Chrysallis

[Crysallis] The dead man was homeless, found by children playing in a weedy stretch of the old engine yards, near a long-abandoned wheelhouse in a long-forgotten old trainyard hard against the city's once-famous stockyards, separated from a high-rise housing project by a deep gully that once houses a small canal, long-since damned back up. There are too many environmental issues to redevelop the old trainyards, and so they remain, abandoned, grotesque - brown and gray and overgrown, not wild, not really - something else - under a gray-cast sky.

It wasn't the deadman that caught Imogen's attention. He was sprawled underneath the eves of an old engine house, eyes open, staring, but rather something close by, a little caern of stones that struck her as almost ritualistic, that hit a chord, that opened something up inside her. So she toed the structure - two inches high if that - over and found, underneath, a single gold tooth.

And something beneath it, slashed in blood, formed with the tip of claw. Like a Garou glyph -

- gone wrong.

[Imogen] She had confiscated the gold tooth subtly, quietly her back turned to the others on the crime scene. She is never alone in such things; there are forensic investigators, police officers, sometimes a resident along for the learning experience.

She keeps her back to them all as she carefully places a few rocks over the glyph again, the gold tooth sealed in a baggy and pocketed, getting to her feet.

"Nothing but a small pile o' rocks," she says as she returns to the body. "Poor kids legos, maybe."

The body is zipped into a black bag and placed on a stretcher by the body removal team - Imogen does no souch things once she's cleared the corpse for transport. She watches them as they put the body into the back of the van and then turns her attention to the police officer, removing her gloves carefully, the fingers tipped with rouge from where her examination had brought her into contact with congealing blood.

"I'll do the autopsy in the morning," she says, "shall I? Doesn't seem that important."

"Naw," snorts the officer, a man whom she intensely dislikes. "It's NHI. Take all the time you need."

No Human Involved.
Alright, then.

Hours later, Imogen calls Kora. "It's me," she says, allowing her accent and voice to do her introductions. She is in her office with a closed door, with office hours starting in minutes. "I found somethin' rather similar t'what we've seen before." Circumspect, is the message, though one images that Kora gets it.

"I ha' some time tonight after six, should yeh like to see it."

[Imogen] Perception Alertness! HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Crysallis

[Crysallis] "I'd like to see it," Kora returns, quiet. Sometime after six, she has to consult her phone, because she thinks of the world in terms of day and night and sunrise and sunset, of moon rise and fall, and the movement of the stars rather than hours. Still: for things like this, she makes the effort, consults the cheap tracphone, keeps an eye on the sun in the sky.

Sometime after six, Kora summons Roman. Doc found something is what she tells him. you and me are gonna check it out.

The sun is low, but not yet set when they arrive at the edge of the old railyards. The place is flat, half the rails have been pried up by enterprising junkies hoping to recycle some metal for drug money.

[Fate] He was more than happy to go with Kora, especially if it meant he could see Imogen. Who cared if she were older? She had one hell of a figure on her; he especially liked the view from behind, she had great assets. So when the time came, even though it was an odd place, he was eager to see the taciturn Kinswoman.

[Imogen] Imogen has them meet her at her car; when they arrive, she is standing there, her back against the door, a cigarette between her fingers, her expression taut. She'd been approached once during the wait to enquire about her fees.

The experience has put her in a bad mood.

She takes a deep suck of the cigarette as the Garou approach before dropping the fag to crush it out beneath the flat sole of her nondescript shoe.

"Do you see that SUV o'er there?" she says once they are close enough for her to speak quietly. She indicates several blocks away - the car still visible. "It was 'ere when I came t'retrieve the body. S'moved, but I'd swear it was the same car."

A pause before she adds, "I recognize the dents."

[Crysallis] The SUV is empty at the moment. It's big and black and boxy, circa 1992 model yeah, something American, with a handful of dents, of varying sizes and disfigurements. Kora glances up the street, her features set into a frown, her gaze lingering over it. The shadow of the housing projects is long, but the concrete basin of the drained canal is a long, deep barrier between the two. No one would park here to go there. Only the kids slide back and forth between the neighborhood and its next-door netherworld, under the fences, through the underbrush.

"So someone's coming and going." Kora says, restating the obvious. Then, a glane between Roman and Imogen. "What was it you found?"

[Fate] He forced his attention away from Imogen long enough to look in the direction she indicated. An SUV or the Angel before him? SUV normally wouldn't stand a chance. Though this was weird enough to have Imogen calling them, so he forced his brain to business.

"I can go take a look at it, see if I can pick up a trail, smell anything to follow."

