Le Carnivale

[Gwen Sullivan] Last Posts:

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen was quiet while the girl gave her stammered, anxious bits of information. They had a time, they had a place, and that was the makings of a plan. The entrance of one, anyways. Before rushing away, a piece of paper that was worn and folded and smudged was pressed into her hand, a possible last request made, and Gwen stared sharply after the girl as she retreated with resolve set on her soft little shoulders.

Her mouth pressed in that displeased line again, and the paper was tucked into the back pocket of her jeans before she turned to address the guys that had joined her.

"She'd said something about this Jones fellow talking about The Father's plans... The Father, as opposed to The Mother. We don't have a Father too, do we?" Her expression is incredulous at the idea, and she flows smoothly into the other thing she picked up from the nerve-wracked teenager. "I don't think it's like what you mentioned earlier, though." This to Simon, more specifically, for what he had said earlier. "I don't think they know specifically what we are, I think he just got caught unawares. Most idiots know the myth of silver, and someone's bound to try it. It's just dumb luck that it's one of the true ones.

"She said that the EmCee is looking for a girl werewolf too... For obvious intent, if you ask me. If that's actually his intent, then he must not actually know a lot about us."

[Fate] "I'm Roman by the way, a Coggie."

He looked directly at Gwen when speaking.

"Mind if I ask who you are, Ma'am? I know for a fact that they want a female Garou. I know for a fact it is easy enough to trap one of us after being here before and seeing how they operated then. And I must say, at best they want a female for her breeding abilities, cause they done got a male."

[Bone Writer] "Kingdom for a Phil-"

The Father

His attention snaps around harshly toward Gwen, features a plague of displeasure. He steps forward a pace staring at her, voice settling into a harsh whisper.

"The Father? You're sure that's what she said?" He's adamant, watching Gwen's face for any uncertainty. Finding none, his lip rolls, something akin to an inaudible snarl before turning back to Simon and Roman, exhaling loudly. Gwen finishes her suppositions and Linus steps away from the three a pace or two scratching at his stubbled head.

"He's a Spiral." Under his breath, quiet enough that only the three of them could hope to hear it.

"The Father's a reference to the Cosmological ideals of some of the Bastards zealot number. Name's Him as Husband to the Mother, before and after. His is the true path and way." Linus lip tucks between his teeth again, eyes regarding the distant path where the parade had vanished.

[Bone-Grinder] He shrugs his shoulders."Rank, Moon and deed don't matter... We pull him out and then we sort through that shit. If nothing else we put him out of his misery... Who knows how long he has been her or if he is even one of us as we understand it. Helping people doesn't always have to mean pulling them out of the fire... Sometimes shooting them in the head so they die a quick and painless death is the best you can do."He shrugs his shoulders and looks between the others with cautious eyes.

"What did she mean about pulling roots?"He asks the others curiously before settling back a bit."The whole operation is a bit bigger than I would like especially if they can drag us all with it. Means there is some kinda force or magic underlying this all which means... That is what we are looking for and that is what we wanna stop if at all possible."He says with a nod of his head."It also means they might know full well we are here..."He then gets a bit of a smile on his face."We need more information but kidnapping and torturing one of them isn't exactly something we can do effectively on the fly and might tip them off to our presence. If they don't know we are here then we don't want them knowing but just the same lets pretend, for our own sake, they know full well that we are here and tracking everything that we do. So any plan we come up with should take that matter into consideration."He says with a nod of his head.

"If I recall the MC guy was afraid of something... So if we get a chance he might be the best option as far as questioning. He's seen us in action and if we can get our hands on him he knows what we're capable of... But he can't see me or Roman coming if he gets that chance he'll respond accordingly. Don't assume that these freaks are harmless... That strong man alone could probably beat any of us to a bloody pulp with his bare fists. Most are probably Fomori or worse..."He looks around cautiously."Don't talk to the carnies either... No games."

[Bone Writer] (They claim his is the true path and way^)

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's mouth worked silently around the word 'Coggie' for a moment as she tried to place it in memory, or to an inked and possibly highlighted or underlined word in her notebook that should probably be burned sometime soon so she wasn't leaving behind veil-rendering evidence planned out so neatly for people that could stumble upon it.

Coggie... Cog... CoG. Child of Gaia. A tribe, right.

"Ah, right. Roman." And then the guy that had appeared after the beefy man and the cowboy kid had showed up was all but bearing down on her, even though all he was doing was glaring and whispering harshly. She blinked like a deer in the headlights for a second, then nodded. "I guessed so. Alethea kept calling The Wyrm a 'Him'..."

And then back to the original thought-- she looked to Roman, and now Simon as well. "This has happened before?"

And, as an afterthought: "Ohshit. Hey, yeah, I'm Gwen. And incredibly new to this."

[Fate] He peered at Gwen, looking pass her in the direction the girl ran off in, then in the direction the parade of the Damned went.

"We have a big show going on in the big tent after the parade. Then the girl feeds the Mermaid and that Jones fella. She said then they do another show and between shows she cleans cages. Says she will meet us behind the Freak Show and let us in after it is over. I remember the Freak show tent. I bet you do too Simon."

He looked at Simon as he spoke, then back to the others, especially Gwen.

"How do we know this girl is not setting us up?"

He was Ragabash, caution was his meat and potatoes.

[Bone Writer] "We don't. "

His attention returns to the others, regarding Roman first and then each of them in turn.

"But what other options do we have right now? Pick up and go home? Push in from the umbra which is more of a threat? Walk in and gut everything in sight and hope we have the manpower for whatever they've got to provide?"

He shrugs, unbuttoning the length of his gray coat, murmuring quietly in the wake of the Parade already vanished from sight.

"I say we take the plan. Shit goes south, we go umbral. I should be able to guide us out from the Spirit, so long as we stay together and don't get separated."

[Bone-Grinder] He nods his head back at Gwen."We bumped into these folks a while back. I think they were wanting to take one of us alive... Best that Roman and I keep out of sight as much as possible. We don't wanna be spotted by the locals."

He then nods his head at Roman."You're right we don't know that she isn't setting us up. This could be exactly how they plan on getting their hands on a new toy."He says this with a shrug of his shoulders."It would be a clever act on their part but far from beyond the realm of possibilities. So if we're gonna go forward with this we should do so carefully and cautiously... Never put anything past a Wyrm creature however unlikely it might appear."He turns his attention to Gwen."As the only Female werewolf here I think we might know who the most likely target would be."He says before looking around.

"I'd much ratrher go through the Emcee to get our hands on the prisoner, however, That makes things a little rougher and a little more dangerous. This turns from a rescue mission into something a little more heated. But then again I didn't come here with the intention of doing too much rescuing myself. Secondary objectives... I think ending the threat would do far more good than helping a single misplaced Garou."

"But her plan does sound solid at the very least."

[Slaughter] Out on the mid-way, redhair flashes, pale skin, a slight body. The freaks have marched already, and the crowd is starting to dissipate from either side, some crossing, some simply heading further in. The red-hair (and pure-breeding) moves as the kinwoman steps out onto the midway, her head turning to look in the direction where the freaks have gone, her hands, absently tucked into the pockets of her jeans, keeping the coat secure from the tug of the wind, keeping it from fluttering, as she keeps it open.

Too far to see her expression - too far to see if she frowns or smiles or merely looks bland. But close enough to see the red hair - close enough to recognize her, at least, if you've seen her before.

[Carousel] The wheezing accordian music still seems to echo down the midway. There's a brief, lingering sort of silence in the wake of the small parade, this stillness - everyone's stopped, the barkers, the chefs, the deep fry cooks, the game-players, the games - everyone's stopped to watch the parade and its macabre assortment of broken human beings.

Then - as the sound of the accordians - one out of tune with the other - fades, life returns to the midway. From their sheltered place between the booths and food trucks, they can hear bits of conversations. Some football player demanding another three balls, a girl shrieking in delight over some prize. A man drawling some explanation to another about prostheses, make-up, special effects. Another hooping that lady with this shake shows more than her boobs at the midnight show, reporting that her heard from one of the carnis that the midnight one's special. Only four hours away now.

- there's music in the background, the whirl of lights from the Rock'n'Roll express. The scent of deep fried dough and spilled beer, underneath some animal scent, dry-dust.

Three stalls down, the back door of a white food truck opens, and someone throws out first one, then two small bags of trash.

[Bone Writer] (Perception + Investigation: Diff 6 - PB.)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[Gwen Sullivan] "I don't think this is so much about helping out a misplaced Garou, especially not if he's on the wrong side of the ideological fence." Gwen was eyeballing Simon uncertainly while he spoke, one hand in her snug hoodie pocket while the other hand twirled and fiddled with the spiraling decoration that was looped through the gauge in her left ear. You could call it a nervous habit, she wouldn't call it anything, just stop for a few minutes if it was pointed out.

"I think it's more about the Veil. We can't keep a secret with something like this guy out on public display, you know? Most people'll dismiss it, but someone will try and... I don't know, maybe buy him for scientific study? And then a whole can of worm's will open.

"But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the operation entirely while we're here too, right? I mean, this is the second time it's cropped up already."

There's a pause, and the hand that played with her ear dropped into her pocket as well, and she looked at Linus doubtfully. "...Is there a way to piggyback into the spirit world? I...'ve only been once."

[Bone Writer] "Dude...is that who..."

Linus catches the red. Blinking, frowning, scowling and jaw dropped momentarily. He shifts stance to regard the crowd, head bouncing back and forth to maintain view of the image burned through the drab and regular.

"...I...think it is?" His voice grows exceedingly more agitated as the words trickle out, feet already beginning to pluck at the mid-way in Her direction. It isn't until Gwen pipes up that Linus snaps his attention back around toward her, the frown remaining.

"What? No, not without a bond. Pack. Shit you really are new? This isn't the time or place for a fucking cub." The last part said more to the others though his eyes remain on Gwen.

"You stick close to me and if the time comes, do what you did the first time. It's like reaching only you don't think, you do. I won't go across until you're gone and someone else has gone with you, now just...hold on..."

And he's peeling away from the Group again, eyes flicking to Roman, pointing.

"Do you know...who that is?"

[Fate] He was looking at Gwen like she might of smoked some wild weed when Linus popped up and put her straight. It was when he pointed out Imogen that his attention shifted.

"Well I'll be a two headed calf. That there is Miss Doctor Slaughter. What in the tarnation is she doing here?"

[Fate] It wasn't a moment later that he was fishing a cell out of his pocket and punching one of the numbers while watching Imogen across the way. When she answered he spoke.

