The Sundown.

The Sundowner

Okay. Quick rules:

1. This is a quick and dirty kind of scene. That doesn't mean you cannot explore, but I'm going to plunk characters into it pretty quickly and I would appreciate it if you all would go with the flow.

2. At least one post for every one of mine. Please start writing yours IMMEDIATELY when I post. I would like to get talky rounds in within 15-20 minutes. If you need to confer with other characters punt that out, man, and again - you can react after that initial "BLAH BLAH BLAH" - i.e. where cross-talk is reasonable necessary you can definitely post more than once per one of mine, but it we seem to be in ACTION MODE maybe ask me before assuming that you can plow forward.

3. Danger, yadda. I may make it cinematic at times, I may not, IDK.

4. There is a picture in the gallery for all y'all. That is our setting. It is a motel in a ruralish area.

5. Devon and Matthew are gonna get there on their own.

6. Morgan and Keisha will have been "sent" to the area by someone at FQ or CC for some reason - I assume that Morgan has been to the Sept, right? So y'all please chat. IT just makes it easier to have them arrive together. If that is a problem please give me a heads up via AIM while I'm writing the opening narrative post.

Cheers. Questions to me in AIM.

Sundown

It is at the edge of twilight, the sky's bleeding light and the valleys are bleeding shadow and we open on a strange bend in a narrow road that is only two lanes on paper maps. Out here there are no lanes, and no lines: just blacktop. Just blacktar, disintegrating back into aggregate at its edges.

Still radiant with the afternoon's heat.

Heat that is quickly being leeched from the ground by the hungry sky. The slice of it visible between a grim line of contorted pine trees framing the road.

The neon sign reads

S

U

D

[

W

N

and spits and hisses and fizzes, audible in the strange and sparse silence.

There are three cars in the parking lot, and one ancient Ford pick-up truck, with a winch on the back and antlers lashed onto the front grill with barbed wire, as you do. Lights on behind three of the grimy, squat little windows above the weezy air conditioners set into the puke-green clapboard siding framing the cheap old doors.

The sign in the office says VAC N Y but otherwise the glass is smoked and impossible to see through.

Devon walks past one of the rooms, darkened, the window seamed with flies that peel away from the frame with a papery kiss like eyelashes stuck to the skin with sleep.

Matthew pulls in to the parking lot, the crunch of gravel beneath his tires. GPS doesn't seem to fucking work right out here and he cannot get a consistent signal on his phone to save his life.

Morgan and Keisha are a half-mile down the road. Driving too. A mission: a small one. Some Bone Gnawer kin in trouble with the law for minor property crimes was supposedly laying low at a cheap motel somewhere out this way. Hasn't been heard from in a few days.

Welcome to Sundown.

Devon Paredes

When her eyes open, there is sky. The smell of wet, and mud, and decay: when she moves her head, her hair scrapes (tussles? rustles?) against dead leaves. She blinks a few times, bleary, waiting for things to settle. Her foot twitches and kicks her pack; that's good. She sits up, slowly, exhaling, looking around. Her oversized sweater -- this is black, and of an open knit -- drapes off one shoulder, the tank top -- this is blue, and ribbed, and laceless -- beneath stuck to her with sweat that has turned chill with nightfall. Her jeans -- these are dark enough that they may as well be black -- are torn at the knees and across the thighs and even down the shins. Her shoes -- they are Cons, and they are pink but mottled with grunge and wear -- are off.

Her socks are thick. They are black.

Devon puts them back on, not bothering to get leaves or whatnot out of her hair, and standing, lifts her pack to sling it over her shoulder. She exhales, but does not see steam: not that cold. That time of year is still coming. Tucking her hands under her biceps, she starts heading out of the wherever she is, out onto the road, and is looking for headlights, but then sees something else. A motel. A really dinky, sort of gross motel, but it'll do. She turns that way, walking through the lot, coming at it from a corner. Yes, perhaps, she passes a room, a window, on her way towards the door.

Matthew Murphy

Good to know there are still places in the world where 1G networks exist. It's like going back in time for a minute. Makes a man appreciate what he has and what he takes for granted. That he still has half a tank of gas and two full packs of cigarettes and his flask isn't empty. He has enough to take the edge off the fact that this place looks like a goddamn crime scene already and so far as he knows nothing has even happened yet.

This was the closest motel to the bar he was at. His roommate is a Ragabash and Gloria or whatever the hell her name is has kids at home. She's in the car with him.

The odds of them catching crabs from the mattress are pretty high but what's life worth if it's lived without chances.

As Devon is walking past a darkened roomMatt and Gloria-or-whatever-the-hell get out of the car. Their doors slam one then the other. She walks towards the office and he lights a cigarette.

