(IC) New Bedford by Night: WtF II

[Daishain]

Bear nods, "Greetings Brown Tail. Oh? What was this strange thing?"

[Thundercracker]

What are the details of any incidents of their prominent members’ run ins with the law / authorities / been sued?

What are the rumors about their occult practices?

[Bennosuke]

James finds himself searching the desolate streets of New Bedford surrounding the Church looking for any signs of people he could chat up. Most of the neighboring apartments and storefronts are abandoned; dark and boarded up. But it only takes a few tense minutes, the sun not yet even setting, when James catches sight of a small sunken building with the word "Tavern" written on a piece of printer paper taped to the door. Black tarp has been pinned up over the windows, but as James gets close, he can hear what sounds like music (maybe country) coming from inside.

Just as James is about to check the door, a haggard voice calls out, "Don't go in there," coming from the alleyway beside the building. Peaking around the side, James comes across a wrinkled husk of a man, swaddled in filthy rags and his face hidden behind a wiry beard. His cold blue eyes stare into James' and with urgent desperation the man pleads, "Trust me, you don't want to go in there."

(OOC: With an exceptional success, James will be able to get a whole lot of information out of this scene. As part of this scene, James will be able to ask three questions about the Church of Daigon. James will also take a Beat)

************************************************** *************

The falcon squawks again. It replies to Bear, "I witnessed a man's death, down by the water. The man died in the most unusual of manners; he exploded open..." The falcon goes on to tell Bear about how this fisherman died in a manner exactly the same as Juno. Brown Tail has no idea for the man's name, birds care not for names as the falcon previously told Bear. However, it tells Bear enough information to know exactly which dock this happened at.

The bird hops down from its perch on the branch to flap down and land before Bear; just far enough away that it could hop out of reach should the predator decide to lunge.

************************************************** **************

Blaze's eyes start to hurt from staring at the small computer screen. He starts by trying to find out anything criminal about the Church, but is shocked to find an almost too squeaky clean history. Articles come up discussing accusations and trials held against members of the Church's community, but even in these rare incidents, the congregation members are always forgiven, or acquitted despite a lack of evidence. It's no surprise to Blaze when he finds that pretty much every prominent member of the local police were members of the church.

Blaze finds very little about any occult practices held by the Church, in fact, he can find almost no information about The Church of Daigon and what sort of church they are!!! Though the name and the building's structure might hint at some form of Christian faith, Blaze can find no mention of anything remotely Christian about the Church. The only thing Blaze finds is a tabloid article from 1954, claiming that the church's members were engaged in some form of Devil's worship out on Cuttyhunk Island, a small strip of land out of New Bedford Bay.

[Daishain]

Noticing the bird's discomfort, Bear has a seat. "Thank you for bringing that to my attention, I'll head there and check it out soon. You've been most helpful."

"How are the eggs doing? Have you had any troubles?"

[Bennosuke]

Seeing Bear seated, the bird lazily begins to preen. It replies, "Good good. Almost ready to hatch. Going to be lots of work. Going to be lots of hunting." It glances up from its chore, looking at Karl with one eye in what might be the avian equivalent of a wink and grin.

[Daishain]

"If things ever get difficult when they come, don't hesitate to ask for help. If nothing else, I could flush a few hares out into the open for you. No need for the little ones to go hungry due to a spot of poor luck, and its the least I can do. Same goes when it comes time for winter and bad storms. Shelter will always be available in hard times if you wish it." Bear thinks for a moment before continuing,

"There is something else you could watch for. A leader among humans has taken a disliking to us. It is possible that he could organize a mob to threaten us with. any advance warning about large and angry groups of humans running around would be appreciated."

[Bennosuke]

"If things ever get difficult when they come, don't hesitate to ask for help. If nothing else, I could flush a few hares out into the open for you. No need for the little ones to go hungry due to a spot of poor luck, and its the least I can do. Same goes when it comes time for winter and bad storms. Shelter will always be available in hard times if you wish it."

The bird's chest suddenly puffs out, feathers ruffling. "We shall be okay," the bird squawks proudly flapping its wings, still diminutive size compared to whatever form Bear is in, "We are predators! We are mighty killers!" It is clear that while not offended, Brown Tail is very proud.

