Silence of Time update - end o' story
Story, that is, not chronicle.
The packs entered the subways and split up for their hunts. The PC pack (it'd be so much easier if they had a pack name, although Scylla's player wrote a really cool poem about their pack that maybe I'll post someday) jumped on a train and had Scylla use her city-windows Gift. After a few stops, they saw someone zip into the access tunnels, so they got off the train and followed. En route, they found a hooker unconcious on a bench in the station, with a nasty bruise on her head and the faint scent of rot around.
Following the access tunnel, they found a large room and saw a man unconcious on the floor surrounded by three of the White Women. The plan was stealth, but an ongoing lesson of the chronicle is "you're only as stealthy as the least stealthy packmate." Reese, in this case. The White Women looked up, Reese charged in wearing Gauru form, and the fight began.
They killed two of them, but spared the last (who, of course, turned out to be Paula, Scylla's sister). The fight was nasty - these things can exhale poison, and it bypasses the werewolves' armor-fur (a present from their totem, recall). Afterwards, Scylla shifted into a form that allowed Paula to recognize her and Phil recognized the man on the floor as a colleague of his who reportedly had a predilection for hookers (they knocked him out and dragged him to the station, and Reese stole his wallet).
The pack put duct tape over Paula's mouth and bound her, despite Scylla's (and her own) protestations. Zeke and Reese were too badly injured to shift to human form and leave the subway, so they sent Phil and Scylla home with Paula (bound, but wrapped in Zeke's coat). As soon as they were out of sight, Scylla untied her sister (who, by the way, wasn't at all attempting to run, just didn't appreciate being bound).
Back at the house, Paula related how she was trying to find Scylla because a former classmate of theirs had his cards read by Scylla one night (remember Scylla panhandles by reading Tarot for passersby) and called Paula. Paula tried to email, but got bounces, and so came to Philly to find her wayward sister. Instead, she got jumped and dunked in sludge, and had to suffer through her innards being eaten by the fungus. Paula expressed the desire, however, to live - she repeated that this wasn't her fault and that she was in control.
Meantime, Reese called the other packs and found that they'd each killed two of the White Women. He told them that his pack had one alive, and the Uratha all met back at Phil's house.
Simon, one of the Uratha from Boulder, noted that Paula didn't read so much as a Ridden, but as someone infected by "a disease with a spiritual component." He mused that spirituall awakening antibiotics might help, but didn't know the Rouse the Spirit rite.
When Reese and the Harmony pack arrived, they questioned Paula for a while and found that she was wolf-blooded (duh), but infected. Virus, one of the harmony folks, scraped out some of the junk from her back and Simon went with Reese to a locus to see what would happen if it were taken into the spirit world (it slowly burned off until after Reese crossed the gauntlet, it was gone). Meanwhile, the other Uratha discussed the possibility of curing, or at least slowing, the disease.
When Reese and Simon returned, they asked what Paula knew about the Nihar (nothing) and the Barrens. She had been to one of the Barrens and said that she identified with having a hunger that couldn't be filled, and said that she felt that the Barrens could be plugged and fixed, but wasn't sure how. Zeke hit on the idea of an "Essence plug" and the other Uratha agreed that enough Essence might work, since the Barrens weren't true Barrens anyway (that is, they were created because the physical world and the Hisil both burned at once; they were more like wounds that needed to heal).
With the help of Nithar Izi, the fire-spirit that was causing the fires that caused the Barrens to begin with, the 13 Uratha managed to close the four Barrens in the city. It took 50 Essence each, but after that much energy was pumped into them in a short time, there was a burst of light and (in the Hisil), just a patch of virgin earth where the hole once was. In the process, the packs also burned the fungus house; Locksmith, the alpha of the Harmony pack, bullied the spirit into vacating before they burned it.
The packs needed rest, and the story was functionally over anyway, but with one little addendum. At 11:30 the next morning, the official middle-point of the equinox, Stalker-in-Silence appeared and told them that something had left the spirit world. He wasn't sure what, but he'd smelled something that he recognized from the hospital where Scylla had been taken after her infamous "boom." He said he'd smelled it near the maternity ward.
Scylla muttered, "It's given birth."
