Meeting Darroll
7/13/2006
10:49 AM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (82% full).
It is currently 10:36 Pacific Time on Thu Jul 13 2006.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.12 and steady, and the relative humidity is 69 percent. The dewpoint is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
Big Red Barn(#3420RA)
The barn is built in the old style, a vast three level structure that is greater in height than a mere three stories, actually closer to five. Great wooden posts support the weight of the upper levels and roof, sunk into the hard-packed dirt floor of the first level like a sparse forest of regularly spaced, naked trees. The stalls and flagstones which once were here have been torn out to leave a rather open area where even crinos Garou may roam freely without fear of running into anything but the supports or the walls or the ladder at the back which allows access to the other two levels.
The first two levels are relatively open to each other, the second being only little wider than a catwalk going around all the walls but the front one, which has massive, twenty foot tall doors set into it. The third level is a true second floor except for a place cut out that allowed hay to be tossed down to the ground floor when the farm was actually worked. Now, it is a hayloft where Garou can sleep outside of the house.
Contents:
Criminal
Obvious exits:
BarnYard
On this pleasantly cool yet summery day, all seems quiet inside the barn. Only the sharpest of ears -- human ears, anyway -- would pick up the quiet, rhythmical breathing of a teenage boy, propped up against a haybale, eyes closed, evidently asleep.
Movement and sound disturb the peace of the barn. Kenneth enters through the half-opening of the barn door, squinting into the dim structure and using the light outside as his guide. He's not the stealthiest of philodoxes, but the Shadow Lord makes his way through to the barn's back, pausing only to peer at the sleeping stranger and examine his features.
Criminal seems to awaken a fraction, perhaps hearing motion nearby. He slides down the haybale a couple of inches, mutters "Gimme another bagel, Barrett," and subsides again.
Having left the barndoor half open for light, Kenneth is looming over the sleeping cub. The Shadow Lord cants his head to a side with the mutterance, brows arching and then shaking his head. Observation over, Kenneth proceeds towards the back of the barn, checking out the broken ladder.
The light from the door falls onto Darroll's face as Kenneth moves on, and this does seem to awaken him at last. He stirs, sits up, and sees Kenneth. "Hey!" he challenges him.
"Hay's for horses," responds the Shadow Lord blandly, looking back over his shoulder towards the stirred. Kenneth doesn't seem the least bit apologetic for having disturbed the sleeper.
Criminal stands up, dusting a few stray bits of straw (or maybe that's hay too) from himself. "Yeah? And you should know," he snaps back, "'cos you look to me like a horse's ass."
It's at this point that Kaz slips into the barn, sliding the door more completely shut and letting her eyes adjust to the light.
[look Criminal (homid)]
Fifteen years old or so to look at, this boy's face seems set in a permanent frowning sneer. His skin is of an oddly sallow shade, giving him the appearance of coming from mixed race stock; his hair is black, untidy, and insufficiently washed, and his eyes are dark brown and more than a little ferrety in appearance. He's already started to develop stubble on his chin and cheeks, and his lips are thin; too thin for his face, really. He's dressed in a white t-shirt with green trim and a logo of an eagle over his left nipple area, with baggy black trousers which sport many straps, pockets and zippers on his lower limbs, while scuffed trainers cover his feet. He stands at some five feet seven inches tall, and is just a shade overweight. Between his naturally unprepossessing face, his perpetual scowl, and his slouching posture, he doesn't give a very good first impression, but one might suspect that he is both aware of this fact, and perfectly indifferent to it.
Kenneth looks tweaked, though just a little. Abandoning whatever it was he was going to do, the philodox strides back over to face his insulter squarely. The halfmoon doesn't say a word, before he surges up into his Crinos form and levels a hard, furred left fist to the side of the cub's head.
Criminal doubles his fists when he sees Kenneth approach with obvious retribution on his mind, but -- not for the first time -- he's tricked by the sudden blur of motion that the Shadow Lord displays as he gets close, and the blow sends him stumbling to one side.
