Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (83% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is partly sunny. The temperature is 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the south at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.17 and rising, and the relative humidity is 72 percent. The dewpoint is 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 21:13 Pacific Time on Tue Sep 4 2001.
Walker Safe House(#2832RAJL)
This small tenement building is a work that any interior decorator would be proud of. The building is somehow filled with light and space, despite the fact that the room is far from large. Mirrored surfaces and lush green potted plants are much in evidence - jarring only slightly with the video cameras that perch unobtrusively in various locations. A small sign on the wall lists the number of apartments upstairs as eight, though there are no names next to the apartment numbers. A very thick door leads downstairs, with no visible method of being opened - except a keypad next to it. A monitor is perched above the entrance, showing images from the hidden camera that watches the outside of the building.
The lobby branches off into what appears to be a small recreation room; for use only by residents and their guests. Much like the rest of the building, mirrors are prominent. There is a pool table set up in one half of the room, along with a small fridge for storing drinks and a cabinet for snackables. The remainder is dominated by a large home theater system, with an incredibly expensive-looking couch in front of it. The couch nearly screams out, 'Don't spill anything'. For those who might, there are also two matching side-chairs, and a bean-bag on the floor - far too close to the television to be good for anyone's eyes.
Roger comes up from the basement, a large rectangular case in hand.
Jonathan taps a few buttons on the keypad and then waits, a moment later the door unlocks and the cub enters the safehouse. "Honey, I'm home." he calls out and closes the door behind him.
John is leaning against the wall by the doorway to the rec room, pulling his gloves just a little more tightly over his hands, before re-strapping and fastening. Apparently ready to go out, wearing the full street uniform.
Roger glances over to John and nods his head calmly, though his eyes are drawn to something about John... something a bit out of place. "Ok. We doing this tonight?"
Roger looks to Jon. "Aye, the wonderful wizard of shut the fuck up and wait to be spoken to, cub."
Corey's feet drum on the stairs as he comes down and pauses to peer at the entrance door. "Hey, Ricky Ricardo's here." He continues until he's about midway between the stairs and the rec room.
John inclines his head to Roger, finishing messing with the gloves and cracking his knuckles, audibly. His eyes stray to the Theurge cub. "Something like that. Whatever. You'll enjoy this, I'm sure." Tilting his head as he looks back to Roger, he asks - gesturing to the case - "What's that?"
Jonathan grumbles quietly to himself and leans up against the wall. Hands still in his pockets. The cub just leans back and relaxes, waiting for something interesting to happen.
The front door opens again, this time it's Dizzy arriving home. "Hey everyone," she greets.
Roger looks about and taps the case with a finger. "I had it dedicated." With this he sets the case down and opens it. First he takes out a carefully folded full-length trench coat and dons it. Second out comes the large assualt rifle that he places inside the coat on some kind of special holster inside it, completly out of sight. "Hey Diz. You're coming too."
Jonathan rolls his eyes at Roger and then looks to John. "Remember what you told me Rhya?" the cub asks, smirking.
John is already wincing at the rifle carried under the coat. "Is that really neccessary?" he murmurs, folding his arms as he pulls away from the wall, straightening up.
Roger looks over at John and lifts an eyebrow. "We're taking cubs into the city umbra. We cannot be too prepared."
Dizzy nods at Roger. "Yeah, 'm coming," she says as she closes the door behind her. "From what Sophie's told me, this is going to be pretty neat."
Corey shakes his head silently as he watches Jonathan. Same Hops as ever, he sees. He glances at the door again and gives Dizzy a smile and nod as she enters.
Jonathan lowers his head again and leans back. The cub remains fairly still, just passing the time again. Something will turn up to grab his attention, or just grab him, soon enough.
John shrugs, dropping his hands to his sides and shifting his shoulders about. "Whatever. I'll be relying on claws, personally." he grunts. "So. We ready?"
Claws? "Should we shift, then, to do this?" Dizzy asks, a tad concerned, looking to John, then Rog, then back again.
"We've got to /get there/, first.." John murmurs lowly, looking to Roger. "Know a good place to step through?"
