How Many Die, How Many Live

11/21/2007

07:49 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (80% full).
It is currently 19:48 Pacific Time on Wed Nov 21 2007.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is clear outside. The temperature is 38 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the northeast at 5 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.44 and steady, and the relative humidity is 79 percent. The dewpoint is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius.)

By the Waterfall
The walls of the canyon surrounding the caern reach upwards to thirty feet here, their highest point. About two-thirds of the way up, a small underground spring exits the rock face. The water spills playfully down the cliff face, caressing the rocks and darting away, but always falling to gravity's inexorable pull. The flow, upon entering the shallow, chilled pool of water at the bottom, creates constant ripples in the puddle's surface. A light mist rises up from the ground near the pool, chilling to the bone.
The forest surrounding the caern's border is far less dense than the rest of the nearby forest, with ferns and clumps of aspen taking the place of white pine and birch. Scattered, centuries-old cedar stand majestically over their fallen, decaying, moss-covered comrades. This peculiarity seems to surround only the area just outside the caern.
To the west, cool mist kicked up by the falls mingles with warmer steam from geothermal sources; these mists swirl around the caern to the north. The caern's center lies northwest of here. You can pick out what seems to be a hazardous trail over rock and up the wall, to the side of the waterfall.
Contents:
Olga
Obvious exits:
Steam Vents  Center  Windy Spot  Up the Trail  

It's evening, the sun's already set and the caern hollow is dark and brooding, the sun blotted out by the swirl of mist and fog. It's late enough that Fat-Ripper has already been able to enter and leave the Umbra; now the Crinos sits next to the pool, staring at the boulder at the centre, which gets just enough light to shine dully in the gloom. The Bone Gnawer is sitting flat on her back, in a position awkward and dour, her head resting sombrely on her propped up fist: Rodin's Stinker. Despite the intensity of her gaze there's a sense of helplessness and frenzy about it.

Into the caern they go, rusty red and blotchy brown. Runner and Squeaks, the pair of Gnawers they are, at first enter the caern with a raucous tussle and chase game. But once they're in, the fostern ragabash insists the games end with a hefty push of her plate-sized paws against the crinos' bare tail beside her. The Guardian takes a moment to sniff the air, a gesture mimicked by the metis, but it's Squeaks who is the first to spot the theurge further down the way at the waterfall. With an excitable squeak, the cub rushes towards her from afar with Runner loping easily after like a wolven Pepe Le Pew.

Olga's mood is dim, but she looks up at the pair of Gnawers quickly; it's hard to tell from her expression if she's happy to see them or not, like she doesn't even know herself. ~Sees-Too-Far,~ she greets the younger, using that unfamiliar, almost formal new sobriquet. ~Three-Blades,~ she greets the Ragabash, her eyes unfocused and unsure. She stands to face them and rests a clumsy paw on the wall of clay and rock beside her, unsteady on her feet.

Runner comes to a stop as she takes in the wobbly nature of the theurge's stance, ears cocking forth. ~Something wrong?~ asks the questioner with another testing sniff of the air. It's closer up that her thin hint of unease beneath the light of the full moon can be felt.

Squeaks too has stopped a few metres off, offering no comfort and no query, just a curious stare. Fat-Ripper takes her time in answering, first beckoning to the cub with a clawed finger and a gesture of arm; the little Theurge accords, scampering forward into the crook of the larger's elbow. ~Yes,~ she says, her voice dry and flat as she struggles to keep the emotion out of it. ~I think a lot of people are going to die. Our people.~

Runner looks further discomforted by the response, but gives her fur a quick shake to try and ease it away. ~What strange prophecies you speak, theurge. We know many will die. Many have died. And Many still live,~ she huffs in return, trotting forward to close the distance between them. ~And? /We/ are all still here.~

~No prophecies,~ Fat-Ripper answers, scratching Squeaks' head with her sharp claws, finding some comfort even if the young Metis doesn't respond to what she's doing. ~Cold hard spider's facts, numbers and times. You know of the wasps and the disease which runs through the city? We will save few. Thousands will die, and will turn to the Wyrm before they do.~ Her voice quavers, too many emotions in it to count, try as she might to keep it smooth.

