[curtains] [Ground Rules:
1. IC posts: 10 minutes or less. Declares: 3 minutes or less unless you are waiting on me to answer a question. Rolls: 3 minutes or less, or you auto-fail.
2. Speaking of questions: ask me in the chat. Do not IM me. If I don't answer immediately, just keep yelling my name. If you absolutely cannot wait, send me a PM.
3. There is no posting order, but post once for every post I make unless I tell you otherwise.
4. PM me now if you have any Uncrossable Lines and/or Exploitable Flaws.
5. Keep track of your own health and tempers.
6. Your characters are just off of Grant Park, somewhere on West Randolph Street.
7. GO!]
[Low Key] What a day, what a day. The young rotagar had been doing a bang up job of living up to his deed name lately. Of course it helped when no one really knew who you were. And as such he could wander the city completely unmolested. Even better since he was still doing the tourist gawk: Walking around the city with his eyes fixed on the height of buildings. Any more of this and he was apt to get a stiff neck.
[Lights Out] It's not a bad night to sit outside and yam down a corn dog.
The rain's holding off for now, the threat of it hanging in the air with the sort of electric intensity that predates a riotous thunderstorm, and Charlie is parked on a bench at the stop for the 22 bus, making his way through a breaded hot dog on a stick and watching tourists walk past. He missed the last of his naps today because he found better things to do than sleep, and he's paying for it now. If he doesn't fall asleep on the bus tonight it will be a minor miracle; the caffeine in the Coke he's using to wash down his breakfast isn't doing much to stave off the fog that's encircling his skull tonight.
The next bus isn't for ten minutes, and he's eating like this is the last thing he's ever going to consume. That is to say, slowly.
[Rises Above] Elliot does not have her eyes to the sky, or the towering monoliths rising from the concrete around her. It's difficult to tell exactly what her eyes are doing right at the moment. Someone found themselves a pair of sunglasses. They're a huge bulbous affair that were popular in the days of Audrey Hepburn and Clark Gable. No one would compare Elliot with a golden age of film era starlet.
She's tall, her cheekbones and jaw are sharp from living on the brink of starvation. Her painfully thin figure is hidden beneath layers of clothing, visible only at the knees where her jeans are shredded. Her red hair is dimmed beneath layers of grime and dirt, and knotted and tangled so badly it falls against her throat instead of past her shoulders. She smells like stale sweat, like wind and rain and dirt.
The eyes behind the sunglasses are on the ground.
[curtains] Evening is coming on earlier these days. Daylight Savings Time has yet to end, and the sun sets so very early, the dark comes so very soon. People don't stay out as late, especially in cities like Chicago, where sometimes they say they hear mad howls from the north, where sometimes they say Bad People live near the docks to the east. Grant Park has gotten a reputation this year for the sounds of fighting, of gunshots, of growling. People claim to have found bloodstains. Once, someone said she thought she found an eyeball.
Claims it disintegrated in her hand.
Just off of Grant Park, though, there's quieter streets. There's opulent buildings. This is where the Ford Theatre is, extravagant and iconic. While Charlie is waiting for the bus and Delmar is walking along checking the city out and Elliot is trying not to be overwhelmed just by the existence of so much light and sound around her, all three of them hear something that seems to go utterly unnoticed by everyone else passing by. Maybe they notice because they themselves are only half physical, the other half of their existence utter and pure spirit.
It's coming from the alleyway to the side of a richly ornamented, old-fashioned building that stands where the Ford Theatre should be. A woman is screaming, dim and distant, and a man is yelling
"Jump! Jump! We'll catch you! JUMP, GODDAMMIT!"
And if they so much as look in that direction, they see thick black smoke curling as though in slow motion out of the alleyway, as sluggish as molasses. They cannot see anyone. They cannot see the Ford Theatre. And no one passing by, neither corndog vendor nor passerby nor bus driver, seems to see or hear what they see and hear.
[Rises Above] Elliot's head snaps up at the sound of screaming, and of shouting. It reaches her ears as easily as if she were standing right beside it. She looks up at the smoke, and then around as no one else on the street seems to notice. That is what piques her interest more than the smoke itself, more than the yelling and shouting. If this were ordinary, sirens would be deafening her already. People would be rushing to gawk, at least, to satisfy their morbid curiosity.
So, hands shoved into the pockets of her overcoat, Elliot picks up her pace, long, spindly legs carrying her toward the smoke oozing from the alley.
[Low Key] This was not the hero for this situation. As a matter of fact, this was not the hero for any situation. Delmar turns to the sound of someone shouting, only to see something that looked vaguely like smoke rising into the air. But rising much to slow to be real smoke. For a moment there's a pang of panic, but it fades away along with another odd realization.
No one else seemed to notice. No one else seemed to care. Was it a movie? No, not likely. This was...something else. He draws closer to the alley, absently sniffing at the air to see if he could smell the smoke. He would look before he acted.
[Lights Out] Were not for that screaming coming from up the street, the darkening night would have been relatively peaceful. People are leaving the shaggy-haired young man with the lavender book bag to his half-consumed corn dog and his rattling paper cup of soda. The cup dwarfs his hand. He didn't realize how large the soda was going to be when he was asked what size he wanted and asked for whatever the middle size was. The last time he ordered a soda he was across the border, it seems like. Things are smaller in Canada than they are in the United States.
But there's screaming, and there's shouting, and as Charlie turns his head to the east and cranes his neck, he can see smoke dancing out of an alleyway by the Ford Theatre. His slowing chews, and he frowns. The sight of smoke, the threat of a fire, is not completely strange in a city this congested and densely populated. One could suppose that the blasé attitude of the passersby isn't all that strange, either, but people usually stand around to gawk at things like car crashes and fires. They don't keep walking.
It's enough to make him wonder if he's actually still asleep in bed back at the Brotherhood, if he hasn't actually passed out waiting for the 22. That's a legitimate concern for him. His brain doesn't work the way it's supposed to.
Charlie sets down his soda and pinches his nose closed with the fingers of his left hand. He's done this before. When he's dreaming, he can't breathe through his mouth. He can breathe through his mouth tonight. His nose is released sans fanfare but not without a strange look from the woman to his left, his book bag is shouldered, and Charlie picks up his soda. His walk is neither fast nor crawling, and it moves toward rather than away.
Two other people have the same idea. He hasn't noticed them yet.
[Wyrmbreaker] When Lukas, passing on the main thoroughfare, hears the shouts his first reaction is that someone was out on the proverbial ledge while some other fuckface was egging her on. A frisson of irritation curls to the surface and he turns sharply down the alleyway the screams are coming from.
"What the hell's the matter with you people..."
The low, snarling mutter dies in his throat. Lukas looks up at the burning building, squinting to see -- well, anyone, really. Then he turns, goes to the mouth of the alleyway, catches the first oddly unperturbed passerby he sees.
"Has someone called 911? Call 911."
(and now I'm going home! back soon folks!)
[curtains] The man that Wyrmbreaker tells to call 911 looks irritably at him, then quails slightly and just shakes his head, looking vaguely repulsed. "Why?" he snaps, and walks on.