Roger simply nods and looks to the door, theres an alley way set up right next to the safehouse with a well kept, but hidden mirror for us to cross through.
Corey arches an eyebrow. He looks like he's about to ask a question when John takes the words right out of his mouth. The brow stays cocked as he doesn't quite understand the answer.
Jonathan looks about for a moment, then looks to Roger. "We going to have any trouble with spiders around here? They were... less then welcoming last time I ran into some. I tried to talk to them, but they just ignored me."
Roger narrows his eyes towards Jon and then looks to the other present Cliath. "Why was he with Pattern spiders?"
Roger drops this quickly enough, "Nevermind... lets go."
"So... can we get and explanation of exactly how this is going to go?" Dizzy asks what probably all the cubs want to know, "I'd like to be prepared, expecially if Roger has got a big gun and John's talking about using claws."
Roger glances quickly to Dizzy then looks over all the cubs, "Tonight has been chosen for a learning excursion into the umbra. The moon is still mostly full, but won't be for long. As far as what to expect... well..."
John just stares at Roger, and then Jonathan. "I wanna hear about that later. You see spiders, don't touch 'em. Don't mess with 'em. Stay clear of the pattern, and they'll steer clear of you. Unless you /want/ a fight." He shakes his head mildly at Dizzy, headed for the door, and holding it open for the others to troop out. "We'll see. You might want to walk around in a non-birth form. Just for safety's sake. There's lots of light tonight. You'll all be fine. We know how to handle ourselves, and the concern is to make sure we can handle you /not/ knowing." He jerks his head at the door. "Alright, you lot. Out."
Corey shrugs and walks out the door. Question and answer period can wait until he has some better questions.
Jonathan speaks up, smilling, happy to be on some ground he feels a bit more comfortable with, the cub gets a little chatty as he walks out. "Psst, Well in the woods it is pretty cool, haven't seen it over here in the city yet, but if it's anything like the ranger station there are these cool spiders crawling all over the buildings. They cover everything with this webbing stuff. Neat."
Regan Avenue, Downtown
Tenements, small businesses, and tiny restaurants line the street. Heavy metal bars encase the glass fronts of the stores. Battered cars, almost falling apart with rust, are parked haphazardly here and there along the sidewalks. People travel in groups, here, wary of the small gangs of young boys at street corners. Several blocks have the same dull repetitiveness, from Fifth Street all the way to Twelfth. Only the graffiti marks a difference between the blocks, the occasional rudeness sometimes broken up by light colors and strange designs.
Dizzy shifts into lupus and pads off outside following behind Corey.
Jonathan drifts off out of the building behind Corey, whispering to him.
John closes the door behind the assemblage, giving Roger the nod to lead the way.
pins-in-Circles looks around. How do garou do this? Something with reflective squares Spins thinks.
John gives Spins-Circles a nod, and looks to Corey. "Any reflective surface'll do, if it's big enough." He looks to where Roger and Jon already stepped through. "Dizz, you go first? It's a pretty simple exercise. Look at your reflection, into your /own eyes/. Start to watch the reflections within reflections. You should be able to feel it. Something there. All you have to do is see it. /Really/ see it. And then you'll be there. Take your time."
The Ahroun gestures to the large mirror, previously obscured by trash, and turned against the alley wall. Now hanging firmly in place.
Spins-in-Circles pads over to the mirror and almost gets close enough to press her nose on it. She looks deep into it and looks, and looks, and looks and _finally_ starts to pass through the gauntlet.
Corey walks toward where the two already pulled their disappearing act, and examines the mirror. "Any one? Will, say, a TV screen or monitor do? How big does it have to be?" he asks as he waits for his cubmate to go first. A quirk of a corner of his mouth, and he quotes in a low voice, "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ did gyre and gimble in the wabe..."
John gives a brief, half-amused snort. "Got to be big enough. You should be able to fit yourself through, see. But yeah. If you've got a big enough TV screen, plate of glass, pool of water... you can do it." The prose, he ignores, not understanding, nor caring.