As he was the smell of death lingered too close to this place, it was a sickening sweet smell his sensitive nose could pick up even in homid.

[Imogen] "A glyph," she says, "or at least what looks like one, done in blood. I don't recognize the shape." Which, truly, only means that it is none of the tribes with which Imogen is familiar, nor wyrm, nor kinfolk nor the auspices.

Then again, she seems to have been finding unfamiliar glyphs throughout the city, so it may very well mean more.

"Show you, shall I?"

[Crysallis] "Please," Kora returns, low voiced, looking from Imogen to Roman and back again. The lights are low, the shadows long here. There's a persistent scent of car exhaust and old diesel fuel in the air. They are close enough to downtown that the background lights of the city are bright, brilliant against the horizon, but the streets here are dark and mostly still.

" - show us."

[Fate] How long had he waited to hear those words?

"Show you, shall I?"

It took a lot of thought processes to calm down the eager teen hormones that had just jumped up and did the happy two-step dance. He forced himself to nod, hoarsely croaking out.

"Yessum, show us."

Who invented jeans anyway? The danged things suddenly felt like they had shrunk in the crotch last washing.

[Imogen] Roman's voice cracks when he speaks - Imogen casts him an odd glance, her eyebrow arching before she decides she is better off not knowing. She does not say anything else, merely tilts her head in a particular direction and walks toward it.

She's parked a few blocks away. Close enough to be in sight but not so close as to be obvious. They walk into the old train yards with their relics and dead engines, the rusting box cars, the carelessly strewn iron tracks. The foliage rustles as she highsteps through some of the worst of it and hisses as she walks through the rest.

"I found the body there," she says, pointing to the engine house, a small area haphazardly cordoned off, ribbon that will likely stay there until children tear it away, "Doesn't look like he died o' violence. From th'colour of his sclera - that's the white o' the eyes - and his skin, I'd imagine he died o' liver failure, but I won't know that until I cut him open.

"But what I did find was 'ere," she says, sinking to a crouch and picking up a few small stones and tossing them aside.

She lifts her chin now, not bothering to expand, merely gesturing at the glyph, slashed in blood, the colour of it uneven and brown.

[Crysallis] Fall, now - and a lean, dry fall at that. The tenderest shoots, the clustered grasses that had been going brown from drought were revived two nights past by a passing stormfront. Still, the growth underfoot is crabbed, tainted by the toxins left behind by the old rainroad companies and by the opportunistic fly-by-nights that came in after. The whole railyard is a superfund site that will never be cleaned up. Too expensive, and maybe too dangerous. Too many unknowns. Too much blame to be spread around for the cancer rates in the neighborhood, the birth defects, the subtle ways in which people go wrong.

Here and now, though, in the shadow of the old engine house, Kora sinks to a crouch, nudging away one of the stones with her long index finger. She goes still, this sour sense in the back of her throat. "Offering," she says, quiet, low, a certain hint of queasiness in her voice. " - that's what it says. offering.."

Then, glancing up at Roman, " - you want to try to get a scent?"

[Fate] He leaned in for a good look when the rocks were moved. It probably looked like one of those scenes where a group of kids gathered to examine a bug one found, only they weren't kids and it wasn't a bug. His nostrils flared just before a look of disgust touched his young face.

"Guess he couldn't find no paint?"

[Imogen] Imogen casts Kora a briefly wry glance. "There was a gold tooth left behind as well."

A beat. "Rather poor offering, I'd think." These words are almost to herself. It is a rather disturbingly sharp contrast to Kora's queasiness, to Roman's disgust. She casts a glance between the two and quietly clears her throat, a hand lifting to her hair, pushing it back as she glances about them, taking in their surroundings once more, this time without the busyness of a crime scene.

[Fate] "Gold is a solid offering. It's valuable, been the trade of choice throughout history and add to it, it's a tooth. Teeth mean a lot to a wolf, without 'em, we don't last long."

He crouched down to make a smaller target in the dark, using the women for a shield as he began the shift from Human to Wolf. Once there after all the wonderfully disgusting sounds and sights of the shift, he started sniffing the hole, rocks and area, letting his sharper senses pick up what his eyes couldn't.

[Fate]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 4 at target 4)

[Crysallis] "Maybe," Kora says quietly, a flicker of a look at Imogen's features, the wry look on her fine mouth, lingering in her dark blue eyes. " - but I don't think that that is going to be the only one."

Her smile is sifting, lingering, fleeting. Abruptly, she pushes herself to stand, frowning, casting the railyards - what is visible of them, in a long, sweeping glanc. Then Roman shifts to his lupus form, and Kora takes up a watchful position, looking for strangers who might stumble into the windy, abandoned stretch of broken real estate.

