bridge Guy with Glasses: 1. Shoot Tamsin.
Tamsin
1. TACKLE RATFACE OUTTA THE WAY leave mah alpha alone. + there can be only ONE singer here, yo; Rage 1. BITE.
Twilight
THDNOIPAT: 1. Requires a round to close distance.
Twilight
Bridge Dude Who Likes Salsa Dancing: 1. Shoot Hector.
Jack
[ Blowing 1 Rage for an extra action.
Splitting: Bite, bite, bite that fatboy. Fook, 'e's a big fella.
R1: If fatboy is dead this turn, movement action to TDNOIPAT. ]
Hector
[LOL Tamsin you're so cute.
1: bite Rat Face! from behind I think. right? maybe?]
Avery Chase
There are things that Avery does not know about this situation. Hector: she's never met him. Jack: that he's there. Tamsin: what she's capable of. Celduin: that Jack has joined them. Calden: if he can use that gun well enough to keep himself alive. These are things she did not have time to learn beforehand. It does not keep her from action; it can't.
But she knows about them. And she aches from them.
In an eyeblink, Avery seems to see and sense everything happening around her. Guns being raised, a mouth being opened, another mouth being opened for a different purpose, wolves coming out of the fog, coming out of the dark. The two that she knows are packmates are attacking the same creature together, together, together, like a drumbeat in the back of her mind. She snarls, hackles up and fur on end. And lunges.
[1. Bite FatboyR1. Again! TDNOIPAT if Fatboy down]
Avery Chase
[1. Biting! Dex + Brawl]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2
Avery Chase
[Damage! Str + 2 (hispo bitin') + 2 (fangs of judgement) + suxx -1]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 9 )
Twilight
Fatboy SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hector
[dex + brawl = bite! -1 diff because half-a-flank.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 )
Hector
[damage! str +3 (hispo? right?) +2 (chomp) + 7.]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
Twilight
Ratface: JESUS CHRIST
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Ratface is incapacitated.
Jack
[ Dexterity + Brawl - 3 for splitting. Specialty: Bitin' you. 5 -2 difficulty for rear attack. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 5 )
Avery Chase
[Soak!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Jack
[ Damage Str (7) + 2 + 4. ]
Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Twilight
??
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
Fatboy SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
??
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Jack
[ Soak ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Jack
[ Bite ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN3 (3, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )
Jack
[ Bite ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN3 (3, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 2
Jack
[ Damage ]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 11 )
Twilight
SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Twilight
x.x
Twilight
??
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Jack
[ Soak ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Jack
[ Changing his 3rd bite to a movement action as per Liz's ruling. Will turn his Rage action into an attack at higher difficulty when we get to Rage actions. ]
Twilight
Bridge GuyWho Likes Salsa Dancing - Shooting Hector
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
Damage!
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Hector
[did someone sneeze?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Twilight
Path Dude: WP Roll to still close
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Hector
tamsin
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Hector
tamsin
[changing from tackle to chomp! -2 diff because we already threw him on the ground.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Twilight
Ratface:
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
x.x
Twilight
Bridge Guy The First Shooting Tamsin
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
Damage!
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hector
[damage!]
Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hector
[soak! +3 because Resist Toxin.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Hector
[oops]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Avery Chase
[rage]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )
Hector
[rrreeeegen!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 2, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White
[erm. split 1 - shoot bridge dude!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Calden White
[base dam!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 5) ( fail )
Calden White
[split 2!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Calden White
[dam +1]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Twilight
Soak?
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (3, 4) ( fail )
Jack
[ Bite ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Jack
[ Damage ]
Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 9 )
Avery Chase
Bullets are fired. Bullets hit. The crack of another firearm goes off beside Avery and there is blood and something worse in her mouth but she wheels away from the tattooed man she told would have his skull presented to Theurges. She turns from Jack and, yes, even from Calden.
For a moment, that terribly thin moon up there reflects in her eyes, the pupils blown until they look almost black. Her teeth are pulled back and, for a moment,
all she sees is red.
They are on the Cherry Creek trail, for god's sake. The bridge is the worst place for her to go, especially when she's in hispo, especially when there is no form she can take that will trigger the Delirium in mortals. She's going to kill them. She's going to kill them, kill them, she's going to rip their bodies to pieces she's going to grab them in her maw by the throat and slam them into the bridge's walls again and again and again until their bones are dust, until their innards are liquid.
A white flash goes by Tamsin and Hector, dust and branches tearing out of her way from under her paws as she runs up towards the bridge.
