Still Waters
Keisha can be found on a college campus as a rule. She can even be found on this particular campus; she was here earlier today, hitting up the library for one of her classes. But she's not here for study tonight. Tonight she has a mission, and she's here with two members of the Baklava Republic as well one of Celduin's Galliards. She's dressed more for function than anything else, in little more than a T-Shirt and jeans with a jacket to handle any cold issues (snow be damned). Her backpack is slung over a shoulder with her ritual tools, dreads pulled back and bound together as she walks into the building alongside the others.
Her eyes look around the inside of the place, frowning lightly. As if it's standard operating procedure, she looks to the others.
"Gonna look across." She slips a pocket mirror out of her jacket pocket to do just that.
Still Waters
[[Look across Gauntlet! Using mirror, spending WP 'cause that's one I hate botching..]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Charlotte
Someone who is not Charlotte drives or maybe there are two someones or three. However they get there includes: Charlotte with Erich, quiet is his shadow. With their shocks of blond hair and pale blue eyes, their long limbs and open, attractive features, and perhaps even just the way they move, together, as if they know how to move, together, through some sixth sense (which they do), strangers often assume that the pair are siblings. So,
like siblings, rolling out of the cab of the truck, weaving through the campus to meet the others at Tivoli, then ducking inside to the auditorium.
The air smells like snow. Doesn't it? Feels like snow; tastes like that - bright and cold and metallic, the sensation of it in the back of the throat. Charlotte has a small messenger bag slung across her body. With her pink hair, it makes her look more like a student who actually belongs here, rather than the interloper she is. Charlotte is shivering in little more than a heavy hoodie, a t-shirt and jeans, but her winter coat would probably get destroyed so.
Here she is, watching the shadow of the building against the sky until it swallows them, then allowing her attention to drift over the interior lines with a kind of thoughtlessness that nevertheless feels rather present as they arrive and look around.
Charlotte
Sense Wyrm
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3) ( fail )
Cinder Song
"So." Her hands are in her pockets. They're on their way or they're there and Tamsin's got her eyes open looking around yes looking around but also thinking this looks like a good place to do that green club thing maybe and what is weird anyway. Maybe they all rode together in somebody's car or maybe they carpooled but there they are.
Tamsin: she likes to have a plan, of some sort. A plan, when it comes to poking her nose into things. Of course, Tamsin also likes poking her nose into things. Of course she would, Fog's Fianna galliard-darling, moon on the wane, falling towards and through justice and spiritual mysteries and secrets but too simmering for any of those wasn't there yet. She has positioned herself, or tried to position herself, so that the theurge girls are somewhat perteckted by Erich and herself, even though they're just a sneaky standing around bunch of loiterers right now, one loiterer checking her makeup in a compact, the other one looking around and shivering.
The 'So,' it turns out, is directed toward Erich, though her gaze skims over Charlotte and Keisha. He's Fostern; she defers to him automatically. It is in the somewhat graceful dip of her posture, the cant of her head. She's got on some kind of silly warm hippy hat. Gonna look across, Keisha says,
"So... Weird. Anybody, um, feel the Wyrmd? Uh, weird." Tamsin says, followed by, "How're you thinking we do this, Erich? Maybe, um, two of us should go otherside and two of us should stay thisside? Split up you guys, uh, Baklava, since I guess you can talk across, well you know. What'cha thinking?"
Erich Storm's Teeth
The two of them are certainly of the right age to be students here. Perhaps Erich's the older brother, a fifth-year senior cruising his way to graduation on the tail end of an athletic scholarship. Perhaps Charlotte is the quirky, eccentric younger sister, surely an artist or a poet or something of the sort with that quiet, quirky demeanor and that pink-streaked hair.
Erich is talking as he strolls up with Charlotte. The conversation is entirely unimportant. It has something to do with meatburgers, which are of course burgers composed entirely of meat, and the subtle distinctions, benefits and drawbacks to meatburgers with meat-buns vs meatburgers that are just meat-patties. When Tamsin Cinder-Song so's him, Erich looks -- startled, if anything. He's so new to this Fostern business. It feels weird, like wearing a coat still a little too big for him.