[Imogen] Imogen only makes a brief sound of acknowledgement to them both. Roman begins to change and Imogen turns her head slightly to watch him over the shoulder, her expression intent, a line forming between her eyebrows.

It fades and like Kora, Imogen moves to take a watchful position, allowing her and Kora to cover the entirety of the area with relative certainty.

[Crysallis] Roman finds the scent, recent enough, a hint of blood and darkness, some memory of pain, diesel and stagnant waters and dank, rotting earth. It takes him two circuits of the engine house to tease this one out from all the others, sharper, all the human scents from the police officers and forensic investigators and morque workers who attended to the corpse of the nameless man found with a grimace on his face and his eyes open - staring - at the sun a dozen feet away or more, but he teases it out soon enough, pads out among the broken rails into the weedy darkness.

Imogen and Kora watch until the wolf is a shadow against shadows, turning in a wide circuit around the wheelhouse. It takes him ten minutes, maybe 15, to make the full circuit of the place, but when he returns he has found four more tiny caerns, hidden amongst the weeds and detritus, each so small as to be easily overlooked.

A handful of stones.

Gold, underneath, and a blood-painted glyph.

Tooth and the top joint of a finger.

The root of a tongue.

The lense of an eye, tiny, perfectly worked as if it had been pulled from life, the iris and dilated pupil staring, gold on gold. A handful of bones worked in gold - the distinctive stapes, the malleus.

Together, the five little caerns form five points of a star, five cardinal directions (weren't there just four?), defining a wide ranging circle with the derelict wheelhouse at the heart of it.

[Fate] He was sniffing around like any dog or wolf would. Letting everything filter through instinctively. Trying to filter out the smell of stray cats, the occasional dog, children, cops, metal, rotting wood, a mouse, and death to find what he wanted. Something solid to connect to the tooth and pile of rocks.

When he returned, he shifted back up and lead them to his finds.

"More of them, five like the points in a pentagram and when ya think about it, depending on which way ya want to look at it, it could be horns up or not."

[Imogen] Imogen pauses, turning briefly to look at Roman.

"Did yeh check what was in the centre o' the pentagram?"

[Fate] Blur...man+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Fate] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Crysallis] Rrrragrash:

I TOTALLY SEE YOU.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Crysallis] (or not!)

[Fate] "No ma'am, but I intend to."

[Imogen] (perception+alertness!)

HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Crysallis] Kora: Per + Alertness!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Imogen] da Mei promises da Kahseeno pretty things!

HAIL!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Crysallis] ARGH. PER PLUS ALERTNESS KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Failure at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Imogen] (u no promiss kahseeno purty things.)

[Crysallis] Imogen notices movement on the periphery, a trio of figures in the shadows carrying a heavy object between them, something dark and saclike, the fabric matte, the shape and the way it slumps reminds the kinswoman of the dead weight of a human body lifted from a guerney, still flexible, not yet stiff with rigor mortis, the weight of the body defining a long, drooping arc between the two larger figures carrying it.

Notices the movement in time for Kora and Imogen to take shelter, hidden inside the engine house, the scent of rust and old fuel heavy in the air, spiders spinning webs so complex they seem to be arguments or poetry in the weaver's world.

There are windows, many-paned, rusted over through which they can watch the trio, who are keen and careful, but not worried about detection, talking so that their voices carry in the air in drifting snatches of intelligible speech.

From within the shelter, Kora traces the feel of her packmate more than the site of him; it would take the keenest of eyes to pick him out of the shadows of the railyard now. Holding her breath, now, as the trio gets close to the Ragabash, releasing it in a sharp and silent sigh as they disappear into the roundhouse.

Then Roman returns, abruptly, twenty tense minutes later, bearing news.

[Chrysalis] oh, I should post rules:

1. uh, let me know of merits/flaws/phobias that might apply.
2. keep track of your own health, WP, rage, gnosis, et cetera.
3. let me know if anything is off limits (I know lizards, lessa!) and / or please IM me if something offends you.
4. you will have one free reroll of any roll in the scene. once you've used it, no more! I would save it for something important. :)
5. have fun!

[Chrysalis] They are all the Caern tonight. Tongue Twist and Night's Reprieve and Dreams in Summer Snow. In the Caern, at the edge of the lake, on a night that has been marked and moved and ridden by storms. The concrete is wet and the lake's surface is as volatile as it ever gets. There is lightning on the horizon, breaking through the line of the clouds. Cloud to ground, the sort that splits the sky, this stutter-step of a flash that leaves something - smoking - on the wet ground.

