Werewolf Chapter 2: Tennesse Waltz

[General Havoc]

"A key," said Sofie, brandishing it before slipping it back into her pocket. "Not sure where it goes, but it looks like an office key."

Mindful of Arianne's warning, she lowered her eyes as she passed the paintings and moved over to the main office doors, looking for one that the key would open. Supernatural traps lain in the paintings only confirmed everything she thought was wrong here. But fortunately, she had a bit of supernatural help as well.

Moments later, she came across a very promising-looking possibility for the new-found key. A large office door marked with none other than Aaron Sterling's name. Mindful of the possibility that there might be traps, she did pause long enough to call the others over.

"This looks like the best place to start," she said, before using the key to unlock the door.

[LadyTevar]

The door unlocks and opens cleanly, no traps or even a squeak.

The office inside is all wood and leather -- high-back glossy brown chairs face a large oaken desk. Behind the desk was a bookshelf tastefully filled with hardbacks that looked like they'd never been read: classics of literature mixed with local Appalachian authors. The desk itself had a very discrete computer monitor on one corner, set so it could be turned towards the two chairs in front. The keyboard and box were hidden from plain view, probably set into the back of the desk.

Another large painting of "Modern Knoxville" hung on the side wall, with a small desk underneath displaying a fine set of crystal decanters. All had either amber or clear liquid inside them, with one of the amber lower than the others. Obviously Aaron had a favorite.

((Again, roll to search the office for the bone, and once again, those in Umbra are invisible to those now in the RL office.))

[Cynical Cat]

"Go to it Sof," said Alex. "You're obviously on a roll. I'll make sure you aren't disturbed." The Ahroun's gaze swept the area, alert for any sign of trouble. Nine times out of ten the job was pointless. One time out of ten it could be life or death.

[rhoenix]

Feeling like he was pushing on early-morning mist as he pushed his nose through the door, Sees-Faces-In-Stars immediately beheld a very, very large Spider spirit in the room, eyeing him suspiciously.

His mind raced as what he remembered about the Weaver's children flooded back to him, remembering that they mostly lived and let live - unless someone broke some of their webs, or blundered into their home. At this point, Sees-Faces-In-Stars suddenly realized that he (and the others) had cheerfully done both.

Dung. (He thought to himself for a brief moment that the Homids were onto something with this swearing by stuff you don't like that they did - it was satisfying.)

Standing in full view of the Spider spirit, Sees-Faces-In-Stars deliberately and slowly sat down on his haunches, and began to sing as wolves do. More than a simple greeting, his song included his lineage, his Tribe as one who studied the stars' secrets, his role as chosen by Luna as a Theurge.

The song changed as it went into its second phase, the transition smooth and harmonious, Sees-Faces-In-Stars deliberately taking the time to enunciate the notes, and call them with reverence as he now addressed the Spider spirit. He sung his respect for the great spider defending her home, tending her little ones, and keeping the great dance of the Weaver in perfect step and rhythm.

The song changed again, though just as smoothly as before. The song seemed to fill his ghostly lungs of their own accord, the winds and breezes themselves giving him strength as he continued, rustling his greyish fur even in this ghostly place. He sung his sorrow for breaking the webs the children of the Weaver worked so hard to build, and invading the place the Weaver's great children called their home. He sung next about how he and his pack were looking for clues to solve a mystery that involved the Wyrm's taint, wished not to cause harm or trouble to the Weaver's children or their home - but they still needed to look for clues to stop something terrible from happening, which had the potential for much more disruption of order.

Pure spiritual energy from within him seemed to coalesce in his fur and body for a moment, making his fur stand straight on end and his eyes glow a greyish blue. He walked slowly and deliberately closer to the spider by four measured steps, and lowered his nose to the floor, the raw spiritual energy within him rapidly coalesced into a glowing blue sphere on the end of his nose. The glowing bluish sphere stayed where he left it, between he and spider.

Having done this, he took four measured steps backwards to make the Gnosis he'd left be closer to this child of the Weaver than to him, and sat on his haunches again. Sees-Faces-In-Stars sang one more brief song, offering this gift as a gesture of goodwill and good faith to his words, and offering his blessings to this Spider spirit. After his song was finished, he sat as still as if he'd been frozen in time, patiently waiting for a response.

[Devonie]

Arianne noticed the filing cabinets off to the side behind the desk. She quickly started rifling through them, searching for the physical evidence Megan had asked for.

Finding a couple of ledgers, she slipped them out. When she glanced through them she realized she was muzzy-headed enough not to understand them. She placed them on the desk.

"Alex," she said quietly and indicated the ledgers. "Take a look. My head's still kinda fuzzy from the trap."

[LadyTevar]

As Sees Faces gave his lineage, the Pattern Spider held it's position, front legs and palps still raised threateningly as its eyes watched both Garou warily.

As the howl became flattering, the legs and palps lowered slightly, showing that the Spider was listening, and if not understanding perfectly, then understanding the intent.

The next 'verse' of the howl had the legs unmoving, but the Spider's palps and fangs quivered as it listened, as if weighing the young Theurge's words carefully. As Sees Faces started to glow with Gnosis, the Spider's legs raised up again at the possible threat, and remained that way as the small lupus slowly walked forward. Yet the Pattern spider did not move as the bluish sphere of spirit energy was left in front of it, allowing SeesFaces to make his careful retreat back to his position.

With the last song of praise and goodwill, the Pattern Spider lowered her front legs to the desk, the multiple eyes seemingly focused on both Garou and the glowing ball at the same time. One front leg stretched out and caught the glowing Gnosis ball, pulling it closer and absorbing it at the same time.

Then the PatternSpider started chittering, the fangs wiggling as it spoke to SeesFaces. ~~ApologyAccepted~~LeaveNow~~ the spider seemed to be saying, the high-pitched clicks and vibrations more concepts than actual speach. PassGreatWebGoOtherworld~~

With that, the spider leapt upwards with barely a movement of its legs, grabbing the ceiling webbing with practiced ease and swinging its great body around to look down at the two Garou. ~~LeaveNow~~

[rhoenix]

With a slow nod of his head, Sees-Faces-In-Stars faced the great Weaver spirit. With a soft howl, he thanked the great Spider spirit for its acceptance of his gift, and offered his blessings to it and all others it cared for.

With that done, his fur stopped rustling from ghostly breezes as he turned to face Breathes-The-Winds with a look of calm surety. "The children of the Weaver won't try to harm us for invading their territory or for breaking their webs, but we need to leave the Umbra. Now."

[General Havoc]

A quick scan of the office revealed nothing, but then that was to be expected, and having given it a once-over for obvious matters, she went through it again, this time looking for any signs of disturbance.

As before, jackpot.

One of the pictures on the wall was slightly askew, but more important than that, the paint on the wall around it was scuffed with the silver scrape marks that came with cheap picture frames. Sophie quickly walked over to it and slid it aside, revealing a safe with an old fashioned combination spinner. An electrical lock would have been trivial to hack with her Vulcan, but even analog safe combinations were like security passwords, in her experience. Despite all recommendations, people kept using guessable codes. She pulled up her laptop, opened up the note file she had compiled on Sterling, and settled in to do a little guesswork. It was a matter of guess and check now, and hopefully it wouldn't take all night, as she decided to try reversing Sterling's supposed birthdate and adding the address of the building onto the end as a fourth unit.

To her astonishment, the safe clicked open on the first try.

Inside was a sight designed if not to make Sophie jump for joy, at least grin broadly. A literal stack of cash, $10,000 or more by her amateur reckoning, was situated next to a gun. The gun was nothing special, a plastic Glock 17C with recoil slots to compensate for muzzle rise, one of the most common handguns in the United States, and (in Sophie's mind at least), distinctly inferior to her own CZ-75. Austrian guns were seriously overrated in her opinion, not to mention ugly as sin. The box of 20 9x19mm parabellum rounds upon which the gun was sitting were a slightly different matter. Her CZ would take those, and gladly.