Twilight
SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )
Hector
[bite acronym man!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Hector
[+3]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Twilight
Avery - 19Hector - 17Jack - 16Bridge Dude Who Likes Salsa Dancing - 15That Dude No On Is Paying Attention To (THDNOIPAT) - 12Tamsin - 11Bridge Guy w/glasses 10Ratface - x.xCalden - 8Fatboy - x.x
Twilight
INITIATIVES
Avery - 19
Hector - 17
Jack - 16
Bridge Dude Who Likes Salsa Dancing - 15
That Dude No On Is Paying Attention To (THDNOIPAT) - 12
Tamsin - 11
Bridge Guy w/glasses 10
Ratface - x.x
Calden - 8
Fatboy - x.x
Calden White
[Calden: shoot whichever bridge guy is not actively getting torn apart by Avery, if he can get a clear shot! Split x2 again.]
Twilight
Bridge Guy w/ Glasses: Shoot Jack!
Hector
tamsin
1: bite acronym man again!
Twilight
That Dude: 1. Bite Jack! Rage 1: Bite Tamsin! Rage 2: Bite Jack!
Twilight
Bridge Dude: ACK WHAT IS THAT SHOOT AVERY
Twilight
Bridge Dude: reflexive: pee on self.
Jack
[ Split: Bite, bite, bite the Dude. None shall abide. ]
Avery Chase
[1. KillR1. ThemR2. All]
Avery Chase
[But seriously:1. Bite GlassesR1. Bite Glasses, switching to the Salsa Dance Enthusiast if Glasses diesR2. Bite the Salsa Dance Enthusiast]
Avery Chase
[1. Bite Glasses. Dex + Brawl]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Avery Chase
[Damage. Str + 2 (hispo bite) + 2 (fangs of judgement) + suxx -1]
Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
SOAK
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (6, 7) ( fail )
Hector
[biting acronym man!]
Dice: 9 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Hector
[+5!]
Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 )
Twilight
SOAK
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
x.x
Jack
[ Taking a full action to get up the bridge. Also, Wits + Primal-Urge. ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
Salsa Enthusiast Shooting Avery
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Twilight
Damage
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Avery Chase
[Soak!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Twilight
Glasses Dude Shooting Jack
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Twilight
Damage
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Jack
[ Soak ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Jack
[ Regen ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Calden White
[5 - 2! i'm gonna buy some fucking dice.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Calden White
[base dam. NEXT TIME I'M BRINGING A FUCKING SHOTGUN.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Twilight
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Calden White
[SERIOUSLY? KAHSEENO, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 5-3]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Calden White
[dam +1. DON'T YOU FUCKING PWINK ME AGAIN.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Twilight
Soak!
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (6, 6) ( fail )
Avery Chase
[R1. Bite Glasses to DEATH]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1
Avery Chase
[Damage!]
Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Twilight
Soak?
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (7, 8) ( success x 1 )
Jack
[ 1 Rage to Crinos. ]
Twilight
Salsa Dance enthusiast is x.x
Twilight
SORRY GLASSES DUDE IS DEAD.
Salsa dude is still alive.
Avery Chase
[R2: Bite SDE to death as well!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 1
Avery Chase
[DAMAGE]
Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Twilight
Soak
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Twilight
x.x!!!!
Jack
Jack reaches the bridge and suddenly feels his matted Hispo fur exposed and out in the open. Something in him - perhaps his moon more than anything binding him to the law and shedding light upon it - realizes that despite the creeping fog, they are suddenly on an actual road. Him, his pack, and Avery.
In an instant he is in the full warform, his bulk dripping the Delirium from every poor, fur stinking with it and less savory things. Some may yet to have seen it, the way he bloats and bulges with Gaia-bred and road-tested brawn in Crinos. It is a force of nature, nothing beautiful or even fascinating about it. Just meant to inspire terror and tear things limb from limb.
"The Veil!" He shouts it to the Hispo, Avery, though it is not an order. Simply a warning from one battlebrother to a battlesister, a warning to all. Grabbing the corpses that the Silver Fang has created, by whatever limb is handy, he throws them back down under the bridge where the majority of the battle had taken place, jumping down once that is through.
Twilight
That fog that Jack summoned is even still curling up from the creek down below. Skimming the path and rising, following in his wake. The battle (we will not recount here) is like all such battles: short, brutish, brutal, confusing. There is blood in the air and acid in their throats, particularly Rabid Jack Rabid and Reverence of the Dawn, who torn into something that came tearing away in suppurating pieces skin from skin. The man following the Silver Fang never even got a chance to regurgitate all that filth he had consumed, to ear his black teeth into her pretty white skin. He was torn apart from in front and behind all at once.
Hector and Tamsin tackle and rip to shreds the man they were shadowing, then tumble down the hill to rip to pieces the most foolish one, running toward rather than away from danger, as the fog drifts higher and higher.
