Saturday, April 30, 2011

singularity: core.

[-singularity-] The last of the arms falls away, thrashing, its death-throes sending tremors through the earth. Or what passes for earth here: fleshy, pulsating, beating with some terrible dark heartbeat of its own. All that remains is the core, naked now, a bulbous clot of flesh, muscle that sometimes seems to rotate and twist inside its sac of thin-stretched skin.

It is weakened. It has been stripped of its attendants. But it is not defeated. Its claws are sunk deep into this realm; it will not die so easily.

[R1 - nomf sinclair!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [bitch, you ain't shit.]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [R2 - nomf sarita!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[SOAK PLEASENOWKTHXBYE]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Owwwww claw attempt -5 wound penalty]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Damage]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [HDY I AM THE CORE!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [annnd end round! summary, after bashing regens:

Sinclair OK
Kate OK
Sarita 6A
MS 2L
WtSE OK

Core OK - somewhat weakened getting arms torn off, but looks like it can take a hit still.

Init order (taking into account wounds):

Sinclair
Kate
WtSE
MS
Sarita

Declare while I post!]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[1a: Fuck you you don't scare me bringer of my death I CLAW YOU!
1b: Yes, I know I have wound penalties I STILL CLAW YOU]]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[And R1: I CLAW MORE!]]

[-singularity-] MS:
1a. GB Sarita ffs!
b. GB someone else, and then i'm outta gnosis too!

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [If possible, reflexive: Take hits for Midnight Sun (HAELZ STICK TUGEDDER)
1:
R1:
R2:
R3: Claws on Core]

[Honor's Compass] [Kate is:

1a. Smacking a GB on Sarita's ass, cuz she's sassy like that.
1b. Biting Core!
1c Biting Core!]

[Brutal Revelation] [1a.
1b.
R1.
R2. -- eat the Core]

[-singularity-] [ack! belated! you guys can free-change if you want.

Core:
1. EARTHQUAKE, FUCKERS!
R1. Again!
R2. SPAM AOE! BLOW COOLDOWNS! FACEROLL! PANIC!!!11oneone]

[Brutal Revelation] [NOMF]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Brutal Revelation] [grrrr!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] The wolves array themselves around this last, terrible nexus of the realm. It is all contorting flesh and gaping mouths, all teeth, not sharp and white but blunt and yellow, which is somehow all the worse. Its smaller mouths shriek and gibber, no language any of them would want to understand.

Its largest mouth is purely for destruction.


And Wyrmbreaker can't touch it. Neither of them can, just like they can't touch their own packmates now. Their. He wonders when he began to think of them as that. Our. The face under his hand feels familiar; it should. It's his own. He's seen it a hundred thousand times in the mirror, shaves it, washes it, wears it like a mask for the predator he is, beneath.

"They are our packmates," he tells his double softly.
"They are."
"They are our responsibility."
"They are."
"We protect them."
"We do."
"We guide them."
"We do."
"We lead them."
"We do."
"It is our duty, and our honor."
"It is."

A pause.

" ... but we can't help them now."

A longer pause.

"We can't."

"And they aren't helpless without us."

A very long pause.

"They're not."

Lukas smiles then. It's strange to see it: that same smile, slow and warm and just a little sad.

"We are their Alpha. We are their friend. We are their brother. But we are not their shield, their shelter, their sole protection against everything.

"And they don't need us to be."


There's no answer necessary then. Wyrmbreaker takes a deep breath. He can barely manage; a lung is punctured; he's nearly killed himself. He holds out his hand. His double takes it, seizes it, ferociously hard, and --


Wyrmbreaker rises alone from the floor. He staggers toward his packmates; shifts; he rips a Bloody Bandage from his fur and as it unravels he picks up his pace, breaks into a run as it disintegrates. His fur is matted with blood and some darker, more viscous fluid. Even with the Bandage there are traces of wounds, doubly self-inflicted.

It doesn't matter. He roars as he takes his place with his pack, shoulder to shoulder with them.


[Wyrmbreaker's declare:
1a/b/c - shit ton of bloody bandages as necessary!]

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [OMMM NOM NOM NOM NOM]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [I JUST WANNA DO DA-A-AM-AAAGE. :[ ]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [1a. Biting Core!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [ack soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [1b. Annnnd again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [EEEP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] It's not that the core isn't strong. It's not that it, stripped of its attendant arms, is defenseless. Is helpless. Is harmless.

It's not that at all. It's simply the fact that it's outmatched.

The Glass Walker holds its attention. The Silver Fang shreds it from behind, splits it open, cleaves into it. Utterly savage, utterly terrible, Honor's Compass rips into the thing, and the last bite, the deepest, finds some critical juncture. Some nerve-center that, once severed, makes survival impossible.

A hideous keening fills this unformed space, this region of corruption and foul flesh. It sears their ears and blinds their eyes, rings in their skulls until one by one they must drop to their knees, cover their ears, close their eyes lest their heads simply burst.

And then -- just like that -- it's over. An enormous, soundless explosion sucks at their ears. Rolls outward from the core, peeling back the flesh, the ichor, the blackness, the corrosion. Burns it all away, clean as white ash.

When they open their eyes again, the world has changed.


The room is gone. The flesh-chamber is gone. All that remains is a limitless whiteness, and this being. Purified now.

Where the core seethed there now stands a figure. Humanoid; innumerable arms arrayed behind it. Six arms larger than the rest, prominent, flawless, svelte and strong. Each bears a talisman: a sword, an axe, a sceptre, a dagger, an orb, a torch. Six eyes in its head, glowing blue. No other discernible features.

It does not speak to them. It looks at them for a very long time, recognizing them, seeing them. And then -- between one blink and the next -- it simply vanishes away.

There's a door left behind. It's open, waiting. Through it, they can see a passageway leading upward, curving right.

[-singularity-] [Final summary:

Sinclair OK
Kate OK
Sarita 6A
MS 2L 1B
WtSE 1B
Lukas 1Aish?

Core - 15A +2
6 arms - 7A each (plus overkill here and there)]

[Echoes of Laughter] She's been knocked down in the fight. She got up. She's been nearly knocked the hell back down again and she was on the verge of death. And still, Sarita threw herself at it. There are times that she fights smart. She's sneaky, she aims for weak spots, she dodges and blocks.

This was not one of those times.

She's ready to claw. She's punch-drunk and ready to swing for the fences, and then it's down and Kate's standing in front of where it was. She blinks a couple of times, smiles when she sees Kate. Breathes easier when she gets the Gaia's Breath, and shifts back to breed form.

"Fuck me, that hurt. Thanks." She clasps Kate's shoulder (whatever form she's in), smiles when she looks around and sees that everyone's still up. "Mission accomplished, I'd say. Awesome."

She looks at the door, looks to the others. Waits to accompany them out.

[Brutal Revelation] When all is said and done, the Galliard thinks dimly that she would be angry, her pride injured at multiple failures, if only...

well, if only her rage weren't so depleted, if her will weren't sapped. But mostly: if only she weren't so blindingly proud of Katherine, so worried for the rest of them. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, dancing in place as the Core dies, horrifically, right before her. As the world burns away, as the figure comes in front of them. Steel melts from her body and she recognizes the axe held in one of its arms. If she wore a human face, it might be smiling gently at that. And at the torch, truth be told.

She bows to it.

And as soon as it's gone, she goes to Sarita, a keening note in her throat, lapping at the other Garou's wounds as though that would heal them better than a gourd. When Katherine breaks one over her, Sinclair whuffs in satisfaction even though Sarita is not completely healed, and bumps her head against the sister she was snapping at just -- how long ago was it, now? A lifetime ago.

She gives Katherine a nudge, too. A congratulatory lick. Good sister good good very strong sister sister good yay. A bark, a yelp to voice what is only over the totemlink for a moment, and then she's checking on Margaret, on Maddox, giving each of them strangely familiar nuzzles, brushing against their sides as though they are already pack, already bound.

But truth be told, they are stops on her way to Lukas. She stops before him. Then opens her maw and gently, familiarly nomfs the joint between shoulder and neck, holding on in a savage sort of hug, their throats together.

Told you so, she thinks at him, and even her spiritual voice is soft. More tender than anything most would expect of her. Maddox and Margaret sure will be surprised. She lets go of him and bumps her head against his side, but there are no other words then. She just stays. Mentally, she urges Katherine and Sarita to come close, be close, come, come, everyone be close. Out loud, she gives whuffs and faint whines that say the same to Maddox and Margaret.

Come, come. Pack come.

[Honor's Compass] Perhaps she's simply reached her breaking point.

Perhaps ever since leaving her own 'room', her own test she's been a little more raw, a little more savage and unwilling to compromise. Honor's Compass is her name, but let it never be said she would not destroy what she must to find that compass. To ensure her direction is true. She fights, Katherine, fights alongside her sisters and future brother and sister.

She fights for her Alpha, as he wages a bloody and in the end fruitless war upon his own other self.

They fall, but they do not die.
They drop, but they stagger upright again.

How long do they fight for, she cannot remember only that at the end, the arms torn away, only this mass left behind the Silver Fang lets out a deep, brutal roar and sinks her jaws so deep, so deep she finds the heart of this corruption -- and rips it out of the Umbral space it inhabits.

--

In the aftermath, in the clear limitless whiteness, the Silver Fang's fur is matted with black ichor. She opens burning eyes, the Adren and blinks several times. Sees stars and dots and sways on her feet a little before she can see the true core of this Realm, the untainted version, at least. It looks at them, and they look at it.

Honor's Compass tilts her great head to one side, her ear flicks; wet nose inhaling clean scents with great satisfaction.

After it is gone, the snowy wolf finds one of the Gaia's Breaths she'd stowed earlier, breaks it over her No Moon sister. Nuzzles her Galliard sister, then follows after to rub against her Alpha. To study him in a manner that suggests see, see pack can do much, not alone.

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] There was a moment in there, when they were being hammered, and comrades kept falling to the ground and Maddox and Margaret rush to heal, that it was just too much. Too infuriating. They were fighting and fighting, and so was the creature. And Lukas was off fighting himself, literally. In that moment, Maddox's Rage spiked higher than it's been in a long, long time. By then, he'd tapped his spiritual well dry, and almost didn't know what to do with that excess anger and wrath. So he spent it.

