News of the Ooze

[hazlogs]

It is currently 09:45 Pacific Time on Wed Oct 28 2015.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the south at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.92 and steady, and the relative humidity is 93 percent. The dewpoint is 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius.) For more detail, see: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=98501

Currently the moon is in the waning Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (96% full).

The Hub: Main Floor

The main floor of 'the Hub' is a spacious, almost sprawling room, with a two-story high ceiling and a large loft that looks out over the room itself, accessed via a winding metal staircase set at the opposite end from the heavy security door. One side of the floor is completely open, with a bank of windows facing north and offering a brilliant view of the city, especially at night. The other side contains a series of doors and doorways that lead into other rooms, large and small. One is clearly a kitchen (a very nice large kitchen with its own island and eating area), one is a bathroom, and one a repurposed conference room with a smaller central table than likely existed before, and comfortable rolling chairs that have clearly been reclaimed from various goodwill sources. Other rooms serve as storage, with one standing out as a well maintained server room, from which the local Walker server, various databases, and hardware responsible for the block's free wifi can be accessed.

The open floor itself sports several areas clearly designated for various purposes, though none have been walled off from the rest in any real fashion. One contains a comfortable, beat-up couch and armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around a large flatscreen TV and coffee table, another is a bank of multiple computers, each with their own desk and office chair, while a third is a modest exercise area mostly consisting of an open space of floor covered in a cushioned mat and several free weights. A number of monitors have been mounted on the wall next to the security door; the largest displays the area immediately on the other side of the door, with another showing the interior of the private elevator. The third and largest is split into sections, with one section dedicated to the sub-basement, another to the roof, and the others switching routinely between various parts of the interior and exterior of Maxwell Tower.

Restless and pent-up under the full moon, Salem works on burning off excess energy over in the exercise area, going through what could best be described as a beginner's level of gymnastic exercises -- handstands, frog stands, rolls, cartwheels -- and here and there a more advanced move, such as a front or back aerial flip, generally with mixed results.

Ghost didn't spend the night at the Hub, that's obvious--and certainly not unexpected. Mid-morning marks her return though. She rides the private elevator up and then buzzes the other side of the heavy security door before letting herself in, looking distinctly worn and more than a little twitchy in comparison to her demeanor last night. Given how carefully she shuts the door behind her though, it's possible the twitchiness is just partly due to the whole action of entering on her own. There's certainly an increase in visible tension as she steps inside, which lets itself slide away within moments.

Salem is in the middle of a handstand when Ghost comes in; he glances over, peering through his hair, then shifts his weight onto one hand. He manages a quick wave before collapsing, gracelessly, onto the mat. He swears in Serbian.

"Sorry," Ghost says. She makes her way over toward the mat at a somewhat cautious pace, clearly intending to give Salem all the space he desires. "Didn't mean to interrupt anything."

Salem wipes sweat off his face with the tail of his shirt. "You're fine. I'm just..." He gestures vaguely at the mat. "Re-training."

Briari heads into the main area after sweeping through the doors. "Hey guys." She calls over to them, obviously on some type of caffeine buzz. "What'sgoingontoday?" She rambles out as she drops her bag to her feet once she unshoulders it.

Ghost looks from Salem to the mat, and nods once. "Balance," she says. "Yeah." Briari's arrival is fast enough that there's a brief blink-and-you-miss-it startle from her, but the other Ragabash also gets a once over and a nod before she adds, to Salem, "Maybe, uh, maybe it's too much to start with? I don't know. I remember learning, but I've never had to relearn."

Salem grimaces, raking fingers back through his hair. "I'm mostly sticking with the fundamentals, it's just... frustrating." He nods to Briari, hand raised in a brief wave. "It's like... trying to relearn how to read and having to work at _Green Eggs and Ham_ when you're used to _Snow Crash_."

Val is likely heard before she is seen, as her footsteps echo on the mental staircase. The rainbow-haired girl pauses when she reaches the landing and lifts a hand in silent greeting.

"Green Eggs and Ham is an excellent book." Briari says as she gives herself a stretch, then peels out of her shirt to reveal a sports bra beneath. "Looking to spar some more, Salem?"

Ghost's attention diverts again as Val arrives, but just as briefly. "Sparring seems, uh." A beat. "Premature." Even so, she moves away from the both of them, in case they intend to get to it. "I'd be frustrated too."