Morgan Roche

"-n it's not like I don't appreciate the invitation t'test my skills as a part of the Sept, you know, it's just it seems an awful lot of driving out to see if a Kinfolk is just passed out on a bed somewhere." The Fianna is talking as they drive, that's not really to anyone's astonishment. Morgan's a pretty young redhead, dressed as many teenage girls might be in sneakers, jeans, a jacket and T Shirt with some faded logo on the front and a tear wearing at the point it snags on her belt buckle often.

There's no rings on her fingers, no necklaces.

But she can hold a conversation without problem. Something her new friend Keisha is discovering as they rumble down the road, the Ahroun's elbow hanging out the window. "If it's the Wyrm, we can do rock, paper, scissors on who goes in first." Morgan's mouth twitches. "That was mostly a joke."

Devon Paredes

[perception + primal urge]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Matthew Murphy

[perc + PU!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Keisha Ballard

She pulls up the rusty but reliable Theurgemobile (that's the name she gave it; it is essentially the Desert Oracle's official vehicle, after all) to the little hotel and kills the engine. Keisha had been at Forgotten Questions on one of her regular visits; she is Keeper of the Land at Cold Crescent, but the Oracles still hold to their duty to see to the spiritual welfare of anywhere in the city that may need them and that includes visiting the rural sept as well obviously. That was where she and Morgan, who she happened to be in the vicinity of but hadn't met, were sent off to go check on the kinfolk.

Keisha had made some small conversation in the car...just an introduction with name, tribe, pack, rank and such. Then she was more focused on following the directions...which isn't to say that she doesn't respond to the talkative Fianna. She's not the stoic silent type, and she's very genial and engaging to the other's conversation. She just didn't initiate a ton in this moment. There's the chance for that later.

"Yeah, it does seem like a lot, but just in case it's more than that..." She shrugs a little bit. "You never know, right? Best to be overqualified than under, I suppose."

She steps out once the car is stopped and the engine killed, opening the back door to get her staff out. She's dressed lightly in a pair of jeans and a tank top, her dreads loose today and falling about her shoulders.

"Okay, yeah," she says with a touch of wryness in her voice. "This doesn't look like a horror movie set at ALL." Okay, that touch of wryness can probably be considered more of a dripping with sarcasm. Details.

Sundown

The door sticks a bit in its frame. This reluctance, you understand. Devon requires a bit more force to pull it open.

The drone of the television audible from one of the rooms as she passes it, but only just. The sort of nearly sublingual that presents itself as a drone rather than a word, with any frame of meaning.

Here comes Gloria right behind her; whoever Gloria is. Stranger getting out and lighting a cigarette. There are a hell of a lot of cigarette butts scattered around the parking lot.

Cheap ones.

--

The minute Matthew peels his ass out of the driver's seat, something sets him on edge. It's hard because he knows it the way he knows things, with an animal certainty, and he knows it fucking well but he's just standing in the parking lot and lighting a goddamned cigarette and there are the trees and there is the sky and there are the flies pertubed by Devon's passing, settling back into every seam of the frame of the window on room #5. Dark, dark.

A barrel for trash by a wooden post beside it. Busted rain gutter coming down there too. Something, some itch he has to scratch has him straightening and ambling over to the trash barrel as Devon and then Gloria disappear into the office.

Pretty much a whole goddamned roll of paper towels in there, torn off one by one. Greasy rags and a goddamned cheap plastic shower curtain, stained and everything's in shadow at twilight, except the sky so it's hard to see, but he doesn't need to see, the man can smell it.

Blood.

--

So the office door swings open and Devon enters and Gloria after. There is a spiral-coil of fly paper hanging down from the rafters that Devon nearly runs into when she walks into the shabby office. Lit mostly by the neon V C NCY sign, and the ugly glow of a cheap old black and white TV. The doesn't seem to notice them at first, but it's mostly that she doesn't want to stop watching whatever that is. Some game show from the 1950s. Queen for a Day.

Then it's not one ring of the cheap thread of bells hanging down from the door. It's two.

She pushes away from her threadbare leather chair and ambles over to the counter. Eyes Devon.

She only has one. The other is glassine, staring the wrong direction entirely. A long, ugly scar splits her right cheek, and greasy blond hair scraggles down her back.

She smiles. Real pretty. Devon knows something is wrong with her.

She just looks, hungry.

"Y'all need a room? I got a vacancy."

--

Keisha and Morgan have: a name, Richard Wilson, and a general vicinity, the idea of a road off a road somewhere in this direction. They have a picture, half a dozen years old, from the day Rich was discharged from the marines.

They pull into the parking lot. Headlights flaring over the now-four cars.

Matthew smoking a cigarette.

