ONS: Torture Truck
8/4/2007
10:12 AM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Gibbous Moon phase (61% full).
Forest North of I-90(#2354RA)
The forest is thinner here than it is south of the highway, though it is still difficult to see for far. Signs of human habitation break the stretch of woods every few miles; roads, paths, farms, and the occasional out-of-the-way home remind you that civilization is encroaching, though in this area, the battle is not yet decided. Hardwoods mix with towering firs and smaller trees, still concealing some of nature's hidden places from the nearby humans.
The forest spreads north from Interstate 90, which delineates the souther edge of this area. Marked by logging areas, farms, and other signs of human presence in places, the woods are still relatively unoccupied by humans.
Contents:
Fernando
Silvertip
Oncoming Storm
Obvious exits:
23 Hawk's End Southeast Interstate 90 Grotto South
[Time: Dusk. Miles northeast of the I-90.]
Thinned out forest spots the east of the I-90's north bound strip, where homes are rare and the cars that pass stay on the highway. Only a few minor roads are any offshoot, the pavement old and cracked, the dust and dirt upon them gradually eroding and giving way to the push of the scrub. It's here at the transition of the sun's set and the moon's rise that the Garou of Blizzard's Teeth find few things too out of the ordinary. The stink of human civilization in the form of the smog their cars emit still hangs in the air even in the wood, though, brought by whenever the wind turns their direction.
They've gone a bit further than the last few trips, the trio of Blizzard. Fernando is mostly in the lead, in lupus, doing the scout type thing of his auspice. Little Silvertip hangs back, trailing behind the group by a small lag, as the short white wolf tries to keep himself inconspicuous - a task he's better at than most would give him credit for, with his pelage. Jacinta falls in the centre of the group, her coat an assortment of blotted greens and browns as she uses the Wendigo camouflage gift. Little Silvertip, being in the back of the three, doesn't have a hand on the wheel, so to speak, and lets the front two work the path out between. He's tense, alert, and rather twitchy.
And a little further in to the night, when the sun has disappeared beyond the horizon for about half an hour and the twilight is weakening into night, the trio have found next to nothing on their hunt. Which is why, when their lupine senses hear a distant howl of pain and rage more to the north down a long disused dirt road, it stiffens the hackles as if the air electrifies by its faint sound.
[Hummingbird pages to the room: Possible human, possibly animal, or definately neither?
You paged the room with 'Definitely... Garou.'.]
Silvertip freezes up at the howl, his hackles slowly raising. His ears twitch like angry bees, and the Uktena Fostern looks up to his two packmates in the lead.
Oncoming Storm's steps halt, pausing with one paw raised, to listen and orient herself toward the sound. Her nostrils quiver, trying to pull as much sense from the spoors on the breeze as possible.
Hummingbird jumps, literally, all four feet making it a good few inches off the ground. He lands in something like a sprinter's crouch, despite being in Lupus, and it looks as if it took him an effort of will not to shift straight into the warform. Probably the only reason he doesn't hurtle into motion is that he, too, hasn't yet got an exact direction to hurtle off /in/. His ears swizzle like little windmills, his fur standing to attention as he also tries to place the sound.
The Garou stop, straining their senses. The howl dies off before Hummingbird can truly get a bead on its location, but its sound lingers like a snake's rattle in the mind. That was not a sane sounding howl, especially from a Garou standpoint. The Wendigo alpha's thick, inward sniff brings to her the scent of blood and fear. A truck that didn't pass its smog check has passed by in this area. But faintly, there is also a sickly, musky scent to it. A familiar scent for those who have smelled of the Wyrm.
Silvertip waits just a half of a tick, before he slips quickly 'up the ranks' until he's along side Jacinta, and hunkered down. Garou-sounds. Smells bad. He tells her, silently.
Oncoming Storm crouches, turning her head only briefly as the other ahroun comes up beside her. Her eyes narrow and she agrees. Poison machine, blood, fear. We can track, get closer. She lifts her muzzle, letting the slight breeze catch her fur. Closer, ask the wind what there is.
Momentarily at a loss and his temper starting to simmer gently as a result, Hummingbird looks back at Oncoming Storm for guidance.
