>>1033503

Jennifer isn't driving. She has her driver's liscence, sure. It comes with the symbol for "Only with vision correction" and everything.
She doesn't use it much. She only got it in the first place to qualify for more jobs, far too many have being able to drive as a requirement, just in case they need you to go somewhere and do something.

Hearing the man at the register, she can't help but stifle a laugh. She may not be (and in fact is not) that experienced with dating, but she can still recognize a terrible effort when she hears it. And recognize that as openers go, "my dad has a car dealership" isn't as big a draw as he clearly thinks it is. Well, maybe to some people it would be. Maybe. Jennifer may be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to most people, but even that is a stretch to her. Though hearing that does almost change her mind about having turned back to pick up some chocolates. She's careful not to meet the cashier's eyes, or even engage with him beyond handing over exact change.

She doesn't care about how natural flavors are. Caring about flavors is a luxury for people who have all the choices in thier food. It's less important when your choice is limited by price. And artificial flavors are part of life, and of cheap food. "Organic" and "all-natural" are just labels that drive up the price.
And if she tastes similar artificial flavorings off of fruits picked off trees or bushes, the few times she had field trips to orchards and farms? Well, she's used to it. That's life. Maybe things will taste better tomorrow. Maybe not. But the only way to find out will be to be there.

---------------------

She doesn't have her own car. Those are too expensive, though she's chipped in for gas money. It's only fair.
After she's bought a few chocolates, both for herself and to share with the group, careful to avoid engaging the cashier any more than needed, it's time to actually hurry back to the car. And to her friends. Those are the more important part. Back with Hazel, and Allison, and Sarah.
"Anyone want a chocolate?" It's polite to offer, even if everyone had the chance to buy one themselves. So she does. She nibbles on one herself.

Sarah Lloyd 2022/05/24(Tue)23:53 No. 1033520 ID: 383ea3
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>>1033503
> That final little puzzle piece though, the thing that makes everything click and gives that feeling of satisfaction.

The last piece that would make it all click would be corpses. Identifiable corpses that would blow though any cover up. Even if that's a woefully naive perspective.

But, completely ignoring the gas station attendant at this point, she put the soda into the mostly full ice chest with actual food and other drinks, and abandoning the idea of a walk while her keys were in the van, she instead opted to touch her toes for a good 30 seconds before getting into the almost too warm cloth seated brand new van.

The view wasn't great out of the back lack of windows, but it was great for how much space it had.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/05/25(Wed)01:02 No. 1033525 ID: f6de1f
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>>1033514
>"Anyone want a chocolate?"
"I'll be fine," I reply, waving a negative. I'm a sucker for chocolate, but I eat slowly, which means it'd melt in my hands and get everywhere in the summer heat.

>>1033520
"Alright, are you driving, or shall I?" I ask Sarah, before shaking my head. "Rock paper scissors, loser's driving? Let's go. On shoot. One, two, three-"

Three rounds of rock-paper-scissors draws later, I called shotgun. Shotguns shoot through rock, paper, and scissors, which means I won, and found myself sitting shotgun. I thought it might be for the best, with the car rigged up to be easier for her to drive with her arm missing. I found myself with a map out and navigating instead, adjusting my glasses as I strap in.

A gas station attendant watches people leave. The van moves on. To Mount Hood. It doesn’t take long to get there. You can only take the van so far before you need to get out and go hiking to get to any cool spots. It’s not too late and the sun is still up but you really don’t have much sunlight to go for any long hikes. Unless you feel confident in doing such a thing, of course.

So you’re all at a camping site, not too far from the van. Maybe even next to it. You’re alone all alone, which is nice. You could blare music and not bother a soul. Although you may freak out some nearby animals.

Mount Hood is off in the distance. So pretty. Trees and such. You wouldn’t guess it but one of the last sane Werewolves alive is currently being hunted by the ones he loved so dearly. By the ones he still loves. Blood drips, monsters dance. The proud warrior slinks while the jesters prance with knives behind him. That sorta thing.

The only thing that might give away that something isn’t totally right is just how quiet the animals seem to be. Birds tend to chirp, ya know? But this action is far away and you are unawares.

Anyho! What are you doing till night time? Does anyone go for a late night hike? Just setting up a little camp? How does one… go camping?

Hazel Fletcher 2022/05/26(Thu)08:03 No. 1033653 ID: 6bd08e
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>>1033643
>What are you doing till night time? Just setting up a little camp? How does one… go camping?
Always set up camp early. Right next to the van is best, with tents we pull out of the back. Push down the pegs and poles, and clip the tents up. Forget whether the camping grounds allow gathering sticks for a fire, and regretfully pull out the smaller and more expensive burner.

Sitting in camping chairs, watching the sun go down, with a mug of hot chocolate and a smoke...

Wonderful.

>Does anyone go for a late night hike?
Not me, unless I think I see or hear something out there. I get lost pretty easily, and I'd rather stay in my chair unless there's something I know will be interesting.

>>1033653
>>1033643
> Anyho! What are you doing till night time? Does anyone go for a late night hike? Just setting up a little camp? How does one… go camping?

Well, that's always the big question isn't it. What to do in the twilight dimming of the sun. Soon, Dusk would fall, so she would just go into the storage of her car to pull out the firewood. She wasn't exactly a pro at stacking lumber into a good camp fire, but she managed, and gathered kindling from around the camp site, starting a camp fire.

"Alright... I kind of actually want to scout out where the trails actually are before it gets too dark. Stretch my legs after that drive."

She would, pointedly, stretch out tall as she started to walk to the nearest trail, really none the wiser as to the dangers she might be walking into. Though she still kept her hand on a hunting knife she had plated in silver and blessed by a local priest. After all, there were enough stories about only being able to kill a vampire with a Silvered bullet that, even if that turned out to be false, she wasn't taking chances.

Also if there were any creeps out in the dark of a non-supernatural variety, it still cut them as deep.

>>1033643
Jennifer watches the scenery from the back seat as they travel ever closer to the mountain. She's used to cities. And suburbs. This camping trip is a first. She hopes she packed the right stuff. Asks for help setting up a small tent. She got it used, but its still intact. Listens to the breeze travelling through the trees, the rustle of leaves. It's the sound of nature, as far as she's concerned.
Tent set up, sleeping bag unrolled, backpack left in the Van - it'll be safer there, she watches as the burner gets set up, then a fire pit. Helps gather sticks, once she realizes that's what's going on.

>> 1033663
"A walk sounds nice." She doesn't want to go alone. It's a bit too quiet for that, and shes read one too many horror stories of people getting lost, alone. "I'm surprised there aren't more people here." She has a flashlight and a water bottle, just in case it gets too dark, as she hurries after Sarah. "I'll help prepare dinner when we get back?", she half asks, half says to Hazel as she goes. This is more out of politeness than anything, she's a terrible cook. But she can help clean, or hand ingredients over, or watch for a pot over the fire to boil. But that's for after the walk.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/05/26(Thu)22:01 No. 1033733 ID: 79cefd
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>>1033730
>"I'll help prepare dinner when we get back?", she half asks, half says to Hazel as she goes.
"I'll get started while you're out hiking," I reply with a wry smile, "But I have very important roles in the cooking process for when you get back. Skewer holder, and taste tester."

There's a chopping board in the car that's going to see use, and a shopping bag with meat and vegetables. I should be able to have everything cut up by the time the hikers come back, along with a grill stand over the fire. Watching food cook on sticks is part of the experience I'd hate for any friend to miss on a first time camping trip.

The rock star is... Not entirely quiet on the trip there, but no sense in worrying over every little detail. By the time they've shown up at the camp and it starts getting dark, she'd absently hear two of her friends ponder going out for a walk? Seems a bad time but eh, what's the worst that can happen. She'd also have gotten a shotgun from the car, for hunting reasons of course, she's no master of it but eh if a shot at decent meat comes up why not... Or if anything goes wrong.

"Well count me in, I can't say I'm expecting to get any game at the moment with how dark it is but I might get lucky. Though hmm, wonder if there's any silly urban legends about this place, it's fun thinking about that stuff sometimes~"

Well, it is to Alison at least, she's never minded the idea. Even done a bit of research into things like that over the years... Some of it ends up feeling more real than it should too, but that can't mean much right? Regardless of anything else, she's ready to see more of the forest around them.

>>1033733
So you make some food and gather some sticks. Make a fire. The Sun goes down and all is quiet. Hm, weird. There should be the sound of crickets. More time passes. It grows darker. Darker still. The fuck did everyone go? Things really aren’t adding up here. For one, your cellphone is dead. For two, your flashlight is dead. For three, your car is dead.

Things were going so wonderful. So why is everything broken? The end of a human. The end of another human. The end of a friend. There is a path there - filled with monsters that cackle like jackals, a pitch that makes ears bleed. Pain ends too, dissolving into zero. So many zeros.

Sarah is dead. Yikes. Endings. The others… no? Yes? No? You see perfect lines leading you to the corpse of a friend, swerving through trees and bushes. Sarah. Another line. It means Celestine and Luna and Jennifer is here. I mean, it’s just so obvious that the line-that-is-a-trail means that.

The third goes to Alison. The third goes straight to Hell.
-------------------------------

>>1033829
>>1033730
>>1033663

The sun is basically down. Maybe not all the way. The funny thing is: you all were just about to head back to camp. It was an uneventful walk! Even the bugs and the birds were pretty chill. With gusto or whatever your personality dictated you bested that simple little hike and got a good like at nature.

It was about the time the sun went down all the way that the laughing started. It was like a jackal. Scratching at ear drums. Electronics died. The flashlights? No. Those monsters were chasing someone. Fate and coincidence and all that rot.

It takes a bit after all the lights go out for something to happen. Something does happen though. A wind passes through. A blur. You would break your neck if you tried to turn your head following it. Then the sound of laughter. Then the pain.

Everyone is deaf now. So that sucks. Figures rush by - one reaches out in passing and a tree splinters violently, casting fragments of wood everywhere. That is more pain. More blood.

Sarahs dead. Huge ass chunk of wood. Was probably… mostly painless? I mean, no one is that lucky anymore. Who knows.

Slower figures soon follow. The cackles have already made you deaf. They prickle your skin. Make eyes bleed. Now you’re also blind. Jaws pick you up, taking you along. You are human in the jaws of a monster with very sharp teeth. They bite down hard but do not kill. It is as unpleasant as it is red.
----------------

So Jennifer King. You've been hauled only god knows how far in the mouth of some monster. You are blind and deaf now. Everything hurt. You know, cus teeth. You see the moon through darkness and blood. Feel the earth under you. No more teeth? No... no, that's just being replaced by blinding rage now.

So Alison Williams. You ever wanted to be a butterfly? You've had about the same treatment as Jennifer here. The key difference though is that you are now surrounded by a cocoon. The cocoon rests in the maw of the beast. It struggles to remove it - to you remove you. It may need to rip off its own head to breath. Quite the conundrum.

So Sarah Lloyd. You are dead. That sucks. Would you like to not be dead? Would you give up your name to not be dead? No - even better - to never die? Not until after the last living things in existence passes before you? Passes as in dies before you do. To clarify.

So Hazel Fletcher!... What 'cha doing?

Hazel Fletcher 2022/05/28(Sat)04:59 No. 1033852 ID: 2ef903
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>>1033849
>So Hazel Fletcher!... What 'cha doing?
>Sarah is dead. You see perfect lines leading you to the corpse of a friend, swerving through trees and bushes.
>Sarah. Another line. It means Celestine and Luna and Jennifer is here.
>The third goes to Alison. The third goes straight to Hell.
Heading towards Heaven or Hell, and I'm not sure which. I feel as though something is stuck in my throat from the sheer volume of it all as I reel from the sudden influx of information. Breaking away from camp happens on reflex - my friends are dying or dead out there, and I need to help them. I'm stumbling about into the woods in the dark eve, feeling out of breath in moments, fear crawling up my throat as I trace the line with my footsteps that would lead me to their endings in time to avert them.

One was already dead. There wouldn't be much I could do for Sarah, unless the way she seemed to continue after her end meant... something. A resurrection, a zombie, a vampire, who knows - better to hope to save the living. Toward the light that meant friends, in the hopes that I could save them. In time to stop Allison's descent to hell, when paths split and I had to face a choice - in the moment, going to Hell seems a worse fate to avert than going to Heaven to be the moon.

>>1033849
Well, when people, her friends even, were absolutely in danger from whatever the hell kind of thing was going on, AND she could feel the radiant power to finally break on through right in the palm of her hands... There could be absolutely no questions about it, she was going to take that chance by the fucking throat. Even if it meant becoming something that she absolutely hated to do it.

And then she wakes up, pulling herself off of the tree shard she was impaled through the chest on, the night seeming almost painfully bright, and the small noises that nobody ever really hears almost deafening her. Her teeth had extended into almost painful fangs that felt too big for her mouth, and the blood stains on her clothes smelled surprisingly natural. It was her blood after all.

But, she can almost immediately see the trodden upon grass that... Something was running down, and she wasn't going to let them get away. And she was going to get the high ground advantage, as she leapt almost effortlessly from the ground to the trees and launched off almost as fast as a car along the delicate branches, scarcely so much as shaking them with her weight.

>>1033852
Down the set of chosen railroad tracks. Following the invisible road. Is this what hearing is to those born deaf? Like a child closing their eyes and wandering around the room blind. You know where things are so clearly but the distrust is already settling in. Chance and fate settle down.

Didn't you just know all the digits of Pi? You could have sworn... Each step removes the ethereal and replaces it with something concrete. As if reality just backspaced over a poem describing you and replaced with numbers and facts.

It's a bit of a walk to get where you're going. That's a lot of steps. There is danger but you have no need to fear it. The monsters in woods are as confused as you are. So long as you follow those memorized lines you will safely reach your friends.

Then it's gone. Chance and fate no longer swirl about you in desperation. Whatever this is, it is you now. A new sense of duty. A new sense of... just, way way too many. Deeper into the woods.

To find Alison in Hell.


-----------------------

>>1033853

'Everything is dead.' whispers the void. It only speaks the truth. 'Everything is dead.' it repeats. It says it again as it takes your name. It says it again as power godlike washes over like a cold wave. You no longer hear cackles. No. Things are dark now. Silent as the grave. Far away a wolf that is prey stares blankly as all his trinkets that honor Gaia turn to ink and splash upon the ground.

Off in the distance ravens gather. They make no noise. They do not caw. No squawks from these birds. They land and peer through trees as every holy symbol for a mile around simply melts away to shadows. Your target is not far away. In the distance - from atop the trees - you see thrashing. A group of raging beasts. Bodies hidden from view but not their actions. Trees move. Ravens circle.

Alison and Jennifer are close together. Though what exactly is going on is hidden by treetops and bushes.

-----------------------------

>>1033852

Sarah is dead. She is moving towards Alison and Jennifer.

>>1033867
Well then, if that's how it's going to be, with there being beasts a plenty down below, the being that was once Sarah will hold out her now defiled silver knife in a reverse grip and descend from the trees like a ballistic missile, a virtual thread tying her knife to the neck of the beast that captured Alison as her first target.