Unnecessarily, as it turns out. It doesn't matter, though. Maddox drops to his knees with the rest of them, claps huge handpaws over his ears, flattening them to his skull, squeezing his eyes shut. When it's over, when it's all finally over and he lowers his hands, he's dazed.

No more Rage.

No more gnosis.

He feels empty, hollowed out, lighter even than when he was trapped in that other shell. The one that was hollow inside, and wasted away after a cleansing. He stares at the being, his head tipped up, swaying where he kneels. Then he shifts, becomes homid again. His dark hair is askew, his clothing is a mess. He stares at it, hands dragging at his sides. The look on his face is one full of wonder. And then it's gone. It's over. It's over and he doesn't feel so cranky, bitter, or angry.

Maddox just feels like himself. More than, less than. He needs rest. He needs to meditate for a goddamn day. Sinclair nudges him, and he huffs, but this time it's amusement and relief. The Theurge staggers to his feet. He looks from packmate to packmate to packmate, ending finally on Lukas, brows lifted in query. Sinclair treats him like he's pack already, but the final judgment isn't hers alone. Placing one foot in front of the other, Maddox makes his way mostly steadily to where the others gather around their alpha.

[-singularity-] To say Wyrmbreaker is relieved would be true. To say he is a little abashed -- also true.

To say he is proud: an understatement.

He has nothing to say to them. He lays his chin over Sinclair's back and closes his eyes a moment. Nips at Kate's ear gently. Bumps sides with Sarita. Only a little pause, and then he pushes his nose into Midnight Sun's ruff; puts his huge paw over the back of Maddox's neck and pulls him into a rough sort of proto-embrace.

Let's go, his whuff says when he drops all four paws back to the ground. Let's go, the turn of his body says.

There's no hesitation as he takes the lead; no glance over his shoulder to make sure everyone was keeping up, to make sure no one was flagging, to make sure no one was left behind, no one was injured, no one was weak.


They're not weak. Of course not.


Upward, then.

Up the way they came. Every passageway broad and pristine now. From the bottommost and seventh room to sixth -- the triangular space where Lukas first met his double.

Another male stands there. None of them recognize him, not even Lukas, though there's something faintly familiar about him. Dark hair, blue eyes; he looks a little like Wyrmbreaker.

"Love the ones you love, Wyrmbreaker," he says. "Do not fear for them."

They run on.


The fifth room; four-sided. There is a figure in there. Katherine recognizes him even before he turns. He looks the way she remembers him. Young; not much older than she is now. He is not her father, but he smiles at her anyway.

"Your father is proud of you, Katie," he says,

and they run on.


The fourth room; five-sided. A little girl stands there, and they see her clearly for the first time. She is lovely. She looks like her mother. She speaks with her voice, but it is a spirit that speaks through her.

"You did not lose your family, Midnight Sun. They were taken from you, but you will see them again."

And they run on.


The third room; six-sided. A girl waits inside, blonde and blue-eyed. Not Sinclair, but reminiscent. She winks at Sinclair as she runs past.

"The whole picture's always bright and dark both, Sinclair," she laughs, "but you can't tell a truth by halves."

And they run on.


The second room; seven-sided. Sarita's double stands there. Cocky grin, but only if you failed to see the kindness beneath.

"Guess there isn't much you can't do, huh, chica," she calls,

and they run on.


And the first room; eight-sided. Nothing there but a torch, burning on: the torch the god of the realm held, so far below.


They run on: homeward.

[Brutal Revelation] [thank you again Damon!]

[-singularity-] [last bit of housekeeping -- for a month:

Maddox gains +1 perception.
Sarita gains +1 wits.
Sinclair gains +1 charisma.
Margaret gains +1 stamina.
Kate gains +1 intelligence.
Lukas gains +1 WP.

This would also be totally acceptable rationale to increase those stats permanently w/ XP after the month is up!]

[-singularity-] [final notes:

- the core was actually getting weakened by losing its arms. it started out with 10 attack/12 damage/8 soak or so, and that gradually wore down as its arms were lost. by the end i think it was around 7/8/6 or something -- so significantly weaker. if they had targeted the core directly, they could've actually killed the entire thing by killing the core. but six arms all attacking, plus core walloping with massive damage and massive soak, would've probably killed them deddedded.

- AOE IS INSANE. O_O

- i was pretty proud of having lukas essentially be his overprotective self THE ENTIRE SL, when that was always going to be his failing/weakness. i was also proud of basically not giving away that he'd be useless the last fight -- going so far as to charge him up and all!

- strong arm was lukas. not too much symbolism here, except maybe that he's strong and is always trying to protect everyone, so of course 'his' arm tries to harm everyone.

- claw was sinclair. i kinda liked that the most vicious arm was actually sinclair's! cuz sinclair's char has so much dichotomy -- this very caring side and this VICIOUS, WOUNDING, RIPPING side, both figuratively and literally.

- pretty one was kate. kate's a leader and a voice of reason; as a result, her arm bolstered the others (increased their dice).

- gibbering one was sarita. sarita's role is the questioner; as a result, her arm weakened enemies (decreased our dice).

- glowy one was margaret. she seems very supportive/want-to-help-esque. Her arm was the healer arm.

- dark one was maddox -- directly reflecting that he spent the entire SL keeping the light going through thick and thin.

- sword was lukas, axe was sinclair, sceptre was kate, dagger was sarita, orb was margaret, and torch was maddox. these really just reflected the associations above.

- the reason lukas and sinclair did not meet their doubles again is because they both reclaimed them. the reason maddox didn't was because he actually BECAME him for a while, then returned to himself.

- basically every room reflected some negative aspect of yourself. each had three outcomes (though multiple paths to each): best would be somehow reconciling yourself with the negative aspect of yourself, thus resorbing it. this usually requires owning up to it first, though. Next best is defeating that negative aspect, though not quite accepting it. Worst, which only Maddox unfortunately got (most likely because he went first, poor guy!), would have been to fail to defeat it at all. In that case, that negative aspect essentially switched places with you, and you'd have to walk in its shoes before making it out.

- In its pure form, the realm was a place of insight and enlightenment. The tests were unlikely to be any easier, but perhaps they would be less overtly hostile/harmful, and likely wouldn't have carried threat of death. In this SL, there was SERIOUS threat of death.

- i was pretty pleased with how the SL turned out, all in all! i was particularly worried about the last room; i didn't want it to be completely lukas-centric, but at the same time it was only reasonable that he was the last one based purely on the nature of his gate. but all in all i thought it was fairly well executed (and timed!!)

- as for the final rewards -- the rationale was this:

1) maddox gained perception to help him see that he could not stand alone; was not unutterably superior; would do better with others.
2) sarita gained wits because she was the first to think her way out of the puzzle -- albeit with help from her pack. she also gained wits to help her succeed better in the future.
3) sinclair gained charisma because it made sense to me that someone who finally acknowledged the good and the bad in everyone would be more tolerant, which in turn tends to lead to a more charismatic/likeable person *dies*
4) margaret gained stamina because her gate was all about endurance, physical and emotional
5) kate gained intelligence because her gate was very cerebral; it requires that she simply refuse to succumb to madness, hold on to her mind, etc.
6) if lukas had gained an attribute, it would have been strength -- but his gate was much more about strength of will; the will to accept that he's NOT always going to be the shield wall, and doesn't have to be. originally it was leadership -- but will fit better.

annnnd that's all!]
to -singularity-

singularity: lukas.

[-singularity-] Last time on As the Maelstrom Swirls...

Kate's doors opened onto the Great Hall of Calvin de Provence, Silver Fang King of the Gleaming Eye House. Yet upon her entry, courtiers gathered within began to bow to her, hailing her as the Queen. Katherine denied the illusion, accepting it as false as she approached the throne, only to find the apparition of her father stepping from behind the throne.

Identifying himself as Christopher Bellamonte's spirit, the 'ghost' then instructed Katherine to sit the throne, claiming that it would symbolize her acceptance of her destiny and her father's pride in and plans for her. When Katherine again refused the throne -- repeatedly -- and instead claimed her own path in the world, apart from anyone else's plans for her, Christopher Bellamonte grew wroth and denounced her as a coward and a traitor. Flanked by her pack, Katherine resolutely departed the hall even as the crowds began to turn on her, hurling invectives and makeshift weaponry at her on her way out.

Once out of the room, Lukas warned the packmates that his room would be next, and self-identified rage and violence as his own weaknesses. He instructed that the packmates strengthen themselves with gifts and talens, setting out his stash of Gaia's Breaths (3) and soak talens (6) for the pack's use. Sinclair warned that his weakness may not be what he thinks it is.

[Honor's Compass] [Let the records show:

Kate still has Luna's Armor activated for +4 Soaking
Activating Resist Pain as we speak
Taking a GB in case as well as a Soak Talen]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Sarita has no Gifts to help her. She is simple taking a GB and a Soak Talen and activating the Soak Talen.]]

[Brutal Revelation] [Let the record also show:

Sinclair took a soak talen (+3)
Steelfur is active (+5)
Resist Pain is active
She has her own GBs]

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [Maddox:

* Offers up 1 extra GB per Garou (5 (including Margaret)), has more
* Has own soak talen, -1G +3 soak
* Shifts to Crinos
* Rolling for Faerie Light]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [And for the record, Lukas currently has:
- Resist Pain
- Luna's Armor +7
- Soak Talen +3
- Spirit of the Fray
- Bloody Bandage +6]

[-singularity-] Hands reach forward, talens taken and given. Small bursts of light as spirits are released. Faint rustles of steel as Sinclair's fur changes; a dark-bright glow on the walls as Lukas's Armor joins Katherine's. In the end, the Shadow Lord takes his somewhat depleted bag of talens back, tucking it back into its dedicated form. Even in hispo, his eyes are crystalline blue, meeting each of the others' in turn.

"Okay," he rumbles quietly. "Let's do this."


When they come around the corner, the door is before them. Where the ones before had reflected the minds and thoughts and -- sometimes -- deepest darkest feelings of those who had stood before them, this door is strangely plain. Just a slab of metal, with no visible knob or handle, polished so brightly that they can clearly see themselves reflected in it.