Salem glances up at Val, squinting a little, then shakes his head at Briari. "I'm actually taking your suggestion from last time. Focusing on balance."

"Hope I'm not interrupting," Val says, as she moves a bit further into the room. "Have some video I wanted to drop off. Figured it might be of interest."

"Video?" Ghost echoes. Now that she's out of the immediate path of any would-be sparring--not that this appears likely to happen--as well as the young seeming Corax, a little more of that tension about her bleeds away, though it leaves plenty behind. Her fingers curl against her sides shortly before she crosses her arms.

Salem wipes sweat off his face again. "What kind of video?" He moves off the mat to give Briari room to use it.

"Some time-lapse stuff from some poking I've been doing in relation to the ooze," Val says, as she moves a bit further into the room. "Have actually found something that seems to eat the Ooze, oddly enough."

Ghost's attention has clearly shifted to being mostly focused on Val now. Her mouth is set into a thin line again, which isn't far from her previous expression. All seriousness from her today.

Salem's eyebrows go up. "...Define 'eats'." He limps over to the nearby sitting area and takes a perch on the arm of the couch.

"Slowly absorbers and neutralizes without loosing any of its mass or volume," Val says with a faint twitch of her lips, as she slips the silver and black bag from her back and heads over to the couch where Salem is sitting. "If you want to get specific. Very slow process. Takes ages, but it works." Pulling an ancient laptop from her bag, the Corax hits the power switch and the machine starts to boot up. Looking over at Ghost, she focuses on the Once-Walker for a moment.

Ghost's eyebrows lift slightly as the focus changes. Less than half a second and she startles far more than she did when Briari arrived, "...What the /fuck/? What?"

Salem's gaze flicks from Val to Ghost then back again; his brow's furrowed. "How slow? And is it something we could produce in quantity or weaponize?"

Val pokes at the computer, which is still booting as it is a rather ancient machine. "Sorry about using this clunker, but it has no WiFi or bluetooth built in. Bit more secure for questionable stuff. Anti-Ooze doesn't seem to stop working, or get used up, so even a small amount could prove effective. It would just be an issue of time and placement. But, I'd need to try something larger scale for more solid answers." The small woman pauses briefly, as she draws in a breath. "Volume would be an issue, as the supply would be rather limited simply due to its nature."

Ghost says, a little more slowly, and a little--but not by much--quieter. "What the /fuck/." Every visible muscle in her seems to have gone tense. Her arms drop to her sides, but both hands are clenched, and her breathing turns short and shallow. "You can...they already know, sort of. /That's/ what you were doing with it?"

Salem is suddenly quite still, his tension rising with Ghost's. His attention mostly on the rogue Glass Walker, he asks Val, "Is this material something to do with Ghost?" His voice is very quiet and flat.

Val looks over at Ghost and shrugs. "Poked at it from plenty of different angles. That just happened to be the one that actually did something. I tried with mine, when I was infected, and when I wasn't. Well, that's not entirely true. Slug ended up talking with that one off fellow, by repeatedly exposing the Ooze to a phone number. Which was just odd. And yes," Val says, returning her attention to Salem.

Ghost sucks in a deep, slow breath. If she's trying to relax, it doesn't work. "How long?" she asks, in a manner that suggests she's dredging the words up from somewhere they don't want to leave. "When did you...start doing that?"

Salem keeps quiet this time, though the pair have all of his attention.

"Started poking at the stuff a few months back," Val says, as she sets the now-booted computer down on the couch. "Trying with the sample you gave me was more recent. Honestly, Slug may have been on the ball when he suggested that you were 'infected' with the Ooze's opposite entity. The fellow he spoke to on the phone said there was one out there, although he seemed to be of the mindset that anyone infected would be dead or have gone crazy by now. I'm still rather puzzled by the gaps in your memory."

Ghost closes her eyes for a moment. She manages another deep breath before she opens them. "...What gaps?"

"My pack's totem apparently thinks Ghost reminds her of, quote, hungry shadows, end quote," says Salem, still maintaining a facade of still, stony calm. His fingers are digging a little into the arm of the couch, though. "That sounds more like the Nothing, or whatever you want to call it, than its opposite."

"Why you came here, initially," Val tells Ghost, as she runs a hand through her rainbow coloured hair. "And we've had this discussion before, at Edgewood. And her blood is ignored by the Ooze," she tells Salem. "Rather than consumed. Unless you add some Gnosis into the mix, at which point it absorbers the Ooze. Add Gnosis to anything else and the Ooze acts as if it has been handed a treat. The Ooze hounds have been seen actively hunting and dragging away spirits and they have shown an ability to drain Gnosis. Which is most... Unpleasant."