"There is something else you could watch for. A leader among humans has taken a disliking to us. It is possible that he could organize a mob to threaten us with. Any advanced warning about large and angry groups of humans running around would be appreciated."

Brown Tail returns its wings to its size, though its feathers remain puffed out as if it were an inflated feathered balloon. It's neck seems to extend like elastic as it reaches forward to begin pecking at its feathers. "I shall watch the humans," Brown Tail replies, "though I will be honest that human behavior confuses me. I know not what human anger looks like. They don't just attack when angry like a falcon would."

[Daishain]

Bear doesn't press the issue of aid. The offer had been made. If things ever got bad enough for need to overwhelm pride, Brown Tail should remember, for his chicks' sake if not his own.

"Yes, that you are."

"And yes, I suppose humans would be difficult for you to read. Hmm, how best to put this. Mostly we'll be watching out for either a large group of them moving together with purpose, or standing around getting increasingly agitated while listening to a leader preaching to them. If you've seen the crowds at the concerts we've played for, the latter would probably be similar, but more determined and aggressive. The crowds energy would be less like pups jumping around and more like a predator on the hunt."

If there was nothing else to discuss, Bear would say his goodbyes and get moving, loping off towards where Brown Tail had indicated.

[Thundercracker]

Blaze

“Aww, pain in the... these guys are dirty and in bed with the local police,” Blaze said to the others once he’d found enough, “looks like they’re cleaning their tracks too. There might be something on cuttyhuck island, might be worth a visit.”

[Llyarden]

Before he'd set out, James had spoken in a strange, haphazard way that was very unlike his normal tone, a meandering that had switched between English and the First Tongue seemingly at random. His tale had been that of a Wolf new to their territory, but who had nonetheless brought down a swift and secretive prey that no other wolves had managed to hunt, by enlisting - through violence, intimidation or mutual agreement - the aid of the other animals of the forest, to give the Wolf directions to hunt the prey down, never giving it the chance to rest and recover in hiding. Whether the story made sense - or was even comprehensible - to the others was probably debatable, but that didn't matter. It had been for James himself, and for the spirit world, and he'd let its returned whispers guide him through the still-unfamiliar city.

He hesitated when he heard the man speak. "Yeah?" he asked. "Why would that be?"

[Bennosuke]

By the time Bear makes it back into town, it is already late afternoon. The sun having begun to make its descent, casts a dark orange glow to the sky.

Approaching the dock that Brown Tail described, from even a few blocks away Bear can see the flash of a few cop cars in the otherwise empty streets; the scene of a waning investigation. From afar there are no bystanders gathered to rubberneck, and there is an eeriness to the solemn silence of the crime scene.

(OOC: What form is Bear approaching the scene in, and if he is trying to be stealthy, please feel free to roll Dex + stealth)

************************************************** *************

The man struggles to pull himself into a more seated posture; his limbs either too frail or too clumsy with alcohol to truly obey. He hiccups once before he speaks, though for a second it seems like this emission may give rise to further unpleasant bodily functions. "That bar is for... the locals, if you know what I mean," he says, his voice slurring heavily. The man grins at James, perhaps what is supposed to be a friendly gesture, though the look is not all that pleasant. He chuckles and says, "And you ain't local, that's for sure. You uh, well you wouldn't be too welcome in that there bar."

[Daishain]

Bear decides to slip closer in true wolf form, sticking to the alleyways and behaving for all the world like a stray dog curious about the activity.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

(3d10)[1][5][9](15) Dex+Stealth to avoid notice
(5d10)[1][4][4][3][3](15) Wits+Composure to try and percieve any relevant details (particular scents in the air, anything interesting the cops were saying, etc.
(3d10)[4][7][8](19) ten again

[Thundercracker]

Blaze

With the others still out, Blaze decides to make sure the garden is growing okay, then sets off for the nearest locus that still needs purifying.

Spoiler

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not sure how far Blaze would have gotten and I couldn’t find the list of loci, because I’m blind, apparently.

[Bennosuke]

Bear lopes closer to the dock, sticking to the shadows that hang between abandoned buildings. Following wild instinct, he stops every few yards to sniff the air, the nearby piles of garbage, drain runoff. His heightened senses are overwhelmed by the engulfing scent of moldering sea-rot. The scent is far stronger than the dock should be, worse than the largest oldest fish market, and even slightly worse than when Juno exploded in a deluge of sea creature abominations. The miasmic odor reminds Bear most of that last experience though.

