Powerful Friends

[hazlogs]

It is currently 10:07 Pacific Time on Tue Nov 10 2015.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is foggy. The temperature is 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 5 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.26 and steady, and the relative humidity is 96 percent. The dewpoint is 38 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 waning New (Ragabash) Moon phase (8% 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.

It's a chilly mid-morning at the caern, but the fire's burning bright and warm as always. Salem limps around the caern picking up bits of debris left by the earthquake the other day that others haven't yet got to, mostly dead branches and other forest litter; the most likely branches end up in the wood pile to be fed to the fire later.

Nicodemus emerges from the forest's treeline, hiking pack on his back, and easing said pack off his shoulders. He offers a "Hey!" to Salem as he surveys the caern and moves inwards, treading upon holy ground. "Things seem to have calmed down a bit, I hope?"

Salem looks up at the hail and gives the mage a slight grin. "Seems to have. Though I do have something interesting to report on that subject." He drops an armful of shed branches into the wood pile (a much smaller armload than he would have carried as an adult). "Ghost stopped by the Hub that night. She was having a 'sick' phase, which she says is normal for her, periods where she feels ill and under the weather, but she was /also/ restless as hell. Couldn't sit still, much less lie down and rest as she wanted to to. /That/, she said, was very much not typical."

"Interesting," Nick says without going into any real detail as he draws closer and then deposits his pack nearish the fire pit. It looks like he packed light. /Really/ light. Lots of extra space for hauling stuff. He looks around the caern once again, and one might get the impression he's seeing things not visible to the unaided eye. Satisfied, he lowers his voice and offers a bit more information. "The sample of the Ooze that I have? It was likewise incredibly active the night all those Wyld energies were unleashed within the caern. Whatever it was was not exclusive to what your kind would call the Wyld. I suspect, if someone were to track down and subdue a Wyrm spirit from, say, a blighted area, the spirit would reveal that there was a similar surge of power on the same night."

Salem shakes his head. "I was in the Umbra around the Hub, and the Weaver spirits there were normal. I didn't notice anything unusual further out, either." The young Philodox rakes fingers back through long hair. "Granted, I didn't wander into the more blighted areas of the city, and I certainly didn't go anywhere near the site of the old hospital, but the only hyperactivity I saw was in Wyld spirits... and Ghost."

Nicodemus huhs at that information. "Curious. Well, we already knew the Ooze was outside the spectrum of... Oh," he says, bring a gloved hand to his forehead in a "d'uh" gesture. "It was eating the surge of Wyld energies." The hand drops. "Nevermind. I just found it to be unusual in that the Ooze had managed to eat through the jar I kept it in at a substantially faster rate than it usually consumes the glass. But that situation provided an excellent opportunity for testing another theory: I was able to lure the ooze into a fresh jar very easily by luring it with radioactive energies."

Salem nods, frowning. "It likes radioactive material, right. I remember hearing about that. Hanford must be a goddamn buffet." He rubs his chin, then settles into a crosslegged sit by the fire. "Val dropped off a video of her experiments with the stuff. Her blood, Slug's blood -- I think -- and Ghost's. Both infused with Gnosis and without."

Nicodemus looks around the caern once more before speaking, voice again canted low so as to not carry. "Did Emma mention the plan I had for turning the Ooze against the Queen's tower? I was talking to her about it when you'd gotten back into town, and she.... might have gotten derailed when she saw you."

Salem grimaces apologetically, ducking his head and scratching idly at a burn-scar on the side of his neck. "No, she, ah... she didn't mention it."

"While you were away, I learned how to influence, create, convert, and control radioactivity. The Ooze loves that stuff." The warper then explains, "I did some poking around near where Hilliard used to be, and peered through the ground and deep into the earth. The ooze is spread out from that area like a giant underground cancer, spreading outwards. Some of it seems headed towards the Queen's Tower, where I understand there's a lot of nasty stuff. They don't appear to be working together, if you can recall the young Spiral that'd been Ooze-infected earlier, and how the rat-dog-wolf-porcupine things were chasing it. Recruiting, for the Ooze, I suspect." Nick pauses and then makes the connection if it hasn't become obvious already. "I'm reasonably confident I can stand right here in the caern, tap the energies within, channel them into the city beneath the earth, covert that raw magickal power into radiation, and create a trail that draws the Ooze rapidly up through the Tower and straight into the heart of all the Wyrm creatures within." He summarizes. "Use one enemy to take out the other enemy. And then we can focus on just the Ooze."

Salem's eyes widen. He leans back a little, head tilted to favor his good eye, and looks at Nick like he hasn't really seen him in years. "Good lord, man." He sounds more than a little impressed. "When I first met you, you were having spastic attacks if I surprised you using a Gift in your presence."

Nicodemus pfffs dismissively. "I was young and inexperienced and hadn't had much experience with magic being directed at me. And I knew what you were. And," he adds pointedly, "I knew the reputation you'd developed back then." He summarizes, "We've all grown a little. No pun intended."

Salem looks wry. "Some more than others." He sits forward again, pulling a knee to his chest, and studies the fire. "Have you mentioned this plan to Jacinta?"

"It's on the 'to do' list, moreso after the other night's experiment with leading the Ooze sample into a new jar." Nick rocks back on his heels slighly. "She may nix it completely. Understandably so. But, if she greelights it? I think my days of laying low will be over. I suspect there'll need to be a group here protecting the caern from any enemies while there's another group out near the Tower waiting to strike down those who manage to flee it."

Salem nods slowly. "Are you... are you good with that? Being outed?"

"It's not what I want," Nick admits frankly. "But at this point, I think it's what the sept--and probably the caern--needs. If they are to survive much longer given the magnitude of the forces that have moved into this area." He grimaces. "Hopefully I won't be banished afterwards. Or be forced to defend myself."