Ghost shakes her head slightly and steps away from the other two, toward the nearest wall. "None of this makes any fucking sense. I'm not.../infested/. And I'm not tainted, I had Mr. ...I had Salem check. And you...you were feeding my blood to this stuff? Months ago?"

Salem grits his teeth, then takes in a breath, lets it out. "You're not tainted with the Wyrm, no. Or the Wyld. A little tilted toward the Weaver, but nothing more than I'd expect considering your, well, enhancements."

Val shrugs. "Ooze doesn't stink of Taint. And I'm not trying to suggest that you are Wyrm-Tainted, or that you're a danger to us. If anything, you seem to be the only solution I've been able to find to the problem we're facing right now. And I'd hardly say I've been feeding it your blood, since the exact opposite has been happening."

Ghost's lips peel briefly, and sharply, away from her teeth before she bottles the rest of that reaction. She doesn't turn back to either of them; her visual focus is on the wall, it seems. "Months ago is when the Umbra weirdness started."

Salem's phone chatters loudly with an incoming text, making him twitch. Cursing, he checks it, then abruptly excuses himself and heads for one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Val huhs softly and scratches at her cheek. "Now that is odd. Umbral weirdness in what way? You cured Emma from her infection. And later, you cured me without any lasting harm."

(...Much Later (Nighttime in fact)...)

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.

After the 'chat' with the Elemental, Dakota has been a ball of jittery adrenaline. No sooner does she arrive at the caern's firepit than she moves to sit down. It lasts about half a second before she's back on her feet and taking up a restless pacing in front of the fire. "Okay, I saw a lot. Stuff I recognized but others I didn't, but I think I have a rough idea of it all and what it /might/ mean. Of course it was all going at about a thousand miles an hour, like seeing movie clips when falling off a cliff. Which I suppose I was in that spiritual but physical sense." As she paces, she's shifting her fingers and gesturing here and there, like simultaneously counting and emphasizing what she's saying. "I saw a serpent. I heard stories of it, that some other Garou witnessed it in a dream. It was bigger than anything I'd seen, almost too big to comprehend, like trying to see an entire mountain range at once from close up. It was all sorts of colors, browns and greens, reds, blues and colors I can't even describe. They were either colors or I was having a brief stroke. Shit, probably both!"

Salem picks his way very carefully down into the caern, his jaw set and teeth clenched. His new jeans already have dirt ground into the knees, and there's bits of forest-litter in his hair.

Dakota looks past the firepit towards the sound of approaching feet, squinting briefly until she recalls who it is. "Heya, Salem. Uh.. don't mind me, thinking out loud.. though I'm sure They're listening." She says with a flap of her hand to the surrounding air of the caern. "I spoke to an Earth Elemental about this Nothing and what we'd been talking about with Ghost at the Hub. I think... /think/... I have a basic idea of things. Don't quote me yet, I just saw all of this and I could be reading it wrong, but.. I think I'm at least on the right track."

Salem limps over to the firepit and drops himself into a sit. "Nnf. That sounds promising. Tell me about it."

"Right!" And Dakota switches back over to verbal regurgitation mode. "So next I saw after the snake was the caern rebirth, the most recent one. I saw Owen when he attacked the Nexus Crawler and this swirling, crazy mass of color and sound. That thing was intense. Owen and the Crawler were.. vaporized, disassembled down to beyond nothing. Then that storm thing was gone. Then, after that, I saw a cavern full of what I think were Shadow Lords in the middle of a rite. The rite failed, I guess, because the whole cave collapsed. I'm guessing that's what set this Whatever loose. I fell down further, below the cavern I'm presuming, and there was this eyeless.. face.. growing skin. Humanish. Wherever it was, the pit it was in went down far far deeper. I saw the snake again, only this time there was a second - pure darkness, the very definition of it. The other was the earth - trees, lava, rock, grass. They were apart of the land itself it seemed, trying to destroy one another. Mountains rose as they fought, there was smoke. Volcanoes maybe? Then I saw a Crinos female Garou fleeing from Hanford. Grey and black fur, heavy green glowing scars, definitely Wyrmish. Now.. I didn't get a good look, but I did ask the Elemental about Ghost and what connection there may be. I don't presume anything but part of me itches that it may have been who Ghost was before coming here? Whatever may have brought her to who she is now. I know she's checked clean, so not accusing her of anything, but that might explain the connection."

