1/26/2005

06:12 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (90% full).

Converted Warehouse - Shadow's End(#3589RAJh)

Track lighting along the 30 foot skylighted ceiling in this spacious complex accents the smaller sconces along the walls every 10 feet or so, keeping the entire area adequately lit, even while allowing shadows to play in odd areas during the night. Over all, the entire effect is dark and post-modern in places, warm and inviting in others. On one side of the lower floor, a spiral staircase leads up to a mezzanine that stretches along one entire side of the place. Two suites with separate baths can be found there, nearly a perfect match to the two downstairs. One of the downstairs suites is larger than the rest, though all of them seem excellently appointed. The end of the apartment nearest the entrance contains a large rec room with a comfortable-looking sofa, several leather recliners and a high-end entertainment system. The other end of the apartment contains an impressive workout room, complete with free weights, and other assorted fitness equipment. The center of the lower floor contains an open kitchen area. A sprawling, dark-grey counter surrounds a set of expensive-looking burnished appliances. Charcoal grey carpeting covers the floor and huge, vertical blinds hang near the workout area, covering windows that stretch halfway to the ceiling and overlook the river.

Contents:
Lucas
Obvious exits:
Elevator

The fog clings to the windows, covering the view of the river. Lucas has been fairly lethargic since the Revel, and like right now, he's flopped out on the couch in his glabro form and dozing with his hands behind his head.

The toilet flushes, signifying finished business there. Kenneth emerges, not in Glabro but in homid form, but peels off a wifebeater from his personage and limps down stairs. It's not 'til he's at the base does he shift, and issue a low groan of wordless complaint at the hurt. "Damn Furbies," he grimaces.

"Hm." Lucas utters as a dour agreement before he cracks open an eye. "I got a message for you. From Natalie. She said stay away from Saul without permission or else he'll be culled."

Kenneth looks up from rubbing his shoulder, sharply. "What?" he asks, but the annoyed manner in which he poses the question tells that he had heard what the ahroun said. "Stay away from Saul or else he'll be Culled?" The halfmoon forces his movements over to the couch, lowering his eyes to look upon the ahroun and examine his expression. "Did she give a reason?"

"We're Shadow Lords." Lucas replies matter-of-factly as he shuts his eyes again with a slight frown on his face. "I assume that means she doesn't trust us one bit. In fact, I know she doesn't."

Kenneth suddenly whirls from the couch, turning away and stalking off. "Son of a Bitch!" he snarls, the Glabro'd gutteral, feral side rising like a dragon's maw to consume the philodox. "Fuckin' Walkers. Fuckin' Shit-filled Sept!" The halfmoon just as quickly turns stock still, quivering slightly with tension as if expecting someone outside of Lucas to have heard his bellow. "I swear, if This is what the rest of the Garou Nation is like..." He cuts his own statement off, like sticking a knife point into a table.

Lucas scowls as the infectious nature of anger, the side of his lip twitching up like he was going to snarl. "Yeah, well, I think it is, unless we feel like hauling ass to the Old Country and plunk ourselves in an all Lord sept upon which I think we'll become the new prison bitches."

"Well Why the fuck not?" Kenneth spits out, "We're already getting ass-raped to hell in this place." The philodox stamps over towards the exercise machines, not minding the additional bolts of pain that fuel his anger when he moves. "Fucking Walker galliard doesn't know fuckin' shit about teaching her own cubs. You know what Saul told me?" He grips a metal pole on the bench, wanting to squeeze it so hard that it dents. "He was tellin' me that he's been there for Months, and they ain't done shit with him. Cubs of other tribes that've arrived after him have already been rited. I told him, that's fuckin' bullshit and he better call his elders on it or else he's gonna be on the bottom rung for as long as they can keep him there."

And why the /fuck/ do you think I left?!" Lucas shouts as he shoves himself upright on the couch, his Rage overshadowing the jolts of pain. "At least I had a way out, I wasn't marked as their cub. So yeah, be better fuckin talk and kick them around, because otherwise they'll just forget him like they did me."

Kenneth grinds his teeth together, seeing as his own Rage is about to cloud his mind again. The halfmoon keeps himself just underneath boiling point, as he looks to the floor where there is nothing to get angry at. "Not like I went seeking him out anyway. If she's so fuckin' paranoid of Saul actually getting a clue, then she'd better lock him up in a closet with a wireless connection." He lets go of the metal rod, which lucky is no worse for wear by his squeezing. "We really have to come up with a plan or Something. Otherwise this shit is just going to keep happening to us, and I'm not gonna keep presenting my ass to them."

The Ahroun's voice turns bitter and savage, even if it goes abnormally quiet for him being so mad. "Nothing we do is ever gonna make a difference to them. We could save this caern single-handedly and die doing it and they'll just smile and be glad to get rid of us."