"Uhh...."
He thinks for a minute, brow beetling the way it does. Then he glances at Charlotte; a little uneasy at, or at least just unused to, the idea of separating from her. Still; it's a sound strategy.
"What do you think, Charlotte? You and Tamsin on one side, me and Keisha on the other?"
tivoli
Back at Cold Crescent, Shieldwind's pack is recruiting. They are the new Guardians. It's not an easy task; everyone knows what happened to the last pack of Guardians. Everyone saw what was stripped of their Alpha at the punishment rites. Cold Crescent still relies heavily, and may always rely heavily, on every Garou in the sept doing regular patrols, serving regular duty. At many septs in many places, that's the norm; coming from before, where Forgotten Questions is so self-sustaining that it hardly needs help outside of the official Guardian packs, it takes some wolves some getting used to.
No matter: Shieldwind pulled from multiple corners tonight. A Fostern Ahroun, a couple of Theurges, throw in a Galliard, and no matter if they're from three different packs. If they have the skills he needs and they're on duty, they're who he sends.
Something weird is going on at Tivoli. A recent rash of attacks. Fights and sneak assaults, mostly; campus police on high alert. But last night someone actually went missing. And now campus police is on high alert and everyone else is trying to keep it quiet and the Warder is interested.
--
Charlotte smells the cold. Keisha flips out a mirror. Tamsin asks Erich dubya-tee-eff we gonna do. And yes: they all are taken for students by the campus police car that drives slowly by. Four kids together, one of them a big guy. They all look like they go together, weirdly: hoodie dude, braids, pink hair, hippy hat. Oh yeah. They're just like every other student at the three schools that use this campus, where plenty of the matriculating students are coming back to school or dropped out once or are just taking a few classes while they work.
While Charlotte's nose takes in nothing, Keisha feels the cold air become as thick and soft as cobwebs that she can brush away with her hand, like walking through a haunted house. It's dark on the other side, dark from winter and cold and a new moon. It takes a while for the lights on buildings and corners to flicker into view in the penumbra for her, crawling with spiders who, themelves, seem to throb gently in time with the buzzing of the lights. They are quiet. On the other side, it is already snowing softly, silently, though the flakes never seem to touch the ground.
There is darkness in that building. Where the other buildings seem to hum with a golden inner warmth, a curiosity and energy that mingles with sleepiness and boredom and is broken here and there by spikes of anxiety, Tivoli is black inside. Particularly in one arm of it, where they hold lectures and even wedding receptions.
Still Waters
She hasn't shivered despite the chill in the air; she's used to chilly weather and she's adapted to the chillier weather here. But once she looks across, the frigid feel there and the feeiling that something is just wrong sends that tremor up her spine, back to reverberate throughout her body.
"Yeah, there's something wrong here." She says it perhaps a little too loud, the problem that comes inherent with peeking across and losing access to all your senses on this side of the Gauntlet. She shakes her head, reorienting her attention to this side, and points off toward the arm where the darkness is. "Along with the usual pattern spiders and such, it's exceedingly dark. Particularly over there."
She looks around to each of them, tightening her grip on her staff. "Seems like a good place to start, if you ask me."
Charlotte
Charlotte gives a sharp-shouldered little shrug. It is elegant and a bit spare, the gesture. She has one hand tucked into the front pocket of her jacket; the other wrapped around the shoulder-strap of her bag. As they walk, she considers Erich's speculation, her mouth drawn to one side. She's inhaling too, but she doesn't smell anything out of the ordinary and she gives Erich a silent look and a little shake of her head to communicate that she hasn't detected anything.
Still; Tamsin asks if they should split up, and Erich considers it, and Charlotte glances at Tamsin and then Keisha, then the building proper.
Then shakes her pink head: a silent no.
"The Gauntlet's thick, here. Maybe you could get over quckly if we needed you, or vice-versa. Maybe not. I don't think we should split up. Let's we check out inside, then go over to the otherside together."