Silvertip moves to follow Jacinta, when she moves. The Uktena falls back again.
Oncoming Storm keeps low, and moves slowly, her fur blending in with the foliage around her making her almost impossible to spot.
Hummingbird tries to get an incling of the scent that his pack alpha has picked up, tension colouring his every move as he slips near-silently alongside her.
Those who get closer, following the scent on the very slight breeze, track the smells as it hangs like a denser gas. The blood scent gets stronger, and couples with that of burning flame. The breeze tickles their sharp noses. Blood, dried and fresh. Rotting. Sticky, sweet bile. Men. Women. Sex. Death. Animals, canines. Burnt rubber. Gunpowder. All of these get stronger as they get closer in the direction from whence the howl came. The lupus senses tell a lot, but they do not tell exactly What lies ahead.
Silvertip fans out to one side, passing the Jacinta by a metre further forward, and 5 to 8 to the side. He keeps low, in the forest, ears perked as he sniffs at the air repeatedly.
Hummingbird's impatience starts to tell as he too edges forwards faster, although he's a good enough scout not to make himself obvious as he does so. He moves outwards on the opposite side to Silvertip, so that the three now form a V-shape. Nose working busily, he also looks at the ground, putting a homid mind to work through lupus eyes as he searches for visual signs.
Oncoming Storm slows, eventually stopping again, though without any obvious reason. Again she lifts her muzzle, and puffs out a breath through her nose. She concentrates, eyes narrowing to slits, then her posture asks, silently but with a hint of something 'other' about it, Describe what is ahead of us, please?
The Wendigo feels the wind pick up, ruffling at her fur. Whispers like tiny, ghostly voices speak in such a way she can try to decipher. The wind turns ill. 'Danger,' it describes. 'Wyrm burns, angry, desperate, hopeless. It fouls the air. Their stink rises from more than your number. One is lost.' And just as the pair of Uktena range out, it is the older and experienced fostern ahroun who sees a slick glimmer in the night. He sees the webs just before his sister alpha, lucky that she stopped to ask the breeze. He sees Hummingbird however, completely miss the relatively thick set of strands that lie in his path while he's looking at the ground. The ragabash runs right into the webbing, promptly sticking his head right in there. The stuff Clings.
[Long distance to the room: Sai describes, the webbing is Surprisingly strong and very sticky set of unnatural feeling webbing. It's thick in diameter, definitely not of any normal animal's.]
Hummingbird snarls, silently, and now he does shift- instantly- into Crinos, his claws slashing at the sticky stuff.
Silvertip's posture quickly shoots up to 'Danger!' his tail lifting. He calls over quietly to Jacinta, essentially a 'STAY,' with no short of urgency. He then jerks his head forward to look the other packmate.
Oncoming Storm's narrowed gaze turns to Silvertip, and then to Hummingbird. She spots the webbing in which he's entangled, and then looks more closely around herself.
The silent shift to crinos on the part of the ragabash is made not so silent as he tries to free himself. The stuff is powerful, resisting even as his claws catch rather than slash through. Its gooey texture sticks to the ragabash, unrelentingly persistent in holding him. As the other pair of Garou look about, they see patches and patches of the material, just barely shining as the light from the moon filters through the trees like a veritable minefield. And in Hummingbird's struggle, the webbing stuck to him rattles the bushes around him.
Silvertip, his sister firmly in place, looks up above him. Searching the sky for a a few moments, he then leaps up into the air, barely brushing against twigs and Branches as he 'runs' up to canopy level.
Oncoming Storm slides backward, moving carefully around toward her entrapped packmate, but remaining back from him for the moment. Her gaze is wary, looking for more of the sticky webbing, but her ears are also alert for others' approach.
Hummingbird freezes at the sound he induces, eyes rolling as he tries to see more of his predicament without actually moving.
[You paged Silvertip with 'Description that you'll see when you reach canopy level: Firelight glimmering about 30 meters ahead. It casts a glimmer against the side of a largish white truck, like a midsize U-Haul without the markings. There's three figures around the fire, men, but you'd have to be closer to make them out more fully.'.]