Devon Paredes

Devon is neither very tall nor very short. She is on the thin side. Her eyeliner was done with little wings at the corners once, but has smudged now. Her hair is mussed and messy, and there are some leaves in it. She smells like the woods. She smells, to Morgan and Keisha, like she belongs to Stag, but dimly. It's in her features, in the freckles that show up when she's under decent light -- not much of that, out here. It is nowhere near the purity and strength of Matthew's, though.

She doesn't startle when a door slams closed to a car, but she does glance over, noticing. She glances away just as calmly, heading inside. She does struggle with the door, yanking at it with a determined screw of her mouth. At least she doesn't kick it on her way in.

She does want to throw the fly paper out of her way when she nearly runs into it, letting out a noise that is best described as yeaugh!. Now she just looks cranky. Or disgusted. Both, really. Her eyes catch on the woman. Her brow does not unfurrow as she walks towards her, slowly, scuffing her sneakers a bit with a lazy sort of stride. Her stomach turns over a bit.

Hearing the y'all she glances over her shoulder at this woman, Gloria, then shakes her head and looks back at the keep. "I'm not with her," she says, matter of factly, with perhaps the faintest touch of derision. Not for Gloria. For the woman before her.

"I just want to charge my phone so I can call a ride."

Matthew Murphy

Of course he goes over to look. He's standing out here smoking a cigarette until the woman he just met tonight comes back with a room key and it isn't that he has nothing better to do it's that he feels a creeping sense of dread out here in the dark.

He peers into the barrel and he doesn't inhale. He knows better. That smell seeps up out of the darkness unbidden. Doesn't choke him but he reels back like it was going to try.

"Ugh," he says. Debates going into the office to go grab Gloria and get her the hell out of here. The other option is seeing what's going on in the room behind the trash barrel. If there's a dead body in there or what.

That isn't an option at all. That's idiocy.

As Keisha and Morgan pull into the parking lot Matt decides he kind of wants to stay alive. He throws down his cigarette and walks towards the office. He looks over at the car as its headlights wash over him but he can't see the driver or the passenger through the glare of yellow. He squints but doesn't shield his eyes. Just looks away and keeps walking faster than one normally walks when moving across a rundown motel parking lot.

Morgan Roche

They called her Firebrand at her home Sept for a few reasons. The most telling of course is threaded into her blood, it hums beneath the skin. You can feel it when she's near, worst under the potency of the full moon. It's coming soon enough, the orb waxing day by day above. The two Garou pull up, Morgan snorts at the Theurge's comment because - damn.

And then -- "Hey. I know that guy." The Fiann pulls herself out of the car and stretches, kicking a few pebbles with her sneakers as she examines their surroundings. Breathes in. Looks over the roof of the car at Keisha. "He's one of mine."

Morgan starts toward the rooms. "Wha' did they say his name was? Richard somethin' or other."

Keisha Ballard

"Wilson," she says in immediate response as her eyes track toward Matthew, the guy that Morgan is referencing. "Richard Wilson. You think your guy knows him?"

It seems an odd coincidence, after all, them being sent to find a kinfolk who hadn't checked in and finding another, separate kinfolk. Unless this was some kind of safe point for the Nation, but she highly expects that's not the case.

'cause y'know. Looks like a horror set and all. Morgan's heading to intercept Matthew, so Keisha heads along with.

Sundown

???

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Matthew Murphy

[HOORAY]

Morgan Roche

[Per + Alert]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Per+Alert]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Sundown

"Don't get much service out here," the one-eyed woman mutters, sourly. Smiling around that sourness, as some people do, with this painted-over expression that feels like a grimace, like a slash. The sort that cuts away all the flesh, exposes bone. Teeth right down to the roots. The empty hollows of the nose and eyes.

She is: chewing on something. Maybe it's her cheek.

Chewing on something and she lifts her chin past Devon, toward the door.

"Might be you kin try on the payphone. If them boys from the phone company ever got round ta fixin' that line they snapped last Tuesday. It's round the back. Near the ice machine. You got a dime?"

--

You got a dime? that's what Matthew hears as he pulls open that sticky door. And he has to pull, just like Devon did. Nearly walks into that fly paper which is swinging like a pendulum and Gloria is stepping around Devon to head to the counter and get that roomkey and here, Matthew, that feeling doubles.

Redoubles.

The place smells like mildew and bacon grease.

The woman looks dangerous. When she sees Matthew coming in after, well. She smiles.

"My lucky day."

--

Morgan climbs out of the car and starts to follow Matthew. And she notices thing and Keisha follows, and also sees:

Those three cars in the parking lot, covered with a dust that feels nearly glazed in the twilight, so hard to see except at a certain angle - but she sees it.

The gravel of the lot settled beneath the tires, not churned up and disturbed. They've been there for a long time.