"Howdy Miss Doctor Slaughter, Ma'am. If ya would kindly look dead ahead and a little to the right, ya see that there gap between things? See that there hand a waving? Ya think ya could do me the pleasure of joining me here in this here dark gap? I'd be right honored."

[Bone-Grinder] He shrugs his shoulders."This is a Wyrm operation not a Civilian operation... If this Carnival is, in fact, capable of sucking people in as it disappears and reappearing elsewhere then the entire thing is some kinda fucked up. I don't know what it would be? Maybe like a Wyrmhole but different? Protecting the Veil isn't really a concern cause I don't think they are going to be letting their werewolf be studied. I think the real threat lay in the fact that this place can disappear and reappear anywhere it pleases on a whim carrying off it's victims at it pleases without anyone being the wiser. We've got a far bigger threat than the life of a Single Garou and some supposedly innocent girl going on here. End the operation and we save them all... But if we only save them then we are abandoning hundreds if not thousands who will be tainted, corrupted, or simply whisked away by this fucked up place. I think it should be pretty clear that ending the threat should be our primary concern here. We end the threat and we help thousands of people in the process... Not that helping people is our objective it's just a good enough reason."

"As it stands that Garou is useless to us. We have no idea if it is even salvageable. Who knows maybe it will freak out and have to be killed when we free it? Maybe it's a Black Spiral Dancer? It is of no immediate help to us... It's life is forfeit at the moment. All our lives are... We know the risks we take when we walk into a situation and we understand that Capture and worse are possible consequences for those actions. I would love to help him but I think we've got much bigger fish to fry. This isn't Heroes... First we gotta save the World then we can worry about the fate of the Cheerleader."

[Gwen Sullivan] Linus stared at her as though she'd sprouted an extra arm, and then the expression shifted to something that made it seem as though she'd just had an accident on the dining room rug and was being scolded harshly for it. She flushed at the cheeks and ears, appeared ashamed if only for a few seconds before the unfamiliar and too-potent force of Rage boiled at her skin and fired up in her ribcage like a bad case of heartburn.

Her weight shifted between her feet, her lips parted enough for an irritated sigh to pass through them, but the words didn't follow after. Sure, they bounced about in her skull, the snide, firey comebacks of any teenage girl, but they were left unspoken.

Rather, she watched Roman with his cellphone, watched Linus staring out into the crowd, and found herself wondering who they'd just spotted, besides the obvious of the name that the Child of Gaia had just spoken.

[Slaughter] From their vantage point, they can see the redhead retrieve a mobile from her pocket, glancing at the call display before answering. "Dr. Slaughter," she says, though she knows who it is.

Silence while he speaks, and when he's done - well, from this distance, whether she sees him or not is hard to tell, but she hangs up without another word. Moments later, the good doctor is headed in their direction, her phone returned to her pockets, her hands in the same position.

"Fancy meeting you here," she says, a greeting which is primarily directed at Roman, though she's met Simon in the past.

[Fate] "Howdy Miss Doctor Slaughter, Ma'am."

He lifted his hat by the crown, canting his head to her.

"This hear is Simon, Linus who's Kora's lil brother and this here."

He indicated Gwen.

"Is Miss Gwen who we just met. We were wondering if ya might want to join us in a trip to the Freak Show. We're either going to save the world or end up in a big ole silver cage. Now don't that sound like a fine way to spend a Fall evenin?"

[Bone Writer] "Whattttt the-"

He's pointing. Repeatedly at Imogen, his attention leveled on Roman throughout the proceeding.

"You know that-" He turns suddenly, regarding Imogen, hands held up like he was about to handle something fragile or imply a lack of aggression "-Apologies, Slaughter, not looking to step on your parade but...you really shouldn't be here. Major issues with Corruption and possible Dancers and regardless of who you are and just how much bad ass is actually attached to your name? I think you better find an exit out of- fuck, no that doesn't work..."

His hand slaps his forehead, before running up his scalp and over the stubble there.

"Escort necessary but that reduces our numbers and no guarantee we won't get spotted." He's thinking, a brief interruption given to Roman "-Younger, Kora's shorter than I am-" pacing back and forth in a tight path.

"We can't take her with us into this!" He turns finally, looking somewhat frustrated by the entire thing, hands spread as if awaiting other options.

[Gwen Sullivan] "What escort necessary?"

Gwen, ever helpful, piped up again, even if the burn of Rage was still charring her ribs and sizzling the ends of her sentences. She moved a hand from her pocket to point from the shoulder toward the large clown head that made up the front gate.

"Who's stopping her from walking back out?"

[Fate] "Language around a Lady...."

He shook his head, then looked at the others, including Imogen.

"Time's wasting. The longer we stand in one spot, the more the chance someone will stumble over us. Let's get moving through the back ways here, we'll head for that big ole tent to peek under it at the show, then station ourselves so we all ain't standing out when we go to meet that there girl. If anyone can pass for normal in this here bunch, it's Miss Doctor Slaughter. She might have purdy hair and eyes and all, but she ain't got the anger that bleeds from us."

[Slaughter] Imogen regards Bone Writer as he - well - rants, her expression even-keeled. Very little flickers over alabaster

"Look," she says quietly. "I didn't know yeh had an operation 'ere, and I was 'ere to check it out before callin' Full-Bloods to let them know. Now that I am here, and you are here, yeh ha' two options. Yeh can accept my track record fer what it is, concede that I am moderately intelligent and therefore capable o' stayin' back behind Garou while pickin' targets t'help you out, or yeh can let me turn here and walk out without wastin' one o' yer warriors on me.

"Frankly, I don't care which yeh pick as the risk to me is the same either way. If I can help you, I'll help you. If yeh think I'll be in your way, then yer own your own and so am I."

A beat.

"But don't waste time talkin' or arguing about it. Like he said," a tilt of her head, "The longer yeh stand in one spot." She doesn't quite trail off, though she does end it there.

[Bone-Grinder] He looks at Imogen and then around to the others then back to Imogen."I think it's Dr. Slaughter's choice if she wants to be of use to us or not... I really don't think we need to coddle or hide our kin or anyone's kin from danger just because it rears it's ugly head. Girl can make her own choices..."He knew she held a genuine lack of interest in the affairs of Garou so he didn't exactly think she would offer much help but still he was a Shadow Lord and Kin were expected to be able to be of use to their tribe in ways other than breeding.

[Slaughter] The look Imogen gives Simon as he begins to speak suggests he should shut up. It's enough to blister the skin.

[Carousel] The rickety structure of a wooden rollercoast rises in the middle distant against the smoke gray sky. It looks as if it might be a good half-mile or more distant. Just Imogen's cell rings, another car ratchets up the incline toward the top of the monstrous hill, curving around a narrow bank until -

- she turns away, folds her phone into her pockets, and cuts between the bean-bag toss and the Fresh Squeezed Lemonade! truck. The scent of used vegetable oil and discarded trash sharpens as she approaches the group.

Three booths down, another bag of garbage joins the first two.

Another bag of garbage joins the first two.

Someone's whistling - not Dixie but Disney. Whistle while you work.

---

And then a boot on the top step of the - Bar-B-Que pit, a cowboy boot, snakeskin, with the hint of metal that is the edge of a spur.

[Bone Writer] He stares at Roman, jaw hanging slightly, head beginning a very slight bounce back and forth until it's a full blown disbelieving waver.

"Look..." Hands up again, swallowing slowly and exhaling with calm in mind.

"There's a difference between a Kin in the wrong place at the wrong time, mid-fisticuffs and bringing one along knowingly into a situation we don't have any immediate control over-" And then Imogen is talking and Linus shuts up. Just, clicks off and snaps his attention toward her. A sharp inhale later and that disbelieving shake of the head returns.

"...Fine." A grit-toothed thing. A finger raises, leveling at Roman, voice lowering slightly. "But we're not done talking about this-"

And he's turning toward the midway again, that frown not going away anytime soon.

"So our plan is to what? Get in with the Girl-" He waves a hand ambiguously, obviously having forgotten her name already "-that was here with Gwen's help? Kak the body in the cage and pull out?"

[Fate] More trash flew out the back of the booth, all to whistled music. Then the spurred boot appeared and he hissed.

"Move."

With that he melded off in the direction of the big tent, slipping one arm around Imogen's shoulder as he lifted his voice slightly.

"Why sure thing Sugar. Ya want one of them there fluffy bears, I'll win one for ya. But first my little brother wants to see the show."

He looped the other arm over Linus shoulder, chuckling like they were having a good ole time as he started edging them away from possible trouble with being overheard or spotted for what they were too soon.

[Fate] "Ya coming Johnny or are ya gonna stand out here making out with your girl?"

He spoke over a shoulder to Bone Grinder, just making up names as he went.

"Ya know ya want to see that show as much as we do."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen and Roman noticed the person exiting the back of his booth at (perhaps precisely) the same time, and responded accordingly. He spoke, and she merely acted, hunching her shoulders up grudgingly like any teenager about to get caught sneaking a cigarette or a joint out from the public eye would.

One hand moved from her pocket to yank her sweater hood up over the distinguishable Crayola coloring of her hair, and her eyes sharpened accusingly at Roman when he paired her up with Simon as a part of the 'We're normal kids!' facade he was throwing out loud and obvious to throw anyone off the trail of suspicion. She looked to Simon next, wrinkled her nose up some, and trudged forward after Roman and his rodeo buckle go-get-em attitude.

[Bone-Grinder] The look he gets from the Kin prompts him to look back at the woman. His smile shows through though those eyes show something far less than enjoyment or pleasure. The eyes of a Full Moon were easy enough to read especially when they were dripping with contempt. The full moon immediately begins to move slipping in with the group and keeping close enough.

He heard the clicking of a Spur. The little clang set the hairs on the edge of his neck on edge. Battle was his way of life, and it was almost startling how something so simple could put him in defensive mode, ready to lash out and slay anything that so much as made the wrong move.

He listens to fate and stops himself from correcting the New Moon on his name. After all he could have just as easily called him Simon."I don't care much for shows... Specially freak shows. All of them together in one place like that. At least it gets the majority of the crowds away from the booths. Gives you a chance to enjoy the rest of the show."This was stupid to him. He wasn't big on pretending to be anything more or less than what he actually is. Acting was not a talent he prided himself on. Stealth, Cunning, Raw Brutality these were what defined a warrior. Besides during the show was the best time for them to be out and about dealing with the problem.