Nobody else seems to notice the four of them turning their attention towards the alleyway where the black smoke is coming from. They walk on. They walk through billowing smoke without coughing, without so much as glancing at what is normally the -- officially -- Ford Center for the Performing Arts and is now, to the eyes of the Garou on West Randolph, something entire different. They've all passed by this place before. It looks smaller, older.
And though there is smoke, there seems to be no fire. Though there is smoke to see, there is no smell of it.
The voice from the alleyway speaks with authority and an edge of fear, shouts: "Jump, for the love of god!"
But there is no sound of a net catching a woman's body. There is, as Elliot approaches and Charlie comes close behind, as Delmar heads that way, a moment of silence and then a
heavy
wet
thud.
Something cracks.
There's nothing but silence, then. For perhaps a second, perhaps three. And then the smoke whirls out of the way as a pale figure runs out of the alley. She's dressed in turn of the century garb, her face streaked with tears and soot, her gown still burning, screams issuing from her throat. She does not seem to see any of them, yet runs right towards them, fast as the wind that seems to have died down on this street. Lukas is at the mouth of the alley, awash now in black smoke he can't smell and doesn't choke on, and the others see very clearly as the woman runs right into him.
And through him. She never emerges on the other side of the Shadow Lord's body, but there's a puff through his back, as though someone just clapped a year's worth of dust off his jacket. The screaming stops. The smoke vanishes, though the strange old building remains in place of the Ford Theatre. There is no one in the alleyway.
The sign for the Iroquois Theater lights up out front. A smiling usher waves at them.
Outside, mortals walk by, oblivious.
[curtains] [Wyrmbreaker, soak for 2 Bashing]
[Low Key] "Woah..." Delmar says bringing up the rear. He doesn't recognize any of them but the four of them have all obviously been brought here by the same thing. Delmar eyes the unfamiliar comrades, and then the usher and theater at large.
"This is uhh..." He starts to say, but seems to stall at some point. He circles closer to the other three.
"This is fucked up."
[Rises Above] Elliot stops at the mouth of the alleyway with a scuff of rubber soled shoes on pavement. She stops near the man there, who was standing in the path of smoke that is now gone without a trace. What stops her, makes her take notice of this stranger, is not so much that he seems to be one of few who notices this new theater, but because she catches the breath of breeding. There is a sense of authority, and the press of rage, though she doesn't recognize it immediately for what it is.
She stares at him, eyes behind the huge sunglasses blinking slowly, and turns to look down the alley. She expects to see a crumpled body lying in a growing pull of blood. She sees a small theater, and a smiling usher.
Others are coming up around her, but she pays them no notice, not even the one commenting on how very fucked up this all is.
The red-haired woman looks up, and around. People are still walking past without seeing this place, without noticing that something is amiss in the city. Elliot glances back over her shoulder at the street. When her head comes around to face the Iroquois Theater, she starts forward, stopping about ten feet from the usher.
"What is this place?" she asks, voice low and rasping.
[Lights Out] That isn't the weirdest thing he's ever seen in his life, but that doesn't stop Charlie from being sufficiently stunned when he sees a strangely dressed woman come tearing out of the alleyway until to run right into--literally--Wyrmbreaker.
It stops him in his tracks, his eyes going briefly wide, and then he's tossing his soda cup into the nearest trash receptacle and shouldering his other bag strap just in case. He's wearing battered hiking boots that are threatening to blow out at the right big toe and jeans that have been faded from perpetual bleachings and patched from multiple lacerating injuries and a eggplant-colored t-shirt with paint stains on it. It's not terribly cold out, but the hairs on the back of his neck are starting to stand up.
He pulls a small, smooth stone out of his pocket, seems to consider it as he closes the last of the distance to join Wyrmbreaker and the stranger who'd left him in a bar on North Michigan earlier this month.
"You alright?" he asks Wyrmbreaker.
[Gnosis: WAKE UP SOAK TALEN!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 9, 9 (Failure at target 7)
[Lights Out] [Come on, Lukas isn't that scary!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] (SOAK ZE GHOST! or whatever it is i'm soaking.)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] "Because--" Lukas starts to snap, angry, and then -- stops. Because he can't smell smoke. Because the man clearly doesn't see smoke, or flames, or hear the screams. Lukas lets go the passerby, turning just in time to hear the thud and, a moment later, see a woman running out of the smoke.
That she's in clothes a hundred years out of date doesn't even have the chance to register on him. She's running straight at him, and he braces himself for impact, to catch her, something and --
she runs. right. through him.
The Shadow Lord lets out a surprised grunt. The back of his jacket billows out briefly, as though someone had suddenly turned on a miniature leaf blower somewhere under the fall of the leather. Then it settles back. And all the smoke fades. And all the screams. And the woman.
When Lights Out catches up to him, Wyrmbreaker just ... lets out a cough.
"I -- yeah." He rubs his chest, frowning at the smiling usher. He doesn't wave back.
[curtains] As it turns out, the usher is not actually smiling at them. He's smiling and waving at the couple with the son that are walking towards him, coming from behind the Garou and walking through them as the screaming woman did to Wyrmbreaker. Delmar, Charlie, and Elliot all feel a rush of cold air, hear echoes of laughter across over a hundred years of distance between themselves and the family going to the theater tonight. These people do not vanish on the other side as Lukas's ghost did. They continue walking, taking handbills from the usher that read
ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF
across the top along with the name of the theater, the name of the play, all of it. All they can see from where they stand, however, are those words, as bold as the promise made by the Titanic.
More and more pale figures are appearing out of the darkness and coming towards the Iroquois for the evening's show, heading in through the gold-trimmed doors into the massive, luxurious theater. It doesn't take a lot of effort to step out of the way and keep from being run into (run through) and facing that stark, painful chill of ancient grief and half-forgotten anger, as long as they pay attention. Soon enough the theatergoers have entered, ushered into the lobby.
If they look through the glass in the doors, all the Garou see is thick, curling black smoke filling every last inch of space.
When they're alone again, they may notice a man in his thirties standing outside, looking up at the sign. He's well-dressed, he's quite attractive, and he seems a little more solid than the others. His eyes are almost liquid with pain when he takes his eyes off the sign, sighing. He fits a bowler hat onto his head, which he was holding in his graceful hands, and looks over at them.
He blinks. He looks surprised. And then he frowns, glancing over their coats and jackets.
"Oh. I suppose... it's nearly winter, then." A sigh leaves him, as elegant as the rest of him. "Time becomes so strange." It's barely even a whisper, when he says that. "I should go in," he adds, almost apologetically, nodding at the doors. "It's bad enough if I go on." He shakes his head, and starts to walk forward towards the doors. "It's always worse if I don't."
[curtains] [Lights Out, Low Key, and Rises Above, soak for 2 Bashing each.]
[Rises Above] [for the love of all this is holy please soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 3 (Failure at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Soak! +1 (talen).]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Low Key] Soak: But I didn't do anything!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Rises Above] [wits + occult]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] This time when phantoms begin to stroll down the alleyway, Wyrmbreaker is wise enough to get out of the way. He keeps close to the walls, watching them go past, talking and laughing, couples a hundred years gone strolling in arm in arm, families filing in the doors with their children in hand.