As Wyrmbreaker nears, he raises a paw, puts it against the door. As soon as he touches it, it opens -- a whisper of sound, and then a subaudible tremor in the tunnel, the floor beneath them, as the immensely heavy door slides upward.

It's a room inside. Not a forest, not a Great Hall. Just a room, but far more enormous than one could have imagined. Threesided, one vertix of the triangle to either side of them; the third directly ahead. The walls are dark. The floor is dark. Everything is dark, and deathly still, and everything gleams faintly wet. Stinks faintly of corruption.

Two things wait for them in that room. Standing in the center of the room, direwolf-form, forepaws braced wide, head bowed, is Wyrmbreaker. He looks larger than their Wyrmbreaker, stronger and faster and far more rageful.

Suspended above him -- drooping in midair as though hanging from unseen wires -- is Maddox. He is unconscious. He's bleeding at the side and from the leg, the exact places where their Maddox is bleeding. Where their Maddox's blood is black, though, the unconscious Maddox's is red. And though they cannot smell Wyrmbreaker's scent on his duplicate, they can smell Maddox's on his suspended double -- stronger, more vibrant, more alive than the scent on their Maddox.

There's no question about it. The Wyrmbreaker in the room is not Wyrmbreaker. The Maddox is the room is the true Maddox. The one they have been with all this time --

something else.


Not-Wyrmbreaker lifts his head. His eyes burn blue.

"He is my packmate, and I will protect him," he snarls. "I will not allow you to harm what is mine."

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair would brush or bump against Wyrmbreaker, the real one, if her fur weren't hardened, refined metal right now. So she just chuffs, standing alongside him: "Told you."

[Honor's Compass] Honor's Compass, adopting her Hispo form as they slip into this last, worst room, takes one glimpse of what is there, bristling, readying to protect the dangling Maddox; the real Maddox, if blood and scent were to be believed and swings her great head to bare her teeth at the imposter entering with them.

She's rounding on him.

Wordless, her teeth are very sharp as she snaps her jaw at him.

[Echoes of Laughter] She looks as they walk in, and her eyes widen. Back tenses. Jaw more or less drops open. Someone else may have seen this one coming. The Strider is not ashamed to say that she didn't. Maybe she should have, but she didn't.

"Oh, fucking hell." She takes a deep breath as she steps up, going into Crinos. Her back curls place her stance as that of a power position, ready to act in whatever way she has to.

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] They enter the room, and Maddox shifts upward. He grows taller, adds to his musculature. He's hideous in his war form. What should be powerful, even for a weakling like him, is wasted, emaciated. They can see the bones of his ribs and pelvis, even through his reddish fur. The skin of his head is pulled taut, accentuating his skull. He offers up talens and things, prepares for combat with the rest of them, grumbling all the while. He renews his little blue light.

Entering last, he's the last to see...

himself. Suspended in midair like a forgotten puppet. His dark eyes widen, his jaw drops, and before he can say or so anything

Kate is rounding on him. The others are adopting positions of strength, readying for something more. He backs away from the Silver Fang, backs up toward the door they left, which is no doubt gone now.

[-singularity-] Lukas has nothing to say in response to Sinclair -- just a quick snap of his head around. He looks shocked. Perhaps horrified.

Yet when Kate rounds on Sidewalk's End, he lets out a low, rough bark: "Stop! Whatever he is, he kept the light faithfully for us. And whatever he is, every wound he's taken has mirrored itself on Where the Sidewalk Ends. We get the real one back first. Then we worry about the double."

Across the room, not-Wyrmbreaker takes two menace steps forward, head lowering until his skull is level with his shoulders, until the bristle of the fur along his back stands taller than his ears.

"He is my packmate." Foam flies from not-Wyrmbreaker's jaws as he snaps his teeth. "I will protect him. He is mine, my duty, my responsibility, mine, and I will not allow you to harm what is mine!"

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] By all accounts, the Maddox with his back to the wall, with the light floating gently near his shoulder, who has snarked and snarled and huffed at the others most of this night, is the false one. He's empty on the inside. When he bleeds, it's black sludge that seeps from the wounds. The Maddox suspended up ahead is the real one. He smells right. He bleeds red blood.

The Maddox with his back to the wall doesn't feel not-himself. Even the attitude change, which has gotten worse and worse, doesn't feel not-right.

In fact, he gets angry when the not-Lukas snarls at them, comes forward with menace. The real Wyrmbreaker calls Kate off, and the Other steps forward.

"No," he says, though he doesn't step past the frontlines of the Unbroken. This isn't his room, or isn't supposed to be. That's how the pattern went, anyway. "He is me, which makes him mine. Nobody can have him but me." His tone, in the High Tongue, says No one else deserves him.

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair's comment when they first came in and saw what this room has for them was offhand, but not as flippant as it could have been. Dreadful, in a way, gnawing at the fact that, well, she was at least partly right. She didn't turn on Maddox -- Lukas is right. Whoever or whatever this thing with them is, he has been faithful. He has not backstabbed them. She isn't, in fact, even convinced that the thing dripping real read blood is actually the Maddox they came in with.

Striding alongside Wyrmbreaker, she says as much: "We not know sure. We be careful with both."

Not-Wyrmbreaker menaces, threatens, snaps his jaws, and Sinclair barks right back at him, a flurry of short, sharp roars threaded through with the sound of steel-on-steel. "We not harm. He ours, too! Wyrmbreaker ours."

[Honor's Compass] Katherine stops when her Alpha commands it, but she's still bristling. There's a low growl thundering in her chest; she chuffs and slides her claws over the floor. She is eying the Other Maddox with mingled mistrust and wariness as he steps forward and addresses the Other Lukas.

The Silver Fang rounds, and comes forward.

Her ears flatten against her skull at the threat implied by her not-Alpha, but she stands firm. "Not your duty. Part of Pack. Not yours to care for alone. Lukas not alone. Never alone."

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [C'mon, glow ball, stay on!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] Sarita is usually the one who talks. A little joke, a well-placed comment to make sure everyone's keeping true...whatever. Right now, she's not talking. Actions speak as loud as words, and the Strider takes up position with her packmates. Her brothers and sisters.

Her lip curls, and her body tenses. She's just waiting for the sign. She doesn't need to reiterate what the others have said; Maddox is theirs, and they will not let him go.

[-singularity-] "The pack is mine!" the not-Lukas snarls. "Mine to guide, mine to ward, mine to protect, mine, mine, my, MINE!"

It's hard to say who moves first, or if they move at once: both black hispos lunging forward, terrible claws flaying the floor open, all that mass moving out of sheer muscular strength, sheer power. Snarls explode from two throats at once: two rallying roars as both Wyrmbreakers charge for the other.

The Unbroken charge with Wyrmbreaker. But not-Wyrmbreaker has his own allies, and it's not the unconscious, broken Theurge suspended in midair. As the pack roars forward, the ground shudders and shakes. A deep black crack splits the room, splits the walls, tears open to reveal

a nightmare. A flashing, insane world where black is white, and white is black: where the walls are wet and heaving, where the floor beneath their feet trembles and spasms like a living thing. A monstrosity rises out of that floor: eyeless, headless, more an octopus than a man; a snapping, screaming mouth at the end of each arm, an enormous devouring maw in the center of its body.

Six arms, they might notice. Six arms, and one ravenous hole.

Seeing it, Wyrmbreaker instantly changes direction. "Stay with me!" he barks. "Let me take the hits. Flank it, destroy it!"


No more words. Wyrmbreaker lunges, teeth flashing --

and falls right through the creature, goes sprawling on the other side.

The shock is cold in the mind. He can't touch them.


Meanwhile, the not-Wyrmbreaker comes snapping for their throats. Kate's, perhaps, or Maddox's. It doesn't matter. He plunges right through them. Hits the floor -- what's left of it -- hard enough to slam a grunt out of himself.

The two black wolves scramble to their feet, eyes wild, teeth bared. They pass right through their foes -- both of them. There's a panic in the air, crackling like rage; a burst of almost-incoherence on the totemlink, have to protect can't let them fight alone they can't, and then both Wyrmbreakers are wheeling on their haunches, lunging again, catching each other in midair, slamming together in a vicious snap of tooth and claw.

It's impossible to tell who says it; or both. Perhaps it doesn't matter:

"No. NO! Not like this. I must protect them. Let me protect them!"


[annnnd we should init!]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Init +7]]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Honor's Compass] [+9]!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[-singularity-] [THE NOMFIEND! +10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Brutal Revelation] Stay with me! Let me take the hits! their Wyrmbreaker roars, and Sinclair snaps her jaws at him, thinks more than says

and Maddox and Margaret can't hear it, but the others can, the thoughts she has no time to say aloud: LISTEN TO YOURSELF.

She's not little-sistering him. She's dead serious.


But there's no time. He lunges and cannot touch the thing. Not-Wyrmbreaker goes right through her and she shudders. Wheels on the thing that their Wyrmbreaker can't touch, at least knowing that not-Wyrmbreaker can't touch them. Instantly, she rallies, barking aloud: "Sidewalk and Midnight Sun stay back, heal us if you can! Echoes, Truth, flank or get behind it. GO!"

[+10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[-singularity-] [Midnight Sun in Crinos: +8!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [Inits:
Sinclair 20
Kate 16
Nomfiend 14
Sarita 11
MS 9
WtSE 8]

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [Stay behind the fighters!
1a:
1b:
1c: GBs as necessary]

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair, lunging towards the six-armed beast at point, flicks her eyes suddenly, shouts mentally to the two packmates who are attacking with her, the sisters she runs with: Try to take out the arms first. We'll finish it off together at the end.

[-singularity-] As the pack charges forward, seamlessly following Sinclair now, tight on her heels, the beast rears to face them. An obscene, shrieking mouth snaps and spits at them from the core; six others ring it.

They are not created equal. One is dark, corded and bunched with muscle. When it slams the ground in threat, the shudders threaten to knock them off their feet. Another bears a sickle-claw. A third is streaked in white and gold; gleams in the faltering light. A fourth: the mouth gibbering and snarling, spitting obscenities that cut the ears. A fifth, dripping with black sludge. And the last, trailing darkness where it writhes.

[Marge declare:
1a. Mother's Touch on someone!]