Erich Storm's Teeth
"'kay, you have a point. Especially since last time we split up it was kind of a shitstorm. Let's go inside," he nods toward the rather grand-looking hall, "and have a quick peek around. Then we'll duck into a bathroom and cross over together."
Cinder Song
The campus police car drives by: slow-ly, and Keisha's voice is as loud (to Tamsin [near]) as the plink of a stone on a frost-rimned lake: plink, crack. Tamsin pulls the brim of her floppy hippy hat down over her ears, earringless because it's too much of a pain to find earrings again after a shift and dedicating them seems wasteful (and too hard, anyway). They still get lost.
"So it's just like, dark on the other side if you look? Thick dark that's beating all sinister-as-fuck heartbeat-style dark, or just sketchy suspect dark?"
Charlotte: shakes her pink head; Tamsin looks alert, and slopes a glance toward Erich, but doesn't argue, though she shifts restively. The Gauntlet is thick. So at his word --
-- a grin. "Let's just hope it's unlocked, man."
[Tamsin: just in case talking people into ignoring us sneaking into dark building is necessary, Persuasion On?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Cinder Song
[Per + Alert or PU, same!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Still Waters
[[Per+Alert, Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 10) ( success x 1 ) Re-rolls: 1
Erich Storm's Teeth
"Oh!" Erich thinks of something else. "I actually have a new Gift now. I can talk to Earth for a while and see what's going on. It takes me like... ten minutes though. So when we get in I can maybe do that while you guys look around? Just stay close enough that if you yell I can get to you pronto."
Charlotte
Per + Primal Urge
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Erich Storm's Teeth
[percep+pu!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
tivoli
[Oh yeah there's totally a vampire in that building. Their noses itch from the dead-blood smell and their skin crawls with LAWL YOU'RE BEING WATCHED feelings from inside there.]
Still Waters
Tamsin asks Keisha if the darkness is sketchy-suspect dark or a more sinister one. She shakes her head, her attention shifting as the hair on the back of her neck stands up. "Not just sketchy-suspect. Like, full-on blackness. Garden-variety dark doesn't get a 'something's wrong' assessment.
Erich suggests that they go inside first and he talk to the earth, and she shakes her head. "Do you think that's wise if it turns into a fight? We're talking about something that plays and hides in the darkness. I don't figure if one of us gets attacked, it's going to give us enough time to yell to you, Erich."
A pause. "Also, splitting up in the darkness, when I'm getting a feeling like we're being watched? That's that what white girl victim number two in a horror film does."
Erich Storm's Teeth
Erich looks a bit impatient now. "Okay, good points. But we're getting to the point where we need to quit talking and start doing.
"So, here are the options as I see them. A: we sit out here being watched while I talk to Earth and see if I can figure out what's going on in there in detail. Then we can hopefully go in and take care of shit. In the meantime, we run the risk that whatever's in there -- and I think it's a goddamn vampire, and not the sparkly kind -- is preparing to mow us down with a silver gatling gun.
"B: we just charge the fuck in as a group and kill whatever we find, and fuck finesse and planning-ahead and all that. We'll do a sweep of realmside and then check umbral to make sure we don't miss anything. We run the risk of barreling headfirst into a boobytrap, of course, but honestly that's kinda always been my MO so I'm cool with it.
"Any thoughts before I pick one?"
Charlotte
Charlotte inhales and she does this the way a cat does it, mouth-open, pale eyes flicking over the facade of Tivoli building; the dark windows of one particular wing. Her expression is twisted, after. Pulled to the side, her mouth a moue of distaste. The faintest of shudders rattles gently down her spine, but only her packmate is likely to sense it.
A glance at Erich, the sweep of her gaze quiet and gleaming.
"If you want to talk to the Earth, do it here. We can wait now. Maybe earth'll have some idea where to slip in or what to expect. Except it'll think like earth, see. Slow and solidly, and it might not know what is inside because inside the earth is all smothered with the stuff that makes up the building, and suffocated and it can't breath so it might be a little bit mad too.
"But out here it might know what comes and goes and where it goes and what stays and when it stays.