There's nothing but smoke in there. But none of them seem to see it. And no one on the street seems to see -- any of this. Not the lights suddenly blazing from a theatre that Lukas isn't even sure properly stands here anymore. Not the crowds a hundred years past their time. Not the usher. Not the marquee advertising the name of a play no one even remembers anymore.
"It's like a movie," he marvels quietly -- to Charlie, perhaps, or whoever the hell was within earshot. "And I think we're just in time for a fresh screening."
Then the alleyway is empty again, except for one fellow who, of all the phantoms that passed this way, seems to see them. When he speaks, Lukas has to resist the urge to look over his shoulder to make sure they really were being addressed. Then he steps away from the alley wall.
"What happens if you don't go in?"
[Rises Above] There's a rush of cold that makes the tall woman gasp in surprise. It leaves her feeling like she's been struck in the back. She steps aside to let the appartitions pass, watches them as they enter the theater.
She notices the man with the bowler hat, and she frowns. He sees them, and they see him, and he just seems more real. More here, with them.
She's not near the tall man in the leather jacket, but when he speaks his voice rings in her ears as if they're standing side by side.
"What happens when you do?" she adds.
[Low Key] Delmar gives a hiss of pain as one of the ghosts passes through him, and apparently somehow pass straight through his bones. He reels and, without saying much to anyone else, he turns and steps aside, moving out of the way of the other approaching ghosts.
That shit hurts, somehow.
And his eyes fall on the other man, the more solid one. The one that seemed to notice them. He listens quietly as the man speaks to them, sounding like he could use a drink, or perhaps a couple centuries worth of drinks.
"Hey, uhhh..." But he can hardly finish before the others are finishing for him."
[Lights Out] The Theurge stands staring at the man in the bowler hat for several seconds, as if he's speaking another language or the words are simply not sinking in fast enough for him to process. He reaches up to scratch the back of his shaggy head as he looks back to Wyrmbreaker. This isn't the first time he has been under this man's assumed leadership before, their battle against the Skull Pigs not having faded from his memory banks just yet, but he doesn't know if he's going to be like Buried Hatchet and dole out orders straight out of the gate or if he's going to be like Curata the Grim Heart and place most of the decision-making upon the group's Gaia-appointed adviser.
He makes a comment about this being like a movie, and he huffs out a breath of agreement, or bewilderment. As Wyrmbreaker talks to the man in the bowler hat, Charlie wanders off the sidewalk and into the alleyway, as if to make sure that no one else is going to leap out of the upstairs window.
[curtains] The dapper fellow heading towards the front doors pauses and turns when they address him. He looks vaguely quizzical as his eyes go from Wyrmbreaker to Rises Above. He answers the man first, obviously.
"They panic." A beat. "Worse than they usually do. And then those things..." he shakes his head, a visible chill going up his back, making him shudder. "God, they start to feed, and there's so many more that come, if I don't go on."
On, he keeps saying. Go on. Well, they are at a theatre.
He glances at Elliot, but addresses Wyrmbreaker again. "But if I do, some of the people listen to me. And a few more survive. Every year, a few more get out. And not... not through the alley."
He glances that direction, his eyes haunted. Charlie's eyes can make out the side of the building. He sees windows. No fire escape. There is black smoke through the windows, too.
[Wyrmbreaker] " 'Every year'?" Lukas echoes. "But it seems like ... "
He trails off for a moment, trying to think how to say it, how to phrase it, what to say or ask at all.
"It seems like whatever's going to happen when you go on just... finished happening a moment ago."
[Low Key] Not through the alley, huh? Delmars eyes narrow at the man's strange explanation. He pulls his hood back, revealing a head covered in thin plaits and twists of blond hair. His jaws tighten and release, easily visible in the gaunt cheeks and pasty skin.
Delmar glanced around again. Nope, still looked like no one else was noticing this. And this guy, the one that seemed to be doing most of the talking, he had that smell of breeding. Best to wait and see where all this led to.
[Rises Above] People panic. Things feed, more if he doesn't go on. Elliot guesses he's the entertainment, he's the one who is absolutely fireproof, or whatever this play is supposed to be about. She never was terribly interested in performance.
It doesn't appear to bother her that he looks at her while addressing the man with the blue eyes. Her kind are the lowest in the Nation, she doubly so because of who her parents must have been. She doesn't become irrationally angry, nor does she hang her head as though she were ashamed.
"What do you say up there. That helps people get out?" She speaks haltingly, her voice rasping, as if she hasn't used words in a while and she has to remember how they work.
[Lights Out] There's no fire escape. It doesn't immediately strike him as odd as it likely would someone who was born and raised in a city, perhaps, or someone who can remember having a very strong sense of one's own mortality, someone for whom the transition from a life of relative peace to a life of constant warfare was a sudden and difficult one. It explains why the woman leapt out of the window rather than clambering down, but it doesn't give him pause.
As the dapper fellow explains his predicament, speaks of things feeding if he doesn't go on and people surviving if he does, and he's listening, but he does not attempt to steer the conversation as he wanders back out of the alleyway. He digests what he's hearing as he comes to stand in front of the window facing the sidewalk, the window filled with smoke, as he focuses on it. His eyes go far away, as though he's zoned out. He hasn't zoned out. He's looking at something.
[Gnosis: I SEE YOU.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] "Oh?"
The man shrugs at Lukas, shaking his head slightly. "It's always happening, sir, in its way. Gets worse the closer we get to December, though." He glances at Elliot and gives a small shrug of his sloping shoulder. "I stay with them as long as I can. I just... try to get them to listen. To go calmly to the exits. Those that weren't locked."
He closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them. "At the end, I have to get out through the sewer. Now if you'll excuse me. I have to go get into character."
Without another word, the man strides towards the doors and, like all the ghosts before him, walks right through them. The change for their perceptions, however, is instantaneous: the Iroquois Theater vanishes. The Ford Theater returns. There is no smoke, there are no playbills or ticket stubs, there is no trace of what they all witnessed just seconds before. Everything is as it should be once again. The street is quiet. People go on walking by.
[Lights Out] It's as though he's snapping out of a trance when he pulls his attention back across the Gauntlet and squarely secures it in the physical world they're currently standing in. By the time he's done that the man in the hat has vanished, and the smoke has dissipated... all signs of that burning theatre have vanished, and the Theurge sharply shakes his head as if to clear the last of the imagery from his skull as he turns back around and looks back at Wyrmbreaker. He addresses the Fostern only because he hasn't met the sunglasses-wearing redhead, because he doesn't know the Fenrir.
"The barrier's really thin here," he says, keeping his vernacular as veiled as possible so as not to attract the attention of any of the humans strolling past. "There's a... there was a fire. It's bleeding over, though, what happened."
[Rises Above] It seems like she blinked, and it all disappeared. The man in the bowler hat. The little old theater. The people coming to see the play, who died in a fire over a hundred years ago.
Elliot looks at the building in its place, the one that's supposed to be her. The solid one that people passing by can see.
The kid says something about a thin barrier. When she moves, it's slow, as if she's pushing her way through a body of water, as if she's somehow disconnected from the events that happen around her. Though she doesn't need to shift positions to be able to hear him better, she turns so that those huge sunglasses are aimed in his direction.
She shuffles her way over to the alleyway, and looks down. She thinks about what the Shadow Lord said, and she looks to him.