[Echoes of Laughter] On it. It echoes across the pack link as she charges, ready to dodge and aiming to take out a tendril. And she sees one that's just her size.

[1: Save for Dodge
R1: Claw the shit out of the arm with the potty mouth]]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[If change is allowed; not the potty mouth one. Clawing the shit out of the sickle-claw one! If change not allowed--disregard!]]

[-singularity-] [Nomfiend!

Strong arm: Slam!
Claw arm: Slash Sinclair!
Pretty arm: Bolster Dark Arm!
Pottymouth arm: GIBBERHOWL at Katherine. (aka Something Evil.)
Sludge arm: holding action til later
Dark arm: Something Evil at Sinclair!

Core: 1) Quake!
R1) NOM Sarita
R2) NOM Sinclair]

[Honor's Compass] Katherine streaks around the monstrosity, ducking and weaving those deadly arms to come around flanking them. The Silver Fang's pale eyes quickly absorb the waving limbs, zoning in on one in particular. She lets loose a terrible snarl and leaps at it; jaws wide.

1a.
b.
c. -- all bites on the white and gold arm
R1.
R2.
R3. -- same again unless it's destroyed, moving to dark one.]

[Brutal Revelation] [1a.
1b.
1c. -- bites on Pottymouth, switch to Dark if Pottymouth goes down
R1.
R2. -- bites on Dark, switch to Strong if Dark goes down]

[Brutal Revelation] [1a. biting pottymouth arm.
dex + brawl -3 (split), +1 diff (steelfur)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Brutal Revelation] [damage. +3]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [pottymouth: OW soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [1b. same!
dex + brawl -4 (split), +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [1c. mother of god.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [1-5: sinclair
6: sarita
7: kate
8: sidewalk
9: midnight
10: target]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [ow! fuck!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [1a. Biting W&G Arm! -2 Split, -2 Behind, +1 TOO MANY SPLITS]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [i'm so pretty! *soak*]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [1b. Again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[-singularity-] The first to draw blood is Honor's Compass -- snapping from behind, a startlingly vicious wrench of her jaws.

Only it's not blood. It's blackness, a cold pitchblack viscosity that oozes slowly from the wound. The mouth at the end of that squirming, fleshy tentacle howls.

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] -- but not for long. The Fang's next bite tears the arm off at the root, flings it to the ground where it writhes, shudders, melts away. Nothing but a dark stain left.

[for the record: Pretty would have bolstered Strong for +1 die per success (diff 8 roll)]

[Honor's Compass] [1c. WHO'S THE FAIREST OF ALL NOW? Biting that Dark arm]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [obviously: strong arm = lukas (power: aoe damage), claw = sinclair (vicious jab to one, reduces healing!), pretty = kate (bolsters others), potty = sarita (subtracts dice from enemies), sludge = midnight (heals others), dark = maddox (blinds!).]
to -singularity-

[-singularity-] [OW! NOT THE MOUTH!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] In seconds, one of the arms has been reduced to a stump. Another is bleeding darkness, squirming back into the shelter of the others. The obscene mouth at the core of the thing screams, howls -- its arms lash out viciously, as one, in every direction.

[Strong arm: slam! special roll first: each suxx = 1 person affected]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[-singularity-] [1-2 Sinclair
3-4 Kate
5-6 Sarita
7-8 MS
9-10 WtSE]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 4

[-singularity-] [Kate, first shockwave!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [bashing damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [second shockwave!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Soak 2!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [Claw arm: slash Sinclair!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [BLOW ME]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [additional effect, yes/no?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[-singularity-] [all subsequent healing is halved for 1 turn.]

[-singularity-] [pottymouth, GIBBERHOWL at Katherine. -1 die to actions per suxx, for 1 round per suxx.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 9 (Failure at target 8)

[-singularity-] [OKAY APPARENTLY THE SILVER FANG IS IMMUNE TO GIBBERS.]

[-singularity-] [Sludge arm: taking action now -- healing dark arm!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[Brutal Revelation] [OH THE IRONY.]

[-singularity-] Dark arm: Something Evil at Sinclair!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[-singularity-] [Sinclair: blinded for rest of round!]

[-singularity-] [Core: Quake again! Everyone gets hit by this one.]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [bashing damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [Soak! JAYSUS!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [SOAK MY GOD SOAK]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Blow Me Soak]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [MS soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] Somewhere in there, the clawed tentacle slashes at Sinclair. It bites -- though not very deep. It hurts like a bitch, though, even through her gift: like poison burning into the skin.

Somewhere in there, the ground shudders. The dark tentacle, trailing smoke, rears and spits in Sinclair's face. Her world goes black. She can't see, doesn't know if she ever will again --

and then the world turns upside down.

The monstrosity rears itself on all its tentacles. Slams itself down -- a blow tenfold more powerful than the one its strongest arm unleashed. A wave of destruction spreads in all directions, buckling the last of the floor, sending the last of the walls shuddering down in ash. All that remains is a mad world, lit by strobe-flashes of a sort of lightning, dark rather than bright.

And the shrieking mouths. And the writhing arms of the beast.


Sinclair goes down, unconscious. Midnight Sun beside her, hit so hard by the sheer shock of it that her bones are pulverized inside her skin. And Sidewalk's End --

Sidewalk's End seems to explode in black blood. Falls to his knees, retching and gagging, blackness leaking out of every orifice, every pore. A hand comes up to his mouth, tries instinctively to hold the tide back, but then

his mouth splits at the corners, his bottom jaw comes off, he collapses, loses form entirely, comes apart at the seams.

Dies.


Blackness for him. No rage, no flicker of survival, however faint. Nothing.


And then -- ex nihilo -- consciousness again. He's coming back. His eyes are opening. He sees the scene from above, high above. He sees the ring of destruction around the monstrosity; his would-be packmates wounded or unconscious. He sees what remains of the thing he inhabited for so long.

He sees the two Wyrmbreakers howling as one, a roar-scream of fury and horror. He sees the smaller struggle toward the others; the larger drag him back, beat him down. They turn on each other, snapping and clawing. Every wound they open mirrors itself on the other.

And then his feet touch the ground. He's alive, in control of himself again. He feels again. The last few hours -- like a dream, or a nightmare. Over now. Time to wake.

Time to fight.

[Congratulations, you have your body back! You can pick up from your previously declared actions, unless you want to change them.]

[-singularity-] [and midround summary:

Strong: OK
Claw: OK
Pottymouth: OK
Sludge: OK
Dark: 2A
Pretty: x_x
Core: OK

Sinclair: 3A, 4B, KO
Kate: 5B
Sarita: 5B
Midnight: 2L, 5B
WtSE: is Lazarus! OK]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[New action +1: Claw the shit out of Claw arm!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[DAMAGE GRR RAWR!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [claw soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] His feet touch the ground, and he is himself again. Tall and gangling, not covered in sludge. Wounded, but not so badly as before. Fleshed out and whole. He takes just a moment to look around, assessing. In the other body, he planned to heal those who needed it. Now that he's whole, he's got choices.

Well, not really. He told Lukas that he wasn't much of a healer, or a fighter. His strengths lie in dealing with spirits, in the barter and trade with them. There's only so much he can do.

"Wyrmbreaker! Stop killing yourself!" he shouts. Then, the reddish Crinos wolf rushes toward his fallen comrades.

[1a: GB Sinclair (and when he notices it doesn't heal much)
1b: GB Sinclair
1c: GB Kate; -3G]

[-singularity-] [+4 to sinclair in all 3B remaining; +4 to Kate, 1B remaining]

[Brutal Revelation] [R1! biting dark arm!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Brutal Revelation] [+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [OW]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 3 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [R2!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [claw soaks!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [R1. Biting Claw!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] The dark arm -- the one trailing black vapor, spitting blindness -- drops next. Wilts to nothing under the ferocious Walker's jaws. Fades to a stain.

Across the room, the two Wyrmbreakers look at Maddox as one. There's a beat of stillness. Then the smaller lunges toward the battle; the larger drags him back again. There are words in those snarls, half incoherent --

No!
Have to --
-- help them!
My pack --
-- they can't --
-- have to protect them!


One sinks its teeth into the other. When it snaps its head back, it tears a strip of flesh free. The same wound, the exact same, opens like stigmata on its own shoulder.


[and claw soaks!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [R2. Biting again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [R3! COME ON KATE, DON'T BE PRISSY.]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [FINE. WHATEVS.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [ack!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] It's the white wolf that takes down the clawed arm. It doesn't want to go. Even torn off from the core, even fading to dust, it shrieks, it beats at the wet, heaving ground, it carves black-bleeding furrows into that oddly fleshy material until nothing is left of it

but a stain.

Deprived of half its arms, weakened, the core nonetheless lashes out again. Heaves itself wholesale from the ground it rose -- or grew -- from, pulls itself so long that they can see the striated muscle beneath skin stretched paper-thin. Its central mouth shrieks as it snaps at Sarita, that bloody howl muffling on her flesh.

[R1, nomf!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [dam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[SOAKIE SOAK]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] R2. Same on Sinclair!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [HEY. not cool.]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[CLAW Sludge Arm and -4 diff 'cause Damon said so]]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 2)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Damage]]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [sludge soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [End of round! 1 bashing autoregenerates. Summary in order of inits:

Sinclair 2B
Kate OK
Strong OK
Pottymouth OK
Sludge OK
Core OK
Dark x_x
Pretty x_x
Claw x_x
Sarita 4B
WtSE OK
Midnight 2L 4B, awake again

Go ahead and declare while I do a summary post! Midnight's declare:

1a. Fuck this mother's touch shit, GB myself
b. GB Sarita
c. GB someone else!]

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [1a:
1b: Claw core from behind, change to GB as necessary]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[1a: Hey, it's not working anyway, so let's try it again! Claw.
1b: Claw
R1: Claw]]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Oh, and all those on Sludge]]

[-singularity-] [Nomfiend:

Strong - Minor Quake again!
Pottymouth: Nomf Kate!
Sludge: Heal Strong!

Core:
1. Nomf WtSE
R1. Nomf Sinclair
R2. Nomf Sarita]

[Honor's Compass] [1a.
1b. Biting Pottymouth!
R1.
R2. Same!]

