Werewolf: Appalachian Moonrise, Ch 1

[Devonie]

Arianne nodded to herself. He got the message - they would succeed in this quest, with or without him. She figured he'd be a powerful ally someday, but she wasn't going to let him get away with seizing control of the pack.

Galileo put her in charge for a reason, and she wasn't going to fail; couldn't afford to fail. She squared her shoulders and led the way to the professor's office.

"We're already here, Sophie," she pointed out. "Alex took care of finding out where the professor is, and found out we're expected."

She double-checks to make sure the hall is empty before continuing. "And I never -asked- nor -claimed- to be anyone's Alpha. Alex named me so earlier. Now he says I'm not -his- Alpha." She shrugs. "Hell, who knows if we're gonna be a pack later. We may not any of us be -alive- later."

[Cynical Cat]

"Are you asking my opinion?" said Alex calmly. "If so, the professor is well aware we are on our way. Do as you see fit. And I certainly don't claim to be your alpha Sophie." He held the door for her.

[LadyTevar]

Professor Childe's office was up one flight of stairs, and down the hallway. It was obvious which door was hers, as the glass window had been busted out into the hallway. What looked like the door to a small safe lay on the floor, under a large dent in the plaster wall where it clearly went out the window and hit hard.

A lady of undeterminate age was in the hallway, frowning down at the mess. Her hair was glossy black as a raven's wing, pulled back from her face in a braid. Her face had the start of laugh-lines around her blue eyes, but now a deep frownline marred her brow. In the brisk fall weather, she wore a turtleneck under a suit jacket, with the typical not-quite-matching look that many college professors acquire. Something makes her look up at those gathering, and she purses her lips slightly. "Are you the ... students .. my associate sent?" she asked cautiously.

[Devonie]

Arianne nods and holds out her hand. "Galileo sent us. Seems we have a problem, though."

She looks at the professor. "Are you ok? Can we do anything for you?"

[Cynical Cat]

Alexander nodded in agreement. He and Arianne might be at each other's throats in the future, but at the moment her actions were correct and would receive his support.

[Charon]

Breathes-the-Winds was broken from his reverie by the incessant bickering of the Ahroun. Both were acting like idiots now and the Metis sighed to himself and pulled his hat on closer.

"Let's just move on to less important issues than who the top dog is like what happened to the item and how we're gonna get it back huh?"

When they reached Childe's office the Metis paused and looked around, noting the small safe and the dent in the wall where it had apparently hit. Breathes-the-Winds paused further investigation until Professor Childe said it was ok.

[General Havoc]

First he insulted her for being a Metis, and now he was holding the door for her. Either her credit in the world had suddenly skyrocketted, or this was another Shadowlord ploy of some kind.

Oh well, what did it matter what the motives were, as long as he was behaving himself? She smiled and shook her head a bit as he held the door open for her, and closed her cell phone, swinging her laptop bag around to deposit the phone within the front pouch as she walked. A couple of the students or faculty (she couldn't tell which) gave her a few dirty looks thanks to the Chicago Cubs cap she had on (she guessed most people down here were Braves or Cardinals fans), but she ignored them, as always.

She said nothing as they reached the professor though, merely watching her and glancing around the room to see if there was anything that looked mildly suspicious... other than the obvious of course.

[rhoenix]

Walking with the others into the Professor's room, and staying silent still, Sees-Faces-In-Stars simply observed the others, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Homids were confusing. They even had rituals and an elaborate mostly-white holy shrine for when they got rid of waste!

[LadyTevar]

In the hallway, when Arianne made her comment, Professor Childe's eyes flew up above their heads to something on the wall behind them before saying "Come in, we can talk more privately."

She opened the battered door and lead them into the wreck of what was once a cozy office. The safe was on the wall, hinges mangled, standing wide open. The desk was on it's side, drawers ripped out and shattered, the contents spread across the room. The chair was splintered, stuffing gaping from huge rents. Papers were fluttering about in the slight breeze from the broken window. "The police and security are not sure what happened," Prof. Childe said dryly. "But the item in the safe is definitely gone."


((Those who want to make Wits+Perception Rolls or Wits + Investigation Rolls, use the OOC thread to do so. If anyone followed the Prof's gaze in the hallway, there is a security camera there.))

[Cynical Cat]

Alexander followed her in. "It would take a lot of strength to do that, and the subtlety of an enraged rhino. Was there anything on the security camera? And did you speak to anyone about this besides Hattie?"

[Cynical Cat]

Alex paced the room. "Superhuman strength, no subtlety, red doggie fur." He looked out the window. "Colour and behavior stereotypes match Red Talons and Fianna, but it is far too early to jump to conclusions. Only so many werewolves could have been aware of the fetish and we've got the colour narrowed down. We have the mess outside for a Lupus scent track and the camera for Glasswalker tricks. So, again, who else knew about this fetish professor?"

[General Havoc]

Sophie was already setting up the aforementioned Glasswalker tricks, paying no mind to anyone else, she spooled out a phone cable, connected it to her Vulcan adapter, and plugged that into her laptop. Then she grabbed a chair, stood on it, and began wiring the other end of the phone cord to the camera.



The phone line was inserted seamlessly into one of the ports on the main motherboard of the digital recorder, and the Vulcan would do the rest. She quickly opened her laptop, and typed a few code PERL requests to the machine spirit in the Vulcan to please download all the audiovisual recordings the security camera had made.



