Sledge and Reginald wanted to go squirrel shooting in the woods. Initially tempted to use their MP5 and .357 magnums, they finally saw reason (and sportsmanship), and bought a BB gun in the Morgan general store. They got only one squirrel apiece. The wretched things were cooked; they didn't taste too good.
Saturday night, June 28
As soon as it was dark, as like the previous nights, the Morte Christe gang came rumbling into town, and went to the pub. Juan arrived in Morgan too, and, rather than join the party, it was suggested that he infiltrate the gang. He was well-briefed beforehand of the situation, so he joined the gang in the pub, and immediately started buying drinks.
Ebony took Reginald to the standing stones clearing to give him a look. Reginald had a bit of Occult knowledge so it was worth his opinion.
Reginald saw the large broiling cloud with Ebony's Etheric Goggles, and he decided that the centre of this circle was a werewolf cairn or Locus, and the etheric cloud thing was a portal into the Hisil.
The Hisil (rhymes with "thistle"; also known as the Umbra, Spirit World, or Shadow Realm) is a parallel world that has the same dimensions and geometry as the real world, but mirrors and distorts certain things. Mundanes and terrestrial creatures have no analogue in the Hisil and don't appear at all. Most veil creatures are visible and glow a little bit, mirroring their terrestrial form, except for vampires and risen which don't. Veil-aware creatures, like the party, appear as floating glowing hearts. But beings of power, and witches, mages and ghosts appear bright (Cello must be something to behold!). Landscape and terrain is mirrored exactly; old forests appear but not new ones. Buildings and structures do not appear in the Hisil unless they have been up for a long time, or unless some major event has happened in them. Areas of major negative emotion and trauma in the real world (mass murder sites, battle fields, sites of evil spells) have their own distorted and blighted appearance.
Reginald also pointed out that Locuses normally have guardians, and that they better be careful. Not wanting to chance this, Reginald and Ebony quietly withdrew and headed back to Morgan.
Meanwhile, Juan befriended several of the gang, and made such an impression with his generosity at buying drinks, his racist Latino views, his anti-vampire sentiment, and his abusive ad-libs, that Angel took him aside. Angel (escapee one, and known fae) was the leader of Morte Christe. He invited Juan to pledge to the gang "subject to some initiations".
Saturday midnight, June 28
Juan was invited back to the bikers' camp (SE corner of the forest), and given a biker chick for the night. After he had slaked his carnal needs, and his girl was lying unconscious (from bourbon) in his assigned tent, Juan sneaked around camp, and noticed a group of eight of the bikers heading down the second forest path towards the standing stones. He snuck after them.
One of the eight was Drowbar (fourth escapee and known werewolf). Juan's sneaky skills were up to the task, and anyway, the eight had been drinking heavily the whole evening.
After a 15 minute jog, they entered the clearing and Juan hid down by one edge. The eight bikers then proceeded to change into werewolf form - the Garou form. This is the terrible 4m giant form, all teeth and claws, and is an awful sight to behold. Normal humans [ of Juan's lackluster willpower ] would run screaming in terror, but Juan, being veil-aware, held his resolve [ made his Resolve/Composure roll ] and managed to stay to watch the scene. The werewolves did a little dance, a delicate little quadrille, to some tune which Juan couldn't hear, but in Garou form it appeared like a screaming clawing battle. They raked the standing stones and urinated on the ground. One of them even vanished for some time; Juan guessed he had passed through the portal into the Hisil.
Juan snuck back to camp before they finished.
Sunday morning, June 29
In the morning, Angel took Juan aside.
"I gotta job for you," said Angel. "The owner of the Fairchild gas station insulted us. He needs a lesson. Go kill him. You have the day."
Fairchild was a tiny dot on the map, twenty minutes away from Morgan, with one house and one gas station. Juan scoped it out, and then, not wanting to get his hands dirty, called the party.
Sledge contacted STRIKE FORCE and managed to convince Lieutenant Prospero to help.
Prospero sent out Detective Noble and some men.
She arrived a few hours later at Fairchild with a fresh corpse (from the morgue). They told the garage owner that he was to be killed, and he was quite happy to go into hiding with them.