[Brutal Revelation] [1a.
1b.
1c. -- all bites on Sludge, switching to Strong if PM goes down
R1.
R2. -- bites on Strong, switch to Pottymouth if Strong goes down]

[Brutal Revelation] [1a. -3 / +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Brutal Revelation] [+4 COME ON YOU WHORE]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [1b. -4 / +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 5 (Botch x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] It has no eyes.

Of course it can't see very well. It bites half-blind -- a glancing blow that barely nicks Sarita. But sometimes it gets lucky.

That terrible mouth finds Sinclair. It shuts with such speed, such force, that she should be pulverized. Utterly destroyed. Steel shrieks on steel; her head rushes with the pressure. Yet when the creature flings her aside -- expecting her to be a sack of bone and meat, destroyed -- she isn't even touched.


The same can't be said for the Hispos across the room. Fighting, snarling, rolling -- sometimes passing right through the combat without ever affecting it. Fur flies. Flesh rends. A bone crunches, and both wolves limp. They come together again and again, snarling and snapping, words like must protect and MINE and --

and eventually they wear each other out. The blows come lighter with every passing second. The blocks and parries slower. Their teeth clench shut, each on the other's shoulder, and they haven't the strength to let go; they lean on each other, exhausted, panting, huge paws sunk into thick ruffs,

until some errant flash of fury lights in their eyes at the same time, and they twist their heads savagely away.


An explosion of blood, like a fine mist. Two black hispos fall side by side, dazed, glassy-eyed, red blood and black. They stare at each other, sides moving fitfully with every breath.


Across the room -- without them, without needing them -- the battle rages on.


[sludge soaks!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [botch roll!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage on midnight!]

[Brutal Revelation] [damage! ack.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [yelp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] [that pushes midnight's health to 4A, 2L, 1B (shifting everything down!) -- incap again!]

[Brutal Revelation] [1c. AUGH]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6) [WP]

[Brutal Revelation] [AUUUUUUUGH. yeah, you like that, bitch? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH!!!!]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3

[-singularity-] [ackkk!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [aaaaugh, i said.]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [This is Kate, nomfing Pottymouth! -2 dice, -2 diff (back)]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [pottymouth soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [second nomf!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] whoops, wrong diff. +2 succ. damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [Strong arm: quake again! how many hits?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[-singularity-] [and whom?]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 10

[-singularity-] [Numbers were:

1-2 Sinclair
3-4 Kate
5-6 Sarita
7-8 MS
9-10 WtSE

-- so Sarita and WtSE! This is for Sarita -- ]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [bashing damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[SOak!]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] [and this is for WtSE!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [bashing damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [SOAK IT BETCH]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [and +3 because I'm a dumbass and forgot he's in Crinos]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] [midround summary:

Sinclair 2B
Kate OK
Sarita 1L 6B - KO
MS 4A 2L 1B - KO
WtSE 5B

Strong OK
Potty 3A
Sludge 5A
Core OK, but down 3 arms]

[-singularity-] [Pottymouth nomfs Kate! -1 dam mod]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [dam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[-singularity-] [well DUH, Kate would never let a pottymouth nomf her.

Sludge heals strong ... useless, because Strong isn't hurt. Dumbass Sludge.

Core nomfing WtSE!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [SOAAAAAAAK!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [1a: GB on MS
1b: GB on Sarita? If they're all in the same area and that makes sense]

[-singularity-] [sarita at 3B, MS at 2L/1B

sarita, take your turn!]

[Echoes of Laughter] [[OW OW fucker I claw sludge! -1 for wound penalty, -2 for split actions]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Daamage]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [onoz, i don't wanna dieee!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] x_x

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Claw 2 on potty, -1 wound, -3 split]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Echoes of Laughter] [[Damager]]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [ow!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [MS:
1a. GB WtSE for 4!
b. GB sinclair cuz she's getting nomfed next!
c. and sarita too for same reason!]

[-singularity-] [MS - 2L/1B, WtSE - B; everyone else OK.
strong - OK. potty - 3A. core - OK.]

[Brutal Revelation] [R1 you cat-loving whoreslut! YEAH I SAID IT. (biting the pottymouth)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [+1 booooooo]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] [R2 COME ON.]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Brutal Revelation] [RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[-singularity-] x_x!

[-singularity-] It's a bitter, harrowing fight. Again and again, the wolves go down. Again and again, they help each other, break talens over each other, crunch them in their teeth. Again and again, they rise to their feet

and plunge back into the fray.

One arm after another falls. Only two left now. Two, and the core with its terrible mouth. Bloodstained. Hideous. The ground roils when it moves.


Across the room, the two Ahrouns laid out side by side, exhausted, destroyed. Melting down to Homid now, where they are almost mirrors of one another; hard to tell which is which.

One reaches out to the other. He cups his double's jaw, the side of his neck. It's a strange gesture; something like brotherhood, or recognition.

[Honor's Compass] [R1. Biting... um, one that's still up! -2 split]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 6 at target 3)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [...IDEK. +2 dice!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [1 Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [R2. AGAIN. FINISH HIM!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 3)

[Honor's Compass] [Damage + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[-singularity-] ack!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

Friday, April 29, 2011

singularity: kate.

[-singularity-] Last time on As The Maelstrom Swirls...

Continuing onward from Sarita's trial, Margaret found herself facing the front door of her former Nunavut home. She informed her companions that she had once had a mate and two children; the mate and the younger child died of exposure one night. Passing through her door, the packmates found themselves on a winter tundra. The cries of a child could be heard in the night, but an apparition of Winter's Dirge, the first of his name, appeared and commanded Margaret ignore kin and kind to follow the path he had laid with his prophetic promises.

Spurred on by Sarita, Margaret turned away from Winter's Dirge, who subsequently vanished. Margaret ran into the night, pursued by the other packmates. Too weak to run quickly, Maddox soon fell behind; Lukas stayed with him. Meanwhile, Sinclair, Kate and Sarita attempted to dissuade Margaret from chasing what was almost certainly an apparition of her child. Torn, Margaret attempted to yield the decision to Katherine, who refused and commanded that she made the choice herself. Margaret then went to her child and attempted to rescue her from the realm, but the child demanded that she stay behind.

At that point, Margaret left the child behind. A door appeared to her; by the time she reached it, the tundra and the child had vanished, and an empty five-sided room was all that remained. Shaken but resolute, she walked through the door, upon which the pack found themselves in a narrow, cramped tunnel spiraling ever downward.

The next doors were Katherine's: a copy of the main doorway to King Calvin de Provence's Grand Hall. Though the doors stirred memories both old and new, pleasant and dreadful, Katherine bravely opened them.

[-singularity-] Katherine has walked through these doors twice. She knows what lies on the other side; sees it in her mind's eye.

A grand hall fit to rival the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. A vast arcade of polished glass both clear and stained to either side, great fluted columns between. A high, soaring ceiling intricately carved and painted with scenes of glories past. A floor of marble inlaid with gold, stretching down a vast distance; chandeliers glittering from the ceiling. A rich red rug laid forth from door to throne that none but the king may tread upon.

And to either side: courtiers, courtiers everywhere, magnificently attired, nodding respect to her face, whispering treachery behind her back.


The doors open without sound. Light pours out, light and the quiet, regimented cadence of some Baroque piece or other, played on a string quartet. The steady indistinguishable murmurs of a hundred voices. All is as Katherine imagined.

When the doors open those voices fall hushed. Every eye turns her way. One can only imagine how Katherine looks to their eyes right now: cheeks red from arctic wind, hair wild, frost still clinging to her eyelashes, the folds of her clothes; flanked by the riffraff. A tattooed Walker. A bedraggled Fianna bleeding tar. A Shadow Lord.

Everyone stares.

And then -- like a wave, spreading -- necks bend. Knees bend. One by one, every courtier in the room bows. In the sudden hush, in the sudden stillness, it's easy to see what Katherine may have initially missed: the throne at the far end of the room stands empty and waiting. Your Majesty, is the murmur on every tongue.

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] The tension in Maddox is greater than it was, even before. Since Margaret's attempt at cleansing him, he's only gotten worse as far as that attitude of his. He's cantankerous now, not just haughty and arrogant. Time spent on the tundra, attempting to run on four legs, two of them injured, and a terse "conversation" with Cold Victory have not made things any better. At least now he's quiet, keeping his commentary inside the confines of his own mind for the most part. Bitter and resentful, he is and yet is not with the group, keeping to the back, letting the others be the meatshields again in case, as with Margaret's door, Kate opens the doors of a palace onto some other realm.

Taking to two legs again instead of four, he's a hot mess. The black sludge he vomited and subsequently rolled in has crusted in his hair, spiking it in all directions. It paints sallow, prominent cheeks, defining sunken dark eyes. It stains his clothing. He still has that dagger, tucked away inside his bag. There's no need to check it now, there's only one path. One way down, one way forward.

The rooms are getting harder as the passage to them gets dirtier. They dig more deeply at the Garou's weaknesses and flaws. And even though he half expects the door to open on a brightly lit hall full of pristine, perfectly dressed people (who will all no doubt turn their noses up on sight of Maddox, Fangs, whatever), he keeps his faerie light, his only little glowing friend in this place, close, poised near his chest, between long-fingered hands.

[maybe?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] "Oh bullshit," Sinclair snaps, when people start bowing to Katherine, when they bend and whisper to Her Majesty. Her rage lashes, up and out of nowhere. Not because they're in the palace that Katherine remembers from childhood and once visited to accept the taste of silver, but because this. Again. This fucking damage buried in the Silver Fang's psyche, her megalomania just as bad as her phobia of germs.

The rage is directed at the tribe. At the corrupted spirits in this spiraling place that keeps tormenting them all. Not, really, at Katherine herself.

"I swear to god, Kate, if you fall for this shit I will beat you," she mutters, but, even so, waits to see what Katherine does.

[Honor's Compass] She would be lying if it did not appeal to part of her.

She stands there, inhaling remembered scents and hearing the rustle of expensive, one of a kind material as ladies bend like delicate wilting flowers before her; as gentlemen dock their heads; some pulling hats from their heads. She would be the most damned sort of liar if there was not a part of her that --

she'd walked through these people but they'd whispered different things, then --
the throne had been occupied, then, her eventual attacker with a hand to the back of it, turning cool grey eyes her way as she approached --
the King resting his eyes on her with the ease of someone above another, the Fostern's firmly on his chest, inlaid with jewels
--

-- "The Great Reception Hall," she says quietly, her pale eyes wide, fixed. Sinclair's Rage pluming from her, lashing out at the whispers of Your Majesty. "It's alright, Sinclair," she comforts, beginning to move, slowly, back straight, chin held up as if she were in a fine silk gown, trailing out behind her.

