The Void(#3946RJ)
You are floating in an infinite expanse of nothingness. In the beginning, there may have been nothing or there may have been everything. In the end, there may have been nothing or there may have been everything. Either way, it's safe to say that you're not at one of those points in-between.
Contents:
Jamethon(#3988PJce)

[Pagetalk START - Note this is all OOC while we were waiting for folks to show. But I though I'd throw it in because it's funny.]

Yi: So right now, then, we're in the city of Hanford or a motel that's offsite of it?

Tskilegwa: Well, look at it this way. You know how St. Claire has bad spots in it? Hanford /is/ a bad spot. Not only that, but it's a bad spot that has no sept of garou fighting to hold any of that bad stuff in check. Think St. Claire where (practically) nothing has been there to prevent all the major stories and bad guys from happening, and succeeding. /// The group is in White Bluffs, which is the small city that is just outside the chainlink fence that sections off the Hanford Nuclear Testing facilities. Only military people are permitted into Hanford.

Yi: "...Damn."

Yi: And we're looking for... a Dancer?

Tskilegwa: Kinda makes ya appreciative of what the Garou do in St. Claire. :) Yup. A Dancer.

Y: Too bad we don't have some kind of bait.

Tskilegwa: Where's the 'sweetness and sunshine and happiness' kind of CoG when you need one?

Jamethon: It was killed by one of Sally's sweetness, sunshine, and happiness banes.

Yi: Errrrrrr....

Yi: Now that sounds contradictory, yet, appropriately accurate.

Jamethon: And er... no bait? Don't you know why you were brought along, Yi?

Tskilegwa: Ragabash = Bait.

Yi: Blink. Blinkblink. I'm gonna die.

Jamethon: But your name will live on in glory!

Jamethon: Besides, you may just be battled scarred. And what about all that wonderful luck Yi always seems to have in battle.

Tskilegwa: Send the raggy out ahead with a rope attached. If there's a tug, reel her back in. If there's just a bloody nub at the end rather than the Raggy, do not go that way. Tie a rope to the next Raggy and send it in another direction. Some people like to refer to it as "scouting."

Jamethon: Trolling for Dancers!

Apocalypse has connected.

Jamethon: It is an Apoc!

Apocalypse: Guh. Sorry about that.

Yi: Oooh. Another one. Send the Apocalypse to them!

Yi: Yi's 'wonderful luck' runs out eventually.

(Tski's @emit): The giant and massively scarred dancer lifts Yi over his head and breaks her in half over his knee like a yardstick. Jamethon, being devoured by the Nexus Crawler only prays for a chance to avenge this failure in the next life.

Jamethon: Ok Apoc, your turn to avenge us!

Tskilegwa: Metis are good substitutes for Raggies.

Jamethon: I hate you. :)

Apocalypse turns lightbulb, screams, ~EAT HOT DEATH, DONKEYFUCKER!!!!~ and leaps at the Dancer.

Yi makes like a bold brave sir robin.

Apocalypse rolls dex+brawl vs 6, botches.

Jamethon: Woo, and thus, we all gloriously died. Yea, and it was good. :)

Jamethon: Ok, seriously. Tski, anything for us tonight?

Tskilegwa: We can run without the rest, sure. Everyone got different +mails re: their research, too. So there's talking to do. I figured that'd also give people something to talk about while people showed up.

Yi: Yi rereads the +mail she has. So this place has... No Garou. Nada. Null. Zip?

Jamethon: They were driven down all the roads, long ago...

Jamethon: The red bull drove them into the sea.

Tskilegwa: None that those present know about, at least.

Jamethon: Oh wait... sorry, that was the unicorns. Garou, yeah, none around that we know about.

Yi: I don't suppose any of us are communication savvy enough to really tell hunh?

Jamethon: Its not quite like the woods where you can just howl... and we wouldn't if it was, as there are many evil Groo about.

Yi: Yi would wanna go to that hideout of the bums, see about maybe following any of those 'ghost stories' that are getting spread like butter on toast.

