(IC) HtV STL by Night

[Bennosuke]

In regards to the shoe, Bill shrugs and replies, "Why not go get it when we are done." He allows a hasty glance towards the door. But in response to Jen's second question, a sad smile spreads across the man's jowls. "I just don't know, which would make the endeavor incredibly dangerous." For a moment it looks like Bill has more to say. His mouth opens, but after a moment snaps shut. Then Frank speaks up and Bill just gives an affable nod of his head.

After another moment, Bill trundles over to the table where he rifles around through papers with his back turned, till he swings around with his prize. Clutched in one hand is a long and jagged piece of what looks like cut obsidian, wrapped on one end with cord to create a primitive looking knife tool. "We shall begin the initiation rite," Bill says hastily, his eyes moving from Frank to Jen and back again, "Please give me your hands."

[Daishain]

Frank eyes the knife, "You just said you weren't bringing us into the ranks, so unless that serves some practical purpose...?"

[Thundercracker]

Frank eyes the knife, "You just said you weren't bringing us into the ranks, so unless that serves some practical purpose...?"

"Yeah, what changed?" Jen asked, "also, aren't you going to sterilize that?"

[Bennosuke]

Bill grins at Frank, an ugly mirthful grin. "Oh trust me," he says in his deep gravely voice, "this is not the full initiation." One of Bill's cronies chuckles behind you two, but by the time you turn around you can't tell who it was. "Look, we's got to know we can trust you two," he says, again motioning for the two to put out their hands.

To Jen he shrugs and says, "Sure, we can sterilize real quickly for ya." He reaches back to the table and grabs a half full bottle of cheap looking whiskey. He opens up the bottle and begins pouring a trickle of the whiskey over the black glassy knife, letting the excess patter on the floor and his boots. "Now hands please!"

[Thundercracker]

Jen sighed.

“This better be worth it,” she said, and held out her hand.

[Bennosuke]

Bill grabs hold of Jen's wrist, pulling her hand slightly towards him. By the time Jen fixes her posture, Bill is running the glassy knife's blade across her palm. It isn't till the blade has drawn crimson that the pain registers, hot and angry. "Don't wipe it yet," Bill says as he begins to drench a rag with whiskey and then wipes it across the blade. Then Bill extends a hand out to Frank, waiting for the man to acquiesce.

[Daishain]

Frank sighs and decides to get it over with, holding his hand out. They had what he needed, so he would have to play along, even if this didn't serve any real purpose.

[Thundercracker]

Bill grabs hold of Jen's wrist, pulling her hand slightly towards him. By the time Jen fixes her posture, Bill is running the glassy knife's blade across her palm. It isn't till the blade has drawn crimson that the pain registers, hot and angry. "Don't wipe it yet," Bill says as he begins to drench a rag with whiskey and then wipes it across the blade. Then Bill extends a hand out to Frank, waiting for the man to acquiesce.

"ow ow ow," Jen said, struggling against her instinct to put pressure on the wound, "what do you mean don't wipe it, I'm going to bleed all over the floor."

[Bennosuke]

Bill ignores Jenn's questions as he finishes recleaning the blade. Then turning to Frank, he performs the same ritual act, pressing the blade against Frank's palm and then running it across the flesh till it opens up like the rind of an overripe fruit.

Finished with the act, Bill looks up and points to one of the other gathered hosiers, who rushes forward and hands over a bundle of dry sticks tied together with twine. Neither Frank nor Jenn had seen the sticks before, and for a moment between the pain and the surroundings, there is a strange sense of unreality.

"I will ask you now to each hold this ******," Bill says, clearly enjoying any discomfort he may have caused with the F-word. With his free hand Bill pulls a bronze zippo lighter from his pocket, and deftly flicks the lid back and produces a an impressive red flame.

[Thundercracker]

Bill ignores Jenn's questions as he finishes recleaning the blade. Then turning to Frank, he performs the same ritual act, pressing the blade against Frank's palm and then running it across the flesh till it opens up like the rind of an overripe fruit.