>>1033733
"I'll look forwards to it!" Jennifer calls back as the small group walks away from the fire, walks into the trees. She's always happy to learn more. But now is the time for a nice nature walk. Time for something peaceful.
>>1033829
"There probably are. Maybe we can go visit the visitor center, see if there are any posted there?" This assumes that there's a visitor center. There usually is, for public locations, or so she's lead to believe by what others have told her.
>>1033849
Jennifer enjoyed the walk. At first, anyway. It was nice. No mosquitos, no gnats, no annoying insects. As it got darker, well, that's why she brought a flashlight. To see in the dark, illunminate where she was walking. And she was with friends, to help not get lost.
The past tense is important there. She's not sure what happened to her flashlight. She thinks she threw it at the things chasing her, the things she didn't want to think about, the things that drove her to flee in fear as soon as the tree exploded. Or, well, try to. She didn't make it far before something, something she still didn't want to think about, had her in it's slavering mouth. Even as she struggled, or attempted to struggle, through the pain and the blinding fear and the pain, sharp pricks of teeth holding fast.
>>So Jennifer King. You've been hauled only god knows how far in the mouth of some monster. You are blind and deaf now. Everything hurt. You know, cus teeth. You see the moon through darkness and blood. Feel the earth under you. No more teeth? No... no, that's just being replaced by blinding rage now.

But now she's willing to actually see what has her. Now, she's getting angry. Fear fading away to be replaced with a certain sense of rage, and with it, clarity. Clarity that lets her ignore how her glasses have, at some point, been left behind on the forest floor, but how despite thier lack and the fall of night and the dripping of blood into her eyes she can still make out the large shape that has her trapped, hear it's breathing and the sound of travel, ears twitching as she hears it and it's friends and the whispers of the night. They tell her that these monsters deserve what's coming to them. They tell her that she's stronger than she thinks. They tell her that her stuggles haven't ended yet.
Filling with wrath, anger at these interlopers that dare ruin what would have been her best, if only by virture of being only, vacation as an adult, that would dare restrain her, chain her by teeth and claw, she stills from where she is being held, ceases her outward struggle, as she prepares for one more burst of aggression. These things won't know what hit them.

>>1033891

Leaves rustles and tree limbs snap. Like a great bolt released from a ballista or say... a rocket. It tries to meet you in the sky, furry and fanged. This is the one that made the tree burst into splinters with a grazing touch. His claws are massive and they are red with blood.

Also this thing is totally a fucking Werewolf I mean look at him. Standing on two legs. Huge wolf face. Teeth. Really damn scary looking. No doubt it think that when it finishes you it can deal with whatever is going on with the rest of his pack.

>>1033905
Rage and ferocity and a smiling moon! You are the Divine Monster. No wounds or infirmities hold you back. You could shout Sailor Moons catch phrase and it would be accurate. Next to you a giant beast silently roars as it suffocates on what appears to be a giant butterfly cocoon containing Allison. Also next to you is another beast, also blind with rage but also equally confused. You don't know this yet but it's very hard for a werewolf to be equally anything compared to its rage. Rage is always the highest, like, without fail.

He stares at you. Eyes demonic. What shape are you in?

The woman is… Herself, she’s got fiery red hair on her head, a curvy figure, and is currently wearing mostly black, has a pentagram necklace and some nice leather hiking boots. All those things are normally true and remain so at this moment. But at the same time, she is distinctly not at all herself. Her eyes now burn with a blazing demonic red light, her hands have grown claws extending from their tops which seem to have green wretched flames dancing along themselves, and there’s a feral sharp-toothed grin on her face while gazing at the beast which had tried to devour her. A shimmering barrier of mystical energy forming around herself while proclaiming proudly. “My name is Alison Williams… And I don’t know what I am right now, or what I’ve become, but I do know one thing… You just made your last mistake!” He'd likely know the feeling flowing off her as Wyrm taint, and in a terrifying strength at that. But her? No clue.

Her voice carries through the air in a sudden sing-song shout while rushing towards the best, those deadly flames bursting off Alison’s body as it desperately tries to defend itself by leaping backward. That doesn’t matter though, it’s body turns to naught but dust on the night winds, she revels in the skill and demonic might flowing through herself while a sharp laugh echoes out within the forest, vicious malice for their newfound enemies flowing from her vocal cords at the same time. Whatever she's become, it clearly fills her with joy in a dark way.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/01(Wed)07:45 No. 1034169 ID: 7b6b05
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>>1034086
>>1034085
I burst into a clearing, following the lines of fate to my friends. Three furred creatures were attacking my friends, two of them lean and mean-looking, one of those with a mouth filled with crusty green gunk that made me think of water crustaceans, while the third was larger and more heavily muscled.

Things happened very fast after that. In the time it took me to take in the scene, a momentary glance, Sarah had leapt from the trees and cleaved the largest of the three beasts through the chest, her knife flashing silver in the moonlight, and Allison had reduced her opponent to little more than hunks of meat while Jennifer tore strips out of the last of them. The clearing was a riot of colors, violet and silver and green and bruise-blacks flaring all around.

In the midst of it all, my friends had become monsters. Sarah was pale and dead, a hunk of splintered wood through her heart, but she wasn't bleeding, and the pale silver knife in her hand carved bleeding lines in that moment. Jennifer had become something out of a horror movie between her membraned batlike wings and a face that looked concerningly like it was custom-made to rip people's heads off, given she was in the middle of doing exactly that to one of the wolves, while Allison had grown claws and picked up some glowing red eyes on her trip to Hell. Until she started bragging, it was hard for me to be sure it was even her in the way I was the others, as her fate began to warp behind her.

I had to take a moment to pause. I'd been ready to stand and fight to help my friends, but they warged out and killed everything without regard for how menacing those beasts seemed, apparently. I'd be angry at them if they'd kept this from me, but for now two of the wolf things were still up and moving, and I could still feel the future opening itself before me. I run to the fight, drawing on the creeping terror skittering up my spine to leap in with a flying kick that take the biggest of the wolves the rest of the way down. With Sarah already near-crippling the damn thing, it seemed the least I could do to join the night of violence.

"What the heck happened!?" I shout as I land, because despite all I'd seen, none of this made a lick of sense. I could only hope was that I wasn't hallucinating, and my friends hadn't been replaced with monsters - or monsters all along - about to turn around and eat me. I couldn't see my end close-by, but that didn't seem to mean much to most of the people here.

>>1034086
>> What shape are you in
The shape of ripping your face off, that’s what shape she’s in. Jennifer isn’t sure when exactly she entered that shape. There was some indeterminable point between the then, a screaming human getting dragged by a wolf-like monster, her blood dripping down its maw, and the now, with the wolf-like monster being the one to howl in pain as it’s own blood mats wetly along the short brown fur on Jennifer’s face, flesh tearing out under her teeth. It’s surprisingly delicious, but a faint taint prompts her to spit out the chunks she’s ripping out.

>>1034151
>>1034169

In the background she can hear her companions, her friends also fighting back. As she savages the savage, Her ears twitch towards the air, where she can hear the sound of slicing as what was a dead body moves, hunting the Hunter, hearing a chink of flesh go flying off to splatter on the ground, and to the side, where Allison introduces herself in song and flames and and a damp explosion, red light shining bright and melding with the silver swarm of smaller spectral bars that even now are erupting from Jenifer, casting the area immediately around her in shifting silver and shadows.

When Hazel jumped in with a flying kick to the beast that had started this, that all those long minutes ago had laughed and exploded through the trees, Jennifer let up on her attack and spit out one more chunk of flesh, just in time for the beast she had been… not eating, but you could be forgiven for thing so, fled, speeding away into the underbrush. “Good question,” she growled, “maybe we can get some answers from them.”

A play-by-play of violence. We need a starting point. We’ll start with Allison, if not for any other reason then she’s a rock star. The werewolf that held her in its jaws isn’t a werewolf anymore. It’s ash and still burning fire. The cocoon is in tatters but has held up better then the former werewolf; It’s webbing and grotesqueness slowly dissolving. The vapors smell of sulfur.

Not far away - just as afraid - is the other beast. It had Jennifer in its jaws before it was out beasted. Bested, with a chunk of flesh missing large enough to feed three lumberjacks, it runs. So afraid. It’s going to hunt you down and murder you as soon as it gets the chance. All hate and fear and a wolf’s mind - leashed and walked through Hell.

So ????. She’s met in the sky by another monster, rocketing through the sky. Like a rocket. With claws and teeth and pure fucking rage. It has a sword - its hand is a sword. Dripping and bloody and so very painful looking. It makes its move but is too slow. Its muzzle is gone now. It hits the ground with a thud. He’s going to try to run now. The other wolf is also running - on all fours. Then in an instant the beast is on two limbs and still. It’s breathing - it doesn’t seem to bleed out. The stumps contracts and twitches. This monster will be hurting even in its dreams.

The monster that fell from the sky tried to run. It really did. Hazel, however, did something. She shouldn’t be here? No, wait. She should be here. She didn’t leave the camp a few hours too late. When the monster landed she was there, ready to do the thing. Now the monster lies unconscious on the ground.

There is a lot of blood. It's just everywhere.

>>1034305
Well, standing over the twin unconscious not-corpses, one without a mouth and one without a left arm or leg, the person who was supposed to have been named Sarah would look back at everyone, her clothes shredded by the wood explosion, even if she had ripped out the chunk lodged through her heart.

"So hey, I have no idea how to deal with these." She would say, gesturing with an innocent cat-like smile at the massive fangs that were clearly way too big for her mouth, and were responsible for slurring her words in a way that I don't want to try and transcribe phonetically. "Or also with these." She would gesture to the wolf not-corpses, picking up the one who was all right with her hand.

"Also, like, does anyone know what just happened? Since like, I died. I don't think it was normal dying though, since obviously I didn't. Or that most people get a choice to not die."

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/04(Sat)10:24 No. 1034324 ID: 32c18b
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>>1034316
>“Good question,” Jennifer growled, “maybe we can get some answers from them.”
>"So hey, I have no idea how to deal with these." She would say, gesturing with an innocent cat-like smile at the massive fangs
>"Or also with these." She would gesture to the wolf not-corpses, picking up the one who was all right with her hand.
"We should take them back to camp, and tie them up or something," Hazel suggests, "We can lock them in the back of the van. They aren't smashing out of the back in that state. You said they were talking, Jennifer? Then we question them when they wake up, and we can fact-check whatever they say in the library, or ask the ranger to confirm it."

>"Also, like, does anyone know what just happened? Since like, I died. I don't think it was normal dying though, since obviously I didn't. Or that most people get a choice to not die."
"Not a clue. I saw it happen. You still look dead to me," Hazel confirms, walking to Sarah to check her pulse, and doubting she'd find one. "Your life ended a minute ago. Did you become a vampire or zombie while I wasn't looking, Sarah? You were supposed to destroy the vampires, not join them!"

Hazel's laugh at her own joke catches in her throat. Her memes end here. The feeling that had been crawling up her spine for the last... minute? How long had it been? She felt like she'd been running for half an hour, but that couldn't be right. She watched the sunset while preparing food and drinking hot chocolate, and the sun set barely twenty minutes ago. The feeling of wrongness was crawling up her spine, pin-sharp legs sticking down her airways.

Hazel hacks hoarsely, her hand slipping from Sarah's throat to her shoulder, and something comes out. It's bright as emeralds, iridescent, and it's many legs dance gaily in the mixed violet and bruise-black of Hazel and Sarah's mixing auras. The joins between it's legs and body look like artifice, articulated on ball-joints, and it's main body's chitin is smooth like a river-stone. It's legs, too, look less like something living and exist more akin to a puppet's. It's less than palm-sized, its stretched legs reaching perhaps from the base to the tip of the thumb. It lands on Sarah's collarbone, just above her chest.

It's a spider, and it had been in Hazel's throat.

Hazel rips her hand away from Sarah in sudden motion, flinching away from it. Hazel is silent, but her breaths come out in loud and rapid pants. She steps away in quick, stumbling steps, eyes transfixed on the dancing spider, and kneels down to jam fingers down her neck, prodding, clawing as far down as she can reach, but pulls up nothing.

"What the fuck?" She whispers hoarsely, fingers out of her throat and prodding at her neck, eyes fixed on the spider. "Kill it!"

For what it matters there is no more trouble. There are many ravens around and each wolf is stained head to toe with blood and ink. They growl and whimper while unconscious. Stacking them into a pile wouldn't be hard but these things are fucking huge. They're not gonna fit in a car. They could throw cars. You'd need like, a bus.

You have the whole night until the sun rises.

The smell of blood and bowel. Sulfur and smoke. Move past that. The smell of trees. The smell of grass and earth. Move past that. The smell of the birds and animals. Move past that.

Eyes sharpen in the darkness. The world is seen through unclouded eyes and it is a hideous thing - even under the black veil of the night. Blood stains the trees and green fires slowly flicker smaller as they consume the last of their fuel source. Look more. The tree that was sent bursting - killing the one who no longer has a name. Claw marks and splintered wood and tracks made by monsters. Look more.

Far away the Werewolf-that-was-prey licks his wounds. He smells it in the air, snout lifted, both wondering and grateful about his missing attackers. In the back of his mind he prays to the dead mother that his wound will heal properly as he makes his escape. You could find him, maybe. You know where he is - the birds give it away. From there you might find where he is going.

Like an odor being pointed out that you were unaware of. An eye floaty that finally comes into focus. How you never noticed it before - this corpse world. Nothing looks different but everything is wrong. You have seen the egg - you have peered inside - you have seen and smelled the rot. Now you are once again outside the shell.

The world goes back to looking normal. Not that anything looked different to begin with.

>>1034324


> "Your life ended a minute ago. Did you become a vampire or zombie while I wasn't looking, Sarah? You were supposed to destroy the vampires, not join them!"

"Well, like I said, there was a choice. Become immortal and get the power to strike back at things like this at the cost of my name, which by the way I am pretty sure I'm not supposed to be called Sarah anymore. But yeah, I'm not going to regret any choice I make to save people, but it's definitely not the kind of powers I would have wanted."

> Hazel hacks hoarsely, her hand slipping from Sarah's throat to her shoulder, and something comes out. It's bright as emeralds, iridescent, and it's many legs dance gaily in the mixed violet and bruise-black of Hazel and Sarah's mixing auras. The joins between it's legs and body look like artifice, articulated on ball-joints, and it's main body's chitin is smooth like a river-stone. It's legs, too, look less like something living and exist more akin to a puppet's. It's less than palm-sized, its stretched legs reaching perhaps from the base to the tip of the thumb. It lands on Sarah's collarbone, just above her chest.

"Oh shit, what?" Sarah would ask, her attention being grabbed by the emerald robot spider dancing as it landed on her. "I mean, why would I kill it. It doesn't even look like a real spider, and it's only about as big as a house spider. Maybe one of the bigger ones I've seen since I moved out here."

Rather than the requested killing of it, the person formerly known as Sarah would clean the thing off and put it on her head like a hat, completely unbothered by such a small spider.

"Anyway, I should probably go deal with the last of these things. I don't want to leave murderous animals around to murder other tourists."

