ONS: Pet Cemetery
1/12/2009
07:45 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (89% full).
It is currently 19:43 Pacific Time on Mon Jan 12 2009.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is mostly cloudy. The temperature is 49 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 9 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.64 and steady, and the relative humidity is 90 percent. The dewpoint is 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius.)
Sunrise Road, South of I-90
Sunrise Road is a two-lane asphalt road that has been recently lined to accomodate the steadily growing level of traffic. Formerly poor farmers, hermits, and homesteaders have suddenly found themselves sitting on a small fortune as property values skyrocketed with the encroaching suburb developments. Most are selling their land or large portions of it to developers, cashing out and moving to warmer climates. Sunrise Road is still predominantly flanked on both sides by evergreen forest and punctuated by an occasional mailbox and driveway leading back off the road. But every so often large swaths of forest are in various stages of being cut down and cleared for new housing developments as Kent Crossing becomes a more and more popular "bedroom community" for people that work in St. Claire but don't care to actually live within the large, crowded, and troubled city. The majority of construction is occuring to the south where Sunrise Road connects with Highway 22 near Kent Crossing, growing less and less the further north one travels.
The road runs north toward I-90, and south into the woods. On the eastern side of the road, a gravel lane extends to the east before turning north and running parallel to the road.
Contents:
Coriander
Obvious exits:
North (Under I-90) South Nicholson Hall Denton Farm 3142 Sunrise Road Escrowe Farm
The week and some having gone by with what some would say excrutiating slowness, and very little Wyrmsign, the Child of Gaia theurge has come upon miniscule traces of taint but hardly anything to make up for what she might've done in the meantime. It almost looks as if she's going to miss the one last mandate of her punishment.
Through days of disappointment, Cori drives on through sheer determination, anger and, perhaps, worry over what would happen if she failed. Taken to her wolven form, the Theurge sniffs through the forest, taking herself nearer to, but not into, the nearby town of Kent Crossing, her Gift activated and ready. Haggard and worn looking, even in lupus, she hunts on, feeling the ticking clock on her task now.
The moon's fairly high in the sky by the time she actually finds something worth taking note. At first, a passing whiff of a rabbit. Just an innocent smelling rabbit. The scent of the prey leads to an animal trail more widely used by other forest creatures dwelling a little near to the suburban limits, but that shouldn't seem too unusual. As she presses forth, the Gift latches on to that sinking feeling telling of the wrongness around the area. Sure as the rain makes ground wet, it's there. Faint, but plausibly present. The sound of the road, Sunrise Road with its newer paved two-lane asphalt, can be heard up ahead as the sporadic approach of passing cars echoes into the night.
Well, it's not huge, but it's something. There is a slight growl from the wolf before she moves more quietly onward, sniffing that trail in the hopes it'll lead her to the source of the area's taint. She doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the sound of those passing cars, her focus entirely forward.
The closer that she sniffs along the trail in her sweep, the more prevalent the Wyrm's taint seems to be. It grows stronger in minute degrees, more when she comes upon the defecation of what has to be a very ill cat by the side of a tree that's days old, but the stronger the scent is of this feline the more aware the theurge eventually becomes. And some time then in her haze of tracking she realizes one thing that makes the little hairs on the back of her neck stiffen. The feeling... of being watched.
There's a slight retch from the somewhat unstable Garou at the smell of the cat's... leftovers, but Curiosity's posture stiffens as she gets that feeling. Sharp eyes lift from the ground and look around, and she sniffs the air for what scents may be around as she stands by, on guard.
A comparatively loud screech from above, though nothing loud enough that could be made by a bird of any considerable size, sounds from above the wolf. It's a warning scream, raucous and alarming. The parakeet sits in a branch above, definitely not of the native fauna. Screech! Screech!
Curiosity-Saves looks up, head tilting at the odd sound. The wolf doesn't do much to hide her own agitation, but moves over to put her front paws up on the trunk of the tree, sniffing toward that out of place parakeet.
A small bird with colorful plumage is still very difficult to make out in the night amidst the branches, but the sound it makes is hardly befitting of any normal kind of behavior one might expect of prey. The reason the bird doesn't scare away? Here comes the wave of rousing sound. One by one in the trees around, the branches seem to wake with the sound of rustling feathers and tiny screeches as birds stir. The one parakeet that Curiosity peers at she suddenly gets a nice view as it divebombs through the branches of the tree and soundly pecks a tiny nip upon her muzzle. Hardly anything painful, and much more surprising at its abruptness than anything.
She barely has time to even widen her eyes before that divebombing bird pecks at her. She yelps in surprise, jumping back a bit and looking around for that bird with something like disbelief in her expression.
Curiosity needs not look around for very long, because the first attacking bird wheels around and is joined by five more that come down. Ten more after that. And very soon, the white wolf finds herself mobbed by screeching birds that peck, nip, scratch and pull at her in a confusing array buffeting her with their wings.
Shaking them off doesn't seem to work, nor does ducking, and it's only a matter of time before Curiosity gets /real/ tired of it, as a growl spills out of her and she shifts up through hispo and into crinos, making to swat at the flock with clawed hands.
The one swat catches a number of the birds, cutting a loose swath through the mob that is quickly filled back in. Eventually, though, the irritation from above loses out to the pain from below. The noise attracts other animals. The birds retreat momentarily back up to the trees, still endlessly screeching their alarm. The second wave is a more worrisome sound, though, as Curiosity heeds the sounds of baying dogs coming from the direction of the road.
Even from the lower raged Theurge, anger radiates off her by the time the birds retreat. She whips around at the baying, and she takes to all fours to run toward the sound. And the dogs. She even answers them with her own, challenging howl.
