3/18/2006

02:24 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waning Gibbous Moon phase (73% full).
It is currently 14:15 Pacific Time on Sat Mar 18 2006.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is partly sunny. The temperature is 49 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 7 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.14 and falling, and the relative humidity is 48 percent. The dewpoint is 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1 degrees Celsius.)

Forest North of Kent Crossing(#3819RJ)
A large expanse of second-growth forest grows about you. Douglas Fir and Western Hemlock are the dominant trees, with more deciduous species present closer to the west. The woods are light, with sunlight or moonlight trickling to the floor of the forest on the occasions when the skies are clear. While some large houses and the sporadic older farmstead dot the few small roads that wind their way through the wilderness, most of it has returned to the natural state. The remnants of human inhabitations past can be seen in the rectangular shaped meadows that were once farms. A few abandoned buildings and the rusted remains of farm machinery lay in some of these grassy areas.
To the west of this area, the Columbia River pushes through the land, with the city of St. Claire on the opposite bank. Interstate 90 crosses the Columbia to the north, following it north-south for a few miles on this side, but generally maintaining its east-west path. To the east is Sunrise Road; one of the more inhabited country roads in the area and to the south is the sleepy town of Kent Crossing.
Contents:
Grey
Abraxas
Fwiffo(#2945PJLcer)
Clemency
Reggie
Obvious exits:
East  Southwest  South  

Reggie swings around in a slow motion to squint at the questioner. His jaw works with spastic muscles, as he continues squinting, the day apparently being much too bright even with the forest filtering the light. "Looking for a tree", he replies, as his attention turns from Clemency to the tree she's besides, then his attention moves to the next tree over, and he waddles over to the second tree.

Clemency gives a rather wild smile. "A tree," she repeats. "Here's a tree. Here's another tree. And look, another one too. And another and another and... Reggie. This is a /forest/. There are trees /everywhere/."

Reggie grunts to Clemency's observaation about the forest, and gives the selected tree a light thump with his foot, then unzips and empties his bladder against the tree.

Clemency glares at Reggie as though she's not at all happy to see this. "This land used to be my /territory/, you know," she points out.

And as if weren't indication enough that this were a forest, it harbors at least one wolf. Dagger's-Edge makes his way passingly, nose to ground on the trail of some old scent. Hearing the human voices of others though, he looks up and in that direction, ears pushed forward.

"You should've gone peepee before you left Skull Island," Clemency rejoinders drily. "I can tell you were celebrating the saint yesterday, I can smell the beer still on you. Just don't throw any cans around, I suppose."

A badly-scarred dark wolf comes into view behind Reggie, within sight of Clemency; he's easily recognizable as Thomas Grey in lupus shape, tongue hanging out from a long, hard run.

The quiet crunching of sticks and dead leaves announces Abraxas' arrival. The metis is shoulder hunched, with both hands balled into fists and stuffed into his jacket pockets--the usual, really. And, as usual, he doesn't look to be in a particularly good mood, though there's more caution to his expression than outright hostility.

Reggie throws out his hands. "Sometimes nature calls". He walks up to the tree Clemency's by, peering at the new spring leaves, then selects a clump of the earliest ones, rubbing his hands on them. "There're many mysteries about--it was green going down, but it's not green coming out. Wonder what happens to that green." He waggles his fingers, now stained green, at Clemency. "You still patrolling here? I thought you'd found new territory."

Dagger's-Edge, rather than join the group, conceals himself as best he can at a distance. He senses out the others in the vicinity, sniffing, listening.

Clemency gives Reggie a silent, expressive look, but seems to take a little heart in Grey's arrival. "Hey, packie," she says as other garou start to fade out of the trees and into sight. "There a party going on that nobody told me about?"

Grey sneezes once, notes only that he came upon Clemency's scent, and offers the Silver Fang a reserved but amiable greeting as he moves over to join her.

A Coyote's howling sounds so faintly that the mind isn't sure it was actually heard after all as it has completely faded but a few seconds later. Again it repeats after a pause.

Abraxas comes to a slow stop, eyeing those Garou that he can seem, most especially Reggie and Grey. If he intended to say anything, however, he is interrupted by the howling. Frowning, he turns his head.

Reggie's finger waggling stops as he notices the other arrivals, and he turns apprehensively to look around, counting those that've snuck up. Grey, being the closest, gets a reluctant nod from him, as he tries to keep an eye on the others.

Clemency reaches down to rub Grey's neck, and then freezes in the very act of doing so as the howl sounds out.

Grey's ears perk up at the coyote howl, looking in the direction of the howl.

Dagger's-Edge lifts his head at the 'yote's howl, ears flicking back up and twisting around in search of a point of origin as well.

Grey's ears go askew as looks one way and then another, actually. Then he snorts, irritable-like.