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/05(Sun)02:02 No. 1034366 ID: c1a08d
File 165441974262.jpg - (597.28KB , 2048x1491 , thats not the hat of all hats thats a chimaera.jpg )

>>1034365
>the person formerly known as Sarah would clean the thing off and put it on her head like a hat, completely unbothered by such a small spider.
"Are you crazy? It'll kill you! Look at it's teeth!" Hazel shouts, pointing with the fingers that'd been in her throat. "It'll chew through your skull and into your brains! They do that, dig into things with a little flap and then leap out at people when they get close! What if it crawls down your throat like it came out of mine...-"

Hazel is, at this point, as Sarah leaves, trailing off. Really, she was venting more than anything, but honestly worried nonetheless.

>"by the way I am pretty sure I'm not supposed to be called Sarah anymore."
"What am I supposed to call you then?" Hazel asks, leaving the bigger monster comatose behind her and skipping a few steps forward to catch up to her friend. The wolf-thing would stay that way for a day or more, easily long enough for them to deal with the last one and still drag it back to camp. She stays out of jumping range of the monster on Sarah's head and points the way to the last wolf-thing, some exotic sense like the one that'd shown her to her friends coming active to direct her towards it.

>>1034366
"You uh, do know that spiders don't have teeth, right? Like, that's why they have fangs. Anyway, I grew up with like actual 'bigger than your hands' proper spiders, so this is like a tiny little baby. Honestly, it was always really cool to find where the little burrowing spiders were, get them to jump at a paint brush or something, and then toss a little water beetle or something to them."

"But as to what to call me? I don't know, not Sarah."

>>1034370
Ravens crow as the clouds cover the moon. Its even darker now. A human could have his hand in front of his face and not be able to count his fingers. Something tells you that your name, Sarah, is no longer meant for this world. It's passed on. Utterly, truly, cast off as a price for revival and so much power. It wants to stay that way.

It takes a toll. Right now you'll find it impossible to put your fangs back in. This will last for seven days or until you use them to bring something closer to death. You're going to need a title. Something cool. Something that never really feels like a real name.

Fighting complete, Jennifer takes a moment to relax. But relaxing is hard, like this. She’s keyed up, still on the edge of violence, even though all that remains are her friends. And the rains, of course. Her instincts tell her to pay attention, to keep a close eye and ear and nose out for trouble, that there could be something more out there. Instincts that she didn’t have before.

A moment later she realizes she does, in fact, know a way to relax. In the back of her mind she knows all she had to do is twist, just like this, and moments later she’s suspended in midair, six feet off the ground, then she’s darting forwards, landing on the trunk of one of the nearby trees.

Flying was fun. Jennifer knew that before she would never have known what she was missing, but Bat-Jennifer now knows that the freedom of the air is something she’ll never willingly give up.

>>1034316

Speaking is hard, as a Bat. Almost impossible, it turns out. Jennifer can sense that where there’s a will there’s a way, but the way escapes her. So instead she swoops off the tree and in front of the walking not-dead, catching attention, ears twitching and body contorting in flight, expressing her own confusion. Sure, one of the reporters she’s talked to as part of her ‘figure out what I want out of college’ plans was always happy to tell her about rumors of the dead walking, moral panics over things going bump in the night, but those weren’t real, surely.
Somehow she also emotes this, her thoughts coming through clearly despite her diminutive form. Lassie eat your heart out.

>>1034324
And then Hazel spits a spider out. It looks delicious. Maybe Jennifer’s new bat instincts influence her more than she thought.

As it gets placed on Sarah’s head, Jennifer had to fight the urge to swoop in and eat it.
She would if it weren’t now a hat.
You don’t eat hats.
It’s rude.
And oh yeah, Hazel was asking her something, before she made the spider. Can she make more? That would save Jennifer a lot of food costs if Hazel could, assuming filling her bat-self proportionally fills her human self, her human self that she can feel lurking in the back of her mind just waiting for her to assume it again. There’s no rush though. Human, bat, or the monster she just was, they are all her.
Should probably answer the question before she gets more distracted. A straight line towards Hazel’s shoulder, then a twitch of the head and a briefly outstretched wing. The meaning is clear: those wolf things were laughing. They were enjoying themselves before they were screaming in pain.
She looks around, from her perch. Sees the ravens. Wonders how they taste. Then back at the wolf-things. She’ll probably have to turn back, to help move then. That would be the polite thing to to.
Maybe in a minute. After she gets a quick rest to catch her breath.
Flying is fun, but it’s a lot of work.

So did you know that when a werewolf is killed it reverts back to its natural state? The universe didn’t know that. Then, the universe remembered. The one that was finished off by Hazel. The one with a sword sticking out its wrist. This one doesn’t change. Nasty and worty and just very, very ugly. It’s hard to put into words just how ugly this fucker is.

Then the other one. The one missing a… paw? Two paws? Ahhh, so you see. It’s a giant wolf. Big ass fucker. Majestic looking too - for all its horror and wetness. This one looks the most natural right now. A wounded animal unconscious.

You can fit one of these monsters in the van. Who knows when they’ll wake up. It’ll be a tight fit though and these monsters reek. The worty one is worse than the wolf, but the wolf also smells like… a very dirty and bleeding and diseased wolf.

Again - It’s dark out. Very very dark. You all can glow on demand or see in the dark so it’s not that huge an issue but it’s something to keep in mind. Ravens fly around - caw caw caw. Caw.

Caw.

The next step - just so I’m not confused and everything is clear - will be…

>>1034640
>The next step - just so I’m not confused and everything is clear - will be…

>>1034363
>Far away the Werewolf-that-was-prey licks his wounds.
And we aren't far behind. I'm tracking the wolf with a sense I never had before, and wouldn't lose track of it for miles. With the delimbed wolf on Sarah's shoulder we leave the comatose sword-bearer behind to catch up to the only one of them that's still standing.

Not-Sarah and Hazel

Trees pass you by. Those passing trees become a large chunk of the forest. This will test Sarah’s strength. Either the demonic wolf proves too heavy to carry the whole way or the weight of hauling such a beast tires her out. Or nothing happens - The weight of the wolf being insignificant on her shoulders. Even with such a weight taking to the trees and moving via the forest canopy is a simple thing. It would just be… a bit bad for the branches.

Hazel. Oh you keep up just fine. The chase is not really a chase though the target does flee. Something, something, fleeing fate. It’s like, right there. The wolf fails.

You’re both upon it now. Four legged - staring at Hazel - eyes far less mad. Then to Sarah. No. Not-Sarah. It does not like Not-Sarah. The massive animal's nose twitches. It does not attack however. As if knowing the fate of the ones who were chasing him. Which if Not-Sarah managed to carry the body here then like, yeah. Yeah he knows you killed the things that were chasing him.

—----

Allison and Jennifer

So like, you’ve been, like, y’know, totally bailed on. A massive thing, so smelly, lies not too far away. It is worty. Though unconscious it hates you. If hate were a smell this is what it’d be. Though missing its muzzle the creatures still breathes - labors. Blood pushes out. Air in. Air out. A bit more blood. Breathes it does though.

If you both really tried you could fit this thing in the van and have, say, enough room for everyone to fit if they were literally touching the thing. Not very subtle. Very messy. Still doable.

Not-Sarah and Hazel

So it's a Mexican stand off between two god like creatures and a wounded werewolf. You see it in his eyes - an infinite rage. Then the wolf becomes a man. Not totally a man - but not the beast you've seen before. Far more human. Like a scary, taller version of Teen Wolf. The silence continues. It expects to die. Then.

"What the fuck ARE you??" it asks, voice gravel and bark. "What the fuck??"

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/10(Fri)23:16 No. 1034752 ID: 0dbe5f
File 165492819274.jpg - (392.75KB , 1280x943 , this must be the work of an enemy stand.jpg )

>>1034678
>>1034732
>"What the fuck ARE you??" it asks, voice gravel and bark. "What the fuck??"
"She's a vampire, obviously," I reply sardonically, hooking a thumb over at Sarah. Her fangs sticking out made the conclusion obvious. "But she hates vampires, and most everything else that hunts people in the night as well. We left the demonhost and werebat behind to clean up."

"I'm just your average ordinary martial artist looking for trouble," I let the lie drip out my lips, violet light bleeding around me, "And I just hate finding it. Maybe you can explain who you are and what these things we cut down were hunting you for, and we might consider not cutting you down to size like we did that one on Sar-ah, sorry, my dark compatriot's shoulder?"

Mm. Wary. Mr Teen Wolf clearly thinks it's a dead man. It just can't seem to take his eyes away from the wolf the Not-Sarah is carrying.

"Vampires. Right." He practically barks. You can see it in his eyes. He plans to bolt again. For a moment. Then that look passes. Acceptance?

"That..." Then he sighs. "That is my pack. Or was. A long time ago. Before the Wyrm got a hold of them." A head shake. "This doesn't make any sense. None of this does."

When Hazel says part of Not-Sarah's name the ravens stare. Then look away. Some people need to stay dead, after all. Then...

"Thank you?" He adds. "For saving my life?"

>>1034678
Watching Sarah and Hazel rush off is a thing. And there goes spider-hat with them. Maybe with it out of sight it’ll be out of mind? Jennifer can feel the tense vibrations of worry and fear emanating from her current perch. Making a chirping noise to attract attention, she poses, flexing her wings in a way that she just knows means “While they rush off, have a plan to deal with that [corpse]?” A wolf-thing turning human means werewolves are real. That should shock her. Somehow it doesn’t. “Or that [unconscious wolf]? It probably needs to be restrained. Or coup-de-grâced. One or the other. “Hold on a moment, I’ll be back shortly.”

Launching herself back into flight, looping around to try and get a bead on the many ravens lurking around, Jennifer almost plows straight into the ground. Most of the ravens scatter, but several just caw caw caw in mocking laughter. Then Jennifer shifts mid flight, going from small big brown bat to man-sized bat-monster, and in a quick flurry of angry violence one, just one, of the ravens finds itself in trouble. And eaten. So it doesn’t really think for long. It’s delicious, and Jennifer has the feeling that if she wanted to, and weren’t glowing silver, then she could adopt the form it held as its heart beat it’s last. Without the broken wing, of course. Or the tooth marks. So not really as it is was at death. But that’s less poetic.

Landing back on the ground, done with flight for the moment, she again gestures at the human corpse and the unconscious wolf, looking Allison right in the eyes. “Want to try and load one of these in the van?” Again, it isn’t words she speaks with but body language. Which also asks to ignore the loose blood and feather, please.

>>1034837
It's easy enough to load the muzzleless werewolf into the van. It wiggle and wraggles whiles unconscious but other then that it fits in fine. Holy hell it smells. It didn't transform like the other one you saw did. That one turned into a extra large wolf when it was beat down. Before it was carried off by Sarah.

The one Allison killed is exploded. Into pink mist. With green fire.

>>1034752
>>1034370

The hairy man adds.

"This mountain is dangerous. We should speak elsewhere. There's no way this shit hasn't been noticed by something." He is tired. Needs sleep. Those wolves played with him like a cat does a mouse.

>>1034853
>>1034771
"I'm not hearing much in the way of who you are, or other explanations forthcoming. You can come with us back to the van while we head into town, but you'd be ready to start properly talking to us," I advise the wolf-man, quietly wondering what the hell we're supposed to fit even one of the full were-beasts in the van along with five people and not get blood all over everything. We'd want a second voice from the bastards, even if only to keep this one honest.

The man-wolf eyes Hazel silently and nods his head. He looks at the wolf that Sarah is carrying. Sadness. Resigned and all that lot. Hey though, at least the trek back is simple. No drama there. Wolf-Man is as quiet as can be unless asked something. He’s… semi-open with information. What is said is said because he thinks he’s dead. There are things being kept secret but also many things being said that are not.

To the van. You’re there now. Wow, fast. Okay.

That butchered wolf isn’t fitting inside the van with that giant mutant wolf fucker in there. It just can’t happen. You could get it on top of the van but well, that’s very very visible. The Wolf-Man does not like his fallen pack being held like this. He thinks they’re too dangerous. They need to be killed.

They’re corrupted, he says. By a monster of infinite pain and hatred and evil and corruption and every bad word that does and doesn’t exist. They went to a place that only bad men return from. A place both metaphorical but also very very literal called the Black Spiral Labyrinth.

Or don’t. He’ll be upset about that but, well, what the hell is he going to do about it. Honestly, the real problem is space. Get messy and have everyone squeeze around the giant mutant werewolf? Switch it out with the giant wolf monster? Bury them both and leave with some extra room in the van? Well less conspicuous that way. Although everyone is covered in blood, sooooo.

If it matters at all, for as bad as the giant wolf smells it doesn’t smell anywhere near as bad as the mutant werewolf. That fucker is just, hoho wow.

>>1035146
Okay, why are we actually keeping the soon-to-be and already-are corpses around.

"Okay, so I am pretty sure that I actually need to sleep in the back of the van. It's sun-proof, and I get the feeling that's going to be important."

The being who is not Sarah will note, still never having figured out how to retract her fangs, let alone that it was impossible for the time being.

"Double also, what exactly is dangerous about the mountain, since we should probably have noticed by now if it actually was outside of your former pack. I can hardly hear anything else other than the flock of crows.

>>1035246

A wolf-man motions to the two unconscious werewolves whom are being kept alive at the moment. That is one very clear threat. He seems convinced they won't be out long. Hazel seems a bit convinced otherwise.

"There are more like them. Out here, having 'fun.'. Where they go I have no idea but I know we can't stay here. Kill them both, end their suffering, let's get out of here."

>>1035531
"Well then, no can do. If there are more monsters here killing people and making the world a worse place, then we are going to deal with that. I know I will, and if you were packmates, you know where they sleep, so it doesn't matter if you don't know where they roam."

Her killing intent was palpable as it dripped like an inky shadow from her silver dagger, casually pointed at the werewolf as an implicit threat before she plunged it in the heart of the one without a muzzle.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/20(Mon)23:42 No. 1035563 ID: 14737b
File 165579377892.png - (1.70MB , 1200x662 , a cute field of flowers and birds.png )

>>1035562
>"I know I will, and if you were packmates, you know where they sleep, so it doesn't matter if you don't know where they roam."
"We don't trust him to lead us anywhere right now, my dark compatriot," Hazel reminds her friend, leaning in to look at the mutant were-beast.

>her silver dagger
>she plunged it in the heart of the one without a muzzle.
"Oh God, what?! Sarah!" Hazel cries out in shock as the blood goes flying, "Executing unresisting prisoners very not-bad uncool! Warcrimes! Even if they're werewolves, you should at least pull them out of the van first if you're worried about them bleeding all over it!"

Hazel snatches the faintly-glowing jade green spider from where it's dancing on Sarah's head and slams it onto the corpse, then shudders.

"Fix this!"

There is a few seconds pause. Hazel lifts her hand, and the spider is gone from beneath it, vanished into nowhere... but the werewolf comes apart, dissolving into thousands upon thousands of spiders that send her screaming away from the vehicle, jumping onto, latching onto, and hiding behind a tree as she tries to avoid the tide of arachnids.