"So I guess I say you talk to the earth, then we go in."
Cinder Song
Tamsin, Fianna-woman, waning-moon, looks at the darkness. Looks at it good. Or maybe it just begins to act on her -- to tickle her senses: to sharp them up, hone them, whettstone, knifeknifeknife oh and Tamsin's eyes narrow and her muscles tense-tense like they're remembering how easy it is to switch-blade out a war-monster because that blooddeadsmell that no it's in the back of her throat and she says:
"Do you guys fe - it's because we are; gotta be a leech; it's all grave-clot yuck; it's all like, scabby shadow lightlessness; it's - " - she spits on the ground.
Looks at the building. Looks at Erich. Ready to rar. "Let's just go the fu -- hmm, uh, a silver gatling gun you say?" A beat, because she is deeply suspicious of Erich's just-run-right-in plans, specifically. "Yeah okay. Talk to Earth and maybe we can get a bead on its location because it never hurts to try to get more info. Well, actually, I dunno Theurges, don't suppose while Erich's talking to earth, one of you can talk to Fire or something Sunlight-y or Garlic-y?"
The Garlic-y is a joke. Tamsin is restless, sort of bouncing in place.
Charlotte
"I have some fire tooth talens," says Charlotte. "I can start waking them up."
Cinder Song
Tamsin: >:]
Erich Storm's Teeth
Another one of those beetle-browed moments. Arms folded, lips pressed flat together and all. Then a nod.
"Okay. Lemme talk to Earth then. Meanwhile, Charlotte can wake up her talens and Keisha can maybe prepare too. And Tamsin -- keep your elf eyes sharp. Or something. You know what I mean."
And on that note: Erich sits on the ground, crosslegged, and. Uh. Communes. It's his first time doing this. He isn't actually sure what he's doing.
[oh god i have 2 dice. +WP! 100yd-radius of info per succ.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (6, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Cinder Song
Aw. Elf! Tamsin half-smiles, but all she does is - oh, fiddle with a phone, something, so they don't look too strange, all in a clump snow in the air night falling and something bad going on, should somebody else come. Maybe she hums, or sings something, unless that'd break any concentration.
Tamsin, she's ready for the signal, for ending something old and dead and a long time ago ended anyway, time goes on.
Charlotte
So, Erichs sits and Charlotte flicks her gaze up at Keisha and then Tamsin and then back to beetle-browed Erich, considering all options for approach. Back to the building, a frown deepening, pulling the corners of her mouth down into a quietly solemn expression. Charlotte hunkers down to her haunches and rummages through her messenger bag, sorting through the contents until she finds: her slingshot and a small leather pouch. She takes out the slingshot and tucks it into the back waistband of her jeans, then pulls out the leather pouch, opens it, and starts working to activate a small handful of... well, teeth. Human teeth. Girl-teeth, roots and all, quietly ivory in her hands.
Charlotte
Fire tooth talen the first!
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
Charlotte
Fire tooth talen the second!
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Erich Storm's Teeth
So...
Erich doesn't move for about ten minutes. Or well. He moves. Obviously: he breathes so they know he's not dead. Or petrified. He breathes slowly and deeply and regularly, almost like he's asleep, and in a way he is. His body relaxes. His shoulders slump. After a while his head falls forward, and at this point, honestly, if Charlotte doesn't kinda re-right him, he just kinda topples over and sprawls for a while.
Not too long though. After five, ten minutes, Erich's blueblueblue eyes pop open. He takes a quick inhale, like someone waking from an unexpected nap, and sits up.
"I think it's just the one vampire," he says. "A... former college kid, I think? And now it's nomming on its classmates." He frowns. "It's kinda sad actually. I wonder who turned it in the first place. Maybe we can ask it. I mean I think we still have to kill it, but... maybe if we ask it and at least tell it that it'll be avenged, in a way?
"Unless of course it wanted to be a vampire. Then, I have no sympathy. Anyway." He climbs to his feet. "Let's go kick some ass."
Charlotte
Fire tooth talen the third.