The lights in the three windows of the three rooms are steady and solid. No one at the windows. No one coming to the curtains to check out the car that just drove up.

But room number five. Morgan, and Keisha, both could almost swear there was a ripple in the shadows surrounding it. A liquid movement.

Oh - the swirl of the flies, dark against dark glass.

That's it. That's all.

Keisha Ballard

She pauses at that moment, frowns. Goddess, that ain't good, she thinks. Time for them to get a little potential clue in as to what's awaiting them.

"I'm looking across," she murmurs to Morgan. "Something over around Door 5."

[[Peeeeeeeeeeeeeek]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Devon Paredes

"Well, a charged phone will at least let me get my address book to use a land line," Devon retorts, somewhere between duh and fuck off already. She takes her eyes off the woman once, following the jerk of the woman's chin at the door, then right back. She rolls her eyes. "Okay," she says, as Matthew is coming in, "I'll find an outlet myself. But thanks a heap."

She is turning then with that eyeroll to go find an outlet along the wall, and she doesn't know Matthew from Adam but Matthew doesn't feel like hungry death at her back and she meets his eyes for a moment, blue on blue. Hers are wide. Hers are saying, very blatantly, that she's freaked out. It's a very clear, though very nonverbal,

Help.

Matthew Murphy

Oh that ain't good.

A word about Gloria: she is Matt's height if not taller in her shoes. He isn't any higher than five-foot-eight himself. Her jeans look painted on and she's wearing a thin sweater gray that leaves her shoulders bare. The straps of her camisole are black. Her hair is bottle-red and she looks like she's well into her thirties. Nothing about her says she'd be any use in a fight.

She's chewing gum and watching the scene play out before her and her big brown eyes are getting bigger as she's realizing she's just gone to some dumpy motel room with a guy she hardly knows and it feels like a fucking horror film in here.

Which means three women are looking at Matt when he walks in two of them looking freaked right the fuck out and the other one saying it's her lucky day. Matt thin-framed and blue-eyed as he is looks a bit freaked out himself.

"There you are!" he says looking at both of them like they're all in the same group. Never mind Devon already said she wasn't with Gloria. Matt doesn't know that. He holds the door aloft like he's afraid if it shuts behind him it'll stay shut. "You ready?"

Big old winsome smile aimed at the clerk. Gloria and Devon had better be moving their asses.

"You have a good night, ma'am."

Morgan Roche

The Ahroun's mouth firms as the Theurge offers aside that she's glancing across the Gauntlet to see beyond. There's a tight jerk of Morgan's mouth. "Somethin' all right," she mutters and moves in closer. There's a gnawing irritation buzzing in her ears, her jaw feels tight.

Her eyes narrow.

She doesn't know much, Morgan Roche, but she does know when something isn't right and this, well, it's about as far from right as anything she's encountered so far. Her Kinsman is in there along with who knows what else. She lost someone once under her watch. She's not about to prove her brother right.

Morgan keeps walking, lifts her chin. So much for rock, paper, scissors, apparently.

Matthew Murphy

[Aloft. Ajar. Words. He's holding the door open.]

Sundown

Keisha goes still; Keisha goes still in the twilit parking lot of the shadowed Sundown and her eyes are half-closed. Her eyes are else-where, and other-when, are focused and she feels the barrier both as something pregnant and something forceful and something wrong, because we are spirit and flesh and we were meant to be whole.

Still like that. Searching like that.

Nothing.

She sees nothing.

Just darkness.

Maybe she didn't get through. That happens sometimes; this is more difficult than it looks, to be here and to see there. Or maybe things are much much worse than they seem.

--

"'lectric ain't free, sweetheart," the woman behind the counter is informing Devon as someone on the black and white TV is annointed Queen for a Day and she's still smiling that greasy smile and then Matthew is flashing her that smile and telling her to have a good night ma'am and she's smiling right back at him, real, real wide, tonging her snaggletooth with an abiding pleasure that is just this side of lascivious and her hands are under the counter and she's reaching for something but doesn't have it on the counter yet. Not yet.

"I sure aim to."

Something shadowy behind her. Sort of - coalescent.

--

Morgan walks across the parking lot, gravel crunching beneath her feet and she's so focused on the office, her kin, the bleeding, leading edge of the fuzzing out neon sign in the window that she might almost miss when the door to room number 5 opens. A lanky kid, maybe sixteen with a mop of filthy hair ambling out. Taller shape behind him. Neither remarkable.

This foetid sense and tooth numbing cold, though, comes pouring from within. Feels like the mouth of a deep cave, that.

Smells like an abattoir.

(Inits!)