>>1035563
>>1035562
Jennifer doesn't have much to say about the murderous killing intent or the death threat. Or even the death. Part of that is that she's still a bat-monster, since it's still dark and there could be more out there. The werewolf, assuming that's what it is, and having heard with her little- well, not so little, but semantics- bat ears what everyone else was saying that's becoming more clear, and hey if she can be a bat - or a bird, she'll have to eat a robin at some point now, mental note made - then why not sure other people can be scary wolf-monsters. Or not so scary. They were scarier when they were blurs to the eye and not unconscious. And not dead. Which that one now is. Maybe she should have tried to stop the the ex-Sarah?

Nah.

But then Hazel grabs spider-hat. And then Hazel does something weird. Or wyrd. One or the other, or both. And then there's a horde of spiders. Pretty little things, but wow theres a lot of them and whoops time to take flight and land on top of the van. And maybe turn back into a human. "What was that, she calls down from atop the roof of the van to the tree where Hazel is cowering. She'll climb down once all the spiders are gone. Don't want to squish any accidentally.

>>1035531
"How many more? Are we talking three or four, or three or four hundred?" Jennifer doesn't want to think 'meh, we can take them,' she's taken intro to creative writing, she knows where that thought ends up. But it's good to know how much of a threat the dark vortex wolves, or whatever they were called, will be.

>>1036318

There are so many spiders. So very many spiders and they just book it. To make webs and do spider things elsewhere. Some do linger though. It's hard to explain exactly how many spiders there are. Imagine you're walking on a shag carpet and then oh no, spiders. There are way more spiders then that.

The wolf-man just watches. He almost doesn't hear Jennifer ask her question - eyes on the spiders. Just looking. Anyways, he does respond. "That's a hard question to answer. Here, though, in these mountains? Right at this moment? A dozen, maybe more."

Not a lot of info to work with. You'll get more.

--------

Time rolls by in the darkness. The 26 isn't empty exactly but damn it's late. The sudden rolling darkness and crowing ravens and all that rot has caused on accident or two. The news is gonna be a bit confused about that. You pass an empty car or two.

It's a tight fit in the van. The wolf sleeps. On the ride back the Wolf-Man settles into being just a man - pants and all. Can't be seen like that all up in the city. You have no trouble getting home. This is awesome. What's less awesome is how the Wolf-Man is very certain that the city is no safer then the mountain. It's just not where a bunch of proverbial fireworks went off.

...Proverbial? Metaphorical? Eh...

So you're at someones home. If it matters you were going to be gone for a day or two camping. So you're back early. If it matters. Wherever it is you took the Wolf and the Wolf-Man.

Anyways! Now is a good time for questions. Now is a good time to turn on the news or give your phones a look over. Or to bask in your own overwhelming power. The difference between what you were and what you are. You can practically hear Mark Hamill screaming in laughter.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/06/30(Thu)04:39 No. 1036588 ID: 1b7c33
File 165658917694.png - (233.44KB , 600x717 , care to talk.png )

>>1036318
>"What was that?" she calls down from atop the roof of the van to the tree where Hazel is cowering.
"Why is it always spiders!?" Hazel shouts back, shivering in fear. She wouldn't be getting into that van without a full protective covering. Maybe two, just to be sure. She brought a bag with the tent, she could zip it up and seal the sides, right?

>>1036460
Putting the kettle on back at her house, Hazel shudders one last time at the memory. "Sorry about that. I fudging hate spiders. Coffee? Tea?" She offers the wolf-man she's settled at her dining table, before opening up the stage, "Anyone? I'd like to get a pot on before we start asking about the Vampire Agenda."

Hazel looks outside through the window into her small yard and hobby garden. Ivy is climbing up the walls. It's a pretty spot of green, but the spines did a good job fending off people trying to climb her fence, which was a real issue in this suburb and might turn handy when the wolf they'd left outside woke up. The damn thing had stopped bleeding quick, and was frankly fairly grotesque lying on the grass out there, but it'd be best to keep an eye on it until it woke up.

"I think we forgot, but do you have a name, wolf-man?" Hazel asks after a moment of thought. Her façade as a serious business scary person had fallen to shambles when the spiders happened, and returning home settled her in her skin more than she thought possible on a night like this.

“Theodore.” The Wolf-Man says. I mean, he’s just a normal human now. His gaze fixed outside the window at any movement from his apparently ex-pack mate. “And, no. I’m not thirsty.” His legs don’t seem to be tired either. The man is still standing - not knowing or really wanting to sit down. Pretty funny seeing as how the fucker is going to pass out at any moment. Gotta keep the pride up!

“Thank you for saving my life." He says, maybe for the second time. Then continues. "Who the hell are you people? What do you want from me?”

The wolf is in the yard. Tied up. In the grass. Out by the window. Do you plan on just waiting until it wakes up to interrogate it? You may want to do so in a place less… out in the open. It’s dark and all but this is still just a yard - fenced and shaded though it is.

"I'm not sure what you expect me to know about any vampires. Those bloodsuckers keep to the shadows."

Jennifer —

Have you ever watched Spirited Away? What with the spirits who walk around. It was so colorful and vibrant - so many different critters and souls and entities. The real world isn’t like that. You can see the tapestry - know you can step through - step over - step across - step sideways - through the Moon.

This place is tar and ink. It’s been that way since the mountain. The only clear pool glowing in the sky. Even that was covered - remember how dark it got when Sarah said what her name was. Walking to it would prove difficult - though walking isn’t the right word. You can’t walk to the Moon.

Something tells you to do so anyways. To find a place where the air isn’t tar and ink and slippery walled. A place that feels alive. A place higher up - spiritually - to help you jump over the moon - spiritually.

Something more - unseen. Spirits around you. At the top of a telephone pole lies a resting lightning spirit - sleeping and feeding and awake all at once. Invisible to you but also not. If you focus your eyes and are a bit lucky. You pass a place with many cardboard boxes - a spirit resides there too. A box spirit.

You see the city. Its glow otherworldly. The spirit of Portland Oregon walks in Portland. It should be across the Moon. It should be where you want to go - where the animal inside your soul wishes to run free at. It would be hard to hunt it down. That glow is everywhere.

Everyone—

So the wolf man rants to Havel - open hearted. Something about her words draw out more words from him and then it tumbles out as a story. A confusing convoluted mess of a story.

Theodore was once a proud Werewolf. He fought and died proudly during the apocalypse. A time when everyone and everything died. These are, apparently, hallucinations. The apocalypse never happened. His pack fought a war against a tribe of werewolves called the Black Spiral clan. This clan, this fallen tribe, has a vast history unto itself. His pack fought the Wyrm and lost. This also was a hallucination. They fought the fallen tribe and lost to its horrors and he ran - afraid - and has been living alone and running ever since. The only one alive and unfallen. Because he ran before fighting.

Hallucinations is not the right word. He knows his past and what really happened. He fought the Black Spirals and lost. He ran before the fight began, too afraid to fight. Knowing he would die. This is wrong. He knows, as all remaining uncorrupted werewolves know, that they did not run. They fought. They died. They lost.

Things are - as you can tell - all so very fucky. He proves this by motioning to himself. He should be dead. Instead he is alive with the history of a coward. Or at least what he considers one.

The vampires. Yes, he could sniff them out. He knows nothing of them though - besides that they love their secrets and call cities their home. They are of the Wyrm. A beast with three heads of whom is corruption, destruction, suffering personified. Yes, he could sniff them out. He knows nothing else besides that of them, though. Besides the fact that they’re better left unbothered unless their corruption grows too bold. They are hard to reach in their havens and tend not to leave their places of power.

It is clear however that they infect all facets of mortal life. So that may be an interesting tidbit to know.

It's around this time that the wolf outside the window slowly comes too. A low growl escaping its throat. Waking slowly.

>>1037480
> The vampires. Yes, he could sniff them out. He knows nothing of them though - besides that they love their secrets and call cities their home. They are of the Wyrm. A beast with three heads of whom is corruption, destruction, suffering personified. Yes, he could sniff them out. He knows nothing else besides that of them, though. Besides the fact that they’re better left unbothered unless their corruption grows too bold. They are hard to reach in their havens and tend not to leave their places of power.

"Great, then sniffing out those places of power and doing important trimming is exactly what we're going to be doing tomorrow night." The being who was once Sarah said. She honestly should probably be heading home, but she didn't want to go out in daylight because obviously.

> It's around this time that the wolf outside the window slowly comes too. A low growl escaping its throat. Waking slowly.


"In the meantime, what do we all plan on doing about that guy."

rolled 2, 7, 2, 1, 6, 5, 6, 10, 8, 8, 5, 2, 6, 4, 5, 7, 6, 8, 9, 3, 3, 1, 9, 3, 6, 8, 6, 10, 9, 7, 8, 5, 6, 10, 7, 1, 2, 5, 4, 8, 8, 1, 7, 7, 9, 7, 4, 5, 2, 3 = 281

---

Hazel Fletcher 2022/07/22(Fri)11:25 No. 1038922 ID: c4d4f5
File 165851433612.jpg - (3.44MB , 2048x1350 , doggo in comfy skylight house watching morning.jpg )

>>1038281
>"In the meantime, what do we all plan on doing about that guy."
"Talk to it, try to confirm what Theodore's been telling us. Probably throw it out, afterwards," Hazel replies noncommittally, "I was all for bringing it along, but now that it's here I'm kind of out of ideas on how to make it talk. I figured we'd probably end up killing it, but looking at it now, I'm not even getting vibes that make me think it'd come back for us."

"Also," Hazel adds, rubbing her chin, "I was much more willing to kill it before the other one popped into a billion spiders that tried to eat me."

>>1037480
Jennifer has seen Spirited Away. Also Princess Mononoke, and from those she's seen evidence that some people believed in spirits. They were in several public libraries on VHS, or she likely wouldn't have seen them. Still, she always approached them as fiction, not as reality. Somehow she never expected spirits to be a thing she would have to deal with. And even if she did, she half-expected whimsy and wonder. Well, the wonder is still there. The whimsy? It reminds her, an old memory bubbling up, of My Neighbor Totoro. It was supposed to be a fun children's movie. No one told her to watch out for a mass of tiny black spirits spilling forth in an unstoppable tide, tiny innumerable eyes opening by the ton as the black mass swarmed forwards. Sure, in the movie it turned out to be just innocent fluffs, but tell that to her nightmares, of being buried under an inky tide.
Okay, so maybe the memory has a reason for being. And on reflection, the tar while ever-present and cloying and death - paradoxically the spirits still, somehow, live. Jennifer wonders, recalling a series of jokes overheard in the cafeteria, if the box spirit can help her hide, lay in ambush. She somehow knows the words to say, words that are not English, nor Spanish, nor Japanese - she doesn't know any language but English, but she's heard enough languages to know that the language she now also knows isn't any that the people of earth as a whole speak. She knows that if she says a certain thing in a certain tone, with the right gestures - the spirit can understand. She leaves it alone, for now. She wonders, if she were to strike down the lightning spirit would it take out power to the block? She doesn't want to find out now, but eventually...
Curiosity alight, she takes to the skies, once more just a bat, in form at least, and from above takes a look at the city as a whole, the landscape and spirit scape glowing together - or, well, negative light is still a glow? Tarry residue still sticks out. And the light of the moon, and the faint laughter of mercurial moon spirits, gives a moment of respite. Maybe the moonspirits are from the now, maybe it's just distant echoes of the past, but Jennifer hears them and in them hears that there's something she can do - if only she could figure it out. And she knows that tonight, or maybe just this afternoon - before she meets up with the group of changed she ended up a member of - she'll be going for a quick flight, see if she can see or hear places where the spirits are strong - or where they are dead. Scope out some interesting locations. But that came later.

That came later after the talk with Dory the Wolfman. Moving back in time a little, before she split off the group to head home to her dorm, before she got distracted by the spirits and ended up filling herself up on moths and insects and taking a nap in a tree for an hour before finally winging her way home collapsing into her bed, she just learned that vampires are in fact real. And that wow, wolfmen - and maybe wolfwomen too? have had a hard time. And that she hates time travel and temporal shenanigans. So so much. Isn't enough for things to happen once and not just in multiple ways at the same time? Gah, so annoying. "But the spiders didn't try to eat you? They mostly just fled in a delicious wave." Being a bat and a human may be warping Jenifer's thoughts. Just a little. "And maybe it won't happen this time?" She really should care more about the thought of killing. She really should. She thinks she would have before last night. Now she just has a sense of - well, not hunger, but she gets the feeling that if something were just a little bit different she would have some hunger. Right now she just thinks of it as an enemy. "Maybe if we show interest in it's beliefs it would be willing to try to convert us? Based on what Theo told us maybe they'd be willing to talk about it's tribe's history. Maybe drop some more information on where more of them can be found, or where enemies are, of either our or theirs?" Currently a human, and rocking a hoody that, to the discrete eye, is twitching back and forth and not doing as good a job hiding a pair of oversized ears as she would like - good thing a lot of people aren't very observant - Jenifer isn't that concerned to the wolf-man's survival. Either of them, really. Turning back to the cooperative one, she gives him a look. One that speaks of annoyance and a ruined vacation. "Where was your tribe before? Any other locations where we can expect to find these guys? Or just locations in general you would avoid?" It's the start of a mini-interrogation to get the lay of the supernatural land.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/07/24(Sun)06:33 No. 1039087 ID: c4d4f5
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>>1039082
>"But the spiders didn't try to eat you? They mostly just fled in a delicious wave." Being a bat and a human may be warping Jenifer's thoughts. Just a little. "And maybe it won't happen this time?"
"A delicious wave that tried to eat me, no doubt," Hazel replies, shivering. "Who's to say it won't happen again?"

Me, the spider inside her replies. Hazel jumps, and drops her knife into the sink's water in surprise.

"Shit. Other than him," Hazel curses, shuddering. "It happened once, why wouldn't it happen again?"

Because your own Art caused the effect. If you refrain from swallowing souls, spiders will not pour from corpses, the spider replies. Hazel was more ready for it this time, and managed not to cut herself fishing her knife out of the murky wash-water.

"Not listening," she mumbles to her spider, under her breath.

>"Maybe if we show interest in it's beliefs it would be willing to try to convert us? Based on what Theo told us maybe they'd be willing to talk about it's tribe's history."
"That's good thinking, Jennifer," Hazel compliments. When Theodore has finished answering Jennifer's questions, she says, "Theodore, it's waking up. Do you want to want to be out the door by the time it's awake? I don't think we're going to keep you through the day. Actually, do you have anywhere to go at all?"

>>1039087
"A tide of really tiny spiders, which mostly were just running away and not trying to eat anything. Like, not talking down because it was pretty spooky, and I get that you're already scared of spiders, but they were very much running away."

>>1039082
>>Jennifer has seen Spirited Away. Also Princess...

Yes - Remember. When all those dust bunny things just ran into every crack of that abandoned… home? Anyhoo, like a thorn - or an instinct brought to attention (You Are Breathing. You Are Blinking.) something about that feels… yeah. Like one of those instincts but made murkier. Murkier, but not impossible.

>>Okay, so maybe the memory has a reason...
So you take to the sky. The earth is a dead thing - marred and muddy. The sky is just as nasty. So is space, if you could reach it. Although - there is one point in the sky that shines. It’s far away, about 238,855 miles away. If you flew high enough - past the clouds and where there is no polluted miasma we like to call air - where the sky is no longer blue - when the Moon is high - you would find it easier to reach the Moon. That really big number of miles meaning very little with your magic involved. Think of the vanishing Dust Bunnies.