After the storm, the evening air is warm and drenched. Fall is coming, but it feels like summer, simmering, the cool promise of the evening belayed by the humidity that lingers in the air. The moon beyond the clouds is full, they can feel it - but they see it only in flashes as the weather changes.

- and then it comes, a Galliard's call - gift-born and intent, both the call of the wyld and the anthem of war.

The Guardians cannot leave the Caern, but they pass on the news to those in the physical world rather than the spirit-world. she who offers sorrow summons whatever Garou will come to her call to fight.

They'll find her near the edge of the Caern, where the bawn borders her territory to the north, lupus, waiting impatiently, pacing back and forth. She will not wait long.

[Chrysalis] (LAST RULE: narrative posts within reasonable time, declares/rolls in 3 minutes pleaaaaaase!)

[Tongue Twister] In the Caern, the call comes, and Rory's head snaps up, curls spilling across ehr face, over her shoulders as she listens. It is a call to war, a call to fight. It is her moon, her birthright, her duty to answer, and answer immediately.

She grabs her pack, shoves her things inside, and slings it over her shoulders - all on the move. Also, on the move, she shifts to her faster, lupine form, moving quickly and sure footed to join she who offers sorrow at the edge of the bawn.

This is what she was build for, made for. This is what she does, who she is.
This is War, and Tongue Twister is ready.

[Imogen] Roman had returned with his news - a chair with restrains, a reclined pose in the wheel house. People carrying a body. Soon after, things occur quickly - cover found, conversation switched to low tones, barely louder than the sound of lips parting, and air passing through them.

Imogen is not pack - she has no totemic connection; they must speak this way.

Kora - we shall call her Sorrow, now, for these are things of war and blood and no room for even human names in it decrees the number too great to be attacked by two Garou and one kinfolk. Imogen's mouth is a thin line as she nods. Her gun is out, now, resting on her thigh, the safety removed, her expression carved in marble.

As Sorrow prepares to leave for the Caern, Imogen speaks, her finger on the trigger guard. There are tunnels beneath here, she thinks. A train system abandoned decades ago. There really isn't time to ask the kinwoman why she might know these things, and at the moment, likely, it doesn't make much difference.

Fate is sent to scout it out, as Sorrow leaves for the Caern and Imogen - having found a decent vantage point through the shattered window of an abandoned squat brick - building is too grand, but box will do nicely - that still has rusted tracks in front of them - merely a dozen feet or so of them before leading off to nowhere in grass and overgrown weeds - keeps a look out. She won't yell if she's in trouble; the report of her weapon will be warning enough.

Fate:
Imogen's directions lead him to an abandoned building down rickety, rotted stairs to the basement. There, beneath a scatter of debris, the shattered edges of drywood, he finds the heavy metal door, and the remains of a broken, rusted lock. He opens it by a ring handle to get inside. The air is cool and stagnant, the walls rough and uneven.

There is very little light here. Some light comes from behind him, but more comes ahead - dank, musty and filtered through fluttering dirt and motes. He can feel debris at his feet as he moves, a large oil can mysteriously in the middle of the tracks, the contents smelling burnt and charcoal-filled, with the faintest trace of meat left behind.

As he gets closer to the light the tunnel begins to slope upward. He can hear the mutter of voices, something indecipherable. The sharp smell of blood, and the smells he learnt to recognize from the roundhouse he'd peered into from above. Old metal. Old oil. The clank of tools. He's found what he needs.

By the time he returns, Imogen is much as he left her, though she turns as he opens the door, her finger on the trigger.

It relaxes a moment later - at least if he is in his human form, and if not, will relax when he reveals himself. She merely arches an eyebrow then turns her attention back toward the building, watching from an oblique angle.

[Dreams In Summer Snow] He's at the caern tonight. He comes out here to stand guard like the rest of them: he's pledged himself to Maelstrom and he lives at the Brotherhood, and even though he's not a warrior or a soldier, he's a part of this war. He remembers a creature coming up out of the water to destroy, to rend. So he's here tonight, standing guard.

He goes when the call comes from a Galliard he barely knows, has never spoken to, only seen in passing. Still: he has a healer's hands, the Philodox, has the gifts of the Children of Gaia regardless of whatever his moon is. He goes toward the sound of the summons.

Dreams in Summer Snow takes a new shape as he goes, distorts his form, grows taller. His warform is still small, not filled out yet, not fully grown; he is only fifteen. He is eight feet tall when he arrives, covered in a thick glossy coat of brown shot through with gray. He is already panting, tense, not quite as battle ready as the rest of them.

There's a look, once, toward the kinswoman he does not know. Harmony hovers close to her, protectively; it hardly occurs to him that this woman doesn't need his protection.