Salem frowns and pulls a knee up to his chest, propping his elbow on it. He scratches at his forehead. "I checked Ghost when she first came here, and used Truth when she told me her story. Which is... wild enough but doesn't involve Hanford at all, from what I recall. In any case, there /was/ a caern that way, and a Hive. In fact..." The newly young Philodox cocks his head, thinking. "I seem to remember hearing about the Garou who visited here from the Last Days, and one of them was a female Shadow Lord named..." He pauses to think some more. "Mercy."

Jamethon has been mostly silent this whole time. Not even, in fact, commenting on or asking about Salem's condition.

"Like I said, I could be totally wrong there, I know I don't have all the stories." Dakota says with a nod towards the Walker. "There were shadows chasing her possibly, but I didn't get a good enough look at the Garou to pick out any real defining features minus the scars. I know about the fallen caern so I'm wagering I was seeing when the Lords dropped the ball, so to speak. The last parts I saw was the old hospital site. Hillard, which no one normal seems to remember being there. There's something involving the parking garage. It showed up pretty distinctly. I remember the old Crawler lived on the hospital. Probably not a coincidence this anti-existence Nothing would show up in relation to a reality-breaking creature. The last bit of note was the earthquakes happening. Related to the snake-beings fighting? Maybe. But that's what I saw. Who was this Mercy?"

Jamethon considers aloud, "Most Theurges are of the mind that Nexus Crawlers are not of this reality. That in fact, they don't exist at all. Not how we think they do."

Salem rubs at his nose. "I honestly don't know more than that. The whole Last Days affair was before I arrived, so I only heard about it in stories. She was one of several Garou who came here when their caern was taken, and then left with some help and took it back. They were mainly Get of Fenris and Shadow Lords and, I gathered, eventually fell as much to infighting as to the Wyrm. Though Hanford being a massive shit-zone certainly didn't help, I'd wager."

"What happens when you destroy utterly what might not exist?" Dakota murmurs in a somber tone. "...and what's strong enough to do it? Hmm. Was the fall of Last Days before or after the caern battle? And what happened to the hospital? It was standing when I left."

"...beside a mountain stream, see her waters rise," Felix is singing to the world at large as he passes into audible range, carrying a plastic grocery-type bag and scooping something out of it to tuck next to one of the flagstones, "Listen to the..." He trails off at the presence of numerous people talking, giving the group a curious look, then flashes them a quick grin and an, "Evenin'," and continues about his business, humming more quietly to himself. He sets another handful from the bag on top of a smaller stone a bit further away, and something shiny from his pocket beneath the edge of another.

Compact is the word for him: wiry, maybe 5'6" in his beat-up black combat boots, with a sense of compressed energy and imminence like a coiled spring -- or a cocked gun. Never quite still for long, balance flowing through the balls of his feet. There's a striking intensity to his narrow blue-green eyes, the colour contrasting with his fair skin and spiky copper hair; just below the left is what at first appears to be a faint mole, but closer inspection reveals as a small, long-healed scar. His features are appealing, with high cheekbones and a good jawline, but it's the confident mien and roguish smile that most often seem to draw people in.

He's in a well-worn biker jacket of the traditional sort, all fairly closely fit black leather and silvery zippers and snaps. Beneath it, he's got old black jeans with a rip in one knee and the cuffs half walked off and a faded plain black t-shirt which fits rather snugly, in a flattering sort of way. There's a couple leather-and-bead bracelets on one wrist and a length of ball-chain disappearing beneath his collar; his nails were apparently painted black some time ago, since they're starting to show chips. Late teens, most likely, and when he speaks it's in a mellifluous, southern-accented baritone voice.

Jamethon adds to this with a sore tone "The hospital is still standing. I mean, you can just feel it there. I don't care if you can't see it."

Salem eyes Jamethon, then tells Dakota, "It blew up," in a perfect deadpan. "I forget why, but that's when the Nexus Crawler started roaming around the city again and Wyrm activity increased city-wide for a while." He notices Felix then and eyeballs the stranger (to him, anyway).