That’s if you could get that high. No air, sunburns, what form would you need to fly higher than the clouds and the highest mountain tops? What animal could possibly reach above Everest?

A tall order just to make fulfilling an instinct easier. Still…

>>That came later after the talk with Dory the Wolfman. Moving...

This brings more information from the Wolf-Man. Well, Theodore. Anyways. Yes. Yes, in so many ways, there are many Werewolf tribes out there. Sort of. They’ve all but all fallen to the Wyrm. Danced the Black Spiral. A choice forced upon them and not forced upon them.

See - Werewolves and other such creatures are basically half spirits. It’s complicated - Theodore was a member of a group called the Gets of Fenris. Many of them came here to get away from some nasty shit and got really hooked up with another group of Werewolves called the Children of Gaia. Apparently it was the best thing that happened to him and the people that went with him. It was also a huge thing, filled with drama. He doesn’t want to get into it unless pushed - it seems more like politics then anything relevant now.

Now though, it’s just the Black Spiral Dancers. Another meaningless story he doesn’t want to get into - but now no more tribes. Just a few assumed splinters and Dancing Wolves galore. That and other creatures tainted beyond redemption. He does believe there to be surviving wolves though - uncorrupted. There is just no hope in meeting one left.

He could recognize a member of his people though. Tell how strong a grip the Wyrm has on it. Roughly, at least.

As to places to avoid? The city. The mountains. Nowhere is safe. The spirit world is even less so. Not that he trusts the attempt to go there. Or being there, for that matter.

>>1039087
"Theodore, it's waking up. Do you want to want to...

“I, what. Go? I don’t…” Theodore thinks for a moment. 'Okay, they’re offering to let me go?' is what he’s thinking. No one is technically a mind-reader but that’s easy enough to see. A surprise there. A longer pause. “...No? I would like to see how you handle Wolf. Just make sure she doesn’t howl.”

Then outside - by the Wolf in a garden. A still beast growling a low deep growl. It can’t move. It could hardly gargle out a word. This one is the one with missing limbs, is it not? An arm and a leg, or a paw and a paw. All the hate and rage in the world stares up at you from the grass with sick eyes.

A giant ass wolf. One big ass wolf. Fucking. Huge. Can it even talk in this form? Somehow - when and if it sees Theodore - it musters up even more rage and hate. The body even manages to move a tiny bit. Then it just continues to stare silently.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/07/28(Thu)18:06 No. 1039458 ID: c4d4f5
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>>1039319
>Okay, they’re offering to let me go?
>I would like to see how you handle Wolf. Just make sure she doesn’t howl.
"Sure thing," Hazel replies. It wouldn't really matter to her if he left at this point, after all. Though, being more accurate, it may simply be that lack of sleep was making her loopy; after all, she'd been ready to bed down just after dark, but instead they'd driven back in a spider-filled van that gave her the jitters just thinking about it and spent the rest of the night Q&A'ing, waiting for the wolf to wake up. She'd be conking out soon, either way.

>it musters up even more rage and hate. The body even manages to move a tiny bit. Then it just continues to stare silently.
Stepping outside with some of the food she'd left aside earlier set on a plate, Hazel sets her load down on her folding table outside. Cheese and biscuits, ideal for visitors. Hazel mourned for the nascent kebabs she'd had to leave at the campsite.

"So, we want to learn a little about you," she starts off, taking a seat. "Theodore's been telling us a lot, and this is your chance to tell us otherwise. I don't have anything a wolf would be likely to eat, but if you're willing to join me at the table and explain why you thought trying to kill us was a good idea, you might still make it out of this."

>>1039458
"Breaking the Litany?" It's voice is an unnatural thing; growling and creaking and straining. Vocal cords shifting to make sounds that should be intimidating to most ears. If a wolfs barking was turned to English - it would be the translator.

"Breaking the Litany, Sad-Dog?" Beast eyes on Theodore. He's expressionless. Her eyes wash over everyone. Sniffs the air. Eyes turn to Sarah and Allison. "You two smell of Father Wyrm." A few more sniffs, eyes darting to Hazel and Jennifer. A lack of recognition.

"Free me." She snarls. Deep voiced and guttering. "I don't know how you managed to kill my packmates or what the hell you fucks are but free me and I can promise you that your house and friends will be left unharmed."

"No." Theodore says. "She will promise anything and break any oath."

She snarls - never too loud. Smart enough to know that a loud enough noise might earn her a silver knife to the heart. Though - it seems like maybe she could make a loud noise and simply isn't doing that.

"Fuck you, coward. I will not be kept in a... yard? A fucking yard? I don't know what kind of creatures you are or what pacts you have made with what creatures but know this: you are outnumbered and my kind will come looking for me." Wolf eyes gleaming. "Free me and we will allow you to be the last to die."

To this Theodore just opens and closes his mouth. Then - quite quietly - "Even if we kill her - others will come looking. They will try to kill you and everything you love and have ever touched. You would have to cleans the entire mountain and purge every Garou here to stop it." Then. "If she tries to make a loud noise - do not allow it."

"No fuck, Sad-Dog. I was a proper fucking wolf before Gaia died a second time. I know when I'm prey and when I'm predator." She continues. "You all were nothing but a passing snack. A toy to play with as we made a kill. It was amusement. Free me and we'll leave you alone. Don't and my packs find me and everything you know and loves dies. I have no reason to come after someone when I've seen them obliterate two of my pack before my fucking eyes."

Theodore is having trouble talking.

rolled 5, 5, 2, 3, 8, 7, 10, 7, 1, 9, 2, 3, 1, 8, 10, 2, 8, 9, 2, 9, 1, 2, 5, 9, 3, 3, 7, 10, 9, 5, 10, 9, 1, 9, 4, 7, 6, 9, 8, 4, 8, 9, 5, 2, 4, 8, 5, 7, 6, 10 = 296

---

>>1040110
"Alright, this is... It seems like it's not going anywhere. But what I'm getting is that you and all the Werewolves on the mountain are hyper territorial murder machines who have made the absolutely terrible decision to threaten the only people that a dead woman has left to care about."

Sarah would wrap her hand around the Wolf's muzzle and would look her dead in the eyes with the blood red mockeries of her once blue eyes.

"So here's my ultimatum. Tell me where the rest of your pack is hiding out, and I'll return that favor you were offering of making sure you die last. Refuse and I will rip off your muzzle with my bare hand until you're willing to comply."

Of course, in spite of her words, the Abyssal formerly known as Sarah wasn't exactly a threatening individual, but there was still a silver knife right in plain view of the Werewolf as she opened her grip enough that she could talk.

The wolf girl stares at Not-Sarah. Words that are all teeth.

"Sure. Sure. I'll even take you there. They hide inside -"

"No." Theodore interrupts. "If you learn this, then there is nothing that they won't do to kill you all. You - "

"Inside the Mount Hood. Through a fucking hole in the ground. I mean, not all of them. Some wander the city. Some wander the woods. You see a wolf at night? You see a rat in the shadows? We are all over. And others. All over the world. That I don't know about."

Then, maybe seeing an opportunity. Also silver.

"Sad-Dog here will be no use to you. You find our hole. Discover its location. Then what? I can find more pits for you. No one will trust this Sad-Dog here. They will trust me."

>>1040121
"Well, that's definitely a better deal than running and hiding." She would say looking daggers into Theodore's direction.

"Is there anyone who would be opposed to going there and burning this pit to the ground as soon as we're well rested? I know where we can get plenty of Silver, so we can be prepared to actually deal with them. But speaking of rest, you said you aren't comfortable staying in a yard, so where are you comfortable sleeping. But it will have to be big enough for two, and dark. Since we can't exactly let you run back to the pits while any of us sleep."

>>1040124
Theodore speaks up, trying not to be too loud. Not a ton of emotion in this one. This whole conversation seems to frustrate him some, however.

"It is a death trap. A whole pack of wolves live there along with demons and other horrid things. I have been there - walked it - it is a horrible disgusting thing that fills the mind with horror and poisons the soul. It goes deep - taking all light with it. It goes on for miles, deep under the mountain. Like a maze."

"If you want to kill my pack," the she wolf lies with her head on the dirt, as if resting, but her eyes. They are so alive. So poisoned with hate. "You go there. It's where we live and get lost." Can a wolf grin? "If you are quick, you could get deep before reinforcements arrive. See? I'm helpful. Attacking our pit will draw the Wolves that make the mountain their home. If you're sure of your power then it should be easy to be victorious before reinforcements arrive."

"It is a trap. It's a literal maze!" Theodore says, raising his voice probably much too high. "No one but the most vile call that place home - why do you think it will take time for reinforcements to arrive? Because even the worst of us do not want to call that place home."

"Oh," the wolf mutters. "The greatest of our kind have no problem at all with living in the pits."

Theodore just grits his teeth, pondering. Some horrors clearly left a mystery to him.

>>1040244
"Alright, so it's a hostile maze filled with people who die if you hit them with silver and know the territory better. So how many of these wolves are there. Also, what are these demons? Are they things that can strike you from beyond the veil that separates worlds?"

She rubbed her chin contemplatively.

"Also, if they are never all in this pit at the same time, then about how many could we expect to be inside the pit and how many would we have to deal with in terms of reinforcement, and how fast can reinforcement arrive? Would their disposition be to stand and fight seeking glory or run away to try and attack with the entire pack? Are there any notable main support beams that would collapse the whole thing if they were exploded?

"I know where we can get a lot of Silver, does anyone know how to have it made into weapons in a short time frame? What about flamethrowers... Actually," she reaches inside of herself and pulls out a flamethrower, with the tank appearing on her back "cool I can just do that. That should make fighting in cramped tunnels against extremely flammable mass murderers easier."

>>"Not listening"
Ignoring the talking-to-self, as a good friend does, Jennifer nevertheless gives up trying to convince of theharmlessness of spiders. Somethings aren't worth fighting about. And then its time to talk to wolves, and soon enough whoops shes abat-monster again, just kind of there in the background while Hazel does her thing.
And while it may take a bit, from her posture and the shifting of wings her interest in burning out pits of corruption would, in fact be as clear as the light of moon on a cloudless night - and that's very clear, to be clear. But at the same time, well, fighting beasts on thier home territory - for some reason Jennifer doesn't like that thought as much as she would before. And if there are in fact, these foes scattered about in ordinary rats and in lone wolves in the night, why, then it's time to take back the night. And maybe find some of those lost in the world at large, for that matter.
Though when the flamethrower comes out, well, that's a powerful argument right there. Still, "Do you know how to use that?" comes through as a clear thought.

>> A tall order...
Where there's a will there's a way. And even as she wings over the town, when the time comes to do so, Jennifer will be pondering how - maybe one of those spiders that makes parachute's out of webbing, catch the jetstream to get some height, as an intermediate stage? She'll have to ask Hazel if she can control the type of spider that comes out of her transmute corpse to spider spell.

>>1040416
Hot air balloon? If you knew how to sew and had some mechanical skills and weren't too worried about getting down then... Maybe. There are also many army surplus stores and such in Portland. The maths on how many balloons it takes to lift a full grown human being though and how high that could get you before the surplus balloons pop...

There is a feeling - that a spider silk hot air balloon would actually be easy to make with the proper... dedication. Yes indeed, nothing feels off limits.

----------------------

So we're on the way back to Mount Hood. You're outnumbered, you know that for sure. The Wolf-Lady spoke of Banes (basically evil demons) and other Dancers. It's no where special. Literally a hole by a rock.

It's all about picking the time and hopping in the car.

In the car. Or cars? Imagination brings to mind snacks and water. Not to ride on - but to have for the apparent miles that you'll have to be walking in total darkness.

It'll take quite a bit of hiking but you'll get there. Will you park on the side of the road or... some place else? What is the plan of approach?

You’ve done this ride before. Part of it, at least. Everyone takes the highway to get places, after all. Mount Hood is always right there on the horizon and you watch it grow larger, dominating the landscape. Reaching to the heavens. Theodore is watching the Wolf-Girl. She did not want to take human form but Theodore is malleable. If she tries to move, he will kill her. If she tries to howl, he will plunge a silver blade in her throat to silence her.

She laughed at this - he looked as broken as ever. Dagger in hand - if you let him have it. He will beg, of course, for you not to go. “No, you mustn’t. It is suicide. It is death. You go down, cramped, for so long. An ancient holy place, tainted beyond recognition.”

—--------

Fuck that. You’re already here. It takes time but you are. So silent - you hear no bugs. You hear no chirps. You see no animals. You can move around the trees, coming from an angle where the wind is blowing your smell away.

—-----------

Theodore said more about this place. So did the Wolf-Girl. You will go down. Werewolves are forced down, transformed, and they are rather large. They have to force their way through however. For something human sized it will be cramped but you will have room. You know to expect a climb.

“It will open to a large chamber. Quite suddenly and the ground is at least twenty feet below. This is the heart of the place - filled with poison. The worst of us will be there, the ones that can no longer bring themselves to leave the filth. We - they - throw bodies inside if they don’t drag them screaming inside.”

How big is this room? Vast. You could hold an army inside it. Pile up so many bodies. It is still one chamber however. He hasn’t really been a true Black Spiral Dancer for at least a month now. They breed demons. And just breed. Then apparently eat the babies? Well, fuck.

The Wolf Girl laughed and laughed and then shut up when Theodore said even she only went inside one time. For some reason that silenced her. That same look, so briefly, that you saw in Theodore's eyes.

—------------

A wolf stares at you, from the rock that marks the place you intend to descend. It didn’t smell you - but now it can see you. The wolf smiles - such a massive beast and so obviously not native to this area. It’s a clean beast, so very very pretty. Such a pretty smile.

It walks closer and that smile takes up so much of its face. It’s so inviting. It’s like a dog - but bigger. Drool oozes from his mouth. How cute, it wants you to give it food! It walks closer and your heart feels…?

>>1040992
Well, we came to this place to kill wolves and wolf like creatures. If this is actually a dog then she'll feel guilty about this, but better to be guilty and alive than betrayed and dead.

Not-Sarah takes the rocket launcher slung around her torso and shoots a silver stuffed frag grenade at the big dog wolf.

Three werewolves are crippled by a silver-shrapnel RPG. Chucks and blood. One flees after barking a command - the other attempts to do… something. Not-Sarah Lands, they stare at Not-Sarah with what seems like enough hate to melt steel. Then nothing. Whatever they were grasping at beyond the reach of their torn up hands.

The snake smashes. The snake holds down Jennifer, taking a bite in the process. More blood. It lets out a triumphant hiss - knowing that the Lunar is trapped beneath its cave-circle mass. She had rushed towards it from the ceiling, landing and sprinting so fast. Past a wolf. To try to sink her fangs in stone hard scales. She drew blood here as well - despite the snakes twistings.

Hazel finishes off a Werewolf - falling from the ceiling as well. Crushing the head of the crippled monster with ease. Then she is charged by another. From behind the tumor monster. With a sword dripping acid for an arm. Slashing madly, fast. So fast.