Not in dirty jeans.
Worn sneakers.
Wind blown.

Heart beating rapidly against her chest. "I walked down this hall," she remembers as she moves, talking as much for herself as for them. "Toward the King, just like this. I could feel so many eyes upon me but the thrill of it was sickening, it turned my stomach."

She falls silent, approaches the throne.

"I dropped into a curtsey and came up and saw his eyes. They were mad eyes, King's eyes. Ones that had seen too much cruelty not to become cruel themselves and I knew, then, what my fate would be." She turns, looking at each of the faces with her; lips thinning.

"But I am not taken by this. Not even my imaginings make this mockery real enough."

[Brutal Revelation] Katherine's comforting tone makes the Galliard lift an eyebrow. It's not the first time Lukas or Kate have, even just tonight, reached out to ...soothe her. At the most, to Sinclair's perception, bizarre turns. When she's angry, when she's annoyed, when she's unnerved by the idea of rooms narrowing to nothing but a hallway they would be forced to take single file. There hasn't been a moment tonight when she's been truly sorrowful, and not even being disturbed by this place has reached the level of being afraid.

Sinclair knows fear deeply, and she knows sorrow and depression as well. She asks herself if the way she was before she left Chicago is why her pack keeps gentling towards her, metaphorically patting her shoulder or stroking her hair. If she needed it, if she was sad or upset or afraid, she would welcome comfort from them, the wolves who know her best. When it's unnecessary, it irritates her.

Granted, what flickers across her face at Katherine's It's all right, Sinclair is just that flash of irritation, bewilderment, annoyance. She's frowning, thinking as Katherine strides forward, telling them about what it was like taking Genevre and Fons's bodies both back to --

and then she looks over at Lukas, who killed Fons. Who was the reason, at least in part, why Katherine came here and got stabbed in punishment.

[-singularity-] Almost dreamily, Katherine muses on the last time she saw this magnificent hall. Walked its glimmering length. She's not taken in, she says. It's all right. She's not fooled by this false respect, this illusion of a reward that she doesn't even really want. Not when she's sane, anyway.

Wyrmbreaker, a rather major part of the reason Katherine Bellamonte took a silver knife in the side, paces just behind and to the right of the Philodox. At the rippling bows and curtsies he took his Hispo form again, as though the intimation of deepest respect were a dangerous foe to be faced. Or perhaps it's simply the concentration of pure breed in this room, because -- phantoms or not -- they smelled, they felt, they looked like Silver Fang phantoms. They cast eyes askance at the Shadow Lord and the Child of Gaia, the Glass Walker and the Fianna and the Uktena. A few, rising from their bows to the Queen, murmur behind their hands.

The throne seems to rise taller and taller as Katherine approaches it. Then she's there, right before it: a vast thing, hewn from the same marble that paves the floor -- an inextricable part of the room, the hall. Rich velvets drape the back and cushion the seat. Wolves snarl from each arm, and a falcon spreads its wings over the back. Enormous enough to seat a Crinos, it towers over a man. Is large enough, in fact, to hide a man.

And a man emerges from behind the throne as Katherine stops before it. He's aged since Katherine saw him last. He wears a beard now, neatly trimmed. There's enough grey in his hair that it overcomes the blond. But the hands are his, elegant and strong. The frame, the poise; the ice-blue eyes that he passed onto his middle child, and perhaps his truest heir.

Christopher Bellamonte smiles at Katherine. The corners of those eyes crinkle with affection; love. "Katie," he says, and holds out his arms. "It's been so long. Look at you."

[-singularity-] [ffs. strider, not uktena >_

[Honor's Compass] Oh, my God.

The pack can hear it first, as she turns, as if in slow motion to the movement behind the throne. The man emerging from behind it with that punch of breeding almost more overwhelming than all the collected in the room. Here then, the physical reason for those pale eyes of Katherine's, the legend behind her blond hair, her proud nose.

"No."

She whispers, horrified and takes a half step backward, no older in that second than the five year old who had stood in this very spot and been called a little princess in the making. "Why did it have to be you," she grits out and then, tears squeezing from beneath her lashes, the Half Moon bravely lifts her chin.

Staring down the mirage of her father.

"You are not him. You smell like him, and you look ..." She breaks, steps nearer to those welcoming arms [the temptation is overwhelming] "... but my father is long dead. So what am I to learn here, what I wished once and what I hope to be? Hm? What lesson is this throne."

She reaches for it, sets a hand over one snarling wolf head.

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] Maddox doesn't know the significance of the man behind the throne. There's a family resemblance between him and the Philodox, but he doesn't know Kate like her packmates do, not yet. Maybe not ever.

At least he doesn't wander off, sick of these lesser wolves and in need of a cigarette and a silkwood shower. He keeps up the rearguard, and he keeps a light on, just in case.

[Brutal Revelation] This, she can't tell Katherine not to be fooled by, not to fall into. She hasn't got a clue who this man is, looks to Lukas for help. She frowns, because she sees the resemblance, but she makes no assumptions.

Granted, Kate's reaction makes a lot more sense when she says the words: my father is long dead. Sinclair frowns, and aches, and holds her breath a moment as Kate takes a step forward, walks up to the throne and puts her hand on it.

[-singularity-] No one here has met Christopher Bellamonte before. Not even Lukas, who has known Katherine longest -- even when they met, her father was already long dead. Dead before his times, mid-thirties at most, leaving behind a widow and three young children. One who never grew up. One who grew wild. And one who tried, so diligently, so painstakingly, to follow in his footsteps.

He stands before them now. If he had lived, this is how old he would be today. This is how he would look. He holds his arms out, but Katherine doesn't go to him. She comes a little closer. She keeps the throne between them, as though its empty, waiting seat meant something.

And Christopher lowers his arms slowly. His eyes are puzzled, kind, a little sad. He looks at his daughter for a moment, and then he nods. "I am dead," he agrees softly. "But this is not your realm, and spirits walk here. Ancestor spirits, like Winter's Dirge, the first of his name. Like myself."

The smile is quick, a little rueful. "Oh, Katie, you know I've watched over you, don't you? You didn't think I simply ... retreated to the Homelands and abandoned my wife and children? You've made me so proud, darling. You've followed in my footsteps, but you've exceeded me. You've risen higher than I ever did. You'll rise higher still, beyond anyone's imagination."

A small pause. Then his hand falls on the throne as well, long fingers curving over the stone back.

"As for this throne -- it's only a symbol, child. A representation of what is already yours -- something that was promised to you by your birth and heritage. Dominion. Kingship. Absolute power. All of which you have unparalleled potential for. Of course, you won't gain it by sitting in an imaginary throne. But if you accept that if you are fated for it -- if you sit this imaginary throne with the genuine belief and the true understanding that this is Gaia's path for you --

"Well. Then all things become possible, my daughter."

[-singularity-] [I gotta say, I'm kinda proud that what initially looked like a megalomania challenge is probably as much -- or more -- about Kate's relationship with/idealization of her father, and her constantly trying to live up to him. I think this is a subtler side to her character that nonetheless informs much of what she is, for better (and) or for worse!]
to -singularity-

[Honor's Compass] Katherine's fingers curl around that wolf's head when her father speaks to her. Calling her a childhood name that none other save perhaps Buried Hatchet, perhaps Edward, ever dared to after he passed. Gabriella never called her Katie, she was always Katherine to her younger sibling.

Always someone not quite to be trusted. Not quite rational enough, not quite -- anything -- enough.

"I've wanted to come and see you so often," the Silver Fang begins with closed eyes, whispered words, tear-stained cheeks. Still glowing faintly, which in such a realm and with such decoration seemed ludicrously fitting to the whispers that greeted her as she set foot within it.

Only a Queen should glow like that, of course.

"You have no concept of how much but I --," she draws in a breath, looks over the throne that seems to draw at her as if a string were tied between herself and its plush, waiting cushion. "Yes, it is a symbol but I do not deserve it, father." She trembles a little to say his name, drawn perhaps, despite her resolve into the idea of his presence. "Not yet, perhaps not ever. Gaia has a course for me, I live only by her grace but I do not need to sit on a throne here, or anywhere to know I have the power.

To know I was born to lead others.

I understand what I am here to do, and were I forced to do it from the street-side, it would not be changed. I have not gained my path because of who I was born to, but how I forced it into existance." She straightens, and moves around the throne toward this ghost. Facing it, one can see the resemblance two-fold. The mannerisms Katherine has long held that suddenly are glimpsed in the one she has long modeled herself after.

The slope of her jaw, her mother's cheekbones.

"I am Gaia's Chosen." There, the gleam of that maniacal belief in her, the hint of insanity; it casts her face starker for a beat, her skin paler; her eyes wild with it; then recedes. "But I will never be the chosen you, or mother, Lucien or anyone wanted.

I will be the chosen that I made myself."

A beat, her eyes skirt to the throne, beyond to her pack-mates.

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] Maddox watches the interaction between the children of kings, the mad ones, the deranged. There's no way for him to know what this trial is for Katherine, or how watching it affects those who know her better. There are moments when, if things were different right now, he might have offered that cheeky smirk and lifted that light of his like a pint in salute. He doesn't, though. Kate is humble, yet her maniacal belief that she is Gaia's Chosen, like it's a position all her own, is something else.

He huffs, the sound not terribly soft. At least she turned down the throne.

[*BSHING* he's stubborn about his night light]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] Maddox's huff is soft. Sinclair doesn't bother softening hers. She lets out a sharp exhale. "Kate," she says sharply, firmly, to get the Philodox's attention. When she has it, she shakes her head at the Fang. If she never gets it... well. She still shakes her head. She still speaks her mind.