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
tivoli
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Still Waters
She narrows her eyes when she hears "vampire," and a sound not unlike a growl comes from the Child of Gaia. In Homid form. (Yes, the one who is all peace and love and doesn't ever kill.) Because that...well, that's something different. One or two have seen how she reacts to the undead before. And, it may be noted, she takes her backpack off, and sets her staff aside.
"Say the word."
tivoli
[His name is actually Mike but he introduces himself as Jedediah, smirking when he says that you can call him 'Jed' for short.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
Still Waters
[[Init +6]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Cinder Song
+6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
tivoli
[forgot: that's Jed + 7]
Charlotte
+8
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
tivoli
[for Erich: +17]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
tivoli
[Erich
Jed
Keisha
Charlotte
Tamsin.
Declare in reverse!]
Cinder Song
[Uh. Go... inside building.]
tivoli
[Note: this actually should have come before inits.]
While they're talking, suddenly there's a howling sound. A shriek, almost, and then the sound of footfalls racing across concrete. Thin-soled shoes, very stylish, skinny black jeans, skinny black t-shirt, big black spacers in his earlobes and sharp, yellowing teeth. He's running at them, wild-eyed,
blood already dripping out of his mouth.
Cinder Song
[1a. BITE the monster!!! while staying between it and the theurges.
1b. Bite it again!
-1 Rage: Snap-shift to Hispo.]
Charlotte
[1a/b slingshot previously activated talens at the monster hopefully while he's far enough away that she won't kill her friends.]
Still Waters
[[Snap-Shift: Hispo.
1a: Bite
1b: Bite
R1: Bite.
R2: Bite]]
tivoli
[Strike R2 for Keisha.]
Erich Storm's Teeth
[PREPARATION? WHAT PREPARATION? FUCK IT WE'LL DO IT LIVE.
-1WP Resist Pain, -1R snapshift hispo as well SINCE MY CLAWS ARE DULL AS FUCK RIGHT NOW.
1. Spur Claws -1R!
R1-3. Bitings! Unless Liz deems other actions more appropriate!]
tivoli
[1: zip behind Erich! effectively: dodge
2: grab Charlotte!
3: BITE CHARLOTTE AND DRINK HER SHINY BEAUTIFUL BLOOD
4: still drinking]
Erich Storm's Teeth
[Spur Claws. DODGE THIS, MOTHERFUCKER. >:|]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 7 )
tivoli
[dodge!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5) ( fail )
Erich Storm's Teeth
[dam +6]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Still Waters
[[Dex Brawl for Bite 1, -2 dice for split.]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Still Waters
[[Damage Str + 4 (Crinos) + 1 (Bite) + 1 (Succ)]]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
tivoli
[note to self: move those rolls down a bit, it's Jed's action(s)]
tivoli
[2: grabbing charlotte! st + brawl]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Charlotte
Strength + brawl
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2) ( fail )
tivoli
[3: delicious.
difficulty lowered due to hold.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
tivoli
The vampire moves fast. Wickedly fast, rushing at them, zipping behind Erich as Erich lunges at him; Erich catches flesh, cold and clammy, in his teeth. But he doesn't hurt it enough to keep it from latching hold of the still-homid Charlotte, arm around her upper body and hand grabbing her hair, yanking her head to the side before he sinks oversized, yellowing fangs deep into her jugular.
The thing makes a noise like a groan, eyes rolling back as it starts suck, sucking deep and hungrily at that glorious, shining, silver-pure blood. He's moaning, shaking from it.
Still Waters
[[Dex+Brawl #2. -3 for split, WP spent.]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Still Waters
[[Damage]]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Charlotte
(Changing Charlotte's action. Snapshift to Crinos. 1. Boom.. Dropping talen.)
Charlotte
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
tivoli
[Jed: Willpower]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Cinder Song
[1a. bite of oh fuck no you do NOT bite cotton candy hair girl. :< Dex + Brawl -2 for split.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Charlotte
Charlotte soak!