The tumor thing lets loose a stone, launching it from a hole in its body, hitting the pit entrance in an attempt to force people to the ground with a rain of stone. It doesn’t work. The monster with two incredibly long and twisted arms uses one of said arms to spit a torrent of acid - melting ally and foe alike. It kills the last of the three that were crippled by Not-Sarah’s explosive attack. It no longer has a lower body.

So it goes.

The fight continues on but not really for all that long. Another well placed RPG shot by Not-Sarah, Hazel knocking a Werewolf to its knees and to the ground and putting it under a flurry of blows that it couldn’t move from. Jennifer ripping through flesh and what not. A dead werewolf screamed curses, barking out threats of reinforcements.

You wonder if they really had time to raise the alarm.

The battle ends with the snake blown in two separate parts. It still bleeds. So does that ray-thing beast with two weird ass arms. Just covering the floor of this vast chamber.

The walking tumor snails its way to the tunnel in whatever approximation to fear it feels. Like a very fast snail. The tunnel.

Whatever happens is fine. The tunnel. It goes deep and the entrance rests between the two blown up parts of the now dead snake-demon. It’s dark and the walls are polished smooth. It goes forward - straight and pitch black. With no apparent curves, though the end is not in sight. Were you on the surface you’d notice that this would lead to the Mountain.

You have quite a walk ahead of you. Also, what should you do about the bodies and the tumor thing? Make sure they’re dead before trekking forth?

Moving. This is a very long walk. It feels almost dangerous - the floor being so smooth. The floor tilted down in such a manner. For so long! The glow from your Exaltedness does much to light the way though it does little to make the atmosphere nicer. It smells down here and the mixture of lights is not at all very pleasant.

It could be worse though.

So onward.

For, oh, about an hour? Maybe more, maybe less, depending on the pace you keep. It’s a long way to get to where you’re going, though.

Where are you going exactly? So deep inside the mountain? It grows warmer. Hot. At the end of the tunnel you see a light - a light that isn’t your own.

So there is another chamber. Not nearly as large as the other but about three times as high. In it is a rock of massive size. Unlike the other stones this one looks rough - like natural not acidy stone. It is - however - covered in chains. Rust. So very dirty. So very hot. The walls, more than just melted - but heat blasted and shiny.

Jennifer. The rock is watching you. A spirit dwells in this place and it reaches out - beseeching. Begging. The Gauntlet is so thin here, so very thin indeed. The marking on the Lunars head shining so clearly in the mirror-like surface of the acid-blasted stone chamber.

Oh how the Mountain trembles. Hear it roar so deep in the earth. The chamber - so stable - yet rocking under your feet! Who knows what the outside world detects but you just know a device somewhere is going off and freaking out some scientists.

Oh hear the Mountain roar. Begging for you to take those chains off her.

Of course, only Jennifer can understand the spirit trapped in the rock. The others just feel what basically amounts to an earthquake but underground and a sudden release of heat. Not enough to burn but damn. So hot. So startling.

>>1042651
"Alright... So, these chains feel like a bad thing. High yield explosives, cutting them up, what all do we have to try and cut these with?"

The Abyssal formerly known as Sarah would try to gently touch the rusty chains, both with the back of her hand and with a silver knife. See how it reacts to both.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/09/05(Mon)00:07 No. 1042945 ID: c4d4f5
File 166236163656.jpg - (160.64KB , 1060x1200 , bagginses precious.jpg )

>>1040992
The ride back out to Mount Hood wasn't bad. We were tired for it, but they were familiar roads and we weren't troubled on the way, even by the pair of wolves we'd picked up. We'd had only a few hours rest in the early hours of morning once we figured She-Wolf wasn't going to tear our eyes out, and the time between then and the afternoon we set out we filled with preparation. Sarah cracked open an old arsenal she'd set up in the days since her old attack, and started distributing weapons. Explosives being added to the mix might sound dangerous underground... and would be dangerous underground... but they are also a powerful levelling tool against the large numbers we'd been warned were hiding in the depths. Plus, if they thought we'd drop all our bombs the moment we were in trouble and collapse the tunnels, it might make them hesitate to mount a frontal assault.

We left Theodore with the She-Wolf as we left the car. Nobody trusted She-Wolf. Frankly, nobody trusted Theodore to be able to keep She-Wolf there even with a knife to her throat, but he'd at least buy us some time and discourage her from warning whoever was ahead of us that we were coming, and we were worried about being down a fighter more than we were worried about the van being stolen. Hopefully the wolf wouldn't know how to drive and Theodore would be too scared of us to try running.

The forest was quiet. Much more quiet than it had been the night before, and we noticed the change very quickly. Worse, the wind was behind us, and Theodore had told us that the wolves would be able to smell us if we weren't careful - and we hand't been careful. The discussion over it was brief, and we decided not to worry too much. We were armed and very dangerous, and so long as we didn't walk into an obvious ambush we figured we'd probably be fine. Still, with everything living but the trees having fled the forest, the way to Mount Hood was hushed, and eerie.

There was a wolf waiting for us at the pit. It didn't look so bad, especially compared to the ones from the day before. Tried wandering up to us, and as I burnt green Sarah decided she'd had enough of that and began burning black-blue. She pulled out a silver-tipped rocket launcher and blasted the thing into seventeen pieces strewn across the clearing, it's hindquarters falling down into the pitch-black pit it had been guarding. We didn't face anything more dangerous than that on the surface, though the ringing in my ears from the rocket going off barely outside of our danger range might count.

The pit was deep. We'd somewhat underestimated how deep, for all that Theodore had called it miles deep the night before. None of us had thought to bring pitons, cables, spurs, masks, nothing. The climb was bad enough for me to resort to standing on air, ready to catch in case anyone fell, and Jennifer had taken the form of a bat and quickly joined me. It felt like hours before the twisting chasm in the earth opened up into something larger, a cavern that I'd say was a hundred feet wide and absolutely bristling with angry monsters ready to tear us new assholes and about to be torn some of their own. There were a flurry of wolves along with a duo of ugly things that looked like gag monsters from a parody manga, and a giant snake encircling the room that was probably the most dangerous thing there.

>>1042581
Sarah opened things up, displaying some of that sheer strength we'd picked up the evening before by dropping some twenty feet straight down from the tunnel to the ground and hitting the biggest bunch of monsters with her launcher. They didn't take that well, and half of them staggered away more dead than not. One of them went running down the tunnel they'd clustered around and the rest charged us, and I dropped down to intercept them, while one of the gag duo - the one that looked like a wibbly-wobbly inflatable arms guy, much less funny when the arms shoot acid - shot it's nasty acid over myself and Sarah, and the other knocked rocks from the ceiling that just added to the chaos. Meanwhile, Jennifer had become a monster again, looking like the scariest thing in the room, and started chewing through the snake that'd been circling the room while it and the one wolf that wasn't in the group that got hit by the RPG ineffectually tried to stop her.

>>1042581
A second shot from the RPG went out, taking down the gag duo, before Sarah had to deal with the one unwounded wolf in melee after it went target-switching from Jennifer to her as it realised how useless trying to bite the night horror was, and between myself and Jennifer the rest of the monsters were quickly cleared up.

Well, the monsters were cleared, but the room definitely wasn't clear. Blood and guts soaked the floor, and the cave's structure had taken some damage from the high explosives let loose inside it. I spared a moment to inspect the ceiling and floor in case of a cave-in, and the spider inside me assured me that it would be fine so long as we didn't experience any huge earthquakes, big heat sources, or larger explosions while we were inside, and then we really had to go. One of the wolves had escaped down the only tunnel out of here and we weren't leaving any evil demon-breeders alive even if they did decide to turn and run.

>>1042651
Eventually, we come out into another chamber, this one centred around an out-of-place rock covered in rusty chains. It rumbles, the earth trembling about us, and burns sharply hot. "If they were a bad thing being maintained, why are they so rusty?" Hazel asks Sarah, who was about to go try cutting them open, "We should try to work out what's inside first. It could be a demon, or something, and that's why it's so hot."

"I mean, Mount Hood is a Volcano, so going off of how the place is rumbling it feels like the most likely thing is that it's holding back an eruption, and it's so hot because like, magma. So, I guess how should we work out if there is a demon in here? And more importantly how do we solve the problem of there being a demon if there is?

"Also, this whole place seems like it's gross and corrosive, so maybe the rust is just part of the magic that would let it stave off a volcano."

>>1043127
>"I mean, Mount Hood is a Volcano, so going off of how the place is rumbling it feels like the most likely thing is that it's holding back an eruption, and it's so hot because like, magma."
I think for a moment before slowly positing a thought. "Sarah, if the chains are holding back a volcanic eruption, I think we shouldn't take them off while we're standing in the volcano."

>how do we solve the problem of there being a demon if there is?
"Throw it in a different volcano, maybe?"

>>1042032
Moments ago, during the fight itself:
Jennifer launches forwards, in a sublime essence-fueled moment unfolding from small bat to large bat monster, silvery trails outlining the spaces where her wingbeats existed. She shoot’s towards the side of the cavern, ignoring the foul smoldering wolves and the goop-beast and zeroes in on the wall of scales. Around her, her friends fight and splatter wolves and unleash waves of spidery terror. She flails, unused to her war-form of a body as she collides with the beast that circles the room
Jennifer suckles lightly on a snake, literally, not metaphorically. She wanted to rip and tear, but apparently even though her monstrous form is based on a big big brown bat, the truth of vampire bats has infected her. Maybe it’s a memetic threat? Never should have actually researched bats. Never. And then the snake smashes down, coils looping. Once, swoosh and she flaps upwards, gracefully dodging. Twice, a light chomp as the snake slams itself against her teeth. And then thrice. Thrice to get bound in living scales.
Good thing a certain nameless friend has never heard of overkill. That splits the snake and frees makes things easy. Screeching out her thanks, Jennifer zeroes in on a wolf in the midst of getting held down, and launches herself away from the bloody mass of scales and corruption that used to be a snake-thing, winging in to show that werewolves aren’t the only things that can bite.
Too bad she mostly grabs a mouthful of fur. Why are they so fluffy!

Luckily the second bite is better. Much better. Much more delicious, a throbbing artery pumping out bursts of flavor. At the same time, it's a dissapointment. Jennifer feels, deep inside, that there is something missing. Not with the blood, no, but with herself. There's something missing that would let her internalize the flavor, for all of time. She can feel her soul itself yearning, seeking to grow into it's powers, and intrinsically knows that one day, she will get there. One day.

>>1042651
And then the walk. It's a long walk, but long walks aren't the worst. And while the cavernous tunnels echo with voices, Jennifer doesn't have to speak to talk. Sure, it sometimes takes a few tries, but when she sees the spirit trapped in the rock, begging to be released, her shock clearly communicates that something is there. Maybe she should actually try to speak while a beast?
Oh, it's understandable. Deep and growly in the way her human form isn't, but understandable. Like a thick accent.

"It's a spirit." She sounds wondering. It's a miracle, a bit of almost life amongst this dead world. "It's trapped." Her voice is distant, as she listens to the roars, to the pleading. "It wants to be freed." This spirit, this force of nature, it has been chained. And if there is one thing Jennifer knows, it's that she will never be chained. And neither should anything else. And there's something else she just... understands. "I can step over. To it's side. I'm not sure if I can get back."

Hazel Fletcher 2022/09/17(Sat)03:22 No. 1043994 ID: ae4e49
File 166341014277.jpg - (108.16KB , 680x880 , glowing button in ancient ruins time to push.jpg )

>>1043659
>"It's a spirit. It's trapped. It wants to be freed. I can step over. To it's side. I'm not sure if I can get back."
"If you think you need to help, then go for it. We'll support you from this side as best we can," Hazel says. "I don't think you're going to instantly die on the other side, at least. The world has more in store for us yet."

"Do you want us to split these chains before you go, or... actually, signal us from the other side. If you write a message addressed to me, that damn spider that crawled inside of me should be able to find it, and read it out to me."

Behold the maze - a thousand passageways sealed by so many doors. Yet the frames are incomplete - showing only polished stone along the edges. Yet - so many doors. Stacked together, jutting from the wall. Waiting to be pushed in. The frames, delicately built, yet so vulgar. Bone and obsidian, brass and gems, half finished carvings. Finish the project elsewhere and all these things will fall into place.

That rock is no rock at all! At the center of the chamber, so much larger here than on the other side, a being stands bound in chains. Thicker than the arms of the werebeasts you fought, twisted and covered in so many locks, steel chains. Brass Chains. Iron Chains. It reminds you of the chain that anchors a yacht, or possibly a small battleship. So many tons.

It’s bound to nothing - what would be the need with all this weight. It does not move. All of it is wrapped in chains and only vaguely human in form. But underneath…

Jennifer is here alone. Back to the otherwide - the more real one? At least, the less spiritual one.

Nothing is happening there so far. Things are pretty chill. Just waiting for Jennifer to pop back on over unharmed and without any trouble happening whatsoever. The big ass rock in the middle of the room covered in chains isn't doing anything at all.

It's the work of moments to glow from a forehead - there are some things that are instinct. And while there aren't many reflections, there is silver weapons, shiny and cleaned from when they were plunged into foul beastflesh. And while the moon, the moon is blocked by cavernous roofs and possibly clouds, the hollow circle upon her brow shines brightly in the reflections of her compatriot's weapons.

And that lets Jennifer Step. Across a barrier she was barely aware of, and then there's the being. Wrapped in Chains. "Can you hear me?" she asks of it. "I'll get you free of those" she assures it. "Let me help you" she informs it, asking no price, for some things transcend mere barterings, and for any true child of the moon, freedom is one of them. "I'll be back" she promises when her arms alone, bulging as they are with warform power, fail to rend the chains, fail to free the spirit underneath. It's a gordion knot of metal, and so Jennifer knows what to do. A quick polishing, just enough to get her reflections, and a few more moment's of concentration, and she's back in the real.

"... and that's why I need your help," she finishes her explanation. "Nothing deserves to be bound like that." You might as well just kill them. "Don't suppose any of you have a hacksaw I could borrow?"

>>1045146
"I might start needing blood reasonably soon, but yeah." The Abyssal formerly known as Sarah would pull out the ghost of a hacksaw, and set to work with cutting the chains.

One cut link in the real world shatters so many in the spirit world. The rock wrapped in chains slowly goes free - and underneath is a woman. Emaciated - Hairless and blistered all over. Eyes sunken in. As the last chain goes she sputters in a foreign tongue before she hits the floor.

Her eyes lock onto Jennifer. They're still alive - seeing the world - blazing with a light all its own. Then - she stares past you. Looking to a place both in front of her and sideways. It makes her look cross-eyed - both horrific and comedic at the same time. Well, comedic if she wasn't a giant blister person.

She begins to chant, each word a pound a dynamite. Every syllable shattering stone. She glows. The rock in the center of the mountain glows. Like metal heated - like red coals that turned white hot. The rock in the middle of the chamber is fine but the stone around it begins to splinter and melt. Crack. Hiss. Pop. Pop. CRACK.

It seems the freed spirit intends to cleanse this place in liquid flames, the fate of her rescuers be damned. The mountain rumbles and so many people freak the fuck out, wondering just what the fuck is going to cause Mount Hood to shake. Those earthquake machines going off freak out a bunch of people.

Theodore, blood soaked silver knife in hand, stares in the direction of the mountain. He is crying.