The bush rustling stops as Hummingbird ceases struggling. As a result, at least, he doesn't get caught up any further in the webbing patch. It's relatively small compared to him, strung between bushes and trees without rhyme or pattern. Were he to back up, and see about pulling himself free, his way is clear. The Wendigo, upon taking a moment to look further out, sees not just the webbing patches have holes enough between that she could easily manuever around, but also the shine of a small fire up ahead about 30 meters away.
Silvertip waits a moment up at the top, before he jumps to the tree above Jacinta, and begins to 'run' down to the ground, mindful of the webbing he'd seen earlier. He stops a few feet above, balanced on a single branch. Three. At fire. he tells the packmate, before looking towards Fernando. They are not going places, yet. he adds.
Oncoming Storm slowly rises up into crinos and begins digging into the soil at her feet. Cover the webs, she instructs. Then tear, without sticking.
Silvertip's eyes narrow, the fostern looking to the other fostern with a bit of a puzzled look. With a heave, he runs his way up into the higher ground again, before down near his entrapped packmate. Shifting to crinos, and shouldering his weapon, the crinos tries to dump dirt onto a batch of webbing.
Hummingbird looks confused, and angry- probably at himself-. He grinds one paw-hand into the dirt, then starts work on the webs again, one hand only, trying to work his way free without actually moving anything else.
The dirt covers the webs works its way into the texture, like an inedible Laffy Taffy. It hides the moonlight, showering down. The pack works its packmate free through pulling and straining. These actions though, are not without their sound, and a rough, hectic barking of a pair of dogs in the direction of the firelight sounds. The creak of a truck's springbed also reaches the ears of the Blizzard's Teeth pack, and voices. "Goddamnit, shut the fuck up you pack of mangy good-for-nothin' mongrels!" The voice is harsh as well, grating with the everpresent rasp of one who's smoked and drunken far too much. "Oi, pass that pistol here, I'll shut them up fer ye..."
Silvertip, no sooner than Feranando is free, goes up again. He runs up the tree, back to the canopy level to conceal himself, and to look back the direction of the fire.
Oncoming Storm looks up at Silvertip, approval in her expression. Fernando gets a brief gesture to the right and down before she, herself drops low. She remains in crinos, and lets herself creep forward a few feet, to where she can better see.
Hummingbird looks even more twitchy and tense than he usually does- embarassed, and consequently angry. Biting back a growl, he moves stiffly in the direction indicated. He relaxes just a little as he calls on the Gift of his auspice, his outline blurring and hazing as he does so. He pulls his attention back in the direction it should be, towards the voices and the dogs and the fire.
The barking keeps on going, understandable in lupus as an endless, maddening repeat of 'Intruder! Bad! Bad!' Silvertip can see then, a pair of large shepherd-rottweiler like mutts straining against chain leashes, tied to the bumper of the truck. One of the men, tall and rather muscular, dressed in a hunter's outfit, wrestles a pistol out of the holster of his much fatter companion and waves it in the faces of the frothing dogs. "Ay, I said SHUT UP!" A loud pop rings out in the forest. The barking ceases abruptly with a high-pitched yelp and a thud. Silvertip sees one of the dogs just drop. Its companion stares for a second before it resumes barking, this time with a small whine on the tail end of each yelp. "Aw, sh- you fuckin' killed my fucking dog, you bastard!" "Yeah, what're you gonna do about it!?" The gun is hurled back in the face of the fat man, striking him roughly in the skull before it falls in the dirt. The pair get in a scuffle. The third man, silent, skulks his way over to the dead dog with absolutely no fear of the franticly barking other, nudging the corpse with a boot. The truck creaks more. And then again, a howl sounds, not from anywhere outside, but from within the vehicle. It's incoherent, the same voice from before.
Silvertip lingers a moment, before jumping over to the next pine over. The crinos them lingers up there, running his claw along the strap on his spear absently.
Oncoming Storm glances up into the trees, to see if she can spot the Uktena, then her attention refocuses on the trio. She gathers her legs beneath her so that she will be ready to spring when the opportunity arises.