Looking surprised to hear the news at first, Runner blinks. Then? She looks angered. ~No, I do not know of what goes on in the city,~ she replies, growling deeply. ~That it hasn't touched down here yet is maybe the only blessing I can find in that report.~ The ragabash rolls back onto her haunches, studying the theurge and young Metis. ~What about us? The Gnawers haven? Kills-the-Cries told me of the traitorous kin. Now the Walk scrambles to find new places to hide.~ She flicks an ear unamusedly.

Olga snorts derisively, able to find some outlet for her emotions in anger and disdain: ~They scatter like rats,~ she says, with a sort of angry satisfaction, a sort of pride. ~But we're safe,~ she confirms, flatly. ~I worry about the humans. A group of fomori infected food they gave away to the bums.~ It's a Gnawer word, unfamiliar to most, with connotations of fondness and, most of all, protectiveness. ~Half those I could find are infected. Half of Jermantown's bums. Thousands, throughout the city, not counting the addicts who took the fomori's tainted drugs. They turn into strange fomori, blue and hungry. We can save them, but they need to be cleansed in both spirit and body. We do not have enough Gnosis as a sept to save more than a hundred, and I doubt many will be willing even to try.~ She speaks bitterly, fiercely, like the decisions have already been made.

Runner's ears tilt back, the anger twisting to a tinge of sadness. Her teeth bare, but in an almost fearful lupine smile of placating nature. ~As our laws say, suffer not others to tend sickness in death,~ she rumbles softly, glancing briefly to Squeaks before looking back. ~Still, it wouldn't hurt to try. One hundred is still one hundred. Maybe... the spirits would be willing to help?~

~I'll try,~ Fat-Ripper answers, though there's no confidence in her voice, only a kind of dull willingness. ~But you know how it is with spirits: always the trade, always the cost. It's from a jaggling of Unicorn that I was able to understand the disease - but always the cost.~ For a moment the Theurge is non-vocal but not quiet, growling in the back of her throat, contained and baseless. ~Runner,~ she says, speaking seriously now, looking the Ragabash in the face, her ears back, her plea pointed and her muzzle slightly raised to show the softer fur of her throat, instinctively submissive in her plight. ~Stronghold follows Bear, you all know medicinal arts. You all could save many lives. But the infected stink of the Wyrm and cannot be brought to the bawn.~ She's quiet for a moment, letting the implications hang between them like a bomb about to go off. ~Will you help me? Will you ask your Alpha?~

Runner grunts quietly. ~Always the trade,~ she echoes in understanding, looking distantly towards the waterfall for a few seconds. Her name brings her gaze back, and the seriousness of the plea heightens the ragabash's attention. Silence answers Olga as the ragabash stares at her for a time. Then she stands up to her paws again, pacing a couple of steps to a side and looking off. The agitation grows as her hackles lift and her ears slick back. ~Long-Suffering decided she must return to her sept. After that talk about how she would stay and help defend this place. After all that. She still left.~ The off-topic is a bitter toned growl, and Runner looks back with that anger. It doesn't last. The moment she turns her gaze upon her tribemates, things fizzle again. The hispo'd fostern heaves a long sigh, plopping back onto her haunches where she stands. ~But, I will ask Reflection's-Howl. If it is like before, I will need two cliaths, or another fostern, to match my absence here if I return to the city to help.~

~All of you,~ Fat-Ripper says, quietly, her determination muted but her voice still firm despite its volume, her tone much more plea than demand. ~I want all of you. Through your totem you can all heal, yes? It will not take long, I will bring them as near as the Warder will allow. If you all use your gifts, we can save a dozen more. These people don't deserve to die, Three-Blades,~ the Theurge says, still scratching Squeaks head, more earnestly now, so that the Metis begins to flinch away from her grasp. ~The Gnawers will fortify your numbers, I know they will. Bear is a totem of spiritual healing, let him heal Gaia's lowest. _Please_.~

~All?~ Runner echoes that inclusive term. Her first instinct makes her snort a quick ~No~ to the suggestion, and she starts to turn, but pauses with her forepaw in the air. It sets back down. A twist of her ear here, a lash of her tail there, the ragabash reconsiders. When she turns back to the theurge, it is with a thin whine of uneasiness. ~I do not think the Warder or Demons will agree to this - not for the bums... But.~ Her tongue slips out to lick her nose in hesitation. ~But, I will ask. I will beg, if need be. There is no wisdom in ignoring what can be helped.~