[Carousel] In the service alley behind the midway, a body follows, taking the two steps down from the parked truck to reach down and grab the bags. The man is moderately sized, whip-lean, wearing jeans under a white apron smeared with some dark substance. He has gray hair, thinning at the crown, pulled back into a pony tail, and he is straightening, bags in hand, whistling an off-tune version of

Moon River -

Closer, there's a loud, gaseous sort of sigh as a hydraulics system somewhere close expells a sharp burst of air, lowering something quickly. Some ride, some spider-thing, covered in lights erupts toward the sky. A girl shrieks one of those bright, noisy sounds that glides on the razor line of delight and fear. Roman slides an arm around Imogen's shoulder as if they were - well, high school kids at their homecoming fair. The midway is crowded now, a group of football players gathered around the Test Your Strength towers, striking to win stuffed animals - not for their girlfriends, now, but for themselves, this kind of living fever there.

They emerge between the Lemonade Stand and the bean-bag toss, passing just under one of those water-colored advertisements for the Freak Show's Mermaid - this vision of a demonspirit, sharp-eyed, white-skinned, with alien eyes and long, thick fingernails sharpened to pin-points -

"Win a prize for your girl?" the carnie in the beanbag booth calls out to Simon, smiling an oleaginous smile as they pass. He has a beanbag, that he tosses up and down in one hand, the contents running together like pebbles, this soft, concerted movement - that somehow feels - menacing.

[Slaughter] Imogen had opened her mouth to speak - to warn or perhaps, adroitly (bluntly) suggest they move, when Fate moves more quickly - and with a plan far from what she might have chosen. She is smaller than the sixteen year old, and he can always fling his arm around her, her shoulders vibrating slightly under the impact as he forcibly - and then suddenly not so forcibly, after a moment of resistance, she merely moves with him - guides her toward the big tent.

One hand lifts, the one between their bodies, and she jabs a thumb, firmly between the ribs - where sensitive nerves are, but it is the only remark she makes on his particular choice of - illusion.

"Thanks ever so much." She does, at least, keep the sarcasm from her voice.

She's missed much of what's gone on. The girl, the plan, fledgling though it might be - or perhaps it isn't. She watches their surroundings - the Garou and waits for, well, anything. A sign, a hint. An opening.

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

[Bone Writer] -They push and jostle and Linus claps his trap, letting Roman settle them into a niche of illusion beyond the views and sights of their surroundings. He takes the moment to clap down on ingrained traditions and focus on the task at hand. They were shifting through the crowd and regarding their options quietly, Linus digging his knapsack off one shoulder and thrusting a hand inside hurriedly.

It isn't until they reach the edge of one of the booths, that Linus' attention flicks up, catching the Vendor and his attempt to lure Simon in with the age old carnie talk-up. A moment of distraction that leaves Linus to pull the shard of mirror he kept for moments like these free of the bag and palm it comfortably.

When the next moment to step out of time with the rest of the Group arrives, he flicks his gaze down into the reflection, once more sending his eyes across for a glance.

(Peeking. Gnosis -1 diff. for reflective surface)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 10

[Bone-Grinder] Simon knew what the booths could do. He knew the effect they had upon you once you got started, and it was difficult for him when the challenge was thrown his way. His eyes peeled from the others and he looked back with a deadpan stare that almost implied he was offended the man would even ask. This place was tainted... The very fabric of reality around them had been woven into a kind of spiritual representation of a Carnival which fed upon the baser emotions and desires of it's victims. It wasn't just tainted... it was taint. It was in itself a kind of living twisting corruption of spiritual and physical that likely fed as a collective whole off the sins of it's victims. He would not feed it... He would not take part in adding to its strength.

"What was that you were saying about the Father?"He asks Bone Writer once they're far enough away that no one who might have been listening earlier was listening in. Still he was soft about it."Who was that referencing? The one in the cage or someone else?"He asks curiously.

Linus had mentioned something about a Black Spiral Dancer earlier and if that is the case then that might be the first of their targets. Though likely that was not the "Roots" that the girl or her Werewolf friend were addressing. Certainly it would be in the interest of any dancer to feed a Wyrm Creature, Thing, Entity of this sort... Help it grow in strength.

[Fate] He grunted when jabbed between the ribs, but he kept leading them away, whispering to Imogen as he pretended to kiss her ear and nuzzle.

"There was a True in a silver cage that went past. A girl told Gwen she knows all about our kind and she wants us to save her and the guy in the cage. She's gonna get us in the back of the Freak Show when the coast is clear, so we gotta met her there...."

He stopped in his tracks right before a faded poster and spoke up to Simon.

"Whoa howdy. Look at this Simon. That strong man? This hear post says his name is Franklin. Ya remember Jaba the Hutt in the pot? His name was Franklin."

[Bone Writer] "...It's a religious reference to the Wyrm. The one in the Cage is a bastard. Easier to kill him than...anything...else..."

Distracted, the Godi's features grow slack as his vision is stolen from this world and thrust into another.

[Bone-Grinder] He nods his head."So the one in the Cage is the one who referenced the Father? Are you sure that is a reference to the Wyrm and not... A reference to Fenris or someone else?"He asks the man curiously."Any hint we can uncover as to who is behind the Carnival itself would help. I am not going to let this place disappear again without trying to do something more significant."He was speaking softly, loud enough that the man could hear him though he was being deliberate in not letting his voice carry too far.

Roman then addresses him and he shrugs his shoulders."Do you think it is actually franklin?"He asks Roman softly. A tiny hint of a smile on his face as he looks at the poster."Maybe it is a coincidence? Or we could always get our hands on the Emcee again... I think we could get him to talk pretty damn quickly. If we can just get to him."

[Gwen Sullivan] "You know..."

Gwen had been walking not far off from Simon's elbow since they'd exited the back alley of shadows and grease-stink behind the tents and booths and little tin trailers. Roman had his arms about Linus and Dr. Slaughter, had stuck her with the big Shadow Lord as a part of his on-the-spot storyweaving, so she started walking with him and hadn't moved yet. Grudge be damned, she could still play nice if she really had to.

That didn't mean the bite was taken off her words any at all.

"You could just try asking me. I'm just a cub and all? But I'm the gal who held the ten minute long conversation with our in."

[Fate] "How many Franklins do ya think might be associated with this here rodeo? I think maybe, one. I also think it's time to take another turn here and weave our way to that meeting area before we start to argue among ourselves and set off a big ole flare to them that know what to look for. Ya can bet it's more'n one girl with the know how."

He let go of Imogen as soon as he picked the gap and slipped in to it.

[Bone Writer] "A reference to Fenri-"

He turns, eyes a frosted white, like static around the pupil, the heat of Rage skating off Linus' shoulders. A finger raises, aimed in Simon's direction.

"You're not a fucking theurge, remember? Please stop trying to make some level of moronic sense out of the mystical crap and just take my word for it?" His attention returns with a fluttering and abrupt snap of re-focus, head shaking, a pair of fingers at his brow.

"Our umbral escape is shot through. Slaughter can't make that trip and they're near as solid on that side as this, no telling if they'll be able to follow or track us as easily. We need a new out if things go hairy."

[Fate] "I hate to bring this up, but we are going to need Miss Doctor Slaughter if it comes to handling that there silver cage."

He lowered his voice as he started through the gap between booths and picked service ways towards the Freak Show tent.

"Also last time we had to make an escape, it weren't easy, but it happened. That's a bridge we'll have to have some faith in when the crossing comes."

[Slaughter] "I suspect," Imogen says, after having said nothing while the others speak, having barely reacted as Fate had whispered in her ear. "If things are so bad tha' yeh have t'run, and if the Umbra is not available t'yeh, yeh'll ha' little choice but t'fight yer way out, regardless.

"But head fer the trees, fer the creek so no one can get yer smell. Might be the best bet. Other than that, it's fields, and yeh'll stand out like a sore thumb."

[Bone-Grinder] He can't help but smile a little when she speaks up and he turns his head in her direction."What did she say about whom?? I wanna figure out who the players involved are... So we can figure out who we can strike to put this thing to an end. Helping the girl and her friend are their own stories but if we can bring this thing down it will help a lot more people including us."He says this while looking over the poster.

His attention shifts back to Roman."Well let's keep it in mind... I don't know the significance but... If Franklin isn't dead then we've got a bigger problem here than we initially believed."

He then looks back at Bone Writer."Right... Because a whole tribe who calls themselves the Children of a Totem wouldn't dare reference their totem as a father. You know kinda like how we don't call ours Grandfather."He says with a little laugh."I'm not a fucking theurge you're right... But you're also not a Philodox and if we're gonna judge this guy before we even get to him and decide he's gotta die I would think we had considered all possible interpretations before we condemned him to death."Gwen was the only Philodox present and she was a Cub and still learning.

Soon enough they were moving again and Simon kept close to Roman."If we put an end to this place we won't need to worry as much about escape. Find the heart and cut it out... Without the heart the rest of the body will dissipate and die right?"

[Fate] "And the guy in the cage, that Jones? He knows what we don't, so we need his knowledge to get to the root of this."

He nodded to Simon.

"Don'tcha worry none. I got me a feeling that if we don't end this now we might end up roomates with Jones or with our heads on a wall."

[Carousel] The carni keeps his eyes on Simon, tosses up that beanbag again as if he meant to lob it at the other, as if he were capable of reading underneath the skin something written there - Simon's want to win, Simon's need for it - but then the group is moving again, immersing themselves in the whirl of life on the midway, making their way - down the midway, through the booths, past the familiar rides and sideshow attractions. A Tilt-A-Whirl, The House of Horrors. The House of Mirrors. The Arcade, skeeball machines glittering with a sort of terrifying cacaphony of clashing lights, a siren erupting everytime someone tosses a bull's eye.

"Mistress Heshima, Advisor to Kings and Queens! - " calls out another dwarf, standing outside a tent constructed of ratty velvet on an old plastic milkcrate, speaking through a fiberboard megaphone. " - come one, come all!"

---

The House of Freaks is a good ways down the line, and the farther they walk, the farther away the Big Dipper - that rickety coast in the distance - seems. Then, they pass the Ferris Wheel, like a pivot in the center of the carnival, and find themselves abruptly standing before the painted 18-wheeler trailer that contains the House of Freaks. The sideshow tent at the end, stairs leading up to the side, the decking, the ticket booth all seems the same. A poster with a moveable clock says that the next show begins in 15 minutes and a moving crowd lingers, tickets in hand, awaiting entrance to the freak tent.

--

There is a sort of tattered glory to the front facades, the velvet, the gleaming lights that wink on and off, the music, the movement, the laughter. Behind - though - that vintage charm is gone. On the other side of the trailer, a sliding door bisects container, a rough set of wooden steps leading up to it. The rolling doors are closed now, and again the muffled sound of the show is audible through the tent at the trailer. Back here, generators run and garbage is sloughed off thoughtlessly, thanklessly.