Hummingbird creeps forwards with all the stealth he knows, manoeuvring for a spot that he can get a clear view- and clear run-in- from without being seen or heard.
The scuffle ends surprisingly quickly. The largely built hunter moves in less than a blink of an eye to trip and pin the fat man against the ground. Like, Rage-induced fast. The fatman chokes as the wind whooshes from his heavy body falling against the ground, but smacks the hunter with a meaty fist that has a pronounced effect of making him back off with a cough, sneeze and curse. The silent man makes still no noise as the howl from within the truck dies away, looking to the white metal exterior, but then works his fingers onto the chain holding the last dog. Horrifically, the man's mouth distends open and engulfs the barking dog's head in moments, snuffing out the barking to a mere series of muffled, panicked whines. The hunter looks quickly to the silenced noise and sneers, like he were appreciative of the gesture.
Silvertip looks down to the ground, back at his packmates, and then back to the group. He slowly unshoulders his weapon, balancing for a long moment as he seems to weigh it in his paw. He then cocks his arm back, holds it for a long moment, aiming. A very long moment. And then, at once, he whips his weapon forward.
Oncoming Storm waits for the weapon to strike, then she makes her move. She rushes forward on all fours, her teeth bared and a growl silenced before it ever leaves her throat.
Hummingbird's legs quiver with the surpressed urge to charge forward with his packmate, but with an effort he stays in cover, waiting for the moment when Onrushing Storm has drawn the attention of the men before launching his own charge- as silently as he can at full speed- into the flank of his alpha's target.
The spear of Silvertip sails with a near silent, deadly accuracy. The huntsman, though, turns just as the whistle of the weapon reaches his ears. Then suddenly, he almost 'sprouts' the spear through from the base of his neck and on through the opposing side of his lower ribs. With a *gurk!* of noise, the man stumbles back and collides with truckside, bloodying it with a smear of his torso against the metal. The Wendigo alpha charges out of the woodwork to leap upon the speared hunter, carving another slash into the man that opens up his shoulder. The other pair, witnessing this, blink for those few moments and then things on their end move into motion. The fatman scrabbles over and grabs his small .38 pistol, turning and firing the weapon right into the back of the Wendigo elder. The bullet sears into her back with an all too familiar burn of silver. Though it embeds itself only shallowly, the pain is excrutiating. The fomor with his mouth around the dog rips his lips away, exposing a hefty set of lamprey like pointed teeth circling inside those flaccid lips. As Hummingbird charges in, it's that one that gets in his way of his attack. The ragabash's claws find themselves stuck! Yet again, and this time inside the gooey flesh of the third fomor. Granted the crinos' strength can easily lift the man up, it'll be a challenge to pull him off - especially when the man latches those lamprey jaws right onto Hummingbird's arm and starts eating away with an acidic burning saliva. After Oncoming Storm's attack, she comes face to face with the Hunter, whose eyes burn with an anger unlike any inside a normal human. Before she can strike him again, the man reaches around himself to pull the spear from his body with a shriek of pain - and his delight in it - and in a blur of motion turns it upon the white crinos, impaling it through her midsection with a force so strong it rivals her own. Silvertip, from his elevated position, sees all this occur.
Silvertip runs down through the canopy, along the branches, the Crinos moving quickly along the canopy to go face the man he's speared. When his paws hit the ground, he swipes his claws at the man's mass.
With a roar of purest rage, the crinos Wendigo yanks the spear free with one arm, driving it right back toward its original target even as her jaws snap at his already wounded neck.
His clear howl echoing his alpha's and calling down vengeance from afar, Hummingbird snatches up his mace and hammers it at the /thing/ that dared to try and stand in his way, Rage fuelling his furious attacks.