Fat-Ripper drops to all fours, and thankfully Squeaks had already wriggled out of her grasp because otherwise she'd be crushed somewhere beneath. ~Thank you,~ the Crinos says in all earnestness, her ears flat and her eyes pained. ~Thank you so much, Three-Blades.~ She stands there on four legs, at first not knowing what else to say; the silence builds and spreads until it's palpable between them. Finally she says, just to say something, ~The cub is near to his Rite of Passage, Ears and I both think so. Red-Light. Have you met him? Will you perform the rituals?~

Runner switches her gaze back towards Squeaks, huffing for the young metis to stick around, before turning back to the theurge. She too, says nothing more until Fat-Ripper speaks again, at which point the ragabash quirks her head. ~We have a cub?~ Jokingly, of course. Wry, and a little shaky on the humored attempt, but joking. ~I have met him. Once upon a time,~ she replies. ~Where has he been?~

Squeaks does as told, still mute through the conversation, merely watching the two Garou with large coldly interested eyes. She stands near the waterfall, holding her tail in her clawed hands to ensure it doesn't get wet. ~In the scab, in Ears' nursery,~ she answers, off-handedly. The joke serves well to put her at ease, the tension begins to leave her form but there's still that underpinning of sobriety and worry. ~He helped me to deal with the jaggling of Unicorn; he offered, once he is Cliath, to form a pack beneath the spirit, to root it in the physical world. That was our chiminage, and he will pay it for me.~ She says this with a diffuse and shallow sense of pride. She adds again, flatly, ~He is ready.~

Kaz comes scrambling down the waterfall's path, flute case in hand. She stops on sight of her tribemates, and purely beams. "Folks!" she calls.

Runner again looks surprised, but this time puffs her chest with a touch of pride and pleasure as well at that note. She's about to agree, when Kaz calls out. The ragabash's ears flick to the side first, followed by Runner turning her head. A short bark of greeting goes to the galliard. Turning back to Fat-Ripper, she can't help but rumble a further amusement. ~Mention Ears, and she comes running. But as a devil, or an angel?~ she wonders, waiting until the other's reached them before stating, ~I know the Rite of Passage. I will help perform it, but the cub will need to come to the bawn if you wish to do it safely.~

~As a rat,~ Fat-Ripper answers Runner with a click of teeth and a forced show of amusement, still weighed down by the earlier revelation. She bows her muzzle at the last statement but doesn't pursue it, deferring the subject to Kaz as she arrives. Squeaks is very polite, cowed by either the sacredness of the place or the drastic increase in her mentors' severity of punishment there; either way she greets Kaz with a subdued and careful ~Hello Kaz-rhya.~

Kaz starts back into movement, and, as she nears closer, grins at Squeaks, and then at the other two. "We talkin' Sean, I take it?"

Runner flipflops her tail in affirmative, taking stock of the gathered. ~The cub is ready, says Fat-Ripper. And while I have known the Rite of Passage ritual and can perform it, I wonder what it is we have in store for the young Red-Light.~

Fat-Ripper looks at Ears, the thin veneer of amusement peeling back, old topics and anxieties returning. ~I just spoke with Unicorn,~ she tells her, her voice careful and ominous and upset, the rest of the statement contained within that tone. ~It's as I'd worried. We won't be able to save more than a few dozen.~

Kaz's fists clench. "Fuck," she says, quietly. Intensely. It's another few moments before she can manage, "Makes it a damn good Rite, though. Fuckin' /shit/."

