1999 Broadway [seven]

Éva

Eva @ 7:51PM
Roll 1: intelligence (4) (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 ) VALID

seven

Starting off, Eva doesn't find much of interest. 1999 Broadway was built in 1985. The architect was Curtis Fentress, who started his firm in Denver in 1980 and also designed the Denver International Airport, which is of course rife with its own conspiracy theories and controversies. Fifth tallest building in Denver, 43 floors, yadda yadda. Some quotes say 46 floors but are either mis-typed or probably include basement levels or something. Eva does know for sure, after all, that the topmost elevator button says '43'. It was built around the Holy Ghost Church, which has been there since the early 1920s, and something-something oil bust of '83 something-something settlement something-something yawn.

Éva

Eva @ 7:51PM
Roll 2: intelligence (4) (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6 + WP due to near-fruitless first review
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP] VALID

Eva @ 7:52PM
Roll 3: intelligence 4 (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) VALID

seven

Over the next couple of weeks, Eva learns more. A great deal more, and much of it disturbing.

She checks first with a few people who still know that she was a friend to and even a mate of Guardians and discovers that some of the mysteries and rumors around DIA are absolutely true: the underground tunnels there have, in fact, been home to reptilian-esque creatures at times over the years that could not be identified as Weaver, Wyrm, or Wyld, but something alien and grotesque. The Garou have fought them, but never found nests. Some suspect that the design of the entire airport, from tunnels to peaks and every mural in between, attract these things somehow, or serve them, or maybe open a portal or something. No one's really sure and no one has the time or inclination to go digging around for days or weeks to figure it out. Especially right now.

The reason all of this needs to be confirmed by Eva after she starts guessing at it is that the underground tunnels, like the rest of the airport, were designed by the same man who designed 1999 Broadway.

Which has 43 floors. Or 46.

--

The construction of Holy Ghost Catholic Church is even more storied, at least on the mundane side of things. The congregation split from St. Mary's, the first catholic church in Denver, in 1905. The land was bought in 1923, ground was broken in 1924, and that December when it was dedicated, only a third of the work was done. And it wasn't until 1940 that the daughter or grand-daughter of some architect or builder or priest said she'd finance the finishing of the building.

They sold it so 1999 Broadway could be built. But then there was a recession, and the developers wanted out, and the church and the developers reached a deal, and Holy Ghost got to keep their church and were able to finance expansion and programs out of the deal. The developers ended up having Fentress design 1999 Broadway around the church, creating its iconic shape and shielding the Holy Ghost Catholic Church from then onward. To put it bluntly, the church made out like bandits.

Oh, and still no word on where the statue of the veteran came from. Who commissioned it. Even when it was built. Flipping through pictures endlessly, Eva or her assistants just find it there, the inky monolith to sacrifice. It is only absent from pictures prior to that original, renegged sale of the Holy Ghost property.

Éva

Eva @ 7:52PM
Roll 4: intelligence 4 (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) VALID

Eva @ 7:52PM
Roll 5: intelligence 4 (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) VALID

Eva @ 7:53PM
Roll 6: intelligence 4 (analytic) + investigation 2 - difficulty 6
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 ) Re-rolls: 1 VALID

seven

[Wits/Occult rolls were taken into account for every response in terms of what conclusions Eva could correctly reach!]

It takes roughly a month of research for Eva to be sure. She looks. She analyzes. She parses out the data that doesn't matter from the information that niggles at the back of her mind, and starts to whisper, and starts to scratch, and then claw, at her waking thoughts. She's putting things together faster than most people would, which is enough to make a mind like hers want to step back and think about this for a moment, because one mustn't leap to conclusions over enormous gaps, or one is likely to plummet.

This place she works at, this place where the garou gather, this place she sits above every single weekday and plenty of weekends, is not a holy place. Maybe the church is, a little bit; they feed the poor and they welcome scholars from around the globe, but it's unlikely they have any idea what is beneath them or what is built around them, shadowing them like it does.

1999 Broadway has 46 stories. Forty-three of those are above ground. One is a grave where Jane is buried now, where Champion of Honor and Wind on Concrete and far too many others are buried. There are two others, and Eva is smart enough not to go looking for access to them. Not when she knows that the man who built this place built another home for wicked, terrifying things crawling through the earth. Not when she knows that the Veteran has been standing guard between the office building and the cathedral since the church made their deal in the 80s to keep themselves intact.

Still no word on where he came from or who put him there, but now Eva knows why the Veteran doesn't always rouse himself to help the garou: he's not there to help the garou. He's there to guard the church. He must be, because looking over instances of combat at Cold Crescent, he has only ever descended from his plinth when the battle strayed too close to the walls of the Holy Ghost Catholic Church. And he attacks the minions of the Wyrm, not the chosen of Gaia, because that was always his purpose.

Because they -- the spirals, their fomori, their cubs and their spirits and their masters -- were there first.

Cold Crescent is a locus of spiritual energy and potential power. It just isn't power that the garou want. And now Eva knows -- with enough research to be certain of it, with enough instances of Bad Things, scaled and fiery and vicious and bloodthirsty things rising up from sewer grates or crawling out of parking garages in the nearby area over the last thirty or more years -- the real reason why this particular spot was chosen, and an even deeper reason why they put down any suggestion of building a caern here so forcefully. If the garou try to raise the energy of this place rather than stand atop it and dampen it, ward it, control it...

they know exactly what they'll awaken. And they know the Beloved Horror wants it back.