Devon Paredes

+6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

[oh shit +5]

Matthew Murphy

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Office +4, Room +8, Room +4

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Morgan Roche

[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Init +6]]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (5) ( fail )

Sundown

Morgan: 15Devon: 15Matthew: 15

Lanky Guy: 13

Keisha: 11

The Big Guy: 10

Doris the Office Lady: 8

Devon Paredes

[Fianna mind-meld activate.]

Sundown

Morgan: 15

Devon: 15

Matthew: 15

Lanky Guy: 13

Keisha: 11

The Big Guy: 10

Doris the Office Lady: 8

Sundown

Doris: 1a. Draw and pump shotgun. 1b. Menace Matthew, Gloria, Devon. (Basically: an intimidation roll.)

Sundown

The Big Guy: 1. Tackle Keisha. 2. Drag her toward the Room.

Keisha Ballard

[[Iskakku 3: One As an Army for two strikes on Big Guy]]

Sundown

The lanky, greasy-haired kid flashes teeth. We call this, in some places of the universe, a smile, but there is something feral about it, more like a scenting cat than anything else. Flashes teeth at the pretty pretty redhead who makes him so dizzy he is drooling.

He cannot wait to get inside her skin.

(1. Charge Morgan. 2. Bite Morgan. 3. Bite Morgan.)

Matthew Murphy

Gloria and Devon are both definitely moving their asses. Matt stays where he is until they're both clear of the office and then you bet your ass he's going to close the door. He doesn't know if that shotgun is about to go off or not.

action: CLOSE DOOR. WOO.

Morgan Roche

[Snap Shift to Hispo. Spending Rage.

1a. Oi! No biting. Not before I bite you first.

1b. Bite Lanky Dude.]

Morgan Roche

(oops, sorry! I went early.]

Devon Paredes

Devon starts to move her ass. She hustles toward Matt, preferably past him, getting someone at least somewhat larger than herself between her back and the creep behind the desk. Not much luck, though. Things start going sideways half a second later.

[1. BOLT, head for the truck she saw Matt climb out of.]

Matthew Murphy

GLORIA GETS INITS IT'S YOUR TIME TO SHINE BABY

+5

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

Sundown

(Tiebreaker between Doris and Gloria.) +4

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

COME ON LITTLE NPC

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Morgan Roche

[1a. Biting Dude. -2 for Split.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Morgan Roche

[1b. Biting ya'll again! -3 Split]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage]

Dice: 11 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Morgan Roche

[Oops! Sorry, forgot to change Diff.]

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Devon Paredes

[Dex + Ath!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

(Just to note: Matthew is being a hero and holding his action until Gloria makes it out, so: holds.)

Sundown

Lanky guy CHARRRRRRRRGE. (He is basically running and closing the distance and headbutting. Hmmm.)

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Damage - bashing,

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Sundown

(2 and 3 are rage actions. will come back around.)

Keisha Ballard

[{Dex+Iskakku 1 (w/WP)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Keisha Ballard

[Dex+Iskakku 2]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Morgan Roche

[Soaking!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Keisha Ballard

[[Damage 1]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Damage 2]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

Big guy: soak!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

Big guy: bodytackle Keisha!

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Dex+Ath]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Damage!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Damage!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Soak]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Dex + Firearms. Pump that shotgun, Doris.

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

dex + athletics: MOVE YOUR ASS GLORIA

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

dex + athletics: CLOSE THE DOOR MURPHY WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Doris: 1b. Change action. Shoot. +1 dif to change actions.

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Damage.

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Matthew Murphy

SAVE ME DOOR

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

Matthew: 2 lethal. (Closer, he is slamming the door.) Gloria: 1.

Matthew Murphy

[HEY KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

RAGE ACTIONS BELONG TO ME.

Lanky: Morgan I LURRRVE you!

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Damage!

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Morgan Roche

[Jesus! Soak.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

D:

Sundown

Big guy: changes actions to grapple Keisha since she wasn't knocked down.

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 6 )

Sundown

Also: second rage action! CHOMP.

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (4, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Sundown

Augh, damage!

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Strength+Brawl 'cause HAHAHAHA right]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4) ( fail )

Morgan Roche

[Soaking! Let's do better this time.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Devon books it but everything is chaotic and there's a werewolf in the parking lot and she slams her elbow into the misshapen doorframe but fuck she makes it out of there, hears what is happening behind her, has that halo sight because she is moving, you understand, fast fast fast, not preternaturally slow but she can feel all her systems firing,

the way Morgan feels them except Morgan snapshifts, is something else whole and entire: snarling, vicious, powerful and turning on the creature that is streaking towards her with a spray of gravel from her great paws. Fast, tearing into the young man charging her. His skin tastes like worms.

Keisha has her staff in hand and strikes twice at the bigger guy, the tall shape resolving itself into a man in a pair of bloodstained overalls, head down, running at her, but he does not seem to feel the blows. Just surges forward, head-still-down, slams solidly into her except that she keeps her feet.