[Night's Reprieve] Night's Reprieve stands with his arms crossed over his chest, staring out over the lake with a streak of mud on his face and dirt on his hands. His nostrils flare with the scents of the evening air and his ears twitching to the sound of far away thunder and lightning. A storm is coming. When the call hits his senses, his body tenses and his chin tilts towards the location. Something calls for aid, something in his Bawn needs help and the Keeper of the Land is quick to respond. He see's the Fianna, darting across the concrete and his eyes track her for a moment. He doesn't shift, not yet.

He makes his way into one of the hangers and gathers up his leather satchel After that its just a matter of briskly walking across the Bawn to meet the Jarl, to see what the problem is.

[Fate] He was gone for several minutes and in that time he was chattering over the Totem Link to his Alpha, filling Sorrow in on details. Smells, sounds, the path he followed and the whispers he heard. Some ritual was going down, others had before from the burnt remains in the barrel.

When he returned to Imogen he hunkered down next to her, whispering.

"It's messed up down there, I'm thinking they's gonna torture that man they hauled in, then they will have a bar b que with what's left. I found the burning can. Miss Kora should arrive shortly, she's gathering folk."

[Imogen] Imogen pauses, her head turning slightly toward him, then back again to the window.

"The can is mine," she says. "I'll be movin' it later, yeh can rest assured."

[Fate] "Huh?"

Real bright that response. He had taken his hat off to brush webs off of it when she said that.

"Ya put that can there, or ya claim the can for your own? Cause I gotta say Miss Doctor Slaughter, there's better places to be bar be quing."

[Imogen] "You've seen me burn evidence." Her voice is barely a whisper. "Gi'en how often I've been doin' it lately, I've 'ad t'get a bit -" a pause before she chooses a word. "Creative."

[Fate] "Yessum, but ya might consider better neighbors. These folks ain't gonna come borrow sugar. I reckon most likely they will come to borrow a heart and not bring it back."

Over the link he sent.

~Miss Kora, best be moving along before Miss Doctor Slaughter gets the urge to go in that there hole and commence to grilling up someone.~

[Imogen] "I'll keep that in mind," her reply is as dry as the Sahara.

[Chrysalis] They find her at the edge of the bawn, the motley trio: Ahroun and Philodox and Godi, they find Sorrow, the Skald, in her gray-furred lupus form at the edge of the bawn. Her flanks are heaving from both her run through the city's umbral reflection, underneath the great spanning works of the weaver, in the shadow of the darker coils of the wyrm, through the hard, flat lands of her territory. When they arrive, the story she tells them is brief, almost perfunctory:

Doctor Slaughter discovered a glyph near a corpse today, hidden underneat a small pile of stones. The glyph said offering and was written in blood. Fate and Sorrow[i] joined her to investigate, and found five more forming the points of the star - a five-pointed star, with an offering at each apex, all in gold. The disc of a lens from a eye. The bones from inside some human ear. The root of a tongue, so finely detailed, said the doctor, it could have been cast from a body.

Given the proclivities of the enemy, likely it was.

At the center of the five-pointed star, in the abadoned railyard is an abandoned roundhouse, and in the abandoned roundhouse, the enemy gathers. Her packmate is scouting the approaches, but they do not have much time. Whatever they mean to do, the cursed ones have hidden it well and carefully, and prepared themselves assiduously.

They gather tonight, and must be stopped.

- and Sorrow asks them, Tongue Twister and Night's Reprieve, Dreams in Summer Snow, to join her.


--

Those that door soon retrace Kora's steps, through the umbra. She runs in her lupus form, for speed and endurance. They pass through her territory and onward, while the world around them darkens, until it grows so dark that she stops, [i]looks across the gauntlet, into an abandoned warehouse, and leads whoever has followed her back across the gauntlet.

The last handful of blocks they take on foot, quiet on bleak streets through the corridors of long abandoned industry, until they come to the abandoned railyard, huge and weedy, littered with derelict engines and criss-crossing tracks, old brick and metal buildings. The closest thing to civilization are a pair of bleak high-rise housing projects on the other side of a wide concrete canal bed, the water long since drained away. No one lives here but scavengers, human and other kinds.

Silence is necessary, now. They pick their way aound the edge of the vast old trainyard - half the tracks have been pried up and sold for metal scrap - until they come to the squat brick - structure in which Imogen and Fate have taken shelter against the darkness, with a vantage point on the roundhouse, the largest structure in the foreground, with train tracks spanning out from it like the points of a multipartite star.