"Ok, so why're we still here then?" Kenneth argues, then shakes his head. "No.. no that's not right. More like, what the fuck are they doing, that we're not?"

Lucas growls sullenly and settles back against the couch, like even his Rage couldn't compete with how tired he feels both physically and mentally. "...they treat a /Ronin/ with more honor than us, and what have we ever done against them?"

Kenneth thunders a growl as well. "He helps guard the caern. Not like we did that, but we don't have that kind of time to waste trotting around and making sure the piss is still fresh on the trees. But Fuck it. I'm so sick of their shit, I'm sick of griping about their shit." He looks over to the ahroun. "And if no amount of killing the supposed enemy is gonna show 'em that we're real, then... then it's gotta be some kind of inside job."

Lucas hmfs and slumps onto his back lengthwise on the couch, closing his eyes again. "Right, you have fun posing as a fomori and trying to get information. I'm just gonna sit here and watch this sept drive itself off the cliff."

"I'm Talkin' about that sort of attitude," Kenneth huffs at the ahroun. "Listen- what's the last thing these idiots expect from us? For us to give a damn. I think, that as far as they think, we could disappear and they'd be happy. But say we actually Do stick around, start mixin' in? It's just like us figuring out how to roll with the Bridge Street Brothers or some other gang on the street. They don't know us. They'd rather us be dead. But they don't quite got a reason to kill us outright. So, we stick around. Do a little work... eventually they get worn down. Their guards are dropped." He slows the train of thought, eyes narrowing. "You see what I'm gettin' at?"

Lucas snorts and cracks open an eye to peer at the Philodox. "What? We assasinate the entire sept? Wait, lemme go get my nuclear bomb!" He growls and flops back down. "Fuck the sept. Fuck them. Fuck the world for all I care. A bunch of mangy, ass-licking Garou aren't gonna save it."

Kenneth throws up his bitten arms. "No, Stupid. We fuckin' Milk this sept for what it's worth!" The halfmoon turns away, pacing again like a lion in a cage. "We know they're gonna get themselves into deep shit again some day. Maybe when they decide to go after that big ass Wyrm thing that's supposed to be in the Umbra somewhere. I don't give a damn about that." Striking an exercise machine with the flat of his palm, he heaves out a withheld breath of frustration. "But they know stuff that we don't know. Fuck, we don't even know how to keep our damn clothes on when shift." The thin white material of his shirt hanging from a pocket gets glared at. "Even if they're dumbasses, they know stuff. And until I get a piece of that, I'm not just going to sit on my ass here, sayin' 'fuck 'em' and rot. You go ahead and do that."

Lucas snarls in aggrevation and tears himself up off the couch, stalking stiffly around it and for the elevator. "Fine, sit here, skulk and plot while I go kill something. That's exactly what they expect of us, so fine, I'd hate to dissapoint them. While I'm at it, I think I'll go eat a baby, steal it right out of it's crib while it's parents sleep and chomp it right down." He says with an violent swipe of his hand, like he was actually snatching one up. "This way, the sept actually has a /FUCKING reason/ to look at us like we're backstabbing, bloodthirsty psychopaths!"

The Philodox narrows his eyes, gazing hard at his tribemate. "Lucas. If you actually go stealin' babies out of their cribs and eatin' them, so help me I'll kill you myself." Kenneth stands up from the slight slouch he had hunkered down into. "Eatin' people may be against one of the laws, but we're fucking Shadow Lords. And fuckin' hell, we DON'T stoop That low." The halfmoon's chin tilts up - pride from somewhere within him showing through his surliness.

Lucas pauses halfway to the elevator and stares over his shoulder. "Hmf. I couldn't actually eat them anyway... and keep it down. Even babies are chock full of chemicals these days." He says as he crosses his arms across his chest and falls into a rather unnerving and heavy silence.

Kenneth puffs out an invisible smoke cloud. "Like hell. If you ended up chokin' to death on a rib bone or something, I'd fuckin' Laugh so hard you'd get woken up from your grave." He starts towards the couch, and slumps into it for the time being. "So, you sure you wanna just fuck us over by pullin' outta here early?"

"I don't know what to do." Lucas grumbles lowly, his shrug-it-off attitude lost and buried under a restless anger as he begins to pace, despite the stiffness in his tired joints.

Then it is Kenneth's turn to be silent for awhile. No words at first, but certainly a brooding, pensive expression sits itself over the halfmoon's face. Then he looks back up. "We'll start by handling the Brothers. Since Megan's probably gonna get in a fuss about that crap, and we need the street cred anyway, we can start there." He then gazes towards the TV screen. "Which means we still gotta talk to that Harold guy. As for what we can do about our individual goals..." And here the halfmoon fades off to a lowered tone, "We do what we need to do to get our Rite's worth of shit learned here. I didn't turn permanently celibate for shits and giggles."