Jamethon: Though according to all intel, there are no 'good' Garou around.

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Message: 8/10 in folder main
Received: Mon Mar 10 14:44:34 2003
From: Tskilegwa
To: Yi
Subject: Hanford research
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It takes a couple days to fit in with the local bums. They seem pretty tight-knit and reclusive, not going in for the panhandling/begging aspect and sticking more to scrounging for food or items that can be traded. About 3/4ths of the bums also prostitute themselves to the locals. Unlike St. Claire, which is way larger than this town of 30K or so, the bums here pretty much all know each other--and recognize you instantly as "not one of them." After a bit of time getting "down and dirty" with them and working a bit on getting a bit of the local dirt and grime on ya, spending the nights on the streets instead of the hotel rooms, you get an opportunity to spare one of the bums from a beating out behind a bar one night. Swift knee to the groin of some drunk soldier on a Friday night who wasn't expecting it and you two beat tracks. After that, you started to get some information and adopted into the local community. You notice a high rate of tooth and hair loss among them--about 3-4 times what you'd normally expect. Possibly it's from malnutrition, possibly not. They've recently moved into an abandoned house after they were run out of the last abandoned house they were in. And these are actual people houses, not run down shacks like The Rialto or The Church. People moved out or died, couldn't sell the place, and then the bums break in to escape the cold. Who cares if the toilets don't work and there's no water or electricity. It's dry, sheltered from the wind, and carpet can be pulled up to make a blanket. Petty cash can be earned by selling "treasure." Treasure is found in the landfill inside Hanford's area. Apparently the garbage collectors take the trash out that way and the bums have dug a shallow hole out under the fence. A lot of these items get kept and carried around with the bums if they can't find a buyer. Typical of bums in other cities, about half of them seem to be mentally deranged. There's a number of "stories" floating around--a whole lot of ghost stories where a spirit (or spirits) pop up and do something aweful to someone. You're able to guess that there's probably a lot of banes in the area. Not surprising as it's right smack dab on the doorstep of a nuclear waste blight. It wouldn't surprise you if the blight was expanding to the city outside the chain link fence or if things from within the blight came out to the city to prey on its populace.

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Tskilegwa: I can't recall the exact sequence of events from like 6-8 years ago, but there used to be a mid-range caern in Hanford, then it was overrun by BSDs and turned into a hive, then it was reclaimed about a year later by the Garou from the Walk, then lost to BSDs again. It gets muddled at this point, but the caern was totally destroyed during all this. It's totally gone.

Jamethon: And as we'd be sleeping in different hotels, using different names and all that stuff that paranoid people do... we should only have trouble if we do something stupid.

Yi: From what I remember of Jarred's bit, the Lords of the caern blew it to itty bitty pieces thinking it would prevent the caern from getting taken, but all that did was spread the destruction even more.

Jamethon: Jamethon nods. As I understand it, the only intrest in Hanford is to destroy the hive that was set up there.

Jamethon: Jamethon grunts. "Stupid Shadow Lords."

[OK! Moving on the actual RP...Pagetalk END]

Jamethon: Yes! Lets. We can be in the hotel room of the night if that seems appropriate. :)

Cheap motels, cheap dinner. Yi's surprisingly frugal at times, but when it comes to scrounging enough food for a last meal? Well, she's on it. "Not exactly a banquet for a king, but good enough," she comments. "You don't really need a gift to know this place is crawling with fishbait. The question is, where do You want to start?" The Gnawer eyes Jamethon over a burger wrapper.

Jamethon eyes the less then clean Gnawer from his chair at the small round table near the window, which is closed and has the double curtains drawn. "I see you've been getting down with the locals? Tell me what you know first, I have mostly tactical information at this point. That, rumors, and conjecture. We'll see how it all matches up."

Jamethon turns his head to eye the still flickering TV and Leonard crashed on the bed before it.