Doris pulls the shotgun from beneath the counter and pumps it. Matthew at the door like a dumbass hero waiting while Gloria charges out into chaos and Matthew is starting to slam the door as Doris changes her goddamned mind about what the hell she was going to do and instead of threatening those ungrateful bastards fleeing her goddamned office, just shoots, a bit wildly, but shoots all the same.

Outside, chaos.

The big guy changes it up, snatches Keisha in a grapple and there's no way she's breaking his hold. The shotgun blasts through the closing door as Gloria is escaping, catching Matthew and Gloria with spraying pellets.

The lanky guy tears into Morgan, have we mentioned his teeth, pointed pointed pointed, filed down to vicious razors. She was so lovely.

Her blood makes him swoon.

But oh wait: who's this running out the door!

Devon Paredes

[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

Morgan Roche

[+8]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

Keisha Ballard

[[Init+6]]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Matthew Murphy

matt's +5

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Doris +4, Lanky +8, Big Guy +4

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Matthew Murphy

gloria's +5

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

Sundown

Lanky: 17

Devon: 16

Keisha: 14

Big Guy: 14

Matt: 12

Morgan: 11

Doris: 10

Gloria: 10

Matthew Murphy

Gloria comes tearing out of the office in time to see a huge wolf monster tangling with a huge man and a young woman hitting at a beanpole of a kid with a giant fucking stick. Disbelief hits her harder than the shotgun spray does.

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

[lessened delirium happening. she's not acting right this second.]

Sundown

Doris: Reflexive: curse. 1a. Pump the shotgun again. 1b. Walk out from behind the counter and toward the door.

Morgan Roche

If the Fianna were human, her howl of pain and fury would probably be vocalised with a great deal of cursing right about now. As it is - she's anything but. The red wolf snarls, bears her teeth and snaps her jaws, diving back in to take a little more because that hurt.

[1a. Bite.

1b. Bite.

R1. Bite once more!

R2. Rinse and repeat.]

Matthew Murphy

Matt can run pretty damned fast without even trying but Gloria is wearing high heels and they're on a gravel lot and next time either of them want to get laid they're going to go to a nicer motel damn it they've learned their lesson.

"COME ON!"

[action: hustle gloria's ass over to the truck]

Sundown

Big Guy: Carry Keisha back to the Room.

Keisha Ballard

[Snapshift to Crinos

1. Use that Talen that I can't remember the name of on Morgan

R1. Iskakku 2 thrust attack Big Guy]]

Keisha Ballard

[[The healing one.]]

Devon Paredes

[Gaia's Breath?]

Devon Paredes

Dude gets it when she looks at him. Pretends they're old pals, or something, like it matters. She's heading out, and then all hell breaks loose. A shotgun breaks loose. And Devon's instincts shiver up her spine; she bolts, but does not panic. Bad things happen when she panics.

Her eyes fly open when she gets outside, seeing a werewolf charging, snarling. Seeing a woman with a staff. Devin swears loud enough that it would be a shout under normal circumstances, buried under the noise around her. She flinches, hard, when a shotgun goes off, reminding her to move her ass.

Devon moves her ass, going for the truck. And getting in the driver's seat because, thank fuck, it's a huge piece of garbage and its owner didn't bother locking it. Its owner who is, at that moment, hauling ass with his girlfriend (???) to the truck. Devon stands on the edge, door open, looking at him over the top of said door. She shouts in his direction: "Keys!" holding up her hands.

Keisha Ballard

[[Yes]]

Sundown

Lanky: 1. Liiiiiiiiiiiick Morgan. (Seriously). 2. CHOMP CHOMP (bite). 3. CHOMMMP. (Bite).

Keisha Ballard

[[Redeclare. Snapshift to Crinos

1. Iskakku 3 attack again.

R1. Iskakku 2 thrust attack Big Guy]]

Devon Paredes

[technical declare:

1a. catch keys [wp!]

1b. start your engines]

Sundown

Slurp.

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

(What happens from the slurp is secret. Devon can go.)

Devon Paredes

[Dex + Ath - 2 (split) +WP]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

Morgan Roche

[Ew, Wyrm saliva. WP.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )

Devon Paredes

Keys she shouts for and keys she is tossed. She does not just catch them. She catches the keychain on one finger, the keys doing an artful twirl around that finger, landing cupped in her palm. Devon grins. Even in this, she can take a second to be amused or delighted or smirking at her own surprising grace. She dives back into the cab of the truck, slamming the door after her, starting the ignition.

Keisha Ballard

[[Attack 1]]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Attack 2 w/WP]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Keisha Ballard

[[Damage 1]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Damage 2]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Big guy: change action. Run!