Finished with the act, Bill looks up and points to one of the other gathered hosiers, who rushes forward and hands over a bundle of dry sticks tied together with twine. Neither Frank nor Jenn had seen the sticks before, and for a moment between the pain and the surroundings, there is a strange sense of unreality.

"I will ask you now to each hold this ******," Bill says, clearly enjoying any discomfort he may have caused with the F-word. With his free hand Bill pulls a bronze zippo lighter from his pocket, and deftly flicks the lid back and produces a an impressive red flame.

Jen picks up the bundle of sticks with her uninjured hand. The whole thing was stupid and she would have noped right out of there long ago if it wasn’t for that smudge of blood on her boot.

[Daishain]

Frank eyes the bundle warily, "Right, what is that stuff, it doesn't feel right."

[Bennosuke]

When Jen reaches out for the tied collection of sticks, Bill pulls it back and says hastily, "With your bleeding hand please!" Perhaps he would have said as much without Frank's question, but he replies, "This is a symbolic gesture. The bundle represents the Wytch. You place your blood on the bundle and then we burn it. It represents your sacrifice in defeating the Wytch." He speaks with a pedantic haughtiness, as if Frank and Jen had never heard of a metaphorical act before.

[Thundercracker]

Jen Gibbs

Rather than pick up the bundle with her injured hand, Jen drips some blood onto to sticks.

“What, I don’t want to get an infection,” she said.

[Bennosuke]

Bill grins at this, but Jen can hear a couple of his gang behind her snigger. There was that Midwest hosier accent even in the way they laughed at her.

Bill looked to Frank, waiting for him to do the same, zippo at the ready.

[Daishain]

Frank sighs before squeezing his hand over the bundle, letting the blood drip down. He wanted this over with.

[Bennosuke]

Once both Frank and Jen have bled onto the collection of sticks, Bill pulls his arm back and raises the zippo. Orange flame kisses the bundle, spreading out over the grey branches and the perfume of wood smoke begins to fill the room. After only a few seconds, the sticks catch fire, going up as if they had been dowsed in kerosene as opposed to blood. The light catches and dances in Bill's eyes as he looks on with a wild satisfied grin. But as the sticks turn into a torch in his raised hand, the fire turns from a hot orange to a suddenly sickly green, and the room becomes filled with a rotten malodorous stench. The fire grows and grows, and when it has almost engulfed the entire bundle, Bill calmly lets go. The sticks tumble end over end, twisted skeletal rods caught fire, but when they hit the floor, they are nothing but ash.

When the magic trick is over, the locals gather around the pile of char and cinder, nodding their heads with satisfaction. "Very good," Bill says, his gravely voice breaking the quiet, "the ritual is complete. Welcome to the Brotherhood, at least for now." He steps forward to offer a hand to shake to both Jen and Frank, if they are willing.

[Thundercracker]

That was weird. Definitely something odd about that burning bundle of twigs.

Jen shakes with her non-bleeding hand.

"Thanks. Uh, could I have a paper towel or something?" she asked, still dripping blood on the floor.

[Daishain]

Frank shakes the mans hand as briefly as he could without seeming insulting. "If you don't mind, I'd like to start catching up on knowledge. Any chance of those books I was asking after?"

[Bennosuke]

At Jen's request, Bill turns back to the table. He returns the zippo lighter, but comes back with a white dish towel that looks like it has been used to clean up too many spills. He hands it to Jen without a hint of malice and says, "Feel free to use this to put some pressure on it. I didn't cut too deep, but can get the first aid kit if you really like."

Bill turns to Frank at his request, eyes narrowing slightly as his lips pull tight. Then he glances over at the desk, before saying, "Arnold, would you take The Journal and make some photocopies for our new brethren?" Arnold stiffens as if called to attention, before offering an 'alright' and then rushing around the room to get to the desk, then rushing back to the door with the speckled notebook held reverently in both hands. "He'll be right back with some of that," Bill says, a hollow smile masking his face.