Clearing her throat first, she says, "You said it just ended before that man went in. Think it'll happen again soon?"
[Low Key] Delmar yawns.
[Wyrmbreaker] Before the dapper fellow can vanish through the doors, Lukas calls, "Wait!"
Then the Shadow Lord turns to the others. "I have no right of leadership here over any of you," he says quickly, "and no expertise that will do us any real good. I do think our best bet of figuring out what happened is to follow him in, but I don't doubt it'll be dangerous. So I'm not asking any of you to come with me.
"If we separate here or get separated," he isn't waiting for them to follow. He starts toward the door, walking backwards to finish speaking, "we'll meet back at the Brotherhood."
[curtains] [Anyone who decides to go through the front doors make a roll to cross the Gauntlet. The rating at the doors is 5.]
[Lights Out] He doesn't doubt it'll be dangerous. Like playing a game of tag in this city isn't dangerous. Charlie doesn't react immediately. He stands thinking about what the Lord is saying, and when he amends his explanation with the intention to meet back at the Brotherhood, the Theurge starts forward.
"I'm going with you," he says.
[Gnosis: GET OVER HERE!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Rises Above] She doesn't know these people, any of them. She doesn't know what this Brotherhood is. All Elliot knows is that there's something weird going on, that their best bet is to follow the actor through the door.
[Crossin']
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4 (Failure at target 5)
[Low Key] Delmar shrugs narrow shoulders inside a thick hooded sweater. Well, he figures, if everybody else was doing it...
And he heads for the door.
[Gnosis roll]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 6 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[curtains] Lukas, the Ahroun, the one of their kind perhaps least expected to be spiritually attuned, is the first across the Gauntlet. Those thirty seconds are like holding his breath in ice cold water, dying for air until he emerges on the other side, in the interior of the theater. He is not in the lobby. He is not on the stairs to the balcony. He's in the auditorium itself, instantly and insanely, just in time to see the curtains billow slightly, the edge catching on a footlight.
The audience seems to think it's part of the effects. He's standing in an aisle, and the man they met outside is already on stage, in costume and in character. His upper lip extends far over his front teeth, giving him a V-shaped grin and a lisp that makes the audience laugh every time he speaks. The curtain is starting to burn, and no one seems to notice. They don't notice Lukas, either.
Meanwhile, Delmar and Charlie are caught in the Gauntlet, not feeling like they must hold their breath but cold, so fucking cold. It's dark. They hear whispers, wicked and hungry, in the interminable time it takes for them to get through to the other side. Elliot goes to the doors and cannot push through. She, who sometimes slips through the barrier without even wanting to, can't get through. She's left behind.
In the theater, an usher walks through Lukas from behind, leading a latecomer to his seat.
There don't seem to be any exits. Marble and mahogany and thick curtains everywhere, but no exits that he can see, not in the dark, not by the stagelights.
[curtains] [Lukas, take 2 Agg.]
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas knows, going in, what will happen. The place, ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF, will catch on fire. And people will panic, and rush for the exits, and some will be locked, and then they'll run for the alley, where something will be waiting. And they'll jump out the windows. And none of them, not a single one, will be able to hear or see him.
Still, when he crosses through and finds himself the only one of the Garou to have made it here thus far, and in the auditorium itself just in time to see the curtains catch, he sucks a breath in and shouts an instinctive warning.
"Hey!" To him, his voice seems so loud, cracking through the voluminous spaces of the theatre. "That curtain -- "
Some sixth sense sparks off. He breaks off, ducks and covers as instinctively as he'd shouted, bursting into a larger form in the blink of an eye.
[Wyrmbreaker] (whee, soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Face of Death] Joey's looking for a parking spot. The 1970 z28 Camaro roars down the street, and the blonde Rotagar slides it into a spot along the street. She's just climbing out when she sees a familiar shaggy head of dark curls, a familiar Shadow Lord, and a vaguely familiar Fenrir disappear -- literally disappear -- through the doors of some kind of old timey playhouse. She doesn't recognize it from her jaunts through the city, doesn't remember it being there. She remembers the Ford is supposed to be there.
So before she shuts the driver's side and locks her precious up tight, she reaches into the back for her bat bag. It gets strapped over her violet hooded sweatshirt. And then she runs after her friend.
[Crossin']
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 5)
[curtains] Shout as he might, nobody listens to Wyrmbreaker, even the actor on stage who was able to talk to them. There is a sense of pervasive helplessness for him to combat, here: the curtain whirls upward like a tornado as it catches flame. It jumps to the other curtain. To mahogany. To the seats. To the --
people. And so many of them are women and children.
They're on school holiday. They're taking their sons and daughters to the theater. It's a matinee. It's Eddie Foy! Annabelle Whitford! And they'll be safe here. They'll be safe. They'll be --
Screams are starting to roar through the theater. People are starting to climb over each other. They rush the aisles. There are five hundred people in the cast alone. The theater is big enough for less than 1800 people. Lukas can see people filling the aisles and balconies, well overwhelming the actual capacity of the theater. The fire spread first to the backdrop. The asbestos fire curtain never gets lowered. He watches it all happen in the minutes he is alone in there, dodging rushing ghosts whose very existence does him chilling, icy damage.
The performers go on for a very long time, right up until the fire is out of control. There's not enough Kilfyre backstage to contain it. Dancers run. Actors. Comedians. Everyone bolts. Exit signs are covered by curtains...for the sake of appearance. The dark theater is lit up by flames that don't reach Lukas himself. Some of the exits seem to be locked somehow, and no one can figure out the lever to get them open. Screams surround him.
And if he looks up, if he just glances, he can see them...
There are several balconies. Four of them are host to large, glowing-eyed banes with soot-black skin and chains wrapped around them. Their maws open, their fangs drip fire like saliva. They wait for the panic to reach a fever pitch, wait for the tastiest pain, still decadent after all this time.
On stage, sad-eyed Eddie Foy remains the last one on stage, begging people to stay calm, don't panic, walk, walk, that door over there is open, please walk, please carry the children, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic.
Delmar and Charlie emerge into the aisles. Joey is perhaps ten seconds behind.
The banes leap downward.
[curtains] [INITS]
[Face of Death] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Lights Out] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Low Key] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[curtains] Banes [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Wyrmbreaker] (+8+10)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] [Init Order:
Wyrmbreaker
Face of Death
Low Key
Banes
Lights Out
3 minutes, folks!]
[Face of Death] [soak talen]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Lights Out] [Holding action.]
[curtains] Banes 4, 3, and 2
[Ignoring Garou, jumping on some ghosts]
Bane 1
[1a. Closing distance
1b. Blast on Wyrmbreaker]
[Low Key] Delmar reaches up awkwardly at his back under the hoodie. The thing he pulls out looks like a thick piece of rebar about the length of his arm, only its got the flat, heavy head of a hammer on the end, and on the opposite side of the hammer, a viciously sharp spike. He swings it slowly in his hand, backing away slightly as his clothes tighten on him, disappearing under his skin, and his muscles and bones ripple as he shifts.
[Declare: Ready weapon, shift to Crinos]
[Face of Death] [1R snapshift to Hispo, 1W activate RP
split: bite/bite Bane 1]
[Face of Death] [still shifting and activating RP
1a: close on bane
1b: bite bane 1
R: bite 1 again!]
