Wolf Killers of WWNP
10/7/2008
08:56 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Half Moon phase (54% full).
It is currently 20:51 Pacific Time on Tue Oct 7 2008.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.41 and rising, and the relative humidity is 83 percent. The dewpoint is 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius.)
WWNP: Blue Mountains(#3854RAh)
Stiff winds cause what little forest remains to bow before the might of the sky. Twisted trees and low tough bushes soften the stony faces up near the summits. There, and along the lines of ridges, only bare stone shows through, sharp and unyielding. From here, you can look down upon the more forgiving terrain of the forest of Wolf Woods. Among the twisting false trails and creekbeds wind scenic hiking trails that are marked by WWNP posts detailing elevations and giving directions lest the unwary traveller become lost and wander off a cliff.
To the north is the boundary of the national park, beyond which the mountains continue. To the west lies the main body of the park itself, more forested and less rocky.
Contents:
Melodie
Quentin
Coriander
Obvious exits:
Plateau Mountain Bowl Southwest West North
The Theurge perks up at the howls, too, and she nods to Melodie. "Quentin, tell Viktor to stop being stubborn and take the kin home like Kenneth said. And you can tell him that comes from me." A moment later she shifts down into into Lupus, too, letting Melodie charge ahead. We will look into this. Will return. And then she turns to head off after Melodie.
Quentin rolls up to his feet sharply, anger roiling in his voice suddenly as he snarls, "I have no right to question what you do with your tribe's 'property', Viktor, I acknowledge that as I must. But if you spill one drop of--" He cuts off suddenly as there's a chorus of howls in the distance, "--wyrm! Fuck-- later--" The phone's shoved into a pocket, form blurring into the strangely-mottled lupus form as he starts to lope after Melodie, hackles raised. This one will come, if your pack does not object?
[Jarod pages to Quentin, Coriander, Diego, Melodie, and Kenneth: Okay so...not long after you guys get attacked and Q hangs up, Viktor would howl ~Wyrm sighted on Masquerade territory.~]
Masquerade does not object, Curiosity assures Quentin before her attention turns more toward the path toward the howl.
WWNP: South Forest(#2411RAh)
Scattered trees throughout this area of the park are marked with small blue plaques which serve to identify the territory of the Blue wolf pack for humans. For those with more refined senses, the lines of the territory are marked far more precisely by scent, and continue south past the border of the park. The territory of the smaller Green pack begins just to the north. The ground under the spreading cover of the surrounding evergreens is marked here and there by a hiking trail or service road, or by fainter game paths.
From the southern edge of the park, this area covers about five miles north, and runs from the edge of the Lake Arthur expansion to the west to the edge of the mountains in the east.
Contents:
Quentin
Coriander
Melodie
Hope-Turner
Rainbow
Rommy
Diego
Turns-the-Tide
Obvious exits:
Deserted Highway Park Road Oak Clearing Ranger Station Old Mine Ruin West East North
[Jarod pages to Quentin, Curiosity-Saves, Diego, Melodie, and Far-Cry: Viktor just got a message over the phone tubes of 'wyrm' from Quentin. So not long after, Viktor would be howling to the bawn.]
Pack> Far-Cry indicates he's on his way, but is coming from Thunder Cave so it'll take him some.
Turns-the-Tide eventually shifts up to crinos, busily gathering up bullet cartridges, nails, rope, metal, and even a screwdriver. He stays quiet, and just looks very, very sad and worried.
Rommy returns from wherever it was he was heading, rubbing his cheek idly. "Alright, now that I can /smell/ again. Find anything?"
Melodie comes running towards the source of the howl at high speed, with Coriander and Quentin following closely behind. Stealth is not their goal, and the crowd can hear their approach from some ways off. The little latina arrives, shifting up into Homid, a little short of breath. "What's goin' on with our wolves? We were just a few miles away from you guys." She's clearly extremely agitated.
Rainbow hauls herself to her feet as Melodie approaches. Her ears pin back in anger and worry. Killing, taking, she indicates, irritated.
Hope-Turner looks over from the wide swath of vegetation cut from the underbrush, stained with blood and currently being scouted by the Gaians. Hope-Turner, currently in Hispo, grumbles out slowly, ~Two humans took wolves away in a truck. They were shooting guns. We tried to stop them but arrived too late.~
Turns-the-Tide just looks up to Rommy, and the little crinos' ears are splayed out to either side. ~Bullets, tools, metal, rope.~ A pause, and he says in a weary, strained voice, ~Blood, bone.~ In other words, nothing of use, really.