"Yeah, I told Natalie today we were stuck on cleanup duty and she just said not to talk to her, talk to Megan." Lucas says with a frown. "So we're on our own. I just saw we find out their headquarters, make a big-ass pipe bomb and toss it through the front door. The cops'll just thing the idiots blew themselves up."

Kenneth runs his tongue over his teeth tips, as if actually entertaining the idea. "Except, we do that and we end up blowin' up the silver they got. Cops find that out, wonder what the hell the silver is for, and we might end up makin' a bigger mess than we thought."

The glabro Lucas continues to pace the space between couch and elevator with a furious, stalking pace. "Not if it's hot enough. Silver is easy to melt. Hot enough bomb'll melt it, contaminate it with whatever is around, they'll just shove it off as scraps from a junkyard."

Kenneth too, in Glabro form, is getting over the wounds received from Revel. He sits on the couch, turned to watch the ahroun pace as he had done just minutes before. "Silver's still silver," he remarks with a snort. "Cops might be dumb, but their lab people aren't."

A moment later, with a soft chime, the doors to the elevator open and Jarred steps out into the living space, a large black suitcase trailing behind him. He looks like he's been travelling.

Lucas pauses as he's about to defend the use of a very large bomb when the elevator opens. He jerks his head up, which does nothing good for healing wounds, and growls slightly at the pain. "Jarred." He murmurs in greeting, the Ahroun looking and sounding a bit more strained and angry than is even normal for him on the full moon.

Kenneth switches out from nearing relatively comfortable brooding zone back to a tense stare at the elevator as it chimes. As the Lord elder steps through trailing a suitcase, the halfmoon's chin lifts. A short, hesitant, "Okaerinasai," comes out of him.

Jarred looks up at the two and his eyes narrow slightly. He smiles. "You two have been arguing again." It's not a question. "Good gods, can't you two just admit that you like each other and be done with it? You fight like an old married couple."

Lucas seems to have lost any tolerance for humor and growls lightly in the back of his throat as he turns away and heads back for the living room. It sounds like he might be grating something out, but it's too low to tell, it could just be a wounded glabro breathing out.

"We haven't been fighting. These are from the Revel," Kenneth returns with a frown. "Which was a fuckin' joke, along with the entire moot."

Jarred cocks his head slightly. "Oh? And why is that?"

"It looked like the three of us were five seconds away from being lynched by the sept." Lucas snarls bitterly over his shoulder. "They let that fucking Ronin be there... and..." He immediatly tenses up with Rage and is forced to shut up, jerking his eyes away and staring out the windows.

Jarred lifts a brow. "I think you might be exaggerating just a bit. I mean, we *are* Shadow Lords. What did you expect them to do, applaud and throw confetti?"

Kenneth snorts out again, head shaking. "Fuck no, but you'd think they'd look at a pack of three of their sept's Garou with more respect than a snort and a secret wish for them to drown in the waterfall. Not even /Dillen/ got half an ounce. Lucas and I went to the Revel, fuckin' slaughtered a shitload of spirits, and nothing."

"The god damned Metis got a better reception than us." Lucas says with clenched teeth. "Then James went and pat Joshua on the back... fucking honorless half-mad Ronin... they give /him/ more respect than us. All he does is sit around and piss on trees. We fought Fenris and /won/ we have the scars to prove it but they looked at us like we were just a bunch of cubs playing a joke."

Jarred shakes his head, laughing with mild derision "You have this sept all wrong, Kenneth. Both of you do. You of all people should know, as any Shadow Lord can tell you, that garou politics are not like human politics. No one in this sept owes you respect just for forming a pack. It's what you do *as* a pack that will gain you repute amongst your peers. The fact that you're Lords just makes it harder. If you disliked someone, would you have gone out of your way during the moot to make them feel good and important? I think not." He drops the suitcase and walks into the kitchen area. "So just scrape them off. If you really cared about what they thought you'd be a Child of Gaia or a Fianna, anything but a Shadow Lord. We don't thrive on the compliments and good wishes of others, or our tribe would have died out long ago."

Kenneth turns around, yanking the white wifebeater out of the pocket of his enlarged pants. "We're not talkin' about 'good jobs' and fuckin' spanks on the ass, Boss. But if they don't give a damn about us, well why the Hell should We give a damn about Them?"

Lucas has already voiced his opinion this before, in a very loud voice having declared they can all go to hell for all he cares. He'll even pay the fare. The Ahroun just tossing his hind end back onto the couch and silently stews, Rage rolling off of him like heat from a fire.

