First Steps

## Date(s)

* 17 February 2017
* 18 February 2017

## Shopping with wolves

The drive from Anglesey to Swansea is not a fun one - but at least the pack had enough cars and vans to mean that they weren't all stuck crammed together in a single vehicle. Some of them were classier than others - Josh's low-slung sports car vastly outclassed the battered Transit from the caern. They picked up Rob's hired stunt van just south of the island, and convoyed on through Wales to the tune of various arguments, discussions and driving music - Lucy and Maddie in the Transit cheerfully singing along to terrible musicals in the chilly February daylight.

They collected various useful bits and pieces from some unlucky shops on the way through - a Decathlon and a Maplins were never the same again after Eva had menaced the cashiers and floor staff into believing that they were being robbed. The pack hurried her out, so they could wrap up pay for their purchases (as all the cashiers had scurried off). While waiting, Eva decided to drop into the nearby pet shop. She was a little disappointed to find all the animals cowering and hiding from her - all, that is, except one. A single rabbit had come to the front of its cage and was baring her teeth at her, spoiling for a fight. Impressed by its fighting spirit and bravery, Eva took the rabbit, leaving some money behind in exchange (the pet shop staff had also scurried at her arrival). Then Rob arranged a warehouse in Swansea, and Josh vanished onto the rooftop to plan out how to defend it. He came back faintly smug and a little grubby from the slick black oil he'd painted over the roof of the building next door, as everyone else had set up beds and bedding and sorted through the papers again for clues to where to look.

## The Hospital

Their appointment at Bridgend police station was less than an hour's drive away, so the first evening was a brief scout of the local area to see where cameras lay and what the nightlife looked like; and then made a late night sweep to Glanrhyd Hospital; where Josh scouted the grounds and Rob, with Rhys' magic lanyard, blagged his way in, leaving staff under the vague impression that he was there on an inspection, and leaving with a very alarmed inside view of a building that seemed to have more in common with a zombie virus research lab than a hospital. The research doctor Rob talked to, Elias Spencer, also seemed to be alarmingly cold and pale and fond of night shifts... In the Umbra, the building was absolutely *swarmed* with spider-shaped creatures, almost certainly beholden to the Weaver.

## A Brisk Swim

They stumbled home late and straight into bed. Well, most of them did. Eva convinced Lucy to help her find a spirit to teach her to speak to her new pet. Finding herself at the edge of a very urban area, Lucy led the two of them away from the warehouse, trying to find somewhere spirits were more likely to dwell. She eventually realised they had two options: they either needed to go quite a way away from town - driving distance; or... they could go into the relatively wild water. Stepping into the umbra, both garou went into the frigid sea, swimming as fast as they could for warmth as well as expediency. Lucy tried to bargain with some small fish spirits, but decided against it when they decided rabbits were "land tuna". Eva pointed out she thought the theurge had just been coralling them as bait for the shark spirit that was circling deeper below them. Lucy swallowed hard and tried to catch that spirit's attention in the politest way she could think of. It introduced itself as Pale Slayer or Ed'rakkaksha and Lucy managed to strike a bargain with it to teach Eva the Beast Speech gift. The two then staggered back to the warehouse, collapsing with the other sleeping bodies.

## Makeover and a romp in the woods, in the wrong order

Many had intended to sleep late, but Rob, one of those monsters who thrives on four hours' sleep, prodded the others awake, 'til Maddie shuffled out the door to go do some research on the nearby university's library computers, Eva went for an early morning run, Lucy hunted up breakfast, and Josh barricaded himself into a cupboard to hide from his very annoying alpha.

By lunchtime, Rob had arranged for costumes for everyone as well as a glam squad to prep their looks - suited and booted and fashion-plate smart, they shuffled into cars and headed off. On the way, they stopped at Margam Park to hunt up a spirit who would teach Maddie Truth of Gaia; and Lucy and Maddie managed to not quite ruin their nice suits running through the Umbra. They found a forge there; and a Smith inside, who agreed to forge a spirit of Steel to teach Maddie the Gift, and who said that the last time he'd spoken to Garou, it was a pack to the Towy - the River Wardens, maybe a year or two ago. Wayland, he was; and he said that if the pack wanted him again, he could be found at the park or at his Smithy.

This ate up most of their leeway; and Eva only marginally broke the speed limit getting them to the police station in good time. Once they'd got there, they split up; Eva to run some errands in town, Josh to check the archives, and the other three to look at Rhys' body and question the local police for any information they could find.

## Evidence at the Police Station

The autopsy results were odd enough that they had more than a few questions to follow up... The magical residues that Josh spotted were even stranger: invisible tattoos on his body only able to be seen through the magical glasses in his pack; bones broken and mended badly, defensive wounds and scars from many, many fights. His day went further downhill, however, when he went looking for the evidence from the spate of suicides. The archive boxes were stuck in a distant corner of the secure storage he blagged his way into using their magic lanyard. The entire room was full of it, but the feeling of impending doom hanging over him was made all the more palpable when he collected one of the ropes for Lucy to look at in more detail later on. He stumbled back to the car, and sat, sweating and shocked, trying not to use the rope as it had been used before. The eerie depression didn't seem alien from the inside; and the grey-black fog rose in his mind as the others dissected the information they could find on their way back to him.

Maddie took the rope from Josh once they all met back at the car, confirming it gave a rather unpleasant feeling to the bearer, before suggesting Lucy and her could test it with their new cold iron knives for any fae magic. The theurge thought that was a simple enough test and pulled out her own knife as her friend's hands were full before reaching for the rope. The next thing she knew, her packmates were prying her knife away from her other wrist and telling her she'd tried to kill herself.