Curiosity-Saves comes running in with Melodie, worry showing clear in her tense stance and gait. She sits back to observe as the others talk, her attention falling on August, mostly. Did anyone follow the weaver-machine?
Quentin lopes across the area with the members of Masquerade who arrive, distinctive with the splash of blue hair across his head and ruff; his paws slowing a bit as he reaches the area, smoothly rising up into homid as he walks out with Melodie, panting a bit as he listens to the news. It's not good news, and he growls under his breath, "...were they firing silver, or normal bullets?"
Rommy lifts his hand in greeting to the approaching pack, crouching down near Tides to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I tried to follow them, but they outran me. And they never shot at us, Q. We just heard the shots. I caught some snippets of conversation as I was following them - they'll be back. Likely to poach some more. Don't know where, though."
Rainbow grunts and growls. No silver, she comments, then shakes out her fur and starts padding out of the area. This one will patrol. Work out anger.
Melodie snarls. "They did what? Oh man! We've been spending so much time with this pack, they're my friends! Can we Questing Stone them? I'm gonna _find them_ and _kill their children in front of them_!" The rage rises to the surface, clouding out all other thoughts.
Turns-the-Tide just slowly crouches down, crinos-hands full of those bits and pieces, and he leans against Rommy tiredly, lupine brows crinkled. To Melodie, ~I.. have Questing Stone, but we don't have any /names/.~ He sounds irrationally sad about this.
Several minutes past the howl, another wolf, this one also black, also makes no attempt to conceal his passage as Far-Cry races to converge on his packmates. When he breaks through the brush, it's with a skidding stop and much panting. The Shadow Lord stares around at all in the area, assessing.
Curiosity-Saves steps over to rub against her packsister's legs in an attempt to be comforting. We will find them. We will stop them. Masquerade can look out further than pack territory to see if they return. This seems to be meant just for Melodie, though.
"Save it for th'enemy, Mel," Quentin says in quiet, soothing tones as he slants a look to the girl; taking a slow breath, he exhales, "Well, no silver, s'something. Uh. This's gonna seem like an awfully urrah question, but-- did anyone get their license plate number?"
Hope-Turner grunts. ~It was a brown 'Dodge Ram.' Had a cage full of wolves in the back.~ He chokes on the homid words. ~Didn't see a plate number.~ When Rainbow announces her intent to patrol, he chuffs a 'me too' and moves to head out.
Far-Cry barks out after those departing to patrol, not to disturb the other packs! But it's a little too late for that. Circling around and sniffing very intently, the Lord philodox investigates.
Rommy shakes his head, patting Tides one final time and standing. "I tried to see the plate as well. Thing was just moving too fast. All I got was a snippet of conversation and a whiff of cloves."
Melodie takes a deep breath, but still really angry. "Well, fuck. Brown truck with cages, how hard can that be to find? It's been rainy, we can follow the tracks for a while, maybe we'll get lucky." She turns away from the crowd, and starts hunting for tracks.
Turns-the-Tide doesn't really have much to add, except a whined, ~They killed some, too, there's... blood, and bones,~ he says, with a splay of his ears. And then looks down to the things in his hands, as though suddenly unsure what to /do/ with it all.
The scent of the air is mildly overwhelming to a lupus nose. A broad circle of vegetation has been cut down in a meadow, and everything has been crushes flat by (from the looks of the tracks) a pair of very wide off-road tires. Green and brown pulp litters the forest floor. Low-hanging branches have been hacked off. Bushes are just cracked pieces of wood sticking out of the forest floor. In the middle of all of this is a bloody deer carcass. In addition to the smell of the destroyed forest, the carcass itself smells not only of dead prey, but also of a wolf musk that no one recognizes.
The killing site, on closer inspection, appears to have been cut recently. All vegetation in the area has been roughly chopped off, no higher than a few inches off the ground. The circular area is about 30 feet wide, and by the wet smell of cut plants, it was probably within the last hour or so. Now that the smell of blood and musk is dissipating, everyone picks up the scent of two men, engine oil, burnt diesel, gunpowder, urine, and fear.
Curiosity-Saves does shift up then, stepping over to Far-Cry when she hits Homid. "Melodie, if you can find them that way, send us an alert. I think I'll go back to the territory and make sure something similar hasn't happened there. Kenneth? Is that alright?"
[Diego pages to the room: The swatch leads to the Deserted highway just south of here...that highway runs for a few miles south, and is a bunch of cracked and eroded asphalt.]