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Cinder Song
[damage! 5+1 bite+1hispobite+3suxx? i think?]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Cinder Song
[1b. bite again, no! bad! wp 'coz NYET. -3.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Cinder Song
[damageagain!]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 )
Charlotte
Erich's frenzy roll
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
tivoli
[diff 7 (8 for New Moon -1 for IC reasons) = 2 suxx]
Cinder Song
[?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4) ( fail )
tivoli
[Per/Alert - for Erich]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Still Waters
Per+Alert
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Charlotte
Per + Alert (Charlotte)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
tivoli
Seeing that thing, that dead gray douchebaggy thing, sinking its teeth into his sister and drinking deep, Erich feels the edges of his vision go white. It's not like when he chooses it, when he pulls the blankets of his rage up over his head and snaps his own mind in two. It's more animal than that. And everyone around him should be glad, in that moment, that the moon overhead is dark. There is not enough of the vampire left to slake the enraged bloodlust of a frenzied Ahroun,
only allies.
Allies who are, like Erich, turning towards Charlotte in the grasp of that hungry, deliriously happy leech to rip it the fuck off of her. And rip and tear they do, biting and snarling, leaving giant bloodless tears in his body and clothing. Hell: Tamsin the Faerie-Lights-slinging crooner rips off his arm before opening a hole in his belly that lets his leathery but blood-engorged intestine start to slip out.
Which she then has to drop very quickly, because it is on fire.
--
You see, Erich knows better than anyone what Charlotte really is. She may seem a sparrow, but sometimes she remembers she was a velociraptor. She remembers she has fangs and claws and violence. They all see that she remembers, even as Erich's vision is clearing, because she shrugs the vampire off as her body bursts into a gleaming white crinos, blood drenching the ruff of fur around her throat, dropping a fire-tooth to the ground.
The vision then is horrifying and glorious: Charlotte, so white that even without the moonlight she is nearly translucent, blood on her throat, teeth bared, fire at her feet reaching upwards, trying to eat her flesh, barely licking the ends of her fur. The thing that dared to make her its prey is engulfed, fire consuming those slipping intestines, that stump of an arm, saturating the air with the smell of burning skin, sizzling blood. Charlotte's blood, and the blood of whatever it ate last.
The vampire is still standing, barely. His eyes are sparkling with hunger, with awe, with feverish glee that borders on frenzy. Even the fire could not keep him from trying to get back to Charlotte's blood. But, frankly: Keisha, Tamsin, and Erich can. There isn't much left of him. There is even less, after they pile on. After Charlotte leaves the fire she created and helps. After his head comes off. After he is soaked clothing, well-shredded pulp on the ground.
Or rather: there is the same amount of him. It's just more spread out.
--
When the fire is out, stamped into the cold ground, and for reasons he won't be able to explain to himself later the campus policeman gave only a cursory glance toward the Tivoli building before driving quickly onward,
that is when they hear the crying. The soft help. help me. please, someone...
Tamsin doesn't hear it. Tamsin may or may not be harvesting that left arm, complete with shitty mustache finger-tattoo, as a trophy. Maybe. Who knows what Tamsin is doing, when the rest of them feel their ears flick towards the tears coming from just inside the doors to Tivoli.
Cinder Song
Tamsin is: gleefully ruminating on whether or not 'fire' and 'vampire' is too obvious a rhyme, while frisking about the gore.
Still Waters
She shifts down to Homid the second she hears the crying, thoughts of sending the twisted mockery of life to the rest it deserves gone. And she's moving with purpose and speed toward the building, snatching up her staff on the way.
Keisha Ballard: vicious when confronted with the undead, but if gentle in all other situations.
Charlotte
Not-Charlotte - oh some of them know her Garou-name but she does not speak it unless it is asked of her so - not-Charlotte remains gloriously Crinos. None of them want their faces associated by anyone within their viewshed with the crime scene before them. So: not-Charlotte flicks an ear at Tamsin as Erich lopes off to shadow Keisha. Some mental communication assuring him that Charlotte is fine, fine, fine. Will be fine, too.
To Tamsin, a rumble to draw her attention. Then a flicker: which sayshear that? and come on - while she herself gives the air another sniff.
