Cave of Secrets: Still Here (WtA)

(There's a pun in the title that will make sense later.)

Okay, so, I've fallen a bit behind on blog posts. I haven't really been able to sit down and put the focus into writing up my last couple of gaming blog posts and really there's other things I probably should be... okay, cutting off that ramble there. Werewolf.





So where we left off, Ray was off on his own getting railroad spikes to replace the ones that have been taken all over town. Åke, grudgingly accepting that the rest of the pack doesn't see the necessity, decides to go off and take care of that himself while Jerry and Wants-to-Know return to the sept. He and Ray run into each other while Ray is gathering spikes, and the two of them decide to take care of that. They hit the newspaper office and the museum, no problems, after which Ray has a "This doesn't need both of us" moment and wanders off to get food.

But when Åke gets to the courthouse to replace the spike there, he notices that the door's been forced open, probably with a crowbar. He checks in with the other two to ask if Wants-to-Know's use of Open Seal in the Umbra would have damaged the door in the physical world. Which, of course, it wouldn't have.

So without checking the inside of the building Åke steps back across to the Umbra and because the building's been resealed on that side by pattern-spiders finds a window leading into the courtroom where the pack retrieved the spike earlier. He peeks back across the Gauntlet trying to see what's going on and sees at least two people searching the courtroom for something. Jerry suggests that Åke should probably leave it be and come back to the sept, but lets use his own discretion.

So Åke finds a spot nearby to watch the building, assuming (correctly) that the people inside are agents of the Wyrm looking for the spike, and also assuming that when they leave, there'll be a bunch of banes following behind them in the Umbra.[0] While he waits, Jerry and Wants-to-Know eventually come back to town to provide backup. On their way out of the sept, they run into Ray, who was just returning, and invite him to come along.

While they're on their way back, Åke does another sweep around the outside of the building and sees the people inside the courtroom are gone. Jerry and the others have set up in the woods just south of the courthouse (which is on the edge of town). Jerry watches the building in the physical world, while Wants-to-Know peeks across the Gauntlet to watch that way. Jerry suggests that Åke go inside and poke around in the physical world -- not a problem, given that the door's already been forced.

Åke pokes his nose in in Lupus form and smells people (two men, one woman), dirt, and high-proof grain spirits. (There is a non-zero chance that what he's smelling is something that's basically gasoline) He then searches the building on both sides of the Gauntlet. The place is trashed on the physical side. The intruders are totally gone by this point. But the scent is fresh enough he thinks he can track him. He's a little freaked out about how this is going to look to mundane eyes, but Jerry wisely points out that the cops will just link this to the Lodge building break-in and leave it at that.

Jerry's a little concerned about trying to track the intruders, given that by now it's rather late and he's worried about fatigue catching up with them, but Åke is pretty sure he can find them quickly so Jerry lets him try. Åke follows their scent out of the building and to a nearby parking lot, where someone got into a truck and took off. At this point the group returns to the sept.

Jerry wonders if the booze scent connected to the intruders means that they might have some sort of distillery nearby. He picks Ray's brain about where they could be, as Ray was more or less raised by moonshiners.[1] This leads to Ray deciding to go scouting out the most likely spots in the area where a group of moonshiners would set up.

He finds a likely spot and as he creeps up the hill, he gets the distinct scent of people (Kinfolk, specifically), blood, and a distillery. He can tell from downwind that the mash mostly matches up what they smelled at the courthouse, but it's not exactly the same. Especially since the stuff coming off the hill carries the distinct whiff of Wyrm taint. He sees a little bit of their operation, how many people they have on guard, whether their traps are tainted (they're not), and comes up with a couple of possibilities:

One, this is a fallen Bone Gnawer operation. But if that's the case, then that means it must be so bad that the Bridger Mountain Sept must be entirely fallen to the Wyrm for something like this to be going on.

Two, this is a Spiral operation. Specifically, the Stump Kinfolk moved in and took over an existing still and have been using it as a base of operations while they taint the product.

Option Two is far and away the more likely, Ray decides, and then he takes off back to the sept to tell them he's found the Stumps.

While this is going on, the others back at the sept wind up catching a bit of local Garou drama. A nasty argument has broken out between Raptor Strike and Bury the Hatchet. It turns out that Bury the Hatchet's great-nephew, Noah, is ready for his Rite of Passage, and the moon phase is right for it, but he wants to have at the Cave of Secrets Sept. He really wants to be the first new Garou 'sworn in' at the new sept. And that would be fine, except for two things. First, Bury the Hatchet wants to bring a bunch of Noah's family in from Bridger Mountain to make a good old-fashioned hootenanny out of it.  Which wouldn't be a problem if not for the second issue, which is the current heightened defenses and dangers regarding the Spirals and the rise in bane activity. So Raptor Strike insists on pushing the Rite of Passage back a month so they can do it up right, and safely, and Bury the Hatchet is taking it personally. He sees it as a personal slight against his family and tribe, and as much as he hates to be the heavy Raptor Strike is not willing to budge on that.

Everyone else just sits back and watches, but what can you do? It's like watching Mom and Dad fight, for most of the local Garou. But once that fight wraps up, Ray gets back and we leave off on him about to reveal that the Stumps have made camp... only a mile and change away from the Cave of Secrets, as the crow flies.


[0]-- What hasn't occurred to him is that a) banes don't always 'stick' to people like a magnet dragging iron filings through a sheet of paper, and b) even if they did, the pattern-spiders that have the courthouse sealed up would prevent them from coming in in the first place.
[1]-- As a reminder, Ray was raised by the Millers, a Kinfolk family (who appear in the new Kinfolk: A Breed Apart book) who maintain a very successful and extensive family moonshine business.