Jarred's smile is icy. "You shouldn't. Well done, by the way. You've learned one of the primary lessons of your tribe. There are three things you should care about. Your self, your sept and your tribe. And when I say your sept, I mean the institution. The whole. Not the individual jack-offs that populate it. You can be good at what you do without having a single good friend among them. Hell, most of them aren't worthy of your friendship anyway, so why bother? The sooner you learn to hold them all in the contempt you should, the less all of their jeers and silences and snubs will bother. I don't even pay attention to it anymore. Didn't stop me from becoming Fostern. And it won't stop you either. We are in the business of getting things done, you two. This isn't summer camp and no one gives a damn if you end up making lasting friendships or not. We're at war with the forces of corruption."

"Ok," Kenneth starts off with a slightly less surly tone, "If they don't recognize your deeds... how the hell did You make your way up the fuzzy social ladder?"

"Better yet, who'd you kill?" Hisses Lucas from the couch as he looks over, eyes narrowed and looking rather venemous, like if he got any immediate tips on commiting homicide he'd run out and use them.

Jarred looks at Lucas. "Killing is what we do." Simple, to the point. Chilling. There's no doubt that he means it. "The purpose of life is to end and then begin again. You make your way up the latter by gaining renown. I gained it. Wasn't easy but I did it. You'll do it too. In fact you both have head starts with your battle scars."

Kenneth blows out another breath. "Fuck these scars." There is Obvious bitterness in his tone. "Like they give us anything but shit. And isn't Renown being recognized by one's peers? Being known for deeds? So if they don't acknowledge us, then What the Fuck is it for?"

"Good..." Mutter Lucas as he slumps on the couch, mostly to himself, and then goes on a mild rant with himself. "Then I'll just go kill White Bear and rid the world of one more Ronin. Then, maybe this sept will actually look like it has a brain... let's put Ronin on to guard our sacred places...right...fucking brilliant. ...thinks he can challenge me and get away with winning..."

Jarred's voice sharpens. "You're not hearing me, Kenneth. In fact, neither of you are even close to getting it. The point isn't to get slap on the back from your buddies. It's not to have ticker tape parades thrown for you when you complete your missions and come back alive. It isn't to hear the galliards sing of your glorious deeds. If you're this torn up about one moot where no one clapped when you announced that you were officially *a pack*, then I'll go to the Sept Alpha and tell her you formally protest the rudeness of your septmates. I'm sure she'll get a good laugh out of it. Here's an idea. I'll go out and buy you both a pair of big wooden crosses so every time you feel belittled by the sept and unappreciated and misunderstood, you can climb on up and nail yourselves to them. Either way, the next time I see one of you moping around and bitching that no one seems to notice how wonderful you are outside of your tribe, I'm going to give you a reason to feel down and unappreciated. YOU are responsible for your own praise. You are the captain of your own ship and the author of your own actions. If you want congratulations for being superior, then do it yourself."

Kenneth looks as if he's going to just go off on a major tirade as soon as Jarred's minor monologue finishes. But, the halfmoon shuts the angry words down quickly like he would jump on an overbursting suitcase.

"Ya know, I don't really give a rat's ass anymore." Lucas growls, this time not just talking to himself. "Let them run around puckering up to one another's asses. I'm just gonna go kill things, and if they get in my way, I'm killing them."

Jarred shrugs. "Perhaps not *quite* as subtle as you'll need to learn to be as a Shadow Lord, but a good start. Remember that you will *automatically* be suspected when things go wrong. The better you are at getting away with it the more of a success you'll be. Fear of you is better than respect for you. One is infinitely more useful than the other. Remember that."

Kenneth keeps his gaze pointedly off of Jarred, though he bridges his fingers together to think. "Fear's what gets dictators pointed out and killed," is what the philodox mutters.

Lucas pushes himself back off the couch again. Either he got bit by those things on the rear and can't sit or he's just that restless. There's a strange, hard look in his eyes, but he doesn't say a word as he heads for the stairs.

Jarred simply adds, "Fear doesn't stem from the the tyranny of the dictator, Kenneth. Fear flows from the dark figures behind the throne. The ones with the real power."

Kenneth only shifts his gaze off to one side as Lucas heads for the stairs, watching his pack alpha leave. "The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night," quotes the philodox, standing up as well. "The mighty fall at last... they are as dust before the wind." The halfmoon looks to his tribe elder, eyes narrowed in thought. "As you say, Jarred-rhya. We are all our own ship's captains."

Upstairs, the door to the Ahroun's room opens and shuts, and in his wake there's the sense of unease and unrest, like something really wasn't right.

Jarred doesn't answer. Neither does he spare the cliath another look or thought. Not all Shadow Lords are Shadow Lords, apparently.

Kenneth wets his lip, and turns for the elevator. As he goes, he shifts to his birthform and slips on - with some tightened jaws - his shirt before pressing the button for the lift. "I'm still looking for a teacher to show me how to dedicate clothing," he mentions. "I think I'll go find Cutter-rhya."