After a moment, Bill lets out a long sigh and nods his head with some form of inner satisfaction. "Very well," he says, "now that you are at least partly one of us, we can get down to business and start talking about what we know... and well, what the two of you should start doing. May be best if we sit down." Bill then trundles over to the only chair in the room, parked at the small work desk, and takes a seat, looking at Frank and Jen as if he expects them to sit on the ash covered floor.

Regardless of if they take his kind offer, Bill begins, "While we don't know much about how to hurt the Wytch, we do know there are some things that seem to effect it. As we mentioned before, The Wytch can't cross running water. It also seems to hate mirrors... that's a long story." He chuckles at this, and a couple of the cultists still standing by the door join in. "My understanding is that the old Native Americans tied it to that big old tree... which is why some of the, uh, less educated locals, will go make offerings to it; leaving their daughter's pet cat, or a few trapped squirrels in the hopes of receiving magical blessings. But apparently, before The Wytch was bound to that tree, it roamed the forest and fed on dreams. In fact, we should give each of you a dream catcher! Clayton, go get each of these here two a dream catcher."

Clayton, a ruddy faced man with a dirty nest of hair and heavy bags under basset hound eyes nods and says, "Yessir," before turning and also exiting the room. But he returns almost an instant later carrying two identical dream catchers; each a woven loop of what might be straw, with an intricate pattern made of netting woven into the pupil, and feathers dangling on string. The two look like they might have been bought at a hot topic, or a bed bath and beyond, and meant to be hung up in some twelve year old's bedroom, next to a One Direction poster. Clayton dutifully, almost ceremoniously offers one to Frank and one to Jen.

"Hang that up over your bed," Bill says, "and it might just protect ya."

[Daishain]

Frank is increasingly disappointed, though he did his best not to express it as he takes the cheap knockoff. This lot were the experts? Really? He was doing his best to keep an open mind, but they were very low on solid information, high on ritual nonsense. Even everything stated was accurate, they seemed to be poor keepers of that knowledge to say the least. Hopefully that book was written by more thoughtful people.

Still, maybe there was some use for them. "You stated before that the tree was the best bet for imprisonment. I suspect we'd be hard pressed to get her to willingly go back there, so what, if anything, can actually incapacitate this creature or limit its abilities?"

[Bennosuke]

Bill throws both hands up, his face showing slight frustration. But he chuckles before he says, "Well, if we knew everything about it, we probably would have taken it out by ourselves already. To be honest, you two were pretty lucky to even have run into the Wytch. Try as we might, we can't always find our way to it... The Wytch seems to be able to do something weird to the forest... makes it hard to navigate. Only me and Alexandra and Arnold have even seen it."

[Daishain]

Frank frowns, "We'll have to work with the running water and mirros thing then I guess. The longer this thing is running around the more damage it will do. And if it catches up to the two of us before we have something ready, chances are you guys will lose your known bait."

[Thundercracker]

Jen Gibbs

“Kinda funny if you think about it, since it won’t want to go
back, the safest place for us to be is in those damn woods,” Jen said.

[Bennosuke]

Bill chuckles, and like sycophants the others follow suite. As this dies down he says, "I'm glad you two came, and I'm sorry I don't have more to offer... ah hell. I wasn't gonna do this, but I've got one more thing to show you, and I think you are gonna like this." The others in the group, if you turn around to check all go wide eyed and white as a sheet. They clearly know what Bill is getting at and either don't want him to share, or are simply surprised by his generosity.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Alright, I'm gonna give you two beats here for moving towards the first two shared aspirations. We will also consider this the starting point at which Jen and Frank start their own Tier 1 compact. For becoming honorary members in the Brotherhood of Mather, both Jen and Frank gain Status (Brotherhood of Mather) 0, please add this to your character sheets. Thought the rule book says you will start with three preferred tactics, this will be when Bill teaches Frank and Jen their first Tactic.

I am going to let you two chose the tactic you want to take, as long as it would be reasonable for the two characters to learn it at this point. Please let me know in the discord if you haven't gotten your hands on the Hunter PDF yet.

[Daishain]

Frank raises an eyebrow, but nods for their host to continue.