[Imogen] Imogen straightens slightly as the Garou darken the door. She is crouched near the window, her vantage point. A flick of her gaze about Sorrow, the Garou behind her and the slight redhaired kinwoman nods slightly, almost as if to herself.

Her safety clicks ever-so-softly as she places it back on. She sweeps a hand beneath her light jacket, fitting her gun back into its sheath.

It is a deliberate, silent statement, as she gets to her feet, keeping out of direct line of the window. Her intention to withdraw.

[Dreams In Summer Snow] He is attentive while he listens to Sorrow tell them what they found. Dr. Slaughter he doesn't know, and Fate he doesn't know, but he'll know them soon enough. Battle has a way of getting people acquainted. Lets them know more about each other than they would otherwise. Harmony would deny it; that doesn't make it not true.

He follows Kora and keeps pace easily. Quiet, waiting for orders.

This isn't a place he would have gone to on his own, normally. This isn't a place whose like he's been in before. The Philodox watches with nervous green eyes as they pad through the old trainyard. His muscles are tense.

[Tongue Twister] Sorrow gives them the rundown, and when she turns to go, Rory is at her side, running easily in this form as she does in others. Interestingly enough, the fur in this form kinks and curls just as much as the hair in her homid form does. Not necessarily important, but interersting.

She follows Chicago's Jarl as easily as she does others, and picks her way silently across the yard to join the others. This is Sorrow's fight, and with a dip of her head she accepts her leadership unquestioningly. She doesn't speak, not yet. A nod for Imogen, for Roman, both of whom she has met. Then she looks to Kora to see if she has a plan, while quietly placing herself between the Doctor and the danger before them, almost as if on accident, only not.

[Fate] When the group arrived he melted out of the dark to greet them. Whispering with a nod towards the building.

"There's a way in that Miss Doctor Slaughter Ma'am knows about. I done scouted up through there and so far, we ain't seen more go in, so unless they crossed over from the otherside to arrive, the party is about to start. They got themselves a fella all strapped in like they's gonna do surgery."

[Night's Reprieve] Night's Reprieve enters the little structure last out of all of them, places himself out of the way but nods his head to both Imogen and Roman. He knows little about the situation until Roman begins to talk and when he does the Godi listens, narrows his brows. Keeps his mouth shut until the mention of the man strapped in.

"Who is he? Does he need to be saved?"

Could be he'd be better off dead, could be he's just some poor human in the wrong place at the wrong time in which case they need to stop his death.

[Chrysalis] "Doc," Kora says, quietly by way of greeting to Imogen when they've arrived. She stays away from the half-broken windows of the old brick building, sliding into the shadows on the other side as the other Garou come in after her. Roman gets a hip bump by way of greeting, subtle and animal, direct. " - the tunnels go all the way inside, then."

She lifts a glance back up at Imogen as Night's Reprieve asks who the man is, shaking her own head quietly. "I don't know." A direct look at the kinswoman. " - though I cannot imagine a human could survive captivity by the cursed ones with anything like sanity intact. Were either of your close enough to overhear?"

[Fate] "Well sir, I ain't had a chance to ask him who he is. It's a mite bit crowded in there, what with all them Dancer fellas dancing around."

He bumped back against Kora when she bumped him, though he was answering NR.

"Ain't heard much of what they said either, except some unflattering things I ain't gonna repeat in the presence of lady folk."

[Imogen] Does he need to be saved?

"I think it's a little late for him to be saved," she says, casting a quiet glance toward Night's Reprieve as she adjusts her jacket about herself. "Even if he's still alive if you succeed." Sorrow speaks, and Imogen returns the glance, steady, unflinching.

At the Skald's question, she shakes her head, simply, the only answer she offers.

[Fate] "I did get from some of the things they were saying, that they ain't so sure their offering is gonna be enough. Though enough for who or what, can't say. I can say they's a bunch of them inside. Four or five dancers and they got a motley looking bunch of human folk like a bunch of cattle wandering around."

[Dreams In Summer Snow] Harmony's heart beats a little faster when he hears there's a man, trapped. His Crinos form doesn't lend itself to a great deal of expressiveness, but whatever Rage most Garou might feel at the prospect seems to be muted in him. He's just torn, just horrified, just pained at the thought of what they might have to do to him.

"...We should do something. If we can," he says. Because he has not yet fully accepted the idea that sometimes there is nothing that can be done.

[Night's Reprieve] "Assume he's done for , I'm sorry Dreams. They are both right, he won't have much of a mind left if they've been the hospitable hosts that they aim to be."

He raises a finger tip his lips, puts his thumb nail between his teeth briefly.

"Well, this way in you found. How big are the tunnels? Room for Crinos, room for Hispo?"