It's easy enough to find a place to hide here, and await the girl. Under the body of the trailer, in the mud underneath the stairs. Oil drips, and the metal makes the ambient noise of the carnival echo oddly through space.

--

"Maria" comes after ten minutes, carrying a wide, heavy pallet covered with plastic, dragging an odd-shaped bag behind her. She appears from between a smaller truck and the curved end of an old air-stream trailer, her jaw set, strain evident in her face. At the trailer, she heaves up first the pallet then the bag onto the wooden platform, then climbs the steps, pulling out a mess of jingling keys as she looks around for them, waiting.

[Bone Writer] "Just...stop talking."

A pained sort of expression crosses the Godi's face as the group continues to make their way through the crowds and finally ends at a small section where Roman ducks out of sight briefly.

"We keep coming across a lot of Ifs and Buts about this situation and this place and we keep upping the ante on just what we want to do about it. Shut it down, cut out the Wyrm, talk to Jones and find out what he knows and yet the longer we stick around, the more risk we run of getting caught ourselves."

He gestures, vehemently between the lot of them.

"We've got a Cub and a Fucking kinfolk here with us-" his voice is low but heated at Roman and Simon "-and none of us are packed, you dig?! We're in foreign territory and up against too many questions with a decided lack of escape whether things go south-" A flickering glance at Imogen "-or we end up succeeding and needing to get out quietly."

A heartbeat to let that all hover in the air.

"If we're going to do something? Then it should damn well be to end the immediate threat, set them back to square one and then head out and come back in force with Kora-" A nod at Roman "-and the rest of the Long Watch to tear this place apart."

By the time he's finished they've managed to make their way to visual distance of Maria, who Linus casts a glance and ceases to move forward. He doesn't bother getting within earshot of her while they're discussing this.

[Fate] He was going to have a chat with Kora later if they made it through this, but for now he just looked at Linus before slipping up to the way in, not liking walking in to this without knowing if it was a trap or not. Though sure as they were born, he'd slip through that door when it opened for them.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen had fallen back into silence, a state that was grim and grudging and more firmly so each time she was reminded that she was a liability more than a help. This was just plumb encouraging, she may as well just go hang out at her car for another hour and wait for the gas pump to start back up.

...but no. Even if it was suggested she wouldn't. This was that sense of duty that Alethea was talking about.

So she hangs out, crouched down with her knees jutted out like a gargoyle while waiting for the chubby teenager to re-emerge and lead them in where they needed to go. She listened to the Grown Ups talk, and was among the first to notice when 'Maria' came into view, looking around for them. Without so much as a word to the others waiting in the muck and stink behind the freakshow, she stood up and moved to meet the teen.

It was dangerous to put herself in this mindset, she knew, just in case the tables turned, but she still felt that letter to mom like it was made of granite in her back pocket.

[Slaughter] Imogen crouches on her heels. Though Bone Writer has suggested she might be a liability, it does not seem to cause a reaction - little more than a bland glance his way as he refers to her.

Her forearms rest lightly on her knees, a few tendrils of hair falling into her eyes. She watches as Gwen gets to her feet and strides toward Maria, her gaze intent on the girl, then flicking toward the bag she's dragged.

[Bone-Grinder] He shrugs his shoulders."We came here... You, Roman, and I... In a Car... With the intention of stopping this carnival before it had the chance to disappear again. So far as I see it the fact we are helping someone else out in the process does not change the original plan whatsoever. If you didn't want to follow through with the original plan when we arrived at this place then you should not have come."He says with a shrug of his shoulders."Whatever the case I'm not even going to fuck with this anymore... Let's just finish this and get the fuck out."

[Carousel] "Hey - " Maria says to Gwen, casting a furtive glance over the shadowy little clearing behind the freak show. There is laughter and music still coming from the tent, and the Ferris Wheel - behind them now - turns 'round and 'round, casting both their faces in a moving array of colors. She's nervous, this girl, the strain of it evident in her eyes, in the gritty way she smiles at Gwen. In the way her hands shake as she pulls out a ring of keys, peers out into the shadows.

" - they're down to the sexy part of the show, right. Everyone else's back in their cells. So, uhm. You go in, and I'll - I'll watch here, and - " Hands shaking as she sorts through the keys on her ring, and finally inserts one after another into the half-dozen locks on the back of teh trailer. " - you know, you can see the Big Dipper from anywhere in the carnival. I heard that if you - if you find it, you can get out there, and they can't - "

The key tumbles the locks. The door opens. "Hurry, okay?" The stink of her fear is palpable, even to their dull human noses.

[Bone Writer] ...He watches, eyes flicking from body to body as they turned and moved, decided. Both hands raise to scrub at his face violently, silently, mouth gaping as if to scream, though no sound emerges. He sucks in a breath, eyes moving back the way they came, as if to memorize the world they were about to leave behind.

A hand sneaks past the buttons of his gray coat, fingers brushing flesh just above the left pectoral. It's a gesture of reassurance, visibly calming him on the surface and through gritted teeth.

He moves forward in the wake of the group, unraveling the scarf from his neck and shoving it forcibly into one of the jacket's side pockets.

"...Fine." Hard edged. And Quieter. "Fine..."

It's as they're moving forward and Maria offers a word that Linus' attention catches on her.

The big dipper

"...The Constellation?" He hooks a thumb up into the sky over his shoulder, gaze narrowing.

[Fate] "The roller coaster."

He whispered and wrinkled his nose with the smell of fear coming off Maria. Part of his brain was screaming it could be a trap and he looked at Imogen to make sure she was with him where he could push her back of need be, even if it meant she shot him. It was to the door and through he went.

[Gwen Sullivan] "Or the ride," she offered to Linus, her voice quiet. She's studying Maria with the same rock-steady stare that she'd been regarding the girl with since she revealed that she could tell Garou for what they were, and furthermore that she would help them out. She watches the key ring, watches fingers fumble over them, and clicked her tongue once against the back of her teeth in a way that was half-scolding, half-apologetic when the door was pulled open and the girl was urging them to hurry in.

"We appreciate your help, but you should understand why we are cautious."

Her hand was extended, palm up, expectantly.

"Either you come in with us, or we get the keys. Does that sound reasonable?"

[Carousel] "No - " the girl says, looking up at the sky, and now that Linus looks the stars here feel strange, shifted. Then, startled, back toward the shadows below. Briefly, a smile ghosts across her features, making her almost pretty. " - the ride?"

Then, it is her turn to point toward the stretch of track visible against the mist in the middle distant.

[Slaughter] perception+subterfuge!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP] Re-rolls: 1
to Carousel

[Bone Writer] ...And Linus' gaze flicks back over their shoulder to take in the Ride (and the sky, briefly) with a puzzled frown. His grunt is low and soft, mind already pouring over the mechanics of it. Mirror-side like a Caern. Boundary like a Bawn.

"...Stands to reason there's a Gate as well."

But it would have to wait. On the run planning. He curses under his breath and follows Roman and the others inside.

[Carousel] She is honest as the day is long. It's not a trap. She's frightened, doesn't believe that they are going to succeed, but is going through with it anyway.
to Slaughter

[Carousel] Maria draws in a sharp breath, watching Gwen, then swallows hard and hands over the keys.

They fall in a tumble into the Philodox's hands.

- and they are heavier than they look like they should be.

[Slaughter] She studies Maria, as she draws nearer, as she speaks to the others, as the others speak to her. What she sees draws little by way of reaction beyond a faint crease in her brow, then gone. Whatever it is, she doesn't share it with the others.

She follows them inside, one hand moving back beneath her jacket, then falling free at her side.

[Gwen Sullivan] "Thank you."

The words were more gentle than her eyes had been all night, and Gwen took the keys, judged the weight of them with a curious expression on her face, then concluded with: "Please watch the door," before turning, waiting for Imogen to pull herself up into the trailer, then stepping inside as well.

She wanted to trust the girl, but she couldn't. Without they key ring (and she could only hope the girl didn't have a second one) she couldn't lock them inside once everyone had piled in like the too-trusting dimwits with too-few options that they were.

[Bone-Grinder] Simon enters without further questions. The plan was changing, and he didn't like it at all. They were putting their lives on the line for a relatively minor cause to help some chubby girl and her werewolf boyfriend... One could almost feel the rage rising off him at the thought of this. It was not what he came for. It was not why he was here but if he lacked the backup to stand up and face the threat then he would do what he could.

His eyes shifted about in search of anything of interest. Any sudden movements, anything hidden from the eye. He kept himself as well hidden as possible, or at least tried to keep himself behind anything that might block others views as he searched for signs of anything he might recognize as a danger or a threat or just plain strange.

[Carousel] Before, Roman and Simon saw the Hall of Wonders in all its glory. The lighting was atmospheric, subtle - the glow from the red buttons that turned on the flood lights for each individual cage in a long, straight march down the far too expansive truck-trailer. Tonight, "Maria" has turned on the overhead lights, which blare out, incandescent and ugly, from industrial fixtures on the ceiling of the trailer. Which also seems - larger inside than it did from without.

Without that sense of stage craft - the dark aisle, the small stages flooded with light - the whole place feels diminished, broken and dingy, as sad as it is grotesque.

Each stage is marked with a tattered old sign. A good half of the cages are empty. "THE BEARDED LADY" is not there tonight, still in the side-show tent, just her empty divan, blood red, stained and worn. "THE SNAKE CHARMER" is also (blessedly) absent. Her stage is upholstered in moth-eaten purple silks and brocades, a wooden stool in the far corner.

"THE MERMAID" still swims along in the cold waters of her dark tank. The scent of fishscale, rot, and cold blood close to her tank is enough to make the gorge of even the most jaded begin to rise. Without the lights from inside, the waters look murky with floating filthy, a certain algae film seems to cling to the plexiglass.

When she emerges from those clouded waters, though, to press her alien face against the glass, silent and feral and wrong, it is that much more disturbing.

A pair of twins are next, children, girls, joined at the chest by latex and spirit gum. They are dressed in motheaten tutus and wearing tap shoes, one leaning against the other, picking at the staring out sidelong when they lights come on. Amazing latex that holds them together.

Or maybe at the flap of skin that folds itself over their shared organs.

There's filth on the floor, a kind of ooze. Someone has sloshed through it with a mop, but that has only served to put slashing diagonal lines redistributing the slurry of mud.