Quentin's fingers rake back through blue hair, gaze trailing over the area as if looking for further clues-- not that there'll be any that lupine senses haven't picked out better. "I'll spread word to th'city," the galliard says with a shake of his head, "'Specially if we can't track 'em down from here." As Kenneth's named, he pauses, turning a bit to look towards the Shadow Lord.
Far-Cry comes up to the deer carcass at the very end of things. Lifting his head to gaze up at Coriander, he grunts. Full patrol. The pack of the mountain bowl should be safe. His ears lay flat against his head as he surveys the rest of the ground, and turns towards the two Gaian metis, eyeing them for a time before he bends to give the deer carcass a quick, testing lick.
[You paged Diego with 'The men's scents are, assumably, readily available? And is the deer carcass poisoned/'.
Diego pages: Tastes like dead deer and gunpowder. Also, you fall over dead.
Diego pages: Nah, just kidding. The carcass isn't poisoned, and the men's scents are everywhere.
Diego pages to the room: From the smell of things, the men didn't make any effort to hide their scents.]
Rommy glances around before nodding to Kenneth. "I want to follow up in Kent Crossing - our territory - as it's possible they headed there. If there's nothing else you need of us, we'll go check on that." He glances down for a moment. "Unless you want to stay, Sawyer. If the pack's okay with that."
[You paged Diego with 'There are other wolf scents around here besides the one that's unrecognizable? As in, for one who has spent a lot of time watching over the wolves of WWNP in the past, Kenneth should recognize wolf scents if they are wolves within any of the packs of the park. Which pack's territory (I assume Blue pack) is this in, and maybe which wolves (if they're the alpha or beta male/females) were around?'.]
Coriander nods to Kenneth, and starts to move off, but she turns back to step over to Quentin. The Theurge lifts herself up on her toes to plant a kiss on the Galliard's cheek. "Thank you for your help, Quentin. I'll see you again soon?" She gives his arm a squeeze and lowers her voice to a whisper to add, "And good luck." And /then/ she turns, shifts back into Lupus and starts back toward her pack territory.
Melodie stomps off, on the trail. She's not going for speed anymore, but instead making sure she keeps the trail. It isn't long before she's out of sight.
[Diego pages: Yes. The scent of the wolves who are in this area are, fairly equally, a number of the Blue Pack. I'm...not sure how well it's possible to distinguish, especially with the smell of blood. Or if you can tell which ones were taken.]
Quentin tips his head down a bit to accept that cheek-kiss, a faint smile curving itself to his lips as he nods his chin downward a little to Coriander. "You will, and I'll set things up," he allows, "And no need t'thank me, it's what I do, Cori. I'll do everything I can for him, y'know that. Anything more y'need, get in touch."
Turns-the-Tide glances up to Rommy, ears splaying, and he looks troubled for a moment, gaze going off in the direction Melodie went in. But, ultimately, he says, ~I...~ A pause, to think. Clearly, he's conflicted. ~..okay,~ he says, finally, slowly getting up. He's having a bit of a hard time keeping everything in his hands.
Pack> Melodie communicates, but I don't really have brain: Diego pages: You spend the next few hours following the trail to the Deserted Highway, and from there several miles south until the highway meets up with a dirt road that connects to a two-lane (well used) country road south of there.
[You paged Diego with 'It might not be possible to tell how many were taken, but just which ones were immediately present. He's most concerned about the alphas and betas of the Blue Pack.'.
Diego pages: Hmm...the alphas and one of the betas was there.]
Far-Cry looks up from having licked the carcass and snorts. By now, the lupus'd Shadow Lord's concerns mix readily with his rage, and he growls deeply. The human guardians of this area must be warned of the wolf takers. He looks towards those leaving. We'll find them.
Rommy simply nods to Far-Cry and begins to head on his way, towards the northwest. "C'mon, Sawyer."
"If there's anything I can do to help, let me know," Quentin says, inclining his head to Far-Cry, "If you'd like, I can warn th'rangers on my way back to th'city? I'll spread word of this there, as well."
Turns-the-Tide, still fumbling and trying not to drop (and succeeding) any of the pieces of junk he picked up, follows Rommy on out.
Far-Cry grunts an affirmative at Quentin. Tell the humans. I must go see how much damage there has been done to the pack. And with that note, the Shadow Lord starts off in tracking where the other wolves, those that might have escaped, have gone.
Quentin hesitates for just a moment, adding with a slight inclination of his head as the Shadow Lord moves to depart, "...I will need to speak with you soon, Far-Cry-rhya, at your leisure. This is more important, however."
Far-Cry pauses a few steps off, looks back at the Walker, and flicks his ear in acknowledgment. Then he's off on his statement of duty, disappearing towards the brush.
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