[Tongue Twister] She listens. she listens carefully, and even casts Fate an unreadable look that reads very much like the idea she might be shocked to find herself considered a lady. She shifts her feet, slightly, and then glances at Harmony. "If." If they can, they will, but she's already moved on.

Night's Reprieve asks the question she was about to ask - and a good sight more clearly, as well.

[Fate] "It's a train tunnel. Four humans across, sure, but you talking Hispo or Crinos and fighting room? No more than two side by side or ya gonna be hitting each other. It's possible to sneak in close, spread out before striking, if luck is with us."

[Night's Reprieve] "Hm."

He leans back against the wall of the structure, crosses his arms over his chest. When he speaks its calm, chirpy even.

"Tunnels lead to the same place? Is there different exits?"

[Fate] "Sure, sameway they came and went, right through that door over yonder."

He nodded towards the Wheelhouse.

[Fate] "I don't think they know about the tunnels cause Miss Doctor Slaughter here has been using them for bar b queing and ain't no one ate her yet."

[Bone-Grinder] Simon had trailed behind them. Literally just a couple minutes behind them all. He was surprisingly quiet in his approach... The Full Moon was also a Shadow Lord and so Stealth was just as important as speed strength and agility. He came upon them with a little grin."Heads up..."He says before simply jumping into their midst. He allowed everyone time to register that he was a friend, or at least not an enemy.

"I was told where to find you all and thought I would stop in to lend a hand."He reassures the others with a nod of his head. The full moon was dressed for stealth tonight, hoodie, and a bandanna around his neck, he carried a knife on his belt and a pair of tightly clutching boots. Relatively loose jeans made stealth a little easier as he shouldn't snag up on anything while being tight enough that he would trip. He came to join the operation prepared to do his part, it would appear.

[Dreams In Summer Snow] Harmony lets out a slow breath and listens to what the others are saying about the tunnels. He isn't really a spectacular fighter, the Philodox; he just wants to know the layout, wants to plan out where he'll have to be in order to heal someone if he needs to.

He looks over his shoulder once, at Simon, and the brown Crinos nods toward the Shadow Lord he's fought beside but never really spoken to.

And he steels himself, prepares to go inside.

[Imogen] Perception+alertness

HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
to Chrysalis

[Fate] "Howdy Mister Simon. Listen, we got the wheelhouse there. We got us four or five Dancers. We got one man all beat up, strapped in for the ride and there's a bunch of humans that seem to be there for the party as either party favors or clean up crew. We got Dancers worried their sacrifice might not be enough, for what, beats me. And there's the tunnel with the old tracks. They branch out down there, all seem to come to the same room in the end. If we are really quiet, we might spread out and come in from different angles."

[Imogen] "The tunnels are a massive network," Imogen interrupts, "s'an old city -quirk, shall we say. Old train system. There are other entrances but other than the wheelhouse and th'buildin' I showed Roman, there are none near here." A beat.

"Tha' I know of."

A flick of her glance toward Fate, "All tha' means is we were never 'ere at the same time. Not that they don't know about the tunnels. Besides, when I was 'ere last, there was no chair in the wheelhouse. You're leapin' a bit far."

[Fate] He turned eyes as pale as faded denim on Imogen, removing his hat.

"Yessum. You're right, Ma'am."

One thing he had learned a long time ago, never argue with a woman who had a gun.

[Chrysalis] There is movement around the weelhouse. The flicker of a flashlight, keen against the darkness, the shadow of a pair of human-sized figures, emerging. Imogen will recognize the familiar flash and flare of a lighter in the darkness, the spark of a cigarette as someone lights it.

The second figure takes draft from the first character's cigarette, then peels away, dragging what appears to be a now-empty body bag through the weeds.
to Imogen

[Night's Reprieve] His head turns towards the new-comer, he frowns. The man isn't known to him, though that isn't surprising but you get to know faces being the Keeper. His wasn't one that had been around the Bawn lately. No matter, he's here to help.

"I don't like the idea of all of us clunking our way into those tunnels and then having a single exit to where we want to go. We've got enough people here for two forces, Simon, Dreams, Tongue Twister, Sorrow. Delayed front door. Fate, Doc and Myself take the tunnels. Fate can give the signal to Sorrow when we're in position."

There's a pause.

"Am I missing anything?"

[Bone-Grinder] He nods his head a little."Different angles is night provided we have the ability to keep a little on the quiet side. That said I'd imagine that most of us know how to be a little sneaky by now."He adds with a little tiny of a smile and a nod of his head."Surprise is the greatest weapon we have at our disposal."He says with a nod of his head.