Charlotte
Sense Wyrm
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Charlotte
STOP.
tivoli
They are somewhat bloody. Just from the digestive tract of the vampire, still full from feeding, but it is less gore than they usually get covered in when battling the Wyrm. Keisha is up and moving as soon as she hears the crying, leaving the others behind for a moment while Charlotte reassures Erich and tells Tamsin that something is up, even if that's a flick of ears, a signal of body language.
Erich makes some low sounds, growls and whuffs, effectively telling Keisha to hold up: that he totally doesn't really think it is, but it could be a trap so they should go together. Like what he said before about how splitting up equals shitstorm equals ugh.
At which point he nods Tamsin on ahead: Tamsin the arm-ripper-offer, to go alongside Keisha to the doors, Erich and Charlotte close behind them. Partly because, when all is said and done, he's still going to lean over and lick at the already-healed spot on Charlotte's neck where the bad thing bit her, leaning into her side protectively in hispo.
Cinder Song
The frisking ceases, Tamsin-monster's bright-bright eyes flicking soulful-ly thought-ful-ly toward everywhere everywhere because she doesn't know until after Charlotte there is Erich or no maybe there is Keisha's purposeful stride because she is a Child of Gaia and somebody is crying for surcease and and and the point is my friends
that the frisking ceases
and her ears prick upupupupup like I was always alert wary hearing things and and then though she prowls forward
to go alongside Keisha, staff-warrioress,
and see what there is to see
(and maybe scare what there is to scare)
wary wary
Charlotte
Charlotte leans into Erich as he comes alongside her, makes some noise in the back of her throat; a wuff, or a low-growl, or something that has weight and presence and purpose because Charlotte has weight and presence and purpose beyond her rank and beyond her years and beyond most anything because she is a goddamned silver fang, and likely mad as a hatter.
Alert; wary. Tail low and sweeping, shadowing Tamsin and Keisha to the door.
Still Waters
She's singed and hacking a little bit from the fire that scorched her and Charlotte along with the leech, but she is paying it absolutely no mind. If not for Erich, she would have charged headlong into that building by herself...and she gives a sound of frustration when she's told to hold up. There's someone in there in need, and as much as Keisha acts like she's wise and reasonable most of the time--and really, she is reasonable (wise, we'll leave up to debate)--she's still a nineteen (no, twenty this week) year-old girl who acts more like a human than a Garou. And twenty year-old humans are the impulsive types.
So she frowns, and she makes her sound, but she waits for Tamsin. "It might be a human in trouble, guys." She looks at the others as she rests her hand on the door handle. "Maybe Homid would be best. We can always shift back otherwise"
That's as far as she'll push it--the suggestion--and she'll give them enough time if they so desire before moving to open the door and head inside.
tivoli
Keisha is frustrated, but Keisha stops, and the others catch up. No one has indicated that they aren't going to check it out. Her hand is on the door handle, though, and Erich tells her again to just wait a second while he turns to Charlotte, asking her if she can sense if something on the other side is Wyrm-tainted.
None of them, just yet, smell another vampire.
Charlotte
Erich asks and Charlotte stops and Charlotte studies the door and Charlotte settles herself and pulls on sometime deep inside of herself and just - inhales. Quiet.
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Charlotte
The communications are gruff and quiet. Charlotte and Erich can manage this without speaking, so even Melantha hears the echo of it over their totemic connection. Now, however, here and now the beast wuffs her impression aloud.
No wyrm.
Swinging back around, checking their sight lines to assure herself that everyone who might observe them has been chased away by the Delirium.
Cinder Song
Tamsin, restless, restless, still simmering from the recent joy of killing something that is blasphemy to Gaia, does pause; waits for No wyrm, also looks around, edgily, and then - unless Erich indicates otherwise (see how deliberately she keeps his signals in mind? Looks to him? Welcome to being a Fostern) - if no one seems to be around (although with Tamsin, who's to say she'd notice?) - she shifts to homid, too. Girl-Tamsin, who whispers, "Does it still look fucked up across the Gauntlet?"