"So physically it's blown up but there's still the spiritual echo of it?" Dakota says with furrowed brows as she looks between Jamethon and Salem. "...so hospital 'blew up' - do we know why? - then the Crawler went wandering. Did the Hanford visits come after the caern rebuilding?" She tries to clarify again before she's distracted by the arrival of Felix. The Ritemistress gives her chin a quick bob in acknowledgement. "Argh!" She grumbles as she drags her fingers through her scalp. "Crawlers, Nothing, Hanford, Ghost... what's connecting all of these?"

Jamethon glances at Dakota, then Felix, then Salem. "If others wish to seek the Mountain's wisdom, I can facilitate this. I'm curious how this Ghost would handle it. In passing through the Mountain's eye, one becomes a part of it for a time. And time to a mountain is... something we can not fathom. I do not know what it might show or do to... one affected, such as yourself."

Salem grimaces, nose wrinkling. "Thank you, but I'm quite full up on reality-altering experiences with spirits for the time being. But I will mention it to Ghost."

Jamethon nods and his tone is even and calm when he offers, "I understand. If that changes, I would lend my knowledge and power to help you."

Felix glances back at the group while he works, managing probably not coincidentally to stay within earshot of the interesting discussion, but not interrupting. He pulls another tiny thing from his pocket, light briefly glinting from it, and glances around consideringly before putting it back in the pocket and setting his bag down by the trunk of one of the larger trees here. He eyes the conifer up for a moment or two before starting to climb it.

"Besides the mountain," Dakota continues, "There's only one other spot in the visions I can pinpoint to go check out and that's the parking garage. So, if anyone's willing to go check it out then we can see what's hiding down there. A Walker had been scouting that at one point, wasn't there?" She asks of Salem curiously, though Felix's climbing of the tree distracts her and she squints towards the Gnawer. "Don't damage the tree."

Salem eyeballs Jamethon sidelong for a moment, mouth thinned, then turns to Dakota. "Ishmael or Riley, though I believe it was Ishmael. Not that anyone's heard from him in a while." He rubs his chin. "Didn't that pack of Thane's poke around there as well at one point?"

"Don't worry, ain't aimin' to," Felix assures Dakota from about six feet up, and continues several feet more before digging in his pocket for the little sparkly thing again and leaning out to set it carefully in the join between a main branch and one of its offshoots. The ground gets a considering look, then, as do the branches around and below him, and he jumps down, which is possibly not the best idea he's ever had. He does manage not to harm the tree, but doesn't land squarely on his feet, instead ending up doing something of a shoulder roll to get there. But it works, so hey, maybe he meant to do that. Certainly he acts as if he did, anyway, humming again as he picks up the bag again and moves to the next spot. It's closer to the group, so it's clearer that what comes out of the bag is some kind of animal innards.

Dakota regards what Felix is doing with a considering eye but she sees distracted enough not to question it. "Right. I think so? I heard something of it. Guess it's worth seeing what they may have found. I'm going to start touching base with some folks and see what I can find out, but tonight I'm going to see if the spirits will give me any other pointers. I'll be on the other side if anyone needs me." And with that said, the Child of Gaia shifts into her Crinos form and makes her way to cross the Gauntlet.

Salem nods to Dakota; after she's gone, he shifts himself closer to the firepit, sitting crosslegged. Felix gets another look, scrutinizing. "You're new here, ne?"

Felix looks to the group again when Dakota sounds like she's wrapping things up, and at Salem's question he goes ahead and directs his attention that way entirely, strolling a bit closer with a nod and scrutinizing Salem in return. "More or less, yeah," he agrees, "been here... 'bout three months now, I reckon? Felix T. Sinclair, Lets-Them-Eat-Cake, Cliath Bone Gnawer Galliard, packed with Tactical Frivolity, under Coyote." He makes about half a bow, although it's the half that includes a gratuitously sweeping arm movement, thankfully not of the arm carrying the bag.

The scarred boy remains seated, his manner guarded. "Jack Salem, called Scar. Adren Philodox of the Glass Walkers and alpha of pack Sagacity, under Chimera."

Jamethon follows as if coming out of a mental fog, "Jamethon Black. Godi of the Fenrir. Beta of Excelsior. Gatekeeper of this place."

Felix looks the boy over again, one brow lifting slightly. "...well, nice finally meetin' you; heard you mentioned a bunch. 'course, the description was a little different... an' nice meetin' you too." He gives them both a smile, though the regard for Salem is still curious.

Salem bares his teeth in a thin, humorless smile. "Only a little?"