[Wyrmbreaker] (reflexive: "Stay together! Backs to the walls!"
1WP resist pain
1a. luna's armor (1gn)
b. grapple bane one to give FoD an easier target!)
[Wyrmbreaker] (luna's armor, -2. ffs.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Wyrmbreaker] (grapple! -3)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] [THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT, INTERNET. *SLAPS THE BITCH*]
[Face of Death] [1b: Bite Bane 1: dex + 1 (Twister) + 2 (hispo) + brawl -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)
[Face of Death] [damage: str + 1 (Twister) + 2 +2]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Low Key] [Stam+Primal Urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Changing action to attack Joey. Closing distance and clawing (-3).]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[curtains] [Damage. Rage + Suxx -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [SOAK]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] [Banes 3 and 4: Eating. Charlie!]
[Lights Out] [Rituals+Wits: Summoning the Triptych. +1 diff (held action). HAIL CAMERON!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) [WP]
[Lights Out] [Gnosis: How happy are we?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 7, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[BLAST. YAY FIRE.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (YAY SOAK.)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [R: Bite Bane 1: dex + 1 (Twister) + 2 (hispo) + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [damage pt 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [damage pt 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] The banes leap down and hit the ground. Two of them scrabble for ghosts, latching their fangs into the ethereal creatures and seeming to suck on them, burn them, eat them all at once. The ghosts vanish as the banes devour their pain, still so potent after a century and change.
Lukas shouts for the other Garou, newly appeared, to stay together. His skin glimmers suddenly with silver light, but faintly so. A bane is rushing him, and he grabs it in glabro, clinging on as Joey -- suddenly in hispo, enormous and iron-gray -- rushes forward and bites with utter ineffectuality. Delmar hangs back, slowly moving into war form and pulling his dedicated weapon out. The bane in Lukas's arms twists its head around and unleashes a gout of flame towards him, which Lukas essentially shakes off. Another bane, seeing all this, darts across the theater, trampling frightened ghosts, and lunges to claw at the freckled Fenrir.
She feels nothing. That doesn't mean she's not bleeding.
Charlie barely notices. His eyes are going faraway and dark as he reaches into the ether to summon a spirit that he knows does not want to come to him, that should refuse to see him, a triat of femininity that is as old as Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm. For a moment it seems that threads have appeared all over him, at first spinning out of control and then tighter, then -- snapping.
He feels the rush of power from a summoning, but no spirits appear. Not yet.
[Re-init!]
[curtains] Banes [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Face of Death] [+10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Lights Out] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Wyrmbreaker] (+18)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Low Key] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8
[curtains] [Init Order:
Lukas
Delmar
Joey
Bane1
Bane2
Bane3
Bane4
Charlie]
[curtains] [GE OU]
[curtains] [I TOLD YOU NEVER TO COME INTO THE WEST WING]
[Lights Out] [Reflexive: Snap-shift to Crinos.
Split Action: Close distance/Claw Bane 2. Rage Action: Claw Bane 2.]
[curtains] Bane 4
[Oh look. Garou. Nifty! Blast Delmar.]
Bane 3
[What? Werewolves? Tasty! Close distance/Claw Charlie]
Bane 2
[Blast Charlie]
Bane 1
[Reverse hold on Lukas]
[Face of Death] [split: bite/bite Bane 1]
[Low Key] DECLARE!
1a: Dodge Bane Blast
1b: Hammer on Bane 1
1c: Fuck Bane 1's shit RIGHT UP! (wp)
Rage: Ka-BONG! Guess what Bane 1, you gon DIE!
[Low Key] Also: Activate Resist Pain
[Wyrmbreaker] (Holding action until after Low Key goes to give Low Key benefit of grapple
Then --
1 rage to hispo
1a
b - chomping bane 1 if it's still alive. Otherwise, bane 2.
R1 chomp moar!
R2 annnd moar!)
[Low Key] [Crinos Dex + Melee, -4, Diff 8 -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 8 (Failure at target 7)
[Low Key] Again!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7) [WP]
[Low Key] [Strength + 3 for hammer, +1 for suxx] Part 1
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] Part 2
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] a! chomp!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9 (Failure at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] b!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
[Wyrmbreaker] damage! +2
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1a: Bite Bane 1: dex + 1 (Twister) + 2 (hispo) + brawl -2 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1b: Bite Bane 1: dex + brawl -3 (split) +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Changing Action: Claw Delmar]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[curtains] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Low Key] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Blast on Charlie]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Soak: Stamina +3 (Crinos).]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Close / Claw Charlie]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[curtains] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] [Dodge!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast on Delmar -Dodge]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Second Split Action: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Claw Bane 2. -5 pool (wound penalty/split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Failure at target 8) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] (bane 1, DIE!)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage+1)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1
[Wyrmbreaker] (+3)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Low Key] [KA-BONG!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Low Key] Damage: Strength +3 +2
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Reflexive: -1 WP: Activate Resist Pain.
Rage Action: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Claw Bane 2!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Lights Out] [Damage: Strength +1 (Bear) +4 (Crinos) +0] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] [Rapid Recap:
Bane 1: Verge of death, in range
Bane 2: Kinda hurt, in range
Bane 3: OK, in range
Bane 4: OK, must close to hit
Lukas: 4A
Delmar: OK
Joey: 3A
Charlie: 4A]
[curtains] [Re-init!]
[Face of Death] [+10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[curtains] Banes [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Low Key] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9
[Lights Out] [+7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[curtains] Wyrmbreaker [+10 +10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[curtains] [Init Order!
Lukas
Delmar
Joey
Charlie
Bane 1
Bane 2
Bane 3
Bane 4]
[curtains] [Before I forget:
Joey, regain 1 Rage
Lukas, regain 2 Rage
Charlie, regain 1 WP]
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast on Delmar]
Bane 3
[Blast on Joey]
Bane 2
[Blast Charlie]
Bane 1
[Enh! Claw Lukas]
[curtains] The Triptych
[Show up. HOWL. Look for foolish male that dared summon them.]
[Lights Out] [Split Action: Claw Bane 3/Claw Bane 2. Rage Action: Claw Bane... uh... 2!]
[Face of Death] [split: bite/bite Bane 2, WP second bite
Rage: bite bane 3]
[Low Key] DECLARE!
1a: Dodge again!
1b: Hammer Bane 1 Sommore
1c: Guess what, Bane 1 (WP)
Rage: I TOLD YA YOU GONN DIE! (Hammer one more time)
[Wyrmbreaker] reflexive: telling low key and lights out to flank their respective targets. telling both of them to stay on 2 until it's down.
1gn - bloody bandage for +3!
splitting actions
a
b
c
d - chompity! starting with bane 1, then bane two.