Still Waters
Charlotte says there's no Wyrm, and Keisha relaxes a bit and moves to go inside, when Tamsin asks if it still looks, as she herself had previously said, wrong across the Gauntlet. And the Gaian's urge to move in, to help, makes her tense again. She's not used to letting go like she just did against the undead thing. It's a very different kind of fighting than you usually see from her. But there was a time that she was once that wild and unrestrained. Pushed down for so long, having let it rise to the surface means that it's difficult to push back down.
"I don't know, but it could take time to look across, and someone could be bleeding to death from a leech bit in there for all we know. If there's no Wyrm, I'm going in."
Which is what she's moving to do now, unless she's stopped. The sanctity of whoever's life is in there is paramount to her right now.
tivoli
Erich remains in hispo, perhaps a bit stubbornly; it is dark. The door will shield him from view, a bit. And if anything jumps out or runs out at them if anything tries to BITE CHARLOTTE or attack Keisha or Tamsin he's half a foot away and can tear it to tiny tiny pieces and this is how he deals with the fact that really, if you get down to it, he's not okay at all with allowing Keisha and Tamsin to take point at all, it seems like a really bad idea even if Charlotte says there's no Wyrm.
But here you have it: there's no Wyrm. Someone is crying in there, gasping, begging quietly for help, asking is someone there? and sobbing, begging please, please,
and the last person or thing she wants to see right now is Erich, no matter what form he's in. Keisha isn't even reiterating, again, what she thinks they need to do before he's giving a nod at the door. After all: no one, at any point, has been about stopping Keisha. Just getting her to wait. To not rush in blindly, or on her own, no matter what her heart is telling her. She's wiser than that.
--
The door opens outward, unlocked right now. It's dark inside, but for some emergency lights and an EXIT sign they can see on the other side of the building that matches the EXIT sign above the door they're opening. It's hard to see the woman at first, young woman, student-aged, because she is slumped over on her side, panting softly, her begging getting weaker, and though her hand is clutched over the wound on her neck, there is still a pool of blood under her, blood soaking her clothing.
She's not crying anymore. She's passing out.
--
When she comes to, it's because someone has healed her, and because her body is starting to do the rest. That someone isn't there anymore. She's woozy as hell. Vague memories of someone jumping her from behind, stabbing her with something, like maybe a pen. Hearing some 'screaming' and something like growling or something outside, then normal human voices but she didn't see who it was. It won't make a lot of sense to them, with the charred ground outside that is already being dusted with snow. A lot of what she says will be chalked up to blood loss, delirious hallucinations, and she'll buy that, too. She'll talk, months and years from now, about how she lost so much blood she though she heard and saw dogs or something in Tivoli while she was trying to regain consciousness.
Her name is Holly. She'll have a scar. She'll have PTSD and won't walk anywhere alone, even in daylight, for a long time. She will also write about the experience, the random attack the likes of which they say don't happen that often and how much time she spent torturing herself trying to understand the 'why' of it all, and that essay is going to help her get into grad school for social work and repeat that lesson for many, many other people: stop asking yourself why you. Stop trying to figure out what you did or what you could have done.
The truth is, Holly won't even know that she was on the verge of death when the werewolves found her. She will never know how much blood she really lost, because most of it was torn up and burnt up with the vampire. She will not know that she was saved.
--
Just one vampire lurking around Auraria, they'll tell the new Warder of Cold Crescent. There was an unconscious victim, they healed her and let security find her. He'll nod, and for a while, he'll increase patrols to the area to make sure there's not a nest or a sire vampire nearby.
It seems like it should be a bigger deal. Holly should know the magnitude of what happened to her,
but she can't. She would go mad.
The Garou should be able to sit back and relish the magnitude of what they did, measure it against the endless-seeming war and all the bigger battles against greater foes with more extreme outcomes, feel the true weight of a single life's course being altered so dramatically, rest on that for the rest of their lives because how many people can say they saved someone's life,
but they can't.
They move on to the next area on their patrol. It's not that they have to do it all again tomorrow.
It's that they aren't even done tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment