Much Ado About Nothing

[hazlogs]

It is currently 15:48 Pacific Time on Fri Mar 18 2016.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is partly sunny. The temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the northeast at 7 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.02 and falling, and the relative humidity is 26 percent. The dewpoint is 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 degrees Celsius.) For more detail, see: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=98501

Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (67% full).

Caern: The Stone Firepit

A subtle undulation of the land forms an curious, natural spiral in the open ground. One side of the formation rises to create a half-circle or crescent of earth surrounding and encompassing the spiral. The ground is littered with rock and flagstones, both large and small. Someone has carefully gathered up a trove of these and erected a clear fire pit. Flagstones with smooth surfaces have been laid along the upper lip of half circle of earth around the fire pit, turning it into a nice seating area. All debris and flammable material's been removed from within the spiral, and a fire has been laid. Just beyond the spiral's edge, wood has been collected and piled for future use. Surrounding this, the rugged walls of the canyon have been half buried by the Wyld surge, making the upper slope of the valley more gentle than it was before. Stands of Douglas fir and white pines mix with hemlock, lodgepole pines, and western larch trees to fill much of the open space, but the trees here are not nearly as dense as they are in the surrounding forests of the bawn. The sparse woods allows a partial view of the sky, and both sun and moonlight filter down to create enigmatic and beautiful shadow patterns on the forest floor. That floor is blanketed with a thick, soft rug of shed pine needles, lichen and leaf debris. The moss-covered relics of old, dead trees occasionally mark a place where once great sentinels loomed above.

The caern expands in two directions from here. The escarpment wall and raised dais form one point of the new triangle, while the center of the caern and its gigantic, Wyld-influenced tree marks the other. The only obvious way out of the caern is the valley slope that leads to the central bawn.

The weather's getting warmer, gradually, as spring advances, though it's still fairly cool out, cool enough that Salem's taken up a spot near the fire. The young halfmoon's lying on his back with his head pillowed on his rolled-up hoodie, fingers laced together on his stomach, expression contemplative.

It's a Caern, therefore there are werewolves. One in particular; Nieve in her derpy lupus form, padding around the firepit before heading down into it, before hopping up and trotting along the variety of rocks, flagstones and logs, jumping between them. Her body-language reads as happy, tail high and wagging, ears perked. Hi hi hi.

A small wolf around the size of a german shepherd, this beast is a typical example of Canis Lupus Baileyi, or the Mexican Wolf. Thick fur runs in striations of dark brown along the back, beige along the sides and face, and off-white along the chin and belly, while her tail is long and proudly plumed, tipped in black. She looks to be in good health, eyes bright and intelligent, nose wet and ears perked.

http://tinyurl.com/mexicanwolf

Salem sits up as the wolf bounces in and smiles tightly. "Hello," he says, his tone polite but reserved; he doesn't recognize Nieve in this form.

Not know, the lupine agrees with Salem's silent lack of recognition. She hops down next to him and bulks up into Hispo for a better ability to communicate. ~Pirate Trader. Two-leg Glass Walker, crescent moon, Adren~. That said, she plops down on her butt next to where he's sat, tongue lolling and posture friendly. ~You?~

A bulky wolf around the size of a small bear, this beast is an oversized example of Canis Lupus Baileyi, or the Mexican Wolf. Thick fur runs in striations of dark brown along the back, beige along the sides and face, and off-white along the chin and belly, while her tail is long and proudly plumed, tipped in black. She looks to be in good health, eyes bright and intelligent, nose wet and ears perked.

"Ah." His smile turns crooked and wry. "Yes, you were at the moot. Apologies for not making myself known then, but I didn't want to interrupt the proceedings." He pauses a beat. "Jack Salem, Adren, Philodox, Glass Walker."

This short, skinny white kid is only a few inches over five feet tall and looks to be around twelve or thirteen years old. His straight black hair is cut in a basic, functional style that requires little maintenance -- super-short on the back and sides and only slightly longer on top. He's got a thin face with a beaky nose, thick eyebrows, and dark brown eyes. He's not a bad-looking kid, quite the opposite, but there's still something about him that makes most normal people uneasy, a feeling of potential violence, of predatory intensity.

He's typically dressed in jeans and t-shirt and sneakers, typical casual kid-wear, with a grey hooded jacket for outdoors. Apart from the footwear, his clothing is all a little bit too big on him, but one might imagine that he'll grow into it in a year or so.

Heaaaaaad-tilt. ~Follows-the-Money did say something about you looking younger. Fairies or something,~ the Hispo rumbles, tail thumping against the packed earth. ~It's good to see you again. How've you been, aside from the age thing?~ Pirate Trader then prompts, leaning over to shoulder-bump the 'kid' lightly.

Salem oofs; a shoulder-bump, even a light one, from a hispo is no small thing. He chuckles and thumps amiably with his fist, which she probably barely feels, if at all. "Between the black ooze, the Queen's Tower issue, keeping up Umbral patrols, and trying to work up a whole new network of street contacts /from scratch/... I've been busy. To say the least. What about you?"

Truth, that thump barely reaches through all that fluffy sandy fur. Still, Pirate-Trader fakes an injured yelp, her body-language unchanged. ~Trying to get to grips with all of it. I swear I was gone for all of two weeks, but apparently it's more like two and a half years. Years in which some serious things have gone down. I'm just about up to speed with the Queen's Tower stuff; what is the black ooze?~

Salem grimaces. "Also called the Nothing. Or the Not. It's... complicated." He runs fingers back through his hair. "It's this... substance that's been showing up. It comes from Hanford, specifically the former site of the Caern of the Last Days, which fell... years ago. It's not Wyrm, or Weaver, or Wyld -- seems to be outside the Triat entirely. It can eat reality, corrupt those it comes in contact with, even distort history. It's somehow connected with some /other/ primal force that makes up basically the entire region which, thanks to a would-be City Father, is waking up. Which, if it does, will be cataclysmic. The Queen's Tower is somewhat connected to all of this because of some goddamn Spiral Dancers who went to Hanford and got themselves corrupted, but they're not allies." He pauses and sighs. "And that's the very basic capsule report. There's a lot more about it that would take forever to explain."

~A primal force outside the Triat?~ Nieve seems to find this part in particular difficult to comprehend. ~What does that cat-mage person say about it? They mess with that sort of stuff,~ she wonders then, leaning down and lifting a paw to scratch herself rather vigorously, though in a direction away from the other 'rou. ~I have been thinking about the Queen's Tower issue some. At least trying to deal with one of the symptoms; talen lenses for the eyes, to protect us from frenzy and maybe allow us to see the otherwise invisible fomori. Needing to do some research on which spirits to approach, but possibly a combination of dove and firebird.~

"The thing in the mountains, that /is/ in part the mountains, vaguely corresponds to the Wyld, I think," Salem says. "It's an agent of creation, life, and change. Apparently, it's the reason the caern here has been so... has /renewed/ itself so many times. The other thing, the Nothing, looks like Wyrm and does have a destroyer aspect, but seems to exist outside of that." He grimaces. "The whole damn thing has my brain in knots. The cougar-mage has a better grip on this, as does my packmate Slug. Oh, and then there's Ghost, a CyberDog survivor. Who seems, through no fault of her own, connected to this all as well, possibly made into some kind of... anti-agent for the Nothing back before she was born. Or when she was born. Fuck me if I know for certain." He frowns, then looks intently at Nieve. "Regardless, she's one of Cockroach's, and Mouse agrees with me. But she's skittish, half-Ronin, and I hardly blame her."

There's a faint grumbly sound from the Theurge. ~Why the look?~ she asks simply, finishing the scratch and settling down sphinx-pose next to Salem. ~I'm not interested in shunning somebody because of history. If Cockroach accepts her, that's good enough for me.~ Then there's a faintly discontent sound. ~How do you tell somebody that their den is too clean? I haven't yet seen a single cockroach in Follows-the-Money's very expensive home, and she wants me to live there with her permanently.~

Salem relents, looking apologetic. "She's had some trouble with other members of the Sept," Salem explains, in regards to Ghost. "Because of what she looks like, because she's a metis whose mother was a Dancer, because of her extensive cybernetics and her lone wolfishness. Even before her connection to the Nothing came to light." He sighs, runs fingers back through his hair again, making it stick up a little. "As for the question of a too-clean home, well. I used to leave food offerings to Cockroach's children, but then I've never lived somewhere that didn't have cockroaches naturally. It was always just a matter of being generous."

Pirate Trader offers a low grunt. ~Sounds like she's had a pretty shit start in life. What auspice is she, and rank?~ she continues, tilting her head down to snuffle briefly at one paw, then chewing on one of the pads to ease an itch. ~Who-all exactly has an issue with her? The usual anti-metis crowd or more than that?~

"Anti-metis, anti-Dancer-spawn, anti-Weaver, anti-Ronin..." Salem frowns. "Our current leader, Thane, tried to kill her on first meeting, and his packmate Brom has been no better. The fact that we may very well /need/ her to get rid of the Nothing has... helped, a bit, but I'm frankly worried that people will decide to use her as a sacrificial lamb. And I'm fairly certain the thought has crossed Ghost's mind as well."

The hispo growls faintly under her breath. ~I assume he was acting under the assumption that she was a full Dancer? Or no?~ Nieve prompts regarding the attempted killing. ~If she's been checked out as clean of wyrmtaint, she should be given the same respect as anyone else her rank. Where did she come to us from? What Sept?~ Clearly she's not anti-metis herself; then again, her mother's side of the family are Gnawers. Probably no surprise.

Salem and Nieve are sitting near the fire; the halfmoon's hoodie is rolled up on the ground where he'd been using it as a pillow earlier. "No Sept. She'd never even been to a caern before here. Her adopted family were all of the CyberDogs faction and constantly on the run, trying to keep ahead of the purges." He talks like he expects Nieve will know about those. "She came here after a final attack wherein she was the only survivor."

As Salem finishes speaking, a cougar emerges from the edge of the woods, pausing as it catches sight of others gathered at the fire pit, and inquires with Kylo Ren's auto-tuned voice, "Hello. I hope I am not intruding. I can leave if I am," he offers. So polite, this English-speaking cougar-mage.

Pirate Trader's ears pin back slightly. ~I was on the other side of the Gauntlet during the original purge. Part of the first time I spent in the Digital Web, when Genereader made her call to action,~ the hispo rumbles to Salem. The cat's arrival puts a stop to /that/ conversation; even if he's unlikely to understand the Mother Tongue, Nieve doesn't plan to talk about that chapter of Walker history in front of anyone else. She does shift down to homid however, so that she can converse with the mage in a common tongue. "Anyway."

Salem looks up and waves the big cat over, showing remarkable tolerance for one who used to pack under Rat. "You're fine, Bringer. I was just attempting to explain the situation with the Nothing to Nieve here."

Brings-the-Pack pads over, silently like a predatory cat might, and settles in by the fire pit so that he is opposite of the two garou--creating an isosceles triangle with the fire as a central point and giving him some distance from the two shapeshifters. "A truly complicated and somewhat difficult thing to describe, particularly in light of the fact that we are still lacking a great deal of information. Assuming there is additional information that can be gathered without the expense of lives."

Short and slender, Nieve would appear to be a latina woman in her early thirties. A little paler than most of her cafe-au-lait contemporaries, the structure of her face and her accent both bear out the Mexican blood in her veins. Long black dreadlocks hung with metal charms frame a heart-shaped face, dark and almond-shaped eyes made bolder by the application of thick eyeliner and mascara, the former drawing out to points at her temples. She has a small nose and mouth, both pierced, matched by rows of small rings marching up the outside of each ear. Bodily she is quite petite, though this is hidden in part by loose or bulky clothing, and she seems the sort of girl to always be moving, doing something, fidgeting.

She's wearing fairly generic clothes; rough black jeans held up by a steel-studded belt, a two-size-too-big 'Slashed Rabbit' rock band t-shirt over her torso. Over this is a battered leather jacket, again a size too large and with sleeves that cover her hands. Her feet are shod in beat-up Converse sneakers, the left with a bright pink lace, the right with a day-glow yellow one.

"I asked if we knew what you knew about it. The few mages I knew as a Cliath used to dabble in that sort of stuff," Nieve ventures, talking about such an association as if an artifact of a reckless youth. "So what can you tell us, since it's apparently outside the Triat? I've never seen a spirit that didn't belong to one or other of the three broods; does this 'nothing' have any servants that have been seen?"

Salem picks up his hoodie, shakes it out, and puts it on while the Theurge has a word with the mage.

"It does have minions, of a sort, which it creates," the cougar-mage replies. "I find this to be curious, as I see no reason for it--something that embodies utter nothingness--to create anything. But its minions appear to be a hybridization of creatures. Man. Wolf. Rat. Porcupine. Reptile. There seems to be some small amount of variety, too. So there are individuals among them. Perhaps, in consumption, it merely regurgitates what it has consumed with little regard for.... I am speculating," he says, as if perhaps that might not be a wise thing to do. He takes a moment, regaining his train of thought. "These creatures seem to be capable of radically repositioning themselves. Some attempted to track me down earlier. They appeared out of nowhere in the umbra. They passed through the gauntlet and into the realm as if there were no barrier. And they then passed through a wall as if it were insubstantial. Curiously, despite this ability to disappear, I have only witnessed one of them do so in combat. Claws, it would seem, do affect them. So there is that. But to touch them? To touch them brings about a chilling in one's very existence. And if they are able to contaminate you sufficiently, there seems to be no recourse." A pause. "It does seem as if a Rite of Cleansing can help in restoring balance back to a victim, but if they have been overly corrupted, they have been overly corrupted and the ritual will not work." He looks towards Salem, then back to Nieve. "We attempted to save a Spiral that had been infected. He was too far gone." A beat. "If your lore is correct, and his spirit went to Malfeas, then I hope his spirit was not contaminated and is now infecting that realm."

"So they respect no barrier. That is important; they cannot therefore be captured as there is no way to restrain them for questioning," Nieve observes, scratching a hand back through her dreadlocks. "Claws work, but only claws? What about other weapons, be they klaives or mundane?" she asks, if this is known. "I would imagine Cleansing a Spiral would do as much harm as good. You can't expect a ritual for removing Wyrm-taint to be beneficial to one of the Wyrm's servants," she then adds, almost phulosophically. "You say hybrids. Hybrids in the same way we appear to be hybrid, or a stranger mix than that?" she finishes, all questions.

Salem gives the cougar a horrified look. "Fucking Christ on a pole, thank you, I'm going to have goddamn nightmares thinking about that.

Brings-the-Pack chuckles electronically, which is not weird or creepy at all. "My apologies for not recognizing that that might have been a problem prior to...." He trails off as he responds to Salem, perhaps finding the Spiral's death a difficult or unpleasant occurance. He shifts topics, making an attempt at addressing Nieve's questions. "I use the term 'hybrid' in that they seem to be a simultaneous mish-mash of multiple parts of forms all at the same time, not that they are shapeshifters who take different forms at different times like the garou or bete." The cougar-mage seems well-versed in shapeshifter lore. "Claws work, from what I have seen. I cannot imagine that biting would be a good idea, for contamination reasons at the very least. Flames? Cold? Electricity? I do not know if those things will work. I have seen bullets work, though." Here he pauses for a moment, assembling thoughts before speaking. "It is curious," he begins, "that they can 'respect no barrier' yet, at times, they seemingly do--and can in turn be damaged by these things. Physical forces, for instance, when they attack and are in return attacked. Perhaps they choose to exist physically in order to act and can in return be acted upon?"

Tilting her head slightly, Nieve considers this. "Or the intent is as important as the physical nature. Certainly this is true of spirits; there is a certain kind of hare which cannot be restrained by any means, but the side of a cliff would be no more passable to it than a mountain, -unless- the cliff were part of some prison keeping it in." She considers the mage's words. "All at the same time? Must be uncomfortable. Not to mention inefficient. Do they appear to be proficient with using their many parts effectively? That might tell us how long they've been around for, or whether they're truly sentient and separate from that which created them."

"They don't have eyes but seem to 'see' very well without them," Salem says, absent-mindedly chewing on a thumbnail. "And they never seem to have difficulty moving around that I've seen. Not like some fomori I've come across."

Brings-the-Pack confirms what Salem says, giving a nod in the philodox's direction. "They move perfectly fine, and they can see without eyes. My suspicion is they are able to sense the energies associated with, simply, /being/. And from what I have witnessed from one of Ghost's dreams," he adds, "they re-emerge, once consumed, fully functional. This is, of course, assuming the dream was relatively accurate. And it was a Spiral that was consumed in the dream. Though I have suspicions it was not entirely a dream per se."

Sniffing and wrinkling her nose slightly, Nieve considers what she's been told. "Have they been seen acting in the umbra? I know you said they were there; how did they behave? As material creatures, as spirits - as both, as neither?" she enquires, trying to fill out her understanding. "Has this 'nothingness' got an umbral reflection as well, and if so what is it like?"

Salem pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his folded arms on top of them. "It eats spirits," he says. "One of our very first encounters with it, maybe the first, was when Excelsior, the pack, went and checked out some news of a haunted house. No spirit in a wide radius around the place, and none that would go near. It also seems to have corrupted every Magpie spirit around. Val almost died trying to summon up one." He scratches his nose, frowning. "Magpie was, of course, once one of the caern spirits here, but it also used to be the caern totem of the Last Days, unless I'm misremembering."

"The Nothing is the very embodiment of nothingness. It is not spirit, it is the absence of spirit. It is not matter, it is not even anti-matter. It is the absence of both. It has no umbral reflection. If you were to see it in the umbra when it was also in the realm, it is because it exists...." The cougar-mage pauses and corrects himself. "... it is because it has completely obliterated and unworked what had existed in the realm and the umbra." A nod to Salem. "There is indeed something at Last Days. But we need to wait a little bit before we go there. There will definitely be a fight. If we go in blindly, we will likely all die from our own ignorance and impatience." He offers as an explanation, "I believe there is an incredible powerful warper--practically a god--in the Hanford vicinity. I believe he had been doing research long ago, which allowed him to discover the existence of the Nothing. But it appears that the Spirals at Last Days awoke it. The warper there, I believe, has been trying to bring it back under control. And Ghost was a part of that solution."

Nieve's brows raise slightly, dark eyes fixing on the cat. "Warper is a term we use for some of your kind. The bad ones. Are you using it in that same context?" she asks bluntly. "And if so, do you believe he is, or is related to, the dude helping the Queens?" Once given the answers, she pushes up to her feet. "I need to think through this. I'ma go for a run, but thank you. Both of you. It's given me food for thought."

"I was once called a warper as an insult, so I took it as a badge of honor," the cougar-mage explains, then shifting over towards the mage from Hanfor. "He has no love for the garou, refering to your kind as violently impulsive dogs. But I do not believe he is attempting to destroy the universe, either. I think he is an enemy of the Nothing." A beat, and then the cougar adds, "I wonder--and again this is me speculating--if he even exists in physical form anymore. I would pay him ample respect, even if he offends or slights you with words--should he ever speak to any of you. And I do not believe he works for the Queen. I suspect we would have all been killed long ago if that were the case. That and The Nothing would not be eating the Spirals in the Queen's Tower."

That comment gets a decidedly sharp-toothed smile. "We -are- violently impulsive. That's somewhat the point. Dogs, whatever. He clearly doesn't know much about biology." Nieve brushes dirt from her jeans, then sticks a hand out to the cougar. "I'm gonna go for a run. Don't go too far, I'll have a bunch more questions," she requests.

Salem smiles humorlessly at 'violently impulsive dogs' and nods to Nieve. "Have a good run."

"You all look alike to us," the cougar-mage hazards with an off-color joke. He and Salem are seated around the fire pit, Nieve having just left. "Has there been any news with the Un-Nothing? I've been meaning to take a trip out there to talk with that city spirit again, but.... It's a significant ordeal to get in or out of the umbra."

Memory's arrival is without much in the way of fanfare, as she lands in the upper branches of the tree at the center of the Caern. She flits from one branch to another, coming a little closer to the ground with each hop and flutter. Eventually, she leaves the tree, wings carrying her towards the fire pit in an easy glide, as she croaks out a wordless greeting.