Kaz, having heard the tail end of Darroll's comment, merely winces and looks glum. "Don't whack on him _too_ hard," she mutters, as she heads for the back of the Barn.
Far-Cry, already partly at the back of the barn, flicks an ear back in response to Kaz's mutterance. That's about all that keeps him from leaping atop other teen. Instead, he strides over and stares down at the cub. ~Are you done?~
Criminal seems on the verge of flinging himself back at the crinos, and possibly of shifting up to that form himself. But he doesn't. He slowly undoubles his fists and stares piercingly at Far-Cry. "Dude," he says, in a voice that contains a modicum of actual respect, "how /do/ you guys do that?"
Kaz chortles under her breath, as she changes her mind and heads up the ladder to the second 'floor'.
Far-Cry eventually shifts, with noticeably less speed than before, back to homid and brushes off his hand on his pants. That same hand offers to help the other teen up. "By using what's inside," he answers, voice slipping out with the sharp edges of residual tension, "Rage. If you use it right, it's a energy you can use. If you disrespect it, it can kill you."
"Inside, huh," Darroll repeats thoughtfully. "Sounds kinda mystical." He looks up the ladder after Kaz, then back at Kenneth. "Sounds cool too. Hi. My name... well," he interrupts himself, "apparently I'm meant to be called Criminal, go fig, huh?"
Kaz calls down, not overly loudly, "Hey, we're werewolves. Lotta shit's gonna be mystical."
Kenneth tilts his head to look up towards the galliard, and then turns back to the cub. "Kenneth," he introduces with a nod. "A.K.A. Far-Cry, cliath philodox of the Shadow Lords. What's your crime, besides being an ass towards a complete stranger?"
"Oh, I'm an ass to my friends too," the cub points out, deadpan. "When I have any. I'm a galliard cub of the Silent Striders," he goes on, "and I guess my crime was pissing off this guy with a cowboy hat and a knife. Oh," he adds casually, "and I killed a couple people... no biggie."
There's the sound of quiet thumping upstairs, as Kaz attempts to become comfortable lying down. "Cowboy hat's prolly Khem," she says, as she maneuvers to be lying down, but able to look down at, at the least, Kenneth.
"Khem?" Kenneth repeats the name, tone searching before he recognizes it. "The Strider on the Great Hunt." He proceeds back to the base of the ladder, examining it. "You wouldn't be the first to have killed someone," he adds towards Darroll. The Shadow Lord's eyes flicker back up towards Kaz's general direction.
Criminal nods a couple of times. "Khem, yeah, that was his name. He put me through the third degree, the bastard," he adds with a savage look, "and told me he'd be back to see me again. Not if I see him first, man." He kicks at the haybale. "Well, whatev. People get killed all the time," he agrees, "even those jerks on the other side'a the Veil know that what werewolves do is /kill/." Another kick. "So why this fucking big deal, man?"
There's another thump, and now Kaz can see both of them. (Miraculous positioning.) "Kinda depends who you killed and why, sometimes."
"Those 'jerks'," Kenneth comments, "are like that because /we/ made them that way. If you haven't heard of the Impergium, you should. Our ancestors already tried the kill 'em all, let Gaia sort 'em out approach. As you can see, that method didn't do shit but get everyone and their mother-in-law on the side against us. We're kind of outnumbered." He turns around to face the cub. "But by no means outclassed. You think we're crazy... but in the end, if the word got out, the world'd go apeshit. One werewolf, ten people? No problem. One werewolf, ten people with AK-47s and enough silver to shove up your ass and make you vomit moonmetal?" The halfmoon leaves the concluding image up to the imagination.