"You wouldn't be alone," Salem says. "I'd hazard to say there are several Garou who'd stand with you, and not halfassed little Cliaths and cubs, either. That being said, I don't /think/ the Sept has any serious mage-haters these days, and you've more than proven yourself."

"Time will tell. And hopefully, if this idea gets a green light from Jacinta, it doesn't backfire and blow up in everyone's face." Nick shifts his weight somewhat uncomfortably from one leg to the other, clearly a bit nervous. "It's hard to see the future, especially so when the Ooze is involved. I might end up making things worse than they are--although that's certainly not my hope nor intent."

Salem rubs his chin, looking thoughtful. "All right, so, let's consider worst case scenarios." He stretches his legs out and leans back, resting on his elbows with his sneakers pointed at the fire pit. "The Ooze takes over the residents of the Tower, converting them into its own minions... and then traces the trail of magic right back to you at the caern."

"And the Oozes' minions seem to be able to fold space. I've watched a pair of them do it when they tried to track me down, but I fooled them with a decoy." Nick adds, "But I don't think I can pull that off with the amount of energy that's going to have to be channeled to pull this stunt off. On the other hand, I suspect the Ooze already knows where the caern is; it just hasn't bothered with it. And without me, there's nothing making the radiation. And by converting it to radiation only after it's within the city, there's no radiation at the caern. Where it might get sticky? The Tower might have a Nephandi or three in it. So they need to be caught with their pants down."

Salem tilts his head back, staring at the overcast sky as though it might have answers written there. "Nephandi... your version of Black Spiral Dancers, ne?" His lips thin. "The group at the Tower could do double-duty. Attack to get their attention. Make it look good. Then take care of stragglers after." He sits up and looks at Nick. "Do you think they know about you?"

"Theoretically, it's possible." Nick rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "I've not really poked at the Tower directly. Though I did tangle with one of those white-haired guys of theirs. Nasty," he adds.

Salem raises eyebrows. "Do tell."

"Not too much to tell," Nick replies to the inquiry. "I'd offered to be a wheelman for Silvertip and Samantha. They'd planned to abduct a Spiral and question it. Things didn't go as planned and there was an invisible white-haired guy present. He pulled the door off the van and went after me. Hurray for bulletproof vests. But he still tagged me a little and managed to.... I guess destabilize the essence of my existence a little bit, for lack of a better descriptor. Stay away from their hands if you run into one," he cautions. "We drove off with the Spiral, so the white-haired guy got away. If their communication lines sucks as much as ours do, that's likely as far as things went. Knock on wood."

Salem grunts and sits up. "So, hopefully they don't know about you. Or they do, but they don't think you're as powerful as you are. Or, at the very least? They wouldn't expect us to let you tap into the caern's power, if they know anything about Garou at all. Which, if they're dealing with Spirals, they should." He rubs his nose. "All this being moot unless Jacinta's agreeable, of course."

Nicodemus nods slowly, emphatically. "Yes. It's pretty much all hinging upon what Jacinta thinks at this juncture. I kind of half hope she says 'no.' It'd make my life easier. And I'll see what I can do to help in different ways."

Salem grins understandingly at this. "I hear you," he says, and changes the subject. "How are you, otherwise? I presume you're not spending /all/ your time thinking about the Ooze."

"Galavanting to umbral realms to learn more about fire and electricity and cold and sound and gravity, which was why I'd asked about rewarding a Chimera spirit. I'm trying to reward one for helping me safely navigate the umbra and even protecting me once." The warper looks skywards, as if dwelling on other things for a second. "Studying the nature of magick itself. Trying to put another group of mages elsewhere at ease after one of my apprentices ended up going over to the Dark Side. Juggling the three remaining apprentices." He waves a hand towards the woods to the northeast. "Learning about being a very large feline--or pretending to be one, at least. And building a new lightsaber as an exercise in efficiency and refinement. Hopefully," he adds, "I'll not cut half my leg off this time around."

Salem looks impressed, to say the least. And perhaps a little intimidated. "...Christ. You do keep busy, don't you?"

Nicodemus momentarily looks a little tired. "Responsibility is a bitch. I do not recommend it."

Salem drags fingers back through his hair, face pulled into a grimace. "Tell me about it. I've been tribal alpha. Even Sept alpha. I didn't enjoy either."

Nicodemus chuckles mildly. "I'm starting to understand the appeal of just summoning up a stone tower out in the woods in the middle of nowhere and living the life of a near-hermit. You can come visit when you retire."

"Which probably won't be for a while, now," the de-aged Walker says dryly, his smile thin and tight. "Not that there aren't advantages."

Nicodemus snaps his gloved fingers. "About that. When the moon gets about halfway full, I'm going to go pay my mentor a visit and ask if he'll consider fixing you." A beat. A finger points groin-wards. "Not /fixing/ fix. But your injuries. And maybe age? I don't know. He's a bit of a mercenary, and nothing comes free, and I suspect this will get expensive fast. I've got some stored energy I can offer--sort of the coin of the realm for warpers. That might not be enough, though. We'll just have to see. And I'll get back with you once I hear. Kavi, though? His memory loss? I know this guy can't handle that, but I haven't looked Kavi over to see if that's something I might be able to fix myself. And even if I can't fix the problem directly, I think I might be able to do a minor workaround where I could let him dream about his past memories--maybe helping him get grounded again, even if it's through an odd medium and not exactly perfect."

Salem purses his lips and nods. "Good. Let me know if there's anything I can do to assist. I think, at this point, that anything to help Kavi reconnect with himself would be welcome. By him /and/ Rina."