The baying is interspersed with wild, feral yips and barks. Curiosity, as she nears the pack, finds herself followed and harrassed by the birds behind still, albeit at distance. There's barely even seconds to register the number of dogs that she comes upon, but the first feeling is that of the wrongness that her Gift detects in these creatures. She doesn't need too much more evidence. One labrador-mutt has strange things growing from its mangy fur, and another larger shepherd dog is covered in some kind of moist, slimy concoction that shines with an unnaturally radiant glow in the moonlight. A third small would-be Pomeranian simply has teeth and horns sprouting from what ought to be broken up limbs, yet the whole shambling mess with its matted fur ratchets along like undead roadkill. When they clash, it is with undeterred fearlessness and rabid ferocity that the theurge comes under attack with.
Uncharacteristic as it is for her, Curiosity charges right for the misshapen dogs, coming up out of her crouch and onto two legs again with a swipe of her claws toward that glistening shepherd dog. Their ferocity only seems to fuel her own anxious rage and for once, she doesn't shy away from getting her hands dirty.
It's not just the birds and the dogs, though the theurge isn't quite as likely to notice that just up ahead a ways, there is a small clearing made by that of a fallen, dead tree in the forest. From it, a small swarm of other furred animals comes shambling onwards towards the fray. The one shepherd dog yelps as claws catch it soundly in the head, cutting through goo to draw a black ichor that serves as its blood. Contact with the material stings against the skin, creating a numbing sort of sensation. The mangy Lab-mutt leaps and latches onto the white crinos somewhere along her midtorso, gnawing with its sharp teeth and cutting into her flesh on a cursory level. The Pomeranian has found her left buttock in the meanwhile and scrabbles to hang on whilst scratching away with weak claws. The birds have managed to shear away some of the fur from her delicate portions, but have been not more than nuisances. When the fight continues though, the crawling sensation of rats, gerbils, hamsters and other small furry creatures clambering up her warform gets to be a rather unnerving, if overwhelming sensation.
The bites and swarms only make the annoyance in the crinos grow, and Curiosity swipes and bites at her attackers with abandon. A clawing for the Lab, fangs for smaller, furry creatures. Of course, that bite to her rear end gets a flash of anger and she drops down to sit right on that Pomeranian menace.
Though each one individually is small, the sheer quantity of the Wyrmiest Pets starts to get pretty heavy even for the crinos. The Pomeranian is still beneath her as she flops to her bottom and a satisfying crunch along with a muffled yip is all what's left - not including the feeling of spikes and horns and teeth having pierced through deeper than they could've on the toy dog's best strength. The Lab-mutt is torn down its side deeply, yet gamely hangs on still as the crinos goes down, and from somewhere amidst the swarm returns the shepherd with its stinging, envenomated blood dripping from a slavering open sore of a set of jaws. The theurge is bitten again and again, pecked and scratched and torn into... to the extent that perhaps a passing thought comes to mind this is what it'll be like in the end. Eaten alive by Wyrmtainted housepets.
It certainly becomes overwhelming, no matter how many she hits, they're still there. Maybe more come, even. Anger rises, mixed with panic and irritation and maybe even embarrassment. Bite for bite, swipe for swipe, she grows only more and more angry, losing more and more control as they swarm over her. When that fear of being eaten alive seems to be an all too real prospect, Curiosity loses it. It's a new sensation for the Theurge, but she flies into a flurry of berserk attacks, the crinos cutting through the swarm wildly.
Under the red haze of frenzy, the Gaian theurge loses herself. Who knows how long it lasts? But when she comes to, the scene around her is a sight. Bodies of pets large and small litter the ground in a miniature molehill sized mountain beneath her. The bodies of the tainted dogs are torn to pieces, a half resting here, an upper jaw over there. The peace is eerie in its silence. Even the road that's supposed to be closer doesn't seem to make a sound. Then, there is. The slightest rustle of movement, slow but steady, comes from the crescent's right side a little further in the clearing. Her own body, sore and stiff and bleeding, also feels in no small part numb from the toxin working its way through her.
Curiosity-Saves comes out of that frenzy; panting, confused, tired and a little sick to her stomach at the sight around her. She takes that silent moment to look over the sight, flexing a few numb muscles to no avail. When that rustling returns, she turns around to watch for it, her earlier anxiety all but missing this time around.
Squinting into the darkness, the theurge can see the small shell of a turtle ambling towards the thousands times larger Garou. It too, is mutated with a plethora of bony spikes, elongated claws and a tiny but wicked looking beak from which actual teeth seem to have grown from it. Its progress is very slow indeed, but it's almost at the end of that pile of formerly domesticated creatures.
The Theurge lets out a relieved sigh when she sees the mutated turtle there and she actually shifts down into glabro to steps out of the gore and moves to scoop up that one last creature, holding it almost protectively. Spikes and claws be damned, she seems more intent on saving this one, rather than slaying it like she did the others.
The turtle may be slow in its land speed, but the actual speed of its strike is quicker than the blink of an eye. Or at least, it would be, if it weren't for the fact that Coriander's hand is protected by the very shell of protection the turtle bears. The tainted animal starts to snap at her and gnash its sabertoothed beak to no avail, but with absolutely unyielding determination.
Try as it might, Cori just holds onto that little turtle, while she eyes the small mound of now ex-wyrmpets. Given that she's the only one out here, Cori tugs her shirt off, making a little sack to put the turtle in and toss over her shoulder as she moves to gather up her first armful of fomor-bits to carry back toward her campfire. To clean up. The first trip of many, no doubt.
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