Leonard is lying on his stomach, eyes glazed in tha slight, slack-jawed mesmerization only a solid week of cable TV can produce. 'Oprah' flickers on her nightly rerun of the afternoon's broadcast.

Yi puts away the tiny offering with speed that only becomes a Gnawer. "The streets have a lot of ghost stories - people getting hurt by spirits. I guess they are banes attacking them. The homeless sleep in the abandoned houses and sleep there for warmth, and they make do with what they can get. The important thing is that they are all sick." Here she has to set down the half-eaten dinner. "Losing their hair, their teeth. Most of them could look like ghosts on their own." The ragabash shakes her head sadly.

Jamethon thinks on this for a moment, and cross references this with what he already has seen or heard. "Have they been going into Hanford?"

==============================================================================
Message: 11/12 in folder main
Received: Mon Mar 10 20:12:27 2003
From: Leonard
To: Yi
Subject: Fwd: Hanford research
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a grueling week of TV, you still have not figured out what the Powerpuff girls are, laugh yourself until you nearly pee at Survivor, mock Fear Factor, and manage to catch a few movies--including "Dances with Wolves" and one of John Wayne's older films where he plays a redskin. All of this occurs while Apocalypse crashes from ODing on TV herself.

==============================================================================

Leonard sighs heavily, flipping the channel. Apparently pureblooded Indians are as quick to pick up the ancient manly art of the remote as your average white guy. He stops and sits up at a Spanish soap opera, watching intently.

Yi answers after swallowing down the last of the McD's hamburger, "The 'lucky' ones. They try to make money by... prostituting themselves to the soldiers. There's a dump where they go dig for what they can find and sell. Most of the problem I would say comes from the area with the nuclear waste, the fenced off area. And what Dancers may live within the corruption here, have fun in the city at the expense of the humans left."

Jamethon nods, grimacing slightly at the rapid consumption of the psuedo-burger. "Lucky..." He grunts, "Well, radiation does explain the teeth and hair. Do you know how severe the 'spirit attacks' have been? If one or more of us were to hide in their midst and try to take on whatever attacks... think we would have a chance?"

Tskilegwa pages: The bums weren't being explicitly attacked. There are just a few that claim to have seen attacks.

Tskilegwa pages: THough a few have disappeared. It happens, though. Part of the lifestyle.

"It's not something I would rely on. Stories get bigger every time someone disappears or gets hurt." Yi slips out a few fries. "Maybe we could slip in with them, but if the bums can recognize us as foreign easy, then I don't think we could become one of the crowd just overnight. Besides that, I think we are already being watched, but that is my job to be a little crazy about being spied on."

Leonard glances over at Yi, frowning. "Spied on, huh."

Yi eyes Leonard back. "If someone was stalking around being mysterious at the Bluff, you would spy on them too, wouldn't you?"

Jamethon shakes his head, "No, you're probably right. Somebody is watching us at the least, hard to say who though... and if that person is just curious, or a serious threat. We should get a geiger counter, just in case. This town is tainted to hell and back and it effects everything. God damned Hanford."

Yi furrows her brow. "Why do we need a counter?" Sure she's tried reading the brochures and stuff for the radiation detection equipment. But if the entire place is nuked, the no-moon is not seeing Jamethon's point.

Leonard nods to Yi, looking at Jamethon. He then looks back to the tv.

Jamethon looks over at the TV for a moment. "Well. The town itself isn't irradiated, otherwise no one would be allowed to live here. So the the people who are tainted with radiation poisoning have either been in Hanford, or have extensivly handled things that have. And the Spirals, who /live/ there should start clicking like a string of firecrackers if a geiger counter were pointed at them. Its not an end all be all solution, but it may assist us. I'm getting close to using the first of the the talens."

Leonard huhs, glancing at Jamethon. "Dancer detectors. Those Glasswalkers think of everything, don't they."