The full moon presses down on the ragabash again. Runner looks between her tribemates, whining softly and filled with regret. ~What /happened/?~ she wonders aloud. And a quick look is sent Olga's way. ~And were you not saying one hundred, earlier?~

Fat-Ripper's posturing is awkward, strain in the way she holds herself, not on four legs but not really standing. ~Maybe a hundred,~ she answers, flatly, almost an apology in the way she says it, a wrenched and painful expression in the flat of her ears and the roll of her eyes as she goes over figures again, ~if your pack will help, and the roaches, and the Walk, and the spirits. It's all - numbers, filthy cold numbers. No faces yet. I-~ she says, then gives up, shifts her form, finds some focus and strength in being able to hide her feelings behind human skin. "I figure 5,000 dead in Jermantown by Christmas, half again in the months after that before the last succumb around February. Somewhere between two and twenty times that, over the whole city, your guess is as good as mine. I don't know the rest of the city." Her voice is cold, crisp, official, and scared. Squeaks just watches, impassive, as if this didn't affect her at all, as if it were merely interesting.

Kaz mutters, "Jesus fuckin' Christ." It takes a moment to tell Yi, "Fuckin' Fuzz, is what it is. Fuckin' Fuzz, and the fuckin'poisoned MREs that the fuckn' Reds was feedin' to the homeless. We finally busted them up, mostly, but God knows I wish we'd done it sooner."

~Five... Five /thousand/?~ If there were color in her face, Runner would probably have lost it by now. All the same, her eyes round out and she comes to her feet again. ~Five Thousand?!~ she repeats one more time, hackles stiffening. Hard enough to wrap her mind around it with the wolf's mind. Her whole body tenses. ~It can't happen. Poison...~ A growl starts deep in her chest, traveling up to her throat and dying at the ends of her fangs. A heavy, displeased snort follows. ~Surely there can be something we could do!~

Olga's breath comes sharp and she hisses dirtily, "Spread like wildfire, by the time we realized..." Her teeth grind and snap, but when she speaks her voice is controlled and careful, her mind still racing, still trying to puzzle it. "If there is, it's beyond Unicorn's medicine," she says, quietly. "I'm trying to think, but I can't see what to do, the scale of it is beyond the sept's resources even if every spirit and Garou were to put their all into it. There's no rite to heal a whole city. If we could somehow get them into the Umbra, we might - but's impossible, damn it. Or," and her carefully constructed words begin to split and spill, so she stops and gathers herself and falls quiet. "There's nothing to be done 'cept save who can and kill who we can't, before the Wyrm takes their souls."

Kaz just nods grimly, a Galliard robbed of words.

~The caern is one of Wisdom!~ insists Runner, clawing a forepaw in the grass stubbornly. ~The Mother's Touch is proven to heal these people? What is needed to save them?~

"Cleansing," Olga answers flatly, the Ragabash' enthusiasm doing little to raise her from her resignation.

Kaz says, a little grimly, "But unless you knock them all unconscious, that would mess with the Veil."

Runner snaps her jaws together, ears slicking back against her head. ~Great Garou, brought down by ... by a bunch of spirit /bees/,~ she grumbles weakly. ~What has been done, then? What did Unicorn say?~

Squeaks has turned her eyes away from the adults' conversation, her continued attention evident only by the occasional flick of her ears. She watches the boulder in the Caern's centre, glowing dully in the diffused moonlight. "Just what I said," Olga answers peevishly, her thin eyebrows bunched and arched. "They need spiritual and physical healing beyond human medicines. The Rite of Cleansing and Mother's Touch, both, nothing less potent will do. Both require our Gnosis. We can do it, but only so much. I'll try to find other ways, but right now this's the best info I got, Yi. I wish it weren' true just as much as you do." Olga's quiet for only half a second, before glancing at Kaz again. "Kaz, you'll ask the Gaians and that Walker Theurge, and any others that'll help?" she asks her, quietly assuming.

Kaz nods. "Damn fuckin' right. Did Unicorn say if they needed t'get Cleansin' at the same time as th' Touch, or can we do that a lil' after?"

Olga guesses, and it's clear that's all it is: "No," she says, tightly. "A few days, perhaps. Long enough that it doesn' metastasize."

Runner glances from one face to the other, and then sighs again, still stubborn. ~We will do our best, in ways we can. But Gaia gave us Gifts and Rites to aid her and her children. Nothing can stop the will of many who work to help her. I will ask the Warder what we can do, pack and sept. How long does the poison require to act?~

Kaz bares her teeth just slightly. "It's acting now, as we speak." But she nods to Olga. "Check."