"It's great that you know better than to jump into the throne like the pretendy-spirit wants you to, but it's like you're just resisting because you know that's the right answer. I belive you when you say you might not ever deserve to sit on a throne, but it doesn't mean a whole lot when it's set up against your talk of being born to lead, that you're 'chosen' by Gaia like you're ...like every other Garou and Kinfolk and mortal in the world isn't quite as special as you are, doesn't matter quite as much, isn't meant for quite as epic a destiny. Certainly not a destiny to lead."

She shrugs. "You can't talk of this 'path' of yours like it's a destiny and talk about forcing it into existence and making it for yourself at the same time. You're either like everyone else, figuring their shit out and creating their own purpose, or you're 'chosen' and you have a 'path' and you're 'better' than everyone else. You really think that just rejecting your father or mother or uncle's vision is enough?"

A beat. She almost sounds angry. "You're not fucking 'chosen', Katherine. Grow up."

[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [LIGHT FOR THE LOVE OF PETE]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] Katherine's eyes struggle between the image of her father and the almost-angry words of her pack-sister, slicing like a blade through her visions. Maddox huffs, but the problem is, the thing is --

"But I am, Sinclair." She seems almost saddened about it. The reaction, the comprehension of how they look upon her, and her destiny. "A Silver Fang's birthright hands that to them, the destiny. The obligation to lead the rest of the tribes. We are given that responsibility along with the blood in our veins."

She has a smile for her father, at once proud and wavering to uncertain.
Don't we? it asks.

"I'll never be quite like everyone else, but I will never be ... I'm not just my destiny. There is more. There is death, and setbacks, and failing. There is.. " She looks again at Lukas. "Choices. I made my choice." She takes a step back from the throne.

[-singularity-] "You are my daughter," Christopher Bellamonte says, as though this in and of itself meant something. "Your own wolf with your own path, it is true. But you are also my heir, Katie. My one true heir. Chosen by Falcon. Chosen by Gaia. Chosen by me, Katherine, above all others. Above my brother, and above your brother.

"Katie..."

Oh, how compelling that voice: a voice that stirred hearts, roused courage. It commands her to look around even now -- away from her pack, toward her father. It doesn't seem to matter that she's the Adren, he the Fostern. She's still Katie.

"You're my daughter. Don't turn your back on me. Don't turn your back on what I've always wanted for you." His hand firms on the back of the throne. "Take what is yours. Here and now. Everything else will fall into place. You'll see."

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair shakes her head at Katherine's insistence, her sadness, her waffling. She's no spirit-version of herself in here, she's not part of the challenge of this half-corrupted place. "Oh yeah, we've only gone through four of these places and we know for damn sure they bring out our worst qualities and that it's entirely possible to be corrupted by them, but no no no, for you, Your Majesty, it's just about reaffirming how you get to be Chosen By Gaia and Choose Your Own Destiny at the same time! Because you're special like that. Enjoy your cake."

Sometimes she can be so comforting. She can be gentle. She's not, right now. She's as harsh as she was when she was answering her doppleganger, when she was standing in such unearned judgement of all her packmates and prospective packmates. She's as brutal as her name says she is. And she is, bluntly put, pissed the hell off. Fed up, it sounds like.

"I am so sick of you clinging to this. You can't acknowledge that this is insane and then claim to be meant to lead all of us because of your stupid fucking tribe at the same time. He's. Not. Your. Dad. He's a thing that's out to hurt you and are you even seeing that the way he's doing it is by telling you that you're Chosen? What do you think that means, Kate? Christ."

[Echoes of Laughter] She steps forward now. She's been quiet so far, watching and listening. But when Sinclair throws it out that he's not her father, that he's a thing that is out to hurt Kate, she decides it's time to speak. Because she can't let Kate cheat her way out of this by just 'disbelieving.' That's too simple.

"Okay...so wait a second though." She looks at Sinclair, putting a hand up as if to say 'one moment' before she looks at Katherine. "So Kate. Sinclair's right, this probably isn't your father, anymore than that little girl was Margaret's daughter or so on and so forth. That's entirely true. But that's not going to get you past this. That's not the way. That's suppressing the symptom, not fixing the problem. Not the reason that we came here. We came here to face down our problems, and surpass them. Just saying 'this isn't real' isn't going to do that. That's challenging the nature of the test, not the taking the test itself."

She looks to Christopher, then back. "So let's assume this is real. Throw those thoughts that this is 'not real' out. You need to tackle this. If not, I don't know that you'll pass."

[Honor's Compass] She backs away, but she still looks at him, listens to the voice that a hundred memories of her childhood instruct her to obey, to hear. Christopher Bellamonte had suffered the same insanity as the rest of his oh so noble tribe, his memory had battled him at the moon, stripped his mind of comprehension of those he knew, those he loved.

But he had been a noble wolf; he'd died protecting those he loved.

He had never demanded anything but the strength and courage to try, to push one-self. He had never -- don't turn your back on what I've always wanted for you. "You never wanted the throne for me," she says firmly, shaking her head a little. Back another step, looking up, but not without awareness in her eyes, the exact mirror for the ghost. "You would never have wanted that. Not even for Edward. If I sit there, all I am proving is that I am still, inside, the same selfish Cliath I was when I first came to Chicago. I won't be making any choice, I will be giving in to everything that is wrong about myself."

You have to give her this, she's crying, but her words don't lack conviction for them, they perhaps, are stronger for the fact she is not steeled and unruffled by all of this. It is, for those hoping to become her sister and brother, a glimpse of the very human side of Katherine Bellamonte. For those who do, it is at once a reminder and the misery of her human side.

He's.Not.Your.Dad.
He's a thing that's out to hurt you.
What do you think that means, Kate?


Honor's Compass turns her face, looking into the harsh eyes of Brutal Revelation -- "It means none of this is real. It means I have the capacity for greatness, but I am blinded by my own need to cling to -- by the sickness in me. By what I want to be real."

Someone murmurs Your Majesty.

"I am Katherine Isabella D'Albret Bellamonte, I am not your Queen, I am not your daughter. I am a Half Moon, I am a member of the Unbroken and I am walking away from you. You cannot offer me anything."

This, flatter.
She sniffs, her nose is running.

The No Moon steps forward, Katherine's focus swings to her. "My path is mine, I made it, I forged it when everything and everyone else could not. I am everything that this suggests, but I am still capable of saying no to it. I do not have to be what they planned me to be.

I don't need this."

She turns away from the throne. "I don't want to be this."

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair snaps at look at Sarita, but it's gone quickly, her focus back on Katherine, waiting to hear and see what Kate's answer to the thing pretending to be her father is. She exhales when, finally, Katherine claims her auspice, her pack, and the will to walk away. Being the elder of this or that, being a daughter of Falcon, never enters into it. Sinclair immediately strides forward, walking on that damned red rug only kings are supposed to touch,

so that when Katherine comes down from the throne, she's there.

[Echoes of Laughter] The look Sinclair sends her way draws a return look. She isn't cowed, isn't intimidated. She looks back to Katherine, arms folded over her chest as she awaits the answer. Nodding to Kate. Trusting her.

Then Katherine speaks. She denies what the spirit in the form of her father commands her to take. And Sarita smiles. Never once did she think the Philodox would do otherwise, and she nods to her pack sister.

[-singularity-] It's perhaps a mercy that Katherine turns away. She doesn't see the way her father -- or this thing that looks like her father -- twists. The way his face changes, the way his eyes blaze.

She hears him, though.

"COWARD!" Christopher Bellamonte, Grey Claws, bellows the word. It echoes down the Great Hall. Heads snap up; eyes fix on Katherine, cold now. Resentful. And Katherine knows it's not him, knows her father would never say such things, knows her father was noble and honorable and kind and

died when she was so young that she did not have time to know him at all, and

even so the voice is his, the thunder in his tone is his. "Ingrate! Traitor to your blood! Is this what I gave my life to defend? How dare you walk away from me. I am your father!"

Every step away should put him farther behind her. Should make those words quieter, farther away, but they don't. His voice grows louder and louder, pursues her down that endless gallery. Her would-be subjects are rising now, getting surly to their feet, and for all their finery and all their finesse they are wolves, there's threat beneath their skins; their burn at her and their lips peel back from teeth. There's a snarl somewhere. A hiss at her back, Pathetic. Beside her Wyrmbreaker growls, heads snapping this way and that, ready to defend against some unseen threat, but it's not a physical attack that weighs on her; it's the combined pressure of a tribe's worth of disapproval, a thousand eyes sneering as she passes.

"You're a sorry excuse for a Fang that follows a Shadow Lord and packs with rabble!" The words follow her. Someone -- someone in that glittering crowd, someone who bowed to her moments ago -- boos now. "I was wrong about you. You are as worthless as your brother and sister, as craven, as irresponsible, an undutiful daughter. You will never live up to me. Do you hear me? NEVER."

[Echoes of Laughter] "I dunno, man." She looks at Christopher, stepping up next to Kate. She's got a grin on her face, though the look she gives him is straight, direct and anything but amused.

"Right now, I think she's not only lived up to the you that right here, right now is shouting like a kid who doesn't get to play with a favorite toy, but she's surpassed him. As in, BETTER THAN."

[Brutal Revelation] As much as she can't figure out why Katherine and Lukas keep reaching out to soothe her somehow, Sinclair cannot figure out what the hell is going on with Sarita tonight, what it has to do with her. It may all come to a head later, and for all she knows Maddox and Margaret will be welcomed into a pack of wolves yelling at each other.

Right now, however she's moving to flank with Wyrmbreaker, though she keeps her birth form. She tries to keep Katherine from having an exposed side open to the crowd. "You're not," she says, half-hushed to the Philodox, grabbing her arm. "You're not worthless and you're not responsible and it's not your job to live up to anyone. Let's go. You were walking away. Keep walking. Let's go."

[Honor's Compass] It is easier, now.

It makes the bellowing fury disguised behind her father's voice no less shattering, no less like the crack of whip-strokes lashing her back, but she knows now, with a certainty that was absent before, when he first appeared from behind that throne like a vision from her most private dreams --

that is not her Christopher Bellamonte.

The hissing, snarling, threatening crowds however, the jeering is strangely comforting. Perhaps she's seen it before, borne witness as some unlucky wolf was dragged down by guards for some sin, some trespass against the King, or the Queen to be judged as unfit. To hear, strangely, or perhaps not so, much of what the Other, the empty vessel but for when they feed its power -- is shouting after her.