Corey notices his cubmate's disappearance and steps more directly in front of the mirror to stare into reflections of infinity. "All mimsy were the borogoves..." he murmurs, then concentrates on... something, within all those mirrors...
and disappears.
Umbra: Regan Street (100-400 Blocks)
The Umbra here is dark, the torturous air murky with suffering and poisons of the soul. The Weave is tarnished and scarred, sore-like cracks gape in the silvery paving. Block after block of crumbling shades of buildings border the cracked street; the lights moving within them are pale and unhealthy. The foetid atmosphere is heavy with the unvoiced cries of souls gripped in an agony of despair.
Somehow, fragments of life blossom in this urban purgatory. Two empty lots are brilliances of riotous green against the numbing grey webs, one aglow with random but brilliantly alive weeds, the other amazingly laden with sunbursts of flowers. High in one of the buildings opposite this flowered lot is a green splendor of flowering light and beyond it the man-high rectangle of a mirror. A building further westward can also be seen to have a large reflective glass through its windows. A spidery lattice of steps reaches up towards it.
An odd building, looking like a Chinese fortress, stands to the north.
Jonathan moves closer to the spiders, only a few 'feet' away from them now, or the umbral equivlent. "Guess I won't bother them then." the cub relents and then steps back again. "What about Wyld spirits?" the cub asks, "Do they ever come this far into the scab?"
Corey blinks once as he comes through the Gauntlet, and finishes the stanza he started Realmside. "And the mome raths outgrabe." He looks around, attempting to figure out just what's going on.
As the last of the Garou step sideways, ripples in the fabric of the Umbra cause hundreds of tiny rents in the Pattern Web. A convulsion of movement sweeps across the dank veils as the scurrying forms attempt to fix the damage.
John appears, soon after Corey, and at the sight of the Weaver's maintenance men, and the shadow of buildings in this place, he immediately shifts up to glabro, and scowls. "Fucking Umbra." he grunts, quietly, under his breath, before looking to the others, like Corey, trying to see what's going on. And glares at Jon getting close. "Get back, fool." he barks.
Spins-in-Circles has a little trouble, but eventually makes it to the other side. She turns in a circle, looking at everything nervously with her ears pressed back. She is a bit surprised to see that Corey and John are already here, despite the fact that she was the first to leave.
Jonathan is already backpeddling as he sends John a glare. "Just looking. I won't touch." the cub replies, and starts whistling his tune, if anyone is paying attention and musically inclined, they'll hear a slowed down tempo of 'Its the end of the world as we know it'.
Movement! There is too much large scale movement here for the satisfaction of the small weavers, and they scuttle across the pattern web, attempting to repair the damage caused and to tie down anything that's moving.
Roger glares at the Jonathan and seems to be off set by his behavior. "You need not touch them to earn their ire." Suddenly the tiny spider's skitter to life and Roger's demenor quickly changes. "Ah shit. Fucking cubs! Everyone back to me, now!"
Quickly, Spins-in-Circles gets behind Roger, eying the scurrying litle spiders with distrust. These spiders are the Weaver? she asks.
Corey sighs, seeing Hops is getting into things he has no business in. No surprise there, no matter the realm. Startled by the sudden activity and Roger's barked command, he shifts up to Glabro and dashes to the Galliard.
Jonathan heads back to Roger, shifting up further to crinos now, moving on all fours and dropping back past Roger.
Roger's warning comes none too early, as a small wave, maybe a score at most, of the small spiders rolls towards the place where the Glass Walkers initially appeared through the Gauntlet. They spin their web of sanity and sameness across the spot, reinforcing the pattern.
Roger turns to the now crinosed cub and grabs him at the throat, pulling Jon's face down to his own. "When I give you a command you follow /BEFORE/ the pattern spiders turn you into a dead fucking MUMMY!"
John is already shifting towards Crinos, now, loping quickly and easily after Dizzy and the other cubs, to make sure they're not touched. The hulking form is already twitching with irritation. ~Better than you have died to them, before.~ is all he rumbles, though; red eyes look to the spiders, balefully.