She's right, in a way.
The packs entered the subways and split up for their hunts. The PC pack (it'd be so much easier if they had a pack name, although Scylla's player wrote a really cool poem about their pack that maybe I'll post someday) jumped on a train and had Scylla use her city-windows Gift. After a few stops, they saw someone zip into the access tunnels, so they got off the train and followed. En route, they found a hooker unconcious on a bench in the station, with a nasty bruise on her head and the faint scent of rot around.
Following the access tunnel, they found a large room and saw a man unconcious on the floor surrounded by three of the White Women. The plan was stealth, but an ongoing lesson of the chronicle is "you're only as stealthy as the least stealthy packmate." Reese, in this case. The White Women looked up, Reese charged in wearing Gauru form, and the fight began.
They killed two of them, but spared the last (who, of course, turned out to be Paula, Scylla's sister). The fight was nasty - these things can exhale poison, and it bypasses the werewolves' armor-fur (a present from their totem, recall). Afterwards, Scylla shifted into a form that allowed Paula to recognize her and Phil recognized the man on the floor as a colleague of his who reportedly had a predilection for hookers (they knocked him out and dragged him to the station, and Reese stole his wallet).
The pack put duct tape over Paula's mouth and bound her, despite Scylla's (and her own) protestations. Zeke and Reese were too badly injured to shift to human form and leave the subway, so they sent Phil and Scylla home with Paula (bound, but wrapped in Zeke's coat). As soon as they were out of sight, Scylla untied her sister (who, by the way, wasn't at all attempting to run, just didn't appreciate being bound).
Back at the house, Paula related how she was trying to find Scylla because a former classmate of theirs had his cards read by Scylla one night (remember Scylla panhandles by reading Tarot for passersby) and called Paula. Paula tried to email, but got bounces, and so came to Philly to find her wayward sister. Instead, she got jumped and dunked in sludge, and had to suffer through her innards being eaten by the fungus. Paula expressed the desire, however, to live - she repeated that this wasn't her fault and that she was in control.
Meantime, Reese called the other packs and found that they'd each killed two of the White Women. He told them that his pack had one alive, and the Uratha all met back at Phil's house.
Simon, one of the Uratha from Boulder, noted that Paula didn't read so much as a Ridden, but as someone infected by "a disease with a spiritual component." He mused that spirituall awakening antibiotics might help, but didn't know the Rouse the Spirit rite.
When Reese and the Harmony pack arrived, they questioned Paula for a while and found that she was wolf-blooded (duh), but infected. Virus, one of the harmony folks, scraped out some of the junk from her back and Simon went with Reese to a locus to see what would happen if it were taken into the spirit world (it slowly burned off until after Reese crossed the gauntlet, it was gone). Meanwhile, the other Uratha discussed the possibility of curing, or at least slowing, the disease.
When Reese and Simon returned, they asked what Paula knew about the Nihar (nothing) and the Barrens. She had been to one of the Barrens and said that she identified with having a hunger that couldn't be filled, and said that she felt that the Barrens could be plugged and fixed, but wasn't sure how. Zeke hit on the idea of an "Essence plug" and the other Uratha agreed that enough Essence might work, since the Barrens weren't true Barrens anyway (that is, they were created because the physical world and the Hisil both burned at once; they were more like wounds that needed to heal).
With the help of Nithar Izi, the fire-spirit that was causing the fires that caused the Barrens to begin with, the 13 Uratha managed to close the four Barrens in the city. It took 50 Essence each, but after that much energy was pumped into them in a short time, there was a burst of light and (in the Hisil), just a patch of virgin earth where the hole once was. In the process, the packs also burned the fungus house; Locksmith, the alpha of the Harmony pack, bullied the spirit into vacating before they burned it.
The packs needed rest, and the story was functionally over anyway, but with one little addendum. At 11:30 the next morning, the official middle-point of the equinox, Stalker-in-Silence appeared and told them that something had left the spirit world. He wasn't sure what, but he'd smelled something that he recognized from the hospital where Scylla had been taken after her infamous "boom." He said he'd smelled it near the maternity ward.
Scylla muttered, "It's given birth."
She's right, in a way.