But it was the small package wrapped in silk that truly caught her eye.

She took it carefully and unwrapped it, revealing a carved bone with a leather thong attached to one end, clearly designed to be worn around the neck. She took the leather strap and held it up, letting the bone dangle in front of her eyes, before turning back to Alex and Arianne.

"Anyone looking for one of these?" she asked, grinning triumphantly.

[Cynical Cat]

"Sure," Alex said to Arianne. "Keep watch. We probably don't need to, but it'll be better-" he stopped mid sentence as Sofie turned around with a huge grin on her face.

The Shadow Lord's grin mirrored hers. "Now we're cooking."

[Charon]

Breathes scowled some at the spider and Sees-Faces before he nodded and stepped sideways, ending up in the room. "We'll want to get going again. The people living here aren't happy about us being around."

[rhoenix]

As soon as Breathes-The-Winds' form seemed to fade into ghostly mists, and then into nothingness as he left the Umbra, Sees-Faces-In-Stars looked once again at the great Pattern Spider above him.

"Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm - your people never forgot the dance, Spider. Weave in harmony, and with the blessings of Luna," he said softly to it as he too began to dissolve into moonbeams and mist, and then suddenly looked around blinking as he found himself in the physical half of the world. The transition for him back was always jarring; the colors, sounds, and scents always seemed too harsh, too bright, too loud after being in the Umbra.

After taking a moment to adjust, he faced the others of his Pack brightly, acting once more like the mostly-grown wolf he was, noticing Sophie grinning as she held a bone. "I didn't find too much in the Other Side, but we broke some of the Weaver's webs. Everything's okay for now, but staying too long would be Not Good. What did you wolves find?"

Looking curiously at the bone, Sees-Faces sniffed at it once, his eyes widening as he did. Fixated on it, he slowly walked toward the bone, a slight breeze ruffling his fur as got closer. "All of you know that's a fetish, right? Its...sleeping deeply, though."

[Devonie]

"Excellent!" said Arianne, grinning at Sophie. "We've got the bone. Anything else in there we might want? Grab it. Alex - get the ledgers. Let's get out of here before whatever Sees and Breathes found comes to this side after us."

She crouches - if she had hackles in this form, they'd be on end. Something just didn't feel right. She wanted to get out of here before they ended up having to fight their way out.

[General Havoc]

Nodding to the others, Sophie quickly turned back to the safe and emptied it into her shoulderbag. The gun was of no use to her presently, but one of the others might want it, and if not, a backup piece was not a terrible idea. As to the bullets and cash, it was not hard to determine what to do with those.

For a second, she considered checking the computer on the desk. The locals had said that they had tried that already and found nothing, but Sophie was hardly one to rely on the computer skills of others to tell her what was and wasn't liable to be fruitful. Still though, the interruptions she had caused in the building's alarm systems would only last so long, and they had specific things to go at. She remembered the advice she had been given by one of the Chicago crew before she came down here, not to let herself get distracted by the first shiny ethernet port that crossed her path.

"Next time," she whispered to herself, as she walked over to where the ledgers were. As she did so, she handed the fetish itself to Alexander. Loathe as she was to admit it, he was the one most likely to be able to hang onto it should things suddenly turn sour.

[Cynical Cat]

Sof was probably a better choice to take the fetish: she could get the fuck out of Dodge while he and Arianne held the line if the shit hit the fan, but now wasn't the time and place to argue. They had the fetish, they had the ledgers, and they had the cold hard cash. Time to hit the road. "Let's go," said Alexander as he secured the fetish.

[Charon]

Breathes watched Alexander carefully as he grabbed the fetish, very slowly he nodded and followed Alexander out, careful to watch his surroundings, his team, and keep track of any pedestrians that may see a 9 foot tall bipedal wolf with horns.

[LadyTevar]

They exit the building as easily as they had entered, seeing and being seen by no one. The Patchwork Quilt had suggested a local hotel for the pack to spend the remainder of the night, and the cost of two rooms barely touched the cash that Sophie had pulled out of the safe.