The stench forces Bear's eyes to cloud with tears. He pads up to the edge of an alley near the dock, only to be forced to halt in front of a pair of police officers. While the older officer is an unfamiliar hairless man with a pin-shaped forehead and big round eyes, the younger officer with ginger hair is a man named Jones, who the pack had met outside of St. Luke's Hospital what seems like many years ago. Kara had flirted hard with the officer, and Bear had to imagine that Officer Jones was still hoping for a phone call. The two were standing together without conversation, as if they were simply waiting for their shifts to be up.

The concrete walkway of the dock is slick with a grey layer of slime and what may be seaweed, but it looks like the body has already been carted away. There are no detectives flitting about, collecting evidence. The scene appears to be mostly over.

Bear could perhaps wait out the cops; it was unlikely they would stay here for ever, though perhaps there was not much more information to be gained. The overwhelming stench of rotted sea sludge was already dulling Bear's senses. Otherwise, perhaps Bear could find another route around the cops and make his way closer to the dock itself.

**************************************************

With Pine's help, Blaze had planted half of the remaining tannis root seeds into a row pot set up behind the factory. Despite the chilling salty sea breeze, the roots in these pots seemed to be taking well, and had sprouted out prickly little greenish brown leaves that sat like velvet atop the mulch. Pine had taken the other half of the seeds and planted them out where He Who Obliterates Breathing had been defeated; both to purify the space and as a monument to the pack's victory.

Satisfied with what he saw, Blaze then set off for the still incomplete Death Locus. This time though, the Uratha decided to visit the site in the world of Flesh. While in the Hisil, the locus had appeared as a tower of fused Beshilu and mortal corpses, here was simply a towering oak tree centered in the small but well kept Buttonwood Park. The tree was ancient, but its bark was withered and grey, its branches prematurely bare and drooping low. It seemed like the locals avoided this part of the park instinctively, and approaching the tree, Blaze could feel the temperature drop a good ten degrees. A number of baby bird carcasses and the remains of a few dead mice seemed scattered about the base of the tree, avoided even by the hungriest scavengers of New Bedford.

With no audience, Blaze began to play his music.

(OOC: Please roll resonance shaper: wisdom + occult +1 which should be with 9 again, Blaze currently has 6/10 needed successes)

[Thundercracker]

Blaze

Blaze set up several flat rocks to bounce the sound of the bongos he’d brought to bounce around in the fashion needed to resonate with the energy of the locus and subtly change it from its current form. Satisfied, he sat down on the grass and started to play.

Spoiler

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wis + occult: (7d10)[7][10][4][7][3][6][5](42)
9 again: (7d10)[1][5][9][9][6][10][6](46)

[Daishain]

Bear pauses for a moment to try and hear if the two cops were talking about anything of interest, then backs off and tries to find another way around.

[Bennosuke]

Bear sits through the silence between the two cops, waiting for one or the other to say something. Eventually the younger Officer Jones picks his head up from his phone and mutters, "One of the damn grossest things I've ever seen."

The older officer shrugs, but doesn't immediately respond. After a few moments he says, "So, one of us is gonna have to go talk to his wife... why don't you let me take care of it." Officer Jones eyes his colleague and nods with a bit of embarrassment. "You have his address?" the older officer asks.

Jones replies, "Ya, uh, Richard Taylor lived at..." pulling out his notepad before providing a local address and adding, "His wife's name was Rachel." The older officer nods in appreciation. Then after a few moments, the older officer simply walks away, leaving Jones alone.

Unless Bear intercedes, Officer Jones will also walk away after a few more minutes, leaving only a single cop car about a block away to patrol the scene.

************************************************** *

Blaze spends about an hour trying to channel his Essence into his playing and heal the locus. But his sense of unease makes it hard for Blaze to truly concentrate. The Gauntlet was still so porous in this place, having been heavily gnawed to shreds by the former Beshilu infestation. As Blaze played he could just feel the lesser spirits watching him from the other side; their presence like a cold thick slime trickling down the back of his neck, dripping behind his collar, under his clothes, under his skin.