"Depends how hard they were addicted," Olga answers, and adds cynically, "We'd almost do better if we hadn' shut them all -" and then she stops, just a brief second, as the idea is placed in her head, recorded, filed, obscured. "- down. People're dying as we discuss it, right now, but those're the hardest addicted and we'd have trouble savin' them, anyway."

Runner licks her fangs, a wolven grimace setting on her features. ~And no way to slow it down?~ she asks, ~or is cutting off the source the only thing that has been?~

Kaz glances at Olga, questioningly. "You got an idea there?"

For a brief moment, Olga looks like she might hide it, or deny it. "No," she says, dull and grim, accepting the impossibility of it, the abhorrence. "If we were t'fix the supply chain we could keep them from withdrawal and from turning. We could wean them off slowly, or just keep them fixed until we could cure them, eventually, patient by patient. It'd keep them alive. But no," she decides, flatly, revulsion in her voice and in the high arch of her shoulders. "I mean -" she begins to doubt herself, entertain it again, before a finaly "No," that is less decisive and strong than she intended.

Kaz shakes her head. "If it wasn't a Wyrmy drug, I'd do it like a shot, even though I suck at drug distribution." (She sounds like she's had experience, finding this out.) "But as it is... I just can't... cope with doin' that."

Runner perks at first, watching the pair. ~You mean, cleanse the drugs, not the people. The drugs will flow, but if they flow cleanly... it may save us time?~

Kaz looks completely baffled. "It's made of fuckin' fomori blood. We can't fuckin' make more of it, and I am for damn sure not gonna keep 2 fomori alive just so they can fuckin' make more Fuzz."

Olga looks leery about even discussing it, even as she looks like she might herself do it, like a thief caught in floodlights, unrepentant but embarassed. She tugs at her jacket, and her eyes follow Squeaks', to the boulder at the Caern's centre, its wash of light, the faint fragile shine of a single vein of quartz. "I dunno," she says, her voice a hush, like she might be overheard. "Maybe? I dunno it'd even still have any potency, and -" and she shuts up when Kaz speaks, cowed and awkward, looking down.

Runner stops with her gaze on Olga, especially after Kaz's mini rant. ~You did not say it was made from the /blood of the Wyrm/,~ growls the fostern ragabash in a rattle of disgust. A flick of her ear afterwards, though, and she turns back to Kaz. ~But, what if the users can be fooled into taking something that is similar? Clean? Cunning minds could consider the option.~

Kaz exhales quietly. "Dude." And then, frustrated, "Dude, I'd have to know scientists to create somethin' godddamned similar, and I don't. I mean, sure, dipshits in meth labs, but that ain't hardly the same."

"It's not blood, is it?" Olga asks, with no pretence towards relevence, just curiosity. "Some kind of nectar, I'd thought." She latches onto the question with avidity, using it to ignore the underlying problems; it's only with effort that she tears herself away from it. "Anyway I gotta doubt our answer's in a lab. It's in the spirit, if it's anywhere at all."

Kaz looks as if she's trying to bring back a memory. "...Venom," she eventually admits. "Not blood. But same difference."

~If it is in the spirit,~ Runner muses with a scuff of her paw on the ground, ~then our theurges will find a way. Starting with, perhaps, our Warder.~ She suddenly grows impatient, restless, and looks towards the edges of the caern clearing before turning back. ~I will go tell him what I know now. In the meantime, we need to take care of our own. The cub - if you can bring him to the bawn, then the Rite of Passage can be performed here. I will make sure to ask the Master of the Rite for approval before that.~

Olga's lips are drawn, her mood still sour. "Yeah," she says, drily. "Thanks, Yi. If anyone can convince 'em, it's you. Gaia go with you." It's earnest, it's not just a platitude. She turns back to Kaz, speechless for a few seconds, before she just spits out, pained, dirty, and cathartic, "_Shit_."

Kaz says, tiredly, "No fuckin' kiddin'."

Kaz then gives Yi a mock-salute in farewell.

Runner just manages to catch those bits of swearing as she heads off, and pauses mid turn to look at the pair. ~Lessons learned, my friends. But the Wyrm has not yet won.~ And after that, she lopes off at a swift pace, intent on her hunt for the Warder.

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