Finally, "THE WOLF MAN" is in his silver cage, on his isolated stage. He is sleeping, so it appears, and has this haggard look. His hair is brown, streaked with gray, and his rangey physique has the look of an old athlete gone - not to fat but to ruin of drink and drugs.

[Fate] He nearly jumped out of his skin, infact he flinched back when the Mermaid suddenly pressed against the glass of the tank he happened to be looking in. He remembered her from before and it was that same morbid curiosity that had him looking in again. Swiftly he moved towards that cage he didn't want to touch, snagging some of those mouth eaten purple silks on the way.

"Psst, Jones..."

He hissed as he wrapped the faded silk around his hands.

"Wake up."

[Bone-Grinder] Simon stood quiet and still. The full moon wasn't here to sort through the freaks or who to help and who not to help. He was here to watch over the others... Because in the end it was his job to make certain they get home tonight even if he does not. So he kept his silent vigil over the others. No reason to speak, no reason to do anything other than watch and listen. Should anything go wrong he wanted to be ready to respond.

[Carousel] The man stirs when Fate calls his name, this sort of worm-eaten movement, like a seizing heart. Pushes himself up onto his hands and shakes his greasy hair from his eyes. There's piss on the bottom of the cage, and up close, the stench of it is sharp, ammonia, wrong.

Healthy animals never foul their dens.

- " - fuck," Jones says, this rasping voice, like a block of rough sandpaper drawn across knuckles. The dingy sort of grin he gives reveals that his canine teeth have been torn out and this close, fate can tell that each of his fingers has been lopped off at the last knuckle. Even sitting up and swearing is effort that makes him start to couch on his own breath. " - who the fuck are you?"

[Slaughter] Imogen, too, jerks her head sharply toward the mermaid as she presses her alien face against the glass, her mouth turning down, her nostrils pinching in well-bred disgust. Her hand had slipped beneath her jacket, but when her hand slips back out, it is empty.

Fate hurries to 'Jones', and Imogen eyes move over their surroundings, searching for exit signs, or doors, possibly entry points.

She'll choose a decent vantage point to watch and wait - and if she can, she'll do it where she can hear the conversation between the captured and the Rotagar, but that is secondary.

[Bone Writer] ...Linus pushed his way through the sights they were seeing, maintaining eye contact on the ground or the path before them or the backs of those around him. The 'Freaks' were of much notice and consideration but not concern. More of the Wyrm's depredations given voice and shape in the form of twisted things off the natural path.

He spits in what passes for dirt as they walk beyond the Mermaid and reach the well-lit remains of The Wolf Man.

Linus hand remains settled on the inside of his jacket, slowing to allow Fate and Simon to pull in closer. His own gaze remains firmly entrenched in their surroundings, free hand rising to brush beneath his nose, a disgusted visage peeling over features at the various mingling stenches.

His gaze seems to level on the nearest wall, listening to the distant thrum of the Show happening next door, waiting for the inevitable applause that might signal their time is out.

[Fate] It was all he could do not to wrinkle his nose with the stench or react to the declawed fingers of Jones. Instead he kept his voice to a low whisper and did his best southern charm bit.

"I'm Roman and we done told Maria we'd help get y'all out of here. She says we need to stop things at the root and that y'all would help with that. Ain't nothing I want more than to give ya your chance to strike back at them that done this to ya."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen, too, startled when the 'mermaid' (though that was no motherfucking Ariel) slapped her face up against the glass, revealing herself from the shroud her opaque waters created for her. "Motherf-," she started, voice sharp and startled, and lifted a hand to cover her mouth and nose both as the stink of rotting fish and blood and god-knows what else hits her.

She watches the conjoined twins, idly tugging at whatever it is that connects them, be it authentic flesh or peach-colored rubber, and when the 'WOLFMAN' sign appears she stares intently at the waste of a man laying asleep curled up within the cage that made her back feel like someone was throwing coins down her spinal column.

Dr. Slaughter hangs back, the rest move a bit closer. The Cowboy Kid leans down to be near enough to speak to the Garou/BSD/whatever, Simon moves close enough to reinforce, and Linus makes himself the middleground between the other Garou and the Kinfolk. Gwen choses his side to stand near, one hand over her mouth and nose, the other hand cupping that elbow to keep the arm supported.

She watches, quiet, and learns.
Occasionally, though, she'll glance back to the door they came in from.

[Carousel] "Maria - ?" Jones responds, coughing wetly into his outstretched hand. The only obvious entraces are the door through which they climbed in, a smaller door opposite it, which corresponds to the "main" entrance on the other side, and the swaying curtains at the end of the narrow metal corridor.

He stares Fate in the eye for a half-second, then that wet cough dissolves into a quiet, rough throat full of laughter. "Fuck." Roman can see the man's blood shot eyes scour over him, then lift beyond, tracing out each of the others - Simon and Gwen, Linus and Imogen -

- Imogen, lingering on Imogen, drawn immediately by the pure breeding. " - so she wasn't lying. A whole fucking pack of you." He cuts a look back down the corridor toward the swaying curtains, then shakes his head. The chains secured to his collar clink together with the movement, the gesture "No."

"Just kill me." - he's - half-smiling as he says it, with a growing energy, excited by the prospect of release. " - do it quick and clean. Just fucking kill me - "

[Bone-Grinder] [Per+Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] Linus' hand tears free of the gray coat, the length and image of a black hafted spear spreading from it's place written across his chest, the dedication dancing the tool across his fingertips until the entire nine feet, it's broken-half head dancing dully beneath the light above their heads.

"Gladly." Linus takes a few steps toward The Cage, the spear gripped in hand firmly.

[Bone Writer] (Per 3 + Alert 2.)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Slaughter] (perception+alertness!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Perception + Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

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

[Fate] "I'm afraid I can't do that, cause we got to stop this from happening to anyone else first. And if ya won't step up and get in the saddle, then we'll have to leave ya in the chute."

He held up a hand to halt Linus, hopefully.

[Fate] When he caught movement from the curtains out of the corner of his eye, he made a cutting off motion, flicking his fingers towards the curtain as he hissed.

"Company."

No sooner did he say that than he stepped back out of reach of the cage and reached for Blur though it could be too late.

Blur steath+man diff 8
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 8) [WP]

[Gwen Sullivan] "Motherfucker."

This was turning into Gwen's new favorite word, and fast. Her voice was hushed, and she reached out to tap anxiously at the center of Linus's back. Tension was rigid through her muscles, and the harsh lighting from above only made her face seem that much more pale.

"Someone's coming, and I think they know we're here already."

[Carousel] "If you kill me," Jones says, mouth peeling back from his broken teeth in a ghastly smile. He's still in that cage, shut tight. " - you stop it happening to fucking me don't you then."

[Fate] He whispered from the dark.

"Or we can leave ya here, can't we?"

[Bone Writer] Linus turned in place, his thoughts, reflexes and actions no where near the realms of stealth or hiding. He'd been caught unawares, Roman's lifting hand given a crude and ugly snarl that didn't manage to make it into a sound. He snapped around as the Ragabash warned them of an incoming and Gwen's tapping finger confirmed it.

A snap of his eyes leveled on Imogen, barer of the only ranged weapon amongst them (Because history and reputation both spoke of the Kin's marksmanship and kill count made on a bullet and trigger) even as that sooty black spear shifted in his grasp and settled, point to the ground beside one foot, haft jutting near straight behind his shoulder blade.

"Push back to the walls..." Through gritted teeth to Gwen. "Don't let anyone or thing behind you 'less it's another one of us."

[Slaughter] She had seen nothing - but the warning of the others is enough - her gun fitting into her hand as she steps back, her footfall silent as she finds somewhere out of sight from the direction of Gwen's attention. She removes the safety of the weapon, and waits.

[Gwen Sullivan] Wolves were creatures of rank and cooperation. When they were pushed together into a group, authority was meant to be decided on, and typically rather quickly. Gwen didn't pick up on a general consensus of who to follow, it seemed to be a rather liberal mishmash of equal ranking people working together, sharing ideas, but with no true leader. Gut instinct, the only real thing that she had to go off of considering her gaping lack of experience, had her seeking a leader.

After seeing someone pull a spear from fucking nowhere and having them give you instructions, it was pretty easy to make your decision on who to pay some mind to.

Flank the walls, he says, and that sounds like a pretty damn good plan to her.

Gwen doesn't scamper or make a fuss to get back from view, she doesn't want her sneakers making a whole lot of noise or her breathing to elevate so that huffing and puffing gives her away. Rather, moves slow and quiet against the wall, tugging her hood secure over her head and pressing the back of her skull to the cool metal of the inside of the trailer and taking a slow, deep breath.

Where the fuck was the light switch?

[Bone Writer] (Charisma 3 + Subterfuge 3. Diff 6. Persuasion.)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone-Grinder] "If we're gonna fight let's fucking bring the fight to them... Why wait?"He asks with a snarl, and immediately the beast begins to shift his form to something better suited to War as he begins to rush towards the curtains.Flesh rippling outward as muscles seems o grow spontaneously from his already powerful frame and just as quickly fur begins to sprout from that. Simon was not about to be cornered like a rat. The beast would soon assume his Crinos form with the intention of ripping right through the curtain and tackling their enemies.

Whoever there folks were this was only going to get worse unless the intruders in question were dealt with immediately. In the event this was a trap they were all gonna die anyway... So he might as well make them earn this kill.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Carousel] There is always a moment before a fight when everything seems to go still. Garou move so quickly in the fire of rage that they split seconds into impossible slices, not unlike the way humans split the atom.

Each of them has a spare-second to see the world in freeze frame.

Bone-Grinder charges toward the curtains, his claws scrabbling on the cheap carpet runner, blood red, lining the long hallway. Underneath, corrugated metal, the substructure of the tractor trailer in which the "Hall of Wonders" - the "Museum of the Unreal" - is housed. The effluvia of the place is sharp in his nose - shit and piss, the stink of metal, the noisome perfume of slow-putrefaction from the mermaid's tank, old blood, fresh meat, fear and despair and hunger underneath.

The curtains move. He can see the shadow of a body, this brief impression behind tattered, threadbare red velvet.

Gwen presses herself against the metal frame of the trailer, the metal ribs digging into the articulations of her vertebrae. She has this brief glimpse of those fake (?) siamese twins sitting close to each other in the next stage over, a moment of terror on the face of one, while the other seems - blase, unsurprised when an unauthorized visitor erupts into some shape out of nightmares and charges down the corridor.

Imogen trains her weapon on the moving curtains. Levels it, and fixes her gaze there. She has this peripheral sense of the other Garou - Roman with his spear in hand, Gwen pushing back against the wall, Bone-Grinder's spine moving in that organic loping rhythm of a Garou on the hunt.