[Wyrmbreaker] a! -4
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Botch x 2 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Low Key] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 4 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] b. -5
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
[Wyrmbreaker] +4 damage
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 1
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (c. -6, going on to bane 2.)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] d. -7! and um. +WP.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP] Re-rolls: 1
[Wyrmbreaker] (+1)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Low Key] Flank and hammer bane 2, -4 for split
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7 (Failure at target 9)
[Low Key] And again
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)
[Low Key] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1a: Bite Bane 2: dex + brawl -2 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1b: Bite Bane 2: dex + brawl -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 2
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [First Split Action: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Claw Bane 3! -2 pool (split), -1 diff (flank).]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Lights Out] [Damage: Strength +1 (Bear) +4 (Crinos) +1 (suxx).] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Second Split Action: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Claw Bane 3! -3 pool (split), -1 diff (flank), +1 diff (changed target).]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Lights Out] [Damage: Strength +1 (Bear) +4 (Crinos) +0] [A]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[curtains] Triptych
Noticing the hundreds of screaming women and children in the audience. Hmm.
Bane 1
DED
Bane 2
DED
Bane 3
[Blast on Joey]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [SOAK]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Low Key] Dodge -3
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast on Delmar -Dodge]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Low Key] FENRIR SMASH! (Bane 3)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9)
[Low Key] Daamge
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [R: Bite Bane 3: dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Rage Action: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Claw Bane 3! +1 diff (fuckin' target change).]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 10 (Failure at target 9)
[curtains] The banes, at first distracted by the feast they enjoy every autumn and winter as the energies in this place reach a peak of memory and agony, suddenly notice the Garou that have impinged on their feeding grounds. Men, women, and children continue to run screaming through the aisles. Their presence does so little damage to the Garou as they shift shape and attack the banes making this worse than time itself can do that the werewolves feel rushes of cold, shudders of impact, but shrug off the pain as it flows away from them.
That doesn't mean the ghosts are not running still. Slamming hands on doors that are locked with lever-activated intricacies from Europe that they don't know how to use. The man they met outside is still trying to help people stay calm, and a few people are listening. They can hear screaming as people in the balconies jump into a smoke-filled alleyway from doors that have unfinished fire escapes. They are too busy to imagine the firefighters holding nets...missing the bodies that fall because they simply cannot see through the choking smoke.
Bodies are piling up in the aisles and seats. History said seven deep in places. History also forgave the man who built this place. After all. He also designed the Drake Hotel.
But none of that matters. Eddie Foy shouts from onstage until he is hoarse, when above him appear three females, floating. They are twice the size of humans, each of them dressed in long black robes with heavy hoods. Their arms are at their sides. One of them is a bit smaller than the others. Her robe is sleeveless, and her pale hands hold clumps of half-spun thread. The one in the center has rich embroidery all over her robe, and holds a distaff in one hand, a comb in the other. The third wears a robe in tatters, threadbare and dark. There is a long, gleaming pair of shears in her hand. Their faces are hidden, but they bring with them an energy that is
powerful
feminine
and enraged.
Yet the Triptych do not descend howling on the Theurge of Pegasus's Tribe to tear him to pieces, spin thread from his hair and entrails, weave him into a bloody tapestry, cut him to pieces to hang him in the sky like a constellation of warning. They are caught, momentarily, by the sight of the hundreds upon hundreds of screaming, terrified women being shoved aside as they try to find a way out. Most of the men were at work this day; the audience is primarily female. Primarily children.
Children are being trampled. Torn from their mother's arms.
And the Rage of the Triptych turns elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in the thick of things, the Fostern Ahroun lunges for the bane he's fighting with and accidentally does exactly what was done to him. He bites into one of the two Fenrir Rotagar he's fighting alongside, wounding Delmar grievously. He doesn't stop. He is biting too fast, too hard, too many times, and rips through the bane's throat, tearing its head off. And yet he nearly hits Delmar again as he whips his head around to bite the other bane that's attacking them. Distracted, perhaps, by this massive failure in battle, wounding his own allies, Lukas cannot do a single thing to the second bane.
Delmar, however. He whiffs with his hammer, then brings it again a second time and all but destroys the second bane's spine. The thing lets out a shriek of agony, flames spitting from its maw. At the beginning of this battle, all the Garou were hardly touching the banes. His hammer did not hurt them. Lukas's bites barely touched them. One of the banes clawed Charlie bloodie and Delmar managed to dodge most of a fiery blast in his direction, but Joey bit Wyrmbreaker when she meant to bite a bane and otherwise, otherwise, the Garou did almost nothing. Now, though. Now they are tearing the banes to pieces.
Joey lands the killing blow on the second bane, biting it twice in quick succession and finishing off what the others have started. Charlie's claws whip through the air once, twice, taking a third and almost unhurt bane to limping on its spindly just powerfully jumping legs. He does not have time to look up and see what he has summoned. Gouts of flame issue from the mouths of the two living banes, doing...absolutely nothing. The fire glances off of the Garou just as the imaginary ghostflames in the theater do.
Maybe they're getting tired. Delmar slams his hammer into the third bane but it does barely half the damage he did before to its cousin. Joey and Charlie, both injured, fail to do anything with tooth and claw this time around.
[Damage:
Lukas 1A
Delmar 4A
Joey 3A
Charlie 4A
Triptych Pissed off.
Bane 1 Dead
Bane 2 Dead
Bane 3 MOMMY IT HURTS
Bane 4 OK]
[Wyrmbreaker] There's blood in his mouth; ichor in his mouth. Sometimes his teeth crunched through carapaces and foulness. Sometimes they bit into blood and bone.
Wyrmbreaker is angry: angry that he missed the banes, angry that he tore into his allies, angry that the fire is raging, angry that the ghosts of a hundred year past are screaming and burning and the banes are
still.
fucking.
alive.
"Face of Death on point," he roars. "You, flanking," meaning Delmar. "Bring it down! Lights Out, stay behind them, heal them. I'll keep the last one off your backs for now."
[curtains] [Init Order
Lukas
Delmar
Joey
Charlie
Triptych
Bane 3
Bane 4]
[curtains] [Lukas, 2 Rage
Delmar, 3 Rage and 1WP]
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast Lukas / Blast Lukas]
Bane 3
[Blast Delmar]
Triptych
[Locking hands...]
[Lights Out] [Split Action: Mother's Touch Joey/Mother's Touch Delmar.]
[Face of Death] [1a: bite bane 3
1b: close on bane 4, aiming for rear attack]
[Low Key] If he could form more words than his mind would allow he would. He'd whip the blood from his wounds onto the floor of the ghost theater, and spit in rage and annoyance. He'd comply with Lukas's orders, but he'd shout back "As long as its away from you!"
But Delmar couldn't shout back any witty retorts in his Crinos form. And the truth was, even in a more eloquent form, he'd probably make the same sort of sound. That is, a deep throated, almost growling "Uhhhhr!"
Or at least something close to it.
1a: Dodge
1b: Bring the Pain on Bane 4
1c: More Pain
Rage: Even MORE PAIN!
[Low Key] 1a: Dodge
1b: Close to flank
1c: Bring the Pain
Rage: Even MORE PAIN!
[Wyrmbreaker] 1Gn --> Sense Dep Dart!
a. jab bane4! +WP
b.
c.
d. chomps while he's all WEEOO.
[Wyrmbreaker] er, make that:
1gn: activate dart!
a. close!
b. jab!
c
d. chompity chomp!