[Thundercracker]

Bill chuckles, and like sycophants the others follow suite. As this dies down he says, "I'm glad you two came, and I'm sorry I don't have more to offer... ah hell. I wasn't gonna do this, but I've got one more thing to show you, and I think you are gonna like this." The others in the group, if you turn around to check all go wide eyed and white as a sheet. They clearly know what Bill is getting at and either don't want him to share, or are simply surprised by his generosity.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Alright, I'm gonna give you two beats here for moving towards the first two shared aspirations. We will also consider this the starting point at which Jen and Frank start their own Tier 1 compact. For becoming honorary members in the Brotherhood of Mather, both Jen and Frank gain Status (Brotherhood of Mather) 0, please add this to your character sheets. Thought the rule book says you will start with three preferred tactics, this will be when Bill teaches Frank and Jen their first Tactic.

I am going to let you two chose the tactic you want to take, as long as it would be reasonable for the two characters to learn it at this point. Please let me know in the discord if you haven't gotten your hands on the Hunter PDF yet.

"Okay..." Jen said, "what is it?"
Now she was genuinely curious, given the reaction of the others.

[Bennosuke]

"Well, follow me," Bill says in his strained sandpaper voice. He grins, but his eyes dart to the gang behind Frank and Jen, sharing something mirthful with the others. The motley crew of camo wearing hillbillies move aside as Bill leads the group out of the room and all the way down the hall. Bill retrieves a ring of keys to undo several locks. Through another door, Jen and Frank enter a slightly larger room. This one was clearly intended on being an office as well; same carpeted floor and corporate off white walls, but it had been converted into some sort of doomsday preppers Krav Maga training room. Punching mitts, practice weapons, and torn up heavy bags litter the floor. Looking up, you can see several scrapes in the wall where the practice weapons had likely accidently scraped open angry skid marks.

But Bill marches to the far end of the room where a BOB punching dummy rests. Makeshift arms have been fastened to the rubber torso, made of PVC, metal and foam padding, giving the dummy a scarecrow-esque appearance. Bill stops in front of the practice dummy, and turns to grin again at Frank and Jen. "I wanted to show you this," he says proudly. Perhaps seeing the confusion or disappointment in the faces of the two new recruits, he frowns and puts up both hands. "Just you wait and see," he says turning back to the wall to grab one of the leaning practice weapons. This one though, oddly, is what looks like a "real life" pitch fork. He grabs the wooden haft, and points the three metal prongs up to show Jen and Frank, grinning with excitement. The three tines of the pitchfork are each just under a foot apart. He gives a wink before turning to face the dummy. Over his shoulder Bill growls, "You saw the Wytch. It's got long gangly arms. Our thought was to try to take the damn things head off, but to do that, you probably got to hold it still." He grunts, thrusting the weapon forward at an angle, catching the dummy's arms between the fork's prongs, then twists. There is a groan of metal as the joints of the thing's shoulders wrench in the wrong direction, and the Bob tilts sideways, spilling over. Bill thrusts the pitchfork down, pinning the thing's arms against the ground. "You get close enough to the thing, and one of you does this," Bill says slightly out of breath, "and the other can go in for the kill." He lifts the pitchfork up off of BOB, and thrusts the handle in the direction of Frank and Jen. "Here, one of you try," he says, while Arnold rushes forward to lift the dummy back up on its stand.

[Daishain]

Frank looks to Jen, then shrugs before picking up the pitchfork, getting a feel for it before stabbing at the dummy.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

str+brawl (5d10)[10][10][8][7][10](45)
ten again (5d10)[7][2][5][8][8](30)

[Thundercracker]

Jen Gibbs

“We were pretty close to it last time,” Jen said, “you think it’ll hurt it more if we shoot it in the head?”

[Daishain]

"Seems likely. Whatever else is going on with that freaky anatomy, I rather doubt a hole in the brain is going to make it any easier for it to function. I'd probably aim for the brain stem, cut off all signals to the body that way." He sticks a finger in his mouth pointing at the upper back portion for emphasis.