Linus has Jones in his sights, though he lowers that spear and backs away when there's movement. He has no hope of hiding, and so he does not, flanking Imogen, his spear at the ready. Jones looks - alert, his dilated pupils contracting as he pushes himself more upright, shoving forward against the silver bars to peer down the corridor as Simon streaks past.

And Roman pulls his gift to him, finds the multipartite shadows cast by the sharp array of the overhead lights, drawing back as Simon streaks past, notices a heavier shadow against the curtains just before they are drawn open -

- in one long, ripping movement.


The strongman is there. Seven and a half-feet tall, inhumanly made, as if someone had stuffed all the bulk of a war-formed Garou into a human frame, compacted it until the gravity of that muscle bulk was dense as a guttering star. His features are distorted by the bulk, and he is covered with oil, shirtless, shaved, his bald pate glaring-bright.

He casts a long, hulking shadow over the interior corridor.

Behind him, the EmCee is slight, almost ordinary except for the garish clothes. He's a tall man. Slender, with delicate, long-fingered hands and a certain fastidious grace. It's not the same man that Roman and Simon remember.

For a moment, he looks up as they are looking down the hall at him. Simon is running, ready to bring the war to the circus of freaks, intent on cutting them down before they cut him down, and the EmCee - sniffs, disdainful at this display.

"Freeze - " he says, in this loud, somehow sinuous voice that seems to crackle through the air like the discharge of a lightning bolt. And Simon freezes, mid-stride. Whatever the EmCee did has taken something essential out of his - cost him something, grayed his skin, made him - thin, somehow, like a picture from a signal just at the edge of clarity.

The immediate threat gone, the strongman steps begrudgingly out of the EmCee's way. "Thank you, Franklin," the man says, glancing over at Jones, gathering himself in the cage. " - well, after so long, they finally came for - " but something makes him flash a look back at the others visible, his sallow eyes crawl over Linus, Gwen, intrusive and warm as a sun-warmed reptile, Imogen.

And he smiles, looking back at his captive werewolf in the silver cage.

"They're not yours, are they?" And he laughs to himself, reaches up to plant a hand on the huge shoulder of the strongman. "Look at that, Franklin. We have achieved the impossible, brought two sides in the great war of the wolves together in a moment of peace, serendipity. I don't think it will be lasting, though.

"Do you?"

[Fate] He was hidden for the moment (Blurred) and in that moment of opportunity he reached for Resist Pain (WP). He wasn't sure what anyone else was doing other than Simon who had rushed the curtain and froze with the command to Freeze. And Imogen, somewhere in his brain he knew she would have that gun out. There was Jones, cowering in the cage. So when he thought the Emcee and Franklin (aka the former pink Jaba the Hutt) weren't looking his direction and or stepped pass him, he started to slither off in an attempt to work up behind them.

[Bone Writer] "...Fifteen seconds."

It's all he says. Nothing but eyes and slow breathing. The spear remains at his side and he remains within ten paces of the Silver Cage (crawling skin, seething soul).

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen was bothered most by the fact that there was nowhere to go for cover. She didn't like being out in the open like this, exposed, just waiting to see what the people in the hallway would decide to do and laying her fate on the floor to go along with whatever response awaits them.

What emerges first is easily the largest person she has ever seen in her entire life. She stares, head turned so the side of her face is flush with the cool metal of the trailer's interior. Behind him, a person who seems to be the boss, despite the fact that he was wasting and thin, gray and tired. But, despite that, power crackled from him, and this manifested obviously when he halted Simon with a barking, electric command. The effect was supernatural, more than a strong charismatic influence, she knew.

He spoke, Roman had vanished, Imogen was still, and Linus spoke a time frame and nothing more.

Gwen's teeth clicked anxiously on her lip piercing, but aside from that she, too, was motionless.

[Fate] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Carousel] "Fifteen seconds? - " the EmCee returns, smiling this crawling sort of smile, all the moving, livid grace of a jointed centipede tucked into the frame of his mouth.

His lips are dark, and they have not yet seen his teeth. This is a showman's close-mouthed smile, though he employs it slowly, opens it the way a ship unfurls its colors. Empty hands move in front of this torso - long, thin fingers tipped in well-kept nails. His multicolored suit is tattered brocade, the cuffs crisp against his bony hands.

Snapping one of those cuffs with a crispness that belies his that brief, gray undertone to his pallid skin, the threadbare finery. Makes him smart, somehow, grander and darker than this foul trailer, with its pathetic creations kept on display for the cruel, greedy masses of humanity.

"Make it thirty, my dear young man."

A sidelong sort of look, as he tilts his head, listening.

"Do it for me."

[Slaughter] The stillness of the others might almost make one think they had all been affected by the giant's edict. The kinwoman's gaze is steady on the others as he dissects her - or perhaps, undresses her - with his eyes, but she makes no move.

Linus speaks and the kinwoman flicks a gaze his way, her expression utterly bland, her face a mask. Despite herself, she begins to count down, a muscle moving in her jaw, the only indicator of her tension, or perhaps, her impatience.

As the EmCee speaks, Imogen's eyes fix on Linus - though she is not waiting for him to give an order; instead her intentness is of a different sort. Evaluating.

[Carousel] The strong-man, Franklin seems to fill the space he inhabits, seems to push it beyond its normal boundaries. His skin is tight and shiny, glistening with oil. He watches them all pugnaciously, with this beady eyes that seem like little more than black buttons mounted in bullish, near inhuman face - there's something uncertain about that look, unclear whether or not he should watch them, or the hated, broken werewolf in the silver cage.

[Per + Alertness Dif 6 + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 10)

[Carousel] EmCee: Per + Alertness: Dif 10
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 10)

[Bone Writer] "Fifteen seconds is the length of time left before the Ulfr I left behind puts his quick fists up and starts gunning his way through half your lil' Party favours and carnie retards looking for the Big Spin you got hidden away from everyone's eyes."

He doesn't sneer. He turns away from the EmCee, as if the man weren't of much importance, gaze settling on the Silver Cage and the creature within, a disgusted snarl trickling across his lips.

"...But for now, I hope you'll excuse me. Higher priorities." The spear hefts and Linus takes a couple of steps toward the Cage. The next words are a dangerous hiss.

"Show me your throat, -ikthya."

(Manipulation 2 + Subterfuge 3. -1 Diff for Persuasion. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 9, 10, 10 [WP]

[Carousel] Show me your throat - and the EmCee's crawling smile widens. His chin rises, this sharp, imperious gesture common to kings - of both men and wolves - not the commoners that crawl around the skin, mucking about in the grime and filth. There's something shining about him, underneath, that sort of burnished sense of power in which he is well-seated. He catches a hint of movement against the wall, does not dismiss it, and now Franklin has abandoned his belligerent study of the Spiral in the cage to stare - stupidly, from beneath beetled brows - at the wall. Subtle as a Mac truck, that one.

The EmCee doesn't know their terms, and that moment's display shifts as he grasps the spear-wielder's meaning a moment later. The smile quiets, corners of his elastic mouth drawing downward, but his interesting sharpens, eyes hooding with the proprietary interest of - say it - a slave merchant examining fresh meat, a procurer, examining the merchandise, assessing the fitness of a field hand or a gladiator, a breeder or a whore.

"Please," he says, this bright note in his tone, casting this almost shiveringly fond glance between Jones and Linus and - with a flourish of a gesture - opens the way to the cage for Linus. " - don't let me stop you. I'm happy to give you your every desire. You are here to do a job. A very, very important job. Balance of the world and all that. Your dying goddess.

"Do not let me stop you."

[Carousel] - and in that gleaming silver cage, that ruin of a man turns his head so briefly from the EmCee, the strongman. He is on all fours now, leaning forward, his body filling the front of the cage, his face pressed against the bars. He tilts his head, a hint of his throat, the flash of dark light in his eyes.

A moment's regard.

He's not broken.
Not entirely.
Not yet.

[Fate] It sure looked to him like the skinny guy spotted him and how could he miss ole Jaba staring at him. Infact, just for the heck of it he made a face at ole Jaba just to see if it reacted as he eased along the shadows.

[Slaughter] Imogen's eyes narrow slightly on the EmCee.

"Linus," the kinwoman speaks, "hold a tick, will you?"

Her attention flicks to the smarmy speaker. "Pretty elaborate set up fer yeh to just let him die."

[Slaughter] (Sorry, drop the name)

[Slaughter] Where's Roman?
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 10) Re-rolls: 1

[Gwen Sullivan] It's almost easy to forget that the cub is there, the only sound she makes is that soft tink-tink of teeth on the sterling of her piercing. She watched the man comprised of muscle and piggy black eyes, the man with the voice and gestures that spoke of nothing but hidden power and seething, writhing self-assurance, and how the broken wolf on the other side of the war and silver bars regards Linus when he steps forward promising to kill him.

One final click of bone and enamel on the lip piercing, and she moved away from the wall, her first two steps cautious, pausing to see how the EmCee and Franklin respond, then continuing to stand beside Linus, on the side of him opposite the front of the trailer where the enemy stood. She felt sick to be so close to the cage, like someone left her on a tilt-a-whirl too long.

Imogen spoke, and Gwen looked over to her, briefly, then down to Jones. She murmured, voice too soft to carry far: "Doesn't matter, though, he's supposed to die anyway." And as she says this, she shifts the heavy ring of keys slowly from her pocket and presses it to the outside of Linus's hand, or if that isn't at his side into his hip instead.

[Carousel] - and the EmCee watches this, his smile now a compact thing, concentrated around a kernel of delight. When Imogen speaks he appears - honestly delighted to hear the tone of her voice.

Losing the thread of the shadow of a thing in favor of the pleasure of the moment, which he savors the way an oenophile would the finest wine, ripe and round, all the pleasures of summer's end wrapped in the liquid, ready for the tongue.

"I'll just need," he continues, quiet, sounding now not unlike an accountant at the end of a balance sheet, almost benevolent about it really, the last terms before he will give out the keys. " - a replacement. Formality, that. Nothing that you need concern yourself with my dear. Unless you have something you want like that, to the exclusion of all else. Some war you need to fight, some fault you need to fill."

--

The EmCee is no longer watching Roman. Franklin is, though. He doesn't move, he just stares as Roman inches his way down the wall, those piggy eyes fixed on him, that stupid, raw look on his meat-like face.

[Bone Writer] -Dying Goddess

"Shut it!" Those two words stop Linus dead, the spear snapping around to level it's jagged half-head at the EmCee, a feral cast coming to his youthful features, though he bares no scars or revulsion to make it more fearsome. A Boy with Honest Hate.