The Uktena ahroun blurs like an angry bee down from above, claws outstretched for the Hunter. It's by virtue of his experience fighting alongside his packmate for years that he easily finds his opening on such a small target as a man compared to a pair of crinos. Perhaps, though, to his surprise his claws that rip at the huntsman fomor do rather little but make the man cackle in bloody delight."Come on! Is that the best you can do?!" taunts the huntsman, mouth splattering flecks of ichor and blood at the fostern pair before he moves again with a Rage-born speed, lunging from side of the truck right at the Wendigo again in a near berserker's frenzy. The perceptive might notice the hunstman's skin bubbling around his neck, his flesh slowly melding itself back together slowly, just as Oncoming Storm's impalement wound starts to heal as well. The Wendigo's jaws clamp right where the fomor's spurting neck was, her fangs sinking into stinking, sweaty, bloody flesh just as she feels the fomor's claws rip deeply into her face. Somehow, she manages not to plummet off the edge into her own madenning frenzy.
Just to the side, Hummingbird has to deal with the remaining two fomor. His ancestor's knowledge runs into him as his Rage courses hot, and with that mighty howl he slams the tar-like body of the fomor against the ground. Again and again, his mace rises and falls, destroying what bones lie within his enemy's jaws and upper torso. The creature squeals - finally making a sound - in pain and bites harder, but its attack weakens. Then another couple of loud pops sound. One bullet ricochets off the Uktena ragabash's stone mace. Another buries itself in his neck, burning painfully. The fatman has finally risen, and yells at the fighters to reach the truck. "KARL! Git your tainted fucking ass outta that bitch's cunt and fucking help us!" The fatman lowers his pistol just long enough to rip his shirt away, revealing a distended belly that roils with some unspeakable looking purple and bruised, spidery creature within. Its spinnerets face out, clicking incessantly.
Silvertip's posture warps, twisting down to Hispo in a blink. He then launches himself at the fatman, jaws agape as he aims to maul the armed fellow. As his mass slams into fellow, he becomes a ball of teeth, fury, gnashing teeth and ripping claws.
Oncoming Storm bites again at the wounded neck, claws tearing toward what's left of the hunter. Fury and pain madden her gaze, and lend a frightening the silence to the intensity of her attack.
A snarl of fury and pain ripping from his throat, Hummingbird is not so lost to rage that he can't still keep his head in battle. He steps across so that the attacker biting down on his arm is between him and the gun-weilding fatman, dropping into a crouch to get better cover, to have less weight dragging on his mauled arm, and to put more force into the blow he slams towards his opponent.
"Come on you sonuva wolf bitch, Come on!" The fatman spots Silvertip blurring straight for him, but isn't able to squeeze off his shot before the enraged hispo is upon his body, ripping and tearing. The man screams, torn into without mercy. By sheer proximity, the gun that goes off once more buries its last bullet deep into the ahroun's collar area. The silver tears through his muscle like a hot spear, the pain and rage so great that Silvertip is the first to tip off the edge into a frenzy. Even in hispo, it is a terrible sight. The fatman's gut bursts with ropey strings of that sticky webbing as before from the mauled creature inside him, its voice high and nigh undetectable except to lupine ears. Even so, nothing stops Silvertip's fury as he rips and tears and shreds the fatman fomor to pieces. Even so, there is a nauseating feeling in the Uktena's fury - an unbridled hunger that envelopes his frenzied mind. It's not that he's mauling. He's... eating the man. Alive.
Thrashing against Oncoming Storm to try and free himself, the hunter manages to sink his mouth full of pointed fangs into the cheek of the Wendigo, giving her a most demented kiss before dying. Even as he goes slack, the hunter's ragged body sticks to hers in a bloody mess. Hummingbird's fomor goes completely slack with the last vestiges of life oozing from red, gooey eyes as it looks up dully to the crinos. It's when the ragabash turns to use that body as a shield, that another loud noise goes off. Another gunshot, this one from inside the truck. The back door rattles open a few moments after, but nothing pops out.
Oncoming Storm scrapes the dead hunter from her claws, ducking down and turning her attention to the door of the truck. Once again, she readies herself to spring, but does not move closer to the opening.
Hummingbird crouches, breathing heavily. As the skinny formor drops away from his arm, the limb hangs limply down, clawed fingers twitching slightly in pain. The Ragabash turns dark eyes towards the truck, his good hand clenching about his mace.