The woman looks up as if viewing the sky - she becomes the inferno.

>>1045487
Well, that is exceptionally not good. Picking up everyone that I can/is willing and will teleport as far out as I can see a lick of shadow and just start sprinting towards the exit.

Well, that was easy.

You're outside the hole. It's... a time. We need to figure that out. At the moment though, you are outside the hole. The ground rumbles every now and then but it's far less intimidating then when you inside the earth. Very unnatural - you might even expect a big one - but it doesn't come. Just a rumble every fifteen minuets or so, growing gradually apart.

You are very confident the the tunnel under you is now filled with lava. Or magma. Certainly, molten rock and whatever werewolves and demon things turn into when lava is applied. Or magma.

There are helicopters in the air, you gotta hope no one was hurt. You can already hear the red necks yelling "What the fuck?! Did you feel that?!" and trying to make conversation with it. That dreaded moment will come later.

Cars have stopped along the side of the road and some, well, haven't. It's late, not many cars. It's kinda hard to judge. They got some helicopters in the air pretty damn fast though, so that's cool. Clop clop clop with lights on the roads, presumably searching for any wrecked cars. Like, at least three. Look, it's good to have them in the air already if shit goes down and they haven't flown in awhile.

Getting home would not be hard and you don't really feel any more rumbles after an hour or two. That was Hazel's house, wasn't it?

So Hazel's house. It’s like an enchanted little cottage or something, tucked away in Portland. Nice little grape vine and a solid wooden fence. Real quaint, real private, but pretty. Vines on a lattice sorta deal. Some things bear repeating and all.

No, wait. Something about wolves. You go through the back, it’s empty. Or maybe you went through the front door, drapes already drawn, you know. Cus it’s your own house. You close the door pretty fast?

Theodore is sitting on a chair, silver knife in hand. Red with blood. The floor: the wolf girl seems to still be alive but even more wounded then when you left her. A puncture wound in her chest - that wasn’t there before. It bleeds. She still stares Theodore down, her head on the floor.

He sits on a chair. In human form - wearing a towel for a kilt. Shifting rips clothing and all. He needs pants. He is sitting on the chair, blank faced and pondering so many heavy things. Eyes so locked on the wolf girl that he almost doesn’t notice you when you all enter.

“...The fuck?”

The wolf girl looks at you all - shocked as well - but she can make no sound. Hole in chest and all. A grghgble. A silent gasp-gurgle mixed with a failed bark. Head on floor.

His hand is still on the knife - he still sits on the chair. Wearing a towel.

>>1046081
"I'm pretty sure we made it clear that we would be back, so why are you so surprised?"

Sarah would go into Hazel's cleaning cabinet to look for Ammonia and a bucket, since fuck if someone bleeding wasn't going to set fast on the floor.

"Also, big question, what the fuck happened?"

Hazel Fletcher 2022/10/12(Wed)02:28 No. 1046308 ID: 313a74
File 166556689647.jpg - (213.90KB , 944x1200 , jovial fat sword man.jpg )

>>1046081
"Good job, Theodore," Hazel says enthusiastically, seeing the hole in wolf-girl's chest. "I'm not sure why you did that, given she's missing two limbs already, but I'm pretty sure it was a good job, other than the part where my carpet is wet and you're not wearing clothes."

She takes a moment to grumble about how long it's going to take to get the blood out, going to help Sarah. "Nice work not making me come back to dead bodies and my house on fire, at least. Were you loud? Police are slow to respond in this neighbourhood, but they'll be around soon if she was screaming."

The wolf man just stays oddly silent for a short time before he places the knife down on the arm of the chair. He doesn’t stand up. His voice is not exactly right - a bit broken. A bit overwhelmed? Hard to say, to be honest.

“Yes, well. She attacked me so I stabbed her before she could make any noise. It’s been awhile; we should be fine. I think I punctured her lung.”

The girl doesn’t snarl and snap verbally cus, well, hole in chest. You can feel it radiating off her all the same. She taken a great deal of damage - werewolves must be real damned resilient to still be alive after all that punishment. Missing two limbs and having hole in her lung and all.

But she is awake. Staring quite disbelievingly at you all. Her nose works, even with all that blood in her mouth. Theodore, in human shape, somehow smells it too. A stench recognizable even in trace amounts.

“You’ve been down in the Pit but you’re still alive.” The wolf man says. “I don’t understand.” And a glance at the bleeding wolf girl would tell you that she doesn’t either.

>>1046718
"So, what exactly was supposed to be so scary about the Pit? It was filled with monsters, sure, but it wasn't like they were any harder to kill than the werewolves we killed when they attacked us when we weren't prepared for life and death combat. Also the whatever was going on in the spirit realm, but I didn't go there personally.

"I mean, it wasn't nice, by any measure, but everything that was once living there is dead and the entire cave system is filled with hot magma, which I mean, saves us from having to scour the entire place with cleansing flames anyway."

“It’s was just a pit. It’s not like the hell portal was radioactive”.
Well, maybe spiritually it was? Jennifer’s not an expert. “And the mountain spirit was nice.” Well, Jennifer thought so. She had a soft spot for things that were trapped. Who knew? She didn’t. Not before she encountered it.

Still, Jennifer mostly ignores the two wolves fighting. Flirting? Both? Who knows how werewolves think. Finding a snack is more important. Fighting is hungry work. So is running - flying - for your life. And while this kitchen may not be hers, well there are still snacks.

Straight up flabbergasted. Like you were saying something he wouldn't believe had you not already killed several werewolves in front of him and said it so nonchalantly.

"Did... The Pit is filled with lava? Did they manage to send a message to anyone? To your ears it would have sounded like a wolf howl but... more."

And then.

"What do we do with her?" Theodore says, motioning to the wolf-girl. She has taken some damage for sure but is quite alive.

Neither Theodore nor the wolf-girl know much about any mountain spirit. They never really spent time down in the pit besides their initiation. Being sent inside was as much punishment as it was an honor. Rather odd and self-destructive philosophy in a way.

The very basic gist that you can get is that they've been working hard at using that spirit to open up a portal to hell. A hell. Then... what? Apparently the place was also somehow connected to other places. Spiritually.

It was a place of power, Theodore explains, sounding dead in his words. A word they use is "Moon Bridge". Although that place was so vile and tainted that it wasn't capable of really acting as one anymore.

Jennifer can remember all those fucked up doors in the spirit realm. Portals in the making? Maybe, probably.

More time. According to Theodore there are far more pits like that. Some filled with quite literal armies of demons. He hasn't seen those first hand, mind you. It's something that is known to them regardless. Rumors and whisperings and nightmares. Deep in the earth - so similar to The Pit you just came from.

He's not sure why he's telling you all this. The wolf girl can hardly make a sound.

Time time time.

After being given some pants Theodore helps clean up the blood. Time time time. The wolf-girl if left alive slowly heals in the corner, more animal than person. Theodore avoids her at all cost.

Time time time.

We can imagine that Not-Sarah (not anymore) will continue the hunt. To hunt where and what, though? After this whole werewolf situation there is a very clear lack of... victims? Targets? Monsters to be put to the sword?

Time time time.

Jennifer sees the world more then the others. Being able to just... go to the spirit world is pretty nice. Theodore made it clear that if he were to attempt it, or were anything to attempt stepping sideways, they would get "stuck". Not always but it's far more dangerous then what it used to be for them. Them being werewolves. Everything is just so dead - bleak - decayed - rotten. The only thing that really seems alive is the sun and moon and even they are covered with a toxic haze. It's.... boring? Dead things can't really attack you after all. It still feels so wrong though.

Time time time.

Hazel, that carpet is going to have a permanent stain. You're gonna want to do something about that along with the whole "two werewolves in my house" situation. The wolf-girl does not have good eyes and Theodore is obviously not sure what he should be doing.

The news! It talks about the earthquake. Lots of science words and finger pointing and blame being laid and theory's being made. Even though apparently no one was hurt. Certainly gave people a bit of a scare though.

Time time time.

Time, time, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

No wait, that makes no sense. Then again, neither does the spirit world, sometimes. It's all dead, but that doesn't mean it's all gone. Wrong, maybe, but not gone. And still, sometimes, communicating.

If only the haze on the moon wasn't there. No matter how high she flies, it's still there. She'll have to go higher, but that would take something more than just being a bat or batwoman. One day.

In the meantime, it's a case of wandering the spiritual equivalent to the city, looking for clues, or rather, looking for things that could be clues.

And making sure to update her friends on what she sees. Maybe working to free the spirit was a bit rash, back then. Still the right thing to do though.

And in the meantime, there's still mortal normal animals that can be hunted. Jennifer isn't up to feeding the werewolf guests. Hunting for others? No clue. But for herself? She can do that. Maybe the werewolves would have some tips. Might engage them a little. Maybe.

—Jennifer—

You wander the city, eating the various animals and birds and bugs. A cat? A dog? A fox? A badger? A bear? Distance doesn’t mean much to one who can fly. One truth burns deep inside - you are the Ultimate Predator. Capital letters and all. The moon smiles upon you.

Funny thing, seeing as how you can just retry going to the spirit world, it being super hard to go there unless you’re basically in space or in a really spiritual area is rather irrelevant. For you. Must really suck for everyone else though.

Helicopters in the sky, scaring away birds. So many shapes to have. Name them - those around the Portland area and reachable in a few hours by bird flight. Beetle and Bear. Crow and Cat. You commune with the spirits - remembering the lightning spirit that you saw crackling down the power-lines from before. Jittery and powerful - the electrical grid it heart and lightning its soul.

It won’t speak to you out in the open. It goes - back and forth so that you can follow but never moving slowly - to a location. As if beckoning you to follow.

—-Hazel—

First of all, let’s see what the internet has to offer when you have a spider tapping away at the keyboard from the inside. To be honest, who knows how this creepy ass spider works with all it’s clacking and those creepy ass sounds it makes. Clak clak clak with those wiggling legs that skitter about.

It does other things too - creepy shit with webs and cords. Very very orderly - but the webs inside your computer and the webs on the cords… skitter skitter skitter.

Between the both you and a healthy amount of distance though you do find out something interesting. Roll investigating+intelligence to find out.

—Not-Sarah—

Scouring the city - trying to find sources of darkness - is not as glamorous as what one may think. Sure, you can stop muggings or like… a store from being robbed. That would be trivial - but Portland is boring. People who boost stores tend to be poor themselves and many of the cops are fucking assholes. Dark times and such. You can stop murder however - just as easily as stopping robbers. It’s a depressing thing - moving from rooftop to rooftop in the cover of darkness and stopping two homeless from beating each other to death because they’ve reached a breaking point. Or some drug fiend from using a gun while robbing a store.

Maybe you saved a few poor souls from an overdose.

Oh yes, you can do all this. It’s so very easy. Darkness is your friend and no cop could chase you down. There is a major problem however. Every life you save brings dark clouds - birds gather - graveyards turn cold and the wildlife grows silent. Animals avoid you. You are changing Portland - one life saved at a time. Something in you demands to set the status quo right. To end instead of let live.

The Wolf-Girl and Theodore have something for you. Well, Theodore actually. The Wolf-Girl is proving very stubborn. He’s sniffed out the home of a few blood suckers. He’s also found a business that just reeks of blood sucker nastiness. He’s trying to find more but vampires and Portland just aren’t a huge combination. Apparently. They are very good at hiding.

Theodore stresses: They are good at hiding. There is no reason he should have been able to sniff them out in a few days. He thinks you should hang back, observe, play it safe. Not much of a beast in him, to be honest. You don’t want to be mean but coward might come to mind. ‘Course, then you’d be agreeing with the wolf-girl.

Was Jennifer the kind of person who would follow a random interesting stranger down a dark alley? Maybe once upon a time the answer would have been no, a time not so long ago, a time when she couldn't tear out someone's throat. Even if this was a mass of sentient lightning. Everything has weak spots.
Some spirits were more interesting than other. Beetle was - beetle was promising. Small. Flies. An insect, which bats eat. Cat and crow likewise. Bear? Less interesting. Jennifer didn't really feel like a bear. She could, she felt, turn her thinking around, go on the right hunt, but nah. Cat would be nice though. And... she didn't want to stalk and eat someone's pet. No, that would be unduly cruel. But a wild cat? There were enough clowder's out there, and it was practically her civic duty to help out the feral pet problem. That would be a goal for later.
But now, now it was time to grab the third rail, and see what a spark could ignite. Maybe metaphorically. Maybe literally. She'd find out. The spirit would tell her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Not all her time was spent communing with the city. She spent time with her friends. Hazel had spiders for days, even if she devoutly refused to admit to them. That was kind of cool. Sometimes made Jennifer wonder if Hazel could turn into a swarm of them, one day. She wouldn't speak this aloud. But she would talk about what was found, even as she admitted that, well, outside of hunting spirits she really wasn't much of a hunter, despite everything. And not-Sarah, who was not-Batman, but played one on TV, well offering quiet support and promiseof backup if asked, it was only polite. And Wolf-girl was not a friend. Not yet. She could be, maybe, one day. Maybe Jennifer was too optimistic. She never smelled afraid, anyway. Not like the constant reek of anxiety from Teddy. There must be a spirit of calm somewhere. Yes. If she ever found one, she'd have to introduce it to Teddy. Long term goals. What fun things to have.

—Jennifer—

Such an erratic thing - moving from pole to pole unseen to the rest of the world. So you follow. An unassuming alley, it’s day-time. Somewhere, a TV goes out - scrambled and burned out and smoking. So very far away… yet still connected by the wires.

Roll for Awareness and Perception.

Like static it speaks to you - sparks flying from a hanging cable. Not a power-line but an old half-rotten telephone line. Like the buzzing of a bug - static shaped into words - it speaks to you. Voice electric and vibrating.

“The forgotten mountain is awake. The spirit - you reek of it like a bath full of roses.” A toaster pops early yet burns the bread out of jealousy. A medical device finds its batteries charged. “Death walks with you in this city that only knows decay.” A hiss of static. “The Moon is Watching You.”

Hisssss.. “Lost Mother Mountain is going to burn it all down - this rotting city. This rotten All. When she is stronger - when she travels - when she finds her fire.” Crackle.. “She was sleeping when we all failed and knows not of failure herself. Like everything - It will lead to decay. Death has gone home and been devoured - too busy and caught off guard by massive fangs.”

A delay. The rubber melts from the heat of sparkling electricity. “Luna smiles on you - she wills you to meet her. We know of a darkness here - hidden away - I have been the communication. I Am The Message and the Package. The wires speak of a werewolf nest burned cleaned - agents of the Wyrm talking and nipping at each other's heels. No one knows anything except that it is there and it is power - empty and burning though it may be. There are legal claims on the land - all through the Wires.”

White hot and sparking the lightning spirit flees. Shy and skittery. The line ruined - melted and smoking. Perhaps even drawing a few eyes - people wondering if there is a fire or not. There isn’t - but so odd that that rubber line melted. The last fuzzy words you hear are.

“The Antediluvian will be consumed - Pentex is coming.”

It doesn’t hide from you though. It’s ready to talk again, to answer questions. Quite a bit of walking will be involved though - apparently shit melts and catches fire when this thing starts talking so it kinda needs to chat in… safe locations where that doesn’t draw too many eyes.