"I'm here to do one thing and one thing only and that's deal with this situation as best as possible and right now my best is six tonnes of marching Fire and Wrath wading through your little Carnival here and ripping up the Big Dipper 'til your little Gate's closed. After that, I gave him free reign to do as He pleased. This Fucktard-" His head cants toward Jones, the spear still unwaveringly pointed at the EmCee "-just-" And Then Imogen speaks.

This brings a sharp snap of his head around toward the Kinwoman, gaze narrowed slightly and jaw clamping down hard on the remainder of his retort. His nostrils flare and...there is a hint of it. Rage pluming off shoulders and brow. Crushed, it would seem, under the heel of expedience.

Gwen's presence at his side, almost receives a snap, of hand or words, one would be hard pressed to guess as her presence reveals the jangle of keys, which he turns and stares down at absently. He then plucks it from her, snarl turned to a frown, before nodding at the Cub.

[Fate] Attention was drawn from him, all but piggy eyes, but this was likely to be his best chance and he took it. When the Emcee gave that reaction to Imogen, something inside Roman snapped. By snapping it meant, he launched himself at the Emcee's back, despite Franklin. Snapping to Warform in mid-air.

[Slaughter] The moment Roman launches himself, Imogen snaps up her gun - goddamnit - shifting her attention to Franklin to fire off several rounds.

[Bone Writer] Linus is turning, half-way back to Jones with a sneer crawling his features, when there is a rush of movement and the powerful burn of Rage flooding the air. Linus attention and reaction is vicious; the Keys are thrown hurriedly back at Gwen.

Linus rears, spear sliding effortlessly to the mid-point of his palm even as cloth and flesh shift to Fur and Power. He grunts once, even as he sights, leans and snaps the Spear forward in a single motion, directed at Franklin's over-sized neck and head.

[Gwen Sullivan] Suddenly the world begins to dissolve, the smell of musk and singed hate seeping into the trailer to join the menagerie of stenches that already filled the air. One Crinos, she presumed Roman considering that he had disappeared, appeared from nowhere, launching himself at the pair from their backs. Linus sprung up a few extra feet and his expanding bulk had her side-stepping out of the way.

Imogen leveled her gun, and keys were thrown toward her. She fumbled to catch them, then held them against her chest as she moved back another step, eyes wide and adrenaline surging through her veins.

Well what the fuck do I do now?

[Slaughter] (sneaky attack? sneaky sneaky? pls? kthx!)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fate] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6) [WP]

[Carousel] EmCee:
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Failure at target 10)

[Bone Writer] (Dex + What? +1 diff for no skill))
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5 (Failure at target 7)

[Carousel] Franklin:
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fate] Claw Emcee
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Slaughter] Franklin's attention had been where Roman was - and she watches his head turns to follow the war-formed beast as he launches himself at the EmCee. As he does, the kinwoman squeezes the trigger on her weapon, the report echoing and loud in the trailer.

Fifteen.

Her ears begin to ring.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Slaughter] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Spear to Franklin's neck. Dex 4 + Ath 1. +2 Diff for Called Shot. -1 for Flank? Diff 7 total. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7) [WP]

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Str 6 in Crinos + 2 Called Shot + 1 Sux + 1 Spear Damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (two more dice damage for flanking! WOO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Carousel] EmCee: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 8)

[Carousel] Franklin: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Carousel] - another hanging moment. The faintest movement of air marks Roman's shift from boy to monster. Franklin watches the whole time, the dumb piglet eyes, the widening mouth - whatever the huge man might have said to warn his master is lost in a choking cough as Imogen levels her weapon, and Linus launches his. There is a bloom of blood and bone from the huge man - and Fate shreds the EmCee from behind, tearing through that tattered finery down to his pale, nearly translucent skin.

"OH - " the EmCee says - mouth open - staggering forward - eyes wide, a drop of blood rolling down from his nose to that snearing mouth.

[Inits!]

[Slaughter] (+9!)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Bone Writer] (8+)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Carousel] EMCEE: +20
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Fate] Init +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Carousel] Franklin: +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Carousel] Jones: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Gwen Sullivan] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Carousel] Order:

EmCee: 25
Fate: 16
Jones: 12
Franklin: 12
Imogen: 11
Linus 11
Gwen: 6

Simon: frozen for one more round!

[Carousel] The startled look remains on the EmCee's face for the sparest moment. Then he stiffens through the spine, blood on his mouth now, turning his snearing lips red. A moment's concentration, a spiritual tug they can feel as he whirls to face Fate.

"Freeze."

[-2 due to wounds.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fate] WP
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Fate] He shuddered, his entire body trembled from toe to top and sure enough it looked like he was freezing like Simon had. Instead, he reached deep inside and with sheer WP attacked.
1a Claw
1b Bite
1R Claw

[Fate] 1a claw emcee
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Carousel] EmCee: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 8)

[Fate] 1b bite emcee
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Failure at target 8)

[Bone Writer] There is an inhuman snarl, that has him rushing forward, digging claws into the ground with a desperate urgency that sends him skidding toward Franklin, a clawed limb reaching out for the scattered Spear, snapping yowls and clacking teeth erupting as Linus tucks in low to the ground.

1) Distract Franklin
Rage 1) Pick up Spear

[Carousel] The EmCee - still smiling, his back raw as hamburger meat, his fucking lungs visible from behind, the cage of his chest and back like a window, muscles torn and shredded from the savaged spine, blood soaking the blood-red brocad of his suit lining - falls. Falls to his knees, his eyes still open, mouth open, choking on a torrent of blood and a swollen tongue, reaches out and - yes - steadies himself on Fate's massive thigh as he falls - practically lowering himself to the floor.

His body is a ruin, no human, not even a Garou could survive such a savaging. He still wheezes, somehow, gasping, like a fish pulled out of water, razor gills flapping.

--

In that silver cage, Jones gathers himself.

[WP: to shift in a silver cage! dif: 10 -2 because he really hates the EmCee]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Carousel] Franklin turns with a terrible roar and launches himself at Fate, pummeling him with those giant fists.

Dex + Brawl
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Carousel] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Slaughter] The kinwoman's attention focuses - dimly she hears the sound of crunching bone and splattering bone as Fate makes quick work of the EmCee.

She allows her gun to strafe, following Franklin as he launches himself at Fate. As the giant's back is turned, she fires four shots.

One, after another, after another.

(Fourteen.)

(dex+firearms-4 for split!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)

[Slaughter] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fate] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (Thirteen)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Slaughter] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (Twelve)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4) Re-rolls: 1

[Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (Eleven)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 2 at target 4) [WP]

[Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Changing first action: move and pick up spear.
Rage 1: Change to stab Franklin)

[Slaughter] Willpower!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10
to Carousel

[Carousel] She fires four shots.
Four perfect fucking shots, right into the back of this massive broken thing.

He doesn't seem to notice them. They are like flies.

There's this - feeling inside her that she has seen, has felt against her skin so many times. It beats against her heart in rolling waves. It would make her stronger. Faster. She could -

- on the precipice, just here, she is wholly in control. Whatever that is, whereever it comes from, she can take it, pull it into her heart, push it out throw her body. Or she can be. Or she can stand against the waves of it, not without now, but within. That inner fire.
to Slaughter

[Gwen Sullivan] Blood, blood, and not much else besides. Roman is an absolute beast, and he tears the EmCee into the kinds of shreds that you see coming out the other end of a meat grinder at the butcher's shop. ...And yet he still breathes. She's staring at this, stunned, while Linus throws himself forward to chase after his spear. Gunshots are loud, especially in here, echoing in her ears, and Jones is morphing and growing much larger in his cage of silver, donning fur and a broil of Rage and frustration to go with it.

Gwen's knuckles are white around the keyring, and she's shivering, uncertain, while this unfurls.
The spear had cut the Franklin beast but had not finished him, the bullets bounced off him like they were made of rubber.

Her eyes cut down to Jones, and she cusses something under her breath before stooping down and fumbling the keys to the visible lock:

"I swear to God, you better want him dead as much as I think."

[Unlock the Cage!]

[Fate] 1r turned to, reaching for the Emcee to spin in an arch at Franklin with the body, using it to beat Franklin with.

[Fate] Claw Frankie boy, roaring.

"Pink Jaba, die!"
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: beating Fate!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Carousel] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Fate] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Spear Franklin: Dex 4 + Melee 2. Diff 6 - 2 for Rear attack +1 for Changed action. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) [WP]

[Bone Writer] (str 6 + 3 sux + 1 Spear damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soakie soakie soakie!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Carousel] EmCee: 25
Fate: 16 [must spend WP to act]
Franklin: 12
Imogen: 11
Linus: 11
Gwen: 6

Jones: last.

[Fate] per+alert
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Per 3 + Alert 2.)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (perception+alertness)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Carousel] The EmCee lays unmoving on the ground, with massive wounds nothing in the world could hope to survive.

He's already healing, though.

The curtains behind Roman are moving. Someone's coming from back there. Won't be here for a little while longer.
to Slaughter

[Gwen Sullivan] [Perception + Alertness: Detail-Oriented]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3

[Carousel] The Emcee lays unmoving on the ground.

[Fate] Once more it was sheer Willpower that allowed him to move and that movement was....

1a...stomp on Emcee's head
1b....Claw Franklin
1r Claw Franklin

[Fate] 1a Stomp
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Carousel] EmCee: soak stomp!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Fate] 1b Claw Franklin
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin throws himself furiously at Roman, clearly insensate to pain, flesh scored, torn way from those impossible muscles in strips now, as if he had been flayed alive by the garou.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Slaughter] Every single bullet hits, but goes no deeper than the cloth the grotesquerie wears.

Her upper lip curls up in an uncharacteristic expression of fury, her teeth gritting hard enough to nearly snap her teeth at the root. Her eyes shut a split second. She breathes in. It's all she has time for.

Her eyes open again and she aims her weapon again, abruptly in a state of forced calm.

She aims at the EmCee and fires, twice, then jerks up her weapon to fire twice more at Franklin.

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

[Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Carousel] EmCee: SOOOAK.
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Failure at target 8)

[Slaughter] (intell + medicine!)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6

[Carousel] The EmCee is as broken as a body can get. The head is partially detached, the ribs pulverized. There is nothing left

That process, those blood vessels rolling uphill, might take hours, or days. All she is doing is extending it. Something else - beyond the physical - keeps that semblance of cells somehow together, slowly reforming.

Her next bullet would do more good in Franklin.
to Slaughter

[Slaughter] Abruptly, her weapon jerks up switching to Franklin.