The Coyote sounds again, and then it simply... appears. A translucent Coyote pops into existance right in the middle of the group of Garou. It looks around for a moment then offers, "There you are." It sounds hurried and worried.

Reggie's expression draws tight as he regards Abraxas, combining with his hangover to make him look not only green, but constipated. He jerks his attention off the Lord at the sudden appearance of the coyote, eyes widening as he takes in the apparition. "Coyote?", he asks, in a small voice.

Abraxas takes a step back and pulls his lips briefly away from his teeth. The Coyote spirit receives a darkly suspicious look, which slides toward Reggie as he catches the tail end of the Uktena's look toward him.

"Never used to be 'yotes here when I..." And Clemency again comes to an abrupt halt as the spirit materialises right among the crowd, and greets them comprehensibly. "Here /we/ are," she snaps back, "who are you and what are you looking for, spirit?" An ungracious greeting, perhaps, but it's all she says.

Dagger's-Edge eyewidens and takes not more than a couple halfsteps back, fur puffing and then slickening. What urge to turn and leave is countered only by the motley gathering and this sudden turn of events.

Grey, at the Fang's side, says nothing; his raised hackles and tensed, wary body language say it all.

The spirit yips once and then curls up and lays upon the ground. "Called you before, I did." it offers and yet none of you remember hearing any howling aside from what you just heard a moment before. "I want to do you a favor!" It stands and speaks all this in a pleasing clear-toned higher pitched voice.

Reggie glances uneasily at Abraxas, suspicion tense in his body before turning back towards Coyote. With a cautious nod towards Coyote, "Ah--I am glad you have found us--ah--what favor do you speak of?", he asks in hesitant fits and starts.

Abraxas looks as though he's about to ask a question of his own, but Reggie speaks first, and the metis only grunts instead, his attention now fully on the spirit.

Clemency eyes the spirit with something less than trust, but she extends one hand in a gesture which humans at least will recognise as an invitation to elucidate further.

Dagger's-Edge, though unable to hide his morbid curiosity, still looks dubiously at the coyote.

Grey's distrust is a mirror to Clemency's, but the spirit has his full attention. The Walker's nose works busily, taking in scent.

The spirit looks over towards a stagnant pool of cold water in the dirt a few meters away. One that the attentive could swear was not there a moment before. "Well, see. There's this little problem. It's gonna be your problem too, so uh. I figured you wanted to know about it now rather than later."

Reggie follows the look over towards the water, and studies it for a few moments, with brow furrowed, before dismissing the problem of determining if the water had always been there, with a head shake. "A--ah--problem? What is this problem?", he asks.

"Our problem?" echoes Clemency. "/Little/ problem?"

Dagger's-Edge looks over at the puddle of water, though not without any particular surprise. The Shadow Lord then looks back at the spirit, and moves position a little closer towards the puddle.

Grey remains silent.

Abraxas's suspicion is clearly growing, but once more he seems content to let Reggie ask the questions--or at least, content not to ask questions to which the Uktena has already asked.

Coyote looks over to the pool once more and then up towards the sky. "When the dark comes. When the moon peaks in the sky. When the five stand around the red tree... the path will be opened. Through the path lies the fetish." The coyote yips powerfully as if making sure attention is being paid, it then looks around the Garou, "Another hunts it though, my brother."

"My fallen brother, a tool of the Wyrm. He seeks the fetish for his masters. This is quite serious, wolves. You need to get it before he does. Some things need to remain secrets. Some knowledge is best to remain forgotten. Find it before he does..." the Coyote pauses and bows it's head, "Find it first and you can have it. Heed the warnings. The five must stand around the red tree when Luna is at her highest in the sky."

All annoyance fades out of Clemency's face and posture and is replaced by a keen focus on the words of the spirit, as though she's writing them all down on the tablets of her memory. "Highest in the sky..." she murmurs as it finishes.

Abraxas glances toward Clemency. He's frowning, but it's not the suspicious frown of a few moments before. Oh, the suspicion is still there, certainly, but it's been shunted aside by caution and uncertainty.

"Fetish?", is Reggie's immediate, eager response, and he manages not to waste time eying Abraxas as he looks about at the trees. "Red, red--it's not fall. Red maple?" He glares at an innocent green leaf for not being red.

Grey's hackles bristle; he mutters a disgruntled remark about prophecy, the dislike of same. Then he shakes himself and takes a step forward, his manner dour and dutiful.

The spirit looks around at the wolves and yips humourously. "Not /here/!" it cackles the looks back towards the pool, "There!" And with that it runs and leaps into the pool, body disappearing into the water without disturbing the surface.

Grey notes sourly that he doesn't much like coyote spirits either. Not that it matters much.