As the pack of Garou dispatch their enemies, only one is still acting. Silvertip, enveloped in a haze, has turned his forequarters into a mess of bloody webs and purple guts. As his packmates creep closer to the truck's back, the Uktena ahroun seems to sate the hunger just long enough that his bestial mind can be pushed back. He's left standing there, blinking, caught in the moment of coming out of the Thrall. Behind in the truck, the wafting smell of blood and rot comes even stronger than before, mixing with what ichor has been spilled onto the earth already. Inside, the shadowy form of a large crinos is just barely seen before it tumbles out onto the ground. She, as one might be able to detect beneath all the gunk covering her, lies there. Only three limbs remain on her, shackles on the ends, one arm amputated off and the right leg savaged to near uselessness. Her ears, completely cut off as well. Nose torn away. It's barely a crinos as it is, scarred to near unrecognizability. Her one fair limb holds in it a shotgun, clutched weakly to her chest.
Silvertip shakes his head repeatedly as he tries to collect himself, not quite having realized what that funny taste in his mouth means. He looks about roughly eyes snapping to the truck. The hispo, bleeding from the collar profusely limps towards the truck's loading door slowly. His attention switches between the truck and the crinos repeatedly.
Hummingbird moves, with less than his usual grace but every scrap of his usual ever-present tension, towards the truck and the Crinos that fell from it. His nose twitches at the smells that assault it, while his eyes search for any sign of life- from the fallen stranger or from the truck.
Oncoming Storm edges closer, her posture reeks of suspicion where it is not concealed by pain. She is wary, but the anger fired within brings her forward.
The unidentified Garou barely registers the presence of the three of Blizzard's Teeth. She is conscious though, as much as one can be in her state. Hitched, bubbling breathing wheezes from the crinos. Nothing else inside moves. There's the body of another man inside though, laying lifelessly on the floor. A quiet settles over the area, with just the fire crackle dying, and the tortured being lying there. A thin wheeze forms, gurgling out in a moment's lucidity. ~Kill... me...~
Silvertip waits a moment, before limping past the Crinos. He heads up to the back of the truck, looking into the rear of the vehicle. His posture is coiled, tense, and like he's ready to charge at a moment's notice. His nose wrinkles once, his expression turns sour, and then he proceeds to hurl all over behind the truck.
Oncoming Storm edges closer still, wary but now curiosity rises as the anger begins to subside. ~Who are you?~
Hummingbird moves up beside Onrushing Storm, silently backing her up and ready for trouble.
The blood and guts that spill out of the Uktena ahroun hit the ground steaming. Vomiting everything out does little to ease the nausea, the shivers, the generally very miserable feeling that overcomes him. Oncoming's question receives, for the moment, no anwer but the slow, shallow breathing of the stranger. Her fingers brush against the shotgun, pushing it little by little over her chest.
Oncoming Storm moves as quickly as her injuries allow, grabbing for the gun. ~If you answer our questions, we will end this quickly for you.~
Hummingbird stays alert to provide support or protection for his alpha if needed.
Silvertip slowly returns. If it's possible for his white fur to have a green cast, that's how he appears, continued nausea making his ears splay outward and back as he plods around to join the others.
Even compared to Oncoming's injured state, the crinos on the ground is no match for the Wendigo. The shotgun is taken away, and a vague sound like a whine gurgles from the crinos. And if it were possible still, the creature curls her lips up from yellowed, brown and broken fangs, a weak anger display. ~...Go.~
Oncoming Storm pages to the room: Considers trying to get her to a healer - god that would be cruel.
Oncoming Storm lifts her head, looking out to the south for just a moment. She stands there, as though weighing the world within her head. Then she growls out in a register below her normal tone, ~Suffer not your people to tend your sickness,~ and in one swift move sends her claws to the throat of the injured stranger.
Hummingbird tips back his head and gives a short but respectful howl for the dead. Then he heads to the front of the truck to start rumaging through the cab.
Silvertip gives an approving grunt, but as Hummingbird steps toward the truck, he moves in the other direction.
With no real method to resist, only the stranger's naturally thick fur and skin stand in the way. Her throat is torn out, though, and with no other words exchanged, the crinos dies. It remains in the form. A metis.
Oncoming Storm eyes the form skeptically, then begins moving around the site.
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