People freak out when they see smoke in Oregon - with good reason.

Hazel Fletcher 2022/12/22(Thu)07:10 No. 1052408 ID: 44d0ba
File 167172184093.jpg - (6.89MB , 4093x2894 , stains of time.jpg )

>>1049025
>you have a spider tapping away at the keyboard from the inside
>Very very orderly - but the webs inside your computer and the webs on the cords… skitter skitter skitter
>skitter skitter skitter
Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

Hazel was having none of that. An improvised exorcism involving a circle drawn in blood and some midnight chanting only seemed to encourage the thing, and eventually the young prophet was forced to give the computer up as a bad job. She'd done a quick search of the area before the evil spirit began infesting her computer, so she had some places to start looking the next day, at least.

Sleeping that night was not fun. Jennifer and Sarah had gone home, leaving Hazel with Theodore and Jennifer. They were quiet, mostly, but they both talked about the house still smelling of blood for days after and it psyched her out enough that she was smelling it too.

The next day saw her making two discoveries in the early morning. The first was that the duo of werewolves had settled in to stay, and they had decided this based on nobody else living in the house once Sarah and Jennifer had left. They'd forgotten Hazel overnight, and wasn't that something to look into? Super-forgetfulness powers. The second thing she noticed when she was looking in the mirror, and was probably even worse than the logical nightmare of everybody forgetting her had been. Hazel's hazel eyes had turned green, with little specks of light flecked through the black of her iris. She had actual sparkly eyes, making her a laughingstock in any reasonable culture, and she couldn't even laugh about her eyes matching her name anymore!

It was awful.

With three horrors resting in the house she decided to get out quick, heading out just as the business people started to head out for the standard humdrum morning rush, sticking out like a sore thumb among the actual professionals between her tiny little motor-scooter and cardigan against their suits and ties and black expressions that left Hazel feeling like death warmed over just sharing a sidewalk with them.

As could be expected of a crowd like that, everybody ignored her.

She wasn't headed in the same direction, anyway, going towards another close-by suburb to follow up on those hits she'd had yesterday. She'd been looking for missing cases and seen an upswing in a local neighborhood here in Oregon, ever-so-significantly higher class than where she lived and with little to show for it beyond a tendency towards family plan homes and better-tended gardens. She followed the threads for a while, peering into windows and taking notes with a notepad she'd brought along, and it wasn't long before she'd found something that looked... well, if she had a conspiracy board, this is where all the red string would be linked to.

Something was hiding in there, and through the day Hazel found Theodore finding her on his own initiative to confirm it. Ghouls all around it - humans like them, but given strength by a vampire's blood in return for slavish loyalty, to hear Theodore say it - and something dark hiding within, they could agree on that. It was spreading, too. They would have to bring it to light, before it could grow too far for them to pull out at all. Eventually, the sun started to drop over the horizon, and the pair packed up and headed home, Theodore seeming quite surprised that it was the same place for them both. Another check in the box for people forgetting about her. Jennifer recognized her, and Sarah - she could think the name in the privacy of her own mind, surely? - picked up the phone when Hazel called, and both were more than happy to be backup for a plan Hazel had brewing the next day.

She called it: Advanced Critical Cover LARPing Incidentally Mashing Enemies Decisively. The ACCLAIMED Plan was simple, and summed up came down to Hazel sneaking in while pretending to be a ghoul to get a look at what was going on inside. The disguise would be simple, the neighborhood wasn't that uptown and the ghouls would probably be trying to look local. It was mostly in the way they walked, and looked at each other. She'd take some of the C4 they hadn't used in the mines, and plant it around the building, and if all went well a controlled demolition would solve all their problems. If things went less well, Sarah and Jennifer would be close by, ready to intervene.

So it was that the next day, doing her best to seem like a ghoul that was supposed to be there named Fletcher, Hazel found herself trying the front door to see how tough an entry would really be. Her old flip-phone was at the ready with a code red text set to go at the push of a button, and she had her bookbag slung over her shoulder to rest by her side, C4 hidden within.

No pressure. Go.

>>The first was that the duo of werewolves had settled in to stay, and they had decided this based on nobody else living in the house once Sarah and Jennifer had left. They'd forgotten Hazel overnight, and wasn't that something to look into?

The werewolves staying does pose a bit of a dilemma. They haven’t forgotten the details of what happened to them - that’s certain. The fight, the fact that you came back from a place that should have killed you, the fact that they’re missing limbs.

That they’re in the house of a creature much more powerful than them.

Your NAME though. That does seem to elude them. Whether or not that’s just because it’s never been said in their presence or because it slipped away from them during a nights rest (And be assured, the wolves did sleep. Practically passed out. Or in the Wolf-Girls case… actually passed out.

Theodore is still in his human shape, wearing your clothes. Or whatever he could find here. Didn’t even ask. Didn’t even occur to him to ask. He’s lived as a monster for awhile.

The wolf-girl is still a wolf. Massive and angry but nursing her wounds. She takes up most of the room she’s in, like a full grown pit-bull five times too massive.

>>Jennifer recognized her, and Sarah - she could think the name in the privacy of her own mind, surely? - picked up the phone when Hazel called, and both were more than happy to be backup for a plan Hazel had brewing the next day.

And indeed your friends remember your name. And Sarah’s name, or lost name, or whatever weird fuckery is going on with that does seem to be safe within your own thoughts. That’s a curiosity. Would writing her name down create the same reaction as speaking it? That’s an honest question - the universe is unsure. At the moment, at least.


>>The ACCLAIMED Plan

Hazel the Ghoul has no trouble finding the perfect time to sneak into the house. Well, sneak in. That’s not really the right term for someone that fate has said belongs there, is it? Such oddness.

You are one of the ghouls that goes inside the house. It is a classy home, well cleaned and taken care of. If you were to guess the number of ghouls that enter this home each month, well. It’d be a group of three or four, posing as visitors and family. Twice a month, sometimes three.

Neighbors for a simple get together! They just leave with less blood than they came with. Family coming over for a monthly visit. Except, yes, not family. Just ghouls. Blending into this mass of fifteen or so rotating people isn’t all that hard.
Two vampires - A tall fellow and a short fellow. They talk for a bit, making pleasantries and offering muffins and tea. While one is serving, the other moves a carpet to show a hidden door. He climbs down, after pulling it open (so heavy!), and hits a switch. Light comes out the hole as one of the vampire hosts gets around to Hazel.

You get a glass of tea and a muffin as well. The ghouls make light chat about what they’re been doing. One of the two vampires addresses the group - the short one.

“Everyone is well hydrated and had something to eat I hope?” A rather mono-tone voice asks. A response of yeah and ‘thanks for the tea’.

Someone is chosen and led down the hole in the floor. Not far at all - you can even hear them talking. Something about using a smaller needle this time. The guests look a bit on edge - something rough. Focused. Hungry.

The shorter vampire goes to the kitchen to grab a small glass cup. He begins to set them up, as well as bringing in wine and various other drinks. Well, tea and lemonade. None of that soda crap.

The ghouls can’t help but lick their lips as the short man cuts his palm and slowly begins to drip drop after drop of that crimson fluid into their glasses. Your glass as well, actually.

The first ghoul leaves the hole, his arm bandaged. The short man hands him a glass filled with what amounts to a small shot of blood and drinks it down. Then - he takes the wine and fills the glass before taking a seat. Right next to Hazel.

He looks high as shit.

Another Ghoul enters the hole…

Hazel Fletcher 2022/12/30(Fri)09:57 No. 1052942 ID: 7ac926
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>>1052513
>Tell tale magic signs. Under the paint on the walls: some arcane symbols. You can’t decipher their meaning but they don’t seem to be working right. The barest of ripples, cracks in the runes, a staining of color only seen to a supernatural eye. They’re… broken?
>Ahh, then. Something fresher. Written in blood - something fresh and still smelling of iron. Where is that coming from? Up? Ahhh, a ceiling fan. Something written on the rotating blades - you can’t see it but the smell - that charge of magic that can’t be described with that metallic smell. Come on. That fan is up to something.
>Not to mention that rush of life and vitality that pours out of that hole in the ground. Who knows how much blood is stored down there - but something magical is also going on.
>Your turn is coming up pretty soon.
Time to get out, Hazel thinks, and slips out of her chair. She mumbles something indistinct about the toilet to the muddled ghoul besides her as she goes walking out of the living room, and slips off her role as she leaves the room. Undisguised but hopefully clad in her forgettable aura, Heather paces a careful round through the house while avoiding the eyes and ears of the two vampires. Despite the friendly atmosphere and daylight shining outside, it seemed they were on fair alert in the darkness as ghoul after ghoul went down the pit and Hazel made her way outside, back to where Jennifer and Sarah waited.

"Two vampires inside. Looks like the ghouls are here to get a fix of vampire blood, and being milked of their own in return," Hazel relays to her friends, "I can't believe I have to say this to the both of you, but I wouldn't recommend drinking vampire blood. It looks addictive, and they were getting high on it, and both of you seem more likely to bite than you did a few days ago. Don't chomp the vampires, especially if they taste good."

"There's some magic hidden in there too. Wards on the walls, but they look broken, and some kind of air spritzer on the ceiling fan of their main room."

"The ghouls seem to be victims more than anything, here. I'm pretty sure they'll disperse eventually, as well. We should wait for that, then go in for the vampires. It's another stakeout, ladies."

Time progresses like that, for a while. Three friends spending hours on end in the back of a car Hazel is still not sure is entirely clear of spiders, watching a suburban house and talking about what more they've managed to find out about their new powers in the days since they turned the werewolves' hunt around. Eventually that trickles off too, and they talk about what's been happening in their lifes instead... but there's been so little time, things are still shifting. People are forgetting Hazel, for one, and she hasn't spoken to her family yet out of fear of what that might mean. Sarah felt uncomfortable out in the light and had been shadowing the town at night. Jennifer had met a spirit the day before, and was still dealing with a lot of strange instincts, eating the wildlife, that she wanted to move past before settling back into her life.

Then that trickled off, too, as night started falling, and Hazel started asking her spider questions for lack of better things to do. It gave her the names, addresses, and family contacts of the people she'd met earlier in the day, but couldn't answer when she asked for the full roster of these twin vampire's pasties. That was a secret according to the spider, and while Hazel flinched every time it said something sinister like that - or said anything at all, really - that word sounded meaningful. The spider confirmed it moments later; it would not reveal a secret, one hidden by act or by the world.

Out of morbid curiosity, she asked what the ghoul's social situation was like, one by one. Family disconnect, financial ruin, desperate for connection, an escape from domestic abuse... none of it was pretty, and it was despicable that the vampires were taking advantage of people like that. Asking what the neighborhood's people thought of the ghoul group and the two vampires, and apparently they just thought they were family and friends who visit often. The two vampires were well liked but kept to themselves as night owls who didn't normally take visitors in the day, except for family. Their play on their victims was long-term, and the manipulation was becoming more and more obvious the more Hazel asked.

"The ghouls should start leaving around now," Hazel says to her compatriots at about nine oclock. "That's the regular time. Only an hour or so to go, and hopefully they'll have cleared out. Sorry, if asking the spider questions like that bothered you. Keep an eye out in case the vampires decide to go walkabout with the night. We should start preparing, too. I can set the charges outside no problem, as they don't seem to have a lookout."

>>1052942
How does one go about assaulting a house in the middle of Oregon? Well - first you’re waiting for the people to leave the house. Which happens, the ghouls headed out as a group. Saying goodbyes and fare-wells. To be back to visit on another day not too far away. After a while they’ll spend the night doing whatever it is vampires do. Do vampires sleep? Yes, they do, during the day normally.

It’s late and the lights are out - it’s quite in the neighborhood. Heavy curtains block the windows to their house. Their house door is closed, same with the back door. It comes to your attention that they don’t seem to have a security system, which is nice. No alarms to deal with.

You remember the fan that smelled of magic and blood. And a wandering thought to whatever magic is behind the paint on the walls. The basement…

It comes to mind that eventually you’re going to have to go inside and do something.

It's soothing, on one level, to know the moon is watching. Something about that thought, it catches on a distant memory, a glimmer of faint possibility that died so long ago. The moon is watching.
And for the rest ofthe talk, such as it is.. Well, there are worse things to heat. There are worse messanges than those given by the Message. Antediluvean though, it sounds old, but somehow, Jennifer gets the feeling that there are older. Older doesn't always mean stronger though, and that's a worry all on it's own.
But the question then becomes twofold - that of future questions, and that of where to make them. And in the depths of her mind, Jennifer can't help but ask, even though she isn't, really isn't, a trickster, whether she could talk to the spirit of the Great Grid that connects the Modern Age somewhere ... deliberately flamable. Though most of the time shit melting and catching fire is bad, surely there are places where a little flame would be a good thing? Burn out the old to make way for the new?
Still, giving her thanks to the messanger, and making a mental note to make sure that her electric bills get paid on time, it's time to tell the rest of what she has found out.
------
Later, not a long time as the seasons would measure but an inderterminately long time by the timing of the modern news cycle, Jennifer is with Hazel. She's a bat, writ large, and has no fear of spiders, delicious as they are. But in terms of entering the house, well, doors a thing. But you know what is better than doors? Attics. Rooftop openings. Ways in that aren't the obvious, ways that would be ridiculous without the ability to fly, to carry things and people and ropes.
Good thing Jennifer is a bat. The offer is made, if Hazel wants to try some second story work.

Okay - so. You wound up setting their house on fire. The game plan in simple enough - you have incredible sneaking powers and explosives and gas. Jennifer is much the same. Cover the entrances, cover the house, maybe sneak in a canister or two to help everything go boom properly. You guess on flame from the lighter and you set this thing off.

You work with supernatural speed. Faster, more graceful. Spreading home made napalm and placing down open half empty gas cans. Spread by entrances, through bushes. Windows. It's not the biggest house in the world but it does take a bit of time to do so unseen.

Then - the fire starts. The first thing you notice is that it's loud. You did what you could to keep the vapors to a manageable level, but it's still loud. Bright and fast the flames spread - sucking in all air - a burst of heat that could singe eyebrows. Black smoke from the burning plastic - from night to would-be day all but instantly.

There is a light wind - putting other buildings at risk and flicking the flames around. It's only been a moment since the house went up. Lights turn on in other houses as mortals prepare to look outside to see what the hell is going on. Neighbors moments away from opening doors to check out the roaring flames that happen to be raging in the dead of night.

The vampires inside. You wait - maybe expecting them to jump out a window or escape through the front door. Instead... nothing is happening. Oh - their house is on fire. You're sure they are inside it. They just haven't left in a panic just yet.

This should be fine. You set up things inside the house that should - an explosion rocks the the neighborhood. Different then last time - the sound of rigged gas cans going off in a delightful explosion, sending fire through the inside of the house. The neighbors scream - people are looking outside. A moment - people rushing outside doors and calling the cops.

Do they see you?

Still - the vampires are inside the house. No way to tell what they're doing but if they don't leave soon you're quite confident that they'll burn up in the conflagration. It's just a matter of...

A crash of glass. The bathroom windows! To the back of the house - they must have broken the window in an attempt to escape. Smoke filling the air. Things are getting hectic very, very quickly.