(OOC: Blaze gets one more success for a total now of 7/10. I am away from book, but if the rules aren't against it, maybe Blaze could spend another hour and keep rolling???)

[Thundercracker]

After getting as much as he thought he'd be able to for the day, Blaze packed up and headed back to the warehouse. He wanted to chat with the computer spirit about creating a talen, and how exactly he might go about doing it. The pack would need the added strength, probably sooner rather than later.

[Daishain]

Bear lets the cops go before moving up to inspect the scene.

[Bennosuke]

Bear slinks forward out of the shadows, the foul fishy stench growing somehow even stronger. He finds his moment to bound across the street, ducking under the yellow police tape to step out onto the concreate dock; very similar in construction and layout to the dock outside the cannery. The layer of slime coating the ground is slick and oily rather than a sticky congealed mess.

There is no sign of the dead man's body, though there is a patch of ground that appears less covered with slime, where the man's body had likely laid. A pair of wheel tracks and footprints cut through the mess, moving from the street to the emptier patch and back; likely the tracks of a gurney. It looks like attempts have been made to clean out the area, but there are still small hunks of pustular coral similar to the pieces that had formed from the dying abominations that had burst out of Juno's chest.

Nearby, the single cop car's warning lights continue to flash. Bear likely does not have much time to investigate.

[Daishain]

Bear doesn't spend much time poking around, chances are the cops already found most things of interest. Just seeing this had confirmed the most important thing, that this Richard died the same way as Juno.

He does look for anything the police may have missed though, and he tries to pick up the unique aspects of the dead man's scent, and anything else unusual.

Before long though, he's off, loping away from the area and taking deep breaths of clean air to clear his lungs.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Wits+composure (5d10)[10][1][3][7][7](28)

[Bennosuke]

Bear pads around the site where he presumes the man's body had been found. On top of pungent stench of stale, almost rotted sea brine is a more subtle hint of fresh sea water and motor oil. Though these smells could also be found about the dock, Bear gets the distinct feeling these odors were a deep part of this man, smells he carried with him from long days working on some sort of motor boat, maybe a fishing vessel.

(OOC: Once success. Where is Bear off to next?)

[Llyarden]

"Well, thanks for the warning," James replied. "So who's 'local' around here? You?"

[Bennosuke]

The disgruntled drunk chuckles and replies, "Oh, I'm local... but I'm not like they are." He points a wandering finger in the general direction of the bar entrance, before adding, "I'm not a damned Daigon worshiper, if you know what I mean." His grizzled hand swings forward to offer James a handshake. "The names Allen. Allen Zaidock," he says with a grin that is missing its fair share of teeth.

(OOC: At this point if you want to give me the three questions about the Church of Daigon that James can have answered, we don't have to RP through the entire scene)

[Daishain]

Bear groans at Blaze's news, "Its even worse than I thought. We're going to have a tough time dealing with them if this comes to a head. I mean, killing that priest would be so easy, but I doubt that would solve the issue."

"Okay, what if we redirect things a bit, maybe get these daigon people to focus on that gang instead of us for a while?"

[Bennosuke]

Nearby, Kara is slumped over in a chair, her eyes half mast and her head tilted downward as if she were sleeping. Surprisingly, she blearily lifts her head up and mumbles, "Hey, that's not a half bad idea... but, how are we gonna do that?"

[Daishain]

Bear shrugs, "I dunno, I feel like I am in way over my head with this public perception stuff. I just thought it might solve a lot of problems if before that priest guy whips people into a frenzy and sends them after us, if for some reason the gang attacked him."

[Thundercracker]

Blaze

“I dunno man but I like the idea, killing two birds with one stone,” Blaze said.

[Bennosuke]

Kara shrugs and drunkenly replies, "Well I suppose we could frame them." She says this so matter-of-factly then adds, "Like we trash the Daigon Church, but like tag it with their gang signs or whatever." She shrugs again, as if unimpressed with her own suggestion, her eyes glued to her cellphone as her thumb navigates it on autopilot.

[Thundercracker]

Blaze

“What do we want to do with the gangs, eventually?” Blaze asked, “we can’t go kill them, or at least we shouldn’t, right? But they’re not good for anyone.”

“If the Diagonals are in league with Idigam, then that means they’re at least partly responsible for what happened to Juno so, you know, I’m less inclined to go easy on them.”