Dagger's-Edge turns, shaking out his coat in stalling on any sort of reaction. Eyeing the others rather than the spirit, he seems now to be more in doubt of the named five. Should get a spirit-moon, he chuffs in short evaluation. His gaze interrupts as it tracks the spirit back to the pool, and watches it disappear.

Clemency spits out a cuss-word as the spirit vanishes from view. "Get after it!" she commands the other garou, her Silver Fang training no doubt putting her in a frame of mind where to give orders is almost instinctive, and she strides to the pool herself, aiming to use its surface to follow the spirit through to the Umbra.

The pool is large enough for a human to see almost their entire body in the reflection. It is still and clear.

"A tree, red and torn in spirit", Reggie quotes with hand splayed on his chest in a dramatic pose, but doesn't get to continue before Clemency's spirit. He waddles over to the pool, crowding her to get to peer into the pool to cross over, following the trail of the Coyote.

Grey, his personal dislikes aside, stalks toward the pool on Clemency's heels.

Abraxas mutters something dark and inaudible under his breath, but he follows the two other Ahrouns. His gloved hands have slipped out of his jacket pockets now, and lay clenched at either side.

Fwiffo's GM Room(#3576RFJL)
Please feel free to settle in before all the death starts.
Contents:
Grey
Fwiffo(#2945PJLcer)
Abraxas
Reggie
Clemency

Dagger's-Edge curls his lips back, watching the others head towards the water pool. Though he's moved close, he doesn't actually make any approach towards the pool until almost all of them have actually crossed. Then, with a snort of annoyance, he steps up to the pool warily and stares also into his reflection, piercing the Gauntlet to step sideways.

Clemency bursts through the Gauntlet with the speed of one who was expecting the passage between worlds to be rather more arduous than proves to be the case, and stumbles as she lands in the Umbra. As she regains her balance she shifts up to glabro, and does a quick 360-degree turn to check around her.

Grey, right on Clemency's heels, gives himself a good hard shake as he comes through and then, like her, takes stock of his surroundings.

Abraxas slides instantly to crinos the moment he is through, with the sort of ease only a metis can truly enjoy. He's on full alert, and it's not just his surroundings that he gives a swift, suspicious looking over, it's the other Garou as well. His ears are as high as they can get on his head, straining for any unusual sound, though oddly, his nose doesn't move at all.

Reggie erupts through the Gauntlet, looking about, catching sight of the others following through, face tightening at the Lords, before he looks around at the surroundings.

Dagger's-Edge comes in last, at least a full half minute after the slowest of the others. His head is head rather high but stiffly, like he doesn't really want any part of this, but if he's going to be, he's going in with as much grace as he can muster.

The umbra here is much as people would expect. Woods and more woods. The small pool of water here is strangly ephemeral, even more so than most in the water. It almost seems to undulate and move on it's own volition. Then once all have crossed over, a face appears in the water with an eye that winks before it fades into the umbral airts. The coyote is seen standing before a smaller tree, older than a sappling here in the umbra, but not much. It places a paw to what looks like a rough human handprint of red-tinged wood on the small tree. With that it leaps up and over the tree and runs off past it fading into the umbral woods.

Clemency strides up to the tree and examines the handprint. "Here we go," she says in her deeper, growlier glabrous voice. "Red tree?"

Reggie performs a double take at the water, and rubs the new crick in his neck as he walks over to the tree, holding his hand, splayed out, over the handprint. "Human. And the tree's red", he lists what's obvious to Clemency.

Grey steps warily over toward the tree to examine it, sniffing around at its base.

Dagger's-Edge finally voices his concern aloud, himself sniffing at the tree from a few lengths' distance. How can you trust that spirit? It's Coyote. A trickster.

Bitter-Harvest starts to hang back himself, but finding Kenneth there is enough for his neckfur to ripple, and he stalks forward, as if to hold the middle space for himself, and keep a medium of distance between both the group by the tree, and the other Shadow Lord.

"Did I say I trusted it?" Clemency snaps back to Kenneth.

Reggie studies the tree with as much concentration as he can muster, given his post-'celebration' state and the debate of Fang and Lord.

Dagger's-Edge growls out, You're following its words aren't you?

"What'd you have done?" Clemency growls. "Sat on your duff and ignored it? Pretty fool you'd have looked then if it was telling the truth."

Dagger's-Edge snaps his teeth together, hackles raising. I'm /here/, aren't I? On /your/ order.

Bitter-Harvest gives a low, irritable growl. ~You can still leave, Daggers-Edge, if you think we're all so stupid as to take a Coyote spirit's words at face value. Or you both can stop your fucking bickering and keep your eyes peeled for real threats.~

Clemency's propensity to shout down one Shadow Lord contrasts markedly with her reaction to the other one. "Point taken, 'Brax," she says almost meekly. "Well, I guess, /if/ it spoke truly, this is where we come next full moon, and some kind of... path will appear for us?"