Matthew Murphy

[dex + ath: TOSS. +1 diff bc changing actions. ST says don't botch so WP: ACTIVATE.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 2, 2, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Morgan Roche

[Bite! 1a. -1 Ow, -2 Split]

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )

Matthew Murphy

straight-up social dice bc he doesn't have leadership or anything useful: reflexive "move your ass gloria" roll

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Morgan Roche

[Bite 1b. -1 Ow, -3 Split]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Sundown

Soak!

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

Lanky: x.x

Sundown

(OOC summary: Devon gets the keys, Gloria is kinda moving it but is in full delirium now. Lanky is dead-dead-dead. Big guy is running. Momma is heading toward the door? She is still in hte office.

Keisha and Morgan have rage actions. Let me know if they want them and if they want to change them. )

Morgan Roche

[I think Morgan is gonna go after Momma cuz she got that there shotgun.]

Sundown

(okay. Keisha rolls her rage action, then Morgan!)

Keisha Ballard

[[Iskakku 2: Dragon emerges from mountain. Dex+Iskakku]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Keisha Ballard

[[Damage: Str 6, +2 for maneuver, +2 for succ]]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 7 )

Morgan Roche

[R1. Biting Momma!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sundown

Soak

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage]

Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Sundown

Momma can't soak. :(

Morgan Roche

[R2. MORGAN GET IT TOGETHER. ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Morgan Roche

[Damage. You're a Fianna.]

Dice: 11 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )

Sundown

momma: incap.

Sundown

Devon goes flying and dives into the truck and is so fucking fast that she is reaching for the keys even before Matthew tosses them and Keisha shifts and breaks the enduring hold that the big guy in the overalls had on her when she was in homid, right up to Crinos and Gloria just. starts.

screaming.

The lanky kid is just gnawing on the primordial red-gold hispo-wolf in a way that feels quick nearly gustatorial, licks his filed teeth and licks his lips and liiiiiiicks the scored wounds he has left in her body, shivering with all the pleasure of a glutton sitting down to the world's largest Golden Corral buffet and Matt is tossing the keys and trying something, trying anything, trying to herd the screaming Gloria in the direction of the truck and Morgan fells her foe.

Just takes him down.

Whatever that lick was meant to do, she resists entirely. Feels it crawl-shivering up-her-spine and shakes it wholly off and fells him.

The big guy goes running. He just: runs.

Back to the darkened room. Disappears into the shadows.

Keisha hits him again, a solid blow across the head, as he goes.

Morgan turns to the woman with the shotgun emerging from the office and,

well,

annihilates her.

Or at least, drops her to the floor. Still breathing, though barely. Rasping, hoarse breaths.

Devon Paredes

It does her well not to look at what is happening around her except to keep herself borderline aware of her surroundings. She can smell blood and hear carnage and it's horrible, it's always horrible, she's shocked her hands aren't shaking as she turns the engine over. She's sitting on the very edge of the bench seat, fucking old-ass truck piece of shit,

which she is saying aloud, as Matt drags the woman to the truck.

Devon, in the back of her mind, has already processed that he must be kin. Even if he doesn't know it, but she bets he does: no reaction when he sees the werewolves, even the one in crinos. Just that same focus. No shock. She gets it. He threw the keys right into her hand, it was like they were mind-melded. Yeah. He knows what's up. The woman he's with totally doesn't. The truck rumbles to life and she reaches over, grabbing the interior handle to open the passenger door.

She doesn't need to say Let's go or We're getting the fuck out of here or Make sure she doesn't lose it and drive me off the bloody road, though. Or thinks she doesn't. If she's dealing with another kinfolk, one who keeps moving with a gunshot wound and doesn't panic at the sight of a crinos garou, she's pretty sure all of that is unnecessary.

You'd think maybe she should pause a moment and see if the two werewolves need help. Want a ride. Introductions! Something!

...

Naaaaaah.

Keisha Ballard

That final strong thrust, done with a forward step and simultaneous extension of her arms for added velocity, leaves her in that position for just a second. She drops back into a guard stance, holding her position in front of the door with the staff at the ready as she takes a quick look around. The screaming makes her frown, and she wants to shift down to try and help her, but right now making sure the guy doesn't come back out with a bomb or Balefire-spewing flamethrower or other kind of weapon that allows him to wreak havoc is her priority.

If she's screaming, at least she's alive.

~HT~ "Morgan. He's still alive and in there."

Keisha Ballard

[[Edit: "Morgan. He's still conscious and in there."]]

Matthew Murphy

They had not known each other before tonight. They were both alone at the same bar and then they decided to be alone together and then it got towards the end of the night and before they could get too drunk and end up doing something awful they decided while still somewhat sober fuck it. Let's go someplace. There's a motel a couple miles up the road. Gloria passes it on her way to work every day.