"Let it be," she can barely hear her own voice over the ringing in her ears, the beating of her heart -
which, if she were honest, is beating harder than adrenaline can explain -

"Time enough t'deal wi' that after." Even as she spoke, she felt resistance. There is nothing more than Imogen Slaughter would like to do, right this second, than get away from this place.

She fires.

(Nine.)

[Slaughter] (dex+firearms)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Slaughter] AGAIN!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6 (Failure at target 4)

[Slaughter] (whoops - rolling a second time with the right number of dice. Sorry 'bout that)

[Slaughter] STOP EMBARRASSING ME, KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 5, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)

[Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: SOAKIES.

[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Slaughter] HIT 'IM AGAIN!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 6 (Success x 2 at target 4) [WP]

[Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Carousel]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] The Spear and Crinos snap in a tight and low circle, the movement shaken by the brush with adrenaline and Rage even as the shots ring off in the air and the thrum of blows can be heard. Linus jaws ratchet open, even as the momentum carries him back to facing Franklin, bowed as the Godi is.

1) Sweep Franklin.
2) Bite Franklin's neck

(Sweep. Dex 4 + Melee 2. Diff 8 - 2 for Rear attack)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] Action continues to whirl in the trailer, making it seem impossibly cramped and crowded. The key clicks correctly in the lock, and the door to the cage swings open. Gwen had been paying close mind to her surroundings while working the lock, though, she wasn't preoccupied. She saw what occurred with the EmCee, she sensed something to her back, and something to the back of the fray.

Her muscles shivered, sweat was slick along her spine and her chest now.
Inaction was beginning to make her crazy, the Rage and Animal within wanted to move, to join, to flay.

For once she let the pump of hot, primal anger rush through her veins and seep through her mind and limbs alike. Her body broiled, and she shoved her hoodie from her body a millisecond before the rest of her clothes shredded away from her body when it exploded upward, into a body without thumbs or fingers, but instead sporting teeth that felt too large for her mouth and claws that could tear through the metal walls if she so wished.

She snapped a snarl with a toss of her head toward the back of the trailer, toward something/someone perhaps no one else saw, then charged forward-- not toward the battle, but through, to the hallway behind that Franklin and the EmCee had emerged from initially.

[Gwen Sullivan] [Dexterity + Athletics]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 7, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [+WP!!!]

[Fate] Claw Frankling 1 r
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Fate] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Carousel] Franklin: kick FAte!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7) [WP]

[Fate] per+PU
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Carousel] (actually! he is kicking Linus, since Linus knocked him down. dif is 8 for changing targets)

DAMAGE
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Bite Franklin's neck: Dex 4 + Brawl 1. Diff 5 + 2 Called shot - 2 partial immobilize. -1 for Wounds)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Bone Writer] (str 6 + 1 sux + 2 called shot + 1 bite)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Carousel] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Carousel] Rage back!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Carousel] Gwen charges forward into the fracas, not into it but beyond it, finding her warform through the sheer itch of rage under her skin. She crashes into the moving curtain, through it, brings the damned thing tear down, past the vampire boy, his heart revealed, atop his sternum, the skin pulled back like a terrible dissection made permanent, through the stink and musk of battle.

Beyond: the antechambers of the freak show tent, an office on the tailgate of the truck with makeshift stairs that open down into the tent proper. The freaks are gathering. The snake-charmer, the bearded lady, the capering dwarfs, a man with an elephant's snout in place of a nose - all of them.

Among the freaks, Roman sees a carni, a low stage hand, an armful of something in his arms, rope for the rigging, ticket for the how, who seems - familiar - somehow. Roman remembers him from his last trip to the carnival. That man - a the scene opens before him - drops his burden with a thud to the ground, glancing up and down the face of the assembled, ten or twenty of them - then looks up at the fight, taking it all in faster than the rest.

And that man, that carni, that lowly stagehand is the EmCee Roman remembers from his first trip to the cursed carnival.

Jones falls from the opened cage, briefly wracked with coughs. There are still shackles on his wrists and ankles, but he was ready to shift to warform in that too small cage. This is nothing. Just a moment to remember how his legs move, his arms move. Just a moment to feel the touch of spirit, twisted though it make be, that makes him whole. Just a moment to find his fire -

- and then he does, headlow, moving in this sort of wild outflow. There's something in the air around him, coruscating, brilliant, he's bathed in the promise of fire, literally, wrists and ankles bulging, the action of shifting breaking his remaining bonds, the silver almost molting on his skin.

Rage and rage alone keeps him upright through that seering pain. Snarling, the -ikthya, the Spiral staggers, breaks into warform rather than shifts, this quivering sort of transformation like a worm-filled heart.

--

He pounces on Franklin as the montrous strongman rages back from death, frenzied, snarling, tears into his neck, tears out his throat with his dull teeth, his missing incisors. And beneath Jones' scored, scoured, blistered, de-clawed paws, Franklin begins to fucking melt into a puddle of flesh colored ooze.

There's this sense of movement among the carnis, though no one take charge until the stagehand does, begins to run.

Jones snarls - "GO - " in the high tongue, snarls "RUN. BEFORE THEY CLAIM YOU TOO. RUN. - " and then he spreads snarls another challenge at the crowd, ready to take them on, broken maw, broken paws, bleeding sulferous blood from his silver-wounds. All of them, standing ready over this - bubbling ooze of flesh that was Franklin, the stink and rot of it, guarding their retreat.

"I WILL TAKE YOU ALL." He snarls at the crowd.

[Fate] He saw what he saw and so many more were coming their way and what did Roman do? He pointed right at the guy with the ropes and yelled.

"That's the guy that was Emcee last time! Best we run, bring this place down! Burn it to the ground!"

[Slaughter] The kinwoman regards Jones, the melting EmCee with an impassive regard.

Fate suggests they run, and Imogen merely casts him a glance, her eyes dark. Her gun clicks as the Glock releases her mostly empty clip, and snaps as she slaps another home, pocketing the remaining bullets.

"C'mon," she says, simply. "I don't think this is goin' to be easy."

Linus has no need to make sure that Imogen is near the front - the kinwoman naturally lets the Garou between her and - anything. They were, after all, better at this than she was. But it won't keep her from firing where she can. Covering their retreat with the only ranged weapon they have.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen didn't so much sail as she did punch her body through the curtain, bringing it down clumsily onto the floor with a clatter. Doing so revealed not just one or two people sneaking their way up the hall, but an entire goddamn crowd of them. Eyes that had gone yellow in this body of a muscle-swollen, battle-ready wolf hopped from body-to-body, and her black lips curled back to snarl, muscles shivering and shaking, hackles standing tall--

RUN BEFORE THEY CLAIM YOU TOO

Her ears switched back, her head jerked back as well, and her eyes jumped to Roman, to Simon, to Imogen, then settled on Linus. She'd glance between him and the crowd, wait for the signal to move, and when it came she would push past the fallen EmCee, the puddle of the muscle man, and the Black Spiral Dancer and the flames that consumed him and spread to all they touched, dodging to carefully avoid contact with the unleashed vengeance that was Jones.

She would retreat as told, and try not to think of the chubby teen that had helped them out and not feel guilty about leaving her behind.

[Bone Writer] "I'll deal with that."

It's a quiet reassurance and the only thing Linus offers to Roman by way of answer. The group begins to gather and with a final wince and a pluck of his spear, shadowed into the flesh once more, Linus moves into the line-up on it's way back to normalcy.

[Carousel] "Maria" stands in the entranceway half-way down the trailer through which they slipped. Staring, wide-eyed. She turns to the first person who begins to retreat and says, quiet, urgent, sharp with fear -

"C'mon, hurry. Hurry. Everyone heard that." Urgent. "We have got to - "

There's already movement now, they are running and the freak are moving, now like an army but like a crowd. Someone shrieks and something dark, with razor-black wings moves against the ceiling of the trailer. The stagehand to whom Roman points has grabbed a makeshift weapon and and advances on the battle ahead of the mob, running with a single-minded purpose.

Not after them, but after the brutalized corpse of the EmCee.

"C'mon," says Maria, nearly crying now. "COME ON - " and then she's hustling them out, down the stairs in the back, and they cannot see the big dipper, they are immediately lost in a warren of tents and airstreams, fifth-wheel campers and pop-ups, creepy, abandoned ice cream trucks and strange pick-ups full of cages and piles of filth and foul-smelling stages of garbage.

The ordinary pleasures of the midway are not the only pleasures offered here. They pass gambling tents and brothel trailers, other, stranger attractions.

Whatever you want, the EmCee said, we have - .

If they trust her, the girl guides them through the backtents with practiced ease. There are encounters. Imogen counts more bullets. Roman lashes out with teeth, though he's flagging, not physically but spiritually, the place is tugging on his failing will. Linus with his spear, and Gwen Sullivan, who has no Name yet, with her fists, with her claws. Mostly they run.

They find refuge, briefly, in the tent of a fortune teller. The woman is still and old, and she gives Maria a sharp look at the bedraggled group, "These are the ones?"

There's movement outside, a sort of living chaos to which the fortune teller and the girl are attuned, that the Garou and Imogen feel only dimly. That chaos tugs more on Roman's awareness, on Simon's awareness, than the rest of them, but all is through a glass, darkly.

The fortune teller shelters them for ten minutes, makes herself a cup of tea and tells them that she would offer them -

- but, but. Sometimes it is best not to partake of even the simplest pleasures in a place like this. Her smile, as she says this, is gentle, bittersweet.

Maria is sharp with fear, eager to move when she hears shouts outside, but the fortune teller, who gives her name as Sarah, shakes her head, keeps her from leaving. "This tent is mine, girl. They cannot come here. You know the rules." - and, then, a moment later. With a look back at Maria then, a hard-edged sort of look, though quiet this. "Jones is dead. Jones is free."

"I think we have a new EmCee." Then, a heartbeat later. "The way is clear. Go. Take the old path."

--

And they go, find the gate underneath the Big Dipper through the maze. One minute it seemed impossible far away, and the next they are underneath it, the field across the way beckoning, the creek, the bend, the -

- relief, of the world around them. None of the carnis cross over.

Not even "Maria," though she ran with them the whole way. The place would not let her go.

And above the outline of the tents and the attractions, the roller coaster runs, and the gleaming, multicolored ferris wheel spins and spins.

[Carousel] Imogen leaves with: 2 bashing, 1 agg, 1 lethal.
to Slaughter

[Fate] They were rattled when they broke free of the Carnival and if Linus thought the ride in was hairy, he was going to love having the wounded garou drive him back to town.