[Wyrmbreaker] 1gn: whummm.
a. runrunrun.
b. jab!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] c. well fuck you too, bane!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] d. chomp moar!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Low Key] Hammer -5
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Low Key] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1a: Bite Bane 3: dex + brawl -2 (split) +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Failure at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1b: Bite Bane 3: dex + brawl -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[curtains] [That was actually Bane 3, both times. Whoops.]
[Lights Out] [-1 Gnosis.
First Split Action: Intelligence+Medicine (+3): Mother's Touch Joey. -2 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9
[Lights Out] [-1 Gnosis.
Second Split Action: Intelligence+Medicine (+3): Mother's Touch Delmar. -3 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 8, 9
[curtains] The Triptych
[WHUMMM]
[Low Key] Dodge -3
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Blast on Delmar -Dodge]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast 1 on Lukas]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (OW MOTHERFUCKER)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast 2 on Lukas]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (I SAID OW.)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Low Key] Hamma time!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Low Key] (That's what I get for leaving the R off.) DAMAGE!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] [Damage Tally:
Lukas: Incap
Delmar: OK
Joey: OK
Charlie: 4A
Triptych: WHUM WHUM WHUM
Bane 3: Verge of Death
Bane 4: Badly Hurt
No Rage or WP back
Init Order same as list above, DECLARE]
[curtains] Bane 4
[Blast Delmar / Claw Lukas]
Bane 3
[Blast Joey / Blast Charlie]
Triptych
[something fucking badass]
[Face of Death] [split: bite/bite bane 3]
[Lights Out] [Split Action: Close Distance/MT Lukas.]
[Face of Death] [puts declare in it's proper place
bite/bite bane 3]
[Low Key] 1a: Move/leap behind Bane 4
1b: Get to hammering
1c: Hammer some more
Rage: C'mon, die already! (Hammer)
[Low Key] 1a: Gets behind
1b: Hammer -4
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (assuming heal werkz:
1 gn --> BB on charlie.
a,b,c,d: bite bane 4, then 3, if any are still alive.)
[Low Key] Second Hammer, -5
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Low Key] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1a: Bite Bane 3: dex + brawl -2 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [1b: Bite Bane 3: dex + brawl -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Face of Death] [damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Lights Out] [-1 Gnosis: GAIA'S BREATH RAWR!]
[Wyrmbreaker] weeoo!
a. chomp bane 4!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage!)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 4
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[curtains] Bane 3
JOEY KILLED IT
Bane 4
LUKAS KILLED IT
[Wyrmbreaker] b.c., chomps at air a few times.
d. BB! +3 hp! whummm.
[curtains] Triptych
[WHUMMM WHUM WHUM! WHUM WHUM WHUMMM WHUMWHUM! WHUM!
[curtains] [Wait for it.]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 8)
[curtains] [Apparently they can do whatever they want.]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 12 at target 4)
[curtains] All around them, the flames go higher. They crawl up the walls, lick at the ceiling, devour the seats and balconies. The ghosts panic despite Mr. Foy's advice, but enough listen that it makes a difference. Enough so that as he stands there on stage begging people to stay calm, it matters. Until he looks up and sees the Fates, summoned by a male, extending their arms and locking hands. Thread is held between Clotho and Lachesis's hands. Distaff is held between Lachesis and Atropos. Energy begins to build, enough to make the three spirits vibrate in midair over the stage, enough to make the actor decide that this time around, he is going to run sooner rather than later.
Enough to make the Banes begin to panic, scrambling to attack the Garou with more ferocity, looking hungrily at the fleeing ghosts.
Enough to make the fur of the Garou stand on end.
There is a purity to their Rage that even Lukas, filled to the brim with it, cannot entirely wrap his mind around. Were it not for the presence of the Fates tonight it's entirely possible that this would go on, and on, that the banes would keep returning no matter how many of them were killed or fed. But something is about to change.
Down below, the warriors of Gaia -- mother of all, mother of Pegasus, goddess to even these powerful spirits -- fight on. They bite and snap at the banes that send bursts of fire at them, hammer at them with dedicated weaponry, claw at them with vicious hands. Except for Charlie. Charlie does not attack. He rushes to his friend first and lays his hand on her, reaching out almost simultaneously and touching Delmar. Bursts of cool, flowing power leave his hands, sapping his spirit but closing oozing wounds on both other fighters.
The Theurge is in rare form tonight.
As are the banes. Not even moments after Charlie heals Joey and Delmar, a wall of fire crosses through the air, passing through a fleeing ghost, and eats away at Lukas Wyrmbreaker, charring his flesh and fur, even diving down his throat to burn him from within. He drops to the ground, his body smoking, twitching, still burning as much as the dress of that first ghost that ran towards him.
With the loss of the Fostern's impromptu leadership, the Cliaths don't miss a beat. Delmar hammers away at the bane that just felled the Shadow Lord, while Joey disembowels the bane that will not seem to leave her side. She is so infuriated that she lunges and very nearly bites off the hand that just healed her, not even noticing at first that her true enemy has just been killed.
Charlie just looks at her for a moment before bolting to Lukas and crushing a talen over his head. There's a pale blue glow and Lukas comes back, bit by bit, skin and fur regrowing. He is still badly burned all over, covered in soot and ash, his pale eyes gleaming with rage like he has very, very rarely felt before and may not feel again for some time. He rises, returning talen for talen, and attacks one. Last. Time.
The last bane, beaten by hammers and claws and teeth, falls in a crumple after Lukas bites off its lower jaw and part of its throat, spits out a mouthful of flame-touched fangs.
The Garou have perhaps two, three seconds to realize that they have finished what they started before a child's shriek fills the air, followed by a woman's, followed by a crone's. They echo off of mahogany, off of marble, off of velvet, off of eardrums, off of skin, loud enough to hurt, loud enough
to break apart the remnants and wraiths, shuddering to dust
to disintegrate the bodies of banes, shuddering to dust
to crack the walls and rip through upholstery, all of it, everything
shuddering to dust and memory.
A sudden flood of silver light erupts from the Triptych, filling the theater, obliterating the senses of the werewolves for a few stark, terrifying seconds. They may be dying right now, after all that, after everything.
And then it's gone.
In its wake is silence. As the glow fades, the feeling of terror and heat evaporates. There is no more screaming, no more shrieking. The bodies piled seven deep to burn are gone. The exits... aren't even there anymore. They are in the dark, quiet penumbral reflection of the Ford Theater. Eddie Foy is nowhere to be seen. Neither are the banes. It is still as a graveyard, and as peaceful.
The blight is gone. The filth. The taint. The memory of a 602 deaths remains but not the anger, not the panic that the banes come here to feed on.
And the Triptych are standing, human-sized, in front of the Garou, holding the implements of their status, hoods shadowing their face. The second-shortest, the oldest and most ragged, lifts her sheers and points at Charlie. The bare-armed child raises a fistful of thread and points at Delmar. Lachesis points, with her distaff, at Lukas. And they beckon the males forward.
[Face of Death] It's over. It's finally over and done with. Joey stands on four legs, her mouth filled with the blood of enemy and ally alike. Her iron grey fur is soaked with her own blood.
Dark eyes take in the scene, what should be carnage, what should be flame and panic, and sees...none of that. Everything is gone, as if it had never been. Or as if it had, one hundred years ago, and had every trace of its existence removed.