Reggie jerks his hand from the tree, and walks around the tree, crossing between the tree and Clemency as he does so, looking askance at the latest Lord to join the group as he passes by Clemency, and studying the tree otherwise, with puzzlement evident.

Grey's ears go flat at the bickering, which he refrains from taking part in. As Reggie approaches, he gives the Uktena a sour look.

Dagger's-Edge snarls at Bitter-Harvest something to the effect of 'go jump in a silver river', but it only makes it so far as 'go jump in' and is interrupted with Reggie's look at him. Snorting a huff, he gouges a paw down on the ground beneath him, and circles wide to a different area where he can observe the tree alone.

Bitter-Harvest bares his teeth briefly at Dagger's-Edge, and seems to take this response from Clemency as leave to get closer to the tree, which he attempts to do while staying as distant from Grey and Reggie as possible. He murmurs to the Fang in a low hiss, his closest thing to a whisper in this form, "It said highest, but I don't think it mentioned fullest."

Clemency frowns as she ponders the metis's point regarding the moon. "Just like a damn coyote to make you turn every word he uses upside down and shake the sense out of it."

Reggie glances sharply at the sound of the hiss, and barks out, "Have something to share? We're all in this." At the sound of himself saying that last statement, he glances uncertainly about at the Lords, including Grey in his sweeping glance.

Bitter-Harvest doesn't seem ignorant of that glance, as his eyes narrow, and he fairly spits his next words. "/Are we/? I'm glad to see that fact has come to your attention. I was only pointing out that the spirit said highest, but didn't mention fullest."

As the night moves on, the moon gradually lifts higher in the sky. There is a sense of anticipation in the very texture of the umbral air.

"Yes, we /are/," Clemency states flatly. "I would certainly hope /you/ were, Reggie. I thought mysteries and puzzles were right on the button for you Uktena."

Reggie forms a grimace, appearing as though he'd just bitten through a very sour lemon, but at Abraxas's words, his eyes snap up to the moon. "The apogee."

Dagger's-Edge only lashes his tail behind him, having nothing he cares to add, insult or contribution wise. The halfmoon waits out through the night in silence, observing the other Garou, observing the red tree.

Bitter-Harvest crosses his arms and settles near the base of the tree. He can't keep his eyes on all four Garou /and/ the tree /and/ the surrounding woodland at the same time, so he settles for doing it in fits of a minute or so each, while his ears swivel to try and catch anything his eyes might miss.

Clemency gives Reggie a look which plainly suggests that she thinks he's made that word up, but she doesn't seem quite sure enough of herself to say it out loud.

Grey gives himself a thorough shake, nose to tail, and sits down. His gaze slips upwards toward the moon.

Reggie turns towards Clemency, voice hissing in an urgent, lowered tone, "The moon is rising now, see it move", he offers visual illustration by raising his hand in an arc, as he points at the moon. "It could be tonight. We have no time."

Luna raises up in the sky as the night passes. Eventually, as the moon nears it's height above the world, it appears as if a single dull silver ray of light shoots down to rest on the handprint of the tree. It remains only slightly brighter than the general umbral night and there is a moment where it seems as if time it self has stopped and the feeling of a key placed in a lock spreads over everyone... it waits to be turned but won't wait long.

Clemency grunts as Reggie explains things to her in 'science made simple' terms, and settles down to wait with thinly disguised impatience.

Reggie tires out from his audiovisual demonstration and lets his arm drop, and stands, just watching the moon move. When the handprint lights up from the moon's rays, he alerts with "Now! It is now!", his gravelly voice turning squeaky.

Bitter-Harvest's nostrils flare, and he turns his full attention on the handprint itself, even moving a little closer to the tree. He lifts his own clawed hand and holds it out, though he doesn't touch the tree or the handprint yet. ~Now,~ he agrees. ~What should we do?~

A light like that of the moon itself seems to come on behind Clemency's eyes and she springs up to her feet once more when Reggie makes that announcement. "Five of us," she says. "Around the red tree! Now! Come on! Come on!" Her voice is full of urgency.

Grey rears up onto two legs, shifting quickly into his birth form. His mouth twisted into a dubious frown, he mutters something in irritable Serbian and reaches a hand out for the tree.

Dagger's-Edge lifts his head a level, still eyeing the others from a distance with a hard look. Fur bristled out, the halfmoon remains standing out of the circle around the tree. The philodox remains there, teeth bared. Time slips on, running out, and just as it seems like the key is going to fall out, he surges forth, up to his birth form, and slaps a hand on the tree bark.

When Kenneth moves forward to touch the tree the light lifts from the hand and floats in the air shimmering suddenly brightly. It expands into a large oval disk of moonlight seemingly only two dimensions, height and width, it can not be seen from the side. A Coyote's howl is heard in the distance.