Calden takes aim at the men on the bridge - not snipers, then they would have had rifles - just footsoldiers, just enforcers, standing by and -
no longer. Reverence of the Dawn sees nearly red. Charges up the slope, hispo, and Rabid Jack Rabbit follows, one philodox after the other. The Bone Gnawer shifts to delirium-inducing Crinos once erupts onto the street and realizes how exposed he is. And -
the pounding in their hearts, eases. Those gunshots. The fireworks. The street.
The aftermath is almost eerily quiet.
Avery Chase
The sounds of gunshots are more distant now. So, too, are the sounds of her comrades. See: they are her comrades. She was being followed. She didn't even notice. They followed the followers, ambushed the ambush. They adhered to the Litany and they honored their totem and they also, quite simply, saved her life and the life of her dear friend.
Through the haze of rage, the white-hot burning that has her tearing up the embankment to the bridge and leaping at the men standing there with guns, she cannot hear the repeat of the gunfire, and she cannot remember her dear friend's relative vulnerability, and she cannot stop herself from abandoning them. She does not care about the Veil or the cleanup or anything, anything at all but killing them.
And she does. Decisively, furiously, in three hard bites, feeling her jaws sink together through limbs, hearing the crunch of bone. She swallows some of their blood because that is simply a side effect of tearing a throat out, tearing an arm off. She is stained, crimson on white, when she is done with it.
She begins to remember. Distantly, the fireworks being set off here and there across the city about twenty-four hours early sound much like the gunshots did. She does not sway on her feet; she is uninjured, she is untouched, she is flawless, even if she is not pristine. Her eyes close a moment, then open. Her comrades -- her comrades, right -- and one of them is there, shouting, but he is in crinos and changing her shape will make no difference now in that respect.
There is a part of her that aches to run away, from this, from the possibility of things she will see below, from all of it. She does not let that part win. She grabs one of those corpses, Jack grabbing the other one, and she drags it to the edge, flinging it over. It takes no effort at all, despite the dead weight. It falls heavily, thick and wet and thudding to the ground. She hears more bones crunch, even in the dead body, and feels grim satisfaction.
Tidily, beautifully, she leaps down from the bridge after Jack, bracing on her legs when she lands, looking at the landscape. Tamsin. Hector. Calden, alive and unhurt, Jack, multiple limbs and pieces that add up to five bodies.
She wants to tuck her tail and slink. She stands up straight, tail down but not under, head lifted, bloody and serene.
She wants to tear those bodies apart further, she wants to urinate on their skins, she wants to shred them. She walks past them, footfalls slow and heavy, to Calden.
To him, she bows her head, and then, in a blink, she is a tall and well-formed and very naked woman, bending her knees to pick up the dropped picnic blanket and wrapping it around herself. Her hair is mussed; her skin and jaw and hair is bloody. She turns to the others then.
"I owe all of you an apology," she says. She doesn't seem to think it bears explaining; surely they know. "And I will give it when there is time to offer it without reservation or hurry. That and my thanks: beyond contrition, I owe you each a deeper debt. That, too, will have to wait." A pause, rife with the punctuated silence around them. "I can call my driver to help us transport and dispose of these messes. But do any of you know the Rite of Cleansing, or should we also call the Guardians?"
Avery Chase
Then Hector says "I KNOW THE RITE" and then is awesome.
Calden White
Four shots.
That's how many he managed to squeeze off, and he was shooting faster than he's ever shot that gun before. Faster than he's ever had to shoot any gun before. The palm of his hand is numb from the recoil. The muscles in his forearm ache from pulling that trigger. Four shots,
and in that time, the Garou have decimated the opposition.
There's blood everywhere. Bits of flesh. Viscerae. Hair, shit, piss, the contents of spilled loops of bowel. Bodies come flinging down. Calden steps back, not stumbling, but not quite smoothly either. He gets out of the way, and he does, in fact, remember to clean up after himself.
His share of the carnage is relatively small. Just four bullet casings picked off the ground and pocketed. The last one is curling into his palm when another body comes down. This one lands softly enough that Calden knows it's not another corpse. He looks up. It is the beast he met on the range, bowing her head to him. Gun in one hand, a bullet casing in the other, he doesn't know how to react to that.
An eyeblink later she's in a form that's grown altogether familiar to him. He draws a breath, and he reaches for the bag he'd dropped. She pulls the blanket out of it, wraps it around herself, and turns to the others.
That's when Calden steps back. Quietly, subtly out of their circle. He says nothing to them, but those with a mind for such things will recognize why he puts his gun away and finds a vantage point. He's keeping watch for them, as kin have for their wolves through the span of their shared history, as the wolves perform the rites and rituals that are their domain.
Jack
[ Perception + Investigation. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
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