Juan put some bullets into the corpse, then set fire to it and the gas station.
And he returned to Angel. Angel was impressed.
"That will learn him."
Sunday afternoon, June 29
The Warden asked for a progress report. Ebony moaned that it was too hard.
"But there are 16 veil creatures," she whimpered. "And we don't know if they are werewolves or fae. We can't take on 16 werewolves!"
The Warden failed to hide her disgust and contempt.
Sunday evening, June 29
Juan, dedicated catholic, went back into Philly to attend mass.
 |
| Juan's Buell motorbike |
Angel sought out Juan.
"Your next job is to get you-self a bike," said Angel.
So Juan went to Philadelphia and bought a motorbike. A Buell Custom. He then bashed the lock around a bit to make it looked like it was stolen, and returned to Morte Christe camp.
Angel and the gang weren't so impressed this time; they all had Harleys.
At the same time, the party headed went back to Philadelphia.
"Meet my P.A. at Betsy Ross's cottage at 11 am," Warden Clam said. "I've just obtained something that might help you."
Ebony headed down there and met the PA, Ms Sutton.
 |
| Ms Sutton, Warden Clam's PA |
Ms Sutton gave Ebony a small bag.
"There's a Gem of the Veil in there," she said. "Veil things will show themselves. Warden Clam said it's 'spensive, so she'll be real mad if you lose it. Real mad."
Ebony took the bag.
"Bring it back on Wednesday, here," said the PA. "Call me when you ready."
After Ms Sutton had left, Ebony did some testing with the gem. Mundanes had no effect and looked normal. But when she looked at herself and the party, she could see a glowing heart. Looking over the crowd in a street of Philadelphia, she could see a few souls, maybe 1 in 500, with a glowing heart.
"They must be veil-aware," she said quietly to herself.
It didn't work through windows and glass, but water had no effect.
Monday afternoon, June 30
Back in Morgan, Ebony had a look at some of the bikers when they did errands in town. Sure enough, the Fae bikers appeared as wispy creatures through the gem, and the werewolves as wolves.
There were eight werewolves: all male, one who was Drowbar. And there were eight fae: seven males (Angel included), and one female.
 |
| Sledge's fiancee Safiya Runihura |
Monday evening, June 30
Sledge had a nice meal with his mother and fiancee Safiya. He decided he loved her even more now, now she had a new look.
Tuesday morning, July 1
Ebony decided to do some research on poisons, with the intent of drugging the entire gang through their beer. She concocted some recipes: One for diarrhoea, one strong for werewolf sleep, one weak for human sleep.
The problem was the dose to sleep a werewolf would kill a human, and the dose to sleep a human won't affect a werewolf.
Sledge talked wistfully and longingly of other ideas:
- String piano wire across the road to behead the gang as they drove on by.
- Get up on a hill and snipe them, long range, with his scoped PSG1.
- Get among them with him, Reggy, Leon and Theo, and take to them with twin .357 magnums, MP5 bullets, shot-gun blasts, and katana.
Tuesday evening, July 1
Juan learned that the bikers were planning to leave Morgan on Saturday (July 5). They were headed down south to Salisbury (Maryland).
Juan decided to 'come clean', and told Angel that he was sent to infiltrate and spy on the gang because the Warden wanted the four dead.
Angel blinked and said "Why she want us dead?"
"You escaped prison."
"No," said Angel. "Did our time. We was released."
"That aint what she told us."
"You brave tellin' me this. Getcha killed."
Juan nodded wanly.
"Did you kill that gas station guy?" asked Angel, warily.
"Uh. No. Faked it."
"And that 'stolen' bike."
"Uh. Bought that."
Angel didn't take it any further, but just said "'Preciate it."
Tuesday late evening, July 1
Later, Juan texted the party this surprising news, and so Reginald phoned Lieutenant Prospero.
A sleepy voice answered.
"Are the escapees escaped or actually released, you ask?" Prospero muttered. "I thought they'd escaped."
"So did we."
"Well, I'll need to contact the Central Repository. It's midnight. Will get back to you in the morning."
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