The magic glasses showed an infinite spiral of what appeared to be falling black feathers onto the noose, so the pack discussed examining the artefact the Umbra. Rob was strongly against entering the Umbra with something that dangerous, not to mention in a city, so Lucy tried to just peek through - with no success, being in the middle of a city. The pack started discussing what to do next before Josh lost his patience and stepped through on his own. Realising what he had done, the rest of his pack mates followed him through.

## The Umbra by the Station

Lucy made it through first and the two of them started sneaking closer to the police station which looked at first like it had a bigger version of the same swirling down feathers... When they got closer, they realised it was a flock of Banes circling, but also that there seemed to be a large number of young people... *partying*?

Josh noticed a couple of kids heading off and followed them, Lucy following behind him, while Maddie and Rob created a distraction in the easiest way that Garou could: they started a fight. Maddie laughed with wild-eyed enthusiasm at being allowed to be angry, shifting into white-furred Crinos, and Rob's black-maned werewolf form charged headlong into the corrupted spirits, plucking a street sign out of the raw firmament and using it as a bat on the flying creatures. He flipped into frenzy as one got a lucky hit in, and once the first wave of monsters were downed, there was an eyeblink when he thought about turning on Maddie, before hauling himself back under control as the next flock descended.

The swooping swarms were definitely paying attention to them rather than Josh and Lucy, creeping wolf-small in the shadows - who got in close enough to start eavesdropping on the couple of kids now talking about a friend they'd love to join their party. The two Garou approached and one of the kids recognised them for what they were. They shifted back to talk and found out the kids were going to talk to their friend Julia Jones (living on St Leonard's Street) to convince her to join them.

Then they headed back to their packmates - just in time, as Maddie's white fur was dappled with red and even Rob was looking battered around the edges. As they got there, Maddie hit the floor and slumped back to unconscious homid. Lucy, hit by the last of the Banes, managed to open the Umbra to let them through, but couldn't run. Rob hauled Maddie out as Josh parkoured his way away from another flock, into the Realm as he bounced off the first floor of a shop front at around 5pm on a work day... It was more by luck than judgement that the little old lady below was focussed on the sales notices in Primark's window rather than the giant black crinos carrying a scruffy blonde as he bounced from the awning into an alley way around the corner.

Slapping Maddie awake, she laughed as the residue of adrenaline faded out, shifting to glabro to heal the damage she'd taken and shuffling into a tracksuit from the stash in the back of the van. They were already calling the police about a 'rowdy party' at the address they'd overheard, and then set back home. Eva caught up with them, and they drove out of the city. On the way back, Rob suggested they do Rites of Cleansing on all the people who'd held the horrid thing before they got back just in case.

## Meeting Morris

They pulled over into what looked like an empty field, but, just as they finished the rites to cleanse everyone, a guy approached them asking if they'd heard singing and telling them this was private land: his dad's farm, ran by his uncle. After some excellent blagging by Rob (including asking Morris if he was a werewolf, then laughing it off as that hip new slang), he invited the pack to the farmhouse for a chat. Maddie pegged him as probably Kin, but definitely something a little odd. His uncle came across very wary of strangers, especially those who may be associated with the Nation. It turned out, after a brief chat, that he'd been visited by the River Wardens as well - and that he had a load of silver rounds for his shotgun, as they advised, should Morris change or, possibly, anyone else come a-knocking. He sent the pack away - and as they left, went back in for his gun. Morris was rapidly collected through some more fantastic Rob blagging, and taken back to Swansea in the van.

His story was simple, and familiar - mood swings as a preadolescent, sent to the doctors', who sent him on to Glanrhyd Hospital for drugs trials. He met a friend there, Dave, who wasn't on the same regime. At the warehouse, he agreed, confused, to be Cleansed - and, as Lucy went through the process, started screaming as the water burnt him like acid. For forty minutes, he took it - somehow, standing there in the circle as everyone stared half in horror at the scars, at the same invisible tattoos Rhys had had, and at the searing burns blistering on his skin as the Cleansing did... something. 'Till he frenzied. A giant white Crinos, the same colour as Maddie, erupted out and almost broke the circle, before promptly being mobbed and pinned back down by the pack for the last few minutes of the rite, all with a faint air of almost relief, as if the worst was at least over...

## First encounter with the River Wardens

Joshua had cleverly taken a short video on his phone with the changing Morris, which helped a good deal when the pack tried to convince him what had happened when he came to. However, barely before he'd calmed down, the cameras flagged movement outside the warehouse; front and back. Josh ran for the stairs, assuming there would be someone on the rooftops - a dull thump outside suggesting that the oil he'd put down had slowed down the outsiders as well as planned. Eva and Rob went for one entrance, and Maddie grabbed for all the paperwork and bits that Rhys had left and that they'd collected in the past couple of days. Lucy concentrated at a mirror, and nodded to Rob in passing - there was someone in the Umbra as well, settled in with an unfriendly smile...

The fights were messy, and, while the pack managed to hold their own at the start, it was always going to be about how to get out safely. Josh dashed ahead into one of their cars while everyone else headed for the van. Joshua went out first, drawing fire and attention and being an excellent distraction for the fully loaded van that followed him (having half shoved Morris into the vehicle). After a short chase and getting rid of his bike-mounted pursuers, Josh got picked up by the pack on their way out. This needed to be brought to the caern's attention.