If it weren't for the three spirits, she would howl with glee, for their victory, for none of their deaths. If not for the maiden, mother, and crone, she would prance and cavort and dance, a massive dog filled with the joy of battle.
But she remains still, and she watches in awe as the spirits beckon the males forward. And she waits, to see if they'll be killed, or not.
Hopefully not.
[Lights Out] If it were not a crisis, if the corruption and the burden of lingering pain on this place were not so great that it was beyond his power to affect on his own, if this were something that an elemental or a Naturae could have handled, Lights Out would not be fearing for his life and the lives of the Fostern and the stranger right about now.
They fought admirably. Not just admirably: despite ferocious wounds that would have slowed them down without the ability to ignore grievous pain, despite the time it took Lights Out to lay down his claws and heal the others, despite the fact that these Banes have been feasting on the trauma and misery of the 602 people who died here over a hundred years ago, glutting themselves on it, growing stronger from it, they cut them down one by one. How much of that has to do with the working Triptych is hard to say, but as the last Bane falls, as the world crashes to ash around them and leaves them standing before the Fates with nothing else left, that's the least of his concerns.
The three women are in their human guises now, and it is with the last of his ancient anger that the Theurge abandons his more comfortable birth form and shifts into a form that will enable him to communicate with spirits that do not speak English. He is tall, skinny, and disheveled in his human skin, with a disemboweled lavender book bag on his shoulders and his own blood staining his torn clothing without a visible wound to explain it, and though he looks visibly intimidated, he does not quail, and he does not cower.
When those shears point at his chest, when that hand beckons, the male Fury squares up his shoulders, sets his jaw, and steps forward.
[Low Key] He still had his hammer in the air, the Crinos form lifting and swinging easily with just one arm. He still had poised and ready to strike when Lukas rose up and, in an instant, bit the face off the Bane he'd been certainly about to kill.
A clawed foot stomped to the ground and the grey and white crinos screamed!
And then, so did the Triptych. Of course, Delmar didn't know that was what they were called. He only knew that the sound of their vices in that instant had buckled him to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, clapped his hands over his ears, and he cringed. And when he opened his eyes again...it was all over.
This were potent spirits. And while all he could smell or see in this form was war, he could also see, also smell when he was outmatched. And so, when that fistful of thread is pointed at him, when the spirit beckons him closer, Delmar's form ripples. The hammer looks slightly bigger in his beefy hands, and the hood, jeans, and sneakers come back to him now. Delmar doesn't pull the hood up over his Glabro form. He just shakes his head, spits once, and steps forward.
The hammer rests casually across his shoulders.
[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker's will is sapped. His rage is overflowing. He does not know what to do with this sort of primal fury. He is not made for it; not given to it; not yet ready for it. One final bite tore the last bane to pieces, and it's not enough. His eyes staring, teeth bared, he snaps at the air, looks for something, anything, to tear to pieces.
And then --
power.
Sheer might of the sort rarely encountered this close to the Realm, this far from the deep umbra where creatures such as the Triptych reside. The Shadow Lord bends beneath the blast, spine bowing, head lowering nearly to the ground, maw open in a silent snarl while his rage flames in reflexive, useless defiance.
Then it's done. And everything that was here is no more. It's all gone, scorched away, cleansed, burnt to ash. Fire corrupts. Fire destroys. Fire purifies.
Left in the wake of it, Wyrmbreaker is a monstrous, macabre sight. Black with fur where he still has fur; black with burns where he does not. Here and there, his body is marked with a pale, dead white -- skin burned down to the collagen. Every inch of him shivers and trembles with unsated, unstable fury; or perhaps with the effort to restrain that fury. He cannot stop snarling: soft, a growl laces every exhale, and his fur is upright all down his back, all over his body.
When the distaff points at him, the snarl spikes uncontrollably. His reptile mind perceives threat. It pings through his synapses, lights up his instincts, utterly ignores what sense or control a hundred million years of evolution has given him. Wyrmbreaker has to lower his head to avert an instinctive challenge. For a moment he stays thus, forepaws braced, hackles up, fighting against himself. Then, following the Theurge's unspoken lead, he too shifts slowly into his homid shape.
His clothes are charred on his body. His chest heaves with short, rough breaths, as much scorched lungs as it is unfettered rage. His hands open and clench to fists, open again. He stands silently.
[curtains] Two homid males and one glabro approach the Triptych, smaller now in these pretenses. The youngest must look up at Delmar, his Fenrir breeding and his enormous hammer. Her eyes, when he sees them in the depths of her hood, glow blue.
The central Fate, the one closest to the Weaver, looks straight at Lukas. Her eyes glow green.
And the crone, the title some Furies also give their metis -- male and female alike -- from birth because they are naturally unable to bear children, watches Charlie. Her instrument looks the most frightening. Her eyes glow red.
As one, they strike, razor-sharp threads against Delmar's throat, a blunt crack of wood to Lukas's jaw, a stab of what feels like silver to Charlie's gut. There is a snap of howling rage when it happens, this punishment based on genitalia and thousands of years of pain in the divide between the genders. Joey is left untouched, unharmed, because she is female. Because the Triptych may look down on her for following and fighting alongside males, but they will not harm her tonight.
The males, though. Them they punish.
As they pull back, damage done and absorbed -- or not -- the crone switches her bloodied shears to her other hand and grabs a hold of Charlie's chin, pulling him towards her until he can feel the breath of ages, smell the reek of decay, as he speaks. None of the others understand what she says to him in the language of spirits, whispering and ancient. They can tell one thing: it, like the punishment, was a warning.
The Fates vanish, as suddenly as they appeared.
Wounded and whole, the Garou are left in nothing more spectacular than the penumbral shadow of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
[curtains] [Crone - Stabbing Charlie]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5 (Failure at target 6)
[curtains] [Mother - Striking Lukas]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[curtains] [Maiden - Raking Delmar]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[curtains] [...OH COME ON.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Wyrmbreaker] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Low Key] There's a sound that comes from his throat. It sounds as if its coming from far away, but building into the ultimate expression of frustration.
"GrrrrrrrAAAAHHHHH!"
He turns to all of them, hammer held in both hands now.
"You people are fffffffucking Nuts!"
And then he turns to Wyrmbreaker.
"And Dangerous."
And one last swing of his hammer resonates against the ground of the theater's umbral reflection.
"I'm Leaving!"
And so he does.
[Wyrmbreaker] Wood cracks solidly across Lukas's face, adding a new welt to his collection of wounds that will, over time, become a bruise. Or perhaps not. He's not human. The evidence of that is in the twist and flame of his rage, in the volcanic blast of fury that follows the blow. He doesn't heal as humans do.
He doesn't do a thing to retaliate, either, and whether that's common sense or honor is anyone's guess. Whatever it is, it's also an exercise in control.
Then the Fates are gone, and the air seems somehow lesser without them. Wyrmbreaker pulls in a long breath, only begins to let it out when --
Delmar loses his shit.
And Lukas whirls on him, teeth bared, all burns and ashes and soot, and rage.
"You probably saved my life tonight. That's the only reason I haven't torn you open. But disobey my orders in combat again and I'll tear your face off."
celebration.
9 years ago