Jonathan lowers his eyes, ~I did. I'm still alive, aren't I?~ the cub replies quietly. ~All I wanted to do was make contact. Communicate.~
Roger pushes Jon's face back and turns to John now. "Now. I want you all to be careful and pay attention. Those tiny spiders are no problem one at a time. It's when they swarm you have to worry, and they will swarm. It's their nature. You hear me?"
Spins-in-Circles looks up at Jon quizzically. Communicate? How is Hops going to talk to weaver spiders?
The shimmering in the web follows the Garou, as they move through the Umbra, inadvertently disturbing the web by their very presence. Contact, communication, complete assimilation, these are but steps towards the perfection of the web.
Jonathan nods to Roger and adds. ~I'm not sure but as far as I've seen so far, at least the ones down by the ranger station tend to work in prime numbered groups. Is that the same all over, and when they attack, or just a quirk?~
Corey watches the spiders do their work, his expression plain: he hopes they're not planning on the Walkers next. A slight nod to Roger as the weaver-minions come closer. "Uhm. So, what do we do about them?"
Roger looks a moment to Jon first then to Corey. "What do we do? Nothing. We leave them alone and they will do the same. If something does happen though, and they try to place you in their web... then you destroy them before they destroy you. But it will not come to that as long as you are all careful."
Walks-Thin-Ice growls irritably, ~You know nothing, crescent. Communication with spirits is not like with humans. Less so with things of the Weaver. They are mad. You cannot communicate, like with the Wyld.~
The silent spinners settle back to their more normal patterns as the Garou stand still. Stillness is good. Absolute stillness is better. Individually speedy, but slow as a group, they repair the damage caused by the movement of living being in their realm.
Walks-The-Stars turns to look at John. ~Okay, but they are sentient beings. You can communicate. You just can't understand. You never know what little bits of important information a spirit might drop.~ then the cub looks to Roger oncemore. ~Prime numbers?~
Now that we are here. How do we get back? Dizzy inquires, still nervously eying the spiders.
Walks-Thin-Ice bares teeth at Walks-The-Stars. ~Communication is the exchange of information or knowledge. They don't /care/ what you tell them. They are alien to us. This has been established, and there is /no/ point in your experimenting to test this knowledge."
Here at least, the web workers are too numerous to count, too mobile to ennumerate, and too fluid, as paradoxical as that is, too divide into separate working groups, although there's no doubt that the work is organized in the extreme.
Roger lets the other cliath finish talking and turns again to just slug Walks-The-Stars hard across his crinosed face, Roger's gallard fist making a slight crunching sound as he does so. "This is to remind you to listen to us when we say. You. Know. Nothing." is what he says on the matter. "But you'll learn damnit. The Weaver works however it decides to. Prime numbers mean nothing to anyone but the spirits, if anything at all. You wanna learn about spirits, thats what that Get is for."
Corey listens to Hops, and begins to wonder if insanity makes Theurges or the other way around. Trying to examine the movements of individual spiders, he soon gets a headache and decides the routes taken are too complex for him to understand, or else random.
Walks-The-Stars falls silent, turning his head slowly back towards Roger after having it so rudely moved. ~Fine.~ the cub replies, and falls silent. ~Well it is the quest for the knowlege that is important. Not the goal. I might not learn anything from the spiders but won't I learn about spirits in general? I'll learn how to talk. How to manipulate them for our needs. And as much as a respect Fights-For-Hope he himself has said he will never, nor does he want to, know as much as I do about the weaver. I wish to learn. Knowlege is its own goal. So if they do work in prime numbers, that is valuable information. At least to me. Heck, if they don't like the color blue, I want to know it.~
Spins-Circles nervously looks about. Getting back would be nice. Does Spins need to find a reflective square here too?
Walks-Thin-Ice frowns. ~Cubs have seen all they need to, for now. We need to work on this place, Dreamer.~ he rumbles. Looking back to Jonathan, he adds in a snarl of growing irritation, ~And slap that fool again. He missed the point of the last.~
Roger looks to Stars and seems about ready for another punch but supresses the urge, "He'll get his education one way or the other... but back in the realm. This place is a weaver wonderland and we need to rend it open. Once cockroach is our ally, we'll deal with this and more Ice-Walker. For now. Home. And remember cubs, even the smallest spirit can be more powerful then the largest /real/ creature."