Salem looks wryly amused by the joke, though that fades at the mage's mention of his lack of easy umbral access. Restless, he unfolds his legs, sitting crosslegged. "No earthquakes, and no news from Jeb, either." He looks thoughtful. "I could give you Claire's contact information. She, at least, can speak via email or instant message. No, ah, umbral travel needed." The raven gets a look. "Hello, Val."

"Only if you believe Claire would not mind me having her contact information. It might be best to ask first," the cougar suggests before looking towards the new arrival. "Hello, Val," he says, echoing Salem's words.

Val lands atop some of the stacked wood for the fire and fluffs up the feathers around her throat, head all but disappearing into her shoulders. "I can get you into the Umbra if you need me too," the Corax offers, clearly having listened in on some of the conversation.

"Well, yes," Salem says to the cougar-mage. He glances at Val. "Or that. Or both, really."

"Both," Brings-the-Pack suggests as an all-inclusive compromise. "If Claire has concerns about me that you cannot resolve, I recommend that she speak with Wixalxali. Or Aahn. I suspect both would easily vouch for me."

Memory stretches out her neck, feathers smoothing out, as she looks between the Garou and the illusionary cougar. "Can't say that I've spoken with any of the Caern Totems, Jeb, or Claire. Been trying to contact that one fellow, the one that may be an Ascended Mage again, but I can't see it doing much good. Not without something new to 'bring to the table' in relation to the Ooze. Also think that a small cave I spotted outside of last days may be a back door inside after a fashion, but I also think that testing out that theory would be testamount to suicide."

Salem grimaces. "Without a good way to attack these things without opening ourselves up to infection /or/ a decent defense against them... yes, any kind of attack would be suicide. Though knowing there's a back door should be useful to know when and if we /can/ go on the offensive."

"I dreamwalked Ghost--along with Alicia--a couple weeks ago in hopes of learning something new from repressed memories. It was unfortunately not a fruitful venture. I've been thinking about what to ask that other mage. I might have better luck than others in speaking with him. If you've questions?" Here the cougar pauses. "Perhaps that might be something to mention to the sept. That I plan to contact the Hanford mage and ask him questions about the Nothing. That way everyone who has a question to ask can let me know, and I can better phrase their questions and my own for when I do contact him.:

Memory shakes her head in a very human gesture, that seems a bit odd coming from a raven. "Oh. In less grim news, I'm going to need my motorcycle back in a couple of months," she tells the Cougar, as she turns her attention towards him.

"That'd be useful, yes," Salem says, nodding thoughtfully at the mage. He raises an eyebrow at the Corax.

"Right as the weather is turning nice again. Perfect timing," the cougar notes as he pushes to all fours and prepares to depart back into the wilderness. "It will be ready and waiting for you when you want it," he assures the corax. "My attention is needed elsewhere. A pleasant night to both of you."

"Good night, Bringer," Salem says. "I'll be in touch after I've talked to Claire."

Memory watches the cougar head off and voices a farewell, then turns her attention to the Walker. "How've you been adjusting?" She asks, perhaps a bit bluntly. "Balance issues work themselves out?"

Salem nods; he doesn't seem offended by the bluntness. "Mostly. I still have moments where my brain thinks my reach is longer than it is, and I'm frankly not looking forward to the inevitable growth spurt, but overall, physically..." He shrugs. "I'm as adjusted as I can be. Sparring with Emma and Ghost has definitely helped."

Memory makes a soft burbling sound, as she expresses the raven equivalent of amusement. "Good. I'll admit that I plowed into a few things while I adjusted. Not something that I can really recommend; clipping trees, or miscalculating a landing. Boom! Still, there is atleast one upside. So far, I'm an inch taller than I ever was before and I'm fairly certain that I still have some growing to do."

Salem raises an eyebrow. "Taller? Really?"

"Not that I'm ever going to be six foot, but I'll take what I can get," Memory says, sounding distinctly amused. "That, or I'm just deluding myself. Anyway. I'm going to echo Nick and call it a night. Seeya 'round," the raven says, as she spreads her wings in preparation.

Salem nods and raises a hand in farewell. "Have a good night."