Now Gloria is freaking right the fuck out. She stepped out of the creepiest motel office she's ever been in in her life and into a war zone and she's not a battle-hardened kinswoman. She's not even a regular kinswoman. She's an accountant for Christ's sake.

All that to say that she is not Matt's girlfriend. They will not see each other again after this. He's still going to get her out of here. Doesn't matter if she's screaming because there are monsters tearing apart other monsters and blood and lord knows what else flying around.

The fact that Devon still has her faculties about her in the midst of the carnage tells Matt they are either on the same team or she is an iron-willed maniac who is about to steal his truck.

She doesn't. She pops open the door and she waits while Matt loads Gloria into it. And he's saying quiet reassuring things to her just to get her to calm the hell down. It's alright you're safe now nothing's gonna get you. Shit like that. She will not remember this later. She will come out of her delirium with tears run down her face snot clogging her sinuses throat gone hoarse from screaming and not remember what happened at the motel.

She most decidedly does not fucking get it.

Morgan Roche

It's always a little too quiet in the aftermath. The Fianna shakes her coat out, lets out a heavy whuff of breath as she looms over the fallen woman on the ground, her nostrils flaring as she scents the air. Gloria is screaming inside the car somewhere in the not too far distance and the Ahroun sights the Theurge.

Inclines her head at the high tongue and --

--moves after the big guy, toward the darkened room he vanishes into. One might suppose she's checking to see if she can locate that missing Gnawer. Or just wants to ensure she finishes the job, her heavy paws stirring up motes of dust as she pokes around.

Sundown

Morgan lumbers into the room. Her massive body is almost too large for the open door to the darkened room but she finds there are no motes of dust in here. There is blood, slick, rot, deep. The walls and the floors are strangely spongy and slick with blood and darkness.

Someone has painted the walls with wallpaper paste and adhered half-cured human skin to them. Thinly sliced from poor bastards who lived, screaming, until they died.

Above and beneath the wretched odors that assault Morgan's nose - all those deaths, old and older. None more recent than 3 or 4 weeks old, so the Bone Gnawer for whom they search is unlikely to be among them. Only went on the lam two weeks ago - but above and beneath those scents Morgan smells the sour-milk smell of the guy in the overalls. The humid, bilious stink.

Follows it over the blood-soaked and rotting carpet. Until it simply - dissolves, into the cool kiss of humid shadows.

Gone baby gone.

Keisha Ballard

She shifts her way down to Glabro now that the Ahroun is there, moving in behind. It's not a sense of safety, necessarily, as much as it is easier to get into the door.

To her credit, she doesn't vomit. Keisha is many things, and some would call her a bleeding heart with no stomach for war. They wouldn't be the most wrong in the world, either. But she's a bit desensitized to this kind of horror. It disgusts her, makes her raise a hand to press the edge of her finger against her nose. But she doesn't look like she's going to lose it.

"These kinds of rooms are becoming a habit for me."

Devon Paredes

Devon pulls the truck away from the motel. There are still leaves in her hair. She looks toward it, briefly, thinking of the two garou. She has no idea who they are. Still, though: not her current priority.

Outside, Keisha and Morgan hear that selfsame truck skid over gravel and haul ass away from that place. Devon gets back on that lonely stretch of road and just picks a direction. Doesn't matter which. We're lucky she's driving on the right side of the road right now.

"There's a little bottle in my pack," she says, eyes fixed forward. "Side pocket, wrapped in butcher paper. It'll be the sort of purplish stuff." She takes her eyes off the road for a moment to look at Matt. "If you can get her to drink it, it'll calm her down really fast. It's safe. All herbal."

She looks back at the road.

Her backpack is on the bench between them. It's got worn-out straps fixed by duct tape. It's a pale grey with neon pink stars all over it.

Morgan Roche

When Morgan emerges from the room, it's as a human girl. One with the back of her hand pressed solidly over her nose and mouth. There's a little blood sticking to her and her hair is a mess of red-gold sticking out in wild abandon but for all the way she looks sickened you'd find it hard to believe she was the same hunkering beast that entered the shadowy depths.

Except where her shirt is torn from being bitten, that wound already on its way to fully mending. "Smells old in there." She picks at the corner of her shirt, makes a face. "Don't get a sense of anything that could be that Kin missin'." The Ahroun wipes her chin on her arm.

Looks around. Off into the distance after the car. "I can help with the cleansin' if you need it." She sucks her lower lip between her teeth. "Guess then we can go tell 'em there wasn't a sign of their Gnawer." The Ahroun grimaces as she peers back into the room. "These other folks, though. That isn't any way t'go."