"You do not think it a little noticeable if we start pointing those things at people?" Yi asks the theurge, brow arching at the idea of a clicking Spiral. "But, I think I see what you are saying." She can't help but smirk at Leonard's remark. "Or, maybe it can be changed a little to warn of danger when it gets too close, like a personal taint detector."

Jamethon shrugs at this, "Like I have any idea. And I wasn't thinking of pointing the thing around at people like a damned gun. Despite my size, I know how to be subtle when I need to."

Even at a time like this, Yi can laugh. Quietly, of course, and a touch bitter. "Alright. So, maybe we just need to actually go feel the place. The landfill is close to Hanford, so we could try going in from there. If they are watching us, then they might try to take us out while we are in a less Veil testy area."

Jamethon thinks on this for a moment. "When we get to the landfill, before we go in, we can use one of the talens. See if they are around. If the talen starts howling in my ears, we'll know to get the hell out of there. On the other hand, I would love to hear some light barking instead. Perhaps we can get lucky, who knows. I don't know how much more we'll find out in this town. Unless anyone has a plan for springing a trap or something?"

Yi glances to the others, and with a floor-dropped gaze, she resumes a pondering look. "It would be easier if we could get names, but I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to. And you need to do this with your own teeth and claws, right?" She glances back up at the Get.

Jamethon looks over Yi for a moment in time and then nods. "The kill I bring back to St. Claire must be honorable, this is all I care about. Garou stalk, they hunt their pray in the sun and in the shadow. In the end however, they bring down their prey and foe with their teeth in it's neck. But I only need one in this way. I cannot stop you from fighting in your own way."

Jamethon looks around the hotel room. Little Bear sleeping on the bed, the TV flicking some stupid show or another. Yi standing there looking like a vagrant with a fast-food burger wrapper crumpled in her hand. "I feel like a tourist." is all he says.

Yi nods slowly, though the reality of such a one-on-one fight readily manifests itself with the memory of John and Chaser's recent passings. "Welcome to Hell. If you look to your left, you will see the recent nuclear waste site that has brought death and corruption of mind, body and spirit to all who have passed by this area. Please enjoy your stay, and don't forget to visit the souvenir shop before you leave." She smirks, and tosses the wrapper carelessly towards the burger bag. It misses and bounces to the floor. "The question is, how to get just a couple of them to come out?"

Jamethon shakes his head on this, an obvious and visible frown upon his face. "This is the thing that plagues my thoughts as I struggle for sleep at night. Now, back home... we have packs who patrol and individuals who patrol. I imagine it is quite the same here. But if we just try to count on luck, well, you get me there. And if we try to use a decoy or bait, we might end up just having what /could/ have been just one or two foes running and rousing the whole damned hive. It is difficult."

Yi shrugs, walking over to pick up the wrapper and place it in the bag. "Luck? I never count on luck." She looks into the bag, finding nothing left inside. "I don't mind running. If they want to chase us, then we can let them. Turn around and kill the one or two fastest, more enthusiastic ones. Then you have what you have, and we can go back to St. Claire."

Jamethon sits back in his chair, rocking it slightly back onto its rear legs. "I'm growing restless for the kill... I could easily take on this plan. Bit there are things to consider. How many we may run into, and what 'running away and killing the fastest' might do to the veil if we run too far before the fight."

Yi squints her eyes, puzzled to this extent of what to do. "We should set up an area to fight in, then. This is their territory. We do not have the advantage at all, but maybe we can pick the place, if not the enemy."

Jamethon stands from his chair and goes to get a fold out map, bringing this back to the table he unfolds it upon the surface. "This is not too useful unless we want to find another hotel, but it is something. I've been scouting around the town, I know the lay of the land, where everything is. I've been watching the local police and paid some attention to their usual haunts. I know some good places for getaways when the shit hits the fan while we're still in town. So here in town, I've got us covered. On the hanford site... don't have a clue."

Yi drums her fingers on the table, eyeing the map, and then sticks her hands in her pockets. "I'll see what else I can dig up from the underground about the area, then."