It was like taking candy from a sleeping baby. The camera practically begged her to take the footage, the spirits within bored from storing it all day. She downloaded a copy, quickly wiped the recordings of them walking in, with an embedded code structure to wipe the footage of them leaving, once they finally did. She'd dub in a piece of empty footage into both places, change the date/timestamps, and when she finally unplugged her Vulcan from the camera and re-attached the case, she was utterly confident that not even the FBI crime lab would be able to reconstruct that they had ever been here.

Better safe than sorry...

[LadyTevar]

"I only told Galileo that I thought it was a fetish," Professor Childe answered, running a hand through her hair as she looked at the wreckage of her office. "I did do a lot of research trying to identify the bone simply as an artifact .. some of that was interviewing various people to determine how it got here and who owned it previously."


Outside in the hallway, the Glasswalker was busy. Not only did the industrious hacker gain access to the tapes of the night before, she also had the power to erase the evidence of her own tampering.

Unfortunately, a quick view of the video was very disappointing. The datestamp showed the Professor leaving at 7p and turning out the lights. A guard walked through about 11p. Midnight, there was suddenly a light on inside the door, although no one had come down the hallway. A large shape was briefly visible through the frosted glass window as it moved around the office, but the camera was not in the right position to see more, nor had it a microphone to pick up sounds. Three minutes later, the door to the safe crashed through the window at speed, but the camera did not see who/what threw it. The light fell over, going dark, then nothing more until the guard came by again about 5a.

[Cynical Cat]

Alex noted Sophie getting to work. Good. "If you could be kind enough to write down a list of the people you spoke to, it could be very useful."

[rhoenix]

Something...bothered Sees-Faces-In-Stars about this room. Deciding that most homids leaned their head back and let their eyes unfocus for a moment at times, he did so - opening his other senses enough to feel for The Destructor's taint.

Hopefully it didn't look too un-homid. He'd already been warned about the "bathrooms" Homids use, and still didn't understand why they would want to bathe where they get rid of waste.

[Charon]

Breathes-the-Winds nodded slowly. "Sophie, can you check to see if there have been taps on Professor Childe's line? Maybe someone was snooping around and was waiting for conformation that it was a fetish before they struck."

Breathes-the-Winds meanwhile was up to Uktena tricks, feeling out for garou gifts or other magic that might have been used to let the culprit sneak in.

(Using Sense Magic)

[General Havoc]

Sophie had just finished compressing the footage from the surveillance camera when Breathes made his suggestion. She didn't respond in words, but with a shrug, and took her black box and laptop out again, removing the phone cord from the phone and plugging it into her Vulcan. She'd check the physical phone for bugs after she searched for a trace.

((Rolling Wits+Computers I assume))

[LadyTevar]

"Well..," Professor Childe frowned slightly. "Other than Hattie and Galileo, I spoke with the donator, Lester Peebles, and made inquires among the local native tribes," she proceeded to list off several names. Standing Rock was known to Adahy as elder Uktena. Other names were simply other researchers into Appalachian history and Native American culture. It was clear that the information leak could have come from anyone, as she had spoken to a lot of people, some Garou and Kinfolk during moots, some mortals during fairs and festivals over the summer. She had been exhaustive in her research -- which meant anyone could have overheard her and made a guess why she was interested in the artifact.

As the Professor spoke, Adahy could since no trace of magic involved in this theft. Prof. Childe didn't notice the two young men sniffing the air, or pretended not to notice. But something did make her frown thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of this before, but there have also been several farms nearby that have had animals -- horses and cattle -- attacked and mutilated." She looked at the destruction around her office. "The authorities were calling it panther attacks...."

Sophie wired up the phone for nothing, as there was no sign of any taps or tracing of calls from the office.

((Rheonix, if you're doing Sense Wyrm, you need to roll Perception + Occult, Diff 6))

[rhoenix]

It didn't take long. Sees-Faces-In-Stars' eyes snapped open as his neck straightened, staring directly at the bit of red fur Alex found. He almost barked without thinking, but tried to be subtle with the Homid pro-fess-er around.

He pointed to the red fur, and with a grim look, spoke a single word. "Tainted."

[Charon]

Breathes-the-Winds looked over at the piece of fur. "Well this just gets better and better." He looked back at the Lupus and stepped closer so as to talk to him privately. "Do you think we should talk to the spirits? Find out what they know? If there are even any here that is."

[Cynical Cat]

"Wouldn't hurt to check," said Alexander.

[Cynical Cat]

"Find anything out Sophie?" Alexander asked.

[rhoenix]

Looking somewhat plaintively to Breathes-The-Winds, Sees-Faces-In-Stars whispered back. "They...don't make sense. They feel like Weaver," he said smiling slightly, and then turning to look at Sophie.

[General Havoc]

Sophie shook her head as she plugged the phone back into its cord. "Nothing on the phone," she said. "But the video from the camera showed that nothing walked in here. Whatever did this either came through the window or through the Umbra."

[Charon]

Breathes-the-Winds nodded to 'Joe'. "Thought that would happen, but better to check anyway."

He glanced back at Sophie and nodded slowly. "I didn't see any glass shards on the inside, so I'm willing to bet they stepped in." Breathes-the-Winds was frantically working out what had done this now. It had obviously been another werewolf, and one who was tainted by the wyrm no less. But that still didn't leave them anywhere, he wracked his brain trying to think of local Fianna or Red Talons.