"Relax," Darroll bids Kaz, "I didn't off the President, or shoot the Sherriff or anything. Just a couple of lame shit losers." He rubs his chin as Kenneth gives him a history lesson. "No, that's all wrong," he responds when Kenneth finishes. "Being unsubtle will just get you in shit. If you want to kill people, lots of people, and get away with it, you need to be clever." An unspoken 'like me' hangs in the air. "Do it one or two at a time, leave bodies where they won't be found in a hurry, act nice and normal. Get a job. Don't dress up in goth trenchcoats like you're trying to look like Harris and Klebold. If you wanna bring the fuckers down, you have to be able to look like them."
Kaz falls silent, and considers the cub with renewed attention.
Kenneth leans against the barn, head tilting. "Subtle, unsubtle, what's your point in killing all these people? Got something to prove? Parents treat you like shit so now it's you against the world?"
"Nah," Criminal corrects. "My parents are dead, and no, I didn't kill them. My dad got in an accident when I was tiny, my mom got taken out in an armed robbery in a deli up in Seattle. Wrong place, wrong time, both of them. What it is," he goes on, evidently warming to his task, "is people, almost all of them, /are/ shit. Like Slipknot. Only they're shit too in a different way." He rubs his hands together quietly as he goes on. "Can't tell me you guys don't know. Haven't seen. The things they do, the stuff they get up to. Crawling round like so many ants, fucking up the planet."
Kenneth continues observing, a judge on his stand. "What do you think we do, as Garou?"
Kaz opens her mouth, but then closes it at Kenneth's question.
"Fight the Wyrm. Clean up the trash. Put it all away where it's outa the way. Yeah?" Criminal's eyes are bright little buttons as they look at Kenneth, awaiting approval.
"Do you know what the Wyrm is?" If there is approval from Kenneth, he doesn't show it.
"Not /personally/," Darroll drawls, "but from what I've been told by Basil, it's this powerful force that was meant to clean shit up, but went a bit kinda postal, and now it inspires bad shit all over the freakin' place."
Kenneth starts to frown at the mention of Basil, but keeps his expression relatively neutral. "It's the balancing force, yes. It used to keep things in check by destroying, but it's since turned from its original purpose and now doesn't destroy. It twists and corrupts now, so that the Wyld keeps on creating, the Weaver keeps on shaping, and the Wyrm keeps on twisting. There's nothing out there keeping the world's balance in check. And where one part of the cycle's out of whack, is where things start to go wrong." He gestures vaguely. "I'll leave the storytelling up to a storyteller. Point is, we aren't here to just kill humans. If all we did was kill indiscrimiantely, we wouldn't have evolved to this point."
"Who says I was gonna kill things indiscriminately?" Darroll protests. "Way I see it, now I've figured out who I am at last... there's so many bastards out there who /really/ deserve offing, I don't have to even look at the normal boring shitheads."
Kenneth levels his gaze upon the cub. "What keeps /you/ from becoming one of /them/?"
Criminal doesn't seem in the least ruffled. "Myself," he says simply.
From the sounds of snoring up above, Kaz has somehow mananged to fall asleep in the middle of all this.
Kenneth does frown, though it's likely due to hearing the snoring coming from above. Likely. "So what, you're going to go around waiting for some bastard to screw up and do his dirty deed in front of you, and then you'll go after him and take him out?"
"Basil says there's ways of knowing who's doing the real bad shit and gotten the Wyrm in them," Darroll responds. "Can't afford to wait around, dude! Got to go get /them/ before they get /us/. Yeah?"
"That's one paranoid way of putting it," Kenneth replies. "If you're not patient though, your plans of subtlety and cleverness will backfire and the Wyrm will not be against you, but with you. With you all the way." He pushes off the wall, starting back towards the door.
Criminal's eyes narrow. "Like to see it try," he snorts dismissively as Kenneth heads for the exit.
Kenneth pauses at the door, glancing back inside. "That's the funny thing about the Wyrm," he says slowly, words intoned like he speaks from personal experience. "You don't see it coming, until it's too late." With a wave of his hand, he slides the door closed. The halfmoon's footsteps can be heard receding towards the farmhouse.