The Patchwork Quilt would be meeting them the next evening at Hannigan's bar in the "Old City" section of Knoxville.

[rhoenix]

Still fascinated by the fetish, Sees-Faces-In-Stars moved out of the building with the others, his senses keen for any threats or notes of interest he could feel or see. Soon, soon they'd be able to examine it, and he could try to wake up the sleeping spirit and talk with it.

[Devonie]

Arianne trailed after the others, her senses as aware as she could make them, her head still a little woozy. She was getting more and more nervous, and probably wouldn't be able to relax until this thing was safely back to the cairn.

She wished they could just leave the ledgers for the Patchwork Quilt somewhere and get the hell outta dodge. In fact...

"Alex," she hurried to catch up with him. "I have a feeling we need to get back home. I don't like the idea of lounging around in a hotel all day tomorrow. Too much chance these guys can get our scent and track us there."

[Cynical Cat]

"I'm with you on this," Alexander replied. "Fuck waiting around for something else to go wrong. I've been napping while you've been driving so I'm fresh. We'll get this thing back to the Sept and then make the delivery of the ledgers."

[rhoenix]

Suddenly feeling very, very tired as he trotted out with the others, Sees-Faces-In-Stars made a very wolvish yawn, shaking himself slightly as he finished. Though he had all the endurance of a wolf given blessings by both Gaia and Luna, the young wolf had done and experienced much today.

Being a little tired, he was a bit more literal than usual. "Can I sleep in the Stinky Moving Box With Wheels? I'll wake up the spirit in the bone after I wake up."

[Cynical Cat]

"That's three of us, majority," said Alex. "Get in and buckle up, if you're in homid."

[Cynical Cat]

Allowing enough time for the rest of the pack to enter and settle in, Alex turned over the engine and exited the parking lot. "Next stop West Virginia."

[rhoenix]

Curled up on the floor of the back seat, Sees-Faces-In-Stars was nearly asleep, the movement of the Giant Farting Weaver Box moving along the black path gently rocking him to sleep. Alex's words only half-registered in the young lupus' mind, sounding to him much like "large juicy steak" in the Garou tongue.

He licked his chops with his eyes closed, and thought of the delicious morsels that Galileo has made up a few times. The bread and the wide grass on the meat didn't appeal much to Sees-Faces then, but the memory of flavor of the fire-cooked meat and sauces over it relived itself in his taste buds. "Mmmmm," he said sleepily in the Garou tongue. "Hamburgers..."

[LadyTevar]

The highways and byways of Appalachian have always been forced to conform to the hills and hollers of the mountains. Even in the age of Interstates, the mountains have remained obstinent, forcing expensive blasting to get the roads through. Fill from the blasting was dumped into the hollers to try to level the path, to little effect. Many Interstates have stretches where tractor-trailers are urged to drive cautiously, warned to check their brakes before descending the road. More than one trucker found themselves careening down the interstate with burned-out brakes, unable to stop. On the steepest hills, emergency truck lanes were created, where a truck out of control could pull off the interstate onto a gravel or sand pit that would safely stop the runaway trailer.

Dawn was slowly approaching, barely a glint of lighter sky as Alex guided the jeep up a stretch of interstate. The road was marked with three lanes, signs informing the travelers "Trailers and Slow Vehicles Far Right Lane Only". The jeep's six-chamber engine was pushing itself hard as it climbed, showing the strain of the steep grade.

Around the curve in the opposite lane came the sound of squealing brakes as a tractor-trailer sped down the steep grade, black smoke roiling behind it and flames shooting from the tires. It tried to stay in the lane, but started to skid, the trailer behind it beginning to tip. Like a scene from a movie the vehicle rolled onto its side, skipping across the interstate lanes and into the median, not slowing as it plowed straight for the jeep.

[Cynical Cat]

Alex jerked the wheel hard, taking the Jeep to the right lane and the gravel lane, narrowly avoiding the rolling vehicle. "Motherfucker!"