Katherine's arm is taken, she grips the Glass Walker's, feels her pack closing ranks around her and strides on, her eyes fixed ahead. She does not answer the calling voice, and it takes all her resolve not to look back.

But Honor's Compass keeps walking.

[-singularity-] She keeps walking.

Like Margaret before her -- weathering a storm more emotional than physical -- walking, one step in front of the next. The apparition behind her, furious now, losing its prey or perhaps only failing its duty -- bellowing at her back, roaring invectives, insulting her contributions, her choices, her position, her name. Insulting everything about her while the crowds around her go from merely disgruntled to openly hostile.

Someone takes up the cry: Traitor! Coward! A lady's slipper flies through the air and smacks Katherine in the head. It's almost laughable, but it makes Wyrmbreaker snarl aloud.

"Sarita!" he barks; then shoulder-checks Margaret toward to door, snaps his teeth at poor Maddox's heels again to make him move faster. "Stop yelling at the ghost. This is getting ugly; we need to get out!"

The next thing that comes flying through the air isn't so harmless as a slipper. It's an ornamental torch snatched off the wall, hurled with furious force. Bitch! someone screams. Shadow Lord's whore! The door's not far now. Somehow she knows if she goes through it she'll be safe. She'll be out of this nightmare, safe.

From the throne, far behind her now, the apparition of her father, roaring:

"YOU ARE NOT MY DAUGHTER. DO YOU HEAR ME. YOU ARE NOT MINE!"

[-singularity-] [random note: tbh i meant to have maddox degrade slowly across the SL, but the cleansing fucked him up so badly he couldn't degrade much more *LOL*]
to -singularity-

[Brutal Revelation] [dex + athletics: snag!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1

[Brutal Revelation] [dex + athletics: toss!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Brutal Revelation] A slipper hits Kate in the head and Sinclair snarls, openly. Out of the corner of her eye she sees something rushing through the air towards the Philodox and before they can even tell what it is, Sinclair whips around, half-leaps, and snatches it out of the air. She's done this before; Kate was there when it became clear that trying to have a snowball fight with the Walker is nearly impossible when she catches snowballs in mid-air.

The ornamental torch hits her hand, with moves back from the force of it, but that only gives her more leverage when she hurls it back into the crowd. It's unaimed, it isn't going for anyone, but it's a threat as much as the snarl was. Lukas urges the others on with Kate, and Sinclair turns again soon enough to go with them, harried by the big, black, overprotective Shadow Lord.

Her arm locks around Kate's waist. She doesn't find it surprising if she finds anyone else's hand or arm there already. They go through the door together. All of them. Unbroken.

[Echoes of Laughter] Well, yeah. Now that the crowd is revolting in a major way, what was support for Katherine is now a bad thing. She turns to follow the pack, brow furrowed as she joins ranks with them to get out the door.

[Honor's Compass] She does, at one point, collect a slipper to the head. It doesn't make her stagger, but it does bring a flinch. She lowers her chin, setting her teeth together and keeps marching toward the door. If she can just make it to the door, then she can let go, then she can let the words being shouted by the thing that was not her father but sounded so, so painfully like him roll over her, through her.

She can give a little when she's free from hearing she's a Shadow Lord's whore, from her father saying she was not his child.

Katherine's lips part in an unvoiced protest -- of course I am! how can you even suggest -- but then Sinclair's arm is around her, propelling her forward again and they are at the door. The final thought of the Silver Fang is, perhaps not surprisingly, about her father.

That is the last time I shall hear his voice, though it is not really his.

[-singularity-] Every step away, and his voice seems to ring louder. She's not his child. She's not his heir. She's not worthy, not good enough, not a Silver Fang, nothing, nothing, nothing but filth. She's low, she's pitiful, she's --

-- and then, mercifully, it begins to recede. Like the tide going out, the jeering, the thrown things, the torches that Sinclair grabs and whips back, the brooches and cell phones and whatever else people had on hand hurled at them that Wyrmbreaker catches on his side, grunting and growling but never flagging his pace for an instant as he ushers his pack out --

all these things begin to fade away. The grandeur of the hall fades. The people in it. The richness of that rug, even then details of that door she approaches. Her father's voice fades to an angry blur, and then it doesn't even really sound like him anymore.


In the end, it's just a door, plain and unremarkable, waiting for them. A stained door in a corroded room. Four walls. Katherine grasps it and pulls it open and they pull themselves through into a narrow, suffocatingly small tunnel. Even in homid, they have to stoop. Even in Hispo, Wyrmbreaker's ears brush the ceiling, and his shoulders brush the walls.

It is very dark here. The only light comes in gasps and sputters, and from Maddox's faerie glow, which -- through thick and thin, with bitter faith -- he has kept all this time.


"I think we all know I'm next," Wyrmbreaker says into that silence. "The greatest weakness I can think of is my rage, which sometimes gets the better of me. If you have protective gifts, use them now. I have talens to soak and heal if you need it. When we get through the next door, stay behind me.

"Stay together. We're almost done.
"

[Honor's Compass] Once they are through the door, into that tiny, tiny hallway Katherine has to stop, has to bend forward and brace her hands on her knees for a moment. Has to scrub her palms over her face and rest like that for a second before she rises and catches Sinclair's hand, turns her attention toward her and then says, softly, but with a world of meaning-- "Thank you."

Her eyes flick to Sarita, Lukas, everyone. She smiles, briefly, then lets silence drift until Lukas speaks in the gruff language of wolves. "I still have my Gift activated," she notes and then looks to Maddox, perhaps the weakest, physically, after his own room's ordeal.

"Perhaps you should give some talens to Sidewalk's End."

[Honor's Compass] [Ahem, Sidewalk Ends, rather.]

[-singularity-] [hahah. i've been calling him sidewalk's end for short! cuz he's where the sidewalk ends. so. he's the sidewalk's end!]

[-singularity-] [note to self: on the way out, show all spirits in their uncorrupted forms]
to -singularity-

[Echoes of Laughter] "I'm...well, maybe a talent or two might be good. Though Maddox should get priority right now, obviously."

She stops when the rest of the pack does, taking a lean against the wall close to the others. She reaches out and touches Katherine's arm lightly, and then Sinclair's and finally Lukas'. A faint smile. "But otherwise, I'm ready when you guys are."

[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair lets Katherine go when they get through the door, lets her sink down and catch her breath, rearrange her thoughts. She was on the verge of tears when she left her own room, Margaret had to walk away from her own child, Maddox is a wreck... Sinclair understands if Kate just needs a moment to put herself back together after that trial. She keeps her hand on the Philodox's back, resting there. She blinks when her hand is caught and squeezed, when she's thanked. Her brows tug together.

"I didn't do anything," she says, a bit roughly. "It's not like I expect you to not be crazy anymore, Kate. I know you can't help it." There's a moment, a frown still on her face, her hand still held by the Fang. "I knew you were going to be able to walk away from that stupid throne. I was just pissed off."

Lukas speaks up to them, talks about the upcoming trial he'll face, his weakness being his rage, and she flicks her eyes at him, then at Sarita. "Hey, I'm going to try giving some advice to one of our packmates that I have actually considered, is based in a long history of friendship, and which I strongly believe in. Maybe if you disagree with it you can be up-front about it instead of just...saying whatever the fuck is opposite of what I say," she tells the Strider, a little flatly. A lot harshly.

It is not, as it was not in the room, an attempt to intimidate or cow. But she's annoyed, she's been annoyed with the Ragabash for some time now, and as is her habit, she just straight-up puts it out there, as direct as she knows how to be. She doesn't wait for an answer, because in truth, she wasn't asking a question. She wasn't giving an order. If anything, the undercurrent is simply: back off for ten seconds, okay?

Her pale eyes meet Lukas's more intense, glacial ones. "I'm not so sure your rage is your greatest weakness, Lukas," she says, a little more gently. "If you'd asked me what I thought my greatest weakness was before we walked through my door, I don't think I would have thought of the one I actually faced. I don't think this is always about our greatest flaws, but the ones that are closest to home. The ones that hurt us and the ones around us the most. The ones we're so ashamed of we can't even admit them to ourselves til they're shoved in our face.

"At least in my case, that was it. And it might be in yours, too. Just be ready for something worse than rage, just in case."

She nods to what Sarita says about Maddox getting priority, though -- annoyance doesn't derail her good sense like it did when she was a Cliath -- and moves closer to Sidewalk's End as she takes hispo form, chuffing: "I stay by arrogant black-blood. I protect."

[Echoes of Laughter] She looks at Sinclair, frowning. Her instinct is to jump to her own defense. She watches her a moment, and then she lets it go. Arguing about it isn't going to get them anywhere. She just nods a little bit, letting it slough off her back, and takes a breath as she gets ready to help them face Lukas' test.

[-singularity-] Some part of Lukas must realize he's rushing. He's planning ahead, or trying to; he's readying himself for the worst, whatever it might be. Some part of him wants to slow down, wants to give Kate a huge right now -- and Margaret, and Sinclair, and everyone else who's faced some darkness in themselves tonight.

But he has priorities. He knows his place, leader and guardian both. And though that interchange between Sinclair and Sarita draws a flick of a glance, he ultimately doesn't interfere. Trusts them not to let it interfere with ...

whatever might come next.

He twists his small bag of talens out of his fur instead, drops it on the floor. "I've enough soak talens for all. A few Gaia's Breaths, too. Take them all; I have my own Bandages if I need them."

A beat of pause.

"Kate, what that thing said to you wasn't true. You kicked its ass and it was pissed off. That's all." He bends, grips the bag gently in his front teeth, and tosses it a little farther forward, offering. "Now come on. Let's gear up and finish this."


[-1gn to BB! +6
-1gn to soak talen! (6 more in the bag) +3
-1gn to luna's armor, rolling now!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 7) [WP] Re-rolls: 3

[-singularity-] [oh and! -1WP to resist pain.

NOW WE PAUSE. see you guys tmrw night, sameish time! probably a lil later actually.]

[Brutal Revelation] [-1 WP RP
-1 G to soak talen from Lukas (+3)
-1 WP to steelfur
stamina + science]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 7)
 
Copyright Lukáš Wyrmbreaker 2010.
Converted To Blogger Template by Anshul .