Spinning silently, the web spiders have moved closer to the small group of Garou, working their way towards encircling the Garou and making them part of the web. Not out of animosity towards them, of course, simply because all things must be assimilated, engulfed, and made perfect by the wonder that is the Pattern Web.
Walks-The-Stars drops down to all fours, as he turns to face John. ~Knowlege is power. Rhya. Thousands of spiders close in on the caern, all about for no seeming reason the weaver attacks. Millions, hundreds of millions all going to calcify the caern into the web. You can't fight them all, not even you. Now wouldn't you want to know what drives them? What they seek out? So you can divert them elsewhere? So again I tell you, there is a pattern to all maddness. You just need to learn it.~ And with that the cub lopes off to return to the realm.
Roger eyes Ice-Walker and seems about ready to pull his gun, but not for the spiders.
Roger now turns to Spins to answer her previous question. "Yes, all you need is the same type of mirror you could use to get to the umbra in the first place."
Walks-Thin-Ice turns now, and makes a quick few strides over to the mouthy cub, turning him about, and lifting a fist to crunch it into the boy's face. ~Don't you ever know when to shut up? We /know/ what motivates them. Now quiet. We step through again.~ He looks to Roger, and grunts, ~Get them out.~
Walks-The-Stars smiles serenly towards Ice. ~Well then, so I was right. Someone before me did study them. To learn what motivates them. And I'll learn as well. See, it isn't a waste of time, Rhya.~ And then the cub looks to Roger. ~I'm ready to go back.~
Roger nods quickly and moves slowly to the mirror motioning for the cubs to do the same, letting the Star-Walker be handled by the Ice-Walker. "You can do this, remember to just find the reflection... and move past it. Don't go forward or back, just step to the side a bit."
Walks-The-Stars mumbles something to himself about a Wal.. or Wall, or something. It's hard to tell.
As John hauls Jonathan back to the group, the loose tendrils of web are slowly pinned back in place by the ever-busy pattern spiders. Small wave after small wave of the tiny weavers follow in the wake of the retreating Garou, repairing the damage they've done. In front of them, a few scurry out of the way lest the large moving things step on them and undo the pattern of their being.
Walks-Thin-Ice leans down by the Theurge cub to lower a snarling face to Walks-The-Stars'. ~Just. Move. We will tell you what you /will/ learn. GO.~ He roughly pushes the cub towards the others, and eyes the pattern spiders warily. ~Faster, please, people.~ There's something about the 'please' in that has nothing to do with niceties.
Corey gawks in surprise at the theurge cub. It's one of those looks that says, How can that person be so stupid? Shaking his head slowly, he walks toward the mirror, muttering, "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/ The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the jub-jub bird, and shun/ The frumious bandersnatch!" He stares into his reflection for a few seconds before reaching, and leaving the Umbra.
Walks-The-Stars mumbles still, "I hate that poem." and then follows suit, heading off to the mirror and back to the realm.
Roger looks to John now with the lack of cubs about. "That one is a problem... he thinks he knows more then he does... and worst of all he is sure that he is correct. We need to teach him that the only knowledge is that gained from the world... not from one's own mind."
Walks-Thin-Ice just twitches a little, in his shoulders, still eyeing the spiders. ~How to teach, though? I can teach him pain, but not humility. It irritates me.~ He shakes his head a little. ~Talk for another time. Let's move.~ So saying, he shifts down to glabro, and turns to the mirror. The last words he says before disappearing are, "And let's trawl Lucca back from whatever they've got her doing, so we can get that pack set up."
The Umbra settles back into quiescence, the pattern spinners relax back into the pattern that defines them, consumes them, is them. The tiny holes in the pattern caused by the Garou are repaired, slowly, and the places where they disturbed the Pattern thickened, as if the web were trying to develop a callus where the Wyld energy inherent in the Garou rubbed against it.