"What are they sacrificing? The man?"He asks curiously."If so... Might do us a little better if we got him out of there or killed him before the ritual is complete if we can't manage to wriggle him free. Whatever plan they have in mind stopping it will likely be a good thing."He says with a little bit of a smile. The way he mentions killing a man who might be an innocent is surprisingly casual but then... Consider his tribe.

"Do we know anything about the pack specifically? Who is their alpha and who is their Beta? If we know these then they should be the first to fall... As the ones who will likely organize in a conflict cutting off the head of the pack before the fight usually helps dispatch the rest of the body."He was giving suggestions and doing his part. These kinds of things were important... Having a plan and knowing where you are going.

[Imogen] Abruptly, Imogen holds up her hand, making a brief sharp sibilance of sound. The same hand points concisely toward the window, indicating the out-of-doors, where a flashlight is weaving near the wheelhouse.

[Fate] "What I know is, they might of done started by now. They been in there quite some time now."

He shrugged apologetically.

[Fate] He naturally looked in the direction Imogen was pointing, hissing.

"Might of heard or seen us. Could be that there watch ya asked about."

[Bone-Grinder] His eyes shift in the direction of the flashlight and he finds his eyes narrowing a little."Could be some kinda night watchman or something? If so let him stumble in and distract them... We can use the cover to strike."He says with a slight smile forming on his lips. Always make use of your environment and oblivious humans were what a Shadow Lord would consider an environmental factor.

[Fate] per+pu
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Tongue Twister] [per+PU]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Dreams In Summer Snow] [Perc + PU]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Imogen] perception+science

HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Night's Reprieve] [per+pu]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fate] "If it's anything, it's one of them or their's. No one patrols this area, it's why they picked it."

[Imogen] Imogen shakes her head slightly. "They're smoking and carryin' a body bag," she says, her eyes narrowed toward the dimness, "an empty one," she adds.

"I think it's merely coincidental."

A beat.

"But might I suggest tha' it would be rather embarrassing t'ha' a guard, or smoker, or anythin' realize tha' there are five Garou and one kinfolk hiding in a building debating a battle plan?

"If you want my advice, take the tunnels wi' the element o' surprise." A flick of her gaze toward Night's Reprieve, "I regret t'inform you, I'm not joinin in yer venture. I imagine you ha' Garou enough.

"I will leave when yeh've started th'attack. But pray, decide quickly and get on with it."

[Chrysalis] "The tunnels come up in the center of the wheelhouse, right?" Sorrow casts a look at Fate, briefly. "More than two of you should take the tunnels. Anyone, only one Garou at a time is getting through those doors, and squeezing a hispo through them after knocking them down would be an effort. A different sort of bottleneck, with the door in the middle. " To Simon, a quick shake of her head. "We don't have any intelligence. We stumbled on a ritual. We need to stop it."

--

Those who look now can see one human figure standing outside the wheelhouse, smoking cigarette. A second human figure is walking away from the doors, dragging a long black bag. The smoker has a flashlight, pointed down now at the ground. He shines it briefly to light the second figure's way. She's a teenaged girl, with greasy brown hair but a certain confident set to her shoulders. Then he shines it away. The guard is guarding the building in a desultory manner, after that, but he's there.

--

And then they feel it, underneath their feet - each and everyone of them, this brief - lurching shudder, as if the earth were briefly liquified, somewhere deep underground. It isn't enough to rattle glass in its pane, not yet. But they felt it, the wrongness of it, each and every one of them.

[Dreams In Summer Snow] Harmony begins to shift down to Hispo at the suggestion, glances toward the others. And waits for someone to give the word to go, for one of the Ahroun to lead the way into the corridors. He'll be quick to follow.

[Fate] That's all it took. He looked at his Alpha and nodded to the rest.

"Come on fella's, feel that? It's the welcome wagon."

And he slipped off towards the tunnels.

[Tongue Twister] She shakes her head. "Enough talk."

She steps up, and points to Simon and Sorrow. "Guard." To the others. "Tunnels."

And she turns to follow Fate toward the tunnels. Time to get this show on the road.

[Night's Reprieve] His hand dips into his leather pouch at his side while he peeks out at the flash light. Talens are removed. Discs with seams running through the middle, he cracks one in half and rubs the goopy grey paste on the back of his neck where the spiraling spear tattoo is. The second he smears on his cheeks below his eyes.

So much for plans, here we go. He follows after the rest of them into the tunnels.

[rolling for damage Talen]
[-1G Soak +3]
[-1WP Resist Pain]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)


--

Imogen remains back in the narrow building, her eyes on the wheelhouse, her hand on her gun. When she hears the sounds of battle - she slips away.