"Well, I was expectin' someone taller," Felix replies, deadpan, and then, "...and also there's the bit where you got mentioned as havin' been around longest of anyone 'round here."

Salem drags fingers back through his hair, grimaces, then pulls out a twig that'd gotten stuck in there on his run over. "Longest? Maybe. I think it was '98 when I first came into town." The kid squints. "'98 or '99, I forget. It's been a long time. Longer, subjectively."

Jamethon pushes himself to his feet and looks to Salem. "I'd like to meet with Mouse." He glances at the bits of carrion spread around. "I'd like to make a connection from forest to city on this." With this he nods, and looks to start off. "He's seventy years old," the Godi offers helpfully with no further explanation and heads off.

"I was born in '98," Felix says, studying Salem again, "...mosta the time." Jamethon's remark gets a blink at the Get's back while he goes, and then a look back to Salem. "Well. Y'don't look a day over 45," he tells the Adren, "What happened? I mean bein' baby-faced's one thing, but it don't go THAT far. You find the Fountain of Youth or somethin'?" If there's any skepticism, it's well hidden under being intrigued by the suggestion of an interesting story here.

Salem eyes the departing Get with a frown; he nods at Jamethon's request, but there's clearly no love lost there. To Felix, he says, "I accompanied a tribesmate on a quest for Stag's favor so that he could learn a Gift known only to the Fianna. This quest involved Fae. I came back like /this/, and he doesn't remember a goddamn thing about anything."

Felix sits himself down on the edge of the next-nearest flagstone, setting down the bag. "Do you?" he asks, "...an' are you tryin' to undo it? I know people're always lookin' for ways not to be old, but I'm pretty sure ain't none of 'em aimin' for junior high instead." A slight pause, and, "Did he get the Gift?"

Salem shrugs. "The idea was to get Stag's favor, and then the Fianna would feel comfortable teaching him the Gift. But even I've got very little memory of the trip itself, so." He lets that hang for a bit. "And he has a lot more on his mind than working out if he knows that one Gift. Such as remembering all or any of the Gifts he /did/ know." He pushes to his feet, stomps his sneakers a little into the ground as if waking his legs up from sleep. "As for me, while I don't know a great deal about the Fae, my instinct tells me that I'd rather go through puberty again than have any further dealings with them."

"Damn," Felix says, brows going up again, "So, pretty shit trip all around, then. Sucks. Can't say as it's makin' them sound real appealing from here, either, but maybe there's somethin' else can help sort shit out?" He gets to his feet as well, too much energy to stay settled at the moment, and stretches.

"Maybe," says the Philodox. "I'll certainly consider if something presents itself, but for right now..." He shakes his head. "There are bigger issues afoot, ne?"

"Well, there's always stuff afoot," Felix says, "but yeah, I guess it's always priorities, too. I feel like I still dunno about a lot of it, here, though. Y'all were talkin' about Hanford an' Crawlers an' the hospital that isn't there an' all, an' I ain't heard much 'bout any of that. An' I been told to avoid Queen's Tower an' the sewers, but not a lot 'bout just why. Only thing I'm pretty sure I'm kinda up to date on's the vampire thing."

Salem scowls. "Oh good fucking goddamn Christ on a pole, we have a vampire issue again?"

Felix sighs, glancing skyward and then back to the Walker. "Yeah, we got some in the city. We been lookin' into it, an' we told folks who're supposed to tell other folks, but I dunno how much they did 'cause we ain't hearin' all that much back. 'bout when I was real new in town, we had homeless folks disappearin' in one neighbourhood, so Justin an' Watcher went lookin' into it. They found this old church, turned out the 'priest' was a vampire, an' he attacked 'em, fled when he found out they're Garou. They found this trap door, there was the missin' folks chained up an' tortured, an' an assload of other vamps that tied 'em up with shadows an' beat 'em unconcious, left 'em on the street with a message they're comin' for us an' to spread the word. Then they, the vampires I mean, burnt the place down, captives an' all. No one's seen 'em since, they been pretty quiet, but we're pretty sure they're still around. So, we been lookin'. Still are."

Salem's anger builds as he listens; he outright bares his teeth at the bit about the vampires using shadows and swears in Serbian when Felix is done. Then he takes a breath. "I

Salem says, "I'll pass that along." He sounds calm though clearly isn't. "Excuse me." He heads off, moving at a quick limp, heading for the woods and just about radiating rage.